Natsu was on the bench next to Gray in no time at all, pushing his ear firmly against Gray's chest. His heartbeat was strong and steady—at least for the first few seconds. Gray's pulse elevated rather alarmingly when Natsu got close.
"Natsu! What the hell?!"
Strong arms pushed him back into an upright position. Natsu was kneeling on the bench, his knees resting against Gray's thigh. Gray's face was flushed, and he avoided eye contact, instead staring at Natsu's chest.
"Gray... You're alive," Natsu whispered in disbelief.
This made Gray lift his head abruptly. When Natsu found himself staring right into the icy blue eyes of his best friend which were full of confusion right now, it was nearly too much for him to take... To have Gray so close again, to be able to look him in the eyes and see him looking back...
Like in trance, Natsu removed Gray's hands, leaned in, and then wrapped his arms around Gray's torso, pulling him flush against his chest.
"I... I thought you died... I thought I'd lost you... forever."
There was a moment of hesitation, but then Gray's arms came up to rest lightly against Natsu's shoulder blades. It felt intensely good to be in his arms like this. Gray's intoxicating scent, his warmth, his firm muscles pressed against Natsu's body... Natsu felt warm all over, his head fuzzy and light.
"Did you have a nightmare?" Gray asked with an unusually soft tone.
Natsu unintentionally tightened his grip, then answered, "It felt so real. But... I guess it must have been a dream because you're still here."
Yeah, this was the only plausible explanation for the current situation, yet there was still something that wasn't feeling right. Had it been a warning? A premonition? Was Gray in danger? Thinking of which, what if—
"Are you ill?"
Gray cocked his head, and although Natsu couldn't see his face, he was sure it said something along the lines of 'did you become crazy?'
"I mean... Your heart."
Natsu was being pushed away by the shoulders until they could look each other in the eyes again. Gray's expression was confused and a tad worried.
"Why would you say that? My heart is perfectly fine."
"Sure? Because right now, your pulse is a bit—ouch! Hey!"
His hands came up to cover the back of his head automatically. Gray's cheeks were red and he looked agitated.
"I said my heart is perfectly fine, now if that's all, why don't you go back home and take a shower? You reek."
Natsu flinched. Right. He hadn't taken a shower before coming here, and that meant his last shower had been... what? One day ago? He hadn't taken a shower the evening before since he'd been way too tired from their mission and the fight with Gray on their way back home... Plus he had sweated last night... He lifted his right arm and sniffed at his armpit, immediately regretting doing so. To think that he'd hugged Gray while reeking like this...
Oh god. Perfect, just perfect. For want of a better idea on how to react, he jumped to his feet and wanted to rush back home for a shower, when he noticed the few present guild mates all staring at them. Mirajane, Wendy, and Carla just looked at them open-mouthed, Wendy with a bright blush on her face. Cana had obviously stopped drinking in favor of gawking. Jet and Droy looked at them with a shocked expression while Levy tried to calm them down. Reedus was drawing something at high speed, only stopping when he looked in their direction and noticed that he was being stared at. He was quick to take the canvas down, pushing it against his round stomach, looking flustered. Natsu wondered if he really wanted to know, but he decided fairly quickly that he probably didn't. Thankfully Gajeel was dozing at his table and hadn't noticed what was going on. Natsu was sure he'd never let him live that down otherwise.
Everyone went back to what they'd been doing before, and Natsu felt more exposed and embarrassed than he'd ever felt before.
He made a bee-line for the door, barely registering Happy hovering just over the door frame with a big grin on his face. Happy followed Natsu out of the guild hall and all the way back to their shared flat, keeping up with Natsu's running pace easily.
"So... did you two kiss?" Happy asked curiously when Natsu was about to shut the door to the bathroom.
Natsu froze, staring at Happy in disbelief, heat creeping into his cheeks. "Wh-what?!"
