Returning to Magnolia after a mission was, invariably, the most irritating part of the job. The fight itself, most of the time, was a mere exercise in personal restraint, a test of my ancestral patience, as I forced myself not to solve the problem in five seconds with a single, well-placed spell and thus spoil the fun and the "opportunity for growth" of my teammates. The journey back, however, especially with their company, was an exquisite form of auditory torture, a direct assault on my senses and my already battered faith in the intelligence of the human species.
"And then, when the last giant Goblin appeared, I just said, 'Fire Dragon's Roar!' and BOOM! The entire nest of those smelly little monsters turned into one big, delicious barbecue!" Natsu gestured wildly as he narrated his highly dramatised and factually inaccurate version of events, nearly hitting a poor, innocent pedestrian with an enthusiastic punch in the air. "That was definitely my best part of the mission! Totally epic!"
"Your best part?" Gray, who was walking beside me and, for some inexplicable reason that I had long given up trying to understand, was already shirtless despite the cool morning breeze, retorted with palpable disdain. "Your 'best part' was setting fire to the entire forest and nearly roasting the cattle we were supposed to be protecting. I, on the other hand, froze the entire river to stop them from escaping with the supplies. That was tactics, intelligence. You, as always, only know how to shout, burn things, and cause property damage."
"At least I don't go showing off naked in the middle of nowhere every five minutes, you ice-exhibitionist with self-esteem issues!" Natsu snarled back.
"What did you call me, you walking lump of charcoal with a single functioning neuron?!" And there they went again.
I sighed, massaging my temple with my fingers, feeling a familiar headache begin to form. The mission, in its essence, was ridiculously simple: deal with a bunch of particularly annoying, but not very intelligent, Goblins who were stealing the cattle and supplies from a small, quiet village in the mountains. A mission that, if I had been allowed, would have taken exactly three minutes and a well-executed illusion spell to resolve. But instead, it took three long and terribly noisy days. Three days, because our dear and idealistic Erza insisted that this would be an "excellent opportunity for a team-building exercise." In practice, this meant I spent most of my time sitting comfortably on a rock, reading a fascinating book on recreational necromancy, while the quartet of noisy idiots, with their tactical genius, created considerably more destruction, panic, and financial loss than the Goblins themselves. A resounding success, no doubt.
Lucy, walking beside me with the air of someone who had just survived a train wreck, sighed with the resignation of a martyr, seeming to share a little of my deep existential weariness. "I still, honestly, don't understand why all of you needed to come on this mission. The request was simple; I could have done it all by myself and far more quietly with my Celestial Spirits."
"What are you talking about, Lucy? That's absurd!" Natsu shouted, pausing his death match with Gray for an instant to focus on his indignation. "We're a team! The strongest and coolest team in all of Fairy Tail! We go on all the important missions together! It's our motto!"
A nauseating feeling of cheap sentimentalism and forced camaraderie hung in the air like a fart in a crowded lift. It was definitely time for me to intervene and bring a healthy dose of cynical reality to this conversation.
"Speak for yourself, flame-brain with delusions of grandeur," I said, my voice calm, cold, and cutting, instantly silencing his childish excitement. "I only came on this mediocre excursion because Erza came. If, by any chance, she had decided to stay at the guild to polish her precious and numerous armours, I would have, with the greatest of pleasure, stayed to help her choose the best varnish. I have not, and never have had, the slightest, most remote interest in your sentimental and utterly unfounded nonsense about the 'strongest team in Fairy Tail'."
The silence that followed my small and honest declaration was absolutely delicious. Natsu stared at me, his fiery brain clearly trying to process the insult and my complete lack of team spirit. Gray, to my delight, gave a small, smug smirk, as if I had just scored a point in his favour in the eternal competition of insults against Natsu. And Erza… ah, Erza, who was walking calmly beside me, suddenly became very, very interested in the window display of a hat shop, although I noticed, with a secret satisfaction, the faint but unmistakable blush that spread across her ears. Victory. Silent, subtle, but a victory nonetheless.
It was then that I noticed. The city's atmosphere, normally so vibrant and noisy, was… wrong. The people on the streets, who usually greeted or waved with a mixture of admiration and apprehension when they saw the mages of Fairy Tail pass by, were now stopping. They were looking at us, but not with the usual admiration or fear of the next inevitable destruction. It was something different. It was… pity. Concern. Compassion. Whispers followed our passage like a cold breeze, gazes filled with a compassion that I found deeply irritating.
"Do they already know?"
"Poor things, they have no idea what's waiting for them..."
