The tower's crystal trembled as three powers collided.
Jellal came first, a golden blur cutting through the air like a furious comet. Meteor. The technique that allowed him to move at speeds that, I must admit, would be impressive for any ordinary mage of this world.
But to me, I saw him approach as if he were moving in slow motion.
(Slow.)
My body moved on pure instinct, a fluid and almost lazy side-step that made his golden fist pass mere inches from my face. The shockwave from the attack messed up my hair, which was irritating, but nothing more.
"You missed," I said, with a deliberately bored tone.
His eyes widened in shock; he clearly hadn't expected me to dodge with such ease, but before he could even process his failure, a scarlet blade cut through the air exactly where he had been. Jellal was forced to use another burst of Meteor to desperately dodge Erza's counter-attack, leaving a golden trail in the air as he retreated.
"You two—" he began, clearly frustrated.
"Shh." With an ironic smile, I brought a finger to my lips. "The adults are busy now, my dear. Wait your turn."
And the dance, the real dance, began.
Erza advanced, and in a flash of light, her armour transformed. Heaven's Wheel Armour. Her shining steel wings opened under the ethereal blue light of the crystal. She was, in essence, a hurricane of blades, each movement precise, calculated, deadly. Dozens of swords, summoned by her magic, floated around her like lethal satellites, awaiting her command.
"Blumenblatt!"
And the swords shot out in a multifaceted storm of steel, a deadly ballet coming from all directions. Jellal, in response, counter-attacked with a wave of celestial energy from his hands, destroying some of the blades in the air, but not all. It was impossible. Three swords found their target, leaving superficial but significant cuts on his arm, his leg, and his torso.
First blood. And it was Erza's.
(Good girl. Show him who he's dealing with.)
I did not advance. Not yet. Instead, I began to move in a wide arc, flanking, observing, waiting for the right moment. I knew my role in this fight.
This fight, fundamentally, was not mine.
If I wanted to, truly wanted to, I could have ended this before it even began. A single movement. A single, simple cut. Jellal Fernandes's head would be rolling across the crystal floor like a ripe fruit before his brain even had the chance to register that something was wrong.
But this was not about me. It never was. This was about Erza. It was about her, finally and for once and for all, facing the ghost that had haunted her for almost a decade.
My job, my role, my only purpose here… was to ensure she had that chance, without interruptions.
"Do you really think you can defeat me, Erza?! After everything?!" Jellal snarled, his golden aura flaring with more intensity around him, the pain of the cuts only fuelling his rage. "I was the one who gave you everything! Your name! Your hope! And this is how you dare to repay me?! With betrayal?!"
"You gave me nothing, Jellal." With a new flash of light, Erza Requipped, the Flame Empress Armour replacing the previous one in the blink of an eye. Flames danced around her like a living, furious cloak. "You took. Manipulated. And destroyed. And now, at last, you will face the consequences of your actions."
She advanced again, her flaming sword cutting through the air in a wide, powerful arc. Jellal, surprised by the change in tactics, blocked the blow with an improvised barrier of celestial light. But the raw impact, the sheer force of Erza's attack, made him retreat. Two steps. Three.
And I watched, from the shadows, with a pride so intense it almost hurt.
(That's… that's my little red.)
[I must point out, Azra'il, that Erza Scarlet's current attack power level, even with her most powerful armours, is approximately 73% of what is necessary to defeat Jellal Fernandes in a singular and direct combat. His advantage in raw power is still significant.]
(I know, Eos. I'm not blind.)
[And that you, even in your current state and with multiple containment seals active, could neutralise him in approximately 0.3 seconds, if you so wished.]
(I know that too, you meddling and poetically-soulless AI.)
[So, for the sake of pure logic and efficiency, why not—]
(Because, Eos, she needs this. She needs to be the one to take him down. Not me. Her. And I am not going to take that from her.)
Seeming to realise that brute force would not be enough against Erza, Jellal decided to change tactics and resort to heavy artillery.
"Grand Chariot!"
Seven golden magic seals formed in the air high above us, shining like artificial and deadly stars, arranged in the exact shape of the Big Dipper constellation. Celestial energy crackled between them, accumulating power for a devastating area-of-effect attack.
"Erza, three o'clock, watch the trajectory!" I shouted, more out of instinct than necessity.
But she, as always, was already moving. A new Requip, the imposing Adamantine Armour. The massive and almost indestructible shield of the armour materialised on her arm the exact moment the seven beams of celestial light shot towards us.
Two of the rays collided with her shield in an explosion of light and sound, making the armour visibly crack under the pressure. But it held. With a quick spin, Erza managed to dodge the third ray, which zipped past her.
The other four, with a deadly precision, came directly towards me.
I sighed. What a lack of creativity.
My Jian moved four times. Four cuts so fast they were almost invisible. Four arcs of pale-blue light, silent and precise, that intercepted the celestial rays in mid-air, dispersing them, undoing them as if they were mere threads of smoke.
The silence that followed that casual display of power was almost palpable.