"Well... you were hugging when I entered the guild hall and your faces were as red as tomatoes. And in the morning you shouted Gray's name and immediately ran to the guild. You didn't even wait for me! So I thought it was something important, and kissing Gray is very important to you."
Natsu very nearly choked on his own saliva.
"That's not true!"
He'd never told Happy about his feelings for Gray. How could Happy possibly know such a thing? Had Lucy told him about it? Or worse still, had he figured out by himself? Was he really that obvious?
Happy cocked his head, genuinely confused. "But you often lick your lips when you stare at Gray's mouth. I thought that means—"
Natsu cut him short by slamming the bathroom door shut and shouting "You're thinking too much!"
He leaned his back against the door and cupped his mouth with both hands, slowly sliding down into a sitting position. Natsu always liked to think that he did a damn good job hiding his feelings, but now he wasn't so sure anymore. Who else had figured out? Did Gray know?
'Oh no. What if he knows and that's why he was so flustered when I got close? Did I make him uncomfortable?'
And then talking about his heart of all things. Natsu groaned. No wonder Gray had shooed him away that quickly. He banged his head against the door, cursing himself for his stupidity. Once he'd return to the guild, he somehow needed to make up for his behavior... and also apologize to Happy for being rude a moment ago. But first, shower.
When Natsu and Happy reached the guild hall for the second time, Erza and Lucy were already there. They both sat at Gray's table, chatting and laughing. Erza's luggage was stored in a corner of the guild hall—the same corner she'd put it in in Natsu's dream. Now that he thought about it, they were all wearing the same clothes as in his dream. Plus everybody was at the exact same spot doing the exact same things they had in his dream—except for Lucy, Erza and Gray, but that was probably because he hadn't been here to make them act the way they had in his dream...
Happy flew off towards the bar almost the second they entered the guild hall, and that was another thing that was identical to his dream... Had it really just been a dream? Natsu gulped. It sure had felt real. But everything right then also felt real. Gray was alive and chatting with Lucy about something he didn't bother to listen to at the moment. Natsu brought his hand up to pinch his cheek, flinching when the pain came. Maybe he shouldn't have pinched that hard. Natsu was utterly confused—and anxious. What if the same thing would happen again? What if this so-called 'dream' had been a premonition? But Carla was usually the one to have those, not him.
Natsu decided to just wait and see. It could just be coincidence. He knew his friends so well that he could probably predict their behavior and their dressing habits. Although he wasn't usually that attentive with such things—except for when it came to Gray of course.
"Natsu! Are you gonna stand over there forever or are you gonna join us?" Lucy shouted, making a beckoning gesture.
Natsu snapped out of his reverie and followed Lucy's invitation, sitting down across from Gray. He tried to catch Gray's eyes in order to tell him silently that he was sorry, that he understood, and that he wouldn't be that pushy again, but Gray wouldn't look him in the eye. And Natsu was probably making him uncomfortable yet again by staring too much. He really was a jerk.
"—right, Natsu?"
He sat upright with a start, staring at Lucy's expectant face. "Uh... yes?"
Lucy lifted her eyebrow warily. "Were you even listening?"
Natsu racked his brains over the conversation he hadn't been following, but he remembered nothing. He sighed, shaking his head apologetically.
Lucy looked like she was about to scold him, but then Gray abruptly stood up, distracting the attention from Natsu. "Excuse me." And with that, he turned around and left the three of them alone, heading for the bar, where he sat down and started chatting with Mirajane and Wendy.
With an equally worried and confused look, Erza and Lucy turned back to Natsu.
"Did you two fight?" Erza asked.
"Not really..." It was the most truthful answer he could think of. He felt like he'd been slapped in the face. Gray turning him down hurt more than it should have, seeing as he'd always been expecting and preparing for this kind of reaction.
"What do you mean, 'not really'? Did you fight or not?" Erza pushed, but Lucy intervened before Natsu had the chance to answer.
