Chapter Forty

Celestial Kiss

The razor gleamed in the pale moonlight as it came down, aiming straight for Gray's face. He tried to throw his guard up, ice covering his forearms in a desperate attempt to save himself.

He'd expected to feel the blade slice right through and sever the outside of his wrists, instead, he heard the sound of metal on metal.

Opening his eyes he stared up to see Gajeel standing with a single arm raised, his entire body covered in his iron scales, looking irritated with the creature already.

Erza and Mira both stepped into view from the surrounding darkness.

"I didn't expect that the Salamander's boyfriend would be so weak," the Iron Dragon Slayer sneered, enjoying the look that crossed Gray's face.

"I'm not his… Whatever, doesn't matter, look, magic doesn't work on this thing." Gray explained.

"Then I'll just have to beat the crap out of it the old way." Gajeel smiled, throwing a scaled fist out that connected with Smiling Jack's gut, causing the creature to double back and lurch over in pain.

"Rest up ice princess, I'll handle this." Gajeel laughed before heading forward and sending a dozen precise strikes, each aimed at critical points in the creature's anatomy. He looked, for the most part, like he was having fun, using the odd creature like an extraordinarily durable punching bag, something that couldn't be emulated with anything else.

"How did you even know to come looking for us?" Gray asked, taking the moment to rest.

"Whatever happened to Natsu, it emanated from the brand he gave me, everyone in the guild heard that scream," Erza explained, her eyes scanning the various streets and alleyways that all met at the open pavilion surrounding the tower.

"We don't have much time," the red-haired warrior said before Gray could respond, "Where is he?"

Gray simply hooked a thumb skyward.

"I'll go up, stay here and help them with that thing," she said, scrunching her nose at the creature. Mira silently nodded, taking a slow stride around the side of Gajeel, just watching Smiling Jack. Flurry after flurry, Gajeel struck out at it, each volley of assaults landing less and less as the dark monster adapted, understanding the Iron Dragon Slayer's movements and attacks. This was going to be exceptionally difficult if it was able to adapt that quickly in the middle of a fight.

"Be careful in there, Lucy ran in when we heard the scream, ever since I've been feeling something dark brewing up there," Gray warned as Erza passed him. She gave a quick nod before disappearing inside the tower, heading up with a rocketing pace.

"You creatures of magic always amaze me. Despite knowing that your powers don't affect me, you still try." Smiling Jack smiled, his sharp yellow teeth glinting like a jagged visage of the moon above.

"You talk almost as much as Salamander." Gajeel groaned, glaring at his adversary.

"And you don't pay enough attention. It's not that your magic doesn't work on me, it's that it doesn't work against me." It sneered, waving the razor with a graceful flourish.

"It's the same thing," Gajeel responded quickly, his red eyes burning into his opponent.

"Gajeel, he's cut you," Mira told him, striding past the confused Dragon Slayer, ready to take her turn against it. Gajeel had stopped, simply staring at the long cut on the outside of his forearm, blood gently weeping from within the clean gash in the iron scales.

Smiling Jack didn't offer her the same casual pace that Gajeel had received, instead, he'd struck out with the razor several times, the blade flashing with each swipe. Mira's Satan Soul, whilst enormously powerful, was also incredibly agile and nimble, she dodged and pirouetted with even greater fluidity than her guild mate.

She stopped on one foot, ducking under the razor, slamming a talon-tipped hand into the side of the creature's ribs, sending it flying across the ground with an audible gasp.

"I think Natsu broke all of its ribs on that side, it heals real fast, but it doesn't look like it's fully healed from that," Gray informed them, still building his strength and magic.

"You said magic doesn't work on it, but its wrist is burned," Mira pointed out, her eyes never leaving her opponent. "So maybe only extremely strong magic works," she reasoned, lifting a hand above her head, summoning a huge sphere of black energy that had buzzing arcs of pink energy that danced and shot across its surface like small branches of lighting chasing each other around.

"Give me your best shot. I don't know how your fiery friend burned me, but your magic will not have the same effect." Smiling Jack gave a sinister laugh that had been cut short by the explosion of Mira's attack, engulfing the creature where it stood.

The dust and smoke cleared, revealing the sickly smug grin, unharmed and unphased.

"Salamander is Salamander, we'll just go back to beating it into the ground," Gajeel said, rushing in past Mira and lashing out with an entirely different retinue of attacks, ones that Smiling Jack simply could not predict.

"Even Erza would have struggled against that, Natsu didn't do so much as put some flames around its wrist and yet still managed to damage it more than your blast, there's definitely something more to this." Gray reasoned, standing and resuming his fighting stance.

"It might take all three of us if we can't use magic," Mira agreed, both of them flanking Gajeel to join as a coordinated unit striking Smiling Jack with pinpoint accuracy, hoping that they could whittle it down, or hold it off until Erza came back with Natsu.

At the peak of the tower, the room was abuzz with almost tangible magic that had been pulled from Natsu's body, the majority of which had been absorbed by the old man.

"This power, it's extraordinary!" the Stargazer proclaimed in awe, looking around at the world from behind new eyes. It wasn't strictly Dragon Slayer magic that had been transferred between the two, but it was raw magic that had begun to weave itself through the Stargazer, renewing the failing parts of his body.

