AN - 05/08/2020: So it has been over a damn year since i began my little hiatus, though i am still sorry to say that it won't be done yet, but i felt bad for taking so damn long to post anything so i thought i'd quickly post this up for you all. Just something to show that i haven't forgotten about this story. Hopefully you enjoy.


Chapter 31, the beginning of my backlog chapters, so hopefully I won't take too long getting the rest of this arc done before bulking the next arc and then the next and so on and so forth.

Though… That may be a little slow, given how I am also writing my first ever proper book, so wish me luck on that, in both swiftness and efficiency.

Anyway, have fun reading.

:::-((x))-:::

Normally the first thing Gray was made aware of in his immediate area usually ended up being the temperature, as odd as it was that would always the thing that managed to register in his mind before anything else. Namely, if it was hotter than usual, mostly due to how naturally cold his body was. He wasn't ice cold, but just… lukewarm compared to the normal body-heat (or so he'd been told). Naturally, whenever he went outside and it was hot, he would be the first to become aware that it was – in fact – hot. It effected his training, forcing him to sweat more and tire faster, plus his magic, being ice and all, naturally meant that he had to work harder to use it efficiently.

The awareness of the heat or lack thereof was merely a way for him to gauge how much effort he would have to pour into everything he did: Walking, fighting, running, jumping, even merely talking. He was as good as the weather allowed him to be, much to his chagrin.

But as he clawed his eye across the thick, lush groves of green leaves, he ultimately realised that the temperature was not on his mind today, for there was another element entirely that seemed to overshadow his routine, incredibly distracting and uncomfortably real, slowly making Gray's stomach churn with a small but growing sense of anxiety.

"Y'know, we've been walking for an hour now! I hope you're not lying about your little training place!" A higher pitched voice called out from behind him, dispersing the tense silence that had filled his mind and soul.

Shifting his head to look back, Gray instantly noted that Cana seemed to be dragging behind a little, her footsteps slower and more heavy than when he had last checked. It looked as if all her energy had been sapped in the span of the last hour.

He scoffed a little at the sight. She surely must have realised that she had followed him here, not the other way around. The Ice-Mage merely shook his head at her pouty expression when levelled upon him, if she really thought that would do anything other than irritate him then she clearly wasn't aware of who he was yet. Though it had only been a small amount of time since he had joined Fairy Tail.

"You can still turn around a leave." He said in response to her complaint. His not-so-subtle hint at his intention not going unnoticed by either him or the person it was directed towards. "Maybe Vali's dumbass can entertain you."

At the mention of the evil one, Cana huffed and picked up the pace. Which would have been kinda funny if he were ever in a laughing mood.

The comment, however, didn't seem to dissuade Cana from keeping up with him… Much to his minor annoyance.

'How in the hell do I deal with her?'

She could have made their day easy by simply ignoring him. He preferred the silence and peace of the woods when it was all for him. There wasn't anything else other than his training to take into account. No distractions, no nothing. Just him and his ambition to fill him, mind, body and soul.

"What do you usually do here? I get it, you train, but like, what do you do?" Cana asked, her tone as serious as it always has been.

'Such a bossy girl… I bet Vali doesn't have to put up with this.'

His expression soured. The bastard probably lived for the attention, the theatrical boy radiated the presence of an extrovert. Mr. Performer probably had a small script followed by a routine for even the most obscure of occasions.

"You answered your own question." He responded tersely. Turning his head back to keep an eye out on the path ahead. They were close.

"So you just go at it? No routine, no nothing? How do you expect to get better like that?"

A groan escaped his throat. Everyone's a fucking critic, it seemed.

Glaring ahead of his path, he ground out his reply. "None of your business."

After a few seconds, he realised that she hadn't replied or said anything yet. Gray felt a pang in his chest, maybe he had been a bit too harsh? A tad too mean? He had a bad habit of being too honest sometimes, he was well aware of that, but surely he had gotten better.

He quickly realised what he was doing, self-doubt had never helped him before, and it wasn't going to help him now. Since when had that kind of world-view helped him in any way? He was doing this so he could actively have the strength to back up that confidence and make it real, not just a mask.

If he kept up to date with improving himself, becoming the strongest Mage in Fiore… Maybe he'd actually be worth something more than the worlds punching bag.

"Not far now..." He grunted, his silent companion not replying, but he liked it that way.

Plus, as he brushed past some of the shrubbery and felt the tree-tops close out more and more light around him, he finally felt the temperature of the area around him cool a few degrees. Though that revelation only angered him…

'Fine! Who needs her anyway?'

