As Ultear walked and fought through the hallways of the facility, she couldn't help but marvel at the sheer size and verticality of it. She was somewhat impressed by the intricacy and secrecy surrounding this prison. It's location a well-kept secret from even the royal family, it was made entirely using blends of anti-magic ore. However, a thin and intricate network of magic lacrimas flowed inside the walls and the entrances and exits of each floor, helping power the facility using only magic. There were never any reports of people coming and going from here, not even supply wagons.

Despite all this, she wasn't too worried about the jailbreak itself. Compared to dealing with Fairy Tail, this was downright easy.

But while she might not feel intimidated by the facility, she did dread the inevitable meeting with someone who was one of her biggest victims and also her closest accomplice in the public's eye. Guilt and sorrow plagued her, and she had no clue whether she even had any right to ask for forgiveness.

If he decides to kill me, I won't fight him. I'll just ask him to take care of Meredy, or at least make sure she gets out of Fiore alive and well. He used to be a good person, and he would probably sympathize with her since she was one of my victims too, right?

While Ultear wasn't sure she could ever gain forgiveness from Jellal, she had to still try. Otherwise, all those experiences and truths she had faced on Tenrou Island, would have been for nothing.

"You know Ultear, I never thought trying to leave crime behind us would start with a jailbreak." Meredy's voice chimed from her side, part amusement and part wariness.

Meredy kept linking all prison guards with each other, and Ultear kept knocking them out. This made guards they had knocked out at the entrance also stay down, as their state of consciousness kept getting linked to those who were now passed out.

"We have to do this. He was not responsible for those crimes, and I cannot start to atone if I don't at least try to make things right for him. I can't let him take the blame and the death penalty"

"I guess. What's one more crime on our list of felonies, right?"

"Look at the bright side of things. If we fail or get caught, we'll simply be thrown in a jail cell. No long-winded trails or being dragged into court."

"It's nice to know that at least one of us is optimistic about living here forever." she grumbled.

Meredy had, suffice to say, not been eager to do this. She had done everything to persuade Ultear to leave him imprisoned, which was perplexing. When Ultear had asked her the reason for her reluctance, Meredy had shrugged and mumbled something about fear of getting caught. Not that Ultear believed her.

"Well, dawdling won't make us break him out faster. Let's go before the guards we knocked unconscious wake up and ring the alarm signal."

...

It had been over three months since Jellal had been brought here, and he had since stopped counting the days since it hardly mattered. He was never getting out of this place. All that awaited him in life, were the walls of his own cell and eventually, the knowledge of his crimes.

On most days, he simply slept, even though only nightmares greeted his sleep. Distorted figures grabbed him while someone laughed as people he knew and loved died over and over again. Only to realize that the person laughing was his own self. Waking up was hardly better, as all that awaited him were thoughts of the atrocities he had committed, and his frustrating lack of ability to remember anything.

He desperately wanted to cast any memory restoration spell. Or a sleep spell to avoid nightmares. But he couldn't use any magic in his prison cell.

The guards had gleefully informed him, repeatedly, that the cells of this facility continuously absorbed the prisoners' magic power, keeping the inmates powerless. The absorbed magic energy was harvested and used to them power the prison itself. As all prisoners here were of the dangerous and powerful magical variety, the prison likely had enough stored power to outsource and sell the excess magic energy. Ingenious, efficient, and a calculated casual cruelty towards every inmate.

Each day passed by, marked with solitude, loneliness, and hunger. He had become accustomed to the feeling of emptiness in his stomach. All of the inmates' cells was set far apart from the others, floating in the air, so even if the inmates started yelling, the rest of the prisoners would hear nothing more than a faint noise. The only company he occasionally had was when the guards wanted to 'entertain' themselves, and decided that nothing short of torture of their former superior would suffice. Sometimes, he simply tried to focus on what he did remember, like Erza's strength, Wendy's kindness and Natsu's sheer determination. Thoughts of the people he had met helped him get through one more day.

These days, thoughts of Erza made him restless. He mostly avoided thinking about her ( failing miserably) because she deserved better than being in the thoughts of someone like him. He could swear he had almost sensed her a few days ago. He felt her like she was sitting right beside him, and was almost sure that she was in a hopeless state of despair, and he hated that feeling.

Maybe I'm finally going senile from hunger and thirst. She's hardly the type to give in to despair, and not like I could've sensed her anyway, with my magic being a grand total of nothing.

