Author's note: This work of fiction will include death. Some people do not like this, especially if it comes as a surprise, and the associated stress. Stress is dangerous, so let me rip off Douglas Adams by assuring you: No canon main characters will die.
OC's, on the other hand, will die like it's happy hour at the funeral home.
Natsu had always known that he would most likely die young. Top-of-the line fighting wizards usually did. It might have been some sort of heroic sacrifice or weird arcane power, but most realistic was always simply picking that one wrong fight on the one wrong day. He liked to think he was safe because he was so awesome, but deep down, he knew that he was only still alive because of a lot of lucky breaks, and sooner or later that luck would run out.
If it had just been him, being slowly tortured to death in this dungeon by a guy who wanted answers that Natsu simply didn't have, he might have almost been okay with it. But he knew that in the cell next to him, Gray was facing a similar fate. Erza had been taken in a different direction at the last intersection, so maybe she wasn't that far away, but it was impossible to tell. Lucy had been taken in a different direction even earlier, but Natsu wouldn't put it past their captors to bring them all back together in the end, just to mess with their heads. In his own little world of stone and moss, he had not only the interrogator, but also Happy, who was already passed out. That lucky cat.
His friends had always been everything to him, and he would do whatever it took to protect him. Not that this was an easy task. There were betting pools for the fates of most of the well-known wizards, and Natsu was quite aware of what they said. Few people expected any member of Fairy Tail's strongest team to live past thirty. Nobody expected all of them to. He had made it his life's mission to prove them wrong, but right now it seemed as if a lot of folks would get a nice little payday.
Again, the whip came, and again, the interrogator asked the same old question. What did Natsu know about the dangerous beautiful stranger? Nothing, thank you very much. From what he had been able to piece together, that stranger had once killed a lot of the torturer's friends, and now all the survivors had formed a dark guild simply to exact revenge. Part of Natsu could, if not quite agree, at least really respect that. But there's only so much sympathy you can show towards a person who had decided that he wanted you dead after thinking long and hard about it.
Natsu had tried to get free, hours ago, but it might as well have been a lifetime. The cell technology was probably similar to that used by the magic council. It completely eviscerated all ability to use magic, and without it, the chains were simply too strong.
The torturer was obviously not satisfied with Natsu's answer, or maybe he just didn't care either way. He took up a huge hammer, one that Natsu had gotten to know quite well over the preceding hours. He would have liked to say that the tool held no more terror for him, but that was really not how it worked. Still, he tried his best to hide the fear, just to spite the torturer, and braced for the blow.
It never came. Instead, the gigantic monstrous man turned around at the iron bars that separated the cell from the corridor. He heard something. Natsu tried really hard, and finally, he heard it, too. Footsteps. Small ones. A woman, maybe. Could that be…?
He looked up, and to his surprise, saw Lucy standing there. She looked a bit bruised, but overall still in good health. Better than him, at least. For a second, he was shocked that it was not Erza looking at him, but then he mentally kicked himself. Of course, Lucy was a competent member of their team, too.
The torturer was just as surprised, but unlike Natsu, not in a pleasant way.
"How did you get out?!", he shouted. "You're gonna die, bitch!"
He marched towards the door. Lucy quickly weighed her options, and then quickly decided to bolt. Natsu became increasingly worried. She would probably be able to outrun the torturer, but then what? The castle was full of people all hell-bent on taking revenge on whoever.
The fire mage watched in helpless agony as the torturer carefully opened the door and stepped out onto the corridor—when, suddenly, he tripped and fell. As he fell, he did a sort of weird ballet turn that ensured he landed neatly on his head. There was a short, horrible crack, and then he lay there, with his skull bloody, and didn't move anymore.
Natsu didn't even have time to contemplate this weird turn of events, because a second later, Lucy returned to his cell. On the way, she quickly paused at the torturer's body and took his key ring.
"Is he… dead?" asked Natsu weakly.
"Of course," said Lucy, sounding as if she was actually offended at the suggestion that he might not be. "Erm… I mean… Oh my god, he's dead! So horrible!" she continued in a high-pitched shriek. "It's lucky for us, though, so let's move."
With a few quick turns, she unlocked both him and Happy, and then gave them both a long hug.
"Damn, I'm glad I'm not too late," she whispered softly.
Natsu was certainly glad to be hugging his friend, especially since he had thought he'd never see her again just half a minute earlier, but he was also still confused.
