Neither of them showed the slightest mercy in shutting him down, and Happy's fur practically stood on end at the rejection.
"That's so mean, both of you! Natsu, Gray! I'm part of the guild too, I'm a Fairy Tail mage too, why can't I be the leader?!"
"Because you're weaker than us," they answered in perfect, merciless unison once again.
With that settled, Natsu and Gray exchanged a glance before immediately picking their argument right back up.
"Gray, I'm stronger than you, so the team leader should be me."
"Ha, are you joking right now? A guy who gets motion sick can't even function on a train, and he wants to be team leader."
"Sh, shut it, that's only because we're on a train right now. The second we get off, I'll be stronger than you again!"
"Keep dreaming. Even off the train, I'll still be wiping the floor with you."
Watching the two of them go right back to ignoring him and bickering amongst themselves, Happy had officially had enough.
"You two! I'm plenty strong too, the leader should be me!"
Natsu: "It's me!"
Gray: "No, it's me!"
Happy: "Neither of you qualify, it should obviously be me!"
The argument only escalated from there, and none of the three noticed they'd started disturbing the other passengers in the car. Though "other passengers" was something of a stretch, since aside from the three of them, the only other person in the whole car was a young man seated a few rows away.
He had black hair pulled back into a short ponytail and unusually thin eyebrows. He'd boarded two stops back, but had kept his eyes closed and sat perfectly still the entire time, quiet enough that Natsu's group had completely forgotten there was anyone else in the car at all.
This young man, who appeared to be resting with his eyes shut, was in fact none other than Kageyama, a member of Iron Forest and the very target of Natsu's group's job. Iron Forest's members had spent this stretch of time scattered across the region hunting down Lullaby, and it was Kageyama who had finally tracked it down a few days ago, spending considerable effort cracking the seal on it. He was riding this train specifically to reach Oshibana Town, where he'd already gotten word his fellow members were regrouping.
He'd originally planned to catch a bit of rest, both from the exhaustion of breaking the seal and to avoid drawing unwanted attention. But the escalating argument from Natsu's group had him snapping his eyes open in irritation. Before he could get up and confront the three of them, though, the content of their argument caught his attention. Picking out words like "job," "mage," "Fairy Tail," Kageyama quickly pieced together exactly who he was dealing with: three naive, hot blooded mages from a proper guild, reckless enough to secretly take on a job well above their heads.
Kageyama had encountered plenty of this type before, sheltered rookies from the big guilds who had no idea how brutal the real world could be. Having clawed his way up from the bottom his whole life and eventually joined a guild as notorious as Iron Forest, he'd always held a particular contempt for these coddled little flowers, sheltered under the wings of their prestigious guilds.
Perhaps emboldened by the confidence of Lullaby tucked away against his chest, Kageyama rose from his seat and picked a fight with the members of a major guild without a second thought.
"Hey, you three brats. You're giving me a headache."
The three of them, still mid argument, all fell silent at once and turned toward the voice.
Taking in the sight of Kageyama, hands in his pockets, sneering as he sized them up, Gray's brow instinctively furrowed with irritation. Still, since they'd been the ones disturbing him first, Gray was the first to speak up and apologize.
"Sorry about that, we were being too loud, didn't mean to bother you."
Happy also recognized him as the passenger who'd boarded after them, sitting in their car, and scratched at the back of his head sheepishly, offering his own apology.
"Sorry for disturbing your rest. I've got a grilled fish here, if you don't mind, you can have it as an apology."
For Happy, offering up his most beloved fish was about as sincere a gesture as he could possibly make. But before he could even finish unwrapping it, Kageyama suddenly lashed out, grabbing him by the throat and yanking him clean off his seat.
"Damn cat, who wants your stinking fish. Can't you brats from the big guilds even apologize properly?!"
"Happy!!" Natsu and Gray both shouted at once.
Seeing one of his own family treated like this, Natsu, despite still being wrecked with motion sickness, let out a furious roar and glared at Kageyama. Gray shot up from his seat immediately as well, eyes narrowed and murderous, his clenched right fist already radiating a chill.
"Let go of Happy, or I'll freeze you solid where you stand!"
"Hmph, so worried about this dead cat, huh? Then catch him!"
Kageyama scoffed and hurled Happy straight at Gray. Gray threw his arms out and caught him without hesitation, only to take a brutal kick straight to the gut from Kageyama a second later, sending him crashing headfirst through the train window and out into open air.
Kageyama then raised his foot again, this time aiming for Natsu, who could only watch helplessly, still too sick to react in time.
Crack!
The wooden seat couldn't withstand the force and shattered into flying splinters. Natsu's body caved half into the wreckage of the seat, both hands clutching his gut from the devastating blow, and he finally lost the fight against his nausea, throwing up violently right there on the spot.
Watching two mages from a major guild get taken down this easily, one after another, only further cemented Kageyama's belief that these so called proper guild mages were nothing more than overhyped weaklings. He stepped back a couple paces, dodging the mess Natsu had just spewed, and curled his lip into a mocking sneer.
"There we go, that's more like it. You proper guild scum, hogging up all the best jobs and resources, you belong right down here with the filth you've made. Listen up, little Fairy Tail babies, Iron Forest is about to reshape the order of this entire world. And when that day comes, every last one of you high and mighty guild mages will get a proper taste of Iron Forest's revenge. We're about to usher in a brand new era, a glorious age that belongs to the dark guilds, and the dark guilds alone!!!"
Kageyama ranted on like a man possessed, laying out a small glimpse of their grand, lofty scheme. The arrogance and self assurance dripping from every word made it sound like the whole world was already theirs for the taking.
"Ha, is that it? Sounds like something you dreamed up in your sleep."
A soft, mocking cough, paired with an equally mocking remark, cut straight through Kageyama's grand vision of the future.