Disclaimer: I own neither Fairy Tail nor Bleach. All rights remain with the respective creators and whomever they transferred the rights to.

Note: This is a temporary one-shot. I will most likely capitalize on this idea later on and start a fiction, once my muse and my calendar allow for it. This is also my first attempt on fan fiction, so forgive me if I failed to capture characters correctly or if there are any shortcomings. (Plot bunnies, hooray~)

There was not much that truly intrigued him. This did.

While it did not serve to be as wondrous as the fact alone that he - they - were still alive when they had clearly embraced death and found themselves in a place utterly unfamiliar to them, it was still curious and he wished to investigate. After all, his present situation could clearly be related to this.

He walked on the dead ground, bamboo sandals crushing flakes of ash with soft rustling, the gray particles darkening his white socks. Once more, he let his gaze wander over what had once clearly been a forest.

There was nothing alive. It was as if something had sucked out all energy from everything that had a shred of life in it. The grass laid still, no bird sounded, no animal so much as twitched and even the trees were withered and more lifeless than those he usually saw. Everything was deathly silent, as if a shield had been placed around him, blocking out all sound. He was unused to a silence such as this.

He knew the howling and singing of the air as the wind rolled along vast dunes of white sand, the quiet hissing of the fine grains being swept along. He knew the rattling of bones and jingling of the crystal trees that were common on his lands.

Here he could not hear even that. All that accompanied him was the rustling of fabric on ash and the soft humming of the person besides him as she skip-stepped over the lifeless grass. For all the uncomfortable quiet around him, he appreciated her silence more than anything, rare as it was.

This was a special kind of destruction unlike any he'd seen before. While it was comparable to the corroding power of age Barragan had been so apt to use, this one did not age anything, but rather stole its life directly. Much like Gonzui, it absorbed the energy of the living. While he was powerful and a barrage of Cero would have more effect than whatever caused this, it was still strange. More than that, the area and the air around him seemed to lack any spiritual energy whatsoever and not even the World of The Living had none. While it held only little energy, especially for one such as him, the air would still always carry some around. Here, it was non-existent. He was glad that he was no Quincy.

He felt another tug on his soul, another tendril writhing along his skin and inside his blood, seeking to rob him of his strength. He had felt this since they had entered this strange land.

But his soul was strong, stronger than most other spirits could even dream to be. So his soul simply ripped the siphoning tentacle apart. But soon after the urge to relinquish his life was defeated, a new one took its place. His partner walking next to him seemed to struggle a little with the temptation, but she would overcome it as well. She was him, after all.

The tugs became more frequent, more erratic and more violent as he neared his destination. Soon he would see the source of such destruction.

Intriguing, truly.

She cowered on the ground, her legs tucked to her chest. She hid away her head.

She killed it, the forest. She killed it, she killed every plant, every animal and every person. Just as she had killed Rita. There was no reprieve, no forgiveness she could give herself for what she did. Because even though she did not know, even though she loved life and only wanted to preserve it, she had killed. And as she couldn't simply change herself from being who she was, she could not even remotely control herself.

An abomination was what she was. Zeref had been right after all.

So she hid herself in the darkest corner of the land she could find, so that she wouldn't kill anymore. For everything that came near her would die, because she cherished life.

The irony of Ankhseram's curse was soul-crushing. To kill life only when it is loved, but to leave it when it is disregarded. She briefly wondered what it must have been like for Zeref, who wandered the world much longer than she did. Did he love life too? He had come to her before and told her of the curse that they shared. But before he could say any more, she had ran. Ran to another corner of the world, to another forest that had been lush with life before but consisted only of constructs of ash and stone now. Perhaps she should have stayed and heard him out. But she hurt too much. Thus, she became foolish and ran from the only person who could possibly live near her. Even now, he was probably searching for her. It ate her from the inside, to have rejected his offer as she did.

The loneliness she wrought on herself was just as corroding. But she couldn't seek out company. She wouldn't seek out company. Company would also not seek her out, for it would die before it reached her.

She would be alone. It was better that she stayed alone. She had already accepted that she would stay lonely until the end of her days, whenever that might come. If it came at all. She didn't want to kill anymore. And thus she did the only sensible thing, the only means of retaining her sanity, she resigned herself to her fate.

So she was rightfully shocked when she woke up one day to find the dreary sky she had expected obstructed by the distinctive frames of not one, but two persons that were peering down at her curiously.

Two persons who were unquestionably still alive.