Chapter 1 – Carnage And Creation

It was unlike anything she had felt before. The pain was so searing, so intense that she couldn't even figure out how to scream out right now. It seemed to continue on for an age, and then she finally hit the ground with a heavy thud and the pain of the impact. Her strength was so drained that she doubted she would wake up after she lost consciousness.

She vaguely heard the screams and cries of terror around her as she laid there, dazed and barely conscious as everything happened around her. With a growl of anger and self-hatred that she barely pulled off, she tried desperately to move so she could get up and keep fighting. It was useless and she couldn't even let out the scream of frustration that she felt like letting out.

Soon, the blood loss was too severe and she slipped into unconsciousness...

It was a normal day at Fairy Tail in the beautiful city of Magnolia. The sun was shining, Mirajane was serving drinks to everyone, Natsu and Gray were butting heads as Happy ate a fish, while Erza and Lucy were rolling their eyes and the Master sat on the bar, not exactly sober, chuckling away.

Without warning, as it always was, everyone started to feel drowsy for no particular reason. The less powerful succumbed to the sleep magic quicker, where as people like Erza, Gray, Natsu and the Master stayed awake just long enough to see Mystogan walk through the front door, carrying something before they all fell asleep. The Master usually wouldn't be affected at all, but he had probably had to much to drink, and just let the spell lull him to slumber for the next few minutes.

The young masked man carefully placed down what he was carrying on one of the unoccupied tables as everyone snored around him. Before he left, he decided to take a mission while he was here, and he leapt gracefully up to the second floor and with only a moment's deciding time, he took a flyer off the board and left just as quickly as he had came.

After a few minutes, everyone came to, some faster than others and it took them all a moment to notice the girl laying on the table, who had clearly been severely injured. There were deep lacerations on her arms and legs, as well as a large slash across her back. Her clothes were torn and stained with blood, and she was bruised so badly that most of her skin was purple or blue.

Short, black hair covered her head, and was singed and it seemed that some of the dark locks had been forcefully torn out. Her left cheek had scratches on it, and her bottom lip was swollen and split. Her wounds had stopped bleeding even though they looked fresh, as if they had happened within the last few hours, and she was barely breathing but everyone in the room was for some reason afraid to approach her, as if she might just die if they touched her.

The Master was the first to react, knowing that Mystogan brought her here for a reason and without even knowing who she was, he immediately went over to her and quickly looked her over. He called Gray over, who was there in a flash, and the Master quietly asked him to freeze the girls body. With confusion, and worry about her being thawed out and whether it would kill her or save her, he trusted Makarov's words and very gently froze the girl who only looked to be around 20 or so years old.

"Reedus. Please take her to Porlyusica for treatment. I fear this girl may not survive her injuries, so you must make haste." he said quietly, and Gray took the responsibility of carrying the girl out to Reedus' magical pig drawn cart and gently putting her down in the back.

With that, Reedus left, and everyone went back inside, wondering what exactly just happened. Why did Mystogan all of a sudden turn up, and better yet, why did he bring a half-dead girl back to the guild? Everyone tried so hard to think about if they recognised the girl or had even just seen the girl somewhere, which would help them figure out what was going on.

"Master, what was the last mission that Mystogan took?" Mira asked with her usual soft, sweet voice, hoping that might give them some leads.

"He was going to take care of a dark guild..." he stopped briefly and the solution seemed to come to him before he spoke with an enlightened tone, "that had been attacking villages to the east! She must have been a victim of the attacks. Mystogan wouldn't have brought her here for nothing. There must be something important about her." Master spoke as if he was thinking out loud, although everyone was listening to his words.

All of the guild members felt so angry that a dark guild would do such horrible damage, and chances were that there was countless people that wouldn't be able to see the light of the next day, as well as the innocent civilians that would have been just as badly injured as the mystery girl. Although the nice mood everyone had been in wouldn't return, they were all glad that they might be able to help the girl.