"How did you get out?" he managed to ask.
"I offered to write a full confession," she said. That answer was less than useless, and he said as much.
"Look, it's not important," answered Lucy. "Right now, we still have Gray and Erza to free. Let's go!"
They sprinted out of the cell and turned left, where they immediately ran into another guard. He was just about to shout something, but a well-placed fire dragon's punch threw him into the nearest wall.
"It's good to use magic again," said Natsu thoughtfully, "but I think I'm still a bit rusty. How about you?"
"Oh, same," said Lucy absent-mindedly. "Mind breaking down this door for me?"
Natsu didn't mind. Behind them was another torturer, who was quickly dealt with, and Gray, tied to a similar rack. Briefly, Natsu registered that their enemies weren't particularly strong at all. They just were really good at making traps. That gave him hope. As long as they didn't have some big boss lying around somewhere.
The route to Erza's cell was even easier with three high-powered mages, although they had to do even more fighting along the way. They almost needn't have bothered. Gray's Ice Make Lance did miss Erza's torturer, but then it hit the wall. Cracks developed and weakened the chains, and before anyone could do anything, Erza had managed to tear herself free. A few seconds later, the torturer was on the floor, and they were all outside her cell.
"So… we flee, right?" said Lucy, vaguely hopeful, but Erza shook her head.
"Who knows how many other innocents these people have tortured before? It is our solemn duty as Fairy Tail wizards to beat all of them unconscious and then leave, hoping they have learned something from the experience."
Gray looked thoughtful. "I know that's what we always do, but actually, if you put it like this, I see a problem…"
Natsu decided to just ignore him. He had plenty of practice with that. "Hell yeah, I'm all fired up! Let's go kick some dark guild butts!"
They set off in a random direction that Happy claimed was absolutely definitely the way to the main guy's office. It led them past many more cells like the ones they had just been in. All of them were empty, but many had floors covered in what looked like blood. At the start of the mission, Natsu would have been horrified, and a few hours ago, during the torture, he'd have been indifferent, but right now he was in full fired up mode. Seeing these reminders of the crimes done here made him angry, and anger made him powerful.
They rounded a corner into what looked like the mess hall. The only light came from the hallway they just left, so they slowed down to get their bearings.
All around them were tables and chairs, much like in the Fairy Tail guildhall. Somewhere near what might have been the wall were shapes that could have been barrels. Tattered banners hung on the ceiling, black in the darkness.
"It's too big," said Erza all of a sudden. "They have maybe fifty people but this hall seats several hundreds. Why is it so big?"
Natsu whispered "Fire dragon's flashlight", and a tiny flaming lens appeared in his hand. In the new light, they suddenly saw shapes on the chairs. At first glance, they looked like people, but as Natsu trained the beam created by the flame on them, he realized that they were just straw puppets. And all of them were wearing different clothes.
"Okay, this is creepy," said Lucy as she wandered through the rows of straw eaters and straw drinkers. No two of them were alike. Natsu saw big straw puppets and small ones, ones that looked like children, ones that looked like adults, and a few that looked like Exceed. They were placed in various poses, some with flagons and some with food. A few were in a mock brawl.
Gray whispered as he looked over the fixed straw party. "Look, that guild sign! That's the same as the guys we fought." He pointed at the sigil that all of the puppets wore somewhere. They had different colors, and they had it in different places, but each and every one of them was showing it as proudly as a straw puppet could. "This isn't the mess hall at all. I think this is something… like a memorial."
Suddenly, there was a loud sound of two hands clapping, and a voice shouted "Bravo, Fairy Tail! You've figured it out!"
Around them, magical lights went on all at once. For a moment, Natsu was dazzled, but that moment was all it took. A punch came from behind him. Natsu managed to evade it, but it took him a second too long to realize that the punch wasn't meant to hit him. It was only there to bring him close to a weirdly charged Lacrima ball. Before he knew it, he was completely immobilized.
When his eyes had become accustomed to the light, he saw that the other members of his team had been hit just the same. All around them, living, non-straw members of the dark guild were firmly locking them in place, and moving them towards the end of the hall.
The end of the hall had a raised stage, much like the guild hall at Fairy Tail. On it stood a young man, about Natsu's age, with weird hair and a manic look in his violet eyes. He was waving a huge ornate dagger. It was a beautiful weapon, with the dark guild's logo on the hilt, but it also had an air of menace to it, and more nooks and crannies than a blade was ever meant to have. Natsu had never really been familiar with swords or guns, but he had a distinct feeling that this thing was bad news. And it looked sharp. In fact, it looked like the prototype of sharp, the thing that all other sharp things are trying to emulate in vain. He gulped as he thought about the possible reasons for having this dagger here.
