The air was cold and stagnant.

It didn't feel right for a battle field to suddenly be so quiet. It was as if the entire country had held its breath in that one moment. Time did not dare to move. Dust hung in the air and bounced glitters of light against the crystalline structure. The wooden floorboards strained against the new intense weight. Magic seeped through the wizards' skin.

Natsu, Lucy and Happy glanced up into the eyes of Zeref Dragneel, captured in a block of solid ice.

The ice was huge and imposing. The tallest spikes overtook the highest tower of the guildhall, and it had crashed through several walls. A small price to pay, if it was as good as it seemed.

Lucy could feel herself ready to tremble. There was something about the still that made her reluctant to break its peace. It was unnerving. All she could hear was Natsu's heavy breathing, see his chest rising and falling even while he too refused to move. "Is this…. A trap?" she whispered in disbelief.

Natsu did not respond. He was poised, ready to attack, instincts warning him the exact same thing.

"Zeref isn't moving…" Happy observed. He flew over his friends' heads towards the new barrier.

"Happy, careful!" Natsu hissed quickly, gripping his fist.

Despite the warning, Lucy dared to take her own step forwards. Level with Natsu, she glanced over at the frozen man, the ice, and the familiarity that shook her core. "That magic, it looks almost like…" She frowned. It wasn't possible. It couldn't be possible. But Natsu was glancing at her now, waiting for her to finish her sentence. "Iced Shell."

"Iced Shell?" Natsu's face fell into a confused frown, turning back to his brother's frozen form, and more importantly the thick ice that covered him. "That's the spell that we saw on Galuna Island with Delilah."

"Deliora…" Lucy corrected. "That's right. Iced Shell… if someone cast that, it must mean…" The words caught in her chest, her eyes blazing open wide. "Someone gave their life to contain Zeref!"

Happy and Natsu froze in shock and disbelief. "You really think…?" Natsu asked.

Lucy gave a short, sharp nod. "It makes sense. I can't feel any of Zeref's magic anymore, can you?"

Natsu shook his head, but couldn't be certain. There was so much cold energy around the room it was difficult to pinpoint one specific type of magic, no matter how dark it might have been. It certainly seemed powerful enough to be an 'Iced Shell'. But there was something still uneasy about it. Unlike anything they'd felt before. It tugged and pulled at them in conflicting directions, hovering around the mages with a cold dense power, crawling close to the Fire Mage unrelentingly.

"This feels different to Galuna…" he said, folding his arms over his chest as he finally reached conclusion he was not in immediate danger. Whatever this was, he was confident that Zeref was contained. "Who would have known how to cast this?"

"Lyon?" Happy asked.

Natsu quickly shook his head. "He's not been here. I would have smelled him."

"Then do you smell who's magic this is? Who was here?" Lucy pressed, stepping forward.

Natsu was quiet. His brow furrowed. The look of deep contemplation was written on his face… and something else. Something darker than the cheerful Dragon Slayer. His fists tightened against his folded arms. His muscles tensed. His jaw squared. The longer Lucy watched him, the more frustrated he seemed to become. More than he should have been.

"I can't… work it out…" he said eventually, unable to look either of his friends in the eye as he did.

Lucy and Happy exchanged a look. That voice didn't sound much like Natsu. There was annoyance being unable to find the answers, but this went beyond that. Lucy found herself wondering exactly what had happened to Natsu in his dream, and if he really did 'sort out some things' like he'd insisted.

Which reminded her quickly why they'd been delayed, why Zeref was more than just a monster, and what could have been. Luckily, even in her panic, it didn't take long to find her target: A heavy set tome written in ancient ink, lying close to the edge of ice and thankfully unaffected by its sharp shards. Lucy ran over to it, brushing away the debris and a strange necklace and uncovering the three letters. "The book of E.N.D…. it's here…" she said, picking it up. It was safe. Even with half of the guild destroyed, somehow it was safe!

"We got Natsu's book, Zeref has been stopped… that means we won, right?" Happy asked.

