Mavis Vermillion was bored.
The blonde twelve year old sat at a table in one of the few buildings still standing on the island of Tenrou; the library. Stacked around her, on table and floor alike, were dozens and dozens of books. Mavis loved books. Books were diverse. They served so many different purposes: to inform, to entertain, to entice, to frighten, the list went on and on. To her, books were a constant companion; always there for her when she wanted to laugh, cry (which she never did. Fairies didn't visit crybabies), or to simply lose herself in a story. Books were one of the few things that she knew of that could almost always put her in a good mood. The only others she could think of were the cute little animals that called Tenroujima their home, and her best friend Zeira. However, there were some days when even she tired of reading and instead craved for the excitement of something new, something different to happen on this lonely old island. It was days like these that made Mavis glad she had her best friend to keep her company. And even if Zeira couldn't always stave off the boredom, then at least they could suffer through it together.
Speaking of Zeira, the girl had been suspiciously quiet for the past half hour or so. Listening intently for signs of the brunette's presence, she could hear the faintest sounds of deep, even breathing from just beyond her fortress of books. Mavis gave a small frown. That girl; how were they ever going to meet the fairies if Zeira couldn't concentrate long enough to do a bit of studying? It had only been what, an hour? She looked behind her and out the small window to check the position of the sun. 'Oh dear. Has it been that long already? No wonder I'm bored!' They had begun reading around high noon and now the sun was almost finished with its decent.
Pushing her chair back from the table with a slight screech, she hopped out of the chair to place her bare feet on the cool stone floor. Doing a light bit of stretching to work the kinks out of her back, she stepped around the books she had amassed on her side of the table and gave her drooling friend a small nudge under her ribs to rouse her. Zeira's head shot up from her book-pillow and she glanced around frightfully for a few moments before settling back down with a scowl on her face.
"Mavis! How many times have I told you not to do that?" the brunette asked with a frown.
The blonde girl just smiled back demurely, bringing her finger to the corner of her mouth as she adopted her 'cute thinking pose'. "This would be the 131st time I believe. Unless you count wet willies as well, then it's 156."
Zeira just gave her a deadpan look in response. "And yet you continue to do it. Do you enjoy making me miserable?"
Mavis looked aghast. "Of course not!" she gasped, voice full of sarcasm. Then she reached over to pull on the other girl's cheeks. "Its just that Zeira's mean face is so cute! I can't help but want to see it as much as possible!"
Zeira had no response to the blonde's teasing and simply blushed, refusing to speak for a minute. Finally she spoke up. "Its getting late and we haven't eaten since lunch. Can we please go make some dinner?" To add to the girl's pleas, her stomach rumbled loud enough for both to hear.
"Of course! That's why I woke you in the first place silly! What would…you…like?" she trailed off, noticing that Zeira had gone unnaturally still.
"Someone's coming." She mumbled.
"What? People? On this island?" Mavis looked confused for a moment, until she noticed that Zeira was no longer standing in front of her. "Zeira? Where'd you-" She was cut off by a wailing cry from her friend, who had hidden herself behind a large bookcase.
"Waaaaah! I haven't spoken to anybody in six years! What am I gonna do?" She didn't notice Mavis' face, which looked like a kicked puppy at that statement.
"It's like I don't even exist!" she despaired, tears rolling down her face, before straightening up and putting her most serious face on. "Don't worry Zeira, leave it to me." With that, she marched barefoot to the entryway of the library to await their "guest".
Two tense minutes of waiting later, the heavy wooden door creaked open and the red-orange light from the setting sun outlined a tall figure draped in a thick black cloak, odd considering the almost perpetually warm weather on the island. A hood shrouded his face in shadows and Mavis noticed that, for how large the man was, he was very light on his feet, making almost no noise apart from the creaking door now closing behind him.
