Chapter 22
Not What I Wanted
11: 25 A.M.
A sword stabbed into the ground, followed by heavy footsteps. Rogue leaned against his sword for support as he trekked across the plateau. I need...a place to hide, he thought. Somewhere to rest.
Like an answer to his request, he spotted a crevice between a pile of rocks. After making sure no one was looking, he slipped into the crack. The inside was large enough for him to move around, and the entrance was small enough to escape notice.
Rogue slumped against the hidden crevice's wall, catching his breath. "Imperial Snow..." He slammed a fist against the wall, ignoring the fact that he might have given away his position. "I swear...I won't let you get away with this!" he growled.
[Let's rewind a bit, shall we? About twenty minutes, okay?]
Crocus Gardens, 11: 05 A.M.
"You guys made her...Imperial Snow made Tiamat," Sherry whispered.
"And that is correct!" A voice boomed overhead, causing the Lamia Scale mages to jolt.
"Wait, that voice!" Sherry exclaimed. His voice was the last thing she heard before she was thrown in here.
"Sasori," her comrade across the room said.
"Lights on, please," Sasori's voice instructed smoothly. The basement was barely lit up, due to poor light maintenance. A spider crept away from the light switch and returned to its nest; standing on the spider web was the gladiator of Imperial Snow.
"Sasori, didn't you go to the games earlier?"
"Relax, little ninja," Sasori assured. "This is just a Thought Projection. See?" His body flickered momentarily, and his arm turned translucent. "My real body's fighting that Celestial Wizard from Fairy Tail. I just wanted to check up on our prisoners."
Next to him, the larger of the two cocoons moved violently. Sasori jumped in surprise, but rested a hand on it. "Easy, girl. It's almost done."
"What's in there, a giant spider?" Sherry asked, creeped out and disgusted.
Sasori chuckled. "Nothing you should be afraid of, really. Why, worried that you'll be eaten?"
"...It's not the larger that bothers me, it's the smaller cocoon," Dobengal stated.
The scorpion glanced at the smaller cocoon glowing with blue light. "Yeah, maybe you should have a reason to worry about that one," he murmured.
"I don't care for a giant spider that Jigumo's raising. I want to know what's in that one." The ninja jerked his head towards the blue cocoon.
"You don't beat around the bush, do you?" Sasori leaned against the giant web. "I suppose you could say it all started with Avian. He was the mastermind behind Tiamat, after all. But the cocoon business—" On cue, the larger cocoon twitched. "—even though it's only recent, might have began a year ago, at least a month after Glacia's demise," he articulated, making his ex-comrade flinch.
~Flashback~
Four figures sat on large pillars in a grand room lit only by candles.
"He's not coming back, is he?" Jigumo asked from the western pillar.
"It takes at least three months for a person to travel that far south," Mizuno's voice said.
"Yes, but knowing Niebel and his devotion to Glacia, he probably decided to stay in Fiore with her," Avian interjected, situated across from Jigumo. "Sasori?" he inquired the man on the highest pillar in the room.
"...He will return. Fate dictates it," Sasori told the others.
Jigumo guffawed. "As if! Wherever Glaciana is, Niebel's never too far."
"You're starting to sound like Nordenburg," Mizuno added.
"...He'll come back," the blue and purple-haired mage restated.
The doors to the pillar room burst open as a small masked figure dragged in what appeared to be a thick ice coffin with the help of a white bear. In his other hand was a doll with white hair.
"...Is there something you want?" Sasori asked the intruder.
"I want..." The masked person looked up at the mages sitting on the pillars. His hand squeezed the doll tightly. "I want revenge," a boy's voice answered. "I want you to bring her back."
"Who?" Jigumo questioned. The intruder placed a hand on the ice coffin. "In there?"
Avian floated down from the pillar, landing beside the ice coffin. "Ice to preserve the body," he murmured. "And inside?" The Imperial Guardian of the East lifted the frozen lid a few inches, slowly lowering it after he saw what was inside. "Princess Glacia..."
"What?" Mizuno jumped down from his pillar to make sure Avian wasn't joking. But when he lifted the coffin lid, he shut it almost immediately. But not all the way; Jigumo's hand kept it from doing so. The spider specialist raised the lid all the way so he could see the occupant.
