Note: Technically written for the WA Alternate Format Challenge. This uses Rashomon style, which basically means that people are interpreting/retelling the same event differently. The story itself is just under 8,000 words, as per challenge rules.
The title is a play on One Thousand and One Nights (aka The Arabian Nights), because each character has a (different) story of what happened. The comparison isn't exact, obviously, but at the time I thought I was dreadfully clever.
A note for the fandom-savvy: This was written to be accessible to fandom-blind readers, so some things have been simplified or modified to either improve comprehension or accommodate the limited word count. I also borrowed Natsu because I wanted someone who knew Gray better than Meredy and Juvia, and he was already on a dragon so it was convenient to use him. I did reread relevant chapters, so I know exactly where I stuck to canon and where I deviated. I just hijacked Gray's "death" scene, and the main change is that Lyon dies.
It all happened so fast.
One minute Fairy Tail was celebrating its victory in the Grand Magic Games, and the next the Eclipse Gate was opening, creating a bridge to the past that spewed out dragons and their spawn to rain fire down on the city.
Meredy hurried through the streets, dodging around the rubble as she searched for Ultear. The two women had been separated in the chaos of the Gate's opening and now Meredy was alone, trying to survive in a warzone where one wrong move spelled death.
A shadow swept overhead and she ducked behind a ruined building, heart pounding. Only seven dragons had made it through the Gate, but it might as well have been seven hundred. And given those strange, silvery creatures they had spawned, it practically was. There were hundreds of dragonlings and they always seemed to pop out of nowhere, magic lasers blasting.
But Meredy didn't have time to cower on her hands and knees forever. Even though Ultear wasn't here, she would still be brave. She could do this.
Peering around her temporary shield, she scanned the street and skies. When nothing jumped out at her, she stood up and hurried on until a flash of blue caught her eye.
"Juvia!"
The figure crouching amidst the ruins started in surprise, and Meredy breathed a sigh of relief as Juvia stood and turned, the blue of her hair unmistakable.
"Is Meredy-san alright?"
"I'm fine, but have you seen Ultear? I can't find her."
"Juvia is sorry, but she has not."
Meredy's heart sank even though it wasn't surprising. Juvia might be Meredy's closest friend outside of Crime Sorcière, but she was still a Fairy Tail mage and the two guilds didn't interact often.
But she had still been hoping–
"Look out!"
Something slammed into Meredy's side, sending her and Juvia sprawling. A blue-white beam of magic slashed through the air where she had just been, and suddenly her scraped knees didn't seem so bad. Gray rolled off the girls and conjured up ice lances that smashed into the dragonling that had nearly killed them.
"You guys alright?" he asked. "Be careful."
"Don't lose your focus!" Lyon added from where he had risen from the rubble. "This is a battlefield."
"Sorry," Meredy mumbled, pulling herself to her feet.
Lyon was right: she couldn't afford to become distracted. She could worry about finding Ultear later.
"Hey, Juvia?" Gray asked. "I have something to tell you, but–"
"Wh-What is it?" Juvia stammered, face lighting up.
"It's nothing important, but–"
"It could be important to Juvia!"
"There's definitely a misunderstanding here," Meredy muttered.
She could tell that Juvia had just jumped to fantasies of Gray giving her a sudden love confession. Gray seemed unwilling to do that at the best of times, much less right in the middle of a battlefield, but hope would always spring eternal with Juvia.
Whatever Gray was going to say was lost as a horde of dragonlings appeared, silvery heads popping up from behind rubble and around corners, open maws alight with a bluish glow. Gray cursed under his breath and threw up a shield just in time, and the dragonlings' magic bounced harmlessly off the ice.
"Don't get distracted," Lyon repeated. "Come on, let's take them out."
"I bet I can kill more than you," Gray said immediately.
"Ha! You wish."
They exchanged grins and Meredy turned away, satisfied that the two ice mages knew each other's magic well enough to fight as a solid team.
"Juvia and I will take the ones on this side," she volunteered, grabbing her friend's arm and tugging her around.
Juvia sighed but fell in beside Meredy, sending a stream of water at a dragonling that jumped out at them. Meredy hurried to help, creating a sensory link that allowed her to attune to and augment Juvia's magic. They fell into a rhythm, their magics melding seamlessly to take down one twisted creature after another.
Meredy was dancing out of the way of another attack when she became aware of a shadow spreading across the area. Her head jerked up, mouth going dry at the sight of the monstrous winged beast above them.
"Juvia! Look out!"
She and Juvia dove for cover in opposite directions as a searing heat passed overhead.
A scream rent the air.
Meredy's heart jumped into her throat, but she didn't dare rise until the dragon had moved on. When no more heat followed the initial blast, she stumbled to her feet and absently noted the dragon's retreating form before her focus was drawn away.
Lyon was on the ground, crimson blood vivid against his pale skin, eyes wide and unseeing. Gray knelt by his side, pressing ice to the fallen mage's chest in an attempt to seal over the wound. His scream had cut off, but his pupils were blown wide and his expression was twisted into one of utter horror as he frantically tried to stop the blood loss.