When the door finally shut and her eyes readjusted to the light of the candles inside, Mavis squinted and scrunched up her face in an attempt to get a glimpse at what exactly lay under the hood. She needn't have bothered however, as the man reached up with two tanned and calloused hands to remove the hood obscuring her view of the questionable man in front of her. When he did, the girl was treated to the sight of a kind looking boy that in Mavis' limited, and admittedly underused experience, looked to be at most, five or six years her senior. His golden blond hair, a few shades darker than her own, combined with what appeared to be whiskers on his cheeks, and the grin that seemed to split his face in two, drew her in for a moment before she shook her head and got down to business.
"Why have you come to this island?" Mavis asked in what she hoped was a powerful and imposing tone, though the fact that the traveler's smile seemed to, somehow, widen even farther, gave her the impression that she failed. But still, she kept a straight face as she waited to hear this boy's answer.
"Hello there little girl! I'm looking for a guild called Red Lizard that're supposed to be on this island. Well, at least I think it was this island. I'm not too good with directions hehe." He chuckled a little at some joke that Mavis assumed she missed. "I've checked out over half the island, but I can't seem to find their guild. Do you know where it is?" He looked down at the girl with a hopeful expression painting his face.
"Listen mister-"
"Naruto." The boy interjected quickly.
Mavis quirked an eyebrow at that. "Um no thank you. I was going to have stew tonight, not ramen." Besides, why on Earthland would she accept fishcakes from some strange man she just met?
The boy's whole demeanor shifted in an instant. His tall and proud posture slumped and the beaming smile dissolved from his face. Mavis could almost see the storm clouds gathering above his head as he wept for some reason that the girl couldn't fathom.
"Ismnme…" he mumbled half-heartedly.
"What was that mister? I couldn't hear you" This whole situation was getting weirder and weirder by the second.
"I said it's my name. Naruto. I wasn't asking if you wanted fishcakes. I was telling you what to call me. Naruto Uzumaki." He spoke up a bit this time, hoping to eliminate the girl's misunderstanding.
Ooooh, that made a lot more sense. She supposed she would've caught on to the fact immediately had she not been so focused on why a strange man had come to their island in search of a long-dead guild.
With a look of understanding upon her face, Mavis turned to apologize to the crying man-child. "I'm sorry Uzumaki-san. I didn't mean to, erm, offend you. I was simply caught off guard by your exclamation."
As soon as the words registered in his mind, Naruto reverted back to his initial posture, any trace of tears gone from his face and his 100 watt smile back in place.
"Ah that's ok. Misunderstandings happen. But you can just call me Naruto! So, umm-"
"Mavis Vermillion" she supplied.
His smile brightened. "So Mavis Vermillion, could you give me some directions to Red Lizard? I have some very important information I need to give to their master. It seems that they're going to be attacked by another guild called-"
"Blue Skull?" Mavis guessed. She figured she knew where he was going.
"Yeah! How'd you know that?" Naruto was impressed. He had to skulk around a lot of seedy bars to work out that information. For this little girl to know what was going to happen, she must have a lot of good connections.
"They already attacked." Naruto frowned. He was too late to warn them? Mavis continued, "Six years ago."
The two blondes stared at each other for a moment before the older one broke the silence. "Whaaaa? Six years? That's not possible! It's only been-" he started counting on his fingers, "three years at the most! Err, well, I think it's only been three years. I did sort of lose track of time on my way through Bosco. Damn. Damn Damn Damn. I'm too late again." He turned back to the girl standing before him with a bemused expression on her face. "Were there any survivors?" he asked, fearing the answer.
"Just me and my friend Zeira." She replied, hearing a yelp but no movement behind her from ousted friend. "We've been living here alone since then."
Naruto frowned hearing this. "I'm sorry I didn't get here in time to warn your guild." He apologized to the girl in front of him as well as the one hiding behind the bookcase.
"There's no need for you to apologize for an attack that you took no part in." she said, hoping to absolve him of any misplaced guilt he was feeling.
