Fairytale of Doom
By CrimsonStarbird
Chapter Thirty-Seven – An Open Door
Shan Yu wielded his blade like other men might wield a mallet. He was the biggest, toughest, and strongest person here, and he knew it.
It was easy for Erza to meet his blows, but it was becoming harder and harder for her to block them. Her hand was already numb. Those heavy overhand strikes continued to jar her elbow and buckle her knees; at this rate, he would hammer her right into the ground like a tent peg.
She couldn't hit him back. Shan Yu embodied the concept of the best form of defence being attack: he wore no armour and his hulking form presented a huge target, but if she shifted even a fraction of her own focus away from blocking, he'd crush her. Her ordinary armour would do nothing against such brute force.
It was one thing overcoming unlikely odds in a world where belief could quite literally become magic power. It was another to face cold, hard logic. And her years of experience were telling her that she couldn't win this, with her main sword-arm broken and none of her magical arsenal at her disposal.
But she had to. Though they'd lured out Maleficent and Shan Yu, Ursula and that schemer Lady Tremaine had failed to appear. Her friends were in danger. She had to make it inside to help them – and that meant she had to win.
As a hawk screeched somewhere overhead, the barbarian swung again. Erza's parry was like lightning: fast, but the ache in her shoulder outlasted the electric blaze, thunder rolling across a bloated black sky that couldn't take much more.
Again. Slower this time. The air was thickening around her sword. It wouldn't be long before the signals sent out by her brain received no response from her arm at all.
There was nothing else for it. She had to take her chance while she still had some energy with which to gamble.
One more earth-shattering block. And then she moved, not quite lightning but surely the speed of sound, driving the chipped edge of her sword towards her opponent, needing to hit, needing to throw him, before he recovered his balance-
He was fast, too. His backhand swing caught her side and sent her flying. Though she managed to take the fall through her uninjured arm and shoulder, the price was her sword, which clattered to the ground just out of reach as Shan Yu loomed.
"This is the end," he hissed. That terrible blade arced above his head-
"Heads up!" came a shout, followed by the bizarre sight of Laxus lobbing their last pumpkin at Shan Yu.
The villain moved with perfect timing. His left hand punched the pumpkin to smithereens as his right hand brought his sword crashing down.
Or perhaps his timing wasn't that great after all, as the bolt of bibbidi-bobbidi-boo that should have turned the pumpkin into a carriage before impact struck him in the face instead.
There was a ripple in the curtain of spacetime. A fountain of light, running in reverse. Magic sparkles cascaded around him, as the barbarian's dirty and particularly ragged clothes were transformed into the most beautiful baby-blue ballgown.
"…What the hell is this?" he growled.
Enough of a distraction for Erza to roll, grab her sword, and run it straight through Shan Yu's heart.
His eyes opened wide. A surprised breath escaped him. Then he slid back off the sword and crashed to the ground, unmoving.
Erza was trembling. That last move had put pressure through her broken arm, and the fight of the pain to escape her lips matched her own efforts against the villain.
Regardless, when the sound of Laxus's footsteps reached her, she drew herself up taller, locking her muscles into place.
"Well struck," he congratulated her, before his gaze turned to her fallen opponent. "Defeated by a ballgown. What a way to go. If I'd known that would happen, I'd have just waved the wand from the start." Laxus shook his head. "Still, you did an excellent job of distracting him while I lined up my pumpkin."
Erza remained silent. She hadn't been distracting Shan Yu. In fact, she had entirely forgotten that Laxus was there until he had intervened. It had just been her and her opponent. An obstacle for her to overcome so she could reunite with her friends.
They had won the fight. She had struck the killing blow herself. So why did she feel ashamed?
No. Not now. There would be time for introspection when this mission was over.
Squaring her shoulders, she pointed to the hole their pumpkin bombs had made in the castle wall. "That's one villain down. Let's go catch up with the others-"
A hacking cough came from behind her. She turned in time to see Shan Yu sitting up. With the back of his hand, he wiped blood away from his mouth, and grinned at her beneath eyes that shone with the promise of vengeance.
