Chapter Fifteen: Special
Gray's POV
It was only the afternoon going into sunset but I reconsidered and changed my mind so many times, it was ridiculous. The thought of losing Lucy, the only one I would ever love, seemed unbearable but then I thought perhaps it was for the best. And the cycle would repeat again. I tried to concentrate since I was flying Cana back to the guild. She had helped me by coming up with options and reasoned with me. I was glad she didn't sugar-coat anything. All I wanted was to know my options and somehow find a way to keep Lucy in my life. But that might possibly not be an option for me anymore.
"Gray, here's fine," said Cana. I looked down and we were hovering over Fairy Hills, the place that most of the girls of Fairy Tail stayed. I hovered over the back of the place since men weren't allowed here and also because I wouldn't want anyone to think I was an angel come to take them into the next life.
Cana hopped onto the ground. She turned around to talk to me before walking in through a back door, "I hope I helped you Gray, even if just a little bit. I want you to know I'll always be here for you. For whatever you want." She walked away and disappeared as she entered the building.
As she disappeared, I flapped my wings and lifted myself off the ground. Cana did help me and I was grateful to her. I just wished there was some other way to solve the whole problem.
As I neared the plateau, I saw a figure waiting for me with pink hair. It was obvious who he was.
"Natsu?" I said as I landed on the ground, "What are you doing here? Wait, how did you even know this place existed?"
"I had to fly up your little picnic basket for you and Lucy, remember?"
I nearly groaned aloud as I remembered that. The first actual kiss we had of our own will instead of following a script.
"Fine, fair enough. What are you doing here anyway? Training?"
"Actually I want to talk to you," said Natsu.
I raised my eyebrows. Usually any 'talking' we did involved or ended in fist fights and Erza would somehow appear out of nowhere and separate us.
"Are you that bored?" I asked.
"Gray, I'm trying to talk to you," said Natsu, sitting down.
"Fine," I said, making my wings disappeared and sitting down opposite him, "What's up? And why isn't Happy with you?" It was a rare sight to see Natsu without his blue flying companion.
"He's spending time with Charle more and more," said Natsu.
"Oh," I said, "Well, what do you want to talk to me about?"
"Lucy," said Natsu.
"Huh?" I said, confused, and then my instincts clicked in.
Wait, is it possible… He loves Lucy?
"What… about her?" I asked, using every ounce of my strength not to snap at him. If he was implying what I thought he was, I would punch him in the face.
"Have you and Luce got a relationship?" asked Natsu bluntly.
I could never have expected that. I stammered even, I was that surprised, "W-Well, what about it?"
"Lucy's… interesting," said Natsu after he pondered for the right word, "I want to ask her out."
"!" my eyes widened and I could practically feel sick as the words escaped his mouth. My heart was hammering and my brain told me to fight. I realised I was acting like a possessive weirdo but I really couldn't stand the thought of Lucy with someone else and the only solution for my pain was to take it out on somebody else. I launched myself at Natsu, wide-eyed and he only just lifted his arm to block my punch. Still, the force of it caused us to fall on the ground and beat each other up for a while. I kept expecting Erza to appear but she didn't. It was like a street brawl since we didn't use magic, just brute strength.
I managed to give him a punch which made him flinch, allowing me to pin him down, my fist raised to deliver the final blow.
"Why?" I managed to get out. My face had cuts and bruises were on my arms but I had to ask the question, "Why do you want to go out with Lucy?"
"She's interesting," answered Natsu, smiling, "I love her."
"Just because… she's interesting?" I said, glaring. He had no idea how much I loved her. She wasn't interesting, she was beautiful and kind and strong. And yet the best word he could come up to describe her with was 'interesting'?
I raised my fist, nearly overcome by anger. Even if we were best friends in a complicated way, I wanted to punch the daylights out of him right then.
Just as my fist sailed down and nearly made contact with his face, Natsu shouted, "I want to make her happy!"
My fist stopped abruptly and so did my anger. I widened my eyes and surprised sound escaped my lips.
"You want to… make her happy?" I said quietly, getting off him. Natsu sat up and nodded seriously.
"You promise?" I said to make sure. I wanted nothing more than for Lucy to be happy. And Natsu seemed to be the only person who could do that.
"Promise…" said Natsu. It was basically our first real promise since we never did any promises. We usually just let the chips fall where they may. But this time it was more serious since it was Lucy's happiness, something both of us cared extremely for.
"Sure," Natsu finally said, "I promise."
I smiled slightly and turned around, "Yeah. Go… ask her out."
"You sure?" said Natsu, sounding doubtful.
"Yeah."
"OK, thanks," said Natsu. He turned around and jumped down to lower ledges until he reached the ground. When I was sure he was gone, I let the tears begin to fall. I never cried this sadly since IU died. Even the one place which was supposed to be my happy place didn't cheer me up. It just had too many memories now including her. I let my wings unfurl from my back and flew away.
How had everything gotten this complicated? I thought.
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
?'s POV
As Gray left, I stood up from my hiding spot and sighed. Not even a week ago, I would have been happy if Gray had suddenly become available. But now I knew there was only one person for Gray- Lucy.
And he was about to let someone else have her.
I had talked with Cana and roughly knew the situation. I hadn't believed Lucy loved Natsu from the start. She had told me herself that she loved Gray. I just had to go and see what Lucy said in response to Natsu's question. If it was necessary, I would help them.
