July 25th — X777
Natsu's P.O.V.
I walk slowly, trying not to wake my sleeping sister. She's so cute when she sleeps, but I wish that she was a bit stronger. If she was, we could move faster. But there's nothing she can do about it, she's always been a sick kid. I've been looking after her forever. And how can I not? She's my sweet little sister. She's always depended on me to protect her. And whenever I got stuck with my magic, she would help me to get it right.
She's always been the magic genius, even picking up reading all those crazy languages from Igneel. But she can't keep it up. She'll get sick and have a fever, and start throwing up. It's nasty. But…I've got to help her, at least until she's strong enough to take care of herself. And once she's strong enough, then we can go out and have all sorts of adventures together, without having to worry about if she's going to get sick again or not.
Igneel disappeared a couple of weeks ago, leaving the two of us alone in the middle of nowhere. We've been trying to find him, but there's been no scent to follow. Even her magical spells are useless. He's just… gone. If we could get stronger, find a place to use as a home base, maybe make some money as well, we could probably search for him better.
We make it to a town, and I nearly collapse at the front gate. I can't… I can't keep walking like this. I'm so tired…
"Hey kid, you looking for something?"
I lift my head to see a short old man. "Who… who are you?"
"Hm? Who am I?" The old man scratches his moustache. "Well, I'm Makarov, master of the wizard guild in this city."
"A wizard guild?" I've heard people talk about them, but I've never actually seen one before. "You mean, one of those places that wizards can go to for work?"
"That's right?" He looks at me, then at my sister. "What are a couple of kids doing out on the street?"
I struggle to my feet, doing my best to not let my sister touch the ground. "Looking for our dad… he disappeared a couple of weeks ago, and we've been looking for him ever since." Haru is feeling a little cold to me, so I breathe a little fire and warm my body, trying to warm her up a bit.
"Oh, so you're a wizard?"
I look at the old man and nod. "Yeah. We're both wizards. We've been training since we were really little."
That interests the old man. "Is that so? Well, why don't you come with me? I'm sure that we have a place for the two of you back at the guild."
At the guild? I glance back at my little sister, still worried about her. "Yeah, okay. I'll come see this guild of yours."
"Excellent." The old man turns around and starts walking towards the other end of the city. "Follow me then. I'm sure that you'll fit right in around here."
I shift Haru a bit higher onto my back, and balance my bag on my other shoulder. And before the old man walks out of sight, I jog up as smoothly as I can, catching up to him in a hurry.
As we arrive on the other side of town, I look up at the building, stunned. "Woah! This place is huge! So this is a wizard guild, huh?"
"Yep, it's called Fairy Tail." The old man smiles at the guild, like he's proud of it or something.
"That's a weird name." I mean seriously, who names a guild after fairies?
Haru's voice echoes in my head. Natsu… be nice… obviously it's important enough to them that it means something special. Besides… It sounds like a nice place to me.
The old man laughs. "Yes, well you see, no one knows whether or not fairies have tails, or if they even exist! So it'll forever be a mystery. Unless we try to find out, which could become an amazing adventure. And our members are the ones who would want to find out."
That excites me a bit. "I don't get it, but it sounds awesome!" Especially if it'll give us a home…
Yeah… a new home… She sounds really tired, which means that I should probably get her inside and find somewhere for her to sleep and recover. All of this traveling has been hard on her, and she kept insisting on walking herself so that I wouldn't have to carry her so much.
"And now that we're here, we can find your sister a place to sleep." The old man smiles gently at her. "She must be so tired… it's gotta be tough for a couple of kids to travel so far all on their own."
"Yeah…" It has been tough. We've had to catch all our own food, and sleep huddled together so that she doesn't freeze at night. And we couldn't cover a whole lot of ground, since she had to stop and rest all the time.
The old man opens the doors and raises his voice. "I'm back!"
"Welcome back master!" Yells echo out of the guild hall, stunning me for a second.
The old man waves to one of the older men. "Laxus, my boy, would you mind taking care of the little girl? Her brother has been carrying her so long that I found him collapsed at the front gates of the city."
A blond guy rolls his eyes and gets off the bar, walking towards me with his hands in his pockets. "Alright squirt, hand her over."
I clutch onto my sister protectively, until my arms start to shake a bit. "Fine…" I loosen my grip on her and let him take her off my back. "Just be careful with her, alright? She's… not feeling very well right now."
"Yeah, yeah…" He picks her up like she weighs nothing and walks over to a table with her, putting her down on the table like it's no big deal.
I follow along behind him to make sure that nothing happens to her. Igneel would never forgive me if something bad happened to her. And even if he did, I would never forgive myself for it.
