Sorry for the late update. I've taken the liberty of a small hiatus last week, had a lot of beta reading to do as you all may know. If you've ever heard of the story 'The salamander rises' that's the one I'm beta reading right now, so if you've read it already you might wanna go back and watch the result after I'm done with it(which is not yet) :) Though I also just wanted a little break, the pressure of uploading the chapters as frequent as I do and trying so hard to get it done every night isn't quite laughable. Thanks to all of you for your patience! Btw about the title, I think I'll just keep it as it is. Many seem to have grown accustomed to it and I myself experience a sense of nostalgia by it :) Anyways so that'll be it for the title of the story until the very end. My sleep schedule changes so often, it circulates. Now my average wake up time is 9pm. Moving on, we're finally out of the Oracion Seis arc! It'll be a small filler now and then I'll be skipping Edolas to Tenrou, I believe. That sounds like a plan, let's get going!
When they returned to the village that held the Caithshelter guild, the alliance discovered that it was all an illusion created by the single survivor of the clan that was responsible for the sealing of Nirvana. Wendy was crushed after knowing how the family she'd had for years was non-existant. Natsu had offered her a place in their family, which caught her off-guard but filled her with happiness nonetheless. Naturally she accepted his offer and they all left for Magnolia. When the beat up mages arrived at the town they were awaited by many citizens who questioned what they saw. They were surprised by the face they had seen the event and had not exactly thought of how to respond to a question like it. Hibiki decided to tell everybody up front what had happened, how a dark guild was using a terrible magic artifact for evil, how they had been defeated by the alliance, and how Natsu had saved most of Fiore.
"You're saying we owe our lives to this kid?" A man pointed at the pink-haired fire mage.
"And many others do." Hibiki nodded, which was quickly followed by cheers and Natsu being lifted and carried around the city. After finally being able to return to the guild hall, the alliance spread out and went their own ways. Wendy joined the guild and earned a blue Fairy Tail guid mark on her shoulder. Makarov had welcomed the five mages home and was surprised by how the mission had gone.
"At least my brats managed to succeed in the mission without any fatal injuries, I'm proud. I hope nothing was destroyed that I need to pay for?" Makarov raised an eyebrow while he asked.
"Actually, Natsu prevented destruction instead of causing it this mission." Erza carefully informed the master.
"Ah, I guess it was to be expected. How much is the repa...Wait... WHAAAAAAT?!" He yelled out loud. After Makarov was informed of the recent events, he glanced at Natsu. The master could see the fire mage slowly chugging down his hot drink.
"Does anybody else know of this?" Makarov turned to Erza again.
"Hibiki informed the citizens upon our arrival." She replied, Makarov grumbled when he heard that.
"I wonder what this'll cause once it gets out..." He muttered before wandering over to the bar. Natsu turned his attention to the seat to his left which was now taken by the master.
"Hey there, gramps! We managed to complete the mission, just as you asked." The fire mage showed his toothy grin to the master, who smiled.
"I'm proud of you, boy. It wouldn't surprise me if the king himself would want to thank you in person." Makarov patted Natsu's shoulder. The mage grunted at the sudden small force applied on his body, Makarov smiled and apologized. Natsu had now managed to consume every kind of drink and food that was brought to him by Mirajane, who was still worried about him.
"Shouldn't you be getting some rest right about now?" Mirajane held his hand in her own.
"I think everybody should..." Natsu sighed, he didn't know what the expect for the next few days. Mirajane supported him on their way home.
"Natsu, you should really be watching yourself a bit more. You could end up real bad if you keep this up..." Mirajane lectured him.
"Isn't what I did good? I'd gladly sacrifice myself if I got to save just you, but now there were a million lives at stake." The fire mage countered.
"Y-Yeah, I just don't want anything bad happening to you." Natsu cupped her cheek into his hand and force her to look at him.
"Don't worry about me so much, I'll be fine. I won't leave you as long as I can do anything about it." He pulled her in a hug, it seemed that Mirajane was relying more on Natsu to carry her until it felt like she wasn't even trying to stand anymore. When Natsu looked down he noticed she was asleep, before he could question why he met the eyes of Mystogan to his right.