"Yeah, you're welcome," Natsu whispered, eyes clouded as he simply watched the ground, unable to even lift his head anymore.

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you're still alive, that book said that Dragons were just about the strongest creatures in existence." The Stargazer sighed casually, making his way over to another bookcase and rifling through.

"You based your experiment on something written in a book?" Natsu wheezed, trying to look at the old man, but didn't have the strength to do so.

"The Meteoric Rise and Fall of Dragons, and-"

"Fuck" Natsu had found the strength to lift his head, "Off." He said, eyes like steel as they bored straight into the Stargazer.

"I take it you're familiar." He said over his shoulder, finally grabbing another scroll, "Here we go, who'd have thought that it would take both of these ancient scrolls to put you down for good." He said whimsically, dusting that one off as well.

"In this life or the next, I am going to hunt down the idiot that wrote that book and murder them, then revive them, then murder them again." The Dragon Slayer groaned angrily.

"I'd wager not this life," the Stargazer said as he held the scroll open.

"Dies Irae, Dies Mortis-" The magic began forming the same purple sphere around the scroll as the previous one had done.

Before the final words had been spoken and the spell invoked, Lucy had barrelled through the crates that Natsu had fallen over, making herself known.

"Natsu!" Her throat closed up and went dry the instant she saw what he'd been reduced to.

"Anima Redde!" The Stargazer finished the chant but now he'd turned to face Lucy, shock and surprise in his eyes as the scroll had been involved, and the death spell shot through the air, striking Lucy in the chest.

"No!" the Fire Dragon screamed. Lucy's eyes went wide, her mouth agape but in so much pain that she hadn't even been able to scream. She wobbled on her feet for a few seconds before her knees hit the ground.

The Stargazer watched fearfully as Natsu broke free from one of the restraints, fire covering him as untapped strength sharply rose to the surface, emotion being the driving force behind his magic. The Dragon had been stripped of power, reduced to a shell of who he was before, and yet here he was, using enough physical strength to rip the binds asunder, causing untold damage to the anchoring points in the base of the tower.

The Stargazer was out of options, he couldn't stick around and feel the depths of the Dragon's power, so he ran up the staircase in the far wall, out of sight in seconds.

Another heavy pull with strength Natsu didn't know he had and he'd freed himself from the restraints, by Lucy's side immediately.

"No, no, please, Lucy, stay with me, you can't die on me!" He pleaded desperately, cradling the Celestial mage in his arms.

Despite the overwhelming sense of pain she was in, she looked into his eyes and gave him the softest smile she could muster.

She gently reached up and pulled his face down until their lips met. He didn't know what else to do, her touch had caught him off guard, ploughing through the mental fortress that had been his psyche, for less than a fraction of a second he released the restraints he'd put on himself so many years ago.

He forced every last bit of magic he had left out of him and into her, willing it to adapt to her, to act the same way that it did for him. If he could force it to rebuild the damaged parts, to keep her heart beating, then he could save her.

"Natsu!" Erza burst into the room, swords in both hands, shocked at the scene before her. She took a step back in silence, unable to form words at the sight of what she'd thought was her Dragon lip locked with Lucy.

A few more seconds passed before the Celestial mage's hand fell limply to the floor.

"Lucy," Erza breathed, realizing what had happened. She ignored her own beating heart and joined Natsu on the floor. He looked broken, devoid of anything that made him the Dragon Slayer that had been constantly occupying Erza's mind.

"Natsu, what…" She didn't know what to say, what could she even do. The woman that looked identical to the one that Natsu had loved centuries ago had just died in his arms.

As he stood, two single tears ran down his cheeks, slowly falling towards his chin. The tears were evaporated as the heat rose all around them.

Small balls of flame came to life from within his eyes, burning like unstable suns as they morphed into narrow streams of flame that rose up, gliding across his forehead, gently burning beside the hair that was indifferent to the heat.

She could no longer see his irises, obscured by fire. His lips were a thin line, with no sign of the smile that he always wore. His skin turned the slightest tint of red and the outline of scales began forming on his arms and chest.

"Natsu, please, what's going on?" Erza pleaded. She tried to will herself to look up at him, to see that there was still a trace of his normal self behind those flames, but she couldn't do it. She couldn't raise her head to meet that emotionless gaze.

He turned around and slowly followed the footsteps of the wizard, leaving Erza now being the one holding Lucy's body in her arms.

It took a few moments after he'd left the room before the unseen weight bearing down on her vanished, allowing her to raise her head again. She didn't know what that was, but it terrified her to her core. Her instincts, her battle-hardened instincts had told her to get away from him, to run as far as she could.

Despite the fire and the flames, she'd never felt colder by his side.

Now she was alone, mourning someone that she'd considered to be one of her closest friends, while the man she'd begun to see as someone she held even closer to her heart had lost control of himself.

If it had been anyone else, that sentiment would have been shallow in the face of a fellow guildmate's death, but for Natsu, a centuries-old immortal…

If it came down to it, could she and the others at the base of the tower bring him back from that dark place he'd fallen to?

A/N: In my defence, I apologized in the last chapter.