Note: This is an alternate take on the aftermath of chapters 522-523 of the manga, so spoiler alert. If that bothers you, turn back now.
No, seriously, spoilers.
For those of you who don't read the manga but are going to read this anyway, Gray tries to use a different form of iced shell on Zeref that's supposed to erase him (Gray) from everyone's memories too, but Natsu stops him, obviously. And despite my distaste with the entirety of Alvarez, this had good angst potential and I'm a mercenary writer.
Okay, now that we've gotten that out of the way, this is something that was bouncing around in my mind for a while, but I didn't get the motivation to write it until I read StruggleBusCentral's "Hide and Seek" ( /s/12482550/1/Hide-and-Seek), so thanks for finally pushing me into action lol
There were holes in Natsu's life. They weren't little pinprick holes or neat cookie-cutter holes or easy-to-sew-up holes. The holes in his memory had jagged, ugly edges, like someone had gone through and ruthlessly ripped out pieces at random. And then when they'd realized that none of the edges matched up and there was no way to cobble them back together, they'd stuffed them full of cobwebs and insubstantial fluff in a halfhearted attempt to fix things. So now Natsu's memory had hazy holes in it, where he knew that something was missing but couldn't see past the fog to discover what it was.
And then there was the hole in his heart. That was an ugly, ragged abyss, cutting all the way down to the core. That one wasn't hazy or uncertain or foggy. That one was empty. There was a big piece missing, and Natsu didn't know where it had gone or who had taken it. It ached sometimes, but mostly it was just cold and hollow…as long as he didn't cut himself on its knife-sharp edges.
The holes stretched all the way back to his childhood memories, but he didn't remember feeling them before. He thought they had opened up right around the time when Zeref had mysteriously been sealed by iced shell, like the black mage's parting gift was to send some kind of monstrous beast tearing through everyone's minds to gnaw holes in their memories and hearts. It didn't really make sense, but then again, nothing about Zeref's demise had made sense.
Natsu had just found himself standing in the doorway of the guild, his face wet with tears as he stared at Zeref suspended in a huge sheet of glistening ice, feeling like he had just lost something unbearably precious. No one had actually figured out the answer to the mystery of iced shell yet. Someone must have done it, but Lyon was still alive and kicking, and even he couldn't come up with the name of another ice mage strong enough to perform such a powerful spell. All he'd said was that it was odd ice, mysterious ice, unnatural ice.
It seemed kind of sad to Natsu that they'd never know who had saved them. Saved him. Because he would have died if Zeref died, and iced shell had been a brilliant, if horrific, workaround to that.
Maybe that was why Natsu always found himself drawn back to that ice. The guild hall had been rebuilt elsewhere because no one wanted to disturb what felt like the grave and memorial of their nameless savior, but Natsu always found himself standing back in front of the ice eventually, wondering. He felt like he had a connection to that ice, but it might just be because he was connected to the mysterious person who had saved him. It made him feel both more whole than ever and more unbearably empty.
But no matter how long he stood in front of the ice, the holes were always there.
Natsu opened his eyes and frowned at the snowy expanse of ground stretching out around him. The sky was gray. Not an angry, stormy gray or a purple-bruise gray, but a dull and gloomy gray. A sad gray, a lonely gray, a drowsy gray.
It took him a minute to realize that he was dreaming. He had been sitting in front of that ice again, searching for the answers that weren't there, and he must have fallen asleep. Apparently the chill of the ice had seeped into his dreams, giving him this cold and dreary dreamscape.
Pulling himself to his feet, Natsu spun around in a slow circle, searching for anything besides snow and sky. There was a cliff of ice behind him, stretching on for as far as the eye could see and towering high over his head in a shimmering, crystalline sheet. And in front of the ice stood a boy. He was easy to spot, because the raven-dark hair and eyes stood out against the dull white and dreary gray of the rest of the landscape.
"Na…tsu…?" The boy gawked at the dragon slayer, dark eyes wide and uncomprehending. He turned to blink at the wall of ice behind him, reached out to place a tentative hand on its surface, and then turned back to Natsu with an expression that was equal parts puzzled and horrified. "What did you do?"
"What did I do?" Natsu asked indignantly, his surprise forgotten in the face of what he perceived to be an unfair accusation. "I didn't do anything. Just fell asleep, I guess."
"Asleep…?" The boy looked around again—why didn't he have a shirt on? Shouldn't he be cold in all this snow?—and then shook his head. "Only you would be stupid enough to screw things up and randomly stumble across a loophole."
"Huh?" Natsu hated the confusing dreams. "Who are you, anyway?"
The boy studied him silently for a moment, and then his lips quirked into a sad smile. "No one important."
"Huh? But everyone is important to someone, right?"
"You have such a naïvely optimistic view of the world," said the boy with a tired laugh. "No one knows me because I don't exist anymore, so I can't be important to anyone."
Natsu frowned. That sounded…sad. And confusing. How could someone he was talking to not exist?
"Wouldn't that be lonely?" he asked.
"I guess so."
Natsu shifted uncomfortably, not sure he liked this idea. As usual when he felt uncomfortable, he changed the topic.
"Where are we?"
"I don't know." The dark-eyed boy ran a hand through his hair and looked out across the broad expanse of snow. "Your mind, I guess. Maybe an in-between place. You're asleep and dreaming, so I assume this place only exists in your mind. It shouldn't exist at all. Good job messing things up as per usual, Natsu."
"Hey, I didn't do anything!" Natsu protested. Then he frowned. "How do you know my name?"
