"Ow," Aelius said flatly, head turned slightly from the slap. The sting lingered long enough that he was pretty sure there would be a mark, and the faint crack running along the edge of his mask confirmed it. Before he could comment on that, another slap landed. This one lacked the force of the first, but somehow managed to be worse, more personal. "Ow," he repeated, tone unchanged.
He straightened slowly and looked down at the two women standing on his doorstep. "So," he said evenly, "what do I owe this displeasure, and why did you feel the need to break my mask, Vanessa. Levy."
He already knew. He had known the moment he opened the door. It had probably taken Levy three full days to move past shock and land squarely in anger over the whole suicide attempt thing.
"Because if Levy slapped you with your mask on, she'd break her hand," Vanessa said, arms crossed, irritation sharp and barely contained. "Now let us in. We need to talk."
"…It's midnight," Aelius replied.
"We don't care," Vanessa shot back without hesitation. "Let us in. And put proper clothes on."
Aelius stared at them for a long moment. Long enough that Levy shifted her weight, fingers twisting together. Long enough that Vanessa raised a brow, clearly daring him to refuse. He sighed, stepped aside, and turned back toward the interior of the house. "Fine. You can come in. Deal with the t-shirt and pants, or don't. That part's not my problem."
He led them into the living room and dropped into the chair opposite the couch. It creaked under his weight. He leaned back, one arm draped over the side, finally looking at them properly as they sat shoulder to shoulder, tension radiating off both of them in different ways
The conversation that followed was one he had already lived through, just with different voices. Levy cried. Vanessa didn't. Vanessa was sharp, cutting, pacing the room like she was trying not to break something. They talked about Edolas. About how close he had come to dying, about how Lefv heard afterward, secondhand, fragmented, and how that somehow made it worse. The words blurred together, familiar phrases he had already been beaten with before.
"You thought we wouldn't miss you."
"You thought it was okay to leave us."
"You didn't even tell anyone."
"You don't get to decide that alone."
He didn't interrupt; he didn't even argue, instead he just sat there and let it happen, letting them burn through the anger and fear and adrenaline. He let them exhaust themselves on the same points he had already heard replayed since he returned. Eventually, the room went quiet.
They looked at him then. Really looked, his mask was gone, sent back into his requip the moment he turned to let them inside. Pale skin, emerald eyes dulled by existence, shoulder-length grass green hair that hadn't been properly cared for in a while. No cloak acting as a wall, no figurative distance.
He exhaled slowly. "If I say what I want to say," he began, voice calm but careful, "we'll be here for the rest of the night, and you two will feel worse than you already do. So I'm going to do the opposite of what I usually do, if only to save us all some effort." He leaned forward slightly, forearms resting on his knees. "I'm sorry. I don't know how else to put it. I don't regret my actions, but I never wanted to hurt you like this."
Levy flinched like he had struck her. Vanessa's jaw tightened, her arms crossing again like it was the only thing keeping her from saying something she couldn't take back.
"Yes," Aelius said, he wasn't dodging it this time. His voice didn't rise, didn't soften either. It just… was. "I wanted to die. I'm sure Vanessa told you that already." He shifted in the chair, the wood creaking under him. "But if it makes you feel any better, I don't anymore. Not right now."
He looked down at his hands, flexed them once, then let them rest. "It took punching a wall until your knuckles bled, but like I said the other day, when you all ganged up on me, you broke through." His mouth twitched. "I'm fine with existing right now. That's about the best answer I've got."
Levy swallowed hard. Vanessa didn't interrupt.
"I don't know what else you want from me," he went on. "I don't know what the next step is supposed to look like. I don't suddenly have a plan, or clarity, or some big revelation. I'm just… here. Still breathing. Still annoying. Still annoyed," He glanced up at them, eyes steady. "That's what I can offer. The silence stretched again, but it wasn't sharp this time. It was heavy, tired, full of things that had been said over and over, and only now been heard.
Then Aelius leaned back and added, lightly, almost offhand, "Though I did warn you. I'm not easy to deal with."
