Warnings: PTSD, guilt

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Eventually, having left the city behind for a woods, Gray came to a stop beside a little creek. "Don't run away," he panted, dropping Aki and collapsing against a tree. "Please."

Aki watched him, tails swishing. Eventually, she remarked, "You are very adept at Ice Make Magic. There's no other way you could have held me for so long and been fine."

He nodded silently.

When nothing else happened, she trotted to the river edge and pawed at it, admiring the way the water splashed a little before freezing.

"You" —she looked around— "you're that magic fox," he said seriously.

"Oh, well spotted," she snarked.

"No." Gray shook his head. "I mean from Isvet."

She frowned at him. "What do you mean?"

"Aren't you the one who saved me?"

Her hackles rose, her pupils contracting.

"I didn't manage to save anyone in Isvet! Don't pretend to be-" She cut herself short, not finishing the sentence.

Don't pretend to be that little boy I killed.

And just because I foolishly thought what worked with August and Larcade might with others, too…

"I'm not pretending anything!" he retorted indignantly. "You saved me! It was you, wasn't it?"

"I only managed to almost save a boy!" she snarled. "He was-" She stopped, the memory resurfacing in her mind. The cold air swirling around her dissipated, and she sat, ears drooped.

Gray leaned forward. "I didn't die."

"I think I'd know if the boy I accidentally killed while trying to save was dead or not!" she retorted, her fur puffing up in anger.

"Accidentally killed…?" he repeated, and Aki felt her blood run cold. "What are you talking about?"

"And why should I tell you anything?" she demanded, getting up and stalking up to him, jumping onto his knees.

"Because I was in Isvet!"

She rolled her eyes. "Sure, you were."

He kicked his leg out, throwing her off. She landed gracefully, crouching, ears flattening, ready to run as Gray stood, fists clenched, shouting furiously, "My parents died there! Deliora killed them! But you showed up and helped me!"

Aki's heart jumped to her throat, but she shoved the hope forcefully away; after four hundred years, she'd learnt not to do that. But, with her throat was too constricted to speak, Gray was free to continue.

"You lifted the thing on top of me and led me through the smoke, but then you got hurt or something and I passed out! When I woke up, Ur and Lyon had found me!"

She tried to bare her teeth, but her lips were trembling, and she noticed her eyes growing wet. "Stop it," she muttered, rubbing at them with her paw. "Please, stop."

"Stop what?!"

"Stop forcing hope on me!"

She heard Gray come closer, then felt a pat on her head. She looked up at him, trying to growl, managing a faint whine.

"You are that fox," he whispered, sinking to the ground in front of her. After a minute, he pressed, "You are that fox, aren't you?"

She shook her head vehemently. "I know he died! You can't be him, I can't believe that!"

"How do I prove that I am?" he asked determinedly.

She glared at him, and he glared right back. Eventually, she caved. "What color was the magic I used?"

He blinked, taken aback. "You used magic? I thought you just lifted the thing."

She stared at him. His answer had come so easily, no doubt or time to guess. Maybe - No. She berated herself. Not again. Not- never again. She couldn't hope; she wasn't going to be burnt by that again, she wasn't going to. "Another chance, then," she said, straining to keep her tone lofty and tails still. "How many times did I touch you to help you up?"

"You didn't."

She nearly fainted, but it could have been a lucky guess—it was a lucky guess. Just a couple lucky guesses. "F-fine," she managed after a minute of quiet swallowing, hoping her voice wasn't trembling as much as she thought it was, "what about what I said to you?"

Gray frowned. "I could never remember exactly, but it sounded like 'sorry.'"

"Oh my tails," Aki breathed, eyes welling with tears. "You are him."

Gray grinned. "Yeah, I-"

She hardly heard him, yipping in celebration and spinning round and round. "You didn't die! You didn't die! I didn't kill you! I actually saved you! I saved you!"

"What do you mean, kill me?" Gray interrupted, bemused.

Aki stumbled.

"At the time," she began hesitantly, "I was- I was very sick. When I saw Deliora, I wanted to save Isvet from him, but- but couldn't, because of my illness." She took a breath. "As the town burned and death took so many, though, I- I saw you, and I couldn't help myself. I just couldn't bear it… It was stupid, foolish; I should have known better by then, should have known that the miracle cure that had happened once wouldn't just bless him- you, too… It was very contagious," she added at his confusion. "It k-" She bit her lip. "-killed anyone who- who wasn't a host, almost instantly. When you fell, I-I thought…"

"That you'd killed me?" Gray finished for her.

She closed her eyes, nodding solemnly. "That's why you heard me saying sorry, because I'd thought that you might have had a chance if I hadn't intervened." Her heart was already coming back to earth, reality slapping its cruel self over the glorious world.

Even if she had saved him, so many more had died that day…

"Thank you."

