VERiTY (Fairy Tail Fanfic)

32. Not Human.

Somewhere outside of the Domus Flau Arena, four children walked down the street.

It was mostly empty, the crowd all huddled near the large lacrima screen showing the interior of the arena.

Gray retrieved the can of Citrus Juice from the vending machine. He's never been a fan of the medicine-tasting carbonated drink, but everyone knows that Levy loves it.

He sets it on Bickslow's doll, reaching for coins to get the other drinks.

Cana and Laxus had gone ahead to pick up Levy and Sherry-- Cana because she likes the school courtyard, Laxus because he's tall-- and that leaves Gray and Bickslow here on errand boy duties.

"Man, Jura's really strong," Bickslow said-- where the hell had he been-- as he came back over. "His match against that slimy earth guy was an easy win over there."

Gray scowled at him, because obviously Bickslow went to watch without him. Bickslow was unaffected by the glare though, because he's blind-- wait, if he's blind, how does he--

"You can watch LV with your eyes closed?" Gray asked.

Bickslow looked at him like he was asking a dumb question, "of course I can."

Gray felt like his entire world shifted to the left a bit.

Jura versus Sol and Eir versus Aria were two matches that people were quite looking forward to. Earth mage against Earth Mage, Wind Mage against Air Mage-- of course, no one's expecting the two fan-favourites to lose, but it's certainly interesting.

Gray tucked his wallet back into his pocket, ready to go back. At this point, they might just barely make it back in time for Eir's match.

"So, are Levy and Sherry here already?"

"Yeah, they're just-- ooh, careful!"

Bickslow warned him quickly, but Gray didn't respond in time. The corner is turned and Gray crashes right into a figure that really shouldn't have been running there.

Gray didn't fall, but the dolls jiggled a little in surprise and dropped a can of coffee. The girl he'd bumped into jerked back, losing her balance-- and she fell back.

"My bad!" Gray says quickly, reaching forward.

Bickslow picked up the fallen cans, directing his dolls backward. They're very menacing to people who don't know what they are, so he usually kept them away from strangers.

The girl on the ground had her hands clutched at the brown shawl around her shoulders. And when she looked up, Gray flinched unintentionally. Maybe it was the soft glare she was sending, or the way her head hung down to the side, trying hard to hide the eyepatch on her right eye but only drawing more attention to it.

Gray averted his eyes. He knew that was rude to stare at.

But in the process, he saw something worse.

She wasn't wearing shoes. Anything that could be seen on her hands are covered in scars. Her clothes, other than the shawl, were in terrible shape.

"Sorry," she said-- and her voice was cold. Her face was empty, seeing this as nothing more than a minor inconvenience. "I wasn't looking where I was going."

She stood up without taking Gray's hand, nodded politely, and continued on her way.

Gray reacted immediately. "Wait--"