Hello, everyone !

I'm back with the ninth chapter :D

I hope you enjoy reading this one *bow*

Disclaimer: My deepest gratitude to Mashima Hiro for bringing this wonderful Fairy Tail alive.


Natsu stared at Erza dumbfounded for a few seconds, then turned his gaze towards Lucy. She was still trying to overwhelm Elfman to try attacking Mirajane, showing a side that Natsu had never seen before. Of course she wasn't the Lucy they all know and love, not with her growls, fangs, and claws. But still…

"She's somewhere inside there." Natsu solemnly said. "Let me go, Erza! Lucy's still somewhere inside there!"

Lucy roared and managed to topple over Elfman. But when he was down, she found that Mirajane was no longer standing behind the bar. Her fangs snarled in anger and she turned her head around, lunging immediately towards the first person she saw which was Levy.

"Lu-chan!" Levy yelped.

Gajeel quickly shove Levy behind him and turned his hand into a steel rod. He was ready to block Lucy's attack when she suddenly slammed into an invisible wall made out of runes.

"Lucy!" Freed called out from the side as his runes quickly caged Lucy inside.

Gray put his hands together. "Ice Make: Prison!"

A huge prison made of ice appeared and trapped Lucy inside. Freed adjusted his runes to accommodate Gray's magic, providing a second layer of containment outside of the ice prison.

"Lucy! Snap out of it!" Gray called.

Lucy clearly didn't hear anything. She growled and snarled, slamming her body against the prison. Her instinct told her that she was being imprisoned inside and she didn't like it. The red veins along her body pulsed and spread even further along her body.

"What is happening to her?" Erza asked. "What lines are those?"

"Gray! Gray!" A crying Happy flew towards Gray who readily hugged him. "Why are those veins…!"

"I don't know, Happy." Gray gritted his teeth in confusion. "I've slain it, I'm sure of it. I don't know what is happening…"

"Slain?" Natsu blinked. "Slain what?"

Gray and Happy looked at each other for a moment before Gray let out a little sigh as he ruffled his hair. "Lucy asked us not to tell a soul, but I guess it's time for you to know."

"Know what?" Natsu was impatient.

"Those veins… They also popped out when she was rewriting the Book of E.N.D." Gray answered in a low voice.

Natsu's breath hitched. Rewriting… The Book of E.N.D? Come to think of it, his brain seemed to recall that Zeref said something along those lines when they fought. His older brother had struck a pretty deadly blow on him, but Natsu miraculously survived and even his wound disappeared. Back then Natsu had a feeling that Lucy, Gray, and Happy got anything to do with it, considering they were the three people that were with him before he dueled Zeref in the guild hall.

To think that the reason he survived was because Lucy rewrote the Book of E.N.D…

"She rewrote everything in that book, Natsu." Gray added. "Not just for healing your wound when you battled Zeref, but also to completely sever your life as a demon created by Zeref. The reason why you didn't die when Zeref passed away was because of her rewriting."

"E.N.D's curse and power flowed into her when she was rewriting it, causing those veins to appear on her body… But Gray has slain them! I'm sure of it!" Happy added.

"So… That was why she smelled strange a couple months back." Gajeel muttered.

"Strange?" Natsu asked. "What do you mean?"

"She smelled like… smoke?" Gajeel said with uncertainty. "All I know was that she smelled strange, but you seemed to not notice that, Salamander. I thought my nose was just being overly sensitive or something, I didn't give much thought about it. Besides, she no longer had that smell, not even now."

"You mean… That strange smell on Lucy had something to do with her rewriting the Book of E.N.D?" Mirajane asked.

"But I'm sure Gray has slain it!" Happy insisted.

"I don't know how they appeared again, though…" Gray regretfully said.

"Then…" Erza glanced back at her caged younger sister figure. "She's acting like this because the power of E.N.D which somehow was left inside of her?"

"This is all my fault…" Natsu muttered.

Levy gave his arm a quite good smack. "Of course it's not your fault, dummy! Who would have known that the curse from a Book of Zeref was left inside of her!"

"Rather than self-blaming, we should find a way to bring her back." Laxus added.

"But Master isn't here at the moment." Lisanna added. "He is doing his routine check-up with Porlyusica-san."

"Then we have to bring her back with our own power." Erza took out a sword in a hand. "We'll knock some senses to her."

"You can't hurt her!" Natsu protested.

"Either we beat some senses to her, or she'll hurt us first instead." Laki commented.

"No!" Natsu wriggled free from Erza's grip on his collar. "I won't let you hurt Lucy!"

"She's no longer the Lucy you love, Natsu!" Cana said. "She's somewhere inside of that thing and we need to pull her out!"

"But not by beating her!"

"Do you have any better ideas, smart guy?" Cana asked.

Before Natsu could say any words, the guild doors were suddenly opened.

"Lucy!"

