Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
Chapter 56: Sabertooth's New Notoriety! Kuchiba's Earthy Myths! Guided By Legends & Legendary Goddesses! Fashionable Mentorship! Lyon's Condolences!
On the morning after obtaining the sixth legendary ring, Lucy woke up in her bedroom of the house that she shared with Risa. Lucy heard her pink-haired teammate cheering in a joyful manner from loudly opening some of the treasure chests, since some jewels and items were in them. Some clothes were probably in one of those treasure chests, but Lucy wondered if Risa would comically go to Seigan Town and ask if they had outfits from the year X500 in a beautiful shade of pink. Lucy wouldn't mind if her treasure chests contained some clothes, especially if they were in a cute hue of blue.
As she glanced down at the blue treasure chests that were beside her bed, Lucy took a moment to glance at the blue ring on her right hand. It would need to be modified with several new spells of Ice Magic and Water Magic, as Lucy didn't feel comfortable with using any spells that were still infused into the ring from when Suzuna wielded it. Those spells would also possibly lead to Yukishimou being summoned, and Lucy didn't want to deal with that again. From her perspective, that goddess was scary and intimidating to where it wasn't a surprise that her treasures went untouched for centuries.
Lucy decided to touch the treasures, though, and she managed to lift up the top of one treasure chest. She was met with blue light shining up from it while the light belonged to several jewels, gems, coins, and items. Lucy's hands began to go down into the chest, pushing through the coins and gemstones that were in different shades of blue, and Lucy's hands felt something interesting near the bottom of the treasure chest. The item felt like a book, which meant that it must've been very valuable, and Lucy gently pulled it out of the treasure chest.
The book was in a sapphire blue color with the design of six diamonds at the bottom of it, and the diamonds were all lined up in a row while they were in six different shades of blue that differed from sapphire. Upon opening the book and not seeing a title, Lucy turned past some more of the pages to see that this book contained an entire arsenal of spells pertaining to Ice Magic and Water Magic. Although, Lucy did look somewhat confused at how these spells were ones that she didn't recognize from Yukishimou or Suzuna. As she glanced down at the instructions for what would probably be her first spell, Lucy noticed that the bottom portion of text in dark blue writing claimed that these were reserved spells.
"These spells of Ice Magic and Water Magic are all useful to the goddess, since they sometimes serve as useful trump cards." Lucy read aloud in a calm manner, her eyes showing an immense amount of interest in reading the book.
Lucy thought to herself with a soft smile on her face, as her eyes shifted away from the book for a moment to glance at the ring, "When the first spell is chosen, I just hope it won't create a tidal wave or a winter storm that destroys an entire town."
"Although, there is also the issue of only being able to use Water Magic when water is around. I'll have to create a strategy for circumventing that problem." Lucy thought in a somewhat worried manner, realizing the consequences of using Water Magic.
The fact that she would now be able to wield Water Magic caused Lucy to also think about the fact that she could also wield Ice Magic, but carrying around water that wouldn't evaporate or dealing with ice that wouldn't melt seemed like impossible tasks for situations where Lucy would have to take on jobs that were in hot climates. That made Lucy briefly think back to the fact that Cramoisi Town was a place with a volcano and Fire Magic, but there wasn't a nearby beach or river in that area for her to gather water.
However, Lucy began to wonder if Yukishimou's ability to use Water Magic probably involved rain. Rainwater could be useful for creating spells, especially if a high amount of rain constantly falling down to drench opponents would allow Lucy to confound them while simultaneously unleashing powerful spells. In a similar manner, creating a hailstorm or winter storm in midair would allow Lucy to use Ice Magic while also making the battlefield be cold enough for her opponents to be distracted by the frosty atmosphere to the point of not putting all of their energy into their magic.
Both of those methods seemed to be good strategies for utilizing her magic, prompting Lucy to turn some more pages in the book. She soon reached a page that contained the illustration of a blue cloud with raindrops descending from it, which caused her to smile in a bittersweet manner. Even though this spell was useful to Lucy, the illustration reminded her of how Juvia was able to summon rain. Lucy felt that learning this spell would be a nice tribute to her friend, and she silently told herself to not forget about it. Lucy kept the book on that page while keeping it in her hands, but she soon glanced up towards the sight of Risa hurriedly entering her room.
"Lucy, you've definitely got to see this!" Risa stated with a happy facial expression, as she stretched out her left hand for Lucy to follow her somewhere.
That prompted Lucy to get out of bed while telling Risa in a calm manner, "Good morning, Risa. If it's a fashion sale in Seigan Town, then I'll just say that Emiria and Hiyasu are probably capitalizing on how we saved their lives. They're probably just doing it for profits, you know."
Risa replied kindly with her smile becoming softer, as the excitement remained in her cherry red eyes, "Lucy, that sale starts later today. The newspaper is outside, but I only caught a glimpse of this exciting news before I went back to sleep after dawn."
Since Risa seemed excited about the newspaper's headlines for the day, Lucy got out of bed and let out a soft yawn. She tiredly looked down at her emerald green undershirt that matched her melon green pajama shorts, and Lucy walked out of her bedroom. She gently closed the door behind her, before going out of the hallway to be in the living room, and Lucy walked out of the house with Risa in front of her. Risa wore a light pink T-shirt to match her magenta pink pajama shorts, and she happily smiled while picking up the newspaper.
Upon seeing the main headline display the Sabertooth mages all smiling as they walked away from Seigan Town together, Lucy was surprised to see that that the main photo had a second photo underneath it. That photo featured the six legendary rings on Lucy's hand, framing her as a strong mage who had reportedly taken down an S-Class mage working alongside a god. The newspaper mentioned Lucy laughing hysterically and happily during the fight, despite the fact that she believed that the Emerald Green Ring itself must've made the god associated with its magic feel compelled enough to intervene.
That made Lucy look down at the Sapphire Blue Ring for a moment, wondering if she would be fighting without going berserk on friends and foes if she was ever pushed to the point of letting Yukishimou control her body. Lucy wondered if Yukishimou would make her be as strong as Aquarius in combat involving water, and she was also still curious about the final ring. The sixth ring had been found in Seigan, which was a town advertising its fashion sale on the newspaper's next page, and seeing Risa turn past another advertisement's page featuring a vicious-looking model with some purple hair made her wonder if that would be the last specific color of magic that she needed to obtain. With the newspaper and Risa making her morale seem high, Lucy started softly smiling as she felt that it was possible to regain her body from the actual Kotomi Takeuchi.
Meanwhile, at the Fairy Tail guild...
Kotomi sat down at a table in the Fairy Tail guild, feigning a happy smile on her face as she sat across from Natsu. The fire dragon slayer had a somewhat depressed look on his face from not seeing Erza or Gray be around lately, and the fact that they were both missing for long durations of time made him feel like the possibilities of them dying had to be accepted. Natsu really missed his friends, but he looked up and started smiling softly at how he still managed to protect the girl who he believed to be Lucy Heartfilia.
She had become strong with Celestial Spirit Magic, even to the point of taking A-Class missions by herself, and Natsu felt that this was a day where they could handle a job together. He hadn't picked out any jobs beforehand, as Natsu felt that it would be a nice way to honor Erza and Gray by letting his remaining friend choose which of the flyers would be unpinned from the board. He watched Kotomi get up from the table with a kind smile on her face, and she started walking over to the request board.
Kotomi applied Celestial Spirit Magic to her feet, making herself quickly get over to the board, and she stood in front of the request board with a serious look starting to form in her eyes. Kotomi was not only going to find an A-Class mission that would reward her a high amount of jewels, but she was thinking about finding a mission that would go smoothly enough for Natsu to let his guard down at the end. That would give Kotomi the opportunity to eliminate Natsu, and she slightly smirked at her plan.
In accordance with that plan, Kotomi glanced at the flyers and wanted to pick out a job where Natsu would probably perceive it to be difficult. That prompted her to unpin a golden flyer from the request board while seeing that the job would take place in an area where her spells of magic would thrive, and the job simply involved retrieving a legendary treasure from a sacred place that was beneath a small town. Kotomi hadn't heard of this town before, but the reward of 900,000 jewels was enticing enough for her to unpin the flyer from the board. Kotomi hastily placed it on the bar's counter for Mira to stamp the flyer with Fairy Tail's insignia, but she slyly picked up the newspaper in the moment where Mira leaned down to retrieve some plates for hungry mages who wanted breakfast at the bar. They were more focused on eating, rather than announcing what was written in the headline of today's newspaper that was delivered to the guild.
"Sabertooth Saves Seigan Town?! Kotomi Takeuchi, the heroic wielder of wind defeated Suzuna at her strongest level of power?!" Kotomi thought to herself, looking surprised at the sight of Lucy smiling in the photo.
After turning the newspaper around for the customers at the bar and Mira to see the headline, Mira commented with a calm facial expression, "Hi, Lucy. By now, Juvia should've been back from whatever event they had in Seigan Town. Although, they may have asked her to stay there and help with something involving water. I didn't read the newspaper today, but Juvia had mentioned something several days ago about being invited there."
"Well, Juvia and I will be in opposite situations soon. Please stamp the flyer for the job to be official, and I'll be out of town by the time that Juvia comes back here." Kotomi responded with a confident look in her eyes, smiling as she felt eager to handle this specific job.
