Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy's or Tail's therefore I do not own Fairy Tail ;)
Celestial Ties
Chapter 13: The Hidden Loophole
The king sighed as everyone looked at him expectantly.
"My wife ran away to the human world in the middle of the night, knowing fully of the rules," he began with sad eyes, "If I would have had any idea about her wanting to run away I would have told her this beforehand. But she never hinted at it at all or even asked if a loophole existed in the rule."
"So there's a loophole," Loki stated, more than asked, as he walked up to stand behind the group.
Everyone else shushed him viscously and he sweat dropped while waving at them half-heartedly.
"Tell me," Lucy spoke up, "What is the loophole?"
"I have been sworn to secrecy by the Spirit God," the king explained, "The only thing I can tell you is that a loophole does exist. You have to actually find the loophole on your own."
"That's easy Luce!" Natsu smiled hugely, "We'll have you out of here and back home in no time!"
Lucy smiled back, but she didn't think it'd be as "easy" to find as Natsu expected it would be.
"Here is the rule book," her father took a huge book from one of the many shelves in his room and handed it to Lucy, "The rule you're seeking a loophole to is on page number 528. Take this to the library to analyze. Good luck."
With that, he magically forced them out of his study and shut the door.
"Thanks," Lucy whispered towards the closed door. She knew how hard it was for the king to lose someone precious to him again.
"Don't worry," Loki's hands rested on Lucy's shoulder and squeezed them encouragingly, "He wants you to be happy more than he wants himself to be happy. Isn't that how dads are usually like?"
"Thanks Loki," she smiled up at him with teary eyes. She was experiencing something she'd never gotten from her human father: love.
"You two coming or what?" They looked over to see Ezra grinning at them as Natsu made kissy faces to make fun of Lucy.
"K…I…S…S," was the farthest Natsu got with the little song before Lucy took off chasing him, her face flushed with embarrassment.
Somehow, after finally catching Natsu and being shown the way by Virgo, they arrived at the library in only 5 minutes.
They picked a table with enough seats for all of them to sit down and then Lucy opened the book to the desired page.
They decided to let Lucy read it aloud so everyone else could hear it. Sometimes hearing things made it easier to find loopholes than seeing the text was.
"Rule # 623," she began, "No spirit shall be permitted back into the Spirit World if they leave of their own free will. If the spirit is taken forcefully or working for a spirit mage, they will only not be permitted back in if they decide to stay instead of returning. The punishment is death: the leaking of spiritual energy from their bodies until they fade out completely. Any spirit daring enough to not believe in this rule, the price will be your life. "
Everyone silently took it in for a second.
"What if we kidnap Lucy and keep her locked up so she can't return?" Gray pondered.
"We'd never do that to Lucy!" Natsu frowned at Gray, about to hit him for even making the suggestion.
"Plus, even if we did that," Ezra cut in while keeping Natsu from fighting Gray, "Lucy would not be able to keep the thought of returning in her mind forever."
"You're right," Lucy agreed, "I don't think I could even hold that thought for a day. I'd be too happy living back on Earth again."
"As far as I can tell, there are no other loopholes in that rule," Loki looked at Lucy with confusion, "Does it say anything else?"
"Nope that's it."
"Let me see." Lucy handed Loki the book and he placed it down on the table.
"It's spirit ink!" Loki suddenly shouted.
"Yeah, I guess you can call it that since its ink from the Spirit World," Lucy said, not understanding why Loki was so excited.
"No, watch this." Loki put his hand on the book and it started to glow.
"What are you doing?" Lucy asked, wondering if she had the same power.
"I'm feeding the Spirit Ink my own spirit," Loki explained as if it made perfect sense.
The others stared at him dumbly, still not understanding. Loki sighed as he kept his hand glowing.
"Spirit Ink is invisible ink that feeds on spirit. Once it digests enough spirit, the ink will appear in the color blue for only a couple minutes."
"Why isn't it working?" Loki questioned as he took his hand off and no spirit ink had shown up.
"Let me try," Lucy said as she grabbed the book from him. Something inside of her was telling her that she was the only one that could do it.
Lucy put her hand on the space and it started to glow like Loki's had, only a little brighter. In about 30 seconds, she took her hand away to see blue ink appearing.
"Of course," Loki seemed to remember something, "I guess spirit ink made by a royal spirit would need another royal spirit's spirit to show its hidden message."
