Way Back Home | 家に帰る途中

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"Okay." Mavis said, and that was it.

She didn't try to ask for her reasoning or ask her how she could not want to stay in the world that is her home, she just accepted it. As if she was already expecting that to be Lucy's answer, she didn't pry any further and simply moved on to trying to find a way back.

Lucy, who was prepared to answer a barrage of questions for her response, was left confused and a little baffled. "You're not going to ask me why?" She asked hesitantly.

"Do you want me to?" Mavis tilted her head.

"No, not really..." Lucy trailed off, not quite sure where to go from there.

"Then I don't see why I would." The smaller of the two said, as if that was the most obvious response ever. "Now, I do think the others are going to wake up soon," she said, looking at Natsu's body beginning to twitch back to life, "and I'm sure they would have a lot more questions for you than I do, so shall we try to find a way to get you back there before that happens?" She suggested, beckoning Lucy to come deeper into the island with her.

When Lucy asked (once she was finished being in awe of the First Master) why they were moving, Mavis simply smiled cheekily at her and said, "to give us some more time before they find us," and Lucy couldn't help but feel beyond overjoyed that the Mavis Vermillion was such an amazing person.

- - - - -

They ended up walking to the other side of the island, knowing that if they only went to the center of the island that they would quickly be found out by Natsu who would most definitely be able to smell her scent.

"Where do we begin?" Lucy asked once they settled on some rocks, her panic mostly subsided by now and replaced by trying to find a way back.

"Hm, you said you had a Djinn from the other word, right? Do you think you can summon it? If it's the one who brought you and team Natsu back here, it might know how to reverse it." Mavis speculated, tapping her chin in thought.

Lucy is glad she decided to tell Mavis the whole story about what happened—this solution seems so obvious now that Mavis said it but she, in her panic riddled mind, would never have been able to think of it.

"Or, if that doesn't work, your Spirit, Leo, was able to cross between worlds to act as a messenger and you were able to go from the Spirit world to that world too, so if the Djinn can't help, we could always try that out."

Another solution, Lucy thinks, that she should have noticed (especially since she's already done it before) but would once again never have thought of it as quickly as Mavis just did with knowing barely anything about how her powers work.

"We could also—" she started again, about to give Lucy a backup plan for her backup plan. The First Master really is amazing.

"I'll summon the Djinn for now," Lucy stopped her, not wanting the smaller woman to waste her effort on thinking of so many different ways back if these first few end up working.

"Ah, okay." Mavis stopped without question, crossing her legs atop a rock.

Now, Lucy thinks, to summon the Djinn. But how exactly does one summon such an all-powerful being? Maybe Lucy shouldn't have been so quick to agree to this, but being a Celestial Spirit mage, Lucy obviously has plenty of experience in summoning, typically done with ethernano and the Spirits' key, and not with rukh (she thinks its calls).

Think back on what you learned from Sinbad and Kouen, she thinks to herself again. The Djinn should have some kind of medium, so can't she just treat it like one of her keys?

Trying to test it out, she placed her hand atop the pendant, trying to feel its presence within it. Once she could faintly feel something, she took a deep breath and tried to hold onto the lingering presence. It was a bit of a struggle, with her brows knit together in concentration, but she eventually was able to feel her magic grab onto the familiar presence. Not wanting all of her work until now to be for nothing, she concentrated harder, making sure she had a firm grip on the presence before she pulled, her magic forcing it to separate into its own, separate form from the pendant in front of her.

Peaking with one eye, she let out a sigh of relief when she noticed its large, blue form standing in front of her.

"You know you don't have to do all that to summon me." He said once Lucy wiped a bead of sweat off of her forehead. "You can just call my name and put a bit of magic into the pendant and I'll come out. That whole splitting my corporeal self apart was highly unnecessary."

Lucy merely shrugged it off. How was she supposed to know it was that easy? She got him here and that's all that matters.

"You were the one who brought me here, right?" She asked, wanting to confirm that he did indeed bring her here and that it wasn't something else entirely.

Beleth nodded, "you asked me to bring you back so I brought you to the last place you were in this world." He paused for a second, "but I'm guessing you didn't want me to?"

Lucy sighed and gave a slight nod. "I meant for you to take me out of the dungeon and send the rest of the people I was with back to this world but I should have been more specific."

The Djinn looked at her apologetically and Lucy frowned. He shouldn't need to feel bad about this—especially since he was only doing what she asked of him. "Do you think you can send me back?" She asked hopefully, silently hoping that he wouldn't ask why she didn't want to stay in her own world.

He didn't, thankfully and looked at her, determined. "I can—no, I will send you back since I'm the one who messed up."

"But?" Mavis chimed in for the first time, noticing a bit of hesitation in his voice.

"But it will take a little bit for me to gather enough power to do so. This world barely has any rukh and it requires a lot to traverse worlds."

Since it would take a while for him to gather enough rukh, Lucy knows that she can just ask her Spirits for help, but she won't. She can tell he feels bad for messing up and though she doesn't blame him for it (she should have clarified) she can tell he blames himself, and she's not going to take away his chance at making things right, even when, to her, he doesn't need to.

"Alright, how much time do you think it will take?"

Beleth winced a bit. "It should take, at most, a few days."

That is... a lot longer than she was hoping. There's no way she would be able to avoid Team Natsu for that long, but looking at how determined Beleth was, she couldn't help but agree.

"Okay then. A few more days in this world it is." She said, knowing she didn't feel even close to as calm as she sounded.

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A/N: I believe that we should all ignore how long this chapter took to come out. Wdym it's been three months, it's only been a few weeks... honestly though, I will make sure that the next chapter comes out soon. Like, before the end of August soon. But anyways, hope you enjoyed <3

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