One Month Later

Things were slowly coming back to normal. After several near-death fights, Laxus and Jellal managed to patch up with each other, and the duo had become considerably louder.

Erza was considerably happier after he came back. It was ridiculously obvious, but everyone, especially Mirajane felt at ease on seeing the smile return to the scarlet-haired mage's face.

That day, however, was different. Jellal was out on a recon mission with Crime Sorciere and had mentioned that the mission would not go beyond three days, and he promised he would not be alone. Meredy would be with him, and that was enough for Erza. The pinked-haired girl was viciously protective of her older brother-like figure, and she was confident that Meredy would kill without hesitation if Jellal was in danger.

However, three days turned into six and it was about to turn into a week. Her telepathic connection with Jellal was intact, and he did not seem to be in danger. But each time she would try to connect with him, to see if he was fine, she felt the rays of a hundred suns burn inside her mind.

Forget long conversations! Erza could not ask him a single question without fainting due to the sheer force it dealt. The only conclusion she could arrive at was that Jellal's emotions must have been running amok.

"Should I go and search for him?", she asked Mirajane, as she clenched her lacrima phone in desperation.

"Where will you go, Erza? Do you know where they went? Do you know who they are facing? What if you step in and disrupt their plans?"

Erza had no response as Mirajane fired questions. Each question spread into different scenarios and the Takeover mage realised she was making matters worse for her friend.

"Your boyfriend is not that weak, you idiot", she chided as she flicked Erza's forehead.

"I know he isn't weak. But...he can a stubborn idiot, and he won't listen to anyone else but himself at those moments"

"Those moments remind me of a certain someone with red hair", she chided and Erza shot up with a glare.

"Fuck you!", she roared in response and slammed her fists on the table leaving Mirajane in hysterics.

"That's it! If he doesn't drop by my house or the guild by tonight, I'm going out to search for him!", she snapped, completely disregarding her previous statement, causing Mirajane to roll her eyes in disappointment.

"I would have better chances in convincing a dog to stop barking than making you listen to me"

The white-haired barmaid sighed and got up, losing interest in the conversation and Erza grabbed her forearm.

"Yeah, like Jellal is suddenly going to burst through the door right-"

SLAM

She had to eat her words at the very moment. With blood smeared over his face like a barbarian, the Meteor mage entered the guild before letting out a loud sigh.

"Leaving turned out to be far more difficult than I had presumed it to be", he explained.

Meredy appeared behind him and she was visibly shaking. Her hands shivered worse than those of an old woman in the worst time of winter and she looked at her guild master in fear. The cerulean-haired male sauntered towards his better half and stroked her cheek, while the latter was far too stunned to respond in any fashion.

"You must have worried a lot. I tried to signal you many times, but...things started to go out of hand. They could have made their way down to Magnolia. They don't...I mean didn't...hold a candle to your strength, but what if they target civilians? I have enough blood on my hands already, do I not?"

With a pleasant smile that juxtaposed itself against the mild yet vicious demonic aura that surrounded him, he tucked her hair behind her right ear.

"I missed this face...a...lot"

Jellal's voice started to drawl and through the blood, Erza could see him struggle to keep his eyes open. Brushing it off with a smile, he grabbed onto her waist and kissed the top of her head.

His grip around her loosened and she grabbed onto his arm, forcing him to sit down on the bench, right next to her.

"Well...time is up", he mumbled and collapsed into her shoulder.

"J..Jellal!"

Erza's hand instantly shot up to catch his face. He was knocked out cold and if Erza couldn't feel his body heaving rhythmically to his breath, she would have turned the entire guild upside down. She cupped his cheek and leaned her head on top of his, pursing her lips thinking of what that stupid man of hers went through again.

"Finally...he has calmed down"

All eyes turned towards Meredy who dropped to the ground, sighing in relief.

"What happened to Jellal?", Laxus asked, arriving at the right moment. The Lightning mage had just returned from a private quest and frowned on seeing his best friend covered in blood...yet again.

All eyes shifted towards Meredy who gradually sat down, hugging her knees together.

"I...It was nothing spectacular at first. It was a dark guild - one that focused on necromancy. They thrived on killing and torturing the people in the nearby towns and villages"

True to her words, there was nothing out of normalcy in Meredy's statement. Dark guilds functioned primarily on murder, kidnapping, shakedowns, and a variety of other crimes that involved ruining the lives of common folk.

"But we could not barge in and wreak havoc like we planned to do so. Midnight observed that they had hostages and were planning to sacrifice them one by one in an elaborate affair. Most of these brutes don't bother with the time and focus on destruction without efficient planning"

Meredy's elucidation only made it worse for Erza. Knowing Jellal, he would do anything he could to protect a person's life, even if he would lose his own in the process.

"Jellal decided to go and act as a Trojan horse. Mowing down some isolated members and a few watch guards, he...merged into the sea of prisoners"

With his vibrant hair, it was obvious that Jellal would definitely stand out, and based on Meredy's expression, it looked like he did. Erza assumed that he was next in line as the sacrificial lamb and her mind wandered in various directions, each thought process writing its own crime novel.

