Everyone...

Please...

Do me a favor...

Listen to wait by M83 while reading this part...

On repeat...

I did while editing...

and I cried...

and then I died inside...

Please...

My head was spinning, and my vision was blurry when I finally awoke. "(Y/n)... (Y/n)!" People said repeatedly, desperately, and I sat up, my head spinning. I looked around, not quite getting what I was seeing.

There were a lot of people in the large hallway, but for some reason, even though it was big, it felt crowded. I remembered running to and crying in the broom closet... Someone waved a light in front of my eyes, but I just let my gaze glide past them.

I saw the corner of a white sheet, a delicate hand on the floor. What? Who? I thought. But my gaze was blocked as I saw Maka's face in front of me the next second, tears in her eyes, as she said something to me, my hearing going in and out of being useful. Why did she have a bandage on her head?

"(Y/n)... (Y/n)... You're okay, right?" Maka asked.

I nodded, more of my memories beginning to return gradually. "M-Maka..." I asked. I remembered Asuka on the ground in a pool of blood, Tsubaki, Liz, Patti, and her all unconscious, Angelica...

Angelica...

Medusa...

"Wh-where's Angelica...?" I asked Maka, and I saw tears spill down her cheeks, and I felt something tear throughout me, and dreadful feeling spread through me. "Where is she? And Asuka?" I asked again, remembering all the blood around Asuka.

Maka held a hand to her mouth and stood as Stein came to me, seeing that I was conscious again. I watched Maka as she went to Soul, who was standing next to Kid and Black Star. Liz and Patti were also crying, Tsubaki too, and their meisters were comforting them. Kid was bent down and holding Liz and Patti as the two cried on the ground, and Tsubaki was holding onto Back Star's arm as he tried to say something to her to make her laugh, but I could see the pain in his eyes even from here.

Maka seemed to say something to Soul, and he pulled her into a hug, his arms wrapping around her. I could see her shoulders shaking, and he hid his face in her shoulder as he began to cry too.

"(Y/n)?" Stein said, and I looked at the Professor, tears forming in my eyes, beginning to have a bad feeling that I knew why they were crying. "Are you okay—"

I cut him off. "Where is Angelica, and Asuka?" I asked. He flinched a bit, very unlike him, and then he sighed, clicking his screw. He moved aside and I saw two white, bloodstained sheets that looked as if they hid two bodies under them. And that's when the ugly truth fully set in.

The pale hand that I had seen was Asuka's, a thin bracelet that Mari had given her after they had been dating for a little while on it. It was a blue stone set in silver, but it was covered in her blood. Couldn't even one ounce of beauty be saved? I moved to her, the tears starting to form more rapidly, begging to slide down my face. I lifted Asuka's sheet ever so slightly, and a sob escaped my mouth, and I began to shake.

Someone had closed her eyes, and she looked just like she was sleeping, and it almost would've been better if her eyes would've been open, because then I wouldn't have had the urge to try and wake her up, and that was so painful. I lowered the sheet, and turned to Angelica's body.

I reached forward with both my hands, and lifted the edge of the stained white fabric. When I saw Angelica, or, what was left of her, I gasped and dropped the sheet, covering my mouth with both of my hands.

"We were able to defeat Medusa, trapping her in one of the meister's souls, a kind of cage, and Death used a special mode in Spirit's weapon form, and we expelled Medusa from Angelica." Stein said, but I didn't tear my eyes away from Angelica. "But it seemed that a piece of Medusa still had control before she died, and she ripped Angelica's body apart." He said.

I chocked on a sob, trying to hold myself together still. She was dead. Dead. It was like everything was being ripped away from me, my friends, my meister... "Did... did you find Mari?" I asked. I couldn't loose anymore of my friends.

Stein shuffled a little. "It seems that Medusa had a sort of spell over Mari's soul that would mask it from everyone, even Death, but when she died, it began to waste away. I just sensed it a few minutes ago and sent a few people to get her." He said.

I nodded, reaching out my hand and placing it on the shape that I knew under the sheet would be Angelica's hand. I had watched the first Angelica, the woman that I had loved more than anything else in the entire world, die at my own hand, and now, her daughter, Angelica, someone I had just started learning to love as a sister and a friend, was ripped away from me too.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and looked up at Stein, not able to see his eyes behind his glasses. "I'm so sorry, (Y/n)." he said, and that's when the tears streamed down my face.

I heard a sound, and looked down the hallway, hearing footsteps running towards us. I could see Mari, her face looking pale as if something horrible had happened to her. I could see panic in her eyes as she reached us, her labored gasping loud in the big hallway. She clutched Stein's arm, looking up at him desperately, and then it was as if she realized that everything wasn't okay.

She looked down at me, seeing me holding Angelica's hidden hand, and then her eyes landed on the sheet where Asuka was hidden. She silently moved to her, and I could see tears forming in her eyes, but she held them in as she knelt next to Asuka's concealed body.

She sat down, and pulled the white sheet back, and I felt my heart break as I saw a single tear slide down her cheek. She lifted the other girl's upper body into her arms, holding her close, and I watched as the blue haired girl's beautiful black eyes seemed to be searching for any sign of life left in Asuka's almost sleeping face. The hallway had become silent when Mari had come, and everyone watched her closely.

She ran a hand down Asuka's cheeks, smiling a little. "You're so cold..." she whispered, and even though everyone could hear it, I knew that it was just for Asuka, and no one else existed right now. I saw her lip begin to quiver, and I watched, my tears for her now, as she leaned her face down as her hands shook, softly kissing her pale, lifeless lips.

She started sobbing then, and her pain echoed in the silent hallways. "Don't leave me!" she cried, and I looked down. "Not you too..." Mari said, her voice sounding as if she was pleading with Asuka. She brushed the girl's red hair away from her eyes, kissing her nose, her forehead, her tears dripping onto Asuka's face as she did so.

Mari looked up at me, her black eyes seeming completely broken. "Please... (Y/n)... you can bring her back, can't you?" She asked, her tears streaming down her face. I was silent, my lower lips starting to quiver. "Can't you?" Mari asked, quietly helpless.

I shook my head. "She would come back, but she would be cold, and she would continue to decay and... and..." I said, pain tearing through me that there was nothing I could do to bring Asuka or Angelica back.

Mari nodded, stroking Asuka's face. "No. I—she wouldn't want that..." she said, her face now hidden with her blue hair. I could hear all of our other friends quietly crying, and I felt like I just wanted to turn time back and make everything all right. I wished that I could trade places with Angelica and Asuka, I would die a hundred times over, or I would suffer in an eternity of pain, but I couldn't bear seeing Mari, or any of my other friends like this.

I squeezed Angelica's cold hand. But sometimes we couldn't pick and choose what life dished out to us; we just had to take it. I bent my head down as Mari started pleading with Asuka again, her voice cracking again and again, sounding as if the girl was breaking down into pieces, and I knew that she was.

"Let's go home." I said, pulling my knees into my chest. "Can everything just be okay now? Haven't we had enough?"