The Blue Pheasant Flies On
Chapter 14: Ring the Bell
Ur walked ahead of Kuzan and Gildarts with a constant ice bridge forming just ahead of her as the trio made their way to the middle of the ocean. Once they had lost sight of the shore, she stopped and let the platform spread out to give them enough room to have a friendly spar on. Kuzan walked to the middle of the circular platform and punched a small hole in the center. With his hand in the water, he froze the entirety of the sea beneath the platform so that it was a large cylinder of solid ice and wouldn't drift off on them or unintentionally crack while they were sparring. He pulled his hand out and reformed the hole in the platform so that they were standing on a solid sheet of ice.
"We're good," Kuzan reported. "We shouldn't be going anywhere unless someone decides to destroy the platform," he said with a pointed look at Gildarts.
The Crush Mage defensively raised his hands. "Hey, that was one time and I said I was sorry. Besides, you two were able to make new platforms for yourselves. I was the one that had to swim back to shore."
"Don't worry. I made this one big enough so that when Gildarts inevitably puts a giant hole in it there'll still be enough ice left for us to stand on," Ur reassured Kuzan, while ignoring Gildarts's protests.
"O ye, of little faith," Gildarts said with an eyeroll. "I'm capable of more than wanton, widescale destruction."
"Ah, yes, you're also capable of precise, small-scale destruction," Kuzan remarked. "Sorry, it's just so easy to forget that when every time we spar it ends with us all in a crater half a mile wide." That's why they were out here in the middle of the ocean. Makarov had gotten tired of the Council sending him complaints about the three of them turning a field into a frozen crater and told them to find a new place to have their spars. Preferably somewhere where there wouldn't be anyone to complain about their fighting and they wouldn't leave any evidence behind.
Gildarts flipped him off in response and the three mages fell silent as they stretched out before the spar. They rarely had the time to themselves to cut loose like this. The spars they had outside of Magnolia Town were more for keeping in shape and working on technical skills. They couldn't really flex their magical muscles without freezing or destroying anything and it was rare for all three of them to have their schedules match up so that they could take a few days off and go all out, especially with all the jobs Gildarts took to satisfy his wanderlust. Kuzan and Ur could still spar, but it was dangerous to only fight the same person all the time. It led to forming habits that could come back to bite them in the ass later when they finally fought someone different. Plus, they were both Ice Mages so there was only so much that they could actually practice on each other.
Fortunately, it was S-Class month, so the entire guild was in an uproar to try to qualify and the trio were able to duck out until the actual trial started as per usual. They had dropped their stuff off at the hotel last night and had come out here first thing in the afternoon after Kuzan had eaten his breakfast. They liked to start their "vacation" with a three-way spar and then would come back out to spar in one-on-ones throughout the week if they felt like it and then have a rotation round at the end of the week unless something else caught their interests.
Once everyone was satisfied that they were loose enough to start, they walked to different sections of the platform and took their ready stances. Three sets of dark eyes darted between the other two and everyone shifted their weight forward and adjusted their feet—the crunch of Gildarts's spiked boots seemed to be as loud as a gunshot in the silent air. At a nod from the other two, Kuzan flipped an ice coin into the middle of the loose triangle the three S-Class mages had formed. None of them watched it, waiting instead for the sound of it breaking to start the spar.
With a sharp crack the coin broke and they leapt into action.
Ur slammed her hands into the ground and created a giant hedge of roses that divided the mages up and formed a maze on the platform. While she focused on the maze, icy stems and roses shot out of the hedge to try and freeze her opponents. Kuzan wasted no time in creating a dome around himself to block the hedges and used his Haki to sense what was going on around him as he created several Partisans to be flung forward at his discretion but made no move to leave his igloo defense. Gildarts, on the other hand, immediately started throwing his magic around and destroying the hedges boxing him in. He had learned early on not to let Ur control the battlefield. She wasn't as straightforward of a fighter as Kuzan was, and while it was dangerous to leave him alone for too long, Ur was the far greater threat in the early stages of a fight.
If he didn't just teleport across the battlefield to slam a fist into your diaphragm then freeze you while you were bent over trying to catch your breath in the first five seconds of the fight, Kuzan would just keep methodically moving forward, brushing off every attack against him like a bee sting and sending back frozen weapons and waves of ice to keep his opponent on the backfoot. He'd find his way inside your guard and once he got a hand on you it was game over. And if you tried to get away, you'd find your feet frozen to the ground and the tall man approaching you with all the casualness of being out for a midday stroll—if Kuzan could have ever been motivated to get off his ass and go for a stroll in the first place. The man was like a glacier; giant, solid, and unrelenting in his advance. Nothing could stop him, and anything or anyone that tried was bowled over with casual ease.
Ur, on the other hand, was far more in her element to transform the battlefield into something that benefitted her and attacking from behind cover or while her opponent was distracted by the icy flowers that were her signature style. Misdirection was the name of the game with her and if you weren't careful, you'd find yourself backed into a corner with no way out and one of her stronger constructs already halfway up your ass before you knew what was happening. The sheer scale of what she could create in an instant was mind-boggling and all of it was capable of freezing you at a touch. Gildarts could never look at a potted plant the same way after the first time he fought Ur and her frozen garden of death. It was quite beautiful to watch as long as you were a safe distance away and wearing heavy clothes. That much ice magic getting thrown around tended to make things a little chilly.
