I am such a liar.

To treeofsakuras: Thank you; I'm glad you liked it! And yes, he is. ._. Well, seemed like the best way to start things off. And believe me, I really want to show that, too, but it won't work for what I have planned. As it was shown here, yes, there will be casualties. Who they'll be and where they'll be from is mostly up in the air right now. And NaLu, huh…let me just say that if I had to pick between that and NaYu, I'd pick NaLu. It just makes better sense to me canonically. :P Hope you enjoy this one!

To Guest (March 7): MWAHAHAHA I AM EVIL WITH CLIFFHANGERS! XD I did warn you earlier in the story! You need to start expecting them! XP Anyway, on a serious note, thank you so much for the compliments on this story; I'm really flattered. :) I do my very best! Please enjoy this update!

To Themoonfall (guest): Thank you; I'm glad you think it's awesome! :D I don't know what Hollow Ichigo is like (I never watched/read Bleach), but apparently he's badass. Again I say, awesome! XD

To Guest (March 8): All that will be explored later. And thanks so much for your compliments. :)

To BKR (guest, for ch.2 and ch. 10): And an intriguing idea at that. I haven't thought about doing something like that before…I'll definitely consider doing that later, like a bonus story or something once I finish this one (no guarantees, though). And as for the demon "going into" Natsu, it happens in the prologue (the point where Natsu gets sick). I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough. Rereading my stories is the best way to understand what's happening, though, so if you're confused about something plot-related, reread before asking any questions in the future, because it's possible that you might have missed something. Also, thank you for reading. :)

To Justice Tokidoki: I love you. That's all I can say in response to that review. XD Sometimes I can't tell whether you're praising or criticizing, which is awesome! Thanks so much!

…Wow, this story gets lots of guest reviews. ._.

Ch. 12: Torn In Half

Were you ever in a situation where you thought that things couldn't possibly go any more wrong?

This was one of those times. After the loss of one of our most devoted guildmates, torture on every front, and countless deaths of innocent citizens including the Master as well as the destruction of nearly a third of our country, we didn't think that the situation could get any worse short of total annihilation.

Of course, we hadn't accounted for this. We could do nothing but stare open-mouthed in horror at the image of our closest family member run himself clear through his abdomen with Erza's spear to the point the metal tip of the spear emerged from his back, grinning ecstatically like it was the best day of his life all the while. This visual was so horrible, so backwards, so outright wrong that it was all we could do to register that it had actually happened at all. The moment that we managed to pull ourselves together enough to muster out any type of response, all we could do was yell—we weren't even sure who or what we were directing our reactions to.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Erza cried in bewilderment as she tried in futility to pull away the spear—the demon had a vice grip on it, and it wasn't letting go.

"NATSU!" I screamed in terrified denial.

"You bastard; what the hell do you think you're doing?!" Gray roared in fury, forcing Juvia to pull him back again to avoid hurting himself.

"Are you trying to kill him?!" Sting yelled in disbelief.

"How did he break free?" Yukino cried desperately. "There were three spells that inhibited his movement! He shouldn't have even been able to twitch!"

A single bloody grin from the demon silenced us. "Aw, would you just look at yourselves," it teased. "What's the matter? Can't handle a little joke?"

My mind was so muddled I could barely think straight, but that word caught my attention. "Joke…?" I whispered shakily. "Wh-what kind of…"

"Oh…what can I say?" it said in amusement. "Your determination moved me. I figured it'd be rude of me to make you see that you'd failed to stop me in my tracks after all that hard work." He licked off the blood around his lips. "Consider it a kindness. I suffered a delay to satisfy you, after all, if only for but a moment."

"'Kindness'?"Rogue demanded, surprising me. This was the first time I'd seen him even remotely incensed about anything. "You call that a kindness? After telling us that you've just been playing us?!"

"Honestly, just what is respect to you humans? I don't get your kind at all." It pushed the spear in even further as it spoke.

"Stop it!" I cried.

Erza gritted her teeth. "Curse you, demon! Unhand my weapon this instant!"

She started to struggle again, but abruptly stopped, as if a horrible thought had suddenly struck her. She growled, "You utter fiend…"

"Thought better of it, have you, Titania?" it asked matter-of-factly. "Smart move. You wouldn't want to do too much damage to your friend, right?" It then flashed its superior smile. "And of course, requipping is also out of the equation. You wouldn't want him bleeding to death."

