Chapter Twenty-Two
I Refuse
"So," Natsu said, sneering at the impassive figure lounging on the throne before him, "Here we are again.
"Here we are. I could have crushed that fool in an instant." E.N.D. glared, resting a head against his hand, elbow placed on the throne.
"You take everything so lightly," Natsu shook his head, "He was a wizard saint. Yes, you could have taken his life, with horrific ease, but you would have killed Erza with those curses of yours."
"We are the same, Natsu, they're your curses as well. You can keep your little Dragon Slayer magic, it means nothing to me, but know that it will never divide us, and it cannot change what we are." E.N.D. almost groaned, his deep grave voice echoing as it always did whenever the two of them spoke.
"You have become so disillusioned since your death and my birth that you've forgotten exactly what it is that we are. You're the Dragon, I'm the Demon, it doesn't matter who's piloting the meat suit, we are the same." E.N.D. growled, growing impatient with his counterpart.
"We are not the same, I for instance chose to give my life to spare another. I know you've stopped me from dying before but I doubt that even you can withstand two hundred and seventy million edea of magical energy." Natsu reasoned.
"All that power, the Black Dragon would fall at your feet," E.N.D. stated, gazing at Natsu, who narrowed his eyes.
"Doesn't matter now, we're dead, I just hope there's no afterlife, four hundred years with you has been bad enough," Natsu told him, no longer wishing to entertain the conversation.
They fell into an awkward silence where the only sounds that could be heard were those of the roaring flames surrounding the part of their subconscious that had become E.N.D's prison.
"I will not allow us to die," The Etherious stated, rising from the throne and facing the Dragon, "While Zeref and Acnologia still live, so shall we. It doesn't matter how much magical power was in that tower, I will not allow it to stop us," he said, a dull crimson glow falling over the both of them. E.N.D's actions would always affect Natsu, even on such a level. His defiance in the face of death even against such overwhelming odds was radiating.
"I'm almost sorry for you. You were created with a single purpose in mind, one that we've failed to achieve in four hundred years, but this is the end of the road for us, the blast that hit the tower had more magical energy than just about ninety-nine per cent of the mages in the whole of Fiore. You fancy your chances against the strength of ten Wizard Saints all at once?" Natsu raised a brow, finding it all rather amusing.
"This Wizard Saint only lived as long as he did because you've formed silly attachments to that mortal. You could have evaporated the very seas beneath the tower in an instant, preventing all of this from happening. If you had stopped fighting me at every turn, we could have been unified in strength and dropped a sun on this world. Not even Zeref would survive." E.N.D. shouted, pacing in front of Natsu, knowing that no matter what, it was truly futile for the both of them to fight in a physical sense.
Their strength was evenly matched, the only difference was that E.N.D would not hold back for anything.
There was a rumble beneath their feet, something that neither of them was responsible for.
"It seems that those mortals aren't done with you just yet." E.N.D. laughed, the venom in his tone was disparaging.
"Natsu!" they both heard a muffled voice call out from the distance. It was impossible to tell who it belonged to, it was too far away.
"She's still trying…" Natsu whispered, having an intense gut feeling that the voice belonged to Erza.
"You know what? I don't think I'm done with them, you can stay in your cage and rot for all eternity for all I care, I'm going to be the one to break out from this." Natsu stated, flipping a middle finger at the Demon. He began to fade, his resolve already pulling him back into the physical world.
Where was he thought? He could see the starry skies above, untold beauty in the billions of them. That was the kind of serene grace that he'd loved about Anna, it was all so calm.
A whirlwind had been spiraling out of control around him but nothing could distract him from admiring the heavens above.
His attention was brought back to the present when the whirlwind had shattered, stopping abruptly with a roaring sound.
The heavens began to get further away, out of his reach although he'd tried to grasp them.
He could feel the cool rush of wind behind him, his hair whipping at his face from behind. He still lacked the strength to move his body but he'd successfully broken free from the fusing ritual of the lacrima.
This sensation, the skies getting further away, it dawned on him. He was falling.