Case in point, there were Snapdragons bursting out of the ground to try and catch Gildarts unaware. They never reached their target, but for every flower he broke there seemed to be two more ready to replace them. He eventually let out a burst of his magic that destroyed all the ice constructs and left him standing over a pile of ice shards. Knowing that wasn't all Ur had up her sleeve, Gildarts wasn't surprised when he noticed a shadow appear above him and he swung an uppercut to meet Ur's Evergreen to shatter the tree before it could break down by itself. The woman herself dropped down through the tree's shards with an ice sword that she swung at Gildarts's head. He grabbed it and ice immediately began to spread down his arm. He flared his magic, destroying her sword and freeing himself at the same time. He lunged forward to grab Ur's arm, but she had already abandoned her sword as soon as Gildarts had caught it and ducked under his reach then lashed out with a series of jabs to his torso.
Gildarts grunted under the blows but was able to endure them and brought his extended arm down in an elbow strike that glanced off of Ur's shoulder as she tried to duck away. The Ice Mage jumped back to get some distance and Gildarts rushed her to keep up the pressure. He met her descent with a rising uppercut that blew through her flower-shaped shield and passed close enough to Ur's face that she could see that hair on his knuckles. The Crush Mage followed it up with a kick to her stomach that sent Ur flying backwards over the ice. He smirked at landing a solid blow like that, but it was quickly wiped from his face when he realized that Ur was now out of immediate reach and able to touch the ground. The ice cracked beneath his feet as Gildarts surged forward, but it was too late.
Ur smirked at the rapidly approaching man as she slammed both hands on the ground and summoned her signature spell. Icy roses and stems burst forth from the frozen platform and she could hear Gildarts swear as his momentum carried him through several of the constructs before he was frozen. Ur cheekily grinned at his frozen scowl before creating a pair of skates on her feet. She skated next to Gildarts's frozen body and started a two-foot spin. Ur waited until she saw the cracks form on the ice holding Gildarts in place to build up as much momentum as possible before creating an ice mallet and swinging for the hills. Her timing was perfect and just as Gildarts broke out of the ice he was hit with the combined force of Ur's spin and a giant block of ice. The last thing Gildarts saw was the Fairy Tail emblem styled into the face of the hammer as it made contact and sent him flying into the ocean.
Ur leaned against the hammer for support and used her hand to shade her eyes as she watched Gildarts complete his arch and splash into the ocean with a grin. She may be physically weaker than the two older men, but that didn't mean that she couldn't hit just as hard. All she needed was a little creativity.
Behind her, Kuzan let out an appreciative whistle. "Arara, that's quite a distance you sent him. Nice swing."
"Thanks. I've been working on my form," Ur absently told him. "It's been a while since I've pulled off a spin like that, but when the kids mentioned they went ice skating I thought I'd get back into it." She was still a little dizzy from that, hence the hammer for support. "He's a good swimmer though, so he'll probably be back in like, five minutes."
"More than enough time."
Ur furrowed her brow in confusion at the dangerous quality that Kuzan's voice took on at the end, then her eyes widened in fear when she remembered that this was a free-for-all and she was supposed to be fighting him instead of shooting the shit like they were lounging in the guild. She whipped around with her hammer just in time for it to be shattered by Kuzan's fist, which then buried itself in her stomach and launched her into the air. The purple-haired mage felt weightless as she gasped for air mid-flight. She managed to recover in time to glance down and see a storm of Partisans flying at her. She threw up a hastily made Ice Shield and grimaced as the two attacks collided in a cacophony of breaking ice. Ur slammed her hands together and wisps of freezing air gathered around her as she created a giant cannon pointing at Kuzan from behind the shield and waited. Once her shield failed, she fired.
Kuzan's Haki warned him of the incoming shot and he casually took a large step to the side and let the cannonball bury itself in the ice. Shards of ice bounced off of his face as he formed an Ice Saber in his hand and lazily deflected the incoming Rose Stem off to the side. Ur didn't let up, and he was forced to flick two more Rose Stems away before returning fire with one of his Ice Picks that left the other Ice Mage bending backwards at an uncomfortable angle. Kuzan went to close the distance but was held back by a series of icy vines that wrapped around him. He glanced down with a raised eyebrow at the vines, then back up to where Ur had turned her dodge into a backflip and was smirking at him as she brought back her hand to fire her next attack. She must have sent her Snow Peas at him when her hands touched the ground. Impressive.
But it wouldn't be enough to hold him back.
Kuzan broke out of the vines with a quick Soru and closed the gap between them in an instant. He watched Ur's eyes widen in shock as her hands completed their motion to launch her attack. Kuzan's body blocked her left arm and her right went by his side. Her jagged Rosemary spears flew past him to splash into the water outside of the arena. Before Ur could recover, Kuzan slammed a palm thrust into her chest and sent her skidding back over the ice towards the edge.
Ur winced in pain as she held her chest after that hit. It stung like a bitch and there'd be a sizable bruise tomorrow, but she'd be fine. It was a spar, so Kuzan was holding back. If he'd wanted to, he could have broken her ribs with that hit. It was also why he hadn't immediately followed up with another attack after that. Ur used the chance to take a breather, her breathe visible thanks to all of the ice magic being thrown around. Once she was ready, she shot a cocky grin across the arena to Kuzan. "Swords?"
A grin flashed across the older mage's face for a moment as he held up both hands in fists so that they were side to side. He then slowly pulled his right hand away from the other. As he did that, an Ice Saber formed in his hand and grew longer to give the appearance that he was drawing a sword from an invisible sheath. Once he was satisfied with the length, Kuzan gave the sword a flick and settled into a ready stance. "Swords."
Ur rolled her eyes at his dramatics but smiled all the same. That was the nice thing about spars like this, it let them dick around while still keeping themselves sharp. Ur matched his theatrics by punching her hand into the ice floor and pulling forth a large sword that she made as she drew it. It was a straight, double-edged sword with a rose in the crosspiece and thorny vines twisted around the rest of the crossguard and pommel. It was far gaudier than anything she would ever use in a real fight, but she wasn't going to let Kuzan one-up her during this fight, even over something as stupid as how over-the-top their swords were.