"Someone's a little late to the game," the mysterious boy muttered, rolling his eyes. "I just said that we're in your mind, didn't I? Wouldn't it make sense that a figment of your imagination would know what you know?"
"Oh," Natsu said, feeling stupid. "But it's not fair that you know my name and I don't know yours. What's your name?"
"I don't have one."
"How do you not have a name?" Natsu asked, his face scrunching up in confusion. That didn't even make sense. "Everyone has a name."
The boy shrugged and tapped a finger idly against the ice wall. "I had one, once, but I don't remember it anymore."
Which only served to deepen Natsu's confusion. He blinked at this incomprehensible stranger blankly, at a total loss. He had never before questioned something so fundamental.
"How can you forget your own name?"
"I gave it up. I gave up a lot of things. Someone who doesn't exist doesn't have a name. Or maybe it's that someone who doesn't have a name doesn't exist. I don't really know."
Natsu stared at him for a moment longer and then dropped his head into his hands, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. "You're making my head hurt," he said with a groan.
The boy just laughed. "That brain cell of yours is getting overworked, huh? Don't think too hard; it doesn't suit you. And if that one itsy bitsy brain cell of yours fries itself, you won't have anything left to work with."
Natsu scowled. "You're such a jerk. Anyway, if you don't exist, then your brain shouldn't exist either. So I'm still smarter than you." The boy dropped his gaze, the mirth fading from his eyes, and Natsu winced. "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that."
"No, it's alright. You're right."
Natsu hesitated, unsure of how to handle this strange creature that jumped from emotion to emotion so quickly: puzzled to tired, laughing to sad.
"Um…" He looked around for anything to distract himself, and found his eyes following along the ice wall and out to the horizon, snow and ice stretching on for as far as he could see. "Is there anything here besides cold stuff? It's so…monotonous."
The boy chuckled, a gleam entering his eyes again. "Wow, what a big word from you. And it's your fault, isn't it? Why would you make such a cold place when you hate the cold so much?"
"I just wanted to know if there was anything else around here," Natsu said sulkily, crossing his arms and trying to keep the pout off of his face.
"I don't know," said the boy, eyeing Natsu in amusement. "I'm only here because you're here."
Nothing about this dream or this boy made any kind of sense.
Shaking his head, Natsu pushed aside all the weird, incomprehensible things. He felt like it was important to get answers—although he wasn't sure why, since he figured that if it was a dream then he couldn't find any real answers to anything in the waking world—but all this nonsense was giving him a headache.
"Let's go explore, then!" he said cheerfully, bouncing up and down on his heels. "Maybe we can find something more interesting than all this stupid snow."
His mysterious acquaintance gave him a look that was somehow both amused and tired, and shrugged. "If you want."
Natsu did, in fact, want, so he set off at a brisk pace, hopping about in the snow like an overexcited child. The dark-haired boy was more reserved, his boots crunching softly in the snow as he walked along just behind Natsu. His eyes were unfocused, and he trailed one hand along the never-ending wall of ice that marked off the only visible boundary of this world.
Natsu slowed his pace slightly and studied his silent companion. There was something a little odd about him, more than just the fact that he was apparently a figment of Natsu's imagination. His pale skin seemed to shimmer faintly in the dull light, and almost took on a translucent quality if Natsu caught it out of the corner of his eye.
Natsu hesitated, but then shrugged off his reservations. If this was just a dream, then social niceties weren't really a big deal. So he reached out and touched the boy's arm tentatively, puzzled and intrigued by its strangeness. The skin was so ice cold that Natsu jerked back as if burned and cradled his hand as he blew warm air onto it.
The boy looked over to give him a bemused look, and Natsu stared back warily, keenly aware of the ache in his hand.
"Your skin is freezing," said the dragon slayer.
"Of course," his acquaintance said dismissively. "Ice is cold, idiot."
Natsu froze, his breath catching as he stared at the man in front of him with wide eyes. Ice…? He had fallen asleep by the ice encasing Zeref, this boy apparently 'didn't exist' anymore, and…
"You're the one who sealed Zeref with iced shell."
It wasn't quite a question, and the boy paused, one hand still pressed to the icy wall. He gave Natsu a guarded look.
"…Yes."
"Or…I just made you up to give that person a face since I don't know?" Natsu frowned and rubbed at his face. This was all so confusing.
The boy tilted his head and considered the question, then nodded. "Yes."
"Wait, which is it?"
"Both."
"How can it be both?"
The boy shrugged. "I'm the person who sealed Zeref, but that person doesn't exist anymore. Or, I only exist in this in-between place and in the ice in your world."
"Why doesn't anything you say make sense?" Natsu muttered. "In between what?"
The boy sighed, his gaze drifting back to the ice as his fingers ghosted along the gleaming surface. "Life and death. Existence and nonexistence. Reality and fiction. Memory and forgetting. Wakefulness and dreaming. I don't know. In between everything. A little pocket of space between the normal black and white of the world that shouldn't exist at all and now only exists in your mind."
Damned if Natsu understood any of that.
"But why would you do it?" he asked, deciding to ignore philosophical nonsense for the moment. "We don't even know who you are. Why would you sacrifice yourself to save us? To save me?"
"Who says it had anything to do with you?" asked the boy with a weary sigh. "I did what I had to."
"But–"
"Natsu."
Natsu bit his lip and studied the other man with new eyes. Maybe this was just his mind making up nonsense, but it didn't feel that way. It could be that he was just making up his own answers because he'd been so obsessed with figuring out who his savior was and was coming up emptyhanded, but this felt more real than any dream ought to have a right to be.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
"No problem," said his companion with a shrug.
