By the time Soul and Maka reached the Infirmary, having been jogging at the same pace, Liz and Patty were already stationed next to the chair Crona had apparently either found or been given, Stein spinning in a lazy circle on his chair at the foot of the cot. Maka crossed over to lean over Crona and wrap her arms around him in a reassuring hug; he hadn’t looked very steady to begin with, and in a glance, Soul knew it was probably something he needed.
“Alright,” the professor sighed, his hand almost twitching as if he were going to reach for the cigarette that he didn’t even have in his mouth at the time. “It’s high time I tell you all what’s really going on.”
Soul’s eyes pinched slightly at the corners, his hands dangling at his sides rather than taking refuge in his pockets. How long had he known what was going on, and kept it hidden?
“Everyone that’s been infected contracted this illness on their missions, which would explain why you all aren’t sick. Maka, Soul, you haven’t been on any missions lately, and Liz and Patty are distance weapons, so wherever you went, you probably didn’t get close enough to the source to get sucked in. From my understanding, it effects weapons first, due to how they make more direct contact.”
“But contact with what?” Soul asked, his lip curling at the mention of how easily he could have fallen victim to this, too. “What the hell is causing all this?”
“Kishins,” Stein replied, “and it's unknown exactly which ones are a danger.”
“I don’t understand, though,” Maka interjected, “I thought Kid couldn’t get sick. He’s a reaper, isn’t he immune to all that stuff?”
“Precisely,” Stein told her, rocking his heels on the ground to push the chair forward and back. “Until this happened, my hypothesis had been just that; a hypothesis. But, now, I’m positive.”
Liz and Patty fidgeted, glancing over at their unconscious meister with clear worry on their faces. They knew more about him than anyone here did, too, and Soul assumed that the situation only confused and hurt them more.
“It’s a kishin sickness,” Stein continued, “controlled by a central one I believe to be called Kevorkian.”
“It’s infecting other kishins,” Maka said, seemingly fighting the urge to straighten up out of habit, though she kept her arms wound around Crona, even when her cheek lifted from the top of his head where it had come to rest.
“Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” Soul asked, “We could have been doing something about it this whole time!”
“Until now, I wasn’t certain of what the origin of this sickness was,” he explained, “I still don’t know Kevorkian’s motives. But, now I’m sure that it’s not an entirely physical thing; it effects the wavelength. It explains why everyone who’s sick has different symptoms. I’ve been looking after Tsubaki and Black☆Star since last night. It seems Black☆Star’s come down with something that left him losing his voice, something which we all know is one of the worst things he can probably imagine. As for Kid, I’m sure he experienced a wave of powerful vertigo before he collapsed, is that right, Crona?”
Soul didn’t look over to see Crona’s reaction, having pieced it together in his own head.
“Yep.” Stein crossed his arms over the back of his chair, resting his mouth and chin against the top of his wrist.
“But that still doesn’t explain how Kid could have gotten sick, even if we knock out the reaper immune system thing,” Liz said, shaking her head. “You said weapons would get it first, and if we didn’t come into contact with whatever kishins would cause this, then he couldn’t have.”
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