Before crossing the border into the Kingdom of Fiore, Zeref stopped walking.
He closed his eyes. Stood motionless for a long moment. Then opened them again.
The confident smile he usually wore had faded into something closer to resignation. "I anticipated the possibility of my 'bookshelf' being destroyed. But this is... frankly, a bit too fast."
Since the demons of Tartaros had either been claimed by Mira's Take Over or annihilated by Devil Slayer magic, Fairy Tail hadn't actually witnessed any demons reverting to their true forms.
But in reality, every demon could return to being a book. Each one had been personally written and crafted by Zeref himself. Tartaros, in its entirety, was Zeref's bookshelf.
And someone had just smashed it.
The emergence of three thousand Face units across the continent of Ishgar was impossible to miss. A disturbance of that scale would have caught his attention no matter where he was.
Which happened to be: running.
To put it bluntly, Zeref had been fleeing across Ishgar for some time now. Constantly moving. All to stay ahead of a certain terrifying existence.
That being, who possessed power capable of destroying nearly anything in creation, had recently developed an interest in him. Specifically, an interest in testing whether the indestructible immortal was truly indestructible.
It had been tracking him. Relentlessly.
Zeref's original plan had been simple. During his flight, he would stop by Tartaros to retrieve the Book of E.N.D. If conditions allowed, he might have even settled things with Natsu then and there.
But just moments ago, he'd felt it. The connection to his bookshelf, severed.
Zeref suspected Natsu was involved. But even accounting for that interesting guild Natsu had joined, destroying the entire bookshelf this quickly shouldn't have been possible.
As for the Book of E.N.D. itself, the connection had simply vanished. Cut clean. That meant one of two things: either the book had been sealed behind something powerful enough to block his awareness, or it had been moved thousands of kilometers in an instant, beyond his sensing range.
He couldn't determine which. That would require investigation later.
Still, while Tartaros's operation had failed, it had produced certain results. Face was gone. And there were indications that the Etherion system had been paralyzed as well.
Zeref stood in place for a long time, turning these developments over in his mind.
When he finally returned to the present, he noticed something unusual. The trees around him were alive. The grass was green. The flowers were unharmed.
There was even a small bird perched on his shoulder.
It flew away in a panic the moment he turned his head to look at it.
Zeref watched it go. Then he raised his gaze to the distant sky, where something only he could sense was approaching.
"Coming again..." he murmured. "I'm tired of this game. Being hunted like prey, endlessly. At the very least, I refuse to keep playing the mouse."
His expression hardened slightly. "Perhaps it's time to go back. After I shake you off."
He waved his hand. His body dissolved like a phantom, and he vanished, taking a new route forward.
Shortly after Zeref disappeared, a shadow fell across the clearing.
A giant black dragon landed on the exact spot where Zeref had stood.
Acnologia.
The same colossal frame. The same crushing, despair-inducing magical pressure.
But he was not the same as seven years ago.
A segment of his tail was missing. A long scar ran down the side of his neck, as if carved by something impossibly sharp. His throat bore overlapping marks of burns and torn flesh. Bite scars dotted his neck and shoulders, deep grooves left by jaws that had actually managed to break his hide. His left wing carried a jagged line across its membrane. A few black feathers near the wound were shorter than the ones beside them. Still growing back.
The scars didn't diminish him. If anything, they made him more terrifying.
He landed and stood still. His eyes were slightly vacant at first. Unfocused.
The hollow gaze of a creature that had spent centuries destroying everything it encountered and had long since run out of things that held its attention.
Then his nostrils flared. He caught the scent.
A red light flickered to life in those dead eyes.
Until he found something more interesting, the immortal would do.
Acnologia sniffed the air once more, gave a cold, contemptuous snort, and launched himself skyward. His wings beat once, and the trees below him bent nearly flat from the downdraft.
He flew in the exact direction Zeref had gone.
It wasn't that easy for marked prey to disappear. Especially an immortal with such a distinctive aura.
...
"CHEERS!"
A celebratory feast after a victory was non-negotiable in Fairy Tail. And so, naturally, the guild hall was once again engulfed in its favorite state of existence: total, glorious chaos.
The tables were loaded with food. The barrels were open. Someone had already broken a chair, and the night was young.
Though a few individuals at the feast were loudly complaining that today's battle hadn't been satisfying enough.
Rhodes returned to the guild, heard the complaints, and made a simple offer.
"If you're that unsatisfied, I'll give you a chance." He looked at Natsu, then at Gajeel. "Challenge Erza and Laxus. Right now."
He turned to Erza and Laxus. "For my sake, humor them. Go all out."
Erza set down her cake. Laxus cracked his knuckles.
A few seconds later, the fireball and the iron lump lay twitching on the guild floor, and nobody in Fairy Tail complained about anything.
Rhodes was truly skilled at management.
"So this is what Fairy Tail is really like on the inside?"
Belno watched the chaos unfolding before her with an expression caught somewhere between disbelief and fascination.
"Haha." Yajima chuckled into his tea. "Most of the time, it's a tiny bit quieter than this. Just a tiny bit. What do you think? It's loud, sure, but there's a certain happiness to it, wouldn't you say?"
Belno hesitated, then nodded slowly. "I suppose so."
When she'd been a Council member, Fairy Tail had been a recurring migraine. The property damage reports alone could fill a library. She'd shared the common sentiment among her colleagues: irritation, exasperation, and a touch of genuine dislike.
But this was her first time seeing Fairy Tail with her own eyes. Not through incident reports or damage assessments. The real thing. And this rowdy, ridiculous scene fit every stereotype she'd ever heard.
Her gaze drifted to the two person-shaped craters Natsu and Gajeel had just smashed into the guild floor, and something clicked.
Maybe the destruction they caused on missions really wasn't intentional.
After all, these people did the same thing to their own building.
She found herself smiling despite herself. These children were... actually rather endearing. Maybe it was because they'd saved her life. Maybe it was because she was no longer burdened by her Council seat. Or maybe it was because of Gajeel.
That young man who looked so much like her deceased son had found a home here.
Belno was genuinely happy for him.
Michello, on the other hand, was not having a good time.
He thumped his cane against the floor. "No matter how happy they are, is this really appropriate?! They're supposed to be the number one guild in Fiore! Where is their decorum? Their image? Would it kill them to show the slightest bit of composure?"
Yajima waved him off with an easy smile. "They just saved the entire continent of Ishgar. I think they've earned the right to let loose a little at their own celebration. And that stool nearly hitting you was just an accident. Don't be so petty."
"PETTY?!" Michello's voice jumped an octave. "Do you have any idea how old I am?! A stool flying at that speed could KILL me! This is a health hazard!"
He jabbed his cane toward another corner of the guild and his face went purple. "And setting all of THAT aside, is it really acceptable to not be wearing clothes in a setting like this?! Michaelia, stop looking over there! And why on earth are you working as a waitress?!"
"Grandpa, if we're staying here, the least we can do is help out a little." The girl with the braided hair completely ignored her grandfather's outrage and spoke with calm honesty. "I'm not a child anymore, you know." She glanced across the room. "And Mr. Gray's physique is actually quite impressive."
Michello looked like the cat ears on his head were about to catch fire. He thumped his cane so hard the floorboard cracked. "SCANDALOUS! This is absolutely outrageous!"
"Don't say that, Grandpa." Michaelia set down the tray she was carrying and smiled at him. Completely unmoved by his fury. "I think Fairy Tail is wonderful. Actually, I'd like to stay here and work."
"ABSOLUTELY NOT!"
...
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