Here's the second part of the last chapter. I could not stop editing it, hence it being near 7,000 words long.

I own nothing.

Dolorific Recollections

The seduction of Natsu Dragneel by darkness began on the first day of middle school for the young boy, the years past being spent in solitude for he had been too busy moving from one place to another, always kinetic. To say that the boy was excited was an understatement, he was beyond elated; the anticipation had compounded within him for years at the thought of finally going to school and making friends. The nature of his life ensured that he had not been able to settle down long enough to attend school until now, in Margaret town. That very morning he had woken up with a spring in his step, and had even been too excited to poke Wendy's sleeping face, which was part of his usual morning ritual. The letter of admission was just a formality for this school, but had had him jumping with glee.

The school he was looking so forward to attending was of medium size and only one floor, with wide, glass doors adorning the entrance. Natsu on that day could be found strolling joyfully along the sidewalk, whistling a merry tune as he neared the entrance, just 8 minutes removed from leaving home. He was a little late, maybe by a couple of minutes, but had been powerless to stop the onslaught of traffic that had blocked his path on the way to the school.

Natsu pushed open the doors while using his schedule to navigate the halls inside, eventually making his way to his designated first period, coolly walking upon the white-tiled floor. He paused in front of the class "this is it" he thought. Feeling exultant he pushed open the door-"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!" yelled a voice. His eyes followed the origin of the sound to the front of the class where a rather dumpy looking woman sat; she had knotted, red hair, as well as a bossy air about her. Natsu raised his eyebrows questioningly, as whispers started around the classroom, eyes taking in his scarf and unruly pink hair.

"I'm sorry miss, I don't really know what you mean?"

"YOU are 3 minutes late to class" she said pompously, checking the attendance list, "anything to say for yourself Mr... Dragneel?"

"I'm really sorry, I didn't think that it would matter on the first day that mu-" he tried to gesticulate.

"I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THOUGHT PUNK, OBVIOUSLY YOU SPENT TOO MUCH TIME DYING YOUR HAIR TO LEAVE ANY FOR SCHOOL!" the teacher belted, leaving the rest of the class snickering quite loudly, like a buzz of annoying bees. Natsu was honestly dumbfounded; he did not know how to react but figured standing there like a fool was not the right answer. He lowered his head and quickly shuffled to the back of the classroom, afraid of catching anyone's eye. He could hear people's whispers as he passed.

"What's up with that hair of his?"

"He looks like a faggot."

"What an idiot."

"Nobody associate with this shithead, he looks really weird."

"Why the fuck is he wearing a scarf in the summer?"

Fighting back tears, Natsu sat down in his seat and tried to concentrate on the front of the room, but soon found it hard. The teacher was giving him a scowl that could frighten a scarecrow and kept glancing over to him throughout the hour, as if he were some fungus that needed eradication. Natsu fingered his scarf the whole period, sniffling a bit every time he breathed, causing the people in the vicinity to glare at him mockingly even more. Eventually he stopped staring at the teacher altogether to take his mind off of her, only to have her berate him for not listening in class, which was quite unfair; nobody else was paying the teacher the slightest amount of attention. She called him to her desk to write the poor boy up to the principal, citing an inability to follow directions as well as tardiness as the reasons for his punishment. Silently laughing kids stuck out their legs as Natsu passed towards the teacher's desk, trying to see if they could not trip him. It was in vain of course, Natsu, even in his mortified state, was too conscious of his surroundings to be felled by such a measly prank as tripping; he unconsciously glided past the maze of legs with the practiced grace of a ballerina, thanks to his years of training. Natsu approached the desk, watching the teacher's fat fingers write him up. She ripped the slip with ferocity and handed it to him with a smirk, as if she enjoyed nothing more than getting a student in trouble. Natsu laconically took the slip and left the room, sadness clouding his heart; this was not what he had expected school to be like at all.

After 10 minutes of aimless wandering, he was eventually able to locate the principal's office. With a tired sigh he walked in to find a rather bulking man, with cropped hair, who looked like a stereotypical playground-bully. "So, you are the hooligan who was causing such an uproar in class 204?"

Natsu simply nodded, not bothering to correct the man, it would invariably place him into even more trouble. "So, for your insolence, you will receive detention for one hour this afternoon after school, as well as for the rest of the week." the principal said smugly, "You are dismissed." Natsu simply nodded again, not daring to look the intimidating man in the eye, wanting nothing more than to disappear, and quickly got up to go back to class. The punishment was absolutely unfair, but he was in no mood to fight back, the humiliation rendering him speechless.