"'Grand Chariot'?" I tilted my head, keeping my wooden sword in a low, relaxed guard, as if nothing had happened. "Seriously, Jellal? That's the name of your most powerful special attack? It's the magical equivalent of calling a deadly attack 'Super Bicycle' or 'Incredible Flying Kick'. Very intimidating."
And I saw it. I saw a small vein throb on his forehead.
(Good.)
"You… you wretch…" Jellal pointed at me, his voice now trembling with a barely contained fury. "How did you do that?! How dare you?! That attack should be impossible to block so easily! No one should be able to—"
"Should they?" I examined the blade of my Jian with an air of feigned disinterest, as if I were looking for scratches on the wood. "Hmm. How strange. It seemed quite… blockable to me. Perhaps you should practise your aim more. Or perhaps the name of the attack is simply too bad to work properly."
"SHUT YOUR BLOODY MOUTH!"
And, as I had expected, he took the bait.
This time, he advanced on me, abandoning Erza temporarily, blinded by rage and wounded pride. Meteor propelled him at absurd speeds, his fists and kicks now infused with a crackling golden celestial energy, raining down on me like a storm of falling stars.
With an almost palpable boredom, I dodged the first punch by tilting my head a mere two centimetres to the left.
I blocked the second, a powerful blow that could have broken bones, with the back of my hand, as if swatting away a fly.
I let the third punch pass harmlessly between my arm and my torso, without it touching me by a millimetre.
"You are slow," I said, with an irritating calm, as I dodged a high kick with a simple step back. "Predictable." A right hook zipped through the space where my head had been half a second before. "And, honestly, Jellal?" I ducked under a cross punch, taking advantage of the opening to fluidly appear behind him. "You are a bit… disappointing, for all the drama."
He spun around, his eyes wide with fury and disbelief, and found the tip of my simple wooden Jian mere inches from his nose.
"Boo."
The expression of shock, fear, and humiliation on his face was, frankly, almost comical.
I could, without the slightest doubt, have killed him right there.
The distance was perfect. A single, simple movement of my wrist, and the ancient wooden blade, infused with my energy, would have passed through his skull as if it were butter. He wouldn't even feel it. He wouldn't even notice. One second he would be alive, arrogant, and full of power. And the next, he would be just an empty body, falling to the floor.
But instead, I lowered my sword and took a deliberate step back, breaking contact.
"Erza," I called, without taking my eyes off him, keeping him pinned with my gaze. "He's all yours."
Jellal blinked, confused by my hesitation. "What—"
And a massive, armoured fist collided with the side of his face with the force of a freight train.
Erza, now in the fearsome Purgatory Armour, a black, spiky, and absolutely intimidating suit of armour that dramatically increased her raw offensive power, had hit him full-on while all his attention was focused on me.
With a cry of pain, Jellal flew backwards, colliding with one of the crystal walls with such force that it cracked with the impact, like a spider's web.
"Never, ever, turn your back on your true opponent," Erza said, her voice cold and relentless, as she positioned herself over him. "It is the most basic and most important lesson of combat, Jellal. I thought you knew that."
And the fight intensified.
Erza was, indeed, a true force of nature in the Purgatory Armour. Every blow from her massive, serrated sword made the entire tower tremble. Every movement was a declaration of war, not just against Jellal, but against everything he represented: the betrayal, the pain, the suffering. It was years, almost a decade, of contained anger, of repressed pain, of a guilt that was not hers… all of it was being channelled now, in every violent arc of her black sword.
And I, as the good and discreet partner that I am, remained on the fringes of the battle, intervening only when it was truly necessary. Like a silent shadow.
When Jellal, in a moment of desperation, tried to flank her from behind, I was there, my simple Jian silently blocking his path, forcing him back into Erza's fury.
When he, in another attempt, prepared another Grand Chariot, I, with an almost disdainful speed, cut each of the magic seals before they could even complete, undoing the spell before it was even born.
And when he used his darkness magic, Bind Snake, a venomous snake of shadows that slithered across the floor towards Erza's unprotected legs, I, with a simple stomp, crushed it to the floor and dispersed it with an almost imperceptible pulse of my own, far superior energy.
"Irritating… you two are irritating and insufferable!" Jellal snarled, blood now trickling from a deep cut on his eyebrow.
"Thank you," I replied with a sweet smile. "I try very hard to be so."
"Meteor: Full Drive!"
And Jellal, in a final, desperate act, disappeared.
No, he didn't disappear. He accelerated. His speed, which was already impressive, doubled. Tripled. He became a mere blur of golden light that ricocheted madly off the crystal walls of the hall, each impact sending shockwaves and shrill sounds through the room.
And then, like a meteor shower, he began to attack.
Blows came from all directions at the same time. From above, from below, from the left, from the right, in impossible and unpredictable diagonals. Erza, even with her superhuman reflexes, could barely keep up. She blocked the first three blows, the sound of metal on metal echoing like church bells. But the fourth hit her hard on the shoulder, making her stagger. The fifth, on her back. And the sixth made her finally fall to her knees on the crystal floor.
"ERZA!" With a snarl of fury, I moved to intercept—
"NO, AZRA'IL!"
