The Scars That Make You Whole
By CrimsonStarbird
The Breakfast of Chaos
The next morning of Lucy and Zeref's quest didn't get off to the best start. It wasn't caused so much by the fact that Zeref looked as though a single night's sleep had worn him out more than several days of travelling, but by the fact that Lucy hadn't been able to stop herself from blurting out as a result, "Are you alright?"
He obviously wasn't alright. Never mind the dead leaves in his hair or the slight stumbling in a gait usually so controlled as he came up to meet her – that darkness in his eyes wasn't the side-effect of some latent magical aura, but the shade of true exhaustion she had seen often on her father's face in the weeks after her mother had passed away.
He shot her a thoroughly frustrated look, one that did not belong on such a youthful face. "Oh, don't you start. I got enough of that last night. I've been looking after myself just fine for four hundred years; I do not need your input."
"I don't think that's true at all," she retorted, with a vivid flash of understanding, a live circuit connecting. "I think your body is immortal, so you've been abusing it for four hundred years, and you don't even know what it means to look after yourself."
His eyes narrowed. "I don't believe that's any of your concern."
Lucy persisted, "I know you didn't want to come near Sabertooth last night, but there were plenty of independent hotels in the city where you could have stayed…"
"It's better if I'm outside. Less chance of casualties if I lose control."
That caught her attention. "Are you having trouble with your curse?" He said nothing, so she tried, "Is… is there anything I can do to help?"
"Yes, you can stop making me think about it more than you already do," he snapped back.
She glanced away. She wanted to be angry, she really did. There was no need for him to be so hostile when she was only trying to help. But she watched him as he silently combed the leaves from his hair with his fingers, a silence that was defensive rather than mean, and she knew that she had overstepped some peculiar boundary, and that continuing to push at it further wasn't the way to reach him.
After a moment, she ventured, "Zeref?"
"What?"
"Want to pretend this conversation never happened and go get some food?"
"…I suppose."
They didn't speak to each other as they walked, but she could feel the tension lifting with every wordless step. There wasn't anything she could do about what was bothering him if he didn't let her in, but learning how to deal with his moods seemed to be a good first step, and they went in search of breakfast in slightly higher spirits.
Yukino had recommended the diner. Situated on the outskirts of Jasmine, it was supposedly a favourite with Sabertooth mages on their way back from dangerous missions; the kind of place that looked like heaven after a long day on the road. It was where Elfman had done a month-long placement to learn how to deep fat fry – sorry, to learn how to manage the pace of a professional kitchen – and where he still occasionally worked weekends, when trade at the guildhall was slow.
There was no better word to describe it than garish: walls plastered with old road signs in red, amber and green, a superfluity of neon; large tables gilded with polished steel, and larger spaces of pastel-coloured floor tiling between them; the spit and sizzle of oil rising from the far side of the counter, drowning out the forced cheeriness of the morning radio. Above it, in an explosion of primary colours, an illuminated menu offered thirty different ways to have a heart attack before noon, all of which were served with what the diner (and Yukino) assured her were the best hash browns in Fiore.
How much of this was hyperbole, Lucy would never know. She sat nursing a bowl of soggy cornflakes as she tried not to look too enviously at Zeref's stack of waffles, syrup, ice cream, and crispy bacon. (She didn't think she had ever regretted anything as much as telling him, when he'd ordered, that it was ridiculous to eat ice cream for breakfast. Now it meant she couldn't ask him to share.)
"Is something wrong, Lucy?" he asked, a happy glint in his eyes. "I can't help but notice that you've only ordered one breakfast today."
She treated him to her best glower. Cheering him up was all well and good, though it would be nice if she could manage it, just once, not at her own expense. "I felt a bit bad that I was making you pay for everything, that's all." And then, because admitting it had left her feeling more embarrassed than she'd anticipated, she added, "Besides, at least this way I'm prepared in case I get drafted into another eating contest."
"I wish I could assure you that that's unlikely to happen again, but with the way this quest of ours is going, I don't think I'm prepared to rule anything out," he agreed. "There's no need to worry about the cost of the trip, though. Not even you can eat enough to put a dent in my personal finances."
"I'm going to ignore the insinuation there," she scowled, stabbing her spoon into the bowl with more force than the poor cereal deserved. "How do you even have so much money?"
Zeref shrugged. "I made a sound investment a great many years ago which continues to pay off to this day."
"What kind of investment?" she pressed, intrigued, thinking about the swift rise and swifter fall of her father's own business empire. Leaving that life was the best decision she had ever made, but just because she was a guild mage through and through didn't stop her from secretly longing for financial stability. "Land? Business? Gold? Technology?"
He considered this. "All of the above, really. Besides, even without the minor misappropriation of treasury funds that certain people would consider my financing of this trip to be, I do have other sources of income: book royalties under my false identities, patents on some magical items, taxation, alchemy… you get the idea."
"One of those things is not like the others," Lucy pointed out, eyebrows raised.
"Correct," he beamed. "I lied about the alchemy. It's impossible to transmute anything permanently into gold, and besides, the banks have ways of detecting magic like that."
"…You're messing with me again, aren't you?"
"Your observational skills are as sharp as ever, Lucy."
"Well, at least one of us is having fun on this quest," she grumbled.
"You'd be having more fun if you ordered proper food," he advised her sagely. "See, he has the right idea."
He nodded over her shoulder, and she turned to look. There were a handful of patrons in the diner, but the interior was so large that it felt empty. Zeref had once again chosen the table in the far corner, and he was sat up against the wall, leaving her with her back to the room.
The man Zeref had indicated was sat in the opposite corner. Well, she assumed it was a man – anything from a large Exceed to a small dragon could have been hiding behind that newspaper. A sheathed blade sat casually on his table between a steaming coffee mug and a plate piled high with nothing but hash browns. As she watched, a disappointingly human hand snaked out from behind the broadsheet, groped for a hash brown, and disappeared back into the world of current affairs with its prize.
"That's not what I'd call a balanced diet," she sighed.
"Lucy," Zeref continued, no change in his tone, no change in his expression, "do you sense any magic from that man?"