"So nice of you to join us here, Fairy Tail," shouted the man. "You are right, this all is a memorial." He gestured at the hall and at the straw puppets.
"All our friends are with us. The many friends that the unknown stranger took from us on this day exactly eight years ago." His booming voice filled the hall to the last centimeter. Natsu thought that it was a huge waste. It was not like the straw puppets could hear. But the man clearly had a show prepared.
"It is only right that they are here with us today, when finally, justice is done, and the girl who killed them all is put on trial and sentenced to death!"
He grinned widely as he flashed the dagger again, and the men and women around him at the stage applauded.
"Oh, but where are my manners?" said the man with mock concern. "My name is Fuyu, and I am Leprechaun Horn's Basilisk Slayer and acting guild leader."
"Wait, a basilisk slayer? That's just ridiculous!" shouted Natsu, but Fuyu simply waved him aside. "That's what I used to say about dragon slayers. But now we have not only you, but also god slayers, devil slayers, vampire slayers… why not basilisk slayer? Anyway, I am not here to discuss slayage with you. I am here to avenge a crime. Eight years, two months and three days ago, we were a normal, rising guild, just like you. We were bound for greatness, but we were also the best of friends, and we loved meeting new people. On that fateful day, I met a young girl, a stellar mage, about my age. She was beautiful, smart, strong, almost competent… it was friendship at first sight."
At that, Natsu had the impression that the woman guarding him was stifling a laugh, but he had no idea why. Wasn't that perfectly normal? Either way, Fuyu did not seem to have heard.
"We fought an evil slaver and won, although the town was a bit worse for the wear afterwards. I liked her, she liked me, and so I decided to bring her back to our guild. I knew they all would love her, and we'd become fast friends."
The smile on his face was genuine at this point, so much that Natsu was almost willing to forgive everything that had happened so far. He knew that feeling. If his date maths was right, he himself had met Lucy only a month or so after that.
"We had a great day that day," he said. "Her arrival was the reason for a great party—although honestly, we never really needed a reason for great parties."
Natsu's eyes began to water. He liked parties, and he liked friendship. Anyone who liked both couldn't be an entirely bad person, right?
But now Fuyu was looking glum. "It was our last party together. At first, it was just a few. Five men and women, the ones the new girl talked to first. A sudden heart attack, for all of them. My friends figured it out, and went to talk to the girl, who was writing in her diary. The moment she laid eyes upon them, they died. And when she realized that everyone had seen her, they, too, began to die."
"Then how come you're alive?" asked Happy indignantly. Natsu nodded in agreement. For a moment, that shook Fuyu.
"Ah… well… yes…"
But then the moment of insecurity waned, and he went back to his elaborate script.
"I was not there, I was… elsewhere. Occupied. She apparently forgot about me."
"You mean on the toilet, right?" asked Gray. In response, Fuyu shot him a nasty look. Out of the corner of his eye, Natsu could see that Erza was, despite herself, smiling. He thought that he knew why. Apparently the knight had not been the only hotshot wizard to miss a fight for this reason. On his other side, he heard Lucy gasp. She was probably right, too. This was horrific, not funny. Natsu quickly caught himself.
"Ever since that night, I've been looking for that woman," continued Fuyu, as if nothing had happened. "She used a false name then, and a false name now, but still, after all this time, I managed to find her!"
At this, the other dark guild members in the room began to applaud and cheer. This wasn't part of any script. They were genuinely happy to finally have found the killer of their friends. And perhaps Natsu might have cheered with them, if not for one tiny problem.
"You're wrong!", he shouted. "None of us are killers!"
Gray joined in. "You're a lunatic! We've never done anything to you!"
Erza was particularly vocal, probably because she fit the description the most, being both a woman and deadly. "I was nowhere near any guild back then! I can prove it! But even if you don't believe me, just let my friends go!"
"All of you, so noisy," said Fuyu with an incredibly grating tone of voice. He was loving this, and Natsu hated him for it. "Bring her up!"
Two of the guards left the stage and went down and came towards them. They quickly paused in front of Erza… and then went on to take Lucy.