Her voice, firm and full of a stubborn pain, stopped me in my tracks.
She was on her knees, panting, sweat and blood running down her face. But her eyes… her brown eyes were burning with a light that was brighter than any fire.
"I have to… I have to do this," she said, her voice choked with pain, but with an unshakeable determination. "You said it yourself, Azra'il. That it was about me." With a monumental effort, she got to her feet, staggering but determined, her sword still firm in her hand. "So, please… let me finish."
And I hesitated. Every instinct in my being, every fibre of my ancestral body, screamed at me to intervene. To end this. To protect her...
But she was right. Damn it. She was terribly right.
"…Alright, Erza." With a reluctance that was almost physical, I lowered my Jian. "The fight is yours. But let it be known: if I feel that your life is in danger… I will intervene. No argument."
She nodded, and a small, but genuine and brave, smile crossed her bloodied lips.
And then, she Requipped again.
But the armour that appeared on her body, in a flash of silver light, was none that I had ever seen before.
For a moment, I really thought my eyes were deceiving me. That the exhaustion of this whole journey, or perhaps the stress of seeing Erza being beaten, was making me have hallucinations. Because what was in front of me, at that moment, simply made no sense at all.
It was not made of heavy and intimidating metal.
It was not composed of blades, of dragon scales, or of the raw and crushing power that I normally associated with Erza's armours.
It was… silk.
A hanfu. As pure white as freshly fallen snow, with delicate silver details that caught and reflected the bluish light of the crystal around us. The sleeves, long and flowing, exactly in the same style as mine. A wide and elegant sash at her waist, of a deep scarlet red, embroidered with the subtle design of delicate cherry blossom petals that seemed to dance with her every movement.
And her hair… her hair was also different. Tied up in a style that I recognised intimately, with a familiarity that broke my heart. A high and elegant bun, with loose and perfectly arranged strands framing her face, and held in place by a delicate ornament in the shape of a silver lotus flower.
It was the exact hairstyle I used when I wanted to get properly dressed up. It was the exact hairstyle that I, on rare and silent nights at Fairy Hills, used to do on her, when we were younger.
And in her hand, held with a grace she did not usually possess, a sword that made my heart skip a beat.
A Jian. Like mine.
Elegant. Light. With a thin, silver blade. And a guard in the shape of delicate cherry blossom petals, and a hilt that shone with an icy tone that perfectly matched the white of her attire.
(She… she really…?)
[Azra'il? I must inform you that your heart rate has increased by 73% in the last few seconds. This is a significant statistical anomaly. Should I infer that—]
(Eos. Silence. Now. Please.)
Jellal, who was about to attack again, had also stopped, clearly confused and a little perplexed by the sudden and unexpected change.
"What the devil is this, Erza?" he asked, his tone laden with a genuine contempt. "Have you, by any chance, swapped a real suit of battle armour for… party clothes? Have you finally gone completely mad?"
But Erza, to my surprise, did not answer him.
Instead, she slowly looked at me.
And there was something in her eyes at that moment that I had never, ever seen before. Something vulnerable. Almost shy. As if she, the great and powerful Titania, were waiting for my reaction, for my approval, with her heart in her hand.
"I… I commissioned this armour a few months ago," she said, her voice so soft I could barely hear her, clearly speaking only to me. "It was meant to be a surprise, actually. For a special moment, perhaps while we were training together. For when… for when we…" she hesitated, and I saw a faint, adorable colour rise to her cheeks. "I just… I just wanted to show you that I pay attention, you know? That I see you. That I notice the little things you like, the way you dress, the elegant style you bring from… from wherever you learned to fight."
With her free hand, she gently touched the red sash at her waist, her fingers delicately tracing the embroidered cherry blossom petals.
"This kind of clothing, the hanfu, is not common in Fiore," she continued, her voice still low. "But you wear it. And I, honestly… I've always liked seeing you wear it. I've always thought it looked very beautiful on you."
And then, with an almost painful hesitation, she raised her hand to touch her own hair, now tied up in such a familiar way.
"You… you used to do this exact hairstyle on me, remember? When we were younger. You used to say I looked pretty like this." And a smile, a small and trembling smile, crossed her lips. "I never forgot that, Azra'il. Never."
And I, for the first time in longer than I could even remember, opened my mouth to reply.
And, to my utter surprise, no sound came out.
I, Azra'il Weiss, the creature of a thousand voices and a thousand lives, the entity who had discussed philosophy with gods and traded insults with demons, was, at that moment, completely… speechless.
(She… she really did it. She remembered. She paid attention. She had an entire outfit made… based on me.)
"Erza—" I finally managed to begin, my voice hoarse.
"You don't have to say anything now," she interrupted me quickly, her face still visibly flushed. "I know, I know, the timing is dreadful. Utterly inappropriate. And we are, literally, in the middle of a fight for our lives. I just…" she took a deep breath, as if to gather her courage. "I just needed something, anything, to remind me what, exactly, I am fighting for. And… and thinking of you, Azra'il… that always gives me strength."
