Hello there guys! Thank you to all my reader and reviewers for their support. I just feel surprised that people found this story awesome and I am glad you did.
Normal Speech: "Naruto"
Important or Emphasized Speech: "Naruto"
Thoughts: 'Then I will break that curse. If there is such thing as peace, I will find it. I won't give up!'
Spells canting and Jutsu Names: "Katon Jutsu, Ice Make Shield!"
Demons and Dragons Speech: "Now then... Who do you want to kill...?"
Demons and Dragons Thinking: 'The question is what to do with him…'
Chapter 11: Assault on the Fairies
The guild was bustling with laughter, talking over each other about the battle and their victory. They were still amazed by the raw destructive power that their demon king Naruto had showed off.
"I still can't believe that we defeated the Phantom Lord!" Wakaba grinned around his combat pipe, having not gotten around to replacing it with his usual cigarettes.
Macao smiled, leaning back in his chair. "We'd have lost if Naruto hadn't replaced Master Makarov at the last minute. How'd he do that, anyway?" he asked, rubbing his chin and its ever-present five o'clock shadow. "And where's Master, anyway?"
"Naruto-kun told me that Master is on his way to Era to meet the Magic Council." Mirajane said, refilling their beersteins. "He wants to head off any potential problems for the guild because we're at war with Phantom Lord."
Taking a seat at their table, she added, "Also, this way he can prove our innocence in case the Magic Council attempts to blame us for this war." What she didn't mention was that Naruto had asked Makarov to plead their case to the Magic Council in Era, apparently to ask for their consent to declare war. But once he'd left town, the powerful ninja ordered a preemptive, retaliatory strike that would take Phantom Lord off-guard with all the force of Fairy Tail's full power. With their usual impulsiveness, the entire guild took up the rallying cry of revenge, and had made a beeline for Phantom Lord's guild headquarters in Oak Town.
Meanwhile, Lucy was still sobbing in a corner. Natsu and Happy, who were standing guard over her, had to listen to her blubbering out some half-coherent apologies for lying to them and telling them all about her kidnapping experience. The young Fire Dragon Slayer was so furious that his flames seemed ready to explode outwards in an uncontrolled blaze. Naruto, who was sitting next to her, suddenly said, "Hey, Lucy, your father's mistakes are not your fault. You've got nothing to apologize about."
She looked up at him, her eyes red. He could see the question that she couldn't bring herself to ask aloud. "Well, you didn't ask your father to attack the guild, now did you?" he pointed out.
When she shook her head, Naruto smiled at her. "See? It's not your fault. Levy, Droy, and Jet will be just fine. Plus, we attacked Phantom Lord and won! So don't cry. You're too pretty to cry all the time."
His warm smile and warmer words made her blush, heat rising to her cheeks. Out of nowhere, he proffered a handkerchief to her. She giggled in spite of herself, taking it and wiping her tears away as he took her hand and lightly kissed her knuckles, making her blush even worse.
"So Lucy's a princess?!" Natsu suddenly shouted randomly, completely ruining the moment.
"But she doesn't look like anything like a princess!" Happy added his two cents in his squeaky voice.
The rest of the guild cracked up, which embarrassed Lucy so much that she glared bloody daggers at the two idiots who'd started it. "Natsu… Happy!" she growled.
"What?" the two morons asked in unison, making the rest of the guild laugh at them even more.
Then they noticed that Lucy glaring at them, her face shadowed by her hair and her eyes glowing in the exact same way that Erza would be whenever they'd done something wrong. They gulped nervously, screaming girlishly as they went running for their lives.
A furious Lucy quickly got off her chair and gave chase, as the rest of the guild kept on laughing at the three of them. Naruto smiled wanly, sitting down to watch free entertainment.
Little did anyone there know that the storm hadn't blown over entirely…
-
Meanwhile, at the Magic Council headquarters in Era, Makarov sat asleep in a chair, snoring as he slept away the time he was waiting to his appointment with the Magic Council of Fiore. A few snorts later, he fumbled in his chair as he woke up. Turning his gaze in the direction of his beloved guild, he sighed to himself.
In his heart, he knew that Naruto could ride herd on the rest of those unruly brats that he called his children. But the boy had no real sense of restraint in warfare; a product of his upbringing. "I just hope that nothing bad happens to the brats before I get back," he grumbled to himself. "You made a promise to me, Naruto. I hope I can count on you to keep that promise."
