Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
Chapter 44: Invites To The Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour! Seigan Town's Chilly Actions! Frosty Rivals! The Hidenka Hostesses! Suzuna Hiyayakana Appears!
Lucy sat down on the ledge of the fountain in Kogane Town while looking at the sunlight that sent its light down on the town to brighten up the light brown bricks of the streets, and she had just finished another training session of raising the level of speed that she could move at when applying Kaze's Feather Dance spell to her feet. Lucy's feet could move quite fast, the green-haired girl speeding down the mountain trail at high speeds to where she seemed to reach a level of being at sixty percent of Kotomi Takeuchi's high speed. That particular level of speed would definitely take a decent amount of time for Lucy to reach it, since she had aggressively been training quite hard with that spell while mastering her other spells.
Lucy had mastered seven other spells of Wind Magic that were quite powerful, along with being able to successfully use eight powerful spells of Plant Magic, and she was glad to have accessed the Plant Magic from training near the trees at the base of the mountain. By training at the bottom of the mountain with Plant Magic and training with Wind Magic on top of the mountain, Lucy was finding the best places for using different types of magic. She could use the two types of magic in locations where they benefited her, so Lucy wouldn't have to waste time with being unable to access certain spells.
She started to frown a bit at how she was still unable to access her desire to tell Sting about how she had a taste for foods such as those Vegetable Squid Balls, however. Lucy hadn't told Sting about the issue for the past three days that passed after the festival in Ryokufū Town, due to the blond-haired guild master being busy with paperwork while Lucy had been busy with handling some jobs of taking down criminals for the Sabertooth guild when she wasn't training. Handling jobs was Lucy's way of training with her magic when she wasn't officially training, as she could fight opponents, but taking several jobs caused her and Sting to not have much time to talk.
When they would talk, Sting and Lucy tended to keep their conversations casual while Sting would also say small things about how he was still trying to look for the exact town where the sixth ring was located. Lucy had also been trying to find out info about the legendary rings on any job that she could take, but she would only ask the guild mages or experienced criminals if they knew anything instead of always bringing up the issue in conversations with just one person like how Sting had been doing. He was actually starting to seem a bit worried from not finding out much info on the sixth ring's location while his worried attitude made Lucy also worry, but she was more worried about Sting instead of getting herself a step closer towards being in her own body. As Lucy got off of the fountain's ledge to look at the reflection of her new body in the water, she got to hear a certain person's footsteps approaching the fountain.
"Good morning, Lucy! It'll actually be a great morning, since I may have jut found a clue today about where that sixth ring may be!" Sting told his girlfriend with a very happy smile on his face, grinning as Lector flew beside him with a smile of assurance on his face.
Lucy responded to Sting with a somewhat saddened look on her face, before sitting back down on the fountain's ledge to ask him an important question in a somewhat calm manner, "That's nice to hear, Sting. I don't mean to be rude to you, but... do you ever think about how you're physically dating Kotomi Takeuchi when you're with me? Do you realize that you always call me Lucy when we're out together, even though I'm not physically having the identity of Lucy Heartfilia? Sting, didn't you even find it weird when you shared a kiss with me or watched me enjoy bitter-tasting food so much during my very first time of eating it?"
"Look, Lucy. Even if you're in someone else's body, that doesn't affect how I feel about you. I enjoy dating you and being around you, but I always know that you're the one who's experiencing my kisses. Kotomi's lips may feel the physical touch, but your mind and heart feel the emotions related to the kisses. Your feelings and personality are mainly why I like you, Lucy, and your physical appearance is just an added bonus. What's on the inside matters more to me than what's on the outside of who I'm dating, Lucy. You have the soul of Lucy Heartfilia, and I'll be glad to call you by that nice name when it's necessary." Sting thoroughly explained to her after sitting down beside her, calmly smiling in a comforting way.
Upon hearing Sting's response to her questions, Lucy could only widen her orange eyes that now had a few tears in them. She quickly wiped away the tears with one of her hands, not wanting her boyfriend to see her cry, and Lucy was just so glad that Sting wasn't going to love her for shallow reasons such as her physical appearance. He was able to see past her physical appearance, liking Lucy more for all of the personality traits of herself that she had shown to him. Lucy displayed herself to be determined and gaining confidence in herself while also being kind and strategic, which were all things that Sting admired in a person.
He also admired the fact of how Lucy wasn't the type of mage who would ever give up in a fight, as she always strived to defeat her enemies who would try to impede her progress with getting the legendary rings. Finding the next accessory in the group of seven rings would require Lucy to wonder about where it could be, but Sting smiled in a kind manner at how he was ready to give her a small hint. She seemed quite ready to hear more of his kind words, since Sting was such a comforting boyfriend, and Sting would gladly give her some good news.
The news pertained to how Sting had presumably discovered the location of the next ring, but his assumption would only be a glimmer of hope for Lucy. Sting merely put all of his hopes into the thought of finding the next ring in a certain town, and he believed that a ring would be there because of some important info he gained from receiving forms of paperwork. One of those forms involved Sabertooth officially having that town's particular guild listed as a neutral organization, meaning that their mages wouldn't blatantly be allies or be enemies to Sabertooth, but that request only made Sting feel like that guild was hiding some weird secrets such as rings.
"Lucy, I think that the sixth ring is somewhere in Seigan Town and the guild associated with that place may have good information on it. The info that they have could be very interesting, since the guild was established a few months ago while they seem to have the funds to make their town be a thriving place." Sting told Lucy with a calm smile on his face, as he had a feeling that the ring was there.
Lucy replied to Sting with a happy facial expression, before softly smiling and letting out a soft giggle, "If they're a new guild and getting money to improve their town, then at least one or more mages in that area might have information about the legendary ring. Even if the ring clearly isn't in their town, we definitely have to gather some info for finding it."
"That's what we can do for our team's next awesome mission! Although, it may be more awesome if you have a winter jacket." Sting responded with a confident facial expression, before grinning in a nice manner at subtly informing Lucy how Seigan Town was in the colder region of Fiore.
As Lucy started to wonder if she even had a jacket, she glanced down at her current outfit. She wore a dark green blouse with a moss green skirt that reached down to her ankles, and the skirt went well with her matcha green flat shoes. The shoes greatly complimented the pale green bow that was in her hair, the bow being somewhat long like a ribbon for Lucy to tie her hair into a ponytail on the right side, and Lucy liked how she was looking quite fashionable. She could definitely add the green outfit to her fashion wardrobe, since Risa thought that it would look great on Lucy.
Lucy liked that her roommate was so fashionable, but she soon widened her eyes in a slightly concerned manner at how Risa was still shopping for the trendiest green outfits that had just arrived in Kogane Town for a new sale. The fashion sale was popular for the women in Kogane Town, due to recent newspapers displaying Risa and the other mages attending Ryokufū Town's festival only a few days after they helped that town be free of that deadly perfume, and Risa's reputation as one of Sabertooth's best mages allowed her to purchase outfits with the best discounts involved. Getting many clothes would help Risa improve her own fashion sense, as well as help everyone else improve theirs, but turning around to see her friend walking out of the store with Rogue and a stranger beside them made Lucy start to smile a bit more softly.
