This is it.

This is the deciding chapter.

Are you guys excited?

I sure am. :3

Enjoy~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~Gray's P.O.V.~

I raced down the ICU hallway, rushing past equipment, doctors, patients, nurses, and rooms as I did so. This time round, I didn't even have time to shove them out of the way. I just need to get to where Juvia is.

After a couple seconds, I abruptly stopped running. I realized I didn't know where I was going, or how I was going to get Juvia in time at this rate. I frantically examined my surroundings, looking for something, anything that showed where Juvia was. My patience at its limit, I grab the nearest doctor by their collar and yell, "Where's Juvia Lockser's room?!"

"U-u-um.." the doctor meekly stuttered. Frustrated, I ripped the clipboard he was holding from his hands and stared at it. Thankfully, it was a list of patients, so I scanned down the list, looking for anything that said Juvia Lockser. After a few seconds, my eyes finally found the words Lockser, Juvia right next to a number: 143.

My eyes scanning over the number one more time for confirmation, I harshly shove the clipboard back to the doctor and rush down the hall. "143, 143.." I repeat under my breath over and over.

For yet another set of seconds, I try to look around for any indication of where Room 143 could be, but every second I waste was another second where Juvia could disappear from me.

"Where's Room 143?" Not wanting to waste even more time, I quickly ask a passing nurse this question. She was obviously quite taken off guard by my sudden appearance, but unlike that dumb doctor, she manages to shakily point to her right.

"D-down the hall," she stammers. I glance towards where she was pointing, and sure enough there was a hallway with doors on both sides of the wall.

"Thank you," I say quickly before dashing down it. Small plates with numbers on them blurred past my vision, but I managed to read them as they passed by.

Soon, I screech to a halt using the soles of my shoes, making me stop right in the middle of a door. Before walking in, I make sure that the room in front of me was the one where Juvia was in. Sure enough, the gold plate right next to it had the numbers 143 etched in black. "JUVIA!" Without wasting another moment, I basically kick the door down and bolt inside.

However, as soon as I see what was waiting for me inside the room, my legs instinctively come to a halt, refusing to take a step further. "J-Juvia.." I whisper her name, the name I've been neglecting for so long, the name that, a couple days ago, I would cringe hearing and saying it.

But now, now that I see the carrier of the name lying in a hospital bed with multiple tubes being stuck in her pale, porcelain-like skin with a heart-rate monitor right beside her bed, making a menacing "beep" the same time her huge heart does...

I feel like such an idiot. A huge, ice-cold douchey idiot.

My whole body trembling with the immense guilt I felt, but even then, I forced myself to move forward towards her. When I was right beside her, I just kneel onto the floor and take a good look at the bluenette's face. She looked so pale, but yet so..peaceful.

"Juvia..." I whisper, my fingers running through her soft, blue locks. Somewhere in my head, I hoped to see her "ghost" that had appeared since she was in a coma. I didn't want to see her lying unconscious, her pretty features inexpressive. I could feel heat in the back of my eyes, but, being me, I hold them back for just a second more and, without even thinking, I lean towards the bluenette. "Juvia," I say again, this time my voice cracking. Her face and mine were merely an inch apart. "I..I..." I bite my lip. It was hard to say this, but if not now, when can I ever say it?

Taking a deep breath and mustering up all the courage I can, I say, "I lo--"

"BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"

Before I was able to say what I wanted to, a high-pitched beep starting alarming, its pitch growing higher and higher with each passing second. My head immediately whips towards the monitor beside us, and my pupils dilate when I see the rate at which the green line spikes up decrease. Sweat of anxiety starting to form on my head, and I look over to Juvia. That was when I realized that her face was getting paler and paler, and her breathing was starting to get shallow.

"Juvia? Juvia!" I start to panic. What do I do? What can I do? What could I do?

As I frantically thought these questions, the door suddenly burst open, a mob of nurses and doctors flowing in. I could tell they wanted me gone, but I couldn't hear their probably-nagging voices, nor did I even look up to see them. I couldn't see anything but Juvia's pale face. I waited for Juvia's eyelids to  miraculously flicker open to show her beautiful ocean-blue sapphires of eyes, her pale-pink lips just curling into a smile that was directed towards me. I couldn't hear anything either, nor did I want to; all I wanted to hear was the sound of the heart-rate monitor beeping faster, to hear her voice calling my name with her non-gloomy cheerfulness.

"Gray-sama!"

That was when the waterworks started. "Juvia!" I shout, tears welling up in my eyes and starting to stream down my cheeks. She wasn't smiling at me, wasn't looking at me with her oceanic blue eyes, wasn't calling my name. Instead, she was lying on a hospital bed, her heartbeat slowly fading away, all because of me.

This is all my fault.

"Sir, you need to leave!" Suddenly, I was pulled back into reality when I was literally thrown out of the room. My body slammed into the wall across from her room, making my head ring and the world wobble. I try to stand up, but my legs didn't want to cooperate with me. So instead, I just sit there like a dazed kid, helplessly watching as I could hear the rhythm of the beeping noise decelerate.

"No.." I whispered.

"She's destabilizing!" I hear a nurse yell from inside.

"No..." I murmur dazedly again.

"Heartbeat rapidly falling sir!"

"No..."

"We're losing her!"

"Juvia.." I whisper, and then...

"Beeeeeeeeeep......"

...There was the sound of flatlining.

"No..." I whisper, my voice barely heard by myself.

"Get the defibrillators!" Just as I start to fall into despair, a tiny piece of hope sparks within me as the doctors try to save her.

There was the sound of electricity being built up. Someone then said "Clear!" and there was a loud thumping sound. I wait for the high-pitched noise to stop, to return to being a slow rhythm of low-pitched beeps...but it was still there.

"Clear!" Someone says again, and there was the sound of yet another loud thump, but nothing changed, the flatline was still there. That tiny spark of hope was rapidly fading away within me, but still I anxiously await the damn high-pitched noise to stop mocking me.

The doctors repeat this process over and over, but nothing happens, nothing changes; her heart is still not beating. "...That's it, I'm calling it." And then, a doctor says this, but by then, I could barely hear him. All I could hear was the high-pitched tone.

I don't hear anything else; just that. I just kneel there, right in front of Juvia's room, slowly processing what just happened. Multiple images flash through my eyes, and they're all of Juvia.

Her eyes, her voice, her smile, they all flash before me, making more tears continuously stream down my cheeks as I look at the room in front of me in disbelief. Will I..never see those things again?

Is Juvia..really gone?

Just as I ask myself this question, I faintly realize that there's someone near me. I slowly turn my head to see that old man that had requested the mission in the first place.

That was when I saw him, right beside the old man.

"IT'S YOUR FAULT!" I lunged and screamed at the young man, grabbing ahold of the collar of his shirt while tears carelessly streamed down my cheek and drip onto the white-tiled floor. His eyes grow as wide as plates, and they stay like that as he realized what has happened. "IF YOU DIDN'T, IF YOU HADN'T CASTED THE STUPID SPELL! JUVIA WOULD..JUvia would.." By now my tears were flowing down as hard as a waterfall, and I could no longer hold them back. My tears now completely blurring my vision to the point where I could not even see the man right in front of me, I just let go of his shirt and just sink to the floor. "Juvia wo-ould.." I whimper, hiding my eyes with my hands. "It's..it's all my fault...because of me, Juvia is..Juvia is..."

"Juvia is dead.."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Muahahaha! I am evil~ >:3

All of you readers' tears are delicious~~

2 chapters to go!

I wonder how the guild will take this~?

Until next time minna-san!