Chapter 12: Chapter 12: Idiot

As she watched Jean walk away, she felt sad and somewhat nostalgic; after her mother went into a coma, Claire and Jean were her biggest supporters.

She always tried to appear strong, but it seemed that the Faure family members always were able to see through her facade.

Situations like Claire inviting her to serve as a model for whatever new dress she came up with, Jean telling her about his ideas for some new swords, or what he thought about the books she liked.

She came to feel much more welcome and happy in her best friend's house than in the mansion.

And even though there were also people who appreciated her there, such as Mrs. Spetto, old Bero, Ribbon, or Aed, who always treated her with the same affection that they would have offered someone in her family, somehow it felt a little different.

The Faure house had a warm, homey aura she loved, from Jean cracking mean jokes with Claire or his fighting games with Michael while a quiet Bobby calmed them down.

But the best of all was what bothered her initially, that Jean did not fulfill all the whims she had.

Lucy would be the first to admit it; since she was little, she noticed that she was adorable and pretty.

Sometimes, she tried to take advantage of that a little, especially when she met Jean.

At first, he relented surprisingly quickly when she pouted or put on an adorable expression.

But with time, Jean seemed to strengthen his defenses, it was that, or she was becoming less adorable, and one day he simply said no to something she wanted; that day, she got upset with him, and in her childish act, she tried to ignore him.

But that didn't seem to affect him too much, and she ended up apologizing the next day, so time passed, with her having fun and getting denied sometimes when her request was too exaggerated, and then she met Sawalu Julenelle.

She still remembered how he looked at her; at that time, she was returning to her house after accompanying Claire to the shopping district in search of some things for new dishes that the kind woman had thought.

It was unpleasant, and the worst thing was that her father invited him to stay at the Heartfilia house for a couple of nights, but she put up with it until she went to the guest room.

That night she devised a plan, and Jean surely would help her; she only needed to ask him to stand next to her and look a little intimidating.

Then she could tell Sawalu that Jean was her boyfriend; she was sure that with that, Sawalu would never look at her the same way again.

But how did Jean respond to her request? He refused, and when she insisted, he poked her on her forehead using his index finger hard enough to make her skin a little red.

"Hey, why did you do that?"

"Lucy, what do you think I am?"

"Eh? You are my friend, aren't you?" She answered the obvious, and Jean nodded to answer her question in the affirmative. "Then why don't you help me? Do you know how unpleasant it felt? For him to look at me as if I were… just a piece of meat"

"Can't say I know, but I guess it was pretty nasty"

"Then why-"

"Lucy". He spoke, cutting her off. "Whenever you need my help, I will be ready to do whatever it takes, but this time you don't need it". Said as approached her, and when they were face to face, he put his hand on her head, something he hadn't done since she was 13 years old.

"I know you, Lucy; that's why I'm more than sure you're capable of solving this on your own". He said it with such confidence in his voice that she didn't know how to respond, and for some reason, she was embarrassed at it, her cheeks turning just a little red, and she pouted in annoyance.

"It's not fair; you can't just go and say something like that"

"Of course I can". He answered; this time, his tone had a bit of teasing. "At this point, you should already know that I don't usually play fair"

Her pout increased along with her annoyance, and he laughed more.

"Well, with that settled, now I'm off; I have some things to do"

She didn't even bother trying to stop him; when he said something like that and didn't specify what he would do, it was because he wanted to try out an idea for a new sword.

Besides, she had to think about what he had said to her.

Shortly after, she realized Jean wanted her to grow up on her own; she hadn't noticed until now, but Jean was one of the few people who never saw her as the princess of the Heartfilia family, but simply as Lucy.

But he surely noticed that his own treatment and that of others had made her a bit capricious, which is why he began to refuse to do some things for her.

At that moment, she didn't know if she should be grateful or upset with him, so she just dismissed it as something Jean would do.

But looking back, she was really grateful that he had that way of thinking; after all, that was why she decided to improve herself even more than she did before.

That was why she spent more time practicing to become a better mage; how would she achieve her dream if she didn't? She had also decided long ago that she wanted to go out and see what the world had to offer.

"Lucy? Are you all right, dear?" A kind voice pulled her out of her memories, and when she turned to see who was talking to her, she saw Claire looking at her curiously; Michael and Bobby had left a few seconds ago, leaving only the two of them.

"It's nothing, I just... I remembered some things"

"Yes, I understand you; I really can't believe that Jean has finally left home; it seems like it was yesterday when he told me that he wanted to go out to live adventures"

"..." Lucy noticed the wistful tone in Claire's voice, but she decided not to comment.