Meredy took off running. Lyon had warned them not to get distracted, but they had been so busy fighting the dragonlings that they hadn't noticed the dragon overhead and now Lyon was–
"No, no, no," Gray was mumbling, his voice trembling as violently as his hands.
Meredy sucked in a shuddering breath as her knees crashed into the splintered stone and she took in the mess of red streaking Lyon's chest.
"No," she breathed. "Lyon…"
"How could you do this to me?" Gray asked, one hand rising to press against his mouth and leave a smear of red across his skin. The tears clouding his eyes began to break free, tracking through the grime and blood covering his cheeks. "Don't you die on me. Don't you dare–"
"Lyon-san!" Juvia wailed, pulling herself to her feet. "Is Lyon-san…?"
"Where is Wendy?" Gray demanded, tearing his gaze away from Lyon's lifeless face to look around desperately. "Or Chelia? We need them to–to–"
It was too late for the healers to help. Meredy reached out tentatively with her magic, only to be rebuffed by the empty void swallowing Lyon.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered, swiping a hand across her tearstained cheeks. "He's gone, Gray. He's gone."
"No, no, he can't be…" Gray's face crumpled and he covered his eyes as sobs racked his body. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
"Gray-sama–" Juvia started.
Remembering Lyon's warnings, Meredy twisted around just in time to see a dragonling duck out from behind a ruined shell of a building, its magic aiming directly for–
"Juvia! Behind you!"
Juvia turned as if in slow motion and stumbled back a half-step, but it wasn't going to be enough.
Gray dropped his hands from his face and lunged forward faster than thought, nearly tripping over Lyon's body in his haste. His hand shot out, fingers snagging the back of Juvia's dress and yanking her to the ground.
The shot meant for Juvia blasted straight through his chest, leaving him reeling, eyes wide with incomprehension. For a second, a fragile peace lingered over the area, only to be broken by a sudden hail of magic as the dragonling horde crawled out of the woodwork and fired shot after shot through his body. Gray was falling, but not fast enough to escape the shot through his forehead—a kill shot.
"Gray-sama!"
Meredy barely even realized that she was screaming too as she crawled over to where Gray had fallen. His hair was shadowing the wound in his forehead, the lifelessness of his eyes, but it didn't hide the blood or the way that his chest wasn't moving at all. Meredy didn't need to reach out with her magic to know that he was dead.
And then the world wavered, the very fabric of reality shuddering and twisting around them, and Meredy gaped in disbelief as time itself seemed to reset.
Suddenly she was kneeling a few paces away, Gray was hunched over Lyon, Juvia was stumbling towards them. Had she imagined it? But it had seemed so real…
The Eclipse Gate had been created for time travel, had managed to bring people from the future and dragons from the past, so maybe she hadn't imagined it at all. Maybe the Gate had warped time so much that the ripples were still being felt. Maybe Meredy had just gotten a glimpse of the future.
"Juvia, get down!" she called when the water mage showed no sign of changing course. Perhaps she hadn't gotten the same glimpse that Meredy had?
Juvia glanced back just as that dragonling appeared, and dropped to the ground. Meredy wanted to cry in relief. Juvia would be safe now, and Gray–
Gray was rising to his feet anyway, stepping over Lyon's body as if he was still reaching for Juvia.
"Gray!" Meredy cried, realizing that he hadn't seen her vision either.
"Gray-sama!"
Juvia launched herself across the ground and hooked a hand around Gray's ankle. He fell hard, slamming into the ground just as the first shot of the dragonlings' salvo whizzed harmlessly over his head.
Meredy breathed a sigh of relief and crawled over to join her friends as they found debris to shelter behind. Juvia was trying to get Gray to talk, but he just stared ahead blankly, his eyes vacant and dead.
"I'm sorry," Meredy said, resting a hand on his arm. "It was a horrible accident."
Something in his eyes told her that she had said the wrong thing.
"I'm sorry," she said again, "but we have to go."
"I'm not leaving him," Gray snarled, hands tightening into helpless fists.
"Gray, he's–"
"I won't!"
"Lyon-san loved Gray-sama very much," Juvia said. "He would want Gray-sama to live."
"And that means that we need to go," Meredy added. "We'll come back for him, okay? We'll come back."
It was a long moment before Gray nodded slightly and let them drag him away, his eyes empty as he stared after his dead friend.
.
Fairy Tail might have somehow managed to destroy the Eclipse Gate and send the dragons back to their own time, but Meredy didn't feel like celebrating. Even if she had been invited to the celebratory ball at the castle—which she wasn't, since she was technically a criminal—she still wouldn't.
Crime Sorcière was still missing a member.
Meredy walked through the ruined city at Jellal's side, tugging up her hood to hide her face as she searched the streets for Ultear.
"I'm sure she's alright," Jellal said.
"But where is she?" Meredy asked, voice wavering.
"I don't know, but–"
"Excuse me, might you be Meredy-san and Jellal-san?"
They started in surprise and spun around to see a wrinkled old woman standing behind them. Meredy's heart hammered in her chest as she realized that someone had recognized them and could turn them in to the Council. Escaped criminals couldn't expect mercy.
