Hello fellow motherknobians…
Yeah, yeah I know that this isn't the next chapter to TRE but I will be honest. I am having lots of trouble thinking of ways to continue on the story and my college days have officially started on Friday (last week).
I will finish the story but updates will be slightly more slow as I go through trial and error to make the chapters view worthy.
But this is a one-shot to freshen your minds from TRE and the slowly but surely approaching beginning of TOI. So sit back and relax.
This takes place after the 'Orecion seis' arc.
Warning: OOC-ness, swearing and blood. Can it still be rated T?
Just let it out…
-=:():():():=-
No one in the guild knew what to do when the Titania stormed into the guild, making her way to the bar. The look on her face was enough to both stop the usual brawl from continuing on as well as make everyone but one person pale drastically.
The master was off so he wasn't able to help if they annoyed her any further...
That one person was at the bar drinking calmly, whilst Erza made a furious bee-line towards him. He knew that she was angry if judging the obvious sheet white face of Cana and Wakaba was anything to go by, but he didn't give a shit.
He wouldn't have minded her distress if she didn't blatantly lie to his face after promising him to never do that again..
A shadow loomed over his form and he took another gulp of his drink before his body was jerked to face her. She had grabbed his arm in a painfully tight grip and yanked roughly to make that happen.
Ignoring the knew ache in his arm he stared into her eyes and smirked coldly at her enraged face. The mage went to take one last swig of his drink before Erza harshly smacked the object out of his hands and onto his chest, the glass smashing against his face and it's content landing all over her face and his chest.
He could feel a drop of blood trickle down his cheek and he was slightly confused, the glass was at his lips and she had smacked it downward, so how did he end up with a cut on his cheek?
Luck maybe?…
"I wasn't finished with that..."
The raven haired mage heard some of the guild members gasp he saw everyone's eyes widen by a margin. He was being very stupid and he knew it, but whilst he didn't look it he was just as pissed at her as she was him, hell maybe a bit more than her.
Her face twisted even further to emphasis the fact that she was pissed, she leaned in closer to his emotionless face a grit her teeth.
"Don't bloody test me Gray, you pissed me off enough already."
Her voice was like a corrosive acid. She was well and truly angry and if it wasn't somehow clear before, the fact that she swore would've definitely made it clear now.
"Why shouldn't I, at least I was truthful unlike someone I know. In short; Ditto."
Gray dropped his calm mask and let his anger show which also made his magic flare up. Just like Erza's magic installed a level of fear Gray's magic made the area around him bitterly cold.
He saw Mirajane and most of the other shuffle slowly away from the two, knowing that something was about to happen. The other three members of team Natsu looked on in shock and horror at what was unfolding before them.
They knew that things between the two mages were tense recently but they never would've thought that it would've got to this point of hostility. Gray was sitting down on his stool glaring at Erza who was glaring back just as intensely.
"Natsu-san, I'm getting a bad feeling..."
Natsu couldn't help but nod shakily, never once had he seen Gray look as scary as Erza. Being the tallest on the team he towered over them all by a head, including Erza. At the moment he was sitting on his ass so he didn't look as scary as he could of, but then Erza said something in reply that made him shove her back and stand up, his face turning into one of pure, unfiltered rage as his eyes burned a hole into her head.
"Say that again Scarlet! I fucking dare you!" He shouted at her… He wasn't about to be seen as the bad guy as she had instigated this whole dilemma.
She pushed him back roughly, almost sending him over the bar.
"You heard me the first time..." She ground out darkly. "I said that you are to blame for Jellals execution, your opinion of him was never high but you just wanted him dead! You, Gray Fullbuster are a murderer, a murderer who feels nothing and doesn't care for anyone but yourself!"
Gray had been gripping the edge of the bar when she said, so when she finished his hands crushed the edges loudly, making everyone but Erza and himself jump in fright. The tension was so thick that it was suffocating.
He let go of the bar and stormed up to Erza, getting in her personal space, shouting.
"FUCK YOU! I UNDERSTAND THAT YOU'RE SAD BUT I WON'T STAND HERE, TAKING SHIT FROM YOU JUST BECAUSE YOU KNOW THAT I DIDN'T LIKE YOUR 'BOYFRIEND'! HE WAS AN ASS WHO WAS MORE THAN LITTLE SHADY AND MY OPINION WON'T CHANGE JUST BECAUSE YOU WANT IT TO! SO GROW UP!"
He remembered those days when she had found out about Jellals upcoming execution. He had spent almost all of his time being there for her, giving her a shoulder to cry on and letting her in his house and bed when she had nightmares about the yet to be done event.
When the day finally came and passed, Erza had changed. On some days she was a sobbing wreck, others she was just normal, other days she was In denial and then there were those days where she just sat in one corner of the guild emotionless and stiff.