Jellal, on the other side of the room, made a sound of pure, crystalline disgust.
"What a pathetic scene," he said, his voice laden with a venom that could kill plants. "You, Erza, are in the middle of a battle for your own life, and you are, pathetically, making romantic declarations? This is ridiculous."
And Erza, finally, with a deliberate slowness, turned to him.
And the vulnerability that had been in her eyes a second before, the shyness, the hesitation… it all completely disappeared. And in its place, there was something far, far more dangerous.
Clarity. Cold and absolute clarity.
"You really don't understand anything, do you, Jellal?" she said, assuming a fighting stance with her new and elegant Jian. And the silver blade, somehow, seemed to shine even brighter under the light of the crystal. "You never did, actually. You spent years and years completely obsessed with power. With Zeref. With this stupid tower of yours. And you never, not for a moment, understood that there are things far more important and far more powerful in the world than that."
With a grace I had never seen her use before, she advanced a step.
"This, Jellal, is not a romantic declaration in the middle of a battle. This, you blind idiot, is me finally understanding and declaring out loud what, and who, I am truly willing to fight for."
The fight that followed that declaration was completely different from everything that had come before. Erza, now, was no longer fighting with the blind fury of vengeance. She was no longer fighting with the weight of pain, of guilt, or of fear.
She, now, was fighting with a purpose.
The silver Jian in her hand danced as if it had been born for her, as if it were an extension of her own soul. Her movements, previously so focused on brute force and crushing power, were now fluid, elegant, precise. They were movements that she, clearly, had seen me do hundreds, perhaps thousands of times, in our training. They were movements that she, apparently, had not only studied, but memorised. And, more importantly, adapted for herself, for her own style.
With a quick spin, the long sleeves of her white hanfu flowed around her like the silk wings of a bird, and the blade of her Jian cut a silent, silver arc in the air. Jellal, surprised by the change in style, dodged by mere centimetres, his face now showing a genuine surprise and a hint of uncertainty.
"You… you've changed your fighting style," he said, almost as an accusation.
"No, Jellal. I have evolved," Erza corrected, with a deadly calm. "Something that you, in your stagnation and in your obsession, have never been able to do."
And she advanced again, with a sequence of three quick and precise cuts that forced Jellal to retreat, to defend himself clumsily. Her Jian sang in the air, a high, clean sound, each movement precise, calculated, deadly. And the small, embroidered cherry blossom petals on her red sash seemed, somehow, to come to life with every step she took, as if they were dancing with her.
Jellal tried to use his Meteor again to gain an advantage, but Erza, with an anticipation that bordered on premonition, had already foreseen it. Her Jian cut through the air exactly where he would appear, half a second before he had even got there, forcing him to retreat in the air.
"Impossible… how did you know…?!" he shouted, genuinely shocked.
"It's not impossible, Jellal." Her silver blade, with a speed he had not expected, cut through his magical defence, leaving a deep red groove on his chest. "It's not divination. It's instinct. It's clarity. It's, at last, knowing exactly what, and who, you are fighting for."
And another cut. And another. And another.
And I, from the sidelines, just watched, completely mesmerised, as the woman I loved transformed, before my eyes, into something even stronger, even more beautiful, even more… magnificent.
[Azra'il, I must inform you that your dopamine and serotonin levels are, at this moment, at levels that I have never, ever recorded in all your existential files. It is… fascinating.]
(Fascinating, Eos. And a little frightening, isn't it?)
Jellal was retreating now, completely on the defensive for the first time since the fight had really begun. Blood was trickling from half a dozen superficial but precise wounds, and his golden aura, once so imposing, was now flaring irregularly and weakly.
He was losing.
And he, at last, knew it.
"THAT'S ENOUGH OF THIS!"
His voice, now, was not that of a god, but of a desperate man. It echoed through the crystal hall like thunder, laden with the fury of humiliation and the panic of imminent defeat.
And then I felt it.
A sudden change in the air. A crushing pressure. Something accumulating rapidly, compressing, becoming increasingly dense and unstable. The very light around us seemed to darken, as if it were being sucked up and devoured by a single point in space.
With a shiver of foreboding, I looked up and I saw it.
A sphere.
Small and almost insignificant at first, but growing rapidly with every second. It was black. A darkness so deep it seemed to reflect no light at all. It was like looking into the very void that exists between the stars, so dense that the very light around us seemed to be sucked up and annihilated by it. And the air, in a radius of several metres, began to move towards it, as if an impossible and distorted gravity were pulling everything into it.
[ALERT. AZRA'IL, I AM DETECTING A GRAVITATIONAL ANOMALY OF LARGE AND GROWING MAGNITUDE. THE ENERGY PATTERNS ARE CONSISTENT WITH…]
(Yes, Eos. I've noticed. How marvellous.)
Altairis.
The Forbidden Black Magic. The blow that, theoretically, killed anything it touched. The miniature of a black hole, a point of pure annihilation, that destroyed everything in its path, even magic itself.
