Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
Chapter 40: The Strong Winds of Trust! The Battle on The Rooftop Begins! Fūsoku's Wind & Ayane's Plants! The Suppression of Psychic & White Spells!
Lucy and Sting had been riding the Sky Garden Cloud for almost forty minutes, trying to catch up with the researchers who rode the shifting air currents. The currents of wind that were constantly changing made it difficult for Lucy to steer the Sky Garden Cloud, as she couldn't make it fly straight without getting caught in currents that would take her and Sting to the left or right sides of the Verdure Forest. Being above different sides of the forest didn't stop the Sabertooth mages from seeing the research lab, causing Lucy to just steer towards it when possible.
However, she soon encountered a strong barrier of light green winds that couldn't be penetrated by the Sky Garden Cloud. The jade green cloud couldn't pass through the barrier of light green tornadoes that formed a dome around the research lab, prompting Lucy to wonder if she and Sting would have their time tearing through the barrier that the researchers created. Tearing through the barrier that was made by the researchers would be making Lucy go against Risa's words of how she and Sting needed to not expend any magical power before their inevitable fight against the remaining foes, though, so she started to look puzzled about what to do.
Sting started to raise an eyebrow in a confused manner at how the five light green tornadoes were generating so much Wind Magic, almost like they were previously created by someone who had wielded the legendary ring, and creating Wind Magic with an extremely high amount of power in the spell meant that it would take some time for the barrier of winds to dissipate if their original creator was dead. Yaeko had actually been Wind Magic into those tornadoes every single day, but they were powered up even more by someone who was even stronger than her. Sting wanted to fight that mage who wielded the seemingly more powerful Wind Magic than Yaeko, but he'd have to get through the barrier before getting the opportunity to fight anyone.
His blue eyes caught sight of Fūsoku and Ayane entering the barrier from a different part of it while they seemed to be looking around for the mages who had been chasing, and Fūsoku used his Wind Magic to merely create a small tornado in a light green color. That projectile absorbed the wind of the five other tornadoes, before absorbing the tornadoes themselves, but making the projectile take in that immense amount of wind came with the side effect of aggressively pulling Lucy and Sting's Sky Garden Cloud towards the tornado. Sting didn't want to get caught in a possible explosion from what he perceived to be an attack, so he chose to quickly pull Lucy for her to be very close to him. He held her so close to where her head rested on his shoulder while he looked down at her face that started to blush, and Sting smiled with a high amount of confidence.
"Lucy, I'm glad you seem just as happy as me because we're about to jump!" Sting told her in a happy tone, as he could feel the high amount of wind blowing past their faces.
That prompted Lucy to look at Sting with a comically shocked facial expression while responding to him in a worried manner, thinking that idea was far too risky, "Jumping will probably make us get sucked into that tornado, Sting, or we could end landing far away from those researchers! Then, we'd face their barrier as an obstacle again!"
"Well, their barrier's not an obstacle right now! We can use it to our advantage, Lucy, and we just have to make ourselves be in a position where the winds will blow high above them for us to hit them with a powerful attack! Since I see this as the best path for us, just try to trust me on this!" Sting explained to Lucy with a confident look on his face, believing in his instincts.
Lucy replied to Sting with a soft smile starting to form on her face, calming herself down enough to think about how they were a team, "Sting. I've always been trusting you, and you've always trusted me. Even when I faced strong opponents, you trusted me to never back down or think out of fear. I trust you without hesitation, Sting, and that's going to help us work together to get that fifth ring. Let's go get it, Sting."
He watched the pink blush nearly fade from Lucy's cheeks while she smiled at him, the feeling of courage in her eyes while they both proceeded to stand on top of the Sky Garden Cloud, and Sting looked into her beautiful orange eyes. They weren't filled with any hesitation, only the feelings of courage and increasing feelings of love, and Sting found himself starting to blush light pink with the feelings of confidence and encouragement in his blue eyes. Sting's eyes soon displayed love instead of encouragement, glad that he and Lucy had the feelings in their two hearts become united as one for their great team. They even shared a high-five gesture like a great pair of team members, before Sting's right hand held Lucy's left hand while they were close together.
