Relentless

Chapter V: The company we keep

"Meteor: Eclipse!" A Violet colored magic circled around his palms and set off with great haste towards his opponent, who was oblivious to the fact that this attack was a coax designed to cover up the real magic circle under him. The attack hit and the scarf clad boy froze, effectively putting him under the horrible terror of the illusion magic, this was not an one sided fight, the battle had been initiated by the pink haired boy and one could see that something just wasn't right with the way he talked, behaved and reacted. Therefore the mage thought it would be interesting to pry inside the rosettes mind.

-ooo-

It had been one month since that day, when the black dragon left behind his student. The summers day boy had woken up to an empty cove, filled with the ear deafening silence which only reminded him of how lonely he was now, the only individual he had ever known on a personal level had disappeared from his life. The eight of June in the year X777 Natsu allowed himself to cry, no, bawl like a lost child. But one could argue that the boy was truly lost, without the black dragon king as a mentor what would Natsu do? With no goal, no dream, no hope what could there possibly be done? The passionate decision to devote himself whole heartedly to avenge his parents death was a long forgotten promise, in the recent years Natsu had completely lost his way in the dark path that was set for him to tread, and him only. This path of continuing to obtain powerful spells and abilities had devoured him whole, no longer was that trademark smile that irked his foster father so much plastered on his face, now there was only a blank stare waiting. The reason for that is the continuing cycle of thoughts running loose inside his scattered mind. The countless theories of how and why the dragon had left him were the main theme. The self-loathing had come to an abrupt stop since then, that very same day Natsu had concluded that his foster fathers leave was built upon his obvious lack of strength, what else could it otherwise be?

With the mind set on power, the rosette had wandered all around the country side in search for worthy opponents, but to no avail, all of them were inept in regards of using magic offensively, even so they would pick up on the pink haired boys challenge and accept. With the belief of a sure victory in mind one after one another they would fall broken and bloody on the gravel covered ground. There were no real roads in the Fiore midlands, thus the ground would serve as an exceptional pummeling position, for the rosette. In the case of a victory, Natsu would as penalty relieve the opponent of his belongings such as wallets, jewelry and other trinkets that he happened to find in the pockets of his opponent. They called him a monster, but Natsu simply didn't care enough to retaliate, he just wanted to fight...

When he fought he could temporarily forget about the pain of and betrayal his foster father had bestowed upon him, the rush of adrenaline and the thrill of the merciless combination of attacks, temporarily brought Natsu back to his old self, but not for long, at most maybe five minutes.

That's why he decided to travel deeper into the heart of Fiore, in the relentless search for a worthy opponent. That eventually brought him to the southern more tropical parts of Fiore, with bolstering heat and the humidity of the air, the strange sounds of rare animals while being constantly attacked by the sun. The climate to say at least was not made for weak people that are what Natsu thought, here there had to be some strong mages the rosette could face. To his surprise Natsu had encountered a young boy, around the same age as himself, wandering around aimlessly in the lush jungle, Natsu had spied on him for a while but expectedly got detected and questioned about his business with the boy, to that he answered with a magic fist...Which leads up to the current situation at hand.

Inside the illusion...

Wooden beams and crushed debris from the surrounding homes had caught fire and was spreading the wildfire, inside the ongoing inferno a woman was trapped under an iron pole while a sharp shard of metal had impaled her chest. The shard was probably from the destroyed buildings in the area, the wound was deep and the shard went all the way through her body, she coughed up huge amounts of blood defiling her clothes crimson red. Natsu stood right in front of her passively watching her die, it seemed one of her lungs had been punctured, she couldn't be saved without the proper healing magic.

The blood that she previously had coughed up had dried in the heat of the ongoing fires, painting thick crimson lines around her mouth and jaw area, she raised her left hand slowly waiting for Natsu to grasp it and help her up, but the rosette was frozen in place, even if he wanted to move, to rush over to the injured woman before it was too late to do anything for her. The nearby building started to crumble and chunks of bricks and smoldering wood started to rain down around the duo, Natsu really wanted to help her, somehow she seemed familiar, they had the same hair! But even if every cell in the pink haired boy's body wanted to move, he wouldn't. No matter what he did or thought he was stuck right in front of the young woman, unable to do anything.

