2: Bad Omen
Last night, Gajeel had a midnight visitor. Now, he was used to that—women at his door when the sun was down, women in his bed as the stars lit up, women under his dominating grasp, women sent away dazed, bruised, with payment in one hand and a wrangled lust in the other. But this was no normal visitor.
It had been months since Phantom Lord's dissolution, months since Gajeel was accepted as a loyal member of Fairy Tail. Though he could now not fathom a reason for ever leaving the guild that has grown on him, he also did not know how they could trust him so easily. Either way, when he joined Fairy Tail, his old friend Juvia Lokser did not.
He met with her several times. Tried to convince her. Looked into those rainy, defeated, soulless eyes. Told her he loved her—friend love, platonic love, the love that grew from years of shared isolation.
She'd only smile. A cruelly empty smile that screamed with agony. She'd only smile, and then she'd disappear in the rain.
Every time.
But last night was different. She came to him—usually it was the other way around—in the midst of a thunderstorm she most likely caused. Her umbrella was gone. Instead she traversed with her curls messy and jagged and weighed by water. It was shorter, he noticed. Short and edgy and uneven. She refused to come into his rickety apartment, and told him she was sorry.
Gajeel could remember it. The smell of her dirt and rain soaked clothing, the touch of her cold fingers as she touched his cheek and apologized over and over. He noticed it then—her pale, thin arms were riddled with more notches on his bedpost. Suddenly she looked very weak. So small, so frail, in spite of the tidal waves flowing through her veins.
Juvia doesn't know if she'll ever see you again, she said. Her voice was more detached than ever, her third person speech dreadfully haunting. Juvia was crying silently, yet the emotion of sorry bled not from her eyes, but from the uncontrollable trembling in her hands. Juvia is joining a guild. You won't like it. She's sorry. She's not a good person, Gajeel. You're a good person. It was always you, not Juvia, who had the option of redemption. Gajeel…Gajeel…
He rarely showed emotion that wasn't anger, wrath, darkness, and hate. He rarely did. But seeing his only friend for so long, the one he never thought he'd lose, look as if she'd disappear into the rain again and never come back…
She turned around, tearing away from his gaze. It had dissolved into one of betrayed sorrow. First his dragon father, now her?
At last she spoke.
Juvia is joining Memento Mori.
At that moment, there was a deafening silence, broken only by the roaring crack of thunder. And at that, his friend was literally gone, fleeting mist in the pouring skies.
Now, Gajeel did not know much about Memento Mori—they were a dark guild, and they've been flooding Fairy Tail's radar, but that was the extent of his knowledge. That is, until he was ordered to investigate their most recent raid.
He was with Natsu and Lucy, also the only free ones to be sent on the job. The point of interest was a pricy, sleek apartment complex.
"I wonder why a dark guild would bother with this place," Lucy wondered. "Civilian targets? Usually dark guilds target…well…high profile groups. You know. Like us."
"Maybe they were bored!" Exclaimed Natsu, eyes lighting up. "I'm right, right? I mean, we destroy things all the time when we're bored."
"You mean you destroy things when you're bored," she scoffed.
"You destroy everything, flame brain," Gajeel smirked. "Unfortunately, things aren't that simple in dark guilds."
The trio started into the building, making their way quickly up the stairs. The report was that there was an injury, but it was already treated, so there wasn't much urgency in their pace.
"You were in Phantom Lord," the dragon slayer contemplated, "So what's your input?"
"Yeah…I don't really remember you guys messing with little things like civilians. Usually you tormented other guilds."
"You'd be surprised," he snickered. They were at the third floor, passing a room that erupted into high pitched barking. Stupid dog."We did plenty. We just didn't advertise it, and we didn't make injuries large enough to notice or at places with reputable people. These guys may just be civilians, but they're people with money, and that makes them important."
Rounding onto the fourth floor, they came face to face with a young couple. They visibly relaxed upon seeing them, in spite of being somewhat wary of Gajeel's rough appearance. He was used to it.
"You're Fairy Tail, right?" The young man asked. There was a slight tremble in his voice. Unmanly, as Elfman would say. "Natsu, Lucy, and…."
"Gajeel," he growled.
The young man nodded nervously, and rushed them over. "We woke up to screaming this morning, not even half an hour ago. Now he's knocked out from some pills we gave him."
Room 404.
As soon as they got to the door—wide open and with AC flowing out—the couple opted to stay in the hall. Lucy frowned. Could it really be that bad? She was used to seeing damages. Burns. Gashes. Bruises all over, garden varieties of cuts and broken bones. They were young after all, probably just squeamish.
They moved in, Natsu moving in front. He was curious more than anything, but then rushed over to the bed at the side of the room. It was soaked with blood, the coppery stench stronger than the metal of Gajeel's magic. He could tell the blood was still wet, soaked so deeply it would have to take quite a while to dry.
"Shit, is he dead?" He wondered aloud. Without sparing a second, he grabbed the body in the bed and flipped it over to face him. Feeling the heat radiating from his body, and seeing the color of his cheeks, Natsu concluded him very much alive. Bandages wrapped around his eyes, sloppy but tight and thick. Ignoring his partner's frantic objections, Natsu burned the bandages from his face, and stepped back in shock.
He expected perhaps large bruises or cuts. Minor injuries, nothing new. Instead he was left with a grotesque image of agony—good thing the couple drugged him out, or the poor man would be out on his own from the sheer pain. Lucy looked over warily and gasped, stomach making a flip. She looked away.
Gajeel did not. He stared, and stared, took it all in. It was disrespectful to do otherwise, just like how he could not look away from Juvia's faint figure, so frail he thought it would collapse completely.
The man's eyes—they were nothing more than gaping craters. The eyelids were rended flaps of skin, sinking into gooey dark holes. White bone poked out from ribboned flesh, pockets of gelatinous blood collecting from sealed vessels. The gaping bloody holes decorated the man's face like eyes of a skull, large and mournful on their own, and no less haunting.
To the iron slayer's surprise, Lucy stepped back up. Though not quite looking the wound in the eye, she grabbed bed sheets and sliced strips with her whip. "Natsu, cauterize the parts that are still open. Gajeel, investigate the rest of the building, try to find where this bastard got in and out. After you're done, Natsu, wrap his head with these strips. I'm gonna gets some real medics in here."
Don't order me, woman, is what Gajeel wanted to say. You're not anyone's leader. But instead he left, checking every window, vent, unchecked door and stairwell.
He got the the first floor last, opting to check out the higher ones first. When he got to an area near the bathrooms he felt a draft chill his skin, followed it, and found a jagged hole in the wall. It led outside into an alley, and cursed himself for not somehow realizing it on the way in. The hole was made with sheer strength, it seemed. No chemicals, no fire, no ice. The cracks webbing around the thick walls were made from pure power, as if it was smashed in.
There was no residue of an explosion. However, as he was checking for some remnant, some sign of what could have happened, knowing the culprits were long gone, he came across a single strand of cobalt blue hair.
When he picked it up, a strange feeling came over him. His chest clenched, and he wondered, was it you, Juvia? Looking over his shoulder, Gajeel closed it in his fist, and stuffed it deep into his pocket.
Thanks to those of you who read and reviewed! Though it was brought up that Memento Mori may be a reference to Death Parade, nice insight, but that's a miss folks-the term Memento Mori is that from the medieval era, a Latin phrase of mortality relating to Ars Moriendi-the art of dying.