But last week she had heard Gray talking to Lucy about Jellal and she had heard his low opinion of him. Lucy had told him a few hours later that Erza had heard there chat and he knew that she would not be very happy with him.
But to go so far as to actually call him an unfeeling murderer was unexpected…
It was childish, stupid and unfair for Gray to have to put up with it as he had done nothing but help her. So when he shouted back at her he felt it was justified.
Before he could pass her to get out of the guild Erza slugged him hard on the cheek. It wasn't the usual punch to stop his brawls with Natsu, she had hit him with the intent to cause pain.
That fact enraged Gray to the point of retaliating and he shocked the entire guild by sending a fist of his own into her chin and sending her a few feet back. The shock wore off quickly and Erza looked at him with hate in her eyes. She re-quipped into her Adamantine armour and charged toward him.
He quickly formed a pair of icy arm-blades around his fore-arms and blocked her attack, he responded with a kick aimed at her face. She effortlessly blocked him, grabbed his leg and threw him into a wall near a trembling Elfman.
He pushed off of the wall and punched her hard in her chestplate with his icy arm buckler. He smirked darkly at the crack he had managed to make, he knew where to focus now.
Gray ducked under Erza's sword swing and sweeped her legs out from under her. She landed on her back and rolled away from his ice hammer, getting back up Erza saw an opening.
She re-quipped into her heavens wheel armour and launched one of her swords at Gray who wasn't fast enough to react. He yelped when he felt the sword pierce his side and he was shocked to see that she actually wanted to injure him past the point of being safe.
He didn't have time to be shocked however as she sent him crashing through the guilds backdoor he dodged her sword and got up quickly. Gray moulded some armour around parts of his body and sent a flurry of kicks and punches at the Titania, most of which landed successfully.
He landed a powerful kick to her stomach and sent her to the floor a few feet away from him. Closing the distance quickly, Gray jumped Into the air and was about to knock Erza out before she went to far.
He was cut off quickly by Erza rolling out of the way and wrapping her arms around his own, forcing them behind his back. He struggled in her grip as she started running towards a wall.
When they were close enough to the wall, Gray used his feet to push against the wall and flip over Erza's head, using the momentum he managed to throw her over his head. He heard her landing with a thud and it sounded bad.
He turned around and saw her back up with blood dripping from her nose, 'she must've busted her own nose' he thought with a dark grin.
His next thought however was more along the lines of 'shit, shit, shit, shit, shit' as he dodged the multitude of swords, lances and axes that were sent towards him with deadly accuracy. He felt some of them cut him and one hit him near a vital but luckily it missed by a few centimetres.
He created a shield to catch a breath before sending out a barrage of icy lances towards the Titania. She moved out of the way easily before rushing him and slicing him with her adamantine sword. He felt the intruding metal cut through his chest and he screamed as he felt it tear through the muscle.
He wondered why the guild members hadn't done anything yet, they were probably scared, Erza was naturally scary so he could understand but then again, after they started fighting with magic he would've thought that they would've kept them apart.
The again, they were a good mile away from the guild now…
They had started fighting through alleyways and on the main street. Luckily, no one was out and it was only them.
He grabbed Erza's arm and brought her head down on his knee. She reeled back and he took advantage by using his left leg to kick her into a wall. She hit the wall and left a crater from his force.
He could see the many cuts and bruises that covered her pale arms and legs, the look of hatred was still in her eyes and if anything it had only increased. She probably wasn't expecting him to put up much of a fight.
He knew that he looked far worse though. He had a black bruise on his cheek, his chest now had a massive slice cut through it and his legs were most likely cut up and bruised also. The stab wound in his side didn't help his movement in any way either.
He knew something was wrong with Erza as soon as she almost killed him with that attack to his chest. The stab wound he could play off as an accident but that was intent on killing.
Erza, in no matter what state never killed…
Eitherway, he was still pissed off with her. She had lied to him for too long and the last lie was the last he could take.
But he guessed that he could've gone about it better…
"Are you done yet? Huh?" Gray coughed slightly but ignore it. "What's next? My stomach? You planning on impaling me? You have already cut me up enough."
"No! I won't stop until you suffer for your crimes!" Was his response as she charged at him once more, they started exchanging blows for an hour before they ran out of magic. They were panting, they both were bleeding and they were both bruised to shit.
Erza tiredly rushed at him and threw a punch aimed at him face, he caught her arm and he used her momentum and pulled her into his other hand. His other hand grabbed her by her armoured collar and he choke-slammed her onto the ground.
He attempted to subdue her but she got her legs underneath him and she kicked him off of her and got up slowly.
She faked a kick and Gray fell for it, bringing up his left arm to block it Erza grabbed it and kicked his legs out from under him before straightening out his arm and breaking it with her foot.