"Natsu... I didn't expect you to be here, and awake, no less." He muttered.
"What're you doing here, Mystogan?" Natsu questioned, it seemed unreasonable for him to just show up in the middle of the street while executing his sleeping spell.
"Ugh, I guess I have no choice then. There is no time to explain, but what's about to happen is explained in this letter." Mystogan handed him a sealed envelope.
"Feel free to read it to the whole guild or keep it to yourself, but I won't be around anymore..." Natsu was intructed. Mystogan walked away from him to the central park, Natsu followed him with Mirajane on his back. He was curious about what Mystogan was about to do. When he arrived Mystogan stood in the center of an open grass field, he seemed to be awaiting something. It seemes like the weather was turned heavily, clouds had quickly grouped up above the city. They created a spiral, heavy wind rushed through the city out of nowhere.
"The hell?" Natsu held onto his scarf and laid Mirajane down by a tree, he watched Mystogan while holding onto her. From the center of the spiral something seemed the descend, a magical vortex. Mystogan pulled out his staves and positioned them for a spell for which he was preparing a lot of magical energy, Natsu could tell. Before the vortex could strike down on the earth, Mystogan countered with his own stream of purple magical energy which was generated by five magic circles set up skywards in a straight line. There was a short fight of pushing and pulling in-between, but eventually there came a blinding light. When Natsu lowered his hands to look at the same grass field, everything had disappeared. Mystogan, his staves, the grass in the circle he had stood, the clouds, everything. He sighed and thought everything was gone, and before question it he would just go home and rest. He stood up and picked Mirajane up, until he noticed something in the distance. He looked at the grassless ground where Mystogan had stood, and seemed the recognize the shape of a person.
"Did she get caught in the crossfire?" He wondered when he recognized it was a woman. After rushing to the body his eyes widened as he froze. The woman body before him he could recognize is Lisanna Strauss'.
"H-How is ... this possible?" He collapsed on the spot. Natsu fell to his knees and had to rely on his hands to keep his face from reaching the ground. He soon overfowed with tears by the memories that came back.
"N-Natsu ... What just happened?" Mirajane walked up from behind him, as soon as she recognized the girl before him she fell in the same state as him. Then they noticed Lisanna's fingers twitch and heard her moan. They averted their attention from each other to her as they watched her open her eyes slowly.
"Ugh, what happened? Oh, hi Natsu! Sis, when did you both get those marks?" Lisanna raised her body and pointed at their mating marks. Both of them froze again when they saw Lisanna sit up.
"Uh, did I say something wrong? Hello?" She waved in front of them.
"You're ... alive?" They both whispered.
"Huh? What kind of question is that? Where are we anyways?" She looked around.
"We're in Magnolia..." Natsu ignored the freaky situation and responded.
"Wait, Magnolia... That means... I'm back? You all thought I was dead?" She tried to think. They nodded.
"What happened? We seriously thought you had died." They decided to let Lisanna sleep in their house for that night and warn everyone the other day. On their way home, they got to hear from Lisanna how she was actually sucked into a parallel universe much different from ours. How there were counterparts of everyone from 'Earthland, wich is apparently their world, and 'Edolas', which was the parallel world. They couldn't help but laugh at how Natsu's counterpart was a badass at driving but was the first one to chicken out of a fight.
"The two of you can sleep in the bed, I'll take the couch." Natsu told them while he guided Lisanna towards the bedroom.
"Goodnight, Natsu." Mirajane waved at him before closing the door.
"Sis, why do you live with Natsu? And since when does he have a king sized bed?" Lisanna asked he bluntly while sitting on the bed. Mirajane's face turned red as she started to stutter.
"O-Oh... Well ... Y-You see ... We uhm ... Like ... The two of us ... Are ..." Lisanna's poker face wasn't helping the situation for Mirajane.
"Together?" She asked.
"Y-Yes..." Mirajane gave in.
"I suspected as much." Lisanna smiled at her sister.
"You're not mad?" Mirajane asked surprised.
"My sister found a great guy that she's happy to be with, why would I be mad? The two of you were together quite often last time I remember." She reassured her sister.
"Well, I thought you liked him as well." Mirajane looked down.
