In the middle of their battle with Lucifero, a portal opened up beneath Asta and Liebe, sending them to another world. They soon find themselves stranded on Tenrou Island, and had been living there for some time. Then, one day, they encounter a youn...
It's been 8 months since Liebe and I had found ourselves on this island, and my brother had become incredibly more skilled in combat after training with me. He already knew how to do the spells I developed by watching me use them while he was sealed in my grimoire, what he needed was combat training. I even taught him how to read Ki so that he can improve better. We would often go into the woods to hunt for food and get some practice.
One day, while we were hunting in the forest, we sensed the Ki of someone else and it was as strong as the Wizard King when he still had his full power, if not stronger. Liebe and I looked at each other and nodded. We decided to look for the source of this powerful Ki. We walked for a few minutes before we reach the source. It was a young man about our age, taking a nap under a tree. He had jet black hair, wearing high collared, red and tan robes with gold trim, and large white sash like clothe draped over his torso.
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This was the first time we encountered another person since we came to this world, so we were curious about who this is and what the world was like outside this island. We walked up to him and I said, "Excuse me?" He woke up and he looked at us and panicked for some reason and backed away quickly. I said to him, "Woah, easy. Sorry to scare you like that, but we were curious about why you were here?" Liebe and I tried to take a step forward and the man shouted, "DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!!!" We stopped and suddenly all the trees and grass around him started to quickly wilt and die. We were surprised by this and the man said, "Sorry, but it's best that you both don't get any closer to me. My curse takes the lives of all around me, so I'm forced to stay away from people to ensure that I don't kill anyone." 'A curse that takes the lives of all around him? I feel like I read about something like that in the library.' I thought.
"Ankhseram Black Magic, huh?" The man was surprised by this and the two of us looked to the one who said it, Liebe. He went to say, "An ancient curse known as the Curse of Contradiction. The more you care for life, the more the curse takes it from those around you, although if you don't care about life, you won't take any lives. And to make it worse, it prevents the victim from ever dying. A terrible curse, and I once knew someone with one similar." The man replied with a look of surprise still present on his face, "Someone with a curse similar to mine? May I ask who?" Liebe answered, "My foster mother, Licita. She had a curse that drained the magic power and life force from anyone and anything around her, she couldn't control it and unlike you, she was still able to die." He said the last part with sadness in his voice.
The man looked down in sadness and said, "I'm sorry about your loss. And no offense, I never thought I would hear a demon care for another." Liebe replied, "No offense taken, but I'm not a demon. More accurately, I'm a Devil, much to my dislike." "A Devil? Then, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding." The man nervously said. "No need to apologize at all." Liebe said. The man's expression then shown that he realized something and he asked, "By the way, earlier you said your foster mother had a similar curse to mine, but how were you able to be around her without dying?" It was a good question, which Liebe answered, "I was born without magic power like Asta here, so she couldn't siphon my power, and the reason why she couldn't steal my life force is likely because I'm a Devil, a being born in the underworld, the land of the dead. Since I'm from the underworld, I'm technically not a living being, so that made it impossible for her curse to kill me." After saying that, Liebe started walking towards the man and I followed behind. The man got scared and said, "Stop, stay away!!" As we got closer, I noticed that I didn't feel anything, I wondered why that was until I realized that the man's curse was still a form of magic, and since I have a contract with Liebe, Anti-magic courses through my body just like his, so this power is canceling out the effects of the Curse of Contradiction. The man noticed that we were still alive despite being so close to him. When we got right in front of him, we reached out our hands and Liebe introduced us, "My name is Liebe. As I said earlier, this is Asta." The man smiled and shook our hands, saying, "I'm Zeref Dragneel, pleasure to meet you two." We replied, "Nice to meet you too, Zeref."
Timeskip
(Liebe's p.o.v.)
A few hours after meeting Zeref, we've become fast friends. Truth be told, I still resent most humans for the discrimination they've shown towards me when I was a kid, but Zeref, he's different than most humans, he's just a victim of a cruel curse like Licita. That's probably the reason why I didn't hate him at the start.
As spoke to Zeref, we told him about us being from another world and how we ended up on the island which we now know as Tenrou Island, sacred ground to the wizard guild called Fairy Tail. He seemed to believe it. He said that he sensed no lies in our words. Afterwards, he told us more about the ways of this world since the books we had access to were a couple of centuries old, so the info may have been outdated. During our chat, I decided to ask one of the questions that had been nagging me for a while, "Zeref, if you don't mind me asking, how did you get cursed in the first place?" There was a moment of silence until Zeref replied sorrowfully, "That's a long and tragic story." Asta said, "You don't have to tell us if you don't want to. We don't want to bring up any bad memories." "No, it's alright. Since this is the first conversation I've had in many years, this may be a good time to confess my sins." Our new friend replied. He took a deep breath and started to explain how he was stricken with the Curse of Contradiction.
