Chapter 34: The Helpful Stranger

"It's been three hours….should someone go check up on him?" Levy asked softly looking up from her phone. The others looked around the room at each other. Not much had been spoken for the past three hours aside from the small comments about the horrific breaking news report they had watched. It had talked about how police had responded to an anonymous call alerting them to an old run down facility called Nirvana. They had arrested the former leader of the Seis, Brain who had changed his appearance and name to Zero. They had also found an unidentified woman who had been killed. It had been a lot to take in, the news report had gone on to suggest that Natsu had been there based on various burn marks in the metal.

"Yeah...I will." Lucy quietly volunteered and rose to her feet, she remembered the state her friend had been in when he walked into the living room, he was beat up, bloody, his clothes were in tatters and his eyes were distant and full of a quiet rage mixed with overwhelming sorrow. She walked over to the bathroom door where she could still hear the shower running from behind it and knocked gently.

"Natsu?..." She called out hesitantly, but received no response. She reached her hand down to the doorknob and attempted to twist it open, but Natsu had locked the door so it was no use. She let out a sigh and knocked on the door again.

"Natsu, it's me...Can you open up?" She asked gently, receiving nothing in response yet again. Gray stood from his chair and waltzed over.

"Here, move…" He muttered and held his hand up to the keyhole on the doorknob, creating a perfect ice key that fit into the hole, and unlocked it. Lucy gave her thanks as he walked back to his seat allowing her to take a shallow breath and twist the handle opening the door slightly before stepping in. She closed the door behind her and walked over to the shower that was still running, ignoring the shredded remains of his Salamander outfit that had been thrown on the tile floor.

"Natsu?" Lucy once again asked standing behind the shower curtain. She heard sniffling coming from the other side of the curtain.

"You've been in here for three hours now, I just wanted to see if everything was okay…" There was yet again no response, but a couple of sniffs. However seconds later the shower was turned off. The curtain was slowly slid across the bar and Lucy felt a twinge of pain in her heart upon seeing Natsu who was sitting on the shower floor, hugging his knees close to his chest. His hair laid flat sticking to his forehead, the cuts and scrapes on his face, chest, and arms were already starting to fade away, but he still looked like crap. Along with that he was also shivering slightly, probably due to the fact that the hot water had run out halfway through his shower leaving him to take a freezing cold shower.

"Oh Natsu…." Lucy frowned and grabbed a towel from the nearby towel rack and wrapped it around him. He looked up at her with a soft expression as she knelt down in front of him and used another towel to wipe away any blood, or dirt that was still on him.

"T-thank...you…" Natsu mumbled quietly, Lucy smiled warmly down at him and ruffled his hair with the towel to dry it off.

"Don't mention it...I was just worried about you." Lucy explained causing Natsu to look down at the ground, his body tensed.

"I'm sorry." He apologized quietly before his body began to shake slightly. Lucy frowned and reached her hand down to his chin, lifting it slightly so that she was looking at her.

"Hey, it's okay….there's no reason to be upset." She spoke softly while moving her hand to stroke his cheek. He closed his eyes and let a few tears shed, before looking back into her chocolate eyes.

"I don't like making you worried…" He whispered, and Lucy slowly leaned forward to wrap her arms around him tightly.

"I was only worried, because I saw what happened on the news….I know you were at Nirvana again….I know how hard it is for you to even think about that place...Let alone be there again….I'm sorry for what happened, it's not your fault. I promise." She felt Natsu stiffen in her grasp, and more tears fell from his eyes.

"Y-You're wrong...everything was my fault...Zero wanted to kill me….not her…..She saved my life….by giving her own…." Natsu sobbed. Lucy's frown deepened as she wiped away his tears.

"Natsu…." She tried to console him, but he just continued sobbing in her arms.

"It's not fair Lucy…..She had a kid….A kid who now doesn't have either of his parents….because of me." By the time he had finished the sentence he had broken down completely in Lucy's arms, the blonde was absolutely heartbroken as she held him tightly and close to her.

