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Mirajane held Cheese, Shirayuki rode on Erza's shoulder, and Noah's hands were free. The three of them arrived outside the guild to find it unusually quiet for the time of morning.
Inside, a large group of guild members stood gathered together, barely breathing, watching in silence as Anna examined the half-stone hanging from the brown-haired girl's necklace.
Beside the girl sat a large-headed stuffed-bird, matching Shirayuki's description perfectly. That would be Éclair and Momon, as the two little ones had described.
Noah stepped through the crowd without effort and appeared directly beside Anna. "Found anything?"
His sudden appearance startled Lucy and the others at the table, but Anna's expression didn't change. She had noticed him the moment he entered the guild hall. Noah had made no attempt to conceal himself.
Spreading her palm flat, Anna showed everyone the half-stone she held: a piece of emerald-colored rock engraved with ancient patterns, small enough to sit in her hand. "This stone is called the Phoenix Stone. At its core, it is a sealing item, a powerful magical artifact created specifically to seal a Phoenix."
"And why is it called a Phoenix Stone," she continued, "is because it is a one-time magical item created specifically to contain a Phoenix."
"A Phoenix?"
Everyone looked at Anna, waiting.
She paused, her eyes settling on Éclair, who sat across from her. The amnesiac girl had been frowning since the moment Anna first said the words "Phoenix Stone," as though something long buried was beginning to stir.
"Éclair. Has anything come back to you?"
Anna's voice was gentle enough that Éclair, who had said nothing since being brought to Fairy Tail, cautiously lowered her guard.
"Boundary Forest..." Her expression softened slightly, and her quiet voice steadied as she continued. "Someone told me to go there. To find someone. I think his name was... Kalard?"
Anna exhaled softly, then turned to Lucy, shifting direction. "Lucy, could you find a temporary place for Éclair and Momon to stay?"
Such a thing was a trivial matter for the young lady who currently managed the Heartfilia Konzern's Magnolia branch. Heartfilia Konzern staff arrived promptly at her call and escorted the bewildered Éclair and Momon away to rest. Cheese and Shirayuki followed along, since Éclair would only feel comfortable with them nearby.
Once the two little ones and the amnesiac girl had gone, every eye in the room turned back to Anna. Her intent in sending Éclair away had been obvious enough that even the least perceptive person present could read it.
Anna did not explain herself immediately. Instead, she looked at Noah and asked him the same question he had posed to her moments before.
"Have you found anything?"
Noah gave a small smile. "Quite a bit. Éclair's body has a serious problem. Her Magic Power has been suppressed by a foreign energy to the point of near-disappearance, yet that same energy is also what's keeping her alive."
"She's probably been living for a very long time."
Surprise rippled visibly through the crowd. The girl looked so young. How could she have lived for a very long time?
Anna sighed again. "She may have been alive for four hundred years."
Another person from four hundred years ago?
Noah raised an eyebrow. He didn't doubt the answer, but he was beginning to wonder why these encounters kept finding him. Setting aside Anna herself, and Natsu and the other first-generation Dragon Slayers who had traveled through time, he had already met two people who had genuinely survived four centuries: Robinl, encountered in Thought Projection form, and Zeref, the Black Wizard, now reformed. And now this amnesiac girl, Éclair, unknown identity, carrying what was clearly a significant secret.
"Please tell us everything you know," Noah said, pulling a chair around and settling into it.
With Éclair no longer present, Anna had no reason to hold anything back.
"In our world, there once existed a race that could contend with Dragons. They were called Phoenixes."
"For reasons that remain unclear, these once-beautiful and gentle creatures underwent a collective mutation. They became bloated, monstrous things, losing all reason and attacking indiscriminately."
"The rampaging Phoenixes posed a tremendous threat. Fortunately, their numbers were not especially large, and humans and Dragons together paid a considerable price to eliminate them."
"But the world is vast. Some inevitably slipped through."
"Four hundred years ago, one mutated Phoenix appeared. At that time, Dragons and humans were in the midst of a great war and had no capacity to deal with it."
"It was then that a tribe from the Fire Village stepped forward and voluntarily took on the task of confronting the mutated Phoenix."
"The matter proceeded far more smoothly than many expected. A genius mage within the Fire Village created a sealing item tailored specifically to contain the Phoenix, and was also working steadily toward a method of destroying it entirely."
"Just when it seemed the crisis was resolved, the Fire Village was wiped out overnight by an unknown force. According to later investigation, the Phoenix Stone that had sealed the mutated Phoenix went missing, along with the Fire Village's priestess and the mage who had created the sealing item."
"I don't know the priestess's name. But I once met that mage. His name was Kalard, and he had been living in seclusion within Boundary Forest, completing his final research on how to eliminate the Phoenix."
Silence fell across the guild hall when she finished.
The picture was clear enough now. Éclair was almost certainly the priestess of the Fire Village. The shock of watching her people slaughtered had taken her memory, and she had been wandering without knowing why ever since. The mysterious mages who appeared periodically to capture her were almost certainly connected to whoever had orchestrated the massacre.
As for how they always managed to find her?
Noah, Erza, and Mirajane exchanged a look. That was likely tied to the other half of the Phoenix Stone, still out there somewhere.
"Things are getting more interesting," Noah said.
His gaze drifted upward, passing through the ceiling and the sky beyond it, as though it had come to rest somewhere very far away.
In the throne room of a distant kingdom's palace, it was not the king who sat upon the high seat.
A prince occupied the throne instead, lips curled in a grotesquely twisted smile. Beneath his feet was his father's corpse. He looked toward a figure waiting in the shadows across the room.
A sound came from his throat — something not quite human.
"Go. And make it appear natural."
"The Phoenix Stone and that girl are bait. Our true objective is to drag that troublesome guild into this affair and use it to draw out that particular human."
The figure in the shadows inclined their head in acknowledgment, then hesitated. "Forgive me for asking, my lord, but you have only sent a Thought Projection. That person once defeated—"
"Hmph! Presumptuous fool!"
"This time, I am not the only one who wants him dead. All seventeen of my siblings want the same thing. And both Ankhseram, the God of Life and Death, and the Celestial Spirit King are occupied keeping themselves from collapse."
"I want to see whether, without those powers watching over him, he can remain as arrogant as he was before."
"No—!"
The voice cut off sharply.