Asami The Water Dragon Slayer

::93:: Reasons

Goumen gave him a look of irritation. "Don't make me repeat myself, boy!" He snapped. "Gray is now our comrade."

"No, he's our friend." Natsu said quietly. "And if he doesn't believe in himself... Then we will."

"SHUT UP!" He wet Lucy's feet with the salt water.

"!!" The blonde began to thrash around, panicking at the idea of her feet getting licked by the goat.

The three both yelled, protesting from their spots and couldn't move to help their friend.

"LUCY!!"

"WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?!"

"STOP!" Haru yelled.

Goumen quickly got angry, not believing their reasons for infiltrating. "We're not going to the licking anymore!" He pulled out an axe and raised it in the air. "I'm just going to split her in half!!"

"STOPPPP!!!" Natsu roared.

"Let's see if you still believe in Gray!" He swung down and Lucy clenched her eyes shut ready for the impact.

But it never came.

The room got colder and her eyes snapped open to see Goumen frozen completely. Gray standing behind him, holding an annoyed expression as he stayed in his spot while freezing the chains and breaking them free.

"Ah, dammit. All that hard work, gone because of you people." Gray muttered in irritation, pulling out a small lacrima that resembled a phone, ignoring the stunned and wary looks he was receiving as he dialed. "This is a code blue... We've got trouble. No... That's not it... Yeah."

Haru blinked, taking note of the different way Gray was acting. "The marking..." They were disappearing.

"I don't know... You talk to him..." Gray said, sighing. "Yeah." He tossed the phone over to Natsu who caught it. "Put that to you ear."

"What the hell is this?" Natsu mumbled in confusion but did as Gray said.

"Is that you, Natsu?" Natsu stiffened hearing the voice that belonged to Erza Scarlet. "My, my... Now what have you done to Gray's undercover mission."

"Undercover mission?" Natsu repeated, sending the ice mage a questioning look.

"That's right." Gray said, placing his hands on his hips. "There's no way I'd join some creepy guild like this anyway." He shook his head. "We don't have time now, so we'll talk while we move."

The group climbed aboard three animals while Erza explained. "I found out about Avatar and how it was to connected to Zeref half a year back... With some help from Jellal, of course." Gray was the one holding the lacrima in his pocket while it was on speaker. "But we hit a dead end and it was then I met Gray."

"Hey, that lacrima's amazing..." Happy muttered in awe.

Haru stayed silent as he rode while sitting in Lucy's lap.

"It's a miniature communications lacrima." Gray said. "I began getting these weird marks on me so I've been going over to old Lady Porlyusica's place... And well, it's as you can see. I've learnt to control it."

"And than we talked about how we were..." Erza spoke up. "Then we came up with this plan."

"I guess you could call it a request from Erza." He muttered, facing forward, trying to not look back at Haru whose glare he could feel piercing the back of his head. "After all, I was interested in the of E.N.D personally... With my old man's request being destroy it."

"But man, you didn't even tell Asami about this?" Natsu asked, giving a sharp look. "You're a jerk."

Gray held back a flinch at the accusation in his tone. I know.

"I told him not to." Erza said, also feeling guilty for letting her friend stay in the dark about everything. "It's always better to have less people know about the mission, as it raises the rate of success... And one could never tell... What if she had gotten into trouble over it?" The last thing she wanted was for another her friends to get hurt over something that was her job.

"So it was for Asami's sake too..." Happy trailed, glancing over at Haru who now had a pensive look on his face.

"But still..." Natsu said, remembering the tears Asami shed because of how long Gray had disappeared for. He knew that Gray would still need to apologize for what he did even if it wasn't his decision. It was still wrong for him to not say he might be gone for a while but would come back in order to ease her worries.

"I do feel horrible for Asami." Erza said guiltily, knowing that young woman was probably worrying for Gray's safety and his sudden disappearance. "We didn't think that the mission would drag out this long."

"The situation changed." Gray continued, before Erza started to apologize. "It was only supposed to be a scouting mission at first... But then came the whole Purification Ritual mess." He sighed. "Avatar is planning on wiping out an entire town to lure Zeref here. Because they, for some reason, seem to think that Zeref appears in places where death is abundant."

Asami froze in her spot when she caught the minty scent that could only belong to one person. "Gray." She whispered, hope in her tone as she, Wendy and Carla passed through the trees. She also caught the scents of the others as well.

"We're close to them." Wendy said, taking note of how strong their scents lingered in the air.

"Then let's hurry." Carla quietly said, in her human form, not liking the building near them and the feeling it gave off.

The three continued their trail.

"We're gotta keep that from happening!"

"Well, all you gotta do is crush them! Easy!" Natsu said, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. "If it were you and Erza, there wouldn't be a problem!"

"No, we can't." Gray cut him off. "Avatar isn't an organization small enough for us to just crush it. It's size alone is more than we've ever imagined. I've only infiltrated one small part of it. I still haven't gotten anything on the main branch's location, or even the other branches."

"And if we make any careless moves, we could lose the chance to stop the whole ritual." Erza said, hoping they could understand the situation better. "That's why we've been waiting till now."

"Yeah, for the day when all the branches get together." The ice wizard's eyes hardened. "And destroy them all once and for all." He grip on the reins tightened. "Haru..."

"Hm." Said brown exceeds eyes flickered to Gray's and could see his inner turmoil. Now that he knew the reason behind Gray's disappearance, the anger he felt disappeared as well. He understood that it was for Asami's safety but that didn't stop from the slight pinch of annoyance he still felt for the ice mage.

"I'm sorry about what I said just now... I had to in front of them..." Gray said, he knew that no apology could ever make up for letting his friends getting hurt or for the hurt his wife must feel for his abrupt leaving.

"You don't need to apologize." Haru said, his gaze not leaving Gray's. Gray hadn't physically been the one to hurt him and he understood why he didn't stop Mary. "At least not to me."

Gray understood what the meant and nodded. "I know. I will." He knew he would need to speak to Asami alone about everything and could tell that Haru was still angry with him. Maybe not as much as before but it lingered. It would definitely be a while before he was completely forgiven. He just hoped that Asami would forgive him.