"Natsu….it's not your fault….Brain or Zero or whatever he wants to call himself killed her….he's the reason she's gone...not you…"

"...It should have been me…" Natsu whimpered, and Lucy's eyes snapped open.

"What do you mean by that?" She asked shakily, even though she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to hear the answer.

"It should have been me Luce….not Daphne….Now Ignia is all by himself….because of me…."

"That's just not true…."

"Yes it is…...If Igneel had never found me...If he didn't take me in, none of this…..would have happened…." Lucy blinked a few times while she processed what he had just said. His fists curled into tight balls as his body began shaking. He snapped his head up suddenly to look at her, no tears fell from his eyes but there definitely was a look of pure heartbreak and sadness in his eyes.

"If Igneel didn't find me in the woods all those years ago….He never would have left them….I would have died in the woods and everything would have been better…" What followed the sentence that came out of his mouth was a deafening silence as the two just looked each other in the eye. Lucy's orbs wide with shock as she stared at Natsu, locked in a silent battle with their eyes trying to see if he truly meant what he had just said.

"W-what?" She stammered. Natsu just let out a sigh and looked away from her.

"I said that Igneel should never have left his family for me!...Now he and Daphne are dead, because of me!...All because he took me in, he should have just let me die!...Everything would be better off…" Lucy didn't break eye contact from him.

"It should have been me….not Daphne….Zero should have killed me…"

The small bathroom was filled with the echoing sound of Lucy slapping Natsu's face as hard as she could, a large red handprint formed on his cheek. He looked up at her stunned, all the sadness that was in his eyes was gone now, replaced by a look of betrayal. Lucy ignored that, instead of feeling bad about hitting him she just glared at him furiously, her hand throbbed from the force she had smacked Natsu with, but she ignored that as well. She was fuming, Natsu couldn't even bring himself to look her in the eyes opting that the shower floor was a safer option.

"How dare you…" Lucy seethed through her clenched teeth. Natsu knew from past experience that he had messed up, Lucy hardly ever got genuinely mad at him. Not since they were kids at least.

"Lu-"

"No! You don't get to say another word after that! You are such an idiot!...Do you really, and I mean really…mean that? Do you actually think things would be better if you were the one who had died?...I mean honestly Natsu!"

"Luce…." Natsu tried yet again, but another harsh slap awaited him as soon as he dared to look up at her.

"I told you to shut up!...How could you even think of something so stupid?!...None of this is your fault!...You didn't choose to be dropped off in the middle of the woods by your good for nothing parents!...You didn't force Igneel to adopt you! Nor did you kill him! Or Daphne for that matter!...How could you even begin to think that things would be better without you?..." She looked at him hurt while he still refused to look at anything besides the floor of the shower he was in..

"I-...I…..I don't know…." He confessed before letting out a sigh.

"J-just….leave me alone….I just need to be by myself right now." Lucy blinked at him confused, before standing up and turning her back on him furiously.

"Fine...Don't let me get in the way of your brooding ...Clearly I don't mean that much to you anyway if you truly can't see what you dying would do to me….." She stormed towards the door, while Natsu just sat there silently, not bothering to look at her. She reached for the handle and was about to open it before she hesitated.

"...Goodnight Natsu….I hope you are able to figure everything out…." She muttered and stormed out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind her leaving Natsu alone in the bathroom sitting in the shower with nothing but two towels draped around him. He gripped the one that was draped around his shoulders tightly and squeezed it tightly. He was alone once again.

He had walked to school by himself the next morning, Lucy and the others obviously were taking what he said seriously and were giving him space...Almost too much space. It was like they didn't even want to be in the same area as him, take for instance when he walked into the school. Usually Gray and or Erza, sometimes both were waiting for him so that they could walk together and chat while they walked to History class together for the first period. That wasn't the case this morning, so Natsu just flowed through the motions of grabbing what he needed from his locker while depositing what he didn't need, letting out a series of yawns in the process.

"Crap...we had homework." Natsu muttered to himself as he grabbed his stuff for History and noticed the blank sheet of paper that he had forgotten about given everything that had happened last night. He exhaled and closed his locker staring at the sheet of paper in his hands.

