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Writing

"Speaking"

"Thinking"

TECHNIQUES/SPELLS

ACT 2: CHAPTER 2

GOD VERSUS MAN

Madara narrowed his eyes analytically as he observed every detail he could about God Serena, who stood a good distance away opposite of his position within the Arena-like field that was primarily used for combat practice for the Rune Knights. The Uchiha hummed to himself in thought as he watched the way Serena carried himself. "He bathes in his own arrogance. His stance is full to the brim with holes and openings, yet the look on his face invites me to go in. He capitalizes on his opponents' awareness of his own arrogance without humbling himself" Madara quickly concluded before letting out an almost annoyed sigh. "His confidence is beyond immeasureable. I don't even think it can be called arrogance anymore, it is pure, delusional hubris."

The Uchiha activated his Sharingan and analyzed his opponents' magic with it. "Still feels weird calling it magic instead of chakra. But it appears the basic principles are similar... although since magic collects itself via ethernano on a sub-cellular level, there are no artery-like flows through the body, which means no means of blocking it with physical means. A Hyuga would be so screwed in this world..." He mused before returning to the task at hand, that being God Serena's magic. As he analyzed it, he perked his eyebrows up, then made a small smile. "How very interesting. Your magic appears to be such a controlled flux of different types. I can see... 8 variations. Am I right?"

Serena smirked tauntingly at his opposite and spread his arms out in a gesture. "Ho, so you can visibly see magic? Fascinating!" He answered while getting into a combat stance. "You are right. I have within me 8 different Lacrima that give me 8 different magical affinities. But you wanna know what's best about it?"

Madara widened his eyes slightly and immediately lifted his hands in a defensive manner, forming an x with them just in time to block a surprisingly fast punch from the God of Ishgal, but he was still flung back a good distance, landing on his feet and leaving a visible friction-trail in the ground.

"It's all DRAGON SLAYER MAGIC!" Serena roared his last words out as he thrust both arms forward, one firing a typhoon of air and the other a dark, concentrated fire. The combination caused the fire to encircle the typhoon and become a large, literal firestorm heading for the Uchiha.

"8 Dragon Slayer type magics... if I can figure out which elements, then I know what attacks to avoid." The Uchiha thought before clapping his hands together, forming a hand seal out of habit despite knowing he didn't have to. "WATER STYLE: EXPLOSIVE WATER SHOCKWAVE!" Madara opened his mouth and started to shoot an absurd amount of water, quickly forming an upward-shooting fountain as a result. The massive body of water collided with the firestorm and began to extinguish it, forming a massive wall of steam as a result, engulfing both in it.

Serena remained wary and on guard, carefully eyeing his surroundings for any clues of his opponent's movements before he suddenly sensed a surge of magic ahead of himself. Then two. Then three, four, five, increasing in number until he no longer counted. After a moment longer, Madara emerged from the fray, his body coated in the blue hue of energy from the Susano'o, only the ribcage having formed partially to protect him. As he dashed into Serena and their hands clashed, a ball of fire suddenly descended from above, forcing Serena to leap backwards as he couldn't devour it for it would have left him open to a follow-up attack. The moment his feet touched the ground, another ball of fire descended upon him and Serena narrowly avoided its impact. Then a third fireball descended and they began to rain into him, one after the other.

Madara did not leave the God of Ishgal any room to rest, closing the distance and clashing into him whenever he could to keep the Hybrid Dragon Slayer in place for his attacks to hit, but Serena was faster than he let on, always narrowly escaping the fireballs while deflecting Madara with just enough effort to not suffer any damage. The explosions from the fireballs caused many shockwaves that slowly cleared the mist away, allowing clear vision onto both once more.

"Damn smart, a close-range and long-range solo pincer. If I was just a little bit slower i'd have bit the dust!" Serena complimented before he clapped his hands together, one engulfed in a hue of air and the other in a hue of water. "It's been a while since someone made me use combination attacks on the regular!" He then followed up and thrust his hands up. "TWIN DRAGON'S AZAKANA!" He declared while the wind from his left hand scattered the water from the right hand, causing many flying droplets. Then, those droplets began to shape themselves like needles, all pointed at Madara, ready to descend, and seconds later, they did.

