A/N: Prompt = soft + Mirza. For WLW week of the When We Take Different Pathsevent!

Canon-divergent, set in the Tartaros arc.

Trigger warning: for drugging someone against his will.

Soft

There was nothing soft about Mirajane and Erza. Both were harder than stone, like a barren windswept mountaintop. Both were evil in that way which bordered justice on vengeance.

Erza planted her foot in a soldier's helmet guard to make sure the woman was not faking being down. The fight had ended too quickly for both of them.

"They're soft," Mira grinned, eyes alight as she turned away from the probably-already-dead man she'd just kicked in the crotch. "That was too easy."

Erza smirked. "You're a wonder."

"You just like me like this," Mira laughed, running her satanic tail through her claws and giving Erza a flirty look.

"Yeah," Erza shrugged, "but it also turns me on to see you grab a half-demon by her hair and throw her through a wall."

Mira licked her lips. "She wasn't a terribly powerful half-demon, unfortunately. Otherwise that would've been more fun."

"Soft," Erza agreed, stepping to her side around the bodies that littered the ground. "From Tartaros and for such a high-value target, I expected more fighting power…"

Her body hardened.

Mira turned to her. "What is it, love?"

"The chairman. He…that tea…"

Startling, Mira stroked her own neck thoughtfully. Her demon blood made it hard for her to notice, but it was there: he'd tried to drug her.

Erza stumbled a little and Mira caught her around the waist, tail wrapping around Erza's legs for extra support.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes, yes." Erza passed a hand over her eyes. "There, it's gone."

Erza may call Mira the wonder, but Erza was full human and had just repelled poison from her own body. That was a wonder.

"That creep," Mira hissed, and found her voice going lower, rougher, sliding into the pits of hell. "Monster."

"He's working for them," Erza rumbled.

Together, they looked back toward the extravagant home of the Magic Council's former chairman. Mira caught a glimpse of him, peering through the window at them.

She grinned cruelly. "Let's go talk to him, shall we?"

"Yes."

Erza kissed her cheek, which Mira responded to by sinking her fangs lovingly into Erza's neck.

"Come on, lovely," Erza smiled.

Mira watched the ripple of Erza's abs as she stretched and began walking, the muscles of her arms knotted and thick. Gorgeous.

They trudged to the house, not bothering to hurry. They could see him in the window now, definitely looking worried.

"Are you ladies alright?" he asked as they entered the house. "I can't believe someone actually attacked; they actually came… That was impressive fighting. Are you sure you're okay?"

"What did you originally come up with it for?" Erza demanded.

"What?"

"That tea," Mira said.

"That was herbs from my garden—" His eyes were darting back and forth between them as they both took a step forward.

"You look concerned," Erza said, leaning in with a smile. "Don't worry, neither of us is about to collapse."

"Th-That's good…"

"Indeed it is." Mira scraped a knife-sharp fingernail along the counter. "You know what happens to women who are drugged unconscious? It's not pretty."

In the silence, his panting breaths were so loud.

"Ah," Erza said. "Here it is."

She lifted a half-full kettle. The room seemed to freeze in place, all but Erza, meandering to the cupboard and fetching a cup.

"Why don't you try some?" Mira asked the chairman. "It was quite tasty."

He trembled so hard his fingers shook against the edge of the counter. He didn't utter a word.

Erza turned back around with a mug full of the liquid and held it out to him, and finally his voice began to work.

"No," he said faintly. "Please don't…"

Erza cocked her head. An innocuous gesture. Except the room was wound tighter than a spring, that thick feeling in the air of a storm about to burst.

"How many times have you heard someone say those same words to you?"

He whimpered.

"And how many times," Erza went on softly, "did you show them mercy?"

Mira was shaking now too, seeing all his guilt plainly in his face. What a terrible little man. So in love with power. Using it only to get what he wanted. How many people had he broken? And this was the man who had led the Magic Council for a decade, had promised to guard and protect wizards and ensure justice.

What was justice?

"If you can tell me you showed someone mercy just once—" Erza began, withdrawing the mug.

"Yes!" he gasped. "I did! Of course I did! Uhm, er, let's see, there—there was—"

Erza threw the poisoned tea in his face.

The chairman screamed, clawing at his eyes as if she'd coated him in acid. It took a terrible minute of watching him dissolve into a panic attack and writhe on the floor before the drugs took their effect.

As he stilled, Mira found her breath was loud and violent. She inhaled and looked at her girlfriend: red hair radiant in the evening light, face set.

This was justice right here.

"Fuck, I'm so in love with you," she whispered. She hardly realized she'd said it, but Erza looked up, met her eyes, and crossed the room in two long strides.

Then she pressed her lips to Mira's and kissed her. Mira wrapped Erza in an embrace while Erza stroked through the wild hair of her satan soul, hands sliding up and down Mira's sides in a way which was both desperate and strong; needy and doting.

"Your power," Mira murmured against Erza's lips. "It turns me on."

"Everything about you…" Erza's fingers pattered along Mira's spine, gripping and massaging. Erza had never been very good with words, but she made up for it with all the other ways she communicated.

Mira didn't want gentle, romantic words anyway. She wasn't interested in soft sentiments whispered in each other's ears. She lived for this: standing on the edge of the abyss together, fighting darkness with darkness, pulling each other back before either of them fell all the way, embracing their anger together, overcoming powerlessness together. Their stories were in parallel, the ways the world had shaped them into tougher versions of themselves.

As Erza kissed beneath Mira's ear, Erza asked, "So what next?"

"Let's be good people and take him home," Mira said, grinning. "Then let's ransack that fucking guildhall until there's nothing left when he wakes."

Erza nodded, eagerness lighting her eyes.

"Tartaros," Erza hissed. "We're coming for you."