(Even though says this is my 50th story, it isn't, since I have a story I'm posting for a friend. To my Ninjago fans, I might have a 50 stories special.)
Song Inspiration: "My Immortal" by Evanescence
Quote: "This pain is just too real". (I changed "is" to "was", but that's the only change).
My submission for EsteVamp's writing challenge #4. Enjoy :)
The sky was darker than Lucy had ever seen it. The clouds cast giant shadows across the destroyed land below, blocking out any and all light. Red streaks across the sky, like a sunset on a bloody canvas. Thick, deadly smoke filled the air, rising upwards towards the crimson cloud cover. The grass below her feet is reduced to ash, blackened with soot and stained with blood. Bodies were strewn about the place, cold, lifeless, gone. Whether their life was pure or dark didn't matter, they all met the same cold fate.
She could hear the screams...harsh battle cries, sobs of despair, howls of pain... Names, spells, and roars dissolve into one, creating a violent cacophony of horror that echoes uncontrollably in her ears. She could already see them...her friends...she could see them from a distance... They weren't breathing anymore... Her chest ached, yet she did not cry. For some reason, she was in shock. She was refusing to believe that they were truly gone...
She remembered Lisanna's bright smile, Bickslow's silly tongue, Freed's undying devotion to Laxus, Juvia's overwhelming love for Gray, Cana's crazy drinking habits, Wendy's selfless nature, Carla's prim properness, Patherlily's spot-on advice, Gajeel's bad songs, Jet and Droy's antics, Mirajane's shipping habit, Laxus' true heart, Romeo's extreme bravery, Macao's pervy attitude, Wakaba's outdated hairstyle...
Levy's amazing friendship... Gray's brotherly acts... Erza's unwavering loyalty... Happy's surprising comfort...
And...Natsu...
They weren't all gone yet...but by the end of this...they most likely would be. She had a million things to say to them: thanking Mirajane for everything she'd done, telling Erza she was like a sister, telling her guildmates how much they meant to her...
And telling Natsu the truth...the truth she'd tried to hide, tried to ignore...but no use. It came out every day, every waking moment... She loved him...and there was no changing that.
"Natsu!" she screams, her voice cracking with pain. Blood streams through her fingers from her gaping wound, staining her skin. Battling north of her, Natsu whirls around. His eyes widen in panic at the sight of her wound.
"LUCY!" he roars, sounding inhuman. He punches an enemy solider right in the face without even looking at him, flames surging from his fist. Natsu picks up the pace, limping across the bloody ashes. His footsteps are painfully uneven, and Lucy realizes in horror that his left leg is almost useless. It was scorched all down the front, burning away at his flesh, yet somehow he was dragging the dead weight towards her. His eyes are filled with tears of pain and suffering as he stumbles across the deathbed of their friends to reach her. He chokes on what appears to be his own tears, only for Lucy to sob when blood spurts from between his cut lips.
Her Dragon Slayer collapses to the ground in front of her, gasping as he tries to draw breath. Ignoring her wound, pushing away the pain, Lucy throws her thin bloody arms around him, burying her face into his cut chest. He doesn't move as she cries into his bloodstained scarf, spilling out her sorrows into the fabric. Tears flood her brown eyes as she chokes out his name, "N-Natsu..." He coughs, unable to speak anymore as he slowly moves an injured arm to hug her comfortingly. Lucy's bloody lips tremble as she speaks. "Are...are we going to d-die here? Is this impossible to w-win?" Natsu's silence stabs Lucy like a knife in the chest, breaking her apart. She sobs harder, knowing that his silence means...yes. This was hopeless fight...but Natsu would never admit it. He knew that, for Lucy, hearing his voice tell her that it was over would only kill her from the inside out. It would make this hurt even more that it already did...
When he finally speaks, his voice is barely audible. "When...when...we make it out of this...I...I'm gonna need a new leg..." Natsu laughs shakily, but it quickly turns into a cough. "I'll be...like Gildarts..."
