AN: Well, here's the next chapter. There are a couple scenes written in third person as opposed to first because they work better from that point of view. I've never really attempted something like the last few scenes of this chapter, and as a result I'm a bit hesitant but I think they turned out okay. Any constructive criticism is appreciated especially when it comes to those few scenes.
And fair warning, there's some major mood whiplash at the end of the chapter.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Fairy Tail.
The train came to a stop at Kunugi station as all of the civilian passengers, including the conductor, were forced of the train by the Eisenwald mages. Erigor strode onto the train with his scythe slung over his shoulder while his wild silver hair hid half of his face from view. Tribal tattoos covered his torso and extended to his shoulders and down his biceps. He had an elongated face with sharp features and a distinct lack of eyebrows. Dark lines rimmed his eyes making him look like an insomniac while matching tattoos jutted down from the bottom lids of his eyes. A tattered scarf was wrapped around his neck while he wore nothing to cover his torso. Bandages were wrapped around his forearms leading to black gloves that each bore a grey X on their back. He wore a multi-layered, tattered skirt that was reminiscent of a hakama on his lower half and wore a simple pair of sandals on his feet.
Erigor walked up to Kageyama, who was currently seated, before addressing him, "I heard you were gonna come back on this train so we've been waiting for you, Kageyama."
"I managed to break the seal." Kageyama replied with a small chuckle before handing the skull flute to Erigor, "This is it."
"I see, this is—this is the forbidden magic, Lullaby."
"Ohh!" the group of Eisenwald mages cheered in excitement.
"Good job Kage!"
"Now our plan is complete!"
"This flute was just a tool for 'murder by curse' at first," Erigor began, "but the great dark mage, Zeref, further developed this into a magical flute. Indeed— he created such a terrible thing. 'Mass-curse murder magic' Lullaby, that puts a death curse on everyone who hears its melody!"
"Really?" Kageyama questioned with a giant grin on his face, "Then I definitely can't let you guys get your hands on it."
Kageyama leapt backwards out of his seat suddenly while making a handseal. The flute, Lullaby, was obscured by a small cloud of smoke while Kageyama's grin grew even wider. As the smoke cleared it revealed a simple stick with an explosive tag wrapped around it.
Erigor's eyes widened in surprise as the stick suddenly exploded with a bright flash into a large ball of intense flame while Kageyama cackled maniacally. "Grrraaaaaggghh!" he screamed in pain as his right hand was burned badly, "Kageyama! What's the meaning of this?!"
"Kageyama?" he replied while tilting his head to the side quizzically, "Why, I'm not Kageyama." The imposter requipped a plain tanto with a black hilt and a kunai knife before speaking once more, "I hear they call you Shinigami. Well, I think it's high time somebody showed you what a real God of Death is like."
With that, the man charged.
"Guys!" Naruto's clone shouted to the others while it and Gray rode on the roof of the magic four-wheel vehicle, "Boss just put his plan into action! We need to hurry!"
"On it!" Erza shouted as she increased their already break-neck pace even more.
"Waaagh!" Lucy screamed in fear, "Aren't we going fast enough already!"
"No!" Erza shouted in reply, "Naruto's life is on the line! If a guildmember died on a job that I was in charge of I'd never forgive myself!"
With that being said, the clone dispelled itself to let its master know his friends were on the way.
"Good," I thought, "the others are on their way and my other clones are currently keeping the Rune Knights from interfering." I dodged to the left quickly to avoid a blow before slashing the offending mage that had tried to take me out. My I dashed through the train car in a veritable whirlwind of slashes and stabs as I easily weaved my way through the cluster of mages. The small space of the train car was working to my advantage greatly as they would end up just hurting themselves in their clumsy attempts to hit me. And all of their mages with long-range magic were hesitant to attack due to the large mass of people.
I knew this wouldn't last long though, there was a lot of them and the only reason the car hadn't been slice to bits yet was because Erigor was still trying to deal with his hand that had been burned by the explosion. He had a kind of ruthlessness that was to be feared and I wouldn't put it beneath him to start using lethal long-range magic despite the huge chance for taking out his own men.
The only mage who was causing me any real trouble at the moment was some weird guy who fought using these extendable bands on his fingers. He was capable of manipulating them freely and, as a result, was capable of making them weave through the massive throng of bodies after me.
I continued taking out as many mages as I could while working my way towards the man and eventually got close enough to engage him in close-quarters combat. His eyes widened in surprise as came at him from below and attacked with a jumping slash. He fell back just far enough to avoid the blow but I spun in midair and threw my kunai at him.
