Disclaimer: Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima

ACT V: Ragnarok – The Fateful Encounter

Approximately X793

~ o ~ O ~ o ~

Chapter 36: Demon with an owie

"Yeehaw!" Natsu cheered in amusement of being back on the battlefield, as he twirled around himself, before using the force behind his movement to sucker punch Gray in his underbelly, making the ice mage loose the air in his lungs as his body was sent flying away.

"Will you just stay down already!" Laxus roared as he approached him with lightning engulfed hands, but just when the mage was about to strike. the demon started cackling loudly before he smoothly made a backflip away from him.

"No, no, no that ain't gonna do it!" Natsu smirked teasingly at the lightning mage.

Zeref was above him and chanting something, but since his hearing was so superior to regular humans, he knew where his brother was without turning around, which made it quite easy for him to dodge the wall of black magic that came raining down.

"Gosh... darn.. it" Gray panted trying to gather his breathe "Stand still!"

"Ohh, you're the commanding type... well go on then give me more orders" the demon flirted while swaying with his hips, before swiftly turning himself to the side where he used one of his hands to slap his own butt "... well then I might give you a piece of this, if you manage to get me down"

"... I'm gonna have serious mental scars after this..." the ice mage whispered in a low inaudible voice.

"So when is that healer girl gonna join you, mm?" he asked hoping to lure her out. After all she might be a tasty little thing. Also there was something morally wrong by killing her because she was still so young. In fact even though he was a cruel demon, he still thought she was way too young to be on the battlefield. Heck if someone asked him, she should be home playing with her dolls or do some other girly stuff.

Which made it so much tastier... perhaps her blood tasted like Lucy's...? The demon thought and in that moment his anger started to rise again. Tsch, that idiotic stupid blonde still seemed to infuriate him, even though he made sure to kill her.

"You know what, I'm done playing with you ass-butts!" his playful attitude vanished and was replaced with an unreasonable anger and madness, that shot through his body like a wildfire.

"And I'm getting tired of your mood swings!" Laxus snarled back before he sucked in his breath and yelled "Lightning Dragon's roar!"

"Rawr, rawr my ass" Natsu growled as he bend his legs and catapulted above the attack, where he used his wings to float momentarily.

"Gray!" Zeref yelled and before he got a chance to act he felt something sharp piercing through his stomach, before he spotted an arrow of ice covered with blood rocketing away from him.

It honestly didn't hurt as much as it should do, but perhaps that was due to the fact that ice was quickly spawning around his wounds in spikes, thereby cooling down the area.

"Gaaah!" Natsu spat in annoyance as blood suddenly spouted out of his mouth, leaving small streaks of it to trail down his chin. Simultaneously with that the ice splintered and fell off, making the blood stream freely from the wound.

The demon was occupied by the sudden turn of events, so he barely registered that black magic suddenly wrapped around his stomach, thereby preventing more blood from leaving his body. At the same time lightning struck his body, making him scream in agony as it seemed to burn down to a cellular level inside of his body. In fact it was an attack that was far stronger than any of the previous ones Laxus had used, which caused a spark of confusion to enter his mind.

If this continued then...

Feeling light headed and weak for the first time since the fight had begun, Natsu sighed in relief when the lightning stopped, but his moment was short lived because immediately it was interrupted as black arrows pierced through his wings, arms and legs with such power it forced him to fall backwards and down on the ground. A second later the end of the arrows split in two, before bending across his muscles making them seem like horrific cuffs that pinned him firmly to the ground. Why horrific handcuffs? Because they were still digging into his wings, the upper part of arms and his thighs, which was bleeding all though not as much as it would do, once Zeref removed them.

"Natsu..." his brother hovered above him with a sad look on his face "... let's stop this madness already"

"Ohhh you want this to stop?" he answered in a dark voice filled with hatred.

"You know I do"

"We all want this to end" Gray said in a somewhat bored tone, his eyes shining with what looked like sympathy as he stared at the demon.

