Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail or One Piece.
1. From the beginning of very beginning
The mountain ranges that bordered Fiore in the north are home to some of the highest peaks in the world. Every year thousands of tourists flock to the great mountain chain for a chance to experience the majestic beauty and tranquility of their secluded heights.
But the lofty snow-capped peaks are not the North's only stake to fame. Spread out across the length of the entire mountain chain are a number of monasteries that are as famous for their spiritual significance as they were for their beauty and status in History of the world. Some of these monasteries are easily accessible to the common-folk while some others are not quite so. One such monastery is Phalkuk monastery- the scene for the very beginning of our tale.
Founded by a young monk over a thousand years ago in hopes of finding peace by studying the ancient teaching of their god and meditate in peace far away from the distracting cacophony of worldly affairs, Phalkuk was one of the most isolated location in the region.
Phalkuk monastery was built oin the mouth of a natural cave inside a gorge from where it spills out on the cliff-face in a honeycomb structure that is awe-inspiring to behold.
Despite the founder's worldly interruptions to a minimum, the monastery was open to commonfolk for a few months of the year.
The monastery was home to around fifty monks all of whom adhered to a strict schedule which included rising early, praying, taking care of chores and help out the tiny village down in the valley from time to time.
The monastery had several praying halls, and in one such hall, dark save for the flickering light of the candles, is an old monk. He is sitting at the end of the hall lined by massive statues sitting before yet another massive statute. He is garbed in saffron robes and deep in meditation.
The world around him is still and noiseless.
The old monk rises from his body and flies through the cosmos, watching one world after another race past him till suddenly he lands inside a dark tunnel.
There is a little light coming in from the opening at one end. He also hears a faint sound coming from there. The monk moves towards the light and with every step he takes the sound becomes clearer. When he is ten steps from the mouth of the tunnel, the monk is able of see the view outside. It is of a forest resplendent with the colors and perfumes of spring. But there one solitary sight, sad and sobering, that arrests the monk's attention.
Under the cover of an old Sakura tree, breathtakingly beautiful, its peals gliding down on the breeze, is a young girl. Her knees are pulled up and headed buried in the folded arms resting upon them. The monk can not see her face. All he can tell of her is that she wears a purple dress with dark hair and a skin pale as the freshly fallen snow.
The monk's heart aches hearing the child's sobs, There is so much sorrow in them. He reaches a hand out and calls, "Young miss." He tries to move forward but finds himself rooted to the spot.
Immediately the mouth of the tunnel begins to pull away till it is but a white moat floating darkness. In the monk's outstretched hand which had been empty before, now lies a weird fruit. The monk can tell of its devilish origins from the noxious energy it oozes.
Coming from the fruit itself the monk hears something, He strains his ears and is able to make the faint sound of muted agonized screams of confused creatures trapped within a blazing inferno.
And suddenly all around the monk there is fire, reaching for the sky, bellowing with an unsatiable hunger. The screams are no longer faint but all around him, earth-shattering. He can smell the stench of burning flesh.
But underneath the pandemonium the monk can clearly hear the wailing of a child. And without knowing how he was sure that these wails were of the child he had seen earlier sitting under the tree.
In his fear and revulsion the monk flinches away, and is transported back into his body.
Back in the dimly lit praying hall of the monastery the monk has fallen over unconscious. It would be hours before the others would find him. By which time it'd be too late.
More than a thousand miles away Gray awakes with a wide yawn in the bedroom of his dilapidated little hovel built, it seems, on the very edge of civilization.
He reached a hand to the side and patted the mattress devoid of its occupant. Gray cracks open a bleary eye to confirm the departure of his fiance. Sighing he sits himself up on the bed, stretches and yawns again. It isn't until then does he realize that there is a delicious aroma wafting in through the open door of the room. Straining his ears Gray hears a sizzle and all the associated clatter of preparing a breakfast. The sounds feel foreign in his little hovel which always had the ingredients and tools for cooking a meal but had lacked a willing cook. But now that he was engaged, among many other things, that had changed.
Gray throws the sheets off himself, swings his legs to the side and rises to his feet. Buck naked, he saunters over to where his clothes are lying discarded on the floor. He pulls on his pants but is unable to find his shirt. The only other articles of clothing left are the remains of the skimpy dress that he had pulled hungrily off his fiance last night. He grins saucily at the memory.
He moves out of the room and follows the smell and sound of breakfast down the stairs and into the kitchen where he finds Lucy expertly working on pans and skillet, wearing his overlarge shirt.
