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A Holy War
~Why Do I Love Him?~
Hello all! The AP tests and MOSL assessments are finally over for my school, so I am back with some new chapters and writing resolution! Sorry for the long wait, everyone! I apologize for hanging all of you this long. T_T Hopefully this will make up for it. I think that since you've made it this far into the story, I really don't need to say this. But I will just in case: this is another heavy chapter, as most of this story is...so please hold on to your tissues. ^-^; Now, thanks to all of you understanding and patient readers who generously put up with all these irregular delays and continued to support me. I love all of you, really! :'] Thanks a lot! Also thanks to all the wonderful people who took the time to review, fave, and follow the story, I will do my best to not disappoint, as always. Though I fear that this chapter will contain less direct Jerza moments than the last one. Still, I hope you enjoy!
Thanks to Emily NLD, Maya Alisha Horiraito, cakeloverDk, Rippofubdertim, KayGe08, Sovereign64, NightLocker, Guest, anshika, azurexchan, NeoNavy, nonni88, Louise24Zoldyck, chocolatebackground, The Silver Tongued Alpha, Sarabi, Cornelia Hale8, krazyme98, Tsukiko Mizuno, BlackCatNeko999, crimson sana, jazzi1234, Aria De Moarte, aronku, taran taran, Riko Sakurauchi, ItzelMtzing, and Guest for faving, following, and reviewing!
Song Suggestion:
Set Me Free by Chloe Lowery and Yanni (I really think this song suits the mood of the story. Also, listen to Yanni's other songs! Like TSFH, he has some really good music going on! As for Chloe, I only found out about her recently, so I'm still discovering more myself. ^^;)
Gravity of Love by Enigma (I think the ethereal sensation from the music is relevant to the mood, especially given the angst that will come soon...)
Grenade by Ariana Grande (I have no idea how I forgot to put this song in during the initial update. The lyric is more than fitting, especially since there's a kiss scene involved, lol)
We Remain by Christina Aguilera (Thanks to chocolatebackground for the suggestion. Personally, I think the lyric is powerful and really relevant. Thank you!)
Alright, please read on and enjoy!
Jellal...
A few hundred miles away from the Royal City of the Moon, a certain young male suddenly froze midair as an inexplicable tendril of piercing dread and pain jabbed into his body. Scorching pain suddenly exploded at his heart as though an invisible knife had pierced through his chest, and his right leather-gloved hand instinctively flashed to his chest, a shocked gasp escaping from his throat.
Maybe in the next life...
A strange, hollow dread surged into his heart, and suddenly Jellal could barely breathe as a terrifyingly familiar voice mumbled despairingly at his ears.
Our story will have a better ending...
Vivid shock danced within his widening brown eyes as his lips quivered with a half-suppressed hiss. For the first time in what seemed to be an eternity, the powerful dark wizard felt raw fear as he contemplated almost desperately on what he had just heard.
This voice...
The ominous words had faded, but he could recognize that soft voice from anywhere and everywhere. Immediately, he turned around to the setting sun as the sudden perforating trepidation drummed at his heart. There is no mistaking it... E-Erza?
But there was nothing but the roaring winds behind him.
"Jellal-sama, are you alright?"
Stunned, he slowly turned around to meet Ultear's quizzical black orbs. "Is something the matter?"
It wasn't just his once rebellious deputy, though, his entire party–including his other two Executives, and the demonic escort Eclipse–had stopped completely in their avian journey to Thornwood Forest and was now observing him with wide, curious eyes.
"What's wrong?" A puzzled whisper escaped Meredy's rosy lips as her brilliant green eyes blinked in confusion upon meeting his stunned golden browns. "Why did you stop, Master?"
"It's... It's...nothing." Slightly dazed, he turned away from her rich, questioning emeralds with a low whisper. But the piercing trepidation remained within his drumming heart, and the dark wizard couldn't help but allow his trembling hand to crease the soft, white fabric at his chest. "I... I'm sorry. I... I thought I heard something. But it was either the wind, or just my imagination."
Was it?
An eccentric desperation suddenly flared within his throbbing heart, and for a moment, even the mendacious dark wizard wanted to believe it.
