The smoke from the lower levels was rising fast, thick and black, curling around the obsidian pillars like a mourning shroud. Kaelen stood on the edge of the ritual chamber's balcony, the wind whipping his torn cloak against his legs. Behind him, Jellal lay slumped against the cold stone, a hollow shell of the boy who had once shared his dream of freedom.
Kaelen didn't look back. He couldn't afford to. He had to find a supply ship and disappear into the mist before something happens. He knew the Tower's structural flaws. His mission was complete.
But as he stared down into the heart of the structure, he saw the crimson glare of fires reflecting off the sea. The riot wasn't just noise anymore. It was a massacre.
He stepped off the ledge, falling through the freezing air for a dozen meters before his hand caught a protruding beam of scaffolding. He swung his body inward, his boots skidding against the wet masonry. The reality was hitting him with the force of an avalanche.
The grand plaza was a chaotic mess of iron and blood. The slaves had managed to break the initial line of guards through sheer, desperate numbers. He could see Shô and Wally throwing stones, their faces twisted in a mix of terror and adrenaline. But the tide was shifting.
The Magic Troops had arrived.
They weren't just thugs with whips. These were men in reinforced robes, their palms glowing with the cold, calculated light of offensive magic. From his vantage point, Kaelen watched a volley of fireballs arc through the air, turning the slaves' wooden barricades into kindling.
"Retreat! Fall back to the lower tunnels!" a voice screamed. It was Simon, his voice cracking as he tried to pull a dazed Millianna away from a rain of binding spells.
Kaelen dropped the rest of the way, landing silently in the shadows behind a stack of stone blocks. His Sharingan was active, the two tomoe spinning with a clinical focus. He saw the world in high-contrast red: the frantic mana signatures of the children, the disciplined, cold aura of the Magic Troops, and the massive, surging power still radiating from Erza at the front of the line.
"Erza! We have to go! We can't fight magic with pickaxes!" Shô yelled, his voice nearly drowned out by the roar of an explosion.
Erza stood in the center of the plaza, her scarlet hair matted with sweat and dust. She looked painfully small against the wall of robed soldiers closing in. "We aren't going back to the cages! We have to save Jellal!"
A Magic Troop captain stepped forward, a sneer visible even through the smoke. He raised a hand, a massive ball of concentrated energy forming at his fingertips. "Save him? You'll join him in the dirt, little girl."
Kaelen's fingers twitched. He was close enough to intervene. A single spatial displacement, a well-placed spark of friction-lightning, and that captain would be dead before he could blink. But he stayed still.
Don't get involved. Ultear's warning was less about survival and more about policy.
The captain released the spell. The white-hot energy roared toward her.
Suddenly, a frail figure blurred into the line of fire. Rob.
The old man, who Kaelen had dismissed as a dying relic in the corner of their cell, took the full force of the blast. The explosion was deafening. The shockwave knocked Kaelen back against the stone, his ears ringing.
As the smoke cleared, the plaza went deathly quiet. Rob was on the ground, his body scorched, his breathing a shallow, wet rattle. Erza was on her knees beside him, her hands hovering over his chest, trembling.
"Erza... you... you have so much potential," Rob rasped, his voice a mere thread of sound. "Don't... don't let them extinguish it. Magic... it isn't a weapon. It's heart." He coughed, a terrible, wet sound. "When you get out... and you will get out... seek Fairy Tail. It's a guild that values family above all else. You... you'd belong there."
With a final, jagged breath, the old man went still.
Kaelen watched through his crimson vision as Rob's mana signature flickered and then vanished. It was an inefficient choice, a logical variable that didn't compute with the cold math of survival. The magic isn't a weapon ? Total bullshit, everyone says that to still use it as firepower.
But the real disruption was right next to him.
Erza didn't stoically stand up. She exploded.
A primal, agonized scream tore from her throat, raw and shattering. She threw her head back, massive tears streaming down her soot-streaked face. Her small frame began to shake violently, not with fear, but with an agonizing, unbearable surge of Ethernano. It was a floodgate opening, a reservoir bursting. The raw energy was so immense that the stone beneath her knees began to crack.
Kaelen felt the hair on his arms stand on end. His Sharingan struggled to process the sheer density of the mana pouring out of her grief. This girl definitely has an absurd amount of magic for someone who has just awakened her magic.