She blinked in surprise. "No, why?"
He ignored the question. "What does that tell you about him?"
"That he's not a mage…?"
"Do you sense any magic from me?"
"Hardly ever."
"Would you like to revise your answer to the previous question?"
"…Are you telling me that he's a really powerful mage, trying to pretend that he isn't?" Lucy's voice had dropped automatically to a whisper, given the sudden clandestine turn in the conversation, although her incredulity made it fall a little short of true secret agent material.
Zeref shrugged. "Either that, or he has no magic whatsoever."
"…Well this has been about the least useful conversation I've ever had, thanks for that."
"I can't tell which it is," he observed, as if she hadn't spoken. "I've never not been able to tell before. I don't like it. Still… I don't think he's here for us."
"Then who is he here for?"
"The best hash browns in Fiore, perhaps?" Zeref's serious demeanour faded as he picked up his cutlery once again. It might have been an intentional shift in his behaviour, but then again, it might have been the simple fact that no one could look like a strategic genius while eating waffles and ice cream. "Coincidences do happen. Either way, if we're not his concern, he's not ours. Far more important is reuniting Fairy Tail…"
It took Lucy a lot longer to relax than it did her companion. She hadn't even considered the possibility of there being danger in the diner until he'd pointed it out, and now the fact that she had her back to the room – and to the man with no magical presence – was beginning to put her on edge.
Still, she tried to focus on the task at hand as Zeref recounted what he had learnt from his mysterious contacts overnight. It was the closest thing they were going to get to proof for their theory: it seemed the attack on Marguerite had been to distract Lamia Scale from the attack on Alchemilla Town, but that the military outpost at Alchemilla had received warning from their colleagues and removed the dark mages' target from the town ahead of time. Unfortunately, she agreed with Zeref's assessment that it offered them no insight into what that target was.
She was dismayed to learn that Gray's situation was no clearer either, but it seemed his tracks had been covered too well. It wasn't only Gray that she had asked Zeref to investigate, though, and when he lapsed into silence, she pressed, "And what about Natsu?"
"Oh… I don't know where he is."
"…You didn't look, did you?"
"Lucy, a few days ago you were perfectly happy to stay away from Natsu. Why are you so desperate to see him now?"
"I'm not desperate," she scowled. "I just… I don't like that he's worried about me. Look, we argued, and then I was mad at him, and then I got over it. It's not like I want to invite him on the quest or anything. I just want to make sure that he's not in any danger because of me… and maybe apologize for throwing a table at him…"
"You threw a table at him?" Zeref sounded quite taken aback by this piece of information. "Why on earth did you do that?"
"None of your business."
Zeref leaned forwards, eyes sparkling like nebulae in the diner's garish light. "No, come on, I want to hear about this! You can't drop something like that into a conversation and then just leave it!"
"Tell you what," Lucy said idly. "I'll tell you exactly what happened between me and Natsu that night, if you tell me something about yourself in return."
"Suddenly, I find that such juvenile gossip is beneath me."
"Fancy that."
"We're still going to Blue Pegasus, though," he added hurriedly, and Lucy nodded, because she didn't have a good reason to turn him down. "Today, we're finally going to get there for sure."
"Don't jinx it," she grinned.
He opened his mouth, but before he could say something clever, his black gaze suddenly flicked over her shoulder once again. It was all she could do not to whip around and look herself. "Ah. This could be trouble. Tell you what, Lucy – if you field this situation for me, I'll buy you as many breakfasts as you want."
"I resent the implication that I'm a woman who can be bought with food."
Raising his eyebrows, he pointed out, "Given that you're going to be fielding this situation for me whether you like it or not, I figured I was doing you a favour by offering you something in return…"
"Wait, no, I'll take the food-"
His smirk seemed to hang in the air long after he'd vanished, a memento she desperately wanted to forget. There was a sudden warmth at her side – her keys were vibrating in response to his magic, just like they had when he'd stopped time. At least teleportation was over instantaneously, and they were already beginning to cool. Both his temporal and spatial magic seemed to set them off, but only his, and no other kind of magic that he used seemed to trigger a reaction at all.
She cursed his name under her breath, not sure whether she was hoping to banish him forever by it, or summon him back. After a sneaky glance around, she slipped round the table and into the seat he had vacated – a move which was definitely to give herself full view of the diner and not to let her surreptitiously help herself to one of his uneaten waffles. She wasn't that desperate. Yet.
Her gaze ran across the rest of the diner. There was nothing to explain why she'd been abandoned. Even the hash-brown-munching newspaper continued to peruse the politics section in peace. Two new guests had entered the diner, but it wasn't as if they were slinging magic around or threatening their fellow patrons. No, they were gazing up at the neon-bright menus with the same dubious 'how many calories?' expression Lucy imagined was the equivalent of a hello for first-time diners.
That could've – would've – should've been the end of it, right up until she looked closer, and found that she recognized the pair.
Unfortunately, it wasn't with the same unexpected delight with which she had recognized Elfman.
Neither of the newcomers looked as though they were supposed to be here. The woman appeared to have dressed for a beach rather than a diner, wearing a scant bikini made out to look like feathers, the same pure white as her glossy hair. On her stomach, she openly displayed a guild mark that it would have been far more sensible to hide. A shawl of faux fur was draped around her shoulders, though it didn't add much in the way of sophistication to her audacious appearance.
Indeed, her shawl seemed little more than a nod towards contemporary fashion, for fur was clearly the in-thing for rogue mages. Her companion, a black-haired man with a thin braid of white, had his hands thrust deep into the pockets of a long coat, the edges of which were lined with luxurious black and white fur. His eyes, a vivid red, might have been unsettling if not for the fact that his eyelids were constantly drooping in exhaustion. If the woman had dressed expecting to find a beach in the landlocked city of Jasmine, then the man hadn't been expecting to be dragged out of bed that morning at all.
Strictly speaking, neither of them should have been hanging around in a diner at any time of day, because they were the escaped convicts and former dark mages Lucy knew by the codenames Angel and Midnight.
