Fairy Tail: Twin Dragons' Roar, chapter 23

Chapter 23: Pandemonium, Delirium, and Aggression

    Dia felt her heart skip a few beats. A few lone beads of sweat formed on her forehead as her hands clenched. Tension riddled her entire body, filling it with a nervous, twitchy energy that she didn’t really like. Her stomach twisted and gurgled, reflecting the sudden spike in anxiety that the Moon Dragon Slayer was feeling.
    This can’t actually be happening…That’s…That’s crazy!!!
    Her breath came out in a short gasp. Pupils dilated within silver and gold irises. Hands clenched the railing so severely that he nails started to creak and gouge the stone beneath them.
    “Erza…She can’t really be serious…”
    Mavis shook her head, replying with a solemn, “It appears that she is…”
    Aglaia, sitting on the railing next to the other Exceeds, sprung up to her feet. “That is so cool!”
    Levy sighed uneasily. “Well, that’s Erza, no doubt about it…Heh…”
    Dia refused to believe it. “B-But…100 monsters?! All by herself?!?”
    She couldn’t believe it. Even for Erza, who was undoubtedly the strongest human Dia had ever met, that was utter insanity. One. Hundred. Monsters.
    It was Day Three of the Grand Magic Games, and the new event came with the simple, yet slightly unnerving title of “Pandemonium”. The basic idea of this was each team sent in their representative and one by one, they would enter into a colossal temple of sorts. Pandemonium was labeled a “nesting ground of monsters”, but really it just had one hundred magical tools developed to look and act like monsters. All one hundred of them were split into categories based on their level of power, ranked D to S class.
    With a turn-based system, each wizard would have to go in and pick out which monsters they wanted to fight. Each monster defeated allotted a different amount of points depending on their ranking, and the event would continue on until all of the monsters were defeated. Whoever got the most points at the end would, obviously, become the winner of the event.
    The order of turns had been decided by a draw, and ended up going with Erza first, followed by Miliana of Mermaid Heel, Nobarly from Quatro Cerberus, Hibiki from Blue Pegasus, Raven Tail’s Orba, Sabertooth’s Orga, Jura of Lamia Scale, and finally rounding things out with Cana.
    When she thought about it, it really shouldn’t have been that surprising that Erza had decided to take on all of the monsters in one go. The wizard was nothing if not confident in her skills, and she was a Fairy Tail wizard. Dia had learned fairly quickly that recklessness was the bread and butter of her guild.
    But some of these monsters were just as powerful as Wizard Saints. Dia didn’t have much experience with mainland Ishgar and the way things worked with their wizards, but the name implied that a Wizard Saint was pretty powerful. Master Makarov was one, and the man from Lamia Scale, Jura Neekis, was another. Jellal was considered one at some point too, apparently. She’d seen the latter go up against Jellal already, and she knew that his power and ability was nothing to scoff at.
    So did she think Erza was absolutely crazy for wanting to face one hundred powerful monsters all by herself? Hell-freaking-yes!
    She was skeptical, and worried. It wasn’t like Dia didn’t want their guild to do well, but she didn’t want them to get too in over their heads either. Wendy may have recovered, but Rin was still out of commission from his match, and if the Shadow wizard’s actions were anything to go off of, Dia would be surprised if the reckless lunacy didn’t keep up.
    And I actually joined this bunch of crazy people…
    “Crazy…” she muttered.
    But then again, aren’t I crazy too…?
    The Dragon Slayer’s mind went back to the previous night. She didn’t remember much past the point where she and Natsu stormed in to confront Sabertooth, but the raging headache she’d woken up with a little later had been enough to cause concern.
    Not to mention that while everyone else had been fast asleep at three in the morning, Natsu had been wide awake. Dia had woken up to her fellow Dragon Slayer seated by her bedside, chin resting on his hands while he kept his elbows balanced on his knees.
    Dia had been kind of unnerved to find herself in this situation, bandages wrapped around her arms and hands, as well as long strips of the cloth wrapped around her head, covering her left eye. Now, for her to suddenly find Natsu just sitting there, watching her from the corner of his eye?
