A/N: hey guys, I've finally gotten this chapter up and ready for you. I'm so sorry it took so long, but here it is
It had been a week since the guild celebrated the return of Team Natsu, a week since the night a salmon haired mage had gotten drunk in attempts to pass the time. Everything following that, in Natsu's perspective, had started that first day when he'd awakened the morning after the drunken celebration to find Lucy not by his side like she would be when he slept over (usually unannounced). Aside from the areas he had obviously been in while at her apartment the previous night, the rest of the flat was untouched. So she hadn't returned home yet. The pinkette had rushed to the guild soon after, but the blonde had been nowhere in sight nor were there any new traces of her strawberries and stardust scent.
He'd figured she might have just been delayed another day, the thought supported by many of the other guild members. However he couldn't fully believe that line of reasoning because a light ache had started in his chest, an ache he had caught himself rubbing at several times that day while thinking of Lucy. It had given him a very uneasy feeling about the Celestial mage and her well-being.
Throughout that day he had been so easily irritated because of that ache, which was out of character for him. He'd even caught himself yelling at some of his nakama for reasons Erza usually grouched at them for. Of course he had apologized straight away, but after that everyone had given him a wide birth while silently worrying about him, especially when he hadn't taken Gray up on his challenge or retaliated when Gajeel had verbally insulted him.
Natsu hadn't slept that night, not at his place nor at Lucy's, though he had felt calmer and the ache had dulled when he had been at her place surrounded by her things.
By the second day, Natsu had glared at everything and hardly spoke a word to anyone, hadn't even looked at his brawl buddies when he'd drifted into the guild to speak with Mira. Hearing that Lucy still had yet to return had caused the ache to deepen into a painful throbbing sensation that wouldn't let him sit still. So the bartender had watched as the pinkette had left the guild in favour of the forest to train, without his feline friend, Happy, who had stayed with Wendy and Charle because of his behaviour changing and becoming a bit more aggressive than normal. He hadn't wanted to hurt his exceed by accident, so they had both agreed that it would be best if Happy stayed with the girls for a few days.
Upon his return later that night, and finding that Lucy still had not returned, the slightest mention of the blonde from anyone had Natsu tensing and cracking his beer mug within his fist. The glass cut into his hand but he didn't feel it, the throbbing in his chest drowning out all other senses.
That was when Erza had confronted him about his strange conduct and asked him outright why he was so desperate to see Lucy. He himself wasn't sure why, just that he had to see her, have her by his side without any other man near her. Erza had continued her rant, telling him not to worry about Lucy, that she could take care of herself which Natsu already knew from experience.
Following that, Erza had made the mistake of suggesting how Lucy might have been caught up because she'd met someone. That was when Natsu's vision had tinted red and the hall had suddenly become trashed. Just the thought of Lucy being with another man, in any way, drove him further into the abyss and caused the ache to spike sharply, painfully and seeming to scream 'Mine' over and over within his conscious mind. It was so loud it was a wonder no one else could hear it. For him, it was the only thing he could hear above the boiling blood searing his veins and scorching his insides.
When the red haze had faded, Natsu found himself chained to one of the only posts left unmarked. The sight before him was deplorable; there was not a single table or chair left intact, even the bar top was cracked again (Mira had had it fixed the following morning of the bar brawl and party). Not to mention that Erza's armour now had several dents which was shocking in and of itself because no one had ever seen it dented before and that Gray, Gajeel and several others had bruises all over them that were not the result of a regular bar fight at the Fairy Tail guild.
After everything had calmed somewhat by the third day was when the guild decided a meeting was in order to discuss the issue of Natsu's fierce anger while Erza and Gray had said fire mage chained to one of the large posts. They'd had to guard the dragon slayer over night while he was chained to the post and had had to knock him out several times to prevent him going into another rampage.
"What are we going to do about this? Natsu has been acting so weird the last couple days."
"That's not obvious at all, Wakaba. But what could we do about it? And what's with the violent outbursts? Especially this recent one. None of them have to do with winning a challenge or anything." Macau.
"That's not manly at all!"
"Actually it is very manly, Elfman. He's acting this way over a woman." Evergreen said smugly.
"You're talking about him and Lucy? I didn't think they were like that." Gray.
"How could you not have known? It was so obvious that they had a thing for each other." Bixlow. "It's obvious, it's obvious, it's obvious!" Bixlow's doll babies sang.
"But Natsu? With a girl? I don't believe that. He's never been attracted to anyone of the opposite sex before and the only thing he's really keen for is getting into mischief and fights. Besides, even if he was interested in someone now, there's no way he'd be able to get a girl before I do!"
"Gray, the proof is right next to you. Have you ever seen Natsu behave like this? No, no one inside or outside the guild has. The only plausible reason he could be acting like this is because of Lucy, whether he himself realises that it's coming from a feeling more than friendship yet or not." Cana.
