Rewind a few minutes. After tossing Erigor to the old men, Kabe paid no more attention to what was happening over there. His focus was entirely on the small wooden flute in his hand, the one topped with a three eyed skull.
"Hey, little guy. I know you can understand me. Quit playing dead already and wake up. Play me a tune, let me get a feel for you."
With that, he fixed his eyes on the flute's three eyes, waiting for a reaction. But after a dozen or so seconds, Lullaby stayed utterly still, as if it really were nothing more than a lifeless object. Refusing to believe it, Kabe gave it a hard shake and rapped it against his palm, trying to annoy it into finally speaking up. But no matter what he did, Lullaby refused to make a sound, as if it had decided outright to ignore him. That left Kabe thoroughly annoyed.
"Fine. Like playing dumb, huh? Let's see how calm you stay once I toss you into a filthy ditch."
The moment he said it, whether it was his imagination or not, he felt the thing in his hand give a faint shudder.
"What, not a fan of ditches? That's fine, I could always take a leak on you first, then give you a good rinse in a cesspit. Might even get a Mage to seal you right in there, so you can keep company with a pile of dung every day for the rest of eternity."
This time, the tremor was unmistakable.
"Still not into it? Now that's a real problem."
Kabe could tell it was on the verge of losing its composure, so he doubled down and kept needling it.
"Ah, right, you're probably worried about being sealed away all alone. Too lonely, is that it? Tell you what, I'll take it upon myself to have you sealed together with Deliora. Only difference being, he gets a block of ice and you get a pile of crap. No idea if you demons have some kind of pecking order among yourselves, but if Deliora ever gets lucky and breaks free one day, and word gets around about what happened to you, wow. You'll never be able to hold your head up in front of your fellow demons again for the rest of your existence."
If Lullaby could grit its teeth through the first two insults and pretend not to hear them, brush them off as beneath notice, that last blow, aimed straight at its standing among its own kind, was something it could never accept, no matter what. Whatever else it was, Lullaby was a powerful demon recorded in the Books of Zeref, a demon that wielded the death magic known as Curse Kill. Being humiliated with words by a mere human was one thing, but scheming to drag its name through the mud among its fellow demons besides was something else entirely. That was harder to stomach than being killed outright, and the instant Kabe's words landed, it could bear no more. It decided then and there that it would personally deal with this ignorant, detestable human brat itself.
Back to the present.
Boiling with fury, Lullaby revealed its true form, its gaze locking onto Kabe hovering in midair at once. Its three eyes gleamed with an unsettling purple light, and after letting out a roar from its gaping maw, it lunged straight at him. It swung a fist the size of a house down toward where he stood, and against that terrifying strength, trees and boulders alike were smashed to pieces without the slightest resistance.
"Die, you lowly human worm!"
Lullaby vented the rage boiling inside it with wild, undisciplined blows, fist after fist coming down like a pile driver run amok, until it had pounded the once dense forest into nothing but a bare, flattened stretch of ground.
Meanwhile, Kabe, the very target of its attacks, had already slipped away and appeared right beside Makarov. Hands clasped behind his back, he watched Lullaby throwing around nothing but brute force like an oaf, then turned his head to ask the man beside him.
"Hey, old man. Does this thing count as an artifact?"
The question caught Makarov off guard, and he answered with some hesitation.
"It should... not count, I'd think."
"Then does it count as someone's property? A special research subject? Whatever it is, basically something you're not supposed to break. You get what I'm asking."
At that, Makarov already knew exactly what he was getting at. Rolling his eyes at him, the old man said irritably.
"Just get rid of the thing already. I'll handle explaining it to the Council afterward."
"Okay. With that promise, I feel a lot better about this."
With the Guild Master's personal seal of approval, Kabe had nothing left holding him back. He raised a single finger, and at its tip, a fist sized ball of energy slowly began to condense. Then he cleared his throat and called out to Lullaby.
"Hey, big dummy! Look over here!"
Lullaby, still unleashing its destructive urges without restraint, heard the familiar voice and instinctively stopped, turning to look. What filled its vision was Kabe's grinning face, infuriating just to look at, and behind it, a small, unassuming orange ball of light steadily growing larger.
"BOOM!!!"
An earsplitting blast tore through the air around everyone present. Before their eyes, a blinding miniature sun rose up, billowing smoke rolling out alongside it, searing everyone's vision. Beneath their feet, the ground shook like the end of the world itself. Next to this, the tremors from Lullaby pounding the earth moments ago felt as gentle as an ant hopping by their toes.
Makarov stared, slack jawed, at the forest and mountains that had simply ceased to exist under Kabe's attack. Next to the sheer scale of the devastated landscape, Lullaby, already vaporized without a trace, barely seemed worth mentioning. He turned his neck stiffly toward Kabe.
Kabe, noticing the look, glanced down and met his eyes for a couple of seconds before scratching the back of his head, looking sheepish.
"Ah, well, it's been a while since I fought anyone. Guess I got a little carried away with the power there. Anyway, Guild Master, you did say you'd help me explain this to the Council, right?"
Watching Kabe act like it was nothing at all, not the least bit aware of what he'd just done, and even turning around to pin the blame right back on him, Makarov's breath caught in his throat from sheer rage. With a strangled gasp, he toppled straight over backward, twitching as he passed out cold.
"Makarov!"
"Mak!"
"Guild Master Makarov!"
A crowd of Guild Masters, Bob and Goldmine among them, rushed over the instant they heard the commotion. But as they passed Kabe, every one of them slowed down, throwing him complicated looks that could have been admiration or could have been fear. After this whole ordeal, they'd all come to understand one thing: having a member in your guild who was simply too powerful wasn't necessarily a good thing either.
Only Kabe looked utterly innocent, with no idea what he'd done wrong to earn such strange looks from everyone around him.
At least I didn't do anything wrong... did I?