Chapter One
Secrets are not Secrets Forever
He was in a burning hell. The once lively, green field was all charred black with flames still rising from them. Blood flooded the ground, most of the ashes of the dead nature being dissolved by the scarlet liquid or life-consuming flames. The sky was a reflection of the ground; all red. A small pink haired boy laid in the midst of burning wood. The scorching of the embers started to consume his body as his stare was fixed on remnants of a figure. Completely charred black, the figure of the person was completely unrecognizable. But the boy could remember what it looked like.
"Mother…" he rasped before screaming from the burning pain of the fire. But his weak voice was drowned out by the deafening roars of the flames. He could quickly feel his vision blurring and pain increasing until he felt his body being patted down by some sort of blanket. The fires hissed but disappeared into smoke as the fire blanket patted away the flames. The boy felt his body being moved as he cracked a warm smile. He saw a black haired boy just before his vision died and his mind went blank.
But even still, his mouth managed a tiny whisper.
"Brother."
The fiery whispers followed him from his dream.
Natsu woke up with the worst headache ever. He slowly blinked his eyes as he reached his hands up to scratch his hair. After five minutes of thinking about his dream, he rose from the couch he was sleeping on and walked over to a mirror. The mirror was a reflection of his messy self. His pink, spiky hair was all ruffled up, his clothes were all dirty and wrinkled, and his eyes wore bags under them. Visible drops of sweat were streaming down his skin. He had seen better days. Even the bright white scarf he always carried with him was dull.
He coughed into his arm and stared vapidly at his reflection. Red eyes gleamed for a second as he growled at the air, "Mard Geer, you really brought back bad memories." At that second, the mirror suddenly shattered when nothing seemingly happened. Natsu frowned as he decided to enter the bathroom to clean himself.
It had been a week since Fairy Tail's battle with Tartaros. As usual, Fairy Tail held a grand celebration over the victory. Cheer, drink, gossip, spill drinks, pass out, then remember nothing when woken up, it was the normal routine for a celebration. All the Fairy Tail members had expected there to be a peaceful transition. Their hopes had been crushed as one single piece of paper declared war and Fairy Tail would have yet another war to fight,
All the members, excluding a certain ace member who never seemed to be around most of the time and a certain fire dragon slayer, huddled around a table. The master, Makarov, stood on the table as he prepared to read the article's contents.
In bold print, the title was "FAIRY TAIL | A GREAT, DARK THREAT"
Makarov skimmed the contents of the article once more before reading out loud, "Fairy Tail, having defeated all three of the most vilest guilds of the Baram Alliance, raises many questions as people grow suspicious of why Fairy Tail is destroying all the dark guilds one by one…"
Many whispers erupted to comment on the first sentence. The members quickly argued that light guilds are allowed to take down dark guilds as it is apart of their job. A certain scarlet haired mage, Erza, silenced everyone and signaled Makarov to continue.
"No doubt is this 'light' guild called Fairy Tail considerably strong as it is shown in their performance in the Grand Magic Games and in their merit for defeating the main trio of the Baram Alliance. However, as proven continuously in the time period before and after their seven year disappearance, they are destroyers. Every town they visit turns into crumbles and every sky they touch is polluted by smoke or blood. Now that there is no council able to keep this light guild in check, who is to say that this guild will betray the light and join the dark. Perhaps during their 'Seven Year Disappearance' they were actually discussing and plotting the destruction of the whole world. Perhaps the reason they are defeating all the dark guilds is because they want to take control of the dark guild world for themselves."
Again, the guild exploded in protests to the words of the article but it wasn't exactly the speculation of the article that riled everyone up. No one could really care less of what blasphemy any reporter said about Fairy Tail. It was the next section that irritated everyone.
The heading was THE DANGEROUS MEMBERS TO LOOK OUT FOR
Makarov didn't even bother reading this section out loud because it was ridiculous, pretty much by now everyone heard this part of the paper from rumors. The summary of it was that that particular section of the article featured many of the member's background information.
Erza's eyes were shadowed by her bangs as her killing intent swirled the whole room. She couldn't believe her ears when she heard that the article included her past of being a slave in the Tower of Heaven and accused that her experiences being there had caused her to be tainted evil.
