"Sorry, but I can't let that happen," Aelius said, voice flat as stone. He was already half off the balcony, boots digging into the edge, one arm stretched down into the open air, Lucy dangling from his grip. Her fingers slick with sweat as she screamed.
Knightwalker hadn't even hesitated. She marched in, barked out the execution order like she was ordering lunch, and the second Lucy fired back at her with that stupid tongue of hers, Knightwalker's eyes went cold. One swing of that oversized spear, and Lucy was hooked by the goo wrapped around her wrist and shoved waa straight off the balcony like trash tossed over a railing.
Aelius's body moved before he even thought. One second, Lucy was falling, the next she was screaming and flailing, and Aelius had thrown himself forward, nearly tumbling over the edge himself just to catch her wrist. Now the wind howled under them. Lucy dangled over the drop, eyes wide, breath ragged. Aelius held her with one hand, muscles coiled and burning, the balcony edge cutting into his ribs.
Knightwalker stared at him, unimpressed. "Release her."
"Yeah," Aelius muttered, tightening his grip, "that's not happening."
He didn't know why he reacted so damn fast. Didn't know why his stomach twisted watching her fall. It wasn't like he cared about most people. Lucy, especially, she was loud. Emotional. Soft in a way that made no sense for their world.
But Virgo liked her. That mattered more than he cared to admit.
And beyond that, she was part of the guild. He came to Edolas to get them back, and letting Lucy splatter on the garden stones below would make the whole damn trip worthless. Even if he didn't particularly care about one or two casualties.
"Pull me up!" Lucy shouted, voice cracking. "Please!"
"You think I'm planning to let go?" Aelius grunted, jaw tight.
Knightwalker took a slow step closer, spear leveling toward his throat. "Let go of her and return to your cell."
Aelius snorted under his breath. "You really think that'll happen? You push her off a balcony and expect me to just walk back like a well-trained dog?"
"You are a prisoner," Knightwalker replied, voice sharp as flint.
"And yet," Aelius said, pulling Lucy up an inch more, his boots grinding against the stone, "your General has me walking without chains, so do us all a favor and shut up."
Lucy glanced up at him with a trembling breath. "Aelius… please don't let go."
"I said I wouldn't," he snapped, though the edge in his voice was aimed at Knightwalker, not her.
"Fine by me."
That was all the warning he got.
The butt of Knightwalker's spear slammed straight into his ribs, right above the spot she had stabbed him earlier. Pain wasn't the real issue; he'd lived through worse a hundred times over. Pain was familiar. Pain was a language he'd been fluent in since childhood.
What mattered was the shock.
Shock suppression was part of his magic, tied directly into the way his body braced for impacts it knew were coming. Except here in Edolas, his magic was gone. So when the blow landed hard enough to crack a rib, his body reacted as the body of any regular human would.
His fingers slipped.
Just enough.
Lucy's hand jerked downward with a sharp squeak, her weight suddenly dragging on him again as she slid toward the edge.
Aelius's fingers scraped uselessly at empty air.
Knightwalker's strike had staggered him just enough. Lucy slipped straight through his grip.
And she dropped.
For a heartbeat, he just stood there, ribs throbbing, hand half-extended over the railing. Annoyance burned hotter than panic. He'd failed at something so basic. It clawed at him.
He barely had time to curse before the screaming hit.
Not Lucy's. Not Knightwalker's.
From above.
"AaaahhhHHHHH!"
Two very familiar voices pitched somewhere between terror and feral determination.
Happy. And Carla.
Aelius blinked slowly. "No. Absolutely not. That should be impossible."
But there they were.
Both cats were plummeting through the sky at wild speeds, wings flapping so hard it was almost comedic. Except behind them was an entire formation of Edolas soldiers riding flying mounts, all screeching and shouting like the world was ending.
"Lucy!" Happy wailed as he tucked his wings, divebombing after her like a blue comet.
Carla followed right on his tail, expression focused and sharp despite the chaos around them.
