A/N: Got a job! Only part-time, but it's in my field so I'm happy. I spent a few weeks adjusting to my new schedule but I think I've figured things out now. Back to writing!


A sudden blast shook the house. Chunks of fire and splintered wood rained down on them. Lucy shrieked, covering her head, and Natsu shielded her from getting burned as best he could. They were falling. Debris hit them from all sides.

Thud.

There was a moment of quiet. The only sounds were of crackling fire and some debris shifting. Natsu lifted himself off of Lucy, removing the planks of wood that covered them and bringing the both of them into fresh air.

Everything was smoldering. Natsu looked around and found his clothes intact nearby, but no sign of Lucy's. No time to look for them, he handed Lucy his cloak.

"Here. Put this on."

Lucy stood up and shrugged the garment around her body in lieu of her usual blouse. "Someone tried to kill us in our sleep," she said.

"No shit. Explosions. Smells like something Jackal would do, but…"

"…but we already defeated him and he vanished," Lucy finished. "Maybe he wasn't dead after all?"

"I could say the same for you two," came a voice from the trees behind them.

Natsu whirled around and saw a figure he recognized. It was Jackal.

Natsu didn't know how Jackal was still alive, but he didn't have the luxury to care right now. He had to focus. They couldn't be caught off-guard a second time.

Jackal looked between the two of them still waking up, a smirk on his face. "Was I interrupting something?"

"Fuck off," Natsu growled, tightening the belt around his waist.

"So I did interrupt something. Well, not that I care. I've learned from my mistakes, and I'll kill you both this time around."

Natsu sneered. "I'd like to see you try."

"Let's make this quick," Lucy said, whipping out her keys. "Open the Gate of the Lion, Leo!"

In a burst of light, Loke appeared, posing flashily as usual. "Hello, Lucy, how nice to see you this early in the mo— Wait, why are you wearing— And isn't this the guy you killed last time?"

"Apparently we were wrong about that," Lucy said, narrowing her eyes at Jackal.

Jackal laughed. "You can destroy our bodies, but so long as our souls are intact, they can be revived back in Crocus. Sorry to keep you waiting, but it took some time." He outstretched his hands, claws flashing in the sunlight. "Now, time to send you both to hell."

"Fat chance," Natsu said, jumping just in time to dodge the barrage of explosions that hurtled toward Lucy and him. He sucked it all up and wiped his lips. The fire from Jackal's bombs was as bitter as last time. He smacked his mouth in disgust.

"What will you do, princess?" Jackal said. "Your little mermaid can't come out where there's no water."

"I don't need Aquarius for the likes of you anymore," Lucy said.

"Then I can just blow you to pieces!"

Jackal unleashed another string of explosions. Natsu ignored the bombs aimed as his partner, knowing Lucy could take care of herself. Words were no longer needed for them to know what each needed to do. Natsu would attack directly to exhaust the enemy's stamina, and Lucy supported from behind with constant physical damage. They fought like clockwork, only much more flexible and far, far more deadly.

Lucy employed a similar tactic as with Seilah, bringing out Taurus to aid Natsu in the fray. Loke used his light for long-range attacks, Taurus swung his axe from nearby, Natsu stayed up close in punching range, and Lucy used her whip to pull her spirits out of the way whenever Natsu failed to intercept a bomb. The fight dragged on, neither side able to completely overpower the other. But they knew from experience that they would be able to wear him down eventually with so many of them fighting at once.

"He's getting weak," Loke said, a whisper in Natsu's ear that disappeared the second Jackal turned Natsu into a bomb again. Natsu swallowed the explosion. He'd gotten the message.

Taurus and Natsu both backed off for a moment, giving Natsu a moment to breath and prepare his attack. He saw Loke on the other side of Jackal, hand on his wrist and ready to unleash a joint attack from behind.

"I know all your tricks," Jackal sneered, claws curled. "Give up on any surprise attacks."

