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It’s snowing the day he meets Master Hades and joins Grimoire Heart.
Gray heads west, after Ur. He remembers Ur’s words, of mages more powerful than her in the west. If that’s the case, he thinks, maybe one, any of the mages there might know how to undo Iced Shell, fix this terrible mistake he’s made. The loss of Ur is still raw, the wound jagged and ugly in his heart, all sharp edges and brittle glass. He still wakes up and expects her to be there, only to be met by imposing silence and the echo of what no longer was, only to remember that she’d not there. Not anymore. She’s gone, leaving an empty hole where she once resided.
No one he meets seems to know any more about the spell than he does, and he feels the flicker of hope, that thought he might be able to fix his mistakes waver and fade. He tries his best to not let the constant failures get to him. There has to be a way; he just hasn’t found it yet, is all.
And then he meets Master Hades.
The other mage is powerful, radiates with magic in a way even Ur hadn’t. There’s something heavy about his magic, old and ancient and powerful. It settles around him like a cloak, strong enough that Gray almost sees it, the air rippling around him.
His own reserves are laughably small in comparison, and powerful as Ur is—was—even her magic is nothing compared to this mage’s.
If he had sense, he would stay far, far away. Danger, his instincts shriek, alarms blaring and every nerve on-edge. But Gray’s never not been reckless, and anyway, he has nothing to lose here. Strong as this mage is, he must know how to undo Iced Shell.
And he does, and it’s all his hopes and dreams on a silver platter, but—
“The Grand Magic World?” Gray repeats. It’s everything he could’ve hoped for, and that—that puts him on edge, because it’s too good to be true. A world where magic can do anything, even undo Iced Shell—what is the cost? What is the catch?
“Yes. In it, you’d be able to bring your Master back.” The mage’s voice is calm. Assured.
You’d be able to bring your Master back. The words echo in his head, and he turns them over and over. He can undo Iced Shell, bring Ur back. Maybe he can find Lyon, and then they can be a family again, everything he wanted but hadn’t realized he had until he shattered it to pieces.
He’s not a fool, though. This? It’s all a little too good to be true. He tentatively lets himself hope, but he doesn’t quite believe, not yet. But even if it turn out to be a foolish dream, Gray will still try, because at least that slim hope is better than none at all. And besides, he doesn’t think this mage is lying. This mage truly believes that the Grand Magic World will be a world where anything is possible, where magic can reach its full potential.
If he can fix his mistakes, if Ur can live again… he doesn’t care if it might cost his life. He’d do what it takes.
He owes her that much, at least.
So when the mage introduces himself as Master Hades and says, “Join Grimoire Heart,” Gray agrees.
It’s probably a terrible idea, everything Ur would never have wanted. But Master Hades is offering a way to get Ur back, and for that?
For that, Gray will do anything.
Grimoire Heart is… different. The airship seems even larger from the inside and it’s really no wonder he gets lost several times. There’s a hostility to the atmosphere, too, whispers and murmurs of jealousy trailing in his wake. It doesn’t take him long to notice the discontent, the jealousy of the other dark mages in Grimoire Heart—the foot soldiers, he thinks, perhaps a tad uncharitably. Why did Master Hades take a random boy under him wing? they whisper, eyes watching him. Why him? What makes him so special?
Gray can’t really answer them. He’s not sure either, what it is that Master Hades saw in him.
He doesn’t actually know what it was that led Hades to recruit him, if it was the ghosts in his eyes or the scars on his soul. Maybe it was the anger and hate and grief choking him.
It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Master Hades did see potential in him. All that matters is that there is a way to bring Ur back. All that matters is that, now, he has hope that he can fix things, undo his mistake.
Gray gets his guild mark over his heart, a chain and a promise so that he never forgets what he’s doing this for. It’s jarring, at first, when he sees it, stark black across his chest. He gets used to it soon enough; he sees it often, after all, with how many times he managed to lose his shirt. He’s never quite managed to kick his habit of stripping after it developed sometime between when Ur had them take ice-baths and when she started teaching them ice shields, and now, it’s comforting, almost, a reminder of their training. One last link to her.
