#ft 523

A/N: I just had to write this because I’m beyond upset right now about where Mashima is going with Gray’s “Trump Card”. I still have hope, and I trust sensei. But I need to channel my frustrations somewhere before the official chapters are out lol. 

(I was gonna write a Valentine’s Day special for my OTP, but after these recent chapters I’ve been in a bit of a slump)

Everything was finally over. And as he sloppily got up from the ground, he saw her. She was making her way slowly over across what was left of the battlefield, with Wendy supporting half her body weight.

His eyes lit up. “Juvia!” 

Her sky blue hair was stained purple at some parts from blood, but her face, although twisted in pain and some other emotion he couldn’t read, still looked as pretty as ever. Juvia stumbled towards him while clutching the wound on her stomach with one hand. 

Gray rushed over to her as quickly as his broken legs could muster. 

“Juvia! You’re ok-”

A sharp, deafening sound echoed across the ruins as her hand collided with his left cheek. The impact made him stumble back, and he instinctively brought his fingers to the side of his face, which was now bright red in colour. Gray’s eyes widened in shock, and his breath caught in his throat. But the harsh, stinging pain from the slap couldn’t compare to the look of utter betrayal written on her face.

By now, the water mage had broken free from Wendy’s hold. The sky dragon slayer’s nervous attempt to calm her down seemed to go unnoticed.

“Gray-sama... how could you?” The water mage bit out, tears threatening to fall. 

He still couldn’t move. What was happening? Did Juvia just... slap him? Were the fire and anger in her eyes directed at him?

“Lost Iced Shell?” She said menacingly. “How could you use something so despicable?!”

Her voice pierced through his ears and made his stomach clench uncomfortably. It was the first time she’s yelled at him. 

“How could you try to erase yourself from existence after Juvia tried everything to bring you back!”

Gray felt his blood boil at that, the words reminding him of that dreadful moment when he thought he had lost her forever. His hands shot out and grasped her shoulders roughly. “Who told you to save me? Who gave you permission to sacrifice your life for my sake Juvia?!” 

She threw his hands off and pushed him away. “Yes, Juvia saved you because she would rather have Gray-sama live on happily than for both of us to meet a meaningless end. However, Gray-sama had a choice. And despite knowing that all your friends would be against it, you still chose to die!”

“Gray-sama is ungrateful and selfish,” she continued tearfully. “Who does Gray-sama think he is... to erase such an important person from everyone’s memories!”

“Juvia-san...” Wendy eased her grip on the water mage’s arm and tried to hold back from crying.

Gray swallowed hard in response to Juvia’s scolding. As much as he hated to admit it, she was right. He didn’t realize that by casting Lost Iced Shell, he was robbing everyone’s memories of him without their permission. And he had no right to make that decision for them. 

“Gray-sama...” she sniffled, “probably never intended to share a future with Juvia, that’s why he was willing to perish without giving her an answer.” 

“What?!” The ice mage whipped his head up and took a step forward. "Juvia, you know that’s not-”

“But even so!” she interrupted. “Juvia is not the only one who loves Gray-sama. So please, don’t try to solve everything by yourself all the time. Rely on someone, even if it’s not Juvia....” 

“Wait!” A strong hand found her wrist and formed a death grip. “Juvia, let me talk.” Her words suddenly spiraled him into panic. He wanted to tell her that she’s got it all wrong, that his answer had been ‘yes’ long before he’d realized his feelings for her. But his fingers only trembled against her unmoving hand, and his breath became quick. Why couldn’t he shake the feeling that he was going to lose her a second time? 

The water mage gently pulled her hand out of his grasp and turned away, eyes hidden by her bangs. “Juvia will give up now, Gray-sama.”

His heart stopped.

“Juvia is... so tired.” 

Okay Double chapter this week so come on with FT chapter “Will fate burn”

The cover page is Happy and Carla in a chinese festival. That’s it. Okay so on to the chapter.

