"Mavis, how much longer will it take you to undo Fairy Sphere?"
Back on Tenrou Island, Marco found the First Guild Master and asked about her progress.
Mavis had been working on the spell for almost a year now.
"Stop rushing me! I'm nearly done!"
Mavis immediately became annoyed.
She had only cast the spell in the first place to save Marco and the others.
"I'm not rushing you," Marco replied, exasperated. "I'm saying that if it's still going to take a while, you could let me try. I might be able to break it immediately."
He wanted to bring Mavis back to Magnolia and attempt to resurrect her, but she could not leave while Fairy Sphere remained active.
As far as anyone knew, Mavis was the only person who understood how to undo it safely.
"You think you can force your way through Fairy Sphere?"
Mavis gave him a doubtful look.
She knew Marco had become absurdly powerful, but Fairy Sphere was a conceptual defensive Grand Magic.
Everything inside the sphere had been frozen in time, meaning the spell involved control over both time and space.
"There's only one way to find out."
Marco was well aware of how powerful Fairy Sphere was.
However, he was no longer the same person he had been a year ago.
The Absolute Zero produced by Aurora Execution could also bring time to a complete halt.
He did not intend to shatter Fairy Sphere with brute force.
An attack strong enough to break through it directly might also destroy Tenrou Island inside.
That would defeat the entire purpose. Mavis had spent all this time undoing the spell precisely because she wanted to bring the island back safely.
Tenrou Island was Fairy Tail's sacred ground, and it held countless memories that were precious to her.
"Then give it a try," Mavis agreed. "I'm almost finished anyway. At most, I'd need another few months. Those dragons you dumped here have filled the island with so much magic after being dismantled that they actually made my work easier. I have far more power available than before."
Marco had helped her much more than he realized.
Without the increased magic around the island, undoing Fairy Sphere might have taken several years.
"I'll try first. If it doesn't work, you can keep going."
After settling the matter with Mavis, Marco equipped the Aquarius Gold Cloth and prepared to use Aurora Execution.
His plan was to freeze the golden shell surrounding Fairy Sphere with Absolute Zero.
Once every magical particle within the barrier stopped moving, the connections sustaining the spell would collapse, causing Fairy Sphere to deactivate on its own.
Mavis moved farther away and joined Gildarts to watch.
"Do you really think he can do it?" she asked him.
"Marco can definitely do it."
Gildarts answered without a trace of hesitation.
Marco had killed Acnologia.
At this point, was there anything the young man could not accomplish?
"I hope so."
Mavis did not argue.
Gildarts's confidence even made her a little more optimistic, and she found herself looking forward to seeing Marco break through Fairy Sphere.
Buzz!
High above the island, Marco released his Cosmo.
He raised both arms and brought them together in the technique's iconic stance, forming the shape of an urn from which freezing air poured.
Boom!
A devastating wave of cold descended and struck the golden shell of Fairy Sphere.
The entire barrier froze in an instant.
Marco stopped immediately, preventing the cold from spreading any farther. He descended until he was standing directly above the frozen sphere.
Crack!
He lightly tapped it with the tip of his foot.
The frozen shell shattered into countless glittering fragments, filling the sky with drifting shards of ice.
Fairy Sphere had been broken!
Buzz!
Magic spilled outward as the spell completely vanished.
Time began moving on Tenrou Island once again.
"It actually worked!"
Mavis's eyes widened with delight.
"It would've been stranger if it hadn't."
Gildarts grinned proudly.
Marco is Fairy Tail's Guild Master—the pride of their entire guild!
"Wait! There were still people on the island!"
Once the initial excitement passed, Mavis suddenly remembered that they had not been alone when Fairy Sphere was activated.
Some of them had been enemies.
Though one was perhaps better described as a painfully familiar stranger.
Mavis's expression dimmed at the thought.
He had once been one of her closest friends, but the man he had become was nothing like the one she remembered.
Buzz!
Hades's body jerked back into motion.
He clawed his way out of the ground, battered and covered in dirt, with the same stunned expression he had worn when time stopped.
When Acnologia's claw came crashing down, he had burrowed underground and narrowly avoided being crushed to death like Rustyrose.
The Black Dragon had been terrifying beyond words.
And Marco had actually dared to fight that monster.
Hades dragged himself free, pressed a hand against his wounds, and looked toward the sky.
"What happened? Who won?"
To his confusion, Acnologia was nowhere to be seen.
"What is going on?"
The Black Dragon had struck him, then returned to the sky to fight Marco. Yet now, both the battle and the dragon had simply disappeared.
The remaining members of Grimoire Heart were just as confused. Their final memory was of Marco recklessly confronting Acnologia's attack head-on.
Then, in what felt like a second, everything had changed, leaving only countless ice crystals drifting through the air.
"Is... is that Marco Dreyar?"
Ultear spotted him above them.
Wearing the Aquarius Gold Cloth, Marco descended from the sky and landed before the bewildered members of Grimoire Heart.
"Where is the Black Dragon?!" Hades demanded.
His voice was filled with disbelief.
Marco was still here, yet Acnologia had vanished.
Could it possibly mean...?
No. That was impossible!
Marco could not have defeated the Black Dragon.
"It's been a year, everyone." Marco smiled at their stunned and frightened faces. "Did you enjoy your stay inside Fairy Sphere?"
He was genuinely curious about how they felt.
For everyone outside, an entire year had passed, but their own time had remained completely frozen.
"What are you talking about?" Hades's eyes widened. "Fairy Sphere?"
He ignored the pain from his injuries, desperate to understand what had happened.
"Who could possibly cast Fairy Sphere? The spell was lost after Mavis died. No one else was ever able to learn it."
As one of Fairy Tail's four founders and its Second Guild Master, Hades knew the spell better than almost anyone.