Fairy Tail - The World of Mages -

Chapter 13 - Garuna Island Arc

“My blood… is… purple?” Vyera stared at her own palm, still could not believe what she have seen, "... How could-"
The coughing continued for a while and Vyera could not stop it no matter how she tried to hold it in. It was definitely purple. She clearly remembered it was still normal during the mission in Town of Songs.

Suddenly there were knocks at the door, “Vye?” It was Gray, sounded worried, “Are you okay? I heard some coughs…” He opened the door. But before he managed to fully open it, Vyera shouted in urgency, “No! Don’t come in!”

It was kind of shock to him and made him close back the door a bit, “W-What’s wrong?”

Vyera quickly thought of something, “I-I have just finished my bath… I’m not wearing anything, just wait for a while…” She sounded uncertain but she couldn't think of anything else at the moment. Then she immediately ran off to the bathroom and washed off the blood on her hand. She didn't want to let anyone worry about her, not even for such a serious matter. Even if she was dying, she would never let her loved ones see her dying state. She went out from the bathroom to find Gray was already sitting on her bed, waiting worriedly.

“Are you okay?” He asked.

“Yeah… I think I caught cold… I’ll be okay if I get enough sleep.” Vyera lied, making as straight a face as possible.

He was still looking at her intently. Vyera could see in his eyes that he did not trust her words. It was hard to hide things from him, seeing that they have been together since they were young, “You sure?” He confirmed again.

“… Absolutely.” Vyera answered with a smile.

“Then… take a good rest. I’ll go back to my room. Need anything, call me.”

“Yes, sir.” Vyera smiled and kissed him on cheek. He left the room while still blushing from that little kiss. Vyera let out a sigh of relief when he left without interrogating her more.

"... Does this key help in easing the pain?" She said while looking at the Ophiuchus key on her hand. She decided to wear it as a necklace but kept it out of sight. She should not let go of it, at least not until her 18th birthday.

Afterwards, following Gray's advice, Vyera went to get some sleep, but apparently it’s not a comfortable one since her mind was filled with thoughts. The next morning, she woke up late. The sun had shined brightly in the sky, rousing its beams at her through the window, forcing her to get up.

Vyera looked at the clock, it was already 1pm. She couldn't believe she could sleep that long with all sorts of weird dreams that she could not remember. She took a quick shower and got dressed and headed to the guild.

Upon arriving, there was a serious atmosphere in that carefree guild, which was pretty much rare. Still, she entered the guild. It was real gloomy in there. “What’s wrong here?” She asked whoever was near her.

“Vye-chan… This is definitely a trouble…” Levi quickly grabbed her arms anxiously, "Real trouble..."

While Vyera, full of question marks over her head, could only look around, trying to get a hint for whatever that she had missed. Finally, Mira answered it, “Natsu, Happy and Lucy broke the rule and went ahead to do S-Class mission.”

“Hah?” Vyera was shocked, “Well, that’s an improvement here.” Everyone sweat dropped when she said that.

“Okay, I'm only half serious... So who went to get them back?" She asked.

“Gray.” Someone answered from amongst them.

It’s Vyera's turn to sweat drop. She was absolutely sure that Gray couldn’t get them back and would be forced to go with them to do the mission instead, “… I had better gone after them as well. Gray won’t be able to stop Natsu.”

"I will go with you.” Suddenly an angry voice said that. It was Erza, “I’ll never forgive any rule-breaker.” She said that with her killing intent. Everyone moved a bit further from her, scared.

“O-Okay… Calm down first at least.” Cana said timidly in soft voice.

“Let’s go, Vyera!” She totally ignored he and just went ahead towards the exit.

“Wait! Wait! I don’t even know where to go yet!!” Vyera shouted.

“They are at Garuna Island; you can get there by getting a ship from Harujion port.” Mira answered to her.

“Geez thanks… I had better get going… See you.” Vyera gave a quick wave to the others in the guild and went after Erza.

At the next town, both of them headed to the port without saying anything to each other. Every sailor refused to go to the Cursed Garuna Island, where the S-mission was. Eventually, Erza just let out her anger on a ship and injured almost every crew.

“Oi Oi, Erza… Don’t kill these people… They had nothing to do with those troublemakers.” Vyera said, slightly cautious so that she could dodge in case she was attacked too.

“Listen! You had better sail this ship towards that island, now!” Erza threatened the captain. The captain had no choice but to obey as he still wanted to live the rest of his retirement.

“Geez… Erza, can’t you be a little bit gentle with all this?? The ship became like a ghost ship after you rampaged here.” Vyera said to her, face to face so as not to be ignored again.

“It can't be helped. I can’t forgive whoever broke the rule!” she said that with anger.

"Yeah… but these people aren’t even the ones who broke the rules…" Vyera sighed.

She couldn’t do anything about it. That’s the discipline mistress of Fairy Tail. There’s no way Vyera can win over her in discipline, since she was one of those who usually broke the rules, minor ones by the way.

Not long after that, the island was sighted. Vyera landed together with Erza but immediately found Lucy at the beachside fighting against a girl wearing Lolita dress and to her surprise, a giant mouse.

It seems that Lucy used her stellar spirit that even attacked her which only Aquarius would do. Then the giant mouse was sent flying using the Lolita girl puppet magic and falling onto Lucy. Vyera was too shocked to see a mouse in that size to react to that attack. Erza just got back in action and saved her.