I don't want anything to do with this, Lucy thought glumly, shrinking down behind her stack of appropriated waffles.
"Is this really the right place?" Angel demanded, as she surveyed the restaurant with a disdain honed through seven years of practice at the prison canteen.
"S'what Erik said," mumbled the other.
"Ugh, who on earth thought that migraine-colour was a good shade for the walls? Oh, hello – see up there? Best hash browns in Fiore. This is the right place!"
Midnight gave her a bored look. "Tell me, am I witnessing the same subtle observational skills that got you kicked out of Alvarez?"
"Oh, shush." Striding forwards, she slammed her hands down on the counter and proclaimed, "Fifteen hash browns to go, and make it quick. We have places to be."
"Fifteen?" Midnight echoed.
"You're right – that's not even two each. Best make it thirty."
"S-sure," nodded the waitress, throwing a nervous glance at the pair before hurrying off into the depths of the kitchen.
Angel plopped down onto a puffy stool to wait.
Her companion remained standing, a silent protest against anything that might have given the impression that he wanted to be here. "Couldn't we just have got him a cake, like normal people?" he complained.
"Sure, but what does Richard like even more than cake? Potatoes! Best hash browns in all Fiore… trust me, he is going to love these."
"What, are you going to stick candles in them?"
"Now there's an idea," Angel agreed, neatly ducking the sarcasm. "This is going to be his best birthday ever."
"Assuming there'll be time for him to squeeze in his present-opening between having to spring us from prison after we inevitably get caught, and Jellal yelling at us for sneaking off without permission again."
Angel waved her hand loftily. "Jellal's a big softie. He'll let us off if we tell him why."
"He won't if we cause a scene. Which is far more likely, by the way, when you walk around dressed like that. Are you trying to get yourself noticed?"
"Well, I have been hoping to get my wanted poster updated for a while… oh, don't make that face. Of course I'm not trying to be noticed, but on the off chance that we run into any photographers, I wanted to make sure I looked, you know…"
"Like you can't read a map?" Midnight guessed, indicating the bikini.
"Hmpf. You're so negative. Next time, I'm bringing Erik with me."
He covered a yawn with the back of his hand. "Please do."
Angel harrumphed again and leaned up against the counter, peering between the steam-choked rows of stoves in the hope of determining the status of her hash browns. "How long does it take to make these things? We should be out of here before anyone identifies us, right?"
"I think we're already too late for that," Midnight sighed, jerking his head towards Lucy.
Lucy cursed her own fatal curiosity. Why, oh why, had she not slipped out through the fire exit the moment she had seen them?
"Oh…?" A sly smile crossed Angel's face as she recognized the poor spectator trying and failing to hide in the corner. She sauntered over, perching on the edge of her table and leaning forwards. "If it isn't Lucy Heartfilia. Fancy seeing you here."
Lucy managed a strangled smile. "Hello, Angel. Hello, Midnight."
"Oh, we don't use those fake names any more," she said, with a dismissive wave. "Starting over, new people, and all that."
"Jellal refused to use them until she finally caved to his stubbornness," her companion explained to Lucy, earning himself a haughty glare.
"Anyway, you can call me Sorano. He's Macbeth."
"Sorano… Agria?" Lucy frowned, repeating the name she had learned from Crux.
"How'd you know that?"
"You're Yukino's sister?"
"You know Yukino?"
"Yeah, she's at Sabertooth, she's my friend… we held a Celestial Spirit training session just last night, actually. I taught her to use Star Dress…"
Lucy tailed off, confused by the expression so out of place on the face of the woman she had once defeated in a guild war, and not thought of since, except as an escaped convict she had hoped Jellal was keeping a closer watch on than he clearly was.
Midnight – no, Macbeth – nudged his guildmate. Intrigue, apparently, made being awake this early in the morning worth it. "I didn't know you had a sister."
"I don't," Sorano responded haughtily, folding her arms and taking a sudden masochistic interest in the psychedelic décor.
"…Right," said Lucy. "Did you want to go and see her, while you're in town? I'll come with you, if you want…"
Firmer, Sorano insisted, "I don't have a sister. Or… well, maybe it's more that Yukino shouldn't have a sister who's a criminal…"
After a moment, Lucy smiled. "If you say so. You've grown up a lot since the last time we met, An- Sorano."
"Hmpf! I don't want to hear that from someone who hasn't grown at all! I saw your modelling shoots," she dropped in smugly, and Lucy winced; no one bats an eyelid at award-winning journalism, but do one little pin-up photoshoot and suddenly everyone's a connoisseur…
"Heard your precious guild had disbanded too," Sorano added happily. "That must suck for you."
"Oh, I'm on a quest to get it back together, so it's only a matter of time before Fairy Tail is back in action," Lucy retorted easily. "I heard you're working for Jellal, now."
The slight pink tinge upon the former dark mage's cheeks took exception to that phrasing. "I'm not working for him. I just happen to be in Crime Sorcière with him, that's all."
"Uh-huh," said Lucy and Macbeth simultaneously.
"I've done other work too! I even went undercover for Mest in Alvarez! You know, big important spy stuff for the Magic Council – for the whole kingdom!"
"For about a day, before you were caught snooping around the palace and got thrown out of the country," Macbeth yawned.
"Oh, like you'd have done any better!"
"I'd have started by putting on some less noticeable clothes-"
"Excuse me," a voice interrupted, and Lucy was astonished to find that it wasn't her own.
"About time!" Sorano exclaimed, whirling round to confront the newcomer. "How long does it take to fry some potatoes-?"
"Oh, no, I don't work here," the newcomer corrected smoothly.
"Then… what do you want?"
There was a sudden, guarded note in Sorano's voice, mirroring the anxious feeling welling up in Lucy's stomach like water in a muddy footprint. However, where Sorano's suspicion came from years of living outside the law as a dark mage followed by ten months of living between the cracks of it as an independent mage, Lucy's was far more concrete. A single glance confirmed it: the table in the opposite corner, the one whose mysterious occupant the Black Mage himself had drawn her attention to, was empty. The newspaper had been neatly folded; one lone hash brown remained on the plate. The sheathed blade had disappeared entirely – for it was in the hand of the newcomer.
