Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.

Pairing(s): Natsu Dragneal x Zeref, mentions of Jellal x Erza

WARNINGS: violence, alternative history, shounan ai (boy/boy pairing); you have been warned so don't like, don't read


The Will to Live

By V. Shalyr


9. The White Key

Zeref would have liked more time to catch up. He would have preferred not to immediately be faced with the prospect of meeting and working with a bunch of strangers. He would have preferred to not wake up in the midst of a conflict, but he'd sort of expected that last one. He had no confidence in the ability of humanity to maintain peace. Maybe eventually, but certainly not in a measly few centuries.

He looked past Natsu at the closed door of the ship's cabin, and the trepidation must have shown on his face because Natsu took his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"They're good people," the dragon said. "I've been working with them for awhile now. Besides, I've already told them a bit about you and about us, so it's not like it'll be a total shock to them."

"You told them?"

Natsu quirked an eyebrow. "I kind of had to. How else was I going to explain why I wanted to take an infamous dark wizard home with me?"

"Am I still that well known?" Zeref asked, dismayed. Of course, he hadn't expected people to forget about him entirely—he just wasn't that lucky. But he'd hoped that a couple hundred years would have at least dulled their interest.

"Yeah, sorry."

Zeref sighed. "No, I should have expected it. I suppose I'd better go meet them before I convince myself that I'd rather hide in here for the rest of the flight."

Natsu grinned and helped him to his feet. Zeref grimaced at the stiffness in his muscles and joints, and they walked a few slow circles around the room to help him adjust. When they passed one of the windows, Zeref paused, arrested by the view of moon-brushed clouds so close that it almost seemed like he could reach out and touch them.

"It's even cooler from out on deck," Natsu said, following the direction of his gaze. "Possibly not as cool as when I'm flying myself, but still incredible."

Zeref glanced at him, searching his face. "Have you tried to transform back?"

Natsu looked away. "I want to, but I'm... a little afraid what might happen."

Zeref nodded. It was extremely unlike Natsu to be afraid of anything, but then it was one thing to be faced with challenges from other people. It was something else entirely to be faced with your own shadows. Zeref knew better than anyone, however, that you couldn't run away from yourself—not for very long anyway, and certainly not very far. It was important to know where you stood with things so that you could decide how to move forward.

"When we have time, we can find somewhere isolated for you to try," he said. "I'm sure it will be fine."

He had faith. Which, of course, really meant that he ought to have faith right now too—that Natsu would make sure that Zeref walking through that door and into the world again wouldn't be a stressful disaster.

"I think I'm ready," he said, offering Natsu a small smile.

All the same, that didn't stop him from hesitating in the doorway once the door was open until he felt Natsu's hand at the small of his back. Right. One step at a time.

.

The three wizards out on deck experienced a split second of startled unease when two figures emerged from the ship's cabin instead of one. So Natsu had managed it after all. Still, the dark-haired stranger regarded them with such anxious wariness that it was difficult to feel particularly threatened by his presence. If anything, Zeref looked like he was seriously considering the merits of turning around and going right back into the cabin to avoid them.

Natsu introduced them, pointing to each of the members of his team and identifying what kind of magic they used. Then he slung an arm around Zeref's shoulders and introduced him as well, adding with pride that when it came to magic, his partner had no particular preference and was good at almost everything.

"So," Natsu finished, "what's going on? I smell smoke."

Taking this as a cue to change the subject, Erza made a sweeping gesture with her arm. "People are fighting down there. Several of the buildings have been set on fire."

Zeref moved to peer over the railing towards the wavering, orange lights, glad that none of them were making a big deal of his arrival. Perhaps that was the silver lining of waking up during a crisis.

"Any idea who's fighting who?" Natsu asked from beside him.

Gray answered. "As far as we can tell, it just looks like regular townspeople and maybe some wizards. It's hard to be sure from up here. I think there might have been a wizard guild in that town, but again, I'm not sure."

There was a pause, and then Zeref asked, his voice hesitant and quiet, "Should we go down?"

"I don't think that's a good idea," Lucy said slowly, pointing. "Look."

