Aelius didn't even realise when he had eaten through the cup. Metaphorically, of course; his magic had dissolved clean through the material while the announcer was still finishing the sentence, the remnants of what he had been drinking soaking into his glove before that started to go too. He pulled the glove off and looked at it briefly, then dropped what was left of it. An annoying expense, though that was the smaller irritation by a significant margin. The larger one was that a name, just a name spoken by an announcer in a stadium, had made him lose control, even if only for a moment.
"Aelius—" Macao started
The man in question stood up, stepped off the railing, and dropped to the arena floor below without ceremony, landing in the arena, less gracefully than he had during the prior round.
"Aelius takes the field, ladies and gentlemen, and even with the mask on, something tells me this fight is a little more than just a duel between guilds. I dare say, we might have a rivalry on our hands." His co-commentator said something, and both of them laughed, though the laughter carried genuine uncertainty underneath it, the sound of people who weren't entirely sure what they were about to watch.
And there he was on the other side of the ring. Caius.
He looked exactly how Aelius had last seen him, or rather, how he had seen Nehzhar masquerading as him. Massive, eight feet tall or close enough it didn't matter. The axe on his back was bigger than most people, the handle and shaft lined with what appeared to be a human spine, vertebrae fitted together with care. A skull hung from him, clean compared to everything else on his person, with a gash running down the left side of it deep enough that it should have split the thing in half and somehow hadn't. And he was already grinning. It was a mixture of bloodthirsty and genuinely happy and curious all occupying the same expression simultaneously, the grin of something that had been told it was going to a party and had arrived to find the party was exactly what it had hoped for. His eyes found Aelius across the ring, and the grin widened slightly, which should not have been possible given how wide it already was.
"AELIUS! MY OLD FRIEND!" The man's voice hit the arena, carrying a volume that matched his size, and he took one step forward with the easy confidence of someone who had never once in his life considered that the thing across from him might not want to close the distance.
The announcer, who had clearly heard every word of it, found his moment immediately. "And that confirms it, ladies and gentlemen: these two know each other, or at least one of them knows the other, and from the sound of it, Caius of Asteria considers this something of a reunion! Which raises the question, and I think I speak for everyone in this arena when I say, what exactly is the history between the Tenth Seat of the Wizard Saints and the man currently grinning at him like Christmas came early?"
"Awe, don't look at me like that," Caius said, as he pulled the axe off his back and rested the head against the dirt beside him with the ease of someone setting down something that weighed nothing, despite the fact that it weighed considerably more than nothing. "Bird Brains told me all about his mind fuck thing. I promise ya this one, it's the real me." He tapped the side of his own head with one finger, still grinning. "Though, mind raped or not, I'm flattered you'd flick my head." He said the last part quietly enough that the crowd didn't catch it, which was the first consideration he had shown for the audience's existence since walking into the ring.
Aelius looked at him for a moment. "Are there wards in place to protect the crowd?" he asked. His voice didn't rise in the traditional sense, but with the right application of magic it carried louder than even Caius's roar had.
The head judge, a heavyset man in Council colors sitting in the official's box, leaned forward and spoke into his own amplification lacrima. "Standard barrier wards are in place for all battles, sufficient for most magical outputs up to—"
"That didn't answer my question," Aelius said. One could hear the scuffle of feet and a chair being pushed back as one of the officials left the box, likely to ask someone higher up about Aelius's question.
"You know," Caius said, dropping to the quieter register, "Nehzhar said you did this now. Cared for these weaklings" the way he said it was like he was genuinely upset by his own words "Im disappointed, Aelius…"
"Dead spectators generate paperwork," Aelius said.
Caius looked at him for a moment. "That's the reason? Paperwork." he shook his head as he lowered it. "Your lying's gotten worse." Caius rolled the axe handle across his shoulder, the spine shifting with the motion. "You're out here asking about wards for a bunch of people who couldn't survive five seconds in a real fight." He looked up, and the grin had not left, but something behind it had sharpened. "What happened to you?"
"Nothing happened to me."
