Hey, the first chapter's finally here after over THREE MONTHS! XD Man, this story has made a liar out of me. I think it was taunting me. Yeah, this series is a taunting asshole. I want to give it the metaphorical finger, but I feel like that'd be stooping to its level. So I won't. Take that, story! HA!

…

…Why are you looking at me like that. I'm totally sane. I swear. ._.

Ch. 1: Circles of Blood

Lucy

"Baby steps," I muttered to myself. "Take it slow, Lucy…take it slow…no rushing."

I breathed in deeply, held it, and exhaled in an effort to relax as I walked, my steps slow but deliberate. Everything is good, I told myself. The weather is perfect, the townspeople are upbeat and willing to not hate us, and repairs for Magnolia are going nicely. Nothing to worry about.

Today was going to be a fruitful day. I was going to make it one.

"Hey, Lucy," Happy spoke up as he scuttled along next to me. "Why are we going so early? Is it a special occasion or something?"

I felt my lips part in a small smile at his question. "No, nothing special. I just felt like going a bit earlier this time."

"Really?"

"Yep." I stared down at him and grinned. "Though no one said that you had to come with me. You could've gone on your own time."

"Well…yeah, I know," he said, turning his gaze to the cobblestone. "It just feels better when I go with you."

I could hear his voice break slightly, and I immediately regretted teasing him. I scooped him up into my arms without warning and held him close as if he was a baby, surprising him.

"Thanks, Happy," I said, gently stroking his head. "Sorry. That wasn't very nice of me, huh?"

"Nope. That was really mean." His face had buried itself in my bare shoulder, but it felt more like a snuggle than an attempt to hurt me. "But it's okay. 'Cause you're Lucy. So I forgive you."

"Can't really tell if you're teasing me there or not." I set him back down onto the ground. He looked significantly less depressed. "Feel better now? Ready to keep going?"

Happy nodded and raised a paw as he replied with a smile, "Aye!"

A giggle escaped me in spite of myself at his jubilant reply. "Good to hear." I then turned my gaze to the towering visage of the grand Kardia Cathedral a fair distance away, which had been one of the first structures in the city to be completely restored to its former glory.

"Okay, then," I said. "Let's go pay Natsu a visit."

Three years.

That felt like an impossibly long amount of time to have passed after everything that had happened. It almost felt like a dream, like it wasn't real, but I knew better than to lose myself in that fantasy. It wouldn't do anybody any good to do nothing but dwell on the past, after all.

The only real excuse you have to do that is visiting a cemetery. At least then people won't judge you for reminiscing about the "good old days" and such, because that's to be expected in a somber place like that.

Personally, I felt like I had set foot in this cemetery more often than any one person should have or want to. Most people would only come out of obligation, but I always felt a strong desire to visit this place frequently, to honor all the loved ones that I had lost over the years. It only felt right, after all, even though they were no longer of Earth Land, to take some time out of my day to let them know that I haven't forgotten about them. Ever since finding out about my father's death after my seven-year absence, I had always made a point to come out and visit my parents' resting places—because let's face it; I hadn't exactly been an exemplary daughter to them while they were still alive. So I would visit them whenever I had the time, to leave them flowers and all sorts of gifts while telling them about what had been going on in their absence. It might sound silly to you, but it genuinely helped me feel better about my situation.

For years, that had been my routine…until three years ago, when I lost more of my loved ones, and graves were eventually erected in their memory once things had settled down. After that, I'd been spending even more time in the cemetery than I had before, visiting and speaking with them after seeing my parents. Happy had started accompanying me on my visits, too, which—I will freely admit now—made me feel a whole lot less alone on those visits.

After visiting my mother and father and doing the usual spiel, I moved on to one of the larger graves—a huge pedestal, easily over ten feet high, with an enormous Fairy Tail symbol emblazoned on each of its four sides and one of his long-time adages, The man who began guiding countless lights into tomorrow, carved into the bronze plaque on its front. This was Master Makarov's grave—he had been the first of the Fairy Tail members to lose their lives in what the people of Fiore had eventually come to know as the Festival of Flames.

