Harry was rapidly becoming acquainted with Fairy Tail's character. He'd now learned, if it hadn't been obvious before, that they absolutely loved a party.
It was baked into their DNA. They couldn't help themselves. They'd celebrate anything. So when something big came along, it was no surprise they partied even harder.
It was closer to dawn than dusk yet the Guild Hall was still thumping with music and laughter, the windowpanes rattling in place. Harry could hear the voices raised in celebration clearly, despite standing the better part of fifty meters away, tucked in the woods that surrounded the building.
"They sure know how to celebrate." He looked down. "I guess you do too. In your own way."
Ultear extended her neck, smacking her lips against Harry's body past the base of his penis. She held the position while her neck bulged. Sliding back a few inches, she stroked him with her tongue in the velvety interior of her mouth. She pulled back another inch, stroking him again. Like she didn't need to breathe, Ultear only gradually moved back, taking forty whole seconds to retract her lips.
She smirked at Harry, looking upward at him in a way that stirred Harry's heart and crotch. He touched the side of her head and she started smooching his tip, planting her hips against the purple head repeatedly.
Operation Fairy Tail was a success. Last year, before Crime Sorciere began their crusade, nineteen Dark Guilds had been destroyed. Crime Sorciere had destroyed twenty since their formation.
Fairy Tail destroyed thirty four.
It took them six days.
Most Dark Guilds weren't very strong. They were just bad investments. Any mission to destroy one risked the lives of a legal guild's members, while pay was often low. When a threat grew too large, it was the Magic Council who would put out a bounty, offering up enough Jewels to make the risk worth it.
Otherwise, legal guilds tended to avoid their dark counterparts. It was the logical course of action.
But to common people, Dark Guilds were more important than anything. These were bandits they could never fight back against, criminals that could destroy their villages and homes in an instant, or even kill them just for talking back.
Dark Guilds represented fear. And anyone who fought back against that fear, naturally, became a sign of hope. It got them talking and earned their love in a way nothing else could. In other words, it was the fast track to earning — or reclaiming — celebrity status.
Isn't it great when a cunning plan includes doing the right thing?
"Mmm," Ultear moaned. The kisses she was giving Harry's tip were increasingly sloppy. She must have been fatigued. The first thing Jellal did was collapse on a couch and close his eyes. Meredy had been sleeping as well, though with an empty cup in her hand, when Harry and Ultear slipped out. But Ultear had a different method of winding down.
Her kisses got messier and messier, smearing him with her red lipstick, until her lips parted, letting her tongue lap at Harry's edges. She continued to look at him while her tongue wiggled.
"Oooh," Harry sighed. He cocked his head as his manhood tensed and swayed.
Ultear felt it too. The corner of her lips twitched. She engulfed just his tip and sealed her lips, suctioning with all her might.
When Harry came, she easily guzzled all that was offered. Only after the last drop had come and went did she remove her lips. Ultear stood up, smiling smugly at him.
"Just as I thought, this is the way to wind down," she said.
The two of them were standing nude, their clothes scattered around the forest floor. She turned around, facing her thick thighs toward him, bending her upper body forty-five-degrees. When she had planted her hands on a nearby tree, she looked back.
"My back has been feeling awfully stiff," she said. "Won't you straighten it for me?"
Harry stepped forward. He got a good hold on her hips and thrusted into Ultear's pussy. The ripple that passed through her ass, even extending down into her thighs, was divine.
Harry quickly provided the desired treatment, driving his body against hers until Ultear's whole spine tensed.
"Yes…" Ultear moaned. "Mmm, that's what I was missing!"
Harry released one of her hips, grabbing her hair instead. Not in a violent grip, though. While his body crashed against Ultear's, he slid his fingers through her glossy hair and stroked those locks. They glittered in the light of the moon.
There was alcohol in both of their systems, along with a healthy amount of fatigue, following six days of extensive traveling and fighting. This was a sprint, not a marathon, and they were equally aware of the finish line's proximity.