Levy let out a shaky, half-broken laugh despite herself. Vanessa rolled her eyes, but the edge had dulled, replaced with something closer to reluctant relief.
"Idiot," Vanessa muttered.
"I'll accept that," Aelius replied. "Still here, though." He let that hang between them, didn't rush to fill the space. Silence had weight if you let it. Levy stared at her hands, fingers twisting together like she was trying to wring the feeling out of them. Vanessa looked anywhere but at him, jaw tight, arms still crossed but lacking the earlier heat. Aelius waited, patient in the way only someone used to things falling apart could be, giving the words time to sink in, whether they wanted them to or not.
After a minute, he straightened slightly in the chair, the faint creak of wood the only sound. "So," he said, tone even, tired more than anything else, "we finished with whatever this is?"
Vanessa scoffed, but it lacked bite. "You make it sound like a chore."
"It is," Aelius replied without hesitation. "Emotionally, mentally, physically. I've done worse, but that doesn't make this fun."
Levy finally looked up at him then, eyes red but steady. "You don't get to just… decide it's over."
"I didn't," he said. "I asked."
That seemed to deflate her a little. She sank back into the couch, shoulders slumping. "We're not okay with it," she said quietly. "What you did. What you almost did."
"I know," Aelius answered. "I wasn't expecting you to be."
Vanessa turned back toward him at that, studying his face like she was trying to find a crack, something to latch onto. "You're impossible," she muttered. "You know that?"
"Been told," he said. "Frequently. By smarter people than me."
Another stretch of silence followed, different now. Less sharp. More tired. The kind that came after a storm instead of before one. Aelius leaned his head back against the chair, eyes half lidded. "You can stay if you want," he added. "Or you can leave. I'm not kicking you out. Just… don't hit me again."
Morning came far too swiftly for Aelius.
He woke with that dull, half-present awareness that told him he hadn't really rested, just gone unconscious for a few hours and called it sleep. Muscle memory carried him out of bed, down the short hall, and straight to the bathroom without a second thought. He opened the door and immediately froze.
Vanessa stood there, towel wrapped around her torso, hair darkened and dripping slightly, the faint scent of soap and steam still clinging to the air. She wasn't nude, thankfully, but she was close enough to it that his brain stalled anyway, gears grinding uselessly for a solid second.
They stared at each other.
"Oh," Aelius said flatly.
Vanessa blinked once, then twice. "Wow," she replied, slow and deliberate. "You knock like you fight. You don't."
He closed the door halfway on reflex, then opened it again, like that somehow fixed the situation. "This is my bathroom."
"You told us to stay," she shot back. "You didn't give a tour or a schedule."
"I assumed basic survival instincts," he said. His eyes flicked away immediately, fixing on the wall beside her instead of her face, posture rigid. "Next time, lock the door. Or I'll personally rewrite the wards to ban you."
She snorted, tightening the towel a fraction. "Relax. You look like you just walked in on a firing squad."
"I'd prefer that," Aelius muttered. "They don't drip on the floor."
Vanessa rolled her eyes and brushed past him, damp hair flicking water onto his arm as she went. "You're insufferable in the mornings."
"I'm insufferable all the time," he replied, stepping aside automatically. "Mornings just remove my tolerance for it."
She paused at the doorway, glancing back at him with a look that was less sharp than usual, something tired but oddly normal. "Levy's still asleep," she said. "Try not to scare her by bleeding or brooding or whatever you do before breakfast."
"No promises," Aelius said, already reaching for the sink.
Vanessa left, footsteps fading down the hall, and only then did he exhale, bracing his hands against the counter and staring at his reflection. He splashed water on his face, grounding himself in the cold, the ordinary. Just another morning. Just another mess he hadn't quite cleaned up yet.
Aelius finished his routine without incident. Brush. Shower. Dry off halfway and give up like always. The normal human motions did more than most spells ever had. Mundane things had weight. They anchored him in a way magic never quite managed to. When he stepped back into his room, he didn't bother with the cloak or the mask. There was no point. Not yet. He pulled on another plain shirt and a pair of shorts instead, the white fabric darkening in patches where his hair still dripped.