A while later, Reedus returned to tell them about what Porlyusica had said about the girl's injuries and her prognosis. He told them that Porlyusica had said she would need to get rid of all the dark magic out of the girl's system before she could truly be on the mend, and hopefully her wounds wouldn't get the better of her until that time. She had mentioned that Gray's freezing her helped significantly as it slowed the progression of the evil magic breaking down her immune system to nearly a complete stop, which Gray felt a burst of pride at hearing.

The painter said that she didn't say for sure either way whether the girl would survive, just that it would take a lot of work and a lot of will to live from the girl for her to pull through and fully recover. As horrible as it was to not be sure of whether the girl would live or not, they all seemed to have a feeling, though no-one spoke of it, that she would be okay. Porlyusica had said that when the girl began recovering her magical power, it would help as well.

When Reedus mentioned 'magical power', the Master and Erza looked at each other knowingly. It was obvious that there was something very special about this girl. None of them saw any guild marks on her and obviously she was so depleted of magical power, they couldn't even feel it from her, but it answered the question of why Mystogan had brought her back here.

So, they went on with their business, and even though for the rest of the day no one brought up the incident, it was in the back of everyone's mind...

One Month Later

Gray sat high up in a tree in the forest, and sighed long and deeply. Even though everyone was still thinking about it, he seemed to feel like he was more worried about the girl than most of the other guild members. Maybe it was because he felt how frail and destroyed her body was, saw up close the horrific damage done to her, and felt her fractured and broken bones, her bruised and lacerated skin. He felt her broken ribs as he placed his hands on her stomach to freeze her body gently as he could. The sight of the girl in that state had kept him awake at night.

He hoped that since she had survived this long, that it would mean that she would pull through, but as he looked through the window of Porlyusica's house from the all too conveniently placed branch he had sat on for the last few hours, he could see that she still looked so sickly, and painfully gaunt. The older woman had tried to shoo him away several times, since he had visited every second day or so, but he had been allowed to stay since he had quickly come up with the excuse that Makarov had asked him to check up on the girl.

Porlyusica's gasping drew his attention, and his head snapped back towards the window to see that the girls eyes were cracking open. Before he even realised it, he was on the window sill, as Porlyusica quickly looked over the girl for any signs that she might be on the mend now that she had regained consciousness, hopefully meaning that the dark magic preventing her from healing had been dissolved from her system.

Before either Gray or Porlyusica could react, they noticed the girl was crying. When she started trying to move and get up, Porlyusica yelled at her to stay still, and that she would open up her wounds if she moved too much. The girl flinched, but listened and stopped moving but continued crying with so much pain in her bloodshot, vibrant blue eyes, that Gray felt so sorry for her.

Porlyusica mixed up some medicine for the girl who didn't resist to drinking down the mix of ingredients that would help to heal her, even though it tasted absolutely foul. She continued crying quietly for the next little while as Porlyusica mixed up more medicine, and eventually sent Gray to go back to the guild and get Reedus, so they could take her back to Fairy Tail, saying that there wasn't much point in her staying there now that she had regained consciousness, since it would only be the girl's will to live that would heal her wounds and the strength of her magical power.

Gray bolted back to the guild, running in the front door, yelling out that the girl had woken up, putting a smile on everyone's faces, and they were all glad to hear that there was still hope for her. Reedus sprang into action straight away and within an hour or so, the mystery girl, back to being unconscious was placed into the clinic at Fairy Tail with a large bottle of medicine beside her bed and some written instructions from Porlyusica on how to treat her.

A few more days passed, and the girl woke up again while Mira was getting ready to wake her anyway so that she could take her medicine. She had been healing very quickly, and her wounds had completely closed up thanks to the medicine from Porlyusica. The mystery girl had recovered so much so that she actually looked nearly normal now. Most of the bruising and smaller cuts and grazes had gone completely and it revealed quite a pretty girl underneath.

The beautiful woman with the pale hair smiled kindly, and decided that it would probably be best to tell her where she was and that she was safe. She was certain that the girl would be a little concerned with how she got where she was, and she hoped that she would at least talk back a little.