Jellal, now, was smiling. But it was not a smile of confidence. It was the wild, desperate, and completely insane smile of a cornered animal ready to die, as long as it took its enemies with it.
"You were always special, Erza," he said, his voice echoing with the power of the black magic he had conjured, "too special to simply die like an ordinary person. But since you, in your foolishness, will not be mine… since you will not fulfil your glorious destiny…"
And the black sphere, now the size of a small carriage, grew even larger. The crystal floor around it began to crack and crumble, with small fragments being sucked up and disintegrated by the black vortex.
"…then, with absolute certainty, you will not be anyone else's!"
And I prepared to intervene.
That, at last, was too much. I had promised myself to let Erza fight her own, meaningful battle. But I was definitely not going to let her be annihilated by a dirty and desperate trick from a sore loser. I—
"ERZA!"
A male voice. Deep. And surprisingly familiar.
Simon.
He emerged from one of the crystal side corridors, and his massive body was already moving to intercept the attack, with the determination of an enraged bull. I saw the look in his eyes, that same idiotic, noble, and heroic look I had seen in so many people throughout my long and tiring existence.
The look of someone who is, without the slightest hesitation, ready to die for someone else.
"GET OUT OF THE WAY, SIMON, YOU IDIOT!" Erza shouted, but it was too late.
He threw himself, with all his strength, between Erza and the black sphere of Altairis.
(No.)
The thought was instantaneous. Cold. Absolute. Not a decision. A pure and simple reflex.
Simon. He was her childhood friend. The gentle giant. One of the few who were left from that terrible time in the tower. One of the few and precious people that Erza, in her wounded heart, still loved from that time of darkness.
If he died here, now, right in front of her, sacrificing himself for her… I saw, with a horrific and perfect clarity, an Erza, kneeling, holding his lifeless body. I saw the light, the hope, extinguishing from her eyes. I saw the guilt, the terrible and corrosive guilt, that would consume her, and always thinking "what if?". "What if I had been stronger?". "What if I had been faster?".
I saw my little red, my Erza, breaking from the inside in a way that might be very difficult to fix. And she… she looked so beautiful in that new outfit she had made for me. So beautiful, so strong, so… perfect.
And I was not, in any way, going to let that idiot Jellal spoil that moment. Spoil her.
(I will not, under any circumstances, let that happen.)
[Azra'il, no! You cannot use that power! Your current body cannot handle—]
(I know perfectly well what I am doing, Eos.)
[Your body will collapse! The seals will break and—]
(IT WILL HAVE TO HANDLE IT.)
I crossed the distance that separated us in less than the blink of an eye.
Faster than Jellal's Meteor. Faster than thought itself. In one instant I was behind Erza. And, in the next, I was already between Simon's massive body and the deadly black sphere of Altairis. My hand pushed the man's shoulder with a force that sent him flying metres away, to safety.
And then, with the sphere of pure destruction mere inches from my front, with its gravitational power already trying to disintegrate me, I, with a calm I had not felt in centuries, raised my open palm.
And, without asking for permission, I called upon something that this world, in its long and turbulent history, had never, ever seen.
It was not an elaborate summoning.
It was not a complex ritual. It was not a respectful request, a careful negotiation, or a desperate bargain.
I simply, and with the authority of one who does so by right, took it.
In the deepest depths of my soul, in a place I normally kept locked, chained, and guarded, there was a door. An ancient door, made of stellar flames, which I rarely opened. Because what was on the other side was… complicated.
For an instant, which felt like an eternity, I felt her on the other side of the door.
My other half. The ancestral entity that had merged with me so, so long ago. The primordial force that, in its essence, represented both absolute destruction and glorious rebirth, in an endless cycle. The firebird that, in its long and lonely existence, had already burned entire galaxies to ash and, from those same ashes, given life to new and shining stars.
I had no time, or patience, to ask for permission. That was not normally how our relationship worked, but desperate situations, as they say, call for equally desperate measures. (Later, I will apologise properly to her.)
I simply opened the door and took what I needed.
(Phoenix!)
The fire that exploded from me was not red.
It was not orange, nor yellow, nor my usual blue, nor any other colour that a normal fire or even a magical fire should have.
It was white.
A pure, incandescent, dazzling white. As white as the pulsating heart of newborn stars. As white as the core of the hottest suns. As white as the beginning of all things and, perhaps, the end of all others. A white that, curiously, did not burn the eyes, but which, somehow, was impossible to ignore. It was as if the very and primordial essence of light had decided, for a brief moment, to manifest itself in its purest and most overwhelming form.
The flames spread around me in a silent wave, which should have melted the tower's crystal, vaporised the air, incinerated everything in a radius of many, many metres.
But they did not.
Instead, they simply existed. Dancing softly and slowly around me, like the petals of an impossible flower, of a white fire lotus.
And behind me, in the air, I felt the shape, the presence, materialise.
Wings.
Enormous. Immense. Glorious. Made of pure and crystalline white fire, that crackled and danced with a life of its own, with a consciousness of its own. Each of its feathers was an individual and sentient flame. And every subtle movement sent waves of a heat that was, at the same time, purifying and annihilating, a heat that made the very air, space itself, ripple.