It had been extremely difficult for me to accept that our guildmaster was gone, and it took me nearly a year to realize that this was how our guild was going to stay. He had been like a surrogate father to all of us younger members at Fairy Tail and had treated us like we were his own. The reigning authority figure of our guild was gone now, but Laxus was doing more than a good job of keeping us together and leading us in his stead. We had all unanimously voted him to be the new guildmaster once we had regrouped, and that was all she wrote. I knew that somewhere up there, Master Makarov was looking down at his grandson in approval and pride.

After leaving our gifts of flowers and fish (which I still thought was strange, but I'd been unable to talk Happy out of giving fish as gifts) and paying our respects to our Master, the two of us made our way to our final stop—and the resting place of the second and last member of our guild to lose their lives.

This last grave didn't look like anything special. It was the same three-by-four bronze-on-concrete plaque as the rest of the nondescript graves, but instead of a name and birth and death date (no one knew either of them), or even any sort of adage, all that had been etched into the bronze was a stylized dragon head whose snout had faded slightly from all the times that I'd stroked it.

This was Natsu's grave.

…Then again, calling this his "resting place" was more out of homage and remembrance than actual truth. Natsu wasn't actually buried here—his body had vanished into thin air right after his death, and no one had been able to recover it. So in the end, we weren't able to give him a proper burial, but we figured that it was the thought that counted more than anything, so we had a grave built anyway.

I always visited Natsu's gravestone last on my visits. While I had managed to accept my parents' passing and eventually the Master's (though with a little effort), I still wasn't quite ready to face the fact that Natsu was actually gone yet. He had always been such a constant in my life from the moment I'd met him that even now, three years later, I still expected to see him invading my home as usual every now and again and telling me how silly I was to believe that he was actually gone.

But of course, no such luck—and the reality would hit me harder each time. That was why he was always my last stop—it was the moment that I didn't feel the need to keep myself composed throughout the visit. I cried every visit without fail, though the degree of it varied upon the day, because I knew that no one but Happy would see me cry, and he wouldn't judge me for it like he used to.

Today was no exception. The tears started slipping down my cheeks even as I knelt and rested my hands on the bronze plaque.

Happy took hold of the hem of my skirt with a melancholy, "Lucy…" at the sight of my breaking down, his own voice hoarse.

I wiped my tears away with my sleeve. "Sorry, Happy…I know what you want to say…" I managed a smile. "Don't worry; I still remember what he told us. He told us not to cry for him."

Happy nodded.

"It's just…" My voice cracked in spite of myself. "…really hard, you know? I always promise myself I won't cry every time, but…it still happens…!"

Happy then leapt into my arms without warning and buried his face in my chest, his own sobbing muffled. I was startled—Happy hadn't done that since the funeral.

"…No more…crying…!" he hiccupped into my jacket. "No more…Natsu…Natsu's gonna be sad, Lucy…we can't cry…!"

My breath caught. I couldn't find the words to say. All I could do for a while was return his embrace, trying desperately to ignore the painful pressure in my throat.

Most people probably would have gotten over the death of a loved one by this point to the degree that they wouldn't break down just by visiting their grave. It probably depends on the person—both the one who mourns and the one he or she goes to mourn. I'd long since gotten over my parents' passing, but this…it wasn't the same. I knew that this wasn't healthy or normal behavior, but for some reason, I would always break down in front of Natsu's grave without fail, no matter how much time had passed since I'd first started the routine of visiting the church.

Eventually, though, the episode passed like it usually did. My tears slowed, and my throat and eyes slowly cleared up. I set Happy back down onto the ground gently and wiped away the tears with my sleeve.

"Are you okay now, Lucy?" Happy asked me quietly, drying his own eyes as he did so.

It was still a minute before I could speak clearly, though. I cleared my throat and managed, "Yeah…better. Thanks, Happy."

"Lucy!"

The two of us started and turned at the sound of the new voice and saw that Wendy and Carla had arrived on the scene, presumably after completing a job. Wendy was clutching a paper bag in her arms as she approached me urgently.

"Thank goodness we found you!" she cried breathlessly.

"Wendy, is something the problem?" I asked, mildly concerned. "You look exhausted!"

"I'm fine, but—oh, never mind that—please, come with me, Lucy; it's urgent—!"

Wendy grabbed my arm and started dragging me away before I could ask her any questions, leading me out of the church grounds and leaving Happy to frantically chase after me on his wings crying, "Don't kidnap Lucy, Wendy!" as he did.

