Oblivion

by MissCatty

With just half a face, you can't really know someone. That's what Mirajane always told Lisanna. But in the end, despite all of the blood, that's not where the true horror of not knowing really lies. Especially when you finally, really come to know...

Mirajane blinked.

"…day, I saw this adorable kitten! He had the biggest eyes and chubbiest cheeks! Gah! Oh, my gosh he was just so cute!—and small!I really wanted to take him home with me, but…" Lisanna sighed heavily. "He already had a home."

"That's nice," Elfman commented. "But if you're going to take home a stray, I think a puppy would be better."

"Huh? I thought you liked cats, Elf…why do you say that?"

"I do, but…man's best friend. What better pet to have?"

"That's the most generic thing you can say."

"Hey—dogs are cute, too! Right, Sis?"

Pushing away the feeling of having just woken up, Mirajane turned her gaze away from the war propaganda poster: Who will save you? and fixed her deep blue eyes on her two siblings, Lisanna in a lavender tank top with jean shorts and Elfman in a sky blue T-shirt with khakis shorts.

"Yeah, dogs are cute," she said with a sweet smile. Elfman, with his neatly combed down, straight cut hair that made his face all the more harmless compared to his ever so continuously growing stature, grinned brightly, closing his right hand in a fist as if he had just won victory, all while Lisanna pouted, crossing her arms as she looked up with a huff, blowing her growing bangs out of her face. "But you two already know…" Mirajane gently went on while a floral-scented, cool spring breeze softly danced by, shifting strands of her long starlight white hair, making her right hand go up and tuck her hair securely behind her ear. "We can't have pets, remember? Our apartment doesn't allow it."

Both Elfman and Lisanna's expression fell as if all the happiness had been sucked out of them and they looked to the ground, saying in unison: "Oh, yeah…"

A moment of silence went by, and a vibrant, violet faded blue-winged butterfly flew by in front of Mirajane's vision. Her large deep blue eyes followed it as it flew down the sunlit, orange-paved stone street. In the near distance, people conversed at the vendors that lined the streets on either side, putting a yellow summer dress up to their body or pointing to some glass stained wind chimes that sang in the light breeze. A little boy pointing excitedly pulled his younger brother holding a dragon stuffed animal towards the ice cream shop, causing a scruffy black dog to duck behind the garbage bin it was nearby and the young flower lady holding an abnormally large basket to stutter in her startled steps and throw her arms up, making all of the basket's contents fly out and rain a shower of milky pink rose petals, which then led a young aspiring wood carver from across the way to run over and help.

The butterfly finally disappeared out of sight.

"Maybe we could try and hide it?" Elfman quietly pondered.

"Oh!" Lisanna looked up with sparkling eyes. "In mine and Mira's closet?!"

"Yeah! Your guys' closet is pretty big, huh?"

"Like half the size of our actual room!"

"That's ridiculous..."

"Right?! But…if it can be enough living space for a pet…"

Sensing their intently staring eyes, Mirajane looked over at her two younger siblings. She smiled. "I won't tell the landlord if you don't!" she stated with a wink.

"Yes!" her siblings cheered.

"Now that we got that settled…" Lisanna began to say, "where to next?"

"I'm hungry…" Elfman sheepishly said, scratching his sun-kissed face.

"You're always hungry," Lisanna said with a light laugh. "Oh! There was this new place I just saw the other day, and I've been dying to try it! Let's go there! C'mon!" With that said she grabbed Elfman's large hand and tugged, pulling his heavy gait along as she ran down the street.

Mirajane quietly giggled, smiling gently as she watched her two siblings.

Like they normally did on the weekends, Mirajane and her siblings had all decided to go shopping today even though oftentimes they never bought anything other than food. They just did it because they wanted to spend time with each other—and what better way than to do it on an adventure? Granted it may not even be that grand of one…but Mirajane loved it. She loved this. She loved them. As she's already thought over a thousand times…if only it could stay this way forever.

She glanced back over at the massive poster layered over many other war propaganda posters that were taped on the large black lamp post to her right, just beside her a few feet away. The young man featured as the main face of this large poster was a well-known war hero. With a naturally serious face and eyes that could strike fear into the heart of any opponent looking off in the distant, it was clear he could inspire even the weakest of men to victory in a seemingly impossible fight. His golden hair was clean cut and short, with black sunglasses that rested atop his head that reflected battle airships and the Kingdom of Fiore's royal crest on a waving flag. The famous soldier was handsome and young, having his portrait being painted by an artist by the name of Reedus Jonah, as Mirajane could barely read in the lower right corner of the propaganda poster now that she was squinting her eyes…

There must have been countless posters of this same painted image all over Magnolia now.

FIGHT! Protect the ones you LOVE!

The final large block letters placed just below the war hero.

"Sis!" Elfman called out.

Mirajane stared at the war poster a little longer, her eyes lingering, until she eventually stepped off the sidewalk and into the street, running, catching up to her siblings with a large happy smile on her face, taking Elfman's other large, outstretched free hand.

He smiled his bright, dorky smile she so much loved at her.

That had all been six months ago.

"What?! He stopped by again today? While I wasn't around?! Gah!"

Everything was different now.

Lisanna flailed her arms up in a mixture of frustration and disappointment. She was now huffing and puffing with her arms folded across her chest while her elder sister simply shrugged, empathetically saying: "I'm sorry. But you know I can't just leave the front counter and get you, only to have you stand there and stare, making the customer feel uncomfortable…"

"Well, yeah—wait, no!—that wouldn't have happened! Mira, you could've maybe called me up front and asked me to get you something or…oh, I don't know!—just any kind of excuse! You know I've been waiting!"

Mirajane sighed. "Lisanna, you don't even know what the guy actually looks like…" She walked across the room to stand by the light switch beside the front door, putting the strap to her black purse over her shoulder. "You've only come to know half his face," she added, waiting for Lisanna to grab her own light blue purse and come stand beside her before she ultimately flicked the switch, killing the lights—except it didn't cause the expected blackout effect since the light from the street lamp outside shined straight through the windows that spanned across the entire front of the small shop, exposing everything there was in the confined empty space.

It was honestly such a relief to Mirajane that the evening had come because now they could finally go home, officially ending their shift at Caldia Dry Cleaning, Magnolia's only local dry cleaners shop that was currently open. Today had been a particularly busy day, and several regular customers had come in.

"Well, yeah, but Mira, I need at least something to look forward to during this dreadful time!" Lisanna stated dramatically. "You know it's been really hard to be able to do practically nothing. And just because we've been able to come back to work—which one week off is super pathetic—it doesn't count as anything!Plus, I always make sure to get you when Lightning comes, so can't you pretty please do me the favor next time when Doriate comes in?" The youngest Strauss now had her hands clasped together in pleading with her head bowed.

"Why him though?" Mirajane simply questioned.

"I don't know—he just seems cool and mature…?"

After a moment, Mirajane entertained a wistful smile as she stared at the beggar in front of her for a few silent moments, finally allowing her shoulders to slump down with a sigh. "All right—fine. I'm sorry. I'll see what I can do next time…"

Lisanna peeped open a cerulean blue eye, grinning brightly at her sister as she said: "Please and thank you!"

Mirajane shook her head lightly and rolled her eyes, retrieving the store keys from the front pocket of her purse, sighing heavily because she still wasn't going to bother getting Lisanna when that man came in. She did not like the look in Doriate's eyes. Plus, he just didn't give off positive vibes...

"Oh, Mira," Lisanna suddenly began to say just as Mirajane's hand reached out for the antique door handle, making her elder sister look up at her. The youngest Strauss was in the middle of putting a floral, sewn piece of fabric with two elastic loops on the ends up to her face. "Don't forget your mask." She looped the two elastics around her ears, adjusting the fabric over the lower half of her face as designed.

Mirajane carefully touched her chin then, quickly realizing… "Oh, my gosh! Right!" And she dug through her purse, pulling out the disposable face mask she had brought in for today. She couldn't find her plain, homemade black one this morning; but luckily, they still had a box of masks from back when they would use them when they actually got sick with a simple cold, so it was fine. She put the mask on, looping each white elastic band behind her ear—a motion that had become second nature to her. Lisanna gave her thumbs up while Mirajane returned the gesture with a smile…only to realize: Right. She can't see my smile. So, she tilted her head to the side, twisting her face up in a pained smile, as if that would magically be enough to show the awkward smile that now replaced her last one that couldn't be seen. Ugh!—"I hate these masks!" She huffed, opening the old-fashioned glass door, sounding off the bell at the top of the door.

"You're telling me…" Lisanna grumbled, following her sister out the door into the cool air of the night.

"I mean, seriously, these masks are so ridiculous!" Mirajane continued to fume even when they did return home to their small apartment, turning on all of the lights in the black abyss. She dropped her purse on the couch in the front room, heading straight for the kitchen connected next door, putting on the light yellow apron that hung up beside the refrigerator. She tied the long thin, white strips of ribbon at the sides of the apron tightly around her slim waist, wrapping it once around her until the strings were back in the front where she tied a crooked, sloppy bow with the least amount of grace she had displayed all day.

"I know," Lisanna chimed behind her, already having taken her mask off the second they walked through the door. "But Mira," she began, pointing to her face when the eldest Strauss turned to her, already beginning to pull her starlight white hair up in a high ponytail.

"Oh!"

Mirajane released all of her hair she had gathered. She practically yanked the snow white mask she had been wearing off of her face, satisfyingly finally able to show the whole world what kind of expression was really on her usually delightful face—except, the only people who would be able to see this expression would be just Lisanna. Not even their brother, Elfman, would be able to see it because he had just been deployed the other day to join the ongoing war, leaving Mirajane's heart in a weird melancholy state the moment they had to say goodbye and he cried, creating a chain effect that caused Lisanna to cry. Mirajane didn't cry because she knew she had to send him off with a smile, which he had returned it at the very end of their farewells…yet neither of them could see it. Just like how everybody else that surrounded them that day at the train station couldn't see it.

At least they knew each other well enough to know that they had been smiling at each other…

Or so Mirajane hoped, having nearly taken her mask off at the end just so Elfman could see that they were really proud of him—always would be—and that they would be waiting when he would return because waving energetically while smiling behind a stinking mask as his large form slowly walked away and the tears they could see coming out faster each time he turned to look back at them only continued to flow out of his eyes like an unstoppable stream couldn't really cut it, would it? But she knew it wouldn't have been a good idea to take her mask off at the train station, less she wanted to potentially be fined. She couldn't remember what the current standing of laws in Magnolia was at the moment since they had been constantly changing, despite them all being "temporary."

Anyhow, at the moment, the places of highest contagion were the docks and train station. Places that often hosted large groups of people, as well as people that were traveling. It wasn't uncommon to see people who didn't mask up and keep their distance from one another like they were advised to by the King. The least she could do was uphold an example to her siblings, as well as be respectful to those around her and mindful to her own health. Even if the masks weren't actually as helpful as some argued them to be.

But right now, unlike several other towns further away, as well as the Capitol, the current horror that was seemingly passing through around all over Earth Land like the Grim Reaper on an angry manhunt had yet to be confirmed in Magnolia. They still didn't have any news of any cases. Yet.

Which the current mayor of Magnolia was set on keeping it that way by declaring a few months ago that unless you wanted to be arrested or charged, until it was officially gone or they had found a cure, everyone was to wear a face mask when going out. Because the pandemic in Fiore and neighboring kingdoms was proving to be uncontrollable, and even the towns making all of its residents go under lockdown with various stores and public places closed wasn't enough. Even though each individual area was supposedly taking the necessary procedures to help the still incoherent situation, as well as prevention of the spread of the terminal, airborne Ethernano Virus, otherwise known as Etherious or the Black Curse, which had made its ghastly debut almost half a year ago, people were still dying and deathly afraid of the sickness. So much to the point that it was hard to tell who was overreacting and who wasn't.

Everything about Etherious was up in the air like a swarm of buzzing wasps. Researchers from all over the world were still trying to figure out all about this mysterious illness and how it worked; the only main facts that had been confirmed about Etherious was the fact that it could only be caught by breathing it in, it was fatal, and that those who survived it often dealt with terminal effects to their body, which varied between the survivors. Symptoms also varied between the infected, but two main common issues was the fact that those who were infected often suffered with trouble of breathing and hemoptysis, often coughing up abnormal black globs of blood.

Among the facts, there were many conspiracy theories about it, too, such as the scorned idea that Etherious wasn't nature made and that it was in fact crafted Black Magic. That it had originated from a man by the name of Zeref, who apparently has the ability to channel his inner magic unlike the rest of those with a heritage of it, and he purposefully infected several people with this disease in hopes it would spread. The reason for that? It was still unknown. Which was why it was seen as ridiculous, implausible, and highly inconceivable by the majority. Especially since it had to do with magic.

There was also another ludicrous theory that those with a magical heritage, or most commonly known as inner magic, couldn't catch the potentially deadly, yet also recoverable disease (even though that one had been proved wrong through several cases already).

Another bizarre theory stated that the Black Curse took away magic from those with a magical heritage.

There were so many theories regarding magic that had long since been overruled by science and facts, yet a good portion of the minority still seemed to be pushing for what most people still had a hard time believing as real. So far, the only thing that seemed accurate among the ridiculousness of theories was the fact that Etherious always killed normal people, while those with inner magic were the only ones who could survive the dangerous virus. Except there was one exception to that idea Mirajane knew about that those backing up that idea had seemed to overlook or maybe even forgotten. Other than that single theory, however, the inaccuracies of philosophies, both farfetched and reasonable, were endless.

However, as of late, there was new popular, yet unpopular theory that people were talking about. It mostly seemed like it was a rumor now, and whether or not it'd pass over like every other talk that wandered the streets in hushed whispers was still debatable, but as the supposed newfound theory went: apparently, the only way they would be able to find/create a cure to the Black Curse was through magic. It was simple. Easy. Wonderful. Except, the only issue with that was the plain fact that nobody knew how to use magic. Making it unbelievable. Absurd. Preposterous. In this time and age, everyone was "normal." Except there were those who really weren't because they had a magical heritage, giving them the birthright to what everyone now called inner magic because that's where something like magic resided. A source of unusable, abnormal energy. Another unbelievable, popular, yet unpopular idea. It was so old now.

But Mirajane knew. It wasn't quite as unusable as everyone had been thinking. Because she had experienced firsthand her own inner magic, having been able to somehow channel it without even trying. Except she had been trying that very first time because it was the only way she could protect her siblings. Now, ever since that incident at the altar in the cathedral of her hometown, she hadn't been trying. And even then, she still somehow had managed to use her magic, or so it seemed...

It was such a tricky predicament she was in, really—especially against the whole world.

Unlike everyone else who wanted to believe in it, not even having proof, she didn't want to believe it. In fact, she didn't want anything to do with magic. She didn't want to unlock any so-called "inner magic." She just wanted to stay human, even if she no longer was fully human at this point. Not after what happened at the altar. She couldn't be…she knew that. But it was better than nothing. And it certainly was better than being able to physically channel her inner magic and potentially lose control. Harming those she didn't want to.

She honestly didn't get it.

How could people want to unleash something they didn't even know one thing about? Something that could complete the destruction of the world? Because at this rate, with how things were going with not just the war and virus, but the political and public side of it as well, there was only blackness that waited. Blackness as dark as their souls, the secrets, their desires, the blood, and her inner magic.

