A/N: I'm currently not able to work due to the COVID-19 restrictions, so I may be updating more often than I previously thought. I'll plan for next Saturday but have a more updated schedule when I'm (hopefully) back in the USA and situated.
This chapter is a little different in that it switches perspectives temporarily in the middle! It's a very Natsu-focused chapter, but with a piece of Lucy's fight sprinkled in the middle due to them being separated. I chose to write it this way in order to avoid releasing two chapters that were pretty much the same plot, just different character voices!
CHAPTER SIX: SINS AND SACRIFICE
I cannot stop this sickness taking over.
It takes control and drags me into nowhere.
I need your help; I can't fight this forever.
I know you're watching, I can feel you out there.
Take me high and I'll sing.
Oh, you make everything okay, okay, okay.
We are one in the same.
Oh, you take all of the pain away, away, away.
Save me if I become my demons.
Tiny snowflakes kissed Natsu's skin, suspending him in a moment of ice-cold forever. He surveyed the rows of graves, headstones cracked and dirty, offerings sparse but fresh. Ultear had been tending these graves for some time.
Footsteps crunched behind him, growing louder as the remainder of Crime Sorciere scaled the sloping snowbank. Ultear noticed. She turned wistful eyes on the group, a reflection of surprise and sadness forming wrinkles in her aged brow. She dropped the basket in her hands and fled.
"Ultear..." Meredy took a hesitant step forward. "That was Ultear!"
"But why did she run away?" Lucy asked.
Lucy's voice restarted time. Natsu followed Ultear's footprints, clambering over the graveyard fence and cutting through the village, making a beeline for the smoking chimney. Happy zipped along behind him.
He heard the door swinging shut before he spotted the entryway. Ultear's front yard was freshly shoveled, a polished cobblestone path leading to the front door. Frost-tipped violas bloomed on each side of the garden, adding a splash of colour to the alabaster streets. She'd lived a peaceful life here. It almost made him regret chasing her down.
He rapped on the door. "Ultear! Open up!"
"Your friends are all here," Happy said.
"Meredy is waiting for you. Don't you want to see her?"
"Please stop."
Meredy stood behind him. Lucy and the others gave a wide berth, offering the kind of space only friends could. They waited patiently.
Natsu deflated. "Don't you want to see her?"
"Of course I want to see her," Meredy said, wiping tears from her face. "I want to see her more than anything. But Ultear has her reasons. We shouldn't bother her like this. Besides, we have things to do, don't we?"
"She's right," Jellal said.
"Knowing she's okay is enough for me," Meredy said. "Thank you, Natsu. For giving me this moment. Even if it's hard to walk away, I won't regret my decision. I have to carry on for Ultear. We have to make the world safer."
The door creaked; everyone turned at the sound.
"You've grown so much, Meredy," Ultear said.
Chains clicked free. Ultear stood in the doorway, cloaked in a thick black shawl. Immense power radiated from her elderly form. Timeless eyes studied the group, surveying each of them with differing expressions. Her face softened when she noticed Meredy's shivering.
"Ultear..." Meredy sobbed.
"Foolish girl. Will you dawdle and leave an old woman standing in the cold?"
Meredy rushed into Ultear's embrace. The warmth of their reunion could have melted the entire village.
Lucy took his hand, tears streaming down her cheeks. "You did good, Natsu."
He smiled, but something distant haunted him. The air shivered in foreboding. A warning. A chill beyond even the snow, so deep and dark it stopped his beating heart dead.
Natsu's mind wandered back to all those graves. He scanned the surrounding houses, walls crumbling, doors hanging free, unglazed windows sporting shards of broken glass. He caught a hidden fragrance beneath the snow, a passing tinge of unpleasant copper and skin. Blood.
"Isn't love marvelous?" Richard said.
Natsu squeezed Lucy's hand. "Yeah. It is."
