"I won't accept this! Master!!"
"Why the hell did you expel Laxus?!"
"That guy is our comrade! We fought, sure, but we're still family!!"
"I haven't even settled the score with him yet!!"
Natsu stood in front of Makarov and shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing through the hall without pause.
Kael looked at him with pure irritation. "Enough, Natsu. You've been yelling all day. It's annoying. If you aren't sick of it, everyone else is. He was expelled, not erased from existence. It doesn't mean he can never come back."
Natsu froze, blinking. "Back?! Laxus is coming back?!"
"The guy crossed a line he shouldn't have. Expulsion is the law of the guild," Kael said, leaning against the counter. "Once he pulls his head out of his ass, realizes what he did, and proves he won't repeat it, he can be let back in."
Makarov looked at Kael, surprised by the blunt logic. As a grandfather, expelling Laxus was a knife to the heart, but it was necessary. As Master, he had to set a standard. If he didn't hold his own blood accountable, the guild's trust would shatter.
Natsu's eyes lit up. "Fine! Then let's just let him back in right now!"
"Do you think this is a game?!" Kael shouted. "Get lost and get to work. You still haven't paid for the wreckage you left in Magnolia."
There was no way Laxus was returning yet. The wounds in the guild were still raw; they needed time to heal before anyone could talk about forgiveness.
"Ugh..."
Compared to the others, the destruction Natsu and Gajeel caused was on a different scale. While most of the city was fixed, the areas they leveled would take weeks to repair, and the bill was massive.
Kael and Laxus had caused even more damage, but as S-Class mages, their earning power was unmatched. They had already cleared their debts.
Still, Kael was fuming. He had never seen such a massive amount of cash leave his hands at once. He needed an S-Class mission immediately to recover his share, but the guild hadn't received any new high-tier requests.
During this lull, Kael spent every waking hour training.
With his current magic reserves, he could maintain Gold Card transformations without meticulously counting every drop of energy. But he hated the "gap." Every time he deactivated a transformation like Gojo and returned to his base form, the massive drop in power was humiliating.
Magic was a high-tier energy, and the power scaling in the Fairy Tail world was immense. After clashing with Jose, Jellal, and Laxus, Kael realized that even with his strongest transformations, he was only hovering at the level of a Wizard Saint.
With the catastrophes lurking on the horizon, being "Wizard Saint level" wasn't enough. The urge to get stronger became a desperate, burning weight.
Somewhere in the sky, the airship of the Dark Guild Grimoire Heart drifted through the clouds.
"The Oración Seis? I see... they've started their move. What's the plan, Master Hades?"
Ultear used a crystal ball to track the ripples of dark energy.
"Let them be," Hades replied, a cold smile touching his lips. "If those fools start a war, the 'light' won't just sit and watch. We'll use the chaos to find the key to Zeref's seal. If we're lucky, a few of those eyesore guilds will be wiped out in the crossfire."
"Fairy Tail... among others?"
Hades didn't answer, but his predatory growl of a laugh said it all.
Fairy Tail Guild Hall
Kael sat cross-legged on the counter, bored out of his mind. Makarov was away at another conference, leaving Kael as the acting Master to guard the secrets hidden beneath the floorboards.
He hadn't wanted the job, but Makarov promised to snag a few S-Class missions from the other masters. That was the only reason he'd agreed to sit still. He hadn't been on a real mission in half a month, and he was starting to get restless.
"What is this supposed to be?" Lucy asked, pointing at a floating diagram. The guild members crowded around to see.
Reedus raised his hand. "Ah! I drew that. It's the structural map of the Dark Guild organizations."
"Why draw this now?"
Mirajane explained, her voice serious. "Because the Magic Council is in a state of chaos. The Dark Guilds are becoming active again. If we don't coordinate with the other guilds, the consequences will be disastrous."
"What's this massive bracket here?" Elfman asked, pointing to a huge section of the diagram.
"Juvia knows," Juvia said. "That is the greatest power in the underworld: the Balam Alliance."
"Balam Alliance?"
"Just like our league of official guilds, the dark side has its own pact to counter us," Mirajane said. "The Balam Alliance is the apex of that world. It's controlled by three massive guilds. Each one has dozens of subordinate guilds under them, effectively pulling the strings of the entire criminal world."
Lucy scanned the names, her face pale. "Wait! Eisenwald is here! They were under the Oración Seis?!"
Evergreen added, "The Ghoul Spirit guild we wiped out was under them too!"
"Yeah! Yeah!" Bickslow's dolls shouted aggressively.
After the internal war ended, the Thunder God Tribe had finally started to integrate back into the guild. They no longer kept their distance to satisfy Laxus's ego.
Juvia looked at Gray. "Juvia and Gajeel also destroyed several guilds under the Oración Seis when we were with Phantom Lord."
Lucy began to shake. "Great! I just hope they aren't looking for revenge!"
Fairy Tail had provoked them more times than she could count. She really didn't want to be on their hit list.
"There's nothing to worry about," two members laughed, dismissing the threat. "Rumor says there are only six of them. What a joke of a guild!"
Mirajane's expression turned lethal. "Don't be idiots! If only six people can maintain control over a third of the dark world, it means every single one of them is a monster."
Just then, Makarov's voice roared through the hall.
"Regarding the Oración Seis... it's been decided! We are going to crush them!!"
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