Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
warning(s): AU. Female Natsu. Raised-by-Acnologia!Natsu. Swearing. Mentions of violence, blood & gore. Potential OOCness. Crossover elements from Rave Master.
Author's note: Well, this is my first ever story and I wanted to try and do something kind of different from the norm since I figured there's an abundance of Natsu with just about every girl form the fandom, not to mention ones where he stays a fire dragon slayer. So I figured this was a nice way to sort try things out.
Enjoy!
I.
"Are you sure you don't want anything sir? A shot of our hardest liquor perhaps?"
Hibiki outright laughed. It was a sardonic, bittersweet laugh, certainly not what one would expect from mister 'Thousand Night Hibiki' to sound like. Too bad he couldn't bring himself to give a damn anymore what people thought, he was tired and exasperated. The waiter could see it, so why couldn't anyone else?
More importantly, why hadn't he seen it?
"Just a little longer, she's coming," the archive mage drawled. It was probably oh about the fifteenth time he had said so if the waiters frown lines were anything to go by. Not that Hibiki could blame him anymore, Jenny had always been known for being 'fashionably late' but this was borderline ridiculous! Even more so, considering this stupid date was her idea—all to save a failing relationship.
Every hour the waiter would walk back over, more of a paid courtesy than anything else, asking if Hibiki was ready to order—may I get you something to eat sir?—and every time he would refuse, insisting she was on her way. Now he was offering liquor. What an all time low.
Deep down, though, he knew the truth, just as he knew Jenny. 'She's not coming,' he thought, and while he may not have said it out loud, it still hurt to admit. He had considered Jenny a friend, sure he knew she liked to hang out with a lot of guy friends, get a few drinks every now and then—she is technically a celebrity and all that—but like the naïve idiot he truly was, Hibiki believed her when she said things would be different once they were together. That she would make time for him just as he did for her.
She lied. She only used him to boost her own damn career, and now he was being left to feel the burn.
He blinked, his eyes burning, and he knew, just knew, he was going to start bawling like a baby. Because despite what the stupid reporters and issues of 'Sorcerer's Weekly' liked to say about him he was very much a normal, non-self absorbed individual, and getting stood up again by a girl was sure to raise more questions causing yet another stir of ridiculous accusations that he really just didn't need anymore.
Just the thought of how it would somehow turn into his fault;—Were you flirting with another girl perhaps? Seeking some kind of secret rendezvous with a mistress, and was found out? Is there any other woman at all?—because with someone like Jenny Rearlight it could never be her doing.
No longer able to bear the sight of other lovesick couples holding hands or fancy, romantic restaurants, Hibiki stood from his chair. He headed straight for the door ignoring some of the odd looks being thrown his way, no doubt already whispering over how mortified and upset the heartbreaker Hibiki looked that night, and to be quite brutally honest, he couldn't bring himself to care.
Because by the end of the night he would be too damn wasted to even care.
~/~
He honestly didn't expect much while walking to the bar, not even sparing a glance at the dimly glowing sign hanging above. He took a seat on the nearest stool, plopped down a rather large sum of cash and told the person behind the counter to 'keep the shots coming.' Whatever looks he earned were immediately pushed to the back of everyone's minds.
Almost everyone.
A single pair of eyes—cold, malicious, piercing orbs—focused on him in intrigue, narrowing when from the corner of their gaze they saw the slightest movement from a table closer up front. Watching in silence, their own still full glass forgotten in that moment.
"Rough night there, friend?"
He doesn't bother lifting his head up from where it lay in his folded arms on the countertop and, if the slight flush of his cheeks were any indication, he was too far gone to even care. He turns his head without lifting after a few seconds pass, the newcomers horrible body odor causing him to stir. He internally cringes, the guy looks worse than he fucking smells.
"Piss off," is Hibiki's curt response, too tired to keep up any kind of front. Slowly bringing another shot glass up to his lips.
He makes the sudden mistake of trying to move at the same time, nearly toppling out of his chair in a measly effort to push past the other two more burly looking men. Not quite sure when exactly the room started to spin on him—did someone put something in his drink?
"Shit," he hisses pressing a trembling hand against his forehead.
"Easy there, friend," the man says again, invading Hibiki's personal space.
Hibiki's words are slurred, attempting to shove the stranger's arms off him. He wasn't a fighter however, and his magic was useless to him in such a scenario. His hand is easily caught and he stumbles forward.
