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Chapter Four:Dying Breath
Laxus grit his teeth in a small show of pain, feeling the hairs on his head get pulled. The masked girl yanked him into an upright position, tilting his face so his amber eyes looked directly into Jose's darker ones. Jose frowned.
"Hm, this is not Lucy Heartfilia…"
Laxus withheld the feral growl that threatened to slip out from his throat.
No shit einstein! What the hell does he want with that newbie anyway?
Part of him wondered if maybe the one with the mask was telepathic, since no sooner had he thought it when she gave another harsh jerk. He hissed in pain, trying for the life of him to build up any magic power, but feeling none whatsoever.
"Of the two targets we discussed, securing this one seemed more beneficial."
Two targets? Me and...Lucy?
Laxus opened his mouth to ask what the hell was going when he felt a white hot pain cripple him further, radiating from the jagged scar that ran along his eye. No, not now! he thought, the pain growing stronger with each passing second.
"What's happening to him?" Jose said sounding close to fear. What had made him so afraid all of a sudden?
Laxus didn't hear all of what the masked figure said in response. The urge to get away was overpowering his senses.
"-must be...Zerase..."
Whatever she said next Laxus didn't hear, opening his eyes to reveal one amber and one a startling blood red with a symbol glowing in the middle. The world fell to blackness around him no longer feeling in control of his body that pitched forward, heading towards the floor.
"Natsu?" Laxus called out to the smaller pink-haired girl, but it was in vain. Ever since his outburst, she had done little more than look at him. When she did, it was a look of hurt and betrayal. Heaving a sigh, he pushed along on the beaten path.
The sooner the mission was over, the better, he decided.
He was sure he would hear about how he was mean to the girl from his grandfather, and was already working on his counter-case against it. Not his fault no one's seen a dragon in the last few thousand years, right?
Adding the fact that the girl was a natural born crybaby, and well….it was all just a misunderstanding. Maybe.
Natsu couldn't understand why everyone was so against her just doing this one single request! It was bad enough when Gray decided to butt in on her fight with that cold Emperor guy, but now Erza was there too. Along with Laxus.
Why him of all people? Natsu thought, feeling a whirlwind of emotions at the mention of the lightning mage. Her cheeks dusted in a barely noticeable shade of pink. He's the last person I would've pegged to come here. He hates us doing jobs together.
"Alright look!" a frustrated Laxus spat out, coming to a halt just as they reached the border of the village. His amber eyes glowered at her. "Are you just going to mope for the rest of this mission or what? Cuz if so, then just leave. I don't need you and I don't want you here!"
Natsu's jaw hung open, then snapped shut, forcing her eyes down to hide the tears building at the corners. She missed the hurt look that flashed across Laxus's face, looking shameful for all of a few seconds, then quickly masking it with more anger as she looke back up.
She thought Laxus was different. Different from Mira and the others, but he wasn't, was he?
To him she was still a crybaby.
The next time Laxus woke up, it was with a dull throbbing coming from his one eye, the one with a scar now red in color. He groaned, blinking. His eyes swept over the room he was in until they landed on Jose, standing by the door with an eerily smug grin in place.
"Where-"
"I've taken the liberty of moving you into a suite," he said as though reading the younger mage's thoughts. "I thought it fitting for a guest such as yourself.
"Guest?" Laxus mumbled, still feeling like he had some kind of power seizure. "If you think I'm staying then-"
"Oh, but you are," Jose interrupted.
"No, I'm not."
A beat of silence. Then…
"Very well if you insist, then you may leave," Jose finally relented. Laxus immediately headed for the door. "I suppose I'll just have to go after Miss Lucy Heartfilia after all, then."
Laxus stopped with his hand already turning the knob. An uncomfortable lump formed in his throat. He felt the cool metal of the knob getting crushed by his grip.
"Lucy Heartfilia. A heiress like her ought to fetch quite the penny, hm?"
"Heartfilia? As in Railway Heartfilia?" Laxus whispered the words putting the pieces together in his head. The name rung a bell for sure, but...the newbie was THAT Heartfilia?
Laxus felt a small, remote part of him suddenly get protective.
"You can't go after her her. The non-aggression law between guilds is-"
"Irrelevant when you have a request, say, from a concerned father, one who is willing to pay for the safe return of their daughter."
The urge to punch the rival guild master intensified greatly while the information weighed heavily on Laxus. Jose had everything he needed to launch a full-scale war on Fairy Tail at the moment: a request to cover his reasons and enough manpower to give the idiots back home a run for their money.
The worst part: They would never see it coming.
