A subtle, almost imperceptible pressure brushed against Ultear's senses—the distinct feeling of being watched.
With a predator's instinct honed in the darkest guilds, she subtly turned her head, her sharp eyes seeking the source.
Her gaze landed on Anselion, the newest and most enigmatic of the junior council members.
But he was already looking away, his eyes half-lidded in a display of bored detachment, a gentle, unassuming smile gracing his lips.
He looked the very picture of a harmless, elegant nobleman, too refined for the cutthroat politics of the Council.
Ultear's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.
She was not a woman who was easily fooled by appearances.
As the de facto leader of the Seven Kin of Purgatory from the dark guild Grimoire Heart, Ultear had spent months carefully and successfully infiltrating the highest echelons of the Magic Council.
Her plan had been meticulous: manipulate the brainwashed Jellal, complete the Tower of Heaven project to secure immense power for her guild, and use their dual positions within the Council to steer events from the shadows.
Posing as the ghost of Zeref to control Jellal had been a masterstroke.
Everything was proceeding with flawless precision; she merely needed to bide her time, waiting for the perfect moment to set her grand design into motion.
But this newcomer, Anselion, introduced a variable she hadn't accounted for, and it made her profoundly uneasy.
On the surface, he was similar to Jellal—a young mage of formidable power, fast-tracked into the Council due to his potential.
But that was where the similarities ended.
While Jellal was a known quantity, a powerful puppet whose strings she held, Ultear could not see through Anselion's placid facade.
Her entire life, spent navigating the treacherous waters of dark guilds, had gifted her with razor-sharp perception.
She could smell deception a mile away, and every instinct screamed that this man had his own, deeply hidden agenda for joining the Council.
The fact that he had been making subtle, yet persistent, attempts to cross her path in recent days only confirmed her suspicions.
What exactly is his purpose? she pondered, her mind racing through possibilities even as she maintained a mask of cool indifference.
Her deep thoughts were interrupted as the circular arguments of the elderly council members finally sputtered to a close.
A wave of pure frustration washed over Ultear, an emotion she saw mirrored in the subtle tension of Jellal's shoulders and the carefully controlled stillness of Anselion.
After nearly three hours of tedious debate, the old fools had reached their typical, infuriating conclusion: to do nothing.
They would maintain a "wait-and-see" approach regarding Fairy Tail, refusing to commit to any concrete action.
'No action at all?' Ultear thought, her irritation simmering. 'Then what was the point of this entire theatrical display?'
This was the Council's defining flaw: a love for the sound of their own voices and a pathological aversion to decisive leadership.
They clung to the status quo with the desperation of the dying.
For Jellal and Ultear, who needed the Council to be a pliable tool, this inertia was maddening.
For Ankh, operating under the guise of Anselion, it was a test of his patience.
He could feel a vein throbbing in his temple.
If it weren't for the critical need to protect Fairy Tail from within this den of bureaucrats, he would never willingly subject himself to such pointless drudgery.
As the meeting formally adjourned, the ten council members dispersed like shadows retreating from the dawn.
Jellal, with his usual air of aloof authority, turned and strode towards his private council office.
Ultear fell into step just behind him, the perfect image of a loyal subordinate, though in reality, she was the puppeteer and he the strings.
It was a delicate dance they performed for prying eyes.
Anselion moved silently, his footsteps making no sound on the polished floor.
He timed his path to intersect with theirs, a seemingly coincidental passing in the vast, echoing corridor.
As he brushed past Ultear, his hand moved with the deftness of a pickpocket, a small, folded square of parchment transferring seamlessly from his fingers to her palm.
Jellal cast a cursory glance in Anselion's direction but dismissed him just as quickly.
In Jellal's current worldview, consumed by his grand mission, a junior councilor like Anselion was beneath his notice, a mere speck of dust compared to a Wizard Saint.
Ultear, however, froze for a fraction of a second, her entire body tensing.
She paused mid-step, her gaze sharpening as it fixed on Anselion's retreating back, trying to bore holes into his nonchalant facade.
"Ultear, what's wrong?" Jellal asked, noticing her hesitation.
She recovered instantly, shaking her head and offering a faint, dismissive smile.
"It's nothing. just a stray thought."
Satisfied, Jellal continued on his way.
The moment he was out of sight, Ultear's composure hardened.
She quickly unfolded the note concealed in her palm.
Her pale, slender fingers trembled almost imperceptibly as her eyes scanned the brief, damning message.
Her heart seemed to stutter in her chest.
Miss Ultear of the Seven Kin of Purgatory, I'd like to make a deal with you.
'How was this possible?! '
The mental shout was deafening in the silence of her mind.
He had seen straight through her meticulously constructed identity.
He knew who she was, which guild she served, and her rank within it.
Impossible!
She had been consummately careful, erasing every trace, covering every track.
Even if a council member harbored suspicions, they would be vague, unsubstantiated whispers.
But this… this was a direct and undeniable accusation. Anselion hadn't hinted; he had declared.
Ultear's beautiful features gradually darkened, a storm gathering in her eyes.
Her fingers clenched, crushing the parchment into a tight ball.
"Regardless of how much you know or how you found out..." she murmured to the empty corridor, her voice a venomous whisper, "...it doesn't matter anymore... The dead are the most reassuring confidants."
