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Fight Me, Bite Me	By : Rhov Category: +. to F > Fairy Tail Views: 39446 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: Fairy Tail is the property of Hiro Mashima. I make no money, I just do this for my own pleasure.

Chapter List
- 53
- 54
- 55
A/N: Finally, Igneel's Cave! Readers have been asking about this for a long time, and here we are.
Warning: There are spoilers ahead.
Audio drama: http://chirb.it/MqDz3z
Chapter 54
Igneel's Cave
Gray's bags were packed, but he sat in Natsu's house watching the Dragon Slayer attempting to cram everything for their vacation into a duffel bag. Of course the idiot would wait until the very last day to pack clothes. Gray kept checking his watch. They would have to run to the station, but they should still be able to make the train. He swore Natsu had put off packing just so they would miss the train and could walk … as if they could walk all the way to the mountain where he had lived with Igneel.
"Aren't you done?" he called out, picking dirt out of his nails.
Natsu glared up. He knew they were running late, but Gray was not even helping. He just sat there … half-naked. "Aren't you dressed, pervy stripper?"
Gray looked down and saw that, indeed, he had thrown his shirt off again. He yanked the purple print shirt off the ground and tugged it on. "Look who's talking about being perverted." Gray strode over and leaned into his ear. "Considering you got your own therapist horny."
"Hey, it's not my fault! He wanted to know about how things went, and I was honest."
"Apparently a little too honest."
Natsu scoffed and folded his arms. "Just because you can't tell your therapist about being a sadist—"
"What we talk about has nothing to do with that."
"How would you know, since you've never brought it up?"
"Are you saying me being a sadist is a mental problem?"
"Of course not, but it could be related, like how my need for bondage is related to my past."
"That's different."
"You don't know that."
"It is, okay!"
"What are you scared of? That she'll know you're a kinky pervert?"
"I ain't scared, flame-brain. It's just … it's not related. Like I don't think you being a masochist has anything to do with the past."
"But I need to be restrained because—"
"Not that. I mean all of it. You like more than just restraint, right?"
Natsu glared. "Like what?"
"Like … sheesh … paddling and … and when I bite you, and … and … pissing yourself…"
"I don't like doing that."
Gray blinked in surprise. "You don't?"
"I never did. You liked it, but I never have."
"You should have said something!" shouted Gray.
Natsu shrugged. "I didn't mind."
"It's humiliating, right?"
"Definitely. But I don't mind."
"See! Exactly my point. That's part of being a masochist. You like being humiliated."
"No, I don't!"
"By me, you do."
"Screw you!"
"Why are you being stubborn about this?"
"Dammit, I don't even know what we're fighting over!"
To the side, Happy giggled into his paws. "You two really are like an old married couple."
Both jumped, embarrassed from having their conversation overheard. Gray looked sharply over at Natsu, who was gawking at him with a blush to his cheeks.
Natsu's voice trembled as he asked, "How much of that did you hear?"
Happy innocently shrugged. "Not much. What's … mass-o-kiss?"
Both coughed and searched around for some explanation.
Suddenly, Erza's voice boomed outside. "Gray! Natsu! Get out here, and you had better be packed."
"Crap!" Natsu squawked.
He crammed a bunch of stuff into the duffel bag. Gray grabbed a toothbrush and rammed it in as well, knowing Natsu would forget. Then he scrambled to his suitcase still in the entryway and ran outside with the bag in his hand. A few seconds later, tripping over his own feet, Natsu tumbled out the door and stood at attention in front of Erza.
She glared at both of them. "I was talking to Mira, who said Happy had not come by yet although he's staying at her place while you're on vacation. I figured you'd either still be packing or might have started your fun early."
"Erza!" Gray cried out.
"Hurry to the train station!" she barked. "You had better not be late."
"Yes, ma'am," Gray shouted.
"Aye!" Natsu squeaked. Then both of them rushed down the road.
Erza folded her arms and shook her head. "Those two! I'm glad they're back together, but they seriously do worry me. They need someone to watch over them."
