Chapter 77: Ice and Water
The creature moved faster than anything its size had any right to move.
Gray threw himself to the side, a wall of ice erupting where he had stood a heartbeat before. The creature's claws sheared through it like paper, shards exploding outward in a frozen spray. He rolled, came up with his hands already forming the next spell.
"Ice Make: Lance!"
Three spears of ice shot toward the creature's chest. They struck true, punching through fur and flesh, driving deep. The creature roared, a sound that shook the cliffs and sent snow cascading down the slopes. But it did not fall. It did not slow. It tore the spears from its chest like they were splinters and hurled them back.
Gray dove behind a boulder as the ice shards embedded themselves in the stone with cracks like thunder. He was breathing hard already. His hands were shaking. Not from cold. From something else.
'It took three spears to the chest and kept coming,' he thought. 'What the hell is this thing?'
Juvia moved on the creature's flank, her water form flowing around its legs, trying to pull it off balance. She coalesced behind it, hands raised, and sent a torrent of water crashing into its back. The creature stumbled, its massive feet churning the snow, but it did not fall. It twisted, faster than should be possible, and its arm swept out in an arc that caught Juvia across the chest.
She flew backward. Her body hit a rock outcropping with a sickening crack. She crumpled into the snow, her water form dissolving, her human form limp and broken.
"JUVIA!"
Gray was moving before he could think. Ice formed around his fists, his arms, his entire body. He charged the creature, low and fast, a missile of frozen fury. He drove his shoulder into its knee, the ice around him shattering on impact, and the creature's leg buckled.
It went down on one knee. Gray was already moving, already forming the next spell.
"Ice Make: Hammer!"
A massive block of ice, shaped like a blacksmith's tool, appeared above the creature's head and crashed down. The impact drove its face into the snow. The ground shook. Cracks spiderwebbed across the clearing.
Gray stood over it, chest heaving, ice crackling at his fingertips. He could see the wounds on its body, the places where his lances had struck, the burns from Juvia's water. It was bleeding. It was hurt.
It was not dead.
The creature's hand shot out and closed around Gray's leg.
He had time for one breath, one moment of clarity, before the world turned upside down. The creature lifted him like he weighed nothing and slammed him into the ground. The impact drove the air from his lungs. His vision went white. Then black. Then red.
Again. The creature lifted him and slammed him down. Something in his back cracked. He tasted blood.
Again. His leg was still in its grip, his body ragdolling, his arms useless, his magic scattering like shattered glass. He tried to form a spell. Nothing came.
Again. His vision was fading at the edges. He could see Juvia in the snow, not moving, her blue hair dark against the white. He could see the creature's face, those yellow eyes, that mouth full of teeth, still wet with the blood of children.
Again. The impact sent him sliding across the snow, his body leaving a crimson trail. He came to rest twenty feet from the creature, his leg bent at an angle that made his stomach lurch, his arm twisted beneath him, his blood pooling and freezing and pooling again.
He tried to move. His body would not obey.
The creature rose to its full height. Ten feet of muscle and fur and rage. It turned toward Juvia.
Gray tried to scream. Nothing came out but blood.
It took a step toward her. Then another. Its shadow fell across her broken form. It raised one massive hand, claws extended, ready to bring down.
Gray's hand moved. He didn't know how. He didn't know why. His fingers scraped across the snow, found a shard of ice from one of his broken spells, and pushed.
The shard shot forward. Small. Weak. Barely more than a pebble. It struck the creature in the back of the knee.
The creature paused. Turned. Those yellow eyes found Gray, still bleeding, still broken, still not dead.
It took a step toward him instead.
Gray smiled. It was a bloody, broken thing, that smile. But it was real.
"That's right," he rasped. "Come on. Come get me."
The creature lunged.
Juvia heard the impact. She heard the crack of ice and bone and the wet sound of something tearing. She opened her eyes.
Gray was on the ground. The creature was on top of him. One massive claw was pressed against his chest, pinning him, and the other was raised, ready to strike. His face was pale. His blood was everywhere, pooling in the snow, staining it red. His eyes were open, fixed on the creature, fixed on the claw that was about to end him.
He was not afraid. He was smiling.
Juvia's body moved before her mind caught up. She was across the clearing in a heartbeat, water streaming from her, her magic rising like a tide, like a flood, like a storm that had been waiting for permission to break.
The creature turned. Its claw came down.
It never reached Gray.
Juvia's water caught it. Not a torrent. Not a wave. Something else. Something that had been sleeping inside her since she was a child, since she first learned that rain followed her, that storms came when she was sad, that the world answered her pain with water.
The water did not push. It held. It wrapped around the creature's arm, its chest, its legs, and held. The creature thrashed, roared, tore at the water with its claws, but the water did not break. It was not water anymore. It was her. It was every moment she had been alone. Every moment she had been unwanted. Every moment she had watched people she loved walk away.
And it was every moment she had watched Gray. His smile. His stubbornness. The way he pushed people away but always came back. The way he had kissed her in the cave, awkward and real and hers.
The creature would not take him. Not now. Not ever.
The water tightened. The creature's bones began to crack. It screamed, a sound that echoed off the cliffs and shook the mountain, but Juvia did not stop. She poured herself into the water. All of herself. Every drop of rain that had ever fallen on her. Every storm she had ever summoned. Every tear she had ever cried.
The creature's limbs twisted. Its chest caved. Its yellow eyes went wide, then wider, then nothing at all.
The water crushed it. There was no other word for it. The water compressed around the creature like the pressure of the deepest ocean, and the creature crumpled, its bones snapping, its body folding in on itself, its blood mixing with the water, turning it red, then black, then gone.
When the water finally fell away, there was nothing left of the creature but a stain on the snow.
Juvia stood in the center of the clearing, her chest heaving, her arms shaking, her magic spent. She looked at the stain. Then she looked at Gray.
He was still on the ground. Still bleeding. His eyes were closed now, his face pale, his chest barely moving.
She ran to him. Fell to her knees beside him in the snow. Her hands hovered over his body, afraid to touch, afraid of what she might find. His shirt was gone. His chest was a mess of bruises and cuts, blood seeping from a dozen wounds. His leg was bent wrong. His arm was twisted. His face was peaceful, almost, like he was sleeping.
But he wasn't sleeping. He was dying.
"Gray-sama." Her voice was a whisper. "Gray-sama, please. Please wake up. Please."
He did not move.
She touched his face. His skin was cold. Too cold. She pressed her fingers to his neck, searching for a pulse, for anything. It was there. Weak. Fading.
"Gray-sama." Tears were streaming down her face now, hot against the cold, falling onto his chest, onto his blood, mixing with the red. "Juvia is here. Juvia is right here. Juvia will not leave. Juvia will never leave. Please. Please do not leave Juvia."
The mountain was silent. The snow fell softly, covering the clearing, covering the stain where the creature had died, covering the blood that was still spreading from Gray's body.
Juvia gathered him into her arms, as gentle as she could, as careful as she could. She held him against her chest, felt the faint beat of his heart against her own, and wept.
The snow fell. The mountain stood. And Juvia knelt in the red and the white, holding the man she loved, waiting for the dawn.
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Next Time: The Long Night