"Hey Erza, is it okay if I can borrow your….." He turned his head to his right expecting the taller redhead girl to be standing next to him, but of course she wasn't there.

"...Worksheet?..." He finished his question despite nobody actually being there. He felt a stinging feeling inside his heart. He bowed his head before drifting through the crowded halls, letting yet another yawn escape his lips. If it wasn't obvious by the dark bags under his eyes or the constant yawning Natsu had gotten absolutely no sleep. He just couldn't bring himself to fall asleep, after he got out of the bathroom he had snuck into his bedroom and locked himself inside it the rest of the night while his friends hung out in the living room. He kept replaying the events of what happened last night in his head. He had shed all the tears his body could produce as he thought about how Daphne had thrown him to the ground to take Zero's attack head on. How he caught her lifeless body right before how she had hit the ground, and proceeded to come face to face with the man who had imprisoned and tortured him months ago. Coming as close to death as it comes, and yet he kept avoiding it like a plague.

"Ah good morning Natsu...You're here early!" Natsu's history teacher Mr. Mine exclaimed before placing his unlit cigar into his mouth. This shook Natsu from his thoughts, he looked at him and put a fake grin on his face.

"What can I say, I'm just really excited about learning about how the British lost America to a bunch of scrappy farmers." Natsu joked despite his heart not being in it. He made his way to his seat and fished out his blank homework sheet while his teacher chuckled at his sarcastic joke. He had managed to answer one of the fifteen questions before the bell rang, and the classroom began filling up with students. An excited murmuring coming from them as they conversed about the senior prom which took place tomorrow. Natsu ignored them, all it did was make his already sour mood worse. He wasn't going to go, the night him and Lucy had talked about attending together since Freshman year. He doubted that she even wanted to look at him right now, let alone dance with him. Who knows though, maybe everything will magically go back to normal.

"Pst...hey Natsu…" A voice whispered his name from the desk behind his. He looked up from his paper and noticed Gray, and Erza walked into the classroom neither one of them bothering to send him so much as a glance as they sat at their desks and chatted between each other.

"Hmm? What's up Haru?" He turned his head to look at the boy.

"I'm sorry to hear about Lucy. It's a shame you two didn't work out…"

"What are you talking about?" Natsu raised an eyebrow at the boy who just frowned back at him.

"Oh….so you haven't heard?" Haru nervously scratched the back of his head which raised Natsu's curiosity.

"Heard what?"

"That she is going to go to prom with Dan tomorrow." Natsu's eyes widened, and he turned around in his seat as Mr. Mine began to talk.

"No….I must have missed that…"

"I don't know how, Dan pulled out all the stops in the cafeteria this morning...there was even a banner…" Haru muttered before pulling out his own worksheet.

To say Natsu was not in the best of moods was an understatement, not only had he just found out that Lucy had apparently agreed to be Dan's date to prom tomorrow, but his head was still filled with the events of the night before. On top of everything, why were his friends completely ignoring him?! He was currently sitting at a table alone in the cafeteria wondering why they were acting like he didn't exist. Were they mad at him? Or were they just leaving him alone like he had asked? Even so there is a difference between ignoring someone and leaving them alone. What his friends were doing was just making him feel worse. He looked up from his slice of pizza to find that Lucy was once again sitting with Dan, the two were laughing at something that just happened. At the very same table however were the rest of his friends, Levy, Juvia, Gray, and Erza were all there. This had become pretty normal as of lately though, so Natsu was used to sitting at a table by himself over the past couple of months. Today however it stung just a little bit more, and he couldn't take it. He got up and walked out of the cafeteria, without anyone even realizing he had been there before.