Happy walked out and shrugged his arms in mock humbleness. "I try, but it's a hard duty at times. Hey, Erza? What's mass-o-kiss?"
An eyebrow raised. "Masochist? It's … well … like how Jellal … um, no, never mind…" She blushed as she tried to think of something. "It's when you still love someone even when they sometimes act mean toward you. Or maybe I should say, you really like it when that person is a bit harsh. It's … endearing … titillating."
"Ooooh," he whispered, nodding solemnly. "Sort of like how I still love Carla even when she rejects my fish and I even like it when she yells at me and calls me a stupid male cat."
"I suppose," she muttered warily.
"So I can tell Carla it's okay to do that, because I'm one big mass-o-kisses." He beamed a giant smile.
Erza sputtered out a laugh mixed with adorableness at his confusion and horror at how others would take it if Happy actually said that in the guild. "Uh … you … y-you shouldn't … that is … it's not something you say to just anyone, and maybe not in public."
Happy tilted his head in confusion. "Is it a naughty word?"
"Not naughty on its own. Tell you what. How about we go find Pantherlily? Maybe he can explain it." With blushing cheeks, Erza walked away, wondering just what sort of conversation Gray and Natsu were having for Happy to be asking about a question like that.

After a long train ride, Natsu and Gray hiked for two days through foothills and farmlands. Natsu kept sniffing the air and grinning in excitement.
"There should be more ash smell in the air, and it really is cold," he muttered over a campfire. "Still, the soil smells the same. It's definitely this place."
Near the end of the second day, they crested a tall hill, and Natsu pointed straight ahead.
"There is it! Igneel's mountain."
Ahead, Gray saw a tall, snow-covered peak. Natsu put his fists on his hips and glared at it.
"It looks so different," he whispered in disappointment. "I know this is the right place, but…"
Gray rubbed his back. "You said it's the first time you've been back since Igneel left. Natsu … that was hundreds of years ago. That mountain probably hasn't erupted in four centuries."
Natsu pouted deeply. "I don't think it ever really hit me." He looked up to Gray in apology. "You might not get your sauna."
He smiled and hugged the Dragon Slayer. "I'll make due."
It took two more days and a ride in a farmer's cart to reach the mountain. They rode in the farm cart, with Natsu green and sick in the back and Gray sitting up front to help the old man by taking the reins for a while.
"So, what brings two young'uns to the Dragon King's Mountain?" the old farmer asked.
Despite being close to vomiting, Natsu raised his head. "Dragon … King? Ac- urp -Acnologia?"
"Oh, that ain't the proper name, no siree!" chuckled the old man. "It's what we locals call it. It's an old legend, that once the king of all fire dragons lived on this mountain and made the volcano erupt over and over, so that no human could exist near him. Then one day, a mere child tamed the heart of the dragon, and the volcano went silent. The child was special, and so he was whisked off to the Dragon Palace far away to be raised as a prince. They say that one day he'll come back and be king of the mountain again."
"King … of the mountain?" Natsu whispered, and in a lonely sigh, he muttered, "Igneel."
The farmer chuckled to himself. "It's a load of crock! The last eruption was four hundred years ago. It's simply an inactive volcano now, nothing special at all about it. Even if there was a dragon and a child, he'd be long since dead. Unless they meant he was special as in he lived as long as a dragon. Sure wouldn't mind a strong man in these parts to chase out the bandits, but I definitely wouldn't want my farm destroyed by the volcano."
"Well, we're just passing through," Gray told the farmer. "No plans of setting off the volcano … right?" he said, shooting a glare back at Natsu, not really putting it past the pyromaniac to set the whole mountain ablaze just as a way to announce that the son of the Fire Dragon King had returned.
Sure enough, Natsu scowled petulant. "O-Of course not. That's silly. I mean, who could do that, setting off a whole volcano?"
Gray shook his head, remembering that when Natsu first mentioned his cavernous home, he admitted he once made it erupt, and that was when he was just a kid.
