(Y/N) POV

"Raise your sword higher," Erza yells as another strike comes my way. I resist every urge in my body telling me to just blow her away. Instead, I focus on the sword that I'm holding and her instructions.

Her strike connects with my blade, her strength easily overpowers me as I'm thrown to the ground. I sigh in disappointment.

"Don't be too hard on yourself. You're doing much better than you were yesterday," Erza encourages me. She holds out a hand to help me get up, I take it.

"Thanks. I seem like I need to increase my arm strength," I say as she agrees.

"Yes. Your magic training really did not help you at all for this," she concludes.

"No kidding. I can do a bunch of stuff with my magic. But my magic requires very little physical strength. It's all mental," I agree.

"It's been a while since I've seen your magic at work. Has it improved at all?" She asks me.

"I've become much more efficient due to my circumstances. However, I can only use about 20 medium-strength spells before I'm out. I can squeeze out 2 large-scale attacks if need be," I tell her

"Large-scale attacks? If I recall, you could only teleport and create explosions," she tells me. I smile a bit.

"Yes. I've improved my magic in 4 years. As you know, my magic is Energy. I can target the amount of energy at an atomic level. I can increase, or decrease energy within atoms. For teleport, it is more akin to super speed, I give the atoms of my body more energy, and I can move very fast. Likewise, when I give air more energy. I can create a micro explosion."

"How can I use the same magic to be super fast and also make things explode? It's simply a rate, if I multiply the atomic energy by an extremely high factor, I great an extremely high energy conversion in a short amount of time...hence, an explosion occurs. If I slow that rate, I can make things move faster. Of course, there are limits. I can only control the atoms in my own body and within my line of sight. And it requires an immense amount of mental energy to do so," I explain

"Now, to your question. I have a handful of large-scale spells. I've only finished developing two. One is a shield of high-energy particles, this protects against attacks...as its name suggests...it's a shield. My other one is what I'm calling an atomic explosion. I often only explode a couple of atoms at once, this is what I commonly used against Natsu way back when. However, I've found a way to explode these atoms in a sequence that creates a chain reaction with the surrounding atoms. This results in an extremely explosive reaction, as such, I've never used it on anything other than in testing," I finish

"Wow, looks like you've been busy...those sound like great aces to have up your sleeve," Erza comments

"Perhaps, but like I said. I can only use two of them before I'm down for the count. Overkill spells or not, they are usually if I'm powerless after using them,"

"I disagree. Fairy Tail has fought a lot of powerful foes. Having a one-hit attack would have saved us many times," Erza says as I sheepishly look away.

"Why don't we take a break and head down to the beach with Mira and Gildarts," Erza asks changing the subject.

"The beach?" I mutter with a bit of scorn.

"Come on, it'll be fun," Erza says without asking me...she proceeded to drag me without my consent. I was too tired from her merciless training to do anything.

"Erza! (Y/N)!" Mira calls out once she sees us.

Mira had grown a lot since I last saw her...same as Erza. As I grew from a boy to a young man myself, I never imagined the two girls would do the same. In their bikinis, I had a hard time not looking at them. My eyes always seemed to land on Erza of all people. The red-haired wizard looked absolutely stunning.

"Your eyes are gonna burst out of your head," Gildarts tells me.

"I can't control them...they just follow her," I mutter as I rub my eyes. Is this some kind of magic? Did someone put me under a spell that forced me to look at Erza? Gildarts just laughed

"Did you meet many kids your age in Seven?" He asks me.

"No," I say as gloom covers my face. My eyes went from Erza to the ground fast.

"They were all dead when I arrived. I only worked with convicts and conscripted middle-aged men. All the young volunteers had died much earlier than the time I arrived," I mutter as Gildarts eyes widen.

"It musta been hectic," he says. I can hear screams of pain and magic explosions. Pleas for life. The smell of death. The taste of metallic blood in the air.

"Yes, it was hectic," I mutter as I snap out of my memory.