"I dunno, this all kind of seems like a problem."
"Only to me, really, since I doubt you'll remember any of this when you wake up. And I don't regret it, so it's not that bad."
Natsu stared at him. He had no idea what he was supposed to say to any of this.
"I guess if you're ice, that explains why you can run around in the snow without a shirt," he blurted out.
…That was not the right thing to say to any of this.
The boy gave Natsu a flabbergasted look and then burst out laughing. The sound immediately made Natsu's heart clench up in a funny way, like it was smoothing out some of the broken edges there and filling in the void, just a little. Actually, something about this boy made that hollow hole in Natsu's heart feel a little more full, a little less empty.
"Maybe so," the boy said when his laughter faded away. His smile turned a little more melancholy as he added, "I had a teacher once, and she had some unconventional training techniques. Better to expose yourself to the elements so that you can become one with the cold."
He shrugged and started forward again, stepping lightly through the snow and keeping his hand to the ice. "But in the end, it's a little different to be one with the ice. It's more…sleepy. Ice doesn't really think or feel—it just is. So I sleep, mostly. I don't know how you pulled me out of stasis to meet you here, but it can't last. It's already calling me back."
The world seemed to waver, white and gray blurring together.
Natsu's heart skipped a beat and he looked around frantically. "What's happening?"
"You're waking up," said the boy. He smiled sadly, his hand fading to a crystalline transparency as it began sinking into the icy wall. "And I'm going back to sleep."
"But–"
"Natsu, you're going to catch a cold. What were you thinking, sleeping against the ice like that?"
Natsu opened his eyes and blinked at Lucy blearily. "Huh…?"
He looked around slowly, and it took him a second to figure out where he was, because this wasn't his bedroom. Then he realized that he was in the old guild hall, slumped over against that mysterious ice in which Zeref was suspended like an insect in amber. Right, he'd come to puzzle over the mystery again, and must have fallen asleep.
"Lucy, I had the strangest dream."
"Oh?" the blonde asked, bracing her hands on her hips and raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, I…" Natsu trailed off, frowning as he tried to sort through the quickly fading mess in his mind. "I don't know. Never mind."
It was a curious thing, but he couldn't remember it at all.
"You're going to catch a cold if you keep sleeping against the ice."
Natsu looked up and blinked at the boy blankly. What…? Oh! He remembered this world, with the unending wall of ice and the never-ending expanse of snow and the gloomy gray sky. And this boy, the one who had used iced shell to seal Zeref.
But that was odd, because he hadn't remembered anything when he'd woken up last time. Now that he was here again, it was like that little piece of memory fell back into place.
"Lucy said exactly the same thing," Natsu said, pulling himself up and dusting the snow off his pants.
"Did she, now?" the boy asked from where he was leaning against the icy wall with his arms crossed loosely over his chest. "She's a smart girl. You should listen to her."
"You know Lucy?" Natsu asked in surprise.
A shifty look entered the boy's eyes as he said, "I'm in your mind, aren't I?"
"Oh, yeah, I guess so. How do you know that I'm sleeping against the ice?" Natsu immediately winced and opened his mouth to take the words back, realizing that he'd just fallen into the same trap again, but the boy had a different answer this time.
"I can feel you. You're touching me."
Natsu stared at him blankly and then looked down at his hands, turning them over and studying them in bemusement. "But–"
"Stupid," the boy interrupted, rolling his eyes. "I'm the ice, remember? I guess I normally wouldn't feel much, but you've managed to drag me back to semi-consciousness again somehow."
"So you really are–" Natsu broke off and frowned, leaning forward to study the boy more closely. "What happened to your eyes?"
He could have sworn that his mysterious acquaintance's eyes had been very dark before, but now they were several shades lighter, a murky blue-gray. Actually, even his dark hair seemed a little faded, and his skin seemed even paler, more translucent like glass. Or ice.
"My eyes? How would I know? You really think I can see my own eyes?"
The words sounded like they were meant to be teasing, but the boy's voice was more tired than anything.
"They're lighter," Natsu said, staring hard as if it would help everything make more sense. "And your skin is weirder."
The boy uncrossed his arms and lifted one hand to study it, twisting it about so that it shimmered faintly in the gray twilight. "Hm. I guess I'm fading more."
"You're…fading?" Natsu asked, an uncomfortable feeling settling in his stomach. He didn't know what that meant, but it didn't sound good. "What does that mean?"
"Let me ask you something. When you woke up, did you remember me?"
"…No." Natsu dropped his gaze and shuffled his feet uncomfortably, the admission making him feel ashamed and disappointed in himself even though he wasn't entirely sure why. "But when I came back here, I remembered it all again."
"Good, it's still working, then," the boy said with a sigh, wrapping his arms around himself again as he slumped back.
"Huh? What's working?"
The boy shrugged. "I told you this was an in-between place, right? I don't exist properly outside of here. The spell is a process, and my consciousness is fading into the ice still. Apparently I wasn't fully integrated yet and you somehow managed to snag what's left of me for a few moments, but it can't last. Soon there won't be enough of me left for you to catch hold of. It's already harder than it was last time you came… I'm so tired." He sighed, his eyes drifting shut. "I doubt I'll last much longer."
Natsu's heart seemed to stutter to a stop. "You're dying?"
"Of course not," the other man mumbled. "My consciousness is fading. It's more like sleep, really. Iced shell isn't meant to kill. I'd think that you'd still at least know that much from Lyon."
"Lyon? You know–? Right, you're in my head." Natsu shook his head, but the words hadn't really brought him any reassurance. "But I don't want you to fade."
