~.~.~
Title: Meeting Against Fate
Notes: Finally, we're getting away from Erza for a while. On the other hand, now we have a chapter to prove how bad I am at planning character interactions and relationship development since I had to cram everything into this one chapter lol.
Btw, I know Ultear's magic is usually rendered as "Arc of Time," but I think "Ark of Time" makes more sense, given that this is a Lost Magic that has been brought forward to modern day (vague implication of Ark of the Covenant, I guess?). Same for Rusty's "Ark of Embodiment."
~.~.~
4. Home of Ice
In the end, they decided to just let Lyon and others go. With Deliora gone once and for all, they no longer had a reason to stir up chaos. Parting ways from them, Gray, Erza and Ultear left the temple and headed down to the smugglers' cove where the pirate ship Erza had press-ganged into service was hopefully still waiting for them.
"I have my own way of getting back, so I'll take my leave," Ultear spoke up. She had been quiet since Deliora's final end, but now she seemed to finally regain her calm and her usual mysterious smile. "I can't thank you enough... I'm in your debt."
Her words drew Gray out of his own thoughts, and he frowned faintly as he turned toward her. "Do you need to get back quickly?" he asked. "There's... something I want to show you — in Isvan."
Caught completely off guard, Ultear stared at him in surprise. "In Isvan...?" she repeated. "That's..."
"I know it's a long way to go," Gray said, his gaze oddly intent, "but I think you need to see it. There's something that Ur wasn't able to convey to you, that you need to know."
With that, he had caught her. Ultear could appreciate the turnabout, even if it was likely unintentional on his part. She'd used the same tactics to lead him around in conversation before. And even if Ultear knew her own weakpoint, she couldn't stop herself from falling for it.
"If it's something from Mother, I can't refuse," she conceded, smiling wryly.
Whatever it was, it wouldn't change anything, in the end. And Isvan... well, any number of accidents could happen, in a remote place like that.
~.~.~
"I see..." Erza said slowly, her expression unreadable. "That's fine. I will let Master know you won't be back for a while."
"Could you... keep the reason between us?" Gray asked, uncertain. "Tell him I'm going to train or something."
"That's fine," Erza agreed. She hesitated for a moment before continuing, "When you come back... there's something I want to talk to you about. Regarding... what we discussed before. But it can wait." She nodded to herself, pushing away her uncertainty. "I'll see you after you return. And... be careful, Gray."
"I will," he said.
Ultear — or rather, Zalty — had arrived on Galuna using her own small ship, which she had hidden in a smaller cove on the opposite side of the island. It would be a right fit for two, but Ultear thought the sacrifice worth it to separate from Erza earlier. Titania was fearsome and had remained reserved, if not outright distrustful, toward her.
"We can go to Hargeon and take the train... or I suppose we could try going to Akane and catching a ship," Gray said, once their ship was ready to sail.
Jellal had several operatives in Akane, and some of the Council members and their associates liked to frequent the casinos there — Ultear was hardly the only one to sometimes leave her duties to a Thought Projection, to deal with personal matters instead.
"Let's take the train," she decided.
Gray smiled suddenly, shaking his head. "How nostalgic. That was how I got to Fiore in the first place. ...I hope it goes more peacefully this time. The train got ambushed at least three times back then."
~.~.~
Given that Erza's pirate friends couldn't dock in Hargeon directly, not without getting arrested, Gray and Ultear seemed to have even managed to beat her there. It felt strange to take the train past Magnolia, and Gray almost got up to disembark before catching himself. He shot Ultear an annoyed look when she tried to hide her smile at that.
"Do you want to stop by your guild?" she asked.
"There's no need. Erza will let them know," Gray said. "I have enough money for the trip, since I got some from the Sylph Labyrinth hideout, and I don't need anything else." Realizing something, he glanced at her. "What about you? Do you need anything? It doesn't seem like you have much with you, and it'll be cold, you know."
"I know, I was born there too," Ultear assured him, amused. "The cold doesn't bother me."
"Right, of course," Gray said quickly. "That's only natural. You're an ice wizard, after all. Mastering the cold was the first thing Ur taught us."
