The Scars That Make You Whole

By CrimsonStarbird

Stellar Constellations Rise, Part 3

-The Water Mage's Request-

When Lucy felt frustrated, she liked to keep herself busy. Back in Fairy Tail, she'd have thrown herself into guild life or training; as a reporter in Crocus, she'd have volunteered to help a colleague with background research, or maybe done some modelling shoots on the side.

On this rather peculiar quest, at the bedside of her wounded friend, none of those options were open to her.

She did her best, though: she cleaned Juvia's wound and bound it properly; she made fresh soup, ate some of it herself, and left the rest for Juvia when she woke up; she washed the blankets, and then scrubbed the floor as well, until all traces of blood had been erased.

Then she was out of things to do, and she still did not have answers to the questions which were plaguing her. She drew her chair up to Juvia's bedside and sat there in contemplation. The water mage's breathing almost sounded normal again, and her pulse was reassuringly strong, although she had yet to regain consciousness. Perhaps Lucy should have worried that Zeref might have done something to Juvia to turn her into a bargaining chip, some demonic magic that would keep her in a coma until he willed otherwise… but she just couldn't bring herself to believe it.

The only times she had ever seen him angry or upset had been when she had accused him of malicious intent: of using her as bait to draw out and murder her friends; of desiring to harm the innocents around him as a matter of course. His long-term goals would set him unequivocally as the guild's enemy, he was not shy about that, and yet he seemed genuinely hurt if she treated him like an enemy in the meantime.

It bothered her – both the fact that she had driven him away, and the fact that she had been able to do so at all.

He was the Black Mage, for heaven's sake. He should have been confident and heartless and proud of the terrors he would commit with his magic, and woe betide anyone who thought to stand between him and the destruction of all! Yet there was a kind of fragility to him, one that no amount of magical strength or immortality could erase. From the moment she'd first learnt about his curse, she'd known she wouldn't be able to treat him in the same way as before, but he wasn't supposed to care about it. He was her enemy. He wasn't supposed to be so… sensitive.

And it wasn't just that. Zeref hadn't done anything to hurt her. Oh, he went out of his way to make things difficult for her, and he enjoyed being unhelpful far too much, but he had been the one who had brought them to Helvola Village; who had pushed on through the rain; who had saved Juvia's life without asking for anything in return.

She was judging him entirely for the things he had not yet done, when there were things he had done which merited gratitude and respect.

That was why she sat in melancholy silence, wondering when he was going to come back, if indeed he came back at all.

Would she carry on her quest without him? Certainly, she wouldn't have started it alone, but now she had a duty to Wendy and Cana and Macao to complete it. Things that were impossible to do for oneself became possible when done for others; that had long been an axiom of her guild. Yes, she would continue to bring Fairy Tail back together to the best of her ability. Whether or not she'd be able to manage it without Zeref's so-called intelligence network…

No. It didn't matter. If there was one thing that she knew for certain, it was that Zeref was even more invested in this quest than she was, and he wouldn't abandon it just because they'd fallen out. He'd be back. As for what she'd say to him when he returned – well, trying to cross that bridge right now wouldn't get her anywhere.

There was, however, one bridge that could only be crossed in the absence of her companion. Since Juvia was still unconscious, she might as well make the most of this time.

Standing in the centre of the room, Lucy drew her keyring from her belt and summoned Crux once again. She went through all the motions this time – no shortcuts, no skipped stages, just proper traditional summoning – and the silver Spirit appeared, a hybrid of a great floating cross and a seated old man. His eyes were shut. He might have been asleep.

Lucy took a deep breath and sat opposite her Spirit. That should have been enough time for Crux to find the information she had asked for. Her heart was racing, and she couldn't quite put her finger on why.

"Alright," she began. "Crux, please tell me everything you've found about the Celestial Spirit mages Zeref has been involved with."

Crux exhaled with the force of a train shooting through a tunnel.

His eyes flashed open.

And-

"ACCESS DENIED."

Lucy blinked. "Come again?"

"ACCESS DENIED."

It was the Spirit's voice, and yet it wasn't. Artificial red consumed his eyes.

An electrical chill ran down her spine. "What do you mean, access denied? Access to what?"

"ACCESS DENIED."

"Yes, alright, I got that bit…" she grumbled waspishly, her mind racing ahead. This was one of those situations when she was glad the most hot-headed members of her team weren't around. If Erza and Natsu were the kind of people who would try and intimidate her Spirit into explaining the situation, then Lucy was the kind who preferred to sit and reason it out.

Hypothesis: something is affecting Crux's ability to locate information.

Test: ask him something I already know the answer to.

"Okay, forget that, Crux. Instead, please can you tell me about Celestial Spirit mages I have been involved with?"

Blank red eyes closed as he returned to his meditative state, and then-

"Lucy Heartfilia is a known associate of several Celestial Spirit mages as follows: Agria, Sorano; Agria, Yukino; Everlue, Duke of-"

"Whoa, hang on, who the hell is Sorano Agria? I've never met anyone called Sorano!"

