"Don't you have to go back to your guild? Won't your friends worry about you?"

"Master is fine with me leaving the guild for extended periods of time as long as I write a letter back or talk to him via communication lacrima at least once a month. Don't worry about it. Why? So eager to get rid of me? It's only been a week, Zancrow!"

"And you are already talking my ears off. I think I'm the one who needs the earmuffs you wear. What happened to the sweet, quiet Meredy? I think I preferred that one." Zancrow replied dryly.

"Well you sent me to Fairy Tail. Do you really expect me to remain the same after that? And since when did you have a sense of humour?" Meredy retorted.

"I don't know, maybe I grew one ever since I left the dark guild I was a part of for twelve years? Seriously though, you don't have to suffer with me. Travelling around Fiore to help these backwater towns is a shit job. My sins, my responsibility."

"You sinned so that I don't have to, that means that I'm equally guilty, therefore it's my responsibility as well. Besides, I can go anywhere I want. Where I want to go just happens to coincide with yours, you can't chase me away."

"You are just going to stick with me until I give up on chasing you away, aren't you?"

"I admit to nothing."

Meredy reveled in the satisfaction of winning an argument against Zancrow as he just threw his working arm up in the air in exasperation and continued to walk on ahead. Meredy followed him behind with a skip in her steps, enjoying the time she spends with him. If three years ago someone told her that she can have such a carefree conversation with Zancrow she would have called that person crazy and cut said person into slices with her Maguilty Sodom. The word 'carefree' is not part of Zancrow's dictionary three years ago.

The two of them had just left the previous town since they are now able to protect and run the town by themselves. Zancrow had identified another area that needs help with their problems and had originally wanted to said his goodbyes to Meredy before leaving. However, Meredy simply packed her stuffs as well and followed him on his journey, much to his exasperation.

There's no way she will separate herself from him again. Who knows when will be the next time they meet should he disappear again? With that in mind, Meredy managed to half-pleaded, half-threaten Zancrow to at least inform her before he goes on a journey by himself on the very next day after they reunited. For both of their sake, she won't allow him to disappear on her again.

She needs him as much as he needs her, even if Zancrow himself doesn't realise it. They had stuck by each other for so long in that hellhole that there's no way one can live without the other. What Zancrow is doing is highly dangerous considering that he takes out hordes of dark guilds by his lonesome. He is no doubt a very powerful mage, but that does not reduce the danger that Zancrow puts himself into every single time he accepts a job request by the Magic Council to take care of the country's rampant dark guild problem.

In fact, the danger level will only get higher. According to her own information sources, Zancrow's alias, Skull, already have a sizable bounty on his head in the underworld and the amount is still growing. He is proving to be too dangerous a threat to be left alone by the dark guilds. Right now his best protection is the secrecy of his true identity and the difficulty in tracking him down, which only Meredy and Master Makarov is aware of and none of them will betray him. But if his true identity was somehow uncovered and leaked out, what will happen to him? Zancrow will be hunted by the council for being a former member of Grimoire Heart and also pursued by the dark guilds for thwarting their nefarious plans. No place will be safe for him then. No matter how strong Zancrow is, there is no way a man can fight against an entire world by himself.

Zancrow will die.

Meredy can endure being separated from Zancrow with hopes of seeing him again someday but she cannot live on if Zancrow died. She won't forgive herself if he died simply because she wasn't there to help him.

All because of his stupid thinking on trying to redeem himself. If anything, Meredy felt that he had done more good for the world than the useless officials who made up the Magic Council. They are the very definition of inept. Just look at the number of dark guilds that Fiore housed. If Zancrow can take out so many of them within two years by his lonesome, what excuse do they have? They have the Ten Wizard Saints and an entire army on their side for crying out loud!

Zancrow had long since redeemed himself. What he needs now isn't the forgiveness of others, what he needs is for him to be able to forgive himself. To forgive himself for willingly plunging into the darkness, to forgive himself for doing nothing as he witnessed innocents getting killed all for the sake of his own personal vendetta against the person who killed off his entire family. Was Zancrow wrong? Was he wrong in wanting revenge against the murderer who slaughtered his entire town? Was Zancrow right? Did he made the right choice in joining a dark guild for the sake of revenge? Did he even have a choice for that matter? He was picked up by Hades as a kid. The only way you leave that horrid place was in a body bag.