For a second, it looked like Lucy was going to splatter across the courtyard stones.
Then Happy caught her by the back of her shirt.
Barely.
His wings nearly buckled with the strain, and Carla grabbed Lucy's arm to stabilize her, the two cats fighting gravity and momentum all at once.
Lucy screamed once on instinct.
Then realized she was alive.
Then screamed again because Happy was screaming and Carla was screaming, and the entire Edolas sky patrol was screaming.
Aelius planted both hands on the railing and leaned forward, watching the madness unfold. "What the hell is happening?"
Happy didn't even hear him. "We got you, Lucy! We got yo,u we got you we got—CARLA THEY'RE STILL AFTER US!"
"I AM AWARE!" Carla snapped, wings beating with frantic precision. "Hold her steady! I cannot dodge and carry both of you!"
"I am TRYING, but her hair keeps hitting my face!"
Lucy flailed once, gripping both cats like her life depended on it. "Guys! GUYS! Up! Up faster! Fly! I do not want to fall again!"
"WE'RE TRYING!" both cats screamed at once.
They didn't land. They couldn't. Not with a sky full of armored cats chasing them like hornets.
Aelius exhaled, long and annoyed.
"Unbelievable," he muttered. "I saved her once, and she immediately gets stolen by flying cats while being hunted by a battalion. Fantastic."
Behind him, Knightwalker stared at the sky, jaw tight.
The general rubbed the bridge of his nose like he was developing a headache powerful enough to kill him.
Aelius pushed off the railing with a grunt, hand braced on his ribs. He watched it unfold like someone observing a house fire from a comfortable distance. Not shocked. Just… mildly entertained by how stupid the universe insisted on being around him.
Or it would have been stupid.
If the army that flooded into the courtyard had acted in the way he expected.
But instead of firing on Happy and Carla like any sane Edolas squad would do toward two fugitives with wings they definitely weren't supposed to have…
Every weapon trained upward.
Right at the swarm of airborne Exceeds chasing them.
Aelius blinked. "Huh."
Then the sky lit up.
A single unified blast of concentrated magic tore upward like a cannon made of daylight. It slammed into the pursuing cat soldiers with a force that made the air ripple. In a heartbeat, a dozen voices cut off mid-scream as the entire formation was swallowed in raw white light.
And when the beam faded…
A giant lacrima dropped out of the sky, crashing into the courtyard like some oversized gemstone meteor. Dust exploded up around it.
The Edolas soldiers didn't even flinch.
Happy and Carla left a crater deep enough to make the courtyard tiles cry. Both of them bounced once, twice, like rubber balls someone had thrown with too much enthusiasm. Lucy bounced with them because fate apparently hated her specifically today.
Aelius didn't even blink. He just turned, dusting off his coat, already halfway into a sentence he assumed someone cared about.
"So am I going to get an explanation on why the army of talking cats was just turned into a cry—"
He stopped. Mostly because the man he was absolutely sure had been standing right in front of him, the general was now gone. Vanished. Like smoke. Or maybe he had simply sprinted for his life. Old men were good at that when responsibility approached.
"Oh? Finally rid of him," Aelius muttered. "Good. He was tedious anyway." He shifted his eyes to Knightwalker with an unimpressed expression. "You're not much better company, I'll admit."
"The general likely went to the king." Knightwalker didn't look at him when she spoke. She was too busy glaring at everything else if it personally offended her. "And since he's gone, I'm in charge of you now."
She took one step closer. Aelius didn't like that step. It sounded like authority. Authority always came with pain.
"And since that's the case…" she said, her voice dropping.
He saw her shoulders roll. He saw her grip shift on the spear. That was all the warning he got.
"Shut. Up."
The shaft cracked across his skull so hard the sound echoed like a tree splitting. For one brief, crystalline moment, Aelius had the distant, floating thought that his head should not flex that way. Then the world folded in on itself, and he hit the ground like a dropped puppet.
