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stankfella · 3 months

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Scythes

Killer (One Piece) vs Maka and Soul (Soul Eater)

My first fic on here, and I'm excited to be posting it!

I usually have tons of ideas for these little one-shot interaction stories between my favourite series', so, why not kick it off with a crossover between my two favourites right off the bat!

Without further ado, lemme know what you think!

The interesting thing about scythes, as weapons, is when fighting an opponent similar in stature, speed, or reaction as yourself, you'd need a great deal of preparation.

Positioning and timing are essential for the usage of a scythe. Very often the user of a scythe will spend a large fraction of an altercation dodging and parrying, avoiding the other, more swift weapon's attempts at tearing them asunder, before landing a final, climactic blow.

A large ratio of dodging to striking, and it wasn't hard to see why. Scythes are, originally, farming tools, sharpened enough that they could cut rows of grass or grain with a single pass. With sufficient force, one could cleave anyone in two.

These thoughts always ran through Maka's head when she came to collect another soul, almost subconsciously. The moment to swing her blade came to her like a sixth sense at points - When everything just so happened to line up, Maka knew exactly when to put her back into it and send whatever she was fighting to the underworld. The majority of her time cooperating with Soul was spent mindful, attentive, and patient. She supposed this was what made her current situation so perilous.

She couldn't get a read on this guy.

She'd met her fair-share of masked, crazy laughers on the job. Many humans who's souls fell past the threshold of normality couldn't help but constantly distract themselves with the humor of a punchline only they could see. That usually came with an air of distraction - Not many could see past it.

Ergo it unnerved Maka that as her combatant dodged and weaved backward through the misshapen, uneven stone of Death City’s walkways, she came to understand that this man's hyena-pitched laughter was, in fact, NOT an indication of his lack of skill with a blade, in fact a betrayal that spat in the face of the very suggestion he would be unprofessional.

Soul hadn’t even touched steel yet, let alone the opponent’s flesh. The maestro and weapon shared this focus, only interrupted when the masked man seemed to disappear from view.

"WATCH YOUR SIX!"

Her weapon yelled in warning, knocking the confused Maka back into action in a heartbeat, as she sent the blue-clad attacker flying backwards with the momentum of his first attempt at striking the scythemeister. Something that prompted a pause in their altercation, if for a moment.

“You protect her as if with your own life, weapon… Are you sure you want to do that?”

The voice behind the mask spoke in a voice as deep as it was steady. Despite the downright intimidating feats of athleticism performed by him, he wasn't so much as breathing heavy.

Maka was halfway through digesting the mental dichotomy of actions and voice, along with his focus on Soul, so it was lucky for her that he took the lead when it came to replying.

"NOW you decide to stop for a chat?! What kind of steroids are you on to be running around like that?!"

The weapon’s statement prompted the other to look down at his extremely toned arms, but not much else.

There was a sadness to his lack of reply that remained interesting, but remaining a pragmatist, Maka decided on a more productive angle of conversation. Even those with souls corrupted into Kishin eggs remained less athletically skilled than her combatant. Learning his true nature would benefit her severely.

"What even ARE you?"

The question made the other one spit out another hyena-pitched laugh, then right back to his baritone, melancholic drawl.

"Kheh-HIEH, HAAHGH! If you want an answer to that, maybe you should look in your hands."

“You’re not a weapon.” Maka rallied back. “By all accounts you’d seem like a fallen human, but…”

The man seemed to notice as realization spread across Maka’s face. Closing her eyes for a moment, peering past the veil of the physical world, she saw his soul… Human. Not Kishin at all. Before she could barrage him with questions, the man crouched.

"If you want a name... It's Killer. Now show me what that boy REALLY means to you."

Before Maka had time to think, her arms moved to swing Soul in a circular motion - pure instinct. For a short bout of time, Killer seemed to be in many places at once, and attacking her three angles at the exact same time. But her placement was good. She had some time to breathe and try to understand her opponent more.

Panic struck maka’s face from this oppressive angle of attack, and Killer would take note. She wouldn’t guess it herself, but he was analyzing her every facial movement.

If Killer wanted to hurt this girl, he would have had no trouble.

The troubling thing about scythes, as weapons, is that they very often end battles in a single strike. His own were sharpened over hours in order to accomplish this very goal.

That was why he didn’t dare open them while fighting this girl.

Maka likely couldn’t tell due to his speed, but all he was really doing was hitting her scythe with the blunt instruments on his arms, similar to how one would use a set of tonfa. All he needed to do was seem threatening in order to question this girl on something.

She'd been talking to that scythe like it was sentient ever since he'd been threatened by her, and with that reverbed shout, he'd gotten his confirmation. Now he was curious. What were those two, truly? Were they tool, and craftsman? Or something more?

More than that - Why did he care? He could have sped off during their first attack and rid himself of the moral conundrum to begin with.

Call it an itch, he supposed. They seemed so fluid in motion together that it had to be either extreme, and though he doubted the girl was that sadistic... It wasn't the first time he'd seen something like this from someone who didn't know any better.