A head. A sharp beak. And eyes. Eyes that shone like supernovas trapped in tiny orbits.
The silhouette of the firebird rose behind me like an inverted shadow, like the ethereal projection of something that, in fact, existed on another plane of reality, in another dimension. It was not a physical creature, not really. It was a manifestation. A small, tiny, and carefully controlled projection of the power that, for ages, had slept silently in the depths of my soul.
But, for all practical purposes, it was real enough to be seen.
Real enough to be felt.
And definitely real enough to make the entire tower vibrate and groan with its mere and overwhelming presence.
The Altairis, the black sphere of impossible gravity, finally met my outstretched hand.
And, simply… stopped.
The black sphere, the vortex of destruction, the blow that, theoretically, should have destroyed everything in its path, was simply stopped by a small, pale palm, now covered by a thin glove of white fire. I could feel its crushing force pressing against my hand. I could feel the distorted gravity, the light being sucked into it, the very fabric of reality protesting against its existence.
It was, I must admit, an impressive spell.
By the limited standards of this world, it was, without a shadow of a doubt, devastating. Catastrophic. An attack that could, indeed, destroy mountains and annihilate armies.
But, compared to the power that I, at that moment, held in my hand…
It was just a small candle trying to compete with the dazzling glare of the sun.
With a calm I had not felt in a long time, I closed my hand.
And the Altairis, as if obeying a divine command, compressed under the pressure of my fingers. It shrank. Its impossible gravity was tamed. Subjugated. Reduced. And then, with a sound that was almost like a small, pathetic sigh of relief from the universe, the black sphere of pure destruction simply… disappeared.
It was not destroyed. It was not deflected.
It was… suppressed. Nullified. Erased from existence by the white fire of creation, as if it had never, ever existed.
And the Phoenix, my Phoenix, behind me, with a silent majesty, flapped its wings. Just once.
And the pressure that spread through the crystal hall was not just physical.
It was existential.
And Jellal, the self-proclaimed god of that tower, staggered.
First it was his legs. They simply… gave way. They buckled under his weight as if his bones had turned to water, as if his muscles had suddenly forgotten how to function. He tried, desperately, to get up, but his body simply no longer obeyed his commands.
His entire body gave way as if someone, somewhere, had cut the puppet's strings. He collapsed onto the crystal floor with a dull thud, his pale face pressed against the cold, shining surface, his eyes wide, his mouth open in a silent scream that never, ever came out. His fingers scratched at the crystal without force, without direction, his body reacting in pure, primitive terror to what his limited mind could not even begin to process.
But, before he completely lost consciousness, I saw it.
I saw the exact moment when he, at last, understood.
"That…" his voice came out strangled, a thread of sound that barely seemed human, full of a terrified reverence. His eyes, which had lost all their arrogant glint, were now fixed, mesmerised, on the ethereal and incandescent form of the Phoenix behind me, and wide with pure terror. "That… that is… is greater than…"
And his eyes, finally, met mine. And there was something there, behind all the fear, all the terror.
Revelation. Understanding. And the end of an era of arrogance.
"…is greater than Zeref," he completed, his voice failing in a whisper of raw disbelief. "This power… this power is… is greater than anything that… that should exist in this… in this…"
The pressure of the Phoenix, which I could barely control, increased a little, not intentionally, but just as a side effect of its presence. And the air around Jellal grew dense, heavy, almost solid, impossible to breathe. The very and primordial weight of my existence, of my true existence, was, literally, crushing him.
And it was, for his fragile and human mind, simply too much to bear.
Jellal's eyes rolled back, showing only the whites. His body convulsed violently once, twice. And a white foam began to form at the corner of his mouth, as his mind simply and mercifully… switched off. Unable to process. Unable to accept. Unable to continue functioning in the face of something that, in his small and limited universe, simply should not, in any way, exist.
And then, he was still.
Unconscious.
Completely defeated. Not by combat. Not by a blade. But by the mere presence of something that his pathetic and arrogant mind could not even begin to comprehend.
Years and years building a tower of suffering to resurrect a ghost that never died. Years obsessed with a dark mage whom he, in his ignorance, thought was the pinnacle of power… And now, in his final moment of consciousness, he had finally discovered the truth: that his so-beloved and feared Zeref, compared to what truly exists in the universe, was nothing more than a mere and insignificant insect.
(The irony, oh, the irony was so delicious it almost, almost made me smile.)
But I had no time to smile.
For, around us, cracks began to form in the crystal walls. The very and unstable energy of the Lacrima was reacting to my presence. The crystalline structure of the tower, infused with a power it was not designed to contain, was vibrating at a wrong, dangerous frequency, destabilised by a power that simply did not belong to this world.
[CRITICAL ALERT, AZRA'IL! ALERT! THE CRYSTALLINE STRUCTURE IS REACTING VIOLENTLY TO YOUR RESIDUAL POWER! YOUR ENERGY FREQUENCY IS COMPLETELY DESTABILISING THE LACRIMA'S MATRIX! A CASCADING STRUCTURAL COLLAPSE HAS BEEN INITIATED!]
