9: how to become a demon.
When Lucy opened her eyes, she found herself laying in her bed in her room. She sat up and looked around. Wasn't I at Loke's place? He was choking me, right?
On her bedside table, she saw her phone vibrating like crazy and next to it was a golden key. When she looked closer, she realized it was the Leo key. I got Loke's key? How? When?
She grabbed the key and played around with it. Should I continue to look for the keys? I've just now found out how costly this is for Celestial spirits...
Unfortunately, the vibrating coming from her phone broke her train of thought. In annoyance, she put the Leo key down and grabbed her phone. Then she gasped. She was getting spammed with a bunch of text messages from an unknown number. She opened the text.
yo
lucy
u awake?
u better be awake!
bruhhhhhh mirajane wont let me in!
lucy!
u aint dyin tonihht
wjak the fuck uo!
i see ur lihht froim ur window buyt i dont see ur chadow walking ariund the olae
by the way gray byt me a phone
he gave ne ut number too
but anyay
wake uo!
Lucy got out from her bed and opened her window. There was Natsu standing outside and vigorously texting on his phone. "Fix your spelling, dumbass!" Lucy yelled.
Natsu looked up and saw Lucy. You're awake! Let me in! I gotta make sure you're okay!"
"I'm fine! And no guys allowed in Fairy Hills!" Lucy yelled.
"Just sneak me up!" Natsu yelled back.
"You funny if you think ima do that!" Lucy yelled.
"I was the one who saved you from being strangled to death by some spirit boy! I should check up on you!" Natsu yelled.
"How did you even find out where I was!? Where you stalking me!?" Lucy yelled.
"Some lady named Erza called Gray and I was there when she called! She told us that you was going to your ex's house!" Natsu yelled.
"So you decided to break into my ex's house!?" Lucy yelled.
"It's a good thing that I did! If I didn't, you would be dead right now!" Natsu yelled.
"Bruh, I'm already dead!" Lucy yelled.
Silence fell between them.
Maybe I shouldn't have said that, Lucy thought, playing with her blonde hair.
Natsu looked down at his phone and texted something. Lucy checked her phone to see what Natsu had texted her.
come down. lets talk. i owe u an explanation
Lucy replied with "k" before leaving her room. Since all of the lights were off, that other girls must be asleep. That was a good thing. They would ask her a bunch of questions that she wasn't sure if she could answer or not.
When Lucy went outside, she was immediately pulled into a hug by Natsu. Lucy, unsure on how to react, awkwardly hugged him back.
"Things shouldn't be tense between us so I'll answer all of the questions you have for me. You might not like my answers though..." Natsu trailed off.
Lucy broke the hug. "It's not a mater of whether I'll like your answers or not. I just want to know the truth. It's hard to let sink in that you were once dead and a guy who was once a god became a demon all for your sake. Then I'm not even told the full story." She rubbed her arm and started to walk away. "It makes me feel guilty, you know?"
Natsu joined her on her walk. "I'll be honest. Ask any question you have."
"How did you become a demon? And how did you end up in the Book of END?" Lucy asked.
Natsu sighed. "It started when I came back from the heavenly realm. I had just cleared up all of my issues and I was ready to take you to the heavenly realm. But, when arrived at the house we shared in the woods, it was set on fire by a group of royal guards. Even the king himself was there."
"Burn, demon! Burn!"
"We don't want you here!"
"Leave our people alone!"
King Glaucous sat on his horse as he watched the flames burn the house down. "You're free, my beloved. Now, we can live together in harmony."
"What are you humans doing?" Natsu asked, appearing out of nowhere.
"Your Majesty! The demon isn't in the house!" The guard cried.
"I can see that! Then who was in the house!?" King Glaucous yelled.
With his super hearing, Natsu heard Lucy screaming in agony from inside the house. Quickly, he began to eat the fire until there was no more. Then, he ran into the house.
"Nononononononono! You're not dead! You can't die! I won't let you!" Natsu yelled, pushing the wood that had fallen from the roof of the house out of the way so he could reach Lucy.
Eventually, he made it, but he was too late. There was a large pile of ashes sitting on the middle of the floor. Those ashes...belonged to Lucy.
"It's too late, god of fire," a voice said behind him.
He turned around and found himself face to face with Bloodman, the Grim Reaper and one of the Spriggan 12. "Is she...?"
"Yes. Duh. Obviously. Why the fuck do you think I'm here? Damn, I'm so fucking busy sending mortals to the Underworld!" Bloodman cried.
"Bring her back," Natsu mumbled.
"What? Sorry, I don't speak mumble," Bloodman said.
Natsu glared at Bloodman. "I said bring her back! This is a god's order!"