"Their guild… what a tragedy..."
"Hey, why the hell is everyone looking at us in that weird way, like we're abandoned puppies in the rain?" Happy asked, flying nervously near my shoulder, his large ears twitching in all directions.
Erza had noticed too, of course. Her posture, previously relaxed from our walk, stiffened instantly. Her shoulders tensed, and her eyes, sharp as a hawk's, began to scan the crowd with a growing suspicion. "Something is terribly wrong here."
My stomach, or whatever I have in its place in this incarnation, churned with a bad feeling I hadn't felt in a very, very long time. With an urgency that was unusual for me, I quickened my pace, leaving the others behind, curiosity and a concern I refused to name propelling me forward. When I finally turned the corner that led to our guild's street, I stopped. Abruptly.
The chaos, the joy, the familiar mess, the loud music, the fights… everything, absolutely everything, was gone.
In the place of the large, noisy, chaotic wooden building that I had, very reluctantly, started to call "base of operations," or, in my more vulnerable moments, "home," there were only… ruins. Silence and destruction. The structure was broken, crushed, violated. And, piercing through what was left of the collapsed roof and the main hall now exposed to the sky, like the grotesque, broken bones of an ancient monster slain in a lost battle, were driven huge, ugly, and imposing pillars of dark iron.
For an instant that felt like a frozen eternity, the world around me fell into absolute silence. The sounds of the city completely disappeared. The voice of Natsu, shouting in shock, disbelief, and a rising fury behind me, was just a distant echo, a sound from another universe.
I told myself, every day, that I didn't care about that building. That it was just a noisy, dirty place that often smelt of spilt ale and broken dreams. I told myself, with an almost desperate conviction, that I didn't care for most of the loud, dramatic, and emotionally unstable people who inhabited that place. It was a lie. A convenient lie I told myself, day after day, to maintain my distance, to keep my ancestral heart at peace, not to get attached.
But seeing that… seeing that place, their place, Erza's place, desecrated, violated, and destroyed in such a cold and calculated manner…
A strange, ancient, primordial, and terribly familiar feeling rose from the darkest depths of my chest. Something hot, dark, suffocating, and utterly uncontrollable that I honestly hadn't felt with such intensity in many, many centuries.
Rage. Pure and crystalline rage.
[Critical Alert: Unstable energy spike detected. Unauthorised power release in progress. Seals are under extreme stress,] Eos's voice sounded, cold, distant, and almost inaudible in my mind, like an alarm sounding underwater.
But I barely heard her. The only thing I felt, the only thing that mattered, was the crushing pressure building inside me, clamouring to be released. The air around me grew heavy, dense, almost palpable, as if the very sky were about to collapse on Magnolia. The animals in the street – the arrogant pigeons, the stray cats – cowered in panic or fled in a blind, instinctive terror. The people nearby, who had been looking at us with pity before, now stopped, panic taking over their faces without them knowing exactly why. They just felt it. They felt the pressure. The threat.
"Azra'il… w-what the devil..." Gray's voice, normally so calm, failed in a frightened whisper behind me.
The pressure intensified. With a dry, almost inaudible sound, the leaves on the trees in the square, once green and vibrant, instantly withered, dried, and fell like ash. The glass of a nearby shop window, overwhelmed by the invisible pressure, cracked with a sharp snap. Then another window, and another, and another, until a high, dissonant sound of shattering glass filled the air in unison like a scream. And the cobblestones beneath my own feet began to crack, small fissures spreading out in all directions, like the spiderwebs of an imminent death.
I wasn't doing anything. I wasn't casting any spell. I was just… feeling. And my feeling, my contained fury, was literally breaking the world around me.
"Azra'il!"
A firm hand, gloved in cold metal, rested on my shoulder with a force that was at once gentle and unshakeable. And a voice, the only voice that could perhaps reach me in that moment. Erza's voice. Tense, but unshakeable. Her touch, her simple presence, was the only thing that managed to pierce the red, pulsating haze of rage that was beginning to take over my vision.
But perhaps it wouldn't have been enough to stop me. It was another voice, an older, more tired voice, but infinitely more powerful in its authority, that finally reached me and pulled me back from the brink of the abyss.
"THAT'S ENOUGH, CHILD! CONTROL YOURSELF, NOW!"
Master Makarov. He was there, standing on the rubble of his own home, his small, frail figure exuding a colossal authority, a power that seemed to come from the very heart of the guild. Beside him, I saw the tall, elegant silhouette of Mirajane, her small fists clenched so tightly the knuckles were white, her usual sweet smile replaced by a mask of cold, icy fury that would make a demon tremble. Lisanna and Elfman were with her, looking equally furious, but also shocked by the scene.
