Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
Chapter 11: Kuchiba Town! The Orange Historic City of Traditional Towers, Modern Parks, Stereotype-Breaking Mages, and Searching For Shinichi
Lucy entered the town of Kuchiba with Risa and Sting to see that the entrance to this town was quite nice, since two trees with autumn-colored leaves were bordering the part of the dirt path that signified when people officially took their first steps into Kuchiba Town, and the protagonists were also truly able to enter the town because of how they made it past a brown-haired guy who acted as a gatekeeper. The gate that was behind Lucy's team had been brown while the top part of this gate was curved and went through the holes that were in the highest parts of four wooden brown pillars, almost resembling the design of a zen bridge, but the middle and lower pieces of brown wood that went through the pillars' hollow parts were flat pieces of wood that gave the gate an interesting look. It seemed even more intriguing from how opening the gate caused two pillars to be pushed on to the left side of the road with one half of the gate while the other two pillars were pushed to other side of the dirt path with the right half of the gate appropriately being on the right side. The entrance to the town wasn't its most attractive feature that the protagonists noticed, however.
Risa smiled in an excited manner from looking to her left, and that was because of how she could see that Kuchiba's amusement park was on that side of the town. Risa ran over there while Lucy simply walked alongside Sting, who comically had a pale green face from the motion sickness that was a direct result of taking the train to get here, and Risa hastily went down one of the town's tiled streets that was in a pumpkin shade of orange. She swerved past some people, before quickly reaching the amusement park that was open to everybody, and Risa gasped in a pleased manner as her eyes twinkled with joy from seeing the amusement park's attractions.
There was a fun-looking roller coaster speeding down the slope of a brown metal structure, as well as a ride where five orange airplanes were hastily going around in circles around a brown tower, and there was also an attraction with two large brown pirate ships swinging back and forth while people appeared to be laughing or comically being terrified as they held on to different parts of the ships. The two ships even swung in a full circle at different times while they were only about ten feet above the ground, but the dangerous rides did appear to have mages with insignias on different parts of their bodies watching the rides from below to make sure that any falling customers would have landings that would be soft like mushy clay that got wet in a rainstorm before the pottery could be finished. There was also a mage acting as a staff member in front of Ferris Wheel in the amusement park, too, and the Ferris Wheel was in the shape of an eight-pointed gold star with an orange octagon in the middle while its carriages with open windows were in a vermilion color with the tops of those carriages being in a normal shade of orange. Risa seemed happy about all of the rides while briefly turning to see that Sting and Lucy caught up with her, but she soon noticed all of the other minor attractions and concession stands.
As Risa started off her little search for the guild master of Vermilion Sunset by going up to a concession stand where they were selling spicy burgers with fried squid balls as a side dish, Sting started to recover from his motion sickness while Lucy entered the amusement park with him. The sight of the rides made Sting quickly avert his eyes towards a nearby concession stand where the vendor was selling hot cups of delicious pumpkin spice coffee, and Sting watched Lucy start to stand in front of him while she sighed in a troubled manner and looked a bit worried. If the guild master was walking around in this amusement park right now, then Lucy would have to stay with Sting in a section of the park where there were no rides, and Risa would probably have to run around the entire park to see if she could find the guild master. The client who sent the job to Sabertooth didn't mention what the guild master looked like, and Lucy didn't want Risa to question every tourist or local who looked somewhat intimidating or old.
"Thank you for the food! Also, I can't wait to enjoy this delicious food that was prepared by Vermilion Sunset's guild master!" Risa told the male vendor with a smile on her face, before reaching into her orange jeans to look shocked at how she didn't even have one-hundred jewels.
The middle-aged vendor who had short orange hair and a large orange mustache replied with a soft smile on his face, as he chose to not laugh at her assumption and inform her of something else, "I'm not the guild master, Miss. If you're looking for him, then he should be at the guild. You see, he only shows up here at sunset for reasons that I can't disclose. Anyway, the vendor rules set by him state that food from a concession stand is free of charge for people such as you. You ended up being the 100th customer of the day."
Risa told Lucy and Sting in a calm tone, after taking the food and hastily walking towards them with a small smile on her face, "Well, I found out that the guild master weirdly likes to come here around sunset. Maybe that can help us lead him to an area where no people will get hurt in our battle against him."
Lucy replied with a puzzled look on her face, as she wanted to gather the facts, "Vermilion Sunset is a dark guild, but some of the dark mages are strangely working here instead of taking high-paying jobs illegally. I'm not disapproving of them for working here, but something about this amusement park feels... off."
"At least something that's not abnormal is how this amusement park sells coffee, Lucy. It'll be good to just have some drinks while we're scoping out the park to see who the guild master could possibly be." Sting told her with a relaxed smile on his face, before walking away.