Her soft smile came from watching Risa carry several shopping bags in different shades of green while Rogue only carried the extra seven shopping bags, but Risa did her best to carry the bags. She also had to carry a light blue envelope in one of the bags, placing it on top of a neatly folded mint green skirt that was at the top of a plain green bag to where the envelope could possibly fall out, and Risa had recently just received that envelope from the stranger who had dark blue hair matching her cerulean blue eyes. The stranger's eyes soon met Lucy's eyes, and she wasted no time with walking up to her.
"Excuse me for bothering you, but are you the famous Kotomi Takeuchi? You know, the green-haired mage who's been doing several good things throughout Fiore like how other mages such as myself have been doing the same thing?" The stranger politely asked with a stern look on her face, seeming a bit grouchy about having to come all the way to Kogane Town.
Lucy responded to her with a calm facial expression, as she noticed how the girl had long hair that reached down to her elbows with a plain blue headband on her head, "Yes, that's me. Although, I've never seen you before."
"Well, my name is Hisame Glacehail and I'm part of the guild called Cerulean Frost. My guild will soon be celebrating an event called the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour in the town of Seigan, and you're one of the girls who's invited to attend the event because of your high-level skills with magic. Other wizards who wield magic will be there, too, so please feel free to join them in helping us with making the event be splendid." The girl explained to Lucy with a stern look on her face, before pulling an envelope out of her miniskirt's right pocket.
Hisame handed the envelope to Lucy for her to have an official invitation to the event, but she quickly turned her head away in a snooty manner while folding her arms. She felt miffed that someone who gained so much fame in a short amount of time could even be considered as a mage who would be joining the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour, since the leaders of the event had been claiming that they wanted to see the wizards who they deemed to be helpful enough with something that they needed to handle.
Whatever they needed to handle was something that Hisame herself hadn't been informed about, since she was relegated to only being the event's messenger instead of being one of the mages who could've been useful. She started to frown in a stern manner at how she disliked having to take orders from the higher-ups in Seigan Town, viewing them to just be shady mages who created a guild to brag about their own strength, and Hisame didn't even understand why they wanted to hold an event involving wizards from other towns.
She felt like the people of Seigan didn't need any help from outsiders, as she preferred the idea of Seigan's ice-wielding mages handling the issue themselves without possible idiots coming in to wreck everything. Hisame even thought Lucy was an idiot on the sole basis of her fashion sense, deeming her cyan and sapphire blue miniskirt in a checkered pattern that matched her light blue T-shirt to be much more fashionable than Lucy's outfit. Hisame even thought that her pale blue high-heeled shoes with dark blue icicles forming the image of icicles swirling close together in a whirlpool formation had been better than Lucy's shoes, too.
Hisame's attitude of being prideful and snobby was definitely sensed by Lucy, who quickly got up from the fountain with a confident smile on her face while choosing to show off her five legendary rings, letting the sun's light come down on them to make the rings glisten in their respective colors, and Lucy felt like she needed to flaunt her five items of Holder Magic that she earned through hard-fought battles to someone who was perceiving her as a mage who probably got lucky enough to join the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour.
The sight of those five rings actually made Hisame groan in frustration, trying to hide a certain fact that made her feel a bit frustrated, but she was now more miffed at Lucy for having items of Holder Magic that were seemingly more valuable than an item she used for enhancing her own magic. That particular item was known as an Ice Stone, which was a snowy-blue stone that could glow in an icy blue color when its wielder activated magic, and it could even enhance icy spells of Caster Magic to a decent level. That didn't necessarily mean mages could stop training, though.
Hisame had been training quite hard with the Ice Stone, trying to get her level of magical power up to the standards of Seigan Town's leaders for them to automatically make her be a member of the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour, but developing her skills to her current level was still not enough for them to consider anyone in their guild to be quite worthy of helping them out with something grand that they had been planning. Their plans actually made Hisame very curious, especially since they were practically recruiting mages who either had strong rivals or were females.
Hisame herself unfortunately had no rivals of her own, which made her feel like it would be necessary to at least try forming a rivalry with the notorious Kotomi Takeuchi, but seeing how the orange-eyed mage was seemingly ahead of her in terms of magical strength only made her start to laugh in a proud manner as if she was trying to hide some insecurities. She merely glanced at the rings for a moment, having never seen any rings like them before until now, and Hisame felt like it would make her feel better by talking down to Lucy before leaving.
"Well, any mage can buy Holder Magic in a store. Those rings were probably purchased in the stores of those towns, or you probably got them through trading items." Hisame told Lucy with an arrogant smirk on her face, as she folded her arms.
Lucy responded while smiling confidently, wanting to make the messenger be humbled, "Actually, I earned all of these rings through tough battles where I had to be strategic and help out my friends. We didn't exactly have easy fights when it came to getting these rings, Hisame. In fact, we'll fight whoever we have to battle for the sixth important ring and we'll be sure to win!"
"I don't mean to lessen the excitement in this situation, but are Risa and Kotomi allowed to bring any other mages with them?" Rogue asked with an emotionless facial expression, as his green Exceed named Frosch sat down on his shoulder and let out a carefree sigh.
That prompted Hisame to reply with astounded facial expression, looking snobbish at that simple question, "Absolutely not! If you weren't invited, then you'll only be a disturbance to Lady Emiria and Lady Hiyasu! It would be wise of you not spoil such a special event, so don't do it! If you want to be in Seigan Town, then handle a job there or go there like a tourist!"
The thought of touring Seigan Town made Risa glance down at her current attire for a moment, and she wore a mint green backless halter top that reached down to the area of her stomach that was just above her navel, and she wore a light green miniskirt to match. The miniskirt's shade of green greatly complimented her olive green heels, which went well with her moss green cuff bracelet that she wore on her right arm, and Risa also wore an emerald green headband with five dark green bows on it. The cute bows stood upward while they were behind Risa's red-framed sunglasses, and she was glad to be looking quite fashionable.
However, Hisame mentioning Seigan Town prompted her to run home with the shopping bags in her hands. The bags of clothes were going to quickly be unloaded in her room, since there was something that Risa needed to finally retrieve from her closet after months of waiting for the chance to wear another cute piece of clothing over her outfit that had already been stylish. Risa's great sense of style would be boosted more with this new addition to her outfit, but she soon groaned in frustration at how she'd probably have to purchase the proper boots for Seigan Town's weather.
As Risa ran back to her house, she quickly passed by Yukino. The Celestial Spirit Wizard wondered why Risa was in such a rush, her hazel eyes briefly seeing Risa apply the pink aura of Psychic Magic to her feet for her speed to increase while Yukino also noticed one of Risa's shopping bags containing the light blue envelope. She glanced over at Lucy, who was also holding a light blue envelope in her hands, and Yukino walked up to her friend. She nicely smiled at Lucy, who was still seeming powerful enough to where she left someone as snobby as Hisame to walk back towards the train station in a very frustrated manner.
"If you think that you're easily better than Seigan's top mages, then just know that they're much stronger than me and they're some of the best treasure hunters in the icy areas of Fiore! When you see Lady Emiria at the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour, I hope her frosty ice doesn't freeze your willpower to where you'd be a coward!" Hisame sternly told Lucy with a harsh facial expression while quickly walking away, possibly seeming very rude and harsh to hide her own feelings of cowardice.
