The Scars That Make You Whole

By CrimsonStarbird

Church of Blood and Stone, Part 1

-Avatar-

Firing her sense of pain, so it turned out, wasn't the smartest thing Lucy had ever done.

Her sense of pain didn't like to be fired.

Her sense of pain considered this unfair dismissal.

Thus all her senses had banded together and gone on strike, and when she finally regained consciousness several hours later, not only had pain been reinstated, but it also appeared to have negotiated for higher wages, more hours, and direct access to the body's Commander-in-Chief… which was to say her conscious mind.

Needless to say, Meredy had stopped apologizing every time Lucy hissed at her in favour of just getting the job done.

Although Crime Sorcière was not fortunate enough to count a healer amongst its members – true healing magic was extraordinarily rare, Black Mages with more secrets than sense notwithstanding – it did contain several mages who knew an awful lot about magic, and that necessarily extended to knowledge of magical items and plants. While Lucy had been unconscious, Meredy had treated the burns that blackened her hands and forearms with a magic-imbued salve. It had done nothing. It hadn't even helped to ease the pain, or so they had learnt upon her rather unpleasant awakening. Neither Jellal nor Erza had ever seen anything like her injuries before, and as far as Lucy was concerned, that was not a good sign.

In the absence of any better ideas, Meredy was wrapping balm-soaked bandages as gently as she could around Lucy's arms. Pain flared every time Meredy's fingertips brushed her skin, as if her nails were branding irons. Even when left alone, the burning never stopped, like her hands were glued to a slightly-too-warm radiator – not uncomfortable, at first, until she released that she couldn't pull away…

All in all, the bandages were likely making it worse, but she allowed it anyway. It was far better to look at the appendages of a fancy-dress mummy than the withered things that had somehow taken the place of her arms.

The one good sign was that her index finger twitched when she commanded it to twitch.

Although the pain might never leave, at least her hands still had some functionality. Star Dress was out of the question, but she could still summon her Celestial Spirits – could still fight as a guild mage – and so, right now, the horror was held at bay, and she could join in with their rational discussion.

"Avatar," Jellal said, with profound finality, as if he had been asked for the meaning of life and Avatar was his answer.

Just in case Lucy had required further proof that she was missing something, Erza and Meredy exchanged an unsubtle glance. The four of them were in the Hospital Overflow Wing (formerly the mess hall) of the Mobile Temple Olympia. Sorano and Macbeth were still unconscious, and the rest of their guild (plus Yukino) were crowding the original Hospital Wing – well, Hospital Closet – in order to tend to them.

Erza and Jellal were casually sat at opposite sides of the table, a gesture that hadn't fooled Lucy even before Meredy had glanced between the two of them and dropped Lucy a heavy wink. The odds of Erza just happening to turn up at the diner to save Crime Sorcière (none of whom had looked remotely surprised to see her) at the exact same moment as the, ahem, childhood friend she'd rarely got to spend time with in the past, thanks to her position as a Fairy Tail mage and his as an escaped convict… well, at least it meant something good had come out of Fairy Tail's disbandment.

Out loud, Lucy asked the question with the far less obvious answer: "What, or who, is Avatar? And how does that relate to the battle we just fought in the diner?"

Jellal gave a sigh. "It's my guild's business, Lucy, and I deeply regret that you've been caught up in it…"

"Don't worry about it," came the honest response. "I'm used to it. Turns out that the universe hasn't actually been nice and quiet for ten months – it's just been saving up all its craziness for the moment I set out on another quest in Fairy Tail's name."

Erza sounded intrigued. "You're on a quest?"

"I'll explain later," Lucy promised, nodding to Jellal. "About this 'Avatar'…?"

"I suppose I should start at the end of the battle against Tartaros," he conceded. "Which is to say, the real beginning for Crime Sorcière. At first, we kept our heads down while our new members adjusted to life in the guild-"

Meredy, who was sat just out of her Guild Master's line of sight, rolled her eyes towards Lucy in a way that suggested the camaraderie she had witnessed during the battle was very much a recent addition to Crime Sorcière.

"-and after that, we began collaborating with Mest to restore stability to Fiore."

"You were working with the Magic Council?" Lucy blurted out. No wonder it had taken the former members of Oración Seis so long to adjust.