After Mirajane quickly got the orange stamper with black ink off of the shelf, she stamped the flyer with Fairy Tail's insignia. That caused Kotomi to roll up the newspaper, before putting it in the left pocket of her gold jean shorts that matched her honey gold high-heeled shoes. They matched the pastel gold midriff that Kotomi wore, and the midriff also had ruffles shaped at the bottom while they resembled the top halves of stars in a sunglow shade of gold. This outfit was part of Magnolia's new fashion line, since Kotomi was making Lucy Heartfilia receive recognition for taking several A-Class jobs that always ended in her achieving victory.
Kotomi felt arrogant enough to let overconfidence be in her cocoa brown eyes as she thought about this mission, believing that it would easily end in success. She gently grabbed the flyer that was on the counter, and Kotomi took it back to the table where Natsu was sitting. He watched her place the flyer on the table, allowing him to see that they would be taking a job in the town of Kuria. That town was known for having weapons that were transparent and lightweight, along with having lightweight magic that wouldn't take long durations of time to activate.
Natsu started to get an excited look in his eyes while comically grinning, and he thought that the job would require him and Lucy to battle against the strongest mages who could also quickly react to any attack. His thoughts were ignored by the client's request, however. The client specifically wanted a Fairy Tail mage to find the legendary treasure that could only be unsealed by using Celestial Spirit Magic, and the treasure was rumored to be an item that had been crafted by the people who worshiped the Celestial Spirit King. Upon seeing the job description, Natsu happily smiled.
"Luce, what if it's a secret golden key that was hidden away for many years? What if it's something that lets you grow larger and punch extremely hard while using your magic?" Natsu asked with curiosity entering his eyes, continuing to smile as he thought that the item would benefit Lucy.
Lucy's impostor responded joyfully, feigning a happy grin on her face before giggling a bit, "Natsu, this treasure could help me become a much more amazing wizard! I'm also very curious about it."
Although, one piece of information that Kotomi wouldn't share is that the treasure regarding Celestial Spirit Magic sounded eerily familiar. It seemed like something that she learned about in one of the books that Loke brought from the Celestial Spirit World, as lore was just as valuable as spells. From what Kotomi previously read, there was an interesting treasure of Celestial Spirit Magic kept away from all of the Celestial Spirit Mages. Apparently, only some of the strongest wizards wielding this specific kind of magic could handle its immense power.
That only made Kotomi have an increased desire to obtain the treasure, and she hoped that the client wouldn't want the item for themselves. Kotomi felt that it would be important for her to also be the person who touched the treasure, since there was the possibility of it being the kind of treasure that would stay with whoever physically touched it first, and she would be glad to give Natsu some jewels or small gemstones as a consolation prize for helping her get the treasure. Of course, he wouldn't be able to spend riches in a place where his requiem would be played by anyone who had musical talents.
Kotomi glanced at Natsu for a moment, seeing him get up from the chair while he seemed ready to handle the job. Kotomi was also ready, but she began to look at Natsu in a shocked manner that made him believe she forgot to take care of something. Kotomi used that as an excuse to run out of the guildhall, wanting to be alone while she did a bit of research on what the item could be, and she applied Celestial Spirit Magic to her feet. The golden aura engulfed her feet while she ran down the stairs, wanting to hurry with her little detour to Lucy's apartment.
30 minutes later, at Lucy's apartment...
Kotomi arrived back at Lucy's apartment, and she quickly locked the door behind her. She wasted no time with walking into the living room, before going into the bedroom, and Kotomi pulled out a brown book from the top shelf of the bookcase. The book focused on spells of Celestial Spirit Magic, as well as providing some history regarding some of the spells. Kotomi opened the book up to a random spell while walking over to the bed, and she gently placed the book on the comforter. Kotomi looked at the spell for a moment, but it wasn't one that she would need to use right now.
In contrast, turning a few pages to the right in the book allowed the powerful thief to see that there was a spell called Celestial Supernova Starfall, and it seemed like the spell would be capable of being unleashed at full power in a specific place. There was a photo of a pedestal with a star carved into it, along with the altar having seven stars around it in the shape of a star, and turning to the next page caused Kotomi to briefly have an amazed look on her face. That page had a photo of a treasure chest being in a golden color with lights of that color emanating from it, and the treasure was described as something that was desired by many mages.
Kotomi certainly desired it, and she turned back to the previous page in the book to see that the spell required seven spells to be used in a specific order for it to activate. The first spell was required to be Celestial Star Cassiopeia, and that spell was found when Kotomi turned several pages to be near the beginning of the book's contents. Celestial Star Cassiopeia required her to stretch out both of her palms while keeping them close together, and Kotomi created a golden sphere of celestial energy in between her hands. Gold beams of light emanated from the sphere, which became honey gold when Kotomi infused more magical power into it. The honey gold sphere quickly vanished, however, and a honey gold aura engulfed Kotomi's body.
The aura made Kotomi feel somewhat stronger, and she turned to the next page in the book. That page contained the instructions for a spell called Celestial Horologium, and the spell would make Kotomi create a golden beam in one of her hands. The beam would alternate between being harvest gold and light gold, the alternating colors going back and forth like the pendulum of a clock while the different shades of gold were related to different effects regarding this specific spell. As Kotomi smirked evilly at the level of power rumored to be in that spell, an idea began to form in her mind.
"You know, it would be fantastic if I could obliterate Natsu with some spells that would make him lower his guard." Kotomi thought to herself with her lips forming a sadistic facial expression, before searching for some of the necessary spells that seemed rather unorthodox.
Upon going to the third chapter in the book, Kotomi reached a specific page and calmly stated aloud, "Well, that's a good spell to be included in the requirements for using Celestial Supernova Starfall."
The spell that was included in the requirements had been called Artsy Stars, and this spell made a metallic gold aura engulf Kotomi's body. She followed the instructions of sitting in a yogic position for meditation, before exhaling a deep breath of air to keep herself calm, and Kotomi focused her magical power on the space in front of her. She widened her eyes while intensely looking at the air in front of her, and thoughts of striking that space made the metallic aura start breaking off from her body. It started to form seven metallic gold stars, which soon floated around her on several pure gold rings like they orbited her.
Kotomi gently touched the pure gold rings while infusing magical power into them, causing the rings to spread outward in all directions. The larger rings had the stars moving around on them at faster speeds, along with the stars shining brighter, and an aftereffect of powering up the spell involved seven more stars forming from the metallic gold aura for them to glide on the rings while the stars nearly created gold sparks as if those stars rapidly glided across railings. The spell was quickly dispelled by Kotomi lowering the spell's amount of power to zero, however, and she didn't want it to explode.
Any explosions that wrecked this apartment would obviously get the attention of Natsu, as well as alerting other mages. Kotomi didn't want to underestimate any of the people who she had to be around each day in the guildhall, which was why she always tried to be as nice as friendly as the real Lucy Heartfilia. Although, Kotomi did start to narrow her eyes in an annoyed manner at the sheer thought of Lucy having multiple legendary rings. She was probably trying to reverse the ancient spell that made her and Kotomi switch bodies, but Kotomi felt herself to be at a point where she didn't want to desist with the thrills of being a Fairy Tail mage who could defeat outlaws, claim treasure for herself, and engage in thievery.
"The best part of all my crimes is that I can put myself in the position of continuing to steal items while gaining wealth and power, since I could probably just use that body-switching spell on that bimbo again. Not only would she get arrested, but I'd have so much magic and power at my fingertips while she would be left with nothing again." Kotomi thought to herself with a rude and scheming smirk on her face, before laughing aloud and putting her right hand near her chin.
The fact that she laughed very loudly prompted Natsu to ask in a calm manner from outside the window, trying to peek through the new gold curtains that were in front of it, "Lucy, what's so funny? Will you tell me when you're ready to go to Kuria?"
That prompted Kotomi to look a bit startled, before replying in a somewhat kind tone, "I'll be outside in a few minutes, Natsu! Just wait patiently!"
The few minutes that were necessary for Natsu to stay outside had allowed Kotomi to have a bit of time for finding the fourth spell in the ritual, and turning several pages to the right allowed her to come across a spell of Celestial Spirit Magic that was known as Celestial Astral Nova. The spell would make a circle of lights in a pure gold color appear beneath Kotomi's feet, the beams of light rotating in a slow manner, and the photo of the spell informed her that putting more magical power into this attack would make the lights become much brighter to obscure the projectiles that would form above them to converge on an enemy.
Since that spell also seemed very useful to Kotomi, she giggled in a happy manner from thinking that she was in a brilliant position where her level of power could possibly reach the level of a Wizard Saint. That would make her almost seem unbeatable, and she hoped that the treasure of Celestial Spirit Magic would allow her to have a very bright future where her golden lights could eliminate any meager person who dared to stand against her. She built up magical power for a moment, seeing that the aura was changing from being honey gold to being in its regular hue of gold, and Kotomi activated Celestial Star Cassiopeia again.