"Who–?"
"I have a letter for you."
"Could it be…?" Fear instantly forgotten, Meredy snatched the proffered envelope and tore it open.
Meredy, Jellal, I'm sorry. My magic failed during the battle and this is the end of my journey, but you must continue on for me. Don't forget the spirit of Crime Sorcière: to never forget your sins, to atone for your sins, but to always have hope that your sins will one day be forgiven. I love you, goodbye.
-Ultear
"Ul…" Meredy whispered, hands tightening around the page as tears dripped down her cheeks.
"Where did you–?" Jellal broke off and Meredy looked up to see what was wrong.
The old woman was gone. The two mages stared at the empty road for several long moments.
"Ul is–is–"
"She was able to give us a message, so maybe it's not as bad as she makes it seem. But if she doesn't want to be found, she won't be found. Crime Sorcière still has a mission, and we'll have to continue with or without Ultear."
"Do you think that she'll be alright? And Gray and Juvia?"
"I think so," Jellal said with a sigh. "They're all very strong people and they'll work through this."
Meredy swallowed hard. Jellal was right that they were all strong and could fight their own fights. And Meredy had to be strong now too, because her guild still had its own fight as well.
Maybe she should be celebrating the defeat of the dragons and the correction of the timestream, but all she felt in her heart was loss.
It all happened so fast.
One minute Gray-sama was trying to tell Juvia something—surely it was a love confession, it had to be a love confession—and the next a swarm of dragonlings was appearing from amidst the ruins of the city.
Juvia reluctantly let Meredy pull her around, wondering why the stupid beasts couldn't have waited two minutes so that she could have gotten her confession already. She took out her frustrated aggression on them, rushing to kill them so that she could return to her beloved's side.
Beside her Meredy was a soothing presence, her magic winding around Juvia's and strengthening it. They made a good team, although Juvia would rather be fighting with Gray-sama. She really, really wanted that confession.
"Juvia! Look out!"
Meredy's cry dragged Juvia out of her thoughts, and she realized that the street around her had darkened considerably. She looked up to see a dragon above them, and launched herself to the side to take cover under a broken slab of stone, praying that Meredy had found protection of her own.
She peeked around the side to look for Gray-sama, only to see Lyon shove him aside. A blueish beam of light streaked past her, leaving her seeing white.
A scream rent the air.
The dragon overhead screeched, and the air superheated as a sudden inferno blasted through the streets. Juvia jerked back behind her shield, eyes welling with tears as her body trembled with the effort of not running straight over. She couldn't go out until the dragon was gone, but she needed to go to Gray-sama right now and make sure that he and Lyon were okay.
Except that she didn't think Lyon was okay, which meant that Gray-sama wasn't either. Lyon had pushed Gray-sama out of the way, taken an attack meant for the younger mage. Surely he wasn't dead. No, he couldn't be. There was always too much life in his eyes, his laugh, his smirk. It couldn't be snuffed out just like that.
But if it was, Gray-sama would never forgive himself.
The heat faded and Juvia jumped to her feet, in such a rush that she tripped and slammed face-first into the ground. By the time she had shaken off her daze, Meredy was already kneeling beside Gray-sama, who was hunched over Lyon as he tried to staunch the blood.
"No, no, no… How could you do this to me?"
Juvia's heart shattered into pieces. Gray-sama was so hurt that Lyon had saved him, and Lyon was…
"Don't you die on me. Don't you dare–"
"Lyon-san!" Juvia cried, finally forcing her legs into motion. "Is Lyon-san…?"
He couldn't be dead. But when Gray-sama called for Wendy, Meredy just shook her head, tears streaming down her face.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
Juvia rushed forward, needing to stop Gray-sama's sobbing, tell him that it wasn't his fault, somehow shove her own broken heart aside as she tried not to look at Lyon's blood-covered body.
"Juvia!" Meredy yelled. "Behind you!"
Juvia turned to see a dragonling and stepped back, her hands lifting automatically as if to ward off the attack.
Something grabbed her from behind and sent her sprawling. She looked up just in time to see the dragonling's magic blast through Gray-sama's head, to see the man she loved fall to the ground with half a dozen holes torn through his body.
"Gray-sama!" she screamed, lunging for him.
There was so much blood, oh God, oh God, the blood was everywhere, he was dead, oh God, he was dead. Why, why, why?
At first Juvia thought it was just the tears clouding her vision that made the world waver dangerously, but when her vision cleared she was on her feet, stumbling towards Gray-sama and Meredy as they knelt by Lyon's body. It gave her pause for a moment, but she pressed on.
Gray-sama wasn't dead. Juvia could still feel the anguish, see the blood, hear the screams, but everything was just the same. She must have imagined it. Everyone always told her that her imagination was too active, that it could distort reality, but her fantasies usually involved Gray-sama and love confessions, not anything this dark.
But for now she pushed it aside even though the image was seared into her memory, needing to get to her beloved without being distracted by useless fantasies.
"Juvia, get down!" Meredy cried.
Juvia automatically looked behind her as if she was actually expecting to see the dragonling from her fantasy, and gasped as a dragonling did appear. She threw herself to the ground, mind racing in confusion.
