Chapter 2: Declaration of War

Disclaimer: I don't own FT or Naruto

A/N: Hey guys! Chapter two of Fairy Tail's Hellhound here. Now, we're kicking things off right from the start of the Phantom Lord arc. As to why I'm doing this, there really wouldn't have been much difference from the canon Lullaby and Galuna Island arcs aside from Naruto's presence if I had written them out. Though just in case, I apologise in advance if it feels forced in any way. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter.

X784, Magnolia

Naruto walked into Magnolia, seven years had passed and the blond had grown from a wet-behind-the-ears rookie mage into a competent wizard. He still wore a black set of shorts but he also wore a dark orange V-neck vest top. He continued to walk barefoot and his tail stuck out from under his vest, waving lazily behind him. A few people waved to him as he walked by the canal, initially people had been put off by the blonde's appearance but in time they had come to greatly respect him as a Fairy Tail mage. He had just completed a job to eliminate a group of Wyverns and now all he wanted to do was kick back, relax and eat a bowl of ramen made by his mother.

However, he began to here whispers, not hateful, more so as if they were out of pity.

"There goes Naruto… do you think he knows?"

"He looks clueless to me; he's not going to like it."

"Then again it was a big shock to everyone, who knows what it's going to be like for him?"

"What could they be talking about?" Naruto mumbled, turning his head in the direction he knew the guild hall would be. What he saw caused him to stop cold in his tracks, the guild hall was still there but it was almost completely destroyed, courtesy of the black, metallic columns protruding from the structure and appeared to be barely supporting its own weight. The sight caused him to break into a sprint, as he neared the building he noticed a familiar woman with long red hair, wearing Heart Kreuz armour, and a blue mini-skirt. "Erza!" He called out, the redhead turned to face him.

"Oh, Naruto, you're back from your mission?" She asked as he continued jogging up to her.

"Yeah, but that's not important right now, what happened here?! And more importantly, was anyone hurt?" He asked.

Erza clenched her fists before she responded, "It was Phantom, luckily they attacked during the night when no one was here." Now it made sense, Phantom Lord was considered Fairy Tail's biggest rival for the top guild in Fiore. The fact that no one was hurt was at least some form of comfort, but it did little to placate the blonde's anger.

"What's the old man got to say about it?" He asked

"Master has told us not to retaliate," Erza answered, she cut off her blond friend as he looked ready to start ranting, "I'm not happy with the decision myself, as are a lot of members, but it's the rational thing to do." She put a comforting hand on Naruto's shoulder before he continued, "I know how much this place means to you Naruto, after all you were here since you were a baby, but please let's respect Master Makarov's wishes."

Naruto calmed down slightly at that, but still let out an annoyed sigh, "What about Natsu and everyone else?" He asked, more calmly this time.

"Natsu's gone out to vent a few frustrations in the East Forest, Gray said he needed some time to think and Lucy, a new guild member is taking some advice from Mira on how to deal with the situation. On the other hand, I'm headed back to Fairy Hills, if any Phantom Lord mages are skulking around Magnolia it's always best to be prepared. As for everyone else, they're still in a bad mood down in the basement, so don't be surprised if you don't get a warm welcome." Erza said, parting ways with the blond.

When Naruto entered the basement the welcome was exactly as Erza had predicted, a few nodded their heads and some even managed to smile at him, but overall the mood was still sour. Kushina had changed somewhat in the years since Minato's death, she now wore her hair in a high pony-tail with two bangs framing her face. Her clothes had also changed somewhat, typically Kushina would now wear a dark-green turtleneck jumper with a matching set of cargo pants and she wore a black pair of sandals on her feet. She saw her son entering the basement and immediately turned to him, getting up as she did so and wrapping him up in a hug.

"I'm glad you're back safe." She said, Naruto hugged his mother back. Kushina knew he was fully capable of handling the mission he had been sent on, but after what had just happened to the guild she was worried for everyone's safety. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Naruto grumbled, "I'm just… I'm pissed off that we're not doing anything." They broke the hug, though her hands were still placed on Naruto's shoulders.

