Some time ago, in the Fairy Tail world.
Ever since their return, the miraculous, staggering return seven years after the Acnologia incident on Tenrou Island and the subsequent frozen time, Erza Scarlet had made it her singular, personal mission to finish the entire series Kenji had given her.
It wasn't just a matter of curiosity anymore, it was a matter of survival. For her, she had nearly lost her life and, most importantly, the lives of all her friends because she didn't take it seriously.
She had informed Master Makarov and requested a few days off to actually watch everything, she didn't want to get caught off guard like that ever again when she knew she had something that could have helped save her friends.
He had agreed without question, sensing the heavy, contemplative aura surrounding one of his children. Guilt had played a massive part in her decision. Watching the events unfold on the screen of her mind, knowing that they could have avoided the black dragon had she just pushed forward and watched everything.
She wanted to know, to see the sheer scale of the threats that were coming, she couldn't help but feel a crushing weight on her shoulders for not having taken it seriously before. Had she taken things just a little more seriously back then, had she been stronger, more vigilant, or better informed, perhaps on the island things would have been far different and not just with the dragon but also the dark guild when they attacked.
She could only imagine the faces of those who had mourned them for seven years, sure they came back, but seven years. As far as the world was concerned, they were dead, so their friends had cried for them, had mourned them, and she could only imagine the pain.
So she watched. She watched it all, until her eyes burned from the light of the system screens and her heart felt raw. And through the tears and the shock, Erza had come to one undeniable conclusion, her guild was a ridiculous, beautiful, and terrifyingly chaotic place.
Even now, sitting atop the wooden counter in the guild hall with Mirajane working quietly behind it, Erza stared out at her guildmates. Her eyes couldn't linger on any single person for too long anymore. The things she had learned had changed the way she viewed her family forever. Every single one of them had their own pain and had overcome it to grow and become the family she saw now.
Her gaze shifted to Natsu, who was currently wrestling Gray over a piece of meat. 'Zeref's younger brother, Son of Igneel, ' her mind supplied automatically. 'E.N.D. Etherious Natsu Dragneel.'
She shook her head slowly, trying to reconcile the loudmouthed, fire-breathing idiot she had grown up with, who charged headfirst into every problem with a grin, with the image of someone who is the younger brother of the Black Mage himself. A demon created to destroy his creator, hidden inside a boy who could barely move when he got motion sickness. It was sure a contrast.
Her eyes moved to Cana, who was currently nursing a barrel of ale with her usual vigor. 'Gildart's daughter.' Another shock. Another truth hidden in plain sight, a secret that had almost torn Cana apart from the inside out of a fear of rejection, and she had even almost left Fairy Tail because of that.
And then… There was her own reflection in the polished surface of the counter, and she saw the face that stared back at her, it was her face, yes. But it wasnt her that she was seeing.
'Irene Belserion.' The name felt like a physical weight in her chest, pulling at her heartstrings. Her mother. The word was still foreign, a concept she had long ago discarded as a lonely child shivering in the Tower of Heaven. To think she had a mother, one that she was still out there, existing from the dragon age.
When Erza had watched the revelations of why she had been abandoned, she hadn't been able to stop herself from crying. It wasn't just finding out she had a parent, it was seeing the agonizing choice Irene had made in a moment of clarity.
She watched on the screen as Irene fought her own descent into madness, her own scales, and her own despair. She saw the moment her mother willed herself to be strong, choosing to leave Erza in a place she hoped would be safe, dropping her at Rosemary Village, rather than risking the consumption of her daughter's body for the sake of a human form.
It gave Erza a warm, terrifyingly fragile feeling. She hadn't been discarded because she was unloved or unwanted, like she had always thought as a child.
She had been protected for centuries in the womb, from the man who was supposed to be her father at that. No. That man she would never acknowledge as her father.
Unlike with her male donor, her mother had cared for her since she was in the womb, she had loved Erza, and she had been cherished in a moment of pure, sacrificial desperation, and that love let her mother save her from herself.
The "dark thoughts" that had plagued her childhood, the idea that she was a mistake or a piece of trash, were incinerated by the memory of a mother's tears.
Yet, the irony was cruel. That same mother was currently one of the Shield of Spriggan, a general for the Black Mage. Her mother, the Dragon, the very creator of Dragon Slayer magic.
The implications were staggering. Her head spun with all the revelations, so much so that she had to take a full day off from watching just to go on a mindless monster-hunting mission to clear the mental fog.
The war she watched unfold, the one that nearly destroyed Magnolia and saw the death of countless people, was something she swore to herself to stop. Or at the very least, ensure her guild was ready for the storm.