"Now that I think about it, has anyone else noticed that since Lucy joined the guild, Natsu's destruction rate has picked up a lot more than it used to be?" Mira thought out loud and a low growl from Natsu at the mention of the blonde had everyone turning to look at him with confused expressions. Natsu's face was contorted in anger but overshadowed by his bangs, though the fury emanated from him in waves. He was also still passed out.
"Obviously it didn't help that Erza and Gray joined his team shortly after that too…." Cana had everyone in the room grimacing.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Following that, a smack boomed over the crowd followed by a stern "Shut up Gray" from Erza.
"That would be because Natsu was unconsciously staking his claim towards bunny girl. I can't have been the only one to notice that he scared off any other men she might have dated or hung around outside the guild." Gajeel had been slouched in the corner with Pantherlily at his side.
"Really? I just always thought he was being overprotective of her because they were best friends." Gray had everyone shaking their heads at his thickheadedness. And they all thought Natsu was the dense one. Well he had a rival in denseness.
This was when they began discussing who, besides Lucy, would be able to talk to Natsu once he awakened. The guild had picked Lisanna for the task; seeming convinced that she would have been the one to reach him due to their childhood friendship and their supposed romance upon her return from Edolas.
"What about Lisanna? Can't she talk to Natsu once he has calmed down to keep him cool?" Gray.
"I can try, but I'm not sure it will work..." Lisanna's soft voice was unsure.
"Come now, you two have been really close for a long time, so of course he will listen to you." Erza wrapped her arm around the girl's slender shoulders and started to bring her towards the chained mage.
"But Erza-"
"No buts, just talk with him like you usually do."
"But we're not like that, Erza…" She murmured to herself. The re-quip mage deposited the Strauss sibling in front of Natsu who had by now slowly roused awake with fuming eyes set at half-mast. When Lisanna had begun talking to him, trying to communicate with him, he gave no response and showed no sign of having heard her.
She had looked hesitant about what to do, and then had reached out to him, saying his name. She was planning on doing something similar to her test from a few days ago, but obviously not as intimate as the test had been.
He had lifted his head, finally showing some response with nose twitching as he scented the air, scented her. A smile pulled at her lips, but before her hand could reach him, he snapped. Jerking against the chains that held him, causing them to bite and dig into his skin but that didn't faze him. He'd lashed out at her growling and snarling.
The only thing that had prevented Lisanna from taking the brunt of his violence had been Erza, who'd shoved the white haired girl away from him. He hadn't hurt anyone, but he'd managed to nick Titania's armour with his claws and put another dent into her right shoulder blade panel. If he had been his usual self, he probably would have whooped in a small victory. No one was ever able to dent the re-quip mages armour.
But he hadn't hollered in victory because following that was when the first images began flashing through his mind, images depicting Lucy in pain, Lucy covered with blood, Lucy with cruel, unforgiving hands all over her body. The ache began spreading throughout his body, screaming at him to kill anyone who touched his Luce. The screaming of 'mine' began in his head again, even more furious than before and he roared at the guild making everyone jump and refocus on him. Veins had stuck out over his inner forearms and biceps, with one straight down his forehead that had looked ready to rupture.
Red had winked over his vision again and the images had moved faster, like a movie on fast forward. His whole body had tensed, overwrought with pain and antagonism. The chains that bound him had dug further into his strained muscles and pinched the skin in several places. He'd roared again, louder and longer, which had caused Gajeel, Laxus and Wendy to cringe at the offending sound that'd scraped at their sensitive ears. Then he'd strained and jerked harder against the chains. The post he'd been bound to begin groaning under the pressure and everyone had braced themselves for another confrontation with the slayer.
The chains had snapped with a ringing crack and suddenly Natsu had disappeared, moving so rapidly that he was a blur to everyone. Gajeel's growl had turned everyone's attention to the right. There was a grunt and Gajeel had been sent flying across the room head first into the wall following which had been a loud clang as Natsu re-appeared going claw to sword with Erza. That hadn't lasted long either as he'd also thrown her aside to barrel through everyone else and burst out the hall doors.
Natsu had retraced every last step he knew Lucy had taken, following what remained of her scent all over Magnolia no matter how faint it now was, tearing things apart and accidentally setting things on fire. Then he'd followed it out to the edges of town and set fire to the brush and forest edge when duelling several guild mates. He'd knocked them down easily, this time without too much bodily harm as he hadn't stuck around to continue fighting and moved onto the next town, repeating the process with Gajeel, Erza and Gray on his tail, as well as Laxus and the Raijinshuu at the request of the master (Makarov).
Natsu had torn through the neighbouring towns, tearing down building after building and setting fire to anything and everything, by then it was on purpose as he tore down the buildings. To many people, he had become a walking nightmare. It was at that point that the Magic Council had intervened, or at least tried to, but nothing they had done or attempted to do had any effect on the fury filled dragon slayer though.