"Impossible!" Erza exclaimed. "My sword went through his heart!"
"Yeah, and I saw him get buried beneath a thousand tonnes of snow," Laxus added, his eyes narrowing.
Before either of them could act, something leapt out of the night's cloak and snatched the magic wand straight out of Laxus's hand. Cursing, Laxus lunged after it, but it flashed through his arms as a blur of fur and four-legged grace, and vanished back into the shadows.
Laxus turned back to Erza. "We're not going to be able to win this without the wand. Let's go. Now."
The two of them ran for the hole in the wall, while the villainous fighter slowly, gleefully, impossibly got to his feet behind them.
Erza could only hope that, somewhere out there, her friends were having more luck than she was.
Splash. Splosh. Splash.
The sound of their footsteps echoed back from the warren of underground tunnels. Moisture lined the walls and dripped from the ceiling like it was the gullet of some enormous salivating beast. As they trudged onward through the few inches of slimy water, the distorted grumblings of their own footsteps filled the tunnel with gloom.
Gray had thought they were through the worst of it once Cana had picked the lock on the abandoned water gate, and they'd disembarked from their little boat onto what should have been dry ground: the walkway alongside the underground canal, where once castle guards would have stood to unload the shipments that had come down the river by boat.
Unfortunately, he was starting to discover why this entrance into the castle had been abandoned. Not only did rising water levels make the route unpassable for most of the year, but in the height of what he assumed was fairytale summer, the bowels of the castle were transformed into a damp, filthy, and stinking place to be. Compared to wandering in this maze forever, even being caught and thrown into the dungeons was starting to look like the better option.
"The sewers!" Cana fumed. She stomped along ahead of him, holding a torch that made its own distaste known with sparks and flickers. "Levy gets to go to the ball, Natsu gets to blast his way into a fairytale castle, and we get the freaking sewers!"
"These aren't sewers," Gray objected. "Just… unused underground waterways."
She snorted. "Why do you think people stopped using them? I know what I can smell! It's the same with all these fairytales: pretty on the surface, but you don't want to know what goes into making them look that way."
Gray couldn't argue with the sentiment, even if he really didn't want to give up his belief that the slime beneath – and around, and within – his shoes was just good old water.
"Besides, what do you have to complain about?" she continued. "You're not the one currently ruining their stunning fairytale gown!"
True, he wasn't, but he couldn't help wishing that he was wearing a fancy suit. His sailor's shirt hadn't survived the full length of the boat ride here – and if anything could cure him of his stripping habit, it was likely to be the globules of unidentified sludge Cana's aggressive stomps were flinging at him.
And, even then, part of him wished that their unpleasant surroundings could be the sum total of his issues, as they were Cana's.
But the problem was, he didn't know what to say around her.
Or do.
Their friendship had always been so easy. Misadventures like this one were second-nature to Fairy Tail's two longest-serving children. Now, though, he wasn't finding it easy at all.
First, she had confessed to having had a crush on him when they were younger. In retrospect, that probably shouldn't have surprised him. They had been close. Far closer, in fact, than he'd been with any of his female friends since, even Juvia – well, especially Juvia, as he would often take long missions with Team Natsu just to get away from her. In contrast, before Erza's arrival at the guild, he and Cana had done everything together.
But they'd been kids. It was in the past. It had bothered him to hear her admit it, more than he'd expected – nostalgia and wistfulness and opportunities he'd been too blind to see – but at the same time, there was no point worrying about it now. That path had closed long ago.
Except it hadn't. Because she'd said it wasn't too late to find out what their future together would have been like.
Then she'd gone off to get more beers for them, and not mentioned it again.
Not even alluded to it, let alone explained what the hell she had meant.
