"I'M NEVER GONNA FORGIVE THOSE BASTARDS, NEVER," [name] swears vehemently one day after completing a tedious job, setting down her glass of juice a little too forcefully onto the bar counter.

"We know," Comes the droll chorus from everyone else who heard her. To the outsider's ear, it seemed that this conversation happened often. (Which it has.)

"Well, be sure to give 'em a good punch for me if you see them," Max laughs dryly from beside her. His smile doesn't exactly make any of them feel better.

"Oh, I'll be sure to give them more than one good punch," She promises, sipping her beverage.

Four years came and passed and [name]'s waiting festered into a deep hatred. The fifteen-year-old would claim it was all channeled towards Team Tenrou, but it was more like little bits of anger directed at everything, really.

Anguish— that their guild fell into shambles so quickly, that she couldn't prevent Twilight Ogre from wrecking the entire place. Misery— that her apartment got downgraded every single year because she couldn't keep up with the rent. Last but not least was frustration, all in the form of Sting Eucliffe and Rogue Cheney.

She absolutely wished she had never met the Twin Dragons of Sabertooth, now that she looked back on it. She witnessed them change before her very eyes and with every single year that passed, and every single win they scored at the Grand Magic Games, their ego only began to inflate larger and larger.

It was dreadful. It only seemed their mouths could not get any bigger, could not talk any more shit.

It has been four long years since Team Tenrou's disappearance and [name] was left unfortunate enough to have known Sting Eucliffe and Rogue Cheney for the majority of it. At least their Exceeds (yes, they were Dragon Slayers, she found out) were tolerable, though the red one was on thin fucking ice. Real thin.

She has known those two for four unfortunate years. Yes, she would say they were just as horrible as they sounded. If she could describe them, she would say they were two very shitty excuses for humans. Insufferable and conceited assholes, one who looks like a frat boy and the other like a vampire.

There was no ruler, no scale, no measuring tape in the world that would be able to measure the size of their ego.

[name] looks back on the day she first met them and wonders where they went wrong. If only! They had! Never! Met! 

It's worse when she considers that they are probably stronger than her whole guild combined. It's pure luck (or maybe the law) that has kept her alive until now. They could probably kill her if they wanted to.

That's alright, even if she doesn't know how to hold her tongue. She'll say what she wants, when she wants. [name] is afraid of nothing.

Well... Minerva Orland.

Okay, so [name] is afraid of one thing.

She has met her only four times in her life, all during the Grand Magic Games. Their first interaction, an event during the Games, resulted in two (2) fractured ribs and one (1) broken wrist. The second and third... Well, she knew better at this point than to walk into the lion's den.

That lady, daughter of Sabertooth's guild master himself, terrified the shit out of her.

She was cold and calculated and fucking sadistic, even more so than the Twins, which was saying a lot. [name] doesn't even dare talk shit about the woman in her letters. Even Sting and Rogue don't fuck with her.

[NAME] LOOKS AROUND THE GUILD, taking in everything and every single person around her and sighs. It's quiet, one of those days. One of those days, as in the ones where her mind likes to wander and uncover locked memories.

These past few years have made [name] bitter. Not bitter and cold, because the girl still has enough room in her heart to keep the remaining members of Fairy Tail close to her. But still bitter enough to keep sending letters to people who are already dead. They have been accumulating in a hefty stack atop her desk over the years, these letters that will never be received nor opened nor read.

She still thinks back to that night, the night that she last saw Team Tenrou. Master Makarov and Team Natsu, Laxus and the Thunder God Tribe, Wendy and Carla and the Gajeel and Levy and Juvia and everyone else she doesn't care to name.

Resentment swirls around in her stomach when she thinks of them and her deep-set hatred could not burn any hotter.

"I have every right to go as Wendy does. O-Or Carla, or Happy!" Was she crying that night? She cannot remember. The memories are rather muddy. "I want to help you, I want to come along! I can do it, I can!"

"No, you can't." But Erza's voice was one of absolute finality and authority.

Even Happy and Carla and Pantherlily got to come along, all for the fact that they were partners. Was she not theirs, is that what it was? Jealousy was an ugly feeling (it always is) that stirs within her when she found out not a single person had asked her to accompany them. It wrenched her little heart, and it was so unfair because honestly she had every right to go. She was strong, she could help, she could, she swore she could.

They went back and forth like that for a while.

"Why not now?!" She remembers turning desperately to her guildmates, the people who were supposed to be by her side, who only look on with sympathy. Or was it pity? Whatever it was, she hated it.

Four long years and Natsu's last words to her are still engraved deeply in her mind.

"Sorry, [name]. You're just not strong enough."

To [name], who idolized him so much, his words were a suckerpunch to the gut.

She isn't sure what she hates more— How they could say something like that so freely, or the words she said back to all of them.

"You're not sorry, you're not," She had rasped out with an expression downright unbefitting of an eleven-year-old, before socking Natsu right in the face and running off into the night. "I hate you all, you hear me?!"

If she had turned around, she would be able to see their faces. What kind of expressions were they making back then?

She realized all too late that Team Tenrou had left the next morning. Not a single word before their departure. She found out from her remaining guildmates that they left three days earlier to avoid her.

But it was fine, right? When they came back, she could rejoice and finally make amends. She'd apologize and they'd hug and laugh about it and say next year she would definitely be able to come along with them. Lucy and Erza's smiles would be warm and comforting and Gajeel would bring her in for a noogie the way he always did.

She had her apologies prepared and everything because it was going to be fine. It was supposed to be fine.

Which is why she could feel her heart shattering when they were pronounced as missing, then dead. Which is also why [name] hates them for making the last words she ever said to them be "I hate you," of all things. It's terrible and pathetic. Of them or her, is something she can't really tell any more.

How dare they leave without a word? How dare they leave her heartbroken and alone, with an apology that still needed to be said, that still needed to be heard?

...That makes her the bad guy now, doesn't it?

Anger, misery, frustration and everything above are all terrible and powerful emotions, but every single one pales in comparison to the guilt that always claws at her throat.

[name] takes another sip of her drink and sighs.

And they say time heals all wounds. What a load of bullshit, if you ask her. 

A/N: Two updates today, because I felt like one chapter alone was not long enough. However, they were too different to be combined together as one. I hope you enjoyed the update nonetheless!