The Scars That Make You Whole
By CrimsonStarbird
There Are No Stars Tonight, Part 2
-Antemortem-
Shortly after Fairy Tail's resounding victory against the Alvarez air fleet, several expeditionary parties set out from the guild.
The logic was simple: with the bulk of the aerial force in full retreat, and the Fiorean Royal Army slowing the progress of the land invasion, the consensus was that they would be of more use on the front lines than waiting for Zeref to bring the battle to them.
Some people, of course, hadn't waited for any official decision to be made. Thanks to her impromptu guildhall-shifting stunt, Minerva was too tired to switch back with Elfman, meaning that he was stranded in the middle of the northern front with Sabertooth. Gildarts had mysteriously vanished soon after they learnt that a certain Chief of Staff was travelling with the western army, with Cana sneaking out after him.
There were others who did not intend to leave the guildhall at all. It was the hub of their communications network, and Mira was amongst those who had elected to stay and defend it, in case one of Alvarez's attacks broke through unexpectedly.
The vast majority of Fairy Tail mages, however, set out for the front lines at once.
They had been triumphant in their first clash with the Alvarez forces, but the reports slowly starting to come in from all across the kingdom had a somewhat different tone.
They were suffering heavy losses in the north. In the west, no one could stop the tide of black-armoured men from sweeping across the plains like a shadow cast by the inexorable rotation of the earth, their numbers so great that they needed neither magic nor technology to crush the soldiers brave enough to stand in their path. In the east, the Magic Council's taskforce waited with trepidation for the attack they knew was imminent, but of which neither their scouts nor their long-range detection magic could catch a glimpse.
But it was the southern front that was causing them the most concern.
They had heard nothing from Hargeon.
No reports of enemy sightings, no stories of terrible defeats, not even a periodic check-in from Kagura or Lyon to assure their Fairy Tail allies that they were ready and waiting for the hostile ships to make land.
Nothing at all.
All attempts to contact them via lacrima were met with nothing but static. It was as if the port town, and everyone in it, had vanished.
Unsurprisingly, upon learning that they now had no eyes on the Alvarez naval fleet, Erza had announced she would lead an expeditionary force to Hargeon. Perhaps more surprisingly, Laxus and the Raijinshuu were going with her. By now, everyone in the guild knew that Laxus was sick from consuming Magic Barrier Particles, and that the attempt to find a cure had made little progress since leaving Blue Pegasus. On the other hand, this was Laxus, so everyone pretended they didn't know and made no attempt to question his decision. Between them and Erza, they would turn the tide in Hargeon just as Lisanna and Mira had at the guildhall.
Although they embarked on a journey to dangerous and distant battlefields, Fairy Tail's first victory was fresh in their minds. They were heading for dark places, but they carried the light with them; their hands were on their weapons, but laughter and encouragement filled the air.
As the last of their taskforces vacated the guildhall, Mira sank into a chair with a sigh. She may have been here to encourage and defend the communications team, but in truth, she was glad of the chance to rest, with the guild's morale no longer dependent on her – or Alegria's – apparent invulnerability.
Someone set a drink on the table in front of her, and she stared at it, bemused. Wasn't that her job? Fighting was all well and good, but – in Magnolia as in Alstonia – she had come to love her place behind the bar, spreading the sense of security and home without having to first beat up any enemies for it. Maybe, one day soon, she could take up that role once more.
That was the thought she drank to.
That was the dream winging its way through her weary mind as the door slammed open with a hollow crash.
A man stood in the doorway, so calm and relaxed that it was easy to overlook how uncompromisingly he was blocking the exit. Perhaps he wasn't a man at all – his skin carried a metallic lustre – but his eyes were as alive as any Mira had seen, and his grin overflowed with anticipation.
"Oh, I'm sorry," he said pleasantly. "Am I interrupting something?"
Then his smirk seemed to crackle around the edges. "Or perhaps you weren't expecting another opponent so soon after your victory, hmm? But, you see… His Majesty is a strategist. He knows how important morale is in a war – and how heavily it is influenced by symbols like this pretty guildhall of yours. He wasn't about to let its fate be determined by a fair fight."
Mira jumped to her feet, her traditional Satan Soul form materializing around her body, but it earned her nothing more than a patronizing look from the newcomer. He read, from a single glance, her fatigue, her worry, her hesitance to let Alegria loose again without the confidence to rein them back in. Unlike Bloodman, who had only seen the demon she'd wanted him to see, he saw the human within and knew he had no reason to be afraid.