With an effort of will that felt like it cost me an eternity, I took a deep breath, forcing the crushing pressure to recede, forcing the chaotic energy to calm down and return to its prison within me. The air, slowly, became lighter. The cracks in the ground stopped spreading. And the world, to my relief and slight disappointment, had sound again.
"Master! Mira!" Erza, releasing a breath she hadn't even known she was holding, ran towards them, her face a mask of pain and disbelief. "What… what happened here?! Who did this?!"
Mirajane's voice was low, controlled, but each word was a sharp, cold shard of ice filled with venom. "We were attacked during the night. When the guild was completely empty, and most of us were in our homes. They didn't have the courage to face us head-on, like true mages. They acted like cowards. Like rats in the darkness."
"Who?!" Natsu snarled, flames now enveloping his fists with a renewed and directed fury.
Master Makarov looked at the ruins of his home, a deep, ancient sadness in his eyes, but his voice, when he spoke, was as firm as a rock. "Phantom Lord."
The name, infamous and hated, hung in the air, as heavy as lead and filled with an ancient venom and a bloody rivalry.
"This… this is a declaration of war," Gray said, his voice cold and deadly, ice already forming around his feet on the cracked ground. "And we are going to fight back!"
"THAT'S RIGHT! LET'S WIPE THEM OUT!" Natsu shouted, his eyes ablaze, clearly ready to march alone to Oak Town that very instant. And a chorus of furious approval and war cries rose from the other guild members, who were now gathering amidst the rubble, their faces a mixture of shock, pain, and a growing fury.
"THAT'S ENOUGH!"
Master Makarov's voice, now amplified by his Titan magic, thundered across the square, instantly silencing everyone with its pure, overwhelming authority. He climbed onto one of the higher pieces of rubble, his small figure looking, for an instant, larger than any giant, his face stern and his eyes ablaze.
"I understand your anger. I feel that same anger burning in my veins," he said, his voice now calmer, but still laden with an unmistakable weight. "But I will not allow you to give in to it. There will be no retaliation. An open war between legal guilds is strictly and absolutely forbidden by the Magic Council. And the consequences for Fairy Tail, if we disobey, would be terrible. Catastrophic."
A murmur of protest and frustration rippled through the crowd of mages, their pride wounded.
"But, Master! They destroyed our home! Our home!" someone from the guild cried out, their voice choked with pain.
Master Makarov looked at the destroyed building, at the iron pillars that desecrated it, and then, his gaze softened as it passed over the faces of each of his "children." "That… that is just a building. Just a pile of wood and stone. And buildings, my dears, can be rebuilt, bigger and stronger than before." His voice, now, was no longer that of a general. It was that of a father, trying to comfort his family. "What's important, what truly matters, is that none of you were hurt. Your lives, the bonds you share… you are the true treasure of Fairy Tail. You are the guild. Not this pile of wood, of stone, and of memories." He paused. "So, for now, we will swallow our pride. We will be the stronger ones. And we will clean up this mess and move forward. Together."
His decision, though wise and protective, fell like a stone upon the guild. There was frustration, there was contained anger, but above all, there was respect. And no one, absolutely no one, dared to challenge the Master's order.
He then turned to the crowd of onlookers and to the guild members who were spreading out across the street. "This street is not the place for our laments or for our plans." With a nod, he pointed to a cellar door that, by some architectural miracle or sheer luck, was still intact amidst the rubble. "The underground storeroom survived the attack. Let's all go down there. We need to regroup, tend to our wounded… and clean up this mess." The last word was spoken with a bitter resignation, almost a whisper.
As the disheartened and frustrated, but still united, group began to move towards the cellar, Erza stopped beside me, her hand still resting on my shoulder, a silent gesture of both restraint and concern. "Are you… are you alright now, Azra'il?" she asked, her voice low, almost a whisper, likely having felt the overwhelming wave of power I had unleashed moments before.
I didn't answer. Not immediately. I just looked at the ruins of our home, at those grotesque iron pillars that were a silent declaration of war. The fury within me had not dissipated, not one bit. It had only been contained, stored away. The Master, with his wisdom and his love for his family, could preach peace and restraint. But I, who have seen countless wars begin for far, far lesser reasons than this… I knew the true nature of conflict. And that, that desecration… was not the end. Not by a long shot. It was only the beginning.