As Sting decided to go to the concession stand that was selling pumpkin spice coffee drinks while he would look around to see if anyone was acting suspicious, Risa bit into her spicy burger. She hoped to enjoy her burger while her eyes shifted to some of the rides and the people walking around, seeing who could look like a suspicious master of an illegal guild. She carefully looked at all of the people who oddly seemed to be having fun, not seeing the slightest sign that there was anything shady going on in this amusement park, and the only unexpected thing was that the burger was incredibly spicy. Lucy watched her friend's face turn quite red from the extremely hot spice while her eyes watered, before Risa smiled joyfully at how the burger tasted so good, and that prompted Lucy to try one of the eight fried squid balls resting on the plate.
Lucy put it in her mouth and chewed it, only to look curious from mildly feeling the spiciness that Risa intensely felt from just eating one, but the fact that she didn't put any Fire Magic in her mouth to reduce the spiciness made Lucy wonder if she barely felt any pain because of she was in Kotomi's body. Having her enemy's physical appearance must've also made Lucy have to deal with Kotomi's taste for foods being a bit different than her own, since Lucy couldn't handle spicy foods in the past, and Lucy decided that it would be good to just try spicy foods while they weren't able to burn her mouth.
She looked over at Risa, who hastily ate her burger while thinking that would reduce the spiciness, and seeing her cough two times only made Lucy giggle at how that concession stand's food was spicier than expected. Risa sweated a bit while finding that food to be much hotter than any Fire Magic that Lucy could create, but she started to smile a bit from how Sting came back with some orange coffee cups that appeared to be sticking out of the top of a brown bag. He put one drink in Risa's hand, before handing one to Lucy, and Sting got his own drink out of the bag.
"Let's just enjoy these drinks before we get to enjoy beating the crap out of that guild master." Sting told his friends with a confident smile on his face, before drinking from the tall cup of coffee.
Lucy replied while starting to smile in an optimistic manner, "Thanks for the coffee, Sting! Yeah, we'll definitely take down that guild master! Although, I wonder what kinds of spells he uses."
Risa told her with a relaxed facial expression, after taking several sips of her coffee, "No matter what type of magic he uses, we'll defeat him with no problems. Besides, that flyer didn't label him as one of the top ten wizards in Fiore. He's probably not even an elite mage."
Lucy simply giggled at how Sabertooth's rookie was quite confident, since she was starting to wonder if that guild master had a specialty for a certain type of spells, but she would also fight that individual with absolute seriousness. After all, a guild master who specialized in one type of magic would have to be pretty good with their skills to never lose their position. That would probably classify them as a powerful mage, but Lucy felt like an elite mage would have to be somebody who was viewed as a Wizard Saint. Even if this person in charge of Vermilion Sunset's guild was powerful, though, the team would still have to be very careful.
She started to drink her coffee while quickly standing in front of Sting again, being cautious enough to shield him from looking at a brown train that started to pass in front of this amusement park at decent speeds, and Lucy noticed that the dark brown train tracks were oddly appearing out of the ground while some trails of sand in the same regular shade of brown that was shared with the ground appeared to have been concealing them. Risa blinked her eyes in disbelief from seeing that, not minding how the fast-moving train blew some sand towards her group and other people who were entering the amusement park, so this place was definitely quite strange.
Risa watched the train go through the amusement park while it carried people in the different brown train cars, and the train seemed to take a long route for sightseeing. Risa simply looked at the train, before noticing that the orange rails and the train tracks extended to an area that was between the candy shop and the shop for sweet desserts in the amusement park, but the train didn't come from that area. The train simply swept the sand off of those tracks with its high speed, and Risa turned her head to the left for a moment. She got to see the train come from there while an orange-haired mage stood there to block people from coming in, and Risa's cherry red eyes caught a glimpse of the mage near the Ferris Wheel making an orange aura surround her hands. She gently placed them on the ground for her magic to go into the earth, and the train's tracks started to be concealed by sand again. Lucy caught a glimpse of the sand reappearing on the tracks, which further made her feel like the mages here were making something be strange about this place, and she drank down the rest of her coffee. Sting finished his pumpkin spice coffee, and the three wizards turned around to get out of the amusement park. Risa decided to hastily eat the remaining fried squid balls, enjoying their spiciness before the milk from her hot coffee cooled down her mouth, and she threw the cup and plate into a nearby black trash can. The pink-haired girl smiled a bit as thought that it would be nice to come back to the amusement park later for an immense amount of fun, but finding Vermilion Sunset's guild in Kuchiba Town was more important right now. Risa hoped that she could eventually remember where it was located, but getting to see the town's everlasting beauty made her smile while wondering if Lucy would care to appreciate the town's sunset-esque look with Sting.
15 minutes later...
Lucy walked around the town of Kuchiba with Sting and Risa beside her, admiring how the tiled streets of this town had some dark orange tiles that formed rhombuses with sherbet orange tiles inside of them to form smaller rhombuses, and these particular tiled designs were only in front of each person's house as a way to just be something beautiful for the townspeople to see when they walked outside. Each of the houses had cross hipped roofs, which meant that these particular roofs had two intersecting sections for the roofs to take the shape of an 'L' from an aerial view, and some roofs were in different shades of orange while other houses had roofs that were in different shades of brown.
