Year X398

Inside a cavern lied two creatures. The first was a gigantic dark red and beige dragon with black diamonds and various scars on his body. He was the Fire Dragon King, Igneel. The other was a human boy around 8 years old with spiky pink hair and was wearing a red shirt with beige pants and brown shoes. His name was Natsu Dragneel, adopted son of Igneel and fire dragon slayer. Both of them were sleeping though not in the same fashion. Indeed, while Igneel was sleeping peacefully, Natsu seemed to not like his dream all that much if the frown on his face and his constant agitation were anything to go by.

Inside his dream, Natsu was even shorter than he usually is. In his hands was a sheet of paper on which were drawn two characters. The shortest of them was Natsu himself. As for the other, he had no idea who he was. Natsu didn't remember ever meeting a boy slightly taller than him with pitch black hair and who vaguely looked like him. That being said he didn't exactly remember ever meeting other human beings altogether. There was also an inscription at the top of the sheet that said: "The big brother and me". Once he was done looking at the drawing, Natsu's eyes rose to rest on the back of a young man who bore a striking resemblance to the black-haired boy in the drawing. Then, out of pure instinct, a single word escaped the pinkette's lips.

"Zeref" he called.

Before anything else could happen, Natsu woke up to the sight of his foster father snoring. When he did, Natsu felt thoroughly confused. If this was the first strange dream he had had, he would have dismissed it as a trick of his mind, which tended to come up with some rather interesting ideas, but it wasn't. For some time now, he had been having strange dreams. At first, it was only every now and then but their frequency gradually increased and now he had one pretty much every night. They were all different except for one thing: they all involved the boy apparently called Zeref. Natsu didn't have much time to ponder on these thoughts before the dragon next to him started waking up.

A few hours later, Natsu was training his magic in a field with Igneel watching carefully. And he didn't like what he was seeing one bit. His son's mind was clearly not in what he was doing. His attacks were wild and weak and his technique was almost non-existent. After some time of observing, the fire dragon king decided to get to the bottom of his son's terrible performance.

"Fire Dragon's Iron Fist" Natsu yelled out as he punched a tree which barely shook under the impact

"Natsu!" Igneel called out, doing more damage to the tree than Natsu's attack did

"What is going on dad?" the young boy asked after running to his father

"I should be the one asking you that. You have obviously not been paying attention to your training today so what is troubling you?" the dragon responded

After a few seconds of hesitation the pinkette finally asked the question that had been nagging him for some time. "Dad, do you know anyone named Zeref?" he questioned.

On hearing this, Igneel's eyes widened quite a lot."W-Where did you hear that name?" he asked calmly though internally he was freaking out.

The human boy shrugged."I've had weird dreams about a black-haired guy who's called like that. Why?"

Now, the fire-breathing king was beyond panicked."N-No reason. Tell you what. Go back to training, I'll return in a bit." and with that Igneel took to the skies without even waiting for a response

The whole conversation didn't help the pink-haired boy at all. If anything he was even more confused because of his father's unusual behavior. Nevertheless, he decided it'd be best to just do as he was told and got to work.

Inside a field, under the shadow of a tree, a single young man was laying down with his hands behind his head. This man had pitch black hair, and was wearing a black robe with gold trim that went all the way down to his knees, black boots and a large flowing white toga draped around his torso along with a small silver necklace. Though he wasn't asleep, he was pretty close. That is until a big red dragon suddenly landed in the field shaking the earth and making a lot of noise. Yet the man didn't budge.

"What are you doing here Igneel? I thought we weren't supposed to see each other again until the time had come?" he lazily asked.

"There has been… complications." the dragon responded.

This got the young man's interest who sat up and looked the dragon king in the eyes with his black orbs. "What kind of complications?"

Igneel sighed, knowing the predicament they were in."Possibly the worst one. He is starting to remember you Zeref." he answered.

After hearing this, the man, now identified as Zeref, couldn't hide his shock. "H-How?"

"Beats me. All I know is that he's been having dreams about you apparently." Igneel said.

