The Scars That Make You Whole
By CrimsonStarbird
Thy Will Be Done, Part 2
-The Sacred and the Profane-
There was no time for Lucy to summon properly – no time to even reach for her keys. She reached for her magic instead. Starlight flooded her body, and she released an arrow from a bow that was only half-formed. Like a comet, its path was true; it knocked the executioner's blade from Gray's hands moments before it could impale Natsu.
Slowly, Gray straightened, letting his empty hands fall back to his sides. "Hello again, Lucy."
"Hello, Not-Gray."
Her old friend rolled his single crimson eye as if she'd told a bad joke. "Haven't you learnt by now that there is only one Gray in this world, and he is standing right in front of you?"
She gritted her teeth. Even though Gray's attention had turned away from the body at his feet, Natsu still wasn't moving. What had Gray done to him? Surely Natsu couldn't have lost?
"You beat me," Gray continued, almost thoughtfully. "I'll concede that; you got the better of me in Bishop's Lace. And yet, I'm still here. I'm still Gray."
"I wondered about that too," Lucy confessed. "Especially after Lisanna defeated Alegria. She was able to beat the demons back and free Mira's consciousness, so why did beating you in combat not have the same effect? I know you're also something demonic. I know you're a fragment of Devil Slayer magic that has gone out of control."
"Perhaps you don't know as much as you think you do."
Ignoring the attempt at deflection, Lucy said, "And then it hit me. Alegria is all that remains of the demons who fell to human hands. They wanted to destroy Mira's humanity and reclaim an existence of their own; they sought vengeance upon all mankind. Losing to Lisanna wasn't just a setback for them, it was failure. That's why their control over Mira broke. But you, losing to me – that's meaningless to you, isn't it? It has nothing to do with your reason for being."
"Then why are you here, if you already know there's no point in fighting me?" Gray sneered.
"I'm not going to fight you." Not as long as he didn't threaten Natsu again, anyway, and he appeared to have completely lost interest in the unmoving Dragon Slayer. "I'm here to talk. I wanted to remind you of something you've clearly forgotten since Fairy Tail disbanded."
"And what's that?" His lip curled with a derision Gray never would have turned upon a friend. "Let me guess: the magical power of friendship?"
"Basically, yes," she shrugged. "Although I'm not sure I'd call it magic. It's more the practical convenience of being able to ask other people for help with things you can't do yourself."
Gray's eyes narrowed.
"For instance," Lucy continued calmly, "rather than going evil, joining Avatar, and participating in murderous rituals in the vain hope of summoning Zeref and obtaining the Book of END from him… you could have just asked me to get it for you. Virgo?"
"Here, Princess." Virgo materialized at her owner's side with the stolen book in her hands.
A monstrous shriek tore from Gray's throat. "GIVE IT TO ME!"
He lunged towards them, but Lucy and Virgo separated, effortlessly, and he passed straight between them.
"That's no way to ask a favour of a friend," Lucy admonished him. "Which is another thing you would know if you were really our Gray. Still, since I did offer, I am prepared to make you a deal. Give me back Gray, and I'll give you the Book of END. You can fulfil the reason for your exis-"
A pillar of ice burst up from the ground. If Virgo hadn't danced backwards in the nick of time, her entire right arm – and the precious book she held – would have been sealed inside Gray's ice.
"No, I didn't think reasoning with you would work." Lucy gave a sad shake of her head. "Alright then, Not-Gray."
She held out her hand and Virgo tossed the book to her. The rush of warmth she was expecting – like holding a coal plucked from her own guild's hearth – never came. Only the faintest trickle of heat ran down her arm, far weaker than when she had first taken the book from Zeref, and she wondered if she had made more than one mistake in separating it so suddenly from its creator.
It was a stark reminder of everything she had staked upon this encounter: this precious book; Gray's life; any chance of Zeref ever forgiving her… but she could not shy away from risk. Not when her guild was on the line.
She had to see this through.
Heart set, she raised the Book of END up high. "Come and get it."
Gray did.
Lucy was ready for him, and even then, she barely made it in time. Her first plan went out of the window as a frozen fountain erupted at his feet, propelling him towards her faster than she had thought possible. She threw herself aside and rolled one-handed, the Book of END held tightly to her chest. Gray's claw slashed through the strap of her satchel instead, and she let it fall away. If this was how fast he was, she didn't want her travelling gear weighing her down.
Stumbling to her feet, her free hand found her keys. The power of Virgo's Star Dress form flared around her. The huge blade of ice that burst from Gray's palm thus passed straight over her head, as she used Virgo's tunnelling power to disappear into the ground.
The Celestial Spirit joined her underground, where they exchanged the book in criss-crossed tunnels. It was a good job they did – no sooner had Lucy popped up into daylight than Gray's ugly sword collided with her chest. Although it was only a glancing blow, he was there as the sword disappeared, black-stained hands clutching at a book she no longer had.
"Give it to me!" he hissed, slashing at her forearm harshly enough to draw blood with his fingernails.
"Looking for this?" Virgo called from behind him.
Snarling, Gray turned and pounced in one animalistic motion. Virgo threw the book back; it sailed clean over the ice mage's head and Lucy caught it with only a brief lurch of nerves. She'd had enough practice learning how not to drop Aquarius's key. She waved it tauntingly at Gray. "Ner-ner-ne-ner-ner!"
Hollow fire blazed in Gray's eye. A forest of icy stalagmites forced their way up through the shattered road beneath them. Grimacing inwardly, Lucy hopped backwards several paces, leading him away from Natsu. She didn't want to leave her unconscious friend alone, especially when she didn't know what was wrong with him, but it was far too dangerous to try and fight around him-
Distracted by her concern, she almost didn't notice that Gray had changed tactics. An enormous shape appeared out of purple ice in his hands. Far less elegant than the bow or cannon that his normal Ice Make could produce, it was barely even recognizable as a crossbow, but it was quick and lethal.
