Erza isn't entirely comfortable with the new plan. It leaves her sitting on the sidelines while Jellal deals the lethal blows she's supposed to be dealing. But his reasoning is sound—Eros is on her trail and she needs to get him off, and the easiest way to do that is to remain in the eye of the councilmembers.
Besides, it's difficult to deny Jellal when he gets that gleam in his eye, the one that says he has focus and purpose. The one that lets her know he's taking back a portion of his life, too, with every 'demon' he slays. She's an only child, but she's learned to share. If this is what Jellal needs to do to excise his demons… well, she'll try to let him.
Briefly, his hand lingers on her side as he pulls her in close for a cyclist to pass and she imagines they're a normal couple. That she can relive last night repeatedly, when he came to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, when he pressed his lips against her neck, when he whispered what passed as sweet nothing's for them in her ear, when, afterward, he touched her all over, as indulgent as the first time he touched her, making her sigh and submit to his ministrations.
But that cannot be for them.
Not yet anyway.
Soon, if she plays nicely, and then if she's mean, she can have everything she wanted.
Lucy, Happy, Natsu and Gray are by the fountains when Erza and Jellal break into the city centre. Inevitably, her eyes travel left to where she ended Louis Hemming's life. Authorities have cleaned up the stain of his blood, buried him deep in the ground. His reign of terror is over. Yet, Erza wonders if she'll ever be able to totally put him to rest. His crimes weren't as bad as someone like Eros', but without someone like Louis interfering for his own benefit, shipping building material, the Tower of Heaven would have had a much harder time existing, and for that, he had to pay.
She regrets nothing.
"Erza!" Lucy is always greeting her like that, as though she is a flower and Erza is sunlight, helping her grow. Erza feels more like the moon, reflecting Lucy's light back down at her; she'll never understand, though.
"How are you?" Lucy asks with too much significance to be subtle if that's the vibe she's going for. Everyone in the group knows Erza almost bled out last night but only Lucy is foolish enough to ask something silly like are you okay.
Erza assesses her state. She's a little lightheaded, truth be told, like she should be drinking more water, eating more iron, but here she is, preparing to cut down a foe of her own making, all to show the council she's innocent of the crimes she's committed.
"I'm okay," Erza says instead of the things on her mind. She's glad Natsu is a fire dragon slayer and not a poison dragon slayer like Erik, who knows her thoughts almost before she thought them. She's equally happy Lucy seems content to believe her. It's Gray who is the problem, eyeing her suspiciously. She needs to be wary of him; he makes so many misguided schemes of his own, she knows he has a nose for them.
She's not sure what he'd think of her plan to eradicate Earthland of all the people that harmed her. Sometimes, it's difficult to fathom which way Gray's moral compass will go. He runs cold. Clinical. She thinks, though, she could find an ally in him if she wanted.
She doesn't.
Erza settles down on the fountain. The fading sunlight warms her through her armour, making her lament the long night ahead of her.
Everyone looks at her, waiting for her to speak. Erza isn't sure at what point in her life she became hungry for command or if she's always wanted control. "We think we know who the next target is going to be."
Erza's friends eagerly tighten the circle around her as she tells them, against her better judgement, of Wilson Burnaby. It's not that she doesn't trust Jellal to get in and make the kill. It's that she has a lot of faith in her family. They're good mages. They're smart. They're resourceful. They're capable of seeing through Jellal's ruse and capturing him in the act.
Gray is the first to speak afterward. "Who's going to watch him?"
Erza wants to say me but she feels Jellal's eyes on her face, knows for their exoneration to work, she needs to play by his rules. He's the master manipulator. He knows what moves to make to draw attention away from himself.
The next person to speak surprises Erza. "I can do it."
She looks at Lucy, who is standing with her shoulders straight and her hair curling around her neck in the soft breeze, who is looking at everyone with fierce protection in her eyes. "I want to."
"Not a chance," Natsu says immediately.
Lucy's jaw drops. She collects herself. I want to."
"Doesn't matter. It should be me."
"Why? Lucy can handle it," Gray kicks in.
"Because I want to," says Natsu, who can't seem to see the double standard he's posing or doesn't care.
"I can handle it," Lucy interjects again.
And so the bickering begins. Erza watches them, separate, as they fight for the right to protect a nobody from a force they don't understand. Her team is good. Better than she's ever been.
"Gray should do it," Jellal speaks for the first time in long minutes, startling everyone. They're so unused to his presence.
Erza casts him a glance from the corner of his eye. He's assessing the group like the predator he is, searching for weaknesses but also playing to their strengths. Natsu would smell him out. Lucy, he likely thinks, won't be challenging enough, but Gray is capable without putting Jellal at a disadvantage or risking Erza's involvement being known. It'll be a fine hunt, the glow in his eyes seems to say.