Before exhaustion could catch them, they chose to go all out.
Harry plowed Ultear from behind, before eventually turning her around. He faced her toward him, one of her shoulders planted against the tree's smooth bark. Harry lifted one of her legs and held it above his waist. Ultear grinned at him, and from this angle he could see the lovely movements of the mountains she carried on her chest. Harry grabbed one, squeezing her breast with the nipple digging into his palm, stiff from the moderately chilly outdoor air.
He leaned his head forward, kissing Ultear, who kissed him back. His thrusts were short and fierce in this position. The leg he had lifted curled, Ultear finding a way to dig her heel into the spot just above his butt.
With the moonlight raining down on them, under the soundtrack of the gradually-halting party not far away, Harry and Ultear consummated the successful mission, shivering slightly from pleasure and the cold.
Harry could have used his magic to fight the chill, but he preferred to use Ultear's body instead.
She agreed.
Their kiss lasted as long as the rest of their bodies, only ending when both of them had cum, drawing their moonlit tryst to a successful end.
O-O-O
Dyst stroked his chin, engrossed in thought. Standing in front of him, Harry's smile gradually turned to a bemused one over the course of five minutes. In his hands was the magical stamp that emblazoned Fairy Tail logos.
"Really, just pick somewhere. Anywhere," Harry said.
"No, no," Dyst said, hand still pressed to his chin. "This is a massive choice. If I choose wrong, this could seriously damage my legacy! No one wants to build a statue of someone whose guild mark was on his armpit. It has to be somewhere striking. Over my eye, maybe? Would that be coming on too strong? The neck might be a classic…"
Since this was taking place in the middle of the guild hall just hours after the party ended, Dyst's voice made Wakaba and Macao groan out loud. They were lying across beds made of assembled chairs, trying to sleep off raging hangovers.
"Mine's on my bicep. His is on his pec," Macao said, lifting his head off its coarse wooden pillow. "Just pick somewhere and get it done."
"No offense," Dyst said, "but the two of you feel like washed-up old men who never amounted to anything and no one will remember. I don't want to follow your example."
Macao was so insulted that he tried to stand up, but that proved too painful so seconds later he was sprawled on the chairs again, groaning.
Dyst turned back to Harry. "I know! Where's yours?"
Harry coughed. "About that. There was an… accident. It's somewhere embarrassing."
"The armpit?"
"Worse," Harry admitted.
"Then why didn't you move it?"
It was Harry's turn to freeze, similar to how Dyst had when asked to choose where his guild mark would go. Only very gradually did Harry thaw enough to ask, "You can do that?"
"You know, I wondered about that," Meredy said quietly.
She drank infinitely less than Fairy Tail's elder statesmen, but her tolerance was non-existent. She'd been buzzed by the time she went to bed and woke up with a stinging behind her eyes, which she was trying to drown in scrambled eggs.
"Guild marks aren't permanent?" Harry said.
"How else would it be possible to leave a guild?" Meredy asked.
"Even I knew that, and I'm from the middle of nowhere," Dyst said.
Harry moaned, dropping into a chair and holding his head. "No one told me… No one told me!"
The only one who was equally stunned was Laki, who had frozen mid-bite of her breakfast, her jaw hanging open.
"No one showed me how to take a guild mark off!" she said.
"You just press the stamp on the same spot without putting any ink," Wakaba grunted. "That'll take the mark straight off."
"You didn't know?" Macao asked. "Wow, some mark-giver you are."
Laki threw her fork down. "You're the one who gave me the job without telling me anything!"
As Macao continued to tease her, ultimately resulting in Laki abusing him with her magic, Harry said, "My palm."
"What?" Dyst asked.
Harry looked up at him. "My palm. That's where I'll put my guild mark, once I get it moved."
"Hm… That isn't my style," Dyst said. "I need something memorable. Somewhere that'll stand out!" No one had cleaned up from the night before yet, and Dyst caught sight of his reflection in a puddle of spilled alcohol.