"Oh? Is that so," Ultear said. Her tone conveyed nothing in particular, making it unclear if she was interested, skeptical, amused, or simply indifferent.
Still, it was enough enough encouragement for Gray, who smiled nostalgically and went on, "Yeah, I was so surprised when the first thing she told me when we started training was to take off my clothes and walk around in the snow in just my underwear." He started laughing, just remembering the scene.
The absurdity of what he was saying was enough to break through even Ultear's composure, and she stared at him in shock. "Is... is that so..." she muttered, for lack of anything else to say.
"I thought she might be bullying me, but she and Lyon both stripped like it was normal. Well, Lyon was shivering a lot even if he acted like it didn't bother him," Gray reminisced, still chuckling. "And I was already decided I couldn't let him beat me, so..."
"Then that weird habit is...?"
Shrugging, Gray grinned wryly. "Ur would always get so mad when I told her it was all her fault, even though it completely was! I never did that before starting to train with her." He hummed thoughtfully. "I guess it might be my fault a bit too... I wanted to learn ice magic as quickly as possible, so I tried to train constantly, in any way I could. So I might have... tried not to wear clothes at all, so I could master the cold right away and build up my stamina. But still, it was because of Ur's weird training methods."
Seeing him so animated was strange. Ultear had built up an image of him in her mind that was vastly different — closed off from other people, emotionally awkward, uncertain any time the past was brought up or even hinted at.
Of course, Gray's behavior in their previous meetings had been due to her own manipulations. She had been aiming to keep him off balance, and she had succeeded in controlling the stage back then. But now that Gray had taken the lead in their exchange, he was far more at ease and showing his natural character. Having been able to settle some of his regrets regarding Ur helped as well.
"That sounds like an interesting way of training," Ultear said distractedly.
"It definitely was," Gray agreed. "How did you train your Ice Make? Not the same way, I take it."
"No, I learned from books," Ultear admitted.
Hades's library contained texts about nearly every school of magic, even the Lost ones, and finding enough about Ice Make to learn the basics had been simple. She had designed the rest of her style based on the faint memories of her mother, when Ur had shown off some flashy spells for her young daughter. The memories of softly falling snow, beautiful glittering ice flowers, her mother's warmth...
"It was nothing as exciting as Mother's method," she added, one corner of her lips quirking up in strange smile.
The silence that followed made Ultear realize she'd given away more than she intended, and that Gray was watching her with a concerned frown. "Sorry, it must be hard for you to hear," he said, drawing back. "It's not like I'm trying to..."
Flaunt that he had gotten the chance to train under her mother when Ultear hadn't. Remind her of what she'd never had the chance to have. Ultear understood what he wasn't saying easily — she had believed those same things herself.
But without thinking about it, she smiled and shook her head. "I think... I'd like to hear more," she said. "Will you tell me? About Mother?"
Soon enough, those memories would be erased from the timeline, after all, just like the present Gray sitting in front of her. It seemed... right, that Ultear at least would remember those things. It would be a shame to lose the few good things that had managed to happen, along with all the bad.
Gray stared at her in surprise for a moment before ducking his head bashfully. Still, he was smiling as he said, "Sure. There's so much, about Ur... where should I start...?"
Stretching his legs out into the space between their seats, he chose a story and began.
~.~.~
Despite Gray's dire concerns, the first leg of their trip passed without a single unscheduled stop, technical difficulty or hijacking.
"I don't know what you expected," Ultear sighed. "The railways are very safe. The national governments and the Magic Council put a lot of resources into keeping them that way." She had paid a somewhat high amount of attention to those processes, to better set up Grimoire Heart's hidden routes and secret shipments.
Gray scowled dubiously. "We got attacked by a dark guild on the way out of Isvan, then a bunch of trainrobbers on the trans-continental, and then we had to stop in the middle of the forest in Magnolia because something broke down. And that's just when I was coming west. I don't even want to think about the number of times I've been in a train-jacking on a mission." Looking slightly haunted, he added, "Making an ice hand car is hard, you know? Even if all the parts are static, they keep moving..."
Struggling to keep a straight face, Ultear told him, "You have some really bad luck."