Their physical closeness and feelings of love for each other made Lucy and Sting run towards the other end of the Sky Garden Cloud, pushing past the air together, and they leaped off of it to soon be near the light green tornado that was growing from taking in so much wind. As it soon grew to the size of a very large tornado that blew them very high up into the air, Sting noticed that they were on the correct side of the spinning tornado for the winds to be making them get blown in the direction of the research lab. He looked down at the research institution to see some large trees and grass bordering the mint green tiles that were at the very top of the lab.
Upon seeing the top of the lab and still holding Lucy's hand, Sting felt like they needed to land on the juniper green grass covering juniper green tiles or land in one of the trees that had juniper green leaves. He looked down at the trees, which appeared to be in the best positions on the laboratory's rooftop for Sting to land on them with Lucy, but looking down only made Sting begin his descent from the sky with Lucy. She started to scream with determination at how they were going to land on the research lab, feeling optimistic with Sting by her side to constantly give her some confidence, and he also screamed in a determined manner about how they were going to safely land on the rooftop.
As they screamed in a manner that Ayane interpreted to represent their confidence trying to make their fear subside, she asked herself with an extremely shocked facial expression, "What in the world did they jump for, if the result is making them be so terrified?!"
"Hmmm... They probably wanted... to get through the barrier by using the wind itself to their advantage. My, how interesting." Fūsoku commented with an amused smile on his face, as he spoke in a slow and carefree manner.
Ayane stated aloud with her eyes showing disbelief while watching the mages continue their descent to the rooftop, "Using the effect of yours and Yaeko's defensive spell for them to purposely crash down into our research lab to screw up our plans is definitely a good tactic for them to make a spell work against our assumption of them battling us on the ground, Fūsoku."
He didn't really seem to care about that slight miscalculation pertaining to battle against Lucy and Sting, but Fūsoku and Ayane soon saw Sting pull Lucy into a tight hug while turning for him to land on his back. He ended up crashing into the rooftop to create an average-sized crater near one of the corners of the rectangular rooftop, and the loud impact surprised Fūsoku to where looked mildly intrigued at Sting's actions. He couldn't initially see Sting while several brown clouds of dust were around, but making the large tornado split back into five smaller ones forming a pentagon around the research lab allowed massive gusts of wind to blow the dust away to the forest. The dust cleared up for Fūsoku and Ayane to see Sting holding Lucy, who was looking concerned about him.
She hoped that Sting didn't break his back from the fall, but Sting getting up with only minor injuries showed her that he was okay. Lucy proceeded to hug Sting, before they both felt their cheeks blush light pink at how they were so tightly close together during their fall from the sky. Lucy looked at Sting's body to see that he hardly had any injuries, and he smiled confidently while silently comparing that descent to a small bowling ball falling from a slightly high altitude to hit the ground. From his perspective, the fall wasn't a very serious thing to worry about.
That quickly contrasted with how he immediately became quite serious from seeing Fūsoku use his Wind Magic to make himself jump across the air with Ayane for them to both soon be on the rooftop, and Sting felt like this chase for the fifth ring could finally end. The mages were now on a rooftop where there were juniper green railings while Ayane stood in front of the door to the roof, and Lucy would take that woman down while also taking down Fūsoku. These two researchers seemed like the two highest-ranking creators of the deadly perfume, meaning that they were the ones who deserved to have it get sprayed in their faces for them to get a whiff of their own sickness-inducing aroma, and Lucy narrowed her eyes at how she'd definitely make that happen after this fight was over.
Lucy decided to start off the fight with the spell known as Zen Psychotic Beam, and she aimed her left hand at Fūsoku. He watched her shoot out a plain pink beam from her left hand, and Fūsoku got to see Lucy's attack split into four dazzling beams from how she closed her eyes to telepathically send more Psychic Magic into her spell. The attack spun faster while all four of the beams headed towards Fūsoku at high speeds to strike him directly, but he merely applied Wind Magic to his feet before hastily spinning to the right. His spinning was part of a combination technique that he used with Ayane in battles, since the wind from rapidly rotating created a small tornado in a light green color, and that prompted Ayane to slam her hands down on some grass.
