The guild's cellar, our new and glamorous headquarters, was a den of raw emotions, a suffocating mixture of impotent fury, palpable fear, and a stubborn determination that refused to be extinguished. It was, in short, a noisy, dimly lit, and terribly tiring cocktail for someone with my heightened senses and a low tolerance for collective drama. While Natsu expressed his frustration by punching a wall (very mature of him) and the others were divided between laments and whispered plans of revenge, I, as always, sought my sanctuary. I found a secluded corner, as far as possible from the emotional epicentre, sat on some old crates that smelt of dust and regret, and closed my eyes, trying to block out the external chaos and, more importantly, my own internal chaos that had been threatening to overflow since the scene in the square. Meditating in the midst of a pack of mages on the brink of war was an exercise in futility that would make a Buddhist monk weep with frustration, but I had to try.
I felt her approach before I even heard the soft steps of her armour. There was a hesitation in her walk, a deliberate gentleness that I knew she didn't use with anyone else. A way of announcing herself without startling me… or perhaps just afraid of interrupting one of my famous "power naps." Erza.
She stopped before me. The familiar smell of polished metal, strawberries, and pure, crystalline stubbornness hung in the air. I didn't open my eyes. The silent game was one of my favourites.
"Azra'il." Her voice was calm, devoid of that commander's authority she used to bring Natsu and Gray into line. It was… just Erza's voice. My Erza.
"If you've come to ask for my help in polishing your numerous and probably scratched swords, the answer is no. Today, I am officially on a break from unpaid manual labour," I replied, my voice drawling and purposefully disinterested, without moving a single muscle.
I heard a sound that could be interpreted as a sigh of exasperation, or perhaps, just perhaps, a stifled laugh. "No. I came to inform you of our next and immediate task."
"Our?" I finally opened one of my eyes, arching an eyebrow in pure, calculated scepticism.
"Yes, Azra'il. Our," she repeated firmly, and I noticed she wasn't wearing her full battle armour, the Heart Kreuz, but a lighter, more practical one. There was a deep seriousness on her face, but beneath the commander's mask, I could see a vulnerability, a concern that she rarely showed to others. "The Master has ordered us to stay in groups at all times. No exceptions. Natsu and Gray are already on their way to Lucy's flat to, supposedly, protect her. I… honestly, I wouldn't be at all at ease leaving those two alone with her furniture."
"A wise and financially prudent decision on your part," I agreed, with a nod. "They would probably set fire to the building accidentally, and that's before any enemy even shows up."
"Exactly." She paused for a moment, and her gaze, now, became even more direct, more intense. "And I also wouldn't be at all at ease if you stayed here, alone. Or," she added, with a sincerity that caught me off guard, "if I went there without you."
Ah. So that was it. The clever move. It was an invitation disguised as an order, wrapped in the logic of security. She was, subtly, including me as an indispensable part of the "group." That very same group that Natsu, in his eloquent stupidity, insisted on calling "the strongest team." How irritating. And, to my deep disgust, a little… moving.
"And why, exactly, would I go with you?" I asked, with a feigned boredom, just to test her, to see how far her argument would go. "As far as I know, the sentimental blondie is not my responsibility. And, as you well know, I detest unauthorised home invasions. Especially my own."
"Because, as irritating as it is to admit, Natsu is right," she said, and I could almost feel the effort it took her to admit it. "Whether we like it or not, the five of us… we've become a team. The strongest team. And a team, no matter how dysfunctional, protects its own. Lucy is our comrade. She is part of this family." She paused, her gaze softening for an instant. "And you… you are my partner, Azra'il. And my best friend. Therefore, by consequence, you are a part of it too."
Damn her impeccable logic and her disarming sincerity. She was, simply and directly, stating a fact. A fact that I, with all my sarcasm and my walls of indifference, had been desperately trying to ignore: that, somehow, inexplicably and entirely inconveniently, I had been dragged into this sticky web of bonds, loyalties, and responsibilities. And the way she said "my partner," with such a natural simplicity and certainty, leaving room for ambiguity, made something strange, warm, and wholly inappropriate stir in my chest.
