Keeping Secrets

A Raincheck On My Demise

Alright, so here we are. I'm happy I was able to finish this because my wife is being induced in two days. If she makes it that long :D

Anyways, hope you enjoy!

Chapter title taken from the song of the same name by Nightingale

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KEEPING SECRETS CHAPTER 31: A RAINCHECK ON MY DEMISE

He had been careless.

For just a moment, August had been in awe. After so long, the impossible had become reality. He was holding his mother's unconscious, but alive, body in his arms.

Then, a chill swept through the room. He had been so fixated on his mother that he barely noticed it. It would have been easy to intercept what had come, but for the first time in his life, August had been distracted.

He looked up just in time to hear the sickening sound of flesh being torn apart and see a blade of blackened ice erupt from his uncle's torso.

This isn't happening!

The perpetrator wrenched his blade free, letting Natsu's limp, blood covered body drop to the floor.

THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!!!

That ice devil slayer from Fairy Tail had an infuriating look of triumph on his face. "Good riddance, E.N.D," he sneered. "To be honest, I was expecting more out of you."

Something inside August snapped.

"NO!!!!" He roared, his magic surging with his grief, shaking the very walls.

August's cry startled Gray, but his face hardened, and he started to advance towards August.

FOOL. August quickly nudged Jacob, who was equally bewildered that he hadn't been able to react to the Fairy Tail mage in time. He gently gave his comrade his mother's body. If he wasn't o Sumer with rage, he would have been shocked about Jacob not making a fuss over 'indecency' for once.

"If you really think we're gonna let you walk-"

The ice mage's threat was cut off as August seized him with telekinesis. "SILENCE!"

An invisible force tightened around Gray, crushing him. He let out a strangled scream.

"GRAY!" A woman's voice rang out.

August barely spared a glance at the group of mages who had burst into the chamber- Fairy Tail and Crime Sorciere had arrived, no doubt having followed their guildmate. The blue haired woman who had called out charged forward, her magic flaring.

"Water slice-"

August snarled as he released the full force of his magic aura at the hostile mages.

The moment his power surged, the enemy mages crashed to the floor, unable to stand against the sheer force that radiated off August. Even the former wizard saint he recognized, Jellal Fernandes, was unable to push off the weight of the suffocating magic pressure bearing down on him.

He turned his burning gaze back to the ice mage struggling in his invisible grasp.

"HOW DARE YOU! YOU WILL SUFFER WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO HIS HIGHNESS ONE HUNDRED-FOLD!"

He clenched his fist, and a sickening snap echoed throughout the chamber as Gray howled in pain.

"ONE DOWN, TWENTY-THREE TO GO!" August bellowed.

He squeezed again, another rib snapping. He knew it was wrong. He knew he shouldn't, not after what he promised his uncle.

But now Natsu was dead. And this ice mage- this murderer- with a vendetta against his family had taken him away.