"Not openly, of course. The chaos of the time was twofold: the assassination of the Council left magical society without the voice of authority it needed, while the defeat of Tartaros, the last major dark guild, left the criminal underworld in much the same position. Mest, who had taken it upon himself to resolve the former, requested that we help deal with the latter."

"So, Mest was the one who convinced the Ten Wizard Saints to serve as the new Council?"

"Yes, although it would be appreciated if you refrained from spreading that knowledge. As a high-ranking Rune Knight, it would have been the responsible thing to do, but as a member of Fairy Tail who was only pretending to be a high-ranking Rune Knight… well, that information alone would cause many to denounce the only attempt to restore order that anyone has bothered making."

"Noted," Lucy agreed hastily. "So, while he was doing that, you were wiping out the remnants of the dark guilds?"

"That was our intent."

The ex-dark mage frowned as he organized his thoughts, an ordinary gesture that conveyed a mere fraction of the depth of his concern. He had been through ten times as much as most people his age, and at times like this, it showed.

Yet it was not worrying, but reassuring. She understood why a guild of strong-willed individuals acknowledged him as their Guild Master, and why Mest had come to him for help rather than the legitimate guilds; she understood why, all those years ago, he had been a valued and respected member of the Magic Council, so much so that they'd willingly overlooked all his misdeeds until the moment he outright betrayed them. She was very glad he was on their side.

Jellal continued, "We expected to find chaos amongst the dark guilds. Disorganization. An increase in unpredictable and violent activity, as dark mages struggled for dominance in the power vacuum left by the Balam Alliance's fall. What we found was the opposite. Dark guild activity had declined."

Lucy blinked. "You're saying that like it's a bad thing."

"There's a way in which these things work. When you've been in this game for as long as I have, on both sides, you start to see the pattern. Underworld activity only decreases for two reasons: first, in response to a successful new strategy adopted by the Rune Knights or legal guilds, such as your collaborative mission against Oración Seis or the creation of my guild… and second, in preparation for a strategy of their own. When a major dark guild is about to make its move, it lays low, and has its sub-guilds do the same. It calls in favours from its allies; it takes the power, resources, and strongest members of its auxiliary guilds for its own; it builds up its strength. But as a result, the underworld goes quiet.

"We saw it before Tartaros struck. We saw it in the months leading up to the Oración Seis mission – spotted it early enough, in fact, for the Council and Guild Masters to start laying the groundwork for the mission that led to their defeat. I have no doubt we would have seen it before Grimoire Heart attacked Tenrou Island, had anyone been monitoring the situation in the underworld back then. And we're seeing it again now."

"But there are no Balam Alliance guilds left who could be orchestrating it, right?" Lucy ventured.

"Right. Yet the signs are everywhere – dark guilds keeping their heads down, striking carefully and sporadically, and most importantly, not fighting amongst themselves. To be quite frank, their unity and coordination make Mest's attempts to reform the government look like drawing lots at a village fete. The only thing missing is the person or persons behind it."

"Aside from the obvious candidate," Erza interjected.

"Who's that?" asked Lucy.

"Zeref, of course."

In retrospect, it was obvious… and also so very wrong that Lucy had to fight a sudden urge to laugh. Zeref liked ancient books and sophisticated puzzles, not petty criminals; she just couldn't picture him at the head of a motley crew of vagabonds. "That's really not the sort of thing Zeref would do."

And now all three of them were looking at her strangely.

Hastily, she covered, "Well, he could have taken over the underworld at any point in last four hundred years, and he never did, did he? Not to mention, both Grimoire Heart and Tartaros would have happily handed it over to him without the need for all this effort."

Meredy tapped her finger against the table. "Lucy's right. We had a pretty good go at doing that eight years ago, and he really wasn't interested."

"It's certainly true that there's been no sign of Zeref for ten months," Jellal pondered. "There's no evidence that he's behind it… but there's no evidence that he isn't, either. I don't believe for a second that he's doing nothing, and I'd feel much more comfortable concluding that this isn't his handiwork if I knew where he was and what he was really up to."