But just after that unsettling day, the guards had started gossiping about Fairy Tail. That had made his hackles rise, though he could hardly do anything about it.

His only source of information about the outside world were the guards and their occasional gossip. These days they seemed to always be talking about something. He had been trying to figure out what had been happening for the past three days but to no avail. They always spoke just out of his earshot. He was sure they had noticed him trying to eavesdrop, and likely found his desperation to hear them amusing.

" Heard from Doranbolt… still missing… only debris… Lahar's unit… Acnologia???... got what they deserve… Fairy Scum… why even bother anymore… Baram is history… pointless to keep looking for survivors."

"Excuse me."

"Shut up, you creepy bastard, or you'll go hungry today again. Any more starvation and you'll die for good, and we'll lose the enjoyment of watching your sorry state."

Jellal ignored that. "Has something happened to Fairy Tail? I've heard all of you speaking about them."

What followed was a painful zapping from the guard's electric stave, a torture device used to keep prisoners in line.

"I only want to know whether they are safe. Please, could you just answer?" A little pain was hardly going to deter him from asking the question.

The guard was about to hit him again but stopped suddenly, looking like he was receiving a message. "Yes, sir, I'm with the prisoner… What?! Him?! But it's dangerous!... Oh no, sir! I wouldn't dare question your orders!... Yes, sir, right away… I'll be there for the briefing along with the inmate."

The guard turned to him, and Jellal was quick to note the wariness in his posture. The cruel amusement was gone, replaced by trepidation and… was that fear? Was the guard scared of him? In his half-dead malnourished state?

The guard finally spoke, his voice dripping with venom even though his hands were shaking. "Looks like I'll have to take you out of your cell to the main office. No funny business, or I'll kill you, consequences be damned."

...

For a facility that held the most dangerous convicts, Meredy felt that infiltrating it was surprisingly easy. Ultear knowing it's location due to her former position as a council member made things easier, but getting the one of the guards to spill the location of Jellal's cell was easy.

Granted, between her Maguilty sense and Ultear's Arc of time, the guard felt that his only choices were death with unimaginable pain or being a traitor. The latter choice was more amenable to him, and he spilled not only Jellal's location, but some useful info that helped them tweak their plans as needed. Not that they would've killed him, they were on a journey of betterment now, but the guard certainly did not need to know that.

After that, they simply walked up to the main office, knocked almost everyone out on the way, and forced the Head Supervisor of Guards to use the communication lacrima to contact and ask Jellal's guard to guide him here. Making him do their bidding was not as easy, but he eventually had to comply, because again... she and Ultear might be against mindless killing now, but the prison authorities did not need to be informed of that.

As they waited for Jellal to be brought to them, each passing second spiked Meredy's anxiety further and further. Truthfully, she did not want to break Jellal out of prison. She knew he was innocent, but he was Ultear's victim. Mind manipulation spells were tricky business, and they could leave a person hollow. The fact that he still retained any personality was a miracle. Or a curse. For Ultear, that is.

From what Ultear had told her, he had an unimaginable level of power, and he most likely hated Ultear now that he had come to his senses. And while he had every right to do so, Meredy loved Ultear. If Jellal decided to kill the only mother-figure she had, Meredy would fight him, because she was sure that Ultear was too guilt-ridden to defend herself.

I'll protect her no matter what. I'll live only if she stays alive, and if he's too strong for me, I'll die before he hurts Ultear.

Please, please forgive her. I know we can change for the better.

...

Whatever this facility was, it was huge and created like a maze. As the guard led him to their destination, Jellal was sure that he had walked for miles. Every step forward felt like his body was being put through a grater. Any bout of dizziness that made him stop led to him either being hit by the stave or zapped by it. He was sure they had been walking for at least a half hour. He only later realized the guard was being cautious, so Jellal couldn't memorize the hallway plans and structures.

As they kept walking, something felt off to Jellal.

Shouldn't a place this dangerous be more heavily guarded? I swear, the number of Guards is abysmal. Hadn't the council instructed them to post at least 3 high level mages on each sectional hallway? One elemental, one defensive, and one offensive telepath.

The last thought made him stop in his tracks. What was that?

No, not the council. I had given that order. I had suggested the prison be guarded this way. I'm in the Northern Mountain Range on the border of Fiore. On the side of one of its deep gorges. That's where this facility is. I helped designed this place to be as confusing for the inmates as possible. I and.. someone. But who?