"Unfortunately, what you want doesn't matter. It's not so bad, really. I chose this, you know."
Natsu couldn't fathom why anyone would choose this. It seemed horrible, and he thought that someone would have to care an awful lot to undergo something so terrible. He still didn't understand what would have prompted this boy to sacrifice himself this way when he didn't even know Natsu or the others, but… But he had saved Natsu, and maybe that was why Natsu felt like he needed to return the favor.
"We can find a way to undo the spell," he said confidently.
The boy rolled his eyes. "It's permanent, idiot. You can't just undo it."
"Don't be such a downer," Natsu chided, looking around at the unchanging gray-white landscape and crystalline wall of ice with calculating eyes as he searched for answers. "You're giving up before we even start. We can at least try. I wonder if we can do anything from here… Maybe there's something back in the real world. I wonder if Lyon might have some ideas…"
"If he did, you'd never know. And it wouldn't matter, because he can't fix it either."
"Well, I can at least ask him."
"No, you can't. You won't even remember me when you wake up, remember?"
Natsu froze, some of his sudden determination melting into shame again, but then he rallied. "I'll remember this time."
"No, you won't."
"I will," Natsu insisted stubbornly. "And then I'll figure out a way to undo the spell."
The boy shook his head slowly, tiredly. "Why do you even care so much? You don't even know me, Natsu. Just leave it alone."
"You saved me, so I'll save you."
It seemed like a very simple, clear-cut line of logic to Natsu, but the boy just stared at him for a second with those strange eyes of his and then shook his head again.
"It's not that simple. Even if you could undo the spell, that would just put us in the same situation as before, wouldn't it? Zeref is still alive, you know. You can't just unleash him back onto the world."
"We can find a different way to handle that too."
"…You're so naïvely optimistic that it hurts. He's the most powerful mage in existence, if you'd forgotten, and immortal to boot."
Natsu scowled. "You're just giving up. Why would you give up and do something so permanent before looking for another way?"
The boy flinched, his too-light eyes going glassy, and let his gaze drift away. "I know you like to think that the power of love and friendship is enough to solve every problem, that everything will magically work out in the end if you just fight hard enough, but life doesn't always work like that. You really thought you could defeat the most powerful mage in existence without any casualties? If we had killed Zeref, then you would have been the sacrifice. Since we didn't, I was the sacrifice instead."
"Ha! So you did do it for me," Natsu said triumphantly.
His savior groaned and passed a hand over his eyes, his shoulders slumping in weary resignation. "I did it for all of you."
"But why? If you don't even know us, then–"
"I have my own reasons."
"But we were already looking for another way. We could have–"
"The stakes were too high, Natsu," he said with a sigh. "They're still too high."
Natsu clicked his tongue in disapproval. "Don't worry, I'll find a way to undo the spell and fix things."
"You still have your delusions of grandeur, I see." The boy snorted and turned away to trudge wearily through the snow, keeping one hand to the ice wall just like before, and Natsu followed after and fell into step beside him. "Still always thinking you can beat me. I'll have you know that I am…was…a very powerful mage, and this is a very powerful spell. You really think you can undo my work so easily? Dream on, flame brain."
Natsu had already opened his mouth to respond, but the last part drew him up short. "Flame…brain…?"
Why did that give him such an odd sense of déjà vu? Not like he recognized it, exactly, but… But it felt almost familiar, almost right, like it could nestle into his moth-eaten memories if he thought about it hard enough.
"Oh." The boy paused, an uncertain look passing over his face as he studied the dragon slayer. "Sorry. Natsu."
"It's weird," Natsu said slowly, his brows knitting together as he mulled over the nickname in his mind. "It kinda feels like I've been called that before, like it's something important. Except that I never have? But then why does it feel familiar?"
They stared at each other in silence, the world around them muffled by the dreary snow, and then the dark-haired boy sighed. He turned away and started walking again, his feet dragging behind him and leaving deep trenches in the snow. He moved slowly, exhaustion hanging over him.
"Names are important," he said. "We define our names, and in return, they define us. Even nicknames and labels represent pieces of us. So who knows? Maybe it seems important because you were called that in another life. Maybe it still has a piece of you. But if no one calls you that now, then maybe it's time to let it go."
Natsu didn't understand how a name he'd never been called could still be his name. Then again, not much of what this boy said ever made sense.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"I don't have one. I already told you that."
"No, you said that you didn't remember it."
"I said both. Same thing."
"Is it?" Natsu's eyes hardened in determination as he found a new goal to strive towards. "I'm going to help you remember your name. I don't know that I can do much about iced shell until I wake up, but we can figure out your name here, I think."
"…It doesn't work like that."
Geez, this guy was so fatalistic. Natsu didn't see how anyone could be so resigned to such a terrible fate. He didn't like the idea of inevitability—he firmly believed that they could fix things if they put their minds to it.
"Why not?" He grinned. "You say that names are important, right? So it's sad that you forgot yours. But I'll help you remember."
"I'm not supposed to remember," the boy grumbled, kicking at the ice wall moodily even though his movements were still lethargic.
"Why not?"
"It's part of what I gave up when I erased myself."
Natsu sighed. And now they were back to iced shell and this nonexistence thing. He wasn't entirely sold on this idea that becoming ice meant that his new friend didn't exist, and he certainly wouldn't equate it to erasure, but he had the feeling that pressing the point would get him nothing but another headache.
"Bob?" he asked instead.
The boy gave him a sour look. "Didn't we just establish that I don't remember? How should I know?"