Every fiber in Natsu screamed "Help her!" but he couldn't and that made him feel like the worst scum on earth land. The veins on the boy's forehead popped up from the amount of effort the rosette put in trying make his own damn body move. But it wouldn't. Before he knew it big drops of warm tears were falling in streams from his cheeks down onto the charred ground with thick splashes, Natsu didn't like to cry, it was the worst feeling of all.

Majestic wings of darkness soared down towards Natsu from the midnight sky. The boy immediately recognized the feather like black wings of the dragon that had raised him. Acnologia used his razor sharp talons, and scooped up Natsu, while proceeding to fly away from the area, the black dragon didn't say anything, and Natsu didn't know why the black dragon didn't do anything to help the woman, it felt so wrong to just leave her like that. It seemed that Natsu was unable to speak as well, not even a single word could leave his throat, and only a sickly wheeze was heard. While being unable to do anything, Natsu could only watch as he and Acnologia paced further and further away from the burning settlement.

They were so far away from the burning inferno that the earth was replaced with a vast sea, the vibrant shine of the moonlight being reflected by the water surface gave Natsu an impression of safety, on Acnologia's back nothing would happen to him, but that went surprisingly short lived. Right in the middle of the ocean, with no land in sight, Acnologia's body started to dissolve into shadows, in an instant the dragon's whole body was dissolved, only leaving behind a void of darkness. Natsu was falling, falling rapidly at the sea surface. With a crash he had dropped down and was sinking into the blue abyss. Soon the oxygen levels in Natsu's lungs started to diminish, the swallowing of water followed after. The deeper the rosette sank, the less moon light would be able to illuminate the dark sea, afraid of being devoured by the bottom of the sea, Natsu used the knowledge and experience he had collect during his and Acnologia's swimming lessons at the lake, but the air in Natsu's lungs wouldn't be able to bring him up to the surface, he would simply drown. While waiting for the last pluck of his heart, the pink haired boy thought back on the words his foster father had uttered the day before he left. "The shadow of the black dragon will always loom over you, remember that."

NO, he still didn't know what those words meant and Natsu wasn't going to die any time before he found out exactly what those words meant, he had to see his dragon again, be it with any means possible! His anger started to boil over, all the pent up feeling and the relentless frustration finally got to him. What he was going to do now was kicking that blue haired mages ass that was priority number one right now. Natsu's magic was still on optimal levels, by releasing huge amounts of chaos dragon slayer magic from his palms and feet, the rosette rocketed himself up to the moon lit surface again, with a violent splash Natsu was out in the clear, but he didn't stop. His magic brought him high up in the sky, above the grey clouds a world of eternal night awaited him, and with no clouds in sky one was able to see the vast midnight black atmosphere. It was dazzling. Natsu had never felt so calm before, the adrenaline from the previous traumatic incidents being pumped away, Natsu's heart beat could finally slow down, before he knew it, sleep had taken him.

Outside the illusion...

"So you are back, didn't think you would manage to escape my illusion!" The blue haired boy was smirking, this rouge mage before him was nothing, and he hasn't even used any of his magic. This was the end for him. It didn't matter that he succeeded in escaping the illusion; after all it wasn't that strong to begin with.

Natsu was feeling nauseous; his body was in an uproar, the magic that the tattooed mage used was way to deceptive for his taste. "W-what did you do?" That was all he managed to utter out without throwing up, the magic had really left him in a bad condition to fight. Nonetheless, the mage with the tattooed face was going down for putting the rosette in such a pitiful state.