Lucy gave a strangled smile. One of the downsides of Jellal being on their side was his exceptional skill in reading people, a product of infiltrating the Magic Council and keeping control of a dark cult at the same time. Still, there was no reason why he'd suddenly turn those skills upon a friend without any reason to suspect she was hiding anything from him… she hoped.

Suddenly she was feeling a little less reassured by his presence. She was currently travelling with the man he had sworn to defeat at all costs, after all.

"But there have been other signs that something is wrong," Jellal continued, with no indication that he thought there was anything odd about her behaviour, and Lucy breathed out in relief. "Things like small dark guilds which we should have easily taken down receiving unexpected reinforcements at a critical moment – reinforcements who stood to gain nothing by helping their rivals. Things like rogue individuals acting in ways which run counter to their immediate goals, because they're moving towards a greater end we cannot see. Things like legal guilds which have always toed the line between light and dark, suddenly and inexplicably switching to open villainy."

Like Orochi's Fin, Lucy thought, remembering the attack on Lamia Scale, for which neither she nor Wendy's adoptive guild had ever found a satisfactory explanation. Except, perhaps, as a distraction for the equally poorly understood attack on Alchemilla Town…

"And everywhere we saw these anomalies, we heard a single name," Jellal finished. "Avatar."

Erza answered Lucy's unspoken query. "It isn't so easy to explain what Avatar actually is, because there's a lot of deliberate misdirection. All across the kingdom, hundreds – if not thousands – of people pledge allegiance to the name, but most of them are ignorant of the group's true nature. At heart, they're a black magic cult, rumoured to have links to Zeref, and they appear to have complete control over the magical underworld. We've never come across a member of their inner circle…" Here, she gave Jellal a sideways glance. "Until today, perhaps."

In a quiet voice, Lucy reported, "The swordsman we fought in the diner – Jerome – was after your guild. You in particular, Jellal."

Jellal nodded gravely. "As the only guild which actively hunts dark mages, we're their biggest threat, but they've always been one step ahead of us. Had you not been there, Lucy, this morning might have gone very differently."

"I'm glad I could help," she said. It didn't make the pain in her arms go away, so she bit her lip and pretended that it did.

"They may have been ahead of us until now, but we're not alone, either," Erza declared, with a touch of ferocity in her voice. "Only the other day, the Council sent a request to investigate Avatar to all the strongest guilds in Fiore. And…"

She pulled a small device from her pocket and placed it on the table, where its dark crystal screen reflected back the recessed ceiling lights like three unblinking eyes. It was the latest in communication lacrima technology – a device Lucy had written an in-depth analysis on for the Weekly Sorcerer back when it had first been released, and which, unbeknownst to her, had about one-hundredth the range of the one Zeref spent most of his time ignoring.

"As I was saying," Erza elaborated, "the true Avatar, the inner circle, is very tight, but they have a huge number of lay members. Some of these have been drafted into service from the lesser dark guilds, and others are just ordinary people, who have been persuaded, bought, or tricked into contributing money or other resources towards their sinister goals. We are fortunate enough to be in communication with a spy, who recently infiltrated one of Avatar's branches and is quickly climbing the ranks. Once we know how their operation runs and what they're after, we'll be able to strike back."

"Let's hope so," Lucy agreed.

"Are you sticking around, Lucy?" Meredy piped up. "We could use your help."

"I'm happy to help where I can, but I'm already on a quest, as it happens…"

"Oh?"

She explained about her mission, and the time and place of Fairy Tail's reunion, being very careful to omit any allusions to her Spymaster General. A guild sworn to defeat Zeref, headed by a dangerously intelligent and somewhat single-minded ex-Wizard Saint, was definitely not the best place to leave any clues lying around.

Much to Lucy's surprise – though not, she later discovered, to Jellal's or Meredy's – Erza signed up for Fairy Tail's reunion at once.

"To be honest," Lucy confessed, "I wasn't expecting to run into you here, Erza."

From behind the others, Meredy gave her a look.

"Well, okay, I meant I wasn't really expecting to run into Crime Sorcière. I did kind of figure you'd be with them…"

"I haven't been here that long," Erza corrected, bemused. "After the guild disbanded, I set off on a journey to locate some new magical armours. I refrained from signing up to another guild because I believed it wouldn't be long until the Master called us together again. As time went by, I became… concerned. I attempted to locate the Master."