She had rolled up the sleeves several times so they hung over her soft elbows. The hem of the shirt that was buttoned haphazardly reached halfway to her knees and whispered against her skin in a manner that made Gray want to explore if she wearing anything underneath, and remedy the situation if she were.
Walking up behind her quietly, Gray slipped his arms around her slender waist and pulled Lucy against himself.
Lucy let out a soft yelp of surprise which morphed into a ringing delighted laughter when Gray dropped his head to kiss her under the jaw.
"Stop," she tried to order, shoving her elbows into his sides. "I'm making breakfast here, can't you see?" The authority she was trying to project was undercut by the smile that kept widening against her lips.
"All I see," Gray whispered throatily "Is how good this shirt looks on you than it did on me." He buried his nose in her flaxen hair and took a deep whiff of her intoxicating scent. His fingers must have unwittingly brushed against one of her ticklish spots because she convulsed in his arms and dissolved into giggles. Which did it for Gray.
"Stop," Lucy managed to squeal, "I'm mean it, Gray! You're going to ruin the breakfast!"
"The breakfast can wait", he said pulling Lucy up and heaping her on his shoulder so that his face was aligned next to her perfect ass.
He carried her off to the living room where he dropped her into the couch and climbed on top of her. After which... well, as Gray had said, the breakfast did wait. It waited for over an hour, by the end of which the entire house was filled with smoke and Lucy and Gray were lying next to each other out of breath and sweaty with satisfied smirks plastered on their faces.
They had to throw open all the windows and doors to let the smoke out. Lucy made Gray clean the charred ruin that breakfast had been reduced to. She had been most displeased. Lucy had a very severe stand against wasting food.
It took Gray half an hour to scrub clean the utensils and wash the kitchen to a gleaming finish. After which they left together for the guild hoping to get some breakfast there.
Once inside the guild Fray ordered for himself enough food for ten grown men. Lucy politely excused herself, fearing that watching Gray pig out might ruin her appetite. And she badly needed some calories in her, especially after the kind of night and morning she'd had.
A small satisfied smile crept on her face at the memory that no one else but a young woman in love is able to conjure.
"Look at you, glowing like the moon spirit," Lucy looked up to see Cana sashay towards her, carrying a barrel of rum.
"Women better hold on to their men fast." She kicked Freed off the chair he had been sitting in and dragged it over to the table where Lucy was.
"Hey, Cana" Lucy beamed. "How you've been?"
"Spectacular, as you can see," Cana replied cheerfully. "And from the look on your face I take it that the whole moving in with Gray is going well?
"It is." Lucy admitted, and after a moment's thought added: "Actually it is going much better than I had expected."
"Ohohoho! Nice!" Cana crowed, delighted. "Give me all the juicy details." She bounced in her seat like a little eager child.
By then Freed had stumbled to Cana perhaps to get some retribution. His hopes were dashed, however, when Cana shot a fist out blindly and accurately smashed Ereed's nose flat. "Leave nothing out." she urged, taking no note of the green haired mage who was convulsing on the floor behind her.
Lucy was about to give in to Cana's request when she caught something from the corner of her eye. Turning her head she saw Mira talking to Gray, her expression sombre. She patted his shoulder once before leaving him with a piece of paper.
Gray sat still for a long moment, his food forgotten, before he unfolded the paper and read it.
Lucy could tell from the slump of his shoulders that the contents of the page were grim. And not just grim, but deeply melancholic.
Sensing the shift in the mood, Cana asked, "What happebned?" She followed Lucy's line of sight and saw what had taken up Lucy's attention.
"You better go." she told Lucy, sensing something amiss. But Lucy was already out of her chair, a worried frown knitting her brows, and strode over to Gray.
"Gray?" she asked softly slipping a hand on his shoulder, startling him a little. For a moment he looked lost, a shadow of confusion flickered across his face.
"What happened?" Lucy took a seat next to Gray.
Gray looked back down at the paper in his hand, and expelled a huge sigh. He tossed it on the table and dragged a hand down his face before speaking, "Nothing. Just someone I knew passed away."
It wasn't just someone, Lucy could tell. Gray was speaking normally, his expression had reverted to business-as-usual, but she could read it in his eyes. The sadness of losing someone dear.
Lucy gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Who were they?" she asked softly.
Gray looked at her, and Lucy saw the same confusion from a moment ago. It was like he had suddenly remembered something. That he was no longer alone; that there was someone from whom he could hide neither his happiness nor sorrows. His practiced nonchalance melted and instead emerged a harrowed relief sorrow.