Though quaint in size, Ultear's home was as welcoming as its host, with little nooks of books and decorations lighting up the pale walls. The group spread happily through the house. While everyone busied themselves being helpful, Natsu sat in the living room, sprawled out in an old, plush recliner. Happy dropped onto the arm beside him, his fur covered in powders and what smelled like sugar.
"Does it hurt somewhere?" Happy asked him.
Natsu shook his head. "No. I'm just tired."
No, not tired. The word almost fit, like two puzzle pieces never meant to match, but push hard enough and a new image could be forced. What Natsu felt couldn't be put into words. It was fatigue and trepidation and cold needles in his skin.
He just couldn't stop thinking about those damned graves. What was he thinking? Hunting demons? Zeref's followers? Most children spent their lives hiding from monster under the bed, not chasing them down into the darkness under the floorboards.
Everything felt so louche. Ultear's presence. The underlying scent of blood. It seemed too contrived to be a coincidence. He couldn't place the feeling, the suspense. He knew only one thing for certain: Natsu wanted to leave.
"The girls are baking," Happy told him.
The warm scent of dough eased Natsu's dread. He succumbed to his building somnolence, his mind foggy. Sleeping on the ground hadn't been the most comfortable. He'd woken early that morning, his arm tingling under Lucy's weight. Despite his grogginess, Natsu couldn't remember sleeping. He'd had no dreams at all.
Laughter echoed from the adjoining kitchen.
Ultear's living room was surprisingly spacious, decorated with weird statues and odd knickknacks. Shelves of books filled every wall, with a collection of small cushions set on the bay window for reading. Despite her obvious lack of company, there were three chairs in the room, all facing the fireplace. One love seat and two recliners.
He couldn't imagine how lonely it felt.
Dizziness crept into the edges of his mind, blurring his vision. Natsu propped his head in a palm and tried to refocus.
Lucy appeared in the doorway. "I should've known I'd find you here."
Crime Sorciere's garb looked strangely good on her. She wore the cloak loose around her shoulders. Within the open front, Natsu spotted a white apron, odd utensils sticking out of the pocket. She looked very much like a wife. The kind of wife that would kick his ass for lazing around and in the next breath express her fondness. A smudge of melted chocolate painted the corner of her mouth. Heat spread to his neck, climbing slowly into his face.
"Natsu isn't feeling well, Lucy," Happy said.
She was beside him in an instant. Lucy pressed one hand to his forehead, the other propped on the chair arm for support. "You feel hot, Natsu."
"I'm a dragon."
Aquarius's key dangled from Lucy's neck, swinging like a pendulum between them. His hand reached for the chain, fingers brushing the delicate gold. He twirled the broken key around his finger.
"This isn't funny," she said. "You're seriously burning up."
Natsu grabbed Lucy's arm. "I'm fine."
Lucy held his gaze defiantly. Her brown eyes swirled with an admixture of worry and relief, like she desperately wanted to believe him, but the part of her yearning to comfort him prevailed.
He grabbed Aquarius's key between his fingers. Lucy grabbed his hand and squeezed.
"I have to get back to the kitchen," she said. "But, Natsu..."
"I know," he said.
"Keep an eye on him, okay?" Lucy told Happy.
He saluted a quick response.
Natsu slouched in the recliner. "I'm gonna close my eyes," he said. "Just for a second."
A second too many.
Natsu woke in familiar darkness, sealed away in that cold, dismal village of ghosts and forgotten memories. A forest of endless black surrounded him, monsters and demons clawing at his fragile mind. Natsu's brain was a globe full of bleak memories. There'd be no turning back once it shattered and the feelings poured out in droves of death and delusions.
Varying pitches of the same voice echoed in the darkness, singing a lament from afar. Natsu coudn't place the words.
He scrubbed his face, urging himself awake, wishing he could leave this place and go back to normal dreams—like fishing with Happy, beating Erza in a fight, or playing tricks on Lucy. Anything was better than this.
Not anything, a voice said. It was his own.
