This is an idea that has been flowing through my mind for ages and finally, I had the courage to write my thoughts out.
It's an AU taking place during the final part of Fairy Tail. It will change many things that didn't receive the attention they deserved in my eyes, so I hope you will like my ideas for this reimagined final.
At the moment, I'm also working on expanding chapters 1-11. In my opinion, there were many words left unsaid and I'm planning to share them with you. Chapters 1-6 already went through this process so please don't wonder if chapter 7 is suddenly much shorter.
Also a big shoutout to my beta reader LokaMuse who helps me a lot with this story. She also drew the awesome cover for TAOE, so make sure to check her out as well!
Disclaimer: I do not own anything of Fairy Tail and everything belongs to the rightful owner. Only the elements I came up with are my property.
Full summary:
A long-forgotten, ancient terror stirs awake at last and is going to turn the ongoing war between the Fairies and the Alvarez Empire into an even greater mess. How will the story unfold with the new participant from here on out as he reclaims his title of being the strongest? And what will his awakening reveal about history already forged, which is commonly known? Will it stay the same or will there be the need for correction? But more than anything how does his fate overlap with the desperate Black Mage and the passionate Fire Dragon?
A reimagination of Fairy Tail's end.
XXXXXXXXX
Heavy, ominous clouds covered the wide sky. They were even more darkened by the seemingly endless pillars of smoke crawling from the innards of the earth before they rose upwards, mixing with the masses of vaporised water and creating a thick, unpassable veil of ash and humidity.
Their shades were illuminated by the endless world of fire and toxic gases beneath the blanket they formed together. Countless mountains continuously spat fire from their bellies, feeding the never-ending rivers of molten stone streaming down their sides and parting the land as they tore their path towards an unknown destination. It looked like an endless sea of nothing but fire.
The temperature would be unbearable for any living being, making this place a natural enemy of life itself. Any creature daring enough to set foot into this land would be turned into ashes in mere seconds, their whole existence snuffed out like a dead leaf carried away from a furious storm.
Despite this, a young boy with pinkish, unruly hair stood amidst the hellfire. He was unbothered by the seething heat around him since fire was not his enemy but his ally. One he could rely on, no matter what may happen in the present or the future. He held an expression of confusion as he looked around himself, trying to figure out where the volcanic landscape could be located in this world. It seemed like he didn't know how he had ended up in this place and was currently trying to make sense of the sudden change in environment from whatever it had been before.
Being engrossed in his thoughts as he was, he was startled when the earth suddenly began to shake and ultimately cracked open from the pressure. He turned around to identify the source but only found a wall of flames blocking his vision from any further investigation. Inside the fire, something moved and came closer and closer to him until the fiery barricade finally parted to reveal an enormous, muscular body covered in reddish scales.
Each of the creature's paws were armed with razor-sharp claws, a pair of wings grew from its back and a tail strong enough to instantly kill him with a single hit swiped behind the monster. It was a dragon! One of the legendary creatures that normally only existed inside the wild imaginations of a fairy tale. But for the young man, this was not an occurrence that could shake his soul. Having grown up in a world of magic, he came across many phenomena which were far more shocking than the entrance of a fire dragon.
Normally an encounter like this would make everyone immediately run away, too afraid for their lives to stay. The boy, however, appeared happy to see the guest as the confusion vanished from his face. His expression soon morphed into a warm, gentle and toothy smile, showing off his sharp and prominent canines perfectly. Utter happiness radiated from the pink-haired boy's expression.
"Igneel!" the fire mage exclaimed overjoyed.
The dragon responded with a loving smile of his own and called out to the boy with his name given to him at birth.
"Natsu."
Despite his monstrous size, his voice couldn't be any more gentle. He might look scary at first glance, but at the moment he wasn't even able to afflict harm to a small fly. His heart was simply too big for that and overfilled with love for the human in front of him.
"What are you doing here?" Natsu asked him, effectively and unknowingly ripping the dragon back into the merciless cruelty of the world. Cruelty offered not only to him but to many others as well. As much as it pained him to admit this, life never took the path one wished it to. There would always be curves and hills to overcome in the road leading towards the distant future. Some were small and neglectable, whereas others forced you to make a decision, no matter what your thoughts about it may be.