"Master Makarov?" a voice snapped the tiny Wizard Saint out of his thoughts.
"Yes?" he replied, looking up to see some kind of frog-man waiting for him.
"The Council will see you now," the frog creature said- er… croaked.
"Well, it's about time…" the old man grumbled, jumping off his seat.
Makarov walked into the meeting chambers, his face set in stone and his brows knotted in anger. Not in the mood for ceremony, he cut off the Chairman before the man could open the session with the Magic Council's usual sense of theatricality.
"Councilors, I have come here to inform you that Jose Porla's magic guild Phantom Lord has attacked Fairy Tail's members and damaged our guild hall," the old Wizard Saint said flatly. "Even now, my willful children are attacking Phantom Lord's headquarters in retaliation."
Bedlam erupted.
The council members practically jumped out of their seats, trying to shout their questions over each other and each of them demanded to be answered first. Meanwhile, Makarov seemed unconcerned, actually buffing his fingernails against his shirt as he waited for all ten members to yell themselves hoarse.
"Yes, I know," he observed. "An alarming development. To begin, we didn't start this war."
The Chairman of the Magic Council slumped back in his chair, sighing as he pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Very well, Makarov," he said finally. "Tell us what happened. In complete detail, if we are to judge you and your guild fairly."
Makarov smiled. "It happened two nights ago…"
Meanwhile, back at the Fairy Tail guild hall, their communications lacrima flared to life. Mirajane went to answer it, and was surprised to see Laxus Dreyar, with his usual cocky smirk in place.
"So where is that old codger?" the artificial Lightning Dragon Slayer laughed.
"Master is at a meeting with the Council in Era," she shrugged.
"I heard you guys made quite the ruckus in Oak Town." Laxus observed, as his stylized lightning-bolt scar twisted slightly with his grin.
"Oh, we did, didn't we?" the Take-Over mage observed airily. "You really should have been there for the fight, Laxus. As I understand, we crushed them."
Laxus laughed; a single, harsh bark. "And here I thought you guys were a bunch of good-for-nothing weaklings," he observed, sneering. "Be honest; the new guy did most of the work."
Mirajane eyed the crystal ball with a critical gaze. "Oh, my. What are you trying to say, Laxus? Are you saying that we're not strong enough?" She didn't take insults lightly, her eyes hardening into a vicious glare promising much pain.
He chuckled, unfazed at her anger. "What I'm saying is that the new guy, your… Yellow Flash… he's the one who defeated the entire guild, right?"
"…and if I did, what's it to you?" Naruto demanded, coming up from behind Mirajane and surprising both her and Laxus. His eyes, usually bright and expressive sapphires, were now cold azure chips. For all that she could cow the rest of the guild into compliance in the same way that Erza did these days, Mirajane never wanted to see his cute blue eyes hardening in anger, and especially at her.
"Hoh? If it isn't the man himself?" Laxus grinned. "I'd like you to join my group, the Raijinshū-"
"Thanks, but no thanks." Naruto cut Laxus off quite handily, making the Lightning Dragon Slayer scowl.
"I see…" he mused slowly, clenching his teeth briefly. "If you don't mind my asking, why do you turn my offer down?"
"I don't like being around people who lie to themselves." Naruto shrugged.
Mirajane swooned at his words. Cana, who was nearby and had heard the whole thing, took a long look at the full beerstein in hand and realized that he certainly managed to sound cool.
Laxus scoffed angrily. "Fine. You guys clearly don't need me to come back and save your asses." And with that, he cut the transmission from his end.
As Naruto was about to say something, he blinked and turned his gaze to nowhere in particular. After half a second, he turned to Mirajane, suddenly frantic. "Mira-chan, where's Erza right now?"
"Eh? She's taking a bath right now, why-?" Mirajane started, but Naruto cut her off.
"The guild's about to come under attack! Get everyone ready!" he snapped, a little harshly.
Cana, who'd heard him, made a spittake at his words. When the two of them turned to look at her, she was a little irritated to realize that they hadn't known she was there right up until that moment. "Is it Phantom Lord?" she demanded, coughing slightly.