Erza considers calling the whole thing off. She loves Jellal. But she doesn't trust him. Not completely.
She hates to deny him, though, and knows he wouldn't put her family at risk if he could help it. Most of the time, he can't, says a deplorable little voice in her mind.
Erza squeezes his hand, hoping to convey her concern without putting it into words. Jellal squeezes back. I hear you; I am in control, he says with a glance.
The gods help her, she believes him.
"Gray? Natsu squawks. "I'm a better mage than him. I should do it if you want this guy to make it to the morning."
"The council will be expecting that move," Jellal reasons. "I told them you would be watching the guard. If there are a spy and a killer in their ranks, they'll have that information, too and prepare for resistance against a fire mage. This is the more unexpected route."
Lucy pouts, put out but too polite to voice that she's been insulted.
"The councilmen agreed to spending their evening in groups of two to make our jobs easier. Lucy and I will pair up to watch Verity and Tweed," Jellal decrees.
Ezra searches his face. If he's choosing his teammate based on his ability to fool them, he's underestimating Lucy.
Or he knows exactly how clever she is, she thinks unwittingly. Jellal loves to play with danger, is driven by it. Why wouldn't he want to put himself with the cleverest piece of her team's puzzle?
This feels like they're plunging toward another disastrous evening, but Erza can do nothing to slow the coming catastrophe.
"Erza," Natsu says, and nothing more, just her name, and a glance between Jellal and Lucy, asking are you sure?
Truthfully, no. she's not sure. But she knows Jellal won't hurt Lucy. Not intentionally, so she nods to Natsu.
"Let's move," Gray says, satisfied that he has an important part of their mission. He's always been confident. Has always had reason to be. Even when he fails, he picks himself up again. Erza's more worried for Jellal than she has any right to be. But she nods and they set out.
Jellal studies Lucy like an equation. Little bits pieced together to make her a whole person—her past, her present, her future, even the one that died in Mercurius, has formed this mage before him. She's a strange girl. Buoyant. Not storm nor rain will keep her down.
"Are you worried about our assignment?" he asks, curious the way a cat is as it plays with a mouse—even as he reminds himself Lucy is not a mouse. She is Erza's friend. And an obstacle he's going to work around, not through. Just because he's making her part of his game doesn't mean she's a mouse. He will think of her more like a hedgerow hindering his passage out of a maze.
Lucy kicks a little stone, sending it skittering off the street. "Natsu and Gray always get the action. Tonight's going to be boring." She sighs and looks to the stars as though considering plucking one of her spirits from sleep to entertain them. She shakes the thought away before it comes to that and honestly, Jellal's disappointed. Getting past two of them would be even more of a challenge.
"Best not look for trouble, Lucy. It has a way of finding you," Jellal says. "There's nothing wrong with a quiet night."
She has opinions on the matter and many of them are obvious with just a short glare from her. Jellal smiles to himself.
They slow by Verity's cottage. Jellal knocks on the door, letting her and Chairman Tweed know they've arrived. She assails them with offers of food again that Lucy declines but Jellal accepts and eats a cake drizzled in honey on the step next to Lucy while around them, the sun sinks below the horizon and steadily, clouds gather overhead.
Their conversation is stilting at first. The only thing they really have in common is Erza. Lucy can talk to anyone given some time, though, and soon, she's regaling him with tales of Erza's exploits. Many he's heard before, but he lets her speak. It's interesting hearing Erza's daringness come from the mouth of someone enthralled by her, and not Erza herself, who downplays every amazing thing she does. He even laughs, glad that Erza has found this strange family, and this strange sort of peace she can sink into when the rest of her life has been a sea of chaos.
After about an hour the conversation lulls. Lucy picks at the tops of her boots; Jellal wipes his fingers on a handkerchief.
"We should do a perimeter check," Lucy decides.
Jellal, who has barely been patient, smiles. It could be filled with too much relief. Lucy doesn't notice the way Erza might, or Natsu, who is always watching him for that one wrong movement. "You take the east side; I'll take the west. We'll meet back here."
The property isn't that large. Lucy nods, though, and stands, stretches. Jellal joins her, creaking, and popping. His joints hurt; he's been hard on his body for too long, the tower, prison, endless battles with dark guilds.
"Be careful," Lucy says unnecessarily.
Jellal repeats her words, though they're foolish. The world needs to be careful of him, not the other way around.
The forest around Verity's home is thick and dark and easily hides his person when he separates from Lucy and slips between its towering trees where he splits himself into two. When he looks at his projection, he sees Siegrain, all the terrible parts of himself, and all the parts he liked, too. There is a freedom to being ruthless. You never have to care about anyone.