Bloodman laughed. "Damn! That's funny! You think a guardian like yours truly will listen to orders from some god from the heavenly realm!? I listen to the orders of the god of death and the god of death only! Besides, it's my job to bring dead mortals to the Underworld!"
He continued to laugh at Natsu as he vanished away. Natsu was left alone in the house with Lucy's ashes.
Slowly, Natsu knelt down and dug his fingers into Lucy's ashes. The ashes slipped through the spaces between his fingers. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" He repeated over and over. He's never once shed tears for anyone before. Those tears he shed for Lucy were the one and only time he's ever cried for anyone.
He was disappointed with himself. How come he took so long to fix his issues with the heavenly realm?
He was frustrated with himself. How could he have let this happen?
He was disgusted with himself. Lucy was burnt alive because of him.
An arrow was fired at him but without turning around, Natsu quickly caught the arrow with his bare hand and burned it.
"What are you doing!? Kill that demon!" King Glaucous yelled from outside.
Natsu slowly stood up. "So, you humans think I'm some demon? Heh, humans are so funny. You are all about to witness the wrath of a god."
"Fire!" King Glaucous yelled at the guards who had their arrows drawn back.
Natsu had his back to them as the arrows fired at him. Although a bunch of them hit him, he was unaffected. "It's not that easy to kill a god." He turned around and made his way towards them. More arrows were fired at him. One hit him in the forehead, 4 hit him on his left leg, 5 on his right, 10 in his chest and where his heart was.
King Glaucous drew his sword. "Men! Attack!" He yelled as he pointed at Natsu with his sword from his horse.
The king and his men charged towards Natsu. Natsu engulfed his fists into flames as he dodged the attacked and punched the guards. He pulled out the arrows that were in his body and threw them at the guards as if they were spears. None of the arrows missed their targets: the heart. Natsu grabbed a fallen guard's sword and proceeded to decapitated the rest of the guards smoothly.
Soon, all of the guards were laying dead on the ground. Some had arrows lodged directly into their hearts. Others had their heads chopped off that were rolling on the ground.
King Glaucous hopped off his horse. "You killed my people."
Natsu scoffed. "You killed my girl."
"You demon!" King Glaucous yelled.
"I've been telling you. I'm not a demon. I'm a god." Natsu narrowed his eyes at the king. "Fear me."
King Glaucous laughed. "A god!? Ridiculous! What god would kill humans? That makes no sense!"
Natsu laughed with the king. "I know, right? The heavenly realm will definitely give me some punishment but I'm not worried about that." He eyed the king's body from top to bottom. "I should give you a slow and painful death. Yeah...I should, shouldn't I?"
He stalked towards the king while dragging the tip of his sword on the ground. "Hmmmm...I wonder what I should do...? Should I burn you alive like you did to my girl? Nah...that's too quick."
King Glaucous charged towards Natsu with his sword and stabbed Natsu in the gut. Natsu looked down at the sword lodged into him as if it were nothing. "Thanks for the sword. Now I have two," Natsu said, pulling the sword out.
The king fell onto the ground and tried to scoot away. Natsu simply put his foot on the king's chest. "Don't leave. We haven't had fun yet." He leaned down and smirked at the king. "I want you to give me a good show."
"After I...uh...had some fun with that so-called king, I went to the village that was nearby and slaughtered everyone. I did the same thing to the imperial city where the king lived. I spared no one's lives, not even the newborns. But then I had an idea. My brother's the king of the Underworld and we're very close to each other at the time. He can bring you back to life if I had just asked for it. So, I went to the Underworld," Natsu said, continuing his story.
"Hello, brother," Zeref said as Natsu strolled into the throne room of the Underworld Palace.
"Wassup?" Natsu asked.
"Nothing much. Just busy being the god of death," Zeref answered before frowning. "I heard you slaughtered so many innocent people. For what reason? That is so unlike you. Out of all of the gods, excluding Mavis, you have the highest respect for human lives."
"They killed my woman. They must pay," Natsu answered.
"Revenge won't bring her back, you know," Zeref said.
"I know, which is why I'm here," Natsu said.
"Wait, so you want me to simply hand over the woman that you slaughter humans for to you?" Zeref asked.
Natsu shrugged. "Yeah. I don't see the problem."
"Natsu, it doesn't work like that. Bringing her back will disrupt the cycle of life and death," Zeref said.
"Then so be it. In exchange for her, I'll supply you with thousands, no, millions of humans. An equal exchange, right?" Natsu asked.
Zeref blinked. "That makes no sense. And besides, to supply me with millions of humans, you do realize you'll have to kill them, correct?"
"I know," Natsu answered.
