I don't own Fairy Tail, nor any of the characters in it (This time, there is actually Fairy Tail in it, yay?)

It had been a fairly regular day for Erza. Well, it would have been if it wasn't for that dark-guild trying to kill all of the guild leaders, though something along those lines weren't something that unusual, the real thing that made everything different was that person. In order to correctly understand what happened a slight precursor is necessary, just to get some context at least so one could make sense of that mostly nonsensical meeting. Looking back at it, Erza came to realize it wasn't just the meeting that was off, it was him in general, but her first impression of him certainly didn't help his image.

It had all begun when they had rushed into Oshibana Station just after it had been taken over by the dark-guild. As they, Natsu, Lucy, Gray, Erza and Happy walked, granted Natsu didn't walk as he was being dragged by Lucy and Happy was flying, however they made their way through the well-lit hallway with several pillars on either side.

Everything looked fairly ordinary for a train station, if you could overlook the fallen soldiers on the stairs. Most of the soldiers weren't breathing which sent a chill down Lucy's spine, or it would have if it wasn't for the fact that it was currently being heated by a fire-mage...

On the top of the stairs there was a single soldier, sitting with his knees up in front of him, his arms wrapped around them, slowly rocking back and forth, mumbling incomprehensible words that made him look practically insane.

He looked up as he heard them approaching and he was now staring intently at them. It was unnerving to say the least for them, even for Erza. The man looked traumatized at best, as he sat there, cold sweat running down his face, his eyes twitching ever so slightly.

"Don't let him touch you..." the soldier mumbled quietly. His voice was shaking heavily as he continued, seemingly disregarding the estranged looks he was getting from the small gathering. He suddenly jumped up and his eyes burst into tears, looking around frantically for apparently no reason. He began to run down the stairs, stumbling halfway down, landing at the feet of Lucy, whom he then looked up at, the tears still flowing from his eyes.

"Oh god... oh god save me... the pain..." the man said, shaking as he curled up into a ball, trying to comfort himself but to no avail.

Erza looked down at him, quite confused over the man's behaviour. It did not seem as if he was hurt, nor did it look like he had been fighting, but something had definitely been able to release such... strong emotions into this man.

"Who did this to you?" Erza asked in a somewhat soft but still commanding tone. The least she wanted to do was cause this man any more pain than what he seemed to be going through already.

The man looked up at her, both fright and pain present in his face... He opened his mouth for a brief second, but then hurriedly decided to close it again post-haste.

Erza intensified her glare slightly at the man.

He winced and crawled back away from her, obviously scared though it seemed like he got the message as he started speaking once more; "Dead eyes..." he managed to say, before returning to his wordless mumbling.

Erza shook his head at the man, just before going over to the man and knocking him out. The others looked at her, mostly shocked as if she had done something insane, though if anything it would've been a coup de grâce.

"A military platoon wouldn't stand a chance... The opponent is a dark-guild, so they are all mages, and from what I've seen there are a few powerful ones, apart from Erigor," she said moving up the stairs. The others followed her in silence as they found that the most appropriate thing to do, mostly because Erza was in a bad mood, but also because of the man seeming slightly demented because of something one of the dark-guild members had done.

They reached the top of the stairs and was met with a large group of people, armed with quite a few weapons, all of them facing the little group from Fairy Tail. They were all maliciously glaring at them.

Most of them were standing in front of a train, though there was one crouching on top of it, wearing a blue kilt, held up with a white belt. It seemed quite worn out as the edges were shredded. He was also wearing a black scarf around his neck. The most noteworthy thing about this man was either his blue tattoos on his chest and the black ones just under his eyes, or the massive scythe he was holding on his back. It was quite easy to identify him as he was the only one of them that stood out.

"I knew you'd come, Fairy Tail," Erigor shouted from a top the train with slight amusement in his voice.

"There so many," Lucy noted as she was starting to sweat slightly. The others remained calm and composed though.

"We've been waiting for you," he noted as he stood up, gesturing with his free arm, the other was holding the scythe, towards the members of the dark guild.

"You're Erigor?" Erza asked rhetorically. There wasn't really anyone else that would fit the character.

"That's... the armour girl we saw the other day," one of the dark-guild members noted, as he recognized Erza.

"I see, so it was her that leaked our plans," the one standing next to him noted. "Well, it doesn't matter anyway."

While both parties were starring each other down, Lucy was frantically attempting to wake up Natsu from his transportation slump, though Happy explained that it wasn't good for Natsu to be transported by anything, that is including Lucy, as she was also a form of transportation, albeit much to her own protest.

"So, what do you intend to do? Depending on your answer you may have to face even worse consequences for your actions," Erza asked, though she wasn't really asking, she was right out demanding an explanation.

"We're just trying to use our spare time productively, we have no work you see," Erigor said quite humorously. He then jumped up and was carried by the wind, propelling him up and keeping him still in the air.

