Life After Near Death

The Truth Revealed

"When a man learns to love, he must bear the risk of hatred."
― Masashi Kishimoto

Gray sat in a hospital, his hands pressed together, his forehead down, praying. He had never been religious, not like Mira and Elfman, but just then he simply prayed to whatever was out there that would listen. It was not even in words.

He was hoping for a miracle.

Erza was somewhere nearby. He heard her sigh once in a while. He had not even bothered to ask yet what happened in her fight with Daegan. She had driven them past Lucy and Wendy, shouting at them to meet up at the nearest hospital. Erza had raced all the way back into a city with a hospital, draining much of what was left of her magic to make it. They managed to get the frozen sarcophagus to the doctors in under an hour. Gray had to unfreeze Natsu, and then he was whisked away, doctors trying to revive him while running, off on a gurney into surgery.

That was hours ago. Gray felt like the long wait should have made him edgy and terrified, even enraged, yet he felt only emptiness inside.

He heard running feet, then Erza's voice talking to Lucy. Wendy was sent on ahead to see if she could help the doctors at all. Happy walked up to Gray. He opened his weary eyes and saw the blue Exceed had a bandage around his head. Daegan had said something about him getting injured while he fought Erza.

"Natsu will be fine," Happy said confidently.

Gray smiled at the encouragement, but he saw Happy's eyes swimming with tears while still straining to keep his smile. Gray hoisted him up and hugged the little cat so he could cry into his shoulder.

"Yeah," he said, feeling Happy's tiny body shaking as his shoulder got wet with tears. "Yeah, he'll be fine. He's strong. He'll pull through this."

He had to. Natsu had promised to always be together. He had to survive.

Gray heard Lucy talking to Erza. Most of the Sons of Darkness were rounded up. This time, it was less than ten who escaped, but they included the second-in-command, Daegan. That was when Gray remembered to tell her what he had said about the darkness at the end of his road being gone. Erza seemed to know precisely what he meant.

"Then Mallumo is dead?"

Gray realized, all these hours sitting here, he had not told Erza what happened, and she had not bothered his brooding grief with prying questions. He related the details of the fight, from realizing Mallumo was the son of the man who had almost killed him last year—he got a feeling that Erza already knew that and simply had not told him—then about the fight, the strange memory-altering and emotion-enchanting magic, as well as the black orb magic that had hit Natsu in the gut and himself in the shoulder. Happy listened with a proud smile as Gray told them how Natsu got up despite being injured and saved him, then kept fighting alongside him, heedless of his wounds, up to the point when Mallumo was killed and Natsu collapsed without a pulse.

After he was done, Erza told them about Daegan, her fight with him, how he siphoned away all of her weapons and armor, but offered to give them back if she could defeat him in single combat with just one sword. She insisted, he was not a bad man, quite a gentleman with strong bonds of honor. He simply had the misfortune of being raised with the Sons of Darkness; they were his family, and his bonds to them were probably as deep as what she felt for Fairy Tail. She hoped he would at least seek redemption, and she said told her teammates that she would not even mind if he joined Fairy Tail. They could use someone of his magical power.

They were listening to Lucy's tale of battling the mercenaries and a bulk of the dark guild when a doctor came forward.

"Are you friends of the Fairy Tail wizard who was brought in?" he asked them.