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Scarlet always looked the loveliest against a sharp, merciless shade of blue. The contrast brought out the full richness of its vibrancy, more majestic than any sunset, brighter than rose petals, deeper than blood. Jellal couldn’t help himself from threading his fingers through the strands of Erza’s hair as she thrashed against the bind snake. Nothing in the world would ever compare in beauty to that colour he loved and hated.
Erza let out a cry of pain. Bit by bit, the lacrima absorbed her body, ivory skin and purple bruises washed blue. He always preferred her red a little tainted.
Her hair slipped through his fingers as the crystal pulled her in. Her feet lost their grip on the crystal floor. Agony twisted her features, and yet she’d never been more beautiful.
Jellal ached to reach out and caress her cheek this time, but he managed to contain himself. He wouldn’t have been able to feel her skin through his gloves, anyway.
“I really did love you, Erza.” It tasted like a confession, even though it had never been a secret.
Curses spilled from her lips, cracked like the rest of her. Her arm—the one the lacrima hadn’t taken yet—strained against the bind snake, muscles taught, fingers stretching, looking for purchase.
Jellal shook his head. He really should stop admiring her and bring the ritual to a close. He raised his arms and invoked Lord Zeref’s name. At his words, the power of Etherion stored into the lacrima pulsed, flowing through the height of the tower, up towards the sky.
Erza gritted her teeth. “Jellal…” she heaved.
He regarded her with his hands in his pockets. Freckles dusted her nose and cheeks—she didn’t use to have those when they were children, her skin chalk white from working and sleeping in the bowels of the dark tower. Her fleeting freedom had gifted her a healthy tan and that smattering of freckles he craved to connect into a constellation.
Despite Erza’s betrayal, he would miss her when she became one with the lacrima, her body fragmented into molecular particles that would reform into Lord Zeref’s vessel. He would miss haunting her thoughts, tormenting her with ghosts of the past and nightmares of the present. The world would be washed with the light of true freedom, but it would lose the radiance of his favourite colour. There would never be another shade of scarlet that ensnared him and tortured him like she did.
“Jellal!” Erza screamed his name—in rage, in hurt, in sorrow, who could tell. Jellal only knew that he wanted to watch her die with his name on her lips.
Tears streaked her cheeks. One fell down her chin and into the lacrima that had sucked her in all the way to her collarbone. That defiant hand, wrapped in the coils of the bind snake, still emerged from the crystal. Jellal wished he had the time to trace the faint scar around her wrist. His own itched.
The lacrima ate her shiny earring, the strands of hair around her face. Glossy brown eyes widened at him. Even in the coldest nights, they’d always been warm. Erza opened her mouth and the lacrima swallowed her whole.
She floated away into the blue, a butterfly crystallised in amber. Not scarlet anymore.
The hum of magic energy filled the space as the Tower of Heaven glowed, blinding against the midnight blue sky. Its arms shook, stone fracturing with the immensity of two hundred and seventy million edea—and Erza.
Erza.
Jellal blinked. Something clicked in his brain, as if a jammed cog had loosened. The feeling of invisible threads unfurling from around his body slithered over his skin. He shook it off with a shiver. That was his imagination.
Still, it left him unbalanced. Jellal stumbled and leaned against a pillar to keep himself standing.
He was in the Tower of Heaven. Right. Of course. The tower had been his project for the past eight years. After the slave revolt, he’d gotten rid of the few remaining cultists and taken over. He wanted to revive Lord… Zeref. He wanted to revive Zeref. The Black Mage had promised him true freedom.
His hands shook. It took Jellal a moment to realise that it was all of him, quivering like a leaf in the wind.
The Tower of Heaven. Zeref. Freedom. The words circled in his head, and every time they sounded a little more insane to his ears. He didn’t want to revive Zeref. He didn’t want whatever freedom the ghost of the evillest dark mage to ever live had to offer. He had all the freedom he needed the moment Erza came for him in the torture room. They could’ve fled the tower with the rest of their friends.
Why didn’t he flee the tower with them?
Jellal buried his fingers in his hair, tugging hard enough to hurt. He could not have wasted eight years of his life on that plan. He couldn’t have betrayed his friends, lied, manipulated, murdered, tormented Erza for—
Erza.
He whirled around, heart hammering his ribs, and staggered towards the lump of lacrima Erza had disappeared into. A distant part of him registered that the floor was cracking beneath his feet. Etherion’s power was unleashing from its container and the crystal couldn’t handle the pressure. Jellal didn’t care as he pressed his gloved palms where Erza had last stared at him in horror.
His stomach churned. He’d enjoyed the fear he provoked in her. How could he? The sole idea of causing Erza pain was a dagger to the heart.
And yet… and yet he’d trapped her and watched while the lacrima absorbed her. He replayed those instants and it felt like witnessing another man’s memories. Like he’d woken from a fever dream and realised all at once that the distortion of sleep wasn’t reality. Except he’d been lucid all along. Lucid enough to…
Erza. A dry sob rattled his chest. He clawed at the smooth surface of the lacrima. She was nowhere to be seen. She was…
Dead. Because of him. He’d killed her. He’d killed Erza. He couldn’t have. He loved Erza. He loved the kind girl who had given him light in the midst of a nightmare and he loved the woman she’d grown into, fierce and brave and still gentle underneath her armour.
“No.” The lacrima blurred before his eyes. Its brilliance drowned out the stars that dotted the night sky. Jellal fell to his knees. “No, I… I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to kill her.”
There was no benevolent god to lift him up; to pardon his crimes; to bring back Erza. Only his tower crumbling around him.
Large chunks of crystal snapped in half and plunged into the sea. The plan had failed—the R-System wasn’t reviving Zeref, instead collapsing in on itself. Good. Let his accursed castle fall apart. It was almost as good as tearing himself to pieces. He wished Erza had run her sword through him; she would be alive and he dead like he deserved. Fate had gotten their roles all wrong.
Trembling, Jellal rested his forehead against the lacrima and closed his eyes. He pictured scarlet. He had ripped colour from this world.
“Erza,” he whispered amidst the roar of the tower tumbling down around him. He wanted to die with her name on his lips.