Her hands became surrounded in a juniper green aura, which soon went into the ground for her to activate a spell called Juniper Leaf Chlorophyll Ring, and several juniper green leaves emerged from the ground. They were immediately pulled towards the winds that Fūsoku created, spinning around rapidly to form two juniper green rings of Plant Magic while their aura converged on the space between them to create a juniper green orb, and the leaf rings were pushed forward by Ayane moving her hands in that direction. Being pushed forward caused the rings and the orb to collide with Lucy's four beams, blocking them from hitting Fūsoku, and the four attacks merged their energy to create one pink blast of Psychic Magic. The blast was large, but it wasn't as enormous as the larger juniper green blasts that overpowered the attack right before the exploding orb reflected the energy of the psychic beams back at Lucy in the juniper shade of green.
She looked quite shocked while dodging those beams, not expecting a spell that could easily counter hers at the very beginning of the battle, and the juniper green beams had much more power to where they created a blast of Plant Magic that was large enough to quickly engulf Lucy! She screamed in pain while the blast also engulfed Sting, the strength of the attack sending them both flying high into the air, but Lucy made herself ignore the pain long enough to cast her second spell. It was called Psychic's Clairvoyant Future Sight, and the spell made a pink aura surround Lucy's body. She watched the aura surround her hands, before aiming her left hand down at Ayane, and the aura removed itself from Lucy's body. That didn't matter to Ayane, however.
As soon as the aura left Lucy's body, Ayane aimed her right hand up at the sun. Rays of sunlight came down on her hand that had Plant Magic focused into it while that juniper green color of her magic was also in the aura surrounding her left hand, and Ayane's hands started to glow in the color of her magic. She aimed her left hand up at the aura while rays of sunlight brightly shined down on that hand, strengthening the aura, and the juniper green light blinded Lucy to where she couldn't see Ayane forming a tightened fist with her left hand. That position for her hand caused the juniper green rays of light to form a sphere around the pink aura and Lucy, trapping her inside of a barrier with her own attack, and Ayane's right hand went downward for the sphere to crash down on to the rooftop! It quickly created an explosion in an average size, and that juniper green explosion was strong enough to make Lucy scream while feeling a large amount of pain! The strength of the painful explosion even eliminated the pink aura before Lucy could use the spell to its full extent, and Ayane's spell that put her in that unfortunate situation was known as Photosynthesis Solar Plant Shield.
"How do you like the power of that spell, Lucy Heartfilia? Do you really think that you won't be outclassed by analytical people who have done their research?" Ayane asked her with a proud smile on her face, glad that she seemed to interpret the best ways for interpreting all of Lucy's spells.
Fūsoku added while looking carefree, thinking about how the win seemed logical, "Hmmm... Lucy Heartfilia and Sting Eucliffe thinking that they aren't outclassed... is certainly a fact, based on them. Although, I wonder if they... think that it's possible to beat our successful strategies for working together."
"It's definitely possible for us to win against you, and this battle has just started!" Sting responded with a stern look on his face while coming down to the ground, white light engulfing his hands.
Lucy responded while looking determined to win, glaring at Ayane during the moments where the smoke was clearing up, "Sting's right, and we'll prove that we can beat you!"
She felt determined enough to activate her third spell of Psychic Magic, which was known as Psychic Synchronic Ring, and a ring in the regular shade of pink was created in between Lucy's hands. She held the ring in her hands as if they were holding a cute ring that was being presented to someone, and Lucy ran towards Ayane at high speeds. She thought that getting close to her enemy would be a useful tactic, since Ayane seemed to only use spells that were mid-range or long-range, but Lucy would end up being proven wrong.
Ayane looked over at Fūsoku, who simply kicked the air towards her in an aggressive manner with his right foot for a compressed burst of light green wind to quickly head towards her, and Ayane surprisingly inhaled it. She began to inhale some falling leaves that blew through the air because of the wind from the explosions, and inhaling the juniper green leaves to absorb their magic allowed Ayane to spit them out in the form of circular projectiles that were in a juniper green color. Ayane was using a spell called Grassy Juniper Springtime Bullets, but she wasn't finished with her attack. Ayane started to spit out more of those bullts while the only difference was them being light green, and she watched Lucy's ring brightly grow when it absorbed the previous group of bullets. They all had their energy be sent into her hands when she pushed them together, making her hands become surrounded by a juniper green aura, but Lucy looked shocked at how she had no time to plan her next attack.