Lucy held the book close to her chest as she looked up at the gleaming shell. From what she could see inside, Zeref seemed less than peaceful. His features were frozen into disbelief, and she couldn't imagine how an immortal must have felt being trapped for eternity encased in ice. He was imprisoned in a way he couldn't hurt anyone anymore. She didn't know what would happen now. Supposedly, someone would try yet again to harness the power of Moon-drip and melt him free. The last Iced Shell she'd seen had worn down the demon inside. That would be the luckiest outcome, but even if it didn't have the power to do that, it would give them the time to prepare one final takedown. That alone was a victory.

But the cost had been high, higher than they could even imagine. All they knew was a life had given strength to these walls that now kept Zeref serene. Someone had died so that innocent lives across Fiore had been spared. That enough was reason to keep Happy's question lingering in the air unanswered.

The guild could be rebuilt, but whoever had protected it could not.

X

Zeref may have been defeated, but the day was far from won: Acnologia still reigned in the skies above. Many of Zeref's men had yet to learn of his defeat and were deadly enemies even without their emperor. But Fairy Tail continued to do what Fairy Tail did best: it stuck together, as a family, and chased away the darkness with visions of light and hope. It took a long time to destroy the powerful dragon, to silence the evil spriggan army, to put right the wrongs that had been thrust on them.

Only then, only once the world turned eerily calm, could the question once again be asked….

Had they won?

They marched homeward as a chaotic crowd. Friends held one another and helped drag them forward. They met familiar faces and breathed sighs of relief, exchanged brief words of horrible stories and lucky endings. They flocked towards the broken guildhall like moths to a flame, wizards of Fairy Tail stepping up to the giant doors of their home and feeling dismayed to see the huge wooden barriers of protection hanging on their hinges and open wide to the world. There was barely anything left. The floor continued to buckle and crack beneath the weight of ice. Parts of the ceiling looked ready to give out at a moment's notice and the rest had already crashed into the floor below.

"We think it's an Iced Shell… Like the one we saw on Galuna Island. If it is, that means whoever cast it must have sacrificed themselves to do so," Lucy explained in a small voice, not so much for the elders who would know this already, but for those who had been lucky enough to never witness magic on this scale. "But we don't know anyone that could have cast it…" she trailed off, growing more uncertain by the second.

Her words hung unanswered for a few seconds. Whispers echoed through the wizards, growing louder as the crowds parted for Lyon Vastia to step forward. A sense of duty set heavily on his shoulders as he examined the creation. His sharp eyes scanned the ice, searching quickly for anything that could answer the mystery. "It doesn't look like any Iced Shell I've ever seen…" he admitted, raising a hand and pressing his fingers against it.

He drew a sharp breath. It was horrifically cold. Even as he pulled back his hand, he could feel the icy edge burning against his fingertips. "It's been imbued with another kind of magic. A Lost Magic," he explained. But that wasn't everything. There was something else in the magical energy, something familiar that made him frown just a little more. Something that made his heart beat a little faster. "Ultear…?" he found himself whispering against the glass.

"It can't be! I saw her. She saved us… Charle, Sherria… she wouldn't have been able to do anything like this," Wendy promised.

"If this is a combination of Lost Magic and Iced Shell, we will have to find out exactly what this new spell is capable of," the Fairy Tail master interjected. He coughed fiercely into his hand, a brief reminder of the trauma he had just faced paired with the bitter chill in the air. "One thing is clear…" he said as his voice shook. "I believe that is more powerful than any Iced Shell to have been created. I highly suspect even Moon Drip would have no affect against it. Zeref has undoubtedly been defeated."

With the master's words, there was an intense relief that spread through the uncertainty. It was finally over. The war was over. The casualties had been to a minimum and they were all able to spot the faces they needed to see within the crowds. They were tired, worn and wounded. But alive. At least, the ones that were remembered. The faces that were searched for within the crowds. It was as good an excuse as any for a celebration. Even despite their injuries, the weakness that threatened to pull them to their knees, there was a new sense of determination to enjoy the moment.

The crowd became louder and spread out into the warm autumn night. The stories spread like a wildfire against the unnatural chill of ice, filled with danger and warmth in equal measures as they told their loved ones of how close they'd come to defeat or victory.

It was surprisingly easy to ignore the looming statue above them. Turning away was enough to forget in the moment, like a cloud hovering in the back of their vision that the sight of friends and family brushed away. Every so often, a wizard would turn to the giant ice structure, questioned who had saved them, who the mysterious and brave stranger who had given their lives for them could have been, and continue their stories.