Fairy Tail: Swallow the Fire

9. Surprising Opportunity

“Easy there, hungry. There's a reason I told you to hold off on eating the entire thing. You have to let your body digest the nutrients properly otherwise you’ll just get sick.”

She guided me to an office and sat me down in a chair and left the jar on the table in front of me.

“Someone will be here in a short while to speak a few words with you.”

With those words, she left me alone.

In that momentary isolation, my mind began to drift off to the events that happened yesterday, or at least what I think was yesterday.

Erza was thrown from the tower hours before me, and mister Spriggan didn’t seem to have seen her so I can only hope that she survived.

At the same time, I hope only misery upon Jellal.

We fought the entire day, Erza spurring us on through her motivation to free him, and he casted us aside like tools that lost their edge. Erza might be dead, my arm is injured, I don’t have any idea what to do right now, and the entirety of the tower that fought tooth and nail for their freedom is still stuck there until who knows when.

But at the same time I want to save him. There was something in his eyes, something so entirely different that there was no way for it to be Jellal. That accursed symbol that appeared in his eye, that strange yet powerful magic, even his face and posture. Five years I’ve had time to study him, and none of his usual mannerisms were there. And if he had that magic the entire time then he could have easily taken the tower for himself well before we had moved.

Something wasn’t right.

I couldn’t say I had the instincts to know for sure, but I knew it.

But I couldn’t do anything about it.

Not yet.

I have fire magic, and the people here are fire mages.

I need to take this opportunity, to learn everything they can teach me and learn more elsewhere.

I will learn everything I can about fire magic and use it to burn down the hopes of whatever possessed Jellal.

I will leave anything and everything that utters the Black Mage’s name in praise flying away as ashes in the wind.

For every shadow they try to cast, and for every mutter of Zeref’s worship will result in another hour of searing pain as they scream for their god to bring them mercy.

If they want to bathe darkness, then I will make it my life’s mission to shower them in fiery light.

Call me a fool, but I don’t think I can do anything else. My mind would have been at ease if I escaped with everyone on ship, but now I don’t think I can do anything else but worry for them. A worry that will have years to permeate into my being and always be at the back of my mind.

And once I do free them, because I will free them, that spot in my mind will be hollow and I have no idea what I’ll fill it with.

So seeking out revenge on the other cults that dot the land will be my only other goal in life.

Anything and everything that had Zeref’s hand involved in its creation, whether literal or metaphorical, will burn.

Dangerous thoughts for a ten year old, admittedly, but I doubted I could truly find peace knowing that more cults like the R-System existed.

It was these thoughts that I stewed in for a silent hour before the door to the waiting room opened up.

Immediately the temperature of the room rose to suffocating levels as an elderly man walked into the room. His age did nothing to diminish his presence however, as he was well over 2 metres tall (7 feet) and his extremely muscular frame was noticeable even through the haori he wore. The most imposing thing about those muscles was the wrinkles that were strewn about his face, a sign that the muscles under his skin didn’t stretch them, meaning that he used to be even bigger.