"Wind Magic!" Lucy blurted out as she saw it. It wasn't everyday you saw people floating in mid air... at least not for her.

"It seems like you fail to understand... what do they have in a train station?" he asked Erza with a sadistic grin on his lips.

"... Train station?" Erza said to herself.

Erigor slowly began gliding across the room, towards a pair of loud speakers. As he placed his hand on the speaker, what they were trying to do dawned on Erza.

"Are you going to broadcast Lullaby?!" Erza shouted in mild disbelief. She had known that Eisenwald wasn't the most kind people, but to go to such extents... it made her angry. Very angry.

Seeing Erza reaction brought Erigor into a maniacal laugh, seeing their shocked expressions really amused him. Even if he wasn't planning to kill all the people in Oshibana, albeit his true goal wasn't that much better and would probably bring forth an even sweeter sense of shock and terror, he still enjoyed it.

As his laughter subsided, he looked down at them. It was time for the unnecessary but still somehow omnipresent speech of the villains. "There are hundreds... no, there are thousands of people around this station right now. If we broadcast Lullaby loud enough, the entire town will hear it. The melody of death," he explained, the sadistic smile growing larger.

"Indiscriminate mass murder?!" Erza shouted at him.

"We are simply cleaning them up. The ones who live happily for their entire lives, enjoying their rights, unaware of those whom have had their rights revoked. Living a life oblivious to the unfairness of the world is a sin, thus the Shinigami has come to punish them. A punishment called 'Death'!"

"If you do that you will never get your rights back... besides, you're the bad one to begin with..." Lucy called out to him.

"Now that we've come this far, we don't want our rights back... We want authority! If we have authority we can simply erase the past and control the future!" Erigor shouted. Just as he finished the sentence, a shuddering, cold shock-wave emerged from somewhere in the crowd, sending a chill down everyone's spine. Even Erigor was affected, as his sadistic smile faded for a brief second as he looked down in the midst of the gathering with a quite worried face. Not for them, but for himself.

Lucy would have shouted something at him, though the ill aura that had just been emitted had thrown her off, though she quickly regained her mental footing and shouted; "You're such a fool!" though admittedly she felt it was quite awkward as the wave had completely destroyed the tension that had just been building up.

"What a pity you don't understand, little flies!" the shadow mage Natsu had encountered on the train early that day exclaimed, as he quickly knelt down, placing one hand on the ground, sending his shadow out towards them. The shadow shot straight past Erza and Gray, heading directly towards Lucy and the Natsu who was now lying on the ground, still mostly out cold.

"You'll die without a glimpse of the new dark age!" the mage shouted, as the shadow erupted from the ground, in the form of a hand, ready to slam Lucy down, though as it approached it was shattered by a first engulfed in flames. Natsu had gotten up just in the nick of time and broken the shadow.

A cocky grin sported his face as he looked at the mage he had previously been unable to fight because of the train. "This time we're on a real battleground!"

The glares from the dark-guild intensified and the previous relaxed, though still somehow strained as the aura had put them off quite a bit, turned to a serious, dark atmosphere, fully intent on defeating the ones standing in front of them.

"Ooh, there's so many of them," Natsu noted, now finally being able to get a good look at the group.

"They are all enemies," Lucy added.

All while this was transpiring a sanguinary, self-confident smile graced Erigor's face. 'You've fallen into the trap, Fairy Tail,' he thought to himself, looking down at them from above. 'We've had to change our plans since you vermin decided to interfere, though we can finally return to our original plan... There's someone who must hear the melody of the flute...' His grin widened. 'Someone I must put to death!'

"This is the strongest team in Fairy Tail," Lucy said, of course unaware of the fact that Mirajane had greatly over exaggerated because she had been caught up in the moment. It didn't really seem to bother the dark-guild, though some, primarily the ones who seemed to actually know what Fairy Tail was seemed to be slightly unnerved, though only the more reason for them to defeat the so called 'strongest team'.

Erigor continued smiling his sadistic smile as he yelled; "I'll leave the rest to you, while I go play the flute," to the footmen down on the ground. This managed to catch Erza's attention, as she had thought that Erigor would probably have to fight them here, as she was quite confident that she would be able to utterly stomp all over the dark-guild, that of course looking away from the possibility of the source of that strange shock-wave was a mage... and was planning on fighting, and in that case, she would probably still win, but even so, it didn't feel right. She shrugged it off though as Erigor floated away.

"Let these clueless flies feel the power of Eisenwald's darkness!" he yelled down to them just before crashing through a window.

"Are you running away Erigor?!" Erza shouted after him, though it was quite apparent what was the case, as he had already flown out the window. Just after stating he would be leaving.

"Is he running to the next building?!" Gray asked no one in particular, and for no particular reason either as no one would be able to answer his question.

