The cave was collapsing and it wasn't my fault.
Morgana...!
Roll to the right and then forward for 1.5 meters.
I obeyed, still shivering from the close encounter of a very nearly lethal kind that I had had.
It could still be lethal. Now fetal position.
Morgana's voice remained as passionless as ever but there was a hint of sharpness to it as I obeyed her instructions.
This will teach me to take the scenic overland route!
-vVv-
I'd been coming back from visiting Iceberg again. Macau was a good teacher for basics and Romeo was actually enjoying being able to go with his father to work for a change. Prince Victor had bemoaned yet again being shown up by a child in terms of skill. They had both been practicing magic for the same amount of time despite one being less than 10 and the other a grown man with a infant son. But Romeo had grown up in our guild hall and had informally been using minor Rainbow Fire cantrips to move small objects since he was 7. The difference in their functional abilities was like night and day despite Victor being more capable of grasping theory. Or so I inferred. The scene had been particularly impactful to the prince, so it had attached itself to a letter from him where he merely mentioned the Fairy Tail magic tutors that they were currently hosting.
Envy could push people to do better and they could also push people to be worse. Since Victor had grown up in a cursed and literally haunted castle and possessed Darkness Magic even now, I decided to swing by and conduct a wellness check.
Darkness was a very general term, all things considered. It could mean something as literally as the absence or light, or as metaphorical as negative emotion. In this sense, Victor's Darkness Magic had shifted in recent weeks in such a way to alert him to the presence of malicious intent directed at himself or his loved ones. He had been developing a profound paranoia and insomnia and had contacted me.
He was worried that Marcel's curse managed to pass to him.
Which was a viable reason for me to come and check things out. Once we got a handle on what was happening, just a normal, healthy route for his power to take, we figured out a way to let him get a good night's rest again by adding some runic dreamcatchers to his sleeping apartments and a smaller token to carry. I couldn't give him my coping method, that being Morgana constantly filtering errant thoughts and screening out negative mental effects, but I could give him some supportive talisman's to help him develop his own psychic shielding.
And while I did that, Victor got to experience some of the more active wizardry work. Turns out his sense for danger was being set off by a group of unhappy citizens that were targeting the new magic users in the wintery kingdom. Which had led back to a political rival, and even more snarls and interpersonal tangles that he as Crown Prince and a publicly known wizard would have to face.
Centuries of tradition can't get overturned without upsetting some apple carts along with it.
It was mostly a religious tension. The clergy didn't like how fearless magic was making some people. And how it was affecting their piety. For some, it was genuine concern for their well being and morality. Others were just seeing donations to their various organizations getting smaller as magic became more relied on. However, that was a job for Iceberg's leadership to handle internally. I was currently heading home through a tunnel in the mountains that was used to cross the border. Reports had shown that a cave in was suspected of having happened in some places, so I'd been commissioned to clear it out and make it safe for travel once again.
It is literally just Victor trying to give me money without making me do any work.
I was actually dimly wondering if Victor knew he was basically trying to be a sugar daddy when Morgana set off a screeching alarm in my mind. I stumbled for a second, trying to grasp what she was trying to tell me but-
Tartarus.
The temperature dropped abruptly. To levels that I hadn't felt in years. Which distracted me because I would only ever associate cold with one person.
Gray?
I inhaled the chilly air, trying to orient myself. Cold shock response was making me slower than normal.
"The cold never b-bothered me anyway."
I muttered, teeth chattering as I tried to flee back the way I had come. Small amber runes flashed my arms for an instant as the phrase triggered an enchantment to help me tolerate sub zero temperatures. The tunnel was far enough underground that it should be pleasantly cool, but stable. This though? This felt like standing in the heart of a howling blizzard with wind chill steeling the warmth from my lungs. The Elsa enchantment helped me to control my shivers, though my extremities were still very cold. But it was improving my circulation. And there were ice crystal blooming on the ground in a deadly pattern approaching me rapidly.
Not even Gray's ice was this cold.
It is not Ice Make Magic.
Great, of all the times to encounter something new. I dimly sensed a figure was approaching and the warning state shifted into active combat. Or rather, the potent need to retreat, fully and without hesitation because there were nothing in our arsenal that we could throw and this thing that would net us a victory.
Left.
I dodged, trusting Morgana. I avoided most of the spray of menacing purple ice fragments-
Seriously, why the freak is it purple? Is Gray the only ice wizard around with a freaking normal colored ice?
The shards that did graze me were so cold, I felt the cuts they inflicted freeze instantly. I was going to have a hefty bit of frostbite once this was over. But at least blood loss wouldn't be an issue.