The world is swimming in dull shapes and shadows. Shelves. Sacks. Crates are stacked too high. A storeroom, he guessed. Or somewhere they put things they forgot about.
"Owwww," Aelius grunted, lifting his head just enough to regret it immediately. Pain flared and settled behind his eyes. "Never had a concussion before. Would not recommend."
"Aeliussss!!"
Something small and fast slammed into his torso with all the grace of a cannonball.
"You're alive! You were sleeping, and your head was bleeding, and Carla said you might not wake up!" Happy said in one breath, clinging to him like a terrified scarf.
Aelius groaned as the impact knocked the air out of him. He looked down at the Exceed, finally managing to focus. Happy was scuffed up, fur dirty, one wing bent at an awkward angle. Definitely beaten around. But not shackled. Not guarded.
So, they'd slipped away. For now.
Happy's smile faltered just a little. "We need to get out of here. We're back in the dungeons, but… they're all around us."
"Don't know what you want me to do," Aelius said, shifting until his back hit the wall again. The movement sent a dull throb through his skull, but he ignored it. His eyes drifted across the room, cataloging out of habit more than hope. Crates. Sacks. Rusted shelves. And, shoved half carelessly into an open crate, a bottle with a hand-scratched label that simply read alcohol.
He reached out, fingers steady despite everything, and took it. With a practiced flick of his wrist, he popped it open and took a swig.
Nothing.
No burn worth mentioning. No fog. Just the familiar, irritating sense of it sinking into him and doing absolutely nothing useful.
He sighed, staring at the bottle as it had personally offended him. "Fantastic. Even here, I still can't get drunk."
Happy blinked. "That's… not what I meant."
Aelius lowered the bottle and glanced down at himself. Blood crusted in his hair. The shirt was torn and dark at the ribs where the spear butt had landed. Beneath that, the old wound, the one that never really closed right. He took another sip anyway.
"Head's split open," he said flatly. "And I've got a hole bigger than you in my torso."
Happy's ears flattened. "That's bad, right?"
Aelius tilted the bottle, considering the remaining liquid. "Objectively."
He leaned his head back against the stone, eyes half lidded, voice still maddeningly calm. "I'm not breaking chains. I'm not fighting an army. And if Knightwalker decides to finish what she started, I'm not exactly in peak condition."
There was a pause.
Lucy shifted, chains clinking softly as she leaned forward just enough to catch his attention. "Why are you like this?" she asked, voice quieter than before, not accusatory, just… tired.
Aelius didn't look at her right away. He rolled the bottle in his hand, watching the liquid slosh against the glass like it was more interesting than the question.
"Gonna need a bit more than that, Heartfilia," he said finally.
She frowned. "You act like none of this matters. Like people falling, getting hurt, almost dying right in front of you is just… background noise. You joke, you insult, you drink, and you don't even flinch. And then you talk like you couldn't care less if we all die."
Lucy's voice climbed as she went, words tumbling faster the longer she spoke, like once she started, she couldn't stop herself.
"You're mean," she said flatly. "You threaten the others like it's nothing. Virgo talks about you like you're her best friend. You completely blow off Mira, and she's the sweetest person in the entire guild. The Master looks at you like he's already mourning you." Her hands clenched into fists. "And Levy. Levy keeps trying to help you, keeps reading, researching, thinking she can fix whatever's wrong, and you barely acknowledge her."
She drew in a sharp breath, eyes bright now, angry and lost all at once.
"We could die," she said. "All of us. Everyone we care about could die here. And you can't even bring yourself to care."
The room felt tighter after that. Smaller. Like the walls had leaned in just to listen.
Aelius didn't interrupt her. He didn't joke. He didn't smirk. He just listened, head tipped back against the wall, eyes half lidded like he was staring at something far past the ceiling. Past the room. Past her.
Then he tilted his head and finally looked at her.
"You're feeling brave," he said calmly, almost lazily. "Guess that happens when you know I can't use my magic."
Lucy's jaw tightened, but she didn't look away.