"Hurry up, tomcat; we haven't time to waste!" Carla commanded over her shoulder as she flew alongside Wendy.

"H-hey, wait!" I protested as I stumbled along, trying to keep up (Wendy had grown quite a bit in the last three years, so I managed to keep a straight posture). "Wendy, what's going on? Where are we going?"

"The train station!" She kept moving forward briskly, keeping her eyes straight ahead. "We're going to Tully Village—I promise I'll explain everything on the train!"

"What—?" I felt incredibly nervous at Wendy's strange behavior. She was never one to act like this. What could have happened?

The first thing Wendy did once the train started moving was to apologize.

"I'm really sorry, Lucy," she said, wringing her hands together on her lap while staring down at her feet. The brown package was still in her arms; she hadn't let go of it this entire time. "I didn't mean to drag you away like that; I just—"

"No, don't worry about it," I assured her hastily. "Just tell me what's going on. What's the rush? And why are we going to Tully Village?"

She raised her gaze to meet mine, still somewhat abashed. "You see, I…Carla and I just came back from Tully Village after finishing a job," she finally said. "Right after collecting the reward for it."

I blinked. This didn't sound like anything out of the ordinary. "And?" I prompted, my gaze straying to the paper bag still in her arms. "Does it have something to do with that bag you've got there?"

Wendy visibly hesitated at my question before she finally answered, "Y-yes." She fingered to top of the bag gingerly, like its contents bothered her somehow. "This…this is the reward we got for the job."

Happy leaned forward in curiosity. "What did you get, Wendy?"

To my surprise, Wendy abruptly shoved the bag right into my lap without answering him and scooted herself against the back of her seat, shutting her eyes and biting her lip as she did so.

Carla looked at me sympathetically in response to Wendy's gesture. "I think it's best if you looked for yourself, Lucy," she said to me.

"O-oh, okay…" I looked from Wendy to the bag in my lap a couple times before moving my hands to open it. Whatever was in this bag, it wasn't anything all that heavy—it almost felt like a cloth. I parted the mouth of the bag and reached inside—my fingers found some rough, thick fabric—but I couldn't tell what it was just my touching it, so I pulled it out—and just about had a coronary when I saw what it was. And I wasn't alone in my shock—Happy's eyes had gone so wide that they probably would've popped out of their sockets if he hadn't managed to blink and rub his eyes in disbelief.

"W-Wendy—" I stammered, hardly able to get the words out, "—where did you—h-how—?!"

Wendy didn't answer at first, but I could barely keep my attention on her because I couldn't take my eyes off of it. No matter how much I stared at it, I couldn't believe what I was looking at.

She had somehow gotten a hold of Natsu's scarf.

It was a while before I could calm down enough to set the scarf aside (prompting Happy to leap onto it like it was a long-lost cushion) and properly ask Wendy where she'd gotten it—because I was pretty sure that this had disappeared along with Natsu three years ago.

"Wendy…who did you get this from?" I asked shakily. "Where did they get it from? I never thought that I'd…" I never thought I'd ever see this scarf again…

Wendy bit her lip. "I—I don't know," she confessed. "I only looked inside the bag while I was on the train ride back to Magnolia, so I didn't think to ask the client where she'd gotten it." She wrung her hands. "I couldn't believe it at first, but…there's really no way I could mistake it for anything else. This is definitely Natsu's. It even still has his scent on it."

"But…" I stared back down at the folded-up scarf (or as much as I could see of it while Happy was glomping it), my heart twinging painfully. "…I honestly can't believe it just turned up like this in some stranger's hands…where could she have gotten it?"

"That's why we're going back to Tully Village," Carla answered matter-of-factly. "We would've gone back right away, but we felt that you should come along—it's only fair, after all."

"I—I see…"

Wendy shook her head lightly, her eyes troubled. "I just don't know what this could mean. Natsu disappeared right in front of us, didn't he? Everything he had on him vanished, too—even his blood." She shuddered lightly as the word slipped out. "Y-you don't think that maybe—?"

"Child," Carla warned her gently, shooting a worried glance in my direction.

I raised a hand in reassurance. "N-no, don't worry about it." In spite of myself, I could feel my eyes tighten in anticipation. "We can leave the speculating for after we get some answers."

