For years, he had not been able to breathe.

Oh, his heart still beat and his chest still rose and falls under each quiet inhale, exhale.

But it had felt wrong. His blood felt like dust in his veins and his skin felt like gravel – coarse and harsh and he wanted to claw the flesh off his bones. Even his throat was as rough as sandpaper and the saliva in his mouth tasted of oil. For almost twenty years, he wasn't human. Nor demon.

He was dead deaddeaddead just a walking, talking pile of bones and flesh and hair meshed together. His corpse was perverted and twisted under the control of a demon, and he felt violated, and disgusted and dirty. He had begged to die every day of this forced life. For years, he thought his only son dead.

– Until he found out that Gray was alive.

The boy was flourishing in Fairy Tail, and was one of the strongest mages in his guild. Silver was relieved and so, so damn proud.

He chose to leave the boy alone, watched over Gray from a distance. His son does not deserve a father like him. The man Gray had known and once loved was dead. No need to lay his burden on the boy, no need to let him see the monster his father had become.

And then Fairy Tail vanished, taking his little boy along with it.

Missing, gone.

Rumours surfaced and spread rampage like wildfire, of the Black Dragon, Grimoire Heart, Zeref.

And Silver felt his vengeance burned deeper, fiercer, hotter, so much that the fire felt like it was going to incinerate his body inside out. For an Ice Mage like him, he was unused to the sudden heat that blazed through his undead body.

His murderous rampage nearly went out of control, and his killings became indiscriminate. Demon, demon, demon – he doesn't care good or bad, weak or strong – he wiped them all out with his power.

He suspected that Keith knew, or even Mard Geer, but why they never tried to stop him was a mystery. Mard Geer at least, Silver mused, probably just cannot be bothered and saw it as a game.

And now Keith was dead. Tartarus's plan had failed and they had retreated to lick their wounds.

– He was human once more. Human and mage and alive.

He had passed his Devil Slayer powers to Gray just as he came to accept his death in his son's arms. There was no better place to die, really.

He definitely hadn't factored in the interference of that Water Mage, or his son's absolute refusal to let him go, holding onto him so tightly that one of his ribs actually cracked. He felt Keith's curse dug its slimy claws into his flesh, even as it was wrested away. Greedy and possessive and desperate, the tendrils slid right through the cracks and curled around his heart, enticing him to let go. Years of grief and anger and he was broken and damaged and he was nothing – and all Silver wanted to do was see his wife again, wanted to finally rest.

He had not expect his son to stretch out with his newly given powers, slipped around his body with a heady warmth that nearly brought Silver to tears and yanked the poison from his soul. He had felt Gray's desperation and stubbornness as he brutally seized onto the curse and grappled violently. The pain drowned out his screams and all he could see was red and whitewhitewhite and he was free –

And he was breathing and his heart was beating and he felt lighter than he had felt for years.

And then the darkness dragged him away.