"I kinda did, though seeing him as a coward for two years doesn't necessarily help hte situation... And besides, he's taken right now." Lisanna whinked at her before she turned her back and started to undress. Mirajane smiled and joined her in bed. They kept talking about what had happened in the past few years and how the guild's doing, Lissanna was surprised to hear about Natsu's endeavors.
"I guess he really was meant for greater stuff..." She muttered.
"It appears so, he's impressed a lot of people. You should've seen him with Phantom Lord, I don't think he was ready to lose anyone else. Phantom Lord left with their tails between their legs." Mirajane giggled.
"So what are those marks you got?" Lisanna pointed at Mira's collar bone.
"Oh, that's our mating mark." She smiled at her sister.
"It happened when Igneel died and Natsu absorbed his soul. We can truly be dragon mates since we both have the souls of dragon mates inside of us. Igneel gifted me the soul of his mate, which I can now take over." Mirajane explained.
"A dragon take over, that sounds so cool!" Her sister brought out.
"Yeah, but now I think it's time we should sleep. I think you'll get a lot of attention tomorrow..." Mirajane whinked and turned her back to Lisanna, who seemed oblivious to the message and did the same. The night went by fast, and breakfast was as delicious as usual as it was made by Mirajane.
"How do you keep doing that?" Natsu sighed as he patted his satisfied stomach.
"Do what?" Mirajane turned to him.
"Surprise me with the best food I could dream of." He looked up. Lisanna chuckled at his talk.
"I must agree the food you make is really good, sis. When did you learn how to cook like this? Used to be where I had to help you out when you wanted to prepare something." She laughed.
"During the two year trip we had. Someone had to get us some food, and it certainly wasn't this guy or we would've eaten raw pork for dinner." Mirajane pointed at Natsu with her thumb.
"Hey, raw pork has it's charms!" Natsu countered, making the two girls laugh again.
"Anyways, let's get to the guild. I'm sure we'll get to see some funny faces once we get there!" Mirajane suggested.
"Yeah, I kind of want to see it too." Natsu stood up. When they walked through the streets they already got some funny looks from the bypassers, mostly because their new hero had an unfamilliar acquintance to some and to others it utterly amazed them as they recognized who it was. When they entered the guild with Natsu's casual announcement, they all turned to greet him back but froze on the spot at the sight of the silver haired woman.
"Are you for real?" Most asked.
"Hello everyone!" Lisanna brought out as innocently as she possibly could.
Lisanna!" Everybody lunged at her from where they were, she soon was covered by a pile of mages. With the loud yells, Makarov had left his study to check up on the guild hall.
"SILENCE, BRATS! I'm trying to work here!" He grunted and was about to return to his study until the face of Lisanna caught his eyes. The same reaction as every mage came from him.
"How are you, master?" She, again as innocent as she could, asked.
"I'm fine, dear. But what happened, how are you here?" He asked. After a thorough explenation of Natsu about the past events they all were fairly surprised by the message that was just passed down on them.
"So Mystogan knew about it all along? What's in that letter he gave you?" Gray asked.
"Don't know, I have yet to open it." Natsu flapped the envelope around while he said that, he then handed it to master Makarov who immediatly opened it.
"It explains all about Edolas. It appears the magic in that world was scarce and they stole it from our world using a spell that went by the name 'Anima'. Mystogan was Jellal's counterpart and the royal heir to the throne in that world." Makarov shared the contents of the letter. Everybody took a moment to let all the heavy news sink in, but were disturbed by the doors opening again.
"A letter for the master of the Fairy Tail guild!" A boy of the same age as most of them spoke aloud.
"Give it here, boy." Makarov held out his hand, the courier complied and gave him the letter before he turned around and exited the guild hall.
"WHAAAAAT?!" Makarov screamed out.
"What is it, gramps?" Natsu asked.
"Word has reached Crocus, it appears the king will come here to thank YOU personally." He pointed at Natsu, who pointed at himself in confusion.
I hope you all liked the way I dodged the Edolas arc, now next chapter the filler will continue! How are you all liking these longer ones? I don't promise them all the time, but they've just sort of happened for the last two chapters. I'm signing off for now, I'll see y'all in the next chapter!