Happy sniffled into the scarf (he'd buried his face in it by this point) and whimpered in a muffled voice, "It…still smells like him…" He sniffed again. "Natsu…" His tiny body shook as he cried into it.

I patted his head, a sad smile turning up my lips as I continued to watch him snivel into the scarf. He didn't always look it (in some ways, he could hide it better than I could), but he definitely missed Natsu, too—Natsu had raised him from an egg, after all. They'd known each other their whole lives—my grief was practically nothing compared to his.

WE ARE NOW ARRIVING AT TULLY VILLAGE STATION,the train's intercom suddenly blared, making the lot of us jump. PLEASE GATHER YOUR BELONGINGS AND PREPARE FOR ARRIVAL. THANK YOU FOR RIDING WITH US TODAY.

Wendy stared up at the speakers attached to the ceiling. "We're already here…"

I stood up as the train slowed to a stop, slinging my bag over my shoulder and lifting Happy (still clutching the scarf) into my arms. Wendy and Carla followed my example, and the four of us moved toward the exits.

I looked to Wendy and said, "Lead the way, Wendy."

She nodded determinedly. "Okay."

I smiled at her in gratitude and continued on, staring straight ahead. It was time to get some answers.

The house we were looking for was relatively close to the station, so it didn't take too long to get there. The streets were busy with merchants and shoppers, but not too crowded that we couldn't navigate our way through it to our destination.

When we reached the house, I saw that it looked more like a small cottage than a full-sized house—it was quaint in appearance, kind of like the countryside homes that you would see in the illustration of children's books. There were a couple clotheslines off to the left that was air-drying some bedsheets and clothing. They were still dripping with water, so they were probably washed very recently.

Before we could go to the front door to knock, a young raven-haired woman wearing a brown corduroy dress and white apron emerged from around the house and caught sight of us. Recognition lit up her eyes when she noticed Wendy.

"Oh, hello!" she greeted us, approaching us with a smile. "So we meet again, Miss Wendy! Thank you again for your help today—decent handmaids are so difficult to come by nowadays!"

Wendy immediately blushed and shook her head. "N-no, it was no problem at all! And please, you can just call me Wendy."

The woman laughed. "Of course, if you insist." She then turned to me and asked, "Oh, hello. Are you a friend of Miss Wendy's?"

"Oh, y-yes," I answered after a pause and bowing my head slightly. "My name is Lucy. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"No, no; the pleasure is all mine." She then looked between the two of us before turning her attention to Wendy again. "So what brings you back so soon? Was there something wrong with the reward? I'm sorry that I couldn't offer you anything else; it was the only thing I had that I could pay you with."

"No, it's all right," Wendy assured her, waving her down. "There's nothing wrong with the reward. But we did come here to ask you about it."

The woman tilted her head slightly in confusion. "Oh?"

"Yes," I interrupted, hoping I wasn't speaking out of turn. "You see, this scarf belonged to a friend of ours that—that went missing, and we were wondering where you'd gotten it."

"Is that so?" She rested her chin in her hand in contemplation. "That is certainly odd. I was wondering where my son had found it…"

I blinked. "Your son?" I asked urgently. "So you're saying that he found it somewhere?"

"Yes, dear. And he was insistent on giving it to Miss Wendy as the reward—going on and on about getting someone to help him find out who it belongs to, or some such. I really couldn't make much sense of it."

My heart raced at the bit of information. "I'm sorry, but may we speak with him?" I asked hurriedly.

"Of course," she said, turning to the front door. "Please, come in. He should be right inside."

Sure enough, there was a little boy that looked about seven or eight years old reading a storybook on one of two cots in the back corner of the cottage. He had dark hair just like his mother's. He looked up at the sound of people coming in, and his eyes lit up. He immediately set the book down onto the cot and hopped off before making a mad dash toward his mother.

"Hi, Mommy!" he greeted her enthusiastically, leaping into her arms. "Guess what; guess what—I read my storybook three times today!"

"Well, now; aren't you a big boy!" She then turned and gestured to us. "Look, Wendy came back to visit—and she brought a friend. Go on and say hello to her and introduce yourself, okay? Mommy is going to brew tea for our guests."

The little boy nodded. "Okay." He then approached me without any hesitation and stuck out his little hand to shake as his mother went inside.