"Yeah..." Laxus agreed with a nod.

"Tell us how we undo this" Zeref sighed heavily "You've already taken so much damage and I don't want to continue this, because it might kill you"

"Ohh... OHH!" Natsu snickered and raised an eyebrow challengingly "Now wouldn't that be fun, huh? You made me to kill you and you don't like it because we switched roles, huh?"

"I will not allow that to happen" the dark mage growled, the counters on his face changing into looking like he was on the brink of going into madness.

"Fuck you!" the demon spat a mixture of saliva and blood in his brother's direction "I ain't telling you shit!"

"Really?" Zeref's eyes glowed and illuminated unrestricted anger.

"I ain't saying nothing to someone who's supposed to be my relative" Natsu said his voice filled with disgust "I'll never acknowledge you... you fucktard!"

Something snapped in Zeref in that moment and perhaps that was what the demon secretly wanted, in order for his brother to finish him off. No matter what, the former Dragon Slayer felt an excruciating pain from the wound in his stomach, as the dark magic around it seemed to dig into his exposed meat digging deep into his cells, destroying them by making them rot ever so slowly.

This was torture... he thought as his heartfelt screams was carried away into the distance. As it did he felt the arrows that was piercing him start to also rot his flesh, making his screams intensify in volume.

Damn it all! He cursed in his inner voice, as tears rolled down his cheeks. Not that he noticed that, the pain was too much for his mind to comprehend what was going on. If he did see his surroundings, the demon would also notice that the mages above him was having an argument, where his former guild mates was trying their best to make Zeref stop what he was doing.

"... op... it...!" a tiny voice was shouting somewhere but he couldn't recognise who it was. All he could hear was the person continued to repeat the same sentence, over and over again as it grew in volume.

"I SAID STOP IT!" the voice boomed in volume, as the pain suddenly started to subside.

"Wha..." feeling confused Natsu felt how his heart was beating loudly, making the blood rush at a fast pace through his brain. It actually made him feel dizzy and slightly nauseous.

"You..." the unknown person said in a shaky voice, before a huge head suddenly popped into his field of vision.

"Ohh..." Natsu blinked in surprise, his anger instantaneously vanishing" "... Happy! Whatcha doin' here old buddy?"

"I..." the cat gulped loudly "... are you okay?"

"Am I...? Tsch!" the former Dragon Slayer chuckled, because it had to be rather evident that he wasn't fine just by looking at the amount of blood and visible wounds he had. It was such an idiotic question the chuckle turned into a hysterical laugh, that sent ripples of pain through his body, but he didn't care. The whole situation was just so weird and stupid, it made his insanity intensify in volume.

"Ahhh..." he eventually exhaled, as his laughter died down "... heheh, Happy... I gotta say you're my knight in furry armor"

"Ohh...?" the cat tilted his head to the side looking confused.

"Yeah..." Natsu's lips curled backwards revealing his teeth and for just a split second he actually looked normal "... in fact I appreciate you so much, I should turn your fur into slippers. After all my feet tend to get cold in the evenings and your... mmm... pretty blue fur might do the trick, yeah?"

"Don't... don't say that..." Happy sniffled as tears gathered in the corner of his eyes.

"Don't listen to him, you know he doesn't mean that" Gray said in a warm and caring voice as he gently placed his hand on the feline's back.

"Ohh please" the demon rolled with his eyes "You know I mean it, seriously look at his soft fur! That reminds me, maybe I should use him as a pillow since my throne ain't that comfortable to sit on... wait do I even have a throne? Huh... now why can't I remember that?" He wondered suddenly deep in thought and ignoring the people around him.

"Snap out of it!" Happy's voice shouted all of a sudden, before the demon felt a tiny paw slapping his cheek.

"Huh?" feeling baffled Natsu turned his head to look at the cat, who was fuming with anger "I guess I kinda got lost in my own thoughts there, mmm... I wonder why it's called that, it wasn't like I was lost I knew clearly what I was thinking about..."