"Agria, Sorano, older sister of Agria, Yukino, former holder of three gold keys-"

"Yukino has a sister?"

Crux paused, clearly peeved by the interruption, and repeated, "Agria, Sorano, older sister of Agria, Yukino-"

"Okay, okay, thanks," she muttered hastily. "Mystery for another time."

Observation: Crux told me several things I already knew, plus something I didn't – the fact that Yukino has a sister, who I've apparently met.

Conclusion: nothing is wrong with Crux's ability to locate information.

Which meant…

"Crux, please would you have another go at telling me everything you know about Celestial Spirit mages associated with Zeref? I mean, presumably one of them is me, and you're clearly able to find out information about me without a problem-"

"ACCESS DENIED."

Lucy slowly shook her head. This was getting more perplexing by the minute.

Hypothesis: something is preventing Crux from telling me about Zeref in particular.

Test: …

"Lucy."

She was on her feet with her keyring in hand before she'd placed the voice: Loke. The Lion Spirit stood by the cottage door, though that was not the portal through which he had entered the room. His hands were raised in surrender, as if under attack – which, to be fair, he very nearly had been. A grin curled across his face. "Nice reflexes."

"Don't scare me like that," Lucy huffed, returning her keys to her belt and treating him to the glower that passed only between good friends. "What are you doing here?"

Rather than answering, Loke walked towards Juvia's bed. "How's she doing?"

"Getting better, I think. Loke, what's going on?"

Still, he did not answer. He glanced over at Crux, who vanished from this world in a rain of golden light, deferring to Loke as the leader of the Zodiac Spirits. Then Loke pulled up an armchair and sat down opposite Lucy.

The presence of a dear friend should have reassured her, but even that seemed wrong. Loke wasn't slouching confidently in the armchair, like Fairy Tail's resident womanizer, but nor was he treating the chair as a throne, regal and proud, as might have been expected from Leo the Lion. It reminded her of how unfamiliar Crux's voice had sounded. It hurt to see the noble lion looking so unsure.

"Loke…"

She had not realized she had spoken aloud until he glanced up and gave her a wan smile, and even that was so unlike him that it cut like a crescent blade. "This is going to be difficult, Lucy, so please bear with me."

"Okay." Her voice wavered as much as his, maybe more.

"We… all the Celestial Spirits, including myself and the King, have…" Here he paused and shook his head, face contorting into a very un-Loke-like grimace. "We've taken an oath. We've- we've been around for a long time, and there's… stuff that we know, stuff that we've seen, but there's… certain parts of it we can't talk about. Mostly related to… to your current, uh… teammate."

"Zeref?" This came out as a squeak – partly out of surprise, but mostly through embarrassment; after several days of keeping her companion's identity a secret from her guildmates, she had forgotten that she couldn't hide it from the Spirits she fought alongside. Loke, however, was far too preoccupied to notice.

"Amongst others. There are things we can't say… and things we can't do. Lucy, we really want to help you, but we can't. I mean, can't. The oath we took, it's…" He mouthed two words that she thought might have been magically binding, but those words were far less important than the way her friend's eyes were screwed shut. He was pale and trembling, and it scared her so much more than Juvia's wound.

"Loke! Are you in pain?"

Another tiny nod. "It hurts me when I come close to breaking the oath."

"That's awful!"

"No." He shook his head, a little stronger, trying to be reassuring. "It's a good thing. If I break the oath, I'll die. The pain is a warning."

"Who did this to you?"

Loke almost managed a laugh. "Obviously, I can't answer that question. I can only talk to you about it at all because of what – who – you already know, and what you've guessed from Crux…"

"Is he alright?"

"Yes, he just can't resist it as well as I can. Lucy…" Just like that, his words were swallowed by agony once again. "While we're doing this… there's something I have to say."

"You don't have to say anything!" she exclaimed, jumping to her feet and only refraining from dashing over to him because of how firmly he raised his hand. Still, she insisted, "You can't answer my questions, that's fine, I won't ask any more; I don't want to cause you pain!"

"No… I want to apologize while I can."

"Apologize…?"

"About… the Grand Magic Games we won. When… when what happened afterwards happened, we knew – we all knew – what the, uh, thing did."

Lucy's mind skipped through her memories, looking for the words he couldn't say. "The Eclipse Gate, you mean?"

"I knew there was no anti-dragon cannon. I knew how to open it and what would probably happen when it did open. Worst of all, I knew how to close it… I knew and I couldn't tell you. Everything that happened, I could have prevented… and yet I couldn't. It wouldn't let me. I'm so sorry for what you had to go through during that battle… we all are."

"Loke, it's okay, nothing that happened there was your fault!" She was desperate in her urge to get him to stop talking; to stop him from putting himself through this. "And besides, you did help – you helped me and Yukino close the Gate."