He held it by his side, still sheathed, as another man might have carried a bag of shopping. His demeanour was far more relaxed than would have been expected from a man who took his sword out for breakfast. Beneath shaggy hair that might have been considered blonde in other contexts but appeared dull next to Sorano's startling white and Lucy's summer gold, his serious eyes gave very little away. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone, where faint lines like veins of white rock hinted at a chest covered in old scars, par for the course for a swordsman. Then there were faded jeans, and below that, old, soft brown shoes – comfortable clothes that did not scream the word knight, but which any experienced mage knew would only aid mobility in combat.
There was nothing overtly hostile about him, and Lucy didn't know if she was only sensing danger because Zeref had mentioned it, but she didn't like this at all. She got to her feet and moved to stand between Sorano and Macbeth.
"My name is Jerome, and I couldn't help but overhear you when you mentioned that guild, Crime Sorcière," the swordsman began. "The thing is… I've been looking for that guild for quite some time."
"What business do you have with us?" Sorano shot back, with all the tact Lucy would have expected from someone with the mark of their illegal guild on full display.
"It's really a matter for the Guild Master. Jellal Fernandes, isn't it? I would be very grateful if you could take me to him."
Sorano's bottom lip jutted out in a pout that would have made Zeref proud. "We don't really have a Guild Master, as such. We're all equals."
Sighing, Macbeth corrected, "We definitely do have a Guild Master, and you're the only one who ever pretends otherwise."
"Well, it's irrelevant anyway. We don't take jobs from the public, and Jellal will tell you the same thing."
A faint smile. "He'll want to take this one. It concerns a certain black magic cult, you see."
Sorano stood her ground. "Whatever you have to say to him, you can say to us, right here and now."
"It's hardly a discussion for such a public venue. Besides, I'd have thought that three less-than-upstanding mages such as yourselves would have been eager to move this meeting to the privacy of your hideout."
Lucy hurriedly raised her hands. "I'm not actually with them. Just saying."
"Ah, my apologies. In that case, you're free to go."
"Hey, whose side are you on?" Sorano glared at Lucy, who was too taken aback by the implication that Sorano had ever considered them to be on the same side to do as the stranger had suggested. This seemed to pacify Sorano a little, and she turned her glare back to Jerome instead. "And what's that comment supposed to mean, exactly?"
Jerome smiled. "Only that your hash browns seem to be taking an awfully long time."
What crossed Lucy's mind in that moment wasn't panic or distress, but resignation.
Here we go again.
That was when she realized that the diner was oddly quiet; that the other patrons had dispersed while she had been preoccupied with Sorano and Macbeth; that the waiting staff had slipped out the back after recognizing two of the kingdom's most wanted out on a well-intentioned but ill-advised shopping trip.
That was when she understood that she should never have let her guard down – not even for breakfast.
That was when the voice of a megaphone blasted its way into the deserted diner: "MAGES OF THE ILLEGAL GUILD CRIME SORCIÈRE! COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!"
"I'm so glad you dragged me out of bed for this," Macbeth told Sorano.
"Shush, you."
"THE BUILDING IS SURROUNDED. I REPEAT, THE BUILDING IS SURROUNDED. SIGNAL YOUR SURRENDER OR WE WILL OPEN FIRE!"
"Hang on, I'm still in here; I'm an innocent bystander!" Lucy squeaked.
"Guilty by association; you're one of us now," Sorano smirked. To Macbeth, she prompted, "Well, I'm not hanging around in this dump. Hurry up and make us a path out of here."
"Alright, alright," he muttered.
The unlikely trio hadn't even started to move towards the back of the diner when a figure stepped into their path. "Oh, I don't think so," the swordsman said.
And with a smooth flick of his thumb, he nudged the hilt of his sword half a millimetre out of its sheath.
Magic distorted the silent air with its weight, but it wasn't his. Sorano and Macbeth were preparing to fight their way out, perhaps even hoping that a show of strength would intimidate their opponent into backing down. Jerome gave no indication that he'd even noticed it. But that awful, inexplicable feeling quadrupled, and if there was only one thing in the world that Lucy knew for sure about this situation, it was that she'd rather face the entire army of Rune Knights than this one swordsman.
"THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING, CRIMINALS!" the megaphone threatened.
In that moment, before the three-way standoff could dissolve into sheer chaos, Lucy seized Sorano's wrist. "Turn yourselves in."
"…Excuse me?"
"Go outside and surrender to the Rune Knights. Right now."
"Umm, how about no?"
"Listen to me," Lucy persisted. "We don't want this fight. We can't launch an offensive in an urban area against Rune Knights who are only doing their jobs – that goes against everything your guild stands for, and don't try to tell me it doesn't. And, trust me, we don't want to fight this swordsman either. Turn yourselves in; it's the only way we're all going to walk away from this."
"I don't know where you think you get the right-"
"Please! I'll make sure you get out of jail again as soon as possible! I'll tell Jellal – I'll tell Mest – hell, I will break you out myself if I have to! That's a promise! Just, please, let this end peacefully!"
"Are you out of your mind?" Sorano yelled back. "Our freedom is the only thing we have! Do you honestly believe we're going to gamble that on your word?"
"I just…"
Lucy faltered, and the megaphone boomed out again.
It wasn't, however, the order to drown the building in magic that she had been expecting.
"NO, SIR, HANG ON, YOU CAN'T GO IN THERE- NO, MADAM- I REALLY MUST INSIST-"
Then the megaphone was interrupted by an even louder roar: "MY SHIFT STARTS IN TWO MINUTES! DON'T COME BETWEEN A MAN AND HIS KITCHEN!"
Lucy clapped a hand to her forehead.
The diner's double doors burst open and in shot a cannonball of a man, iron muscles and fearsome strength squeezed into a once-white apron several sizes too small. Yukino tumbled in behind him, like a leaf caught in the tornado of his passing. "Elfman, honestly, didn't you see the Rune Knight cordon-? Oh."