"But, I can't stay here being sad; Jean made me promise that I could only be sad for 20 minutes." With a determined and enthusiastic voice, the woman encouraged herself by clenching her fists.

'What kind of unreasonable promise is that?' Lucy thought as she listened to Claire.

"Well, for now, I think the best thing would be to clean everything that is left from Jean's farewell"

"Oh, do you need help?" Lucy quickly offered her help to the woman; she had been part of the little gathering, so she thought she could help clean up a bit.

"Are you sure? I wouldn't mind a little help, but do you have time?"

"Yes, no problem"

"Then I'll take your word for it"

And with that said, they both entered the house and got to work, picking up the dishes on the table, sweeping up some crumbs that had fallen on the floor, or ordering some things, and an hour later, everything was almost ready.

"Lucy, excuse me, could you take this to Jean's room?" Claire asked as she handed her some folded clothes and a couple of books.

The blonde accepted, and while Claire finished putting away some cups, she went upstairs and into the room; she had been there several times, so she knew where to put the pair of shirts and the books that Claire had given her.

Leaving everything on the bed for a moment, she opened the closet and one of the drawers there, then she turned around and separated the books to store the white clothes.

When she finished, she closed the closet and went to the desk in the dodge of the room, where for some reason Jean was always wary when he saw her approach a particular drawer, but he wasn't here now, so maybe she could snoop around a bit.

Opening it, he found some blank sheets of paper and a couple of pens, nothing really out of the ordinary, but from the detective stories she had read and the ones Jean had told her, she knew that if there was something there, then perhaps it was hidden in some secret compartment.

She took out the sheets and pens to pass her hand over the surface of the drawer but found nothing; then she looked at the sheets, and absolutely all of them were blank; she looked under the drawer, and still nothing.

That didn't make much sense to her; why wouldn't Jean let her open that specific drawer if there was nothing there? Perhaps he had moved what he was hiding or taken it with him?

Lucy sighed, putting the sheets and pens back before closing the drawer again, but when she closed it, she felt something strange; for some reason, she had to use a little more force at the end, and an almost inaudible clicking sound reached her ears.

She stopped and then pulled the drawer back from the desk, reached inside, and her fingers ran along the rail where the drawer fit, and there, almost at the end, she felt something, some metal toothpick, and with a little with some effort she finally pulled it out to look at it.

It was oddly shaped at the tip like a key, but otherwise, it just looked like a small metal toothpick.

"Yes, this is nothing suspicious". Lucy said sarcastically before perking up. "Now, let's find out where this is going, but if it turns out that all you were hiding was pervy magazines, then I'm going to be a little disappointed". After all, Jean wouldn't go to all that trouble just to hide something like that, would he?

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Who was she fooling? For a while now, her friend had become a bit perverted, dropping double-meaning comments sometimes to make fun of her, and that's not counting the time he ended up seeing her naked, and all he did was give her a thumbs up.

She definitely should have hit him harder that time.

Putting aside the embarrassing memory, Lucy got on her knees and put her hand back into the space where the drawer went until she touched the bottom of the desk, a little search, and felt a small hole in the corner; her smile grew a little and inserted the small metal toothpick.

A new click caught her attention, this time from the top of the desk; she raised her head and saw a small secret compartment that had just been opened.

She stood up as she pulled the toothpick out of the little hole and put the drawer back in its place; when she lifted the trapdoor, she found a small book.

"Lucy, did you end up there?" Claire's voice coming down the hall startled her, so she quickly hid the book behind her and closed the trapdoor before the woman entered her room.

"Something happened?" Jean's mother asked when she finally poked her head through the bedroom door.

"Ah, no, nothing happens; I just remembered that I have something important to do; see you". Lucy answered hastily as she left the room, went down the stairs to the front door, and ran to her house, leaving a confused Claire.

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Pov Lucy

"Senjutsu". I repeated while reading the pages of the book I had taken.

Jean had told me about this a long time ago, the ability to use the energy of nature, something different than magic, that could damage the enemy in a way that would be almost impossible to avoid.

I had seen him use it to surround one of his swords, and the feeling that weapon gave was... strange; it wasn't unpleasant in the least, but pleasant wasn't an accurate word to describe it either; it was like drinking a relaxing tea; as if the sword's aura conveyed the sense of calm.

After that, I became interested in the subject, but no matter how much I searched in libraries or asked Aquarius, Cancer, or Capricorn, I never got a solid answer, except for Jean's imprecise explanations.