But he knew better. He had felt the blistering agony of an invisible knife searing through his heart, and heard her devastated, broken whisper fading from his ears.
T-that thing... If ever possible, the gloved hand at his chest tightened, It, it was definitely not my imagination. But...what exactly happened just now?
It was also apparent that no one else bought his words for even a second. Gajeel's smokey black orbs had narrowed with obvious annoyance at his blatant lie, and Meredy had cocked her head to one side with a small skeptical frown. As for Ultear, his young henchwoman just seemed genuinely worried for once at his suspicious behavior.
But his subordinates were at least wise enough to keep their doubts unheard. At the moment, however, he could care less about their feelings. After all, what the Hell was that just now?
Did something happen to her?
"May we continue on our way then, Master Jellal?" His trance was immediately shattered as the corner of his pensive eyes caught Ultear releasing a small smile in a vain attempt to soothe him. Her dark orbs implicitly flickered upward to the pink and blue canopy of the darkening sky and the winking white starlight overhead as the red sun waned in the distance. "You are okay, right, Jellal-sama?"
Turning his back to his companions and toward the dying red sun one last time, the dark wizard slowly dipped his head in consent as a faint streak of sadness appeared within his eyes. "Yeah... I'm fine."
As his shining golden eyes gazed into the distance, however, he gingerly rubbed at his chest, where he was so sure a knife had just pierced through.
I... could have sworn I heard you just now, but...
"Very well. Let's go."
I'm sure you're fine, Erza...
As the cold wind whispered to him soothingly that nothing was wrong, and that she was alright, Jellal turned away from the falling sun as his dull golden eyes slipped close. "Meteor."
And even if I were to appear before you again, I am sure I would only cause you distress.
Yes, it was only yesterday that he had finally reunited with her for the first time in more than three years. When his stunned golden orbs had once again met her fiery amber ones, he thought that his thunderous heart would have exploded with joy. But there was no joy or surprise within her suddenly unfamiliar eyes when she glared his way. Just despondent pain, fiery anger, and...revolting disgust.
"Why must you always appear before me...to change the course of my life...when I'm perfectly happy with the way it is? Why... Why do you always seek to mess up my world...and then leave remorselessly, without bothering to care whether I've picked up the broken pieces or not?"
Under the red sunset lights, Jellal dipped his head solemnly as his dull golden orbs sealed closed. Memories swarmed within his melancholy mind as he remembered everything. The ferocious, heartbroken roars that erupted from her trembling lips, the smoldering rage that bristling from her aura, and the sparkling tears of despair and helplessness that splashed against her reddened cheeks as she gazed into his widened eyes.
What I had done to you that fateful night has separated our paths forever, huh?
A pained smile unraveled at his lips as the golden light of Meteor drowned him in.
Erza, I am aware that I am the last person in Earth Land you would want to see. And because I respect your decision, I will keep my distance from you.
Those gleaming amber eyes, of which he had dreamed for countless nights, were not burning with the joy and disbelief that he had expected when he finally saw them at last, Instead, they burned with cold rage and unrelenting hate. Haunting rage and hate that he doubted he would ever be able to come to terms with, knowing that they originated from her.
As a thorn of sadness pricked into his melancholy heart, Jellal reopened his dull golden orbs as he and his companions soared away from the mellow sunlight and into the darkening blue of the night.
But do promise me, Erza, that you will take care of yourself...because if anything were to ever happen to you, I would destroy even the sun itself for your sake.
The scorching pain within her heart was slowly ebbing away when Erza finally realized that she was sinking into a vast space of utter darkness. The warm, iridescent tears at her closed and despaired amber orbs were slowly levitating from her fragile and sinking body, only to fade into the black nothingness of the vast world around her.
Once, in one of his grimmer pensive moments, Rob had told her that when people die, they would see their life flash before them in a dazzling rapid sequence. Although she had always respected her dear Rob-ojisan, Erza had always wondered how a dying person would see a replay of his or her entire extensive life in just a couple of seconds.
But now she believed him.
Memories of both the recent present and the distant past were flickering within her closed amber eyes, each image of the past shimmering into existence in a dizzying chaos of emotions and voices only to shatter into minuscule beads of sparkling white lights.