"Gray!" Meredy shrieked, her shrill voice piercing through Juvia's fog.
Gray-sama was standing up like he hadn't seen the danger, and Juvia could not watch him die again. Lunging forward, she grabbed his ankle and tugged him down to safety. He stayed down, stiff and unmoving as he stared ahead vacantly.
"Gray-sama, we need to find better cover."
He showed no sign of acknowledging her, so Juvia took his arm and pulled him behind a crumbling half-wall.
"Juvia is very, very sorry about Lyon-san, but she is also glad that Gray-sama is not dead. The dragonlings are coming and Gray-sama is in no shape to fight and… Gray-sama? Gray-sama, please talk to Juvia."
He stayed silent, unnerving her with his utterly lifeless expression. Meredy ducked behind the wall to join them and Juvia hoped she might have more luck, but she didn't get a reaction until she insisted that they leave. And oh, Juvia understood why Gray-sama didn't want to leave Lyon behind, but they were outnumbered and down two fighters and had to go.
"Lyon-san loved Gray-sama very much," she said, wanting him to understand that he needed to fight to preserve the sacrifice Lyon had made for him. "He would want Gray-sama to live."
Something in his eyes told her that she had said the wrong thing.
But he still nodded and let her guide him away, even though the wrongness in his eyes never disappeared.
.
Despite the party swirling around her, Juvia didn't feel like celebrating. The other guilds could celebrate the defeat of Future Rogue and his dragons, but Juvia was still filled to bursting with tears for Lyon and Gray-sama. Even the rest of Fairy Tail seemed subdued, shooting her and Gray-sama sad, worried looks.
Ignoring them, she searched for Gray-sama. It took nearly an hour before she found him sitting in a hallway beyond the ballroom, knees pulled to his chest and eyes distant.
"Gray-sama? Juvia thinks that Lyon-san–"
"Don't," he interrupted hoarsely, hunching his shoulders.
Juvia waited, but he made no move to elaborate. So he didn't want to talk about Lyon then. Maybe it would be better to distract him somehow?
"Um, what did Gray-sama want to tell Juvia?"
He finally looked over at her, eyes clouded with vague incomprehension. "What did I…? Oh. I…don't even remember now. It wasn't important."
Not a love confession then. Juvia immediately wanted to smack herself for being so selfish, but she didn't even have time to apologize before Gray-sama pulled himself to his feet.
"Excuse me, I should…go."
She watched until he disappeared around the corner, resolving to try again later and do a better job.
But he seemed to be avoiding her after that, and she spent the rest of the day searching for him unsuccessfully. When they later piled into carriages to head home, she spotted her chance.
Only to have Gajeel shake his head as he gently tugged her away to a separate wagon. "Let him be with his team right now."
It was a miserable ride and all she could think of was Gray-sama in the other carriage, consumed by grief and guilt. He was the first person Juvia looked for when they reached Magnolia, but the entire city had turned out to throw a celebratory parade and it was too easy to lose him in the chaos. She wanted to scream at the bystanders that there was nothing to celebrate when Lyon was dead, but they continued to rejoice in Fairy Tail's victory in the Games. That seemed so long ago already, so unimportant.
She finally spotted Gray-sama talking to Natsu and rushed over, but he turned away and disappeared into the crowd.
Natsu grabbed her arm when she tried to follow. "You know how he is. He wants to be alone and it's better to give him space for now."
"But–"
"Let him go."
Juvia wanted to protest, but grudgingly subsided. Despite all their bickering and brawling, it was a poorly-kept secret that Gray-sama and Natsu were best friends. Natsu knew Gray-sama and how he worked and… And Juvia knew that he was right.
But after the parade was over, she still headed straight for Gray-sama's apartment and lurked outside as she tried to decide what to do. In the end, she decided to wait. She was already very skilled at keeping an eye on Gray-sama—it wasn't stalking, just…surveillance—so it made sense to hover around his apartment as she waited for him to make an appearance.
Days later he still hadn't appeared, and it worried Juvia enough that she finally worked up the nerve to knock on his door as evening fell. There was no response.
"Gray-sama?" She knocked again and craned her neck to look in the side window, but the curtains were drawn and there was no light peeking through. "May Juvia come in?"
She tested the doorknob, but it was locked. She sighed in defeat, barely noticing the storm clouds gathering and the rain beginning to fall in response to her dejection. Gray-sama wasn't answering and–
And he was probably out on a job, she realized. When he was upset, he tended to take a job and disappear for a few days or weeks before reappearing with his normal cheerful attitude firmly back in place. Juvia must have missed him leave.
She should leave it alone, but… She loved him and he needed her. She could take care of him and then–
No, for now she wouldn't worry about making him fall in love with her. She needed to push her impulses aside and just be there for him, because right now he needed a friend more than he needed someone pushing her advances on him. It would be hard, but Juvia could do that. For a little while. Maybe.
If she went to the guild then she could ask Mira what job Gray-sama had taken. Mira always knew things like that. Nodding firmly, Juvia turned and hurried down the street, eager to set her plan into motion.