Panicking, she tried to tunnel back into the earth, but the magic she had borrowed from Virgo bounced off the ground. Gray's permafrost had rendered it impassable even to her.
Half-twisting, Lucy chose to take the hit to her shoulder rather than let the book come to harm. Her intentions were good; her tactics, not so much. The jarring impact knocked the book free.
"YES!" Gray roared, diving for it.
He had forgotten about Virgo. With her tunnelling skills negated, the resourceful maid had picked up a new method of navigating the battlefield – namely, through sliding tackles. She slid feet-first beneath the pouncing Gray, snatched the book away from him, and vanished back to the Celestial Spirit Realm. The icicles which burst from the ice rink beneath her pierced thin air.
For a moment, Lucy considered leaving the book in the Celestial Spirit Realm. There, it was protected by dimensional separation, rather than her own reflexes… but she glanced at Gray, and her heart sank. He had paused the moment the book had vanished, shoulders heaving, watching her with a new wariness, she knew she couldn't do this without it.
Aries brought her back the Book of END – along with a woollen Star Dress outfit, increasing her tolerance to the ever-dropping temperature. Instantly, Gray's red eye snapped back to Lucy. She played it like she might the attention of an audience of thousands, passing the book lazily from hand to hand. "I can't believe you've been looking for this for ten months, and now that it's right in front of you, you can't even touch it."
The subsequent snarl might have contained the world 'destroy', although even Natsu's superhuman hearing would have struggled to make it out. The temperature dropped further as a bitter wind rose. Lucy held the book to her chest, as if to warm its ailing hearth with her own body heat, a poor apology for the danger she was exposing it to as the dance began again.
Because it was a dance. Lucy wasn't fighting back, wasn't flinging anything more than taunts in response to Gray's crude, bruise-coloured icicles. She ducked and she weaved and she dodged and she shielded the book, but nothing more.
And every time she yanked Zeref's book away from Gray's Devil Slayer magic at the last moment, his attacks became wilder, his coordination faltered, and his hellish eye burned brighter… and the black ice grew.
The more he drew upon his cursed magic, the further it expanded across his skin. No longer a subtle, parasitic growth, it fed and fed until it better resembled a suit of black armour – if that armour had been forged of liquid obsidian and left to solidify at the whims of thermal currents. It was crude, asymmetric, raw; it was an unbreakable, unyielding, triumphant corruption.
That was fine. She already knew she couldn't rip it away from him by force.
The cold air was scraping fishhooks up her throat and her muscles were swimming in lactic acid, but out of the corner of her eye she had glimpsed a streak of gold against the ashen sky, and that was all the motivation she needed.
"Your dad died to give you the magic to destroy END, and here you are, about to let it slip through your fingers once more!" she taunted, as his snarl overflowed with rage. "Well, if you want it that much… fetch!"
She hurled the Book of END over his head like a frisbee.
As he bounded after it, a single-minded beast, she held out her hand towards the roof of a nearby house – a roof that immediately exploded in tiles and black ice as a golden meteor slowed to a stop along it. "Sword!" Lucy yelled. "Now!"
"I don't have it!" Jellal shouted back.
"What?"
"It was stolen!" he shouted again, and this time she could make out the desperation distorted by his ragged breathing; an ally who had pushed himself to the limit to try and warn her in time.
"H-How?" she stammered. "When?"
"I have no idea! I went to retrieve it from our vault, and it was gone! Avatar must have got through our defences somehow. I tried to call you as soon as I realized, but you weren't answering the lacrima!"
She reached automatically for her satchel before remembering she had lost it at the start of the fight. "No," she whispered numbly. "This can't be happening…"
Jellal was still speaking, but Lucy wasn't listening, watching Gray reach for the book with still-growing claws.
She had deliberately drawn out the demonic side of Gray's magic, strengthened its rage, given it control, and by doing so – she hoped – she had made it vulnerable to a certain deadly sword that could burn the evil magic out of his body without killing him… a certain deadly sword that they did not have.
"Lucy!" Jellal yelled.
Snapping back to the present, Lucy tugged the virtual thread of the magic Zeref had taught her and the Book of END rematerialized in her hand. Gray swore savagely as his curse-laced claws speared empty air.
This time, the thought of taunting him didn't cross Lucy's mind. The book pulsed in her hand, a fluttering heartbeat, newly vulnerable, just like her.
Digging his claws into the ice for leverage, Gray launched himself back towards her. She was too numb to react to such speed, but fortunately, although Jellal may not have fully processed the situation, he knew an attempt on his friend's life when he saw one.
A pulse of light from the rooftop above smacked straight into Gray. Though the force of the condensed starlight was enough to whip back Lucy's hair, it skated along Gray's black carapace with no greater effect than pushing him back a step or two.
By this point, she was expecting nothing more. He was unstoppable.
"Lucy, what's going on?" Jellal demanded. "Is that- is that Gray?"
"His Devil Slayer magic has been going out of control for months. I thought the sword would be able to destroy it," she gasped. "Now… I don't know what to do…"
Not amused by the lull in the fighting, Gray lunged again. Even though Jellal was the one who had hit him last, he still cared for nothing but Lucy – or at least for the book she clutched uselessly to her chest. A second blast of light repelled him again.
Snarling, Gray twisted and flicked his hand. The ground beneath Lucy erupted into a storm of icicles, but Jellal had seen the change in strategy coming a mile off. Swooping down, with his Meteor magic glowing around him, he lifted Lucy out of harm's way and onto another roof.
Hope sparked in her chest at the rescue. She wasn't doing this on her own. If Jellal could distract Gray for a few minutes, maybe she could find another solution-
"Lucy, what are you holding?" Jellal asked, and just like that, the spark of hope was quenched.
