Age Gap

Chapter 11

So after a hell of a lot of months away from this fic. I finally got so angry seeing this damn thing at the top of my priority list that I had to update it just to get it out of the way. Let's hope I haven't lost my groove after being away from it for so long.

The train ride to Fuchsiadale was neither too long nor too short. Erza didn't mind either way, if one journey was the only way to get to a certain destination, she'd gladly sit for however long the journey took. While Natsu slept on her lap, she had a little time to think and recollect herself.

Magic baffled Erza, she had always known that. The fact that she could pull weapons and armour from another dimension altogether, use them in a fight and then send them back to that dimension was ridiculous and while she was interested in how it happened, she knew that any scientific explanations would go right over her head. Erza was smart, but a genius she was not.

Natsu's magic astounded her too. He could somehow ignite an unknown source of fuel from within his body and just through the power of his will, he could project the resulting flames in whatever direction or shape he wanted. She had even seen him make letters on the tips of his fingers with his magic. But she had never experienced any kind of magic like the one effecting Natsu currently.

Aging Spell: Seppan

This magic could somehow revert the target's body back to half of their original age, but rather than affecting some kind of personal time space, the magic left all of Natsu's memories intact and even though it had affected his body and left him as an eight-year-old, the magic that was stored within his normal body had been left untouched and that same amount of magic was now travelling through his smaller body.

Magic baffled Erza. But as she looked down at Natsu fragile, sleeping frame and watched him stretch before sighing and settling once again, she realised she didn't care. Learning about magic the hard way and all the events that she had been forced to endure had brought her all the way to Fairy Tail, where she had met the greatest people in her life and most importantly... where she had met Natsu.

Erza smoothed his hair back once again and attempted to fix some of the large clothes that hung from his shoulders. It was more of a way to keep her own hands busy rather than help Natsu. Erza was one to always have a sword in her hand or, when she didn't, drum her fingers.

There was a chime above her that came through a little speaker before someone from the front of the train began to speak.

"Our next stop is Fuchsiadale." The man announced. "Please don't forget to leave any belongings and mind the gap when leaving the train. Thank you."

The chime sounded again and a little click from the speaker told Erza that it had been turned off. But it also signalled the start of Erza and Natsu's busy day ahead of them.

In Magnolia though, the busy day was already well underway. Lucy, Levy and Mirajane were either balancing precariously a few metres up a rickety, old ladder or they had their noses buried in books that they'd strewn about all of the tables of the grand, underground library.

Levy's magically enchanted glasses were making short work of the books she ploughed through although every book so far had contained little to nothing about dragons and even less about the Dragonslayers. They were all like some hidden race that came down through the clouds at the most important times of humanity's development, caused a massive stir and then left everybody hanging just because they could. They even left the books hanging. Had no one seriously attempted to even speak with a dragon before or something? Because even though Levy was barrelling through books that must've been well over a hundred years old, there was nothing to mention anything about dragons being anything more than a myth to use in children's bed time stories. It was frustrating to say the least, so she sat back and rubbed at the bridge of her nose.

"You found anything, Luce?" She asked grumpily through her hand and the question almost seemed to cue Lucy to groan and collapse on to the table.

"Not a thing." The blonde complained. "Half of these books don't even mention dragons! Never mind such a unique set of circumstances as Natsu's. I seriously doubt we'll find anything."

"Found something!" Mira called from the top of one of the ladders. Lucy groaned again, knowing that this would mean sitting up and concentrating hard again. She was smart, sure, but she wasn't built for extensive studying. "Heads up!"

Lucy only managed to pull her head off the table before the spine cracked her in the crown and she yelped, rubbing at the sore spot with tears in her eyes.

"You did that on purpose didn't you, Mira-san?" Lucy growled.

"Whatever gave you that idea, Lucy?" Mira said with her signature sickly sweet smile. "Just give it a look."

Lucy picked the book up off the floor and opened it up to a random page. Across the two page spread was one of the most detailed cross-sections she'd ever seen, but rather than a vehicle or a building, this diagram was of the exact creature they were looking for; a dragon.

The annotations went over the structure of their huge lungs, the spark mechanism in the back of their throat and the immense magical capacity flowing through their veins in rigorous detail. A lot of it went over Lucy's head and even though Levy looked excited as she took in the new information at a glance, they both new that they were looking for something else.

Lucy flicked through a few more pages of the old tome and each page revealed new information about diets, habitats and even behavioural patterns. Lucy kind of wanted to read through that section to find out what went so wrong with Natsu and Gajeel for them to turn out so differently from Wendy and as if they spoke of the devil Wendy along with Juvia burst in to the library.

"Oh, guys, you're back!" Levy called. "How did it go?"

The two dark haired girls made their way down the stairs and over to the other girls before they started going through everything they'd seen and even Mira seemed surprised at how daring some of the things they talked about seemed. Was this really how those two acted when everyone else wasn't around? Mira would have never suspected that they were already so far along with their relationship. A little push from either side would most likely tip them over the brink and something beautiful could really kick off.

But while Juvia flapped about how sweet it looked, Wendy looked at it differently.

