Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Torn Apart
“This— this is it!” Natsu yelled, looking around the glowing cave that he and Lucy had finally found.
Silent tears streamed down Lucy’s face and she tightened her grip on Natsu’s hand. “We can fix it. We can get everyone back,” she whispered hoarsely, as if not believing they had finally found it.
Magic was almost gone from the world. The fight with Zeref and his demons upset the balance of magic so much that it became unstable and started to completely unravel. Natsu and Lucy were the last members of Fairy Tail remaining. They had lost everyone else along the way and Lucy was only here due to her spirit’s constant help in stabilizing her magic. Natsu was fine because of his previous state as E.N.D. The magic in mages responded to the instability of magic in the world, and anyone with magic in them slowly died. They had no chance of fighting it, especially as it began with the strongest, as their large reservoirs of magic created a more pronounced volatility within them.
Lucy glanced down at her key ring, which now included many new friends that she had come across in her travels. She now had all of the golden zodiac keys, except for Aquarius’s new key, but including the 13th key. Finding Yukino’s body had been hard, but Lucy had lost a lot of family at that point and was beginning to become numb. Yukino had gone down fighting, trying to protect people as one of the last mages standing against the demons. She was overwhelmed and her spirits already weakened as there was only three of them to help balance her magic.
Lucy had also found a least two dozen more silver keys of various spirits. According to her spirits, Lucy had been well known in the spirit world for being a strong and kind master who treated her spirits as friends, but now she was famous as being the last Celestial Mage. Only her strongest spirits could come out, as there wasn’t enough stable magic left for Lucy to hold open a gate on her own.
The last time she had seen Loke several weeks ago, the leader of the Zodiac had explained that this would be the last time Lucy saw him. None of them would be able to come on their own anymore, as they needed everyone to keep Lucy stablilized. He warned that she and Natsu didn’t have long to find their solution. Even now, the celestial mage could feel her spirits pouring their magic into her to replenish and stabilize her magical core.
They had spent over two years looking for this legendary cave—one that supposedly radiated magic from natural crystals said to hold magical energy, almost like a battery. It had taken a toll on them both, and Natsu had even learned to be stealthy after his hot headedness almost got Lucy— and himself— killed several times.
“Hopefully we’re not too late and there’s still enough stored magic for the spell,” Lucy said, running her hands along the glowing crystal walls.
“It will be. It has to be,” Natsu insisted. Lucy looked over at him, noting that he had a grimmer, darker determination, as he had slowly lost that hopeful fire as nakama after nakama fell. The breaking point was losing Happy. Lucy was worried about losing Natsu completely after that, but he after Lucy almost died, he snapped out of it and became very protective of Lucy, determined to fix everything. If he believed that they could fix everything and get everyone back, then he could pretend that they weren’t all gone. And after years of searching, it had paid off.
They were about to meddle in forbidden magic, but there wasn’t another choice as Lucy’s spirits had said that this magical unbalance was destroying the world. Any magic having to do with time travel was incredibly risky and always came at a high cost. Lucy and Natsu weren’t sure what their price would be, but each had promised to themselves to make sure the other made it through.
The two worked quickly to make the preparations for the ritual, where they would use all of the magic in the cave to call upon lost gods and magics to turn back time. It was hard enough to find the incantation for this and what it would do, so they didn’t know much about the consequences but they did strongly suspect their current selves would die.
When they were ready, Natsu stepped close to Lucy and put one hand on the side of her face. He leaned in and kissed her gently. “We’ll get our nakama back. And we’ll make sure everyone is safe.”
Lucy nodded and leaned into Natsu’s embrace, soaking in the comfort for just a moment before pulling back. They held hands and began chanting in a long forgotten language together.
There was an intense glow that hurt Lucy’s eyes, but she forced them to stay open and meet Natsu’s. The magical pressure built up until it seemed to explode. She felt her body dissolving and everything went black.
~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~FT~
Lucy couldn’t tell if her eyes were closed or if her eyes were open and it was just pitch black. She could feel Natsu’s hand in hers, which she squeezed and felt a squeeze in return.
“The world is in chaos.” Lucy heard the words in her head and reverberate through her. The voice was almost unearthly and sounded like none she’d ever come across.
“This magic you’ve done is forbidden.” Lucy tried to open her mouth and speak but couldn’t. “We know it was a last resort. Errors were made on our part as well, which allowed for this end result, and is the only reason why we shall allow this.” Lucy’s heart jumped to her throat as the being speaking seemed to be approving their plan.
“We shall assist your intertwined souls and magic back to your younger selves, but we shall have a difficult task for you to aid us with in return. You shall know the details when you need to.” Lucy’s heart was pounding and she was sure Natsu could hear it. He squeezed her hand a bit tighter.
