Chapter 149:
– Haru –
I had discovered that watching a hundred mages try to catch tiny birds was significantly more entertaining when one of my future wives was curled up in my lap.
Technically, it was ninety-nine mages.
Serie had been very firm about that.
Apparently, the original applicant count had been one hundred, but the exam required teams of three, and Serie had refused to adjust the sacred structure of the First Class Mage Exam for what she called "one mathematically inconvenient idiot." One poor bastard had been eliminated during registration for failing to notice he had written his own name wrong on the application form.
Serie had called it a mercy killing.
Daenerys had laughed for a full minute after hearing that. It seemed she and her future magic teacher shared a like of dark humor.
Now she sat sideways across my lap on the edge of a cliff overlooking the testing ground. She was asleep. Her eyes were closed, her breathing slow and even, and both of her hands rested loosely over mine while I rubbed gentle circles against her lower stomach.
Below us stretched a vast forest, green and ancient and dense enough that most ordinary humans would have gotten lost in about ten minutes. Sunlight filtered through the canopy in broken gold patches, catching on streams, mossy stones, and the occasional burst of magical violence.
The first stage of the First Class Mage Exam had been underway for a little over two hours.
The rules were simple on paper.
Ninety-nine contestants had been randomly divided into teams of three. Somewhere inside the forest were rare birds called Stille, small blue creatures so absurdly fast and sensitive to mana that even experienced mages had trouble approaching them. Each team needed to capture one alive, keep it intact, and still possess it by sunset.
The part Serie seemed to enjoy most was that stealing from other teams was completely allowed. Actually, from the way her eyes had gleamed when she announced it, I was pretty sure she considered violence the entire point.
And a few feet away from me, Serie and Irene were arguing.
Again...
It had started as a discussion about magical methodology, then became a debate over spellcraft development between worlds, then somehow transformed into a very personal contest over whose students were going to humiliate whose students.
"My daughter will sweep this little exam of yours," Irene said proudly, arms folded beneath her chest in a way that made several nearby apprentices stare and then immediately look away when her eyes flicked toward them. "Erza has fought entire dark guilds and crushed them by herself. These children playing birdwatching games are hardly going to trouble her."
Serie scoffed. "Do not underestimate the mages of this world," she said. "Our magic has evolved for centuries to battle demons specifically adapted to deceive, devour, and survive against mankind. The average combat mage here is not some child flinging elemental tantrums in a guild hall."
Irene's eyes narrowed. "Elemental tantrums?"
Serie looked down into the forest with the serene cruelty of an elf who had been irritating people for over a thousand years and considered it a hobby. "Yes. I saw the pink-haired one breathe fire at a squirrel."
Serie turned slowly and stared at her.
Irene stared back.
Daenerys made a tiny amused sound against my chest without opening her eyes. I guessed she had woken up during the argument but was still pretending to be asleep just to stay cuddled on my lap.
I let my senses stretch downward through the forest. Tracking the contestants was easy. Tracking the disasters was easier.
Erza had already wiped out two teams by herself. She stood in a clearing with one boot planted on a fallen mage's back, her red hair spilling over one shoulder, a sword held loosely in her right hand. Her two random teammates stood behind her with the stunned expressions of men and women who had just realized their team assignment was less "partners" and more "witnesses." One of them held their captured Stille in a cage with both hands, looking like he was afraid Erza might cut him in half too if he dropped it.
A little farther north, a chunk of forest was on fire. I did not even need to check who that was.
"Natsu found his bird," I said. "By burning all the trees it could hide in…"
That certainly was… a strategy I guess?
Serie's eyebrow twitched. I figured the next time she hosted this exam she was going to add a rule that you couldn't just burn the forest down to find your bird…
To the west, a glacier about a hundred feet tall had erupted out of the trees. Gray Fullbuster stood shirtless on top of it. Of course he did. His two teammates were halfway down the ice formation, clinging to a frozen branch and yelling at him about not needing to reshape the local climate to catch one bird. Gray appeared to be yelling back that the bird had tried to escape, which apparently justified turning an entire section of forest into a winter biome.
