Burning Bridges

Sayonara, Minna

A/N: For those who don't know Japanese, "sayonara, minna" means "goodbye, everyone."
さようなら、みんな

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Magnolia had an eerie silence this early in the morning. The sky was still mostly black, stars struggled for survival, yet a purple bruising on the horizon foreshadowed their coming doom at the arrival of the Day Star. Mist threaded through lanes and alleys like spiderwebs, muting what little noise there was: matutinal birds, a rat scurrying away from a hungry cat, a policeman on patrol, an owl heading home after a night of hunting. All was touched with the sickly gray-green hue of a dying night and the umber glow of streetlights.

Through this dark silence, policemen and cats and birds felt an uncharacteristic iciness pass by like a sudden breath of winter in the middle of summer. Some heard the soft, slow footsteps, or the sound of a sniffle, yet in the misty darkness, not many actually saw Gray Fullbuster as he plodded forward.

His heavy boots took him along a path he knew by heart. He had walked this road thousands of times over who-knows-how-many years. He knew each crack in the sidewalk and each pothole in the street. He knew the smells of the flower shop as he passed by it without stopping, and the reek of fish from one of the canneries. Without even looking, he dropped a coin at the feet of a homeless man he knew always slept in a certain alley, and he avoided another alley that had a dog ready to bark at anyone who walked by. This early in the morning, that dog would wake up half the neighborhood.

Finally, the Fairy Tail building rose like a dream castle. Misty spiderwebs held it like a chained prisoner to this city. It was a place Gray once thought of as home, but now he was breaking all those threads, cutting through the misty chains as he walked closer and closer. The wispy fog broke at his passing and curled behind him like ghostly fingers beckoning him to stay a little longer.

When he opened the main doors, there was already warmth and musical humming inside. He was glad it was not totally silent. For how rowdy the guild hall could be when filled, it could seem as grim as a sepulcher when empty. One person was already there. Mira always stayed latest and arrived earliest. Gray wondered sometimes if she ever actually went home, or if maybe she had a futon in one of the back rooms.

She looked up and grinned widely with her blue eyes sparkling. "Good morning, Gray! You're up unusually early. Couldn't sleep? Bad dream? Can I fix you tea?"

"Tea would be nice," he muttered. He shut the squeaking, heavy doors behind him and slowly came forward. "And you, Mira? The sun's not even up, yet you're already working."

"To be honest, I haven't gone to bed," she laughed lightly. "Today's supposed to be my day off, but the Thunder God Tribe were up all night drinking, so I figured I should clean up now before Kinana comes in for her shift."

"Oh...I see," he muttered. "People really love to party for no reason here."

"That's why we love this guild," she tittered brightly.

Gray looked down with a depressing aura. "Yeah...we're crazy and do stupid things, sometimes we're so destructive we even hurt innocent people, yet somehow we rarely get in trouble for it."

"Master has gotten really good at keeping the wilder members out of jail," she said loyally, her voice filled with admiration for her mentor and master.

Gray looked away and glanced around at the Fairy Tail banners. He mumbled to himself, "I wonder how far that asylum would go."

Mira did not catch his words and hummed curiously, but Gray decided not to repeat himself.

"We're a destructive group, but Fairy Tail has always been a shelter where I feel safe. I can't ever imagine leaving it. I wonder...how will that feel, doing something like that?"

Mira smiled warmly and handed him some tea. "Are you already feeling homesick about your upcoming mission? I heard it's rather far away. For those of us who stay in the guild mostly, it sometimes feels like the rest of you are leaving, only to change your minds and come back."

"At least, after missions, you know we'll come back," he pointed out. "Also, when we go on those long journeys, we look forward to returning home. What I mean is...what would it be like, to walk out those doors knowing you'd never return? I wonder what Loke felt like when he quit. I don't know many people who actually quit Fairy Tail. I can't even imagine it," he whispered with his brows pulled down low.

"What would you miss most?" she asked conversationally.

Gray thought about it as he sipped his tea. "I'm not sure if I can pick one thing. It's like asking a person what they like most about their lover. A casual lover might be able to list one single trait, but a true, deep, eternal lover could never list just one trait. You love everything about that person."

Mira leaned in with wide, glittering, blue eyes. "Are you speaking from experience, Gray?"

He dropped his head and blushed. "M-maybe," he mumbled.

"That's so sweet!" she giggled, almost squealing, except it was too quiet in the guild hall for that sort of loud noise.

"So...what if you had to leave that person?" Gray went on. "What if you had to walk away from that person—that place—that thing that means more to you than life itself?"

"Would you really be able to walk away?" Mira asked. "Even if you have to be separated for a while, you always come back to the guild. The trying times end, you emerge stronger, and you come back to party all night long, like Laxus did last night."

"Exactly. So how would it feel to walk out those doors knowing you'd never walk back in?" Tears began to gather in his eyes, and he dropped his head so his fringe would hide them. "It'd probably feel like you were carving a piece of your heart out and tossing it aside."

Mira began to grow worried for him now. It was obvious Gray was troubled by something.

He shrugged it off. "Sorry for rambling. I was up all night, didn't sleep a wink, just thinking about stupid things." He drank the last of the tea and set the cup down. Then he placed a few Jewels on the table to pay. "Thanks for the tea and talk, Mira. It's what I needed."

Gray rose and walked to the doors again. He pulled them open to see that the world outside was a little brighter. Pausing, he stared out at the misty webs that tried to hold him in this place. His brow furrowed with silent troubles, and he looked back at the white-haired lady.

"Sayonara, Mi-...-a" His voice faded to almost nothing, so she did not catch the last syllable. Then Gray left and quietly shut the door behind him.

Mira pouted at the troubled look on Gray's face. She wished he would open up more to her. Everyone knew Gray iced his emotions until they cracked and exploded. She figured this must be about Natsu and Lucy. He had challenged Natsu to a fight. She realized, she should have asked how the duel went. Had it gone bad? Gray had not looked beaten up.

She shrugged it off. He would speak when he was ready. Mira could try to pry secrets out of the guild members, but she never pestered them obnoxiously. She let them speak when they were ready, then urged on for the juicier bits that they withheld due to propriety's sake. Gray would talk when he sorted out his troubles on his own. That was the kind of person he was.

She glanced down at the money he left behind. Under the Jewel note was a piece of paper folded and addressed to her. She opened it, read Gray's messy handwriting, and suddenly gasped with tears filling her horrified eyes. She realized now what Gray said just before leaving.

It wasn't "Sayonara, Mira."

He said "Sayonara, minna."