Chapter 6 : Decision

Tears poured down Tenebre's bloodied face, creating pale lines on her cheeks, she nodded frantically,

" What favour Layla, tell me, i'll do anything!"

Layla chuckled weakly, letting go of Tenebre's hand and ruffling her hair,

" Why not start by calling me 'Mom' for the next and last 5 years of my life?" Layla said, cracking a grin, instantly shattering the tense atmosphere.

Tenebre was startled out of her tears, and started stuttering,

" W-Wha ?! T-This is not the time to joke around, Lay- "

" Hmm?", Layla gave her a pointed look,

"... Mom.", Tenebre said corrected reluctantly,

" That's better." Layla nodded approvingly, " Now help me up, looks like we've got quite a mess to clear up, due to your rather...hmm...overexcited entrance? "

Tenebre looked around Layla's room, and laughed sheepishly,

"Ha...Ha ha..." She laughed awkwardly,

Layla looked around and started listing out out,

" Hmm... Let's see... Two chairs, half my bed, three windows, a few holes in my walls, a few soiled sheets and almost my entire carpet is a blood pool. Sigh...Oh well, its nothing we can't solve, but the problem now is how? I can't possibly come up with an explanation for all this..."

" Oh, leave it to me."

Tenebre snapped her hands, " Time Ark : Restore!"

The broken chairs, bed and window begun to repair themselves, broken glass and wood flew back to where they belonged, Tenebre's blood erased itself from the sheets and the carpet, and everything returned to their original states.

" Requip- "

"Whoa, that's a hell lot of magic types you have. Time Ark, Celestial Magic, Requip, where on Earthland did you learn all that from?" Grey asked, looking rather impressed and intrigued.

" Well, one perk of being immortal is that you live long enough to be able to learn most magics from its creators or from its origins, which of course includes Lost Magic." Tenebre explained, then adding, " Well, before they were 'Lost' magic anyway."

" By any chance. did you learn Ice Make magic from a woman called Ur?" Gray blurted out the question that's been bugging him since he saw the crystal ice Tenebre was in, feeling the familiar yet foreign magic it emitted, yet couldn't put his tongue on where he felt or saw it before.

" Ur? Isn't that your mentor,Gray? What has she got to do with this?" Lucy said, confusion evident in her voice,

"I'm not sure myself, but that's why i'm asking her now, it's just a hunch though." Gray looked at Tenebre uncertainly as he said this.

Tenebre's right brow quirked up, looking rather surprised, but for a completely different reason,

" I'm surprised that you only realized it now, Gray-san. I half expected you to recognise it the moment you saw it. The ice that killed your mentor, Iced Shell. "

Gray grabbed Tenebre by the front of her dress, and pulled her in, screaming into her face,

" Are you mad?! It's a technique that uses the user's body and magic and turning it into a form of ice, destroying their body in the process. Are you trying to kill yourself?!"

Tenebre resisted the urge to facepalm herself, and she merely stared him down as if she was really disappointed, " And i though you were a lot smarter than this, Ur's disciple. Lucy, mind explaining to Mr Fullbuster here?"

Lucy own expression mirrored Tenebre's, and Grey suddenly regretted asking the question when he realized how stupid it sounded just when he realized the answer for himself moments after Lucy said the first line,

" You already know she's immortal, and she has this endless pool of magic in her, so in conclusion, what would normally happen to a normal mage using Iced Shell would not happen to her."

Grey looked away from Lucy's disappointed pointed look, rubbing the back of his head and his ears a deep shade of red in embarrassment as Happy and
Natsu snickered behind his back and feeling Carla's pointed look, Wendy's pitying look and Erza's passive look all directed right at him.

Taking this as her cue to continue, Tenebre resumed the scene, Grey thankful for the distraction from the bright flash from 'past' Tenebre's requip drawing the attention from him.

When the light faded, her battered up armor was replaced by a simple white yukata, but the blood from her wounds soon seeped through the cloth, creating patterns on the surface of the cloth, like crimson flowers blooming.

Seeing Layla's face cringe at the amount of blood she was loosing, Tenebre quickly tried to reassure her by saying, " Just give me an hour or so, these gashes will heal in no time."

The blond woman didn't seem convinced, so with much diffuculty, she hefted out a huge first aid kit from behind her bedpost.

" And why exactly do you have that with you...?" Tenebre asked, instantly regretting her question when Layla simply shot her 'the' look.

" You always seem to be injured when you come looking for me, so i made it a point to always keep one in hand. I've got most of my strength back now, so come here, i'll patch you up."

Layla patted at her side, gesturing to the spot beside her.

As soon as Tenebre sat down, she said, " Good girl, now sit still while i bandage you up."

Layla did her work in silence, only letting out a gasp when she peeled off Tenebre's blood soaked yukata and seeing the deep gashes on her back, stomach and on all other parts of her body. Then, while biting her lower lip, she proceeded to clean up Tenebre's wounds, removing all foreign materials still stuck in her body, cleaning and disinfecting the wounds with alcohol, then finally bandaging it up.