By the time he went downstairs, the house was quiet in that early morning way, the kind that felt almost like a trap. Levy was still asleep, curled up somewhere out of sight, which was about what he expected. Vanessa, on the other hand, was very much awake and apparently attempting to commit a crime against cabinetry.
One of the top cabinets was open, and she was half inside it, standing on something she definitely shouldn't have been standing on. Her legs kicked slightly as she shifted her weight, clearly deep in the process of rummaging. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and just watched for a second, arms loosely folded, expression flat.
She either noticed him or, more likely, sensed him, because she froze and twisted around, head and shoulders sticking out of the cabinet like she'd been caught stealing cookies.
"Aelius!" she whisper-yelled, sharp and urgent. "Where the hell is your food? There's not even dust in here, man."
"I don't have any," he replied calmly. "It's in my requip space. You know I don't actually use a fridge or cabinets. Food doesn't spoil in there."
She stared at him like he'd just confessed to a crime. "So why do you have a kitchen?"
"Aesthetics," he said.
She dropped back down onto the counter with a dull thud, cabinet door swinging slightly. "That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you're getting."
Vanessa dragged a hand down her face, already tired. "You live like a cryptid."
Aelius paused mid-reach, actually stopped for a second, like he was giving the statement the respect it deserved. Then he nodded once. "Accurate."
Vanessa stared at him. Flat and very unamused. The kind of look usually reserved for people who had just admitted something deeply concerning without a hint of shame.
"Just move, I'll make… something," Aelius said, stepping further into the kitchen, nudging past her with his shoulder like she was just another inconvenient piece of furniture. "And don't break my cabinets. I had them custom-made. I like them."
"You like fancy wood over us?" Vanessa shot back, finally extracting herself from the cabinet with a graceless hop, landing hard enough to make the counter rattle.
"Wood doesn't cry," Aelius replied without missing a beat, already opening his requip, a faint shimmer in the air as sealed space unfolded. "Doesn't scream. Doesn't break my masks."
That earned him a look sharp enough to cut. Vanessa opened her mouth, closed it again, then scoffed, crossing her arms as she leaned back against the counter. "Wow. Okay. That's… wow. You really wake up swinging, don't you?"
He didn't answer. He pulled food out instead. Not much, just enough. Simple things. eggs. Meat. Something dried and preserved that smelled vaguely spiced. He moved with an ease that came from repetition, hands steady, expression blank, like this was just another task to check off before the day started. The clink of a knife against wood filled the space, grounding, real. No magic flare. No masks. Just the sound of someone doing something normal because normal was easier than thinking.
Vanessa watched him for a long moment, her irritation bleeding off into something quieter. He noticed, of course. He always did. He just didn't look at her when he spoke. "You're allowed to be mad," he said flatly.
"That's not what this is about," she muttered, but there was less bite in it now.
"Sure it is." He slid a plate onto the counter between them, then another. "It's always about that."
Aelius didn't look at her when he spoke next. He focused on the food, on the simple motion of setting things down, which made the words easier to handle.
"I talked with Makarov the other day," he said. "Told him about our first meeting. And that you bite." A corner of his mouth twitched, briefly. "Somehow that turned into a longer conversation than I expected."
Vanessa didn't interrupt. She just watched him.
"And I realized something," Aelius continued. "I wasn't fair to you. Not even close. I left you in a new place, right after you'd lost everything you knew. New people, new rules, no anchors." He finally glanced at her. "I pushed you away on purpose."
Vanessa's fingers curled slightly against the counter.
"I told myself it was because I was dangerous. Because my magic was killing me. Because it was better if you didn't get close." His jaw tightened. "But even that doesn't excuse it. Not really."
"I'm sorry."