Madara had to think quick. He moved his hands together as well, left hand stretched out flat with its palm facing upside while the right one laid its wrist ontop of said palm, index- and ringfinger stretched out while the others were pulled in. As he did so, magic began to surge from his body and many tiny platelets resembling the wings from the perfect susano'o appeared all around him, each platelet taking a few of the needle-droplets before disappearing and being promptly replaced by another.

However, Madara could not rest because his footing was suddenly destablizing by massive tremors that began out of nowhere. He watched the earth crumble beneath him and glanced towards Serena, who's hands were seemingly clawing at the very air itself and slowly pulling downwards. "CAVERN DRAGON'S RAGING STOMP" Serena's hands then descended and struck the earth with superhuman might, causing a visible shockwave to skit across the ground, and seconds later, everything began to crack, ripple and rumble violently, the very earth itself seemingly shaking at the sheer violence. "PURGATORY DRAGON'S ROAR" Serena followed up with a fiery roar of dark red flames that sought to engulf the Uchiha from the front. "NOT DONE YET! GALE DRAGON'S DECREE!" He went next, a surge of air looming in from behind Madara, threatening to shoot him right into the oncoming fire.

"Water from above... fire from the front... wind from behind... earth from below..." Madara analyzed before he smirked to himself. He suddenly breathed in and began to exhale a thick, black smoke that surrounded him before the attacks did. "FIRE STYLE: HIDING IN ASH" The ash then exploded in a mass of fire that quickly expanded outwards and released a shockwave, revealing itself to be gunpowder as a result.

"Ha? Blew yourself u-" Serena was about to taunt but felt an intense threat from behind himself, leaning to the side just in time to dodge an incoming kunai, but what really caught him off-guard was a piece of paper tied to it with a seal on it. Within the fraction of a second, the seal exploded in a blinding light, making Serena cover his eyes. Next thing he knew, he felt a heelkick to his stomach, throwing him backwards. Then a hand grabbed him by the collar, pulling him back in and a knee struck him in his stomach next, followed by a 5-hit combo of punches that slowly lifted him higher above ground. The last hit was a roundhouse kick straight into the chin, sending the Hybrid Dragon Slayer flying back a good distance.

Madara crossed his arms, his armor slightly burned from his own attack, but otherwise he seemed unharmed. "From your 8 affinities, that was 4 so far. Why don't you show me the remaining three? Or better yet, why not use all 8 combined?"

Serena got up from the ground quickly, spitting to the side before he cracked his neck and made a crazed, bloodthirsty grin at his adversary. "Don't regret it once you die!" He roared and began to power himself up considerably, the sheer density of his magical power causing more ripples in the earth beneath the two and he began to give off a rainbow-coloured aura. Slowly, each of his five already known elements began to show themselves. First, a ball of lightning, then dark fire, then large chunks of earth that compressed themselves to the size of pebbles that had a ridiculously high density, then a torrent of water, a powerful gust of wind. Then, the three other elements came. First, a slightly glistening, gray-ish substance began to come out from the ground in small masses, condensing itself into a ball. Secondly, a somewhat transparent vortex assembled itself, and thirdly, a very thick but liquid, white-ish substance formed itself, also compressing itself into a ball.

Madara's Sharingan quickly analyzed the three new elements and he had an entertained smirk on his face. "How very interesting. The variety of different types of Dragon Slayer Elements is truly astounding. Cobalt, Magnetism and Cement... who would have thought?"

Serena's already crazed smirk increased even further and he swung his arms in very specific motions, causing the 8 balls of different elements to spread out. The Cement suddenly fired threads from its ball that aimed at Madara's lower body, which the Uchiha dodged by leaping upwards. But, he suddenly felt himself being dragged down by said cement, which bent itself mid-air and grasped his legs before suddenly hardening, trapping the Uchiha in place. The Cobalt turned into dust that formed itself into several needles, firing towards their target before suddenly becoming dust again, surrounding the Uchiha. Then, he felt the Cobalt Dust tighten itself against his skin due to the magnetism applied by Serena, forcing him into a stretched out position with his arms all the way to the sides.

