A/N: Just as a pre-warning, I'm only half-way through the Tenroujima arc, so Zeref may be OoC. Please enjoy anyways, Master of the Hellish Yard
Disclaimer: Fairy Tail isn't mine, and Gray probably thanks Kami-sama for that.
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No matter how far Gray opened his eyes, the world was dark. No matter how hard he listened, he couldn't hear any voices. For that matter, he couldn't hear any sound at all.
Maybe he had died on that mission. Maybe this was what death was really like, endless darkness and silence. At least whatever he was laying on was soft.
Gray shivered. That was weird, he thought. I never get cold. And yet… Gray couldn't deny that the shiver was from the cold he was feeling, not from any emotions towards his predicament. Trying to get up, Gray winced. There was pain all over. I must have gone to hell. That would be why there's nothing here. Or maybe this is heaven, and they've left me like this, covered in injuries, just to spite me. Yes, Gray was covered in injuries, and they were pretty deep. There was no light coming in from anywhere, so Gray couldn't see the bandages, but he knew they were there. He could feel them. Heavy and thick, he must have been hurt bad. Trying to move once more, Gray this time withstood the pain in his arms but then hit his head on something.
Reaching up, he discovered it felt wooden. That's odd… He thought. Why would there be wood around me? Confused and tired, Gray wanted to go to sleep. Suddenly, there was a slight noise, and the space around him shook. Although Gray didn't know what exactly it was, He thought it sounded like Natsu. In pain. And calling out –This can't be true- Gray's name.
Reaching and feeling all around him, instantly Gray understood where he was. He felt a wave of nausea rush over him. But he had to resist it. It would not only be all over him, it would fill the little amount of air remaining, and if that happened, Gray would truly be dead. No, first he had to think. Think of a way to get out. And he needed to conserve the air. Why?
He had been buried alive.
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Crying on the ground above where the ice mage rested were many of Fairy Tail's mages. Recently, Natsu, Happy, Lucy, Erza and Gray had gone on a mission, one that had 'fatally' wounded Gray.
When they had first burst back into the guild, Gray had been held in Natsu's arms. If not for the dire look of former mage's injuries and latter's expression, the rest of the members would have burst out laughing. Instead, the useful ones had hurried to get a room ready in which to bandage and heal Gray while the others stayed out of the way.
Nobody had ever seen Natsu so focused without flames bursting all around him, and honestly it was quite a fearful sight. Even when Gray had been taken care of, however, he had still not woken up. That could be considered normal, but on the sixth day, preparations for a funeral began.
Gray's pulse could no longer be felt, and his body was colder and more still than it should be, even for a normal ice mage. Two days later, the grounds had been prepared. By the third, there was a thick marble stone resting atop a mound of freshly turned-over dirt and a wooden box, deep inside.
The ground above was covered with fairies, and even near the back were two people from Lamia Scale. One had been the elder pupil; the other was compassionate about love. Up towards the front were some of Gray's closer nakama, some of his better friends. There was Macao and Cana, both still until Cana broke down onto Macao's chest, Mirajane and Elfman, who were both shedding tears for their 'fallen' nakama, Loke and Lucy, the former holding the quaking blonde while letting out tears of his own as he looked towards his friend's final area of rest, and finally Natsu and Erza.
Erza did have tears coming from her real eye, yet she didn't seem to be truly upset. She seemed to be in a state of shock, and in which she was looking but not seeing.
Natsu, on the other hand, was off to the side, slightly apart from all of the others. At first, he had been looking slightly skywards with tears falling down his face from shadowed eyes, but now he had slumped to his knees and was beating the ground, harder with each word.
Dying, leaving the rest behind, selfish, Natsu was trying so hard to take things back to the way they were. When he could no longer think of anything to say, he hit the ground with everything he had and then some, painfully shrieking out his rival's, no. His best friend's name.
Everybody could feel the grief and sorrow of Natsu. They couldn't understand just how much it hurt, but they could feel that it was deep. Even though they were all upset, Natsu's grief was tenfold. And they couldn't do anything to save him from it.
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Only once the funeral crowd had all dispersed did a figure emerge from the nearby bushes. Slinking over towards the gravestone, tears dripping from his face, the figure softly whispered to the still body below. His voice was tender and cracking, full of loneliness, pain, and sorrow. As he spoke, the figure fell to his knees, tears pouring out of his eyes.
"Sayonara, dear brother. I wish only we could have been together, that I could have known you, protected you, loved you. Even being able to show you of my existence, our bond would have been enough."
Slumping even lower from his position on his knees, the black figure took some time to just be near his brother. Knowing he could not be there for long, the figure regretfully got up and left, leaving behind a single, black rose.
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A/N: So I'm pretty sure you all know who the 'black figure' is, but if you don't (and even if you do), please keep reading. I would have made this chapter longer, but I'm stumped on how to get Gray out of the grave. Please help! He's trapped under six feet of dirt in a sealed wooden box, and I can't kill him (at least not yet 3:D), so please send in your ideas!