If I don't die from something else first.
I'd been traveling. Prepared for teaching, and cold weather. I had some totems prepared for combat, but committing to one of them before I knew what I was up against would bite me painfully later if I tried to switch totems too quickly. That and my book was in my bag but I didn't have time to pull it out to try and choose something to fight back against an unknown magic-
A Slayer magic.
Slayer. That meant that they could consume a specific element to gain power but likely not what they themselves produced. That gave me a direction at least. I could either fight back with their own element, or try and go for something that was a complete opposite. Since I'd already begun by channeling Elsa, so I stepped further into that character and the listed abilities.
"Story Attunement: Queen Elsa of Arendele."
My hair tickled inside my hood as it organized itself into the iconic braid of the snow queen. I grabbed one of the fallen ice shards and threw it back the way it had come from, channeling my will and imagination.
Shield.
Amber magic moved from my hands, turning pale blue once it went more than a few inches from me. It touched the lavender colored ice and it rapidly shifted and reformed into a crystalline shield that blocked the entire tunnel. I grabbed a few more fragments of the enemies first semi successful attack. I had a feeling I might need them.
I had been traveling under a Cat Eye enchantment, a basic enhancer spell that most rune wizards and enchanters could do easily. It let me navigate in the dark quite well. Holding it at the same time as an Attunement got tiring but my bracer took most of the weight. Somehow, even with no air flow and the tunnel completely blocked by a thick layer of ice, it got even colder.
Out of the way.
I ducked into an alcove as my magic drained suddenly. A massive pillar of ice broke through my Shield. I cut off the spell sustaining it before it drained too much of my power. I used another purple shard to seize the pillar, considerably larger than what I had used before, and made an even thicker barrier. Discouraging him from following me wasn't going to work.
How long do I have until they make it through?
36 seconds.
This much ice would have taken Gray at least a minute to get through. I scrambled for my 'test book'.
I'd taken the cover that Freed had made for me in anticipation of my graduating to a spell book, and broken down the concept runes. Freed had kept them simple so I could alter them as I pleased, and I'd made a small book that contained a number of basic experimental concepts. The full stories were compressed to a miniscule text size to power the various spells I'd scribed in the book.
"Ruby slippers."
This item was a test. It was meant to warp me home. But I wasn't sure that it would work. I'd only finished writing it during my last visit in Iceberg and had wanted to get closer to home before testing it. Long range teleportation was extremely chancy after all. I had the runes written out, and had not yet found or made suitable shoes to support the spell. So my boots shifted into ruby bedazzled low heeled dress shoes. If I hadn't been channeling Elsa, I would have shivered a lot more at the loss of protection from the elements.
Overlaying two incompatible spells will drastically drain your energy.
Which I had known and expected but I didn't exactly have many good options.
"There's no place like home."
I focused on Fairy Tail. The Guildhall. The people who were waiting for me. I only had time to tap my heels together twice before Morgana plotted out the next course of evasion in my mind. Tossing another ice shard, this time in front of me, I jumped, a series of pale lavender snow mounds propelling me higher in the tunnel towards another hiding spot.
I sensed the other wizard melting my second barrier. He was more than 70% of the way through, but still didn't have proper line of sight on me.
He is minorly irritated and begrudgingly impressed at your creativity.
I would have laughed hysterically had my lungs not been protesting the knife-like chill entering my body with every gasp. This cold shock response was no joke. I'd have locked up entirely without my Attunement. Once I was secure again, further down the tunnel, I risked clicking my heels three more times.
"There's no place like home."
I focused on home in my mind's eye. Kinana would probably be lounging before the fireplace, resplendently content to bask in whatever warmth she could find in the winter chill. Wendy would be complaining incredulously about the season's breed of nipa, minor imp like creatures that acted as carriers for Earthland's version of the common cold, as she came home from the clinic-
Fear stabbed through me with the sound of my last line of defense being shattered and rocked my concentration.
We are running out of time, Fae.
Under my Cats Eye enchantment, I saw a figure come forward through the mist down below. The Elsa Attunement kept my breath from misting and giving away my position. Not that I could bring myself to breathe at the moment.
I'm kinda backed into a corner here, I can't run anywhere else!
I could only hope he would assume I had gone further up the tunnel. The snow steps I had used to get up here had dissipated at my command so there was next to no trace that I had gone to ground here.
He does not let his enemy escape.