Don't go breaking the curse. Don't do anything unnecessary. Those were the pleading thoughts that always passed through her head whenever she caught snippets of people's conversations in regards to this ancient theory. Because while nobody knew how to use magic, like most things, there was a reason for that. Which that reason was due to a bygone curse—one that bound everyone down in chains; but once that curse was broken, those naturally born with magic would soon be able to return to their glory days. And maybe, just maybe, they'd be able to somehow end the ongoing war between all nations, as well as end the plague of the Black Curse—hallelujah. If only they knew that it was all just a twisted placebo effect…

Mirajane stared down at her right hand. Her normal right hand. Her normal, human right hand. She honestly wasn't sure who she was fooling anymore.

"You know, with how much you complain, but how often you forget—and not to mention that you used to be proactive about the masks, saying positive, encouraging things, it's really hard to tell how you really feel about having to wear these masks," Lisanna commented as she plopped tiredly down on the beige, soft-cushioned couch across the way from the large kitchen entrance to where she could see her sister now pulling out a large, heavy, wooden cutting board and knife.

"Hmm?" Mirajane simply hummed, now busying herself with pulling out some old vegetables from the fridge that would probably rot by tomorrow if they didn't use them tonight. She examined a slightly soggy bag of unpeeled, large carrots. "Well, Lisanna," she started to say, sighing, "you know that I do really hate them, though, right?"

Although she could also admit that she may have gone through an odd hypocritical phase of positivity when it was first delegated throughout Fiore that the citizen's now had to wear masks (it wasn't decreed as law, but it was "strongly advised" as well as heavily pushed for each town to create their own laws about it as necessary to suit the specific needs of its residents). During that time, when wearing masks first started to become a trend, as well as isolation and social distancing (at least two adult arm lengths away was standard) becoming the new daily living, Mirajane had at first been displaying all the signs that she had no problem with this new lifestyle and that everything was still fine and dandy. Even with several favorite stores abruptly shutting down. Any type of socializing becoming scorned. The streets suddenly becoming more empty. Travelling becoming restricted. The headline on every magazine, tabloid, and newspaper all centering on the same frightening thing. Danger lurking in every train carriage and passenger that just so happened to stop in Magnolia. And not to mention the fright of having no more flour (bye-bye baking) as well as toilet paper (Magnolia had actually been fine—at least, better off than several other towns)—oh no!—it was all temporary, though.

Especially in Magnolia, where they miraculously had yet to have an actual case or outbreak of the Ethernano Virus. Everyone knew, though, that it was only a matter of time now.

In the Capitol and neighboring towns, everything was much worse, as well as now being patrolled by the Cherry Blossom Holy Knights to make sure everyone was following protocol as advised by the King. After all, they had to take more precaution in the Capitol, for because Crocus was the first place cases had been discovered, as well as one of the largest populated cities in Fiore, it was the worst and most dangerous place to be in right now. If only they had caught onto it sooner…

If only they had realized what a big deal this virus actually was when the very first few cases of it began to make medical archive as an abnormal, drastic decline to death because they've had mysterious cases like that before. But the Ethernano Virus would clearly make itself known, and one of the main penalties of its contagion would really cause quite the shock.

The first apparent death that finally caught the publics' attention had been the death of a well-known general—one of the only generals to have ever led a brigade with no casualties several times, as well as the only general who was too stubborn to not go into war with his men and stand with the front line to fight for the same grand cause everyone else on the battlefield was risking their lives for. He was, for lack of better words, invincible. Before his death, a couple mere weeks after he had temporarily returned home, he had just led a small group of soldiers, while critically injured, in what people were now calling one of history's greatest rescue and escape expeditions in all of Fiore. For his bravery and honor, he had been awarded several medals. All pendants and badges General Gildarts Clive would never be able to see on the official day of the Awards Ceremony and his funeral.

Not just the women whom he had infamous unpromising affairs with cried, but all of Fiore did as well. Including General Clive's most trusted Captain and friend, another well-respected hero known for practically all the same, having recently been promoted to colonel for his outstanding performances. This particular colonel had initially been most well-known for always being by General Clive's side, despite ranking, and now that the golden man of honor had been cruelly taken away from the world's focus, it had shifted to the next closest thing, and who better to divulge into, digging out their personal life as if it were some hidden treasure to share with the world, being the very man General Clive had risked his life for: Colonel Laxus Dreyar. One of the first victims of the Ethernano Virus to have survived. Which from whom they were soon able to trace back contamination of the virus originating in Alakitasia, somewhere nearby the Alvarez Empire. The very kingdom Fiore was in war with, as well as quite possibly the most dangerous one out there.

Because as it turned out, all cases of the Ethernano Virus were coming from those who had contact with soldiers that were returning from their time in the war. And as unfortunate as it was, almost all soldiers who were returning were being tested positive with the virus.

There had already been numerous men of honor who had died from the Black Curse at this point. It'd been almost a year since the virus first broke out. Almost a year since mankind had been crying for one another. Almost a year since everyone shared the same emotion. Almost a year since they all started to experience the same things. Almost a year since everything began to dramatically change. Almost a year since everything first shut down. Almost a year since quarantining became the norm. And almost a year since Mirajane realized how much she actually hated this—all of it.

Especially the having to wear a mask part, of course including all other grander things of woe, but particularly about the former, there was now one crucial part about the human face she had realized people could no longer easily understand.

"Yeah…" Lisanna finally said after too long of a silence, a small smile forming on her face. "I know…because you've been complaining about it practically every day ever since we were advised to wear them."

"Well, yeah—I mean—" Mirajane pulled out an oddly shaped zucchini from the bottom clear compartment, Lisanna raising her eyebrows at the sight, mouth falling slightly ajar—"facial expressions are important!—being able to see the mouth is important!" She gave Lisanna a pointed look before gathering all of the vegetables she had set on the ground and carried them to the counter space beside the sink she had set the wooden cutting board on. "These masks cover half of our face—half our identity!—which is half too much if you ask me—ultimately concealing our main way we can express and interact with each other without having to say or do much—but now, all of that has been taken away, and do you know how many times I've had to reassure people that it was okay and that I'm not mad when they come in to the dry cleaners? Or how many times I really can't tell if people are upset with me or not? You know some people just have a natural way of speaking harshly without even realizing it, and sometimes their eyes just somehow aren't expressive enough for me to tell…"

"Hmm…yeah. I guess facial expressions are pretty important, huh?" Lisanna said thoughtfully, tilting her head back so she could stare up at the star-covered ceiling—glow-in-the-dark stars the Strauss siblings had stuck up there a few months back. There were even some makeshift constellations each sibling had created, completing the sky of their home. "Kissing's pretty important, too," Lisanna added, "but you can't really do that with masks on." She then dropped her head back down, scowling. "It really kills the moment when the guy goes in to kiss you, but then he has to stop and take off his mask, and then take off yours, but then if he can't do that without messing up, then it becomes a mess, and gah!—why can't I just be the one who takes it off? Ask first! It was honestly just a complete nightmare, Mira..."

"Nightmare, huh?" Mirajane mused. She blinked, caught off-guard by the strange sense of déjà vu that had just overcome her—almost like she had been in this same situation before, having a similar conversation with Lisanna. Or someone. Or maybe not even that—but just something seemed familiar. Who had she been talking with before? An unexplainable pang of panic suddenly struck through her, making her dark blue eyes snap over to her little sister. "That's what happened to you on your last date, wasn't it?" she brashly asked, internally crying for the girl on the couch to look her way—look her in the eyes.

"Yep, and I don't know if I'll be going on another date with him because we didn't even kiss in the end and I feel absolutely mortified by the whole experience." The pixie-haired girl sighed, finally glancing over at Mirajane with clear cerulean blue eyes—a sight that had sent a frightful jolt to the eldest Strauss' heart when their eyes connected because she had been afraid of seeing something else. But she didn't.

After a quick passing moment, Mirajane gave her little sister a small smile, all irrational emotions draining from her body.

"Yeah…I don't blame you."

She dropped her gaze back to the vegetables she was cutting where she quickly forgot about her previous emotions—ones that no longer existed in her memories because everything was okay, so there was no need to worry about it, eliminating all of her chances of thinking about it a little too much.

"You know…I feel like you haven't had very much luck in the dating department," Mirajane mused, causing said girl of topic to snicker in sardonic agreement.

Since the whole issue with the Ethernano Virus had slightly deescalated—only slightly, in fact huge emphasis on it because as of late, cases in nearby towns to Magnolia were beginning to uncannily skyrocket, as the newspapers were warning by each passing day—the heavily advised requests decreed by the King set on social distancing and isolating oneself from friends and family, as well as obviously strangers, had become a little more lenient; a lot of people hadn't been following it too strictly anyhow, despite any and all consequences, so he was only bringing standards down a little to match what people wanted.

And because there was still somehow absolutely nothing to do to kill all the free time (excluding the dragging hours the Strauss sisters had to spend working at Caldia Dry Cleaning six days a week) and socializing seemed like the only option out there, Lisanna had been using a special mailing system to meet people to go on dates with less she died of absolute boredom. She needed at least something to look forward to, and she may as well test the waters and see if maybe her knight in shining armor was out there, waiting for a maiden to save from this dastardly blasted Black Curse that had turned everything dull and dark. Literally. All of her favorite stores had been shut down and the streets didn't have that same glow of life it used to have. Seemed romantic enough, right? And hey, maybe this was how she was destined to meet her Prince Charming—the person who she could never have a dull moment with (not implying anything against Mirajane).

Love to rescue her sounded nice.

Mirajane honestly felt sad that her little sister's dating experience had come to this, though, because with how the mailing system worked and the fact that seeing photographs costed extra money to the point that it was such a rip-off (the last time Lisanna had gone with the no picture option, she ended up on a date with a boy whose face was not the one she had been expecting, and clearly hers wasn't what he had been expecting either, but she was willing, only to discover his personality was just as unsightly, so instead she was more than willing to pay the extra cost to always see the verified pictures over the small, rarely long, profile of whom she was mailing and talking to), who knew what kind of people Lisanna would really be running into. You could only know someone's true character by spending real time with them, as the youngest Strauss had already learned. The mailing system truly was different from traditional dating, lacking certain excitements only found by making eyes with a handsome face on the street and them coming over to make a move; but in a way, meeting a not-yet-having-actually-met complete stranger who seemed interested had its merits, too.

Mirajane just always had to make sure she went along with her little sister to make sure the guy was actually who they said they were, and that they knew she existed. That she was watching and had no problem with them (the boy alone) suddenly going missing the next day if they were to ever defile her little sister in any unwanted way. She was always only a scream away.

In times like this, Mirajane did wish they had some better communication instrument of some sort invented so she wouldn't have to worry this much; and maybe had magic been ably accessed, they would because surely magic could help in that area that the world was being a little slow in…but, oh well.

Not even in a hundred years something like that would ever exist anyways.

Just as it had always never existed for the past hundreds of years.

A misleading truth that Mirajane always found herself somehow going back to like she were stuck in limbo like she was with everything else because there were a lot of false facts out there, and while nowadays everyone else focused on other things mainly surrounding the virus, she sometimes focused on the fact that there were still old runes of instructions and legends about supposed magical tools, and both things existed in encased glass at the Enchanted Hall of Magic, a special exhibition found only in Kathartrés Cathedral, the most grand and largest church found in the Capitol.

Items that are powered by magic weren't too bad of an idea as magic freely being used from the soul was to Mirajane. Yet, she always had to go with the contradicted ideas because there were in fact modern tools designed to be powered by magic apparently.

A couple months back, particular rumors about the war had leaked, claiming that there were soldiers who were using magically induced weapons—something the King himself still had yet to confirm or say otherwise. Only those with magic born blood, which really were few, could channel the full power of these weapons, however, and the breakthrough for this grand discovery that those with a magical heritage could possibly still use their inner magic had come from an old study a young genius girl by the name of Mavis Vermillion had first introduced nearly two hundred years way back. Her current successor, an old man of the name of Makarov Dreyar, well-known as the current successor who ran the famous, high-class weapons industry Mavis herself had created to help end the war and a means of quality defense for the soldiers and overall people of Fiore, apparently had managed to invent a promising weapon that could access one's heritage of inner magic and use it through the weapon. It was all madness.

A striking brilliance.

Yet, an inhuman horror that had already become what few opposing people (shockingly the majority in this argument) had twisted it into, claiming that there was something really messed up going on with the Kingdom of Fiore's line of defense, and that did you hear? They were using real people as experiments, and sucking magic from those with this supposed inner magic to try and implant it into the naturally non-magic born to see if they could provide a means to make the non-magically innate gain a stolen identity of magic. How cruel and inhuman! But that Makarov Dreyar—he's finally hit that age—he's just a crazy old cook!—a lunatic! He needs to be sent to a mental facility. Too bad he couldn't age with grace like all of his predecessors…but weren't they all crazy in the end, too? Did you hear about how his son turned out? It was because he had tested and done experiments on his own son that he became such a wack job. That's what chasing a bizarre dream will do. And now look, there's still a grandson who only can fall into the same fate as his father. Hey, hey—how come nobody's ever acknowledged this before? Colonel Dreyar and that crazy cook are related. It's no wonder he's been able to survive this long. He's a cheat!—I bet he's really not even that strong. Like it's been said, he can only share the same fate as his bloodline bounds him to. How incredibly unfortunate and a shame…

"Hey, Mira?"

Mirajane sighed as the words from an unfiltered conversation she had caught weeks ago at the grocery store when waiting in line submerged back into the depths of her memories. She honestly couldn't believe how wretched the world was sometimes. People could never make up their minds, and there was always someone out there to pick on someone else's pride and glory.

"Yes?" she finally said, looking up from the finely cut vegetables. Maybe they were a little too finely cut…

"Do you think this will ever end?" Lisanna asked, large eyes on her. "Do you think…we'll ever go back to normal?"

Normal. What an awful word, yet it still was the only thing Mirajane ever wanted, for both her siblings and their world. Nothing about this was normal. And it probably would never go back to normal for a while, if ever. It'd already felt like a thousand years they'd been stuck in this living nightmare. But…

"I'm sure we will." Mirajane smiled a close-lipped smile. "Some day."

Lisanna mirrored the smile, looking up at the ceiling for a few moments before she ultimately swung her legs up and forward, launching herself to an acrobatic stand. She remained oddly frozen for some time, staring blankly ahead, before she ultimately turned and marched towards her elder sister, saying: "Okay! What can I help you with? I'm starving…"

Their everyday had turned into something like this for a while now, their conversations always coming back to the same topics at some point throughout the days, maybe even weeks or months if they could manage. The only thing that was missing was the contributions of their brother. But it was about time he got away from the job they'd been working ever since they had moved to Magnolia. He never seemed to like it too much anyways. It didn't suit him. But it didn't suit Lisanna or Mirajane either, despite how well they played it out…

"Hi! Welcome to Caldia Dry Cleaning! Are you here to pick up or is there something we can help you with?"

"Yes, I'm here with this dress…" the tall, slim elderly lady whose well-groomed pink hair was tied up in a tight, neat bun with two golden star-themed hair pieces crisscrossed at the base of the bun, clad in a blouse and skirt, wearing a white disposable mask at the door was saying as she brought a large black garment bag over to the counter.

It was currently ten in the morning, an hour just before they had opened the store, and eight more hours before they would be closing it.

"I found this in my…wardrobe. You see, I had just recently moved, and I just so happened to come upon this dress…it's far too young for my time, but I figured it'd be such a waste to throw it out. You know, that's how us people back in my days are like. We can't seem to throw out anything, while you youngins in this generation throw it out all too quickly…but, you seem like a nice young lady. These old eyes may not be able to see well, but I know just by the sound of someone's voice if they're rotten to the core or not..."

Mirajane smiled sweetly at the old lady, taking comfort in the fact that either way, with or without the white mask she currently wore, the customer wouldn't be able to see it anyways. And neither should she be able to see any discomfort she tried to not display by such a bold statement.

