It's the first time Gray has seen Juvia fight. Like, really fight.

It's also the first time in ages that he's felt a flash of fear and awe, like he's seen heaven and hell at once and somehow made it out alive.

Hint: these two things are connected.

The day starts relatively normally, actually. He isn't expecting anything out of the ordinary.

So all of his friends have played Fire Emblem before – like, an insanely weird amount, considering it's not even that popular.

Like Mirajane's played it before, sweet and smiling and the fucking devil of video games. The game-crusher. SatanSoul – people halfway across the world have played games online and tremble in fear of her username.

Even Natsu bows down before her. Even Erza has been defeated by her before.

No cheats, no hacks, no nothing. The She-Devil is in a class of her own.

A really, really scary class.

Anyways, back to the point. Even Mira has played Fire Emblem, and so has Natsu and Loke and everyone else on the planet, practically. Well not really, but a whole fucking lot of people that Gray's associated with, for some stupid reason.

Gray's never even owned a copy of Fire Emblem of any sort, nor has he ever played before, which kind of sucks and makes him look lame even though Fire Emblem seems like it's for nerds and weebs and no one plays besides the lame-ass people Gray talks to and goddammit Gray really needs a copy of Fire Emblem or he will be forever alienated.

So he goes to buy disc from the store – walking because fucking Lyon has taken the car for who-knows-what and Ultear will kill him if he tries to borrow her car, even if she's trying to be nicer to him.

She would stab him through the skull, reverse time, and do it all over again.

The sky is cloudy and the air is heavy, hot, and humid: everything he hates. He gets his copy (Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light), and sees that kid from Sabertooth drooling over the rack of CDs – Rogue, was it?

"Shadow Dragon," he mumbles, stars in his eyes and a green cat-thing in his arms. The cat-frog-animal meows at Gray as he snatches a copy, and it's actually kind of cute even if he doesn't really know what it is.

"And the Blade of Light – Sting needs to see this," murmurs Rogue(?) to himself, and Gray grimaces, backing away quickly as Rogue continues, "This is destiny. I am the Shadow Dragon."

As he walks back home with his purchase, cursing the heat and the clouds and Lyon, he hears a scuffling in a nearby alley.

He takes a moment to think before he treads carefully in. What if he gets mugged? What if he gets killed? What if his super ninja jiu-jitsu powers that Ur taught him aren't enough?

No, no nono he's strong… ish… He can totally beat up whoever's in the alley!

But, well…

he's wrong.

So incredibly wrong.

The people in the alley happen to be some tall teenage guy with purple hair, and… Juvia?

"Juvia doesn't need you anymore," hisses Juvia, her voice more dangerous than Gray's ever heard. Even darker, scarier, than when she talks about her "love rivals". It's on a whole different level of anger, actually. "Juvia will not come crawling back to you, and you will leave. her. alone."

The boy scowls. He looks really ugly, Gray thinks, and his outfit is fucking disgusting. Who is this guy anyways? How does he know Juvia? Gray could totally beat the shit out of him.

"Are you forgetting that I left you?" asks the weird guy, twisting one of the rings on his fingers. "Who would be with you anyways, besides me?"

"Juvia has made many mistakes in her past, and you are one of her worst," Juvia says back to him, raising her voice. "Juvia no longer cares about you! Get away from her, Bora, or Juvia will hurt you right here, right now!"

Bora? No longer cares? No longer? She cared about this guy?!

"Juvia-chan," says the boy, his voice low and angry. "Gloom and rain. You've changed a lot, but that doesn't mean you're different now. You were so sad when I left – now you can have me back. You wouldn't turn that down."

"You don't know Juvia. You've never known Juvia," Juvia whispers now, her voice nearly inaudible.

Gray's just about to head over there and give this "Bora" a piece of his mind when suddenly the guy reaches for Juvia's face.

Swiftly, smoothly, she grabs his arm and twists it backwards in a way that shouldn't even be possible. And lightning fast, too; she moves in a blur of pale skin and blue coat-sleeves.

Bora jerks back. "Let go of me!"

Juvia does just that… and spin-kicks him so hard that he actually flies through the air and hits the wall behind him with a thud.

Gray gapes. She's so fast; he practically missed the movement.

"Get out of here, Bora," she scowls, her normally sunny smile replaced with a dark frown. "Juvia never wants to see you again."

Bora turns on his tail and runs out of there, clutching his twisted arm. He pushes past Gray, who's standing at the front of the alley, his mouth still wide open.

"Juvia… that was awesome!" he says as soon as he regains control of his body. "I mean, uh… I didn't know you could fight. That kick was really good. And your form was, uh, pretty good, too. Really fast. Yeah."

Great. Could he lose any more cool points than this?

Juvia whips around to stare at him in shock. "Gray-sama?!" she gasps, backing away. "You saw that?"

"Yeah, I did, and it was fucking amazing, actually," Gray admits, heading towards her. She shrinks back.

That's when Gray sees the tears on her face. He freezes.

"Juvia… shit, Juvy, I mean… you okay?" he asks, worried.

What do the tears mean? Is she sad? Why's she sad? Was it something he said? Was it because of that guy Bora?

"Juvia is… Juvia is fine!" responds Juvia, a little too quickly. She wipes her tears aside. "Juvia was just caught off guard by… by someone she knew." Her voice drops to a whisper.

"Someone you didn't want to see?"

"Yes…" mumbles Juvia, watching him and biting her lips nervously. "Gray-sama is not disgusted?"

"Disgusted?" Gray scowls. "Why would I be disgusted?"

"That… that Juvia is not who you thought she is? That she can hurt and hurts people?"

Juvia looks scared about this – she actually looks scared that he'll be horrified.

It's so weird and this is such a weird day and wow he was not expecting any of this, really, he has no idea what's going on anymore, so he laughs. He even doubles over from laughter and has to hold his stomach. "Of course not," he manages to say, "You might even be better than I am." (Big fucking lie; two moves in and he can already tell he's a total loser compared to her.)

"Gray-sama thinks so?" asks Juvia, delighted. "Well… well good! Juvia is glad, because Juvia would not have changed her strength for the world! Uh, probably… She probably wouldn't… No, of course not – Juvia is proud of herself! And… and… Gray-sama is sure, right?"

"Positive," laughs Gray. "One-hundred-fucking-percent positive."

Juvia grins.

(He never finds out who Bora is, or was, to her… not until months later, when he asks her about past boyfriends and she laughs nervously: "Gray-sama's actually met him before…")

A/N: Welp, I was out for a long time, huh?

Months...

Yes, well, I regret to say so, but I probably won't be updating as frequently as I did all that time ago. But, hey, it's better than no updates and maybe thinking I died, right? Hahahaha... (Sorry guys.)

ALSO a bunch of reviews came in while I was away, and I can't thank you all enough. But they've piled up, so I won't be responding to them individually anymore. (Looks like I'm just full of disappointments today...)

But! Please know that I read and appreciate every one of your reviews, even if I don't message back anymore! All reviews are appreciated, and it's totally my fault that I'm such a dick. I'll take the blame, and you guys can just have some of those virtual cookies everyone seems to hand out.

(::)