"Even though they looked content being around each other." Wendy began. "There was something else there. Comfortable couldn't have been further from what they were. They almost looked like they were in denial. I have no doubt that Erza-san's thinking about their situation more than Natsu and I'm worried that she's putting unnecessary stress on herself. I mean, if she can't perform properly, albeit a slim chance, it's still a very real possibility that Natsu could stay the way he is if something goes wrong."

An uncomfortable silence fell across their group, but Wendy still had more to say.

"As Natsu is now," she continued. "It's almost impossible to love him like a lover, which is probably the purpose of the spell. But in order to remove the spell, we need his true love to kiss him, which we're assuming is Erza and she too, knows it. I'm worried that she's going to try and force the feelings."

"Force them?" Lucy asked. "It doesn't look like this kind of spell and situation would take anything less than true feelings."

"Excatly." Wendy said. "I've had a little time to think about it and it sounds as if she's doing exactly that. She's taking Natsu out on a date to not only make him happy and keep him where she can keep an eye on him, it's also so that she can fool herself in to thinking that she has feelings for him and if it works and the spell is broken as well as the Dragon's Mark being filled, what would happen afterwards? Would they go back to how they were before, I can't see that happening that simply. On the other hand, they could start a real lover's relationship but as Erza would still be clinging to these false feelings for child-Natsu, it would die out too fast and they could end up hurting themselves beyond repair thanks to a failed love."

"B-but this is Erza we're talking about." Mira pointed out with a shaky voice. "She would be sensible about this and weigh her options carefully before charging in to something like this."

"Would she?" There was a pause as everyone turned to Levy as she spoke up once again. "I'm not the closest person to Erza by a long shot, but even I remember the Tower of Heaven. In order to save the ones closest to her, she jumped headlong in to the situation and tried to sacrifice herself for everyone's sake. There's always the possibility that she feels the same as back then and will try something drastic."

"It's really one of the worst case scenarios." Wendy said. "I would hate to think that it could actually happen, but it looks like Erza's sprinting straight down this route. She'll make herself fall for Natsu so she can get rid of the seal and complete the Mark, but she won't pursue Natsu at all. Things will fall back to how they were but Erza will be stuck with this one sided love that probably won't go away for as long as the Mark remains on her skin. She sacrifice her own chance of love ever again just so that she can see Natsu returned to normal."

"Plus, as if that wasn't bad enough." Mira said as she was now back on the floor with the same old book from before. "Listen to this; 'the age and surrounding environment of dragons and Dragonslayers during the time that they ruled over Earthland was extremely hostile, not only from dragons to humans but also amongst dragons themselves. By studying the depreciating levels in the abundance of magical energy in decaying dragon remain, researchers have been able to pinpoint that there was a sudden change in sexual activity in all dragons after a certain point. This magical mutation, without manual activation, overrides the biological ruling that means that a dragon has to have a specific mating season."

"Which means?" Lucy asked impatiently but Mira carried on regardless.

"'Thanks to the mutation in later species and generations of dragons, this now means that the 'mating season' has been effectively eliminated and in order to combat against the rising threat of war amongst their own kind, dragons and Dragonslayers developed the ability to place their Mark on anyone, regardless of the time of year, but also regardless of the emotional value they have for the receiver. This ensures that dragons can then manipulate the receivers of the Mark and make themselves the receiver's priority, giving them almost limitless access to mating rites with the receiver or potentially, in other circumstances, send the receivers in to battle for their sake."

There was a deathly cold silence that fell over the girls and each and every one of them was forced to take a seat from the newfound weight of the situation. There was so much more to take in to consideration now and no one really knew where to start. This Mark that Natsu put on Erza could've happened to literally anyone, he was able to put it on anyone of his choosing and now that it's on her, Natsu could be unconsciously influencing Erza in to attempting to remove the seal from his stomach, but it's Erza on her own that is reaching the same conclusions and is willing to use all her power in getting back to normal which could have the consequence of never letting Erza get over a one sided love that might never be returned.

"This is so cruel." Juvia said quietly and no one else had to speak up to agree.

"Where did you say those two were now?" Mira asked.

"Juvia saw them get tickets to Fuchsiadale." Juvia answered. "We came back once they boarded the train."

"It's getting on in the day." Lucy commented. "It'll most likely be night time by the time they come back and they aren't even forced to come back to the guild today. Should we tell them what we've found?"

Levy paused for a second as she thought of the consequences, Natsu wouldn't really understand unless they could summarise their efforts in to two sentences and even if Erza managed to listen through the detailed version she would scoff and most likely laugh. Levy knew that it sounded ridiculous, but what part of this made sense anyway? They were talking about spells and cultures that were supposed to have died out hundreds of years ago.

Natsu and Erza would have to believe them, there was too much at stake.

Unfortunately I've lost a lot of inspiration for this fic and although I'm not going to discontinue it, I'm definitely going to warn my readers that any future chapters I make are going to be coming on a slower frequency. This allows me to move past this particular chapter and work on loads more ideas for different works and series that've been accumulating.

However, I've made sure to keep my head in the game while writing this chapter and remember that I will need a safe place where even I could catch up on this piece when I come back to it.

Sorry for the huge delay guys, I know I've got quite a few readers, but I hope this set-back doesn't stop you from checking out my other works that I've done and will be moving on to.