I let out a long, resigned sigh, the sound echoing through the silent cellar. My long-dreamed-of peace and my glorious silence would have to wait a little longer. Again.
"So be it," I said, with the tone of a martyr going to the sacrifice, slowly rising from the crates. "But let it be duly recorded in the minutes that I am doing this solely and exclusively for you, Little Red, and for the possibility of seeing Natsu and Gray blow themselves up in the process. And not because of some sentimental and utterly unfounded nonsense about us being the 'strongest team in Fairy Tail'."
A small, genuine, and visibly relieved smile finally touched Erza's lips. A smile that, somehow, made all my effort worthwhile. How irritating. "Recorded," she said, her voice now a little lighter. She turned, starting to walk towards the cellar exit, her armour tinkling softly. "Let's go. And let's pray to all the forgotten gods that those two haven't completely destroyed the place yet."
"Oh, I wouldn't pray that they haven't destroyed the place, Erza," I murmured, with a dark smile, following her towards the light. "I'd pray that I don't destroy the place, and them along with it, after having to spend five precious minutes in the noisy company of those two idiots." The adventure, it seemed, was just beginning. Again.
The walk to the blondie's flat was made in a tense silence. Erza seemed lost in her own strategic thoughts, probably calculating the building's escape routes and the ideal lookout points. I, on the other hand, was calculating how many seconds of peace we would have before Natsu said or did something monumentally stupid. My most optimistic estimate didn't exceed thirty.
We arrived at the building and went up the stairs. The door to Lucy's flat was, as expected, broken down, hanging precariously from a single hinge.
Erza sighed, a long, weary sound that spoke volumes about her experience with those two. "I hope that was Natsu's handiwork and not the enemy's."
"Considering the level of subtlety, I'd bet on the flame-brain," I replied, entering the flat.
The scene that greeted us was one of chaos already in place, but still incomplete. The host of the disaster had not yet arrived.
Natsu was sprawled on Lucy's bed, on his back, snoring loudly as if he were in his own room. On top of the wardrobe, Happy had already discovered the underwear drawer and was examining a lacy bra with the curiosity of a scientist. "Hmm, what a strange shape for a fish..."
And, sitting in the chair near the desk and, of course, shirtless, was Gray. He was flicking through the manuscript of some novel or fanfic of Lucy's that was on her desk.
"That's an invasion of privacy, Gray," Erza said, her voice firm but with a touch of resignation.
Gray shrugged, without taking his eyes off the pages. "I'm just making sure there are no secret codes or enemy battle plans hidden here. Besides, her dialogue needs more impact."
I ignored the literary debate and walked to the kitchen, in search of something civilised to do amidst the barbarity. I opened her cupboards. My eyes widened, not in surprise, but in pure existential horror. Boxes. Small, colourful cardboard boxes. And inside them… bags. Small paper bags with a string.
"Camomile… peppermint… red berries…" I muttered, picking up one of the boxes with my fingertips, as if I were holding a dead insect. "Tea… in bags?"
I let out a sigh that came from the depths of my millennial soul. An offence. An abomination against all that is sacred in the art of infusion.
"How primitive," I said aloud, the disdain evident in my voice. "This isn't tea. It's leaf dust swept from the floor, packaged in scented toilet paper."
With an air of superiority I didn't even try to disguise, I summoned, from a small dimensional inventory space in the sleeve of my hanfu, my own personal jade teapot and a small, vacuum-sealed packet containing whole leaves of Snow Lotus tea. And, with a ritualistic calm, I began to prepare a proper infusion, creating my own little island of civility and good taste in the middle of this ocean of barbarity and teabags.
It was then that the door, or what was left of it, opened.
