A/N
Well hi there everyone, I just want to say thank you to all of you for reading my story all this time. It will soon be coming to an end and I just really wanted to thank all of you, you really make writing worth it. Well here's chapter 21 and for any of you wondering about the Natsu and Lucy fight I've decided to save that for the very end. Thank you all for reading, and feel free to leave a review
P.S.
Hope all of you are enjoying your summer so far
Gajeel was being held up in the air by the dark magic wrapped around his neck coming out of the small girl who stood a few feet away from him. The iron Dragon Slayer struggled to get free as the magic tightened around his neck choking him as the little girl cried. He didn't really know what was wrong with her especially considering he was the one being choked but he didn't have much time to think as oxygen stopped flowing to his brain. He continued struggling and turned his arm into a metal club aiming it at the girl but he couldn't do it, even though she was the one doing this to him he couldn't hurt her.
He let his arm turn back to normal as there was a crack sound and he fell down to the ground as the girl fell to her knees bawling her eyes out "I don't want to kill... I don't want to hurt people! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!"
"Its gonna take a lot more to kill me brat, and piece of advice. Make sure the victims dead before letting them go" The small girl looked up to see Gajeel standing with his neck covered in iron with cracked pieces falling off
Eirene looked at him happily till her eye suddenly turned black and large black spikes came out of her back along with a very different, evil voice from her mouth "Why won't you just die!?"
The spikes flew towards Gajeel but as they were about to strike his body suddenly became engulfed in shadows and he turned into one moving along the black spike "Because I got someone back home waiting for me!"
He flew along the spike before entering the girls body to which she ended up passing out on the floor. Gajeel wasnt too sure what his plan was but when he flew into her body he ended up falling onto a dirt road in what seemed like a town "What the hell...?"
He stood to his feet looking at the large house in front of him and he sniffed the air trying to find a scent but couldn't even though he could hear people inside the house. Gajeel walked over to a window peering inside to see Eirene sitting in what seemed like her room with a large smile on her face "Oh wow, you look just like me!"
Gajeel looked closer at who she was talking to and found her talking to a reflection of herself, except the reflections eyes were pitch black "Yeah! I'm just like you, you wanna be friends?"
"Yeah!" Exclaimed cheerfully Eirene till the door to her room opened up revealing a tall slender woman with matching black hair to the small girl
"Eirene its time for dinner, come on I made stew"
"Yay! I love stew!" Gajeel watched her run out the room followed by who he assumed to be her mother. He was about to try and break in but to his surprise the room suddenly vanished even though the house was still there
"I miss mommas stew..." Gajeel quickly turned around to see Eirene standing there with her head down and no black magic surrounding her
"Hey kid, what is all this?" Gajeel asked as she looked up at him with the house disappearing behind him
"Memories, my memories, I like to come here because here I was happy..." Gajeel looked down at her surprised and kneeled down to her level
"You're a really weird kid, but I can tell you're not a bad one. So why don't you tell what that black magic is and why you go crazy sometimes?"
He watched Eirene sniffle a bit before looking at him "Its a really bad thing, it came from a really old looking book and pretended to be my friend... And then..."
She couldn't finish her sentence however as she bursted out into tears running into Gajeels arms. He wasn't too sure what to do since he didn't have much experience with kids but he placed his hands on her back rubbing it "Hey... No need to cry. It's not like someone hurt you"
He was hoping for this to help but it just caused her to cry harder grabbing onto his shirt. Gajeel simply held her close as the are around them suddenly turned into a hallway with screams coming from a room nearby. Gajeel stood up to check it out but when he tried the Eirene grabbed his hand with tears running down her eyes "Please don't! Don't go in there! Dont look!"
Gajeel looked at her debating whether or not to open the door till the door suddenly opened and what he saw shocked him. He watched as Eirene walked out of the room completely covered in blood with no emotion in her face, her hands were shaking and she looked completely traumatized "Ma... Ma... Pa... Pa..."
He watched as she continued to walk with the real Eirene holding onto him crying as the other looked into a mirror seeing herself with black eyes and a wide grin on her face "They're gone now, its just you and me. Forver and ever"
Gajeel stared at the small girl covered in blood till the area around them disappeared again leaving him and the small girl holding onto him in a large black empty area. "I don't want to remember... Why did you make me remember..."
Gajeel hugged her tightly as she held onto him crying "Hey its alright, I'm gonna get you out of here and get rid of the bad stuff you hear?"