Tears splash from Lucy's cheeks onto her trembling hands. This was Natsu's way of telling her that they were finished...and she knew it. "Yeah..." she replies weakly. She clutches her wound again, her fingers digging into her skin. "This...stupid war..." she gasps. "I...still can't believe...that Fiore...would drag us into their stupid war with another kingdom..." Her eyes pools of saltwater, she raises her voice to an agonizing cry, "IF YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE WIZARDS FIGHT, THEN MAKE ALL THE THE GUILDS FIGHT TOGETHER! WE CAN'T-!" Lucy breaks down into a bloody coughing fight, spitting up blood of her own. "We can't...do this alone..."
"I'm...with you..." Natsu whispers, silent tears sliding down his cheeks. "I'll be with you...until it's...over...and even then...I won't let you be...alone..."
"I...love...you, Natsu..." Lucy chokes out, not caring about the circumstances. She looks up at him, tears freely streaking her cheeks.
"Yeah..." he whispers, clutching her shaking hand. "I...thought...so..." He presses his bloody lips to her forehead, tears forming waterfalls on his cheeks, washing away the scarlet trails of pain. Lucy breaks down fully in his arms, shaking from the unbearable pain and sorrow. Her heart was screaming inside her chest, a glass pane ready to shatter.
Natsu laughs again, coughing up more blood. "It's...amazing..." He whispers, looking deep into Lucy's eyes. "It's amazing that...we still...haven't given up..." He slides a weak hand over his heart. "But I guess that's our guild... And...after...all of this...I never would've thought that...this...this would be the end of-"
His eyes widen suddenly, his irises shrinking. His entire body goes limp as a one last tear slides down his cheek. Crimson flies through the air as the solider yanks his blade from Natsu's back with no emotion, his eyes blazing with bloodlust. Scarlet splatters on the ground in front of Natsu, painting the ground with his blood. His red-stained lips part, about to speak, about to say his final words, when his breath is suddenly stolen from him, and his body crumples to the cold earth.
Nothing. He said nothing. No final speech, no cursing his killer, no "I love you". Just silence...and a single tear...
Lucy screams, her throat burning as her tears splash into a river of emotions. The raging current flies from her cheeks onto his limp, lifeless form, splattering his bloodied pink locks with clear droplets of sorrow. This pain was just too real...
The enemy solider takes a surprised step back, not expecting someone else to be there too. Lucy clings to Natsu's corpse, clutching his head close to her heart as she curses the world through a flurry of tears. The solider drops his bloodstained blade, shocked, and flees.
Lucy screams again, her voice cracked and shrill. "NO! NOOO! NO! GET BACK HERE, YOU BASTARD! KILL ME TOO! PLEASE!" Her words were so broken, shattering like glass as she howls in agony. Frightened, the enemy solider disappears into the victorious leaving army...Fiore had lost.
Lucy gazes up at the sky, cradling Natsu in her arms as she rocks back and forth. She can barely speak, her words obscured by tears. Her body trembles as she whispers with her last strength, "Please...take me with him...let me die...and join my friends...my family...my...Natsu..."
The heavens heard her cries, as they always did... Golden light broke through the darkness in a single beam that soon spread across a small portion of the sky. Lucy lifts her face to the sun, the warmth, the light. Her eyes shone with hope and love. Still holding onto Natsu's body, she reaches towards the sky with her battered right hand, extending it to whoever she saw in the light... The heavens smile upon her, the girl of the stars, the girl with no one left, no place left to call home...
Her body begins to glow with light, shimmering in radiant purity. Her eyes glow as her final wish is granted... Her body sparkles, separates into stardust, and joins the stars she so deeply loved. She would never be alone again...
But according to the legends, on some rare, magical nights, if you look just right, you can almost see the princess flying away over the stars with her dragon, their promise never broken.