ERZA VS AZUMA
Authors Note:
Hey, sorry about the wait. I had exams, then I was away without net for a few weeks, then my computer broke, etc, etc.
Anyways, here's the next one. It's a bit slow, and not extremely graphic, but that is to come. This one is going to last a couple more chapters; I never realized how large of a scene it was until I watched all of the bits to write it accurately. Anyway, there's going to be another wait before the next chapter, but then I'll release a whole bunch all at once :) I already have the end written, just a middle chapter I haven't got to yet. After this one, I'll probably do Erza's fight with cobra and the quick dude, when she gets bitten. I realize that scene was short, but I always did think it was funny how it took (effectively) 3 bad dudes (cobra, his giant cobra, and the quick guy) to take down Erza, while there were two good guys to every other bad guy. And they still had a little trouble, till she went and got herself bitten. So, I think it'll be fun to write.
Cheers, guys, and I hope you enjoy this next installment in the Erza moments series.
Chapter one
"Wendy! Where are you?"
Erza was all alone and walking through dense forest at the base of Tenrou, the giant tree rising from the middle of the island. High roots snaked all round, further diminishing the light that strained through overcast skies and writhing fog. There was a chill in the air, the cold, dry atmosphere that seemed to possess intent, silently screaming of something to come. The world felt like it was charged. Erza was getting worried. She couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible was about to happen, or was happening. She had covered a lot of ground since leaving Juvia at the river, but she had come across no one. She was beginning to wonder if she had been left behind. Or, if she was too late...
"Erza Scarlet, I presume," A deep tenor echoed among the twisting roots. Erza stopped dead in her tracks, ready to ex-quip if necessary.
"Who's there?" Erza look around, trying to identify the source.
Erza spun as a movement caught her eye; melting down from a thick tree branch was a shadowed figure, eyes glinting red in the gloom. He had wavy brown hair that stuck up neatly in all directions, and a tattooed line ran down from his left eyebrow to the middle of his cheek. He wore only pants, muscles starkly defined by the darkness. He had his arms crossed over a broad chest, and was hanging upside down from the waist, the rest of him melding seamlessly into the woody branch.
He eyed her, as though she were some finery he might like to purchase.
"We meet at last. The true warrior, Titania." He stared, seemingly committing every detail to memory. Erza shuffled, waiting for him to continue. He did, almost as an afterthought.
"By the way, I... took care of that little girl." Erza's heart skipped a beat.
"What did you say?"
She was interrupted by a sudden thunder in the air, a trembling of the ground that seemed to call to the skies, resulting in a sudden downpour of rain. Erza felt uneasy, a tightness in her gut as she looked around to see branches and leaves tumbling down about them to splat against the muddy ground.
"This is..." Erza began quietly. This was something huge. The man slipped entirely from the tree to land softly on his feet, taking in the flocks of birds dispersing above their heads.
"So Blue Note's out..." He muttered. Erza looked at him in cautious question.
"This war is over," he said, looking directly in her eyes. "At the end, no life will be left on this island." Erza didn't know what to say. Whatever the trouble was, it had yet to become a danger to her. She returned to their previous conversation.
"You took out Wendy?!" Wendy had been guarded. Mest, Elfman, Mirajane; where had they been?
The man continued, "And not just her alone...All of your friends are most likely being eradicated by my comrades at this very moment." He sounded so certain, so confident. It irritated her.
"Don't be ridiculous," Erza began, sharply swiping her arm adown, "We have people like Natsu and Mirajane on our side. That's not possible." It wasn't . Fairy Tail was strong. They wouldn't lie back and be beaten on their own soil. The man was still eyeing her. It was making her uncomfortable.
"I know nothing of a mage called 'Natsu'..." he smirked, "But if it's the demon, Mirajane, you're talking about, I've already defeated her."
Erza didn't think so. Mirajane wasn't easy to beat. Some of what she thought must have shown on her face. He raised an eyebrow.
"You think I'm lying?"