Did she still like him? Was it a roundabout way of asking him out? Surely not. She didn't act like she liked him. Maybe it hadn't been intended to mean anything. Maybe it was just a philosophical reflection on the past and future from someone who dabbled in fortune-telling magic. Maybe it was just a meaningless comment from someone who had had a bit too much alcoholic sludge in a seedy bar…
Except he knew Cana. She didn't make meaningless comments. The things she brushed off – like her father's identity, like her problematic drinking every time the S-Class Trials came round, like him abandoning their shared hobbies because a shiny new friend had come along – were the things that mattered the most.
Damn it. Usually he found Cana so calm and easy and fun to be around. Now, though… he felt so awkward with her.
He doubted anyone else had noticed. Surely Erza couldn't have done, or she wouldn't have grouped him and Cana together for this mission. He'd actually felt a small thrill at their allocations, relieved that his and Cana's adventure together wasn't yet over – right up until he'd remembered the unfinished conversation hanging over them.
So he trudged along behind her, wading through questions he'd never had before, and they congealed around his feet as surely as the probably-not-just-water.
"…Gray? Gray! Fairytale world to Gray!"
He glanced up. There she stood, light and dark in the flickering torchlight. Her dress was a bold strike of colour; even splattered in silt and mud and worse, she wore it like a queen. She looked good in anything, from the brazen, carefree pride of her short shorts and crop top to the long-sleeved, long-skirted fairytale-pink ballgown. Whatever the outfit, it was her attitude that crowned it.
One hand rested unconsciously on her hip as she quirked an eyebrow at him. "You're a million miles away," she accused. "If my brain's got to be stuck in this stupid sewer, so does yours."
"Ugh, thanks for the reminder."
His lips twitched unwillingly into a little smile. Why did he feel suddenly lighter, when absolutely nothing had changed? They were still in the depths of the castle. They were still in this stupid world. He was still in a strange kind of limbo with his own thoughts…
But why was he in limbo? Why was he still puzzling over the meaning of her words?
This was Cana. He could just ask her.
There were no stupid questions between the two of them. At worst, it would end up on the list of misadventures like their not-so-smooth run-in with Ursula, used to embarrass each other, to cheer each other up, to reminisce together over memories too fond to be truly painful. He didn't have to worry about accidentally setting her off like he might Juvia, or struggling to comprehend the feminine puzzle of her mind like he might Lucy, or having to dive for cover when Erza took something the wrong way.
Yes, he could just ask her. And, just as he had spilled his frustrations about Juvia to her when they'd been kidnapped by Shan Yu, like he wouldn't have dared do to anyone else, she would probably tell him.
"Cana?" he began, as they set off again.
"Yeah?"
"What did you mean, when you said that maybe one day we'd find out what would have happened if I… you know, had noticed how you felt about me all those years ago."
"Oh, that," she shrugged. "Well, I was wondering if you were back on the market, now that you've officially ended things with Juvia."
"I was never off the market," he retorted. "You know Juvia and I were never… No, wait, I mean- I'm not on the market – don't talk about me like I'm a piece of meat!"
Her gaze dropped deliberately to his unsurprisingly bare chest, then gave him a wink.
"You're only proving my point, you know," he grumbled.
She gave an innocent whistle.
"Is that the reason why, then?" he dared. "Because surely you don't still like me. Even if you did back then, there's no way that all this time…"
Her laugh was cheerful, confident; the complete opposite of the clumsiness he felt. "No, obviously not. We went our separate ways, you with your new team-"
"And you with your unhealthy drinking habits," he finished for her.
"I met a guy or two…"
"Or ten."
"Or ten," she agreed with a wave of her hand. "In their competition to be the least spectacular, the blind dates do seem to blur together. Let's just say it's not my fault that none of my relationships have lasted more than a few weeks. I don't know what it is about me that attracts the wrong kind of man."
"Probably your level of insobriety when you meet them," he sighed.
"I feel like I've got to keep drinking, just to make them more appealing!" she lamented. "But then, even though we had long since stopped being attached at the hip, you and I would still team up for a mission every now and then, just like the good old days. Like that time you helped me plant a dirty magazine in the guild's paperwork that got sent to the Magic Council, in revenge for the Master's ban against brewing moonshine in the basement. Or that overnight mission when I foolishly left the travel arrangements up to you, and you managed to book us a room in the town's most sordid love hotel."