An especially vibrant memory summoned her attention, and she allowed herself to gaze into the familiar, sorrowful faces of people she had never thought she would cast her brimming orbs on again. For a moment, it was as if she was back on that day.
"Mom, dad! Help me!"
Her desperate scream was curtailed by a pained wince that escaped from her cracked lips as a heartless slaver sadistically yanked her back, dark amusement evident within his voice.
"Where do you think you're going, my sweet baby darling? Come here like the good girl you are, and maybe I won't hurt you!"
"No, please! Let her go!" Her mother was screaming with flooding tears, running toward her amid the blazing cottages as terrified screams and the acrid scent of burning wood filled the suffocating atmosphere.
"Mom! Help me!" Tearfully,she released a desperate shriek as she tugged against the slaver's iron grip in vain.
"Uh ah! That won't do, baby girl. Just hold still."
"Hold on, Erza!" Hot tears flooded from her mother's anguished visage as she distraughtly dashed toward her, only to stumble unceremoniously onto the smothering cinders of the blackened ground.
"Erza!" In the faraway distance, her father was also howling hoarsely as he attempted in vain to come to her rescue.
"Dad, don't let them take me! Dad!" Vibrant fear glowed from her bloodshot orbs as she released a lung-splitting howl. But the sinister, blazing ruins and orange flames that licked at the blood-red sky, however, destroyed any chances of that from happening soon.
"He's not coming, sweetie." The demon snickered amid her desolate screams. "Now how about you–"
"Release her, you monster!" Roaring with murderous rage, a ferocious woman suddenly appeared from nowhere and launched herself on top of the heartless intruder.
"Ow, you savage whore! How dare you bite me?" Came the infuriated roar before the crushing iron grip was suddenly removed from Erza's bruised wrist.
"Go, Erza!"
"Mom!" A relieved smile blossomed at her parched lips as she squirmed her way free. "I know you'd–"
"Get out of here!"
The slaver's blood dripped faintly from her mother's canine teeth as she ferociously and savagely clawed at the shocked, screeching monster before them. "Ignore me, I will be–"
Whatever her mother had been trying to articulate was suddenly perforated by a harrowing scream of corrosive agony.
Even to this day, Erza could never forget what her widened amber orbs had captured that day, for the heartbreaking memory was already burned into her soul.
Turning around with shock, she was immediately splattered by droplets of crimson dew that erupted from her mother's lips. Her heart seemed to cease its wild drumming as her eyes widened with dread and surprise.
"Die, you insolent biting swine!" Saliva sprayed into the acrid and metallic air as the monster roared, his hand dabbing at his bleeding arm and scratched, bleeding cheeks. "Repent for your irrevocable sin!"
Blood, so dark that it almost seemed black, spilled onto the dusty floor as her mother gasped in a futile attempt to breathe. Time seemed to slow as Erza's young amber orbs widened with paralyzing shock and horror. An earsplitting scream of pure fear and desperation erupted from her lips as she watched her beloved mother slowly slumped down, crippled by the gleaming tip of the cruel metal that was grisly digging its way out from the other end as crimson pools of liquid life splashed onto the ashen ground.
"No! Stop!" In the far away distance, her father wailed despairingly as he too caught the gruesome death of his wife. "Stop, I beg you!"
"Finish her!" The slaver roared with bloodthirsty fury before the lance, glowing in a demonic blue light, suddenly ferociously slashed toward the reddening ground, ripping the screaming, agonized woman apart from within.
Surging tears exploded from her young amber orbs as Erza saw the woman she had loved all her life, tormented and severed, collapsed onto the ground in a gruesome dance of blood, intestines, metal, and tears.
"Mom!"
Without a doubt, her heart died that day.
Like fractured glass, the memory exploded into a million tiny pieces of blinding white light, only to be superseded by another.
"Wait, what is your name?"
The shadows and darkness of the new moon night had made it impossible for her to see the face of the new boy she rescued. But even in the inky surroundings of the hellish slave quarters, the boy's voice resembled a splash of refreshing spring water–so clear and so full of life–as he called after her.
"Oh, I almost forgot." Vividly, she recalled herself praying almost desperately to the obscured moon that he could not see the feverish blush that had begun to taint her cheeks."How very stupid of me..."
