Chapter 27
Natsu didn't remember when he'd been untied—his vision had faded, a gap in memory, and he'd woken up against a stone wall. The next detail was not something he saw, but something he heard: the trilling note of a bird. Fresh air burst into his lungs, the first in who knew how many months, a wind brushing against his scarf.
"So, you're awake."
Further down the crack-riddled wall, Sting sat with his arms pressing against his folded legs. "To give you the run-down, we're on a mission outside of base. As recruits can't know the base's location, they had to knock us unconscious first. So here we are."
Wait… he'd been tied to a column, and now—"Mission? Since when do we go on those?" If Tartaros trusted him with one of those, they sure had a forgive-and-forget sort of motto.
"Most missions are Tartaros-members only, though for certain ones, members can request to bring recruits. When Minerva goes on a mission, she brings me and Rogue—her entourage—and because you're her… ancillo, I guess you're allowed to come, too."
Natsu ignored the ancillo part, which he still hadn't gotten a run-down for, and would regardless defy in a moment's notice. "So that's what you and your brother are. I thought you were, I don't know, her gang. Like the two back-ups to the bully." At Sting's glower, he moved on, "But isn't Minerva's plan to humiliate me or something? What's she gonna do out in the open, when I could fight her and run away?"
The blonde gave a bitter laugh. "I don't think Lady Minerva plans to do much else. After all, to me, it seems like Lord Mard Geer has an interest in you; it's unheard of, him coming to a recruit's match in the Pit, and not throwing you in the dungeons for supporting a human. Considering she's trying not to go against him, I don't think she can push it much further.
"Also, she'll want to keep quiet since the Pit humiliated her. She should've won easily against a recruit, yet it proved to be a competitive match. When her father finds out it'll lead to a shit show, but until he comes, it'll just be tense."
Mard Geer also mentioned Minerva's father. Was he a big shot around here? Though, speaking of missions…
"Uh, what's a mission, anyway?"
Sting sighed, tugging at several blades of grass. "Tartaros members don't just sit on their asses. They go on missions for all sorts of things, like finding new recruits, getting resources, keeping people in line… Us recruits are mainly restricted to monetary missions, though the main reason our Lady brings us is to do the grunt work for her—"
Rogue stepped out from behind the wall, Natsu's senses once again having failed him. And, as he thought about it, why would someone put part of the wall in the middle of a field of grass, far off from the dirt-paved road?
"Lady Minerva is waiting," Rogue said.
The fire mage rolled his eyes, checking the forest behind them. The perfect opportunity to escape—out of the base, in the middle of somewhere—and yet, the ice princess had to be stuck in the dungeons. As the three of them walked along the path, bordered by a stretch of pink and purple flowers that he'd seen before yet never learned the name of, Natsu broke apart the silence.
"So, Stingy, what was it about missions again?"
"Don't call me that. I can't say anything about Tartaros-exclusive missions, but the monetary ones are more straightforward. To simplify things"—Natsu nodded vigorously—"Tartaros' main sources of income are derived from their regular, clean economic businesses, serving as a cover-up of course. Part of the money also comes from raids, kidnappings, murders and looting, though they're more discrete and often chalked to random attacks. The main sources of money, however, come from tributes and their monopoly over the blood business."
At the d'ehmonaius' lowered voice, Natsu's expression darkened. "A monopoly? Who would even buy it?"
"Right, at orientation you were…" Sting trailed off. "Well, blood is pretty popular with the wealthier d'ehmonaius, who view it as a power supplement and also a luxury. I'm not fond of it either."
Yet you'd gulped it down pretty fast. Natsu kept that to himself. For all he knew, Sting had been putting on another of his many facades. He still hadn't learned about Lector, though, or his true feelings about his "Lady."
"Ya mentioned tributes. What are those?"
Sting continued his tour-guide role; in Natsu's mind, serving as a substitute for Gajeel. "Although most recruits are volunteers, Tartaros is becoming more forceful in recruiting." Natsu recalled Lucy having talked about that, a group of demons in Malba who'd been hiding to avoid compliance. "However, Tartaros isn't idiotic, and they understand that certain influential groups refusing to cooperate should be left alone, and that wealthier individuals can help in another way. This is where being a tribute comes in. D'ehmonaius can refuse recruitment by offering enough jewels, a certain type of supply, or sometimes a form of service as an alternative. Hence the term tributes."
