Gray and Natsu's eyes widened in surprise.
"Two kids were taken? But I thought you said that only people our age went missing" Gray questioned looking from Natsu to the mayor. Natsu had a similar expression as Gray's. Their eyes were wide and their mouths were slightly open. The mayor had a sad look on his face and he was looking towards the ground.
"Yes, sadly it seems that the kidnapper has decided to take children this time. The parents said that they heard their children screaming and they tried to help but they couldn't get to them in time" He said.
Gray cursed inwardly. He for some reason felt responsible, like it was his fault that the children were taken. Maybe it was. He came there to try and stop the kidnappings and so far he hasn't done anything useful. The only thing that he was actually happy about was getting together with Natsu but that didn't seem very useful to the job. In fact it might make things more complicated. Now that Gray has Natsu to himself he's not going to let anything happen to him but Gray was afraid that if they ever got in a fight with a villain or somebody that he would be constantly worried about Natsu since the idiot seems to have a habit of getting himself beat up pretty badly. Gray defiantly didn't want that to happen.
"Would you mind if we talked to the parents?" Gray heard Natsu question which brought him back to reality. Jin thought about it for a moment before answering them. "I suppose you could. Technically you already met the father, he was the one who came screaming at you earlier. He didn't exactly take it well, you can still talk to the mother" he told them.
"Where is she?" Gray asked. Jin lead them to a women who was standing outside the house sobbing. She had other people around her trying to calm her down. The women was skinny, you could see the bones in her face clearly. She had bags under her eyes and her dark brown hair was pulled back into a loose bun. Their were strands in her face but she made no movement to get them away.
The people surrounding her moved out of the way when they saw the mayor. He came up to her and touched her shoulder causing her to look at him with tear-stained eyes. She seemed surprised by seeing him but she quickly calmed down. "Mayor, what can I do for you?" She asked calmly. Gray rose an eyebrow, it seemed that her sad and mournful attitude left and she was completely void of any emotion. It was as if she had forgotten about her kids all together.
"These two boys are mages looking for the kidnapper and they wish to talk to you so you can tell them what happened to your kids" he explained to her. She nodded and she turned towards Gray and Natsu.
Her eyes started to swell up with tears again. "My husband and I were sleeping when we heard our children screaming. We jumped out of bed and ran as fast as we could to their room, but when we got there the door wouldn't open. We tried with all our might to get the door open but they were already gone when we got there" she said sobbing some more.
Grays eyebrows furrowed as he thought. He didn't understand why kids where taken. The kidnapper obviously had a pattern of taking young people who worked at shop places. So what was with the sudden change? Could it be that the kidnapper is messing with them? Could they have known that they figured out their pattern so they decided to change it by taking the two kids? So that meant that the kidnapper must have been spying on Gray and Natsu. But what if... Gray looked around at all of the townspeople surrounding them. What if one of these people was the kidnapper? It wasn't unlikely. If the kidnapper was someone in the in the town then they would already know everybody and that would make it easier for them to get their targets.
Gray kept looking back and forth from all the different people. Any one of them could be the kidnapper, but who? Everyone suddenly seemed untrustworthy to him. Someone could be watching him right now, studying him so that they could beat him in a battle.
Was the world spinning? Nope, Gray was the one spinning as he tried to look at all the people. All of the people were starting to give him weird looks and it was making him question everyone even more. He was starting to get light-headed. As he stopped spinning, his gaze landed on Natsu.
Natsu was looking at him with a confused face. It seemed that he didn't quite understand what was wrong with Gray. That's right, Natsu was a bit more naive and oblivious to things than Gray was. That just made Gray worry about him even more. What if the kidnapper tried to go after Natsu next and Gray wasn't there to protect him. While Natsu was an excellent fighter, if he didn't think that they were a threat then he could easily be lead somewhere if the person said the right things. Hell, if you just put him on a moving vehicle then he could get taken somewhere. Well then Gray just wouldn't take his eyes off of Natsu, then nothing could happen to him. Shit, Gray almost forgot that Natsu had to go on his date with Bree tonight. Maybe he could follow them. Yea, that's what he would do, then he could make sure that nothing happened to him.