"Only because you commanded me to," he said miserably. "I… I couldn't have done it otherwise. I couldn't even tell you how…"

"But… hang on," Lucy frowned. "Crux did tell me how the Eclipse Gate worked, and how to close it. How was that possible, if he's bound even worse than you are?"

"Because… no, I can't tell you that. There's a thing which… and I can't tell you that either. It's, uh…"

"There's a get-out clause in the oath which triggers if the Spirit's owner is in mortal danger," interjected a new voice, quieter than Loke and far more authoritative. "If there exists reasonable belief that the information they hold can save their owner's life, and that it is the only thing that can do so, they are permitted to impart as little information as it takes to remove the danger. Crux could not tell you what the Eclipse Gate did before it opened because there was no assured danger: the Gate might have failed to work; someone or something might have prevented it from opening; it could have opened onto an empty world. It was only when the first dragon passed through that your life was in genuine danger, Lucy, and Crux was able to tell you how to close the Gate."

Zeref was stood in the doorway, his arms folded. The door hung open behind him, a gateway to a world of ink and stars far darker than the light-studded realm from which the Spirits hailed. The shadows wrapped tenderly around him, enigmatic, impenetrable; the light from inside the room had little effect on a night so very deep and dark.

"Go," he said to Loke. The Spirit glanced at Lucy, and the strain melted from his expression as he dissolved into stardust.

Lucy swallowed. "How do you know all this?"

Zeref took the seat Loke had vacated, regarding her from beneath lamplight that seemed far too dim. How many more hours would she have to spend in this man's presence before she could so much as begin to penetrate those reticent black eyes?

"I am the one to whom the oath was sworn," said he. "I am the only one who can speak freely about these matters. Not, of course, that I have any intention of doing so."

"Why would you hurt them like that?" Lucy burst out. "Loke was in pain! And the guilt – why would you force them to stand and watch as their friends suffered, unable to do anything to help?"

"I didn't force them to do anything. They each took the oath of their own free will. Nor was it entirely my doing – do you honestly think that a built-in loophole allowing them to save the lives of their owners was my idea?"

"But why would you even do such a thing?"

"The plan had to be kept secret. There should only have been two people in existence with full knowledge of it, but the magic we brought into being was too strong – so strong it became sentient. Suddenly there were far too many beings who knew far too much. This was damage control, nothing more. And I think you'll agree that this approach was preferable to erasing the Spirits and starting over."

Maybe she would have agreed, if she had the faintest idea what he was talking about. Sentient magic? He was being vague on purpose, she had no doubt about that. One thing was clear, however: "So, all this really boils down to is the fact that you're incapable of trusting anyone but yourself."

The accusation did not bother Zeref in the slightest. "It is a perfectly reasonable stance, Lucy. As the only man who cannot be killed or otherwise threatened, I am the only one who can be entrusted with such important information."

"I would trust my Spirits with my life," Lucy said quietly.

"I know you would." Neither aggressive nor mocking; it was utterly irrelevant to his argument. "And in all honesty, I do trust the Spirits. But their loyalty is to their owners, not to me. Leo did not stop to weigh up the risks and rewards before coming here today. He would have told you everything if he could, consequences be damned. He may believe you are trustworthy; I, by contrast, am sure you would tell your whole guild, and then who might they tell? Furthermore, it is not difficult to believe that there are Celestial Spirit mages less scrupulous than yourself who would abuse or torture their Spirits if they had any inkling that they might be concealing knowledge about me."

"Still, if you showed a little more faith in others-"

"Lucy, if Celestial Spirit mages were capable of following simple instructions, you'd have inherited twelve gold keys from your mother, not three."

She stared. "How the hell do you know that? That is none of your business!"

"I know precisely because it is my business. Far more mine, in fact, than yours. Stop asking the Spirits about me. They physically can't tell you anything you don't already know."

"You could tell me," she challenged.

"I could, but I'm not going to."

Firmly, Lucy shook her head. "When it was just some random Celestial Spirit mage who taught you about their magic in the past, it wasn't a big deal. I'd probably have stopped asking once Crux came up with nothing. But this – being in so deep that the Spirits had to be prevented from talking about you – this is in an entirely different league, Zeref."

He just shrugged, utterly uncaring.

Lucy pressed, "What plan was so important that you had to protect it through force?"

It was the first time she had seen him smile throughout their entire conversation, and it dripped with hateful condescension. "Lucy, having seen the lengths to which I have gone to keep this a secret for four hundred years, what on earth makes you think I'm going to share it with you now?"

If he had meant it to be a put-down, it had entirely the opposite effect, as Lucy's ears pricked up immediately. "Four hundred years? You've been planning this for four hundred years and it still hasn't come to fruition? What sort of plan incubates for that long?"

"I'm still not going to tell you, Lucy."

"Then I'll work it out, you wait and see."

