Welp, this happened.

I am sorry for your tears.

He woke up to the smell of fire.

Not the good kind of fire, no. His fire smelt like candles and bonfires, with friends and family close, singing and dancing to their hearts content. His fire was hot, yes, but it was soft. It burned with passion, not frustrations or hate or anger. It burned, ironically, with his fierce love and desire to protect his family.

It did not smell like this.

Natsu became painfully aware of the fact that he was on the ground, his face pressed to the earth with something heavy and hard and painful holding him down. His arms felt like lead, throbbing slightly, and his skull pounded with the roar of his own blood. He tried to open his eyes, pushing his arms under him in order to rub the dirt and grime he could feel off them.

Blinking slightly, then squeezing his eyes shut when white light seared his vision, Natsu struggled to recollect the series of events that caused his current situation. So he tried to remember what happened before it all went south.

'…What happened to me? I was standing just outside the Guild a few seconds ago, so where is everyone...?'

Keeping his sore eyes close, Natsu sniffed the air again, attempting to catch the scent of his friends.

He could smell the mixed scent of cake (specifically strawberry), metal and lavender…Erza's scent, drifting a little in the air. He also caught Lucy, Gray, and possibly Nab's scent as well…

But they were overpowered by the iron and water, warmish and sickening smell of blood.

And that's when Natsu took special notice of the strange wetness through his hair, on his lips, and in his ears. He raised a shaking hand, reaching up at a snail's pace to touch his right ear.

When he pulled it away, even though he couldn't see it, he knew what it was.

He was bleeding. A lot.

Now taking notice of the suspiciously warm, wet puddle beneath him, the humming in his ears, and the slight pain in his arms and legs, he attempted to push himself up off the ground, to see if his friends were okay, because he always came out a bit better than his friends did, and he always wanted to make sure they were okay.

As he positioned his arms under him, he pushed his shoulders of the ground, raised his back slightly, and got no further.

Natsu cursed, balling his fists as sharp lashes of pain flooded his senses, and fell back to the ground.

Something was wrong. The thing on his back wasn't that heavy, he should have been able to roll it off. He stubbornly opened his eyes to a squint, and turned to glare at the offending object to see…

'Oh…Oh no…'

Lying on its side, covering him from the waist down, was a large chunk of the Guild Hall's headboard.

His heart clenched with dread, and he twisted himself slightly under the stone sign to get a better look.

Half of the Fairy Tail sign lay on top of him, snapped in two. The other half lay slightly to the right, lying on the guild's banner.

Tears pricked his eyes, and Natsu scolded himself for being weak. Crying would do nothing. He had to find his friends, fast. If the Guild was destroyed, there was always the bunker.

Turning back to face the ground, Natsu grasped the earth in front of him, and painstakingly dragged himself out from underneath the weight that covered his legs.

His jacket tore slightly as he crawled forward, gritting his teeth as sharp shards of rock grazed his back. As he pulled his legs out from under the sign, Natsu closed his eyes and laid back down on the hard earth, and started to count off what he had to do.

Firstly, he had to go find his guild mates. Who knows what happened to some of them, and not everyone would have been able to make it to the bunker on time. So he had to track their scents.

Secondly, if master would allow it, he'd need to check the areas around the guild. There was high chance of collateral damage from…whatever happened, that could have destroyed surrounding buildings, and he did not want to talk to the mayor when he saw the state of his city.

And thirdly, Natsu needed to help whoever was still able with the clean-up. If they started now, they could be back on track with the Guild as good as new in no time.

Satisfied with his mental check list, Natsu opened his eyes to gaze at the blue sky…

To find out that it wasn't so blue anymore.

Now apprehensive, Natsu sat up and assessed his surroundings. The sky was a dirty mixture of black and red and grey, full of smoke and ash. The sun was nowhere to be found. As he lowered his eyes to the horizon line, his bit back a gasp. How did he not notice this before?

The city was burning.

Splintered wood and crumbled brick, shattered and charred, was strewn everywhere, as if some kind of fiery monster had gone on a rampage. No building was left whole, and if it still stood, it was leaning, and every single tree or piece of vegetation was either charcoaled, smoking on its side, or currently burning.

Fear built up in him. He didn't want to turn around. Because behind him was the Guild. Behind him was what, now, lay in the centre of the blast.

He still turned, stupidly, naively, believing that it would be fine. That they were fine.

All control he'd previously had, all the hope, the stupid, stupid hope he had, was shattered by the sight before him.

'It's gone.'

He didn't notice he was crying until his own sobs became the first real sound he'd heard. Oh he was such an idiot. Getting his hopes up when he knew, he knew that there was nothing left. There was no one left.

No one but him.

In the spot that the Guild used to be, where his nakama had been breathing and laughing and talking and living, was nothing but a hole.

A big, gaping hole, with various human shaped shadows permanently seared into the stone beneath.