I loved and cherished Morgana but her words, her information, brought me no comfort this moment. He had attacked me out of nowhere, so talking him down didn't seem like it would work. You had to be strong enough to make someone pause and listen and at this rate...I doubted I could power anything that would put me on his level.
He knew who you were before attacking you. You were targeted deliberately.
Well wasn't that a lovely way to make the already arctic air feel even colder? Also, very much feeling like a final nail in a coffin.
"Ice Devil's Apathy."
And now the cold shock response was weaponized. My outermost layer was literally frozen stiff.
This could be what kills me.
The thought made me fight, drawing more deeply on the Attunement and the concept.
I refuse to die here. Come on, think, Cold. Ice and snow are who she is. What she is. No matter what this guy throws at me from that element, Elsa can handle that as long as her heart stays warm and alive!
I could move a little. The more power I put into the Attunement, the less the chill bothered me. Or, the less I felt it. My body was still reacting to the extreme cold.
He doesn't know where I am, just that I'm close.
The cold kept me from feeling much pain when my hiding place was suddenly smashed by a large glacier that seemed to grow out of nowhere. Morgana grappled with my body's automatic shock at the sudden sensory input.
Stay awake. We will die if you do not stay awake.
So yeah, I got to experience falling to an unforgiving group from about 15 feet up. Even my protective runes couldn't make that comfortable when my body refused to respond to my own commands to fall correctly. I at least didn't break anything when I landed, though I doubted I'd feel it at this rate.
Sleepy...
Closing my eyes seemed to be the only way I could conserve warmth. It was more and more tempting by the second.
I heard someone coming closer.
I managed to turn my head.
And my heart lifted and sank at the same time at the sight of familiar dark eyes and that black hair.
"Gray...?"
If he was here, then he was dead and I was dying. I'd always like to imagine that I'd be able to be with my loved ones after I died. But if he was dead then so was everyone else on Tenrou.
Someone spoke from far away.
He asked a question.
Unbidden, the thoughts came over me.
Water has memory.
Ur still lived in the ocean, watching over her children. And so, water had also been there.
It seemed as though a lot of my memories of Gray involved water.
When I flew for the first time to catch him after he was thrown from the Tower of Heaven.
The times at Akane resort, walking along the beach together.
Riding roller coasters in the sun, laughing and whooping, feeling his presence chill the air in the compartment.
Smaller moments when he would freeze my juice into a popsicle on hot summer days.
The face looked so similar and the eyes and hair were almost the same...
It's not Gray.
I know it's not.
But it was nice to pretend...just for a bit.
-vVv-
I didn't really expect to wake up again after blacking out like that.
Am I actually warm, or is that just the hypothermia talking?
There is a fire approximately 3 feet to your left.
So it was actually warm that I was feeling and not my brain tricking itself. The enchantment on my shoes had dropped, and they were snug winter boots again. And I was bundled in my sleeping roll as well as an unfamiliar item-
Dead.
My hand jerked away from the that had been laid over the top of me as though burned. Touching it made me see a demon. One I had seen before, vicariously through someone else.
Deliora. The Demon that attacked Gray's hometown when he was a kid and the one in Ur's Iced Shell on Galuna Island.
"Gotta say, you're smarter than I gave you credit for."
Looking at his face now, I didn't recognize him.. Though I could understand why I mistook him for Gray, they resembled one another strongly. This man was clearly much older with scars and stubble Gray had never had, ...well even at his lowest, my Ice Make Wizard friend had never looked that dead inside.
Uh...just checking, but Gray's dad is dead, right? That was one of the sadder memories I had compartmentalized as a child and only dealt with now. Or had been forced to deal with. In some ways, the best way I had of keeping my friends close outside of thinking of our good memories together was thinking of the things that only they and I had witnessed. Deliora's attack, or what parts of it Gray had seen, was among them.
Affirmative.
But there was more there and I was past the point of believing that was the end of it. There was no way it was just a coincidence that a man who looked this much like my friend and happened to have an ice based magic just happened to run into me here.
Ice Devil Slayer.
"You were the one attacking me." The runes sewn into my bedroll were radiating heat, making it so I was practically cozy. But my lips still felt stiff and unwilling to form words. He smirked and nodded. "So why not just leave me to freeze then?"
"Ya know it would be good manners to say 'thank you'."
"Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to be alive. But near death experiences do terrible things to my ability to self filter.."
This was said a bit more bluntly and indelicately than I would otherwise have but I was angry. At myself mostly.
This was highlighting a critical weakness of mine. One I had been trying to supplement and compensate for. I did not adapt well to surprises if I couldn't get some down time to think of a solution. The thing with the ghosts in Iceberg had ended as well as they had because they hadn't been aware enough to actively hunt for me until I had enough information to figure out how to solve the problem.