"I know, even master is angry, but you know as well as I do that conflict between the guilds is forbidden by the Council." Her son once again muttered something under his breath, clearly still not happy with the course of action being, "Hey, you've had a long mission, how about I cook you up some ramen?" Kushina asked, her question succeeded in perking her son up as he grinned and nodded his head in response.

"So, has anything else happened while I've been away?" Naruto asked as Kushina started making his ramen.

"You might not believe it, but a few weeks ago, Natsu formed another team."

"Well, good for him, the last time he was on a team hasn't been since…" Naruto trailed off, Kushina momentarily stopped attending to the ramen noodles. "Lisanna."

Kushina looked at her son sympathetically before she poured the noodles and broth into a bowl, "I know, but she wouldn't want us to mope around, she'd want us all to move on. And it seems Natsu is doing just that."

"So who's on his team?" Naruto asked as he started to dig into his ramen with a pair of chopsticks

"Well, there's Lucy the new girl and Happy of course, but recently Gray and Erza have joined up with them." Hearing the Ice-Make and Re-quip mage's name caused Naruto to almost choke on his noodles.

"You're joking, right?" Naruto asked, finding it hard to believe Natsu would even consider teaming up with his two biggest rivals in the guild.

"Nope, since the five of them took a mission together they've been joined at the hip." She explained, shrugging nonchalantly.

"Wow… miracles really do exist." Naruto said resolutely, his mother chuckled at his antics.

"Yeah, I guess they do. Though I've got an idea, if you're interested?" Kushina asked, Naruto leaned in closer, willing to hear his mother out, "With Phantom Lord goons possibly still in town, the guild is being asked to stay in groups for a while. Call it a hunch, but I think the team is going to room together, why don't you see if you can join them?"

"Will you be okay though?" Naruto asked, he had only moved out of the house where they had lived for most of Naruto's life recently, so he still worried about her living alone.

Kushina simply smiled at her son, "Honey, I'm an S-Class mage and I'll be staying with Master Makarov, you don't need to worry." She said.

Naruto seemed to accept the answer, "Alright, where do you think they'll be?"

Kushina responded by placing her hand on her chin in a thinking position, "Hmm, they won't be at Erza's as Fairy Hills is an all-girls dorm, I doubt Natsu or Gray could standing going near the other's house, so I suppose the only place they could go is to Lucy's. I've got the address, I'll give it to you and you can head there later." Naruto nodded his head in response.

Naruto walked down the now dark street, a piece of paper with Lucy's address on it, "This is the place." He mumbled, entering the apartment complex and finding the door to Lucy's flat, he could just make out the end of conversation.

"…so Mira was suggesting we stay in gro- Erza, what're you doing?!" He heard Gray's muffled voice exclaim, not a moment later the sharp point of a sword broke through the door Naruto was standing in front of, causing the dog-like young man to let out a startled yelp.

Erza stepped out through the doorway, "Oh Naruto! I didn't realise it was you!" She said, she was quickly followed out by Natsu, Gray, Happy and a blonde girl, who Naruto presumed was Lucy.

"Yeah, it's me! Were you trying to give me a heart attack?!"

"I am truly sorry, please, I demand that both you and Lucy strike me for my transgressions." Erza said, both Naruto and Lucy sweatdropped at the redhead's overly dramatic way of apologising.

"Thanks, but I'll pass." Naruto said in an exasperated tone.

"So you're a Fairy Tail mage?" The blonde girl asked him, looking over his strange appearance, Naruto nodded his head and showed her the guild mark on his stomach, "That's right, I'm Naruto Uzumaki, my guess is you're Lucy?" His fellow blonde nodded her head in response.