"Hi, nice to meet you," he said, smiling brightly. "My name is Joey!"

I was a bit taken aback by his openness, so I didn't respond right away—this melted his smile into a puzzled expression.

"Are you okay?" he asked, frowning in confusion.

"Y-yeah, sorry about that." I shook my head lightly. Get it together, Lucy. Act natural. I knelt down to his level. "So…you said your name is Joey?"

He nodded vigorously. "Yep!"

"Right, I won't forget it," I said, managing a smile. "As for me, I'm Lucy. And I came here to ask you a couple questions about the reward you gave to my friend."

Joey blinked once before his eyes widened in excitement. "You mean about the pretty scarf?" he prompted eagerly.

Pretty? "Yeah, that's right. Your mommy said that you…found it somewhere…?"

He started to shake his head even before I finished my sentence, his eyes still wide and knowing.

"Nope," he said. "I didn't find it. Somebody gave it to me!"

My breath caught. Wendy and I exchanged glances at his response, and I could see the shock in her eyes just as well as I felt it at that moment—finding the scarf just lying around somewhere was one thing, but…someone had actually given this to him? Who could it have been? I remembered Happy telling me that the scarf was very important to Natsu, since he'd gotten it from Igneel—and ever since his death, Natsu would've been much less likely to even lose track of the scarf, much less give it away to someone he didn't know.

Of course, I was thinking in terms of how Natsu would act if he was somehow still alive and wandering around somewhere, but that really couldn't be the case here…unless it was, but that was really unlikely.

I fought to maintain the smile I was wearing as to avoid making the boy nervous. "Someone gave it to you?" I asked, trying and failing to reduce the amount of tension in my tone. "Do you know who that person was?"

He shook his head. "No," he said, sounding despondent (I couldn't help but internally wish him comfort when I saw how disappointed he looked). "I don't know…but I remember that he was really nice."

"R-really?" I could feel my skin grow clammy with sweat and my chest tighten with some anxiety that I couldn't explain to myself. "What did this nice person look like?"

"He was tall," Joey answered immediately, sounding determined to give me satisfactory answers this time. "And he was really dirty. He was wearing a big red hood, so I couldn't see his face very good. And—and I think he's super strong, too, 'cause—'cause he had lots and lots of boo-boos, but he wasn't crying!"

He paused to catch his breath here, which gave me time to attempt and digest this information. Tall, dirty, wearing a red hood, and multiple injuries…I couldn't really connect much of that to anyone I knew.

"…I see…" I cleared my throat and addressed him in earnest. "So, how did you meet him?"

Here Joey's face slipped into something that I could only call a nervous pout. "I saw him last week," he said. "I was playing near the forest right outside the village while Mommy was working, but—then it got dark, and—and then I got lost." He then wrapped his arms around himself. "I got scared because it was super dark and really cold…and I started crying…and that's when the nice man found me. He asked me why I was crying, and I told him that I wanted to go home." The boy then rested a hand on his neck as a jubilant smile parted his lips as he kept talking. "Then he took off his scarf and put it around my neck and said that it would keep me warm—and then he said I could keep it!" He smiled wider at the memory. "And then he said he would take me back home to Mommy—and he did! I wanted to tell him thank you, because that's what Mommy said to do when somebody helps you—and I wanted to give him the scarf back because I didn't need to wear it anymore." His face slipped into a pout again—more disappointed this time. "But I couldn't, because he was already gone. He went away right after he helped me come home."

I was already having a hard time keeping myself composed throughout this conversation, but what this boy was saying was pretty much driving some kind of invisible stake through my heart. A myriad of emotions was fighting for dominance within its confines, and I couldn't get a hold of why I was feeling so jumbled. There was really no reason for me to be.

"And that's why I wanted Mommy to give this scarf as a reward for helping them!" he finished up, balling up his little hands into fists in determination. "I want somebody to help me find that nice man and give the scarf back to him and tell him thank you!"

I could tell that the boy was done with his story, because he was waiting expectantly for my response.

To my surprise, I found myself smiling.

"Well," I said at last, much to everyone's confusion, "it looks like you were lucky that we were the ones that took the job."

Joey's eyes widened in surprise. "Really?"

