Chapter Forty-Nine
Medical Intervention
As usual, Natsu's senses had been on the mark. He followed his nose, trailing after Mirajane until he silently stepped through the opening in the forest that led to the clearing with Porlyusica's hut.
The mass of magical power told him that Makarov was inside, while Mirajane was waiting patiently, watching with her arms folded, watching the hut.
She hadn't seen nor heard him, and he didn't exactly want to make her jump or completely take her by surprise.
As he approached, he let some of his magic release. A rolling wave of heat fell over the Satan-Soul user, followed by the uniquely distinct smokiness that belonged to him.
She'd been about to turn her head but he'd reached out and wrapped his hands around her waist, gently pulling her body against him, leaning over a shoulder and resting his face against hers.
"What are you doing here, trouble?" She asked, her naturally sweet voice turning sultry. She had an innate talent for teasing him, to an exceptional degree.
"Booty call." He said instantly.
"For me or Porlyusica?" Mira grinned.
"Makarov," he laughed.
"Natsu," she chided, laughing along with him.
"Being nosy, mostly. I was out fishing before I got ambushed by Lucy. We were on our way back to the guild but I caught your scent and thought you'd be coming here, so I decided to come and have a look." He explained casually.
"You and Lucy, in an isolated place, sounds rather salacious." Mira teased.
"Oh yeah, we were absolutely going for it in the lake," he whispered with a muffled laugh, "Actually, that's probably what would have happened if I hadn't been attacked by Selerius," he added quickly.
"Do you mean Aquarius, her water spirit?" Mira asked, her eyes drawn in confusion.
"No, pretty sure it's Selerius," He replied while he began gently rubbing his face up and down against hers.
"You smell good," he whispered.
"I'm loving this, but you need to stop, you're getting me hot." She said, trying her best not to smile as she took his hands and pried herself free.
"Take your clothes off, you'll cool down." He said, grabbing her again and continuing to rub his face against hers.
"No, I will not, because that's not the kind of hot you're making me, now behave yourself, they're almost done!" She scolded him, pulling his hands away and stepping out of his reach.
"Boo," he said, looking over her shoulder as the door to Porlyusica's hut opened. The tall woman led the way, followed by Makarov.
"Dare I ask?" She prompted, raising a brow at the now blushing Mirajane.
"You always assume the worst from me." Natsu huffed.
"Then why is she blushing?" Porlyusica glared at him.
"I went into great detail about what happened after I rescued you, forty years ago." He replied, a proud and triumphant grin in place.
"The world would have been a better place if your tongue had been ripped out centuries ago." The old woman sighed.
"Oh, how your words wound me. I thought you loved my tongue." He said with an exaggerated gasp.
"My boy, as entertaining as that was, in four hundred years you really should have learned when to stop talking," Makarov sighed, not in the mood to deal with the Fire Dragon's antics today.
"Yeah, yeah," Natsu waved, "So, is there anything that I can help you with? I would assume that if you're here, it's probably for medical attention." Natsu reasoned.
Makarov bristled somewhat, but Porlyusica gave a short nod, "If anyone can help you Makarov, it's this one." She told him quickly.
"Very well," the master huffed.
"You are aware that many high-level mages can have multiple disciplines of magic. The magic that affects my size and strength is unstable, it's causing me some serious health concerns." He said.
"Having a morph power like yours when you already have such a naturally short body was always going to be problematic." Natsu reasoned.
"Strictly speaking, it is not a morph magic. It's Titan magic." Porlyusica said.
"When I was no older than you brats, I ended up shipwrecked along the coast of Seven. I eventually found my way far enough inland that I found the home of the giants. To cut a long and boring story short, I found one of these," he said, pulling a long leather necklace out from underneath his shirt. It held a small light blue crystal shard that had a cerulean shine from within.
Natsu stiffened at seeing it, "How the hell did you get a Titan Stone?" He asked, never once taking his eyes off of it.