The two Ice Mages adjusted their stances and stared at each other across the arena. A cold wind blew between them, pushing along a tumbleweed made of ice that neither would admit to making when they got back to the hotel. At an unseen signal, the two mages shifted and rushed at each other. Ur created a pair of ice pillars underneath her feet to launch herself upwards and held her sword in both hands to bring it down on the saber that Kuzan was raising to block it in what would have surely been an epic clash if Gildarts hadn't ruined it.
The until then forgotten third member of this little spar reminded them that he was still here by clotheslining Kuzan in half—the tall mage having felt him coming with his Haki—then turning around and blasting his upper torso into shards of ice. Ur was unable to stop her swing in time and ended up overbalancing in midair. She was able to commit to the rest of the swing and land on her back instead of her head, but it was still uncomfortable. Before she could get up, Gildarts's boot came down on her chest and held her in place. She gave him a weak smile and said, "No hard feelings about the impromptu swimming trip, right?"
"Of course not," Gildarts reassured her as he dripped water all over Ur. He was smiling, but she could see the malicious intent in his eyes. "In fact, the water felt so nice that I thought I'd return the favor."
"Oh, well how kind of y—Rose Stem!" Ur shouted as she threw her hand out to try and snag Gildarts. Unfortunately, the orange-haired man was not surprised by the attack as she hoped and casually backhanded the construct into shards. He removed his boot long enough to bend down, grab Ur by the front of her jacket, then throw her into the ocean. Ur made sure to flip him off with both fingers as she yelled, "Asshole!" while flying through the air for the second time in the last two minutes.
Gildarts grinned to himself while he waited for the splash. Once he saw it, he brushed the ice off his shoulders and stomped the layer off of his boot. Ur had been trying to freeze him the entire time he had her pinned and it had been annoying to keep unfreezing his boot. "Now," he said while turning around to look at the mostly reformed Kuzan, "how do you want to do this?"
Kuzan finished forming and cracked his neck and knuckles to get the kinks out. "I could throw several ranged attacks that you'll inevitably destroy and you could throw some obviously telegraphed punches that carve furrows into the arena as I easily dodge them, or we could just skip to the slugfest," he dryly suggested.
A full-blown grin stretched across Gildarts's face as he rolled his shoulders in anticipation. "You know my answer," he said while punching his fists together.
Kuzan did. That's why he immediately used Soru to get inside of Gildarts's reach as the other mage lashed out with a punch that tore up the ice past him and would have shattered Kuzan if he had stood still. Unlike Ur, however, Gildarts had been anticipating Kuzan's move, so he already had a knee strike rising up to meet Kuzan's stomach. The taller mage thrust his hand down to block the knee and used his free hand to trap Gildarts's extended arm with his body. Kuzan started to lash out with knee strikes against Gildarts's torso only for the younger man to bring his other knee up to block them. Now held in place by Kuzan, Gildarts threw a punch at his head.
Knowing that he had to pick between taking the blow or letting Gildarts get away, Kuzan turned to ice and let himself get shattered. But only his head was destroyed, so he was still able to flash freeze Gildarts's lower leg and trapped arm before releasing him and reforming. Gildarts landed awkwardly on his on good leg and quickly broke out of the ice keeping him from counterattacking. "Nice trick," he said. "When'd you pick that up?"
"Well, with how fond you are of breaking my face I figured I should do something to be more than a sitting duck while I'm reforming," Kuzan told him. "I understand that you're jealous of my good looks but no matter how many times you try to break my face I'll still be better looking than you."
"Ha! They call you 'Ice Giant,' not 'Silver Fox,' for a reason, old man," Gildarts shot back.
"I'll have you know that women called me 'giant' before the Council did," Kuzan responded.
The pair rushed each other again. Their left forearms collided and a crater formed under them as they pushed against each other. Their right fists lashed out to slam into their opponent's jaw. Neither willing to move an inch, so they kept repeating the process. Haymaker after haymaker smashed into their faces. No Crush Magic, no Haki, nothing more than brute strength against endurance. It was a matter of pride. One of them would outlast the other and they'd be declared the winner. The Strongest Man in the West vs the Ice Giant.
But who would have won remained a mystery because Ur, like Gildarts before her, broke up their fight with a little spell of her own.
"Ice-Make: Ice Volcano!"
The two men shared a moment of equal surprise before the ground erupted underneath them. Ur watched in satisfaction as shards peppered the arena and turned the once smooth battlefield covered in chunks of ice. She froze all the water dripping off of her and broke out of it effortlessly. She smirked at the damage she caused and tossed her hair to get rid of the remaining bits of ice. "And that is how you make a crater," she said just in time for Gildarts and Kuzan's bodies to smack back onto the surface. They groaned in response.
"C'mon, Ur, couldn't you see that we were in the middle of something?" Gildarts asked while he got to his feet with a hiss. His jaw hurt like a bitch and Ur's "little" explosion didn't help with the pain.
Kuzan grunted in agreement as he worked his jaw. It had been a while since he had taken a solid hit like that; since the fight with Sakazuki actually. This place was making him soft. Maybe he should cut back on the Haki during his spars?
Ur rolled her eyes at the two big babies in front of her. "What I saw was two idiots wailing on each other's faces like they were a pair of punching bags. I figured that you shouldn't be wasting your—limited—brain cells as it is, so I stepped in."
Gildarts smirked and pounded his fists together. "Well now I'm all fired up!" He paused for a moment to think over what he just said before facepalming with an audible slap. "Goddammit, Natsu, now you've got me doing it too."
Ignoring Gildarts's channeling of his inner Fire Dragon Slayer, the two other mages backed up so that they were all once again equidistant from each other. They slowly started circling each other to their rights, eyes constantly shifting between their two opponents. Waiting for the slightest slipup to capitalize on.