Yukino quietly asked Lucy in a calm manner, seeming puzzled because of how she just walked into the situation, "Lucy-sama, what's the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour? What does that person named Lady Emiria have to do with it?"
Lucy decided to get answers for herself and Yukino by opening up the envelope, before reading the envelope's contents aloud with a relaxed facial expression, "Congratulations on being accepted into the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour, Kotomi Takeuchi! Sorry if we don't call you by any other names, but we know you as Kotomi. Please come to Seigan Town for the grand and icy meeting of Fiore's strongest females, as well as other people who have rivals, and your strength shall be celebrated at our grand banquet! You'll be pleased to meet Lady Emiria and Lady Hiyasu at the Cerulean Frost guild, too! Signed by the slayer of ice, Suzuna Hiyayakana."
Upon seeing that name at the end of the light blue letter, Lucy widened her eyes in shock. She had seen that name come up before when Sting let a small piece of paper fall out of his vest's pocket, and Lucy could now tie that piece of paper with someone who called themselves the slayer of ice. That seemed like a very interesting name for someone to give themselves, since Lucy didn't perceive ice as something that could destroy ice, and the thought of an ice-welding mage only destroying ice made Lucy feel puzzled.
She would have to find out a bit more info on the note from Kūkiatsu, who ran up to the group with two shopping bags in his hand while smiling with Kusabue by his side. Kusabue wore a pale green T-shirt and a long jade green skirt to match her dark green shirt, which went well with the plain green cute beret she wore over her hair that was now down. Kusabue brushed some of her hair away from her face, and raising her left arm allowed her friends to see a cute scrunchie in the plain shade of green on her wrist.
Kūkiatsu had a plain green cuff bracelet on his left wrist, matching with his sister to emphasize how they were a team, and he simply wore a light green T-shirt over some moss green khaki pants that matched his plain green dress shoes. He turned his attention to Risa, who was now wearing her plain green winter jacket that she had bought from Tokiwa Town while holding separate dark green jackets for everyone else, and she happily smiled at her friends. Lucy was glad that Risa would be wearing that plain green jacket instead of carrying it around after a mission, but she felt more glad at how they would get to work together again. Lucy walked towards Risa with the light blue envelope in her hand, prompting Risa to display her envelope that was still sealed, and Lucy was glad that they were both invited to something involving an icy reverie that was quite grand. Risa wished that Rogue and Sting could also see the event, prompting her to fire pink healing beams at the dragon slayers for them to not get motion sickness from taking the train to any jobs elsewhere in Fiore, but Rogue gave his friend a smile of assurance that informed her of how the rest of the team would definitely find a way to get into the event at Seigan Town.
Six hours later, in Seigan Town...
Lucy and Risa arrived at the town of Seigan after several hours of riding the train, exiting the warm train station to be met with the rapid change in temperature that occurred from how white snow was still falling down on the town. The chilly snow made mages such as Sting and Kusabue heavily shiver, despite how they wore jackets for their separate team's mission of slowly trailing behind the girls to check out the town that was being covered in snow. Even though Seigan was currently experiencing the autumn season like all of the other towns in Fiore, its tendency to have heavy snowfalls would only slightly decrease from when the town was experiencing the winter months. Risa actually thought that this place was truly experiencing the coldness of winter, due to how the tiled streets in varying shades of blue were still getting covered by snow, and she could even see thick puddles of ice on the streets.
She and Lucy watched the civilians slide and skate on the ice, moving with ease from how they were quite accustomed to the frosty town. Some civilians even skated on different streets that led a large museum, as well as a light blue rock that had seven white icicles surrounding it, and Risa watched those people reach those locations by going down a branching path. She went down the straight path to meet up with Lucy, however, and Risa was now on a path where there were many cute-looking shops being owned by people who worked in blue buildings.
The buildings were in different shades of blue while they had the left sides of their blue gable roofs above lapis blue square windows that faced outward with azure blue bordering, and the other halves of the houses featured roofs facing west or east. Those roofs were above midnight blue square windows with cerulean blue bordering, and Risa liked how the houses that were made from sapphire blue bricks looked quite cute. One shop that was very cute involved an outdoor concession stand where white cups of piping hot coffee were being sold, and Risa felt like it would be better to buy coffee outside instead of joining a group of clamoring customers who were inside the store.
Lucy slowly got up from a nearby patch of white snow that she landed in while starting to turn her attention to the sound of Risa giggling, and she watched her friend take three-thousand jewels out of her jacket's left pocket. She handed them to the wooden blue concession stand's owner, who was a woman seeming to be in her late twenties, and Risa watched the woman gladly take the money from her. In exchange, she gently slid two large cups of hot peppermint mocha coffee towards Risa. Risa was about to pick them up, but the woman who wore a light blue winter jacket with light blue winter pants started to blink her eyes in a curious manner.
"By any chance, are you one of the mages who's here for the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour?" The woman with blue hair tied back in a ponytail calmly asked Risa, feeling like she must've been an important female tourist.
Risa asked in response, smiling sweetly as she also asked a follow-up question with sarcasm in her voice, "Yeah, but where can my fellow Sabertooth mage and I find the place for the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour? Do you get there by using ice floes, based on its name?"
"Wow, you must be psychic when it comes to routes! Yes, you have to take the ice floes that are past where the museum's own little lake used to be! The lake was obscured by snow and ice, but the lake's frosty fish were moved to be inside the museum after a theft several months ago. The museum's staff will let you walk past the museum, but don't try looking under the ice for the watery cavern that leads to-" The woman explained to Risa with an impressed facial expression, before putting her own hands over her own mouth when her plain blue eyes glanced to her right.
Risa glanced in that same direction to see a woman with long and wavy periwinkle blue hair sitting on the back of a woman who had her cerulean blue hair tied back into two pigtails while that woman crawled on her hands and knees like an animal carrying someone who deemed themselves to be above her. The woman who sat on her back wore a fancy cerulean blue winter coat with sapphire blue fur around the coat's collar while the fur matched the color of her winter pants, but the woman who was under her merely wore torn clothes in the plain shade of blue.
The tears in her clothes had exposed her body to the cold air, some of her bruises being in a sickly shade of purple from frostbite while she even had red bruises that seemed quite sore from magic possibly being used to strike her, but Risa noticed something else that made the woman seem like she was suffering. A light blue collar of ice was firmly around her neck while the collar appeared to have six light blue icicles protruding from it in a hexagonal formation, and the woman stopped moving to let her icy collar touch the street. That prompted the woman who was seemingly her master to hurriedly get off of her, watching the woman attempt to get up and turn around with a terrified facial expression, and the woman who seemed to be enslaved attempted to run down the street while a light blue aura surrounded her feet. She ran quite fast, but a sudden and slow sound of ticking took everyone around her by surprise. Lucy and Risa looked shocked from wondering what would happen while Seigan Town's nearby civilians distanced themselves from the woman, the person who now had tears coming from her pale blue eyes.
"Help me, please! Just get this frigid collar off of me! It's so cold, and I didn't mean to sneak down into the Frigid Temple last month! Somebody, please get this icy collar off of my neck!" The woman exclaimed in a pleading manner, looking saddened as she seemed to be begging for her life.