It made enough sense, Natsu supposed. Then again, none of this made sense to him—what Tartaros truly hoped to achieve, and why they were so vigilant about it. "Are we collecting from tributes today, or something?"
"Most likely. I think we're dealing with only on-holds, so there shouldn't be an issue."
"On-holds? What goods are we selling now?"
Natsu could smell Minerva up ahead, the concentration of soil and cinnamon permeating around her. When he looked at Sting, the blonde's gaze had lowered to the path. "We'll talk about it later."
Neither of them spoke, and when they caught up to Minerva, standing before a wooden fence with the sign "Cait Shelter" posted above, she too was silent. When she turned to them, her eyes never landed upon Natsu, despite him standing between the brothers. A game of avoidance, then—he could handle that, so long as he got to fight back at some point.
"Today," she said, "we are collecting this village's tributes."
As Sting guessed. Yet, beyond the fence, the path ended, showing nothing but flowers.
With her knuckles, Minerva rapped the side of the sign four times, and across its frame, curves and dots appeared, letters from a language Natsu didn't recognize. He blinked and, where there had been fields of red and purple and pink, houses with timber frames and thatched roofs appeared. Between them, the dirt path turned stone, continuing forward.
Minerva strode through with the glow of confidence upon her. "Let us enter."
Gray's final meeting with Ultear had him not strapped to the wall in chains, instead sitting on the cell's floor beside her. In their prior few "confrontations," as Ultear called them, none of her spheres had come for a go at his body. They had only talked, a conversation of extended staring and clipped responses; and now, a conversation without chains.
"We will not meet again in the roles of prisoner and overseer," Ultear started.
"Really?" Gray asked. "Have they finally decided on execution?"
She shook her head. "Because of you, I decided to give my mother the benefit of a doubt, so I researched into... Regardless, as a last favor, or rather, an attempt at change, I shall answer any of your questions within my capabilities."
Gray raised an eyebrow. Even though they'd gotten along, recently anyway, for this to come out… the beginning of a retribution arc, perhaps? "Why are you working with Tartaros, the people who want to kill your kind?"
Your kind, he'd said. A little odd, considering he himself was a mezcla, though he'd delay that identity crisis—both a human and a demon, yet neither—for another time. He expected her to shift the subject, a vague reply revealing nothing.
She told him a story instead. "There once was a child, living alone with her beloved mother. One day, her mother took her to a den of monsters, monsters who viewed the little girl as prey, to experiment with, to strap to a table, to satisfy all of their cravings. She would call for her mother, never accepting that she had truly left, that the monsters under the bed were replaced by the monsters above.
"Yet her mother never came—she never did, in the end. Years later, years spent serving monsters, she escaped. She crossed mountains, pushed through a blizzard as well, yet when the girl found her mother again, the mother who'd only lived in her memories, she was with two boys. And she was laughing."
Gray knew. He knew, and yet, he couldn't meet Ultear's eyes. She wouldn't look at him, either.
"You ask me why I'm working with Tartaros. It is hard to find faith in one's kind when they have always appeared as monsters. The d'ehmonaius here, they are painted as the villains, yet it is a rather crude simplification. We both have witnessed human cruelty—to be involved in this sort of world, you must have, as well."
He didn't reply.
And Ultear continued. "There is a piece of information, which you had forgotten, forced yourself to forget, before your memory loss."
The thought had slipped Gray's mind. Or rather, the missing thought had slipped his. "I revealed something, didn't I? Something about my…" He waved with his hands.
"Yes, you cannot speak of your guild. That was one lesson I had learned, however, there was something you could do. You could speak of other guilds. I did not have time to push much further, as you lost your memory shortly after. However, you did reveal one aspect, regarding your guild's relationship with others, and I told my superiors."
Shit. She knew, didn't she. They all knew, now. He bitterly laughed. "I said it—I revealed the light guild alliance, didn't I?"
She nodded. "I expect an investigation into their interference with Tartaros, and to pin down their location, is already underway. Not too long ago, we caught a member of one light guild—Lamia Scale, I believe. Several smaller bases had also been interfered with. I would not be surprised if the higher Tartaros members realize that the guilds are no longer to be treaded upon lightly."