"We'll take good care of your dress," Mirajane kindly said, putting the dress on the rotating rack behind her, handing the old lady a small card to fill out for customer information. Squinting at the card, the old lady set it down and grabbed the ink pen handed to her. Once she had quickly finished writing everything out in silence, Mirajane took the small card and set it aside, using it as a reference and writing on some tags she pulled from her black apron pocket, which she then attached the tags to the designated garment bag before pressing a button that rotated the items on the rack to the back room. "Since we haven't been particularly too busy this past week, we'll most likely have your dress dry cleaned and ready for pickup on Saturday. This week." Mirajane flashed a smile.

"Oh, that's in a few days," the old lady mumbled, reaching for her wallet in her black purse that matched the regal cape she wore wrapped around her shoulders.

"Oh, actually, normally we don't charge customers until after the service is comple—" Mirajane tried to say, but she was easily cut off.

"I'll pay now. It's fine. I'd rather not deal with the hassle later," the old lady stated, waving it off. She shifted a few items in her purse before she finally pulled out a slim wallet made out of a matte material with black outlined geometrical shapes colored in royal blue with white and silver to fill in the rest of the space the shapes didn't.

Mirajane stared for a moment before she broke free from her short-lived trance and hesitantly rang up a price for dry cleaning the dress. The cash register pinged, showing numbers that had popped up at the top of it.

"Oh, that's much more expensive than I had been expecting…" the old lady muttered, the creases between her eyebrows scrunching in. She sighed, slowly gathering the amount and setting clean cut bills on the countertop that separated the two women. Mirajane was just about to uselessly apologize because she had no control over the absurdly expensive prices, and she would've explained that Caldia Dry Cleaning was expensive because of charity funding since it was owned by the grand old cathedral nearby(as well as the liability of the virus—an influence she wasn't going to mention because she wasn't entirely sure that that was the actual reason why the prices had slightly fluctuated ever since they were told they could come back to work), but before she could even begin to say any of that habitual recitation she always fell into whenever customers showed a hint of displeasure, the old lady had already spoken: "You're not married, are you?"

"Hm?" Mirajane tilted her head in response.

"I'm only asking because…you seem…young…" the older lady carefully stated.

"Oh, I see," Mirajane said, sighing. "No, I'm not married."

"Are you dating anyone?"

"No."

"Good. I've only just come to, so I don't know much, but my advice for you? Don't ever get married. It's not worth it. It'll ruin your life, for sure," the old lady grumbled, finally finishing up the payment with the few leftover coins she had yet to pull out. "Mirajane, if I were you, I'd just remain single for the rest of my days. Sometimes it's just better to be alone…after all, that's all this godforsaken world has left to offer."

"Yeah…" Mirajane quietly said, counting the amount the old lady had placed atop the wooden countertop. "But I don't think anyone is meant to be alone…I don't want to be alone..." She punched in the even amount the old lady had given her in the cash register, and the money compartment shot out. While she placed the bills and coins in their respective places silently, the old lady sighed.

"You aren't alone…even though I really wanted to hate you—I hate all humans…but…I guess that's why I haven't given up yet. And I never will because believe it or not I actually have hope…"

Mirajane's expression faltered a little, but she maintained her pleasant smile while the receipt began to print from the old money machine in front of her. She wasn't in the mood to start any unnecessary conversations, and Magnolia did have its peculiar townsfolk that showed up at the dry cleaners every now and then, so it's not like this was too out of the ordinary for the eldest Strauss to deal with. It's just…

"Here's a copy of your receipt," Mirajane said, ripping the two receipts apart that had printed from the cash register. "And if I could just have you sign this other one for me…"

The old lady picked up the ink pen she had moments ago just used, quickly signing her name with a grand flourish, all while muttering, "I can't believe how much I really do detest this…but I just want things to go back to the way they were." As she gave Mirajane the signed piece of paper, she added, this time a little more assertively: "Don't be foolish and trust only those you know." Her dark eyes locked with Mirajane's, making her question, among several things, if the lady was actually as blind as she had said she was. "What lurks these streets—this world—all save for a few…cannot be trusted."

The old lady disconnected herself from the moment and stuffed her wallet back into her purse. With her head slightly bowed due to her eyes draw down to her purse, the stiff pink hairs that framed her face fell forward a little, revealing golden dangling earrings shaped as cornucopia. Just in that moment, the bell at the front door sounded off.

Another customer had walked in.

"Hi!" Mirajane automatically chirped. "Welcome to Caldia Dry Cleaning! I'll help you in just a sec—oh…" The old lady had turned her back and begun to walk away. "Um, thank you so much for stopping by, Miss…" She quickly dropped her gaze and looked at the curvy signature on the receipt she had just been given. "Si-i—" she began to sound out, abruptly pausing. She blinked, her eyebrows furrowing in. "I mean, Miss…Porly-y-y-u-u-us-s-ica…" She blinked some more, looking up and smiling sheepishly. Oh gosh. She somehow just about slaughtered that old lady's name—surely if she had said she hated practically all of mankind, except for Mirajane for whatever reason, then now she had to have hated her…

She pursed her lips.

"Hi, I can help you now, sir…" she began to say, scanning her station and noticing a few things that needed to be put away. She quickly unlocked one of the drawers below the counter to her far right and stuffed the customer information card inside, closing the drawer and locking it before turning her attention to the elderly man that now stood before her.

"A storm should be coming soon..."

Mirajane looked back up at Porlyusica who had now stopped at the front glass door with her back still facing her. The short, elderly man she was supposed to be helping didn't seem to hear the older lady, however, going on obliviously about the items he had brought, completely unaware of the eerie silence only Mirajane and the older lady apparently existed in.

"…and I imagine there's going to be thunder…loud thunder."

A large, wicked smile curled up on the old lady's face. Something Mirajane might've caught had the old lady been facing her, but she wasn't.

The small bell at the top of the door sounded off once again, and the old lady was gone, only half the face Mirajane could see the entire time they had interacted left to burn into her memory. She blinked, confused by the sudden change in atmosphere. The temperature had dropped. There was something ominous in the air.

"Excuse me, miss…?"

Mirajane clenched her teeth, her insides suddenly filling up with the unnerving air in the room. She didn't want to look at the elderly man, even though he had seemed to have such kind old eyes when he initially walked in through the front door…she just couldn't bear to look. But she had to. He was a customer. One with bleeding black eyes that were staring straight at her. And his face…was he wearing a white mask still?—or had it always been red? Was he even still wearing a mask still? She could barely see what he looked like out of the corner of her eyes, but it looked morphed. Dark. Demented. She was too scared to look…

"Miss? Is something wrong…?"

Her heart dropped and she suddenly felt so alone. His voice was different—it sounded different. Elfman was hurt, bleeding—dead. She was alone. She had nobody. She—Elfman—Lisanna—!

Mirajane blinked, about ready to run to the back room, but it all vanished. Just like that. Everything—gone. Except…the way her heart felt was still the same. It was still pumping adrenaline in her veins, and she could still feel that terror that had first fueled it all.

Another second passed and she quickly grasped her actual surroundings, suddenly looking down with a pleasant smile at the elderly man whose square crinkled head barely hovered over the height of the payment counter. "Would you like me to take those garment bags from you, Archbishop?" she sweetly asked.

"Ah, yes…"

She giddily reached across the wooden countertop and took the three garment bags from the elderly man wearing a plain, brown monk robe with a white, golden outlined cape over it, with of course, what he could never forget, a golden cross hanging around his neck; she forced herself to slow down her movements as she brought his three garment bags back over to her side when she realized how all too unnaturally easily she had moved to grab his items.

"I'll go in the back room and retrieve the other items you had brought in last week, okay?" Mirajane said.

"Thank you."

Her smile grew wider and she walked through the door on the far left side that led into the back room.

It was unnecessary for her to do this. She knew that. But she needed time to think by herself, away from the eyes of the customers—granted there was only one at the moment. She took her mask off. She needed to breathe. Her eyes were still burning. But she no longer felt like crying. And she needed to check on something…

"Hey, Sis! What'cha doin'?"

Mirajane turned just as she hung up the garment bags on the rotating rack to catch her little sister carrying in a large, heavy box of orders they had recently bought two weeks ago. They were running low on solvents, and while Mirajane typically went to the Capitol by herself to go buy some whenever they were about ready to run out, typically going on a three-day trip each month to make sure stock supplies didn't run low (church budget—that ran low, and ordering somehow cost more than traveling to Crocus and back with a stock purchase), with the virus putting restrictions on traveling that had now been mostly lifted, but the church rather not wanting to risk anybody's health, they had now resulted to the only option that seemed plausible.

Even though Mirajane was more than willing to continue going to the Capitol because she had personal matters to deal with there…and only there.

It would be fine if it was just her traveling. She had been perfectly fine the last time she went to the Capitol; and on the day she returned home, that was the moment when everyone who had ridden the train that fateful day had become infected with the Black Curse, becoming one of the main events scarred in history, otherwise known as the Black Cavalcade, a core happening to drastically worsen the state of everyone's life in such a short amount of time. Cases exploded. The death count rose. And towns that had once been okay were no longer safe. Of course, nobody knew about it until the effects of it began to take over like a cruel grip on their loved one's lungs a couple days after symptoms started to show and the first death took place in a remote initially unaffected town nearby Crocus.

Luckily, Mirajane had been the only one who rode the train that day that was returning to Magnolia.

Making it all the more reason for her to have to go back to the Capitol.

"Archbishop is here to pick up his robes," Mirajane explained while Lisanna set the heavy box down on the ground with a grunt.

"Oh? Is the revolving rack not working? You know you could've just called me and asked me to bring his things up front, though, right?"

Mirajane shrugged, smiling softly at her little sister. "No, the revolving rack is fine. I just felt like seeing you. That's all. Plus, I needed a break from my mask," she stated, walking towards Lisanna and embracing her in a hug. When she pulled back, looking into the eyes of her little sister's, she paused, a still moment passing, and before she knew it, she grabbed both sides of Lisanna's soft cheeks and stretched them outwards, her sickly sweet smile broadening at her little sister's weak protests. Mirajane giggled and let go, bending down to pick up the heavy box and carry it the rest of the way to the nearby countertop connecting to the wall and far left corner of the room. In the meantime, Lisanna was rubbing her cheeks with a wry smile.

"Hey…what was that for?" she asked, following her older sister.

"Hmm…" Mirajane simply hummed, opening the box to make sure the things they had ordered were all there. She then glanced over her shoulder at Lisanna and smiled. "Just felt like it!"

"What?! You can't be serious—you've never done that to me before! So why now?" Lisanna exclaimed, a large smile on her bright face despite her apparent complaints. "Yeesh, you totally caught me by surprise…"

"I dunno," Mirajane said in a singsong voice, "like I said, just felt like it." Which was the truth. For the most part. But she had also done it as an experiment of some sort. She had seen something like that happen before, and even though she knew neither she nor Elfman had ever done something like that to their baby sister's face previously, there was something so oddly familiar about the action that she couldn't help herself. All for the sake of wanting to see if that familiarity was real. Which as she stretched her cute baby sister's cheeks outwards like they were stuffed bunny cheeks, it wasn't. So she was honestly a little confused why the image had even popped up in her head.

"Huh…well, next time—"

Mirajane giggled, effortlessly dodging Lisanna's grabbing hands. "There won't be a 'next time'—I've got to go finish up business with Archbishop. I've already kept him waiting long enough." She grabbed the three white garment bags that had been brought in last week from off the rotating rack. "I'll come back and help you finish putting away the restock when I'm free, m'kay?"

Lisanna sighed, crossing her slim arms across her light yellow T-shirt. She was currently wearing thigh-high shorts and flip flops—hardly appropriate clothing according to the church and their workplace's dressing standards—but Mirajane really didn't care because she herself often wore dresses that revealed maybe a little too much skin. Today she knew Archbishop would be coming, though, so she had purposefully worn a slightly more modest sky blue dress with a square neckline that didn't reveal a whole lot of skin from her chest and back. Just as long as they didn't find out that this wasn't her every day modesty and that Lisanna always wore whatever she wanted, they could keep their jobs. It's not like what they wore on a daily basis was actually that outrageous anyhow—just to the church members it maybe was.

"Oh, and…" Mirajane stopped in her tracks, halting right before she was going to put her mask back on. "Elfman. He deployed off to war last Wednesday, right?"

Lisanna looked up in thought, pressing an index finger to her chin. "Um…yeah…yeah. He left on Wednesday." She smiled in confirmation.

"And he's still…okay, right?" Mirajane slowly asked, her grip on the garment bags slightly tightening.

Lisanna's facial expression scrunched up a little. "Um…yeah? I mean, he just left last Wednesday. We probably would've already gotten a notification if something happened—but Mira, don't worry. It's okay. I get it. I worry sometimes, too, even though it's only just been practically a week and he technically shouldn't be over in enemy lines yet…not until after his training is complete. But anyhow. This is Elfman we're talking about. You know, the one who's all too soft on the inside…okay. Actually, I understand where your concerns are coming from all too well because it's not like I haven't been worrying about it these past few days either, but like I said, this is Elfman we're talking about. He might be a little weak in the heart—well, no, he's actually really strong in the heart—but we all agreed this was a great opportunity for him to be able to strengthen his weaknesses and become more stronger, or more…what was it that he said? Hunkier? Macho-er?"

"Manlier…" Mirajane softly said.

"Ah! Yes!—that!" Lisanna exclaimed, quickly continuing with her blabbering words of comfort. "And I think we know better than anyone else that once Elf puts his mind to it, he never gives up! At least…well…"

"He might cry a little, but he'll be just fine," Mirajane finished, dropping her dark blue gaze. "You're right. Sorry, I just…I guess I just miss him already. I'm worried. It already feels like it's been—"

"A thousand years."

"—forever—yes, Lisanna, that, and…"

"You miss him. I know."

"Yeah…even though I promised myself that I wouldn't overdo it and worry too much, and I do trust him, but I…with the state he's in, suddenly changing his hair and…it'll be fine. He's fine. I just…already feel like I haven't seen him in such a long time. I mean—a week's pretty long, right? I hope he's doing well, and that he's not in any pain or bleeding or…"

Now she was just blabbering herself words of comfort. She usually was more collected than this…

Lisanna offered a lop-sided smile, turning around to return to her sorting with the recently received shipment orders. "That's because it really has been a long time," she hollowly said. She then glanced back with a small smirk, her cerulean blue eyes slightly dimmed. "Really. Archbishop has been waiting a long time, too, you know…"

Mirajane stared. Blinked. "Oh!" She quickly put her mask back on and rushed back to the front area, apologizing as she did so. Archbishop was still the only customer in the slightly dimmed room. Outside was no longer sunny, now overcast with an oddly bright gray blanket. Was it going to rain today?

"You know…" Archbishop coughed. "It looks like there might actually be a storm today. You girls going to be okay on the way home? Do you have umbrellas? I can bring you two if you'd like…"

"Oh, no, we're all right. I actually really love the rain," Mirajane mindlessly stated as she proceeded with the transaction on the cash register.

"Oh, do you now?" Archbishop asked, slowly pulling out his wallet as if his arms were immersed in mud. He even more slowly scratched the side of his face as he looked at the contents in his wallet.

"Uh-huh, it's my favorite kind of weather," Mirajane lightly stated.

"I guess the rain is always ni—"

"Oh, no. I mean, the rain is nice, but that's not why I like stormy weather."