"But I-"
"Is it your job to go around informing guilds of impending attacks?"
"Well, I mean, not really, but if I can help-" Once more he was interrupted.
"Exactly. If you can help. In this case you could not, and as such, we do not blame you for…losing track of time…even if it was for six years."
At that, Naruto gave the younger blonde a sad smile. "I really am sorry I couldn't get here in time. Can I do anything to make it up to you two? Are you doing ok on this island all by yourselves? Do you need me to take you somewhere on the mainland? I mean, I don't have a boat, but I can find a way for all of us to make it. And then you can find some adults to live with, or you could join a guild and make friends." Naruto continued to ramble on until something he said caught Mavis' attention.
"If you don't have a boat, then how did you get here" she queried with no small bit of skepticism.
"Huh? Oh, I just walked is all." He responded like walking across miles of ocean was an everyday occurrence.
"You…walked. Across miles and miles of ocean. Without getting wet. And how exactly did you manage to do that?" Mavis gazed at the boy with an incredulous stare. How on Earthland could he possibly expect us to…believe…She had to cut off her own thoughts, because what she saw in front of her was surely not happening. It had to be an illusion of some kind. Maybe she was suffering from hunger-induced hallucinations. Whatever it was, she knew it to be fake, because people most certainly did not stand on the ceiling. That was simply impossible, even for someone with-of course! That was it!
"You're a mage!" she gasped in delight. It'd been so long since she'd seen a mage. She had taught herself a bit of illusion magic over the years, but truly powerful magics required teachers to be able to truly master a subject. If Naruto was a mage, then maybe he'd teach her some of his magic. That would be amazing. She had managed to teach herself a bit of illusion magic, but anything else was simply too difficult to learn on her own.
Naruto laughed sheepishly and scratched the back of his head. "Well sort of. What I do is a little bit different from magic."
Mavis was confused but extremely interested in learning about this 'sort of' magic. "What do you mean a 'bit different'? I thought that all forms of magic were created from the same energy? If that's true, then how is your magic any different from anyone else's magic? Is it something other than holder or caster magic? Oh! Is it a lost magic?"
Naruto smiled at the enthusiastic response, dropping from the ceiling with a cat-like grace to land in front of the star-struck girl, before he responded. "Well, I guess you could call it a lost magic, but even that would be a misnomer, because technically I don't use magic at all." Mavis just stared at him, not quite understanding. "Hmm, where to start? Ok, so I actually look really young for my age. Like really, really, really young. With me so far?" He asked.
Mavis nodded, even though she was quite confused. He was older than he looked? How much older? What did his age have to do with his sort-of magic? She needed to know more.
Naruto continued, unaware of the questions bouncing around in Mavis' head. "Well, the place that I'm from doesn't exist anymore. It was a land filled with war and violence, corruption and trickery, and the soldiers of the land, called shinobi, carried out missions to kill, steal, and commit all sorts of horrible acts in the name of their village. They used an energy called chakra to perform jutsus, sort of like spells, in order to attack one another and also to assist in transportation. After countless wars, and even more deaths, the entire land just collapsed in on itself. Eventually, everyone who could use chakra died out and people developed the ability to use absorb eternano and use magic. Now, as far as I know, I'm the only one left in the world who can use chakra."
Mavis stared in awe at the man standing before her. She could vaguely remember reading a tome buried somewhere in the plethora of bookcases behind her that made brief mention of an ancient race capable of performing amazing feats, similar to what they called magic today. It was documented that those people used energy other than eternano to control the elements and even manifest the energy itself into a physical form to use as a weapon. Among scholars, it was generally agreed upon that this energy, which she now knew was called chakra, was the precursor to eternano and magic. If the man in front of her was telling the truth, which at this point she was almost certain he was, then he truly was the last remaining artefact from an age of legends.
But then, that meant that Naruto was…well…ancient.