Then my senses shifted, and I found the other two Fairy Tail contestants.
My mouth twitched. "Lucy and Happy got knocked out," I said quietly.
Serie's expression transformed into a slow grin. "Oh?" she said. She turned that shit eating grin in Irene's direction.
Irene's cheeks puffed out in visible offense. It was adorable, in the way that watching a dragon try to pretend she had not just been personally insulted by reality was adorable. "I expected the flying cat to lose," Irene said finally. "He should never have been counted as an independent mage in the first place. That was absurd!"
"The magic cat filled out the application himself," Serie said shamelessly.
"He drew a fish where his surname should have been!" Irene huffed in annoyance.
Serie folded her hands inside her sleeves. "The application was legally distinct from several human candidates who also failed to spell their names correctly."
"You literally kicked out one of them for failing to spell their own name!" Irene snapped right back.
Serie just whistled innocently. This blonde elf had a cheeky side…
Irene huffed. "As for Lucy, I expected more from her as Erza's best female friend. Clearly, I will need to increase her training when we return to Magnolia."
Poor Lucy.
To be fair, the matchup had been brutal. Lucy Heartfilia was a Celestial Spirit mage. Her entire fighting style relied on contracts, keys, and calling powerful spirits through gates. Unfortunately, she had run into a mage whose specialty was teleporting small objects.
The man had watched Lucy reach for her keys and simply vanished them from her belt before she could call out a single spirit.
After that, the fight had become extremely short.
Happy had attempted a sneak attack on another team. By which I mean he had screamed, "Aye, sir!" and accidently flew directly into a tree branch and knocked himself unconscious. His two human teammates just decided to give up and try again next time…
Below us, the exam continued to unravel in exactly the way one would expect after throwing Fairy Tail mages into a competitive survival exercise designed by an ancient elf who treated emotional distress as a grading metric.
A team of local mages had tried to ambush Erza while she was crossing a stream. That had gone poorly. One of them had used binding magic to wrap silver chains around her arms and legs. For about half a second, it looked impressive.
Then Erza's armor flashed. The chains snapped. Two dozen swords appeared in the air around her like a halo of judgment.
Her teammates both took five synchronized steps backward.
"Erza is fighting again," I said out loud to get their attention.
Irene leaned forward and spread out her own senses to watch.
Serie pretended not to care and absolutely cared. I had a feeling she wanted Erza to fail the most, if only to get one up on Irene who had offended her yesterday.
Erza moved like a red storm and began cutting down a third team all on her own.
Irene beamed. "My daughter is the best."
Serie's mouth flattened. "She is competent…"
"That is elf for 'magnificent,' yes?"
"No."
"Do not be shy. You may praise her!"
Serie's mana stirred. I could sense she was a few seconds away from magically blasting Irene in the face.
I lifted one hand from Daenerys's stomach and pointed at both of them. "No fighting on the cliff. My fiance on my lap is trying to sleep."
A tiny smile touched Daenerys's lips. She was definitely awake.
I leaned down, brushing my mouth against her ear. "Enjoying yourself?"
"Immensely," she whispered. "I had no idea magical education involved so much fire and destruction."
"It shouldn't be too different from raising three dragons then," I told her, moving my lips from her ear to her forehead.
– Übel –
Übel did not know what to make of her teammates. Well, that was not completely true. She knew exactly what to make of the first one.
Dead weight.
He was a thin mage with nervous eyes, a brown cloak, and a staff he held with both hands like it was the only thing keeping him alive. He had introduced himself at the start of the exam, but Übel had not bothered remembering his name. It had sounded soft. Something forgettable. Something that belonged to a person who would either hide behind stronger people or get eliminated before sunset.
But he was lucky. Ending up on her team meant he would survive long enough to pass. If only because she would fail if anything happened to her teammates. Such a bother.
Her second teammate was the problem.
