"I didn't even see her," Jellal said sadly once they were out of the restaurant. "I'm sure she was in there, but…she must not have been able to see me either. Otherwise she would have come."

"We can sneak in through a window or something," Natsu said, patting Jellal in a way that was clearly meant to be comforting. It wasn't - Natsu's hand was heavy, and the motion sent waves of jarring pain through Jellal's body, making him feel dizzy and sick. He supposed that he appreciated the attempt, but he mostly wished Natsu would just help him bully his way past the host.

"I don't want to sneak in through a window," Jellal grumbled, still being towed along by Natsu and Gray. They were moving slightly too fast for him, and he felt a little off-balance. Still, that was probably for the best. If they went at the speed Jellal thought he could handle, they'd be going so slowly that they'd never make it inside the restaurant, through the window or not.

"Well, that's what we gotta do," Gray said briskly. "You're probably gonna end up banned for life either way, but I think if you murder the host, you're also gonna end up in jail. Uhh, again."

Jellal shuddered. He didn't want that. He didn't want to murder the host, either, he'd just been caught up in the moment and desperate to get to Erza. He wondered if this would make Siegrain think he was a better or worse boyfriend, and then decided it probably didn't matter.

"Let's just kinda walk along the side of the restaurant until we see a way in," Natsu suggested.

"One that doesn't look too obvious," Gray added. "You don't think Siegrain set any more traps, do you?"

Jellal frowned. "I don't think he did, but apparently I'm completely unable to predict what he does. So I suppose there could be any number of traps."

Natsu and Gray exchanged a look, and Jellal would have felt ashamed if he wasn't too busy feeling angry. He knew full well that he was being unhelpful, if not downright aggravating, to his two friends that were under absolutely no obligation to help him. Unfortunately, there was no way he was going to be able to stop.

"Just in case, let's go around the other side of the building," Natsu said. Jellal nodded, slumping a little further onto Gray as they changed direction. His head was swimming, and as much as he didn't want to admit it, he thought there was at least a chance that he would pass out before finding Erza.

Luckily, his fears proved to be unfounded. They had made it about halfway around the other side of the building when they started passing possible entry points. They'd discarded all of them, because most of them were occupied by diners, and Jellal would prefer to get in unseen if possible.

And then, he saw Erza laughing and smiling with a different version of himself, and every shred of that plan left his mind.

Jellal felt his magic energy gather like a storm behind him, but it was very nearly subconscious, and he wasn't sure he could stop it if he wanted to. With barely any conscious thought on his part, the window in front of him exploded outwards, showering Jellal, Natsu, and Gray with shards of glass.

Erza looked up at the sound. She seemed alarmed. There wasn't yet a real hint of recognition or confusion in his face, so Jellal was pretty sure she hadn't actually seen him yet.

That would change soon.

The pain in his shoulder momentarily forgotten, Jellal threw himself forward. He boosted himself up through the restaurant window, and perched on the lip for a moment as he tried to figure out how to get down without jostling himself too badly. In the end, his body decided for him as his injured arm gave way. Jellal tumbled onto the floor of the restaurant, and the impact with the ground hurt his shoulder so badly that for an instant he saw stars.

Several patrons of the restaurant screamed. The ones closest to Jellal stood up, moving as far from him as possible the way someone would for a cockroach or a rat. Erza was now staring at him with a mixture of shock and horror, so Jellal was pretty sure she recognized him, at least.

"Erza-" he gasped. He had a vague idea that he should go to her, and probably before Siegrain had the chance to do anything. But when he planted his good hand on the ground to try to boost himself up, it almost slid out from underneath him. The floor was slick with blood. The wound on his shoulder must have opened up again.

All of a sudden, Jellal found he was feeling awfully lightheaded. He told himself it was a placebo. A reaction to realizing he was bleeding again, and not the result of actually losing too much blood.

Jellal heard the sound of crunching glass, and realized Natsu and Gray were climbing in through the window now too. That was good. Jellal was pretty sure he could manage to take down Siegrain on his own. But both taking down Siegrain and explaining to Erza and the other patrons of the restaurant what had happened - that seemed like too much to handle. If he was fast enough, and if Natsu and Gray handled Erza, he could get this whole nightmare of a situation resolved in the next thirty to sixty seconds.

For a split second, Erza was frozen. She had been enjoying a wonderful dinner out with her boyfriend, and she had just been deciding how many desserts to get when a window had exploded and another, bloodier version of Jellal had spilled into the restaurant. Behind him, for some godforsaken reason, were Natsu and Gray, looking almost as confused as she felt.

