AN: So I posted chapter fourteen about half an hour before beginning this note, although, knowing me, you won't be seeing this one for another month. Fun fact: I actually had chapter fourteen done for about three weeks before I finally got around to posting it. Not because I was editing it or anything – I was just being lazy. So, for a minute, I was wondering what I should do for the next chapter. And then I remembered the Christmas special, and I realized that a Crime Sorcière holiday special was a must. I know little to nothing about Christmas myself, being Jewish (our big holidays, the High Holy Days/High Holidays/Days of Awe, take place at the beginning of Tishri, the first month of the civil year and the seventh month of the religious year; it usually coincides with parts of September and October), but I can try to share some holiday spirit, no? As for when this chapter takes place… I don't know. I was going to have this be chapter fifteen, but then I remembered that Thanksgiving is a thing, so this will be chapter sixteen, okay? That's right, I'm going to write the Author's Note for chapter sixteen, and then go start chapter fifteen.
WARNING: Mentioned torture, suicidal thoughts, and a tiny bit of Jeltear
Story the Sixteenth: Sorrow and Joy
It was the twenty-fourth of December, not that that was intentional. The irony was not lost on either Ultear or Merudy. They had both wanted to do this earlier, but it had taken careful planning after a month or so of grieving over the loss of lives that had only just begun to mean something to the two of them. The wounds were still fresh in both their minds, and Merudy had actually started trying to get out of bathing because the water made her cry.
But right now, they needed to focus. Merudy was on guard duty, since Ultear wanted to keep her in as little danger as possible. They had almost no time. Most of the guards were at home with their families, so this was pretty convenient for the two criminals. Merudy leaned against the wall as casually as one could when the slightest slip up could get them killed. Ultear, who was not wearing a cloak, took a deep breath and walked into the prison with a malicious smile planted on her face. Later, when the guards looked through the camera lacrima, they would see this as a kidnapping instead of a rescue mission. Not that they'd care, really. The Council hated Jellal Fernandes with a fiery vengeance, for crimes that he did not even remember committing. Even worse, Ultear was the true mastermind behind said crimes – she'd simply dragged Jellal into it.
Ultear hadn't been expecting him to be in perfect shape, but seeing the harsh truth of how much the Council hated the man she'd pinned her crimes on struck her deeper than she thought it would. Jellal was asleep when she found him, but maybe that was for the best. He lay (sat, really) in his cell, with only his head and right arm on the mattress of his cot. He wore raggedy pants and no shirt. Ultear flinched as she saw the marks on his body – some old and faded, from the torture she'd stumbled upon in the Tower of Heaven, but others fresh and new, from the cruelties of his imprisonment. He had lost weight, she noticed, and it wasn't fair because he couldn't have been in here for more than five or six months.
Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Ultear raised her hand and blew open the entrance to the cell. Almost at the exact same moment, the alarms began to blare and Jellal shot up, fully awake. Wasting no time, Ultear covered his mouth with a cloth, and he, predictably, began to struggle. The drugged cloth and his already poor condition knocked Jellal out pretty quickly. Ultear tossed the cloak she'd brought with her over his emaciated body, and picked him up. It shouldn't have been so easy, she thought as she ran. Jellal had always been physically stronger than her, in part because men had more upper body strength than women, but also because his magic required him to be very fit, whereas hers did not. For her to be able to lift him so easily… he likely had not been allowed to leave his cell at any point during the entirety of his incarceration. If that was indeed the case, Ultear did not want to think of the implications.
Getting out of the prison was ridiculously easy. The only guard that even caught a glimpse of them was clearly drunk, and whatever he yelled at the retreating backs of Ultear and Merudy sounded more like a request for eggnog than anything else. Merudy stopped to catch her breath, but Ultear grabbed her hand and tugged her along. They didn't have time to stop – Jellal could freeze to death if they weren't careful. They ran as quickly as they could, sometimes splitting up and regrouping or randomly changing direction to throw off potential pursuers. They arrived at the cave they were staying in just as Jellal began to stir. Ultear carefully set him down.
"He's smaller than I thought he'd be," Merudy said. "Skinnier, I mean."
"Prison conditions could use some improvement, it seems," Ultear agreed. She knelt down and placed a hand on the young man's forehead. He was warm, but not feverish. She sighed in relief. As she went to pull away, however, a hand latched onto her wrist. Jellal's eyes – somehow green and gold and brown all at once – glared up at her. It would have been more intimidating if he hadn't looked so exhausted.
"Who are you?" he rasped. It sounded like he hadn't spoken much recently. Or, perhaps, the guards had gotten a little too zap-happy.
"I'm Ultear Milkovich," said Ultear Milkovich. "This is my daughter, Merudy."
"You're in a cave," Merudy added. Jellal slowly – painfully slowly, as though every part of his body was aching – pulled himself up to lean against the wall, watching them carefully.
"Why?" he asked. "What am I doing here?"
"We rescued you!" Merudy exclaimed happily.
"Take me back," Jellal said bluntly. Merudy and Ultear stared at him.
