"Stop!"
Jellal's figure swiftly darted into a narrow alley, and the others quickly followed after him.
Both sides entered the cramped passageway.
As they ran, Sorano asked in confusion, "Is she an enemy? Maybe she's just an obsessed fan?"
Erik shook his head, his gaze grave.
His tone sounded somewhat strange as he said, "I can't hear her thoughts, but her muscles and breathing are both tense and frantic. She's clearly not an ordinary person…"
Jellal quickly shouted over his shoulder, "Sawyer!"
"Got it!" Sawyer answered.
A red light flared around his body, and his speed instantly rose to another level.
His figure vanished from where he stood.
The cloaked girl struggled forward. Her running posture was extremely strange, stumbling and unsteady, as if she might fall at any moment.
"Ah!"
With laser-like speed, Sawyer circled around in front of her and blocked her path.
The cloaked girl immediately cried out in fright.
Jellal and the others soon caught up as well.
Ultear looked at the girl before them and could not shake the feeling that there was something strangely familiar about her.
And this Magic Power… It felt odd too…
The doubt in Jellal's eyes did not lessen.
He said, "Sorry. We only want to confirm something."
"The Magic Power on you… feels a lot like Zeref's."
Ultear froze for a moment, then whispered beside him, "You think it feels like Zeref? Why do I feel like it's more like Ankh's?"
Jellal paused, then recalled it carefully.
That was true.
There was a strange similarity between Ankh's Magic Power and Zeref's. He had already known that back when he was still not in his right mind at the Tower of Heaven…
"Jellal… Ultear…"
Just as Jellal was thinking in confusion, the girl in front of them, whose face and body were hidden beneath the cloak, suddenly began to tremble.
Suppressed sobs slipped out, impossible to hold back.
Sawyer jumped in fright and flailed his hands helplessly.
"Hey, hey, hey! I haven't even touched you yet!"
Ultear, however, had already noticed the important point.
She stared at the girl seriously and said, "You recognize us?"
Logically speaking, with the suggestion necklaces Ankh had given them for protection, ordinary people should not have been able to recognize their appearances.
Except for…
The people to whom they had revealed their identities themselves.
For example, each other.
And also… the members of Fairy Tail.
"I'm sorry. I really… I don't know what to do anymore…"
Jellal's pupils shrank, and he could not help exclaiming, "No, that voice!"
Sorano's eyes widened into perfect circles as she stared at the sobbing girl before them in disbelief.
Under everyone's gaze, the crying girl slowly pulled down the hood of her coat, revealing that incredibly familiar head of golden hair, as well as a battered face that should have been full of energy.
"Lucy?!!"
Everyone cried out in shock at the same time.
"N-No, wait…" Sorano pointed helplessly into the distance. "Isn't Lucy with everyone else, heading to the victory banquet?"
Macbeth bit his lip and asked in confusion, "A fake then?"
Ultear immediately shook her head firmly in denial.
"No! Tears don't lie."
"I believe she is definitely Lucy!"
Jellal found it almost impossible to believe.
Looking at "Lucy," who slowly sank to her knees with tears streaming down her face, he could not help murmuring, "Two Lucys?"
"What exactly is going on?" Ultear crouched down and gently patted her shoulder before asking,
"Are you really the Lucy we know?"
Lucy bit her lower lip tightly, suppressing her sobs and her trembling heartbeat.
Then she nodded and said in a shaking voice, "I am… Lucy, who came back to the present from the future."
"The future? Time travel?!"
Team Ram had only been acting as secret guards, and not even in their dreams had they expected to hear something this shocking.
Even Jellal felt his scalp go numb.
But seeing Lucy's appearance, he immediately understood something and hurriedly asked, "Did something happen in the future?"
Lucy could not conceal the grief in her eyes.
Holding back her crying voice, she said quietly, "Everyone… died…"
"Wh… what?!"
Boom!
Everyone cried out in shock again, but at almost the same time, the wall beside them violently exploded.
Bricks were blasted apart, and someone forcefully opened a path through the side of the alley.
A scorching heat surged toward them, almost hot enough to melt a person in an instant.
"Dodge!"
At the critical moment, Jellal shouted again.
Everyone immediately scattered into the distance. Ultear reacted quickly, scooping up "Lucy" and retreating far away.
"Fire?"
Sawyer looked at the unbelievable heat and spoke in astonishment.
On the wall that had been blown open, wild flames as hot as molten lava sprayed freely.
Even Erik, who had once fought Natsu in Dragon Force, could not withstand that wave of heat.
This was not on the same level at all…
And those flames were an incredibly dense pitch-black, even deeper than the black god flames of Zancrow from the Seven Kin of Purgatory.
"Flames stronger than Dragon Force, huh?"
Jellal looked at the ground and walls around them as they gradually began to melt.
A few drops of cold sweat rolled down his face, only to be instantly evaporated by the heatwave.
Golden starlight flickered.
Jellal took his stance, a Heavenly Body Magic circle floating in front of him.
With a grave expression, he shouted, "Who are you?!"
The black flames roasted the surrounding space until it twisted.
A figure gradually emerged from the sea of fire.
Slit pupils.
Pure golden dragon eyes.
Only, within those pupils, eerie black lines seemed to flicker, looking like dancing black flames.
Black-gold dragon scales covered his entire body, yet his figure had not swollen too much because of it.
Dark red and black markings were etched across his face.
His expression was especially terrifying, as though extreme reason and extreme madness had been fused together.
Thick black Magic Power also coiled around him.
What shocked everyone even more was that familiar cherry-pink hair, even though the ends of it had already been dyed pure black.
Jellal looked at that familiar face.
Even his voice changed as he cried out in shock, "Natsu?!"
"What the hell is with that form?" Erik shouted with an ugly expression. "Has his Dragon Force gone out of control?!"
Ultear carefully sensed the black Magic Power spilling through the area and said tentatively.
"This is… Ankh's Magic Power?"
"Huh?"
Sawyer looked at the familiar figure before them and asked in confusion, "Did you accidentally eat the boss's Magic Power or something?"
However, the group, whose nerves had just relaxed after seeing Natsu, never expected him to suddenly go berserk again.
Natsu's terrifyingly abnormal expression suddenly began to struggle.
The black flames in his eyes trembled violently, driving the black fire as he charged madly toward them.
"Give Lucy…"
"Back to me!!"
Natsu let out a roar full of grief and rage, and a black flaming fist far beyond anything he had shown before came crashing down.
A violent explosion erupted inside the alley.
The resulting black cloud of flames instantly rose into the sky.
The nearby civilians were badly frightened, and the members of Fairy Tail, who had been leisurely heading toward the tavern in the distance, were no exception.
Beside Lucy, Natsu, who had only just declared that he was going to eat a huge meal, was also startled.
He looked toward the rising black flames in confusion and asked, "Is someone fighting over there?"
"Is there really someone even more reckless than Natsu?" Lucy muttered speechlessly.
Ankh's previously casual expression suddenly grew solemn when he sensed the Magic Power contained within that cloud of flame.
"Let's go. We're taking a look!"