As she felt another large surge of power engulf her body, Kotomi giggled in a more confident and amused manner. She proceeded to walk out of the house with the book in her hands, and Kotomi smiled nicely at Natsu. He kindly smiled back at Lucy's impostor, before noticing the book's cover featuring golden items such as the gold keys, and Natsu simply thought that Lucy was able to discover that the treasure was a secret key that she would need for summoning a powerful Celestial Spirit. As Lucy had her hair down and ran towards the train station, Natsu ran after her with a slight frown on his face at how Lucy's sudden surge of power felt different than how she normally wielded Celestial Spirit Magic. He simply viewed her new tactics to be strange, almost as if she was prepping herself for an important fight, and Natsu ran after the girl who he believed to be Lucy while hoping that she would let him read the newspaper that slightly popped out of her jean shorts.
One hour later, at the Sabertooth guild...
In contrast to Natsu's situation, the actual Lucy sat down at a table in the Sabertooth guild with Sting, Rogue, Risa, and Yukino as they all read the newspaper. The article about the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour definitely gave Lucy more notoriety, which was evident from the guild's golden request board being filled with more jobs than the average daily amount, and there was even a paragraph in the newspaper about how Risa's hot flames and Psychic Magic could eliminate Water Magic without any difficulty.
Despite getting praise, Risa remained just as humble as Lucy. They may have acknowledged most of the other guild members applauding them for achieving victory in Seigan Town's event, but Risa and Lucy both believed that they could still make themselves become much stronger wizards. By making themselves be stronger, both girls would probably be capable of eventually being S-Class mages. Sting personally considered himself to be worthy of that particular title, even though he was also the guild master.
He confidently smirked at the thought of how he and Rogue could've taken down Emiria and Hiyasu, as well as Suzuna. Sting's confidence in winning those fights involved how those dangerous battles contained blasts and explosions, which contained light and shadows that could be consumed by the dragon slayers of Sabertooth. Rogue glanced down at his hands for a moment, seeing that the aura alternated from being black like shadows to being dark blue like Suzuna's Water God Slayer Magic, and he assumed that a dragon slayer eating a god slayer's magic in this situation stemmed from Suzuna previously using her magic to drain energy out of prisoners. That also likely included the act of entirely draining a Water Dragon Slayer of their magic, resulting in their death to where Suzuna became a stronger Water God Slayer.
That method for transferring Water Dragon Slayer Magic to a dragon slayer may have been unorthodox, but it did prove to be successful. However, Rogue looked a bit stern when he glanced down at his hands. He felt that it would be necessary for him to become much stronger for the sake of Risa, who had to rely on Lucy to mainly battle Yukishimou and Suzuna during the second and third portions of that battle. Risa probably wouldn't voice her displeasure at being saved again, but Rogue felt like this was the fourth time where he was ineffective in a situation.
"Obeying the rules is necessary sometimes, but maybe I should've jumped in earlier or joined Kusabue in trying to break the invincibility of the ice goddess." Rogue thought to himself in a calm manner, as his eyes displayed some frustration.
Lucy snapped Rogue out of his thoughts for a moment, as she turned to ask him with a curious facial expression, "Rogue, would you think of it as a good idea for you to enter Shadow Water Dragon Mode? You know, to possibly see if you could power up the Sapphire Blue Ring?"
Rogue kindly responded, misinterpreting the reasoning for the question being asked, "Listen, Lucy. If you're only seeking power instead of doing more training on your own, then you won't get to the level of strength that you desire."
"That's not the motive on my mind, Rogue. I was just... thinking that we could bring out Yukishimou, if she wants to help Sorano with explaining about the legendary rings." Lucy explained to Rogue with a somewhat worried look in her eyes while kindly smiling, thinking that the nature of the ring bearer somehow affected the spirit of the ring.
Rogue could see that Lucy had good intentions, but he personally had to shake his head in a manner of displaying refusal towards her idea. He silently dismissed the idea, due to Yukishimou already having the perception of being an icy and menacing goddess who would only seek to hurt people. In fact, Rogue believed that this was the first time in history where Yukishimou was sealed within the ring instead of being frozen in ice. By that logic, it was like having to deal with a strong wizard getting accustomed to working under someone else.
Yukishimou didn't seem like she was the type to quietly obey someone, as she did give Suzuna magical power in the final portion of the fight, and Yukishimou seemed like she would probably want her own spells to be infused into the Sapphire Blue Ring. Rogue's magic wasn't just Water Magic on its own, which made him imagine himself striking the ring for Yukishimou to angrily scream at him for daring to have other types of magic mixed in with what she liked to wield. Yukishimou was the type of spirit that seemed to be back in the world after a long duration of her time was spent being frozen, and Lucy would have to be the one to tame her cold attitude.
She watched Rogue give her a stern glare of refusal for a few seconds, and Lucy decided that she wouldn't make Yukishimou be summoned. As Lucy turned her attention down to the Sapphire Blue Ring, she thought about how Yukishimou was the first spirit of the rings that seemed sentient. On the way back to Kogane Town, Sting and Risa informed Lucy that she had become possessed by Kaze after Yukishimou had awakened. Kaze fought with her own spells while acting on her own accord, but she didn't seem evil or berserk.
"I wonder if each of these spirits becomes calmer or less aggravated when I wield their magic. It's just a theory, but they possibly reflect the nature of the person wielding them." Lucy thought to herself in a curious manner, as her eyes shifted from looking at the Sapphire Blue Ring to noticing the Emerald Green Ring.
Risa commented aloud with a somewhat anxious expression appearing on her face, as she turned a few pages in the newspaper, "Even if Yukishimou were to appear and tell us which spirit was sent to a specific area in Fiore, the town of that century may have changed. It may not even exist anymore, so we need to get our assumption correct on the first attempt of finding this last ring."
Sting responded to Risa in a confident manner, feeling optimistic in this situation, "Well, we just have to wait for the person wielding that ring to use its power. Pinpointing its location would be tough, if we didn't have a teammate who could track sound waves. If Kusabue picks up frequencies of someone saying they found an amazing ring, we just have to trap them."
"That's an interesting plan, but you'd just be avoiding the decision to go find Kogomurasaki's ring." Sorano stated in a snarky tone of voice, before giggling slightly as she walked over to the table with a hot cup of tea.
Sorano recalled the name of the person who supposedly owned that legendary ring, due to Brain from Oracion Seis once having a desire to obtain all of the legendary rings before Nirvana was ever a plan. The plan of getting Kogomurasaki's ring had been an interesting one, due to the fact that the X780s decade was where guilds such as Lamia Scale, Blue Pegasus, and Fairy Tail were the top guilds in Fiore. Kogomurasaki may have had a guild, but that particular individual was rumored to be an empress instead of a guild master.
The empress may not have been a notable person, but the item of Holder Magic that she possessed was rumored to be capable of plunging the world into darkness. Although, the only reason that Brain or any other villain hadn't made attempts to take the ring was because of the fact that Kogomurasaki's magic mysteriously became undetected by spells that could sense other wizards. It apparently vanished, but no one ever conducted an investigation to see Kogomurasaki's town or anything pertaining to the empress.
However, the time that Sorano spent in the icy prison allowed her to hear some of the treasure-hunting mages talk about the legendary rings. They weren't necessarily talking about Lucy having the rings, but they were seemingly bummed that those rings weren't in their special spots where the goddesses wanted to keep them. The goddesses themselves had been a fascinating topic for Sorano to read about in the library of the Oracion Seis, as they surprised her when she couldn't find a page about a goddess of Celestial Spirit Magic, and Sorano decided to drink her tea before seeing if a copy of that book was in Sabertooth's library.
15 minutes later...
After taking some time to look around in the library, Sorano slightly smiled as she came back to the protagonists with the book in her hands. She placed it on the table for everyone to see that the book centered around legendary artifacts, evident by the book's cover displaying staves and rings respectively being on the left and right sides of the circle that they formed. Sorano placed the book in the center of the table, before opening it up to the specific chapter on rings being the type of artifact that would be discussed in each subsection.
Sorano turned to the seventh-last page for this chapter, allowing everyone to see that there was a ring strangely made from stone. It appeared to be created from purple granite, which was a bit odd, but this ring was stated to belong to Kogomurasaki. It allegedly resided in the eastern part of Fiore, but the exact location was unspecified. There was only one picture of the terrain, and it was just the violet-colored ground under an eerie-looking sky. Sting and Lucy both looked stunned from seeing the purple sky, as they didn't believe it to be permanent.
The third paragraph in orchid purple text did inform them that getting to the town where that ring was located would require the protagonists to get permission from the Shimizuakira Council, which was a similar group to the Magic Council. However, the paragraph informed everyone that the Shimizuakira Council consisted of a specific group of heirs who had inherited a large fortune of jewels from Kogomurasaki. The empress also gave them the key for entering her town, which had been established around the time where jobs and guilds were existing in Fiore, and showing up with any flyers would be an added display of respect for Kogomurasaki's town.
None of the Sabertooth mages had seen jobs that explicitly wanted any of the guild's mages to go to Kogomurasaki's town, and the fact that the book was published before the current century meant that the town underwent changes during different periods of time. Sting gently put his hands on the table while thinking that there had to be a way of finding the specific town that he and Lucy would need to visit, prompting him to get up from the table. As Sting started walking to his office, he heard Kūkiatsu gently clear his throat.
"Would someone from the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour have info on where that town is? Sting-san, should we ask Kagura or Minerva?" Kūkiatsu asked with a curious look on his face, associating the purple ring with both women who had purple hair.
Those questions prompted Sting to quickly turn around and ask with an astounded facial expression, his eyes displaying disbelief, "Minerva?! Kūkiatsu, how did you meet Minerva? Didn't you tell us that you uncovered some stuff on your own in Seigan Town?"