But of course, he did, even when he was masquerading; he was thinking about Erza. Always Erza. He would die for her. He would live for her, too.
He flexes his control over his projection and watches the second him return to Lucy. He dedicates a portion of his thoughts to being that Jellal while this one gathers his magic around him and uses meteor to cross the city in a heartbeat.
The world swirls below, people, doing things he can't take in, places, buildings standing sentinel over the living city for what will only be a second in the time of the cosmos, but for humans, will last upwards, past, a lifetime.
We're so fragile, he thinks, coming out of his spell and joining the toil on the street. So ephemeral.
Burnaby isn't like the other members of the council. He doesn't live a life of quiet luxury or act as he does. He lives in a poor part of the city, where the houses turn grubby and soft with rot. Where the smell in the air isn't cooking, but something astringent and foul.
Its an interesting choice for a man made rich by the Tower of Heaven. There is an instant in which Jellal wonders if he's in the right place and has the right man. Then he reminds himself of the papers he held, the sealed files the council should have burned rather than hideaway.
Burnaby is just terrible with his money. He isn't the first, he won't be the last.
Jellal nestles himself amongst the shadows and watches the street. Almost immediately, he spots Gray by Burnaby's shabby house, pacing back and forth out front of a crooked wooden door. He considers the night as he moves restlessly but still entertains himself, making the ground icy and slipping his feet across it, as though he can't quite stand the oppressive autumn air and needs to feel coldness in the ground.
His circuit takes him across the front yard to the back. Jellal thinks he can make his move, get in before Gray can notice, but he holds still, waits. A second later, Gray comes back with a communication lacrima and on it is his stepbrother's face. Lyon Vastia. He's older than Gray now, and not half the villain he used to be.
Jellal watches them, listening to their conversation while the moon sinks the opposite way in the sky.
"It's boring," Gray says. "I'm exhausted."
Lyon says something back that Jellal can't hear but it makes Gray roll his eyes.
He does another circuit, still holding the lacrima, and this time, Jellal moves.
With a thought, he's on the roof of the house, teetering on the shingles. Below, Gray, predictably, pauses and tilts his head, listening intently after he feels the sudden influx of Jellal's magic.
"I gotta go," Gray says and cuts off the communication before Lyon can say anything in response.
Quietness blankets the night like a poisoned cloud. Jellal's heart pulsates pleasantly in his chest, and all his muscles fire with adrenaline. He's missed this feeling. He's—
Jellal steps back and disturbs a nest of squirrels on the roof. They scream, moving erratically, throwing loose shingles to the ground, and drawing Gray's attention upward. Jellal hurls himself against the chimney, out of sight, and holds his breath.
A squirrel balances on the eves and chitters unhappily in Jellal's direction. A lance of ice shoots up from the ground, encircles the squirrel, casts it into stasis. It teeters, falls. Jellal never hears it hit the ground and imagines Gray beneath it, waiting to catch its prone body.
Jellal hears him sigh but knows that won't be the end of it. Gray thinks he knows what's caused the commotion but he's thorough.
Desperate, Jellal reaches into the fabric of the heavens with as little magic as possible and plucks a small heavenly body from its black gown. It slides through the sky, bright as a firework, before burning up in the atmosphere, bright enough that it snags Gray's attention. Jellal can hear people exclaiming from where he stands.
Below, Gray turns his attention that way, awed by the phenomenon like everyone else. But then he remembers the scolding Erza gave him yesterday once she was well enough, and he pauses, returns to Burnaby's house, and even makes a stairway to the roof to see if anyone's hiding there. By then, though, Jellal has let himself in through an open bedroom window, and Gray has no idea.
When Gray knocks on the door and enters to check the premises, Jellal retreats again, back to the roof, where he waits out the conversation inside the house. Gray tells Burnaby to be on alert, and Burnaby gladly agrees. It's something else, hearing the guard's voice after so long. Jellal hasn't realized he has saved a recess in his mind for this man, but here he is, stepping out of the cobwebs and into the light.
In his mind's eye, Burnaby is youthful and his eyes glow with a malice that cannot be hidden behind smiles. Back in his Tower of Heaven days, he was the kind of man that drowned raccoons, shot squirrels with a slingshot when they tried to get into his feeder, and regardless of who he is now, Jellal is suddenly glad the squirrels on his roof are ruining his already shabby house. Glad that until now, he's lived with the smell of piss and disease. He deserves it.
The front door closes and Jellal again slides inside the house. He's in the master bedroom. It smells like unwashed human and neglect—musty, overused, unclean. Even in the darkness, he can see there are dust bunnies on the floor that float around as he walks through, his cloak disturbing them.
