Chapter Thirty-Eight
X373: The Black Dragon
"We've seen this, why are we watching the same thing?" E.N.D. sneered, absently scratching one of the long black horns that jutted out from his forehead.
"We're being subjugated to torture with the intent to extract our essence and kill our soul, and you're upset because we've done this already?" Natsu raised a brow. Even in the dream state, he was exhausted from enduring the Stargazer's magic extraction machine.
On the list of things that he'd greatly not enjoyed, this one was right up there alongside Laxus' thunder palace and becoming the catalyst for the tower of heaven.
In front of them, two Dragon guards lay unconscious on the throne room floor, their attempts to flank Natsu had gone horribly.
"We weren't joking," the young Natsu said with a mildly irritated glare, "I am a Dragon Slayer, if I so wanted I could have taken their lives, but we did not come here for that."
"You cannot possibly stand there and claim that you want peace, there are two bodies by your feet." Irene shot back with a raised brow. It was clear that at least for the moment, she was simply amused by the situation.
"Two alive… two mostly alive bodies," the young Natsu told her.
"You haven't even used this supposed Dragon Slaying magic of yours. While I can smell Igneel's scent on you, this other smell that lingers over you is more prominent, so, tell me… What are you?" Irene stood, gently swiping a hand across the air in front of her. The space between her fingers ripples with distortion before a grand oaken stave appeared in her hands. It had a few large brass bells attached to the top with azure-coloured ribbons. It reeked of magic that Natsu couldn't determine.
"I must say," Natsu murmured from where he and E.N.D. were watching in silence, "In a certain light, she does have a slight resemblance to Erza, but what are the chances that she's related to the Queen of Dragnoff? This was four centuries ago."
"I do not know," E.N.D. admitted. If this was something that he hadn't been thinking about then the response would have been hostile, but clearly, they were on the same wavelength.
"I would expect that you could determine it based on scent alone, but I cannot remember her, mostly because you were so preoccupied with watching him." E.N.D. pointed, glaring at Natsu as he did.
The events in the throne room had gone extremely sour.
"Show me, just Natsu, what your magic is capable of," Irene said, her eyes conveying pure glee.
"Natsu!" Anna tried to get in the way, "You cannot! Even if things have gone wrong here, you cannot go over the edge, if Igneel isn't here to stop you then…" The Celestial mage had gotten in front of the young Dragon Slayer, splaying her arms wide to halt his advance on the Queen.
He offered her a questioning glance but never got the chance to respond to her.
"Pathetic, get out of our way!" Irene swiped the stave across the air, sending a rippling wave of black energy coursing towards Anna.
With one deft movement, the young Natsu grabbed Anna by the waist and spun, taking a huge lungful of air as he did.
"Fire Dragon's Roar!" The funnelling breath attack utterly decimated Irene's attack that had been intended for Anna, and then continued to blast a hole clean through the brickwork of the throne room, leaving a gaping hole in the wall right next to her throne.
"Monstrous!" Irene shouted with glee, adjusting the magnificent sea-green hat that cascaded against her deep crimson hair.
Before Natsu could make a second attack, a flash of black crosses their vision. It had been a cape attached to the shoulders of a tanned man, roughly the same age as Natsu.
He'd come rushing in, striking Natsu across the jaw with enough force to send the young Dragon Slayer sprawling.
He'd managed to recover mid-scramble, a hand adjusting his course until he flipped back onto his feet, watching this new arrival with awe and interest.
"The traitor!" Irene's joy at the events unfolding before them was almost uncontainable. "How this warms my heart. Have you stepped in to try and earn my favour once more?" She asked the tanned man with the dark eyes.
"Taking her life is my right and mine alone for what she did to me, I won't let you stand in my way," the man said, eyeing Natsu with a level of focus and determination that he'd never seen in another individual.
"Natsu, we need to leave, now!" Anna pleaded but her cries fell on deaf ears.
"Natsu," the man mused, "you should listen to your mate. If you are a true Dragon Slayer like me, you know what kind of promise has been made here."
"Come now, you killed Acnologia in cold blood, what did you expect would happen?" Irene said with sarcastically pursed lips, resigning herself back to her throne.
"You sent that Dragon to my village, you were the reason that he slaughtered everyone I loved and cared for, and now, I have taken the name Acnologia. You have brought this upon yourself, Irene," the tanned man said.
"Ac-no-logia," Natsu rolled the name around his tongue, "I am a Dragon Slayer, and I have no mate," he added, taking a few steps to the side, keeping his senses utterly flared and tracking everyone and everything around him.
"We have suffered insult by this monarch, if you fight me here and now, you will die," the young Dragon Slayer's voice took on a darkness that had been gone for years. It was in line with the monster that he'd been before Anna and Igneel had saved him.
"And there it is, there's that creature I can smell so much of," Irene sat forward, unable to take her eyes off of Natsu as dark licks of black and red flames began sporadically erupting from his skin.
"Then I'm sorry it comes to this," Acnologia said, pulling a hand from the cover of his cape, glinting talons already striking out mere inches from Natsu's skin.