(Yes, Eos. I've noticed. What a novelty.)
[THE MASSIVE ENERGY OF THE ETHERION THAT WAS STORED IN THE TOWER, THE 2.7 BILLION IDEALS, NEEDS TO BE DIRECTED SOMEWHERE SAFE, OR THE RESULTING EXPLOSION, WHEN THE STRUCTURE COLLAPSES, WILL BE COMPLETELY CATASTROPHIC! IT WILL WIPE THE ENTIRE ISLAND OFF THE MAP!]
(I know that too, Eos. You don't have to shout.)
[ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL TOTAL STRUCTURAL COLLAPSE: 8 MINUTES. AND YOUR BODY, AZRA'IL, IS UNDER EXTREME STRESS.]
(Marvellous… Not.)
With a sigh of weariness, I let the white fire slowly dissipate, like the morning mist. The majestic form of the Phoenix behind me disappeared like smoke on the wind, its glorious wings dissolving into thousands of small and silent white sparks that floated to the cracked ceiling before vanishing. The dazzling light faded. The overwhelming heat dissipated.
And the price, the inevitable and painful price of using that power, finally hit me like a high-speed freight train.
A wave of exhaustion so deep it made my legs tremble violently. My vision darkened at the edges for an instant, and the world spun dangerously. And my muscles, all of them, protested with a sharp pain, as if I had just run an interdimensional marathon carrying a small mountain on my back.
(Damn it… this really hurts.)
[I warned you that using that level of power in your current physical state was a terrible idea and would have adverse physiological consequences. But do you listen to me? No, never.]
(Eos, I swear by all the forgotten gods and by my growing bad mood, if you dare to say the phrase "I told you so" one more time…)
[…Silencing. Future risk analysis process initiated.]
(Brilliant.)
"Azra'il…"
Erza's voice, low, soft, and full of an admiration that made me uncomfortable, made me turn. Or rather, it made me try to turn slowly, while trying not to lose my balance and fall flat on my face on the crystal floor, which would completely ruin my all-powerful and mysterious pose.
She was still dressed in that beautiful armour. The white and silver hanfu. The elegant Jian still in her hand.
And she was looking at me with an expression I couldn't decipher. A complex mixture of admiration, astonishment, worry, and, perhaps, a little fear.
"What…" she began, her voice a little hesitant. "What, in the name of everything, was that?"
"An ancient cultivation technique," I lied, trying to make my voice sound firm and casual, but it came out a little hoarser and more tired than I would have liked. "It consumes a ridiculous amount of energy. It's not something I can, or should, use often. It makes a terrible mess."
"But that… that creature of white fire… it looked so… divine…"
"Erza." I interrupted her gently, but firmly. "With all due respect for your curiosity, the tower, as you can see, is literally collapsing around us. Can we have a long and tedious conversation about my… special abilities after we are in a safe place? Preferably, with tea and cake?"
She looked at me for a long, intense moment. I could see the questions accumulating behind her eyes, the curiosity of a scholar, the concern of a friend, the desire to understand the enigma that I was.
But then, the tower trembled again, more violently this time, and large, heavy crystals began to rain from the ceiling.
"…Alright," she said finally, with a nod. "We'll leave it for later."
And, at that moment, Simon approached, still pale and visibly shaken by everything that had happened. His eyes were wide, fixed on me as if I were some kind of divine or demonic apparition.
"That was…" he began, his voice trembling.
"Cultivation," I repeated, with a patience I did not feel. "Very, very advanced. The explanations can wait. The plan now is to escape and not die by being crushed."
He nodded slowly, clearly still in a state of deep shock.
And then, to my growing irritation, his gaze fell on the unconscious body of Jellal on the floor.
"And… and him? What are we going to do with him?"
I followed his gaze. Jellal was there, thrown on the crystal floor like a broken and discarded rag doll, his eyes closed, his face still contorted in an expression of terror. Even unconscious, his body still trembled sporadically, a reflex of the deep trauma his mind could not process.
"What about him?" I asked, with a total and complete absence of interest or compassion.
"We… we're not taking him with us?"
"And why, in the name of all cinnamon buns, would we do something like that?"
Simon blinked, clearly not expecting my question and my utter lack of interest in saving his former friend.
"Because… because if he stays here… he will die."
"Yes," I said, looking at Jellal's unconscious body with the same emotion I would have when looking at a particularly uninteresting stone in the path. "He will."
The silence that followed my cold and pragmatic declaration was heavy. Simon looked from me to Erza, clearly hoping, begging, for her to disagree with me, for her, with her noble heart and her tendency to forgive, to insist on saving the man who had once been her dearest friend.
With a slowness that seemed to carry the weight of years of suffering, Erza walked to Jellal's unconscious body.
She stopped in front of him, looking down at the face of the one she had once loved. The long, flowing sleeves of her white hanfu floated gently in the cold breeze that was coming through the growing cracks in the tower. The silver Jian in her hand shone with an unstable light, reflecting the pulsating blue of the crystal around us.