"Come again?" asked the Time Mage.
"Take me back," Jellal repeated. "You don't know who you're dealing with. Prison is where I belong." Merudy scratched the back of her head.
"What do we do, Ul?" she whispered. Ultear shrugged.
"We can't take you back to jail," she said, sounding bored. "You'll be executed."
"I deserve it," Jellal muttered. "I'm a monster." The rest of Ultear's heart shattered into a thousand little pieces.
"Merudy, step outside," she said quietly. Merudy glanced between her and the newly freed Jellal and nodded. As soon as her daughter was out of the room, she fell to her knees, head against the floor. "The one who deserves death is me," she said quietly.
"What are you–" Jellal began, but she didn't let him finish.
"Nearly nine years ago, you took Erza Scarlet's place in the Tower of Heaven torture room," she told him. Jellal, who clearly hadn't known this, blinked in surprise. "I– from what I heard, you were in there for days. The guards were complaining because you didn't scream even once. In order to save you, Erza started a rebellion amongst the slaves, but unfortunately for her I got there first. I posed as Zeref, brainwashed you, and forced you to do terrible things. Everything Erza told you that you'd done was really just me pulling the strings. I enslaved your friends. I killed Simon. I'm the one who made Erza cry, all for my selfish desires. I have no words to apologize for what I've done. There's nothing I can say to fix it. Because of me, you're a criminal, your friends hate you, and Erza is gone. If you want to kill me, I understand. All I ask is that you leave Merudy out of it. She's done nothing wrong." Jellal stared at her. She wasn't sure how much of what she'd said had registered with him.
"I don't understand," he whispered. "Why tell me the truth? Why bother breaking me out? What does any of this mean?" Ultear bit her lip.
"It means that I'm the one responsible for the hardship you, Erza, and your friends went through." She stated. "I want to change. I want to make amends for what I've done. I want to go back in time and erase it all, but I can't. My weakness consumed me and I fell into the darkness. My life may not be enough, but if killing me makes you feel better, then I–"
"Being alive is a sign of strength," Jellal said. Ultear looked up. "That's what Erza told me, anyway." He hesitated. "I'm not entirely sure I understand, but I can see that you regret whatever you did. But if you die, won't that girl be sad? I've hurt enough people. I don't need your blood on my hands as well." He looked away. "You should still take me back to prison, though," he said. "Erza won't be happy if she learns I broke out." Ultear felt like she'd been punched in the stomach – it was bad enough that he'd been abused, if not outright tortured, by the prison guards, but for him to not know about the Tenrou Island incident months after it had happened? They were planning to declare the Tenrou team dead in a mere seven weeks, and Jellal didn't even know that they were gone.
"Jellal," she began quietly. "I think there's something you should know."
To his credit, he didn't cry when she told him. He just listened to the story, never interrupting, not even when she started rambling a little, and when she was done he looked up at the roof of the cave without saying anything. Merudy had come back in sometime in the middle of Ultear's story, and Jellal's eyes would occasionally flick towards her when she pitched in about parts of the story Ultear hadn't been there for.
"I see," he said finally. They both hoped he'd say something else, but he kept quiet. He didn't ask to go back to prison, he didn't question some parts of the story that they couldn't fully explain (like how some of the battles had ended), nor did he start yelling at them for their atrocities. He said nothing. And so, they all sat there in silence for nearly an hour, thinking about Gray and Juvia and Erza and Natsu and all the others and wondering exactly what was wrong with the world. Eventually, Jellal spoke. "They aren't dead, though." Merudy's head snapped towards him, her eyes lighting up.
"What do you mean?" the young girl asked hopefully.
"Well, Erza isn't, anyway," Jellal continued. "And if she's alive, the others probably are too."
"How can you tell?" Ultear asked. Jellal shrugged.
"I just know," he said simply. "And she would never let anything happen to the others. Besides, I know Natsu, Gray, and Lucy can take care of themselves. They're stronger than they realize." Ultear nodded hesitantly.
"Yes, but–" she stopped herself before she said anything else.
"What happened to Zeref?" Jellal asked curiously. Merudy shrugged.
"We don't know," she confessed. "I know he got off the island, since he killed Master Hades. We found his body in the airship. He died the same way as Zancrow. It looks like Rusty and Hikaru made it out okay, though." Jellal didn't seem to be paying attention. He had a thoughtful look on his face.
None of them realized it, but it was at that exact moment – the moment that the clock hit midnight, and Christmas Eve became Christmas Day – when Crime Sorcière was truly born. They had fallen, but they would rise from the ashes, reborn. And they would wait for Fairy Tail to return.
AN: Am I the only one who realized that there's a lot Erza didn't tell Jellal? I'm sure it was due to lack of time, but he didn't know he'd done anything good aside from saving Wendy, and… yeah, it's not going to be fun for him to remember that that wasn't him. Again, I don't know a lot about Christmas other than how annoying hearing all those songs on the radio gets, but I hope this got across a little bit of holiday spirit, melancholy or no. Thanks for reading!