Hi guys! So as always, I do not own Fairy Tail. Things are finally starting to be explained, and just to warn you, there is a little bit of intense graphics in this chapter. If you can't handle it, you may want to skip it for right now! Have Fun!
Lucy's POV
The guild halls swung open widely and shouts of mirth bubbled into the summer air. Fellow members were already situated at their tables, richly involved in their usual antics. Cana sat at the bar, happily drinking from her keg, while Mira smiled and waited on tables. Levy was showing Wendy a book, while Gajeel and Lily watched idly nearby. Happy was trying to give Carla a fish, but she refused him as always. Juvia was drooling over Gray who was pretending not to notice her.
Heavy sigh escaped my lips, and I continued to droop my head on the bar counter. Only a few days ago, everything would have appeared normal. But now, there were a few additions to the guild…
Cane had joined Cana with her drinking. Between handing orders of food and drink, Mira would check on her baby. Gale and Leevi were shooting spit balls at Wendy, and Gajeel and Lily had to control them. Jay was trying to propose to Nashi, but she only met his offers with a fist of fire.
Fire… The thought reminded me of last night, and the confusing conflicts that had been aroused. My eyes searched for the dragon slayer, and he was in a dark corner of the guild, moping in same position I was. But even from this far away, I could still feel the onyx eyes lingering on me. Our gazes met, and he quickly looked away. A frown tugged on my lips. Ever since the incident, he had avoided me. I couldn't figure out why, and it bothered me to no end. Last night it had felt like he was going to kiss me, but then he ran away. But why would he want to kiss me? And why for Mavis's sake did I want to know just how it would feel like to finally feel his pressed against me—Ugh! That was the problem! We were friends, and I'm pretty sure he was about to say he didn't like me before he left me. I groaned and tried to ignore my problems as I continued to look around the guild.
From what I could tell, most of the parents had already adjusted to having a new child with them. Evergreen and Elfman were laughing merrily with Ever. Lisanna started playing with Ever's long green hair and had intricately braided back. Master loved the idea of being a great-grandfather, but he was busy speaking with a sullen Laxus. It was obvious he was uncomfortable with it, and he kept eyeing his beautiful takeover mage warily. Scarlet sat alone from everyone, silently picking at her strawberry cheesecake while Erza sat on the opposite end of the guild. Her expression was dark and brooding, and she held a dangerous mood about her. She had been staring out the window ever since we had first arrived, and no one seemed inclined to talk to her just yet.
Nashi sauntered towards me and rested her head on the counter. Laughing that her gesture mirrored mine, I asked why she was so down. "Men are so complicated," she complained, shooting a gaze at the ice mage. He blew her a kiss, and she quivered in disgust. "I don't understand their sex at all. They're completely foreign creatures. At least with Papa, you never seemed to have a problem."
"What do you mean?" I asked, straightening myself. My eyes wandered over to the pinkette in the corner again, and our eyes locked for a few seconds before he turned away. I could almost hear his unintelligible mutterings from here. My frown deepened, and a blush formed on my cheeks. I couldn't even begin to fathom just how Natsu and I finally got to that point in our relationship to have child together.
Nashi leaned back in her chair, and she scratched at her cheek as she recalled, "You and Papa have always gotten along really well as far as everyone in the guild told me. The two of you were completely inseparable, and that was even before you realized you loved him."
The blush on my cheeks deepened, and I mumbled, "I don't know how we ever started to like each other…"
"You wrote it down in a letter to me once," Nashi said. "You said that—"
"All right," a voice boomed from the center of the guild. Conversations fell silent, and everyone averted their attention to the small requip mage in the center of the room. She held her hands on her hips carried herself confidently as she started to point at all of the kids. "It's time," she announced. "I was gracious enough to give you a night, but now it is time to finally start the mission." She nodded at Ever. "It's time to expose yourself."
Ever looked down sadly at her masculine hands and sighed. She nodded once and stood. "I'm sorry Auntie Lis that you worked so hard on my hair, but now I have to undo it." Lisanna only smiled, and Evergreen and Elfman watched carefully as she climbed onto the table. "I told you that I had changed myself before so that I could make Daddy smile again," she said, looking at Evergreen. "But that was only half the truth. I have the ability to change my appearance as a type of takeover magic, but I can also manipulate the appearance of others. With this gift, I was being hunted down, and when our team united, I had to keep myself hidden." She held out her hands. "My real name is Sakura, and this is my true form."