"It's, uh…" She fumbled for the words, fingers tightening instinctively around the demonic book. How was she supposed to explain having the Book of END to the leader of the top dark-hunting guild in the kingdom?
Warily, Jellal continued, "That's Zeref's magic, Lucy. I would know it anywhere."
"I know. I need it to bait Gray's crazy side."
Jellal's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. Lucy knew her response would have been a lot more convincing if she hadn't panicked first, and he wasn't the kind of man who would overlook that.
"It's one of Zeref's weapons, Lucy," he told her carefully. "It needs to be destroyed while it's vulnerable."
"No!"
"We might never get another chance like this! Give it to me, Lucy. I'll destroy it, and then we can find a way to save Gray-"
"No!" Lucy repeated, yanking it out of his reach – away from fingers already glowing gold with merciless light.
An odd expression flashed across Jellal's face: the same expression she had seen from him when he'd realised that the demonic beast they were fighting was their own Gray Fullbuster.
In that moment, Lucy knew she had no allies here. She would have to fight Gray and Jellal alike before she even reached Avatar.
"Lucy," Jellal tried again, softly, like he was no longer speaking to a teammate, but to a child. "I need you to give me that book. Its dark magic is affecting your mind. Let me take it."
"No!" she snapped again, panic rising. How could she convince him that she wasn't being controlled? That she had stolen it and gravely hurt its creator in the process; that the book was defenceless and killing it – taking that warmth and that sanctuary out of the world – was just wrong? "Jellal, I need you to trust me. I'll explain everything later, I swear, but right now, I need this book to bait Gray, and I need you to help me, not-"
She managed to stop herself before adding not get in my way, although her tone of voice carried the message well enough on its own.
Still, Jellal did not break eye contact, did not so much as flinch at the unspoken words. "Lucy, I need you to trust me."
"Jellal, you have no idea what's going on here! You're trying to help, I know that, but you don't understand-"
"I understand dark magic, Lucy. I've been dealing with deadly artefacts for years, remember? I know how insidious they can be, especially ones as powerful as this, Zeref's strongest demon. I know what it will do to your mind to try and protect itself-"
"MINE!"
They were forced apart as Gray made another lunge for the book. Knowing she couldn't rely on Jellal this time, Lucy leapt away from them both, but a snap of ice-covered fingers froze the roof beneath her feet, and she slipped. As she slid towards the edge of the roof on her back, Gray's wild slash knocked the book from her grasp.
Jellal and Gray both dived after it. On impulse, Lucy kicked off from the roof and summoned the book to her hand in the same motion. Transitioning to her Scorpio form, she would have dived straight through the ground and into a brief respite had Gray not flash-frozen it beneath her.
She landed, skidded – and Jellal was already there, trying to snatch the book from her arms. Lucy ducked away, holding it tighter to her chest, wondering how she was going to get out of this-
An opening came from the last place she was expecting.
Specifically, from a sandy-haired, casually dressed man punching Jellal in the face.
It was the surprise that sent Jellal reeling. There was no magic in the blow. The man who had dealt it was one who had been born with an unconnected magical core, whose only means of fighting against mages had been a deadly magic-eating sword that he alone could safely wield.
Jerome yelled, "Give it back!"
"You…" Recognizing the Avatar swordsman who had almost destroyed his guild in a single battle, Jellal's focus intensified. Magic far stronger than he would have risked using against Lucy – whether he believed her possessed or otherwise – stretched to breaking point in his aura.
Jerome did not notice, or perhaps he did not care. He went in for a second punch that Jellal dodged without having to think about it. "Give me back my sword!" Jerome bellowed.
"What?" Jellal blinked.
"You took it from me!" Jerome screamed. "Give it back, give it back, give it back!"
Blindly, he lashed out again, causing Jellal to hop backwards. "I don't have it!" Jellal protested, bewildered.
"Liar! I know you stole it from me in the diner-"
"You stole it back!" Jellal shouted. "I checked the vaults ten minutes ago and it was gone! No, it was later that very night that you stole it, I know it was, I remember sensing an enemy's magic in the forest-"
"You're a liar!" Another blind swing, which once again Jellal dodged without attempting to strike back. Jerome continued shrieking, "If I had it, do you think I'd still be here? Disgraced, forced out of the only place I have ever belonged, punished by Arlock for losing his generous gift-"
"But that doesn't make any sense," Lucy interrupted. "If Arlock doesn't have it, and Jerome doesn't have it, and Crime Sorcière doesn't have it… then who has the sword?"
"I don't know," Jellal admitted.
Jerome clearly didn't believe him, foaming at the mouth as he screamed at Jellal again, but Lucy did. Neither ally nor enemy knew what had become of the cursed sword.
That was it, then. Her chance of saving Gray had vanished into thin air.
She let her attention turn to the man in question, who had stopped attacking with Jerome's arrival, although his eyes were still driving holes into the book in Lucy's arms. Well, his red eye was. The other was an empty socket in a helmet of black ice.
Gray cocked his head, considering, and then sent a spear of ice shooting towards all three of them. Still in her Scorpio form, Lucy enclosed herself in translucent armour as red as hidden Antares. She deflected the attack with her plated forearm, but that small success brought little joy.
She was backed into a corner, physically and mentally. She had no way of stopping Gray. She wasn't sure she could run from him either, leaving him to the darkness she had so foolishly drawn out of him, and she had no guarantee that she could trust Jellal to take her side even if she did.
It was there, surrounded by allies-turned-enemies, that Lucy made the mistake of thinking things couldn't get any worse.
That was when the fear hit.
It didn't press down on her like something physical, something mundane. It stole up on her and seized control, and the first she knew about it was when she tried to inhale and found her own breath paralyzed inside her chest.
