"But what does that have to do with First Master?" Lucy questioned. "No offence, but why are you still alive?" Lucy pointed at Mavis.


"We're not sure," Mavis replied. "We figured there was something in the way you re-wrote the book that bound the both of us to what it said. We have no way to know for sure unless we look at what you wrote."

Lucy just nodded her head showing that she followed the First Master's reasoning. She stayed quiet otherwise, trying to remember what she would have written that would cause the two of them to come back to life together.

Lucy could remember her exact phrasing in the book: Fairy Tail gives all enemies a second chance to live the path of good. Those who do not change face punishment deserving of their crime. That was it. There wasn't anything that should have acted upon Mavis unless she had at one point been viewed as an enemy of the guild. Maybe Mavis was alive due to some other part of the text. Lucy would need to think about it.

"This is the part where you take us to the book, Lucy," Zeref sneered in Lucy's silence. Lucy did not reply to his comment, however. She was still scanning over her memories trying to find anything that would have linked Mavis to the book and thus brought her back to life for a second chance. It had to have been in the text she used to bridge the Fairy Tail memories to the reference she made, but she couldn't see any logical reason for the current outcome. Hell, she couldn't even figure out why the bridge caused a binding spell that ripped Zeref away from death either. There wasn't anything to suggest that enemies didn't deserve to die.

Maybe it had to do with the line of facts she added to both his demon and human side dealing with who Zeref was and what he had done? No. That didn't make sense either. Facts didn't create a life bond. Maybe it had to do with Natsu's moral code. Generally speaking Natsu was against the taking of life at any cost. But that didn't make sense because Natsu didn't technically kill Zeref, Mavis did. Perhaps she hadn't destroyed the life link between Natsu and Zeref afterall and that was the problem. But then why was Mavis here? Was it the kiss they shared? Was it the One Magic, love?

Zeref's hand hit the island counter making Lucy jump in surprise and fall off the stool. She landed hard on the floor, and her hip, elbow, and shoulder took the brunt of her weight as she landed on the hard tile flooring. Lucy groaned at the sharp pain. That was going to bruise. Maybe she shouldn't sit on the edge of her seat anymore.

"There is no need to destroy the kitchen, dear," Mavis said as she hopped off her own seat and reached out for Lucy and helped her up.

"Then tell that idiot to stop daydreaming and get us the book!" Zeref roared.

"I told you I would never give up Natsu's book to anyone!" Lucy scathed.

"He isn't yours to protect anymore!" Zeref's voice was quiet but menessing. He sounded too much like the old Zeref, the one that tried to kill her guild. Lucy wanted to back away, but she didn't. She needed to keep the book safe no matter what.

"He is my nakama, I will always protect him." Lucy tried to be stern, but she was beginning to fear that perhaps she wasn't nearly as safe as she believed.

Zeref laughed coldly, "How can you even say that after what you did! You took his memories! That doesn't sound like nakama to me." Zeref spat the last part out. His eyes poured out hostility. It seemed to rope around the Celestial Mage making her cringe back from the man across from her. The guilt she had been feeling since the day she rewrote END's book weighed on her like a seven ton anvil, pressing on her chest and keeping her breath locked away.

"You don't understand," Lucy gasped. Her voice so quiet and fragile that the slightest breeze could have swept it away.

"You're damn right I don't understand! All you had to do to save him was break his life bond to me! Why the hell did you feel the need to meddle!?"

"It wasn't that simple!" Lucy shouted. "Breaking his link to you wouldn't have saved him! He was still dying! I had to start over from almost the very beginning." Lucy ended softly.

"Impossible! You only had minutes!" Zeref's eyes were now flashing between black and red. Lucy could feel his rage as if it were a palpale thing pulsing in the air around her. "If you had to do so much in so short of time then there would have been even more missing from him then there already is! But the only thing missing from his book is you! Not to mention the whole bringing myself and Mavis back from the dead."

Lucy couldn't tell which part of that was making him more angry. The fact that she had deliberately not matched Natsu's memories of her to the reference she had made for herself or the fact that Zeref and Mavis were alive. She assumed it was the part where he was still alive. After all he had set a plan in motion that had taken 400 years to come to a finale and now it was all for nothing. At least Agnalocia was still dead. Wait. He was still dead, right? Maybe there were more that were brought back?

