Today marks the beginning of the Purgatory arc! I apologise in advance if referring to our favourite girl as 545 is annoying, but I can't very well narrate from her perspective as if she believes she's still Nashi ;)

Enjoy!

The war that Fairy Tail waged against against The Olympians reverberated throughout the world. The whole of Fiore had heard how the city of Magnolia had been destroyed, how Fairy Tail had gathered allies and attacked the culprits at their own base to assume vengeance. Afterwards, there was whispers of the Council holding trial to see who was to blame for Magnolia's destruction. Some said that Fairy Tail's actions had brought the terror to the city. Others said that it wasn't there fault, that they had only fought back. Some didn't care, only happy to see peace return to the small coastal country.

However, this news did not reach far outside the country. After all, there were not many that gave a damn about Fiore's condition. Every country had it's own issues, so issues far from home were not very pressing.

That being said, there was a corner of the world where no news of anything ever came. A place so dark and devoid of any happiness that those imprisoned there often lost their minds, only to die endlessly mining into a hole the rest of their life. This place, not many knew it even existed. It was on no map, no place that any person could name. It was a dark, evil hole where The Olympians placed undesirables. These undesirables could have been placed there for any reason. Maybe they had gotten in the way, maybe they were traitors. It mattered little what the accusation was, if The Olympians wanted to stop worrying about you, this was where they put you. Only those they truly wished to forget about where placed here. The prison was named Tartarus, called such after a prison in an old mythology. The aforementioned prison had been in the Underworld of the old mythos, housing some of the worst the world have to offer. It did no such thing here. It only housed those that The Olympians intended to break.

And here, in this prison, there were 545 prisoners. Some had lost their minds long ago, nothing left but a hollow shell forced to work endlessly. Some managed to retain their sanity, hoping one day they would be able to break out or be let out for some warped form of good behaviour. Others simply accepted their fate. They were neither broken nor hopeful. They simply existed, doing or wanting nothing more than to exist quietly in this prison for the rest of their days if that was what The Olympians wanted. 545 people, about half men and half women, all worked about 15 hour days, an hour break at lunchtime, and then spent the remaining eight hours in their cell. They could sleep, eat the meals served to them, or cry as they slowly lost their minds. It was only thanks to this insane schedule that some managed to retain knowledge of what day and night was, and how much time was passing. In some cells, prisoners left numerical slashes on the walls with rocks, trying to maintain sense of how long they had been imprisoned. Several prisoners spoke of the cells of prisoners 1-10, a group that had gone so crazy they were simply left in their cells. Less people than animals. Once a human lost it's sense of self, how were they any better than lesser animals?

It was in this horrific rendition of a mythological hell that 545 prisoners were kept. And of those prisoners, all of them were told to break. That who they were was gone, and who they were now were simply the numbers attached to them. If a prisoner was ever caught responding to their real name by a prison official, they would be punished. However, this rule was enforced more in spirit than reality. Prisoners often got away with responding to their real names amongst themselves. It was still not allowed, but as some prisons ignore the inner dealings in there own system, so did Tartarus with the lesser believed in rules.

The only one true rule in Tartarus was that The Olympians controlled your fate, and if you dared to change that you were reminded just how wrong you were.

And in this prison, one prisoner had been reminded of this very much. This prisoner, the most recently incarcerated, was one of the worst cases of loss the guards in the prison had ever seen. She had been brought in over a year ago, and since then Hades had seen to her torture personally. It was clear she was different from other prisoners, as the self-appointed 'Warden' of Tartarus rarely saw to that himself. After all, he had better things to do. But, unbelievable as it was, he did exactly that. He would take her to his own office and perform horrific experiments on her, ones that caused her screams to echo across the halls. It wasn't long before the screams stopped and silence returned. Before long, there was no more screaming. It was only then the guards and personnel knew Prisoner 545 was broken. The Warden had seen to it personally. She only deteriorated from there. She had stopped eating, and needed to be forced. She had tried to break free many times early on, and had been whipped as a punishment. Eventually her cries of being saved stopped. She stopped responding to the name she was born with. Eventually, all manner of resistance ceased. She was just like the other broken ones. Despite that, Hades kept taking her away. He continued his horrific experiments, long after she stopped her screams. It went on for so long the guards began to wonder if she was a personal enemy or even some sort of target The Olympians wanted. Of course none other than Thanatos knew why that was, and none dared to ask. And so it went on that way for months and months.

