Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
Chapter 42: Having The Need For Speed! Training With Kaze's Feather Dance! Kūkiatsu and Kusabue, The Sabertooth Wizards! Lucy's Cute Question!
Lucy and Risa sat down on the highest point of a mountain trail, both girls panting heavily from spending hours of the morning with training to work on certain aspects of their magic. Risa had been trying to improve with the number of times that she could use her healing spell of Psychic Magic while also needing to boost the strength of her healing abilities, feeling like that was necessary for keeping her teammates in good condition, and healing Lucy was a very important task right now. Lucy had been training quite hard on the mountain trail, and her legs felt quite sore.
They felt very sore because of the fact that Lucy was using the spell known as Kaze's Feather Dance, which she had learned about from when Yukino took the group into Fūsoku's research office before they had gone to the Lostlorn Meadow, and Lucy gently pulled the stack of light green papers out of her light pink jean jacket's left pocket to read the important parts of the detailed notes. Lucy found some important info on the 41st page of the fifty-page analysis, and she could possibly enhance the spell by using it right after creating a powerful blast of Wind Magic to propel herself forward.
That seemed like a good idea, but using up eight fusion spells all consisting of Kaze's Feather Dance wouldn't prevent Lucy from having her magical power heavily be depleted. Even if Risa could always fully heal her, Lucy would still be using up high amounts of magical power and only giving Kaze's Feather Dance more strength when it was part of a fusion spell. Lucy had to get the spell up to a better level before even making it be part of a fusion spell, or she would end up in a situation where a weaker spell's enhancement still wouldn't be enough for her to win a fight.
Lucy felt like her enhancement spell needed to be much stronger on its own, since that would make it be much more useful for situations where it had to be used in combinations with other spells, and she had been training solely with the Kaze's Feather Dance spell. Not only was she continuously trying to make this spell be perfected, but mastering the spell would make her possibly be able to move as fast as Kotomi. That thieving mage was like Lucy's rival, someone who had been a better mage and a better schemer to where she had outclassed Lucy in that tough battle, and recalling how Kotomi was so powerful only made Lucy clench her fists in anger.
"Kotomi Takeuchi may have beaten me once, Risa, but that won't happen again. Even if I have to fight her with the types of magic from all of the rings, I won't lose to her!" Lucy stated to her friend with a stern look in her eyes, her face displaying an expression of immense determination.
Risa replied with a nice smile on her face, glad that Lucy had such a strong desire for redemption, "That's a great mentality to have, Lucy! Just keep training hard, and you'll take her down! I definitely think you can beat her, even if she's probably also getting stronger."
"If she's improving with her skills and still has the ten golden Zodiac Gate Keys of my Celestial Spirits, then she's also making them get stronger. Although, I'd have to focus on taking her down instead of taking them on first. Anyway, Risa, heal me up again and I'll try running faster than before." Lucy responded to Risa with a somewhat worried look on her face, thinking about her former spirits before narrowing her eyes and resuming her training.
Risa shot out a thin pink beam of Psychic Magic at Lucy's chest, causing a pink aura to briefly surround her body, and Lucy felt her body have a high amount of stamina again. She felt ready to run down the mountain again, causing Risa to go up the trail to just sit on a brown rock, and Lucy briefly stretched her limbs out. When her legs felt alright, Lucy activated the Kaze's Feather Dance spell. It made Wind Magic in the shape of large mint green bird wings lightly fall from in front of her waist to lightly land on her feet, and Lucy felt her body start to be as light as a baby pigeon.
That prompted her to start running down the mountain trail at very high speeds, running with an angry look on her face like she was running towards an enemy to punch them in the face, and Lucy got down to the end of the trail in twenty seconds. Getting down to the end of the trail in that amount of time didn't stop Lucy from curving back around during her training session of running quite fast, and she ran back up the mountain trail at frantic speeds like she was now trying to run from a large group of enemies right now.
Lucy's frantic running speed with the Kaze's Feather Dance spell helped her run to the top of the mountain trail in only nineteen seconds, which was slightly better than her previous recorded times of getting up the mountain trail in twenty-seven seconds with the Kaze's Feather Dance spell surrounding her feet. Still, that improvement didn't make Lucy be as fast as someone who could move at insanely high speeds to where they seemed to be using teleportation. She thought about Kotomi's very high speed, remembering how it helped her confound Team Natsu very easily, and Lucy groaned in frustration at how she was nowhere near that level yet. Upon hearing her friend's frustrated groan, Risa put a finger to her lips while starting to remember something important.