Master Hades takes him under his wing, and Gray finds that Master Hades knows a lot about magic; the library alone is proof of that. Gray’s pretty sure Master Hades’ library is bigger than both the house he and his parents lived in and Ur’s cottage combined.
A week after he joins, Master Hades places a ancient book in front of him, and starts teaching him Ice Devilslayer magic. He’s… different from Ur, all stern countenance and strict words. Compliments are rare, though when Gray does get something right, the quiet pride in Master Hades’ eyes is enough. After the first two weeks, though, Master Hades mostly leaves him alone to work on the new magic. Which, well, Gray isn’t surprised; Master Hades probably has a lot to do, better things than babysitting a nine-year-old.
It feels almost like sacrilege, learning another type of magic when he has his Ice-make, the Ice-make that Ur taught him. Like he’s disrespecting her memory. It’s funny, he thinks, that he only learned to truly appreciate ice-make when it’s too late.
But—
He wasn’t wrong, back then, no matter how poorly he worded it. Ice-make isn’t a magic built for power; it is beautiful, versatile, but in terms of sheer power it is easily outclassed. Ur had made it work, because of her moulding speed and talent, but Gray’s not sure his own skill in ice-make will be enough.
And besides, some part of him is vindictively satisfied that he’s learning a magic to kill demons. At least something like Deliora can never happen again. He can’t help but wonder how things would’ve turned out, if Ur had known Ice Devilslayer magic.
Would she still have used Iced Shell?
(He already knows the answer to that. Too late, his mind hisses.)
He meets Ultear almost completely by accident. About a month after he’d joined Grimoire Heart, he’s walking down the hall, head buried in a book, when he bumps into someone and is sent crashing to the floor. “Watch where you’re going,” the other person snaps.
Gray looks up at dark eyes and hair and thinks: Ur. Except, no, this girl is younger, cheeks still rounded with baby fat and nearly two feet shorter than Ur is—was. Still, the resemblance is uncanny.
Hadn’t Master Ur had a daughter once?
There’s a split second where he swears recognition flashes in her eyes, followed by something very much like fury, or hatred, but it’s gone in the blink of an eye and he wonders if he imagined it. She sidesteps him, brushes it off cooly like he’s not even worth her time, and disappears down the hall.
In all, their first encounter doesn’t even last thirty seconds.
Their second encounter isn’t much better. Or their third. He’s certain that he didn’t imagine the hatred he saw in their first encounter now; for whatever reason, Ultear loathes him with a burning passion. He can’t imagine what he possibly did to offend her so badly; he’s barely been in Grimoire Heart for one month, hadn’t even met her for most of it. Hells, he didn’t even know she was Master Hades first protege, his favored student, until the rumour mill so helpfully informed him of it. What could he possibly have done?
Maybe she’s jealous, he muses. But there’s something personal about Ultear’s hate, something that goes beyond mere jealousy at him becoming Master Hades’ second pupil, and he wonders.
Gray wonders, maybe, if it has to do with Ur. Wonders at the memory of Ur telling them about her daughter, the grief in her eyes as she told them she was dead. Remembers the one room of the house they were never allowed in, that Ur never let them touch.
What happened then? he wonders.
But it’s not until their fourth encounter, when he makes the mistake of asking about Ur one day when they’re both in the library, and they somehow get into a fierce argument—Ultear is hurting and angry, and he’s honest enough with himself to admit that his own mental state isn’t much better—that Ultear snaps and he finds out.
“My mother abandoned me!” Ultear screams. She doesn’t seem to notice that tears are streaming down her face. “I hate her!”
“Master Ur loved you!” he snaps back. Quieter, he adds, “She thought you were dead. She used to cry, you know, when she thought we weren’t listening. And she never let us touch your room.”
Ultear doesn’t look like she believes him. She slams her hands down on the table, and it crumbles into ashes beneath her fingertips. He’s not sure if that’s the result of the sheer raw might of her magic power, control slipping in the face of her upset emotions, or of the magic she’s trying to learn.
“Liar!” she snarls. “She replaced me with you and that other boy.” There’s a sharp edge to her tone, something jagged and angry enough to draw blood. A desperate, tearing hurt, like everything that mattered had been torn away from her.
