The once-proud Fairy Tail guild hall lay in smoking ruin. Massive beams jutted like broken bones from collapsed walls; the roof sagged inward, half its tiles scattered across the floor in jagged shards. Dust hung thick in the air, mingling with the acrid stench of scorched wood and magic. The few members still conscious dragged themselves upright amid the wreckage, eyes drawn inexorably skyward.
High above, suspended in the bruised twilight, hovered the Bijūdama—a perfect sphere of churning black and violet energy, laced with crimson veins that pulsed like living malice. It descended with agonizing slowness, as though savoring their terror. The sheer pressure of its presence crushed the breath from lungs and bent the shattered flagpole atop the guild like a reed in a storm.
Lucy's knees buckled. She pressed trembling hands over her mouth, tears carving clean trails through the grime on her cheeks. A broken whisper escaped her. "Is this… really the end?"
Beside her, Natsu's fists shook at his sides, flames flickering weakly along his knuckles before guttering out entirely. Gray clutched his wounded arm, ice forming and melting uselessly around his fingers.
Makarov forced himself to his feet, old bones creaking in protest. His voice, usually so commanding, cracked as he roared across the ruined hall. "Everyone—take cover! Behind whatever's left—now!"
But the command fell hollow. There was no cover left. No barrier strong enough, no spell fast enough. The guild members knew it as surely as they felt the heat beginning to sear their skin. No one moved. Feet remained rooted to the cracked stone floor, gazes locked on the descending sphere of annihilation.
Some clenched their jaws in defiance. Others closed their eyes, whispering final farewells to friends, to family, to the life they had shared within these now-broken walls. Wendy's small hand found Carla's paw. Juvia murmured Gray-sama's name like a prayer.
A terrible silence descended—heavier than any explosion, deeper than any grave. The Bijūdama's light grew blinding, washing the world in harsh white. Heat became unbearable; sweat evaporated before it could form. Hearts hammered in unison, counting down the final seconds.
And then—
Nothing.
The light vanished as though swallowed by an unseen void. The crushing pressure lifted in an instant, leaving only ringing ears and stunned disbelief. The sphere was simply… gone. Erased mid-descent, without sound or aftershock.
One by one, Fairy Tail's members stirred awake. Eyes fluttered open against the sudden dimness, chests rising with breaths they never thought they'd take again. Above Magnolia, the sky hung clear and eerily still, smoke suspended in frozen drifts.
In the ruined guild hall, surrounded by rubble and heavy silence, the impossible truth sank in like first light after an endless night:
They were alive.
High above the shattered building, the Ōtsutsuki floated effortlessly, regarding the battered wizards below with faint, detached curiosity—as one might glance at ants scurrying beneath a boot.
The tallest among them, silver-haired with piercing golden eyes, finally spoke. His voice cut through the stillness without effort.
"So," he said, cold and utterly devoid of warmth, "are you finished hiding behind these insects?"
The Ōtsutsuki descended slowly, never quite touching the cracked earth. Their presence alone crushed the air—lungs burned, knees buckled. Natsu, Gray, and Lucy braced themselves instinctively, but even they could only grit their teeth against the suffocating weight.
Then Makarov's ragged gasp broke the stillness.
A lone figure stood apart from the wreckage. Rudra. He hadn't been there a heartbeat earlier. Now he faced the guild with his back to them, black cloak stirring in an unfelt wind. A single curved horn rose from his forehead; dark, vein-like Karma seals shifted across his bare arms and neck like living shadows.
"Rudra!" Makarov's voice cracked with raw fear. "Boy—run! They've come for you!"
Rudra didn't flinch. He turned his head just enough to meet the old man's eyes, expression unreadable. Ignoring the gods entirely, he walked straight toward the fallen guild master.
Kneeling in the rubble, he slid one arm beneath Makarov's shoulders and lifted him upright as though the dwarf weighed nothing. His gaze swept the devastation—the shattered guild hall, the smoking craters, the broken bodies of his family.
His jaw tightened.
"Master," he said, voice low and rough, "I'm sorry. All of this… it's because of me."
Makarov stared—at the horn, the crawling seals, the cold power rolling off the boy. Worry and confusion churned behind his eyes, but before he could speak—
"Hand over the chakra fruit."
The command cut the moment clean. All Ōtsutsuki now floated mere meters away, pale eyes locked on Rudra alone.
Rudra exhaled slowly, steadying Makarov before letting him go. He turned to face the Otsutsuki gods head-on.
"You know," he said, his voice low and unnervingly calm, "I'm really not in the mood for this right now."
His eyes flicked back to the shattered guild hall, to the groaning, bloodied forms of his family lying among the rubble. A shadow of something dark and vicious stirred behind his gaze.
"Especially," he added quietly, "after what you did to my guild."
Then it came—a torrent of raw, murderous killing intent, honed and unleashed solely toward the Otsutsuki. The air around them warped and grew heavy, as though gravity itself had turned hostile. The ground beneath the gods fissured wider, loose stones rose trembling into the air, and an oppressive silence swallowed every sound.
Fairy Tail's members felt nothing but a faint, distant chill.
Rudra's voice fell to a freezing whisper.
"So how about you kindly fuck off… or I'll butcher every last one of you."
One of the younger Ōtsutsuki, lips twisted in a cruel, eager grin, surveyed the smoking ruins and released a low, mocking laugh. "This," he said, sweeping an arm toward the shattered homes and blackened fields, "all happened because they refused to tell us where you were hiding."
Rudra's gaze sharpened to a blade, cold and unyielding. "Spare me the theatrics. We both know you would've razed everything anyway."
