A/N: Again, I'm not sure if this will be too rough around the edges for a T rating. It might be a little bloody. Just let me know so I can adjust accordingly!


Story Time

Zeref's Confession


Natsu had a little frown on his face, a little nervous about where this was going.

"It all happened so fast. Too fast." Zeref's voice caught a little, trying hard to hold back the sorrow that overwhelmed him as he relived those final moments. Each one stood alone like frames in a moving picture. Every last frame was analyzed over and over until he had to face the truth. "I was cruel and reckless. In my time I've hurt many people, but nothing has, or ever will compare to how I hurt Vala..."

...

Where did it all go so wrong? Weren't they basking in the sun just a month prior? Weren't they bickering over the importance of red meat in ones diet last night? Didn't she realize that he loved her? Hadn't she spoken those words so softly into his ear when she thought he couldn't hear it? Hot pain drove through his heart when his gaze drifted to Vala's blanched face. She appeared even more shocked than he was. Relief as it was to know she was not planning to leave him, it begged the question: how were they found? What gave them away? It was far too much to sort through in one very small moment.

Before Vala could reach Zeref the knights broke through the door with one final push. Broken wood scattered across the floor, jagged bits still attached to the hinges, leaving just enough space to flood the front end of the room. The instant their eyes trained on Vala, an unnatural cold settled over the room. Paint peeled from the walls, even the light seemed to die away into something dull.

"Princess!" One of the knights, donned head to toe in white armor gawked at the rosette haired woman, no doubt shocked by her clean, well-kempt appearance. They were expecting a fearful slave, not a commanding woman standing there of her own accord. She stood tall, appearing strong when she did not feel it in her bones. Everything ached to shake and tremble with adrenaline and fear, but she knew her distress could only make things worse.

A cold sweat came over her when that foolish knight spoke again, this time looking to Zeref. "We mean you no harm, Mage."

Vala dropped her head to her chest, hands fisting the fabric of her cloak when she heard the sharp slide of metal against metal. Tears formed in her eyes. This could only end badly.

"Under order of the King we must bring Princess Vala home at any cost."

Silver eyes darted across the room and quickly dropped back to the ground.

Zeref was something to fear. The flesh above his nose was gnarled, fists so tight at his sides that his knuckles cracked. Darkness unconsciously gathered around him, darkening his features into mere shadows. Vala closed her eyes. She knew Zeref would kill for her, but she had never seen his dangerous magic in action. But was always so calm and serene around her, it sometimes made her forget all that he was capable of. The closest she ever came to seeing his anger was when he feared that she would leave him all alone so many years ago, before their journey even began.

Serene and sweet as her mind always painted him, in the end, those knights never stood a fighting chance.

There was a blast of black energy that pushed everything away from the epicenter, including Vala. Her head hit the wall with enough force to knock her out, but she somehow managed to cling onto consciousness just long enough to watch Zeref's entire countenance grow dark and hateful. His eyes were sharp and red, yets somehow still unfocused. Thin black brows lowered and one arm extended. One of the knights did not die from the dark magic and instead he remained folded over the jagged pieces of the broken door. He looked over at Vala, catching her eyes just long enough for her heart to break. These people didn't have magic, they didn't know how to defend themselves against this kind of enemy. She needed to move. She needed to do something to stop Zeref.

Vala, as forgiving as she was, could not condone this. Not when he had the power to stop.

Everything was closing in on her vision, growing darker and darker with each passing second. So dark that she couldn't see, pulling her consciousness down with it.

Only after some of his hellish magic left his body did Zeref finally come down from that furious hate. He had done this with full awareness and control, and he didn't even regret it. Perhaps this was the way to control the inner beast; awareness. Maybe he needed a degree of evil in his actions to control the unyielding bereavement that sometimes took over. To even consider that as an option was disgusting. When did lose his humanity?

He let out a pained groan as the curse made itself known somewhere deep inside. He didn't concern himself over Vala, but he did think briefly on the sweet old lady who owned the inn, and the little family who lived across the hall. No one else in this room was living, he would have to deal with the heavy burden of that guilt when he and Vala escaped.

A pulse of evil burst from his body that was strong enough to drop him to his knees, leaving a black mark where he settled on the floor.

His head remained still, cradled gently between his hands. He cast a sideways glance at the ruined bodies of the knights who came to take Vala away from him. A small smile found a way onto his lips. Even if he regretted the deaths of the locals he couldn't find it in him to regret the deaths of those men.