"Any girls?" Gildarts asks as I shake my head.

"Girls were forbidden from the camps. As I mentioned before, convicts were forced to go to war once the volunteers had all died. For obvious reasons, it wasn't a good idea to have women around criminals who may die the next day," I tell him. Something finally clicked in Gildarts, whether it was the true realization of what went down in Seven and Iceberg, I'm not sure.

"Glad to have you back kid," Gildarts says with a pause, "welcome home,"

Erza POV
Tomorrow is when the other members of Fairy Tail will arrive. The S-class promotion trail will begin.

We just finished up at the beach, and we're returning to camp

"Hey Erza," Gildarts asks

"What's up?" I respond as he motions to (Y/N) ahead of us. The (H/C) haired man was walking with a limp. His bad leg wasn't completely healed. Or perhaps he would have a limp for the rest of his life. Either way, his head was on a swivel. I'm sure his eyes were assessing every tree and bush we passed. I felt magic energy at the brink of being released if needed. He was looking out for something. But he knows it's safe here right? Maybe a habit he picked from his time at war?

"I'm worried about him. The kid is your age but has been surrounded by death and misery for the past 4 years. I don't think he knows anything outside of his time at Seven. He's had nothing but painful experiences since he left Fiore. I'm worried he doesn't know how to be happy anymore, his eyes...seem haunted, I've never seen anything like them," Gildarts begins.

"His eyes don't look like they belong on a kid who is only 19...he should act more like Natsu," Gildart finishes

"Yes, because having a wizard who can blow the entire guild hall sky high, acting like Natsu is a good idea," I reply as Gildart chuckles

"You get my point, he's...strange. Something happened over at Seven...I can feel it," Gildarts tells me

"I agree. I'll try to talk to him later tonight," I tell him.

"That's a good idea. He needs to remember that we are Fairy Tail. He can trust us," Gildarts says as I agree.

Later that night

Mira and Gildarts had fallen asleep. (Y/N) and I sat around a fire.

"This will be the last time we can do this without Natsu trying to taste it," I joke as he smiles.

"I woulda thought he would have grown out of that," he says.

"Natsu still has a couple of years before he does that, but this past year he has come a long way," I continue

"That's good to hear. How about you? I notice you're a little more cheerful than you used to be," he asked me. I must admit, I was taken aback by his question.

"I haven't noticed a difference myself...just maybe a little resolution from my past," I tell him thinking about the Tower of Heaven and Jellal.

"What about you?" I ask him.

"I like to think I grew up a lot," he says looking into the fire.

"I won't lie, Erza. I feel things. I see them. It's almost like I'm back at the worst part of the war. When wizards were mostly all dead and they used the common folk...the pure agony from that decision. I can't explain it," he tells me.

His eyes have frosted over. Like scenes were replaying in his head. His fingernails cut into the palms of his hands as he clenched them.

"Fairy Tail is here for you. Never forget that," I tell him as he looks up at me. The usual glint in his eyes was gone, replaced with a dead appearance.

"You shouldn't be...I have blood on my hands," he explains shifting his gaze from me to his hands.

"And we will never fault you for it...you did what you to," I tell him. He shakes his head furiously.

"Erza! I killed an entire army in one day! I created an explosion in their centre ranks. Their pleas for their mothers as they die will haunt me...I remember that day very vividly. I relive it every time I shut my eyes," he begins to break down.

I moved closer to him and hugged him. He didn't make a sound, his eyes were just unfocused as he relived whatever trauma he had gone through. He fell asleep wrapped in my embrace.

His body never went slack. It was always stiff, ready to move as soon as he awoke.

In truth. I had seen many articles about the battle between Seven and Iceberg. It was brutal. One of the deadliest conflicts on the continent of Ishgar. Once both sides ran out of wizards, they resorted to more traditional methods of battle. Mass groups of men pitted against one another.

However, one story always stood out. The story how in less than 30 minutes, a lone Fairy Tail wizard killed 5000 enemy soldiers.