The rest of his classes passed in similar fashion up to lunch, news of the incident in his class traveled like wildfire, causing many people around the school to stare at him with impudence, belittling him with their countenance: pointing, shamelessly staring, and even goading him. Some went out of their way to shove him in the hallway, causing him to repeatedly have to pick his stuff up from the ground. Natsu tried his best to ignore the taunting and the bullying, but admittedly it was starting to bother him.

He went to the cafeteria for lunch, and paused when he saw a poster, one of many that were similar, on the wall. It depicted a poorly drawn person, with...pink hair. There were words on all the posters, all differing in some way but they all spread the same basic message-PINKY IS A FUCKFACE. Natsu could not fathom what had made people want do that, but reasoned with himself that maybe it was the work of one person; after all, it was his first day here.

He sat outside during lunch, under the warm glare of the sun at one of the wooden benches. Eating in silence, he brooded over the events of the day, remembering a particularly bad incident that had happened right before third period. Going to get some water from the fountain, he had noticed a quite pretty girl dropping her pencil. Natsu had courteously picked it up with a smile and handed it to her saying, "Here you go." To his gratification the girl had smiled back lightly and thanked him, giving him a pat on the back. He felt good about himself for the first time that day, because someone had actually smiled at him instead of the constant glaring he had already gotten used to. It came as a jolt when a burly looking boy with blonde hair, much taller and older than Natsu, came rumbling up to him, ruining his moment of bliss, malice and jealousy apparent in his eyes. He had told Natsu off for getting too close to his girlfriend. Natsu had in turn tried to assure the livid boy that he had no intentions of anything immoral and that he was simply trying to be nice. The boy had warned him with a punch to the stomach and turned back to his friends, a suspicious look still in his eyes. The punch had served only to slightly ripple Natsu's muscles a bit, but the intention behind it still hurt him, made him sad that someone would want to physically abuse him.

The poor boy shook his head at the short memory, he was not scared of the bigger boy or anyone else for that matter, not in the slightest, but he had hoped that he would be able to avoid any confrontation his first day there; so much for that. He dully finished his lunch, and went to his next class, trying to not let the further bullying he met bother him. The bastion of his mind was slowly crumbling though, and by the end of the day Natsu was simply exhausted with trying to ignore the baleful looks of most of the student body. Many of them jumped on the bandwagon of shunning him because they thought him weak when he refused to fight back; gangbangers the lot of them were. Several times during class and in the halls, cronies of the jealous boy had attempted to trip him again. They had been obviously molested when he had effortlessly evaded their legs. Initially vexed, they had learned to simply walk up to him and shove him down and then to kick him on the ground. The kicks had done nothing except jar him a little, but again they just served to depress him even more. He honestly did not know what had caused such a convolution in the opinions of most of the students, geared towards making his day a living hell.

The last period thankfully was uneventful, and after visiting his locker, Natsu indolently made his way to the right end of the school, preparing himself for his hour of undeserved detention.

Sighing, Natsu ambled into the classroom, where to his botheration he found the boy who had told him off earlier. Said boy scowled at him menacingly before re-positioning his head in its previous position. He had been responsible for most of the physical abuse applied to Natsu's person for much of the day.

The clock on the wall ticked ever so slowly, the hour hand seeming to never move from its position, while the perpetual motion of the minute hand was like Chinese torture to Natsu, chipping a gash in his brain each time it moved. He did not deserve this, had not done anything to merit it, and would rather have been home playing outside with his adorable little sister. "This school sucks" he thought scornfully, burying his head into his own arms, wishing nothing more than to relax in his soft bed at home, snuggling with his pillows, while watching TV and eating; it was his favorite pastime. The nostalgic thoughts made him smile a little and he continued to quench his mind's thirst for serenity by indulging in his thoughts some more.

Before he knew it, the after-school bell rung, indicating the official end of his first day in purgatory. Natsu stretched his ligaments and sighed, relief spreading through his body like a ripple in water. After grabbing his bag and heading out of the classroom, he ran out of the school, not looking back once, as if some metaphysical evil was about to snatch his soul away. When he deemed himself a safe distance from the entrance of that wretched place, he sighed heavily, succor transforming his countenance. The hot sun pooled sweat onto his skin, and he felt like taking a cold shower when he got home.