She couldn't move – not because anything was restraining her, but because moving was pointless. The battle had ceased at once. The clouds were no thicker, but the sky was darker. Rubble still trickled from the disembowelled buildings, but it was silent now, afraid to disturb the stillness.
Running was futile. Fighting was futile. Nothing she could do or say would make the slightest bit of difference.
That was fear: the knowledge that whether she lived or died was completely out of her hands.
And she was going to die.
This she knew with startling certainty. She remembered how she'd felt as Arlock had started his ritual, caught in the gaze of something more than her, and she laughed at how she could ever have found such a distant deity frightening. This was different. This was real, and it was here for her.
He was here for her.
It wasn't that she deliberately turned to watch him approach, for her rational mind was no longer the master of her body. No, her attention was drawn to him because it was the only physical possibility.
He came as death incarnate. Black wind, fatal to all but he, curled around him with the tenderness of a lover. Living hellfire burnt in his eyes.
Since their quest had begun, she had grown so used to his presence: to his archaic appearance and his brilliant mind and his unexpected humanity. Now, it was as if she was seeing him for the very first time – seeing him for how he was truly meant to be.
She didn't notice Gray's gaze shift away from the Book of END for the first time. She didn't register Jellal going completely rigid at her side. She didn't hear the reverent murmur that slipped from Jerome's lips.
She thought only of the book wrapped in her arms.
The book she had stolen from this divine, infernal man.
She was going to die for it. It was as simple as that.
What was friendship to a man who had no equal? How much of a fool had she been, believing that someone like her could form a meaningful connection with the immortal Black Mage? His legacy of death and fear spanned four hundred years, and yet she thought she could- what, change him, and in a handful of days at that? She wanted to laugh at her own blindness. She had never really known him at all.
To think that she had been worried about having to fight Gray and Jellal! They were nothing compared to the man whose trust she had betrayed – the man who had declared himself the enemy of all.
His crimson gaze swept across the scene, and no one quite dared to meet it.
Zeref's lips parted in a disdainful smirk. "On your knees, worms."
Jerome would have cut off his own legs if he'd thought it would get him to the ground any quicker. Lucy found herself envying his resolve. Indecision held her in place. Should she obey, and pray for a mercy she knew was not coming? Flee, and enjoy three more steps of life before it ended at a snap of his fingers? Throw it all away for pride and her guild, and join Jellal on his inevitable final charge against a man they could not dream of beating?
Or-
Believe that he wouldn't hurt her.
Believe that the man who had dragged her from the flames in Bishop's Lace and held her through her tears was still in there somewhere.
Believe that the Black Mage she saw now was no more the absolute, sole truth of his being than any of the other sides she had seen to him as they'd travelled.
She grabbed Jellal's arm. All his attention had been fixed on Zeref, and her move almost startled him into attacking; she barely recognized those wild eyes in the moments before they recognized her.
She hissed to him, "Play along. Please. I'll explain everything later, I promise, but for now, please, please, just play along…"
And this time, her sincerity must have got through to Jellal. Somehow, incredibly, he let her pull him to the ground.
On her knees, Lucy mimicked Jerome's posture, humble and subservient. Zeref had brought this mad situation to heel just by showing up; threatening his control right now would not end well. Some part of Jellal seemed to understand that, even if he was hunched beside her like he might pounce at any moment. His gaze remained locked onto Zeref, unwilling – or perhaps physically unable – to bow his head to the man he had sworn to defeat.
Lucy's hand still gripped Jellal's arm tightly. She wasn't sure if she was tethering him or grounding herself. Adrenaline pumped like helium through her veins, threatening to carry her away.
With her head bowed, she would not even see the death magic coming until it was too late. She had never felt so helpless.
A lifetime later, Zeref's gaze swept on, apparently satisfied.
She was still alive.
"Oh…? What do we have here?" Zeref purred, turning to Gray. "A rabid dog, who does not even realize he is in the presence of his superiors?"
A growl rose from ice-stained lips, but it was a wary one. Gray was the only one still standing amidst that suffocating pressure, but only because the single-minded darkness that embraced him had no concept of self-preservation. He understood just enough for his red eye to twitch in Zeref's direction at the Black Mage's every motion, though it always drifted back to Lucy, and the book in her arms.
"No," Zeref mused. "That won't do at all."
With a snap of his fingers, the Book of END appeared in his hand. Instantly, Gray's gaze locked onto him, intense, obsessive, hell-bent… and the Black Mage basked in the attention. "Well?" he taunted. "Are you going to stand there and watch me walk away with it once again?"
And Lucy didn't need to be a demon herself to understand the meaning of that howl.
She closed her eyes as Gray launched himself towards Zeref. There was nothing she could do but have faith in Zeref – have faith that she wasn't about to watch one of her friends die at the hands of another…
But Gray wasn't the only one who seized the moment.
By the time Jellal's hand snapped out of hers, it was already too late. In a blur of divine light, he smashed aside the paralysis of Zeref's presence, of Lucy's heartfelt plea, and shot towards the man he had devoted the rest of his life to killing.
Lucy screamed a warning – to whom, she was not entirely sure – and then, out of nowhere, there was suddenly a wall of ice between Jellal and Zeref.
At first, she thought it was Gray's doing, but his ice had been rushed and ugly and tainted with violet shadows for some time now, and this miniature mountain range was diamond-white and perfectly symmetrical. Even after Jellal smashed into it with the force of a maddened bull, it still held firm. The flare of heat from the collision was instantly swallowed by the coldness. Ice was condensing out of the very air to seal Jellal in place.
Lucy was already scanning the streets for the caster. It wasn't wide-eyed Jerome who had intervened; he wasn't capable of it. Hidden behind a crumbling wall, there was, now unshielded, an immense unfamiliar presence brushing the edge of her senses.
Then the still-condensing prison exploded around Jellal, and he was gone in that direction before she could get a word in.