They had some time during the stopover between trains, and Gray took the opportunity to wander around the station a bit. It was a large international transportation hub, with trains arriving from and heading to all corners of Ishgal. People from across the continent were bustling between platforms and terminals, the atmosphere full of energy and almost festive, despite all the pushing and yelling.
Browsing the many colorful stalls lining the hallways all over the station, Gray stopped to pick up some food for them — and a few things for his guildmates.
"They'll complain less about me running off if I bring them souvenirs," Gray explained to Ultear, once he rejoined her on a bench near the platform for their next train. "And Isvan's not really the sort of place where you can buy anything except maybe bear woodcarvings and fur hats."
Ultear concentrated on nibbling at her spicy wrap, not wanting to reveal how little she remembered of her homeland aside from blurry images of snowy landscapes. She had no idea what kind of souvenirs you might or might not be able to purchase there.
"Are you going to get in trouble for leaving for so long?" she asked instead.
"Not trouble... they'll just tease and nag, you know? The guild's like a family, so everyone's so nosy," Gray sighed, biting into his sandwich and chewing miserably. "Especially Cana and Mira... Erza'll probably slip up and tell them I'm traveling with a beautiful woman, so Loke'll never let me live it down either. They'll be ribbing me about it for weeks. Months, even."
He made a face, just thinking about it. Gray loved Fairy Tail, but they could be incredibly annoying and nosy about anything that wasn't each other's past. There was a better than even chance that no matter what he or Erza said, the rest of the guild would end up interpreting the entire thing as "Gray snuck off with his secret girlfriend, tried to elope, and got dumped," per completely off-base baseless wild guesses from Loke, Mira, and Natsu, respectively.
Seeing Ultear's somewhat dubious expression, he said, "You know... that Siegrain guy's bound to say something about how you better not have done anything inappropriate for a Council member or tease you about skipping on your duties, right? You're close, aren't you?"
Considering that, Ultear had to nod, if reluctantly. Jellal probably would say something mild-sounding but secretly barbed about indulging in personal affairs. But it wouldn't carry the kind of affectionate undertone that Gray was thinking of. After all, they weren't friends. Their closeness was the mutual wariness of enemies who shared secrets and held those secrets over each other's heads.
"I suppose so," Ultear demurred, smiling wryly. "But I don't think a souvenir would pacify him."
"They've got some pretty good liquor here. That usually works at least a little on everyone," Gray suggested. Finishing off the last bite, he crumpled the colorful paper the sandwich had been wrapped in and tossed it toward the waste basket nearby. The paper ball caught just inside the rim, rolled along the edge for a moment, and finally went in.
Gray fist-pumped in triumph, only to freeze in embarrassment when he heard Ultear's amused chuckle.
He recovered quickly, however. "Laugh if you want, but let's see you match that," he said. When in doubt, Gray tended to revert back to his default mode of interaction — competitiveness and picking fights.
Her smile taking on the edge of a smirk, Ultear raised an eyebrow and held up her own wrapper. It dissolved into dust and then nothing at all right in front of Gray's eyes.
"How's that?" Ultear asked, gloating. She'd dealt with her fair share of challenges and then some in Grimoire Heart, especially from idiots like Zancrow and Rusty who were always looking to improve their place in the pecking order — forgetting that she, the leader of the Kin, was at the top for a reason.
"That's... a very useful ability," Gray said. "It speeds up the time of things, right? Can it turn time back too?"
"Yes, that's my Ark of Time. It allows me to freely control the time-state of objects," Ultear said. She watched him carefully for a reaction, having noticed the strange pause before his comment. "It's the magic I am most proficient in."
But Gray only smirked slightly. "That would be great for when we end up destroying half the guildhall again," he said. "You could just turn it back to normal in a snap, right? Master would love to have you in the guild..."
"Trying to recruit me? But I'm afraid I must decline. It would be a conflict of interest, you know," Ultear replied lightly.
Grinning, Gray shrugged.
A conflict of interest indeed...
~.~.~
They had gotten a sleeper car for two after switching to the transcontinental railway, but it seemed to have been a waste. Long after night had fallen, both Gray and Ultear remained awake, lost in their own thoughts.