Lucy Heartfilia entered, carrying a few shopping bags and humming some terribly out-of-tune melody. And then, she stopped. Abruptly. On the threshold. Her smile froze. Her large brown eyes slowly widened, moving in slow motion from the sleeping, snoring figure of Natsu on her precious and probably very expensive bed, to the bizarre scene of Happy using her best and most delicate underwear as a makeshift hat, to the shirtless invader Gray reading her most secret and personal manuscripts, to the imposing and silent Erza sitting formally in one of her chairs like a judge about to deliver a death sentence, and finally, to me, the strange woman with wolf ears, preparing an exotic tea in her own kitchen as if I owned the place.
The silence that followed was thick, heavy, laden with a contained fury and, for me, absolutely glorious. It lasted exactly 4.7 seconds. I counted.
And then, like a dam bursting under the pressure of a storm, our dear Lucy's patience finally shattered into a thousand pieces.
"WHAT… THE… DEVIL… ARE… YOU… ALL… DOING… IN… MY… HOUSE?!" each word was spoken slowly, articulately, and laden with a promise of pain, suffering, and possibly, a celestial annihilation, that made even the sleeping Natsu stop snoring for an instant and shudder.
Erza, ever so calm and imposing, was the first to reply, with the naturalness of someone discussing the weather. "We are following the Master's direct orders, Lucy. We are here to protect you."
"PROTECT ME FROM WHAT?! FROM HAVING A CLEAN, TIDY FLAT WITH A MODICUM OF PRIVACY?!" Lucy screamed, the shopping bags finally falling from her trembling hands and scattering vegetables and fruits across the floor.
"Precisely," I said, without turning around, taking the first, divine sip of my Snow Lotus tea. "Disorder and lack of privacy are, as everyone knows, an excellent and proven tactical camouflage. It confuses the enemy."
"NO ONE ASKED YOU, YOU TEA-THIEF AND KITCHEN-INVADER!" she snarled at me, before turning back to the others with the glare of a furious demon. "GET OUT! ALL OF YOU! RIGHT NOW!"
"But Lucy, your bed is so soft and warm!" Natsu whined, rolling from side to side like a petulant child, now fully awake from Lucy's hysterical scream. He sat up in bed, legs crossed, looking like a small, irritating emperor on his makeshift throne.
"And your lacy fish are so pretty and comfortable!" Happy added, still parading with the bra on his head, completely oblivious to the danger.
"And, honestly, your protagonist really needs more depth and a better-developed character arc!" Gray concluded, with the seriousness of a true literary critic, before turning another page of the manuscript.
The scene that followed was a true and glorious comedy of errors. Lucy, in a fit of pure fury, tried, with all her strength and determination, to drag the dead weight of Natsu off her bed, but he, stubborn as a mule, didn't even budge. She then, frustrated, tried to snatch her precious and secret manuscript from Gray's hands, which resulted in a pathetic and scream-filled literary tug-of-war. And Erza? Ah, Erza. She just watched everything with an almost divine calm, solemnly declaring that, as the official supervisor of this operation, she could not interfere unless there was a "real and imminent threat to the physical integrity of one of the team members." Apparently, Lucy's sanity didn't count.
While the chaos unfolded, I continued to drink my tea peacefully, offering occasional, helpful, and entirely unsolicited comments. "You know, blondie, if you used the strength of your legs and not just your back to pull him, you might be able to move the flame-brain. Leverage is a fundamental principle of physics, you know? You should read a book about it."
Eventually, and entirely predictably, Lucy gave up, sinking into one of her chairs with a groan of pure and utter defeat, while the rest of us continued to desecrate her home.
"And, just for the record, your protagonist shouldn't fall in love with the villain in the second chapter. It's too rushed and removes all the suspense. Develop the romantic tension between them better," Gray advised seriously, before finally, and reluctantly, returning the manuscript to Lucy's desk.
Natsu, now bored of having no one to directly annoy and probably feeling the tedium of standing still, jumped off the bed and began to pace back and forth in the small and now overcrowded flat, nervous, destructive energy radiating from him in palpable waves.
"I still can't believe it! I can't!" he snarled, punching his own palm with a growing frustration. "That damned Phantom Lord completely destroys our guild, humiliates us, and the old man tells us to sit here and hide, as if nothing happened! We should be in Oak Town right now, kicking the arse of every single one of those bastards!"
