Fairytale of Doom

By CrimsonStarbird


Chapter Twenty-Six – For the Coup of the Century

"I really must thank you, Natsu," Zeref continued, stepping smoothly into the Beast's Castle. "I would never have known where your friends were gathering without your Dragon Slayer tracking abilities. And of course, your friends would never have opened the door for me alone."

Natsu's fist clenched.

He'd been so stupid. He should have realized Zeref would follow him when he set off to find his friends. Now, he had led their greatest enemy straight to their hideout. A shard of grey, miserable guilt lodged into his stomach at the thought.

But the guilt was nothing compared to the furious flame that swallowed it whole and used it as fuel. How dare Zeref act as though Natsu had chosen to help him? After everything he had done, after all the lies and deception, hadn't he realized that Natsu would rather die than help him again?

"Zeref!" Natsu howled, hurling himself through the paralysis and towards his eternal foe. There were no flames at his fist, but his determination had always been its own kind of magic. Abandoning him to his fate clearly hadn't been enough – so this time, Natsu was going to make sure that he could never hurt his friends again.

Zeref watched him approach without concern. Didn't move, didn't protest, just watched, that same smug smile on his face.

Then he did – something – and all Natsu knew was pain.

Reality was gone. Was he in the air, on the ground, still alive? There was only the agony that pulsed through him, like lightning that refused to fade. It was as though his skin and bone and muscles and nerves had all been pulled back, revealing something that should have been kept safely inside, some small kernel of everything that made him Natsu, exposed to the air for the very first time.

He wanted to get up and keep fighting, as he always had before. But he couldn't, he couldn't, because if that part of him broke, his heart would keep beating and his blood would keep flowing but he would no longer be Natsu, wouldn't start fights in the guildhall or tease Lucy or fly with Happy or love his friends or live…

When he came to, he was shaking uncontrollably on the floor. No time had passed, and yet an eternity had, his soul bared, his body not his own. Though he knew he needed to stand up and try again, it was all he could do just to keep his lungs working when every breath felt like it might scatter him to the winds.

The footsteps of his friends thundered through the silence left by his screams. Some of them charged at the Black Mage, some ran to help Natsu, but none managed more than a single step before Zeref spoke again, a casual, idle warning: "I wouldn't, if I were you."

Another flash of pain chopped up Natsu's fluttering heartbeats. He curled in on himself involuntarily, a hiss escaping his lips, and his friends understood at once. If they attacked Zeref, Natsu would pay the price.

Natsu gritted his teeth. He may have screwed up and led Zeref here, but like hell was he going to be a liability too. "I'm fine," he snarled. "I can- I can take it. Just beat him; don't worry about me!"

Zeref's eyebrows raised. "Do you really think pain is the worst I can do to you, Natsu?" he asked softly.

It wasn't. Natsu knew it wasn't. Some primal part of him recognized the feeling that had wrecked him, the mind-numbing terror of having his whole self in another person's hands, of how little his resolve meant when someone else owned it.

Zeref turned to the uncertain Fairy Tail mages, his black eyes glittering. "Do you know what this is?" he asked, holding up the Book of END.

A whimper escaped Natsu's lips. For a moment, his dread eclipsed the pain: no, this couldn't happen, his friends weren't supposed to find out, he was going to beat Zeref and bury the truth with him and no one would ever have to know that he wasn't human, wasn't real, wasn't the trustworthy, dependable friend he appeared…

He would have given anything to stop this, but nothing he had was enough.

He heard Gray's sharp intake of breath as he connected the dots: that his friend and rival was the very demon he had sworn on his father's grave to destroy.

He heard Lucy's soft "No, he can't be!", even though she could see as well as anyone that he was.

He felt their sympathetic gazes shift in nature, reframing how Zeref had found them, reframing the entire Alvarez War now that they knew their greatest champion had been Zeref's pawn all along…

"Allow me to introduce you to the most powerful demon I have ever created, Etherious Natsu Dragneel," Zeref proclaimed, an icy smirk touching his lips at the horror on theirs. "Say hello, Natsu."

With the book still closed, he wormed his thumb under the cover and dug his nail into the page.

Pain sliced across Natsu's skin. He should have been used to it – if Erza's sword had thwacked across his chest without drawing blood, he would barely even have flinched – but this wasn't an external blow. It came from within, a dagger pressing against his skin from the inside. He'd tried to brace himself for the pain, but there was no way of preparing himself for something so new, so different, so frightening.

He whimpered again, no words, not even able to blink until the pressure had been withdrawn. All the while, those black eyes bored into him, piercing all the way through his not-quite-human body like his friends were only just learning to do.

Satisfied, Zeref addressed his friends once more. "In my hands, I hold everything that Natsu is. His beating heart, his conscious mind, his hopes, his dreams, his memories, his bonds with his friends… all of which are superfluous to my purposes. I have no need for my strongest demon to recall the years he spent in Fairy Tail, or the people he met there. One word from me, and Natsu Dragneel as you know him will cease to exist."