Gray left a cold chill in the room as he found out that the article released information about how his family and master died to a demon and accused that his sense of wanting revenge will make him easily manipulable and easy to turn to the dark side. It also included "uses ice to freeze innocent animals to death." It was insulting and exaggerated and there was very much unneeded information.
It was understandable why those two were enraged because their private life had just been violated.
There were more accusations (that were somewhat true) and unnecessary information released on the other members, like Laxus almost destroying Magnolia and having a dark father that corrupted him, Gildarts for being a womanizer, Mira being a sadistic demon, Lucy for abandoning her dad and trying to seduce men with her skimpy outfits, and etc. The most annoyed members about this section were, surprisingly, Macao and Wakaba. Not only did their feature in the section have only one sentence but the sentence was "Beware, Born a pervert."
Unsurprisingly, the exceeds, the children and Levy were not mentioned. Seeing as how the exceeds were always forgotten, and Levy and the children were always seemingly innocent, it was no surprise that they weren't added to the sections. Happy sulked about how he was forgotten… again.
The biggest surprise, however, was that nowhere in the article did it mention Natsu, probably the most destructive mage in the guild. The members thought that perhaps the writer didn't add him because the only thing bad in Natsu's past was that he would accidentally destroy buildings- it wasn't really new information. But in this particular section, it would have been logical to add the fire dragon slayer to the dangerous member list especially since they added Wendy to the list for being "Too cute to be true. Uses innocent, childlike charms to lure in or turn people into pedophiles."
"And..?" Makarov trailed off as he looked up from the paper to look at the guild. "Why did you guys want me to do by reading this?"
Silence spread through the guild like a wildfire. That was a record, the guild never got quiet that fast. Finally someone spoke. "Aren't you going to do something?" and another unnamed member asked. "Someone is ruining our guild's reputation and you're just going to do nothing?"
Makarov sighed. "Brats… I think it's time you learned that the media is just as annoying as the council. The council will do whatever it takes to have control, and the media will do whatever it takes to gain attention. Just think of these papers as the council. No one of importance is going to believe this. It will have no effect. It will have no meaning. End of story."
All the members reluctantly looked at each other for a second, then dispersed in relief. This article had been on their minds for a while, they were glad that the master had dismissed it to be just some nonsense.
Makarov jumped off from the table and sat on the counter. In his mind he was wondering just how the writer of the article acquired such information about the members. His curious eyes drifted to one particular group. Team Natsu. The team was currently venting out the stress and embarrassment caused by what the article had displayed of them. Makarov noticed a certain lack of the member who the team was named after.
The master approached the group and asked, "Where's Natsu?"
The blue cat, Happy, perked his head up to reveal he was eating a fish. "He's sick," Happy said with his mouth full.
"Sick?" the master's eyes widened in disbelief. "Did he eat something again or is he just recovering from motion sickness?"
"No, he has a slight fever and he said he isn't feeling well. He told me to let the team know that they should take a mission without him."
"A fever? That flamebrain has a fever? I find that hard to believe," Gray exclaimed as this was new information to him and the group too.
"A slight fever," Happy corrected happily.
"Maybe we should visit him before we leave on the mission," Lucy suggested.
"I think we will," Erza said, while crushing the paper of the article in her hand. She then approached Mira and requested for a simple A-Class mission. They had originally planned on going on an S-Class mission, but decided it wouldn't feel right without Natsu. That, and they didn't want to hear constant whining from the fire dragon slayer.
After receiving the mission she requested, she went to the team and dragged them outside the guild with Happy trailing behind. Makarov ran after them, also worried for the dragonslayer. He took a sip of his drink before muttering under his breath, "I sense a storm coming." As cliche as the phrase was, it could never be more true.
The group reached his house. The door was slightly open, but it didn't really bother them as they always thought Natsu was the type of person to forget to close and lock his door at night. Also, Happy remembered that he forgot to close the door when he left.
They entered the house to find a mess, as usual. Lucy sweat-dropped as her work to clean this house had been undone… again. There wasn't really anything strange about the mess, except the shattered mirror which Makarov and Erza took note of.
"The mirror wasn't like that when I left…" Happy muttered, now growing concerned.