The weapons scattered across the plaza—discarded swords, rusty spears, even heavy iron rods from broken tools—began to vibrate in sympathy with her scream. They lifted off the ground, hundreds of them, drawn into the vortex of her magic. They hovered in a halo of steel around her, pointing at the stunned Magic Troops.
"What... what is this monster?" the captain stammered, his earlier arrogance replaced by terror as a hundred blades locked onto his mana signature.
Erza lowered her head, the tears still falling, her eyes burning with an unholy light. "For our freedom!" she choked out through her sobs, throwing her hands forward.
The air shriekt. The storm of steel was unleashed.
Kaelen watched, utterly transfixed, as the weapons flew with telekinetic precision. They didn't just fall; they hunted, cutting through the Magic Troops' reinforced robes and magical barriers as if they were wet paper. It was raw, devastating, and absolutely consuming.
The slaves, witnessing this miracle, roared in triumph. The sight of Erza, weeping yet invincible, turned their despair into a tidal wave of fury. They surged forward to follow their new leader, pickaxes and rocks raised high.
Kaelen tucked his notes deep into his vest. The situation had mutated beyond simple observation. Jellal was corrupted up top by Ur's daughter, and now this little girl was an awakened variable of immense, unstable power down below.
The storm of steel died down as quickly as it had begun, leaving the plaza choked with the scent of ozone, burnt fabric, and copper. The weapons Erza had commanded clattered to the stone floor, their magical tether severed as she collapsed to her knees, gasping for air. The slaves didn't hesitate; they swarmed past her, a ragged tide of humanity finally tasting the blood of their oppressors.
Kaelen watched from the periphery, his back pressed against a cold obsidian pillar. He didn't join the victory cry. His focus was on the residual mana in the air. It was thick, jagged, and tasted like ash. Erza had won the battle, but as she scrambled to her feet, her eyes searching the upper tiers of the spire, Kaelen knew she was running toward a much worse defeat.
"Jellal..." she whispered, her voice cracking.
Without a word to the others, she turned and sprinted toward the central stairs, her small form disappearing into the smoke-filled corridor. Kaelen pushed off the wall and followed. He didn't use the stairs; he moved through the shadows of the maintenance shafts, his movements a blur of practiced efficiency. He wanted to see the end of this. He wanted to see what Ultear had left behind.
By the time Kaelen reached the upper ritual chamber, the atmosphere had shifted. The heat of the rebellion below felt miles away. Here, the air was frigid and heavy with a sickening, red-tinted mana.
Erza was already there. She had found him.
"What's wrong, Jellal? We have to walk a little bit more," she was saying, her voice desperate, reaching out to the boy standing in the center of the room. "Wally and the others found a boat so we'll meet up with them and leave this place for good."
Kaelen crouched in the rafters, his Sharingan narrowing. Jellal wasn't slumped anymore. He stood tall, his posture eerily calm. When he turned, a grin spread across his face, a expression so sharp and hollow it made Erza's skin crawl.
"Erza," Jellal said, his voice smooth, devoid of the exhaustion he'd carried for years. He stepped forward and pulled her into a tight, sudden hug. For a second, Erza melted into it, a sob of relief escaping her. But then he whispered, "There's no reason for you to leave the tower because true freedom… is right here with me."
Erza stiffened, pulling back to look at him. "But... I thought you wanted to get out of here too! This is our chance! We won, Jellal!"
"Don't you see?" Jellal spoke back, his voice dropping into a rhythmic, almost hypnotic cadence. "There's no freedom in this world."
Kaelen watched the boy's mana. It was being eaten. The blue, steady energy Jellal once possessed was being devoured by a swirling, parasitic red aura. It was a masterpiece of mental corruption.
"Those fools who built this tower may not hold you prisoner anymore," Jellal continued, his eyes widening as he turned away from her, gesturing to the massive crystal structure behind them. "But you haven't experienced true freedom. Because that can only be found… in Zeref's world."
He turned back, and even from the rafters, Kaelen felt the jolt of recognition. Jellal's right eye had changed. A strange, jagged pattern had etched itself into the iris, a mark of possession that mirrored the cursed intensity Kaelen had seen in the mirrors back at the estate. It was a sick parody of an Uchiha's gaze, a look of absolute, deranged conviction.
"Now I understand why they made us work so hard on this tower," Jellal said, walking casually toward one of the few surviving cultists who was trying to crawl away in the shadows. "They believe they can use it to resurrect Zeref."