"What does it matter, your end is inevitable!" This guy was cocky, way too cocky for his own good; he would be quite surprised when Natsu revealed his dragon slayer powers. Up until now he had used basic spells that were commonly found in magic stores and such. To make it more challenging Natsu had convinced himself that weaker spells would make his opponents last just that much longer for the dragon slayer to feel the intense rush of the battle. But this guy was different, way different. Natsu liked the fact that the blue haired mage wasn't some halfwit using magic for selfish reasons. The dragon slayer fought for a greater cause. To one day find his foster father was the primary goal inside the rosettes mind. To achieve that Natsu needed great adversaries that could push him to his very limit and make him evolve as a mage and person. The mage a few meters in front of him was one of those adversaries, he could make Natsu 'evolve' therefore he must be defeated.

"What happened, first you attack me then you can't even speak the words of surrender, if that's so then please die!" A bright yellow aura started taking form around the tattooed wizard, it shone a beautiful golden light which effectively blinded Natsu, making him close his eyes and collect his mind and spirit. To defeat this guy the rosette needed to focus.

"Chariot!" What was this guy spouting? Chariot, isn't that a star sign, if so what kind of attack was this? Natsu couldn't see he was too busy focusing his magical energy to intercept the incoming attack; he wouldn't have any time to dodge that was for sure. Natsu's opponent was clever; he had launched his attack from the air, effectively placing it right above the rosette. Natsu was fully charged. While opening his mouth a small sum of chaos magic started gathering inside, he was preparing a dragon's roar to parry the golden chariot.

"Chaos dragons: Roar!" A bright azure flow of chaos dragon slayer magic shot towards the incoming hostile spell, with an explosion canceling it out. As a result of the increased amount of dragon slayer magic inside Natsu's body, his now open eyes resembled the ones of a dragon. Creating a very intimidating aura around his body, which grew larger and more violent for every passing second. The pink haired boys opponent was smirking even more now, it could be mistaken for a mocking grin but Natsu was better than that, this guy was now just about to get serious, what else could explain all the golden magic gathering around the tattooed boy.

"I knew it, you harbor some very interesting powers don't you, luck see-" No more words were spoken as Natsu used the uttering of the stupid speech to catch the bluenette off guard. Natsu had revised a small plan inside his head. His opponent seemed to favor combat over a distance, but the pink haired dragon slayer was about to bring the fight to him. The plan started off in a well manner, the rosette launched him while the tattooed boy was mid speech and landed a chaos powered right hook to the unknowing bluenette's left cheek. The attack had so much power behind it; it left hot air vapors in its trail. The tattooed boy was flung to the right with great force, violently crashing into a tree. Splinters were dancing in the air as the mage recovered and proceeded to stand up. He was bleeding from his lips; Natsu's punch had burst them open. While ignoring the pulsating agony in his cheek, the blue haired mage spoke: "You are powerful, and I respect that. But let's see how well you do now!" The dazzling aura from before returned and surrounded the bluenette. The ground under him gave in to the intense pressure from his magical power and cracked, small rocks and dust hovered alongside the magic surrounding the tattooed boy. "Let's see if you can keep up or not!" this time he grinned at Natsu, a toothy feral grin, it seemed that he was just as battle starved as Natsu, if not more.

"METEOR!" The sudden announcement of his next set of moves was still being registered inside Natsu's mind as the first hit landed. Natsu wanted to throw up once again, a straight punch to the solar plexus, Natsu could feel his diaphragm retracting and pushing out all the air from his lungs. Leaving him gasping like a fish on land. How the hell was this guy so fast? However, Natsu was not given any time to recover and take some breaths to refill his body with oxygen. The next hit was as merciless as the former, this time a crushing blow to his temple set him airborne just as the tattooed boy previously was. Skidding to a stop after a few meters of flights Natsu regains his composure and get up fast enough to block the incoming round house kick to his collar bone, if he had failed the bone would have broken and the fight would end, but luckily for the rosette, the blue haired mages momentum was totally lost after the block and he was stuck in Natsu's grip on his ankle.