"Listen, Lucy. You should try to think about how Rogue can use Shadow Drive to make himself be much stronger while he also eats shadows, since that same method can somehow apply to you. I know you're not a dragon slayer, but a similar strategy might work." Risa told Lucy with a calm facial expression, thinking she might have useful advice.
Lucy replied with a small smile on her face, choosing to instead remember a different dragon slayer and his usage of White Drive, "That actually might work, Risa."
Lucy made a mint green aura of Wind Magic engulf her body while she inhaled a high amount of wind, and she activated the Kaze's Feather Dance spell again. Lucy ended up running much faster, running at very high speeds to where she made it to the bottom of the mountain trail in only five seconds with her feet kicking up a high amount of dust clouds, and curving up to run back up the mountain made Lucy create high winds that dispelled the dust clouds. Lucy could feel the winds behind her while she ran, moving quite fast.
She pushed herself to run even faster, sprinting down the mountain at very high speeds to where Risa barely managed to see her, and Lucy kept on inhaling wind. Not only did that strengthen her magic, but it also gave somewhat of a power boost to her legs. That also increased the intensity of the running speed that her legs could handle, and this method was one that made Lucy smile happily. She felt glad about using this particular method for increasing the speed of Kaze's Feather Dance, since it allowed her to spend more time with running instead of always getting tired too quickly.
Lucy definitely wasn't getting tired right now, which was evident from how she continued to run up and down the mountain trail. Getting the bottom of the mountain trail always made Lucy have small thoughts about what Sting was doing right now, her cheeks slightly blushing pink from thinking about how the previous day was where they shared their first kiss, and Lucy smiled softly at how she would go see him when her training session was finished. Lucy was training hard to help Sting and the rest of the team assist her with getting her body back, so Sting was probably training just as intensely for that same purpose.
Meanwhile, in a different town...
Sting was training quite hard in Margaret Town, a place that had dark green cobblestone streets that complimented the pale green buildings made from concrete, but the light dragon slayer wasn't doing any training for himself. He was training Kūkiatsu and Kusabue on how to handle their very first job as mages, supervising them like how he had kept an eye on Risa during her first job as a Sabertooth wizard, but Sting wasn't helping the pair of siblings deliver any butterflies to a client. Instead, he would be helping them take down a criminal.
Kūkiatsu aimed his right hand at a bandit who had blue hair slicked back with spiky ends pointing downward, and Kūkiatsu narrowed his eyes as he focused on the robber's hands that were covered in a light blue aura. It seemed like the antagonist would strike first, but Kūkiatsu was fast enough to create a mint green tornado in his right hand. He sent more Wind Magic into it, causing the tornado to become a spinning vortex that headed straight for the robber, but Kūkiatsu watched his opponent dodge to the right. After dodging the attack, the robber angrily scowled at Kūkiatsu and fired large ice shards from his hands.
The ice shards exploded when they hit the ground, creating light blue blasts that were average-sized while they left behind a high amount of cold air, but the attacks were all evaded by Kūkiatsu. As he attempted to inhale the extremely cold winds and struggled a bit from their frosty temperature, the sounds of those blasts only made a certain little girl with dark green hair be quite happy. She stretched her arms out to absorb the sound waves into her palms, before quietly getting behind the robber, and Kusabue loudly clapped her hands several times at a rapid pace.
That caused shamrock green explosions to occur around the criminal, as Kusabue focused her Sound Magic to only hit the area in front of her, and Kusabue's newest spell was known as Decibel Destruction. It unfortunately also sent her flying backwards because of the high winds that resulted from the explosions, but Kūkiatsu quickly created a mint green tornado that he threw straight at Kusabue. She watched the tornado come towards her at fast speeds, quickly engulfing her, and Kusabue was soon flung towards her older brother. He ended up catching her, but Kūkiatsu slid back several feet because of the impact.
"It looks like our combination could use a bit more polishing for it to be perfected, Kusabue." Kūkiatsu told her with a calm facial expression, before thinking about the team's next strategic move.
Kusabue responded with a worried facial expression, hearing some projectiles just be launched, "We'll have to work on that combination very quickly, then!"