"Natsu Dragneel!" the pink-haired man had declared when the teams were announced, grinning like the exam was a festival and not a controlled killing ground. "Fairy Tail mage! Nice to meet ya!"
He had offered her his hand. Übel had stared at it. He had kept grinning. Eventually, she had taken it. His grip had been warm. Too warm. Like there was a furnace under his skin and his body had decided that was normal.
Übel decided, after about twelve seconds, that he was dangerous.
Then he opened his mouth and ruined the whole impression. "So we just gotta catch a bird, right?" Natsu had asked, punching his fist into his palm. "Easy. I'll grab us one. I've been climbing trees since I could walk!"
The nervous one made a weak sound. "Stille birds are incredibly fast and sensitive to mana. The instructors said ordinary pursuit would be useless… You can't just get one by climbing a tree."
"Just watch me!" Natus declared and was already scrambling half-way up a tree.
Übel tilted her head. She decided to take control and told Natsu to get down. "The most efficient method is to wait," she explained.
Natsu looked at her. "Wait? For what?"
Übel smiled. "Another team will capture a Stille eventually. We let them do the work, then take it from them."
The nervous one swallowed. "That is allowed."
"Of course it is," Übel said. "That is why they said it."
Natsu scratched his cheek. "Okay. So we fight them and take it?"
She corrected him. "We cut them down and take it!"
He stopped smiling. That had been the third interesting thing about him. His expression changed completely. The fire was still there, burning bright behind his eyes, but the careless joy vanished. For the first time since they had met, Natsu Dragneel looked directly at her.
"Hell no!" he declared.
Übel blinked once. No? What does he mean by no?
The nervous one made a tiny sound and took half a step away from both of them.
"Hell no?" Übel repeated. He was saying no to her perfect strategy?
"Fairy Tail mages don't kill people to win some stupid exam!" His voice was loud enough to scare three birds out of a nearby tree. None of them were Stille sadly.
Übel stared at him. For a moment, she genuinely did not understand what he meant.
Mages killed people. That was simply the shape of the world. Magic was violence wearing nicer clothes. A blade cut. A flame burned. A curse broke something it had no right to touch. People could decorate it with rules, titles, academies, and exams, but underneath all of that, magic existed because someone wanted the power to make something happen to someone else.
Killing was not the only use for magic. It was just the most honest one.
"If you cannot kill," Übel said slowly, "then you are weak."
Natsu's grin returned all at once, bright and infuriating. "Nah."
She blinked again. "Nah?" What kind of argument was that!?
"I beat people without killing them all the time," Natsu declared. He thumped his fist against his chest proudly.
"That is harder..." she pointed out flatly.
"Yeah." He cracked his knuckles. "So? That just means I'm strong enough to win without killing."
The nervous mage, whose name might have been Lemm or Renn or something equally temporary, looked like he wanted to dissolve into the dirt.
Übel smiled at Natsu softly. Not because she agreed with his logic. Because she had found something odd. "Fine," she said. "We will do it your way." For now… She added in her own head.
Natsu immediately brightened. "Great! Let's go!"
They had entered the forest with ninety-six other contestants, split into teams of three, all looking for one of the rare blue birds hidden somewhere beneath the dense canopy. The instructors had called the first stage a test of cooperation, restraint, perception, and tactical judgment.
Übel had privately translated that as permission to ambush strangers in the woods.
Natsu had translated it as permission to run around yelling. "Stille!" he shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. "Come out! We need to catch you!"
The nervous teammate went pale. "Please stop announcing our location to everyone."
Natsu paused. "Why?"
"Because other teams can attack us."
"Good!" Natsu said. "Then we don't have to find them."
Übel laughed softly. She could not help it. He did technically have a point there.
The nervous one looked horrified that she found any of this amusing.
They moved through the forest for fourteen minutes before Natsu got bored.
Übel had been counting.
At fourteen minutes and six seconds, his shoulders slumped. At fourteen minutes and eight seconds, he groaned. At fourteen minutes and ten seconds, he kicked a rock hard enough to send it through a tree trunk. At fourteen minutes and twelve seconds, he sniffed the air like a dog.