"Uzumaki… so you're Kushina's son aren't you?!" Lucy asked excitedly, while Naruto himself had never appeared in Sorcerer Weekly Kushina had on a multitude of occasions and it was a well-known fact she had a son with a magic allegedly no one else knew. Though whenever she was asked about it the redhead would always find a way to dodge the question, eventually resulting in the popular magazine giving up on trying to find out.

"Yeah he is," Natsu spoke up, "He's okay, but whenever he got into trouble it was either me or Gray who had to drag his tail out of the fire."

"Oh shut up Natsu!" The Bomb Curse user and the Fire Dragon Slayer glared at each other, the tension soon becoming so thick you could cut it with a butter knife. That is until both boys broke out into broad grins and grasped each other's arms, shaking them firmly in comradery.

"But seriously, long time no see Naruto." Natsu said, letting go of his friend's arm.

"Same to you Natsu," He responded playfully, "And Gray, you still have that stripping habit?" Noticing the Ice-Make wizard's state of undress, as well as the bandages that covered his torso.

"When the hell did that happen!" Gray yelled in a comical manner, frantically searching for clothes.

After Gray (finally) found his clothes, Lucy happily invited Naruto inside, being the son of one her idols. However, his fellow blonde still continued to look at him oddly, which was understandable given Naruto's unique appearance. "You're probably wondering why I look like this?" He asked, gesturing to his dog-like features, Lucy nodded, somewhat embarrassed she had been caught staring. "Well, long story short I have the essence of a demon sealed in me and I can use its powers, the catch being I look like this."

Without warning Lucy reached up to Naruto's hair, more specifically towards his hair protrusions, and started stroking them. Naruto didn't seem to mind her doing this, but still cocked an eyebrow at the sudden action, "Sorry, I had to get that out of my system." She said after she had finished touching the ear-shaped hair style. The other members of the group looked amused at the scene.

Unfortunately, while Lucy was distracted, Happy had decided to amuse himself by rummaging through her things, "Hey Erza I found some frilly panties, who're you trying to seduce Lucy?" He purred teasingly, meanwhile, Natsu had been following his friend's example and found what appeared to be a hidden stash of sweets.

"I can't believe you would actually wear something like this." Erza said with a very obvious blush.

"I'm trying to get some sleep so could you keep it down please?" Gray asked, now lying on Lucy's bed.

"You guys are taking this 'make yourselves at home' thing way too seriously." Lucy said in exasperation, before anyone could say something about the Celestial wizard's statement Erza spoke up.

"We have a serious problem here, you boys and your hygiene, I refuse to sleep in a room that reeks of sweat." Erza said.

"I don't wanna take a bath yet." Natsu said.

"But I just got into bed." Gray whined.

Erza however, would have none of it and proved her point by lifting the two boys to their feet, "Come now boys, do we have to take a bath together like when we were kids?" She asked sweetly.

"What kind of relationship do you guys have?!" Lucy shrieked, blushing red with the thought.

"They're the strongest team!" Happy said.

"More like the strangest team!" Lucy retorted, however in the midst of this, no one had yet to notice Naruto slowly tip-toeing towards the window.

'Come on, just a little closer.' He thought, eager to be out of the room.

"Naruto." Erza said, causing the blond to stop in his tracks, "Where do you think you're going?"

'Dammit!' Naruto screamed internally before replying, "I just want to sleep under the stars tonight, so I thought I'd go up to the roof." A very rushed excuse on Naruto's part and it didn't seem to deter Erza in any way.

"Why not have a bath before going up there then?" Erza asked, it was fairly obvious she was calling Naruto out on his bluff.

Naruto decided to give up on coming up with excuses at this point and just decided to say why he didn't want to take a bath, "You know that it makes me smell like a wet dog."

"But you'll smell even worse if you don't take a bath." The armoured mage quipped.

"You can't force me!" Naruto shouted in defiance, though the grin on Erza's face told everyone in the room the blond had just made a big mistake.

