A/N: Hello lovelies!
I just couldn't get this idea out of my head ever since I read the recent manga chapters. So, if you're not caught up with the manga and you don't want to be spoiled, here's your warning! Anyway, hope you guys enjoy!
Since when had the heat ever bothered him?
His eyes were heavy and dry as he trudged forward on the dirt path, releasing shallow breaths past his chapped lips every time his feet took another step forward. Dust kicked upwards and caked onto his exposed ankles, dyeing his white pants a dull brown. His scarf hung loose around his bleeding neck, the fabric undoubtedly caked in the red liquid, but he paid no mind to it.
He bit down on his lips as he felt his skin burn, as if live fire were dancing on his arms and legs and licking him with their devilish tongues of heat, pushing his limbs further into a blazed abyss of inferno. This fire was no ally or friend to him, this fire scorched and burned in the worst way possible. But why?
His right arm hung by his side uselessly, his skin practically burned down to the bone, a sight that he'd never thought he would ever have to lay his eyes upon.
His eyes glossed over the path before him, a path that had once been filled with laughing children and flowers with bright colored-petals that emitted a light floral perfume. The small river canal beside the path would be filled with koi fish and canoes of smiling families and lovers.
Now, everything was dead.
The path was littered with garbage and stray bricks from destroyed monuments and buildings, the streets void of any life what-so-ever. Debris and broken flower petals danced along the flowing murky water, silencing the life of the once vibrant koi fish that floated silently above the water.
And then there was the smell.
His nose burned as the scents of everything hit him at once; the blood drenched on his clothes, the gasoline of broken pipes, the smoke of burning wood…
It's over he thought to himself as he rounded a corner slowly, raising his stiff neck slightly to catch a better glimpse of his broken path, a flash of red eyes and black hair drowning his vision.
His enemy, the world's enemy, his brother…would not be able to destroy the world that he called his home, the world that his nakama had called their home, the world that brought him to Fairy Tail was safe once more.
He halted his shaking footsteps as another flash of pain shot through his body, causing him to grunt out loudly and grind his teeth together, his cry of pain echoing out through the deafening silence of the town. He squeezed his eyes shut as he felt the burn of fire scorch his entire body, the unfamiliar fire that was not welcomed with opened arms. He inhaled sharply and grabbed his scarf in his fist as he tried to drown out the pain with the three words that he'd been repeating to himself ever since he left the guild.
It's all over.
"Hey! Wake-up!"
The voice made Natsu freeze in his efforts to drown out the pain as his shaking fist loosened its death grip. The voice was a distant echo at first, slowly growing into a crescendo of panic as he struggled to open his eyes and focus on what appeared to be three figures before him up ahead. The blurred shapes soon formed into recognizable colors and faces as his heart suddenly dropped to the deep depths of his stomach as he laid eyes upon two long blonde pigtails sprawled out on the ground, tangled in leaves.
"Please, Lucy! This isn't funny!"
Her name seemed to fuel the fire burning his body, sending another shock of pain that vibrated against his bones and filled his head with blistering smoke. He hissed through his teeth and struggled to stay upright as his body began to sag against the force of impending gravity.
"Natsu?"
At hearing his name his eyes focused on the face of the speaker, a broken and scratched up Gray who stared up at him with shocked eyes.
Since when had he reached them so quickly? Had the pain drowned out his sense of movement and time?
"Natsu." Gray said again incredulously, Natsu looking at the scratches that adorned his muscled arms and chest, a deep gash stamped onto his stomach as his chest moved up and down urgently to keep him alive. "What are you…"
Natsu couldn't remember the last time he'd properly inhaled the oxygen he needed to live, and it certainly wouldn't come any time soon after his eyes travelled down to the unconscious figure with the striking blonde hair that had brought his vision back for just a moment.
Gray had placed Lucy's head atop his lap, his hands lightly poking her cheeks and shaking her shoulders as he continued to call out her name, trying to get her to open her eyes.
Her usual peachy toned skin was pale as snow, all colors of life drained from the face that had a smile that could brighten up his day in an instant. Her exposed stomach was scratched and bruised, purple and blue spots traveling down to her thighs. Her once pink lips were cracked and dry, lips that held so many snarky comments and beautiful laughter.
He dropped to his knees, ignoring the pain that jutted out from his knee caps as he felt a familiar set of paws lightly press against his leg.