A sorrowful expression claimed Igneel's face at this thought. How the dragon wished to simply live his years in peace and close proximity to Natsu. To have the chance to watch him grow into an adult and teach him all the things he couldn't before due to the scare time they had together. Then he could also knock some sense into him to finally act on his emotions and make a move on whom his heart desires more than anything else in this world. Igneel didn't understand why he hasn't done so already.
Natsu is by nature a person who didn't act on his thoughts but emotions instead. From time to time, this made him look like an idiot in the eyes of others but is it also the truth?.
Rough, uncooperative, and maybe even dumb. It was easy to call him all of this but is this proclamation chosen correctly? Nay! It wasn't, if one would simply change their point of view from where they were looking at the seemingly bad traits.
What if his roughness was driven by his passion? What if he acted uncooperative so his friends didn't have to face any danger? And what if he rushed in without a second thought because of his caring nature that made it impossible for him to stand by while his friends suffered?
Was someone driven by emotions really an immature person? The answer was simple. No, he wasn't. Igneel knew this more than anyone else since he was not much different in this regard. Furthermore, he heard these very words once from someone exceptional in limitless ways a long time ago. The impact this particular individual had on his life was still lasting to this very day. So it was unexplainable for him as to why Natsu. for a change didn't listen to his heart and instead, got himself lost in his own thoughts. By doing so, he denied his own heart its innermost desire. A foolish action that could come to a great price.
Sadly, Igneel will never have the chance to give the necessary push his son could use, for his time with Natsu was greatly limited. This time around even more so than before. But at the very least, he would do everything in his power to assure that one day in the future Natsu could come to his senses. For that, he must live and for that Igneel must act out of his way and be stern with his son for once.
And this meant telling Natsu the harsh truth of why he was in his current state. Why his soul had come to this plane in search of the desired answer to his psychic questionnaire.
Having noticed the change on Igneel's face and the shift in his eyes, Natsu felt something twist in his gut. A truth, one he'd desperately hoped was false. That look told him that everything his fellow Dragon Slayers, and especially the Black Mage had revealed to him had been the undeniable truth. More than anything, the scene shown to him by his older brother had affected him stronger than he would have ever expected. So far, he had never bothered to ask about his upbringing because there was no need to do so, in his opinion. Igneel was his father and Fairy Tail was the rest of his family, that was all that mattered. Friends that he would give his life for in order to protect them from every suffering imaginable. And of course, there was Lucy as well. Among all the people he knew, she claimed 99,9 percent of his heart for herself and he is eager to give her even more.
But things weren't as easy as they were supposed to be as he had discovered not too long ago. Happy and he had set out on their quest to cut off the snake's head so it couldn't cause any harm to his friends. Killing Zeref would have meant winning the war in an instant. A simple yet effective plan in his opinion, but plans have a tendency to never go the way you want. Unexpectedly, things weren't looking good for him in his battle against the Emperor of Alvarez because even with the remains of Igneel's power, he barely stood a chance against the infamous black wizard. His skills in hand-to-hand combat and magic were far beyond Natsu's wildest imaginations, and he was sure that without the fire dragon king's strength burning inside him that he would have been killed. Somehow Zeref's fighting style reminded the Fire Dragon Slayer of his own. A small difference existed though. Natsu's attacks were always wild and fiery, whereas Zeref's were calm and collected. A raging fire versus a sleeping volcano. The victor couldn't be assumed because fire is unpredictable. Still, his plan turned to blackened ashes by Zeref's unholy powers.
This was before the black mage decided to turn his world upside down. Natsu was bombarded with revelation after revelation. Even though he wasn't interested in history and could give a flying fuck about it, he understood it had to be rewritten. Too large was the magnitude of the impact the arcane mage delivered. In a manner of speaking, he was one of the authors of this current world they were living in. So the strength that could surpass even the power of a king of dragons was not misplaced inside the black-haired man, nor was the knowledge he had acquired during his century-long life.
