ADL OLD CHAPTERS

29. Everyone Has A Vice, Mine Just So Happens To Be Murder

Content warning: Violence (duh) also lots of mentions of blood.

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Y/n stared down at the disfigured lump that had once been Zancrow with dead eyes. She was numb, comfortingly so. But the blissful feel of nothingness soon gave way to panic and dread as it dawned on her what she had done.

"No, no, no, no, no," y/n muttered. Her dagger slipped from numb hands, dropping to the wilted grass with a dull thud.

She hadn't really thought about what she would do once she found Zancrow as she followed his scent through the woods. Y/n hadn't thought at all. She'd acted solely on instinct, hunting him down like she had done so many times before. Her mind had been in a daze as she tried to process the day's events. Meeting the Black Wizard Zeref, Master Makarov's injured state, and the prophetic declaration of Acnologia's arrival on the island.

The accumulation of stress had left her on edge and calling upon the curse had left her unstable. Her and Natsu's battle against Zancrow had only heightened those feelings until she snapped.

Y/n cursed herself as she began to pace the bloodied clearing. She was trying to be better. She was doing better. Then she'd thrown it all away, and for what?

She shook her head. It didn't matter what she had promised or tried to do. Just what she had done. And what she had done was kill someone. There was nothing that could change that now.

Her eyes were glazed, unseeing as countless memories flashed through her mind. Terrified screams and tortured expressions, feeble attempts to escape as people pleaded for their lives. Her dagger gleaming a deep crimson, the feel of the blade digging into someone's throat, slitting it with a flick of her wrist. The way that they would gurgle for air, blood bubbling up from the wound. Life slowly bleeding from their eyes as the ground beneath them was stained red.

Y/n worked off of muscle memory as she disposed of the body. She picked her dagger off the ground and raised a hand. Water flowed from her palm, washing the blood from the stained leaves. Once the clearing had regained it's natural green colour y/n began cleaning her clothes and dagger with deft hands. With a burst of flames, she was dry.

She walked through the woods, stopping to stare at her reflection in a slow-moving stream. No one would ever know she'd just killed someone. Not unless she told them. In which case she'd probably end up killing them too.

Y/n continued her track, ducking under fallen trees and leaping over fallen rocks as she followed familiar magical signatures and scents across the island. She had considered going to the camp but she figured Team Natsu would have headed out to fight Hades. And if that were the case, they were going to need all the help they could get.

She growled lowly as she emerged from the treeline, her eyes focused on the ship docked on the beach. Y/n cracked her neck, muttering quietly to herself. "One 'god' down, one more to go,"

***

"I often hear that young people refer to their mistakes as life experience," Hades stated, stepping through the shroud of dust, his arms crossed. "But true mistakes do not yield experience as there is the coming back from them, such as the case here,"

Lucy gasped, staring at Grimoire Hearts master with wide eyes. He didn't have so much as a scratch on him.

"Your future consists only of the grave. There will be no lesson to learn other than opposing me was the biggest mistake you made in your lives,"

The Fairy Tail wizards each voiced their frustrations and their worries at once. Their voices overlapping into a jarring cacophony that echoed throughout the ship.