"If you want to be quick with your techniques, then let's see if you two are fast enough to handle this!" The robber told them with a sadistic look on his face, the feeling of malice being in his dark blue eyes.
The man who wore a torn dark blue business suit with torn light blue jeans stretched out both of his hands, and he fired light blue orbs from the space in between his two palms. The orbs landed a few feet in front of him, bursting with bright blue light as they created large spiky chunks of ice. The large ice shards surrounded the robber on six sides in a hexagonal formation, light blue frost coming off of them to be in the air while the ice shards were surrounded by light blue auras, but that didn't prevent Kusabue from having an idea.
She jumped out of Kūkiatsu's arms to run towards the four spiky chunks of ice, and a shamrock green aura was building up inside of Kusabue's mouth. She released it in the form of a powerful scream, the sound waves being strong enough to create shamrock green blasts that were somewhat large, and the weakest sound waves bounced off of the ice to be redirected at the chunks of ice that had to deal with Kusabue clapping her hands towards them. The spiky chunks of ice all exploded in shamrock green blasts at the same time, creating high winds, and all that was left were pieces of ice that fell to the ground.
The robber watched those tiny pieces of ice fall to the ground, the sounds of them hitting the streets simply being absorbed into Kusabue's hands. Kusabue converted those sound waves into more magical power, before moving at fast speeds to confound the robber while Kūkiatsu boosted her speed with different wind gusts going in the appropriate directions to flow with Kusabue's movements, and she quickly got close to the robber to unleash her ultimate attack. Kusabue's attack involved taking in the sounds of the winds, as well as her own fast footsteps and the gasps from the robber. He watched her move around in a circle, before exhaling a breath that contained a high amount of sound waves. They circled around him, before converging on him all at once, and Kusabue would gladly state the name for this attack.
"Wall of Sound!" Kusabue fiercely stated with a stern facial expression, as numerous powerful shamrock green blasts occurred around her enemy.
Sting exclaimed with a proud smile on his face, hearing the robber scream in excruciating pain, "That's a pretty good way to defeat a criminal, Kusabue! You and Kūkiatsu did well on your first job as Sabertooth mages!"
Kūkiatsu replied nicely, smiling softly, "Well, it's great that we did well on a C-ranked mission."
This mission had thankfully been a low-ranked one that involved a petty thief trying to rob jewelry stores with his Ice Magic, and the reward was sixty-thousand jewels. The orange-haired female jeweler soon emerged from the store that had giant ice shards piercing through the shop's glass window, and she had a small brown bag of jewels in her left hand. She gave the bag of money to Kūkiatsu, who was very glad that he and Kusabue defeated the outlaw, and the older sibling was also quite happy that Sabertooth's newest team wasn't going to be a burden to the guild.
Kūkiatsu would be sure to never burden his teammates, especially Kusabue. Even though she came up with a good plan for ending this battle, Kūkiatsu still felt like she didn't always need to be protecting him. He didn't want her to have that particular role in the team, even though she had been protective of him because of she didn't want him to ever get badly hurt like how the researchers had harmed their parents. Kusabue's protective attitude towards her older brother made him frown a bit, since she liked to do most of work, and Kūkiatsu wasn't okay with that.
He would be happier if they could improve much more on their teamwork, which was what he perceived to be the only reason that they were able to catch Harui off guard in her fight against Yukino, and the quality of their teamwork was important. He hoped that they could both protect each other more often, whether they were physically shielding each other or deflecting spells with other spells. As Kūkiatsu used his right hand to deflect some cold air away from him and saw Kusabue running towards him, Sting simply kept smiling in a happy manner. Not only did Sabertooth complete a job for a client, but they had also done it in the town where Lamia Scale's mages were located and they seemed too busy for jobs such as this one.
Elsewhere, in Ryokufū Town...
Some of Lamia Scale's wizards were definitely too busy for low-level jobs, and one of those mages was Lyon Vastia. Lyon had bluish silver hair, which mostly consisted of spiky strands jutting on top of his head while some strands pointed downward. The strands pointing downward partially covered up the left part of his face, but that didn't stop him from having a very confident facial expression. The ice-creating wizard looked quite sure about his abilities, feeling like he could easily handle the problem that gave trouble to a client.