The truth about the seventh day of the seventh month of the year X777. The reason why he was affected back then by Fried's runes when Laxus had turned nuts. Why their dragon parents never intervened until the fateful day in the ruins of Tartaros. The true identity of E.N.D. Every reveal had held enough force to shatter known history a million times. All of them combined? It's unfathomable. The mere thought of this being the truth was already ridiculous, absurdity came true. And as such, Natsu dismissed every revelation as a load of bull crap because that was what it was, and he would never believe in any of them. They were simply too farfetched to be true.
However, among the reveals, there was one that struck deep into his core, protectively hidden in the deepest part of his soul. Not even the fact that he is supposed to be E.N.D. nor that he is a reanimated corpse could compare to it.
"My name is Zeref Dragneel. I'm your older brother," the black wizard said to Natsu in hushed manners. Calm and collected, just as he fought. Natsu gasped at that. Naturally, from the shock but there was something else. Zeref. The first time he came across this name was shortly after Lucy had joined Fairy Tail.
The dark guild Eisenwald attempted to murder all the guild masters, a futile endeavour because the old women and men were scary strong as hell. But somehow it ended with the resurrection of one of the devils created by none other than the genius mage Zeref, a master of the dark and forbidden arts of magic. Of course, it hadn't stood a chance against them any more than Eisenwald had, but with its dying breath, the demon called out to its godfather. The voice was a raspy scratching of death itself and the others protected their ears with their hands. All aside from Natsu. He looked on as the demon wasted away to ash, but his mind was long gone.
Zeref. The name's echo resonated within his soul and before he knew what he was he uttered the name himself. He thought it was strange that a name, he had never heard of or spoken before, could feel so familiar on his tongue. It almost felt as if he had muttered this name a billion times already, but surely this couldn't be right. So he dismissed the thought.
It lasted until the S-class exams. With every metre that vanished below the ship's keel, Natsu became more and more restless. At first, he thought it was his motion sickness, twisting and churning his insides in morbid madness, but he was wrong. His unease originated from his furiously beating heart. He could feel each throb with his entire body, but at that time he thought it was simply his excitement. This assumption shattered when his onyx eyes found the frame of the mysterious man clad in black. Winds of death and dark sorcery bellowed from his body in destructive waves, and he was barely able to save Evergreen and Elfman in time from the clutches of certain death. He was beyond furious and would beat this bastard to a bloody pulp.
But Natsu's mind went blank when the dark wizard lifted his head, hands still tangled in his raven hair in utmost agony and his blackish eyes met Natsu's onyx pair of visual orbs. Time stopped for both mages and only for them as they continued to look at each other. Zeref. The name resurfaced in his mind and the pink-haired Dragon Slayer didn't even realise that he spoke the name aloud. "Natsu," the man who he named Zeref responded immediately after him as his cheeks were stained by tears of pain and agony.
Natsu didn't like this scene in front of him. He hated it even as he watched as more tears quelled from the black orbs of Zeref. He didn't know why but seeing this man crying in front of him almost made Natsu cry as well. It was as if there was an invisible link between them through which they could feel the other's emotions. Grief, sadness and loneliness but also solace, happiness and relief. They invaded Natus's soul and heart and they roared at him with burning desire. They wished for him to close his arms around the shivering body of the man, hug him tightly and never let go again.
Instead, he punched him, hard. His fist was drenched in complete ignorance, but the black mage seemingly wasn't affected much by it since it was Natsu who was hurt by the foolish strike. For a moment the pink-haired fire mage thought all bones inside his hand had been broken since it felt as if he had struck a steel wall. He watched how Zeref negated the punch with a simple push of his fingers from the ground. Graceful and agile all power residing in the attack vanished from the face of the world by the swift motions of the arcane sorcerer. However, that was on the outside. How Zeref felt about the sudden strike from Natsu, the man could only answer himself.