"People tend to call me Wall," said he. "I would tell you to remember it, but I don't think you're going to be doing much remembering from now on."
Light began to blaze from his palm. Offhandedly, he added, "You should probably start running, by the way."
He touched his palm to the floor and the entire guildhall exploded.
If asked to name her proudest achievement, Brandish would probably have said earning the title Destroyer of Nations.
Not because it was an impressive reputation to have, although it certainly was impressive. No, she was proud of the way she had managed to earn it without having destroyed a single nation.
She was more than capable of destroying nations, of course. It just seemed like so much work. The thought of how many city-states August had obliterated many decades ago to make his own name – and the name of the empire – made her shudder, and not for the same reason it did most people.
No, the trick lay in getting everyone to believe she was a nation-destroyer, so that they would surrender to her with minimal effort. In that, her magic was a great boon. It was easy to convince people she could crush their city when she was big enough to literally crush their city. As it turned out, when confronted with a sixty-foot-tall mage who wanted nothing more than to wrap this up pronto and go back to bed, few people bothered pulling out their records and checking exactly how many cities she had previously destroyed.
Admittedly, creating that reputation in the first place had taken quite a bit of effort, but it had paid for itself ten times over in the number of rebellions that had since surrendered to her after a single display of her powers.
In fact, it was fair to say that her apathy had led to the development of one of the empire's mightiest weapons. That was why His Majesty was willing to overlook her frequent lack of enthusiasm: not even he could argue with the results.
Unfortunately, Brandish had been dispatched to the northern nothingness of Fiore with a man who failed to understand that efficiency and thoroughness did not have to be mutually exclusive. Larcade was determined to destroy every last person who stood in their way, heedless to the fact that: a) it would be faster to scare them off, especially when they seemed to have no powerful mages or charismatic leaders here to rally them; b) His Majesty probably didn't care either way, or he'd had said so; and c) it would be a lot easier to rule over Fiore in the long run if they didn't obliterate an entire generation of fighting-age men and women during the conquest.
But Larcade was a bit unforgiving when it came to enemies of His Majesty, and that meant Brandish was stuck here until the entire unit of hostile mages had been destroyed or otherwise incapacitated.
She stuck her hands into her pockets and sighed. It wasn't a cold day, but the grey clouds made it feel that way. That, and the war. War wasn't really her cup of tea, which would have surprised those who only knew her as the Destroyer of Nations, but then she had only acquired that title in the first place in order to avoid as many situations like this as possible.
Plus, why couldn't she have been sent to a touristy port town like the southern invasion force? The northern front had started out as rolling meadows, now it was more of a wasteland, and there was literally nothing of interest here.
"How long is this going to take?" she wondered out loud, thinking about how it had only been a few weeks ago that she was lounging on a beach in the Free Isles, and yet it felt like years.
Larcade cracked one eye open to look at her, which was a shame, because she'd thought he was too busy concentrating on his magic to listen to her. Mildly, he pointed out, "It would be a lot faster if you'd let me use my Pleasure."
Brandish didn't bother trying to suppress her shudder. Just the way he said it was bad enough… which, knowing him, was probably why he did it. "Your magic is gross. I do not want to have to see that, thanks."
He gave her a sly smile. She had no doubt he was imagining a lot of insecurities which she simply didn't care enough to have, but in the end, he let his eye fall shut again without comment.
It wasn't as though she disliked him. Active dislike was too much effort. She just found him a bit difficult to get on with, sometimes. To be fair, though, he was humouring her by holding back on his most famous magic in favour of incapacitating the entire enemy force through hunger, so she couldn't complain that much.
The Alvarez foot soldiers under their joint command were making fairly short work of their opponents. There weren't any mages here of the calibre of those who had joined them against Acnologia. Even the few who seemed to have potential – unfamiliar faces bearing the same guild mark as the Dragon Slayers she had met – didn't have the mental strength to withstand Larcade's spell. Not one of them had even got close to her or Larcade before succumbing to their hunger, gnawing on their allies or whatever debris they could scavenge from the battlefield. Not one of them had figured out what was going on, let alone begun to mount a counterattack.
Speaking of which… as her stomach gave an unhappy rumble, she glared once more at her companion. "I thought I told you to be careful where you were aiming that magic."
