Thank you, Nashi

Chapter 15

"Natsu, I want to go on a mission."

Natsu choked on a bit of his drink. He wiped away any extra on his lip and turned to the pink haired girl standing right beside him. Yesterday, Nashi had beaten up Elfman's kid and Natsu's respect for her increased drastically. He had already started to warm up to her, but then again, anyone who can win a fight in the guild was cool in his book.

Right now, they were at the guildhall. Natsu was sitting at a table with his girlfriend and Gray when Nashi came up to him and asked to go on a mission.

"What brought this up?" he asked putting his glass on the tabletop.

"Gale was talking about how she was going on a mission with her daddy and I want to see what it's like on a mission too," Nashi clutched her hands together in a pleading motion, "please, please, please Natsu, can we go on one?"

Natsu started thinking about it when Lisanna jumped into the conversation. Gray couldn't help but notice how frantic she seemed.

"Nashi that's a terrible idea. Missions can be extremely dangerous and you could get hurt." Natsu was kind of leaning with Lisanna on this one. He was about to tell Nashi no when a certain Ice Maker mage voiced his opinion.

"Come on Flame-Brain, what's the harm in taking her on a mission. She is a member of the guild after all," He said. Lisanna shot him a look of distaste.

"But Gray, the jobs we do are S Class, Nashi would get seriously injured if she went with you."

Gray shrugged, finding the issue not to big of a deal, "Then we can take an easy one. Just because Me, Natsu, and Erza are S Class wizards doesn't mean we are banned from the regular request board."

"But what about finding Nashi's mom? We can't do that if we go running around the country." Lisanna had a point. Nashi had been in the guild for about four days and they still and no leads on her mother's kidnappers. Nashi let her eyes fall to the table in front of her, sadness overpowering her. Gray let a sad sigh slip from his lips.

"Lisanna, the way I see it, we can't really save Nashi's mother without any idea who took her. Gramps and Levy have been doing research on these guys and still have nothing. Gramps is in Era right now trying to find information in the council archives, so until he get something we can work with, I suggest that we try to take Nashi's mind off of this whole situation." Natsu nodded in agreement. He wanted to help Nashi just as much as the rest of the guild, but not even he could work with nothing. Nashi turned to Natsu expectantly.

"Does that mean I can go?" Lisanna tried to think of something else to argue about, but before anything could come out of her mouth, Erza walked up to the table.

"I think it's a marvelous idea," she said, pulling a piece of paper out of her skirt pocket, "I was looking at this request when I overheard your conversation. It's not to difficult and we should have some extra time to hang around the town." Erza handed the request to Gray who started scanning over it, "I think it is splendid that Nashi wishes to go on a mission, it will give her some future experience."

"I don't feel comfortable having to watch over her while on a job," Lisanna said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"That's why it's Natsu's job to watch over her," said Gray, still scanning over the piece of paper. He could hear Lisanna grumble, "I'm not comfortable with that either."

Gray placed the paper on the tabletop, "This looks fine enough. All we have to do is flush out these bandits who are hiding in the Valley of the Lost near Rose Garden." Natsu's eyes shot at Gray.

"Rose Garden, isn't that the place we stayed when we were taking Éclair to the Boundary Forest?" Nashi looked at her father in confusion.

"Yep, the bandits hideout actually isn't to far away from the Boundary Forest." Nashi smiled up at her Daddy.