Ringing.

His breathing was laboured. He barely felt conscious, but the daze slowly faded away, prompting him to try to get up. No use, he couldn't lift a single finger as gravity felt heavier than ever before and his muscles had yet to start listening to his commands.

Ringing.

Where was he? Why was he so battered up? He tried to wiggle his toes but didn't feel like they had done as he asked. Maybe he could try opening his eyes.

Ringing.

The view in front of him didn't give him any clues on where he was. It seemed to be night, but the sky was mudded by clouds or smoke – his eyesight wasn't the best when it was this dark out. He tried to smell his way to a clue. Charred, smokey, and he thought he could smell wet mud that had been carried by the breeze from somewhere far off. Was he alone?

Ringing.

He tried to sit up, but only got half way before his sense of balance failed him and made him tip over again. Once more he tried, this time managing to sit, still wobbly, but steadier than before. Though, his balance once again failed him, except this time by making his head dizzy. Soon he felt his stomach turn, and he didn't have time to bend to the side, resulting in him spilling out its contents in his lap. He wasn't coherent enough to bother.

The deafening ringing was slowly fading out, but the loud thumping of his heartbeat quickly filled out the emptiness.

Trying to connect the dots, he realised that he must have been in an explosion. And if explosions were involved, then surely a mission was involved in this too. He couldn't quite remember yet.

Thumping, lunges rattling. Faint ringing remained.

Lucy. If there was a mission, there was Lucy. Was she okay? Where was she? He strained every muscle in his body, only to find out his legs from the knees and down were completely crushed.

"Fuck," he forced out a growling, sick sound, the word barely coherent. His mouth felt warm, watery, and tasted like iron. Blood.

Actually, he still wasn't sure where there wasn't blood on him right now. His heart sank to his stomach as he thought about those crushed feet. Would he ever get to use his legs again? Not even Wendy's magic could pick up severed body parts and get them back together, working. Especially not since she wasn't on this mission.

That's right. He was starting to remember. It was only him and Lucy who had taken this quest, Happy helping Romeo with their own mission. For a split second Natsu felt relief, but it left as soon as it entered. He had to find Lucy. What had gone wrong? He had never ended up this mangled before, never to this degree.

He must have regenerated some magic while unconscious, because while still high on adrenaline, he took his flame and burned shut any wounds where his blood would spill out. At one point he almost fainted again, but his body hitting the ground again was enough to make his brain awaken once again. He had to get back from whatever was making him have this out of body experience – he had to put that energy into searching for Lucy.

When he strained himself he could make out the sounds of the area around him. There was still this unbearing ringing, but now further in the back of his mind, and he could still hear the rattling of whatever bones were crushed around his lungs, moving with each breath he took. But above that, he could now make out the sounds of the strong winds, likely coming swooshing in from the vacuum of the explosion. That was familiar to Natsu – whenever he used his final exertion for his attack, the plethora of fire made the air around him rush upwards, depleting it from all oxygen in the area for a short moment. When his attacks were over, the wind would come rushing back in, cue storm like weathers.

This helped Natsu navigate what had happened – it was probably him who caused this destruction to himself, and likely the enemy as well. After all, he had never lost a fight that mattered. He stopped at nowhere to finish his opponent: not even burning his own body into crisp was off the chart, even if his dragon scales were supposed to protect him from his own fire. Still, he knew how hot fire could become. It wouldn't surprise him if he had found a way to make his fire hotter than what his dragon scales could take: he'd probably turn the world into a burning star if he was provoked enough.

The sound of the stormy winds was making it hard to make out anything else, but he knew he had to find what he was searching for: he needed to hear Lucy. Any sound she could make, breathing, coughing, crying, her heartbeat, her blood rushing around in her body, anything. Things that assured him that she was alive, even if she was in a similar state to him. Dear god, he hoped she was better off…

Then there it was: another layer of laboured breathing, rustling about as much as Natsu's did. He shot down the rising feeling of worry as soon as it arrived: he couldn't afford spending energy on anything other than getting to her. When he finally pinpointed the sound of her breath, he could also identify her smell. Her normal, homey, vanilla-esque Lucy scent was just a faint undertone beneath the heavy metallic scent of blood, but she was there, and Natsu could move in that direction.

Well, he tried. To be fair, it wasn't easy moving around with no legs knees down, and, he noticed, crushed ribs. The lack of feeling from his armpits and down could either be due to his adrenaline saving him from whatever deadly pain he was supposed to be in, or it was due to nerves somewhere in his spine being crushed up. He wasn't sure what to hope for, but luckily his arms could move. His vision was still slightly blurry, and the ringing in his ears didn't seem like it was going away, but he was slowly moving. Crawling? No, worming would be more accurate.

A minute or so into this he looked back: he hadn't come as far as he'd wanted. A trail of blood made his lack of progress apparent – still, at least it was proof he was moving somewhere. He once again strained his senses. He could still hear Lucy's breathing, still smell her, and when he blinked hard a couple of times he could finally identify a dirty, golden matte of hair, 10 metres or so away. Actually, he saw two hair tufts for a while, but he quickly realised it was his eyes playing tricks.