"There's one nearby," he said. His head turned and locked onto a tall tree.
The nervous mage whispered, "You can sense Stille?"
"Nope." Natsu grinned. "Smell it!"
Übel looked at him with renewed interest.
He took off before either of them could stop him. The forest did not appreciate him. Branches snapped. Bushes tore apart. Birds scattered in every direction. Somewhere ahead, a streak of blue light flashed between the trees, faster than an arrow and twice as slippery.
Natsu followed it by instinct alone. Übel followed Natsu because she wanted to see what would happen when stupidity collided with ability at full speed. The nervous teammate followed because being left alone in the forest with enemy mages was apparently worse than chasing the lunatic.
The Stille shot upward through a gap in the canopy. Natsu launched himself after it. His legs bent, the ground cracked beneath him, and then he was airborne, rising through the branches with one hand outstretched.
The Stille veered. Natsu twisted in midair, fire bursting from his feet like a second pair of legs.
Übel's eyes narrowed. He used flames like a method of propulsion. He redirected himself with tiny bursts, adjusted mid-flight, and nearly closed his hand around the bird.
Then he shouted, "Gotcha!"
The Stille panicked and vanished into the trees. Natsu crashed face-first through six branches and hit the ground with a sound like a dropped boulder.
The nervous mage flinched.
Übel crouched beside the crater.
Natsu lay at the bottom, face in the dirt.
"Are you dead?" she asked.
His thumb rose. "Almost had it."
Übel smiled again. He was absurd. He was noisy and loud and so far the opposite of helpful. And yet for some reason she didn't feel like cutting him…
A rustle shifted behind them. Three mages stepped from the undergrowth.
Übel had sensed them a while ago. Their mana suppression was decent, but not good enough. One used wire magic. One carried a staff loaded with compressed wind. The last had a defensive spell already crawling over his arms like translucent armor.
They had chosen their timing well. Natsu was in a crater. The nervous teammate was scared. Übel was crouched low.
To an ordinary team, that might have looked like an opening. The wire mage grinned viciously. "Hand over anything you have and we might let you leave alive."
Übel straightened. Finally. Something familiar. She lifted one hand, already visualizing the cut. Cloth. Flesh. Tendons. The line between one thing and two things. It was easy when she could imagine it. Easier when her target was arrogant enough to stand still.
Natsu's hand closed around her wrist. "No killing," he said. His voice was quieter this time.
Übel glanced down at his hand. Then at his face. He was still covered in dirt. Still had leaves in his hair. Still looked like a hotheaded idiot who had lost an argument with gravity. But his eyes were serious again.
"You are annoying," she said.
He was back to grinning. "Yeah, I get that a lot!"
The enemy team attacked. Wind screamed through the trees, compressed into a crescent meant to take off heads. Wires flashed low, aiming for ankles and wrists. The armored mage charged straight in, probably intending to break their formation.
Natsu moved first. His fire exploded outward. Heat slammed into the wind crescent and scattered it upward, turning the attack into a harmless burst that shredded leaves above them. He stomped once, fire flashing across the ground in a ring that burned the wires away before they reached anyone's legs.
Then he punched the armored mage in the stomach. The man flew backward through a bush, skipped across the dirt twice, and slammed into a tree.
He did not die. Übel watched carefully.
The impact should have crushed organs. Natsu had more than enough power for that. The angle was wrong for mercy, or it should have been. But he had turned his fist at the last instant. Let the fire carry the force outward instead of inward. The armored spell broke first, absorbing the worst of it, and the man's body followed the direction of least resistance. Painful. Humiliating. Not fatal.
The wire mage tried to retreat.
Natsu inhaled.
Übel felt the temperature around her change. For one breath, the whole forest seemed to hold still.
"FIRE DRAGON'S ROAR!" Flames erupted from his mouth in a torrent wide enough to swallow the path ahead.
The wire mage screamed.