"What!? No! Lucy would never kill anyone!" shouted Natsu in surprise. The others joined him. But Fuyu just ignored him as the guards brought Lucy up and tied her to a pole. She looked helpless and lost. Natsu could see that she was trying to be strong, but there was a bit of water in her eyes. It tore him up to see his best non-cat friend like that.
"It's Lucy now, huh? And a member of the Heartfilia clan. I sure would like to know the story behind that. But I guess we'll never know, because tonight, you will die. Not as Lucy Heartfilia, or under the cursed name you used to kill all our friends, but under your real name, your killer name. Tonight, you will die… Misa Amane!"
"Who?" said Natsu, Gray and Happy almost simultaneously as the crowd around them once again cheered. Erza, on the other hand, looked surprised. She turned and saw their blank faces.
"Does the name Kira mean anything to you?" she whispered, as Fuyu kept blabbering on. "It was a big deal a few years ago."
"Oh yeah," said Happy. "But Lucy can't be Kira! Her nose isn't wrinkled!"
"You're talking about a different Kira, little cat," said Fuyu, who had noticed the muttering among his prisoners and decided to make it part of the show. "The Kira that I mean was a bloodthirsty killer. He killed not with lead, nor with steel, nor with poison, nor with…"
"Polonium?" asked Natsu. He was fairly certain that he had heard something about this some time ago. In his mind, he envisioned some sort of white and red bow and arrow.
"Oh my god, he's going to spoil Death Note!" whispered Gray. "That monster!"
"Magic notebook," replied Erza between clenched teeth. "There were two. One of them died. The other one…"
"The other one was never found," said Fuyu. "She was an actress. The legend has it that after the first Kira was found, she shot a final advertisement, where it looked like she fell off a building. After that, she was never seen again. Until today."
"No!" shouted Lucy.
"It can't be Amane!" shouted Erza. "Her notebook was recovered and destroyed!"
"Oh please," said Fuyu nonchalantly. "Do you know the routes those books have taken? Even if they are destroyed, nobody knows who managed to sneak out a few pages now and then. Anyway, how come you know so much about this?"
"I was in Japan undercover, posing as an american scientist," Erza said. "Don't ever tell the swiss about that."
"The swiss?" Now Fuyu looked horribly confused, but Erza just shook her head.
"It doesn't matter. What matters is that I know Lucy, and I can vouch for her with my life. She is not a killer!"
"She's right, I'm not!" shouted Lucy again. Her voice was close to breaking.
"That's exactly what Misa Amane would say!" answered Fuyu just as loudly. "Or, for that matter, anyone else. So clearly your crying does not matter. We all know the evidence. We all know your crimes. Now, how do you plead?"
"Not guilty!" shouted Lucy defiantly, but the tears in her eyes were getting bigger. Natsu struggled against his chains, but they must have contained something to neutralize not only his magic, but also his strength. He had no choice but to stand there and watch.
"Not guilty? Well, in that case, we'll… ah, just kidding. This isn't a court of law, this is a show of revenge, Misamisa, and we will take it. Though we are not without mercy. If you confess, we'll make your suffering short, and that of your friends even shorter."
"Never!" shouted Lucy. "You've got the wrong person! I'm not this Misa Amanana…na! I don't even know her!"
Natsu gave tried to kick the guard next to him, but the magical chains made it all but impossible. She had stepped aside before he could even move a millimeter.
"You know, on some level I hoped you'd say this," said Fuyu. "Getting rid of you quickly wouldn't be fair, now, would it? I did the maths, and if you sum it all up, my friends took five hours to die. Five hours of agony, of screaming. I think it's only fair that we repay it!"
Again, the people around him cheered. Fuyu waved his oversized dagger again.
"Of course, for some of them, it wasn't a big deal. Just a little prick…" he said, and then, without warning, he poked the dagger into Lucy's stomach. It wasn't far or forceful, but it was enough to draw blood. Lucy cried out in pain. The sound made Natsu cringe.
"For some, it may have been more of a… cut," continued Fuyu, almost disinterested. He sliced the along Lucy's arm. It made a horrible ripping sound—or maybe that was just Natsu's imagination. Either way, he couldn't bear to watch it. And then, he heard something else. It was quiet, almost inaudible, but it was more terrible than anything Fuyu had said so far. It was sobbing.
Fuyu took a few steps back, almost as if he had changed his mind, but then he suddenly turned around and hit Lucy again. New blood was coming from her leg. Again and again, he wielded the dagger, and again and again, Lucy cried out. After a while, she didn't even try to hide the sobbing anymore.