Her body began to manipulate and change and her skin started to shine brightly like a thousand diamonds being hit by a ray of sun. It was blinding, and I covered my eyes to protect myself. The light around her only intensified until finally, it imploded and snapped back into her body. What was then standing on the table was far different than the masculine girl who was there before. This new child was thin and fragile, and her skin was a deep tan like Elfman's. Her eyes were still the same haunting silver, but it was truly her hair that stole my breath. It was as soft as silk and fell in elegant waves down her body to her waist, but it continuously began to fade in and out of a different color of the rainbow just like a rainbow sakura tree.
She grinned beautifully and moved gracefully in circles as she watched the guild eyeing her. "I was born beneath a sakura tree, and at birth, my takeover magic stole some of its ancient power and transformed me into this. I seldom can expose myself for my powers have grown, and in my future, I am constantly being hunted down. In fact, all of us are being chased to the brink of extinction. We children of the future sacrificed much to develop our magic to exceed even our own parents and all for this day so that we may return to the past and correct the mistakes from years ago."
"Mistakes?" Levy asked. Wendy and her pulled each other into a hug, and Leevi and Gale shot jealous looks at the sky dragon slayer for the lack of affection they were receiving.
Scarlet nodded in agreement with Sakura. "Yes. In the future, Earthland outlawed any use of magic and began slaying anyone who dares call themselves a mage on sight."
Gray jumped out of his chair. "Why?" he demanded. "Why would they want to get rid of magic?"
"Because," Jay answered, "those who use magic are considered monsters. They are unnatural creatures and only harm and destroy human lives and towns as much as they possibly can."
"Why would they even think that?" Cana demanded, slamming her mug onto the bar counter.
Cane touched her arm and sighed. "Because it's true."
"That's impossible," Natsu said, suddenly appearing next to me. I cried out in surprise by his sudden proximity, but he ignored me. "We are sworn to protect, not to kill or destroy."
"Honestly, flame brains no room to talk when it came to swearing not to destroy towns, but he has a point," Laxus agreed, speaking from his corner of the room. Him and Master walked towards the bar to be closer and sat on a stool next to where we were. "We are not a heartless dark guild that harms innocent people."
"Actually, there are a few of you who are excluded. They were able to break the curse or at least not fall victim to it," Nashi insisted quietly beside him. "Others simply…didn't make it." Her face fell, despair written everywhere in her expression as she remembered everything, but she held back the tears.
Natsu wrapped his arms around her and pressed her against his chest gently. "It doesn't matter about the curse. We're right here right now, and we'll help you however we can to protect the future." Nashi half sobbed and put her arms around him as her tears finally began to fall. Natsu smiled and met my gaze. I returned his smile, a light blush stroked across my cheeks. My hand rested on Nashi's shoulder, showing her that I also supported her.
Scarlet, however, had other ideas. "No. This curse isn't something to be taken so lightly," she hissed at Natsu. "It's a curse that works almost the same a Nirvana—only much more powerful. Whatever feelings the mage has at the time, it controls them and drives them into a single emotion: blood lust."
Master who was silent until now, snapped his head up. He glared at Scarlet, his mind reeling with outlandish thoughts. He didn't even have to speak for Scarlet to understand him. "That's right, Master Makarov Dreyer. You told me everything I needed to know to persuade you. Though this was originally your plan, I may have had to make some adjustments because of certain rogue partners…" She shot daggers at Nashi who was still being held by Natsu. The fire dragon slayers were afraid of this girl and both hid behind me. Scarlet seemed irritated with them, but decided to ignore them for now.