In this case however...I'd been helpless to this person's whim. I'd have been killed by him if he had chosen to finish me once I was helpless. Or if he had even just decided to leave me. There was no way my emergency failsafes would have let responders find me in time.
"Ya feel close with the owner of that body then?"
What?
I know that I must have looked like an idiot as I blinked at him in confusion, unsure of what he was talking about.
He is talking about us .
Morgana said softly, helping my mental function catch up and get back to regular processing speeds in spite of my recent bout of unconsciousness via hard impact. The warmth I had won back left me again in a rush.
"...Who are you?"
I was on my guard now in a new way. Only a handful of people had known about my situation. Brain had likely figured it out, even after my brutal lobotomy of his mental capacity to shut off Zero from gaining control again. And he was still in maximum security and his personality type wouldn't let him reveal that kind of information since, in his mind,it was a weakness he could exploit. And even after being caught, his ability to think, plan and strategize would combine with his arrogance to make him think he was still largely unbeatable.
"The name's Silver."
He replied, not seeming the least bit bothered by the temperature. And he wasn't...
He doesn't feel cold .
Silver just sat casually and loosely. Elbow on one knee and looking me over with a spark of curiosity. His posture wasn't closed, arms folded to preserve heat. He wasn't leaning towards the fire like a normal person would. Even Gray, who was largely immune to freezing, would huddle in towards a fire for the light and instinctive comfort it gave him.
Does he feel anything?
Not much.
Silver...the name had connections to my past, but I didn't have the time right now to go looking any further. I had to stay focused.
"Why did you try to kill me Mr Silver?" Now is not the time for unconscious Treasure Island references. Focus!
"I'm a Devil Slayer." He replied glibly. "I kill demons."
"But I'm not a demon..."
"Yeah. You survived, so I figured you weren't." He glanced back down the tunnel aways, to where Morgana murmured he had caught me. He had moved me to a smaller, more secure spot where the warmth would be better trapped. "Whatever you are, it ain't human. But it also ain't powered by a curse."
And that was a normal definition of what made a demon. Something that had been spawned of sentient beings' negative emotions influencing the world in such a way that the ethernano had...basically fled the area and the absence of that energy allowed a new kind to form.
But how did Silver know about me? That I was a...magical spirit formed within a human body. A split personality that had gained its own identity and power.
"How?" My voice sounded young in my own years. This was something I had come to terms with, more or less, but it was still not an easy thing. In some respects, I still felt like an intruder. Like a thief that had robbed Morgana of her life. "I didn't even know for a while."
"Tastes different." He said carelessly. "You've felt despair. But it didn't make anything come alive in you."
So...I sat up and pulled my coat more tightly around me as I huddled towards the fire.
"You ate my magic?"
"Just a bit of it in my ice that you took over." His eyes were dark, and they were in no way soft or warm...But they weren't hostile or without feeling when they regarded me. "That was interesting, by the way. I've never met anyone who could do that sort of thing before."
"I just borrowed it."
I needed something to eat, my body would take the nutrients and start to rebuild my broken, bruised and battered bits.
"Kid, Devil Slayer magic is a Lost Magic. You're the first thing I ever saw who could do anything to it without using a Curse to affect it."
I lifted my head and looked him dead in the eye. The glare might have had more impact if I hadn't needed to fight to keep my teeth from chattering.
"I. Am not. A thing.
" He shrugged, not seeming to be affected by what I had said.
"Don't know what else to call you. You're not human. Not a demon. Not anything I've ever seen."
"I am human." Humans may not have been the only sentient race in the world, but it was what I had decided I was. But my honesty had me adding as an afterthought.. "I am originally a split personality born from massive trauma and abuse, but I got over that. I will live like a person because I am one."
"You're way too stable to be a sign of mental illness. And that body isn't yours so-."
"She didn't want it." I pulled out a package of well wrapped food. I'd packed enough for five days, though the journey was only supposed to take two. "She didn't want to live. I did. So I took the reins, and she helps."
Morgana gave me an affirming mental squeeze. She was comfortable and content in her role.
"Living ain't all it's cracked up to be."
I gagged, at the pun and the fresh surge of death that washed over me.
I'm sitting in a cave with a dead guy . "The irony of that statement..."
His scarred brow rose.
"What?"
"You're dead." The air temperature suddenly dropped again, the fire struggling against the sudden power filling the air and I shivered. "Dude, I'm stating a fact that you are aware of. If you want me dead then put out the fire and put me out of my misery. But if not, then get a hold of yourself!"