"But I felt a connection to that one nickname," Natsu reasoned. "So, does 'Bob' feel familiar to you?"
The boy stopped in his tracks and stared at Natsu, and the dragon slayer could practically see the gears turning in his head. "…No."
"Mark?"
"No."
"Bill?"
"No. Look, give it up. You really think you're just going to randomly stumble across it by going through a list of names? Anyway, I'm not supposed to remember. Leave it alone."
"Joe?"
"Are you even listening to anything–?"
"Joe?"
"…No. Now stop."
Of course Natsu wasn't going to stop. Overriding the boy's protests, he began rattling off a list of names. His friend's complaints eventually died down into a muted, resigned chorus of 'no's'.
"Alzack?"
The boy shot him a disbelieving look from where he was leaning heavily against the ice. "Seriously? Now this is just getting ridiculous."
"Hey, it's a real name," Natsu defended himself. "I know someone named Alzack."
"I know you do."
"How would you–? In my mind. Right."
"Something like that," the boy said with a sigh, looking out over the boundless field of grayish snow in front of him.
"Kate?"
"Excuse me?"
That seemed to snap the boy out of his drowsy stupor for a moment as he gave Natsu the most indignant look he could muster.
"It was worth a shot," Natsu muttered. "Bob?"
"Still no," said the boy, resting his head back against the ice and letting his eyes drift shut. "You've already asked that one like four times now."
Natsu let out his breath in a huff. It was starting to get hard coming up with new names, and he was getting frustrated by his lack of success and his acquaintance's lethargic uncooperativeness.
"Rumpelstiltskin?"
The boy's eyes flew open and he gaped at Natsu, a look of sudden awe spreading across his face. Natsu started in surprise, not having expected such a strong reaction. Then his heart lifted a little in hope. Maybe he had managed to trigger something?
"That's it," the boy breathed, eyes wide.
"Really?" Natsu asked in disbelief, a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth.
The awe melted into aggravated annoyance as the boy gave the dragon slayer a dirty look. "Of course not, idiot. Where the hell are you getting such weird names from?"
Natsu scowled. "Jerk. I actually thought you might've remembered something. But hey, it's nice to see such a lively reaction from you. Looks like you've still got some spunk after all."
There was a long pause as the boy stared back. Then the animation faded from his eyes, melting back into tiredness once more, and he leaned back again.
"Why should I have to be lively?" he asked with a sigh. "I'm not alive."
"So you're like a ghost?" Natsu asked, perking up. "That's kind of cool. I've always wanted to meet a ghost."
"Well, I'm not dead, either. I'm in between, remember?" The boy hesitated, his brow furrowing slightly in thought. "Well, maybe I'm a ghost, in a way. Or an echo. An echo of someone who used to exist."
"But–" Natsu broke off as the world wavered dangerously. "Crap, I don't want to wake up yet!"
The boy's lips quirked into a fond but tired half-smile. "Whyever not? There's nothing left for you here. Go on home to your friends."
"But you're here," Natsu protested, fighting back as the chill against his skin became more prominent and his mind began to stir.
Even though he didn't really know this boy, he couldn't deny that something about him seemed to leak into all the holes in the dragon slayer's life and make them seem a little less horrible. He didn't want to leave and have all those holes ripped open again.
"Ah, but you don't need me anymore," said the boy with that strange, sad smile of his, his eyes softening. "I'm no one important. It's time to let me go. You still have a life to live, and a world with people you love and who love you. Go on back to your loved ones and live on with them."
The very fabric of this drowsy, gray world shuddered again, and Natsu felt himself losing his grip on the dream. He was being tugged away, and he couldn't stop it.
"I hope…" he mumbled past the odd dizzy feeling, "that soon, you…get to go back to…the people who love you, too."
"Don't be silly," said the boy as he turned back to the ice. "No one loves me anymore."
Natsu woke to that strange, faded world again. Or he fell asleep and dreamed himself back there again. It was all still pretty confusing.
No one greeted him upon his arrival this time, so he pulled himself out of the snow and looked around for his dream friend. He quickly spotted the boy by the ice as usual, but felt a sudden stab of worry. His friend was sitting slumped against the icy wall, one leg half-folded and the other bent at the knee, his eyes closed and his head tilted slightly upwards and to the side as it rested against the ice. He seemed more insubstantial, his skin almost blending into the ice behind him if Natsu caught it out of the corner of his eye. Natsu almost panicked, before noticing that the boy's chest was still rising and falling slightly.
And it suddenly hit him that this was his fault. Not just because this boy had saved him with iced shell, but because Natsu had promised to remember him and find a way to undo the spell, and he hadn't. He hadn't remembered a thing when he'd woken up, hadn't found a way to fix this, and now his dream friend was fading still.
"Hey, are you okay?" he asked, bounding through the snow and bending over to peer at the boy worriedly.
It was a long moment before the other man stirred slightly, his eyes half-opening to study Natsu blearily. Natsu flinched back and tried to smooth out his automatic grimace. Those eyes that had once been so dark had now faded to a pale, icy blue.
The boy took in Natsu's reaction and sighed softly, the sound little more than the whisper of a breeze. He closed his eyes again and remained in his wilted position.
"Fine," he mumbled. "Just tired."
'Tired' seemed like an understatement to Natsu. His dream friend didn't even seem to have enough energy to keep his eyes open, and it made Natsu's chest tighten uncomfortably. He didn't want this boy to fade.