Risa was quickly and quietly told in a concerned manner by the coffee shop employee who looked quite fearful, before the employee gently pulled Lucy's arm towards her to make her seem like a paying customer, "Miss, it would be wise if you and your friend stay out of this. She's just a runaway slave who was probably trying to hope for some opportunity to flee from her master, but she must know what happens to other slaves who attempt to escape!"
"What will happen to her, and what's that strange ticking sound?" Lucy quietly asked the employee with a scared look on her face, feeling fear from how she never saw anything like this before.
Upon hearing the ticking sound of the collar get faster like an explosive that was ticking down during each passing second, the tearful woman loudly exclaimed with a begging facial expression while trying to pull the collar off her neck with magic starting to engulf her hands, "Somebody, please help me! Get this collar off of me, and just let me go back home to my children! They don't need to be away from me any longer!"
The woman's pleas for help unfortunately got met with nobody assisting her, and the light blue collar began to glow. When it glowed, the collar's ticking stopped like a countdown reaching its end. However, that was only the beginning moment for a light blue explosion to occur! The explosion engulfed the woman, who let out a pained scream, and the sight of the powerful magic from the collar caused the citizens to scream in pure shock. Some of them became even more astounded when the light blue clouds of smoke began to fade away in the wind, leaving behind something that seemed very horrifying.
The unsettling sight of the woman from the explosion now being a frozen ice sculpture was quite scary, especially since her scream and terrified facial expression would remain that way forever. She was now fully covered in ice, suffering from the icy collar's secondary effect of completely freezing the wearer to immobilize them, and this woman's chilling death made Risa look just as startled as Lucy. She didn't expect to see something like this in a seemingly happy town, making her wonder if this was always something that occurred in Seigan, but Risa watched the woman's master walk down the street without saying a single word about the situation.
Since nothing was mentioned about what had just happened while that seemingly elite woman went past Risa and Lucy, the two girls merely picked up their coffees to slowly drink them. Consuming the hot coffees in a wintery town with a frosty atmosphere was a good way for Risa to make herself not feel so numbed by what had just happened, and she actually drank her coffee somewhat faster. Lucy followed her actions, as she wanted to feel warmth in a seemingly cheerful town that just showed one of its frosty aspects, and she hoped that the weather would be warmer after following the coffee shop employee's directions to the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour.
Ten minutes later...
Following the coffee shop worker's directions for getting to the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour required Lucy and Risa to go up the street, before turning left and going all the way down the adjacent street where a bakery was selling hot desserts that gave off very delicious aromas. Risa smiled happily from how her nose detected desserts that were in the flavor of white chocolate, liking how spending so much time around Rogue allowed her to try increasing her own sense of smell in places where shops had their doors open for many wonderful scents to emerge from the stores, and she silently thought about buying some of those desserts later.
Risa would also have to buy some clothes from the fashion store that was on this street, seeing the sapphire blue building to be somewhat larger than the ones that were around it like someone had invested more jewels into making Seigan have a better business for fashion trends. Fashion trends weren't the only thing that seemed to come from investments of money, though. Someone had invested high amounts of jewels into making this street also have different shops that sold ice cream, as well as cakes that seemed to have the frost of cold air coming off of them when people wanted to eat desserts in the winter weather.
Lucy and Risa could eat treats and go shopping later, though. Lucy was much more focused on getting to the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour, running down the street with her friend while they did their best to avoid falling on any patches of ice, and she even decided to see how the Kaze's Feather Dance spell would function on the snow-covered tiled streets that were in different shades of blue. The snowy and icy street soon had a large gust of wind blowing snow in several directions, which occurred after Lucy activated her spell for mint green feathers to descend from in front of her waist for them to lightly touch her feet. When they touched her feet, the feathers vanished and Lucy ran incredibly fast to where some people even thought that the gust of wind occurred from a strong blizzard entering Seigan.
Risa certainly felt like she was running through a blizzard with Lucy, still feeling the intensely cold air while holding on to one of her friend's hands during these moments where Lucy was going all the way down to the other end of the street. Lucy quickly reached the part of the street where it branched off into two different paths, ignoring the left path with the light blue rock and the icicles to go on the right path while going on that particular route allowed Lucy to soon come across an ice rink where people were skating. As she and Risa saw several amateurs and professionals practicing their skating techniques, Lucy decided to smile confidently at the thought of taking the bold risk of sliding straight across the ice at high speeds.
"I haven't practiced running across the ice yet, but facing forward with so much high speed should get us to the lake very easily!" Lucy told Risa with absolute confidence in her eyes, as she ran on to the ice.
Risa responded in a snarky manner with a somewhat worried facial expression, frantically activating Stellar Psi to make a pink aura surround her hands while she slid forward with Lucy, "Yeah, we're totally immune from possibly crashing into any of these skating people who are moving around!"
A man with short blue hair exclaimed with a panicked facial expression, as fear entered his plain blue eyes, "Whoa, watch out!"
"Look out! It doesn't seem like she'll be turning away from us!" A girl with pale blue hair exclaimed to her nearby friends in a scared manner, trying to slide to her right as fast as the ice's low amount of traction would allow for her feet.
Lucy felt herself be unable to easily change direction with the Kaze's Feather Dance spell still activated, as a sharp turn would make her gain more speed than what she was used to handling, and she hoped to not crash into any of the nearby people. Their screams of worry and panic nearly matched her worried screams, but everyone was able to avoid colliding with Lucy because of Risa using Stellar Psi to push them away to the right or left while she put a high amount of Psychic Magic into the spell for it to send several people sliding away from Lucy.
They ended up trying to skate or successfully display dance moves while being affected by Stellar Psi, causing those people to comically swerve in several directions around the rink for the oblivious people to think that that they were all practicing how to skate or dance while swerving like they needed to practice their icy sports at frantic speeds for them to possibly improve at a rapid pace. Rapid pacing also applied to Lucy, who was now propelled forward at high speeds by Risa only using Stellar Psi on the space behind them to push themselves much forward, and her hasty exit from the ice rink to reach the rest of the route going up to the museum caused her run through the snow at high speeds.
She ended up swerving to the far left at the last few seconds before colliding with the museum's guards, who ended up getting drenched with a large amount of snow that flew through the air to land on them, and Lucy even made snow accidentally drench some people who were walking into the museum. One of those people was another woman who had been dragging an impoverished-looking woman by the dark blue winter scarf under her icy collar. Both of the women who had their hair down chose to just brush off the snow while they caught a glimpse of Lucy and Risa, seeing the girls go behind the museum to jump on one of the ice floes that was in a nearby body of water.
Upon jumping on an ice floe with a high amount of power to where it lightly started cracking, Lucy loudly exclaimed to Risa with a concerned facial expression while the feeling of urgency was in her voice, "Risa, we need to carefully get off of this ice floe before it makes us go down into the cold water!"
"If we have to get off of this ice floe, then that just means we can jump to another one!" Risa stated with a happy facial expression, not perceiving their situation to be very dangerous.
Risa added with a happy smile on her face, as she aggressively broke off a chunk of the ice floe with one hand to hold it several inches above the ground, "In fact, we even have a great way to do that!"