The farmer let them off at the base of the mountain. Natsu was at least glad to see a familiar path he had known in his childhood. He told Gray Igneel etched out the path straight into the side of the volcano with his claws so Natsu could travel down to the sandy river for lessons in reading and writing.
They began to climb up the steep trail. If Natsu was saddened by the appearance of snow on the mountain, he was at least happy to be walking along a familiar route.
"Hey, look! Look over there, Gray." He pointed across a valley. "See that weird hill? That used to be a mountain. Igneel destroyed it the day he showed me what a real Fire Dragon's Roar looked like. I've been aiming to get that powerful all my life."
Gray saw what was definitely too large to be a mere hill, a weirdly shaped mound of land that he now easily imagined had been a mountain destroyed by a dragon and then worn down over centuries.
"He … wiped out a whole mountain? In one breath?"
Natsu grinned with pride. "Awesome, right? My dad's the best!"
Finally, they reached snow level, and Natsu rubbed his arms against the frost. He complained about the cold, whining that when he and Igneel lived there, it had never snowed. He picked some berries alongside the road and grumbled that those sorts of berries never existed on that mountain when he was a child. The more they went, the more Natsu realized how much his home had changed.
"I wonder if it's even still there," he muttered despondently. "I mean, the whole mountain has changed. I never really thought … I mean, it's still sort of new, you know. The whole concept that my childhood … my whole life with Igneel … it was so long ago. It doesn't seem that long to me, but to everyone else, to the whole world…" His voice faded in sadness from the deep loss. "Now that I see this place … if I had found this when I was a kid … I probably would have known right away. This much change doesn't happen in a few years."
Gray was not sure what to say to him. Coming home was supposed to be an exciting event, but Natsu was realizing just how remote in the past his childhood was.
"I remember when I was a kid, looking everywhere for Igneel, many times I tried to find our cave so I could wait for him there. I saw this mountain, but it was covered in snow, so I thought I must be wrong and lost. It wasn't until later—much later—Happy and I went searching. I never actually made it to the mountain, but we looked at a lot of maps, and I saw it. I knew it had to be the same mountain, because that flattened one was on the map too. They even call it Hill of the Dragon's Rage," he laughed. "Igneel wasn't mad or anything. He was just training me and went too far."
"Like father, like son," Gray muttered.
Natsu grinned brightly. "Yep! I learned it all from Igneel."
Finally, they came to the mouth of a cave. Natsu held back, looking uncertain now. With the snow around, this did not at all seem like the same home of his childhood.
"I'll check it out," Gray offered. "Make sure there's no bandits living in there … or bats."
He walked up to the entrance, but as he got closer he saw a glow of magic. There was a barrier in front of the cave.
"Someone's sealed it," he called back to Natsu. Gray placed his hand on the faintly glowing barrier. "It doesn't feel like any magic I've even encountered. Could be a rogue wizard took over the cave." He used both hands and summoned, "Ice Make: Hammer!"
A glittering hammer formed in his hands. Gray pulled it back and took aim. However, when the hammer struck, it instantly evaporated into steam, leaving Gray off-balance.
"What the…"
Natsu walked up now and put a hand on Gray's shoulder. "It's okay. It'll open, but not with ice or any normal form of magic. Only one type of magic."
Natsu held out his hand, and it caught ablaze. Then he stepped up to the barrier and pressed the fiery hand against it. The glowing barrier incinerated, burning away, and a blast of heat puffed out of the cavern.
Natsu laughed softly to himself as a tear slid down his cheek. "Igneel … he locked the door before leaving. That last time we left together, he … he locked the door."
Gray wrapped an arm around Natsu. "Maybe he knew you'd want to come home."
Natsu snuffled and dabbed his eyes with his scarf. He forced his feet to move and walking into the shadows. There was a trough carved into the stone wall. Natsu lit a flame and touched an oil inside the trough. Instantly, the entire trough caught on fire, the flame raced through the interior, and the cave brightened.
Gray stepped in and looked around in wonder. The cavern was massive, big enough for a dragon to live in comfortable, and dotted with gleaming chips of crystals that reflected the fiery light. Stalactites glistened from the ceiling. Much of the ground had been smoothed down. There was an area that had a stone table and chair, far too small in comparison, so Gray guessed that had probably been Natsu's dining table.