Gildarts smirked as he moved. "Heh, back to a three-way, just how I like it," he commented, taking the two groans of his opponents as a win. He was hoping for an eye-roll, but neither Ice Mage took the bait. He'd have to try harder. "I know that I'm usually the third wheel in this relationship, but I think I have the advantage here. Whaddya say, Kuzan? Think you can keep up with me and Ur, old man? I know that Ur kept you tied up earlier, but you sure seemed excited to jump into the action when I was out of the picture earlier." He could feel the annoyance directed at him from the two mages. Time to bring it home. "Have I mentioned that I'm sorry for interrupting your sword fight earlier? You two were just so into your fight that I just felt a little dirty watching without the two of you knowing."
That got a reaction. Ur let out a frustrated—and dare he say embarrassed—cry and launched her Ice-Make: Rosen Krone at him. A wall of twisting roses and thorny stems came charging at Gildarts and unlike her Rose Garden these weren't made to freeze and bind, but to pierce and tear. Perhaps he had pushed it a little far with his teasing? Gildarts pulled back his fist and sent a wave of Crush Magic through Ur's construct and smirked at the sight of her off-balance. Nah, he'd teased just enough.
Before he could rush forward, he felt a presence appear behind him. He reflexively sent out another burst of his magic, but instead of shattering Kuzan as expected, his magic almost seemed to crash into a barrier and break around the older man. This threw Gildarts off long enough for Kuzan to grab both of his arms and encase them to his sides in a layer of black ice. Gildarts spun around to face Kuzan and his carefully neutral façade. "Thought you knew better, Kuzan. A little ice like this can't hold me," he told him before flexing his muscles with a bit of magical assistance. Gildarts was surprised when instead of breaking free as usual he remained stuck in the black ice as tiny cracks formed on its surface. "What?" he dumbly said in shock. That should have worked. Even if he used the weakest burst of magic that he could it should have been enough to break through the ice. It had always been enough to break through before. What was so special about this ice? Gildarts looked up at Kuzan and offered him a weak grin. Maybe he had taken the teasing a little far. "No hard feelings?"
"Of course not," Kuzan told him right before kicking Gildarts over to where Ur had been waiting.
Gildarts had just enough time to catch the wicked grin on Ur's face before she created a fucking Iron Maiden for him to slam into. The door to the maiden slammed shut with a resounding crack and was then sealed shut. It didn't take long for Gildarts to break out of the frozen torture device and black ice binding him. "Okay, okay, I deserved that," he admitted while shaking the last of the ice off of his clothes, a few small scratches on his face and holes in his clothes the only sign that he was affected by his short stay in the maiden.
"Wow, Gildarts," Ur called out with a smug smirk and her arms crossed, "I'm impressed by how many times you were penetrated at once. You must have some amazing stamina."
"Yeah, I deserve that too," he admitted with an eyeroll. He grabbed his cloak and groaned at its condition. "Dammit, guys! This was my good cloak."
"You have a good cloak?" Kuzan skeptically asked as he approached the other two. "So the ragged end is just a fashion statement?"
"Hardy-har-har."
Kuzan held out a hand for a high-five from Ur and she readily returned the gesture. Kuzan quickly used this opening to grab her by the hand and throw her into a surprised Gildarts. He then sent forth an Ice Time Capsule that froze them long enough for him to create a giant block of ice over their heads. They broke out just in time to hear him say, "Ice Block: Avalanche."
Kuzan watched with more than a little satisfaction as the ice crashed down on top of his two best friend and buried them alive. Just because they forgot that they were still in the middle of a spar didn't mean that he had too. The ice was blasted away as expected and two very annoyed expressions were found on the now disheveled mages.
"You're a dick," they declared in unison.
"True," he admitted. "But don't forget the second avalanche."
Their eyes widened in shock before they screamed "You sonofabi—!" before the second block of ice crashed down.
This time instead of blasting the ice out of the way, Gildarts reduced it to slivers too small to feel. He glared at Kuzan and said, "Cute."
"Thank you. I try," Kuzan replied. He noticed a lack of a pissed off woman glaring at him and glanced around in confusion. "Where's Ur?"
"Right next to me and we're both going to kick your ass," Gildarts declared. "Right, Ur?" When he didn't get a confirmation he looked to his side and was surprised that Ur wasn't there. "Huh?"
The two men paused their fight to glance around for the last third of their trio. They had little luck searching until they heard Ur's voice strangely call out, "Down here, dumbasses," in a way that was both staggered and overlapping. They glanced down to see several dozen Urs glaring at them with their hands on their hips and disapproval in their eyes. It would have been quite intimidating if she wasn't literally pocket-sized. "Don't. Say. Anything," they all warned simultaneously in a disturbing echo effect.
Both men had to bite their tongues to keep from laughing at the comical sight of the army of tiny Urs cutely glaring up at them. After several seconds that they spent stifling their laughs and just as some of the Urs started tapping their feet, Kuzan managed to ask, "W-what happened, Ur?"
They were all apparently waiting for one of them to ask that as dozens of voices started talking at once, making the entire thing sound as if a legion was speaking as one. "Because some oversized asshole decided that he felt like being an absolute jackass and dropped not one, but two giant blocks of ice onto me and a certain dumbass. Said dumbass couldn't keep control of himself and let off a wave of magic that destroyed the ice and hit me as well because he's apparently a moronic, friendly-firing fuck-up!"
The two chastised mages guiltily avoided the many glares leveled their way. An series of explosive sighs were let out by the legion of Urs and they all adopted various expressions of exasperation. The 'main' Ur pinched the bridge of her nose, "Spar's over. Just turn me back to normal so we can head back to the hotel."