Gray blinks, confusion rising up and temporarily pushing aside the anger. “...What do you mean?”
“Don’t lie. I saw you.” Her voice is venomous, but cracking with hurt and grief and betrayal underneath.
“Tell me,” he says and miraculously she does. From there, he learns the whole story, about her high magic levels, the fever, the experiments. The escape, and subsequent betrayal when she saw him and Lyon.
“It seems to me,” he says, cautiously, “that it was that head researcher’s fault. He lied, to you and Ur. I wasn’t lying, earlier: Master Ur truly thought you were dead.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Whether you believe me is up to you. I can’t make you,” he says, although he hopes she does, if only because of how much her resentment towards Ur stings, and maybe she can let go of some of that hurt. Ur is dead and gone, but he thinks she would’ve wanted him to help her daughter. “But I am telling the truth.”
Ultear’s face is carefully blank, dried tear-stains still visible on her cheeks. Her fists are clenched. “...Leave me alone,” she says finally.
He’s startled. “What?”
“Just… go.” She slumps. All the fight seems to have drained out of her, and she looks oddly small, sitting there in the midst of the towering shelves of books. “I need to think.”
Well, he supposes, he did just turn her beliefs on their head. He sweeps up his book. “Okay.” Then, lingering in the doorway, he turns. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
He leaves her alone in the library, looking lost and vulnerable.
They strike up a tentative friendship after that. They’re connected by their bonds with Ur, and once he’s past Ultear’s walls, he finds that she’s someone he wouldn’t mind getting to know. They’re both broken, in their own way, and it… helps, to have someone else who understands.
When enough time has passed that he thinks she won’t fall apart, he tells her Ur is dead. He doesn’t expect her reaction. “I know,” she says simply. He finds out Grimoire Heart’s airship was only so far north because she wanted to check on Ur one last time.
Funny how that works out.
Ur is a link between the two of them, and even in death, she’s brought the two of them together.
Even if Grimoire Heart hadn’t picked him up, in another world maybe, he thinks he would’ve met Ultear sooner or later. Although whether that would’ve been as enemies or allies, he doesn’t know.
In return, Ultear tells him about her plan, about using the Grand Magic World to complete her Arc of Time, about turning back the clock, of a new world, a new past.
“Join me,” she says. “We can go back together. We can be a family again.”
“Why not just undo Iced Shell and live in the present?” he asks.
“We’ve lost too much time. I want to go back, and live it better. Live life how it should’ve been.”
It’s tempting, but Gray’s not quite sure he agrees.
(Later, once his kill-count racks up and his hands become stained with blood, he starts to understand.)
The first time he kills someone, he throws up. When he’s finished, he huddles up against the nearest tree, pale and trembling and vaguely sick. One hand reaches up to grip his necklace, the last gift his parents ever gave him, and it’s… grounding. It’s a reminder, that this is all for a reason, for the Grand Magic world; once Ultear activates a completed Last Ages, he’ll have Ur back, and his parents too.
None of this will matter when Ultear turns time back, he tells himself. It won’t matter. He clings to it, repeats it like a mantra. It helps, a little.
But the guilt doesn’t go away, and neither do the nightmares.
He’s too soft, Ultear’s told him before. He’s starting to think she’s right.
He’s not like Ultear, able to justify doing absolutely anything in the name of the Grand Magic World. He can’t bring himself to just raze entire cities to the ground, the way she and Zancrow and Master Hades have no problem doing. She tells him it won’t matter, not when she turns time back. He’s not so sure he agrees. Killing never gets easier, and he knows that even if time turns back, he will always have the blood of those he’s killed on his hands.
It’s worth it, though, if he could just see Ur alive and smiling once more. (It has to be worth it.)
In time, he gets a pretty good control over Ice Devilslayer magic. The magic is fickle, temperamental in a way his ice-make never is. Sometimes, it feels like a constant struggle to keep the magic leashed under his control. It never quite feels like his, the way his ice-make is. It’s more like an extra weapon, or perhaps a demon he has to keep leashed.
But it is powerful, a raw power that his ice-make can’t match. Gray tests it against Ultear’s own ice-make just to see, and it smashes through her flowers like they aren’t even there.
Master Hades doesn’t smile, but he nods approvingly at his progress.
