Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
Chapter 34: Haruna, The Mysterious Stranger! The Strange Aroma of Familiarity Appears! The Perfumes, Plants, & Winds of Improper Research!
After walking out of Kogane Town's clothing store with some bags of clothes pertaining to new fashion trends that had reached the town, Lucy proceeded to walk to the Sabertooth guild with Sting by her side. Since shopping could help them start to bond much more on the first official day after their training sessions were officially over, Sting felt happy that shopping was an activity he could do with Lucy. He carried some of her bags while smiling calmly at how Lucy was a fast shopper, since she didn't have Risa's tendency of spending long amounts of time in a store, and Sting perceived Lucy's swiftness with shopping as something that was related to her training. She actually did have to shop quickly as part of her training, since Miru and Shizue wanted Lucy to think quickly in various situations.
That included how Lucy had to learn about sending Psychic Magic into her eyes, as that action would allow her to foresee the outfits she viewed to be fashionable, and she would be able to swiftly buy clothes for a day's outfit without getting lost in other thoughts about buying certain articles of clothing later. She currently had to focus on purchasing one outfit at a time, as that would assist Lucy with making her Psychic Magic be stable. It certainly did bring stability to Lucy's psychic powers, as that method of training worked in conjunction with more intense training methods methods to make her be capable of gathering up necessary amounts of emotion for different spells.
In fact, Lucy soon found herself having to build up Psychic Magic in her eyes from feeling very curious about the sight of a green-haired girl standing near one of the Sabertooth guild's windows. She had been standing a few feet away from one of the windows that was near the middle of Sabertooth's guild, which was a great spot for her to get a good look at many of the mages who either sat down at tables or simply passed by the window. That particular window was soon going to be on the receiving end of an attack that involved the girl charging up a dark green sphere in her right hand, however.
As she was charging up her attack to make it be big enough to strike the window, the mysterious female soon looked quite shocked at the sudden sight of Lucy running towards her with the light pink aura of Psychic Magic surrounding her feet. That aura caused Lucy's running speed to greatly increase, allowing her to move fast enough for the purpose of swiftly getting behind the stranger right before she tackled them from behind. Tackling that girl down caused her and Lucy to both loudly hit the side of the guild, getting the attention of some mages, and the sphere that hadn't finished charging up only made a small blast occur in a dark green color while it barely even damaged the grass. Even though the blast dealt no harm to the guild, Lucy aggressively grabbed the woman's right wrist to restrain her.
"What in the world are you trying to do?! Are you trying to harm my friends?!" Lucy loudly asked her in a stern tone, as she let the woman roll on to her back.
The girl who had short dark green hair with cut bangs replied in a defensive manner, trying to release her arm from Lucy's tight grip, "I'm not interested in harming any of you, mage! Now, unhand me and let me go into the Sabertooth guild!"
"Why do you need to go into the Sabertooth guild? Who are you, anyway?" Sting asked the restrained woman with a facial expression displaying a mix of strictness and curiosity, as he quickly walked up to the situation.
The mysterious stranger pushed Lucy off of her with a strong gust of wind emerging from her left hand to blow Lucy near a large tree, before she told Sting in a somewhat calm manner, "Since you're so interested, I'll tell you. Your guild's request board needs to have a particular flyer on it, and paying someone to send it from such a far distance isn't possible."
She proceeded to pull out a dark green flyer from the left pocket of her slit forest green skirt that had pale green trimmings, and the woman got up to hand the flyer to Sting before slightly pulling down her light green kimono top that had an emerald green sash under it to cover her waist. As Lucy quickly got back on her feet to notice that the sash matched the woman's emerald green high-heel wedges that looked somewhat torn, she turned her head to see Sting react to the flyer in a perplexed manner like he had seen its contents somewhere before.
He thought about how the flyer was on the request board in the past, and Lucy went over by his side to see the flyer. Her eyes widened in shock, since this flyer's job description involved helping someone who worked in a perfume shop, and Lucy recalled seeing this job before. The only differences between the past flyer and this current one were involving how the description asked the mages to speak with them for more information on the S-Class mission while the reward for completing the job was also increased to 30,000,000 jewels.
