"Seems that my little fairies are capricious."
All eyes moved towards the man that appeared. A very tall man with a dark cape and black eyes. She knew at the instant she saw him that he was the man on the phone. Something in his aura melted power with deadly danger. Earing, his voice had just confirmed her guess. He was emanating from him the smell of death, a sinister smell that had impregnated him until his flesh. He holds with him the smell of the war, of the battlefield, as his crown. Long life to the king.
"Sir"
Balno and all the soldiers in his presence salute the man with deep respect.
"At ease, soldiers. Major."
The hands lowered, and the major looked up to the man who was a council member, according to his clothes.
"Seems that these mages are not cooperating." Then he turned towards the team. "You finally achieved your mission, Miss Scarlet. Don't ruin everything now."
"These prisoners are now under our protection, sir. I cannot let them go to you. They have rights."
Wendy and Carla looked at each other. They maybe did not know who this man was, but it was quite obvious that he worked in a high and prestigious position. He was powerful, and disrespecting his orders seemed to be the worst choice to make.
Moreover, it was unusual for Erza to act so impulsively. She was the thinking head. Natsu, even Grey could be inconsiderate, but she was always the referee, the mature one, the balanced one. Erza always stopped them when they were on the edge of insubordination; she didn't provoke it. Even when she would have had interest to do it.
She had let Jellal be arrested and her heart shattered despite all their efforts, and today she refused to let the soldiers take prisoners. Wendy was puzzled, but she was, above all, worried. Maybe Erza was cracking; maybe this life was beginning to become too heavy. She suffocated under the still-growing weight of her duties for years. But the queen of fairies was only human, not a god.
For the first time Wendy realised how much the redhead had endured. They have all suffered, but in addition, she was the one who was always taking the blame for them. She had to balance her values and politics, and despite this pressure, she let her heart lead her.
Erza had saved Wendy's life when she discovered that all her existence rested on lies. When Catshelter had disappeared, she had lost her guild and her family. And for the second time, all the pillars of her life were collapsing. It was too much, but Erza had appeared and offered her a hand that never shivers.
Natsu, Lucy and Happy had offered her a new family, but Erza had caught her up so that she could seize this chance. She saved her from herself; while she was completely heartbroken because of Jellal, she had opened her heart again for Wendy.
"Erza Stop it. They have to be put in jail. It was the contract. We catch them and bring them back to the council. Give them this damn key.
Wendy looked at Natsu with horrified eyes, and then she remembered he had known Erza for a longer time. Obviously he thought she needed to be reasoned with; maybe he was right.
"Natsu is right; we have to follow the orders."
Lucy's tone was more uncertain. She didn't want to force her, and she wasn't naive enough to think she could have done it anyway. Erza was too stubborn to let anyone influence her choices. Grey must be the only one Lucy had seen try and succeed, but even he had only done it once, maybe twice.
However, Lucy was scared; fifteen more soldiers had come towards them. The major's patience had vanished, and the man that arrived wore the emblem of the sacred mages. Without mentioning the fact that they couldn't use magic against the army. It was illegal; some of the soldiers were not even mages. The use of force would be disproportionate and the motive of jail. She had to try to convince Erza.
"Listen to your teammates, Miss Scarlet. Disobeying an order is an infraction."
"But torture is a crime. I can not let you torture these men, criminals or not. I do not know what type of experiences you do here, but I know that these men had been condemned to jail, not to any other form of punishment."
"I wouldn't take your fallacious allegations into account if you gave us this key right now. However, you seem to need a little more motivation."
And in a fraction of a second, Lucy, Wendy, Happy, Carla and Natsu were handcuffed and deprived of magic. Grey exhaled before he moved, now placing himself between Erza and the politician, giving the key.
"Well. It seems that fairies have some reason. Our collaboration is over; you had signed a contract with non-divulgation clauses. Don't forget it. No matter what we did here, no one will ever know. But if it could help you to accept it, we act for public interest."
The soldiers had made Indel, and Rustyrose and Gaito came down. Indel staggered. His eyes find Erza's, full of disdain, as if he knew very well and from the beginning that she could do nothing, that she was no better than them. She felt miserable. Grey passed his hand on her back; it was brief and imperceptible, and everyone was too concentrated on the soldiers who targeted them with their weapons.
Erza got free; she didn't need his comfort, only for the results of the strings she had pulled to finally be revealed. And it finally happened.
"Draculo. My friend. What is this whole strange story? Lahar had come to me with a really sordid theory".
Every member of Fairy Tail had then taken their normal breath again. Jura was there. They would not die today. And no one would be able to lie about the role they had played in this whole situation.
"You should not interfere, Jura."
"We have fought together. I know you. You are not a torturer. So explain to me what you are doing in this base. It's supposed to be a prison, not a laboratory."
Among the brigade that came with Jura, Lahar, the commandant ordered some of his soldiers to release the mages. Lucy was relieved. Jura seemed so confused. Betrayal hurt.
"We did. And I consider you as my friend, but we do not have the same vision of coercion. The new council wants the peace as I do, but you think that the key to achieving this goal is forgiveness and collaboration. Personally I believe in deprivation. I'm not an extremist who thinks that magic is the source of the bad and we have to eradicate it; we all know that it is more complicated. But if our enemies have no magic anymore, then they could not join their forces and provoke a new war by quitting the country and fomenting revenge. I only propose deprivation for the dark users and the traitors to our laws. Be with or against Fiore in order to avoid another God Serena. We both know that the council is not ready for this type of experiment."
