With arms crossed, Natsu stared at the picture Reedus had drawn of the man behind the Freezings. The drawing had allowed Rai to instruct his archive mage to find out who he truly was.
Dex Grainburg, a semi-notorious criminal who had spent the majority of his life since his early twenties committing small crimes. As his crimes escalated to more serious crimes, Dex had begun hoping in and out of prison, his latest stint lasting five years for aggravated assault. When he had gotten out three years ago, Dex has disappeared off the map before finally resurfacing here in Magnolia. Rai had speculated in an earlier debriefing on Dex that he had been busy, spending the three years learning how to make better use of his magic, which used to consist of ice magic barely strong enough to be even a parlour trick. Now it was a force to be rocked with, enough to freeze a person in their sleep, or even completely seal their magic.
Natsu clenched his fists, his anger rising as he stared back at the lifeless grey eyes of the man who had put Lucy in danger not once, but twice. He could feel his flames rising to the surface, begging to come out and destroy the threat to the woman he loved.
"Natsu!" Erza barked. Natsu growled turning to glare at her. Erza glared back, putting her hand on the hilt of her sword, "You're smoking up the room. Take a walk!" She ordered, continuing her stand off with Natsu from across the room.
Natsu blinked, realizing that he was in fact smoking, the prelude before he typically covered himself in flames during a battle that made him particularly angry. Taking a breath, Natsu stalked out of the room, the grey eyes of Dex felt like the were boring into the back of his head, taunting him. Making his way out the back door, he stood in the cold air without using his magic to warm himself, letting the cool air put a damper on his anger.
Lucy was safe. She was somewhere in the guild hall right now where no one could touch her. As long as Natsu was around, he would protect her, even if their relationship had taken a hit. Natsu would not let this Dex Grainburg haunt Lucy for much longer.
"Dragneel." Captain Mandal called in greeting; his voice carefully neutral. He walked up and stood next to Natsu. "Mind if I join you?"
Rai's voice was the last thing Natsu wanted to hear; he was struggling to contain his jealousy of seeing Lucy interact with him on top of his anger at knowing about Dex. "Suit yourself." Natsu mumbled, doing his best to ignore the man standing next to him. Both of them kept their eyes forward, looking out over the frozen lake in front of them.
"I know it's not my place, but can I ask about what happened between you and Ms. Heartfilia?" Rai's voice was calm, as if he was asking about the weather.
"None of your fucking business." Natsu growled. His anger flared, bringing small flames to his clenched fists. Taking a deep breath, Natsu regained his control, extinguishing the flames. His magic was reacting to his emotions, letting Natsu know that he was close to losing control of himself.
"Hmm." Rai eyed Natsu from the corner of his eye before shifting his gaze back to the lake. "Maybe it's not obvious," Rai held out his hand in front of him, a swirling grey mist appeared on his palm. Lights of various colours flickered in and out quickly. "But I have magic of my own." He closed his fist, the mist dispersing into the air. "With my magic, I can see connections between people, mainly through their emotions, but also their DNA. Maybe its not as useful as fire magic, but it allows me to excel at my job. You see, when I focus my magic on an individual, it can tell me if they and another person have ever met and to what extent. It tells me if they're acquaintances, friends, family," He paused for a moment, "Lovers."
Natsu sneered, "Bet that really helps you love life."
Rai sighed, "Well, no, because I can't see the emotional connections to myself. But that's besides the point. I feel like I should be upfront with you." He paused, shifting his stance slightly, "I didn't come here only to deal with Grainburg." He paused again. Natsu turned to study him, wondering what the point of the conversation was. "With the defeat of Zeref, all traces of connections to him faded, meaning the demon books he had created ceased to exist when he died. Well, all except one." Rai turned to look at Natsu, his face unreadable.
"E.N.D." Natsu tensed his body, preparing for what he didn't know. His magic tickled at his fists; the stress of what Rai was confronting him with involuntarily activating it.
Rai didn't say anything for a moment before he looked away again. "Yes. E.N.D. The last remaining connection to Zeref, but surprisingly you survived."
"How did you know it was me?" Natsu spoke softly.