Jellal settles in wait near the doorway and though he's prepared for a long night of anxious waiting, Burnaby surprises him by mounting the stairs and, after a short trip to the washroom, entering his bedroom.
He's sighing as he does so, expelling breath that smells thickly of alcohol and cheesy snacks. Jellal doesn't think that will throw him back in time, either, but the smell ranking off Burnaby is a time capsule and suddenly, he's back in the Tower of Heaven, small, powerless, before what he thought was Zeref came to him and granted him the confidence and power to destroy his own world. His face is phantom burning with the memory of Burnaby's smacking it with a very recently unlit torch. It's so powerful, even the stink of ignited kerosene scorches his nose.
The Jellal before Siegrain and before Crime Sorcièr might have been paralyzed by Burnaby's sudden resurrection, but this Jellal has learned to move on, has learned that his targets are much pleasurable when they aren't moving.
And so, when Burnaby steps over the threshold, Jellal grabs him by the throat and the chin, determined to break his neck before he can scream.
Burnaby surprises him one more time by crouching low and hitting Jellal squarely in the kidney. He's drunk, but his punch still packs a wallop with all his considerable weight behind it. Jellal skips back, out of range.
Though it's dark, Jellal can see Burnaby's gotten old. He's gotten robust. What he has not gotten is as careless as Jellal would hope and dodges Jellal's responding attack.
Burnaby hits him twice more in quick succession. Before he knows it, Jellal finds himself on the filthy ground with Wilson Burnaby standing over top of him. His eyes, though shadowed, still glow with the menace they did at the Tower of Heaven. Burnaby still hurts things weaker than him, still hunts the innocent, still gets his jollies in depraved dens. He's older now, true, but not frail.
He leans over Jellal with a confidence stolen from years of terrorizing. His chest rises and falls and his greasy hair flops forward, pushed by the frantic breaths he gasps in.
Rather than calling for help, Burnaby's first words are, "I know you."
Jellal's prepared for a herald back to the days he was Siegrain, but Burnaby hits him with, "You're the crazy kid that disappeared those guards."
Suddenly, it is thirteen years ago, Jellal is in chains, and he's hanging by his wrists. He's split in two, fearful and resilient, he's learning there is no freedom in this world. He's afraid. He's afraid of what that means for the people he loves. For the ones he's struggled to protect. And Zeref (Ultear) is giving him an answer, a path, a way not from the darkness because it's inescapable, but a way to tame it.
Burnaby finishes, "You're the zealot."
Then he laughs. "They said you were cured but that's not so, is it?"
Jellal gathers what little air he can into his lungs and wills the flashback away. He is not a child any longer. He's not powerless. He's not at Ultear's whim.
He is his own monster.
In a sudden movement, he picks himself off the ground and hits Burnaby in the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of his lungs. He goes mute, falls back, surprised, and now Jellal has the upper hand.
He stands at his full height, though his kidneys are aching, and looks down at a fallen Burnaby. The other man doesn't seem too concerned, still smiling, though he's gasping for breath, still looking at Jellal as though he's nothing, no one.
"When Eros told me we were being targeted, I didn't think—" Burnaby wheezes in another weak breath. "—That it would be from you." His laugh twists something in Jellal and irks him. "We were told you'd reformed. But you're still a zealot. Still with nothing of your own to live for. You're pathetic."
Jellal imagines kicking him until he curls small and whimpers for mercy. Only one thought stops him: maybe he's a monster, but he has finesse. He's calculated. He's thorough and purposeful.
"I no longer worship Zeref. I am a man of honour. It is my duty to eradicate your evil from this world, though, and so I will."
Burnaby lets out another airy laugh. "Maybe you don't worship Zeref anymore, but you're in thick with something. You've traded one false idol for another."
Jellal has a difficult time controlling his expression and whatever Burnaby sees there gives him the strength to continue.
"Men like you always need something to believe in because you've no conviction of your own. You're here because your idol wants it. Not because you do. Even if you kill me, Councilman, you'll still have to go to bed with that knowledge."
Jellal's used his blade to draw a smile across Burnaby's throat before he can think much about it. The man gurgles as it happens; he doesn't lift his hands to the spot, though, or scream, or thrash, drawing Gray's attention. He slides out of this world and into the next as gently as summer giving way to fall.
Jellal is heaving in the scent of spilled blood to bask in his small victory when he sees something peculiar in the eyes of his projection.
Lucy is returning from another stroll around Verity's house when the night sky lights up in an explosion around her and suddenly, she's freefalling, soaring through the air, crashing to the ground, broken and bloody.
They're under attack.