The sound of rain and howling wind echoed within a silent valley shrouded by an unseen tension. A man wandered within, scrutinizing every detail with an almost detached mannerism that refused to yield even a single flaw.

The pouring rain matted down the man's silver hair, and softened the ground, turning it into a slushy mud that reached up into the ankles. Left unattended, the rain and dreary conditions would soon bleed cold into the bones.

The valley was located at the bottom of a cliff, but there was hardly any sign of anyone falling from the top and breaking through the foliage of the forest beneath.

Nothing.

There were no traces, and even if there were, there were none that correlated to a decisive verdict.

A small break in the foliage was where the man focused his efforts, but that only led to an obscure patch of land where the grass was depressed in an odd shape.

This spot was a landing point, but there was no body, nor signs of any animal or person making off with a corpse. It was like whatever was here had just vanished.

There was no way to trace her.

Archer's expression was carefully blank, but those that silently watched him from afar only grew gloomier and gloomier.

-It was the day following Lisanna Straus's funeral.

/-/

Suffering was suffering, but in every instance, it wasn't solely those directly involved that were hurting.

Grief was just that kind of emotion.

Standing at the top of the valley above the cliff, Mirajane and Erza were silently watching Archer's actions below. For once, the two weren't at odds with each other, yet the cause was something neither had ever wished for.

Mirajane sat with her legs pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her thighs. Half her face was hidden with her mouth against her knees, but her misty eyes were still visible above. Her hair was a mess, the unruly locks left unattended, Mirajane not even bothering to tie it all up into a ponytail.

The rain made it difficult to infer whether Mirajane was crying or not, but the redness and the bags under her eyes were more than enough.

Erza was the one in the most awkward position.

Fairy Tail only had a few S-Class Wizards excluding Gildarts, and she was the only one Makarov could rely on for this situation. Laxus was too crass, Archer and Shirou were antagonistic, and Mirajane was a bro-con.

Only she, Erza, had both the strength of an S-Class Wizard and a good enough relationship to persuade Archer and Mirajane from lingering in this depressing valley.

But, really? Would it be that easy?

Lips pursing, Erza felt like the weight of the world was over her shoulders. She knew the Guild was getting ready to mobilize for war, and that as an S-Class, she should be there to ease the burden on her guild mates, but it was the same for Archer and Mirajane.

Makarov and the others worried for them, and Erza wasn't blind as to why.

It was pouring rain and cold wind, and the two were just soaking in it. They were going to get sick…no. That really wasn't what Erza cared about.

Her eyelids quivered, a lump forming in her throat.

Sadness and misery were depressing because of empathy.

"He's still trying." Erza muttered with a sunken mood, her eyes glancing away. She didn't know how much longer she could look and pretend to feel nothing when, aside from the hair color, Archer looked like Shirou. "He hasn't given up on her."

Mirajane flinched, her shoulder trembling at the words.

"...Yeah." Mirajane swallowed audibly, expression warbling. "T-That's how he is. He didn't ever give up on me, so Lisanna would have been the same."

Erza could agree with the statement, but not with the execution. She was too concerned on Archer's behalf to condone his actions when everyone had already tried searching for Lisanna, and still got no results.

All Archer was doing was prolonging the suffering. Could he not see that? Or was he just that stubborn?

In the Tower of Heaven, death was a concept that Erza was familiar with. It was sad, terribly so, but it was utter agony when it happened to someone she cared for. She pictured Jellal, Shirou, or the others dying and then suddenly took a cold breath, and stopped thinking about it. She'd had enough the first time she and the others thought Shirou had died saving them…

Too much empathy was poison.

But false hope was suicide.

Erza hardened her resolve. Makarov had trusted her to snap Archer and Mirajane out of it. The least she could do was try.

"Should we-"

"Don't." Mirajane said sharply, teeth grinding. "He won't listen unless it fully sinks in."

Erza felt like she was dreaming. Did she really hear that right? Mirajane adored Archer to the point that she'd never try to burden him or act harshly even after throwing a tantrum.

Clearing her thoughts, Erza pressed on, not for her sake, but for her guildmates stricken at the sudden loss.

"Then what about you?" Erza pleaded, knowing the truth for what it was. "He'll listen if it's you."

There was truth in that statement. To anyone else, Archer's responses were mechanical. It was only while speaking with Mirajane or Elfman that emotion flickered in Archer's tone.

"It's disgusting." Mirajane gripped her hands so tightly that her knuckles cracked.

"Excuse me?" Erza took a step back, frowning heavily.

Mirajane never bothered to look at Erza and kept her eyes trained forward. "You and I never agreed on anything, and now you think you can decide what I do with myself?"

Bitch. Erza's inner fire roared in challenge. Did it always have to end with an argument with her?