"The Master gave an order, Natsu," Erza said firmly, her voice calm but with a warning tone that made even Natsu hesitate for an instant. "Our priority now is safety. And protecting each other."
"SAFETY IS BORING!" Natsu retorted with the irrefutable logic of a five-year-old. "I want to fight! That guy… whoever it was that destroyed our guild… I want to punch his face until he forgets his own name!" He stopped in front of the window, looking out at the city like a caged, hungry wild animal. "This is absolutely ridiculous. The strongest team in Fairy Tail, hiding like rats in Lucy's tiny flat."
Gray, who had finally deigned to put down the manuscript and pay attention to the conversation, snorted with irritation. "For the first time in my life, and I hope the last, I have to agree with the flame-brain. Sitting here, waiting, while those cowards from Phantom think they've intimidated us… it doesn't feel right at all."
"It's not about feeling right or wrong, Gray. It's about being smart," Erza corrected, with the patience of a saint. "They want us to retaliate recklessly and desperately. It's an obvious trap. And we are not going to fall into it."
"Then let's fall into the trap on purpose and blow everything up from the inside!" Natsu suggested with a manic grin, his logic, as always, a spectacle in itself.
I took another slow sip of my tea. "A surprisingly honest approach, coming from him. And entirely in character."
The night dragged on in this state of latent tension and growing boredom. Natsu's restless and destructive energy filled the small space, making it impossible for any of us to truly relax. He continued to grumble about the "cowardice" of waiting, to punch Lucy's innocent pillows, and to try, in vain, to convince us all that a surprise and utterly suicidal attack on Oak Town would, in fact, be a brilliant idea.
Gray remained mostly near the window, his calm exterior barely hiding the same bubbling frustration as Natsu. He and the Dragon Slayer exchanged occasional insults and veiled threats, but without the usual energy of a real fight. It was more of a shared, irritated exhaustion. Little Happy, sensing the heavy mood, eventually fell asleep on Natsu's head, like a blue, furry hat. And poor Lucy, finally defeated by the invasion of her home and the utter lack of sanity of her companions, gave up completely on trying to maintain order and simply sat at her desk, her head in her hands, probably wondering at what point in her life things had gone so, so wrong and how she had somehow become the official refuge for a collection of dysfunctional, super-powered mages with a total lack of a sense of personal space.
Erza and I, on the other hand, were sitting at the small kitchen table, in a rare and almost comfortable silence. She was polishing one of her many swords with a methodical, precise, and almost hypnotic movement, the concentration on her face a clear way of keeping her own considerable frustration under control. And I, for my part, was reading an old, dusty book that I had "borrowed" from the guild library, the dim lamplight illuminating the pages full of forgotten runes. The only sound in the flat, besides Natsu's occasional grumbles and Happy's soft purring, was the slow turning of a page and the gentle hiss of the polishing cloth on the steel blade.
"Thank you for coming, Azra'il," she said suddenly, her voice low and calm, without taking her eyes off the blade she was polishing with such care.
"You, with your impeccable logic and your tone of command, didn't give me much choice, if I recall correctly," I replied, with the same casualness, without taking my eyes off the complex runes of my book.
She stopped polishing for an instant and looked at me, her gaze serious and intense under the dim lamplight. "Even so. Your presence here… it makes things a little safer. And it makes me a little more… at ease."
I raised my gaze from the book for a brief instant, meeting hers in the silence of the night. There was a raw sincerity in her eyes, a rare vulnerability that she reserved only for moments like this, when the armours, both physical and emotional, were a little lower.
"You yourself, Titania, are more than enough to protect this group of misfits and probably the rest of the city," I said, my voice coming out a little softer and less sarcastic than I intended. "You know that as well as I do."
"Perhaps," she replied, and a small, rare, and almost imperceptible smile touched her lips, before vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. "But having you here by my side… it's… different. Better."
Before I could even think of deciphering the unexpected and somewhat disconcerting weight of that statement, she returned to polishing her sword with a renewed concentration, the brief, intimate moment of vulnerability effectively and entirely closed. And I, for my part, went back to pretending I was very interested in the runes of my book, while my heart, that stupid, treacherous organ, gave another small, irritating lurch.