"Oh…then why—"

"Because—" Mirajane abruptly paused, still smiling brightly behind her mask. A moment passed. Then she was furrowing her eyebrows slightly, her smile fading, but upon a second glance at Archbishop, she sloppily recomposed as much of her falling apart happiness that she could—at least the bits she could maybe understand—releasing only partial of the words she had suddenly held back last second: "It always reminds me of coming home."

She watched as Archbishop's expression evidently twisted up beneath his mask—as if the scrunching in of his thick, graying eyebrows and all the wrinkles on his forehead and around his aged eyes turning his face into that of an old hound dog's wasn't enough to let her know. When she thought about it, though, her answer didn't seem so strange because who didn't like the idea of coming home?

"Well, I guess that is certainly something anyone can find joy in…" Archbishop carefully said with a slight cough at the end. Mirajane could tell he was smiling now with the gentle ways his eyebrows had drooped down, but that didn't mean he still didn't find her peculiar.

Not that she cared or was worried about it too much. She knew something like this wouldn't get her fired, and he honestly would probably forget it the moment he walked out the door. Or so she hoped.

"I don't know if I really like him," Lisanna commented a few silent seconds after the elderly man had gone. Mirajane glanced over her left shoulder to where her little sister stood, leaning against the doorway with a suspicious scowl across her face. She smiled, glancing back to where the archbishop of Caldia Cathedral was disappearing off to. The weird thing about him was the fact that he had never disclosed his actual name, simply telling everyone to call him as his title in the church. Despite his kind face and seemingly good intentions, she wasn't sure if she liked him all too much either though…

It never did rain later that day.

But the overcast stayed for the following days to come, and the temperature gradually began to drop with each passing day to the point that it seemed like it really would rain soon.

Mirajane stared at the can of crushed tomatoes she was holding. Today, at the moment, she was currently alone, having need to drop by the grocery store before it closed at six. The grocery store hours, like many other things, had changed once all normalcy had been plagued, causing a great inconvenience to the Strauss household because there were some days they didn't have all the proper ingredients for a recipe, and while spontaneous late-night shopping was always an adventure that was necessary every now and then, they no longer could do even that now.

Mirajane had to leave a little early from work, meaning Lisanna was all by herself to manhandle Caldia Dry Cleaning for the remaining hour it was open. And then there was the extra hour afterwards to sweep and clean the store, taking care of newly received clothes and finished dry cleaned items… Mirajane's dark blue eyes trailed to the glass windows by the entrance of the store to her right. The trees outside were all being pulled to the left, their branches and leaves violently shaking as they were slowly being torn apart by the force of nature.

Mirajane trusted Lisanna to be fine by herself. Anyhow, once she was finished with the grocery shopping, she was going to be heading back to the dry cleaners so they could finish closing the store and walk home together. It probably was about time she started checking out her items now…

She turned her gaze back to the can in her hand before looking down at the several items in her red basket. Setting the can back on the shelf and putting a different brand of crushed tomatoes in her basket, she left for checkout.

As she finally set her basket atop the extended black-speckled checkout counter, her arms now tired from holding the basket for a few minutes, she quietly sighed and glanced at the combed back, blue-haired, middle-aged man with a gray sewn mask on she had been waiting behind. He was now pulling out his wallet to finish up his payment for the thirteen boxes of cereal and single six-pack of beer ("I've got a son, you see, and…yeah. Kids these days. All they want is cereal," he had sheepishly said when Mirajane had first come up behind him, of course, keeping the minimal advised distance). She pulled her gaze away and looked down at her basket's contents, where her deep blue eyes were soon drawn to the small shelf of magazines below the shelf of candy bars and gum placed purposefully by the checkout counter to entice customers into buying a little something more than intended. Mirajane had noticed that it always seemed to work when stubborn kids were around.

She stared.

The magazines placed on the shelf were mostly gossip and fashion magazines, and then there was the magazine-aspiring tabloid that always had a gaudy cover, otherwise known as Sorcerer Weekly. The only reason this tabloid had yet to upgrade to a proper magazine was because publishing companies weren't willing to sponsor it, and the types of topics that it often focused on in the few pages of its tacky, color-printed papers were the highly unpopular ideas—the ones that were only well-known for how outlandish and unimportant they were, yet all at the same time, were incredibly important because who didn't enjoy this kind of vulgar and overly ridiculous controversies?

New cases of the Ethernano Virus!
Otherwise dubbed as the
BLACK CURSE
or Etherious for short
COULD THIS BE A CALL FOR
PURIFICATION FROM THE DEVIL? pg.2

RARE sightings of the Black Wizard!
Emperor Spriggan lookalike?!
PICTURES ON PG. 6

Fairy Tail's latest weapon!
MAGIC TO SAVE THE WORLD
WILL THE WAR FINALLY END?! Pg. 4

Leaked details on the top man of honor!
WHO IS HIS FATHER?
Actual footage of a not-so
loving father-son reunion?!
Where did the honor go?!
WHAT KIND OF LIFE DID
FIORE'S STRONGEST SOLDIER
EXACTLY LIVE?
More info on pg. 7

Wanting to become more beautiful?
Learn model Jenny Realight's secret regime! pg 8
Plus real shots of celebs without makeup!
A real daydream or an actual nightmare?!

Mirajane pursed her lips as she stared at the pictures behind each largely printed heading. She brought the colorful, cheap tabloid up close to her face a little as she examined one of two of the blurry photos featured on it.

"Um, miss…"

She looked over at the person behind her in line, and he pointed in the opposite direction where she found the employee behind the cash register waiting. "Oh." She put the tabloid back and slid her basket over. As she watched the lady dressed in a button-up, mint green dress and store logoed white apron and mask behind the counter start to type in the prices of each item on the cash register, saying them out loud in a nasally voice as she went along, the man behind her grabbed a the same tabloid she had just been holding. She made sure to not look over, distracting herself by pulling out her black wallet from her purse, but it couldn't be helped once he started speaking and she realized it had to be directed towards her because he was alone and no one else was in line behind him.

"I'm sorry, what was that again?" Mirajane asked when they locked eyes.

His were a bright turquoise, completely catching her off-guard. Part of the reason why they stood out so starkly was due to the gray bright lighting shining through from the windows; the other reason was because she had never realized this new discovery before. It had taken her a moment, but she had made the connection: this man was a recent customer at Caldia Dry Cleaning.

It had been his first time coming just earlier this morning, and the first time Mirajane had ever seen him. He was wearing a white long-sleeve, formal button-up shirt tucked into black pants, which those were tucked into tall white boots—exactly what she remembered. Except, that's not what she really had remembered about him. It was the three rings, one with a large sky blue stone (on his right middle finger), another with two glittering stripes of bright cyan blue and navy blue, glazed over with a glossy top (on his left index finger), and the other made out of a tarnished gold in the shape of pointed angel-wings (On his left ring finger—not because he was married, but because it was of personal value to him, as Mirajane had already learned without even asking when caught staring at it), as well as the somewhat large, oddly shaped pendant—some sort of weirdly, sideways-shaped eye?—that hung around his neck made out of black onyx, outlined by a similar tarnished gold to the ring on his left ring finger with a circle of it in the center.

The tarnished circle—a black eye she had felt like was looking at her all afternoon during her interaction with the spring green-haired man—an eye that she still fell like was looking at her even now…

"Oh, yes, I was just commenting on how interesting this all is. Don't you find it fascinating?" he was saying as he looked back down at the tabloid and began to flip through some of its pages.

"Um…well, I…" Mirajane began, unsure of how to respond for once.

"Because it's all so bizarre. It's not even real, yet…" his voice dropped low, becoming more difficult to hear behind the black mask as he went on to say, "it actually is. I wonder just how long this nightmare will actually go on for…" He looked back over at Mirajane. "You know, I never expected for things to come to this."

"Y-Yeah," Mirajane hesitantly agreed, fixing her gaze back over to the lady behind the checkout counter who seemed to be struggling to find the price of the item she was now holding—the last item to checkout, which ironically enough, it had been the last item that had been put into the red shopping basket. Mirajane went silent for a moment. And then: "I'm sorry, I never asked earlier, but…so…are you new to Magnolia, or…?"

"Oh, I…well. I have a close…very dear…uh, friend…that's from here," the spring green-haired man carefully said while turning towards her, setting the tabloid back on the shelf. "You see, I just returned from my time in the war, and I…" He went silent, dropping his gaze in thought, but his pendant remained watchful with its single eye.

"Oh, I see," Mirajane quickly said, smiling, her eyes flashing down to the eye every couple seconds until that's where it ultimately landed. Not everyone liked to talk about the war, let alone the single mention of it, and certain people could only say so much. She understood. But she didn't understand why the eye that probably wasn't even that was so unnerving to her—and not really even that, it was just so distracting. All it was was a tarnished gold circle surrounded by black… She pulled her gaze away and focused on her items neatly placed in a plastic bag.

"You…you're from the dry cleaners, aren't you? This morning…"

Mirajane stole a quick glance at the man beside her, nodding her head at the lady behind the counter who was saying she was going to go check the price for the canned item because she couldn't find it, all while saying: "Yeah…I…I wasn't sure if you remembered, so I wasn't going to say anything, but—"

"I could never forget you."

Mirajane blinked, looking back over at the man a few feet beside her. When their eyes locked once again, a sudden sense of familiarity shot through her. She knew him. And not from this morning. She actually knew him. On a more personal level, and…no. She really didn't because she had just met him this morning. Maybe she knew or had seen him from somewhere else, but…it was strange. Because just the other day, she had come across this strange sense of familiarity with another customer, and they, too, had come into Caldia Dry Cleaning for the first time ever—another complete stranger.

Right when she was about to say something, the lady from behind the counter was already returning, breathing heavily, indicating she had run the short distance from the canned foods section and back. "Okay!" The lady punched in the price. "And that makes for a grand total of $66.66! I'm so sorry for the wait…"

"No worries, so it's…" Mirajane began to pull out some bills from her black wallet.

"Wait—" the man beside her stepped protectively in front of her, right into Mirajane's personal space—"don't be fooled," he hissed, "I know a lie when I see one...isn't that a bit high for the few items you purchased? It shouldn't cost any more than at most $30…"

Mirajane stared at her new view of long, bright, spring green hair. Then she leaned out a little from behind the man to look once again at the total price of her items, and then the upper half of the brown-haired lady's face who stood behind the checkout counter.

"It should be fine…Mr. Justine…" Mirajane began to say, suddenly remembering his name when a flashback of the one time she had said it earlier that day while she was telling him thank you for coming by just before he left the shop shot through her memories.

"Please, Miss Mirajane, just call me by my actual name, if you can remember it…"

Mirajane gawked a little at the request, but still twisted her face up in thought as she tried to remember the letters written on the small white information card. "Was it…" Her mind fought against two names she couldn't choose between until finally she said what she was sure she saw written on the paper, even though it felt just as much off as it did right: "Freed…?"

The spring green-haired man snickered, yet he didn't say otherwise, instead praising: "As should've been expected…you're not wrong."

Mirajane furrowed her eyebrows, feeling a mixed sense of relief as well as dissatisfaction. Was it because he had been doubting her?—is that why he had snickered so rudely? Just who did he think she was? If he had seen her entire face, would he have thought any differently? She pursed her lips.

Now she wanted to know what his entire face looked like. She was always generally curious whenever she looked at people who masked up, but particularly now, even more so. Whenever she could see an entire person's face, it always helped give her a decent idea on what kind of character they truly had, and more than half the time, she was always, always right. With just half a face, there was only so much she could identify. Which normally, that was actually enough. Despite how important she believed seeing someone's expressions was and would always fight about their importance in understanding one another, so much to the point that she still often tried to read people's expression even with just the upper half, she was actually pretty good with just eyes—after all, those were the entrances to the soul, as some liked to say, and hers was boundless.

Contrary to what most misunderstood about her, Mirajane actually understood a lot of things, including particularly dark things people didn't. Which is why wearing a mask felt especially annoying to her. She rarely ever connected to people through just eyes because no one ever seemed to understand her, but if they could just see her smile, it felt like they could, even if it was just a little bit and an absolute complete white lie...

Yet, even without the hoax of her smile, there was a real connection to this strange man who was now standing in front of her, hardly keeping any social distancing as she was now realizing, and she felt perfectly fine about it. Because she knew him. From the dry cleaners. There had to have been something better than that, right? So just what was he hiding behind the mask? Because she had to have known him from somewhere else or even with someone else. Before the pandemic. Like maybe in a picture…?

"Recalculate."

Mirajane looked up at Freed, barely able to see any parts of his face from where she stood behind him. "Freed…" she gently said, displaying a kind smile while she gripped her right arm, "it's okay…"

"Please. Recalculate."

He was simply ignoring her, or so it seemed, and Mirajane sighed once again, this time not even knowing what she felt inside. When she peered over at the lady behind the counter, the poor lady seemed flustered, but she was complying. This time, when she was done putting in the prices of the items, however, the grand total came up differently. It was cheaper, and as Freed had said…

"That'll be $29.99…I'm so sorry, ma'am, for the mistake. I don't know what happened. It's like this register had suddenly been possessed or something…"

Freed finally stepped aside with no words to comment with.

Mirajane slowly took a step forward and paid for her items, only once stealing a glance over at the man beside her. When she was gathering her bagged items, she offered the spring green-haired man a simple smile, saying thanks, and because she honestly wasn't sure what else she could say, she awkwardly turned around and began to leave—

"Wait."

She halted, hesitantly turning around to face Freed and the eye—that stupid eye. It was clearly judging her…

"I'm sorry, I seem to have already forgotten…when will my coat be ready? You know, the burgundy one…"

"Wednesday," she at first emotionlessly stated, quickly filling her voice with something cheerful before she added, "it should be ready in the morning."

"Ah, wonderful…" Freed lightly said, momentarily dropping his stark turquoise eyes before looking back up and locking them with Mirajane's deep blue ones. "You know, I hear a storm is coming, and it's going to be big…or so I can only assume. Which is why we have to be prepared. Normally, I hate having to rely on outside sources, but I've stopped caring about that. Because I want this to end. You know…this is going to be the last—you have my promise."

Mirajane stared, her lovely, unseen expression of a simple small smile unchanging. She merely nodded her head after a few moments had passed and turned around, walking away while all her serenity fell apart because she had been listening to the news forecast intently these past few days on the radio while she cooked in the kitchen ever since she first heard about this apparently severe oncoming thunderstorm, and none of the weathermen/women had mentioned anything about it whatsoever. How was she supposed to prepare for it when it came when she knew nothing about it? Maybe it would come next week and the news forecast predictions were wrong...even though the news reporter last night had specifically said the skies should be clearing up by then…

As Mirajane exited the grocery store, wondering if she was really trusting the right resources while heading on her way to the place of her little sister, Freed walked straight past the cash register, ignoring the calls of the stout lady because his hands were empty and he never had any intention to buy anything. A seemingly trivial fact nobody had cared to realize. The edges of his lips lifted upwards from behind his black mask, curling into a wicked smile.

On one particularly windy night, when the screams of gushing air shrilled loudly outside, rattling against unknown objects and throwing about whatever it could pick up and haul, Mirajane laid wide awake on the front room's couch, all by herself.

Lisanna had already gone to bed, and it was Sunday, so they didn't have work today, but they would be returning to it early tomorrow morning. She stared up with large blue eyes at the colorful variations and sizes of glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. It was nearing midnight, and she still couldn't fall asleep. She just wasn't tired, even though her body felt exhausted. She hadn't done anything exerting today though. She had mostly spent all of her time either thinking about the weeks previous events or talking to Lisanna. They somehow always had so much to talk about, whether it was about boys, the pandemic, Elfman, the war, magic, boys, masks and what a pain they were, and then back to boys which then often somehow led to work. Which particularly, today, from there, it had led to Lightning. Another boy.