Übel's eyes widened slightly. For one heartbeat, she thought Natsu had broken his own rule. Then she saw it. The flames split around the mage's body. They burned the ground to either side. They ate his wires, scorched his cloak, blackened his boots, and blasted him backward with enough force to knock him senseless, but the fire itself curled away from his skin at the last possible instant. The trees behind him did not fare as well.
A line of forest ignited in a bright roaring burst.
Natsu lowered his head, smoke curling from his mouth. "Oops."
The nervous teammate made a strangled sound. "The forest is on fire."
Natus held up his finger and his thumb. "Just a little. It's not as bad as usual…"
She didn't care about some random forest. She was watching him instead. He was not weak. That was the problem. Weak people preached mercy because they had no other choice. Powerful people preached mercy when they wanted to pretend they were gentle. Most of them were lying. Natsu Dragneel had enough power to turn three enemy mages into ash, enough control to avoid doing it, and enough stupidity to think that made perfect sense.
Übel wanted to understand that. She did not know why yet. She was also curious about this Fairy Tail place. Did it have other absurd mages like him…?
– Erza –
Erza's teammate held the Stille cage with both hands. He had not loosened his grip once in the last twenty minutes. The little blue bird inside the cage fluttered occasionally, bright feathers catching the thin shafts of sunlight that slipped through the forest canopy. Every time it moved, the young mage holding it flinched as if the creature might somehow explode through the bars and vanish.
Erza could not blame him. Capturing the bird had been annoying. Keeping it until sunset would apparently be the real test.
Their third teammate crouched near a mossy root, one palm pressed to the ground while her mana spread through the soil in a thin sensory net. She was competent. Nervous, but competent. The young man with the cage was less useful in battle, but he followed instructions well, and that counted for more than raw power in a team exercise.
"We should remain alert," Erza said.
Both of them straightened immediately.
"Yes, ma'am," the mage holding the cage said.
Erza blinked. Ma'am? She was not sure how she felt about that. She was not old enough to be a ma'am.
A distant explosion rolled through the forest. A column of smoke rose beyond the northern trees. Erza turned toward it and sighed.
That was Natsu.
A few moments later, a tremendous cracking noise came from the west, followed by a burst of cold air strong enough to stir the leaves around them.
And that was Gray.
One of her teammates swallowed, glancing back and forth at the displays of raw power. "Are those your friends?"
"Yes," Erza said.
The woman with the staff stared toward the smoke. "Are they always like this?"
"No," Erza smiled softly. Both teammates visibly relaxed at those words. Then she added, "Sometimes they are worse!"
They both gulped.
As far as examinations went, this one was almost relaxing. It was certainly not as brutal as the S-Class Mage Promotion Trial she had passed years ago. So far, there had only been a few arrogant mages who believed Erza Scarlet would be easy to overwhelm because she was a cowardly mage wearing 'armor.'
They had learned otherwise.
Now they had a Stille. They had a defensible position near the stream. By any practical measure, things were going well. Which was precisely why Erza's mind had chosen this moment to betray her.
Haru was somewhere above them on the cliff.
Her fingers tightened around the hilt of the sword at her hip before she realized what she was doing. She had barely spoken to him since that night. Heat rushed up her neck so violently that she was grateful her teammates were looking outward and not at her face.
That night. Gods…
Just thinking about it made her want to requip into her strongest armor and hide inside it for a week. She had gone to his room with him and her mother. Irene had been confident, teasing, impossibly composed, as if seducing the man she wanted while guiding her daughter into the same bed was the most natural thing in the world.
Erza had tried to be brave. Then she had gotten naked and straddled Haru, looked down, realized what was about to happen, and fainted.
She had fainted! Like some maiden in a cheap romance novel. Her face burned hotter. Technically, she was a virgin. And technically, she had been nervous. But still...
There were defeats, and then there was collapsing unconscious before the battle even began. Her mother had not mocked her, which was somehow worse. Irene had been gentle the next morning, smiling with too much understanding and saying that courage did not mean rushing. Haru had been kind too. But that still didn't help her embarrassment.
