Year- x774
Kazu opened his eyes, finding a white ceiling above.
He got up from the bed, looking around. Eyes blank.
'If only I had not gone to train that day.'
Kazu looked at a symbol on the wall—Fairy Tail.
'If only I had moved away from that village before.'
Looking around, he could see that he was in an infirmary.
Kazu clutched his heart. He felt a weird form of pain. It was incomparable to the time his new parents had died.
"I—I..." He took a deep breath before starting to go through the drawers.
'Just need a knife or even a scalpel would be fine.' His eyes were aimless.
He ignored the tremble in his arms as he moved onto the next drawer.
"Are you sure that this is what you want?" A grandfatherly voice came from behind. Kazu paused for a second before continuing. He didn't turn back.
"Yes... I have nothing to live for." 'Fuck Canon. I fucking don't care whatever happens to this world.'
Kazu wasn't a hero. He knew it from the day he realised that he was in the Fairy Tail world.
"Then, live for yourself. Is this what they would have wanted?" Kazu paused.
He turned around and looked Makarov straight in the eye.
"What's the point?... This is not the first time everything has been taken away from me. I bet it would happen again... I d—don't want it to happen again." Kazu's voice trembled. Tears welled up in his eyes as he thought about the possible future.
Just living in a world without Yui was difficult. If he has to live in such a world along with the possibility of losing everything again, then he may as well end things now.
Before Kazu knew it, Makarov hugged him.
"It's not easy to live in this world. At times, you would least expect, you might lose a loved one. Do you know why people still live in such a world?"
"W—Why?" Kazu, at this point, was a broken mess.
"Because if you don't live, who will love her now?"
Kazu wanted to refute the statement, somehow. But he wasn't able to. He just cried on the latter's Makarov's shoulders.
That day, he chose to continue to live.
---
Kazu, despite becoming a Fairy Tail member, spent his days sitting in the tavern and watching guildmates from a distance.
Most of them were unfamiliar faces, as it was 10 years before Canon started.
His eyes were lifeless, and he stared at them all day. To guild members, initially, it was quite creepy. But they soon got used to it. You cannot be a weirdo if you are part of Fairy Tail.
Some tried to talk to him, but he kept his distance. Anybody could tell he was putting on a facade. But nobody blamed him, given his situation.
"Do you want orange juice?" He turned his head towards a brown-haired girl. She was the same age as him.
"Thank you, but I prefer water." To demonstrate his point, he lifted the water bottle by his side before averting his eyes.
"Really?" The girl sipped the juice herself. "Dunno how water could be considered better than this. Do you dislike sugary things?"
Kazu shook his head. "Not really. Just not in the mood. Moreover, that juice is not even cold." He tapped at the glass, which was at room temperature.
He lifted his bottle, which had some water droplets on its surface, indicating its temperature.
"Fair. Anyway, what are you exactly doing? It has been 2 months since you entered the guild, yet all you do is sit around and watch people. Like some sort of old man." Cana put the glass on the table and crossed her arms.
"I am actually training." The boy's words shocked her. She blinked.
"Wait, what?" The girl tilted her head, confused.
"Watch this." He pointed at one table. "In around 10 seconds, Macao will hit the table and get up, and he will then hit that old guy. Most likely a punch in the face. This would lead to that guy getting hit and escalating a brawl."
Cana looked in the direction Kazu pointed.
5 seconds later, Macao slammed his glass on the table in anger, getting up and kicking Wakabe right in the face. He was sent flying backwards and slammed into a guy Kazu had pointed towards. This started a brawl.
Cana looked back at him in shock.
"Not only did I get the timing ridiculously wrong, but he preferred to kick, not punch. Guess, I have a long way to go." Kazu shrugged, spectating the brawl.
"How did you—"
"If I were you, I would duck now," Kazu warned Cana, who was too late to understand what he meant.
She found a tumbler hitting right on her head.
Her face morphed into annoyance. "Who was that?"
Kazu was kind enough to point towards the person who threw it. Cana threw back the tumbler at the person, hitting the person right in the head.
Cana then looked back at Kazu and then at another person in the tavern. 'He is so much different from Gray despite a similar situation. Gray looks at least revengeful... but he seems like he has lost all hope. No wonder Master seemed so worried.'
Despite similar circumstances, one was filled with revenge while the other was barely living.
Unknown to each other, their paths would soon interweave.
---
Time passed, and the S-rank exams for the year began. Kazu, along with other guildmates, spectated the battle. It was pretty fun to see people getting beaten up.
x775 begin. Months passed, and Kazu remained in the tavern, just watching. He still kept up some sort of physical activity, but he didn't bother to train to improve it. Just to maintain.
He was currently walking alongside Cana in a forest. The latter had taken a mission to pick some rare oranges in the nearby forest.