"Somewhere back sixty years ago when you first took over leadership as the third Master of Fairy Tail, a young girl joined the guild. At first she seemed small, insignificant, and innocent. She didn't appear to have a trace of magical energy, but feeling pity for the girl, you took her in," Scarlet stated to Makarov. "Over the years, she grew into a gentle woman, but her powers still never emerged… at least you didn't think they had. Deciding that she needed experience, you set her up with a team of four to go on a job to Mount Hakobe. It was a simple mission really and four was more than enough to protect her…but the mission still ended in disaster. She was the only one to return to guild, bloodied and battered, screaming hysterically about the mages being torn apart. Upon further investigation, you realized that they had been attacked by a rogue dark guild, and the scene there was…brutal. Fifty soldiers lied in the snow, dismembered, and long dead before you had arrived.
"But that's not the only thing you found in the snow that day. There was still one man left alive from your guild. He used his last amount of energy to relay what had happened that day just before he died in your arms. When you returned to Fairy Tail, you found most of the members seriously wounded, and a blood trail left behind by her. You took what men could still fight and hunted her down to a dark guild. When you arrived, you were bent on destroying every last one of them before you realized that she had possessed them. They attacked, and you tried to dispose of them, but they wouldn't stop. Her magic still casted their bodies at you even when they were unconscious. The only way to stop them, was to kill them all, but you couldn't quite do that either. After you had accidently murdered one of the guild members she was possessing, you realized that she used death magic and deaths only increased her magic power. It soon became a full out war that lasted months, and other guilds had joined in, and the magic council had to get involved. Then finally, you utilized every spell you could, and froze her body and magic in a suspended state and hid it where no one could possibly find it."
Makarov's fists clenched angrily at his sides. "But someone found her," he guessed, swearing.
Scarlet only nodded. "She vowed to take vengeance on every guild in Earthland and wipe out every mage. She fabricated a plan to make guilds turn against each other using possession and death magic to cause enough destruction to make the leaders of Earthland vow to destroy all magic. She started with the destruction of the magic council, and then dark guilds. They started killing towns, and she boosted her power with their deaths. When she finally reached Magnolia, she had a special vendetta to slowly torture each mage individually. We resisted at first, but then one after another, we gave into the darkness. She used our own feelings against us… All of us bear our own scars from her, and all except one of us is now an orphan…There were only a few left before you sent us back master." She saw the foreboding expressions around the guild and sighed heavily. "I'm sorry," she whispered softly.
Makarov began to shake and yelled in fury. His hand grew to an abnormal size, and he punched through a thick wooden column. Small whimpers of fear and sadness echoed throughout the guild, and the children could do nothing to improve their moods. They only sat looking down at the floor, their silence confirmation of Scarlet's story. Natsu was enveloped in thought, but his eyes drifted to me. He looked from me to Nashi, his expression then changing to determination. He nodded then, conveying to me the strength that I needed.
"Then we'll do it!" I shouted, making everyone jump. Bolting to my feet, I opened my arms and looked around. "That's why you were sent back, right? To let us know what is coming so that we can prevent it!" My hands searched for Nashi, and I gripped her hands in mine, as I looked into her deep brown eyes. "I promised myself that I would do everything I could within my power to make up for the time that you had lost in the future." My eyes wandered over the guild, searching for the kids, parents, friends, and families that I knew were here and were always willing to help. "I know that if everyone was given the opportunity to prevent this from happening you'd do it. We won't become the monsters of tomorrow because we will stay here and fight! This is Fairy Tail! We will not fall so easily! So who will join me in my quest to stop her?"
Everyone in the guild jumped to their feet and started shouting in excitement. This was Fairy Tail, dammit! We weren't about to go down without a fight! Sakura, still standing on the table lifted her right hand in the air, her index finger pointed towards the sky in the traditional Fairy Tail symbol. The guild copied her movements, and we started cheering late into the night. We didn't know what would come tomorrow, but we would try to stop it with all of our might.
Master was still enraged, but noticing that he was surrounded by his children, he let a small smile slip through. Laxus even chuckled at him. Scarlet wasn't sure how exactly they were going to kill this mage, but she couldn't argue with all the excitement around her. I laughed as the usual mirth continued, until a warm hand wrapped around my waist. My back was pressed against a firm chest, and a ragged whisper tickled my ear. Natsu was simply thanking me for giving Fairy Tail its spark back, but having him hold me the way he was, I knew he meant something much deeper.
Hmm. I wonder how they are going to defeat her? I guess you'll have to find out next time! Please leave a review so I know how I'm doing! Thanks so much!