Natsu tried his best, honestly, but it wasn't good enough. The magic chains held tight, and the guards were ready to kick him whenever they felt like it. Erza, Gray and even Happy were being treated the same.
And then it stopped.
"Did you say something?" asked Fuyu. Indeed, Lucy had mumbled something.
"mumble mumble" was all that Natsu could understand.
"Louder, please!" said Fuyu. "We'll do justice either way, but it is more satisfying if you beg for your life."
"…save me…" came out of Lucy's mouth, timid and weak.
"Save me? Oh, how adorable! You think your friends will save you? I say, let them try! Come on, then!"
Natsu struggled, but he still hadn't managed to get any further than ever before. But he was not about to give up now. And somehow, somewhere, Lucy seemed to realize that. She lifted her head up and looked him directly in the eye, and said,
"Natsu, please save me!"
It was all the motivation the fire slayer needed. With a giant roar, he broke free of his chains, and punched one of the nearby guards straight to the ground. He did not care about his surroundings. He did not care about strategy. All he knew now was that Lucy was in trouble. His Lucy! And she had asked him to save her! With a giant leap, he launched onto the stage. There was nothing that would stop him—
A second too late, he realized something was odd. Fuyu was still smiling.
It hit him with the force of a flying iceberg. Not any particular thing, but simply the ground… from five meters behind where he had started. To his horror, he realized what he was in.
"A locked space loop. You can't approach the stage. You'll always end back where you started," said Fuyu. "I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm really, really not. This is fun."
That asshole! He clearly was enjoying himself now.
"It seems you're getting bored with my performance, though," said Fuyu. "Not a problem. How about we simply get to the main event? The death of a murderer. Has something poetic to it, doesn't it?"
He brought the dagger up to throat level, and slowly began walking towards Lucy.
"Now then, Miss Amane? Any last words? Do you want to beg? To me or to your friends, it makes little difference to me."
Lucy was full on crying now as Fuyu paused before her. Natsu was furious, but any time he tried to get closer to the stage, he ended up further away. The same thing was true in the other direction. He simply couldn't get a break.
With a bit of final strength, Lucy looked up, and looked him in the eye. "Natsu… be honest. Can you save me?"
"Yes, of…" and then suddenly realization hit Natsu. Lucy was going to die, and there was nothing he could do. He felt numb. He wanted to lie to her, to tell her that everything was going to be fine, but he couldn't. She'd know that it was a lie. He couldn't do that to her.
It took all his strength to shake his head.
"No… No, I can't."
And at that moment, as Fuyu came closer with the dagger, he realized that all the torture just half an hour earlier was absolutely nothing. This was what real pain felt like.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to shout. He wanted to do something, anything, but—
Suddenly, Lucy looked up again, directly into his eyes. Now, all the tears were gone. If anything, there was a look of mild annoyance.
"Seriously? Damn, Natsu, you suck," she said matter-of-factly. "Virgo!"
Without any warning, Fuyu dropped half a meter into a hole that immediately opened under him. Natsu was speechless.
"Cancer!" shouted Lucy, and before Natsu had even seen the crab guy, she was free, and wielding her magic whip.
The guards on the stage were momentarily confused, but then edged towards her. She quickly flicked her whip, and then it was… gone, turned off. And then it was on again. And now it was reaching right through both of the guards. Lucy gave a quick tug, and blood came out.
"Damn you idiots!" she shouted at nobody in particular. "I already told you I'm sorry!" Suddenly, Loke was on the other side of the stage, delivering decidedly unhealthy-looking punches to more guards. "All I did was take the wrong paper for my diary. Can happen to anyone!" continued Lucy, filled with rage.
Wait, what? The wrong paper? Diary? Natsu was completely lost here. But what was worse was that a tiny cynical part of him was not lost at all…
The men guarding him and Gray and Erza started to move, but before they could get anywhere, they were covered in sticky wool. "I'm sorry," said Aries happily, and bowed. Now that weird cow guy was in there, too, and… well, that answered the question about whether his axe could cut off a man's head. Somewhere else, the goat and the one with the stingy bit at the end…
It was pure and utter chaos, but throughout it all, Lucy seemed perfectly fine. If anything, she seemed happy. Water pipes burst, and at first Natsu thought the castle was self-destructing, but then he realized that only their enemies were getting drenched in scalding hot steam. It seemed like this was part of Lucy's plan. She certainly seemed to have one, because she kept shouting random things like "Pattern Alpha" and "Maneuver Riker One".