He grinned, looking at Harry excitedly. "I've got it!"
Minutes later, once Dyst had picked a color, Harry held the back of his head and pressed the stamp forward. When he lifted it, a gray guild mark was left on Dyst's cheek, visible to anyone who looked at him.
"You're sure about this?" Harry asked.
"It's perfect!" Dyst said. "Stylish, memorable, and perfectly photogenic!"
The guild door opened, admitting a smiling Ultear. Looking at her would give no hint of how she spent the past night. She'd put herself together as flawlessly as ever.
"You're in luck," Ultear informed Dyst. "The chance to show it off has fallen into your lap. We have guests."
Everyone in the Guild Hall gave her their attention, even the ones who'd been trying to catch up on sleep.
"Who could it be?" Macao asked.
A man appeared behind Ultear in the doorway, so enormous that she hardly blocked the view of him. The long beard that trailed off his chin and his bald head gave the impression of a monk, but his muscles looked more like a body builder.
The first thing he did was lower his head.
"Greetings, Fairy Tail," he said in a deep voice. "We have matters to discuss, if you'll accept me as your guest."
O-O-O
"I see! So you are the new guildmaster," Jura said. "It is a pleasure to meet you."
He held his hand out across the table where they were sitting. Harry shook it, feeling a bit like a child. He was a tall man himself at over six feet, but Jura was a foot taller than him. Harry's whole hand fit in his palm, making it difficult to shake right.
Jura's grip was surprisingly soft, though his skin was as calloused as Harry expected.
"Likewise," Harry said. "And these are your guildmates?"
Jura wasn't visiting alone. As a member of Lamia Scale, he was traveling with fellow mages. There were three of them in total— a white-haired teen who was looking sadly around the room, searching for something he couldn't find; someone who looked half-dog and half-human, wearing both a smile and a sock necklace over his bare chest; and lastly a girl no older than sixteen with bright red hair that stuck out on either side.
The girl was looking directly at the ground and had been since they arrived, while the dog-man stared daggers behind Harry, straight at Dyst.
"Yes," Jura said. "These are Lyon—" The white haired boy. "—Toby Horhorta—" The dog-man. "—and Sherria Blendy, our rising star."
The redhead shifted at Jura's praise, lifting her gaze for the first time since arriving.
"I confess," Jura said, "I had not heard of you before this week. You've accomplished much. And at such a young age, for a Guild Master!"
Coming from someone else, Harry might have read into that as a backhanded compliment, but Jura didn't seem the type. He carried himself honestly. From just a few exchanges, Harry was confident that if Jura had something to say he was the type to just go for it. Not hedge his feelings in wordplay.
Besides, it was clear that the girl with him, Sherria, was uncomfortable for some reason. Jura's praise was the only thing that got her to raise her head, and Harry was almost certain that he offered it for exactly that reason, just to perk her up.
"I do my best," Harry said. "I hear that you're a Wizard Saint. You must be pretty strong yourself."
Jura laughed boisterously, while at the same time his guildmates looked at Harry. Pretty strong? Lyon mouthed.
"Indeed!" Jura said. "I am quite strong. Perhaps because of that, the Magic Council works closely with me. When concerted action is required between many legal guilds, they've been known to charge me with leading the venture. Now is one of those times."
"Hoh?" Harry leaned forward. "This sounds interesting."
"In three days, Fiore's top three guilds will strike the largest assassination guild on the continent," Jura declared. "Death's Head Caucus has claimed far too many innocent lives. Their reckoning has been coming for a great time, and we will be the ones to deliver it."
"It isn't a lack of motivation that's spared that guild," Ultear said, listening while leaning on a table nearby, Meredy sitting beside her. "They cover their tracks with perfect secrecy. No one knows their true location, numbers, or strength. Taking them on is the ultimate risk— even if they've been found."