He feels himself getting hoisted up and slung over someone's shoulder, barely even coherent at this point. "Le-"
"Lee? He's already in bed, mate," the other of the two replies, making a show of it when the few other drinkers glance their way, suspicion shone in their eyes. And Hibiki wants to curse himself for being so utterly stupid—his conscious is already is already slipping away by the time they reach the door with him.
A sharp-tongue reply stopping them in their tracks.
"Actually...I think the fool was trying to say 'let me go'."
He barely catches a flash of pink before blackness takes over. Hearing fragments of the other's response.
"You're...Fair...ail...!"
~/~
Hibiki awoke to the lingering taste of bourbon at the back of his throat and the very real sensation of elephants doing the merengue on his cerebellum. In spite of having just woke he still felt so tremendously tired. With a great deal of effort, he leveled an eyelid open, immediately regretting it when a merciless ray of sunshine shot through making his brain bleed.
A groan spilled from his lips. The bed beneath him was too warm and soft to get up from, assuming he had stumbled his way to a hotel late last night. He'd done so on occasion, whenever he and Jenny had an especially bad fight and he wanted to avoid the masses.
If something is amiss, he doesn't notice, not at first anyway. Thoughts of facing whatever shit storm the media was in, of Jenny's furious and accusing tone, not to mention the concerned looks of his friends, Sensei, and Master Bob; all of it working like an anchor, dragging him back towards the blissful abyss of sleep, not wanting to face the day.
It's when his hand reaches up from under the warm covers, very absently brushing along his face and neck, right where-
He stills.
Something is missing. A frown forms between his brows, once more forcing his eyes to open, pulling himself into an upright position in bed. The room spins violently and he lets out another weak groan. It takes some effort to make it stop, focused more on the now empty space of his neck, lacking the weight of a small familiar chain and charm at the end—he needed to find it!
Did he take it off last night? He couldn't have misplaced it! Did someone steal it perhaps?
His mind raced with possibilities. Gritting his teeth while pushing through his own pounding headache, eyes doing a quick sweep of the room he was in causing his frown to deepen. Realizing he was in no hotel, it looked more like… "An infirmary?"
Had he been injured at some point last night? He didn't recall anything all that bad happened, other than Jenny not showing up, then eventually leaving to go and try to push all thoughts of her from his mind, eventually drinking himself into a stupor when those unsavory men came and-'Wait,' he thought, feeling his heart pounding rapidly in his chest.
'Did-was I somehow abducted?' he questioned, feeling more nervous by the second. his magic wasn't made for actual fighting.
Ren was the fighter amongst them, Eve and Sensei could as well, but Hibiki? His sole speciality was recon or information gathering at best. If he was taken by potential thugs or whatever then...then he needed to come up with a plan; A way to get himself out of trouble or possibly alert his comrades to his predicament or-
"Oh!"
Hibiki flinched, mentally berating himself for not paying more attention. Not even noticing when the door opens.
Standing in the doorway however, was an all too familiar face surrounded by flowing snow-white hair and serene blue eyes staring back at him. His anxiety melted away when she smiled warmly at him.
"You're awake."
"M-Mirajane!?" Hibiki said, astonished. How was she here?
"Ara ara...are you alright, Hibiki?" The Fairy Tail poster girl inquired in a gentle tone, so unlike what he was used to nowadays. She quietly shut the door behind her before closing the distance between them in a few long strides.
"You're in the Fairy Tail infirmary," she supplied, seeing his confused look. "While out on a job, Natsumi and her team crossed paths with you I guess. You seemed to be having a rough night, and Natsumi said you almost got abducted by the slave traders they were sent to capture."
Something cold settles in his gut. Both at the potential 'what-if' scenario he had almost been faced with as well as the information of whom exactly found him last night.
"N...Na...tsumi…?" He had heard the name before, able to see the varying expression of terror usually accompanying whoever spoke it. He had heard the stories of destruction and carnage surrounding Fairy Tail's resident Chaos Dragon Slayer, how she was supposedly raised by the dragon of apocalypse even.
He was present when Master Bob was reading the morning paper, and on the front page was an entire section dedicated to her brutal beatdown of former councilman Siegrain. And before that was Fairy Tail's so-called war with the rival guild, Phantom Lord where she savagely defeated Gajeel, the Iron dragon slayer. When she showed up alongside a few others and squared off with the demon known as Lullaby, Master Bob seemed to compare her style of fighting to that of an actual demon, going so far as to say that even Lullaby seemed fearful of her at one point dubbing her as 'the end…' whatever that means.