Erza shrugged noncommittally. "I'll determine with my own eyes whether you're telling the truth or not." Erza Requipped from her swim suit into her armour. She was a little angry about exposing her suits to this kind of whether; rust was hard to remove. The man still watched her. Erza felt her skin crawl when he smiled. There was something off about it. It was a little like that of a hunter as he sighter a deer. She didn't like him smiling that way at her.
"I must be in luck. The demon Mirajane and Titania Erza Scarlet. I'll have destroyed the both of you with my own hands!"
Abruptly, he clenched his hands into fists and threw himself at her.
Erza met him mid air, ex-quipping into her black wing armour to fly back with the power given by the clash of her sword against his block. She then ex-quipped again, slashing duel swords together to send a powerful strike of pressure at him.
She stumbled a little as he leapt back and up, to land surefooted upon a tree branch. Erza straightened and rose her weapon higher, expecting another attack. Erza frowned as he gave a chuckle, crossing his arms as he watched her.
"What's so funny?" Erza asked between gritted teeth.
"I've been waiting for someone strong like you," he smiled at her, his teeth sharp and white against his tanned skin. "This will be fun. I've heard a lot about your bravery and valour," he said. "We're very much alike. Fighting is everything to people like us." He leant his head down in acknowledgment to her. "I fight in the pursuit of those who are strong."
So now he wanted to talk. Erza reequipped back into her normal armour; the black wing costume was hard to wear, and would waste her energy in the brief peace. His words made her frown again, and she shook her head. He couldn't compare them, at least not in their motives for fighting.
"Sorry, but I don't agree. I don't care much about strong people."
The man looked disbelievingly sceptical. "That's not true. If you didn't care, you wouldn't have that kind of strength."
Erza pitied him for his small minded view. "All I need is the power to be able to protect my comrades. So long as I can have the strength to do that, I don't care if I'm weaker than everyone in the world."
The man frowned in surprised disbelief at her reason. Erza controlled her anger and thought over her remark, smiling a small smile. "I'm contradicting myself, aren't I..."
The man straightened his stance to peer at her. His voice was strangely regretful. "You're a strange one. I would've liked to be able to fight you fair and square."
Erza stiffened in shock and quickly checked her surroundings, expecting that she had been surrounded by enemies while he distracted her. Her survey brought no evidence of an ambush. Erza looked in careful askance to the man, who was studying her reaction. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He turned from her to stand at right angles , eyes seeming to see something that she could not view. "It means were out of time."
At his words, the ground began to move underneath them, the whole world seeming to vibrate violently. Erza snapped into a light crouch, muscles tensed for whatever trap he had planned. Sudden movement caught her gaze; something was sneaking up behind her. Yet even as she turned to deal with it, more movements occurred all about her; to the front, over her head, spinning on either side of her.
"What the-?" Erza looked about her, head moving in quick jerks as she tried to follow the multitude of huge branches and vines that had suddenly taken on life of their own. The man had a dreamy grin pasted on his face, and he rose his arms up to encompass the wild wilderness.
"My magic is dendrologic;" he began, his voice husky. " It's the magic of trees, the lost magic, 'Great Tree Arc'." He crossed his muscular arms over his stomach, face twisting in concentration as he prepared. Erza readied her weapon once more, uneasy about this new magic. He abruptly swung his arms back out, and from the wave of his arms billowed a shroud of windy dust which buffeted Erza, making her squeeze her eyes shut against the grit. Her hair billowed upwards in the gust, landing back in a wind-tossed mess.
The man smiled. "These explosions are created by condensing the magic of the earth into the fruit of these trees; but the true power of this magic is rooted in the earth." The shaking of the world got worse. "It controls all the magic power stored within the earth itself."
"Controls the magic power within the Earth?!" Erza muttered, then stumbled ungallantly as heavy, hard roots ripped out of the ground as easy as if it were crepe paper. A pain spread through her knee, which she had used to break her fall;, she winced and grabbed a nearby branch to steady herself and reduce the weight on her limb. She quickly returned her gaze to the tanned man, to see his feet melt into the branch.