"It was half the price of the other hotels!" he defended. "I thought I was getting a bargain!"
"Then there was the time you asked me to train you for the bar crawl on New Year's Eve, because it was the first year you were legally old enough to drink and you did not want to lose to Natsu… my first and last pupil. I was so proud when I found you dancing naked on the bar at three in the morning. My little hatchling had become a great big drunken emu. Was that the first time I'd ever had to bail you from the drunk tank?"
"And even though I paid you back for it a hundred times over, you still try to call in that favour every time you're dragged down there yourself," he grumbled.
"And at some point," she continued, as if he hadn't spoken, "I came to realize that I'd never once had as much fun with any of my so-called boyfriends as I did with you."
He shot her a sharp, sudden glance, but she continued as if he hadn't, no embarrassment whatsoever. "But by then, Juvia had shown up, and you seemed happy… well, okay, maybe it's less that you were happy and more that I didn't want Juvia on my case. She was my friend too, you know? Besides… I'd been diligently hunting down my Mr Right for a few years now. What was the harm in continuing to look outside the guild for a little while longer?"
She shrugged airily. "I thought I'd met a different guy I'd be happy with, you know, a few days before Fairy Tail got back together before the war. Then that good old romantic cliché happened – we got thrown into a fairytale and captured by Shan Yu together, and I realized that I really, really hadn't. But, that's how it goes, sometimes."
"So… you would want to go out with me?" Gray asked weakly, needing to confirm it outright.
Surely he wasn't understanding correctly. Surely she'd have said something (the way she did about her reasons for becoming S-Class?). Surely he'd have noticed (the way he did about her father's identity?). Surely…
Surely she wouldn't have been so cheerful, so happy, so free around him, if that were true.
Not that he wanted her to be unhappy! Especially not if it resulted from his own obliviousness.
But he thought about the rain that had swarmed around Juvia whenever he turned down her gifts, and Cana had never come even close to that.
"Sure," she said, light enough to be her but not so light that it drafted into the realms of mockery. "I don't want to pressure you, though. Until very recently, you were in a rather intense relationship-"
"Juvia and I were never in a relationship," he overrode her. "And while I sincerely hope I can remain friends with her, I will not allow her shadow to prevent me from moving forward."
Cana eyed him for a moment. "What do you want, then?"
It was that question, not anything else she had said that day, that crashed his brain.
This wasn't interrogating her for answers he had been too blind to see any more. It was asking questions of himself – questions that he hadn't thought to ask in a very long time. Not since Juvia had forced her way into his life, occupying his present and making military plans to seize his future too.
All of a sudden, the future was his again.
He could go on long journeys with Team Natsu because he wanted to travel, not because he was avoiding the guildhall and a certain water mage who lurked within it. He was allowed to team up with female guild members for missions again without having to check that Juvia was away. Even his promise to defeat END had sunk so deep into the swamp of denial that he might as well just declare it null and void. He didn't have to fall in with villains just to chase down scraps of information on the demon any more, or throw himself into magic far too dark for his liking to try and defeat it.
The two things that had governed him for so long – his obligation to a lovesick Juvia; his promise to his dying father – had fallen away. He could set his own criteria for a happy ending.
And his choices were limitless.
Overwhelming.
Frightening, even.
What all became possible, how was he supposed to know what he wanted?
And as he froze, a rabbit in the headlights of the mechanical march of progress, there was only one answer he could give: "I don't know."
"That's okay." Cana didn't sound the least bit surprised. "It's an open offer. Unless I actually do meet someone else, in which case I'll close it."
"I just- I didn't-"
"Don't worry about it. Come on, the others will be wondering where we've got to."
He didn't move. She'd said her part; shared things she would probably rather have remained hidden indefinitely. The worst thing he could possibly do was leave them unacknowledged. "Cana, I can't just not worry about this…"
Hell. He'd always been so much more eloquent with his sculptor's hands than with his clumsy tongue.
