The Waiting Game ( Fairy Tail Fanfic )

Don't Lose Hope

The next day.

Jellal was lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood. Erza was right beside him while a handful of others kept their distance. They wanted to give the two of them some space. Erza held Jellal's hand up to her forehead as she prayed for him to stay awake. She knew that if he closed his eyes now he would be gone for good. She couldn't bear to lose another precious person in her life. Though no one other than Jellal could see her face, everyone could still hear her quietly sobbing. All Gray could do was watch as she became a wreck over him.

Jellal didn't want to see Erza cry over him any longer. He wanted the last image he saw of her to be her smiling. When Jellal lifted his free hand up to Erza's face to rub her cheek, Gray looked away. Just seeing them show such affection to each other made his heart sink deeper into his chest. Jellal saw Gray was the only one looking away from them and it made him smile. Gray saw Jellal looking at him in the corner of his eye. He dismissed his hand from Erza's face and motioned for Gray to come closer. He looked like he wanted to tell him something. They never exchanged words before, so why did he want to now?

Gray walked closer towards the two of them and rested his hand on Erza's shoulder. When she looked up at Gray he could see how hard she had been crying. Her eyes were all red and her tears were clearly visible. The sad look on her face crushed him. He turned to Jellal and saw he was looking back at him. He seemed ready to speak.

"Take care of Erza." Gray's eyes widened and blood trickled down the corner of Jellal's mouth. Even speaking was taking its toll on his body, but the smile he wore was sincere and he seemed somehow happy.

The two of them watched as Jellal's hand slipped out of Erza's grip and fell to the floor. Her jaw dropped and her eyes grew bigger. She quickly checked for a pulse or to see if he was still breathing, but there was no sign of life. He died with his eyes open and a smile on his face.

That was the loudest Gray had ever heard Erza cry before.

Gray looked on at what was left of Mercurius, the coliseum in Crocus. Everything had caved in and all that was left of the once colossal building was now mere rubble. No one had expected the games to end in such a way and now everyone was trying to cope with everything that had happened in only a few hours' time.

Zeref made his appearance on the fifth day of the tournament and the games were stopped immediately. His aim was to sacrifice Lucy for the Dragon King Festival and Fairy Tail fought with all they had to protect her. Even though Zeref was too powerful for them to defeat in their current state, they prevented Zeref from reaching his goals and he retreated without Lucy.

But during all the commotion with Zeref, Kagura was out for revenge. She used this time to attack Jellal, who was too distracted with Zeref. She released the sword she promised to kill him with and he stood no chance. Erza was the one who interfered when Jellal was almost given the finishing blow. Kagura saw there was no chance he could survive and left him there out of pity. She was satisfied knowing that he would die a slow and painful death.

The Magic Council took custody of Jellal's body along with Ultear and Meredy. Fairy Tail was outraged when they were taken away. Crime Sorciere had spent years hunting down dark guilds to atone for their sins and they had done a lot of good. An uproar was about to begin when Doranbolt was able to stop them. He gave his word to the members of Fairy Tail that he would make sure that the Council wouldn't harm them. He was grateful to Natsu and the others and understood what they were getting at. They thought of them as their friends and he knew just how hard they would fight for them. He wanted to help them anyway he could.

Gray picked up a small chunk of stone that was resting by his boot. He stared at it for awhile and tossed it up into the air. For some reason, however, the stone didn't come back down. It floated in mid-air. All of the broken pieces from the coliseum lying around him started floating in the air. The chunks of stone were merging together and rebuilding it. It didn't take long for it to look good as new, as if nothing had torn it down in the first place. Gray knew whose magic this belonged to. He turned around to find Ultear walking towards him with orb in hand. "Ultear."