Do you hate me enough yet? No? Then I'll update later…

Haha. Anyway…here's the next AFB. THE LAST. Until, of course, the (maybe long) one chapter epilogue I have planned, because I KNOW you'll hate how I'm ending it here. It is a cliffhanger of sorts. Just to warn you.

Anyway, Chapter Ten has arrived. Enjoy.

…Maybe…

The sound of the doors banging violently against the walls echoed throughout the rounded chamber, deafening in the abrupt silence after the chanting had ended. The cold metal of the dagger pressed against the pale flesh on the inside of Lucy's wrist, but no one was paying attention to that fact right now. Every eye in the room was directed at the doorway, where a figure was silhouetted, features cast in shadow because the majority of the light came from the hallway behind it. From the voice it was obvious that this person was a he, and his ragged breathing could be heard by even Lucy. The figure was hunched over slightly and it looked as if one arm was held up slightly across his body.

"So you're here," said Icarus, and Lucy was suddenly acutely aware of the metal pressing against her skin again. Despite her immediate peril, though, her eyes flicked only once to where her skin was depressed under the blade before returning to her potential savior at the door. "Just wait a few minutes and we'll let darling Lucy take care of you."

"Don't touch her!"

The figure lurched forward as the sharp pain cut through Lucy's concentration and her head whipped around to stare at her blood already rapidly pooling in the marble basin beneath it. She winced, slightly delayed, and felt her arm start tingling in an all too ominous manner.

"Lucy!"

How could she have already forgotten the voice? The person in the doorway?

Her head whipped away from the grotesque sight of her blood rapidly spilling from her body through one single severed vein and focused on the figure thrown into the light. The voice she thought she had somehow recognized belonged to this person. It belonged to whom she had hoped it would but also to whom she dreaded it would.

Natsu.

How could he be alive, and breathing, and standing right over there when she had been so certain that Icarus had killed him? And how could she have ever doubted Natsu when he had never failed her before?

"Hold him," Icarus' voice was cold but unconcerned. There was an unhidden glee in his tone and suddenly, Lucy gasped at the sensation in her wrist. Though she didn't want to, she pulled her eyes away from Natsu's form as he was beset upon from all sides. Her eyes found her own bleeding arm and she jerked, trying in vain to free her arm from the leather holding her in place.

Coiled in the marble basin like a snake was the blood that she had already lost. Latched to her wrist was the serpent's red mouth, suckling like a calf at his mother's utters. The sight made Lucy sick to her stomach and she wanted to empty the contents but found herself unable to do so. She was grotesquely fascinated by the scene before her. She shouldn't be, she knew, but she just couldn't help it. Lucy knew that she was going to die here, but the grotesque fascination with the thing that was going to kill her had frozen her to her spot. A trickle of her own blood slid down the pale flesh of her inner arm, jogging her temporarily from her trance as she tried to free her arm.

She noticed the sounds of a struggle in the background. So Natsu, as usual, was putting up a hell of a fight, then. If she were any position to do so she would have, to, but as it was the only thing she could do was twist and pull her arm, which hurt and caused the blood to flow faster. The crimson serpent just gulped ever faster, growing with each new trickle of blood that went down it's throat.

Lucy heard her name shouted from behind her, but was distracted by the high pitched laughter of Icarus as he taunted the dragonslayer.

"You're too late, fool! It's already begun!"

And so it had.

Lucy's shriek echoed over Natsu's cries as her body began to shake.

Almost as if they were one single entity, the entirety of Fairy Tail charged toward the huge hill on the edge of town where Master Makarov thought his missing children were likely to be. The air about them all was one of urgency, for if there had ever been a more desperate moment in Fairy Tail, even the Tenrou Island incident, none of them could remember. There was a roaring in everyone's ears, drowning out all sounds except for their own breathing or the words that they shouted.

It was a matter of life and death in which they could not fail.

Natsu couldn't see what was happening with Lucy, but the way her shoulders tensed up and that bloodcurdling shriek left her lips had him on edge. In his struggle, the wound from Icky Walrus' dagger, which he'd burned closed, had reopened and blood dripped down his chest, but he didn't care. For one, it made the creepy little henchmen and women trying to grab him slip, and for another, how could he even think about something like that when Lucy was screaming like that? The bloodcurdling shriek that rent the air was so much worse than he had ever imagined it could be.