"However, those who use the secret gate of Aro," Lucy read the blue writing aloud to everyone, "Pass all judgment and this rule will not affect them."
"The secret gate of Aro?" Loki questioned, "I've never heard of that before."
Lucy and Loki looked to the others to see if they had any ideas, but what they saw was a group of people with their mouths dropped open and saucer eyes.
"What's wrong?" Lucy asked, concerned for her friends and also curious as to why they looked so surprised.
"Aro," Gray said in shock.
"We met him today," Natsu continued.
"When we went through a gate we made ourselves to get here," Ezra explained.
After Gray, Natsu, and Ezra had told them all about how they made the gate, Lucy decided to go confront her dad about it.
"Come in," the king welcomed when he saw her at the door. She had decided to go alone since she also had some personal matters to discuss with him.
"We found it," Lucy started, but was cut off by her father.
"And you want to know where it is," he concluded with a sigh, "I can't tell you that either, you have to…"
"To figure it out for myself?" Lucy asked, "Well I think I have."
"What? How?" The king was surprised, he never suspected that she would find it, he just thought that Lucy would feel better living here if she had hope of getting back to the human world one day.
"My friends," she began, "They used their own power to tear a hole into the Spirit World and they told me a guy named Aro came out to talk to them."
"Aro," the king face planted, "He must have disregarded my orders and let your friends in."
"Nope," Lucy smiled a bit, "Apparently they just kicked his butt."
"Now tell me," Lucy frowned, "You knew about this the whole time. Why did you keep it a secret?"
"A long time ago, when I was just a youngster like you," he began his story like any old man would.
"There was a time when spirits freely roamed between the Spirit World and the human world. It was a wonderful time, and we all lived in peace before some of the humans decided they wanted our power. We fought off so many armies after that, each from a different kingdom. It was easy, since they didn't have powers like we did, but finally one day an army of men wearing red armor appeared. They took us completely by surprise. These humans had somehow gotten some of the weak spirits as hostages and drained their spirit power and inserted it into themselves. That's why some humans can use magic; their ancestors were from that red army."
"What about spirit mages?" Lucy asked curiously, "Are their ancestors from that army?"
"Yes," the king's eyes looked gloomy, "They were the ones that made it all the way to me, the young king at that time. Those awful people found the vials of spirit, which held some spirit from each spirit keeping each spirit in line in fear of being controlled by the king, and stole them. We later found that they figured out how to meld the spirit into premade keys, which were later magically decorated when peace was formed again."
"How did you fight against that army then?" Lucy tilted her head waiting for his answer.
"Actually, we lost once they found those vials. They touched each vial and commanded us to stop, which we couldn't disobey. The Spirit God took pity on us and came down from the Celestial heavens," He smiled at the image he remembered of the glowing god, "The god forced all the humans out and sealed the gates that connected the two worlds, putting Aro in charge of guarding them. Even though we were cut off from the human world, the keys they made would summon us there."
"After a few years," the king continued his story, "The humans forgot their hatred for us and stopped looking for the gate to get in. We had to accept that we would be called out by humans and used to fight in battles. I turned this into a way of making our economy better again, since trading with the human world was not allowed anymore, and made it so being a Spirit paid a lot of money. I made spirits believe that being a spirit was not just about being used by humans, but helping them for money."
"That's all," the king looked at Lucy desperately, "Do you still want to go back to that place with those friends of yours that are all descendents of the army that attacked your real home?"
"I'm sorry," Lucy said sincerely, "I know I'm being selfish, but I grew up there, on earth. It's my home and those people are my family."
"I am sorry to hear that," the king frowned, "Once you walk through that gate you will become mortal, but not completely. You won't age and will have to live your life in the shadows once the time comes where people see you're not aging."
"Actually, father," Lucy smiled, "I wasn't thinking of leaving for that long. I know I have a responsibility to fill back here and will agree to come back for one month each year to be trained to be a ruler. Once I'm ready, Loki and I will return and take over the throne for you."
The king was speechless; his daughter was not going to leave him forever, and he now had an heir to the throne again.
"Thank you," he whispered as he enveloped her in a big hug.
"One question," they stopped hugging and she looked at him with a grin, "What kind of souvenirs do you want from the human world?"
AN: Ok so not the last chapter like I planned, I'll do one more, but it'll be just a future type chapter to close up the story. Thanks so much for all your reviews and support!
Coming up: the last chapter! =O
Stay tuned, update will be on Monday! Review please :)