"After I had lost UL, I had been lost for long time," He sighed heavily. "Finding the guild had helped. And devoting myself to finding a cure for UL had worked as a distraction for sometime. But it wasn't until I had met Master Ro Giatsu was I able to settle. He taught me to accept my failures and devote myself to the present."
"What happened?"
Gray shook his head dejectedly. "I don't know. The message the monks left with Mira just said that Giatsu had passed away last night and that if I wished to pay my last respects they could delay the last rites to accommodate."
There was a second of silence during which Gray stared off in space lost in a world of memories that Lucy wasn't yet privy to. She spoke later, "So when are we leaving?"
Gray shifted his gaze on her, once again looking as if he had forgotten that he wasn't alone.
"This noon." he said.
Lucy nodded. "I'll pack. Where are we going?"
"To the mountains in the farthest north."
Throughout the journey Gray hadn't uttered a single word. He carried the luggage silently, boarded their train without a noise and in silence spent the entire trip.
Lucy hated to see him suffer silently, and suffer he was. His stoic, smooth veneer of control didn't fool her for a second. She knew the pain of losing someone close. She just hoped that Gray would talk to her. But she also acknowledged that a habit formed over a lifetime of covering up wounds and hiding pain would take some to change.
So she let him dwell on his dark thoughts, keeping an eye out for any sign where her assistance might be needed.
After disembarking, they found the nearest hotel and checked into it to spend the rest of the day. There were still eight hours left on their journey before they reached the monastery. And while the nature of their jobs had made them more or less immune to fatigue of long travels, Lucy suspected that Gray needed a little time to compose himself before he confronted the fact in full force.
It never gets easy.
So long as you live, you'll care. And as long as you care, you'll get hurt. For it is the immutable truth of life: You are born and you die. It sounds so simple. Yet it takes most people their entire lives, sometimes even more, to come to terms with the fact.
It requires a tremendous amount of courage from a person to allow themselves to love and be loved after the kind of losses Gray had suffered. She was proud of him to have taken the risk, but was also very worried.
How much would be too much for Gray? Every person has their breaking point. Lucy fervently hoped this wouldn't prove to be Gray's.
AS they turned in for the night her worries reemerged.
Gray had fallen asleep very quickly. And as he slept clinging to her, unusually still, Lucy reached to a decision. If Gray ever decided to retreat back into his shell, she would drag him out of it.
It terrified her to think of a life without Gray. The goofy, horny, caring Gray that she could no longer do without.
She stayed up well past midnight. Her mind was buzzing. But the decision she had made and her faith in Gray to not give in to melancholy had restored some semblance of peace and she, too, drifted off to a deep dreamless sleep.
The next morning was bright beautiful. Gray had started to return to his usual self. He smiled more often and answered Lucy's questions and requests with actual words instead of brushing them off with a shrug or noncommittal hums as he had the day before.
They made it to the village in the valley below the monastery two hours ahead of the schedule. There arrangements had been made to accommodate the couple in a tiny cottage for the duration of their stay.
The village was teeming with people. The Old Monk had been adored by many. His loss had left them all saddened and confused. There were people from neighboring villages, and like Gray, some of Giatsu's previous students.
Lucy later discovered that the whole thing could very easily have turned into a national affair. But the Old Monk had been a simple man and wanted a simple send-off. Had it been open to all, the bigwigs of the Kingdom would have flooded the place, and with them would have visited the swarm of paparazzi and bodyguards.
Among such bigwigs had been the Royal Family itself. They had not visited the funeral to respect the Old Monk's wishes and showed their respects by declaring a week later the day of his passing as a National Holiday.
Lucy remained by Gray's side throughout. He had reverted to his hard-faced stony silence. But the way he would sometimes lean into Lucy a bit or take her hand and give it a tight squeeze, seemed to indicate that her presence was appreciated.
After a long day of rituals the Monk was finally cremated and the whole thing was wrapped up. But people hadn't returned to their homes immediately and had instead stayed out, gathered together in clumps as they discussed the Good Old Monk and all the ways he had transformed their lives. There Lucy and Gray met a young couple like themselves, only they were married and blessed with a baby girl who must be the most beautiful child Lucy had ever seen.
They immediately became fast friends. Especially the women who were fussing over the baby and being girly. The men exchanged a few meaningful conversations about Giatsu and life in general, which is a rare thing with even old friends. Rarer still with a complete stranger.
The couple left early because the baby was starting to get cranky.
