Natsu sat down and sighed exasperatedly. He was tired, broken and hopeless. He would have cried if it wasn't for the foolish notion that it would appear weak. He didn't want to be weak. No matter how much he wished himself strong, it wouldn't change anything. He was weak, determined to be a failure, an outcast. That was why Igneel had abandoned him he was sure. Igneel had left him and Natsu had searched to no avail. Maybe he was too weak to find him. Maybe no matter how hard he searched, no matter where he looked, he would always be bound to fail, simply because Igneel deemed him unworthy.

Natsu broke down and cried. It didn't matter if he cried or not. He was weak; there was no reason to pretend to be something he wasn't. The tears fell incessantly, never-endingly. It blurred his entire world. His sulking overpowered everything around him, deafening him.

He stood up and turned around towards the large tree he had been leaning up against.

"I'M NOT WEAK!" he yelled through his sobbing and lashed out at the tree, hitting it with all his force, with all his might, however little that might have been. As soon as his fist hit the tree, the sensation of pain flooded all throughout his system. He heard several cracking noises. He saw blood. Natsu withdrew his hands and looked at his palm. One of his fingers wasn't in its normal positions. There was a trickle of blood slowly dripping down his finger from his nail.

He roared. He was angry. He felt the rage consume him in his entirety. He lunged out towards the tree again. He heard more cracks, but he didn't care. He felt more pain, but he didn't care. He withdrew his hand again, only to hit it back into the tree.

He turned his head upwards, towards the sky that was hidden behind the branches and leaves of the tree. "WHY?!" he shouted, as the tears streamed from his eyes, rolling down his cheeks. His knees gave in, but he managed to stay standing supporting himself on the fist. The pain grew. He leant forward and lowered his head. His knees hit the ground hard. He pushed himself upright with his hand that was still firmly planted in the tree's bark.

"'Why..?" he whispered. It hurt. He could barely speak because of the massive lump he felt in his throat. The rage was gone. The pain was back. He felt as if his chest was going to cave in at any moment, and his hand was pulsating heavily with each beat of his heart.

He slumped down and fell to the side. The soft moss that was covering most of the forest ground caught him in its cold embrace. It had been raining. The clouds had yet to disperse above him, above the leaves. He rolled onto his back. The tree above him looked like a giant blur, distorted by the tears that were slowly ending.

He wanted to burn it all down. He didn't know why he wanted to, but he did. He would light it on fire, and watch as the smoke rose to the skies, and the ash fell to the ground, coating him in its grey mist. He raised his hand up in front of him. A drop of blood fell from his hand and landed on his cheek, in the midst of the tears. He used the other hand to clear his eyes and then attempted to wipe the blood off though only managed to smear it over his cheek. Another drop fell, and then another.

He had broken three nails, dislocated a finger, bruised his knuckles and managed filled most of his fingers with splinters.

Then the nails disappeared and grew back. The bruises vanished, the finger moved back to its place and the splinters disappeared. The leaves disappeared, the weather changed, it became colder, the rain came more often and eventually snow began to fall upon the tree's naked branches, encapsulating the entire landscape in a blanket of pure white.

The layer of winter was only broken by Natsu as he tore his way through the otherwise perfect snow, making his way through the hibernating forest. It was night. The trees bathed in the crescent moon's light, reveling serenely in its silent over watch.

He felt eerie underneath its gaze. He had been on edge that entire day ever since he had found a fresh deer carcass that had been stripped clean of all meat. Only the bones remained, white, just like the snow. All around the corpse, there had been footprints in the snow. Many footprints. Natsu wasn't sure what animal it was, nor how many of its kind there was, all he knew was that he couldn't let it continue killing his prey. He needed the meat, the skin, even the bones. He needed everything in order to make it through the winter. Normally he'd been carried south by Igneel, to a place where the snow didn't fall.

He stopped in his tracks. It had been quite a while since his mind last wandered towards Igneel. He felt the normal, sharp pain in his chest. No matter how hard he had tried to get over it at first, he could never truly shed his lingering affections towards his surrogate father. Truthfully, he was torn. On one side, he wanted to smile and remember when on the other he wanted to run away and forget.

