Chapter 3: Formation of a New Team
When Natsu reached the place where his cottage was supposed to be, he noticed that it was barely standing, he asked Happy what happened to it, to which the blue cat said that there was a huge storm and it almost completely destroyed there home, he said that he took away there valuable things and gave them to the master for safe keeping and ever since then he had been living with Mira.
Natsu just sighed and went into the forest for a good night sleep so that he could be in fighting condition, he also decided that it was time for a new sturdy home anyway. Good thing he saved up money before his training trip and also earned some money on his trip by doing various missions.
Next day Natsu woke up fairly early and did his morning training before he went to the nearby lake, took a bath and requiped a new set clothes similar to what he was wearing the previous day and went to the guild.
When he reached the guild, he noticed that almost everyone was there and Mira was already taking orders from the guild members while waiting for him, the old master and the crash mage were sitting at the bar while drinking and sharing stories with each other.
"Morning everyone" Natsu greeted. Everyone also greeted him as he made his way to the bar.
"Hello my boy. So are you ready for your sight with Mira!" the short old man asked.
"Yes Gramps I'm ready, so tell me when are we going to fight and where!"
"You will fight with her in couple of hours and in the forest because I don't want any collateral damage done to the town, everyone in the guild causes enough destruction as it is, I don't want it to happen to the town." the old man said and shuddered as he imagined the paperwork and bill he would get should something like that happen to the town due to one of his brats going overboard.
Natsu nodded to the old man's answer before he ordered something to eat and ate all the while ignoring Gray's taunts in goading him in a fight but it was quickly over when Erza came and hit Gray, knocking him unconscious, before she sat at the bar and ordered her cheese cake while Natsu was talking to Mira.
A few hours later we find Mira, Natsu, Makarov, Gildarts, Erza, Gray, Happy and Elfman in a clearing in the forest. Both Natsu amd Mira were standing in the middle of the clearing while facing each other with the old master in between them.
"This fight is between Natsu and Mirajane, it will continue until one side give up, losses consciousness or if I stop the fight. Everything goes in this fight except for the crippling blows and underhanded attacks. Understood." the old master informed them the rules of the fight to which both of them nodded, after seeing that both fighters were ready the old man gave the signal to start the fight, "Fight"
As soon as the fight started Natsu's face turned completely expressionless, his eyes, that had a warm look up until now, turned cold, surprising not only Mira but everyone else that were the spectators as well, except for Gildarts who was grinning for some reason.
"This," Gildarts started gaining everyone's attention, "is what I jockingly call his battle face, whenever he has his battle face on, means that he is going to take his fight seriously and it isn't often that he gets serious when he is fighting, so this is going to be good." he informed everyone before their attention turned back to the fighters, who were still standing.
It was Mira who made the first move seeing that Natsu wasn't going to attack first, she was surrounded by a black magical aura, while a giant black magic circle appeared above her, "Take Over: Satan Soul" she whispered and instantly she was surrounded by the magic circle that appeared above her completely covering her in a black light.
When the black light down, Mira could be seen standing at her previous position but her appearance changed from before, her eyes, eyelashes, ears, and hair all changed drastically, and dark, thin markings appeared all over her body. Her forearms and hands were covered in scales, and each sprouted a fin-like protrusion on its outer side. She also grows a large, stocky tail, seemingly made of metal plates or scales. Her clothing also changed, her previous attire that she was wearing before the start of the fight was replaced by a dark, skimpy one-piece suit revealing her arms and legs, which was open on the front and the back, exposing most of her belly, wide cleavage and upper back too. She also had a pair of gauntlets covering the back parts of her transformed arms.
She wasted no time and charged toward Natsu at high speed which Gray, Happy and Elfman couldn't even track. She covered the distance between her and Natsu in a moment and threw a hard right punch at Natsu who caught it effortlessly, shocking her and everyone else except Gildarts, she quickly got over her shock and engaged Natsu in a hand to hand combat.