They both registered the scene they had stumbled into at the same time: two wanted criminals facing down a mysterious swordsman in a diner ringed by an entire platoon of Rune Knights.
And Lucy, caught in the middle. Some things never changed.
"Lucy?" Yukino wondered, and Lucy honestly had no idea why she sounded surprised to see her.
"Yukino?" Sorano murmured.
This time, Yukino's shock was justified. "S-Sorano? It can't be! You're alive?"
"No," Sorano responded automatically, turning away and folding her arms haughtily.
"Umm…"
"Sorano," Lucy said reproachfully.
"Sorano," Macbeth said reproachfully.
(Before that day, Lucy wouldn't have thought the two of them would ever agree on anything, but when it came to the subject of Sorano, it seemed they both shared a great deal of exasperation.)
"I don't know you," Sorano insisted to the nearest glaring stop sign.
"Sorano…" Yukino whispered.
No one from that most unusual crowd, Fairy Tail or Sabertooth or Crime Sorcière or Rune Knight or swordsman, wanted to break that strained silence, not even to open fire.
"I don't know you," Sorano repeated. Colder. Determined. "We're not connected in any way. It's just a coincidence that we met here. Do you understand?" Without waiting for an answer from her sister, Sorano seized Lucy's collar and dragged her closer. "Keep. Your. Promise," she hissed.
Then she spun back to face the door, and raised her hands and her voice all at once. "Alright, we're coming out peacefully! Don't fire!"
"…Do I get a say in this?" Macbeth muttered, but Sorano's look silenced him at once.
"COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP! ONE SIGN OF MAGIC AND WE'LL SHOOT!"
"Alright, keep your helmets on," Sorano huffed.
"Sorano!" Yukino exclaimed, only to be ignored once again. For the first time in her life, the elder sister was setting an example for the younger; acknowledging her not with words, but with honest actions and a determination to be a better person.
Four Rune Knights broke away from their encirclement to approach the doors, magic-suppressing cuffs in hand. Macbeth murmured to his guildmate, "Are you sure about this?"
"Yeah." Sorano's lips quirked in a shy smile. "Thanks."
"Next time, please bring Erik instead."
"I will," she vowed, and this time, not even her pride could make that smile disappear. At their sides, their hands brushed against each other, paused, and their little fingers linked. They walked to the doors together.
Watching them leave, two once-violent individuals treading the path of peace, Lucy made her own silent vow: they would get a 'next time'. She would win their freedom back, no matter what. Even if it meant springing them from jail for a second time. Even if it meant blackmailing Zeref into helping her with a rescue mission-
"No, no, no," sighed the swordsman. "This won't do at all."
All traces of a smile had disappeared from his lips the moment one had appeared genuinely upon Sorano's, as if their moods were poles of a magnet, refusing to be aligned.
Yet Lucy did not waver as she stepped towards him. Her voice was steady, determined. "Let them go," she ordered. "There's no need to fight. This is the best solution for everyone."
"A peaceful solution? For that guild of traitors? No, I don't think so."
"The Rune Knights will deal with them in accordance with the law-"
"Ah, but prison, you see, is not an acceptable substitute for what I have planned."
That was all the warning Lucy got.
The next thing she knew, the sheath was clattering to the ground, black-violet blade released like ripping a bandage from a wound in the aether – and the swordsman lunged, sweeping its crackling edge towards the two surrendering mages from behind.
Lucy sensed more than saw Macbeth's red eyes narrow. The air shimmered, humming with the magic that would bend the sword harmlessly away from them-
Except it wouldn't.
How she knew this, she didn't know, but she hadn't been in the habit of ignoring impulses even before the Black Mage had singled this man out as someone to keep an eye on.
That was why the sword which cut straight through Macbeth's twisted space nevertheless stopped inches away from his neck, clashing steel and sparks against Lucy's crossed blades.
There was screaming. There was panic.
And there was burning.
The black blade was burning, as if the shadows trailing from it were oil, ignited by the sparks of the impact with Lucy's Cancer Form swords. It caught on the air and consumed that too, turning life-giving oxygen into more purgatorial fire. Darkness seared down her swords, crumbling the enchanted metal into ash, scorching along her hands, streaking impossible agony up her forearms.
It was ravenous, that black fire, and it hungered not for fuel but for her very being, as if it could wrench out her soul through her burning arms – and that soul was lava, mutilating the flesh it passed through, combusting upon contact with the air.
Everything she was ignited, a bonfire of hate, and she was dying, dying, dying-
Someone slapped her across the face. "Lucy!"
Eyes she did not realize had been closed shot open, greeting a scene filled with dust and lights. Sorano's face wavered in her vision. Lucy groaned and tried to focus, but not quickly enough for Sorano, who slapped her again. "Lucy, get it together!"
"What… happened?"
Every heartbeat encouraged her frightened senses to return, and they brought with them flashes of chaos: the lights bursting like demented fireworks through the haze; the press of the upturned table at her back, an impromptu barricade, behind which Sorano was also crouched; the thunderous drumming of magical bolts rapid-firing into shattered windows, dented walls, the wreckage of the kitchens; and the agonizing pain in her hands-
Sight, touch, and sound she took back; she fired the sense of pain. She could do without that kind of negativity.
Her fingers moved when she ordered them to, so the pain didn't matter one bit.
"The Rune Knights opened fire," Sorano reported. "I pulled you down, but Lucy, your arms-"
"My arms are fine," she interrupted, not looking down; she didn't want to see the damage. "As long as I have my keys, I can still fight."
Sorano grimaced. Seeing that expression of pity on the face of her former enemy hurt Lucy more than the burning beneath her skin, and she pressed on. "Who the hell is that Jerome guy, and what does he have against your guild?"
"I have no idea! I've never seen him before, I swear!"
"Is he still out there?"
Sorano nodded.
"What about Yukino? Elfman?" Panicking, Lucy twisted to peer over their makeshift barricade, and caught a glimpse of a lone swordsman stood within a hail of bullets, deflecting every shot that came his way with ease.