It wasn't dramatic. Just the words, plain and unarmored, hanging in the air between them. Vanessa didn't answer immediately. She didn't snap back, didn't roll her eyes, didn't soften either. She just stood there, arms still crossed, jaw tight, breathing unevenly like she was trying to decide which emotion got to win. Eventually, she crossed the kitchen in a few quiet steps and wrapped her arms around him. It was firm, slightly painful, the kind of hug that made a point by existing at all. Aelius didn't stiffen this time. Didn't pull away. His arms hovered for half a second, unsure, then settled awkwardly but willingly around her shoulders. He exhaled again, slower, like something he'd been holding in, and finally decided to let go.
"Well," Vanessa said into his chest, voice muffled but steady, "consider yourself forgiven."
He huffed a quiet breath that might've been a laugh if it had anywhere to go.
"I stopped being mad a while ago," she added, pulling back just enough to look up at him, eyes sharp again but not cruel. "But in payment," she continued, poking a finger into his sternum, "you can do whatever I want for the rest of eternity. Okay?"
Aelius looked down at her, expression flat, tired, and very much himself. "That's a terrible contract," he said. "You didn't even pretend to negotiate."
She smirked. "You already signed it when you scared us half to death."
Aelius rolled his eyes and returned the hug with one hand, the other settling on the top of her head, fingers resting there in a way that was careful without looking like it. "Good to have you back," he said, then added, quieter, "little sis."
If someone could die because their eyes grew too large and crushed their brain, Vanessa was very, very close. She froze for exactly half a second, just long enough for the words to register, then let out a noise that was completely undignified, somewhere between a laugh, a squeak, and a choked sound of pure, unfiltered happiness. Her arms tightened around him like she was trying to fuse them together by sheer force of will.
"You don't get to just say that," she managed, voice thick, face buried against his chest. "You don't get to disappear, come back from the dead, almost die, and then casually drop that like it won't kill me."
"It didn't kill you," Aelius replied dryly, though his hand stayed where it was, steady, grounding. "You're still breathing."
"Barely," she shot back, muffled. "And for the record, you're stuck with me now. Forever. You called it."
He snorted softly. "I've survived worse."
She laughed into his shirt, the sound bright and messy and real, and for the first time in a long while, the house felt less like a place he hid in and more like somewhere he actually lived.
"Careful," Levy said, her voice drifting in from the doorway, "Lisanna might cry if she hears you call someone else that."
She looked like she'd been assembled in a hurry. Hair a complete nest, headband nowhere to be seen, eyes still half lidded like sleep hadn't fully let go of her yet. She leaned against the doorframe, arms loosely crossed, blinking at the scene in front of her like she was still deciding if it was real or something her brain made up.
"Though," she added after a beat, a small smile tugging at her mouth, "I'm glad you're both happy."
Vanessa finally loosened her grip, though she didn't fully step away, one arm still hooked around Aelius like she was claiming him by proximity. "You're awake," she said, sounding pleased. "Good. He apologized."
Levy raised a brow, eyes sliding to Aelius. "He did?"
Aelius gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Don't get used to it."
Levy snorted softly and pushed herself off the doorframe, padding further into the room before walking straight into Aelius and wrapping her arms around him.
"Why?" he asked, now turning stiff as the boards underfoot.
"Because you're giving out hugs," she said simply. "So I wanted one."
"That's the worst answer," Aelius muttered. "I could decay you into a husk. Vanessa can resist it at least."
Levy laughed and waved him off, still not letting go. It was Vanessa who answered instead, leaning back against the counter. "Yeah, but if you haven't done it by now, I think we're safe," she said. "Besides, you gotta do what I say now, remember."
Aelius sighed, hands hovering awkwardly at his sides. "You're pushing it. There is never a need for… this. Let alone this amount of affection."
Levy tilted her head against his shoulder. "Too bad."
"Ok, both of you let go, or I'll collapse this house and kill you both," Aelius said, forcing them apart with a bit more insistence than necessary, though there was no real bite behind it. "Too much PDA."
Vanessa laughed outright as she stumbled back a step, clearly unconcerned. Levy, meanwhile, covered her mouth, shoulders shaking. "How is that public affection?" she managed, "it's your house?"