Even though Risa viewed those nice features of Kuchiba Town to be pretty cool, Lucy and Sting noticed how the one-story shops and the taller businesses in this town were interestingly designed. The roofs were all in the regular shade of orange while they resembled the roofs of pagodas, which were towers with different tiers for the roofs to be at different levels of the buildings, and the eaves of the shops simply consisted of many orange tiles that were very long while they were also arched. All of the orange tiles were also lined up together while they also had simple curved protrusions that were jutting upwards on the building's angles. The town's sole two-story shop even had a red wooden barrier that looked similar to an oriental-looking gate on its top floor while it served as a balcony, but the shops were appealing to Lucy and Sting because of how they seemed traditional while standing among modern houses.
The protagonists walked up the street while liking that interesting contrast between the buildings, since having traditional shops next to modern residences was like Kuchiba Town's way of keeping up with the current times as they simultaneously preserved their past history. All of the buildings looked as beautiful as the autumn-colored trees that seemed to recently finish growing on the dark green grass, so whoever had tons of money in this town was definitely trying to make it look quite beautiful for the tourists who would love to take some nice pictures. Lucy and her friends weren't going to take any pictures, though, and they took a left turn on to one of the streets while hoping to find Vermilion Sunset's guild soon.
Lucy ran straight down the street to see a three-story building that was white on the outside while its orange roofs also resembled the roofs of pagodas. There were some square windows with orange frames, and Lucy stood in front of the entrance to see that it consisted of a single brown door that would probably have to be pushed open. Lucy placed her right fist against the door while her eyes looked up to see the guild's insignia being in an orange color while it was in the shape of a geisha fan with two orange dots above it, and she decided to just softly knock on the door three times. In a few seconds, a girl around Lucy's age with long orange hair falling to her knees opened the door while she wore a beautiful orange kimono and simply frowned at Lucy. Upon seeing Sting and Risa stop near the green-haired girl, this woman sighed in an annoyed manner.
"What do you people want?" She asked with a rude look on her face, as some other women in kimonos and men in yukatas walked towards the door.
Lucy asked with a kind facial expression, as she thought that it would be best to get the guild's leader to come outside by himself, "Is this the Vermilion Sunset guild? If it is, then can we speak to your guild master?"
The girl responded calmly to Lucy, before infusing an orange aura of magic into her left palm as she pushed against Lucy's abdomen, "This is Vermilion Sunset, but you can't talk to our boss because he's out on a job with one of the newest girls right now. If you wanna fight him, then make sure you're not on the ground crying your eyes out like a wimp."
Lucy exclaimed with a concerned facial expression, as the girl's palm suddenly knocked her down, "Ouch!"
Lucy fell on her ass, before quickly getting up and charging up her magical power to create a red flame in her right hand, and she gave this girl an intimidating look while not wanting anyone to think that they could push her around like she was a weakling. The red flame in Lucy's hand grew hotter from the fierce look in her eyes, but the sight of the flame turning crimson for a moment made the orange-haired girl and the other dark mages take a few steps back as they looked puzzled at the color for a few seconds. The dark mages started to look curious about Lucy's skills, but a black-haired girl who somewhat resembled Mirajane Strauss picked up an issue of Sorcerer Magazine that was on the light brown tatami floor. She turned a few pages, before a look of shock was in her purple eyes, and she softly whispered something to the girl who had opened the door. Lucy couldn't hear them, but Sting started to smile in a confident manner and fold his arms from how his enhanced hearing let him hear the whole conversation.
He heard that girl whisper to the other woman about how Lucy was the famous chick who recently took down one of the most famous singers in Fiore during their fight, and the girl with the orange hair widened her eyes in shock from how she thought that the paparazzi just decided to exaggerate that story for the magazine to get more popular. However, the sight of Lucy still looking intimidating was enough proof to show this girl that the magazine wasn't being published by a bunch of liars. Still, she felt like walking back towards the door while she was beginning to frown at Lucy.
She walked out of Vermilion Sunset to visit a shop that was close to the guild while it was on this particular street, and the protagonists quickly followed her. They were getting to see how this tangerine orange building with an orange pagoda roof was a one-story shop with purple curtains hanging from the doorway, and everyone walked into it to surprisingly see gold walls that matched a gold tatami floor. There was a brown stage in this particular shop while several people who were bandaged up appeared to be resting their heads down on purple pillows as they were bruised, and a blonde-haired girl who resembled Kagura Mikazuchi looked up from an injured young girl to go greet possible customers. She wore a gold kimono while pulling out a folded yellow paper fan from her kimono's pocket, but seeing a member of Vermilion Sunset come here with some guests caused this woman to simply frown.