Seconds later, the ebony-haired mage cried his answer to the world as new winds of death hollowed across the battlefield. Natsu, in his bottomless foolishness, figured them to be new attacks directed at them, only they weren't. He discovered this only after Happy had pulled him away from the hopeless fight against his elder brother and the truth had settled in. These winds were Zeref's desperate screams of mental anguish for he had been punched by his little brother, but Natsu didn't care to analyse the obvious cries for help. After all, he thought Zeref, though infamous, was like every other opponent as well. A danger that needed to be neutralised.
Oh, how wrong he had been and it came back to bite him in his behind in the worst possible scenario. The ultimate enemy of his beloved guild was his one and only brother, Zeref Dragneel. Shocked as he was during the moment of truth, he of course denied the bond they had. He denied it even though his heart and soul, every fibre of his being, screamed at him that this was the truth he'd always been searching for subconsciously.
Natsu wasn't dumb. He's aware of the fact that Igneel wasn't his real father. They may not be related by blood but the bond they share with each other did not get weakened by this. They were father and son and there was nothing else to it. Still, when the moon illuminated the nightly sky and he was lost in his dreams, Natsu envisioned what his original family was like. Where they were and why he was alone in this world now. Questions he could never hope of finding the answer, to until fate decided he deserved answers.
He loved Igneel and he loved Fairy Tail, that fact is a given. Yet having seen his real parents for the first time, the people who gave everything to him, arose a feeling in his abdomen that he had never experienced before. His chest tingled and he felt a warmth only one person ever managed to invoke inside of him. His mom was the most beautiful woman he had seen, and his dad radiated everything he wanted to be, far more than anything Igneel nor Gildarts have ever inspired in him before. He didn't understand why, but he just wanted to be like the man he saw in the memory. Gentle, strong, cool and loving. Many memories played in front of him as Natsu realised their dad had been the centre of the family back then.
Their mother always had a dreamy expression when she looked at him.
Whereas Zeref and himself were basically extensions of his body, always attached in one way or another to their dad. They ate together, bathed together and slept together as well. All the while, their father used every chance to shower all of them with his never-ending love. Merely by watching Natsu, understood how much of a happy family they had been during those times and how lonely he had been without even realising it. People say ignorance is a bliss, and he can give his approval to this claim. It hurt to admit but his ties within Fairy Tail paled in comparison to the canvas of pure love playing in front of him.
As the scene shifted and he saw both of his parents burning to ashes, his heart burned as well and it was the first time flames terrified him, the first time he loathed them! With his heart being torn and ripped to shreds bringing him to the brink of tears, he unconsciously turned to Zeref standing by his side in the spiritual realm they had been in. He had watched their fiery end as well, the dancing hues of red and orange reflecting in his eyes, and Natsu could swear that he saw the black mage's watery eyes quiver ever so slightly. That was the moment he acknowledged his worst enemy as the person he truly was.
He's not the enemy of the guild, Zeref
He's not the emperor of the Alvarez Empire, Spriggan.
And he's not the black mage, Zeref either.
He's none other than his older brother, Zeref Dragneel, and the only one who could possibly understand him right now. Maybe there's still some hope for a happy ending after all, if he's still affected by the loss of their parents after all this time.
But for this to actually happen, he first needed to get the hell out of here! So he uttered the dreaded question that tortured him, hoping Igneel would give him the answer he desired most.
"Am I going to die?"
To Natsu's chagrin, Igneel revealed the bitter truth.
"Yes, you are going to die, Natsu."
Still shaken from the gruesome death of his parents, the answer to his inquiry only brought more devastation. Soon they would be reunited again.
Luckily Igneel was not finished talking yet. He exposed the reason for Natsu's current trouble and explained how to avoid this fate.
They were both so engrossed in their conversation that neither of them noticed the lurking presence of a third-party nearby, calmly observing their every move without a hint of his inner thoughts. The figure sat on a stone atop a nearby cliff, allowing him to overlook the valley Natsu and Igneel stood in speaking with each other. His right arm was propped up on his leg, his fist lazily supporting his face as he continued his observation from afar.
His sole focus was on Natsu and him alone and even from all the distance, he could hear every word that was spoken with ease. Over time, his senses had sharpened more and more, became unrivalled beneath and above the heavens, and now he was even able to hear the blood inside Natsu's body flooding through the fire mage's veins with each steady beat of his young and innocent heart.