"Yes. It was so rare and unusual, seeing Natsumi come in with a boy," Mira giggled, placing a hand against her cheek.
Hibiki didn't share in her cheerful mood any. He was uncomfortable with the idea of being indebted to someone like that.
"She'll be happy to know you're awake though, she even stayed up here for quite some time before finally leaving. It took Erza and quite a few others to finally drag her out." Hibiki paled at the thought. "She said she had something to talk to you about—at one point saying you owed her for messing up her mission or something? It was hard to understand her with all the shouting going on."
The knots in Hibiki's stomach tightened, wanting the floor to swallow him in that brief moment.
"I'll go let her know you're awake now!" Mira exclaimed brightly.
"N-no!" Hibiki said, perhaps a bit too sudden and loud for anyone's liking. His hand latching onto her wrist suddenly when she moved to stand and head over towards the door.
He couldn't handle facing someone like Natsumi now, not after last night's string of misfortune.
"Hibiki, what's wrong? You look so pale." Mira's concern warmed his heart and on any other day he may have had the calm state of mind to indulge her, only now he was far too high strung from everything happening to him lately.
"I-I just...um, I don't want to trouble anyone," he said, voice going a bit softer now. "I just...would like to head home, I think I've embarrassed myself enough for quite some time, don't you?" He hoped the smile on his face was enough to fool her. Hoped she didn't ask how the others were doing.
And luck, it seemed, was finally on his side when she smiled again. "Oh, that's too bad. Though I'm sure you'd rather relax at home instead where you can be surrounded by friends."
Hibiki's smile faltered a bit, squashing the growing swell of despair as the mere thought of a certain friend in particular making him want to hurl. He couldn't let it show how troubled he really was. how tired and worn down he was feeling. the weight of being him making him want to crawl back under the covers and just stay there.
Hibiki was worthless; always getting in the way; always messing things up.
"Yes," Hibiki said in response to Mira's own statement, offering his award-winning smile, the same one he flashed to every reporter and such that came his way. "Beauty and brains, you read me like a book Mira."
They shared a laugh and for just a moment Hibiki found himself relaxing, then the door swung open for the second time and Hibiki's heart dropped down into his stomach.
"Oh Natsumi," Mira greeted.
"Ah, so you're awake." Natsumi's menacing glare is sharp enough it's a wonder he isn't cut in half by it. "Thought I smelled expensive booze."
Hibiki's cheeks burn, looking down towards the floor.
"Are you sure you weren't just smelling Cana, Natsumi?" Mirajane slyly commented, winking to Hibiki at the save.
The pinkette makes a face somewhere between disgust and annoyance. "That drunkard went out on a job hours ago, something about needing more drinking money. She even dragged Lucy along with her saying it was an easy one."
At this new tidbit of information Mirajane looked a tad more confused. "Oh, so... you miss Lucy then? Why didn't you go with them?"
Hibiki squashed the small swell of disbelief that someone like Natsumi could miss anyone. recalling the one time he overhead the master talking, saying some newbie reporter had screwed up and written an article stating the chaos slayer was secretly in love with the ice-make wizard on her team. The following morning was catastrophic for Sorcerer's Weekly, with several important buildings getting destroyed and quite a few members of staff being hospitalized.
"Lucy needed the money to make up her rent," was all Natsumi said, immediately shifting her gaze back onto Hibiki.
The two stared at one another. Hibiki eventually being the one to relent and looking away again. Pulling the cover a bit tighter around him, feeling childish for being so afraid of a girl around his own age.
'It's not like she's going to eat me?' he reasoned mentally.
"Um, s-so Mira said you were the one who helped me last night?" Hibiki forced the words out, struggling to hide how nervous he was addressing her with a thin smile. "Thanks for-"
"What were you doing there last night?" Natsumi cut over his meek words, throwing him for a loop. "Didn't figure you to be the stupid type to go and get drunk in the first place, let alone-"
"Natsumi!" Mira chastised lightly, shooting the other girl a stern stare which was easily brushed off.
"It's alright Mira," Hibiki soothed, though his voice sounded a bit more hollow now. "I just... needed a change of scenery I suppose, that was all," he moved to stand from the bed, only to sway, nearly falling back down before Mira rose to help steady him.