"No way," he mumbled.
Inside the ice coffin was the lifeless body of Glacia Patin. Her blue dress was tattered and bloodied; her hair was covered in dust and debris; and her heart was replaced by a gaping hole.
The scorpion master remained where he was. "You want revenge—but on who?" Sasori asked from above.
"...Fiore," the person murmured.
It was spoken so quietly, he had trouble catching it. Sasori rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. "What is it that you want?" he asked.
The masked figure looked up to the scorpion master, determination blazing in his blue eyes. "I want Sissy alive again. I want Sissy with me forever."
Jigumo blinked. "Sissy?"
The figure removed his mask and tossed it aside; the mask hit the wall and shattered. "And that is why I've returned," Niebel said.
Sasori put on a poker face, revealing no traces of his satisfaction. "There is a spell in the Book of Zeref that breathes life unto the dead. But it's not a spell that can be perfected easily. We need to practice—"
"I don't care what you need; I only want Sissy beside me forever!" Niebel called up to Sasori.
"Uh, Nieb? You might not wanna yell at—" But Niebel swatted Jigumo's arm away as he continued:
"I could care less about the lives that you have to sacrifice for that spell; the only life I care about is Sissy's!" the second Ice Dragon Slayer yelled, his voice reverbrating around the room. "I hate those cowards in Fiore," he growled. "Who do they think they are?"
Avian reached his hand out to pat Niebel's shoulder, but the younger boy slapped it away. "Niebel—" Avian attempted to comfort.
Sasori applauded, interrupting whatever Avian would have said. "You're right, Niebel." He stepped off his pillar and floated to earth. "The country of Fiore is full of cowards," he agreed. Sasori rested a hand on Niebel's head as he bent down to his level. "So cowardly, they gave up Glacia for peace without a second thought."
The scorpion specialist held out a hand with all the fingers except for the pinky bent. "All right then. As the Imperial Guardian of the West, I'll bring Glacia back for you; but in return, I want one thing."
Niebel tilted his head. "And that is?"
Sasori smirked. "Your absolute loyalty to the guild...as the Imperial Guardian of the North."
"After that, Niebel was ours to command," Sasori said. "I kept my word; the rest of us gathered what we needed to fulfill Niebel's wish: a heart, some blood, and a soul. Of course, Glacia's soul was a bit tricky. It could have been in heaven or hell; but fate decided to make her suffer by having her soul trapped in the royal castle, Mercurius."
"That's where the doll Niebel had at the time came in," he continued, "the doll that you made for Glacia. The same doll that Vóreia conveniently tossed away. We needed a vessel to hold the soul; and what better than a doll version of her?"
The ninja gaped at the gladiator. "You didn't..."
Sasori smirked victoriously. "We did. We perfected the magic from the Book of Zeref! We resurrected Glacia from the dead! She's in this hotel now!"
"That's wonderful...but you only needed three things to bring Glacia back," Sherry interrupted. "And if it wasn't an easy spell—"
"You didn't expect us to run a spell that we had no idea would work at all, did you? We had to—experiment," Sasori said.
The Lamia Scale mages' heads shot up at the scorpion master's words. "The kidnappings," Sherry murmured.
"They were the guinea pigs," the scorpion specialist told them simply. "It took us—what, twenty tries to get it right? Each time we failed—let's just say Serket and Arachne enjoyed some meat. You remember them, don't you?" he added to Dobengal.
"They were lives, for crying out loud! People with families that loved them!" Sherry cried.
"Was one life worth the lives of many?" he asked, ignoring Sasori's question.
"Was peace worth the price of one girl?" Sasori shot back, shutting the prisoners up. "Thought so. But during our test runs, we discovered something interesting: A revived person needed another soul to bond with in order to survive; otherwise they'd only live up to a month. And the younger the second souls were, the longer they would live." The scorpion master rested an elbow on the web structure. "Babies have all their years ahead of them, wouldn't you agree?"
The dead infant we found on the third night, Sherry thought. A man without any blood...and a girl without a heart!