Visions of Igneel's death flashed violently across his mind's eye. Natsu blinked furiously, willing them away. Igneel's death passed to Future Lucy's, and from there he saw his own Lucy senseless on the ground, her eyes smeared in blood, Dimaria's scent thick and rotted on her skin.
He stared at his quivering hands.
A loop of red thread pulled tight on his ring finger. Natsu scratched it, but the thread wouldn't move.
The distant song continued.
Natsu pulled the red thread on his finger. It resisted before slackening again, as though the other end were tied to something in motion. He pulled tighter, but the thread wouldn't break. He had no choice but to follow it.
The length of the thread disappeared in the darkness, barely visible to Natsu's sensitive eyes, save where a single shaft of light broke through the empty sky far above.
Lucy sat alone in that light, her blonde hair trailing in waves down her back, so long it spread like sunbeams across the floor.
Natsu summoned the strength he needed to stand. He wobbled towards her, entranced by the sweet humming of her voice. He followed the thread until he stood at her back. Invisible. Ignored.
"Poor little dragon lost his way," she sang, swinging her legs through the darkness, her hands resting on a ledge he couldn't see.
Natsu pulled the thread and her hand lifted, revealing a loop on her wrist. She moved almost like a puppet, arm moving where he willed it, but Lucy never seemed to notice. Just a body with no soul.
"Don't cry, little dragon. I will never be gone. Your heart is fragile but your dreams are strong. So dream of me, little dragon, and I will be there. Don't cry little dragon, your demons feast on despair."
"Lucy…"
She turned to face him at last. Natsu froze. Blood dripped from her eyes, clumped in her hair. She couldn't see him.
"My heart hurts, little dragon."
Natsu stepped back. What he saw made him retch. His stomach heaved, but only acidic fear came out. The red thread was woven into Lucy's chest, the skin barely held together. Blood trickled down her naked stomach.
"Lucy!"
"You did this to me," she said, picking apart the seam.
Inside her chest, Lucy's heart was black and still. He tried to grab her and failed, his body hurtling over the ledge into the cold darkness.
Natsu fell into the abyss.
Zeref caught him at the bottom, his brother's face a tangle of weird veins and demonic scales. Natsu shoved him away.
"Bastard!" he screamed. "What did you do to Lucy?"
"Me?" Zeref quirked a brow.
"Yes, you! This has to be your doing!"
"You know, I thought I made that book impervious to any interference. But she was able to override it. And at what cost? My dreams still live on, even though I have perished. All she did was prolong the pain."
Natsu called on his flames, bursts of light filling the void. The heat scorched his vulnerable flesh, boiling, burning, the stench of it so volatile he almost retched.
"You would hurt yourself to save her?" Zeref asked. He smiled. "I know too the feeling of love. A contradiction in itself, love is the selfish need to be near someone, and the selfless need to protect them from your flaws."
"Shut up! You don't know real love!"
Natsu would never hurt Lucy the way Zeref had hurt Mavis. He could never do something so awful. Not to her.
"But I loved you, Natsu. I loved you enough to defy the laws of death. You sensed it, didn't you? When we fought, you felt my love."
Natsu had felt it. He'd touched the ice-cold depths of his brother's love and surfaced long enough to take a burning hot breath of a missed reality. They could've been good friends. They could have been more. But Zeref chose this path. Destiny had put them at opposite sides of the war.
"The life I long for, a world where magic can reach its full potential, it exists, Natsu. Paradise. That dream lives on."
"I'll stop it. I'll always stop you, brother," Natsu said.
Zeref illuminated a section of the abyss, a single pool of light revealing Lucy's unconscious body, her heartbeat a violent echo in Natsu's ears.
"Even if it means killing her?"
Natsu's flames licked up his arms, spiraling high like great thorns on his shoulders.
"You think I'm the source of your nightmares," Zeref said. "You couldn't be more wrong. I come here because the little brother I loved, the brother who laughed with me, who smiled whenever he held me close, mourns me. You're afraid of my legacy. Of the things I left behind. You know what you are, and you know I was the only one who could stop you."
