The young wizards had been walking for hours. The sun had yet to make an appearance, and instead, the sky was veiled with thick grey clouds. It had been weeks since the cloud appeared in the sky, and no one knew when they would leave. The air felt grey and eerily still.
"'Remind me why we had to walk the whole way!' She said irritably," Horlogio said, holding Lucy inside of him.
"Oh come on, you're not even walking!" Natsu retorted, punctuated by a weary "Aye" from Happy.
"'Because we've been walking for hours! Why couldn't we just take the train?' She whined."
"Do you want to be on a train with Natsu tossing his lunch everywhere?" Gray asked.
"Hey, it's not my fault I get motion sick, I can't help it!"
"Did I say it was your fault, flamebrain?"
"That's enough," Erza said, silencing them both. "It's better for us to walk anyway. We aren't certain the one we're looking for is in this town, only that they're in this area. By walking, we gain the possibility of finding them on the outskirts."
"Hey Erza, how come you keep saying "them" are we looking for a team?" Happy asked.
"Yeah, I thought there was just one person," Wendy said.
"There is only one, but almost nothing is known about them, including if it's a male, female, or even a human at all."
"'Well can't we at least take a break?' She asked," Horlogio said.
"Yeah, I'm starving!" Said Natsu.
"The town is just up ahead. We'll eat once we get there," Erza said, met with a few cheers for being almost there and a few groans for not being there yet.
The team trudged on toward the small town ahead of them.
They were completely unaware that they were being watched.
When they finally reached the town, Natsu, Lucy, Erza, Grey, Wendy, Happy, and Carla checked into a room at a cozy little inn. They had just begun to rest their weary feet from their long journey when the wind began to whine through the unbolted window pane. Erza crossed the room to close it when something in the shadows caught the corner of her eye. She turned quickly to look but found nothing there.
"Everything all right, Erza?" Lucy asked.
"Yes, I'm fine. I just thought I saw...nevermind. There's nothing there."
"So who are we looking for again?" Natsu asked between bites of food.
"The master said they're called 'The Shadow Hunter,'," Gray said.
"Jeez, what a ridiculous name," Natsu said, "How do you hunt a shadow? It's not even there, it's just blocked light."
"Aye!" Happy chimed in beside him.
"No, you idiot, whoever this is doesn't hunt shadows, they hunt from the shadows. Or at least that's what they say."
"What are they hunting?" Wendy asked with an edge of fear in her voice.
"No one really knows."
"No one's ever seen them," Erza said, "Or what they've done. Reports cave been coming in for a decade about people feeling a presence around them, hearing whispers, feeling like they'd been hit by something out of nowhere. No one really knows what the Shadow Hunter does, but many people have caught glimpses of glowing eyes or faces in the trees or walls."
"So what does that have to do with us?" Lucy asked.
"Yes, this all sounds like empty ghost stories," Carla said.
"They might seem like ghost stories, but they're a lot more serious," said Gray.
"Yes," Said Erza, "Recently, whenever people see or feel these things people around them die. For the past year, the Shadow Hunter has been leaving a trail of bodies and fear behind them."
"Not to mention these clouds."
"What? This jerk controls the weather too?" Natsu yelled, jumping up from his seat.
"Pipe down, Natsu, Let us finish," Gray said. "Any reported Shadow Hunter sightings have been accompanied by reports of a strange feeling all throughout the town. Almost like the air around them stopped moving except a few violent bursts of wind that seemed to come out of nowhere. Everything felt heavy, and dark for a while. Usually, it goes away, but for some reason, towns all over Fiore have been reporting weeks of clouds and this weird stillness in the air."
"Is that why a watch notice was put out all of a sudden?" Lucy asked. Just that morning Fairy Tail received a message from the Magic Council that all guilds were to be on the watch for the Shadow Hunter, and it was asked that they send wizards out to investigate.
"Exactly," Gray answered.
"So what do we do?" Wendy asked.
"We find them," Erza said, "We find the Shadow Hunter, and we find out what they've been doing. Whoever it is might not actually be involved with these clouds, but they certainly seem to be involved in the string of deaths, so they'll have to answer to that."
"What if another guild finds them first?"
"Then that guild will deal with the Shadow Hunter."
Just then the wind howled, throwing the window open violently. Lucy rushed to shut it, but something caught her eye in a blackened corner of the alley. She couldn't tell what it was, but there was definitely something there. She suddenly felt uneasy, as if she was staring right at someone she couldn't see. She felt a weight drop into her stomach and she rushed to shut the window, pulling the curtains tightly across it. She turned back into the room before slumping against the wall, her face flushed.
"You all right, Luce?" Natsu asked her. Concern was deeply etched into every face staring back at her.
"They're here," She said meekly, "The Shadow Hunter."