Lucy's breath caught in her throat. "Did you succeed?"

"No. There hasn't been a single sighting of him since the day he disbanded the guild. However, I did learn that the Master had been overheard arguing with Mest in the ruins of the old guildhall later that night. I thought that Mest might know something more. It was my search for him that led me to Crime Sorcière."

Jellal picked up the story. "As I mentioned, we've been working in parallel with Mest to restore stability to the nation, but he's also been entrusting us with jobs, in private, that he couldn't risk giving to the fragile Council. Whilst a Council of Wizard Saints may look excellent on paper, there's a reason why we don't usually just find the most powerful mage in the kingdom and put them in charge."

Lucy thought of Gildarts and his short-lived stint as the Fifth Master of Fairy Tail, and had to stifle the urge to laugh.

"The Wizard Saints are mages, not politicians. They're great as warriors, consultants, specialists, advisors, and envoys… but that's where their experience is, not in leading a kingdom. Believe me, as one of the few people in the world who has been both on the Council and an active Wizard Saint, they require entirely separate skillsets. The idea was for the Council to act as a figurehead to restore the public's confidence, while the Rune Knights and the body of administrators beneath them quietly got on with holding magical society together."

"It was necessary," Lucy agreed, thinking of what could have happened after Tartaros murdered the entire previous Council overnight.

"From that point of view, it worked well, but whoever is coordinating the dark guilds has seen right through our bluff. That's why Mest has been requesting our help on the side. He even asked Sorano to travel abroad as a spy, though it was sadly not her most successful mission. Nevertheless, the salient point is that we should have been able to put Erza in touch with him… had he not vanished three months ago."

"We haven't heard from him since," Meredy put in sadly. "Nor has anyone from the Council. He didn't mention anything about a new mission; he just disappeared."

He wouldn't have done, if it was confidential, Lucy thought doubtfully. Something Makarov asked him to do, for instance… which may well have brought him up against Zeref…

"I missed him by a day or two," said Erza, wrenching Lucy back from the worries she didn't dare voice aloud. "I've been here ever since, hoping for some sign of him."

Sagely, Meredy added, "Totally the only reason," earning herself a glare that only Erza could make look terrifying and abashed all at once. Jellal was staring at the table and trying very hard not to smile.

"But," Erza stressed, "if Fairy Tail is getting back together, that'll draw the Master out of hiding. Or, at the very least, it will bring together all the people who may hold the clues to his whereabouts. That's why I'm going to be there on the First of September."

"It wouldn't be Fairy Tail without you, Erza," Lucy smiled, though privately she hoped she would be able to resolve Makarov's absence long before September rolled around – and that Erza would still want to be there if she did. "That is, if you're sure about leaving Je-"

A sharp ringing filled the room.

All four of them turned to stare at the lacrima on the table, which was shining gold.

"Is that your spy?" Lucy ventured.

Without answering the question, Erza snatched up the device and held it to her ear. Unlike conventional communication lacrima – and much to the disadvantage of nosy friends, though it was probably a boon for undercover spies – only Erza could hear the speaker, and her grim nods and occasional "I see" gave infuriatingly little away.

At last she closed the connection, slipped the device into her pocket, and looked around the table at their solemn and curious faces. "We have a problem."

Lucy was one with the shadows.

From darkness to darkness she flitted, pooling like the dusk amongst the roots of trees, a breath of wind ghosting through the forest. The wild beasts did not stir as she slipped by. The dry earth held no trace of her passing.

She was silent, unseen. She was the Queen of Stealth-

"Lucy?"

The Queen of Stealth let out a yelp, tripped, and fell neatly onto her backside.

Apparently, she had been so concerned with her own furtive movements that she had failed to notice the man leaning up against a nearby tree – who had undoubtedly been wearing an amused expression even before she had fallen over.

"Whatever are you doing?" Zeref wondered.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" she snapped back, embarrassed.

He tilted his head; his gaze flicked to her bandaged arms and then back again, as she staggered to her feet and brushed herself down. "It looks an awful lot like you're trying to avoid detection. And since I'm the only other human being in the vicinity, I further deduce that you're trying to avoid being detected by me."