"I'm just going to assume that the lady didn't do any of the work that actually contributed to Kūkiatsu's discovery in that hidden underground area. Although, hearing that there were specific paths in that room with the statues provides us with a theory." Rogue commented in a calm tone, frowning a bit as he realized the implications of his assumption.
Rogue continued speaking, sounding slightly optimistic, "If we were to go down into that room and follow the purple trail, then it's likely that we would be under a secret passage that hasn't been opened yet. Although, finding the general scent and being able to mark a position on a map would give us an idea of where the next ring could be."
Rogue's plan sounded like a great idea to Risa, who smiled in a cheerful manner at how this gave the team multiple tasks to do for the same end goal. She felt that one group of mages would have to go see where that purple path would lead to, and another small group would have to find out where the Shimizuakira Council was located. That left Risa with the idea of how this left one group with the task of going shopping for fashionable clothes in the town of Seigan, due to the sale that was happening.
Risa looked down at her current attire, seeing that she wore a light green jean jacket with a dark green shirt underneath, and she wore neon green jeans that complimented her Kelly green high-heeled shoes. She felt that some new clothes would be good for her wardrobe, especially if they were in beautiful shades of blue. Despite the fact that Seigan Town only seemed to specialize in winter clothing, Risa didn't mind that. She wanted to get some new clothes from the sale, especially since she felt like a celebrity.
Being in the newspaper even made some other females in the guild start to wear green clothes that they received from Tokiwa Town, as Risa and her torn jacket in that battle had been photographed by some of the people who were appreciative that she was one of the mages who saved them in the botanical gardens. Some people even wore green to celebrate Lucy's great skills with Wind Magic, which almost made today be like a holiday. Although, Lucy wasn't personally interested in her own fashion choices right now.
"Should I go to Seigan Town's underground area, go shopping with Risa, or should I try to find the Shimizuakira Council?" Lucy quietly asked herself in a somewhat tense manner, trying to weigh her options.
Sting told everyone in a calm tone, smiling with confidence as he noticed everyone seeming excited, "Even though this seems like we can have fun and exciting expeditions, we need to at least find out where the Shimizuakira Council's members can be found. Give Rogue and I some time to figure that out. In the meantime, you can all go and do whatever you want."
That prompted Kūkiatsu to take out a pale green flyer from his plain green T-shirt's left pocket, and he glanced down at the job that requested for Gardenia to be assisted with teaching some of the botanists in Seigan Town how to grow a new flower called Windy Green Roses. She may not have specifically requested him to be there, but being more knowledgeable about new flowers and hybrids that could work with Wind Magic seemed like that could be useful in battles. Kūkiatsu wouldn't mind mixing his Wind Magic with flowers that could explode like Lucy's Plant Magic, and even making plants that caused enemies to experience the feeling of paralysis could be useful.
Kūkiatsu walked out of the guildhall with Kusabue choosing to walk beside him, and the fact that they went out on a job caused Lucy to get up from the table. She headed to the request board, noticing the high amount of flyers that were pinned to it. As Lucy began to look at the flyers, one of the job descriptions made her eyes display a bit of confusion. She examined the purple flyer to see that the client didn't want to be named, which was a bit interesting. The part that was more interesting was the job's description, which simply informed Lucy that a meeting needed to take place in a location called the Autumn Mountain.
Lucy hadn't heard of Autumn Mountain before, and she didn't recall that mountain being on any map in Fiore. The only place associated with Autumn had been the autumn-colored trees near Kuchiba Town, and Lucy initially believed that she had no reason to go back to the place that deemed her as its princess. However, recalling that Kūkiatsu and Kusabue found a place with seven paths leading to the statues of goddesses meant that taking the path under Kuchiba or near Kuchiba would serve as a nice detour related to today's mission while also serving as a shortcut to Seigan Town.
Two hours later, in Kuchiba Town...
After Lucy got on the train that departed from Kogane Town's train station, she took the train to the town of Kuchiba. Coming back to this town felt somewhat awkward for Lucy, as she was the town's princess, and she had spent several months away from the town. Lucy managed to get past the gatekeeper, who was comically too distracted by the sight of Sorano smirking at him in a somewhat seductive manner. That only made Lucy look somewhat irked with her eye comically twitching, not expecting Sorano to want to be here when Lucy asked Yukino if she wanted to join her on this mission.
Sorano wore a somewhat skimpy light blue midriff shirt that had white angel wings on the bottom of it, and she also wore a cobalt blue miniskirt that had angel wings around the uppermost rim of the skirt. She wore some light blue flat shoes, and Sorano casually walked into the town of Kuchiba. She started to look a bit miffed at the town having somewhat of a hot temperature today, which made Kuchiba be a place that contrasted with Seigan's chilly climate, and walking on to one of the roads that had different shades of orange in its design made her wonder about which path led to the client.
Yukino also entered the town and curiously glanced around with Lucy joining her in briefly sightseeing, both girls seeing the distant amusement park that looked like it had been upgraded by some mages who invested money into that task, and she also heard some oriental-themed music coming from a place that seemed like a dance theater. Although, Lucy wasted no time with following Sorano through Kuchiba Town. All three girls went past the clothing store, before Lucy guided them to the northernmost area and she made a left turn when the street turned in that direction. This left turn led to the Bell Tower, which was a place that made Lucy slightly smile.
She briefly and quietly remembered how she got to dance in the ritual that summoned the giant bird who was worshiped as a god by the townspeople, and it had left Lucy with one of its giant feathers as a symbol of acknowledging her strength. Lucy glanced away from the top of the tower to stare at the Bell Tower's entrance doors, and she noticed that a pastel orange piece of paper was wedged in between the doors. Since no tours of the Bell Tower were given in recent days by any of the townspeople while no one tampered with anything inside the Bell Tower, the paper was left untouched. However, Lucy wasted no time with easily pushing the doors open and letting the paper fall to the ground. After she did that, Lucy watched Yukino gently grab the paper.
"If you're a local resident of Kuchiba, leave the Bell Tower alone. When the meeting on the sixth floor is finished, you may continue on with tourism." Yukino read in a calm manner, as her hazel eyes displayed confusion at how there was no signature.
That prompted Lucy to reply in a somewhat stern manner, as she walked towards the Bell Tower, "There's no way that any group of people would want to have secret meetings in a sacred tower, especially if they weren't the ones who built it. Still, we should go up there and investigate."
"At least we'll probably also get to see some cute artifacts." Sorano stated aloud with a cheerful smile on her face, before happily hugging Yukino and walking alongside her.
The three girls walked into the Bell Tower, seeing that it was kept quite clean instead of being dusty from a lack of tourism. The cleanliness also applied to the historical paintings that were on the first floor, which included an orange frame that featured the newest painting of Lucy's hand covered in an orange aura as she petted the winged guardian of the town while she had been dressed as one of the Kimono Girls. Lucy simply smiled at that painting, before going upstairs to the second floor with Yukino and Sorano behind her.
Yukino glanced upward to see that there were some doorways pertinent to the upper floors, which made her think that the pathways would become more dangerous as they ascended to the sixth floor. Sorano looked forward to see Lucy going past the opened sliding doors and two paintings of Earth Magic, the green-haired girl heading to the next staircase in a manner where she seemed so focused, and she smiled a bit at how Lucy was acting more like a determined leader. She hadn't wasted a moment with locating the next staircase, and Lucy simply waited for her friends to carefully get across the wooden path.
After Yukino and Sorano caught up with her, the girls headed up to the third floor. This floor had the sliding doors already being opened, and Lucy walked across the wooden plank bridge that connected one portion of this floor to the other one. Yukino and Sorano also carefully crossed the bridge, tiptoeing as a way to not put too much pressure from their feet into the wood. The wooden pathways on this floor were a bit shaky, and Sorano noticed that Lucy was walking without displaying any reaction to the tower's shakiness. In fact, she acted as if she couldn't feel it at all.
Upon seeing the Sherbet Ring be on Lucy's hand, Sorano thought to herself with a somewhat intrigued smile on her face, "Oh, so the Sherbet Ring of Earth Magic allows its user to be strong and sturdy like the dense rocks and the ground itself."
Yukino asked aloud with a curious facial expression, as her eyes saw this room's attraction, "Lucy-sama, would you ever want to be as famous as the man who successfully sliced through a boulder with a karate chop?"
Seeing that specific attraction made Lucy comically reply in a slightly offended manner, "Don't try to put me in any categories that he's in. Anyway, Yukino, let's just keep moving."
Lucy went up the next staircase with her friends, and they all went up to the fourth floor. This particular section of the Bell Tower made Lucy feel like she had to be a bit careful, as the opened sliding doors revealed that the fourth floor was quite dark with the only light source coming from orange flames that were in the indentations of the statues of brown paper fans that were on dark orange podiums. They looked a bit eerie to Sorano, who watched Lucy walk across the wooden path while stepping over a certain part of the floor that made her not want to relive a past experience.
She made it to the next set of stairs with her friends, and Lucy recalled Nozomi telling her that the upcoming fifth floor was the first floor that could be dangerous. As it turned out, Nozomi was right. After walking up the brown stairs, the opened sliding doors revealed that there were plain orange spheres of Earth Magic on pastel orange podiums. They separated different portions of the walkways, and only the people who could apply Earth Magic to their feet and jump far were able to reach the staircase or any other attraction in this room.