Despite how that was a hefty amount of money, Lucy lowered the flyer from in front of hers and Sting's eyes to look at the seemingly impoverished woman. She didn't seem like the type of person who had a high amount of money or was in a seemingly wealthy position, which made Sting start to wonder if this woman was serious about really needing assistance with this job. Seeing the seriousness in her lime green eyes made him easily understand that she wasn't joking around, but hearing his other teammates come running out of the guild made Sting feel like not everyone would respect her level of seriousness.
"Who in the world created that sound of a blast? If there's someone who's loudly trying to make an entrance and wanting to join the guild, then you may want to go in through the front door instead of literally making an entrance." Risa asked with a concerned look on her face while running out of the guild with her two other teammates, before frowning at the stranger and speaking in a snarky manner.
The girl who had been carrying the flyer told Risa in a stern manner, not afraid to bluntly answer her question, "My name is Haruna Senzai, mage. I have no desire to join your guild, and I was only going to make sure that my job ended up in your guild. Also, keep that snarky attitude to yourself when you're speaking to me."
"On the subject of speaking to you, it may be good for us all if we talk inside the Sabertooth guild to discuss this private matter." Rogue told Haruna in an emotionless tone, as he walked away with Risa from suddenly sensing some magic presences around.
Haruna responded calmly, nodding in agreement while proceeding to walk to the entrance, "Yes, I'm more comfortable with discussing the situation of the job in a building filled with mages."
Haruna stopped to ask Lucy with a surprised look on her face, now getting a good look at the Sabertooth wizard, "Wait, aren't you...? Why do you look just like that girl who...?"
Lucy raised an eyebrow at Haruna's incomplete questions, thinking that she must've been recognized as the princess of Kuchiba Town. However, Haruna didn't seem to recognize Lucy as a princess at all. She had actually ignored the newspapers and issues of Sorcerer Magazine that were from months ago, since they weren't worth focusing on while she had her own problems to handle. Haruna mainly cared about herself, only hearing recent news about the people who were residing in her town, but Lucy looked just like someone else who had made a prominent name for herself in Fiore.
Lucy wondered if Haruna recognized her to be Kotomi Takeuchi, the wind-wielding mage who could wield Wind Magic like the gust of wind that Haruna recently created, but Haruna didn't even think of screaming at her. Lucy merely watched Haruna open her mouth like she wanted to ask something that was very important, but Haruna chose to just stay silent. She felt like it would be bad to just assume something about the Sabertooth mage on the basis of her appearance, especially since the magical power that she could sense from Lucy seemed very different from what Haruna recalled sensing years ago from this same girl.
Still, Haruna walked away to go into the Sabertooth guild while thinking about how she was tackled down by that girl who used psychic abilities. That psychic power seemed very different from what Haruna remembered, as the people in her town made two prominent types of magic be their specialties, and a third type of magic was just an exclusive rarity to that town. The two prominent types weren't rare to find, but their popularity unfortunately inspired people to utilize them for purposes that had negative effects on her perfume shop. Haruna frowned in a stern manner at how her perfume shop was suffering, just like how her name was in jeopardy, and she hoped that the Sabertooth mages could help her with solving the crucial problems.
Ten minutes later, in the Sabertooth guild...
Lucy and her friends chose to sit down at a brown table near the windows with Haruna, all of them looking quite curious to hear why the owner of a perfume shop seemed to desperately need their help. Haruna sternly explained her issues to the group, stating how a fragrance of perfume that had been created by the town's researchers was making the other people of Ryokufū Town become quite sick, most of them even dying from simply breathing in the air, and the perfume seemed to have deadly side effects that made people get sick.
The researchers who were making people feel very ill had claimed that their beautiful and sweet-smelling perfumes were not the cause of the contaminated air, and they had the audacity to come up with stereotyped pieces of data for their research that supported their self-serving arguments of how Haruna's perfume shop was creating fragrances that were causing people to die from the sickness. The sickness was like a potent virus that was causing a horrible pandemic within the town, as people were dying from symptoms such as high fevers or extremely strong headaches that were just as bad as how some residents had difficulties with breathing.
Their troubles with breathing and feeling sick were very ironic from Haruna's perspective of how Ryokufū Town was a place where wielders of Wind Magic resided, as well as Plant Magic, so the people who could create winds with their magic or create medicinal cures from herbal plants shouldn't have had any issues with counteracting the perfume that could make people sick from carelessly breathing in one direct spray or breathing it in when the scent rode on the passing winds. They were too busy suffering from feeling ill to do that, however.
