Notes, it wasn't Jackal that attacked them at the guild. To be honest, I… don't really remember…? who it was? Physically, it should have been Ezel, but the demon doesn't act like that. It would be ooc for Ezel, you know? Anyways, thought I should mention that.

Also feel free to yell at me...

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The next time she woke up, she was alone.

She was in a small room, staring at a stone wall. Pushing herself up, noting that the handcuffs around her wrists weren't quite so faulty as the Council's, she knew she wouldn't be able to escape. But she also noted that they weren't tiny anymore, meaning she wasn't a child.

"Aki-ki!"

"Aki-chan!"

She spun around, toppling over in the process. She was not, in fact, in a room, but a cell, bars making up one wall of the small prison. She was alone in her cell, but her friends and brothers were in their own prisons around her.

Her brothers, specifically, were pressed against the bars, looking frantic. She pushed herself up again as the three shouted.

"Are you okay!?"

"Aki-chan!"

"What happened?" she groaned, rubbing at her throat.

"You were an idiot," came Gray's voice came from somewhere out of view.

"What?" she asked weakly, stopping her brothers' retorts.

"Don't you remember?" came his sneer.

Her eyebrows furrowed. "Sun Village, Doriate, Law of Retrogression aftereffects, Jackal attacking us, magic, sick, waking up…" She looked up at them. "But I don't know what happened when I woke up from Jackal's attack."

Gray scoffed.

As Natsu began slinging insults at the ice mage, Aki frowned, brows furrowing. He went silent as she spoke, "What's wrong with it? I don't know what happened because I couldn't-"

"You sacrificed yourself to your demon!" he snarled back.

Her frown deepened. After a minute, she admitted, "I did, but I don't know why that's bad."

"Aki, how are you feeling?" Lucy interrupted, and Aki turned to her, bemused.

"Now that I'm not five, fine. Though," she added, chuckling awkwardly and rubbing the back of her head, "not great in the sense of being caught by Tartaros."

Lucy didn't seem satisfied, pressing, "Are you sure you're okay?"

Aki blinked. Lucy looked concerned and anxious, though in a different way than her brothers or other times she had worried the kind celestial mage.

After all…

She laughed sadly, pulling her knees to her chest and resting her chin on them. "I must have cried more than I remember having done."

"What-"

"I'm fine, so long as I don't have to be blind and deaf again," Aki murmured before Lucy could really start. "Fine, so long as I'm not five…" She shivered. "Sorry… to worry you so much…"

"Aki-chan," Lucy was saying, sounding very concerned now, "you-"

"Apologize for being an idiot, first!" Gray snapped, earning a glare from Lucy and more insults from Natsu.

"I will not," Aki returned staunchly. "We created them; if they're going to kill someone, it had better be us."

"I don't want you to have one over on me!"

Aki scowled. "I don't want to have that, and I didn't mean it that way," she muttered, staring down at the stone floor in front of her. "I wasn't doing it just for you; you don't have to be special if you don't want."

"Leave it, Gray," Lucy snapped.

"She got us in this mess!" he yelled furiously.

Aki froze, eyes widening.

"Gray!" Lucy was scolding, affronted, but, despite her attempts to shut him up, he ranted on.

"If she hadn't done that, we wouldn't have had to give in! We wouldn't be here if she didn't do things so recklessly!"

Natsu seemed to boil over with anger, but it wasn't him that answered in a cold, hard voice.

"I've done horrible things, and I can't ever make up for them," Aki snarled, "but I will not take keeping people safe from our demons as a sin… even if I must take it as a sin that I forced you all into this position…" She sighed, shaking her head and hiding her face in her knees. "Gray, you can hate me for all the things I've done, but don't hate me for things I haven't done. There are too many valid reasons to hate me to do that."

As Natsu and Lucy started, berating Gray as he continued to attack her, Aki ignored them all, staring at the ground between her legs.

I failed to save them…

"A significant number of our demons did form this guild, Tartaros," Aki was explaining some time later. "The reasons why are obvious" —no, they're not, Lucy thought, irritated— "so that isn't what's strange."

"What's weird," said Zeref, "is that they haven't immediately killed us."

Natsu let out a frustrated shout as Lucy gasped, hands flying to her mouth in horror.

"Calm down!" Aki soothed quickly, raising her hands in a calming gesture; she sweat-dropped as Natsu turned on her. "The fact that they haven't yet means they won't. That's why we're confused. They should have wanted to kill us the second they could."

"It's weird that they would let us live," mused Zeref. "I wonder if they're corrupted…"

"What does that mean?" Lucy asked.

Aki sighed. "It means, they aren't- well, they- it-" She frowned.

Taking up the mantle, Zeref started, "They were originally all books, essentially still are, and can, theoretically, be corrupted, if someone tampers with what's written. Nobody else should be able to do that, though, besides us; it would kill them."

"And you think they're corrupted for being evil?" Gray demanded icily.

"No, no, we think they're corrupted because they didn't immediately kill us," Aki assured him amicably, unable to see his expression. "Their main goal, ultimate objective, entire purpose, whatever you want to call it, was to kill us. And they aren't doing that, which must mean-"

"We are, indeed, following what you instilled in us to do, Zeref-sama and Aki-sama," interrupted a voice, and they all saw Mard Geer enter the circular room each of their cells opened into. "We are following our main objective: To bypass the Curse of Contradictions and kill You."

"You're doing a pretty eggy job," Aki retorted, shocking Lucy. "You're not-" She cut off, staring at the ground, hand raised in what should have been a dismissive gesture, had it not frozen before being finished.

"Aki-chan?" Lucy asked anxiously.

"No," she breathed. As she looked up at him, Lucy was shocked to see fear in her face. Fear, apprehension, a longing to not be there that she had never seen on her older self before. She had assumed that it was only because of being turned into a child that Aki would ever feel fear, but now it clouded her eyes, blinding her more effectively than ever before. "Don't-"

"Yes… One of you will take the curse of contradictions."