Before he could rejoice about his returned memory fragment, the guard, irate at his lack of movement, used his stave to shoot hot bolts of pain through Jellal's feet.

"Keep moving! Don't you dare even try to think about running!"

It also seemed like Jellal's deduction of something being wrong about the lack of Guards was true, and the guard at his back was becoming increasingly antsy, and kept looking around as if to find where the other guards may be hiding.

As they finally neared the looming doors of the main office, the sense of wrongness only increased. The doors slowly started opening inwards, the guard shoved him forward.

"Keep your mouth shut and speak only when spoken to. The Head likes pain even more than I do, so unless you want to die tonight-"

The guard's voice cut off mid sentence, and Jellal cautiously turned back to look, only to find an unconscious heap on the floor. A soft light could be seen on his wrist, a mark made of pink lines interspersed with hearts. Lost Magic. But what kind?

"Looks like all the guards are out for the count. Now's our best chance, let's go." A voice spoke from behind him.

He turned to the voice, and saw two cloaked figures, a woman and a girl standing warily in the middle of the circular office. The space itself was huge, with gold trimmed walls and a large open window spanning the whole room's circumference. He could see the gorge. At least his returning memory was accurate.

Several small desks were placed methodically around the room, and in center was a large screen floating mid-air. Archive magic. Likely used to keep tabs on the prisoners. Several figures lay prone on the floor, looking unconscious but not dead. He turned back to the two people who were standing and got a good look at their faces. He racked his brain, but a grand total of nothing came up. He didn't remember who they were. Go figure.

"Look Jellal. If you hate me and blame me, I don't mind. I won't blame you . But we need to leave before the guards wake up and breaking you out becomes any more complicated." The woman spoke in a clear, crisp tone.

Breaking him out? Why would they do such a foolish thing?

The child moved in front of the woman. He body poised to attack him, the child spoke in a trembling voice. "If you hurt her, you'll have to go through me. You can hate her, but you can't kill her"

"Meredy don't be a fool. Move aside."

"No! You promised that we'll live now and atone together. I get that you had to release him, but NOT at the expense of your life."

"Meredy! We don't have time for this! Jellal we need to leave! Contemplate my death later! Let's start--"

Jellal had heard enough. These people had clearly broken into the prison for his sake, and he needed them to leave before they got in trouble. He interrupted them before they argued further.

" Wait. Just a moment. Look I am grateful that you came all this way for me. But I have no intention of leaving this place. From what people have told me, I was a horrible person who has committed unforgivable crimes. I deserve the death penalty. I have no desire to run away from this punishment.

You've likely come to save me because we must have known each other. If I threatened or tried to kill you before, I owe you an apology. But I will not run away from justice."

Pin drop silence. Whatever he had said, had rendered them speechless. He could hear the breathing of the guards, ticking of the wall clock in the center of the room and the sounds from within the active Archive.

The child was the first to break the silence. Meredy, the woman had called her. "I think I get it."

"Meredy?"

"He's gone senile due to the Etherion. Must be a delayed reaction."

" Meredy! Now is not the time to joke around. And Jellal. What do you mean ' we must have known each other'?" The woman , who had sounded stoic and morose just a minute ago, was beginning to sound annoyed.

Well here goes nothing. "I have no memory of any of my life. When I was healed by Wendy and woke up-"

"Wendy Marvel? From Fairy Tail?"

"Yes. Although the last time I met her, she was a wizard of the Cait Shelter guild. Did she join Fairy Tail then?"

"Yes. Recently. Cait Shelter was… long story."

"She healed me. I woke up without any memory of my actions towards others. From what Erza told me-"

"Erza Scarlet? She actually met you and let you go alive? After what she thought you did?" the child asked him.

"- I was nothing more than a despicable creep and villain. I killed and enslaved my friends, desecrated the dead and worst of all, I even brought misery to Erza."

"The priorities of your regret sure sound a little off there." Meredy mumbled.

Ignoring the girl's comment, the woman spoke to him again, sounding dazed and flabbergasted "Jellal. All of that is both true and not. It's a lot more complex than what you know. But I never expected you to have amnesia. You mean you remember nothing?"

"Bits and fragments. Nothing more."

"That's not good. I was hoping you would tell us how to get out of this place."

The child, who had visibly begun relaxing once he had declared his lack of memory, suddenly alerted herself and turned to the woman.

"Ultear! You don't know how to leave this place?"

