A/N: Hullo!
TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of abuse and the like. You've been warned
Please enjoy? 😢
Erza had Wendy and Carla temporarily watch Lucy as she goes and find Mira. She needed to talk to someone, something about what she had discovered. She was afraid, she was hysterical, and she was hesitant.
Erza knocked on the door , quite loudly as she was desperate to talk to someone, and waited until the door opened, revealing sleepy silver-haired girl looking back at her with drowsy eyes.
"Erza? What do you want? I was sleeping." Mira whined, rubbing her eyes.
"It's about Lucy." Erza said, cutting right to the chase.
Mira was alert now as she looked back at Erza with concerned eyes. "What happened?"
Erza sighed. "Can I come in though?"
"Ok. But how's Lucy?' Mira asked, moving aside to let Erza in.
"Wendy's watching her right now. She'll be fine. But I...discovered something."
Mira nodded, anxious to hear more.
"But first, I'll start from the beginning."
Mira was silent, waiting for Erza to continue.
"After ya'll had left, the remaining mages that had stayed left for like...10 minutes, I think, and when we came back, Lucy was in the kitchen, and she had cut herself again."
Mira gasped, covering her mouth with her hand.
"She was covered in blood, so I took her to my place to clean her up. That's where the problem arose." Erza stared at the floor. "She was...riddled with scars. There was some fresh ones, mostly on her stomach."
"That's horrible..."
Erza sighed, looking back up at Mira. "I know for a fact that Lucy had a bad past. But she would never share it. She would always be quiet about it."
"Well, we only know that her father had kept his distance from her. And tried to force her to a marriage that she does not want."
Erza shook her head and crossed her arms as she leaned against a wall. "I feel like it does deeper than this. I feel like there's more to her relationship with her father."
"Care to elaborate?"
"It's just a feeling. When I spoke to her father couple nights ago, I was sensing some extreme guilt from him. But I couldn't really pin point on what. And I still don't know. I think Lucy trying to kill herself and her relationship with her father is connected."
"Did Lucy really try to kill herself?" Mira asked.
Erza sighed deeply and sunk down to the floor in defeat. "I don't know anymore, Mira. I asked her that and she responded with a question. She asked me why we saved her. She seemed so...confused."
"What else did she say?" Mira asked, kneeling next to Erza.
Erza shook her head in denial. "Lucy...she doesn't see any of us as her friend. That what made me so mad. I was confused when she had said that. I was hurt. And...I wondered why she had said that."
"Erza." Mira called out, forcing Erza to turn to Mira. "If Lucy really wanted to kill herself, then she would've done it already by stabbing herself in the stomach or slicing her throat."
"What are you trying to say?"
Mira stood back up, looking down on Erza with sadness. "I'm not really sure, Erza. But I don't think Lucy really wants to kill herself."
Erza stood to her feet to look at Mira with a questioningly look. "Lucy tried to do it, twice. How can you be so sure?"
Mira shook her head. "From what you had told me, that's what I believe."
...
The first thing Lucy expected was to see her mother again, not a boring ceiling. The first thing Lucy expected was to see whites, not dull colors. The first thing Lucy expected was to be happy, not depressed.
And Lucy knew why. She was too tired and weak to be really angry. But she was disappointed. She was disappointed to be even be here. She felt helpless and frustrated.
"Lucy."
It took Lucy a couple of seconds to register that someone was talking to her. Slowly, she turned to see Erza sitting on a chair with her arms crossed. And she looked angry.
Lucy stared at her with a deadpanned and emotionless look, not caring if the redhead was mad or not.
Erza took a deep breath, realizing that Lucy was now awake and had her attention. She had many questions. She wanted to ask them, but that'll wait. She needed to make sure Lucy was okay.
"Are you okay?" Erza finally spoke.
Lucy responded by looking away, opting to stare at the ceiling instead, remaining unvocal.
Gritting her teeth in frustration, she took a deep breath to calm her anger. "Lucy. Tell me. How are you feeling?" She repeated impatiently.
"I'm alive." Lucy responded halfheartedly.
Erza held herself back from spitting back a remark to that response. "Yes. Is there anything you would like to say?"
Lucy stared at the ceiling for a moment before turning to look back at Erza again. "I have nothing to say to you."
Erza sighed. "So you are going to say that again? Well, you going have to tell me. What was your relationship with your father?"
After Erza had asked that, she could see all colors disappearing from Lucy's face as she paled. She waited a few moment for Lucy to answer. But Lucy remained unvocal, turning back to stare at the ceiling.
"Lucy. You need to tell me, what was your relationship with your father?" Erza repeated.
