● BLACK ▪ BLUE● ¤Gruvia¤

°16°

Guild Hall Library
Levy frowned and searched the rows and rows of books in the guild library, standing on her tiptoes to get better looks at some. Gajeel and Gray watched. The ice mage anxiously drummed his fingers on the table, looking at the boards and strings of documents and pictures Levy had strung up in hopes of organization.

The script mage squinted across the room at one of the pictures, then crinkled her nose when it didn't match the book in her hand. "Lavian really is an old language. Ev-kun was right. I'm having zero luck finding a book with it."

"I'll go anywhere you need," Gray said, trying to be calm. "I'll head over into town and check the stores there, or I'll even go into other cities."

Levy smiled, glad to finally see Gray expressing some of his emotions, even if it wasn't much. "No, I think it will be okay. I've barely looked all the way through the library; I've got shelves and shelves more to go. And as soon as Juvia comes back with Ev-kun, or Ev-kun comes back with some information, we'll be able to get through this in no time. That is, if Juvia knows anything."

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LOCKSER MANOR LIBRARY

Juvia's dark eyes were starting to hurt from reading.

The young mage scoured book after book, looking for something to help her. Something to keep Jose away, something to keep Tempest inside her, something to counteract rituals. Anything, really. Anything to give the world some hope.

"Young Mistress!" called out the librarian, a tall, dashing man. "I've found more documents on your family history."

"Please bring them over, Mason," she responded. Her eyes were still as dull as they had been the past two months. Had the incident really only happened that short of time ago? It felt like longer. "Maybe Juvia can find something in there..."

But there was nothing in those documents, either. Nothing but garbled languages she didn't understand and faded words, gone with years. Juvia resisted the urge to knock all the books and scrolls to the floor, but she instead buried her face in her hands and squeezed her fingernails into the side of her head, taking in the sweetness of the pain.

Breathing deeply, Juvia tried again, skimming through the closest to helpful information she'd found: Multiple rituals could be performed to counteract the seal, though all of them are hard to perform and are considered illegal magic. Rarely have these methods been studied.

And that was all. The knowledge that the rituals were dark and illegal magic wasn't going to help Juvia in the slightest. Jose certainly didn't care what kind of spells they were, he had no restrictions, no conscious, no filter to tell him what was good and what wasn't.

Her lips wobbled, tears threatening to come on. Why did she have to do this? All Juvia wanted was to go back to being a Fairy Tail mage, fighting and laughing and having fun with her friends-her family- instead of being given a burden such as this. The fate of the entire world was on Juvia's skinny shoulders, and she didn't like it one bit.

"Ma'am?" a cute young maid- Lizzie, she'd said her name was- said, knocking on the doorway to announce her presence. "Young Mistress, there's someone-"

"Who?" Juvia asked anxiously. Who was it? Jose in disguise? A spy? "If it's no one Juvia knows, Juvia will not-"

"A woman, ma'am," Lizzie assured. "She seems to be a member of your guild. She has the stamp right here." The maid pointed to her right bosom. "It seems that she needs to urgently speak with the Young Mistress."