However, Lucy felt that there was a secret related to the spheres on the podium. She decided to send her magical power down into the Sherbet Ring by making her fingers firmly touch the orange ring. It began to brightly pulsate in a sherbet hue of orange, before a sherbet orange aura surrounded Lucy's body. She felt more strength flow throughout her body while feeling all of her muscles be much stronger, almost as if she just finished several consecutive days of nonstop intense workout regimens and exercising.
She proceeded to raise her right leg up for the purpose of hitting one of the spheres with a powerful kick, and Lucy kicked the orange sphere that was on the nearest podium. When the sphere was kicked, it shined in a sherbet shade of orange before instantly exploding. The sherbet orange smoke quickly faded away to reveal that the sphere was gone, and the remnants of its orange aura went on the floor to create the shape of a rectangle. The aura quickly turned into a slab of earth, which formed a bridge that connected one wooden section to the main pathway.
Lucy quickly shifted her attention to the next podium that was on this path, striking its sphere with a strong karate chop. That sphere detonated, and the explosion resulted in the aura forming another slab of earth. The first slab of earth led to a plain orange statue of a Kimono Girl striking the ground with one palm to create pumpkin orange shock waves, almost like she was a dancer who could create powerful earthquakes. Interestingly, the second tourist attraction led to a canyon that was formed with its large boulders having gigantic cracks from an earthquake occurring.
However, Lucy chose to not read the sign pertaining to that tourist attraction or the other one. Instead, she aggressively pushed the third orange sphere with the aura flowing into her palms. That caused the orange explosion to occur in midair, and Lucy sent a high amount of power into her palm strikes for the explosion to be strong enough to where it made the tower shake with a high level of intensity that rivaled a large tremor. It wasn't as large as an earthquake, however, and the aura that spread outward from the explosion created a square-shaped slab of earth that connected the pathway to the portion of wood that contained the next staircase leading upwards.
The next staircase allowed Lucy to reach the sixth floor with Lucy and Yukino, but the two sisters stopped walking when they noticed that Lucy stopped moving. She noticed that the wooden platforms were slightly distant from each other with no nearby spheres to strike, but that wasn't the reason why Lucy narrowed her orange eyes. She noticed that there was a small statue of a pumpkin orange mountain on one of the wooden sections, and the orange-haired person who stood next to it was more shocked than stern.
"You?! What in the world do you want?!" Shinichi Keikoku asked in a startled manner, before he looked a bit panicked from seeing Lucy jump to a nearby platform.
That prompted Lucy to respond in a stern manner, asking a similar question, "Shouldn't I ask the same question about you and have you arrested?!"
Sorano asked in a calm tone while looking curious, trying to somewhat ease the tension, "Since I'm just now seeing you two interact, am I supposed to assume that you two know each other?"
"This guy is Shinichi, the former guild master of Vermilion Sunset. Sorano, he's a rapist and a greedy guild master who ran an amusement park as a ruse for selling fake oil that was made from Earth Magic!" Lucy explained with a serious amount of distaste in her voice, as she maintained a stern look in her eyes.
Shinichi replied to her with a calm and regretful facial expression, seeming somewhat humble as he wanted to explain himself, "After nearly being killed, I've stayed out of a life of crime! I secretly invested all my money into whatever remained for fully remodeling the amusement park, and I'm not interested in nearly being harmed by ice-wielding wizards! In fact, I had to get all my jewels back by sneaking into some hustling mage's guild after they nearly swindled me for counterfeit stuff!"
As the man with messy orange hair looked remorseful and felt like he wanted to climb out the nearest window, he began to see the six rings that Lucy wore on her right hand. That was a stark contrast from when he remembered her to only possess one ring, and Shinichi assumed that she obtained all of that jewelry from defeating S-Class mages. He had heard rumors from time to time of a green-haired girl from Sabertooth rampaging through different areas of Fiore, almost as if she was doing good things in a somewhat chaotic manner.
He hoped that she wasn't here to kill him, especially since she and Risa had won the battle against him and Nozomi. Much to Shinichi's surprise, Lucy simply pulled out a purple flyer from the left pocket of her sea green jean shorts. She showed him that she was the one who accepted his request for the meeting, which made him feel that this conversation would be a bit awkward. Shinichi was wanting to talk about a small job that was within this job, and all that he wanted Lucy to do was find out how to get into Gunjou Town.
From what he had heard, they recently updated their policies regarding outsiders and tourists weren't allowed in the town for any reason. If any mage walked into Gunjou prior to the town's changes in the rules, then they would be fine. However, going there with any magic whatsoever was like begging for it to be taken away. Shinichi just felt curious about the situation, not wanting to get into any conflicts with those dark mages. They were probably much stronger than him, especially since he heard a certain piece of info that would probably interest Lucy.
"Listen, mages. When I was looking for work in different dark guilds, I heard a little rumor that a Sabertooth mage was in Gunjou Town. Now, I'm wanting you to just tell me how to get there without losing my magic." Shinichi explained to Lucy and her friends with a somewhat slick smile forming on his face, hoping to get info from them.
That caused Lucy to ask him in a calm tone, as she leapt to one of the closer platforms, "Is that Sabertooth mage supposed to be Minerva? Also, where in the world is Gunjou Town supposed to be?"
"I'm not sure if that's the mage, but it doesn't matter to me. I've heard that Gunjou is a town with a dark forest, a guild, and some other areas of culture. I had also heard that there was some member of some ancient council who was out traveling through Fiore." Shinichi explained in a somewhat relaxed manner, before Lucy aggressively jumped to the platform he was on.
Lucy asked him with a serious facial expression, firmly putting her hands on his mocha brown shirt before explaining her own situation, "Is that person part of Shimizuakira Council? When I was here, I found the Sherbet Ring. In case you haven't noticed my hand, I need a purple ring and that council may have something to do with it!"
"They may or may not be in the council, but Kuchiba's myths claim that the orange feather of the guardian needs to be placed against the strongest kind of ground that's under the Bell Tower. Although, I don't have an orange feather from this town!" Shinichi replied in a somewhat panicked tone, looking scared as Lucy began to easily lift him up off the ground for him to see her intimidating face.
Lucy slightly calmed herself down, realizing that arguing with Shinichi and interrogating him during this meeting would prevent her from making progress. She simply let her mind think about the last words of his final sentence, hearing him speak about an orange feather. Lucy began to widen her eyes in a manner that showed realization, recalling that she had an orange feather. That particular came from the town's guardian, who acknowledged her strength, and placing the feather against the earth could've been a way of strengthening it.
Of course, that would have to be tested after Lucy got the feather from her bedroom. She initially kept the feather there as a memento, thinking that it was just a gift from the guardian. However, Lucy wondered if the feather could be an important item in her goal of reclaiming her original body from Kotomi. Placing a feather against the ground didn't seem like she would be doing much, unless it was supposed to be seen as some kind of sacred offering, and Lucy would just have to see what was going to happen.
She put Shinichi down on the ground, noticing his mocha brown jeans and plain orange sneakers, and Lucy began to leap away from him. She went back to Sorano and Yukino, who saw Shinichi give Lucy a somewhat frustrated-looking smile of respect from seeing how she was courageous enough to meet him without even being afraid. Lucy didn't even want money from him, only seeing the information as her reward, and she went downstairs with Yukino and Sorano while thinking that the underground path leading to the statues from this area was under one of the wooden floorboards in the lobby.
Kuchiba Town's path to the underground area was in the Bell Tower, located under the longest piece of wood that was closest to the paintings. Lucy had to send Earth Magic down into her hands, which allowed her to easily pick up the piece of wood that had a pumpkin orange stair step several inches below it. Lucy gently put the piece of wood down on the floor, before descending down the stairs that smelled the same as the autumn-colored trees surrounding the Bell Tower. Quietness was present down in this area, almost as if no one had been here for several decades.
Lucy made the orange aura of Earth Magic engulf her entire body, since the stairs were seemingly created from the hardest boulders in Fiore to where they had nearly hurt her feet when the soles stomped down on them. Lucy walked at a faster pace than Sorano and Yukino, who both took notice of how this underground passage had large rock walls that nearly resembled a canyon. The resemblance was also noticeable in the path that was in front of the last stair step, as the path contained mocha brown sand forming a trail in between the rock walls.
Lucy went down that trail with Sorano and Yukino while all of them looked slightly surprised at the trail leading into a metallic orange cavern with rock walls of that color bordering them. The cavern was filled with more mocha brown sand on the floor, some of it shifting back and forth like soft sand that was unstable. The instability of the sand made giant sherbet orange boulders in the cavern roll from the left to the right, along with moving them from the right to the left, and the Sabertooth mages simply ran fast to evade most of the boulders. One of them almost hurriedly rolled towards Sorano, who was saved by Lucy obliterating the boulder with two consecutive powerful palm strikes that created a sherbet orange explosion in midair.
As the explosion quickly faded away, Sorano felt that she was slightly impressed at Lucy's versatility with her different items of Holder Magic. Some mages normally had a difficult time with remembering how their different types of magic were supposed to be utilized in fights, but Lucy acted as if she had been training with the Sherbet Ring and Earth Magic for months. There was the possible theory of each ring's magic becoming more powerful in correlation to the total number of rings that the wielder possessed, but Sorano couldn't even tell Lucy about it because she began to walk down the long cavern at a much faster pace.