“Erza! Vyera! You are here!! Thank good-” Lucy shouted happily but upon seeing Erza’s angry face, she remembered that she had just broken the guild rules and was silenced upon Erza’s glare. Vyera quickly gave a hint to Lucy not to do anything stupid since Erza was in her very-angry state right now.

“Lucy… You know why we are here, right?”

“N-No… I mean… y-yes… to take us back… right?” she said, shaking from fear.

“Lucy!” called by a familiar voice, Happy. He stopped after seeing Erza but couldn’t escape in time. Erza managed to caught it and looked like she was ready to roast him if he tried to escape again.

“Where are Natsu and Gray?” Erza questioned them.

“Gray was injured and stayed at the village… I don’t know about Natsu…” Lucy answered.

“Find them, and we’re going back to the guild.” Erza said.

“… But Erza!” Lucy shouted, “This village is in grave danger! At least let us finish-“

“I’m not interested. You guys have broken the rules, betrayed the master and that’s it. I’m going to take you back to the guild right away.” She drew her sword and pointed it towards Lucy, “Do you understand me?”

Lucy was silenced upon her death glare. All of them quietly headed towards the village.
On the way, Vyera asked Lucy to explain what was happening during all this time.
It seems that the villagers were under a curse that will turn them into demons when the purple moon appeared. Only by destroying the moon then the curse can be undone.

Moreover, they found out about a monster named Deliora who destroyed Gray’s hometown and killed his parents, was sealed in ice in the underground of the temple on that island. Some people are trying to revive it using Moon Drip. Those people were led by Gray’s senior, Lyon.

“… Vyera, aren’t you worried about Gray?” Lucy asked.

“I am… But he’s not that kind of guy who will die easily… I believe in him.” Vyera answered confidently.

Reaching the village, they could catch a glimpse that the village was almost destroyed by some kind of dangerous liquid that will melt everything it touched. Happy flew over to search for the villagers. It seemed that they had taken shelter at the storage place not far from the village.

Four of them headed there and Erza directly ordered the villagers to spare one of the tents and bring Lucy and Happy in there to be interrogate and to give them punishment.

“Hey, Erza, don’t kill them." Vyera reminded her, "I’m going to check on Gray for a bit…”

Apparently, Erza either ignored it or pretended to not hear it. Vyera didn’t care. Erza wouldn’t dare to kill them either way. Vyera asked the villagers and headed to the tent they pointed out to find Gray sleeping with wounds all over his body. Vyera sat down beside him and stroke his hair, "... You look troubled..." Vyera whispered.

She couldn’t help but allowed herself to play with his hair. He didn’t seem to be disturbed by it.
She leaned herr back towards one of the big boxes there while waiting for him to wake up.
Before she could even relax, the pain on her chest came to torture her again. The pain lasted for quite a while, like the previous time.

“Ughh… Damn it… Why at this time…”

She went out from the tent, didn’t want to wake Gray up. She headed to the forest nearby. She was sweating a lot and felt very weak. Although this time she could still breath but the pain was disturbing. The necklace did not help either.
She couldn’t go on any further and sat under a tree near there. It was getting more and more painful as the time passed. The pain did not subdue at all. It was getting stronger. Vyera slowly lost her consciousness and did not know what happened afterwards.

While unconcious, she had a very, very weird dream, or rather a nightmare.
Everything was in pitch black. However, she could see herself a distance away, floating in the mid of darkness.
Suddenly, two bright yellow eyes appeared behind the floating Vyera, and the darkness tried to absorb her into it, followed by eerie and sinister laughs. No matter how she struggled, she could not escape.

“…. ra! … Vyera!!” someone woke her from that terrible dream. She slowly opened her eyes and saw Gray in front of her.

“Gray…? Why are you here…? I thought you were-” She asked, while still getting a grip of what happened.

“I woke up and the villager told me about you… What’s wrong? You looked like you have a nightmare…” Gray asked worriedly.

“I’m-“ She coughed hard before she could reply with another lie.

This time, Gray saw it, saw the purple blood. “… Why didn’t you tell me??”

She tried to avoid his eyes, “… I’m… sorry… I don’t want to worry you…”

“You idiot!” He said angrily, “Tell me everything…” He hugged her,”If you didn’t say anything, I will even be more worried...”

“… I’m… really sorry…” She rested on his shoulder, “I promise I’ll tell you everything when this is over… I won’t keep everything to myself anymore…”

“That’s a promise…” He kissed you lightly.

“Oh!” Suddenly she remembered something very important, ”Hey... Erza… is waiting…”

He shivered, “I-In any case… We… have to meet her, so… l-let’s go…” he tried to sound brave but couldn’t hide his fear well.

Both of them headed towards the tent where everyone was. Upon entering, they saw Lucy and Happy were tied with rope and Erza sat there like a tiger ready to eat anyone who angered her.

“Lucy! Happy!” Vyera approached them but stopped by Erza.

“Don’t untie them! Gray, weren’t you supposed to stop them? I’m very disappointed in you.”

“Natsu is not here?” Gray asked, ignoring Erza's question unknowingly.

“He fought with Reitei’s men at the village but they’re done for… Now we don’t know where he is…” Lucy explained.

“We are going to find him and get back to guild right away.” Erza immediately said.

“But Erza!” Gray protested, ”You saw the villagers and what’s going on! You should-“

“So what? You broke the rules, and I’m here to bring you back to the guild. I’m not interested in anything else. Just leave this job to other guilds who officially accept it.”

Vyera couldn’t stand this conversation any longer, “I’m very disappointed in you, Erza.”