Risa aimed her other hand down at the ice chunk's shadow that appeared on the bigger portion, raising it up from the ground with Stellar Psi, and Risa grabbed the shadow with her right hand. She proceeded to put it in her mouth, which started to be filled with the pink aura of Psychic Magic like Risa was building up power for an attack, and Risa wasted no time with eating the shadow. After consuming the ice chunk's black shadow, she threw it in the water and turned around while her pink hair became as magenta as her eyes. Risa had a look of fierce determination in her eyes, before activating the spell called Shadowy Psychic's Psychokinetic Magenta Scream, and she fired a large burst of spiraling psychic energy in a magenta color from her mouth. The spiraling psychic energy even had black beams of light coming up from its shadow, and Risa watched the attack strike an ice floe that had been behind her.
The impact immediately created a massive magenta blast that had enough strength to viciously shift the lake's water around like roaring waves of a stormy sea, and Risa ended up having to ride some of those shifting waves with Lucy on an ice floe that was breaking apart. The sight of the separating pieces of the ice floe prompted Risa to grab one of Lucy's hands while using Stellar Psi to jump quite high, and Risa fired Shadowy Psychic's Psychokinetic Magenta Scream at the water in front of the next ice floe that she'd land on with Lucy.
When the girls landed on the ice floe, the massive magenta blast propelled them very far towards the snowy area that was on the other side of the lake while the water was still violently shifting. The waves that were created ended up moving some ice floes towards a building that was part of the snowy area, and both mages ended up landing on one of the ice floes that would crash down against the ground with a wave of water. When the wave got quite close to the ground, Risa slid forward on the ice with Lucy and jumped towards the snow-covered ground. They ended up softly landing on the ground while the wave's water loudly struck the ground for a few seconds, but Risa wasted no time with taking several steps back to evade the water. Lucy did the same thing, but Kaze's Feather Dance made her footsteps be quieter. However, her voice wouldn't be soft after turning around to see something that made her happily smile.
"Risa, we actually made it to the place where they're having the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour!" Lucy exclaimed with a celebratory grin on her face, as she looked up at the large building that only had its doors being a few inches away.
That prompted Risa to reply with a miffed look on her face, as she sarcastically seemed pleased after looking at her hands for a moment, "Well, the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour definitely fulfilled its frigid aspect by even making the chunk of ice and the shadow not exactly be the warmest things for me to touch!"
Lucy turned to see Risa's hands starting to be light blue, prompting her to ask in a curious tone, "Risa, were those normal ice floes or are the ice and water infused with someone's magic? Do you think that conjuring up some psychic flames will help your hands heal?"
A female's voice explained in a calm tone, after quietly opening the front doors to hear the girls' conversation more easily, "If you want your hands or feet to not start freezing, then it would be wise for you to come into this guild's building. The mages of Cerulean Frost can remedy your minor problem, mage."
Risa and Lucy both turned around to see a woman with light blue hair bordering the left and right sides of her face in two layers that looked thick while she had a fringe that was in a blunt-cut style in front of her forehead, and she definitely seemed quite fashionable in the winter cold. She wore a light blue shirt collar that was jagged like icicles with sapphire blue trim in the shape of icicles being near the edges, and she only wore the uppermost part of the light blue shirt while the bottom part of it had also been light blue and jagged like icicles.
That jagged part of the shirt was above a sapphire blue bow that had been attached to it, and the bow had a light blue rhombus-shaped gem in the center of it while the gem was positioned horizontally. The gem matched the light blue breast plates that were slightly below it, and the breast plates that showed most of the woman's cleavage had azure blue trim on the upper halves of them while they had sapphire blue ruffles right above them. The sapphire blue ruffles complimented a cyan blue thin scarf that was under the breast plates, and it went up on both sides to be tucked into her shirt collar. The light blue shirt collar was different from the rest of the outfit, which consisted of a short turquoise blue dress that had a cyan blue rectangular pattern near its borders with six small and circular dots going downward on the right-hand side while they were in a celestial shade of blue. Those cute dots on her dress went well her shoulder-less cobalt blue long sleeves that had cerulean blue cuffs slightly below the shoulders, and the sleeves reached down to the woman's hands. Her hands were almost covered by the sapphire blue ruffles at those ends of the sleeves, and the ruffles were also complimented by the woman's neon blue snow boots. The boots matched her eyes, which were also neon blue, but the entire skirt under her dress was in varying shades of blue while its layers and edges had the appearance of ocean waves.
Lucy and Risa simply glanced at the woman's outfit for a moment, noticing how she looked so calm and stern while not even appearing to be bothered by the cold air that was brushing against the bare parts of her body. She merely frowned at them for taking their time to observe her instead of rushing inside the light blue building that had six icicle-shaped towers attached to it in a hexagonal formation while the highest points of the towers were made from dark blue bricks, but seeing Risa glance up at the emblem above the rectangular-shaped doorway made the frowning woman feel that the sarcastic mage needed a taste of some sarcasm.
"Wow, your hands won't get frostier in this cold weather." The woman sarcastically told Risa with an annoyed frown on her face, wondering if she was actually here for the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour.
That prompted Risa to nicely reply while managing to take out the envelope and invitation from her jacket's left pocket, smiling in a somewhat embarrassed manner, "Oh, I'm so sorry for being surprised to see someone so unexpected be the greeter for this event! Anyway, it would be nice if you people could heal my hands."
"It'll be even better for you to know that we're officially here for the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour, and this is probably Sabertooth's first time being involved in an event such as this one." Lucy added with a kind smile on her face, as she took out her invitation and envelope from her jacket's right pocket.
After seeing their invitations and stepping aside to let Lucy and Risa pass by, the woman responded to them in a calm manner while seeming pleased enough to politely bow, "Welcome to our grand and icy reverie, Sabertooth. You've already taken the frigid tour to get here, just like all of the other wizards, and my name is Suzuna Hiyayakana. I'm an S-Class mage, as well as one of the hostesses for this event, but I'll try my best to not surprise you like the two higher-ranked hostesses."
Even though Lucy felt a bit surprised to finally have a face-to-face chat with Suzuna Hiyayakana, she felt much more surprised at who she saw in the room that looked like a guildhall. Lucy got to see Lyon Vastia and Sherria Blendy sitting down at a dark blue round table, both mages being from the Lamia Scale guild, and she also noticed that Kagura Mikazuchi from the Mermaid Heel guild was also at the event while the purple-haired woman sat down at a distant table by herself. Someone else who sat down by themselves was Jenny Realight from the Blue Pegasus guild, the blonde-haired woman only being accepted to the event because of how she had told the leaders of Seigan Town during the fifth month of their reign that she was as strong as two certain mages who had become quite a prominent tag-team of psychics in Fiore from handling several S-Class jobs for Parmanie Town's temporary leader named Cordelia, and she simply smiled at the two newest attendees of the event.
Jenny may have smiled at Lucy and Risa, but one person who wasn't smiling ended up being a certain woman with blue hair that fell past her shoulders while she wore a light blue dress coat that was knee-high. Her dress coat had six cobalt blue buttons in the middle of it while she wore cerulean blue ankle-high boots with her thighs being bare, and she wore a light blue garden hat with two dark blue bows on the front of it. The woman who frowned at Lucy had been none other than Juvia Lockser, a female wizard from the Fairy Tail guild, and Juvia merely clenched her fists tightly while her dark blue eyes were narrowed at Lucy in a very stern manner.
