Colors of the Will'o'Wisp (Fairy Tail Fanfiction with a Minor Crossover with Reborn!) Prologue Chapter

Regrets.

What a funny thing. To live life in this world was to accumulate regrets. For Zeref, his newest regret was a child named Romeo Conbolt.

Zeref had warned the child that first day, but the child, as most children did, ignored him.

To his regret, Zeref hadn’t done enough to warn the child away. Perhaps he hadn’t done anything at all. Perhaps he was lying because Zeref knew he was lying when he said he hadn’t looked forward to the child’s visit.

For one such as him, life was lonely. To hear a child’s small talk, to share small tales, Zeref had found such guilty pleasure in not being alone.

And now it was that much more lonely now that the child was dead.

Death always sounded soft. Not silent, not quiet, but soft. It didn’t matter whether it was in the tranquility of the forace or the roar of war, death always sounded soft to Zeref.

When his curse had rebelled against his wishes, thrashing about against his control, Zeref had shouted to the child, but too slow, too late, too much and then too gone. The black shadow had grazed the child and then it was gone.

Was he cursed to always kill fairies? What mattered if they had tails or not when every Fairy he met died soon after?

Mourning was numb and quick. He was too used to it after all with his contradictory curse, and so the Lonely Immortal set about the sad routine of burying the dead. Zeref dug a grave for the child. He used no magic. There was no need to desecrate the child’s body with any more of his own tainted magic. Using bare hands, he cooped out a  shallow grave to help shield the body from the elements, but not too deep so that searchers could not find the child.

Then, carefully making sure not a single bit crept close to the Child, Zeref  crafted a spell to ward off the animals who devoured meat and another to preserve the body, Zeref mourned that this final gift was one that he had to give as he left.

If only he had not met this child.

If only he did not have this curse.

If only the God Anksheram hadn’t cursed him.

If only he hadn’t angered God Anksheram.

If only his brother hadn’t died.

If only his mother and father hadn’t died.

If only he hadn’t been born.

If only he had not loved.

With these regrets echoing “if only”, did the Lonely Immortal madden himself into calculated apathy once more, once more attempting to tame this Curse of Contradiction. The more he loved, the more he killed. The less he loved, the less he killed.

Ah, if only he could die, but the curse only killed that he loved.

And the Black Wizard knew nobody hated him more than himself.

Thus did the Lonely Immortal leave the child.

---

The thing about regrets is that they do not magically disappear upon dying. They magnify, they linger, they transform, but regrets tie things down.

Here’s another thing about regrets. They’re only called regrets when the target is themselves. When the target is outside forces, such as people and nature, gods and fate and destiny, these are called grudges.

The Child had regrets, for sure. All living things had them. It regretted not being careful enough. It regretted being such a brat to its father. It regretted not being strong enough. It regretted not hugging its guild members enough. It regretted many things large and small, but mostly small, nothing enough to tie a spirit down.

But it had grudges.

It had grudges against the Lonely immortal for killing it, but it was a small one for the child knew the truth of the story and mourned the regrets of that lonely immortal with it.

It had grudges against fate and destiny. These ones were still small, for the child was young and the young know the future is limitless and untied and unbound by fragilities such as fate and destiny.

It had grudges against the Gods, specifically the God Anksheram though the child could not pronounce the name, and this one was the largest one. It was a childish anger, the one where a child drives the parent to insanity, questioning the basis of unjust rules, but here the child felt quite justified in anger, for what is a god but a parent to mortals?

And the child knew a curse to punish one who sought to cure death with the rampant and uncontrolled ability to kill was a shit curse, pardon the language.

Such a punishment taught nothing, muddied everything, and brought in outside innocent in to die for yet more nothing.

So the Child’s spirit refused to die. It had regrets, and it had grudges, and it still had a body to work with. In childish ignorance, the child set to work to defying a God.

In the field blessed and protected by a lonely immortal, the buried child’s mortal will fought against a detached god’s of death’s idle whim.

One hand burst out of the mound. Grasping blindly, it fell limp only to close itself into a fist, bursting into a bright white flame. Near immediately, black, shadowy shades crept out of the forgotten crooks and crevices of the surroundings to drown out the flame.

Anksheram’s Curse of Contradiction had killed this child. By the God’s idle whim, what had died to the curse would remain dead, no matter how just or unjust it was for a life taken in such a way.

Flickering and wavering, but never dying, the child’s flame of will only strengthened, growing brighter and changing colors; Changing to storm-red to destroy the shadows’ initial strikes, changing to sky-orange to harmonize the weakened shadows into a weak flame that took the shade of the shadow, changing to sun-yellow to activate and revitalize the captured shadowy flame, changing to lightning-green to harden the containment of this contradictory flame when it began to rebel, changing to rain-blue to tranquilize and tame the strengthened black flame, changing to mist-indigo to construct the rules to contain this new strange flame, changing to cloud-purple to propagate and create more of the shadowy flame, changing back to the first color when more shadows attempted to drown the flame.

