Ignoring the irritation that keeps on spreading, Gray turns to his necklace and plays with it with an obvious frown appears on his face. It was an unpleasant surprise to know that the blondie who hasn't stopped hitting on Juvia was the one who sent the request to Fairy Tail, saying that he KNOWS Juvia is there to accept it. Since they arrive at the Triton fortress, Juvia hasn't stopped chatting with her 'precious senior' named Uranus. She is close to him, literally, as Gray can see how happy she is as the chatting keeps on. The water mage is sitting too close to the blonde pervert to his liking and he can swear that the due is taunting him, touching Juvia's arm and thighs like nobody is in the room except them. Gray has to keep his calm composure but his patient is losing every time he sees the smug face looking directly at him, challenging his actions.

Fuck...

He curses under his breath and tries to avoid eye contact with him, Juvia is entertained with the conversation that she doesn't even realize how uncomfortable the atmosphere is around them. Juvia can be close to anyone: her best friend Gajeel, the idiot flamebrain Natsu, heck even his rival Lyon but this guy...he's a threat to everybody...

"My dear, you haven't introduced your friends to me."

"Oh, Juvia is sorry." She covers her mouth "She's completely forgotten about that. Please let her introduce you to them..."

She's looking at her friends, hoping they would at least give her senior a smile but sighs as soon as she sees the uncomfortable and irritating expression on their faces.

"Guys, this is Uranus-san, one of my mentors who taught me magic. And Uranus-san, this is Gajeel-kun, Natsu-san, and Gray-sama. They are Juvia's guildmates so please, be nice to them."

Uranus looks at them, specifically at Gray, his cyan eyes just stare at the ice mage like he has discovered something interesting than Juvia.

"Oh, so THIS is the infamous Gray-sama?"

"What?" Gray turns to Juvia, who lowers her head and avoiding him.

"My lovely girl, such a cute nickname you give him, but..." Uranus smiles sickly sweet "Isn't it suppose to be something you call out will in bed?"

Juvia blushes in various shades of pink and red, covers her mouth to stop the small gasp from escaping and ready to turn into a puddle of water. Oh, Uranus-san is so bold...

"She can call me however she wants." her eyes widen at Gray's statement "And who are YOU to judge?"

"How bold, Gray-sama" Uranus, with her amusing voice, sang out his name.

It was disgusting, the way his name rolls off his tongue, never has he experience such negative feeling for someone to say his name. With the rising tension between the young men, Juvia feels like it's her responsibility to step in. She doesn't want these two to be on bad terms, especially with Gray's starting to lose his patience and Uranus purposely joke about everything.

"I think you have had enough fun, my love."

Everyone turns their attention to the group of people walk into the room, two women and a child. One with wavy marine blue hair, one with forest green hair and the child with short black hair.

"Neptune, Pluto! Juvia misses you guys!" the water mage runs to them, pull the two women in a tight hug before turning to the little child and gives her a kiss on her cheek "And sweet little Saturn, she misses you too!"

"Juvia, it's been a while, hasn't it?" Neptune smiles, a smile that captures the attention of Juvia's teammates.

Oh, she is an absolute beauty...even Natsu can't take his eyes off her. Happy flutter his wings, a small relief sigh escapes his mouth because Lucy isn't here to witness this. The blonde-haired mage would be furious if Natsu pays attention to another woman.

"It's a good thing that you're here early, Juvia." Neptune looks at her "I guess that Uranus had told you about the request?"

"Uranus-san told Juvia about it but didn't mention exactly what she needs to do."

"Oh really?" she looks at the blonde "You had your fun picking on everyone?"

"My love, don't look at me with those eyes. You know that you're the only one in my heart." said Uranus as the blonde plant a kiss on Neptune's cheek "We're going to get married, which is why we need your help, Juvia."

"Oh, Juvia's help?" the water mage puzzles.

"For the blessing ceremony, of course. The one we have to do before the wedding." Neptune looks at her "Don't tell me that you forget all of it, my dear."

The bluenette just nods, knowing that she may or may not forget about this tradition. They can't blame her, she has never attended any wedding in the city, mostly because of the rain that associated with her. And she also left the city at a very young age, after finished learning magic from Neptune, who was also a water mage and her mentor at the time.

"We need a water mage to help us with the blessing ceremony, which will occur in two days." Uranus smiles "Although you're the star of the quest, your friends here can help us a little bit too."

Cyan eyes lock on Gray, Uranus gives him a smug smile, knowing that he had taunted the ice mage enough. Neptune slightly slaps his shoulder, not pleased to see her fiance playing around with Juvia's guildmate like that. Pluto leads them to another chamber, where a huge grand clock stands in the middle of the room. Lock inside the body of the clock is three children, smaller than Saturn herself. The forest green hair woman explains the mission to Gray and the others, apparently, they have to watch over these three kids while the blessing ceremony is in progress.

Natsu frown, obviously not happy with the job, he thought it was supposed to be something much cooler than babysitting a bunch of kids. Gajeel and Gray, on the other hand, don't have much to say. Their lovely water mage is the star of the mission, not them, and they're very lucky to be counted into the job as babysitters.

"Please don't be discourage, Natsu-san. It's not an ordinary babysit job..." Juvia smiles "They may look easy to handle but in reality, your mission is much more complicated."

"What do you mean, Sprinkler?"

"What Juvia said is truth. These little guys aren't normal children you use to see, they have very unique magic that has to be guarded if we don't want to cause any problems that can affect the Past, the Present, and the Future."