Now that she thought about it, he should be stopping by the dry cleaners soon…

Mirajane reached up at the glowing stars with both hands. The constellations she and each one of her siblings had made ranged from the shapes of a heart (Elfman), the shapes of a bunny (Lisanna), and the shapes of a flame. At least, that's what she was thinking it was…

When Mirajane had placed the compilation of stars for that constellation on the ceiling, she honestly hadn't been paying too much attention. It wasn't until Lisanna noticed it and asked what she was doing, exclaiming "Oh! Me too! I wanna create a constellation!" which then led to Elfman joining in on the unintentional outcome.

She shifted her right hand to the lopsided heart Elfman had created. Then she looked back over to her constellation where her left hand was outstretched towards. Her lips twitched into a slight frown. She clenched her hands shut tight, gripping the two things that seemed to make her insides ache the most. So much to the point that she could cry. And maybe she would've had she not been overcome by the sudden alert that something else had entered the room. Something that was now emanating from across the way in the far right corner, where a black depth was becoming darker and overflowing outwards in waves like a small black pool.

She abruptly sat up and stared, her heart pounding in her chest.

There was nothing there in the corner.

Mirajane quietly got to her feet, keeping her eyes locked onto the far right corner of the room. As she carefully approached the hollow corner, scanning it up and down, a low creak suddenly sounded off from down the hallway. Her insides jumped, and she had to bite down a small gasp from escaping her lips. Slowly, she turned her back to the corner, staring at the black entrance of the hallways appearing all too ominous with the way the thick darkness remained inside of it, unmoving. Anything could be hiding inside of it. For all she knew, it could be the entrance to the lower lands, a place where monsters and demons roamed…

Lisanna.

As vague as it was, a brand new horror gripped at her heart, and right when she was about to break out into a run, arms wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her backwards as long black strands of hair fell over her shoulders and a hoarse voice whispered: "I finally found you…and this time…I'm taking her."

Lips beside her ear curled up into a wicked smile, and Mirajane ripped herself from the grip around her, turning to find…nothing.

The corner was empty.

Her face twisted in with a mixture of emotions, and ever so slowly, she walked backwards towards the hallway. Another creek sounded off, and this time, when Mirajane snapped her head around to look at the hallway, all of her defense dropped down and her shoulders relaxed.

"Mira, what are you doing?" Lisanna sleepily asked, rubbing her eyes.

Mirajane stared at her sister, glancing momentarily back to the still, empty corner of the room. Her lips pursed into a wavering frown. But then her expression softened, and a small smile graced her lips. She outstretched her arms and pulled Lisanna in for a hug, squeezing her tightly.

"I love you, Lisanna," she whispered, swallowing the lump that had just formed in her throat. "No matter what happens."

"Hm?" Lisanna yawned, lazily resting her chin on Mirajane's left shoulder. "Is everything okay? Did something happen?"

Mirajane stared blankly at the ground, clenching her right hand into a fist, simply shaking her head as she squeezed her sister even tighter.

The following morning, the winds continued to pick up strength and the clouds became darker. Time passed by in an odd daze for Mirajane. The whole time throughout the day, she felt like a ghost in the background, watching the world around her as it carried on like everything was normal. She kept her voice pleasant, but she couldn't maintain a smile. The muscles in her face just couldn't move, and for once within the past six months she could remember ever being alive in this reality, she was genuinely thankful to be wearing a mask.

Last night, she really couldn't sleep at all in the end. Once Lisanna came out and asked her if everything was okay, she had simply said that it was and went to go lay in the shared bed she slept in with her little sister. Lisanna fell asleep fairly quickly, but Mirajane couldn't. She merely stared straight up at the ceiling, her mind absolutely blank. She was void of thought and emotion. Because she had already maxed herself out. But now that it was a new day, she could think again. But she wasn't even sure what to think about because there was now another apparently new factor in her life that just wasn't making sense. What had happened last night…she hadn't felt as scared as she knew she should have been when it actually happened. Because despite the horror of the actual incident and the terror brought on from the words she heard, how she ultimately felt didn't seem…right.

Something wasn't right. And it wasn't with the strange occurrences that were starting to happen around her, but something wasn't right with her. Mirajane Strauss. Herself. If she even knew her…or was she still even her? There were several things she had already thought about ever since the day officially began, but she had been all over the place, running into so many dead ends, her mind just couldn't take it anymore. Now, she honestly wasn't even sure what to think or do other than to wait because she didn't know anything else that was better. She couldn't do anything else, less she really wanted to lose her sanity. She didn't know what was going on, and until she had a better idea of what was actually happening, she really couldn't do anything about it. She was absolutely helpless. There was nothing she felt she could actually do other than, as mundane as it sounded, carry on as she normally did…at least until she had a better idea of what was actually going on.

She did keep a particularly cautious eye on Lisanna throughout the following days, though, but never once for reasons anyone could actually believe. And for a moment, even though it hadn't even been that long, she actually thought maybe she was overthinking things. That it all had been in her head or a chance of rare experiences. That everything would be okay. So much to the point that in her attentiveness, she unconsciously did go about things as if everything was normal because absolutely nothing was happening—for the most part—and she had other things that were still taking up a large part of her mind.

Mirajane was still listening to the radio every night, waiting for the weatherman to say what she had been told would come. Due to the strong winds, however—at least, she could only assume it was because of that because as of late, she couldn't get any signal on the antique radio unless she was in the bathroom…so she had gone ahead and started a routine of taking a bath when the weather forecast would be on, sneaking in the small radio with her when Lisanna wasn't looking. It's not that she felt any shame or was trying to hide anything from her younger sibling. It was just a weird matter of comfort and liability.

"…cases have…astically risen, with a…rand to…l of…hundred million…in the King…m o…iore…"

It was now Tuesday night, and the dull, static sounds of the news reporter's breaking voice and splashing of water was all the sounds that could be heard echoing in the small bathroom. Mirajane lifted up a handful of warm, salt-infused waters. The hazy, green tea tinted waters spilled out like a fountain and weakly splashed against the surface of itself, spraying small droplets against her porcelain skin. Her starlight white hair was currently tied up in a messy bun, stray strands of hair that typically framed her face already having come loose. By the time all the water had drained from her hands, she scooped up another handful and watched again as the waters spilled out from the edges and cracks of her hands. She repeated this same motion for the next few moments, listening. Waiting. Until finally…

"All right towns…olks of Mag…olia…finally, what you've…been…aiting for…the daily weather fore…! As you probably had alr…dy experienced today, we had…other cloud…indy day…!"

Mirajane sighed, closing her eyes.

"Now…u're all probably…ondering what tomorro…forecast will b…ike, and…in luck! It'll be…ny! So you can just…now and…put those…oats away!"

Mirajane splashed some water on her face, hiding behind her hands for a few seconds before she ultimately stood up from her spot in the small bathtub, water running down her glistening body in fast streaks and crashing to the tub's lukewarm waters with loud splashes. She switched the radio off and reached over to grab her fluffy light blue towel, wiping down her body and soaking up the many little clear beads on her skin. As she pat her face dry, she held the towel up close to her body and stared at the rippling water beneath her. She could still feel streaks of water running down her body, namely on her back and legs. She stared down at where one particular streak was running down her clear-skinned left leg on the outer side.

Then she looked over at her other leg.

Then back over to her left leg.

She'd been thinking this for a while, ever since she noticed it, but her left thigh: Didn't it seem bit too…plain? Lacking, even? It had been a few months ever since this odd feeling of emptiness caught her attention on the day she just so happened to be staring at her form in the mirror when trying on a thigh-high slit, wrap summer dress on one of the weekends she went shopping with her siblings, and it had been just as long that she couldn't shake the feeling that this was and looked all wrong.

When she had first questioned her siblings about it, asking, "Does this look…off to any of you guys?" as she walked out of the dressing room in the small boutique shop full of new bright colored clothes in stock for the upcoming season, both Elfman and Lisanna had stared at her, both clad in their own new outfits they were trying on, frozen in the middle of posing to each other, staring down confusedly at her left thigh she was pointing to, deeply considering her question, giving her the strange hope that she might actually be on to something in their long silence…before they both shook their heads in sync, simply saying, "No."

Mirajane pursed her lips.

"It still looks off to me, though…" she now quietly muttered, once again suddenly feeling that heavy ache inside of her. The same kind of pain whenever she stared at the makeshift constellations. It was only in these moments when she felt like a huge part of her was missing—a missing portion that filled more than half of her actual existence.

"Mira! I'm going to cut one of the pomegranates you bought the other day!" Lisanna's blocked voice slipped through the cracks around the bathroom door. "Do you wanna join me and eat some?"

Mirajane stared at the locked door. Finally, after a moment, she answered: "Yeah! I'll be out in just a sec!"

The soft sounds of Lisanna's bare feet patting against the wooden floor towards the kitchen could be heard…and after another few moments passed by, Mirajane released her breath she had been holding and stepped out of the bathtub.

The following day, the clouds were gone and the sun regained its glory, bringing back heat like fire to Magnolia's surface. All traces that there had almost been something close to a storm was gone, and now it really wasn't cold enough to have to wear a coat—just as the weatherman had said. Now everyone could put their coats away. An advice certain people just couldn't care about and would probably still ignore. No matter how scorching and hot it would feel outside—or even had been feeling outside, and most likely would continue to feel for a little while longer.

"Mira! Mira!" Lisanna hissed.

Mirajane looked up from where she was, crouching on the ground. Several coins had rolled across the countertop when Gajeel Redfox had slammed down all the coins in his pocket sloppily on the countertop. He never brought in actual bills, always bringing in his payment by coins, and while the eldest Strauss really didn't mind, she in fact, kind of actually did. The least he could do was be a little neater and gentler when he laid his payment down on the countertop…it's not like his coins had ever done him any harm, other than help him with his seemingly caveman survival….

Lisanna jerked her head towards the customer standing area. Mirajane looked up from where she was. She didn't see anyone. She looked back over to where her little sister was crouching at the doorway to the back room. She cocked her head to the side, and Lisanna cupped her hands over her mouth, whispering very loudly: "It's him!—Lightning! Lightning alert at three o—oh, just to your right! Your right!"

Mirajane blinked, looking back up at the countertop. She still couldn't see anybody standing nearby the payment counter. "But Lisanna, I didn't even hear the…" When her eyes landed back on the doorway to the back room, she found her little sister had vanished. As if she had never even existed. She furrowed her eyebrows, picking up the last coin on the ground before she pushed herself to a stand with the assistance of the wooden countertop—

"What're you doin' down there?"

"Oh!" Mirajane yelped, dropping the single coin she had picked up last and it bounced. Against the countertop. Soaring across the way. Heading straight for the—

A swift, large hand snatched the coin in midair.

Mirajane let out a breath, her heart barely catching its rhythm. She allowed her extended hand reaching for the runaway coin to slump down along with her shoulders as if she were a deflated balloon. When she looked up at the one who had caught the coin, she smiled at the familiar face—well, familiar upper half of a face she had come to know a few months earlier, otherwise an identity known as belonging to a man named Lightning. Well, between just her and Lisanna, his name was Lightning anyways. In truth, his name was Laxus Dreyar. Or so was the name he had written down that first time they ever gave him a small information card five months ago.

Ever since then, he'd been a regular customer, bringing in his large, thick, fuzzy coat at least once a month. It was heavy and of high quality, as well as incredibly durable. She had tried to explain to him that he really didn't need to bring it in that often or else it could damage his coat, but so far, she had been proved wrong. His coat was just that indestructible.

"Thank you," Mirajane said as she took the coin from him. She gritted her teeth when their skin made contact—a surge of shocking energy rushing straight into her core. "Um, your coat, let me just…" Her hands fumbled around for the control to the revolving rack and held down one of the arrow buttons.

"So…" Lightning leaned over the counter, resting his muscular left forearm atop the wooden surface, causing it to creak under his weight. "Weather's been wack, huh?"

"Hm, yeah," Mirajane agreed. "I was…really hoping it'd storm," she hesitantly added, glancing up at his white mask-covered face briefly.

"Huh," he grunted, leaning back a little. "Don't tell me…you like the thunder…and I suppose the lightning as well..." He satirically snickered lightly at the end, barely even perceptible that the starlight white-haired girl in front of him even missed it.

Merely surprised by his accurate assumption, Mirajane unguardedly glanced up at the man in front of her. He was thankfully looking off to the side. The moment he began to shift in his movements, her deep blue eyes immediately dropped down and she focused on the slowly rotating rack behind her, her thumbs both pressing down on the arrow button only pressing down even harder, as if that would magically help speed up the revolving of the painfully slowly rotating clothes rack.

The muscular man across from her opened his mouth, only to quietly exhale. Until eventually: "I've never asked you this before…Mirajane….but…do you, uh…work late?"

As an abnormally large garment bag came around, Mirajane released her thumb on the green button, afraid for a split second that she had maybe jammed the button when the revolving rack continued to move for an extra second too long. "Um…I…" She set the control down, grabbing the heavy garment bag from off of the rack. "I work—"

"The dry cleaning services closes at five, but we don't leave until usually six because cleanup and stuff," Lisanna abruptly chimed in, having come up front from the back room to open the drawer to the far left side of the customer counter full of blank information cards, notepads, spare tags, pens, scissors, etc.

Mirajane snapped her gaze over at her little sister, holding back the horror from showing through her eyes. Lisanna simply smiled brightly from behind her bunny pattern mask, closing the drawer and walking back into the back room from bringing out…nothing. She had no purpose to come out here other than to intervene because she had been eavesdropping. Like she normally always did. Because she believed there was something special about Lightning that made him absolutely perfect for Mirajane which yes—there was a special connection between the two ever since Lightning first came in with his ridiculously soft coat but it wasn't like that. It never was. It was far different.

Lightning snickered once again, this time audibly, pushing up his right folded up sleeve of the royal blue shirt he wore. "I see, huh…now would that have been so hard for you to say?" he muttered lowly under his breath. The first time he'd ever said something so spitefully like that. He then pulled out his wallet from his khakis pants, setting the usual payment he now knew by soul onto the wooden countertop. When he took his large garment bag from Mirajane, he easily swung it over his muscular right shoulder and abruptly went still.

Mirajane, just as Lightning, was caught in a standstill, her large blue eyes locked with his dark ones—the part about their encounters that always made her so nervous that she sometimes avoided their stare-offs until the very last second, if she ever could manage that at all. He always somehow made her glance his way, which occasionally fated her into catching eyes with him—just what he seemed to want because he rarely ever took his eyes off of her whenever he came in. She began to dig her nails into the palms of her fisted hands that rested atop the wooden countertop as her eyes fell deeper into his.

It wasn't animosity. It wasn't a threat. It wasn't anything she could ever comprehend.

But she could still feel it. And because it had never been hatred that she ever felt coming from the large figure that now stood in front of her, she could never show more than what she's felt ever since she first looked into his eyes: pain—an indescribable pain of some sort that just wanted to be understood. And maybe she would've tried a long time ago, but along with the pain, she could also sense a certain type of dark energy from him, and that was the part that put her on edge. However, this was Lightning. And because it was him, she felt like she needed to understand him—she wanted to understand him—she couldn't push him away so easily just because he maybe made her abnormally really nervous (although that was what was holding her back, wasn't it?). Because out of all the connections she's ever had, which were immensely few…his was the strongest, reaching in so deep to her own soul that it seemed like he could touch it, and maybe, just maybe, somehow fill in the large missing part of her that she still didn't understand quite herself.