And through the cycles, the child found teachers. A Fighter guided the child’s storm in the defense against the shadow. A Dreamer told the child a tale on how to tame darkness. A Hitman taught the child how to help the shadow become more than a curse. A Scientist showed the child the way to contain shades. A Colonel trained the child how to discipline death. A Fortune Teller tricked the Child into blurring the line between life and death. A Stuntsman performed for the Child the largesse of life. And an Avenger showed the Child the glory of a life well lived and death gloriously defied.

That initial pure white flame never appeared again amidst the drowning onslaught of shadows. No, if it did, it was a trick of the eye as the cycle of those seven-colored flames cycled faster and faster, taking in the incoming darkness for its own until that rainbow cycle burned bright white in the dark-black of night.

Another hand joined the other and rainbow fire trickled down both arms as the child pulled himself out of the grave. Eyes open, unseeing of the material world and seeing only the underneath of the veil, the child’s forehead burnt bright with white-life.

Taking a few stuttering steps against the drowning dark-death, the Child fell to his knees as he gritted his teeth into a rictus of a smirk. Both hands alight with the rapidly cycling rainbow flames, still capturing the shadows of death, the child forced both fists together and claimed the Dark Flame of Night for his own.

White to rainbow to black to back to white and towards and forwards and against the darkness, the child defied the God Anksheram’s Curse of Death with these words, banishing all the shadows and shades and darkness and death onslaughting the small, mortal death-touched, life-filled Child.

Two fists knuckle to knuckle with one another, three eyes burning bright, Romeo Conbolt Stoo Up and Declared.

“With my dying will, I’m still here.”

Then as night broke to day, the flames flickered away as the child fell backwards into a snoring, much more temporary sleep.

The flames did not die though. So long as one who held them struggled to the death to live, these Rainbow Flames of Will were Undying. Not that Romeo Conbolt knew that. He had just recovered from being mildly dead.

Fate and Destiny had other plans though.

A Vulcan, a disgusting monkey-like ape of a monster, had found Romeo’s tired body. A magical beast, dangerous to even well-trained mages, they specialized in a form of parastism, using Take-Over magic to steal a person’s body and autonomy for their own.

Romeo’s miraculous feat of defying a God had drawn in a greedy and opportunistic one. If the Vulcan succeeded in stealing Romeo’s body, well… it could survive off the magic for years if not decades!

And here the Child may have died, may have suffered a fate worse than fate if not for something else.

Remember the philosophizing upon regrets and grudges? Here’s one last thing about them. They have a third sibling. Softer, harder, stronger and louder, weaker and quieter, there’s no real name for them. Some call it attachments and relationships, others oaths and promises, but it’s a soft thing that ties the spirit down with friends and family.

Fate and Destiny were fragile. Romeo’s guild, Fairy Tail, had been searching for him when he had not returned by evening that day. Weakened by the loss of its strongest members in a draconic and apocalyptic event, Fairy Tail had been much reduced from its former glory as Fiore’s strongest, but make no mistake, they were strong, strengthened in the same amount as they were tied down by regret’s and grudge’s sibling.

The small guild had worked through the night to find the child, and it was by luck, fate, or destiny that brought Romeo’s father to bear witness.

But then again, fate and destiny were fragile things. It was luck that Romeo’s father had found him in that moment of crisis, but if it was not Romeo’s father, then it would have been another member of Fairy Tail.

Regret’s and grudge’s third sibling was a dirty player and always defiant to Gods, Desinty, and Fate.

The only thing destined was the vulcan’s fate when Macao Conbolt stumbled into the scene, having followed Romeo’s bright flare of magic.

Currently Fairy Tail’s current guildmaster, Macao Conbolt had once fought against a herd of Vulcan all by himself for nothing more than the approval for his own son a few year’s back. To beat down a single one? A single one who dared to even attempt to subject his son to that nightmare of having a body stolen?

Macao Conbolt didn’t need an iota of magic to punch the vulcan’s head from its neck.

Fate and Destiny were fragile things, easily broken by bonds.

When he woke up later to his crying father and guild, Romeo would vaguely regret not staying asleep upon the scolding he received.

But he didn’t regret waking up to his family.

---

AN: I always thought Romeo Conbolt was underutilized, so here's my attempt at making him relevant in a cool way. I got inspired by the Rainbow Magic from Totomaru in the manner that I got annoyed in how they made it a joke, so I decided to supplement Rainbow Magic with the Dying Will Flames of Hitman Reborn. Beyond the minor references to the Arcobaleno, don't expect much crossover.