"Perhaps," Jura said. "We have a plan. Their strongest team has been deployed against a target who does not exist, following a ruse by the Magic Council. Through extensive study, we've located the base that they left from. A small and elite team will face their strongest members in battle, while a combined force will besiege the rest of the guild. By the time the sun sets, they will have accepted their final job."
"Well, you've sold me," Harry said. "You talk a good game, Jura Neekiss. And frankly, we aren't too picky about work at the moment."
A gust of wind from the door fluttered the two papers pinned to the Request Board. Their exploits over the last week had boosted Fairy Tail's fame, which would bring in better jobs, but it wasn't an instant process. And more acclaim was never a bad thing.
"We aren't exactly one of the top three guilds in Fiore yet, though," Harry said. "I wouldn't have thought we'd qualify for this."
"In truth, Harry-dono, you did not," Jura said. "The original plan featured only three guilds. My own, Sabertooth, and Mermaid Heel. However, I do not believe proceeding without the most proficient Dark Guild hunters in Fiore would be advisable."
He laid his forearm flat, leaning forward, which accidentally lifted Harry's side of the table from his sheer weight. "It had been a long time since I heard Fairy Tail's name." Jura's eyes were serious. "When the news reached me, I was overjoyed."
Jura didn't need to visit. He could have proceeded with the original plan, handling it with the resources he already had. Bringing Fairy tail into this was a decision he made on his own.
"You can count on us," Harry said.
"I always could," Jura said.
He stood up, unintentionally causing a crash as the table returned to all four of its legs. Jura blinked, not having realized what he was doing, before stepping back.
"Come along, you three," he said. "We've accomplished our goal."
"Wait!" Dyst said.
Jura stopped, but he wasn't the one Dyst was looking at.
Dyst opened his mouth, staring at Sherria, the young girl who'd been avoiding looking at him. When it looked like was going to speak, he stopped, looking away. Finally he said, "Sorry."
"You think that cuts it!" Toby howled. The dog man was so mad that he threw his arm out, making his sock flop against his chest. "After beating her unconscious—!"
"I beat you, too," Dyst said. "That's why I'm apologizing. Sorry."
His voice wasn't all that convincing, and his flat expression wasn't much better. The apology to Sherria had seemed a little more sincere. With Dyst's attention on her, she'd gone back to looking at the ground.
"You know each other?" Harry asked.
"They investigated Hydra Shadow," Dyst said. "The guild sent me out, and I did my job."
"You left Sherria knocked out in the street!" Toby said.
"Why do you keep phrasing it like that? I left you next to her—"
"Why did you do it?" Sherria asked.
She finally looked up, and even if he scared her she met Dyst's eyes. It seemed like he wanted to look away again. But he didn't.
"I thought I was going to be someone great," Dyst said. "I mean, I am. But I thought what I did didn't matter because once I was living forever, I'd be a king. I'd rule so well that the little things before didn't matter. But someone pointed out to me that life isn't meant to be that long, and I started thinking… Maybe the little things add up. Like beating people unconscious and leaving them in the street. I don't want that to be my legacy."
"Okay," Sherria said. "As long as you've learned."
It wasn't quite forgiveness. He hadn't proved that he deserved that. But it was acknowledgement that he was trying to change, and she wouldn't insult that.
"I'll see you in the Grand Magic Games!" Toby said, pointing at Dyst. His fingernail elongated as he did, catching Harry's attention. "I'll pay you back there for what you did to Sherria!"
Sherria sighed, while Dyst cocked his head. "But you already tried in Crocus—"
"I'll see you there!" Toby stomped away.
"Yes…" The envoy was ready to leave, but Jura stopped in front of the door. He looked thoughtfully over the Guild Hall, his eyes lingering on Harry the longest. At the end, he grinned. "I have a suspicion the games will be particularly engaging this year. Though, first, we have business to attend to."
"See you in three days?" Harry said.
"In three days," Jura said.
This promised to be fun.