His expression did not change – not to anger, to denial, or even, heaven forbid, some kind of respect for her determination. "And so you are determined to ruin everything for the sake of your own curiosity. Do you see now why I did not trust anyone but myself with this?" He got to his feet, but took barely a step towards the door before pausing. "You are fortunate that it no longer matters, Lucy. Otherwise, quest or no quest, I would have to stop you by any means necessary, just as I did them."

"Zeref-"

"I only came back to see if Juvia had woken up yet," he overrode her, silencing her not through volume, but the sheer cold of his tone. "If not, I have no need to be here."

"Wait." The word escaped from her lips before she had thought it through: I still have more questions, that was what she had been about to say, and it was monumentally stupid. So much for feeling bad about pushing him away; here she was, about to do it again. Instead, she ventured, "I… there's something I have to say to you."

"I don't care for it," said he.

"It's not about any of this."

Sighing, with all the frustration of an adult towards a child who had no concept of how badly they misunderstood the situation, he turned back towards her. "Speak, then."

"First, I wanted to thank you for saving Juvia's life. I am grateful, and I won't forget it."

Again that unchanging expression; again as unreadable as a starless night. "I have my own reasons for wanting her alive. There is little point to this quest if every Fairy Tail member we find dies before they can come together again."

But you said yourself that you don't need every single member alive, just a majority, she retorted in her head, although she would have swallowed her keys before provoking him like that out loud. She was trying to build bridges here, not send them up in smoke.

"Okay. Second… I'm sorry about what I said to you in the shop. I was out of line to treat you like that, especially after you told me the truth about your curse, which you weren't obliged to do."

"Oh, I don't care about that."

"I know that what I said was hurtful-"

"It wasn't."

"Yes, it was-"

"I couldn't care less about what you said, Lucy."

But she had hurt him. That was why he had stormed out of the shop; that was why he had got upset in the café back in Marguerite, too; she had said things that were harsh and thoughtless and presumptive, and he was hurt so much by them that thinking about his reaction was hurting her-

And yet if that were true, why did he look so certain; so dismissive?

Well, she never had been good at reading him, and if his emotions were usually written in a language she struggled to understand, then today they were an entirely new alphabet.

"Are you done wasting my time now?"

"One more thing," she replied steadily. Standing up, she set her keys down on the chair and stepped away.

Somewhere out there, beyond the faithfully watertight roof of Juvia's cottage, beyond the last few wisps of cloud, beyond the twinkle and distortion of the atmosphere, the parliament of stars had been called to order, and she could feel a magnetic pull towards the south as they hushed to let the Scorpion take the floor. Every time she did this, it became easier, as if the stellar portal never fully closed for her any more.

A heartbeat later, the keyless transformation was complete. She stood there in her full Scorpio form, the crimson light of Antares pulsing around her, just as it had when she had stared down Bluenote.

Zeref's eyes widened – and that shock, slight though it was, was the most genuine emotion she had seen from him all conversation. She held the transformation, letting its magic blaze through her: the flowing of the earth and the armour of the scorpion and the skills and the combat experience that she had inherited from her patron constellation.

She could tell when Zeref finished processing the gesture of peace, because it was the exact moment a notebook appeared in his hand like an assassin would draw a knife. Just like that, the unfriendly immortal was gone, and the curious mouse was back… or perhaps he could better be described as a hamster, stuffing his cheek-pouches with nuggets of information while the supply was abundant.

"I'll show you it whenever you want – within reason, obviously," Lucy explained. "I believe that your intentions are not malicious. And if you tell me that you have a coping mechanism for dealing with your curse and that you're currently safe to be around, then I'll believe that too, because I trust that you don't want me or my friends to be hurt right now. And… you're not listening to a word I'm saying, are you?"

It took another three seconds before he looked up from his scribbling. "Hmm? Sorry, I wasn't listening."

"I figured," she sighed, and it was surprisingly difficult to make her words come out as exasperated rather than amused. "Maybe now isn't the best time to start your thesis?"

"Oh… I suppose not." Zeref reluctantly closed his notebook and it vanished into his little extradimensional library. "It might be more efficient to run some tests on the road tomorrow."

"Hang on, I didn't sign up for… oh, why not? I'm sure we can fit it into our itinerary." She let her transformation lapse, but a trace of that starlight remained, shining bright in her travelling companion's eyes. She ventured, "So, are we good?"

"I told you, we were never not good," he told her mildly. "Now we're really good."

She wanted to laugh. His mood had flipped so suddenly; it was as if the excitement of a four-hundred-year-old researcher on the verge of a breakthrough had merged with the cheer of a child to create a contagious excitement that no one but him could have pulled off. There was a part of her which was busy registering for posterity its concern with how readily she was prepared to appease the man who had sworn to destroy her guild, but someone had clearly forgotten to wire that part up to her facial muscles, because her elated grin wasn't going anywhere.