Slowly, he was beginning to realize that there was a vile part of him that wanted to truly steal her away, to hide her away in the darkness until he appeared to be the sun in comparison. He wanted Vala to need him the way he needed her. Remembering the protective glint in her eyes from earlier, he needed to know who she wanted so badly to protect from his cursed black magic.

Right now, that dark place was the only part of him that could think clearly. He was so used to feeling Vala's soft hand over his shoulder after his waves of death subsided that he waited for that small, familiar comfort. Ignorant of the ruby blood that dribbled from the corner of her lips where she slumped motionless against the wall.

Maybe he didn't notice, but she felt it immediately. The curling hot blood that dripped from her mouth woke her instantly. It tasted like metal. Sharp pain in her belly crumpled her closer to the ground with a muted whimper. Cold fear settled in her heart when she realized what was happening.

The thing she was trying to tell Zeref about only a few minutes earlier. Her little 'stomach bug'. The little tickle she'd been feeling in her belly for the past few weeks was squirming. Twitching even. Actually, her little tickle wasn't just a little tickle anymore. It was a convulsing raging pain that reduced her to a crumpled, bleeding mess there on the floor, a mere five feet away from her lover.

Zeref's eyes were still that deadly red when he finally looked to her, wondering why she didn't come to him like she usually did. His mind was so far from reality that he thought she might actually be afraid and hiding. But the moment his eyes focused on her body where it lay in a tight ball across the room, his heart stopped. A dark pool of blood was beginning to form around her body. Seeing her blood snapped him from his state of rage. Perhaps magic couldn't hurt her, but a hard impact easily could have broken her fragile bones.

Uncoordinatedly he clambered over to her spot on the floor. His hands hovered over her back. He was too afraid to touch her as she convulsed tightly again and again. This was more than a few broken bones. There was too much blood. He knew some healing spells but he couldn't figure out where it was all coming from. Had his magic harmed her? At first he blamed her and the fact that she had been trying to access her magic just moments before he stepped through the door. But when he managed to find a clearer mind, the puzzle pieces clicked together. It didn't take long to understand what was truly killing his lover.

"What happened? Why are you..." His voice trailed desperately, finally grasping what she had been trying to tell him earlier. The sickness, the drive to control her guardian magic. The blood, it was...

...

Zeref took a shaking breath and dropped his head, unable to look at anything as those haunting images flooded his mind. Natsu was dead silent for once, just staring as the realization of Zeref's description came together. He fell against the shackles that held him and dropped his head, tears dropping from the tip of his nose, sharp teeth gritting together.

After a few heavy seconds, a soft, brittle voice came muffled through the darkness as Zeref continued to the best of his ability. "When I realized what I'd done I could barely breathe..."

...

He couldn't look at her and the damage he inflicted. Dull grey eyes searched for him when he managed to untangle her limbs from her abdomen to pull her onto his lap. Blood was everywhere. Her eyes were glossy and pink from the mind splitting convulsions that had yet to cease. Each tremor came with another choked sound, taking her warmth with it. He pulled her tightly into his arms and felt as her life slowly drained from his grasp. All of that time he spent trying to keep her alive and he couldn't even do that right. A trembling thumb traced gently under her half-mast eye.

Maybe he didn't have the power to kill Vala, but the little thing inside of her was vulnerable. That impossibly small piece of Zeref was enough to end her life. Tears flowed freely from his eyes as he held her like she was the only thing tethering him to sanity.

How was this even possible? Why didn't she tell him sooner? This could have been prevented. He could have... He should have just...

Hot tears sunk through her hair. She was staring at the ceiling awaiting the cold embrace of death. But it was slow to take her. She watched the light leave Zeref's own dark eyes instead as he felt her bleed out.

Vala felt her moments growing fewer but she couldn't find his eyes anymore. It was all too dark. Words that needed to be said gasped from her throat in those quiet, final breaths, "Zeref... I..."

His chin crumpled and he folded over her, trying hard to keep it together. To keep her awake, he began rubbing his thumb hard over her sternum. "Don't say anything, there are spells, they're unpleasant but..." His voice choked out as he realized none of his spells could keep her the way she was without tainting her soul. He couldn't become the reason she couldn't ascend. He could seal her away with dark magic, but even then he wasn't sure if she could recover.

Grey eyes nearly matched her skin tone, her lips a ghastly white as she smiled. A set of fingertips brushed the side of his face leaving a macabre red trail, his eyes grew wide as he shook with adrenaline.

A trembling breath shuddered past her smiling lips, "I love you."

Zeref caught her hand and held it to his lips, wanting to make her warm again. "Don't... Don't say that."