I leapt down to lower rocks until I reached the ground and walked through the forest I practically knew by heart since I spent so much time here as a child back to town.
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
Lucy's POV
As I entered Magnolia's spacious and well-informed library, I thought about Loke and what he'd said. Were shadows really that hostile? Some shadows would kill a human on sight because we were hated that much? Though I didn't dwell too much on that fact. Every shadow had a good side, I was sure. If I was nice to them instead of hating them like most people, I was sure I could tame the shadows. They were probably just misunderstood.
The librarian looked up from a large stack of books she was stamping and gave me a welcoming nod but allowed me to browse by myself in peace which I was grateful for.
There weren't many people in the library, just a couple of people sitting at desks, reading books and a few looking at books on the shelves.
I passed shelves of non-fiction and fiction books, one large shelf for reference books and a couple of shelves with children's picture books. Finally I reached a shelf with books on magic and history. There was only one person at that shelf besides me. A teenager who looked about the same age as me or a couple years older. I didn't bother him and went to look at the books.
Little metal name-plate like things had the names of different kinds of magic and magic equipment engraved on it: Lacrimas, Dragon Slayer Magic, Lost Magic, Beast Take-Over Magic, Summoning Magic…
I paused and looked at the section where the Summoning Magic name-plate was. It had mostly books on Celestial Spirits and very few on anything else. I picked out a thick-ish book on all kinds of summoning and flicked to the index. Finally I found 'Shadows' there and went to the page. It had general information about shadows but nothing on saying how to summon them.
Nani? I thought, reading the paragraphs over. There was no information about any summoning techniques or anything.
I checked the other books. They all had the same thing, small paragraphs of information and no summoning techniques. I sighed and shut the book, muttering aloud, "Why couldn't Aston be here right now…?"
"Eh?" said the teenager next to me, turning around. I recognised him immediately, "ASTON!"
"Shh!" said Aston, looking over his shoulder as if the librarian would come bustling around the corner and kick us out.
Which she did.
"Ow…" I said, my butt sore when we landed on the stone outside. Aston laughed since he landed on his feet and stuck out a hand to help me up.
"Who knew I would see you here," laughed Aston.
"I live here!" I said, holding his hand as he pulled me up, "You're the one I'm surprised to see here! Where's Retina?"
"We decided to go separate ways," said Aston, "With her goal to find Freya and mine to just travel along and join a guild, we separated but we're keeping in touch. We'll meet up sometime. Besides, since you told me about Fairy Tail, I wanted to see it for myself."
"I see," I said. I looked away sheepishly, "Um… I actually wanted to ask you something."
"Sure, what is it?" said Aston. We began walking towards around town as we talked, going in the direction of the guild.
"It's about the shadows…" I said, "Can you… um, teach me how to summon them?"
Aston raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes. I was prepared to start defending my decision when he ranted on about dangers but surprisingly he didn't.
"No, Lucy, I can't."
"Look," I said, stopped walking, exasperated from all this danger of summoning shadows, "I don't care about all these dangers of shadows, and I want to learn it because it's really important to me. Just, please, Aston."
Aston waited until I was finished, "I can't Lucy. Literally, I can't teach other people how to summon shadows."
"Nani? Why not?" I asked.
"The ability to summon shadows…" explained Aston, "It's something you're born with. You're born with a unique Spirit, different than normal humans that give you the ability to summon and communicate with Shadows. As well as that, you need a great magic power and control to control them. If you have all of these qualities, you are recognised to be a good master or mistress for all of the Shadows and they will obey and respect you. Then, after you have been approved as a good master or mistress, Shadows will then choose you to be their master/mistress. Shadows that like you will choose to follow you and fight for you. And that's that. The most common thing people don't have is the unique Spirit which allows you to summon the Shadows at all. Only very few people are born with it and it can't be taught so I can't teach shadow summoning to you. Or you could end up with the Spirit but no magic power or control so then you have wild shadows that kill you."
"It sounds… like a trial," I said. How could anyone have all of those things? I suddenly respected Aston that bit more.
"Yeah. That's why it's so dangerous," said Aston, "You don't know if you have the Spirit or enough magic power and control so you have to take a very high risk when summoning them with a chance of getting killed. That's why Shadow Summoning Magic is extremely rare because no one wants to take that sort of risk. I just happen to be a lucky one."
"But… Reiki was able to summon shadows," I said.
"I never said the Spirit was necessarily used for good," said Aston, "It doesn't matter how evil you are. As long as the Spirit is in you, Shadows will follow you."
"I thought you said Shadows chose who they wanted to follow," I said, "Who would choose to fight for evil? And I thought Shadows hated humans?"
"I suppose Reiki fed them lies about you guys, making them want to fight you therefore choosing Reiki's side. But now he's dead, they're with me. And the myth about Shadows hating humans came from Shadows killing humans. Shadows killed humans who simply had no control over them so everyone assumed Shadows hated humans."
"So, that's all a myth?" I said.
"Pretty much," shrugged Aston, "So, that's about it about shadows. Basically, you need control, magic power and the Spirit for shadows to respect and obey you if they choose to follow you. If you just summon a Shadow recklessly, it may turn wild and try to kill you. Although…" he walked on ahead, "I have a good feeling about you Lucy. You definitely have the ability to summon Shadows. You just have to awaken the ability. Somehow."
He walked ahead, lifting a hand, "See you."
After he disappeared from view, I started blinking and staring at my hand, I might have the ability to summon shadows…?