"How old are you?" she asked curiously. "If what you say is true, then that would mean you were at least 600 years old. But then, you talk about your people like you watched them die out, which would mean you were even older."
"Ah, you're pretty smart, you know that? I am indeed over 600 years old, but I'm not gonna tell you exactly how old. That wouldn't be any fun. So instead, you have to guess. And if you manage to guess, I'll tell you anything you want to know about the world when I was young." Naruto chuckled at the girl's reaction. Mavis looked extremely put out that the piece of living history standing in front of her refused to part with such valuable information. But then, her eyes hardened and she nodded resolutely.
"I accept your challenge." She announced with the most conviction she could muster.
Naruto looked a bit confused at her sudden declaration, but shrugged and went along with it. If it motivated her then who was he to ruin her fun? Finally, he decided he should get back to the reason he was here in the first place.
"So if my message is useless now, I guess I don't have a reason for staying here much longer. Unless there's anything that you or your friend need from me, I'll be off." With a smile and a wave he turned to reach for the door.
"Wait!" Mavis yelled, halting his movements. "You never let me guess your age."
Naruto grinned sheepishly at the girl from over his shoulder. "Heh, I guess you're right. Ok, you get one guess." His grin morphed into a smirk when he saw the blonde's face.
"Only one guess?!" she hollered. "It's near impossible to guess a person's age when they could be anywhere from 600 to well over 1,000 years old!"
Naruto realized that she was taking this little game far more seriously than he was, and decided to help her out a bit. "Alright, how about this; I am older than 650, but younger than 1,000. That should help narrow it down. And I should have specified, you get one guess today." He clarified.
Mavis looked confused, and Naruto had to concede that it was an extremely cute look on the girls face. "One…today? How is that going to help? What are the chances that we'll ever meet again? If you were to leave now, then it's highly unlikely that we'll cross paths at any point in the future, which would mean that I still only got one chance to guess." She began to pout at the thought of losing a source of such valuable information. Also, strange though he was, Naruto was kind and friendly, and she wouldn't mind getting to know the ancient man on a more personal level. She could always use another friend. Plus, she could admit, if only to herself, that for a several centuries old man, he was quite cute.
The blonde snapped out of her mental reverie when she heard the aforementioned man speak. "I wouldn't worry too much about that. For as long as you stay on this island, I'll stop by every few months to visit, and even if you leave here to go to the mainland, I'm always traveling and it's a small world out there; I'm sure we'll run into each other again somewhere. Besides, I don't exactly have too many friends. Being immortal, you grow tired of watching everyone you hold dear grow old and die around you. But the friends I do have mean the world to me, and I'd like to think we could be friends. And who knows? Maybe the next time I visit, Zeira will come and introduce herself instead of hiding behind a bookshelf." They both laughed at the startled squeak that followed his last statement.
"One last thing before I go." Naruto's hand disappeared beneath his cloak and reappeared a few seconds later holding a strange type of knife, the likes of which Mavis had never seen before. It's blade was sharp on both sides down to the base of the blade which arced out to each side in a crescent moon shape. The handle was wrapped in a tan cloth and decorated with some form of strange archaic writing that she'd never seen before. The bottom of the knife was adorned with a small ring that looked just big enough for Naruto to slip a finger through. She tensed for a small moment until it occurred to her that if the man in front of her wanted to harm her, he could have done so at any point in their conversation and she wouldn't have noticed until it was far too late.
With that thought banished from her head, she turned her attention back to the knife that was now spinning slowly around one of the shinobi's fingers. In one smooth motion, he tossed it up in the air, grabbed it by the blade, and presented the handle to the shorter blonde.
Mavis looked at the knife in confusion for a moment and then turned that look to the one holding it. Naruto smiled widely and pushed the strange object towards the girl once more. Taking the hint, she grabbed it from him before examining it in closer detail. She was no expert when it came to blades of any kind, but even she could tell that it was finely made. The edge looked extremely sharp, like even the slightest touch against her finger would break the skin, and the flat part of the blade was a smooth matte black that seemed to swallow the light around it. Once more, she was brought back to reality by the sound of her newest friend's voice addressing her.