Lucy, however, was going through hell. The screams that ripped from her throat hurt, but she couldn't bite them back.

Anyone would scream if their blood had solidified into a three foot long snakelike creature that was an inch in a half in diameter and currently in the process of worming its way back into their bloodstream, wouldn't they?

Exactly.

Her own blood was solid now, forcing its bulk back into the cut that Icarus had made on Lucy's wrist, pulling the gash open wider and making even more of the blonde's blood slide into the basin. The pain was more than she'd ever had to endure, and Lucy wondered if it would ever end–rather, she wished that it would, and soon, because she didn't think she could take this much longer. The pain–what had she done to deserve such pain? Was it because she'd never had a good relationship with her father? Was she being punished for that now when there was nothing she could do to change it even though she wished there was?

But then she remembered what would happen if she gave in and Lucy fought. She didn't have any idea what she needed to do to try to fend off Nezra (isn't that what Icarus had called her? Lucy wondered), but she was going to try anyway. Whatever it took. It wasn't only her life on the line, was it? Not anymore. If they weren't so certain that she was the one that would be a perfect match for Nezra it wouldn't be as bad. There'd still be the possibility that she would die in the process and then her body wouldn't be used to kill other innocent people. That wasn't the case, though, because Icarus was beyond certain that Lucy was the one they needed and with the evidence he provided, she wasn't too sure that she wasn't the one.

"Yes! Yes!" came the gleeful voice of the person who had just crossed the blonde's mind. Icarus. The sound of his joy made her more uneasy than she already was, because his tone made it seem that there was no doubt, that she was the right girl. And that thought scared her almost as much as the idea that she wasn't the right one.

"Lucy!"

And how could she have forgotten him?

"N…Natsu!" she managed to cry out, refraining from screaming for just long enough to get her dragonslayer's name to pass her lips. Her resolve could hold no longer than that, and as the blood snake thrashed inside her arm, causing her skin to ripple, she screamed.

Furious, Natsu let out an animalistic growl and flames burst into life around him, scattering and searing the little henchmen who had been so desperately holding him back. He took three large steps before more henchman were on him, bearing him to the ground.

And still, the screams shattered the still air.

Wendy gasped as they ran up the hill, stumbling to a halt and clutching her ears, eyes wide and frightened. Charle immediately stopped and asked, "Wendy, what's wrong?"

The white Exceed nearly attacked Gajeel when he picked up the smaller dragonslayer and slung her over his shoulder, continuing to run. His face was grim, one eye squinted as if he could hear whatever it was that the small girl could.

"What is it?" Mirajane asked, frowning, as she slowed her headlong charge. Gray and Erza were up front and leading with Elfman, Lisanna, Master Makarov, and the Raijinshuu and Laxus on their tails, so she knew that they would be fine for a moment if they were ambushed. "Is something wrong, Gajeel?"

Charle was angry that she was being ignored and flew up by them, putting her two bits in by saying, "Yes, something is wrong! He's manhandling Wendy!"

"If you could hear the way Bunny Girl is screaming, you'd be covering your ears, too," the big dragonslayer growled.

"Screaming?" Mira's eyes widened and she stumbled a little, but quickly regained her balance. "What do you mean, 'screaming'?"

"H-hurry!" Wendy's lip trembled as she uncovered her ears and winced. "Lucy-san is hurting!"

Most of the guild had been paying attention to this exchange on-the-run and did not need any further urging. Mira's body changed into that of a large white tiger as she ran, quickly catching up to Erza and nudging her.

The two women seemed to have a silent understanding because, even as she was running, Erza requipped into a light Amazonian armor and vaulted onto Mira's back. Seeing this, Lisanna changed into a cheetah, catching up quickly as Happy picked up Gray. Charle took Wendy from Gajeel's shoulder and like that, everyone was finding their own ways to move more quickly than before. It was more than their friends who depended on them now. It was their family.