"Lucy, slow down!" Sorano told her in a somewhat concerned manner, noticing that the path was quite long.
Yukino thought to herself with a calm facial expression, remembering that the distance from Kuchiba to Seigan would be noticeable on this winding path, "Lucy-sama doesn't intend on wasting any time. She must really want to obtain that seventh ring."
Lucy continued walking fast, wanting to reach the underground area where the statues were located. By reaching that area, Lucy felt like she could just check out the purple path to see what was on it. The staircase in that area probably didn't have its floorboard or tile removed, which made Lucy believe that she wouldn't even get to see which town was associated with that path. Still, the fact that there were boulders and sand in this area resembling a canyon caused Lucy to just feel curious about the type of magic that was on the purple path.
She hurriedly ran down the orange path with Sorano and Yukino trying to keep up with her, and Lucy even went as far as to aggressively punch a dark brown mountain full of cliffs that stood in the middle of this route. Lucy watched it quickly break apart into a large pile of rubble, before multiple orange explosions of Earth Magic occurred, and she wasn't going to waste her time with climbing over a mountain. She simply jumped over the remnants of those rocks, before continuing to run through the canyon.
The canyon's walls began to be in a tangerine shade of orange, which made Lucy feel like her group was now getting closer to the statues. She continued to run down this path, feeling the ground and mocha brown sand become more firm. From Lucy's perspective, she essentially made it through some ancient trials that the goddess of the Sherbet Ring created centuries ago. That caused her to proudly run down the path, running much faster to where she wouldn't need to synthesize her Earth Magic with the Wind Magic of Kaze's Feather Dance, and Lucy soon reached the end of the cavern to feel some familiar coldness from Seigan.
"Wow, so we're finally down in this room." Lucy stated aloud with a small smile on her face, seeing the orange statue of the Earth Magic's goddess standing across from the end of the path.
Sorano stated aloud in a somewhat amazed manner, as she looked around in a circle to acknowledge all of the statues, "Wow, this must be the room of legends. From what the dark historical tomes in Oracon Seis claim, this was the room where people from different religions worshiped their respective goddesses."
Sorano continued to explain herself, looking at the statues in the order of a rainbow's colors, "All of the goddesses are here. Hinohono, goddess of Fire Magic. Jimen, goddess of Earth Magic. Rakurai, goddess of Lightning Magic. Kokoro, goddess of Psychic Magic. Kaze, goddess of Wind Magic and Plant Magic. Yukishimou, goddess of Water Magic and Ice Magic. Finally, Murasakiiro is the goddess of Darkness Magic."
Lucy replied in a calm manner, as she walked towards the celestial green statue of Kaze and bowed forward to show some respect, "Well, at least it's clear on who was happily laughing in that fight against Suzuna. Kaze has my utmost respect and gratitude."
She noticed that the green path was located across from Kaze's statue, which made her think that botanists such as Gardenia could come through their town's secret passage to study the plants in Seigan and other towns. That would be convenient for them, and Lucy simply smiled. However, seeing the purple path be across from Murasakiiro's statue caused Lucy to frown a bit. Even though she felt impulsive enough to want to see what was there, the fact that Minerva had recently come to Seigan Town made her feel some nervousness.
Lucy assumed that Minerva came to Seigan by taking the purple underground path, which would indicate that it was accessible, but that also meant dark mages who worshiped Murasakiiro could also come down here. Since the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour was over, dark mages such as Minerva would no longer be prevented from attacking Lucy. She thought about how Minerva brutally tortured her in the Naval Battle of the Grand Magiv Games, and no longer needing to restrain herself meant that Minerva would probably want to break every bone in her body without hesitation if they ever fought each other.
That made Lucy decide to walk towards the ice-covered blue path leading to Seigan Town's museum, which surprised Yukino. She had seen Lucy be so ambitious today during the mission, only for her to feel like she needed to into the town of Seigan. Yukino assumed that Lucy was planning to train in the tundra, and Sorano followed behind them as she felt that Lucy wasn't dumb enough to go against the instincts that informed her of how Kaze's Feather Dance and other spells of Wind Magic could be torn through by Darkness Magic. In this situation, Lucy would be wise to go and train with the Water Magic before going to Gunjou Town.
15 minutes later, in front of Seigan Town's lake...
Lucy decided to train in front of the lake that separated the museum and the large rock from the Cerulean Frost guild, glad that her status as champion of the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour allowed her to train in a place where mages would have to jump across ice floes to reach the guild. Lucy simply stared out at the ice floes, noticing how they weren't moving in the motionless dark blue water, and she made two of her fingers gently touch the Sapphire Blue Ring as a way for her to access Ice Magic and Water Magic.
Lucy decided to unleash the first spell that she wanted to use from the sapphire book, and that spell was called Cobalt Cumulonimbus. It caused Lucy to raise her hands above her head, before shooting out a cobalt blue cloud of water, and the cloud surprisingly went down into the lake. Lucy got to hear the sound of the lake's water being drained by the cloud, which sounded like a vacuum sucking up some water, and the cloud slowly emerged from the water with a blue aura engulfing it. It floated back towards Lucy, who remembered the instruction of tearing off a piece of the cloud.
Lucy tore off a piece of the cloud, causing cobalt blue bubbles to rain down from it. The bubbles fell down into the lake, before creating several cobalt blue blasts that made the lake's water intensely shake like roaring waves in a storm, and the aftereffect of this spell was that the remaining water shot out at Lucy's hands like they were being drenched with rain. That allowed her to be able to use more Water Magic, which made her smile in a calm manner at the water letting itself get absorbed into her hands. Lucy was ready to activate her second spell, and she pulled out the blue book from the right pocket of her jean shorts.
She opened up the blue book, before turning a few pages to the right, and Lucy noticed a spell called Water Wave Shield. Lucy put the book down on the snow before putting her palms next to each other, and she aimed them down at the ground. That caused the water from earlier to emerge in the form of large bursts, before they became waves of water that rotated around Lucy in a counterclockwise manner. They could likely be dense enough to deflect attacks that struck them, which Lucy felt to be beneficial because she didn't want to just counter an enemy's attacks with her own attacks.
"Since those two spells are now in my arsenal, which one of Yukishimou's spells should be next?" Lucy asked aloud with a curious facial expression, as she picked up the book and turned to the next page.
Lucy exclaimed in a startled manner, seeing the Sapphire Blue Ring glimmer while her hand unwillingly turned a few pages to the right, "What's going on?! What's wrong with my hand?!"
Upon seeing Yukishimou's ring glimmering, Lucy asked aloud with an anxious facial expression, "Wait... Is Yukishimou somehow telling me which spell she wants me to use?"
The spell that Lucy's hand rested on was called Cerulean Bubble Gum, and the spell made Lucy shoot out a cerulean blue bubble from her left hand. It quickly fell into the lake, before coming up quickly to rotate in the clockwise direction at rapid speeds. The sphere hurriedly went into Lucy's mouth, surprising her for a moment before she accidentally bit down on it as if the sphere was bubble gum, and exhaling a large breath allowed Lucy to shoot out a large stream of cerulean blue bubbles. The bubbles created cerulean blue blasts in midair, aggressively making the water in the lake be quite turbulent, and this spell contained a high amount of power.
Lucy looked somewhat astounded by her third spell having that level of power, which made her wonder if Yukishimou was the goddess who was trying to teach her an important lesson. The lesson was simple, as Yukishimou probably wanted Lucy to be capable of using spells with high amounts of power in them, since relying on strategy by itself left Lucy in a situation where strategy and skill did have to work in conjunction with some reliance on luck. However, being strong enough to defeat enemies quickly would prevent Lucy from leaving anything in a fight to a game of chance where the odds of winning would either be or not be in her favor.
That only made Lucy think of unleashing the spell again, and she did. Although, one main difference was that the Cerulean Bubble Gum spell was used two times in succession. Lucy shot out two cerulean blue bubbles from her left hand, seeing them go into the lake, and they came out as one larger sphere that was a fusion of the two smaller ones. This larger sphere was interestingly in a sky blue color, and it went into Lucy's mouth. She exhaled it in the form of slightly smaller sky blue bubbles that created large blasts when they all hit the water.
"Whoa!" Lucy shouted with a somewhat alarmed facial expression, as she hastily leapt backwards to avoid being drenched by a wave of water that resembled a tidal wave.
Upon seeing the book be engulfed in a sapphire blue aura from being hit by water, Lucy thought to herself in a somewhat calmer manner, "Well, it looks like Yukishimou made the book be waterproof."
That only caused Lucy to gently pick up the book, before turning enough pages to where she reached the fourth chapter of the reserved spells of Water Magic. The page that Lucy specifically landed on pertained to a spell called Sapphire Blue Water Dragon, and Lucy activated the spell by raising one of her fists up to the sky. A sapphire blue aura surrounded her body, before completely engulfing her to where she couldn't be seen by anyone, and a portion of the aura broke off from her for it to go into the lake. The dark blue water became sapphire blue, before beams of light in that color shined up from it.