Her sudden determination had made the rain shower stop, so she wondered why it was that she still felt like she was drowning.
It all happened so fast.
One minute Natsu was leaping onto Future Rogue's dragon mount to take the bastard out, and the next a horrible scream was rending the air.
Natsu's stomach flopped over uncomfortably, and he aimed one more punch at his opponent's face before scrambling to peer over the edge of the dragon's body. Because that had been Gray, and Natsu had never heard his rival scream like that before.
His keen eyes quickly picked out Gray in the wasteland. Juvia and Meredy seemed fine, but Gray was kneeling over Lyon and Lyon looked…dead. Natsu hoped that he was just too far away to see the telltale signs of life. He had never exactly been close to Lyon, but he certainly didn't want him dead. And Gray was close to him, and would not only be devastated but find a way to blame himself instead of the scores of dragonlings running around.
"Did they kill one of your friends?" Future Rogue asked from behind Natsu. "Good."
Natsu threw himself back just in time to avoid the sudden blast of shadow magic, and turned to glower at his foe.
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
The other man just laughed, the light of madness gleaming in his eyes, and went back on the offensive. Natsu burned through the shadows with his fire, fighting to keep his footing as the dragon lurched beneath them. He needed to take this guy out and find a way to fix the damage he'd done to the timestream before someone else got hurt.
"Gray-sama!"
"Shit," Natsu breathed, dodging around Future Rogue to look down at the streets below again.
Gray's group was farther behind now, but Natsu could still see all the blood. And Gray was clearly dead. It was impossible though, because Gray was too stubborn to die. Not like that. He was way too tough and…
Natsu thought he might be sick.
"Oh good, they got him that time," Future Rogue said brightly.
Natsu rounded on him, eyes blazing. "I'm going to kill you," he snarled, no longer caring that Fairy Tail mages didn't kill. "I'm going to rip you apart for that."
He lunged forward, flames roaring to life in response to his fury born of the pain he didn't want to feel. Anger was good because it meant that he didn't have to hurt as much.
Pouncing on his opponent, he sent them both crashing down. He was just about to smash a fiery fist into the bastard's face when the world seemed to waver and blur.
"Huh?" He looked around in confusion, not understanding how he was now standing several feet away. "What the hell?"
"You felt that too?" Future Rogue asked, sadistic plans forgotten in the face of this oddity.
"Gray!"
"Gray-sama!"
Natsu's head jerked around and he stumbled over to look at the ground again, to see Juvia tugging Gray behind a piece of crumbling wall. Gray? But hadn't Gray been…?
Natsu turned on Future Rogue. "What did you do?"
"Me? I didn't do anything."
"Oh yeah? Who's the one who's been screwing around with the timestream?"
"What…?" The time traveler stepped over to peer down at the streets below, and his mouth twisted into a scowl. "Seriously? I thought the dragonlings killed him already."
"You know, I like your current self better."
He had the nerve to laugh. "He'll become me, you know."
"Not if I have anything to say about it. We still have time to change that future, and I will stop you from wrecking your past." Natsu had had enough. "Looks like it's time to take you down."
Oh, Future Rogue tried to fight, but Natsu was having none of it. He couldn't risk prolonging the battle until someone else died. Not this time.
He slammed into his opponent full force and smashed what was left of his magic into a vulnerable point in the wing of the dragon beneath them, driving the beast down. They all crashed into something large and flopped to the ground.
Natsu pinned Future Rogue down, but the man seemed to waver and then he and his dragon vanished. Looking up in confusion, Natsu spotted Lucy nearby and finally saw what he had crashed into.
"You…destroyed the Eclipse Gate?" Lucy asked faintly, staring at the wrecked remains of what had once been a portal. "We couldn't make a dent in it, but you just come by and smash a dragon into it… Thank goodness. Everything should be fixed now."
Natsu's brief flicker of triumph faded. He didn't think that everything was fixed.
"I need to find Gray."
He hurried off, searching for his friend even though he was afraid of what he would find.
.
Natsu didn't feel like celebrating, and it wasn't only because of his motion sickness. He curled into a miserable ball beside Lucy and Happy, every jolt of the carriage making his stomach heave. But that still wasn't half as bad as watching Gray, who was sitting next to Erza but ignoring her in favor of staring blankly out the window.
When Natsu had found Gray, his friend hadn't been the same. Lyon was dead and Natsu just knew that Gray was blaming himself like an idiot. The surviving ice mage hadn't said more than a handful of words since, and had been avoiding everyone. Even being stuck in a small box with the rest of the team, he still managed to somehow avoid them. Happy and the girls had tried to draw him into conversation, but he was too dead to the world to bother.
"Stop the carriage!" Gray said suddenly, jumping to his feet.
Natsu tried to ask what was wrong, but his question turned into a dry heave and he clamped a hand over his mouth instead.
"What happened?" Erza demanded.
"…Never mind." Gray's eyes dimmed and he dropped back into his seat, pressing his forehead against the window and hunching his shoulders.
"What–?"
"Nothing. Just…nothing."