Gripping tighter and tighter, Natsu was near to break the other mages ankle, the blue haired mage was frowning deeply and wheezed out a gasp of agony. The fight had taken an awkward turn, with tattooed kid upside down and Natsu gripping his ankle. It was time to end this. Mustering up enough strength to speak, Natsu announced his decisive spell. "Chaos dragons: Arrow head!" The amount of chaos dragon magic gathered in Natsu's heel could very well function as an arrow head, piercing his foes with great velocity, well; it was kind of blunt though.

The blue haired mage saw this coming and used his superior speed to just narrowly avoid getting split in two. He then proceeded to swing his one free leg around Natsu neck creating a spinning friction that freed him from the pink haired dragon slayers grip. Now that he was free he could continue to pummel the rosette with even more furious kicks and punches. This was truly an interesting fight.

"Meteor!" With the same spell from before he was going to end the chaos magic user for good. In a matter of seconds the bluenette was right in front Natsu trying to break his guard with bone crushing out lashes, It seemed like Natsu's plan had backfired, this guy like close combat just as much as the rosette. With no other option left Natsu had no choice but rely on dragon force in order to properly retaliate against his opponent. Using his blocked kick as a spring board the blue haired mage launched himself with a sense of elegance, up in the air. When airborne he activated his spell: "Chariot!" The chariot star sign was materialized in a vibrant golden magic above Natsu. Threatening to erase his existence from the face of earth land.

The pink haired dragon slayer didn't bother to dodge, instead ha patiently awaited the impact of the chariot spell. The moment the spell made contact with ground it exploded, debris and flying dirt obscured the mages line of sight effectively losing sight of Natsu, however Natsu didn't bother to do anything in the meantime, after all he still had an ace in the sleeve to use.

"Hahahaha," Catching his breath after the outburst of mocking laughter, the bluenette continued with his sentence. "What a shame, I though you would last a bit longer, but oh well!" He then proceeded to laugh even more at the fallen dragon slayer.

A mediocre sized crater had formed were Natsu had stood only mere seconds ago. As the vast cloud of sprung up dirt and dust settled down, an empty crater was all that was left to be presented to the Heavenly magic user, this was strange. There should be a skewered corpse down there, well; it seemed he had overdone it again.

But the thing was that Natsu was very alive at the moment, while currently out of the tattooed kid's line of sight, the scarf clad dragon slayer was approaching from the air with unseen velocity. Not until announcing his spell name was Natsu noticed by his opponent. "Chaos dragons: twin lance edge!" During his short term absence from the fight Natsu had produced two whip like wings made out of his chaos magic, this was one of the two long range spells he had in his arsenal, with the other being his mighty dragons roar. The heavenly magic user reacted, but in vain as the spell already was approaching him with incredible speeds. In a final desperate attempt to save himself from getting hit by the dragon slayer spell, the bluenette brought up his arms in a cross guard to protect his face and chest from serious internal damage.As expected the attack hit him with full force, his petty arm guard not being able to withstand the brunt frontal force of the dragon slaying attack, the backlash created flung the tattooed kid outside the small clearing that was created during their earlier skirmishes, and into the forest edge. Having crashed into several trees, the blue haired boys arms was heavily scraped and cut due to the sharp tree splinters that had pierced his skin. Thin trails of blood ran alongside the sweat drops of exhaustion, both of them had suffered injuries in this fight, and none of them intended to lose it either.

"Well, that is some exceptional show of strength; I think I have underestimated you, dragon slayer!" The tattooed boy said as he took some steps towards Natsu who now had entered dragon force, the scales of a dragon adorning his face, his menacing azure chaos magic aura was back up. The force of the magic was constantly being spiked to its limits causing bits of stone and debris to crumble into dust. However the blue haired heaven magic user wasn't daunted at all, instead his big tooth feral grin was back and he seemed very excited for some reason, the tattoo on the left side of his face started glowing crimson red and just as Natsu did earlier released the last remnants of his magical powers into his golden aura, matching Natsu's.