"You might know all our tricks, but if you can't avoid them, then it doesn't matter." Natsu let his body fill with magic, a warm burning in his chest. Then he let it explode. "Crimson Lotus: Fire Dragon's Fist!"

"Regulus Impact!"

"Tension Max!"

"Lucy Kick!"

Caught between physical attacks on all sides, Jackal's body collapsed with a loud crunch. Natsu felt Jackal's bones snapping with the impact. Him and Lucy alone hadn't been enough to debilitate him last time, but with four simultaneous hits after a drawn-out physical melee, even Jackal's extra-strong demon body couldn't hold up. Without a word, Jackal once again began to glow, ready to use his own defeat as an explosion again.

"Loke, Taurus, gates closed!" Lucy shouted. "Natsu!"

Natsu grabbed onto her and clung as she swung them away from Jackal by her whip. Natsu's feet touched ground first, and he shoved Lucy to the forest floor just in time for the explosion to hit his back.

As the dust cleared, they stared at each other, sweaty and out of breath.

"Did we do it?" Lucy breathed.

"I think so."

"Thank the gods."

Natsu sat back on his feet, then let himself topple backwards into the underbrush, exhausted. "They really won't let us rest, will they?"

"Thank the gods the four of us were enough to take him down."

"We've gotten stronger."

"Experience will do that."

Letting out a long breath, Natsu heaved himself to his feet and extended a hand to help Lucy up as well. She smiled and reached for it, but stopped. She stared at his right arm in horror.

"Natsu…"

Natsu looked down. His arm was covered in black markings, the same ones that had appeared briefly when he held the END book. Only now, they were appearing without the book, and they weren't going away.

"Natsu, your arm…"

"But I don't feel any different," Natsu said, gingerly touching the markings. It felt just like normal skin. The subtle awareness he had of END hadn't grown any stronger either; if not for the tattoo-like patterns, he wouldn't have noticed anything. "Huh."

"For now, we'll wrap it up," Lucy said, heading back to the ruins of the shack. "We'll just say you injured it during the fight we just had and we bandaged it as a precaution."

"Will they actually fall for that?" Natsu wondered.

"Who knows? But if we go out in public, it'll need to be covered. Ordinary citizens will get frightened if they know what this means. And the guild will be swarming with people due to rebuilding."

"We should probably keep it a secret from the others, too."

Lucy looked at him, brows furrowed. "Are you sure? Keeping them in the dark about this sort of thing is a bit…"

"They'll just needlessly worry," Natsu said.

She still frowned.

She found his first aid kit among the rubble and pulled out a roll of bandages to cover the markings. As she wound the bandage around his arm, hands moving expertly, she asked, "If I weren't the one to see it first, would you have told me?"

"About the markings?" Natsu said. He scratched the back of his neck with his free arm. "I…I don't know," he answered honestly. "Probably not. You'd worry most of all and— ow!" Her fist pressed to the guild mark on his shoulder, and he could feel that she was trembling.

"You idiot. Trying to go through this all alone."

Natsu sighed. "I am an idiot, aren't I?" he said with a grin.

"A huge one. This affects all of us, you know. It's not a burden you can shoulder alone. I know you hate relying on others, but let's not be unreasonable about it."

"Yeah, yeah." Natsu pouted. He didn't like being lectured, even if it was from Lucy. Even worse, she was right. As always.

He watched her methodically finish up wrapping his arm. "You know," he said, "I'm really an idiot. I don't usually think before I act, and even when I do think, I end up thinking the wrong thing. I don't realize I'm being stupid until it's too late."

"You're not stupid," Lucy said.

"Easy for you to say; you got a full education, so you're smarter than even the people who did go to primary school."

"I'm book-smart and upper-society-smart, but you're street-smart. And you're a genius at fighting. You can just throw yourself freely into a melee, not knowing anything about your opponents beforehand, and still come out on top. My style of fighting relies entirely on pre-planned strategy and using my spirits as allies, so I envy you a bit."