Now, it was Zeref's turn to panic, this was bad. If Natsu was having dreams now, how long until they turned to memories and this could have dramatic effects on his mind, body and magic. Not to mention the fact that Zeref was getting pretty well known and chances Natsu would sooner or later hear about him, then what would happen? So they had only two options: either they let whatever is happening to Natsu run its course, or they could complete the process themselves. Both were risky but the latter was by far the safest for Natsu at least so Zeref's mind was quickly made up. In a quick flash of gold a big dark book with "E.N.D" written in big black letters materialized in Zeref's right hand as he stood all the way up. Upon seeing the book, Igneel was obviously surprised.

"You're not thinking…?" he questioned.

"Of course I am." Zeref responded.

"Then you might just be as insane as humans say. We sealed his demonic powers and memories for a reason remember?" Igneel asked.

"To make sure he wouldn't become cruel and bloodthirsty like most of the other Etherious I created, and so that he could join you in your quest to get rid of Acnologia, yes, I know. But the fact to the matter is that if we don't do anything he could go insane, he could suffer permanent physical damage, he could even die. And I don't know about you but I refuse to take that risk." the Black Wizard calmly answered, yet one could hear a certain edge in his voice.

The fire lizard was obviously shaken at the revelation. Sure, he had guessed that his son remembering his past life wasn't good but he never would've guessed it could be that bad. "What if we restore him and reseal him afterwards?" he asked, trying to come up with another solution.

"Well for one thing, we have no guarantee the same thing wouldn't happen again. Besides, it would require us to start over and we don't have time for that." Zeref replied.

At this, Igneel sighed in resignation. As much as he hated it, and he did, it was still far better than risking his son's life."Fine, but what do we do once he is restored?" Igneel consented.

"I guess we'll just have to hope that the time he spent with you was enough to learn compassion and try to convince him to go along with our plan." Zeref shrugged.

This made Igneel growl in annoyance and exasperation before letting Zeref climb on his back and took off back to where he had left Natsu.

Natsu, on his side, had finished his training for some time and was now back in the cave, laying down but wide awake and thinking about his dreams. He was trying, and failing, to figure out what they meant and where they came from. While he was pondering on those thoughts, he heard the familiar noise of his father landing in front of the cave's entrance. However, one of the two scents that entered his nose wasn't familiar at all so he looked up in curiosity only to have his eyes widen more than they ever had before. Standing right there in front of him was the man he had had all those weird dreams about. In a way, Natsu was relieved because it proved he wasn't insane, yet Zeref's appearance raised more questions than it answered. As for Zeref himself, he could feel tears building up in his eyes at seeing Natsu again but managed to blink them away. Natsu approached Zeref and opened his mouth but Igneel interrupted before a single sound could come out of it.

"I'm sure you have many questions Natsu, but there is something we have to do before you can ask any." the dragon king said, to which his adopted son silently nodded.

Without a word, Zeref placed the book on the ground and opened it before backing away from it, as did Igneel. As soon as the book opened, thousands of crimson red letters flew off it and floated in the air for a few seconds. Then all of the letters started flying towards Natsu's chest at high speed. The poor boy didn't have enough time to react before the first letters entered him which caused him more pain than he had ever felt which in turn made him scream quite loudly. Both Igneel and Zeref visibly flinched at this, neither of them liking seeing Natsu in pain. While this was happening E.N.D's book started vanishing and once the final letters escaped it, it was completely gone. After a few seconds, Natsu started emitting a blinding crimson light that forced the other two to look away. This prevented them from seeing Natsu get taller by the seconds but they did notice his voice getting deeper thanks to his screams. After a bit, Natsu's screams and the light both died down. When the Black Wizard's and Fire Dragon King's gazes landed back on the Fire Dragon Slayer, he was on his hands and knees, panting heavily. But more noticeably, he no longer looked like he was 8 but more like he was around 20, he had black demonic symbols all over his body and his eyes were no longer dark onyx but a bright shiny crimson. While Natsu breathing was returning to normal, the demonic symbols disappeared under his skin and his eyes returned to normal. He then stood up and looked at the other occupants of the cave who were relieved at seeing him well and knew they had many questions coming there way but didn't expect the first one that was asked.

"What the hell?!" the pinkette yelled at them.