Sasori saw the look on Sherry's face. "Jigumo did a really poor job of disposing the final lab rats, didn't he?" he said to her. "I insisted on having them devoured, but no—he didn't want to fatten his favorite giant spider," he complained. "He tossed them into a lake, and eight months later, they showed up here in Crocus."
"But like he said, Niebel didn't care about the lives that we had to dispose of," Sasori sighed, shrugging of his previous annoyance. "And we're all men of our word, so no harm—"
"I find that hard to believe."
The gladiator swiveled his head towards the ninja; both sets of eyes narrowed dangerously at each other. "Pardon?"
"Don't think I've forgotten what you're capable of, Sasori. You're not a man who would easily agree to a favor, especially not from a child. Not unless it had benefits for you," Dobengal accused.
"Sharp as ever," Sasori praised. "Yeah, there was that...and then there was him," he hissed.
"Him?" Sherry asked. "Who?"
Sasori ignored the Doll Play magician and continued his dialogue. "As I said before, Tiamat was Avian's childhood work. You didn't expect him to let his favorite pet project die, did you? Of course, he knew Tiamat would be too much for Glacia to handle—even if she was a Dragon Slayer. So at the same time he injected Tiamat into Glacia, he also installed a liquified Absorption Lacrima so Avian could easily remove his creation at anytime he deemed fit—even after death."
"Tiamat? But Avian injected TI—" Sherry's words were cut off with a wave of a hand.
"TI-26A8," Sasori interjected. "That's code for 'Tiamat'. Clever, no?"
"So that's one reason," Sherry said, struggling to not only escape her bonds, but to reach the knife her guild mate had slid over to her without Sasori noticing. According to the ex-saber, they were going to act like they were still trapped, but later make a break for it once Sasori was gone. "Then what was the other?"
Sasori snorted in disgust. "Eleven months ago, at the same time we were trying to become a guild of Fiore, we received a request from this snide baron who could really use a shower—"
"The king's advisor?" Sherry wrinkled her nose as if she could already smell the disgusting noble. She winced slightly as she felt the knife tip touch her finger.
"He just happened to find out what we were doing and threatened to report us to the Council, the royal asshole. But he gave us an alternative," he spat. "His wish was to stage a coup d'état and install himself as king of Fiore."
"And he couldn't do that himself?" Dobengal asked.
"Exactly what we said," the Imperial Guardian of the West agreed. "But he told us that he needed a large amount of magic that he could use against the kingdom's Magic Unit and their executors without having to depend on mages himself."
"A coup d'état like that wouldn't go anywhere," Sherry butted in. "The city of Crocus would be in uproar, and with the country's Magic Unit, the baron would be overthrown before he could even sit on the throne."
"Couldn't have said it better. But he added some specific details about the magic he needed." Sasori climbed down from the spider web until he stood just below the cocoons. "Do either of you know how Dragon Lacrima are made?"
The Lamia Scale duo blinked at the abrupt change in topic. What did Dragon Lacrima have to do with a coup d'état?
"No," Sherry answered carefully. "Because the process to create one is so delicate, even the maker goes through trial and error."
Sasori clapped. "Correct again. The Lacrima engineer needs to have a Dragon Slayer during the procedure so that they can harness that power into one Lacrima. Of course, something like that doesn't come with malfunctions. Therefore, that sums up the worst of two ways to create a Dragon Lacrima."
"If that's the worst, then what's the better?" the ninja asked.
The scorpion master rested a hand on the large cocoon. "'To usurp the throne of Fiore from that foolish king, I want a Dragon Lacrima infused with the element of ice,'" he quoted the baron's words. "'And what better magic to overthrow the king with than magic removed from his murderess of a daughter?'"
"You did not..." Sherry grated.
"We did too." Sasori removed the hand on the larger cocoon and motioned to the glowing shell. "As we speak, Glacia's magic is being extracted and will soon be reborn as the most powerful Dragon Lacrima known to man!"
"You had Niebel," Dobengal reminded. "It didn't matter if you used either Glacia or Niebel to make it, but you of all people should have known that Niebel's magic surpasses hers entirely!"