The demon's cruelty knew no bounds. It knew that we didn't want to hurt Natsu's body in fear of causing him pain, and had deliberately played along with our plans before stabbing him straight through the gut with Erza's weapon just to spite us. It had backed us into a corner with no viable way out.

Still, something confused me.

"Wait, this makes no sense," I insisted, catching the demon's attention. "Why'd you make him stab himself like that? You won't have a body anymore if he dies, right?"

It scoffed. "So you've been paying attention, huh? Surprising, considering your lack of mental ability."

"I've got my own bag of surprises," I said evenly, doing my best to ignore its implications. "Now answer my question."

The demon studied me for a bit, as if deciding whether or not to answer. Then it chuckled.

"Well, why not? It's already too late for you to stop." I felt cold hands lock around my heart, but I struggled to keep a straight face as it went on. "Yes, it's true that I wouldn't have a body if he happened to die. But that would only hold true if I still needed his."

Gray was on full guard. "The heck does that mean?" he asked warily. All of his previous gusto was gone. "You're still not making any sense. What do you mean; if you needed him?"

"I never said him," it corrected. "I was talking about his body."

I was confused. Him, not his body? Weren't those two the same thing?

I wasn't the only one confused, apparently, because Sting up and came out with, "Well, they're both still Natsu, right?" with a perplexed expression. "What's the difference?"

The air began pulsating with a strange energy from the moment that last word slipped from Sting's lips. It made me feel nauseous and dizzy, but I managed to stay on my feet. From the way my friends were suddenly stumbling and massaging their foreheads, they felt this unpleasant energy, too.

"What is that?" Erza grunted with difficulty, fighting to keep her balance and keep her grip on her spear. "My coordination is all off…"

Gray spread his feet to widen his stance and maintain balance as he kept Juvia on her feet. "It's probably the demon," he muttered angrily. "Whatever it's doing right now, it's making us all feel sick."

"Ha, aren't you guys lucky!" the demon suddenly proclaimed, pulling our attention back to it. It had that grin on his face again—I was really getting sick of seeing it. "I didn't expect to have an audience for this occasion! Looks like you'll be seeing your friend again in a moment, though I highly doubt that he'll be in one piece!"

We gasped.

"What did it just…?" Juvia breathed disbelievingly.

We didn't have time to deign her with a response, though, because Natsu's body suddenly went slack like a rag doll's. The nauseating ripples of energy didn't go away, though—in fact, they were getting stronger. We only had a moment to take this in because we then saw Natsu's head snap up, glimpsed his torture-worn expression, and heard his unmistakable voice screaming in raw fear and urgency—

"GET AWAY!"

Before we could do so much as twitch, he grabbed the handle of the spear skewering him and forcefully yanked it out, howling and convulsing in pain all the while. Blood sprayed from his gut both ways like a burst water tower, but that wasn't the only thing that came spewing from his insides—something that I could only describe as snaky tendrils of black smoke encircling a small orange orb of sparkling light burst out of a different spot—his chest. It had happened so suddenly that I couldn't get a grip on what had happened until sometime later.

The force of the energy bursting forth from Natsu at that moment was so powerful that it was all we could do to stay on our feet.

"What was that?!" Yukino cried as she shielded her face with her arms. "Something strange just came out of his body!"

"I don't know, and I'm not sure I want to find out!" Rogue said.

The black smoke and ball of light flew straight up and sped to the north—whatever it was, it was going somewhere fast—before we could get a good enough glimpse at it. We had a good idea on what that black smoke could've been—it was the orb of light that confused us.

We didn't bother staring after them, though, and we immediately gathered around Natsu's still form. Blood was still gushing from both wounds so profusely that the puddle reached the toes of my boots. I'd expected his eyes to be wide open and staring at nothing in shock after that horrifying ordeal, but surprisingly, they were closed. He looked deathly pale in the flickering light of the now-smoldering wildfire burning the buildings around us—his skin was bone-white, contrasting sharply with the crimson of his blood, which was especially striking because he was covered in it. His hair, clothes, sandals and scarf were all dotted and streaked in bright and blackened red.

None of us spoke for a brief second. Then Gray asked the big question, "Is he alive?"