:::-((x))-:::

"To be fair, that actually did hurt a lot. His giant fist careened into my face and just… I don't know, I felt disoriented and there was the obvious bout of pain that followed. But it wasn't anything crippling. Since I am so athletic and I do a lot of flipping and spinning I am usually able to push on through things like light-headedness. But they clearly didn't know that."

Levy smiled, leaning in and giggling as Vali rattled on and on about his heroic deeds. If one were to look over at their table, one would think that she was merely humouring him to keep him happy. And he did seem a little more animated than before. But she was genuinely interested, Vali was a good storyteller…. In her view, at least.

"Then, fiendishly, like a man drunk… on adrenaline – which I was! – I ducked, weaved and barrelled my way through Balloony and his boyfriend, quickly taking down the weaker of the two and managing to get underneath the defences of the last, leaving him open to a 'Vali Dirt Nap' in the shape of my boot to the chin!"

Vali… certainly had a funny way of expressing himself. It was something that became very obvious to her in the short time she had gotten to know him. It was a little confusing in all honesty. The way he would treat such dangerous situations as if they were just everyday occurrences was weird. She and others would probably get at least a little serious when talking about something so dire. But he was as blasé about it as he was with everything else. In fact, if it wasn't for the story being confirmed by the guild master, Makarov, Levy was sure she'd chalk it up to Vali merely stroking his own ego.

Something about him was off, but Levy had no idea what that was or if it was even a bad thing. But it felt like she was noticing something about him that she really shouldn't be. Though her inner adventurous side kept her from leaving it there. And even though her anxiety was screaming at her to run, something about him was also soothing, as if such carelessness radiating from his person was soothing her worries.

When he stopped, she quickly took the opportunity to speak before he could fill the silence again. Something she wasn't used to doing, but feeling confident enough to do so at this point.

"Vali?"

"Hmm?" He gave her an easy-going grin. Hands tucked behind hi head. Giving her another surge of confidence… so far so good.

"I- uhh..." As soon as her mouth began to move her sentence seized in her throat. When hearing the embarrassingly garbled mess of nerves leave her, her face reddened and she quickly ducked her head down, no small amounts of shame filling her. "S-Sorry, I- I… have trouble with… T-this stuff."

How could she be so stupid? The first time she had felt confident enough to speak around someone and she had royally messed it up. All she wanted to do right now was crawl under the floorboards, hopefully perishing before anyone ever saw her again.

She didn't dare look up, Vali was probably either laughing at her or just plain confused with her dumb behaviour.

The general noise of the guild helped her find a nice place in her own head-space to calm down, but even then, she knew that she would not look back up. All of this over a damn question!

Then Vali spoke back up and her body seized for what was likely to come.

"Nah, you're fine, take your time." His voice was… lighter? No, it was a trick of her mind.

A few more seconds past where she didn't speak and just when she thought Vali had silently left her, he said something else.

"Yo, you want to hear an embarrassing story about Grumpy bollocks?" He asked, and Levy swore she could hear a small rumbling laughter in his voice when he asked her.

'Who's 'Grumpy Bollocks'?'

She would be lying to herself if she said that she wasn't a little curious about this mysterious character. But was it worth getting invested again when she knew that her gaining enough confidence to speak up was never going to happen?

"W-who's that?" She asked before realising what she had just done.

Eyes wide, she also realised that she had looked up at Vali's mischievous face before she could stop herself.

"Oh yeah. Grumpy Bollocks is Gray." He gave her a cheeky smirk that confused her even further. "Haha, you know? Since all he does is brood and whine about everything. You know, I don't think I have ever seen a genuine smile on his face."

"Oh?" She asked, dazedly.

He nodded in response. "Oh yeah, he'll smirk and give me a grin that wouldn't be amiss on a rabid Vulcan when we fight, but never has he actually given my beautiful self a real smile. I personally think that he doesn't because if he does then he'd simply explode into hundreds of little pissed-off pieces."

She giggled a little, the sheer absurdity of the statement was indeed an amusing theory. Unlikely, but she hadn't really talked to Gray properly yet.

And she didn't realise it, but Vali certainly had.

'Ahhh, The Conway Charisma strikes again.' He gave a small grin to her, watching as the small girl stopped giggling at his dumb choice of words. She was now hanging on his every word, her attention mere putty in his hands. 'The very least she deserves for putting up with my immersive rambling. Hehe.'