Until Hades cleared her for general living.

It was a confusing order at first. After a year and a handful of months, he was clearing her for regular work? After he'd broken her and made her essentially a worthless worker, he was clearing her for general populace? Why was that?

"I don't need to answer to you," Hades said as he gave the order. "Just know that I'm clearing her. You can release her with the other prisoners schedules and let her coexist with them. I doubt it'll matter anyway. I've got what I wanted."

And so the order was given. Several guards walked down the halls to where Prisoner 545 was kept, opening her cell. Prisoners were currently on their break, so they figured it was a good a time as any.

"Prisoner!" One of the guards shouted. "Back against the wall, now!"

Despite her broken mentality, Prisoner 545 responded well to orders after so long. She managed to get to her feet and faced the wall as the guards entered, and they searched her for a potential weapon or anything she could use for escape. It was protocol of course, no one expected a Broken to attempt an escape. After they cleared her, they unshackled her limbs and escorted her down the halls to the exercise yard. It was where the general population took their hour long break, so it was where 545 was headed currently.

As for 545, she listened quietly to the guards orders and did what she was told. She knew acting up would get her more punishments, and she didn't want that. There was no point in fighting, no point in trying. She had tried countless times before, when she had been a person who gave a damn. That person failed, so there was no way she could succeed. Not like she had anywhere to go in the event of an escape anyway.

As they reached the exercise yard, the guards opened the gates loudly to warn the others they were coming in. She was escorted in quietly, and everyone was watching her.

"Listen up, you ingrates!" One of the guards shouted. "Your newest roommates is here! I will remind you that she is important to Hades, so lay a finger on her and there will be consequences. Don't worry though, she's a Broken. She won't bother you, so do us all a favour and don't bother her!" With this 545 was pushed inside and the guards left, everyone still watching her. 545 didn't care though. The stares weren't painful, so it didn't matter. She wandered into the exercise yard and made for a wall, slowly sliding down it to sit. Soon everyone continued doing what they were doing, which seemed to amount to either actually exercising, or conversing among themselves.

From what 545 could see, the yard was split up between men and women. There were no men on this side of the fence, all of them far away from her. Made sense. Last thing the guards probably wanted was one of the woman getting pregnant.

"He said she's a Broken Taka, there's no point in approaching her." A woman's voice said. 545 ignored her, but the voices came closer.

"There's no harm in asking!" Another woman's voice said. "She might be faking it."

"When was the last time you heard of a Broken faking it?"

"Well never, but that isn't the point." 545 heard them stop in front of her, but she didn't look up. Maybe they would go away. Sadly, she was wrong. "Hey, new girl. Can you hear me?"

545 hoped that they would go away, but it didn't seem to work.

"I know he said you were a Broken, but I figured I would ask, you know?"

"Taka there's no point..."

"Stop, let me ask her." The woman, Taka, leaned down to try and meet 545's eyes. It didn't work. "Do you remember your name? Can you tell me?"

Of course 545 remembered her name, what kind of question was that?

"My name if Prisoner 545," she answered hollowly.

"No, I meant your real name," Taka said.

"Prisoner 545."

"See?" One of the other women asked. "She's a Broken, I knew it."

"Just let me see for myself," Taka insisted.

"Takara," a new voice said, presumably one of the other women. "You know how the Broken are. They don't respond to their real names, and they don't give a shit about anything."

"I'm willing to try," Takara said. "No one deserves to be Broken. So if she can respond even at all, I'll try." Takara then looked back at her with a soft smile. "Ignore them, they've been down here a while."