Those three words spurred me into action. I ignored the blood caking the soles of my boots and staining my body and clothes, moved in close, lowered my head and pressed my ear against his disturbingly cold chest in search of a heartbeat. For a scary moment, I heard nothing. Then—

Thump-thump…thump-thump…

I almost cried out of sheer relief. He was still alive—but only for the moment. Both his heartbeat and breathing were unsettlingly weak, and if we didn't stop his bleeding immediately, he would die of blood loss even before we managed to get out of the city boundaries. I raised my head and looked to my friends urgently.

"He's still alive," I said, still somewhat breathless from the relief. "But we need to stop his bleeding now if we want to keep it that way." I looked to Gray. "Gray, will you—?"

"You really need to ask?" he interrupted, striding over to me and kneeling down. He was stone-faced as he said, "Hold him up. I'm going to need to seal both sides."

I did so, careful to avoid jostling him too much, and managed to sit him up enough for Gray to get to work. I watched as he pressed his hand against the bloody gash and hole in the front and sealed the wounds with his ice.

Yukino stepped forward. "What do we do now, Miss Lucy?" she asked.

I turned to face her as Gray moved around to get at Natsu's back, and I felt my expression tighten in resolve.

"We need to take him back to the guild," I said firmly. "I'd rather not move him, but he's going to need someone who can keep him alive—and fast."

I turned to Erza. "I'll go with Gray and Juvia and take him back to the guild. You and Sabertooth should go check out what that weird black smoke and bright light were."

Sting stepped forward like he wanted to argue, but Erza held out a hand and stopped him.

"She's right," she said in a business-like manner. "That would be the smart thing to do. We can't leave that unattended to." She then gave me a hard look. "Be safe on the way back. And make sure that Natsu lives."

I nodded with resolve. "We will," I said firmly. "Count on it."

She nodded back once, and turned to the Sabertooth gang. "Let's move," she ordered, and headed off to the north without waiting for a response. Sting, Rogue, and Yukino stared after her, and then looked back at us uneasily.

"Be careful," Sting said at last, looking unusually somber as he took off after the retreating form of Erza. Rogue stared at me, then Natsu, then the burning city before leaving wordlessly. Yukino remained behind.

"Promise that you'll be safe, Miss Lucy," she pleaded. "Promise that you'll save Mr. Natsu's life!"

I smiled to reassure her. "I promise," I said. "Now get going or you'll lose them."

Yukino's lips trembled, and she gave me a quick hug before dashing off after her guildmates.

I let out a shuddering sigh of exhaustion as she disappeared from sight, and stood up shakily. Juvia held onto me like she was afraid I'd fall down again.

"Are you alright, Lucy?" she asked me in worry.

I shook my head. "I'm okay," I said heavily. I looked to Gray, and saw that he'd picked Natsu up off the ground. His arms, hands, and chest were stained in his blood, and he was staring at Natsu's face with a bitter expression.

"I swear," he muttered, his voice quavering slightly, "if this idiot even thinks about dying on us, I'm gonna kill him."

Despite the fatigue, I couldn't help but smile at the rare sight. No matter how these two treated each other, they still cared at the end of the day.

"Come on, guys," I said, turning back the way we came. "Let's take him home."

Being a member of Fairy Tail, I've seen…really strange things during my time here. So it's safe to assume that I have a pretty good measure of what weird actually means after being exposed to this guild.

But I hadn't been ready for what had happened after we got back to the ruined guild hall.

All the guild members present had been both ecstatic and horrorstruck at the sight of Natsu, but Gray had barked at them to give him air and to get back to work, as our crisis was not over with yet just because we'd gotten Natsu back. We headed straight down to the basement, where Wendy, Carla, and Happy were waiting. Master's body was nowhere to be seen, though, and some of the injured had gone, too. I wondered if they'd headed back into the fray, and if they'd buried Master somewhere.

I didn't have time to wonder for long, though, because the minute we entered the basement, the three of them practically flew at us at the sight of Natsu in Gray's arms.

"You brought Natsu back!" Wendy cried as she skidded to a stop in front of us. "I can't believe it!" Her smile was more radiant than I'd seen in a while, and it made me happy to see her look this cheerful after everything that had happened.