A moment later, the ice wall dissolved into nothing, and Gray burst through its wake.
It was beautiful, how calmly Zeref moved. His fingers brushed across the Book of END – a single touch, and Lucy felt what power she had over it snap, just like that. She knew, then, that nothing she had done to it was irreversible; that it was going to be okay.
With a flick of his wrist, Zeref returned his precious book to his Requip Space.
In the same graceful motion, he drew out of his Requip Space a black-burning sword, turned, and cut Gray down mid-leap.
Everything seemed to stop.
The world was too afraid to move, for by doing so, it would accept that what had happened could never now be changed. Even Gray seemed to hang, frozen, as if the blade which had sliced so easily through crystal and flesh alike had also severed the thread of destiny pulling him through time's stream.
Zeref cast the sword aside with an expression of distaste. Gray slumped to the ground at his feet as shadowy flames erupted across his body. Beneath Zeref's dispassionate stare, black ice began to burn in unholy flame, a sacrifice, a pyre.
Only then did Zeref let out a sigh and turn back towards Lucy. His eyes were a beautiful inky black, and more than a little exasperated.
"Honestly, Lucy," he reprimanded her. "Why am I not the least bit surprised to find you in the middle of this?"
"Zeref…" Torn between laughter and tears, terror and vindication, that one word was all she could manage. He seemed to understand, reaching out to help pull her to her feet. His hand felt so warm in hers, so strong.
It was only for a moment, though, as he stepped away, and the rest of the hateful world rushed back in.
"Gray!" Lucy dashed forwards. "Is he-?"
She was only halfway there when Zeref's outstretched arm hit her chest, gentle but unrelenting. "Don't get any closer," he said, and it was a warning, but also an order. "If you touch him, the sword's curse will infect your magic too."
Lucy swallowed. She hated not being able to do anything, and yet she hadn't been in control of this situation from the moment Jellal had arrived without the sword. Gray was writhing, burning, in silent agony. She had always known using the sword on him would be a risk – a true last resort – but seeing it with her own eyes was something else.
She could barely bring herself to whisper. "Will he survive?"
"It's hard to say," Zeref considered. "You did an excellent job of drawing that demonic taint to the forefront, but it's still part of his magic; it can't truly be detached from him. The sword's curse won't discriminate. I suspect it will simply burn until there's nothing left of him… but beneath the ice, your friend is strong. You might get lucky. It's probably the best idea you could have come up with, under the circumstances."
Then something seemed to occur to him, and he glanced at her with unfathomable eyes. "That was the plan, wasn't it?"
At any other time, she might have laughed, but with her friend dying right in front of her, she could barely manage a nod. "It was, until the sword went missing. Why did you have it?"
He shrugged. "I stole it from Crime Sorcière after our raid on the black church."
"How? You were with me the whole night!"
"No, I was with you while you were awake – and when time was flowing normally. That being said, my expedition was nearly a disaster. I hadn't accounted for how well-warded their Mobile Temple was, especially with Jellal on the lookout for trouble. Still, in the end, I managed to get in and out without leaving a trace."
Lucy frowned a little at this entirely unremorseful admission of theft. "Why did you steal it?"
When he failed to answer, Lucy pressed, "Because I don't think you wanted to use it as a weapon. It's an abomination against magic, and you know that. You can barely even bring yourself to touch it." She gestured to where the deadly weapon lay in the street, burning pathetically with nothing close enough to consume. Zeref's hand was blackened just from holding it – burns that his immortality was slowly healing. "It would have been safe with Jellal's guild. So why did you take it from him?"
"I thought it might have been able to kill me."
"What?"
It came out as a squeak.
Misunderstanding her objection, Zeref explained, "I thought, if it burns away magic, it might be able to burn away my immortality."
"But it couldn't, right?" A shard of icy sickness had lodged somewhere within her heart. Even seeing the evidence in front of her eyes, she still found it hard to breathe, just thinking about how close she had come to losing him without realizing it.
"I didn't get round to trying," he said matter-of-factly. "I wanted to experiment with it first. The consequences of it being unable to overcome my curse, and instead becoming locked in some sort of battle with it… well, eternal life is bad enough. Eternal life in endless pain was not worth the risk without further study."
"Oh," said Lucy, in a quiet voice. "If it means anything to you, I'm glad you didn't try it."
"So am I. Having seen its effect on Gray, I am certain it would not have achieved what I hoped for. In fact, I think it would have been very unpleasant indeed."
"That's not what I meant."
Zeref gave her a curious look, head tilted, the darkness of his eyes far more ambiguous than the blazing red. "I came here to kill you, Lucy."
"Then I'm disappointed," she responded, meeting his gaze defiantly. "I thought the great Black Mage would be good at killing people, and yet here I am."
"Don't push your luck," he warned, although there was a faint ring of amusement beneath it.
And just for a moment, it felt like nothing had changed between them.
How? After everything she had said to him after Bishop's Lace, after the state she'd left him in when they'd parted ways, after she'd stolen the Book of END and plunged it into danger knowing full well what it would do to him… she couldn't understand why he was acting like this.
"Zeref, I-" she began, haltingly, but he just shook his head.
"Not now, Lucy."
After a moment, she nodded.
They would have to talk. Perhaps there would even be a reckoning. For now, though, she was happier than words could say that he was here with her.
But her smile quickly died, as the twitching of Gray's body dragged her back to the present crisis. She started forward once more, only to find Zeref in her way again.
"Don't," he repeated quietly. "You can't do anything for him, Lucy. He will win or lose this one on his own, and I dare say we have other things to worry about right now."