He wouldn't say another word despite the girls' badgering, but Natsu could see the silent tears running down his face even though he was trying to hide them. Natsu looked out the window, searching for anything that could have made Gray react like that, but the road was empty aside from some old woman ambling along.
Another jolt sent him scrambling to keep his food down, and he gave up trying to figure out Gray's issues. His motion sickness kept him occupied for the rest of the ride, but he felt rejuvenated once they reached Magnolia and he could set foot on the ground again.
Upon exiting the carriage, he was immediately accosted by half the city. What the hell? Then he remembered Fairy Tail's win at the Games and sighed. Usually he loved a good party, but not when Gray was like this. Speaking of Gray…
He approached his friend cautiously, noting his pained expression and clenched fists.
"Hey, ice block–" Natsu broke off as Gray flinched, immediately realizing his mistake. Nicknames were okay, but not when they could also be applied to another ice mage, one who was now dead. "I… Sorry, Gray."
Gray turned to him, expression unreadable. "What?"
Natsu wasn't any good with words, but whatever he said next had to be the right thing. And he had no idea what that might be.
"Gray, it's not your fault."
Something in Gray's eyes told Natsu that he had said the wrong thing.
"Mm," Gray hummed noncommittally, averting his gaze. "I think…I think I'm just going to go home."
"Of course. I get that celebrating isn't… I'm sorry."
Gray closed his eyes and turned away. "I'm sorry too," he said softly.
Natsu watched him disappear into the crowd, and then hurriedly stopped Juvia from following him. She was sweet and all, but the last thing Gray needed now was a lovesick tagalong.
Even once she'd drifted off, Natsu stayed frozen.
"Do you think he'll be alright?" Lucy asked from behind him.
Turning, he noticed Happy and the girls for the first time.
"Honestly?" He shook his head. "No. You know how much he loved Lyon, and he'll blame himself for this. I mean, he still thinks he killed Ur, and that was an accident that happened over a decade ago. But he's tough and he'll bounce back. Just… He might not be the same."
Erza sighed. "Lyon was the last connection to his past. His parents, his master, his childhood friend… They're all dead now. All he has left is Fairy Tail."
"Will that be enough?" Happy asked, wrapping his paws around himself and fluttering his wings mournfully.
"It's going to have to be."
"Let's just give him some space," Natsu said. "He'll come back when he's ready."
Except that Gray didn't come back. Everyone's first assumption was that he had taken a job and run off to mourn on his own somewhere, until Mira pointed out that he hadn't taken a registered job. The girls were now convinced that Gray had just left, had maybe even gone up to Isvan to grieve at his childhood home until he was ready to face everyone again.
Natsu would have normally agreed, but he had his doubts. He had been worried enough to stop by Gray's place frequently, and he might have missed something because Juvia had been doing her normal stalking routine so the area had gotten rained out a couple times, but he had sniffed around with his dragon-enhanced nose and hadn't smelled Gray anywhere. Call it a hunch, but he had the feeling that Gray hadn't left his apartment in days.
Now that was worrisome.
Natsu would usually leave Gray alone to figure things out himself, but it was time to step in. The problem being that Juvia was still creeping around, dragging rainclouds with her. Natsu didn't particularly want to get trapped in a tearful conversation with her right now, so he hung back and waited, watching as she fruitlessly knocked at the door and then slunk off.
He waited a couple minutes in case she came back, and then approached the apartment himself. After seeing Juvia's failure, he didn't expect it to be easy to get Gray to open up. He wasn't disappointed.
"Come on, open up," he called, knocking on the door. "It wasn't nice to ignore Juvia like that."
Unsurprisingly, there was no response. Pressing his ear to the door, he couldn't hear any sound from inside.
"If you don't open the door in three seconds then I'm going to kick it down. Three…two…one…"
Natsu slammed into the door and it splintered in a satisfying way.
The inside of the apartment was pitch black, with only a narrow sliver of light pushing back the shadows from where the dying daylight poured through the doorway. It caught on the edge of a puddle of water on the floor, gleaming faintly against the shadowy backdrop. Was Gray not even taking care of basic maintenance anymore? Damn.
"Gray? I'm coming in."
Natsu inched inside and began blindly groping along the wall for the light switch. Funny, but he could smell… Nah, definitely not. His stomach turned anyway. Then his searching hand finally found the switch and light flooded the room.
His scream echoed through the streets, loud enough to be heard back at the guild.
It all happened so fast.
One minute Gray was fighting off half a dozen dragonlings, and the next he was panicking as something shoved him from behind, spinning around and lashing out automatically, eyes widening in horror at the ice sticking through Lyon's chest.
A dragonling attack whizzed by his ear and behind them a dragon's blast toasted the area, but Gray could only stare at Lyon in shock. The older mage stared back, eyes clouded with pain and incomprehension, then swayed and collapsed.
A scream rent the air.
Gray dropped to his knees, the wailing dying in his throat as he dissolved his magic. It only served to unclog the hole in Lyon's chest and there was so much blood, it was everywhere, why wouldn't it stop?
"No, no, no," he whimpered, trying to freeze over the wound with trembling hands.