The other Jellal began struggling to get up off the floor, slipping on the now bloodsoaked marble tiles. As soon as he moved, Erza snapped out of her confusion, requipping into her everyday armor and clenching her gauntleted hand around her sword. She still didn't have any idea what was going on, but she felt better facing it with a weapon in her hand.

"What's going on?" she shouted at the Jellal she had come with, who was also on his feet, staring at his duplicate. "Why are there two of you?"

She'd expected him to look as surprised as she did, but instead, the expression on his face was cold fury. Erza tightened her grip on her sword, feeling the weight of the blade in her hand. What was he not telling her?

"Jellal?!"

"Stay back," Jellal commanded, putting out his hand. "It must be a fake! Or a trick of some kind! This is very advanced dark magic-"

"He's…he's the fake," shouted the Jellal on the floor, still fighting to rise from the pool of blood he'd left around himself. "Erza, he's trying to kill me-"

Erza, unsure what to believe, summoned another sword and angled one blade towards each Jellal. "How should I know which one of you to trust? If either?"

"I've been with you all day," Jellal insisted, raising his hands in submission. "I've done nothing wrong! All I did was take you to a fancy restaurant!"

The bloodsoaked Jellal on the floor finally made it up to one elbow, pushing the green baseball cap he was (for some reason) wearing backwards off his head. It fell to the floor, revealing a bandage wound haphazardly around his forehead.

"Fine, you filthy liar," he spat venomously towards the table. "Erza, I summoned Siegrain to take you to your armor fitting because I had accidentally promised to go to a bodybuilding contest with Natsu and Gray, and now he's trying to kill me for being a terrible boyfriend. And while I'm on the subject, why have I never seen the dress you were wearing before? It really accentuates the shape of your-"

Jellal raised one blood-soaked hand and traced the air in the shape of a breast.

Tragically, that left no further doubt in Erza's mind.

Erza whirled on Siegrain, leveling both swords at him. For a split second, she saw true fear in his eyes, and she reveled in that.

"Explain yourself!" she snarled.

He must have realized the situation was getting somewhat away from him, because he backed up a step. Behind her, Erza heard the sound of someone - presumably Jellal - getting to their feet. Then, faster than Erza would have expected, given his physical condition, he was forcing himself in front of her, lunging at Siegrain.

He clamped onto Siegrain's wrist with his good hand. He dragged Siegrain towards him.

"Your magic won't work on me," he hissed. "I banish you!" She saw the faint shimmer of magic as he started to work some sort of spell.

"Your magic may not work on me," Siegrain said with the sort of smile that immediately told Erza something was wrong, "but I can still do this."

And then with the sort of movement only Jellal could pull off, almost too fast to follow, Siegrain grabbed a steak knife off the table. Before Erza had time to react, Siegrain was plunging it into Jellal's stomach.

The world seemed to freeze. Jellal's eyes started to glaze over pretty much immediately. Siegrain gave the knife a sharp tug, and Jellal practically slid off the end, crumpling to the floor. Blood immediately started to spread across his front. For a second, his good hand pawed at his stomach, as if hoping to put pressure on the wound, but then he went limp.

Erza saw red. She lunged at Siegrain, swords out and teeth bared. She wanted to kill Siegrain either way, but if he had killed Jelllal, she was going to tear him apart while she did it.

Jellal had been feeling pretty confident about this whole situation, and then Siegrain had stabbed him in the stomach and now things had gotten very much away from him. In the blink of an eye, it was like Siegrain had turned the lights off in the room and turned the temperature down twenty degrees. Jellal's vision was so blurry he couldn't tell where anyone was. He was trembling, but he couldn't remember if he was cold or not. He couldn't move his legs, and now, he was starting to realize he also couldn't move his fingers.

He knew he needed to put pressure on the wound, but that seemed both impossible and not very important. At this point, he would either die, or someone else would put pressure on the wound for him.

Jellal also knew that he should be worried about that, but everything was starting to feel very far away. The only thing that actually felt real was the searing pain in his stomach that seemed to worsen every time he did so much as take a breath.

Jellal wondered if it would hurt less if he stopped breathing. That way, he wouldn't feel like he was tearing himself open even further. But Jellal was also pretty sure that if he stopped breathing, he would die. The pain would definitely stop then, but he didn't think he wanted to die.

Lazily, Jellal turned his head to the side slightly and coughed out a large gout of blood. It spattered onto the tile beside him. Jellal blinked at it slowly, wondering if there would be more.