This time, Larcade opened both eyes to fix her with a bemused expression. "I am being careful."
"Then why am I so hungry?"
"Did you remember to have breakfast before we left?"
Brandish ignored this unhelpful comment. A delicious smell was drifting into her nostrils – rich and golden and a little spicy too. Her stomach gave a yowl of longing. Embarrassed, she wrapped her arms around herself. "Seriously, Larcade, this isn't funny."
"It's really not me." Then he seemed to pause, sniffing the air experimentally. "Hmm. There is something, isn't there?"
The sound of another unhappy stomach reached her ears, and she was gratified to hear that this time, it wasn't her own. Bewildered, Larcade wondered, "Is this how my magic feels to other people?"
Before she could respond, something burst over the hill and hurtled towards the front lines. It was loud and rattling and it radiated a wonderful aroma like the Spriggan Twelve radiated magic – and as it drew closer, she could make out the form of a burly man wearing a once-white apron, pulling a cart behind him.
A cart advertising Manly Meals On The Move.
"Have no fear!" Elfman's voice boomed over the battlefield. "A Man has come to bring supplies!"
He raced between the Sabertooth mages, tossing freshly fried empanadas left and right. With cries of delight, his allies abandoned the objects they had been eating and bit down on the empanadas instead.
Waves of sheer happiness rolled out from his cart. Larcade's magic had amplified their desire for food beyond anything they had experienced before – and satisfying that desire filled them with an unrivalled sense of fulfilment and energy. Holding their empanadas in one hand, and wielding magic or weapons with the other, the Fiorean army suddenly surged back into action as if every one of them was an empanada-typed Dragon Slayer.
Larcade's mouth was hanging open.
So was Brandish's, but that was because she was hoping to catch a flying empanada in it.
"But that's not fair!" Larcade protested. "Why did they bring a chef to the battlefield?"
"Why didn't we bring a chef to the battlefield?" Brandish countered, eyes wide.
He blinked. "Well, we have supply wagons."
"Yes, full of iron rations! The only thing they're good for is emergency building material in case we need to fortify our encampment with a wall!" She stamped her foot. "I want an empanada!"
"You do realize that we are not here to…" Larcade tailed off, gazing into the distance, at something she could not see. An uncharacteristic darkness condensed in his eyes – and then he blinked and it was gone. "Well, it looks like I'll have to leave the rest of this battle up to you."
"What?" Brandish huffed. "Your magic backfired, so now you're quitting?"
"There's something I have to do elsewhere, that's all."
"But His Majesty said-"
"It's family business," he told her grandly. "It's far more important than this silly fight."
"I don't believe you," she scowled, but he had already vanished in a shimmer of light. "Fine. Have it your way."
For the first time since the armies had met in uncompromising battle, Brandish marched through the front lines. Her heels sank swiftly into the mud, but it did not slow her any more than the Fiorean soldiers did. The power swirling around her – and her practised glare, being a vital component of any nation-destroyer's reputation – was a great deterrent. A few mages prepared to attack, but lost their nerve at the last minute, deciding not to draw her attention.
And she ignored them in return, right up until she reached Manly Meals On The Move.
Elfman swallowed.
Brandish held out her hand.
After a heart-stopping moment – for both of them – Elfman found one last empanada at the back of the warming oven and placed it onto her waiting palm.
She bit into it.
There was a moment of pure bliss.
Then, still eating, she stepped around him and his food cart and continued walking. The Fiorean army parted before her. She didn't seem to notice. She just kept walking, deeper into Fiore, away from the battlefield.
"But- what-?" Elfman wondered.
Brandish paused. "If Larcade isn't bothering, I don't see why I should have to." She glanced back over her shoulder. "Try not to die. I want to eat more of these."
And she walked off in search of something more interesting to do.
How long he had been wandering, Natsu didn't know.
Not long enough. Too long. Both. Neither. He hadn't been able to comprehend doing anything else since he had woken up in the hospital at Malva, surrounded by nurses who praised his miraculous recovery from an unexplained coma, but who didn't understand his real affliction, couldn't give him answers, couldn't reassure him, couldn't promise that everything he thought he knew wasn't about to come crashing down around him.
He had been wandering ever since, trying to outrun his thoughts.