"Don't push yourself. Why not have some coffee first? Then Natsumi can take you there, just to make sure you arrive safely!"
"What!?"
"H-huh?"
"I brought him here, isn't that freakin enough," Natsumi hissed, clearly not appreciating Mira volunteering her. The snow-haired girl seemed to ignore the other's little outburst however, humming happily as she set Hibiki back down onto the bed. Saying how she'd be back in a few moments with the coffee before turning to leave.
"Hey! Don't ignore me!" Natsumi said, her words turning vicious as she followed Mira out the door.
~/~
Mira was unusually giddy today, her good mood carrying over from late last night when Natsumi of all people came in with a boy! Well okay, according to Lucy and the others it was more like Natsumi just dragged him along, the blonde serving as the voice of reason when Natusmi seemed content to just leave him passed out on the hardwood floor. The only boy Natsumi seemed able to tolerate being their resident ice-make mage and even then, it was only through brawling they had any kind of relationship.
"Natsu said he was about to be taken away by those slave traders we were after, so she had to step in," Lucy reasoned once things had settled down. "Even though she tried to just leave him afterwards, I mean jeez! She stepped in to save the guy, so the least she could do is stick around to make sure he's alright."
Though it seemed Lucy's complaints fell on deaf ears as Natsumi merely brushed the busty blonde aside and out of the way, still a bit sour after being told a chunk of the reward money had to go towards repairs. Still, her treatment towards Lucy served a testament of how much had changed over these last few months in Mira's opinion. Before Lucy came, the pinkette was more often feared than anything else, her presence causing an uneasy silence to fall over the usually boisterous guild hall.
Back when the pinkette first joined, mostly under the pretense of fighting powerful people like Gildarts (who then proceeded to flee under the excuse of a mission), the rest of the guild had kept a fair amount of distance, especially after she wound up killing the bandits she was sent to dispatch on her very first mission. Only Gray and Erza approached her after that. Mira herself had found it hard to look past the other girl's cruel, stand-offish demeanor.
Her sister, Lisanna was a godsend in that regard, being one of few to actually break downsome of the pinkette's walls. They immediately went right back up however following the youngest Strauss' death.
Then Lucy came. She remembered the day like it was yesterday...
"Wow1 I can't believe I'm actually standing in the Fairy Tail guildhall!" Came a jubilant cry as the front doors of the guild swung open with several people immediately flinching at the sight of unruly pink colored hair and piercing onyx-colored eyes.
What Mira and several others focused on however, was the unmistakable presence of someone standing behind the scowling dragon slayer. Lucy Heartfilia was literal sunshine on feet, taking in the worn down, beat up guild hall like a literal kid in the candy store. What amazed the poster girl even more was her close proximity to said dragon slayer.
"This is like a dream come true, thanks so much for bringing me here, Natsu!" Lucy went on to say, causing Mira and a few others to do a double-take.
Natsumi had actually recruited someone!?
"Shut up and get your freakin hand off my shoulder," Natsumi spat over her shoulder, the words lacking their usual menacing edge. Lucy regarded the other girl with an almost exasperated look, shoulders slumping some while muttering under her breath.
"You know, if you don't wanna be touched you can just say so politely…" Lucy muttered, just loud enough to be heard.
The two seemed to fall into an almost friendly sort of banter after that, well as friendly as one can be with someone like Natsumi.
"Where's the master?" Natusmi demanded approaching the bar, only to be cut off when Lucy squealed from beside her.
"Wow, it's Mirajane! In the flesh!" Natsumi gritted her teeth in a show of annoyance while Lucy continued to gush over the white-haired poster girl's presence.
"Do you wanna join today or not!?" Natsumi suddenly snarled, slamming a hand down on the countertop and fixing Lucy with a glare so full of venom it was a miracle she didn't cower under it. Much to everyone's surprise Lucy didn't even flinch, instead puffing her cheeks in her own much less threatening show of frustration, placing her hands on her hips.
"Of course I do! What kind of question is that? And why are you being so rude?"
"Because every two steps you keep gushing about something!"
"So!? How would you like it if I yelled at you for everything that made you happy?"
"Go ahead and try, I'll knock your block off!"
"Happy's not with you today, I noticed?" Mira began conversationally, looking over her shoulder towards where Natsumi had taken a seat at a nearby table. The pinkette shrugging some.
