Chapter 1
Jellal's one true desire had finally come true. He had found a way to make Erza happy. He was sitting in a cave overlooking the sea. He, Ultear, and Meredy had come back here on his request, because Jellal had had a revelation. After talking to Master Makarov about joining the second Team Fairy Tail, and learning the Daimatou Enbu had been delayed by a week, he had been asked a very simple but very important question. "What will Erza think about this," was the first question Makarov had asked. He was a good man, worrying first about Erza, then all the political and legal repercussions that would ensue if it was found out that he had allowed Jellal to fight with Fairy Tail.
Jellal had thought about that question before confronting Makarov and hadn't come up with an answer that satisfied him. "I've thought about that. If Erza wants me to leave, I will. I'll leave and never see her again if that's what she needs. But this is important, and I hope she'll understand. I can tell you Master Makarov, there is nothing in the world I want more than for Erza to be happy. I've brought her far too much pain already." Master Makarov had nodded and changed the topic to small details. He certainly knew what details to focus on to lessen the Magic Council's power to punish them. From decades of experience Jellal recalled with a small grin. He remembered his time on the Council as time spent arguing and laughing at Fairy Tail's path of destruction.
After finalizing the agreement, Makarov had nodded his head and said that he would allow Jellal to fight on one of the Team Fairy Tails. As Jellal was walking out the door, Makarov had shouted at him that the Games were to be delayed by one week. He asked if Jellal and his friends needed a place to stay for the intervening time, but Jellal had shaken his head in negative. He couldn't ask Makarov for more after asking for so much already. The Magic Council would use any excuse it could to disband Fairy Tail. And allying itself with known criminals would be cause enough to get any guild disbanded, never mind Fairy Tail which had worn away all the Council's patience.
When he closed the door to the small, ramshackle building Fairy Tail called its Headquarters, Meredy was the first to speak up. "Jellal, if we're not staying here, where will we go?" she asked. Jellal thought about that. There wasn't a single place he wanted to go in this whole world. Except wherever Erza was. But he couldn't go back, couldn't let her see them after what had almost happened. He knew she still loved him, had the whole time he was on Heaven's Tower, and while he was dead to the world after the Tower was destroyed, and while he was in prison. She still loved him even after turning her childhood friends against her; he had killed one of them, the one who had also loved her. It was his memories of Simon that hurt Jellal the most. Simon had loved Erza. He had stayed loyal to her all those years. Jellal himself had tried to kill her. Yet she loved Jellal over Simon. Jellal never understood that. Why not Simon? He just wished that he had died on the Tower rather than Simon. That Simon and all their friends had joined Fairy Tail. Finally found happiness. And Erza would have found love with someone else and forgotten about him. Jellal the dark nightmare, Jellal the man who had tried to offer her to his dark god, Jellal the man about whom she told stories to her children to make them behave.
Jellal stopped for a second a retraced his mental steps. And Erza could have found love with someone else and forgotten about him. That was it! All he had to do was make her fall in love with someone else! Then she would forget him. But how?
He had learned how to manipulate the mind in his years of studying magic, and making a love potion would be child's play. But he couldn't force her to love someone. Just push her in the right direction. So he'd give it to someone else and just make her the target. She had four guys in her group at the moment, he could narrow it down to them. If it was one of them, it would happen sooner. And for every day sooner Erza found love, that was another day of happiness she could have.
Jellal thought about the four men. The tall, skinny one Jet, and his overweight friend Droy. Those two seemed to have feelings for that Levy girl, and Erza didn't seem to be especially attached to them. Then there was Gray, the man who had fought alongside Erza on Heaven's Tower, and against the Oracion Seis, he had been with her on many adventures. Jellal hadn't interacted much with Gray, but Ultear thought very highly of him. But Meredy had said that Juvia loved Gray. And Jellal wasn't ready to inflict more pain on anyone, even for Erza's sake. So that left one person. Natsu, the pink haired, fire eating Dragon Slayer that had managed to stop Jellal's evil plan.
How had Jellal not realized from the beginning. Natsu was the perfect choice. He was loud, obnoxious, a little dim at times, and very immature. But he had a loyalty to his friend's Jellal thought couldn't be matched. When Erza was falsely arrested after the events of the Lullaby Crisis, Natsu disguised himself as Erza, albeit doing a terrible job of it, and came to the trial and said he was her. No one else had the courage to even speak up in her defense. The trial had been a sham, to satisfy the public, and Erza wasn't going to be punished. And Natsu's actions caused them to spend a night in a cell. But he came with the best of intentions.
And on Heaven's Tower. Natsu could have run. Jellal, as Siegrain, had been one of the Ten Saint Wizards, the ten strongest mages in the entire country of Fiore, and that had been with only half his power. But no, Natsu had fought Jellal, for Erza. And Natsu did something no wizard had done before, eating Etherion, the ultimate magic, and had become impossibly strong. Natsu had managed to defeat Jellal. And the present Jellal would never be able to thank Natsu enough for that. But even then, the power of the Tower of Heaven would explode, killing Natsu and Erza and all their other friends who had been on the island and were now watching from a boat in the distance. Unless Erza stopped it. By giving herself to the Tower. And she had done that. But Natsu wouldn't let one of his friends die. So he did the impossible and pulled her out. He had told Erza to live for her friends instead of dying for them. Even though that had a chance of getting them both killed, he did it anyways. And Natsu had gotten them off the Tower and to safety.
There was no one Jellal believed Erza would love more than Natsu. Natsu was the most worthy man on the planet for Erza's love. And with all the pain Erza had suffered in her life, Natsu's love would be able to fix some of it. Yes. Why had Jellal needed to look at it analytically? Did it matter? He wanted Natsu and Erza to fall in love, to be happy. He wanted this to happen soon. Now. He decided where he, Meredy, and Ultear would go. They would take the risk to go back to that cave.
Because they had been fighting Dark Guilds these past six years in an attempt to redeem themselves, many people on both sides of the law would do anything to see them captured or worse. But giving Erza happiness was the greatest thing Jellal could do with his life. He was willing to risk any fate to give it to her. He wouldn't force Meredy and Ultear to come with him, but he would tell them what he was doing and ask them to come. They would understand. A chance to right the one person they had wronged most. They knew that feeling well.
And so Jellal would go. And he would use the love potion on Natsu. And that would be the beginning of his plan to make Erza happy.