We watch him fall together.
You want to look away, look anywhere but at his inevitable, meteoric descent, but you cannot. You will not, because to look away means to deny yourself the final memory. To look away is not brave.
To look away forfeits your right to be a good son. To the only person you've had the pleasure to call "Father".
Family must always stick together, yes? Even if they bicker and quarrel and never speak to one another again, they can't refuse it: the siren song of the blood, the very fabric and fiber of their beings conjured and entwined in communion. If one cannot be there to capture finality, he will do so on his own terms. Alone.
You're not alone, Natsu—you have your friends, the people you call family. The people who will never abandon you. But in this moment, as the heart of the earth freezes to beat and the eternal breath catches itself upon the snags in the throat of the world, you will be.
You will be alone. It's a wondrous lie.
Beautiful, aching, ephemeral, like the seasons.
Nothing lasts forever. You should know this.
I know this.
I was so close…but, alas, whether by providence or by circumstance, it wasn't meant to be.
You just don't know when to give up, do you, Acnologia?
Still, Natsu, we must settle things. They cannot be left untouched nor can they be forgotten. Remember this, as you run toward ground zero. Remember this, as the black wind blows, kicks hope and dreams and unanswered questions to an unreachable oblivion.
Remember this, and you will know strength unlike anything you have ever beheld.
"The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood…."
– Revelations 8:10-11