Chapter Text
The first thing Maka felt was grime in her mouth. The second was Soul’s elbow jammed against her ribs.
She groaned, rolling over with a cough as one of her ponytails, dusty, tangled, and heavy, stuck to her cheek as she blinked against the harsh light. The air was thick with heat and smoke, dry enough to scrape her throat raw, and when she finally managed to lift her head, the world that greeted her was wrong.
The sky was a bruised shade of grayish orange, with towers of junk and metal clawed upward like skeletons trying to escape the earth.
Sprawled beside her, face fully buried in the dirt, was Soul. “Ugh…” he muttered, spitting out grit. “Did we… get hit by a train or something?”
Maka sat up slowly as she scanning the horizon, ignoring his half-dazed question.
There were piles of rusted machines in every direction, with machinery stacked like bones, shattered appliances, heaps of twisted wire everywhere she looked. It was an utter wasteland, barren of any nature or life aside from herself and her partner. The area that surrounded them was nothing like Death City, and no familiar hum of souls or faint echo of madness energy, just silence and distant wind whistling through broken metal.
“This isn’t Nevada,” Soul said flatly, brushing off his jacket as she side-eyed him and sent him a look that said, really?
“This isn’t anywhere,” She replied dryly, standing up and shading her eyes from the light that still had her eyes aching. “I don’t even feel any soul wavelengths nearby. It’s like-”
“Like we’re in the middle of a landfill from hell?”
“Exactly.”
They looked at each other, both waiting for the other to offer an explanation, but neither had one.
Last she remembered, they were in the library, wirh Soul leaning back in his chair and complaining about the size of Stein’s new assignment, and then the static had started, a strange hum that had crawled up her spine and made her blood fizz. It wasn’t magic, she knew that for a fact, because it had felt like pure electricity twisting through the air, leaving her vision fading as she felt wind rushing past her and the sounds of her friends shouts echoing from above, before…
Nothing.
Now, she could feel it again. A faint thrum beneath her boots, running through the ground like the trash itself was alive and restless.
“Maka,” Soul said quietly, glancing toward a jagged ridge in the distance as he sat up fully, brushing something off himself. “You see that?”
Maka frowned in confusion as she followed his gaze, and was shocked to see something moving fast as it dove over the mountains of trash, leaving a large cloud of dust in its wake. The sound it made was sharp, wet, and made a sound like metal rebounding off metal, and it had goosebumps raising on her arms and legs.
Her grip tightened around the handle of her scythe, the place where Soul had once sat beside her now replaced with nothing, his weapon form shimmering into her hands as if answering her pulse. Soul’s eyes flickered red, a grin breaking across his face in the blade despite the tension.
“Well,” he said, his voice cool and steady, “looks like we’ve still got good teamwork, even in junk world.”
Maka shot him a sideways glance. “Don’t get cocky. We don’t know what’s out there.”
“Yeah, but whatever it is is moving and coming straight for us, so that’s good enough for me. If it wants to have a chat, we’ll chat. If it wants to fight, we’ll fight.”
Maka sighed as she shook her head, watchinf as the thing drew closer by the second. “Why must your thoughts always turn to violence?”
Soul only grinned, the same one he would give her when he was planning to beat the crap out of something. “Why must your words always be accusatory?”
She opened her mouth to reply, her brows furrowing in annoying at her partner, when suddenly she felt the ground shake beneath her feet. “Uh… Maka?”
“What? Can’t you see I’m trying to not fall over?” She snapped back, just barely managing to stay standing on the pile of trash that seemed to shift beneath her feet.
“I don’t think that’s what you should be focusing on anymore…”
As he trailed off she looked upwards at him, and found her eyes widening at the mix of shock and concern she found in his eyes. She was about to ask what was wrong when the ground moved beneath her feet this time, and they began to ascend into the sky.
With a startled shout she lost her balance and was sent stumbling to the hard floor, leaving her lying on her back as she groaned, her fist still clasped around Soul’s handle.