"Yeah," he snapped, heading for the back.
Mira turned to the rest of the guild hall and shouted, "Everyone, get ready! Phantom Lord will be here at any minute!"
"Are you sure, Mira-chan?" Macao demanded, sitting up in his seat.
"I'm sure of it. Naruto-kun just told me." the part-time gravure idol said, locking down the bar.
"Shit!" the Purple Flare mage swore. Turning to the rest of the guild, he roared, "Everyone! We're about to be attacked by Phantom Lord!" Pandemonium erupted as Fairy Tail's mages scrambled for battle stations, arming themselves or readying their magic power for combat.
Meanwhile, completely oblivious to the chaos outside, Erza sighed as she stretched her arms under the warm spray of the showerhead in the bathrooms. "I should've faced Jose, too. Naruto shouldn't have had to do that all alone," she murmured to herself. "He was hurt badly and yet he smiled and acted like it was nothing."
Resting her head against the wall, she closed her eyes. Even now, she could remember what he'd told her about himself.
If his magic-
No… he called it chakra, didn't he?
If his chakra was drained completely, he could die.
The fact that he accepted the idea that he could die was a frightening one, mostly because mages weren't risking their lives every time they fought with magic. Naruto was very lucky.
But that didn't stop Erza from feeling guilty.
"I should have gone with him," she sighed, resting her head against the wall. "Maybe he wouldn't have risked his life and health to help us fight. What would've happened if master hadn't listened to Naruto about Phantom Lord setting a trap for us?" She shook her head, unwilling to entertain 'what ifs' any further.
Why did Naruto feel the need to shoulder the lion's share of responsibility?
Didn't he trust her- er, the guild?
What could have turned him into a soldier? For that matter, where exactly could he have fought in a war?
To her knowledge, Earthland hadn't had a war ever since the Dragon Civil War ended about four hundred years ago.
Had he been fighting in another country? Somewhere that she had never heard of, before?
Running her fingers through her hair, Erza thought about how she should try to get Naruto to open up to the rest of the guild.
She thought back to their last fight, and the conditions that he'd set for his victory. She'd been trounced in the past, but never quite with the casual flair that Naruto had displayed in their fights.
He is rather handsome, so she didn't feel too badly about losing to him…
Maybe a date was just what she needed-
She gasped, surprised at such thoughts about her rival. Shaking her head vigorously, she wondered how she could be thinking that way about her rival. Yeah, that's it! Naruto was her rival!
For all that Mirajane had been her nemesis in times past, neither of them had ever been able to get a clear-cut victory and had instead knocked each other out on their last legs. Come to think of it, Natsu and Gray had that same problem, too.
Naruto, on the other hand, was very different. He had beaten her at her own game, with swords. Yes… he would do nicely.
"Erza! Are you in there?!" Naruto yelled outside the shower stall, making her jump.
"Y- yes, I'm here! What's the matter?!" she called back.
"Something big's coming our way!" he reported. "I think it might be Phantom Lord! The rest of the guild's already gearing up for war, I came back to warn you."
"What?!" Erza shrieked, jumping out of the shower. In her haste, she forgot something rather important, only noticing how Naruto froze up and kept staring at her strangely. He seemed to be blushing and his nose began to bleed. Completely oblivious, she asked him, "What's wrong, Naruto? Why is your face so red?"
He pinched his bleeding nose shut, keeping it up in the air as he gestured vaguely in her direction. "I know that you have a beautiful body, but I didn't think that you'd be so eager to show it off," he said, his voice nasal. Cursing ero-sennin for somehow managing to force the ways of the super-pervert into his head, Naruto couldn't help automatically calculating and measuring what he'd seen from Erza's body before turning away.A ninety-centimeter bust, a sixty-centimeter waist thanks to the strong muscle tone hidden in her very feminine body, and a very healthy and strong set of curvy ninety-centimeter hips. Sometimes he wished that he hadn't been Jiraiya's protégé in more than just ninjutsu, if only so that he could escape such uncomfortable situations.
"Huh?" she asked. It was only then that she looked down at herself and blushed deeply, snatching a nearby towel and hastily wrapping it around herself. It was very unlike her to be shy about her body, especially after the way Naruto had carved her armor into shrapnel every time they fought and left her in her underwear, but she felt very strange around him and didn't like not knowing why she felt that way. An awkward silence fell around the two of them, with Naruto wincing in anticipation of Erza's feminine fury that would send him flying out of the bathroom in very short order.