Caius snorted, and then he lunged, the distance between them disappearing in a blink of an eye. The butt of the axe came down toward Aelius's mask, and Aelius dropped under it, the strike catching his hood instead; the fabric wrenching off his head as he straightened up and jumped back, gaining more distance than there had been before.
Caius was already pulling back, resetting his grip, looking at him with the axe loose in one hand and his head tilted. "You got weak, Morvain." He said plainly. "I remember when you were just like me." he paused before his grin returned, even as his eyes narrowed. "No. You were worse. The man I knew wouldn't have asked about wards," Caius continued, taking one slow step to the side, circling without committing. "He would have looked at all these people and thought about how many of them he could kill before someone stopped him. And then he would have decided nobody could stop him, because no one could." Another step. "That man didn't care about paperwork. He didn't care about anything but victory." Caius moved again, rushing forward, the axe held high overhead in a simple overhead swing. "Bring him back!" he roared.
Aelius stepped to the side; he knew this particular move, and he was proven right as the axe came down and split the ground beneath where he had been standing, the crack running a good twenty feet back from the point of impact, dirt splitting clean and deep before the force finally died out.
Caius straightened up, breathing hard, not from exertion but from something else, his chest moving with it. He looked at where Aelius had been and then at where Aelius was, and the grin had gone for the first time since he walked into the ring. "The man I knew wouldn't have moved," he said. "He would have taken it. Just to see if he could."Aelius still didn't respond. "Stop being careful," Caius growled, and there was something raw underneath it. "Stop calculating. Stop thinking about the crowd and the paperwork and whatever plan you've got running in the back of your head." He raised the axe again with both hands, and crimson veins began climbing his arms. "I didn't come here for this version of you. Bring him back."
"He's not coming back," Aelius said simply, not letting any emotion fill his voice. "I'm better than that now."
Caius stared at him for a long moment. "Then I'll force him back. I'll rip you apart and have Nehzhar stitch you back together. It's the only way you can be." His grip tightened on the axe handle. "It's the only way we can be."
Aelius raised his hand and muttered, "Plague God's: Pestilent Arrow." The arrow formed between his fingers; it was one of his favorite spells, powerful due to the condensed magic, quick, and above all, sharp. It could pierce most spells, its own magic eating through the other before it continued to eat the host it was aimed at.
Caius twisted, getting his forearm in the path rather than his chest, and the arrow punched through and came out the other side, the wound already turning a grayish color a moment afterward.
Caius looked at the hole in his forearm and scoffed before he swung.
Aelius moved back, and another arrow was already between his fingers, this one aimed lower, and it crossed the ring and hit Caius in the thigh before the swing finished its arc. Caius used his momentum to take the hit, and even as his leg buckled, his own swing hit Aelius, the axe lodging itself deep into Aelius's arm. The only reason it didn't tear right through was due to Caius being thrown off balance, and instead of a straight slash, it angled, digging itself from Aelius's wrist all the way to his elbow.
The axe stuck into Aelius's bone, and before the latter could wrench his arm free, or lose the arm entirely, he was lifted into the air, and Caius let the axe fall, bringing his open palm towards Aelius's head. Caius got one hand around Aelius's throat and lifted him. "Blood God's: crimson explosion," he said through his teeth, and the blood magic detonated from his palm directly into Aelius's throat. It was extremely effective. The center of Aelius's neck was blown straight through, spinal column included, the product of which scattered across the dirt behind him. Most of his neck was simply gone, the massive hole leaving his head attached only by a few strands of flesh on either side. Caius let go and let the body fall to the ground, then backed up a few steps.
The arena went silent in the way arenas went silent when something happened that nobody had prepared a response for. "We... have a winner," the announcer said, the horror in his voice sitting plainly in every word, and the statement sparked a mass ripple of shocked murmurs through the stands, and a few sharp outbursts of terror from somewhere in the younger sections of the crowd.
"We don't!" someone called out over the hushed stadium. It was Romeo, with both hands cupped around his mouth, yelling across the Domus Flau as loud as he could manage, his voice cracking slightly with the effort of it but carrying nonetheless.
Caius looked over at him, then grinned. "KID'S RIGHT!" His voice carried considerably further than Romeo's could ever hope to. "Your little Saint here, well, he's a fun fight, because he can't stay down." He looked back toward Aelius, who still hadn't moved from where he had fallen.