If his humour could bring the first person to really listen to him as a human being some level of ease then he guessed that that was an acceptable measure.

And as the sounds of Vejeeters nose breaking mixed with the rough-housing of Wakaba and Macao filled the guild up with its alive and thriving atmosphere, both Levy and Vali had managed to waste the entire day, filling it with laughter, dumb jokes (usually at Gray's expense in Vali's case) and more story-telling.

And still, only Vali noted how Levy had forgotten about her anxiety…

Soon enough, the guild started to slowly fill up with artificial light as the day became noon, which slowly crept closer and closer to night.

That was when the guild doors opened, and out of the dark-blue came the figure of Cana, who simply looked around the guild, shaking her head in disgust at the mess that was made alongside the loud adults who were littering the place. That was when he eyes caught Vali's, who saw her from the corner of his eye and gave her a small salute of acknowledgement.

Then he noticed her expression..

'Oh boy, what has Gray done now…?'

Never did he think that one person would begin to tire him to such a degree. Then he met the blasted Ice-Mage and realised that there would always be an Anti-Vali product out in the world.

When she stormed over, bee-lining straight for his and Levy's table, ignoring everyone else. Vali thought that she was genuinely going to try and smack him silly. Which would have been difficult, given how he saw various window of opportunity to avoid such a fate. But instead, she just came over and sat down on Levy's side, making the younger girl go quiet and shy again when she noticed the expression of anger on the older girls face.

Vali held back a scowl, there went all of his hard work today. Poor Levy was probably trying to hide herself in the corner more than she already was.

"You have the face of a slapped arse, Cana." He started, subtly hinting at his own feelings with his verbal jab. Though her heated glare landing on directly on him made him think twice. "So, I take it you got to know our lovely resident Ice-Mage a little more, eh?"

Her silence on the matter was as damning as any words that could have possibly been spoken.

But Cana looked like she was ready to explode. Inwardly, Vali winced, wondering what Gray could have done to piss the Card Mage off so much. Then again, he knew that Gray was like a very very fine wine, in that he was an extremely acquired taste. Hell, even he was having trouble putting up with his constant and ever-worsening behaviour. But even Makarov was having trouble in getting the boy to open up beyond his reason for coming here.

He looked over at Levy, choosing to feel a tiny twinge of sympathy for the girl by giving her a little smile and motioning for Cana to follow him as he quickly got up from the table and headed towards the balcony near the back, keenly aware of the girl following him.

He quickly found the noise of the guild drowning out and the artificial light becoming a little dimmer as he ascended the stairs before opening the door up to the outside world beyond the guilds doors.

It was certainly a nice view, he'd give it that. Quiet to. The perfect place for people to come and talk privately, or vent out frustrations or even just bask in their own solitude for a while. But he wasn't here for his own pleasure.

The door closed behind him, rather forcefully at that. He turned around and saw that Cana stood before him, now leaning against the door she had so harshly slammed, looking ready to scream and shout to the heavens.

At first, he didn't know how to start, but given how he had been around such a troublesome bastard the past few weeks, maybe he could utilise that patience with Cana. A much less troublesome person than that of Gray by a fair stretch.

"So..." He began, letting out a huge sigh. "You want to say something? Because I must say, if it is not a complete praise of yours truly or an admission of your anger right now I may lose interest."

She growled, causing him to snicker a little, but he allowed her some time to speak, which she took greedily.

"Your friend is a horrible asshole! Rude, mean-spirited, uncaring and so god-damn ignorant, screw him and everything about him!"

He nodded. "Yeah, he is a very hard person to like." He really was, there was no point in denying it. As the wind whipped his long and un-brushed hair everywhere he could see Cana shaking a little.

"How do you even live with him!? He is insufferable! If I had to suffer being around him more than I already do i'd have run away from Fairy Tail!" She raged, though it was obvious that she was trying to keep it civil by not screaming and swearing.

"Seriously, the guild was much better when he wasn't here! Sure, it was loud and annoying, but at least I didn't have to put up with him putting everything and everyone down, shouting at them, mocking them, fighting everyone who looks at him wrong and being horrid to be near!"

"He doesn't deserve to be in this guild!"

That really did make Vali wince. Gray really must have screwed up to make Cana this angry, angry enough to say that. When a member of a guild prided on being a loving family said that they don't want you around then something must have gone real wrong real fast.

But, it wasn't like he could make much of a case for the guy either. Truth be told, he was slowly losing his patience for Gray too..