He powered forward. His forearms kept scraping against the stoney ground, probably scraping up deep wounds. Hadn't he had some of his magic regenerated, he'd probably not be able to move them at all right now. When he looked down he saw that his arms had been burnt and skinned, his muscles poking through. Was that white stuff his bones? Fuck. His stomach turned again, but with his bowels empty of any other content, he only threw up blood. Man, he was pretty sure this was his last night alive right now.

With Lucy only 3 metres away, he didn't have time to be scared. Well, naturally he was terrified: he didn't want to die, but something more important was at play here. He had to make sure Lucy would live, otherwise he didn't know what he was going to do.

Now that he got closer he got a good look at her. The amount of blood pumping out of her was concerning: it sounded like rippling water. Her still facial expression made it clear that she wasn't conscious, and dear god… She looked so bruised up, wounds everywhere, swellings in places he didn't know could swell.

The last metre took the shortest time. He had realised that time was of the essence: he needed to close whatever wound it was that was leaking that much blood. When he reached her body he immediately felt how worryingly cold she was. Maybe it was a coldness that was there even before she got wounded, but either way it was concerning. He started to search her body, starting with her head before moving downwards. Her skull was intact, she had both her eyeballs in, her jaw seemed to be in place, save a couple of teeth that had been knocked out. Her neck was whole: no torn muscles, no broken bones from what he could tell. The search continued. Her ribs, though like Natsu's, were broken, weren't poking out at the very least. Her heart was beating: irregularly, but the beat was there. Her lunges seemed as mauled as Natsu's: functional, though likely not for long.

What Natsu felt next stopped him right in his tracks. He had just gotten a handful of Lucy's intestines in his grips. Her stomach was completely split open, her insides spilling out like an overfilled bowl of spaghetti, or sausage.

"Fuck!" He blubbered, throwing up for the third time in a very short period. He'd been careful not to spoil Lucy with anything his stomach hurled up, but this sickness he felt wouldn't leave. He carefully tried to stuff her belongings back in, but he realised it was no use.

That's when he heard Lucy cough. Was she waking up?

"Lucy," he sounded, his voice scraping against the stillness in the air like rough sandpaper. "Lucy, come on… Wake up…"

His hand, soiled in deep, red blood, cupped her cheek. This wasn't the time to worry about dirtying her: saving her was priority.

"N-Natsu…" Her vocal cords weren't listening to her request to say his name, but the whisper had proved to him that she was awake. Her eyes opened slowly, tears flooding them as soon as she registered Natsu's pink hair. "Are you…"

"I'm here, I'm okay." It was a pure lie spilling out from his mouth, but he couldn't stop himself from saying it. "You're okay, you're gonna be." Maybe it wasn't as much of a lie as it was a wish. He really wished they both would be okay. He'd be willing to give his life to at least make sure Lucy would be.

"No, I- are you… back to normal?"

Natsu didn't understand. Had he been not-normal?

"I… Think so. What happened to us?"

Maybe it was dumb asking the one who had just woken up a question, but it didn't cross his mind to wait.

"You're… normal…" she mumbled, almost looking relieved before she realised that Natsu didn't have a clue about what she was talking about.

"I was… scared, Natsu. You seemed like you had lost your mind… Like you had turned into a demon." Sobs made it hard for her to sound coherent, but it was coherent enough for Natsu to feel his heart drop. A question was gnawing in his mind, but for a split second he had to ignore it.

"I'm sorry," he said instead. Both for what he'd done and what he was about to do. With his last amount of magic energy, he started burning her stomach.

"GAH!"

Wailing screams were taking the last from Lucy's vocal cords. Once again her voice died down to a hiss, her mouth open in a silent scream. Natsu wanted to die: how could he torture her like this? But his brain had taken the reins. He had to keep going, at least until he had slowed down her bleeding. Sadly, organs had to be sacrificed.

Lucy must have passed out pretty quickly during Natsu's emergency medical procedure. He almost blacked out himself, the last bit of fire really draining him. Still, he managed to stay awake. He no longer heard blood pouring out, so he turned his focus back to her face.

This time, waking her up wasn't as easy. He didn't know what to do: he doubted slapping her awake would work, considering that pain was the reason she'd passed out in the first place, so he resorted to just worming up a bit, laying her head in his mutilated lap, and calling out to her.

"Lucy," he said, petting her head rhythmically. "Lucy, come on… It takes more than that to kill you, right?" As soon as he said the word kill he felt ill. What if he really had killed her? He went quiet for a moment to listen after her breathing again. For now she could still be considered alive.

"Lucy, please… please wake up, come on Lucy…" Each time he repeated her name, he felt a sob creep up along his throat. The situation they were in was so insane that Natsu didn't want to believe it to be true. He wanted it to be a terrible nightmare, for his legs to be whole, his arms to have their skin back. He wanted Happy to be there, purring on his stomach as he stirred in his sleep. He wanted Lucy to be in her soft bed, clad in her comfiest pyjamas, newly showered, stomach whole and filled with good food. The sob finally slipped through. And with it, the dams were open. Ugly-crying, he kept calling Lucy's name, over and over again.