"Let's end this with one final spell!" The scarf clad boy said between his pants, while trying to maintain the magic aura his reserves was being constantly drained out magic, they needed to settle this before that. "Agreed!" The heavenly magic user replied his grin gone and replaced with a serious facade.

Both boys were ragged and tattered, this battle had undergone a drastic change from at first being a somewhat normal fight, to a skirmish were the life you hold so dear is on the line. Without a moment's notice they both sprung to action, taking fast brisk foot steps towards each other, only to seconds later begin a full-fledged charge while charging up their respective magical powers. The tattooed boy cancelled his heavenly body magic spell also called Meteor, as it was very draining. They were both planning something big to quickly wrap things up, this had dragged on long enough, they both could agree on that.

Natsu went ahead and took the slight risk of announcing his decisive spell first; the previous punches impact areas still hurt a fair amount. His breathing had been messed up from that first opening punch, as he hadn't had the chance of tightening his abdomen muscles; therefore the punch had dealt a lot more damage than it should have thanks to the solar plexus being a central for the radiating nerves of the body. In between his ragged breath Natsu gathered enough strength to yell out the following: "CHAOS DRAGONS: SAVAGE PIERCING BROADSWORD!" This was one of the secret dragon slayer techniques that Acnologia had though him over the past years, it would shred any opponent to tiny pieces, this was the ethereal sword of a dragon, used to kill dragons. Gathering chaos magic in both his left and right hands Natsu proceeded to clasp them together, effectively compressing his magic. Only to release it all moments later release it all with violent burst, the magic eventually took the daunting shape of sword which with great acceleration paced towards the blue haired mage, ready to pierce through his very soul and send him to the afterlife.

The heavenly body magic user was fast to retaliate before the attack impacted. The same golden shine from his previous spell grazed his body, but in a much more compressed form, that indicated that his spell would be just as or even stronger than Natsu's own. "GRAND CHARIOT!" It was same chariot spell but much more powerful than the former versions.

With both spell taking the same route towards each other, the initial clash was inevitable. Creating two half-moon shaped fronts of brute force, the mighty spells grinded and clashed for some brief seconds before giving in and exploding. An orb of pure white magical force was created, with only one half above the earth, the other half dug its way downwards creating a large crater and a fair amount dust and dirt clouds. Many trees had been dragged into the clash of the spells, as the only thing left of them was the vague outlining of the sticking out roots which were to firm to go along with the rest of tree. The once lush southern forest clearing had been transformed into a no man's land in a matter of minutes.

As the obscuring dust clouds settled one could see that in the bottom of the crater there was two boys passively lying down. The hasty ups and downs of their chests indicated that they were both alive, suddenly the blue haired boy with red tattoo started chuckling, with no signs of stopping Natsu couldn't hold back his curiosity and went ahead and asked him what the amusing matter was: "Hey you, what are laughing at?" With one eyebrow raised higher than the other Natsu let the other boy know that he was making no sense, why would he just start laughing all of sudden?

Finally the chuckling came to a stop, the heavenly body magic user proceeded to stand up and dust of his clothes from the fight between him and the dragon slayer, well, what was left of them anyway. "Why were we fighting anyway?" He said as he slowly walked up to the other still downed pink haired boy. "Didn't I attack you?" Natsu shrugged, it didn't really matter now. "Oh right, but it's a tie, just so you know, dragon slayer." Even after they both have over exhausted their magical powers the fighting spirit was just as frisk as when they started. "It doesn't matter I had tons of fun, let's do it again sometime!" In between the their exchanged sentences Natsu had switched to a more relaxed sitting position and had his feet out stretched before him, he finished off his sentence with the trademark grin he hadn't used for so long, the tattooed boy could only watch in awe as the pink haired dragon slayer smiled at the very same person who had tried to kill him only a few moments ago. The blue haired boy could only snicker at that.