"So have you," One of the voices pointed out. "Your number is 233, for God's sake."

"Your pink hair is pretty," Takara said, ignoring the others. "Is it natural?" 545 saw no reason to respond. What did it matter if her pink hair was natural or not? Her hair colour didn't stop the guards from beating her any softer. "You seem to be in bad shape, I could share some of my food with you if you aren't getting enough."

"That's not necessary," 545 responded. "I'm being fed well enough."

"Doesn't look it," Takara responded. 545 decided she wanted to look up, just to get a peak at who was talking to her. Takara was a reasonable well built woman who seemed to be a bit older than her. Her black hair was up in a ponytail, but it still reached all the way down to the small of her back.. Her eyes were steely blue, and radiated with a warmness that 545 had not seen in she didn't know how long. She almost felt a spark in the back of her head, but it didn't matter. Takara couldn't save her, so what did it matter?

"There you are," Takara said with a smile. "You have such pretty eyes."

"They're sinking into her face," One of the three girls behind her said. Takara ignored them again. The black haired girl looked down, her eyes catching something.

"What's that, on your hand?" She asked. 545 made a face and looked down to her hand where Takara was pointing. There, on the back of her hand, was a mark. The mark was bright red against her pale and dirty skin, emblazoned much like a tattoo. She remembered the mark from her previous life. The mark had meant something to her then, but now she didn't really care much about it.

"It looks like a guild mark," One of the girls remarked.

"I know that mark," One of the girls breathed almost in disbelief. "She's from Fairy Tail!"

"Seriously?!" The third girl asked. "That's like, the strongest guild in Fiore! How did they capture her?!"

"I think a better question might be, how did they break her?" Another asked. The four girls watched 545 with pity in their eyes, but she ignored them. The words Fairy Tail meant very little to her now. Relics of who she'd been before Hades rebuilt her into who she was now. The girl from before might have cared about Fairy Tail, but to 545 it meant very little. It was almost annoying to feel her chest tightening as she thought of her past life. She wasn't that girl anymore, so why did she keep feeling so upset at the thought of who she was? It didn't make sense.

"Maybe we should leave her, Takara." The blonde woman said. "She's clearly been through a lot, and those guards said she's special to Hades."

"That just makes me more interested," Takara said flatly. 545 saw a glint of something in the woman's eyes, but she ignored it. "We'll talk again soon 545, I'm sure of it. I'll get through to you. The you Hades tried to destroy, I know she's in there somewhere."

545 doubted that very much.

545 didn't really have a sense of time anymore. She could vaguely tell when hours had passed, and when she should give into her drowsiness, but other than that she really didn't pay attention to it much. Even then, over the next few days, she managed to keep track of the days seeing as the guards kept dragging her out to group her up with the other prisoners. She didn't really see the point of it. It wasn't like she felt any better out there than in her cell. Mostly she'd actually rather be in her cell. It made her the most comfortable out of her new surroundings.

As she sat around one particular day, there was a knock at the cell. 545 didn't know why he was knocking, but he'd knock anyway. Hades strode into the cell and smiled down at her like an uncle would at his niece. Before, 545 could recall times his very presence enraged her. Now, she felt nothing except fear that he would hit her.

"Hello dear," he said. "How have you been?" 545 didn't open her mouth. She didn't feel like opening up to the possibility of a beating. "Ah right, I forgot you don't talk much. That's okay, I just wanted to check on my favourite prisoner! How have you been since I let you socialise a bit? I saw you talking with 233. Was she being nice to my favourite girl?"

"Yes," 545 responded, surprised that her voice had come out. Was she trying to defend that girl? Why? "She was very welcoming."

"That's goo," Hades said. "I can see you actually said something. Probably to make sure to defend 233. Are you saying Nashi is still in there? Do I need to make sure she isn't?"

545 made sure to stay dead quiet. Nashi was dead. Long gone. She didn't know why she'd spoken up to defend Takara, it wasn't something she'd even meant to do. It was almost subconscious.