"Your point of view is blurred by fear. You cannot deprive people of their vital essence because you are scared of what they could do. If you forgot the value of freedom, integrity and humane rights, then for what ideas do you fight? Moreover, and I don't know how many dead corpses you were ready to sacrifice to come to this conclusion, but separating magic from a mage is impossible without killing him. So that's torture."
"But there are more and more dark guilds, more criminals. You see that there is a problem. Privatise these mages from their magic; at least the clandestine mages would convey a very meaningful message."
"So that's your real will. Of course there are more and more dark guilds; they have all been destroyed by the war. They reconstruct what had disappeared; there is no gain of criminality."
"So you are sure you don't want us to bring you back to the capital?"
Jura had asked five times, assuring he didn't mind. He was going there anyway.
"Thank you, but we have cars to bring back."
Wendy was surprised that Natsu was the one who thought about the logistical aspect.
"Like you want. And about what you did hear and see."
Erza moved towards him.
"We are subject to professional secrecy. Even if someone else had taken the lead, the mission had been edited by the council, and we signed with it as an institution".
"You really could have been part of the council if you had wanted."
"I never liked politics."
He smiled at this.
"Seems you are not the only one in this case."
Jura nodded towards a man who was leaning against the first car of the six four-wheel drives forming the convoy. Jura's car.
"Seems he had good contacts; he succeeded in organising a meeting with me without even Lahar knowing he was in the building."
She smiled.
"He has always been surprisingly talented at gravitating into the power area."
"He especially put in a big effort for you. But I agree with you; his network forces the admiration. Many people seem to owe him a favour.
"Definitely, and I'm one of them now."
"I see. A very talented man, so."
She looked at him without answering, and he got her sceptical countenance as his sign to go. She didn't want to have this kind of conversation with him. It was her privacy, and he suddenly was thinking that playing matchmaker wasn't so much fun anymore.
Lucy and Wendy helped Lahar to reorganise the base. He would stay there until its definite closure, which should take a few days, two weeks at the most, the time to evacuate all sensitive documents, destroy the equipment and organise the deployment of the brigade to other posts. Wendy wanted to catch up on Mest's news, and Lucy was curious about the procedure.
Natsu was already leaving to join Jura and talked with him. He was not used to the protocol of addressing a sacred mage and honoured member of the council, but Jura found this more refreshing than inconvenient.
"So that's why you called him?"
She smiled internally, hearing him coming. She will really begin to think his jealousy was not only pretending to silence Indel.
"Yes. I needed someone who could seek and ask for help without being noticed."
"A snake, that was a good choice. Don't you think you should thank him"?
She refrained from asking him if that was really what he wanted. She knew how to distinguish teasing from cruel pride.
"I should indeed."
He didn't look at her. He had not since he came next to her. But she didn't know why. Then she left, walking towards the man who did not stop to look at her since she was with Grey.
"Seems that you really own me, Scarlet."
He had straightened up. He was taller than her. She then realised that she must have a thing for taller men since Grey was five inches taller than her and Jellal must be six. She swiftly swept this intrusive thought far away.
"I do".
"Then a dinner is still a no-tribute option?"
"Years ago it could have."
"That's cruel."
She wanted to answer that he was the one who had been cruel, but she didn't feel as resentful as she could have felt in the past. Their lives were intertwined, and she hoped they always would be. But she had stopped to hope that, one day, they could be sewn together in an eternal thread.
"The contrary would be "
" In an other life could we ? "
He asked with such sincerity that she could not lie.
"In another, we are together and happy."
"But not in this one."
"But not in this one."
"I love you."
His voice was deep and hurt, even though he managed to hide it well. Some things were funny. She could have died to hear him say those words months ago. She had waited for them for years, and now that he was finally saying them, she felt no wave of irrepressible enthusiasm.
She was flattered, of course, touched but not over the moon. And she suspected that he had deliberately waited until her feelings for him had faded to confess his to her. He had never wanted to hurt her, so he had kept them quiet, and now he could finally release them without risking that she would expect anything in return.
"I know."
All had been said. She knew that the next seconds would be decisive. She could let him go, or they could become friends. For real this time. No more secret or unspoken feelings.
They finally talked of everything and nothing for another twenty minutes before being interrupted by Grey.
"We have to go."
She and Jellal looked at each other, and then she pretended not to understand the innuendos of his gaze. Jura arrived some seconds later, ready to go. A soldier that was following him then got in the car at the driver's seat, starting the engine.
"Goodbye, Jura, and thank you again."
"No problem; you spare me a lot of problems. Pass the hello to Fairy Tail.
"We will "
Then she looked back to Jellal. He smiled but had not expected she would hug him. He answered, ignoring how much time would pass before they see again. For her it was a way to definitively say goodbye to her former feelings for him. Talking to him had freed her from a weight that had prevented her from breathing properly for years. She was thankful.
"Goodbye, Fullbuster; it was a pleasure."
He held his hand to Grey, who realised how he really hated that man.
"That's rare for me."
Jura and Erza were discussing on the next side of the car.
"Don't be so obviously jealous; she doesn't like it."
"At least we know what she doesn't like or doesn't want."
Jellal smirked. It was a fair move and relatively polite; he could have said "who", but he respectfully said "what".
"I guess we know. Make her happy."