"Since when," Aelius continued, voice flat, "have I ever owed you an explanation?
He shifted slightly, the movement careful, controlled. Pain was there, but it didn't own him.
"I'm here now," he went on. "Locked up with the rest of you. Bleeding like the rest of you. So what does it matter?"
"That's not an answer," Lucy snapped.
"It is," he replied. "Just not one that makes you feel better."
He looked away again, eyes drifting back to that empty point in the air.
"You want reassurance," he said. "You want me to say I care, that everything's going to be fine, that we'll all walk out together." His mouth twitched, not quite a smile. "I don't lie to people I fight beside."
Lucy's voice dropped, raw now. "So you just… don't care if we die."
"Not really, no," he said. "Doesn't mean I'll just roll over and let it happen."
He exhaled through his nose and opened his eyes again, gaze steady, painfully clear.
"But let's be realistic. We don't have magic. I'm the only one here who can fight without it, and even then, I'm outmatched. We're underground, so the cats' flight is useless. No tricks. No miracles."
He tapped the back of his head lightly against the wall once, like punctuating the thought.
"So there's no point in struggling when the outcome's the same." His voice didn't waver. "I learned that a long time ago."
Lucy stared at him, anger still there, but now tangled with something else. Hurt. Maybe fear.
"That's… giving up," she said.
"Does it matter?"
Lucy's hands curled into fists. "Yes. If being in Fairy Tail has taught me anything, it's that we don't give up." Her voice shook, then hardened. "I can't understand why everyone tries so hard to help you. All you do is hurt people. And the moment life gets tough, you just stop."
That one landed.
Aelius's eyes sharpened, the lazy distance snapping tight into focus. He turned his head slowly toward her, leaning forward just enough to make the words bite."Really?" he said. "You call this tough, Heartfilia? He opened his mouth again, then stopped. His jaw flexed. Whatever he was about to say stayed there, locked behind his teeth. Instead, he lifted the bottle and took another pull, swallowing hard.
"Die with dignity, blondie. Don't make this worse for you."
Lucy stared at him, breathing heavy. "You're unbelievable."
"Yeah," Aelius said flatly. "That's not new."
The room fell quiet again. Heavy. Not peaceful. Just waiting.
Happy looked between them, ears low. "We're still alive," he said, small but stubborn. "That's gotta count for something."
Aelius didn't answer right away. He stared at the bottle, then set it down beside him.
"Alive's just the starting line," he said. "Not the win."
It didn't take long for them to settle on a plan. If you could even call it that. Happy would run. Make noise. Draw attention. Flour from the storage racks would give him a momentary smokescreen, enough to scatter guards and open a gap. Carla would guide Lucy. Aelius would deal with whatever tried to stand in the way.
It wasn't a bad idea. Crude, desperate, but functional. Aelius would give the cat that much. He just didn't believe Knightwalker was stupid enough to fall for it.
Still, credit where it was due. Happy didn't hesitate. The moment the door cracked open, the little idiot was gone, wings buzzing, flour exploding into the corridor in a white choking cloud. Shouts followed. Boots. Steel scraping stone.
For a few seconds, it almost worked.
Aelius moved with Lucy and Carla through a side passage, keeping his shoulder between them and the noise. No magic. No momentum. Every step felt heavier than it should have. His body remembered how to fight. It just couldn't keep up with the memory.
Then the pressure in the air changed.
Knightwalker stepped out of the haze ahead of them, spear already leveled, armor spotless despite the chaos. She hadn't even broken stride. Like she'd known exactly where they'd go.
"So predictable," she said.
Aelius stopped. Not surprised. Just annoyed. They didn't even get a full minute before it ended.
Happy hit the ground beside them hard enough to bounce, skidding across the stone. His wings were limp, fur matted with flour and blood. He barely stirred.
"We didn't expect much anyway," Aelius said. It wasn't cruel. Just flat. The bottle was still in his hand, its contents sloshing low. He rolled it once between his fingers, then looked up at Knightwalker.