He was broken out of his thoughts by a piercing howl that resonated between the barren trees. It was followed by a crippling silence. He could only hear his own quiet breathing. He could even see his breath in the cold air. Then suddenly there was another, not far from him. It was even more blood curling than the last. He quickly turned towards the source of the howl, but he didn't see anything. There was only darkness around him, except from the snow that reflected the moon's light and the large dark trees.

He turned around again, but he was still blind to whatever was happening around him. Not knowing what to do, he went with his first choice. He set into a run forward. He wasn't far from his cave, he knew that. The snow crunched under his feet and his breath slowly grew more ragged as he ran as fast as he could through the forest.

He finally heard them. Between the trees, they were running towards him, around him, surrounding him. He kept running regardless. There wasn't much he could do, which really made itself apparent when suddenly he saw two shadows moving in front of him, cutting his frantic run off. He stopped. He looked around and saw several more of the shadows all around him. He was surrounded.

He was going to die. Alone, forgotten and still as weak as when he was abandoned. The trees around him weren't going to allow him any refuge and he wasn't good enough with his magic to successfully fend them off without killing himself along the way, at least that is what he convinced himself of. Though if he was going to die, he wasn't going to go quietly, that, he promised himself. With that in mind, he lowered himself closer to the ground and entered the stance he'd practiced by himself for quite a while.

They moved closer around him, seven in total. He could quite distinctively hear the snarling as it filled the otherwise still forest. It was the one directly in front of him. Its teeth were bared and its fur stood up.

He felt an intense pain come from his left arm as a set of teeth tore into his lower arm from behind. He yelled as he swung his arm around with all his might, dislodging the teeth, though ripped some flesh out with it. Blood flowed down into the snow, tainting it with its red color.

He quickly set into action. The animal he had managed to throw off himself was stunned for only a brief second, an extremely precious second which he used to the fullest potential. He moved forward quickly and performed a kick he had been practicing. He successfully managed to plant it directly into the beast's neck, knocking it down to the ground. He followed his legs momentum, spun around quickly, and stepped forward, pressing his foot on its neck again, stepping on it. He could hear its whimper. He looked straight into its eyes. He saw fear. Endless amounts of fear. He could also see the fresh blood on its teeth. He pushed down and broke its neck swiftly. He moved away from the dead beast and turned towards the others. They remained motionless and watched him carefully.

He was confused, to say the least. The fact that his arm didn't hurt as much as it should be, and the fact that they weren't all stripping his flesh from his bones were both things that didn't make any sense to him. Regardless, he didn't have much spare time to think about anything. If he really was going to live, he would have to act. He looked around quickly and accessed the situation. He was still surrounded, with nowhere to run.

All of a sudden, the snarling began again. Natsu was this time at least aware of what that might entail, and quickly looked around. As he expected, one of the beasts were running full force towards him from his right side. It jumped towards his uninjured arm with its mouth wide open, its white teeth clearly visible.

Natsu was this time able to react in time, so he took a quick step forward and turned around, swinging his left leg towards the beast's stomach. It hit, sending the creature slightly off its original trajectory with a whimper, but it also caused Natsu to lose his balance so he fell flat on his back into the snow.

He scrambled to get back up, but his left arm was useless in that situation. He lifted himself from the ground using his right arm and he was able to see the animal. It was up. It was preparing itself to attack him once more. It was growling at him, quite loudly.

Then it attacked, rushing forward at him. He swung around so he lied on his side, still supported by his right arm. It lunged forward at him, its mouth wipe open, ready to tear him apart. He barely managed to stop it by getting a grip on its neck with his left arm, but he was unable to snap it because he didn't have the strength for it. It was a miracle in of itself that the arm was holding the large beast back.

Its mouth was wildly snapping, as if it was ripping apart a throat an inch from his own. He could see the anger and rage in its eyes. He wondered what emotions were in his own. Was he scared, or was he angry? He didn't want to die at least, that, he was sure of. For this wolf to strip him of all he had seemed somehow, unjust, but then again, when had the world been righteous since summer had ended. It was cruel and unforgiving. That's how it worked, and that was how it was going to continue. The only way to survive was to play by its rules, and he was willing to do that. He was willing to do whatever it took to survive, but he did not know what to do.