"Geez, don't be so mean, he's obviously having a bad day. Even Natsu has those kinds of days after all." Then she made funny facial expressions at Erza, and Natsu nearly asked if she was alright, but then Erza got up, excused herself and went to the bar as well. Their skill to communicate without words really was incredible sometimes.
As soon as Erza was out of earshot, Lucy turned sideways on the bench so that she was facing Natsu head on. "So... what happened between you and Gray?"
Natsu couldn't help but think that somehow the events were slowly adjusting themselves to fit the timeline of his dream, but he pushed the thought away for now.
"It's... kind of a long story."
"Well, I've got plenty of time; I'm all ears, if you want to share."
After looking around to make sure nobody was eavesdropping, Natsu leaned closer to her, and told her everything about his dream. It took a long time to tell her everything. He didn't leave anything out, not even the very personal fact that he'd cried when he'd been alone with Gray in the woods, which had led to a hug. Lucy listened eagerly, sometimes throwing in a question or two. When Natsu got to the part where their mission started, he grew tenser by the second. Lucy put her hand reassuringly on his when she noticed. It helped him to relax, and he got through the second part of his story without difficulty. He described every detail of their enemies he could remember. However, when he got to the part where his fight with Bubbles begun, he paused, mentally preparing himself for what was to come. Taking a deep breath, he told her about their fight, about his bubble magic, that the red ones were very tasty fire balls, that the blue ones were ice bubbles, and that the green ones contained a corrosive substance that even his fire couldn't neutralize, that he was careless and got himself into trouble.
"... and then... Gray violated the rules and protected me... he... stood in front of me..."
He felt his eyes welling up, but he tried to fight it, tried to tell himself that it wasn't real after all, that Gray was alive and doing well. It didn't do anything to calm him down, but Lucy seemed to get the idea of where this story was heading. She patted him soothingly on the shoulder.
"Shhhh. It's okay, you don't have to say it. Should we leave and go somewhere else?"
Natsu looked around the guild hall, startled to see many worried eyes on them. How long had they been watching? Gray was also looking their way, though he rolled his eyes and turned his back on them when their eyes met. What the hell was wrong with him?
"He still thinks you're in love with me, huh?" Lucy asked in a whisper.
Natsu turned his head sharply towards her. "No. I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that he knows about my feelings," he half whispered. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw that their friends were minding their own business again.
"Did you confess?"
"No, but—"
"Then he doesn't know."
"But—"
"He doesn't. Believe me."
"How would you even know that?"
She let out a sigh. "Call it a woman's intuition or whatever. Just trust me on this."
Natsu eyed her warily, but he couldn't find any trace of doubt in her expression. No matter how much he struggled with himself over it, he already believed her. Lucy was better at these things than he would ever be. Plus she really was like a sister to him, so how could he not trust her?
But if Gray didn't know about his feelings, then what was his reaction about, earlier?
"So? Staying or leaving?"
Oh, right. He hadn't given her an answer yet. "I think I'd prefer to stay here... If he really thinks we're somehow involved, then leaving the guild together wouldn't do much to disprove that idea."
A small laugh escaped Lucy's mouth. "True. Is your story finished, or is there more to come?"
Taking a deep breath, Natsu decided to just sum the rest up in order not to become emotional again.
"Well, there's a bit more. Gray died, I killed Bubbles, then I cried over his non-existent corpse for some time, maybe an hour, and then I woke up in my bed. I rushed to the guild hall and saw Gray, and I kind of lost control over myself..."
"Oh god, what did you do?"
"I put my ear on his chest to listen to his heartbeat, then hugged him and said I thought I'd lost him forever..."
Lucy blushed, and for a brief moment Natsu thought she was about to say something embarrassing, but in the end she just nodded, prompting him to go on.
"And then I asked him if he was ill; if his heart was okay, since it was beating so qui—ouch! What was that for?"
Lucy's cheeks were brightly flushed by this point, and she was slowly lowering the fist that had just hit Natsu's shoulder.
"Please tell me you didn't say that out loud to him."