The only light came from the crack beneath the door into the corridor, the world beyond the window almost completely dark now — far from any settlement, the stars and moon hidden behind thick clouds. With every sudden gust of wind, a flurry of white snowflakes would press against the glass, but the landscape beyond remained nothing more than a few blurred shapes in the distance.
Listening to the creaking of the train as it sped along the tracks and the rising and falling howl of the wind, Gray took a slow, steadying breath and let it out again.
"Ultear," he called out quietly to the woman sitting on the bed across from his.
Her figure was mostly hidden by the deep shadows near the wall, but he could just make out the column of her neck and the curve of her jaw, enough to see when she turned away from the window to look at him. She didn't say anything, but that was all Gray needed to continue.
"What happened, after you were separated from Ur?" he asked, staring up at the darkened ceiling. "Why did she think you'd died?"
Gray had been thinking about it since the beginning, when he first found out that Ur's daughter was still alive. He had simply been unwilling to press, hadn't felt he had any right to. But he couldn't just leave it either. It was too important.
The silence stretched on, broken only by the steady sounds of the train, and Gray began to think Ultear would pretend she hadn't heard him, taking the out he'd left her. But finally, she spoke up.
"...I don't know," she admitted, her voice barely audible. "I was just a child. I didn't know anything, except that Mother had brought me to a strange place and then left me there. She never came back, and I was all alone..."
"Did they lie to Ur...?" Gray wondered, not expecting an answer. He frowned, his brows furrowing as he turned the few things he knew over in his mind. "Why did she take you there? You said you were sick, right? What kind of place was it?"
"Sick?" Ultear repeated. Thinking back, she realized she'd told Gray she had been 'receiving treatment,' which he must have interpreted as medical treatment when she had meant the magic-enhancing experiments. But... he wasn't wrong. "I... had been sick," she struggled to recall. "My magic was too strong, so I often had a high fever that wouldn't go down. I wonder if that's why..."
It was strange to consider, but Ultear had never really thought about it, why Ur had taken her to the Magic Development Bureau in the first place. All that had mattered was that Ur had left her there and replaced her. That was still true, and Ultear would never forgive Ur for that — even if she had thought her daughter was dead, she had still replaced her with those two boys and given her life for them.
But Ultear was beginning to realize that it wasn't just Ur who was to blame, or even primarily so.
The Bureau had said they would study her magic and make it even stronger. That was their goal. And the one who led them, who had escaped escaped Ultear's destruction of the facility and only reappeared years later, when she had become one of Hades's followers, drunk on thoughts of revenge toward Ur... Brain.
"Strong magic... Were you targeted because of that?" Gray guessed. It wasn't unheard of, not by a long shot. There were many who sought to use those born with powerful magic for their own ends, as guards or soldiers or enforcers.
Glancing over, Gray had been about to ask something more, but he hesitated as he caught a glimpse of Ultear's expression. It was dark in the cabin, and the jostling of the train made shadows dance over her face, but the naked, murderous hatred there... it scared Gray.
There was more he had wanted to say, but he couldn't get the words out anymore. Clenching his jaw, Gray turned away and closed his eyes.
In the silence and the darkness, Ultear continued to think, old and new grudges keeping her from rest.
~.~.~
The atmosphere was completely different when they finally disembarked in Isvan. It wasn't just the weather — Isvan's usual cold and intermittent snow. It was in the people, in the way they held themselves. Everyone seemed to hunch defensively, their shoulders stiff. They looked like there was a great weight hanging over them, or like they were trying to hide from something.
It was easy to understand why. The reason was starkly visible in the pale morning light — the station and the city around were still only half rebuilt. The buildings all around, the terminal and the clocktower, everything was still half destroyed and run through with wide cracks and scorch marks.
This city, the endpoint of the transcontinental line and the largest train hub in the region, had been one of the places destroyed by Deliora. Unlike most of the ruined areas, which had remained untouched since, the train station and the surrounding city had been reclaimed, out of necessity. But even so, the weight of that disaster and the lives lost in it remained over the city like an inescapable pall.
Deliora had rampaged across Isvan for over a year, destroying many settlements like a nightmare without end — until Brago. And even then, it hadn't disappeared once and for all, instead remaining in the middle of its carnage as a grim, frozen reminder of all it had wrought.