"That knife you're holding is called a kunai." Naruto explained. "It's an important part of a technique I use that allows me to instantly relocate myself to where one of those is located. If you're ever in any trouble, just throw that kunai into the floor or wall nearby and I'll be there to help. Does that sound good to you?" Mavis just nodded slowly, astounded at the possibilities of instant teleportation. She nearly got lost in her own little world again, but was distracted by Naruto telling her to try throwing the knife as a sort of practice run.
Nodding, the small girl brought her arm back in preparation for the throw, but was halted by Naruto grabbing her wrist lightly and stepping behind her to bring her shoulders around into a better position. Flushing brightly at the close contact and stammering a thanks to the blond boy, Mavis wound back once more and then released the knife with all of her might towards the thick front door of the library. It flew a few feet off to the right and wobbled unsteadily, but before it could crash into the hard stones the made up the wall around the door, Naruto's presence behind her disappeared, and in the same instant, a bright flash of yellow light illuminated the entryway before dying down to reveal the blond ninja casually spinning the kunai she'd just thrown around his finger with a smirk alighting his whiskered face.
Mavis gawked at the scene in front of her. Her mouth hung down, nearly scraping the floor while her mind ran a mile a minute, replaying what she had just witnessed. It truly was instant teleportation. There was no lag time between when he had vanished from behind her, to when he reappeared in front of her. In fact, it almost seemed like he was in both places at once; as if he had simply told reality that he actually existed at both points in space for that one instant in time. It was the single most astounding thing she had witnessed in twelve years of life.
But this demonstration just left her with so many questions. There had to be a limit to this power; what was it? Did it only work over a certain distance? Could it only be done a set number of times per day? Did it harm the user in some way? Just how did it work? Mavis spat these questions out one after another, hoping that the faster she asked them, the faster they would be answered. Thankfully, Naruto began his explanation before the young girl could start hyperventilating.
"As far as I know, there's no limit on the distance or amount of times it can be used in a set period. My dad once used this technique to fight an entire army of nearly 200 ninja in under a minute. It takes very little chakra to use, even for someone with relatively low reserves. For me, it's like a drop in the ocean. I'd probably have to use the technique continuously for close to an hour before I started to feel anything resembling fatigue. As for how it works, well imagine that space is a piece of cloth." He grabbed part of his cloak before continuing. "Normally, when we move, it's in a straight line across the cloth." He drew his finger across his cloak, marking a line of about six inches. "Now imagine that this kunai and my chakra are opposing ends of two magnets; in other words, we're drawn towards each other. The force that pulls at us is so great, that it can actually bend space," he held the ends of his section of cloak together with thumb and forefinger, "in order to bring the two objects closer together. From there, it's just a matter of making a little hole that I can climb through to get from one side of the cloth to the other." Finally, he stuck the tip of the kunai through one side of his cloak and out the other. "Does that make sense?" he asked. He was genuinely curious. He'd never had to explain how the technique worked before. Most people just sort of went with it.
Mavis considered it all for a few seconds and then nodded in affirmation. "I think I understand. Just one more question; what is it that makes the kunai so special?" Most of Naruto's explanation made some semblance of sense to her, but she simply couldn't ascertain what allowed a piece of metal to violate the most basic rules of reality.
Naruto grinned at the girl's remarkable intellect. He'd wondered if she would ask about that. Most people would be so caught up in other aspects of his explanation that they'd completely overlook the fact that it was not just him working to manipulate space and time. "Good question! And the answer is this bit of ink right here." He once again handed her the knife, handle first, using his other hand to point out the characters scrawled along its grip.