    Yeah, she had been freaked out.
    Dia cringed as she remembered. In fact, she’d been so freaked out that she nearly punched Natsu in the eye. Luckily, his reflexes were better than hers, so the Fire Dragon Slayer was able to avoid a nasty shiner. After, he had explained what happened back at the hotel and, much to Dia’s embarrassment and utter shame, demanded to know what had happened to her.
    Yeah, that hadn’t of been fun…
    The Moon Dragon’s Madness. It was an affliction that Dia suffered from ever since she started learning Moon Dragon Slaying magic from Lumina. According to her foster mother, it was something that could happen with every Moon dragon, a sort of “disease” or “illness” bred within them from increased exposure to moonlight over time.
    The moon had always been associated with insanity, and for good reason. Moonlight contained a certain property to it that caused some people (or dragons) to give up reason and sanity. It made them go crazy, completely mental.
    Moon dragons—and Slayers, by extension—were much more susceptible to the Madness on account of the moonlight that stored up within their bodies. Amplified by the magical properties of Ethernano, it could trigger “Berserker”—a complete break down of the dragon or Slayer’s sanity, making them extremely amoral and unhinged.
    Lumina had always warned Dia about it, ever since she was a little girl. The best way to avoid going Berserk was to avoid letting her emotions get too out of hand (especially at night, when she exposed to her element) and to especially avoid losing consciousness if the former occurred.
    Odds were that sometime during their confrontation with Sabertooth, she probably got knocked out. Dia remembered how she’d gone into Berserk mode a few times over the years from similar circumstances.
    A heavy lump settled deep in her throat. How could she have lost control like that again? Dia was kicking herself for this, especially since she’d been doing so well before.
    Well, at least I didn’t kill anyone. That’s the one good thing about this whole thing at any rate. I’m the first Moon Dragon anything to never kill anyone during a bout of Madness…
    And Dia was grateful for that. She didn’t think she could ever be the same if she got someone killed while in one of her crazed rampages.
    Natsu had been remarkably understanding when the two talked about it late last night. He’d been concerned and confused, but he hadn’t judged her harshly for what happened. Dia hadn’t been condemned for her lapse in sanity.
    It had always been one of Dia’s biggest worries. And because of that fear, she refused to tell people about the affliction. Dia didn’t want people to treat her like some freak because of something she couldn’t control. It made her miserable, especially since she never even told—and even went as far as hiding it from—her brother. Phoebus was always taking care of her, so she didn’t want to give her younger brother something extra to worry about.
    I don’t want people to treat me like I’m some sort of freak. I…I don’t want to be abandoned…
…
…
    “Huh? What makes you think you’re some sort of freak?”
    Dia looked up from her pillow and stared at Natsu. The other Dragon Slayer stared back at her, unblinking and unusually straight-faced.
    Dia snorted as she sat up on the bed, ignoring the dull throb of pain in her arms and head as she did so.
    “How can I not be a freak?” she asked. “I’m sure you saw what happened back there, Natsu. That’s not even the worst that I can do…”
    Pulling her knees up close, Dia wrapped her arms around them and buried her nose down in her pillow.
    “Moon Dragons…Their magic encompasses more than just one magic type. Celestial, Sleep, and Light, it combines elements from all three. But just like the moon has a dark side, so does my magic too…”
    Dia felt her left eye burn under its bandages. That left eye of hers held one of her most fiercest and terrifying spells, something that only got used when she went into Berserk mode.
    One of her Secret Techniques, Eye of the Nightmare Queen…
    Dia shuddered as she remembered her first time using such a spell. It had been the reason why her kidnappers forced that drug into her that left her unable to process Ethernano. It alone was a spell that could completely incapacitate anyone caught by her gaze. It literally scared them to death by overloading its victims with their worst nightmares…
    “I am a freak…That why Sting said all that stuff when we first got here. I probably would have killed my dragons…”
    Sting knew about the Moon Dragon Madness because of Weisslogia. Dia never wanted him to know, but…
    “I still don’t see how you’re a freak.” Natsu replied.