"Hello. It's good to see you awake at last. I'm Mirajane. This is the mage guild Fairy Tail. One of our members brought you here so we could help you. Our friend has treated you the best she could and made medicine for you. Do you remember anything, like your name, or where you are from?" she asked kindly, not wanting to scare the girl, but wanting to try and figure out if the girl had lost her memory.

It took a few moments for the girl to get used to speaking again, and her voice was weak and raspy from lack of use over the last few weeks and from her throat being so dry. Finally she managed to sit up and organise her words as best she could in her head before saying them aloud.

"Akashio. My name is Akashio or Shio... I'm from...from..." all of a sudden, the girl's expression went from bewildered and pained to horrified and she put her head in her hands and rocked back and forth slightly before screaming so loud that Mira had to cover her ears. It got the attention of everyone in the guild and mostly everyone rushed to the clinic door, wondering if everything was alright.

Gray was the first in the door, and Mira told everyone to leave her be for the moment, and that this was not the time. Mira sat down on the bed with her, and the girl clung to her dress and cried for almost an hour before she eventually calmed down, and apologised for the scene she had made. Gray watched quietly from the corner of the room as the woman's eyes became unfocused as she recalled memories.

"Can you tell me what happened to you?" Mirajane asked, not wanting to bring back painful memories, but she needed to know what happened to the girl. What if she didn't have a home to return to or any family to be with?

"My village, it was attacked. I'm not sure who it was, but I know they used magic. They destroyed buildings, crops and just laid waste to my village. I don't think anyone would have survived because I watched them kill the people I had grown up with. I don't recall too much, but I do remember feeling a huge surge of strength, and I must have killed some of them, because I do recall falling down, and seeing them dead on the ground before I lost consciousness." the girl recalled, her gaze inward as the images flashed behind her eyes again and again.

"Then that's why Mystogan would have brought you back here. It sounds to me like in the heat of the moment, you unlocked your ability to use magic. He probably thought we'd be able to help you heal and train you." Gray spoke up, making Akashio's pained gaze fall on him.

"Mystogan?" Akashio inquired not knowing his name for obvious reasons.

"He was the guild member I mentioned earlier, the man that brought you back here so we could help you. He would have also destroyed what we think was a dark guild that attacked your village." Mira answered, telling Akashio what she didn't know.

"He took them all on, by himself?! That's impossible! They were so strong." she exclaimed in shock, not believing that one man could take on that many people, and win.

"Mystogan is one of our strongest members. There aren't many people as strong or stronger than him. Although, he is socially inept, and barely any of us ever sees him. Only a few people even know what he looks like as well. But Mystogan is very strong, I have no doubt he could take a whole guild down by himself if he put his mind to it. He's done it before." Mirajane explained to her while the other woman shook her head in disbelief.

No one spoke for a few minutes as Akashio stared at her lap in silence, wondering what on earth she was going to do now. These people had mentioned her ability to use magic being awakened, and that they could train her, but did she want to use the same powers that those horrible people had used to slaughter so many people that she held close to her heart. For some reason though, something was telling her that she had already awakened her abilities with magic.

For at least 5 minutes, she was deep in thought and laid out the pros and cons. The good parts would be that she could defend herself, she could help people and protect people who couldn't protect themselves, much like she couldn't before her power awoke. The bad part was that she would have the strength to kill and hurt people, and maybe the people she loved would hate her for learning the arts that had killed them.

Mira was the first to break the silence. "Well, you are more than welcome to stay here, and we'd welcome you into the guild with open arms and help you develop your skills as a mage, but it's your choice. If you like, you could just stay here and help out anyway. We'll leave you to rest for a while. Let me know if you need anything."

Both Mira and Gray took their leave, and Akashio sat quietly, thinking over what Mirajane had said, and wondering whether it would be the right move. For the moment, she knew that she couldn't go anywhere yet, since she was still on the mend, so she decided to put off the decision until she was in shape enough to leave if she chose to.

A breeze came in through the window, and she jumped after seeing a masked man crouching on the window sill. She gauged that the masked man was the person called Mystogan, and he watched her silently for a moment before he spoke very quietly.