"Uh, I did..." Natsu said, then added in a sulky tone, "But Gray hit me before I could finish."
"Oh, good. You deserved it."
Natsu was about to jump to his feet and loudly object, but Lucy saw it coming and put her hands on his shoulders, pushing him down as hardly as she could.
"Do you want to draw attention to yourself that badly? I thought this was a private issue. Besides, Gray's looking at us again."
Gray was indeed looking their way. He narrowed his eyes to slits when their gazes met, but didn't turn away. Natsu realized what the position he and Lucy were in looked like. Gray probably thought Lucy was about to kiss him or something equally stupid. To prove him wrong, he took Lucy's wrists, removed them from his shoulders, and pushed them back into her own lap. Then he pointedly turned away from Lucy, folded his arms on the table, and looked at Gray with a defiant expression. Gray's eyes widened, his cheeks turning a light pink. He quickly turned his back on them again, probably hoping that Natsu hadn't seen him blushing.
With a wide grin, Natsu turned back towards Lucy. She looked at him in wonder.
"Wow, that was... I didn't know you were capable of... something close to flirting."
Natsu really didn't know if he should feel offended or flattered by that. But before he could think of an answer, the entrance door was slammed open, revealing—yes, again like in his dream—Laxus, Juvia and the Raijinshuu.
"GRAY-SAMAAA!"
She ran to the bar to hug Gray, but she slammed into an ice wall a few steps before Gray, much to Natsu's surprise. She dropped to the floor, rubbing her cheek where it had hit the wall. Gray dissipated it, stood up and offered her a hand, his face grim. Juvia looked up, first at the hand, then at his face, and the sight seemed to make her forget immediately that the reason for her fall had been Gray in the first place. She smiled broadly at him, and let Gray pull her to her feet again, then went for another try at hugging him, squealing while she did so. She was stopped again, this time by Gray's hands grabbing her wrists and pushing her as far away as he could. Juvia struggled for a few seconds, but when the realization that Gray wouldn't allow her to hug him finally sank in, she pouted at him.
"Juvia missed Gray-sama so much! Why can't she hug him?"
Gray narrowed his eyes at her. "Because Gray-sama didn't miss Juvia, and Gray-sama doesn't want to be hugged by Juvia." He tried to imitate her voice, which sounded absolutely ridiculous to Natsu, but it seemed to meet the purpose. Juvia broke out in tears, babbling things like "mean", "unfair", and other things Natsu stopped paying attention to. Gray was looking him right in the eye, a small smile playing on his lips. Then he blinked, averted his gaze, and quickly turned towards the bar again, ignoring Juvia completely.
Natsu simply sat there, staring at Gray's back, trying to process what had just happened. That had gone decidedly differently than anticipated. Lucy's suggestive nudge and wink didn't do much to clear his confusion, and it probably showed on his face.
She rolled her eyes at him, sighed, and said, "He just made it very clear that he likes you. He flirted back."
Natsu was unable to process the information Lucy had given him, so he ended up staring blankly at her, unmoving.
"Oh, Natsu. Do I need to spell it out for you? Gray loves you. He. Is. In. Love. With. You. All you have to do now is go over there and ask him out or take him somewhere or just kiss mphh—!"
Natsu's hand had come up to cover her mouth on its own volition, and he hoped frantically that Gray hadn't heard that last part because Lucy's voice had become high-pitched nearing the end. Natsu slowly turned his head, hoping to see Gray absorbed in anything that was not eavesdropping, but he didn't have that kind of luck. Like pretty much all of the people present, Gray was staring at him—again—over his shoulder, unmoving. The only sounds that disrupted the silence were Juvia's muffled sobbing and Reedus' paint brush rapidly flying over his canvas. Why did he always attract so much attention even when he didn't want to?
After a few awkward moments of staring, everyone except for Natsu and Gray returned to their own business, and the noise level slowly went up to normal again. Natsu removed his hand from Lucy's mouth, not knowing how to deal with the current situation.