Tartaros had never viewed them as a threat. That had left the guilds the opportunity to interfere in their matters, to gain suspicion under the guise of being a pest "not worth swatting." And Gray—he had shortened their time of freedom. Their time to prepare.
"Why would I have said that?" he muttered. "Why would I even confess?"
"You did not desire to," Ultear replied. "I had threatened you, a multitude of times, yet never did you waver. It was my threat upon the girl overseeing you, Juvia if I am correct, that led you to reveal the least that you needed to."
He would've done that. Of course he would've. From that angle, his memory loss seemed justifiable; initially, he'd concluded that he lost his memory from trauma. Mavis had hinted as such, or rather, she'd made him conclude as such. However, Mavis may have assisted him, not to just block out his sessions with Ultear, but to forget his connection with Juvia so that it could not be used against him.
"I have one more question," Gray said, straightening against the wall. "It's about the person you mentioned last time—the person coming. You made it sound like they know me. Who exactly are they?"
A sigh escaped her lips. "This will be the hardest to swallow, though I will honor my offer and be the one to say it. There is a necromancer—Keyes—within Tartaros, and he has brought back a man from the after-realm. This man has risen to become a high-ranking Tartaros member, and he is soon to return from a mission with the main leader Acnologia."
She met his eyes, refusing to look away. "That man's name is Silver Fullbuster—your father."
With Minerva leading, the four of them reached a central plaza, a dome-shaped tent painted white standing before them; two triangular flaps poked from the top, making him wonder if the village was actually Cat Shelter instead. In front of the dome, an older man with a headgear made of red-tipped feathers sat alone on a barrel. To his left laid four bulging bags, jewels poking out from the ripped tops. A hell of a lot of jewels, if Natsu had to describe it.
The man introduced himself as Roubaul, the elder of Cait Shelter. He offered neither a hand nor a bow.
Minerva, however, remained indifferent. "We have come for a report on the village, and on the development of Nirvana." Nirvana? Wasn't that a hippie thing?
"Progress is underway," Roubaul replied, shifting his weight on the barrel. "However, we have limited resources, so it is not the quickest of paces—"
"Your idea of progress, then, is synonymous with retrogression," Minerva scoffed.
"Madam, we could thereon speak on the price of the tribute, which has been harder to maintain with lower harvests in order to meet demands…"
Natsu's attention having already waned, he turned once more to Sting. "So, about that on-hold thing..."
Sting, who'd been turned towards Roubaul, glanced at Natsu, then lowered his eyes. "There's a couple terms Tartaros uses to refer to non-Tartaros members. Bought means someone who will be or has been recruited. On-hold means someone who is protected by a tribute, or cannot currently serve for other reasons. Finally, sold means someone who is beyond influencing and cannot be recruited."
"Isn't being sold a good thing, then? That Tartaros leaves ya alone?"
"It's the opposite. If you're sold, you're to be eliminated. That's it."
Eliminated. Natsu's eyes narrowed, a cutting remark on his lips, but with a final push he restrained it.
He honed into the conversation again, still droning on about money this and money that. So when he saw a flash of something blue down the plaza, he latched onto the distraction. Leaving Sting and Rogue with a brief "checking something," he sprinted around the corner, following the light flurry of footsteps—definitely younger, or someone small—and when the padding stopped, a brief rattle of something clanging overtook him as he turned the corner and halted.
Beneath the low roof, a trash can shook, on the verge of falling onto its rusting sides. Did they jump onto the roof? Or into the trash can? Closing his eyes, Natsu sniffed. To the left, banana peels, orange skins, and—he wrinkled his nose, purging the thought. To the right, where there were several crates, he caught the whiff of barley, but near it, amongst it, was something else. More like apples, apples baked with cinnamon, stirred with copper and earth. If anything…
Draconis?
When he moved towards the crate, a girl with waist-length blue hair stepped out, a white cat—no, an Exceed beside her. She looked up at him with a frightful yet uncertain gaze.
"The name's Natsu. How's it going?" Keeping it casual, keeping it calm. No threat here, no sir. Bending to their level, he said, "Hey, is your friend here an Exceed?"
"Of course I am," the not-cat replied. "And my name is Carla." Putting a palm on the girl's shoulders, she continued, "And this here is Wendy."