"Ah, so you know of this already." Makarov mused.
"I've got some analysis to perform, but once I'm done I'll be able to make a verdict. If this and his Titan magic are the cause of the problem, we may well need you to go to the heart of Seven and source another Titan Stone, it may be the only thing keeping this old fool alive." Porlyusica told them.
"So, if your findings should turn up positive, what exactly would you have me do? I don't know if you even realized it, but that tiny shard came off of a boulder they call the Heartera Gigantis, it's an enormously powerful magical artefact, and pretty much a religious relic for the giants, I won't be able to get near the damn thing, let alone have the time to carve away another shard for you." He said, scratching the side of his chin, looking at Makarov in dismay.
"You are the only person who is capable of doing that, and unfortunately, because of the nature of the task, we could not ask for a team to back you up, it could only be you and one other," Porlyusica added.
"Well, she's already part of this conversation, I choose her." Natsu nodded at Mira.
"I still have my primary investigation to do, we won't know if this is definitely the case or not for another week," Porlyusica said.
"I'd advise to not get too stressed in the meantime," she told Makarov.
"Be that as it may, I'm now needed for a meeting with the magic council, a discussionary topic of which just happens to be Natsu," Makarov growled slightly.
"Tell 'em I said hey." The Dragon Slayer grinned.
"So, not getting stressed may be out of the question," Makarov added, ignoring Natsu.
"By the way," Natsu said, his humour fading, "What did Gray and Gajeel tell you about our job in Loduhn?" He asked, shifting his head slightly.
"Not enough, I can't say why but something feels wrong, different, since you've returned. I had hoped that you would shed some light on why that might be." Makarov responded.
"Yeah," Natsu said, nodding slightly as he scratched at the side of his chin.
"See, the thing is, I wasn't joking yesterday when I said that I had been hit with a death spell. It wasn't quite enough to do the job, and the old fart had a second scroll, but, ah, right as he was about to hit me with it, Lucy barged into the room and the spell misfired, hitting her instead." He told them, his voice soft.
"What!?" Makarov boomed.
"How is she still alive?" Porlyusica tilted her head.
"Well, that's the thing," Natsu frowned, "I poured as much of my raw magic into her, but, if only for a few minutes, she died." He told them.
They fell silent, patiently waiting for the Dragon Slayer to continue.
"I don't know how much time passed, I, um, I wasn't quite myself after having Lucy die in my arms, but I regained control when Erza brought Lucy to me, alive." He added
"When she'd died, her magic had faded to almost nothing, and once that happened she became an empty vessel in terms of magic, that's when she actually absorbed my magic, and it became her." None of them in front of him had seen him not smile for this long.
"Are you telling me that Lucy is a reanimation?" Makarov asked, his face neutral
"No, well…" he paused briefly, "Not reanimation, but she was fully revived. She is her own person, she's not being controlled by anyone or anything, but, the thing is, the nature of her magic has changed, she's no longer a Celestial mage, so to speak." Natsu explained.
"Stop dancing around it, tell me plainly Natsu," Makarov ordered.
"She's a Dragon Slayer. She took every last part of me that had wished for her not to die and she built herself back up around it. She is a Dragon Slayer whose elemental source is Celestial energy." He said, silencing them.
Mira, who had already had this explained to him, simply held her soft smile for him, knowing that this had been hard enough on him the first time around.
"Gods, there's three of them now," Makarov held a hand to his head, rubbing his temples.
"Well there would be four but you exconned Laxus. Not that he didn't have it coming, but, he wasn't himself. If I had been conscious, I would have personally requested that you reconsider it." Natsu grumbled.
"What's done is done, he always was and always will be family to me, but his actions whether his own or not, they put the lives of all of our family at risk. I did what I had to do, no matter how much it broke my heart to do it." Makarov argued back. His tone suggested that this simple two-point exchange about his grandson was already over.