Juvia proceeded to get up from her table, ignoring the surprising sight of a certain Eastern-looking familiar mage with glossy purple hair sitting at a nearby table with two other mages who the woman with emerald green eyes personally deemed as inferior attendees, and Juvia walked up to the woman who looked exactly like Gray's description of the woman who attacked Team Natsu on that fateful day. The fact the team's job of retrieving the Emerald Star proved to be meaningless because of a second theft wasn't a reason why Juvia glared at Kotomi, but she had intuitively sensed a very bad feeling pertaining to Gray and felt like only one person would want to kill Team Natsu's members.
"Juvia knows... that you are Kotomi Takeuchi, the one who harshly defeated Gray-sama on a mission, so tell Juvia... why she shouldn't blame you for how Gray-sama is tied to an unshakable and unpleasant feeling... that cannot go away at all!" Juvia told Lucy with a confrontational look on her face, breathing heavily with feelings of building rage to where she had been pausing to try and control her emotions involving this accusation.
The emotional words of her former comrade from Fairy Tail prompted Lucy to respond to Juvia in an equally stern manner, not desiring to fight or argue with her over something she perceive to possibly involve a blonde-haired thief, "Sorry, but I've been too busy collecting some legendary rings and taking down mages who are far stronger than that team from my past. I haven't seen those particular mages in a long time, so I had nothing to do with your friend's disappearance."
Risa added with a serious look on her face, looking just as stern as she felt like it would be necessary to clear up the matter to Juvia, "In fact, Kotomi's been very busy helping me and the other members of our team find those rings! We even had to find the recent one during a horrible pandemic caused by perfume, and the festival afterwards was our only time to just relax! By the way, Kotomi is actually the princess of Kuchiba Town and I'm the official princess of Parmanie Town! My name's Risa Ryusei, so remember it and show Sabertooth some respect!"
"Respect Sabertooth? You really think Juvia should respect a guild that had its new master surrender to her team in the recent Grand Magic Games like a weak and cowardly mage? Speaking of weak, Risa Ryusei, didn't a past newspaper claim that you merely fought so hard to kill a psychic princess because she had defeated your psychic master named Sara? Was that the same Sara who could only reach stalemates in her battles against Ur, my late master who was quite skilled with icy magic?" Lyon asked with an arrogant smirk on his face, as he came to Juvia's defense and also insulted Sabertooth's mages for acting they achieved accomplishments that no other guild could've done.
Those words caused Risa to angrily narrow her eyes at Lyon, looking quite upset at how he had the nerve to talk about how Sting was a weakling because of one incident, and Risa also disliked how the overconfident wizard had the audacity to bring up Sara's name in a disrespectful manner. Risa felt like the name of her adoptive mother and deceased mentor definitely deserved to be spoken in a respectful manner, due to how Sara had been a very caring mage who was quite proficient with the magenta shade of Psychic Magic, and she also clenched her fists tightly at how Lyon seemed to minimize the importance of her task that involved killing Kyoko for all of her atrocities. One of those atrocities involved killing Sara, who sacrificed herself to keep Kyoko from killing Risa when she was just a young child, and Kyoko's severe amount of harm towards Rogue a few months ago had pushed Risa into being enraged enough to where the evil princess was killed after making Parmanie Town be an unfair place for many years.
Anyone who didn't perceive Risa's task of killing Kyoko as something that specifically had to be done by her, the only Sabertooth mage capable of accomplishing it, was merely making themselves be deluded into thinking that they somehow rivaled Risa's strength. She merely folded her arms and gave a stern look to Lyon, who started to smile at her with absolute confidence about his words before he started to smile elsewhere in a flustered manner from how Juvia turned around to look at him with a surprised facial expression at how she didn't expect him to ever try defending her. Juvia continued to just look at Lyon's somewhat calm eyes, comically causing Sherria to enviously glare at her, and Juvia taking her attention away from Lucy was something that caused the green-haired girl to sigh at the stressful situation. She got to hear Kagura also sigh, but she was only sighing calmly out of boredom because Erza wasn't likely to show up here.
Even if some female mages such as Erza wouldn't be here to show off their strength to Kagura or any of the other wizards, that didn't stop a wizard from suddenly making a large twister of cerulean blue water emerge up from the dark blue jug that had been on an azure blue counter near the back of the guildhall. The counter and its back counter were soon frozen by light blue icy winds, before the ice instantly cracked into several ice shards that were extremely small to where they resembled light blue glitter that filled only the center of the room. The glitter was soon joined by the twister bursting to send down several drops of rain that touched the glitter to burst into cerulean blue sparkles that spread outward to where the glitter resembled a circular lake's blue water surrounding an ice floe, but all the cerulean blue glitter that landed on the ice shards soon created several cerulean blue bursts of light that resulted in cerulean blue flashes being followed by a light blue flash that lasted for a few seconds. When the flash and its surrounding bursts of light faded away with the glitter and ice shards, the mages in the room opened their eyes to see two women standing in the center of the room.
"Well, it looks like everyone's feeling heated for the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour! That just makes things better!" A woman with sky blue hair confidently stated with the feeling of delight in her cerulean blue eyes, only having an arrogant smirk on her face for a moment.
The woman who had her wavy light blue hair tied back in a very long ponytail added with a welcoming smile, before looking quite serious, "Welcome to the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour., everyone. Although, don't get too heated with wanting to use your spells. You'll have plenty of time for that later, since coming here means that you've agreed to help us with something very important. We'll explain exactly what needs to happen, so just relax and don't act like your Holder Magic or Caster Magic needs to be shown off right now in front of us. I'm Hiyasu Hidenka, a proficient treasure-hunting mage and co-leader of the Cerulean Frost guild. The woman beside me is my older sister, Emiria Hidenka, and she's very skilled at finding all kinds of treasures. If you want to ask any questions about our treasure-hunting adventures or trade items of Holder Magic, then we'll speak with you."
"Can we not ask about how you seemingly appeared out of nowhere? Was that flashy entrance a way to conceal you emerging from your hiding places behind the counter or something?" Risa asked with a curious look on her face, wondering if the hostesses had to find some way for themselves to seemingly have the grandest entrances into the guild.
That prompted Emiria and Hiyasu to both exclaim simultaneously while they comically blushed in an embarrassed manner, hoping someone wouldn't have seen through their entrance like that, "Absolutely not! Anyway, you can order food from our guild's counter or buy food in Seigan Town! However, enjoy the first day of Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour!"
Risa glanced at both of the hostesses, seeing them both start to look calmer, and she looked at their fashion sense for a moment. Emiria wore a cyan blue jacket that reached down to her navel while the jacket had six light blue diamonds designed on the bottom of it, and the bottom of the jacket had periwinkle blue hem. The hem of the jacket greatly complimented her sapphire blue miniskirt that had ruffles at the bottom, the lowest ruffles being light blue, and the light blue ruffles complimented the light blue diamonds that were on the cobalt blue belt she wore over her waist. The belt went well with her turquoise blue snow boots, too. Risa watched Emiria walk towards the entrance to get out of the guild, and she noticed how Emiria's sky blue hair reached down to the lower part of her back while two shoulder-length strands of hair that framed her face were reaching down to her wrists. Risa perceived Emiria to look quite beautiful and fashionable, but she soon glanced at Hiyasu.