"Oh," he said plainly, "Fu-"
He hit the surface of the water so hard that it might as well have been made of diamonds.
He watched the surface ripple while sinking below the once-calm waves. Something burst through the watery sheen, striking out as it neared.
Was it her? He couldn't believe it, they'd tried so hard to…
"Gr-!?" Natsu shouted his surprise, the last of the air leaving his lungs, water rushing in and cutting off his words. He'd gone into shock from seeing that his would-be saviour wasn't the Fairy Queen, nor the Celestial mage, but Gray. The one whom he'd been so relentlessly taunting.
Grab grabbed his arms, gently thumping a fist against the scar marks on Natsu's chest and making a closing sign, he then proceeded to cover the Dragon Slayer in a thin layer of ice, his body and it's various functions began slowing to a halt.
The effects of Gray's ice had been multiplied greatly from the cold depths. Natsu watched, frozen in ice and time as Gray hauled the Dragon Slayer back to the surface, eventually reaching their mark.
"I think I got there in time!" Gray gasped for air, immediately using his control to melt the ice away.
"I was worried for a moment that his body heat would stop this from working but by the looks of it, he's worse than we thought." the ice mage explained.
"He just managed to absorb more magical energy than the mages of several countries, not only has he survived that, but he survived the fall, I've never seen anyone as dandy," Wally said, looking on from the boat, unsure of what they could do to help.
"Natsu, I'm alive," Erza whispered, cradling his now unfrozen head in her lap, "I'm alive, and you promised. You promised me that you would come back to Fairy Tail with us," she said quietly, pulling wet strands of hair away from his face.
"His heart is slowing down," Milliana said, her senses keener than most. She was trying to hide the tears from watching everything unfold.
"Come on smokey, I didn't dive down there for you to die on me up here," Gray swore, hitting his chest for a moment. There was a singular loud thump, all of them staring at the scars on his chest, bewitched by the outline of a key, exactly the size of Lucy's Celestial keys.
Slowly she put her hand on his chest, feeling the familiar sensation of spirit energy, "But… That's not possible, he's not a Celestial Spirit." Lucy had said, though her voice was nothing more than a barely audible whisper.
"Lucy, is that what I think it is?" Erza asked, staring in astonishment.
"It's a Celestial key, but… What does it open?" she asked, sharing a look with the Fairy Queen.
"I don't think we should try anything, that could be his self-destruct for all we know." Gray chimed in.
"We have to try something, Gray! His heart has almost completely stopped, I can barely feel it." Lucy responded, panic spreading through her.
"Come on you stupid Dragon, you can't become important to us and then do this!" the Celestial mage whined.
"Lucy…" Erza said, her eyes conveying far more than her words ever could.
She furrowed her brow, focusing every last bit of strength she could, having no idea what it was that would or could happen.
"Open…" she abruptly stopped, not knowing exactly what the summoning phrase would be, "Gate of the Dragon Slayer!" nothing happened.
"He's not a spirit, this isn't going to summon him, I don't know what I can say," fresh tears welled in the corners of her eyes.
"Open, gate of the Dragon Palace!" she tried. The air shifted around them. It wasn't the desired result, but it was doing something.
"Open, gate of the Dragon Ki-!" Lucy never managed to get through to the end of the phrase, Natsu bolted upright, his eyes gold, irises impossibly narrow as he grasped Lucy's hand with so much force that she yelled in pain.
"I won't let you summon him, he'll… Lucy…" his eyes softened alongside his grip on her. He still held onto her hand but his features had gone from aggressive to defeated.
He fell back down to where his head had been resting in Erza's lap. "That key… That key was created by Anna, you can never open it," he told them, his voice strained as he fell back into unconsciousness.
Erza put a gentle hand on his chest, feeling the rhythmic beat of his heart, as calm as the waters around them.
"He's stable," she sighed, finally able to let her own heart slow down, though she fully expected that to be difficult given the circumstances.
"What happens now?" Gray asked, referring to the destroyed island where the tower had previously been.