Examining the knife once more, Mavis paid extra attention to the lines of ink that covered the handle. She had initially passed it off as simple decoration, perhaps a name tag of sorts written in his people's language. Now though, she knew better. She brought it to her face to take a closer look and began to compare what she saw to what she knew of runescript. There were a few basic similarities between the two; some of the characters on the knife seemed like they could have changed over the years into what were now runic letters, but the grammar and syntax were entirely different. Runes were rather straightforward in composition, and read as if you were reading a story. However, there was nothing linear about these symbols. They seemed to swirl together from every direction, intersecting in a maze of interlocked lines. She imagined learning the grammatical nuances of this language would be incredibly difficult, but unimaginably rewarding. Looking back to the whiskered man, she explained her findings.
"You're right about the correlation between runes and seals. From the little I know of runes, the characters are based on sealing script, but the overall organization changed to the linear style that you're familiar with. A consequence of this though is that you lose the ability to have a single rune influence more than the other runes in that sentence. On the other hand, with seals, the structure allows for each character to influence every other character and completely alter their intended function. As a result, something written with a dozen sealing characters would require more than 100 runes to reproduce."
Mavis was about to continue what was quite honestly the most interesting conversation she'd ever had, but she was interrupted by a ferocious growl emanating from her stomach. In her head, she began to curse her mutinous stomach. She would gladly go without eating for a few more hours if it meant she could continue this enlightening conversation. She'd learned more in the past 30 minutes than she usually did from a month's worth of reading books off the library shelf. Having another intellectual to converse with was an amazing thing. She truly loved Zeira, but her best friend was far from scholarly.
She opened her mouth to tell Naruto to ignore her stomach's cries for sustenance, but the shinobi used that moment to take his leave. "I should get going. You girls have a dinner to eat, and I don't want to impose any more than I already have." Naruto once more turned to the door.
"Wait! You can have dinner with us! You don't have to leave already. I have so many more questions! Plus it's dark out now. You shouldn't try crossing the ocean in the dark; you could get hurt! Just stay on the island for the night and you can leave tomorrow." Mavis pleaded with the man to stay so they could keep conversing, but he was having none of it.
"Don't worry Mavis. This isn't the last time you'll see me. I'll come back to visit in a month or two, okay?" The young blonde still looked devastated. "And maybe I'll even bring some souvenirs!" That got her to smile a bit, and she threw back a 'You better!' causing the older blond to chuckle softly. Sending one last smile over his shoulder, Naruto opened the heavy door and stepped outside. Zeira finally emerged from her hiding place behind the bookshelf and moved to stand next to Mavis in the doorway. The two of them stood side by side, watching the back of the cloaked shinobi until he disappeared into the night.
A/N: Hey guys, I've never written anything like this before. In fact, this is the first piece of recreational writing I've ever completed. As such, I'd very much appreciate any and all critiques you have for me, hell, even flames are fine. Just something to tell me what I've done right or wrong. On the other hand, you can totally ignore this and I'll just keep writing the way I have been.
SPOILERS AHEAD FOR FAIRY TAIL ZERO
As far as the story is concerned, there will probably be two or three more pre-cannon chapters before we get to cannon time (i.e. X784). Beyond that though, I really have no idea where to take this. Regarding Zeira, as you may or may not know, there is some debate as to whether she is alive or if she even exists at all since there is no incident of anyone other than Mavis actually interacting with her so far. I believe there is definitely some merit to this idea, but for the sake of my fragile little heart, I'm going to pretend she's alive. Not that this changes much, as her part in these first few chapters is as more of a background character and a bit of a counterpoint to Mavis' outgoing and easily trusting personality.
Next chapter will most likely skim over what happens during Fairy Tail Zero, including the founding of Fairy Tail. I'm finishing up my third year of college at the moment, and my professors get hard reading long-ass papers, so I might not update until next weekend. We'll see. That's it for me. Hope you enjoyed.
Oh, also I disclaim wholeheartedly. I own nothing. Same goes for the rest of the story.