"Natsu?" Makarov called out.
The response was a deafening silence. Makarov was about to call again but he heard running water.
"Look," Lucy gathered everyone's attention and pointed to the bathroom. The door was closed but there was some water mixed with some dark red color flowing out from the bottom of the door.
Gray banged the door hard. "Hey Flame Brain, open this door!"
Happy shared a nervous glance with Lucy. This time Erza yelled, "Natsu, get out of there or else-"
Gray didn't bother to let Erza finish the sentence and he broke the door down. "Natsu!" he growled in annoyance until he saw the sight in front of him. His eyes widened in astonishment. Makarov looked over to see the inside of the bathroom to find a horrific surprise. The sight made him worried and sick. He grew in size to blockade the others from seeing what was inside, with the exception of Gray who was already inside the bathroom trying to grasp what he was seeing.
"Happy, go get Wendy. Lucy and Erza get Porlyusica, Now!" Makarov ordered with an intense tone. They three shot the master panicked looks as they knew whatever sight was in the bathroom was a bad one. They quickly rushed out of the house to carry out the Master's orders.
Makarov shrunk to his original midget size and his skin revealed bullets of sweat racing down to the ground. He looked sadly to Gray who was having trouble understanding the sight.
Inside the bathroom was an inundation of a bloodied water mixture on the floor. The bath tub was overflowing with water as the water from shower head continuously rained down on the full tub. The most unsettling thing was Natsu laying on the floor, leaning on the side of the tub. His arm had a lot of cuts in the water filled tub, making all the water red from his blood. The rest of him was in a puddle of blood, with water sweeping it away. There were deep cuts and lacerations everywhere on his body, spilling out streams of blood to the floor. In his hand was a bloody knife to their surprise. His eyes were closed, like he was at peace, a very unsettling expression when seeing someone injured or possibly dead at a scene like this.
Makarov walked passed Gray to approach the bloody dragon slayer. He would do the thing that usually determined life or death: checking his pulse. He sighed deeply and prayed to the first master that he would be alive. The old master placed two fingers over Natsu's neck, to the side of his windpipe.
The feeling of no beat terrified the two of them as they thought the dragon slayer would be gone forever, and by what? From the scene it looked like Natsu hurt himself. Killed himself.
Makarov always wanted a few seconds of peace and quiet from time to time because his guild was always rowdy, but not like this. He hoped that the fire's beat would get going, he wouldn't mind a couple of villages and forest being burnt down for cost of this life.
After more seconds of a killing silence, there it was.
The fiery beat.
Natsu wasn't really sure what happened. One second, he was washing his face, with the occasion of banging his head on the sink faucet to try to get rid of his horrible headache- it didn't help at all though. The next second, his daylights were knocked out, literally. Suddenly, everything turned dark as if someone killed the sun. Immediately, his battle instincts kicked in and tried to locate any enemy near him by smell and sound. For a second, Natsu thought he didn't pay his electricity bill, but he forgot that his house's main source of light was the natural sun and fire, so the darkness had to be someone's doing. Luckily, his bathroom was small, smaller than Lucy's bathroom small, so the person couldn't be in the bathroom with him. Unless that intruder was invisible or intangible which would be so cool. He lit his fist in flame to see what exactly was going on in the darkness.
Then bam, at that instance, he lost consciousness. He didn't know how, but he did. And he really felt ashamed that he was knocked out so easily. There was no way he was going to tell the ice popsicle about this.
When he regained consciousness, he felt wrapped in a warm, fuzzy blanket. He also felt a weight on top of his chest, a weight equivalent to Happy's weight. He didn't bother to open his eyes, the creature sitting on his chest was definitely Happy.
"Happy..?" he said in a low, raspy voice.
Immediately, he felt Happy hug his chest.
"Natsu!" the blue exceed cried.
The painful headache came back and screamed at his brain, along with a searing pain and burn come from the rest of his body. He couldn't help but grab his head. He let out an uncontrollably loud groan before opening his eyes. He saw Wendy right next to the bed he was in. The blue haired girl smiled, "Thank goodness you're okay."