"Alright," Gildarts said. But he couldn't resist getting one last dig in. "Are you sure you don't want to stay like this? We could give one of you to everyone in the guild to carry around in their pockets so you can keep an eye on all of them."
Before he could blink, a giant icy rampart appeared before Gildarts that was manned by the various Urs. Cannons were crammed together and all of them were trained on Gildarts's no longer smiling face. Every Ur was flanked by a pair of cannons and held a third in their arms as they glared at Gildarts. The sound of every cannon cocking echoed across the icy arena and Gildarts attempted to shrink down so that he would become small enough that they wouldn't notice him. "Got it!" he squeaked before snapping his fingers.
The Urs disappeared and a full-sized, but still angry, Ur appeared in their place. She looked herself over and nodded in satisfaction. "There. Now isn't that better?" The two older mages nodded in agreement and she smiled at the fear in their eyes. "Good. Let's head back. I'm starving." Ur spun on her heel and started making an ice bridge back to the shore with Kuzan and Gildarts following behind her like a pair of dogs with their tails between their legs.
Unseen by them, she smirked. That would teach them to drop two ice blocks on her head then turn her into an army of dolls. But just for good measure…
Ur dispelled the part of the bridge that Kuzan and Gildarts were on and dropped them into the ocean. They both let out startled cries and plunged beneath the water. Before they dropped far, Ur dipped her hands into the ocean and froze them from the neck down. Two mage-cicles bobbed to the surface and ended up on their backs staring up at the sun. Ur leaned over the blocks of ice and smiled down at the pair. "By the way, boys, I win."
"…fine."
Erza sat in her room with her weapons laid out before her. She methodically would take a weapon and inspect it for the slightest of imperfections. If any were found she'd take her whetstone to them and sharpen the blades until she deemed them satisfactory. After that, or if she didn't find any problems initially, she'd dismiss it to her Requip space. She frowned at one of her favorite basic swords in disappointment. She had given it the hair test, but it had failed to cut through the follicle evenly, the remains of the left side were thicker than the right side of the strand. She clucked her tongue in disappointment and pulled out her whetstone. Before she started there was a knock at her door, and she turned around to find Kuzan standing in the open doorframe. "Sensei," she said in surprise. The S-Class trials didn't start for another two days, thirteen hours, and twenty-one minutes. She wasn't expecting him to return until tomorrow.
"Surprised?" Kuzan rhetorically asked. He glanced over the assembled weapons and raised an eyebrow. There weren't nearly as many lying around as he expected. That could either be a good thing or a bad one. "What're you doing?"
"I'm just making sure that all of my weapons are properly maintained for the upcoming trial," Erza quickly answered.
"All of them?" he asked. Kuzan internally winced when Erza nodded. Definitely a bad thing. He took note of her rigid posture, the way that her hands slightly shook, the way her jaw was unconsciously clenched, and the slight bags starting to form under her eyes and let out an explosive breath. It looked like he was right to come back early. Erza was clearly stressing out over the upcoming trials. Kuzan walked over to her bed (which was also covered in weapons) and made some room to sit down. He then patted the bed next to him and told her to "come here."
Erza cast a last lingering look over her weapons before dutifully taking a seat next to Kuzan. He slung an arm around her shoulder and pulled her to his side. She was surprised at the action and looked up at him in confusion. "Sensei?"
"Relax," he told her. "Close your eyes and breath. Just concentrate on that."
Erza was still confused, but she did as he asked. She soon entered the meditative state Kuzan had taught her early in her training. He had claimed that it was to help her concentrate, but Erza suspected that he had just wanted to nap.
Once her breathing evened out, Kuzan spoke again. "Now, take a deep breath and when you let it out, drop your shoulders, unclenched your jaw, and take your tongue off of the roof of your mouth."
Erza's brow furrowed at the strange instructions but did as he said. Her eyes snapped open in surprise when she felt tension she hadn't known she had leave her. She looked up at Kuzan and he smiled down at her.
"Better?"
"Much," Erza admitted. How had he known that she was tense? She hadn't even known.
Kuzan chuckled at her expression. "Good. Try to stay like that for a while," he advised. Erza nodded again and let out another breath, having already unconsciously tensed back up. Kuzan pulled her in a little closer but made sure that his grip was loose enough that she wouldn't feel constricted. She wasn't a very touchy person, most likely leftover from her time as a slave, and that was fine. He wasn't much of one either, but Levy was. Ever since the blue-haired girl had arrived she had slowly started to draw Erza out of her shell. The first time Levy had hugged Erza she had tensed up tighter than a sail in a storm, but now she was able to awkwardly return Levy's hugs and had even tried giving her an unprompted hug, though she was a little forceful and it made Kuzan wince every time he heard Levy's head bang into Erza's armor. She insisted that it was fine, but Erza always looked guilty afterwards. He figured that in this case she could use more than just him mussing up her hair. Once Erza had loosened up a bit, he asked her, "What are you worried about?"
Erza instinctively began to answer "Nothing," but the word died in her throat when she saw the patient look on Kuzan's face. Like she had all the time in the world to answer. She felt her jaw clench in frustration. She wanted to tell him what was wrong. Wanted to tell him what had been driving her crazy the last month, getting worse the closer they got to the S-Class Trials. But at the same time she wanted, almost needed, to pretend that there was nothing wrong, that she was fine. That while she was in her armor there wasn't anything to worry about because she was safe under the magical metal. Torn between telling him or not, Erza was unable to decide, so she just stayed silent.
Just as Kuzan was about to give up and call it a lost cause, Erza spoke up. "I… I'm afraid."
Kuzan said nothing, just gave her a reassuring squeeze and let her gather her thoughts. He'd give her all the time she needed to get this off her chest.
Erza took a deep breath and he watched her force her shoulders to drop before speaking. "Everyone in the guild, they keep talking about whether Mira or I will be the next S-Class mage."