"Gray, are you alright?" Natsu asked looking at him with a raised eyebrow. Gray took a couple of seconds to respond since he was still trying to figure out everything that was going on.
He quickly grabbed Natsu's wrist before turning towards Jin. "We have to go, we have something very important to do" He said then started to walk away while dragging Natsu along with him.
Natsu was a little surprised by this but he quickly recovered. "Gray what's wrong with you?" Natsu asked looking up at him. Gray didn't respond to him but instead looked back behind his shoulder towards the confused group of people that they just left behind. Once Gray thought that they were out of hearing and seeing range, and he made sure that no one was following them he finally let go of Natsu's wrist and turned towards him.
"Listen, I think that the kidnapper might be someone in the town and I just wanted us to get away from there as soon as we could. That's why I dragged you away, sorry if I accidentally hurt you" he said. Natsu just gave him a confused look.
"Someone in the town?" Natsu questioned. He didn't quite understand what Gray was talking about. Everyone in the town seemed fine to him. While they all were a bit freaked out and unpredictable because of the kidnappings, he was sure that if they calmed down they would all be ok.
"Yes, someone in the town. If you think about it, it makes sense. If they were in the town then they would already know everybody. Also, people would trust them, that would make it easier for them to kidnap all the people" Gray explained quickly. Natsu seemed to give him an even more confused look. He looked like he was about to say something but closed his mouth and seemed to try and think about what Gray just said.
He continued thinking for a couple minutes which was really testing Grays patience. Natsu had his eyebrows furrowed in thought. His finger was tapping against his chin, with his cheeks slightly puffed out and his bottom lip sticking out. While Gray had to admit that Natsu's thinking face was awfully cute, he wanted him to say something already.
"So, someone in the town would automatically have the trust of everyone else in the town. We know that the kidnapper is taking people who work at shop places. But we still don't know why yet. Maybe our next step should be to figure out what all of these places have in common, that way we'll know where the kidnapper will attack next" Natsu finally said. While Gray was surprised that Natsu seemed to say something helpful, he didn't dwell on it to long.
"Alright, sounds like a plan. We could ask Jin if he could give us a list of all the shop places, that way we can discuss it and see if we can figure anything out" Gray said nodding to himself.
"Yea, you can do that and I can go to dinner with Bree" Natsu said smiling awkwardly. Gray instantly frowned and it almost seemed as if a dark aura formed around him making Natsu sweat dropped.
"You're still going out with her, we kind of have something important that we need to be doing right now" he said growling a little. Natsu put his hands up in defense.
"Hey, it's for information only Gray. Besides we could get more done if we do seperate things. I can take care of myself you know" He said giving a small but adorable smile. Gray sighed and rubbed his face.
"I know you can take care of yourself, I've seen you defeat guys that should have been nearly impossible to beat but now, for some reason, I just can't stop worrying about you. I want you to always be in my sight so I can make sure you're alright. It's not that I don't trust you or anything, it's just that I don't trust other people, especially that Bree," he blabbered saying her name in disgust. "I know I sort of sound like a stalker or something but I just, I don't know, it's sort of like-
He got cut off by Natsu giving him a quick peck on the lips causing him to freeze up and instantly stop talking. He looked down at Natsu with a faint blush on his cheeks.
"It's ok Gray, I know what you mean and I trust you too" he said smiling. "I think I'm going to head back to the Inn for a bit, you can join if you want to but take to long and I might get bored and go to Bree for company" he addes walking off. Gray still hadn't fully prossessed what happened and it took him a full minute to recover.
"Wait, what? Natsu, you're joking right? Natsu? Natsu!" Gray yelled running after him.
Oh my goodness! I'm so sorry! I didn't post a single chapter all summer, please forgive me! *bows on hands and knees* I feel absolutely awful and I understand if I see a mob outside my house soon. Anyway I feel like Im making them to smart. They seem like idiots on the show so I think I have to dumb them down a lot in the next chapters. A big thanks to everyone who left a review and a really big thanks to gratsulover117, because of them, this story is probably going to have a sequel. Yay! So that is all, until next time, bye-bye.
So will you all forgive me if I give you all a internet cookie? Please?
Also, I have a lot of new ideas for stories so you all should watch out for any new stories by me.