Porlyusica closed her eyes, standing at the edge of Magnolia. If she was right, Fairy Tail would be calling upon her soon. Even if she didn't like being so close to so many humans, she owed Makarov for helping her find her place here, in Earthland and, if she was honest with herself, that crazy old man was the closest she'd ever had to a friend. She'd do favors for him not only because she owed it to him but also because she owed it to herself. Porlyusica knew she'd cut herself off from her own kind for far too long but she couldn't help it. The corruption she saw among her own race was disgusting and the only place she didn't see it was among Makarov's 'children'.

She sighed, opening her eyes and looking once more in the direction that the wizards of Fairy Tail had just disappeared in. For their sake, she hoped that nothing had happened to the loud, obnoxious dragonslayer and the whiny blonde celestial mage, but if it had she hoped it was something she could help them fix.

Fairy Tail couldn't afford to be broken again.

Pain wracked Lucy's body. The pain was almost unbearable and even though her throat hurt from screaming she just couldn't stop. And as pain so intense sometimes does, it gave her the strength wrench her arm away from the basin, snapping the leather straps holding her without any effort whatsoever. She scrambled to her feet, staggering, her eyes watering from the pain as she clutched her arm. The skin there was almost bubbling as the demon burrowed around, making her presence in Lucy's body known (as if the blonde didn't already know she was there).

"Lucy!" Natsu cried again, and she staggered in a half circle to see him through her tear-blurred vision. He was struggling valiantly, blood freely running down his chest from the dagger wound inflicted there. She could only imagine how sticky the back of his vest would be from the blood that would be pouring from there, too.

The blonde celestial mage opened her mouth, her screaming halted for just a brief time, to try to tell him to run, but her tongue seemed to roll back on itself.

Not ssso fassst, a voice hissed in her mind, and Lucy felt the bottom of her stomach drop out. She squeezed her arm tighter and the serpentine voice in her mind just laughed at her vain attempt to quash the demon.

"It's about time," Lucy's mouth opened, her voice coming out with an underlying hiss.

This can't be happening! Lucy thought frantically, trying and failing to regain the use of her mouth to tell Natsu that he needed to run, now. Slowly, she removed her hand from her still bleeding arm. The worst part about this action was that she wasn't doing it according to her own wishes; the demon now had control of her body and she felt that soon it might just have her mind.

Icarus turned to the blonde, eyes widening, then he smirked, took a low bow, and then rose and turned to shout to the salmon-haired dragonslayer, "You're too late, Dragneel! Your precious Lucy will soon be wholly devoured by Lady Nezra, and once the Lady Nezra has full control of her body, everything that Lucy has ever held dear will be the first things that cease to exist!" he cackled maniacally, and Lucy would have shivered had her body still reacted to her own impulses. "And I think that you'll be the first to go!"

"Stop blathering, you fool," Lucy's voice was imperious, even more so than when she was living at Heartfilia manor years before. "Though I must admit that you are right…this delectable little morsel shall be the first thing I devour…"

Lucy felt herself licking her lips as the demon focused her eyes on the struggling Natsu. No matter how hard she fought internally to reject the demon, she kept failing. Nezra had found her first compatible human host in who knew how long and she was loathe to let Lucy escape her grasp. The blonde shoved against the menacing presence of the demon in her mind with all the might she could muster and a hiss echoed around inside her head.

Ssstop fighting me, foolish human! the snakelike, hissing voice fought back, striking like a dagger into whatever remained of Lucy.

The celestial mage, however, retorted with a firm, Never! and struck out with her mind again.

"Ssstop fighting me!" The hissing voice bellowed, but it was in Lucy's tones and out loud. The sound echoed in the room and Lucy realized that, against the odds, she was getting somewhere in this fight. She wasn't about to give up ground now if there was anything she could do about it.

Natsu, for his part, had wanted to bellow his rage after hearing the cold sound in his best friend's–no, his girlfriend's–normally cheerful and sweet voice.

Nezra's Lucy voice let out a shriek of agony, and the voice that took over for just a few seconds managed to speak–the tones that Lucy remembered, now with an edge of urgency.

"Natsu! Please…please kill me before I can–ngh!–hurt anyone!"

It was disconcerting for him to see the girl that he had undeniably fallen for twitch, reaching her arms up to clutch her head and watching as her body was racked with spasms at random intervals. She was doing her best to fight, so he had to do something to help! His vision was blurred by the tears that had come at her request and his anger rose as the bastard who had caused all of this laughed at their dilemma and at the pain it was obviously causing both of the two involved. But as long as Lucy was fighting back against that demon, Natsu realized, didn't there have to be a way to get rid of it? There had to be hope, if she could hold out against something so old and something that smelled and felt so powerful for so long already.