"Everything was fine before you started coming here," Natsu said.
But try as he might, Natsu couldn't resist the old memories. Faded visions of his parents sitting across the table, his mother's smile gentle, her hands warm as she squeezed his cheeks. A young Zeref laughed loudly beside him. A vision of innocence. Of brilliance.
Back in the realm of terrors, Lucy pushed herself upright, red threads rippling across the abyss from each finger. She turned to face him, no longer bloody, her hair glittering in the soft halo of light all around her. Confusion graced her warm brown eyes.
"Where am I?" she asked.
"What did you do to Lucy?" Natsu snapped.
Zeref smiled. "I didn't do anything to her. She chose this path when she fought to save you. A piece of her lives within you, so small you never noticed it. This is the fragment of power she gave you."
Natsu could only stare. Lucy plucked at the red threads, twisting them this way and that, testing their strength. Natsu's hand moved with each pull.
"How ironic that her name embodies all that she gives you. Light. She is nothing but a flower withering in the shadows you cast. While you rise towards the sun her roots take no water, her petals see no light. How much will you take from her before you're satisfied? I am not your enemy..."
Zeref's face mirrored Natsu's own. For just a moment he saw the demonic creature inside himself. Saw the form of a monster come to destroy everything he knew and loved. Lucy covered her mouth, shock and repulsion effacing her polished smile.
"...You are."
He punched Zeref square in the face. His brother shattered like grains of black sand, crumbling into a mound of nothingness. Lucy gasped.
Natsu's eyes opened.
"Ow!"
Lucy held her bloody nose, brows knitted with obvious pain.
"Lucy!" Natsu shot out of his seat and brushed her hand away, inspecting her wound. He erased the blood with his thumb.
"It's okay. It's okay," she insisted, pushing his hand away. "It just stings."
"I can't believe you just punched her in the face," Sorano said, and despite the undertones of mockery, she sounded genuinely concerned.
"I'm sorry, Lucy."
"Natsu, it's okay. You were having a bad dream."
"It sure is lively with you all here," Ultear said from the doorway. "Come with me, Lucy. Let me look at your nose."
Natsu grimaced, torn between apologising some more and demanding he take care of her. This had to stop. Soon. Before he hurt somebody else. This time he'd punched her in the face, what if next time he...
Even if it means killing her?
"You didn't mean it," Meredy said.
"That was one hell of a punch though," Erik said. He sat on the ground at Meredy's feet, her hands hard at work stitching a tear in his hood.
"I'm going to apologise," he insisted.
"Natsu." Jellal's voice rang with authority. "The only way to put an end to nightmares is to talk about them. Moving on takes courage."
Words turned to bile. "Are you really going to lecture me about moving on?" Natsu snapped.
Jellal didn't retort.
"He's just trying to help you," Meredy scolded.
With a mumbled apology, Natsu followed Lucy's scent into a narrow hallway. He stopped outside a firmly closed door.
"Yes, I know of the Wise Mages," Ultear was saying. "The Seeress Hitomi, Yasu the Observer, and Takuya the Truthsayer."
Natsu reached for the knob.
"I met one," Lucy said. "Hitomi."
"They were renowned as gods once, though the books I'm privy to describe them as beasts. They pushed the boundaries of magic too far. People revered their powers, said they could do anything. Hitomi, with her foresight, Yasu, with his omniscience, and Takuya, with his detection of truths. They experimented with magic beyond our understanding and it cost them their lives."
Natsu's knuckles burned white against the handle. He forgot to breathe.
"Their deaths were so gruesome scant few texts recall them in detail," Ultear said, her voice heavy with wisdom and what seemed like a hint of remorse. "They each sacrificed their abilities, destroyed by the powers they'd once loved."
"Hitomi had no eyes when we met."