"You both are very strong and intelligent girls," Kuzan said carefully, hoping not to accidently aggravate the source of Erza's problem. "It's only a matter of time until at least one of you become S-Class
"But they were so sure it'll be this time! Wakaba and Macao said that they weren't even going to try this year with 'monsters like those two in the running,' and the rest of the guild agreed. They've already given up," Erza bitterly said with clenched fists.
Kuzan made a note to talk to the pair about calling teens monsters, even as a compliment. Maybe he'd tell Ur about it and let her stand behind him and make threatening motions that she thought he couldn't see. "Macao and Wakaba are a pair of bums that would take any excuse to lounge around the guild drinking all day," Kuzan reminded her. He chose to ignore the fact that most of the guild qualified for that description, including all the S-Class mages that weren't Laxus. Him and Lyon tended to avoid the guild nowadays, only stopping in for a few days at a time before heading back out to do whatever they did. Kuzan sometimes wondered what they did. He had tried following them before, but they never stayed in town and he didn't feel like leaving town just to find out what the pair were getting up to. Lyon hadn't shown up missing a limb or with a new scar, so it wasn't a problem yet.
Erza shifted next to Kuzan and he gave his head a quick shake before his thoughts ran off with him. He had a problem to solve here. "Do you want to be an S-Class mage?" he asked. Was Erza feeling like she was being forced to be an S-Class mage? She had been training pretty much nonstop since she got to Fairy Tail and while he did make sure that she took breaks and didn't burn herself out she always seemed to resist the ideas at first. Did she feel obligated to fight and train so hard because Kuzan had taken her under his wing when she first arrived? Had she grown to hate all the fighting? Was she afraid she'd let him down if she stopped fighting? The thought that he had been forcing Erza to do something that she hated because he hadn't been paying attention to the signs around him terrified Kuzan. It was actually more than a little concerning how much that thought terrified him.
"No!" Erza fiercely denied. She seemed startled at her own outburst and quickly ducked her head. "It's not that. It's just…" Erza leaned her head back and blew out a loud breath. God this was hard. Why couldn't she just say it?! "What if I don't pass?" she asked almost inaudibly.
"Then you can just try again next year."
Erza's eyes snapped up to Kuzan's. "But—!"
"But nothing," Kuzan told with a tone that brokered no argument. His gaze softened, "Erza, you're only thirteen. If you or Mira were to make S-Class it'd be a record. Even Laxus didn't make S-Class that young, and he had to retake the trials more than once. So, don't worry about it so much." He mussed up her hair and smiled when Erza slapped his hand away with a small smile.
Erza let out a breath and Kuzan was glad to see most of the tension leave her body and stay out. Her anxiety must have really wound her up tight. "Thank you, Sensei. It was pretty stupid of me to be so worried."
"No. It's perfectly natural. I'm sure that Mira's just as worried about the trials as you are," he reassured her.
"Really?"
"I'd bet my bottom jewel."
"I'm going to kick Erza's ass!" Mira declared with a foot on the table and her fist thrust into the air.
"YEAH!" The rest of the house's residents cheered in agreement. After Gildarts had returned early, he had decided to throw a hype party for Mira to prepare for the S-Class Trials. There was a veritable feast of food spread across the dining room table and the party was in full swing. It generally consisted of everyone telling Mira that she was a shoo-in for S-Class and Erza was no match for her.
"Arg! I'm Erza! You'll never beat me!" Natsu declared in a poorly made Erza costume that consisted of a red wig that didn't cover all of his hair, whatever barrels and scraps of metal he could throw together for crude armor, and one of Lisanna's skirts.
"We'll see about that!" Mira declared, her face flushed from the alcohol that Gildarts had stopped by the guild for. She threw a punch with nothing held back that smashed through Natsu's "chestplate" and sent him flying into the wall, creating a crater on impact. "Take that, Erza!" she yelled while "Erza" groaned in pain and wondered why he thought that had been a good idea.
"Atta girl," Gildarts roared in laughter and slapped his hand to Mira's back, nearly sending the white-haired teen sprawling. "Who's kicked demon ass all over Fiore?"
"Mira!" the kids cried.
"Who's the most badass girl in all of Fairy Tail?"
"Mira!"
"Who's going to be the youngest S-Class mage in Fairy Tail history?"
"MIRA!"
"I'll drink to that! Cheers!" Gildarts said, clanking his mug against the kids' (watered-down) drinks with a smile. He pulled Mira into a one-armed hug. "You're going to do great, Mira. I've got total faith in you."
Mira grinned back with more teeth than necessary. "Yeah. I'm going to kick Erza's ass and become an S-Class mage!"
"Don't worry. Whatever happens at the trials just know that I'm proud of you and how far you've come from that little girl that almost cut her toes off with a spear," Kuzan told her with a grin at the end.
"I told you, it was shorter when I started," Erza replied with false exasperation. She hesitated for a moment, then reached out and latched onto Kuzan. "Thank you."
"You already said that," Kuzan reminded her as he patted the back of her breastplate. He wasn't sure if Erza could feel it, but she insisted that it was the thought that counted. They stayed like that for a few minutes before Kuzan said, "Come on. Let's get something to eat and show Levy that she doesn't have to worry about you anymore."
Erza winced at the reminder. "I hope that she'll forgive me for making her worry so much."
"I think seeing you acting like a human instead of a sharpening machine will be more than enough," Kuzan dryly told her, making Erza bow her head in embarrassment. She had gotten a little carried away with her weapon maintenance. "If not, I'm sure that if you ask her to read with her then she'll forgive you in a heartbeat."
Before Kuzan left the room, Erza called out and asked him, "Sensei, if I were to lose to Mira and she makes S-Class, would you be… disappointed in me?"