His words met deaf ears as her pulse stilled under his hands.

After that, there was nothing. He felt hollow. He felt dead. For the first time he couldn't feel anything. No pain, no sorrow, no sense of loss. Everything was completely gone. He wanted death now more than ever and he would do anything in his power to have it.

He killed everyone and everything he could find in this void, including Vala's entire kingdom. Their castle was nothing but a shell when he was finished; even then he wasn't quite satisfied. He still didn't feel remorse the way he wanted to. So he ended every surrounding village as well. With this hate in his heart he could control everything. Every dark spell he had ever studied was his for the taking.

Without a feeling of empathy, he decided he shouldn't be alive. He created demons and hell-spawn beyond anyone's most horrible nightmares. If it meant that he could die, he would try anything. Even if it meant that these demons could escape, killing thousand of innocent people. He knew Vala's afterlife would be something far different from his, but he didn't care. He didn't deserve to live if he had no regard for life.

...

"I don't remember what happened after that, only that I woke covered with blood in her family's throne room surrounded by bodies, staring at the mangled body of Vala's younger sister who looked just like her." Zeref's voice slowly faded. He finished that part of the story without allowing even one tear to fall. He chose to disconnect himself from those mournful feelings a long time ago. He'd mourned Vala for long enough. She and the tiny potential for life they'd created out of their love for one another.

It wasn't until another fifty years passed that he found her old notes on Tenrou Island. The things she wrote about him in her swirling handwriting were what made him decide to stay there indefinitely. She wrote how important his life was to her, and how her only regret was that her disappearance from the kingdom caused war. Zeref couldn't help but feel the weight of that responsibility when he read those words. He had caused more death and destruction than any war Vala helped to start. But that was all gone now, all that existed was the darkness that surrounded him and the pink haired young man who sat across from him.

During those hectic years he had one clear moment when he went back to Vala's death site. Her body was gone from the site where he left her. Had she decayed away? Had someone been kind enough to bury her remains? No, he remembered something vaguely, but not clearly enough to describe it to his brother.

Silence sunk into his veins and allowed Zeref a sense of peace that he didn't feel like he deserved. The darkness in this cell was not his own, it gave him too much time to remember his life. Everything he'd ever done was cruelty. The only kindness he had ever shown was to Natsu, Mavis, and Vala.

"You killed Vala and your baby." Natsu finally said, voice low and accusing, sitting across from his heavily chained brother.

Lord Zeref looked like an abused puppy from where Natsu sat. He couldn't imagine losing the person he loved, or worse, being the reason that they died. Something about Zeref's curse created something evil inside of him, and Vala's death obviously brought that out. It wasn't in Natsu's nature to push someone away who obviously needed help. Considering how many people he hurt, it made sense for him to hate his brother. But he couldn't look past how much of his life Zeref dedicated to reviving him. He couldn't help but wonder why he didn't do the same thing with Vala and their baby.

Pain was plain on Zeref's unguarded expression. He didn't particularly want to say anything more. He didn't want to tell his younger brother how he didn't feel anything toward life or death again until a full century later. Or how the day he met Mavis he thought he'd met Vala's reincarnation but quickly learned that they were not at all the same. He did not make the same mistake twice, he taught Mavis magic because he wanted her to protect herself, even if the magic was dark. It wasn't his decision to make whether or not she used it; it was hers. After that he went back to Tenrou Island to try and prevent any more death than necessary. He didn't want to tell any more grisly details about how many lives he'd ruined. It was all far too painful.

"Vala," Zeref managed to choke over his tight throat, "she died because of my ignorance. The reason I'm telling you this is because her people still exist to the far west on a distant continent. They continue fighting to this day over an unnecessary blood feud. Her kingdom split in two after I decimated their land. They accuse one another of inciting the rage of Ankhseram on their people. Once they learn the truth, that I was the one who ruined their land and killed their people, maybe then they will stop fighting and do Vala's life justice."

He paused, remembering a part of the story that he had chosen not to share. "There's also book there, sealed and hidden in that old temple I described." Black eyes didn't deviate from Natsu. "Destroy it."

Natsu dropped his eyes to the side and folded his arms over his chest, thinking hard on something.

When their daily time was up, Natsu left without a word. And after such a horrifying story, Zeref was sure he'd never return.


A/N: THE END

Just kidding! Still one more (maybe two?) chapter(s). Let me know what you think of this little tragedy I've written. Poor guy can't catch a break! The little marshmallow deserves a happy ending, I think. The next one may or may not be about Natsu's little journey to this distant land with his pretty blonde partner and a blue flying cat.