"No," she denied automatically. And then: "Well, okay, yes, but not in that way. Just for two or three hours, that's all."

"…Right," came the dubious response. "Now, normally I would have no issue with leaving you to it, but waiting another two or three hours for you to finish your skulking will make it rather difficult to meet our target of reaching Blue Pegasus by the end of the day…"

Lucy looked at Zeref.

Zeref looked at Lucy.

"Oh, Lucy, no!"

"I'm sorry!" she wailed. "Look, I want to go to Blue Pegasus just as much as you do, but something has come up, and it absolutely can't wait!"

"It absolutely can wait! We've been trying to get to Blue Pegasus for days, now – are you trying to sabotage this mission?"

"Of course I'm not!" This was precisely why she'd been trying to avoid him. Why wouldn't he even hear her out?

"Really?" He met her indignation with increasing coldness, as if whatever emotional quake had shaken loose her volume limiter had also cracked a vat and flooded the scene with liquid nitrogen. "Because if I wanted to pull out of this mission without making it obvious, this is exactly how I'd go about it."

"This isn't some big conspiracy, Zeref! Jellal and Erza gave me a time-sensitive job, that's all!"

"You have a job, Lucy! Mine! I am your employer, and I forbid you from accepting other jobs-"

"You don't have that right!" she shot back. "You're not my employer! I've named my price for this job and you're refusing to pay it, which means we are at best two people who sometimes happen to be going in the same direction, and this evening has turned out to not be one of those times!"

"Oh?" he challenged, a dangerous lilt to his voice, the melody of the wind whistling through frozen branches. "And what great and terrible price are you extracting from Jellal to run his little errand for him?"

"Nothing! He doesn't have to pay me, because this morning he and Erza saved my life by jumping into the middle of a fight YOU WALKED AWAY FROM!" Oh, she shouldn't have thought about it, because the moment she did, pain flared up in her arms again, all the more potent for having been ignored. She took a shuddering breath and tried to bite back the anger inside. "Yeah, I know it wouldn't have been a good idea for you to come face to face with Sorano and Macbeth. And I'm not saying you should have taken me with you when you left, either, because if I hadn't been with them in that fight…"

Drawing in another deep breath, she tried again to calm herself, but the oxygen seemed to be going directly to the fire screaming beneath the skin of her arms, and why should she care about his feelings when her arms might never work properly again? "But you left me there, and that's not what friends do!"

Silence.

Then: "Perhaps you'll understand now that I am not, and never have been, your friend."

"But why not?" she demanded. "Don't give me some nonsense about being enemies come September – that's then and this is now! I don't dislike travelling with you! Hell, I don't dislike you full stop, so why do you have to be so difficult?"

"We can't be friends, Lucy."

"That's such a stupid attitude to have!" she burst out, astonishment and the rising, rising pain. "I do things for my friends! I rush off to save them when they're in trouble! I drop everything to go on time-sensitive missions for them! And what I'm saying is that I would do that for you too, if you would just stop acting like the world will end if we're nice to each other!"

He said nothing, his eyes swirling with hostility.

"Fine." Turning away, she rubbed at one bandaged arm with the heel of her other hand. It didn't reduce the pain so much as focus it, but that made it a little easier to concentrate. "Just, fine. You have issues, I get it. But my arms hurt like hell and healing potions didn't work and I'm just not prepared to deal with you on top of all of that right now. I think it would be best if you just turned around and walked away, and I'll re-join your quest when I'm good and ready."

Ignoring him entirely, she found a sturdy tree and sunk down to the bottom of it. The more she thought about her arms, the more they hurt, an endless cycle of punishment.

She wanted to cry: angry tears, at her own weakness; bitter tears, at the unfairness of it all. She wanted Zeref to go away, so that she could cry without shame.

He didn't go away, though.

Instead, there was a rustle of material as he sat down beside her. He drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, and gazed pensively out into the forest. No anger, no coldness, no words of consolation she wouldn't have believed, just a quiet presence, and perhaps that was why the tears did not come.

Eventually, he asked, soft enough to not disturb the provisional peace, "What happened to your arms?"