"I only had one reason for coming to this island before the others. It was to take control of the magic power of this island," his voice came, seemingly from all directions at once. Erza breathed deeply to calm her racing heart, and focussed her attention on him.
"What are you saying?" she said, panic beginning to build inside her. There was something wrong. Something felt wrong.
Her eyes widened as vines and branches began to wrap around the man, coiling about his arms like a python about the neck of its prey. The world seemed to be falling apart around them, an utter chaos of writhing flora.
The man sounded remorseful as he said, "These are not my intentions or desires. It was an order, so I had no choice." The world stopped shaking, and the chaos around them diminished.
The panic welling in Erza threatened to burst. She clenched her hands, squeezing to release some of her body's tension. She struggled to get the words out, anxiety over what could be happening to her friends making her tongue feel thick.
"W-what did you do, you bastard?" she said as she carefully stood in the calm. She was almost afraid to hear the answer.
Then the world burst apart.
There was a loud thud that Erza first thought to be an explosion; the magnitude of the noise was deafening. The world was once more anarchy. Branches and debris dropped all about as animals screamed in fear, trampling away through the underbrush as though racing from a fire. Birds cawed as they flew up from the canopy. Erza fell against a tree, trying to maintain her recently gained footing. She lost sight of the man in the chaos, the air thick with a rain of leaves. Slowly, the world began to quiet down.
"Master Hades knows well of this islands power," came his voice in the growing silence.
"What?" Erza spun, eyes searching, to see his smirking lips, formed from the bark of one of the greater trees.
aHe blinked at her through his barrier of bark. "The great Tenrou tree that grows from the very centre of this island bestows divine protection upon those bearing the crest of Fairy Tail." He tilted his head, obviously amused that she did not know. "You're protected from losing your lives on this island."
It all began to make sense to Erza. "There's a special power on this island enhancing your magic."
So that's why master chose this island for the exam, Erza thought. She could hardly believe the idea hadn't occurred to her. It seemed so obvious, in hindsight. The test was a dangerous one, after all. Then Erza fully digested the man's words, shock and surprise raising her voice. "And you destroyed the Tenrou tree?!"
He blinked again, the slightest hint of self disapproval in his expression. "That's right. The life protection it afforded Fairy Tail is now lost. I will continue draining the magic power from all of the mages of Fairy Tail."
Erza was stunned. Such a thing was difficult to comprehend. She felt the anger breaking through again. "There's no way... You can't possibly do that...!" Her hand tightened on her sword. She deliberately loosened it. She needed to know more about what was going on. She couldn't afford to lose her temper right now.
It's already done." Again, there was disappointment laced with the satisfaction in his voice, further bewildering Erza. She was beginning to realise that he was disappointed because there would be none left to challenge him. It seemed strange, to her, that this man would be so bent upon combat. "Fairy Tail will be eradicated. But," he paused as his branches wrapped themselves about him, pulling him from within the bark and bringing him down to stand on a branch across from hers, "I'm able to control the islands magic power, and I have not taken yours."
Erza couldn't help a small gasp of surprise. So that was how it was. He wasn't happy with total defeat; he wanted to at least pretend to himself that his win had been earnt, not stolen.
He continued. "Your friends on the island are on the verge of death, and the only one that can save them is you." He arose a hand and beckoned at her condescendingly. "Do you have the power necessary to save your comrades?" He gazed in her eyes, his own sparkling with his dare. His lips pulled up in a half smile that was entirely designed to annoy.
Erza gritted her teeth, and decided to let a little of her heated fury out before she burst and lost all ability to think and plan. "Bastard..." she hissed at him. How dare he put her in such a tight place? All of her friends, on the line. She felt forced to fight. She had no problem engaging with the man, but being forced to do so made the whole idea less appealing, especially since her friend's lives were at stake. She realised her hand was once again white against her sword hilt, but this time she didn't loosen her grip.
His lips pulled back to reveal teeth in his smirk of satisfaction.
"Well then, Titania. Come show me!"