"Too public," Aelius replied without missing a beat, already turning away from them like the conversation was over and he'd ruled decisively on the matter. He moved toward the counter, rummaging with practiced efficiency. "I'll make you food, then you can leave, and never mention this to anyone, or I'll wither every plant you'll ever own."
Levy blinked. "That's a very specific threat."
"It's the only thing I could come up with that didn't involve me threatening to leave," Aelius said, voice dry, eyes on a pan, "or one of us dying."
That wiped the smile off her face. Vanessa noticed, too, the grin easing into something quieter as she straightened a little, watching him instead of joking for once.
Levy stepped farther into the kitchen, rubbing at one eye. "Are those the only two extremes you operate on?"
"Yes," he said immediately.
She sighed, but there was no heat in it. "Figures."
Breakfast was quick, louder than he would have preferred. Levy and Vanessa had apparently bonded sometime between midnight accusations and morning eggs, united by what Vanessa loudly referred to as his unrelenting stupidity. They talked over each other, laughed too easily, shared looks that clearly meant he was the topic, and Aelius endured it with the quiet patience of someone who had survived worse things than teasing. When they finished, Levy gathered herself to leave, still half rumpled but smiling, promising to clean up and meet them at the guild later, no arguments allowed. She paused at the door like she wanted to say something else, then decided against it and left with a small wave.
Aelius locked up behind them and stepped out into the morning air, only to immediately regret it as Vanessa began skipping around him, literally bouncing on the balls of her feet like nothing had ever happened, like she had not slapped him or cried the night before. She hummed, hands behind her back, circling him like an excited cat, and he resisted the urge to tell her to stop before it became a threat he would have to follow through on. He would never admit it, not out loud, but there was a mild warmth in his chest that had nothing to do with the sun. She was back. Not just present, but back, back, loud and childish and unapologetically alive. He walked beside her toward the guild, expression neutral, steps steady, and let himself have that small thing without questioning it.
Everything changed the moment they reached the town's edge. The noise thinned out first. Not silence, true silence would have been better, instead it was that hollow quiet that only comes after something terrible has already happened and everyone left alive is still adjusting to it. Doors were shut that shouldn't have been. Conversations were hushed, clipped short the second they passed. The people he did see spoke in low voices, heads close together, and when Aelius followed their lines of sight, he saw it, the brief, unmistakable flicker of recognition when their eyes landed on the violet Fairy Tail tattoo at Vanessa's collarbone. The looks didn't linger. Eyes slid away too fast, whispers resumed, tighter now, edged with something brittle.
Vanessa slowed, the bounce in her step bleeding away as her shoulders tensed. She didn't look scared, not yet, but alert, senses stretching outward in that way Aelius recognized all too well. Her nose wrinkled slightly, her head tilting as if she were listening to something beneath the air itself. "I taste… fear," she said quietly, the words losing their usual teasing cadence. "Shock too. Pain. A lot of pain. It's faint, but it's coming from the guild." She didn't wait for confirmation, instinct already pulling her forward, one step ahead of him before he could stop her.
"Don't rush," Aelius said, voice firm as he closed the distance in a single stride, his presence settling just behind her like a wall. "Stay behind me. Just like before." He didn't look at her when he said it. His eyes were already on the road ahead, on the way the town seemed to lean away from the guild's direction, as if even the buildings didn't want to be too close to whatever waited there. His hand flexed once at his side, grounding himself, and he adjusted his pace so she had no choice but to fall in line behind him. Whatever had happened, whatever had broken the air like this, he would be the first thing it ran into.
"Blood," Vanessa said next, quieter this time, her tone sharpening as they closed the distance. "Not massacre levels, but… more than a little."
They were on the main road now, the guild hall finally in full view, and Aelius could make out the shapes clustered around it. Guild members. Civilians. Too many people standing still, too many faces turned inward toward the same point. There was no sound of fighting, no explosions, no magic clashing, and that alone set his nerves on edge. If Fairy Tail wasn't loud, something was very wrong. He picked up his pace, long strides eating the ground as the air ahead of them grew heavy, thick with residue and something faintly wrong, like the aftermath of a spell that hadn't fully settled yet.