Now, as I was reading this, I was just as confused; Jean wasn't precisely the right person if you were looking for a simple explanation for something complicated, but from what little I did understand was worrying because, in these notes, Jean wrote how even with all his years of practice, it was still too difficult for him to learn to use senjutsu correctly, and without someone to teach him, it would be almost impossible for him to control it.

Even on one of the pages, the word 'loser' was scratched out multiple times in a flawed attempt to hide it.

That word brought to my mind a painful memory; in the middle of the night, I could see an emaciated Jean in his uncle's arms.

His fists were bruised and covered in dried blood after doing something that probably almost anyone else would have considered impossible and falling utterly unconscious after saying a single sentence.

'I... didn't fail this time'

For that reason, reading that this is what Jean thought of himself, even if it was just a passing thing during a time of great stress, was painful.

After all, he trained so hard every day to wake up my mom, replenishing the vital energy she had lost.

Page by page, it was clear that Jean was blaming himself more and more for not making progress in his training.

I continued reading until I found something else: a newspaper clipping on one of the last ten pages.

"The Anti-Magician Forest". I had heard of this place before, a strange forest in the southeastern part of Fiore, a dangerous place where for some reason, there were almost no Ethernano and which also sucked the magic reserves of anyone who entered until they were completely empty.

"Why did you put something like that here?" Turning to the next page, I found another news clipping, which looked like it was from an older newspaper.

"Anything you want". That was quite a catchy title, and what followed was even more so. "The only survivor of the exploration of the Anti-Magician Forest assures that in the middle of the place there is a stone temple, and there, the holy guardian protects a relic capable of fulfilling any wish"

The newspaper clipping indicated that it was from the year X712, more than 70 years ago; how could Jean have found this? Then, looking at the corner of the page, I saw a handwritten note.

'PS: Compensate the library for taking this page from its records without permission'

When I read it, I couldn't help but let out a small laugh; why I'm not surprised?

I at least hoped he had compensated the library before he left.

The following pages were a mixture of various newspaper clippings recounting all the times that some groups had entered the anti-magician forest only never to return, making it more than clear that going to that place was already considered suicide.

In the end, the situation seemed to escalate until the point that a royal decree was issued in X759 prohibiting entry to the forest after only the man from X712 made it out alive, and the other 183 people who had entered were never seen again.

But when I reached the last two pages, my eyes widened; the surprise of seeing something like that here me cold for a moment; it was information, a lot of information about people in a coma and ways to increase vitality.

"No, please tell me you didn't do it". I spoke to the book as if it were him, some tears fell down my cheeks, and when I saw the last page, I confirmed.

There was a Fiore map with arrows pointing to where the anti-magician forest was.

"You, you". I repeated as I hugged the book.

'If you forgive me, I promise that I will never break a promise again'

'I will trust in Jean, so please bring mom back'

'Don't worry, no matter what, I promise I'll do it'

'Whenever you need my help, I will be ready to do whatever it takes'

All those words sounded in my head again; I knew he wasn't lying when he said them to me, but why? Why would he put himself in such danger?

And why couldn't I help feeling happy when I thought he was willing to do so much to help me?

"You're an Idiot". I finished with a small resigned smile before getting up, wiping the tears on my face, and pulling a suitcase out of my closet to start packing it with everything I might need.

I couldn't let him go alone; I just couldn't; after all, Jean was an idiot.

But he was the most wonderful idiot I had ever met.

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Ok, here is chapter 12; you thought this chapter would follow Jean starting his journey? Well, I cheated on you!

Take a chapter focused on Lucy.

At first, I thought about doing this chapter before the time skip, but Lucy wasn't old enough to have the reasoning she has at this point in the story.

At the beginning of the canon, it is seen that her behavior is only a little narcissistic, and she thinks very highly of herself, which is not bad, and that if we analyze her relationship with her father, it is expected that she has not been very self-centered despite being pretty and rich, which in most would arouse a superiority complex.

But with Jean and Claire interacting with her from a young age and pampering her a bit even when her mother was gone (especially the first few months after Layla fell into a coma), it was evident that she would have a little more ego than canon Lucy.

However, Jean realized this and began to refuse to do some things she wanted to show her that you don't always get what you want.

The next chapter will also start with Lucy, while Jean probably won't show up until a couple of chapters later.

In addition, soon, there will be a special chapter that will show what happened when Jean and Lucy went to the beach, the same one they mentioned in the previous chapter.

Do you want to see what happened that embarrasses Lucy so much?

Well, wait a few weeks, or you can also go to my P-a-t-r-e-o-n (Rosasola); there are more chapters, and also some extra benefits.

See you in the next chapter.

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