"Gods don't kill humans. It is not part of their nature. Gods are supposed to watch over humans and help them out. The fact that you were once human gives you understanding of humans and it is in your nature to protect them. Doing the opposite will turn you into a demon and the more humans you kill, the more demon you'll become. Once you've gone too far into the path of a demon, you won't be able to come out. You will remain a demon forever and you will never be allowed back into the heavenly realm," Zeref explained.
"So be it," Natsu answered, walking away.
"Natsu! I order you to turn back around right now!" Zeref yelled as he got up from his throne.
"I'm gonna borrow the demons you made by mistake. What were they called again?" Natsu thought about it. "Etherious! Yeah! I'll need an army if I'm going to do this. Unless...you'll hand over my woman right now."
"It's not happening!" Zeref yelled.
"That's on you," Natsu said before facing Zeref with a look of madness on his face. "There will be so much death in the human realm and it won't stop until you hand my woman over to me. I wonder you you'll feel with all these new humans coming to the Underworld? I wonder how much guilt you'll feel in your heart? After all, all those deaths could have been prevented if you had just given me what I wanted."
"The heavenly realm will stop you," Zeref said.
"When have I been scared of them?" Natsu asked, chuckling.
Zeref looked at him in disbelief. "You've gone mad, brother."
Natsu turned back around as he made his way out of the throne room. "No, brother. I'm completely sane. You're the one who'll go mad."
"Zeref had created a total of 9 Etherious Demons. They were created to be demons that could understand human suffering. However, he quickly learned that they could eat off of pain so he hid them deep in the Underworld, never to be seen by the outside world. I was the one who released them and called them the 9 Demon Gates. I needed an army eager to kill millions if I was going to win," Natsu explained before glancing at Lucy.
Lucy didn't say anything. The expression on her face was unreadable.
Natsu continued his story. "Since I killed the king, the kingdom was in chaos. So, I took advantage of that chaos and started a war. Then, I started to go around the whole world and started all sorts of wars and genocides. I gave leaders knowledge to make all sorts of weapons. The Guillotine? My idea. Toxic gas? My idea. The Atomic Bomb? My idea. Nuclear weapons? My idea. All sorts of weapons were my idea.
"The goal was to send millions of humans into the Underworld to the point where my brother would get overwhelmed and bring you back to life. But somewhere along the line, I forgot about that. Like Zeref said, I was turning into a demon and it go to the point where I turned into an Etherious Demon myself. And as an Etherious Demon, I ate pain. You know how drugs work, right? Whenever I eat pain, it's like I was doing drugs. It felt...nice...and I soon got addicted. I wasn't killing humans to bring you back anymore. I was killing humans because I liked it.
"Eventually, the heavenly realm sent the god of health, Acnologia, to stop me. He's in charge of the punishments and he was the most powerful fighter. Nobody could defeat him. But I did. And I didn't just defeat him. I completely slaughtered him. By then, the 9 Demon Gates and I were unstoppable. The heavenly realm called us Tartarus with me as the leader, END. Etherious. Natsu. Dragneel. Stories about Tartarus being the place in the Underworld where bad people suffer started to spread among the humans and the stories of END being the leader and the one who tortures bad people also spread. But in the heavenly realm, they simply named us Tartarus as a way to separate us from the other affairs we had to deal with. We were Zeref's problem now.
"It seemed like Zeref was letting us run free but really, he was creating these books of torture to lock me and the 9 Demon Gates in forever. When he locked the 9 Demon Gates inside of the Books of Zeref, I came back to reality. I realized the shit I did and the fact that I'm a demon now. There's no way for me to fix everything. Zeref created the Book of END just for me but was willing to make a deal."
"You still want your woman to come back alive, correct?" Zeref asked Natsu.
Natsu was kneeling on the floor of the throne room with his arms tied behind his back with chains. He could easily break the chains but he chose not to. He was ashamed of what he had done. "I understand if it's not possible."
"No, I'm saying it is possible," Zeref said, walking around Natsu while holding the Book of END in his arm.
Natsu looked up. "It is!?"
"Little brother. I'll admit it. You did drive me crazy with the amount of human lives that came to the Underworld. I don't want those lives to go to waste by not bring her back," Zeref answered.
Natsu's eyes lit up. "So you'll do it!?"
"Only if you suffer in the Book of END for all eternity," Zeref said.
Natsu frowned. "What?"
"What you did was wrong on so many levels and there are no punishments that will fully pay for the lives taken. So, I created an extensive book of torture just for you. In return, your woman will roam freely in the human realm, but for how long she get to live? That's up to Mavis," Zeref explained.
"You and Mavis were working together on this," Natsu said.
"No. Mavis doesn't even know that we're making this deal. She will see your woman as just another human who she must write their fate. However, whatever fate Mavis gives her will be ruined if you leave the book. She is the only one who can open the book and let you out and if she does, the deal is no more and she will return to the Underworld. And this time, she will stay there," Zeref explained.