They turned their heads to look over and Erza widened her eyes in surprise upon seeing the guest. "Jellal!"

Jellal Fernandez gritted his teeth upon seeing Lucy who was being contained. "Damn it. We're too late."


Jellal stared at Lucy in silence. She was still slamming her body against Gray's ice prison and Freed's runes, but to no success.

"Jellal, what brings you here all of a sudden?" Erza asked.

Jellal didn't answer right away. His eyes lingered a bit longer at Lucy for a few more seconds, before letting out a heavy sigh and ruffled his hair. "We've been following a dark magic's trace for the past two months." he softly muttered. "I was hoping we weren't late by the time we got here, though."

"A dark magic's trace?" Mirajane blinked in confusion.

"Erza, you do remember about the Book of Kurohei, right?" Jellal asked.

"Of course." Erza said. "It was the book our client wanted us to retrieve from Apocalypse."

"What's that?" Romeo asked.

"An independent dark guild." Erza answered. "If I remember correctly, Kurohei is the name of a dark wizard who was deeply infatuated with Zeref and wished to be his equal. He wrote that book, the Book of Kurohei."

Jellal nodded in affirmation. "There's only one problem, though. When we arrived at the Woodler's mansion to investigate the book further, we found that the book is empty."

"Empty?" Cana asked. "You mean… Nothing was written there?"

"No, it would be more precise to say that… The book is empty because its aura is lacking." Jellal said.

"Of course it is." Gray raised an eyebrow. "Our client sealed that book back, after all."

"Even if the book was sealed, an item which was associated with the darkness like that would still emit a faint aura." Jellal shook his head. "But when we got there… The book doesn't have any darkness left, it is just a plain old book."

"That's weird, indeed." Levy agreed. "A book written by a dark wizard should have been imbued with a pretty strong magic. Where did the magic go?"

"We thought so too, that's why we went to the dark guild to investigate." Meredy answered. "We found a faint magic trace there and we've been following it ever since."

"A faint dark magic trace, yes!" Richard Buchanan added.

"But since the trace was so faint, it took us quite a long time to pinpoint the location of the magic's source." Jellal continued. "We managed to track the trace back to here, at the end."

"By 'here', you mean…"

"Magnolia, to be exact." Macbeth answered Erza's question. "But after we arrived here, we realized that the trace has been mixed with another trace of magic."

"The Celestial magic." Jellal said. "The only Celestial wizard in this town is Lucy Heartfilia, which was why we came here."

"Hold up, hold up!" Gray cut. "How come Lucy's magic was mixed with a dark magic?"

"We don't know that yet." Jellal answered. "What we do know, however, there will be drastic changes within Lucy once her magic and the dark magic from the Book of Kurohei completely combined. We came here to warn her, but we were too late."

"Then… Lucy became like this because her magic is combining with the dark magic, right?" Cana asked. "If we separate them, won't that make Lucy back to normal?"

"Theoretically, yes." Jellal said. "But we don't know how far the two magic have combined. In case something wrong happens, then Lucy…"

"But… How do we separate the magic?" Erza asked.

"Will a separation enchantment work?" Wendy suggested.

"We don't know about that, either." Meredy apologetically sighed. "This is the first time we've ever seen something like this too."

The guild fell into a silence as they wondered about the choices they had. There weren't many choices available, unfortunately. Either they tried to separate the magic, or they forcefully knocked some senses to Lucy. Both options couldn't guarantee a 100% success either.

Lucy growled and slammed her body against the protection magic again, surprising everyone and creating a crack on Gray's ice prison.

"She's breaking out…!" Gray concentrated on his magic to fix the prison. But Lucy had it enough, she wanted to get out and to wreak havoc. She slammed her body against the cage even harder and roared loudly.

"Oi, her soul is getting darker!" Bickslow activated his eyes. "The dark magic is consuming her!"

"Let's just gamble on it!" Cana decided. "Wendy! Use your separation enchantment!"

"Wait!" Natsu was still hesitant. "If something goes wrong, then—"

"We don't have another choice, Natsu!" Cana retorted. "We have to separate the magic before she's fully consumed!"

"But—"

Whatever words on Natsu's tongue were cut off due to Lucy's hard slam against the cage. She roared loudly, her strength increased due to the dark magic which was blazing from within her. The crack widened, and with one last hard slam, the ice prison as well as the imprisonment runes were broken.

Both Gray and Freed got blown over by their broken spell.

"RAAAAHHHH!"

"She's out of control!" Cana remarked.

Lucy's blond hair started to turn into black, the strange veins were almost covering her entire body completely. Her fangs and her claws became longer, the dark magic was enveloping her body.

"L—Lucy…" Happy whimpered.

Lucy snapped her head towards Happy upon hearing his voice calling her name and growled. She planted her feet hard on the guild hall's floor which caused it to be broken, preparing herself to lunge towards Happy. A split second after, a bright yellow magic circle appeared on top of her. Light poured down from the magic circle, halting her movement and making her roared out of pain.