    This made Dia grit her teeth. “You’re an idiot, then,” she spat. “I never should have left Ilios! Being around other people, when all I bring is misfortune!”
    “Are you still going on about that?” Natsu sighed. “Man, talk about having your work cut out for you…”
    The Fire Dragon Slayer leaned forward in his seat and shook his head. This girl was stubborn alright, but for all the wrong reasons. But then again, he was pretty stubborn himself. When Natsu got an idea in his head, no force on earth could change his mind. Gajeel was like that too and Wendy when she really put her mind to it. Maybe it was just a Dragon Slayer thing, to be so incredibly bull-headed…
    At any rate, he was going to get through to this Dragon Slayer no matter what. No way was he going to let his nakama torment themselves like this if he could help it.
    “Okay, so you’ve got some magic that can be a real pain in the neck. So what? So what if you turn into a total crazy woman? All of this ‘misfortune’ stuff, it doesn’t matter.”
    Dia shook her head. Okay, yeah. Natsu was some sort of idiot…
    “Don’t you get it?!” she demanded sharply. “I’m not safe around you guys! I don’t want you to get hurt because of me! You’re all so nice and I’m…Ah!”
    A hard fist collided with the side of her head and the young woman yelped. Ears ringing and vision blurring, she glared up at her guild mate with poorly concealed ire.
    “What was that for?!”
    Natsu glared back down at her. But his expression was more of a concerned look than anything else. Lips pulled back and teeth clenched, he bent down and stuck his face right up in front of Dia’s, so close that she could see his pupils dilated and the muscles in his jaw working as he tensed up.
    “When are you going to get it through your head?” he demanded. “If you call yourself a ‘monster’ or a ‘freak’ one more time, I’m really going to slug you!”
    Natsu jumped up to his feet and swept Dia into a headlock. The Moon Dragon Slayer squirmed in his grasp as he ground his knuckles into the side of her head.
    “Let me go, Natsu! Let go right now!”
    “Not until you cut it out with this crap!” he snapped back. “Stop doubting yourself and start believing, will you?”
    The Dragon Slayer’s eyes burned just as fiercely as the fire he was fond of using.
    “At the very least, if you can’t believe in yourself to stay in the light, believe in us to keep you there!”
…
…
    The crowd around Dia cheered as Erza emerged from Pandemonium victorious, but she didn’t have the heart to join in. She was happy that Titania came out remarkably unscathed (Erza was pretty beat up, but nowhere near as badly as she should have been), and happy for the guild. Erza scored the top spot for the day by defeating all one hundred monsters in the “nest”, so that was ten whole points to Fairy Tail.
    But Dia really didn’t have it in her to celebrate. Her body still ached, her head throbbed. Her eye was still hurting too. But even more than that, her mood was perhaps the most melancholic it had ever been.
    I don’t know what to believe in…I can’t believe in myself when I’m too weak to control the Moon Madness. And as nice as the sentiment is, Nastu doesn’t know what it’s completely capable of…
    Lumina has warned her once before. The effects of the Moon Madness were never to be scoffed at. One dragon, a long time ago, had completely succumbed to the Madness and it had nearly brought life on an entire continent to an end…
    To this day, no one even knew what would happen if a Moon Dragon Slayer succumbed…
    She sighed and shook her head. She prayed with all her heart that things never came to that, but if it did, she certainly wasn’t going to make the Fairy Tail guild bear the burden of her weakness. She had her pride at the very least, and she wasn’t going to let anyone suffer for her.
    She had an ace up her sleeve, one that would make sure that she never lost herself completely.
    Ever…
…
…
    “Echo, Tsubasa, I’m telling you that I’m fine. Keeping me cooped up in bed like some old geezer is completely pointless.”
    A flutter of feathers signaled Rin that his fine, feathered menace of a friend was coming up behind him. The Shadow wizard felt a pair of sharp talons dig into the back of his shirt, yanking it back. Not enough to choke him, but enough to halt his forward motion. Likewise, he could feel two small hands wrap around his left one and pull back.
