A/N: I absolutely love that I got so many reviews and followers already, considering this is my first Fairy Tail fic. I hope everyone likes this chapter. I'm proud of myself for getting out this much in a day. Just a gentle reminder: I won't be updating quite this often all the time - I also have college classes that require my attention as well. Everyone, read and review!
The train ride to Kunugi was uneventful, which was something of a novelty to Lucy now. There was always Natsu, who barely held it together on any type of mechanical transportation, or Happy, who often got antsy enough to talk her ear off or bounce around the train car, or Erza, whose uber-calm was the most unnerving of all. However, Minerva was the opposite of Natsu – transportation put her to sleep, the result of the prepubescent body.
Yawning, Minerva followed the blond mage off the train and pointed in a vague direction. "Master Belo lives there."
Lucy blinked, scanning the skyline of the small city. "Where, exactly?"
"The manor. The one the towers over everything else."
The celestial spirit mage's eyes widened, focusing on the three-story stone building directly in her line of sight. "I thought that was a cathedral," she murmured to herself, finally leading them both in that direction. After a couple minutes of silence, she decided to ask Minerva something else. "What about the puzzle? Can you tell me anything about it?"
The green-haired mage behind her scoffed softly. "Not a thing. Master Belo won't even let me look at it."
Lucy frowned, half-tilting her head back to look at her friend. "Why not?"
She shrugged. "He says the magic that's keeping him from dying will transfer to me. I offered, you know. At least, he wouldn't be in pain any longer."
However, the blonde merely inclined her head, her mind instantly seeing her former sensei's reasoning. "Transferring the magic won't fix anything. He was right to submit it to a guild."
Minerva harrumphed and Lucy was reminded that while the woman was older than her, it wasn't by too much. Emotionally, at least. "Why is it okay for you but not for me?"
"You're his granddaughter, Minerva." Lucy smiled at her gently, somehow managing to convey her sadness in the look. "It's probably bound in blood."
The small woman sighed. "That's what Master Belo said."
By that time, they had reached the manor and the very tall doors that led inside, which Minerva immediately pushed open. She trudged on sluggish legs down a corridor, diverting Lucy's attention to a large room to the right of the foyer. "He's in there?" the blonde inquired.
"If not there, he uses the room through the door to the left of the fireplace. I'm going to bed." With that, Minerva continued on her path, ostensibly to her own room. Lucy idly wondered how long it had been since she had last slept.
Lucy peered into the large room for a moment before walked farther into the manor. It was a large sitting room and she heard the crackle of the burning wood and Belo's labored breathing but she wanted to see the puzzle first. Curse, she reminded herself. He probably put 'puzzle' on the request so it wouldn't scare people away. She looked at the staircase in front of her, shaking her head after a moment of thought. The center of the curse was likely in the basement.
Curses were nasty things and most people tended to shy away from them. She knew enough about the nature of curses themselves not to be afraid of them, though. Curses were a type of seal – the most common, actually – designed with flaws in order to be broken. There were magic seals in this world that couldn't be broken but they were lost to time, sealing things so horrible or so powerful that the mere mention of them was as legend. However, if Belo-jiisan believed she could do it, then she would do it.
It would be built into the foundation of the manor itself. It had likely been in the family longer than her sensei himself had been alive. But she wouldn't know the details until she saw the curse itself. With that thought in mind, she smiled to herself when she found a door to the rear of the stairs. Opening it, it revealed another set of stairs that spiraled down into darkness.
Taking a steadying breath, Lucy glared at the thick black that seems to be barring her progress. "You can do this, Lucy. You're a member of Fairy Tail, too." She held up a hand to the sky and murmured a spell she hadn't needed to use for a long while. "Light my path." With those three simple words, a small ball composed of small pinpricks of light appeared in her hand, chasing away the shadows quite effectively. However, where the light didn't reach, the darkness remained, trying to curl toward her in wisps of black fog.
Sighing, she hurried down the stairs, feeling like the darkness would catch up to her if she didn't. She had never seen living shadow before but had read about it – it was probably keeping people outside of Belo's bloodline from encountering the curse. That thought lightened her mood incrementally. Living shadow was easily dispelled with magical light and as it was protecting the curse itself, that hinted that the problem was easily fixable.
As light returned, Lucy deemed it safe to release her light spell, lowering her hands to break the enchantment. When she got closer to the source of the light, she realized it was shifting through a prismatic cycle. A curse based on light, maybe? She bit her lip and took the last steps forward. She could feel doubt swirling in her mind, reminding her that she wasn't a dispeller by any means, but she would do this for Belo.