It wasn't just the town below them. Other fires were springing up all along the coastline and further inland. The ring of weapons and people shouting drifted up to them on the breeze, full of anger, confusion, and fear. Natsu could smell blood now too, a sharp and coppery undertone to the acrid stench of burning things.

Erza broke the uncomfortable silence that had settled aboard the ship. "I think we should prioritize picking up Jellal before we try to do anything. He might know more about what's happening. I've already given the ship his coordinates. I'm going to see if we can speed her up."

Besides, she was worried, because when they had spoken just minutes ago, the blue-haired Magic Council representative hadn't looked well at all.

.

A blast of fire set a swath of tall grass ablaze, and Jellal suppressed a curse, veering away from the scorching heat. Fire Wizards. Of course. If you wanted to get rid of paper documents, who better to send than Fire Wizards?

Jellal dodged a fireball, turned momentarily to throw a shower of golden missiles at his attackers, and then raced on. The fact that he was being followed meant that what he had really was important. He couldn't waste time here fighting, and anyway, he didn't want to hurt these people. It wasn't their fault that they were chasing him. He didn't think they really knew what they were doing, and even if they did... well, they weren't acting at all like themselves.

After sneaking out of the large building where the Magic Council kept most of its records and where the Rune Knights had one of their main headquarters, Jellal had stopped in the nearby town to get medical attention for his wounds. He'd left as soon as he was certain that none of the cuts were in danger of becoming infected, and not a moment too soon. The Fire Wizards had caught up with him just after he crossed the town's boundaries, and now he was zigzagging through a field of burning grass towards one of the less-used dirt roads leading out of the settlement. Originally, he'd been heading for the woods where there was more cover, but the last thing he needed was to get trapped in a forest fire.

"Why are you doing this?" he called back at his pursuers.

It was worth asking even if he didn't think he would get any answers—which he didn't. He counted one, two—four of them. He hadn't known that there were even that many fire specialists among the knights. Fire was a destructive element and often did more harm than good, even when wielded by a skilled wizard, and it was a huge problem that even skilled Fire Wizards usually couldn't extinguish the fires that they started. For those reasons, it was a branch of magic more popular among dark wizards than responsible, law-abiding ones.

Jellal cringed to imagine what this stretch of countryside was going to look like tomorrow morning. They were just lucky that there wasn't much wind tonight. More wind, and this entire region could be reduced to ashes.

Where were—?

"Jellal!"

Relief swept through him, and Jellal looked up—only to throw himself to the ground a second later to avoid a fireball, which narrowly missed setting his hair on fire. The stench of burning grass and smoke filled his nose. He swiped impatiently at his watering eyes and looked up, grabbing for the rope ladder that unrolled from the sky above his head. Jellal pushed himself off the ground and scrambled up the ladder as, behind him, a rain of sword blades forced his pursuers to pull back.

"Damn, this whole area's a mess," he heard Natsu comment from above.

A voice he didn't recognize replied, "Natsu, I don't think this ship's anti-fire spells are going to hold out for very long."

"Can you reinforce them or something?"

"Maybe, but I don't want to be hasty about it. A lot of the ship's spells are embedded in the timbres and woven together. I wouldn't want to accidentally mess with whatever allows this ship to fly."

"Good point. Hey, Jellal, you'd better hurry up!"

"I'm trying," the wizard muttered. The ship lurched forward and upward, the rope ladder swung and flapped wildly, and he clung to it with a white-knuckled grip. The world tipped crazily in his vision and he shut his eyes, forcing himself to concentrate only on the feel of the rope under his hands and feet.

"Oh no," Lucy's worried voice reached him over the explosions from below. "I think one of them hit the ladder. Is it okay?"

"It looks..." Gray paused. "Uh, Jellal, you could fly, right?"

Under his closed eyelids, Jellal rolled his eyes. Yes, he could, but he was exhausted, his side felt like someone was driving a knife into it, and all the blinding flames and the darkness and the fighting had left him mildly disoriented. Maybe Erza was right and he hadn't been taking good enough care of himself. He wasn't out of shape or anything, but he was undeniably overworked.

When he felt the hard, wooden railing against his fingers, he opened his eyes and found Erza giving him an amused look. She helped him over and onto the deck, then she cut the ropes and let the smoldering remains of the ladder drop away.

