Cuore spezzato... (Natsu x Juvia)

Searching

After completely losing Natsu and Juvia's scent, Wendy had decided to call Gajeel anyway to try and aid them in their search. After almost an hour of waiting, the iron dragon slayer rolled up with Lily by his side and an unimpressed facial expression. His arms were crossed over as he looked stern and hard. The others didn't really know what to say.

"First of all, let's trace them to the last place you think you could smell them. How far out do you think they were?" Gajeel didn't even bother addressing the other members of Team Natsu as he only looked at Wendy for his answers.

The girl nodded, happy that Gajeel was here. He was practically her big brother, and while he seemed to intimidate most, she loved the feeling of security that he gave to her. He was protective and very elder brotherly like, that's probably why he wasn't impressed that Juvia, a younger sister of his had gone missing.

"I think they were around five miles out north east when I finally lost them. I'm sorry for disappointing you."

She bowed her head and willed herself not to cry. Carla tugged at her hand as if to give her comfort, while Erza hung her head in shame, still remembering the events that had happened earlier on that day. Gajeel just patted her head gently, making her look up at him.

"Hey, I can't even smell them at all anymore. Whoever is using this magic to mask them is doing it really well. Don't worry, we'll get them back. I guess it was a good thing you selfish bastards went after them then."

Gray frowned. "How are we selfish bastards?! All we wanted to do was help out!"

"Yeah, on a mission that had nothing to do with you. You might see it as doing them a favour, but it was for your own personal gain. Anyway, let's head north east and see if we might get any clues from around there, I'm not gonna stand here and argue."

With that, he turned his back on them and lily didn't miss a beat as Gajeel started walking away. Wendy glanced at Carla who did the same back to her and they started following the older dragon slayer. The other three had never been so ashamed of themselves. Lucy slipped her hand into gray's and he squeezed it tight as they followed on wards. They couldn't use the carriage because that would mean Gajeel would be throwing up and trojia no longer worked on him.

They all carried on in silence, only Gajeel and Wendy talking to each other about the direction they needed to head in. They finally got to a house where it looked like there had been a war. There were scorch marks everywhere and it was all burnt. Some places were even still soaking wet and all their eyes widened. Erza stepped forwards.

"It seems like they were well and truly attacked. Surely they must have won and continued on, right?"

There was just no way that any of them would accept that Juvia and Natsu lost to another bunch of mages and would have then been kidnapped, that was just an absurd thought. Gajeel took a deep breath in and looked over at Wendy who was giving him a puzzled look.

"Do you know whose scent this is?"

Wendy shook her head. "No, I'm not really aware of it. Do you know whose it is?"

Gajeel nodded his head very gravely as he went on walking towards the house. Lily followed him as they took cautious steps before the others behind ran to catch up with him.

"This smells like that old man...You know, the guild master to Grimoire Heart."

Lucy gasped. "Hades?!"

"That's the one. I wonder what they were doing out here in the first place. Pretty sure that old timer's dead anyway, so it couldn't have been him. His magic lives on though, maybe it has something to do with that..."