Chapter 65: Natsu vs. Jellal (II)
"He's my brother."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence. Jellal stared at Natsu, his expression frozen somewhere between disbelief and madness.
"Zeref," Natsu continued, his voice steady despite his broken body, "is alive. Right now. In this world. Breathing. Walking. Existing."
Jellal shook his head, a jerky, uncontrolled motion. "No. That's impossible. Zeref has been dead for four hundred years. The R-System is meant to BRING him back. You're lying."
"I'm not lying."
"YOU'RE LYING!" Jellal's voice cracked, the first real emotion he had shown since the battle began. "I have devoted my LIFE to this! Eight years! Eight years of building! Eight years of sacrifice! Eight years of believing that I was chosen to bring the greatest mage in history back to the world! And you stand there and tell me he never left?!"
Natsu watched him, this broken man, this puppet who had danced for so long on strings he couldn't see. And he felt something almost like pity.
"Zeref isn't inside you, Jellal. He never was. The voice you've been hearing, the presence you've been feeling, the will that's been driving you forward... that wasn't him."
"Then WHO?! Who has been manipulating me?! Who has been feeding me visions and purpose and DREAMS?!"
"Ultear."
The name hit Jellal like a physical blow. He staggered, one hand pressing to his temple.
"Ultear Milkovich. The woman on the council. The one who voted for Etherion. The one who's been guiding your plans from the shadows." Natsu's voice was calm, almost gentle. "She's been manipulating you all along."
"No. NO. She believed in me. She understood my vision. She was the only one who..."
"She's the daughter of Ur."
Jellal's eyes went wide.
"Ur. Gray's master. The woman who sacrificed herself to defeat Deliora. Ultear is her daughter, and she's been pulling your strings for years. She's an expert in illusion magic and time magic. Everything you've seen, everything you've believed, everything you've felt... she put it there."
Jellal's hands were shaking now. His whole body was shaking.
"But... but the R-System... the resurrection... Zeref's return..."
"All her plan. She works for Grimoire Heart, Jellal. One of the darkest guilds in existence. And all of this, the tower, the slaves, the sacrifices, Etherion, YOU... it's all because she wants to go back in time and save her mommy."
The last word was a sneer, cruel and sharp.
"She misses mommy dearest, so she's willing to destroy thousands of lives, manipulate a broken man, and nearly resurrect a dark wizard to get what she wants. How does that feel, Jellal? Knowing you've been a puppet for someone else's parental issues?"
Jellal's hands flew to his head, fingers tangling in his hair. His breath came in ragged gasps. His eyes darted around the chamber, seeing nothing, seeing everything, seeing eight years of lies collapsing around him.
"NO! NO! NO! THIS CAN'T BE TRUE! I WOULD HAVE KNOWN! I WOULD HAVE FELT IT! I WOULD HAVE..."
He screamed. A raw, broken sound that echoed off the crystal walls and came back to haunt him.
Erza stirred.
Her eyes fluttered open, consciousness returning slowly. The last thing she remembered was Natsu's gentle strike, his kiss, his promise. Now she lay on cold crystal, her body aching, her mind foggy.
She pushed herself up and saw them. Natsu, standing in the rubble, broken but unbowed. Jellal, on his knees, clutching his head, screaming at ghosts.
And then she saw what Natsu was doing.
He had bent down and grabbed a handful of crystal shards from the floor. Lacrima fragments, glowing with absorbed Etherion energy. He raised them to his mouth.
"NATSU, NO!"
Too late.
He shoved them in.
Crammed them past his lips, down his throat, swallowing them whole. Crystal after crystal, shard after shard, consuming the very energy that had nearly destroyed them all.
Erza screamed.
Natsu's body convulsed. His eyes went wide, then wider, the pupils swallowing the irises until there was nothing left but black. Light erupted from his skin, red and blue, the colors of the lacrima, the colors of Etherion, warring across his flesh like living things.
He gagged. Choked. Dropped to his knees.
The light intensified, becoming blinding, becoming unbearable. His body shook with spasms, muscles contracting and relaxing in sequences that looked agonizing.
