Kai lay stretched beneath the massive uprooted tree, its roots twisted into the air like the ribs of a long-dead beast. The shade was uneven, fractured by slashes in the earth from earlier spells, but it was quiet—quiet enough that he could finally indulge in what he actually cared about: looking over the flute he'd risked his spine for.
The Lullaby.
He turned it in his hands, letting the dim evening light glide across its carved surface. The wood shimmered faintly, the way living magic wood did. Not common, not cheap—dense in ethernano and resilient to most physical damage.
"Material is good," he murmured, tapping it with his knuckle. "Very good. Shame the craftsman was apparently blind, drunk, or both."
The flute was crude. Not ancient-ruin elegant or cursed-item sinister—just ugly. The kind of ugly that offended Kai as a craftsman on a personal, spiritual level.
"Three skulls. Really? And these grooves…" he squinted. "This isn't even a flute. This is a whistle like some fed a ugly tree high quality materials and forced it to vomit a whistle."
He flicked it lightly. "A very *loud* whistle. No wonder people died. They probably clawed their ears out from how awful it sounded."
A faint pulse of purple light flickered across the skulls.
Kai blinked at it. "Did… did it just pout?"
The Lullaby vibrated faintly, as though insulted.
"Oh, so you *do* have feelings." Kai snorted. "Figures. Zeref's stuff always has an attitude problem, well you can blame your craftsman for making you ugly."
He dug through his pouch—his actual, not-a-pouch magical storage tool—and pulled out a notebook, a set of fine metal tools, and an ink pen. Pages flipped under his fingers. Hand-sketched diagrams of previous artifacts, lacrima structures, rune arrays—his living archive.
He set the flute down gently and began sketching. He mapped every rune on the surface, traced every channel where magic was meant to flow, marked imperfections in the carvings. The day slid quietly into dusk as he worked. Then into night.
But Kai didn't move.
He had no intention of trekking into town while holding something that whispered *murder* in the back of his mind. Better to stay in the already-destroyed battlefield where the worst casualty would be an already-dead tree.
The whispering grew louder as hours passed.
*Break them… rip them… play me… let them scream…*
Kai rubbed his ear without looking up.
"You nag more than Erza," he muttered. "Shut up. I'm working."
The purple glow pulsed brighter, as though offended.
He ignored it.
Finally—**finally**—he leaned back with a quiet exhale, satisfied.
Runes mapped. Structure understood. Flute confirmed to be poorly made and theoretically fixable. And—more importantly—its internal magic architecture and how it was made was now diagrammed in his notebook giving him input to dismantle it and possibly use these techniques and stuff to create a similar type artifact .
He closed it with a soft snap.
"Alright. Time for a little reverse engineering."
He flexed his fingers, then held the flute between his palms.
**Tinkerer Magic: Dismantle.**
His hands glowed gold, lines of magic weaving between his fingers like a spiderweb of light—
—until the flute convulsed with a violent surge of purple energy.
"Uh-oh."
The wood cracked open like a shell. A thick, oily mass of shadow burst free, forming a swirling cocoon around itself. Kai flew backward as the magical shockwave hit him like a carriage, skidding across dirt and rocks, dust exploding around him.
He wheezed. "Okay… that one's on me."
When he looked up, a hulking shape had already risen from the haze.
A monstrous humanoid, easily ten meters tall, built like a malformed corpse carved from smoke. Its ribs protruded like purple blades. Its stomach was hollowed out—a gaping hole that hummed with runic patterns. Its face twisted into something vaguely skull-like, and its aura pressed down on the land until even the air seemed to rot.
The monster flexed its clawed hands, magic crackling like a storm.
"So," Kai muttered, dusting off his shirt his voice tired and annoyed. "You got… big."
The monster roared. The ground trembled. Even the clouds twisted away from the sound.
"I have waited…" the creature hissed, voice grinding like rusted metal. "Waited and waited… for you wizards to use me! To unleash my song! To drown the world in screams!"