He was about to start on the street back home, Cherrybend Lane, when a sudden clatter stopped him. It came from a dark alley off to his left that he discerned would take him straight home, cutting through the streets. Natsu was about to use it when a sixth sense stopped him. It seemed to radiate fear and apprehension, as if it were some omen of death. "But that's absurd" Natsu thought, there was no way using a stupid alleyway could harm him in any way. But, as he scoped it out, his mind's reasoning started to win him over. It was too dark to see anything past the first 10 or so feet and it strangely smelled of blood. The buildings that it was situated between were high enough that the sun could not pierce the permanent darkness. There seemed to be some sort of aura of pulsation coursing through it, as if the spirits of the dead were roaming about. Suddenly it didn't look so inviting anymore.

Natsu quickly changed his mind and figured that the extra 10 minutes he might save were not worth it. He was usually not scared of such trivial things, but there was something about that area that put him off, and there were not many things in the world that could do that. Be it a bad omen or just a simple chimera, he was not going to take that chance today. Natsu turned away from the alley and went home the normal way, readying himself for another day in hell, sorry, "school".

The next day as well as the rest of the week passed similarly to the first one. Natsu continued to be bullied, often brutally so. Students of both genders who were acquaintances of the jealous boy seemed hell-bent to make his life Pandemonium. Most of the incidents against Natsu were actually instigated by the jealous ridden boy himself whom Natsu had unknowingly angered by "picking up his girlfriend's pencil". Actually, the reason why a lot of kids seemed to hate Natsu was because of him, as the large boy commanded a power of a sort among his schoolmates. Natsu was pushed, taunted, punched; he was even stabbed once, albeit it was with a pencil. His lunch was demanded from him, his homework was ripped, and his clothes were ridiculed. Youth unchecked often becomes a devil. If Natsu learned anything from that experience it was that jealousy was a dooming monster, fully capable of carnage.

The detention everyday did not help Natsu's ever-weakening control on his temper, which was constantly at boiling point during that week. He found himself even snapping at Wendy once when she had innocently asked him about his school day at home but he had quickly apologized, citing homework as the cause of his unruly attitude. Several devious incidents seemed to follow him wherever he went at school, getting progressively worse with each new one, but still he refused to fight back, enraging his assailants even more. They always seemed to push the boundaries when tormenting him, almost reaching the periphery yet backing out at the last moments, so as to avoid punishment from the teachers. Natsu was trying very hard to not lose control of his temper, because he knew that if he did, his secret would be found out by all the wrong people and that he could end up doing something he would sorely regret. His lack of reaction did not go unnoticed by his bullies, who were all actually one condensed group made up of the jealous boy's acolytes. They used Natsu's calmness to insult him even more, labeling it as cowardice. There were actually some kids who pitied Natsu and wanted to help him, but they themselves were afraid that the spotlight would then be turned unto them; so they did nothing.

To say Natsu was relieved come Friday morning was an understatement; he was ecstatic. He braved the storm of school that day, the fact that it was his last day of detention powered him through the insults and the punches. He was able to brush off pretty much everything the students threw at him as he anticipated a relaxing and pacifying first weekend off from school.

He just had to get through one more blasted hour of detention and then he was free. To no great shock, his personal devil, AKA the jealous boy, was also in detention, again. For someone who hated him so much, Natsu thought it a little sad that he did not even know his tormentor's name. He sat down but did not sleep as usual, the thought of the weekend acting like a stimulant flowing through his bloodstream. The wait for the bell was not as tortuous as it was before and he bounded out of his seat as soon as it did ring. Natsu raced out of school and stopped once he was a certain distance, coincidentally it was right in front of the alleyway he had glimpsed his first day. He was finally free!

About to run off again, he heard a rather brutish voice yell-

"OI FUCKFACE!" the jealous boy from detention instigated, "Don't think that you can escape me today that easily, I've got some business with you!"

