Fight Fire With Fire

Characters: Juvia, Gray, Natsu
Pairing: A little bit of Gruvia
Word Count: 1285
Warning: ft 424, 425 spoiler, Angst
Dedication: iraj... again

Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.

It had not taken Natsu and Lucy long to find Avatar. It also had not taken them long to find Gray. They were happy to see their friend again, but Natsu immediately rushed at him, asking his friend how he could have left Juvia behind.

A girl, around the age of the two Fairy Tail mages shot forth and attacked Lucy. While Lucy fought her Natsu found out that Gray did not remember.

Although he claimed that the name Juvia did sound familiar, he remembered neither Natsu nor Lucy. Neither did he remember being a part of Fairy Tail.

The two fights were long and hard. Lucy was surprised to see Gray over powering Natsu easily. Natsu claimed the ice make mage's ice smelled differently than before. Gray did not care. With ease and his, as he dubbed it, 'hellish ice' he froze every attack Natsu sent his way.

Natsu decided to up his game, as a last resort. He used the hottest flames he had in his arsenal. Burning off Lucy's clothing. Again.

To no avail. Gray simply froze these flames as well. Natsu did not know what to do anymore, but he would not give up. He was about to attack Gray again with a Fire Dragon's Roar, when a voice called out.

He turned to find Juvia. Wendy was rushing after her, telling the water mage to stop and return to bed. Her fever had not decreased one bit.

Natsu saw Gray observing the water mage, and imagined a spark of recognition in the now blood red eyes of his childhood friend.

Juvia was out of breath, she was still dressed in the loose shirt and the long skirt Lucy and Wendy had helped her dress into earlier. Sweat was running down her face. Evidently the fever took a toll on her.

"Natsu-san, your fire will have no effect. Gray-sama trained his ice to be so cold he could freeze anything. It seems like his time here made that stronger as well. Juvia thinks it is time for a different strategy.", she explained and Natsu raised a brow

"What do you mean?", he asked her and Juvia smiled confidently

"It is time to fight ice with ice."

In the background Lucy retorted that that was not the way that saying went, but her words fell on dead ears. Even her opponent paid more attention to Juvia, or rather to Juvia's words than to Lucy.

The girls quickly aimed an attack on Juvia, simply for calling Gray Gray-sama.

Both water and ice united to stop her and Gray told the girl to stand by the side. The bluenette would be his opponent.

"Ahh, you mean get Lyon. But I think-", Natsu concluded and Juvia shook her head

"Natsu-san is not the only one who trained. Before Gray-sama left Juvia, he taught her the basis of his ice magic. It might not be much. But Juvia thinks it's our only way.", she explained.

"But Juvia-san, you're ill you should not fight!", Wendy told her and Juvia sighed

"Juvia knows. But making Gray-sama remember is more important than Juvia's health. To all of us."

So she fired her first attack, one of her own Water Slicer to signal the start of a fight to Gray. He had not seen her attack coming, since he was still arguing with the girl beside him. The water threw him back into the wall behind him.

When Gray came back to his feet he started his counter attack. The fight started with hot water and ice. The ice hit Juvia, resulting in scratches on her arms, her face and her clothes. The water his Gray.

The ice demon slayer noted how the water turned colder gradually and he started to freeze her attacks.

Juvia was out of breath. She knew she would not last much longer, but she had a plan. She sent two streams of water over to Gray, which were both frozen right away and Juvia used his distraction to move forward. She put her two hands together and exclaimed "Ice Make Spear". With the spear in her right hand she ran at Gray.

He tried to keep her away and lifted his hands to freeze the spear, the water mage had thrown in his direction. Instead of freezing, the spear grew in size and he was lucky that it only pinned him to the wall behind him by his clothing.

"Surprised? Well you can't freeze what is already made of ice.", she smiled.

That woman was good he had to give her that. He pushed away the spear and was about to run at her when she appeared right before him. An ice dagger in her hand.

He shuddered when the ice made contact with his skin, right above his heart.

"Go ahead, kill me. You don't have the guts do you. You're from Fairy Tail. Heard it was a legal guild. But it disbanded didn't it?", he taunted her and Juvia grit her teeth

"Don't try Juvia, Gray-sama. You might not remember, but Juvia also walked on the dark side once.", she told him and he rolled his eyes

"Come on, you won't kill me. You would never hurt your nakama."

"At the moment Gray-sama isn't a nakama of Juvia's. He's a dark wizard, trying to help Zeref win. Tell Juvia one reason why she shouldn't end you.", her voice was uneven and she felt Natsu's and Wendy's wide eyed gazes on her back.

"Because you love me.", he simply said and Juvia looked up.

Her blue eyes met his red ones and his eyes widened. He averted his gaze, his hair fell forward hiding his eyes and he muttered

"Kill me."

"Tell Juvia one reason why.", she again challenged, her voice on the verge of breaking, her eyes were forming tears.

"Because I became a part of Avatar.", he breathed, his face still hidden

"Not good enough a reason.", she told him. Behind her back Natsu, Wendy, Happy and Carla exchanged confused gazes. Lucy was still fighting the girl, or rather holding her back from separating Juvia and Gray.

"Because I became a dark wizard.", he argued.

"Still not good enough.", she told him and saw him grit his teeth

"Because I am filth. I'm a bastard. I left you. I gave in to the darkness. I betrayed my nakama. Do you still need more reasons?", he asked and she smiled sadly

"Yes."

"Do you wanna know why I left you? Because I felt the darkness grow inside me. It was so strong I couldn't fight it. It did things with me. It made me black out. It made stand by and watch as my body thought about and tried to hurt you. It made try to kill you in your sleep. So kill me, I don't deserve to live. Kill me Juvia! KILL ME!", he screamed and in his anger looked up.

Ocean blue met storm grey.

The dagger clattered to the floor and Gray collapsed into Juvia, like he had done a year ago. Again they both sank to their knees. Hiding his face in her bosom, he let the tears flow freely. He could hear her heartbeat fluttering in her breast. It calmed him down immensely. He felt her hide her face in his hair and when he looked up again he saw her smiling at him with tears running down her face.

"Juvia is happy to have you back, Gray-sama.", she whispered and his arms moved from her shoulders around her waist pulling her closer to him.