The client had the strange idea of thinking that a snowfall could be beneficial to ensure that any researchers who lived in Ryokufū Town wouldn't try to recreate the deadly perfume in a much colder version of the town where the predominantly green plants would be coated with heavy amounts of snow, and even making some ice explode to slow down any deadly perfume with icy winds in the air seemed like a very crazy suggestion. Still, turning down a very interesting job wasn't something that Lyon would do. In fact, he maintained his confidence while perceiving the task to be quite easy.
Lyon simply fired some Snow Magic up into the air from his right hand for the magic to hit one of the jade Sky Garden Clouds, specifically hitting that cloud with the spell called Blizzard, and Lyon watched the freezing winds become currents of snow that went through the air. All of the snow went up to the cloud to be absorbed by it, the white snow brightening the cloud for it to now be in a mint green color while also fusing with the cloud's Wind Magic, and the Snow Magic quickly came back down in the form of snow that descended from the cloud.
The amount of snow was quite heavy, sending down snow on different parts of Ryokufū Town while it floated over the town, and the townspeople began to look quite surprised at how the town that recently had to deal with a deadly perfume was now experiencing a snowfall. Some people looked happy at seeing the snow descend into their hands while other people shivered from the sudden coldness of the temperature, and Lyon smiled nicely while thinking about how his work was as great as the scent of the perfume in the air. His nose noticed the pleasant scent of the perfume, the aroma smelling good while it didn't sicken anyone, and that made Lyon feel a bit curious.
"I had been hearing small rumors that this town was plagued by some kind of sickly perfume, but did Gray come here and find a way to get rid of it?" Lyon asked aloud in a curious tone, before softly groaning in frustration at the idea of Gray getting here before him to be hailed as the town's hero.
A female voice replied to him in a kind tone, the person feeling glad to see Lyon's skills firsthand and inform him of something, "Hello, mage. Thank you for handling my request of seeing if cold weather could temporarily slow down the aroma of the sickly perfume, but you're a bit late to the scene. You see, some mages from Sabertooth handled the problem yesterday. Sting Eucliffe and his team are so cool, and it's even crazier to find out that Kotomi Takeuchi is in his group. She's one of our town's strongest people, and-"
"Sabertooth?! That guild of cocky and easily-surrendering people seriously beat me here?! Also, why should I care about Kotomi Takeuchi?" Lyon asked the girl in a stunned manner, turning around to see the person who gave him such an unexpected answer.
The girl who had her hair in a side ponytail explained to him with a joyful smile on her face, happiness in her fern green eyes as she held a bag of jewels in he hands, "Yeah, the mages of Sabertooth had to fight our town's strongest researchers, and there was even a battle in the sky where Risa Ryusei fought Yaeko! Watching them both from below was just as amazing as getting to see all the distant blasts from Sting and Kotomi fighting Fūsoku and Ayane, since those powerful researchers got defeated by the best tag-team ever!"
The person who seemed to be a huge fan of Sabertooth had been named Tsuta Hanamaki, and she wore an elegant-looking mint green dress with juniper green high heels to match. As Lyon noticed how she even wore a green bracelet with beads in various shades of green, he also watched her pull out a folded-up light green newspaper from the right pocket of her dress. She unfolded it and put the town's newspaper directly in his face, causing Lyon to frown a bit while lightly pushing the newspaper back towards her, and he simply looked at the headline.
It talked about how Sting Eucliffe, Kotomi Takeuchi, Risa Ryusei, Rogue Cheney, and Yukino Aguria saved the town from having to deal with the foul perfume that had been making people very sick to the point of even dying. Those deaths were no longer blamed on Haruna Senzai's perfume shop, which now had people choosing to buy her perfumes again, and the newspaper also talked about Haruna being the new town leader while she was very grateful to the Sabertooth mages for helping her out. The fact that the Sabertooth wizards were in the newspaper made Lyon think back to when they were in past newspapers for prominent reasons.
"If that team isn't overthrowing royalty themselves to make one of their own be a royal member of Parmanie, then they're helping commoners and a perfume shop owner with a royal inheritance take out greedy and discriminatory researchers who overthrew the previous leader of Ryokufū. Even in a town that's still more run-down on the east side, they're still getting fame like they're the best mages around." Lyon said aloud to himself with a facial expression that displayed a mix of being impressed, as well as being somewhat jealous.