"See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil," Ultear recited. "Do not betray the laws of magic. Zeref pushed those boundaries and look what happened to him."
"That's why I needed to talk to you," Lucy said.
"It's still within him, isn't it? I could sense it while he slept; the demon seed has taken root again."
"What can I do?" Lucy asked.
Natsu leaned his forehead against the door, his thoughts choking on the words and suffocating until nothing but emptiness filled his mind. Numb and cold.
"I cannot say for sure. The power was most prominent when he slept, but it became more sinister when he saw you hurt."
"Me?"
"Your connection runs deeper than magic. There's something else festering there. Should you become hurt, I fear Natsu might succumb to something far worse than demonic power. He could lose his mind completely."
No...
Vibrations rocked the house. Slow and soft, then heavy, until something smashed through the ceiling, destroying the wall between Natsu and Lucy completely. He choked on the dust and debris. Natsu squinted, scanning the rubble for signs of Lucy and Ultear.
"It's here!" Jellal yelled. "The demon!"
Natsu spotted Lucy in the centre of the room. She'd sheltered Ultear from the collapsed ceiling, and the two were now moving out harm's way.
"Outside! Now!" Meredy called.
The group walked out of the warmth into a blizzard, snow billowing in sharp gusts. Grotesquely human, the demon towered over the village houses, clawed fists beating down on the snow.
"This cursed thing has been killing villagers for months," Ultear said. "It just keeps getting bigger. The council sent me here with the hopes I could learn its patterns, but after I showed up it stopped coming."
Natsu touched Ultear's back. "Why would they send you here? It's dangerous."
"Because it's a demon I met long ago, before meeting all of you."
"So you know how to stop it?" Lucy asked.
"No," Ultear said, visibly dismayed. "But it hates loud noise."
"Then we just gotta turn up the volume!" Natsu yelled, summoning his flames. "Let's go, Lucy! Happy!"
"Aye!" Happy snatched Natsu from the ground.
"Ultear, stay here," Lucy said, and in moments she'd transformed into her Sagittarius form.
A volley of arrows pierced the demon from above, sending it into a mild hysteria. Natsu used the distraction to fly in close, Happy dropping him on the beast's great shoulders. He struck the demon in its scaly neck, but the skin was too strong. Too tough. Natsu's fist resounded with a mighty crack, flung backwards with unexpected force. He toppled and fell.
Crime Sorciere launched a full assault, Jellal's meteors striking alongside Lucy's arrows, the force booming through the village. Ultear was right. The explosive sounds sent the demon into a wild frenzy, clutching its pointed ears and screaming.
"It's working!" Natsu said. "Make as much noise as you can!"
And it did work. Too well. The booming noise tore the beast in two. Literally. Both creatures screeched a haunting battle cry. Natsu dodged blows from the demon's clone, catching Happy mid-jump, barely rolling to safety in the snow. The original turned its attention on Lucy. She rushed to Ultear's defense and was quickly obscured from view. Snow and ice erupted in waves between them.
"Lucy!" Happy cried.
"This is crazy," Meredy said behind him.
Natsu took a quick survey of his surroundings. All but Sorano remained on his side of the field, which meant his numbers vastly outweighed Lucy's. They had to end this. Quickly.
Distracted by his concern for Lucy, Natsu hardly noticed the demon's next attack. Meredy pulled him to safety, barely avoiding the beast's newly conjured morning star. Shadows oozed from the spiked head, the chain onyx black.
"Don't get distracted," Meredy scolded. "She's capable of fighting by herself."
"I know..."
Meredy rolled her eyes. "I really didn't want to do this."
"Do what?"
She grabbed his arm and imbued it with fragments of light, sparks jumping in loops around his forearm.
"A sensory link", Meredy said. "If anything happens to Lucy, you'll know. So concentrate on this fight. The sooner we win, the sooner you can get back to her."
"Thanks, Meredy. I guess Lucy's fired up, 'cause I'm burning hot right now!"