"I'm guessing there's a 'but' coming…?" the blonde snapped impatiently. "Get to it then, before I break your jaw and wipe off that stupid grin."
"Fufufu, as impatient as I remember I see," Jose chided. "It's simple; I could ignore the request to retrieve Lucy Heartfilia, though nothing in this life is free now is it? For you see, I just so happen to have a more promising request right here…"
Jose held out a slip of paper for Laxus to read. Laxus snatched the parchment away, skimming the contents for anything worth noting when his eyes froze over the name at the bottom of the paper.
"...Where did you get this?" Laxus asked, his voice sounding shaky. His fingers crumpled the edges of the paper.
"It looks like Miss Heartfilia wasn't the only one hiding something from your guild, was she?"
Laxus tried hard not to think of the blood coating his lips, or the pain that wracked his small fragile body. Natsu's cries for him to stay awake continued growing fainter by the second.
This is it he, thought. He was dying.
All for the sake of some girl too. What a way to go.
The light had already begun to fade from his usually bright, defiant eyes when he turned to look over; Natsu was still crying. For him, he realized.
What a crybaby, he thought, managing a faint quirk of the lips that went unnoticed by the other. Her widened eyes looking at all the blood that came seeping through his shirt to her hands. She was trying desperately to remember all the times Erza would yell at her to learn First Aid.
Erza. The loudmouthed parental figure all the younger members secretly looked up to. He would never see her again now, would he?
He would never again have to hear another one of her damn lectures on wrong or right.
He wouldn't have to deal with her sudden urges to stop at the nearest bakery for thirty slices of cake while out on a mission together.
He would never get to see the smile that lit up her face whenever the lot of them were goofing off and picking fights with one another.
Natsu had started babbling at some point. She was torn between ranting and blubbering, crying in frustration. Laxus asked himself who would protect her when someone like Mira came along to pick on her.
Mirajane, the she-devil. Laxus would probably miss the look on her face when Natsu went back and told her how he didn't make it. The way she would most likely rage on and on for days, claiming he took the easy way out.
He wishes he could see her the next time someone comments on how she's not as feminine as she should be and he's not there to say otherwise.
He would miss the way she was always so much more carefree when around her siblings, and how she threatened to punch anyones lights out if they messed with anyone from Fairy Tail beside her, including crybaby Natsu.
Of course there were others too. Gray, Cana, Levy, Jet, Droy. Evergreen. Freed. Bixlow.
Hopeless. Everyone of them. Each too afraid to show the others how much they care. What a bunch of idiots. Didn't they know that's what family does?
"Why did you save her?" a new voice said. There was a cold edge in it, like the brush of death when one's life flashes before their eyes.
He looked around, a mix of red and black tinging his vision drastically, darkening it more than he would have liked right now.
"The monster I sent was meant to kill her...so why did you stop it?"
Laxus blinked incessantly, tears of pain stinging the corners of his eyes while blood filled his lungs in place of air. He looked to the side-to where Natsu was, only to see someone new.
Pink unruly locks gone in place of midnight black ones, tan skin replaced by a more cream colored one, and lastly, the big innocent brown eyes were gone and in their place, red. He saw anger, hatred, but more than anything, sadness. There was a deep despair hidden in her eyes he couldn't quite figure out.
Who was she?
What was she? To have made such a creature?
"She-she would have...d-died…" he sputtered, helpless under her cold stare. His fingers clutched against the grass where he lay at her feet. Powerless. Helpless.
"No. She would have survived, believe me," the other reasoned calmly.
"...Are you...Death?" his voice cracked.
For some reason, she felt pity for this small boy. Here was another person dying because of one of her own creations, to save another. And she couldn't bring herself to feel an ounce of remorse.
"Please...d-don't kill...N-Natsu…"
Red orbs narrowed gaining a shred of hostility.
"You don't know what you're saying."
'Why was this boy defending her?' Zerase thought. 'Did he not know of the terror the girl would grow to become?'
"She's a monster. A Menace."
She took in the small childs torn apart body. The growing puddles of red on his clothes that made them stick to the ground, the jagged scar running through one of his eyes. He must have had a few broken ribs as well, she figured, if the odd shape of his torso was anything to go by.
"Do you want to live?"
It was a whim, she told herself, that made the question roll off her tongue before she could stop it. Curiosity at best when she caught sight of Natsu Dragneel weeping at the boy's side.
"Demons do not shed tears." she said the words aloud without even realizing. "And yet one cries for you: Why is that?"
"W-who...a-are*cough, cough*...you?"