They had a special connection all right.

She just wasn't sure how she could help him. Especially when she unexplainably felt so afraid of him…

"I'm sorry," Mirajane subconsciously whispered, wanting to tear her eyes away to stop the overwhelming feeling from taking over her, but she couldn't. Today she just couldn't…

Lightning's eyebrows furrowed in deeper, and the look in his eyes became mixed with confusion. He blinked and ripped his gaze away, mumbling: "I'll see you around, Mirajane…"

Right when the sound of the store's door bell sounded off, Mirajane customarily said in a fading voice: "Thank you for coming in to…Caldia…Dry Cleaning…" He glanced back briefly at her, turning his back fully on her as the glass door shut behind him and he walked away. She blinked, quickly turning away as Lisanna came back up front, wiping at her eyes.

"I think he likes you," Lisanna boldly stated, completely oblivious to the atmosphere the man had left in his wake. "I mean, he totally was trying to ask you out when he asked for when you get off…"

Mirajane silently shook her head, her face still turned away.

"What? Is it because you still haven't seen the other half of his face?" Lisanna sighed. "Mira, that's just a risk you're going to have to take! I mean c'mon, the guy has been coming in for the past five months! When he really doesn't have to…he's dry cleaning his coat over and over again for a reason!—an excuse!"

"Lisanna," Mirajane began, clearing her throat and finally turning back around to face her sister. "I really don't think it's because he has some stupid crush on me, he—"

"What are you talking about? Did something happen that I don't know about? You know, I did realize it went quiet for a solid couple of minutes—did he do something? What did he do to you?!"

"Nothing—"

"Mira, I thought you liked him, too—because the last few times…"

Mirajane stared hopelessly at Lisanna as the pixie-haired girl desperately tried to piece together an impossible case she could never solve. She dropped her deep blue gaze and stared at her navy blue sandal heels she wore.

"I mean, last time we had confirmed that you guys were clearly meant to be because every time Lightning came in, he always wore the same color as you!—that's gotta be more than just fate!—and you guys were still matching today!"—Lisanna's hands moved in flustered movements as she emphasized the outfit Mirajane was wearing and then pointed out the shop's door—"He wore blue, and you happened to wear your strappy blue dress—you hardly ever wear this dress, even though you rock it so well—I mean it's both cute and sexy—and how could he not fall in love with you? You're just too—"

"I was overreacting."

"—too…" Lisanna blinked. "Wait. What?"

Mirajane pursed her lips. She really never did think she would be able to use these face masks to her advantage. She took in a deep breath. Never once were they positive to her. She slowly released that same breath. The strained muscled around her eyes relaxed. "I panicked. I mean, you had to come out and say something I couldn't even when he asked if I worked late, so I was feeling…bad about it—embarrassed—thinking maybe I…blew it…" She clenched her teeth, breaking off the lie from her lips and sealing it.

Lisanna's panicky energy dropped and she heaved out a relieved sigh. "So he really didn't do anything offensive to you during that moment of silence?"

"No. He just looked like…" Mirajane looked over to the glass door. She sighed. "Like maybe he had something more to say."

Lisanna's eyes lit up, sparkling with delight as she clapped her hands excitedly. "Yes!—that's a good sign! Definitely for sure this next time he'll ask…and if not, then you're gonna have to!"

"Hmm…you're right, huh?" Mirajane turned her gaze back to Lisanna, a weak smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

"Oh! And you know, maybe you should wear something pink on the day he'll come in!"

"Lisanna, we already went through two test runs to see if he'd come in wearing the same color…"

"I know!—and he did, didn't he?"

Mirajane busied herself by going into the back room where Lisanna inevitably followed. "Yeah, he did," she said, going over to the revolving rack. She pulled out the garment bags with clothes that needed to be dry cleaned.

She had once worn a white sundress, and to test the theory even more, a bow strap milky pink midi dress the next time he was due to come in. He had worn a white button-up shirt, and, surprisingly enough, a light pink button-up shirt. On the first day Lightning had come in to Caldia Dry Cleaning, he had worn black, just like Mirajane had been. At first it had been a joke—a tease of the sorts that Mirajane herself had stated.

"We were even wearing the same colored clothes—that clearly must mean something," she had lightly stated when they were talking over the customers that had come in earlier that cool spring evening while cleaning up the shop. When Lightning came up as one of the topics, mainly for the fact that neither the Strauss sisters had seen him around before, and both had agreed he carried a very specific strong air about him that neither had ever felt before, in that moment, they had deemed him worthy of a face they'd maybe like to (hopefully, eventually) see in full. Of course, with Lightning claiming the name Laxus Dreyar, his face should've been one they had already seen before. Except, Lisanna wasn't aware that that was even his name. She hadn't been up front at the customer counter to see, and Mirajane never told her.

And she intended to keep it that way by giving him the name Lightning, taking all the necessary procedures to make sure Lisanna never learned that his real name was supposedly Laxus Dreyar.

They honestly hadn't been expecting to see him again at the shop, if not for a while, but when he came in the following month, Lisanna had been by herself tending the customer counter while Mirajane had been in the back, and upon quickly recognizing him due to a special character feature on his face that face masks didn't quite cover all the way, ultimately being the very feature that had inspired his new name, the youngest Strauss had been so alarmed to see him that she had run to the back room mid-transaction with another customer and started to squeal to her older sister "He's here! He's here!" all while dragging her back up front.

The moment Mirajane had stepped through the door leading to the customer area, she immediately had made eye contact with him, making her realize that the last time he had come in, she had been so busy trying to quickly make it through the line of customers because for whatever reason that day just so happened to be one of the busier days, that she never had actually looked him in the eyes straight on.

Ever since that moment, she couldn't shake the feeling—all the unexplainable emotions she had felt that first time they ever made eye contact. A shocking connection. One that evidently would continue for the following few times he would come in, making her eventually come to the unforeseen state of mind she was in now.

When he had left that day, while he was walking out the door, Lisanna commented that hey, once again Mirajane and him had been matching. They both hadn't thought much of it until the next time he came in and he still somehow matched her, which is what gave birth to testing Lisanna's newly found conviction in the color theory of destiny. Mirajane went along with it more willingly than she liked to admit because she had been very curious about it too—would he really match her this next time around?

She just failed to realize what position she was putting herself in by doing that. It's not that she wasn't interested in Lightning because she was. She didn't hate him because she couldn't. And as far as she knew, he most definitely was not far from a striking face. He was just…different. Not quite as peculiar as some other one-time customers they've seen, but he was pretty close to that. And speaking of peculiar customers…

"Hm."

"What is it?" Lisanna asked.

Mirajane held out one of the black garment bags on the rack. "That one older lady, I don't know if you remember her, but she came in with a dress?"

Lisanna stared at the garment bag for a few seconds before her bright blue eyes went wide. "Oh, yeah! I don't think I saw the old lady that brought it in, but that one is a dress. It was a super pretty dress, actually…practically new—I really didn't feel like it needed to be cleaned, but…"

"Really?" Mirajane mindlessly remarked, moving the garment bag a little to the side so she could see the back of it. She spotted the tags on it and grabbed at the received and finished date tag.

"Yeah, did you not see it?"

Mirajane shook her head. For the most part, Lisanna took care of the actual dry cleaning process while Mirajane handled the customers. They only ever occasionally switched, or maybe both of them were up front at the same time—it really just varied, but they had their places that they typically took care of without needing to discuss it much. There were plenty of people's clothes Mirajane had actually yet seen, while at the same time she had seen a hundred times more than what she had in her own closet.

"Oh, well, you should take a look at it. I mean, I know we're not supposed to ogle over other people's clothes, but the dress was pretty nice and it came with some accessories—it honestly reminded me a lot of you. It seemed like it was perfect to your style, actually…" Lisanna went quiet when she realized Mirajane was staring at the garment bag a little more intently than normal. "Is something wrong?"

"This was ready for pickup last week."

"Yeah…?"

"People normally pick up their clothes as soon as possible, don't they?"

"Well, that is true—but we do have a ninety day policy—"

"She prepaid for this dress' dry cleaning."

"Oh…she did?"

"She should've come in and picked it up by now, right? She would've…" Mirajane's words trailed off as she lost them in thought. "I wonder if she's okay…" she mumbled, suddenly feeling a weird sense of concern. Something wasn't right. She took the garment bag from off the revolving rack, placing it on the empty rolling clothes rack nearby across the one she had begun to fill with recently received items.

"I'm sure it's fine. I mean, we've had plenty of customers in the past who never came back until a week later because their kid suddenly came down with a fever or their cat died or even until the very last day…I mean, if she doesn't ever come in, then…as awful as this sounds, we could just claim the dress since it would be clarified as abandoned property…because really, Mira, it was such a nice dress, and I think it would suit you…" Lisanna stopped fiddling and stretching her fingers backwards. Her shoulders drooped a little and she pursed her lips as she watched Mirajane check through all of the tags. "But…" she slowly began, sighing, "as our policy typically goes…you're probably going to try and contact this old lady, huh?"

Mirajane glanced back at her little sister, giving her a small smile. "It shouldn't take too long—I'll walk you home and then go try to drop this off."

"You're doing it today?"

Mirajane shrugged. "The sooner the better, right?"

"Yeah, I guess…but if she's not there?"

"I'll come back here, then go home. Then try again next week."

Lisanna blew a raspberry, placing a hand on her hip. "That means I'll be in charge of dinner, huh?"

"Give it your best!—this could be good practice for your future family." Mirajane finally let go of the tags and walked past Lisanna, placing a passing hand on her shoulder before she began to pull her mask back up; it was always habit to take it off once in the back room, away from the customers.

Lisanna slumped her shoulders even more, throwing her head back like a little child as she followed Mirajane who was pulling out her store keys from the right pocket of her plain black work apron (a mandatory article of clothing since it was the only indicator they had that showed they were employees; however, Lisanna often took hers off, only wearing it when necessary).

"Gah—I just wish Elfman could be here," LIsanna solemnly began to say, right before she somehow threw her mask back up over the lower half of her face and she walked through the doorway that lead back up front to the much dreaded customer area. She pouted while Mirajane unlocked the second drawer to the far right side of the wooden counter. "It was always more fun to cook together with him when you couldn't be home or it was spontaneously up to us to plan the meal …"

Mirajane's movements slowed down at the thought of Elfman, her lips pursing into a small frown, but she carried on with her movements, showing no signs she had been affected. The drawer she had unlocked contained all the customer information cards neatly placed in file organizer boxes lined up in three long vertical rows. She immediately went to the tab with the letter P on it and started her search in the middle of the somewhat thick lineup of cards. It didn't take her long to find the one she was looking for. As she read over the address and old lady's name, she set it atop all the other cards and closed the drawer, locking it.

Now, when it would be time to leave, she could just have an easy-grab-easy-go. Unless Porylusica was to magically show up today to pick up her dress…but that never did happen.

So now, here Mirajane was, standing in the middle of the street, looking at the address on the customer information card for the millionth time before she looked up at the seemingly eerie, boarded up narrow house. It was a little more than half past six, almost seven, and the sun had already just about gone down, leaving the skies a blood orange on the melting verge of purple and blue—twilight.

She pursed her lips, and the tepid pre-autumn breeze pulled at her hair, urging her to do…nothing. She felt nothing. Not in the atmosphere, the house, her stomach…there was absolutely nothing here. It was just an empty house surrounded by plenty of full houses, down a pleasant local street up on a slight hill. This wasn't the wrong address. She had already asked two different people, and she might've asked a third if there had been one wandering nearby. She did knock once. But after that, receiving the nothingness she had been expecting, she was done.

On the walk back to Caldia Dry Cleaning, Mirajane saw something black move out of the corner of her eye. Upon looking to her left, she found her eyes trailing up to the towering steeples of Caldia Cathedral. There were large black crows flying and perching themselves on all the different ledges there were sticking out from the detailed architecture of the church. When her eyes drifted back down, she noticed the grand, intricately-patterned double doors were slightly open. She gripped onto her right arm, memories of old resurfacing from the deep grave she had buried them in.

Maniacal laughing bursted out to her left, making her heart jump. When she snapped her head over in the direction, the laughing sounded normal, and she spotted a couple in matching red masks with arms linked off in the distance, walking further away from her. She furrowed her eyebrows, hesitantly fixing her gaze back to Caldia Cathedral.

The doors were closed.

As they had always been.

She hugged the black garment bag draped over her left arm closer to her ribcage, glancing back at the couple before briskly heading on her way back to the shop. The sky had already darkened to a faded ocean blue, and all the street lamp lights were the main source of light on the shadowed streets.

Upon arrival at her workplace, Mirajane seamlessly unlocked the front doors and walked in to the cool-aired shop, locking the doors after her and taking her mask off, setting it on the wooden countertop as she passed by it and flicked on the light switch to the back room. Once she made it to the far back of the room where another wooden countertop was, she set the black garment bag atop of it as well as her purse, and with her keys still in her hand, she turned, heading back up front to put Porylusica's customer information card back in the locked drawer.

As she turned the golden key in its lock to do just that—lock it—she slowed down in her movements, gradually pulling on the key until it abruptly slipped out from its secure place. Why did she put the information card back? It read a faulty address and was inaccurate—or rather, useless. Mirajane exhaled deeply, straightening her poise and walking more normal-paced, if not slower, into the back room. She stopped at the doorway, staring.

After a moment of thinking, she slowly made her way over to the garment bag, placing one hand on the top zipper and the other to hold the garment bag in place. She wasn't even sure what they were supposed to do in this kind of situation. Do they still hold onto the item for ninety days? Do they try to find the customer? Set out on an investigation? She just couldn't understand why anyone would go through the trouble of paying for a service on an item they never intended to keep. Why did people do that? It's not like this sort of thing had never happened before, where a customer leaves an item…but to have a customer prepay and write down a defective address? Why bother when you could just throw out the item? Or even keep it, if it was that hard to do…

She honestly had wanted to meet that old lady again.

Is that why she was really upset over this?

Mirajane sighed, pulling down the zipper. She figured she may as well see what started the whole commotion. Something that apparently couldn't be kept, but cared enough for to be given away to the dry cleaners…of all places.

As she moved aside the side flaps to see what was inside, oddly feeling like she was looking into a body bag or flat coffin, she went still.

Because it belongs to someone else.

She blinked at the sudden thought, moving her left hand away from the white material of the bow tied at the bust of the black dress. Before she zipped up the garment bag all of the way, she caught sight of the accessories Lisanna had been talking about hanging around either side of the arms of the polished wooden hanger where the straps of the dress blocked them from sliding off with one more around the neck of the hanger. She became uncertain in her movements then, but the next thing she knew, she was already taking a step back from the empty rolling clothes rack, staring at the single black bag hanging below the high silver bar.

The ceiling lights flickered a little, buzzing with soft electricity, cueing her to go. She grabbed her black purse and hung the long slim strap over her right shoulder, walking up to the doorway leading to the customer area before she flicked the lights off. The front room was dark, borrowing light as usual from the world outside that shined through as clear as the glass itself. She scanned the few shadows that existed in the room, looking for new ones she didn't recognize before she ultimately walked across the shadowed floors, the sounds of her block heels clacking softly against the wood as her background music. As she unlocked the front door, she stole one last glance behind her, finding the black mouth of the doorway to the back room bringing her back to that night in the small front room of her apartment.

Mirajane waited quietly, closing her eyes and listening keenly for any sound. Eventually she opened her eyes, her calm heart pounding silently within her empty chest. She loosed her jaw a little from clenching her teeth.