Gray hates the flutter of warmth, of pride, in his chest at that.
And then on July 7, X777, there’s a powerful surge of magic, so strong that it temporarily strips the airship of its concealing cloak, makes his magic stutter for a second.
A month after that, Master Hades summons him.
“Fairy Tail’s been collecting some interesting figures,” Master Hades says, without preamble. “They have a dragon slayer now, it seems. It may be connected to the magical surge that happened a while back. Which, in turn, may be connected to Zeref.”
“Master?” Gray says, wondering where this is going.
“I feel it is prudent that we keep an eye out on the light guilds. Weak as they are, it would be wise not to underestimate our enemies. I want you to infiltrate Fairy Tail, and report everything back to me.”
Gray blinks. Stares. Surely he hadn’t heard that right. “You want me to what?”
Master Hades calmly stares back. “Infiltrate Fairy Tail,” he repeats, as though it were perfectly normal for one of the Seven Kin to join a light guild of all things, for who knows how long. Standing next to Master Hades, Ultear utterly fails to hide her amusement.
For a second, Gray briefly wonders, why him? but he thinks he knows the answer. Zancrow’s too volatile, too destructive and angry. He’s good for destruction and raw power and little else. Certainly, he doesn’t have enough sense in him to keep up a deception like this or the finesse required to handle such a job. The others are either not strong enough (the majority of their guild) or too new for Master Hades to trust. Rustyrose only joined a few weeks ago, not nearly enough time to ensure his loyalty.
Which leaves only him and Ultear. Out of the two of them, Gray’s pretty sure Master Hades favors Ultear. She’s stronger than him, raw power-wise, and she’s been in Grimoire Heart longer, Hades’ own protégé. Of course the master would keep her close at hand.
If the Grand Magic World will bring Ur back, then he’s resolved to do everything in his power to make that happen. If it means keeping an eye on those who might try to stop them, then so be it.
“Yes, Master Hades,” he says.
Infiltrating Fairy Tail is easier than he’s expecting. Before he leaves, Master Hades casts an illusory spell over his guild mark, one anchored by his necklace. It will hide his devilslayer tattoo, too, Master Hades explains. To ensure the illusion stays in place, he’ll have to be careful not to lose the necklace, especially given his stripping habit (it almost makes him wish he’d gotten his Grimoire Heart guild mark in a place that’s slightly less noticeable). Fairy Tail might be a “light” guild, but Gray’s pretty sure they still won’t take kindly to spies, especially not one from as major a dark guild as Grimoire Heart.
The actual meeting with Fairy Tail’s Master, though proves that at least he could relax some of the paranoia. Fairy Tail is welcoming, and he can’t help find it a bit foolish. Don’t they know that somewhere along the line, someone’s going to take advantage of that? It’s naive. They don’t even ask any questions about his past, no trial or anything. He does ask about Iced Shell, because even if it’s a futile hope at this point, even if he knows the Grand Magic World will undo it, finding an alternative can’t hurt. He doesn’t expect the master of Fairy Tail to know how to undo it, but the disappointment still stings regardless.
He doesn’t even have to ask to join Fairy Tail—the master invites him, asks him to stay. It works out so perfectly that he kind of wants to laugh.
He gets the Fairy Tail guild mark in navy blue on the opposite side of his chest, so that his two guildmarks are side by side—not that the Grimoire Heart one is visible, of course.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” a red-haired girl says. “My name is Erza Scarlet. Welcome to Fairy Tail.”
“I’m Gray,” he says. “I’m glad to be here.” He smiles, the brightest smile he can muster. If Scarlet notices how fake it is, she doesn’t comment.
The dragon slayer is obnoxious, loud and destructive and demanding, and Gray cannot for the life of him figure out why Master Hades would possibly view him as a threat. If it weren’t for the fact that he might be connected to the powerful magic surge on July 7, X777, Gray would’ve written him off as just another idiot. Like Zancrow, but weaker.