    This had been going on for a good ten minutes now. Rin had gotten sick and tired of dealing with Porlyusica (and vice versa, for that matter) and had been trying to escape from the infirmary for the past day now. His magic hadn’t been fully recovered yet, so he wasn’t able to just turn into a shadow and duck under the door.
    This wouldn’t be so hard if Mira hadn’t put Echo and Tsubasa in charge of keeping me here, he thought with a slight stab of ire.
    Not that he didn’t appreciate the sentiment. By all means, it warmed his tiny little blackened heart to know that the infamous “Demon” Mirajane Strauss was willing to stoop as low as to sicing his sister and pet bird (Did Tsubasa even count as a pet? Or maybe a seeing-eye bird?) on him to keep the wizard in bed.
    Seriously, what was she, his mother? Or better yet, was he supposed to be three years old or something?
    At any rate, Rin was well on his way to being completely recovered from his match, and hated being cooped up in that stupid room. He couldn’t take it any longer, no sir.
    Now, if only he could get his pint-sized bundle of joy and ever-squawking pain-in-the-ass to see it that way too, that’d be just lovely…
    “You are not going anywhere, Rin-sama!” Tsubasa hollered. “Porlyusica-san hasn’t given her official call, so you will stay until you are 100% recovered!”
    Echo echoed these sentiments with another strong tug on his arm. Rin sighed heavily.
    This really was ridiculous. It was bad enough having that broom-wielding witch wrapping him up like a bloody mummy over a few cuts. It was certainly bad enough when that same medical menace kept forcing noxious liquids and foul-tasting pills down his gullet. But this? This was lunacy!
    Rin lifted his arm and pulled his sister up with him, ignoring the tight, constricting sensation of Porlyusica’s bandages pulling tighter around his shoulder and chest.
“    C’mon you two,” he sighed. “You both know better than anyone how fast I recover. And it’s not even like Dark World does that much damage to me in the first place. It’s mostly show.”
    Okay, maybe that wasn’t completely true. And from the sounds of the disbelieving grunts (Tsubasa’s, and then one that perfectly mimicked his), he could tell that they weren’t really buying it either.
    Truth was that he still was a little sore from everything. After all, Rin still technically stabbed himself in the stomach. Those kinds of wounds weren’t like flimsy little paper cuts. They hurt, like hell. While the guild’s infamously prickly doctor had been lecturing him about his “stupidity” and how much she just hated humans, Rin had been doing plenty of suffering for the two of them.
    But like he said, he did have a remarkable recovery rate. That gut-wrenching pain only lasted half the day. Now, it only felt like he hadn’t stretched properly before a workout. That was hardly worth being confined to bed rest.
    But knowing his sister and Tengu friend, they were just as stubborn as he was. If they promised Mira to keep an eye on him, that’s what they were going to do all right.
    An idea hit him like a sack of bricks to the head. (Or a brawling bunch of idiot Fairies, if that was your pleasure…)
    “Tell you what, my devious little minions,” he grinned. “Mira said to keep an eye on me right?” Rin felt Echo nod as he shifted her onto his back while Tsubasa hopped onto his shoulder. “Well, I need fresh air. Don’t you think that would help me recover so much faster than lazing around in a bed all day?”
    “Echo-sama says that flattery isn’t going to get you anywhere, Rin-sama,” Tsubasa replied bluntly. “But she says that if you were to offer up a bribe of the sugary nature, she wouldn’t be opposed…”
    Rin laughed heartily at that. Good to know that his darling sister was so smart. You didn’t find that many ten-year-olds who were that quick on the uptake as his Echo.
    “How does a strawberry soda float sound to you, great and powerful Miss Prison Warden? Sound like a good enough bribe to buy this lowly criminal his freedom for an hour or two?”
    Echo shook lightly behind him and a few puffs of breath disturbed the hair at the back of his neck. Rin recognized it at her silent laughter. So when the girl threw her arms around his neck and pressed her smiling face against his cheek, he knew she was on board.
    “Any opposition from you, Tsubasa?” Rin smirked. “I foresee a pound of birdseed in your future~!”
    “…Make that two, Rin-sama. Any less and I go reporting your ass to Mira-san.”