He marched over to his locker and swung it open, grabbing his backpack from inside and slammed it shut, the noise bouncing off the empty halls of the school. Storming off he didn't even bother to look back and notice that the entire population of the cafeteria had heard him slam his locker and were now watching him stomp away. He didn't care if he had made a scene, he just needed to go home, he just wanted to lock himself in his room with Happy and forget about everything. Oh how he wished things could just be normal again, that dream was quickly hit with a reality check as soon as he turned down a hallway with the lights burnt out. His heart beat faster as he walked down the pitch black hallway, he glanced up at the lights in the ceiling and watched as they flickered on and off….reminiscent of how the lights in Nirvana were. He came to a complete stop at that thought and began breathing heavily as an all too familiar laughter filled his ears. His body began to shake as his eyes danced around the hall expecting to see the person who the laughter belonged to. He shut his eyes tightly and held his hands to his ears trying to block out the noise. The second he did this however he was greeted by the most unpleasant memory.

"Look out!" The voice of Daphne yelled in his head right before a blinding green flash of light caused him to snap his eyes open. He fell to his knees as tears escaped his eyes, his breathing was unsteady and harsh. His entire body was shaking uncontrollably as he could only picture the image of Daphne on the cold metal ground as he tried desperately to revive her. He looked around the hall to make sure it was empty before slowly standing to his feet on his shaky legs and sprinted down the hall to the set of double doors at the end. The second he did and was outside he was a victim to the downpour of rain, fitting considering how he felt at the moment in time. He didn't give it a second thought before he was sprinting in the direction of the apartment and wasted no time in entering the building followed by his room the second he was there. He was shivering, because of the length of time he had spent outside in the rain, but he ignored it and changed into dry clothes before throwing himself on the bed. Happy meowed grumpily as Natsu inadvertently had awoken his lazy cat.

"...Why did you leave them dad?..." Natsu whispered as his eyes locked on the shredded remains of his Salamander outfit, the scarf lazily thrown on the ground….The scarf that belonged to Igneel and was made by Daphne. Usually Natsu treated it like the most precious treasure on the planet, but now he didn't know what to think. He idolized his father, he watched him on TV whenever he had a fight and cheered him on even though he couldn't hear him. In his eyes nothing his father ever did was wrong, but this? How could he even begin to justify Igneel's actions? He abandoned his actual family to raise some random kid he found in the woods, he never even tried to reach out to Daphne or Ignia. The more and more Natsu thought about this the only conclusion he came to was that had Igneel left him to die or even just turned him into an orphanage. That way everything would be better right? Igneel and Daphne would still be alive, and Natsu….would have never met Lucy, Gray or Erza...his three closest friends in the world. He never would have learned to control his powers, never would have met Fairy Tail, and all the friends he had made through the organization. He never would have stopped Brain, Erigor, or Laxus from achieving their goals. So maybe things turned out the way they were supposed to? God he was so confused, and all this thinking and loneliness just made him exhausted, so that mixed with the lack of sleep he had the night before led to him passing out and falling into a deep slumber.

"...Natsu?...Are you in there?..." A knock on the door woke Natsu up from his much needed sleep. He looked around the room groggily and picked up his phone to see what time it was.

"Six pm? I slept an entire day away?" Natsu muttered noticing that the date had changed and instead of the Friday afternoon it had been when he fell asleep it was now Saturday evening. He didn't get much time to process that before another knock on the door caught his attention.

"If you're in there Natsu...I just wanted to say….that...umm…." Lucy's voice stammered from the other side, she sounded uneasy, and like she had been crying.

"I just wanted to say….that I know you want to be by yourself right now...and I get that….I really do….I can't imagine what you are going through right now….but I want you to know that you aren't alone….I gave you some space, because that's what I thought you wanted, but I miss you….I really do….I want to be there for you and help you like you have done so many times for me…." She took a shaky breath before continuing, Natsu sat up on his bed and walked over to the door so he could hear her better. He sat down laying his back against it, while Lucy did the same on the other side. He heard her sniff a couple of times indicating that she was indeed crying right now.

"..D-Dan...is going to be here to pick me up for prom in a few minutes…..but….I'm not sure I actually want to go….I feel like he pressured me into saying yes to him, by making it such a big deal…...a-and I-I didn't want to seem like a jerk since he got pretty much the entire school to be there….b-but i-it doesn't feel right….I have only ever imagined dancing with you….I only ever wanted to go to this stupid dance with you…." Natsu looked down at the floor where Happy had begun rubbing against his leg. Lucy took a second to compose yourself.