Sorano dragged her down again. "Yukino pulled that giant chef out of the way. If they've got any sense, they'll have run."
"He's a former Fairy Tail mage, and she's Sabertooth through and through. Don't count on either of them having common sense. What about Mid- I mean, Macbeth?"
"Over there," Sorano answered, jerking her head. Lucy followed her gaze to another upturned table, which was holding out valiantly against a shower of stray magical bolts. A single black boot was protruding from behind it. Swallowing, Sorano continued, "I don't think he's conscious. If he was, those bolts would be bending around him…"
"He'll be okay," Lucy said automatically, because it was the right thing to say when confronted with such bleak eyes; when presented with the stark truth of just how much her once-enemies had changed since Jellal had taken them under his wing.
"I don't understand," Sorano protested. "His whole right side was burnt, like your arms, but the sword… it didn't even touch him!"
Understanding hit Lucy, the kind of lightning-leap that only ever happened in the heat of battle. "No, but it touched the magic he was casting."
"What…?"
"I think the sword burns magic," she explained. "Macbeth was using magic to distort the space around him, right? The blade set the spell itself on fire, and it spread through that magical link to his core. It burnt my Star Dress transformation too, even though I blocked the actual strike."
What she didn't add was that if she hadn't passed out from the pain, thus ending her Star Dress transformation prematurely, it would have been a lot more than her arms currently suffering had she not already sacked her sense of pain. She wondered if that was why Zeref had not been able to detect any magic from him. Any power his body generated would have been immediately consumed by his blade.
"You're telling me we can't use any magic against him without getting burnt? Have you noticed that he has a huge sword, and we're unarmed?"
"And all my combat skills come from Star Dress," Lucy added, addressing the letter of Sorano's words while entirely ignoring the implications. "I know that Yukino has decent martial arts training… we might be relying on her here."
"Yukino does?"
"Sabertooth," Lucy grinned, by way of explanation. "Why don't you ask her about it, when we've got through this?"
Sorano's undoubtedly snappish retort was cut off not by a burst of sound, but by its absence: all at once, the Rune Knights' onslaught on the building came to an end. They knew, now, that any mage capable of withstanding that barrage was above their pay grade. Shards of broken windows tinkled on the ground with all the thunder of gunshots. The ceiling deposited a great chunk of plaster, the satisfying last word, and then stabilized.
When Lucy next spoke, her voice came in a rushed whisper. Time was running out; their hiding place wouldn't hold forever. "Sorano, I have a plan. I can't communicate with Yukino, so we'll have to hope that she picks it up as we go along, but…" She pressed something into the rogue mage's hand.
Sorano glanced at it, and then back at Lucy with horror. "I can't-!"
"Yes, you can. I'm telling you it's fine. This is how we win. You, me, and Yukino together."
"Lucy-!"
"Found you," Jerome cut in coolly.
They dived in opposite directions as that great black blade bisected the table they had been sheltering behind. Lazily, the swordsman kicked the wreckage aside and strolled after Sorano. Lucy wheeled around, but before she could strike, a voice swept across the battlefield like a brave eagle: "Get away from my sister! Libra! Pisces! OPHIUCHUS!"
The diner shone blinding with the light from three sidereal gates, forced open all at once – and then the light was gone, replaced by a darkness made a hundred times darker by the contrast. Yukino turned the final key, the black one, towards her heart, invoking a magic Lucy had only taught her the night before. The unintimidating young woman vanished, and in her place stood the polar opposite: a knight in pitch-black armour, the night serpent's scales recreated in steel, cruel-spiked and terrifying. The helmet's visor was pulled over her face; in her hands she held a two-handed sword far larger than Jerome's, its cross-guard a ruby-eyed snake.
This Lucy saw in a single flash, and then nothing, because the darkness was real, and it swept through the diner like living smoke. It encircled the swordsman, never coming close enough for him to slash at with that devastating blade, but enough to limit his vision to a narrow circle. Somewhere in that dark mist, a gigantic snake uncoiled; its chosen warrior prowled unseen.
"My turn," Lucy muttered, sweeping upwards with her hand. Three gold keys, trapped between her fingers, traced the blazing paths of meteors through the night. Against an opponent like this, they had to go all out from the start. "Loke! Taurus! Sagittarius! And…"
She had never done this before, but the magic of Ophiuchus saturated the battlefield, and it was the easiest keyless transformation she had ever achieved. A little piece of that artificial nightfall solidified around her, forming armour identical to Yukino's.
In the centre of the diner, the swordsman turned, smacking away the arrows Sagittarius aimed at him at the same time as Yukino charged him from behind. Like a twisted spring, he spun back with impossible speed – but Yukino had the larger weapon, and furious momentum behind it. Her greatsword smashed the evil blade to one side.
At once, Yukino released her grip, and her sword slid out of her hands before it could conduct that magic-consuming hunger through to her body. What need did she have for a weapon when she could just ram him shoulder-first?
Yet even with her armour's weight, he was far more confident in a melee. A single step was all it took for him to regain his balance. His blade arced out – only to be deflected by Taurus, overpowering it with a swipe of his axe before it could hit her. The burning of his sword consumed the magical Spirit in a pillar of black fire, but Taurus had known what he was getting himself into, and Yukino had already used the moment his sacrifice had bought her to melt back into the darkness ringing the swordsman.
Jerome's eyes narrowed. He stepped towards the direction in which Yukino had vanished-
"Looking for me?" Lucy taunted, stepping out of the mist behind him. In that full plate armour, she and Yukino were indistinguishable.
The swordsman froze. His grip on his blade tightened. A tiny gesture, certainly, but one which proved that he too acknowledged the danger of this fight.
"Or for me?" asked Yukino, reappearing from a third direction. The swordsman looked from one black knight to the other-
And then he lunged for the closest.
He shouldn't have been able to move so quickly.
No one should have done, without magic, but Lucy should have known better than to apply the ordinary rules of engagement to a man wielding a weapon which broke every one of them.
They all should have known better.
Instead, they had assumed they were safe, and when the swordsman crossed the room impossibly quickly and ran his blade through Yukino's heart in the same smooth motion, they understood just how wrong they had been.