Zeref's smile was so very cold. "Put down your weapons, mages of Fairy Tail."

For a moment, no one moved.

Though Natsu's muscles were still seizing in a futile response to the violation of his soul, his mind was free to question, to wonder, to doubt – would they? If he wasn't who they thought he was, if none of it was real, then what reason did they have to protect him?

There was a thump as Lucy let go of the lamp she had seized to use as a weapon.

A clatter, as Erza let her sword fall from her fingers.

Levy released the plank of wood that had been the only thing to hand when Zeref had intruded, Gajeel dropped the spiked mace he'd found, and Gray – his stony face lacking any emotion, and his gaze never leaving Zeref's, not even for a brief glance at his sworn enemy – lowered his borrowed spear to the ground.

Although he was outnumbered ten to one, and without even a trickle of the magic which had etched his name into the histories of Ishgar, there could be no doubt that the Black Mage held all the power here.

"Very good," he said, and the smile on his face couldn't have been further from the delight Natsu had thought he'd seen on the balcony when he had outwitted Lady Tremaine in the ballroom.

Just another lie, Natsu thought bitterly. Just like his so-called promise that he'd not had anything to do with Gray's imprisonment, or his assurance that he wouldn't fight Natsu and his friends here.

Just like Natsu's entire life.

"How?"

The question was posed in a trembling voice from a trembling Celestial Spirit mage, afraid not for herself but for the world falling apart around her – the world that had never seemed as fragile as it did right now, with the man she had thought was her best friend lying helplessly at their enemy's feet. "How can Natsu be…?"

"Natsu has always been this way," Zeref told her coolly. "Did you never wonder how he could do things no other human could? How he always seemed to have magic left when he should have been exhausted; how he could absorb Etherion or eat a fire god's flames and suffer no lasting consequences? They do not call END my most powerful creation for nothing."

"But… Natsu is one of us." Lucy was pleading now, as if her wish could somehow change reality. "He has been for years. Why would you make a demon who looks- who acts-?"

She couldn't finish the words, but she didn't need to in order to crush Natsu's last fragment of hope.

This was the bit where Zeref told them everything: about Natsu being his brother, and how bringing him back to life was the reason why there was a tormented immortal death-mage threatening his guild and the whole world.

This was where they realized that it was all Natsu's fault. He wasn't just a demon, but a liar, too. He had kept this from them after his and Zeref's clash in the valley, despite knowing how important it could turn out to be in any showdown against the Black Mage, all because he didn't want to see them looking at him like he was a stranger, the way they were right now…

However, Zeref's smug expression didn't change. "I am a strategist; I have always been playing the long game," he gloated to Lucy. "I thought there might come a time when I would need leverage over your guild." But before Natsu could wonder why he wasn't telling them everything, Zeref added, "You have served me well, Natsu."

"I- I haven't!" Natsu tried to snarl, but it came out as a frantic gasp for air. He'd been willing to die to defeat Zeref back in Fiore, and he was willing now. It didn't matter if he was hurt, or died, or even forgot who he was. It didn't even matter if Zeref turned him into a mindless demon to use against his friends, because the moment they killed Zeref, he would die as well, before he could hurt any of them. If only the others could see that and strike while they had the chance…

"But you have, Natsu," Zeref told him softly. "Why didn't you tell your friends what you were, after you found out from me? They could have been prepared for this. They would have known to snatch your book from me before I could use it. They would have kept the two of us separated. But instead, you decided not to tell them the truth. And now, it is too late."

Natsu tried to speak again – to spur his friends into motion, to scream out against this fate – but that horrid feeling rose up inside him again, that twist of soul just shy of breaking him in two, and nausea swallowed his protest.

"Now, this is what you're going to do," Zeref continued pleasantly, heedless to the glares of the mages ranged against him. "You are going to give me the three Great Fairy Magics in the forms they have taken in this world. I will bring them together, re-awaken Fairy Heart, and return to reality with my prize. I will let you keep your lives, but you will remain here, trapped forever in this world. Such is your punishment for losing."

In the corner of his eye, Natsu saw Lucy raise her head suddenly, meeting Zeref's gaze with a challenge. "If we give you the fragments of Fairy Heart, you have to give us Natsu's book."

The demand seemed to surprise Zeref, if his pause was anything to go by, although his expression gave nothing away.

Lucy took a determined step forward, a hero facing down the true villain of the story. "You'll already have what you want, won't you? You don't need Natsu as well. Let him go."

"Very well," Zeref agreed. "Once I have Fairy Heart, I will have no use for him. You can keep him."

In one swift motion, Lucy ripped the enchanted shield from her arm and thrust it out towards him. "Then take it."