The knife struck him in the shoulder and broke his concentration causing the bands to fall slack. I pressed my advantage and kicked him brutally in the head, knocking him out and sending him flying outside of the train car. It was at that moment that I turned to see Erigor, whose form was covered in what looked like a hurricane, readying his own magic.
"Shit!" I yelled as I dove out of the car as Erigor launched a massive wind blade that sliced through everything, including the train car itself. I dropped into a roll as I hit the ground outside of the train and glanced up to see Erigor rising into the sky as the members of Eisenwald that were in the other train cars poured out to surround me. I quickly requipped a bow and sent an arrow flying straight at Erigor, but it was knocked away by the winds covering him before it could do any damage.
Erigor looked down at me before swinging his arm in my direction and launched a barrage of wind blades that threatened to cut me to shreds. I quickly leapt to the side before going into a roll to dodge the barrage of magic launched at me by the other guild members. As I came to my feet I created a cluster of 5 shadow clones that all looked like Kageyama as well. We immediately scattered and charged their group as the mages we were racing towards began to backpedal as their allies bombarded us with magic. Two of my clones were dispelled before we even reached them and as we closed their close range fighters jumped out to engage us.
A man clumsily swung at me and I easily ducked under his blade before severing the tendons in his leg and moving on to the next mage. My clones were working just as quickly as I was and we began to quickly whittle away at their numbers. Things were turning back to my favor as the other mages were hesitating to attack to avoid friendly fire.
Then Erigor began bombarding us with wind blades in spite of the fact that we were surrounded by his guild members. I started weaving through their ranks as Erigor became more and more infuriated that he couldn't hit me.
The members of Eisenwald were killed all around me as the attacks meant for me hit them instead. The speed of Erigor's attacks sped up as he began accounting for my speed and he came very close to separating my head from my shoulders. I ducked under the blow before dropping my transformation which covered me in a cloud of smoke. The black leather breastplate and longsleeve shirt that I was wearing disappeared, leaving nothing but my sleeveless undershirt covering my torso. My footwraps and normal greaves were replaced by black steel greaves that were connected to leather sabatons with small wings extending back from the ankle. The black hooded cloak that covered my head was replaced by a tattered red scarf that was wrapped around my neck and extended down my back. This armor had no name, but I referred to it as my speed gear, as to why I called it that, well, that should be obvious.
I burst out of the cloud of smoke at a speed that rivaled Happy when he was flying at full speed. Erigor couldn't even hope to launch his attacks quick enough to hit me and began attacking haphazardly in an attempt to hit me with a lucky shot. I dodged around his attacks with ease while his subordinates began running for cover.
Then Erza and the gang showed up. "It's about damn time." "You guys take care of the others!" I shouted at them as I raced towards Erigor, "I'll handle him!"
"No way!" Natsu shouted as he charged Erigor as well. He sent a barrage of wind blades at the Dragon Slayer that he barely dodged as I circled around to his back. I leapt into the air at high speed and aimed a kick at the back of his head, but as I neared the wind given off by his technique. My built up momentum allowed me to still make contact, but it was nowhere near as strong as it needed to be to knock him out.
He fell to the ground and landed flat on his face before quickly getting back to his feet. Natsu propelled himself forward by launching flames from his feet before trying to punch Erigor with a flame coated fist. The dark mage caught Natsu's fist with his hand as his wind put out the flames. I requipped a small hammer as I charged Erigor once more. My attack was slowed down once again, but the hammer still struck with enough force to crack some of his ribs. He winced in pain as I requipped another hammer and slammed it into the side of his knee causing it to become dislocated.
Erigor's concentration slipped causing his wind armor to weaken, Natsu capitalized on this and slammed a flame covered fist into his face. The dark mage was sent tumbling across the ground as I dashed off in pursuit. I jumped high into the air with both hammers raised high before swinging down and shattering both of the man's shoulders. He screamed in pain before I delivered a kick to his face to knock him out.
I glanced around to see that Erza, Gray, and Lucy had already finished dealing with the other mages and were heading towards me and Natsu.
"Took you guys long enough to show up." I said exasperatedly while dismissing the twin hammers I had requipped.
"We never would've left if you had told us that guy Erza talked about was on the train!" Lucy shouted back.
"It was a small enclosed area filled with civilians with no way to escape if things turned ugly. And given how destructive those three are, I didn't want to risk a confrontation."
That shut her up, for a few seconds at least.
"What about Lullaby?" Lucy questioned.
"I hid it on the train I'll go g—" I trailed off as the roof of one of the train cars exploded outward as a giant tree demon thing appeared.
My eyes widened as everyone's jaws dropped in surprise and horror.