"He asked to go on the job with Lucy, said he needed some fish money," was Natsumi's flippant response.
"Hm, and Lucy didn't offer for you to join?" Mira added.
Natsumi made a face, glaring at a particular spot on the table. Her brows stapling together in a look of deep thought before answering. "Didn't feel like it."
"Could it be...you were worried about that boy you brought in? Hibiki?"
"No!" Natsumi blurted, maybe a little too quickly. A barely noticeable tint coloring her cheeks while she blinked rapidly, processing Mira's words some. "Hibiki?"
Mira nodded, unsurprised by Natusmi's apparent lack of knowledge. Fishing around and pulling out the latest issue of Sorcerer's Weekly before turning back to the coffee maker lacrima. "I'm surprised you didn't recognize him at first, most women would've been thrilled to be in your position Natsumi!"
Natsumi made a face of disgust flipping through the brightly colored magazine some, stopping on a page in the middle. Brows furrowing deeper as she read aloud. "The Great Split?"
"Hm? What was that?" Mira leaned back over the counter, her own interest piqued.
~/~
Hibiki shivered uncontrollably. His eyes scanned the area around him seeing nothing but what appeared to be some sort of desert. "S-somebody...?A-anybody!?" He called out desperately trying to stand.
But it was no good.
The gashes on his legs made certain of that as he merely tumbled back down before starting to sob, his small feeble little hands clutching at the sand not seeming to care as the substance sank into the cuts on his hands as well.
"You're still alive!?" A voice said as silent footsteps stopped directly beside him. He stopped crying, slowly looking up and meeting a pair of astonished purple-colored eyes. the person's blue hair whipping in the wind; he looked familiar somehow, but Hibiki couldn't quite place why. "Th-that is... impossible!"
"Who-ugh!" Hibiki winced, suddenly clutching his head in pain. The sudden image of a girl with long, flowing brown hair the same, nearly the same shade as his but with light-brown eyes, dancing piercing through his skull. With it came a name.
"R-Resha…?"
The strange man let out a gasp before kneeling before him, grasping Hibiki's chin and pulling him forward seeing half of his face smeared with blood.
"I see... it was your power that somehow saved you from being destroyed, it protected you much like that girl." Hibiki felt his senses dull as unconsciousness threatened to pull him into it's seemingly comforting embrace. "A fearsome thing indeed, if left to roam freely you and her could..."
"Please..." Hibiki mumbled tiredly, "I-I'm cold and hungry...e-everything hurts! Pl-please help me... please!?" he begged as tears escaped his eyes, falling to the ground before he felt the person release him pulling away and standing back up speaking in a cold voice.
"You are an abomination, a weapon even! Your existence is a result of thousands of innocent lives, if I cannot kill you then...no, I will save you, young one." Hibiki scampered back as lightning gathered at the tip of one of his fingers, pointing it towards his heart. "By killing you and sparing you from this hellish existence!"
When Hibiki met the strange man's eyes he saw a sudden flash of guilt, hearing the blue-haired individual mutter words of pain.
"Forgive me Resha... he looks so much like your brother." Then the lightning connected. The pain was so intense it overloaded his senses.
A flurry of images assaulted his mind and for a moment he felt as though he could no longer breath, wanting nothing more than to scream out in pain. A blinding light engulfed both him and his surroundings as he blacked out.
Hibiki jolted awake. Eyes blown wide with panic, unable to breathe. A few seconds passed in which his heartbeat returned to normal and he seemed to remember where he was.
"A dream…? But I-..." His lips pulled into a frown, looking down towards his wrist for a long moment.
He swallowed, the effects of last night's binge finally starting to wear off. Rubbing a hand up over his face, carding his fingers through the unkempt strands of soft blondish-brown hair on his head.
"Ugh... I hate hangovers…"
It was a large part of the reason he didn't drink, waking up and not remembering where he was accompanied by painful flashes of memories sometimes not his own. There were times he'd be looking through the eyes of another; same shade of hair and soft cream-colored skin, only his voice would take on higher pitch—at some point determining it was a female.
A girl named Elie.
Review please.
I hope you all enjoyed! As mentioned in the warnings there will be crossover elements from another of Mashima's works, Rave Master however, I don't believe there will be enough to warrant a full on crossover, there might be some events I draw inspiration from but that's about it as well as the mention and possible connection of certain characters.