"Natsu, Gray! Both of you go after him!" Erza said, managing to extract a groan from both of them. "If you work together, there is no way you would lose to Erigor," she said, with much the same result as her last attempt, though just more of the same as they were both openly groaning into each others faces with a pretty big frown on both.

"We'll take care of things here," Erza said.

"Take care of... that many people? Just us two girls?" Lucy said to herself, looking at the horde that was just standing there for no particular reason, silently waiting for them to do whatever they please before actually starting the fight.

"Erigor is planning to use the flute in the station, you have to go after him and prevent that from happening at any cost," Erza said, unbeknownst to her that Natsu and Gray were glaring at each other behind her back, though that was quickly rectified as she turned around and yelled; "Are you listening to me?!" at them.

Immediately as she turned around they became much better friends, putting an arm over each others shoulder to show their great camaraderie, even managing to hurriedly shout; "Of course!" in unison.

"Go!"

"Aye sir!" they both yelled as they ran off. As soon as they were out of Erza's sight the bond they had forged through the last twenty seconds broke and they returned to glaring at each other, whilst running of course, as neither of them wanted to get on Erza's bad side.

"Two of them ran off!" one of the dark-guild members yelled. "Are they going after Erigor?" another one said.

"Leave them to me," one of the more prominent mages said, sending out what seemed to be leather from his hands towards the railing on the second floor above them. "I'll get rid of them!" he shouted as he flew away.

"I'm going too! I can't forgive that redhead!" the shadow mage shouted as he sunk down into his own shadow, fading away.

"Oh boy, Reyure and Kage are so belligerent... I bet it's more fun to play with the girls than with the guys," one of the few remaining competent mages said.

"It's all for the plan... at least they are more respectable than you," the person standing next to him noted.

"You're still here too."

Erza watched the horde with slight contempt in her eyes. "Once we take care of these, we will go after them," she said quite casually, as if taking out a group of angry mages, although not all competent, but still mages, was an easy task. Granted, for her it was.

Thirty seconds later, all of the dark-mages were lying on the floor, all sorely beaten by Erza in a matter of seconds. The thing that especially marked the difference in power was when Erza had used her armour, The Knight and then used Circle Sword to remove all the ones still remaining. It had only been after she had knocked out one of the only competent looking mages with one hit that the one who had stood beside him had fled.

"He might be heading to Erigor. Go after him Lucy," Erza commanded.

"Eeh? Me?!" Lucy said, only to be sent away by one of Erza's ever so common and ever so famous glances, though she did say please... though it wasn't really like she was asking her to do it. "Y-yes ma'am !" Lucy said, running after the man that had just left with Happy trailing her.

After Lucy left the room, Erza dispelled The Knight and exhaled. It was starting to get to her... 'Driving the magical four-wheeler is really starting to affect me a lot... I leave the rest to you, Natsu, Gray, Lucy...' she thought as she knelt down, supporting herself with her sword that was firmly planted in the ground. 'And Happy too,' she added, just for good measure.

Of course she had presumed she was all alone at this point, which she found out wasn't the case. In the midst of the fallen dark-guild, a single person stood starring at her with his head titled slightly. He was wearing a long-black sleeveless robe and had shoulder-long ashen hair. All in all, he looked ghastly, especially because of his extremely pale skin and the fact that he was very bony. You could clearly see some of the bone structures on his face and his arms seemed to have no fat or muscles on them as it seemed like his skin was hugging his skeleton.

Erza winced slightly when their eyes met. She had never really seen anything like it before. She remembered that the deranged man had described someone as having 'dead eyes', but she had never thought it would be something like that. The cerulean eyes that was silently looking at her had no presence. They were, as the person had said, dead.

Though in between the apathetic stares and the indifferent glances, there was something else. She had only barely been able to pick it up, but it seemed like he was conflicted. For brief moments now and then, it would look like he was about to cry from sorrow, and then he would return to his dead stare once more.

For some reason it reminded her of the time she had been a slave at the Tower of God, where as far as she could remember, some of the long-time slaves had possessed the same eyes, or some resemblance of it, but nothing to that extent. She felt bad for him, though was quickly brought back into the real world when a grunt of pain came from one of the dark-guild members.

To her, he was an enemy, a member of Eisenwald, a person that had sent an innocent person into a hysteria through unknown means, a person that was supporting indiscriminate slaughter, so no matter what he had been through, there was a conflict. And she was determined to succeed, though it struck her that she might be able to get out of the situation without fighting. She wasn't really fond of the thought of having to fight him, mostly because the guard earlier was nagging at her mind, and because she was tired.

So she pushed herself up, and looked straight and firmly at him. "Who are you?" she asked. His left eye twitched. They were silent for a few seconds before Erza decided to ask again; "I asked, who are you?" she asked in a rather demanding and impatient way. She wasn't fond of asking twice, and especially not when it was to someone from a dark-guild.

