Fairy Tail: Black Blood [Book 2/2]

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Welcome to Hell

[A/N]: Too lazy to revise and edit, I'm sorry. Oh, also, this chapter is gonna be pretty long so... BEWARE! Haha! Enjoy!!!

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Natsu

     The tunnel was long and narrow and smelt of death. The terrible mask of decay stung at my enhanced nose and many times during this long walk I've had to stop for a moment and puke. My throat burned, my vision was getting cloudy, and the further down I went the more and more unsure I felt about this. Was Seilah right that we shouldn't have come here? All my allies are nearly dead thanks to my ignorance and now I'm going down here to face not only the god of the underworld, but the god of life and death himself. Hades and Ankseram. I looked over my shoulder again and saw that the entrance was far behind me, even with my demon eye I cannot see it.

    There's no returning now... I felt my gut twist sickly. When I wrote my goodbye to everyone... was it really going to be my last? I thought the sooner I got this over with, the sooner I'd get home. But now I wasn't so sure. Will I live to see anyone I love ever again? Will I ever live to tell everyone just how much I loved them? Will I ever go back to see my wife or children again? Will I ever make it to see Nashi's birthday this month? Should I have stopped a while ago?

    If you keep thinking like that you'll never finish what you started, Natsu, the voice inside my head said almost sadly.

    "Then how am I supposed to feel about this?" I whispered, asking myself more than I did him.

    Keep thinking optimistically. There has to be a way to prolong your life long enough for you to live even with Zeref dying. There has to be a way to live past this in general.

    "I'm not even concerned about that anymore..."

    Natsu...

    "Why should I even be listening to you?! You've lied to me and you've filled my head with lost hopes and darkness. You are a plague to me."

    I am what's keeping you  alive!

    "HOW!?" I suddenly stopped whispering and allowed my rage and self-loathing devour me, and I found myself shouting at the darkness around me. "HOW ON EARTH COULD THAT EVER BE?! YOU ARE A VOICE INSIDE MY HEAD AND A LIAR! HOW DO I KNOW THAT WHAT YOU SAY IS EVEN RELEVANT?!"

    There are three major life lines that's keeping you alive, Natsu. The book is one, Zeref is the other, and I am the last.

    "And why the hell should I even believe you!"

    You don't have to. You just have to listen. Five hundred years ago, I was the strongest fire demon back in the dragon era. Demons, dragons, and humans were able to coexist and we demons weren't what you think of today. We were a subspecies of human that were able to utilize stronger powers and mutated appearances than you, we lived in tribes, but not I. I killed humans for sport and I abandoned my family, I used to have all the power to kill everything except for dragons, they were too much for me. And then I met Zeref and my entire life fell down hill...

     I kept walking, though I was slow while listening to the demon within me.

    My name isn't E.N.D., I just told you it was because it would be awkward for you to find out that an entirely different being was locked within you. My name is Crocus, and I was the former king of all demons.

     My eyes widened and I almost came to a halt, listening intently as Crocus continued on, Zeref came to me one day and asked an odd question; to take my soul and the weak soul of his younger brother, and set them inside the body you possess now. He said he had not the power to slay a dragon, which is why Zeref himself won't go off to kill Acnologia, and he needed a powerful soul that was rich in ethernano, which made me the best candidate. I wouldn't simply hand over my soul to that bastard, so we fought nonstop for thirty seven days until he eventually gained the upper hand and killed me. He stole my soul and took it to his lab, he allowed me to live within you as E.N.D., but when I began wrecking too much havoc, Igneel came and together with Zeref, they locked me up within the book of E.N.D. I was released recently when Arbis opened your book.