She looked at him nodding till she was suddenly pulled away from him and pulled into a large black cloud with what looked like a face on it "I'm surprised you're here, no ones ever done this in a fight before. I'll have to punish the child for not telling me where you were"
"So you're the black stuff that made her do that? I'm gonna tear you apart, she's just a kid! And you made her do something like that to her own parents!?" Gajeel growled at it as his hand suddenly transformed into an iron sword
"Are you one to criticize? In here I can see into your memories as well, and the woman you claim to love certainly didn't have a fun time when you two first met" Gajeel growled at the cloud as the area around them suddenly turned into Magnolia. A certain night in Magnolia, where Jet and Droy were unconcious on the ground as he slammed Levy into a wall
Gajeels arm suddenly tuned back to normal watching as the he kicked levy in the stomach causing her to cry out in pain "Truly love at first sight, can you honestly say you deserve her? That you deserve that mark on your shoulder?"
Gajeel watched as he continued to kick her before tossing her along with Jet and Droy into the park towards the tree. He seemed frozen, watching as he cut open Levys shirt before painting the Phantom Lord mark on her stomach "There is no excuse for this, you hurt her and publicly humiliated her. And yet you claim to love her, you know you don't deserve her or anything after what you did"
Gajeel looked up at the tree, at Levy hanging there chained to the tree. He held his head down as black spikes came out of the cloud slowly moving towards him "You're right... I don't deserve her or this guild"
The spikes suddenly moved towards him at quick speed only for him to turn around slashing them away with an iron sword "But that's why I gotta work my ass off making it up to her. Making it up to Jet and Droy and Fairy Tail, they gave me a second chance and I intend to use it ot the fullest!"
He glared at the large cloud as many more spikes suddenly lunged at him "Iron Dragon Roar!"
He blew away all of the spikes before running towards the cloud and reached in before pulling out Eirene who was at the same time being pulled back in to the cloud "Listen to me kid! You can't ever forget what you did, and you're gonna have to live with it! But one thing you can do is work towards making up for it! Making up for what you did!"
As Gajeel said this an image of him at Fairy Tail with everyone else suddenly became their surrounding, before turning into him training with Pantherlily, and finally him and Levy, with her smiling at him "I love you Gajeel"
"Dont let your past hold you down, you have to live with it and move forward!" Gajeel attempted to pull her out of the smoke but it pulled her away causing him to lose his grip on her. He watched as she was getting pulled back into it only for her to reach out grabbing his hand "I want to move forward! I want to move forward!"
He succeded in pulling her away from the smoke while back in the real world her unconscious body began to glow brightly till there was suddenly a boom of light and Gajeel was thrown across the garden still holding onto her. He slowly stood up looking down at her as she continued to grab onto his shirt "Hey kid, you alright?"
He saw her actually smile up at him nodding as she stood up "Yes Mr Gajeel, I don't feel it anymore. I don't feel it inside of me anymore!"
"Hey that's good, guess we got rid of it" He smiled down at her patting her head till a sudden black spike shot through his chest causing him to cough up some blood
Eirene looked up at him terrified till it suddenly pulled back and they both turned back to see the large black cloud of dark magic energy there "You may have pulled her away from me, but I'm still strong enough to kill the two of you!"
A large black scythe suddenly appeared slashing at the garden bur Gajeel reacted in time to move him and Eirene out of the way. "You alright kid?"
He looked down to see her still in his arms but unconscious, he could see her breathing though and set her down before standing up and walking towards the cloud "Things are never easy are they?"
The large cloud suddenly launched numerous spikes at him which all impaled him, but his body was once again covered in iron and shadows. He grabbed onto the spikes growling at the cloud as it couldn't move away due to him being able to grab it in this form "You know... Having to watch me do what I did wasn't good for trying to move on. It just got me really really pissed"
The cloud attempted to pull away only for Gajeel to tighten his grip and take a deep breath "Iron Shadow Dragon Roar!"
A large blast came from his mouth hitting the large cloud of magic energy causing it to slowly disappear from the blast. Once it was all gone Gajeel turned back to his normal form falling to his knee coughing up more blood "Crap... Gotta get outta here..."
He looked back at Irene and carefully picked her up putting her over his shoulder and began to walk, attempting to find a way out of the awfully large garden.
Back with Erza, who launched at least twenty swords at her opponent watched as Sylvia slammed her hammer into the ground creating a large wall blocking all of the swords "So that hammer can change more than just metal?"
The wall slowly sank back into the ground along with the swords as Sylvia stepped forward "Anything it touches it can change, you should remember that. Its what helped make that large horn we decorated for you"
"What?" Erza asked curiously onto to have Sylvia charge at her forcing her to block
"Do you even remember me? Or my father? You said you would come back!" Sylvia yelled managing to push Erza down onto the ground with her hammer
Erza quickly jumped back gaining some distance as she was once again holding a metal cube in her hand before tossing it away "I assure you, I dont know what you're talking about"
"We were all so grateful for what you did, we all decorated it for you. You promised to come back... But you never did"