They are all victims in this cruel, twisted world. If only the council or the royal family have been doing their job right, the both of them wouldn't have to suffer.

But then again Meredy wouldn't have met Zancrow as well. Zancrow would continue to help his Mum run the bakery together with his sister while Meredy will grow up in her hometown miles away on the other side of Fiore. Zancrow was the best thing to have ever happened to her, even if the price was the death of everyone else in her hometown.

Sometimes she hated herself for having such sickening thoughts, but Meredy truly felt that she would not have been able to live on without Zancrow.

"Stop spacing out. You have been doing that a lot ever since we reunited."

Meredy put on an expression of mock annoyance on her face and stuck out her tongue childishly at him. "Well, you are here with me. If anyone managed to sneak past your senses, then I wouldn't have any hope of detecting them either."

"Excuses."

"Valid excuses, Zancrow."

"You can call me Zan."

Meredy stopped abruptly. Did she heard him wrongly? She must have.

Sensing Meredy's abrupt stop, Zancrow turned around to look at her with a raised eyebrow.

"What?"

"I... can call you...Zan?"

"Why not?" Zancrow replied as he continued to walk forward without looking back at her. "I managed to get rid of my temper issue, I don't fly into a rage anymore whenever someone called me Zan instead of Zancrow, although so far you are the only person who I allow to call me by that." He stopped again as he looked back at her. "You coming? I'm not going to piggyback you all the way to our next destination."

Meredy's shocked expression quickly turned into a full-blown smile as she jumped onto Zancrow's back and latched onto him like a koala bear, nearly causing Zancrow to fall face down onto the ground.

"Oi!"

"Come on Zan! Let's hurry to our next destination already! Go! Go! Go!"

"Get off me! I'm not going to carry you all the way there! We have to climb at least three mountains to get there! No way I'm carrying you while doing that!"

"It's only three mountains! You carried me across five of them before during the mission to sabotage Gargoyle's Ear! Thinking back, I still can't believe how hard it was to locate that guild."

"You were like what? Seven? You were a lot lighter back then!"

"Rude." Meredy tsked as she waved a disapproving finger in front of Zancrow's face. "Never comment on a lady's weight, I view that as an insult to a lady's honour. As punishment, I demand that you carry me all the way to our next destination." Meredy pumped a fist into the air. "What are we waiting for? Let's go, Zan!"

Zancrow attempted a biting motion at that offending appendage but Meredy moved her finger out of the way. Seeing that Meredy won't be getting off him anytime soon, Zancrow sighed and accepted his fate. He adjusted his grip on Meredy with his only working arm and continued to march forward.

Meredy: 1, Zancrow: 0

"You are getting off the moment we reached the bottom of the first mountain." Zancrow stated before muttering under his breath. "What the hell was I thinking? Letting you tag along? I'm going senile."

"No, you grew smarter." Meredy nodded sagely from Zancrow's back. "I'm sticking with you no matter what. Not even Zeref himself can tear me away from you. I will go wherever you go."

"Oi, be careful what you say. Don't jinx it. I don't want to see that bastard's face if I can help it. And don't you spout these kinds of words to any guy you see, that just now sounded like a declaration of love. Only say it when you found the guy that means the world to you."

"And you aren't one?"

Zancrow snorted. "I'm seven years older than you, Meredy. You just see me as an older brother figure. You are already sixteen this year. One day you will find the guy who you fall in love with and marry him. You can say these words to him then. Speaking about that, do you have any boys that you need my help in chasing off?"

"I'm not looking for a relationship, Zan. Not for the foreseeable future. They have to be at least at your standard and level in terms of everything. Most importantly, that guy have to treat me like a queen." Meredy replied haughtily before sighing. "Have you seen how the guys at Fairy Tail carried themselves? At least half of them have very skewed perception of what's normal and what's not. And seven years isn't that big of an age gap. I have seen bigger age gaps between couples on my jobs around Fiore. What about you? Found anyone for yourself?"

