3rd Day of Games: Doranbolt confronting Jellal—

The true source of the magical energy... Jellal's senses honed in on a figure in the crowd, It's him! Found you! His center of gravity shifted forward as he slid into a run, abruptly shifting back as the Council member tailing him appeared, blocking his path.

"I won't let you get away," he said, and Jellal sighed in exasperation, because the source of magical energy was right there.

"Who are you?" queried the mage in front of him.

He was ignored as Jellal's mind shuffled through evasion tactics, I'll make him faint, no, right now I'm Fairy Tail, so I can't harm a member of the Council…

"Doranbolt, what is this commotion?" asked another Council member—the guest judge—and she had a squad of Rune Knights, too.

"I know that you're not Mystogan. Who are you?" Doranbolt repeated, insistent.

Beneath his facemask, Jellal was biting his lip, nearly frantic now, and muttered an excuse, trying to push past the Council mage.

"I won't allow you," he replied, holding him back, adding, "Mystogan doesn't exist in this world."

"I am Mystogan," insisted Jellal.

Doranbolt's hand flew up, "What are you…?!" protested Jellal, and then first his brilliant signature cobalt hair, then his mask, tugged down, and his face with the unique tattoo on the right eye, was revealed.

Immediately came the shocked cries of the Council members, with Jellal preparing magic to make them faint—his cover was blown, and it looked like Cana had to take his place permanently, if Fairy Tail was still allowed to participate after this.

"Well, imagine that."

Her crimson hair gave her away before she stepped out from the crowd, and the Council members, remembering the reports of rebellion against the arrest of Jellal, uttered, "Erza…," half-warningly, half-terrified, because the events of Pandemonium was also fresh in their minds.

"Ne, Doranbolt, don't you remember your sensei? What, you weren't his pupil? Were you, perhaps, lying when you told Wendy that her hero was your teacher?"

With the acidity in the bright, teasing words, and cutting glare that enhanced the Great Aura of Doom, it was apparent that this was not the Erza who gave up Jellal to the law, but rather the S-class Erza whose strawberry cake you had stolen.

However, it seemed that Doranbolt felt like exercising his God-given right to stupidity, "No, I wasn't his pupil. He is Jellal, and a known—"

~meanwhile~

Meanwhile, since Erza had stuck her neck out, Jellal had been wrestling with his conscience:

Why is she standing up for me? Could she… possibly…?

Yeah, right. To her, you're off limits, engaged, remember?

Still, even as a friend…

Besides, you're nowhere near atoning yourself. This is just digging it deeper.

But you've got to admit, she is kind of cute, in a—

Erza cut Doranbolt off with a deadly, "Shut up or I'll kill you."

—kind of way.

…I give up. If you want to die that badly, you can deal with her on your own.

~and back to the story~

"Erza-san!" chided Lahar. "Doranbolt is a Council member."

In response, she whipped out a sword, swung, and as the thought fully registered in the minds of the watchers, she had stopped, the sword pointing at Doranbolt's exposed shoulder, where a Fairy Tail insignia rested. A piece of cloth from his shirt drifted, fluttered, and finally slid to a stop next to his foot.

"Whatever mind tricks you used, we weren't that stupid that you could go without the mark of our guild. Looks like you never took it off; were you planning to slip into our guild again, Doranbolt?" Erza continued, without giving him time to recover from the last barb, "That mark says you're a member of our guild. As an S-class member of Fairy Tail, I'm pulling rank on you, and, by proxy, the rest of the Council. Now let him go."

They stuttered. They pleaded. They scolded. But in the end, they had to let Jellal and Erza go.

As she sauntered off, dragging Jellal behind her, she spotted a group of girls through the crowd, and on the spur of the moment changed her course. Hey, she was on a roll. Why not tie off another set of bad relations while she was at it?

~pov switch~

Milliana was supporting Kagura as she stood up from the sudden bout of nausea, when a shadow loomed over her. Looking up, she smiled at her friend, "Er-ch…an?" and faltered at the person behind her. "You…!" Erza matched Kagura and Milliana glare for glare, and coolly suggested they find a more appropriate location to settle differences.

They were so close to making it to a safely empty park. (How close? About twelve centimeters and seven millimeters.) Until Erza, who so far had been drifting along seemingly daydreaming, swung around and knocked Jellal into a shop. It was promptly destroyed.

~meanwhile~

In the stands, Makarov felt a chill do down his spine, and an increased urge to win… for the money.