As soon as she was free, Lucy got up, said, "I'll go comfort Juvia before she floods the guild hall," and left Natsu alone. He wanted to stop her, to call her on what she'd done, but his body wasn't listening. Instead, he buried his face in his hands and rested them against the table. He briefly considered fleeing from the guild hall, but that would make things even more painfully obvious.
Not a minute later, Gray sat down next to him, closer than he usually did. Natsu wasn't ready for this, not at all. Because no matter what Lucy said, how could he ever believe that Gray was interested in him romantically?
"What did you two talk about?"
Natsu didn't lift his head, so his answer was a bit muffled. "Not your business."
"It sounded like you were talking about kissing."
"Hmm."
"Didn't she want to let you kiss her?"
This made Natsu sit up straight in an instant. So Gray hadn't understood what this was about? Oh, thank Mavis.
Gray obviously misunderstood the sudden movement for something else entirely, seeing as a second later he pat Natsu's shoulder with a sad expression on his face. "I'm sorry for you, really. You two are always so close, I was so sure that she's in love with you as well."
And why the hell was Gray comforting him now? Wasn't it more like him to poke fun at Natsu for being dumped? At any rate, the current situation wasn't something Natsu enjoyed, and he wanted it to stop. He didn't want the person he loved to comfort him for supposedly being dumped. Plus Gray being honestly sorry for him in such a situation just proved that he did not have any romantic inklings towards Natsu. Otherwise he would be either hurt to know that Natsu was in love with Lucy, or secretly happy that he would have a chance now that Lucy had dumped him. Probably both at once. However, the only emotion in Gray's eyes was honest concern and compassion.
Natsu narrowed his eyes. "Please, leave me alone."
The patting stopped immediately, and a shadow passed over Gray's face. "Oh... Alright."
The rest of the morning was uneventful. Lucy scolded him at least ten times for being an idiot and not having the guts to finally confess. Gray ignored him altogether. Juvia recovered eventually, and declared to the whole guild that she wouldn't give up and that she would make Gray fall in love with her somehow. As a reaction she just received a forced smile from Lucy and rolled eyes or shaken heads from the rest of the guild.
Mirajane cooked the same food as in Natsu's dream, which raised his anxiety to the point where his stomach protested with every forkful of food he managed to gulp down. By this point, he had to admit that what he thought had been a dream was in fact something else entirely. He decided to label it 'premonition' for now, in lack of further knowledge.
On their way to the train station, Natsu grabbed Lucy's arm, dropping behind a bit so they could talk without being overheard. He told her his fears, and she assured him that they would find a way to save Gray. They would make the fight take a different turn at the end, and besides, Natsu knew now that he had to avoid the green balls, so it shouldn't be a problem and he would defeat Bubbles this time. Natsu had to admit that she had a point, and relaxed a bit.
The ride passed without another incident. It was pretty much the same as in his premonition, except that Gray didn't come to him nearing the end of the train ride to thank him, seeing as he hadn't done anything to save him from Juvia.
Natsu behaved in the same way he had in his premonition after they arrived, and so they reached the dugout half an hour after their arrival. Natsu had come to the conclusion that if he tried to change what was happening too much, it would get unpredictable. So he decided on not changing anything at all until the moment came where Bubbles would attack with his green balls for the first time.
He still hoped that their enemies would turn out to be completely different people, and that everything until now was just a coincidence, however improbable that seemed. But when he heard the cheery "Ohh, welcome, welcome! No need to be that hostile, now. Come in, all of you, come in" from the room Erza had entered before them, he buried his hopes.
It was kind of hard to act like he was shocked when he had already heard everything once, but he reminded himself that it was important to act convincingly. Lucy was another story though. She knew only from Natsu's story how she should behave, and she said something different twice, but it turned out to not be a problem. The conversation went slightly different, but the outcome didn't change—they still went to the nearby hills to fight and they still decided on the same pairings for the duels.
