[Rewritten September 2018]  

I had focused in on the scent of the familiar melancholy man I had encountered earlier and was following where he might have gone. I just needed to know more about him, there were so many questions I had. Like, why did he know my name? Why did he seem so familiar to me? Where did I meet him before? There was just so much I wanted him to answer so I couldn't lose him now...

Running through the forest, there were so many new scents and new magic power around that I could sense. This definitely meant the enemy on the island was a group of powerful wizards. Why were they attacking here in the first place? Are they here for the island, or here for the sole purpose of attacking us?

My worries and thoughts were put on hold when I stumbled across a clearing with a waterfall that flowed into a large pond, surrounded by trees and a large cliff. But notably, there were two people standing there. One was the mysterious man who I had been looking for, but the other was a woman whom I didn't recognize. She had long dark hair, pale skin, and she smelt strongly of a sickening perfume.

I could tell what they were feeling at this moment by their faces. The familiar man had his face turned into a scowl, his eyes glaring through her. Notably, they had also changed color from our last encounter, from a dark onyx to a vibrant red. The woman had an expression of pure amazement on her face as she stood before him, her cheeks dusted a light red and her eyes widened.

"You people come here because you desperately seek my power." The black haired man stated, keeping his glare firm and intense as he looked at the woman who was beginning to kneel in front of her with tears streaming down her face.

"It is your entire existence we seek, Lord Zeref." She responded to him, on one knee with her head turned downwards toward the ground.

Lord...Zeref? The name seemed strangely familiar to me, then I remembered where I have heard it before. The Black Wizard, Zeref. One of the most powerful wizards in history, specializing in dark magic. I think of all of the things he's done and I shiver. But that only arouses more questions, for instance, why did Zeref seem so familiar to me even though we had never met before? It was pretty weird.

But why was Zeref on this island in the first place? This is sacred ground for Fairy Tail, so why pick a place like this to hide out on? Also, why was this woman looking for Zeref? My guess was that she was one of the attacking enemies, and maybe the reason why they were attacking was to get to Zeref...

"I won't involve myself in mankind's affairs. Not in this current era," Zeref's words snapped me out of my thoughts, gazing over towards the both of them from my current hiding spot and trying to listen in on their conversation. "I have no desire to see people wage war and die.....I order you to stop your attack on this island and leave at once."

Wait, if this was Zeref....he was acting strangely. The Zeref I've heard about was all for war and death, not against it. This just supports my original opinion of him when I first saw him; He was a gentle person who meant no harm to me.

"Your presence....has made me angry." He stated seconds before the woman kneeling in front of him widened her eyes and started to struggle to take a breath. She seemed petrified with a sudden fear over what was going on, and my first explanation for it was probably Zeref's magic.

Then, Zeref reached his hand out in front of him with his palm facing upwards and created a relatively medium sized sphere of magic that had the ball colored a deep black. The woman seemed confused at the moment as to what it was but quickly dodged it when Zeref had suddenly thrown it at her. The sphere hit the tree behind her, carving a large hole in it before dissipating into the air.

Zeref easily made another ball in his hands, the woman going into a defensive stance to try and do something to get away from the ball or at least defend herself. Zeref threw the ball again, it heading straight for her before the woman raised two fingers and called out a spell.

"Lost Magic!" She shouted "Forward Arc of Time!" She put her arms to her sides, making the rock behind her break apart into large chunks before sending them flying towards the sphere. They hit the sphere and managed to defend her slightly, but some of the magic seeped out and struck her. The power of it caused it to fall to the ground onto her knees.

Zeref simple prepares another ball, the woman shouting out another spell; "Speeding forth the flow of time, I will trap you in its course!" She spoke, her hand outstretched. Suddenly, large trees began to grow around Zeref and trapped him in a wooden prison. She smiled brightly before shouting "I got him!"

I looked toward Zeref from my hiding spot, looking at him widening his eyes and speaking. "Here it comes..." He spoke his warning. "The Predatory Death!"

I knew exactly what was coming next, I felt a sense of pressure shoot through the air before the black circle started to head towards the wildlife along with me and the woman. It was the same as before, I closed my eyes and shielded my face until it passed. I hear Zeref screaming, feeling a sad pang in my heart for him. When I felt it was gone, I closed my eyes and saw my scarf had turned black with Zeref sitting in the middle of it all.

The woman managed to protect herself, I assumed she used her now shattered crystal ball to block the magic. She was panting along with Zeref, holding her hand out and shouting "Arc of Time!" Her crystal ball floated back up into her hands and looked to be in perfect shape again.

Zeref had his eyes widened, seeming to be in a state of shock as he shouted "Please! Tell me who you are!" He didn't move when the woman began to scream and extend her arm back to throw the ball at him.

This didn't seem good at all. I couldn't just let him get hurt by her when he seemed to be on my side of things. I had to protect him.

It all seemed to be in slow motion as I jumped out of my hiding spot and ran towards Zeref, the woman shouting her spell; "Luminous Minutes!". I kept running and saw Zeref look towards me with a more surprised look on his face. I looked at the spell, watching the thrown crystal ball turn into hundreds of other balls.

I managed to get in front of him, my back faced towards the balls and my eyes looking at Zeref's now black ones. I widened my eyes and screamed out in pain as the barrage of them hit my back then my whole body, the pain screeching through my entire body. When I felt the barrage stop, I fell onto my knees first then face first into the ground.

I tried to heal myself, but for some reason, it wasn't working at all. Of course, the time when I needed it the most. The world around me got hazy and blurry, telling myself mentally that I was about to pass out.

The last things I heard were the woman shouting a baffled "What?!" and Zeref saying a baffled "Why...Why did you do this..?"