In which new guilds are actually old guilds, and Inazu has a weird obsession with birds.

Inazu's POV

These people were from Lion's Maw? Asui and I had destroyed that guild! We'd wrecked havoc on them, burning down their guild and terrorizing their members after they had murdered everyone in Latin Rute, a previous guild association of ours. That was the first time Asui had entered Dragon Force without Icilia's supervision as he later told me; people had died.

Man, I hadn't thought about Latin Rute in years. Asui and I had had a friend there, Ryuuji McCaw. We went to the guild almost every day to check up on them and hang out. Asui thought we should join the guild when we came the next day to find the main hall splattered with blood with no survivors, save three men with Lion's Maw guild marks on their shoulders. They were raiding the pantry when Asui and I had walked in, arguing over whether or not to ask for...something. We had immediately started questioning them but they didn't answer, so we decided to teach them a lesson by beating them up. Since this had been about two years ago and we hadn't heard anything about them since, we thought they were gone. It was kind of hard to believe that these seemingly nice people were from that treacherous guild.

"Did you survive?" I asked. S cocked his head to the side and shook his head.

"Survive? Well, we survived something, but it wasn't what you're talking about." He said smugly. I crossed my arms, a desire to punch this guy in the face washing over me. I suddenly realized that Kira was whispering nonsense.

"Raspberry." She muttered, tapping her chin and then nodding in approval at the new nickname. I smirked. "Cause his name is Raz." She continued. Asui suddenly burst out laughing.

"Razberry! That's beautiful, Kira!" He exclaimed, keeling over from laughter. Nemio glanced over at S with a grin.

"No. Absolutely not." S growled before the blonde mage could say anything else about the name. Then I realized Diana was the only one keeping a straight face. She was probably ready to leave or at least get back to some kind of seriousness.

"Why are you trying to lure everyone out of Fairy Tail?" She asked. The mysterious raven haired mage chuckled.

"You really think we would give away our plans?" He countered. Diana shrugged, then shook her head. Suddenly, Kira let out a high-pitched, blood curling screech. Her hands were over her ears and when Diana tried to comfort her, she batted her hand away.

"Weak." She muttered. "Too weak to use Caster magic." She screamed again and collapsed into Diana's lap. Diana looked up at the Lion's Maw wizards with horror and anger in her violet eyes.

"What did you do to her?" She growled, searching all of their faces. Kira was shifting around and muttering crazy nonsense. What was wrong with her? This was kind of like what happened to Asui earlier. Was someone messing with our minds? The girl, Sira, got up and nodded towards the entrance flap.

"We should go back to our tents," She said. "It's getting dark." After gently placing Kira's head on the ground, Diana stood up and stretched.

"Okay," She slung Kira over her shoulder in what looked like an uncomfortable position for her, like a sack of potatoes. "Show us where we're staying." Sira shook her head and Diana cocked an eyebrow.

"You guys are all staying here." She said simply. Asui laughed but stopped when everyone started staring at him.

"Wait...you weren't kidding?" S rolled his eyes and got up with Nemio. After they left, Asui tied up the tent flap, laid down, and fell asleep. Diana requiped into some pajamas and fell asleep after laying Kira back down in the middle of the tent. I laid at the edge of the tent near the door and listened to Kira's muttering.

"Everyone else...they have tragic past...amazing abilities...I have...nothing..." I noticed that most of the sentences were broken up. Really weird, I thought.

"Strong...So strong...Everyone..." She continued.

"What are you watching her for, stalker?" Asui's voice broke my thoughts. I looked up into his glassed blue eyes, startled. He laughed. "Wait till I tell Dia-chan you watching her best friend like a perverted creeper."

"Asui." I growled. He laughed some more but stopped and looked over at the brunette.

"What's she muttering about, anyways?" He asked, a note of sincere curiosity in his voice.

"How everyone's strong and special and has a tragic past." I responded quietly. Thinking about it, I could see where she was coming from. She did use Holder Magic, which could make a person feel weak, I guessed, but that meant she could still use magic when everyone else's was drained. I didn't know if everyone's past was terrible but the way she said it made it sound like everyone. I started making a list of people we didn't know much about or who I knew didn't have a sad backstory or it wasn't as depressing as the rest.