"Say," she mentioned, "are you staying here tonight? I'm going to be with Juvia, but there's a spare bedroom you could use – I'm sure Juvia wouldn't mind, after what you did for her."

"No, I'll find somewhere else. I'll see you in the morning."

"If you're sure. Goodnight, Zeref."

He was almost at the door when he paused. So quietly she almost missed it, he murmured, "Anna."

"I'm sorry?"

"Anna," he repeated. "The Celestial Spirit mage I knew." Another moment of indecision, and then: "The first Celestial Spirit mage."

"First?" Lucy echoed. "How can there be a first? The Celestial Spirits have been around since forever!"

"Did they tell you that?" he asked, with the barest hint of a smile. "You should have realized by now that they can't tell you the truth about their origins." Seeing her about to interrupt, he added, "And no, they can't tell you about Anna either, so don't bother asking."

She'd had one question; now she had closer to a thousand, and they burned at the base of her throat. But like him, she knew a peace offering when she saw one, so she fought them back down with a smile. "I understand. Thank you."

"Goodnight, Lucy."

Lucy was still in a good mood when she dozed off at Juvia's bedside. Resolving a conflict – even a non-physical one – felt like a victory, especially when she was used to suffering through the ceaseless conflict that was having Natsu and Gray on the same team. That rivalry was an intractable anomaly, a singularity built into spacetime itself, too alien for any rational human to understand.

Zeref, on the other hand… sometimes she didn't understand him at all, but she felt as though she had made a bit of progress today. She was starting to realize that dealing with him required a slightly different approach to dealing with her other friends. If only she could understand more about what was driving him…

This she thought, curled up in the armchair, while her half-asleep brain plucked audacious ideas from the world of dreams and sent them up for processing, and that was where she was when a groan jolted her back to reality.

In an instant, she was at Juvia's side, clutching her friend's hand tightly. "Juvia, can you hear me? It's me, Lucy!"

"Lucy…?"

Eyelids fluttered, like drapes the breeze was tugging aside to reveal the moonlit ocean beyond. "Juvia!" Lucy exclaimed, aware that she was far too close and far too loud but unable to back down until she knew for sure. "How do you feel?"

"Weak," came the whisper.

"That's okay. You don't need to do anything until you feel stronger. Are you in pain?"

"A little… but it's nothing. Not like earlier. What happened…?"

"A friend of mine healed you while you were unconscious."

"Wendy…?"

"No, it was, uh…" Lucy's mind blanked; she hadn't been expecting to have this discussion so soon. "It was my, uh, Spymaster General. I'll explain later," she added, conceding that Cana's explanation wasn't exactly the most enlightening.

Unsurprisingly, this did not lessen Juvia's confusion. "What are you doing here?"

"I came looking for you. I'm on a quest to reunite Fairy Tail."

Juvia's eyes closed. "Oh."

"You don't want to come back?" Lucy wondered.

"No, Juvia understands, now. Juvia is delirious. Or perhaps this is her final dream, before she fades away for good."

"No, it's real! I'm here, and I've already spoken to Wendy and Carla and Cana, and we're all meeting in Magnolia on the First of September! This is happening, I swear it!"

Her vow resonated in the silence; a defiance that refused to fade. A single tear rolled down the water mage's cheek, a crystallized wish, and hope: "Then… Juvia can finally come home?"

"Yes- oh, Juvia!" Heedless to the tears and sweat and pain, Lucy hugged her friend tight enough to convey ten months of empathy and three days of wishing she had started this so much sooner, and she cried and held her close even as Juvia's breathing eased and she slipped back into unconsciousness.

The second time Juvia awoke, she was already looking much better. Lucy helped her sit up in bed, and, with the exhaustion of her own travel forgotten, she listened as Juvia told her story.

After the battle with Tartaros, Lucy learned, Gray had never intended to return to Fairy Tail, just like Natsu hadn't. He set out on his own, and Juvia had gone with him. They travelled for a while, picking up work as independent mages in the towns they passed through, until they came across Helvola Village. Gray had been looking for isolation, and Helvola offered it. They settled down here and spent their days in peace, training together and living off the money they made doing odd jobs for the villagers.

But, so Juvia recounted with sorrow, the isolation Gray wanted did not seem to be helping him. He grew increasingly distant, sleeping and eating on his own at unusual hours, and abandoning day-to-day tasks and mage jobs in favour of pouring over old books and chasing down rumours of strange magic. Until, at last, one day…

"Until what?" Lucy demanded.

Juvia's eyes widened dramatically. "Gray stopped stripping in front of Juvia!"

"…Seriously?" Lucy sighed.

"But that's not like Gray!" Juvia insisted. "Juvia's dear Gray has never been modest, and he has nothing to hide from Juvia. He started sleeping on the sofa, away from Juvia, and Juvia wasn't sure if she'd done something to upset him, but even if she had, that wouldn't have made him stop stripping. Something was most certainly wrong."

"Juvia," Lucy sighed again.

