A Drop of Ice

State of Mind

Gray's POV

I watched helplessly.
It started with me and others charging straight into the enemy army in order to create a path for everyone else. After some time, as my group continued to crush the enemy soldiers, Natsu prepares to shoot his fire dragon roar, but as soon as his flames were unleashed, they are frozen solid. Natsu turns to me, but I denied the blame, however, noticing the temperature dropping as Lucy and Juvia complain about the cold. Natsu surrounds the area with his flames in an attempt to counter it, but his fire once again freezes and the culprit makes an entrance: Invel enters the battlefield, with me noticing that all of my friends have completely turned to ice.

My eyes widened, knowing where this was going. 'No! No! NO!'  I collapsed, clutching my head. 'It's a dream. It's a dream! IT'S JUST A DREAM!!! J-Juvia is still alive!'

I watched myself glare at Invel, completely unaware of the torture about to come. 'Wake up...' I murmured, and suddenly my vision flashed.

I closed my eyelids, but everything still flashed. Black. White. Black. White. Black. My head pounded, a massive headache splitting my head in half. Clutching my head, I curled up into a ball on the invisible floor, memories flashing in my head again and again.

~~~~~~~~~

Gray was breathing heavily, sweat flowing down his face like rivers. He was in a deep, deep slumber, nothing could awake him from living in his nightmare.

Meanwhile, across the balcony, past the cherry blossom tree, was Juvia's room. She was also panting, the streams of sweat trickling down her face. Her eyebrows scrunched up with worry.

'No-o, n-not again..,'

~~~~~~~

Juvia felt like she was sinking in water.  Except she couldn't manipulate it. She fell deeper, and deeper, until the light blue faded into black. Floating in a bottomless pit of pitch black water, Juvia watched as a vision appeared in front of her, dimly lighting up the surrounding darkness. The blue haired girl's eyes widened, not wanting to remember how much she hurt her Gray-sama.

That's when the pain began.

~~~~~~~~~

Both mages saw themselves fighting the other, but felt the pain and heard the sounds of their fighting. Gray grimaced as he felt his hand let out icy pressure, hearing Juvia scream out from his attack. He nearly  vomited at the texture of Juvia's blood on his hands and his actions toward the girl. Controlled or not, he should be at least capable of protecting his friends in a dream!

Juvia was going through the same torment. She was horrified and disgusted at how easily she was controlled, to fight against her Gray-sama, out of all people.

~~~~

After 8 hours of restless torment, both mages shot up, panting and muttering to themselves. They both noticed their room was in a mess, while Juvia's  wallpaper had damp patches on it, Gray's had ice stuck to the walls, most likely from the attacks they threw out whilst still in the dream.  Both mages hunched over, their stomaches throbbing with pain. The wound from where they pierced themselves had completely healed, despite the tremendous pain inflicted on both wizards. Giving in to the agony, they fell back to their beds before passing out, being forced to repeat the same mental torture again and again, and again.  

At the guild, Erza frowned with worry. Wendy had informed them of possible mental trauma from the fight with Alvarez, but the guild had reassured her that it was fine, after all, both  Gray and Juvia were mentally strong. 

Maybe that wasn't the case? No. Erza shook her head. She shouldn't doubt her friends like that. Like Master said before, every Fairy Tail wizard should be able to look after themselves, and the said mages were one of the stronger members in the guild so...

Shaking off the doubt, she turned her back to the guild doors before someone destroyed her cake.