"So," he said, voice rough but steady, "this where we die? Or do I get to live long enough to annoy you a bit longer?"
Knightwalker didn't answer right away. She studied him like a problem she hadn't decided how to solve yet. Her spear rested against the stone, casual, like she didn't need to hurry. Like all of this was already settled.
Lucy swallowed hard, one arm wrapped around Happy protectively. Carla's wings trembled, half spread, still useless this deep underground.
SHLICK.
The sound came first. Wet followed by dripping. The spear punched through him and kept going, the tip bursting out of his back in a spray of dark red. For a moment, there was no pain. Just pressure. A strange, heavy certainty was settling in his gut as his body tried to understand what had happened and failed.
He looked down slowly. The shaft pinned him in place, iron lodged clean through his stomach. A lethal hit. Not clean enough to be merciful. Pain followed a heartbeat later, white and deep and spreading, but he didn't scream. Didn't even gasp. His hands closed around the shaft instead, fingers slick almost instantly.
Control. Mostly. As much as someone impaled could manage.
Knightwalker leaned in close, voice calm, almost bored. "Yes. You've all been too much of a thorn to let live." She straightened, eyes flicking briefly toward Lucy and the others. "I'm sure the general will forgive me. As for our Aelius… questioning military matters isn't his role."
Lucy made a sound then. Not a word. Just a broken breath that tore out of her chest. Happy tried to move and failed, Carla catching him before he hit the floor.
Aelius's knees buckled, but he forced himself upright against the spear, boots scraping stone. Blood ran freely now, warm and steady, soaking into his clothes, dripping to the floor in slow, ugly drops.
"So," he muttered, breath coming shorter now, heavier. "This is how you do it."
Knightwalker watched him with something like approval. "You're still standing."
"Bad habit," he said. His vision tunneled at the edges, spots creeping in, but he kept his eyes open. Kept them on Lucy.
She was staring at him like she couldn't decide whether to scream or run, or beg. Like all three were fighting in her throat at once.
"Don't," Aelius said quietly. It cost him more than it should have. "Don't make this worse."
Her mouth opened. No sound came out.
He let go of the spear with one hand and pressed it against the wound instead, as if that would matter. It didn't. He knew that. They all did. The smell of blood filled the corridor, sharp and metallic.
Knightwalker stepped back, clearly satisfied. "End of the line."
"I'm not dying that fast, Knightwalker," Aelius said, hands tightening around the spear shaft. Blood slicked his fingers, ran down his wrists, and pooled beneath him, but his grip didn't falter. "I've had worse, believe it or not. Actually, don't. Makes it funnier."
His tone didn't match the situation at all. No panic. No anger. Just flat, irritated boredom, like he'd been interrupted mid-thought and found the interruption deeply inconvenient.
Knightwalker paused. Just a fraction. Enough to register it.
That annoyed him more than the pain.
He braced a boot against the stone muscles screaming in protest. The spear grated slightly as he moved, the sound making Lucy flinch hard enough to stumble back a step. Happy let out a small, broken noise. Carla could only watch wide eyed.
"See," Aelius continued, breathing heavier now, but still steady. "Problem with killing me is you assume my body cares about the rules." He coughed, thick and wet, blood splattering the floor. "It really doesn't."
Knightwalker narrowed her eyes. "You're bleeding out."
Lucy found her voice then, shaky and small. "Aelius… stop. Please."
"Relax, blondie," Aelius said. "You don't like me, and I don't like you. Caring about your enemies is how you get yourself killed."
He shifted slightly, the movement dragging a sharp breath out of him despite himself. Blood ran warm down his side, soaking into the stone. Annoying. Messy. He hated messes.
Lucy shook her head hard. "You're not my enemy."
He let out a quiet huff. "Could've fooled me."
Happy made a broken little sound, claws scraping against the floor as he strained against Carla's grip. "You're bleeding a lot…"
"Yeah," Aelius said. "That tends to happen when you get skewered."