And I knew, with a cold, absolute, and almost mathematical certainty, that the Phantom Lord guild had made a terrible mistake. A fatal mistake. Not for destroying a simple and replaceable building. But for giving me a personal reason, a real and profound reason, to want, with all my ancestral strength, to join the fight. And I, when I decide to participate, do not tend to play to lose.
The underground storeroom was, to be generous, depressing. A large, damp space, poorly lit by a few weak lacrima lamps, that smelt of mould and spilt ale, which normally served as our storage for barrels of drink, low-value mission supplies, and all sorts of forgotten junk that no one had the heart to throw away. Now, by a cruel twist of fate, it was the new, improvised headquarters of the loudest and most vibrant guild in all of Fiore, which, at that specific moment, was immersed in an almost funereal silence, a quietness that was almost more disturbing than its usual cacophony of chaos.
The guild members, my new and noisy "siblings," were scattered around the place like disheartened ghosts, sitting on wooden crates, on overturned barrels, or directly on the cold, dusty stone floor. The air in the cellar was heavy, dense, laden with a suffocating mixture of dust from the rubble, the strong smell of mould, and a palpable, almost visible frustration that emanated from each of them. Natsu, with a contained fury that was rare to see, was silently punching a stone wall in a dark corner, each dull, painful impact echoing the helpless anger we all felt. Gray was leaning against another corner, arms crossed, his expression as dark and cold as the ice he created. And poor Lucy, with her ever-so-big heart, was trying, with soft words and gentle gestures, to comfort some of the younger guild members, who were crying silently for the loss of their one and only true "home."
I, as always, had found a spot away from all that emotional drama, sitting on a pile of old, dusty barrels, from where I could observe everyone and everything with my usual, calculated distance. My own intense fury, which had nearly escaped my control outside, had now receded into a state of cold latency, a silent, dangerous ember patiently waiting for the right oxygen to turn into an uncontrollable inferno. And I knew, with an almost prophetic certainty, that this oxygen would come. It was only a matter of time.
Erza, my little and now surprisingly mature Titania, stood beside the Master, her expression hard, attentive, her eyes constantly scanning the room, the personification of discipline and strength even in the midst of the greatest crisis the guild had ever faced. She was, without a doubt, the pillar of strength that many there needed at that moment.
Master Makarov, with the surprising agility of a monkey, climbed onto a larger barrel in the centre of the storeroom, his small, wrinkled figure dominating the vast space with a gravity and a presence that completely contradicted his diminutive size. And the silence, which was already heavy, deepened even further, expectant.
"I know what each of you is feeling right now," he began, his voice calm, but resonating with a contained power that made every word echo through the silent cellar. "Anger. Humiliation. A powerlessness that burns inside. The primal desire to march to Oak Town right now and reduce their damned guild to ash and dust." He paused, his wise, tired gaze passing over each of us, acknowledging and validating our pain. "And I, honestly, do not blame you in the slightest for feeling this way. I feel it too. No guild, no matter how powerful or arrogant, has the right to desecrate our home, our symbol, in such a cowardly manner."
A low, furious murmur of agreement rippled through the cellar, a collective growl from a wounded beast.
"But, and this is a very important 'but', as I said outside," he continued, his voice now firmer, harder, the voice of a guild master and not a comforting father, "we cannot, and will not, respond to this provocation with careless, blind, and thoughtless violence. The laws of the Magic Council, as irritating and bureaucratic as they may be, are clear and absolute. An open and declared war between two legal guilds would inevitably, and without a shadow of a doubt, result in the forced dissolution and extinction of Fairy Tail. And I," his eyes filled with a paternal ferocity, "I will not, under any circumstances, sacrifice this precious and irreplaceable family of mine for the sake of a simple, stupid, and entirely replaceable building."
"So what do we do, Master? Just sit here and wait for them, in their infinite arrogance, to decide to attack us again, maybe next time with people inside the guild?" Cana asked, her voice surprisingly sober, clear, and laden with the frustration of everyone there.
"No, my dear Cana. Absolutely not," Makarov replied, and his eyes, for an instant, narrowed with a cunning I recognised all too well. "We will not attack. But we will most certainly not lower our guard and passively await the next blow."
He straightened up on the barrel, his expression now that of a general preparing his troops for a long and difficult campaign. His tone, now, was that of a leader, not a comforting father.
"This cowardly attack, my children, was not a random act of vandalism. It was deliberate. It was calculated. They attacked during the night, when they knew, with absolute certainty, that the guild would be completely empty and unprotected. They didn't want a fair fight, a battle of strengths. They wanted, solely and exclusively, to provoke us. To humiliate us. To weaken us psychologically. And the big, and dangerous, question is: why? Why now?"