Jellal flinched. That woman's name made him feel uneasy to depths of his soul.

"Well no."

"How do you not know?!"

"I only knew where this prison was. From what I recall, this place was built to make escape difficult. Spells made to detonate only if someone unauthorized tries to leave this place."

"Can't we just remove them? Or blast through the walls? Didn't you help design this?!"

"No! Jellal and Org helped the Chairman with the design of this one. Ironic, in hindsight. I only knew about its location because I made Jellal tell me before he and Org were spelled to not share its secrets. I expected him to know the way out. Also no, we can't blast through the walls because of the high level of anti magic ore. Spells here were placed using the Chairman's Super Archive, so no, we cannot remove them."

So the casual cruelty that seeped the very foundations of this prison facility was his own design. He must have been more vile than he thought. The silver lining was, that at least when it came to him, there was justice in the world, and now he had to live in a prison of his own design. Literally.

And these people who had come to break him out, were now left with no way of escaping from this hell. Jellal felt remorseful all over again.

Once again, I'm going to cause more pain to people. When will this stop?

"I apologize. I do not have the specific memory that holds the information of what could help you leave this place. You came to help me, and I'm going to cause you to get imprisoned as well. I'm sorry."

"Looks like we really are going to live here forever. Also stop apologizing. You don't realize, but you apologizing to me is not within any realm of sanity. You should hate me. In fact I was the one who-"

"The guards should be waking up any minute now! We can all exchange apologies later Ultear! Jellal, please, try to remember."

The child clearly did not like him. That was fine, he supposed. She thought he was going to kill the woman with whom she was clearly close. He should tell her that he was about to keel over any minute now. But first things first.

Jellal looked around. Try as he might, the escape route was beyond him. The only thing he could think of was the Archive, but he was not proficient in that magic. Or if he was, he didn't fucking remember.

The head guard might know a way out, but he was out cold on the floor. A pink mark shone on his arm as well. Getting a better look at the mark, he realized it was similar to that of the guard who had brought him here. A body link spell? No. Something else.

His eyes fell on the head guard's electric stave that was lying on the floor beside him, the only difference from the Jellal's guard's stave being that it had a small circular contraption fitted on its top, made of several movable ring like structures.

Wait.

That device.

He bent down and nearly stayed there due to another bout of dizziness. He must've been more hungry and weak than he realized. He held his head in his hands. A throbbing headache. Retrieving the contraption, he handed it to the woman.

"Take this. If my small amount of memory is not wrong, its an emergency measure to evacuate councilmen. Can take up to 2 people."

"But we're thr-"

" Andddd, do what exactly? How does this work?"

"I think.. wait..", his head was pounding. "..jump. Yes you need to jump down into that gorge. This device should…"

His legs gave out, the constant torture to his feet finally catching up to him. If the two women had not held each of his arms instantly, he would've fallen face-first to the ground.

".. you need to unlock it with his… fingerprint? Yes. And then… and then.. wait.. Yes! You need to loop the those connected rings around one finger in each of your hands. And then.. jump?"

" Down the gorge? Are you insane?? Whose idea was this stupid thing?!" Meredy was half-yelling now.

Me, apparently.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jellal saw that the unconscious people were beginning to stir.

The woman, Ultear was it? That name had made his brain and body recoil. But he ignored that, and turned to look at her dead in the eyes. "Please leave. I don't remember how, but that device will keep you alive and take you out of here. To somewhere safe? I think. A child should not be stuck in this godforsaken place. Before the guards wake, break the window and jump."

" Attention all personnel! Intruder alert! Initiate shutdown mode!"

Alarms started blaring overhead and he could see that the Archive was beginning to countdown to something called "Complete Shutdown Mode". Not good.

A steely look came in Ultear's eye. "We did not do all this so you could stay imprisoned. You don't want to leave? Fine. We'll just drag you with us."

" You can't. That thing only has one use. If you use it on three people it might not work. The moment two people have used it, it will simply break to pieces." He was on the verge of losing his temper, for the first time since all this craziness had started.

After a pointed look to Meredy, Ultear then turned to him and gave him a slow, chilling smile and said, "Well. Good thing broken pieces can be fixed when sent to their pasts, right?"

…..

Meredy had come fully prepared to hate Jellal, but she hadn't expected to feel so much pity for him. She had seen his pictures, knew what he looked like. Except right now, he looked like he had been starved for months. Their were obvious signs of wounds and he had been barely standing, before eventually falling on his feet. And even then, he had managed to tell them of a way out of here. A completely cuckoo plan, but a plan nonetheless.