Close to dawn Lucy and Gray, too, drifted to their cottage to catch a little sleep before setting out for Fiore after daybreak.
On the morning of the next day they had an unexpected visitor. A monk from the monastery.
When Lucy answered a polite knock on the door of their cottage, she found him standing there with a gentle smile and a rolled piece of parchment in hand.
The monk greeted her a good morning warmly to which she hastily replied in kind and showed him in.
Gray had just been up and was still mussing his hair sleepily when the Monk entered. He introduced himself as Rouhini, the man who was the new in-charge of the Phalkuk monastery.
"Gray -san," the monk had said cutting straight to chase once pleasantries were exchanged. "I come to you with a job that I believe was Monk Giatsu's final wish, and perhaps also the reason for his untimely demise." He added the last part with a pained grimace.
There was a moment of stunned silence at the revelation.
"What do you mean?" asked Gray. Lucy was watching the whole scene unfolding quietly from a corner, nursing a deep premonition.
The Monk pursed his lips for a moment before delving in. "Master Giatsu's last moments weren't peaceful. It was painful to watch. An end completely undeserving of a man such as him. He raved and begged and apologized to someone whom none of us has any clue of."
"What are you talking about?" Gray sounded stressed.
"I believe Master Giatsu had a vision, something so terrible that it had robbed him of all his vitality. I had never seen him like that in the fifty years I had been with him. He was haunted by some dark knowledge that had rendered him mad by the end."
"Enough with the puzzles!" Gray snapped jumping to his feet. "What are you talking about?"
The monk took a shaky breath.
"When we found Monk Giatsu he had been lying unconscious for a long time already. We tried to nurse him back to health with all the medicines we had but only managed to awake him into a semi-lucid state that quickly deteriorated into fits of agonized screams."
Producing the rolled parchment the Monk continued, "I recorded as much as I could of what he said while he was Lucid but it wasn;t much. By the end all he did was beg someone for forgiveness
and call your name."
"Why my name?" Gray took the parchment from the monk.
"That I cannot say,"
In few short seconds Gray read all that was written in the parchment.
"What is this talk about the shrine and the gate?" Gray asked the monk in frustration, failing to make heads or tails of what was written. "Who's the 'young black-haired girl', and what is this 'JOY BOY'?"
The Monk calmly replied. "I believe the shrine Master Giatsu speaks of is the one in the East that hides in its basement a multidimensional enteryway. As for the child and JOY BOY, I am as lost as you are."
Gray's head jerked up at the mention of the entryway. "You have your personal Multi-dimensional Gateway? I thought Council was regulating all known ones."
"As you said, Gray-san, they are regulating all the known ones. And it isn't there for our personal use but as something we must guard with our lives."
"But if it is such a great secret why did you just reveal it to me voluntarily."
"That is because I believe it is my duty." the monk sighed, clearly not too comfortable revealing centuries old secret to an outsider. "That being said, however, I would advise you against taking this job Gray-san. Whatever lies beyond the doors is something terrible and inhumane. The only reason I revealed this to you is because I didn't want Master's death to be meaningless."
Lucy was about to jump in, the ominous feeling growing heavier, and try and convince Gray to heed the Monk's advice when he spoke up.
"I owe him a great debt." Gray said grimly. "I appreciate your concern but I will do it."
And that was it. His mind was made, the words had been uttered. There was no coming back.
Lucy felt her heart sink. Why had she hesitated?!
"I had feared you might say something like this," the Monk reached into his saffron robes and pulled out a small paper. "Give this to the head of the clan that is guarding the shrine. They will let you in."
After that the Monk left.
Gray sat down on the edge of the bed and Lucy walked around it to stand beside him.
"Are you sure Gray?" she asked, hoping against hope that he'd change his mind.
"Yeah."
"...So, where do we go now?"
"First, home. Then, where ever the journey takes us."
Lucy felt a little better that he said 'us' instead of 'me'. But only a little. The bad feeling she had when Monk came in just wouldn't leave her.
A/n: God! This chapter turned out to be way too freaking huge. I had wanted to wrap this part up in a couple of paragraphs and start with Gray's adventure in Ohara but, damn, it got out of control and right before my eyes it blossomed into this. I was completly helpless.
Next update will be in another three/four days. Already working on the next chap, and there the Ice Mage will meet the Demon Child.
I tried my best but there might still be a few mistakes. Sorry about them.
Last, though far from least, Daxen123, thanks for taking the time to review. And since you're the very first reviewer to this story, I'll entertain any requests you might have.
Later!