Disappointed? No. He'd be irritated that he'd owe Gildarts ten thousand jewels and would have to listen to the man lording Mira's success over him and Ur for the next year, but not at Erza for losing. "Of course not," he told her. "Don't worry about 'what ifs.' Like I said: whatever happens happens, we'll deal with it afterwards. If you pass, great. If not, then you'll just have to try harder next year—if you want to."
Erza smiled at Kuzan, reassured by his response, and hopped off the bed to follow him. She knew that he'd say that, or she at least assumed so, but it was still nice to hear it aloud. Now with a skip in her step that hadn't been present for the last two weeks, Erza went to apologize to Levy for making her worry.
"Well what're the odds," Ur rhetorically asked as the gathered S-Class mages stared down at both Erza and Mira, the former in her Flight Armor and the latter in her Satan Soul, holding onto the "Fairy Tail Cup," a beer mug Makarov had grabbed from the bar this morning and slapped a short-range Teleportation spell onto so that the first person to touch it was warped to the "winner's circle" in the middle of the camp they had set up on the beach where they'd be able to wait out this year's S-Class Trial. Gildarts threw back his head and laughed at the development, Kuzan slapped his hand to face and dragged it down in disbelief, Ur pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a heavy sigh, and Makarov's jaw hung open wide enough to catch one of the island's monsters in.
Eventually, Makarov regained his senses and announced that since Erza and Mira had both finished at the same time then they'd have to duke it out to determine which of them became an S-Class mage. A space was cleared in the middle of the beach for the two to faceoff and all of the failed candidates and S-Class mages formed a loose ring to watch while Makarov officiated.
Kuzan couldn't believe this was happening. This year's trial was a series of eight riddles that the mages had to solve before they obtained the final riddle that revealed the Fairy Tail Cup's location. They could solve the riddles in any order, but if they made eye contact with anyone, be it man or beast, they'd have to fight them unless they could see the cup as well, then they could go for it instead of the fight. The odds of two people grabbing the cup at the exact same time were ridiculous, even if it had been intentional—and knowing Erza and Mira's competitive streaks there was no way that was what happened.
This was just perfect. He had told Erza not to worry about getting into a fight with Mira during the trials and now she was all that was standing between Erza and S-Class status. Fan-fucking-tastic. Even after Makarov had tailored his preselection speech to call out anyone not willing to give it their all to try and become S-Class no matter how daunting because they were Fairy Tail mages and they never backed down from a fight. Six other S-Class candidates and all the native monsters on Tenrou and they still found a way to end the trial in a winner-take-all fight.
Gildarts elbowed Kuzan to get his attention. "Too bad Erza won't be making S-Class this year. She had a chance when it was just about finding and solving the riddles as fast as you could, but now that she has to fight Mira it's over," he claimed in blatant favoritism.
"Arara. So confident. Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is?" he challenged.
"Double the bet?"
"Of course."
Ur rolled her eyes when they shook on it. "The girls look like they've been through the wringer with everything they had to fight on the way here."
Ur was right, of course. Both teens were sporting various small cuts, bruises, and scrapes across their exposed skin, their hair stuck out all over the place or was stuck to their faces with sweat, and there were obvious dents in Erza's armor and Mira's gauntlets while both girls' clothes were torn in multiple places. They had defeated every monster they came across, but not without a cost.
"So, you still want in, right?"
"…Five hundred on Erza."
Kuzan grinned and Gildarts scowled. "Bah. You're just salty because Mira knocked out Lyon before they reached the second riddle," he said.
Gildarts regretted his words as soon as he said them and had to bite his lip to keep from making things worse. Ur had stiffened at the mention of Lyon but tried to hide it to no avail. They could see the tension in her shoulders and the way her hands were shaking. Gildarts opened his mouth several times to say something but words failed him. Eventually, he settled for putting a hand on her shoulder and squeezing, trying to convey his apology through touch. He didn't know if it worked, but she didn't freeze his hand off so that was a good sign.
Kuzan clasped her other shoulder in a show of solidarity. She gave them both grateful looks and forced a chuckle. "Thanks guys, but I'm not going to break down crying just because you mentioned Lyon's name," she reassured them. She turned her attention back to where Makarov was wrapping up the quick rules meeting but didn't shake their hands off her shoulders.
Gildarts and Kuzan followed Ur's gaze and knew that it was no coincidence that they just happened to be standing across from Lyon in the circle. They knew that she was getting better at seeing Lyon, but the kid still snuffed her when they saw each other and it had to hurt to not only be reminded of one of your greatest failures, but for them to twist the knife every time they interacted. The two older men gave the match their attention but didn't move their hands.
The fight between Erza and Mira started slower than expected, with both girls taking the time to banter and throw insults rather than rushing at each other to start a slugfest. They must have been more worn out from the previous fighting than they thought, and they had probably fought each other before they grabbed the cup. The actual fighting began when Erza requipped her Lightning Empress Armor and used its spear to shoot a bolt of electricity at Mira. After that it was a blur of ranged spells that the S-Class mages and Master Makarov shielded the spectators from. Mira threw around blasts of Darkness Magic while Erza danced between them and returned fire with her spear. No one seemed to grab the upper hand until Mira closed the distance between them and used her tail to disarm Erza.
The fight shifted, with Mira going on the offensive with a blur of punches, kicks, and tail strikes that kept Erza too occupied to change armor or summon a new weapon. The damage started to add up and Mira could taste the blood in the water. She overcommitted to one of her punches and sent Erza sprawling through the sand with a wicked haymaker but realized her mistake once the familiar light of Erza's requip surrounded her as she rolled with the momentum to gain distance. Mira flew forward to chase down her opponent, but it was too late.
