Chapter 4:

Upcoming Disaster

Crossover


Natsu continued to narrate as they reminisce their past, “Even though your injuries have long since recovered, you stayed with us for two more decades since we ended up with a dead end in finding your hometown. So, it was officially decided that you'll join The Resistance and gave you the surname Azure."

Inside the Resistance Base’s cafeteria, all of the troops gathered to party and celebrate Sirius’s official enlistment for the Resistance as well as for receiving his own surname. They were so annoying and rowdy that it wouldn’t be an exaggeration and surprising to say that the neighboring Daemons from the South Pole District would be able to hear them.

Finally, morning had finally struck, and the noisy bunch had gone silent at last so the living creatures around their base could finally get some rest, but unfortunately their ears were not unscathed so even if they did get some sleep afterwards, they were in an extreme headache.

In the cafeteria, Sirius was sleeping on the dining table as he sat and lied his head on top of it with his arms served as a pillow and his back was covered with a blanket while all the members were sound asleep all around the venue, some were even snoring loudly. He was suddenly awoken by the loud snores and decided to leave the cafeteria silently so he could head towards the terrace located at the highest floor of the building.

The wind blew gently while Sirius faced the direction of the red ocean as he stared silently into the horizons. Fuyu walked in as soon as he saw Sirius and stood beside him.

Sirius broke the minutes long silence and asked in a cocky tone, "Wow, you're miraculously early today. What did you eat at the party last night that made you do this? I may be able to use it as reference whenever I got sick of waking you up every morning. You don't know half the hassle that I've been through for just waking you."

"I get it, ok? Will you stop making me feel guilty?" Natsu cleared his throat. "I didn't sleep. I mean, all of us leaders didn't since all of our subordinates were sleeping soundly so we have to be on lookout just for the night. You all deserve the rest, so we all decided to not wake everyone and let them have it for just a few hours to feel at ease. Especially of what happened to us for the past few decades... the non-stop fighting... losing our comrades against the hands of our enemies multiple times..."

The wind blew once more as Sirius saw Natsu's solemn expression and faced back to the ocean while he thought to himself, "Why does Natsu look like that everytime he talks about our fallen comrades? I know that it hurts to lose them, but it looks to me that he was sad at something else... or someone who was forever distant and out of reach. A someone very dear to him was gone at such an early time that he didn't get to spend more time with them and lose the chance forever so he could only remember them through the only memories he had of them, even if it means remembering their death. Would I be one of them as well when that time comes?"

The wind blew stronger as he continued, "I would be happy and satisfied to know that he would care about me dearly enough to remember me for the rest of his life. I think the scariest thing that one could experience when their time is up is not only leaving the ones that they care about but being forgotten by the same people altogether like they didn't exist in the same timeline or was just a random stranger that you happened to cross paths with on the road. The worst part is, that may happen to all of us since both Daemons and Gotts couldn't leave anything of themselves after they passed away since they would instantly turn into ashes and white particles and disappeared into nothingness. So, before that happens, we just have to make a lot of memories while we still can and will have so many things to remember that would last us a lifetime."

In a town somewhere in Cuba District, Natsu, Eryl, Raaz, and Sirius were happily playing with the children. One kid had a laser pointer on his hand and pointed the light on the ground towards Natsu's direction. As soon as Natsu saw the dot, his pupils turned sharp and immediately began to chase it around as it moved.

The child, who was the youngest of them all, threw a branch away from Eryl's direction and Eryl instantly went and ran after it. The other kid observed Raaz as he was occupied in reading his book while squatting on the ground and paid no attention to his surroundings. The kid then pulled out a red cloth and began to wave it in front of the uninterested Raaz. Suddenly, Raaz's sharp bull horns began to surface as he closed the book and sprinted towards the cloth like a normal bull in a blink of an eye. The cloth then covered his face as soon as he went through it.

Without looking where he was going, he bumped into a wall and his horns stabbed through it, and he got stuck. Sirius, who was observing the whole thing from a distance, laughed uncontrollably as he rolled on the floor continuously.

In the present, both lads were facing each other. As the cold wind blew stronger, Sirius wore a smile that had never looked so gentle yet so melancholic for the past one hundred years and said, “Ever since we meet, 100 years had passed by before we know it. There were both a lot of bad times and troublesome times, but overall, it was fun being with you all. I'll cherish every memory even after I die."

Natsu suddenly looked worried and started to sweat, “Don't set up a dead flag out of nowhere. That might really happen, you know.”

Sirius smiled awkwardly, “Sorry, but I really do want to cherish my memory with everybody, so I'll never forget them.” He then smiled happily again and continued what he was about to say, “I'm really glad that I met you, Natsu.”

Natsu blushed as he became flustered by Sirius’s comment and replied, “Seriously, stop saying embarrassing lines with a straight face.” He stopped blushing and stood up with his back faced to Sirius while transformed back into a hybrid black cat, “We should go back. The others might be looking for us.”

While Natsu walked ahead at a slow pace, Sirius followed a few distance behind him.