She didn't really have time to worry about that however, as she felt the same shock-wave she had felt earlier, and it was clearly erupting from the ghastly man in front of her. After quickly recovering, she noticed how his eyes had changed. Whereas they had been dead before, they were now fuelled by rage for no apparent reason.

Whatever hopes Erza had of handling the man without fighting him vanished in that instant, as the man ran at her with his fists raised. She inadvertently smiled at him as he ran towards her, without any weapons to repel the sword she had in her hand. The last time someone had tried to fight her barehanded, it had ended very poorly. For the opposite party of course.

When he first entered her range, she swung her sword in a wide arch with the flat side of the sword in the hopes of merely knocking him out, as slicing him in two pieces was the last thing she wanted to do. However in retrospect, she figured she should have thrown all care to the wind, because what ended up happening was the man dodging the rather slow moving blade and planting his left hand on her sword arm.

The instant his hand planted itself on her skin, her arm began to spasm uncontrollably, forcing her to drop her sword. She instinctively pushed herself away from him with her functioning hand, stumbling backwards though she still remained standing.

Her eyes darted back and forth between the man and the arm, where the area affected by whatever the man had done was starting to grow rapidly. She could feel as it crept up her arm, through her shoulder, to her neck, and when it finally hit her head, she dropped to her knees.

It was deafening but silent. It was all consuming but none taking. The sensation in her mind wrapped her entire being into one feeling. Pain. A cry escaped from her lips, as a couple of eyes looked away from her, twitching.

And then it stopped. Her mind was clear again, the pain was gone, the only thing there to document the thing that had just transpired was the echo of her scream, resounding in the hall. She looked back up at the man. He was looking away from her... All the rage that had been there just moment ago seemed to have vanished and been replaced with... guilt? Erza shook her head and stood up.

"Erza!?" Gray yelled and he ran into the room from one of the large hallways. He was panting slightly as he ran over to her.

"Gray..?" Erza said in a low tone, still slightly dazed.

"I felt that pulse again and I heard you scream... are you alright? What happened?" he asked. The response he received was a finger pointing towards a person he had not noticed. "Who are you?!" he shouted at the person. The instant he yelled it, the man fixated his gaze on him, though Erza quickly noticed how the reaction was different.

His left-eye twitched again, as had happened previously, though this time he began shaking mildly. It grew more violent as his eyes was slowly filled with tears, slowly tracking their way down his pale cheek, only to fall off his chin. He opened his mouth, just to close it again. With, what looked like an immense force, he opened his mouth again, saying two barely audible words; "I... I'm not..."

Erza was just as perturbed as Gray, maybe even more so.

"Wh-what's wrong with him?" Gray asked Erza, hoping that she would have an answer to what exactly was going on, but of course she wouldn't have.

"I have no idea," she said, "suddenly he just attacked me after I asked who he was..." originally she had planned to say that he probably wouldn't be of any harm, though she had, rather painfully, realized how wrong the statement was.

"What to do we do about him?" Gray asked.

"I don't know..." Erza said, looking away from the man who was now on his knees crying for seemingly no reason. Her eyes caught one of the dark-guild members trying to crawl out of the room while they were preoccupied. It was the one she had 'taken care of' as the last before the other had fled.

She walked over to him and placed her foot on his back, rendering him unable to crawl any further. "Where do you think you're going?" she said with a scowl on her face.

The man yelped slightly, though quickly calmed himself. If he was going to get out of the situation with his skin intact, he would have to comply... It wasn't his fight anyway, Erigor was the one with the grudge, though that didn't mean that he wouldn't have enjoyed seeing them die. "No-where," he said briefly.

"Good... now, who i-..." Erza stopped herself. She reminded herself of her priorities before continuing. "What exactly was your plan?" she 'asked' him while pressing her foot harder into his back.

"We were planning to take Lullaby and play it at the general assembly, supposedly killing all of the guild masters." As soon as he had said that he felt a terrible aura of death and darkness come from just behind him, accompanied with a foot planted very securely in his back.

"Oi, Erza, ask him about the wind-wall," Gray added from the side lines.

"What wind-wall?" Erza muttered, turning her attention towards the large windows. It looked like they were in the middle of a tornado from what she could see. She looked back down at the person beneath her foot, waiting for an answer, though it became apparent that it was not his best of intentions to answer, so she pressed her foot down again, "You heard him," she said commandingly.

"Right, right, lay off, damn it," he said, trying to straighten his back. "One of our members, Kage, is able to dispel it. Find him and you'll be able to get out... Of course you could also ask him," he said, motioning his head towards the person that had just recently been crying, who was now standing up without a sign of sadness on his face, except for the trail of tears that had yet to fall off his skin.

"What's his deal anyway?" Gray asked.

"Well... we don't really know. He doesn't speak, at all... we only found him recently, and he just sorted of tagged along," he explained. A grin appeared on his face. It would probably have been bigger if he was able to see the slight frowns on their faces, though he could make due without. "However," he started, catching their attention again, "there is one thing we know about him," he said, revelling in their impatience. He didn't revel in the foot that was in his back though.