At that moment, Jellal mumbled through his sleep and dropped down to her thighs. She scooted over to the side and placed his legs on the bench to fix his posture. That subtle smile and the soft hint of pink dusting her cheeks did not go unnoticed by Mirajane who flashed Erza her signature smile. Oh, how she LOATHED that annoyingly condescending smile with a passion.

"Shut up", she hissed and stroked Jellal's hair and chest, cursing the Takeover mage. Meredy, on the other hand, looked at the two women incredulously, wondering how they could bicker at the moment when a significantly powerful mage literally collapsed in front of them while coated in blood.

"Moving on...", she began, attracting the loud guild's attention once again.

"Jellal stepped in next. He would never have let us do this, but we could not risk having everyone killed, just for the sake of saving one or two. What if the guild had some kind of secret dark magic that had endless potential? Midnight and I chose to hide it from him...and we were right in doing so. From what Midnight told me, they would drag a person to a sacrificial altar, and the guild's priest would place her hand on top of the victim's head for a few seconds before torturing and murdering them. We did not know what the priest would do, and the victims did not behave in any different manner, so...we assumed it was simple hogwash"

It was understandable. They did not have a definite conclusion, and it would be unfair to let any more civilians die because of this stupidity, and Jellal chose to rush in. The guilt of killing Simon still appeared to eat at his heart, and Erza sighed in realisation. She did not have to listen to the rest of the story as it was painfully obvious.

The priest would have placed their hand on Jellal's head and the man would have killed the priest on the spot. But the guild should have had a trump card, and defeating them took the entire three extra days. Perhaps seeing the corpses lit a fire in Jellal and that may have been the reason behind the insatiable rage she felt when she tried to connect with him telepathically.

"We could not have been any more wrong. The priest could read everyone's memories...from the moment they were born to the moment the priest placed her hand on the victim. Jellal...learned it the hard way"

Everyone grew silent. Was it comprehensible to possess magic of such prowess? Everyone's deepest secrets would be open to the priest. What if they had managed to capture someone important? The entire system could be overhauled by capturing ONE soldier.

"Jellal screamed for everyone to run. We have seen him angry before, but that...was definitely not the man I know. He tore through his restraints and strangled the priest. The worst thing is that the priest never bothered to defend herself. From what I could see, she smiled and the whole structure collapsed. One man came out from the rubble. His aura - it was at least thrice as strong as Jellal's. I was outside and at a considerable distance from the two of them, but I found it difficult to breathe. I am used to strong aurae. Jellal's aura is more like..."

"Protective, and somewhat regretful - even those feelings can be felt only if you are strong enough to feel them. Otherwise, it might feel like the sir had turned into coal and you are choking. But even at the angriest I have seen him, his aura never turned murderous", Erza filled in for Meredy and the latter agreed with no hesitation.

"They started to fight it out, and Jellal was outclassed. There was no surprise there. His magic could not dent his skin, and Dark magic was useless against him. The other man did not bother to try attacking him, and when Jellal gave almost everything he had into one attack, he tore open the man's stomach.

It took less than a second for him to heal. The next time, he managed to behead him, and he healed again. None of us could help either. We were just...dead weight. As much as we tried to help, we could not stand up without feeling like we were being waterboarded"

Debates started to break out. Each one started to put out possibilities of the man having survived, or someone else in the background pulling his strings. Meredy could definitely understand. The rest of Crime Sorciere was out there, spying and hunting for information.

"Since the priest transferred her memories to him before her death, he knew everything about Jellal, and he was being too careful. The man...he decided to rile him up and...he brought out Erza-san"

"What do you mean by...brought me out?", Erza asked as she saw Meredy's hands beginning to shiver once again.

"He caught Jellal by the neck and began to choke him. He...started to speak graphically about his intentions towards you"

A vain tactic yet again. A good amount of the men Erza defeated would often do that to save their "pride". They would talk of her character and appearance, just to satisfy their ego. She wouldn't bother thinking about those low lives for another second, but things would be different for Jellal. She would do the same if their positions were switched.

"It started then. His eyes began to glow in a vicious colour of green and his entire body was instantly covered by a red mark, similar to the one on his eye. The strength he manifested was...inhuman to say the least. For three...whole...days, he murdered the man, waited for him to regenerate, and tortured him again and again. Jellal seemed more like Siegrain with his sadistic tendencies, and we could hear the man begging Jellal to stop and let him die. But he never did.

We could not approach him either. It felt like letting an enraged bull run. Nobody can stop that bull unless it gets tired and stops on its own.

Finally, he got bored of the man and just left. That's how we got here"

Laxus started to scratch his head mumbling something about an overprotective couple and a few colourful adjectives about his best friend.

"Get that stupid blush out of your face, Scarlet. Your boyfriend almost turned into a murder hobo", Mirajane snapped as she saw the woman fidget in joy.

Cana, who was silent for a while started to yell about her empty alcohol jug, Elfman boasted about how manly it was to stand for the woman a man loved, and Evergreen, Gajeel and Levy joined the cacophony.

Among all of the commotion, Jellal began to stir in Erza's lap.