Hiyasu had two locks hanging down on both sides of her head while they reached down to her chin, and she wore an azure blue winter coat with light blue fur on it. The fur of the coat went well with the fact of how she wore an ocean blue miniskirt to match her mint blue wedges that had two straps on the fronts of them, and the straps had the cute designs of plain blue tidal waves on them. Hiyasu looked very fashionable, almost like she and her sister were elite models, and she even loudly snapped her fingers six times to make a signal to her subordinates like an elite boss. Her subordinates were merely blue-haired girls in dark blue maid costumes with light blue headpieces, and the women came down from the sets of blue staircases that had light blue railings resembling icicles. The maids who doubled as low-level mages came down with plain blue menus in their hands, the menus listing different types of foods, and they quickly put the menus on the tables before one maid went behind the counter.
As that maid worked behind the counter that was near an adjacent door where five maids would be heading to the kitchen for preparing food, Suzuna simply glanced at the current situation. It seemed like the maids had everything under control while Emiria used her left hand to conjure up light blue winds of Ice Magic that mysteriously made her vanish with Hiyasu, prompting Suzuna to apply a light blue aura of Ice Magic to her feet, and she hastily ran from the doorway to go on a path to her left that involved loudly leaving behind a trail of footprints pertaining to the imprints of her boots touching the snow. Suzuna's loud boots weren't as noisy as the sound of a certain light dragon slayer who had finished surfing on some ice floes with his teammates, however, and Lucy looked as surprised as Risa to see Sting walk on to the snow with everyone else.
"Hey, Kotomi! Hey, Risa! We finally caught up to your scents in this town where there are several smells around, and I hope those shady punks of this icy reverie event aren't about to attack anyone right now." Sting told Lucy with a happy smile on his face, before confidently grinning at the thought of a fight.
Upon looking into the guildhall that had sapphire blue carpeting matching the cyan blue walls while the maids asked mages for orders, Rogue told Sting with an emotionless facial expression, "It doesn't seem like anything shady is going on in this place. Although, that duo of blue-haired women disappeared in a strange way from how they used their magic."
"Speaking of strange, how did you find us in this cold place where the scents of peppermint mocha coffees and scents of the bakery were just as intense as the sound of that icy explosion from earlier?" Risa asked Rogue with a curious facial expression, as she never heard his footsteps right behind hers and Lucy's in Seigan Town.
Rogue calmly explained to Risa with a nice smile on his face, before glancing down at her hands with a concerned facial expression, "Risa, don't forget that you've got two dragon slayers in your guild and one of us has been around you long enough to detect your cherry perfume's scent. Anyway, what's wrong with your hands?"
Risa glanced down at her hands that were looking light blue and covered in the frost of ice she had touched, holding her hands out towards some maids who just finished bowing politely to some maids who finished hearing mages' orders, and the glimpse of Risa's cold hands caused a maid with long dark blue hair to shoot out a periwinkle blue flame from her mouth in Risa's direction. The sudden flame coming towards Risa made her put her hands up in a defensive manner, only to see her hands quickly come warm after the seemingly cold fire quickly reached a hot temperature like heated Water Magic was infused into the flame, and the ice around Risa's hands melted away.
Fifteen minutes later, in an icy cavern...
Even though the ice around Risa's hands melted down into water that evaporated quickly, Hiyasu's hands quickly became light blue and frosty from touching the light blue ice chunks on the sapphire blue cavern wall after being warped into the icy cavern with her older sister. Emiria merely scoffed at her sibling's predicament, acting like the walls that heavily had ice chunks protruding from them were nothing to be annoyed about, and she walked away from the icy cavern's entrance that had just been sealed up by a dense amount of snow.
The snow would oddly prevent anyone from accessing this particular part of Seigan Town's caverns, due to how the other parts of the caverns weren't sealed off for the mages of Seigan to enter them for various reasons. Emiria could even hear the screams of certain mages through the thick walls of ice, as well as sensing the magical power of other wizards being used when she placed her hands on the walls that were on this narrow path. but she merely smirked in a rude manner like she was experiencing events that were very typical.
They were actually deemed as normal by Emiria, which was mainly because of the fact that she had used her strong Ice Magic to make citizens or tourists go through punishments for breaking any of the rules she established such as when people would return from high-paying jobs to also sell any items that they found on quests to get cash for themselves or getting on her nerves for trying to trade inferior items of Holder Magic for something that she was viewing to be of much higher value, and Emiria felt like she had no actual use for the people who weren't worthy enough to beat her in a fight or even wield strong magic.
She would make those weak individuals be forced to suffer, before releasing them to some of Seigan's people who possessed amounts of wealth that were slightly lower than hers or Hiyasu's wealth. By having so much money from jobs and investing it into making Seigan be improved with more attractions and seemingly fair drawbacks for certain people who couldn't listen to her rules, Emiria felt like she had a good system in place for how the town operated after she imprisoned the former mayor. He had spoken out against all of Emiria's plans, not believing that the town needed expansion or more treasure-hunting to be done. However, one treasure truly had to be freed from the ice.
Upon seeing the mint blue pedestal and a certain pattern up ahead, Emiria told Hiyasu with an arrogant facial expression, "Well, there's our treasure and it's still somewhat untouched! Of course, the only people to touch it with magic in the past six decades had been us!"
Hiyasu asked Emiria with a calm facial expression, before narrowing her eyes in a stern manner at the situation, "Emiria, do you really believe that it was a great idea to have the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour event as a way to recruit helpers for our task? Do you seriously think any wizard would even believe that all of this trouble was necessary for our goal?"
"Of course it's necessary, Hiyasu! We unfortunately don't have enough power on our own to break the seal, so we had to recruit people from other guilds! They would be glad to release the legend from her icy slumber, and she'll obey my desire of being given even greater Ice Magic! You'll get some more strong spells of Water Magic, too, but we just have to manipulate the other strong mages into helping us with this task!" Emiria sternly explained to her younger sister, before turning around to aggressively put her hands on Hiyasu's shoulders.
Hiyasu simply nodded in agreement while trying to replace a slight frown of doubt on her face with a big smile of overconfidence, and she wondered if this plan would truly work. She had been the wielder of the second spell that struck the ice encasing a mint blue statue, breaking through ice a few days ago with all of her magical power put into one spell after enhancing it with Water Magic that she absorbed from mages who had been prisoners before they died, and Hiyasu was the only person alive near Emiria to see the statue become more radiant for its surprising level of magical power to be sensed.
That power could even be sensed by certain mages who had spells such as Leaf Radar, but Hiyasu followed Emiria's attitude of not caring about any consequences that would result from trying to unseal something with a bizarre amount of magical power in it. Hiyasu merely glanced at the item that was resting against the cavern wall, before noticing the design of a plain blue keyhole above it while six ice chunks jutted out from the cavern wall, and the strange sight of two ice chunks having many thin light blue beams of icy energy emanate from them made Hiyasu feel curious.