"Well?"

He took a deep breath before starting. "He absolutely despises humans. Anyone who has ever attempted to speak with him was met with silence and anyone who have tried to touch him was repelled by some form of pain. You felt it yourself, didn't you?" he said with a rather devious grin on his face. He wasn't lying. He was just telling his version of the truth, in a rather cunning way. At least that was what he would tell you. He just needed them to switch their attention towards the other person so he would be able to escape and take care of Kageyama before they could get him to dispel the wall. It was a simple plan, but it seemed to be working.

While Gray believed what he had just said to be true, maybe not to that extent as he had just heard him speak, Erza's thoughts were in disarray. To her, the man didn't feel like he hated them. It might have been that he had attacked her, and succeeded at that, it almost felt like it was herself that had provoked it, albeit she couldn't for the life of her figure out what exactly had caused him to attack her. It seemed quite obvious that he had attacked because of her question, but his reaction had been completely different when Gray had asked the exact same thing.

She figured there was no point thinking about it, because no matter how you looked at it, the one below her foot was obviously trying to draw attention away from himself, and because the person was an enigma, no matter how you looked at it.

"You really should worry about him more than me... who knows what he mi-..." He was cut off as a violent explosion shook the ground.

"That must be Natsu," Gray said. "He's probably tearing this whole place down"

Erza nodded. "We'd best hurry up here," she said, smacking the man below her in the back of his head, rendering him unconscious. She then turned towards the one with the grey hair. It was no use talking to him, that much she had established at this point. They could bring him with them, however he seemed to be quite unpredictable, if not down right dangerous. Though on the other hand, the person had stated that he might be able to deal with the wall, granted that had probably been nothing more than petty assumptions, however there might have been a grain of truth in it.

She shook her head. Kageyama would be able to get them out of there, so he was the safest bet. "We're going Gray," Erza said, waving her arm for him to tag along as she went towards one of the hallways where the explosion had come from.

"What about him?"

"I think it'd be best if we left him. He doesn't seem to be a member of Eisenwald, so we don't really have any business with him," she explained whilst rubbing the place where he had touched her arm.

"Okay I guess," he said, running up to her, and as soon as he was by her side she set into run as well down the corridor. Gray took a last look over his shoulder towards the hall. He couldn't see him.

They manoeuvred through the station, quickly finding Natsu standing in front of a downed black-haired mage. Lucy was standing somewhere in the background, watching Natsu with a drop of sweat running down her face.

"Natsu, do you know his name?" Erza quickly asked him.

Natsu scratched the back of his head, looking at her with confusion in his eyes. "His name? Why would you want to kn-..."

"Just tell me," Erza commanded.

"Ha-Hai!" Natsu squeaked, "I think he was shouting 'I'm Kageyame, fear me' very angrily at me earlier."

Erza nodded and moved over to the half-conscious mage, asking; "You can dispel the wind-wall, right?"

The mage's eyelids wavered slightly before answering. "What of it?" he coughed.

"I take that as a yes. Natsu, Gray, help me carry him," Erza said.

"Wait, who said I was going to do anything?!" Kageyama exclaimed, suddenly a lot more awake that previously.

"I said that," Erza said rather threateningly with her typical scowl on her face..

"R-right," he stammered. It probably wasn't the best decision to anger her any further if he wanted to, well, remain alive, that is.

Subsequently after the short conversation, he had been dragged out in front of the station. It was a loud gale, though their voices still remained audible. Natsu and Gray who had been dragging Kageyama halfway outside, until he had abruptly protested and declared that he wouldn't run away if they let him walk by himself, was walking ominously behind the shadow-mage. He looked at the wall of concentrated air and with a frown on his face he turned around again.

"I don't think I'm able to dispel it... I'm too exhausted after the fight with pink-head over there to be able to remove it properly," he explained.

"Well, do it improperly then, we don't have time to wait," Erza demanded.

"Do you know what happens if I try to do that," he asked rhetorically. They remained silent. "Idiots... if I try to dispel magic without my full reserve, the magic will blow up and the explosion is proportional to the power of the spell..." he said, turning around to face the wind-wall. "How big do you think the it'll be?" he said with a grin.

"Fine, we get it. How long until you are able to do it?" Erza asked, crossing her arms.

"Well, I don't know. It depends on how much you're willing to pay me," he said, turning around again with a mischievous smile crossing his face.

Erza's patience had already been wearing thin, and it was at the breaking point. She stepped towards him, her scowl deepening and her arm reaching for the hilt of her sword.

Kageyama backed off, raising his hands in front of him. "Woah woah woah, remember, I'm your ticket out of here, right?" It had only been a few moments before he realized that he was in an advantageous position, and he was not going to just give them what they wanted before getting something for himself.

Erza's fist clenched in response. He was right, and she couldn't do anything about it...