But he is undoubtedly connected to that surge; it can’t be coincidence that the dragon slayer’s dragon vanished on the same day. Of course, he could be lying, but Gray is inclined to believe he is telling the truth. Unless the dragon slayer’s had a dragon slayer lacrima implanted into him—unlikely, given how young he would’ve had to been and the really low odds of surviving such an implantation—he would’ve had to learn his magic from an actual dragon. Unlike godslayer or his own devilslayer magic, dragon slayer magic isn’t something that can be learned from a book. (Though how he could’ve, when dragons hadn’t been seen for over four-hundred years, is another story. Just where have him and his dragon been hiding?)
But god if he isn’t the most irritating person Gray’s ever had the misfortune of meeting. Everything about the dragon slayer grates on his nerves, wearing his already very little patience down to nonexistent.
So really, Gray’s not surprised that they come to blows sooner or later. What is surprising is that Fairy Tail’s Master doesn’t seem to have any problems with them beating each other up, just laughs and says boys will be boys. Aren’t light guilds supposed to disapprove of such “senseless violence”?
Then again, Fairy Tail probably isn’t like most light guilds. Master Hades never would’ve sent him if that’s the case. There’s something about Fairy Tail that Master Hades is wary of, something that makes him pause and think they might possibly be an obstacle, and Gray can’t help but wonder what it is. That is what he’s there to find out, after all.
In any case, he’s grateful. It gives him an excuse to vent, to take out his irritation. After a while, he even starts finding the spars fun, and Gray begrudgingly admits that the dragon slayer’s not a half-bad fighter, for all his faults. They’re fairly evenly matched, though Gray sticks to his far weaker ice-make (because it is weaker, for all that it's his favorite of his magics) and doesn’t use his devilslayer abilities. He’s meant to keep a low profile, after all, and showing off an ancient and thought lost magic isn’t conducive to doing that.
It’s too bad. He’s rather curious at how their spars would turn out if he did.
It’s not that Gray dislikes Scarlet, but she can be almost as scary as Ultear at times. It makes him miss Ultear all the more. She’s his handler, sure, his contact to Master Hades, and they talk over lacrima sometimes when Gray gives his monthly updates, but—it’s different, there’s a distance between them now and they don’t talk as much as they used to. He misses his friend, and in ways, Scarlet reminds him of her.
He finds himself avoiding Scarlet as much as he can without making it overtly obvious, those first few months after he joins Fairy Tail.
And then he finds her crying one day on the riverbank and it’s like a punch to the gut. He remembers Ultear, vulnerable and crying after their shouting match (the only time he’s ever seen her that vulnerable), and somehow, he finds himself sitting down next to Scarlet and offering silent comfort.
(What is he doing? He’s not here to make friends—
And yet, somehow he thinks he and Scarlet Erza become friends anyway.)
The first time Fairy Tail’s called in to be reprimanded by the Magic Council, Gray has to fight to keep the surprise from his face. Because lounging on one of the seats is Ultear, and it’s been years but really, he’d recognize her anywhere. He catches her afterwards, waves off Erza’s silent query and tells her it’s fine, I’ve just got something to take care of real quick.
“Ultear, what the fuck, you infiltrated the magic council?” he hisses as soon as they're alone, careful to keep his voice low.
She raises an eyebrow. "What, like that's hard? Their security is honestly pathetic. I bet if a powerful mage wanted, they could just walk in and slaughter every last one of these old coots.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’re here.”
She shrugs, nonchalant. “Master Hades seems to think there’s a key in the Magic Council’s headquarters. Plus, they’ve been sniffing around our business recently, so he’s given me leave to… distract them, so to speak. I’ve taken up a pet project of sorts.”
Ultear never does things by halves. If she’s taken up a “pet project”… “Do I want to know?” he asks, wary.
“Probably not.” She smiles, cool and calm and collected.
He sighs. “We literally just spoke a week ago. You couldn’t have warned me?”
She says, amused, “Now why would I do that?”
The years pass. Somewhere along the way, “the dragon slayer” becomes “flamebrain” and “squinty eyes” and “ash for brains.” And, finally, he just becomes Natsu.
(Gray maybe panics once he realizes how far he’s let Natsu in. They’re not friends. They’re not. They can’t be.
He’s a spy. He shouldn’t be letting them get so close. What will they think, when they find out who he is? He’s a liar and a killer, and he’s afraid of what they’ll see, once they learn the truth.)