A cold, ruthless certainty settled over her. Since Anselion wanted to make a deal, she would play along.
It was the perfect opportunity to draw him into a controlled environment, a place where she could permanently eliminate this unforeseen threat.
A man who wanted something was a man with vulnerabilities.
She would exploit them, and then she would silence him.
Channeling a wisp of magical energy into her palm, she reduced the note to a fine, gray dust, letting it sift through her fingers and vanish into the air.
Slowly, deliberately, she schooled her features back into an expression of cool neutrality, burying the killing intent deep within her mesmerizing eyes before turning to leave.
...
Later that evening, Anselion sat at the large, mahogany desk in his private council office.
The room was lit by the soft, warm glow of a single candle, casting long, dancing shadows across the walls.
Before him lay a scattered stack of documents, each one a intelligence report concerning the Dark Guild Tartaros.
He had used his council authority to access the most restricted archives, but the haul was disappointing.
He picked up one report, then another, his eyes scanning the vague descriptions and unconfirmed rumors.
A bitter smile touched his lips.
'As expected of the most mysterious Dark Guild,' he thought. 'The Council's intelligence network is virtually blind where they are concerned.'
The files suggested that Tartaros's top executives, like the demon Seilah whom his true self, Ankh, had encountered, were not human at all.
They were supposedly demons, creations of the legendary black mage Zeref, brought into being centuries ago.
The rumors grew even more fantastical, claiming their leader, the Guild Master, was Zeref's ultimate masterpiece, a being known only as END.
However... they were just that—rumors.
Unverified, unproven, and utterly useless for any form of tactical planning.
There were no locations, no member lists, no concrete weaknesses.
Anselion rested his chin on his hand, deep in thought.
This was not a matter that could be forced.
Fortunately, time was a resource he still possessed.
According to his knowledge from a past life, the true storm was still about two years away.
That was plenty of time for Ankh, using both his public and secret identities, to lay the necessary groundwork and gather real intelligence.
His primary self, Ankh, was already en route to the capital of Fiore, tasked with a royal commission to hunt down remnants of the White Devil Cult.
It was a solid lead; squeezing information from that cult was his current best chance at finding a thread that led back to Tartaros.
As for his Anselion persona...
The candle flame on his desk suddenly flickered violently, as if caught in an unseen draft.
Anselion didn't look up from his documents.
A faint, knowing smile played on his lips as he softly addressed the empty room, his voice calm and conversational.
"Miss Ultear, since you have taken the trouble to come here, you may as well come in."
The door remained closed. There was no verbal reply.
Instead, the candle flame snuffed out completely, plunging the room into absolute darkness.
Simultaneously, the ambient magical light orbs embedded in the walls dimmed and died. Anselion was swallowed by an inky blackness.
His eyes, however, gleamed with anticipation.
A black glow erupted around him, and an intricately patterned magic circle, woven from pure shadow, materialized in the air before him like a shield.
From the depths of the darkened room, a crystal ball—gleaming with malignant energy—hurtled toward him with terrifying speed and force!
Anselion spread his arms wide in a graceful, welcoming gesture.
The defensive magic circle dissolved, but in its place, the shadows in the room came alive.
They surged from the corners, from under the desk, from behind bookshelves, converging like a tidal wave of black water.
This was Shadow Flow, a Lost Magic that went far beyond the common shadow manipulation spells found throughout Fiore.
It granted him sovereign command over darkness itself, allowing him to shape it into any form he desired.
The swelling tide of shadows met the crystal ball mid-air with a concussive boom, a shockwave of pure magical force rattling the books on their shelves and causing the desk to tremble.
Seeing her initial assault neutralized, the curvaceous figure hidden in the darkness recalled the crystal ball with a flick of her wrist.
Then, moving with the lethal grace of a jungle cat, she closed the distance in a blur.
She launched a devastating axe kick, her heel aimed with deadly precision at Anselion's forehead, capable of crushing stone.
But before the blow could connect, the shadow beside Anselion twisted.
It rose from the floor, solidifying in an instant into a three-dimensional, humanoid form composed of pure, impenetrable darkness.
Ultear's powerful kick struck the shadowy guardian with a dull thud, the force dissipating harmlessly against the ephemeral yet solid defense.
Ultear landed gracefully, her expression shifting from focused aggression to open irritation.
She glared at the shadowy sentinel.
This Shadow Flow magic was far more troublesome than she had anticipated.
Unlike simple elemental attacks, shadows were omnipresent; in a dark room, his ammunition and his shields were infinite.
The stories she had heard—that Anselion had crippled a far more powerful mage and escaped unscathed from a frenzied assault—now seemed less like exaggeration and more like sober fact. She had underestimated him.
As the shadow guardian melted back into the floor, Anselion calmly resumed his seat.
He reached for the coffee cup on his desk, the liquid still warm, and took a slow, deliberate sip.
The act was unbearably pretentious given the circumstances, a display of utter control.
He placed the cup back on its saucer with a soft click that echoed in the silent, dark room.
"The night is long and offers little respite from our thoughts, beautiful lady," he said, his voice calm and inviting.
"How about we set aside this violence and have a civil chat?"