"Uhm... who's that?" Lucy asked out of no-where. She was of course referring to a person with quite memorable long grey hair, whom had just seemingly appeared just as spontaneously as her question. He was standing over by between two of the pillars, facing the wall. Hearing her voice he turned around and stared at her with eyes that made her feel quite uneasy.

"It's him again," Gray muttered, whilst Natsu shot him a curious look.

"Who?"

"Well... it's hard to describe," Gray said, trying to brush it off, though Natsu was persistent. Like he always was.

"We don't have anything else to do," he noted, irritating Gray by his accurate depiction of their current situation.

"Wait... didn't that guy say something about him being able to get us out?" Gray asked Erza who was thinking along the exact same lines.

"He did say that," she stated.

Kageyama was silently cursing inside his head. If what he recalled was something that could be recreated under these situations, he wasn't in a good position any more. Though the minute he would object, they would realize that he was lying and was in fact useless to them, meaning that his little extortion would come back and bite him in the ass. Basically, he was in a bind.

"We just have to ask him then, don't we?" Natsu asked.

"Well yeah, but it's not tha-..."

"Hey, you! Can you break the wall for us?" Natsu shouted at the man. The man titled his head slightly, while pointing a finger at himself. Natsu shrugged the rather weird gesture off and nodded.

The man shrugged and turned around, facing the wind-wall, walking closer towards it.

"Don't do that, it's dangerous!" Kageyama shouted, trying to save his own skin more than the man's, however he didn't need to save anything, as he simply stuck his hand into the wall. It went straight through the wall, which almost immediately began to enter a state of entropy. Where the wind had moved as a synonymous unity, the hand was filling a space, causing some of the wind to have to move around it, displacing more and more of the wall. It took only a few seconds before it fully dispersed into thin air.

The group stood in utter silence, watching the man as he nonchalantly turned around and recommenced his staring at them.

"That must've been a weak wall," Lucy suggested, laughing slightly whilst scratching her back head.

"We don't have time to worry about that, we have to get to Clover Town before Erigor. We should be able to catch up to him with the four-wheeler, but we have to hurry!" Erza said, while moving towards the place where they had parked the car. Kageyama was slowly trying to etch his way out of any confrontation with, well any of them.

"Don't think I forgot about you!" Erza yelled back at him before exiting the station completely. "If I ever see you in a dark-guild again, I won't be as lenient!" she said as she went out and down the steps. The rest follow her, just after sending a look back at the trembling shadow-mage, who seemed to be quite displeased with the whole situation.

As all of them walked down the steps down into the streets, Natsu went over to the man, who for some inexplicable decided to join them, thinking it was a good idea to commend him on his efforts decided to give him a pat on his shoulder though 'accidentally', unaware of what might happen, grazed the man's skin.

"You know, that was really awesome back ther-..." he was interrupted as his arm started to squirm and then spreading up his arm. In just a few moments, just as with Erza, he was screaming in pain, and then it disappeared again. After the pain had vanished, Natsu looked around, seeing how Lucy was staring at both of them, petrified, Gray seemed to be quite confused, much like Natsu himself, but Erza was looking at him like he was an idiot for some unknown reason. The man was looking away, seeming somewhat remorseful.

"What... was that?" Natsu asked, unable to quite understand what exactly had just happened, and for good reason.

Erza's face suddenly lightened up. "Ah! I forgot to tell you that you should probably stay away from him. Can you forgive me?" she said, grieving over her seemingly non-consequential misstep.

"Seriously... what is up with him?" Gray asked no one in particular. Lucy just stood there, with her eyes flickering between the man and Happy that was so prone to explain things, though she quickly realized that putting her faith into a flying cat might not be the most reliable thing to do.

They continued walking towards the car, though this time Natsu and Lucy was paying special attention to keep a little, if not more of a distance between themselves and the man.

When they eventually reached the car, Erza motioned for the man to stop. "Are you really coming with us?" she asked. He just looked at her with a slightly confused expression, which was clearly asking her why she would even ask in the first place. She sighed and turned around towards the others.

How exactly Lucy came to sit next to the man in the car was a mystery to her. Why was he even with them in the first place? A sigh escaped her. Another thing that had caused her to sigh was how the person had been incessantly staring at her throughout practically from the time they had entered the car. It unnerved her quite a bit, however her ego wasn't suffering a bit from it, though the ego had been temporarily disabled as discomfort had momentarily taken over.

"So... what's your name?" Lucy asked, her voice shaking slight whilst attempting to put up a smile. The man's eye just twitched slightly, and thereafter he had just shaken his head. She couldn't exactly tell whether he was messing with her or just being plain rude, so she just shook it off, turning her attention away from the person that had finally decided to look away from her and begun looking at the canyon area they were entering, towards the person who was had his head out of the window.