Then he saw it. A small orb hung over the front of the guild like a malignant second sky, dark at its core, the surface rippling faintly as if it were breathing. It grew more transparent the closer he got, not fading so much as thinning, like reality itself had been stretched over it and pulled too tight.
Several of the others were already there, throwing themselves at it with everything they had. Makarov was at the front, his body enlarged, a massive fist slamming into the barrier again and again, each impact sending a dull shockwave through the air but leaving the orb untouched. Natsu was a blur of motion and fire, flames roaring as he drove burning fists into it, teeth bared in a snarl that bordered on feral. Erza stood off to one side, cycling through blades, swords shattering or bouncing uselessly away, her expression carved from pure frustration. Even Gildarts was there, his magic cracking and grinding against the surface, the space-warping force that usually tore anything apart doing nothing more than making the orb shudder for a heartbeat before settling again.
Aelius slowed only a fraction, eyes narrowing as he took it all in, cataloging, measuring. No cracks, nothing was giving, and there was no visible backlash. Whatever this thing was, it wasn't just strong; it was designed to endure exactly this kind of assault. He stopped just short of the outer ring of onlookers, the faint shimmer of the orb reflecting in his emerald eyes, and felt that earlier misalignment in his body twist tighter, like something deep inside him recognized the spell and didn't like what it meant.
"Master," Aelius called as he reached the back of the crowd. His presence alone was enough. Nameless guild members and civilians parted without thinking, like a current pulling them aside. This close, he could finally see what was inside the orb.
It was the water mage, the one obsessed with Gray. The one who had joined alongside Gajeel. She floated within the sphere, suspended in a mass of water held perfectly in place by the spell, her body limp, head tilted slightly back. She was pale. Not sickly pale, not exhausted pale. Unnaturally so, like the color had been leeched out of her entirely.
And then there was her right arm. Or rather, the absence of it. There was no normal bleeding, none of the violent arterial spray that there should have been. It was hard to tell what he was even looking at at first, but then it clicked. She wasn't bleeding normally. She was leaking; water seeped steadily from the jagged end where her arm should have been, mixing seamlessly with the pool that suspended her. The wound itself was wrong, torn and uneven, horizontal lines scoring the flesh in a way no blade could have made. It looked bitten as if someone had forced her arm down their throat and bitten it off halfway up past the elbow.
"Aelius!" Vanessa hissed, eyes wide. She was shaking now. She recognized what. Or rather, who had done this.
"I know. I know," he said quietly. "Cover your ears." She did so without hesitation.
He took a deep breath and channeled his magic the same way he would before using a bellow. "EVERYONE STOP!" he shouted. His voice was laced with power, tearing cleanly through the crowd's murmurs. Even those actively trying to break the orb froze mid-motion. Makarov's fist stopped inches from the barrier. Natsu went still. Erza lowered her swords.
"Don't break the orb," Aelius continued, voice hard now. "Bring the witch here." He paused, irritation bleeding into a low growl. His morning had actually been tolerable, and this was how it ended. "Porlyusica. The witch."
Makarov turned toward him, his titan form, causing the ground to tremble under the motion. "Aelius," he growled, the sound shaking the air itself. "Do you know who did this?"
"Someone go get the witch," Aelius said, not raising his voice, not lowering it either. "I'll explain in the meantime."
A few of the members sprinted off after a moment. The gun-using couple, whom he never bothered to remember the names of.
Aelius walked forward, the remainder of the crowd parting without protest. His voice had done its job. Even Natsu, who normally acted first and thought later, was holding himself back, though the flames around his fists hadn't dimmed in the slightest. They flickered, restless, like him. Aelius didn't look at him. He was already focused on the orb.
"What do you mean?" Gray snapped, frost bleeding off him, ice cracking and shattering at his feet. "What'll happen if we free her? We can't just leave her to bleed out in there, man."
