Chapter 49: The Morning After
The first light crept through the curtains, pale and tentative, painting silver stripes across the ceiling.
Erza did not see it.
She was elsewhere.
---
Iron chains. Cold stone. The smell of salt and blood.
She was small again. Six years old, barefoot on the unforgiving floor of the Tower of Heaven, her fingers raw from hauling stones she could barely lift. Around her, the other children moved like ghostshollow eyes, silent mouths, bodies that had forgotten how to hope.
"You think you can escape?"
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. Smooth. Cruel. Familiar in a way that made her chest cave inward.
Jellal.
Not the boy who had shared his bread with her, who had whispered stories of the stars, who had held her hand when the darkness pressed too close. This was the other one. The one with the cursed mark on his forehead and the god's voice in his throat.
"Freedom is an illusion, Erza. There is only the Tower. There is only the purpose Zeref has given us."
She pressed herself into the corner, knees to chest, hands over her ears.
"Build the R-System. Complete the resurrection. That is all you are. That is all you will ever be."
"No," she whispered. "No, that's not true…"
"Then why are you still here?"
She had no answer.
The laughter followed her into the dark.
---
Erza's eyes snapped open.
The ceiling was white, not grey. The sheets were soft, not rough burlap. The air smelled of salt breeze and expensive detergent, not iron and decay. More importantly, the air smelled of their encounter from last night.
She was not in the Tower.
She was at the resort.
She was…
Movement beside her.
Erza turned her head, every muscle locked in conditioned alertness.
Natsu lay sprawled across the adjacent pillow, face-down, one arm flung over his head, his breathing slow and even. His hair was a complete disaster, spikier than usual, flattened on one side, sticking up at impossible angles on the other. The sheet had migrated to his waist, leaving his scarred back bare to the morning light.
He was deeply, completely, obliviously unconscious.
And Erza remembered.
…his hands on her waist, her hips, her face…
…his breath against her throat, hot and desperate…
…her own voice, crying out in the darkness, not in fear but in…
*blush*
Erza Scarlet, Titania, the Queen of Fairies and the undisputed female champion of Fairy Tail, turned approximately seventeen shades of red.
She pressed both hands to her burning cheeks.
'We... we did it.'
'He and I. Together. In the... in the absolute traditional sense.'
Her mind, usually so precise and tactical, had dissolved into static. Fragments of memory surfaced unbidden, the weight of his body, the warmth of his skin, the way he'd said her name like it was the only word he remembered.
*DEEPER BLUSH*
'Stop it. Stop it RIGHT NOW.'
She forced herself to breathe. To think. To impose order on the chaos of her own emotions.
'We are guildmates. Comrades. He is my rival, my…'
'My what?'
The word hovered at the edge of her consciousness, too dangerous to seize.
'Boyfriend.'
She looked at Natsu's sleeping face. The slack jaw. The slight drool on the pillowcase. The way his toes were twitching, probably dreaming about chasing Happy or fighting Gray or eating an entire cow.
'...this is the person I…'
*DEEPER. BLUSH.*
'We should tell Lucy.'
The thought surfaced with sudden, sharp clarity. Lucy, who had been Natsu's first. Lucy, who carried that invisible tether to him, that mysterious bond Erza didn't fully understand. Lucy, who had looked at her yesterday with uncertainty and hope and wanting to try.
'Is the time right now?'
Erza didn't know.
She didn't know anything anymore.
Slowly, carefully, she extracted herself from the tangled sheets. Her body ached in unfamiliar ways, pleasant, but unfamiliar. She padded barefoot across the cool floor to the full-length mirror beside the wardrobe.
The woman who looked back at her was not the Erza Scarlet of yesterday.
Her hair was mussed. Her lips were slightly swollen. There was a mark on her collarbone, a small, dark bruise in the shape of someone's mouth.
She touched it with her fingertips.
'That was him.'
'That was us.'
She closed her eyes.
When she opened them, she was herself again.
"Requip."
Silver light cascaded down her body, and when it faded, she stood armored not in the Black Wing's shadow or the Flame Empress's crimson, but in the sleek, elegant plates of her Heart Kreuz Armor. Pink and white, gold accents catching the dawn light.
'This is who I am,' she told her reflection. 'This is who I choose to be.'
It was a lie. But it was a comforting one.
"FUCK!"
Erza spun.
Natsu had shot upright in bed, both hands fisted in the sheets, his face a mask of pure, undiluted horror.
"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!"
"Natsu…?"