"Oh can't I?" Erza asked rhetorically as a small flash of light enveloped her hand, when it died down, a set of purple beads was clasped in her fist. The beads, oddly enough, seemed to be attempting to gravitate towards Naruto, only being held back by Erza.

Naruto went as white as a sheet upon seeing the beads and knew even if he tried to make a break for it that damn piece of jewellery would find a way get over his head. Still though it couldn't hurt to try as he attempted to jump for the still-closed window, aiming to smash straight through it. Just as he was nearing it however, he heard a whooshing sound as something flew through the air behind him, once he felt something around his neck it was game over, 'Shit!' He thought as Erza said the two words which would be the end of him.

"Sit boy." The beads glowed upon Erza's command and with a powerful, unseen force, they dragged Naruto downwards. This evidently caused the blond to face plant the floor, "Now, are you going to have a bath?" Erza asked, Naruto groaned but nonetheless got up and complied with the redhead's order.

Meanwhile, Team Shadow Gear were walking through one of Magnolia's streets. "Are you sure this is okay?" Droy asked, nervous about a potential ambush.

"Shouldn't you stay with Laki and the others at the girl's dorm?" Jet asked, he knew Levy could handle herself but there was still such a thing as safety in numbers.

"It's fine!" Levy insisted, "I don't want to split up our team." Her two companions instantly began swooning over their petite team leader (as usual).

Unbeknownst to the three-man team a man bearing the Phantom Lord insignia was watching them from the shadows, they didn't stand a chance as they were set upon by their stalker.

"Okay Natsu it's your turn." Lucy said as she stepped out of the bathroom, it had been a few hours since the incident with Naruto. The Celestial wizard received no response from the Dragon Slayer as he had fallen asleep at some point during her bath.

"You won't get anything out of him." Naruto said, the Curse user was still miffed he'd been forced into taking a bath, though he had calmed down since getting out and having the beads removed. "Natsu is a really deep sleeper, just be thankful he isn't snoring, it would probably be enough to wake up Magnolia."

"True but he's missing out on a treat, even though you don't like getting your fur wet you have to admit that bath was simply heavenly." Erza said, sitting on Lucy's bed garbed only in a towel.

"I guess." Naruto shrugged as Erza requipped into her pyjamas.

"So why didn't you just take the beads off?" Lucy asked, taking a seat next to her most recent guest.

"If I give you that story, will you tell me what the team has been up to?" Lucy nodded at Naruto's question.

"Basically those beads were engraved with runes which perform three functions. The first one is that they'll immediately locate me specifically and wrap around my neck. The second one you saw, that was me slamming into the ground when I'm given the instruction to sit. And the third one is that no one but the person who put them on me in the first place can remove them." He said, scowling lightly at Erza with his last remark, "As to how they came to be, me and Natsu might have…" Erza gave him a look, having heard the story before, "kind of…" The redhead was still looking at him, "okay! We purposely stole a job request that we weren't ready for, happy?"

"Very." The Re-quip mage answered.

"My mom made them to keep me in line and gave copies to herself, Master, Mira and Erza so if I misbehaved again they could slip them on me and tell me to sit." He finished. Naruto turned to Lucy, now wanting to hear what Natsu's new team had been up to.

Lucy finished chuckling lightly at the story, amused that her pink-haired teammate had also stolen an out-of-his-league request when he was younger. "Well, me and Natsu met in Hargeon where they saved me from a slave trader using Natsu's title to attract attention." She began, "Then on my first day at Fairy Tail we had to save Macao, who went missing on a quest to beat a group of Vulcans. Then we had to steal a book from a duke. It wasn't long after that that Erza asked Gray and Natsu for help in tracking down Eisenwald, a dark guild that found out about Lullaby, a flute which could kill all who heard its melody. Though the biggest shock was when the flute turned out to be a demon." Lucy seemed to shiver lightly before she continued, "Finally we went out on an S-Class quest to Galuna Island where we helped out the villagers who thought they were demons, but it turns out they forgot they actually were demons due to a side effect of a ceremony some other mages on the island were conducting."