The sickly people chose to just blame the trouble entirely on Haruna and her other employees from the perfume shop, causing her to feel the need to flee right when the hatred against her first occurred. The dying and worried residents of Ryokufū chose to believe the researchers who spent countless hours in their research facility, since they were botanists and aerologists who also worked with scientists who were chemists and aromachologists claiming to be looking for cures as if they were aromatherapists. Haruna considered herself to be an expert in aromatherapy, meaning that she was always trying to see which scents cause people to specifically respond in ways that make them feel healed, but all of Haruna's knowledge and research was viewed as irrational by the researchers in the town's facility. She got to see Lucy turn that irrationality back on them with a simple question, though.
"What's an aromachologist, Haruna? Isn't that like a pharmacist?" Lucy asked the job's client with a curious look on her face, as she and Sting sat across from her.
Haruna explained to her in a calm tone, folding her arms as she shook her head to signify that Lucy's assumption was incorrect, "Not at all, mage. The aromachologists study how and why scents make people act in certain ways, and they normally take advantage of that to make high sales as perfume sellers. They encourage shoppers to spend their cash on perfumes, and a pharmacist tries to give people the right medicines."
"Let me get this straight, though. You're from a town where there are several researchers who combined their studies on wind and plants to make sweet-smelling perfumes that unfortunately cause people to get sick, but none of those researchers are stated to be pharmacists who would know about the proper medicine to give people in this situation. Wow, that research facility in Ryokufū isn't full of the brightest residents if they don't have at least one person in that department." Risa responded in a snarky manner, frowning in disbelief at how that research facility was still allowed to be operational.
Haruna responded to Risa with a defensive facial expression while thinking back to when the sickness first began, before restraining herself from saying too much information, "It's not like we didn't try to have a pharmacist or a doctor be in charge of finding the cure when the sickness was first released into our town, you know! At least those fools who tried to do something were proven to be leaders who could be sacrificed, since the task of restoring Ryokufū to be a great town requires my safety because of how I'm-"
She refrained from saying too much about herself, as Haruna didn't want the Sabertooth mages to feel like they would be in a very different situation that wouldn't just involve helping the owner of a perfume shop get her business back to being respectable enough for customers to no longer follow the researchers in framing her fragrances to be problematic perfumes. Haruna decided to just focus on thinking about her perfumes while narrowing her eyes at Risa's remark about the brightest people weren't from her town, and Haruna never acted lazy or dumb when creating perfumes.
In fact, the fragrances that she sold were primarily extracted from some of the town's nearby plants. Those plants were deemed to be safe for people to smell them, and the sweet-smelling plants were quite prominent. Their prominence was rivaled by the town's nearby forest having bitter herbs that were perfect to use for creating medicines, which were effective for treating common diseases or providing ailments for rashes that stemmed from making contact with the dangerous plants. The bitter plants themselves weren't primarily used in creating the sickness-inducing perfumes, though.
Haruna looked down at the table while starting to recall how she had seen the researchers collecting plants from the deepest parts of the forest for their aroma, as well as going out to the meadow to get more plants. Those researchers even collected air in test tubes and beakers, only doing that before they would infuse all of the air with Wind Magic. Putting elemental magic in their perfume made Haruna start to feel angry, since those researchers weren't competing against her in a fair way when it came to selling perfume, and even recalling how they incorporated strange spells of Plant Magic into their perfume samples that were offered to the townspeople only made her groan in frustration. In fact, Haruna heavily disliked a specific group of researchers who worked in the facility.
"The researchers who created the dangerous perfume in the research facility are people who refer to themselves as the Green Meadow's Five Groves, and all five of them are very powerful in their own ways. They were all so tough, and I couldn't even intimidate the weakest member of that group with my magic before I had to flee." Haruna informed the Sabertooth mages in a stern tone, as she began to look up at them.
Lucy replied to Haruna with a confident smile on her face, before looking determined to win, "Well, we're not about to let them scare us! Haruna, we'll help you get rid of those people and their foul perfume! We'll prove to everyone in Ryokufū Town that your perfume isn't responsible for people dying, and we'll clear your name!"