Generally, people need to be at least 12 years old to start their mage journey, but for some missions like this one, which involve common or trivial tasks, kids like them could do it.
"This map is so faulty. We are now lost." Cana cursed. Kazu just watched her silently. He was dragged here without his consent.
Cana looked at him and clicked her tongue. "Don't look at me like that. You were always cooped up in the building, so you need to take a bit of fresh air. Even the master agreed, so don't blame it all on me." She huffed and started walking towards a tree.
Kazu stood at his spot, distracted by his thoughts.
BOOOM
Suddenly, a loud voice thundered throughout the clearing. Both of them stilled. They turned towards the source—a boar.
'A magical boar.' Kazu remembered hearing one of the guildmates getting hurt by such a beast. They were at least lucky to come back without much damage.
Cana's entire body froze in fear. To her horror, the boar charged at her.
She was currently around 100 meters away from Kazu.
'I don't think she would die from that... right? Canon would be fucked if that happened.' Kazu frowned. He moved his body, running towards her.
"RUN." He shouted.
Cana stumbled backwards, falling on the ground.
Kazu internally cursed. 'Well, I don't think she had that much relevance to the plot... did she? It's been so long. Well, with my existence... it should be fine, right?'
Suddenly, in Kazu's view, Cana's terrified face overlapped with his sister's face.
He had never seen his sister terrified as long as she lived. The only times he had seen were in his nightmares.
Click.
A clicking sound resounded in Kazu's mind. The world lost all its colour. Everything slowed down—no, Kazu's mind sped up.
He looked at the boar, at Cana, at trees, branches on the ground, stone—everything became a piece on a board.
A piece that he could move.
He instinctively knew the value and how each piece influences the other. So, he took action.
While still running, he kicked a stone lying on the ground.
The stone shot through the sky at an insane speed and hit the branch of a tree.
THUD
The branch fell just ahead of Boar's path, making the latter stop immediately.
For a few seconds, it just stood there, looking at the big branch.
However, suddenly, he looked towards its left and a small branch pierced its eye.
Kazu had stabbed that branch right in it.
'This should pierce its brain and kill—' Kazu suddenly felt a large force hitting him in the gut. The boar had suddenly kicked him.
He found himself flying backwards before slamming against a tree.
'I underestimated it. It's a mana beast, so there's a high chance that it has some defensive mechanism unlike normal boars.' He looked at the boar, which was thrashing wildly all around.
"Agh..." His bones were still shaking. If he had not used the ethernano instinctively to defend himself at the right second, there would be a hole in his gut at the moment.
The boar suddenly charged in his direction.
"Fuck." Suddenly, the colourless world started flickering with colours.
Kazu instinctively knew that if the world turned colourful now, he would die.
'Calm down. Calm down. It's just a boar.' Despite repeating it mentally several times, he found his heart pumping quickly.
The world regained its colours.
'Is this how I am going to die?' Memories of his previous and current life appeared in his mind.
WHOOSH
Kazu blinked. The boar was cut in two from the side.
The dead boar's body altered its course, missing Kazu by a few inches.
BOOM
Despite being dead, its momentum destroyed several trees.
Kazu blinked. He felt like his heart would break out of his chest any moment.
His attention shifted to the thing that cut the boar—a card, now lying on the ground.
He looked at Cana, who stood up and was now walking towards him.
"You good?" She stretched her hand.
"Uh—Yeah." He took the arm.
'I forgot that she is not a child. She is a member of Fairy Tail.'
"I think we need to go in that direction to find those oranges." Kazu pointed in that direction before walking towards it.
"Is that so? Why do you think so?" Cana followed behind him.
"Instincts, I guess." Kazu shrugged.
Both of them pretended that nothing had just happened.
'I am definitely feeling that my mana leakage is getting ridiculous. This time, I just lost 15 per cent of my reserves in that second. My enhancements don't take that much. Is that related to the colourless world? It was quite different from how I usually calculate people. Almost too easy.' He frowned.
They soon found the oranges and returned to the guild, completing their mission.
Cana didn't shy away from telling everyone about the close call with the magical boar.
Kazu didn't mind. He was currently reporting to the master on the 1st floor.
"I see. Do you have something else to say?" Makarov asked Kazu.
"Master... I want to get stronger."
Makarov raised an eyebrow. This was new. "Why?"
Kazu had been silent for months now. For him to say that, something must have changed. It was highly likely due to today's encounter.
"I want to kill Zeref."
Kazu's eyes darkened. Gone were his usual lifeless eyes. What replaced it were abyss-like eyes— eyes full of hatred.
For the first time, Makarov saw such a look on Kazu's face.
***
Join my Patreon to support me and get up to 20 advanced chapters:
- DESIRE96
(search it up)
Check out my other works.