The very first thing she realized was that this curse was actually a multilayered spell. Spell circles, runes, light, elemental traps and it was all centered around a faded and weathered altar. This would take time and information she didn't have, she realized, and moved to return to the ground floor of the manor. That was when the illusion spell she hadn't noticed trapped her mind.
"Heartfilia-hime," a snaky voice whispered.
Lucy stiffened, her shoulders hunching and her eyes clenching shut. The voice was cold and empty and somehow pierced into her gut, opening wounds that a mere title shouldn't cause. Just the sound of the voice caused several images to flash before her mind's eyes: a broken rice ball, a ripped embroidery cloth, a broken full-length mirror. Steeling herself, she turned to face the voice, ready to see her father's face, the source of all her worst memories.
She immediately choked, unprepared for who she did see and barely able to suppress the laugh that bubbled in her throat. It was Natsu, her best friend in the entire world. It didn't matter that he hadn't said anything to her in the past week that didn't have something to do with Lisanna. Her partner was anything but cold; he was warm and safe and always grinning. Anything that this ghost of a spell said to her was defeated before it even passed to her eardrums.
She still felt the words like an imprint on her brain. 'Useless, beyond your power, weak, shouldn't have come alone…' She could feel them because they were just an echo of her own doubts but the image of that emotionless Natsu was gone before she could even begin to enumerate all the things that made it obvious that it wasn't the real Natsu.
You know, other than the fact that it was obvious that the real Natsu was still in the guild, fawning over and much too glad of his oldest friend's presence.
Heaving another unnecessary sigh, Lucy walked back up the stairs. She didn't even bother with the light spell this time, for the presence of the shadows no longer bothered her. It couldn't compete with the gloom that lived in her own mind. But it was time to get some crucial information from Belo-jiisan.
She wouldn't sleep until he was free of the curse.
Happy narrowed his eyes at Wendy and Carla, irritated beyond measure. He belonged to Natsu and it had always been that way. Sure, they got in fights but they always made up in the end, something that in the past few months had a lot to do with Lucy herself. Now, because of Erza's declaration, Carla wouldn't tell him where Lucy was no matter how many times he asked.
He looked down at the ground floor toward the Fire Dragon Slayer again, not sure whether he wanted to smile in fondness or sneer in disappointed disgust. Lucy was gone! Natsu didn't even know! Or… or notice that it had happened at all. He wanted so much to tell him but Erza caught the blue Exceed's eyes immediately and shook her head. Happy didn't know why she didn't want Natsu to know about Lucy being on a mission but if she was being this adamant about it, it had to be important.
As things stood, the cat only had one option remaining if he wanted to find Lucy.
His face set in determination, Happy activated his wings and drifted down to the bar, landing on silent paws right next to the guild master. "Master?" he asked softly.
The elderly man turned to the cat, his visage vaguely surprised. "Happy?" Even as dense as he could be sometimes, the cat could hear the question hiding in the single word.
"Lucy took a job, right?"
Makarov frowned slightly but nodded. "She did," he drawled, obviously not entirely sure why it was the cat and not the mage that asked.
"Where is she?"
His frown deepened and he shook his head. "You have no reason to know that."
That response made the little cat snap, despite the way an inner voice tried to remind him that this was the guild's master he was raising his voice to. "Yes, I do! Lucy's my friend and—and I don't want her to feel alone!"
Makarov's lips quirked slightly, giving him a look of bemusement. "Why do you think she feels alone?"
Happy was taken aback slightly. Maybe he was wrong; maybe Lucy hadn't been sad. But then he remembered the sad smile she'd been wearing lately, the same smile that had been on her face just before she had disappeared back to the Heartfilia estate months before. It was a dead giveaway that something was happening or had to happen that the blond mage didn't necessarily like. "Because… Lisanna's back and Natsu can forget things so fast. Like Lucy doesn't have friends as close as we are. She doesn't make friends fast."
"She seemed to make friends fast enough," the Master remarked.
Happy shook his head. He knew Lucy well enough to know that she had a slight tendency to shy away from people when she wasn't extremely excited. "They made friends with her. It's not the same."
Smiling softly, the Master nodded his head. "I thought so. She's in Kunugi, look for the large stone manor."
The blue cat grinned up at Makarov. "Thanks, jiichan!" With that, Happy activated his wings again and took off like a shot, gliding out of the guild just as the door were closing from another person's entrance. Makarov's face broke into a grin at the Exceed's departure. Despite whatever Lucy may be feeling right now or whatever had happened in her past, she definitely had people that cared about her.