Knightwalker watched the exchange with thinly veiled impatience. "Touching. Truly. But this ends now."
Aelius tilted his head just enough to look at her again. His eyes were unfocused around the edges, but the center was still sharp. Still there.
"You really hate loose ends, don't you?" he said. "Must be exhausting."
She stepped closer, hand tightening on the spear. "Any last words?"
He considered it. Actually considered it, which surprised him.
Then he shook his head. "Nah. Waste of breath."
His grip tightened again, muscles trembling now, not from fear but from sheer fatigue. The room felt heavier, like gravity had quietly doubled when no one was looking.
Knightwalker yanked the spear free with no hesitation.
Aelius's body jolted as the pressure vanished, the sudden absence almost worse than the wound itself. Blood poured out fast, dark and heavy, soaking the stone beneath him. He sucked in a sharp breath through clenched teeth, vision flashing white for a second before settling back into that dull, distant haze.
"Also, not the first time I've seen my own insides either," he muttered hoarsely, forcing the words out. His hands twitched uselessly where the spear had been, then fell back to the floor. "You're just as bad at killing as you are at torture, Fairy Hunter."
Lucy cried out his name, voice breaking completely now. Happy buried his face into Carla's shoulder, shaking. Even Knightwalker paused for half a heartbeat, watching him to see if he'd finally stop moving.
He didn't.
Aelius dragged in another breath, wet and uneven, and let out a short, humorless laugh. "If this was supposed to make a point," he added, eyes half lidded but still fixed on her, "you missed."
"Do it right," he said quietly. "Or don't bother."
"Alright then", Ezra snarled, raising her spear to it was lined up with his head.d
"Is it just me, or did it get colder?" Aelius said. A smirk on his face as mist leaked in from behind Knightwalker and her guards. "Looks like we win this one."
"All right then," Knightwalker snarled, lifting her spear and lining it up with his head.
Aelius looked past her instead of at the weapon. His eyes narrowed slightly, not in fear, but curiosity.
"Is it just me," he said hoarsely, a crooked smirk tugging at his mouth, "or did it get colder?"
For a split second, nothing happened.
Then mist rolled in.
Not dramatic. Not explosive. Just a creeping cold fog that slid along the stone floor and wrapped around boots and ankles like something alive. Breath fogged. Metal creaked. One of the guards sucked in a sharp breath and stiffened.
Ice raced up his legs.
Before Knightwalker could turn, a voice came from behind them, flat and unimpressed.
"Yeah," Gray said. "That'd be me."
In an instant, the dungeon erupted into chaos. Ice spread in jagged sheets across the floor and walls, snapping up around the guards' feet, climbing their armor, locking joints in place. One by one, they froze where they stood, faces caught mid-shock, weapons half raised and useless.
Lucy barely had time to gasp before a familiar presence was suddenly beside Knightwalker.
Erza.
Not the Fairy Hunter. The other one.
Steel rang once. Hard. Violent. The two Erzas collided like opposing forces, blades and spear crashing together, the impact cracking stone. Neither spoke. They didn't need to. They were already moving, already pushing, already trying to kill each other.
They vanished through the wall in a blur of motion and shattered stone, the sound of fighting carrying away from the dungeon in rapid impacts and steel on steel.
Silence slammed back into the room.
Gray strode forward, eyes flicking briefly to the frozen guards before landing on Aelius. His expression shifted the moment he really saw him.
"Jesus," Gray muttered. "You look like hell."
Aelius exhaled slowly, relief finally slipping through the cracks in his composure. "Took you long enough."
His legs gave out then.
Not dramatically. Not all at once. Just a quiet collapse as his body finally stopped pretending it could keep going. Gray swore and moved fast, dropping to one knee beside him, hands hovering uselessly over the damage.
Lucy rushed forward, kneeling hard at Aelius's side, hands shaking as she pressed down where she could, trying to keep everything where it belonged.
"Stay with us," she said, voice breaking. "Please. Just stay."