He nodded and realized he was in the guild's infirmary. A room he unfortunately occupied frequently since his membership to the guild. Then he felt a familiar evil/killing intent from a certain red haired woman. To his left, he saw Erza, Gray, Lucy, and Gramps.
"Hey…" he croaked. "How long have I been out?"
"About ten hours," Wendy quietly answered, her eyes fixed on each movement Natsu was making.
"Care to explain?" Erza growled, flashing red, murderous eyes at him.
He was about to ask what they were talking about, but Happy's plead answered his question for him. "Why did you do it?" tears from Happy's eyes spilt on his neck as sad eyes stared at him. "Why did you try to kill yourself?"
Natsu couldn't help but chuckle a bit at the assumption, even under this horrible, melancholy atmosphere. "What are you talking about? Igneel's dying wish was for me to keep living. As if I'd disobey my father's last wish like this," he quietly laughed, even though laughing really hurt his insides. Although it was touching for him to hear his family worried about him if he actually tried to suicide.
"Then… what were you doing in the bathroom?" his eternal rival asked with a tone of carefulness.
"Washing my face," Natsu smiled. "Yeah Ice Princess, I care for my own hygiene too."
Gray growled, "I seriously doubt that, Fire Breath. You always smell horrible."
Natsu would've clashed heads with Gray as usual, but everything hurt so bad, he wasn't sure if he could move without feeling the whole sky's weight on his shoulders. He noticed his friend's stares still on him so he added more details. "Well… there may have been an intruder that may have gotten the better of me…" His eyes focused on Gray, if that Ice Prick made an insult now, then…
"An intruder got the better of you? You of all people?"
"Ahh… Well…" Natsu didn't really need to make an excuse. They knew he was a strong mage and for him to fall so easily, that meant danger. At least he was alive… barely. "It's fine, at least I'm still alive."
They all narrowed their eyes at him.
"Do you know who did this to you?" Lucy asked as she signaled his attention to all the bandages wrapped around his body.
"...No..." he meekly responded. Erza was looking at him like she knew he was still hiding something. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"I don't know. Normally, we'd expect a more angry reaction from you after getting knocked out?" Lucy awkwardly clarified their thoughts.
Natsu snorted and hid under the blanket. "I'm just tired."
"And sulky apparently," Happy coughed with a sheepish look.
Natsu made fake snoring noises so they could all just leave him alone. He heard Gray snicker and the door open then close.
He threw off the blanket since he felt so hot. He saw Wendy still sitting on the stool right next to the bed, her worried expression never faltering.
"Please don't make such sudden movements," she advised as she gently check the bandages all over his body. He deeply breathed in and out as he tried not to focus on all the pain that his nerves were constantly screaming at him.
Thoughts drifting back to the dream and to his origins, he sighed with a pained look. Forgetting that he was not alone, he muttered, "How am I going to tell them?"
"Tell them what?" Wendy innocently looked at him in confusion, still worried for the physical and mental health of one she could think of as an older brother.
"Everything."
Wendy, trying to understand what Natsu meant, sat on her stool while Natsu sat up and stretched his muscles. He looked to be in great pain yet he also looked used to it. Wendy thought it made sense, considering all the battles he fought during his career as a Fairy Tail mage. But then she reminded herself of her analysis of Natsu's injuries. Just cuts, shallow and deep, all over his body. Presumably caused by the knife that was placed in Natsu's hand when they first found him. There was nothing else. No magical residue in the cuts or anywhere else. Nothing else had been inflicted on him. Just many physical injuries.
And it was a miracle he was still alive.
Judging by the scene, the culprit must have either had a personal grudge against the fire dragonslayer or wanted to make it look like he committed suicide. Perhaps his blood was needed for something? Wendy hushed the seemingly random thought. Either way, someone wanted him dead. Just... who? Who could do this without magic? Or who could do this while concealing their magic from the attack? Who would want to kill Natsu?
Many questions, yet Wendy couldn't find any answers from the scene or from the victim. Her mind trailed back to Natsu's words. He wouldn't say anything else afterwards but it was obvious he was hiding something. He was hiding something, she felt a voice in her mind echo back to her. She wouldn't believe it though. Ever since they met, Wendy knew that Natsu was just not one of those types of people who could hide something. At least, hide something he was aware of.
