Redemption of Love (Jerza, Lyredy, Kinabra, & MacAno/MidJel)

Chapter 9: Homeless

-Erza P. O. V.-

I luckily had a spare set of Kinana's clothes in my requip wardrobe. I'm glad that I had that idea to have spare clothes for all the girls.

After she was done changing, we kept going.

"So once it gets dark out, we'll stop for the night again and that will be our last time, right?"

Jellal nodded. "Correct, Erza. We'll be very close to Zenmen Hakai at that time, so we'll have a man on watch, and take shifts to keep us all rested."

"Should we discuss the shifts now?" Meredy asked.

Jellal shrugged. "I guess. As usual, I'm assuming that Erik is taking the first watch?"

Erik nodded at the notion, but I was curious. "Why do you take the first watch often?"

"I just like to have some peace and quiet."

"Makes sense. I'll take second. Any objections?"

Nobody spoke for a moment.

"Alright. How about I go third? Meredy, is that fine?" Lyon asked.

"Sure! And I'll take the fourth!" Meredy replied with her usual cheery smile.

"We need six shifts, so I'll go fifth." Jellal stated. "Any volunteers for the last shift?"

"I'll do it." Kinana volunteered. "I want to try to be as useful as possible. I'm also used to staying up pretty late."

I laughed. "Ah, yes, you and Mira sometimes stay at the guild to clean up sometimes. What do you do after you're done?"

She was quiet for a moment. Erik looked concerned. "Well... I don't really have a home to go home to, since Fairy Tail took me in... I kinda sleep in a room in the back..."

Erik looked at Kinana with genuine concern and care. "You know... It's not that bad to be homeless."

Kinana was a bit surprised. "W-What?"

"We all don't have a home base of center of operations or anything. We just keep going. We travel around, stopping dark guilds and hunting Zeref. We wander around, never stopping in one spot. If we did, the magic council might find a way to find the base and we'll all be arrested again and be back to square one. Being criminals, stuck in jail. That's what we were until Jellal and Meredy took us in. I've never really had a home since we escaped from the Tower of Heaven. But we stick together. We're a family. A big, strange, crazy family."

"Your true home is where you have people who love you all around you."

Kinana looked like she was trying her best not to cry.

"Thank you, Erik." She said. "Thank you."

"God, will you two just kiss already?" Sorano groaned in the back.

Erik and Kinana's faces turned as red as my gorgeous hair and their looked away from each other.

I'm glad they at least kept walking.

-Third Person P. O. V.-

"Nise Nise 22, Nise Nise 23, Nise Nise 24..."

The two workout buddies had changed places. Nise was now doing sit ups and Josei was weighing his shoes down as he did them. Nise was also doing sets of thirty. Josei decided to take slight advantage of Nise's mood. Whenever Nise refers to himself as "Nise Nise," he's a lot more upbeat and slightly clueless to certain things. When he's normal, he's more or less just a normal 18 year old boy with an optimistic attitude. He doesn't really worry about things and he's a bit of a pervert. Josei took advantage of his "Nise Nise" mood with the sit up position.