All he could see was all that blood and the betrayal reflected in Lyon's glassy eyes. Oh God, he hadn't been thinking, he'd panicked because something had hit him from behind in the middle of a battle. Shit, the dragonlings would have just blasted him from a distance, not come right up to him. What had he been thinking? It hadn't been the dragonlings, it had been Lyon and Lyon was…
"How could you do this to me?"
How could I do this to you? I'm sorry, so sorry.
"Don't you die on me. Don't you dare–"
Please, please don't die. I didn't mean to… Oh God, I'm sorry.
He jerked his head up and looked around desperately. If they could just find one of the healers…
"He's gone," Meredy breathed from beside him. He didn't even know when she'd gotten there.
"No, no, he can't be…" He already knew that Lyon was gone, could read the lifelessness in his eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
Something in Lyon's unseeing eyes told Gray that he'd found the right thing to say far too late.
He folded in on himself, burying his face in his hands as he sobbed. Lyon was gone, and Gray hadn't even told him sorry first.
"Juvia!" Meredy cried. "Behind you!"
Gray looked up, for the first time remembering that they were still in a warzone, and lunged for Juvia before he even realized what he was doing. All he knew was that he couldn't watch someone else die, couldn't have someone else's death on his conscience.
He managed to pull Juvia down, but a searing pain ripped through his chest. It all happened too fast for him to process, the shots hitting him until–
…
Gray was kneeling, hands pressed against his eyes as he cried over Lyon's body. But that was wrong, because he could almost remember…
He looked up, studying the world through a blurry lens of tears. He could have sworn that he'd just…died. Like Lyon. But he wasn't dead and Lyon was, and it was weird to have a vision of his own death somehow.
A dragonling popped up over some rubble and Meredy was screaming and Juvia was dropping to the ground and Gray… Gray stood up.
It was only as Juvia grabbed him and pulled him out of harm's way that he realized he'd stood up because he had wanted it, that death he'd somehow escaped. The one he deserved. That idea, wanting to die, was so foreign to him that all he could do was stare ahead blankly, emotions draining away as he tried to figure out how it had come to this.
It felt so wrong not to care whether he lived or died, and even more wrong to know that he'd taken that choice away from the man he considered a brother.
He barely even noticed Meredy and Juvia at all until Meredy finally touched him and pulled him out of his empty daze.
"I'm sorry. It was a horrible accident."
This wasn't an accident—this was murder.
But he could not leave Lyon now, not when he'd killed him like that. He couldn't leave no matter what the girls were saying, because…because… He just couldn't.
"Lyon-san loved Gray-sama very much. He would want Gray-sama to live."
He shouldn't have, because I… How is it fair that I should live when I killed him?
"We'll come back."
What good would that do? He's gone. He's…
He was gone, Gray realized, letting out a shuddering breath. All that was left was an empty shell where his brother should have been, and what Gray was trying to guard was no longer there.
So he let the girls drag him away, trying to erase the memory of the uncomprehending betrayal in Lyon's eyes.
.
There was nothing to celebrate. Gray could barely even summon up any relief that the dragons had been defeated and no one else was dead, even though he objectively knew that he was glad for it. It was hard to feel anything else past the alternating stretches of empty deadness and blinding pain.
It hadn't taken him long to realize that no one else knew what had happened—how could they have missed something so brutal?—and somehow that made things even worse. Everyone was trying to offer him condolences, and it made him want to crawl in a hole and die.
So he avoided everyone as best he could and kept his mouth shut because he was afraid of what he'd say if he started talking, afraid that he'd start apologizing and never be able to stop. He stayed trapped in his own mind, replaying those fatal few seconds over and over again, trying to hide away from the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, he wasn't so lost in thought that he missed the little old lady by the side of the road. He wasn't sure what about her had caught his attention when he'd never seen her before in his life, but then she looked over and smiled and he knew.
"Stop the carriage!" he cried, stumbling to his feet in a sudden panic.
The woman's smile widened and she shook her head slightly. Gray hesitated a moment and then collapsed back into his seat, curling into himself and fighting back the tears he knew were coming.
"…Never mind."
That had been Ultear. He wasn't sure how he knew that when her hair was gray instead of glossy black, her skin wrinkled instead of smooth, but he knew. And then it hit him, what she must have done. Because Ultear used time magic, and hadn't time gotten messed up back during the fight? When he'd 'died'?
He had seen her turn back the time of a building to magically reconstruct it, fast forward the time of his ice to make it crumble away, but this… Something of this magnitude should be impossible, because he knew that he wasn't the only one who had experienced the hiccup in the timestream. Whatever she had done, either it had failed or had exacted a terrible price from her.
And the only thing that had come of it was that Gray hadn't died like he was supposed to.
That was why he didn't stop the carriage, even though it hurt to leave her behind. What was he supposed to say? She had saved him, but he didn't deserve it. And if she'd done whatever she had done just a couple minutes earlier and rewound time then, Lyon would be alive instead. Gray didn't know how to be grateful for that.
