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Okay, in my defence, I felt like crap yesterday. I completely forgot about my promise, but I'm dead already, so you can't kill me.
Audience: *Glares murderous hate at me*
Me: *Shrugs* I updated, didn't I? And I made it longer than usual. It's the thought that counts, right? No?
Audience: No
Me: OwO?
Natsu skipped ahead of Gildarts, a smile on his small face.
"Big brother Zeref!" he called loudly, cupping his hands to his mouth. "Where aaare yooouuu?" There wasn't a reply, but Natsu grinned as if Zeref had answered back.
"S-so you think he's in the attic?" Gildarts asked hesitantly. Natsu nodded.
"Big brother Zeref always goes there when he gets sad. And he gets sad a lot," he said happily. "Natsu doesn't like it when big brother Zeref is sad, so Natsu always goes up to make him happy."
"Oh, really?" Gildarts asked casually, looking around at the shadows that were without a doubt moving.
"Yeah, Natsu always has to make big brother Zeref happy. But... he always gets sad again..." Natsu paused mid-step, staring at the ground with a tiny frown.
"W-why does he get sad so much?" Gildarts tried to pretend that there wasn't little voices that were obviously trying to drive him insane. Natsu looked back at the man.
"Because he wants to die," he said simply, then turned back to face forward. This gave Gildarts pause, and he studied the small ghost. The supernatural boy was slowly sinking down under the floorboards, but he either didn't notice or didn't care. Now that Gildarts was actually looking, he could see that the boy had a light dusting of what looked like pink in his hair. Gildarts almost laughed, but then he remembered there was a lot of people with weirder hair than this kid.
"Do you want him to die?" Gildarts surprised himself with the sound of his own voice. Natsu looked over his shoulder once more, and his multi-colored eyes glistened with tears.
"Natsu doesn't want big brother Zeref to die. Natsu would be all alone," he whispered, his eyes melting to a dark, sad blue. Gildarts started at the sadness, the loneliness that was so obvious in the boy's eyes. His own heart melted at the sight, and he smiled softly and crouched down to look Natsu in the eye.
"You won't be alone anymore. You have me, Erza, Gray, and Lucy here now," he said gently. Natsu turned to face him completely, fisting the tears from his eyes.
"For real? You won't leave?" he asked in a tiny voice. "You promise?"
"Yeah, I promise."
"Look at this!" Gray suddenly lurched forward, causing Zeref to swipe at nothing and fall to the ground. The small thud didn't go unnoticed by Erza's sharp ears, and she looked behind Gray to see a small, black-haired boy lying on his face, a kitchen knife inches away from his outstretched fingers. She darted forward, swiping up the knife, and pulled the boy to his feet.
"Zeref?" She raised a brow in question. "Why did you try and stab Gray?" Gray visibly shuddered, turning around to see Erza standing there, Zeref in front of her. Gray spotted the kitchen knife, realized how close he was to dying just seconds ago, and almost fainted right then and there. But no, he decided to act like he meant to do that.
"Yeah, I totally knew he was behind me. That's why I dodged him so fast," he bragged, smirking slightly. Lucy shot him a disbelieving glare, then returned her attention to Erza and the half-ghost.
"I-I don't know," Zeref whispered, frowning at his feet. Erza let out an exasperated sigh, then passed the knife to Gray.
"Bring this back to my room," she ordered. Gray nodded and immediately dashed off, not wanting to question the Great and Mighty Erza, as Happy made her out to be. Once he was out of sight, Lucy stepped forward to speak right in Erza's ear.
"What do we do with him now? We can't just act like nothing happened," she said quietly, watching Zeref's face slowly morph into an expressionless mask. His crimson eyes became glazed and unfocused, and he looked at Lucy with a completely blank stare. Lucy shivered slightly and hid behind Erza.
"I don't know, but we can't very well just leave him and Natsu here alone," Erza answered. Lucy noticed how she acknowledged Lucy's unasked question; Should we just leave?
"Well, what do we do, then?" Lucy huffed, stepping back a little. Erza shook her head.
"I honestly don't know."
"Big brother Zeref! Big sister Erza! Big sister Lucy!"
Lucy and Erza looked back to see Natsu floating quickly towards them, a smile on his face and Gildarts in tow.
"Erza! Lucy! Where's Gray?" Gildarts asked once he was close enough to not have to yell. Natsu immediately flew to Zeref, hugging the half-ghost so hard Erza almost feared the boy would burst.
"Gray went to drop something off in Erza's room. Why aren't you back in your room?" Lucy asked curiously. Gildarts let out a nervous laugh, rubbing the back of his head, before glancing at Natsu and Zeref.
"I was trying to help the kid find his brother. Don't know why, though," He muttered the last part to himself, but Erza and Lucy heard it just fine.
"So you were helping, and I quote, the devil's spawn?" Lucy teased, a smirk on her face. Gildarts frowned, then crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.
"He made puppy eyes at me," he muttered.
"Thank you, papa Gildarts!" Natsu suddenly chirped, his arms still wrapped around Zeref's waist. Gildarts gave a small nod, then sighed.
"I really don't know what it is, but this place just screams 'Danger! There's a monster under your pillow!'" he thought aloud, looking around at the dimly-lit chandeliers and the strange, definitely-not-moving shadows.
"Yeah, it kind of does feel that way, huh?" Lucy agreed with a shiver. Then she let out a scream when Gildarts suddenly disappeared in a cloud of pillowy white dust.
You can send me to Hell now. I'm ready.
*Packs up my computer and my valuables*
Yep, any time now. But I'll still be writing my crappy stories, so it won't matter anyhow :D
Oh, and yes, I meant to leave it on a cliffie.
SUFFER, AS I HAVE SUFFERED.
Audience: *Is still hating me*
Me: *Dismisses the hate with a flip of my fabulous hair*
Asta la vista, dear readers!