Natsu turned around unexpectedly to see a hulking figure with blonde hair, slowly stalking towards him. They just wanted to ruin every second of happiness he had didn't they? The day was supposed to be filled with relaxation and placidity for Natsu and if he let the bigger boy have his way with him, that would definitely not happen. Natsu then made a decision that would later haunt him. He took off into the ominous alley, ignorant of his earlier premonitions, not noticing the overcast sky filling with thunder-clouds. His feet slapped the pavement as he ran, twisting and turning along the circuitous corridor, his body enveloped by shadow as he got deeper in. He could see some light ahead and made out what appeared to be a bulb that was lit, hanging from the porch of one of the rooms that occupied the building. A pity that their only view was a damp, disgusting alley. Distracted by the light, Natsu did notice initially the flaw in his plan, the alleyway turned right at a sharp 90 degree angle, which was the way Natsu needed to go to get home. The perilous flaw was that there was currently a parked truck blocking the way, probably loading shipping materials from one of the warehouses in the vicinity. Not only that, but that was the only way forward in the alley, the other directions were blocked off by the walls of the buildings, much to Natsu's chagrin. With dread, he backed up towards the wall, nowhere left to run, if the balconies had been but just a few feet lower, than he would have been able to wall-jump onto them but alas they were not. Trying to think of a way out of the baneful situation, he heard what he did not want to hear-

"HEY PINKY! Where aaaare yooouuuu?" an arrogant voice taunted. The owner of the voice looked just a little afraid to be in the dark confines of the alley, but his face lit up in sadistic glee when he glimpsed Natsu with his back to the wall, nowhere left to run. "Oh there you are, ready for your daily ass-kicking dickhead?" The larger boy started to shove Natsu backwards until he was touching the wall again, Natsu simply let him, hopeful that this would end quickly. It did not however; the boy took out his fists and started socking Natsu left and right, barely hurting him but annoying him greatly. He threw down Natsu's bag and spread its contents purposefully, an evil grin on his face as he did so. While he was preoccupied with this Natsu had turned back towards the wall, trying to gauge if he could escape that way. The bigger boy noticed this and took it as a sign of disrespect, "What do you think you're doing dumbass, there's no way you're getting out of this. No matter how much we beat you at school, you never seem hurt. Well I'm gonna make sure that I break you today." he finished with a malicious gleam in his eyes. As he was talking the clouds in the sky had gathered together and started to let forth a torrent of run, inundating the alley.

Natsu groaned, this was just what he needed now, another idiot trying to push his buttons. He turned to face him, not an inch of fear displayed, and met the boy's gaze with an unwavering one of his own, water dripping down his face. "What's with that look?" the idiot questioned, "Don't tell me you're tryna mad-dog, it won't work." though he could not keep the fear out of his face. Natsu's countenance was very serious at this moment. The boy must have been dropped too many times as an infant though, because he then launched into an angry tirade inveighing Natsu-

"You are such a little prick, you know that? Even before I saw you trying to hit on my girlfriend, I knew you were a load of trouble. I heard all the rumors and gossip about your little episode in first period, the whole school did. If you're wondering by the way, it was me who started putting up those posters, people just seemed to follow me like dogs once I started, they must hate you that much. Honestly it's not hard to see why, you look like a fucking queer with that hair; lemme tell you, it was pretty retarded to dye it pink. And what's up with that stupid scarf? Are you cold?! It's fucking summer dumbshit!"

Throughout his little diatribe, the oblivious boy had not noticed Natsu seething in anger, trying desperately to hold himself back before he literally killed him. This time was different from the other ones, he could not escape, could not get away before his anger burst. It was definitely proving hard; each new comment just served to enrage Natsu more than he already was, his temper was already supercharged due to the events of the past week. Natsu was shaking, with sweat rolling down his skin and making his hair moister, wondering how much longer this heathen would talk. His body subconsciously flickered into the readying stance of the external style, so ingrained was it in his nature. However the idiot opposite him was much too preoccupied with his insulting speech to take notice of the movements initiated by Natsu, still insisting on impugning him-

"I mean, how dare you even talk to my girlfriend, let alone let her touch you. Nobody does that but me you piece of shit. And you are such a fucking loner; I saw you at lunch all week, being a twat and sitting outside, all by yourself," he mocked, making a crying face but Natsu still had not reacted and that prompted the boy to try even harder, "like you'll ever have any friends, not as long as I'm here, and even if I wasn't you still probably wouldn't be able to make any. Why don't you just go home and FUCK your sister before I make you, you incestuous freak." the boy finished, not even sure if Natsu had a sister; he was just trying to insult him in any way possible by now, desperate for a reaction that would satiate his ravenous appetite for inflicting pain. While uttering that last remark he proceeded to run towards Natsu, screaming at the top of his lungs, fists raised, ready to strike again.