"Are you okay?" she asked, returning to where he'd sat down to rest.

"I will be once I have a moment to catch my breath," he said. "Thanks for coming to get me. I have had one crazy night."

"Crazier than ours?" Erza asked, inclining her head ever so slightly towards a dark-haired boy in a gray cloak that Jellal hadn't noticed before. The boy seemed to be mumbling either to himself or to Natsu as he walked along the sides of the ship. The Dragon Slayer hovered rather protectively next to him, occasionally saying something in return.

It took Jellal a moment to piece everything together and realize who he was looking at.

"Possibly not crazier than yours," he conceded, shaking his head. "You're going to have to give me the details later. Right now, I'm afraid that I'm badly in need of a drink."

His stomach growled.

"And something to eat."

.

The last time Lucy remembered a meal being this quiet, she'd been at home and she'd just announced to her father that she intended to pursue a career as a wizard. That stony silence had persisted for almost an entire week of family dinners.

The silence that currently pervaded the deck of the Sparrow wasn't nearly that tense. No one was angry at anyone else, and the air wasn't thick with scathing remarks barely held back. All the same, it was still less than comfortable in the way that silence among a group of people became uncomfortable when no one was quite sure what to say. The provisions they'd taken from the storage room below decks could only occupy the space of conversation for so long.

Zeref hesitated suddenly with a bottle of water halfway to his lips and glanced towards the horizon, a tiny frown making its way onto his face.

He turned his head and murmured to Natsu, "Something's happening. Magic. Something big."

"Any idea what?"

Zeref shook his head, paused, then shifted his gaze. "There it is again. It feels like someone casting the same spell over and over."

This declaration felt strangely ominous.

Gray was the one who finally said what was on all of their minds. "I wonder if that has anything to do with the chaos down there."

All eyes turned to Jellal, who sat back against the railing and sighed. Where to begin?

"I can't really explain what's going on," he said at last, "but I do have some thoughts and a bit more information. Clarice Ghalice told you all about the White Key, correct? The Dark Guild that the knights have been tracking."

When they nodded, Jellal continued. "After what happened at Fairy Tail and the Ghalice estate, I started thinking about the break-in at the Council's vaults. That was awhile before the White Key actually came to our attention, you see, but what if it was related?"

It was a rhetorical question, and he didn't wait for them to respond. Instead, he reached into his coat and extracted a file.

"There were all sorts of magical artifacts in that vault, things that were confiscated for all manner of reasons. But the only thing they took was an amulet. Well, a collection of amulets actually, but they're all part of one artifact, which was placed in the vaults by one of Clarice's ancestors about three hundred years ago. A man called Edrik Ghalice. Shortly after he stored them there, someone put in a request for them that was denied on Edrik's orders."

"Amulets?" Lucy repeated, puzzled. "You mean like for protection?"

"Ah, no, these amulets weren't for warding. They were created to act as anchors for a powerful sealing spell." Jellal opened the file and cleared his throat. "When Edrik gave the order that the amulets were never to be disturbed, he stated that his team had had to use them on a wizard who was dangerously unstable."

"A dark wizard?" Gray asked.

"Again, no, not exactly. The man was actually a former member of the Council's research department. Someone called Dierce Senza."

Next to Natsu, Zeref tensed. His partner glanced at him, but said nothing.

Jellal was still speaking. "It turns out that Dierce had a brother who was a member of the Rune Knights. It was his brother who put in the request for the amulets. He argued with the Council about it, but when they refused his demands that they release Dierce from the seal, he resigned from the knights and disappeared."

"What you're telling us," Erza said slowly, "is that the White Key broke into the vaults and stole those amulets so that they could free this researcher? But if the amulets were put away centuries ago, how would they even know about them?"

"That's why I thought the White Key might have been involved in the first place," her partner explained, tilting the folder so he could point out a line of text for her. "The dark wizard believed to have founded that Dark Guild is called Berius. Look at his family name."

Erza squinted at the page. "Senza. That's the same as the man that was sealed."

"Exactly. He's probably a descendent. It's very likely that Dierce's brother left a record of why he left the knights and what happened to Dierce. It's not that far of a stretch to think that Berius found those records and decided to free him. Dierce was a formidable wizard in his own right, after all, and considering his history, he'd be very likely to share Berius Senza's dissatisfaction with the current order."