Happy flew straight to Natsu and clung tightly to him. He didn't say anything; tears just poured out of his eyes in sheer happiness. Even Carla floated nearby, smiling in relief.

They looked so elated that I couldn't bear to ruin it with reality, but I didn't want them to hold such high false hopes, either.

"Sorry, Wendy, but there's no time to celebrate right now," I said.

She blinked up at me in confusion. "Huh?"

I knelt to meet her eyes and took her shoulders. "Natsu needs your help. If we don't do anything, he'll bleed to death. The ice won't last forever."

Wendy seemed to realize for the first time the state that Natsu was in, and she immediately snapped out of it at the sight of him. "What happened to him?!" she cried frantically, her hands flying up to her mouth in horror.

"I'll explain as you fix him up," I assured her. "I know you must be tired after treating so many wounded, but—"

"No, it's no problem at all!" she insisted, her small hands clamping into fists. "I'll always have the strength to protect my friends! Don't worry; I'll definitely save him no matter what it takes!"

She pointed to the back corner of the basement. "Come this way. We decided to use some of the extra mattresses down here for the patients. Please, lay him down on one of them!"

We followed her to the corner, where a set of three white mattresses were laid side by side, the lids of the barrels and crates at the crown and feet of all three littered with medical supplies. There were makeshift pillows made from empty sackcloth and linen, but there weren't any blankets.

Gray laid him on the nearest mattress, and (after managing to coax Happy off of Natsu so he could be treated properly) Wendy immediately went to work. As she did, I told her everything that had happened, and Gray and Juvia jumped in on occasion and filled in the parts I couldn't remember. By the time we finished, she had washed the worst of the blood off of Natsu's body and had applied clean bandages to the wounds. She looked ready to drop, but she kept on working, using her Sky magic to heal up any nicks or scratches she could find.

"You shouldn't push yourself too hard, child," Carla warned her in concern. "You've already exhausted yourself healing the others."

"I'm fine, Carla," she insisted, not taking her eyes off her work. "I'm almost finished, so have some faith in me, okay?" She looked up to me and Gray. "So what you think you saw come out of him is the demon?"

"That's the only thing it could possibly be," Gray said, disgruntled. "What I don't get is that weird ball of light that came out with it. Is that its heart or something?"

I crossed my arms and mused, "But we didn't attack through the heart…so even if that smoke was the demon, it's probably not dead."

Happy looked up at us fearfully from his spot on the mattress. "What if it's gonna try to possess somebody else? It'll hurt someone else, just like it hurt Natsu and Jellal!"

Juvia held herself. "I don't even want to think about that," she whispered. "It's too horrible."

I rested my chin on my hand; hearing what Happy had said made me think about something. Could it be possible that it went looking for some other person to snatch? It would've made sense, but something didn't add up—the demon itself had told us that it wouldn't have a body if Natsu happened to die, and said that it needed him, not his body. The way it had said that made me wonder if possessing Natsu had only been a step of an even more awful process.

"Hey, Lucy," Gray interrupted my thoughts suddenly. "Your hand—!"

I blinked. "What?" I raised my hands to look at them. They were scratched and covered with Natsu's blood, but I didn't see anything out of the ordinary—until I check the backs of my hands.

"The mark is gone!" I noted in surprise, flipping my hands over several times to make sure it wasn't a trick of the eyes. "W-wait a second—you don't think that maybe—"

"This clinches it," he said eagerly. "That weird smoke had to have been the demon! The mark would still be here if it hadn't been, right?"

"That does make sense," Carla mused. "If the demon had been using Natsu's body and abilities as tools, then…it's possible that its effects have been rendered nil because the spell is no longer drawing from his body once the demon left it."

Wendy smiled hopefully again. "Then that means…we really do have Natsu back!"

The ground suddenly shook like an earthquake, causing small debris to rain down from the ceiling of the basement. It sounded as if something had exploded above us.

"What was that?" I cried apprehensively.

"Probably not anything good!" Gray dashed toward the stairs leading up. "C'mon, Juvia! Let's go check it out!"

"O-of course!" She ran after him, and the disappeared above the stairway.

"Please be careful!" Wendy called after them.

My chest tightened in worry as I stared at the empty staircase. "I hope nothing bad happened to anyone else…"

"Lucy!" Happy cried suddenly, startling us. "Wendy! Look, he's waking up!"