"Natsu…" Happy's sad voice chimed, though his partner's voice was lost in his hearing as he locked eyes on the part of her hair that had covered the right side of her face. He reached out to brush her hair away from her face, pausing for just a moment as he felt something sinister sink into the depths of his stomach before finally brushing the hair away.
What little breathing his body allowed him to stopped altogether as his eyes widened in absolute horror.
Red, angry veins were tattooed across her right cheek, dancing tauntingly around her jawline and eyebrow, where they finally plunged into her eye, a whole network of dark and sinister power. Her eyelids were shut, dried tears caked around her eyelashes as Natsu traced the veins with his shaking hand, following the foreign lines down to her neck and right shoulder, invading her bloodstream all the way down to her fingertips.
The heat omitting from her veins almost singed his shaking fingertips, making Natsu swallow a shaking breath.
She couldn't handle this much heat in her body, no normal human could possibly allow their blood to become that boiled and poisoned with fire and expect to…
Just how much pain was she in? he thought angrily as his eyes began to burn with tears, his body beginning to shake with the uncontrollable pain that had been plaguing him all this time, turning to lock eyes with a stone-faced Gray.
"What happened-" he began to ask, until he realized that he didn't have to ask what had happened to her.
Back at the guild, he knew from the moment that he felt his own fire begin to spark back into his body that his friends had paid a price that he hadn't agreed on paying. Back when darkness was all he could see and feel, he followed a small spark of light that was calling to him, calling him out of the darkness and back into the light of the living.
He saw her face in his mind before his vision was fully restored, and he knew it was her.
And his hunch was confirmed when his eyes caught the silhouette of an opened book with a beaten up leather spine, the pages inside scribbled with angry black and what now appeared to be shimmering gold text that stood proudly written in between the black as if to assert its dominance, Lucy asserting her dominance over the text, just like she did with every book.
And right next to the book was a simple pen, broken in half and dripping gold ink onto the green grass.
The harsh gold of the ink blinded Natsu's vision as the heat suddenly became too much for him to handle, and he felt himself falling, his head landing on Lucy's still chest with a small thump.
"Natsu!" He faintly heard Gray and Happy exclaim in shock as he turned his head to stare at Lucy's eyelashes, his hot cheek rubbing softly against her skin.
It was in that moment that he finally understood why this heat was sending him into the depths of intolerable pain.
With a final glimpse down to Lucy's red fingertips, he allowed himself to confirm his final thoughts as the shimmering gold overtook his vision.
"NATSU!"
He was not a being meant to be saved. Just as she was not a girl meant to save him.
And as the gold script in the Book of END began to eat away at the pages and leather bindings, he allowed himself to be taken along with it.
And he fell back into blinding darkness.
o-o-o
A soft breeze, warm and gentle, was enough to prompt Natsu to open his eyes slowly, the black that had once suffocated him was slowly fading into a fluorescent gold, the same gold that had taken him away once before.
He was greeted with a bright blue sky with puffy clouds, clean air filling his lungs as he inhaled deeply, letting his senses adjust to his surroundings as he allowed himself to sit up slowly, blinking as he took in the soft golden grass beneath his palms.
"What?" he asked himself as his eyes took in the shimmering gold around him, small specks of feathers and sparkling matter dancing around in the air. He stood up fully, shocked at his steadiness as one of the feathers landed on his arm, and as Natsu plucked it off of his skin and brought it closer to his face to examine it, he realized that the fire that plagued his body was gone.
Releasing the feather, his eyes swept over his right arm, now completely healed and covered with his smooth tan skin. His fingertips brushed his skin, and he began to frown. Wasn't it just a moment ago that he could barely see the skin on his arm? Wasn't it just a moment ago that he could barely open his eyes or stand up straight?
He glanced up at the sky once more, as if to search for an answer.
"You've finally made it."
Natsu's heart picked up a strange rhythm as he felt his eyes widen at hearing the oh-so familiar voice chime so clearly, a sweet melody of calm.
Slowly, he turned around to meet the pair of eyes that he wasn't able to look at before, and he found himself staring immensely at her.
She stood before him calmly and steadily, a smile playing up on her glossed pink lips as her long pigtails blew gently behind her back. She was wearing the same outfit as before, only her shirt wasn't torn to pieces and her boots hugged her legs without exposing the skin underneath. Her skin was clear and her peachy pink blush was back on her cheeks, brightening when she closed her eyes and flashed him an even bigger smile then the one she already wore.