Erza reigned in the impulse to buttheads, but even that bout of irritation was subdued by the overall atmosphere.

"It's not just about you." Erza controlled her voice, but her concern was finally showing. As much as they bickered, everyone was a guildmate. "Archer and Elfman would only-"

"You think I don't know my brothers?!" Mirajane snapped, her gaze craning up and glaring at Erza with misplaced animosity. "Archer hasn't spoken once, and he's constantly scouring this valley on his own! Elfman doesn't rest, and he's putting everything into perfecting his Full-Body Take Over!"

The 'why' on Elfman's part was unnecessary between either of them to explain.

It was for war.

Things may have been different if Lisanna's misfortune wasn't caused by outside interference, but Phantom Lord had been the one to push her over the edge.

Mirajane's complexion was exceedingly dark and twisted with unbridled resentment. "Then there's me! It was my fucking fault, and they're the ones blaming themselves! Archer said he was the one in charge of the mission, but it was me he asked if we could fight on our own! It was me who had been there but hesitated to use more power!"

"..." Erza couldn't speak. The emotion was too raw.

"I was there. If I had just been stronger," unmistakable tears began trickling down Mirajane's eyes as her expression gradually began to twist. "No, if I'd just let it take over more!"

Dark magic energy coalesced over Mirajane's eyes and mixed with her grief. It was a power she'd once thought of as a curse, but now regretted not using when it had mattered. Then so be it. She'd let it run its course.

"So, you bitch just leave us alone! You wait and see! I'll crush them! I'll crush them!"

Erza shuddered.

She'd been wrong.

Mirajane wasn't here in the cold rain lamenting in her grief and misery - she was stewing in her fury as a coping mechanism just as much if not more than Elfman in his self blame.

Erza pursed her lips, but it wasn't as if she herself wasn't angry at the situation.

Just like Rob had said, a guild was a family.

And they'd lost a daughter.


Phantom Lord was a guild that rivaled Fairy Tail, but that in of itself was a smear on its name. Phantom Lord had its roots situated in Magnolia for longer than an upstart guild, but the number of S-Class Mages under Fairy Tail continued to climb while Phantom Lord's stagnated and declined.

For Jose Porla, the situation was unbearable.

Makarov's bragging about Titania, the Oberons, and even his own grandson was the final straw.

Jose had endured it enough when Gildarts' feats echoed through the wizard council and Mage Guilds, but if it was only Gildarts it would have been fine.

The longer Jose waited, the stronger Fairy Tail became, and the more tilted Jose became.

War was something Jose had meticulously planned to the extent of formulating a method to subdue Makarov in an instant. But, recent events rapidly accelerated developments.

"You fools! Now wasn't the time!" Jose smashed the table in front of him, the wood splintering and fragmenting across Phantom Lord's guild hall. "You were only supposed to harass and maim, not kill!"

Numerous people sent out on a harassment mission flinched, but there was nothing they could say in their defense. None of them had intended for things to turn out as they did so soon, and Jose could see no benefit from berating them further.

In the end, he was just frustrated.

"With this, we will have no support from the council." Jose grimaced, pointed eyes pulling up into a sneer, his sclera blackening from shade magic. "Get out!"

Jose had enough of his guild members and sent them down the second floor of the guild hall. He needed to think and come up with any countermeasures.

He was one of Magnolia's Ten Wizard Saints, and word that his guild had killed the mage of another guild was already putting his title on shaky ground. Worse, at the last meeting between wizard guilds, his rocky relation with Makerov had been leaked in full display.

Justification was on Fairy Tail's side rather than Phantom Lord's.

What Jose had to do was create a proper casus-belli to redirect sentiment when Phantom Lord inevitably emerges victorious. Otherwise, even in the event of victory, sentiment would have his guild's growth grounded and debased by bleak future prospects.

Bang!

Jose furrowed his brows, feeling a tremor work through Phantom Lord's guild hall.

BANG!

It wasn't Jose's imagination. It was real.

Guild members lingering in Phantom Lord's castle-like structure hall, all gave pause while a few even stumbled in their steps. Dust trailed down from the ceiling, quietly blown in a current of warm air overhead.

BANG!

All gazes turned to the front of the Guild door, the source of the increasing impacts. Smoke was wafting from beneath, and the hinges appeared to be melting. Fist-shaped deformations were being depressed into the metal door before finally, the lock mechanism could no longer withstand it.

Fire magic immediately permeated the air, rapidly increasing the temperature and forcing several wizards to erect a defense.

Jose stood up and quickly dismissed the fire with a current of shade magic in the form of a wave.

Smoke lingered and created a thin haze at the front of the guild.