The invaders exchanged amused glances, wicked smiles spreading wider across their pale, otherworldly faces, revealing sharp teeth that gleamed like polished ivory.
The silver-haired leader stepped forward, his voice smooth and venomous as poisoned silk. "Then let's make this simple. Hand over the chakra fruit, and we'll leave you and your little group breathing. That's the generous offer."
He tilted his head toward his companions, eyes glinting with predatory delight. "Or we slaughter them all—right here, right now. It's painfully obvious you're bluffing."
His dōjutsu activated with a sickening pulse, veins bulging grotesquely around his sockets as he stared straight through Rudra's body. "I can see your pathways perfectly," he sneered. "Every channel, every seal—they're locked tight. You can't touch your chakra. You're nothing. Powerless."
The heavy silence descended over the devastated battlefield, thick as grave-dust.
Rudra said nothing. His expression remained carved from granite, betraying nothing.
He stared at them for a long, heavy moment.
Then he sighed.
"You'll leave," he repeated slowly, "if I give you the fruit?"
His right hand slipped casually into his cloak pocket, fingers shifting as though searching.
The Ōtsutsuki leaned forward slightly, confidence radiating from them.
"That's right," the leader said, smiling thinly. "Hand it over, and we—"
Rudra's hand emerged.
No fruit.
Just a single, deliberate middle finger raised toward the gods.
"Here it is," he said, voice perfectly calm. "Come and take your chakra fruit."
The battlefield went dead silent.
For one heartbeat, the Ōtsutsuki simply stared.
Then their expressions twisted—shock giving way to pure, incandescent rage.
"You insolent little—" the Ōtsutsuki leader snarled, his chakra exploding outward in violent waves, splitting the already cracked earth beneath his feet. He crouched, ready to strike, when a desperate shout cut through the tension from behind.
"Rudra! Be careful—they can absorb magic!"
Rudra spun toward the voice. It was Lucy, her eyes wide with urgency. But before she could say another word, one of the Ōtsutsuki appeared in a flicker of space right beside Rudra, his hand aimed like a blade straight for Rudra's neck.
The killing intent was unmistakable.
Yet the strike never landed.
In a single fluid motion, Rudra sidestepped, caught the attacking arm mid-swing, twisted it viciously, and drove his knee into the Ōtsutsuki's stomach with brutal force. The alien warrior lost his footing completely before Rudra's follow-up kick sent him crashing backward through the dirt, skidding and tumbling like a ragdoll.
Lucy stared, dumbfounded.
They—the strongest mages of Fairy Tail—hadn't even been able to land a clean hit on these monsters.
And Rudra had just… kicked one away like it was nothing.
Her stunned thoughts shattered when Rudra's calm voice reached her.
"What was that you said?"
Lucy snapped back to reality. "Be careful! They can absorb magic!"
Rudra gave a small nod, then turned to face the remaining Ōtsutsuki.
'Yo, System,' he thought, 'how can they absorb magic if it's not even made of chakra?'
The System's voice answered promptly in his mind:
«Hypothesis: The Ōtsutsuki Karma and Rinnegan absorption techniques operate on the principle of devouring structured, intent-bound energy signatures. Raw Ethernano, in its natural atmospheric state, exists as an unstructured, diffuse particle field—lacking the deliberate molding of a mage's will and therefore registering as inert background noise to their absorption matrices.
However, the moment a Fairy Tail mage consciously shapes Ethernano into a spell—imbuing it with elemental affinity, rotational momentum, or destructive purpose—it gains a defined 'energy signature' and flow pattern. At that point, the energy becomes recognizable and digestible to Ōtsutsuki physiology, allowing them to siphon and metabolize it as they would ninjutsu, Tailed Beast chakra, or planetary life-force.»
Rudra tilted his head slightly. 'That… actually makes a kinda sense.'
He was about to ask for more details when the leader's cold, venomous voice cut through the air.
"Shibai was right about you," the Ōtsutsuki said, glancing at the warrior still struggling to rise from the crater Rudra had sent him into. "Even without chakra, you are still extremely dangerous."
Rudra exhaled through his nose, already sensing the shift.
Using Observation Haki, he felt it—the ripple in space behind him, the tearing of reality itself. Seeing this, he let himself be grabbed and dragged into the portal.
A pale, powerful arm burst from the newly opened portal and clamped around his torso like a vice, yanking him backward into the void.
Seeing Rudra get dragged into the unknown portal, all the Fairy Tail members froze.
As the Ōtsutsuki leader turned his gaze toward them, disgust curled his lips.
"I should just kill you insects here and now…" he muttered, voice dripping with contempt. "But I have more important matters to attend to."
Several more portals ripped open behind the remaining Ōtsutsuki like wounds in the fabric of the world. One by one, they stepped through without another word.
And then they were gone.
Silence fell over the ruined guild.
The Fairy Tail guild members stood motionless, still trying to process everything that had just happened in the span of a few heartbeats.
-------------------
Hello everyone,
It's your author here. First off, I want to sincerely apologize for the long silence—no new chapters for the past six months. Life hit me pretty hard with some serious health issues that I wasn't expecting, and it's taken a lot longer to get back on my feet than I thought it would.
I'm really sorry for keeping you all waiting. I know how frustrating it is when a story you enjoy just… stops. You guys have been patient and supportive, and I appreciate every single comment, like, and message more than you know.
Right now, I'm still recovering, so I can't promise a strict upload schedule or say exactly when the next chapter will drop. But I do miss writing this story, and I miss sharing it with you. I'll try my absolute best to get back into it and bring more chapters as soon as I'm able—hopefully sooner rather than later.
Thank you for sticking around, and thank you for the understanding. It means the world.
Take care of yourselves,