Watching her Master "die" on the screen had sent her spiraling, her magic flaring uncontrollably in her room. Everything from start to finish had been heart-racing, and while she was relieved by the "happy ending," she wanted better. She didn't want a "happy ending" built on a mountain of corpses and trauma. She wanted to win without losing a single soul.
Was that possible? To win a war with no casualties? She doubted it, but she was going to try her best, was going to keep trying.
The Starry Sky incident had been the first real test of this new knowledge. Simply by knowing the movements of the Neo-Oración Seis and informing her friends beforehand, she had saved them immeasurable pain and headache. She saw how her changes could help, but she also realized the burden was too much for one woman.
That realization led her to Master Makarov's office. After a long discussion between the two, they decided to try something dangerous, letting the core members of the guild see the truth.
She had reached out to Kenji, asking if there was a way for others to watch the "series." He hadn't been sure, suggesting she try to manifest her memories into a physical medium. "Try what I do," he'd told her. "Turn the memory into a Lacrima or something."
The cost had been steep. It sent Erza on a relentless "Side Quest" raid, jumping from one quest to another. She went with the simple quests of just fighting, one on one battles, or similar things, it had been something she had been doing before to sharpen her skills.
She cleared hundreds of missions and decided to just keep going, earning tiny slivers of system points. Kenji had warned her against taking "Normal Quests" after seeing the bizarre way, and he had explained to her how he tried to get her into a sticky situation, so she stuck to the grind. Thousands of points later, she had forged the Chronos Lacrima.
Master Makarov called together those most involved, the Dragon Slayers, the Strauss siblings, Gray, Lucy, Juvia, and a few others, too, like Cana, Levi, levi and even Marco.
He explained it as a rare, ancient magic that showed the threads of time. In true Fairy Tail fashion, the initial reaction was pure, unadulterated chaos. Natsu tried to eat the "Future Lacrima," thinking it would give him the power of the future.
Gray and Natsu started a brawl over whether the "future" version of them was cooler than the other. Eventually, Erza had to "re-equip" into her armor and slam her fist through a table to get them to sit down.
The viewing was intense. Some secrets were skipped, Makarov was firm on protecting the privacy of his "children, and some scenes were avoided when the person involved did have a say in it, but the core truths remained.
The reactions were a spectrum of shock, rage, disbelief, and silence. Natsu had gone uncharacteristically serious, staring at his stomach where it seemed Igneel was living at the moment. Gajeel and Wendy kept staring at their hands, realizing the truth about their foster parents. Gray, finding out his father, Silver, was "alive" in a sense, nearly froze the entire building in a subconscious burst of Ice-Make.
But because it was Fairy Tail, it was Natsu who eventually shattered the tension. He stood up, flames licking his lips, and declared he was going to drag Igneel out of his own soul and beat his ass for keeping secrets.
Life in the guild shifted after that. Training intensified. But everything was still the same. Erza had been scared that things would change, Lucy, Levy, and Cana had even had the gall to corner Mavis, the First Master, to demand the "real story" about her and Zeref.
The First Master had barely escaped their clutches by turning invisible and hiding in the rafters. But they were preparing. They were growing stronger, fueled by a collective vow to change the ending.
Then, the notification came. [Main Quest.]
Erza was ready. She had spent days honing her skill with her armor and the Lacrima. Everyone was ready, except for Sora, whose hesitation bled through the group chat, but he had no choice in the matter.
And then, the world vanished.
When Erza opened her eyes, she was standing in a forest that felt alien, the air was too thin, too damp, and smelled of metallic minerals. she could still feel magic but it felt weird, Beside her stood a pale, white-skinned child with an eerie calmness, a lanky teen who looked like he wanted to be anywhere else, and a grown man. She recognized them instantly from the chat and Kenji's previous descriptions.
But what truly caught her attention was Kenji.
The man stood rigid, his face pale, his eyes wide with a level of pure, unadulterated shock she had never seen. For the first time since she had known him through the chat, he was normally confident and was always on top of things. She had come to appreciate this, so it was something when she saw Kenji Takahashi lookingpetrified. He looked like a man who had seen the end of the world, or perhaps something even worse.
Erza tightened her grip on the hilt of her sword, her own heart beginning to race in response to his terror.
"Kenji?" she asked, her voice steady but sharp, cutting through the eerie silence of the woods. "What happened?"
He seemed to wake from his frozen state as he gave her a shaky smile, "Ah, it's nice to finally meet you in person, Erza," he said.
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