    “You’ve got a deal, my feathery bane of a friend.” With the prospect of a few hours of freedom at hand, Rin marched his way towards the door and threw it open. The door flew back, bouncing against the wall with a rattling slam as Rin barreled out, whooping in a totally uncharacteristically child-like manner.
    This, as it seemed, was why it wasn’t wise to keep the Shadow wizard holed up in one place for long periods of time. Apparently, Rin became a crazy ball of energy…
    “Sayonara, suck—Gah!!!”
    This, also as it seemed, was another one of those times where Rin wished that he could see more than just black, fuzzy shapes and outlines. But then again, he normally was better about being mindful about what was going on around him. After all, when one was visually impaired, one had to watch out for all manners of inconvenient crap to bump and/or crash into…
    “Whoa…!”
    Rin stumbled back and made a quick attempt to regain his balance, lest he end up dropping Echo and get her hurt. Tsubasa’s wings fluttered wildly, only adding an extra layer of sensory overload that left the young man even more disoriented.
    “Rin-sama!”
    A faint sound of rustling fabric alerted him to some sudden movement in front of Rin. A hand snatched the front of his shirt, grasping the fabric in a vice-like grip and pulled back. Rin was drawn forward back onto his feet, but he quickly lost his grip on his younger sister as he fell forward. The Fairy Tail wizard panicked as he felt Echo’s small form swing over his shoulder and her little hands leave his neck.
    Of course, as he tried to grab her, he leaned forward too much and ended up falling over completely himself, nose banging somewhat painfully upon impact.
    “E-Echo!”
    Echo flailed as she tried to grab her brother. But everything was moving too quickly, especially herself as she fell through the air, dropping to what was sure to be a painful encounter with the stone floor. Echo braced herself for impact in the few seconds that she estimated she had.
    “Got you!”
    She opened her eyes as wide as they could go. A short curtain of sky-blue curls hung down over her forehead, the longest strands tickling her nose. Echo stared—no, she gaped.
    The floor was so close to her face that she could literally count the tiny little cracks and pits in the worn rock tiles. Heck, if she wanted, she could probably brush the ground with her forehead if she leaned just an inch or so more towards it.
    A strong arm was wrapped around her hips, just barely maintaining a good grip on her. Echo could tell by the slight tinge of pain in her stomach that probably came from the sudden and abrupt decrease in her freefall. Her arms and legs dangled a little helplessly and she was sure that the blood currently rushing towards her head was going to give her a head rush the moment she got herself righted.
    Huh, just like that time Romeo-nii and I started messing with Ri-nii’s staff and stuck ourselves to the ceiling…
    Someone sighed quietly as she was pulled away from the floor. Echo heard some soft scuff and scrapes against the floor, like some kind of soft fabric rubbing against it. Something scurrying across the ground?
    “That was close…”
    “Fro thinks so also!”
    Echo felt her heart leap in her chest. Those voices…Not them again…!
    The young girl’s head snapped up as she threw a quick, anxious look over her shoulder. Sure enough, there was Rogue Cheney of Sabertooth. The Shadow Dragon Slayer had been the one to catch her.
    Large, magenta eyes met with one crimson iris. Sporting his usual, disinterested expression, Echo was once again confused to see a tiny bit of emotion flickering somewhere deep in that blood-red eye.
    Seemed like that was some sort of pattern or something. Every time Rogue got near them, his normally blank face would look just the tiniest bit more…Was alive really the best way to describe it? Echo wasn’t really sure. She may have been smart for her age (and heck, the kid was smart even for half of the people in her guild) but she still didn’t quite understand.
    Too bad that she didn’t have a proper amount of time to think about it. The next thing Echo knew, she’d been yanked back, pulled up against something warm and solid. Long strands of inky black hair trailed over her.
    Rin.
    “What the f…” Rin paused, refraining from swearing in front of her, before continuing on, venom laced through every bit of his voice. “What. Are. You. Doing. Here.”
    Echo could feel her brother’s body completely tense up. At their feet, Tsubasa hoped around nervously, halfway keeping his attention on his human companions while also trying to dodge the reaching, grabbing paws of Rogue’s Exceed, Frosch.