"Natsu." Naruto said lowly, walking over to the still-unconscious Dragon Slayer, no one was quite sure what Naruto was going to do but they were all fairly nervous given the blonde's tone of voice. "You went on an S-Class quest without me?! How could you!" Naruto said dramatically, crying anime-style tears as he shook Natsu by his shoulders, oddly the pink-haired man didn't even seem to be affected by Naruto's shaking.

At this the rest of the occupants of the apartment couldn't help but sweatdrop and think, 'That's what he's upset about?'

Later the group were discussing their current situation.

"If Gramps wasn't such a wuss we would crush those assholes!" Natsu fumed.

"He isn't scared Natsu, he's a Wizard Saint remember?" Gray said, clutching a stack of papers.

"What do you think you're reading so nonchalantly?!" Lucy shrieked, rushing over and snatching the pile from his hands.

"You can't just do that and not tell me what happens next." The Ice-Make wizard whined.

"No!" Lucy said, "I promised Levy she would be the first to read it, it's already been decided." She scolded, she was broken out of her musings by Erza holding out an open hand as if silently ordering the blonde to hand the novel over, "What's the hand for?!" She then noticed Naruto attempting and, to an extent, succeeding in giving Lucy a pair of half-decent puppy dog eyes, "You're not getting it either!"

Lucy then remembered something, "So you mentioned the Ten Wizard Saints?"

Erza lowered her hand, "It's a title bestowed by the Magic Council to the ten greatest wizards on the continent."

"Wow!" Lucy exclaimed

"Jose, Phantom's master is one of them." Happy cut in.

'As well as him.' Erza thought, her eyes narrowed only slightly as she thought of a strange tattoo and blue hair.

"And apparently mom is the running for one." Naruto added.

"Really?! Wow!" Said Lucy, she hadn't realised the fiery redhead could arguably be considered one of the greatest wizards of their time.

The rest of the night was spent discussing Phantom's elite fighting force, the Element Four, the consequences for both guilds if they got involved in the war and last, but certainly not least, 'Black Steel' Gajeel Redfox, the Iron Dragon Slayer. The group was none the wiser of the terrible act Phantom's Dragon Slayer was committing in Magnolia South Gate Park as they spoke.

The next day the team was walking past said park and took note of a crowd of civilians gathered around the tree there. The group took the detour to investigate, "Please let us through, we're from their guild." Erza ordered as they weaved their way through the crowd.

What they saw horrified them, Lucy let out a shocked gasp, covering her mouth. Happy's jaw dropped open, too shocked for words. Erza narrowed her eyes dangerously. Gray's eyes had widened with shock at what he was seeing. Naruto gritted his teeth in anger and Natsu… he had a look of pure fury on his face.

Crucified to the tree were Levy, Jet and Droy, the three members of Team Shadow Gear. Each of them had clearly been brutalised in some way, shape or form, largely covered in bruises and cuts. However, the most shocking part of the ruthless act was that Levy had the Phantom Lord emblem branded on her stomach.

"Levy!" Lucy cried.

"Jet! Droy!" Gray exclaimed.

"Phantom!" Natsu roared, now the two guilds were beyond the point of reason.

"I can stand being reduced to a run-down beer hall." Makarov's voice spoke up as the crowd parted, allowing the old guild master to pass, the old man was clad in his Wizard Saint uniform, a staff in his left hand. Kushina walking through behind him. "But no parent should ever stand idly by while the blood of their children is spilt!" He shouted, his grip tightening on his staff so much that it shattered. With a surge of magical power, the crowd quickly dispersed, the members of the guild currently there knew what Makarov was about to say next.

"This means war!"

A/N: Roll credits! So as I said before, I really hope this didn't come off as too forced and I would really appreciate some feedback in that regards. Also, kudos to those of you who noticed the Inuyasha references. But anyway, thank you all for reading this chapter and I guess I'll see you guys next time.