I spun around in shock. He was waking up already? So soon after being skewered by magical spear?

Even so, true to Happy's word, Natsu's eyes were half open by the time I reached his side. He was blinking slowly, and his eyes were glazed and unfocused, as if he was delirious. It wasn't surprising, given what he'd had to endure.

Still, I was so overjoyed to see him awake after going through all that hell that I didn't stop to consider what that meant. Wendy was sobbing so much that she couldn't speak, and Happy had buried his face into his scarf.

"Natsu!" I cried happily, feeling the tears of joy streak down my grimy cheeks. "Thank goodness! You're awake!"

He blinked again, long and slow. His gaze stayed unfocused; he didn't even try to look at any of us. Then, he spoke as if coming out of a trance. "Where is this place?" he asked. His voice was dull and emotionless, which drained some of the excitement out of me. Something wasn't right here.

"We're in the basement of the guild hall," I said carefully. "You were really badly injured, so we brought you here so Wendy could heal you."

At hearing me say the name Wendy, he seemed to wake up a little. He blinked a little more, muttering "Wendy…" to himself, and pushed himself up into a sitting position before we could stop him.

"No, don't push yourself so much!" Wendy pleaded. "You're still really badly hurt; you need to rest!"

Natsu completely ignored her words and the pain in his abdomen, and stared at her in utter fascination as if she was a bug he'd never seen before. "Wendy?" he repeated as he leaned in close to examine her face, sounding somewhat more lucid than before but still slightly slurred.

Wendy yelped and shrunk back in surprise at his sudden close proximity. "U-um…yes?" she squeaked timidly. "Is—is something the matter?"

He ignored her words yet again, continuing to stare at her intently as if he was trying to get a better look at her. Then he abruptly turned to me with the same intense eyes, and it was my turn for a round of yelping and shrinking back.

"Wh-what is it?" I stammered.

It was like he was completely deaf to our questions. He just continued to examine me as if I was a complicated math problem—which was really strange. He blinked again like he was trying to clear his vision, and then he addressed me—this time sounding completely awake and asking a confirmation of me.

"Lucy?" he asked, narrowing his eyes slightly in uncertainty. "You're Lucy, right?"

I started at that question. Did he not recognize me or something? Had the demon tampered with Natsu's memories somehow before bursting out of him?

"W-well—yeah, of course I'm Lucy," I said, feeling a bit unsettled. "Natsu, are you okay? Did you bump your head or something?"

He raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Excuse me?"

This was too weird. He was acting way too formal and polite to be Natsu. What was going on here?

Happy leaped in front of him and cried indignantly, "What's wrong with you, Natsu? Are you saying that you don't remember us?!"

Wendy covered her mouth in horror. "Oh, no…" she gasped. "You mean…?"

"Don't tell me that you've forgotten us!" Carla demanded furiously. "You can't be serious!"

Natsu just seemed to notice Happy and Carla for the first time. He frowned curiously as he lifted Happy up with his hands.

"A talking cat," he observed, bringing him in closer to his face and scrutinizing him in wonder. "Huh. You don't see something like this every day." He set Happy back down next to him onto the mattress as he mused, "So you're named Happy, are you? He sure does have some strange friends."

"Natsu, you're not making any sense!" I said desperately. "What's going on here? Why don't you recognize any of us?!"

He raised his hands in surrender. "Alright, I don't really mean to be rude," he said off-handedly, "but how am I supposed to recognize people I've never met? I was just trying to confirm the identity of this guy's friends"—he jabbed a thumb toward himself—"so excuse me if I've somehow been rude going about it."

That stopped us in our tracks.

"…'This guy'…?" Wendy whispered, sounding frantic. "What…what does that mean? Are you saying…you're not Natsu?"

He scratched his head uncomfortably. "Um, well…it's a tad difficult to explain. The best way I can put it is that…I am him, and…at the same time, I'm not. Kind of." He glanced at us self-consciously. "Does that make any sense to you?"

"Not really," I confessed.

He sighed. "Didn't think so. I guess I'll have to tell you the easy way. I can't keep this body alive forever, after all."

I held up both hands to stop him in his tracks. "Okay, you're seriously freaking me out," I said breathlessly. "You're not making any sort of sense at all. If you're not Natsu, then…then who are you?"