When she was busy locking the store's front door, the clinking of her keys echoing in the vacant night, the soft buzzing sounds of electricity escalated before it hit a final small dink, and the street to her left became dark. The street lamp in front of the bookstore next door had burned out. She silently continued to lock up the store, checking it twice to make sure the lock above the door handle, soon followed after the door handle itself, were both locked.

Quietly sighing, she began to turn around, looking down the stoned pathway that had just become dark, taking a few steps, only to stop. There was a black figure standing down the way in the middle of the street. She slowly continued her walk forward where the usual street she typically took with Lisanna to go home was, but as she, too, soon became in the middle of the street, she stopped, squinting her eyes.

"Lightning?" she softly, almost inaudibly called out. Mirajane pursed her lips, knowing all too well what this kind of scene looked like. The possibilities of what could happen varied, but this was Lightning. So she took a step forward into the shadowed area of the street, and then another where it gradually became darker, and then another, feeding one of many possibilities she wasn't sure she was actually making become a reality, only knowing that whatever happened next was solely based on what the figure now several feet away from her had the motives for.

Her deep blue eyes traveled up the large figure, of course his back turned towards her. If it hadn't been for the large fuzzy coat, she might not have actually recognized him. But even without the coat, she felt like she would've known. After all…that's just how it worked with people you really knew.

"I know…"

Mirajane halted in her steps, her insides beginning to tingle with something as his words reached her ears.

"I know your secret."

She gritted her teeth, subconsciously grabbing her right arm. She honestly wasn't sure what to expect, but she hadn't put her guard up. That was the last thing on her mind.

"You know…the first time I ever saw you, I knew. You were walking out of Kathartrés Cathedral, remember? Wearing a black cape to help conceal your face. You hadn't noticed me…but you felt me nearby, didn't you?"

Mirajane remained quiet. He was talking about her last visit to Crocus, when she had made that last order for Caldia Dry Cleaning… She wondered once again why she still couldn't feel scared. Because she knew she should. Anyone would. And maybe they'd already be running…but her legs wouldn't move. None of her body parts would move. She was frozen stiff, almost as if she had turned into a statue.

"I know you returned that same day as everyone else…" his low voice continued, "and I know you're a part of the Black Cavalcade. And yet…you never got infected…now did you?" That's when he finally turned his head a little to look at her. The eye she could see…something wasn't quite right about it. "I don't understand any of this—I don't understand you—I don't even know what you're supposed to even mean to me…but I do know what you were doing inside the cathedral."

He finally turned to face her, and she could see more of his face. The iris of his right eye was glowing red, and everything else was bloodshot. There were small black veins creeping up from under the edge of his white mask, shaped all too similar to spider legs, and they were stretching. Slowly growing up his face, creating jagged lines like cracks on a broken doll's face.

Without even thinking, Mirajane's body involuntarily took a step backwards as he took one more step to fully face her. A mistake, she quickly realized when she caught the slight twitch of his eyebrows and the ignition of power within him—but it was already too late. He had covered the distance between them all too fast and his hand had shot out, swiftly latching around her neck, pulsing with a dark energy. She immediately gripped onto his wrist, fighting to bring oxygen back into her body—how did it escape her lungs so easily? His grip slowly tightened, and he lowly seethed through clenched teeth: "Do you think it's a sin? Do you really think holy water is enough? Do you really hate demons that much?"

His grip around her neck was becoming suffocating, but before she could completely lose herself in the seemingly helpless state she was in, he threw her to the ground. Hard. The exposed skin of her right shoulder and arm scraped against the ground and she coughed off up the small bits of trapped air she had barely managed to breathe in, wheezing for new air to enter. Her mind was numb with shock and pain in her arm and shoulder and the pain in her throat—she honestly wasn't even sure what was going on, but despite all of that, the last thought on her mind was to run away. Still.

There was something she couldn't help but feel felt incredibly wrong—she had felt it the moment she stepped outside the shop—and it had nothing to do with the strange gait of Lightning as his dark shadow approached her, making the nerves in her stomach swarm around in a panic of fear. Whatever it was that was wrong was making her feel vulnerable—exposed. What was it?

Mirajane slowly propped herself up onto her right elbow and winced. It stung. She bared her teeth to hold back any cries of pain. Now that she was trying to move, she was realizing that her left ankle was stinging too, more so than her right. Had she hit it when he threw her down? She couldn't remember other than that it really hurt.

Before she could think too much about any of it, his presence was suddenly there, and his large form was leaning over her. He raised his right arm back, his hands clenching into tight, shaking fists. When she looked up at his face, looking into the shattering half that she could see whose cracked lines were beginning to glow with an outline of deep violet, that's when she realized what was wrong: she had forgotten to put on her mask before she left the shop. It was still laying on the wooden countertop. A silly, stupid thing to wish she had with her, all for the sake of not wanting to feel this open. He had already said it, though, hadn't he? Even with it on, he would've seen right through her…but still. She didn't want him or anyone else to be able to see her this clearly at the moment.

"I'm sorry," Mirajane hoarsely whispered. "I"—don't know what you're talking about would have been wrong—"I…" Her eyes had been burning for a while now, on the brink of melting out her emotions, but she did her best to not lose herself as the following words left her lips: "I never meant to hurt you…"

She stared distressfully at the vein in his forehead that had protruded while she remained in her defenseless position on the ground, feeling nothing but shame. The main thing she wished she could hide from him. Because while what he had said about her going to Kathartrés Cathedral to cleanse herself with holy water was true, she honestly wasn't even sure why she had been doing it. Why she felt such a strong, impulsive desire to do so. To cleanse yourself from the demons, of course, your tainted blood—it's what anyone could say. But she had really only been going because that's what she'd always been doing. She just needed to fulfil that responsibility. She hadn't been going to specifically fulfill any desires to purge herself, even though that is admittedly what she'd been thinking…because while yes, she did have issues with her past, now that she thought about it, that's not how she actually, genuinely felt. Her actions were all purely just what she had been mindlessly thinking and not how she really felt—or so she was beginning to think…as well as realize. The corners of her lips turned slightly downwards.

"Why can't you just accept me?" he whispered, pulling her deep blue eyes down from his vein of anger to his eyes of agony where a trail of black liquid like honey was leaking out of from his right eye. His pulled back fist finally stopped shaking, and when he pulled it back even further, a flurry of nerves finally broke free from within her—he really was going to hurt her—!

Something sleek and black suddenly shot out from above Mirajane's head, forcing the figure over her to be brutally shoved backwards, sending him a good distance away from her. A flood of relief and disbelief swirled in with her panicked feeling and she shot her alarmed gaze over to what had just come to her rescue. In the shadows of the street, she could see it was stumbling a little and that it had legs. When it shook its body out, she was able to quickly identify just what it was: a scruffy black dog. One she had come across that very first day she ever ate lunch at an outdoors umbrella table when she had gone shopping with her siblings. That one day when they had talked about keeping a pet and hiding it in the closet she shared with Lisanna…

Alexandria.

She had named the dog Alexandria. And she recognized him because Alexandria had a few deformities on his body that were hard to miss. Ones that seemed to repulse people and make them turn away from him. His left ear was torn off, his left eye partially blind and scarred red, a little too gruesome for some to look at, an under bite too easy to make fun of, he had patches of fur missing—especially on the tip of his long tail, he had wiry, unkempt glossy hair that looked deceivingly soft, but was really quite rough to the touch, a slight limp to his gait due to one of his back legs somehow being a little shorter than all the rest, and he was deathly skinny. He was far from cute and always on guard when approached to be touched—in an abnormal way, he was feral. They had spotted him sniffing out an overflowing garbage can nearby the table they were eating at, and both Lisanna and Elfman had tried to approach him, still on a determined high to own a pet, but when he bared his teeth, showing an ugly side, they turned away from him, muttering how he wasn't that cute anyways. But he had let Mirajane come near him, even coddle him a little, and allowed her to share her food with him, in the end going to the extent of licking her face in thanks before he left in high spirits, never to be seen again after that.

A low growl began to vibrate from Alexandria's throat, bringing Mirajane back to her current reality. Her face contorted when she caught movement from the corner of her eye. Lightning was getting to his feet. Alexandria began to defensively bark, pacing back and forth in a provoking manner. Most significantly, he was pacing back in forth in front of Mirajane, almost as if he were guarding her…but why? He couldn't have remembered her after all this time, and he was feral. He should not have cared enough to like humans, let alone help one. She had always thought it that it was just an odd chance of luck when he let her near him. Some kind of final desperateness. She only did that one thing for him. She hadn't done anything else to gain his loyalty…

Lightning cracked his neck to the sides, getting into an offensive stance—Alexandria jumped up and attacked him, biting at his left forearm where it latched itself onto him aggressively, swinging around in the air while the person it deemed dangerous tried to shake and pull him off. When Lightning finally managed to rip him off, Alexandria was thrown to the ground where it skidded across the paved ground, but he was quick to get to its feet, quickly jumping back up to attack Lightning, biting at his chest with sharp teeth. A punch was thrown to Alexandria, making him break his grip and fall to the ground with a whine, but just as quickly as he fell, he was right back to his four paws, aiming for Lightning's legs, ripping more holes into his clothes.

Mirajane watched on in horror, numb with shock that was deeming her completely useless and even more helpless from everything that had and was happening, leaving her with nothing she could possibly do other than to slowly shake her head and protest. "Stop…" she quietly mumbled, pushing her upper body more fully up from off the slightly chilled ground. She bit her teeth down to help fight against the burning and aching sensation in her back and shaking arm. "Please...just stop…" she weakly got out in a shaky breath. Her heart and lungs—everything seemed to be shaking at this point.

Alexandria was suddenly thrown off to the ground where he picked himself back up, but this time, his movements were visibly slower. Shakier. Unstable. He was panting heavily, struggling to keep his balance.

"Wait—" Mirajane began to plead to him, "don't—"

Alexandria ripped out another furious growl, jumping up onto Lightning with one last burst of energy where the staggering man ultimately punched the dog with a final blow, sending it straight back to the hard ground. The cuts and scratch marks on Lightning's body were filled in with black, outlined by that same glowing purple on his face. His chest was lightly heaving, and his coat was no longer on his shoulders, having fallen to the ground at some point. And furthermore, he still had a lot of energy, and was raging more on the inside than he had before. Barely ready to end the fight. He violently kicked Alexandria from where he lay a good distance away, breaking loose another few whines and whimpers of pain from the skinny black dog.

Mirajane's eyes widened with even more terror than she could even comprehend. "Alexandria!" she screamed, her pathetic voice still hoarse and weak. Alexandria's tail twitched. Lightning started walking over towards him. "Wait, stop! Lightning—!"

The large figure stopped momentarily, shooting a narrowed eyed glance her way, seething: "My name's not Lightning." Mirajane's eyebrows furrowed in a little. "It's Laxus."

Mirajane let out a huff of pure incredulity that refreshed pain in her throat, and she stared fiercely at the large figure. "Don't hurt him anymore—please…"

Lightning continued to walk, all humanity in him—if he ever did have any of that to begin with—completely gone, just like the street light that had burned out.

Hurt me instead…

Alexandria began to lightly whimper, an injured paw scraping against the ground in a weak attempt to stand up—move—do anything. Mirajane's large eyes were drawn to him in horror. He was completely helpless as the oncoming shadow approached him, radiating a sinister energy that seemed like it could lose control any second.

"Stupid…" the demon began to grumble under his breath after taking one heavy step closer, about ready to send the final blow, "d—"

In that moment, Mirajane had already viciously broken through the pain of her fragile body—she honestly never thought or remembered it being that weak and so rapidly broken—cutting through each pain that blossomed with each movement it took her to dash over to the black dog and hug it protectively beneath her body, vehemently shouting: "Don't touch Alegria—!"

Lightning hesitated, a beat of stillness suddenly filling the atmosphere, marking the moment in time, when abruptly, a completely different force and growl tore its way out of Alexandria, and the dog darted out from beneath Mirajane, its sharp fangs going straight for the masked figure's face.

Mirajane could only watch on in newfound shock as Lightning turned his back on her, stumbling as he struggled against the assault of the black dog, until eventually he did manage to throw it off and Alexandria came skidding back a few feet away from her. She gasped, weakly calling, "Alexandria!" while scrambling her way over to him, suddenly finding new energy. She collapsed to her knees beside the black dog, ringing new pain in places she had forgotten or hadn't realized were injured, not even caring that his blood was getting all over her dress—her hands—as she shakily lifted him up onto her lap, doing anything she could to bring him comfort—which ultimately was gently petting his head, all while trying to hush his whines.

Her chest began to burn from the helplessness she felt inside of her.

What could she do? How could she help him? Why couldn't she seem to do anything?—like something was holding her back? Surely she was actually capable of doing more, wasn't she?!—it was frustrating…but Alexandria—she needed to stop his bleeding! He—

That's when she noticed it, and the quickening blurring of her vision ceased. She blinked her deep blue eyes clear to match the night sky, staring at what lay a couple feet away out of her reach. Her right shoulder and arm throbbed with a numbing pain she could feel in her ankles as well while the rest of her body hummed with something mildly like it, and she slowly dropped her eyes down to the dog that lay on her lap, all while the masculine figure with his back facing her a good distance away remained hunched over his feet, the soft sounds of something molting reaching her ears.

"You know…" she quietly began, her voice still a little hoarse, "there's a reason why I called you Lightning."

Mirajane slowly, gently pet Alexandria's head with still trembling hands, his small head readjusting in her lap as he tried to look up at her with his good eye.

FIGHT! Protect the ones you LOVE!

She had never forgotten that war poster ever since she first saw it.

Furthermore, she had never forgotten the face of the solider that represented those words. Handsome, young, brave—heroic. An eye solely on the single, greater glory of things. Honorable in every way possible. Loyal until the very extinguishing of his very words. All of that belonged singularly, exclusively to a man by the name of Laxus Dreyar. He was the remaining dream for the Kingdom of Fiore. No other personage was strong enough to carry that weight. Because the Laxus Dreyar of this world was perfect—despite all the unnecessary crude rumors. He had no flaws, no mistakes, was resilient, highly praised, admirable—no scars.

Which is why Mirajane could never call the figure that existed before her with the honor of that name.

"Because you're not him."

It was and could never be his glory to claim. And unlike the war hero, Laxus Dreyar, the figure existing before her had a scar that struck straight through his right eye in the shape of what appeared to be a lightning bolt. Where she got the name she'd been calling him from.

Mirajane pressed her lips to Alexandria's head, kissing him before she gently moved him off of her. Her body was still in shock by the events, but it wasn't completely broken. Not yet. She gritted her teeth as she came to a stand, taking a step towards the hunched over figure. The pain had subsided for the most part, and she felt more prepared for what would happen next, despite not knowing what that would even be. She wasn't afraid. How she'd been feeling about a lot of terrifying things lately.

"Why…" the hunched over being's low voice huffed out, an energy of purple beginning to emanate from his body, glowing deeper and brighter, flickering out like small flames. "Why…" He finally turned his head, revealing part of his face. Mirajane swallowed. The lower half of it was an unnatural black substance, dripping black and stretching out like tar—like blood—and his left eye. It had gone completely black with a single red circle that was staring at her. The upper half of his cracking face and the rest of his body still appeared the same as before when he first began to mutate and change into the disturbing black being he was now—was still evolving into.

All of the cracks and cuts in his skin were beginning to expand, and the purple glowing substance that outlined each black hole and cut on him was slowly starting to consume him in an uncontrollable force—an energy—a spell—a type of magic that felt similar to the one Mirajane knew was inside of her.

"Why can't you love me?!" he raged in a demonic voice, fully turning to reveal his entire metamorphosing face.