Her thoughts jumped to Natsu, whom she had left lying comatose in what she hoped was a safer part of the city than this, but Zeref's attention was somewhere else, watching bursts of light and ice rise above the houses in the distance. Now that Zeref had let his own blinding presence die away, she could feel the distant explosions of power for what they were: ferocious, and frighteningly strong on both sides. Anyone who could force Jellal to fight at full power was a dangerous opponent indeed.
"Zeref," she ventured, "please call off your friend."
"No."
Alarm forced her eyes wider. "They'll kill each other!"
"They won't," Zeref assured her. "Invel is better than that, and last I heard, your friend Jellal was the same. Besides," he added, with a sigh, "I'm rather keen on the two of them keeping each other distracted while I try to find a way out of this situation before it can get any worse."
As if on cue, a trembling hand finally found the courage to clutch at the hem of his robes. "Lord Zeref!" Jerome whispered, his eyes alight. "You have finally come for us!"
"See?" Zeref demanded of Lucy. "What a disaster."
The Magic Council's Prison, Era, X785
It was Lahar who always cut him down.
It was Lahar whose professionalism never faltered as he swept into the cell, supporting the limp body within, cutting through the chain he had managed to suspend from the ceiling again, untangling the loop of it from his red-raw neck.
It was Lahar's stony eyes that were always the first things to emerge from the half-asphyxiated haze, separated by the thin pane of his glasses and an entirely different way of seeing the world.
When the other guards jeered that he was going to hang anyway once the Council made up their mind, it was Lahar who asserted that the time and place was for the law to decide, not for them.
When that had not been enough, it was Lahar who argued that it would be bad publicity for the Rune Knights if a prisoner were to die in their custody.
When that had not been enough either, it was Lahar who used his authority as Captain to send them away and cover their shifts himself, and who sat beside him in silence until his surroundings had become rigid again and his breathing horribly, hatefully regular.
"Three times in three days, Jellal!" Lahar snapped, in the end. "What are you hoping to achieve? You know full well the Council won't move you to an institution, no matter how hard you try! You're too dangerous for that! So why do you keep doing it?"
"I might get lucky," Jellal murmured back. The only emotion in those words was the weakness the chain had forced into them. "Next time, you might not make it in time."
"Goddammit, Jellal! I thought you had decided to accept your punishment! I thought you were doing it for Erza – that you were going to prove to us that Fairy Tail was right to trust you; that you were going to take your amnesia as an opportunity to start over! For weeks you've been well-behaved, been quiet, and now this-! What happened, Jellal? Why are you trying to throw all that away now?"
Jellal did not know this at the time, but the look on his face as he'd answered was what Lahar would recall, three days later, when he decided to look the other way as two cloaked figures broke into the prison and three broke out again.
"I remembered," Jellal said.
In the instant his eyes had fallen upon Zeref, Jellal had remembered again.
No, it had started before then. A magic designed to induce fear had a field day with him as its victim, and it had chosen that memory to drag up: a fall too short to snap his neck, a chain too long to hold him helpless, toes scrabbling at the floor, body twisting, a slow, slow asphyxiation always ended far too soon by the diligence of the only Rune Knight too professional to hate him.
Worse than that, though, he remembered remembering.
There had been nothing dramatic about it. Nothing to mark that night out as special. He had fallen asleep in his cell as usual, unable to remember anything from before Oración Seis had revived him – and when he had awoken the following morning, he remembered everything.
They said ignorance was bliss, but there was something bitterly cruel about the way that such bliss could only be understood once it was lost.
His imprisonment at the hands of the Council had been defined by ignorance. He was charged with a string of heinous crimes, but he could not remember committing them. He was hated for things he did not recall doing, despised by people whose names he did not even know, torn away from the only person he could remember ever having shown him kindness, and finally thrown in a cell, there to be jeered at until the Council selected a day for his execution.
And there had been a kind of righteousness in that ignorance. He had learned of his own actions from so many different sources that he could not doubt their truth, but at the same time, they didn't feel like his actions. How could he truly feel guilty about something he did not remember doing?
When the Council had arrested him after the Oración Seis incident, he had accepted the blame for all the reasons Lahar had described: to apologize to Erza; to protect Fairy Tail; to prove that he was not the man who had done those things. His freedom – even his life – was a small price to pay. He was a man with no past and no future, no memories and no aspirations. For him, execution would not be a punishment, but noble self-sacrifice. He would throw himself upon the Council's mercy in order to end this evil once and for all.
After all, he couldn't truly be punished for something he himself hadn't done.
He had been controlled by dark magic. Erza had believed that, when she had held out her hand to him atop Nirvana. The only crime of which he was guilty was not being strong enough to overcome it. Deep inside, he knew that the gaping void in his memories was a result of his struggle against the evil forces that had controlled him; they had won only by suppressing his true personality entirely.
And then he had remembered.
It had all been him.
It had always been him.
It wasn't what he'd done that scared him. Not a day went by without some guard telling him about it, usually as an excuse for withholding food or being too rough with his restraints.
No, it was how much he'd enjoyed doing it.
The darkness and the cruelty had always been a part of him. All the visions had done was encourage it.
There was magic involved, yes, but he hadn't opposed it. He hadn't even questioned it. A man divided in heart could never have been as powerful as he.
For eight years, he had been absolutely certain that he was doing the right thing.
Remembering that certainty had been too much for his fragile present self to bear. And he hadn't born it, not for those six awful days, which he had survived only by the persistence of one Rune Knight who had refused to stop treating him as a human being, and the timely penitence of Ultear and Meredy.
With their arrival, he acquired not only comrades in the mental war they all fought, but a new purpose. He had a goal, a drive, a certainty that would equal and surpass the misguided ideals of his past. They were going to defeat Zeref – stop his twisted plans for the world, destroy his dark legacy, and prevent anyone else from having to suffer as he and Ultear did.
The past eight years of Jellal's life had been every bit as sacred as the eight before had been profane. He knew, now, what he had to do to put things right.