"Oh you've got to be fucking kidding me. And there go my hopes of handling this with any form of discretion."
"Pathetic humans," the demon said with disdain, "they couldn't do anything right. I'm starving to death, so I'm gonna eat your souls."
"What?!" Natsu exclaimed while staring up at the abomination before turning to Gray, "Souls are edible?! Do they taste good?"
"How would I know?!" Gray yelled in response.
"What's going on?" Lucy questioned while shaking with fright, "What is this thing?"
"Well, it's a demon of some kind." I replied, " I'm assuming that's Lullaby, supposedly, Zeref messed with the flute. And turning a fucking flute of death into a demon sounds like something right up his alley."
"Zeref?! You mean Zeref from the ancient times?!" Gray shouted in surprise. I merely nodded in response.
"Hmmm," the demon said, "now, whose soul should I enjoy first?" It looked down at all of us before speaking once more, "I've decided. All of yours." It began letting out a shriek that could only be the death magic causing Natsu, Erza, Gray, and me to leap into action while Lucy tried to cover her ears.
Erza requipped her Heaven's Wheel armor before slicing clean through one of the demon's legs while Natsu scrambled up the other. I dashed towards the demon and ran up while summoning a multitude of clones that planted explosive tags all over its body as I ran over to Natsu. I grabbed him by his shoulder before spinning and throwing him straight up at the demon's face. He pulled his arm back and delivered a devastating fiery punch to its head causing it to stumble backwards.
"How impudent!" it yelled before launching a barrage of dark blasts out of its mouth. Natsu managed to dodge out of the way but the blasts were headed straight for Lucy who was caught by surprise. Gray leapt in front of her before shouting "Ice Make Shield!" at the top of his lungs. A massive formation of ice appeared in front of him that blocked the blasts and prevented them from harming her.
"Ice Make Lance!" Gray shouted causing the shield to break into ten pieces before launching them at the demon causing it to stagger backwards even more.
"I feel a little sick." Natsu complained as he clung to the demon's horn to keep from being thrown off.
"Now!" Gray shouted. Erza requiped her Black Wing Armor before flying up towards the demon with a sword drawn.
Natsu used his legs to hold onto one of the demon's horns while raising both of his hands, "A little flame on the right, a little flame on the left—and together they make, Fire Dragon's Brilliant Flame!" he screamed while clasping both hands above his head surrounded by a giant ball of flame.
As Erza, Natsu, and Gray readied their attacks I dashed up the demon's chest while concentrating my magic power into my right hand to begin one of my master's signature techniques. It began to manifest as a swirling sphere of pure magical energy within my right hand that quickly swelled to the size of my torso. I leapt into the air next to Natsu and slammed the attack into the demon's face at the same time as him while shouting "Big Ball Rasengan!"
The attack absolutely obliterated one half of the demon's face while Natsu's massive flame exploded on the other half. At the same moment, Erza sliced clean through the monster's torso while Gray attacked its legs with his own technique. I quickly pushed off of the demon's body and pulled Natsu to safety with me while I detonated the explosive tags that had been placed all over its body.
As the demon began to topple backwards, still obscured by the smoke caused by the numerous explosions, I hoped that the tags I had placed had managed to break its body down enough to prevent it from causing too much damage.
Unfortunately that wasn't the case, and it's body remained, for the most part, intact. It fell backwards and landed on Kunugi station causing untold amounts of damage to it and the surrounding area.
Knowing that it would be a bad idea to stick around I immediately grabbed Natsu and Gray and dragged them back to the vehicle while my clones grabbed Lucy and Happy. One of them convinced Erza it would be a good idea to leave and she hopped into the back seat next to Lucy and Natsu as I attached the SE-Plug to myself before driving off as quickly as humanly possible.
Erza has a reputation for being a dangerous driver because she drives recklessly at high speeds. I on the other hand simply drive at recklessly high speeds, normally these vehicles top out somewhere between forty to sixty miles per hour. But there are a few ways you can...push them to get them to go somewhere around eighty to ninety miles per hour. We averaged about one-hundred on our trip back to the guild.
It was totaled by the time our mad dash was finished.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully, word reached us that all the members of Eisenwald had been arrested—well, the ones that were still alive anyway. The Rune Knights were supposedly investigating the incident, but they already knew Fairy Tail was involved thanks to my clones informing them.
While I would've rather had no one figure out who had dealt with the situation in the first place, they would've figured out Fairy Tail's involvement eventually. And being charged with withholding information from the Rune Knights during an investigation would not be good for the guild. By some miracle I managed to avoid the spotlight for the most part despite being integral to taking down a giant fucking demon. They were more interested in interviewing Lucy and the other members of "Fairy Tail's strongest team", and I was perfectly happy to let them take the spotlight.