"I understand that I must pay for my crimes in the Book of END, but I did all this so I can be with her," Natsu said.
"It is now impossible for you to be with her," Zeref told him.
Natsu grew silent.
"What do you prefer? To let her continue to be dead and for you to suffer in the Book of END? Or for her to have a second chance at life and for you to suffer in the Book of END? One way or another, you're going to end up in the book," Zeref asked.
"I'll choose the second option," Natsu answered without hesitation.
"Are you sure?" Zeref asked.
"Yes. Her life was robbed from her just because of some jealous king who thought I was a demon. She deserves a second chance to live...and if it means a life without me...so be it," Natsu answered.
Zeref opened the Book of END. "I've never imagined that Etherious Natsu Dragneel would do something as selfless as this. Well, into the book you go."
Suddenly, a bunch of chains popped out of the book and wrapped themselves around Natsu. He didn't struggle or yell or anything as the chains dragged him into the book.
"And so, that's how I became a demon and ended up in the Book of END," Natsu concluded.
Lucy was silent. "...I messed everything up by getting you out."
"It's fine. I'm just happy that after all of my efforts, it worked. You got to live another life," Natsu said with a smile.
"I'm grateful and all...but how can I pay you back?" Lucy asked.
"By living your life the way you want to. Like I said back on Galuna Island, you focus on getting the keys and I'll focus on stopping the Spriggan 12 from attacking you," Natsu answered.
Lucy still felt bad. Natsu put his arm around her shoulders. "We're partners, right? Let's go back to that relationship," he said.
"But I'm not even sure if I want to continue to get all of the keys. I'm forcing the spirits into doing something that they don't want to do," Lucy said.
"Then get to know each of them. If you do, they'll be more willing to do things for you," Natsu answered.
"Good idea...but I have to learn how to summon the spirits...which means I need to meet up with another Celestial wizard who has some Zodiac keys," Lucy answered. Zoldeo and Angel were out of the question. How can she possibly reach them? And Karen is dead. That leaves Yukino. "I know the perfect teacher."
"Who?" Natsu asked.
"This girl named Yukino Agria. She works with Sabretooth, you know that virtual reality video game company?" Lucy asked.
Natsu blinked. "What?"
Lucy laughed. "You really need to get in with the times. Tomorrow, we don't got work either so we can go down to Sabretooth's headquarters. Yukino works as a secretary to the chairman of the company, Sting Eucliffe."
"Sting? Yo, I know him!" Natsu cried.
"You do?" Lucy asked.
"He's the god of light and he's usually with the god of shadows, Rogue Cheney," Natsu answered.
"Yeah, Rogue Cheney is the vice chairman," Lucy said.
"This works out! Those two used to worship me back in the day!" Natsu cried.
Lucy smiled. "Sweet, so we got a plan!"
"Look at them lovebirds acting all lovey dovey and shit. I gotta get me a girlfriend," Ajeel Raml mumbled, sitting criss-cross on the roof as he watched Natsu and Lucy. He happened to be the Sandman and one of the Spriggan 12.
Brandish appeared next to him. Ajeel sensed her. "You literally had blondie in your hands. Why didn't you take her?"
"Because it was such a bore," Brandish answered, sitting next to Ajeel. "Love makes me puke."
"Oh yeah. Did you hear the orders from the king?" Ajeel asked.
"I don't show up to the meetings," Brandish answered.
"He said that Natsu is expecting us to flat out attack him and Lucy so we have to make Lucy's death look as natural as possible. I'm thinking about killing her in her sleep. What do you think?" Ajeel asked.
"Nah, keep her alive. I want to see if she can actually get all 12 keys," Brandish answered.
"Fine," Ajeel said with a sigh.
"What about the fire boy? He'll throw a fit and go to the Underworld when Lucy's dead," Brandish asked.
"We have Mavis on our side," Ajeel answered.
"Mavis? The goddess of life? Isn't she busy writing the fates of humans?" Brandish asked.
"Exactly," Ajeel responded.
Brandish was lost. "So how does that make her on our side?"
"She writes human fates, right? So she'll make things work in our favor by writing fates of others that will benefit us. Duh," Ajeel answered.
"Interesting..." Brandish said, looking down at the happy couple below them.
Random Fact: I completely forgot that the Grimoire Heart arc was a thing...
Wassup!? It's ya gurl sugarsugarrush!
This is it! The last chapter before the 3-week break! More to come after 3-weeks! I decided to make this chapter a story-time chapter and put what I have planned for this chapter in the next one
Reviews:
Amanny- Thank you so much!
I gotta start cramming for my finals so ima close this. Don't forget to PM me or leave me a review!
Edited: 05/12/21