Kai lifted a brow. "Right. Drama. Continue." At the very least the drama was giving him time to plan since he wasn't at full strength heck he was still injured his wounds had barely closed and his magic was still not fully recovered but enough for a battle.
"You!" The monster jabbed a talon toward him. "You dared attempt to break me apart! *You* shall be the first soul harvested in my new symphony! Be grateful… that the Lullaby begins with you!"
Kai blinked slowly. "…"?
The monster inhaled to continue its villain monologue.
Kai sighed, dragged himself upright, and reached into his pouch.
"I'm injured, tired, low on reserves, and mentally unprepared for your third-rate villain speech," he said flatly while rummaging around. "Hold on."
He pulled out a few metal discs, some cotton, a small lacrima, two short wires, a magically treated sponge piece, and a screw.
"What are you doing?" the monster demanded, voice wavering as Kai completely ignored it.
"Preparing," Kai said, already assembling pieces with rapid, deft motions. "You know. Like a responsible adult."
"YOU SHOULD BE TREMBLING IN TERROR!"
"Yeah, yeah." Kai twisted the last screw as a magic circle appears. "I am Trembling. Totally trembling like a girl after orgasm."
Within few seconds, a pair of compact earplug-like devices lay in his palm.
He shoved them into his ears with a satisfied hum.
"First rule of dealing with a murder-song demon flute," Kai said calmly. "Mute the flute."
The monster twitched. "…What?"
"If you start singing, I'm not listening," Kai explained, adjusting the fit. "Your voice is probably awful anyway."
The monster's eye sockets burned purple. "HOW DARE—"
Kai lifted a finger. "Shh. You're too loud."
Just then lullaby smashed the place kai stood only to see nothing there, as kai had appeared a few dozen metres away from there behind lullaby.
Then he called loudly since his ears were plugged:
**"Oi, Crusty."**
The demon froze mid-roar.
Slowly, it turned its massive head toward him.
The purple fires in its sockets flared dangerously.
Kai's expression remained bored, slightly annoyed.
"You done with the speech , or should I make you a buttplug to shove down that butthole looking face?" he asked.
The Lullaby trembled with a mixture of outrage and disbelief.
Kai dusted his pants, cracked his neck, and stood.
"Well? Come on then," he said, rolling his shoulder with a sigh. "If we're doing this, hurry up. I want to get my beauty sleep before sunrise."
Lullaby's roar split open the air like a rusted saw tearing through steel.
The monster trembled with rage, its hulking body swelling as purple ethernano condensed around it, forming a massive, rotating magic circle under its feet. The sigils inside pulsed like the heartbeat of some ancient curse.
"**DIE, HUMAN!**" the demon bellowed, its voice shaking the broken forest. "**LET THE SONG OF DEATH DEVOUR YOU! YOU THINK BLOCKING YOUR EARS WILL SAVE YOU FROM *MY* MAGIC?**"
A wave of dark magic exploded outward from the circle—thick, suffocating, corrupt. It swept over the broken landscape with a wet, rotting hiss.
Grass shriveled instantly.
Tree roots blackened and curled.
Even the air seemed to rot, turning heavy and foul.
Kai felt the pressure the moment it hit him—thick, oily energy that tried to cling to his skin, to seep inside him, to corrupt. Not sound that was blocked by his craft… but curse-laced magic.
Curse type magic.
He exhaled calmly.
"So it's not just a sound-based spell. Good to know."
He steadied himself, placed two fingers to his chest, and exhaled quietly as shadows rippled over his skin.
**Shadow Monk Arts — Second Skin.**
A thin, armor-like layer of shifting darkness coated his body, clinging tight like an exoskeleton. The wave of dark magic washed over him.
And…
Nothing.
Kai didn't even flinch.
Lullaby's glowing purple eyes widened. "**HOW—**"
But the demon never finished the thought.
Because Kai vanished .
A deep, rhythmic pulse echoed from where he had stood—
**Shadow Step.**
A blur of movement. A ripple of air.
Kai reappeared directly beside Lullaby's gargantuan foot, his right palm glowing with condensed force. Shadow energy spiraled around his arm, compacting into a razor-thin layer at his palm.