But it didn't seem like a good idea to start the conversation with 'you're fading and it's freaking me out and I want to help, but I can't even seem to remember you when I wake up', so Natsu just sat down silently beside the boy. He stared out at the perpetually twilit world for several long seconds, ignoring the chill of the ice and snow against his back and underneath him.
"Yeah, something about this place makes me want to go to sleep too," he said finally.
The boy tried to laugh, but it sounded more like a weary sigh. "How can you be sleepy when you're already asleep?"
"I dunno," Natsu said, subdued. "It's something about this place. It's so dreary and gloomy and gra…y…"
He trailed off as his heart skipped a beat and then shuddered to a stop for a painful moment. Tearing his gaze away from the dreamscape, he turned and stared at the boy in horror.
Gray.
Gray opened his eyes—those much-too-light eyes that didn't match the dark color seeping into Natsu's memories—and tilted his head to give Natsu an odd look.
"Huh," he said. "You found my name."
He sounded maybe the slightest bit surprised, but not excited or in shock or any of that. It was all too matter-of-fact, too tired. This tired, faded person was so at odds with everything he had been and everything he should still be.
A strangled sound worked its way out of Natsu's throat.
All those holes in his memory with their ragged, blurry edges were Gray-shaped holes. All that hazy, insubstantial fluff filling them in was hiding teasing and smiles and laughter; fighting and taunting and talking; that realization of being too late, too late, too late to stop Gray from breaking the most important of promises.
"Oh God," Natsu breathed, feeling like he might throw up.
No wonder there was such a big fucking hole in his heart.
"Natsu?" Gray asked, his head tilting as if in slow motion as he studied the dragon slayer. "Are you–?"
"You stupid idiot!" Natsu cried, lunging forward and tugging his friend away from the ice to hug him as tightly as possible. Gray's skin was still so freezing, cold enough that it burned, but Natsu didn't dare let go. "God, Gray. I remember you."
How could he have just forgotten his best friend? What the hell had Gray done? Aside from iced shell, which seemed to play on a loop in Natsu's mind.
And he was crying, because he had forgotten, because Gray had used iced shell, because this sad and tired and lonely person he'd been talking to in this dreamscape had been Gray all along.
Gray went still in Natsu's arms, but then carefully pushed the dragon slayer away and studied him with half-lidded eyes. "You what? You're not supposed to remember."
Natsu pressed a hand to his mouth in an attempt to stifle another sob, his chest heaving and shuddering. He was still frantically scrambling to dust away all the cobwebs in his mind and fit Gray back into all those holes, and, perhaps even worse, desperately going back over every dream conversation and piecing together a horrifying story.
"Oh God, what did you do?" he asked, his voice cracking. "You used iced shell, you idiot! But why didn't I remember you? Why didn't any of us remember you? Why are you here instead? Why are you fading? Why didn't you remember your name? Actually, where is your guild mark? Why are you all weird? What happened? What did you do?"
Gray stared at him silently, then sighed and closed his eyes again. He slumped back against the ice, and Natsu felt a sudden stab of panic.
"Don't you dare go to sleep!" the dragon slayer snapped, almost shouting.
"Sorry, sorry," Gray mumbled, cracking his eyes open to stare out glassily at the snow. "I'm not. Not yet. But this will be the last time, I think."
"What do you mean–?"
"It was a different form of iced shell," Gray interrupted, his words slow and sluggish like molasses. "You're not the only one who got stronger while Fairy Tail was disbanded. I picked up some things, dabbled in some old, lost magics. The idea was that it would erase me from your memories, in addition to everything else. You shouldn't remember me at all. You shouldn't have been able to wake me up. But you found your loophole, I guess."
"But–"
"In order to erase myself from your memories, I really did have to erase myself. Names are important. They help define you and they hold pieces of you. So I had to forget, give it up. The guild was an important piece of me, so its mark had to go. The rest should have been taken care of by the ice. But apparently there was still some fragment of my consciousness hanging around somewhere, and you managed to snag it and bring it here, to this in-between place that shouldn't exist and won't exist much longer. I wasn't supposed to remember my name because that makes me a little more real, but you were always good at screwing things up."
"But now that you remember and I remember, can't we fix this?" Natsu burst out, staring at Gray's blurry form through a film of tears.
"No. I already told you, it's permanent. When the fading is complete, you should forget again."
"But I don't want to forget," Natsu whispered. "You're my best friend."
"Not anymore," Gray said with a sigh. "And unfortunately, what you want doesn't matter. It's better this way."
"It's better?" Natsu demanded, his voice rising. "You stupid… There are holes in my memory, you know. In all our memories. They're all fuzzy and confusing and muddled. And there's this huge, empty spot in my heart that I can't fill, like something's missing. And…God, it's all you."
"I'm sorry about your memory," Gray said, subdued. "I don't think there's anything you can do about that now. But all the new memories you make will be perfectly fine, without any holes. You'll still be able to make lots of happy memories with the others. As for your heart… It might feel empty and hollow now, but since I'm no longer there, you'll be able to find other things to fill in where I used to be. That was the point. You'll find something else to fill in that hole and mend your heart, and then it won't be so bad."
"But I don't want to fill it in with anything else," Natsu whispered, his lips trembling. "That's your place. Nothing else belongs there. I would rather remember you, pain or not. You're too important to just forget."
Gray's lips quirked into a tired half-smile. "I'm sorry, but what you want doesn't matter anymore, not now that I made my choice. Because the fact is that I'd rather you forgot me and moved on, found something else to take my place. You didn't erase me, Natsu—I erased myself. But you'll wake up in a few minutes and I'll go back to sleep, and it won't hurt anymore."