For a long, long moment, she just stood there. Looking. In silence.
"Erza…" Simon began, his voice full of a hesitant hope.
"How many innocent people died building this tower, Simon?" Erza interrupted him, her voice surprisingly calm, firm, and devoid of any visible emotion. "How many slaves? How many children? How many of our own friends?"
Simon, caught off guard by the question and by her coldness, could not answer.
"Grandpa Rob died here, right in front of me," Erza continued, her voice still calm, but now with a sharp, cutting steel edge. "He died protecting me. Because of this damned and unholy tower." She finally looked at Jellal's unconscious body on the floor, and there was no pity in her gaze. Just a cold emptiness. "And Rob, Simon, was not the only one. There were hundreds. Perhaps thousands, over the years. All sacrificed to feed the obsession of men who aspire to the power of gods."
With a final and unshakeable resolve, she turned around, deliberately giving her back to Jellal's body, as if he were nothing more than a ghost of a past she was finally leaving behind.
"This tower, this monument to his madness and his cruelty, will be his tomb. And honestly? That is far more clemency than he ever granted to any of his countless victims."
And, with firm and determined steps, she began to walk towards me.
"Come on, Azra'il. We need to get out of here," she said, and, to my utter surprise, she put my arm over her shoulders, helping me to stand, supporting a part of my weight. "The tower will not wait for us forever."
"Erza… please…" Simon tried one last time, his voice full of a genuine pain for his lost friend.
"Simon." Erza's voice, now, was final. Unquestionable. The voice of Titania. "The boy that we, one day, knew and loved… he died a long time ago. And that…" with a gesture of contempt, she pointed at the trembling and pathetic body on the floor, "…is just the monster that was left in his place. And I, Erza Scarlet, refuse to risk another single life to save a monster that should already be dead."
Simon looked from Erza to me, his face a mask of conflict and pain.
I, for my part, just shrugged. Or, at least, I tried, considering I could barely stand and was being used as a stylish sack of potatoes.
"Don't look at me, big man," I said, with a tired but firm voice. "I, personally, would have killed him hours ago, in a very painful way, if the choice had been solely mine. Leaving him here to be poetically crushed by his own creation? That is practically an act of mercy, in my opinion."
"Azra'il," Erza chided gently beside me, but there was no real force or disapproval in her voice.
"What? It's the truth. And you know it."
Simon remained silent for another moment, his broad shoulders finally slumping under the weight of the truth. And then, with a deep and resigned sigh, he slowly nodded.
"…Let's get out of here," he said, his voice hoarse, before turning to follow us.
And, with one last look at Jellal's unconscious body, left behind to meet his final fate in the heart of his own monstrous creation.
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💬 Author's Notes
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Finally, we've reached the fight between Azra'il and Erza against Jellal, lol.
And honestly? I've been waiting for this fight for a VERY long time. Mainly because I wanted it to be more than just "characters exchanging strong attacks." For me, this fight always needed to be something emotionally important for Erza. It wasn't about Azra'il simply erasing Jellal from existence in 0.2 seconds. It was about Erza finally confronting the ghost that has haunted her for years.
That's why Azra'il spent a good part of the fight holding Jellal back and creating space for Erza to truly fight. She didn't want to steal that moment from her.
AND YES… we finally got a new and unprecedented armor for Erza 👀
I really wanted to do something more inspired by Azra'il. The hanfu, the jian, the hairstyle, the long sleeves… all of that was Erza literally absorbing influence from the person she loves. It's not just aesthetics. It's Erza showing that she pays attention to Azra'il even in the smallest details.
And honestly? I find it very funny to imagine Erza secretly ordering this armor months ago like someone preparing a romantic surprise while Azra'il totally didn't notice anything because she has the emotional density of an ancient cultivation stone.
Also… FINALLY, at least a little bit of the absurd creatures/things that inhabit Azra'il's soul appeared 😅
The Phoenix only appeared for a few moments… and even then it almost turned the entire tower into an interdimensional geopolitical problem.
And I think some readers may have even forgotten that inside Azra'il lives A LOT of strange things besides Eos narrating misfortune in real time.
There's the Phoenix.
There's the grumpy fox.
There are certain curses.
There are incomprehensible entities.
There are demons.
There are things that honestly shouldn't even have their own consciousness.
Azra'il's soul is basically a gated community of cosmic horrors and extremely problematic spiritual creatures 😭
Azra'il generally avoids using their powers precisely because it ALWAYS causes problems afterward.
Either her body almost collapses.
Or the seals start to complain.
Or she loses energy for days.
Or some entity decides to argue with her afterward.
Or she gets a lecture.
Yes. Even ancient entities and cosmic creatures lecture her. The Phoenix especially... 💀
And this is something we'll explore more in the future. Because although Azra'il seems very much in control most of the time… there's a huge difference between "using a little energy" and actually opening up space within her soul for these existences to manifest.
Anyway, I really want to know what you thought of this fight. Especially Erza using a style more inspired by Azra'il and also the moment the Phoenix appeared for the first time.