The dense jungle of Tenrou Island was a humid, tangled labyrinth.
Massive roots arched over the dirt paths like the ribs of a giant beast, and the thick canopy blocked out most of the sunlight, leaving the forest floor draped in shadows.
Natsu dashed through the underbrush, his boots kicking up dirt as he navigated the winding paths.
Happy flew right behind him, struggling to keep up with the Dragon Slayer's relentless pace.
Unlike his usual loud, chaotic charges, Natsu was quiet.
He didn't shout about finding Mavis's grave or brag about how he was going to beat the others. The encounter with Gildarts had left a heavy, lingering weight in his chest.
He knew what true fear felt like now.
He ran with a sharp, grounded focus, his senses dialed to their absolute peak.
"Natsu, wait up!" Happy panted, his wings beating frantically. "You're going too fast! We don't even know which way the grave is!"
Natsu slowed his pace, coming to a halt near a massive, moss-covered boulder.
He flared his nostrils, taking a deep breath of the heavy, humid air.
"I'm following a scent," Natsu murmured, his dark eyes scanning the thick foliage ahead. "But it's weird. It doesn't smell like animals, or the ocean, or even magic. It smells like... nothing. Like the air is just dead."
Happy landed on Natsu's shoulder, shivering slightly. "I don't like the sound of that. Maybe we should turn around and follow Levy's path instead."
"No," Natsu said, his instincts screaming at him. "Something is wrong up ahead."
He pushed past a thick cluster of giant fern leaves, stepping into a wide, open clearing.
The moment his boots touched the soil, the temperature plummeted.
The rich, vibrant green of the Tenrou jungle abruptly vanished, replaced by a horrifying landscape of rotting gray ash.
The ancient trees surrounding the clearing were dead, their bark peeling and their branches brittle.
The bodies of wild birds and deer lay scattered across the dead grass, untouched by predators but devoid of any life.
It was a graveyard hidden in the middle of a paradise.
"What happened here?" Happy whispered in pure horror, covering his mouth.
Natsu didn't answer.
His eyes locked onto a figure sitting on a rock in the center of the dead clearing.
It was a young man with messy black hair, wearing dark robes and a white cloth draped over his shoulder.
He sat with his head buried in his hands, his shoulders trembling.
Natsu's eyes narrowed.
The guy looked fragile.
But Natsu's Dragon Slayer instincts were roaring, every alarm bell in his head screaming that the man on the rock was the source of the unnatural death surrounding them.
Natsu took a cautious step forward, his fists igniting with a low, controlled flame.
"Hey. Who are you? Did you do this?"
The young man flinched.
He slowly lifted his head, looking up at the intruder.
When Zeref's dark eyes locked onto Natsu, his breath hitched. The profound, suffocating sadness on his pale face broke.
Tears rapidly welled in his eyes, spilling over his cheeks in a flood of sheer, overwhelming relief.
"Natsu..." Zeref whispered, his voice trembling. He stood up, taking a hesitant step forward. "It's you. You've grown... you actually found me."
Natsu frowned, his flames burning a little hotter. He didn't lower his guard. "How do you know my name? I've never seen you before in my life."
Zeref's fragile smile faltered.
A look of deep, crushing realization washed over his face. "I see. You don't remember me and... you aren't ready."
"Ready for what?" Natsu growled, stepping into a fighting stance. "If you're the one destroying this forest, I'm taking you down!"
"No, stay back!" Zeref panicked, his eyes widening in terror as he felt the sickening, familiar pressure building in his chest.
The Curse of Contradiction was triggering!
Seeing Natsu, feeling a spark of hope and love, only fed the curse's hunger to destroy.
"Please, Natsu! Get away from me!"
"Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!"
Natsu didn't listen.
He launched himself forward, closing the distance in a flash of white-hot fire, aiming a devastating punch right at the dark mage's chest.
Zeref didn't try to dodge. He just looked at Natsu with tragic, tear-filled eyes.
Before Natsu's fist could connect, a massive, deafening pulse of pure, pitch-black death magic erupted from Zeref's body.
The dark ring of energy slammed into Natsu with the force of a hurricane. It bypassed his physical durability entirely, striking directly at his life force.
Natsu screamed, the flames around his fists dying instantly as the death wave consumed him.
The magic sought to turn him to ash, just like the trees and the animals. But as the dark energy wrapped around Natsu's throat, the white, scaly scarf given to him by Igneel flared with an ancient, protective light.
The scarf absorbed the brunt of the deadly curse, the pristine white fabric turning a sickening, charred black.
The backlash of the conflicting magics triggered a massive explosion, throwing Natsu backward.
He crashed into a dead tree trunk, sliding to the ground, entirely unconscious.
Happy shrieked, diving toward his friend. "Natsu!"
The black pulse faded, leaving Zeref standing in the center of an even wider circle of decay.
He looked at the unconscious Dragon Slayer, his tears falling freely into the ash.
"You aren't strong enough yet," Zeref cried, his voice breaking.
"If you can't even withstand my passive magic... how can you ever hope to destroy me? How long do I have to wait, Natsu?"