Natsu turned towards the rest of his team, but they were just as dumbfounded as he was. What on earth was going on here?
"Should we–" began Gray, but before he could finish his thought, he was cut off by a giant klaxon going off all throughout the castle. Everyone looked up in surprise, including the remaining guards and Lucy herself.
All of a sudden, Fuyu reappeared. He looked quite a bit worse for the wear. In his eyes raged pure madness. In his hand, he held something that looked like a remote control.
"So that's how you want to play it, huh?" he shouted. "Kill the last of us, too, huh? Sorry, bitch, but I ain't letting you do that!"
The klaxon ended, and was replaced by a woman's voice. "Ninety-nine. Ninety-eight. Ninety-…"
Fuyu giggled maniacally. Natsu got the feeling that he had been waiting for a long time giggle that maniacally. All those big words a few seconds ago were just a small blanket hiding a mountain of insanity.
"That," Fuyu announced, "is the castle self-destruct. Me, and my friends, that is, we, like together, we knew that something like this could happen, so we prepared! Hah!"
He pointed at the corners of the room. "That's an ultrasonic sound bomb over there. Dynamite. Inversionlaser. The whole works. You'll never make it out of here alive. Neither will we, of course, but who fuckin' cares? Our friends? They're all dead, thanks to you, bitch!"
He pointed in a direction at random, apparently believing Lucy to be there, but missed. That did not seem to bother him.
"There's no way you'll be able to turn it off, though. It's all triple-locked and diversificationizationize… well, it's all really complicated stuff. No way! All worth it, though, because it means we get to take you down!"
Again he pointed. This time, by pure chance, he managed to point at Lucy, or at least closely near her. She had turned his back to him, though, which only made him even more furious.
"Won't even face me, huh? All the lives you destroyed, all the things you broke, and you won't even look me in the eye, bitch, is that right? Well, I won't have it. Look at me while you die, damn it!"
He tried to grab her shoulder to turn her around, but before he could do so, she turned to face him herself, and handed him a piece of paper. For a moment, he was completely confused. Then he read it. As his eyes reached the bottom of the page, panic began to set in, and when he was done, he screamed.
"No! You fucking bitch! Nooo–"
And suddenly, he stopped. Slowly, mechanically, like a robot, he raised the remote control and entered a few codes. When he was done, the countdown stopped. Then, ever so slowly, he removed the dagger from its hilt. It glistened in the lights of the flares, almost like a magical thing. For a second, he stared at it. Then, he turned it, as if to inspect it, seemingly spending an eternity just contemplating the dagger. And when Natsu finally thought that this had been Lucy's game somehow, to make him just sit there forever, he suddenly moved fast. Before Natsu had even fully registered that something was happening, Fuyu had slit his own throat.
Lucy showed the merest hint of a smile. "Fool", she murmured as she picked up the dagger. For a second, she looked at it, then she put it in her belt. With a wipe of her key, the spirits disappeared, as the remaining others fled.
Natsu blinked, just to see whether he still could. What on earth had just happened here? It was too big for his mind to comprehend. Next to him, Gray and Happy were having similar feelings.
Erza was the first to manage to speak. Her voice was icy. "What… was that?"
At that, Lucy gave a start. She turned around to look at them, and Natsu got the distinct impression that she had completely forgotten about them right now.
"Oh, that", she said, and giggled nervously. "Right, well, yeah…"
"He was right, wasn't he?" said Gray suddenly. "Misa Amane… that is you!"
Lucy very pointedly said nothing.
"But… I thought… with the nose!" whined Happy incoherently.
And suddenly, everyone was shouting, although Natsu could later not remember what. Part of it might have been "How could you?", another part might have been "awesome!". Maybe it was the other way around. Finally, it got too much for Lucy, and she held up her hands.
"Yes, okay, okay, I'll tell you!" She took a deep breath. "Yes, Fuyu was right, and yes, I am sorry that I kept that from you. I promise, I'll tell you everything."
For a moment, she paused, lost in thought. Then she added, "Just… don't tell anyone else, okay? I don't want to have to kill you guys."
Author's note: This is my second try at writing this story. The first version had a first chapter that was just incredibly boring with nothing actually happening until a completely artificial showdown at the end. I hope you agree with me that this is better.