"Our relationship is a relationship that should've never existed." Lucy finally responded with distaste and venom.
"What do you mean by that?" Inquired of Erza.
"There is nothing else to say."
Erza rubbed her temples with a deep sigh. "Lucy. You will tell me. What did he do to you?"
Lucy stared off into the distance, past the ceiling, into everlasting darkness as she was asked that question. The question that Lucy had been avoiding for years. The question that had plagued her mind.
Bits and pieces of a reluctant forgotten memory made it way to Lucy's mind. When it had all started. When Lucy's life turned upside down.
Her mother's grave.
Her father's angry face.
Blood.
Cuts and screams.
The agony.
The despair.
The betrayal and the forgotten.
Subconsciously, tears had threatened to spill out and streamed down her cheeks. Lucy begun to cry, covering her face with her uninjured arm, and cried an unwanted tears of anger and pain.
Lucy hated this. She didn't want this. She wanted this to end. She didn't want to feel this anymore.
Then she was pulled to a sitting position and a strong pair of arms wrapped around her tightly, but not too tight.
Erza was shocked to see Lucy crying all the sudden, proving that her conviction was correct. Lucy's father played a role in her suffering and she will get to the bottom of it.
"It's okay, Lucy." Erza whispered.
Lucy trembled and tried to wriggle out of Erza's embrace, but Erza was not letting go. "What do you know!?" Lucy yelled, trying to yank away.
"I don't know anything. But I need you to tell me." Erza said, trying to retain her hold on Lucy.
"Even if I did, there's nothing you could do! You can't...do...anything." Lucy trailed off, tears coming down harder. She couldn't speak, so she decided to show her anger by punching or hitting Erza.
The punches and hits were nothing to Erza, so she let it happen. She only focused on keeping her close. She wanted Lucy to know that she will not leave her side. That she is there for her. That Fairy Tail will be by her side.
Lucy's punches and hits receded from exhaustion and was becoming angrier.
Erza waited until Lucy had calm down to keep talking. "Lucy. Everything will be okay."
Lucy breathed in and out, in and out, to keep in her anger. Her frustration. Her obstruction anger. But she couldn't. She had enough.
Adrenaline coursed through her body with new-found energy and Lucy begun to hit Erza again, but more violently. "Nothing will be okay. You don't know anything. Let go of me!" Lucy screamed, trying to squirm out of Erza's grasp.
For 15 minutes, Erza had bored the countless, ongoing hits from Lucy, and the curses and cries from Lucy. Erza held Lucy tightly as she bored her anger and frustration. Soon, Lucy had found herself slipping into an unwilling unconsciousness.
Couple minutes later, Erza set Lucy back on the bed and covered her with the blanket. Erza sat back in her chair and studied the blonde for a moment, recollecting and recalling what had happened.
When I had asked about her father, Lucy had tensed up. Obviously, she hated him. But what did he do to Lucy? Erza wondered. She felt defeated and helpless. Worst case scenario, her father had abused her. That's the only conclusion Erza could come up with, putting the pieces together.
If Lucy won't talk, then Erza will have to take a more...drastic means to find out what had happened in her past.
Erza sat in the chair for couple of minutes until there was a knock on the door, and the door opened by itself. Erza remained unmoving as the person walked into the room.
"Erza-san? We're back. Carla and I got some food and some other stuff. Is everything okay?" Wendy asked, putting the bags on the ground.
Ignoring Wendy's question, Erza stood up, requiping into her usual armor and looked at Wendy with a serious expression.
"Can you watch Lucy for a while? I need to take care of some stuff."
"Huh? Of course. But, what do you need to do?"
Erza started walking out of the room. "I need to find somebody and get to the bottom of this." Erza opened and closed the door behind and made her way to her destination.
...
Erza sat in a train, with crosses arms and with an obstructive expression painted on her face, indicating that she was not happy. All of her convictions. All of her doubts. All of her unanswered questions. Her unspoken answers. Erza had been recollecting on the bits and pieces, putting together an answer that seemed so plausible, it should've never existed.
After couple of hours of rational thinking, the train arrived at the destination Erza had planned. Stepping out, she immediately made her way to meet the one person to gain at least some answers, and possibly a chance to break his jaw.
Standing outside of the guild, Love & Lucky. Forcing a stoic face and movement in an attempt to reel in her anger, Erza opened the door only to be greeted with an atmosphere of friendly workers and customers. Her eyes searched the building for a familiar man.
Spotting the intended man, who was talking to a customer with a smile, Erza immediately sauntered to the man and the customer with a scowl. She pushed the customer away gently and gain the attention of the man she wanted to see.
"Erza? What are doing here?"