The long, tense night finally gave way to a grey, rainy morning. Exhaustion had eventually conquered even Natsu's endless restlessness. Everyone, in one way or another, was asleep, scattered around the small flat as if they had been victims of a sleeping gas attack: Lucy, finally, in her own bed; Natsu, snoring on the fluffy rug; Gray, in an uncomfortable chair; and Happy, nestled in a laundry basket that he probably found very cosy. And me? Ah, I didn't sleep. I just watched. It was my job, after all. The babysitter.
Lucy was the first to wake, stretching with a pained groan. "They… they're all still here…" she murmured, her voice hoarse and her expression more one of tired resignation than of irritation. She looked out the window, at the rain falling outside. "At least the night was quiet. No sign of Phantom. No attacks. Maybe the Master was right, after all. Maybe they just wanted to scare us."
"The calm, my dear and optimistic blondie," I corrected with a calm voice devoid of any emotion, as I closed my book with a soft click, "is merely the time the enemy takes to reload their weapons and plan the next attack. Never, ever, mistake your adversary's silence for peace."
Erza, who, like me, also seemed to have only rested instead of truly sleeping, stood up with a renewed determination, her expression serious and focused. "Enough waiting. Let's go back to the guild. We need to see how the other members are, help with cleaning the rubble, and regroup. We've been standing still and hiding for too long."
With a palpable reluctance and many yawns and grumbles, we woke the others, and the process of leaving Lucy's flat was almost as chaotic, noisy, and destructive as our arrival. Finally, we went out into the rain-soaked streets of Magnolia. The city was slowly waking, but the mood in the air was still strange, heavy. The people, upon seeing us pass, still looked at us with that irritating mixture of pity and curiosity, whispering amongst themselves as we passed.
"But why are they still looking at us like that again, as if we're zoo animals?" Natsu grumbled, in the bad mood of someone who has just been torn from a deep sleep. "Haven't they already seen our destroyed guild yesterday? What's new?"
"It's different, Natsu. It's like they know something we don't yet," Gray commented, his dark, sharp eyes scanning the crowd with a growing suspicion.
It was then that we saw it. A little further ahead, a small crowd was gathered in the central park square, near the large and ancient Magnolia tree. They weren't chatting excitedly or shopping at the stalls; they were standing in a grim, shocked silence, all looking up at the tree, their faces contorted in expressions of pure and utter horror, shock, and disbelief.
"What… what's happening over there?" Lucy asked, concern and a bad premonition evident in her voice.
We approached cautiously, the bad feeling growing with every step we took, the crowd silently parting for us as they recognised us as members of Fairy Tail. "Excuse me, please," Erza said, her firm, authoritarian voice clearing a path for us through the silent and frightened crowd.
And then, we reached the front of the crowd. And we finally saw what they were all looking at.
And the world, or at least my small and newly built world of relative tranquillity and reluctant affection, stopped.
Pinned to the massive trunk of the great Magnolia tree, suspended cruelly and humiliatingly by blades of black iron that pierced their clothes and the bark of the tree as if they were grotesque insects in a sadistic entomologist's collection, were the wounded, unconscious, and bloodied bodies of Jet and Droy, two of the gentlest and most harmless members of our guild. And, hanging between them, even smaller, even more fragile, and even more vulnerable, was her. Levy McGarden. Small, fragile, her clothes torn, her body covered in bruises. And on her stomach, painted with a thick, cruel black paint, was the hateful emblem of the Phantom Lord guild. A target. A message.
The destroyed building… ah, that had been just a provocation. A statement of impersonal, arrogant power. Irritating, yes, but, deep down, just a pile of wood and stone. I had felt anger, yes, the cold anger of one who sees their property, their territory, being vandalised by inferior rivals.
But this…
This was completely, totally, and absolutely different.