He didn't say anything for a minute, like he was trying to figure out how to answer me. He gingerly fingered the bandages wrapped around his bare chest, carefully avoiding the bloody wounds of his abdomen and observing his fingers very intently like they were the most interesting thing in the world.

Then he spoke up without raising his head. "I'm not anyone," he said simply. "I have no identity. I'm just the part of Natsu's soul that gives him life—with a dash of consciousness mixed in. I keep this body moving, breathing, seeing, exploring…living." He lowered his hands and scoffed softly. "All the things that everyone takes for granted. A pretty obscure part of every soul that rarely gets appreciated."

It was difficult to grasp what he was saying. Part of a soul? Giving life? None of this was familiar to me—or Wendy, judging by her reaction.

"You're…a part of his soul?" Wendy whispered. "But—but how are—?"

"How am I here? That's a good question." He turned to look at me with an expectant gaze. "A question that she has already seen the answers to."

I blinked nervously. "I—I have?"

"Do you remember what you saw back in that burning town?" he asked flatly. "Remember what you saw after this happened to your friend?" He gestured to his bandaged abdomen. "Something emerged from this body. Something important. Think back."

I immediately thought back to the black smoke and the orange ball of light. I understood what he was saying now, but it was really difficult for me to accept.

"You mean that strange light…was Natsu's soul?" I gasped in horror, my hands flying up to my mouth. "No way…! That means that the demon—!"

"I don't know if this will cheer you up or not," he interrupted me, "but the demon didn't quite take all of it."

"What?" Carla gasped. "What in the world does that mean?"

Too many questions were reigning in my head right now for me to figure out which to ask first. Why had it taken Natsu's soul? Why did it wait until now? Why only part of his soul? What was it planning to do with the soul that it'd taken? How could it have done something like that in the first place?

"I know that you must be confused beyond belief right now," he said suddenly, breaking into my thoughts. "I can't tell you everything, but I'll give you the general rundown of what happened. This is important, so listen to what I tell you—very carefully."

In spite of the confusion we all must've felt, I found myself (and everybody else) paying close attention to what he (I wasn't sure whether to call him Natsu or not yet) had to tell us.

And frankly, it made me so angry that I wanted to charge out there that every moment and beat the life out of that horrible demon with my bare hands.

"The demon stole part of his soul in order to create a new, permanent body for itself with it," he explained. "It doesn't need the life force of the soul—the demon already possesses that in itself, so it only tears away what it needs and leaves the body to die with just a scrap of its soul left."

Wendy's eyes teared up at those words. "That's…that's just awful!"

"Definitely," he agreed darkly. "But luckily—or unluckily, if that's how you prefer it—it did a messy job of it this time around."

I tried not to think too hard about the reality that the demon had already done this several times before at the least as I asked, "Wh-what do you mean?"

He turned to me, his eyes somber. "Normally, the demon will break away cleanly from its host soul just so that the life force stays behind," he said. "The body it leaves will be nothing but a vegetable, unable to do anything short of waiting for death. The body can't move without a consciousness, so it won't be able to sustain itself." He then turned his gaze to the cobblestone floor of the basement. "That's where I come in. As you might've heard it say, the demon was pushing the limit in which it could stay in this body—so it was hasty in its separation, and therein lies its mistake." He placed a hand over his heart. "It left a bit of Natsu's conscious behind. That is why I am here, awake and speaking to you."

"No way…" I whispered.

"In brighter news, though, it can't settle into its new form right away. It will take approximately five days until the souls are permanently fixed together in a new body. Until then, it will find a safe haven to merge with that soul without being disturbed." His expression turned bleak. "That being said, if you can't return the other half of his soul to his body and rejoin with me before that time…the one you know as Natsu will be beyond saving—and this body will die. Your friend will no longer be of this world."

I felt horribly sick. I didn't think such a thing could even be possible to exist in this world at all. Not even Tartaros had been this bad.

"H-how can this…I don't even…" I buried my face in my hands in denial. "There's no way…"

"There's just one thing that I simply don't understand," Carla stressed, her brown eyes alight in distress. "In short, you're the life force of Natsu's body that stayed behind when the demon ripped away his consciousness. Part of it was left behind, letting you speak to us." She then pointed at him sharply. "If that's the case, then how do you know so much about this demon in the first place? No consciousness should mean no memory, right?!"

