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Chapter 132

Dancing Worries Away

At a location far away from Magnolia, in a grove of dead trees in the western part of a town, a dark guild was busy partying. The members inside were drinking, eating, and enjoying themselves, celebrating without a care in the world. However, their fun would soon be over as they were suddenly interrupted by a scream and a body flying across the air, slamming into the staircase on the upper level. The mood now ruined for them, the members of the dark guild looked up, in time to see someone stride through the entrance. The person wore clothes colored black, designed made solely for stealth, comprised of a long-sleeved hoodie, tight pants, a pair of boots, and a mask that covered the entirety of its face that was the face of a falcon, its beak dipped in red and having other makings close to its eyes.

Not wanting to take this lying down, five of the members of the dark guild went on the attack, wielding swords and clubs. At that moment, the masked falcon dashed straight past them, and while he did, hit them all straight in the gut hard effortlessly knocking them out in a manner of seconds. The other members were surprised that five of their own were down, but that made them even angrier wanting to make this intruder pay for hurting them as more went on the attack.

The masked falcon ran forward and gunned for a member with a sword. As he swung, the masked falcon side-stepped the swipe, grabbed his arm, and twisted it, forcing him to drop his sword, and then kicked knocking him out. He picked up the sword in time for another two swing their weapons, forcing him to raise the sword to block. The assailant then forced them off and then, with a few quick and precise sword swings, took them both out at once. Then it ran forward, and as he ran by other members, he swiped the sword taking out another six, and then swung around in a circle taking out another few more in process.

All of the members continued to attack, desperately trying to overwhelm this individual with their numbers, but the attacker just kept taking them out one after the other. Then, the mysterious masked man punched its hands together, making them both gush and cloak with water. It jumped up high into the air, almost touching the roof, then as it dropped, brought its hands above its head, clenching them tightly, until he slammed them into the ground, making a powerful geyser erupt from where he stood. Water gushed and blasted everywhere, blowing away every other member that remained standing. When it died down, unconscious and dazed bodies littered everywhere, with the masked man being the only one standing. One member who somehow managed to remain conscious, looked at the carnage that now surrounded him, speechless and terrified.

"You've... got to be kidding me. How could that guy take out our whole guild like this?! There's only one of him!"

The assailant sharpy looked towards him, having to have heard him talking and started walking towards him. The man let out a squeal of fear and scooted backward, trying to get away while holding up his arms, but the masked falcon grabbed him by the scruff of his collar and picked him up.

"I want info," the masked falcon spoke, in a deep and low voice. "You see, I'm looking for someone, and I believe that your guild just so happens to know who this person is."

The man then turned away. "Y-Yeah, right. Like I would tell you," he spoke, trying to be brave. "You ain't getting a single word out of me after what you did!"

At that moment, the masked man grabbed the man by his throat, squeezing tightly, while lifting him into the air. The dark mage's eyes bulged out as he began to choke, feeling his grip grow tighter.

"I have no time for games. Tell me what you know right now," the masked man threatened. "If you don't tell me, I've got ways of making you talk."

The masked man then cloaked his hands in water and made his limb stretch out, lifting the dark mage even higher, turning the water into a tentacle that wrapped around his body and squeezed like a snake that captured its prey. The dark mage let out a gurgle as he struggled to breathe, his eyes bulging out of their sockets. The masked man squeezed, and he squeezed, making the tentacle of water tighten even harder enough to turn his face blue, until finally, the dark mage caved in.

"All right! All right! I'll talk! I'll talk!" he choked out, his eyes rolling to the back of his skull.

The masked man then lessened his grip and retracted the water and undid the tentacle. "Now then, do you know anyone who can turn people into paper dolls who also goes by Mistress to your kind? And it would also help if you knew which guild this person came from, tell me everything you know."

"I-I don't anything! I swear!" the dark mage squealed out. "The rest of us don't know anything about her, either!"

"You sure about that? Because it sounds to me that you're lying," the masked man said, squeezing his throat again. "Considering that most of the lesser guilds work for one of the three major guilds in the Barem Alliance, I'm to assume your guild works for one of those three, save Grimoire Heart. If you are..."

"It's the truth! We've only just recently formed this guild!" the dark mage wailed as he thrashed in agony. "We only did so we could do whatever we want and stuff! You know, too many rules and junk! Besides, we were trying to keep this under the radar so we wouldn't get caught! You got to believe me!"

The masked man went silent, still holding the dark mage by the throat as he continued to thrash around, trying to get out of his iron grip. Then the assailant let go, dropping the dark mage to the ground, turned on his heel, and then walked away. At first, the dark mage thought that he was relieved thinking that he got way by the skin of his teeth, but Falcon Mask stopped. He sharply turned around, punched, making a tentacle of water shot out, turning into a fist, and nailed the dark mage square in the jaw. When he struck him, he went flying across the room and slamming into the wall, enough to embed him deep into it, also knocking him out cold on impact.

