Five Little Sacrifices

Chapter 40

"Don't do that", Freed said. "I don't think that would help anything. We have gone through things much harder than this. As long as we work together, we can do this."

Laxus huffed, letting his eyes travel around the little area they were in. It made him even more irritated when seeing few fireflies flying around the stream since the sun wasn't even up yet and in any other day this place would be romantic as hell. Now it was just annoying.

Suddenly his gaze stopped and Freed halted from brushing his hair when noticing how the lightning dragon slayer tensed up. He quickly glared towards the other side of the stream but he didn't see anything. Not until he lifted his gaze and saw someone standing on one of the cliffs that were surrounding this beautiful little place.

"Bicks-" Freed started but Laxus lifted his arm.

"That's not Bickslow", he growled and Freed looked at the figure again.

Definitely, he looked like Bickslow, but he wasn't. He wasn't Roscoe either as the man standing there looked older than them both. His black and blue coloured hair was waving around wildly like a lion's mane and he had a long same coloured goatee. He had a wide grin over his face that was lacking Bickslow's friskiness, instead it was more mad and twisted.

"If that man is not Yuidose, you can just thrust a stick through my eyes because I'm going blind anyway", Laxus growled.

Low laughing filled the area and they could easily hear it even over the roaring of the waterfall. Freed quickly grabbed his sword, unsheathing it and stepped closer to Laxus. In his mind he created a connection, soon feeling the familiar power.

'Umanor', he called.

'Is something wrong, Freed?' he heard a low grunt. Obviously Umanor was aware that something was going on.

'Yuidose is here, I want you and others immediately go wake up Bickslow, Evergreen and boys and head towards Magnolia as fast as you can', Freed commanded.

'Will you and Laxus be alright just the two of you against him?'

'It's more important to get them out of here. We don't want Yuidose to catch Bickslow and we definitely don't want him to hurt boys.'

'...We understand. Stay safe.'

With that, Freed felt how the demons inside him left to fulfill their orders.

"Are they taking care of the others?" Laxus muttered when he could guess why Freed was being so silent and concentrated, even though he kept his eyes on Yuidose.

"Yes", the rune mage nodded. "We just need to keep Yuidose busy."

"Okay, sounds like a plan. But be careful."

"Same goes to you", Freed smirked.

Yuidose kept staring at them curiously, slightly tilting his head. Freed felt cold shivers running down his spine as he couldn't shake off the confusion how much that man looked alike with Bickslow and Roscoe. He was even tall and slim by his built like them!

But unlike those two men, Yuidose's irises were so light in colour they were almost pure white. It was almost scary when the more Freed kept staring them, the more his other figure seemed like blending in the darkness and only those white eyes remained, staring at them like trying to pull out their souls and snap them off from their bodies.

Laxus noticed this too and he felt really uncomfortable, shifting on his place and he heard how something rustled under his feet. When he looked down he saw how the grass under them had turned dry and brown. It was dead.