The man cowered, his forehead hitting the stone as he begged for mercy. Jellal didn't even look down at him. He leaned against the central crystal, his fingers trailing along its surface with a lover's touch.
"You claim to be such devout followers, but you couldn't even sense his presence," Jellal spat, his disgust palpable. "Could you?"
He reached down and grabbed the man by the collar, slamming him against the crystal with a force that made the man's teeth rattle. Below their feet, a purple emblem began to glow, the same geometric seal Kaelen had seen during Erza's outburst.
"This tower belongs to me now," Jellal announced, his voice echoing with a sadistic glee that made Erza recoil. "I will finish its construction and bring Zeref back to life."
With a flick of his wrist, Jellal didn't just push the man. He launched him. The cultist flew through the air, his body slamming into the far wall with a bone-crunching thud, only to be yanked back by an invisible force and smashed into the ceiling. It wasn't an execution; it was a sport.
"That's magic!" Erza gasped, her hands flying to her mouth.
The remaining cultist, a stout man who had spent the last three years barking orders, tried to bolt for the exit. Jellal didn't even turn his head. He gestured lazily, and the man's body was hoisted into the air, his limbs flailing as he was dragged back and slammed into the stone floor at Jellal's feet.
"Stop it! Jellal!" Erza cried out, stepping toward him. "We're free now! We don't have to be like them!"
Jellal finally looked at her, his expression utterly nonchalant. "So what?" he argued, his tone bored. "They didn't mind when it was us on the floor."
Kaelen watched from above, his hand gripping the hilt of the blade hidden in his spatial fold. But the red aura around Jellal was humming at a frequency that felt all too familiar. It was Ultear's signature, woven into the boy's very soul.
If he interfered, he wasn't just taking care of a deranged kid; he was challenging a plan sanctioned by Hades' inner circle.
He looked at Erza, the girl who had just wept over a dying man and promised to find a place called Fairy Tail. She was watching the boy she called friend turn into a monster, and for the first time since Kaelen had arrived at the Tower, he felt a genuine pang of irritation. Not at the cruelty, but at the waste.
"Jellal, stop!" Erza screamed, rushing forward to grab his arm. "This isn't you! The Jellal I know would never—"
He didn't let her finish. With a move so fast it was almost a blur, Jellal backhanded her. The force of the magical impact sent Erza sprawling across the obsidian floor, her head hitting the stone with a sickening thud.
"The Jellal you knew was weak," he said, his voice flat, devoid of any warmth. He turned toward her, the red aura flickering like dying embers in a gale. "He was a slave to his own fear. I've seen the truth now, Erza. I've seen Zeref. And he told me that you... you are a distraction."
Kaelen watched from the rafters, his Sharingan tracking the way Jellal's mana was beginning to stabilize into a jagged, predatory pattern. It was a complete overwrite. Whatever Ultear had done, she hadn't just broken him; she'd rebuilt him into a weapon for the very tower he'd fought to destroy.
"I'm letting you live, Erza," Jellal continued, walking toward the balcony where the sea wind howled. "Because you were the one who gave me the idea. 'Freedom.' I'll give you your freedom. But if you ever return to this island, or if you tell a soul about what happened here, I will kill Simon. I will kill Shô. I will kill them all."
Erza struggled to sit up, her vision swimming. "You... you can't... the others... they're waiting for us on the boats..."
"They aren't going anywhere," Jellal remarked, a cruel smirk playing on his lips. "They belong to the Tower now. They'll help me finish what the cult started. They'll help me bring Zeref back."
He raised his hand toward the sea, and for a second, Kaelen saw a massive surge of dark energy gather. Jellal released it—a beam of black light that streaked across the water, hitting the small transport boat where the other children had been waiting. The explosion was distant but bright, a fireball that lit up the night sky.
"No!" Erza's voice broke into a harrowing sob.
"Now go," Jellal commanded, his eyes glowing with that hideous, jagged mark. "Before I change my mind."
He didn't wait for her to move. He gestured, and a wave of force slammed into Erza, throwing her off the balcony and into the dark, churning ocean below.
Kaelen didn't hesitate. He knew the mission was over, but leaving the girl to drown in a sea saturated with that much toxic Ethernano felt like a pain he couldn't ignore. Besides, he had seen enough of this bullshits.