Tsuta responded with an offended look on her face, interpreting his words as rudeness towards people who saved the town, "Well, they were the best group of people who defeated all of those researchers! I don't recall those supposedly intelligent wizards losing to a no-name such as you!"
Lyon refuted her last words in a very calm manner, frowning with sternness in his eyes, "I'm not a no-name. I'll have you know that I'm Lyon Vastia, one of the strongest mages of Fiore's third-best guild known as Lamia Scale, and I could easily accomplish any task that those Sabertooth wizards would be trying to finish."
Despite being quite adamant that he could overshadow any of Sabertooth's mages, Lyon wasn't exactly in the wealthier half of a town that glorified any mages from Lamia Scale. He was merely like an unpopular tourist who was going around the town where Kotomi Takeuchi was respected, and she was even more respected by the people who were preparing for the town's upcoming festival. Lyon watched some green-haired girls shape the green goop of their Plant Magic near the center of the town, seeing them make little statuettes of Kotomi's appearance like they were references for something much bigger, and he simply sighed in a frustrated manner at how a team led by Sting was getting so much glory.
He simply decided to think about completing his other job soon, which was on a light blue flyer that he pulled out of the left pocket of his dark green high-collared tunic, and Lyon simply looked at the job's description. He would have to apprehend a thief who had stolen an item known as the Azure Stone, but catching the thief would require Lyon to also stop the thief from hiding in the snow. They had been concealing themselves for months now while also helping their accomplice use their powers for troublesome purposes that Seigan Town had tried to avoid addressing because of the town needing to maintain its reputation, and Lyon smiled nicely at the thought of taking down the thief for a hefty reward.
He would be rewarded with 200,000 jewels, which was the bounty on that specific's head, and Lyon put the flyer back in his tunic's pocket. He looked at the light green cuffs of the tunic, before glancing down at his fern green pants that matched his plain green shoes, and Lyon smiled confidently at how he felt very prepared to handle the cold weather. He wasn't even bothered by the snowfall that was still happening in Ryokufū Town, and Lyon casually took the somewhat large brown bag of jewels from Tsuta. She watched him head back to the town's train station, the icy wizard still seeming arrogant, and Lyon felt like he could easily accomplish something that would be more grandiose than anything that Sabertooth's wizards could brag about.
Five hours later, at the Sabertooth guild...
Lucy felt like she could brag and smile to her friends about how she got the Kaze's Feather Dance spell up to a very high level, glad that she accomplished the task of perfecting that spell. Now that Lucy had a method for helping herself master Kaze's Feather Dance, she felt glad to vanish at blinding speed in front of everyone's eyes for a moment. Kusabue couldn't even see Lucy, only capable of hearing her footsteps quickly running across the guildhall's carpet, and Lucy hastily appeared in front of her with a happy smile on her face.
Kusabue noticed Lucy's smile, before noticing the pink T-shirt that went well with the cerise pink jeans matching her bubblegum pink wedges, and the young girl simply smiled back at her friend. She was glad that Lucy was getting better at using Wind Magic, even though her speed only made her be one-fifth as fast as Kotomi. Kusabue and her older brother had been thoroughly informed about what the alleged hero of Ryokufū Town had done to Lucy far before the incident where the deadly perfume had infected the town, and Kusabue hoped that Lucy could defeat Kotomi.
Although, Lucy's movements at blinding speed were still nowhere close to the speed of someone who appeared to be teleporting. Kusabue could still detect Lucy's footsteps with Sound Magic lightly being applied to the inner parts of her ear, and anyone who could teleport wouldn't be able to make their footsteps be heard. Therefore, Kusabue felt like Lucy needed to be much faster. She couldn't teach her how to run faster, due to being younger. Aside from her young age and lower amount of stamina, Kusabue was also wearing dark green high-heeled shoes that went well with the plain green sweater matching her dark green long skirt.
Kusabue felt like she was good at being fashionable, but there was someone far more fashionable who entered the guildhall a few seconds after Lucy. Risa had entered the guildhall with a happy smile on her face, wearing a plain pink bikini top over her fuchsia pink midriff top, and Risa wore some hot pink shorts with a magenta pink sweater tied around her waist. As Risa's bare waist left her stomach exposed, she glanced down at her light pink boots that had magenta pink heels. The pink shade of the heels went well with the fuchsia pink laces, which complimented the plain pink headband Risa wore behind her sunglasses. Risa grabbed her sunglasses while they started to fall from her head, before her eyes shifted to the sight of Kusabue looking at her fashionable outfit.