Yukino staggered backwards. Her mouth opened in one final, agonizing cry: "Piri piri!"
Right before she vanished in a puff of smoke.
That was when the swordsman understood just how wrong he had been. "A seventh Celestial Spirit…?" he wondered aloud, raising his sword in a defensive posture. "Impossible…"
"Heh." Sorano stepped out of the shadows. In each hand she held one of Lucy's keys. "And now, also on loan from their true owner… come forth, Aries! Scorpio!"
"It's been a while, Sorano," Scorpio grinned.
"I'm glad you decided to fight alongside Lucy," Aries added, doing her best to adopt a fierce defensive stance.
"Me too," Sorano confirmed, so quietly that Lucy almost – but not quite – missed it. Then her shout rose above the melee: "Take it away, you guys!"
It turned out that a destroyed psychedelic diner looked exactly the same as any other destroyed building.
When stray magic tore down the decorative road signs and shattered the plaster, the walls underneath proved to be as grey as any other. The choking taste of dust had long since overpowered any lingering aroma of bacon and hot oil. Upturned tables, collapsed walls, smashed glass – even the best detective inspector would have struggled to assemble enough evidence to prove the interior designer's relationship with illicit substances.
When all seven of the Celestial Spirits currently in play charged the outmanoeuvred swordsman at once, however, the chaotic energy of the diner returned in full force.
Utter anarchy encircled their enemy: a storm of blazing colour and explosive starlight; of invisibly quick strikes and air-shaking power; of fists, feet, fangs, and fury; of candy-pink wool and dusk-black scales and the golden crown of the stars: a supernova of celestials detonating in the heart of the diner.
And in the middle of it all, Yukino, her Star Dress abandoned, slipped through the opening made by the Spirits and knocked the blade from the swordsman's hand with a single kick.
Sorano let out a cheer. Lucy smiled, but no more than that; she had seen Yukino stumble as she landed, putting no weight through her right leg. Even though the Sabertooth mage had minimized the sword's effect by negating her transformation beforehand, that brief contact between her shoe and the blade had hurt her foot like… Well, Lucy didn't know what it was like because she was still refusing to look at her own arms, but it certainly wasn't nice.
"Surrender," Yukino ordered. There was a hardened ice in her eyes that only a true mage of Sabertooth could have pulled off. "It's over."
Jerome snorted. "No, thanks."
With that same casual violence, that calm I-would-rather-die, he slammed shoulder-first into Yukino, knocking her onto her injured foot. If he'd tried to grab his sword, Loke or Pisces would have reached him first, but instead he kicked it away from him. The blade spun across the floor and was swallowed by the dark mist – which instantly combusted.
Lucy screamed as that searing lava filled her veins once again. Through the rising pain, she had the rationality to dismiss all her magic – Star Dress and Spirits alike – and Yukino must have done the same, as the concealing darkness lifted from the battlefield.
The swordsman was already moving. He ran to that incredible, awful weapon; seized it in one practised motion; turned away from Lucy and slashed towards Sorano. She dived aside, and the blade glanced from her shoulder rather than cutting through her neck.
The wound ignited and she fell, shrieking. Coolly, he raised the sword for the finishing blow.
That was when the pressure in the room doubled.
The ceiling trembled with it. Walls that had somehow withstood the intense battle now writhed and bulged outwards. Airborne particulates fell to the ground, clearing the air, yet breathing was no easier, because there was no oxygen here – only a force that silenced the battlefield with its weight.
At the far end of the room, in front of a still-sparking hole he had blasted in the wall, a lone figure stood, wrapped in power and rage. He moved his arm and it seemed as though the universe moved with him, commanding light and majesty with every fibre of his being.
And he said, "Get away from my guild."
Light so bright it blinded the dawn; power so terrible it shook the heavens above. All this surged across the battlefield towards the one man who did not flinch from it – the one man who simply raised his blade in both hands and split the streaks of brilliant energy in two.
"You show yourself at last, Jellal," Jerome spoke, levelling his weapon towards the newcomer. "I was so hoping I would get to kill you with my own-"
The appearance of a blade at his throat silenced him at once.
This one gleamed silver where his emitted the void. Its danger didn't come from some infernal power, but from a sharpness maintained by its owner's love and care. That owner stood behind him now, pressing its deadly edge to his throat.
Erza commanded, "Drop your sword."
He hesitated.
"Do you think I won't do it?" she hissed, and every word was sharp enough to draw blood, cold enough to freeze all compassion out of the scene. "One of my friends is unconscious, two more in severe pain – do you think I will hesitate to spill your blood, if it might soothe their burns just a little?"
The cursed black blade clattered to the ground.
If there was anyone capable of threatening a man willing to die for his cause into surrendering, it was a furious Erza Scarlet.
"I suppose this round goes to you, Crime Sorcière… and friends," the swordsman added, his gaze flicking to Lucy; a silent promise that the decision to take up her keys on their behalf would never be forgotten. "Although, I am curious. After all this, do you really think they will take your side?"
He nodded towards the diner's front doors – and to the brand new holes in the walls that rendered them redundant. As it turned out, the Rune Knights had not simply fled when their bombardment of the building had failed. Instead, they had fetched reinforcements.
Now that the darkness had lifted, the sea of spears and helmets filling the road outside the diner was clearly visible: hundreds upon hundreds of Rune Knights, staring in horror at the rogue mages.
It did not look good.
Erza struck the swordsman's temple with the hilt of her blade, and he collapsed without a sound. "We have to get out of here. All of us."
Jellal fixed Sorano with a suspicious stare. "What did I tell you about starting fights in urban environments?"
"Hey, he attacked us!"
"She's right," Lucy jumped in. "Sorano and Macbeth did everything they could to try and diffuse the situation peacefully… but this Jerome guy seems to have a real grudge against your guild."
Erza wondered, "Lucy, what are you doing here?"
"Trying to have breakfast!" she retorted.
"I am certainly glad to see you- what happened to your arms?"