"I'd rather it hurt." Natsu's hands clenched into helpless fists and he blinked back more tears. "It'll be different this time. I'm going to remember you, and we're going to find a way to fix this."
"Natsu… Do you know why you don't remember me when you wake up? The spell is still working. This here is a fluke, some hazy in-between space that shouldn't exist. This is the borderline space between memory and forgetting, existence and nonexistence, and the spell has been slowly closing the gap so that it disappears along with me. This doesn't change anything. When I fade, I'll give up my name and the guild and my consciousness and myself again, and there won't be anything left for you to hold. I already told you, I don't really exist anymore. Outside of this dying twilit space, I don't exist except in the ice. There's nothing left for you to remember when you wake up."
"But you could fix it, right?" Natsu asked, his desperation leaking into his voice. "If you're the one erasing yourself, couldn't you stop it now?"
"No. It's too late. I can't stop it now that it's started, and it's almost complete, anyway." Gray looked down at his hands, and his lips tightened. "And even if I could stop it, I wouldn't."
Natsu stared silently at his friend, forcing himself to take in the crystalline skin and icy eyes and exhausted features. It was all so wrong. Gray had never been like this before, and seeing him reduced to this faded, broken shell hurt.
"God, I'm sorry," Natsu whispered as his tears clouded over Gray's form again. "This is my fault. You shouldn't have… You idiot, you shouldn't have done that for me."
"This is exactly what I didn't want. It's not your fault. I did it for all of you. The stakes were too high, Natsu. The longer Zeref was free, the more chances he had to hurt or kill someone. We honestly had no plan for how we'd save you, and that wasn't a risk I was willing to take. And I did it for myself, too."
"For…yourself?"
"Mm." Gray's head fell back against the ice again, and he stared out sightlessly at the grayish-white snow. "I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, done things I've regretted, even forgotten what's important for a while. But in the end, it's still you and Lyon and the guild and everyone else I care about that are the most important to me. I don't have a place with you anymore, not now that I've done this. And maybe I'd already started losing it before, which is why this was the easy way out. Maybe it's as much of a mercy for me as it is for you. I think…it's probably better this way."
"Of course you have a place with us!"
"I'd already screwed it up. And it doesn't matter now. I gave it up. It's gone."
Natsu couldn't breathe. How could Gray even say these things? How could he have given up everything, wrecked everything, torn holes into everyone's memories and hearts so easily?
And suddenly, Natsu was angry.
"How dare you?" he seethed, swiping a hand across his eyes and glowering at Gray. "How dare you make bullshit decisions like that? How dare you use iced shell when you promised not to? You promised. How dare you make everyone's choices for them? How dare you muddle up our memories and rip pieces out of our hearts? How dare you force us to forget? How dare you give up on yourself? And on us? You gave up on us. How could you care about us so little that you decided that you didn't belong with us anymore? How could you do something so horrible instead of working with us to find a better way? How could you?"
He was trembling now, grief and rage snarling together in a tangled mess in his heart. But despite all the emotion bleeding into his voice, despite his words, Gray just continued to stare blankly ahead, unmoved. That made Natsu even angrier, because how dare Gray just sit there and not care?
"You just–just– How could you do this to yourself? How could you do this to us? How could you be so cruel? You stupid jerk, I can't believe you. I can't believe you could do this, and I hate you. I–"
Natsu broke off, breath hitching and eyes widening, and his hands flew to his mouth. Because this was still Gray, still Natsu's best friend, and he was dying. No matter how angry Natsu was, he still loved this stupid idiot. And suddenly the anger was gone, replaced by crushing grief and remorse.
"I'm sorry," he said quickly, his eyes filling with tears again. "I didn't mean that. I don't hate you."
Gray was silent for a long time, his gaze unfocused, but then his eyes slid shut again. He slumped over slowly, his back sliding against the ice, and leaned his head against Natsu's shoulder. He looked more exhausted and broken than anything, and it hurt.
"Yes," he said quietly, "you do."
"I don't–"
"On some level, you do. Or, at least, you hate what I've done. It's okay. It's okay to be angry. I'd be pissed if you did something like this." Gray sighed, his chilled breath misting against Natsu's skin. "I just wish that…maybe you could have…forgiven me, too."
A choked sob worked its way out of Natsu's throat, and Gray disappeared behind a blur of tears again. "Of course I forgive you."
"No, you don't," Gray mumbled, his eyes still closed. "You haven't had enough time to really come to terms with everything, so you haven't gotten a real opportunity to forgive. And because you'll forget when you wake up, you never will."
"I'm not going to forget, I'm not," Natsu babbled past his tears. "I'm going to fix this, just you wait and see. I'll remember and I'll find a way to undo your stupid spell."
"Natsu…you can't. It's time to give it up and let me go." Gray let out a shuddering sigh and twisted his face to bury it in the dragon slayer's shoulder. His words were coming slower now, more labored and tired and sad. "I'd do it all over again, but…I am sorry. I'm sorry that it came to this and that I hurt you. I'm sorry, but I just want…you to be happy again, all of you…even if it's without me. I still love you and…I want you to move on."
Natsu's chest heaved with sobs and he twisted about to wrap his arms around Gray, hugging his friend tightly as he rocked back and forth and buried his face in the ice mage's hair, no longer even trying to stop his tears. Gray was freezing and holding him so close hurt, but it didn't hurt half as much as Natsu's breaking heart.
"I love you too," he sobbed. "No matter–no matter what else, you're still my–my best friend. God, I love you."
"Even if only for a moment," Gray breathed, his voice almost a sigh, and whatever was left of Natsu's heart shattered. "You take care of the guild, alright?"