She had to quickly deal with the group of light green bullets coming towards her at high speeds, causing Lucy to rapidly punch them with her fists that had an enhanced amount of power, but her punches created explosions in an average size while the light green bullets produced explosions that were somewhat larger! Lucy tried to make her fists absorb the explosions, but she could only absorb their power instead of taking in the hot fire that a mixture of juniper green with light green. The strange-colored fire was just as bad as the explosions from how they burned Lucy's fists, and blocking anymore bullets would just produce fire that could melt her fists.
"If I touch that fire, then it will burn my hands until they're piles of ashes! That's definitely a harsh obstacle to handle, and these mages aren't messing around at all." Lucy thought to herself with a frustrated facial expression, before looking a bit worried.
Ayane stated aloud with a stern facial expression, noticing the burns on Lucy's hands, "You can't hope to defeat us with those extremely hot injuries to your hands, Lucy Heartfilia, so you should just let us kill you now!"
Lucy responded in a determined tone while standing back up to look at Ayane with confidence in her eyes, the juniper green aura fading from her hands, "It doesn't matter if I'm injured, since I won't die here! I have to get rid of you, since you and your friend created that horrible perfume!"
"How will you get rid of us, Lucy? Are you going to use the Psychic Sanctum spell next, or should I not prepare to see much light?" Ayane asked Lucy with a mocking look on her face, thinking that Lucy would either use that spell or another seemingly predictable attack.
The antagonist's heckling words only made Lucy unleash the Psychic Sanctum spell while feeling high amounts of determination, and she closed her eyes. Lucy began to just relax her mind, having her eyes closed while making herself only hear silence, and making her mind feel calmer with much more peace caused an orb in the plain shade of pink to appear in her right hand. The orb had pink beams of light starting to emanate from it when Lucy made her thoughts focus on peaceful images, each peaceful thought making the orb brightly shine in accord with those joyful thoughts, and her spell was actually gaining much more power from the Psychic Magic that left her calmed mind to touch the sphere.
The sphere seemed to use Lucy's peaceful thoughts as a source of energy that could boost its own power while its pink beams of light continued to shimmer quite brightly, but the spell's light that was constantly pulsating only made Ayane narrow her eyes in an unimpressed manner. She proceeded to use a spell called Juniper Garden Barrier, and the spell made a juniper green aura heavily engulf Ayane's body while she exhaled a gust of air that pulled several leaves off of the trees that were near it. The leaves proceeded to form a juniper green twister around Ayane, before the radiant pink orb's light shined at its brightest, but Ayane only smirked in a condescending manner at how the leaves were immobilized in midair while she could easily move her body. She didn't get touched by the effects of the psychic spell's light, due to the leaves being in front of her to form a powerful twister that could double as a shield.
Ayane's shield of leaves may have all become immobilized right before they all fell to the ground, but laughing about another plan going correctly allowed Ayane to see Lucy open her eyes. Lucy looked utterly shocked at how her spell failed to work, her thoughts of frustration causing it to fade away, and this was the fourth time in a row where Ayane had full control of the battle. She seemed to be a major expert on Lucy Heartfilia's spells of Psychic Magic, but Ayane's decision to start laughing at Lucy like she was pathetic only made Sting narrow his eyes from thinking that he would have to fight her now.
Sting looked directly at Ayane while firing a white beam of light from his mouth, and the attack had a white spearhead of light. The spearheaded beam of light soon split into two smaller beams that both curved in the left and right directions while they were heading for Ayane, and the spell was called White Dragon's Holy Spear. It was soon blocked by Fūsoku using his Wind Magic to quickly jump in front of Ayane while a light green vortex was immediately propelled from his left hand, and the high winds of the attack collided with Sting's beams of light! Sting watched his attacks get engulfed in a light green blast, before the winds appeared to be going back into Fūsoku's hand, and Sting watched his opponent fire a vortex again! The attack was quicker this time while Fūsoku aimed it at Sting, making him get caught in a light green blast of Wind Magic that was quite power, and Sting let out a scream of pain.