Erza closed her eyes for a moment. Avoiding him was not helping. She knew that. She was not a child, no matter how often her emotions seemed determined to betray her whenever Haru looked directly at her.
Whatever might grow between them would not grow if she kept running away. And Haru was not a man who lacked women. That thought stirred something uncomfortable in her chest.
Aela. Rias. Naruko. Kushina. Daenerys. Hela. Frigga. Milim. Ranni. Shepard. Alice. Sansa. Catelyn. Others she had likely not even met yet. Beautiful women. Powerful women. Queens, goddesses, warriors, devils, soldiers, monsters in human shape.
And her own mother. Irene had made it very clear that she wanted Erza to stop hesitating. 'Dragons hoarded treasures,' her mother had said with a smile that made Erza want to throw a chair through a wall. Sometimes a king took both queen and princess.
Erza's grip tightened hard enough that her gauntlet creaked. Her mother was impossible. Beautiful, terrifying, shamelessly manipulative, and somehow still trying to be loving in her own dramatic way.
And now Irene had dragged them into this exam. She had appeared at Fairy Tail the previous day looking far too pleased with herself, announced that an arrogant ancient elf from another world needed to be reminded that Earthland mages were not to be underestimated, and declared that Erza and her team would participate.
Natsu had agreed before Irene even finished explaining. Gray had agreed the moment Natsu did, because he would rather freeze his own head solid than let Natsu take a challenge without him.
Lucy had refused. Repeatedly. Then Irene had offered to pay several months of her rent. Lucy had changed her mind so quickly that Happy had asked if money was a type of summoning key.
A rustle snapped her attention back to the present. Her teammate by the water, who had been keeping a lookout, went rigid. "Movement," she whispered.
Erza's eyes sharpened. The forest quieted in that unnatural way it did before violence. Even the Stille went still inside its cage.
Erza drew her sword. The familiar weight steadied her. Embarrassment, romance, family complications, and Haru's impossible smile could wait.
A fight was simple. A fight made sense.
The first attack came from above. A net of glowing green mana dropped through the canopy, wide enough to cover all three of them and the bird cage. The threads hummed with binding magic, each strand designed to tighten around whatever it touched.
Erza stepped forward. Her sword flashed once. The net split cleanly down the center and fell in harmless pieces around them.
A mage landed on a branch overhead, eyes widening. "She cut it?"
Erza requipped.
Light wrapped around her body, replacing her standard armor with the black and silver plates of her Flight Armor. Speed flowed into her limbs. "Yes," she said and prepared her next move. She vanished from his sight. The branch exploded beneath her foot as she launched upward. The mage barely had time to raise a barrier before Erza's knee struck it. Cracks spiderwebbed across the translucent shield. She twisted in midair and slammed the pommel of her sword into the barrier's center.
It shattered.
The mage fell.
Erza caught him by the front of his robe before he hit the ground, spun once, and threw him into a moss-covered slope hard enough to knock him unconscious without breaking his bones. Probably.
She landed lightly. "Two left," she said.
Her teammates stared in shock. She pretty much gave up on them helping at this point.
"Behind you!" the woman shouted but Erza already sensed her next attacker.
Erza turned. A spear of compressed stone shot toward her chest. She requipped again. Adamantine Armor formed around her, heavy and gleaming, shield raised before the projectile struck. The stone spear shattered against it, fragments scattering across the forest floor.
The second enemy emerged from behind a tree, both hands pressed to the earth. A geomancer. The ground beneath Erza's feet liquefied into mud.
Stone hands surged upward, grabbing at her ankles, knees, and waist, trying to drag her down and lock her in place.
Not bad. She thought. The spell was quick, well-structured, and properly layered. The first stage trapped movement. The second would crush the target's joints. The third, if allowed to complete, would seal her beneath hardened stone.
Against most mages, it would have worked. Erza smiled faintly. "Requip." Heaven's Wheel Armor replaced Adamantine in a flash of light. Dozens of swords appeared around her in a shining circle.