"I see connections remember." Rai replied; his voice just as soft, it was almost calming to Natsu. "What I didn't expect to see was a connection to Zeref that had formed so many bonds with others."
Natsu relaxed his posture, the tension flowing out of his body. He didn't feel like Rai was threatening him. "You expected me to be some crazy demon?"
Rai chuckled, "I don't know what I expected, truly, but you do have a temper that in the wrong hands could be worrisome." Frowning for a moment, Rai's brow furrowed as he lost himself in his thoughts. He shook his head, bringing himself back to the conversation at hand. "Seeing your bonds with your guildmates, I became particularly curious about Ms. Heartfilia. At first glance, I thought it was a bond of family, meaning the two of you shared blood. But then I met Gajeel Redfox and his lovely partner, Levy McGarden, and I realized it was something more."
"Dragon Slayers have dragon cells." Natsu interrupted, "While ours are mostly dormant due to our adoptive parents providing us with anti-bodies against them, there's enough of them to create a mate connection." Natsu flushed, embarrassed to be talking with a practical stranger about a topic he barely knew anything about himself.
"Mate connection?" Rai trailed off. Natsu got the impression that when he wasn't busy tracking down criminals, he would lose himself in research much like Levy. "That would explain the bond being something I've never seen before. You see, this bond between you and Lucy is beyond that of a family bond, which is truly just a blood bond. I typically only see blood bonds between parents and their children or between siblings."
"Lucy?" Natsu raised his eyebrow at Rai's informality, missing part of the conversation as his mind fixated on it. His fire began building within him again.
"Ah, yes. Sorry, slip of the tongue. I must confess, I did spend time with her to get a closer look at the bond you share." Rai sounded almost apologetic. "Purely out of curiosity mind you. Something tells me that not clarifying that would perhaps put my own life in danger." He looked at Natsu with earnest eyes. The Dragon Slayer unclenched his jaw that he didn't realize was so tense, breathing out through his nose. "After seeing such a strong bond between the two of you upon our first meeting, imagine my surprise when suddenly the bond shifted to something, different."
"Different?" Natsu questioned. The further the conversation went on, the more Natsu became more curious as to what exactly Rai saw between him and Lucy. "Different how?"
Focusing his attention on the ground at his feet, Rai brought his hand up to his chin, resting his elbow in his other had as he thought. "How to explain it." He hummed quietly to himself for a moment before continuing, "Imagine a ray of light is produced by every individual. In a typical bond, this ray of light has the same feel between two people. Once I know one source of one particular ray of light, I can easily see how it connects when I meet both people who share that connection. The ray of light between you and Lucy is different because it is not just one connection, but several. Something I have never seen before I met you Dragon Slayers. These multiple rays stem between the two of you in a way that I was not even able to begin to comprehend what your connection was before your little explanation." Rai dropped his hands, clasping them behind his back in his typical fashion.
"So how has it changed?" Natsu asked. He was feeling on edge, thinking about the unseeable bond between him and Lucy somehow being irreparable.
"They're still there if you're worried." Rai replied, calming Natsu's racing thoughts, "But they have severed in a way I wasn't even aware could happen. While half of the connections are hanging on by mere threads, others are still strongly connected. And then there's one that looks almost as if it's trying with all its might to reconnect to its other half. It is interesting to see as it flies in the wind, sometimes moving away from its other half, and sometimes swinging towards it, almost connecting."
Natsu felt hope swell in his chest. He knew he loved Lucy. He also knew that she was scared and going through something that he couldn't fully understand. While her magic was slowly coming back, as seen with Loke being able to sense her distress, she was missing a part of herself that made her Lucy. Since his encounter on the balcony with her, Natsu had thought about how he had acted and knew that his asking her to marry him after finding out she was pregnant no doubt left a bad taste in her mouth. He knew that their relationship had suffered because of the actions of both parties, and yet this bond Rai spoke of indicated they were still reaching out to each other despite the damage.
From the corner of his eye, Natsu noticed Rai smiling as he looked over the frozen landscape. Without saying a word, he turned and made his way back into the guild hall. Natsu took it as a sign that something good had happened to the bond he shared with Lucy.