Was it any wonder that the people whose lives it had destroyed had wanted to see Deliora destroyed once and for all, even if that meant reviving it first? Gray could certainly understand their feelings. Though Ur had given him the push he needed to build a new life, in Fairy Tail, the shadow of Deliora had hung over him for a decade longer.
It was only now that he had seen it finally destroyed that Gray felt like he could be free of that weight.
"I hadn't truly understood it," Ultear said suddenly, pulling Gray out of his brooding thoughts. She had been silent since the train had entered Isvan, watching the ruins that dotted the landscape pass by the window and then the studying destroyed buildings they walked past intently, a faint frown on her face. "The true power..."
"Of Deliora? You saw it on Galuna... but it was dying then," Gray said. Still, it had been terrifying enough, even then.
Ultear nodded slowly. "Yes, and of Zeref, too. This is what just one of his demons was capable of. To have created it and so many others... he wielded power unlike any modern wizard — unlike any other wizard to have ever lived."
'I knew that, but I hadn't truly understood,' she thought. 'This power... if I can obtain this power, it will definitely be possible. I will be able to turn back time and go back to when we were happy. I will take Zeref's power for myself. I won't let anyone else have it!'
"For all the good that did," Gray said bitterly.
"Ah... yes, of course," Ultear backpedaled quickly, realizing she had allowed herself to reveal too much of her true feelings, which were unsuited to what a Councilwoman should think. "I didn't mean..."
"It's fine," Gray cut off her excuses. "I get it... it's incredible. Horrible, but still incredible, what the Black Wizard did." He sighed. "Our guildmaster told us once that magic isn't inherently good or bad. Whether it becomes light or darkness is something every wizard decides for themselves. For Zeref and for everyone who worships him, it's darkness. But maybe it could be light for someone else."
For Hades, true magic was certainly darkness. He had said as much himself — that he sought the deepest darkness to find the One Magic within it. For Grimoire Heart as well, magic was a tool for spreading darkness across the entire world.
Ultear herself certainly thought of her life as being in darkness. But her magic — this magic which could give her back everything she had lost — perhaps it could be called her light of hope.
"And for you?" she asked. "What is magic to you, Gray?"
"Isn't it obvious? It's what Ur taught me," Gray said. "She entrusted her magic to me, so there's no way I'll ever use it for evil or let it become dark."
He made a face as Ultear couldn't help but chuckle again. 'What a straightforward boy,' she thought. Simple, she would have said before. But there was something charming about his honesty.
~.~.~
The final leg of their journey comprised of hitching rides and, more often, walking along snow-dusted narrow roads deep into the heart of Isvan. Even though it had been a decade since she had last been there, Ultear soon began to recognize the landscape. But despite having guessed Gray's destination, she didn't say anything.
They were already almost there, too close to turn back. Even if it was meaningless sentimentality, it would help cement his trust in her, making her plans that much smoother.
...And, if she was honest with herself, Ultear wanted to see it one more time — the place where her mother had lived.
Ur had chosen to lead the existence of a hermit, far enough from the closest village to discourage any but the most dedicated visitor. However, her cabin had been large, well-equipped, and comfortable. It had been, the last time Gray had seen it before he had run off to Brago, his parting words accusing Ur of failing as a teacher.
He hadn't had the heart to return after that, though Gray supposed Lyon must have, if only to get Ur's rare magic tomes. During the journey there, Gray had tried to imagine what it looked like now — Would everything be as they left it? Gray's discarded pants draped over the couch, Lyon's old pair of shoes shoved into the corner by the stove, the abandoned record of a life halted without warning? It was an unsettling, almost terrifying prospect.
But as they rounded the last bend in the road and approached the cabin, Gray could see that he had worried needlessly and that his imaginings were completely removed from a far simpler reality.
The passage of time had left its mark — the cabin was half-destroyed and nearly unrecognizable. The roof caved in, the windows broken, the steps and the porch rotted and collapsed... the signs of neglect were unmistakable even under the snow and ice. It was the opposite of what Gray had expected, but just as painful.
"It got like in this just ten years?" he murmured, stunned. "I didn't think..." Cutting himself off, he shook his head sharply and started toward the derelict cabin.