"NOT AGAIN! IT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THIS WAY…"
He was hyperventilating, his chest heaving, his eyes wild and unfocused. The sheets had pooled around his waist, exposing the full map of scars across his torso.
"Natsu!" Erza crossed the room in two strides and gripped his shoulders. "Natsu, look at me. What's wrong?"
He looked at her.
And the horror in his eyes deepened.
"...Erza."
"I'm here."
"Last night…" His voice cracked. "…I'm sorry. About last night."
Her grip on his shoulders tightened.
"You have nothing to apologize for."
"LIKE HELL I DON'T!" He pulled away from her, scrambling to the far side of the bed. "That was your FIRST time, Erza! Your first time, and we just… and I couldn't… First Lucy and now you…"
He buried his face in his hands.
"It wasn't supposed to be like this. You weren't supposed to be like this. You deserved I don't know, candles. Roses. A proper first night. Both of you did. Not..."
He gestured vaguely at the room, at the tangled sheets, at the evidence of their shared night.
"...whatever THAT was."
Erza was silent for a moment.
"You're not wrong," she said quietly. "It was not... ideal."
Natsu flinched.
"But," she continued, "I do not regret it."
He lowered his hands. Stared at her.
"...what?"
"I am not saying it was perfect. I am not saying I understand what happened, or why, or what it means for us going forward." She met his gaze steadily. "But I do not regret it. And I do not blame you."
Something flickered across his face, gratitude, guilt, and something else she couldn't name.
Then his expression shuttered.
"...I heard you, you know."
His voice was flat now. Controlled.
"In your sleep. You were talking in your sleep, mentioned some guy."
Erza went very still.
"You said a name." Natsu wouldn't look at her. "Jellal. Is that the twin brother of Zigfrien, the guy on the council. When I learnt about him I also learnt about this Jellal guy."
The name hung between them like a blade.
"Natsu..."
"It's fine."
"It's not…"
"It's FINE, Erza." He swung his legs over the side of the bed, his back to her. "You don't have to worry about it. I'll be fine. I just need some fresh air."
"Natsu, wait…"
But he was already standing, already grabbing his discarded vest from the floor, already moving toward the door.
"NATSU!"
He paused. His hand on the handle. His back still turned.
"...I'll see you later. Don't worry about it, you will tell me when you're ready. Really, it is fine."
The door clicked shut behind him.
Natsu leaned against the hallway wall and closed his eyes.
'So it's begun.'
The Tower of Heaven.
Jellal. Ultear. The R-System. Erza's nightmare, played out in the sacred space between sleeping and waking, the final piece of the puzzle clicking into place.
'That dream was the last clue I needed.'
He had trained for this. Every day since the war with Phantom Lord, every hour in the forest, every brutal, punishing exercise, it was all for this. Not for Gajeel. Not for Laxus. For her. So that she wouldn't feel the need for that damn armor she was wearing. So that she would see his strength and feel the same comfort.
'And then the Primal Domain had to activate last night.'
His jaw tightened.
'That explains the headache. I've never been sick a day in my life, it wasn't illness, it was suppression. My body trying to hold back the tide and failing miserably.'
'Failing spectacularly.'
He pushed off the wall and started walking. No destination. Just movement.
'There's no more training I can do. No more preparation. This is it.'
'This is going to be an adventure.'
An image flashed through his mind.
Long blue hair. Pale skin. A knowing, enigmatic smile.
*Ultear Milkovich.*
Daughter of Ur. Gray's master. The woman pulling Jellal's strings from the shadows, manipulating the Tower's construction, orchestrating Erza's suffering from behind a curtain of illusion and deceit.
'Damn. She's hot.'
The thought surfaced unbidden, visceral and immediate.
'Massive oppai. That whole "dangerous older woman" aesthetic. Bet she'd look good on her…'
"Dammit." He ran a hand through his hair, exasperated. "Where does it end?"
No answer. Just the empty hallway, the distant sound of waves, the weight of a thousand decisions pressing down on his shoulders.
He kept walking.
'Inside the room, Erza stood motionless before the mirror.'
Her Heart Kreuz Armor gleamed in the morning light. Her expression was composed, controlled, perfectly regal.
But her hand had drifted up to press against the mark on her collarbone.
'Jellal.'
The name echoed in the hollow spaces of her chest.
'Why can't I let you go?'
The mirror offered no answers.
Only the reflection of a woman in armor, standing alone, waiting for a war she could feel approaching like thunder on a clear horizon.