Her head shot up. Gray was leaning forward earnestly. "Thank you for saving me," he repeated, beaming at her. Her eyes widened, and he must not have registered the fear beneath the surprise glistening within them.

Don't…

"I wouldn't have survived if it weren't for you."

Please, stop it… Please…

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

"You saved my life."

"Stop…" she breathed, quivering.

"But you did-"

"Stop it!" she barked, startling him. Breathing deeply, she resumed, "I'm also the one who caused the tragedy, so stop thanking me, please." The last word came a desperate plea, pained and distraught.

Gray had frozen, caught entirely off guard. Eventually, he croaked, "What?"

She shook her head, closing her eyes wearily. "I said, it's because of me that Deliora was in that town to begin with."

"What are you talking about?"

She sighed, blinking up at him. He looked so confused and hurt that she wished she wasn't about to reveal the truth to him, but he deserved to know that she wasn't anyone to thank. "Gray," she started solemnly, "you don't know who I am."

He brushed this off. "So what, you-"

"You don't understand, Gray," she interrupted, closing her eyes and focusing. There was a burst of snow that vanished before it could land, and Aki, human again, sat before him. "Gray" —she tilted her head slightly, a sad little smile on her face— "I'm Aki."

Gray blinked. She could tell that his mind had frozen, error, cannot compute. "You're," he managed eventually, but apparently couldn't continue.

She nodded sedately, smile dropping. "Aki."

"You… created Deliora?"

She bowed her head.

"And you sent him to Isvet?!" he demanded, jumping to his feet.

"No," she replied, not moving as he towered over her, Ice Make Magic mist hazing around him, freezing the air. "I didn't send him. I never sent any demon anywhere. Nor did Zeref," she added. "Gray, we didn't make the demons to hurt people-"

She repressed a grunt as Gray kicked her, easily righting herself enough to land upright. "How dare you say that?!" he howled, tears running down his cheeks—he had revealed his own tragedy to his perceived savior, just to have it thrown in his face. And it was her fault.

Straightening, she spoke, "We made them to kill ourselves."

He froze midway through invoking his magic. "What?!"

"We made them to kill ourselves," she repeated solemnly.

"You- what?" He was so bewildered, so thrown off, that his fury seemed unable to sustain itself; his question wasn't angry, or even upset, just lost, and… hurt.

She hung her head. "We wanted them to kill us because we were cursed to kill everything around us, whether we wanted to or not."

"Cursed?" he repeated weakly, falling back again.

"Yes. We were studying life and death to revive someone, but, even though we had given up on all of our projects at that point, we were cursed by Ankhselam for it. If I may explain," she added imploringly, "I'd… appreciate it."

He didn't respond, and she took that as a willingness to listen—or, at least, permission to speak. "We were cursed with something called the Curse of C-Contradictions." She swallowed. "The c-curse- it infected us with Death Magic and drove us slowly mad. When we weren't insane, we searched for some way to die, because there was nothing we could do to stop the endless and- and needless loss of life around us." She broke off, shaking slightly.

Grabbing her elbow, she forced herself to calm down, determined not to make him feel required to pity her; she had caused him enough hurt – was still to cause him more as she spoke, and he learned just how pointless his losses really had been. "That curse was broken the night of the last day of the Grand Magic Games. When Lucy went to the past, our younger selves followed her back through the portal, and, when the dragons attacked, they tricked us into killing the dragons as well as wanting the Curse of Contradictions. It is a curse that forces contradictions onto its target, so us wanting it meant that the it took itself from us…"

"Natsu."

It was her turn to startle. "Excuse me?"

"Natsu," Gray grunted again. "He's the one you were trying to revive."

She bobbed her head. "He died in a- in a- well, he died," she finished lamely.

Gray scowled at her. "So," he started, as though he wanted to set things straight, "you tried to bring him back, were cursed, went crazy, killed everything, went back to sane, tried to kill yourselves, then went crazy again and released all the demons you had made?"

"Yes."

"Egg." He stood and stalked off.

As he vanished, swallowed by the forest, Aki looked up at the sky. "How do I fix it?"

As it had done for four centuries, it was silent, unyielding, leaving the questions of death – and life – unanswered, hanging just out of reach, enticingly unknowable.

"Aki?"

She spun around, spotting Juvia peeking out from behind a tree. She faked a smile, tilting her head as she waved. "You've finally recognized me?"

"Is- is it true?"

She blinked. "Is what true?"

"That you hurt people because you were cursed to; that you only made the demons to kill yourselves," she whispered.

Aki's smile dropped. "It is."

"You were cursed because you wanted to bring Natsu back to life?"

She nodded once more.

"But, but-" Juvia stepped out from behind the tree, looking confused, distraught, even. "But why would someone curse you for that?"

Aki didn't answer right away. Juvia could see her dark eyes flitting as though recalling more things than possible, more emotions than one person could ever feel, more experiences than anyone had ever had.