"Carla," Wendy hissed in warning.

"That is exactly why I said that I am Natsu," he said, raising his head and showing a calm yet serious expression, "yet at the same time, I am not. Just as you said, I am the life force of this body—but this is not the only body I keep alive. I am in every living thing in this world. I know of the demon's nature because of this, and neither Natsu nor Jellal were its only victims." His gaze hardened. "Jellal…that man was unbelievably fortunate. Had Natsu not been there to drive away the demon, his soul would have been torn apart." He closed his eyes in a resigned way. "Even so, that simply let it search for a more suitable host. This is just a vicious cycle."

"It's not fair!" I exclaimed abruptly, startling everyone present into silence. I snapped my head up to look at him in desperation. "All this is wrong! All of it! We can't let the demon succeed! We can't let either of you die!"

He blinked. "'Either of you'?" he repeated with a puzzled tone. "I just got done telling you; I'm not—"

"That doesn't matter!" Happy cried all of a sudden, raising a paw in defiance. "Who cares if you're only part of his soul! Natsu is still Natsu! We'll do whatever it takes to save the both of you!"

He looked genuinely shocked at Happy's sudden declaration. His eyes were frozen open in surprise, and he was unable to speak for a good number of seconds. He looked to Wendy, then to me, his expression one of complete disbelief that said, Are you being serious? We both gave him the reassuring smiles that we knew that he was looking for. His lips twitched into a small grin at the sight.

"You people…really are something else," he said quietly. He picked up Happy and held him in a close embrace, resting his hand on his little blue head as he did so. Happy snuggled close to his warmth without any prompting.

"I'm truly honored," it whispered, a single tear streaking down his cheek and his smile still in place. "I feel truly blessed to learn…that Natsu has managed to find such wonderful companions like you."

He stayed that way for a while, his hand on Happy's head and holding him close. After a moment, though, his eyes slid closed, and he slowly began slumping to the side. He would've fallen off of the mattress if Wendy hadn't caught him.

"Natsu!" she cried, holding him up the best she could with her small frame. "Are you alright? What happened?"

Happy clung to Natsu's arm and looked up at his best friend's face in fear. "Is he okay?"

Wendy was struggling to push him back into a proper lying position onto the mattress, so I helped her move him so that he was laying straight again. From the looks of things, he'd passed out—from exhaustion, most likely. If what he'd told us was true, and he really was the part of Natsu's soul that gave his body life, sustaining this body all on his own without the rest of his soul for support had to be taxing on him.

"I'm sure he's fine, Happy," I told him reassuringly. "He just fell asleep."

Happy was silent for a moment, and then he raised his paw and gingerly wiped off the single tear that he'd cried as he'd hugged him.

"We'll definitely save him," he said, not taking his eyes off his best friend as his voice shook with determination. "We won't let Natsu die. Right, Lucy?"

A lump in my throat formed at his words, which brimmed with conviction. Out of all of us, Happy had to be hurting the most at the sight of Natsu like this. He'd been friends with him his entire life. They'd braved many dangers together, and I could see that he was hoping that this wouldn't be the last time that they would do so. Seeing that fortitude show itself—even after all the hardships that he'd had to see his best friend endure—gave me the courage to give him my answer.

I nodded. "Yeah," I said. "Definitely."

I am EVIIIIIIIIIIIL. *brick'd*

You know, for being a chapter I've been really looking forward to writing, it was both super easy and ridiculously hard cranking this out. I think I'm starting to feel the pressure, you guys! *weeps* DX

Anyway…wow. The end result is like a mix between what happens to Sora (and about fifteen billion other characters) in Kingdom Hearts and Alphonse (and at least three other characters) in Fullmetal Alchemist. I really need to watch myself more. I scare me sometimes. Heheh…Jesus, how do I even come up with stuff like this…

Okay, so, Natsu's state of being is…pretty screwed up right now, wouldn't you say? How many of you think that he won't survive to the end? How many of you don't? I'd love to know. (Seriously, I'd like to.)

I hope the info dump here helped you understand at least a little bit. If something is still confusing you, gimme a shout.

Anyway, thanks a million for reading; next update will happen whenever! You're all awesome for being able to tolerate me and this story for this long!