    Rogue didn’t respond, choosing to just watch them instead. The usual bored, disinterested look had crept back into his crimson gaze, and that made her anxious.
    “Well, you gonna answer me, asshole?” Rin snarled. Echo didn’t know if the Saber just did it on purpose, but every time he refused to answer Rin, it always made the Fairy even angrier.
    Rogue’s one visible eye flicked down. At first, Echo thought he was looking at her. But she quickly figured out that it wasn’t her that he was staring at, but Rin’s torso.
    She felt something a little wet on the back of her arm. Echo paled as she pulled it away and saw little spots of red on her fair skin.
    Rin was bleeding. His stomach wound must not have fully healed, so it reopened. This caused the little girl to panic and start squirming. But he wasn’t paying attention. It was totally consumed by the one person he truly hated standing in front of him.
    If only she didn’t have this speech problem. She knew better than anyone how much of a one-track mind her brother had. Once he got focused on something, it was pretty hard to get him thinking about anything else. And he really didn’t care much whenever he got hurt either. That’s why she hated that Dark World spell of his. It never bothered him, so he used it a lot during missions and job requests, despite knowing that he’d have to attack the weird markings on his skin (and therefore himself) to “activate” it.
    “You’re still injured.” Rogue pointed out monotonously. Rin tensed even further.
    “It’s nothing,” he hissed. “What the hell do you even care? Just get out of here, Rogue. Now!”
    The Sabertooth wizard frowned slightly and shook his head, muttering to himself. His words were very quiet, so Echo didn’t catch them, but Rin must have. Her older brother snarled viciously.
    “You want to say that again, jackass?”
    Rogue stepped forward and kept walking until he was right in front of them. Rin didn’t move, or so much as flinch. But when the Saber’s arm shot out towards him, it wasn’t Rin who had to deal with it.
    Echo gaped as the other Shadow wizard scooped her up and out of her brother’s grasp. Rogue held her up in his arm while he used his other hand to grab the back of Rin’s shirt. Rin hissed slightly as the other wizard pulled up lightly, forcing him out of the hunched position he’d been in.
    The Shadow Fairy had been forced to wear a simple button-down shirt to allow Porlyusica easy access to his wounds, so the long bandages surrounding his torso were plainly visible. Nervous tension built up in Echo’s stomach was she watched a big red spot bloom in the middle of the bandages. It didn’t help that those weird markings on his skin had started to squirm either, as if they were alive.
    Echo hated those markings. She didn’t know why, but they just filled her with unease every time she saw them. There was just something so unnatural about them, and she didn’t like that fact that they were always moving on her brother’s body.
    Everyone at the guild who’d only seen glimpses of them just assumed that they were tattoos, but she knew better. Whatever they were, they were more than simple ink pigment driven into his skin.
    “Still as stubborn as you’ve always been I see,” Rogue commented quietly.
    Rin growled and his hand flashed up, fingers curling around Rogue’s wrist in a bone-crushing grip. “Shut the hell up! And let go of my sister!”
    One thin, charcoal-colored brow lifted imperiously. “Even though you’re getting blood on said sister?”
    That quip silenced the Fairy Tail wizard easily enough, but it didn’t completely pacify him. Frankly, Echo thought her brother was seconds away for going after the other Shadow wizard’s throat.
    “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!?”
    Thankfully, it didn’t get that far. While the Sabertooth wizard paused at the sudden explosion of sound, both of the wizards from Fairy Tail froze still and turned even whiter than normal.
    Rin couldn’t completely see (aside from the vision impairment, his head was bent into an awkward position that didn’t exactly give him the optimal angle to see anything) but he was damn glad that he couldn’t right now. The voice was enough to clue him in on their newest intruder.
    “P-Porlyusica,” he stammered nervously. “H-Hang on a minute…”
    “Don’t you ‘hang on a minute’ me, you damn brat!” The Fairy Tail pharmacist stormed over, her wrinkled face twisted into a terrifying scowl and her eyes alight with fury. Porlyusica made a bee-line for them, roughly shoving Rogue out of the as she snatched Rin out of his grasp.
