Ferdinand said nothing. He had to know who stood near them. Kai balled a fist and locked eyes with Erza. Hardly any sense of friendliness had vanished in them. She wasn't just there for him, she was there for business.
"Stand aside, Kai, then you're coming back to Fairy Tail," she said. "This farce has gone on long enough."
"This is my job, Erza. I can handle it." Fear clung tight as he said, "And I won't return to Fairy Tail. Not yet."
"Kai!"
"Erza I can't! I'm not—" His voice caught and he sighed, his lips trembling and chest shaking. "I'm not strong enough to be with the guild right now."
"Don't say things like that, it isn't true."
Jellal rose to his mind. Kai tried to get him out of his head but the madman stayed there. Simon's body crumbled before him. Jose towered over him, his dark puppets dancing around Kai.
"It is. You just can't accept it."
Erza held her hand out and her sword appeared. Ferdinand started but Kai remained steady.
"What are you doing here?"
"You don't understand the job you're on, Kai." She pointed her blade at the terrified businessman next to Kai. "He isn't who you think. This job is far more than one person can contend with, you need a team or you're going to end up in serious trouble."
"I know who this man is. He's someone who has been hounded by the Balam Alliance, but wizards too afraid to stand up for themselves. I want to help him out. I just—"
"Yes, I'm aware of what you've done." Erza slammed her sword into the ground. "You've enabled him! You've enabled the Balam Alliance to get a tighter hold on Clover Town. Kai, he is with the Balam Alliance!"
Kai leered back toward Ferdinand, who pursed his lips and nodded, taking another step back from the wizards.
Still, a voice whispered something in the back of his mind, So what? He's only doing what he has to in order to survive. He saw enough power in you to take on an entire guild and he was right. Besides, he's just one man.
"The Alliance is on the precipice of incredible power. We can't let them get any footholds anywhere, Kai, least of all a place so tied into the Magic Council like Clover Town."
Grimoire Heart was a member of the Balam Alliance. Kai could only wonder if Hades and the other two wizards of his had the same job Mystogan had given Kai. Was it some sort of race?
Mystogan's warning about the job being far more complicated made sense. The job was more than likely protecting him from the Balam Alliance should he do something that the Alliance wasn't all that in favor of. Why trust untrustworthy wizards?
"Erza, this is my job." Kai glanced back at Erza, who remained stoic at the end of the alley. "I can handle this. It's how I get stronger."
"You get stronger by working together." Erza picked the sword up and took a few steps toward Kai. "Besides, if Grimoire Heart were to discover that you were working with this man, it could be bad for Fairy Tail. Master's always said that Grimoire Heart has a member who once belonged to Fairy Tail, after all."
Kai held his hand up and Erza paused. He nodded. A former member of Fairy Tail? Kai grimaced and then raised his gaze to Erza, who remained stoic but a bit softer than her initial approach. Lord, what a beauty. Something stirred within Kai, though, that prevented him from completely fawning over her like normal.
"Let me handle this, Erza," Kai said. "Please. Give me at least the evening to sort this out, and then I'll—I'll come back with you."
Erza nodded, and a small grin rolled up on her lips. Kai wanted to do the same, but couldn't muster the courage to smile to the woman he loved after telling her a lie.
Ferdinand was supposed to be back in the Clover Town prison that night. His store was supposed to be supervised by some of the city watch, maybe even that wizard guild. Kai was supposed to be interrogating him in that prison, waiting for a guard to come relieve him so they could figure out a defense plan against the Balam Alliance, and more specifically, Grimoire Heart.
Instead, though, Ferdinand remained, for the most part, unbothered in his shop, save for a long Ice Dragon Slayer standing in the shadows, arms crossed and glare fixed on the shopkeeper, who stood tall and unwavering despite Erza's presence in the town.
"What'll you do, then?" Ferdinand asked.
The dark of night claimed the town's streets, as only low-lit lanterns brought supplemental light to the otherwise murky moonlight. It gave tons of shadow to the shop. Even Ferdinand basked in them, though his features were still visible to Kai's improved vision.
Kai stayed silent. He tried to mull over that question throughout the day since Erza let him be. What do to about this one? An associate of the Balam Alliance?
Even if Kai put him away, what good would it do? The Balam Alliance could have as much power as the united wizard guilds. Would the Magic Council really bend their backs this much for one man, after the humongous blunder they'd just made at the Tower of Heaven?
What should he do? The man couldn't go well enough alone like this. Erza had a point—Clover Town was a powerful foothold in Fiore for any guild, even more-so than something like Magnolia. If they could control Clover Town and eventually Hargeon the Balam Alliance would effectively take control of all travel in Fiore.
That would involve more than just wizard guilds, it could get the Fiore kingdom involved. And Kai could prevent it here.
But how? How?
Only one method had come to mind thus far. One that he would never have dared considered until recently. Until he knew, for certain, that there was someone who knew how to train him to become stronger than Fairy Tail and wanted to see as much. Someone who sought him for his power.
"I need you to do something," Kai said, stepping forward and slightly emerging from the shadows. "Summon Master Hades of Grimoire Heart."
"What?" Ferdinand froze.
"Do it." Kai rested his hand on his blade.
Ferdinand grimaced but nonetheless raised a lacrima from beneath his counter and tapped it onto the wooden surface a few times. The lacrima glowed black then vanished.