"We'll even prove that their perfume is responsible for making people feel so diseased, too! It really shouldn't be that hard to walk into their building to retrieve a sample from their stupid facility, so we could spray that on one of those jerks as living proof that they were causing the problem!" Sting added with a stern facial expression, before giving confident grins to Haruna and Lucy.
As Lucy grinned back at Sting in agreement with his words, her orange eyes twinkled with delight at his clever plan. The idea of spraying those researchers with their own perfume would definitely show the townspeople how the alleged experts on the sickness were responsible for bringing misery to the lives of Ryokufū Town's citizens, and Lucy would gladly help Sting with getting a perfume sample. That made her start to think about partnering up with him on a mission again, since another instance of working together would help them have great teamwork.
Working as a team would also benefit them both in a romantic sense, since Lucy always enjoyed being around Sting while they did have good chemistry. Their chemistry could probably help their friendship evolve into being a relationship, and improving their bond by expressing more love towards each other would help Lucy and Sting be great partners. Lucy did care about Sting to where she always wanted him to be safe, especially if they were fighting strong enemies, and she didn't want him to get hurt as badly as when one of Shizue's spells made his whole body get contorted with his limbs twisting in bizarre directions.
She gave Sting a caring smile while not wanting their team to end up in a dangerous predicament like that situation ever again, and Lucy's caring smile made Sting's cheeks start to blush light pink. He blushed at how her smile seemed so sweet, so very caring, and Sting silently felt curious about why his face blushed with a high amount of warmth. He wondered if Lucy's smile seemed more beautiful to him now because of how they hadn't spent much time together in the past five months, agreeing to train quite hard instead of just going on dates, and Sting would be glad to spend time with her in the town of Ryokufū. It didn't matter if most of their time in that town consisted of walking around in the research facility or enjoying the town's culture, since Sting would feel glad about spending time with her.
One hour later...
As Sting felt glad about spending time with Lucy to where they could just talk about the upcoming mission under the shade of the green leaves belonging to a growing tree near the guild, Lucy also felt happy that she would be spending time with someone who made her feel happy. The fact that they were heading to a town where people used Plant Magic made Lucy think about the day where she met Sting, surprising him by revealing that she was Lucy Heartfilia, and he had easily given her some shelter at the Sabertooth guild instead of letting her be alone. Sting even contacted Lucy's former teammates when she first got her body switched, but their refusal to believe the real Lucy's words didn't impede Sting from helping her out. In fact, Lucy could sense that their actions only made Sting increase his desire to make her be happy again.
Sting even made her happy today by carrying several bags of clothes for her, and Lucy watched him glance at her outfit before chuckling in a playful manner at her attire. Lucy wore a hot pink shirt that was short-sleeved with light pink trimming, and her sleeves were puffy while they had the design of stripes. The stripes were alternating between cerise pink and bubblegum pink, which was a pattern that Sting perceived to be quite cute, and he also liked how Lucy wore a light pink sash over her fuchsia pink skirt that had cerise pink shorts underneath them. Lucy also wore cerise pink knee-high socks, and they matched her cerise pink platform shoes.
Lucy's sense of fashion was awesome, in Sting's opinion, and he even liked how Lucy's green hair was tied into two side ponytails that were on the left and right sides of her head. Sting playfully let one of his hands stroke one of her ponytails, causing Lucy to cutely giggle at how Sting had quite a gentle touch, and she proceeded to let one of her hands touch his blond hair. She let her fingers run through his spiky hair that had grown somewhat longer during the past five months, and looking into Sting's beautiful blue eyes made Lucy's face start to blush in a bubblegum shade of pink while her other hand started to gently press against Sting's chest.
She pushed her body closer to his, being pressed up against Sting while his back was softly pressed up against the tree, and continuing to look into his eyes only made Lucy's blushing persist. She let out a soft giggle while being happy to deeply look into Sting's eyes again, liking how they were in a beautiful shade of blue like the blue ice that reflected light off of it, and Sting was also looking into Lucy's pretty eyes that were as orange as the color of the evening sky when the evening hours of time occurred in Kogane Town. Both mages were liking each other's beauty just as much as their personalities, and their blushing faces had the warmth heightening between them. Sting and Lucy felt even warmer from seeing each other's lips, prompting them both to close their eyes and try to make their lips gently touch for their first kiss to occur. However, their plans for kissing were soon interrupted by Haruna loudly clearing her throat.