When she was done, with Tenebre's help, she hobbled over to her bathroom to wash her hands of Tenebre's blood as well as to change into another nightgown, before settling back down onto her now clean bed, and huffed out,

" Well, that's that done." She leaned back into her soft comforters while watching Tenebre requip into another yukata, a light blue one this time with white wave patterns on its edges, and discarding of the blood soaked white one.

" Now that i think about it, 5 years...That's not a lot of time i have left." Layla said aloud, making Tenebre flinch and tense up guiltily.

" I should have never dragged you into this!" Tenebre hissed at herself, her hand gripping her own wrist so hard it almost bled and looking ashamedly away from Layla, " I should've never involve a human in this wretched business of mine, i should've just..."

" Now enough with all this ' should've' business!" Layla snapped at Tenebre, " What's done is done, there's nothing we can do to change it, so all we can do now is to continue walking forward to the future, not to dwell on mistakes made in the past."

Her expression softening, she looked away and smiled grimly as if remembering something, " I knew i remembered this from somewhere, who knew it would come so early."

" What do you mean?"

" There's been something i've always wanted to tell you but never really found the right occasion to do so, i guess now would probably be the the best time to." Layla said, " But first, promise me this."

" Once i've passed, i want you to look after Lucy on my behalf, Jude isn't exactly the kind of person to understand the delicacies of raising a child, especially one as special as Lucy. I want you to really become an older sister to her, to guide her and protect her from harm. Can you promise me this?"

Tenebre was shocked by Layla's statement. She wanted the person who cut short her life to take care of her daughter?

" I can't possibly do that Layl..."

Layla gave her a look again,

"...Mom... I'm not worthy! I'm the one that's going to take you away from her in the first place, how on earth is she going to let the cause of her mother's death take care of her?!"

Layla thought for a moment, " Let's change it a little then. I still want you to be there for her, but since you think this way, support her from a distance then. You will not come into contact with her, you can only influence her decision through indirect methods."

" But the moment she turns 18, you are to reveal everything to her, The truth behind my death, the secret behind her heritage and such. By then i'm sure she would've matured into a fine young lady, so she will determine for herself what she wants to do with this knowledge. But regardless of her decision, can you promise me you'd still watch over her? Even if she condemns you? Can you fulfill this selfish wish of mine."

Tenebre was silent as she thought, she then stood up, kneeled in front of Layla and said solemnly with her hand above her heart,

" I promise, and i shall deliver."

Then with a small smile, she said in a much lighter tone, " And a Celestial Mage never breaks her promises."

Layla patted her head, smiling proudly, " That's my girl. Now, about that thing i wanted to tell you earlier on..."

They saw Layla open her mouth, but before they could hear anything come out of it, the scene shifted.

Tenebre turned and looked at the confused faces of Lucy, Natsu, Gray, Erza, Wendy, Happy and Charla, and said,

" I am under no obligation to share the following details to any of you other than Lucy as it is something that is for her ears only. I'm only supposed to impart the knowledge to her when the time comes, but that time is not now."

Tenebre noticed the obvious look of displeasure and confusion on Lucy's face, and quickly added, " Layla apparently thought of me as one of her own, so she imparted the knowledge to me to pass it down to you. but she gave me a specific set of instructions to follow, to as much as i want to tell you know, please bear with me Lucy.", she finished apologetically.

Lucy said nothing, but then Erza took over.

" Hold on, you promised to watch over and to protect her from afar, don't get this the wrong way, but i don't exactly see you doing that, we, Fairy Tail, have been doing that job for you? So isn't that a breach of your promise?"

Tenebre just looked at Erza in a cold and calculative expression, and her voice was just as cold as the ice she was trapped in in the physical world,

" What makes you think that i've been doing nothing for the past few years, Erza-san? I have been doing my best to do what i can to help and protect her, but i have my limits. I would've preferred to be outside this ice to be beside Lucy at all times to protect her though."

" So why didn't you?" Erza bit back.

" Did you think i did not want to? I made a promise, a promise to only protect her from harm indirectly, so do you think i actually wanted Lucy to get hurt? Do you think that it does not hurt to watch my beloved friend's daughter get hurt? Do you?!" Tenebre's voice increased in volume with every word she said, rage evident in her face, " As much as i wanted to be by her side, it'll be too evil to have her mother's murderer frolic happily around her as thought nothing happened!"

The scene changed as she spoke,and i saw her words take form as her memories behind her.

" Do you think i wanted to cause her death?! Everyday i watched over her and Lucy from afar, protecting them from harm in my own way, i couldn't speak to her, much less even to go close to her."

They saw her watch Lucy's younger self and Layla play in the garden while she hid within the shadows of the trees nearby, then disappearing when they went back into the safety of the mansion that already had magical wards created to protect them that were made by her.