Natsu blocked all of her attacks before he decided to go on offensive. He attacked Mira faster than her, all she could do was block the blows but even then most of the blows connected her before she created distance between both of them, while breathing hard and a small amount of blood was trickling from her bottom lip, when she looked at Natsu she saw that he was in perfect shape but the most shocking to her was that he didn't even move from his position even once.
Others, except for Gildarts, were also shocked after seeing Natsu prowess in hand to hand combat, among all of them only Makarov and the crash mage were able to follow his movements, all of his movements were swift, precise, and fast, none of the movement was wasted, it was clear to Makarov that almost no one can match Natsu in a hand to hand combat, especially if he used magic in his movements.
Mira decided that she would attack him from distance since he was stronger, faster and better than her in close combat, Mira quickly took off in the air and attacked, "Darkness Stream" she yelled.
Mira extended her hand towards the Lightning Flame demon-dragon slayer and summoned forth her Magic Seal underneath her opponent, where a multitude of large tendrils composed of dark energy formed, which tried surrounded and envelope Natsu but he easily dodged the attack.
Mira seeing that her previous attck failed again attacked with magic, "Soul Extinctor", Mira initiated this attack by gathering energy from the surrounding area between her hands, which subsequently took the form of a large, black globe. The globe then fired a large black-purple beam at Natsu who calmly looked at it, not even worrying about the attack of such high magnitude.
"Bakudō #81: Dankū" a translucent barrier appeared in front of Natsu and blocked Mira's attack. Now Natsu also decided to go on the offesinve, he held out his palm toward Mira and said, "Hadō #33: Sōkatsui"
Natsu generated a torrent of blue energy at his palm that was facing Mira, before he fired it at his target. Mira at first was shocked that no magic circle appeared when Natsu attacked but she quickly remembered that Natsu has another source of power as well, and dodged the attack just barely, but that moment costed her as Natsu appeared in front of her and puched her in the stomach forcing her to spit saliva and knocking the air from her lungs as she was rocketed toward the ground.
When she made impact with the ground a crater formed before she slowly and shakily stood up, she saw that Natsu was once again standing on the ground facing her, she used last of her magic energy and started gathering it in order to attack Natsu, "Evil Explosion"
Mirajane held her hands together and a dark colored sphere gathered in between her palms. When she fired it at Natsu, a powerful beam of dark magic expelled from the white haired take over mage's hand.
Natsu seeing the attack coming held his hand out and gathered sprirt energy in it, "Hadō #63: Raikōhō", Natsu generated an orb of yellow lighting above the palm of his hand, and fired the built-up energy at his target as a massive concentration of energy which resembled a lightning strike. When both of their attacks came in contact with each other, they at first tried to overpower each other before they exploded causing a smoke screen to generate, Natsu had made sure that he held back otherwise he would have injured Mira.
When the smoke cleared Natsu was already in front of a heavily breathing Mira, "Bakudō #63: Sajō Sabaku", raising his palm up to her, the demon-dragon slayer closed his hand into a fist and called forth yellow energy, which took the form of a very thick rope, which bind the upper body of his opponent. He then unsheathed his Zanpakutō and held it at her throat, "Give up Mira."
"I give up," Mira said while breathing hard, Natsu quickly sheathed his sword and released her from his kidō spell and started healing her with his healing kidō, while he was healing her others approached them, when he was done and Mira was as good as new, he looked at the spectaters and saw that Gildarts had a proud expression on his face while other spectators had shocked expressions.
"That was a good fight Mira, I enjoyed it." the pink haired teenager said with a warm smile on his face that he had reserved only for Mira.
"It was hardly a fight, I was totally outclassed from the beginning. You didn't even used your slayer magic in this fight." Mira said while pouting.
"It was a good fight Mira and trust me, you don't want him to use his slayer magic otherwise nothing will be left standing and besides you shouldn't be down. I must say you have improved quite well." Gildarts said reassuringly.
"Well done brat, I see you have learned some interesting things as well," the old man said refering to his kidō attacks, "anyway, Natsu Dragneel as the guild master of Fairy Tail guild, I Makarov Dreyar, promot you to an S class mage." he announced shocking everyone, before Gildarts simply patted his shoulder, and Happy cheered for his friend while Mira gave him a warm hug and kiss on the lips but other three were unsure of the idea.