"I guess that's why we make great partners," Natsu said. "We balance each other."

"We are a really compatible team," she said.

"Thanks, Lucy."

Lucy smiled. "Glad that didn't last too long. Now let's go tell the others about what happened. Jackal said they can regenerate; we might not have a lot of time before Seilah and Kyouka come back. How long's it been since the first time we beat Jackal?"

"Shit. Well, we can take 'em. We already beat 'em once."

"Perhaps so, but I wouldn't want to fight those two again."

Natsu thought of Erza lying unconscious on the bar in the middle of Fairy Tail's rubble. He shook the image from his head. "I don't like them. They're sadists."

"And they'll revive if we don't hurry and act. We've been waiting to see what Tartarus will do, but we might not have time. First Seilah and Kyouka, and now this… Everything leads back to Crocus. If we don't get rid of where they regenerate, we'll never see the end of Tartarus."

"You're right," Natsu said. "But uhh, first you should probably put on your own clothes."

"Oh. Yeah. Right."


They took the back entrance into the guild and found Gajeel waiting for them.

"Why do you two smell like Jackal?"

"Long story," Natsu said, a little grateful for Jackal in this moment because if not for him, Natsu probably would've smelled even more like Lucy than normal and Gajeel would've noticed. He wasn't in the mood to deal with heckling about their relationship right now. "Where's Mira?"

"Taking care of citizens out front. She knows you're here. I almost raised the alarm when I smelled the Jackal on you two, y'know."

"Sorry about that," Natsu said sarcastically. "Kinda can't help it given he just blew up my entire house."

"Well shit."

The door to the bar burst open, and Mira stood in the doorway with wide eyes and heavy breath. She looked around frantically, then her eyes landed on Natsu. She relaxed. But only barely.

"Natsu. So it's just you. Gajeel said you two were here smelling like Jackal, but I wasn't expecting..." Mira's eyes trailed down to the bandages around his arm.

"Uh. Yeah. Is Gramps around?"

"No, he's out helping with repairs around town. I'll get Warren to call him." With a swish of her skirt, she was back through the door.

"What else happened?" Gajeel asked.

Lucy glanced at Natsu. "We might as well tell everyone," she said. "It's up to you."

Gajeel stared for a moment, then started to smirk as he looked between them. "Wait, don't tell me—"

"Whatever you're thinking, it's wrong," Natsu said quickly.

That only made him grin wider. "How do you know what I'm thinking?" Gajeel said.

"Your face got uglier."

"Why you—"

"No fighting," Mira said, coming back through the door. "Let's go wait for Master in his office. He should be here shortly."

"Gajeel, want to get your mind out of the gutter and come join us?" Lucy said.

"Really, what is it?"

"We'll talk about it when we get up there," Lucy said. She grabbed Natsu's hand and squeezed it tight. He squeezed back.

They waited silently in Makarov's dusty office, just the four of them. The whole room smelled like freshly cut wood, and it was missing all the usual huge texts and assorted knicknacks Makarov kept on his bookshelves. Makarov was used to people destroying things in the guild so his items all undoubtedly had protective charms on them, but he hadn't gotten around to putting them back where they belonged. It gave the room a strange, foreign feeling.

After several minutes, the door swung open and Makarov strode in. He didn't even stop for pleasantries before hopping up on his chair and folding his hands on the desk.

"So? Let's see it."

"Don't beat around the bush, do you?" Natsu grumbled as he unwrapped the cloth around his right arm. He let the bandages fall away.

Gajeel cursed under his breath at the sight of the dark tattoo-like markings creeping up Natsu's forearm. Mira just stared, eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

Makarov looked at her. "What do you think, Mirajane?"

"Well, it's not possession," she said, her eyes taking on an eerie glow. "It seems to be a spell of some sort, but it's not quite a curse. Black magic, perhaps?"