Utilizing the force of her magic, Meredy delivered blades into the beast's belly, while Jellal and the others took their assault to its back.
Natsu sensed Lucy's determination through their link, felt the light and hope of her magic as she changed in and out of forms. Her voice carried on the wind as she called to the spirits she loved.
"Natsu! I found its weak spot!" Jellal yelled. "There's a scar where it split! On the neck!"
Finally! An opening!
"Happy! Get closer!"
No good. The demon swatted them at every turn, swinging its giant arms and scratching with giant claws. It sent them hurtling across the village. Natsu barely recovered long enough to stick the landing.
"Throw me!" Natsu called.
Jellal was already one step ahead. He created a new meteor, small but quick, and Natsu leapt onto the flaming orb before Sawyer, utilising his immense speed, launched it into the air. Natsu hurtled towards the demon like a flaming bullet. It destroyed the meteor with one swoop, but this time Natsu was ready. He flipped over the beast's arm, scaled its hulking shoulders, and drove a flaming punch into the gaping hole on its neck. The scales burst to dust and the creature let out a bellowing scream, so loud it brought everyone to a screeching halt.
Natsu screamed as the noise filled him completely, black and white and bloody. So bloody. He covered his ears and plummeted through the sky. Richard caught him in liquefied ground, lowering the earth gently.
The link on Natsu's arm flared brightly, so blinding he couldn't stand to look at it. Unspeakable pain stuck like pins in his blood, pricking and stabbing, poking gaping holes in his veins and muscle. She was hurt.
"Lucy!"
Lucy's fear held him in frigid fists. Shivers danced along Natsu's spine and his arms prickled with gooseflesh. She was hurt. Lucy needed him. He scanned the area but found nothing. No signs of Lucy, Ultear, or the second demon.
Sorano manifested within the blizzard, her face bloody, her clothes torn to reveal scars and fresh bruising.
"Something's wrong with Lucy!" she screamed.
Natsu froze. The sensory link surged with new feelings. He felt her pain blow for blow, felt the heat of blood gushing down his cheeks. Natsu staggered backwards.
Something possessive took hold. He sensed it hidden within the threads of Lucy's pain, woven tight with a familiar darkness: Love. But not Lucy's gentle affection. This was dangerous. Angry. These feelings dripped like oil on water, so thick he knew they didn't belong. Someone had connected with their link.
Rage pulsed through him, beating hard until Natsu couldn't discern one sound from the next. Black seeds burst in his heart, darkness spreading like veins through his chest, his body, until the flames licked up every inch of skin.
Kill...
Hatred burned hotter than his flames.
Zeref.
E.N.D.'s hold came for just a moment, so strong she barely held onto the frays of magical power slipping through her cold fingers. Lucy dithered. She sensed Natsu's resolve, felt his growing power as it bled from her own body. Their link opened like a vacuum beneath her, draining her of power. Lucy suffocated in E.N.D.'s hot grasp.
Lucy combined Sagittarius's arrows with the blazing heat of Loke's regulus, their power fading rapidly overtime. The points hit their mark, scales and blood and teeth splattering to the snowy ground, melted with the heat of Loke's magic.
The presence of her spirits vanished.
Natsu's rage filled her completely. The demon seed burst to life within Lucy's body, inky black and dripping hot like melted wax. Tender marks throbbed in her face, smothering her eyes, her lips, constricting her throat. She grabbed her face and screamed until her voice failed her, pain and anguish frothing under her skin, running in supple rivulets beneath her breast. Lucy's control drifted like flotsam. Useless.
'The thread can't be broken,' Zeref whispered.
The demon crashed into the ground. Lucy knew by the baleful noise that it was over. Relief coupled with her pain. She succumbed to her wounds instantly, blood spilling from her ears, pouring from her nose and eyes. Sound and sight blurred. She tasted only blood.
"Lucy!" Ultear cried.
The transformation wore off, leaving Lucy in nothing but torn garments and the fragile remains of her cloak.