At the thresh hold, lay the crumpled, melted, mutated remains of Erza's heart crux armour, her sword further to the left, snapped and bent and very, very broken. Further in the Guild, where cracks and fissures spread from the rooms centre, other items rested.

Lucy's whip, Gray's necklace, Cana's bag, Guildarts' arm…

He remembered now.

"Master! There's a strange man at the door. H-he…wants to speak with you."

Levy…

Natsu bit his lip, holding back the building emotions that threatened to burst from his mouth. He felt himself start to shake at the force of his own emotions.

He should've done what his instincts told him, to tell master that something felt wrong, that the man outside smelt off.

"I have come for the monster," the man had purred, his eyes flashing with hatred as he stared at Natsu. "I've come for you, E.N.D."

He should have told them, Natsu reasoned to himself as he clenched his eyes shut, he should have told them that he smelt dangerous. He smelt powerful, he smelt wrong.

"I am RAGNAROK, the demon slayer. And I swore to my master that I'd eradicate you monsters. And I shall do so with this."

Ragnarok raised his hand, floating far above the city of Magnolia, and unleashed an immense ball of black fire.

"Watch out!"

His warning had been too late.

No matter how much he threw out his own fire, no matter how much he consumed, it overwhelmed him, and he faintly remembered sending out his fire to protect the others.

It failed. He failed.

Natsu could hold his cries no longer.

Falling to his knees, Natsu started to wail. His voice bounced through the empty city, a wordless cry filling the air.

The feel of ash and soot against his skin, and the smell of his own blood, made him feel sick. The knowledge of what was around him made him feel as if the very sky was falling.

And it was.

Opening his eyes slightly, raising them to the sky, Natsu sobbed, welcoming the downpour that now washed away the dirt and grime and blood that covered him.

'What was it you said, Igneel? About how a dragon's heart can change the weather?'

He blinked solemnly as water streaked cross his frame, only half noticing the fact that he felt cold. Fire dragons don't feel cold, they're always warm, their eternal flame keeping them at the heat of summer. Forever and always.

"You know, Natsu, you have to be careful with that fire of yours. Not that it burns, but that it can go out."

He had frowned, and huffed to himself, not understanding what Igneel meant.

"'Out'? What do you mean 'out'?"

Igneel had laughed.

"I hope you never find out. But, then again, it can come back…"

Despite knowing what was wrong, despite knowing that he may never use fire again, despite knowing that the book of E.N.D. was gone and that he should be dead, he couldn't work up the will to care.

His family was gone.

And it was his fault.

He wasn't aware that his wails had once again escalated to an ear-splitting sound, he was aware that as he curled in on himself with his knees to his chest, that a hand had grasped his shoulder.

All he could think and hear and see was his family, his nakama, his loved ones.

Gone.

"…Natsu…Oh, Natsu…" a soft voice resounded through his skull, and the hand turned him around to see the speaker.

A woman with sky blue, cascading hair and slanted green eyes regarded him with a strangely knowing expression.

Pulling Natsu closer, the woman wrapped her arms around his shoulders, chin resting on the crown of his head as both the sky and the fire age wept. She closed her eyes as she felt the smaller mage wrap his arms around her gingerly.

He remembered her, the one that held him. Although the last time he'd seen her was seven years ago for him, and fourteen for her, he had never forgotten her scent.

'Tundra…how are you here...?'

Natsu remembered searching for her for years before finding out she was on a ten-year mission, and when Fairy Tail returned from Tenroujima Island, he had been disheartened to hear that she was on yet another ten-year mission.

Perhaps she finished it early, or Magnolia was on route of her quest, Natsu found he no longer cared about that either.

Once again, the world, the real, material world, was disappearing from his senses, and the only thing that tethered him to reality were the cool fingers that tugged through his hair, and the steadily beating heart of the only person within a five kilometre radius.

Listening as the fire mages heart beat slowed to a steady rhythm, she smiled sadly at the sleeping figure in her lap. Continuing to tug fingers through his rosy hair, the Ice Mage had to fight to stop herself from crying.

When a dragon weeps, any who can hear them can feel the grief and pain and agony the dragon feels, and almost all of the people who Natsu had known had never seen him truly cry.

It was a hard thing to watch when someone you loved broke before you, and she couldn't help but feel a stab of envy for the ones the boy had wept for. She once thought that there was not a single person in the world, other than perhaps Natsu and one other person, who would care if she vanished from the face of the earth.

But now that she has seen what that strange glow on the horizon truly was, she would not dare leave the fire mage alone. Not when he seemed so weak, and fragile.

Gathering Natsu's smaller body further onto her lap, she rested his head against her chest, and rose to her feet, taking a final glance at the fallen legend that was Fairy Tail, before turning away from the decimated Guild Hall.

'He could search the ruins tomorrow, after he wakes up.'

DM me if I have made mistakes mon cher,

Au Revoir.