"Perhaps. I'm not familiar with black magic spells, I'm afraid," Makarov said.

"It feels like…" Mira stopped and frowned. "I don't know how to explain this, but say you're carrying something heavy in a bag whose bottom has started to fray, so there are only threads left holding it all together. These markings are those threads."

Lucy leaned forward. "You're saying these markings are a spell keeping END contained?"

"I believe so," Mira said. "It's what my senses are telling me. Something's there, and that's the only barrier holding it back. I felt it the other day, too, though it disappeared as quickly as it came. Whatever's been stopping me from sensing the demonic presence is being worn away, and that's what we see now."

"Natsu," Makarov said.

Natsu couldn't look up. He was shaking. Everything felt fuzzy and distant, as if his own mind was obscured by a thick fog.

"Are you sure you don't know anything about your identity prior to being taken in by Igneel?" Makarov asked.

Natsu nodded numbly. He'd been an infant when Igneel found him abandoned in the woods and decided to save him. That's all he knew. That's all Igneel had ever told him, and until now, that's all he thought he needed to know.

Lucy took both his hands to pull him to face toward her. He tried to pull away his right hand, but she only held tighter.

"I told you, whatever this is, we're here for you. We'll figure this out together. Okay? No matter what, you're still Natsu."

Mira nodded. "The demonic energy is a different entity from Natsu himself, though they seem to share a body. It's hard to explain, but Natsu is still very much human. He just...might also be a demon? I've never seen or heard of anything like this before."

Gajeel waved his hand in the air to dismiss the conversation. "He just got thrown the curveball of a lifetime. Give him a minute to recover first," he said.

"I'm okay," Natsu said, the words sounding hollow and distant in his own ears.

"I've been too occupied by the rebuilding to discuss this with you yet, but I talked to Gray after you fainted, while Lucy was taking you back to the guild for treatment," Mira said. "You guys haven't talked about the whole END thing yet, right?"

Lucy nodded. "You're right, Magnolia was attacked before we could resolve anything. How is he?"

"Oh, he's fine. A little at a loss, but he said he'd help with whatever we needed to do to figure out Natsu's case. He just needs some space to come to terms with everything that happened in Seven. But that's not why I bring him up."

"Then what is it?" Lucy asked.

"That moment when I felt END, that was before Kyouka disappeared. You sent us out, but only moments later, that happened."

Natsu thought he knew what she was getting at. "It wasn't on purpose, if that's what you two thought," he said.

"Then what happened?"

"I was...taunting her, I guess. I told her that I'm END to stop her from leaving the church, and I guess she...checked? I felt her touch my arm and it felt like I was burning. She started saying some stuff about it, but I don't remember what. My memory of the end of that battle is a bit fuzzy," he said with a sheepish glance at Lucy.

"And that's when I sensed you," Mira concluded.

"Do you think you're END?" Makarov asked.

A bitter feeling rose in Natsu's chest at the implication. "Of course not. It was a lie. I know I'm related enough that it would give her pause, but I was bluffing about actually being END." He lost steam a bit and looked at his lap. "At least, I thought I was."

"Hey, aren't we missing an important detail here?" Gajeel said.

Everybody looked at him.

"That demon lady touched him, and END came out for a second, or its aura did. And it didn't consume her. She was still talking. Well, she was until Lucy went in and nuked the place."

"They were harmless this morning, too," Lucy added. "I don't know at what point they appeared, but none of us noticed it, not even Jackal."

"The point is Mira should be able to do stuff with the markings without being in danger," Gajeel said.

Mira's face lit up. "You're right. That gives us a lot more options for investigating."

"Pardon me," Makarov interrupted, "but what's this about Jackal?"

Lucy recounted the events of the morning. Makarov listened with a grave expression. As she finished her story, he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Hmm. This complicates things even further." He twirled a pen in his hand, thoughtful. "Mira, can you find Erza and bring her here? It sounds like we need to revise our strategy."