"I'm glad you are recovering so well. It seems I made the right move in bringing you here. Also, I'm sorry I couldn't save the other villagers." he said it as if it was just an idle observation, and then his tone changed to reveal a hint of sadness as she struggled for a second to find her voice before she responded.

"Thank you and don't worry, it wasn't your fault.. I would have been dead if it wasn't for you. I have a question to ask you...What did I do before I lost consciousness?" she asked hesitantly, unsure if she really wanted to know the answer to her question.

"You killed 6 of the enemy. I watched you as I took care of the others. I will tell you now though, the numbers there only equaled to a quarter of the true size of the dark guild. But you showed extreme potential. So much so that the force of your magic power made those wounds on your body. It was not your time for the magic inside you to awaken, or to awaken so violently." he was quiet for a moment as he watched her expression sober, and she sighed before looking back at him. "Now I must go. Again, I am sorry for your loss." he bowed his head slightly and leapt down as Akashio yelled out thanks to him again.

She laid down in the clinic bed, so many thoughts running through her mind. The young woman decided to get some sleep and continue her healing process...

The next day Mirajane woke her to give her some medicine. As per usual, it tasted horrible, but she had figured out very early that it was the thing keeping her alive, so she took it without a complaint.

"I don't know if this means much to you, but I have a few seeds for some flowers. If you like, I can show you to our garden and you can plant them, to honour the people in your village." the older woman said quietly, hoping she wouldn't upset Akashio, but thinking that it was the least she could do for her.

Akashio sobbed softly but smiled at the gesture and hugged Mirajane tightly, thanking her over and over again for her kindness, her care and just being generally wonderful. Mirajane left the girl some clean clothes of her to change into for when she went to the garden and left the seeds and a small shovel for her to use whilst planting the seeds.

After she changed, she went outside the clinic door to the main room of the Fairy Tail hall. A man was leaning against the wall with his back to her, but she knew she had seen him before. He turned around and smiled at her, though she could see that he felt sorry for her behind it.

"I'm Gray Fullbuster..." he paused and took a breath before continuing, "And you are Akashio?" Gray asked, and watched Akashio simply nod once in response. "Would you like to go to the garden?" Again, she nodded only once. "Follow me then."

Mirajane watched as Gray walked next to Akashio, and smiled even though she had planned to show Akashio to the garden herself, it seemed like Gray still felt terrible for the girl and was happy that he was kind enough to show her to the garden.

Gray had spoken to Mirajane early one morning when he came back to the guild after not being able to sleep all night after seeing Akashio's injuries up close. He told her about how deep the red colour of her flesh was, and how he could see the white of her bones in some of her deeper lacerations, and the feel of broken ribs beneath his hands.

He had seemed very haunted by the memory, and had helped Mira set up for the day to distract himself, but he still was a little out of sorts for the next few days afterwards until she had asked the Master to send him up to check on her progress only to find out he had been doing it already.

"I, uhh...I'm sorry about what happened to you and your village." Gray said awkwardly, hoping he wouldn't upset the girl, even though he much rather scream and beat up the guys that did this sort of thing all over Fiore every day.

She gave him a small, heartbreakingly sad smile in return but turned her head back towards her feet again afterwards as they walked towards the Fairy Tail gardens. Akashio was clutching the packet of seeds and the trowel so hard that the parts of her hands that the bruising had cleared up on were white with the force of her grip.

When they arrived, Gray showed her a large, free patch of the garden where she could plant the seeds, and it took her about half an hour before she was done. Before she realised it, Gray handed her a full watering can without actually looking at her, and walked away to let her have a moment to herself.

Her moment lasted about ten to fifteen minutes, and Gray was sure that all of Magnolia, heard her screams of anguish, despair and rage.

It only stopped when she passed out from exhaustion.

Gray carried her in his arms back to the clinic where the members of the guild watched sadly as the girl went behind the door and disappeared to get some more rest. The young ice mage decided to stay a while, since it was quiet in the clinic and watch over Akashio for a while.

Eventually, he fell asleep on the spare bed right next to Shio's...