VERiTY (Fairy Tail Fanfic)

50. Tower of Heaven.

They ran the tower to the ground.

Between Jura shattering the structure to Eir eliminating every magical golem, there was little in the way. Bacchus dealt with things that looked a little more human, but well, he was contributing. Probably.

"Alright, sweet little children, follow my lead," Queen chuckled, translucent pink string extending from her arm. The slaves behind her warily grabbed onto it, some wincing at how unpleasant it was to touch.

"It's sticky..."

"Uhm, what is this?"

"Ma'am? Why is this... uh... gooey?"

"And pink?"

"Don't be picky!" Queen beamed. From this broken wall on the fourth floor, she'd woven a sticky bridge that led them a straight road down to their ship. "Carefully go down now, in a single file. Don't worry, it might be shaky, but it won't break."

"Uhm. Miss, are you a succubus?"

"Oh, no. I believe I'm more of an arachne?"

An explosion from above shakes the world, and a rupture of debris occur overhead. Bacchus leaps in, a single heeled foot shattering it all into dust. The children scream, surprised– but they look up warily, realizing they were safe.

"Am I a hero now?" Bacchus asks.

Queen smiled. "Knight for the queen, I'll give you."

"Yeah!" Bacchus cheers.

Regardless, with these staying back on the ship, supervising the evacuation efforts– the main force could head on in and head up to the big bad.

-

Eir couldn't handle this place. Jura carried Erza as she led them through the tower, and Eir cleared the path.

Erza looked torn every time she passed a corridor that was familiar to her, and when she heard a scream, she tried her best to cling onto Jura and pretend not to hear it. She had to focus, and she couldn't stop being drawn back into darker days.

"Up those stairs," Erza said, clinging on harder in a way that meant they were getting awfully close to a place of horrid memories. Neither of them missed the way she buried her right side into Jura's shoulder, hiding her once-ruined eye from view.

Eir wanted to just immediately shred this tower to bits. Forget the restraint, forget the masterminds– he could destroy this in an instant. A Wind Bullet or three, he'll do it.

There were roads of rough, medieval-era construction work. There were filthy stables, horrid conditions, and hazards everywhere. There was a hook, a noose, a place where people were hanged and left in the sun.

There was a rack, where people were hung, not to die, but to be tortured. There were lumps of bodies that were only ever cleaned up by being kicked a little further in the direction of the beasts.

(The sounds of chains scraping against the ground.)

(The crack of a whip. A loud, indistinct shout. Explosions, and screams. The lights are overwhelming. The sounds are a blur. The hallways are stained with blood.)

Maybe Eir wasn't handling this place as well as he thought it was. He set a hand on the crusted, yellow brick wall and tried not to throw up. He set a hand on his Fairy Tail mark and tried not to hear the numbers.

("Run if you want, you won't get far," the wielder of fire had smiled and taunted. "You know me. When I see things, I tattle. I wonder what Earth will think if I tell him about it.")