More questions sprouted in her mind, a seed of doubt planted. But all the experiences they had gone through, all the strong bonds they had created with each other washed the doubt away quickly. This was Natsu-san. Everything was going to be okay.
Wendy suddenly heard a loud thump on the chair beside her, making her slightly jump from her seat. She seemingly just realized that Lucy, Gray, and Erza reappeared inside the room, and they dropped a small box containing a deck of cards on the chair. Labeled on it was charades.
"Hey?" Natsu asked, confusion clearly present.
"We're here to play a game," Gray said, his usual cold tone was gone. He seemed more stiff, like he was preparing any moment for the intruder to strike back.
"Uh-huh…" Natsu uncharacteristically sounded unenthusiastic to play a game.
The people all shared worried looks with each other. Natsu had never expressed a disinterest in anything other than nothing. It was understandable if he was upset about the incident. And he was still upset with Igneel's death. They were just hoping to have some team bonding time, to cheer their team member up.
"We're going to play a game, with you," Lucy rephrased in a cheerful tone.
"...Uh-uh," Natsu frowned, shaking his head in refusal.
"Come on… It'll be fun!" Happy said as he bounced from Lucy's shoulder to the couch to poke Natsu in an annoying way. "Natsuuuu… We haven't fished together in a long time! It's time you repay!"
Wendy, thinking that having some team-bonding was a good idea, agreed, "Natsu-san, you can't do anything else in your condition. This will be a good way to pass time."
Natsu sighed in irritation. He seemed like he knew this was an excuse to stay in the room to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid. Or to make sure no one tries to harm him again.
Erza approached the dragon-slayer and shot him one of her deadly glares. "Natsu, do you want to get hurt?"
Natsu turned his head to face Erza. "Fine…" he groaned. Happy and Lucy cheered, even though Natsu didn't exactly look 'pumped'. "What are we playing?"
"Charades," Gray said as his clothes suddenly disappeared.
Natsu knew that he should be acting excited, energetic, happy. However, after that dream, being almost killed by a random intruder, and that whole Tartaros incident, Natsu felt like he was quickly being pulled back to who he was supposed to be.
"We borrowed a deck of cards from Cana," Erza said. "You'll start first. Pick a card."
She put forth a deck of face-down cards in front of Natsu. He picked a card somewhere in the middle of the deck.
Demon, it read on the card. Natsu's eyebrow twitched. It was like the universe was telling him the obvious.
Lucy noticed Natsu's little reaction and decided to peek at the card, despite being against the rules. Her eyes widened as she took the card from Natsu's hands. "Maybe you should pick a different one…" she chuckled to brighten the mood. She showed the card to the other members to show what the card read. They all understood. After just fighting Tartaros, acting like a demon now might be too soon.
Natsu proceeded to pick another card.
This time it was Dragon.
Lucy swiped the card from Natsu's hands and said, "Maybe you should pick another one. Heh…" From the fact that the dragonslayers literally lost their respective dragon, dragons were currently a sore topic for everyone, now wasn't exactly a good time to remember what was lost. She ripped both the Demon and Dragon cards with a sheepish grin.
Natsu picked another one. He was unsurprised about what this card was about.
Death
This really wasn't his day. Natsu scowled, how does someone even act as death anyway? Was he supposed to act like Zeref?
Erza, guessing that what was on the card wasn't something good again, she sliced the card into thin pieces while avoiding Natsu's hand. "What's wrong with these cards? I'm going to have a stern talking to with Cana later..."
"Maybe we should do something else," Wendy sweat-dropped.
"I concur," Erza said as she requipped away the deck of cards. "Gray, go find your clothes while I think of some other game to play."
"What?" He looked down at his bare chest. "Not again!"
Despite the others wanting to play a different game, Natsu decided to pull one last card from the deck while the others were distracted with deciding what other game to play. It couldn't have been worse than the other cards.
Slowly looking at the face of the card, a genuine smile graced Natsu's face.
Friends.
Again, he had no idea how anyone was supposed to act that out, but for the first time that day, he felt happy. Looking up from the card, he glanced at each one of his friends. Erza was scolding Gray for losing his clothes for the umpteenth time that day. Lucy was sweatdropping, then screamed when Wendy suddenly tripped over a bug and knocked her to the floor. Happy was...