He missed the way Natsu stiffened beside him, frozen in that moment, assuming he was talking to her. Thinking that, somehow, in his last moments, he had forgotten her.
"I can save you, but it will cost you dearly. I ask again; Do you want to live?"
Laxus blinked. He slightly twitched his fingers while they dug into the grass and dirt underneath him. Clinging to the earth, he didn't want to die.
He wanted to live. He wanted to see his family again.
"P-please!...I-I...want to*cough, cough* want to...l-live!" he said, another splutter of blood coming up onto his lips, signaling his time was running short. "I don't want...to….die…."
The words came out weaker than intended, but there was a fierce fire behind them that made the dark wizard's lips quirk in amusement.
"Very well then. I shall give you a new life to fill the one that you have lost," she announced, knowing only the dying Laxus would hear. "A soul for a soul."
She knelt on the grass just as the amber glow in his eyes dulled, a single tear slid down his cheek giving his last breath.
Her hand touched the scar that cut through an eye.
Natsu was starting to grow worried. Having settled things with Lyon or whatever, things seemed to be clearing up. The villagers even turned out to be demons all along!
Everything was settled. Everything except…
"Where's Laxus?"
Natsu felt a strange feeling of dread settle into her stomach. It felt like….she was forgetting something really super important. Like it had just slipped between her fingers and she couldn't fathom why.
Come to think of it, where was Laxus? Natsu had yet to even see the lightning mage. Erza, Lucy and Gray were all with him on their way to the temple. Had something happened?
It was Erza who voiced what they were all thinking.
"Something's wrong." The redhead surmised, though through the calm exterior, Nastu and Gray could detect a hint of worry. "It's not like Laxus to up and vanish, much less on a mission, no matter how much he didn't want to tag along."
"You think, he ran into some kind of trouble?" Gray inquired. "Trouble even he couldn't handle? Is that possible?"
This time it was Natsu who spoke, surprising the other three mages and Happy with the seriousness in her voice. "No one's invincible. We need to find him."
She closed her eyes and saw the flash of blood that ran through her mind over and over again. The cold, terrifying sensation of bleeding flesh beneath her fingers, distant looking amber colored eyes looking up at the sky.
"Laxus, no!"
Natsu screamed, desperation clawing at her heart, seeing Laxus, the seemingly infallible Laxus, get thrown back. A claw tore through his chest like butter, spilling fresh blood across the forest floor while poor Laxus grunted, hitting his back against the ground.
"Let go of me!" Natsu yelled, frantic to get out of the one of the local resident's arms. She reached out for Laxus, but was too far away. "He needs help! LAXUS!"
By the time she was able to scramble over to his side, Laxus's final attack had taken effect. The beast disintegrated while clouds of thunder rolled into the skies up above. Natsu felt her world crumble around her, shakily taking her fallen nakama's hand into her own.
"L-Laxus…?"
"Na...tsu…." His voice was so weak.
"D-did you….make it t-to the v-village…?" he rasped, choking as a small spurt of blood came up in his mouth.
Quickly the pinkette nodded. "U-uh-huh….th-thanks to you…"
It was the truth, no matter how much it pained her to admit it. When the beast cornered them, it was Laxus who told her to run on ahead, to get help while he stayed behind to distract the beast. At the time, Natsu wanted to avoid dying; she was so scared!
She left Laxus alone. She caused this.
"W-why are y-you...crying?" Laxus whispered as small glistening tear tracks started running down her cheeks. "Do-don't cry...Natsu…"
He moved his hand so that it rested on top of her head, weakly ruffling her unruly pink locks of hair. For a moment, she allowed herself to smile just before his grip went slack. The hand fell back to the cold earth. It lay limp.
Laxus sat in the chair nearest the window of the room. It was barred, but it was still the closest thing to freedom that he would be getting anytime soon. He looked up, hearing the soft clicking of the door being shut, unaware of when it had even swung open before seeing the girl with the mask step inside.
"So," she began "Have you reached a decision yet?"
"Why can't I use any magic?"
She sighed. Laxus was sure that if she didn't have the mask on, she would be rolling her eyes at the question.
"It's not that you can't use magic-" she pointed to his discolored eye, immediately noticing the discomfort that flashed across his face as he turned away and ran his fingers against it. "Your body isn't used to the change in magic. Dark magic takes more of a toll than regular magic. That was the deal remember. You died-"
"Saving Natsu," Laxus finished solemnly. "So it was real."
"Yes. Now what's your decision?"
A beat of silence passed in which Laxus could feel his heart pound in his ribcage. No matter how hard he tried to hide it, he really did care about his nakama.
"Fine. I'll do it."