The exasperated look she threw him was entirely deserved. "Just say it, Gray."
"I mean… it's not true love, is it?"
The words came out in a jumbled rush.
Cana's eyebrows nearly went through the tunnel roof. "I'm sorry?"
"Well, you're supposed to… just know, aren't you?" he defended, shovel ready and eager in his hands as the digging began. "Everything is supposed to fall into place. But I didn't even realize you felt this way until you told me. I don't even know how I feel right now. If I'm not sure… then it can't be true love, can it?"
She was staring at him as though he was some kind of alien. He even glanced down to check that he was still shirtless. Yup, it was still him alright.
"Gray," she said flatly. "I can't believe I'm having this conversation with you and not Mr Not-Interested-Thanks Natsu, but… you do know what love is, don't you?"
"Of course I do!" Just because he didn't feel the need to overshare like some of his friends didn't mean he didn't understand emotions full stop, let alone that he didn't feel them.
Besides, how could he not know what love was, after having been the target of it non-stop for over a year?
Juvia, buying him thoughtful gifts at every opportunity and inventing new celebrations to have an excuse to bake Gray-themed cakes for him.
Juvia, joining a guild full of people who had every reason to hate her, all because it was his guild.
Juvia, leaving behind that same beloved guild and all her separating friends, because Gray needed some time apart from them following the second death of his father, and she would follow him no matter how far he went.
Juvia, on top of the world because he'd smiled at her, and swooning when he held her hand; depression thundering down like the monsoon rains if he ever criticized her.
Juvia, stronger than ever when she was fighting for him; who wouldn't take no for an answer because the might of her hope always exceeded the pain of her disappointment; who had found a reason to try when the whole world was against her, and that reason was love.
Juvia, who had found the one person she would be happy for the rest of her story to revolve around.
Not a word of this crossed his lips, but Cana seemed to guess exactly where his thoughts had headed, if her paling face was any indication. "Oh, no. Oh, no no no. You're thinking about Juvia, aren't you?"
"What if I am? Surely you're not going to tell me that she wasn't in love with me!"
"Gray, there is literally nothing normal about Juvia."
"I don't need you to tell me that…"
"That's not what I'm hearing here!" Cana exclaimed. "Look, Juvia is… one of a kind. She's ready to follow her heart to the edges of Earthland and beyond. She loves so loudly and freely, with all her being. But not everyone is like that. Different people love in different ways. Sometimes it's bright and blinding, conquering all like the fairytales say. Sometimes it's quiet and steady, invisible to the naked eye but always there when needed. Some people fall fast and hard, some slow and scared; some never fall at all, and find their hearts full with friends and family.
"And 'true love'? Screw that nonsense! I've never known anyone as full of love as Juvia, and look how that turned out for her. Lucy's journey to Fairy Tail had all the hallmarks of a good old-fashioned love story, except for the bit where the Prince Charming she crushed on for months came out as ace. Levy and Gajeel were everyone's favourite happy couple until they suddenly weren't."
Her shoulders sagged. "Look. I'm not saying true love doesn't exist. But if you're waiting for everything to fall perfectly into place, you're going to be waiting forever. We're not fairytale princes and princesses; the stories we're living are far, far messier than that. We're going to have to fight for what we want. We'll have to take risks – and they won't always pay off. We'll stumble and fall; meet the wrong people and miss the right. Maybe true love is just the name we give to a love that is lucky enough to survive what real life throws at it."
"…Right," Gray said weakly.
That seemed to snap her out of it. Her head fell into her hands. "Man, I can't believe I just said all that," she groaned. "I started this story by introducing the Good Fairies to alcohol; I can't believe I'm ending it by lecturing my oldest friend about the nature of love…"
"You're also a part-time Fairy Godmother," Gray reminded her.