"Please!" the cat yelled, his voice cracking as if he was on the brink of crying "Just go back to who you used to be... please..."

"Ahh... should have known you would say that..." Natsu closed his eyes "Tell ya what since I'm a good boy, I'll tell you the same thing I told Lucy, before I killed her, kay?"

"... what..." Happy froze, clearly not sure if he believed what the demon was saying.

"Let's see now... yes..." the former Dragon Slayer started, ignoring the cat's reaction "Right now my body is consumed by the curse and there ain't no way to return from that. Even my demonic personality is gone, all that's left is... well the curse!"

"Wait..." Zeref interrupted "You're telling us all that's left in your vessel is the curse?"

"Ding, ding, ding! Congratulations bro, you win a makeover! I'll deliver it free and without charging ya anything later. It might hurt though, since I need to use my fists to reconstruct your face"

"But that's impossible..." his brother pondered loudly "Natsu... I created his demonic counterpart and installed it in him, in order for him to survive... no, to revive him from the dead... It should always be there because he's the one who can handle the curse. It should never be able to just vanish, because the curse is so lethal that it needs someone to handle it... you're seriously telling me the demon is gone?"

"Yup, ya know for a smart kid you're awfully stupid"

"What does this mean?" Laxus asked the question that was everyone's mind.

"I kinda suspected this was the case, but to hear it... it's a pity... it really is, because this means that it's over..." Zeref stated in a defeated tone "... if his body is truly consumed by the curse, then there's no other personalities within him. My brother... the demon... it's all gone and I have no idea how to get them back"

"What... no that can't be" Gray shook his head looking frustrated.

"Diddly-do diddly-don't" the demon sang sounding like he enjoyed the situation "You have to kill me but I suspect you won't"

His former comrades facial expressions revealed a mixture of emotions, but the most dominant one was despair and confusion. They actually looked like someone had just told them their favourite pet had died, making them exchange glances as they tried to deny the truth.

Ohh it was priceless and absolutely delightful, the demon thought to himself as he started laughing again. He was E.N.D and that meant even his former self and his demon was a victim of his chaotic curse. Not that he particularly cared, the curse was all he needed and all he wanted, so fuck everything else.

~ o ~ O ~ o ~

In the meantime all the other guilds was busy fighting against the remaining corpses, that was gradually but surely dwindling in numbers. After the news of how to deal with them had been distributed, they used different methods to ensure they were all turned into ashes before they spread it, to ensure that they couldn't resurrect or duplicate themselves.

It was easy to have the solution another one was carrying it out, because they had to work very closely together with the different guilds and coordinate accordingly. However this didn't cause as much trouble as it could have, because all of them was determined and willing to do everything they could with their allies, so slowly the fight was progressing into their favour.

When people saw that there was a realistic prospect of being victorious, it immediately sparked everyone's morale, making them all extra motivated to do their best.

And it worked! Even though there had been casualties, they managed to subside their feelings and fight as best as they could.

The war was slowly reaching the final stages for the remaining guilds, the only thing that seemed to be left was figuring out how to deal with one little demon...

A/N: I know this is a short chapter, but things considered the next one should be rather long. Actually I've typed the majority of it, so it should be published rather soon.

That's dooooope! Ye-ye-ye-yeah! Especially because this arc/act is reaching it's end really soon.

It's snowing outside... I like snow, it's so pretty ^^

That was a random thing to suddenly type... huh... ohh! Important info: The former healing station has been "dissolved", because Poly knows the war is about to end so she demanded the Exceeds to scatter all over the battlefield to ensure there are no one who desperately needs medical treatment (then they can bring them back to Poly – and yes I'm too lazy to figure out how to spell her name, lol XD).

Anyhow, I hope y'all are doing great and you liked the chapter :)

/H

To guest reviewer Amy: Thank you, I'm sorry this took a while to update, but fortunately you don't have to wait that long before I post the next chapter :D