The ride was fairly long and silent, with a couple of bumps along the road. Once Lucy had been thrown towards the man, though had managed to stop herself from actually touching him, except for her leg, which to her own surprise still remained fine. She had guessed that it was because there was no actual skin contact.

After that, she had found herself occasionally glancing in his general direction. It was only then, when she had actively looked at him up-close that she had been able to actually see his features. It amazed and shocked her at the same time. He was nothing but skin and bones... She had seen some serious cases of anorexia when she had attended some of the banquets she had been invited to as her fathers daughter, but that was nothing compared to his condition.

Though what really caught her attention was his eyes. If anything, they looked disconnected from reality. Far, far away, gazing upon a world only he knew... They were from different worlds she concluded. It was a shocking view of a world previously hidden from her eyes.

It wasn't like she was blind of the suffering of people, she had just never been able to see it as she had always been wrapped up in the aristocracy, who never gave the light of day to those below them. That was one of the many reasons she had decided to leave, of course it was dwarfed by other reasons, but it was still there, and now after watching him for a longer period of time, she began to feel bad for him.

After a while of driving, Erza suddenly shouted; "I can see him," in between her drawn out breaths of exhaustion. Natsu twitched slightly, suddenly becoming dangerously close to falling out of the car. Happy quickly grabbed on to Natsu's pants and dragged him back into the car Luckily for both of them, he was wearing a belt.

While all that was going on, Gray had managed to crawl out of the window of the car, and crawled onto the roof, where miraculously maintained balance on top of the speeding car. "I'll stop him and then we'll take care of him," Gray shouted down to Erza, whose ragged breathing worried him, however he didn't really have time for that.

Gray made the necessary hand movements before shouting; "Ice-make: Lance!" after which several streams of ice propelled from his hands towards Erigor. Unluckily for him it seemed Erigor had heard him, so he managed to do a barrel-roll out of the way.

"Persistent rats!" Erigor shouted, as he turned around and created a magic seal while saying; "Wind Blade," with a sadistic grin. A stream of air erupted from the seal, which subsequently knocked Gray off of the car, forcing Erza to stop abruptly, which in turn forced another groan out of Natsu and a yelp from Lucy.

Gray was thrown down on to the railway tracks, tumbling in the trail of dust the car had left behind, hitting several of the wooden planks supporting the two steel bars which he also hit quite a bit. He tumbled for quite a few seconds before finally stopping around twenty meters behind the stopped car.

It didn't take long for Lucy to realize what had just happened, as she quickly opened the door and ran towards Gray. Natsu stumbled out of the car after her, still dizzy after the bumpy car ride. Happy was trying to wake Natsu up, to no avail however. Erza was looking at Erigor as he descended down towards them.

"Is that all you have? Two weaklings, a sickling, a cat and then you, little miss energetic," he said with a hint of sarcasm, his grin growing wider.

"You... won't get away with this," Erza said, her head spinning slightly due to magic exhaustion.

"And how exactly are you going to stop me?" he asked, following it up with a maniacal laughter.

She knew he was right. At this point, their best bet was to wait until Natsu recovered, as Gray's rather slow, at least compared to Erigor's, Ice-make wouldn't be able to stop him. Lucy and Happy were also out of the picture and she, as in herself, was too exhausted to fight him properly...

"You?!" Erigor shouted suddenly. "What are you doing here?!"

While all the commotion had been going on, the grey-haired man had just stepped out of the car, looking rather angrily towards Erigor. A pearl of sweat raced its way down Erigor's face. Who would have thought that such a ghastly person could be so intimidating. He cleared his head and returned the glare.

The man began walking towards Erigor, step by step going closer to him. As he passed by Erza he sent her a reassuring look, something which perturbed her greatly.

"What are you doing?" she asked him as he continued walking. She saw as he shrugged casually.

His hair and robe swayed gently in the wind as he walked towards Erigor, whom was starting to grow quite angry, or at least more so than previously.

"Are you planning to defy me?" Erigor asked him. He stopped walking and looked at him with what seemed like great resolve.

"You... not wrong," he said, taking another step towards. Most of Erigor's anxiety faded away, at least until he opened his mouth again and said; "But, not right either." After saying that, he set into a run towards Erigor, who decided to just fly into the air, out of his reach. The man stopped abruptly in his tracks and looked up at Erigor.

"What? Can't get to me?" he taunted.

The man just stared at him, with a creepy smile crossing his lips.

"Stop staring at me, you freak!" Erigor shouted, just before making a magic seal; "Wind Blade" he shouted for the second time, this time directed towards the person standing on the railway.

Erza, as well as Gray, who was leaning up against the car with a hand on his injured shoulder, and Lucy who was helping Happy wake Natsu, neither of them would probably have believed themselves if they were to tell what happened to their younger selves. The man literally jumped up, through the wind magic, basically splitting the wind in half making it seem like it was nothing. Erigor seemed to be in just as much shock as them, so he didn't have enough time, well, he had plenty of time, he just didn't use it, but he failed to react in time, so he was hit straight in the face with a clenched fist of the man.