"There was a moment back there, where…" Erza began, unsure quite how much she wanted to tell them what had happened between them.
"He fought Jellal with the magic binds still locking all of his magic away," she said, stone-faced at the implication.
"He…" Gray began, his jaw dropping. Juvia silently placed a finger underneath, closing it again.
"He fought a Wizard Saint, bare-handed and with no magic?" Gray asked.
"He did." Erza confirmed, "When it became obvious that he couldn't match it, he just took all of Jellal's attacks, and then he…" Erza sighed, before a smile broke out, "In true Natsu fashion he then punched the tower so hard that it started to break down."
"Jellal must have thought that the situation was beyond saving because he used an ultimate form of dark magic, an Abyss Break, and so, Natsu…" Erza stopped, looking down and stroking the Dragon Slayer's head.
"What?" Milliana prompted.
"He ate a chunk of the lacrima, it would have been full of immensely dense ethernano, all kinds of magic coursing through his body. He's elemental, ingesting other elements is poisonous to those types of mages. He almost died trying to save me." she sobbed.
"What were you thinking, you moron!" Gray shouted, looking at Natsu like he was the stupidest person on the planet.
"If I'd have let you drown it would just have been natural selection, do you hear me!?" he demanded, only a foot away from the comatose Dragon.
A fist instinctively rose up and struck Gray on the nose, sending him falling back to the other side of the rowboat.
"Motherfucker, even in his sleep." Gray cursed, clutching the bloodied nose.
"So," the ice mage continued, wiping the red liquid away from his face, "he obviously survived eating ethernano, which is utterly impossible, then what?"
"The magic binds couldn't contain that much power and they burnt up. He wasn't himself though, I think I saw a fraction of what Mirajane saw when she looked inside his mind, it was… Terrifying. He used that power to defeat Jellal and destroy the tower, which I assume you saw even from this distance." Erza explained.
"The tower was about to explode, all that magical energy trying to escape all at once, I knew that if it did, in his state, he wouldn't survive." she continued her recap, "I couldn't let him die after everything he'd done, so, I allowed myself to be pulled into the lacrima. He tried to stop me, even going so far as to say that if I came back to him and promised to live, he would join Fairy Tail."
"And then," Erza sighed heavily, "He did what Natsu does best, and broke the rules. He pulled me out and jumped right in. The next thing I saw was when he fell from the hurricane, same as all of you, before Gray saved him." the Fairy Queen managed to quell the tears in her eyes.
The Salamander was alive, unconscious again, but alive, and he'd made a promise that she intended to enforce, there was no way that she was going to let him go back on his word, not after they'd gone through that ordeal together.
"I swear, every time I learn something new about this guy I have more questions than before. Why, why, does he have a Celestial key in his chest!?" Gray shouted in outrage.
"I suppose the only thing we can do now is go home, all of us, go home and let the Master know what happened here. I'm sure he'll be eager to speak with Natsu about the promise he made me as well." Erza reasoned, absently stroking Natsu's head, the warmth of his body almost drying her off already.
"Do you think Jellal survived?" Simon asked from where he was gently rowing the boat towards the shore.
"I don't know," Erza shrugged honestly, "There was a feeling of magical pressure lifting after Natsu defeated him, it could have been that whatever had taken over his mind had relinquished its hold, or it could have been his life force fading away. I'd rather not know," Erza explained.
"Then let's go home," Gray agreed, looking at the man who had so easily become a rival for him. He wasn't sure what he was a rival in, exactly, he just knew that they'd formed a dynamic that he so far didn't hate.
"Idiot," he chuckled at the Dragon, "and he said Loke was the womanizer," Gray grinned, seeing Lucy and Erza glare at him in response, both of them entirely content kneeling by Natsu's side.
The Dragon King of Fairy Tail had a nice ring to it, after all.
A/N: Taking a couple of days to plan how I want this story to shape up from here. Would be nice if I could get some reviews, there's like two or three of you that I feel some genuine support from, so thank you much to you guys, you're awesome! Your regular reviews are the reason there have been six chapters in the past week.