It wasn't for the sake of defeating Zeref, though, that he had ignored Lucy's request and thrown himself at his final enemy.
When Lucy's quest had brought her to his guild's doorstep, Jellal had been delighted to hear of Fairy Tai's revival, and deeply grateful for her actions in saving his guildmates during the diner battle. Beneath the cheerful reunion, though, he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something a bit off about her behaviour.
One moment she would be relaxed, discussing her plans with them like she would amongst her own guild, and the next she'd seem suddenly nervous, and he couldn't tell for the life of him what it was about their perfectly normal conversation that was triggering it. He only noticed because she had a habit of avoiding his gaze during those moments, and focussing entirely on Erza, which caught his attention for two reasons – the first, because he was certain he'd have picked up on it if she'd been doing it last time they spoke, before Fairy Tail's disbandment; and the second, because it suggested there was something she was hiding from him in particular, rather than from Erza or both of them.
Still, there was nothing suspicious about her quest to revive Fairy Tail, and she didn't appear to be in any danger, so he convinced himself it was nothing.
It wasn't until they met again on this battlefield that he realized the foolishness of his actions.
There were too many things wrong with how Lucy was acting. The way she just happened to have the book of Zeref's most powerful demon with her – and the way she was acting as though her life depended on it. The way she had been perfectly willing to trust him with the cursed sword they had won from Jerome in the diner, knowing he had more experience than anyone with evil artefacts, and yet wouldn't let him touch the Book of END. The way she clutched it to her chest as if she couldn't feel the dark magic it emanated. The way she defended it.
She had claimed that she was only playing along when Zeref had appeared, and he couldn't blame her for being scared, but it wasn't like her at all to bow her head to her guild's greatest enemy, let alone to try and hold Jellal back from attacking too.
Lucy was certain in her own mind that she was doing the right thing. Of that, Jellal had no doubt.
But he had been certain too, those eight long years at the top of the Tower of Heaven.
He knew what it was like to be so deep in the thrall of magic that he could act entirely unlike himself and still believe he was doing what he had always known to be right. He knew what it was like to wake up from that nightmare.
He couldn't let a friend go through that.
There wasn't time to work out what kind of magic Zeref had used on Lucy, let alone try and break it. If her actions were any indication, it was tied to that book in some way – but Gray's unpredictability made going after the Book of END a dangerous game.
No, his best bet was to go straight for Zeref.
Jellal didn't have any illusions of defeating the Black Mage here and now… but if he could hit him hard enough in a moment of surprise, it might just shatter the hold he had on Lucy before she was made to do something she would forever regret.
He was half-expecting his wild charge to be stopped, but not by a total stranger.
When he slammed face-first into that unexpected wall of ice, the pain was the last thing on his mind.
The raw strength of the magic in that ice wall scared him. It wasn't the fear of fighting a strong opponent, for that was a given in his line of work, and he was the best in the business. It was the realization that – just like how Crime Sorcière had failed to find a single lead on Avatar's inner circle until Jerome had almost wiped out their entire guild – Zeref had yet another powerful ally that Jellal, despite the years spent tracking him, knew nothing about.
His chance to strike down Zeref had been thwarted by an unknown party, and the price of that failure may well be Lucy's sanity, if not her life.
More than anything, though, Jellal was angry.
Angry that there was a man willing to take the hit for Zeref.
Angry that, after Jellal had suffered for eight years under the influence of dark magic, his strike had been blocked by a man who stood with Zeref of his own free will.
If this stranger wanted a fight, Jellal would give him one.
"Please say it isn't true," Jerome begged, winding his fingers tighter in the hem of Zeref's robes. "Why… why are you speaking so casually with this Fairy Tail mage? Why are you helping her?"
"She is my friend," Zeref snapped. "You are not."
"But she's been opposing us!"
"I've been opposing you! Your behaviour appals me; I would like nothing more than to see all trace of your so-called cult obliterated!"
Zeref broke out of his grip in one decisive movement. Lucy also took several steps backwards – not because she was afraid of Zeref losing control in anger, but because she had a feeling that this was something he had to do on his own. She didn't want to get in the way.
"But…" Jerome gazed up at his god from the pit's very bottom. "I don't understand. We've done all this for you…"
"Why? I did not ask you to do so."
"You did not need to ask, my lord! We are only enforcing the natural way of things-"
"I am not your lord!" Zeref spat. "I do not want your fealty!" Then his gaze flickered to the bursts of white and blue clashing over the city, and the crimson light that had ignited in his eyes died away once more. Softer, he continued, "I have done nothing to earn it."
"I don't understand," Jerome repeated. "Why- why don't you want-?"
Zeref crouched down to look him in the eye, and Lucy thought that in that moment, he looked every one of his four hundred years. "What is it you want from me that you don't believe you can get from anywhere else?"
"A different world!" the cultist breathed. "A better world! One where magic is free, like it used to be! Where no hypocritical Council gets to define good and evil, or chooses which magic can and can't be used, or who can and can't study it. Where I can wield my sword freely without anyone trying to lock it away-"
"I can't change the cultural perception of magic," Zeref told him, slightly perplexed. "No one can, not overnight."
"No one except you! You're feared and respected like no other!"
"And hated," Zeref reminded him, but Jerome shook his head vigorously.
"The world is full of people who want change! People have flocked to Avatar's banner from all over the kingdom!"
The hotter the passion in Jerome's voice, the colder Zeref's seemed to become. "People who are prepared to murder to get what they want."
"Only your enemies! Only the traitors and the Rune Knights who would stand in our way!"
"And Bishop's Lace?" Zeref challenged.
"That…" Jerome swallowed, and then met Zeref's gaze again with a bravado that Lucy wouldn't have believed even if she hadn't already known Arlock had kept the details hidden from his followers. He tried, regardless: "That is the price of a revolution, and we are the revolutionaries, ready to rise! You have never shied away from what needed to be done, and neither shall we! We stand poised to give you the world, and you will transform it into one we're proud to live in!"