Erza turned to the father of Lucy with an expression of anger. "I need to talk to you privately. And it's urgent."
"Urgent? I'm working."
Erza grabbed Jude's shirt and dragged him out of the guild, ignoring the worried looks from the others, and ignored the complaints from Jude.
Coming to a secluded place, Erza let go, letting Jude fall ungracefully to the ground. Stumbling back to his feet, he turned to Erza with annoyance.
"Care to explain why you did that?"
"And can you care to explain what you did to your own daughter?" Erza retorted.
Jude was obviously taken aback by the randomness of the question, but soon serious. "She never told you?"
Erza remained silent, her own rage slowly boiling, her own convictions and oppression of her unspoken answers fueling her anger as she stared at the man before her.
Jude sighed. "Where do I begin?"
"How about when it all started?" Erza scowled.
"Okay. But what had brought this on? Why do you want to know, if Lucy isn't going to tell you?"
"I found her half-dead after cutting herself."
Jude was surprised and was left with a mouth wide open. "Lucy would never do that..."
A strong armored punch was connected with Jude's stomach, causing him to double over onto the ground.
"No, Lucy would never do that. Unless you had done something. Now, tell me, what did you do to her?" Erza demanded.
Jude clutched his stomach as he dry heaved, and recollected his breath..
After a few moments of silent, Jude finally spoke up. "It all happened when my wife passed away. Lucy's mother. I loved her. I loved my wife so much, even more than my own daughter. But I still cared for her. I had loved Lucy, and I still do. But when my wife passed away, I was so distraught and angry. Lucy had had the last moment with her mother."
"So this was jealousy?" Erza interrupted, already having a sword in her hand.
"Perhaps. I wasn't really...stable. I admit it, I was not myself. I was drunk. I would get myself drunk to wash away the pain. To try and forget it all. But every time I see Lucy, I get so angry."
"So you abused her?" Erza gripped her sword tightly.
"...Yes. It was mistake that I regret to this day. I knew it was wrong when I had started it. But I was so angry. I started to hit her, kick her, punch her. At one point in time, I learned to love it, the screams and the agony. I know it was wrong. And I hate myself for that."
Erza brought a strong kick to Jude's stomach, sending him across the ground couple meters out. She was resisting the urge to stab him in the heart. She was resisting the urge to make him suffer as he had done to his own daughter.
Dryly heaving as Jude got to his knees, he continued to look down on the ground.
"Anything else you had done?"
Jude begun to tremble under the gaze of the murderous looks of a Fairy Tail mage. "I had thrown insults at her, insults that she was worthless and made her question so many things. At the end of the day, I would regret what I had said. But I continued to do it."
"And this is all because you had lost your wife?"
"...Yes."
"Lucy suffered because her damned father abused her, because he had lost his wife? What kind of nonsense is that?" Erza gritted her teeth, wanting so badly to cut this man to pieces.
"After Lucy had ran away, I realized what I had done. I had hired a guild, Phantom to bring her back to apologize. But I failed, and it seems that Lucy believed that I wanted to torture her some more. I wanted to apologize...even now, I wanted to apologize to her. But Lucy would never let me."
"If I had recall correctly, Lucy was gone for 1 year before you had hired Phantom to bring her back."
"After everything I had done, I decided to give her some space, until I deemed it necessary that Lucy was fine."
'Why didn't you come yourself? That would've been more effective." Erza pointed out.
"I was a busy man. I couldn't afford it. So I relied on a guild to bring her back."
"Ok, I heard enough." Erza said, not wanting to hear anymore. "I would bring you back and apologize to Lucy, but I doubt she would want to see you, as she is too broken because of you." Erza grabbed Jude's shirt and begun to drag him again.
"Where are you taking me?"
"I'm going to arrest you. A jail is the best place for you." Erza said with venom.
Jude understood and allowed it to happen.
Jude was handed over to the police and was jailed for 25 years for abusive actions. Jude himself revealed everything, so it was done quickly and his sentence was quickly applied.
Before Jude was being taken away, he turned to Erza, "Please take care of her. And tell her that I love her."
"Fairy Tail will be Lucy's new family. She will be safe." Erza said, crossing her arms.
Jude smiled, ever so slightly with guilt. "I'm glad to hear that. Please heal Lucy for me."
"I will not do it for you." Erza spat.
Before Jude could say anything else, the police took him away, confining him for 25 years. Erza almost wished that he would be confined for life.
With a deep breath, Erza began to walk back to Magnolia.
A/N: Hoped it wasn't too OOC on Erza's part, or the other characters in this chapter
Please review and comment on your thoughts! I don't bite~
Toodles!~~