"Igneel!" Natsu bellowed into the cave, and his voice echoed back. "I'm … I'm home."
Suddenly, the tears he had been struggling to hold back cracked. Natsu collapsed to his knees and bawled openly. His sobs were laced with screams as the pain of his loss tore at his heart.
Gray stood back, letting him cry. He knew this sort of pain. It was the same agony that darkened his own heart and prevented three words from passing over his lips. Perhaps Natsu had it even worse. He had human parents at one time, a family. He had been too young to remember them, but surely that loss troubled him at times. Then he spent all of those years searching for Igneel, only to find him and lose him in the same night.
It was not like Gray, who had come to terms with the loss of his parents at a young age. Natsu's grief was much fresher.
He did not want Natsu to suffer like he had in his childhood.
Finally, Gray knelt beside him and hugged Natsu, showing that he was still there and still cared for him. Natsu's sobs had subsided slightly, and he leaned into Gray for support. He let out a shaky sigh and let the tears flow freely.
"This is it," he whispered hoarsely, choked by tears. "My home. Where I lived … with Igneel. Some- … Sometimes we went off, we'd fly everywhere, sleep in the open, but always … always, we came back home. Back here." He snuffled away snot and looked around. "He … He filled the oil trough. He locked the door. He knew I would be back."
Natsu suddenly leaped to his feet and scrambled off to the back of the cave. Gray raced after him, running over the glittering stone floor of the massive cave. Then he saw another tunnel. The floor angled down, more narrow, probably barely big enough for a dragon's body. This tunnel opened to another cave, just a bubble of space, but Gray saw that it was diminutive inside. There was a small bed, although probably king size in human standards. There was another stone table and a wooden wardrobe carved in an ancient style. On the bed was a massive roll of paper. Natsu began to unravel the scroll. On it, Gray saw huge letters in a smooth penmanship.
"That's a big letter," he muttered in awe.
"Igneel had big hands," Natsu whispered, awed as he read a final letter left behind by his adopted father.

Dear Natsu,
I hope you are grown by the time you read this. I know you're probably upset that I'm gone, and confused about the world around you. Surely, this mountain must look different, and with luck, you now live in a world where dragons are but a myth. A peaceful world, the sort of paradise I tried so desperately to show you over the past few years, sheltering you from the war going on.
The war is bad, very bad, and we dragons are about to make a large move to end it. This move will separate us, Natsu. I don't know for how long, and I don't know what dire circumstances will force me to come back, but I hope you live a long and happy life before that reunion, making lots of friends and growing to be a great Dragon Slayer.
There is so much I need to tell you, so much about you and the world which you know nothing about. I don't know how old you'll be when you find this letter, though. Maybe you ran home immediately and you're still a little brat. Maybe now you're an adult, seeking home in a sense of nostalgia.
You have a great destiny, Natsu. You are a special child. So immensely special, and so burdened by fate. When I think about what awaits your adult self, and I look at this tiny, bratty child, it makes my inner fire burn with fatherly love.
I want to protect you, Natsu. I want to seal away all the darkness in you, and all the pain that will come in the future. If I could absorb all of that and burn it away, I would. As your father, I would protect you and give you a perfect, peaceful life, for as long as I am able.
My time runs short. I will be taking you far, far away. You belong to a better time. You deserve to grow up in an age without dragon wars, Acnologia, Nirvana, or Zeref's demons. I'm going to send you there, knowing that shadow probably won't be completely gone. You will grow in an age rich in magic and blessed with peace, but I fear you will bring the darkness of this age with you. You are destined to meet Acnologia and Zeref again. I only hope I can be there to protect you when you need me the most.
I will always be with you, Natsu. You are not just some brat I took in. You are, and forever will be, my cherish son.
May the flame of your soul burn ever brighter.
Igneel

Natsu stared quietly at the massive letter, long enough to have read it five times. Finally, he rolled it up and shoved the massive scroll under the bed.