"Jellal, hang on, okay?" There were hands on his stomach now, cold hands. Jellal hissed at the sudden icy touch, then relaxed, ever so slightly, as he realized what it meant. Gray.

"Aww, man, this looks really bad," Gray whispered, then cleared his throat and spoke at a higher volume. "This doesn't look bad at all, buddy. I've had way worse."

"Okay," Jellal responded, too exhausted and in pain to figure out which of Gray's claims he should be responding to. At the end of the word, he felt a little more blood bubble up from the back of his throat, and he coughed it onto Gray's face. "S-sorry."

He thought Gray was making a face, but his vision was too blurry to tell. "Uhh, it's okay," Gray answered. "This might hurt a little, alright?"

Jellal gasped, hacking up a little more blood as Gray's hands pressed down hard on his wound. Blackness began to encroach on the edges of his vision, and it hurt so much Jellal had to remind himself to breathe.

"It's not stoppin'," Gray muttered to himself. "Jellal? Can you hear me? I'm gonna freeze it shut, okay?"

The viselike hands on his stomach began to get colder, and Jellal whimpered as his skin began to burn with the frigid touch. He'd been at the receiving end of Gray's ice before, and he knew that being frozen could hurt just as badly as being burned. If Gray froze his wound shut, the massive shock to his body alone would make Jellal lose consciousness instantly. And then, there would be no one to banish Siegrain.

"Wait," Jellal breathed, reaching for Gray's wrist with his good hand. His fingers scrabbled weakly for purchase, lacking the strength even to close.

"I need to stop the bleeding," Gray reminded him, and Jellal felt his skin start to freeze. He gasped, choking on blood, and shook his head.

"I'll pass out," Jellal whispered.

"That's-"

"I n-need to banish Siegrain."

"But-"

"You won' be able t' kill him."

"Stop moving around so I can murder you!" Erza chose that exact moment to scream. "You'll pay for what you've done to Jellal!"

"Wait!" Jellal tried to yell, but he was far too weak, and the blood in the back of his throat threatened to cut him off anyway. He was pretty sure only Gray could hear him, if even. "Don'...don' let her k-kill him. She won't be able to. I need to…to banish him. H-have her…bring him…to me."

"Yo, Erza!" Gray shouted. "Jellal says you can't kill him! Just try to grab him or somethin', and Jellal will be able to send him away."

Erza may have reacted in some way to what Gray had said, but Jellal couldn't be sure. He couldn't really see her. He thought he heard Natsu yell "Fine!" but he couldn't really be sure of that either.

Jellal laid down flat on the hard tile of the restaurant floor, feeling Gray's cool hands press into his stomach again. He knew he was on the floor, but the surface beneath him felt somehow unstable. It felt like he was spinning in lazy circles, dipping and rising, and all of the movement was making him feel vaguely nauseous. Then again, that could have been all the blood in his mouth.

"Hey, stay with me!" Gray said. "Jellal!"

Jellal wasn't sure when his eyes had closed. But they must have, because as Gray gave his shoulder a tentative shake Jellal found himself peering into Gray's blurry face again. "I'm-" He wanted to say that he was trying, but somewhere along the way his tongue had gotten thick and heavy, and he couldn't find the strength to form the words.

"Please just hang on," Gray sounded a little panicked, which wasn't good. "We'll fix this…we'll find a way to fix this…."

Jellal let his lips crack open, allowing the blood in his mouth to trickle down to the tile below. Coughing it out hurt too badly. Jellal had already been stabbed once, and he didn't want to feel like it was happening again and again. That would make him pass out, too.

Unfortunately, passing out was starting to sound like a relief. Jellal knew there was a chance he wouldn't wake up again, but it was almost a trade he'd be willing to make if he could get away from the constant agony.

He couldn't rest yet. He knew that. The sounds of the battle were all around him, reminding him that Siegrain was an immediate danger. He had to stay awake, or they wouldn't be able to stop him.

Still, that was getting harder to remember as blood filled up his mouth again and he could feel Gray's hands slipping across his stomach. It would be so much easier to give up, and just disappear into the blissful darkness….

Jellal's eyes were closed again. He hadn't done it on purpose. He'd been trying to focus on Gray's face, but now everything around him was black, and he didn't think he'd be able to open them.

And then, somehow, he heard his own voice cutting through the combat. Siegrain.

Jellal's eyes flew open. He knew that incantation. Frantically, he snapped his head to the side, searching with his blurry vision and hoping he'd misheard.