"Shadow Monk Arts—**Piercing Palm ,Echo Form.**"
He slammed his palm forward—
The first strike pierced straight through Lullaby's wooden ankle.
A split-second later, a second burst of the same force detonated inside the wound—
The limb tore clean off below the ankle, splintering into thousands of jagged shards.
Lullaby howled, stumbling as its leg buckled. The ground shook as the giant dropped onto one knee, sending waves of broken dirt outward.
Kai was already moving.
He dashed up the creature's lowered knee, his body dissolving into writhing shadows, gliding like smoke toward its head.
"Damn you insect." Lullaby snarled through the pain, furious now.
It raised its massive hand and slammed it down, trying to crush him like a bug.
Kai flicked his hand upward—his cloth wraps snapping free from his sleeves, shooting up and hooking onto horn-like spikes on the monster's face. Using the momentum, he swung sideways, narrowly escaping the crushing blow as the demon's palm smashed its own knee with a thunderous crack.
Kai's boots connected with Lullaby's face as he launched himself off the wraps, snapping the creature's head backward.
Still mid-air, he twisted his body landing on its shoulders and ran forward directing the wraps like serpents. They shot around Lullaby's thick neck, coiling tight.
Then Kai jumped down the behemoth's back and yanked—hard causing the bindings to pull it's neck backward .
Bones, wood, and cursed magic snapped slowly and strained as Lullaby's head jerked violently backward, its neck twisting at a grotesque angle.
The monster toppled like a collapsing house.
The earth shook. Dust exploded upward. Trees bounced.
Lullaby lay stunned, choking on its own rage.
"**HOW… HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?!**" it screamed, voice shaking. "**YOU ARE A HUMAN! MY SONG IS NO ODINARY SOUND ITS MAGIC IT SHOULD HAVE—**"
Kai couldn't really hear the demon else he would have told him that his earplugs were also magical.
The demon still panicked heard something move.
It looked around wildly—left, right, down, behind. It couldn't sense him. The human's presence flickered in and out like a shifting shadow. Impossible to track his presence was non-existent.
Its remaining leg trembled as it tried to stand, but a sudden yank from below interrupted it—Kai's wraps shooting from the creature's own shadow, coiling around its other leg.
The demon wobbled.
No.
It fought. Pressed its weight down. Forced itself still.
It grabbed the wraps.
With one vicious pull—
Kai was dragged out like a hooked fish from the hidden shadows, yanked violently until he dangled in the air. Lullaby lifted him upward, its free hand forming razor-sharp talons.
"**NOW YOU DIE!**"
The talons shot forward—
Kai moved first.
His other hand flicked, firing another wrap that hooked onto the incoming talon. With a swift jerk—he severed the wrap Lullaby held just in time to duck as the talon passed by where his body was.
The demon's talon hit empty air but it quickly noticed the insect now at his other hand .
Not wasting a moment the demon lifted the hand kai was tied to upward—ready to slam him into the ground.
But when the hand swung downward—
Only to smash nothing.
Kai was already gone.
Lullaby's monstrous head whipped around *Where* before he realises *upward*—
And there, mid-air, Kai was falling down.
A magic circle bloomed behind him, intricate and glowing deep violet.
In his hand—
A spear.
Long, blackened metal etched with rushing runes, and besides the tip—a lacrima glowing faintly.
Dark energy spiraled around the weapon, crackling, merging with his shadow magic until the spear hummed with pressure.
Kai pulled his arm back.
"Don't move," he said loudly but his tone casual. "This should hurt."
Lullaby panicked.
At once, its maw split open, glowing with a blinding golden radiance as it gathered everything it had—every drop of stored death-magic—into its throat.
A blast formed.
Condensed.
Exploded outward.
A massive beam of destruction aimed straight at Kai.
Kai released the spear.
"**Kairo Sunviel Original: Dark Singularity!**"
The spear tore through the world with a sonic scream. Dark energy spiraled around it, warping the air.