A squeaked hello, then a whisper. "Are you… I mean… are you here with… them…?"
Them. "Sort of," Natsu said. "I mean, to be fair, I kind of got dragged unconscious into this thingy." He wanted to tell her that he wasn't a member, that he sure as hell didn't believe in their cause, but who knows if Minerva had bugged him?
As he looked at Carla, another face flashed through his mind—Happy. He'd said he was looking for Exceeds, hadn't he? "I'm also buddies with an Exceed. Happy's his name, and he's been looking for a village with your kind. Do ya know anything about that?"
Carla stared, as if searching within Natsu, almost like Mavis had. A sort of wisdom he couldn't understand. She turned to Wendy, addressing her in a lower voice. "No harm is sought."
Without explanation, she looked back at Natsu. "I was born from an egg not far from here, yet I have met no other Exceeds, nor do I feel much desire to do so. However, I have heard rumors of Exceeds in the Worth Woodsea, which may be of relevance."
As Natsu thanked her, Wendy spoke up, her cautious tone lighter though still doubtful. "I'm not sure if this is my place to ask this…"
"Go along, Wendy," Carla chided. "If you are to speak, then speak."
"Right… Well… I just wanted to ask why you're… with those guys."
Once again, she'd refused to speak the name. Natsu paused. Should he lie to her? Speak about some "oh humans are so yummy" bullshit?
"Speak freely," Carla interrupted, crossing her arms, "for there is nothing interrupting our conversation."
From his kneeled position, Natsu jumped back. "How can ya know that? Wait, are you a mind reader?"
The Exceed's tail traced several loops in the air, her whiskers twitching. "Do not perceive of myself as openly trusting, for seldom would I divulge such information without certitude." Natsu let the words sink in, making sure they were speaking the same language. "And, thus, I shall state it simply: I see glimpses of the future, or rather, the most likely futures resulting from certain decisions."
Cana's fortune-telling ability was considered incredibly rare, and she only saw cards that hinted at vague interpretations. But for Carla, to actually see them...
"So," Natsu said, quieter. "I may, or may not, happen to, or happen to not, be a spy."
Saying the words out loud… he'd thought that something would lighten in his chest, yet instead, something twisted, bubbled, boiled.
"I'd thought so!" A brilliant smile took over Wendy, her hesitancy gone. "I just couldn't see it. I didn't think you could be with those bad guys."
Bad months back, before he'd stepped foot into the base, Natsu had labeled them as "bad guys," didn't he? He thought of Minerva, Jackal, Tempester, and Mard Geer; then, he considered Romeo, Juvia, Sting, Rogue, Seilah, and supposedly Gajeel.
For some reason, he couldn't think of them that way, or at least, not anymore.
As Wendy opened up about her life here in Cait Shelter, how the villagers never had excess but always enough for their annual celebration for the nature spirits, that they spoke behind closed doors of their tentative future with the developing d'ehmonaius conflict, how the adults told her and her friends that they would find peace yet always looked away…
A sensation that he'd felt once before, when he'd met Lucy in Hargeon, this feeling in his gut, a borderline intuition, that something had to be said—maybe, it was because of the girl being a draconis (she had to be, with that smell of copper and apples and earth, too young to know how to hide it), or because of Carla's ability, or this too coincidental yet too right meeting, speaking of destiny's role. Or, maybe, Wendy herself, who looked like a sweet girl, living in such a village—the term "on-hold" rang through him—made him say it:
"There's a guild, in a town called Magnolia, known as Fairy Tail. If you cross the second bridge to enter the interior, then start asking around, saying the Great Natsu sent you, someone will point you to a building. A place for both humans and d'ehmonaius. With free food, and battles, and everything anyone could need."
"Th-thank you for the offer, Mr. Great Natsu. I… I love living here, amongst the Nirvit tribe, and I feel safe, so I'm happy as it is." Once Wendy finished, Carla grimaced, as if she knew of a moment to come, a moment both him and Wendy were yet to be aware of.
After exchanging farewells, Natsu headed back to his group, back to whatever he had left to do. He wondered what Happy would think, of Natsu having met a female Exceed before him; he thought of the blue-haired girl, his gut telling him that she would somehow cross his path once more.