"Master are you sure about this, I mean he is strong sure but I don't think that he has enough experience to be a S class mage." Erza said with Gray nodding behind her.
"That's where you are wrong Erza," Gildarts said confusing her, "when he was training with me, I made him do couple of high ranking missions to gain experience, after all training can only get you so far, you need experience as well." he explained.
"Now master mind telling me why did you arranged this fight when I already informed you that Natsu can defeat both of us in an one on one fight!" the crash mage asked, shocking everyone that Natsu was stronger than both their master and the ace of the guild.
"I did it because Mira asked me to." the old man replied causing everyone the look at her.
"I asked the master to arrange a fight between me and Natsu because I wanted to see how much stronger he has gotten and now we all have our own answers." Mira replied, meanwhile Erza was eyeing Natsu's sword with ineterest Natsu saw this and asked.
"Uh, Erza is something wrong!"
"No I just wanted to have a sword fight with you." Erza replied.
Natsu was unsure of how respond to this when he heard his Zanpakutō spirit, "You should accept her challenge Natsu, from what I have seen through your memories, she is currently the strongest swordsman in your guild you know so it should be a good challenge for you." Yamamoto replied.
"Alright Erza I will have a sword fight with you." Natsu replied and quickly walked toward a safe distance and unsheathed his sword and got into a zanjutsu stance that Yamamoto trained him in. Erza followed him and stopped right in front of him and requipped her own sword and held it in both hands and got into her stance.
Erza quickly shot forward and came with a diagonal slash at him, which was easily parried away. Erza not stopping at that again attacked but this time with a horizontal slash but it was parried away as well. This time it was Natsu who attacked, Erza brought her sword up to block the attack, but when their swords met, her legs buckled a bit due to the force used behind the blow. They both continued to attack each other for a while before Natsu got under guard and slashed a small cut on her left shoulder which caused her wince a bit but didn't give up and continue to attack him but after a while she got tired, which Natsu took advantage of and tripped her on the ground while holding his sword at her throat.
Erza gave up but it left quite a blow to her pride by being defeated by Natsu of all people in a sword fight but quickly got over it when Gildarts informed that no one has ever defeated Natsu in a sword fight, no matter how skilled they were in it and some were even more skilled and stronger than Erza. After that they all headed to the guild to inform and celebrate both Natsu's win over two of the strongest in the guild and his promotion as the new S class mage.
When they all arrived at the guild they were all swarmed by the guild members who wanted to know about the name of the winner, apparently there was a betting going on the fight, in which all of the spectators also put their money before they left, and almost everyone had put their money on Mira while only Gildarts and Makarov putting their money on Natsu. When they informed that Natsu was the winner, various expressions passed on the faces of the guild members, from surprise and shock to frustation. They also informed the guild that Natsu not only won against Mira, he also won against Erza in a sword fight causing everyone in the guild to become even more surprised, while also informing them about Natsu's new promotion.
A huge party was celebrated after the news about his promotion was delivered and many congratulated the newly promoted mage, even a brawl was started but to almost everyone's surprise Natsu never participated in the brawl and simply stayed at the table with Mira, Happy, Makarov and Gildarts, all laughing when Erza entered the brawl and destroyed everyone because her precious cake was destroyed.
After about two hours or so Natsu left the guild with Mira and went to the place where he made Lisanna's grave. When they arrived at the place they simply stood there in silence for sometime.
"Hey Lisanna its been quite a while since I came here. I'm sorry that I didn't come here more often but I was on a training trip so that I was strong enough to protect everyone that I care about and I promise that I will protect your sister with my life." Natsu said softly before he engulfed in a hug from behind by Mira and felt her shaking and he instantly knew that Mira was crying maybe due to being assaulted by the memories of that fateful day. Natsu turned around and hugged Mira while saying soothing words to her and stroking her beautiful white hair. After Mira calmed down Natsu let go of her and led her to a place where he, Lisanna and Happy always went when they were younger.