He screamed more from feeling the winds make the air be compressed against his body, almost like the Wind Magic was going to crush him, and Sting ran out of the blast as fast as he could. He certainly needed to get away from the spell called Zephyr Aerial Crush, which grew stronger from all the wind around it to where the power of the spell greatly increased to a high level where the Wind Magic could even compress itself to crush Fūsoku's foes. Sting didn't want to get hit by that attack again, and he frowned a bit while being bruised.
If a long-range attack wouldn't work, then getting in closer like Lucy did would probably be a better way to possibly win this fight. Sting made himself run quite fast towards Fūsoku by activating White Drive, causing a white aura of light to engulf his body while the strength of his spells would be enhanced, and he pulled his left fist back like he was preparing to harshly punch Fūsoku. That only prompted the wind-wielding researcher to rapidly spin around on his left foot while firing small light green air bubbles from his mouth, the bubbles being part of a spell called Green Zephyros Whirlwind, and Fūsoku watched the air bubbles slowly rotate around his body. The sight of the slow-moving air bubbles prompted Fūsoku to look at Ayane, who activated a spell called Juniper Rose Burst, and Fūsoku got to see Ayane get near him shoot out juniper green roses from her hands while they lacked stems. The roses without stems landed behind the area where Fūsoku stood, creating average-sized juniper green blasts that all worked together to produce heavy gusts of wind, and the power of the blasts increased the rotation speed of the air bubbles.
Fūsoku aimed his right hand towards Sting as a way to command his projectiles to go towards the light dragon slayer, and Sting thought that he could defend himself by activating the spell called White Dragon's Light Shield. The spell simply created a white sphere of light around Sting, and many white beams of light started to extend themselves out from the sphere while they resembled spikes. The spike-resembling beams of light soon made contact with the air bubbles, causing several white explosions of light to occur around Sting, and the spell sent the light of his magic into the sky. That made Sting's white magic shine down on the rooftop, but only making the remains of Ayane's roses explode in white blasts while Fūsoku dodged those attacks at extremely high speeds made Sting look frustrated during the moments where his shield faded away.
"How the hell did this guy dodge all of those explosions of light so quickly?! I thought that at least one of those explosions might hit him or his partner, but how are they both okay?!" Sting asked aloud with a very shocked look on his face, disbelief in his eyes from seeing Fūsoku and Ayane be where they previously stood without having any bruises on their bodies.
Fūsoku replied to Sting in a laid-back tone, looking carefree as he sounded somewhat condescending, "Hmmm... Sting Eucliffe, you've got to have more than just... strength in your White Dragon Slayer Magic, and... your predictable strategies can't work on us."
"How can you say that my strategies are predictable, if I've only fought you for the very first time? How can your partner act like Lucy's spells have been predictable, too?" Sting asked Fūsoku with an irritated look on his face, feeling bothered by how these mages seemed to be so knowledgeable about their opponents.
Fūsoku responded to Sting while smiling in a much more carefree and seemingly surprised manner, before raising his arms up to hastily spin around and happily laugh during the moments where he began to dance around, "Oh, my! That's such an... obvious question, Sting Eucliffe. There's definitely... a difference between our teams in levels of intelligence."
Upon seeing and hearing Fūsoku not seem to really take him seriously, Sting narrowed his eyes at the man who had light green hair. He wondered if Fūsoku would start to act serious from seeing Sting's third strong spell, which was called Light Conversion, and Sting had to aim at certain objects for the spell to work. He aimed them at Fūsoku and Ayane, causing his hands to be surrounded by a white aura while they gathered up the bright white silhouettes resembling the antagonists' shadows. The silhouettes became absorbed into Sting's hands for him to receive their energy, but he only absorbed enough silhouettes to fire five then beams of white light from his fingertips. The beams of light unfortunately didn't hit Fūsoku or Ayane, who actually made light green feathers and juniper green rose petals respectively fall on to their feet during the moments where explosions from White Dragon's Light Shield were occurring, and the respective auras lightly surrounding their feet were an indicator that their magic helped them move quite fast to avoid the beams.