Erigor was sent flying uncontrollably through the air. The pain he was experiencing was far greater than anything he had ever felt before. The initial punch he would have been able to deal with, but the thing he feared the most, the feeling that instantaneously came after contact, was just as bad as he had imagined. After the incident during his 'recovery' he had made sure to stay well away from him. He hadn't liked his presence in the first place, the reason was that he was a liability, as was pretty obvious at this point, though he didn't really have time to think about that, nor the ability.

While Erigor was still flying in a daze of pain, he felt another impact, this time in his back, and the direction he was travelling altered greatly. Seconds later he crashed into what he presumed to be the railway. He wasn't entirely sure, however after the pain finally subsided after a little while, of course it felt far longer to him.

The onlookers were watching it with amazement, even Natsu who had finally recovered after great efforts from primarily Happy, and Lucy less so. They had seen the initial move, however the follow up was something just as, if not more, spectacular, as the man had seemingly used air as a platform to jump from. He had done that, jumping towards Erigor who was still reeling in the after effects of the punch. He had caught up with him within a second, and had slammed his fist into his back, this time sending him crashing into the railway with quite a substantial amount of force.

After that, the man had jumped on the air once more, this time sending him towards the bridge as well. He landed a couple of meters away from Erigor. He then slowly walked over towards Erigor whom at this point in time was starting to recuperate from the attacks, though unlike with the times Erza and Natsu had been affected by it, the pain didn't subside all at once. It decreased slowly over time, to a point where it was bearable at least.

He was only able to push himself off of the ground, getting a chance to look around. His scythe had been lost at the initial strike and was probably somewhere down at the bottom of the ravine by now. The group at the car were all staring at him with gaping expressions, which was reasonable, as he would probably have the same expression if not for the overwhelming amount of pain he had just been through. And then finally there was the man, slowly approaching him quite ominously. Erigor did not like the situation at all. Especially not the fact that the man was looking down at him, almost as if he was feeling pity for him...

Erigor was petrified, frozen in place. He was telling his body to stand up and ran, though it didn't seem to be responding. He looked up at the man, as he slowly knelt down next to him, extending both of his arms. That moment was probably the longest moment in his life, even though its relative short length, which was around a second. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. It was loud...

He felt a hand on his temple, and his vision blackened. The sensation that crashed into him, and over him could not be described in any other way, than to die a million times in the course of a second. He felt himself being impaled, burnt, frozen, stabbed, lacerated, eviscerated, decapitated, disembowelled, electrocuted, tortured, the list could go on. He felt his own being disappear countless times, his entire existence vanish from the world... and then suddenly he was back.

He looked around, the memory of his own countless deaths still fresh in his mind, he started to crawl backwards. Away from the man, whom had stood up again, looming dangerously over him. He kept crawling, without a thought, the only thing he could hear was his own heartbeat and his rapid breathing.

He faintly heard a voice call out to him, though it was too late. His hand slipped on the edge of the bridge and he fell backwards, his body flipping over, spinning rapidly as he dropped into the misty chasms of the valley. His mind was filled with the wind and his own heartbeat, and then suddenly, it stopped. Everything stopped.

They watched him plummet into the depths with a synonymous expression on their faces. Shock, primarily. Even after calling out to him, he had backed off the edge of the bridge, and seemingly had not even tried to save himself with his magic...

Lucy was the first to break the silence. "D-did... he die?" she asked, looking at the others with an expression of mixed horror and shock.

"What... do we do?" Gray asked, looking at Erza.

"I... think we should take him to Master... he'll know what's best," she said, still starring intently at the man who was still leaning slightly over the edge of the bridge, looking down into the chasm where Erigor had just fallen down.

Hearing their voices, the man turned to face them. His ashen hair was still swaying gently in the wind, his eyes as dead as the time they met. His pale lips curved down into a frown.

Author Notes: Okay, so, just to clear something up. This 'man' is the same one from the Liminoid Illumina arc (It's pretty bloody difficult explaining this when the character doesn't have a name...). Anyhow, in regards to, well, everything, this was the longest chapter so far and it was quite difficult to make it, especially the final part. So yeah, Erigor kind of died. t'is a shame (said no one in particular), Lullaby is of course gone with him down into the cavern, the reason why Natsu was not flown by Happy was because his sense of urgency was thrown off because of the little tap he gave OC (I'll just refer to him as OC from now one, until he gets a proper name). Some other things, the reason why Erza's defenses were broken through was because she was a) exhausted and b) not actually trying to harm him c) not expecting that.

There are a lot of other things that I'd like to note on, but I can't really be bothered with it, as they may or may not be obvious, however there were some key points that I'd just like to clarify.

Anyway, I hope you stay tuned to the next chapter, where OC will encounter Makarov, and things will happen!

And remember, a review a day keeps laziness away.

Wind-wall.