As Pluto explains, these three kids represent three states of time: the blue one for the Past, the white one for the Present, and the red one for the Future. Their magic is to control the time and space and it'd be very troublesome if they manage to sneak out of the clock and runs around in the blessing ceremony, especially the overly hyper Future kid.

"This one is the most troublesome and if he manages to get out, it'd be a pain in the ass to catch her. Not to mention, we need appropriate magic equipment to catch him." Pluto smiles "Which is why we need your help, I hope you don't mind doing the job. It'd be very helpful for us and Juvia to do the blessing ceremony, knowing that you guys are keeping an eye on these little troublemakers."

"Fine. I guess that's all we can do..." Natsu huffs, obviously not happy but oh well...

******************************************************************************

Juvia smiles awkwardly as Uranus, once again, expressing his affection by giving her a kiss on the cheek. They were heading back to the inn when the blonde mentor stop them to 'have a few words with Gray-sama' and let just say it didn't go well. Gajeel and Natsu had to jump in to stop him from freezing the blonde Cassanova and Juvia just frowned at her mentor for making her darling uncomfortable like that.

"Gray-sama..."

"WHAT.DO.YOU.WANT?" he roars, obviously has had enough with the teasing.

"My my, don't have to go all berserk on me. I just want to give you a friendly reminder..." closing the distance between them, Uranus smiles against his ear "Don't think my lovely angel will wait for you forever."

He snaps back, glaring at the blonde who seems to have his fun and takes Juvia's hand to return to the inn. The water mage fumbles on her steps, ocean blue eyes glue on his back as she is being escorted back by her teammates. They too, are not happy with this blonde gentlemen but have to ignore it as Juvia had asked them to not make a big deal out of it.

Standing in front of the inn, Gray lets go of her hand as a light flashed through his head. He is going to stay in the same room as Juvia...Not that he has any problem with this, they technically live under the same roof before and the room has 2 single beds so he's not worried about Juvia jumps on him in the middle of the night. But the thought of staying in the same room as her makes his body heat up for some reasons, maybe it's because they haven't done that for a while.

"Cool down your brain before going to sleep, stripper." Gajeel said, causing Gray to send a weird look at him.

The night is still young, maybe the cool breeze will help him calm his mind a little bit. Glancing at Juvia, he asked her to go and wait rather than follow him everywhere, he needs time for himself and she agrees. Watching her beloved walking away, she sighs in defeat. Uranus was very inappropriate today and she's not happy with how the conversation turned out between them.

Gajeel gives her a pat on the head, reassures her that everything is going to be okay which makes her smile sweetly at him. The Iron slayer has already known that the ice mage is going to join them, the conversation he had with his blue hair friend was just an excuse to make Gray felt uneasy, so much that he had to join the mission to keep an eye on his beautiful water mage. His plan works perfectly, with Lily and Levy giggles when they knew that Gray has joined the crew. Like the best wingman he can be, Gajeel booked 2 rooms with 2 single beds and had asked the fire dragon slayer to be in the same room with him. Natsu was not having it at first but went along with it, knowing that this plan would make a certain water mage happy.

Juvia smiles as she steps in the room, her and Gray's room. Her mind starts to flow with the wildest imagination, thinking about how they can spend the night, together, in the same room, maybe the same bed. She covers her face and giggles like a kid on Christmas morning, scolding herself for being so 'naughty'. With Gray not in the room with her right now, she thinks a hot bath will help her relax a little bit, after all the drama Uranus had set up for them.

A hot bath...that sounds so good and she definitely deserves it.

Juvia walks inside the bathroom and draws a hot bath for herself, a soft blue nightgown has been hung on the hook of the door as she searches for some essential oil that the inn has offered in the basket. Lavender sounds nice, she loves the soft aroma and how it helps her relax every time she uses it.

"Ah...this is life..."

Sighing delightedly as she soaks her body in the bathtub, Juvia closes her eyes and let her mind sinks deep into the memories, the good ones, the bad ones, every part of her life since she was young till now. A smile forms on her face as she remembers the faithful day when she can finally see the clear blue sky for the first time thanks to a certain ice mage. Since that encounter, she realizes that her whole life has made a 180-turn, she was no longer the gloomy Rain Woman. She is Juvia Lockser, the mage of Fairy Tail. She has friends, friends that she would die for, friends that help her get over all the problems in her life.

Looking back, if she is able to have a conversation with her past self, she would tell her to smile, to believe that she is loved, to believe that she has friends that love her for who she is. Juvia would tell her that the rain has led her to meet that person, the one she is now deeply in love and he will be the one who chases away the rain.

Gajeel once commented about how lively she has become after transferring to Fairy Tail, the Rain Woman was no longer a gloomy, sad girl but instead a bright, beautiful woman that welcomes everyone with a smile on her face. She blushed at the comment, it's rare to see her friend has such emotional compliment to others like that and she finds it very cute. Gajeel stops her from telling Levy, of course, because these compliments are only for her, the most precious friend he ever had in his life.

However, a dark memory begins to corrupt her happiness as she remembers the prophecy. The images of the old lady wearing a dark cloak, hands hovered above a crystal ball as she stated Juvia's fate when she was just a little girl.

"Only one year left..."

The thought of it makes her heart aches, only one year left before she turns 20, minus 7 years in Tenrou island, of course. She sighs in defeat, wonders to herself if she would ever be able to know the darling's answer to her feelings.