The connection that would have torn the young Dragon Slayer's body asunder had never landed, instead, Acnologia had been thrown to the wayside, tumbling down into a heap. Trails of blood had been left in the dozens of feet he'd been thrown, oozing out from the broken and splintered half-transformed hand that had tried to take his life.
"Natsu, please, you have to listen to me!" Anna's words felt distant, a faint trace of an ally that had once meant everything to him. The only thing he could see with any clarity was Irene, in her throne watching him now with fear in her eyes.
"What am I?" The voice barely sounded anything like the young Dragon Slayer that had initially approached her.
"I was made to kill that which cannot be killed." He took another step, steam rising from the places his feet had previously been.
"Natsu, please, I'm begging you, come back to me!" Anna's voice had finally broken through, she'd stopped him from losing control.
The distant look in his eyes had faded until he could see her clearly. She meant the world to him, how could he let himself go like that?
Acnologia was back on his feet, the mangled hand trying to repair itself though it would take quite a lot more strength from being eviscerated like it had.
"She's all yours," Natsu said to him, turning to leave the throne room with Anna.
"You presume much to believe that any of you are leaving here alive, just Natsu!" Irene appeared behind them with only a jingle of the bells to alert his senses.
Unfortunately for her, his senses were already in overdrive. He'd spun around, his lungs already full of magic.
"Ma Ryu Hoko!" the funnel of black and crimson fire erupted, tenfold stronger than his previous attack. This was Dragon Slayer magic tainted with Etherious curses.
While he knew that wouldn't kill Irene, she wouldn't be in any position at all to stop him. It all faded, leaving Irene plastered against the floor in the far part of the throne room, her body unable to recover from the power that was designed to kill the immortal.
"She's not dead, but if you kill her now, it won't bring you any sense of honour. Leave this place, come back when you know you're strong enough to do this the way it should be done." Natsu told Acnologia before he and Anna disappeared back through the palace the same way they'd come.
The vision faded, leaving Anna who had faltered from her run. She slowly turned to face the two of them.
"The silence is somehow worse than you simply telling me the same thing over and over again," Natsu sighed, crossing his arms as he did so often with these dreams.
Anna tilted her head, pursing her lips at him. "I can't involve myself more than I already am," she said, confusing the both of them.
"I cannot make it any clearer, you need to gather all of the Dragon Slayers, otherwise you won't be able to defeat him." She pleaded.
"Wait a second, wait." Natsu held his hands up, briefly glancing at E.N.D.
"This is all wrong, we didn't do all of this for Zeref," he added slowly.
"Gather the Dragon Slayers," E.N.D. mused, "to slay the Dragon,"
"He's right," Natsu added, "We didn't come up with this for Zeref, I remember now after seeing him again after so long. Acnologia was the reason we did this," he said adamantly.
Anna shook her head sadly, "Things have changed, Zeref has altered the course of events beyond anything that we could have expected. You cannot defeat them both, and they're both going to come for you." She told him.
"I'm sorry," she said quickly, finally acknowledging E.N.D.
"I'm sorry for everything, but mostly for how we must consider you as a weapon. You will only endure this ordeal as one and with the others at your back." Anna said, her voice fading.
"I hate to entertain the thought that he's right," Natsu shifted uncomfortably across his feet, "But if we ever find Zeref, I won't be able to keep him here, it's his only function, and as far as Acnologia goes..."
"Well, the last time I saw them, I fought both of them at the same time and almost took Acnologia's head off before Zeref wounded me. All that was four centuries ago when we started the Eclipse gate, if that fight were to happen now I'd drop a literal sun on them," he added casually.
"Not to mention that if it turns out that I'm not actually strong enough, I've already got one of the other Dragon Slayers, and I've even found a new one, I'm overachieving if you think about it," he told her with a mild shrug.
"You've also lost that extra one though," E.N.D. pointed out.
"Oh, yeah, but he was being controlled so I'll eventually find him and convince the geezer to bring him back in," Natsu argued.
"Natsu," Anna sighed happily, "You always were so easily distracted. Back then it was your love of the world, and life, always constantly enamoured by the new things around you, but now... You've become too strong for your own good, nothing around you is worth your time or effort anymore, is it?" her happy sigh had turned into a deeply sad frown.
Natsu slowly turned back to look at her, "I met some people, you'd like them, Lucy especially. She's a Heartfilia, she scolds me the same way you used to." he laughed shyly, scratching the back of his head.
"I'm glad that even after all these years, you're still looking after my family." she looked like she had tears welling in her eyes.
"It started out that way, sure," he nodded in agreement, "but now... Well, I think she's looking after me just as much. She's got such a fierce determination." he gave her a happy smile. It was gone as quickly as it had come when the world of the subconscious shook with heavy tremors, the sounds of power erupting around them.
"Find the others as quickly as you can, do not fall for Zeref's trap, if you allow him to divide you, there will be no return for either of you." She said before it all faded, and Natsu awoke with a tremendous scream as the magical extraction device started up again.
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