Gray screamed as he felt his arm snap from his fore-arm down. The pain was absolutely crippling! He felt ready to pass out from the pain but he was now fully confident that Erza was being influenced…
She would never attack him so badly, even if he had somehow pissed her off. Even then when she attacked him she secretly apologised afterwards. He knew that she would've respected his opinion after a few weeks instead of hating hi further.
And after everything he had done for her, he knew that they all must've counted for something…
He was hoisted up by Erza as she was about to stab him with her normal Heart kreuz sword. Using the last of his strength, he yelled and sent a powerful fist into her stomach. Where she had her sword, she was only wearing her bandages and red flame pants so his punch definitely hurt her.
In fact her felt about four or five ribs crack under the force of his punch. He heard her groan in pain before letting him go.
Erza coughed up a tiny bit of blood and for some reason, she felt like she had woken up from a bad dream. Through her blurry vision she saw some sort of thing in the tiny pool of her blood.
She then remembered that Gray had fought her and her merciless attacks had obviously hurt him. She looked at him with slight confusion in her eyes.
But most of it was now horror instead of that burning hatred he had been victim to the last few hours.
He stumbled backwards and fell onto his back, his vision blurry and getting worse by the second. He saw a blur of red slowly come into his limited view and he was sure he could see some small tears forming.
"Gray! No, No I'm so sorry! I didn't know what I was doing, it wasn't meant to go this far!" he grunted in pain as he felt his blood pool around him. He wasn't happy about her lying still, but he guessed he could blame it somewhat on whatever was in Erza's system.
Or just 'on her' in general…
"I thought that you were a bit different these last few weeks… Obvious reason aside." He murmured quietly.
He noticed that she was struggling to even keep on all fours. He grinned. If he could do that only trying to hurt her a bit then he could probably equal if not beat her if he was intent on killing like she was whilst tranced or what ever.
She saw his small grin and glared slightly.
"How can you be grinning at a time like this? I almost killed you..." She fell onto her stomach, she was losing consciousness just as fast as she was.
"I was just thinking about equalling you, Flame brain will be jealous if word gets out." He slurred slightly as his consciousness teetered on the edge of collapsing.
She laughed lightly, it dissolved into coughs quickly but it was still a little laugh. "I'm sure he will be really pleased to hear of that development..." Sarcasm was heavy in her voice as well as a slur of her own.
Gray saw he wounds bleeding slightly and he slowly and weakly raised his hands to freeze over the bad wounds. Hopefully, she would be fine until someone helped them out of this scrap.
She hissed as his hand froze the wounds he created. She couldn't stay awake too much longer but he was done luckily.
"I'm sorry..."
Gray looked at her with slight confusion, she managed to see it and repeated.
"I'm sorry..."
His eyes widened slightly. He instantly knew what she was talking about when she mentioned the words 'promise' and 'broken' were put in the same sentence.
"I know that I can trust you and that you hate me lying to you," She started quietly. "But understand that Jellal was important to me, I know that you didn't like him too much but that didn't mean that I could call you a murderer when you helped me fight for his life. I-"
"Erza, you must've taken something because you were not yourself." Gray struggled to form coherent sentences but managed. "It took me a while to figure it out, but I found out after this." He weakly pointed to his stab wound.
She looked truly sorry for his pain…
"So do you-"
"Forgive you? I'm not sure." She looked down dejectedly. "You hurt me Erza, not just physically, but it felt like you had taken my trust and spat on it. But I know that you weren't yourself and that is some comfort."
"Can I earn your forgiveness?"
he looked at her through the last of his vision and gave her a small smile…
"Someday..."
That was it. They had both lost every bit of strength left in them and they couldn't fight unconsciousness anymore. Gray fell first, his hand falling limply to the ground.
Erza smiled sadly and rested her hand in his larger one and let unconsciousness take her too.
They had both laid there, buggered hand in slightly less buggered hand heads both facing eachother and scarlet locks interwoven in galaxy blue strands.
The day was almost over and it had been one eventful day. Two childhood friends were tested and it was a battle they almost lost, fortunately that didn't happen and the two had mostly reconciled. Hopefully they would be able to live through there injuries.
But only time will tell…
-=:():():():=-
Remember, I did say OOC-ness was a thing in this… Don't moan. -_-
Well you can moan about the ending, it sucked…
TRE will continue but give me some time.
TRIVIA TIME!
1: What is your favourite animal?
Cats, specifically kittens… To cute.
2: What is your dream for the future?
Mine is to get the chance to act in films or shows. Cliché I know but I truly enjoy acting and I know that I am good at it.
3: What is your favourite internet MEME?
Mine is either the trollface or Moon Moon. They are both just so me. XD
Thank you for giving this a try and I promise that this type of thing won't be around for some time.
Stay cool,
-viperhat