Somehow, for some reason, Ultear picks up a kid. Pink-haired and pink-eyed, Meredy is adorably cute, although her borderline fanatical devotion to Ultear is a bit worrying at times. Despite what she’s been through, she’s somehow still sweet and wide-eyed and innocent in a way Gray never was, and Gray thinks that Ultear really does care about her. Little Meredy melts Ultear’s heart, for all that Ultear denies it.
He delights in teasing her about it. “How’s that kid of yours doing?” he asks, amusement coloring his tone.
Ultear flushes. “She’s not my kid,” she protests.
Gray hums. “Sure. Keep telling yourself that.”
One day, Natsu brings back a blond-haired girl named Lucy to the guild. And then Lullabye happens, and somehow Gray finds himself roped into a team with Natsu and Erza and the new girl. He’s not quite sure that’s a good thing, that he’s in a team. Bad enough that he’s somehow fallen into a friendship with Natsu and Erza.
He’s not a team player. He can’t be, not when he’s betraying them all.
(He thinks, sometimes, that he should never have been the one sent on this mission. This would be so much easier if he didn’t care, but. Well. He’s always had trouble not getting attached.)
And then Natsu steals an S-rank quest, and everything starts to unravel.
Galuna is—Galuna is bad, leaves him rubbed raw and exposed, teetering on the edge of a breakdown. Seeing Lyon is a shock; he’s bitter and angry and obsessed, so different from the boy Gray knew and it’s a bit like seeing a mirror of himself. After all, isn’t that exactly what he’s doing? Both of them so fixated on Ur and Deliora, unable to escape their past.
And he’s had doubts, certainly, but he’s always been able to quell them before, but Galuna—well, Galuna makes him really look, and he thinks, Ur never would have wanted this. He stops, doubts. Am I really doing the right thing? (And the answer’s no, he’s known that for years and years but after Galuna, he can’t keep lying to himself. It’s not the right thing to do, but he’s in too deep and he doesn’t know what to do.)
Except there’s no time for a breakdown, because they return to find that Phantom Lord’s demolished the Fairy Tail guildhall, so Gray shoves everything to the back of his mind and just. Locks it away. Concentrates on the here and now, on fighting and defeating Phantom Lord to protect his friends and guild. (And it’s not until after that he realizes—somehow, Fairy Tail’s becomes his, has become his guild just as surely as Grimoire Heart. The realization is terrifying.)
“You were there, on Galuna,” he says.
On the other end of the communication lacrima, Ultear hums. “What makes you say that?”
Gray scowls. “Don’t even try that. You were Zalty, weren’t you? Natsu already told me—” Too late, he realizes his mistake.
“Oh, it’s Natsu, is it?” she says and her tone is light, but her smile is sharp and her eyes are hard. “Careful that you don’t forget where your loyalties lie, Gray.”
He swallows. Dammit, how could he be so stupid? He’s always been careful, before, to refer to his Fairy Tail friends in a distant manner—Erza is Titania or Scarlet and Natsu is the dragon slayer or, later, Salamander. What Ultear doesn’t know she can’t use against him. And she absolutely would use his friendships against him, if she found out how close he’s let them to his heart. Yes, he likes Ultear and considers her a friend (an older sister, if he's honest), but he also knows that she will be the first to kill him if ever she thought his loyalty to the Grand Magic World, to Master Hades, to her, is wavering. She wouldn't even hesitate.
After all, it won’t matter once she turns back time. ( Isn’t that right, Ultear?)
“Why were you there?” Gray asks instead of addressing her thinly veiled threat.
“Isn’t it obvious? Master Hades wanted me to try getting control of Deliora. It would be quite useful to have a demon at Grimoire Heart’s beck and call.”
“I see.”
You didn’t tell me, he thinks and it shouldn’t feel like a betrayal. Nothing says she has to tell him, after all, but still—It’s Deliora, and she knows what the demon means to him, and she didn’t tell him.
What’s happened to “us,” Ultear?
Gray is used to feeling guilt. Disasters born of his mistakes trail in his wake—his parents ( “Run!” he remembers. A piece of rebar. Being shoved a few feet away. A thud), spying on Fairy Tail, Ur—but he hasn’t felt it this acutely in a while. The Tower of Heaven, Erza’s past, is horrifying, and when she describes Jellal and how he changed, well—
Ultear knows possession and transformation magic, after all.