I question the wisdom of inviting him to kill you like this.
Not like he couldn't have let me die if he really wanted to. Or even just ignored me. Instead, he wrapped me up warmly and started a fire. He went out of his way to kill me...but he also went out of his way to save me once he realized I wasn't what he was after.
The man, to his credit, only looked mildly startled at my words.
"...You really are taking this in stride."
"You're not the first undead person I've talked to." I said blandly, unwrapping a trail mix bar and biting into it for the sugar and protein. "And, as you've pointed out: I really don't have a lot of room to talk in regards to what should be considered a person and what shouldn't. Being a sentient, ongoing identity crisis myself."
Silver did not kill innocents. Nor did he inflict undeserving pain. If it was a demon, it was in danger from this man. From a standard nipa to a greater demon like Deliora-
Caused his death/undeath.
For that matter...I'd called him Gray. A honest mistake but it had been there. And he had...reacted to that? I could sense that he had reacted after I blacked out but trying to look into it-.
Dangerous...
Morgana warned me. If it was going to be brought up, it should probably be brought up by him. And definitely looked into later once I was no longer within sight of him. Regardless. He had confirmed something that I had been looking for some confirmation for for years. To some magic, I would not register as human, but something closer to a demon. Not by nature, but construction.
My blithe answer earned a reserved chuckle from the man.
"No...I guess there wouldn't be much that would phase you after realizing you aren't what you think you are and accepting that."
This felt...close. Personal. He had likely needed to accept his own death. And in all cases, no one lingered after death unless they had something strong keeping them here. A feeling, a desire-
Revenge.
Yeah, that's a popular one. But Silver was too controlled to just be a vengeful spirit. And his body was clearly physical. He had left tracks, and the air was stirring his hair slightly. Wind from some escape hole up above. So...how was he in this state?
Necromancy.
Great another thing to plan for.
I didn't say anything else as I focused on regaining my strength and regulating my temperature. As my body began to process the food, using it to regain magic and draw in more magic from my surroundings, I started to feel a bit more steady. Silver might have decided to spare me because I didn't fit his preferred victim type, but that didn't mean he couldn't change his mind and that meant caution was warranted.
I was at a loss of what to do now, sitting in a cave with a man who had tried to end my life and then changed his mind. Did one casually converse with him? It was what happened in stories, but in reality it was awkward. He seemed to find nothing wrong with it though and exhaled slowly.
"Kid...Got a question for you." I looked over the fire at him and waited. "What would you do if your reasons for doing...everything, just disappeared?"
An area I had some bitterly personal experience in.
Cry. A lot or a little. Get mad. Then get up and keep walking.
"...Either you have the worst or best luck talking about super personal stuff."
First my human identity, and now this? Did this man want to see if I could get my eyelids frozen shut by tears?
"Sorry. Don't feel much about that sorta stuff these days."
Feels too much. Feels too little.
Too much anger, fear, loneliness and hatred. For himself, for others, for-
Whoever made him like this.
Too little joy. Happiness, laughter, hope and light. Living like this, meant Silver was likely limited to the feelings his reanimator felt and understood. And typically, necromancers did not come from happy, well adjusted backstories. Only a shadow of the feelings he had in life would have lingered with Silver. The strongest and most prevalent-
Love for his family.
And that love was pain as well as sweetness. Grief that had no place to go and spiraled into the miasma of the Curse that gave him life and made it spin more strongly. Enabled him to use Magic and not a Curse.
"I...I'd do what I'm doing now."
Inside my bedroll, my hand found my guild symbol, several years older but still relatively unmarked. Except for a nick on the back where Romeo had accidentally knocked out his last baby tooth on. And a shaved sliver on the side from the phantoms last year had made my nails scratch the enchanted glass from gripping it so tightly.
"What I think they'd want me to do."
"You don't actually know what that is though? What they'd want?"
Yes.
I had known with every accidental touch, every object passed between us imprinted with a snippet of their story, everytime my feet crossed a trail they had walked...that they wanted that. There was no doubt in my mind about that. I smiled a little ruefully.
"I can't ask them. But I know the people I'm doing this for. My reasons to keep moving...They would want me to be happy and safe." I considered whether I wanted to crack a joke and decided that it would probably be safe to do so "If I keep running into people like you though, the second part might get a little tricky."
It was a morbid joke considering how close I had come to actually dying. But it made him laugh again. Something that sounded a little more genuine.
"I bet they've got a list of things they want for you, kid."
