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The airship descended from the sky, and the figure that emerged beneath the scorching sun gave the wary members of Fairy Tail pause.
Hades had already shed his heavy armor and changed into simple robes. The Magic Staff he had not touched in decades was back in his hand, and he leaned on it as he slowly made his way down the steps.
Makarov stood at the front of the crowd. He watched with a complicated expression as the old man descended, his appearance and bearing almost unchanged from the day they had parted over forty years ago.
His teacher. The man who had entrusted him with the guild and walked away so gracefully, only to return now as an enemy who had tried to destroy it.
Confusion. Anger. Makarov had wanted desperately to demand answers, to ask how Precht, the person he had once respected above all others, could have changed so much. But Gildarts had already told him why.
So in the end, all that remained was a long, quiet sigh.
Stripped of his towering and incomprehensible ambition, Hades became Precht again. As he stepped off the battered airship and looked at his disciple, who was considerably shorter than he remembered, guilt settled over him like a weight.
"Makarov, I..."
"I already know."
Makarov's tone was measured and stiff. The man across from him was the elder who had raised and taught him, but that was precisely why what Precht had done was so hard to accept.
Magnolia had not suffered as much damage as it might have. The residents had evacuated to shelters early. But that was not the same as forgiveness. Makarov could not imagine what would have become of Fairy Tail if Noah had not been here, if the guild's stronger mages had not pushed through to a new level of power when they did. The margin had been far too narrow for comfort.
The surrounding guild members watched the exchange between Makarov and Precht with growing curiosity and unease. Their Guild Master and the enemy's leader knew each other. More than that, from the look of things, they knew each other well.
Makarov studied his teacher's hesitant face for a moment, then turned his back to him and said simply, "Follow me."
The onlookers stepped aside without a word. Precht didn't hesitate. He fell into step behind Makarov, his heart heavy.
Not a word passed between them the whole way. Precht let his gaze travel across the guild as they walked. The renovated building felt both familiar and foreign to him, familiar in its bones but strange in everything else. He had been gone for over forty years, after all.
They climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. Makarov pushed open the door to the Guild Master's office and walked in without ceremony, dropping himself onto the sofa and raising a newspaper in front of his face.
Precht's footsteps stopped in the doorway.
Through the doorframe, he saw an old man seated quietly on the far side of the room, holding a steaming cup of tea. The broad, powerful frame Precht remembered had grown lean with age, like old bark on a weathered tree, and the once-straight back was slightly stooped. But the smile on his lips had not changed at all.
"Precht, what are you still standing out there for?"
Warrod looked at his old friend with the same easygoing humor as always. "You're a grown man. Surely you're not waiting for your old brother to formally invite you in?"
Precht was silent for a moment. Then he walked into the room.
A quick look around told him that the office, aside from being somewhat larger, had almost the same layout as when he had left it.
"After the renovation was finished, little Makarov had it restored this way on purpose," Warrod said, pouring a cup of tea and setting it in front of Precht. "To commemorate you."
That single sentence made the guilt sit heavier than anything else could have.
Precht looked at the group portrait of the four founders hanging on the wall. What he felt now, looking at it, was only regret. Perhaps he should never have left at all. Perhaps he should have stayed, and watched the guild grow year by year, instead of chasing the furthest reaches of magic until he lost himself in the depths and couldn't find his way back.
"Makarov," he said at last. "What do you intend to do with me?"
He no longer harbored any hope of being forgiven. He only hoped that his mistakes would not become a burden his disciple would have to carry.
Makarov, however, had lived a life that had given him a great deal more than his teacher ever had. He might not rival Precht in magical knowledge or raw power, but in the things that actually mattered, in life experience and wisdom and the ability to let things settle rather than fester, Makarov was in a different class entirely.
He glanced once at his teacher's pleading expression, then quietly turned to the next page of the swimsuit gravure magazine he was reading behind the newspaper. A man of eighty-plus had every right to his enthusiasms.
"What to do with you," he repeated, not looking up. "You tried to attack Fairy Tail, but ultimately you didn't succeed. If the decision were mine alone, I'd throw you out of the guild and let you fend for yourself."
Precht was sharp enough to catch the phrasing. "If the decision were mine alone." That phrasing meant it was not. Had Makarov already passed the Guild Master's position to someone else?
His mind went immediately to the two who had boarded the airship that day. One was a middle-aged man named Gildarts, who had disposed of Bluenote, a man Precht had thought highly of, in an instant, and then faced Mard Geer, the Underworld King, alone. The other was the young man named Noah, who had effortlessly suppressed Precht even with the Devil's Heart at his back, and taken the Book of E.N.D. from Mard Geer's hands as though it were nothing. If anything, Noah's true depth was even harder to measure than Gildarts'.
In Precht's estimation, when Makarov chose his successor, it would come down to one of those two.
What Precht did not know was that one of them was a heavy drinker who treated the position like a burden, and the other was so thoroughly disinclined toward effort that even rolling over in bed felt like too much work. Neither had the slightest interest in becoming Guild Master.
As for Makarov himself, ever since his Magic Power had awakened on Tenrou Island, he had felt more vitality in him than he had in years. He figured the Guild Master's seat was his for at least another decade. After that, he had already decided: he would pass it to Erza, the most dependable person in the entire guild.
He said nothing more to Precht, returning his attention to the gravure collection carefully concealed behind the newspaper. Some things in life simply could not wait.
The office settled into silence. The only sounds were the soft rustle of turning pages and the gentle pour of tea being refilled. For Precht, it was its own kind of torment.
He was close to losing his composure when a knock came at the door.
"Warrod! Makarov! We're here!"
A small figure came bounding in first, pushing the door open with cheerful energy. The voice was light and full of warmth. But the sight of who it belonged to made Precht go utterly still.
Golden curly hair. Bright emerald eyes. The face of a young girl, innocent and vivid with life.
It was the very person Precht had spent decades dreaming of bringing back.
"Ma... Mavis?!"
"How are you..."
The words died before he could finish them. The two people who followed Mavis through the door struck him speechless all over again.
One was Zeref, the Black Wizard, the very man Hades had spent his life pursuing.
The other — Precht felt it the moment he saw him. That Magic Power. He would never forget it. It was the power of someone he had known, and lost, long ago. The child Mavis had left behind. The one Precht himself had abandoned.