● BLACK ▪ BLUE● ¤Gruvia¤

•11•

JOSE'S THRONE ROOM

She was just screaming, screaming and howling as Totomaru fell.

No.

No.

That's all she thought, no no no.

Gajeel watched paralyzed as she ran to him, wrapping her arms around his body and lifting him up so his head rested against her chest. Even Jose looked horrified.

"Toto…" Juvia stroked his face, smearing the blood coming from his nose and eyes. "Why?" She noticed that his midsection, the place where the spell had hit, it was bleeding too, a gaping hole revealing a mess of red pulp and shards of bone. She put her hand over it, both from desire to try and fail to stop the bleeding, and because she just didn't want to see it.

The fire mage looked up at her, smiling. He patted her tear-stained face, leaving behind streaks of blood. Her blue locks made a curtain around her face, leaving nothing but it in his sight. He loved it.
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PHANTOM LORD GUILD HALL, NINE YEARS PREVIOUS

"Totomaru, c'mon, man. Do another trick for us!" they jeered.

He scowled at them. "I'm not a pony that does tricks whenever you want!"

"Ah, c'mon, buddy."

"Just knock it off. Remember, I could burn you all to a crisp anytime I wanted," he snapped.

They shut up.

Totomaru picked up a fork, twirling it in his grip. The guild hall was as dull as always, guys laughing and drinking and beating each other up, girls flirting in quite a scandalous manner, people threatening and screaming and being miserable. How he hated the guild hall. Nothing exciting ever happened, nothing to entertain him ever went on. Totomaru wanted some good, old-fashioned comedy, entertainment!

"Hey, Gajeel's here!"

"Who's the cutie?"

"Gajeel buy himself a lady?"

Totomaru looked up, standing on the bench to get a look over all their stupid heads. Behind Gajeel was a young lady folding up a pink umbrella, eyes shifting around nervously. She wore a dark blue coat, a fur shawl tied at the chest with a teru-teru bozu (man, he'd loved those as a kid), and a hat topped her tightly curled hair.

His heart stopped.

"Go talk to her," they said later, egging him on.

"Doesn't look like she wants someone to talk to her… She does look lonely, though," he relented.

And he'd slid in next to her on that tiny bench, smiling and holding out his hand. "I'm Totomaru. What's your name?"

She smiled a bit, small, nervous, that was the smile. "Juvia."

He loved that smile.
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"Hey, hey." He coughed out some blood onto Juvia's hand. "Don't… cr...y."

"Toto, why?" she asked again.