"Here's another person who wants to be a patient in the Kimono Girls' Dance Theater that's now Vermilion Sunset's hospital. She might get beaten pretty badly, so prepare your healing spells and get ready to do extensive surgery." The rude mage arrogantly told the girl while starting to change her frown into a small smirk.
Lucy asked the blonde-haired woman in a slightly worried tone, as she started to look concerned for all of the people who were injured, "What happened to them?"
The woman explained while she started to look disappointed, viewing their various injuries to be pretty unfortunate, "They all lost to Shinichi Keikoku, the guild master of Vermilion Sunset. He's a very powerful man who can't be beaten by anyone, and some of these people are teams from other guilds who tried confronting Shinichi after he stole their jobs."
Lucy replied sternly as she began to narrow her eyes from hearing that, before displaying the crimson flame in her right hand, "He's an evil guild master, and he's also a dirty thief. Well, I'm now feeling more ready to take him down."
The employee of this shop wanted to tell Lucy that she probably wasn't strong enough to accomplish such a feat against Shinichi's powerful spells, but the sight of that crimson flame in her hand made the saddened woman start to gasp in a surprised manner. She walked over to a yellow scroll that was somewhat opened while it hung on the wall across from the stage, and Lucy went over to the woman while a look of curiosity formed on her face. She got to see that this particular scroll only had phrases that appeared to be wise words from sages, but Lucy saw the woman smile softly as she put her hand under the final line of wise words.
Lucy simply read those words silently to herself while seeing how they talked about how karma in the color of crimson would burn the earth and even scorch it to melt solid rocks into lava, but that merely made her back away from the woman who thought that Lucy's arrival in Kuchiba Town was like fate being kind to the town's residents who didn't like how Shinichi had so much authority in Kuchiba to the point where he could do almost anything without getting rightfully punished. In fact, what he had done to this particular woman on Bell Tower Day made her start to frown in disgust from thinking about him.
Despite how people had issues with Shinichi, Lucy chose to just walk out of the shop that was ran by some girls who wore kimonos. Even if Lucy was feeling confident about taking down a guild master, she wasn't feeling too excited about using a particular spell that involved the use of crimson flames. Lucy couldn't take those words on the scroll at face value, since her particular spell using crimson flames only enhanced her body while the flames themselves did nothing, and the flame in her hand began to fade away. Lucy didn't want to deal with possible pressure of having to rely on a spell that wouldn't show its true potential, and the flame on her hand going away made Lucy hope that wasn't alluding to Shinichi possibly extinguishing her chances of defeating him. Lucy looked at the store and the orange-haired dark mage in a frustrated manner, before running down the street to just check out more of Kuchiba Town, and Sting quickly followed her while Risa ran by his side. She watched Lucy run quite fast, before her friend made a left turn, and Risa could see that Lucy was heading to Kuchiba Town's Bell Tower.
Five minutes later, in front of the Bell Tower...
Lucy stood in front of the orange entrance doors of the Bell Tower, which was a large building with ten pagoda roofs to represent the tower's ten floors, and she frustratingly looked up at the high tower while clenching her fists. Lucy wasn't angry at the employee of the dance theater for telling her about the info on that scroll, but she started to feel pressure from how her crimson flames would have to be used in the fight against Shinichi. This was her first major mission of taking down a guild master, which made this nearly seem like an S-Class mission, and Lucy didn't want to screw it up by having a flame in her hand not be helpful in a critical moment.
She looked down at the Crimson Ring for a few seconds while narrowing her eyes, wondering if there was something else that she had to do for those crimson flames to possibly burn an enemy instead of just forming a ring of fire, and Lucy really hoped that she could figure it out before the fight occurred. After all, using an ineffective spell would only give her enemy an opening that could cost Lucy her life. She didn't want to die in this fight or end up like those poor teams of mages who were beaten very badly by one man, and her frustration at the Cherished Crimson Fire spell caused Lucy's body to tremble with frustration and anxiety.
As Lucy shook in an anxious manner while standing in front of the doors, Sting simply came up to her from behind with Risa beside him. Sting walked in front of Lucy to see her start looking down at the ground, her fists clenched quite tightly as if she wanted to just release her feelings by punching that guild master in the face, but seeing the immense amount of frustration in her eyes made Sting frown as he realized that this level of worrying was much greater than when Lucy had been worried about her previous fight. She almost seemed to be feeling a great amount pressure about the situation, and the white dragon slayer didn't want Lucy to feel like she couldn't win.