"Who else?" Lucy said feeling faint. Had it only affected First Master and Zeref? What about Mard Geer, Jackal, and the rest?

Mavis seemed to know where her mind had gone and was the one to answer, "No one else that we know of. The other demons are all still bond to their books, which we have been collecting and storing."

"You've - you've collected them?" Lucy whimpered. "Even Jackal?" She started to shake as her brain was launched into the nightmare of fighting the demon with bomb curse magic. "H - how? They're books too?"

Zeref scoffed, "None of that matters. What matters is that you need to fix this. I am supposed to be dead and Natsu is supposed to be with you. The end."

Lucy couldn't bring herself to be angry, she was too stunned and scared. Zeref was gathering his Etherious Demons. To "store" them. What did that mean? Lucy wanted to cry. She couldn't go through another war. She couldn't handle seeing her family struggle to survive like that again. Flashes of her guildmates' tortured, battered, bruised, and broken bodies as they fought through pain, logic, and reason to save the world ran through her mind in hyper speed.

"Why not destroy them?" Lucy whispered.

"Don't change the subject! This isn't about the Etherious."

Lucy was finally able to find her anger. How could this not be about the Etherious Demons. That's what Natsu was, wasn't it, and that was what they brought her here to discus. Lucy found herself yelling, "God, Zeref! If you want to die so badly go jump off a cliff for all I care. You don't need me to fix that problem!"

Zeref looked surprised at her outburst. His aura of rage dissipated and he was left just blinking at the blonde. Never in a million years did he ever think he would hear the Celestial Mage who loved all people, even those like him, suggest suicide.

Lucy wasn't done yet. She turned her anger to Mavis and continued, "And you! How could you allow him to gather the Etheriouses' books. Why are they not being destroyed? That is the only way to ensure something like this never happens again!"

Lucy took a deep breath, "You both are so concerned with things that don't matter. Natsu is fine. Your immortality and curse has been ripped away. Use this second chance to destroy the traces of your legacy, not collect it. Destroy the books." Lucy huffed as she looked between her two captures, "I am done with this. Give me my keys. I'm leaving."

"Even Natsu's?" Zeref questioned quietly. "He is, after all, a part of that legacy."

Lucy froze. Her hand was partially outstretched, reaching for her keys. Her eyes bugged out as she realized what she had suggested, and what that would mean if Zeref were to be completely thorough.

"No. Not Natsu's."

"Can't you trust that we will keep the books safe?" Mavis asked.

"I… I don't know. I have faith that you, as a Fairy Tail mage, will keep your word." Lucy then glanced at Zeref and bit her lip. The unspoken 'but' hovering over them.

"It's me you don't trust," Zeref sigh. "Look, all I want is to figure out why I am still here and ensure Natsu's happiness. That's it, I swear."

"I don't know why you are here, I can't answer that question." Lucy stated. She tried to eliminate the anger she'd felt moments ago from her voice, but her statement still held the edge of it. She took a deep breath, hoping that she could end the discussion once and for all. As calmly as she could she relayed her thoughts to her captures, "It doesn't follow anything that I put in the book that would have forced you and Mavis back to life. The full context of the 'second chance' verbiage I used in the Fairy Tail bridge has nothing to do with bringing enemies back from the dead. It just says that they deserve a chance to live a good life. Like what Fairy Tail did for Gajeel, Juvia, and Crime Sorciere. All of them were enemies that were brought into the Fairy Tail family and given a second chance."

Zeref looked at her in frustration, "Really? There is nothing else?"

Mavis smacked Zeref on the head, "Don't be rude. She is trying." Mavis turned back to Lucy and indicated that she should sit back down. "It would really help us if we could at least look through Natsu's book. We may be able to see something that you're missing."

Lucy heaved a sigh. Her head fell into her hands and she scrubbed at her face. Why was this happening to her? People were supposed to just forget. "Uuhhgggg!"

"We aren't going to hurt Natsu. The contradiction that lived in me is gone, like you said. I could never hurt him, not anymore." Zeref sounded like he was pleading with her now. It was such a shift from him biting her head off in rage that Lucy couldn't help but just feel drained from the emotional whiplash. Lucy was feeling determined now to make them understand.

"Even if I wanted to, I couldn't get Natsu's book for you."

Mavis looked at Lucy in a calculating manor while Zeref just looked surprised. "And why is that," First Master asked.