" Do you think i wanted to watch my friend give up her magic and to live a life without her beloved spirit friends? Do you think i wanted to watch her die in front of my eyes and watch Lucy cry her heart out in pain due to the loss of her mother?"

The next scene made Lucy turn away her head in pain, turning her back to it and burying her head into Natsu's chest as he covered her ears from her own cries, her high pitched wailing making his chest tightening painfully as they saw her younger self standing in front of her mother's coffin in the rain, brawling her eyes out from Tenebre's point of view in the shadows.

"MOMMA!"

The Tenebre in the scene pressed her hand so hard into the bark of the tree she was hiding on her hand bled at each lie every adult present fed to the devastated blond girl, altering the truth behind her mother's death in an attempt to comfort her and to stop her from crying, standing there in the rain even when the funeral ended, as if standing watch by the grave by some lingering hope that the woman lying in there was still alive.

" Do you think i didn't want to comfort her each time her father ignored her or scolded her when he was too engrossed in his work to care about her? Everyday she grew up, every time she was hurt, i was just so close, but still so far."

" Saying and listening to it might be easy, but protecting people from harm indirectly is not easy. But what could i do? I can't let my actions deprive Lucy of what she needs to know from her mother from me, so i made a decision. To seal myself in unbreakable, unmeltable ice. This way,all i can do to help her can only be done the indirect way. I was the one that placed small coincidences that led Lucy to Fairy Tail, though i only wanted to lead her there, but then Fate has its ways of helping me by making Natsu-san and her meet at Hargeon. With a new family who was sworn to protect every member of their Fairy Tail family, i believed that my job as a protector could be shared with you all and that she would find where she belongs, a family, but it seems like she got into more trouble by being around you people, but Lucy didn't seem mind, so i did nothing. "

Our adventures in her point of view began to play behind her,

" A suicidal S-class quest, i made sure Erza-san here could find a ship that would follow her orders so she could help, a kidnapping by Phantom Lord, i made sure that that dark guild member was left behind for Natsu-san to find Lucy, and the most recent one, the Infinity Castle, i was the one who made sure that group of archaeologists that had connections with your dad hear about your journey for the pieces of the clock."

Tenebre finished, then taking a few breaths to get back her composure and wiping off a few stray tears that escaped from her eyes, she then looked at Erza face, and said,

" So answer me, Erza-san, do you really think i broke my promise?"

Erza seemed pretty overwhelmed by Tenebre's outburst and the onslaught of information she got, but she recovered fast, and replied Tenebre, more on the humbled side when she realized that she'd judged the woman to harshly.

The two simply looked at each other, and had a silent conversation conveyed through their expressions, and soon came to a conclusion. Erza suddenly feeling as if Tenebre would make a great nakama and Fairy Tail mage.

With that out of the way, Tenebre continued.

"I believe i have show you all that there was to be shown to you,"

Tenebre then turned to look at Lucy, " What you chose to do now is up to you, just as Layla instructed, but i have something to ask of you, Lucy."

She kneeled down on one knee in front of her, just like she did to her mother, and said,

" I know that even if you do not want to admit it, you still resent me for being part of the cause that killed your mother, hate me if you want, punish me if you must, but i ask for your forgiveness. It might be shameless of me to ask this of you, considering that i was the indirect cause of your mother's death, but even with this knowledge, i just have to know for myself. Lucy,can you forgive me?

When she finished, she was greeted with silence, and when she looked up, she saw Lucy staring into blank space deep in thought.

Lucy knew she's seen the woman before, but she just couldn't remember from where and when, but after seeing Tenebre's memories, the fuzz that clouded her memories finally cleared, and she finally recognized the face of the lady she called 'Nee-san' when she was young. Back then, she only remembered having a hard time getting Tenebre to open up to her.

But now she had something more important to deal with, although she knew that it wasn't Tenebre's fault that her mother's dead, but the other part of herself wanted to blame Tenebre for it, but she just couldn't. It isn't like her to hate someone.

Especially someone as broken as Tenebre.

Come to think of it, she thought, Tenebre sounds a lot like herself before she entered Fairy Tail, a lonely girl in need of a good hug and the warmth of a family.

Her eyes caught Erza's, and it seemed like they were both thinking about the same thing, or at least something on the same line, and they both sent a silent nod to each other.

With that as the deciding factor, Lucy resolved herself and announced,

"I have made my decision..."

AN : And that's a wrap peeps! HOMG, that latest chapter tho! Poor Sting-kun! I've got strong feeling that Minerva lying to Sting, poor dude, losing his partner, oh well, we'll just have to keep reading to find out! Just like how all of ya would have to keep reading to find out exactly what Layla's secret is and what gonna happen next! ; )

Thank you all for reading, i really enjoy reading all of ya reviews and i swear i start glowing whenever i see that people are reading this fic of mine! I really appreciate it peeps and i hope that ya all would follow me through this journey of ours!

R&R!

Ja Ne!

~KanaeHitomi~