Despite herself, she found herself answering. "It was the man in the diner, the one whose magic you couldn't sense. His sword seemed to burn magic itself. I blocked his strike with Cancer's blades, but it immolated them, and… this happened. It won't stop burning. Nothing we've tried has helped at all."

"I see," he said, and then nothing.

Since it seemed he wasn't going to offer, she dared to venture, "I don't suppose there's anything you can do…?"

"You probably should have asked me that before you started yelling at me, Lucy."

"Oh, of course." A bitter laugh escaped lips already twisted from the pain. "I should have known. After everything, of course you'd be spiteful."

"It's not that at all," he said shortly. "I would help you if I could. But I did warn you that I can only use healing magic safely if I'm doing it for selfish reasons, and now that I feel bad about what you went through, it's too much of a risk."

"…Oh." Sighing, she glanced towards the forest. It wasn't that there was anything interesting there to look at, she just did not want to look at him. "I guess it's for the best. You wouldn't have been able to heal me anyway."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because you won't have ever seen wounds like these before. You won't know how to help any more than Jellal did."

"Oh?" His eyes narrowed. "Four hundred years, at least three of them on call in an emergency ward, and you still think you've managed to sustain an injury I've never seen before?"

"Yes- wait, you worked in a hospital?"

"The training hospital attached to the Academy, yes."

"Why?"

"Life fascinates me. Stop changing the subject, I want to see your arms."

"Fine, but you're wasting your time."

She could not stand to look as he unravelled the bandages. Looking was an acknowledgement, and an acknowledgement would make it somehow more real, more permanent. The cloth came away black with tainted blood. Burnt skin glistened; twisted, unhealthy, inhuman. Not hers. Couldn't be hers.

A voice far too light to be her own remarked, "See?"

"Hmm. Does it still hurt?"

"It burns." There was no other word for it.

Gently, he pressed his index finger against her arm. "Does it hurt more where I'm touching you?"

"Not really."

"Interesting."

Then he didn't say anything for a while, though he did turn her arm over and run his thumb all the way down an exposed vein, bulging like a baby snake stapled to her forearm. She closed her eyes, but it was more out of reflex than anything else, as the agony she was expecting didn't come. Without the tell-tale stab of pain, her numbed limbs could hardly detect the presence of his fingers at all.

"It's odd," she found herself saying, as if he were a medical professional rather than a legendary dark mage. "It hurt when Meredy touched my skin – and it hurts when I touch it with my other hand – but when you do it, it's fine."

His gaze snapped up to meet hers. It was disconcerting to see those eyes sparkling as he examined her injuries, and even more disconcerting to understand that none of it was in any way malicious. When presented with a puzzle, nothing else seemed to matter. "Oh, I'm starting to see it now. And if I do…"

He removed his right hand and shook it, scattering black sparks in all directions, and returned it to its prior position. His mouth was moving in another question, but she did not hear it over her own involuntary snarl, the only possible response to her arm's sudden conviction that he had just stabbed her with a knife of molten metal.

The feeling was gone as soon as she pulled her arm out of his grip – though the throbbing remained – and she muttered, "Sorry."

"Interesting," he said unhelpfully. "That's why healing salves weren't working. Applying any kind of magic directly will… okay."

He crouched in front of her and took her hands in his. Even though his touch had gone back to not hurting, she flinched anyway, because surprise was definitely the appropriate response to the Black Mage holding her hands…

Right up until the moment he said, calmly, "You're going to want to lean back against that tree."

"What? Why?"

"Because you're almost certainly going to pass out."

"Wait, what are you-?"

She could only have been out for a few seconds, because when her eyes fluttered open again he was still watching her intently, unmoved from his position. She had the distinct feeling that it had hurt so much her brain had simply shorted out. It was probably a good thing that the past ten seconds or so were a muddled mess of incoherence.

Even better, it seemed that someone had given her sense of pain a stern talking-to in her absence, because it had relinquished its leverage over her body's government and returned sullenly to its closet. Her arms were back to normal. No scarring, no burned tissue, just her own unmarked skin and nothing more. She didn't believe it, at first, until she wiggled her fingers and they obeyed, smooth and agile and healthy…

And none of it made her smile quite as much as the smug expression on Zeref's face as he sat back down beside her. "Told you I'd be able to figure it out."

"Yes, I thought you probably would," she smiled back.