However, on the way to the battle grounds Natsu noticed something he hadn't noticed in his premonition: they were being followed. Somebody was jumping from tree to tree in a safe distance. However, Natsu didn't act on his knowledge—he didn't want to endanger his plan. He knew that their pursuer wouldn't interfere before Gray died, and thus could be ignored for now.
When they reached their goal, the pursuer used the commotion of everybody settling down to mask the sounds of getting closer and settling down on a tree maybe a hundred meters away from them.
Natsu was so concentrated on their pursuer that he nearly forgot that Gray would toss his clothes at him soon. However, it turned out that Gray didn't toss them at Natsu, but at Lucy instead. Natsu panicked for a brief second that this would disrupt his plans, but the fight went on like he'd anticipated. Gray caught Ichika in an ice cage, linked the icy cage to the surroundings, and she surrendered.
"You're really a clever one, huh. There has only ever been one mage who defeated me, and he needed much longer than you. I think I like you."
Ah, yeah. Her failed attempt to flirt with Gray. Only this time his answer was a different one. He leaned closer to her, and answered, "Oh, thanks. You're pretty powerful yourself. I like powerful mages."
Natsu didn't see his face, but he could imagine that he winked at her. His temper was rising, but he fought it. He needed to stay calm. It was his turn to fight now, and Gray's life depended on it.
Natsu neutralized the first blue bubble easily with a fireball, like he'd done in his premonition. When he charged towards Bubbles and was met with a bombardment of blue and red bubbles, he didn't try to dodge the red ones, and instead went for swallowing the first one that came into his reach, smirking at Bubbles in triumph. His enemy staggered for a moment, and that was Natsu's chance; he kicked him hard into the stomach. Bubbles was sent flying against a nearby tree, and instead of giving his enemy time to get back to his feet again, Natsu jumped after him immediately, delivering another kick, this time to his face.
He beat Bubbles until he was bleeding all over, neither giving him time to recover nor react. Natsu was in a blind rage, no longer able to think. When suddenly a sharp pain originating from his gut shot through his body, he knew he'd been hit by a green bubble. It didn't stop him from attacking though, delivering hit after hit at Bubble's face and stomach. Another sharp pain in his right arm made him pause for a second before he went back to attacking again, only to notice that he no longer had his right hand to attack.
A feral growl broke free from his throat. He considered ripping Bubble's throat apart with his remaining hand, but he knew he'd never forgive himself for killing an enemy if said enemy hadn't killed anyone yet, even if he knew that he was a threat to Gray's life. There had to be another way to stop him.
The idea that his enemy needed his hands to cast magic came too late. Bubbles had already attacked his left shoulder with another green ball, and Natsu knew before looking that his left arm was no longer attached to his body.
His back hit the ground beneath him hard. He'd failed again. From all the noise around him, the only thing he could hear was Gray's voice shouting his name in horror. His conscience was slowly fading, but he still realized that Gray was crouching over him, cradling his broken upper body in his arms, freezing his wounds over with ice. There were tears in his eyes, and Natsu wanted nothing more than to wipe them away gently, smile at him and tell him that it's gonna be okay. But seeing as he didn't have hands anymore, it was impossible.
There was a yell from somewhere, which made Gray jump to his feet immediately, and a moment later he was caught in a bubble a few meters away from Natsu.
A broken "why..." was the only thing Natsu could manage before his vision narrowed down, and the last thing he saw was Gray's gentle smile and his lips moving, but the words didn't reach his ears anymore before everything turned black.
Natsu slowly came to himself, and the first thing he noticed was the sharp pain in his shoulder. Wendy was crouching over him with tears in her eyes, casting healing magic on him.
"Where's Gray?" It was the only thing he could think of right now. Wendy bit her lip, more tears forming in her eyes. She shook her head slowly.
Natsu turned his head to look around. All of his friends stood around him with tears in their eyes. Everyone except for Gray.