I rumpled his already-messy head of hair as I replied, "Don't you worry. We'll make sure that this scarf gets back to him. Once we do, you'll be the first to know."

The boy's face lit up in a grin of delight. "Thanks!" he said happily.

I rose to my feet just as the woman returned, carrying a tray of a teapot with three teacups.

"Oh, are you leaving already?" she asked in surprise. "Did you find out what you needed to know?"

"Yes, thank you," Wendy said as she bowed apologetically, looking abashed. "I'm sorry; you went to the trouble of making us tea and we…"

"No, no; it's all right. If you must go, I shouldn't keep you." She smiled in a friendly way. "Do come back and visit again once you find the owner of that scarf. Joey has been quite lonely without his father."

A spasm of guilt shot through my chest at her words. Another innocent victim of Death's senseless rampage back then… "We will."

A sudden commotion outside the doors interrupted our conversation. All of us started and faced the door.

"What's going on out there?" I wondered.

"Let's go take a look," Wendy suggested, already moving to open the door. "Ma'am, thank you for your help! Please stay inside; it might be dangerous!"

The woman nodded, holding her son close. "Of course. You girls be safe out there!"

We nodded and immediately headed out. At first, it didn't look too bad, but then we saw that a bunch of townspeople were gathering at the far northwestern edge, a forested area a fair distance from the town.

"Is there something going on over there?" Wendy wondered.

"Maybe we should go take a look," I said, a knot of worry forming in my stomach. "I feel like we've caused Fiore too much trouble already, so let's go see what the problem is."

"Good point," Carla said, who had since left Wendy's arms and was walking beside her. "And we might as well, since we're already here."

The four of us agreed and made our way to the ever-growing crowd. The people looked alarmed, worried, angry, outright afraid. It sounded like they were cursing at something that we couldn't see, judging from the clamor.

Happy scanned the crowd, still clutching the scarf, sounding nervous as he whispered, "What are they so mad about?"

I caught the attention of one of the villagers as he was passing by. "Excuse me, but do you know what's happening on the other side?"

The villager looked put-upon as he turned to face me. "You mean you don't know about the circles of blood?" he asked in incredulity. "One of them just showed up! Right outside the village!"

A cold wave washed over me. "C…circles of blood?"

"They've been popping up all over Fiore for several years, ever since the whole Festival of Flames incident. Usually out in remote areas, though—no one's ever heard of one getting this close to any sort of town or city before." He raised an eyebrow as he went on his way. "You must've been living under a rock if you didn't know that."

I could feel Wendy freeze up next to me—her fear was palpable. Ever since the day that Natsu had disappeared before our eyes, Wendy started getting panic attacks at even the mere mention of blood, which I couldn't really blame her for. Seeing your brother figure murdering your father figure so brutally that his blood completely drenches you can really stick with you, not even mentioning having to watch said brother figure bleed out and vanish like some ghost because you were unable to save him.

"Wendy…if you like, you can stay back here with Carla," I advised. "I can go take a look by myself."

I half-expected her to refuse and come with me, but she just nodded and shrunk back slightly, her face white in fear. Carla looked on in concern.

"Don't worry, Lucy; I'll stay by her side," she assured me. "Go on. We'll wait for you here."

"Thanks, Carla." I turned to Happy. "You're welcome to stay behind with them if you want to, Happy."

Happy shook his head defiantly. "No," he said. "I'm going with you, Lucy."

I hesitated for a moment. "Well…if you're sure," I said nervously. "Let's go, then."

We carefully picked our way through the crowd, mumbling apologies as we went, until we reached the front—and we were met with a horrifying sight.

When that villager had called this a "circle of blood", I could see now that it was no metaphor. It was literally a circle of blood— a nearly ten-foot diameter stain of it right on the floor of the forest clearing, as if someone had taken a giant bucket of it and dumped and spread its contents into a messy puddle.

"Lucy!" Happy whispered, tugging at my boot and pointing at the edge of the circle. "Look over there! Those are burn marks!"

"What?" I looked where he was pointing more carefully, and I could see that he was right—right around the perimeter of the enormous blots of blood, there was a charred outline of a perfect circle, cleanly encompassing the dried blood.