With a roar of fury, Natsu blasted the henchmen away from him, took a giant leap forward to Icky Walrus–or whatever his name was, the dragonslayer couldn't care less at the moment–and reared his fist back to punch him right across the face, knocking him farther than even Natsu had thought he could in his condition.

"Sssubmit to me!" the demon's sick version of Lucy's voice broke through Natsu's rage, and he turned his full attention on the girl he loved.

In a firm response to Nezra's furious demand, the determined voice of the Lucy he loved cried out, "Never!" and then, to his dismay, added, "Natsu, please! Hurry!"

"I'm coming, Luce," he said, loud enough for her to hear but really more to himself than anything. He reached the girl as she staggered forward and, as he had planned to do, he wrapped his arms tightly around her. Flames started licking around his entire body, around both he and Lucy, and for once they actually could burn him, too.

He'd never realized how much being burned could actually hurt. He thought that some people who burned were just exaggerating, the way they went on about it, but it felt as painful as they always described it. Natsu wouldn't show his pain, though. The discomfort was nothing–nothing–if it meant that he could save Lucy. He hoped he could save her.

The demon Lucy voice shrieked, but Lucy's true voice broke through even as the demon tuned Lucy's perfectly manicured nails into violent three-inch claws and began to dig them into Natsu's already punctured torso.

"Natsu! Stop it, she'll kill you!"

He wanted to laugh at the fact that Lucy was more worried about him than she was for her own well-being. She was in more danger than he was, and she still had the nerve to try to convince him to save himself? Didn't she realize that he was nothing if she wasn't in his life?

"If you're going to end up dying here, Luce," Natsu grinned at her, even if he should have grimaced as her claws were submerged in his chest a full inch now and were aiming for his heart, "if you have to die here, then I'm coming with you!"

Lucy was in a full-out struggle for control of her own body as she was tormented mentally by the assaults of Nezra and the hissing shrieks that permeated her entire consciousness and she was struggling for control physically as her claws dug into Natsu's flesh and the sensation of being burned engulfed her from all sides. She wanted to ask Natsu what he was thinking, because he was a fire dragonslayer and fire didn't affect him, but when she looked at his grin she saw that it was strained, and it wasn't just from the new puncture wounds in his chest.

He was actually burning himself alive, too.

And Natsu, despite the talons digging ever-deeper into his chest, pulled his blonde celestial mage closer as her body shuddered in his arms.

Every word she was able to say to him was a struggle, but she managed to protest his actions again with, "No, Natsu-! Unh!"

Her normally gentle fingers stiffened and her nails slid even deeper into the dragonslayer's skin. He knew that, for the moment, the demon was in control of the blonde's body and he increased the potency of his fire. He didn't like to do it, because he was burning the woman he was in love with, the only person that he thought he could, as Igneel had put it, 'mate' with…but if he was going to be forced to live without her then he'd rather just die with her, and either way there could be some chance that she'd be saved this way, right?

Natsu hoped so.

"I'm so sorry about this, Luce," he whispered in her ear. "I bet I'm hurting you. I'm so sorry, Luce! As a friend, as a guy who loves you this much, I shouldn't ever have hurt you…but it can't be helped, not now. Don't worry, though. I won't let go, even at the end. I promise, Lucy."

Tears came from her eyes, pouring unhindered down her cheeks. Lucy could hear him loud and clear and it only made her fight against Nezra more. It didn't matter to her that she was pretty much burning alive because of him, because he was there with her. She didn't want him to die with her, but it was a bit comforting to know that she wouldn't be alone at the end. It was one of her secret fears–to be alone like Papa was when he had passed on.

There was nearly an uproar when the forerunners of the Fairy Tail Army (as several of them were thinking by then) disappeared when they neared the shack atop the hill, but the leader of the second group just let a roar and continued to charge. It was Romeo, and his father was right on his heels.

The front door was already blasted open when the second group got within the barrier and a fight was already raging within the little fortress.