Pressing himself ever closer to the window, he bowed his head and let the tears fall. Ultear had saved him, sacrificed for him, just like her mother had before her. Because Ur had come after him when he'd foolishly chased after a demon, had died for him. And now Ultear… And Lyon…
Gray was no stranger to heartache, but this pain was different. He had always been good at picking up all his shattered pieces and gluing them back together, at standing up and stepping forward instead of giving up. He had always been a survivor. He had survived when the demon had destroyed his home and killed his parents, when his stupidity had gotten Ur killed, when he had lost everything and not known what to do. He might have been able to survive this with Ultear too, but having killed Lyon, knowing that he had been saved when Lyon had not… He didn't know how to live with that.
Between Ur and Ultear and Lyon, was there anyone's life that he hadn't ruined?
Gray still had the presence of mind to force the tears back and surreptitiously try to make himself presentable again once they started approaching Magnolia, but his thoughts continued to circle around and around, slowly collapsing to a central point that he was still too afraid to acknowledge.
The sudden change of pace was jarring when he stepped out of the carriage and was greeted by a massive celebration. Who cared about the goddamn Games anymore?
His fury died as suddenly as it had come. He wanted to be angry at all these smiling people, but he wasn't that far gone yet, still couldn't make himself pass off his own guilt and pain onto people who didn't deserve it.
"Hey, ice block–"
Gray turned, not quite able to meet Natsu's eyes. It was hard to hold anything resembling a conversation when he was falling apart. And as much as he loved his friends, their ignorance hurt.
"Gray, it's not your fault."
But it is. It is and I'm so sorry.
Gray got out of there as fast as he could. He couldn't stand the sympathy when he deserved anything but, as if he was a victim and not a…
Shaking his head, he pushed his way through the crowd and started running as soon as he broke free, his feet pounding against the pavement as he willed the thudding in his ears to drown out his thoughts. He nearly dropped his key because his hands were shaking so hard, but he somehow managed to work it into the lock and stumble inside his apartment. He headed straight for the bathroom, having the sudden urge to scrub his hands clean because he could still feel Lyon's blood staining them.
He was reaching for the tap when his eye caught on his reflection in the mirror. His skin was ghastly white and his eyes were almost black against his pallor, two dark voids that were too big for his face, giving him an otherworldly look as they glistened wetly in the light. Some people might see a victim, but Gray saw a murderer.
His fist slammed into the mirror in a rain of shattered glass and he turned away, not able to stomach his reflection. Retreating back to the living room, he reflected with grim amusement that there really was blood on his hands now. He absently pulled a shard of glass out of his knuckle, hissing in pain.
The afternoon light streaming through the window caught on it, making the jagged edge gleam where it wasn't stained red, and Gray hesitated. For a moment, he just stared at it, an almost eerie calmness settling over him.
It already felt like he had a thousand deaths on his conscience. What was one more?
He dropped the glass and it hit the floor with a slight clink. As he stepped forward, it crunched under his boot—a lifetime's worth of love and friendship, a future's worth of hopes and dreams, ground to dust beneath his heel. He paused for a second when he reached the window, staring out into the daylight, imagining what his friends were doing now and what the future could hold. His hand fisted in the curtain, tightening as he wavered.
Then he pulled the curtains shut, the heavy fabric blotting out the sun and plunging the room into darkness, aside from a sliver of light peeking through where the two sides didn't quite meet. Gray summoned up his magic, watched the knife-sharp edge of the ice glimmer faintly in that thin beam of light, hesitated.
And then he was gone.
It all happened so fast.
One minute Lyon was jumping out of the way of a dragon's fire and trying to drag Gray along with him, and the next he was staring down in confusion at the jagged spike of ice sticking out of his chest.
Gray had… Lyon fell, the pain consuming him, the blackness eating away at the edges of his vision and promising soon-to-be relief.
A scream rent the air.
Though his vision was quickly fading, he could still make out Gray's horrified face. His younger brother's words sounded muffled and faraway, but Lyon had some fuzzy notion of what they might be.
He opened his mouth, needing to say something, but the burning in his chest made it impossible and he was fading fast.
It was an accident, I'm sorry, I love you anyway, don't do anything stupid.
Something in Gray's eyes told Lyon that not being able to say those words was a life-changing mistake.
And then he was gone.
Note: Because I'm a sadistic little brat. And I was in a mood. (I actually have three alternate versions of this—Lyon actually survives in one and Gray more or less survives in all three—but I wrote the most depressing one. Because reasons.)
For the curious among the fandom-blind, what actually happened was that Ultear cast a spell that rewound time for one minute (she was trying to rewind time to before the Gate opened), but in exchange it took her "time", making her old. She thought her spell failed, and never realized that she saved Gray after the dragonlings killed him. Believe it or not, most of this is actually canon. I can't make this stuff up.
emmahoshi: Oh yeah, real happy lol I think you already know my opinion on Juvia...I couldn't, in good conscience, condone her mindset or behavior, but I tried not to make it too obvious how much I dislike her. (I agree with your rant, btw.) Ah, I specifically excluded that detail from both Natsu and Gray's parts, because I like the subtle approach and being able to get the point across without spelling it out. Lol yeah, Lyon's bit was a total sadistic choice. Glad you liked it, even if it was dark XD