"Fine," he held up his hands, dropping the subject, "but yes, Lucy is a Dragon Slayer now, so everything is new to her, you might find her exhibiting certain odd behaviours here and there," Natsu explained.
"There is a more prescient problem in the fact that at some point, the two of you will be biologically drawn to one another." Porlyusica jutted in.
"Firstly, this has already presented itself to me, secondly, our definitions of 'problem' are laughably different." He said, unable to stop the smile on his lips
"But while we're on that subject, it isn't just Lu-" a hand had been clasped over his mouth, Mirajane giving him the darkest glare he'd ever seen.
"No," she told him quickly.
"Pretty much the whole guild saw you rock my body across the floor. Everclear-"
"Evergreen,"
"-has already told the guild that Erza and I are doing the nasty, and when Happy gets back to the guild, he is inevitably going to spill what happened to me in the lake," Natsu told her.
"That doesn't mean that it's a good idea to outright say it right now, not when we're still figuring it all out," Mira replied.
"Are you romantically involved with all three of them?" Makarov asked, mostly just surprised.
"Romantically? Of course not, we're just keeping each other warm on these cold, cold nights. We're not very good at it though because we keep losing clothes instead of adding them. Oh well, we'll get it right one day," he shrugged with a huge grin at seeing Mirajane cover her face.
"There were a hundred better ways to say that." She sighed in exasperation.
"I'll take that sarcastic response as a yes," Makarov said.
"In a manner of speaking. She's right though, we're just figuring things out at the moment. For the record, despite Nevergreen's wild, but fair accusations, I haven't done anything untoward with anyone." Natsu told them, doing an impression of Erza in the exact same way that Lucy had back at the guildhall.
Mira covered her mouth, stifling a laugh at the fact that the two Dragon Slayers had both taken the chance to mock Erza, both separate from one another.
"I won't involve myself in the intimate affairs of any of you brats, but I will say this; despite being fairly new to the guild you've already done a lot to protect us, especially them. I love all of you dearly, so don't mess up and break any hearts, boy." Makarov told him. Natsu could almost feel Fairy Law tinting the old man's words.
"After the incidents with certain members of Lucy's lineage all those years ago, I never had anyone that I formed an emotional bond with, and now I've suddenly got three of them. Let me be clear, I was going to make zero movement with this, to the point where I was going to keep everyone at arms length in order to keep all three of them in my life, in harmony, and they refused." Natsu laughed at the absurdity of it all.
"This whole strange arrangement of sorts was their idea, not mine. I am, for once, not even partially to blame," he said again.
"Be that as it may, what happens from this point onwards is going to be decided by your actions. It may not be your doings that you find yourself in this interesting predicament, but how you go about it now, is. I don't want to see broken hearts, and I don't want to see tears in my guildhall." Makarov intoned.
"Well, probably Gray's. Wait until I have to break up with him," Natsu feigned heartache.
Makarov finally broke out a smile, unable to fight against Natsu's unique sense of humour any longer.
"Well, I won't keep you, good luck with the magic council, I'm going to go and commit acts of genocide now." The Dragon Slayer said with a straight face.
Makarov's smile was short-lived.
"Mirajane, would you be so kind as to babysit the Dragon and ensure that he does not in fact violate the decree that will get our guild disbarred?" Makarov groaned heavily.
"I'm sure that I can find some way to keep him entertained," she said, catching Natsu's eye as she did.
"Is it going to be like you riding me through the guild doors again? It was unexpected but I greatly enjoyed it," he said with a hearty grin as the two walked down the path to the woods.
"Idiot," Porlyusica sucked her teeth, heading back inside her hit, leaving an irate Makarov on his own, ready to head to the magic council headquarters, hoping that he wouldn't be put in a spotlight and have to answer for any of the Fire Dragon's actions
A/N: CWM, 'didn't have much to say', still writes a more analytical review than anyone else will for that chapter. You've gotten the support aspect down to a fine art.