Through the swirl of smoke and flame, Jellal caught a brief glimpse of Siegrain, arms crossed at the wrist, hands up and palms outward. He was chanting, and Jellal could see the flickers of darkness gathering around his shoulders.

"G-Gray," Jellal gasped, choking on his own blood in panic. "Stop…."

Siegrain was casting a spell that Jellal had been working on for a while, inspired by spells from Ultear and Doranbolt. Jellal had intended to take the base of memory modification magic and expand it, hoping that if he was still missing any of his own memories, he might be able to extract them on his own. He hadn't really admitted it to himself, but he'd also considered the possibility of weaponizing the spell. Instantaneous memory modification could halt combat in its tracks, and Jellal had already improved the spell's speed enough for that possibility.

And if he'd thought about it, then that meant Siegrain had too. He was casting it now. There was only one way out of this, and he'd thought of it, because Jellal would have.

If he made Natsu, Erza, and Gray believe that he was the real Jellal, then Siegrain could walk away from this. Erza would kill Jellal herself, and no one but Siegrain would ever know the truth.

Siegrain really would be able to replace Jellal.

Jellal knew he had maybe five more seconds to explain this to Gray, before it would be too late to stop Siegrain and there would be nothing any of them could do. But Jellal was still so weak that forming words was hard work, and he wasn't sure he would be able to. He closed his eyes softly and summoned all his strength.

"He's…going…to make us…think…he's the real…Jellal," Jellal managed, fighting the urge to pant for breath. "You…need to…stop him."

For a split second, Gray just looked confused, and Jellal felt a sick, numb horror build in his stomach. But then, in a quick, sudden movement, he cast something. Jellal rolled his head, ignoring the way that made the pain spike, just in time to see a patch of ice form over Siegrain's mouth.

The incantation abruptly cut off.

"Don't let him say anything!" Gray yelled. "He's gonna try to take away our memories!"

Gray was already preparing to cast again if Siegrain had some sort of counterspell prepared for the ice. But so far, it didn't look like he did - he still just looked startled.

After a long few seconds, Siegrain started pulling at the ice patch in an effort to remove it, but Gray knew that was easier said than done. Erza was already circling behind him, flanking him with Natsu, and Gray was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to start to cast again without them stopping it.

Jellal made a small sound in the back of his throat. For a second, Gray panicked, but then looked down at Jellal again and saw that he was looking at the battle, and his face had slightly relaxed.

"Yeah, he won't be able to cast that," Gray said, just in case Jellal was sort of missing what was going on. He was blinking like he couldn't see very well. "They're gonna stop him before he can get the ice off."

Jellal closed his eyes, face soft with relief. Then, he tensed up and started violently coughing blood onto the floor.

And just like that, a more pressing problem had appeared. Maybe Natsu and Erza would be able to defeat Siegrain, but at this point, Gray wasn't even completely sure that Jellal would be able to survive the battle.

"Don't…." Jellal whispered, then trailed off as he began coughing more blood. Gray wished he could move him to his side, but if he did that, then he wouldn't be able to keep putting pressure on Jellal's stomach. Jellal whimpered slightly as blood trickled down the side of his face to pool on the ground, and then sucked in a jagged breath.

"Don't…." he managed, before breaking off again.

"I won't let him cast it," Gray promised. "He can't, anyway. Look." Gray nodded towards the fight, where Siegrain had abandoned the attempt to pull the ice from his mouth, and had gone back trying to dodge whatever Erza and Natsu threw at him. Too late, he remembered that Jellal couldn't really see that well.

"It'll be okay," Gray said. He was at least pretty confident that Erza and Natsu could take down Siegrain, but he was a little less confident that Jellal was going to last through the rest of the fight. Still, Jellal probably shouldn't know that. "Promise."

"No," Jellal moaned, so soft Gray almost didn't hear him. "Don't…let me…pass out…."

Gray stared down at him skeptically. He knew they needed Jellal to banish Siegrain, but Jellal looked like he couldn't even open his eyes, much less work the magic necessary to reabsorb his double. His skin had been pale before, but the blood had sunk away from his face completely, revealing dark hollows under his half-closed eyes and a dull, ashy cast to his face. Gray was a little worried that even if they did manage to catch Siegrain, casting the spell might drain the last of Jellal's energy and push him over the edge.

"Can't we just, I dunno, tie him to a tree or somethin'?" Gray asked, pressing down a bit harder on Jellal's wound and grimacing at the slick feeling of blood between his fingers. "You are not looking too good."