And yet it didn't feel right, either. Travelling wasn't right without Happy. Fighting monsters wasn't right without Gray and Lucy and Erza to back him up. Taking remote jobs as an independent mage wasn't right, when the guild mark on his shoulder burnt incessantly with guilt.
But there was nowhere for him to go.
If he'd known about the war, perhaps he'd have acted differently, but he had been isolated ever since leaving the hospital, and his brief snatches of human contact since then had failed to impress upon him the urgency of the situation. He did know about the guild getting back together, but every time he thought about Fairy Tail he thought about Lucy, and that made him think about Zeref, and that made him feel hot and cold and shake so violently he broke whatever he was holding.
So he had stayed well away from Magnolia, and the first he knew about any enemies in Fiore was when a pale-skinned, blond-haired not-quite-man shimmered into existence right in front of him.
It had been a long time since Natsu had come across any other travellers. It had been longer still since he had come across any who looked as strange as this one, with his archaic robes and four-bladed cross on his back. It had been almost a year since he had come across any with such an aura of power.
None of those things, however, were why the Dragon Slayer's eyes narrowed, or why a low growl stole from between his clenched teeth.
"We meet at last, Natsu Dragneel," the stranger said. "I've been waiting for this day for a very long time."
"Who the hell are you?" Natsu spat.
"How rude," the stranger laughed, though considering how Natsu had wanted to greet the man – in particular, the role his fist would have played in it – he thought he was showing impressive restraint. "That's no way to greet family."
Igneel was dead and Fairy Tail was gone, and Natsu ignored the burning sensation in his right shoulder as he snarled, "I have no family."
"Ah, but you do. You are my uncle, you see. My name is Larcade Dragneel."
"That's a lie." Natsu trusted his instincts far more than he trusted his eyes, and his draconic senses were not short of reasons to despise this man. "You're not related to anyone. You're a demon. I can smell it. You smell like him." He spat the word like it was poison.
"Oh? I'm surprised you could tell. After all, even while fighting Tartaros, you never managed to identify that smell in yourself."
"Shut up!" Natsu burst out. Fire streaked along the ground, but they were in the middle of nowhere; there was nothing to destroy, even for him. "I'm not like you! I'm human!"
"No, you're not," came the infuriatingly calm response. "I am sorry you've had to find out this way, although really, you should have been told long ago." Then he tilted his head a little, and for the first time, he seemed to look at Natsu, really look. "You already knew, didn't you?"
"There's nothing to know. I'm human."
If words alone could have made it so, the force in that assertion would have left no one unconvinced.
But in the burning streets of Malva, Zeref had ordered him to stop – and his mind had raged but his body had obeyed, and ever since that day, he had known that he wasn't who he'd always thought he was.
He didn't remember much from fighting Gray in Malva, only enough to know that Gray hadn't been entirely human at the time. Looking back, though, Natsu didn't think he had been entirely human, either. Gray's Devil Slayer magic had hurt like his Ice Make never had.
And the book.
Old, charred, probably illegible, and almost certainly not written in any language he could read; he could have seen it on a bookshelf a hundred times and the only time he would have given it a second thought would have been if it was nearly Levy's birthday.
The Book of END.
But when Zeref had opened it, he'd felt so fragile.
As if all his strength and all his magic meant nothing at all.
And then Zeref had written in it… and the next thing Natsu remembered, he was waking up in a hospital, surrounded by lots of excited nurses and not a single friend.
The medical team didn't know what had caused his coma. Natsu knew, though. He could be single-minded at times, and oblivious at others, but he wasn't a fool.
It seemed Larcade was no more convinced by Natsu's denial than he himself was. Rather than being put out that his big reveal had been ruined, he only seemed more intrigued. "Have you told your guild? No… you haven't, have you? You know how they'd react."
Of course he knew. He'd known from the moment he'd woken up in an unfamiliar city, surrounded by faces who saw him as a mystery first, a patient second, a statistic third, and not as Natsu Dragneel at all. There were any number of reasons why his friends hadn't been there, not least that even he wasn't sure where there was, but it was undeniably fitting.
After all, he wasn't the Natsu Dragneel they knew, was he?
That man was a hero who smashed dark guilds, who infiltrated Avatar to track down Zeref and prevent his evil plans from succeeding, who helped save the entire human race from the demons' plans to destroy magic… that man couldn't be one of those very same demons. That man couldn't be the servant of the greatest villain of all time.
So who did that make him?