"I rather fear you may be overestimating my abilities."
"No! Now that I have felt your divine might for myself, I know there is no miracle greater than you; no power that can ever surpass you! And do not forget, you have us, your loyal servants! Just give us the word, my lord – we will rise up and strike down all who oppose you until your word is reality!"
"I see," Zeref said shortly, getting back to his feet. "It is a heinous crime when society persecutes you for your beliefs about magic, but it is perfectly acceptable for you to do the same to others. You do not wish to change the world for the better, but destroy it in favour of your own desires. I do not think I would like to see any world you had a hand in creating."
"But don't you want magic to be free again? Aren't you tired of your own research being locked away from the world at best, and condemned as evil at worst?"
"Sometimes," Zeref admitted. "Sometimes the bigotry of today's laws frustrates me… but sometimes, I think the councillors who made them were unintentionally wise. The dark and ancient magic to which I have devoted my life should not be free to be used by anyone who wants it. Only those who have the proper respect for magic, and all the wisdom and caution that that entails, should be able to study magic so dangerous… and yet if Avatar somehow seized control of the kingdom and decriminalized such magic overnight, do you think it would be those people who came forward to take it? No! The world would fill with fools like you and Arlock's other devotees, who treat dangerous and primal magic as nothing more than a tool for petty revenge!"
"I don't understand," the swordsman whispered. "We've worked so hard to reach you… we've done everything for you… why won't you help us? We only want you to be in your rightful place, as ruler of a new order…"
Zeref drew himself up, appearing far taller in that moment than his young body should have allowed. "You have done nothing for me. It has all been for you – and for your misguided image of me. I am no god, but even if I had the ability to grant your wish, I would not do so. Consider yourself fortunate that you still have a future in which to reflect upon the actions that brought you here."
Jerome's head dropped back towards the ground. For the first time, Zeref glanced away from him, and Lucy gave him a silent thumbs-up. He glowered at her, but there wasn't any real feeling in it.
"Tell me," Zeref said to Jerome, and there was a ring of command to it, but not enough to disturb the new, unsteady atmosphere. "What is Arlock hoping to achieve here, after he already failed in Bishop's Lace?"
"Operation Purify," Jerome whispered, still to the ground. "He says it'll work this time."
"But what is Operation Purify? Everything I have heard is inconsistent and illogical."
"I don't know the details. I don't think anyone does, except Arlock. All I know is that he's devised a ritual to summon you to us."
"How? I am no being from the realm beyond, to be summoned and bound by magic."
"I don't know. He claimed that you were drawn to death…"
"That's ridiculous," Zeref snapped. "Is it not obvious that I am the one who brings death with me, not the other way round? And is it also not obvious to anyone who has paid attention to recent history that I abhor others taking it upon themselves to kill in my name? I obliterated the remnants of Grimoire Heart myself. I was not merciful to Tartaros, a guild full of my own creations! Why would you think for a second that Avatar would face a different fate?"
"Because we have the entire underworld in the palm of our hand, ready to offer up to you! If not for the mafia's interference in Alstonia, it would be perfect for your reign-"
"Perfect or not, I have been offered it before, and I turned it down. I do not want it. Again, you do not need to have met me to know that. You need only look at the fate of the dark guilds who have come before."
"But we are the faithful!" Jerome burst out, his eyes still shining with a hope that did not realize it was already dead. "We are loyal only to you, my lord! We do not seek power for ourselves, but for you! Arlock knows you are the only one who can grant our wishes and lead the world into a brighter tomorrow-"
"Enough!" Zeref commanded, and it seemed that the whole city fell silent. "Arlock is a fool if he thinks I will do anything for him after the destruction he has caused in a futile attempt to summon me-"
"But you came," Jerome whispered.
"…What?"
"You came. You're here. So… Arlock's ritual worked."
For a moment, Zeref seemed lost for words. "Well, yes, but- not because of any made-up ritual! I'm here to stop you, not to grant your wishes!"
"But you came."
"That's completely different!"
"It isn't, though," Lucy whispered. "Is it?"
Outrage flickered and died as Zeref turned to regard her, no longer able to deny the implications of Jerome's words. A look of genuine concern passed between them.
And then a voice rang out over the frozen scene. Lucy had heard that voice issuing orders to the soldiers in Bishop's Lace which would lead them straight into a trap, and she had heard it again triumphant right before the town had burned, but she had never heard it quite like this – so utterly, savagely delighted.
"The gulf between legend and reality never fails to astonish me," Arlock marvelled. "That is twice you have disappointed me, Black Mage. I was so afraid of your reputed intellect… and yet you are just as slow as any of your mortal servants."
Zeref spun on his heel, his hand flashing out. Death's spectral wings beat once and vanished before Lucy had even processed what she was seeing.
Yet Arlock did not die. There was a burst of black fire; death magic flared up like flammable gas and vanished into nothing. The grin in Arlock's voice was newly visible upon his face as he lowered the cursed sword he had recovered from the street.
As if the Black Mage hadn't just tried to strike him down, Arlock continued, "How else was I to get your attention, when the only times you have shown yourself in recent years have been to punish the dark guilds who have sought to serve you? I knew you would come, if you believed all this was genuine."
"Believed…?" Jerome whispered.
"Then you have miscalculated," Zeref told Arlock coldly. "Perhaps you have lured me here, but after what you have done, I will never, ever help you."
"Oh, Zeref," Arlock smirked, patronizing, disappointed. "I never expected you to give me what I want. No, I always knew that what I wanted from you, I would have to take by force."
There was a glint of hungry metal, and Arlock drove the cursed sword straight through Zeref's heart.