Once more. Just let him hear her once more. With that prayer, God finally showed some mercy. She was opening her eyes again.

"N-... Natsu…"

He sobbed loudly. She wasn't sure if she'd ever heard him cry like this.

"Lucy."

Slowly, she raised her hand up towards her head, where Natsu had put his hand. Grabbing it as firmly as she could, she took a shaky breath.

"You should know," she began, almost feeling her consciousness slip out again, "what happened…"

Natsu clenched his jaw as hard as he could to keep him from sobbing again. Tears hit Lucy in her face, cleansing selected spots like holy water.

"We were fighting together." She panted between sentences. "It was really tough, I didn't have any magic left." Still don't, she finished in her head, but avoided the smaller details when speaking out loud. She had to use her energy to get her point across. "We were attacked from behind, unison raid between… I don't even know how many wizards…"

Natsu's pulse was rising. He wasn't quite sure why, but as she spoke he was recalling some memories.

"We both almost died in their attacks," Lucy explained, "and then you… I'm… not exactly sure… but I think you turned into END." She looked away, not wanting to see the pain in Natsu's eyes as reality hit him.

"B-but… that seed was supposed to be gone…"

"I don't know how it happened, or why it happened. You were probably trying to protect us." Lucy had joined the crying party. He had truly scared her, and she hated that feeling. Natsu wasn't supposed to scare her, ever. Last time that had happened the entire front of her torso had been burnt to a crisp. Today she seemed to be worse off though.

"I'm…" Hick. "I'm so sorry…" He covered his eyes with his hand, trying to hide his despair best he could. He hated the situation he was in. The situation he'd put Lucy in.

"Don't be, Natsu. You won against the enemy, right?" The hand she was holding was gripping her, like it was clinging onto sanity. She felt herself doing it back.

"I almost killed you," he whispered. "You're torn apart and it's my fault."

"You're not faring so well either." It was meant to come across as a joke, but he really wasn't. It hadn't gone past her that his legs were mush from below his knees, or that he wasn't spilling out blood from his mouth in a constant flow. Sure, she was at the brink of death, but he acted like she was the only one hurt between the two of them. "Natsu…"

"Mnh…"

"Look at me…"

Natsu forced his hand away from his face. He didn't bother drying his tears as they kept flowing.

"I…" Lucy's throat was thick with sobs. "I won't make it back alive."

"Stop." He shook his head. He didn't want to hear it.

"No, I need you to listen to me." Her face was contorted into the most painful expression Natsu had ever seen. He was sure he looked the same. "The years I spent with you were the best ones in my entire life. I loved every second of it."

"Stop! You're not going to die here! I won't let you!" He wasn't sure how, but he managed to shout it.

"I really wanted to grow old with you," she continued, determined to get her message through. "And I wanted to go on so many more adventures."

"No! Lucy, shut up! You can't give up here, I'm sure we can make it out of this. We always survive. Come on, work with me here…" He was practically growling at her, feeling a weird mixture of angry, sad and scared.

"I wanted to get a chance to say goodbye to Happy, and the guild…" Her tears were falling into her ears. The last moments were so horribly unpleasant. "Natsu… I don't want to die… I'm really scared."

Natsu bent forward, ignoring the shooting pains up his back as he did so. Pushing Lucy's bangs carefully aside, he landed a soft kiss against her forehead.

"Me too," he murmured in a hoarse voice.

When he rose from the kiss, his eyes met Lucy's blank ones. They were no longer looking at him, but through him. One last breath made it out of her lungs, light as a feather. Her heart had stopped.

Natsu screamed. No sound made it out, but he screamed and screamed. He wasn't even sure for how long. All he knew was that he now saw the sunrise on the horizon, and he wanted to die. Or, more accurately, he wanted to burn the entire world and then burn with it. It wasn't real. He'd wake up from this nightmare any second now, he was sure of it.

Except he didn't. The only thing that happened was that the adrenaline stopped sedating him, and he now wailed in physical pain as well as emotional. As he threw his head back in agony, he must have pulled open one of his wounds: the dizziness he was feeling made him wonder if this was how Lucy had felt. Dizzy, confused? And so, so scared…

Except, the only thing Natsu really felt was scaring him was leaving everything behind. He wasn't as alone in the actual dying process as he'd thought: he was by Lucy's side. To him, she was almost as good as alive. All that was missing was a pulse and her giggly laugh. But he felt at peace when he laid down. It looked like today would be a sunny day, and the birds were waking up in time for him to go to sleep.

He wanted to do so much in this last minute. He wanted to call for help, send a message to Happy, apologising, give Lucy a proper burial. He wanted to scream, and shout, and cry and go on a rampage: he wanted to duel God and win Lucy back to life. He wanted a redo, he wanted everything and also… nothing. In a way it would be nice to leave it all behind. A life without Lucy wasn't worth living. But the life he had with her was worth everything: even worth dying for.