But before anything else could happen, the very earth beneath them suddenly shuddered violently, making the two of them wobble in place. Once the tremors had died down, Naruto realized what had happened.
"They're here…" he murmured. Turning back to Erza, he said, "Phantom Lord's here, so hurry up. We've got a war to finish, once and for all," before making a break for the bathroom door and leaving the shocked redhead behind.
Another tremor rattled the ground, and she snapped out of her stupor. A quick requip into her usual Heart Kreuz armor and skirt later, and she was running after the blond ninja. Tearing out the back exit of the damaged guildhall right behind him, she all but skidded to a halt in her tracks as she found herself looking up.
Way up.
Everyone in the guildhall was now staring blankly at the gigantic object literally walking towards them from the sea, its enormous metal legs and feet shaking the ground with every step it took towards. What really gave away the walking building's purpose was the Phantom Lord guild symbol painted on the large flags flying from its towers.
Now, to be fair, Naruto had a little experience with combat mechanisms, especially after he'd met Shizuka of Nadeshiko Village and helped her deal with her unwanted suitor Kokuyō and his many puppets.
But even after everything he'd seen back home, a castle actually walking towards them really took the cake.
Happy, being the oblivious one, stated the obvious. "Their guild is walking!"
The guild machine took heavy steps towards Fairy Tail, whose members were frozen in place. They were shocked speechless at the sight, and at their enemy's audacity to a lesser extent.
Erza Scarlet was apprehensive, sweat forming on her brow at the sight of Phantom Lord's guildhall actually walking towards them, inexorably bent on destroying their beloved guild under its heavy metal feet.
"I didn't predict this…" Cana said randomly. "This is how they were going to attack us?!"
Naruto frowned, saying nothing as his gaze swept across the walking building. A lifetime of ninja training also included some training in demolitions, which was expedited by finding any weak points that could be destroyed or exploited during any counterattack. As his eyes raked themselves across the massive mechanical marvel of engineering, his Chōbuku Rinnegan flared to life so that he could get a better picture of the moving building as it finally settled in one place, anchoring spars digging deep into the ground from its toes. Scowling, he recognized the building and realized that he must have rescued Lucy from Phantom Lord's main headquarters, which had prompted Jose to go on the offensive.
Some particularly bright flares of magical power caught his attention. When he focused his gaze on them, he could see the life forces of many people throughout the massive walking castle, with six signals in particular being the most powerful of the guild's members. Naruto also recognized the two most powerful mages as being Phantom Lord's guild master, Jose Porla himself, and that Iron Dragon Slayer Gajeel Redfox in close second. Focusing on the four strongest signals after those two, he quickly recognized them as Phantom Lord's Element Four. If Jose had brought them along as well, he wasn't kidding around.
A particularly bright flare, somewhere near the heart of the guildhall, caught his attention. Focusing his gaze on it, he could see large amounts of power with trace signatures of water, fire, lightning and earth were being forcefully combined within a massive crystal sphere of some kind. Then, the upper part of the decorative arc topping the guild's entrance folded outwards, almost like window shutters, as a long-gun was deployed to its full length.
The tip of the cannon began to glow brightly, as a ball of destructive magic formed in its mouth and started to swell with power as it attempted to compressive its effective power into the most effective shape and form.
Naruto's eyes widened. He'd seen something similar before, when Shinnō manipulated Amaru into using the Reibi and its dark chakra to reactivate Sora no Kuni and its mounted superweapon. The long gun on Phantom Lord's mobile headquarters could only mean that Jose intended to destroy Fairy Tail in a single blast, even if he had to flatten half of Magnolia Town in the process. His mind whirled for contingency ideas, before he remembered what his father had done with Kurama's Bijūdama when that bastard Obito had set the nine-tailed fox to attacking Konoha on the night he was born.
Erza shouted, "Everyone take cover!" as she ran towards the edge of the cliff, her armor glowing. Just as she was about to use her Requip magic, a hand landed on her shoulder and threw her to the ground. Quickly jumping to her feet, she turned an angry glare at the sky, ready to attack whoever had ambushed her.