It was that last comment that had finally sent Natsu over the edge that he had been slowly building up, towards the point of no return, releasing the innate demon of his soul. One could almost see the haze of bloodlust that spread over his visage, like the grim reaper was standing behind him, goading him forward. His pupils almost dilated into slits, and turned blood-red. All the pain, anger, and humiliation he had suffered compounded within his body, almost exploding because it was at carrying capacity, and it blinded him to his usual mild-mannered self. Time slowed almost to a halt in Natsu's head, his body already being in the stance of the external style, and he got ready to attack. The stupid boy came at him still, footsteps echoing across the alleyway, swinging a wild fist aimed right at Natsu's head. To Natsu it looked like a stick of jelly; he shifted his head back 30 degrees, easily avoiding the punch and then proceeded to lock his arms into the boy's shoulders, effectively stupefying him. He then used the hold to push the boy back a couple of feet, who then staggered and stumbled with a surprised look on his face, not entirely sure what had just happened, it only took half a second. "Look kid, I don't know what just happened, but you better get ready to get the shit beat out of ya, I'll make sure you won't be able to walk tomorrow you frea-"

It was due to that last utterance that Natsu lost any suppression he might have still had on his raging anger, "freak" being a dangerous trigger-word for him, and he made a deal with the devil as lightning flashed overhead. He shifted his body stance into that of the Nan Chuan style and exploded forward off of the balls of his heels and landed lightly in front of the slightly dazed boy, the wind whipping his hair as he went. Natsu used the momentum of his dash and twisted his torso to add extra power to nail the boy's left shoulder blade with his right fist-BOOSH-; a bone fractured. Before the boy could double back from the force of the punch, Natsu had already twisted his body again in the opposite direction this time, bringing his left fist up from its previous place beside his waist, and buried it in the boy's lower abdomen-UGH-. That hit busted his liver and caused blood to fly out of his mouth, but Natsu was too possessed to neither notice nor care. A split second after hitting the boy in his abdomen, Natsu's body was leaning slightly forward after the punch, so he used the leverage to swing around his right leg, violently exploding his foot into the boy's left knee-AARGH-, completing a rapid 3-hit combo. The hit broke his kneecap, and jarred the entire knee, contorting it into an unnatural shape and flinging it backwards from the force. Natsu was no longer human, he was a concentrated mass of pure destruction. The other boy was now standing on one leg for an instant, off balance; an instant in which Natsu was already readying his left fist again, spinning his body so that it came flying up from his side to tempestuously meet the boy's chest, where it broke several ribs, some piercing his lungs, the boy coughed up some more blood. While Natsu had delivered this latest hit, he had also been slightly crouching, so as to launch himself and the boy 5 feet into the air with the force of the punch to the chest. The boy was now horizontally suspended in the air for a split moment, in which Natsu, who was right up there with him, struck his right fist in a downward arc as if were a hammer into the boy's hip, effectively cracking and convoluting his right pelvis. The now pitiable boy was nearly unconscious, not even aware of his surroundings as his body went through hell-fire. He was slammed back down onto the ground from the force of the strike to his hip. The hit was so hard, that once his body hit the ground-BAM-, it actually bounced nearly 4 feet back up into the air splashing rain-water while it went, as if it was part of some video game; this action ruptured his femur and his tibia, as well as part of his spine. Natsu had landed right after the hard ground propelled the boy back into the air. He was in a slightly crouching stance the moment he landed, and he used his legs like a springboard, impelling himself upright again. Natsu then locked both of his arms by his side and brought his right leg upwards, performing a double-jointed kick to the airborne boy's calf, tearing it in the process-RIP-. He then used the momentum from the kick, to spin around 180 degrees while bringing his left leg with him, using the torque to increase the power behind it, the air almost heated up from the speed of his actions. Natsu fully brought his body around and slammed the palm of the bottom of his left foot onto the boy, who was still in the air, and broke his right shin-CRACK-. Natsu, still in a rage, did not let the boy's form touch the ground yet, and used his right hand to scrunch up the collar of his shirt, holding up his body, as if in a one-handed choke hold.

The rampant barrage of blows took just 4 seconds to pass.