Rueful sadness was hidden underneath his pleasant demeanor.
"I'll just ask them when I see them again."
"And if they're gone forever and you can't?"
Do not speak that into existence sir. Not today. Not after this day that you have just put me through.
"Then I'll convince myself that I will be able to one day. Because I don't want to go through all of this only to end up alone even after I die. Death may be an 'Admit One' event, but we all have to end up somewhere. People are too complicated to just be a sequence of correctly firing neurons. There's too much wrapped up in life for it to just stop and we vanish."
I had been huddled into my wrappings, trying to get warm again, but now I was sitting up and looking him straight in the eye. There was a curious weight in the air now after I finished speaking. Silver was clearly digesting what I had said...
"You said I wasn't the only dead person you talked to. What happened to the other guy?"
"Guys. Plural. The Nirvit Tribe." I said, smiling sadly, thinking of the family I knew Wendy still mourned. "They stayed because they had something they wanted to see done more than they wanted to rest. They didn't fear the unknown. They feared leaving someone alone. And when that was no longer a concern, they...let go and passed on."
"Sounds nice." There was an undercurrent of bitterness in Silver's voice. Resentment for something he wanted on some level but couldn't have. but he glanced back up the tunnel, at a myriad of shards of lavender ice that lay scattered about "You're a wizard. Pretty good at a variety of things, especially information I hear. Can I hire you for something?"
If this was what he wanted in exchange for not killing me, it would only be right to consider it.
"For what?"
"Probably just research...But I need to find someone before I can let myself go."
Ah. The thing that was holding him here. His last regret. He did sound like he wanted rest so maybe by assisting him with this, he could find it.
"Who are you looking for?"
"A demon."
His breath made no mist in the air. He sat unnaturally still, the small fidgets and trace signs of life that every normal person gave conspicuously absent. It was unnerving to witness. I was a professional, so I had to put down expectations and known limits.
"Researching anything Zeref related is a long and slow process."
People were really touchy about the subject after the R-system debacle. I might have had a myriad of sources, but that kind of information was difficult to get a hold of via legitimate means, and even harder to find good information. He shrugged at my words.
"I can wait. Don't have much of a time limit that I'm working with."
"Then if I do find something, how would I tell you?"
"I'd find you."
That was not as terrifying as it might have been before we had this conversation. And I was already looking into Zeref on my own time for a different reason. I had no grounds to say no, oddly enough.
"Can you describe what kind of demon you're looking for?"
"It's supposedly the strongest one Zeref ever created. No one alive has seen it, but some...people I'm acquainted with know about him and are looking for him."
I felt a pang of unease. Was I going to be conscripted into doing research for Tartarus?
"And what do you want with that information?"
Dead eyes gazed into mine as Silver continued to speak.
"That information I cannot disclose."
But even as he said this, he lifted his hand and drew a gauntleted finger across his neck. Morgana seized it, the gesture was one he was actively trying to use to send a message,
He, an Ice Devil Slayer, is looking for a fire demon. He picked this magic and this element for the express purpose of killing Zeref's crowning creation.
"I'm looking for E.N.D."
-vVv-
Silver chuckled as he made his way out of the tunnel where he had intended on slaying a female demon in a young girl's body. Instead, he came away educated that artificial souls could exist which were not fueled by Curse Magic. And that was what Celeste D Faerun was. He had gotten a taste of her power. And it was the first time he had eaten something and tasted it since he-
He felt the tug inside him, leading him back out to Jackel. The Curse user was grumbling internally, clearly unhappy with having been kept waking.
"You're way too clean for having killed someone."
"Hypothermia while she's helpless but awake."
That ought to be sadistic and painful enough for Jackal. Implying she had died or was dying in despair... But he didn't look satisfied. Silver didn't have feelings anymore. He had memories of what feelings were like. And his expression...was giving him a bad feeling. For the girl he had just left in the tunnel to recover from the near death experience at his hands.
For the girl whose final magical act just before he would have finished her, had been manifesting a face that halted him in his tracks.
Silver last remembered seeing that face when it was much smaller and softer.
The words Faerun had breathed out, seemingly without her conscious effort: " Water has memory." ' These words had formed statues in the cave around them. Life size, half a dozen of them. And the sight had stopped him in his tracks.
Gray's face looked back at him, looking through him and focused on the figure he held on his back. A very obviously young Faerun, face shining with life and happiness. He wasn't sure why his son didn't appear to be wearing a shirt. But he looked happy.
