You Are The Light In My Darkness

Chapter 37

It's dark.

A suffocating, overbearing kind of darkness that forced out every shred of light and made her veins throb.

It smells like blood.

She tasted the metallic liquid at the back of her throat. It clogged her nostrils and filled her mouth, a heavy scent that she couldn't spit out.

I can't feel anything.

Somewhere in her consciousness she knew that her eyes were open, but the black nothingness before her was akin to having them closed.

Someone save me.

▪️▫️♥️▫️▪️

Blood dripped from the split in Minerva's lip as she grimaced, trying to get up while the Dragon Slayer's black stiletto heel pressed down on her heaving chest.

Dull aquamarine replaced the cerulian blue of her long locks, her eyes an incandescent violet. The Rainbow Dragon Slayer had undergone a full transformation, personality and appearance alike.

Gritting her teeth, Minerva spat a curse, annoyed at having to reveal her trump card so soon. But she knew that she wouldn't have a chance to use it at all if she didn't escape the crazed Dragon Slayer soon.

"Territory!" With her command, Kasumi's foot was suddenly atop thin air, the Dark Guild member now a few meters away from her. Without looking back, Minerva repeated the spell, making her retreat to the safety of her guildhall.

▫️▪️♥️▪️▫️

If Minerva had turned back to look at Kasumi, she might have seen the girl's flashing purple orbs change into a blank cerulean.

However, the Fairy Tail wizard was still trapped in the abyssal depths of her mind while the darkness slowly seeped out of her being.

"Don't...worry...I will..."

'W-what?' Kasumi flinched, turning toward the source of the crackling, breaking voice. "Who's there?" She asked tentatively, stretching unseen fingers into the distance.

"I will...always..."

In the shadows, Kasumi found herself wanting to reach out to that feminine voice. It was a fleeting sound, so close and yet so far. She shouldn't have heard this voice before, and yet it was painfully familiar. There was something, a word that was stuck in her throat, right before her lips, trying to call out. But nothing was heard except a soft song that now replaced the woman's broken sentences.

"Hmm? It seems that that scrap has run out of energy for me to consume." 'Kasumi' murmured, watching as her long, sharp claws dyed an inky indigo faded back into the normal nails of her previous form. "Oh well..." The thing in the Rainbow Dragon Slayer smirked, licking her lips slowly as she turned toward the direction Minerva had fled toward, feeling the faint demonic presence at the woman's destination. "If things progress as they are, I will eventually gain this body again."

"And even you won't be able to control me, Inazuma."

▫️▪️♥️▪️▫️

Kasumi woke to the dampness on her cheek and her exposed skin, finding herself lying side-down on the ground. She was surprised to find the ice melted, but composed herself and reached out via magic to search for her fellow guildmates. Seeing their respective magic signals respond to her, she sighed a breath of relief and snapped her fingers, drawing the excess water clinging to her to her fingertip. "Demons, huh." She breathed, still unaware of the terror that she had she had caused Minerva mere minutes ago, though she felt a nearly uncontrollable magic power welling up and swirling inside her. Taking a deep breath, she pressed her palm to the ground, and sent the amassing Ethernano back into the earth, filling the living beings connected to this land with her magic power.

Her eyes widened when she felt another resonance within her. A Dragon.

"Atlas?!" Kasumi gasped, immediately snapping her gaze in the direction she sensed him. However, a sadness filled her when she felt a burning sensation on her upper right arm. She already knew what had happened, but she still lifted her sleeve to check. On her pale skin, an insignia of a ring of fire was engraved in bright scarlet, and as the warmth subsided, so did the mark. "I see...so you're no longer here, old friend." 

'When a Dragon under a Queen or King dies, its soul returns to its master, and so does its powers,' Spherenial had told Kasumi once, long ago. 'As the retainer of my soul, you who could already use the Dragon's magic, will also receive its full power.'

Kasumi closed her eyes, clasping her hands together as fire encircled her, rising in a steady power towards the heavens. For a second, her eyes glowed in a gold as bright as Atlas Flame's as she opened them.

"Rest well within me, Atlas."

▫️▪️♥️▪️▫️