The interrogation record noted that the prisoner became visibly agitated at this point in his account.
After the earlier conflict with the Nirvit, the Yakuma clan had taken devastating losses and spent decades recovering. By the time three hundred years ago arrived, the clan was lacking strong successors when several exceptionally gifted young members suddenly appeared, each of them recognized by the gods.
It should have been a day of celebration. The hope of the clan's resurgence was alive again.
But the Black Dragon that legend credited with the slaughter of dragonkind had chosen that moment to be in the vicinity.
Whether it was the immensity of the god-priests' magical signatures or the particular resonance of a Battle God's power in the air that drew its attention was unclear. Either way, Acnologia took a casual stroll through their settlement.
In a single day, the Yakuma clan came within a breath of annihilation.
Over roughly the next two hundred years, the survivors slowly built themselves back into a modest but viable people. Despite the unbroken string of disasters, their faith held. They continued to serve the Eighteen Battle Gods.
Then Acnologia came back.
It returned to the same place, two hundred years later.
From that point forward, the Yakuma clan never recovered. They faded from memory almost entirely. The few survivors scattered and fled, never contacting one another again.
Arlock had learned all of this from his father, who had drunk himself into grief the night Arlock's mother died and poured the whole story out. It was the first time Arlock understood that his life was supposed to have been something different.
He began studying magic. He set defeating Acnologia as his goal and worked toward it without stopping, hoping someday to rebuild the Yakuma clan.
His talent was ordinary. No matter how hard he worked, he could not keep pace with mages his own age.
He eventually found the ruins of Yakuma settlements and learned the Yakuma Eighteen Battle Gods Magic, only to discover he could not use it anywhere near its true potential.
By the time he reached his forties, his knowledge and experience had grown considerably. And with that growth came understanding of what Acnologia actually was.
Given his own talent, he would likely spend another hundred years and still never pose a threat to the Black Dragon. Even the greatest magical prodigy imaginable could never match Acnologia.
Even summoning the Eighteen Battle Gods would not be enough. If it were, the Yakuma clan's ancestors would not have suffered what they had.
So Arlock fell into despair.
He searched obsessively through every record connected to Acnologia, looking for a weakness, grasping for any possibility of defeating it, however slim.
In the course of that long search, he noticed one name that appeared repeatedly.
The Black Wizard Zeref.
Every account, every legend, every inference he could construct from the material available pointed to the same thing: Zeref and Acnologia's paths had crossed multiple times throughout history.
Zeref was perhaps the only being known to have encountered the Black Dragon on multiple occasions and survived each one.
Arlock drew his conclusion. If anyone could defeat Acnologia, it was Zeref alone.
He began searching for more on Zeref. The more he understood, the more his reverence grew. Eventually his faith in Zeref surpassed even his devotion to the Eighteen Battle Gods.
For a considerable period, that realization sat uneasily with him.
But the gods did not appear to monitor the hearts of their summoners. No punishment came. He could still call upon the Battle Gods and fight alongside them.
Which told Arlock what he needed to know. He paid his price. The gods fought for him. The relationship between them was equal. A transaction, nothing more.
Only Zeref was truly worthy of devotion.
With Zeref at his side, everything Arlock had ever wanted would become possible.
Bringing Zeref into the world became his deepest wish. He would sacrifice anything to see it done.
Including his followers.
Including his own family.
According to testimony from other cadres, Arlock had once had a son. The boy was unable to receive recognition from the battle gods, so he attempted to force a summoning contract. It killed him.
And Mary, Arlock's granddaughter, had not yet begun learning the Yakuma Eighteen Battle Gods Magic. Whether this was because Arlock had already lost his conviction in the clan's traditions, or because he had simply decided that teaching her would be inconvenient when she was equally expendable, was unclear.
"Despicable," was all Rhodes had to offer as an assessment.
The existence of the Yakuma battle gods had piqued his curiosity, though. He had initially assumed that beings as elevated as Ankhseram, when summoned, would manifest as projections or fragments rather than their true selves. But the battle strength on display had seemed somewhat diminished, which suggested that was probably the case.
Reading Arlock's testimony more carefully, he started to think the battle gods were something closer to Celestial Spirits in nature. They could form contracts with humans and answer summons, fighting for whoever called them. As Arlock had understood it, the relationship was one of equals. A transaction.
The difference was the price. Summoning a battle god cost a great deal more than opening a Gate.
Which implied the battle gods wanted something from the Yakuma in return.
So what did Celestial Spirits want?
Looking at Loke, Virgo, and the others, they didn't seem to be operating with any particular agenda. Their reasons for coming to the human world seemed to be more along the lines of genuine fondness.
"Mr. Rhodes, about all of this..."
Lahar had been waiting for Rhodes to finish reading and was about to say something when the communication Lacrima went off.
Rhodes held up a hand and looked at the Lacrima. It was Lisanna.
He gave Lahar a brief nod and connected the call.
"Brother-in-law, Mirajane just felt a little uncomfortable, right now she..."
Lahar watched Rhodes dissolve into a streak of blue light and vanish. The stack of documents he had been holding dropped onto the table with a thud.
...
"What happened? What's wrong?"
Rhodes came through the bedroom door at speed, then stopped.
Mirajane was sitting perfectly fine against the headboard. Elfman was beside the bed pouring tea.
She looked at him, then at the communication Lacrima in his hand, which was still carrying Lisanna's image, and smiled. "It was Lisanna? I told her not to say anything. It's nothing."
Footsteps came pounding up from the lower floor.
"Brother-in-law! I said she's already fine! I just wanted to quietly let you know!"
Rhodes exhaled slowly. "My apologies. I was worried and I came back before she finished the sentence. Regardless, would you like to be looked at properly?"
The due date was only two months out. His concern was warranted.
"We just had a checkup. I don't want to keep bothering Porlyusica, and she said there might be some false contractions around this time. Rest is all that's needed. It's fine."
Going to trouble the old woman constantly wasn't ideal, but leaving it unverified didn't sit well with him either. Rhodes thought for a moment.
"I'll go to the dormitory and drag Wendy over here."
This vaguely underhanded proposal was immediately vetoed.
Wendy came anyway, brought by Lisanna in a considerably more dignified manner. After Rhodes proceeded to hover anxiously around her, Wendy decided to temporarily relocate from the girls' dormitory to their house.
Carla was the harder one to convince, though most of the time spent persuading was directed at her.
"Why are you this worried?"
"When the time comes for you to lay your egg, you will understand," Rhodes said. He remembered clearly that Exceed were hatched.
Carla's fur rose. "I don't lay eggs!"
Rhodes considered this. "Why not use your precognition to check?"
"I am not using my precognition to look at something like that!"
"I only wanted you to help verify whether the due date is..." Rhodes watched her expression with interest. "What exactly are you imagining right now?"
"I—" Carla's face went red. She shifted from her cat-eared girl form back to white cat form with a thump and buried herself in Wendy's arms.
It was a slightly tight fit.
Wendy, who had not followed any of this, held her without question.