"You're not stupid!"
The uncompromising determination within his sudden, declarative cry surprised her, and her lips immediately parted in refutation. But she froze as he softly whispered indisputably the kindest and most memorable words she had ever heard in her long and dreary existence.
"You're...beautiful."
A gentle warmth and fragile wetness immediately swelled from her amber orbs as a myriad of cruel and savage roars were again salvaged from the darkest corners of her mind. But those depraved cries and sinister laughter were nothing that his torrid, adamant voice couldn't silence.
W-what did he say? I... I am what?
Ever since her parents had died and she had been relegated to an insignificant slave on that harrowing day, cruel voices had taunted and tore at her lacerated heart every single day.
"Cry? Why the Hell are you crying, brat?"
"Worthless maggot. Get to work immediately!"
"We can kill you anytime we want. But we gave you a purpose. Breathe and be grateful for our generosity!"
"You're a nobody! Who do you think you are? Ha, Her majesty?"
"What did you call yourself? Eru...za? What the Hell? No, from now on, you are Slave Girl 25, understand? If you don't, I will burn it on your arm so you will never dare think otherwise!"
"You will not question us. You will not dare question your gods, filth!"
"You don't deserve to talk back. To think! Hell, it was only thanks to us that you could even breathe, bitch!"
Even at midnight, the dreams that were supposed to offer her an ephemeral sanctuary from her cruel reality had instead given her nightmares fraught with the heartless jibes of her monstrous sovereigns.
But they were all forever dispelled by a few simple words from a strange but kind voice.
You're not stupid. You are...beautiful.
I... I am beautiful?
Simple words from a simple slave boy, but to her, it meant the world.
Ever since she had been relegated to a slave, Erza had believed that whatever faint light or miracle that existed in this dark world had long forsaken her. She once had a wondrous family, a beautiful mother, and a loving father.
But they had died. And the only happy memory of her heartwarming family had shattered like splintered glass, vulnerably perforated by the calloused blades and merciless inferno of her nightmares.
And she...she had been spared. She was alive at least, right?
Was she? Then why had she wanted to die all the time?
Why had she willingly undertook the most treacherous duties of a slave whenever she could? Why had she once desperately prayed for a liberating accident from this world?
How could she had considered herself alive, when all was clearly lost? When everything she had cherished in the past was exchanged for a hopelessly dark future?
But then, she met him.
When her shocked amber orbs had fell upon him for the first time, he was lying unconsciously within an enormous crater and tainted by dirt and dried blood.
But somehow, the moment her young and curious amber eyes had gazed into his bloodstained face, Erza suddenly felt that hope had once again been salvaged for the first time since her loving family was cruelly slaughtered before her eyes.
Bittersweet tears were swelling within her burning and brimming eyes when Erza shakily turned around, only to find a light blushing coating on the new boy's handsome face and impossibly cute lips under the dim starlights.
Thank you...
A gleaming tear of sincere joy was streaking down her cheeks as she gazed into the radiant, hopeful light the young boy released despite the shadows of the prison cell and the blackness of the night.
The smile that rippled across her lips had to be the most radiant one of her life as she murmured his name, burning it into her mind and heart. "My name is Erza Scarlet. Welcome, Jellal Fernandez."
He had merely been a stranger, but he still whispered the kindest words she ever heard in an eternity.
"You're not stupid. You are...beautiful."
No, he was no mere slave boy. He was her savior.
Once upon a time, she had died. But he painstakingly collected the splintered pieces of her heart and gave her a reason to believe the world was still good.
Again, the memory violently shattered into a billion brilliant pieces, before another took its place.
Even if she had met him for only a couple of months, Erza had learned to accept the irrevocable fact that Jellal Fernandez was her sun, moon, and stars.
Thus, on that fateful night and under the witness of the celestial heaven and starry sky, Erza Scarlet solemnly relinquished to him the one and only sacred treasure she had reserved all her life. Her first kiss.
Time seemed to pause, and the world seemed to stop spinning as she nervously leaned toward him, before she finally allowed her moist, rosy lips to connect with his unexpecting, grinning cheek...under that radiant, starry heaven.