Aelius let out a weak breath that might have been a laugh. "See," he murmured, eyes half closing, "told you… I wasn't dying that fast."
The cold mist lingered around them, the frozen guards silent witnesses, while somewhere beyond the walls, steel still screamed and two versions of the same woman fought as the world depended on it.
"Here. Eat this. It'll let you use your magic," Gray said, already pulling out a small red bead. He didn't wait for permission. He leaned in, fingers moving toward Aelius's mouth.
Aelius snapped forward on instinct, teeth clamping down just shy of Gray's knuckles hard enough that the warning was unmistakable.
"Don't," Aelius said, voice low and rough. "Don't let me be happy, Fullbuster."
Gray froze, bead hovering inches from his face. "What the hell are you talking about?"
Aelius sank back against the stone, breath shallow now, vision blurring at the edges. "You give me that," he continued, "and this stops being about survival. It becomes about choice. And I don't trust myself with that."
Lucy stared at him as he had just spoken another language. "You're dying," she said. "You don't get to be philosophical right now."
He glanced at her. Really looked this time. "That's exactly when you get philosophical."
Gray's jaw tightened. "You don't get to decide that alone."
"I always decide it alone," Aelius replied. "That's kind of the theme."
The bead glinted in Gray's palm, warm against the cold fog. Power. A solution. An easy one. Gray could feel it humming faintly, like it wanted to be used.
"You use magic," Gray said carefully. "You heal yourself. You help us get out. You live."
"And go back to what?" Aelius laughed, the sound thin and cracked but real. "A place where I'm constantly reminded of my failures. Surrounded by people who pretend to care because it's what the guild says to do." He swallowed hard, breath hitching once before he forced it steady again. "For the first time in years, I don't feel that cursed magic crawling under my skin. I don't have to worry that if I sneeze too hard, I'll kill everyone around me. All the horrors can be done. I can be done."
The words settled heavily in the cold air. Even the mist seemed to be still.
Gray winced, jaw tightening. "The Master said you might be suicidal, man," he said quietly. "But this is… more than I thought."
Aelius shook his head, slow and deliberate. "It's not suicidal. I'm not killing myself." His eyes slid shut for a second, then opened again, dull but honest. "I just want peace."
Lucy's hands trembled as she held him together. "That's not peace," she said, voice breaking. "That's just giving up on ever being happy again."
Aelius looked at her, really looked, and for once didn't deflect. "You think I don't know the difference."
Gray dragged a hand down his face, frustration bleeding through the concern. "Peace doesn't come from bleeding out on a dungeon floor."
"No," Aelius agreed. "But it can come from not having to keep fighting a war you never volunteered for."
Another distant crash echoed through the stone, closer now. The fight between the two Erzas was moving again, tearing through walls like they were paper. Time was thinning. Everyone felt it.
Happy sniffed loudly. "You're… you're still part of the guild," he said, voice small. "Even if you don't like us."
Aelius glanced at him, then away. "That's the problem."
Gray crouched closer, lowering his voice. "You don't get to decide you're done just because you're tired."
Aelius let out a long breath. "I didn't decide it because I'm tired. I decided it because, for once, stopping doesn't feel like failure."
"You're pathetic."
The voice didn't belong to Gray. It didn't belong to Lucy, or Happy, or Carla.
A flash of silver cut through the mist, and Gray was suddenly not in front of him anymore.
Vanessa stood there instead.
Aelius blinked once, slowly. "…Huh."
She looked worse than he remembered. Bruised. Dirt smeared across her cheek. One sleeve is torn clean through. But her eyes were sharp, furious, alive in a way that made something twist uncomfortably in his chest.
"Ah. You're still alive," Aelius said flatly. "That's good. I guess."
"Fuck off," she snarled immediately. "After all the shit we've been through. You. You of all people don't get to do this."
She crossed the distance in two steps, grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and hauled him up just long enough to slam him back down against the stone. Pain flared, bright and hot, but it barely registered compared to the weight of her grip.