"True, but sometimes you gotta ask yourself, Dobengal: What good is the baby—" Sasori reset his left hand on the cocoon that held Glacia. "—when mother knows best?"
"But after you're done, she won't be able to use magic!" Sherry cried, struggling against the sticky thread. She only needed to cut a bit more and she'd be free.
Sasori sighed tiredly. "And that's one drawback. Worst case scenario, Glacia might not even be alive after the extraction."
"...Sasori-san...what are you saying?" A small voice asked weakly.
The three mages within the room swiveled their heads towards the door, where Niebel stood with a hand on the doorknob. The young Imperial Guardian shook as he came into the basement, fear evident in his childish eyes.
"Niebel..." Sasori said in a tone that carried not a trace of apology.
"Sasori...you said that Sissy would live with me forever!" the boy shouted as tears threatened to spill from his eyes.
"My exact words were that I'd bring Glacia back for you," the scorpion master responded dismissively. "Her magic...and her life were mine to control as I deemed fit."
"But you promised! You swore to me—"
"I swore to you as the Imperial Guardian of the West. However—!" Sasori threw his head back and laughed. "At the time, I was no longer an Imperial Guardian!" he sneered.
While the Ice Dragon Slayer felt the weight of betrayal crashing down on him, teardrops fell one after another as Niebel screamed, "This wasn't what I wanted!"
He charged in to the room, tiny wings forming on the sides of his boots which allowed him to fly up to Sasori. Niebel's foot shot out, but simply passed through Sasori's body. "Don't forget, this is a Thought Projection! You can't touch me!"
"Now!" Dobengal yelled.
Her bonds weakened, Sherry freed herself from the spider thread and got up, dusting herself off.
Realizing that attacking the Thought Projection was pointless, Niebel assaulted the spider web in order to knock the cocoons off. "Hey, stop that!" Sasori's Thought Projection exclaimed as the strands that held the larger cocoon in place snapped. It plummeted to the floor and unravelled, leaving a pile of spider thread behind.
Niebel flew down to the thread pile and hurriedly brushed the sticky strings away. The others in the room watched as his hands uncovered strands that were finer and brighter than the spider silk. Pure white strands, in fact.
Niebel clawed at the sticky material and tossed it aside, unearthing a teenage girl with long white hair in a tattered blue dress.
"Glacia..." The ninja couldn't believe how much his former friend grew up from her child appearance.
"Sissy!" Niebel cried, brushing the girl's hair out of her eyes. But he recoiled when his hand passed over her left eye.
Even from a distance, the Lamia Scale mages winced at the bloodied mess that was now Glacia's left eye.
"Oh, that!" Sasori's Thought Projection flickered in and out of life. "I tried to go easy on her but when I handed her over to Jigumo—oh boy, that guy knows no bounds, does he?" he snickered. "Wanna ask Jigumo how melodious her screams were?"
"Sasori!" Dobengal scolded as the Thought Projection vanished.
"That guy's sick," Sherry said in disgust. "How can he enjoy someone else's pain?"
Without warning, a translucent blue specter passed through the walls and entered the basement. Sherry jumped as the wisp floated over to Glacia, hovering over her body. Niebel looked up in time to see the wisp enter the still body.
"Um...uh..." The remaining people in the basement looked at Glacia, who began to stir. "Niebel..." she mumbled, her right eye looking up at her adopted younger brother.
"Sissy, it's okay," he reassured. "We're going to be all right."
"Wait..." Her whole body shook as she pushed herself off the floor. "You mean...I'm alive?"
"Yeah!"
Upon hearing his response, Glacia immediately pushed herself away from Niebel. "St-stay away from me!" she pleaded, crawling backwards.
"Sissy—"
"Why did you bring me back?" Glacia whispered as tears flooded her eyes. She lowered her head so that her hair veiled her face. "Why would you want me back?"
"But Sissy, I wanted you back because I love you!" Niebel exclaimed, reaching for her weak hands. "Everything the Imperial Guardians did—everything I did was for you!"
Glacia swatted Niebel's hands away, much to his injury. "No, it wasn't for me! You only thought about yourself! If you loved me at all, you would have buried me after you found my body! I wanted to remain dead—I never wanted to come back to this world at all!" she cried.