While she was relieved that Jellal was not hostile, she still had a hard time trusting him.

Sounds like a perfect revenge. Tell us bullshit about a made up device and we jump to our deaths. Maybe it's a plan to kill Ultear after all.

But knew in her gut that they needed to take him away from this prison.

If he stays here any longer, he'll die before he even goes on trail. They'll kill him.

And more than anything, she trusted Ultear. So when Ultear was speaking to Jellal and keeping him distracted, Meredy whacked him on the back of his head. He passed out instantly. Well. It had been miracle that he was conscious.

Ultear ripped the device off the stave. And then restored the stave to its past, with a new device forming on the top.

"I'll take Jellal and go down first. If we manage to get out safely, you'll use the second one and get out. No arguments. We don't have time."

The unconscious people were beginning to groan and moan, beginnings of wakefulness after being knocked out.

"And if the device doesn't work and we fall? What then?"

But Ultear was already dragging the unconscious Jellal to the open window, and off they went, jumping down in what could only be one of the deepest gorges on the continent.

….

They did not fall. The device had expanded to cover the arms of the people who used the ring, kept them airborne, and jolted them towards the land on the edge of the gorge. Getting dragged by her hands (literally) was not her ideal escape plan, and her shoulder join hurt, but they had left just before she saw the mountainside opened up and swallowed the prison whole. She shuddered to think what would have happened had they stayed inside.

For a few minutes all she and Meredy did was lay on the ground and stare up in the sky. It was dusk now, and the dimming sunlight had lit the sky in brilliant hues of red and orange. The journey to the nearest village was at least a few hours long. Jellal still lay unconscious, and the first order of business would have to be to hide his face. He was too well known, stood out too much. A smart, handsome, and young member of the council who was eloquent and cunning? The council had struck PR gold, and had used him everywhere. It had been one of the worst blows to the council's reputation that their public figure had brought them shame.

He should learn transformation magic. It wouldn't be too hard for him, and should help in keeping his identity a secret. And we need to feed him and get him a doctor. And I need to tell him about his past. And my crimes.

So much to do. And yet, now that she had broken out Jellal, she wasn't sure what to do. He had amnesia. He didn't remember anything, not her atrocities or his actions that had mirrored her will. She had expected him to be angry, to hate her, to kill her. That would certainly have ended her journey of redemption, though whether it would have held any meaning or not, she didn't know.

So now what? How does a person keep on living knowing that their existence had only meant pain and suffering for others? Meredy might have forgiven her, but she still remembered her tears as she had stood in the burning village, afraid that she'd be killed too. And then Ultear had dragged her into a world of crime. She was a thirteen year old, and yet also one of the most wanted criminals of the nation. All Ultear's own fault.

Atoning for a lifetime of cruelty? Was that even possible? Even today, she might have doomed an entire platoon of magic council workers into death inside a mountainside. She could still see the earth opening up like a giant mechanical box, and re-wrapping itself around the entire facility.

"Tell me again, why couldn't we leave just the way we came back?" Meredy asked from beside her. She finally sounded like herself, and that brought Ultear a small sense of relief.

"Spells. A lot of them. They activated if unknown personnel walked through certain exits and entrances. Each of them deadly enough to kill us or drain us of all our power. We couldn't have undone them, and I wanted to avoid ruining the entire facility with my Arc of Time. If I had broken down the walls or foundation, too many lives would have been lost."

"Those people. Prison staff and inmates. Do you think they'll die in there. Now that the facility is, well, eaten by a mountain?"

"Let's ask Jellal when he wakes up. He knows more about it then us."

"We'll have to tell him about Tenrou Island and Fairy Tail. He may not take it well. He seems to feel attached to them."

That, she was not yet ready to do.

After that, Meredy was silent. Ultear almost thought she had dozed off, but she then felt small arms wrapping around her own frame. A voice on the verge of tears finally came from her side,

"I'm glad we're alive and together Ultear. Please stay with me, just like this, everyday. As long as I have you, I think this world is worth living for."

At least for now, I'll try to make sure that I can help create a world where you don't have to shed tears of pain anymore. I hope a day can come, where you can smile wide and be free, unburdened by the existence of a criminal past, and ties that bind you to those who bring nothing but pain and sorrow.