The remaining five elements began to re-shape themselves. The Lightning fired into Madara, drawn in by the cobalt, shocking the Uchiha faster than he could react, making him grunt out in pain. Then the compressed pebbles began to rain downwards into him, their massive density making him feel like he received a completely unprotected punch from Tsunade all over again, slamming him into the earth and breaking the cement, which liquified itself again and encased the Uchiha's body to keep it trapped together with the cobalt. The fire crawled along the ground and surrounded Madara, beginning to melt the cobalt from its sheer heat, causing him another large surge of pain as he was being literally encased in a smith's coffin. The wind circled around with the fire to stoke it and make it wilder and thus burn hotter while the water seeped into the cement and through it, hardening it slightly while becoming steam that applied a secondary source of burns on the Uchiha.

"NOW YOU FEEL IT! THIS IS MY COMBINATION ATTACK OF ALL 8 ELEMENTS!" Serena roared victoriously, thinking he had beaten the Uchiha and was on the verge of killing him.

Meanwhile, at a nearby observation booth, the Wizard Saints had installed a small Lacrima Crystal from which they all observed the fight ever since the moment it began. They were surprised both by Madara and by Serena, as none of them had ever seen Serena use his magic before.

"Such immense power..." Draculos commented as he was watching their fight through a Lacrima Crystal, as were the other Saints.

"Oi oi, if they keep going like this they could destroy this entire area!" Wolfheim commented with a frustrated tone in his voice.

Makarov could only dread the headlines resulting from that. FAIRY TAIL DESTROYS ERA DURING FIGHT WITH GOD OF ISHGAL! And immediately, he felt his body age 10 years faster from the sheer stress.

"Oh, looks like Serena's got him" Draculos followed up as he watched the Uchiha being trapped and about to be cooked alive.

Makarov just smirked as he heard that, crossing his arms and shaking his head. "Don't be too sure about that. Madara is someone who enjoys fighting, so he is still holding back to probe Serena's power. I have a feeling he's about to finish this!"

Back at the arena training grounds, the flames continued to increase in heat and force while being stoked by powerful gusts of wind.

"NOW DIE!" Serena howled as his flames intensified even more, the cobalt, while melting, tightened itself against Madara's skin further and the elements were all raging around him to increase the temperature.

Suddenly, a massive shockwave emitted itself from his position, blowing everything away as the familiar blue hue began to emerge again. And this time, it grew massive in proportion. "Very well, I have seen enough." Madara commented with a rather casual voice, surpressing all of the pain from the burns he suffered as the Perfect Susano'o began to form itself, towering at an immense height, the council HQ barely reaching up to its knees by comparison. "It is time you witness the power of a true god!" Madara followed and the perfect susano'o drew its blade, swinging it at full force, releasing a shockwave so potent and so mighty that it cut apart several mountains horizontally while completely destroying the earth on the path to said mountains, scarring the very earth itself just like that.

Serena, who had been dead center at the path of the shockwave, took a full hit from the blade, but dust was covering the entire area so his fate was currently unclear.

"Hm... seems like I went overboard..." Madara said as he slowly dissipated his perfect susano'o and descended back to the ground. Once his feet touched the earth, he raised his brows and whistled. "Well well, you're still alive, Serena."

The dust began to slowly lower itself and revealed Serena, who was heavily wounded and bleeding all over, his hair a complete mess blown into every direction. Most of his body was visibly bruised. All around him lay broken pieces of metal that had various shapes that, if combined, made the silhouette of a man.

Madara analyzed Serena and his surroundings closely, watched how the metal dented into the earth from weight, studied the bruising and wounds on the Hybrid Dragon Slayer before he made an amused smile. "You used your Cavern Dragon's abilities to tightly compress any cobalt you could collect from the ground, then used your Purgatory Dragon's flames to melt it into an armor, then used the water to cool it down and put it onto yourself. Due to the immense compression, the resulting metallic armor was so dense and so hardened that it could withstand even my perfect susano'o while only shattering at worst. And you did all that in the blink of an eye. Impressive."

Serena panted heavily, falling to his knees, and then to the ground. "Damn... t-that... hurts..." He managed to say before gritting his teeth.