Romeo...

He didn't know his mother and got teased because his father was a Fairy Tail wizard. That was pretty much the saddest thing is his life.

Macao...

His wife left him and now he was taken as a pathetic fool.

Wakaba...Freed...Evergreen...Bickslow...even my father...none of their stories were really sad and most of them didn't even have a story.

"What are you thinking about?" Asui poked my side and I slapped his hand.

"Stop it." I replied. Asui frowned but suddenly brightened with an idea.

"We should come up with an escape plan. Like a ninja!" He added. I squeezed his mouth shut.

"Hush. They might hear us." I said, nodding my head in the direction of the flap. He nodded and I let go. Working and cracking his jaw, he smiled, revealing his sharp canines.

"Before we start," Asui said. "Who's your family?" This was something I had never told anyone and the question brought back memories.

"I'll tell you tomorrow." I said, but Asui was snoring on the ground next to me. I laid down next to him and closed my eyes, memories flooding in.

My mother was holding me while sitting next to some random old lady. They were talking about something, but I wasn't really paying attention. There were colorful birds I had never seen before at the bird feeder. I wished I could fly like a bird. That would be so cool. The thing with electricity that I had was pretty cool, too, though.

"Inazu, this is Nanny," my mother said, looking down at me with deep blue eyes filled with joy and...sadness? I looked at the old woman, smiling and waving at her. My mother got up from the chair, setting me back down on it. What was going on? She put on her coat, and started heading for the door. Where was she going? Nanny picked me up and walked towards my mother at the door. Oh, good. This woman knew that Mom was forgetting me, so she was making sure I got back to her. But when I looked at Mom, she had tears in her eyes. Why was she sad? Was she upset that she almost forgot me? I guess that would be kind of sad. She reached out, putting her hand against my cheek.

"Inazu, remember. No matter how far apart we get, mentally or physically, I still love you," she said. She kissed the top of my head, turning back towards the door. I started crying, wailing, hoping she would notice she was forgetting me again. But Nanny did nothing to return me to Mom. Instead, she took me back over to the window and sat back down in her seat. She bounced me on her knee, poisitioning me so I could look out the window.

"Look at the birds, Ina. Soon, you shall be that free,." At the time, I had no idea what she was talking about. I just knew that the birds were cool, and the cookie she had given me tasted good.

Asui shook me awake. I opened my eyes and felt a breeze and saw that Diana was awake too. The tent flap was open and the sun was just rising. I got up and hastily put my shirt back on, noticing that it already smelled awful. We went outside into the dewy grass and stood around.

"Guards." Diana said, pointing towards a dark figure coming into view with the light. Asui nodded.

"There's one over here, too." He said.

"It's so you wouldn't try to escape." A mysterious voice said, it's embodiment following until S was in full view. "I'm here to lead you to the "Big Boss", as they call him." He said, putting air quotes around "Big Boss" which was, in at least mine and apparently S's opinion, a very stupid nickname.

"So wake your other friend and I'll lead you to our Master." Asui went back into the tent, woke Kira and came back out. I noticed she seemed fine and didn't seem to remember anything of yesterday's event. S lead us to a tent towards the front and center of the camp. At the flap of the big tent, S walked in before us. He came back in about three seconds and led us in. After my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I noticed that there was a big man sitting crossed-legged in the middle of the room on a big mat. He was scribbling something on some sort of paper, scowling to himself as his quill scratched across the surface. S cleared his throat uncomfortably. The man looked up and I narrowly missed Diana in jumping fourteen feet in the air.

The man was, in fact, a very large man with bright pink hair and shining silver eyes, but that wasn't what intimidated me. What drove me up the wall was his face. From the bottom of his left eye to right below his nose, the man's face was nothing but muscles and blood, veins and arteries. I could see everything there except skin.

"Welcome." The man said, lifting his head to look at us. "I am the Master of Lion's Maw, Hectore DeSilva. I hear you have a, ah, problem with how I run things, no?" He smiled eerily. "Come, let us chat."