They ended up making a cloud overhead become sapphire blue, before a twister of water emerged from the lake to bounce up to the cloud. The cloud absorbed the water, before growing much larger and wider. The large cloud soon had a sea dragon descend from it, the dragon being sapphire blue with dark blue eyes while its long body resembled a serpent with the pattern of plain blue ocean waves on its skin, and the dragon had large sapphire blue fins on both sides of its face. There was a pattern of six neon blue teardrops forming a hexagon on its forehead, and the dragon aggressively roared down at Lucy.
She comically screamed in fear, before dropping the book and lowering her hands forward as a way of bowing down to the dragon. However, the direction of where she moved her hands caused the dragon to lunge down at Lucy. She loudly screamed in fear, nearly passing out as she saw herself end up inside the entrance of the water dragon's mouth. However, the dragon's fangs that touched her body only made the sapphire blue aura grow larger while the dragon seemed to have the purpose of powering up Lucy. Its enormous fangs continued to touch her, resulting in Lucy noticing that her body started to feel like extremely dense water, and she simply closed her eyes. The dragon's own water emerged from its throat as a spiraling blue vortex of hot and steaming water, which struck Lucy right before all the water surrounded her in a large bubble. She calmed down enough to let herself be entrapped by the sapphire blue sphere, which was water that went into all the pores of her entire body, and Lucy felt her body become as dense as water that was deep below sea level with a large amount of pressure pushing.
The dragon instantly detonated in a sapphire blue blast around Lucy, its light blinding her as she felt no pain, and a side effect of this spell was that the density of any nearby water was removed. In exchange, Lucy was given a much stronger body that was extremely dense and durable as if she always had iron in her daily diet. However, Lucy also felt like going back to the Sabertooth guild because drenched with the dragon's water and profusely sweating as if she finished weeks of exercising by trying to lift her body up from underneath large piles of tempered and heavy steel. As Lucy tried to wring out her jean jacket with one hand and picked up the book with her other hand, she hoped that Risa was having a better day at Seigan Town's fashion sale.
Meanwhile, in Seigan Town's fashion store...
Risa had used a high amount of jewels from one of her treasure chests to purchase several dresses, along with midriffs and jean jackets. She also purchased multiple pairs of shoes, not minding that some of the shoes previously belonged to Suzuna. Although, Risa personally thought that she would only need to wear a dark blue dress or dark blue high heels to one of Cerulean Frost's banquets when Emiria or Hiyasu felt interested enough to celebrate the town not being wrecked. That made Risa also feel like she needed some winter coats in varying hues of blue, as just having light blue or azure blue clothes seemed quite boring.
She was glad that the top of her stack of assorted winter coats had an ocean blue winter coat with plain blue fur on its wrists cuffs and neck areas, which made Risa feel that she could wear that coat in a situation where she was relaxing on an ice floe in the coldest sea with Rogue by her side. She unfortunately didn't see any winter coats in the men's section of the store, only seeing the sky blue business jackets remain for Seigan's male dark mages who liked to hustle. She wondered if Kūkiatsu wanted a business coat, though, and Risa just didn't want to green-haired teenager to get any of the ice garden's blue grass stains on a white lab coat.
Although, Kūkiatsu was currently busy with seeing Kusabue use a small portion of Risa's jewels to silently count the amount of money that would be necessary for her to buy a dark purple evening dress for a young girl. The dress would only go slightly down past her feet while it had a plum purple sash around the waist area, and there were grape purple swirls all around the collar of the dress. The dress came with a small sundress hat that was in a mauve shade of purple, and the hat had two amethyst purple flames bordering the top part of the sundress hat.
As Kusabue placed the hat on her head and looked in a nearby mirror to see if it looked cute, Risa merely frowned at the young girl in a disapproving manner. She slowly shook her head in a manner that displayed rejection, not liking that specific hat because of the fact that it clashed with Kusabue's dark green hair. However, Risa believed that her friend's hair and eyes went well with a sapphire blue sundress hat that had a Tiffany blue rose on the left side of it. That hat was on a dark blue wooden shelf for hats, and Risa walked over to it. After picking it up, she walked over to Kusabue.
"This hat is much cuter while it goes with your sense of style. Plus, it also goes well with the shamrock green shoes you're wearing." Risa told Kusabue with a kind smile on her face, as she swapped out the mauve hat for the sapphire blue hat.
Kusabue replied with a somewhat disappointed facial expression, before her eyes shifted to the newest posters on the store's nearest wall, "Risa-san, I still think that purple is a much better color for my sense of fashion."
"Kusabue, making your fashion sense go from shades of green to hues of purple is like relying solely on luck for your sense of style to become trendy right now. It's not autumn right now, so you'd arrogantly be trying to create a trend." Risa explained to Kusabue in a comforting manner, as she squatted down to be at eye level with her.
Risa quickly stood up to glance at the posters, which featured the woman named Rairakku wearing a plum purple midriff shirt that exposed her stomach while wearing a lavender purple short dress shirt underneath it. Rairakku also wore violet fishnet sleeves on her arms, She wore some wine purple fishnet stockings that covered her legs, even possibly going down past the leather boots that were in a Heather hue of purple. The boots had iris purple sparkles of glitter on their fronts, and Rairakku's leather skirt was iris purple. It had wine purple metal chains on the front of it, which complimented her hair that was now wine purple while her closed eyes had their eyelids be covered in Sangria purple eye shadow.
Kusabue's eyes twinkled with an immense amount of admiration towards the poster featuring Rairakku, who simply looked stoic and somewhat intimidating. Kūkiatsu thought that Rairakku looked very creepy, as he didn't seem to like her pale skin or the makeup that made her have that complexion. In addition to that, he just thought she looked like a vicious woman who was probably advertising her brand of fashionable clothing around Fiore. Although, Risa looked at her in a displeased manner because of how her fashion sense just didn't seem to be in style.
Stylish people soon entered Seigan Town's fashion store, however. Tifani from the Moon Rainbow guild walked into the store with a pale blue winter coat on her body, along with wearing cyan blue winter pants, and she wore mint blue snow boots. The red-haired mage comically shivered as she held three Ice Stones in her hands, having found them in the deepest parts of the tundra after Yukishimou's icy winds had created some snowy and icy blizzards. She glanced around the fashion store, before smiling in a calm manner from seeing Risa. Risa was a Sabertooth mage who could probably lead her to Lucy and the rings, but the little green-haired girl in the store seemed much more susceptible to telling secrets. Upon recognizing Kusabue from today's newspaper, Tifani walked over to her while ignoring the sound of Emiria happily sighing as she walked into the store a few seconds later.
"Excuse me, little girl, but do you mind telling me where I could find Kotomi Takeuchi and her Sapphire Blue Ring? You know, the woman who recently took down an S-Class mage and a goddess?" Tifani asked Kusabue in a polite manner, smiling calmly as she leaned down to be at eye level with her.
That prompted Kusabue to respond with a confused facial expression, looking puzzled as the second question didn't align with her memory, "Kotomi-san allowed Kaze-kamisama to defeat Yukishimou-kamisama, though. Kotomi-san defeated Suzuna, but that was after Kaze-kamisama left. As for Kotomi-san herself, she's out somewhere."
This instance of miscommunication caused Tifani to ask with a shocked facial expression, "Wait, are you saying that someone else was going after the rings at the same time as Kotomi?! Isn't her green hair distinct to you?!"
Kusabue comically responded in a confused manner, trying to recall Kotomi's hair color as she compared it to Kaze's, "Well, Kotomi-san has pale green hair. At least I think she does, but it could be light green. However, Kaze-kamisama had her green hair changing in different shades of green with every passing moment."
Tifani asked loudly seeming appalled as she raised her voice with two people overhearing the conversation, "Why are you speaking in riddles, little girl?! Was the ring really taken by Kotomi, or are you saying she has a doppelganger named Kaze running around with the ring now?!"
Emiria commented in a calm manner, walking towards the situation with a scheming smile on her face as she was like the manager wanting to break up the tension brewing in the store, "Excuse me, mage, but I couldn't help but be in awe at those Ice Stones. You know, I can give you a much better ring than whatever junk you're looking for. In fact, enough is enough with the tension. I have merchandise from the Seigan Temple, and I'll trade you a Snow Blizzard Ring for all your Ice Stones."
In order to persuade Tifani that this was a legitimate deal, Emiria pulled out a mint blue ring from the left pocket of her plain blue winter coat. The blue coat had contained a round ring that had a mint blue snowball on one part of it, and the ring would allow its user to wield Snow Magic. Although, it was actually nowhere near as strong as the Sapphire Blue Ring. That didn't stop Emiria from polishing this specific accessory after finding it, since she always wanted her items to look extremely beautiful for customers to persuaded by the sight of seeing shiny trinkets.
Tifani had heard that there were some artifacts in the Seigan Temple, which included some that were buried underneath mounds of snow. Emiria managed to find the Snow Blizzard Ring, which had appropriately been buried under a pile of snow covering a hole, and she didn't need its power. She felt that it would be better to leave it with someone who would want to trade away some magical items that could help Emiria become as strong as her strongest rival, and Emiria wanted to get her hands on those Ice Stones.