Sting's attacks ended up hitting the burnt juniper leaves of Ayane's spell called Juniper Rose Burst, and striking the leaves that slowly fell in midair caused them to turn black like shadows. They soon imploded in white bursts of light making them detonate from within, and those white bursts of light even created more black shadows that spread to be on the grass or in the shadows of trees where light could exist alongside shadows. However, Sting's eyes noticed that his opponents weren't affected by being under sunlight after their white silhouettes were taken away. He watched Fūsoku's entire body become light green while Ayane's entire body became juniper green, and they both ended up bursting to leave behind their magic. Fūsoku's body ended up bursting to create a gust of light green winds while Ayane's body ended up bursting like a balloon that just popped to leave behind juniper green leaves that floated in the air.
The sight of the leaves and the wind made Sting and Lucy both look stunned, but both mages widened their eyes in shock from seeing a light green tornado start to appear in front of Sting. He got to see a juniper green twister appear right next to the tornado, but Sting didn't expect those projectiles to get dispelled so quickly to reveal something that started both him and Lucy. They got see Fūsoku and Ayane standing on the rooftop while smirking in a rude manner, almost as if they moved fast enough to instantaneously activate spells to where they could gladly mess with Sting by making him think that his spell shifted the fight in favor of the Sabertooth mages, and combining Kaze's Zephyr Wind Dance with Juniper Petal Dance allowed the mages to move quite fast. They even activated spells while dodging the explosions of light from Sting's second spell, and Fūsoku cleared his throat. He calmly looked at Sting, who seemed stunned and confused to where Fūsoku had to explain himself.
"Aero's Wind Decoy and Juniper Green Gardens of The Fake Flowers certainly... took you by surprise, Sting Eucliffe. You've had fights where enemies... have been surprised when you... clash against them with power. However, methodical enemies like us aren't surprised... if your next spell is White Dragon's Holy Blinding." Fūsoku explained to him in a very calm tone while smiling in a carefree manner, before pushing up his glasses with one finger.
Ayane added in a stern manner, after sighing at Fūsoku's apathetic way of talking while Sting and Lucy seemed even more stunned, "Despite my partner's nonchalant attitude, our desire to fight you certainly gave us more fun from seeing that look on your face.
"In my opinion, it's very creepy that you know so much about my attacks and Sting's spells. Knowing their names is one thing, but it's unsettling that you know exactly how they work." Lucy responded for Sting with a pained facial expression while trying to think of a possible way to fight against her enemies.
Sting calmly commented with the stunned look on his face starting to change to a stern frown, having an idea, "Since you researchers know how our spells work, I wonder how you got that information. If news of our spells somehow reached you, then the sheer amount of planning that you went through really has me intrigued enough to do this."
The blue-eyed dragon slayer fired a large twister of white light from his mouth while the twister blinded Fūsoku and Ayane, but he proceeded to quietly combine that spell with Holy Ray. Sting made a circle with his hands while getting into a crouched stance, and he gathered up a high amount of light in his hands. Sting quickly released that light in the form of numerous homing beams that went towards the spell, increasing its size for the twister to shine with much more brightness, but this mixture of spells caused the twister to burst with a high amount of light that wouldn't just involve its usual effect.
Aside from the aurora of white light that went up into the sky and slowly moved like a slithering snake, white curved beams of light were now raining down on the rooftop of the research lab. They ended up striking Fūsoku during some moments where he tried to move through the blinding light to hit Sting, and Ayane was also struck by the blond-haired male's sneaky attack. They were soon caught in white blasts that occurred while the blasts were in an average size, and the attack created white clouds of smoke that engulfed the rooftop.
Sting and Lucy couldn't see what was happening, but they both heard the researchers groan in pain. That made Lucy wonder if she and Sting would have to hit them with spells that were used in unorthodox strategies, since that was the most logical way to confuse them, but Lucy still had thoughts in her mind about how the researchers seemed to have an abundant amount of knowledge on her and Sting. Having information on them meant that the other researchers must've had information on the mages who they fought against, since Lucy realized that none of the researchers purposely forced specific mages to fight them as if they needed to gain information on them in the middle of a battle. Lucy wondered if Risa's opponent had information on her, since she didn't seem to mind fighting against a user of Psychic Magic, and Lucy hoped that Risa was safe.
Meanwhile, in the research lab...