"It doesn't change anything!" he insisted, with a fire that might have been convincing, were it not the very reason why he was wandering in the wilderness, unaware that any war was being fought at all.
"But we both know it does. We don't belong with ordinary human beings. They'll always treat us like we're something other. The only place for you is with your family."
Natsu thought of the guild, probably reunited, probably sharing a few drinks right now, probably taking jobs and laughing and loving life like they always did. He tugged his scarf down, as if to conceal the hollowness in his chest. "I told you, I have no family any more."
"You do. It just isn't them." Once more Larcade smiled that infuriating smile, that looked as though it had never experienced true passion in its life. "I've spent years wondering why my father can't accept me, and I think it's because of you. Our family is still incomplete, so he rejects it. But once you have returned to him, things will be as they ought to between the three of us. Zeref would be very happy to have you back."
A harsh bark of laughter escaped Natsu's lips. "He would be happy? He torched the last demon I met right in front of me!"
"Ah, but we're not like the others. They're failures. I'm the only one allowed to use our family name, because only I am worthy of it. And you, well – my father, the one who made me, is your older brother. We're the only true family you have."
It was at that moment that Natsu felt a bizarre sense of relief.
Because, after everything that had happened, he could believe that he was a demon… but the idea that Zeref was his older brother was so patently ridiculous that it cast doubt onto literally everything this stranger had been saying. He felt, bizarrely, free.
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Natsu stated. "I don't have a brother."
"Oh, so you remember your birth family well, do you?" Larcade asked pleasantly.
Natsu's eyes narrowed to dragon-like slits. The fact that he remembered nothing from before Igneel – and admittedly very little of Igneel – wasn't evidence either way. "Well, they've definitely not been around for four hundred years."
Even this arrow of logic didn't seem to faze the other. "That's where it gets complicated. You were born four hundred years ago, but you died when you were very young. Your older brother set out to bring you back to life. After many years of experimentation, he finally succeeded, and you were reborn part human and part demon. Sadly, the price he had paid for delving into forbidden magics had rendered him incapable of looking after you. So Igneel took you in, and then you got sent to the future. On the day you thought the dragons vanished, you had actually woken up in an entirely different era."
"You expect me to believe that? It's ridiculous!"
"You know it's the truth. Zeref is your brother."
"He isn't," Natsu asserted. "And do you know how I know that? Because family are supposed to care for one another, and I utterly despise him."
This he vowed with absolute certainty. Family was the guidance he received from Gramps and the rivalry he shared with Gray and the joy of setting out on another mission with Happy; it was having Laxus to look up to and Erza to keep him on the straight and narrow and Lucy to have his back whenever they ran into trouble (and, occasionally, to be the cause of that trouble). Sometimes he fought with them, and sometimes they got on each other's nerves – especially around rent-paying time – but it never lasted, for their bonds had been far stronger than that.
But he hated Zeref from the bottom of his heart. It wasn't a momentary, deadly passion. It was the certainty that the next time they met, only one of them would walk away.
The certainty that, if ever they found themselves in the same room, his hands would be around Zeref's neck before he could get a single word out.
The certainty that, after coming so close to killing him in the burning streets of Malva, he would never truly be able to rest until Zeref was dead.
"He wants you to hate him," Larcade said. "He made you hate him. Those aren't your feelings."
It was that, more than anything else the demon had said, that sent a flare of heat pulsing through the grass around them.
He could accept Larcade telling him that he was not entirely human, when he had already figured that out for himself. He could listen to this bizarre fantasy the demon had concocted from clichés of dead brothers and a time travel plot twist, safe in the knowledge that it was far too unlikely to be real. But he would not – he would not – let this pathetic demon decide how much of his heart was true.
"Don't you dare tell me what I do and don't feel!" He moved with the speed which had astounded Zeref when they'd fought, but it was almost lazily that Larcade dodged. A light touch of the demon's finger to the vulnerable spot on his wrist turned Natsu's dragonfire-shrouded fist aside.
"I was really hoping we would be able to talk about this like adults," Larcade sighed. He spread his arms wide to show how very deliberately he wasn't striking back. "Tell me, why do you hate Zeref?"
"Because he's evil!"
Even as Natsu spun round with his fists raised, the demon waved his hostile intent away like a bad smell. "Evil is a subjective term. I hear there are reports produced by your own Magic Council which refer to you as such. Be more specific."