"You are one of the very few who have pushed me this hard, you have my salutations." With that said the heavenly body magic user stretched out his hand towards Natsu who still was stuck in a sitting position. A few seconds passed before Natsu accepted the offered olive branch and grabbed onto the blue haired mages hand in a show of good sportsmanship. "I could say the same about you, that punch earlier really was an eye opener!" Eventually the small chit chat came to an unfortunate end and both parties proceeded to part ways but there was still something Natsu wanted to have said.

"Hey, what's your name?" This was vital question for the rosette; after all he wanted to have a rematch in the future.

The azure haired boy slowly turned around, making only the right side of his face visible, as well as his red tattoo. His chestnut eyes shadowed over by the awkward angle of his head, he then spoke: "My name, huh? Give me yours first!" This felt reasonable for Natsu, after all it was ill upbringing to ask someone's name before revealing your own, that's what Acnologia had thought him. "My name is Natsu! I am a dragon slayer of the chaos element!"

"Ah, that much I figured but what's your last name, there might be others named Natsu as well..." The pink haired dragon slayer was quick with his reply this time. "I don't have one!" It was as simple as that, the black dragon king hadn't given or named him a last name.

"I see, well, and your pink hair will suffice in case we have multiple Natsu's around." Judging by the blank stare the rosette was giving the heavenly magic user it didn't seem likely that Natsu had grasped the idea behind the said humor. "What is wrong about my hair?" He said feeling semi insulted.

"Nothing, nothing, it's just that I seem to befriend people with unique hair colors, be it red or pink." With that the dragon slayer felt a little bit better, but there was no way he was admitting it. After a brief pause, while having processed the blue haired boys last sentence a heavy frown played out on Natsu's face.

"Well, anyway what's your name?" The blue haired boy seemed pleased that Natsu didn't delve further into that subject it, he let be known by letting a cunning smirk take form on his face.

My name is Je-Siegrain, just plain Siegrain, nice to make your acquaintance!" That was a close call he almost spoiled his cover, Natsu didn't have any need of hearing his real name, the dragon slayer also didn't seem to be that bright, while not being by any means stupid.

"Oh, okay!" With that the boy walked away, that was quite a brief good-bye, oh well, the tattooed boy had other pressing matters to tend to other than brooding over pink haired dragon slayers.

-ooo-

Tufts of azure hair could be spotted through the endless sea of tree crowns; it was dusk, the sun bidding its farewells to the people of Fiore while leaving behind a scarlet painted canvas in the sky, small splotches of grey being the few clouds in the evening sky. The blue haired mage was carrying on a medium sized satchel and in his hands were his tattered cloak, which he didn't want to wear since the climate was way too hot. It was the end of the day, that much was clear, if not the died down volumes of the chatter of the exotic birds of the south would indicate it. It was very peaceful he liked that, his only companion was the few lonely breezes of the timid spring winds. They were more than welcome, functioning to cool him down.

However this heavenly melancholy came to an abrupt stop as a loud crash could be heard and the snapping of a few branches caught his ears. Something had fallen out of one of the trees.

"Ow, ow, ow, that hurt!" Right in front of him a rose haired bow was rubbing his head in agony, as he apparently landed on it.

"Why are you here?" Siegrain liked games and mysteries very much, but this was just plain stupid. Why was he here now, it didn't make sense, unless he had a motive...

"I...got lost..." All the thoughts of doubt in Siegrain's mind vanished without a trace, although he was quite a bit skeptical about his vague reason.

"I see." The azure haired boy said that as he walked over to the boy to lend him a hand.

Natsu seemed uncomfortable, he tried to get a hold of his scarf but his hand only hit an empty void were his scarf should have been, the rosette was really worried! It was the scarf Acnologia had entrusted him with, maybe it had blown off during his fall? Anyhow he had to find it.

"Are you looking for this," said Siegrain as used his thumb and index finger to feel the soft fabric of the woolen scarf. At first Natsu got a bit angry about the fact that Siegrain had his scarf but it quickly subdued as it was handed to him. "It's quite the scarf you got there, you should be more careful with it!" Said the azure haired mage.