He had to know what had happened, what had Gray done?

"Cana, start from the beginning, what in the hell happened?"

:::-((x))-:::

"Ice-Make: Shard Storm!"

Angry shards of Ice whipped around at speeds barely comprehensible, barely able to be seen as they circled Gray's body like a swarm of enraged wasps. Standing a few metres away from him and his devastating storm was almost a perfect replica of himself, face blank and body cracked chipped and damaged from the brutality of the past few hours. Made out of ice so heavily compacted that it left heavy marks in the ground whenever it moved.

A howl of rage left Gray's mouth as he thrust both hands forward, his vision red with a seething hatred as the shards of ice cut the Ice-Clone up. He couldn't help but take some glee out of watching the thing stumble from being sliced and stabbed by hundreds of tiny knife-edged shards.

The Clone attempted to avoid the rest by hopping to the side, making a dash for Gray himself, only making his anger rise further.

"Ice-Make: Glacial Clap!" He quickly separated his hands and slammed them together just as the clone got in arms reach of him. As soon as his hands met with a furious force, the immediate area exploded with cold, as if a bomb had been dropped on the area and left a small area in a heavy layer of ice.

The clone had been frozen solid before it could have done anything…

And Gray took advantage of that, pushing all of his hate for the thing in front of him into his inner devil. Feeling his body writhe with an almost calming rage.

"Ice-Devil: Unholy White-out!" His hands, once again, came together before a white stream of ice with black vein-like streaks shot forth, piercing the clone in the heart. Gray focussed on making the thing hurt, he wanted his creation to realise that its end was going to be painful and deservingly so. So when the clone began to crack and splinter, with each fissure glowing an ominous, pulsing white… He hoped that a part of it was actually alive enough to feel it.

Soon enough, the clone exploded, shattering and send its broken pieces shooting into the darkening woods around Gray, some of the shards impaling the trees around him as the rest were lost to the darkness beyond the treeline.

Silence quickly took over the emptied space around him as he felt his body come down from its high. Walking up to where the clone had lost its battle with him, he bent down to pick up a part of what was left before looking at his hand and screaming… Horror swelling up in his body at a pace he couldn't comprehend.

His hand was black, black with a putrid purple hue that completely obscured his pale skin. His normal skin unable to be seen. He didn't know what to do as he stared at his unnatural appendage with what he could only describe as an overwhelming feeling of his stomach doing flips in his body before trying to shrivel up.

"What?… Why now?" He asked, only barely registering that not only was there no one around to answer his fearful question, but that was also whispering so low that he could barely hear it himself.

He remembered when Makarov had brought up the Black Marks he had gotten during his fight with Kafuchi. At the time he had blown the Guild Master off with a little bit of time to reflect and his own sure stance on who he was. It was impossible for him to get what Makarov was talking about. His family had been part of a lineage with natural ties to Devil Slaying Magic. He was able to learn as quickly as he liked and would never suffer from the cursed Black Marks…

But as he looked at his hand, pulsing with a dark power he hadn't felt in his life and feeling his face thumping with the same overwhelming sensation…

"Oh no… no no no no no… This can't fucking happen, not to me, please not to me!"

His breathing started to feel restrictive, like the simple act of drawing breathe was becoming an alien concept. All he could feel around him was an impenetrable darkness, as if with each second the sun went down, the darkness became more and more alive within him. Even then, a small part of him felt the esoteric swelling of bitterness rise up in his gut.

'So much for sealing my 'darkness', right, Ur?'

He clenched his corrupted fist hard, feeling his nails dig into his flesh causing him to groan a little out of pain. Focussing on calming down as his body violently fought the sensation of malice out of his body. All he could do in the meantime was stick around for the ride and hope that he wasn't thrown out before it stopped.

After god-knew how long had passed, The feelings within Gray began to dull, his emotions drying up and with muted relief on his part, his body began to lose the marks. A slowly process, but it was definitely happening, he could see his fingers and thumb free of the scourge as his hand slowly regained its pale white colour.

And soon enough, the blackness had fully left him. He looked down at the reflective ice from his training, seeing his purple eye go back to its usual onyx pool. Giving him his normal face once again…

It was highly distressing for him… Even his glamour ring couldn't hold the markings back. As much as he usually forgot about the damn thing, this entire event had reminded him of its existence. That if he took it off, all that would remain is the damaged body behind the mask it had on.

He couldn't stay here any longer… He needed to go home… He needed to sleep and forget the world existed for a few hours. He needed anything other than the outside world right now.