I remembered Levy perfectly. The small girl with a love for books and knowledge that rivalled, and perhaps even surpassed, my own. The only person in that noisy guild with whom I could actually have a conversation about ancient runes and forgotten texts. The girl whose eyes shone with a genuine intellectual excitement when I, in a rare moment of generosity, had helped her decipher that stupid scroll about ancient magics. I also remembered Jet and Droy, the two overprotective idiots who followed her everywhere like loyal and slightly pathetic guard dogs, always ready to defend her from any threat, real or imagined. They were… they were kind. Harmless. An integral part of the noisy, irritating, and, to my horror, familiar cacophony of our guild.
And seeing that. Seeing them broken, humiliated, exposed, and treated not as opponents in a fair war, not as mages to be respected, but as mere hunting trophies, as objects to be discarded and used to send a message…
The cold ember of my fury, which I had contained with such effort the day before, did not explode into a hot, noisy flame this time. Oh, no. It collapsed. Imploded. And transformed into something far, far colder, far denser, and infinitely, cosmically more dangerous: a black hole of pure, absolute, and silent hatred.
[Critical alert. Critical alert. Unstable, high-magnitude energy surges detected. Power levels are dangerously exceeding containment seals level two and three. Immediate and forced suppression is recommended to prevent catastrophic collateral damage,] Eos's voice, for the first time since I could remember, sounded urgent, almost… terrified, in my mind.
(Negative, Eos,) I replied, my mental voice no longer human, but a low, cold, and guttural snarl. (Release containment seal level one. Now.)
[That is… Azra'il, that is utterly reckless and dangerous! The physiological and, most importantly, environmental consequences are entirely unpredictable and potentially devastating!]
(Do it.) My order was not a request. It was a law.
The air around me did not become heavy, as it had the day before. It became… empty. The warmth of the morning was instantly sucked away. The vibrant colour of the square, of the trees, of the sky, seemed to drain from the world, as if in an old, faded photograph. The sound of Lucy's suppressed sobs, of Natsu's pure roars of fury, of the shocked cries of the crowd… it all became a distant and unimportant echo. The ground beneath my feet, the stones of the square, began to freeze, a thin, delicate layer of unnatural, black ice spreading out in a circle from where I stood, an ice not made of water, but of pure, crystalline absence of life.
"Azra'il…" Erza whispered beside me, her voice a mixture of fear, reverence, and an admiration that frightened me. She could feel it. They could all feel what was happening.
It was no longer the crushing, chaotic pressure of yesterday. It was an absence. A vacuum of power so absolute, so cold, that it was, in itself, the most terrifying and fundamental of threats. My eyes, fixed on the horrific scene at the tree, were probably now glowing with an ethereal, icy blue light, utterly devoid of any warmth or emotion.
And in that moment, in that exact and terrible moment, I finally understood. The convenient lie I told myself, every day, that I was only here because of Erza, that I didn't care in the slightest for the rest of that noisy, idiotic, and sentimental guild… it was just that. A lie. A pathetic, fragile, and utterly useless lie, built to try and protect an ancient, tired, and calloused heart from getting attached again to something, or someone, that it could lose.
But, as always, it was too late.
They were not just "Erza's friends" or "those idiots from my guild." They were Levy, the small, clever reader. Jet and Droy, the two loyal and slightly pathetic bodyguards. Natsu, the loud idiot with a heart of gold. Gray, the irritating and surprisingly reliable nudist. Lucy, the sentimental blondie, but with an unexpected courage. They were… they were mine. My noisy idiots. My teammates. My… family. And someone, some insignificant coward, had dared to hurt them. Had dared to touch them.
A single, cold, and crystalline truth formed in my mind, as sharp, as cold, and as unshakeable as the black ice that was now spreading beneath my feet.
Master Makarov, with his wisdom and his love, was wrong. This, now, was no longer about a simple and stupid building. Those cowards from Phantom Lord had, in their infinite arrogance and stupidity, crossed the one line they should never, ever have crossed. They had touched the family.
And for that, and for that alone, the Phantom Lord guild would not just be defeated.
They would be, purely and simply, and with sadistic pleasure on my part, erased from existence.