"I-I really hope you are actually in there….because this would be totally embarrassing if I was just talking to a door…." Lucy joked, and Natsu actually cracked a smile, a small one but a smile nonetheless.

"...I hope you come tonight...I really do….I know that it's probably not going to happen, but I would like to dance with you….just one…..just us, because Natsu….You mean more to me than anything….when you said you had wished you were the one who died...I just couldn't take it and snapped….I'm sorry about that….It's just….ever since my father was arrested, and without my mom here to help...You are all I have left….and the thought of you dying….it would break me….To a point where I don't know if I would ever be the same….I wanted to tell you something….It just never felt like the right time, but now….I just need to get it off my chest." Lucy let out a deep breath she had been holding in, her heart pounding against her chest while Natsu's was equally racing.

"Natsu Dragneel….I love-"

"YO! LU-LU! ARE YOU READY TO GO?!" A loud pounding sound and Dan's voice interrupted whatever it was Lucy was going to say.

"Y-yeah….I'll be there in a second….." Lucy called back standing back up. Natsu swallowed the large lump in his throat.

"Like I said Natsu….I really hope you come…." Lucy muttered before walking away, leaving Natsu alone as he could hear Lucy and Dan loudly converse as they walked out of the apartment. Natsu stood up slowly and grabbed the scarf on the floor. He needed to figure things out, and that's what led him to the cemetery.

A loud crack of thunder followed a quick blue flash that lit up the rainy night sky, since the turn of seasons Magnolia had found itself victim to many Spring thunderstorms. Natsu hated the rain, he always hated the gloomy atmosphere the storms brought about, the way the sun hid behind dark, gray imposing clouds, the deafening sound of each loud thunder crack that came shortly after a blinding blue lightning bolt streaked through the sky. Most of all though, he hated how useless he felt when it rained, it was by no means a secret that water put out fire, his flames were no exception the rain rendered his powers totally useless. Rendered him totally useless. It was fitting now though, the feeling of helplessness and sorrow that filled him were reflected in the way his flames were smothered by the rain. A couple of tears slid down his wet face getting lost in the swarm of rain droplets that pounded down onto him. His fist tightened and he sniffled while looking down at the gravestone that bore his father's name. It's amazing really how one day can change everything you thought you knew about someone. How his very beliefs could be shifted by just one fateful encounter.

All his friends were currently having the times of their lives at prom, graduation was right around the corner, there hadn't been any big city-ending threats he needed to prevent. All in all the last three months since the Nirvana incident had gone by smoothly, but Natsu couldn't find it in his heart to be happy, how could he after all that has happened over the last day. Unknown to him he wasn't alone in the graveyard. He was pretty much unaware of all his surroundings for that matter, all that he was focused on his father's name etched forever in stone marking the place where he laid in the ground forever.

"Another griever? And here I thought I was going to be the only one foolish enough to come here in this weather." A gentle voice shook Natsu out of his thoughts as he turned to face the person who had spoken. They stood a few headstones away and stood under a black umbrella that he held in one hand, a large bouquet of white, and red roses in the other. His long jet black hair laid flat down for the most part except for a few tufts that spiked up at the very top of his head. His large black eyes conveyed the same gloomy emotion that was present in Natsu's own heart. It was clear that this man had been crying similarly to Natsu, he stood at around the same height and build as Natsu. He wore a nice black suit that was fitted to his figure, shiny black shoots on his feet, and a golden locket on a chain wrapped around his neck.

Neither of them would know it until later, but this encounter would set the stage for the end of the world…A chance meeting in a graveyard on a stormy April afternoon, the meeting of a salmon haired teenager, and the black haired man in his late twenties. Their eyes firmly locked on the others, nothing but the sound of the rain falling to the ground, or the thunder in the air could be heard.

Chapter 35: Natsu and Lucy: Part One

I'm evil aren't I? Mwahhahahhaha….sorry XD!

Q: Do you think Natsu and Ignia's paths will ever cross? If so...what do you think will happen?