But as I check on her to make sure that she's okay, I catch sight of a weirdo. He's got dark hair, and he's stripped down to nothing but his boxers. What a freak… is everyone here as weird as he is?
"Hey, you got a problem with me or something?" The kid in the boxers looks kind of pissed off that I'm looking at him.
And frankly, that pisses me off instead. This guy really gets on my nerves. And I'm sure not shy about saying so. I put on my best glare ever. "What if I do?"
A girl pops suddenly out of a barrel. "Gray, your clothes!"
"Aw man!" The streaker hops right off the bench, as though he didn't even realize that he's been lounging around with no clothes on.
"Geez, what a pervert." I am so not letting him get anywhere near my sister. Not a pervert like that.
He gets right up in my face. "Who you calling a pervert, Pinky?"
I slam my forehead against his. "You, you loudmouthed streaker!"
But just as the two of us finally get into a tussle, some red-head shows up and pushes the two of us apart. That idiot streaker looks scared of her, but I'm not. "What? You want some of this too then?"
"Don't do it!" The streaker looks at me like I'm crazy, but I don't see what the big deal is with one girl. That is, until she punches both of us so hard that we make craters in the wall.
"What total idiots."
"But why me too?" The boxers kid whines next to me while I try to shake the stars out of my eyes.
"You're not to fight. Are we clear?" The girl sure is bossy, ordering us around like we're her servants.
Boxers boy agrees way too fast. "Yes Ma'am."
I hold my head, rubbing where it hit the wall. "Woah… scary!"
She looks at me with a slight frown. "Hey kid, what's your name?"
I glare at her and give her the stink-eye. "Natsu."
"Natsu, huh?" She turns her nose up and looks around the room. "Let's get one thing straight. Everyone in Fairy Tail treats each other like family, and this guild hall is like our home. It's not a place for fighting. Do you understand?"
"Yeah…" I hide my face in my scarf, trying to hide the fact that I'm pouting. Haru always gets mad at me for pouting too much.
"Welcome to Fairy Tail. I'm Erza."
"She's mean." I whisper my thoughts out loud, trying to make sure that she can't hear me.
"For real." Gray looks at me and grins, so I grin right back at him. Then I remember that we were fighting just a couple minutes ago, and we glared at each other.
"Uh, hey kid! Natsu, right?" One of the older guys looks over at the table. "Your sister's shaking. Is that normal?"
As soon as he mentions Haru, I jump to my feet and rush over to the table. I take one look at her and swear. "Crap! Not again…"
"Hey kid, is she gonna be alright?"
I nod and rub my hands together. "Yeah. I just have to warm her up… she's been getting sick a lot lately. Probably because we've been traveling non-stop for the last couple of weeks." I breathe into my hands, warming them up a little. "I need more…"
"Hey… what are you doing?"
"This." I suck in my breath, and let it out in my hands, turning my magic into fire. "Fire Dragon's Roar!" Fire pours out of my mouth and envelops my hands, making the air all hot. I touch Haru's cold skin and wrap my arms as far around her as they'll go. "This should warm her up…"
"Hey, the kid's a fire wizard!"
Erza runs over in a second. "Natsu, what are you doing? Aren't you going to burn her?"
I shake my head and squeeze my sister tighter. "No… It takes more than a little heat to burn a dragon slayer."
"Dragon slayer?" The old man, Master Makarov, hops over to the table. "Are the two of you dragon slayers?"
I nod, pressing Haru even closer to me, sharing my heat with her. "Igneel taught us his magic… He taught us dragon slayer magic. That's who we've been looking for. You'd think that it would be easier to find a fire dragon though."
"So, is your sister a fire wizard as well?" The old man sure likes to ask a lot of questions.
I shake my head quickly. "No, she learned wind magic. I'm a Fire Dragon Slayer. She's a Wind Dragon Slayer."
She starts moving around in my arms, so I loosen my grip as she wakes up. "Natsu…?" She rubs her eyes and looks around, blinking and frowning. "Where are we…?"
"Fairy Tail." I smile brightly at her, hoping to make her feel happy. "We made it here."
"Oh…" She looks around a little more, and she sees the old man. "You're the one from before… the grandpa who was talking to Natsu…"
He nods and smiles gently for her. "That's right. My name is Makarov, and I'm the master of Fairy Tail." Then he frowns a little. "You and your brother are welcome to stay here and join. But I think that first, we'll need to get you some medicine to deal with that illness of yours."
"Okay…" She snuggles against me, shivering less now. "Natsu… you're so warm. Just like Dad."
Just like Dad? I know she's compared my warmth to Igneel before, but it never stops being weird. I guess it's because of the fire magic. I snuggle her right back, keeping her nice and warm. Don't worry little sis, I'll protect you. I'll never let anybody hurt you. I promise.