Ten feet at a time.
Synopsis:-
Two years after Tenrou, Bisca struggles with survivor's guilt. Her injury prevented her from partnering with Alzack for the S-Class trial, so he chose Laki instead. Neither returned. Now she's paired with Naruto, a recruit whose magic offers unexpected support.
On what should be a simple mission, they're forced to confront not just external threats, but the weight of moving forward when those you've lost can't.
***
Bisca Connell had been staring at the same mission request for ten minutes.
Pest control. Agricultural district. Mutated dire rats. Reward: 50,000 jewels.
Around her, what remained of Fairy Tail moved through their routines with practiced normalcy. Fewer voices. Smaller crowds. The guild hall felt like a coat worn too long—stretched thin in places, fraying at the edges.
Two years since Tenrou. Two years since the core team vanished, taking half their strength with them. Two years since Alzack chose Laki as his partner for the S-Class trial and never came back.
Her left leg throbbed, a dull reminder of why she hadn't gone. The injury from that border skirmish three weeks before departure had seemed catastrophic at the time—torn ligaments, shattered kneecap, three months of recovery. Now it felt like a sick joke. She'd missed Tenrou because of bad timing and worse luck, and it had saved her life.
She wasn't sure that was better.
"Bisca." Macao approached, looking every bit the reluctant master he'd become. "Got a partner for you."
"I work alone now."
"Not on this one. Two mages minimum."
"Then give it to someone else."
"Bisca—"
"I said no." She started to stand, but her leg protested and she caught herself on the table. The flash of pain was brief. The humiliation lasted longer.
Macao's expression softened with that particular blend of pity and concern she'd grown to hate. "You're one of our best marksmen. But you need support now. That's not weakness—that's reality."
"Reality is I should've been on that island." The words came out harder than intended. "Reality is Alzack asked Laki because his actual partner was too broken to—"
"Don't." Macao's voice went firm. "Don't do that to yourself. You think he'd want you carrying that?"
She looked away.
"Naruto will meet you at the east gate tomorrow, dawn. That's an order." He set the request down and left before she could argue.
Bisca stared at the paper until the words blurred.
***
Naruto Uzumaki was waiting at the gate when she arrived, pack slung over one shoulder, expression open and ready. He'd joined the guild a year ago—some wandering mage with strange magic and stranger optimism. The guild had latched onto him like a lifeline, desperate for someone who didn't carry Tenrou in their eyes.
Bisca found him exhausting.
"Morning!" He fell into step beside her, mercifully not commenting on her limp. "Macao said it's about a two-hour walk?"
"If you keep pace."
"I'll manage." He was quiet for maybe thirty seconds. "Your Requip magic is really something. I saw you at the range last week—that grouping at three hundred meters was insane."
"Mm."
"I use clones and spiral magic. Not as precise, but good for—"
"I know what your magic is."
He took the hint and went quiet.
They walked in silence, or close to it. Naruto hummed something under his breath, some tune she didn't recognize. It should've been annoying. It was annoying. But it also filled the space where her thoughts kept circling back to people who weren't there anymore.
Around the hour mark, her leg started to betray her. Not dramatically—just a slight drag, a hitch in her stride she couldn't quite hide. She gritted her teeth and pushed through.
Naruto slowed his pace. Didn't mention it, didn't look at her, just... adjusted.
"Don't," she said.
"Don't what?"
"Don't accommodate me. I'm fine."
"Wasn't planning to." He kept that slower pace anyway. "Just figured we're not in a rush."
"The mission—"
"—will still be there when we arrive." He glanced at her, expression unreadable. "No point burning out before we even start, right?"
She wanted to argue. Instead, she just kept walking.
***
The dire rats were worse than advertised.
Bisca set up on a rooftop overlooking the warehouse they'd nested in, assembling her rifle with mechanical precision. The scope, the stock, the familiar weight—this she could still do perfectly.
"So what's the plan?" Naruto asked.
"I pick them off. You flush them out."