Just like Igneel, he was aware of what was happening inside of Natsu's body since he has been here for a long time. In fact, he had arrived here even before Natsu and Igneel had met for the first time. Hence his knowledge surpassed even the mighty dragon's, and he knew this was a moment in Natsu's life that would greatly affect the young boy's life afterwards. No matter what his answer would be, there's no going back in the aftermath.
For ages, he has been waiting patiently for this moment, and now the time has come at last. The path Natsu would choose now was going to open the door for the man's new path as well. Their fates have been intertwined since the very beginning and will continue to do so in the future.
"So answer me, Natsu. Are you a dragon... or a devil?"
Igneel muttered the fateful expression with a hint of fear and sadness for the answer.
Natsu, deep in thought realised something and gave his reply with conviction manifesting in his eyes.
"I'm neither of them. I may have come back to life through the powers of a devil and was raised by a dragon, but I'm still me. I'm Natsu Dragneel from Fairy Tail and I'm a human!" Natsu declared with conviction burning in his eyes.
Igneel smiled proudly at his son as a bright light engulfed the whole area, the sign that Natsu's soul accepted the boy's declaration, and it was time to move on.
"See? You can do it if you just want to, Natsu. Who would have thought you would choose the right answer?" Igneel responded, overjoyed with his son's correct choice.
"You have been revived through devil-like powers and were raised by a dragon, but you are still human. Your self-doubts triggered the seeds to grow and merge together, but now that you have chosen your path you will be fine."
The light turned brighter and brighter as Natsu's consciousness dissolved and returned to the outer world.
"Now stand once again on your own two feet and never forget that I'll always be with you, my son."
"Dad..." Natsu had trouble forming words right now because of the maelstrom of emotion running wild inside of him.
"I will." Natsu forced out in the last moment before he was parting ways with his father and the fiery plain, a good distance between them already as he flew towards the never-ending sky.
For an unknown reason, he looked to the side, almost as if something was pulling his attention in, and time stopped a moment later. Calmly sitting on a stone was a person hidden behind a curtain of darkness, cast at him from the clouds above. His eyes were still visible though, and they locked gazes with Natsu's own.
Is this?! No, it couldn't be. He just made his decision and it didn't make any sense, to begin with, remembering his brother's words. So who was that and why was he here in this place? How could this be?!
As questions and confusion were about to take over Natsu's mind, there was a slight shift in the eyes staring at him. They softened but was this sadness they radiated? It seemed as if the person was smiling at him and not out of happiness but sorrow. Why would he do that? Before Natsu could formulate any course of action, time started moving again and his soul left his inner world.
When he opened his eyes again, he was sitting upright in some sort of underground chamber, almost the same as the one where Lucy almost di..
"Natsu!" A soft, angelic voice called out to him, immediately catching his attention. When his eyes found the source of the angelic voice relief washed over him.
It was Lucy calling his name. He didn't understand why she was sitting in his lap or why both of them were almost stark naked, but he wouldn't complain. In a bold move, he pulled her flush against him, their naked bodies fitting together perfectly, and buried his face into her neck, inhaling her scent, as much of it as he could get. Her scent always managed to calm him down whenever he got a whiff of it and right now, he needed it more than ever before. The events inside his soul, even though hidden behind a thick fog already, had shaken him gravely. To his delight, Lucy was OK with being his anchor as she wound her arms around his muscular neck, deepening their hug as she muttered how much he had worried her. As an apology he fastened his grip on her, his rough hands gliding over the soft skin on her back as he caressed her flesh.
He could hear someone saying in a mocking tone, that they love each other, but he didn't care about that at the moment. Besides, the more he thought about it, he decided he could totally get used to waking up like this, with Lucy's body entangled with his.
It caused a wildfire inside of him, capable of burning the entire world with ease. The hellish inferno steeled his resolve to come out victorious in the intensifying war, no matter the price. And with Lucy's naked body tightly pressed against his own almost nudity, her delicate arms squeezing him so strong that he feared for a moment that she would crush him, Natsu made a silent promise to himself.