"But Juvia was right to be worried about the stripping!" her friend defended. "Because shortly after it stopped, Gray vanished!"

"What do you mean, vanished? How long ago was this?"

"Nearly six months ago. He didn't even say goodbye. Juvia woke up and he was gone. No one in the nearby villages had seen him. Juvia filed a missing persons report, but never heard anything back. So Juvia went back to Magnolia, to try and find out if anyone had heard anything… that was when she learnt that Fairy Tail had been disbanded."

Juvia sniffed, and continued in a whisper. "Juvia knows that she had no right to be upset, when she was also guilty of leaving Fairy Tail without a word, but… but Juvia cried anyway. Gray had disappeared, and now her home had disappeared too."

"So you came back to Helvola Village?"

"Juvia had nowhere else to go. At least she had work in Helvola… but it wasn't the same without Gray. The isolation had been for him, to help him heal after losing his father. Juvia didn't want to be alone. She wanted her guild back. Do you think, if she hadn't run off without warning – if she'd stayed – if she'd tried to get Gray to stay too, rather than jumping at the chance to spend time alone with him – then, Fairy Tail might not have fallen apart…?"

Lucy shook her head vehemently. "No. Fairy Tail was… it's complicated, and I don't know the whole story, but the reasons for its disbandment were far greater than anything any one of us did. I think that letting Gray go off on his own in that state would have been far worse."

"But that's what Juvia did, in the end," came the miserable concession. "She never found out what was wrong with him. She could only watch as he got worse and worse, and then he was gone…"

"We'll find him," Lucy promised, making a mental note to obtain Gray's location from Zeref at the next available opportunity. "He'll be fine, I'm sure. But, Juvia – what happened to you? You were dying when we found you. I wouldn't have thought there'd be such dangerous jobs in a tiny place like this."

"There aren't, normally… but last night an Emergency Request was sent to all the guilds and independent mages in the vicinity. Juvia knew Lamia Scale would have got the request too, but she went along anyway, to see if she could help… only, no Lamia Scale mages turned up. There was only Juvia. The whole town was under attack, and she did the best she could, but the enemy leader did this to her… and Juvia doesn't remember anything else. Juvia must have made it back home, but if you hadn't found her…"

"I'm glad we came by when we did," Lucy said, and even though she truly meant it, she knew she sounded distant, because something else had caught her attention – something she didn't like at all. "Juvia, Lamia Scale was attacked last night. Their guildhall was destroyed – if the Emergency Request had been sent there during the parade, no one would have picked it up. And…"

A growing certainty; a dark and uncomfortable warmth; a truth that Lucy did not want to know any more than she could stop herself from reaching for it. "All the Lamia Scale mages who were out on jobs, or had been in other towns to avoid the Day of Thanksgiving, were called back by Lyon to increase security in the wake of the recent attacks. That's why you were the only one who accepted the mission."

It was clear from a single shared glance that they were both thinking the exact same thing: that was one hell of a coincidence.

"What was the job about?" Lucy inquired.

"Juvia doesn't know much… by the time she arrived, the chaos had already begun. The town was under attack by mages – they had a guild emblem, but Juvia didn't recognize it, so maybe they were a dark guild. They were led by a woman whose magic could cut straight through Juvia's water body, and then… Juvia was defeated. She never found out what they were after. She failed completely…"

"Don't say that!" Lucy squeezed her friend's hand tightly. "You went to help when no one else did. That's what matters."

"Lucy, would you go back to Alchemilla Town in Juvia's place, and see if there's any way of helping them?"

"Of course I- wait, Alchemilla Town?"

"Yes," Juvia confirmed, puzzled by Lucy's reaction. "That's where the Emergency Request was from. Why? Have you been there before?"

"No… I don't know anything about it, actually, but I'm sure I've heard the name somewhere recently. Perhaps-" She cut herself off before she could say perhaps Zeref mentioned it. She'd ask him about it at the next chance she got… and then she almost laughed. First Gray's location, now the mystery surrounding Alchemilla Town – when had her first response to a puzzle become to ask Zeref's opinion? Was this what it felt like to have responsible teammates?

"Will you go, Lucy?" Juvia was asking anxiously. "It's not far from here, and after yesterday's destruction, they might really need help-"

"Of course I'll-" she started without thinking.

Then she thought about it. She was, technically, already on a job, and her current employer probably wasn't going to like the idea of a detour, let alone an altruistic one.

Well, he'd just have to deal with it, wouldn't he?

"Yeah, I'll go to Alchemilla Town. I promise."

In another guild, in another city, Sting Eucliffe was feeling rather peckish.

That wasn't the sort of statement one would expect to find on a CV, yet at that moment, Sting would have been inordinately proud to describe himself thusly to everyone he met.

Sadly, and not unlike the more common CV culprits, it was something of a twisted truth.

Sting was, in fact, ravenous.