"You'll negotiate with him?" Ferdinand asked. "Are you mad? What negotiation piece do you even have?"
"Myself." Kai sighed. Hearing the words somehow eased the tension in his body. "I'll give myself to Grimoire Heart."
A sudden rush of magic filled the room and swelled around Kai before the doors blew down. Kai gripped his sword, anticipating the pompous gait of Master Hades, but instead in strode a rather angry scarlet-haired woman, who bore her sharp blades taut in her hands.
"What did you say, Kai?"
Kai released the hilt of his blade and moved forward from the shadow while Ferdinand cowered behind the counter. Winds swept in around them both. An aura appeared around Erza.
"Master Hades is going to let him go and I'll go with him."
"Why?"
"I need him, Erza. You said it yourself that the Balam Alliance is getting stronger. I need to be stronger. I can't stand up to a damn Wizard Saint, and yet I'm expected to fight Acnologia? How can I do that at the level I'm at now?"
"Kai, we can help you become stronger! Train with us."
"I'd only hold you back from the lives you could be living. Erza, you're free now. The Tower is gone, Jellal is gone. You can live your life the way you were always meant to. Me? I've got my biggest challenge ahead of me, and every step of the way makes me feel like I'm slipping further behind everyone. I need the power of Dragon Force, but Natsu has it."
"I don't want to live my life without you, Kai." Erza flicked her hand and her sword went away. She took a few steps closer to Kai, who didn't budge. She stopped, the pain in her face matching the pain in Kai's heart. "You belong with us. You're a Fairy Tail wizard."
"I won't be gone for long," Kai said. "Just some training, and when I come back I'll be worthy of standing by your side."
"You already are."
Kai grimaced. "Now who's the liar?"
Erza closed her eyes. "Kai…I never wanted this."
"Trust me, neither did I."
The magic once more swelled in the room and Erza's aura exploded around her as her Heaven's Wheel armor appeared over her and she gripped the other two swords tightly. Kai's hair floated up as he unsheathed his blade and his own aura erupted around him, little trails of ice snaking out around his feet.
"I have to do this, Kai, for your sake and for Fiore's." Erza placed her blades together.
Kai fell into his defensive stance, one that Erza taught him. Her eyes widened but she held the blades up.
"Please stand down, Erza." Kai blinked a tear out of his eye. "You'll understand eventually why I had to do this tiny thing in the grand scheme of things. I'll be back before you know it. You need to go home and celebrate Fantasia."
"We were going to do that together," Erza said.
The brilliant light of their auras filled the room, as well as the growing number of onlooker's with awe. Kai's sword glistened with ice magic while a tiny ball of light appeared at the tips of Erza's blade. Her Photon Slicer attack.
Kai could block it and destroy the building. Or he could absorb it and all of this was for naught. He would return a failure. A laughting stock.
Not stronger. Not what he had to become.
"I'm trying to save you, Erza!" Kai exclaimed. "If Acnologia comes he'll kill us all!"
"But if you stand with your-!"
Her voice was cut off by a slicing sound, one that pierced Kai's ears. A tear opened in the room before them, and out of it stepped the pompous figure of Master Hades, brushing off a bit of dust and glancing from Kai to Erza.
"I didn't mean to interrupt," he said, but turned back to Kai with a ghost of a grin. "I just heard that a familiar face wanted to see me."
"Leave," Erza said. "None of this concerns you."
"My dear, my summoning brought me here. It most certainly concerns me."
Hades tapped his staff on the ground and chains shot out from the ether to catch Erza, locking her in place.
"Hades let her go right now or you're in the same position you were in by the train," Kai said.
The Grimoire Heart guild master chuckled and did as Kai asked, letting Erza go, but the chains had already sapped some of her magic and she had to Requip back to her normal armor set.
"So weak."
Kai said nothing of it and strode across the room toward Hades.
"You seek power. I'm glad you've come to your senses in understanding that Grimoire Heart is your best chance at attaining it." Hades tilted his head down to Kai, observing him. "You want the power to defeat Acnologia? We can grant you this. It's a common goal we have, after all. He represents nothing but destruction, and we want only what's best for the new magical world we're ushering in."
"I won't join Grimoire Heart, my allegiance is to Fairy Tail."
"We can work on that." Hades gripped Kai's shoulder. A tight grip for an old man.
"Kai…step away from him!" Erza exclaimed. "Get away from him, he's…he's a Dark Wizard!"
"The dark wizard who is going to help me save you, Erza." Kai smiled at her, wanting so desperately to believe it. He had to believe it. "I don't know when I'll see you again, Erza, but I know we'll meet soon."
"Kai, please…"
"Tell everyone at Fairy Tail the same. I'll miss them, but I'm getting stronger for them."
"It's time, Kai."
Master Hades tapped his staff to the ground and the tear in space opened once more, some chains holding it open. Erza pushed herself to her feet but couldn't move any further.
Kai had locked her feet down with powerful ice.
"Let Ferdinand go, Hades," Kai muttered. "Erza has him from here."
"Done."
Hades stepped through the darkness and left Kai standing before it. Kai tapped his hand to the blade that Erza gave him, the sword he'd worn so close for so long.
Then, he undid the knot and let the sword clatter to his side. That wasn't the magic that would defeat Acnologia. Only his Dragon Slayer magic could do that.
Kai's blade dropped and rolled away as he stepped forward into the portal of shadow, away from Erza, away from Fairy Tail, and into power.