Looking harder, Natsu noticed that only two of the hostages were present. There was a hole in the ground where the last one had been before. And another hole very close to him. Monsters.
Bubbles was unconscious and tied to a tree nearby, while Ichika and Yushin were sitting on the ground next to him, both wearing grim expressions and talking with each other. They weren't restrained and didn't look as if they'd been beaten up. Ichika shot a side glance over to Natsu, and when she noticed that he was looking back, she nudged Yushin in the side. They both got up, heading towards Natsu and the others.
Natsu didn't want to interact with anyone right now, least of all with the people who were responsible for Gray's death. However, his comrades seemed to trust them, since they stepped aside, and even Wendy got up.
Natsu growled at Yushin when he took Wendy's position, putting his hands on Natsu's chest. They started to glow, and Yushin closed his eyes.
After a moment of hesitation, Natsu delivered a kick right into his gut, which knocked all the air out of Yushin's lungs and made him fall backwards.
"Natsu! He's trying to heal you!" Lucy shouted.
"No, he's fine. He has every reason to doubt us. Bubbles killed your comrade," Yushin replied with an understanding tone. He sat up again, but kept his hands to himself.
"I'm so sorry, Natsu. Killing people was never our intention. Bubbles is short-tempered and he doesn't have full control over his own magic when he's experiencing extreme emotions. He intended to catch your friend as a hostage to force the others to stop fighting, but he lost control. We're deeply sorry."
He and Ichika kneeled down before him, and bowed their heads so low that their noses touched the ground.
Natsu could barely concentrate on what was happening around him anymore. He was lost in his sadness, anger, and self-hatred. If he had just killed Bubbles when he still had the chance! If he had just changed the story a bit more, maybe pairing up Erza with Bubbles, maybe she would have defeated him easily. If only he weren't that stupid to fall for the same thing twice! If he just had prevented them from going on this mission altogether! Gray could still be alive if it wasn't for his stupidity!
"I have experience in recovering lost limbs. Bubbles sometimes hurts himself. I know this won't bring your friend back, but please let me heal you."
"Piss off," Natsu hissed. He wanted to be alone. Wanted to wallow in self-loathing. Wanted to atone for what he'd done.
Lucy kneeled down next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Natsu. Gray died to save you. Wendy isn't able to recover limbs, but Yushin is. Do you think Gray would want you to refuse treatment? I know it's hard, but please get a hold of yourself! Yushin said he can only do this when you're awake and only within about one and a half hours after you've lost your limbs. That leaves you a little under half an hour. Please, let him heal you. Don't let Gray's sacrifice go to waste."
"I'm alive, so it didn't go to waste," Natsu bit out between clenched teeth. He was about to say more, when dizziness overcame him, narrowing his vision down. He tried to fight it, but it was no use. His vision blackened out.
Someone near him was shouting as if in pain. When awareness slowly trickled in, he noticed that he was the one shouting. He forced his vocal chords to stop, fighting away the fog of sleep. When he was fully awake, he noticed that he was sweating heavily, his hands firmly entangled with each other, pressed against his naked chest...
Hands? He jolted upright. Indeed, he had two hands. Looking around, he noticed that he was in his bedroom. His vocal chords felt sore. Just how long had he been shouting?
His door opened with a squeaking sound, and Happy was next to him on the bed the next second, looking at him wide-eyed.
"What's wrong?"
"What day is today?"
"I... I don't know?"
"Just tell me which mission we're going on today!"
Happy flinched at the urgency in Natsu's voice.
"Th-that one where a dark guild has taken a whole town hostage? The one with so many jewels you can buy all the fish in the world..."
Natsu let out a sigh, and buried his face in sweaty palms.
To clear things up a bit: I'm not following canon. This is kind of an AU with alternative timelines, slightly altered magic for one or two mages. Everything will be explained in the chapters, and if something doesn't make sense, please tell me so that I can drop a hint in the text or the notes that explains the situation.
Reviews make me happy!
See you next Sunday with the next chapter~