"Gray," Ultear called out, making him pause, "what exactly did you want to show me? Whatever it was, is it really still going to be there?"
"...Yeah, there should still be something left," Gray said, after a moment of thought. "It's probably not going to be much, but... it's something you have to see. Come on."
Ultear's protests were cut off when he took her hand and began to pull her toward the collapsed steps. Rather than risk the decayed wood, he easily created a staircase of ice instead and led the way inside. The door had long since fallen off its hinges, and the interior was in no better shape. Part of the roof had fallen in, though Gray couldn't tell why — whether a branch off the pines next to the cabin had broken it, or if perhaps Lyon had vented his anger there.
The Isvan weather had done the rest. The cozy living room Ur had diligently kept tidy despite the inherent messiness of two young boys was full of snow, debris, and dirt. Gray shook his head again, somehow still surprised to realize that it really had been almost ten years already. In his memories, this place had stayed the same, as he had last seen it, but it was only natural for time to continue to move forward in reality.
"We need to go to the spare bedroom. Down the hall, in the back..."
"Spare, huh...?" Ultear spoke up. Her voice was quiet and unreadable.
Gray glanced back at her for a moment. "We all slept together in the other room, even Ur. I know she kept some of her spellbooks and potion ingredients in the spare room, so she could lock it to keep us out but still have them on hand... But it's not a storeroom either. I only saw inside of it once and it looked like a normal bedroom."
The back of the cabin was better preserved, the hallway to the bedrooms and the bathroom mostly intact. Gray stopped in front of the spare bedroom room, not surprised to find it ajar — Lyon would have had to go inside to get some of Ur's books, after all.
"...What does that have to do with me?" Ultear asked.
Without answering, Gray pushed the door open and stepped inside. One of the window panes had broken, letting a fine layer of snow and loose pine needles slip inside and giving the room a faded, pale quality. However, aside from the empty spaces on the bookshelf, everything was as Ur had left it, the way it had been for years even before Gray had come into her life.
"It was your room, right?" Gray said, looking back at Ultear, who had still lingered in the hallway. "The one time I saw inside here, that's what Ur said — that the things here belonged to her daughter. I don't think she changed it at all..."
Ultear gritted her teeth. "What are you trying to get at? It doesn't matter anymore," she said, more sharply than was right for the part she had been trying to play.
Meeting her gaze, Gray said calmly and without hesitation, "Ur loved you. She couldn't bear to throw away or change a single thing of yours — your room, your clothes, your books, they're all still here, waiting for you to come back. Ultear... She never stopped loving you and wishing—"
"That doesn't matter anymore!" Ultear cut him off. Taking a deep breath, she tried to even her tone. "It's been a long time since then, and I'm not a child anymore. I understand that sometimes, tragedies happen and it's no one's fault..."
"But you still blame Ur," Gray said. "I could feel it, when we both used Ice Make to try to reinforce her Iced Shell. You blame Ur for abandoning you, so much that you even helped Lyon try to free Deliora."
Taken completely by surprise, Ultear stared at him for a long, silent moment. "So, you figured it out," she said finally, her posture and expression shifting as she abandoned her role as the Councilwoman.
She hadn't expected him to catch on, but there had always been a chance of it. But coming out here to the middle of nowhere alone with her had been a mistake on his part. Ultear had no doubt she could overpower him, and it would be easy to direct suspicions away from herself, at least long enough for Jellal's Tower of Heaven to complete and her role on the Council to come to an end.
Gray didn't miss the change in her demeanor, but he didn't seem to realize the danger he was in. "It's not like I'm blaming you," he said. "I don't know if you're like Lyon and you thought you could stop Deliora, or if you were planning to let it rampage again, but in the end, nothing happened and no one was hurt. This is something that concerns only us."
"That's very kind of you," Ultear said, her tone just short of mocking. She looked around the abandoned room again, forcing herself to show no expression except indifference. "Is that why you wanted me to come here then? To prove that it's not Mother's fault?"
Shaking his head, Gray said, "No. If you want to blame Ur, that's your right. Maybe she didn't know you were still alive, but maybe she should have tried harder. Maybe she shouldn't have believed them, maybe she shouldn't have brought you there in the first place. Ur isn't here anymore, so I'm not going to try to protect her."