"If you break the orb, she'll lose her ability to use magic. Permanently," Aelius shot back. He stepped forward and used his magic to walk on air, boots settling level with the floating sphere. Up close. "Makarov. The witch fixed you when you lost your magic the day I came back, right? Jose, or one of his men, drained it."
"Yes," Makarov answered immediately. "One of his men. Aria. Wind magic. He spread my magic power. Mystogan gathered it, and Porlyusica funneled it back into me." His massive eyes narrowed. "Is that what's happening here?"
"Close enough," Aelius said. "This isn't draining her magic into the air, though. It's containing it. Pressurizing it. Keeping it moving so it doesn't disperse."
"But wasn't Aria her ally?" Erza asked, shifting back into her usual armor as she stepped closer. "Why would he do this? And why the orb?"
"Because it wasn't Aria," Vanessa said quietly. Her hands were clenched at her sides. "It was Nezhhar."
"The same guy who almost killed Aelius," Gray snapped, frost spiking outward again. "Why? What the hell does he want with Juvia?"
Aelius didn't look at Gray right away. He kept circling the orb, eyes tracking the way the water inside shifted around Juvia's body. It wasn't random. It never was. "Her magic," he said at last. "If I had to guess." He tilted his head slightly. "But, she uses water magic. Nezhhar already has water magic."
"So why?" Erza asked, pacing now, armor plates shifting softly with each step. "Is he after Aelius? When he left us in the forest, he said this wasn't over. That you only bought time."
"But why now?" Natsu growled, fists clenched, heat rolling off him even as he held it back. "If he wanted something from us, why didn't he hit sooner?"
Aelius cut in before the questions could pile higher. His voice was steady, clinical, grounding. "The water isn't just water," he said, gesturing toward the orb. "It's her magic. What's leaking from her arm, that slow spill you're seeing, that's her magic power. She's floating in it. Literally suspended inside her own magic."
He stopped circling and finally faced them, expression tight under his mask. "That's why you don't break the orb. If you do, the structure collapses, and whatever magic she has left disperses, maybe ermanently. I'd imagine it's recoverable as things stand, but Porlyusica is the only one here who can tell you that for sure."
His gaze returned to the orb, eyes narrowing. "As for this thing," he continued, tone darkening, "this wasn't improvised. For it to be this stable, this layered, he'd have to have been working on it for at least a week. Maybe longer. Setting anchors. Reinforcing it. Making sure it wouldn't fail the moment someone like Makarov or Gildarts looked at it wrong."
Erza slowed her pacing. "So he waited."
"Yes, but I don't think it's for a malicious reason," Aelius said slowly, eyes never leaving the orb. "I think he wants us to save her."
That earned him looks. Confused ones. Angry ones. Disbelieving ones.
"This isn't his style," Aelius continued, voice low but steady. "Not really. He thinks of himself as a showman. A parade leader. Or an actor on a stage that only exists because he's watching it. When he hurts people for no reason, he does it loudly. Excessively. He makes sure you know it was him. This?" He gestured at the orb, at Juvia suspended inside her own magic. "This is careful. Controlled, deliberate, and quie in a way that feels… staged."
"So why," Makarov asked, his voice heavy, tired in a way only someone who had buried too many of his own could be, "why go through all this trouble? You said he already used some of our magics when you fought, didn't you?"
"I don't know," Aelius admitted, and that alone was enough to shift the mood. He rarely said it. "As I said, he had to be after her magic. But why specifically her, or why like this, I can't tell you."
He stepped closer to the orb, close enough now that the faint distortions in the water rippled against his vision. "What I do know is that Nezhhar doesn't build things like this unless there's an audience. He doesn't leave things unfinished unless he expects someone else to finish them. And he doesn't invest a week or more of prep just to walk away without seeing how it ends."
Gray's fists clenched, frost creeping up his arms again. "So you're saying this is a message."
"Yes," Aelius said simply. "Or an invitation."
"To what?" Erza asked.
"My death."