She arrived in time to eat a mace to the face as Erza rose to her feet and followed Mira into the air with her Black Wing Armor. She pressed the advantage the surprise attack gave her and landed another strike to Mira's torso. Her third strike was blocked, and Mira used the new armor's lack of resistance to land an Evil Spark that made Erza cry out in pain and drop her mace. Mira's tail lashed out to strike but the dropped weapon was a feint that let Erza requip the sword that typically went with this armor and deflected the tail, throwing Mira off-balance enough that Erza landed her Moon Slicer.
The Take-Over Mage fell out of the sky and created a plume of sand when she hit the beach. Erza descended to finish the fight only for Mira's Demon Blast to nearly hit her in the face. She was able to dodge, but at the cost of her left wing. Erza was forced to abandon the attack so that she could properly roll out of her fall. She somersaulted up just to meet Mira's fist to her face. The white-haired teen quickly pinned straddled Erza and pinned her shoulders down with her knees so she was free to wail on her face.
Erza's thoughts were muddled from the head trauma and she could taste blood in her mouth and feel it running down her face, probably from a broken nose. As another punch slammed into her temple, she knew she had to do something about this before she blacked out. Her arms may have been pinned and Mira's tail was keeping her legs from doing anything, but there was one more trick she had up her sleeve.
With a surge of her Telekinesis, Erza lifted an armful of sand from behind her and threw it into Mira's face. She reared back from the impromptu sandblasting and that allowed Erza to buck her off and regain her feet. She snorted blood up her nose and spat it out into the sand. If Mira wanted a fistfight, then she'd show her a goddamn fistfight. Knuckledusters covered Erza's fists as she requipped her Boxing Armor—really just gym shorts and wrappings around her forearms, legs, and breasts—and charged the blinded demon.
Mira managed to regain her sight just in time for it to be filled by a red blur. Erza began to throw a combo of lightning-fast jabs that left Mira no room to recover as she was pushed across the beach. Before she could try to cast a spell, Erza landed a devastating one-two combo to her gut and face that left her lying in the sand. The redhead leaned her head back as she dispelled the knuckledusters and sucked in air. Right now, she was so grateful that Kuzan had forced her to learn how to fight with her semi-bare hands. She hadn't seen much appeal in using knuckledusters or brass knuckles when she started out, but Kuzan had said that if she wanted to learn how to fight with every weapon then, by God, he was going to teach her how to use every weapon. Now Erza could see why so many people chose to fight with their fists, that was immensely satisfying.
A rustle in the sand caught her attention and Erza looked back to see Mira climbing to her feet. "Good shot, Erza, but I'm not going to lose. Not when I'm this close." She held her hands out and begin drawing in the magic around them to form a black orb.
Erza grimaced at the sight of the attack and it wasn't just because the colors were making her head hurt. She recognized Mira's ultimate attack, Soul Extinctor. It looked like she was serious about not losing. Very well. Erza decided that she'd respond in kind.
Gym shorts and the wrappings around her limbs dispelled to be replaced by loose red pants with a yellow flame pattern at the bottom. She held the Demon Blade Crimson Sakura out to her side and placed both hands on its handle. She had sworn to use it only in an emergency and judging by the weariness in her bones and the size of the black orb in Mira's hand she wouldn't be able to dodge this attack, so it certainly counted as an emergency in her book.
A pinkish-red flame began to gather on her the blade as Erza focused all of her magic into the sword. At the same time, the orb in Mira's hand had grown to the size of a beach ball and was humming with power. Both girls met each other's eyes and knew that this was it, an all-or-nothing attack that would determine who made S-Class.
"Soul Extinctor!" Mira shouted as a blast of Darkness Magic surged along the beach, blowing back sand in its wake and forcing the spectators to brace themselves from the backlash.
Facing the wave of darkness, Erza closed her eyes, breathed out, and then moved.
There was a flash of pink-red through the darkness.
Mira's spell stopped firing, but the magic that was already cast continued on past Erza's starting point. One side went out over the ocean and the other cleaved through the forest before dissipating halfway across the island.
Mira stared past Erza in disbelief. The two were standing so close together she could feel the other girl's heavy breathing on her back and see the sweat on her brow. Despite that, Mira didn't dare move, not with Erza's blade softly touching her throat. It was so light that if Mira couldn't see the rest of it leading away from her neck she'd doubt that it was even there at all. It was especially impressive that Erza was able to hold it so steadily against her throat despite the exhaustion she was no doubt feeling. Mira didn't notice any of this, however. She was too caught up in one thought that was running through her mind.
'I… lost?'
Makarov stepped forward to where the two girls were standing and coughed into his hand. "And with that, the newest S-Class mage of Fairy Tail is Erza Scarlet!"
Hearing the verdict was it for both girls. The adrenaline keeping them going gave out and Erza just had enough strength left to send the sword back to her requip space before Mira's Take-Over ran out and she collapsed. Gildarts swooped in to catch the teen in his arm and she noticed him whispering something to her. She could guess what they were, but her head hurt too much now and all she wanted to do was lie down and sleep for the next year or two. In fact, that was such a good idea that she was going to get started now.
Before she could fall over, a pair of strong arms grabbed her and gently lifted her up into the air. She rolled her head to the side and was able to make out the somewhat blurry, but still recognizable, face of her teacher. "Sensei, I did it…" she slurred.
He smiled at her. "Yes, you did. Congratulations, Erza, I'm so proud of you. Now get some sleep, you've earned it."
Sleep. That sounded like a good idea. Erza shut her eyes and let herself slip away with a smile.
A/N: A lot of fighting and not much else. Got Erza's S-Class Trial done, and a whole year before canon. This will probably be the last Trial I write until we catch up to the canon timeline, (thank God) and the next chapter should focus on the effects this has on Mira and Erza, some training for the Gildarts Family, and maybe some stuff with Kuzan and Ur. We'll see how long it gets. Until then, later.