"Flush them out. As in..."
"Make noise. They scatter. I shoot them." She sighted down the scope. "Simple."
"Right." He cracked his knuckles. "Simple."
He created a dozen clones and sent them in. The rats exploded out in a chittering wave—fifty, maybe sixty, far more than intelligence suggested. Bisca fired three times. Three kills. But they scattered fast, breaking into multiple groups.
She swiveled to track a cluster heading for the crops. Fired. Her leg brace caught on the rooftop's uneven surface and her shot pulled left, missing by inches.
Damn it.
More rats. Too many angles. She couldn't reposition fast enough, couldn't get stable footing for the shots that needed it. The frustration built hot in her chest.
Then three clones appeared beside her.
They didn't speak, didn't crowd her. They just formed a stable platform—one bracing her left side where her leg was weakest, two others creating elevated positions for different firing angles.
Bisca hesitated for half a second.
Then she fired.
The rhythm returned. Aim, breathe, squeeze. The clones moved with her, anticipating her shifts, providing support exactly where she needed it without getting in her way. It was seamless in a way she hadn't felt since—
She fired the last shot and the final rat dropped.
The clones dispersed. Naruto appeared beside her, not even winded.
"Nice shooting."
She lowered her rifle slowly. "I didn't ask for help."
"I know." He stretched, casual. "But we're partners on this job. Partners adapt."
"We're not—" She stopped. "That's not what I meant."
"I know what you meant." His expression was gentle but firm. "But sometimes what we mean and what we need are different things."
She wanted to snap at him. Instead, she just started disassembling her rifle, hands moving on autopilot.
***
They made camp halfway back. Naruto built the fire while Bisca cleaned her weapon, the familiar ritual soothing in its predictability.
"You've been with Fairy Tail a while," Naruto said, skewering fish. "What was it like? Before."
Before. Such a small word for such a massive absence.
"Loud," she said finally. "Chaotic. Someone was always fighting or drinking or destroying something." A pause. "It was good."
"Sounds like it." He rotated the fish. "Must be hard. After."
She set down her cleaning cloth. "You want to know about Tenrou."
"Only if you want to talk about it."
Most people either avoided the topic entirely or brought it up with suffocating sympathy. Naruto just left space for it, no pressure either way.
"My partner was on that island," she heard herself say. "Alzack. We'd worked together for five years. He was chosen for the S-Class trial." She stared at the fire. "He asked Laki to partner with him. Because three weeks before they left, I got injured on a mission. Tore up my leg pretty badly."
Naruto stayed quiet.
"I was supposed to be there. If I hadn't gotten hurt, it would've been me on that island with him." Her throat tightened. "Instead, I was stuck in the infirmary while they all..."
"Disappeared," Naruto finished softly.
"Yeah."
The fire crackled between them. Naruto turned the fish, choosing his words carefully.
"I grew up alone," he said. "No parents. The village I came from, they didn't hate me—they just didn't see me. I was invisible." He smiled, but it was different from his usual expression. Quieter. "For a long time, I thought that meant I didn't matter. That without people to remember me, I'd just... disappear."
Bisca looked up.
"Then I learned spiral magic. Constant motion, right? If the spiral stops, the magic dies. Life's like that too." He met her eyes. "If I'd stopped moving because I was alone, I would've disappeared for real. So I kept going. Not because I forgot being alone—but because stopping wouldn't change it."
"That's not the same thing." Her voice came out rougher than intended. "You never had what I lost."
"No," he agreed. "But maybe that's the point. You're carrying something I never got to have. That weight—it means those people mattered. That they changed you." He paused. "Moving forward doesn't erase that. It's how you keep them with you."
Bisca's hands curled into fists. "It feels like betrayal. Like if I'm okay, if I find some new normal, I'm saying they didn't matter enough."
"Or you're saying they mattered so much that even though they're gone, you're still here. Still fighting." He offered her a skewer. "That's not betrayal. That's honoring them."