"Nothing," Lucy said quickly. "Please don't draw attention to them. Thinking about them makes me feel queasy."
"Lucy…" The expression on Erza's face made her feel even worse.
Against her better judgement, Lucy glanced down.
From the tips of her fingers to halfway up her forearms, her skin was burnt black. Not the raw red of fresh burns, but withered and inorganic, like the scorched skeleton of a tree. Beads of blood oozed slowly up through charred skin, making it shine with a sickening wetness. She told her fingers to move and didn't understand why those burnt bones were moving instead, because those twisted and blackened things couldn't possibly be a part of her-
She had only been trying to help-
One mistake in one fight, and-
Adrenaline, pain, horror, disbelief – it was too much for her brain to deal with.
So, it didn't.
"I think I'm going to pass out now," Lucy said, and that was all she remembered for a while.
Erza caught her friend as she fell. There were a hundred questions in her mind – like how such a devastating weapon had been in the hands of an enemy with a grudge against Crime Sorcière, and why Crime Sorcière hadn't known about it before now – but the only thing standing between them and a literal army of Rune Knights was fear of the independent guild's reputation, and the silence of the aftermath was eroding that with every passing moment.
"We have to go," she murmured to Jellal, and then looked at the unconscious form of their enigmatic enemy. "Do we bring him with us?"
Jellal shook his head. "We can't. We have too many wounded to carry him. But…"
Taking Erza's sword in one hand, and the swordsman's discarded sheath in the other, he bent down and carefully used the tip of Erza's sword to push the black-burning blade back into its sheath without touching it. Even once it was secured, he did not risk touching its hilt, but picked it up cautiously by the sheath, wincing but enduring it without a word.
Erza carried Lucy, and Jellal took the still-unconscious Macbeth over one shoulder, holding their enemy's weapon in his other hand. Sorano, who was still insisting that she didn't have a sister, had Yukino's arm over her shoulder nonetheless, helping the wounded younger girl to walk even though her own right arm hung uselessly at her side.
"One man did this," Erza reflected to Jellal. "One man, against the four of them… and even then, if I hadn't taken him by surprise while you were distracting him…"
"How did he get his hands on such a powerful weapon?" Jellal agreed.
"Jellal… who is this man?"
"I don't know. I've never seen him before. I've never even heard rumours of a dark mage wielding a sword like this."
"He said he had been hoping for a chance to kill you."
"There are many who feel that way," he said, soft, sad, sincere. "I am truly ashamed to say that that does not help me narrow it down."
"Jellal…" Erza said, and there was something of a warning in that tone.
He gave her a wan smile. "Regardless, harming my guildmates to get to me is unforgivable. If he comes after my guild again, I will personally ensure that he regrets it."
The sisters were hobbling across the room together when Sorano stopped in her tracks. "Hey, what happened to the guy you were with? The huge chef?"
"Elfman?" Yukino blinked. "He went to get help. He's well-known around Jasmine, so the Rune Knights would have let him through. I think he was going to go to Sabertooth, but I'm guessing he ran into Erza first."
"He didn't come back with them, though, did he?" Sorano sounded outraged at this display of common sense.
"He'll have gone on to the guild. They'll help smooth things over with the Rune Knights. With any luck, Lucy and I won't be wanted criminals by this evening."
Her sister grumbled something unintelligible.
"You can't blame him for being sensible," Yukino sighed. "He's not a fighter any more, Sorano, and if by not fighting he was able to send Erza and Jellal to us in the nick of time, then he's the one who saved your life just now. I know that you must have been living on the run for a while, but there's more to this world than people who fight with magic, and he's one of them. It's just as important to have people who make this life worth fighting for. And I'm lucky that his guild takes the same view as you, because that just means we'll get to keep him – and his cooking – in Sabertooth for longer."
Sorano grumbled something more, but let the topic of conversation lapse. "Speaking of cooking… there's something I have to do before we leave."
Indeed, there was one final order of business before a line could be drawn under the breakfast of chaos.
The band of injured mages escaped out the back of the diner, where the Rune Knights' ranks were thin enough to break after a single show of strength from Jellal and Erza. The allies fled down the backstreets of Jasmine, favouring speed over stealth, and did not stop until they'd reached Crime Sorcière's current base: the Mobile Temple Olympia. It had been parked on the outskirts of the city, but it resumed the flight on its owners' behalf the moment they were all on board.
Brushing off the bombardment of questions from the rest of the guild, Jellal and Erza took the injured straight to the medical room – a glorified closet which before that day had held a purely nominal function; a ticked box in case any health and safety inspectors had ever come to call.
It was as they were trying to locate additional beds for it that Sorano pulled Richard aside.
"Sorano, your shoulder-" Richard began, but she waved her uninjured hand with a passable lack of concern.
"Never mind that. I got you something." From her pocket she withdrew an object wrapped in a white serviette, which she presented to Richard with a satisfied smile. "Happy birthday!"
"Sorano, you need to lie down-"
"Go on, unwrap it! I didn't have any actual wrapping paper, but I did my best, so you could at least play along!"
Numbly, he peeled away the greasy serviette – to reveal a single hash brown, the sole survivor of the stack the swordsman had ordered before he had forsaken a peaceful breakfast for the way of murder.
Richard stared at it, uncomprehending.
"Ta-da!" Sorano exclaimed. "They're supposed to be the best hash browns in Fiore! In fact, now that we've destroyed the diner that made them, that one must be the single best hash brown in the kingdom! Alright, it was probably better warm, but what it lacks in culinary appeal it more than makes up for in exclusiveness, if you ask me- ah!"
That was when Richard pulled her into a huge, bone-crushing hug.
"Don't scare me like that!" he sobbed. "You and Macbeth disappearing, and then Jellal and Erza racing off after you in panic… I thought you weren't coming back!"
"But I…" Sorano tried to respond, and found that not only was she unable to, but she didn't want to. She closed her eyes. "…Yeah. I'm sorry. I won't do it again."
It was then that the pain and the stress caught up with her, and she slipped into unconsciousness, there in the protective embrace of the guild she had finally come to love.