When they arrived at the place Natsu said down below a tree and pulled Mira onto his lap and hugged her causing the white haired beauty to develop a blush but she smiled and leaned in the hug more.
"Mira let's form a team together and get even stronger together so that nothing ever happen to us or anyone in the guild." he said softly while stroking her hair, Mira looked at him in surprise before she smiled at him.
"Sure, but you have to help me in my training, I don't want to be a dead weight for you on our team." she replied, Natsu cupped her face with his hands and turned her head so that she could look him in the eyes in which she only saw immense love and warmth for her.
"You can never be dead weight to me Mira, you are already strong, but don't worry I will help you in training, alright." he said softly causing her to smile at him before she slammed her lips onto his and kissed him fiercely. They kissed like that for a moment before Natsu inserted his tongue inside her mouth, causing her to moan. They both battled with their tongue to gain advantage before they separated, with a thin string of saliva between them, because of the lack of air and simply srayed with each other.
They stayed there for sometime before Natsu noticed that it was getting dark causing, he told Mira that it was time for them to get back, causing her to pout when Natsu stood up but she sighed and stood up as well knowing that it was time to go home. When they arrived at the guild, they informed the master that they were going home and left toward Mira's house with Natsu escorting her. While they were walking Mira remembered what happened to his house and looked at him.
"Natsu where are you living now, because your house is almost on its last legs!" Mira asked him
"I am living in the forest until my new house is complete, before I arrived at the guild today, I asked a builder about it and he said that it will take about five days to get the material required for what I have in mind and about a month in building it." he replied.
"You are not living in the forest now, you are coming with me to my house and live there until your house is complete." she ordered and looked at him menancingly while a dark aura surrounded her, daring him to deny her order, causing him to held his hands in defence while backing away from her.
"I can't stay at your house Mira and what will Elfman say about this anyway!" Natsu said nervously.
"You are coming with me to live there and that's final, I don't care what my brother says." Mira said aggresively causing him sigh in defeat before he followed her to her home.
When they entered her home they saw that both Happy and Elfman were already there. When Elfman saw Natsu at his house he raised an eyebrow and asked Mira about it. Mira informed him that Natsu's is going to live with them until him house is completely built. Elfman tried to protest about it saying something about it not being manly but quickly shut up when Mira glared at him.
After everyone settled down and had dinner they all decided to hit hay, Natsu asked Mira about his room to which she simply smiled shyly at him before she took him to her room and said that he was going to sleep with her. Natsu was shocked and tried to protest but Mira simply ignored all that and went to the bathroom to change. When he saw that Mira was not there he sighed in defeat(noting that he was doing it alot lately), he took off his upper clothes and laid on the bed and waited for Mira to come. When Mira arrived and saw that Natsu was topless, she blushed heavily, while gazing at his muscled chest and rock hard eight pack abs.
"N-N-Natsu are you going to sleep like that?" she stuttered out, causing Natsu look bring out of his stupor and blush when he noticed that he was staring at her, but it was really hard for him to control himself from gawking at her. She was wearing a pink nightie that was a bit see-through, through which he could see her white bra and matching panty, he shook his head to rid of perverted thoughts that were now arriving.
"Yes Mira, I always feel uncomfortable sleeping in clothes, but if it makes you feel uncomfortable then I can put them on." he said.
"No its alright, if it makes you uncomfortable then you can sleep like this." she said, 'besides I don't mind looking at you like this.' she mentally purred.
Natsu nodded and made room for her to lay down and get comfortable. Mira laid down next to him, putting her head on his chest while he put his hand on her waist and both sighed contently.
"So what are we going to do for my training!" Mira asked curiously.
"We will do what Gildarts had me do for the training, which means that we will put a gravity seal on you, that Gildarts taught me, while working on your magic control and power, we will also increase your magic container so that you can hold your transformations for a longer time period in the future. We will also work on your stamina, endurance and hand to hand combat while also developing some new skills for you. This training will contain running, push-ups, pull-ups, squates and crunches in the morning while wearing that gravity seal, then we will spar, after that we will develop some new skills for you and after that meditating a bit." Natsu said causing her to gulp but she didn't say anything, since she wanted to be strong abd stand beside Natsu as his equal.