Meredy's heartbeat became erratically faster as she waited for Zancrow's reply. Zancrow spoke up after a few seconds.

"No. Never thought about it actually. Would be pretty unfair to let her live such a shitty life with me and forced to be constantly on the run. I have no doubt that my identity will be found out one day and when that time comes, I don't want anyone else to be implicated. That includes you, Meredy. If any of the dark guilds or the council gets wind of my identity, you will return to Fairy Tail asap, you hear me?"

"But Zannnn~" Meredy whined. "I just said that not even Zeref himself can tear me away from you."

"And I just said not to spout these kinds of words willy-nilly to any guy!"

Meredy laughed as Zancrow continued his grumbling and she rested her head on his broad back once more. A forlorn expression crossed her face out of Zancrow's sight as Meredy etch this very moment into her memory.

I'm serious, Zan. No one, not even Zeref can tear me away from you. Meredy thought out loud in her head as she kept up with her small talk with Zancrow, irritating him at every possible opportunity. After a week with Zancrow since their reunion, she had come to realise and acknowledge that somewhere down the line during these three years when she was searching for him, her feelings of affection for him had unknowingly grew into a romantic one. She didn't dare to say her feelings out loud for fear of ruining their current relationship. She's fine with their current status quo as long as she have an excuse to stay by his side. She fear that Zancrow will leave her if he ever found out her true feelings for him. She is afraid to learn that he will say that he sees her as nothing more but as a little sister.

I'm sorry, Zan. Meredy apologised to Zancrow in the privacy of her own mind as they both silently enjoyed the scenery passing by them as they made their way to their next destination.

I fell in love with you.


Another half a year passed by the time Zancrow's and Meredy's efforts in helping to rebuild Begonia Village came into fruition, the one that the both of them need to scale three mountains to access. Unlike most of the other towns or villages that Zancrow had helped before, Begonia Village suffered from frequent monster attacks instead of dark mages. Due to the low pay of the extermination mission the village sent out and the difficulty to reach the location of the village, no one had answered their plea for help even after many months. The village was unable to increase the pay of the job request they sent out to incentivise mages to help solve their problem since the village is too poor to do so, leaving their problem unsolved.

Zancrow had easily gotten rid of the monster problem even if he only have one arm to fight with. Meredy had been trying to convince him to switch his ruined left arm for a magical prosthetic similar to what Gildarts is using, but Zancrow refused, much to her frustration. It will be much safer for Zancrow if have two working arms instead of one. But no, that stubborn idiot is too focused on trying to redeem himself to consider replacing his left arm, saying that his left arm is a reminder of the sins he had committed.

Stupid, stubborn, obstinate, bull-headed idiot.

Meredy wants to help as well and Zancrow knew that getting her to leave him is a lost cause by now. However, Zancrow steered Meredy clear of all the fighting. He let her do all the 'safe' work that would put her in the least amount of danger. Meredy was a little annoyed by this. She was one of the Seven Kin of Purgatory, becoming an S Class mage when she was eight years old even she if was not given an S Class title in Fairy Tail. The S Class trial was still suspended and had not been revived when she left to find Zancrow. Meredy isn't some fragile woman who needs constant protection. She can take care of herself.

Currently the both of them are packing up their stuffs in the hut that they have borrowed to stay in for these six months to head off to their next location. They had gotten wind that a villager had spotted a group of Rune Knights that will be arriving in a few hours. Seems like they finally decided to station some of their soldiers here to protect the village. Zancrow is still a wanted fugitive even if no one if the village knew about it thanks to his disguise but staying here is no longer an option due to the imminent arrival of the Rune Knights. Most of the village's problems had already been solved anyway, the Rune Knights can take care of the rest.