Now that every single member was incapacitated, the masked assailant walked away, leaving as quickly as he arrived, letting out a sigh with exasperation.

"Another dark guild destroyed, another bust."

WILLY'S POV

For the next few days or so, following my meeting with Tu-Chi, I fell into somewhat of a depression. I hardly had any contact with anyone in the guild, much less talk to anyone because I wanted to keep my problems to myself. During that time, I went out on jobs that were outside of Magnolia, so I could search for info about Finn's killer, while making jewel to pay the rent and help raise money for the guild. I've also kept myself busy with my training as a means of practicing my magic and abilities.

There were a couple of people in the guild that took notice and asked me if I was feeling alright. I would always reply that I was doing fine even though I was the furthest thing from being okay. Even Mira, her siblings, and some other guildmembers caught up with me one day and tried asking me if I wanted to stay with them for a bit, to let off some steam. As much as I wanted to, I would always decline, telling them that I was busy with stuff, not wanting them to know what was doing or going through.

During that time, while I was searching for info, I wore a disguise to make sure that I wouldn't be recognized. Granted, the mask I chose wasn't something I'd pick for style, but as long as no one knew it was me, it would do. I also had to change up my style of attack when it came to my fighting. Thankfully, I was able to come up with a few new tricks thanks to my training and ninjutsu, and no one seemed to suspect.

Unfortunately for me, the past few dark guilds I visited didn't seem to know who this Mistress was. And to make things worse, there were only so many dark guilds left to interrogate, most likely due to Crime Sorcière taking most of them out over the past years. The ones I usually kept finding were ones that just started to do what they want, or they didn't know anything at all and were avoiding Crime Sorcière so they could stay active. Basically, in short, I had next to nothing when it came to information.

I had just come back into town after taking care of a job and destroying another dark guild. I was hopping from rooftop to rooftop, making sure that I was as silent as possible. Soon enough, I arrived at my apartment complex, and I landed just on top of the roof next to my window. I took a look around, making sure that no one was looking from below, then I silently opened my window and climbed inside. When I was in the comforts and safety of my room, I took off my mask and then put it in the closet and started taking off my stealth clothes. As I started getting undressed, I couldn't help but feel disappointed and frustrated with how everything went.

"Geez, another dark guild that didn't know anything either. That's the third one this week. And it seems that my options are severely limited, no thanks to Jellal and his group. Not only that, but every single dark guild I've interrogated seems to be small potatoes. Compared with every other enemy I've fought in the past, the guys I've been fighting are a bunch of weaklings."

I put on my shorts and my sandals and was now putting on gloves. Then I noticed the scars on my wrists. Once again, they both had these strange red lines on them. I also checked the wounds on my legs and noticed that they also had the same marks too. Knowing that I couldn't let anyone see, I started using my healing spell to make them go away, starting with my right wrist.

"These scars are starting to get on my nerves. I wonder why they keep reappearing? Well, hopefully, it's not something too serious."

It took a few minutes, but I managed to heal up my wrists so that the red marks wouldn't be visible. As for my legs, I decided to take care of them at a later time, after I finished the job request. When I got dressed, I opened up the window and jumped out, spread my wings, and took to the air.

Eventually, I made it back to the guild, walking through the doors going up the bar where Mira and Kinana were busy at work doing the dishes.

"Hey, Mira. Kinana. I'm back," I greeted.

Mira looked up. "Oh, hey there, Willy," she greeted with a friendly smile. "How'd the job request go?"

"Pretty well. I completed it without any issues," I replied as I put the paper on the counter. "I just came to turn in the poster before I go out on another job."

"Another job? But you just got back," commented Mira. "Don't you think that you should take a break, Willy? I mean, the last thing you want to do is overwork yourself."

"Yeah, and I don't think that now's a good time to go on a job anyway," said Kinana. "So maybe you should take it easy for a bit."

I smiled at the purplenette. "I appreciate the concern Kinana, but I'll be fine. No need to worry about me. Besides, I can't afford to take a break now. I got to keep making money to pay my rent, and I could use the training and exercise. Now then, what other job shall I go on?"

But as I looked towards the request board, I was surprised to see that the request board was entirely bare.

"Yeah, that's what we've been trying to tell you," Kinana said. "Because of Fairy Tail's reputation dropping over the past seven years, we've just haven't been getting a lot of them as much as we used to. There was one request a while ago, but Natsu's group got to it first."

"Damn it. Figures those two would take the good job request," I cursed with a sigh. "Oh, well. I suppose that I'll have to do some training in the Everfree Forest. Better than being bored and doing nothing. I guess I'll see you guys later."

I then walked out of the pub and started towards the Everfree Forest.