    “What are you doing out of bed?!” she demanded. “You aren’t fully recovered, brat! Look at you; you’ve reopened the wound in your stomach! Idiot!!”
    Rin flinched as the old woman continued to rail at him. It wasn’t long before his ears started ringing and his head hurt more than his injury thanks to Porlyusica and her screaming scolds.
    “Will you just give me a second to explain—OW!!!”
    The pink-haired woman smacked him sharply in the back of the head and grabbed a hold of his ear, dragging him back towards the infirmary despite Rin’s protests. But she wasn’t having any of it. Porlyusica kept on him until they were both back inside the room, ranting and raving about “reckless human brats with no sense of self-preservation”. All until the door slammed harshly behind them, and the muffled shouts and arguments drifted off into oblivion behind it.
    Echo let the breath she’d been holding out in a gushing “whoosh!”
    Even thought she knew that the older woman meant well, Echo had to admit that Porlyusica scared her sometimes. Thank goodness that she got overlooked in the frenzy.
    “Here, Pretty Fairy!”
    Echo looked down. That funny little Exceed in the frog costume was standing right next them, holding a hankie up to her. Tsubasa, looking relieved that Frosch’s attention was off of him, fly up and latched his talons into the back of Echo’s jumpsuit. The Tengu’s yellow eyes glared up at Rogue.
    “I’d appreciate it if you released Echo-sama,” he requested bitterly.
    Rogue paused for a brief moment, his crimson eye flickering to Echo, as if he had forgotten that he was holding her. The young man slowly loosened his grip on her, seeming to make sure whether Tsubasa could actually support her weight or not.
    The Tengu carefully lowered his young charge back down to the ground. Afterwards, he hopped onto Echo’s shoulder and settled there, ruffling his feathers. The black bird’s eyes never once shifted away from Rogue, eyeing him with a protective wariness as he edged closer to Echo.
    “Here, here, Pretty Fairy!” Frosch jumped forward and pressed the piece of cloth on Echo, who accepted it with a confused frown. The Exceed lifted and waved one of his arms, and she got the idea.
    The little girl offered up a little smile and started cleaning the blood off her arm, taking care to not actually look at the stuff. Echo could handle small little cuts and bloody noses, but seeing such a large amount of her brother’s blood on her skin was understandably unsettling.
    “Frosch, let’s go.”
    Echo looked up and saw Rogue starting to walk off. Smiling widely, his Exceed partner trailed after without a care in the world. She stared after them, looking from the handkerchief in her fingers back to the infirmary’s door and back after them. She made a snap decision.
    Small, light footsteps beat against the stone floor. Small fingers dug into the long, trailing fabric that made up Rogue’s cloak and tugged. Echo dug in her heels, hoping to force the wizard into some sort of stop since she was unable to use her voice to do it for her.
    Rogue stopped almost instantly. So suddenly, in fact, that she went crashing into him, nose-first into his leg. Good thing that the thick, soft fabric cushioned her impact.
    Echo removed her face from the cloak and looked up, determinedly meeting the older wizard’s blank stare. She hastily dug out her Light pen and scrawled in the air in front of her.
    “Why does my brother hate you so much?”
    It was a simple question. One that had been bothering Echo for the longest time. Rin didn’t really hate anyone. Sure, he got annoyed with people lots of times, especially the others in the guild who liked to mess with him. But he didn’t really hate anyone. At least, not like he seemed to hate Rogue Cheney.
    It made no sense, and she wanted to get to the bottom of it.
    And to make sure of it, she wasn’t going to let go of Rogue’s cloak until she gave her an answer. Tiny fists wound themselves into the heaps of cloth as she stared up at the Shadow Dragon Slayer.
    Rogue looked down at her and neither spoke for a good long time. Even their animal companions were silent. Tsubasa ruffled his feathers and flicked his wings anxiously from Echo’s shoulder. Frosch was quiet and unusually somber. The Exceed’s trademark goofy smile was missing and he kept staring back and forth between Echo and Rogue.
    “…You should ask your brother that.”