He had seen her fight, even seeing her powerful flames that gave off high amounts of heat, and wanting Lucy to look at this situation from a positive perspective caused Sting to lightly put one hand underneath her chin. He gently lifted her head upward for their eyes to meet, and Sting simply smiled in a confident manner at Lucy as some white light formed in the hand that was under her chin. The light felt very warm and soothing to Lucy's face, feeling almost as warm as a flame while the heat somewhat took her mind off of her frustrating thoughts, and the light started to bring brightness to her face while the light's warmth only increased the faint pink blush that was on Lucy's face from seeing Sting's awesome smile. Lucy was glad that Sting was trying to make her feel very positive about fighting the guild master, ignoring an orange-haired man who just opened the tower's doors as a way of exiting while he looked miffed, and she gave him a friendly hug for a few moments while softly smiling.
"Thank you for that, Sting. I'm sorry for running out of the dance theater like that. I just don't want to have to put all my faith into the crimson flames later on. After all, you saw how the crimson beam of fire is effective while the ring of flames did nothing." Lucy told Sting with the soft smile still being on her face, as she broke the hug and looked into his eyes.
Sting replied while giving Lucy a very confident grin, moving his hand for it to gently touch the top of her head, "You're welcome, Lucy, but there's really no pressure. You should just relax, since your other red flames can burn anything, and always believe in your magic. If you're a little scared, then just remember that I'll gladly take care of things for you. After all, I am as strong as this tower that still stands. In fact, they should rename it after me."
Lucy responded with a playful smile on her face, before lightly punching Sting's arm, "You think that you're as strong as a sacred tower, Sting, but you don't have the grand recognition of having a holiday associated with you."
That prompted Risa to happily tell her friends, as she looked excited about how the tower's doors were open, "Since the tower's open now, let's go see it! This could be our only chance to check out how this traditional tower has some beauty like the rest of the town, and we might run into that guy here. This is the last major attraction in the town, after all."
The protagonists ran into the Bell Tower to see that the wooden walls were light brown while the floor was in a darker shade of brown, and several paintings in orange frames were on the walls. Lucy also got to see some brown gates that looked similar to the entrance gate, and they were surrounding a giant flexible pillar of brown wooden that lightly shook from side to side. The shaking was simply caused by tourists who were upstairs, and seeing a staircase that led to the next floor made Lucy start to have determination in her eyes. She ran towards the staircase while swerving past some people who were enjoying the sight of Kuchiba's historic portraits, and Lucy hoped to find Shinichi on one of the upper floors.
Lucy quickly went up the staircase to see that the orange sliding doors were already separated from each other for people to also access this floor. Lucy turned to her left, before going downward and passing two paintings of Earth Magic that were on a nearby wall, and she turned right to reach the stairs. Lucy glanced down at the wooden path to see some cracks in it while the path of wooden flooring was surprisingly above a light brown lattice floor tiles, and some orange-haired mages were stationed up here to just jump up from the lattice floor with anyone who fell off of the wooden path. Lucy wouldn't fall down, though, and she simply climbed up the brown steps of the staircase.
Upon reaching the third floor of the tower, Lucy noticed that the sliding doors were pushed apart and she simply walked across a light brown plank bridge that was between two wooden paths. Lucy did her best to keep her balance on the bridge while seeing the giant pillar in the middle slightly shake, and the nice attraction on this floor was a piece of wood disconnected from the main path. It featured a bronze statue of a male next to a large brown boulder that was cut in half, and the statue featured the man's hands being positioned to strike with karate chops. The brown wooden sign next to statue labeled this as Shinichi's Success, prompting Lucy to go up the next staircase.
She soon arrived at the next floor to see more paintings on the walls while this room was quite dark, only having light from orange flames that were burning on bronze statues of paper fans with small indentations in them. Lucy ran past those statues that stood on dark orange podiums, but she widened her eyes in shock from how her right foot got stuck in a crack of the wooden path. She attempted to pull on her ankle while trying to get her foot out, only to not see it budge, and Lucy groaned in frustration. Burning the wooden path to free her foot wouldn't be a good idea, since that would just set the Bell Tower on fire, and Lucy couldn't even punch the floor's hard wood without feeling pain in her fist. She continued to struggle and groan, until someone's soft footsteps got her attention. Lucy started to look worried from seeing a brown-haired girl quietly come towards her, the fire providing light for Lucy to see her orange kimono with purple flowers on it, and seeing this woman cover up the orange insignia of Vermilion Sunset with her left sleeve to conceal her wrist made Lucy struggle more loudly. She kept pulling quite hard, only to see the woman with mocha brown eyes charge up an orange aura of magic in her left hand as she frowned with slight concern on her face, and Lucy feared that she would be perceived as an intruder who needed to be attacked. In a few seconds, Lucy saw this woman's fist smash through part of the wooden path. As Lucy tried to keep her balance on the shaky wood, she began to smile from how her foot was now free. Even though this woman was one of Shinichi's mages, Lucy felt glad to receive some assistance to get out of that troubling situation.
"Thank you, Miss. Although, I hope you won't be in trouble for breaking off a bit of the tower's walkway." Lucy told her with a kind smile, as the shaking of the wooden path began to cease.