She took the fish but didn't eat it right away. Just held it while something in her chest loosened slightly, like a knot she hadn't realized was there.
"I don't know how to do that," she admitted quietly.
"Start small." Naruto's expression was gentle. "You don't have to carry it all today. Just focus on the next ten feet."
The next ten feet. Not the rest of her life. Not the years of grief stretching ahead. Just the next small step.
"Yeah," she said, and meant it. "Okay."
***
The ambush happened at dawn.
The Chimera came out of nowhere—all fangs and fury, its three heads roaring discordant rage. A-rank at minimum, grotesquely powerful, with no business being in agricultural territory.
Bisca fired. The round bounced off armored hide.
"Naruto—"
"I see it!" He created a wall of clones. The Chimera tore through them like paper.
She tried to reposition, but the uneven ground betrayed her. Her leg buckled and she went down hard, rifle clattering away.
The eagle head locked onto her.
Naruto was there before she could scream, hands glowing with concentrated energy. The Spiral Orb erupted between them and the lunging beast, redirecting the strike with pure rotational force.
"You good?!"
"My rifle—" A clone slid it back to her. She grabbed it, mind racing. Standard rounds wouldn't penetrate that hide. She needed more force, more velocity, something her magic alone couldn't provide.
"Naruto! Can you create a vortex? Horizontal, high-speed rotation?"
"Between you and that thing?!"
"Yes!"
Understanding flashed in his eyes. "You're insane."
"Do it!"
He slammed his hands together and the air *twisted*. A tunnel of pure spiraling force materialized, connecting her position to the Chimera in a screaming vortex of rotation.
Bisca requipped her highest-caliber round. She sighted, calculated trajectory, accounted for the spiral's acceleration.
For Alzack. For everyone who didn't make it back.
She fired.
The bullet hit the vortex and *screamed*. The rotation caught it, accelerated it beyond anything her magic could achieve alone. The round built velocity, built heat, built unstoppable momentum.
It struck center mass and the Chimera detonated.
Bisca lowered her rifle, hands shaking. "Holy—"
"That was incredible!" Naruto rushed over, eyes bright. "Did you see that acceleration? We should definitely do that again—"
"Naruto."
"Yeah?"
"Help me up."
He did, and this time she leaned on him without hesitation.
They stood there for a moment, both breathing hard, the smoking crater testament to what they'd built together in the span of heartbeats.
"Not bad," she said.
"Not bad?" He laughed. "That was amazing! We make a pretty good team."
She looked at him—really looked. At the genuine excitement in his expression, the complete absence of pity, the way he'd supported her without ever making her feel less capable.
"Yeah," she said softly. "We do."
***
They returned to Fairy Tail as the sun set, exhausted and battered but alive.
The guild erupted in relief—Macao paying out their reward with wet eyes, others crowding around to confirm they were unharmed. The celebration was subdued compared to before, but genuine.
Later, when things quieted, Bisca found herself on the guild's roof. The stars were coming out, clear and cold.
Footsteps behind her. Naruto settled beside her without asking, two cups of tea in hand. He offered her one.
"Thanks," she said.
They sat in silence, watching Magnolia's lights flicker to life below.
"I'm not okay," Bisca said suddenly. "In case you were wondering. I'm not... fixed."
"I know."
"But I think maybe I could be. Eventually." She glanced at him. "If I keep moving forward."
"The spiral keeps turning," Naruto said. "That's how it works. You don't have to spin fast—just can't let it stop."
"Poetic."
"I have my moments."
She smiled, just a little. Then, carefully, she let her head rest against his shoulder. Just for a moment. Just to see what it felt like to lean on someone and not feel like she was drowning.
Naruto went still, surprised. Then relaxed, his presence solid and warm.
"Ten feet at a time," she murmured.
"Ten feet at a time," he agreed.
The stars turned overhead. The guild breathed below them. And Bisca Connell, survivor and sniper, took the next small step forward.
Not forgetting.
Never forgetting.
Just carrying the momentum.
End