"It doesn't tell me what I want to know," he said with a bitter edge to his voice and a glare in his eyes.
Gray hesitated before cautiously asking, "What's that?"
"How he felt," he spat, showing anger toward Igneel for the first time since Gray had known him. "He must have known it was coming up. He raised me knowing he would be abandoning me. Even if he ended up loving me as a son, how did that make him feel? The days leading up to the end … he knew it was coming … I remember now, he made me clean this place spotless and kept kicking me out of this room to clean more. He must have been writing this letter and preparing to leave the cavern. What was running through his mind? Did he even stop and think how I would react? Did he have any clue how devastated I would be? Did he have any clue at all how much I … I loved him … a-and thought of him as my dad … and how much … I'd miss him." Tears poured down again. "Did that old bastard think about that? How did it make him feel, knowing he was going to abandon me?"
"He was doing it for your future," Gray said softly.
Natsu lashed out furiously, "A future without him. Imagine it, Gray. Imagine if it was your dad. Imagine if your dad knew what was coming. Imagine if he had run off instead, knowing he was going to leave you alone and in pain. Instead of dying trying to protect you, imagine if he just vanished. And there you are, alone, and you don't know anyone, anyone at all, and the whole world is crazy, they say your father never existed, dragons are a myth, the whole world thinks you're crazy, and you're alone and looking for your dad for years, holding onto that spark of hope and happiness at how your reunion will be, only to find out he was right there the whole time, and he said nothing, he did nothing. All I suffered, all the times I almost died, what I did to that fucking bastard … and Igneel did nothing. Nothing at all. He sat back and watched it happen."
"Natsu," Gray warned, worried he might say something he would regret later.
Natsu collapsed onto the bed and dropped his head down into his hands, leaning over and letting the tears drip between his knees to the floor. "I'm sorry. This was supposed to be a nice vacation."
Gray sat beside him and draped an arm around the shaking, tense shoulders.
"This isn't even like taking you home," Natsu muttered sadly. "It's just … some mountain now. It isn't anything like it used to be."
Gray squeezed Natsu's hand. "When I took you to my parents' graves, do you think those ruins look like the village I grew up in?"
Natsu looked up with teary eyes misted with curiosity. "Of course not. It was destroyed by a demon."
"This volcano you grew up on, and the village where I was raised, they belong to the past. They live on in our memories. As do Igneel, Silver, and my mother."
Natsu rested his head on Gray's shoulder. "Your village was still around a couple decades ago. My home vanished centuries in the past."
"Your home is still here, Natsu. It's just changed on the outside. My village, in four hundred years, will be lost to time and memory, a few stones and bricks to show that civilization once existed in that spot. This mountain, though, is still here. This cave is still here! And in another four hundred years, it'll probably still look the same inside."
Natsu smiled wearily, drained from the emotional day.
"How about we take a nap?" Gray offered. "It's been a long journey. We should rest."
"Yeah. I could use a nap."
Gray looked at the bed. "No blankets?"
"It's a volcano. It was always really hot."
"True. It's surprisingly warm in here, considering the volcano is inactive now."
"So is that why you've stripped?" Natsu teased.
"Hey, we're in your home. I'm allowed to remove annoying clothes."
Natsu did not complain, happy just to hear Gray called it his home. "I need to turn off the lights."
Natsu took a deep inhale, and flames from the trough swirled into the bedroom. He sucked all of it, until suddenly the cave was pitch black, not even the tiniest light reaching this deep room.
In the pure darkness, Gray heard Natsu giggling. "What?" he asked in confusion.
"Igneel used a special oil to light the place. It never dried out and didn't go bad. He used to say that a thousand years could pass and the oil would still be good. It also flavors the flame." Natsu wiggled down on a pillow and snuggled into Gray. "I forgot how good the flames tasted. Like eating a meal from childhood."
Gray smiled to hear happiness in his voice. This trip was wrought with emotions, but at least Natsu was taking it with the same strength as he always did.
End of Chapter 54
- 53
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- 55
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Fight Me, Bite Me