“If you have any questions, speak, Celestial Mage,” the voice commanded and Lucy felt magic release her voice.
“Thank you,” she started out with. “How far back can you take us and will we retain all of our memories?”
“Your memories will remain. It will be difficult for your younger selves to deal with them all, but you must remember the trauma and pain you’ve suffered so far. It is part of you, how your magic grew, and part of the price.” Lucy understood and despite sometimes wanting the pain that seemed to be carved into her chest to disappear, it had shaped her to who she was and she couldn’t ignore that.
“As for how far back we can send you, you have two options. It will be strongest to send you back to either x777 on the 7th day of the 7th month or when you were seven years old. The number 7 holds power, as you well know, so it is less likely for something to go wrong sending you to x777. Know that Igneel’s disappearance and Layla Heartfilia’s death cannot be prevented. They must happen. We can give you several years with them if you so wish, but you will be separated from each other during this time.” The voice explained and then stopped speaking to let them think.
“Natsu…” Lucy whispered, unsure of what to do.
“Luce, could you handle seeing your mother, knowing that she was going to die?” Natsu asked softly. “We could see our parents again and learn more and train harder earlier, but you would have the horrible knowledge that you couldn’t prevent your mom from dying.”
“I always said that if I could have just one more day with her, I would take it,” Lucy answered. “But we’d be away from each other for three years. It’s like choosing between family,” the stress of the choice bleeding through.
“We can do it,” Natsu said, making a decision he knew Lucy couldn’t make. “Hey, god voice, can the necklace that Lucy was wearing go back with her?” Natsu had given Lucy a necklace made of a teardrop crystal with a small, living flame inside made from Natsu’s magic.
“If that is one of your requests, then yes, we can make that happen,” the voice responded, almost sounding amused.
“See Luce? You’ll have me next to you the whole time and it will go faster than you know. Hey! We can see who can become stronger in those three years! You’ll have to start collecting your gate keys again, right? How will that work?”
“I assumed that I was going to lose all of my friends,” Lucy mourned.
“While you cannot keep all of your keys, because we are also at fault here, we will allow you to retain any silver keys. We will also allow you to have two Zodiac keys if we can choose which ones or you may choose one gold key. Certain events must happen, so you may not choose Leo or Aires.”
Lucy froze at the thought of choosing one of her friends over all the others. When she thought about how she couldn’t save Leo or Aires, she wilted. She would just have to save them herself. “You choose two please. I cannot choose between family.”
“Virgo and Gemini then. Know that Pieces, Libra, Taurus, Scorpio, and Sagittarius will be unclaimed and if you can get to them first, you can contract with them. Leo, Aires, Aquarius, Capricorn and Cancer will all already be in contracts.” The voice explained.
“You mentioned that our souls and magic were intertwined,” Lucy brought up curiously.
“Yes, your unique magics are sustaining your souls and as such they cannot ever be without it. Your magical core itself has changed, young mage, with the influx of various powers from your spirits. You may find that you have some new abilities. Both of you will be more powerful this time, but that will come with its own difficulty,” the voice warned.
“Will our bodies be able to handle that?” Lucy questioned, worried.
“We will help prepare your younger bodies for this influx of magic, but it will take hard work to maintain and not burn out. Your magic will grow quickly over 13 months until you are at your current power level. That is the quickest your bodies can adapt to it. You will need physical exercise, meditation, and magical focus practice. Since we are partially to blame for the collapse of magic with our hubris, we will also give this to you,” the voice offered.
“We can do that,” Natsu promised. “We can’t let our nakama down. I’ll train every day, even in— ugh— meditation.” Lucy knew that Natsu didn’t like sitting still for meditation and only did it when Igneel, the 3rd Master, or Erza made him.
“Are there any more questions, or are you ready, Fairy Tail mages?” the voice asked. “There are certain events that cannot be changed. You will know which ones when they come up.”
“I’ll try my best to save our nakama early,” Lucy promised.
“Don’t burn yourself out,” Natsu made her promise. “And keep yourself safe, please.”
“I promise. And you too,” Lucy answered.
Natsu laughed. “I’m going to be with a dragon, Luce. I’ll be fine. I won’t be with you, so I can’t get to anyone or help before x777. I’ll find you as soon as I can.”
“Good luck to you, mages. Make good use of this time as this is the only redo you’ll get,” the voice warned.
Lucy felt Natsu squeeze her hand one last time and then she was waking up in her childhood bedroom.
She turned on the light beside her bed and was relieved to find her ring of keys sitting there, although missing many of her friends. She then lifted a hand to her neck, letting out a relieved breath when she found the necklace Natsu gave her there.
She looked down to find herself wearing a new nightgown that she remembered receiving for her 7th birthday. The now 7-year-old swore to herself that things would be different this time.