Fire, Blood and Stars

Chapter 14

I know it's late, but it's still Saturday, so technically I'm allowed.

After Lucy had woken up sufficiently to know what she was saying, she washed up and went for her training with Natsu. She hoped it wouldn't be as... intense, as the previous day. Although, judging by his quiet demeanor, he wasn't going to do anything like that in the near future.

He took her to a large, open field, with some trees, bushes, and logs lying around. He told her to do some simple warm-ups, and leaned against a tree, observing her.

After a few minutes, he told her to get up.

"That's enough warming up. Now, time for a quick run around the field!"

Lucy stood in an impromptu form of attention. "How many times?"

Natsu grinned sadistically. "Just once." Before Lucy could ask anything else, Natsu ran, motioning for her to follow. Which she did.

Natsu had figured out that developing her body strength and stamina alone would do no good. Those would take a lot of time to cultivate, time which Lucy didn't have. He had to train her ability-wise. But if he could mix the two...

One run around the field normally wasn't so bad. But it was Natsu, after all. He just had to climb up every tree, and jump from them like a monkey!

By the end of the run, Lucy was panting and out of breath.

Natsu fixed her with a gaze, and she stood up straighter, getting ready for what he had in store for her next.

"Watch me", he instructed her. Then he ran.

He ran around the edge of the field with a barely believable speed. When he was a few feet away from a tree, he jumped. Grabbing onto a branch, he swung to another. This time swinging with his feet, Natsu landed on his palms.

Pushing himself up and landing on his feet again, Natsu continued on his path until there were a few trees bunched together. Jumping and kicking up from all of them, he landed on the topmost branch and jumped forward.

He was in the air for seven seconds. On landing, he angled his feet and slid across the ground. Getting rid of the momentum, he ran straight until he reached his starting spot and stopped.

Although Natsu would crush any and everyone who compared Lucy to a bug, at that point, bug-eyed was the only fitting description for her.

"By the end of this month, you should be able to do that too", he stated simply. Before she could process it, he said one word.

"Dodge."

Natsu took out a pouch of erasers from his pockets and tossed them at Lucy, two or three at a time. They didn't hurt her, but they stung. She did her best to dodge them, but dodging one always led her into the path of another.

By the time he stopped, she had been hit by nearly all of them.

"Here, take this." Natsu gave her a tissue to wipe her face, and she took it gratefully. Then, he handed her another pouch, this one filled with stones. He moved back a few steps and said, "Throw them at me. As many as you want."

"What?! No! You could get seriously injured!"

Natsu didn't say anything. He took a few steps to his right and picked up a particularly large rock, into which he proceeded to smash his head.

The rock broke into teeny-tiny pieces.

Natsu raised an eyebrow at her. "Sometimes I think you forgot every single mission you've taken with me."

That look on his face was so damn smug! She shoved her hand in the pouch and threw a couple of stones at him, hoping to catch him off guard.

Natsu didn't have the mindset to react, but Lucy's throw wasn't anywhere near him. Lucy threw a few more at him, which he dodged.

Seeing that this approach was not working, Lucy ripped a small gash in the bottom of the pouch and swung the whole thing at him.

All of the stones shot at Natsu, who didn't even move his feet. He just moved his upper body from side to side in a snakelike motion, dodging every single one.

"Nice try. Again, within this month, you should be able to dodge all the projectiles."

The rest of the morning passed with a cycle of these three activities, running, to improve her speed, dodging, to improve her reflexes, and throwing, for her aim. By the end of the morning, she could dodge several projectiles and run halfway around the path he had set before falling down. She had yet to land a single projectile.

Lucy was panting and sweating when Natsu told her to stop.

"That's enough. Come on. Let's go get some lunch from the guild." Lucy followed him, feeling like something was missing.

"Good work, Lucy."

Ah, there it was. Lucy smiled and bounded after him.

After lunch, during which Gray had come to apologize to her for some reason or another, Lucy walked around Magnolia with Natsu. It was full of flowers.

Lucy had seen lots of flowers around her house, back before her mom had died. She even knew the names of most of them, but Magnolia simply had more flowers than anywhere else.

Lucy felt something in her hair and looked back. Natsu was putting a bright pink flower in her hair, firmly looking in the opposite direction, as if hoping she wouldn't notice it. Lucy smiled and tried to suppress her giggles. At least, until he accidentally poked her in the eye.

After a bit of wandering, they got back to the training ground. This time, Natsu was more focused on teaching her things which had more of a direct combat application. Stances, punches, kicks, stuff like that. Lucy picked this up more easily.

After training till dark, Natsu took Lucy back to her apartment. She made some sort of cooked food for him, which he managed to swallow down without any complains. It was something called a pig perjure. Or was it hamburger?

After Lucy went to bed, Natsu stayed out on the couch, thinking about life, and about Lisanna.

I wish you were here, Lisanna. You and Lucy would be great friends.

Somehow, he ended up on her bed again.

The next few days passed in a similar way. Natsu introduced her to throwing knives. She could now climb really high on trees, although she had a bit of a difficulty getting down. Natsu had had to catch her thrice. He didn't necessarily mind that.

Lucy was definitely getting stronger. By the time the month was over, she would pass the test with flying colors. Natsu was proud to see her progress.

A week later, it all went to hell.

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