Shouts broke out behind her. Lucy is yelling her name. Happy squeaking something panicked. Gray swearing. None of it mattered.
Aelius's world narrowed to purple eyes burning into him.
"You have people actively trying to fix you," Vanessa snapped. "Actively. Do you have any idea how rare that is?"
He huffed weakly. "Yeah. I noticed. They're very loud about it."
"Don't," she said sharply, shaking him once. "Don't you dare joke your way out of this. You don't do jokes remember."
Her grip tightened.
"Caius would kill for that," she went on, voice cracking with anger she wasn't bothering to hide. "Literally. He would burn worlds down just to have someone fight this hard for him. I would. Even Nez would, and he was so far down the rabbit hole we got shoved into, he came back out a fox."
That landed harder than the spear had.
Aelius's jaw clenched. His gaze flickered away for half a second, then snapped back to her.
"You think I don't know that," he said quietly.
Vanessa leaned in closer, forehead nearly touching his. "Then stop acting like you're already dead."
Her hand shook, just a little, where it fisted in his shirt. Anger, yeah. But underneath it, something rawer.
"You don't get to decide you're done," she said. "Not after surviving everything you did. Not after dragging the rest of us through hell and back and somehow still standing."
"Then who does?" Aelius snapped back. "I died, Nesh. Died. And I was brought back. Hell, there's a chance I'll come back again. Just like last time."
His teeth ground together. His voice dropped, rough and venomous.
"You don't know hell."
The word came out like it tasted bad.
"I took the brunt of everything down in that fucking maze," he went on, the words spilling now. "Caius had fun. Nehzhar got to learn. You've got to experience life. I lost my only friend. I watched kids die trying to be heroes because they thought I was one."
Vanessa didn't interrupt. She didn't move.
"And when I come back," he said, laughing once, sharp and humorless, "all I get is suspicion. No peace. No quiet. Just people staring at me like I'm a loaded weapon. People saying the same damn things over and over, like it'll fix me if they repeat it enough."
His hand tightened against the stone.
"Then the instant I try to fix myself, I get ripped apart. Scorned. Sneered at. My home was taken from me. My name dragged through the dirt."
He finally looked at her again, eyes burning.
"And now," he said, quieter but somehow angrier for it, "now that the curse is gone, now that for the first time I don't feel it clawing at my spine, now that I'm actually happy…"
His breath hitched, just barely.
"You can't just let it be?"
For a long second, Vanessa said nothing.
Then she stepped forward and slapped him.
Not hard enough to knock him down. Hard enough to sting. Hard enough to cut through the fog.
"Don't," she said, voice shaking now, not with fear but something closer to grief. "Don't you dare pretend this is about happiness."
Aelius stared at her, stunned.
"You think I don't see it?" she went on. "You're not choosing peace. You're choosing numb. You're choosing to disappear and calling it rest."
She jabbed a finger into his chest, right over the wound.
"You think I didn't lose people in that maze? You think I don't hear them when it's quiet? The difference is I didn't decide that meant I was done living."
Her eyes were wet now, but she didn't look away.
"You don't get to use your suffering like a shield," she said. "You don't get to say because you hurt more, no one gets to want you alive."
Aelius opened his mouth, then stopped.
"You're right about one thing," Vanessa said more softly. "Coming back doesn't make it better. It doesn't make it fair. It doesn't erase what you lost."
She crouched in front of him so they were eye level.
"But it means you're still here," she said. "And whether you like it or not, that means your choices still matter. Including the choice to stay."
The room was quiet except for distant fighting and Aelius's uneven breathing.
"…I'm tired," he said finally.
"I know," Vanessa replied.
He scoffed weakly. "You make it sound simple."
"I didn't say it would be," she said. "I said you don't get to quit before you try."
Lucy was crying openly now. Happy hovered close, silent for once. Gray watched with his jaw tight, the bead still clutched in his hand.
Aelius leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.
"…I hate you," he muttered. "Give me the damn candy, if only so I can kill Nehzhar for our last encounter.",