"Natsu!!"
Hearing the voice, Happy let out a delighted shout. Kageyama spun around in shock and found himself staring into Natsu's eyes, wide awake now and burning with feral intensity.
"Kid, how are you..."
"It's you! You're the bastard who hurt Happy!"
The moment Natsu recognized the man in front of him as the one who'd attacked Happy on the train, his grip on the blade suddenly tightened, and scorching heat surged up from his palm. Kageyama could only watch, wide eyed, as Natsu melted the knife's blade down to molten iron with his bare hand. He still hadn't recovered from the shock of it by the time the molten metal dripped to the ground with a hiss.
Melting iron with his bare hands? Is everyone in this guild some kind of monster?
Even as the thought crossed his mind, Natsu's other fist, wreathed in flame, slammed straight into his face.
"Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!"
Kageyama didn't even have time to scream before the blow sent him flying, and he hit the ground already unconscious, his face twisted from the impact. Natsu followed up by driving both elbows back, taking out the two flunkies who'd rushed in to pin him down. A Fire Dragon's Roar swallowed the last two, who had seen how things were going and tried to turn tail and run. In the span of a moment, all five Eisenwald Mages were taken down cold.
Once he'd dealt with them, Natsu flexed his arm into a bodybuilder's pose and crowed happily, "Hahaha, I'm back, I'm back! For a second there I thought I was actually gonna die on that train!"
"Aye, nice work, Natsu!"
Happy dropped down out of the sky and happily plowed straight into Natsu's chest. But the boy and cat's celebration didn't even last two seconds before Gray came storming over, grabbed Natsu by the collar, and mashed their foreheads together.
"What the hell were you even doing here, idiot? If you hadn't been dragging me down, I'd have finished this quest already!"
Natsu, having only just come to, had no idea what exactly had gone on. But it was simply his nature to clash with Gray, and he snapped right back without missing a beat.
"The hell are you talking about, you droopy eyed bastard? I'm the one who took these guys down!"
Gray ground his teeth in frustration. "...Happy, you explain it to this idiot."
Leaving the explaining to Happy, Gray snorted and let go, turning to go check on Kageyama and the others, to see if he could pry Erigor's whereabouts out of them. Meanwhile, with Happy's brief explanation, Natsu finally pieced together what had happened.
"I... I actually dragged Gray down? No way. I refuse to accept that!!"
He dropped to his knees, clutching his head, howling in anguish. To Natsu, he'd rather die than let Gray steal the spotlight on a job, and he could accept even less the fact that he was the one who'd held Gray back and caused him trouble.
"Dammit, I'm the one taking down that Erigor guy. Otherwise I'll never be able to hold my head up in front of Gray again!"
With that, Natsu quickly called Happy over to join the interrogation. Working together, the three of them spent a good while at it before finally getting a name out of one of the flunkies Natsu had elbowed down earlier.
"Clover Town? Isn't that where the Guild Masters hold their meetings?"
Hearing the familiar name, Gray's face changed the instant it clicked.
"Not good. His target is those old geezers at the meeting."
With that, he knocked the flunky back out with one punch and hurried off toward the train station with Natsu and Happy in tow.
"Hey, Gray, wait a second... I never want to feel that again!!"
Staring at the all-too-familiar train station, Natsu's face went pale and he immediately started begging. But Gray wasn't in the mood to argue. He grabbed him and hauled him straight onto the train.
...
The distance between Clover Town and Oshibana wasn't especially short. By the time Erigor reached the town, the afternoon had already faded into dusk. Fortunately, the regional meeting hadn't ended yet, and the Guild Masters hadn't left.
Erigor touched down on a treetop some distance from the meeting hall, watching it from afar while he hurried to recover the vast reserves of magic power the long flight had cost him.
"The Three Tailed Spirit Cat, the Roaring Lion, the Four Headed Hound, the Azure Pegasus... and Fairy Tail, too. Heh heh heh. Every one of them a famous master from a proper guild. I wonder what kind of faces you self righteous old men and women will make right before you die. Just thinking about it gets me excited."
Erigor tightened his grip on Lullaby, thrilled almost past reason, muttering to himself. Once he played it, every single one of those Masters, without exception, would die in agony under its curse. Their deaths would be the first step toward the new era belonging to the dark guilds alone, an era only he could usher in. After that, he would spread death across the entire continent, ridding the world once and for all of these sanctimonious parasites hoarding the finest resources and magic for themselves.
At the thought of all the forbidden magic and powerful dark arts the Council and the various guilds kept hidden away, Erigor's whole body trembled with rage, all of it because of those bastards' selfishness.
If I had the same resources, I'd never be stingy about it. I'd gladly throw every forbidden secret open to the entire continent.
Holding fast to this noble, selfless conviction, and having rested about as much as he needed, Erigor raised the flute to his lips, ready to play Lullaby.
"Oi, friend. Climb that high and your mother's gonna worry. Come on down."
The voice came out of nowhere right behind Erigor, and every hair on his body shot up, a cold sweat breaking out instantly.
Who's there? When did he get behind me? I didn't sense a thing.
Startled, Erigor spun around at once, on guard. But the moment he got a good look at the man behind him, he couldn't help a jolt of shock, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks.
"D... Destroyer, Kabe—"
!!
Dammit, why is a man of his standing here? Wasn't the word that he'd already moved into the royal palace after marrying the Queen?
Clearly, Erigor's information was more than a week out of date. At Kabe's sudden appearance, what he felt beneath the shock ran deeper still: wary dread, and outright panic. After all, the man standing before him was the youngest Wizard Saint there had ever been, the strongest Mage in all of Ishgar. Erigor had heard the stories so many times his ears had practically callused over: how Kabe had cut down the former Wizard Saint Joseph, how he'd walked alone into the Alvarez Empire, how he treated Ten Year Quests like a daily errand.
And it was precisely because of all that, that standing in front of this man now, his fear only grew more pronounced.