Chapter 4

TAKARA'S POV

Tsuyo threw her arms up and into the air, facing her open palms out in front, "Takara let him go!"

"Are you fucking kidding me?! You disappear and then when you come back you tell me to put down one of the ass holes that trash our guild, our home?!"

My grip tightens around Gray's arm; I can tell that he's just as confused as I am.

"Why?" Takara slipped down to the floor and passed back into her regular outfit, ignoring the Salamander now charging behind her.

"Natsu, stop." Erza changed back into her regular clothing as well and used her left hand to try and push herself up from the counter.

He reluctantly did as she said, and stopped, an even more confused look on his face than I probably had.

Erza and Tsuyo stared at one another. Lucy stood up and for some odd reason she didn't seem confused, but she did have a look on her face, almost like… Sympathy?

"Erza…" Lucy began to slowly and a bit weakly walk towards her.

"It's fine Lucy." She looked up from her stare at the floor, and looked deeply into Tsuyo's eyes. "Tsuyo…"

"What the hell?" Gray and Natsu said at the same time.

Tsuyo knew Erza? This doesn't make any sense, Ame and I have known her since she was 10, and she never once mentioned knowing her. Not in the past, not recently, she never once mentioned her.

Tsuyo had a tragic past.

She was from a small country just south of Fiore.

Her family was well known and much feared nobles. Their magic was extremely rare and lost that had been past down from generation to generation. Tsuyo hated her life there. All it was was practice, practice, practice. She had no friends and when she went out in public, people shied away from her. Being young, at the age of 7, she was sad and confused. She hated it. She didn't want magic if it meant that she had no friends. She confronted her parents and they told her that she had to continue the family lineage. One night a large group of lower class mages from the village attacked her house. She ran as soon as her parents had told her to. She ran for hours.

She now refuses to run.

She eventually collapsed from exhaustion. When she woke up, she found herself in a strange room. After wandering around however, she found the place empty. She waited for hours for someone to return, after giving up, she found a bag and packed as much food and water as possible, taking up the rest of the space in the bag for jewels, and left. She wondered around for days before finding a town. After discovering that she was in Fiore she continued to wonder and would practice her magic for 3 years. Now that she was alone and not under any pressure she found some enjoyment in it. Until she had ran into two people.

That's when Tsuyo met us.

I released my grip from Gray and began to move towards Tsuyo as my clothes turned back to normal, my gold and white armor, changing back to a light purple and white fabric.

"What's going on Tsuyo? How do you know Erza? Why weren't you here-?"

"For the same reason that I didn't want to come." Erza glanced at me, and then walked up next to Tsuyo.

TSUYO'S POV

I couldn't tell them. How I had lied. The past that I had told them of was true; it had missing pieces to it however. That and I had never told them of my discovery 11 years after I had met them.

"I'm sorry guys, I couldn't tell you before."

"Tell us what?" Ame looked up to me, a hurt and confused look on her face. I had promised to never lie to them, we all had promised to never lie to each other.

I looked over at Erza, "You have it all wrong. You came here to destroy a dark guild, however we aren't one."

"What are you talking about? Kuro Okami; Black wolves."

"You came here on a name bases?" Takara looked at Erza with cold eyes. "You were willing to either kill us or die off of a name bases?! That's just the fucking name that Ame came up with when we were 12!"

She went to punch Erza, however decided against it and redirected her hit into the wall on her left. She didn't even seem fazed by it, the same expression on her face, nothing new after knocking out a couple of bricks from the wall.

"No, I would never do something like that." She pushed her arm out in front of her and waved it to the side. "We were approached directly, with a job offer. A woman had asked us to destroy a dark guild that had been around here recently. He told us things that they had done, and different guilds that they had destroyed recently and in the past. He had informed us that there were only a small handful of members, and I found that to be a bit suspicious. I told him that we would take the job offer, and then we did a bit of investigating. I also took into consideration of your past when I had discovered that it was your guild, Tsuyo."

TAKARA'S POV

Her past? What the fuck does that mean, "We're fully aware of her past, and I don't see how this has anything to do with it."

"You didn't tell them, did you?"

"Tsuyo." Ame's voice began to fill with frustration and anger. "Didn't tell us what?"

Tsuyo dropped her head in shame, her right hand clutching the quarter moon necklace that hung around her neck.

