Sanctity of Life
Chapter 9 – Home
Kazuki woke up on Rei's arms, she was awake and gently stroking his hair.
"Morning Kaz." She gently greeted him, containing to rub his head.
"Morning Rei, how long have you been up?"
"Just for a few minutes, did you sleep well?"
"Yeah. Thanks to you." He smiled and pulled her in for a tight hug. "I love you."
"I love you too my cinnamon roll, you wanna head to the guild?"
"Mhm, let's go."
The couple got out of bed, brushed their teeth, and headed to Fairy Tail. Upon arriving, they were greeted by everyone, Kazuki still being primarily ignored.
"Kazuki, Rei, after you two went home, we discovered co-ordinates hidden within Subject 7's fact file." Freed informed them.
"At first, we thought it was random encrypted symbols, however they're space magic co-ordinates, there were 2 different sets, team Natsu has already left to visit one of the sets. We're going to request help from Minerva of Sabertooth to figure out where the 2nd set leads." Levy explained.
"Don't bother, I can read them." Kazuki responded, eager to help.
"Erm, okay." Levy hesitantly handed the fact file over to Kazuki, the guild was wary of the Mystic type, he had almost killed Rei and master Makarov, they didn't trust him at all.
"Anything interesting?" Rei asked Kazuki.
"I know where these co-ordinates lead." He responded calmly.
"Great, then how about you and I head over there?"
"No." Kazuki hastily declined. "I'll go alone on this one."
"Over my dead body you will." Rei stared him down. "I'm going with you, and that's final."
"But… Oh what's the point, fine let's go." Kazuki gave him, the guild remained silent, still confused as to how easily Kazuki would listen to Rei. Makarov, however, couldn't be any happier, he had misjudged Kazuki as a homicidal maniac, Rei had really brought out his hidden soft side.
"You wanna leave right now?"
"Mhm." Kazuki took Rei's hand and headed towards the exit. "Oh and." Kazuki turned around and smiled at Levy and Freed. "You two have done a great job on this, thank you."
"Oh er, don't mention it?" Levy responded, not exactly sure on what to say.
"It was my sincere pleasure to help. Look after Rei." Freed politely replied.
"I feel like she's the one who's going to look after me." Kazuki chuckled as he left the guild the Rei.
"So, how do we get there?" Rei asked, she didn't want to spend ages on a train.
"We fly." Kazuki's body started glowing yellow as a magic circle appeared under his feet. "Meteor."
"Isn't that Jellal's magic?"
"Yeah, Heavenly Body Magic, otherwise known as Magic of the Stars. It suits me well actually."
"How so?"
"The first element I ever used with my Dragon Lacrima was Stellar, another word for Stars."
"I see, welp, this should be fun." She took Kazuki's hand as they launched to their destination. They arrived within minutes.
"Okay, Meteor makes you fast, but not this fast." Rei was confused, if Jellal tried to make this trip, it would take him 30 minutes at least, but Kazuki only took 5.
"I used my Mystic speciality to alter the spell, it's 6 times faster then Meteor, and drains 1/8th of the energy. 'Sparkling Meteor' is what I call it."
"Neat, now then, why did you want to come here alone?" Rei asked, she knew Kazuki was hiding something.
Kazuki was silent, he didn't know what to say.
"We're at small village in ruins, no one has lived here in a long time, and there's no energy traces hear apart from ours, we're the only 2 here, the Blood-Spirals wouldn't be stupid enough to make this their new hideout. What are you not telling me?" Rei added. She walked closer to Kazuki and placed both hands on each side of his cheeks, "You can tell me anything Kaz, I will never judge you."
Kazuki started into Rei's loving eyes, he didn't need her to say it, he already knew Rei wasn't the type of person to judge. He gave in and decided to tell her everything.
"The fact file doesn't have an official name recorded because they never bothered to ask the children their names. They raided small villages like this one to kidnap children and use them however they wanted. Small villages kept them under the council's eye. I know this village quiet well, it doesn't have a name, we never needed one." Kazuki slowly explained.
"We?" Rei's eyes widened as she began to rapidly piece everything together.
"Rei, this is my Village, this is where I was born, where I was kidnapped from." He lifted up the fact file to his face, "This file, it's about me, I'm subject 7." His voice was more silent then it had ever been.
"Oh my God." Rei whispered, tears gushing out from her fragile eyes. She hugged Kazuki tightly and broke down on his shoulder. "I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…" She struggled to say anything between her cries, Kazuki didn't know how to respond either, telling Rei the truth had lifted a heavy burden of him, but now he was numb. Instinctively, he hugged her back, as tight as he could.
"It's okay Rei, don't cry." He whispered into her ear. She continued to weep, not being able to control herself. Kazuki had gone through so much, and she never knew.
"I… I didn't know… And I… I thought… I shouldn't have asked." She continued crying.
"How could you have known silly? And I'm happy you asked, you're the only person that I've told, I feel so much better now." He assured her as he rubbed her back until Rei calmed down. She stopped crying after a few minutes and gently kissed Kazuki. "Is that why you wanted to come here?" She asked.
"Yeah, I haven't been here since the Blood-Spirals attack. To be honest, I haven't thought about home in years, when I worked out the space co-ordinates, I just wanted to return. I guess it's instinct."
"Okay then, let's go." She smiled and took his hand as he led the way. The couple explored the entire village searching for any clues on Blood-Spirals. Unfortunately, they didn't find any. Soon, Kazuki and Rei stumbled in front of a burnt down house, it was completely charred.
"Is this?" Kazuki began to question, he slowly walked towards the house and observed it, he noticed a charred plushie, it was a bird. "Angel…"
"Kazuki?"
"This was mine, I used to sleep with it every night, I named it Angel."
"This is your house?" Rei was horrified at the damage that had been done, the burns left over weren't from regular fire, this was done with vicious magical flames.
"It is." He calmly replied. He sent the plushie to his personal space/time as he turned around and got ready to leave. "There's nothing else here, should we head back?"
"Don't you want to check for… Your parents?" Rei hesitantly asked.
"I can't remember if I ever had any."
"You told me that they implanted the Dragon Lacrima inside you."
"I made that up, the truth is, I don't have any recollection on how I got this Lacrima, my childhood pre-Blood-Spirals is blank, I can't remember anything before that. I tried using Magic many times to restore my memories, but never to any avail."
"I see." She held his hand as he used his 'Sparkling Meteor'.
They flew off and within minutes were back at the guild where they were greeted by master Makarov and team Natsu who had also returned.
"You're back already?" the old man questioned, slightly surprised.
"Yeah, unfortunately, there was nothing useful there." Kazuki informed the guild.
"How did it go on your end Erza? Rei asked.
"The location we went to turned up nothing as well, tracking Subject 7 down is proving to be a heavy task." Titania responded, slightly disappointed. Kazuki sighed and squeezed Rei's hand looking at her. Rei understood what that look meant and nodded, "I'm here with you Kaz."
"There's something I need to tell you all." Kazuki addressed the entire guild loudly, catching everyone's undivided attention. "I'm…" He paused to take a deep breathe and muster up more courage. Rei's hand squeeze provided him with the needed bravery as he continued. "You don't need to track down Subject 7, he's already here."
"What?" The entire guild asked, wondering who Kazuki was referring to. Makarov's eye widened as he realised who Kazuki meant.
"Who is he?" Jellal asked.
"…It's me. I'm subject 7." Kazuki answered.