She watched Tifani foolishly trade away all her Ice Stones for the Snow Blizzard Ring, prompting Emiria to gently put the ring into the other woman's right hand. When Emiria received the three Ice Stones, she smirked in a satisfied manner at the thought of using spells multiple times like how Lucy had done. She thought that would be a great way for an Ice God Slayer such as herself to quickly and immensely strengthen her own spells, and Emiria proceeded to just look at the remaining shoe rack for any hustling in fashion that could be useful to Hiyasu. As she heard Tifani excitedly run out of the store from getting a ring, Emiria simply turned to Risa and gave her a small smile of respect. Risa was glad that Emiria was willing to defuse that situation for a selected winner in the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour, even though it was possibly also out of self-interest. Being self-interested also applied to Risa recalling that she needed all of her purchases from this fashion sale to be placed in boxes and bags, prompting her eyes to widen with a bit of shock before she walked back to her stack of purchases. As Risa picked up the stack of coats and carried it up to the cash register, she began to have a slightly curious facial expression from wondering how the other winners of Seigan's event spent their first day of celebrating.
Meanwhile, at the Fairy Tail guild...
Lyon arrived at the Fairy Tail guild with Sherria standing by his side, and Lyon wore a dark green winter coat with plain green pants. He also wore a dark green dress shirt underneath while it went well with his boots that were sea green, and the darkened colors were symbolizing that he recently finished paying his respects. Sherria had also paid her respects, evident from the fact that she left a bouquet of mint blue flowers in a deep part of the ice garden in Seigan Town around sunrise before coming here. Sherria wore a light green blouse with her plain green miniskirt, but she wore dark green leggings that matched her forest green flat shoes.
The two mages from Lamia Scale slowly pushed open the doors to the Fairy Tail guild, simply standing in the doorway as they thought about what to tell everyone. Lyon himself was still shaken up by yesterday's unfortunate result for Juvia, as he didn't even want to make ice eagles come straight down because that reminded him of Juvia getting impaled. He simply walked into the guild with a depressed look on his face, sighing as he felt that it would be important to convey yesterday's events in a way that wouldn't be insensitive.
He wanted to sincerely apologize for not being able to save Juvia, even thinking that he was at fault for not being able to save her. Although, Lyon didn't want anyone thinking that he was wallowing in self-pity. He was genuinely grieving, feeling heartbroken and having feelings of regret in his eyes about not being fast enough to make an attack that would've purposely pushed Lucy out of range of those icy spikes. He tightly clenched his fists for a moment, thinking that he would also probably need to deliver the news about that specific situation.
Lyon walked up to the bar for the purpose of telling the news to Mirajane, who was reading through Juvia's file as a Fairy Tail mage that had been retrieved from the Resource Room of Fairy Hills. That room in the girls' dormitory stored records of every tenant's work, such as all of the jobs or tasks that they chose to handle. From what Mira was seeing in the brown folder containing Juvia's file, Juvia's last task involved going to Seigan for an event. However, seeing Lyon Vastia get back here before her only made Mira curious.
"Aren't you Lyon from Lamia Scale? What are you doing here in Magnolia?" Mira asked him with a somewhat curious look on her face, before softly smiling.
Cana Alberona glanced up from a nearby table to ask him in a somewhat concerned manner, narrowing her eyes as she was reading his body language, "Why do you look so depressed? Did Juvia harshly reject you today while she was shopping in Magnolia?"
Those question prompted Lyon to explain with a regretful facial expression, sounding very apologetic as he spoke, "I'm here to tell you... that Juvia isn't coming back to your guild. She unfortunately... died in Seigan Town. If I had been faster in that fight, she'd be okay. I'm so sorry to inform you of this tragedy."
Mira and Cana respectively exclaimed with facial expressions of shock and disbelief, both women loudly sounding astounded enough to get everyone's attention, "WHAT?!"
Lyon felt that he didn't need to repeat himself on that explanation, frowning in a depressed and serious manner to show everyone that he wasn't joking right now. Gajeel looked just as serious, frowning with concern and curiosity as he wondered how Juvia could let herself die in a place filled with water and ice. The iron dragon slayer faintly heard the sound of an extremely massive explosion occurring yesterday that seemingly came from the northernmost area of Fiore, but Gajeel had only perceived it as a mage training with a highly-destructive spell that went wrong to the point of someone making the explosion occur around themselves.
In order to help everyone in the guildhall be aware of both of the topics that he would need to elaborate on, Lyon gently pulled out today's folded newspaper that had been dropped off at Lamia Scale's doorstep. He simply closed his eyes while putting the newspaper close to Mira's face, allowing her to see the front page's article as Cana also got up from the nearby table to see the important topic of the day. Both of the women glanced at the photos in the article, seeing Sting Eucliffe with other Sabertooth mages while Juvia was only mentioned as one of the lesser champions in the Grand Reverie Icy Frigid Tour that was held by the Cerulean Frost guild in Seigan Town.
Mirajane started to recollect her own memories from seeing this article, remembering that Juvia was going to that specific event, but Cerulean Frost had been classified as a dark guild. Mira felt that the dark mages in that guild obviously had a bigger plan being disguised as a casual event, but it seemed like Juvia suffered when that plan was put into fruition. Mira wondered if Juvia fought very hard in the process to be the grand winner, seeing that Kotomi Takeuchi of Sabertooth received that title instead of her, but Mira also felt curious about the relevance regarding the photo of the rings on Kotomi's hand. Cana was also curious about them while Gajeel and Elfman Strauss got up from their tables, the two men wanting to glance at the newspaper. Lyon decided to quell their curiosity, and he started to look stoic about what needed to be said.
"That girl with the light green hair... is none other than Lucy Heartfilia. She was shielded from Yukishimou's fatal attack that involved Suzuna Hiyayakana being like a conduit or a husk for the goddess' magic at that point in the fight, and Juvia protected Lucy while sacrificing her own life." Lyon explained in a calm manner, accepting that fact about Kotomi being the real Lucy.
Mira and the other Fairy Tail guild members exclaimed with surprised looks on their faces, their eyes displaying the feeling of bewilderment, "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!"
Lyon explained in a stern manner, folding his arms as he frowned in a saddened manner at this aspect of his explanation, "At first, Juvia and I didn't believe Lucy when she made that claim. Even with the seriousness in her eyes, Juvia and I thought Lucy was lying. This was after Lucy and her teammate avenged Juvia after she lost to Emiria and Hiyasu. On the final day, Juvia realized that Lucy Heartfilia was truly stuck in Kotomi Takeuchi's body. Otherwise, Juvia wouldn't have let herself be impaled."
Cana stated aloud, frowning sadly as she remembered when she was saved from Freed's runes by Juvia sacrificing herself, "Yeah, that sounds like something Juvia would do."
Lyon calmly replied while starting to walk away, thinking that the Fairy Tail mages deserved to hear some final pieces of information, "Juvia's grave is in the ice garden, but it's deep into the forest area. Also, Lucy got revenge by killing Suzuna and I think that she has Yukishimou's ring as her sixth important ring. She's trying to get her body back with however many rings are needed."
Mira stated aloud in a startled manner, her blue eyes widening with realization and worry, "If you're saying that the real Lucy has been with the Sabertooth mages, then that means...!"
She wasted no time with going out from the bar to be near the request board, glancing down at her black maid dress for a moment as she looked at the flyers that were missing from the order that she arranged them in. She remembered that Lucy's impostor managed to get a stamp on her golden flyer, which was a job that took place in the distant town of Kuria. Mira urgently mouthed that town's name to Cana, who pulled out some of her Magic Cards from her red bikini top and white Capri pants. She ran out of the guildhall as fast as she could, followed by Mira running after her while she also wanted to stop the real Kotomi from causing more trouble.
That left Elfman to technically be the one in charge of the bar right now, but the white-haired man who wore a dark blue shirt with brown khaki pants immediately went to Makarov's office for the guild master to be notified about the situation. As Elfman left the bar area, Gajeel merely gave Lyon a displeased look for appearing as if he needed to blame himself for Juvia's death. Since Juvia didn't die from Lucy dodging out of the way and leaving Juvia open to getting hit, Gajeel just frowned a bit with sternness in his eyes from thinking that no one would've been able to stop Juvia from making her own choice in that situation.
Lyon decided to walk back towards Sherria, who still stood in the guildhall's entrance as she gave him a comforting smile. Sherria felt that she could only give Lyon a friendly hug while they proceeded to walk down the stairs of Fairy Tail's guildhall, but she had a slightly saddened look in her eyes from thinking about Juvia's death. Even though Sherria liked Lyon, she could tell that he, Lucy, Risa, and Jenny all probably felt different levels of depression about the situation. Even though Jenny and Blue Pegasus weren't close allies to Sabertooth, Sherria started to smile a bit bravely from thinking that it would be good to see if Jenny could help Lucy find the next important ring while Fairy Tail's mages would try to subdue her impostor.
How was Chapter 56? Feel free to tell me your thoughts on it. Lucy is training with her Water Magic and attempting to get stronger, but it seems that Yukishimou isn't fully recognizing her as the ring's master yet. Lucy will do her best to quell Yushimou's authority, though. Speaking of doing best efforts, Risa is trying to be a good fashionable role model for Kusabue. That will be important later on. Fashion will also be tied to Kūkiatsu in an interesting way, too. As for jobs, Natsu will have to deal with truth about his friend soon. That will be different from the task of Jenny creating a theory about where Lucy shall find the next ring. Also, this is the first part of the post-Azure Ice Arc! I'll update soon. :)
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