"I will," Natsu managed past his heaving breaths. "I will."
"Of course you will," Gray murmured. His icy hand curled against Natsu's chest. "I hope they…take care of you, too. But I guess it's silly to worry. You're all such a beautiful family... You'll be just fine. It was…fun while it lasted. I've…missed you. I always cared, even when I…was being cruel. You all…were the best thing to ever happen to me. I said it was the…easy way out, but giving you up was…the hardest thing I've ever done…so much harder than giving up myself."
Natsu tightened his grip even further, clutching Gray like he was a lifeline, like this was the last moment they had together before everything was torn away.
"You're so stupid," he choked out. "You've always had a place with us. You've always belonged. We've always loved you. You've always been important. God, you shouldn't have given up on yourself. I wish you'd fight for yourself as hard as you always fought for us."
"Mm… It was…nice to…see you again."
"Gray, please–" Natsu broke off, his eyes flying open as that strange, dizzy feeling swept over him again. "Oh God, no. No, no, no. I can't wake up."
Gray sighed again and stirred, blinking up at Natsu drowsily. "It's okay," he slurred. "You're going to be okay."
Natsu made a strangled sound in the back of his throat as he saw the thin crack spiderwebbing half of Gray's face, delicate fractures in the crystal skin. He released Gray to cradle his face instead, eyes wide with horror as he ran his thumb over the broken edges.
"No, no, no…"
Gray smiled tiredly. "I'm still…the ice."
"I can fix this," Natsu said, desperately fighting against his mind as it tried to drag him back to wakefulness. "I'm going to fix this, Gray. I'm going to save you, I really, really am. I'll find a way. I'm going to remember. I'm going to remember you."
"Alright," Gray breathed. His too-pale eyes were soft and his voice fond, but it was the tone of someone who was humoring an impossible claim. He reached out slowly, his fingers brushing along Natsu's cheek to wipe away the tears. "Goodbye, flame brain."
No, no, no, this wasn't happening, he wasn't watching Gray shatter in front of his eyes. The dream shuddered again, and Natsu cried out.
"Gra–!"
"This is getting ridiculous, Natsu."
He opened his eyes and blinked up at Erza, Lucy, and Happy blearily. His entire body was aching from the cold, the ice having seeped into his bones while he slept. The void in his chest yawned even wider than usual, threatening to swallow him whole, and he wondered why it ached so much when all the people he loved the most were already standing in front of him.
"I get why you feel a connection," Erza continued, "but maybe it's time to let go."
"It's hurting you," Lucy added quietly, crouching before him. She pulled her sleeve over her hand and reached out to wipe his face. "You were crying in your sleep."
Natsu stared at her blankly and then reached up slowly. His fingers came away wet.
"Why do you still come if it makes you so sad?" Happy asked, his ears flattened in sadness and worry.
Why, indeed? Natsu would never find the answers he sought here, and continuing to come only seemed to make him sadder and more withdrawn. Why did he keep coming if it hurt so much? Maybe it was time to let go of his mysterious savior and move on.
"You're right," he said with a sigh, pulling himself to his feet. "Sorry. Let's go."
The others exchanged looks, but bit their lips and followed the dragon slayer quietly as he gave Zeref's icy prison one last, lingering look before turning and exiting the building. It was cold outside, the winter sky gray and gloomy while snow lay on the ground in gently-sloping drifts. Without really thinking about it, Natsu shrugged off his vest and let it fall to the ground.
"What are you doing?" Lucy asked, her brow crinkling in confusion.
Natsu shrugged, letting the cold seep into his bare skin. "Sometimes exposing yourself to the elements is how you become one with the cold."
There was a long, heavy pause, and he could practically feel his friends giving each other puzzled looks.
"For one, since when do you like the cold?" Happy asked finally. "And honestly, where would you get a weird idea like that from?"
"I heard it somewhere, once."
But for the life of him, Natsu couldn't remember where he had heard it or who he had heard it from. He frowned and dug through his moth-eaten memory for a moment, but then he shrugged it off and walked on.
It probably wasn't important, anyway.
Note: I've written some pretty sad things in my time, but I'll admit that the ending got me X) I felt horrible about writing that last line, especially. Good horrible, but still horrible lol
emmahoshi: Every time I read a new manga chapter, I wish I'd stopped reading it too X) Lol, idk about the pictures. There are a lot of implications of this idea that aren't very clear, and not even Mashima himself understands how to detangle the big mess it would leave. The easy answer about Gray's memories is that this is an in-between space (including between memory and forgetting, as he mentioned) so the rules are a little hazy. I did make a distinction between his name and the rest of it, where the name is something consciously given up and most of the rest is lost along with his consciousness when he "sleeps" as the ice. And since Natsu is "waking" him up, he still remembers that stuff. I honestly could have handled this a lot of different ways, but this is the way that worked best for the story I wanted to tell. Gray remembers all this stuff about everyone else on his own, he's just using the "in your mind" excuse to get Natsu off his case. Lol, yes, I am cruel X) (EDIT: Lol, the "dreaming of" part didn't tell you there was something fishy about that? XD Yeah, that last line got me too. And I've had kind of the same question before: if you don't remember, does it even matter? So maybe it was some philosophical musing on my part, too. If these few minutes were important while they lasted, but in the end no one remembers, are they still important? I'd like to think that they are, that they matter, even if only because they mattered while they were happening. But because I'm jaded, I also threw in that last line to cast doubt on that. My answer honestly depends on my mood, or maybe it's something in between.)