"If you two have the time to be making out, then can you escort me back to Ryokufū Town now?" Haruna asked them with a somewhat impatient look on her face, sounding a bit irritated while lightly tapping her foot.
Lucy responded to Haruna in a flustered manner, blushing with a stunned look on her face before frowning with more irritation at Haruna's attitude, "Oh, my! Haruna, I didn't expect you to be talking to us until we were all prepared! Also, you shouldn't rush us to handle a job like you're the only client who has important troubles! At least you're not spending months being stumped on where to find a fifth legendary ring that's desperately needed!"
"You're looking for a legendary ring, you say? Well, one of the researchers once boasted about finding a green ring. When they came out of the research facility on that same day, that researcher claimed that the ring shined beautifully in sunlight like growing plants that could be used for making therapeutic medicines." Haruna asked Lucy with a curious facial expression, before explaining herself in a very calm tone.
At that moment, Haruna saw Lucy's eyes widen in amazement from what she had just heard about that ring. The fifth legendary ring was in the town of Ryokufū, and one of the researchers had been examining it. They were probably analyzing its potency pertaining to magic while possibly also wearing it, and Lucy wasted no time with running up to Haruna. She put her hands on Haruna's shoulders while giving her a look that told the green-haired woman how Lucy was demanding to hear the identity of the person who had the ring, but Haruna's eyes showed a sense of disappointment.
She hadn't gotten any of their names, only being aware of their appearances, and all that Haruna could really remember about the boaster was that they had been a green-haired mage who wore glasses with a forest green lab coat as their uniform for working in the research facility. The research institution didn't have that coat's color for all of the uniforms, and Haruna felt like she needed to associate that person's coat with the forest's trees that contained leaves in that exact shade of green. Still, that was a way for her to narrow down the list of people who Lucy would need to fight.
Sting and Lucy hoped that they could find the mage who wielded the ring, since defeating them would be a great way for the protagonists to have a test subject for the task of giving those researchers a whiff of their own horrible fragrance. Sting even thought about making that sickly researcher come into contact with the other selfish scientists who cared about their experimental perfume instead of caring for the people, and that would probably allow him to also get rid of the suspicious girl who had been looking for two people. As those individuals were on his mind, Sting soon saw his other teammates come out of the guild to quickly meet up with him and Lucy.
"We're ready to go, Sting." Rogue told him with an emotionless facial expression, before slightly smiling.
Risa added with a delighted smile on her face, as her cherry red eyes were filled with delight from thinking about the situation, "Master, we're all ready to show off the results of our months of training! Not only will we get to take down some villains, but we'll be visiting a new town with its own fashion and culture!"
"You'll see that my town has a very interesting culture where the winds can literally help our heads truly be in the clouds, and our fashion sense of wearing different types of green clothing certainly surpasses the tastes of people who view pink as a pretty color." Haruna replied to Risa with a proud smile on her face, sounding somewhat snarky.
Risa refuted Haruna's words with an offended facial expression, her red eyes narrowed, "Pink is just as good of a color as green! In fact, I actually have a bit of green clothing in my fashion wardrobe and I can expand it to have outfits that surpass what you're wearing!"
Haruna simply looked at Risa for a moment, noticing that her outfit consisted of a rose pink and magenta pink striped dress with a fuchsia pink belt that had a bubblegum pink orb on her left hip. The fuchsia pink belt matched her fuchsia pink wedges, and Risa wore a light pink headband that was situated behind the sunglasses with cherry red frames. The frames of Risa's sunglasses complimented her hot pink earrings that were shaped like hot pink and circular target symbols, too. Despite how Risa viewed herself to be quite fashionable, Haruna merely scoffed and viewed her outfit to be lame.
That scoff prompted Risa to look at Haruna in a comically offended manner, before clenching her fists and glaring at her while Haruna chose to comically glare back at her with a facial expression that was inviting Risa to have the desire to prove that her fashion sense wasn't of a poor quality. Even though Risa's fashion sense was being judged, Yukino stayed in the background of the group and felt glad that no one criticized her decision to simply wear a light blue midriff top with a dark blue skirt that matched her cyan blue high-heeled wedges. Yukino glanced down at her shoes for a moment, before looking up at her friends when she heard the soft sound involving Rogue stepping in between Risa and Haruna to keep them both calm.