His was the epitome of hungers; the imperfection of human existence crystallized into physical pain; a yearning so deep it swallowed the memories of all the times he had taken being full for granted and left him with nothing but yawning emptiness within. It was ceaseless, it was unappeasable, and it gobbled up all other thoughts until that insatiate desire was all that remained in his mind.

If his hunger had physical form, it would have been the universe-consuming god-beast that liked to start the day with a sprinkling of Acnologias on top of its scrambled eggs.

(Sting had discovered that a poetic mindset was one of the few good things to come out of the delirium that followed not eating for four days straight.)

He had been going strong until dinnertime on the first day. He hadn't thought there were any disadvantages to recruiting an ex-Fairy Tail mage who also happened to be an excellent chef, but that was before this had turned serious. After a loud and acrimonious 'strategy meeting' between Sabertooth's Master and the guild's new head of catering, Sting had declared that anyone caught with food in the guildhall would face immediate expulsion, and then proceeded to lock himself in his office for the duration of his fast, away from all temptations.

By the end of the second day, he had had to remove Lector, who had previously been keeping him company, from the office, after the Exceed had spontaneously transformed into a turkey leg. Despite Lector's insistence that he hadn't secretly been practising transformation magic – and that Sabertooth's Princess definitely hadn't put him up to this – Sting had put his foot down. Lector had had to go.

He had spent most of the third day disassembling his Master's desk and using it to board up the windows, because by then, the watery sunlight had started to look real tasty to a White Dragon Slayer. (This move had the added advantage of removing from his sight the ginormous rack of ribs into which some cruel illusionist had transformed his desk.)

Anyone else might have used this self-imposed isolation to get some paperwork done, but even paper was starting to seem like a healthy plant-based snack, so that had been quickly stuffed between the cracks of the boarded-up window. It had already been screwed up in balls all over the floor, anyway.

There had been a particularly bad moment that morning when he had woken up convinced that his own sleep-numbed hand was a live rat – and that live rats made for a delicious and nutritious breakfast. Still, he was optimistic that the bite-marks would fade before anyone noticed them, and the rest of the fourth day dissolved into what he insisted was a period of meditation, but any concerned psychotherapist would have labelled a bizarre hallucination: an augmented reality of parading hamburgers, cabaret potatoes, and a gnawing void where his stomach used to be, slowly draining his store of energy and replacing it with anguish and torment.

But if anyone asked, the line Sting was sticking with was rather peckish.

He thought the touch of wry humour made him sound admirably stoic.

Everyone had stopped asking long before the end of the fourth day, however. Once they saw that their cowardly attempts to talk him out of his training were no match for his determination, they gave up, resigned to their inevitable defeat.

Minerva had tried to convince him that he was wasting his time: the gulf between her skill level and his could not be bridged by cheap tricks, and he ought to give up now. The fear in her voice would have made a tasty snack, were he the Fear Dragon Slayer.

Rogue had argued that human bodies didn't work that way, and starving himself now would only make it harder for his stomach to accept food later. But everyone knew that Rogue had a thing for the Princess, and he was clearly trying to sabotage Sting's master plan with his so-called science.

Yukino had sat outside his office door for the longest, trying to talk him out of it. It was only a competition, she said. It wasn't worth risking his health for. He was pushing himself far too hard, and she was worried about him.

Ha. Weaklings.

He'd show them.

He'd show them all.

…

The consensus amongst the mages of Sabertooth was that their Master was taking the Tora Tora Tora Eating Contest a bit too seriously.

It was (probably) sunset on the fourth day of Sting's self-induced fast. The competition began at noon tomorrow. If he could just manage another half a day without eating, he'd have a huge advantage when it came to starting stomach capacity over those who'd been eating regular meals. The cavalier attitude of his competitors didn't stand a chance against the preparedness and the resilience of the mighty White Dragon Slayer.

It seemed that they hadn't given up their attempts to sabotage his master strategy, however, because just as he was slipping back into a haze of delirium – sorry, meditation – there came a knock at his office door.

"Go away!" he shouted. "I'm in the zone, here!"

"Master!" Even the usually quiet Yukino was shouting to reach him through the bolted door. "We need you out here! There's a situation!"

"Get the Princess to handle it! Have her appease all the concerned parties with pancakes, or something! Yes, a pancake-based solution should do the trick. Make sure the Princess eats the pancakes. That will fill her up. Hehehe…"

"Master!" wailed Yukino.

Sting folded his arms and smirked up at the doughnuts floating like UFOs across the ceiling. This year, Minerva was going down.

A high-pitched "Eep!" from the other side of the door was the only warning Sting got before said other side was now his side, thanks to Minerva's magic switching his and Yukino's locations. The windows in the guildhall weren't boarded up like the ones in his office, and the light of the sunset hit him like watered-down pumpkin soup: unexpected and totally gross, yet accompanied by the inexplicable desire to drink it all up. He clapped his hands to his eyes and whimpered in a very un-dragon-like manner.