This certain woman who had her hair in an upwards ponytail replied with a genuinely nice smile forming on her lips, "You're welcome. My master will fix the broken wood with his magic later, so don't worry about it. Anyway, you should probably get back downstairs with the other tourists. Unless you're a true warrior who has firm footing and great strength with Earth Magic to proceed upstairs, you'll be in more trouble with the higher floors seeming shakier like a rocky road that's experiencing an earthquake. Please don't make Master Shinichi or me have to deal with a tourist's death."
A voice suddenly exclaimed from the bottom of the staircase, after the kind woman heard a person's familiar footsteps, "How long is it going to take you with lighting the flames on a few floors, Nozomi?! What are you doing?! Get down here already, and go get me something to eat for lunch!"
She placed her hands together, before politely bowing her head to Lucy, and Nozomi ran towards the staircase. Lucy smiled at the woman while some joy entered her eyes, and she felt that there was finally a genuinely kind mage in this town who wouldn't be rude towards her or put any extra pressure on her shoulders. Lucy happily giggled to herself as she perceived Nozomi as one of the dark mages who was probably a good person that disliked the idea of fighting, and Lucy would be sure to not harm her during the fight against Shinichi as her way of saying thanks. Before that fight could begin, though, Lucy and her friends had to all be downstairs for them to exit the Bell Tower.
Lucy hastily ran downstairs to get to the first floor, since the team's little tour of Kuchiba Town was now over, and Lucy would be glad to tell her friends about what had recently happened. They didn't find Shinichi, which was unfortunate, and Lucy kept running downstairs while she got to see how Nozomi was quickly running beside an orange-haired male who sounded impatient earlier. Due to how they were both dark mages, Lucy made the smart decision of staying a few feet behind the duo as she ran. She wouldn't want Nozomi's partner to immediately get paranoid enough to think that Lucy was here to kill the guild master, since Lucy believed that particular scenario would just lead to an unnecessary fight, so Lucy would make sure to just leave them alone for now while acting like a tourist who needed to rejoin her friends.
After two more minutes, Lucy made it to the ground floor of the tower to see Risa comically telling Sting in an appalled manner about how one of the five girls wearing kimonos in a portrait supposedly had poor fashion sense from wearing white sandals with a mint green kimono that had a pattern of dark blue roses on it. That little critique caused Sting and Lucy to both let their eyes twitch in a slightly annoyed manner from how the snarky lover of fashion was pointing out some questionable fashion choices in a portrait that was probably made before she had even been born, and Risa turned her head to see Lucy walking down the stairs. Sting smiled from seeing Lucy look happy as if she enjoyed her little exploration of the tower, but he started to frown a bit from how they didn't find Shinichi in Kuchiba at all. Sting had noticed someone opening the other pair of orange sliding doors that were directly across from the tower's entrance to see what was behind those doors that were decorated with several dark orange rhombuses painted on them, but all that had been there was a trail leading off somewhere. Lucy started to share Sting's soft frown at how their search for Shinichi seemed to end in failure, and they walked out of the Bell Tower while Risa was walking behind them with a small smile on her face. She seemed to enjoy the grand tour of this town while thinking that the only way to really find Shinchi, as well as finding out exactly what he looked like, was to just wait for some dark mages to meet up with him. Risa had seen Vermilion Sunset's guild insignia on the right wrist of the guy who just walked out of the tower with a brown-haired girl, so she wondered if it would be a good idea to follow them and hide nearby.
20 minutes later, near the amusement park...
Risa made Lucy and Sting hide behind several of the autumn-colored trees with her in Kuchiba Town while they had secretly followed the kind-looking girl and her companion to the amusement park, all of the protagonists observing how the female wizard from Vermilion Sunset entered the park by herself to get her presumed master some food, and Lucy paid close attention to how the male mage did not enter the park at all. She recalled the info Risa shared with her and Sting about how the guild master only went into the amusement park at sunset, and anyone who spent at least fifteen minutes waiting at the entrance instead of just entering the park for their food did seem like they were planning to go in there at a personally preferable time.
Upon seeing the nice dark mage come running back to the entrance on this nice afternoon with an orange plate of hot dogs and a large bottle of cola for her friend to drink while they softly started to have a conversation, Lucy smiled a bit as the sun seemed to slightly lower. She hoped that her team could get access to the amusement park around sunset, since that would allow her to investigate the park's activities with her team, and Lucy just wanted to have the luck of this woman or her friend walking back to Vermilion Sunset's guild for the other companion to follow them. That way, Lucy and her friends could enter the park undetected.
Going into the park at sunset seemed like the best idea right now, since following the woman and her friend didn't result in Risa or anyone else from Sabertooth seeing these two mages interact with anyone who they addressed as the guild master, and Lucy would be glad if herself or Risa waited in the park for the leader of Vermilion Sunset to show up. After all, going around Kuchiba Town and trying to find him for almost an hour made Lucy and her friends seem like a group of tourists who just couldn't find an important landmark that was supposed to be something unmissable.