Lucy and Sting seemed to be calm, standing next to each other in a relaxed manner while they felt the warm blush start to fade from their faces. They both simply looked at each other with confident smiles, feeling glad about how this was a mission where they could work hard to get the next ring, and they would gladly work together to achieve their goal. Lucy and Sting proceeded to hold hands while walking to the train station, feeling both happy and excited about how the next ring would no longer be hidden from them.
Five minutes later...
Even though the next ring would be uncovered, Sting chose to ignore how the soft sound of something rustling in the tree from earlier was followed by a wind's breeze that was somewhat louder. The wind soon ceased, almost like it had been created by someone who used a weak amount of Wind Magic to just create the breeze. The person who used Wind Magic got to watch Sting and his friends nearly turn around, the mages faintly sensing something that seemed amiss, but the mages continued to walk towards the train station.
They were leaving behind a male who had light green hair in a bowl-cut style with two bangs framing his face, and his emerald green eyes were behind some glasses that had square-shaped frames. He lightly pushed his glasses upward with one finger to keep them from falling off of his face, and the male wore a light green lab coat over a dark green T-shirt that went well with his jeans that were in a shade of green that belonged to the leaves of pine trees. That particular shade of green went well with his basil green sneakers, too.
The male who wore green clothing simply had a dark green notebook on his lap, and the light green pen in his left hand appeared to have been used for writing a hefty amount of notes. His notes strangely consisted of the specific names of the Sabertooth mages who chose to go to Ryokufū Town with Haruna, as well as several pages of him seeming to have written information on what appeared to be their different spells. In fact, he even had their different kinds of magic perfectly categorized with their different sets of spells.
If that wasn't strange enough, he even made those lists of spells have definitions pertaining to those attacks. The definitions seemed like they were descriptions of the attacks, and there were even dates listed for when some definitions were written. The mysterious man turned back a few pages to see that his very first definitions involving Lucy's spells were written down at least five months ago, as he clearly analyzed those spells to easily get an understanding of how they worked, but his old-fashioned way of writing down notes in a notebook really paled in comparison to his teammate who sat down on a higher branch with a green Lacrima Data Crystal in her hands. As she started to aim the light green orb away from the mages, she watched it softly shine with light green beams faintly emerging from it.
"It took longer than I expected, but the data is finally updated. Fūsoku, we now have all of the necessary data on these wizards. It seems like they'll be heading to Ryokufū Town with that perfume shop owner, so we can just wait before revealing ourselves to them." The man's female partner explained in a calm whisper, frowning in a serious manner as she had been listening closely to the group's conversations.
That prompted Fūsoku to softly reply with a very calm look on his face, smiling as he spoke in a somewhat bored and surprised manner, "Oh, wow. That information... is certainly interesting, Ayane."
"Why do you have to speak in that surprised and apathetic voice, Fūsoku? Did you not just see any of the people we've been observing for the past few hours?" Ayane quietly asked Fūsoku with a somewhat irked facial expression, thinking that her research partner was too absent-minded sometimes.
Fūsoku responded to her in a soft whisper while continuing to look quite calm, before seeming very curious, "Well, I saw... Lucy Heartfilia's pink outfit and Risa Ryusei wearing pink clothes. Those pink clothes... fit their simplest descriptions on Psychic Magic. Although, you may be thinking that I'm overdoing it with having generalizations mainly in my research."
Ayane merely slammed her palm against her forehead, before shaking her head in a refusing manner like she disapproved of her teammate's type of research. Fūsoku's type of research involved gathering quantitative data, which meant that he just had to look at the numbers pertaining to different types of information for him to simply gather data from the quantities of information that he studied. Fūsoku's research was different from what Ayane did to get data, since she focused on making analytical and subjective interpretations from numerical data instead of simply making claims based on objective quantities.
She believed that her type of research was superior in this situation, since hearing about great mages such as Sting Eucliffe from a certain researcher who had been in the forest during his training sessions several times had allowed her to quickly and secretly gather important data on the white dragon slayer. Ayane thought that it was the wisest move to retrieve data on Sting before gathering data on Lucy, due to past newspapers claiming that he was the guild master of Sabertooth, but getting data on everyone else firsthand was something that the other researchers could do.