"The physical pain or the defeat?" Madara humored tauntingly before crossing his arms, promptly uncrossing them as the pressure made his burns ache up. "He did quite the damage on me... that cement was faster than I thought and he disrupted the magic into it on purpose since I was using my Sharingan to throw me off from tracking his magic as a visually indicated color, and the cobalt remained dusty in front of my face to obstruct my Sharingan even more since it was laced with his magic. The lightning strike was highly concentrated and aimed at the connective points of my nervus system to paralyze me momentarily. He analyzed my strengths and almost immediately came up with more than one method to counter it for long enough to create a window of opportunity for himself. And even more impressive is the speed with which he did it. If my magic hadn't forcibly rejuvenated my body from paralysis as fast as it did, I'd have been dead or gravely injured." Madara thought while turning his head towards the direction of the observation booth, where the other Saints would be waiting, and back to Serena. "You did impress me, however. I don't often give praise without something condescending to follow. Out of all the people I've fought in my life, you're only the 3th person who's managed to genuinely trap me for a moment. You've earned my respect, from warrior to warrior."

Serena just continued to scowl silently as the defeat was sinking into him, making him feel worse by the second.

Madara turned himself around to walk away before he suddenly inched his head up and narrowed his eyes. "Oh no..." he thought to himself as he suddenly began to form the perfect Susano'o again and suddenly used it to fly off at great speeds.

MEANWHILE, AT THE TOWER OF HEAVEN

The events that transpired with Team Natsu had disturbed the group quite a bit. First, there was Erza's abduction from the Akane Resort that caught the team completely off-guard. Natsu had been shot in his mouth, which he just tanked away because why not. Gray had been 'saved' by Juvia, who since her defeat had grown a rather obsessive liking to him and followed him to the resort, so she encased him in her own body that had been liquified while an Ice clone had taken Simon's strike. Lucy had been left tied up by Millianna and Happy was captured along with Erza as a present for Millianna because of her liking for cats.

The team had then followed the abductors to the Tower of Heaven, where they found out that Erza had been a slave there along with the captors, that she and Jellal were introduced to each others here and that she had instigated a break-out, during which only she escaped because Jellal had gone mad during the torture that was occuring at that time and destroyed most of the ships, then told the surviving slaves lies to antagonize Erza.

What followed was a massive chaos of fights, wherein a Dark Guild specialized in assassination, namely Death's Head Caucus, had been hired, and its leading forces, Trinity Raven, had engaged in combat with Team Natsu + Simon and Sho.

Erza in the meantime had gone up to face Jellal herself, and after a brief exchange, Jellal feinted that he was free from his mind control.

"I... I am sorry... Erza..." Jellal weakly mumbled as he embraced her in a hug while secretly planting a type of sealing magic on her to restrict her movement. She returned the hug, not knowing of the blue-haired man's deception. They held their embrace as they awaited the Etherion-strike, knowing that it was inevitable at this point.

The sky beamed up brightly and a massive concentration of energy began to amass itself before the all-destroying beam descended onto the tower, ready to destroy it all.

However, that would not be allowed to happen.

A sudden, incredibly fast swing from a blue, spectral blade intercepted the Etherion strike, clashing with the mighty Etherion in a struggle of what will overpower what. Madara grit his teeth as the Etherion's force was quite a lot stronger than he had anticipated, but he focused his strength towards the blade that intercepted it and let out a low growl, his teeth grit as he forced more of his magic into it. The resulting shockwave destroyed the very rooftop of the tower, revealing the sky and the spectral blade that blocked the strike.

Jellal stared up with wide eyes, forgetting that he was deceiving Erza and let his rage take over. "NO! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?"

Erza, caught off-guard by this, stumbled back slightly. "J...Jellal? What...?"

"8 YEARS OF PLANNING, RUINED!" Jellal roared as he took a few steps back and readied himself to use his magic.

Erza, recovering from the surprise, caught on and turned her face into a ferocious glare. "Y...you! YOU LIED TO ME!"

"HE WAS JUST IN ERA! HOW DID HE GET HERE SO FAST!?"

FLASHBACK

Madara and Serena still grinned at each others while the Council ordered them to stand down until they were at the Arena training grounds. As they began to exit, Crawford excused himself and the council, as they had other matters to attend to and left the supervision of the fight in the hands of the Saints.

Madara, who had always been a cautious and suspicion-driven person, secretly summoned a shadow clone and made it transform into a harmless-looking housecat, so the guards would ignore her, assuming it was one of the councilor's pets, that stealthily followed the other councilors, trailing them and overhearing them as they began to discuss the matter of the Tower of Heaven and Jellal, and how Siegrein was almost obsessively begging for Etherion to be launched there.