Natsu glanced away in shame – but his attention caught on something. A glint in Lucy's eye. A shield that weighed nothing in her hands, a plan purporting to be surrender, because Lucy was far smarter than Natsu would ever be.

She wasn't the only one who was smarter than him, though, and the brief spark of hope slipped back beneath the mire of defeat at the sight of the grin curling across Zeref's lips. "No, I don't think so," remarked the Black Mage. "Natsu, take the shield for me, please."

Natsu didn't move. Like hell he was going to lift one finger to help the man who had tricked him and ruined everything in front of his friends-

"Don't make me make you, Natsu," Zeref said lightly. And although his fingers barely brushed the book's cover this time, a sickening hot and cold feeling swept through Natsu, a vivid reminder that he no longer belonged to himself.

Dragging his feet with every step, Natsu moved between Zeref and Lucy. He met his old partner's eyes. Searched for the trust, the compassion, the playfulness that he adored; found nothing there but uncertainty. She was protecting him, because she was a hero and protecting people was what a hero did. But she didn't know what she was protecting, not any more.

Despite the scattered nebula of his soul, the sight still cut him deep enough to wound. It was a merciless reminder of why he hadn't told them he was END the moment he had found out the truth; why he had deceived and distracted Gray in the palace rather than admit his and Zeref's connection… even though, if he had just come clean, Zeref would never have been able to use the shock of it to paralyze his friends.

What could he do? Whisper to her that he was sorry? That wouldn't cut it, not for a betrayal of this magnitude. Promise her that things would be okay? But not even he could see how they would be.

For the first time in his life, he had no belief. Not in himself. Not any more.

In the end, he said nothing. Just took the shield from her outstretched hand.

"The sword next, Natsu," Zeref told him easily.

Laxus had already unbuckled the sword belt from around his waist. He pushed it in Natsu's direction, sheath and all. His expression was resigned, and that was accusation enough from the man who had once passed him his lightning and his hope in the face of an overwhelming enemy. Natsu took the sword quickly and moved on.

Cana frowned at him, her left hand clutching her right forearm protectively. "You're not cutting my arm off," she warned.

"No, it needs to be transferred willingly. You can come with us," Zeref said. It wasn't a suggestion.

"Come where?" Gray spat, too quickly, his anger not having shifted from Zeref for a moment, not even to look at Natsu.

"To the basement of this castle, where we will find Fairy Heart sealed within a glass coffin. Cana and Natsu will accompany me, and the rest of you will stay right here. If you leave this room, Natsu will be lost to you for good."

Though his friends had never hesitated to take on impossible odds before, not one of them dared to speak up in dissent of the Black Mage's terms.

Natsu's fist clenched. He hated being used like this. Especially when Zeref could not be allowed to win. Even if Natsu and his friends managed to find their own way back to the real world without Fairy Heart, it would already be too late. Once Zeref obtained that power, he would be unbeatable.

They had to stop him. They had to do it here and now.

How?

His friends had stopped fighting, and it was all because of him, a demon and a traitor that they no longer trusted, but were too kind-hearted not to protect.

It had to be Natsu who stopped Zeref. But he had no magic, no strength. And at the first sign of aggression, Zeref would neutralize him using that goddamn book.

He needed a weapon. Something Zeref wouldn't even realize was a weapon until it was already too late.

Instead, what he got was a cough from the corner of the room.

And a quiet, quiet growl hidden within it, indistinguishable to a human, but just loud enough for a Dragon Slayer to make out three words.

Natsu couldn't risk turning to look at them, and drawing Zeref's attention, but in the very corner of his eye, he could make out Gajeel reading from a page which Juvia was holding up in front of him.

It wasn't much of a plan. It could barely even be called a clue. But Natsu was damn well going to take it, because no stupid book would change the fact that he was determined to take Zeref down, whatever it took.

"You first, Natsu," Zeref instructed.

This time, it wasn't the threat of oblivion in the core of his being that made Natsu step forward. He jerked his head towards Cana, feigning reluctance. "Let's get this over with."

She fell in beside him, and Zeref followed close behind, one hand still clutching the Book of END warningly.

As Natsu passed Gajeel and Juvia, he gave the smallest of nods. He was going to do this. They were still fighting, still believing that he was fighting, and so he would prove to them once and for all that he was not Zeref's pawn. Helping him had been a mistake that Natsu would never make again.

As they headed downwards, leaving the others behind, all Natsu's Dragon Slayer senses were on high alert. He had to find Gajeel and Juvia's weapon before Zeref found what he was looking for – the First Master reverted to a version of her crystal form, like they had seen in the Magic Mirror.

There was something else he'd seen in the mirror, too. Details he had frantically tried to protect and preserve while everything had been crashing down around them and Zeref had been in pieces. He'd intended, then, to use the information to help Zeref. Now that he had shown his true colours, it would become a weapon against him.