Mirajane didn't take a step back this time. She held her ground as the horrifying demon stepped closer to her, emanating a dark power that felt all too familiar, making something inside of her respond to the energy. She locked her eyes with his red irises, clenching her hands into tight fists, having connected and been overcome by the pain.

Once again, she knew she should've been afraid. She knew she could've run. She knew she could've done anything to stop this moment—stall it—even if it was for just a second—but as the demon neared her, she allowed herself to be submerged onto the terrifying moment. Because it was hers…and had long since been just hers.

"Why don't you love me?"—and the demon's hands gripped once again tightly around Mirajane's throat, making her grip onto his wrist—"Why do you hate me?"—he began to push her backwards, but she kept her ground, fighting back against the force as she tried to maintain the base of her heels on the stone road—"After all I did"—everything left that was still shaped as Lightning (hair, masculine form, overall outline appearance, and lightning scar), all of it began to blast away as the glowing purple burst outwards and the emanating violet flame exploded upwards in an energy of magic, carrying Mirajane's starlight white hair up to the heavens and forcing her to close her eyes—"taking the shape of the one you love…"

When Mirajane cracked open an eye, the bright flow of magic had subsided, but the energy remained just as strong, still blowing up her starlight white strands of hair, taking out the bow hair tie she always wore to keep her bangs out of her face, now only surrounding the black being that existed inside of it, whose entire form had changed, revealing the true shape of the demon.

The horror Mirajane felt inside of her lasted only a moment when she thought she was seeing a mirror of herself, but she had long since already made her resolve and none of it mattered. She had people to protect, loved ones to fight for, and she didn't hate herself anymore.

She firmly replaced one of her hands on the demon's black arm, closing her eyes because she didn't want to believe what she was about to do—this just couldn't be real—she really was scared—but when she reopened her eyes, the reality of it all was all that was staring her in the face. She had nothing to be afraid of. She had to do this.

"I don't…hate you…" she weakly choked out, firmly replacing her other hand on the demon's forearm.

Would it take over her this time?

She gritted her teeth, and this time, with more resolve, stated: "I don't hate you."

Her hands began to glow bright as her will demanded the magic she knew was inside of her to consume the demon in front of her. Just like how it did so many years ago…in a distant memory that no longer matched the one she had always been thinking of.

The demon's arm she had in her grip began to glow bright, slowly shattering away like fragments of glass as the light began to spread up the black arm, and the pieces began to fill in a part of her soul. New pain tore through her right eye—it felt like the skin around her eye was actually starting to rip—cut open.

Even though I would've wanted to stay human just a little longer…I don't want this…but I'm no longer human anyways…

Mirajane's grip only tightened at what felt like an ancient memory passing by, and just as a small smile began to grace her lips—a sign of her surrender—a bright, magical ball of electricity shot past her, right into the demon's body. For a moment, time seemed to slow down, and her desolate eyes could only stare at the ripple effect the electricity was having on the demon gripping her neck, when suddenly, as if time was going right back to normal speed, the ball of lightning shot the demon back, erupting an ear curdling scream from it. Her magic—the connection—was abruptly cut off, like a clean sever from a knife. She went stumbling backwards, landing on the ground as she found herself once again panting for air. Energy she hadn't realized she was using leaving her beyond exhaustion. She touched her throat with her left hand where it vaguely still felt like something was gripping onto her, and then she was touching her right eye with her other hand, staring at where the demon had once been.

She was…confused.

Now she really didn't understand any of it.

Why did she feel so strongly how she felt now?

"I'm sorry…" a voice said from behind her.

Anguish…so much that she could cry.

Mirajane blinked, dropping her gaze. Blood dripped down onto her dress from off of her right hand. When she glanced to her left with narrowed eyes, envisioning a shadow in the shaded road of where the man behind her would be, she noticed Alexandria was gone. She turned her head a little then, mouth slightly ajar, words of questions silently slipping out.

"I meant to come earlier, but…I got a little…held back. Are you okay, miss?"

Mirajane closed her mouth and fixed her gaze forward down the empty street. Deep blue eyes searching.

The man behind her sighed. "Yeah…I guess the answer to that is pretty obvious. Anyone who'd have experienced what you just did probably wouldn't even still be alive…"

"I'm fine," Mirajane emotionlessly stated. "I'm perfectly…fine."

It was quiet behind her for a moment. But then: "…which is exactly why I have a request for you. This is sudden, but there's no simple way to go about this, and honestly, timing doesn't matter at this point. The sooner we get through this, the better."

Mirajane slowly dropped her gaze, lowering her hands—her bloody, stained hands.

"My name is Laxus Dreyar—Colonel Laxus Dreyar—the real Laxus Dreyar…as I'm sure you are very much aware or have at least heard of this name…" The man behind her cleared his throat a little and moved to kneeling on the ground with one knee, sighing heavily as he set down something. "I know this is a lot to ask for your trust, but I am who I say I am—"

"What is it you want?" Mirajane quietly cut in, still lifeless as ever.

The man behind her sighed. "To cut straight to the point, I think you might have a very interesting type of inner magic, and I think it could be very helpful in the cause I'm currently organizing. For lack of better words: I want you to join my team. I have recruited few, yet several people of high interest who are the best at what they do, so you'd be in good hands. Right now, I'm teaming up with Fairy Tail to help find a cure for the Ethernano Virus.

"We've made several breakthroughs that we'll inform you of later…that is…if you even accept my invitation. At the moment, all we know is that Etherious is only affected by magic, and we believe that only through magic will we be able to find a cure. There are currently two girls we know of with an inner magic of healing that we believe could be one of the main keys, but we still have yet to retrieve any of them, one of whom we believe is being kept captive in the Alvarez Empire. We believe that these girls could very well play a large part in creating a cure...as well as possibly you. However, without an actual ability to use magic, that makes things a little trickier. But, we believe we've found a way and—"

"You're trying to unleash magic," Mirajane stated.

"Yes. And I want to learn more about yours. You're immune to the virus, and out of this entire kingdom's population, you're the only one. I'm not going to hide anything—I do want to use you. I have men out there in the war right now that are dying because of this virus. And what's worse is that we think Etherious is beginning to evolve because even those of magical decent are starting to die. Plus, I think it would be in your best interest to be surrounded by people that can protect you…and your family. I know there's a reason why that…existence has been watching you. Because we've been watching it for quite some time now...

"And I know this is already a lot to take in, and I hate to be invasive, but we've been watching you, too—which I've gotta say, I'm quite impressed. With that existence, you were able to tell him—"

"Her." Mirajane brought her hands together onto her lap. She stared at the dark splotches on her blue dress, the parts of it her hands now rested on feeling slightly stiff. "It's a her."

"Huh…" Laxus went silent for a moment, either rethinking his consideration of her or thinking she was actually insane. Or both. After all, maybe she really didn't have that good of a grip on reality like she had thought she did. "Well…with that existence, you were able to tell…her…apart from me," he carefully stated. "You knew all along that it wasn't me. Which…now all I'm really wanting to know…and have been wondering is…how?"

That's when Mirajane looked up, finally turning to look properly back at Laxus for the first time that night, all while saying: "Because I know y—"

The large, masculine man, with the same face and imagined figure from the war propaganda poster, whose golden blown back hair, now a little longer than the painted image, was the only difference, kneeling just a couple feet away from behind the starlight white-haired girl with what appeared to be a large gun beside him, was now in the middle of taking off the white mask he wore, grimacing as he struggled for a second to unloop it from his left ear—when he looked her way, locking eyes with her. His eyebrows furrowed in with concern, and after he succeeded at the current task he was working on, his hand holding the white mask bundled up the disposable material, slowly dropping down to his knee. "Your eye…"

But Mirajane could only stare, disregarding his words and the look that had taken over his expression while the unexpected words slipped past her lips.

"Because…I know…Laxus…but I don't know you."

The renowned soldier behind her furrowed his eyebrows in even more, and his eyes that had locked moments ago with her, ultimately causing the swelling terror within her to explode, stared confusedly back at her.

"You're not Laxus," Mirajane said, breathing out the sound words in a quavering breath. She slowly shook her head, the cavern of her overflowing chest beginning to feel unbearable as she continued to look at the man behind her. The back of her throat began to burn all over again and an overwhelming feeling began to inflame her eyes. It really wasn't him.

"I don't…" he slowly began to say.

"You're not Laxus—" she said more sure than ever—"I don't know you—he has a—Laxus has a scar—"

"You mean like that…she-demon…thing?"

Mirajane shook her head more fervently. "No, not Lightning—"

"Huh…so you really did give it another name…" He lightly snickered.

"I…" Mirajane's breaths were now becoming short. "I—" Lisanna—"I'm sorry. I have to go. I—" and she was scrambling up to her feet, backing away—running.

Meanwhile, Laxus stared after her, his eyebrows scrunching in even more if possible from the apparent misconception of it all. "We haven't even met before…" he quietly muttered as he dropped his gaze, beginning to question his own credibility. Which was ridiculous. "This was the first time," he stated, heaving out a sigh as he picked up his gun and swung its strap over his right shoulder before he moved to pick up his large fuzzy coat from off the ground, momentarily staring down at it before he did so.

"Give her time…after all, this is a lot for her to take in."

Laxus sardonically snickered, looking down as he dusted off his coat. "That sounds a lot similar to what you said last time when that thing took my coat…" He heavily sighed. He would have to get it dry cleaned. Again. "Where have you been all this time, Freed?"

"I was…frozen with astonishment. I just witnessed something extremely extraordinary after all…"

"Oh? Were you now? Is that how you would describe her almost dying to be like?" Laxus scathingly laughed. "You know, I still don't know why you told me to wait…but I guess it doesn't matter. She's alive."

Freed set his jaw. "For now…" he lowly added, staring off in the distance with hard eyes.

Laxus clenched his teeth, slowing down his actions. He brushed off his coat one last time before he ultimately stopped and looked up, looking back down the road the starlight white-haired girl had taken off to—the one to her home.

She was still running.

And as she ran, she was being overcome with all sorts of new emotions.

Images were flashing before her eyes—ones that had started the second she left the scene of…whatever it was that had just happened—after her stark realization. Bits of different realities were placing themselves into her memories, making discerning the real truth confusing and hard. Why was she seeing images of a grave for Lisanna? For Laxus? The images were mixing, one feeling more real than the other because she knew Laxus wasn't dead—but the man who claimed to be him wasn't him either. Where was he? Still in the Alvarez Empire? But what about Lisanna?

Mirajane tripped. Her chest was heaving, her throat sore, and every part of her felt like it was in denial. Even her body. She clenched her hands into fists and quickly got back up to her feet and ran. She had to get home. She had to check on Lisanna. She had to—

"Lisanna!" she shouted as soon as she burst through the door. The kitchen light was the only one on in the apartment. Mirajane ran over there, only to find no one. "Lisanna?!" she cried, running throughout all of the apartment. "Lisanna?" Tears were streaming down her face in a never-ending stream. Tears for all that wasn't making sense in her mind. Tears for the part of her she knew was still missing. Tears for Lightning. Tears for Laxus. Tears for her sister's death.

Mirajane fell to her knees after searching the entire apartment, the light from the kitchen spilling over her as she placed a hand against the couch to her right for support, where she vaguely noticed a book she had never seen before was resting. She was going insane. She was completely losing her mind.

What was going on?!

What was real? What wasn't? Nothing was normal! This was all just a complete big—

"Mira, what's wrong?"

Mirajane snapped her gaze up and over her shoulder, jumping to her feet. "Lisanna!" She rushed over and pulled the pixie-haired girl in for a tight hug, and for the first time in such a long time, arms eventually returned the embrace. A hand began to pat her head, smoothing out her long, wavy hair.

"Don't worry…I'm here. Everything's going to be all right," Lisanna hushed, pulling back a little to smooth out the eldest Strauss' bangs. "Your face…I haven't seen that look in such a long time." Their eyes locked, and Mirajane's hands slowly dropped to her sides. Lisanna smiled gently and went back in for another hug, whispering: "I'm sorry I can't seem to do more than this…time should almost be up anyways. A storm should be coming soon…"

Mirajane blinked and the tears stopped.

A slow, large smile began to stretched across Lisanna's face, until eventually, it was nothing but a demon's wicked grin.

. . .

Two cold fingers like that of the dead slip away from her left temple, and they move to sweep up the single tear that has begun to trail down her snow white cheek.

"I'm always impressed…"

The large black room echoes.

"No matter the circumstances, you always seem to know that it's not really him…although I wonder why him. Because you never seemed to have anything special with him before…but…I guess you can never really know someone you don't actually know. Which always makes it turn into an especially poor fortune of events…they all are. Unfortunately for you, this same tragedy will never end."

Hands pull away from her sound face, eyes observing the cool glistening created from the single droplet.

"After all, that's the binding spell for the nightmare you're trapped in, my dear...an inescapable, powerful type of magic prison for demons such as yourself."

Walking around the table, eyes trail down her still, unaged form…until they stop at the white mark revealed on her outer left thigh.

"I wonder if they've given up by now…forgotten…or maybe they're all dead."

A hard snicker ricochets throughout the walls of the room.

"It's hard to know how much time has passed when down here all alone…stuck to guard you. At least, I have no desires for you, unlike how some other guards down here might. If that were ever the case, then you really would've been better off dead for eternity, rather than sealed in a state of timeless death for eternity."

Continuing to walk around her, long trails of layered black, water-like material from the silky, sleeveless, low V-neck dress she wears, which spills over the edge of the ancient stone altar she lays on, glistens and moves like a slow-motion waterfall, gleaming galaxy blue in the dim lighting of the room.

"A thousand different lifetimes…counting up to what feels like a thousand years…and a thousand deaths…just how much more will you endure?"

Silence.

"It really is cruel, if I do say so myself. A prison where you'll always be stuck in limbo, and not only that, but the spell is designed to make you face the ugly inside of you…and fear it. Grow to hate it. See yourself for what you really are…and that's the horrific beauty of ignorance. Because it really isn't bliss…it's far from it."

The clanking of ancient chains, bound with even older magic, sound off lightly as a light breeze trails behind where the presence passes. On either side of the stone altar whose four sides are surrounded by small black tentacles with specks like stars that glow an array of rich, dark colors that have begun to creep up the sides of it in intricate patterns, old rusting chains exist. At the end of these chains are cuffs, whose four cold mouths lock around each of her ankles and wrists above her head.

"Maybe it's because you have such a pretty face…you know, I was shocked the first time I realized it—as anyone would be because it's not in their nature…but I suppose it is in yours. A nature that could bring an entire nation down to ruins…"

Hands with unsightly long black nails grab ahold of her sleeping face, aligning it straight. Splaying out beneath her small frame like feathered wings, soft, starlight white hair cascades in small waves against the old cracking stone's surface. With skin as pure as her hair and a porcelain beauty that's been watched over for such a long time, the hopeful shattering of her innocent glass face is all that lingers in the air whenever desires full of tempting endearment and anything deeper ever arise. Like they do now…

"It really is such a shame…because you're precious demons have been trying to wake you up for some time now. But that's where the true tragedy really lies…because out of all the realities you've lived through, this unfortunate one is the one that will never change…"

Cruel eyes stare, watching while her face, when released, lolls to the side, causing her bangs that rest against her forehead to shift. Suddenly red begins to bead up into large glistening pearls from the small laceration created by a single, long sharp nail flicking across her left cheek. The filled pearls quickly collide and become one large crimson blob—until suddenly a red streak starts to glide down her skin through the pull of gravity, staining over her lips.

"You'll never wake up, Mirajane."

---

Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail.

Thank you so much for reading! Especially if you managed to make it to these last few sentences. :)