Lucy wish she could just disappear. Maybe she had screwed up by doing things the way she had, but at the time she was so scared of someone finding the book of END and trying to manipulate Natsu that perhaps she had gone a bit far. "Look, it is a long story, bu…"

"We have all the time in the world," Mavis interrupted. "Tell us."

"After the dust settled and I knew for sure that Natsu was still alive, I took his book to hide it. Like I said, I was so scared that someone would come looking for it, that i told no one that I still had it. Instead I made up how it must have gotten lost." Lucy shook her head, pausing to gather her thoughts. She had crossed a line when it came to how she seal his book away, and she knew it. Now she was about to allowed someone else to know that too and she wasn't sure what the consequences would be.

"When I found the right spot for the book to be hidden, I made sure to place a few different types of seals that would conceal the book from sight and also prevent the book from being removed from the location in which it was hidden."

"Where is this place? Seals can be broken, especially when they are put in place by someone as inexperienced as you! We should find it right away and put it with the others. Mavis and I can do stronger seals."

"I don't know where the book is anymore," Lucy answered. Zeref looked confused. "And you don't have to worry about the seals. I.. I used… Uhhgg, why is this so hard? Ahg, I used blood seals!"

"You WHAT?" shouted Mavis. "That is forbidden magic! How did you even learn it?"

"I know! But using these seals was the only want to be absolutely sure!"

"Where did you find the spells?" Zeref asked. Maybe she had used one of his own and he could track it down.

"I made it myself."

"How is that possible?" Mavis questioned. "I know you are smart, but you are a celestial spirit mage? How is it that you are well versed enough in dark magic that you were able to develop your own blood magic seal?"

"The guild library has a lot of reference material in it." Lucy wasn't sure if she wanted to continue explaining, but she realized she had already jumped into the fire and there really wasn't any point in backing out now. "While the books there are meant to help mages in the guild dispel magic like this, it wasn't too difficult to work backwards and find the way to create the spells in the first place. It took some trial and error, but I got everything just right before I did the official casting."

"Blood magic is strong, but it can be broken. They just need your blood, Lucy." Mavis looked a bit miffed, like Lucy had disappointed her by not trying something more.

"It is a little more complicated than that. To dispel the seals one would need more than just my blood, they would need Natsu's too. Also, in order for the blood from Natsu and I to work within the dispelling, Natsu and I would have to be willing participants, otherwise the seal is set to kill the making the attempt. The seal can detect if any kind of coercion, magic or otherwise, has been used on either myself or Natsu and will react appropriately. Also, the seal cannot be broken with the blood of any descendant or relative. It has to be done with using mine and Natsu's blood."

Mavis's look of disappointment turned to one of approval after Lucy explained the seal she had created. "And you will never give your blood willingly for this purpose. Interesting."

"That's all cool and all, but why don't you know where the book is anymore?" Zeref asked. He was impressed by Lucy more an more, but couldn't hide his underlying aggravation at her evading the real questions: Where was the book!

"My spirit Gemini. When they copy someone, they make a perfect copy of that person in that exact moment. That includes memories and emotions they have." Lucy heaved another sigh. This was hard to admit. "They are fairly powerful spirits and once they copy someone, they can also use that person's magic. I had them copy Mest and they used his power to make me forget the location of the book after I hid it."

"So literally no one on Earthland knows where the book of END is." Zeref said. Lucy nodded in agreement.

"I even had Gemi-Mest make Master Makarov, Gray, and Natsu forget the book was missing so they wouldn't ask questions about it."

Mavis looked annoyed now, "Well call Gemi-Mest back out and make them undo the memory loss! I know Mest can do that, so your spirit should be able to as well."

"Then you also remember that Mest can use his memory power on himself. Gemi-Mest has forgotten how to modify memories. So unless they can copy Mest over again, there is no way they can restore mine."

"I'm impressed," Zeref said. "You really thought of everything when it came to keeping Natsu's book safe. Thank you. I feel a bit relieved actually."

"Look, I know you both want answers for why you are still alive, but I honestly do not think you would find them in Natsu's book. Most likely I didn't break the life bond between you and Natsu like I thought I did, so when I patched up Natsu it patch you up too. As for Mavis, her life is bonded to yours through love. She is here because you love her so much. At least, that is what I think."