Only Erza and I left the tower, in the end.
I never got a clear answer on why — whether it was something about the wreckage of the fight below, some quiet decision that formed between the guards’ final collapse and the boat we somehow found ourselves aboard, or just the shape the story needed to take.
Whatever the reason, it was just the two of us, alone now, watching the tower shrink into the horizon behind a small, borrowed boat that creaked with every wave.
Erza didn’t say anything for a long while.
Just sat at the bow, staring back the way we’d come, until I noticed her shoulders shaking, quiet and controlled, the kind of crying someone does when they’ve had a lot of practice hiding it.
“Erza?” “I’m fine,” she said, which was clearly a lie, her voice thick even as she tried to keep it steady.
I didn’t push.
Just sat down near her instead, close enough that she’d know she wasn’t alone with it if she wanted to say more.
Eventually, she did.
“Why,” she said, quiet, staring at the water instead of me.
“Why did he become like that?
He was — he was kind, Jack.
He gave away his own food the first night we met him.
He looked out for all of us.
How does someone just…
turn into that?” I thought about how to answer that for a long moment.
Thought about how much I actually knew which was nothing “I think they brainwashed him,” I said finally.
“Whatever they did to him in that room — I don’t think it was really him making that choice.
I think they took him apart and put something else back together wearing his face.
That’s not the same as him choosing to become that.
Not really.” “You think it’s not his fault.” “I think whoever did that to him is the one who deserves to answer for it.
Not him.” I paused.
“That woman.
Whoever she is.
I don’t know her name, don’t know anything else about her — but I’m not going to forget her.
One day, I’m going to make her answer for this.
For him.
For everything.” Erza looked at me properly for the first time since we’d left the tower — searching my face for something, maybe just checking whether I meant it as much as I sounded like I did.
I meant it completely.
“…Okay,” she said eventually, quiet, and something about the way she said it felt like she’d filed the promise away somewhere she wouldn’t let herself forget either.
We didn’t talk for a while after that, just letting the boat carry us further from everything the tower had taken.
Eventually, though, practical questions started crowding out the grief, the way they always eventually do.
“So,” Erza said.
“Where do we even go from here?” “Fairy Tail,” I said, without much hesitation.
“Rob mentioned it, remember?
Said he used to be a mage there, before all this.
It’s a guild.
Good people, from what he told us.
Feels like the kind of place that’d take in a couple of kids with nowhere else to go.” “You really think they’d just…
take us in?” “Only one way to find out.” She considered that, then nodded slowly.
“Fairy Tail, then.” The boat rocked gently for a while before she spoke again, quieter this time, more careful.
“Jack.
The tower.
The others — Millianna, Simon, Sho.
We can’t just leave them there.” “I know.” “I want to come back for them.
Once we’re stronger.
Once we actually have a way to do it properly, instead of just — throwing ourselves at it and hoping.” She looked at me hard.
“But that means keeping this place a secret for now.
Not telling anyone where it is, or what happened here.
Not yet.
Not until we’re ready to actually go back and finish it right.” I hesitated on that one.
“I’ll keep it quiet,” I said slowly, “for now.
But if we get to Fairy Tail, and the guild master turns out to be someone worth trusting — genuinely worth trusting, not just someone who seems nice — I think I want to tell him.
Everything.
The tower, the others still down there, all of it.
Not spread it around, not put it in danger.
Just…
give one more person who might actually be able to help us a chance to prove it.” Erza frowned at that, clearly not thrilled about it, but after a moment, she let out a slow breath and nodded anyway.
“…Fine.
If he’s trustworthy.
But only him.” “Only him,” I agreed.
The boat carried on, small and creaking under two exhausted kids with nothing left but a stolen boat, a shared grief, and a destination neither of us had ever actually seen before.
Somewhere out past the horizon, an entire life waited that neither of us knew the shape of yet.
Fairy Tail.
Alright.
Let’s see if you’re everything Rob always made you sound like.