Risa put her left hand into the forest green lab coat's left pocket to find a badge for the researcher who she knocked out, pulling out the badge to see that the girl was Sherria Blendy from the Lamia Scale guild, and Risa noticed how the badge had a little memo of how Sherria was a temporary chemist. That job title simply meant she was going to temporarily work in Yaeko's sector, most likely being there for the day to be taking the place of a wizard who didn't feel healthy enough to work, and Risa put the badge back in the lab coat. She felt something like a stack of papers in the coat's right pocket, and Risa took them out to examine them.
She carefully looked at them while walking over to one of the six moss green rectangular tables that were positioned in a somewhat large workspace area that had no door, and the pink-haired girl noticed how the papers were featuring the chemical ingredients pertaining to the sweet-scented deadly perfume. There was even a picture of the perfume bottle on the last page, and it seemed to be a small glass bottle shaped like a twister with the shapes of leaves around it. The bottle was in a light green color with the leaves in a juniper green color, and the picture also featured the image of moss green scent bubbles emerging from the spray nozzle with forest green bubbles emerging alongside matcha green bubbles.
All of the bubbles were related to the perfume's liquid, which was created in this part of the research lab where beakers and other glass bottles were on square-shaped hot plates. The beakers on the hot plates had liquids in them that were in different shades of them while they could be tipped over to spill their contents into tubes that were all connected to each other for the complete fusion of liquids to fall into one measuring cup, which was appropriately under the exit portion of the tube. That large measuring cup was twice as big as the beakers, but the mixture itself wasn't completed with gathered plants and gathered air being mixed together to melt down into liquid.
Risa examined the notes to see that Wind Magic and Plant Magic were both necessary for the important set of crucial steps that involved making the perfume be in its complete form, as physically seen from how Risa glanced up from the notes to see a female researcher putting a mint green tornado of Wind Magic into her completed mixture containing pale green plant roots for the magic to create several air bubbles. She chose to take strong whiffs of the mixture while putting her face directly above it, before looking doubtful at how the perfume wasn't bubbling up enough, and she put four more mint green tornadoes from her hands into the mixture. It began to bubble up more while the scent only smelled somewhat sweet, and the woman started looking for the beaker's green lid. After discovering that it fell on the floor and putting the lid on the bubbling mixture, she looked up at Risa to see the pink aura of Psychic Magic starting to fade from her hand. Even though Risa blinked her eyes at the researcher with feelings of curiosity, the woman who had her blonde hair tied back in an upwards ponytail pushed up her yellow-framed glasses while looking miffed.
"Are you really that clueless to not know that pink Psychic Magic merged with green Wind Magic will make that mixture explode, or do you want to end up making this area of the research lab burn down?!" The woman asked her in a stern tone, feeling like she had to lecture the seemingly newest employee in the research lab's chemist department.
Risa responded to her in a relieved manner while sheepishly laughing and closing her eyes out of alleged embarrassment, "Wow, thanks for the warning! I'm glad to know that my Psychic Magic isn't going to be beneficial to the mixture."
Haruna calmly added while coming up to Risa's table, sniffing the mixture for any recognizable scents, "It seems like Sosai's powder and Harui's plants are quite beneficial to the mixture, though. I remember the smell of Sosai's bitter Plant Magic, as well as Harui's plants. Yaeko seemed to add her own selections of plants, along with Wind Magic and Plant Magic to fully stabilize the mixture."
"Yeah, matcha green definitely goes with forest green and moss green while neon green is just as needed as mint green for this mixture. It's easily to detect these colors individually, especially if you've spent most of your life specializing in fashion instead of only observing magic for research." Risa replied with a nice smile forming on her face, glad that one of her best skills proved to be quite useful.
Even though Risa specialized in fashion, she still had to read Yaeko's lengthy analysis on the perfume's chemical components for her to have a better understanding of how the mixture was made in the chemistry sector. Apparently, Yaeko used explosive attacks to burn down the forest green or moss green leaves while melting them to create a basis for the forest green blasts of Wind Magic to be mixed into the chemical formula. Those blasts provided much more heat for the mixture, explaining why it bubbled up from the bottom while even the smallest explosive spell could boil the mixture for people to smell its incomplete scent without worrying if the chemicals of the grown plants or powder were unstable.
