BOOK 4 - Fairy Tail (Pirates) AU: On Magical Tides

CHAPTER VIII: The Jump and the Search

Natsu and the others continued their way through the land and even entered a nearby jungle. Then, Lisanna happened to remember the previous night when Lucy saved her from dying at the hands of a mermaid. She was kind of troubled by this fact since she never actually expected Lucy to do something like that for her.

"I don't understand" Lisanna said. "Why... Why did you save me?"

    "Ah? What are you talking about?" Lucy replied.

    "Last night, you saved my life but... Why did you do it? I thought you were supposed to hate me a lot"

    Lucy startled in surprise and faced downwards with a troubled look. "It's true that I don't like you that much. You kidnapped me and Natsu, and then brought us both here as prisoners. But I couldn't just let you die either. I'm sure Natsu would've done the same thing for you in my position"

    Lisanna widened her eyes at Lucy's words. But then suddenly, Natsu barged into their conversation while bringing up an entirely different topic. "Hey, Lisanna! What was the profane ritual about again?" the pinkette asked. "2 chalices... 1 mermaid tear... and what else?"

    "Oh... It was 2 chalices... 1 with the tear, and the other one without it" Lisanna replied. "The person who drinks the water from the chalice with the tear extracts years of life from the person who drinks from the other chalice"

    "And how many years are we even talking about?" Lucy asked.

    "All of them. All of the years he or she have lived... and the ones he or she could've lived in case his or her fate was any better"

    Natsu and Lucy widened their eyes in shock once more. But then, at one side of the whole group of sailors, the missionary caught everyone's attention by yelling in concern out of nowhere. Turns out the poor mermaid, who was being carried inside a big coffin made of glass, was starting to have trouble breathing inside her tight prison.

    "Hey! Quartermaster!" the missionary yelled. "She's running out of air! She'll die at this pace!"

    "She has water" the masked officer replied.

    "Are you a fool?! She needs air!" The honest missionary stole the masked officer's sword at that moment and used it to create a small aperture in the tight coffin. Now the mermaid was finally able to breathe once more, but the officer was more than just angry with the missionary. "Told you so"

After that, the masked hypnotised officer took back his sword at last. And as the beautiful mermaid and the kind-hearted missionary stared directly at each other for a while longer, they all finally continued their long way towards the fountain of youth.

<<A few minutes later>>

    The crew had finally reached a sudden dead end in between their path: a very tall cliff with a completely broken bridge which was supposed to take them all to the other side of such cliff. There was a river at the very bottom of the pit with a bunch of big rocks. But what really mattered at that moment was that there was no way for the crew to continue their way without going around through the east.

    "So... What now?" Lisanna asked.

    "I guess we are gonna have to go all around the river" Natsu replied. "Unless you see any other way through this deadly pit"

    "That would take us days to reach the fountain"

    "Well... I'm not the one who brought the annoying mermaid with us"

    "Someone must go!" Hades suddenly claimed.

    "You mean jump? Heh... I cannot wait to see the moron who'll do it"