Life After Near Death

Dragons and Devils

"My friends, it is wise to nourish the soul; otherwise you breed dragons and devils in your heart."

― Carl Jung

Natsu sat alone at the guild hall bar with a mug in his hands. Once again he was drunk, although it was barely three in the afternoon. No one went up to him. They knew from past experience, Natsu got wild when drunk, and he tended to be destructive, even more so than normal. It was best to let him drink and brood by himself.

Lucy, Erza, and Happy sat together discussing the issue. Although he was at a table with Juvia, Gray was still within hearing distance. As he heard Natsu's name repeated many times, he became more interested in what his teammates had to say rather than the prattle Juvia was telling him.

Lucy pouted as she saw the blue Exceed frowning despondently at his fish. "Happy, how's Natsu? He looks ... um ... preoccupied," she said, putting it delicately. "He's always exhausted, and whenever he's here, he's drinking. Has he been resting recently?"

Happy shook his head. "No, I'm worried about him. He doesn't sleep much. He goes off alone on missions, and when he comes back, he's immediately with his girlfriend."

"Girlfriend?" Lucy asked.

"Do you mean the stripper?" Erza looked disapproving as she questioned this.

"Aye, the pretty dancing lady. When he comes back from hanging out with her, he immediately starts to drink. He keeps saying he wants to forget, but I don't know what he doesn't want to remember. Then before I know it, he's leaving on another mission, and he doesn't want me to go with him. He's going on another mission tonight."

Erza's eyes widened. "But he just returned this morning."

"And he's drunk," Lucy muttered. "He's been drinking since he got back."

Happy frowned. "Something is really wrong, but he won't talk to me. He used to always talk to me about anything. Why isn't he talking to me this time?" Happy whined sadly as tears gathered in the corners of his massive eyes.

Lucy patted his furry head and frowned in pity. "Why does Natsu keep going on missions?"

"They're not really missions," Erza explained quietly. "Wendy heard about a healing machine that is in the possession of a dark guild. The problem is, no one can find this guild. They don't have a central hub. Even if you find one member, that person likely doesn't know where the others are, and if the other members get alerted, the whole guild will go into hiding. He has to catch the right member, and he only has one shot. It's a needle in a haystack hunt, and a single mistake can ruin our chance."

"And Natsu, of all people, is doing this?" Lucy asked in surprise. "Why? He's anything but subtle. His idea of finding a needle in a haystack is to burn down the whole haystack!"

"He's driven on," Erza said, looking over at the pink-haired man. "It's almost an obsession."

Out of the corner of her eye, Erza saw Gray roll his wheelchair towards Natsu. Here was another friend who had been having a hard time lately. At least Gray was getting better, getting out more, laughing, and interacting with others. Maybe whatever the Ice-Make wizard had figured out with his own depression would help snap Natsu out of this dark pit.

"Gray," she whispered. "I hope you can deal with him now."

Gray stopped right beside Natsu. Since the Dragon Slayer sat on a raised barstool, Gray was much shorter. "Oi, Natsu!"