Gray grimaced, letting his head fall back against the cabin wall he was sitting against with a thud. "This is all sounding like some weird conspiracy."

"That," Jellal replied dryly, "would be because it is."

For a moment, the only sound about the ship was the whisper of the breeze tugging at the sails.

Then Zeref said quietly, not looking at any of them, "I suppose that explains why they were looking for me."

"Did you know them?" Natsu asked. "Dierce, I mean, and that Edrik guy. He's the one you left that clue for me with, right?"

Zeref nodded. He glanced at Natsu and then reluctantly looked at the other wizards sitting around the deck.

"About three hundred years ago, Natsu and I found a library in the mountains. It turned out that the library was part of a powerful, magical artifact, one that Dierce thought he could use to increase the power and influence of the Magic Council..."

Carefully, Zeref explained about the Mieye Library's turbulent history and his own encounter with Edrik Ghalice in the woods. He omitted most of what had transpired after that on the mountainside, but all considered, it wasn't that relevant to the current topic anyway.

"But if their goal was to carry out Dierce's original plan and they needed you to lift the seal that you placed on the library," Erza said, "why did they give up? Why leave Tenrou Island like that when they had the advantage of numbers?"

Zeref considered the question seriously, his gaze drifting back to the glimmer of lights upon the earth thousands of feet below the ship. "Perhaps because they didn't need me to break the spell anymore."

The wizards contemplated the implications of this. They definitely didn't like the sound of it.

Before anything else could be said, however, a voice echoed through their minds.

"Hello? Hello? Can any of you hear me?"

.

They hadn't been at dinner. That was the only explanation Eiji could come up with. It was the only thing they had done differently today, the only thing that the majority of the other knights and other staff members had not.

They were in Clarice's room when their captain came looking for them. It was only his and Clarice's second day back at the knight headquarters where they'd been trained, and they'd opted to spend their evening reviewing the White Key documents in Clarice's private quarters. She had her own room even though she wasn't a captain yet because so many generations of her family had been involved with the Rune Knights. From another perspective, it was a sign of how high everyone's expectations were of her.

"You two weren't at dinner, so I thought I'd bring you up some of this new drink they were serving. It's really quite unique."

Their captain was known for caring deeply about his subordinates wellbeing, so it wasn't that surprising that he'd come to check on them himself. But... something had felt wrong anyway. Starting with the way the liquid in the glass cups glimmered in the lamplight—almost like it was glowing. It could have been their imagination, but still.

"Thank you, captain. But, um, what is it?"

"It's not alcoholic, if that's what you're worried about."

"Well, we've already eaten and everything, but maybe if you just leave it on the table..."

The captain hadn't insisted then, and they thought they'd heard the last of it. Neither of them really wanted to try the drinks. But... an hour later, he came back, and this time—when he noticed the cups still full on the table—he'd gotten irritated.

Everything spiraled downhill from there.

It was still difficult, however, for Eiji to understand how refusing a drink had turned into the two of them running for their lives from the members of their own team who seemed determined to capture them. From what they'd witnessed on their way through the building, a number of their colleagues had already been shuffled—angry and confused—into the temporary holding cells underground. Now, he and Clarice were barricaded in one of the building's two highest towers, hoping desperately for some way to get out of there before the people below decided to just blast their way through the trapdoor. Clarice stood by the door in the tower floor in question, layering on shielding spells as quickly as she could even as someone down below worked on breaking the shields she already had up.

"Try that Council member Jellal Fernandez," she suggested, sweat beading on her forehead as she worked. "I heard them saying that they still haven't been able to corner him. That probably means he's not involved."

Eiji nodded, thanking the heavens that he'd been born with a natural talent for telepathic communication. He thanked whatever gods might be listening again when he got a reply, and fifteen terribly long minutes later, the silhouette of a ship came gliding out of the night.

"I'm sorry, but we lost the ladder," Jellal called down to them. "But we can throw you a rope and pull you up."

And they had to move quickly because the sudden burst of shouting from down on the grounds indicated that the ship had already been spotted.


TBC...


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