"Alright, I better go to sleep then because tomorrow is going to be a long day for me." she said she kissed Natsu one last time, "Good night Natsu. I love you." and with that she slowly fell asleep.
"Good night Mira and I love you too." he said before also fell asleep.
Just like that three months passed, for one month Natsu slept with Mira in her house before his was built. They both trained everyday, bringing Mira's strength to new heights that she thought wasn't possible, while Natsu also trained himself, while also going on some missions, some were simple A-class request while one or two were S-class request.
When Natsu's house was complete, he asked Mira to move in with him when he told her that he was having trouble sleeping without her after getting used to her presence, to which Mira happily agreed since she she was having the same problem, without him holding her and giving her warmth that only he could provide.
Speaking of his house, Natsu's house was actually a mansion, it was a three storey building. On the ground floor, there was a kitchen and living room. On the first floor, there were five bedrooms, three bathrooms and a library in which Natsu had stored some books on magic and other things, a study table and two chairs. On the second floor were two more bedrooms, a bathroom and a master bedroom with a bathroom attach to it. In the basement there was a huge training ground that seemed endless, which he made after Yamamoto told him that when he was alive one of his subordinate had a training ground under his shop, which he made with the use of kidō, it had some plants and trees, which he grew with kidō, and a hotspring that heals injuries, which was also made with the help of his kidō. He also errected a barrier around the mansion to keep some unwanted visitors away, should they come to harm his family that he was sure to have with Mira someday.
During these three months Mira's training has been coming along nicely, she had made great progress in her speed, endurance, stamina, strength and increasing her magic power, while Natsu was also teaching her hakuda. They also decided to make a speed technique for her like Flash Step for Natsu, Natsu told her to shoot small burst of magic from her feet to increase her speed which worked greatly for her. Natsu also decided to teach her zanjutsu so that she can use a sword properly. After a month passed in her training, Natsu decided to bring her inside his inner world for her training since time wasn't a factor there. When he brought her in his Inner world both Igneel and Yamamoto also helped in her training, all in all these past three months have effective for her. Natsu told her given a year she would stronger than Laxus, should she peogress like this.
But currently training was the last thing on both of their minds as both of them were enjoying their date, that they were having near a waterfall that Natsu found a long time ago. Natsu was wearing a white button up shirt with black pants and shoes and his usual coat over it. While Mira was wearing a red dress that reached down to her ankles and red heels and the scarf that Natsu gave her around her neck, her hair was done in an elegant bun with two bangs hanging at either side of her face, she was wearing very little make-up, only a red lipstick and purple eyelashes.
Mira looked up from where she was standing, to she stars making a very beautiful seen for her. She heard shuffling from her side and saw that Natsu was down on one knee and held up a ring for her.
"Mira, I love you more than anything, I will do anything thing for you and as you know that we dragon slayers can only love one person for the rest of our lives, so I can never look at any other girl like I look at you, you are my light in the darkest hour, my joy, my happiness, my other half, my mate and much more." Natsu said passionately, Mira already had a hand over her mouth as tears freely flow down her face and looked stunned, "Mirajane Strauss, will you marry me?" he asked.
Mira was stunned at his proposal and didn't say anything for a long time, but Natsu was patient so he waited, she quickly broke out of her stupor when she noticed that Natsu was looking at her expectingly, instead of saying something she bent down to his level and kissed him passionately, when they broke away from each other, Mira looked him in the eyes with nothing but pure happiness and love for him, "Yes, yes Natsu Dragneel, yes I will marry you, yes I want to become Mirajane Dragneel." she said happily. Natdu smiled at her before he slipped the ring on her finger, when she took a good look at the ring she saw that it was designed as a red dragon with a diamond in its eyes. She again liooked at him and gave him one other kiss before she broke away.
"You just made me the happiest man alive and gave me the second best gift." he said confusing her, wondering what was first gift she gave him.
"What do mean by second best give!" she asked in confusion.
"The first one was when you gave me your love." he said causing her smile. They stayed there for an hour before went back home.