"Kusabue, are you impressed by my fashion sense or are you planning on replicating my outfit in shades of green?" Risa playfully asked the young girl with a kind smile on her face, before giggling a bit.
That prompted Kusabue to respond with a happy facial expression, honesty in her eyes, "Your fashion sense is impressive, Risa-san, but I wouldn't copy it."
"Kusabue, you're saying that you like my outfit and it's flawed?!" Risa asked Kusabue with an astounded facial expression, wondering if the young girl had shared Haruna's initial distaste for the color pink in fashion.
Kusabue cutely replied in a kind manner, not intending to offend Risa, "I like your outfit, Risa-san, but I'm used to seeing more green clothes and you could see more green clothes during the festival when we go back to-"
Before Kusabue could finish her sentence, Risa walked towards her and gently put her right hand over the young girl's mouth to silence her for a moment. Risa quietly began to think to herself about how she would definitely need to update her fashion wardrobe for situations such as these where her outfit wouldn't be deemed as being amazing by a fellow mage, and Risa turned her attention to the request board. She could easily take some easy jobs to quickly build up a high amount of jewels, which would be beneficial for purchasing several outfits from Ryokufū Town.
Buying several fashionable outfits from that town to get into its culture and fashion sense would be important, since news of the Sabertooth mages successfully thwarting the plans of the evil researchers in Ryokufū Town meant that the town would be visited by adoring fans who admired the wizards from Sabertooth, and even the locals who respected them would help with making Ryokufū Town's clothes be part of current fashion trends. If that town had the current fashion trends, then a fashionable and beautiful mage such as Risa couldn't afford to fall behind with wearing the most stylish clothes.
If Risa had the best style in Sabertooth from wearing certain outfits and even putting new clothes together to form better outfits, then that would only further improve Sabertooth's reputation. If Sabertooth had a better reputation from Risa having great fashion sense and being as powerful as her friends, then she would be very glad to assist her friends with helping them also be stylish. After all, Risa could smile proudly at how there was nothing wrong with people looking great while they were on missions. Speaking of missions, she took her hand away from her new friend's mouth and felt curious about Kusabue getting to have an important historic moment.
"Kusabue, how was your first mission as a Sabertooth mage? You and Kūkiatsu didn't take too long with Master around, did you?" Risa nicely asked, as her mind comically flashed back to her first mission.
The young mage told Risa in a calm tone, before giggling about that mission, "We handled it quickly, Risa-san! My brother and I are a great team, and it's good for me to protect him by having the finishing blow against enemies! We beat that robber so easily, and Sting-san seemed happy!"
"That's good, Kusabue. Not only are you a good rookie, but you and your brother are definitely a helpful team! Your teamwork is good, from what I've seen, and that teamwork makes our overall team be more awesome!" Risa responded to her with a pleased facial expression, before looking quite proud and gently giving her a high-five.
Kusabue was glad that she and her brother greatly contributed to making the overall team more awesome, and Kusabue turned around to just look at a table where her brother was sitting. Kūkiatsu wore a plain green T-shirt with some light green khaki shorts, and his sneakers were dark green. He couldn't exactly afford fancy clothes for himself and his sister right now, due to them using most of their cash from the job to buy a seemingly vacant house in Kogane Town that formerly belonged to two people, but at least Kūkiatsu could study up on books of Wind Magic that contained so much information from research.
There were so many important pieces of information on advanced spells of Wind Magic, such as spells for creating shields, and Kūkiatsu decided to activate one of those spells. He unleashed a spell called Air Reversal, which made a mint green tornado appear in the guildhall, but the winds of the spell weren't going to be destructive. They simply made Lucy be sent flying when she made the slightest bit of contact with Kūkiatsu's spell, and he merely looked a bit stern at how Lucy was possibly overusing her Wind Magic.