"Because-"
But when Natsu thought about it, really thought, he couldn't get much further than that one word.
Grimoire Heart? Not his fault. Avatar? Not his fault. Tartaros? Maybe, but Natsu alone knew that he had been there the entire time, and he'd made no attempt to help his demons win. Sure, he'd promised to Mavis after the Grand Magic Games that he was going to destroy their guild, but he was taking his time over it. There were the rumours, certainly, but there had been rumours about Tartaros's wicked deeds too, and Natsu had not felt the urge to rush off and challenge them until they had attacked Laxus and kidnapped Erza and Mira… until it had become personal.
But what was personal about this?
What had been his cast-iron reason for attacking the anxious, lonely man he ran into that day on Tenrou Island – not knowing his name, not even knowing that they were about to be attacked by Grimoire Heart, but still so very certain that striking down this stranger with all the magic he possessed was the right thing to do?
Zeref kidnapped Lucy.
That was what he wanted to say. That was what he had been saying for weeks. Ever since he'd been trapped in Crocus by an insidious spell and a scent trail that led nowhere, that statement had fed and fed the kindling set beneath his heart, until the little smoulder of hate had become a devastating wildfire.
It didn't matter how hard his friends had tried to convince him otherwise. Every denial or refutation had only fuelled it further. Lyon had assured him that Lucy had seemed quite well when she'd saved Lamia Scale, and Wendy had reported that she hadn't smelled any dark magic on her that could have been forcing her actions. Gajeel had been certain that Lucy wasn't in any danger. Even Gray had told him that Lucy was going round organizing Fairy Tail's revival just fine… but he hadn't listened to a single one of them.
And then there was Lucy herself.
They'd met in Malva, in the aftermath of Arlock's defeat – and how she'd shone. She'd beaten a god and stopped Avatar; pride and delight had left her radiant with a warmth that even a fire mage could feel. She hadn't merely been alive. She hadn't merely been unharmed. She had blazed with life and brilliance.
Perhaps she had always blazed, and he'd never really noticed until he'd been so sure he'd lost her.
That had been the worst part: spending so long loathing Zeref for what he must be doing to Lucy, only to discover that what he'd really done was make her smile in a way not even Fairy Tail had quite been able to do.
And Zeref hadn't wanted to fight him.
Zeref would have walked away.
For Lucy? Perhaps.
But Natsu had not been able to let him leave peacefully.
Just one more thing for which Zeref was to blame.
What did it matter if there was no tangible reason for it? Feelings weren't supposed to be explained. They were something a dragon just knew. His anger was hot and raw and true.
"I don't care what you say!" he snarled, rounding on Larcade with such savagery that the demon only just managed to avoid the blow. "No one can tell me how to feel!"
"How naïve," Larcade smirked. "That is the very definition of a demon."
"Shut up!" Natsu swung at him again. The blow fell several inches wide, but the fire that pulsed from his fist did not. When the demon swung the cross-blade from his back to block it, Natsu pivoted and followed up with a furious breath of flames. The metal glowed red, and then white; Larcade tossed the melting weapon aside with a cry of surprise.
Natsu had never seemed more like a demon as when he pounced into that opening, flaming fists sucking in the air, feet melting the ground, fangs snapping at anything and everything. In that moment, he was a physical manifestation of the desire to rip this not-man apart and silence his accusations for good.
Larcade's calm demeanour was melting like wax under the heat and pressure of the blows. Some he dodged, some he turned aside, but his robes were on fire in three separate places, and his movements were growing increasingly irritated.
Twisting away at last, he brought his hands together as if in prayer. A wave of exhaustion hit Natsu out of nowhere, and he stumbled. That one moment was enough for Larcade to strike him down into the dirt.
"I see you are determined to be unreasonable," sighed the demon. "Perhaps I shall give you some time to think about it. When you are tired of running from your friends and that fake little human life you've been living, I will come to take you home."
"Never!" Natsu screamed. Banishing his lethargy in a burst of flames, he lunged forward, but Larcade was already gone. Natsu passed through the vanishing shimmer of magic and hit the ground face-first.
The mud did nothing to cool his fire, the pain nothing to temper his rage. Slamming his fists into the ground, hellfire seethed around him, and he made no attempt to rein it in. The earth cracked and splintered as it dried, the trees groaned as they withered, purgatory came too quickly for all the life in this place, and still he screamed, and still he let it burn, and burn, and burn.