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[Ink x Iron] A Gajeel x Levy Fanfiction Pt. 4

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Chapter Four: Cracking The Code

“What?!”

Levy’s eyes shifted back to the runes. Under the rim of her glasses, her mind was trying to place the runes with words she knew. The runes, however, continued to change. No word was distinctly defined. She was racking her brain, trying to pull knowledge from half-forgotten memories. Her fingers fumbled for her fallen pen. Her other hand had the notepad ready. She quickly wrote down all the symbols that came to her. One symbol stuck out in particular. It was an 8 with an X through it.

“Continue,” she said slowly. Her body was suddenly overcome with coughs.

“Levy!” Pantherlily yelled.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Levy pulled her hand away from her mouth. There was blood.

“Don’t try to read them,” he continued darkly.

“If I don’t--”

“I said don’t. If this damned mountain won’t let me in, I guess I’ll have to find my own way in.”

“Lily--” Gajeel started.

“Go find the book. Like I said, I’ll find my own way in,” Pantherlily’s word was final.

“Fine,” Gajeel glowered at him, and offered his hand down to Levy. She quickly wiped her bloodstained hand on her dress, and took it. He pulled her to her feet.

“Be safe, Lily,” Levy said quietly, sending another glance at the runes.

“You too,” he nodded and turned to leave.

Levy stared after him, her eyes falling back on the runes. Her eyes started to throb, but still she looked, trying to make out any word besides just “continue”.

“C’mon shrimp, we don’t have all day,” Gajeel said turning to face the long dark tunnel ahead of him. Levy tore her eyes away from the runes, and followed him into the dark.

* * *

For hours they walked aimlessly through the dimly lit tunnel. Torches lined the walls, but only a select few were still intact enough to be burnt. Gajeel held one high above his head, Levy slowly followed behind him.

Gajeel noticed how quiet she had become since the rune incident, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything comforting. Even if he had, it would most likely come out mean. He scowled into the dark tunnel ahead of him.

“Is there anything ahead?” Levy asked quietly, snapping him back into reality.

He squinted into the darkness, “I see a small white light.”

“Be careful, I bet this whole place is filled with traps...I wouldn't be surprised if that light is a trap too.”

“Right.”

Gajeel carefully lead the way to the light. His eyes scoured every inch of the ground, searching for any signs of a trap. His eyes found nothing, and soon, they were standing at a fork in the tunnel. A single torch lit the beginning of both paths.

“Which way do we go?” Levy asked, moving to stand beside him.

Gajeel sniffed the air, “the path to the right smells odd. The one to the left smells like the path we’ve been walking.”

“Theres only one way to find out,” Levy bent and picked up two rocks. She threw one into the right path. No noise indicated its fall. She threw the other into the left path. They could hear it skid and skip across the rocks.

“That way!” she said happily, taking the lead. Gajeel shrugged and followed behind her, the scowl still firmly planted on his face.

As soon as Gajeel had stepped through the tunnel, rocks shot up and closed the pathway. This caught Levy off guard, she fell back into Gajeel, and knocked the torch from his hand. It fell to the ground, and blinked out. They were plunged into total darkness.

“You’re so clumsy, shrimp!” Gajeel roared in frustration.

“Stop calling me that!” Levy felt something brush up her leg, anger found her quickly, “Pervert!” she yelled, lashing her hand out reflexively. She missed.

“I didn’t touch you!”

“You’re the only one who could’ve!”

“I didn’t!”

“If you didn’t..then..” her eyes grew wide in sudden realization, “It was the g-ghost!” she cried.

“What ghost?”

“T-the one from yesterday.”

“Yesterday...oh,” his mind replayed the image of her in the water, her body with the--

“Don’t think about it!” her hand shot out again, scoring a direct hit on his cheek.

“I ain’t thinking about it!” He yelled back, rubbing his cheek.

Before Levy could reply, a sudden light at the end of the tunnel appeared. All previous anger dissolved on her tongue.

“C’mon, lets not waste time, Lily’s waiting,” Gajeel stepped forward.

“So demanding..” Levy muttered following him once again.

‘Don’t act like you don’t like it’ the voice in the back of her head taunted. She glared at Gajeel’s back, and forced her feet to move forward. She followed him to the end of the tunnel. The light suddenly grew bright, so bright it temporarily blinded both of them. Still, they moved forward. As they walked, the light gradually grew softer, and at last they could see.

“What’s this?” Gajeel exclaimed, looking around in wonder. They were standing under the arches of a library. Shelves and shelves of books lined the walls. The shelves reached father than the human eye could see. Ladders leaned up against the shelves, they too reaching for the sky. Every book was neatly arranged along the bookshelves, not a single one out of place.

Levy walked excitedly towards the shelves. She traced her fingers along the spine of the book, they were in perfect condition. Just by looking at them, Levy could tell they were well cared for. Not a single one had a cracked spine. She smiled, and slowly removed one. She opened it up. To her surprise, no words were written on any of the pages. Her brow furrowed. She pulled down another, and found the same result. Her hand reached for another.

“Shrimp,” Gajeel called, Levy turned, “you might want to take a look at this.”

He was standing over a table. The table had two goblets filled with a clear, odorless liquid, and a small piece of paper. The words of the piece of paper were written in a different language.

“Thats Ancient Ermong,” Levy said, bending by Gajeel’s side.

“Can you read it?”

“Yeah, it says:

Have a drink,
Confess, confess!
Take some time to think.
Confess, confess!
Have you found the missing link?
Confess, confess!
You might miss it, if you blink.
Confess, confess!
Let the truth be told.
Confess, confess!
This is what has been foretold.
Confess, confess.
The key is not gold.” She lowered the paper and looked at Gajeel.