The locals are more than willing to oblige their request to keep their stay here and where they are heading off to next a secret. To them, the two of them were a godsend and their village's saviors. Apparently, it was the same in the previous towns that Zancrow had helped out as well, it is partly why the world had such a hard time tracking Zancrow down since none of the people that Zancrow had helped were willing to betray him. Adding on to the fact that Zancrow tends to visit places that most people don't even knew existed, the independent mage known as Skull to the magical community becomes an even more elusive figure to them.

"Where are we heading to next?" Meredy asked as she continued to pack her stuffs.

"Haven't really decided. I might take on job requests to exterminate some dark guilds next. I'm running low on money and I'm feeling a little rusty. Fighting something challenging sounds like a good idea." Zancrow replied from the other end of the room as he packed up his stuffs as well.

"I still don't get why you can't just join a legal guild." Meredy huffed. "If you can erase my records, you can easily do so for yours back then. I understand if you want to do some good for the world to repent for your sins, but why can't you do it as a legal mage?"

"It's...different." Zancrow replied lamely. "After my experience in Grimoire Heart, I'm not sure if I want to join another guild. Besides, I have grown to enjoy the freedom of being an independent mage, even if right now I'm basically just a tool for hire for the council. I didn't plan on leaving Tenrou Island alive either, so erasing traces of my involvement with Grimoire Heart seemed redundant back then."

"Fairy Tail is alright. You sent me there out of all the other guilds that you could have chosen. Just come back to Fairy Tail with me, Master Makarov can help us to think of a way to help you become a legal mage. He have some sway in the council simply by being a Wizard Saint. You can always continue to help villages and towns like these after that."

Zancrow said nothing, but Meredy knew that Zancrow probably won't consider her suggestion as a possible option. He still loathes himself even if he had forgiven himself somewhat.

Some part of him still blame himself for all the destruction he helped caused, even if most of them were done so indirectly.

"I will think about it." Zancrow finally spoke up after a moment of silence. "But for now, I think I prefer the current arrangement. Do you want to stop somewhere near Magnolia for a short while on our way to the nearest council's branch office? You do have friends now in the guild."

"I have been keeping contact with them with the communication lacrima I brought with me but you just magically disappear during every single conversation I have with them. I've been wanting to do a proper introduction of you to them, you know?" Meredy chided as she placed her hands on her hips. "But a trip back to Magnolia does sound nice. And don't you dare disappear on me again, you hear me, Zan?"

"Wouldn't even dream of it." Zancrow replied with a roll of his eyes. "But I'm not stepping a foot inside Magnolia."

"Deal. I will just carry you in then, you will don't even need to use a single foot."

Zancrow just gave a 'are-you-serious' look at Meredy, which Meredy challenged with a 'I'm-totally-serious-come-change-my-mind-if-you-can' stare. Zancrow simply shake his head before returning to whatever he was doing.

"I'm serious! I'm going to let you meet my entire guild no matter what you say or do! They can keep secrets! You don't need to worry about them!"

"Met them once three years ago when I asked Makarov to take you in, found them too crazy for my tastes. Good try, but you need to try harder to convince me."

"How about because I'm just going to physically drag you there anyway?"

Meredy stifled her laughter as she saw Zancrow's form twitching in annoyance.

"Ever since we met up again half a year ago, I suddenly have no right or say in anything." Zancrow grumbled. "I long to be free one day."

"You are stuck with me for your entire life, so suck it up and deal with it."

"Meredy..."

"Ya, I know, don't spout things that sounds like a love confession to any guy cos you might give the wrong impression yada yada yada. You are sixteen now blah blah blah. You need to take care of your image or no boys will want you etc etc etc." Meredy waved her hand dismissively. "I know, I know."

Zancrow just stared at her in a deadpanned manner.

Meredy smiled back sweetly.

Zancrow's eyebrows rose higher.

Meredy's smile grew even wider.

"I give up." Zancrow sighed and turned back in a sign of defeat.

Meredy: 218, Zancrow: 0

Yes, she has been secretly keeping track of her victories of her argument against Zancrow ever since that day Zancrow told her to call him Zan. It has been one of her favourite ways to pass the time. She can't help it, the current Zancrow is just so fun to tease.