There was another set of statues. The same pair, clearly cheering as they went through a rollercoaster of some kind. He was gripping thes safety bars with both hands, but one arm was around her as she threw both hands in the air and cheered silently, the moment captured in ice. Then another set where he was handing her a popsicle as they walked peacefully somewhere.
The one that had caught his attention was a more dynamic statue. Fae was clutching Gray like her life depended on it, delicate wings extending from her back. He had taken a piece of one of those wings and tasted own ice normally didn't affect him but she had overtaken it enough that-
Desperation, fear, fierce joy, relief. He could see it playing out in his mind. Fae leaping from a small boat into the air and taking flight for the first time...
To save his son.
Silver was momentarily grateful that his undead state negated a lot of the physical signs of emotion. Otherwise, he would have needed to explain to the observant young wizard why he had reddened eyes.
Gray was alive.
Gray had lived beside and loved that child.
His son had friends, a family who had taken care of and protected him in all the ways Silver had failed him when he had died. And she was part of that. He couldn't take that away from him.
The Ice Devil Slayer was making his way away from the mouth of the tunnel nonchalantly when he noticed Jackel was not with him any longer. He sensed the surge of Cursed power and his head whipped around as Jackal set a tremendous explosion into the mouth of the tunnel he had just left, a broad grin slashing across his face.
Do not react.
He had a measure of freedom because he was believed to be mostly dominated. Silver could get away with so much because they didn't think to check his bonds. He forced himself to look forward again as if he hadn't reacted to the destruction. Jackal rejoined him, a grin slashed across his face and a spring in his step.
"Now we can go!".
"Did you have to make a mess?" Don't look back. Don't let him see that you can still care.
"It's ore fun if they can't find a body. Keeps the family wondering."
Silver didn't look back at the cave...but he didn't stop thinking about her smile either. How unrepentantly alive she was while knowing how easily life could end.
Take care of yourself, kid. Please...
-vVv-
That about led me to my current predicament. I had packed up my sleeping roll and was steeling myself against the remaining journey in the cold, which I was a lot more sensitive to after my encounter with Silver.
I had been thinking about the massive secret that was wrapped up in whatever END was. Morgana had found an immense dead-end on her cursory probe. That was interesting. I had just filed it away under the same category of mystery as the history of all the Dragon Slayers who had been personally raised by a dragon. There was some connection there I was missing, preventing me from following the train of thought back to its source.
The tunnel will be triggered to collapse in 35 seconds.
The immediate need had pushed that thought out of mind and focused on feeling my way to a place where my story would continue. Or as I sometimes referred to it, avoiding a premature epilogue.
Rock was still shifting and tumbling down from above. I didn't have a lot of room to maneuver to try and get crushed.
The heck did Silver do?! I thought we'd had a moment!
You did. Another member of Tartarus caused the cave in.
Jerk.
Morgana did not respond, but she totally agreed with me. Maybe that was me projecting though. We tended to be pretty in sync when it came to feelings. After some frantic scrambling to a more secure area, Morgana finally gave the all clear that we were no longer in any danger.
I looked at the collapsed tunnel, frowning. I could turn back, go the way I had come and report the incident to Iceberg. I could climb out and just fly the rest of the way home. Or I could just...go through. I had been commissioned after all, it's just now there was actual work to be done. I paged through my small experimental book, looking for an item.
"I did not think I would get the chance to test you out."
I mused, shouldering a pickaxe from a job I'd completed a few months back. A hand mining operation where they still used hand tools in order to secure their goals. I had devoted time to carving runes into the handle and head of the pickaxe to tie a specific function to the tool and neutralize the worst of the personal magic drain. I'd worked it out enough that it ran almost entirely on ambient magic.
"Ok, so...the magic words." I coughed to clear my throat. "Hie ho, hie ho: it's home from work I go."
The pickaxe floated out of my hand and began to chop at the debris that I had narrowly avoided being buried by. The stuff that it touched moved to the side and reformed into a stable support, the broken rock reforming.
I had to either sing or whistle to keep this up, but I could move at a sedate walking pace leaving a stable tunnel behind me. It was a little eerie to just sing in this empty space like this, it echoed a lot too. But I kept it up. With a bit of effort, I could even restore the tunnel as it had been before, not just make it traversable again.
OK...learned something new. Devil Slaying magic is apparently a thing. And I need a way to cope with that. Open a new file under Slayer Type magic. We had a close call now. We want to avoid this happening again.
I had a promise to keep, waiting for everyone until they woke up. I had started up a project of runes that could act as alarm clocks. They had originally been my triggers but I had worked out the time delay aspect to them to create additional functions.