    Echo scowled. “I’ve tried that already. Ri-nii won’t tell me.” Her eyes hardened as she glared up at the tall man. “You better not have hurt my brother…”
    She wasn’t stupid. She knew that she probably didn’t stand a ghost of a chance against a Dragon Slayer. But darn it, it someone hurt her big brother—her most important person—they were going to pay. One way or another, she was going to make them hurt too…
    Maybe Rogue sensed this. Maybe he was just feeling uncharacteristically talkative. Whatever the reason, he was willing to elaborate.
    “Your…brother and I don’t see eye to eye on certain things,” he said slowly. “It was a long time ago, but we both made our decisions. If he wants to hold onto that anger, he’s more than welcome too.”
    Echo frowned, and in her confusion, lost her grip on his cloak. Rogue took this opportunity to pull it away from the girl. Now certain that he was “freed”, the Dragon Slayer decided it was high time for him to leave. He turned on his heel and strode off down the hallway without any more on the subject, leaving Echo even more confused.
    That didn’t tell her anything! She already knew that Rin had some sort of past with Rogue, but none of this made anything any clearer!
    Just you wait, Rogue Cheney, she silently vowed. I’m not through with you. I’m going to figure out what this is all about. Then Ri-nii can stop hurting all the time…
…
…
    Porlyusica sighed as she leaned back and reached for a clean cloth to wipe her hands. “There, all done…I trust that you’ll do as I tell you this time around and stay in bed, right?”
    Rin grunted as he lay on one of the beds of the infirmary. His chest and stomach had been rewrapped, his wound treated once more and his broken stitches had been replaced with new ones. Of course, it all hurt like hell, but that was nothing new…
    Fairy Tail’s pharmacist peered over her shoulder at her headstrong, foolishly stubborn ward. How many times over the years had she been forced to patch him back up after another one of his stupid stunts?
    “If you’re going to rip yourself open again, try not to do it in front of Echo,” she ordered. “That little girl really loves you, Rin. Scaring her like that isn’t fair and you know it.”
    Rin scowled and rubbed his nose. Unlike every other time, his long, trailing bangs hand been brushed away from his face. It felt weird not having them hanging there, but then again, Porlyusica was the only person he trusted enough to let his face be out in the open like this.
    “It’s not like I do it on purpose,” he growled. “I just…”
    “Can’t let go of the past,” Porlyusica interrupted. “This is why I can’t stand humans…”
    “Hey, you might be from Edolas, but you’re still a human like the rest of us!” Rin snapped.
    This was a usual occurrence. One of the reasons Rin didn’t really like being around the aged medic was thanks to her need to criticize and lecture him all the time. For crying out loud, the woman wasn’t his mother, he didn’t need to be read the riot act.
    “Yes, but I know when to let go of a grudge,” she pointed out. “Keep going down this road and you’re going to lose more than just your eyesight.”
    With her piece said (and they’d been down this road plenty of times before) Porlyusica decided to leave Rin to himself for now.
    The Shadow Fairy sighed and rubbed his face. It was like this every single time. He’d get beat up one way or another, Porlyusica would find out then feel compelled to treat him, then she’d rant and rave about his inherent stupidity and lack of self-preservation until they both started arguing over it.
    Rin supposed that, in her own way, the old woman was showing that she cared. As much as she said that she hated other humans, she was always willing to help out the guild when they needed it. When Rin had first come to Fairy Tail, it was Porlyusica who had looked him and Echo over for any signs of disease or malnutrition. Hell, she even took care of his little sister when she had gotten really sick and Rin had been panicking about losing her.
    That grouchy old woman was always willing to put up with him and all his neurotic idiosyncrasies, but she just didn’t understand.
    He couldn’t just let go of all that anger. He couldn’t just forgive and forget. It wasn’t that simple.
    What Rogue did to him…It was unforgivable. And for that, Rin would hate him. He felt it with every fiber of his very being. It burned in his blood and made every muscle tense just thinking about it.
    Rin didn’t want to be this angry. Who the hell would after all? He knew it made things difficult for everyone but…
    “God dammit…”