Zancrow and Meredy both finished packing their personal belongings and they moved to exit the hut and leave the town. Zancrow donned his mask and cape to assume the identity of Skull once again. They didn't even made it ten meters from their hut when one of the villagers ran towards them, panting for breath.

"Skull-sama! Meredy-sama! Dark guild!" The man, who was a simple farmer in the village, nearly collapsed onto the ground when he reached the mages. "We are under attack from a dark guild!"

Meredy cursed in the confines of her mind. The Rune Knights are arriving at any moment now and this dark guild chose now of all times to show up? Zan's identity might be blown!

Could this day get any worse?!


AN:

Edited: 26/2/2019


I took away the ranting portion since after I had cooled down somewhat, I realised that it is a very immature thing for me to do. Sorry if my rant had spoiled the experience in reading RC. However, I do wish that if you guys ever want to do reviews on stories, not just mine, please note the tone that you are using to write in. We writers are humans too. We have feelings. And if the story that you are reviewing is one that you enjoy, it does not make sense to piss off the writer that is writing your favourite story, no?

If you really cannot agree with what we writers write about, you can always choose to continue not reading the story. That is an option too. There are differences between opinions, constructive criticisms, and straight up flaming or just being plain rude.

I will still leave the part on my take of the loss of Zancrow's arm, and why I feel that it is not such a big deal. So here it is.


Zancrow's arm is not even gone, just lost its functionality. I had planned for a much worse outcome for Zancrow, to be honest, like what had happened to Layla. Grimoire Heart is famous for its Lost Magic. Lost Magic are called as such for a reason.

So on the discussion of Lost Magic. Why are they called as such?

Because most of them have drastic consequences in using it.

Dragon Slayer Magic: Ignoring the fake second gen slayers, the original magic caused the process of dragonification, many users have lost their mind according to Irene, the inventor of said magic, and it caused them motion sickness, which is a pretty big weakness.

Arc of Time: Not applicable to living objects, well, that's still ok. But do you remember the cost that Ultear paid to use Last Ages? Her time was stolen.

Great Tree Arc: Azuma turned into a freaking tree from overuse of his magic.

Human Subordination magic: Just look at how Zoldeo met his end. Enough said.

So is it a very big stretch to say that there is a weakness for God Slayer magic as well? God Slayer magic wasn't explored despite it being an OP magic so I invented the weakness on my own, the constant bloodlust, in this case, and it might cause the user to berserk. Is it such a stretch to say that there might be a spell or two of the magic that might need sacrifices from the user to invoke? I don't think so.

This is just a fiction story. It is not even real, so there are room for some unrealistic things to happen. Sasuke lost an arm and he is pretty much god-like. Gildarts lost an arm, a leg, and some missing organs and he just went to get some prosthetic limbs and continued to be the overpowered badass that he is. Genryusai Yamamoto lost an arm trying to kill Aizen and it took the Quincy King to finally kill him by stealing his bankai. It wasn't even a fair fight. Is Zancrow losing an arm that big of an issue here?

Zancrow's arm is going to stay the way it is.

I only wanted to write a more realistic story of FT, not a story and outcome where 'the power of friendship' triumphs all. The power of friendship is pretty bullshit. Good for one use, but anything more than that is just plain unrealistic. This is the kind of story RC is. That's why I classified it under hurt/comfort.

The Fairy Tail verse is inherently a fucked up world despite all the sunshine and rainbows. Look and analyse the story closely and you will see why. It's there since chapter 1. Slavery? That's a pretty damn big clue. I want to show that the FT world is inherently prejudiced. Only 10% of the people in the world can use magic. What happens when they can use it? Look at how Mirajane and her siblings were treated before they joined FT. Given the treatment non-magicals treated kids with magic, no wonder that there were so many dark mages running around killing people.

Despite how it is being portrayed, the world of Fairy Tail isn't a fairy tale. I love the story, I really do. But the plot armour is so thick it is ridiculous.

Hope this doesn't take away all the joy you felt when you read RC to this point. It wasn't my intention.