With a sick lurch in his gut, he realizes exactly what her “pet project” was. And—it’s not his fault, he hadn’t known, but—he wouldn’t have, couldn’t have, stopped it, even had Ultear told him. He knows himself, knows just how far he’d go, just how far he had gone, for Grimoire Heart and Ultear and the chance to undo Iced Shell. The him of a couple years back wouldn’t even have hesitated to sacrifice a young, naive boy and crush a girl’s dreams underfoot, for all that he’d have hated it.
But if Erza dies because of this, because of Ultear… well. It wouldn’t break him, but— it’d come close.
The tower explodes, the force of the blast from the Etherion sending their boat flying, waves surging around them. The earth seems to tremble under the might of the concentrated magic.
Gray watches, heart sinking in his throat.
Erza’s still in the tower. Natsu’s still there. For one, horrible, blinding, second, he’s frozen, thinking they’re dead, they’re dead and it’s my fault, mine and Ultear’s—
—but then the moment passes, and the tower’s still standing, and the rush of relief is heady. He practically collapses back on the boat. And it changes nothing—Natsu and Erza are still in the tower, are still facing off against a powerful, mad mage—and yet it changes everything at the same time, because Natsu and Erza are still alive.
He’s gotten too attached, and the torrent of grief and denial and guilt at even the thought of Natsu’s and Erza’s deaths are proof enough.
(What is he supposed to do? He’s a dark mage, one of Grimoire Heart’s Seven Kin, and yet—
Day by day, all of that feels further and further away from what he is, who he is, for all that it’s ever-present. He’s never forgotten that he’s a spy and a traitor, but some days, he’s just—Gray, Fairy Tail mage.
And he can’t help but wonder—what would things have been like, without all the complications and lies (if only by omission)?
What would things have been like, if only Fairy Tail had found him first?)
The Master excommunicates Laxus, and it’s a relief and a blow at once. A relief, because at least this means that he will take a stand, even against one of their own, if they threaten or harm the guild.
But at the same time, Gray watches Laxus’ disappearing back, and wonders what will happen if, when, Fairy Tail finds out what he is, what he’s done. Wonders what their rejection will feel like, for all that he’s brought it upon himself.
“Try and secure Nirvana, if possible,” Ultear says, when he tells her about their approaching clash with the Oracion Seis. “But if not, don’t worry about it. The extra weapon would be nice, but it’s not wholly necessary.”
“Understood,” he says. But—“What Master Hades’ stance on all this? Is Grimoire Heart not going to interfere?” Not that he wants them to, of course, but for them to risk allowing one of the Baram Alliance to fall so easily…
Ultear laughs. “Oh, Gray. You know how it is.” She smiles, dark-edged and sharp. “Let the Oracion Seis fall. I’ve never cared much for Brain anyway.
“Besides, we hardly need such an ally, if they are so weak as to fall to a collection of light guild mages.”
Lyon’s not dead. He’s not. He can’t be.
Gray frantically digs through the rubble, but there’s nothing, no sign of life. The earth trembles, a brilliant beam of light shooting up in the distance—Nirvana unsealing, some part of him notes—but he pays it little mind. This is Lyon, and even after all these years, he’s still his brother.
Lyon can’t be dead, not now, not because he stopped to help in Gray’s fight, a fight he would’ve easily been able to handle if only he weren’t hiding his devilslayer magic.
His secrets, his lies, have cost his brother’s life.
Something dark and ugly wells up inside of him, grief or despair or anger, he doesn’t know, and for the first time in years, his devilslayer magic tears out of him, sweeping across the clearing in a wave of icy destruction. The black ink crawls up his body, further than he’s ever let it get before.
It’s all his fault. Lyon is dead because of him.
But if it weren’t for the Oracion Seis, none of this would’ve happened. The fight wouldn’t have happened in the first place, Lyon wouldn’t have had to intervene. They will pay.