As much as the sight sickened me, my mind went into overdrive at what I was observing. This phenomenon seemed too deliberate to have been a natural occurrence. A perfect circle charred into the ground, neatly enclosing a large puddle of blood…if something like this had been showing up all over Fiore, then someone had to be behind it…but I had no idea who it could be.

"Hey…doesn't this one seem a bit bigger than the ones we usually hear about?" I heard one of the villagers mutter behind me.

"Yeah, you've got a point," another replied in a worried tone. "And this one doesn't have a red salamander anywhere on it. That's what stands out the most in a lot of these circles, isn't it? It's the mark of that crazy cult!"

"Then this one might be the real deal!" a third gulped. "The one behind the Festival of Flames must've been here in person!"

"Don't be ridiculous," a fourth snapped. "How do you expect a dead man to do anything?"

Panicked conversations swept through the crowd at the suggestion while my mind was still struggling to take in and organize all the details I was being bombarded with. Circle of blood, larger than the others reported, a red salamander that was the mark of some "crazy cult"…so most of these circles weren't even authentic and had been fabricated by this cult, and this one was a "genuine" circle of blood?

What was this cult? This was the first time I'd ever even heard of one going around and vandalizing the land with scorched circles surrounding puddles of blood. By all appearances, whoever they were, they were "worshiping" the one who actually created these horrid things.

And against all reason, the only suspect that came to my mind as of this moment was Natsu. I mean, I sure hadn't heard of anyone else that was deeply involved in this Festival of Flames debacle besides Natsu, myself, and…while a bit on the extreme side, I knew that Jellal wouldn't do something like this, and I definitely didn't do this. I was also pretty sure that Life ceased to exist when Natsu died, and I'd seen Death break apart into dust and disappear right before my eyes.

But Natsu's case made no sense, either. Even if he was somehow still alive and wandering around Fiore considering the unusual manner of his death, why would he go around scorching the land and spilling copious amounts of blood wherever he went? Where did this blood even come from? Was it his? Someone else's? This completely went against everything that I believed that Natsu had stood for. This didn't seem like something he would do.

Of course, all this looped around to the scarf Wendy had gotten from that woman and her son. Both Wendy Happy had clearly identified it as Natsu's and not as some cheap double—and I had no reason to doubt their judgment. That was a variable in this equation that we couldn't rule out, but could find no place for. I couldn't rule out that boy's story, either—this matched the description that he'd given of the location he'd gotten lost in before he was found by this mysterious man that had given him the scarf. Did this person possibly have something to do with this circle? It was really frustrating wracking my brain and trying to figure this out.

"…Lucy? Lucy, are you okay?"

I snapped out of my thoughts and turned my attention to Happy, who'd been trying to get my attention. His expression was a mix of worry and confusion. "What's wrong, Lucy?" he prompted me.

"Oh…nothing," I said quickly, brushing stray hair out of my face. "I was just thinking."

Happy blinked. "Thinking…?"

"…Yeah." I glanced at him pointedly before turning around to leave. "Happy, let's get back to Wendy and Carla. We're going back to the guild. There's something I need to tell everyone."

"What?" Happy scurried to catch up with me. "What do you need to tell them?"

"Something crazy." I could feel my chest threatening to burst with some wayward emotion, but I couldn't figure out what it was—maybe excitement, maybe hope, or perhaps desperation—but it was driving me forward all the same.

I bit my lip. "Happy…I know this sounds like it's impossible, but I feel that…Natsu might be still alive somewhere."

Obvious foreshadowing is obvious; I know. Shut up. *shot*

Hahaha…oh, man; I love Lucy. I really do. She's so easy to write that it's a crime. To think that she was what worried me the most about this sequel…silly me. She wasn't the problem…the plot was the problem. =_= I think I'll start getting the hang of this story once Natsu shows up again, because most of the brainstorming I have for this story is of him and of him running into Lucy again and all the possible and horrible and beautiful and heartbreaking angsty moments that I have planned for the two of them and everybody else involved and agh I just can't handle this anymore you guys DX

I'll be blunt—I don't like this chapter. Why? Because I'm still trying to organize the premise of the story in this one, and it feels super flimsy and awkward. But now that I have this out of the way, the next chapters will be a little easier than this one. At least, I hope so.

You are all awesome for taking time out of your day to read this, and I'm super grateful, even if you don't leave reviews. Until next time!