"That won't work again, Lucy."

"I'm surprised it worked once, to be honest," she admitted. She'd hoped that portraying the situation not as him doing her a favour by healing her, but as her doing him a favour by offering him a puzzle to solve, he would be able to do it safely, but given how perceptive he was, she'd thought it was a long shot. "Presumably you knew I was goading you?"

"Naturally, but as I've told you, I have become very good at manipulating my curse over the years. As long as the evidence is there to back it up, I can usually convince it that I'm doing something for one reason even though I am really doing it for another. In this case, I could run with what you gave me… but now that you have openly admitted to trying to manipulate me, it will be harder for me to use that as an excuse in the future."

"I see," she said, though she wasn't entirely sure that she did. Even if he could fool his curse in that way – and wasn't it part of him? – she hadn't the faintest idea how he kept track of what was real and what wasn't in his mind. "Am I allowed to thank you?"

"It shan't make a difference either way."

"It makes a difference to me, so thank you." She'd have been uncomfortable not saying it, but she had a feeling he was the opposite, so she turned the conversation to something academic, something she knew would be safe for him to talk about. "What was the problem, then?"

"The power that burnt away magic was still active. It wasn't alive, as it would have been within the sword itself, so it couldn't spread any further through your body. Regardless, it was still feeding on the magic circulating through your wounds. It flared up when Meredy touched you because it was reacting to her magic, but not when I did it, because I was shielding my magic completely. Left alone, I think the effects would have faded eventually, though it would have caused you pain and consumed any magic – healing or otherwise – that came into contact with it until then."

"So how did you get rid of it?"

"I overloaded it with my own magic. As I said, it was cut off from its source, so it couldn't keep up with the magnitude of my power; it burnt itself out. Then I was free to heal the actual damage." He sounded very pleased with himself, and that fond smile tugged at her lips once again. "If the curse had still been alive, though… I wonder if my magic would have been enough to overcome it. There might be no limit to the magic it can consume. I'd certainly like to get my hands on the sword that did this."

"Yes, because another deadly weapon is exactly what you need," she sighed. "Say, do you mind if I tell Jellal and the others how you healed me? I wasn't the only one hurt by that weapon, and if normal healing won't work until they've overloaded the curse with magic first…"

"Go ahead."

Her surprise must have been evident, because he added, "I'm not an entirely unreasonable man, Lucy. If Yukino is still with them, I would advise asking your Spirits to pass a message to hers."

It was a sensible suggestion, and she carried it out without further hesitation. "Thank you. It'll still take time for Macbeth and Sorano to fully recover without access to healing magic, but at least it will help." After a brief moment spent weighing up the pros and cons, she went for it. "That healing magic you used. When I first saw it, I thought it was a bit like Wendy's Dragon Slayer magic… but I was wrong. It's not a bit like Wendy's magic; it's exactly like it. I'm no expert, but I would still put a month's rent on you having been taught by the same dragon."

"I'm not a Dragon Slayer," he told her shortly. "As I believe I have told you before. And if these intrusive questions are what I get for going out of my way to help you, I shan't be doing so again."

"Sorry," Lucy muttered, abashed.

Silence fell again, then. Some things had been resolved between them, but there were enough elephants still present that a passer-by might have been forgiven for thinking that they'd stumbled into a jungle.

"Zeref," she spoke up. "I really am sorry about what I said earlier. I didn't mean to blame you for what happened in the diner; I was just in too much pain to think straight."

He waved his hand dismissively. "What you said wasn't unreasonable. It is imperative, however, that you stop regarding us as friends."

Right, because that is in no way undermined by literally everything you just did for me, she thought. "I'll try," she said out loud, hoping her voice didn't sound as dubious as she felt. "Look, Zeref, I understand how you feel about detours, I really do, but I promised I would do this for Jellal and Erza, and it's not as though it doesn't involve Fairy Tail…"

Their eyes met, two lions sizing each other up.

"Do as you wish," Zeref ground out. "But we will go to Blue Pegasus tomorrow morning, even if I have to knock you out and drag you there by your ankle."

"That won't be necessary," she promised.

"I'll believe that when we're standing in their guildhall." He heaved a weary sigh. "Go on, then. What are we going to be spending this afternoon doing that's more important than my quest?"