"NATSU!" Erza scrambled across the rubble, ignoring the sharp edges cutting into her palms, ignoring everything except the need to reach him. She grabbed him, held him, felt the heat radiating from his skin like a furnace.
His eyes rolled back. Foam bubbled at his lips. The light consumed him entirely, and for one terrible moment, she thought he was dead.
Then the light changed.
Red and blue merged, became something new. Orange. Deep and rich and burning. The flames that erupted from Natsu's body were unlike anything Erza had ever seen. They roared with a voice that was almost alive, and the heat they produced was so intense that the crystal around them began to melt.
Erza scrambled back, her skin blistering even at this distance.
Natsu rose.
He was different now. His eyes, when they opened, were no longer brown. They were gold. Slitted. Ancient. Scales rippled across his skin, forming and fading in patterns too fast to track. His hair, already wild, seemed to flow as if underwater, moved by currents of heat that no one else could feel.
Dragon Force.
Behind him, Jellal was still screaming, still refusing, still trapped in his own breaking mind. But something in the shift of energy, in the impossible power radiating from the boy who had just eaten raw lacrima, cut through his madness.
He looked up.
And saw death walking toward him.
"I WILL NOT ACCEPT THIS!" Jellal roared, rising to his feet, magic gathering around him in a swirling vortex. "I AM THE CHOSEN ONE! I AM THE VESSEL OF ZEREF! I WILL NOT BE DENIED BY SOME FLAME-BREATHING INSECT!"
He raised his hands, and the sky answered. Light gathered above him, condensing into a sphere of pure annihilation.
"ALTARIS!"
The spell that could destroy everything. The spell that would end this tower and everyone in it. The spell that Jellal had held in reserve, hoping never to use.
He was going to use it now.
Erza saw the light gathering. Felt the power building. Knew, with absolute certainty, that she could not survive it.
But Natsu could.
She moved without thinking. Placed herself between Jellal and Natsu's still-transforming body. Raised her arms. Closed her eyes.
'I'm sorry,' she thought. 'I'm sorry I couldn't tell you. I'm sorry I couldn't say it back. I'm sorry...'
The spell never hit her.
A body slammed into her from the side, knocking her out of the way. She hit the ground hard, rolled, looked up.
Simon stood where she had been.
Altaris struck him full in the chest.
For one eternal moment, he was outlined in light. Every vein, every bone, every beat of his heart visible through skin that had become translucent. His dark eyes found hers, and in them, she saw something she had never expected.
Love.
"I... always..." he gasped, blood bubbling from his lips, "loved you, Erza. From the first moment... in the darkness of the tower... you were my light."
"SIMON!"
He fell.
She caught him. Held him. Felt his weight, his warmth, his life slipping away between her fingers.
"I know... you never saw me... that way," he whispered, each word a struggle. "And that's... okay. Just knowing you... was enough. Being your friend... was enough."
"Don't talk. Don't talk, we can save you, we can..."
"No." His hand found hers, squeezed with the last of his strength. "Live, Erza. Be happy. Find... find the warmth you deserve. With him."
His eyes found Natsu, still transforming, still burning with impossible power.
"He's a good one. I can tell." A bloody smile. "Take care of him. Let him take care of you. And when you think of me... think of me smiling. Not crying. Never crying."
"Simon..."
His eyes closed.
His hand went limp.
He was gone.
Erza's scream tore through the tower. Raw. Primal. Endless.
Above her, Jellal laughed.
"How touching! The dark-skinned fool sacrifices himself for his unrequited love! How tragic! How beautiful! How utterly POINTLESS!"
He laughed and laughed, the sound of a man who had lost everything and found madness in the loss.
"HE WILL NOT DIE IN VAIN!"
The voice that answered was not human.
Natsu stepped past Erza, past Simon's body, past everything that had come before. His eyes burned gold. His skin smoked with heat. The flames that surrounded him were so intense that the very air warped and twisted, creating impossible shapes in the superheated atmosphere.
Jellal's laughter died.
"What... what are you?"
Natsu didn't answer with words.