Still, the mixture not being unstable didn't exactly mean that it was ready to be sprayed from perfume bottles. Those perfume bottles contained more than just the magic and plants that Yaeko approved for the chemical mixture also involving air, since Yaeko's analysis informed Risa that there were still two green shades of elemental magic that were necessary for increasing the strength of the perfume's scent, and Yaeko's notes also told Risa about how juniper green Plant Magic was just as important as light green Wind Magic.
That strong shade of Wind Magic could apparently fuse with the mixture to make its scent be much stronger while juniper green leaves could make the perfume's scent become much more sweet, but the side effect of combining all these variants of green with magic and different plants caused some test subjects to feel quite sick. Risa narrowed her eyes and clenched the papers tightly in her hand from seeing how the papers of research referred to the sick individuals as test subjects, but she couldn't feel too much emotion for her Psychic Magic to activate. She didn't want to look quite suspicious around the other researchers who were working in this section of the sector that had no door, and Risa lowered her head down to closely look at the mixture like a psychic who was memorizing every detail of it while she heard footsteps come towards this section of the third floor.
"It looks like we've now found researchers doing chemistry experiments on this floor, but this is just a lesser version of the lab's main production room. After all, people probably can't drink from the beakers in there." Rogue stated in a calm tone, as he trying to whisper as softly as possible.
Yukino added while figuring something out, speaking softly about an interesting conclusion, "Rogue-sama, this floor probably allows that because of the head researcher who works on this floor. Still, you saw that my opponent wasn't in the research lab after I had beaten them. I noticed that about yours, too, and there was no one in this floor's office near the stairs."
"There's an obvious reason why no one's in the third floor's office." Risa quietly stated to her friends in a happy tone while joyfully smiling, after instantly recognizing their voices and quickly leaving the table with Haruna to go see them.
The sight of Risa being okay prompted Rogue to have a high amount of happiness and relief in his eyes while he hugged her, and Yukino also gave Risa a tight hug at the same time. Risa hugged back while being very glad to see that her friends won their fights, and they both seemed to enjoy this interesting task of thoroughly investigating the research lab. Risa had planned to investigate the rest of the third floor, so Rogue and Yukino discovering some other things caused her to feel curious about what she needed to psychically remember.
Rogue and Yukino wasted no time with taking Risa to the other end of the third floor, letting her see groups of tables where researchers with detailed clipboards on their work stations were drank mixtures that they were creating in beakers. Even if those people were making matcha green tea or creating alcohol like when Yaeko was drinking from her beaker, they were still doing something that Risa viewed to be shady and dangerous. Drinking from beakers was dangerous because of how the types of magic that were required would probably still remain in beakers that were washed, and any person who didn't specialize in Wind Magic or Plant Magic would just be making themselves sick. They were essentially consuming food for the plants, which was just as bad as those beakers possibly even having the slightest bit of the perfume's chemical mixture still remaining in them.
Since the chemical mixture of the perfume was something that bothered Risa, she put the index finger of her left hand to her lips while thinking about how one way of exposing that the researchers were the deadly perfume's creators simply involved getting a sample or a bottle from this research lab. The laboratory had to have the bottles stored somewhere other than the production room, since Risa assumed that the researchers couldn't just be trying to make their perfume only spread through the town. Risa wondered if the researchers were trying to expand the number of people who would be smelling their perfume, prompting her to run up some moss green stairs that started to become juniper green. As Risa went up those stairs, Rogue and Yukino followed her to go up to the research lab's fourth floor.
How was Chapter 40? Feel free to tell me your thoughts on it. Lucy and Sting are now facing Fūsoku and Ayane, who are their toughest pair of opponents at this point in the story. By the way, it's dramatic irony that the audience knows that Fūsoku and the other researchers have mostly spied on the Sabertooth mages while Lucy and Sting will soon find out about that. However, Lucy and Sting will find out some other things that aren't exactly going to keep them calm. Speaking of things seeming calm, the quietness of Haruna's clash with Lucy will soon be addressed and Lucy will gladly clear up something that Haruna's been blindly assuming about her. Something that will also be addressed is more StiCy, and it'll be as important as other plot points getting wrapped up. Yes, other plot points. In addition to making the researchers be held responsible for the perfume, the Sabertooth mages will have also left an impact on other characters for nice things to happen. In relation to nice things happening, this is the seventh part of the Emerald Wind Arc! The next part of the arc is the finale. I'll update soon. :)
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