Lucy frowned. "Does the name Avatar mean anything to you?"

He shook his head. "Is that the group the swordsman belonged to?"

"We think so. They're a dark magic cult of some kind… Erza thought they might have been connected to you in some way."

"This is the first I'm hearing of them."

"Alright." Lucy took a deep breath. "Well, they've captured Natsu. I'm going to rescue him."

It might have been terrifying, Zeref's response.

Each individual component would have been terrifying on its own: the shimmer of power like gaseous nightmare as the dam holding back his magic and emotions alike cracked; the pacing, when every single step held enough force to shake the leaves free of the branches overhead; the cursing in one or more of the languages he spoke and she didn't, acid-laced words hurled out with such hate that they could only have been curses; the black fire that sprung up in his footprints and was flung in crude and violent handfuls towards every tree large enough to present a satisfying target.

However, when those phenomena came at the behest of a man unfortunate enough to be stuck looking like a teenager for all eternity… it was also a little bit cute.

His appearance didn't make him any less dangerous, of course, except none of that black-burning fire was coming anywhere near her, and that wasn't an accident. After all, it wasn't really her he was angry with… and she suspected it wasn't Natsu, either.

So she sat and waited patiently, and at last the tantrum came to an end, leaving the Black Mage in the centre of a scorched clearing, taking heavy, snarling breaths.

Zeref made it clear to her that there were no circumstances under which he would agree to be part of this mission.

Lucy politely pointed out that she had at no point asked him to come with her.

Zeref set fire to some more trees.

Then he pointed out that a single Avatar mage had got the better of her whole team that morning, and that going inside a secret base full of Avatar mages on her own was madness.

She cut him off there, because she'd already had this argument with Jellal and Erza. Crime Sorcière couldn't go because Avatar was keeping tabs on them, but she'd stand a good chance of evading their notice. It wasn't the entire cult, only those in the one small hideout where they were keeping Natsu, and she certainly wasn't going to challenge them singlehandedly. In fact, if all went to plan, they wouldn't even know she was there. She assured Zeref that he wasn't going to think of any problems Erza hadn't already raised.

Zeref thought for a moment, and then came up with something that hadn't, in fact, occurred to Erza: Fairy Tail had never successfully completed a stealth-based mission in all of its history.

…Which was a fair point, but Lucy argued that of all the Fairy Tail mages, she was probably the most likely to be able to pull off a stealth mission. It wasn't as though Natsu would be with her, or anything.

Zeref pointed out that Natsu would be with her on the way back.

Ah, she said, but if Natsu was with her, she'd have no need for stealth.

Zeref destroyed some more of the scenery. The great oak against which Lucy was sitting was now the only tree left in the vicinity, a defiant tower of brown and green amidst the brand new patch of wasteland.

In what was admittedly not the smartest move she'd ever made, Lucy demanded to know what he had against Natsu, because she was pretty sure that he wouldn't be acting this way if it was Wendy or Juvia who needed rescuing.

He said he had nothing against Natsu.

She didn't believe him, and told him so.

There were no trees left to burn, so he paced up and down instead, footsteps almost silent upon the lifeless earth, although the universe seemed to throb in time with his heartbeat.

Lucy, who was more than a little concerned about the fate of her best friend, informed Zeref that while she appreciated he clearly had issues concerning said friend, if it was all the same to him, she'd rather get Natsu out of their enemies' grasp first and resolve Zeref's personal matters later. If he couldn't deal with that, he could damn well wait here until she got back.

He stopped pacing, turned, and looked her in the eye. "And when you die on this pointless side quest with Fairy Tail still only half-formed, where will that leave me?" he demanded. "You're not going in there on your own. I can't believe you were even considering doing it as wounded as you were. No, I'm coming with you."

Zeref set down some ground rules. One, he reserved the right to disappear at any time, without warning. Two, he refused to be in the same room as Natsu, or in fact to interact with him at all. Three, if Natsu asked how she'd managed to reach him, she was to tell him she'd done it on her own-

At which point Lucy had shouted over her shoulder that if he didn't keep up, she was going to go in without him.

Thus the raid on Avatar's Mikage Branch had begun.