"Get it together," said an unimpressed Rogue, as Sting swayed weakly and leaned against the door. "Are you our Master, or not?"

"Right, yes… sorry," Sting muttered, doing his utmost to banish his hunger. Typical that an incident would arise now, in the critical last few hours of his master plan. "What's the problem?"

"See for yourself."

Rogue pointed towards a dispute at the guild's Request Board. It wasn't unusual for debates – even arguments – to take place over the best jobs, even in a guild more sensible than Fairy Tail and less zombified than hungover Lamia Scale. It was, however, very unusual for arguments over jobs to take place between guilds… and yet Sting would recognize that sakura hair and white-scaled scarf anywhere, even if the overwhelming smell of barbecues and pit roasts and luau time hadn't already given it away.

Natsu was holding a job request in one hand and a fistful of flames in the other as he stared down Rufus and Orga, both of whom looked as perplexed as Sting felt.

"You can't just waltz in here and steal our jobs, Natsu," Orga was saying, as Sting approached. "If you wanted to join us that would be another matter, but you can't accept a Sabertooth job when you're not affiliated with the guild! It's against the Council's rules!"

"It ain't about the law, or about the money!" Natsu retorted. "Your guild can claim the reward once it's done, I don't care! But I have to take this job!"

"Hey, Natsu!" Sting cut in, as jovially as his clawing stomach would let him. "You here for a rematch? Or are you looking for-?" He glanced over to the guildhall's kitchen, only to remember that he had dismissed the catering staff days ago.

Natsu interrupted in a tone icier than Sting had ever heard from the Fire Dragon Slayer. "I'm looking for Lucy. Have you seen her?"

"Not recently. Isn't she working at the Weekly Sorcerer now?"

"She's been kidnapped!"

Sting blinked. "Okay, sure, we'll help you look for her, but what does that have to do with you stealing jobs from my guild?"

"If I find Zeref, I find Lucy. And look at this." He flashed the job request towards Sting, who didn't recognize it; it must have come in during his period of isolation. "A black magic cult. Zeref's followers. They'll lead me straight to him! So, I'm sorry, but I have to take this job!"

Ten months apart from his guild hadn't lessened Natsu's defiance any more than ten months of trying to be a good Master had enabled Sting to fully grow out of the awe he felt towards his one-time idol. But it wasn't just that which swayed Sting's judgement. It was the sliver of panic at the heart of the Fairy Tail mage's determination; it was the lack of any greetings to his friends in Sabertooth at their inauspicious reunion; it was the way Happy stood grim-faced by his partner's ankles, oblivious to Lector's excited waving.

"Sure, you can take the job," Sting said. A rush of surprise ran around the Sabertooth mages, but he pretended he hadn't noticed.

A tiny candle-flame's worth of warmth flickered in the Fire Dragon Slayer's eyes, battered by the winds of desperation but not extinguished, not yet. And if Sting knew Natsu, there was no earthly force that ever could extinguish it. "Thanks, Sting."

"No problem. Natsu – if Lucy really is in danger, do you want some help? I'm probably about to pass out from hunger, and the Princess has just locked Yukino in my office, but I'm sure Rogue and Frosch will go with you-"

"No. This is between me and Zeref. Happy!"

"Aye!"

The Exceed leapt into action, and he and Natsu were in the air before they'd even made it out of the guildhall. The doors swung back and forth behind them.

"…I have no idea what that was about," Sting stated. "Think he's okay?"

Orga grumbled, "All I know is that you just gave away the highest-paying job our guild has received in weeks…"

"That's a shame," Minerva spoke up. "Master, perhaps I could make it up to you with some commiseration pancakes…?"

Sting had his face buried in the stack of pancakes she was holding out before he realized what was going on. With syrup splattered across his cheeks and his nostrils drowning in the smell of pure delight, he slowly looked up from food heaven into the eyes of the devil herself.

"You're pure evil," he groaned. "Attacking in my moment of weakness… I knew I shouldn't have left my office."

Minerva grinned. "I'm sorry; who did you say was going down this year?"

A/N: Random facts no one asked for: Helvola Village is named after the 'pygmaea helvola', a water lily, which seemed appropriate. Alchemilla Town is named after the 'Alchemilla mollis', or 'lady's mantle', because I googled an alphabetical list of flowers and got as far as al- before I found one that I liked. Well, they can't all be deeply symbolic.

While I'm here, I wanted to say a massive thank you for all the deep, insightful, and encouraging reviews you guys left last week. In particular, to the two guest reviewers who spent a lot of time with Zeref's character and went through commenting on every chapter respectively, I can't reply to you in person but I really do appreciate it! Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter, as the world of the story gets a little bit wider. The first arc, despite having quite a few characters in, was still very focussed on what Lucy was doing and the people she was interacting with. The second arc, which opens things up a bit more, as you will have seen, is much more representative of what the story will be like going forward. ~CS