After a couple minutes, she answered, sighing, "They say it's because of the delicate balance between life and death, a balance that would be 'sacrilegious' to interfere with. Life and death are a part of each other, yet entirely separate, and trying to unravel its mystery was thought to be blasphemy, a crime against the deities.

"I don't believe that." She shook her head, walking over to a bush and plucking a leaf, twirling it between her thumb and middle finger. "After researching so many ideas – ideas like the R-system, mind – and finding nothing but horrific sacrifices and grotesque amalgamations of demons, death, and Black Magic, we didn't stop. We would see our brother again." Her voice held the conviction spoken of only in legends, the determination of heroes in her tired eyes, paradoxical.

"So we kept on exploring it," she continued dully, "even as the path grew more and more blood-stained. We may have dropped all of our projects, throwing the R-system away once we had given up hope of finding another power source, but we kept going, delving deeper into Black Magic and Life Magic, the One Magic, Blood Magic, and all other evil or 'sacred' magics, for those were the only ones with any hope of breaking the one rule all life has been bound to. We refused to stop scouring every book, every avenue, no matter how foul.

"I guess 'Ankhselam,' or so they call the supposed 'deity,' didn't like that. Supposedly, he was to have grown angry that we had paid no heed to the books proclaiming his wrath – angry that we disregarded the myths of old, stories of bloody vengeance struck down upon any who dared do more than ask and be content with silence; wrath against those who sought answers for themselves, when the 'deity' refused to give it to them; wrath against those who would try to absolve the separation between life and death – a separation which, by all means, should be explicable – or, at the very least, testable—no, questionable.

"I can't really say for what precise reason we were cursed, but that, I believe, was the general cause. The fact that, in our determination to see our brother again, we strayed too far into the grey area, waded too far into the reality that exists beyond this one, giving no regard to the proclaimed laws of the universe… somehow, that caused the curse. Our studies in bringing back life – just our studies," she repeated bitterly, "we hadn't attempted anything yet – had apparently upset the balance of the world, torn a hole in the fabric of existence. That corruption was then forced on us, the sources.

"Though," she added dryly, cynical amusement flickering in her eyes, "how having us be immortal and killing more than feasibly possible for any other human would rectify that balance, I've no idea."

She chuckled, looking up to the sky, reaching a hand out as to grasp… "Ironically, the curse actually accelerated our research in bringing him back to life, as we now had two bodies that would never die, no matter what was done to them… Indestructible test subjects… To be fair," she added as her hand lowered. Her eyes were closed as she grinned crookedly at Juvia. "-by cursing us, there was no longer any greater torture, so why not commit the supposed crime for which we had already been punished?

"… So, why were we cursed?" Her eyes opened; they were dead, no light reflecting in them as she turned to Juvia, the determination a wraith in them dancing with despair. "I don't know. The question…" She gasped quietly, but forced a grin, grabbing her elbow. "It still- it still haunts me… I can still remember – I'll never forget – what echoed in my head the day we…"

"What?" Juvia asked, voice barely more than a breath of wind.

Aki gave a dry, robotic laugh, though Juvia couldn't imagine why as she delivered in a flat, little voice, "'Repent. You did this. You did this, Black Mage Aki.'"

A shiver ran up her spine, and Aki shook herself, looking back up at Juvia and giving a strained half-smile. After a minute of silence, just as she was starting to think she'd done wrong and ought to apologize, Juvia said quietly, "Juvia thinks you're innocent."

Aki blinked, then grabbed her elbow. "I-I guess, on whether we should have been cursed, I would dare to agree…"

Juvia shook her head, coming forward and taking both of Aki's hands in her own, gazing tearfully into her face. "Juvia doesn't think Aki is a bad person. Juvia thinks Aki is very kind."

Aki blinked, then glanced away with a forced, agonized grin. "I doubt Gray thinks that."

"Gray-sama is hurt just like Aki is," Juvia insisted. "Gray-sama can't see past what happened to him. Juvia thinks that Gray-sama will understand, someday."

"… I hope he can move on," Aki sighed, looking back up at Juvia, appearing for the first time as old as she was – as ancient as she undoubtedly was, even if her bones refused to ache their age, her face stubbornly unwrinkled by the years. "I think the time will come when you are the only one who can help him – a time when you will be his path forward.

"When you're unsure, follow your heart, but acknowledge your mind; they're not as at odds as people think. I can tell how much you care about him – it practically radiates from your magic – so I know you'll be right there next to him. You'll be there to help him up when he falls. Right?"

Juvia beamed, a bright pink on her cheeks. "For Gray-sama, Juvia would do anything."

Aki bobbed her head, smiling, but there was still anguish hidden in her eyes, a sadness that would take as long to fade as it did to grow.

At least, so it would be if it weren't for a good dose of Fairy Tail.