"REGULUS!"

Everyone turned their heads towards the voice's source.

"Loke!"

Loke was standing not far from them, his body was glowing with a gold aura as he used his magic to trap Lucy within the pillar of light. Lucy growled in pain and in annoyance for being trapped again, but she couldn't do much this time.

"Loke! You're hurting her!" Natsu shouted.

"No choice!" Loke retorted. "This is a spell the Celestial Spirit King bestowed to me to save you, Lucy! The brilliance of 88 stars will protect you! SHINE, LICHTSÄULE!"

The pillar of light suddenly solidified, encasing Lucy inside of it. She stopped moving and her voice could no longer be heard. The magic circle then disappeared and the solid pillar of light shone as if it was a crystal.

"Lucy!" Natsu banged his fist on the crystal but to no avail.

"It's okay, Natsu, the light is protecting her." Loke assured. "This is a protection magic from the Celestial Spirit King so that Lucy's soul wouldn't be devoured by the dark magic."

"It's true." Bickslow confirmed with his eyes.

"This should give us some time to sort things out." Loke let out a short sigh.

"You know something's wrong with her?" Erza asked.

"We all do, it's just… We don't know exactly what is wrong." Loke answered. "Her Celestial magic is thinning out lately, it's getting harder for us to keep our connection with her."

"Thinning out?" Levy blinked her eyes in confusion.

"It feels like she is losing her magic." Loke answered. "As if her magic is being sucked out. Did you know Lucy hasn't used her summoning magic for the past month?"

"What?" Mirajane gasped. "But… She took all those solo missions!"

Loke nodded. "She called us during the first month, but after that… She just stopped."

"Most likely because the dark magic from the Book of Kurohei is taking over." Jellal guessed.

"The Book of Kurohei?" Loke asked.

"It was a book written by a dark wizard who was too infatuated with Zeref." Gray answered. "She touched the book when we were retrieving it and from what Jellal told us, seems like the dark magic was absorbed into her body."

Loke narrowed his eyes a bit, he stared at his master for a few seconds. "I see." he finally said. "Her body is compatible."

"What do you mean by that?" Natsu asked.

"Natsu, do you know that Lucy rewrote the Book of E.N.D?" Loke asked back.

"…Yeah."

"Do you know why she was able to do that?" Loke asked again.

"Come to think of it…" Gray suddenly pondered. "How come she was able to rewrite the book? Rewriting a book with that kind of dark magic shouldn't have been easily done by a human."

"Because she's compatible." Loke answered. "Her ancestor, Anna, has a close connection with Zeref through the Eclipse Gate project. That connection is being passed down generation through generation in the Heartfilia family, considering the task of opening the Eclipse Gate in the future was also being passed down."

"You mean… Lucy was able to rewrite the Book of E.N.D because she is sort of compatible for Zeref's dark magic?" Erza asked.

"That's the most probable explanation." Loke answered. "I think Lucy's compatibility with the dark magic is also the reason why she was able to absorb Kurohei's magic from the book."

"But I'm sure I've slain the magic from her!" Gray retorted.

"Perhaps the compatibility is linked to her soul." Loke answered. "If it's like that…"

"Then a portion of Natsu's E.N.D magic is most likely still within her." Erza completed Loke's words. "Can you try slaying it again, Gray?"

"No way." Gray shook his head. "I'm not skilled enough to do that without damaging her soul."

"What about the separation enchantment?" Erza looked at Wendy. "Do you think you can do that, Wendy?"

Wendy weakly shook her head. "Separation enchantment on a soul is a really hard thing to do. I'm not sure I'm skilled enough to do that… If there's a slight mistake, her soul will be destroyed instead."

"Damn it!" Cana clicked her tongue. "Isn't there anything we can do?"

"Yes, nothing."

A chilling silence suddenly fell, sending shivers along their spines. What kind of voice was that? Whose voice was it?

"Over here, Fairy Tail."

It took them a second more to realize where the voice was being heard from. They turned their heads towards Lucy, gasps escaped from some of them upon seeing another head on Lucy's body.

The second head was covered with red scales with a pair of horns protruding from her head. She had a long blond hair and a pair of glowing red eyes. Her upper fangs showed itself when she smirked.

The same face Lucy saw in the dream that she had forgotten.

"What… What is that…?" Levy's body trembled in fear.

"Oh, dear." The face chuckled. "It's my second face, Levy-chan."

"D—don't call me that!" Levy stuttered. "Y—you're not Lu-chan…"

The face giggled. "I am her. To be more precise, I am her dark persona."


Done !

I'm sorry this chapter came out a bit shorter than the previous ones ! I had a pretty bad writer's block when writing it T_T

Anyway, what do you think about this chapter ?

Kindly leave your reviews and/or flames :D

P.S: Lichtsäule is the German for 'pillar of light'.