Turning away before Wendy can protest, you leap into a tree and begin following the boy's scent. You don't dare use your teleportation magic here, lest you risk losing the faint trail. Obviously the boy didn't want to be followed.
You jump from tree to tree silently until you spot him sitting against a large tree trunk. Perched on a sturdy branch, you decide that you are well hidden amongst the foliage for now unless the boy kills all the trees in the vicinity again.
You teleport yourself behind the tree he's sitting against and take a deep breath. If anything goes wrong you can always put up a magic barrier to protect yourself
His shoulders rise and fall as he sighs. "I'm going to continue being rejected by the world again..." he murmurs. He extends his arm, seeming as if he's reaching for something he can never have.
"Why does the world have to reject you?"
You watch him jump in surprise, and he whirls around to face you, eyes wide with an unidentifiable expression. Fear?
"Who are you?" he demands, flinching away from you.
You stare at him in silence, the wind swirls the leaves around you and you smell death again. Taking a step closer to him, you ask him the question that's been on your mind for the past few weeks: "Why do you smell like death?"
The boy continues walking backward, retreating with each step forward that you take. He stares at you with wide eyes but still doesn't say anything.
"What was that black wave just now?" you question. "Why did it kill everything?"
He freezes as his back hits a tree and he realizes that he can't run. "I can't help it," he whispers, sliding down to the ground, and the sad expression on his face nearly breaks your heart.
You approach him slowly. "Why not? Who are you?"
He watches you in silence, and your foot crosses some unseen threshold and he jumps up abruptly. "Stop! Don't get any closer to me!" he yells.
You completely ignore his warning. "Don't worry," you murmur. "Your magic won't affect me."
He had begun to cry again, but at your words he looks up and studies you. Finally, he shakes his head. "I don't believe you. Everything that comes near me dies. No one has ever been able to survive."
You stop and tilt your head, staring at him quizzically. "Why not?"
He looks down at his hands, tracing invisible shapes in the soft fabric of his toga. "Because I'm cursed."
"Cursed...?" you echo, confused. Suddenly a thought crosses your mind, and you finally put all the pieces together: Cursed...death magic...black... "Who are you?" you demand, stepping close to him.
He lets out a sigh of defeat. "I'm Zeref."
Zeref stares at you expectantly and you meet his gaze head on. "I thought so," you finally state.
He blinks, surprised at your reaction. "But...I don't understand, why aren't you running away from me?"
You roll your eyes. "It sounds like you want people to hate you."
"Because I'm dangerous," he mumbles miserably. "I'm unpredictable because I can't control my magic. I don't want to hurt anyone."
You open your mouth to reply but he shakes his head furiously. "No...I hate people. They can die for all I care."
Blinking in confusion, you take another hesitant step toward him. Is there something wrong with him? He just said he didn't want to hurt anyone and contradicted those words with his next sentence. But before you can ask him what's wrong his head snaps up.
"Get lost," he spits, eyes blazing furiously. "I don't want anything to do with you."
Shocked at his sudden outburst, you turn and begin walking away like he told you to when the soft voice behind you calls out "Wait. Stop, please."
You turn around to look at him and you're getting kind of annoyed at how bipolar he's acting. "What's up with you?" you say impatiently. "First you want me to get away from you and then you want me to come back? I don't even—"
You break off as a rumbling noise vibrates the ground under your feet and over the treetops you can see the hulking figure of a giant; it's the Master's Giant Magic. Your (E/C) eyes narrow. Master wouldn't be using his magic if this wasn't a serious situation.
Momentarily forgetting about Zeref, you watch as Makarov swings his gigantic fist into a metal airship emblazoned with a strange looking symbol; a guild mark. The ship counters with a cannon that shoots a powerful dark blue beam.
The Master breaks the ship in half easily with a kick but somehow the broken ship is restored to its previous state. A flash of blue light zips out from the ship and is heading toward the island and you know you have to find the rest of your friends quickly.
Before you can even think about moving, orange orbs falling from the sky shatter to reveal vast numbers of cloaked people, their faces covered by masks with the same symbol that was on the ship.
You glare daggers at them as the surround you and Zeref, who is still against a tree looking completely unconcerned at your new company. "Who are you?" you demand angrily.
"We're Grimoire Heart," one of the masked people says, brandishing the serrated sword he holds.
"No," you correct. "You're dead." With that, your eyes glow and their swords are all torn from their hands. Hundreds of swords fly upwards and then fall straight down, skewering their owners. In one move you completely destroyed all the Grimoire Heart underlings that were unfortunate enough to stumble across you.
As the glow fades from your eyes you stumble and collapse to the ground. Maybe killing all of them at once was too much for you. Shaking the fatigue from your head you turn to look at Zeref, who still has yet to move.
"Thanks for the help," you glare. "I don't know, but that was a pretty convenient time for one of your death waves."
He doesn't appear to have heard you, instead he's murmuring to himself again. "Is this the start of another war?"
In a flash, literally, you're standing right in front of him and you grab the collar of his dark robes. "What are you talking about? What do you know that we don't?" you snarl in his face. "Who were those people just now? Did you bring them here to kill my friends?"
Without answering your questions, his dull black eyes meet yours. "Get away from me," he states calmly. When you don't move, his gaze hardens. "I said, get away from me."
"Why?"
"I told you, I'm cursed!" he yells in frustration.
"With what?" you counter in equal frustration.
He pauses, but doesn't say anything. He doesn't have to say anything. You already know. "Ankhseram," you whisper.
His head snaps up and he stares at you. "What?"
"The Curse of Contradiction, is that what you meant?"
"How did you—"
"The more you respect life, the more you take it away. But if you don't respect life, then you don't take it away," you continue.
Zeref looks mildly impressed that you were able to connect the pieces together correctly and manages a small nod. "That's correct."
"That's why everything you said contradicted the last thing you said," you realize.
He shrugs and looks at you curiously. "How did you know about my curse?"
Biting your lip, you hesitate to reply. Acnologia mentioned to you that he thought fighting the Black Wizard Zeref would be a nice "challenge" and so you did research on Zeref and found out about the curse of Ankhseram. You also found out about a lot of other things but you decide not to mention it.
"I read a lot," you answer simply.
A crashing noise sounds in the air accompanied by another vibration and you realize that you need to find Wendy and make sure she's alright with the intruders on the island and all.
As if reading your mind, Zeref says "You should leave now. Your friends may be in trouble."
You nod in agreement and walk a few steps toward the direction of the Grimoire Heart airship, waving goodbye to Zeref.
Before you disappear into the forest, you take one last glance back at him. "You know, I'm cursed, too."
A/N: Haha, I feel like I really rushed writing this and it's kind of cringy. And also I might have made you (Y/N) too overpowered. Oh, well :/ At least it was an earlier update this time (without months in between).
As always, thanks for reading and I hope you like this chapter. It's your first conversation with Zeref, after all :)
Please comment what you think of this chapter, I tried to include some humor in it as well so the whole thing isn't all dark and depressing (like Zeref).