He moved.
One moment he was twenty feet away. The next, his fist was buried in Jellal's stomach. The impact created a shockwave that shattered every remaining crystal surface in the chamber. Jellal's eyes went wide, his mouth opening in a silent scream as the breath was driven from his lungs.
Natsu pulled his fist back. Jellal collapsed.
But Natsu wasn't done.
He grabbed Jellal by the throat and lifted him one-handed. His grip was iron. His flames licked at Jellal's skin, burning, consuming.
"You want to know about freedom, Jellal?" Natsu's voice was layered with something ancient, something terrible. "You'll never achieve it by taking other people's away. There IS no freedom for someone who's been controlled by some bitch who misses her mommy."
He slammed Jellal into the ground. Crystal shattered. Blood sprayed.
"FREE YOURSELF FIRST!"
He pulled Jellal up and hit him again. And again. And again. Each blow landed with the force of a meteor, driving Jellal deeper into the crystal, deeper into the tower, deeper into the hell of his own making.
Jellal tried to fight back. His fists swung wildly, but Natsu was faster, stronger, impossibly beyond anything he had faced. Every blow was dodged. Every counter was useless. Every spell died before it could form, overwhelmed by the sheer heat radiating from his opponent.
Natsu's fist connected with Jellal's face. Teeth flew. Blood sprayed across the crystal. The jaw shattered.
Another blow to the chest. Ribs cracked, punctured, collapsed.
Another to the stomach. Internal organs ruptured. Blood filled his mouth.
Another to the arm. Bone snapped. The limb went limp.
Another to the leg. He collapsed, unable to stand.
Through it all, Natsu's face remained expressionless. Not angry. Not vengeful. Just... certain. As if this was simply what had to happen. As if Jellal's suffering was a necessary step toward something greater.
"You wanted to resurrect Zeref," Natsu said, standing over Jellal's broken body. "You wanted to bring my brother back. You wanted to use Erza, hurt Erza, KILL Erza to achieve your precious goal."
He raised his fist one last time. The flames around it condensed, becoming white, becoming blinding.
"This is for Simon. This is for Erza. This is for every slave who died building this tower. This is for every tear she cried because of you."
He brought his fist down.
The impact created a crater fifty feet wide. The tower shook to its foundations. Crystal shattered for a mile in every direction.
When the dust cleared, Jellal lay in the center of that crater, a broken ruin of a man, his body twisted, his eyes staring at nothing.
Natsu stood over him, breathing hard, the Dragon Force finally beginning to fade.
Erza watched from the edge of the destruction, Simon's body still in her arms, tears streaming down her face.
'It's over,' she thought. 'The battle I've been fighting for eight years. The nightmare that's haunted me since childhood. It's finally over.'
Natsu turned to look at her. His golden eyes met hers, and for just a moment, she saw him. Not the dragon. Not the force of nature. Just Natsu. Her Natsu.
He smiled. Weakly. Tiredly.
Then his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed.
Erza moved before she thought. She laid Simon gently on the crystal and ran to Natsu, catching him just before his head hit the ground. She held him, cradled him, felt his heartbeat strong and steady against her palm.
"You did it," she whispered. "You crazy, wonderful, impossible man. You did it."
The tower groaned.
Around them, the crystal began to crack. Not from battle damage, but from something else. The R-System, destabilized by the destruction of its creator, was beginning to fail. And when it failed, the entire tower would come down.
Erza looked at Natsu, unconscious in her arms. She looked at Simon, dead on the crystal floor. She looked at the crumbling walls, the falling ceiling, the death approaching from every direction.
She ran.
Natsu held tight against her chest, she ran. Through crumbling corridors. Through collapsing chambers. Through falling debris and cracking crystal and the screams of a dying tower.
Behind her, Jellal's body lay in its crater, forgotten.
Behind her, Simon's body lay where it fell, a sacrifice of love.
Behind her, eight years of nightmare finally ended.
Ahead of her, the exit. The light. The hope of survival.
She ran.
And the tower fell.
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Next Time: The Aftermath of the Tower of Heaven Arc