"No," Jellal hissed, cracking one eye open and glaring at Gray. Even unfocused, the stare was serious enough for Gray to take notice. "This…ends…now. D-dangerous."

If anyone knew exactly how much of a threat Siegrain was, it would be the man who shared his powers. Gray swallowed hard, nodding. "Okay. Okay, fine."

He'd expected some sort of answer, but Jellal's eyes had slid closed again. Gray frowned, and Jellal's jaw went slack, yet more blood bubbling across his lips.

"Jellal? C'mon, man, you just told me how you gotta stay awake!"

Jellal did not respond, and Gray set his jaw. He didn't want to cause Jellal any more pain than he had to, but it looked like he didn't have a choice.

Carefully, Gray let his hand chill, until even he could feel the cold radiating out from his fingertips. He continued focusing his energy until he could see the chill fog rolling off his fingers, and then he pressed them directly into the side of Jellal's stomach.

Jellal let out a small gasp, and his eyes flew open. One of his hands twitched, like he was attempting to try to push Gray off. "Ngh," he whispered. "Cold."

"Yeah," Gray said, not sure if he should be apologetic. "It's…it's the ice. It's to keep you awake."

Jellal groaned. "Al-alright…."

Gray moved his hands back to the center of Jellal's stomach. He started putting pressure on the wound again, wincing when he realized how bloody everything still was. He didn't know if he would be able to get the bleeding to stop, especially since Jellal wouldn't let him ice everything over. What if Jellal died beneath his hands? Gray didn't know if he would be able to take it.

And then Gray heard Natsu yell, and all thoughts of Jellal were briefly driven from his mind. Gray's head jolted upwards, in time to see Siegrain push Natsu onto his back and start to go for his throat. Natsu's hands were pinned beneath Siegrain's knees, and he didn't seem able to get them free.

But he was only held there for a second, not enough for Siegrain to do any real damage. Then he was rolling hard, and Natsu was strong enough to dislodge Siegrain without too much trouble. Siegrain was fast though, and he managed to pull back before Natsu could attack again. Gray took a second to wonder why Natsu wasn't bothering with his explosively powerful fire magic, and then remembered that they were inside a building and there were about a hundred other people in here who were just trying to eat dinner. Most of them seemed to have cleared a space for the battle, but still, Natsu surely didn't want to risk hurting any of them.

Gray was glad Natsu had remembered about them. It seemed like the sort of thing he could easily have forgotten.

Jellal groaned. "Gray, s-stop…too hard…."

Gray looked down, and realized that watching Natsu fight, he had started pressing down with almost his full body weight on Jellal's stomach. Jellal's face was tense with pain.

"Sorry, sorry," Gray said. He kept the pressure on Jellal's stomach, but he let up a little, making sure his nails didn't dig in.

Jellal was looking a little fainty again, so Gray chilled his left hand with ice and then brushed his cool fingers over Jellal's neck. This very much got his attention, and he nearly bucked beneath Gray's hand.

"Stop," he whimpered.

"You can't pass out, remember?" Gray said sharply, as Jellal's eyes drifted closed again. "I'm gonna have to freeze ya."

"Nnnh," Jellal murmured, eyelids fluttering.

"Would it help if I talked?" Gray asked, and was rewarded with a very slight nod from Jellal. Gray looked up, back towards the fight, just in time to see Natsu's flaming fist slam into a pillar that Siegrain had been standing in front of a split second before. The impact left a smoking hole, and Natsu yelled in frustration. Unsure what Jellal would want to hear about, Gray went with the first thing that came to mind.

"Bet you're wondering why me and Natsu couldn't come in here," Gray said, shooting a glance back down towards Jellal's face.

"I…sure," Jellal whispered, managing to crack open one eye.

"We went here for our anniversary one year. Except Natsu forgot it was our anniversary, and he thought it was just some kinda fancy dinner. We got in a huge fight, and we broke some plates and stuff, and then they told us never to come back…."

Jellal blinked silently.

"They were pretty rude about it, too," Gray told him. "So, anyway, screw this place. I'm glad we're destroyin' it again. Nice job, Jellal."

"Oh," Jellal whispered, and this time his eyes closed completely. Gray cleared his throat, but Jellal didn't seem to be listening any longer.

"Jellal?" Gray pressed his hands into Jellal's stomach a little longer, casting an anxious glance over at the fight. If they didn't manage to subdue Siegrain soon, it was going to be too late.