"Damn you!" a hissing voice screamed, but it did not use Lucy's tone this time. A shriek in that same hiss led Natsu to watch closely then as a serpent like figure left Lucy's body, seeming to evaporate out through her skin. It dissipated in his fire, burning to nothingness as the talons in his chest withdrew. His attention immediately turned to that, noticing that they were returning to the perfectly manicured nails he remembered, although they were covered in his blood. And then he felt Lucy go limp in his arms and without a second's hesitation he let the fire die out, dropping to his knees with the celestial mage in his arms.

"Lucy! Luce!"

"I…I'm all right, Natsu…" her voice was weak, weaker than he had ever wanted to hear it, but so undeniably hers. Just to hear her sweet voice, even weakened as it was, came as a relief to the dragonslayer. Because even if they seemed on the verge of death, they were mages of Fairy Tail, for God's sake, and if she could survive being possessed by a demon and half burned alive, then she could survive just a little bit longer, right?

"Lucy…?"

He couldn't help saying her name again.

"You…you got rid of her, didn't you?" Lucy asked, and slowly she brought her now heavily bleeding wrist up to her chest, between their bodies in the one place they weren't touching. The back of her hand ghosted lightly across the dagger wound in his chest, which was also bleeding copiously again. He couldn't really care less about the fact that his blood was already causing a miniature puddle beneath them as he pulled her closer. She didn't care about the blood all over the white dress she was in–she didn't even know when she ended up in a white dress–and she didn't care that it was in her hair now, too. Just being close to him was all that mattered to her right now.

"I…I think so," he agreed, and he was dismayed to find that his breath was coming in ragged bursts. Spots danced before his eyes, and he realized that this might actually be the end, despite what he had been thinking earlier. Lucy's breathing was shallow, too, and that scared him worse than his ragged breathing because he wanted her to live, damn it!

"Thank you…" she breathed, leaning her head closer against his chest, then coughing a painful-sounding cough.

"It was nothing, Luce," he replied, struggling for breath now as he rested his chin atop her head. Her uninjured arm, the hand bloody from clutching her bleeding wrist, wrapped around his back to hug him closer and his arms tightened around her.

She could see the lights bursting behind her eyelids, too, and thought it might be her time. She was worried about Natsu's ragged breathing, but she was in no position to help him because she couldn't even help herself, so she had resorted to holding him as closely as she could. It seemed that he reciprocated the need to hold her closer.

Natsu had wanted to tell her he loved her one more time, but the darkness was encroaching upon his vision, eating away at it. And besides, Lucy was quickly fading out of consciousness, too, so she probably wouldn't have heard it either. But she wanted to tell him the same thing and couldn't get her mouth to work. And so Lucy resorted to gripping the back of his vest tighter, and he tucked his head in closer to hers wearily.

Blood spread from the two prone forms as the doors were blasted open.

Various Fairy Tail members rushed into the room, the first being Erza and Mira, who went straight to Natsu and Lucy. Erza felt like her heart had stopped in her chest when she saw the two of them there. As their guild mates filed into the room, subduing any still conscious enemies, Wendy and Romeo and Mira and her siblings and Team Natsu and the Master all went immediately to their two still nakama.

"No!" Mira choked out as she morphed back into her normal self, eying the chest wounds of Natsu and the pool of blood surrounding the almost lovers. "No!" she repeated, dropping down by them, not even caring about the blood.

"There might still be time," said Master Makarov, though he seemed grave even to the most oblivious of the guild members. "Let's get them back to town and maybe I can find Porlyusica…convince her to help."

No one seemed to believe that it could do anything that Wendy couldn't, but they felt obligated to try.

The two were laid out side by side on the floor of the chamber they'd been found in, and both looked deathly pale as their nakama tried to figure out how to carry them. They all feared it would be to late, and a deep part inside of each of them grudgingly acknowledged the idea that it probably was. And it just wasn't fair, because their lives together had only just begun.

THE END.

...

No. Not kidding.

...

You hate me now, yes? Good.

But haven't I mentioned…? I'm making at least a one-chapter epilogue sometime? Well now you know. But this is the official 'end' of A Fairy's Blood and I thank you kindly for reading (and I thought that entire sentence in a hick accent, too…haha).

Please be patient for the epilogue, because I don't know when it will be out. Thank you for reading (again)!