I was now in the Everfree Forest training hard, practicing my kicks, punches, and swordsmanship, through shadow fighting. I threw a flurry of punches and a couple of roundhouse kicks while cloaking them each in water, focusing on control. I practiced my sword swings by slicing multiple leaves as they fell to the ground, and I even practiced using the water in my magic by turning them into whips, and controlling the radius of my geyser slam attack.

As I continued, I started thinking about how fruitless my perils for information had been going for me, which frustrated me a bit. I had next to no information, and every person I asked didn't know anything at all. It seemed like there was nothing else I could do at this point except wait for the next opportunity to come along. At that moment, I remembered what Master said to me back when I was this impatient before.

"...going after an enemy, you don't know anything about is Suicide. You need to be calm. You are a ninja. The word Nin means patience, and you need to be very much so if you intend to find this enemy."

I also remembered back to when my last meeting with her, which made me feel guilty, but mostly still upset. It wasn't like I was mad at Master, I just instinctively blamed her for some reason. However, that didn't matter. No matter whose fault it was, Finn was gone, and I couldn't help but feel like I played a part in his death because he wanted to make sure I was safe from harm. This was why I had to make it right by avenging his death. To do that, I'd have to be in top form for when I faced this killer.

Then at that moment, I felt a presence coming towards me from behind. Feeling a bit started, as well as on guard, I turned around, taking a stance, only to see Mira standing before me, wearing her usual friendly smile.

"Oh, Mira. It's you. You startled me."

"Sorry about that. Didn't mean to," apologized Mira. "I figured I'd come to see you since it's been a while since we last talked. You look like you're training hard."

"Yeah. You could say that," I said, dispersing my swords. "Got to keep my skills up to snuff, you know?"

"I can relate to that," agreed Mira. "Say, since you've got a moment, why don't you take a break? You look like you could use one."

"Well, I don't know if now's a good time, Mira," I replied. "I've got this spell I want to perfect, and I'm so close to completing it."

Mira then frowned. "Come on, Willy. You can afford to take one measly little break," she said. "Besides, there was something I learned the other day, and I want to show you. It's something that I know you'll like."

"Well, I..."

I was about to insist on continuing with my training, but then I saw the look at Mira's eyes. Her eyes had something in that said that Mira was not going to let me go unless I humored her. So, I decided to hear her out. Besides, I could use something to take my mind off of things for a bit.

"Alright, then. I suppose I could spare a few minutes," I said to Mira. "What's this thing that you wanted to show me so badly?"

Mira then grinned as she held out her right hand. Seeing this as a signal to take hers, I hesitantly took hers with my own. Then she got close and placed my right hand below her arm on top of her shoulder blade, and placed her left hand on my right shoulder. Immediately, my face began to heat up, feeling completely caught off guard by this as Mira giggled.

"M-Mira! What the heck are you-!"

"Relax. This is what I wanted to show you. It's called Ballroom Dancing."

"Wait, Ballroom Dancing?!" I exclaimed with a squeak. "I don't know how to do that! I don't even know what the heck that is!"

"There's no need to get so flustered, Willy," Mira laughed. "I'm going to show you how to do it. Besides, it's pretty simple once you get the hang of it. Just trust me, okay?"

All I could do was stand there, cheeks hot, and my pulse pounding into my skull.

"Don't worry. I'll go slow for you, okay? Just follow my instructions, and you'll be fine," said Mira. "Now, the first thing you have to do is be in the position you are now. Next, when I step forward, you take a step back. When I step right, you step right. Just keep following my movements. Got that?"

I answered with a gulp and a nod, trying my best not to acting foolishly in this situation.

Then Mira stepped forward towards me, and I stepped back.

Mira then stepped to the right, and I did the same.

She stepped to the left, and I followed.

Then as Mira stepped back, I stepped back too, almost breaking our hold with each other.

"S-Sorry. I messed up," I apologized. "Maybe if I keep an eye on my feet, I'll-"

"It's okay. Don't worry about it," Mira interrupted. "Just keep following me." She also took her hand away to tilt my chin so that I was looking at her. "And make sure to keep your eyes up. If you spend time watching your feet, you'll more than likely end up making more mistakes. Trust me."

I was still feeling a bit nervous as well as embarrassed, but I did as told as we continued with the steps. It felt a bit awkward to me at first, but the steps gradually began to feel more familiar to me as we continued to dance. My embarrassment also began to ebb away and was replaced with wonder and amazement as I started to enjoy myself.

"You see? You're doing fine, just like I said," Mira smiled. "Even better than I expected. You soaked it all up like a sponge."

"Y-Yeah. And this is pretty fun," I said with a laugh. "So, did someone taught you how to do this?"