After all, the other three researchers who transferred data to Fūsoku and Ayane had been spying on the other three wizards who prominently caught their interest. One of the researchers had spied on Risa during her months of training, as well as even having to make an analysis on her different spells of Psychic Magic. Risa may have been under surveillance by a creepy researcher who never even approached her directly, but that method of research was quite different from how the researcher who kept watch on Rogue blended in with the townspeople to disguise themselves while gathering data. Even if their methods were different, Ayane perceived those two researchers as people who were better than the newest researcher who had the nerve to be looking for certain people in the forest instead of using her free time to make more important notes on Yukino Aguria.
"What in the world does that idiot think she'll accomplish by giving so much attention to her self-serving matter? Does she seriously think we care if that weird ring is attracting two persistent pests?" Ayane asked Fūsoku with a stern look on her face, as she had the feeling of frustration in her eyes.
Fūsoku responded to her in a carefree tone, not really minding that situation, "She could probably just be wanting to have some fun with taking them on, or maybe she's truly dumb enough to let them keep being on her mind. Hmmm..."
"Whatever her reasons are, they don't matter. Her little side motive distracted her from getting more data on Yukino. Oh, well. At least we know quite a lot about these mages from being curious enough to have interest in them for the past five months, so we have the advantage over them." Ayane calmly responded while maintaining her stern facial expression, before putting the orb into the dark green miniskirt that was behind her jungle green lab coat.
Ayane Tsutsuji wore that particular lab coat, since it also went well with her midriff shirt that exposed her belly while the shirt that had ruffles at the top was in a moss shade of green. The shirt matched her juniper green hair, which was long enough to reach the middle of her back while shorter layers of hair were around her face with her hairstyle also including a small fringe. She wore juniper green gloves that were fingerless, the gloves going well with her leaf-shaped earrings that were in a plain shade of green, and her flat shoes were in a pale shade of green that resembled the green leaves of September that had fallen in the previous month to make room for October's leaves that were in a much darker shade of green. However, those leaves would soon fall because of how this was the very last week of the month.
Ayane made her hand gently touch some of the dark green leaves that were on a tree branch, before touching the branch itself with a dark green aura surrounding her left hand. The tree branch quietly began to grow, and Ayane's right hand touched the main part of the tree to make it start growing into a more mature state. The tree quietly grew, its height growing to where Ayane could have a better view of the Sabertooth wizards who were almost out of her sight, and Fūsoku made a mint green aura engulf both of his hands while he made the hand motion of brushing something aside to make a small gust of wind pass by.
The feeling of the wind would get the attention of any other people who were passing by, causing them to not fully focus on the tree that had grown to a higher height with more branches that were covered in more leaves. Ayane started to quietly jump down to the lower branch where Fūsoku was sitting, before he gently grabbed her hand to help them both safely jump down to the grass. Ayane smirked in a cocky manner while watching the mages get closer to the train station, and Fūsoku began to have a calm smile on his face. He soon looked curious at something poking out of the right pocket of his jeans, and he took it out to see that it had been the light green newspaper that he rolled up. The newspaper appeared to be from months ago, but unrolling it allowed him to feel quite calm about how him and his partner would be dealing with Haruna's bodyguards while they were the same group of mages who had made themselves be quite prominent to people in Fiore when they had been in Parmanie Town.
How was Chapter 34? Feel free to tell me your thoughts on it. Lucy and her friends are now finished with their five months of training, and they're ready to handle some difficult jobs again! Also, I'm glad to have put some StiCy moments in this chapter. There will be more of them in the upcoming chapters, just so you know. Furthermore, Risa's clash with Haruna and Lucy's separate clash with Haruna will both be situations that amount to interesting things occurring in this arc. It's even more interesting that Haruna seems to recognize Lucy because of how she's in Kotomi Takeuchi's body, but their good or bad interactions before Kotomi joined a dark guild will definitely be included in this arc. Also, the side plot of a researcher looking for two people will be addressed more in this arc. By the way, this is the first part of the Emerald Wind Arc! I'll update soon. :)
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