As Lucy and Risa respectively looked up at the northern part of the street near the amusement park and down the nearby street's far end to see if the guild master would show up, they joined Sting in having their attention directed at the sound of someone loudly spitting out their drink. The mages from Sabertooth stayed behind the trees and slightly peeked out from them to see the stern man frowning as his drink was now all over his partner's face, even somewhat dirtying the top of her kimono, and the woman got down on her hands and knees to beg in a submissive manner.
"You better beg for forgiveness, Nozomi! What I just did to you is your light punishment for not being able to help me find the treasure in the Relic Ruins today, and we wasted our damn time there! You figured out the stupid inscription, but seeing a girl from the dance theater made you get scared enough to flee?! That certainly won't help you get to fulfill your mama's wish, Nozomi! She want you to be strong by getting power and money, even if you have to kill people who worked alongside you at that theater! Remember, they bullied you at that place and your mother hated seeing you so hurt! We can destroy it, and reconstruct it later!" The rude mage harshly yelled at his partner with a disapproving facial expression, before kicking sand towards her kimono and dirtying it more as he lightly struck her chest with his second kick.
Nozomi anxiously responded with a concerned facial expression, as she raised her head with the feeling of worry in her eyes, "Even if I want to become strong by destroying the dance theater,... it's a pretty big place. We don't have any Fire Magic to burn it."
The persuasive guy replied in a confident manner, as Lucy caught how his supposedly positive smile attempted to hide the brief appearance of a devious smirk, "Nozomi, you have my skills to help you out. Among all of the guild masters in Fiore, I'm the one can use eight powerful spells. You should know I'm Shinichi Keikoku, an elite guild master wielding Earth Magic of the highest caliber to viciously destroy anyone!"
Lucy and Sting softly whispered simultaneously while looking very shocked at what they were hearing, before quickly covering each other's mouths for only a few seconds, "Whoa, he's the guild master of Vermilion Sunset!"
The things that Shinichi was saying made Lucy's body slightly shake as she turned around with a concerned facial expression, feeling glad that Sting and Risa also seemed just as worried, and this job definitely had its stakes be raised higher than ever to where this would probably be an S-Class mission. Lucy was going to have to save the dance theater, and she wondered if now would be the right time to charge up her Fire Magic to its highest level. Lucy would gladly set that guy ablaze for spitting in someone's face and literally kicking them when they were down, but fighting in Kuchiba Town was risky. As Lucy looked quite worried, her mind shifted to thoughts about the particular place that was targeted for destruction.
The dance theater was full of all those injured people who had been beaten down by Shinichi, and destroying the dance theater would probably result in their deaths. The fact that he didn't care about them at all made Lucy narrow her orange eyes, and she peeked out from behind the tree to see Nozomi staying down on her hands and knees as she bowed to Shinichi's seemingly great scheming. Lucy and her friends watched him roughly grab Nozomi's hair to pull her upward, before he pressed his lips against hers to make them both seem like a romantic couple while Nozomi would have no reason to cry, and Lucy's nails slightly dug into a the bark of a tree as her left hand tightened from seeing such an abusive person.
She watched Shinichi break the kiss while Nozomi began to give him an obedient smile, her cheeks having a pink blush on them, and Lucy got to see Nozomi slowly stand up. Shinichi calmly looked at her while proceeding to eat one of his hot dogs, not blushing whatsoever from that kiss, and he merely viewed this girl as one of the useful tools in his dark guild. Shinichi made Nozomi be so submissive to where she was like a woman with only a glimmer of her own willpower that was overshadowed by demands from her abuser, and he faintly smirked at how her mother's death still left Nozomi as an emotional mess while she needed to be manipulated into believing that she truly had strength.
"Destroying the dance theater to make your deceased mother be proud of you... You're much more decisive these days, Nozomi. You're no longer that weak and bullied girl who couldn't fight back, so everyone will die from seeing the power of your spells combined with mine. If you want, let's go in there now and I'll let you start things off by choking that stupid blonde employee to death or just breaking her neck." Shinichi told her with a scheming smile on her face, sounding eager with optimism in his voice as he manipulated her.
Nozomi timidly replied with a nervous facial expression, as her eyes shifted to two young girls who passed by them and ate cotton candy on their way to a different part of Kuchiba, "I'm... not ready to do it right now, Master. Maybe we should... do it in a few days after taking the trail past the Bell Tower... to get the treasure from the Relic Ruins for reward money and more power to put us in a good mood."
"Not giving up on getting riches is also something I love to hear from all of the beautiful women in my guild, Nozomi! You're starting to think just like a good mage of Vermilion Sunset! After destroying the dance theater, we'll go destroy some guilds and steal jobs from their members. After that, you can reward me with your decision of stripping and getting on your knees for me to celebrate that success. Your mom wants you to be strong and wealthy, so powerful people who work in a guild such as mine can freely have riches after kindly giving most of them to me!" Shinichi responded with a very pleased look on his face, before starting to walk off with Nozomi behind him.