"Oh, yeah. The wise mentor, that's me." Then she sobered. "Honestly, though, if you're expecting to meet someone who will fall for you the way Juvia did, except in a situation where you reciprocate, you're going to be disappointed and lonely for the rest of your life. Juvia loved you more than anyone ever will. She loved you at the expense of her own self, and ending that was best for everyone involved. You can't have it both ways, Gray: you can't hold Juvia up as the paragon of love while simultaneously not returning her feelings."
"I know that," he said, scowling to cover the guilt. As much as he knew he'd made the right decision to end things once and for all with her, he didn't think he could be at peace with it until he'd seen her whole and happy without him.
But it still came back to that question: how would he recognize love if it wasn't as bold, as visible, as all-consuming as Juvia's?
How would he know where to start, in a world so much quieter than hers, where the snow muffled all sound and spring huddled deep under its blanket?
"Maybe the first step is to work out what you do want," Cana suggested. "Even better, maybe it can wait until we're out of these stinking sewers. Let's escape from here and swipe enough free champagne from the ball to wipe all that soppy nonsense I just spouted from my mind-"
"You're not going anywhere, my dear."
A wave burst from the underground river, flooding their already-miserable feet. From the mud-choked dark rose up a figure Gray hadn't seen since those last few months of his and Cana's movie nights: huge black tentacles, a bulbous body, lips like sea slugs and eyes brimming with the wickedness of the depths. At long last, she had shed Juvia's form, and appeared before them in all her grotesque glory.
For Gray, with his mind already in disarray, the appearance of a bona fide villain was the last thing he needed. Erza's team was supposed to have drawn the villains out! That was why they had the magic wand; how was he supposed to fight in this world? And what had they even been trudging through these disgusting tunnels for, if they were going to be found anyway?
Cana, however, was less impressed by Ursula's appearance. "You do realize you're floating in a sewer, right?"
"I think you'll find this is an underground waterway," Ursula corrected waspishly.
"Yeah, keep telling yourself that-"
Without warning, one mighty tentacle whipped out and struck Cana. She was knocked back into the wall with a horrid crunch. Her torch tumbled from her grip and ended up wedged between two rocks, throwing the shadows into disarray.
Before Cana could recover, Ursula wrapped a tentacle around her waist and lifted her bodily into the air, cackling all the while.
"Cana!" Gray shouted, cursing his own uselessness. He should have reacted faster. Should have seen this coming. Should have just focussed on carrying out their mission rather than asking stupid questions about love-
"Such an interesting conversation you two were having," Ursula mocked. "Why, I almost felt bad for interrupting! Me! Nevertheless, I felt it was my duty to remind this young prince that it wasn't so long ago that he was falling for me…"
Gray cringed at the memory.
"…and this so-called seductress almost gave her magic to me willingly, as she had no faith in herself to carry it! I suppose you really are perfect for each other – two worthless polyps to keep each other company in my collection until the end of time."
Cana, who was torn between trying to break free and not wanting to be dropped in the sewer as a result, paused. "You're the one who was beaten by a man in a rowboat."
"And now it's time for my revenge." The coils tightened around Cana. Though she still struggled, her movements were noticeably weaker as her spirit was squeezed out of her. Ursula gloated, "I'm almost grateful to that Lady Tremaine for insisting that we cover every possible entrance to the castle. I'm going to enjoy tearing you limb from limb."
"Cana!" Gray shouted again.
He needed a weapon. Something. Anything. Like Gajeel had his music, or Natsu had a secret connection to that damn evil book. This was all wrong – Ursula wasn't giant, there weren't any convenient shipwrecks rising from the deep, what was he supposed to do?
"Gray, go!" Cana commanded.
"I'm not leaving you!" He took a step forward, then danced back again as a tentacle took out a chunk of rock where he had been standing.
"Warn the others! Get the pieces of Fairy Heart; we might still be able to win- urk!"
Her voice cut off as Ursula's grip constricted further. "You're first," she snapped, and then oily tentacles lunged for Gray. "And I'll make you watch."
There was nothing else for it. He turned and ran down the tunnel, footsteps splattering to the sound of Ursula's laughter.