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But Now I Walk Alone
It should not have come this.
The dread.
The fear.
…The destruction.
It should not have come this, but it did.
Acnologia, the Black Dragon of the Apocalypse.
It flies on wings as dark as a night without stars and moon. Earth, sky, and sea tremble at the might of the fury belying its cacophonous roar. It hungers for the flesh of mortal man, thirsts for the blood and energy that flows in Earthland's coils.
To Acnologia, beginnings and ends have no meaning. It knows only chaos.
It is Death Incarnate.
The light of its cataclysmic breath fades, leaving behind my eyes an angry red glare. I wait; I needn't see the heaving brine, the thunderous clap of land being ripped from its roots and torn asunder.
Even before my vision returns, I know what I will see. What I will not see.
Soon the ocean settles. The air settles. I hear only the susurrus of a sleeping sea and the dragon's gusty, beating wings. A final cry signals its departure.
I gaze upon the waters below me.
Tenrou Island is gone, and with it most of the Fairy Tail guild.
"It's over," I murmur, bowing my head and closing my eyes in remembrance, "isn't it, Natsu?"
This high up, the cold seeps beneath my clothes and into my skin.
This high up, there is no heaven…just as there is no hell down far below.
This should not have happened. None of this should have. It could have been avoided. It should have. But those people…them and their wicked thoughts…their sinister ambitions…
They deserved to die.
But Natsu…Natsu should not have. He should still be here – living, breathing, maturing into the man he is meant to be. Now…
Now he is….
I bite my lip, fighting the lump forming in my throat.
The evil that is Grimoire Heart is gone. Natsu is gone. My day of death has been wrenched from me, and with it the world's salvation.
And yet…
Somewhere, buried amidst the insufferable dark, in my heart of hearts, the fault lays solely on me.