Much to her surprise and worry, Naruto smiled back at her, and she could feel her anger suddenly dying as quickly as it had flared to life. "Don't worry, Erza-chan. Let me take care of this." She was ready to protest, when he formed a Kage Bunshin that grabbed her and sped off, carrying her back to the other guildmates. Naruto stood there, popping his neck as he called upon his chakra reserves. If this was how mages fought, he'd have to release another seal soon.
As tendrils of eldritch blue flame began to envelop his body, the members of Fairy Tail stared at where he was standing at the front of their defense line. They could somehow feel his power rising, similar to what a mage could accomplish. But Erza was struggling against the Kage Bunshin's iron grip. "Let me go, damn you! I have to protect y- the guild!"
The clone grinned weakly. "Hey, the boss knows what he's doing, Benihime-chan!" he exclaimed, trying to defend what was effectively himself. She wrestled about fruitlessly in his iron-hard grip, but finally nodded weakly, falling slack in the clone's arms. Natsu was surprised that Naruto was willing to sacrifice himself to protect the guild.
"I can't just go and let someone in the guild sacrifice himself for us!" the hot-headed Fire Dragon Slayer exclaimed, the rest of the guild looking a little guilty. "I'm going out there and helping him!" he declared loudly, stomping out to stand by Naruto's side, but Gray clotheslined him and sent him flying ass over teakettle.
"Don't be stupid, Natsu," the Ice-Mage mage snapped. "You think you can outmatch anything Naruto might cook up? All we can do is believe in him right now! Trust him to come out of this alive."
Lucy was teary-eyed, terrified of what will happen to her favorite author and secret crush.
Phantom Lord's magic long-gun suddenly fired, its dreadful wrath splitting the sea around it and carving a trench on the exposed seafloor below. Everyone held their breath, but Naruto's Kage Bunshin threw something high into the air, well over the walking castle's towers, just as the original started a complex sequence of hand-seals at high speed. He ended the rapid sequence by holding his hands out in front of him, his fingers all splayed out, and only the tips of his thumbs and index fingers touching each other. A strange-looking knife seemed to fall into the triangular space created by these fingers, and actually hovered in place as Naruto shouted, "Fūinjutsu… Jikūkan Kekkai!"
Before the rest of Fairy Tail could wonder what kind of technique their Demon King was pulling off now, Phantom Lord's blast of concentrated magic actually stopped in its tracks, only a few centimeters from the blond shinobi. The blast seemed to taper as it was sucked into a near-invisible void at the heart of a spider's web of seals that suddenly blossomed out of thin air as it absorbed the entirety of the Jupiter beam's blast and disappearing without a sound.
Erza vaguely remembered these symbols from the time Naruto had packed a giant monster into a pocket dimension of a scroll, and wondered if he did something similar to absorb the massive blast of destructive magic.
"Ara, that Kage Bunshin is gone." Mirajane noted parenthetically, making everyone look around for it. Alzack Connell ended up spotting, noticing the clone way up in the air. "Guys, look!" he pointed. "It's up there!"
True to his word, Naruto's Kage Bunshin was indeed falling from the sky, as if from a great height. He was mimicking Naruto, his hands spread out in front, with another of his strange knives floating in front of his hands. Another massive web of seals suddenly blossomed into existence, seemingly dividing up the sky, just before that gigantic blast of destructive magical energy suddenly slammed into the long-gun's housing.
The result was an enormous explosion that shook the walking castle, blowing away the front wall of the building. The reflected beam destroyed Phantom Lord's magical long-gun and most of its internal components, disabling it permanently.
Jose couldn't believe what he'd just seen. This nobody had reflected his powerful Jupiter Cannon and then destroyed it, all in just one move! "Who is this mage?!" he screamed, barely able to suppress his rage at the thought of Makarov having yet another ridiculously powerful mage on his payroll.
"Haven't you heard, Master?" Gajeel asked. "Fairy Tail recently signed on a very powerful mage who finished over thirty job requests in a single week, all by himself. We also saw him in action when Fairy Tail hit our guildhall."
That last sentence made the Element Four shift uneasily, and the Iron Dragon Slayer smirked in spite of himself.
"After all," he added, "…there's a reason why he's also called the Demon King of Fairy Tail as well."
To be continued…