Sirius suddenly coughed at his right hand. When he saw blood at his right palm, he thought to himself, “I'm sorry Natsu, but I think that it may be sooner than you hoped. I also need to apologize to you for another thing. I'm sorry that I lied all this time. I actually remembered everything ever since four decades ago. I was afraid back then that everything will change if anyone of you will know who I really am.” His smile was only shown and whispered under his breath, “…but don't worry. It won't be long now until...” The wind blew and drowned out what the last part of his whisper was.

Natsu stopped and stood still when he arrived in front of the Resistance Base.

Natsu, who looked worried, said, “That's weird. Usually even from the outside, you can hear everyone's noisiness.” He gasped as he began to realize something and quickly ran inside the base while Sirius followed him silently.

Both ran the hallways while Natsu yelled on top of his lungs, “Hello? Is anyone here? Somebody? Anybody, answer me.” He thought to himself, “Damn it. I can't believe I let this happen when I was already near here. I'm a failure as a captain!”

Natsu's surroundings abruptly turned black. He looked around and wondered what's going on and all of a sudden, he saw that he was stepping on a pile of corpses instead of the ground. To be precise, his former comrades' corpses. Natsu's face turned pale as he asked in a shaky voice, "G-Guys? What's going on? I thought that Daemons can't leave corpses after they die."

All the corpses suddenly began to grab Natsu one by one as they moaned in pain. Natsu tried to run away but the corpses got a hold already of his entire lower half as they continuously murmured one after the other, "Why, Natsu? Why did you let us die? Because of how powerless you are, you let everyone die while you still lived happily. It's unfair! Come and take our place!"

While he was too focused worrying about what they said, his transformation was undone and his hair turned back to red as he exclaimed, "No! Let me go! I have to go to everyone. I don't want to lose more of the people I care about ever again!”

Natsu's expression changed from fear to despair in a blink of an eye as soon as he saw his mother's corpse grabbing him along with all the others who already grabbed his entire torso. His mother mumbled to him, "I died because of how pathetic you are."

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, mother. If it weren't for me, you wouldn't have to die in vain. I'm really sorry. Please, take my pla—" Natsu repeatedly apologized as tears continuously flowed to his cheeks.

Natsu was suddenly stopped by something and gasped with surprise. He looked behind him and saw Sirius panting while holding his left wrist from behind.

Sirius tried to capture his breath as he talked to the flustered Natsu, “I told you to... calm down... for a moment... Natsu!”

Natsu started to calm down and said, “Sirius... Sorry.” Sirius let go of his wrist as Natsu continued, “I made you run so much.”

Sirius replied while panting, “You're so flustered that your transformation was undone.”

Natsu held a few of his hair with his right hand and looked at it and became really surprised, “Wha—? When did that happen!?”

Sirius smiled, “You really are a ‘my pace’ bastard.”

Natsu complained awkwardly, “Hey! I said I was sorry. And why is that lame nickname kind of sounded like 'pacemaker' for some reason?”

“How about you use that technique you're so good at to detect everyone's location? Maybe they just relocated someplace else.”

“Oh, yeah. I was too distracted, I forgot about it.”

Natsu closed his eyes, and inhale and exhale to concentrate. He suddenly opened them again and his pupils turned black as he thought to himself, “Alacer Sensus! (Latin for Keen Senses)”

From Natsu’s perspective, all of his surroundings turned to white with black outlines.

Sirius asked, “So, did you find them? Where are they?”

Natsu looked around while he replied, “They're not in and near the base. Wait, let me spread my search area.”

Natsu’s perspective turned into a bird’s eye view with the surroundings still looked like white with black outlines. He took a peek of the Southern Ocean area, South Africa District, Argentina District, Drake Passage area, and Alexander Island area. He then saw multiple Daemons and Gotts fighting somewhere. His sight and pupils turned back to normal afterwards when he became really surprised.

Natsu exclaimed, “I found them! They're fighting against an army of Gotts.”

Sirius asked, “Where are they now?”

“Since we're facing South Africa District... They're a few miles away at my 7 o'clock. They're also... outside of Gehenna.” Sirius gasped.

High above the starry night sky, Natsu transformed back into a hybrid black cat like earlier and flew using his bat-like wings while holding Sirius by the wrists with both of his hands, who was hanging on the air.

Natsu asked and looked down to Sirius, “Are you alright over there?”

Sirius replied as he looked at the beautiful scenery in front of them, “I'm fine. This is actually a nice view. By the way, why can't we just teleport to their location? I saw the guys do it before and Raaz's was so amazing since he can travel five kilometers for about 90 milliseconds up to 15 times a day. At least that's what they told me. I only experienced it back and forth once.”

“Unfortunately, I can't. No matter how much I tried how to use Obnixe Amoveo (Latin for Instant Shift), I can only travel one meter about six seconds for once a day.

Sirius yelled with a surprised expression, “Too slow! Even I can walk faster than that.”

Joe Gold
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