Disclaimer: this beautiful world does not belong to me. If It would, NaLu would have been a thing a long time ago.
His daughter? With Lucy? From the future? Hum… what? This was too much for Natsu to process and his mind froze. Too many question marks were swimming around in his head. There weren't any more reactions coming from him. His mind seemed both still frozen and in overdrive, thinking over what he knew from the situation, but he couldn't but come back to this one little piece of information: in the future, he gets to be with Lucy! Unlike what most people think of him, Natsu isn't blind to romantic feelings. Yes, he may be inexperienced. Yes, he might not be interested very often, but even he can realize he's in love. He knew that from the moment he saw her in Hargeon that she would become close to him: her charming smile, her sweet personality; she was perfect. Of course at the moment, he didn't know it was love, but as time moved on, his feelings grew stronger and stronger, until he would give his life for her.
Nashi was waiting for any sort of response from any of her parents but they each seemed to be lost in their own private thoughts. And they had all the reasons to be; from what her mom had told her, it took them a while to acknowledge their feelings towards each other, or at least, to admit they both felt the same way. Being faced with this could be quite a shock, but she really didn't care to find out how long it would take for them to shake themselves out of it, so she figured she should probably do so herself.
''Ahem! Sorry to disturb you, in your undoubtedly deep and meaningful realizations, but I didn't tell you all of this just for fun. Although it is kinda funny to watch you get all blushy. Anyway, a lot has happened in the future, and by that, I mean a lot. You know… terrible things... Many frien...'' She stopped for a quick moment as tears rushed to her eyes and she quickly turned around to hide them from her parents, even though she knew they weren't stupid enough to not notice (well, most of the time, anyway). But, hey! Points for trying, right?
''You don't have to tell us everything now, said Natsu as he quickly came and hugged her. We can wait until you're more at ease with this.'' Lucy was staring slack-jawed at Natsu. To say the least, she was surprised by his sensitive and considerate behaviour. Considerate! The guy who kept telling her to lose weight! Seriously? She always knew he was a loveable and friendly person, and kind, but he barely knew that girl, even though she said she was their daughter. Yes, they did have some similar appearance, but this level of kindness was just weird!
''No, no, don't worry about me...'' said Nashi between muffled sobs.'' That's why I came here, I'm sorry, I have to stop wasting time...'' She rubbed her arm against her eyes to remove the remaining tears and resumed her story ''First thing you need to know... You cannot trust Gray!'' she said in a cold tone.
''What? Why not? He's always been my friend! I mean, don't tell him that, but I really care about him…'' responded Natsu sheepishly while Lucy snickered. It was kind of cute how he didn't realize everybody knew they were good friends and really took care of each other between their numerous fights. She dropped her grin for a more serious expression when she caught a glimpse of Nashi's face.
''Well, for now... In a couple of years, Arcturious, a demon of immense strength and magic power will start hunting all the wizards on this continent. For many years the world was seeped in terror as he didn't mind blowing up entire cities to kill his targets. If you had heard all the horror stories mom would try to keep me from eavesdropping on… The villagers wouldn't stop talking about all the stuff he did, but, honestly, I wish they hadn't. Those stories… They were scary. Nightmares that actually happened, people that actually died... He truly is evil.''
Lucy and Natsu were left speechless as they tried to imagine the damage that Fiore would go through, but also how terrifying it would be for a child, their child, to grow up in such conditions. ''The remaining wizards regrouped and formed a resistance so they at least had a chance to fight Arcturious. They were making teams and groups to go help out the survivors, bring them to shelter, give them food and water. Gray and Juvia were in one of those teams... But what happened next...''
Nashi took a deep breath and resumed.
'' Arcturious ambushed them and started killing all those that stood in his path. Gray and Juvia being the strongest in their team quickly rushed to fight him but it was useless: Juvia… Aunt Juvia was killed during the fight...'' At this point, Lucy had tears in her eyes and was helplessly fighting to keep them from rolling down her face. The thought of losing this sweet girl, one of her best friends, was simply terrifying. ''But this is only the beginning. Gray was overwhelmed with pain, sorrow and rage... Arcturious saw an opportunity to get stronger and he took it: he convinced Gray, to join him on his quest. For a while, the demon seemed to stop his senseless murder. Mom liked to tell me Uncle Gray was working behind the scenes, slowing the demon down for us. For Juvia. At least, he did for 4 years... They came back in strength and they left even more dead people behind them... And, right before I was sent here... I saw you, dad... getting murd-...'' she stopped talking as she fell to her knees before them. She was immediately surrounded by her parents, who quickly came and hugged her to reassure her.
''You've said enough for now, kid... You need calm down and get some rest. And maybe say hi to Happy! How does that sound? I'm sure he'd be super happy to meet you! '' Natsu said, forcing a cheerful smile to his face as Lucy gently guided Nashi to her bedroom. This was going to be a long night.
Two hours later found Natsu and Lucy standing in her living room and thinking about all this. Nashi was sleeping in her mother's room. She had calmed down after crying for a good 30 minutes with her parents close to her. Happy never did arrive, but Natsu promised she would get to see him the next morning.
''Natsu...'' Lucy said worriedly.
''Yes. I know.'' He let out a sigh. ''We need to talk to gramps' about this. Now. While we still can save the future.''
They both were standing there thinking in an uncharacteristic silence when they decided to leave the apartment to head to the Guild Hall. They knew Nashi would need some time to think as well when she woke up.
As they were walking next to each other, Lucy shyly grabbed Natsu's hand without saying a word. They didn't need to: they both knew what has going on in their partner's mind. Perks of being best friends! With a smile, he slowly intertwined his fingers with her and gave her a squeeze to let her know that they would be okay. They had to be.
''There is no way I'm letting anything happen to my family! Not while I'm alive!'' Natsu promised himself.
Remember to R&R
C ya soon!