"There's no need to clam up now, I'm not planning on doing anything to her or you. Not right now, anyway." 545 felt herself relax a bit, if only a bit. She hoped this wasn't a sick lie to make the coming whipping hurt even more.

"I just wanted to update you on the situation," Hades said with a smile all to genuine. What was he getting at?"

"S-Situation sir?" 545 asked. "I-I'm afraid I'm not aware."

"Oh you are. We've spoken about it before." Hades' smile grew wider. "Your old family has been moving on splendidly without you. Thank goodness Lucy was pregnant when I took you away, helped to forget her daughter much quicker."

545 felt a splitting pain in her stomach and chest. Her entire body shuddered as he said this, her mind recoiling. Why did she have to respond like this? She wasn't that girl anymore.

"I must say, your friends moved on quickly as well. Almost like they were waiting for you to get the hell away from them."

This made 545 suffer another shattering stomachache, but she held her pain down. She had no friends. No family. She was not Nashi Dragneel. She was Prisoner 545.

"Michael moved on fast as well. You were nothing but another fling for him. He was so upset that he never got into your pants though. Wanted to see if the carpet matches the drapes, you feel me?"

It was at this, finally, that tears dripped out of 545's eyes. She watched the water drip slowly onto the floor between her legs, wondering why these words hurt her so much even after all this time. He'd already succeeded. He'd broken her a long time ago. But he still tortured her like this. She wanted nothing more but to disassociate with Nashi Dragneel. And yet everything he did made those old memories come painfully close to the surface. She came oh so close to remembering who and what he was talking about, but it never got that close. Those weren't her memories. It was somebody else's.

But, at the same time, 545 knew what he was doing. He was convincing her of something she knew already; just how worthless Nashi Dragneel as a person was. She had no use to anyone or anything. She didn't need to be alive anymore. That was why she was being tortured, why she'd been treated so horribly. Once she stopped being that girl, the pain wasn't nearly as hard to deal with. The hopes of being saved died away. She knew what she was to do now; to serve Hades however he needed her. To give up whatever it was he wanted from her. And maybe then she would be given a swift death.

"Are you listening?" Hades asked, snapping 545 out of her thoughts. "Ah it doesn't matter, I know you're just waiting to see if I'm going to hurt you today. That's a no, by the way. Not interested today. I'll leave you alone for now. I hope you and your new friend get to talk some more!" With this the man left the cell, leaving her alone with her thoughts again. 545 stared at the wall for what felt like forever, not really thinking of anything in specific. It was one of her preferred pastimes in fact; looking at the pattern of the stones in the wall. She'd memorised most of the ones on the right side, so she decided to go to the left instead. Every now and then she saw an odd bend or crack in the stone, and it was intriguing to see how the cell had been crafted.

As she watched the cracks in the stone, 545 got a splitting headache. Reaching for her forehead and groaning, 545 saw flashes of light. She couldn't make out the specifics of the images that flashed before her, but one stood out in particular. It was a woman that looked like her, but her left eye was a deep dark red. There was a horn on the same side of her head, and she looked sad. There were tears in her eyes. She mouthed words, but 545 could not hear them. She cried out, but no sound was heard.

Before long the images faded away, leaving 545 in her cell again. She stared at the intricate lines in the wall, pondering what these flashes were. Were they perhaps memories of her life before Purgatory? Things she had seen before her life her? Maybe. The more she thought about it, the more she dwelled on the face that looked like her. With the fiery horn and angry left eye. Who had that been? Why was she crying?

It didn't matter. 545 was never escaping Tartarus. She would spent her life her, doing whatever it was Hades wished. But there was one thing she knew.

This place was hell. An eternal suffering. Purgatory.

I went for a different approach in this chapter, spending a little more time building up where we were and what was happening instead of going right into the POV of our character. Did you guys like it? Or did it suck? How mad are you at me for doing this to Nashi? Or should I saw Prisoner 545? ;)

I hope you all enjoyed, leave a review! Let's try and get five!

Chapter 344: Takara Yamanaka