"Is it fish?" the blue cat asked as he stared at the fire dragon slayer.
"What?" Natsu's eyebrows knitted in confusion.
"The card. Is the topic fish this time?" Happy said, pointing at the card with drool hanging off his mouth. "You're smiling so it has to be fish!"
"Sorry my friend," Natsu patted Happy's head. "It's not fish."
"Oh," Happy said as he frowned a little. "Then what is it?"
"It's a secret."
"Bah!" Gray said loudly as he had a sarcastic smile on his face. "Flame-brain's incapable of holding secrets."
"Yeah, Gray's right. You're pretty bad at hiding secrets," Happy laughed.
Natsu snorted loudly. Oh if only they knew. "Oh yeah?" his voice rising to meet the tone he usually had when he got into arguments with Gray. "What makes you say that, Ice Princess?"
"I pretty much knew who you were when I first met you," Gray chuckled at the memory of their first encounter. "You're like an open book."
Open book, huh?
Before he could say anything else, Gray received a thrashing from Erza for not having found his clothes yet.
Natsu sighed as he placed his head on his hands. The damn headache came back. He also felt a pit in his stomach, not because he was hungry, but because he had a very bad feeling about something.
But when he thought about his friends, he felt his mind reach a state of clarity... of peace. They were his only reason for living. Forget the mission Zeref gave to him. Forget his original intentions for joining the guild. Forget what he was. Forget who he used to be... his mind flickered to the demons of Tartaros.
Forget who he used to be...
He clenched his right hand as his gaze passed all his friends again. If Zeref wanted to take that away from him... he'd be damn sure to kill him before that happens. Even if it meant destroying his life. "A life that wasn't supposed to be living anyway..." Natsu unknowingly mumbled out lout to himself.
If anything though, he was grateful to have this life.
"Ah! Found it!" Gray exclaimed as he found his clothes, before proceeding to put them on.
Erza tightened her glare on the fire dragon slayer. She might have heard what Natsu said. And given Wendy's expression and enhanced senses, she seemed to have heard him too. They were clearly troubled with all his cryptic messages.
Natsu didn't make any further noise.
Lucy tilted her head, wondering what her friend was thinking about to make him create such pained expressions. "How about we all go on a job? It's been a while."
"Um, sorry Lucy-san, but Natsu-san's in no condition to do anything like that," Wendy reminded the blonde.
Lucy smacked her head for already forgetting. Geez, the man was almost killed today, give him a break, she seemed to mentally slap herself.
"You guys should go on ahead without me," Natsu's lips formed a small smile. Cheerful, but the smile was nothing compared to his usual brilliant grin.
The group, once again, shared worried glances with each other. The fire dragon slayer did just get attacked and almost killed today. They couldn't just leave him behind, knowing that the intruder might strike back. But Makarov did say that he would stay behind and keep an eye on the dragonslayer. Just in case the intruder found out he was still alive and attempted to finish the deed for real.
"I'll stay," Wendy finally broke the silence. "You guys should go since we still need money for the reparations of this city."
Faithful that both dragonslayers and the guild master would be enough to protect themselves, the rest of the wizards marched out to get their mission.
"Okay Master, we're off then," Erza waved as she left walked out of the guild doors.
Makarov nodded as he watched Gray and Lucy follow Erza. He looked at Happy who reluctantly looked at the team and at the room which held Natsu in.
The master patted the head of the blue cat reassuringly. "Natsu will be fine here. You should go with them to get some money for Natsu."
Happy nodded, convinced that his best friend will be okay. He spread his wings and flew to catch up with the team. Carla, whose respective dragonslayer was also staying at the guild, decided to tag along with the team on the mission, at Wendy's request.
Nearing midnight, the guild was almost empty. Mira, who usually stayed at the guild til midnight, had left to tend to a Elfman and Lisanna who had caught some illness. Makarov turned his gaze to the only other member in the guild hall, Max. The sand mage cracked a nervous smile as he picked up a broom and left.
"Night Master," he said.