He personally thought that Lucy would be wasting her magical power right now by also running through the guildhall, since she could easily save it for her next mission. Lucy felt like her next important task was going to involve not getting painfully hurt from crashing into anything, due to how the tornado strongly repelled her high speed, and Lucy fell down towards a table. She quickly closed her eyes while thinking about how she should've spent some time with practicing other spells of Wind Magic or Plant Magic that could cushion her fall, and the impact seemed like it would be harsh. That assumption was negated by the feeling of someone catching her in their arms, their feet quickly stopping after they had moved quite fast to save Lucy. She opened her eyes to see that Sting was holding her right now, which caused Lucy to blush light pink when she looked into his eyes.
"Well, it looks like I picked a good time to leave my paperwork to Rogue and Yukino right now." Sting stated to Lucy with a confident smile on his face, feeling happy that she was above the table that was the positioned the closest to his office.
Lucy comically responded with a shocked facial expression, surprised that a guild master like Sting still had such a menial task, "People are training hard or getting flung across the room by winds, and you're making some of the mages help you with paperwork?!"
"It's not just any paperwork, Lucy. You'll be very pleased to know that I filled out some forms for certain towns to be able to send flyers to our guild, so getting jobs from more towns may heighten our chances at finding the sixth ring. I wonder if the ring will be blue, or maybe even a shade of blue." Sting explained to Lucy with a calm facial expression, thinking that his plan was great.
Lucy replied to Sting in a soft whisper, blushing as she kept looking into his eyes, "Blue would definitely be a great color for a ring, especially after we both seemed pink from... the kiss."
Upon hearing Lucy start to talk about the kiss, Sting felt his cheeks blush light pink while he gently let her jump out of his arms. She stood on the guildhall's carpet again, and Lucy smiled softly at Sting. Seeing his blushing face only made her also start to blush, as the kiss made them both share some romantic feelings like they were unified, and Lucy wondered if Sting would ever want to kiss her again. She thought that it would be nice for them to kiss again if they were on a date or having so much fun at a festival, so Lucy started to wonder if Sting wanted to go out again.
They could go to the festival that Haruna spoke about in the Lostlorn Meadow, since the festival would be celebrating the town being free of the deadly perfume while all of the heroes would also get to be celebrated, and Lucy would be happy to spend time in Ryokufū Town with Sting. He could eat some of the town's local delicacies with her while they could also check out the town's landmarks, and being a cute couple in a town that prominently specialized in two types of magic that complimented each other was definitely a good combination for that plan.
Lucy hoped that Sting would like her idea, but he would probably want to get back to the task of handling the paperwork that would come up. Guild masters did have to handle a lot of paperwork, which also included collecting vital information to see if it pertained to any towns or mages, and Sting even had a small piece of paper slowly slip out of the left pocket of his blue vest. He watched Lucy pick it up for her to just see the name of Suzuna Hiyayakana, which was the name on that burnt piece of the note that Kūkiatsu gave to Sting for him to do more research on it, but Lucy looked a bit curious.
"Sting, do you think that's the name of an evil mage?" Lucy asked him with a worried look starting to form on her face, as some anxiety was in her orange eyes.
The light dragon slayer replied nicely with an assured facial expression, not wanting to worry about the future too much, "Maybe they're evil, or maybe they not. All that I found from their name is that they reside in the town of Seigan, Lucy, but we shouldn't worry about that right now. After all, we're still trying to relax and take calmer tasks after that tough mission in Ryokufū Town."
His kind answer and unwavering confidence about matters pertaining to uncertainty prompted Lucy to ask with a small smile on her face, as she also wanted to enjoy relaxing right now, "Sting, do you... want to go the festival in Ryokufū Town with me? Can that be our next date?"
"Sure, Lucy! I'll be happy to attend that festival with you, and we'll both always have fun together." Sting replied to her with a happy smile on his face, before closing his eyes and leaving Lucy to be blushing more while their hearts continued to beat in sync with each other.
How was Chapter 42? Feel free to tell me your thoughts on it. Lucy has been training hard with the Kaze's Feather Dance spell, but she still needs to improve. She'll definitely get better at it, and also get better with more spells that she can use because of the Emerald Green Ring. That ring will help Lucy learn some strong spells, but most of them won't be seen in this post-arc. In fact, this small arc is building up to the next one. Lucy and Sting will go out on another date in this arc, but they will also have to confront some difficulties for their relationship to have the chance the thrive. Other characters will also have spotlight, too. In fact, Team Natsu and Kirika will be plot points that come back with some excitement. Also, this is the first part of the post-Emerald Wind Arc! I'll update soon. :)
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