It hit the golden blast—
And didn't stop.
The lacrima at the spear's tip glowed brighter, drinking in the beam's energy—absorbing it, feeding on it, until it pulsed like a star about to burst.
Then—
It **pierced through** the golden spell entirely.
And struck Lullaby dead-center.
A single resonant thud. A heartbeat of silence.
Then—
**BOOOOOOM!**
A detonation of black and gold swallowed everything.
Kai was caught in the shockwave mid-air, unable to dodge, drained far too low. The blast hurled him like a ragdoll across the sky. His ears rang. His vision blurred. His limbs screamed.
He crashed through the ground—once, twice—until he finally skidded to a stop in a shredded trench of dirt.
He lay there, twitching slightly.
"…ow."
His voice was hoarse, pained, and very, very low.
"Why do the my crafts always blast me?" he groaned. "I swear… when I get back… I'm retiring from dark artifact hunts."
He gritted his teeth, feeling every injury screaming at him. His bandages had all torn open. His shirt was basically dust. And he felt like his skeleton had been introduced to a meat grinder .
*Is this punishment for lying to those idiots*.
He forced himself to turn his head.
In the distance… the giant demon was motionless.
Charred.
Smoking.
Cracked.
Dead ,well as dead as a living magic could be.
Kai sighed in relief.
"At least the spear worked," he muttered. "Good thing Erza's weapon collection i stole uses orichalcum, and with that move ,I have now burned through my entire lacrima in store…"
He coughed weakly. "And thank my *brilliant self* for combining them… , Tinkerer magic and shadow arts ,he had taken the stolen spear from erza and fused it with empty lacrimas them used his shadow monk arts Peircing shadow palm with body strengthening and thrown it full force with magic applied…"
He paused to wheeze.
"…never doing that again."
He fished a small silver pocket watch from his pouch with trembling fingers.
The hands crossed 11:58 PM.
"Any… second now," he muttered.
As the second hand clicked into place—
A magic circle appeared directly above him.
Clockwork symbols turned like gears. Time-magic threads spiraled down in golden coils.
Kai didn't even flinch.
His supplies shot out from his pouch—bandages, salves, splints, potions—spinning around him as if orchestrated by invisible hands. His body lifted gently off the ground into the sky high above as an unseen force wrapped him in treatment, cleaning wounds, resetting bones, applying medicine.
He exhaled.
"Ah yes… my masterpiece."
**Kai Sunviel Original : "I Will Do It Eventually."**
Minutes ago, in the early moments of the Lullaby fight—back when he still had magic to spare—he activated the spell.
He had instructed it:
*"I will properly patch my wounds… and return to Kunugi."*
Simple tasks. Tasks he could do. Tasks within his abilities and the magic he could spare else he would have said magolia or fairy tail directly.
And because he fed the spell enough magic and intention, the spell obeyed.
Even if he was half-dead by the time it triggered.
Even if the day was almost over.
Because the rule of the spell was absolute:
**If he said he'd do it today… then the magic would force it to happen today.**
The last minute of the day was still "today" .
So he had intentionally waited until last few minutes before next day to activate it so that the spell's random timing wouldn't be an issue because only few minutes were left it would have to happen within then.
Kai snorted softly as the spell pulled a cracked rib back into place.
"Oww slowly man" kai winced at the treatment before saying. "Told them… it wasn't a useless spell."
He closed his eyes, letting the magic handle the rest as his body was slowly carried towards kunugi but not before he used his wraps to grab the lullaby dropped at where the demon once stood.
He smiles muttering. " I should probably thank Eisenwald to hijack the train at kunugi station and destroying the place, otherwise someone would have surely have a heart attack after hearing that song ".
Above him, the clockwork circle hummed.
Around him, night air trembled as he was carried to the kunugi town.
And far away…
Erza, Natsu, Gray, Lucy, and Happy were racing toward Oshibana, unaware that the real Lullaby was already dead.
Unaware that Kai—
half-broken, half-smiling holding the lullaby now free—
had ended the threat on his own.