He wanted to, of course. It wasn't fair to Ur for her beloved daughter to hate her. But Gray also knew that any argument in her favor from him, the one she'd given up her life for, thus abandoning Ultear forever even unintentionally, would feel like a mockery.
In the end, Ur had made her choice even knowing that Lyon might hate her, that Gray himself might end up hating her. What she had wanted for them was to live, free of darkness, regardless of how they saw her for it.
"Then what's the point?" Ultear said, her voice still cold. "She's gone, and it doesn't matter what she thought or felt."
"It's because Ur is gone that I have to do this," Gray told her. "If you want to blame Ur, that's your right — but you can't confront her, or express those feelings, just like Lyon can't ever overcome her now. So that darkness has been festering in your heart. I wanted to bring you here to finally convey Ur's feelings to you... and to accept your feelings in her place, so you can finally be free of them."
"Accept... my feelings for Ur? You have no idea what you're talking about," Ultear said slowly. Her glare sharpened even as Gray refused to back down. "You have no idea what I feel for Mother, and you couldn't handle 'accepting' even half of that."
She wasn't entirely right. Gray wasn't unaware of the danger he was putting himself in; he remembered Ultear's murderous expression, in the darkness of the night. Just like Lyon, she was too far gone to hold back or care if she hurt someone. Which was the reason he couldn't just leave it.
"Ur loved you," Gray repeated stubbornly. "She never stopped loving you. She never forgot you, and she wanted to meet you again—"
"Shut up!" Ultear burst out, finally losing all restraint. She stalked into the room toward Gray, each step sending a pulse of wild magic that made the floor and the walls tremble. "Shut up already! You don't know what you're talking about! Loved me?! If she loved me so much, she should have stayed with me! If she loved me, she should've never replaced me!"
She swept her arm out sharply, sending a wave of magic over the entire room. Time reversed, the dirt and snow vanishing, the rotten wood becoming new again. Colors returned to the bedspread, the carpet, the books on the shelves.
It was exactly as Ultear remembered it. The memories came rushing back, of this room, of living in it, laughing and carefree, hitting her hard enough that it felt like the air was gone from her lungs. For a moment, she couldn't see Gray standing next to her bed — she could only see Ur, smiling gently.
"She never replaced you," Gray said quietly.
With a dull sense of horror at the back of her mind, Ultear realized her eyes were stinging with tears. Gritting her teeth, she shook her head. "It doesn't matter," she said. "Because we'll..."
'...we'll never meet again,' she almost said.
But that wasn't true. They would meet again. Ultear would go back to the past and see Ur again, be with her again. And now she knew — her mother had never stopped loving her, never abandoned or forsaken her.
Even without hearing it, Gray could guess what she had intended to say. "I'm sorry," he told her, his expression painfully earnest. "I'm so sorry, Ultear..."
He expected her to blame him for Ur's death, but for the first time, Ultear didn't feel anything like that. There was nothing to blame him for — she would see her mother again soon, so maybe... maybe it was time to let go.
"It's not your fault," Ultear said, and for once, she meant it. "You made a mistake... but I did too. I ran away once, you know? I escaped from that facility and made my way back to my mother. I wanted to see her so much... But when I got here, I saw — it was just like they'd told me. She had two boys with her, she'd replaced me. So without even letting her know I was there or have a chance to explain, I let them take me back."
Gray had paled, his expression horrified, but Ultear shook her head, trying to make him understand she wasn't adding to his blame. She smiled, honestly, and was surprised to find tears rolling down her cheeks.
"I should have trusted her," Ultear said ruefully. "But I was just a child. We were both children, and we didn't know any better. There's no need to keep carrying that weight."
Because, soon, Ultear would erase both their mistakes. It would be a relief, she realized, to be able to see her mother without that bitterness and rage. It was a relief to know that Ur had never stopped loving her. For giving her that, Ultear thought she could forgive Gray too.
No, it had never really been his fault to start with. It hadn't even been Ur's fault. She hadn't known, after all, that she was choosing between them, that she was leaving Ultear alone.
The one who had known... Before she began her new life, Ultear would make him pay in blood.
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NEXT: Oracion Seis
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