'After this war is over and done with, I will tell you just how much I love you, Luce.'
With this thought coursing through the pink-haired Dragon Slayer's mind, everything else numbed away. The madness, the grief, the terror and the fright. Everything simply vanished from the face of the world without a trace as Natsu Dragneel was embraced by the woman he loved. Fire was his element and she was the flame the mighty dragon was addicted to.
XXX
Meanwhile, Igneel's soul was left behind, alone in Natsu's inner world. His eyes lingered on the clouds where Natsu had vanished into, leaving this plane of existence. The dragon father's expression was tainted by worry, despite his son's realisation and conclusion. Truth be told this solved a lot of problems that had been weighing on Igneel's mind, but it was not the solution to all of his problems. The questionability revolving around E.N.D. might have come to an end, but there were still Zeref and Acnolgia to consider. Both held too many strings of fate in their hands or claws and especially Zeref's revolting madness caused his insides to twist and churn since he was Natsu's elder brother. The story of the Dragneel brothers harboured enough emotional potential to shatter Natsu's newfound will and release the devil inside him as well. But Natsu had grown into a fine young man, so Igneel must believe in his son even if it's difficult to leave him alone in this matter.
But seeing no other opportunity to help Natsu any further, Igneel thought it was about time to leave Natsu's soul. Igneel's remaining magic dwelling inside the boy was almost depleted, so there was no other choice anyway. No matter what his desires wanted from him. Besides, Natsu would be okay on his own now because he had reliable friends at his side, supporting and helping him whenever he needed them the most. So Igneel will watch over him from the ethereal palace where all of his forefathers are waiting for him to join them at last. He stretched his wings and was about to leave when a deep thunderous voice echoed across the fields of molten stone. It was the voice of an ancient time, an era that was willingly forgotten by those who saw it with their very own eyes. It washed over him like the bellow of a cataclysm and in fact, it was. The bellow of demise.
The banshee-like noise was the echo from aeons ago. Centuries have passed since then so it should be buried deep within the annals of history, well hidden at the bottom of the ravines of time itself. That is what Igneel had believed so far at least, living his life in utter ignorance, all the while the bell of doom was ringing across the heavens, announcing the arrival of its evil master with delighted obedience.
Igneel's body went rigid in less than a second and sweat started to run down from every pore of his body after his ears had swallowed the ominous vibrations resonating through the air. His eyes bulged in shock and terror, and he feared they would pop out of their sockets any moment. But this fright paled in comparison to the horror embracing his heart and soul. This voice!? It couldn't be!
"So human it is, Natsu? An interesting choice indeed but did you think this through? I wonder." Igneel couldn't figure out whether the man to whom this voice belonged, was speaking to himself like a maniac lost in his own madness or if he was addressing the shivering dragon king of fire. Either way, this has to be a morbid joke because this can't be right... it mustn't be right!
Unconcerned about the fire dragon's distress, the unknown person continued his monologue. Each word that left his mouth shook Natsu's soul in its foundations. Earthquakes were birthed as the sky above the plane of fire became darker and more sinister by the mere presence of the being residing in this spiritual place.
"The question itself should have been a dead giveaway. When asked whether you are a dragon or devil the answer can't possibly be human. Wouldn't you agree with me, Lil' Igneel?"
XXXXXXXXX
That's the first chapter done and I hope I was able to pique your interest.
I considered Natsu's soul as the perfect starting point for this story since it served as a turning point in the original. Furthermore, it offered me the opportunity to introduce the second person residing within Natsu. His and Igneel's encounter will continue in the next chapter so hopefully, you are looking forward to that already
And in case you wondered. Zeref is significantly stronger in this story. His role belongs to those who I have expanded the most. In my eyes, the relationship between Natsu and Zeref is one of the most wasted potentials throughout Fairy Tail. Both Dragneels could have been so much more and I'm going to try to do my best to use the potential Mashima-san created. For my plans in this regard, I need to add extra content. Therefore you will be able to read what happened during their childhood before fate tore them apart.
Anyway, I hope this first glimpse gave you an idea of what you can expect in the future
Until next time 😄