Also definitely need to get a better scoop on Tartarus. We as a guild have encountered two parts of the Balaam Alliance. It was only a matter of time before we meet the third in a more personal way.
Maybe the pattern would hold for us. There had been decent people I had befriended in the Oracion Seis and now from Grimoire Heart as well. Silver could be that connection...
If you know...he weren't dead and a technical violation of the laws of nature and life. But the least I could do was see if I couldn't fulfill his dying (sort of) wish and find out more about END.
But now that I had more time, I could feel how far that topic went back...and that it connected and stayed very close to Zeref's history.
If it's a secret this big and bad, wouldn't Tartarus have a better idea of it than others would? Grimoire Heart had very clearly been looking for Zeref to resurrect him. It was a fairly common ambition among those who dabbled in the darker arts.
But E.N.D.
High class demon created by Zeref. Arguably the strongest. Strong enough to kill the Black Wizard.
Damn... Silver had some ambition for a dead guy taking on that class of opponent.
I kept up my humming as the pickaxe and its accompanying enchantment continued to clear a stable path before me. But my thoughts were busy poking for any further additional leads, turning everything over in my minds eye about Silver, Tartarus and END.
A thread of Silver's history caught my attention and I followed it, feeling an unseen line flow through my fingers before I found where it intersected.
It was hung on the profound resemblance that he shared with Gray. Actually the name was a bit ironic too. I assumed he had been some sort of distant relative. Maybe an ancestor since the reanimation spell he had undergone would make identifying how old he actually was a bit troublesome.
Ancestor. Close.
Morgana was hesitating, words terse and tense. She was holding something back.
What's wrong?
She remained silent but I could feel she was pleading with me to not look further. It would hurt if I looked further. Me and-
Gray. The news about Silver will hurt Gray. But he doesn't have any family to lose.
It will hurt Silver too.
And that pain was a magnitude sharper and more devastating.
I only felt that distinctive depth of emotion when Bisca worried about Asuka. Or Macau about Romeo-
The connection was made with a snap. Morgana spoke with a sad reluctance. A truth she wished she could withhold. To protect me. To protect Gray.
Silver's family name is Fullbuster.
I stopped.
The mining tool I had been using fell to the ground with a clatter.
Gray's father...I'd felt Gray's grief for him when he found his frozen body. His face had been messed up, artfully from frozen blood and partially from a nasty head wound. Right over where Silver's scar had been. Hence why I had not made the connection right away. That and I knew that Gray's father was dead and he still was just-
How am I gonna tell Gray?
His father was dead...but not allowed to rest and had instead been reanimated and was part of the most infamous Dark Guild in Fiore. His father's body and spirit had been enslaved for at least 14 years now.
How on earth am I gonna tell him?
A stinging pain on my face made me aware that my reflexive tears of horror and sympathy were freezing solid even as I cried. With Wendy, the Nirvits may have died in blood and chaos, but they had had a peaceful time lingering to take care of her. But Gray...
I closed my eyes, bundling the knowledge up, the loose chaotic threads of a story that were scattered in my mind. They looked like a horror story. They were one. The food I had been eating before twisted inside me unpleasantly.
Put it all together...and it's just a tragedy. I already knew that Gray had experienced a tragedy.
I just have another face to add to it now.
And another name to track down...and eliminate. Whichever of their members who used Necromancy...and had the gall to make slavery even worse than it already was.. As long as that thing was around...not even death would allow someone to be free from manipulation.
I want to enjoy facing you and making you pay for all those whose bodies you've defiled. I thought fiercely, a frigid anger simmering within me, echoed by Morgana's indignation.
So...I'm gonna learn everything about you.
What is the name of this bastard? Who resurrected Silver?
A demon. Keyes.
"Keyes of Tartaros." I spoke into the pitch dark tunnel, surrounded by snow and ice. "Keyes..."
I engraved the name in my mind, sending Morgana spinning down that route. If Tartaros had those kinds of people in them...then it wouldn't take very long before we ran into them again. Relatively speaking, of course. But a guild that had a demon as a member...Just a normal member, and not the guild master...It was likely that their guild master was some sort of demon as well.
Which meant their plans and goals would likely be decades in the making. Minimum. So I probably had a few years before one or the other of their active plans came into conflict with Fairy Tail. Years...
Better make the most of this I guess. I will have one hell of a debrief for Makarov when he comes back. I grimace, picking up the pickaxe again and singing a few bars of the Dwarves mining Song to get it moving again. More importantly: how do I spin this to Simon without making him freak and bar me from ever leaving Magnolia, let alone the country, ever again?