Unable to bear the pain any longer, Zeref turned and ran deeper into the dead woods, desperate to hide himself away before he hurt anyone else.
...
A few miles to the east, the jungle was still lush and vibrant.
Gajeel walked through the thick foliage, using an iron-scaled arm to push heavy vines out of their path.
Levy trailed closely behind him, her eyes glued to a glowing, magical map she had projected from her pen.
"We're getting close to the island's center," Levy said, adjusting her orange headband. "The leylines are converging just past this ridge. If the Master hid a grave anywhere, it has to be at the nexus of the island's ethernano."
"Good," Gajeel grunted, spitting out a rusted bolt. "Let's grab the prize and get out of here."
Suddenly, Gajeel stopped dead in his tracks.
His red eyes darted toward the thick brush to their left.
"Get down!" Gajeel roared.
He grabbed Levy by the back of her dress, throwing her roughly to the dirt just as a barrage of razor-sharp, glowing yellow needles tore through the air exactly where her head had been.
The needles slammed into a tree trunk, embedding deep into the wood.
"Hey, watch the dress!" Levy yelled, spitting dirt from her mouth.
"Shut up and stay down!" Gajeel snarled, his arms shifting into massive iron clubs.
Two figures stepped out from the shadows of the jungle, blocking the path forward.
One was a short, bizarre creature that looked like a humanoid rooster wearing a dark, padded uniform.
He held a strange, egg-shaped contraption in his hands.
The other was a tall, heavily muscled humanoid dog wearing traditional samurai armor, a massive katana resting on his broad shoulder.
A dark purple emblem bearing a jagged heart was stitched onto his chest plate.
"We found some fairies," the rooster, Kawazu, cackled, a wicked grin on his beak. "Master Hades said to leave no survivors. Let's scramble them!"
"My blade thirsts for their blood," the dog samurai, Yomazu, growled, drawing his heavy katana. "Let us write their epitaphs."
Gajeel stood up, dropping his iron clubs and letting his arms revert to normal.
He cracked his knuckles, a feral, dangerous smile spreading across his face.
"I don't know who you freaks are, or how you got on this island," Gajeel said, his magical aura flaring to life.
"But if you're looking for a fight, you just found the worst possible guy to mess with."
Yomazu didn't waste time trading insults.
He raised his free hand, dragging two fingers through the air. Glowing black runes materialized in the space between them.
"Dark Form: Pierce!" Yomazu commanded.
The glowing word shot forward, transforming into a massive, jagged spear made of dark energy, hurtling straight toward Gajeel's chest.
Levy gasped from the dirt. "He's using Solid Script magic! Just like me!"
"Doesn't matter what he uses!" Gajeel yelled. He planted his feet, turning his entire torso into thick, impenetrable iron scales.
"Iron Dragon's Hardness!"
The dark spear slammed into Gajeel's chest, sparking violently against his iron scales.
The impact forced Gajeel back a step, his boots digging trenches into the dirt, but the spear shattered into fragments of dark ethernano without piercing his skin.
Kawazu laughed, jumping into the trees above. "Tough guy! Let's see how he likes an Egg Buster!"
The rooster fired a barrage of explosive, glowing eggs from his contraption.
They rained down toward Levy.
"Solid Script: Guard!" Levy scrambled to her knees, writing frantically in the air.
A glowing dome of magic materialized over her just as the eggs hit.
The explosions rocked the shield, cracking the runes, but it held.
"I told you to stay behind me!" Gajeel roared.
He leaped into the air, aiming a devastating iron punch right at the tree branch Kawazu was standing on.
...
On the southern cliffs of Tenrou Island, the sea breeze whipped fiercely against the jagged rocks.
Ace stood at the very edge of the cliff, looking out over the churning blue ocean.
His dark coat billowed in the wind.
He hadn't found any candidates on his patrol route, but he wasn't looking for them.
He felt the massive drop in magical pressure from the center of the island.
Zeref's death wave.
But that wasn't what had Ace standing on the cliff.
The sky above the ocean began to darken. The bright summer sun was swallowed by a massive, unnatural expanse of gray storm clouds rolling in at an impossible speed.
The air grew freezing cold, heavy with a dark, malicious ethernano that felt like old blood and rust.
The storm clouds parted.
A colossal, heavily armored airship descended from the sky, shaped like a demonic bat.
The mechanical engines roared, a sound that vibrated through the stone cliffs beneath Ace's boots.
The dark purple banners of Grimoire Heart snapped violently in the wind.
Ace didn't flinch.
He didn't run to warn Makarov. He stood his ground, his eyes locked onto the massive warship looming over the sacred island.
Thousands of glowing, spherical bubbles dropped from the bottom of the airship, raining down over the Tenrou jungle like a plague.
Inside each bubble was a dark mage, armed and ready to slaughter the Fairy Tail guild. The invasion force was deploying.
Ace reached into his dark coat, pulling out his D-Tector.
The glass screen glowed with a fierce, blinding light, eager for the violence to come.
"So, the Vanguard of the Abyss finally arrived," Ace murmured to himself, his voice cold and steady over the roaring wind.
He swiped his hand across the scanner, the digital rings erupting around him as the war for Tenrou Island officially began!
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