"Wait," Makarov facepalmed as if he knew what exactly Max's intentions were. The sand mage halted at the Guild Master's request. "You're not going to try to do anything bad, right?"
Max gulped as he attempted to plaster an innocent smile on his face. "No… What could possibly make you think that..?"
Makarov shook his head. "There was no mention of you in that silly newspaper, so I assume you're going to try something reckless to get fame."
Max whistled nervously, clearly unable to hide all signs of guilt. With one last look at the Guild Master, he bolted out the guild building.
The third — or sixth now — guild master sighed as he sat at the bar to pour himself a drink. The silence comforted him, a privilege only available during the dak hours. Drinking down the last ounces of the beer, he stared at the direction of where the infirmary was placed. His worried thoughts consisted of the resident fire dragon slayer.
First there was no mention of the fire dragon slayer in that blasphemous newspaper. Then there was an attack on the unmentioned member. He couldn't help but feel that there was some sort of connection. He wished the members didn't destroy all copies of the newspaper so he could find out who wrote the article.
The sickening feeling of upcoming omens embraced the old man.
The no longer comfortable silence was interrupted by Wendy's cries.
"Natsu-san, please! You mustn't move in your condition!" the sky dragon slayer begged.
Natsu grunted, but didn't reply as he kept his gaze glued to the guild's main entrance, two giant wooden doors.
The two mages present gave Natsu a concerned glance before looking to stare at the main doors as well. Soon, they could feel a dark aura emanating from the other side of the doors. A very dark, cold, deathly aura.
Suddenly, the doors burst open with great force, almost pulling out of its hinges.
Before them stood a young man. His skin had a pale tint, greatly contrasting with his noir colored hair. His face held a gentle smile, yet none of the mages could feel it was pleasant.
Makarov noticed the fire dragonslayer tense up beside him. It almost seemed like Natsu was restraining himself from doing something. However, the cold, hatred-filled glare towards the stranger could not be hidden from anyone.
"Greetings," the man said, his being clad in a black cloak with a white sash over it.
"How may I help you?" Makarov tried to keep his tone pleasant. Despite his instincts telling him that this man was dangerous, he could not allow himself to be rude to a man he just met. No matter how suspicious he was. However, the other members present couldn't stop themselves from taking a defensive or offensive stance.
"You are Master Makarov, I assume?" the mysterious mage politely said with his gaze on the guild master, occasionally flickering to the fire dragonslayer.
"Your assumption is correct," Makarov answered, in the back of his head he wondered if Natsu knew this man. "Who might you be?"
"Ah, I'm sure you've heard of me," the mysterious mage said, suddenly emitting a dark, deathly magic around himself.
Makarov and Wendy's eyes widened in horror as they saw the wooden floor around the mage start to crumble up and disintegrate.
"My name is Zeref." The deathly magic built up and increasingly covered a wider range, compounding everything it touched into dust. Makarov's eyes widened, immediately recognizing the name.
"You may know me as the Black Wizard."
The Black Wizard's magic suddenly burst outwards, erasing every organic matter it touched from existence.
Makarov could do nothing but await death.
Before the wave of death reaches him, the pink haired member of the guild shielded him and Wendy with his body.
Once the deathly magic subsided, Makarov noticed that the pink haired mage had completely disappeared.
Leaving behind only his trademark scarf tainted in black.
"NATSUUUUUU!" Wendy screeched in horror as she came to the conclusion that her friend must have evaporated into dust along with the majority of the guild hall.
She felt Makarov, who was beside her, move to stand between her and the Black Wizard in a defensive/protective stance. She could tell that her guild master was erupting with anger alike a parent who had their child taken away from them, yet he was restrained as if he knew that one wrong move could end both their lives.
"Do not worry," Zeref chuckled, amused with their expressions. "I merely teleported him away. He is unscathed."
Makarov growled, quickly disbelieving the words. Wendy couldn't stop herself from shaking as she too believed that Natsu was forever gone. She quickly grabbed the scarf and hugged it against her chest. The condition of the scarf reminded her of the events at Tenrou Island.
"I have no reason to lie to you. You may soon see him again," the Black Wizard walked closer to them. "You can believe me or not. However, I'm just here to warn you."