Natsu found himself breathing deeply with anger, anger that had been building up within him for the past week, his body still on a high after it lost total control, as he held up the near corpse of the other boy. He was shaking with adrenaline; sweat caused his clothes to stick to him like glue as it ran down his whole body, making it look like he just visited the pool. His breathing was erratic and his legs were shaking, about to buckle from the lack of action, signaling the imminent mollification of his body. Slowly but surely, the cold-blooded and brutal haze that was blinding him to reason lifted from his senses like shadows do from light, and he eventually staggered backward whilst dropping the bloody form of the boy, sitting against the alley wall. What had he just done? He had just taken out his wrath on an innocent schoolboy (not that innocent, but innocent enough) and nearly killed him? He had no right to use his superior ability to hurt someone inferior to him. With a frightful gulp he crawled his way over to the bloody mess, afraid to check his pulse. He instead just decided to observe the results of his machinations for now, and they were ugly.

His assailant's body was laying in an ever-increasing pool of blood, with his left knee contorted in a way that made Natsu want to puke. He looked to have suffered a concussion and parts of his shin were sticking out of his leg, white bone gleaming in the faint light. The boy's left shoulder looked to be permanently dislocated, the cartilage irreparably ruptured; all the bones in his left arm crumpled to the edge of the boy's skin, as if it was a loaf of bread in a bag. There was blood clotting near the boy's stomach, with no piercing hole; a sign of internal bleeding from the busted liver. There was also blood dripping out of his mouth, adding to the already moderate pool. The blood and water from the rain dripped down the boy's body, creating an adulterated mixture. The boy's chest seemed to be pointy and dagger-like, the skin upturned in all directions, probably the result of the chaotic state of his ribs; it looked like a garden of swords. The cartilage in his calve was slipping out, destroyed from the force of Natsu's kick. Lastly, worst of all, the boy's right pelvis and femur were both crooked beyond measure, as if they had become their left counterparts. They looked to be permanently crippled. It gave the boy the appearance of a rag doll, except it was from hell.

The "thing" on the ground no longer resembled the brutish boy that Natsu had become so familiar with that week, instead it looked like an abstruse corpse of the undead: coiled, twisted, and gyrated almost beyond fathoming.

For the first and "only" time in his life, Natsu cried.

No, crying would do no justice to what he did; he bawled and wept with despondent emotion. He was in fear, he was in pain, and he was certainly not about to go through it again. Natsu was crying profusely; he was filled with disgust and hate for himself as well as horror from the incident, his tears wetting his face along with the rain. There was something in the back of his mind that had told him not to venture through the alley, but due to his haste, he had done exactly that.

Still sniffling somewhat after 10 minutes, he finally built up the courage to check the boy's heartbeat. Natsu knelt in the red pool and pressed a shaking palm to his heart... nothing, nothing, nothi-BUM, BUm, Bum, bum. The steady beat of his heart was still coursing through the boy's body, acting as an evanescent antidote, though getting quieter by the second. Natsu's eyebrows rose in shock, and his eyes narrowed with determination. He picked up the mess of a boy, and slung the almost-elastic form onto his back, dragging him along quickly. He tried not to injure the boy anymore than he had already, but that was proving difficult as his body continuously hit something, be it gravel or rough pavement. He wiped the water from his eyes, blinking back tears.

Exiting the alley, he found what he had seen for the first time at the beginning of that week: a quaint little hospital off to the right of the school. Natsu used the back alley of the middle school, so as not to come across any possible stragglers. The hospital building was completely white, and was almost in the exact shape of a cube. It had a red cross on top; the axiom for medical aid around the world, and Natsu desperately needed it now. He quietly pushed open the glass doors, dragging in the limp body. The lobby was small and had two swinging doors, each leading to what were probably the operation rooms. There was an administrative desk at the center, which is where Natsu headed.

The nurse at the desk was talking on the phone and had absentmindedly glanced over at Natsu, her face immediately transforming with horror. She hit the call button on her desk, indicating the need for emergency medical attention. Before 20 seconds were up, 3 other nurses had rushed through the doors of the lobby leading deeper into the hospital, with a wheeled bed in tow. Natsu was in too much of a miasma to hear anything the doctors and nurses were saying, so they eventually left him alone after a minute of pestering, assuming he was suffering from trauma. He looked the part because his body was still lightly bruised from when the boy was punching him.