He bats aside the branches that reach for him with ease, freezing them with a flick of his finger and ignoring Sherry’s yelp of pain. It won’t kill her. Trees freeze and shatter in his path, a wave of purple ice trailing in his wake.
Nirvana. They’ll be at Nirvana.
He thinks he hears Natsu’s and Lucy’s voices up ahead, but it’s of no importance. They’ll either get out of his way, or he’ll make them.
A hand grabs his arm. “Gray!” A voice calls, shocked and worried in equal measure.
Gray stops. Blinks to refocus his vision. And that’s— “Lyon?” he says, tremulous and uncertain.
His brother stares back at him, bruised and battered but alive. Lyon’s not dead. Gray didn’t kill him.
“Gray,” Lyon says, tired and worn, but alive. “What are you doing? What is all this?” He gestures around them, at the forest of icicles, at the black markings covering more than half his body, at his demon-violet eyes.
“You’re alive,” Gray breathes. And sways. A rush of relief—except that’s not just relief, is it? His slayer magic recedes, the markings with it, but alongside his devilslayer magic is a foreign dark magic. Nirvana, he realizes, blood growing cold. He replays all his thoughts from the past few minutes, and—
It’s very lucky that Lyon came when he did, stopped him when he did. What could he have done, how much damage would he have wrought, under Nirvana’s influence otherwise?
Especially when Natsu and Lucy are still up ahead.
With a thought, he cancels the rest of his magic, the unnaturally purple ice vanishing as easily as it appeared.
“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” Lyon says dryly. “Though it was a close call. But more importantly, what was that?”
Gray closes his eyes, weary. He’s not going to get out of explaining this. “Ice Devilslayer magic.”
“Ice Devilslayer magic,” Lyon repeats flatly.
“Mm. I picked it up, after—after,” he settles on.
“Then, on Galuna, why didn’t you—?” Why try Iced Shell instead? is the unspoken question.
“Why didn’t I use it? Honestly, I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking, on Galuna. I guess with everything, you threw me off my game. And anyway, I hadn’t used it for years, so it wasn’t really on my mind.” Not to mention the whole aspect of secrecy. Ultear was there, and he wouldn’t put it past her to have killed Lucy and Natsu and Erza, or even Lyon and his group, if it meant keeping his secret. “And Lyon, please don’t tell them.”
There’s no need to clarify who ‘them’ is. Lyon’s gaze sharpens. “Fairy Tail doesn’t know?”
“No,” he confirms.
“...Alright. I’ll keep your secret and tell Sherry to as well. I don’t know why you don’t want to tell your guildmates, but I trust you have your reasons.”
“Thank you,” Gray says, and tries not to let his guilt show.
He doesn’t manage to get Nirvana. Nirvana’s destroyed, and he tries very hard not to let his relief show when he reports it to Ultear.
It feels as though barely any time passes after Edolas when Ultear informs him, “We’re ready to make a move. We’ve found all of Zeref’s keys and located Lord Zeref himself.”
“Where?” he says, and miraculously, his voice doesn’t shake. Because if they’ve found all of Zeref’s keys, that means…
“Tenrou Island,” Ultear says, and he freezes. Tenrou. That’s… that’s Fairy Tail’s sacred ground. It’s where the S-class trials are going to be held this year. Horror and fear curdles in his stomach. The timing couldn’t be worse.
“We’re recalling you,” Ultear continues. “There’s no need for you at your post anymore. Of course, how you choose to leave will be at your discretion.” She flashes him a wicked smirk, inviting him to share in a joke only one of them is feeling. “Have fun with it.”
The lacrima shuts off.
He stares at it in the darkness of his apartment. His time’s up.
Fairy Tail, or Grimoire Heart.
His friends, or Ultear.
Where do his loyalties lie?
If he gives up now—everything, all the death, the blood on his hands, will have been for nothing. (Has he been wrong this whole time? Ur would never have wanted this, he’s always known that, but—he’s done some terrible things for Ultear and for the Grand Magic World. He can’t have been wrong, because then all of it would have been for nothing. Can he accept that? Could Ultear accept that?)
He’s a spy and traitor, except he’s been compromised, because he’s grown far too attached to Fairy Tail.
But at the same time, he can’t just betray Ultear.
He closes his eyes.
What is he supposed to do?