In that split moment, which somehow reigned either for a quarter of a second or a millennium, her once peaceful heart suddenly danced with a mystical joy that she had never felt before. Streaks of electricity seemed to flicker between both of them as Jellal froze with paralyzing shock.
It was at that moment, that she heard his heart exploded with thunderous surprise and felt his face grow smoldering hot. As joy and hope glowed from her bright, amber orbs, she gradually leaned back with crimson blushes tainting her own smiling cheeks.
It had been done. She had given him her first kiss. The embodiment of her life, and sworn the solemn oath of protecting and loving this one boy until the end of time.
But suddenly, the kindhearted, understanding, and protective boy of her dreams leaped to his feet with lightning alacrity as though he was ambushed by a coiling cobra rather than simply kissed by a girl who loved him with all her being.
Her widened amber eyes immediately narrowed with dread as trepidation erupted within her heart. Had she been rejected? Great Org-sama, had she crossed the line? Was he mad at her now?
"Jellal..." She began worriedly and apologetically. But she never got to finish, since her fears immediately vanished as he suddenly grew impossibly adorable and red with embarrassment.
"I-I'm sorry, it's just t-too sudden. Ple...ease don't take it...personally, Erza!"
For a moment, Erza didn't know what to say as her own heartbeats accelerated. Her lips quivered with ecstasy as those amber orbs of hers grew round and hopeful under the silver moonlights.
"I understand."
An abnormally red patch appeared on her face, and she coyly stroked those soft lips of hers as he slowly turned back. "I don't know what came over me...you're the first boy I've kissed, though..."
"I...s-see. I must rest now...Erza." A small smile slipped across her rosy lips as she gazed at him, an embarrassed young boy rubbing feverishly at his reddening cheeks and the one sacred place where she had just tenderly kissed. "I, er...will see you in the morning, I guess."
"Wait, Jellal."
He had turned around slightly as she tilted her head into a wide smile. "Remember our promise. We will eat a strawberry together in the future. Until we do so, I will never forget your constellation. Don't you dare forget mine!"
A sincere smile flashed across the face of the boy she loved. "I will never forget your constellation. I expect the same for you, Erza!"
"I won't forget it," She remembered herself whispering solemnly as she gazed into his warm golden orbs. "And...thank you."
Thank you, Jellal Fernandez. Thank you for giving me a reason to live on.
He dipped his head with one of those heartwarming grins she loved so much. "You're welcomed, now good night, dear Er-chan."
Sparkling tears rained from her closed, nostalgic eyes as she gritted her teeth, allowing the memory to again erupt into shining fragments before withering into the darkness. As sorrow conjured another wave of scorching tears into her tortured, bleeding heart, Erza couldn't help but feel her lips quivering slightly.
Er-chan?
How long had it been since she had heard him call for her with such warmth and affection? How long had it been since he had flashed her one of those innocent and kindhearted smiles that had kept her alive even during the nadirs of her tormented existence?
Her drenched eyes scrunched tightly with corrosive pain. Three years ago, that boy gave me hopes and the means to survive in this bleak world. He told me to live, to struggle and survive even if the rest of the world wanted me gone...because he will always be there for me...
Memories of a younger, smiling Jellal flashed across her mind, and she couldn't help but dig her teeth painfully into her lips as another trail of glittering tears stroke down her cheeks.
But then...he died. He died to the very world he taught me to strive against...and allowed the darkness to swallow his humanity and soul.
His depraved and hollow laughter again sounded at her ears, cruelly taunting at her weakness and helplessness, sadistically reminding her how she had never been able to save him from his demons, and heartlessly jabbing waves of unbearable pain and remorse into her already bleeding heart.
"I'm the leader of Sacred Akuma, Erza."
What...just what in the Worlds had corrupted such a kind boy into a coldblooded demon?
"I am the soulless monster that you and the rest of the world have been searching for all this time."
What had blinded him? Blinded the once loving, understanding, and forgiving boy of her dreams? Just what was it that had shattered her beloved boy's belief in the Worlds and made him fell so low?
"They killed the Jellal that I was years ago. They destroyed the kindness and innocence I once had. No one had sought to put a stop to the miseries and agony I had suffered. No one!"
Then what about her? What had she meant to him? Was she nothing to him?