“What the hell does that mean?” he roared again, looking around the library.

Levy eyed the drinks, “maybe we should drink them--” Gajeel was already tipping the glass to his lips.

“Hey! Wait a minute! They could be..” he drained the glass, “..poisoned,” she finished.

He shrugged, “they smelled fine.”

Levy looked him up and down, “how do you feel?”

“Well, I’m here with you aren’t I?” he answered casually, then his eyes widened, “uh..it wasn’t supposed to come out like that..yeah it was. No, dammit! It wasn’t!”

Levy blinked at him, not sure how to answer. Instead she quickly pulled out her notepad and rewrote the words on the small piece of paper.

She eyed the remaining goblet, “I don’t think that the drinks were poisoned...”

“No shit! They didn’t smell like they were,” Gajeel muttered, his arms were crossed and he was facing away from Levy.

She raised the glass to her lips, and drained it in an instant. She set the glass down, and smacked her lips waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. She shrugged, and looked down at the small piece of paper again. It was now completely blank. She  gasped, and fumbled to open the book she had taken off the shelf. Now, there were words in the book.

“What is the meaning of this...” she wondered aloud, holding the paper alongside of the book.

“It’s a book shrimp, you should know that,” Gajeel answered the rhetorical question.

“That’s not what I meant, look,” she held the book up, “before I could only read the paper, the book was blank. Now it’s the opposite.”

“You sure you’re not just seeing things? That book is blank,” he eyed Levy.

“The words are right there, look,” she pointed to the words.

“I am. There’s nothing there, shrimp.”

“I wonder...” she mused to herself, slamming the book shut. She dropped her red bag down, beside the small table, and began pulling book after book out. She finally pulled out her red glasses, and her notepad. She tore the piece of paper with the translated Ermong out of the notepad, and placed it next to the original piece of paper. She clicked her pen, and began doing what Levy does best.

* * *

Gajeel was leaning up against a bookshelf, his eyes intensely watching Levy. Ever since he had drunk the potion, he couldn’t take his eyes off of her, or keep his private thoughts inside of his head. He kept wanting to say something to her, something about how she looked in her red glasses, or the way her nose scrunched up when she was thinking hard, or the way she slightly blushed when she caught him staring at her. She suddenly reached for a book across the table, her body was bent all the way over the table.

“You shouldn’t bend over like that,” Gajeel bit his tongue in attempt to stop the words, but it was already too late.

“What?” her small hand closed around the book, and she had turned to look at him, “why not?”

“It’s provocative.”

Levy turned a bright shade of red, and stared open mouthed at him. He silently cursed under his breath and looked away.

Levy stared at Gajeel, her mouth opened like an idiot. She quickly shut it, and fumbled back to her notes. Her fingers were stained by the ink from her pen, but she hardly noticed. She knew she was so close to cracking the code she could almost taste it.

‘Confess confess’ that seems to come up a lot...’ she was mentally drawing connections, ‘maybe, oh yes! thats it!’

“Gajeel!” she called happily, looking up.

“What?” he muttered sulking to her side.

“I think I figured it out! See how ‘confess, confess’ is repeated?” she excitedly gestured to the words.

“Yeah?”

“I think you drank a truth potion of sorts,” she made eye contact with him, “I haven’t figured out what it was I drunk yet, but, you know what else I thought was weird about ‘confess, confess’? See how it’s repeated, twelve times specifically. The last line doesn’t have one.”

“Yeah...so?”

“The last line is ‘the key is not gold’. There are twelve golden zodiac keys, the ones that Lu-chan uses. All of those keys are gold, but here, the key is not. So, I thought that maybe key isn’t an actual thing, but actually an answer of some kind. Like maybe the ‘golden answer’. You see?”

“I think so..”

“Yeah, and look, the word told is repeated twice. In the older days when people didn’t have pens and pencils, they had to tell each other the stories. If they were really lucky they could..” she trailed off then snapped her fingers, “thats it!” She rushed to the ladder leaning against the bookshelf, and swiftly started to climb it.

“Shrimp! What are you doing?!” Gajeel yelled after her.

“Getting us out of here! she climbed higher on the ladder, and turned around, “Gajeel, move everything to the sides!” He quickly complied, from the ground, he could see her face light up. She quickly scrambled down the ladder.

“Did you figure it out?”

She nodded, “Look at the floor,” she pointed downwards, “doesn’t it seem to have a weird pattern?”

His eyes narrow, “now that you mention it...”

“Exactly! From up there,” she pointed upwards,” I could see the final line of the ‘key’, it said, confess confess, the truth is set in stone!”

Behind them they heard a rumble, when they turned, they saw the bookshelves separating to reveal another path.

“Nice work, shrimp,” Gajeel patted her head.

“Yes!” She fist pumped the air, “now we’re that much closer to finding the book!”
Coming up with the poem (if you want to call it that) was a challenge. Poetry has never been my cup of tea, but, when it comes to writing, poetry is almost inescapable. After I got it down, everything else quickly fell into place.! It also made me realize that if something doesn't work out for you in the first place, trash it all and start again. (I had to do this several times with the poem). I also had to look up quite a few things to make sure I was as accurate as possible. Research NEVER hurts.! ^^

Anyways, I hope you all enjoy it, and please tell me what you think. I'm sick of you people being nice. (Not really...but some constructive criticism would be helpful!)

So, thank you for reading.!

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HotaruShidosha's avatar
Ahhahaha wow, Gajeel, you should be lucky she was so wrapped up in solving the riddle to not fully investigate what you said. I adore these two so much. Great chapter