~erza's rant~

"You let a MISCOMMUNICATION be the cause of her hating you?! What part of vowing to destroy do you not understand?! And oh, no, getting a powerful mage to want to KILL YOU isn't nearly enough, you go out of your way to make sure she has the freaking SWORD OF HATRED, hello, deadly much? Why?! Why do you want to die so badly, you stupid, suicidal, self-absorbed idiot! What kind of man are you? Face what you did! When will it get through your thick skull that if you want to atone for your sins, LIVE! I won't"—she choked back a sob—"I won't let you run away. Take my hand. Get up. Pick up your life and move forward. You're not alone anymore… Jellal."

Jellal had been flinching throughout the tirade, at every insult. Within him, his conscience, for once, ceased berating him, as though speechless in shame. The force of her emphasis on wanting him to live, and the painful, escaped sob, throbbed in his heart. Then her voice, gentle, and her hand, extended, became a key to the hope, and joy, and laughter he had long buried away, finally unlocked as she spoke his name, and it was so, so, beautiful to hear it from her—and, yes, there were sparkles floating in her hair, and pink clouds, and in the distance, a fairy-tale castle where they would all live happi—yeah, right, he reached one trembling hand out, barely touching hers before she threw him conveniently towards the park they had originally been headed towards—of course he couldn't get away with it that easily.

~earlier~

Erza?

What, who said that? Wait, why am I hearing voices?

This is Jellal; I'm telepathing this to Meredy, and she put a Sense Link on you. You… gave me that look earlier that said you wanted to know why Kagura hated me. I thought I'd better tell you before we get to an open area, where she can kill me without hurting civilians.

Okay, start speak—er, thinking.

…she thinks I, um, kinda-sorta-maybe-almost knocked her up.

EXPLAIN.

Well, at one of the dark guilds we were going to destroy, about six years ago now, apparently a request had been sent to and accepted by Mermaid Heel, but obviously, we couldn't have known that as an illegal guild. So we decided to wait and watch, good thing too, because as it turned out Kagura had gone and accepted the job by herself so she, the proud girl, got herself captured, blindfolded, and molested, but not too badly because by that time we had stepped in and wiped out most of the guild. As luck would have it, there were a couple vermin left that managed to reveal enough of my face after her blindfold was removed that she recognized me. We hightailed it pretty quick after that, but we had a few accidental run-ins and she made her feelings pretty clear.

How could she have been beaten by a dark guild if she had the Sword of Hatred?

…I might have accidently-on-purpose made her into finding it in a fit of guilt?

~and back to the story, with an itty-bitty time skip~

"Wait," Kagura said, disbelieving, "You didn't molest me? And you manipulated me to get this?" She waved the Sword, in sheath, in his face.

"Define 'manipulated'."

"… You're an idiotic bastard," but it was teasing, and all in good nature.

"This doesn't let you off the hook, you know!" Milliana snapped, angry how Jellal could be forgiven so easily. "You still killed Simon."

The light air vanished immediately. Jellal looked like he'd been slapped in the face. Erza, however, looked eerily calm as she said, "He was under the influence of another dark mage. However, that is no excuse. Therefore, Jellal, you will be punished." An evil glint manifested in her eye and a thoroughly terrifying smirk curled her mouth. "We…

are going SHOPPING!"

.

.

.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

~after many torturous hours~

Jellal groaned and staggered a few steps before finally collapsing under God-knew-how-many bags of … stuff. All three girls turned around, and stared at him expectantly.

He didn't so much as twitch.

"Oh, of course, silly me," purred Erza. Uh-oh. "How could we ignore you? Guess what? Your turn!"

That got a reaction out of him. He scrambled to his feet, backing away in a panic, but Erza, Kagura, and Milliana together were worse than even fangirls. Ouran High School Host Club's fangirls combined. And yes, that includes Houshakuji Renge.

~many more hours of stores afterwards~

"Okay, you can look now!" And as the blindfold was whipped off, the first thought through his mind was,

Miao?

Of all things, they had chosen bakeneko, the spiritual cat-demons of legend, complete with ears, collar, and tail. About to take it all off, he stopped hearing his—not yours! reminded his conscience—Erza's bright laughter. He never could deny her happiness.

Afterwards, as they were all headed back, Kagura made an excellent observation that had the subject matters violently blushing and refusing to look at each other. After all, it was also an accurate observation.