Devils Among Fairies

Chapter 3: A Tale of Ancient Sins

  (Zeref's p.o.v.)

  I began to tell my story to my new friends, Asta and Liebe.

  "It start about 400 years ago. During this age, dragons ruled over the entire world from the land, seas, and skies. Everything belonged to dragonkind, even the humans which they often preyed upon. Until one day, a dragon proposed to it's kin a seemingly outrageous idea: peaceful coexistence with humans. Of course, with every fanatical idea, there are those who support it and those who reject it. Soon enough, a civil war amongst the dragons, one side fought for coexistence, and the other fought against it. My family unfortunately got caught in the fighting. My parents and my little brother, Natsu, were killed. My parents bodies were reduced to ash, but my brother's was not. I used magic to preserve my brother's corpse and vowed to bring him back to life. I became a student at the most prestigious magic academy at the time and started researching ways to resurrect Natsu. However, the teachers were strongly opposed to my motivation, and tried for years to convince me to give up and let my brother stay dead. Then, one day they made the decision to expel me from the academy for breaching the sacred teachings of Ankhseram, the god who rules over life and death, much to my chagrin. However, it was at the moment they announced their decision that it became apparent that I had been stricken with Ankhseram's curse, as everyone around me began to die before my eyes.

  After this, my research had been shifted from bringing my brother back to life to finding some way for me to die. Because of the Curse of Contradiction, I'm unable to die on my own, whether from natural or conventional and unnatural causes or means. Through my research, I had discovered a way to create new life. At the time, I called them Etherious, but as ages passed, they were referred to by the people as The Demons of the Books of Zeref. The most powerful of them all was created using my brother's body, known as Etherious Natsu Dragneel, or E.N.D. In a way, I did achieve my goal of resurrecting my little brother. But my actions leading up to that point made history portray me as the most evil wizard of all time."

  I paused for a moment to catch my breath before continuing, "I tried to many times to try and raise my brother, but it was impossible to reason with him. He even refused to learn to read and write among other things. So, I turned to an old friend of mine for help." "An old friend?" Asta asked. I replied, "Igneel, the Fire Dragon King. At the time, he was one of the few dragons left that held no ill will towards humans. I met him one day while I was out collecting herbs for my research. Igneel along with four other dragons had come up with a plan to defeat an rising evil that even I wanted dead, but that is a topic for another time. Basically, I had entrusted Natsu to Igneel, and raised him as one of his own until the day came to put their plan into motion. I waited for 4 centuries for the day when I meet my brother again. During my wait, I had done many things to try and pass the time. I even created a nation of my own on another continent, but I tried not stay there for long periods as to not grow attached to anyone and have them become victims of my curse. I continued to wander to keep others from dying because of me. Often I have to force myself to forget the value of life just to control my curse."

  Asta replied, "You made your own nation? That's incredible!" "Indeed, it's known as the Alvarez Empire. Moving on, I had wandered for about 300 years until I met someone who would become someone important to me. A young girl by the name of Mavis Vermillion. She was the first to bear witness to the effects of my curse and not run away in fear. She understood my curse almost immediately and shown sympathy to me. After that, she asked me to teach her and her friends to use magic in order to free a town from the tyrannical rule of it's resident guild. I reluctantly agreed on the condition that they keep their distance from me. After a while under my tutelage, I left with saying farewell, I never told them my name at the time either. 6 years later, I happened to encounter Mavis again. We talked for a while and I told her of my identity, and she said that she didn't believe what the stories made me out to be.

  As the conversation went, on I noticed that she hadn't changed at all since I last saw her. I asked Mavis about it and she told me that she stopped growing because she used an incomplete black magic spell to win against the guild she fought. This alarmed me and I quickly checked in a hope that my suspicion was wrong. Sadly, my hunch turned out to be true." Liebe asked, "What hunch?" I answered, "She didn't just stop growing, she stopped aging altogether. She had been stricken with the Curse of Contradiction, just like me. When I told her that she was horrified and in disbelief, saying that it couldn't have been possible as she had never once seen anyone around die in the way the curse takes a life. But, a war had happened during the time, which tends to blur one's view on the value of life. She still refused to believe me and ran away. I spent the next year looking, thinking that she has the potential to walk alongside me so that I wouldn't have to feel alone. I eventually found her, the color and life drained from her eyes. This meant that she realized that I was telling the truth. I greeted her and she told me that she had quit eating long ago but she still lived. The Curse of Contradiction won't alone you to die no matter what. Even if you behead yourself, you won't ever know the peace death would grant you. She even begged me to kill her, but I told her that was impossible. After all, if that was possible, I would've done it long ago. As our conversation went on, I became aware of something very problematic." Asta asked, "What problem was it?" I answered, "Because I had to force myself to forget the value of life for so long, it had a great effect on my mental health. On one hand, I'm a caring soul that just wants to be put out of my misery. On the other hand, I'm a cynical and hateful being who wanted to take the lives of everyone around me. Every one of my thoughts and actions have become Contradictions in and of themselves, I had gone insane. Despite realizing that herself, she chose to comfort me, telling me that together we would find a way to break the Curse of Ankhseram. No one had shown such kindness to me before. I couldn't tell you both how much joy it brought me."

  "You loved her, didn't you?" Liebe asked. I answered, "I did, so very much. But, fate had no intention of letting us be together." I took a breath before continuing to relive the worst moment of my life, "When we shared our first kiss, Mavis' body had went limp and her eyes closed, never to open again. I was absolutely devastated to see that the only glimmer of happiness I had was taken from me the moment I obtained it. I remembered that Mavis had told me a year prior that she had found a guild in the town she liberated, so I carried her body there. When I arrived I was greeted by one of her friends who I had trained, I returned her there and left. I wanted to get away from everything on the continent, so I went back to Alvarez since I had no one I cared about there. And the rest wasn't anything eventful."

  The Devil and his adopted brother looked sorrowful after hearing my story. Liebe replied, "I see you've far more than I did when I was little." I was surprised by that and he told me his story. He spent half of his childhood covered in his own blood due to Devils' ruthless beating him just to pass the time in the underworld. Because of that treatment, he stopped caring about anything, even whether he lived or died. After coming to the human world by chance, he was feared and loathed by man, even though he never did anything good or bad to them. Then, when was about to feel relief from losing his life, a human woman took him in and raised him as her own. Finally, after gaining a positive outlook on the world, his mother sacrificed herself to save him from the king of Devils who tried to possess him. All of this made him gain such an immense hatred towards his own race, that he desired their extinction. And from his anger, hatred, and sorrow, he gained the power to nullify all sorcery, Anti-magic. Indeed, he's suffered a fraction of my pain, and I feel sorry for him because of it. "Hey, Zeref?" Asta got my attention and what he asked next had greatly surprised me. "I just had an idea that might be crazy enough to work. What if we can use our Anti-magic
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
To break your curse?"