That necklace is the only thing left from her mother.

"What I had told you guys when we had first met was true, but about 2 years ago I got a job offer; it was Tamura's. You guys know how it went, I informed you about everything that happened when I got back, well, all but the things that related to my past."

"Your past? What are you talking about?"

"You know the story that I had thought was my past, however, I was cast to forget certain details of it."

"What?"

"When I took the job offer from Tamura, I began to look deep into her guild's past. Maybe see how this good guild had turned dark in the first place." Her hand slipped away from the necklace and fell back down to her side. "After doing hours of research and checking through records, I discovered who her guild master was, and where his family mansion once stood. I had met with Erza by coincidence, apparently she had taken on the job as well, Tamura wanted to see how two different guild members would work with each other. But I was unaware that I had met her many years before. 11 years before to be exact."

11? But that would be 13 years from today. That was when her family was attacked… Wait does that mean that Erza had some part in that?

"We met back up and I shared the information that I had found with her, then we headed up to his old house. We just sorta roamed around a bit, trying to find things that might help us. He and his guild hadn't been into any trouble in a couple of years that would send off red flags to anyone of their whereabouts, which made it quite difficult because we didn't know where to start."

Erza began talking, "We didn't find anything right away, but after about an hour we came across a book in a little girl's room."

"It was my room, from when I was little. I saw that book and remembered. I remembered everything."

"I don't understand…" Ame's voice trailed off, and she stood there waiting for Tsuyo to finish.

I was tired and sore, I just sat down where I was, leaning my head back against the wall. It all is starting to make sense.

"I remembered the truth. Everything. My mother had cast a spell on me, blocking out certain memories, but that book gave them back to me."

Then she re-told us her past, this time with new bits of information.

Tsuyo is from a small country just south of Fiore. Her family was well known and feared nobles. They had extremely rare lost magic that had only been passed down from generation to generation. Each stronger than the last. What most people hadn't known was that they were the masters of a dark guild by blood, the first master, her grandfather; Tamura's guild master. Tsuyo hated her life there. She had no friends and whenever she would go out in public people shied away from her, afraid of what she could do, afraid of what her parents would.

Being young, at the age of 7, she was sad and confused. She hated it. If having magic meant that she had no friends, she didn't want it. She confronted her parents and they told her that she had to continue the family lineage. She had no choice, no say, and that was final.

One night, a large group of mages had attacked her house. Their leader, a small girl with scarlet hair and frail armor. She was trying to get the people to take Tsuyo away from them, she had heard of the family all way over in Magnolia; a city in Fiore. But they had turned against that job, going after the masters instead.

Her parents told her to run; Erza grabbed her by the wrists, trying to drag her out from the riot that could take Tsuyo down with them.

But before she had made it out, her mother put a spell on her so that she wouldn't remember them, not the truth anyways, and that when this was over she wouldn't remember Erza. So that way she could start a new life once she was safe without being punished and dragged down for being a part of the society she didn't want to be born into.

"It was my very first job. I felt as though I had failed, after that it took me a while to go on another, I realized that you can't do every job right, and some will go unplanned." Erza gave a Quick smirk and then turned and faced us.

"Your job was to kill your grandfather." I say I even though no one else will. It's the truth that was her and Ezra's job. They had to kill her grandfather and destroy the guild that she was born into.

"Guys I'm so sorry that I didn't tell you about this. My whole life is a lie."

"No." Everyone looked up at me as I stood up, pushing myself away from the wall.

"The only lie about any of this is the fact that you lied to us. To Ame and me. We promised to never lie to each other! To never keep secrets! We never once lied to you! We never kept any secrets! Not one time Tsuyo! We thought that you would at least have the decency to do the same!"

I walk out the doors of the guild, cursing to myself.

"Is this all just a bunch of bullshit now? We promised to never keep secrets from each other that it would be for our own good, for all of our sakes."

"Takara! Takara stop!" Ame calls my name for a few seconds and then gives up when she realizes that I'm not listening to her.

I head for Tamura's house, I have nowhere else to go right now, well, and nowhere else I want to go. I just want to see her, she's always there for us, I feel like she could make me feel better about this; maybe tell me the things that I know Tsuyo is still hiding. I know that she told us the truth, but there's still something that she doesn't want to. I know it.