"Yeah, thanks by the way!" Natsu was grinning again, after their fight a lot of things had occurred inside the rosettes mind, topics such as friendship had been redefined.

It didn't take a genius to puzzle together why Natsu was here of all places, he said that he was lost, that may be true but in reality Siegrain knew that the boy was in fact lonely and needed a friend. Besides it wouldn't be that bad to have him as a companion, he was a capable fighter and with some polishing he could become a fine partner, after all the path Siegrain was taking wasn't going to be easy, so an extra man wouldn't hurt, but there was something that he needed to be made clear...

"So Natsu what would you say if I wanted to be your friend, or rather partner?" Siegrain didn't know the rosette that well, in fact he didn't know anything besides what he saw inside his illusion magic and the boy's name, but he was certain that Natsu would take him up on the offer.

"Sure!" With that the deal was struck and he had a travelling partner.

"It's going to be dark soon let's keep moving and set camp in a save area further down the road!" Siegrain always like to plan in beforehand, as it always let him fall back on something in case something backfired.

"That sounds like a plan!" Not only was the rosette supposedly lost, he was tired of sleeping under trees as well. It wasn't that uncomfortable, it was just the animals of the tree that bothered him.

"Let's get moving then!" Siegrain said as he gestured with his hand to make Natsu follow.

After dusk, at night...

The fire place the duo had set up was crisply crackling, the small embers of the fire illuminated the camp site enough for them to be able to see the surrounding forest edges, this way they could detect any bandits or other hostile beings that could emerge from the uncharted forests of southern Fiore. Siegrain was brooding again, he thought of the rosettes possible motives, the questions why, when and how swirled around his psyche. After a while of dead ends he found his resolve to directly ask the dragon slayer.

"Why do you fight?" The question wasn't intended to be this blunt but that's what happens when one takes something directly from the mind.

Natsu seemed untroubled as he rested his palm on his cheek to think. It was a full moon, on nights like these many necromancers would ascend from their gloomy caves and sacrifice human offerings to the various vile demon lords they worshipped as gods. The angle Natsu's head was in enabled the moon light to perfectly reflect its light upon his face, giving him a much more pale impression.

"I fight to get stronger, so one day I can meet someone and prove them wrong." Of course Siegrain knew that the dragon slayer was talking about his dragon, the one that left him some months ago.

"You know that's quite the petty cause!" Siegrain knew that right of criticizing his goal was a bad idea, but this was the quickest way of giving him a real goal that was worth pursuing.

"What do you mean?" Natsu didn't get what his friend was trying to say, why was his goal so bad?

"I mean that goal is not worth all the trouble, if you want convince one person that bad, then that will only affect him and you respectively. Why won't you take on the same goal I have in mind, we could achieve it way faster by working together, and the best thing is, that it is built upon the same fundamentals of your goal, by that I mean power, obtaining power!" It wouldn't get much simpler than this; it was literally the same goal, just with different results, way different results...

Natsu didn't quite get what this new and better goal was, but the power part seemed interesting. As a response Natsu nodded his head slightly in approval, and uttered the phrase: "Go on."

Excellent, now for the hard part. Well now that they had the same goal it wouldn't be so hard.

"Natsu," Siegrain began slowly as he built up the anticipation level for the rosette, "have you ever heard of the magic council?"

AN: And done, this was the longest chapter as of yet, 6k words. Nonetheless, the same deal with the pairings, as we progress further into the story, they will become more relevant, but now their aren't, so much. Still keep on motivating in the reviews as I read them all. What else can I say, oh, right, Jellal isn't the one with Natsu its Siegrain, as you can tell by the personality, Siegrain is bit more less evil, and have been 'programmed' by Ultear, and the other half of Jellal to infiltrate a certain place.

Please leave a line or two, it means a lot to me!

Thanks for all the feedback!

Until next time, bye!