Ultear pulled Lucy's cloak shut against her chest. "How long has this been going on?"
"A while."
"You need more time."
What difference would it make? More time or less, Lucy couldn't save him. She didn't know how.
Natsu's awakened power bled into her body, oozing chaos. She felt it grip her heart, squeezing tighter.
"It's my fault," she said. "If only I was stronger. I could have... I should have..."
"Be still, Lucy. Be still."
Lucy welcomed Ultear's warm hand. "I'm sorry about your home."
"Don't be. I have no need of it now."
"What do you mean?"
Lucy couldn't explain it, but the warmth from Ultear's hand burned cold, and the influx of power within turned syrupy sweet, sticky. Lucy's head rolled to the side, her eyes fluttering closed, and the pain gradually subsided.
"Save him, Lucy," Ultear whispered. "And be happy."
She wiped the blood from Lucy's eyes, and for just a moment, in the haze of hopeful sunlight, Lucy thought she saw Ultear's youthful face smiling down on her.
Natsu's feet jerked to a stop. Happy slammed into his back. The sensory link dissolved, taking with it the hot feelings of rage, the urge to kill and run rampant. The blizzard whipped clouds of snow in all directions, making it difficult to see beyond the destruction of the village and the white whorl of neverending winter.
Meredy pushed through the blizzard beside him, and together they rushed to Lucy's aid.
Too late.
They found Lucy and Ultear collapsed against the demon's true form, its body wounded beyond recognition. Lucy hadn't gone down without a fight. But something was off. No longer elderly, Ultear looked exactly as Natsu remembered her, long hair flowing black and beautiful across her chest, her shawl draped shorter around toned, muscular arms. Natsu inhaled a sharp breath, closed his eyes and listened. He heard only one heartbeat.
Ultear was dead.
Knots formed in his stomach, too large to digest, too heavy to regurgitate. He choked on his own fear. Natsu collapsed at Lucy's feet. Covered in blood and viscera, she was unrecognisable, her eyes shut to the world.
"Lucy..." Happy sobbed.
Natsu wiped away the blood, exposing disturbing marks under her skin. Crimson red and beating with a life of their own, the marks pulsed in syncopated beats, receding slowly like snakes releasing their prey.
He cupped her face in his hands. "Lucy... What have you done?"
'I told you. The life I long for, a world where magic can reach its full potential, it exists, Natsu. Paradise. That dream lives on.'
With trembling fingers, Natsu unraveled the scarf from Lucy's neck. The marks spread deep into her bodysuit. He grabbed the zipper and clumsily opened her garments.
Happy gagged.
Coiled within the demonic marks, Lucy's heart beat through translucent skin, black and broken, just like in his dream. Natsu covered his mouth, tears streaking his face, the horrors welling up inside him. He didn't scream. Didn't move. He just stared into the void that was Lucy's exposed heart.
"Lucy!" he pleaded, placing his hand over her chest. "Lucy, wake up!"
"Please, Lucy!" Happy wept.
"Lucy, you have to wake up now!"
A faint spark of warmth ebbed through his veins. Foreign, yet familiar. These feelings weren't his own, and yet they were, a tangle so deep they brought him hope from the desolate abyss in his soul. Could remnants of the sensory link remain intact? The feeling came to him at once. Love. So much love that it marred his damaged pieces in its attempt to make him whole. Natsu's tears spilled out uncontrollably. He grabbed Lucy's shoulders, shaking desperately.
"You can't die," he begged. "I need you, Lucy."
"This can't be happening," Sorano whispered.
Meredy crashed to her knees beside them, joined by the rest of her guild. Jellal embraced her quickly, shielding her from the harsh reality of Ultear's death. Meredy touched the lifeless body and shrieked.
"ULTEAR!"
Song: My Demons - Starset.
AVAILABLE MARCH 25th—
CHAPTER SEVEN: AWAKENED FEELINGS