So without cleaning up his mess, Gray Fullbuster ran all the way home, his previous fatigue hammering his always tired and stressed body as he cleared the forest within ten minutes flat, dashing through the pearly white buildings of Magnolia through the dark-blue hue of night. Ignoring the two or three people who saw him as he tore up through the final street.

He briefly saw Mr. Maynard outside taking out the trash. But all he could think about now was the way his body seemed to pulse with a negative energy that wasn't entirely uncommon for him. He didn't see how the Landlord waved at him, nor the look of concern on his face as he ran inside and bolted into his room, locking the door and finding his room before slamming the door shut and stumbling into bed, all his adrenaline waning as his body dropped like a fly under a swatter.

Gray's sleep came, taking him away from the world he hated for the night… only to drop him in the worst place in the world… his own mind.

:::-((x))-:::

"I can certainly see what you mean… He has been getting worse since we got here."

Cana nodded, he previous anger from an hour before gone, replaced with a bitterness that she hadn't felt in a long time. "How can we be expected to get along with him when he won't even make the effort to do the same!?"

In all honesty, Vali admitted that all this social stuff and mental crap wasn't his strong suit, despite how he acted, it was mostly instinct, born out of a need to defending himself. Serious shit like this was not ever going to be something he could seriously have a good say in. And with how fucked Gray was and how stupidly he was acting, even he could see that he was both out of his depth and out of fucks to give for the boy.

He had tried, but Gray refused at every turn and he wasn't going to bother trying to do something for someone who wanted nothing to do with anyone.

"Give Gramps a notice, he could do something about it. Straighten him up or something, I don't really care anymore." He shrugged. Though he didn't expect what happened next.

"How can you not care!?" Cana scolded, giving him a re-energised glare. "He's your friend, right? How can you say you don't care?"

"Very simple actually." Vali sighed, as if he was speaking to someone who didn't understand. "As long as he doesn't do anything to end his life, he can do whatever he likes. He can think or feel whatever his mind comes up with."

Cana looked at him like he had grown a second head. "Then what was all that shit with Gray freaking out over you when you got shot? Asshole!"

"I'm the asshole now?" He raised an eyebrow.

"He clearly cares, how you can say something like that is unacceptable!" Cana raged at him. Making him sigh in no small amount of frustration.

"I never asked him to give a shit about me, nor do you have much room to talk about my stance on this matter." He said, giving her a stare that made Cana feel like she was being told off by a teacher. For some reason that only made her angrier.

Her hand was swung at his cheek harder and before he could get a word in. Cana watched as his face jerked to one side from the force, ignoring the stinging sensation in her hand as her eyes were glued on the way his face scrunched up in what seemed to be shock… but not long after followed the darkening in his eyes as he gave her another almost disappointed stare.

"Hmm, So that's how it is, huh?"

Vali scooted around her, pulling the door to before trudging down the stairs before the door quickly closed shut again.

Cana didn't know what to do anymore, her back finally hitting the door again as it had done an hour back before sliding down to the ground. She felt the need to scream into the sky. Complain, hit something, anything that could remove the tension in her body from the days events.

She knew Vali was a social performer. Never really being too genuine with people except with those few moments where he'd smile or get genuinely excited. But too see just how far removed he seemed to be confused her. Though the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. Maybe she had made a mistake in consulting him on the issue.

They had been on bad terms the entire day and Gray only showed up to the guild once today and even then he was in the foulest mood she'd ever seen him in. Maybe he was just angry and showing it in a weird way.

But as she sat there, face hidden in her hands whilst the wind blew her hair into her face… Something deep down told her that this was more than just a petty fight…

God she wished she was old enough to drink…

:::-((x))-:::

Levy had been learning for the last hour.

Gray had been running away for the last hour.

Cana had been emotional for the last hour.

And Vali had been feeling tired for the last hour.

Whilst the howling wind blew through Magnolia, the little world the foursome had set around themselves began to crumble. The day had been rather unremarkable, but the rest of the year was set in stone by its events…

:::-((x))-:::

A little under 5, 000, but not by much, I hope it is up to your standards.

But next chapter will be much fun for everyone here. Because we finally move on from this awkward period of the Fairy Tail Arc. We finally pick up the fucking pace! XD Hopefully I can make it worth it.

So, you know the drill by now. Review, leave any praise, criticism and anything you have in mind in said review. Hopefully i'll be seeing you next week.

-Viperhat