I preferred working in the shadows to protect Fiore rather than standing in the forefront.
But despite the fact that most of the media attention was directed towards them, there was this nagging feeling that I had played too important of a role in the incident for my participation to just get swept under the rug.
I jumped out of bed as the ground quaked and explosions rung outside my home. I immediately requipped my battle gear and ran outside to see just what the hell was going on.
As soon as I dashed out my door the scene that I was greeted with was pure, unadulterated carnage, chaos, and destruction.
Dead bodies littered the streets and I grimaced underneath my mask as the acrid smell of burnt hair and flesh mixed with that of smoke assaulted my nostrils. The buildings all around me were coated in flames and were spewing smoke everywhere which swirled thickly around me obscuring the streets which ran red with the blood of the innocents. I managed to spot numerous dark forms leaping across the rooftops through the smoke, and they were all heading towards the same destination.
Fairy Tail.
My form was hidden by a cloud of white smoke as I requipped my speed gear before rocketing off to Fairy Tail just under the speed of sound. My eyes watered as fear and anxiety allowed me to push my body to new limits reaching speeds I had never even dreamt possible. Within seconds I reached Fairy Tail—and my heart sank.
The guild was in ruins. Absolutely destroyed. Completely unrecognizable. I dashed into the ruined building fearing for the worst.
My fears were realized.
The dead bodies of my guild mates littered the hall. The wood floor was cratered, the walls were shattered, and very little remained off the roof. The giant form of the Ol—Makarov was pinned to one of the walls, and he was obviously dead.
Giant spikes of steel pinned his hands to the wall while similar spikes pinned his feet to the ground. Spikes pierced his eyes and the center of his brow as blood flowed in crimson rivers down his body. I fell to my knees in shock and noticed the decapitated head of Natsu lying on the ground beside me.
A shocked expression still marred his face.
I immediately pulled my mask down to uncover my face as I vomited all over the floor. I stood up while wiping my mouth and began to venture further into the guild. Part of me wanted to just run away and never turn back, but the possibility of someone—dear Kami, anyone— surviving this massacre drove me onwards.
There was no way that I was going to abandon one of my family in a hell-hole like this.
I continued carefully onwards to avoid stepping on any of the bodies that used to be my loved ones. Despite this, my foot slipped on a patch of blood that sent me falling face-first into what remained of Gray.
All four of his limbs had been severed from his torso and the wounds had been cauterized to force him to suffer. What remained of his chest was horribly burnt, to the point where it hadn't even blistered—it had begun to melt, and his face was melted so much that portions of his skull were visible where the skin had been melted off completely.
The only reason I was even capable of recognizing him was his necklace—and even that was melted to the point of partially fusing with his skin.
A little piece of me died that moment as I lifted my face up off of Gray's corpse. To see the people that I loved dead was nothing short of heartbreaking.
I glanced over to what remained of the bar to see Erza stabbed through the heart with her own sword. Blood streamed down her face from a kunai knife that had pierced her remaining organic eye. It was at that point that I realized all this pain, all this suffering that had been brought upon the ones that I loved—was all because of me...
I fell to the ground as tears streamed down my face and sobs wracked my body.
This—was all—my fault.
Mine.
Naruto laid on the ground, too consumed with guilt to go on.
Explosions still wracked Magnolia outside of the slaughterhouse that Fairy Tail had become, but the explosions went unnoticed by the blonde. Eventually, Naruto found the strength to pick himself back up and continue onwards. As he walked towards the back of the guild he found the decapitated and desecrated body of Lucy that was still, even in death, trying to reach her keys in a vain attempt to defend herself.
He quickly glanced away only to find Macao, the man he had recently saved, pinned to the wall by an arrow that pierced his left eye. Naruto gagged and almost vomited once more but managed to keep himself from retching.
Barely.
His hope of finding a survivor began to dwindle, and, with it, so too did his will to live begin to fade. He slowly trudged up the steps to the second floor of the guild, his boots squishing with the amount of blood they had absorbed.
What he found made his hopes soar.
Before him, Mirajane sat, with a fear-stricken visage, frozen alive in a clear mass of ice. Naruto walked slowly towards her before dropping to his knees in relief. He quickly requipped a pair of gloves that gave him the ability to generate flame, and had them gently radiate heat as he slowly extended his arm out. The glove rested gently on the mass of ice and there was gentle hiss as the ice began to melt slowly.
The ice, and Mirajane, suddenly shattered into a thousand pieces.
Naruto looked on in shock as his mind shattered just like the girl before him.
He was broken.
Irreparably.