The geomancer's face paled.
She announced her attack because she was a Fairy Tail mage and they were nothing if not dramatic. "Circle Sword!" The blades descended.
His spell was broken as her swords rained down. The geomancer stumbled backward. Erza sent three swords toward him. Enough to take him out of the fight next as they pinned him and his clothes to a nearby tree.
The third attacker used that moment thinking she was distracted. A blur of silver moved past Erza's left side. Not toward her. Toward the cage. Her teammate yelped as a woman in pale blue robes appeared beside him, with a hand already reaching for the Stille. She moved quickly, using some kind of acceleration magic. Her fingertips brushed the cage handle.
Erza requipped again. Black Wing Armor. Dark wings unfurled from her back, and she crossed the distance in a single rush. Her sword struck the ground between the thief and the cage. The impact blasted leaves and dirt into the air.
The blue-robed mage jumped back, barely avoiding the strike. Erza followed.
The woman was fast. Very fast. She darted between trees, leaving afterimages in her wake, each movement angled toward the cage. She did not try to fight Erza directly.
Erza respected that. She still would not allow it. And this woman wasn't fast enough to keep up with her in this armor. Erza's shoulder struck the woman's stomach before the other mage could fully process the movement. Air burst from her lungs in a strangled gasp.
Erza caught her by the back of the robe, turned, and threw her into the same tree as the pinned geomancer. The woman hit the trunk with a heavy thud and slid down beside him, dazed but conscious.
Erza exhaled. She glanced toward the cliff, though it was much too far away to see clearly through the canopy. Was Haru watching? Had he seen her fight and win?
Her face heated again, and she hated herself for it.
She was Erza Scarlet. Titania. Fairy Queen. S-Class mage of Fairy Tail. She should not care whether a handsome fox Demon Lord noticed her footwork.
And yet...
Would he tell her she had done well? Her heart gave a traitorous little flutter.
Her teammate cleared her throat. "Are you all right? Your face is red."
Erza straightened instantly. "I am fine." Erza sheathed her sword with perhaps more force than necessary. "We should move. This position is compromised."
"Yes, ma'am," both teammates said at once.
Erza decided not to correct them this time. She took the lead through the forest, senses alert, armor ready, and thoughts annoyingly full of golden tails, kind eyes, and the memory of waking up in Haru's bed with her mother smiling like the world had gone exactly according to plan.
Next time, Erza promised herself, she would not faint.
Then she nearly tripped over a root. Her teammates pretended not to notice.
Good. They were learning.
Suddenly the entire forest shook. Trees wobbled violently, the ground beneath them began to tremble. Animals nearby fled in all directions.
A giant golden furry head appeared above the tree tops.
"ROOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAR!"
– Haru –
A giant golden head rose above the treetops. For half a second, the entire forest went silent. Then the fox opened its jaws. "ROOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAR!"
Birds exploded out of the canopy. Several contestants screamed. Somewhere below us, one very brave or very stupid mage shouted something about not being paid enough for this…?
Our peaceful moment was interrupted by the noise. Daenerys squeaked and jumped in my lap. That would have been adorable if her soft ass had not bounced directly against my crotch. My entire brain stopped working for one very dangerous second.
She turned halfway in my arms, silver hair brushing my cheek, violet eyes wide as she stared down at the giant golden fox now stomping through the forest below.
Serie stood at the edge of the cliff, her golden hair shifting in the wind as she stared down at the enormous fox with slowly narrowing eyes. "What is that," she said, voice flat, "and why is it interfering with my exam?"
Irene chuckled. It was the kind of chuckle a dragon made right before telling someone they had missed something obvious. "Perhaps you are not as impressive a mage as you claim," Irene said, one hand resting elegantly against her cheek, "if you cannot sense the familiar magic coming from that giant fox."
Serie blinked. Once. Twice. Then she turned her head toward me with the slow, exhausted irritation of a woman realizing the problem had been standing three feet away from her the entire time. "Haru…" she growled my name.
I gave her my most innocent smile.