She sat up, shaking the surprise from her head as she looked upwards, and froze at the sigh that greeted her.
There, towering above her and Soul, was a creature… made entirely of trash.
“You seein’ what I’m seein’?” Soul says, his voice wavering every so slightly. She gulps, and nods in confirmation. “Yeah… we were standing on a monster made of trash.”
“How do you want to play this, Maka? We’re in a land we have never been before, surrounded by nothing except trash and this thing.”
Blood pumped in her ears, trying to ignore the subtle stinging thst had begun in the back of her throat as she gazed up at the trash beast in front of her. “The only thing we can. Fight!”
With that she leap forwards, ignoring Soul’s muttered reply of, “and you say I’m the violent one,” as she swung his weapon form in a wide arc, steel meeting metal with a bone-shaking crack.
The creature roared, and with another wide swing splintered apart into heaps of debris and dust. Her chest was heaving as she stared at its remains with wide, surprised eyes, glad for the temporary peace before Soul ruined it yet again.
“Ugly thing,” he muttered, his voice echoing faintly through the blade. “You sure this isn’t one of Stein’s experiments gone wrong?”
“Not funny,” She hissed, cursing as another beat not unlike the one they defeated moments ago rose from another mountain of trash nearby, making its way toward them with a loud snarl.
She didn’t bother to speak as she twisted her wrist and swung again, sparks bursting where Soul cleaved through, the air thick with the stench of burning rubber and oil. She knew they couldn’t truly be alive, it was trash after all, which left her with the thought that it was simply trash… given motion.
The thought alone made her skin crawl, her hope after the first monsters easy defeat dwindling as more suddenly appeared as fast as the first two went down.
She lunged, Soul shouting encouragement in her hands as she took them down, first one then two then four then six, all crawling over each other like a tide of moving scrap.
Soul cursed as they showed no signs of stopping. “I’m starting to think we’re popular.”
Maka didn’t answer. She was already moving, her body responding on instinct.
A slice to the left, a sweeping spin, then a vertical strike that sent one flying into a mound of rotting machinery. Shards rained down.
But for every one they destroyed, two more took its place.
When the final fell, Maka dropped to one knee, chest heaving. The world felt thick, the air gritty and hot, like breathing through a layer of dust. Her throat burned, and sweat stung her eyes.
“Okay,” Soul wheezed, his reflection flickering weakly on the blade’s surface. “Please tell me that was the last of them.”
“I-” Maka started, then froze.
Behind them, the pile of defeated trash began to twitch. One by one, the heaps shifted. Crushed metal knit itself back together with slow, grating squeals. Plastic limbs reattached. Glass eyes blinked back to life.
Soul turned his gaze toward her. “Run?”
Maka swallowed hard, forcing breath through the ache in her throat. “Run.”
They ran.
Metal crashed behind them, an avalanche of junk and monsters. Maka ducked as a twisted pipe lashed out, slicing the air above her head. Soul’s blade form sparked where it grazed a piece of shrapnel.
“Left!” Soul barked as Maka veered sharply, skidding over gravel as the air grew heavier the deeper they went, dense and foul. Her lungs protested, every breath feeling sharper and tighter.
She coughed, stumbling for a heartbeat before tightening her grip on Soul’s handle white-knuckled and desperate, the edges of her vision beginning to blur.
Her head was spinning now, the wasteland around them swaying like a nightmarish mirage.
“Maka, hey-Maka!” Soul’s voice cracked through the haze. He sounded winded too, his tone ragged. “You’re-cough-turning pale.”
“I’m fine,” she lied, though her voice was raw, thin. A bead of blood rolled from the corner of her mouth, smearing against her chin.
Soul coughed again, the sound dull and wet inside the blade as she wiped away the crimson trail with the back of her free hand. “Something’s… off. The air-” He paused, wheezing. “-it must be toxic!”
That stopped her cold. She stumbled to a halt, eyes wide as she looked around.
The wind carried flecks of ash and glittering dust, like smoke mixed with powdered glass as steam hissed from fissures in the ground. Half-melted barrels leaked sludge into pools that bubbled faintly.