He'd seen a tapestry covering a secret door in the wall. And through it, he'd glimpsed a trace of a glowing rose.

Gajeel's words: basement. Cursed rose.

The Iron Dragon Slayer must have been referring to the same thing he'd seen in the mirror. He didn't know what it would do, but he trusted the friends who, despite everything, still trusted him.

There were neither windows nor lights in this basement chamber, but there didn't need to be. The only thing it held was a glass coffin that radiated its own light – a sickly, pallid glow that stretched across cobwebs and crumbling arches that would have been best left unseen. In this forgotten cellar, the dark underside of fairytales met the twisted legacy of the Tower of Heaven.

Zeref strode into the room. Natsu and Cana duly followed, though the former was taking every chance he got to scan the room. The gloom was no barrier to his draconic vision; the craftsmanship of the secret door he sought was more of an obstacle, but he'd already seen it open once, behind a crooked tapestry.

Inevitably, his searching gaze reached the coffin. For someone who had seen the First Master trapped in a mighty lacrima, this horizontal glass coffin, with its wooden base and white flowers haloing Mavis's head, seemed a bit underwhelming. It was pretty, sure, but it didn't radiate power: the resting-place of a woodland princess, not the founder of Fairy Tail.

Sure, it was sad to see her dead again, but that was only to be expected in a world without magic. Getting her back home should fix that.

Seeing her just lying there waiting to be saved was nothing special.

It certainly wasn't anything that might justify the way Zeref had stopped, staring, not a single poisonous word upon his tongue.

He'd faced down ten of Fairy Tail's finest mages with nothing but his words, and yet it seemed a glass coffin in a slightly creepy cellar was too much for him.

"So, which of us is going to administer true love's kiss?" Cana chirped.

At the distraction, Zeref seemed to come back to himself. "That's not how it works," he said irritably.

"You don't know much about fairytales, do you?"

Zeref ignored this. Putting his full weight against it, he shoved the lid off the coffin. It thudded to the ground without smashing. "Natsu. Bring me the sword and shield."

Natsu duly laid the sheathed sword on Mavis's chest, end pointing towards her toes, and wrapped her hands around the hilt. Over this went the shield, until she resembled a fallen knight of old.

Finally, Zeref told Cana to place the palm of her right hand over the centre of the shield. With a shrug, she complied. Zeref placed his hand over hers.

"I'll just stand over by the wall, shall I?" Natsu grunted, with all the annoyance he could muster.

"Yes, do," Zeref said. "I don't want you interfering."

Trying not to look too eager, Natsu did was he was told. The far wall was exactly where he wanted to be – right next to the wonky tapestry that bore the symbol of the cult that had inhabited the Tower of Heaven. Under the guise of annoyance, he leaned against the wall and reached behind the tapestry, searching for something that might give- there!

As the Black Mage closed his eyes and focussed on reforging Fairy Heart, Natsu fell backwards through the secret door.

The flames of adrenaline burnt away all traces of the horror within him. Blood was thumping in his ears. He did not care for the ruined furniture around him or the crooked curtains trimmed by an underground sun or the broken unreality of the cursed wing of the castle. He saw only the enchanted rose that had made it so.

He did not doubt that it was powerful, or care that it had become cruel, feeding on both Fairy Heart's magic and the imported evil of the Tower of Heaven. It could stop the enemy he himself couldn't beat. One glance, and he knew it.

So Natsu snatched up the little table on which it rested, one hand holding the bell jar steady, and he ran back into the coffin chamber.

He was only halfway there when Zeref stirred. Even deep in concentration, he wouldn't have missed the thunder of Natsu's footsteps or the humming of the rose within its prison. The Book of END was still in his other hand…

But he saw Natsu charging towards him, and in that one, critical moment, he froze.

And that was enough.

Cana was falling back, the light around Mavis's coffin was fading, the bell jar thrummed like a nest of hornets – and as Natsu dived through the chaos, he wrenched the glass off the cursed rose.

There was a frenzy of pink-stained light. A shimmering sound echoed somewhere inside his head. The world whirled around him, collapsing in on itself.

And then there was nothing at all.


A/N: Sorry guys - I am super super busy at the moment, and just can't handle longer chapters right now. Responses will probably be slow this week, but there should be a chapter as normal next Sunday, as I know this would be a terrible place to leave it hanging...

On a completely separate matter, I want to say a huge thank you to whoever nominated this fic for The Guild Awards! This is not something I know much about or have ever really been involved with, but I'm really flattered that you're enjoying this enough to nominate it! Also, if the person who nominated Kidnapping Erza for 'Best Classic' is reading this, thank you! That fic is really dear to me, despite how old it is now, and it made my day to know that someone out there still remembers it after all this time! ~CS