It definitely did not work on Serie. "Is that giant golden fox ruining my exam some kind of clone of yours?" she asked the obvious question.
My tails swayed behind me. Daenerys looked up at me. I could feel her trying not to laugh. I stood up carefully, lifting Daenerys with me because my tails had already wrapped around her waist and thighs, and at this point pretending I was not being clingy about my pregnant future wife felt like a waste of everyone's time. She settled against my side, one hand resting on my chest.
"Well," I said to Serie, "you did make me co-examiner." I pointed out the obvious.
Serie's eyes narrowed further. "I am beginning to regret that decision."
"I thought the challenge needed a little spice," I said. "The contestants were settling into patterns. Some were hiding. Some were ambushing. Some were committing arson." I glanced toward the northern smoke. I pointed down at the massive fox clone as it stepped over a ravine, lowered its head, and scared an entire team so badly that one mage dropped their staff and ran without it. "So I added a wandering field hazard."
Serie stared. Her eyes flicked between the forest and me, back and forth. "A giant fox monster?"
"A giant scary fox monster," I corrected. "You can't forget the scary part!"
Daenerys covered her mouth with one hand.
I ignored that because if I looked directly at her smile, I was going to get distracted again. "It will not actually kill anyone," I continued. "It is a shadow clone with about one percent of my power. It will chase people, toss them around a little, maybe roar dramatically near them if they are being boring. But if they avoid it, conserve their mana, protect their Stille, and think tactically, they will be fine."
Serie looked down at the forest. The fox clone swung one of its ten tails and sent a screaming mage tumbling through three bushes, over a fallen log, and into a pond. The mage surfaced sputtering but alive.
"See?" I said.
Serie slowly turned back to me. "You added yourself as a monster encounter to an exam about capturing rare birds without asking me?"
My tails swayed mischievously. "I am co-examiner!" I said with pride. Didn't we just go over this?
She pouted at me. I'm pretty sure her long ears were twitching. "That is not what co-examiner means!"
"It means I co-examine!"
"It means you assist! It's still MY exam!"
"I am assisting their growth!"
"You are terrorizing my applicants!"
I nodded like an old sage. "Growth is scary…"
Serie's cheeks puffed up and I had a feeling she'd be throwing some spells at me if I wasn't standing so close to her new apprentice…
Irene sauntered toward me then. She stopped close enough that her perfume brushed my senses, warm spice and dragon heat, then leaned in and kissed my cheek. Far too smugly. "You had an excellent idea, my love," she murmured. "It's not your fault if some poor uncultured long eared elf doesn't appreciate your help."
"Stupid slutty dragon…" Serie grumbled at Irene's words.
I smiled despite myself. "I thought so."
Irene pulled her lips back. "But you may have forgotten something important."
I tilted my head. "And what is that?"
Irene's eyes gleamed. "Fairy Tail mages do not run from challenges." Her smile widened. "My daughter and her friends especially."
As if the universe had been waiting for her line, the forest below erupted.
A giant breath of dragon fire blasted upward from the north. A hundred-foot glacier surged from the west, ripping through the trees like a frozen spear. At the same time, dozens of swords flashed in the sunlight as they streaked through the forest from the south, all converging on my clone.
The attacks slammed into the giant fox at the same time.
BOOOOOOOOM!
Fire washed over its face. Ice locked around its legs. Swords struck its shoulders, neck, and flanks in a glittering storm of steel.
My giant fox clone staggered backward half a step.
"HARU IVE BEEN WAITING TO GET TO FIGHT YOU!" Natsu's shout was so loud it echoed all across the forest and even reached up here on the cliffs.
Irene folded her arms and looked insufferably proud of her daughter and Erza's team.
Serie's lips twitched. I could not tell if she was still annoyed or more amused that my plan had backfired. Probably both.
And then even more mages joined in. A large group that was led by Frieren of all people. She raised her staff and a massive spell circle appeared in front of her. A beam of condensed purpled light proceeded to blast my fox clone directly in the face.
XXX
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