“Yeah,” she rasped, coughing again, her lungs screaming. “Yeah, it’s likely. With all this trash nearby… this whole place might be poison.”
Soul gave a weak, grim laugh. “Great. Dumped in garbage world, now we’re dying of it.”
Maka wiped her mouth, her breathing uneven but determined. “Not yet, we’re not. We need to move somewhere cleaner. Away from the fumes.”
“Lead the way, partner.”
She took off again, stumbling through the haze as her arms grew weaker from supporting Soul’s weight when it should have been as easy as breathing, yet that too was a struggle.
Their shadows were cast long and broken against the rusted horizon, two survivors running from a world that wanted to bury them, and just as she began to see what she thought was two cliff sides beside each other in the distance, her legs gave out.
Her vision swam, each breath scraping through her throat like sandpaper as she stumbled once, twice, and then the world tilted sideways and she hit the ground hard.
“Soul-” was all she managed before her voice broke into a fit of coughing.
The weapon clattered out of her grip, landing beside her with a dull, metallic ring that echoed through the wasteland. The beasts behind them were getting closer, heavy, grinding movement and the wet sound of metal scraping against metal echoing behind them, a promise of certain death.
“Maka!”
The blade flashed, then burst with light as Soul transformed back into human form. He hit the dirt, coughing hard, eyes watering from the fumes, but he didn’t stop moving. He crawled across the ground toward her, grabbing her shoulders and shaking lightly.
“Hey, hey, come on, Maka! Don’t you dare pass out on me now!”
Her pupils fluttered, her gaze unfocused. She could hear the rumble behind them, closer, closer, a rhythm like thunder. Her lungs refused to work, black creeping in from the edges of her vision just as something caught the light.
A faint glint half-buried in the dust.
Maka’s eyes widened, just barely conscious. She raised a trembling hand, pointing weakly toward it.
Soul followed her gesture, and froze. Two metal masks, cracked but intact, lay amid the junk. Gasmasks.
“Holy hell,” he breathed, dragging himself forward. “Good eyes as always, Maka.”
He snatched them up, wiping off the grime with his sleeve. The rubber was stiff, the straps frayed, but it was something. He pressed one gently against Maka’s face, fitting it over her nose and mouth, tightening the strap behind her head. She gasped once, the filtered air rasping but cleaner.
Then he shoved the other onto himself.
For a moment, neither moved. Just breathing, shaky, uneven, but finally possible. The taste of rust from both trash and blood lingered on their tongues, but oxygen filled their lungs again. Relief hit like a wave, and they both collapsed onto their backs, gasping in sync.
Maka let out a broken laugh between breaths. “That-was-close.”
“Yeah,” Soul panted, his voice muffled behind the mask. “I was gonna say, next time-maybe we skip the poison air vacation.”
She opened her mouth to laugh weakly, but the sound of the beasts following them grew louder wirh each second and had her raising her head and gazing towards the silhouettes of mangled junk, their glowing eyes burning in the haze.
Dozens now, crawling, limping, rebuilding themselves as they advanced.
The relief evaporated instantly.
Maka forced herself up, her legs trembling. Soul groaned and pushed off the ground beside her, shaking out his arms, mask glinting faintly in the dim light.
They looked at each other, and this time words weren’t needed, just that shared spark of defiance.
Soul smirked behind the mask, eyes narrowing. “Guess break time’s over. How do you feel about taking out the trash?”
Maka gripped his hand, their wavelengths pulsing in unison. “It’s time to put these things down for good.”
In a flash of red and steel, Soul transformed. The scythe’s edge gleamed under the dying light as Maka spun it once, the movement fluid even through exhaustion, and she was relieved to see Soul was still wearing his mask in the reflection.
The beasts roared, metal grinding like thunder as she steadied her stance, the air hissing through her mask. “Let’s go, partner.”
Soul’s grin echoed through the blade. “Let’s make it sound good!”