"The Jellal you loved is gone, forever! He's dead; his innocence and hope had long been killed by the dark cruelties of the Worlds!"
She loved him. She really did. She had always loved the smiling young boy who had rescued her from the deepest abyss of Hell with all her heart...but did he really die? Had he really been destroyed by the Worlds, as he said he had been?
You are right, though. I did once say we'd find everlasting happiness and freedom. We...we did once... but I can't, Erza.
So that was how it all came to be. She was abandoned.
"But what do you know about me? Nothing... Nothing! So stop pretending that you do understand me...because you don't and you never will!"
Abandoned, because she was merely an inflexible and traitorous trash of his childhood memories. An ancient relic that he carelessly hurled away as he gradually stepped into the future, without bothering to look back even once.
"The Worlds are governed by merciless Gods and Goddesses that care not even to protect a small boy... I need no such worlds nor deities."
Then, because she was too weak and useless to reach his petrified heart and prove to him that she would do anything to soothe the harrowing cuts and wounds of his past, his heart was dyed black by impenetrable shadow and murderous fury.
"I will destroy these pathetic Worlds and watch all life turn to unrecognizable dust and ashes. Once everything is dead, nothing will be able to harm me and threaten my absolute freedom!"
But everything had once been so different and simple. Once upon a seemingly different lifetime ago, she had given him her everything in her own volition.
"Tell me, and prove to me that my life does have something worthy to live by!"
Under a beautiful and serene star sky of a faraway time and space, she had presented to him her one and only...kiss of true love. Once, she would've destroyed herself if he had simply asked. But now...
"Show me just how much you are willing to sacrifice for me, Erza."
Even if she did kill herself for him...would the heartless monster to which she had willingly surrendered her bleeding heart still be able to see her undying and uncompromising love?
"Is it that you exaggerated the extent of your love for me...or that you had never loved me at all?"
Could he even see the despairing sorrow and piercing pain that Erza had engraved onto her soul for his sake?
"All that talk about how you loved me, all that unexpected affection...Were all so that you can manipulate me..."
Would he, would he ever be able to see her love...since it had been so long since he had exchanged his soul and humanity for power and hatred?
"You are too much of a threat to be spared, General Scarlet."
Corrosive pain exploded from within her heart as Erza leaned back, scorching tears bubbling from her agonized, tightly shut eyelids before they stained all over her burning cheeks. For a moment, she felt suffocating despair as she remembered a few simple but catastrophic words uttered by the man she loved all her life:
"I should kill you, Erza."
How was it even possible that five simple words could have such a deleterious impact on her composure?
The boy who hates me now...once loved me... But when I...I...desperately seek...to prove to him my feelings...he only coldly pushed me away...
Blood exploded in her mouth as she harshly summoned her teeth into her tender lips. The sharp pain forced her to wince, but it dulled the burning sadness within her heart and mind and kept her from releasing a bloodcurdling scream.
Why...why did I ever bother loving him? Love such a coldblooded psychopath who desires nothing else but the end of the world? Why? Why? What the Hell is wrong with me?
A heartbroken howl of pure agony escaped from her bleeding lips as she vulnerably curled herself into a ball, spilling hot tears all over her trembling body as she sobbed uncontrollably.
Why did I ever even bother with giving him my heart...knowing what pain I would suffer now? How could I be so stupid? To fall in love with a monster? Is...is it because he had saved me back then? Is it because he was the one whom I had lived for, in the darkest nights of my life? Or...is it because of that one stupid kiss?
As her scarlet bangs fell over her soaked, passionate amber orbs, a despondent smile slowly cracked at her gasping lips.
I hate myself...I hate how I fell for the one man that represents everything I stand against... But, can...can love even be logically explained? Can it?
Blood seeped from the wound at her once perfect lips as she dizzily gasped for air, burning tears streaming down her feverish cheeks.
This heart...just wants...what it desperately wants, no matter the circumstances...and the consequences. I love him. I love him just because of the way he is...even if he is consumed by darkness and tainted with bloodlust... But, what does he think of me?
Memories again churned within her head. Especially the one when he saved her, and the one when she kissed him...
Those...those must be my most...precious memories. But...what are they, to him? In his dark, hate-imbued heart... are they merely meaningless gibberish to be ignored and forgotten?