All he could do was think of a fire, the thing that always filled his mind whenever it was empty. It was always the fire…

A raging fire.

He wanted to burn it. He wanted it to sear in his flames, he wanted it to burn in his flames and he wanted it to DIE in his flames.

Then it happened. A spark, a single flicker from his left hand that quickly ignited and engulfed the beast in a veil of blue flames. It immediately jumped back, whimpering, barking helplessly as it was consumed by the flames. It stumbled backwards and started to run away from him, back into the forest. It collapsed around ten meters from him. It kept burning.

Natsu couldn't even see the beast's body anymore. It was completely hidden behind the thick coat of the blue flames. He could smell it, however. It was a foul, vile stench, but it passed quickly. It disappeared along with the flames that had already burnt the creature to ashes, because that was all that was left after merely fifteen seconds.

He smiled, for the first time since summer. He didn't know why he smiled. He just did.

It vanished quickly as soon as he noticed how four of the beasts were moving in around him, closing in, all of them growling, baring their teeth and raising their hairs. Through quite the effort, he managed to stand up. His arm was starting to hurt quite intensely. There was a large red stain in the snow exactly where he had lied. He looked up and saw how four of the animals were rushing towards him.

There was a single loud roar. It was from the one that hadn't moved. The creatures stopped, only a couple of meters from him. It stepped forward, slowly emerging from the darkness amidst the trees. It was much larger than the rest. Its fur was light-grey, its eyes were completely black and he could even see himself within the reflection. His eyes trickled down to the two large fangs hanging out of the upper mouth, and then further down to the large claws on its paws that were almost hidden by the snow.

It stopped right in front of Natsu. He didn't move at all. He knew that the thing in front of him right now would kill him, even if he somehow managed to conjure the flame again, so he just stood there and waited for whatever was going to happen. His previous idea of fighting until the end had quite ironically, ended. He couldn't fight the terrifying monster that stood right in front of him, gazing at him with its cold, absent eyes. He could feel its breath hit him in far between waves. It was warm.

Out of nowhere, it turned around and started walking away. It stopped and looked back at the hesitating creatures that were still glaring at Natsu. It growled lowly, and then turned its head back and continued walking. Three of them whimpered in submission and followed the largest of the creatures. One lingered for a little while. It had rough, silver fur. It was standing next to the corpse of one of the animals that Natsu had handedly killed. Now that he looked closer upon it, he noticed that the dead one was quite a bit smaller than the others were…the same was true for the one that was now nothing more than a pile of ashes amidst the snow not far from them.

It bared its teeth one final time before leaving, following the rest.

It was only now, when he was completely alone once more, he realized how much pain he was in. His feet were freezing, he could barely feel them, and his arm was starting to become numb. The pain was quite excessive. It clouded his mind in a deep fog, sending him in to an almost daze-like trance.

He couldn't remember how he got home, nor how he managed to wrap up his wounds with an already blood-stained piece of cloth. It was all an unclear memory, except for the beast's eyes, staring at him. He remembered seeing his own body trembling, sweating, and the fearful expression upon his face.

He remembered how weak he was. He had only been hunting weak prey, he hadn't grown at all. He was still the same weak boy that Igneel left. He still didn't want to be weak. That was why he stayed. He needed to learn how to survive, how to live and how to strive whilst doing so. There was no point looking for a dragon that didn't want to be found. He had to become so strong that Igneel couldn't help but see him, but right now, he was weak.

So terribly weak.

Author Notes: I had an idea and out of that idea, this chapter spawned. If you made it all the way down here, through all my repetitions, I thank you, and I hope you'll stick around for the next chapter, when that eventually comes out. You should be able to get more info on my profile, which I'll attempt to keep outdated.

Anyhow, I'd like to hear some feedback on this chapter, whether or not you think it's interesting and such. If you don't, then that's completely fine.

I'm also fully aware that the title of this fanfiction borrows from the Evangelion movies format, but it fit so well I couldn't help myself.