'(An excellent question, old man. And the only one that truly matters,)' I thought, with a reluctant admiration for his clarity of thought, even amidst the crisis. An attack of this magnitude, which risked the relentless wrath of the Magic Council, needed a very, very strong motive. Much stronger than a simple, old rivalry between guilds. There was, without a doubt, a hidden objective. A specific target.
"We do not know, at this moment, what Phantom Lord's true and final target is," the Master continued, his voice echoing my own line of thought. "We do not know if they simply wanted to send us a clear and arrogant message of superiority, or if this cowardly attack is, in fact, just the first and audacious step in a much larger and more sinister plan. And it is precisely this uncertainty, this lack of information, that makes us dangerously and unacceptably vulnerable."
He straightened up even more, his expression becoming even more serious, harder, more imposing than I had ever seen him before.
"Therefore, and this is a direct and unquestionable order, from this moment on, no one, absolutely no one, acts alone. No one goes on a mission alone. And no one, under any circumstances, walks the streets of Magnolia unaccompanied, especially at night. You will, from now on, move in groups, always. And you will be extremely vigilant for any strange faces, any suspicious activity, any shadow out of place. Do not give them, these cowards, the opportunity they are surely looking for to catch us off guard again."
His order was clear, direct, and entirely logical. It was not, to the immense frustration of Natsu and many others, a plan for an immediate and vengeful attack, but a plan of defence, of containment, and of information gathering. a prudent, cautious, logical strategy. And for someone with Natsu's impulsive temperament, terribly, insufferably, and utterly frustrating.
"So that's it? We're just going to sit here, hiding in this smelly cellar like a bunch of cowards, while they laugh at us?" he snarled, stopping his punching of the wall only to channel his fury into words.
"Living to fight another day is not, and never will be, cowardice, Natsu. It is strategy," Erza replied before anyone else could, her voice calm, cold, and cutting his off with the precision of a blade. "The Master is absolutely right. a blind, thoughtless attack now is exactly what they want us to do. We first need to understand our enemy, their motives, their objectives, before we can strike back with our full force."
Makarov nodded in a silent gesture of thanks to Erza. "Exactly. For now, and until we have more information, our top priority is to look after one another and, most importantly, to find out what the devil Phantom Lord really wants from us." He looked around the dark cellar, at the faces of his children, now a little less furious and a little more thoughtful. "This place, as damp and smelly as it is, will serve as our temporary base. Mirajane, please organise the food and water supplies we managed to save. Erza, help coordinate the first surveillance patrols around the city. And the rest of you… please, rest. But for the love of all that is holy, keep your eyes and your senses wide open."
The impromptu and rather depressing meeting broke up into a murmur of low conversations. The members, previously paralysed by frustration, now began to organise themselves, the initial frustration slowly giving way to a grim determination, a silent unity. The Master's order was law. And the safety of the family came first.
I, for my part, remained in my privileged observation post on my old, dusty barrels, just watching, analysing, thinking. His strategy was solid, no doubt. But it was, in its essence, reactive. We were, for all intents and purposes, waiting for the enemy's next move. And in any game of chess, in any war, whether large or small, whoever just waits for the opponent's move is usually the one who takes the first, and often fatal, blow.
'(They attacked an empty, unprotected building,)' I thought, mentally replaying all the facts we had so far with a calculated coldness. '(It was a purely symbolic act. a public humiliation. But the provocation was extreme, disproportionate. They want a reaction from us. They are, most certainly, luring us into something. Into a trap.)'
My grey, analytical gaze passed slowly over everyone in the room, as if I were assessing pieces on a chessboard. Natsu, with his firepower and his complete lack of strategy. Gray, with his ice control and his wounded pride. Erza, with her unshakeable strength and her overwhelming sense of responsibility. Lucy, with her celestial keys and her vulnerable heart. The pillars of this noisy, chaotic, and now wounded guild. If Phantom Lord really and truly wanted to hurt Fairy Tail, it wasn't the wooden building they would target in their next attack.
It would be the members. The people. The "children" so beloved and protected by the Master.
A chill, which had absolutely nothing to do with the dampness and coldness of the cellar, ran down my spine with the slowness of a drop of poison. The real hunt, the real war, had not yet truly begun. That… that had been just the starting gun. And I had a terrible and growing feeling that the next target had already been chosen. And that he, or she, was right there, in that very cellar.