"Just here to warn us? You just attacked us and potentially killed one of my children!" Makarov roared with anger.
"My apologies, I sometimes cannot contain my excitement when I meet certain people."
"You're insane…" Wendy couldn't stop herself from blurting out. She, however, quickly clamped her mouth with her hands.
"I hear that's how I got my moniker," Zeref simply replied without even looking at her. "That is besides the point. Come, follow me. Else you might all die."
Despite not wanting to comply with the Black Wizard, they had no other choice but to follow.
Wendy noticed how Makarov seemed to stiffen when Zeref revealed a secret staircase leading down. Nonetheless, they followed him down the steps.
As they walked down the steps, the torches on the wall beside them started lighting up.
"You did a fine job defeating my demons," the Black Wizard started small talk.
Wendy clenched her fists, yet finally finding courage to speak. "I hear that you yourself killed Mard Geer."
"Well, when it looked like my brother wasn't going to finish him off, I went ahead and took action.
Chills went up both Wendy and Makarov's spines. The Black Wizard has a brother? Seemingly deadly enough to kill the leader of the demons? It was a terrifying idea to think about.
"I wonder if you'll be able to survive the next wave," Zeref smirked as he finally reached his destination.
Before the three mages was a large crystal. Looking closely, Wendy could see someone trapped within it.
"How do you know of this?" Makarov scowled as he moved in front of Zeref, like he would give away his life before allowing him to touch the crystal.
"I was friends with her," Zeref said as he enveloped himself in darkness, quickly appearing directly in front of the crystal. He placed his hand on the crystal, the immediate reaction being the crystal shattering in trillions of small pieces.
"NO!" Makarov yelled, but he quickly saw that the body that was inside the crystal was unharmed. Wendy was just confused as many questions swirled in her mind. Like, who's this girl? What's she doing in a crystal? What's she doing in the basement? Why does she look so familiar?
If they were in any other situation, Wendy would have looked on in awe. To see the body of a young girl graciously float down to the floor. Her presence was one of pureness. However, the Black Wizard of Death caught the girl in his arms, causing Wendy to tense up once more, wary of his intentions. It was only then that she realized that this looked like the First Master who had appeared as a ghost during the Grand Magic Games.
"There's going to be a war soon," Zeref said as he laid the girl on the floor, gently. "I thought that perhaps to level out the playing field a bit, you should have your Fairy Tactician to help you."
Despite the many questions that filled Wendy's head, she didn't feel like she would get any answers. So she stayed quiet.
"You have one year to prepare," The Black Wizard's words eerily echoed through the chamber as he suddenly vanished into the darkness.
Wendy bit her lip and stayed in a defensive stance, unsure if the Black Wizard was still present.
She was snapped out of the tension when a long groan reached her ears. It came from the girl that was in the crystal.
Makarov quickly took the girl in his arms and rushed up the staircase, not before telling Wendy to come up as well.
The sky dragon slayer solemnly looked down at the tainted scarf in her arms. After a few seconds, she then proceeded to leave the mysterious chambers and hope to gain answers from the current guild master.
And hoped that Natsu was safe... wherever he was.
He couldn't just leave like this.
Wendy would not accept any fate where Natsu would just disappear from her eyes and never appear ever again.
Author's Note:
Okay, if you know me for my other works, you might be wondering, "Why are you writing this other story when there are three other stories you haven't finished?" I actually have a good excuse: I wrote this chapter TWO YEARS AGO but never published it. I don't even remember writing this XD. But I guess now is a fine time to write and publish this. Despite having three other uncompleted stories... Sigh...
Seeing as how I'm going to try to dive back into the other stories and TRY to finish them, I'm using this story to re-familiarize myself with the characters and concepts of Fairy Tail. I can do this on this new story because... well, no one had any expectations for this story before now.
So yeah, I write this like it's a WARM UP (So forgive me if it sucks) to prepare myself for when I write my... other... cursingly large stories. (Why did I do this to myself?). Though if you're actually interested, don't be afraid to slap on a review.
While I'm here, I might as well say that there are no pairings. I do not even have a decent ability to do romance. :3
Oh well, thanks for reading and hopefully you enjoyed.