Crimson Illusion || Fairy Tail [✔️]

🍃Chapter Twenty-Three🍃Dust, Blood, and Tears🍃

"What is that?" I whispered.

"A bomb. The same kind we used to blow up that flying chunk of rock you wizards call a stadium! Once I press this button, everything will go haywire!" He let loose an insane laugh.

"Cindy, go! Just get out of here!" I gasped, shoving her ahead, "I'll only slow you down! Find the others and get out of here!"

"I'm not leaving you!" Cindy shouted, diving back towards me.

"There's no time-" I started.

With another outburst of insane laughter, Cindy's father brought his thumb down upon the button.

Time seemed to move in slow motion. There was a deafening boom, and rocks began showering down from above. The entire ceiling began to cave. Startled yells from overhead rooms echoed distortedly through the collapsing base. Cindy's fingers found mine, and I gripped them.

A split second later, everything was moving in normal motion again. A shadow loomed over us. Sure it was the cold wings of death, I squeezed my eyes shut tight.

There was a loud crashing noise above my head. Cindy screamed. A stone struck against my side. The side with the dagger wound. The pain intensified, so instead of being a 12/10 on the pain scale, it was now hitting a 9817637823210109132719010.3/10.

There was one last, almighty smashing noise, then silence.

"Are we... Dead?"

My voice came out small, and broken. Slowly, I opened my eyes. Black spots danced tantalisingly through my vision. I still seemed to be in the cavern. Dust spiralled everywhere, making it almost impossible to see five feet through the gloom.

My hand shook as I raised it, then let it fall once more.

For the first time, I noticed a large, wave-like wall of dirt towering above us, slightly cracked in places, but essentially working as a shield against falling debris.

I turned my head slightly. We were lying on the dirt and blood covered floor. Cindy was curled up in a ball, figure shaking with fright.

"Hey, you're alive," I noted, "That's good."

Cindy raised her head and stared at me with tear-filled eyes.

"We aren't dead...?"

At this point, I was completely fed up with all the crazy rubbish with Viper Strike. Plus, my side hurt like hell, and I had lost a lot of blood.

I could hear panicked shouts, thumping footsteps, and the clatter of dislodged rubble from where I guessed the entrance to the room was.

"Damn, my side hurts..." I murmured stupidly.

Velvety darkness draped itself across my vision, and I let myself slide out of consciousness.

Unconsciousness isn't all it's cracked up to be. I basically just felt like I was floating around like a complete weirdo for a while, and all the time, my side decided to hate me, and hurt like heck. FYI, giving yourself a time-out and a lecture doesn't help. At all. It's boring.

I only found out what happened after I blacked out when I woke up in the First Aid tent in the Guilds' camp outside the city.

Gryfin, Kasai, Owan, Mikami, and Aren had charged into the cavern the exact moment the bomb had activated. Gryfin had used his Earth Manipulation magic to create a structure that resembled a shelter around himself, Mikami, Kasai, Owan and Aren, and another protective layer over Cindy and I. Thus, we had been protected from the worst of the explosion.

No one knew what had happened to Cindy's father, and no one seemed to be looking further into the matter.

The Council had found the remaining members of Viper Strike all huddling together in terror in the (now ruined) garden.

Special emergency wizards had rushed down into the underground base to put out small fires and clear away as much rubble as they could, and had found the sorry looking members of Crimson Illusion.

All of us had been injured in the rescue operation, but there were (thankfully) no fatalities.

"Lillie and Kasai sittin' in a tree..!" Cindy giggled, leaning on the side of my hammock. Unfortunately, Chelia had told Cindy about Kasai and I dancing on the night of the party, so now the Fire Mage wouldn't shut up about it all.

"K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"

"I'm now regretting letting you hang out with Mirajane..." I grumbled, throwing my pillow at Cindy, who caught it, laughing.

The First-Aid medical wizard people had told me that I wasn't allowed to leave my bed for at least a week. They had rambled on about boring stuff about letting my wound heal, but I had hardly listened.

But being stuck in bed actually got really boring, really quick. I spent a lot of time sleeping. What else could I do? When I wasn't sleeping or eating, I was chatting with my guild mates, and sometimes even mages from other guilds.

"FIRST COMES LOVE-" Cindy was practically shouting now. I pulled my blanket over my eyes grumpily.

"Right. No more sugar for you, Fire Head..." Kasai rolled his eyes, dragging Cindy away. She gave me a devious little smirk as Kasai ordered her outside.

"Well, back to the Guild Hall next Monday, eh?" Kasai grinned, flopping down in the chair beside me.

"Can't wait to get back!" I sighed dreamily.

"You got that right," Kasai agreed.

"Hey, Kasai?" I asked quietly.

He looked up at me, "Yeah?"

"Could you pass the cookie bowl?"