A pair of eyes lurked within the smoke, the outline of a dragon taking root from a flame that refused to sputter. The image gradually grew defined, and a pink-haired pre-teen with veins popping over his temples and eyes fierce with grief came within view.

Natsu Dragneel, Fairy Tail's Salamander.

"...You killed her." His voice was utterly distorted in the sheer heat he was releasing, moisture instantly turning into steam.

An air of intimidation stretched out, but upon noticing that Natsu was alone, many Phantom Lord members felt their tension fading.

"A wizard like you dares challenge, Phantom Lord?"

A wizard stepped forward, and faster than the eye could blink, he was sent flying, tumbling over the ground where he smashed directly into a wall.

Flames coated Natsu's entire arm, flickering with ash and embers.

The Iron-Fist of the Fire Dragon.

Silence was ushered through the guild hall.

"You took away their smiles."

Natsu reared back, biceps bulging, expression marred by intense fury. Unnoticed, but scales were forming on his skin and hands.

Though young, he was already demonstrating the potential of an S-Class if not a solid A-Class.

Another promising wizard? Porla's expression hardened.

"You ruined a family." Natsu stepped forward, heedless of any harm to himself.

Despite Natsu's momentum, he was still only one, and it wasn't long before attacks began pouring in from all directions. They battered his body and bones, but nothing hurt as much as his heart.

"You made them cry!"

Gouts of flames erupted outward, burning through the crowd and incapacitating many, but Porla who's face suddenly appeared in front of Natsu who staggered back in surprise.

"And?" Jose drawled with a dark complexion.

Natsu clenched his teeth and didn't hesitate to swing.

"- You're going to pay!"

With you alone?

Jose could no longer stand the impudence. Hubris had a price, and Jose would reap its due.

If it was already war, then it was better to nip it in the bud.

Jose blocked Natsu's attack with one hand covered in shadows, and then leveled his other hand at Natsu's face.

"Dead Wave!"

A beam of spectral magic pushed against Natsu and carried him through the air. Flames rose up in resistance, but Jose would never give them the chance. The shadows swallowed the fire.

Back pressed and cratering the back wall, Natsu coughed out blood as Jose poured more and more magic into his attack, uncaring if Natsu would die. Between one death and two, the difference was already minuscule if Phantom Lord was already under scrutiny. He'll write it off as an accident from an impulsive attack on a Guild Hall-

"Porla!"

A giant fist smashed into Jose's side, depressing his body over it before Jose's form vanished into a black specter, revealing him to be a magic doppelganger.

In Jose's former place, a tiny old man appeared with his expression set in cold stone. At the entrance Natsu had knocked open, Fairy Tail members began to pour in.

"Makerov!" Jose grimaced, suddenly appearing on the other end of the Guild Hall.

Makerov did not answer as jovially as he would have prior. There was a deep seated sorrow in his aged features that didn't suit him.

"You've crossed a line you never should have." Makerov said, golden light shining around him.

Jose's features crumbled before dark magic energy erupted around him. He no longer cared about reputation or cause. The winner would decide it all.

He turned and ran into another part of the guild, Makerov chasing in pursuit, leaving the others behind to fight a Fairy Tail guild member against a Phantom Lord guild member.

In the chaos, Shirou subtly took a passed out Natsu into his hands and retreated from the front lines even as Mirajane and Elfman attacked with an almost maddening sense of vengeance.

Although concerned, Natsu and the other guild members had nothing to do with the reason he was here.

It was to stop someone else from making a mistake.


Lisanna was gone, and Archer finally had no choice but to accept it.

Her magic energy had disappeared, and the lingering mana in the air was too ambient to discern anything substantial.

In this world, he was a brother and S-Class of Fairy Tail, but perhaps that wasn't who he really was.

He'd gone soft, smothered by warm sentiment and lack of death in Fiore that he'd forgotten his roots.

A Dog of Alaya.

A cleaner who'd forsaken his ideals and became a hollow killer.

Here he was free of that life, but the experience still haunted him. No, it was more accurate to say that it shaped him.

Alone in a valley drenched in rain, mechanically, his body carried him forward.

A sword is a weapon that neither feels nor cares for its purpose, rather, it moves to the flow of its wielder. Yet here lies a paradox. Who wielded him in this new world unshackled from Alaya's chains?

It was nothing but himself and the buried emotions that had once again been stirred by useless sentimentality. And yet, for the first time, it made him feel human again.

It was in the middle of a sense of detachment similar to his days as a Counter Guardian that Phantom Lord's guild hall was suddenly in front of him. His body had subconsciously taken him to the place he could sense Elfman and Mirajane's magic energy howling out in sorrow.

The world fell silent around him, the ruthless eyes of a machine growing in prominence.

Right and wrong in this tragedy were already clear as day.

"- I am the Bone of my Sword."


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