The disconsolate Natsu patiently waited in the lobby for any confirmation on the bigger boy's status, swinging his legs like any other normal kid. Five hours removed from arrival, one of the nurses came to tell him that they had performed necessary surgery and that the boy's injuries had been nearly fatal. She then inquired again what had been the cause of the boy's wounds, to which Natsu feigned brainlessness and the nurse eventually left him alone. The staff at the hospital were not too suspicious about the whole incident because Natsu was just a boy, one exceedingly smaller than the victim. They instead elected to contact the victim's parents giving Natsu a chance for escape. Once Natsu had the confirmation that the boy would not die, he quietly slipped out of the hospital without anyone noticing, an easy enough task for him. Silently he pulled his scarf tighter around his neck.

Walking outside, he noticed that while it was still raining, it was now night, the length he had waited accounting for that. He was truly unsure on how to feel, he just could not understand what had come over him, and he had almost ended that boy's life in a matter of seconds. So what if he had given Natsu hell for the entire week? Bullies were axiomatic to school, in that they would always be there. Natsu had no right to take out his pent up anger on that boy, had no right to use his near-extraterrestrial skills on someone way in over their head. He slapped himself a couple of times to focus his mind some more, almost reveling in the self-inflicted punishment, as if in retribution.

Natsu saw a shadow on his arms, and with a start he realized he was in the same alley that the horrible event had taken place not so long ago. He had walked aimlessly and was somehow drawn to the area unconsciously; not a good sign. The shadowed abyss of the alley was almost completely blank by this hour, a black hole of death. With a different motive this time, he again set out through the dark corridor, intent on actually reaching home this time. He had to-no, needed to do this, or he would never wipe out the red from his eyes. PIT-PAT PIT-PAT, the sound of his feet slapping the ground heightened his senses in the alley, as they echoed eerily. CRASH-he thought he saw a flash of fur disappear under a metal can. The demons were out tonight, Natsu not being able to walk a matter of steps before almost being physically lashed by an arbitrary noise, impregnating the peaceful aura he was trying to muster.

Finally he could see the light of a lamppost, permeating the evil of the darkness, at the end of the tunnel. He was close, oh so close to home, when he saw something that made his eyes melt with fear. It was a specter, he did not know if it was a figment of his imagination or something entirely different, but it was definitely there. It looked to be a dove, but there was some sort of grimy stain on it. With a twist of his stomach he realized that it was blood. Natsu was desperately moved to touch it, to help it; the poor creature was bleeding after all. He leaned towards it, convinced it was tangible, but at the last second, it seemed to ping with occult electricity. His fingers were a few centimeters from accomplishment; it was now or never. But, he could not bring himself to do it; something about it seemed to promise despair, and he had had enough that day to last decades. Natsu almost had to grab his own hand to stop it from touching, such a paradox. After a quiet but intense internal battle with his own consciousness, he started to pry his own hand away and he wistfully withdrew it, heading out of the alley while grating his hand on the rough wall, choosing light over aberration. The rain and thunder finally stopped.

The boy Natsu had nearly killed never remembered anything past the end of detention, waking up 6 days later with a sever headache and learning that he would be confined to a wheelchair for the foreseeable future. The teachers of Margaret Middle School were mildly surprised when they were informed the next day that a certain Natsu Dragneel would no longer be attending. They were given no reason for the withdrawal, just that it was a grave personal matter. Natsu disappeared from Margaret Town that night, making a pact with himself to never clash with those weaker than him, and, if his hand was ever forced, to use the least restraining force possible.

From then on Natsu lived with constant fear of losing control from that day on, even when his immediate attention was shifted to something nicer; it was always there at the back of his subconscious, biting away at his hippocampus. The psychological effects seemed to impact his sleep too; many nights following the horrific event, he woke up to find himself in the bathroom washing and scrubbing his hands in the sink,…..as if there was blood on them.

"Uuugh" Natsu groggily grunted, rubbing his eyes until he saw spots. He smacked his mouth lazily and looked around, reacquainting himself with his surroundings. "Oh, yeah, it's almost time for lunch." he thought divertingly, "I wonder if I'll see Happy" he was trying hard to push the most recent nightmare out of his mind. As the bell finally rung and he got ready to leave, he cursed his past, and cursed himself; if only he had not gone down that path on that fated and accursed day.

If you think this should be M, please leave a review saying so, otherwise I probably will not change it, thank you!