She started to look more curious from staring at the thin beams of icy energy that kept going outward, their presence in the air giving off the feeling of something very cold while the beams continuously burst softly in midair to generate more light blue frost. The beams that turned to frost were quite enchanting to Hiyasu, almost like their frigid magic was tempting her to always get quite close to the statue and its nearby pedestal. However, even getting close to the pedestal and offering up her Azure Stone as an alleged gift to the statue wouldn't make anything else ever happen. The only thing that ever occurred was the icy statue's tempting effects that even made Emiria once go right up to it, and even hitting the statue with weak spells from close-range never made anything significant happen. Since that left Emiria feeling very puzzled, she felt that asking for help from outsiders was the best thing to do. If the strongest mages could break the magic seal, then Emiria would be glad to reward them for their appreciated assistance.
"Whoever the toughest mages turn out to be, I hope they'll enjoy the sight of the statue displaying its powers through our abilities after the seal is gone." Emiria stated to Hiyasu with a relaxed look on her face, thinking that this plan would make herself and Hiyasu be able to intimidate several strong wizards.
Emiria's icy and chilled feelings about this situation made Hiyasu ask an important question with a frown of realism on her face, "How will you find the strongest mages from the event? Will you put them in a clichéd tournament of battling each other, or are more serious ideas in mind?"
"Hey, I can come up with many serious ideas for making those punks show me their strength! In fact, I've been thinking about one idea that involves being near a certain icy attraction in Seigan that really makes fights be very cold and totally cool!" Emiria responded defensively with a somewhat miffed look on her face, before turning around to walk up to the statue.
The icy attraction that would have importance in Emiria's mind actually also involved high amounts of water, due to that particular attraction being one where tourists or other visitors could see water flowing from certain areas to reach other parts of the exciting attraction where there would be ice. Emiria felt like she could meet some mages at that event, since coldness couldn't possibly be an issue for everybody, and she would enjoy testing their strength. Although, seeing their levels of strength wouldn't be the only thing Emiria would want to do.
She'd also want to get a long-lasting chance at seeing their items of Holder Magic, as well as their Caster Magic, and Emiria felt like she could try bribing some of the stronger wizards who were attending the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour. They would be bribed with anything that would come to Emiria's mind when she was greatly in the mood to fight someone, and anyone who didn't accept her bribes would have to deal with the idea of Emiria selling away mages' items of Holder Magic. She would gladly sell them at high prices to make profits off of them, but some of those items would need to get traded away by the ice-wielding hustler.
That caused her to turn back around at look at the Azure Stone, which Hiyasu took out of her miniskirt's right pocket for the purpose of defrosting her hands with some blue fire from earlier, and Emiria rolled her eyes in a rude manner because of how Hiyasu had the nerve to get an attachment towards an item she had been training with for nearly six months now. Hiyasu's time that she spent training with the Azure Stone to improve her Water Magic had been annoying to Emiria, since Hiyasu still couldn't defeat her in a fight, and Emiria really hoped that Hiyasu wouldn't keep using a stone unable to help her magically guarantee wins for herself. The increased power of Hiyasu's Water Magic did help her in other ways, however, and she quickly turned around from hearing something like drops of water hit the pale blue floor.
"I can never figure out exactly who they are, Emiria, but somebody has been watching our movements in this cavern." Hiyasu sternly told her sister, as she felt uneasy.
Emiria asked Hiyasu with a somewhat wary facial expression, wondering if certain troublesome mages came back, "Are those two mages from the guild trying to follow us here, since they supposedly have had to flee from some wizard who's not worth our time? Don't they realize that we're not going to help them out?"
"I'm just not sure about who's here, Emiria. The magic power is so faint, and I can't really pinpoint who the magic could belong to. It doesn't even seem like they broke through the ice walls, either, but their presence just feels weird to me." Hiyasu replied with a look of discomfort on her face, before choosing to walk towards the areas where water had hit the ground.
Emiria replied nicely while starting to look cocky, not prioritizing this person's faint magic over her own goals, "Well, they're probably just some weak mage who we can ignore right now. Hiyasu, we need to stay focused on our goal and you need to just follow my orders! Let's go search for some mages who can prove themselves to be worthy allies before we make them see our godly powers at the end of this wonderful event, Hiyasu! This icy fun is perfect for the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour, you know!"
Emiria simply chuckled in an arrogant manner while applying Ice Magic to her feet, running out of the cavern at high speeds during the same moment where Hiyasu applied Water Magic to her feet. As Hiyasu ran quite fast and stepped on the spots where drops of water had fallen, she fired a spiraling blue vortex of hot water from her mouth. The scalding beam of hot water obliterated the snow, which allowed her to leave the cavern with Emiria for the activity that would take place on this first day of the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour, and the girls would gladly begin their search for some recruits.
The moment that Emiria and Hiyasu left the cavern was the moment where a small dark blue bubble near the ceiling ended up bursting, and a certain mage who left their footprints in the snow decided to dispel the faint spell of her Water God Slayer Magic. That spell had been known as Water God's Azure Sight, which was a non-damaging spell allowing Suzuna to observe her surroundings from a small bubble that would actually give her a perfect view of the situation, but she also strangely emerged from the ice wall like a ghost slowly passing through a solid surface.
That was part of a non-damaging spell pertaining to Ice God Slayer Magic, the spell being known as Ice God's Blizzard Spirit, and Suzuna could wield it for silently eavesdropping on people who were nearby. She had merely been listening to every word that came from Emiria's mouth in her conversation with Hiyasu, and Suzuna started to have a proud look in her eyes from liking how the situation was progressing somewhat faster than she had initially anticipated. It seemed like Emiria would find good recruits, some of them possibly being the two particular people who were welcomed into the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour event by Suzuna herself, and the S-Class merely began to lightly smirk in a satisfied manner at the somewhat-defrosted statue before quietly also leaving the cavern.
How was Chapter 44? Feel free to tell me your thoughts on it. Lucy got to talk with Sting about the relationship troubles that were affecting her, and they had a good conversation. The Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour won't get in the way of the StiCy moments happening in this arc, though. This first chapter mainly serves the purpose of re-introducing Seigan Town, as well as the reintroductions of Emiria and her partner in this story. Also, there is the new revelation of Emiria and Hiyasu being sisters while they want to unfreeze a statue. Suzuna Hiyayakana is also finally seen, but this story that has some recent mystery elements in pieces will eventually have those pieces of plots come together. Furthermore, the rivals at the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour will have roles to play in this story. Although, now that I'm mentioning rivals, a certain Eastern-looking woman with purple hair didn't get noticed or have her scent detected by Sting or Rogue. Well, she didn't get noticed in this chapter and she may have importance later on. By the way, this arc will have twists and turns because of the rivals. Even some upcoming new characters may end up having important rivalries, too. This is the first official chapter of the Azure Ice Arc, but you can call it the Rivalry Arc or the Icy Reverie Arc! I'll update soon. :)
REVIEWS!
FireBlitz: Thanks so much!
OrangeDetermination: Thanks!
YellowThunder5: Here it is!
GreenGrass4: Thank you!
BlueWater234: Thank you so much!
PurpleReis155: Thanks!
Matt: Thank you!
jennie: Thanks!
Kiri-chan: Here you go!
Sena: Thank you so much!