Okay so starting from where we left off, Gray is going to use a lost iced shell. I’d like to draw attention to the bottom right panel of Gray during Avatar. He says “I wanted to see it“ which I believe he means the book of END. Either that or it’s implying he learned lost attribute from them.

Okay little sidebar, Gray says lost attribute added will enhance a spells powers than normal. Now we know Lost magic is a thing, it’s classified as magic that’s very rare and almost lost to most knowledge seems standard. But lost Attribute seems to be something different like if you use lost attribute than your spell no matter what will increase. I think lost attribute is basically the user tapping into that primal magic or as Rustrose would say “returning to the abyss of magic” that this is the user returning to that undiluted magic. I know it’s odd but this is an interesting concept.

Okay Gray. I get it. You have had so many sacrifice themselves for you and you’ve had to live with that mourning and this has happened many times to you. But, this is war. There is suppose to be sacrifices made and if you think you guys have suffered all that much than your kinda wrong you just lost Makarov. Which is troubling but it was one life. But at the same time I understand that you wouldn’t want more suffering kinda a tough choice.

Okay for most the chapter the dialogue is on point but this one exchange was stupid. “There is no eternity” would be fine but saying “the ice will melt” really is just very vague. If you said something like “My followers will not stop till they melt it” that be fine but the way the sentence is structured it seems like he’s saying the ice will melt on it’s own. But Gray here sounds more dumb by saying if it does melt that’s far down the road’s problem. Gray don’t you know eternal I mean your basically saying every one will forget you but hey it might mean nothing anyway. The hell sense does that make?

I, Really like the symbolism and imagery here. Like no lie, first having it be Ur which is so nice and have it transition over to natsu. Really good sequential story telling.

And I know what people will say, “natsu had to come in to be the big damn hero because Mashima that’s just standard shounen and of course Natsu needs to be pandered to” well I’ about to diffuse that right here. Gray is bringing up a good reason about his grief he feels from almost killing his friend in a blind rage, but here’s what I love Natsu references he could do the same. We have self awareness right here. Then we have the questioning of their friendship. A standard questioning of friendship becomes so much more powerful by adding emotion to the scene. This isn’t some Natsu is stoic reaffirming they are friends this is him on the ground trying to reach Gray.

Welp, touching moment over cause Zeref wanted to be a dick.

Queue standard Natsu is serious two page spread.

“I guess I’ll just stand off to the side, it’s not like I have an ability to access a 9 different forms which grant me a wide range of magic. Better let the men handle this.”

Also Lucy you don’t look like you have any faith in Natsu right now.

So we cut outside the guild to see Erza (Who had her bones broken) all fixed up. You know I’m not even mad. If Wendy can bring juvia back even when she’s only a centimeter away from death, then I’m sure a whole skeleton can be fixed just fine.

Also this resolve works for makarov, but Irene. NO. She was pretty much crazy and pretty much would’ve nuked all of you. But hey cause she killed herself I guess it’s okay.

oh yes. oh yes! OH YES!

And great way to end the chapter.

Also I love how Acnologia references how bored he is. As if he is getting tired of this whole damn arc.

Post Chapter Follow Up: I really liked this chapter. Seriously it was good.

On the Pro side, we have actual emotion that carried over in to the theme of friendship and didn’t feel to shoved down our throats.

Also big thing is the pacing in this chapter is actually really good. Nothing goes by too fast and it all gets in what needs to be done.

We have the air of this final battle beginning and had such a weight to Zeref taking center stage and Acnologia arriving. I couldn’t be more pumped. I’m Hoping that while Natsu tanks the whole zeref thing that at least Gray and Lucy contribute. Also the fact that august even stops fighting really is an amazing sign of what’s coming up.

On the Cons side, nothing really. There are a few snags in the beginning but I think it doesn’t ruin the story overall.

Final Verdict: 8/10

Actual character emotion shown on screen

solid chapter