Lucy…
She giggled softly. "You sure kept me waiting long enough."
Natsu didn't move, or rather he couldn't move, frozen in his spot as he drank her in with wide eyes. His mouth, while parted slightly, was unable to form any words to communicate with her.
All he could see were violent snapshots of her in his mind, lying on the ground, lifeless and pale. He remembered how his heart began to pound quick and fast when he traced those malignant red veins on her cheek, and how much he wanted to scream when he realized that it was all his fault.
He killed her. He killed them both.
Slowly, he began to move towards her, refusing to break eye contact with his partner until he was mere inches away from her. Acting as if his touch were poisonous to her, he slowly reached for her right arm and stopped, his own hand shaking in the process before his left hand joined in and he gently took Lucy's arm into his hands. He ran his fingers over her smooth and unscathed skin, a sense of overwhelming grief and joy filling his senses simultaneously as he came to realize the red marks were gone, tears budding in his eyes.
"I'm sorry."
He broke out of his thoughts and focused on her face once more, shocked to find her staring down at his hands with a sad smile on her face.
"I…wasn't strong enough to withstand it…" she trailed off, her lips curling down into a frown after she seemed to be giving it some thought. She bit down on her lip as she looked away at the golden grass at their feet. "And even with my efforts…you still…we both-"
She immediately halted her speech when Natsu touched her cheek, fingertips lightly tracing her skin as she slowly brought her eyes back up to meet with his once more.
He hated the tears that began to spill down her flushed cheeks, and he hated that she blamed herself for what had happened.
He cupped her cheek more securely, brushing away her tears with his thumb.
"I'm the one who has to apologize." he told her firmly, tears still budding in his eyes as he refused to break eye contact with her. He gritted his teeth together as the gentle wind around them began to pick up.
"Because of me, you'll never go back to that cafe that you like. You'll never wash your hair with that shampoo that smells nice…you'll never see any of your spirits again…or any of our friends!"
He was almost yelling at this point, and his own tears began to pour down his cheeks. He released his hold on her cheek and placed both of his hands on her shoulders, gritting his teeth once more as he struggled not to completely lose it-
He felt her hands cup his cheeks, her mouth set in a frown as she waited for him to calm his shaking. The wind around them slowed into a gentle caressing breeze as she brought his face down to hers so that their foreheads touched lightly.
Natsu stared at her, and it only brought him deeper into frustrated despair.
"Hell…you never even finished that novel of yours." he said softly, almost to the point of laughing at the pathetic fact he brought up, out of all of the things he could've said, he chose to say that.
All he could do was stare down at her incredulously before he finally found the strength to wrap her up in his arms and bury her into his chest, exhaling as she nuzzled herself into his neck. They said nothing for quite some time, until it was broken by a violent flash of the Book of END lying dangerously close to her body.
"If it weren't for that damned book-"
"If I could give you just one more chance to make things right for the world, I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat." Lucy cut him off suddenly. "If it means that I could save everyone, I'd burn from the inside out all over again, to help you." she smiled softly against his neck, tears slowly streaming down her cheeks.
"You were able to stop Zeref."
Natsu frowned at her words. "I never told you that."
"You didn't have to." she told him, backing up so that she could smile up at him. "I never stopped believing in you."
Her words were simple, and yet, Natsu knew that she meant every word. After all, who better to speak this truth to him other than Lucy?
Natsu poked her cheek. "Well if it weren't for you…" he trailed off, not wanting to think about what she had gone through up until that moment. "It wasn't just me."
Lucy puffed out her cheeks and lightly punched his shoulder. "Well, duh!"
The wind picked up once more, blowing her pigtails behind her back as she stared up at him with her warm eyes, eyes full of light and life, and they both had decided in that moment to leave all their grief behind them, forever looking ahead to a lifetime filled with golden laughter and memories.
"I always knew you'd write about me one day." he told her softly, laughing suddenly pulling her close to him, his eyes glancing down at her lips. "I just wish it wasn't like this."
She smiled back up at him, shifting her weight to her toes so that she could rise up and close the gap between them completely.
And just before their lips met, her words were carried away by the golden wind, along with the two of them, taking them off into their next big adventure.
"Natsu, you're the best novel I've ever written."