Her hands shakily rose to her burning, tearstained cheeks as a pained gasp escaped from her trembling lips.
"How...how in the Worlds can he be so, so inhumanely evil? How...is it even possible that Fate can have such, such a dark sense of humor in the writing...of our story? Our lives?" Her voice rose into a frantic scream that pierced through the swirling, vacant darkness.
"How can Fate be so humorlessly cruel?"
An ephemeral moment of silence dominated the heavy dark space as she was forced to pause her bewailing rants and breath deeply.
But then.
"No, Fate is not at fault here, woman."
Immediately, surprise replaced the sorrow within her heart as Erza's bloodshot amber orbs snapped open with surprise and diligence. A deep voice growled in the distance, perforating the silence of the surrounding darkness as it resonated into the vast nothingness, "Only the stain of existence that calls himself Jellal Fernandez is."
"W-who is there?" Releasing an anxious cry, Erza turned around almost desperately in the impenetrable darkness to locate the owner of the voice. "Quit hiding and show yourself!"
For a few moments, all that could be heard was the anxious thumping of her heart. But then came an amused chuckle. "Very well. As you wish."
Hollow footsteps suddenly echoed in the distance, and immediately the General of the Imperial Moon girded herself as a vague silhouette emerged from the shadows.
Her bloodshot amber orbs, once brimming with pain and despair, narrowed with suspicion and vigilance as a tall, lean man suddenly appeared before her. Although even the courageous sovereign of the Empire of the Moon would sometimes cower from the terrifying flames within her eyes, the man appeared unfazed as his blank black orb calmly met her scrutinizing gaze.
Despite the absolute absence of wind in this dark space, his unruly maroon hair waved wildly in the faint white glow that discerned his presence from the shadows of the periphery. He only had one black eye, as a thick, formidable scar traversed through his other closed eye before fading into his tan skin. His lips had also been tugged into a small smirk, almost as if he was enjoying the hesitation and wariness that was radiating from her slender amber orbs and cautious aura.
He was wearing a long white coat, with metal cuffs that were emblazoned by rubies at his sleeves, and his hands were nonchalantly tucked into the pockets of his red leather and black-belted pants. And yet, it was apparent that he was not to be taken lightly despite his casual demeanor, for beneath his serene aura vibrated a formidable wave of power.
"Who are you?" A soft and careful whisper escaped from Erza's lips, her bright, amber orbs never leaving his sole black eye for even a second.
"Who I am is not important. What is important is that we have met at last." A sly smile rippled along the stranger's lips as his mysterious and unreadable dark eye glared solemnly into Erza's stunned amber ones. "What honor. I have heard much about you, the legendary Erza Scarlet."
L-legendary?
Slight surprise glowed from her widened amber orbs, and she released a low growl, "Who exactly are you? And how do you know my name?"
"One question at a time, woman." He snickered in response, much to her impatience and displeasure.
Irritation radiated dangerously from her narrowed eyes as an irritated hiss escaped from her lips, "In that case, do excuse my discourtesy. But may I learn the name of the person to whom I am currently conversing with?"
A moment of silence filled the suddenly heavy air as the young General glowered gravely into the one serene black orb. But then the man turned away with a soft chuckle before he met her cautious orbs.
"A reasonable request. Very well. I shall humor your question, Scarlet, since you are the Chosen One from Org-sama's prophecy after all." A sinister grin slipped across his lips as his unfazed black eye calmly pierced into her cautious amber ones.
"They call me Erik of Peace and Harmony, and I am here to change your life and the world that you thought you knew."
So it seems as if Jellal has absolutely no idea what Erza is going through right now. Then who is the Jellal that Erza spoke to in the previous few chapters, and what is Cobra doing here? :o Please wait just a tad longer to find out. ^^;
After like 5 days of constantly revising this chapter for hours on end, I have finally deemed it fit for your reading pleasures. I hope you enjoy it, and that it will make up for the long wait ^_^; Also, please try to reach the goal, which is 505 this time. Thanks for all the time, patience, and support, mina-san!
Updated on May 18, 2016.
Revised on May 21, 2016 for minor grammatical and diction mistakes. Also added new song suggestion.
