Warning! This has very light spoilers for the Oracion Seis arc and the Tenrou Island arc.

Chapter 20

Jason POV

We've been driving for at least 30 minutes with no luck… It was almost completely dark now. I could see stars from outside the window. It was so quiet that I could almost fall asleep.

I looked over at Leah. She managed to fall asleep after gagging the entire time. I smiled and felt a little bad for her. I looked outside the window again and let my thoughts consume me.

Even after we managed to hide for so long…. They found us… Well… the people who kidnapped us….

It's been so long that I even forgot their name until now. They've always been them to me, not Endless Nightmare. Even though now that I think of their name, it's very fitting for their goals.

I sighed. Why is all of this coming back to me now? Eighteen years in the future (seven years ago for us), Endless Nightmare showed up as one of the main guilds in the Barram Alliance. The Magic Council, which actually managed to survive for over a decade, ordered that Endless Nightmare be defeated immediately.

The light guilds started to team up again, like with the Oracion Seis. But, the teams were much larger this time. Almost every powerful member of our guild went on this mission to defeat them…but none of them made it back….

This obviously included our parents. My dad wasn't part of Fairy Tail, but his guild was involved voluntarily, so he was there too. When some of the townspeople, who figured out what happened before we did, told us the news that they "died," everyone was devastated.

But everyone who's with me now didn't believe that, we searched for years to find everyone with no luck, until Ritsu snuck onto one of Endless Nightmare's airships. He found our parents' bodies alive and in this strange kind of slumber. Ritsu managed to escape after that to tell us the news. We could hardly believe it when he told us.

We managed to get on the main airship that their guild master was on. We managed to get though everyone but the Commanders and their master. They were all collected into one room. Before we got to do anything, their master explained that he locked all the light guild members into a sleep of endless nightmares using the Dream Key. He muttered something before breaking the key and sending all of us into the time period we're in now.

We assume that there is a piece in this time, so we searched for months without finding anything. We were starting to run out of supplies after a while…so we became bandits to survive… and now we're here.

I looked over at Ritsu, "Hey Ritsu…. Do you think the two people who captured us were two of the Commanders?"

Ritsu had his eyes on the road, but he took a few seconds to answer, "I know they're from Endless Nightmare. I saw Aito's guild mark while he was questioning me… Considering how strong they are…. They probably are Commanders…."

I did a small smile and looked over at Leah, I asked Ritsu softly, "Do you remember Leah's first name?"

Ritsu flinched a little after I said that. I jerked back a little in response, but he replied, his voice full of sadness, "It's Nashi… But, she stopped going by it when our parents were captured… Remember? It brought back so many memories that she told us to stop calling her by it…"

I nodded solemnly, "Did the guy do anything to your stuff?"

Ritsu's voice seemed happier, "No, thankfully."

I smiled in relief. I noticed that Ritsu had put his father's scarf back on. I think he would never take it off if it weren't for disguise purposes.

Once we were in a fairly open area of the forest, Ritsu stopped the car for the night. I carried Leah out of the car as carefully as I could and set her down on a blanket that Ritsu laid out. Ritsu was lying on a nearby log looking at his scarf.

I pulled out my sword and felt sadness start to consume me. My mother gave it to me on my forth birthday… the day before she started training me…

I asked Ritsu, "Do you wear that scarf to remind you of Natsu?"

He nodded, "Yeah… It was the only thing left behind before they took everyone… It's almost like a reminder that we're trying to rescue everyone, not just Dad. You know?" then he looked at me, "Does your sword remind you of Erza?"

I nodded too, "She gave it to me the day before she started training me…. It was a birthday present."

Ritsu gave me a smile; "I think everyone would be proud of us for doing this…"

I smiled and stared at the ground, "Yeah…."

I walked away from where I was standing to take one of the many blankets out of Ritsu's bag and laid down looking at the stars. Ritsu started setting up his "bed" too and laid down.

Once we were settled, Leah woke up from her nap. She sat up and looked at us, drowsiness clear on her face. It took her only a few seconds to see Ritsu's scarf. Right after she saw it she turned away and tucked herself into a ball."

Ritsu looked to the ground, letting his hair cover his eyes. I got up and walked over to her.

"Hey Leah," I put a hand on one her small shoulders, "are you ok?"

She nodded and swatted my hand away. I slowly walked away after that. I don't think she wants to be bothered right now…

Right before I turned around, I noticed that she had a golden Celestial Spirit key in her hands connected to a medium sized ring. Then I was reminded that Leah had something to remember everyone too…

I looked to the ground saying nothing while I walked back to my blanket. I flinched when Ritsu started talking to me again,

He must have noticed something, "In case you're wondering. It's Aquarius' key."

The mood was starting to get to me, "Don't you think I already know that?" I snapped at him.

Ritsu did a small sigh, "I know that," he rested his head on one of his hands, "I just hate it when the mood gets like this… It's too depressing."

I nodded, "I know, but talking about Aquarius' key… I'm surprised that Reo was even able to fix it after Leah managed to find it in a lake…"

"I was surprised too," then Ritsu giggled a little, "You have no idea why she found in a lake though." Leah flinched when she heard her name

My mood brightened, this was intriguing, "Really? Is it that funny?"

Ritsu started to laugh now, "Oh yeah, but I'll let Hono tell you the rest of the story later."

I laughed; Hono can be a good storyteller, "Remember when you first met Mira?"

Ritsu sighed loudly, "Don't remind me, " his voice was full of playful exhaustion, "She wouldn't stop hugging me and ranting about how much I look like Dad…"

I laughed even harder, "It wasn't just Mira that did that either. Almost everyone in the guild was freaking out about how much you look like Natsu, and you really are the external copy of your father. You know that right?"

Ritsu laughed and shook his head, "Yeah I know that. It's really funny how everyone knows exactly who my father is once they look at me."

I leaned back on my blanket; "You take more after your mother on the inside though."

Ritsu scratched his head, "Yeah I guess so. Leah is more of a mixture inside and out, but she takes more after Dad in the personality department."

I did a light laugh, "Yeah, you can say that again," then I gave him a sly smile, "you really did put a lot of effort keeping the fact you were a dragon slayer a secret from everyone though."

Ritsu raised his voice a little, "Well I had to! I couldn't just give away Hono's and his parents' secret like that!"

I laughed again and looked at the sky again, "You know, once we came to this time's Fairy Tail… We started to let ourselves get confortable again. So much that we started to forget why were there in the first place. It was like we were running away from our problems…"

I saw that Ritsu was looking at the sky too, "Yeah… We did let ourselves start to get lazy…"

I got up and walked over to Ritsu's blanket and smiled, "How about we make an agreement not to run away anymore?" I held out my hand.

He got up to, "Yeah. We can't afford to run away anymore."

I looked over at Leah who flinched once she felt my eyes on her; I walked over to her and yanked her onto her feet.

"Come on Leah! There's no way your getting out of this!"

She sighed and put her key ring onto a ring in her pants. She turned to me. Her face looked a tad bit flushed, but it didn't matter. Ritsu walked over and the both of us gave her a big smile,

"It's ok Leah," Ritsu said to her softly, "We'll fix this together!"

I nodded quickly. Then she got up and gave us a small smile. The only smile she's done the entire evening. All three of us put our hands on top of each other's,

"For not running away anymore…." We all said in union.

"Let's save everyone!"