In the corners of his frenzied memory sat a man in a dark, damp, jail cell. Separated from the one he relied on most, all he could do to mitigate the hell of his forced inactivity was to curse Wano’s shogunate, and the rotten termites that resided in its mahogany walls.

When the vile Orochi had offered Killer an out, he should’ve known it was a ruse. He guessed a small part of him did, at the time, but eating a defective SMILE fruit was the most immediate answer to his desires to protect his closest comrade. He bit down like the starving animal he was, in that cage. Laughed like a pained hyena partway through the cursed meal.

After that it seemed like everyone was using him. Using him for cheap laughs, for training... Everyone except his captain.

So, that's why he decided to go through with this. This girl was either one of the laughing masses, or this scythe's version of his own captain, protecting one another like the yin and yang.

The logical way to test them was to separate them, then.

Maka flinched as more power was put behind a blow she didn't see coming from the right. She felt the attacker's weapons smash against the hilt of Soul, his smooth metal handle slipping from her gloved hands in slow motion. An involuntary gasp escaped her as she was now face-to-face with the significantly larger body she'd been dodging and parrying so far.

"Ther-There's no reason for us to fight anymore!" She spat at Killer like a curse.

"You're human! I barely recognised it at first, but I can't take your soul! We can stop fighting!"

Killer tilted his head.

"We haven't BEEN fighting. I'm just getting a better look inside that mind of yours..."

"W-What?" Maka blinked, gaining a smidge more courage back from the claws of the golden-haired hyena before her.

Before he could answer, the man almost caught a blade in the back, turning around in the nick of time.

Soul's blade dug into the steel of Killer's arm-guard.

"Did you forget about me, ugly?" The grin of Soul's human form was unmistakable, Killer responding with a laugh in kind.

"Now we're getting somewhere."

Killer began an assault much the same as before on Soul, each being met with a stressed parry or crude boot to the face in order to avoid the next attack.

Maka was subjected to all of this, and yelled out for Soul to be careful. It seemed to fall on deaf ears, or... Was it a message he knew already?

Killer's attacks slowly began to die down as he distracted himself with his own thoughts. As much as he was in peak condition physically, he was far from perfect, which let Soul have the opening he was looking for.

Another jump using Killer as leverage, this time spinning into his full scythe-form mid-air.

Maka's gloved hand was waiting, and as soon as Soul made contact, they both yelled in unison.

"LET'S GO, SOUL RESONANCE!"

"Aha," Killer commented, standing upright and waiting.

The light of the moon seemed to completely envelop Soul's blade as a bright blue energy surrounded the pair. Soul's blade beamed and shuddered with power, extending into a perfect crescent, blue and beautiful and gliding through the air like a shark's fin parts water.

Maka, overflowing with energy, let out a mighty yell as Witch Hunter was sent surging through the ground, gliding through the misshapen cobblestone of Death City's backstreets and barrelling right for Killer, who let out a laugh of similar volume as the energy illuminated the gaps in his mask.

The attack wasn't sidestepped, but blocked by Killer, sent flying backwards through the streets, dust in his wake.

So it was loyalty.

Never in all his years would he have thought to give himself for the ones who would point and laugh at him. Even if they were in grave danger, he'd stand idly by. But at the mere suggestion his captain could be hurt, he'd jump in the way of any flame, any attack.

He'd take the heat off of his captain at any cost, even himself. Just as the scythe had done for this girl.

He'd gotten himself all quizzical for nothing, after all.

"Are you DONE now!?" Soul barked, powering down to his regular form. "We can kick your ass if we need to, buddy! We don't WANT a body on our hands!"

"You won't get one." Killer settled, standing up on weakened legs. "I've made up my mind with you two."

"Oh, great." Soul's cycloptic eye rolled in its hilt-socket. "I'm sure that it's great news."

Maka was less quick to disregard his words. "What did you mean by getting a better look inside my head? About what Soul means to me? About... All that?"

"...I don't think I really get how this all works yet." Killer shrugged, "But you... I wanted to see what kept you two together. People are glued to each other by malice, or by loyalty. I needed to see which it was."

Maka answered back after a short pause. "...Meisters and their weapons are together by choice. We don't force a weapon to be with us, and weapons can't force us to use them, either. That's... How it should be."

"I'm glad we see eye to eye." Killer nodded. "...You have a solid head on your shoulders, girl. What's your name?"

"...Maka. This is Soul." She admittedly didn't know this man at all, but something about him seemed more stable than before. Maybe it was his soul, or his mannerisms, but something pushed her to abandon her tense fighting stance.

"Maka, and Soul." He nodded. "I... Could use some help with directions."

"Yeah, no thanks, go buy a map." Soul grumbled.

Killer shrugged once more. Couldn't be helped.

"I'll see you around, then?"

"Not quite." Maka interjected. "There's not a lot of people who can move like you can without a powerful soul. How... Did you do all of that?"

Killer exhaled a laugh.

"Would you like me to teach you?"

#fanfic #crossover #crossover fanfic #one piece #killer one piece #maka albarn #soul evans #soul eater #tankwriting #First public fanfic #writing

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