As those two mages walked off, Shinichi's last words only made Sting frown in anger. That master of an illegal guild definitely had a lot of nerve to make stealing from innocent people seem like it was something that Nozomi's mother would approve of, and Sting really wished that Rogue was here with him to knock that guy out for seeming to take most of the hard-earned cash from his mages. Sting never did something so cruel to his members in Sabertooth, and he treated people with respect. He narrowed his blue eyes while viewing that greedy antagonist to be one of the most evil people that he ever had to overhear, but Sting's anger was slightly weak in comparison to Lucy's anger at Shinichi's words.
She wasn't going to let such a disgusting man get away with destroying the dance theater, and Lucy made two red flames be in her hands. Burning Shinichi down into a pile of ashes was definitely her main priority now, as he seemed like a greedy guild master who cared very little about other people while he schemed with sweet advice towards Nozomi for her to see no reason on why he should be disobeyed, and Lucy would be glad to take him on. Fierceness was in her eyes as she accidentally set the tree in front of her on fire, really feeling ready to fight, and Lucy also hated how Nozomi wanted revenge for being bullied. Even if people hurt her in the past, destruction wasn't the right way to solve the problem. Lucy was angry enough to where her flames became a crimson color, burning the tree with more ferocity, but she exhaled a soft breath as the thought of discovering more about those two mages started to enter her mind. They made her be quite miffed, but also made her feel as curious as she was about the weirdness of the amusement park.
Lucy wasn't the only one feeling like something shady was going on in that amusement park, since Sting and Risa shared her feelings, but Risa frowned in a stern manner as she felt like it would be good for her to investigate the park at sunset. That wouldn't just let her see Shinichi's shady secrets that couldn't be revealed by his employees, but Risa perceived this as a nice test of stealth for her. After all, she had seem some jobs on Sabertooth's request board that asked for people to be sneaky mages who could quietly break into dark guilds to just retrieve some stolen cash or items that were stolen. As Risa started to smile about the task that she created for herself, the excitement of this escalated mission made her confidently share the news with her teammates.
"Listen up, Lucy and Sting. Tomorrow, I'll check out the amusement park at sunset to see what goes on at that time. Lucy, you should go keep an eye on those two mages while Sting sneaks into the Bell Tower to try and throw them off if they get there." Risa explained to her friends with a confident facial expression, surprising them and herself by showing a bit of leadership.
Sting responded with an approving smile on his face, as he turned to Risa, "That's a pretty good plan, Risa. Although, I hope you'll be careful."
Lucy asked Sting while a smile started to form on her face, glad to respect Risa's plan with a snarky question, "Is our idea of splitting up for a bit a bad idea, or does it throw Shinichi off at the very end when we all take him by surprise to beat him down as proud wizards of Sabertooth?"
She made the flames fade from her hands to give Sting a high-five, as he raised his right hand up high towards Lucy for saying that, and Lucy proceeded to hug Risa for making such an awesome plan. This was an interesting idea on Risa's part, since separating to just gather information meant that they could all just improvise or plan for any mages trying to attack them, and Lucy let out a small cheer. Not only would this plan be taking place at sunset with things possibly happening later in the evening, but that would give her time to train with those two last crucial spells. If the scroll from the dance theater was truly saying wise words, then her flames would gladly help her win the battle. Lucy hoped that they would be explosive and burn Shinichi while also being quite loud, and a soft breeze that passed through Kuchiba Town made something like bells ring loudly from the Bell Tower's area. As the group decided to walk back towards the town's gate and leave for now, Lucy turned her head for a moment to stare at the ancient Bell Tower that was in the distance. Its historic bells that were seemingly near the rooftop continued to ring nicely, and Lucy walked away while perceiving them to ring like that as a way of possibly wishing good luck to her.
How was Chapter 11? Feel free to tell me your thoughts on it. Just to let you know, as a warning, there will be a serious situation in the next chapter involving Shinichi and Nozomi. It's meant to further illustrate their dynamics, but I don't support Shinichi's behavior in real life. Speaking of OCs, I'm not giving names to minor characters such as the mage who told Lucy that Shinichi wasn't at the Vermilion Sunset guild. Also, you will finally see Shinichi's motivation for wanting so much wealth and the power while the shady surprises of the amusement park are definitely going to take Risa by surprise. As for Risa's snarky comment that was unexpected for Lucy, what that exactly leads to will be seen later in the arc. Not in the next chapter, but maybe the one after that. Furthermore, the rest of the Bell Tower's floors will be seen later. Saving stuff for later also goes for how the dance theater is involved with this arc, too. Good news, everyone! We reached 100 reviews! That's awesome, but not as awesome as how this is the 2nd chapter of the Sherbet Earth Arc! I'll update soon. :)
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