When the vote was cast a second time and turned in favor of firing, the clone only stuck around for long enough to listen to how long it would take for Etherion to be charged and fire before it dispelled itself, and the information was relayed to the original, thus prompting Madara to fly with his perfect susano'o at a high enough pace to catch up with the limited time he had.

FLASHBACK END

Once he succeeded in blocking the Etherion blast, Madara dispelled the perfect susano'o and descended into the tower, landing gracefully next to Erza while he eyed Jellal with a threatening glare since he suddenly saw Siegrein standing next to the blue-haired man. It clicked in his mind right away and he let out a small chuckle, beginning a taunting slow clap for the corrupted Wizard Saint. "Well well, that is quite the deception..." "A technique that closely resembles the Second Tsuchikage's fragmentation jutsu. But unlike with his, the duration of the fragmentation is infinite. Siegrein had been a council member for several years after all..."

Erza turned her head towards Madara slowly, then back to Jellal, and gripped her blade tightly before she suddenly felt that she could no longer move, the sealing magic Jellal applied to her beginning to work its intended effect and paralyzed the scarlet-haired knight. She couldn't even speak because her throat muscles were paralyzed, not enough to asphyxiate her, but enough to keep her silent.

Madara, upon seeing this, narrowed his eyes and turned his head towards Jellal. "Because I used the perfect susano'o so much, I am quite low on reserves... I hate to admit it, but I have to be careful against this guy. My body's still not completely used to the feeling of all my techniques and I've not yet fully perfected complete control of it. If I mess up just once, it could be the end for me. And yet..." he thought, his eyes narrowing as he looked at Erza again and saw the way she looked at Jellal. He could see it all, the anger, the pain, the self-loathing. "And yet, I feel like I must destroy this man, here and now..." Madara unconsciously clenched his fist in an anger he did not understand, but he just shrugged it off and placed all of his mind's focus on his opponent.

Jellal and Siegrein fused back together and the blue-haired magician, now whole after so many years, began to laugh maniacally. "AFTER SO LONG, FINALLY, MY MAGIC POWER RETURNS!" He roared before he activated METEOR and dashed towards Madara at great speeds. The Uchiha only barely caught the sheer speed the Heavenly Body mage displayed even with the Sharingan activated, using his superior hand-to-hand combat knowledge to capture Jellal's right arm in a lock, followed by a series of kicks to the abdomen before sending him flying back.

Jellal recovered immediately and raced to his target once more, this time circling around him to try and catch him off-guard from the sides. Madara paid as close attention as he could and turned to his right to block another one of Jellal's attacks, this one however had much more strength in it and it sent the Uchiha back a couple meters, his shoes grinding against the solid ground. He let out a loud huff and dusted himself off to taunt Jellal.

"You dance well" Madara commented before he moved his hands to his chest and took his armor off, leaving him in only his black shirt and pants, then cracked his neck slightly to loosen the muscles. Suddenly, his skin began to slowly turn a shade of red as his magical power began to skyrocket. "Since ethernano, unlike chakra, has no artery-like system to flow through, there are no connective points to block the flow. While this means the 8 Gates are also gone, that simultaneously means that the power-surge and its techniques can be used without the iron-clad requirement of a certain number of gates being opened... and because there's not any connective point at the heart, using the skills of the 8th gate won't result in death, but merely in complete depletion of my magical reserves" Madara reminded himself as he concentrated the flow of his magic within his body to flow a specific way. "Remember how he did it... how his chakra flowed, where it concentrated and in what density, how it shaped itself, how it released... remember its nature, remember its parameters... remember his mannerisms, how he carried himself. How he walked, how he spoke, how he punched, how he kicked. Remember... Maito Gai!"

Jellal suddenly went onto the defensive as he could feel the magical power from his opponent begin to reach absurd heights, spiking explosively.

Madara roared as he struck his arms out, the magical power so concentrated within his body it began to become visible to the naked eye against his skin. And all Jellal could hear amids the continuously released surge of air exploding outwards from Madara were three words.

"YOU WILL FALL!"

Next chapter will have a bit more emotion again, but Jellal will still get a royal asswhooping. R&R If you liked the read so far!