Natsu's POV

The sun shone blindingly through Natsu's blinds as he blinked the sleep from his eyes. Groggily, he sat up, letting out a suppressed yawn out as he did. Looking over, he noticed Happy's little bed in the corner was empty. He sighed.
'Must've left without me.' He thought.

Just as he was preparing to leave his cottage, he noticed a paper on the table behind him. He remembered picking it off of the request board the night before. He was actually hoping to surprise Juvia with it, since it was a water-type speciality request and the reward was... well defenitely enough to pay Lucy's rent for a couple months.

He inhaled sharply, and dropped his eyes to the floor. Lucy... He's tried his best to keep her out of his mind, so why was she starting to appear again now? He shook his head abruptly.
'No Natsu. Not anymore. Think positive. You have a great cottage. Food is amazing here. I have Juvia...'

He perked up at the thought of her. The request! He quickly bound out the front door and made his way to the guild hall. He could just imagine her meeting him at the front doors, her face lighting up, a hug maybe...-

His thought were interrupted by a confused-looking Mira, who was sitting on the steps in front of the guild hall.

"Have you seen Juvia anywhere?' She asked worriedly. "She promised she'd meet me early this morning to help set up. I thought for sure she was with you."

Natsu felt panic well up inside of him. He forced it away.

"She probably just slept in. I'll go check on her."

*A few minutes later*

Knocking lightly, Natsu stood patiently at her front door. His knocking turned into heavy banging after a couple seconds.

"Hey! Juvia! You okay?!"

He felt kinda bad opening it without permission, but he was genuinely worried about her. With no reply, he tried turning the doorknob. To his surprise, it opened with ease.

'Weird. Who sleeps with their door unlocked?'

Stepping in, he looked around. Desk, closet empty bed, window.... He doubled back. Empty bed?

'Huh. The park, maybe?'

Making his way to the park, he felt his heart rate quicken. What if she was hurt? No, she was probably just sitting at a bench. Probably.

She wasn't sitting at a bench. In fact, she was nowhere to be seen. Eyes darting around, Natsu began frantically calling out her name. He was desperate. Where was she?

Just when he was about to give up hope and look somewhere else, something caught the corner of his eye. Something blue. When he approached to inspect what it was, he gasped in horror.

It was Juvia's blue and white hat.

•••

Juvia's POV

Juvia awoke to a loud ringing. It took a couple moments to realize that it wasn't her surroundings, but in fact her ears that were the source of the ringing. She opened her eyes a small crack. Her head was throbbing, with a sharp pain near her temple. Through the slits of her eyes, she peered around.

She was in a dark room; small, square, and cold. The air reeked of something putrid. She noticed grime and something looking like mould building up in the cracks in the floor. An old basement maybe. It appeared she was up against a wall.

Wait-

Her last memories came flooding back to her. A note. The park. The cold hand clamping over her mouth. She gasped. Where was she? She struggled to move her sore limbs and heard a metallic 'clanggg'. She stiffened at such a loud noise, and attempted to bring her hands down to her face. She then realized they were stuck in place above her head. She struggled to move them, and realized they were strapped together. Chained.

Her frantic, confused thought were interrupted by gruff voices:

"Hey look. She's awake."

"Finally! Took forever, thought maybe I'd killed her or somethin'."

"No knucklehead. Orders were not to kill her. He wants her alive, duh. You checked her pulse though, right?"

"What difference does it make? She's awake now, ain't she?"

"Maybe she's just dreamin'?"

"Then she's ALIVE idiot!"

Juvia listened to their heated argument go on for another couple minutes before fully coming to her senses.

"HELP!" She shouted desperately. Perhaps someone other than these buffoons were in the building, and could come to her aid. This thought alone brought up more questions. Where was she? Who were these two? Why was she chained to a wall? Who was giving these two orders?

Her pleas for help were met by low chuckling by her two captors.

"Ain't no one gonna help you. No one even near here, 'sides Borris and me. Oh and master too."

The other, the so called 'Borris', punched her other captor.

"Morris, you idiot! You weren't supposed to tell her our names!"

Borris stepped back defensively. "Wasn't my fault! She was screaming, what was I s'posed to do?"

Before the petty fight could escalate any more, Juvia heard the faint clattering of footsteps in the distance. A figure appeared at the bottom of some stairs Juvia had failed to notice before now. Through the darkness, Juvia could make out short blue hair, a slightly darker shade that Jellal's blue locks. He wore a black robe that reached his feet. However, what struck her as odd were his eyes. Although it was dark, the eyes were vibrant enough for her to immediately notice one thing. That they held a striking resemblance to her eyes.

"You fools! What have you done? Chaining her to the wall like that, are you insane?"

His voice was sharp, and held a large amount of authority.

Borris and Morris stayed quiet, ashamed and far too afraid to answer. The figure, who Juvia presumed was who the two thugs referred to as 'master', made his was slowly towards her. She didn't know whether to be afraid or straight out mad, so she did her best to keep her expression blank as she thought of a plan on getting out of this place.

He reached her, and kneeled down, and, surprizingly, broke into a grin.

"Juvia! Oh you don't know how long I've been waiting for this day! Finally seeing you again after all these years. I'm so happy!"

Juvia stared on in confusion. 'Just who exactly is this guy? And why is he talking to me like we're old friends?' She'd never seen him before in her life. But... for some reason he did seem awfully familiar.

The mans face fell for a brief second, then reverted to its lit-up state.

"Of course you don't remember me. That's understandable. I mean, you were really young..."

Juvia couldn't stand being left in the dark. "Just exactly who are you? Tell me this instant!"

The man just grinned.

"Why it's me-" he paused.

"Your brother."

•••