The nakama following his detrimental trail had eventually caught him at the third town over, managing to detain him in one of Fried's Runic Traps until they'd been able to move him onto a train carriage. That was the only thing they could think of using to suppress his destructive magic in a confined space and hold him, but that only occurred after everyone who had tailed him had taken him on all at once.
Fortunately for them, they accomplished shoving him in one of the infirmary rooms upon a forced return to Magnolia to be re-trapped by Fried's magic. No one in the guild had believed it, but no matter how much damage four of the strongest mages in the guild had caused, none of them had been able to defeat, let alone knock out Natsu during his blind rage across the cities. The train ride hadn't even knocked him to his knees. In fact, he had fought even harder on the train. It was unbelievable to everyone who saw it, especially those who knew what Natsu was like when on any sort of transportation.
So the infirmary was where he now stood after four days of tearing the country side and cities apart. He punched the barrier, his muscled body tensing and relaxing, tensing and relaxing. The skin on his knuckles should have split a while ago as the knuckles themselves should have cracked and broken. But they hadn't, didn't because dragon scales had risen all over his body several days ago. That had only happened once before when he had eaten etherion to defeat an at-the-time-evil Jellal.
Now it occurred for a different reason, one without the need for food to prompt the reaction. And it obviously had something to do with the fact that Lucy had been missing the entire week that Natsu had slowly sunk into a raging mess.
Lucy…. Natsu ground his teeth together as he paced the confined space his nakama had put him in, like a caged animal gone feral. He swung his fist out again and growled. Although his fist didn't go through the Runic barrier, the force behind the blow emerged physically by splintering and cracking the opposing wall several feet away in a large, circular dent. The sound was ear-splitting, but he paid no heed to it as the pain in his chest intensified.
The images began flashing through his mind and he howled to the heavens, hands clutching at his head tightly enough that his claws dug into his scalp and caused blood to matt his hair and run down his face as his eyes rolled back in his head.
All he could see were hands on her body, claws tearing her delicate flesh and her reaching out to him, begging for help. But he couldn't take her hand and couldn't help her. The rage that had consumed him slowly began to blacken as the images kept repeating themselves, becoming more intimate with her body and driving him into further disarray.
Natsu roared in pain and launched himself at the barrier, hitting it over and over. The frustration of not being able to find or see his Luce was killing him; he could feel each hour dragging by as the pain dug itself deeper into his heart and spreading throughout his body. It was so far along that the agony had practically taken over his entire self and was even now reaching for his soul.
It had only been just over a week ago that he had seen Lucy due to the mission he had taken with his Team, and it had been a week since the pain had started. The pinkette couldn't understand it. He had been away from Lucy for longer periods of time because of his missions with Gray, Erza, Happy and Lisanna and they had all been without experiencing any sort of gut-wrenching and heart aching torment from being separated from the Celestial mage.
So what had changed? There was no difference in his relationship with Lucy since she had left the Team for the rest of them to catch up with Lisanna, other than her actually leaving the Team and nothing else had changed within the guild either. Everything continued as it always has; celebrating as much as possible, brawling and drinking until well after dark and just having so much fun in general.
Could it then be something had changed with Lucy? He had noticed (and complained) about the blonde spending less and less time at the guild hall, however he wasn't worried about her quitting the guild because she loved Fairy Tail too much to let anything or anyone make her leave. No, nothing had changed too much for Lucy. Except for this most recent mission she had taken and hadn't returned from.
The images flashed through his mind again and he groaned, hating that he had to see such vile things done to his Luce. But now that he thought about it, they were much too real for his subconscious to have generated and besides that, he wouldn't have fashioned such thoughts of her in pain or crying with another man's hands on her. If these images were spawned by his own fantasies, it would have been his hands all over her body, his lips on her creamy skin and it would have been him giving her all the pleasure, not pain, that she could take and much more.
So why? Why were these things sporadically flashing and repeating within his mind? There was no way they could actually be happening to Lucy, he couldn't, wouldn't believe it was happening. He'd kill anyone who touched her without her consent and he'd do much worse to those who hurt her. Besides that, if these things were actually being done to her, how could he know about it? He wasn't psychic or telepathic or whatever, as his nakama Warren was and he couldn't make predictions as Cana could.
So what the f*ck was happening? It was so frustrating, not knowing where Lucy was and what was happening to her yet sensing there was something wrong. He bellowed his frustration and rammed the barrier. He just kept bashing it, his attacks fiercer and more powerful with each strike, but the barrier didn't break.
I have to get to Luce, I have to find her!
A/N: as I said before, I really am sorry for taking so long with this chapter. It's another short one but was so hard to write cause my mind kept jumping ahead to scenes that have yet to happen…. So this chapter has to be, like, the worst I have written so far, but oh well. It had to be there to kind of help use up the timeline of events. But anyways, since I'm on holidays, I should have the next chapter up before school, but I don't know. Please R&R, I love feedback from you :3