"Yep. A while back, Natsu and the gang were taking a job over at Balsamico Castle," explained Mira as we continued to dance. "Long story short, they had to attend a ball to catch a convict named Velvino, and since it was going to be a fancy party, they had to improve their dancing skills. However, everyone else was them, and wanted to join in too, including me. However, Macao and Wakaba wouldn't stop fighting over me, though."

I then scowled a bit. "Aren't those two a bit too old to be dancing with a girl your age?"

Mira then laughed. "Oh, come now, Willy. They're not that old. Although, I will admit that they're a little eccentric. Anyway, I've been practicing ever since, and I've wanted to teach you, but you've never been around lately."

"Well, I apologize for that," I said, feeling a bit guilty. "I've just been... busy with things."

"I know, but I still can't help but worry about you at times," Mira said quietly. "After all, you're the first friend I've ever had, and I want to make sure that you're safe and let nothing happen to you. I know there's no reason to worry, but for some reason, I can't help but feel restless when you're gone. Like something's going to happen to you the moment I look away, and it makes me want you to stay here where it's safe. Does that make me overprotective?"

I then looked at Mira, who was now looking away. It was plain to see from the look on her face that she was worried about me disappearing like when I was gone. In a way, it did make her seem a bit overprotective, but at the same time, I didn't mind it.

"Well, if you want my two cents about it, it does, but at the same time, it makes me glad that you're so protective of me, Mira," I spoke honestly. "It reminds me that there are people like you who care about me in the world, and like a good partner when it comes to dancing, when I fall, I'll rest easy knowing that there will be someone there to pick me back up."

Mira then looked back at me, and she smiled. Then, at that moment, something seemed to trip her up with cause her to stumble. Being the one to react quickly, using the hand that was on her shoulder blade, I quickly pulled her in close and used my arm to support her, so that she wouldn't fall. However, our faces were now a few inches away from each other, causing us to look directly into each other's eyes. I once again felt my cheeks grow hot as I stared, wanting to look away but for some reason couldn't

"A-Are you okay, Mira?" I asked.

"I'm alright," responded Mira. "Thank you for that."

Then suddenly, I had the uneasy feeling that someone was watching us. Praying that I would be wrong, and having the scared to look but knowing that I must vibe, I slowly looked up. To my embarrassment, there standing before us with a surprised expression was Laxus, which upon seeing him, I immediately straightened up Mira and pulled away.

"L-Laxus! What the heck are you doing here?!" I screeched.

"That's my line," replied Laxus. "You two seem to be having a lot of fun."

"Oh, hello, Laxus," Mira greeted politely. "I was giving Willy a dancing lesson of which he has mastered wonderfully. Although, I didn't expect to trip, but lucky for me, I had a good dancing partner to catch me."

Laxus then came up to the two of us, staring particularly at me. "So, when did you two start becoming an item?" he asked.

"W-Wait! Us? An item?!" I repeated. "Hold on; it's not like that! I mean, I was taking a break from training and stuff, and Mira figured I'd take a break, that is to say, I-"

Then as I desperately tried to explain myself, Laxus gave me a light smile as he patted me on my head along with a silent nod, making me all the more confused and flustered.

"Wait, what the heck is that supposed to mean, Laxus?!" I cried as my cheeks burned.

But Laxus had already started to walk away. "I'll just leave you two alone, but try not to get too lovey-dovey, alright?"

"We're not lovey-dovey!" I snapped with slight hysteria.

Mira then started to laugh. "Willy, take it easy. Laxus is just teasing. Besides, your wings are out, you know."

I looked on my back, and upon seeing my water wings, I quickly dispersed them and tried to play it cool. "Well, that was awkward. I mean, who would have expected Laxus to show up here of all place, right?"

"Yeah. Who would have thought, right?" Mira agreed. "So, I suppose you'll probably want to go back to training now, right?"

"Well, I can, but to be honest, I was going to head home," I replied, scratching my cheek. "I mean, I could use a break, right? Besides, I could use a bath."

Mira then smiled in understanding. "Of course. Wouldn't want you to be smelly."

"But if it's all the same to you, Mira," I went on. "I'd... like to dance with you again sometime. If you're not busy when that happens, of course."

"I'd like that very much," Mira said. "Anytime you want. I could always use a good practice partner."

"Well, in that case, I'll see you later then," I said, turning around. "And... thanks for the lesson."

And with that, I took to the air, hoping that the wind that blew against my cheeks would help them cool down, my mind going a mile a minute. Not only because of the new experience I just went through, but also because of Laxus.

"Dammit, Laxus! That's not it at all! Why does everyone think that way when it comes to Mira and me?! And why the heck was he even there anyway?!"

I felt embarrassed, a bit indignant, and even a little annoyed, but for some reason, I felt a little bit happy too. However, I kept it to myself.

If you liked what you read, or want to give me pointers, feel free to leave a review!

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me.

Dragomaster, signing off.