And then, under everyone's eyes, the hole stitched itself back together; it took less than a second for the spine to regrow, reconnecting the rest of his body to his head, then another second was all it took before the flesh closed in around the bone, and the skin grew over, just like it had never been damaged before.
"Faster than I remember as well," Caius said.
"I really hate regenerating vocal cords," Aelius said, his voice gruffer than it had been previously. "Have to get them exactly right."
Caius laughed, loud and genuine. "He ain't gone completely."
Aelius moved first. He shot forward and swept his left hand across. "Plague God's: Carrion Gale."
A wave of rot-laced wind crossed the ring. Caius took it across the chest and kept moving, the blood magic burning through it before it could take hold, and the axe came down in a straight overhead swing that Aelius stepped left to avoid, the impact cracking the stone between them.
Aelius fired two arrows in quick succession. Caius deflected the first with the axe head and let the second hit his forearm, the blood magic already cauterizing before the gray had a chance to spread.
"Still playing it safe," Caius scowled.
Aelius didn't answer with words. He pushed his palm forward. "Plague God's: Miasma."
The air thickened between them. Caius walked through it without slowing, breathing it in, and the veins flared bright along his arms as it burned the rot out of his lungs before it settled.
"Blood God's: Scarlet Brand," Caius said, and the concentrated line of magic crossed the distance and hit Aelius across the shoulder, burning through the coat and into the flesh beneath.
Aelius stepped back, and the wound closed, but Caius followed. The axe came in low, then high, then horizontal, the pattern unpredictable enough that Aelius was reading each strike a half second behind rather than ahead, dodging rather than redirecting, which put him on the wrong side of the exchange for three consecutive beats before he got a hand up and caught the shaft.
"Plague God's: Festering Ground."
The dirt under Caius's feet softened. Caius felt it and jumped, cleared the affected area, and landed behind Aelius. The butt of the axe hit the back of his head before he finished turning. Aelius hit the ground and was back up before Caius could follow, or so he thought. "Blood God's Tide." The area flooded scarlet again. Caius moved through it, on top of it, faster in it than he was on open stone, and Aelius went upward, stepping into the air above the tide.
"Getting closer," Caius said, and looked up at him. "Blood God's Pillar," he said, and the blood magic detonated upward from the tide directly beneath where Aelius was standing in the air. Aelius moved sideways, and the pillar clipped him, sending him back ten feet before his footing on the air reasserted.
"Come down here," Caius growled. "Stop floating around up there like you're above this."
Aelius complied; he hit the surface of the tide and let the rot spread outward from his feet immediately. "Plague God's: Festering Ground." The tide began to gray from the point of contact outward. Caius moved off it fast, back to dirt, and swung the axe in a wide arc the moment Aelius followed him. Aelius ducked under it and drove his forearm into Caius's ribs. "Plague God's: Touch."
Caius grabbed the arm and wrenched it sideways before the rot could set. "Blood God's: Crimson Bind."
The pressure wave threw Aelius back, but Caius's grip held, and the arm came with him, ripped clean from the socket and spraying across Caius's chest before he registered what had happened. Aelius hit the ground on his back, and the new arm was already forming at the shoulder as he threw both forward. "Plague God's: Carrion Gale."
The corrupted wind forced Caius to pivot left,t and Aelius springboarded off the ground with it, following the pivot, and slammed both palms into Caius's back. "Plague God's: Bloom." Flowers erupted from the contact points, roots driving outward and wrapping around Caius's forearm before they tried to dig into the flesh itself;f, the rot carried in the roots rather than the bloom, using the anchor to deliver.
Caius reached back with his free hand, grabbed Aelius by the face, and threw him over his shoulder. "Blood God's: Scarlet Brand." The line hit Aelius before he landed, and he took it across the ribs, the bloom on Caius's arm burning away in the same motion as the blood magic flooded the entry points and scorched the roots before they could set.
Aelius hit the stone and rolled to his feet. The wound on his ribs closed. He pressed his hand flat to the ground. "Plague God's: Festering Ground." The corruption spread outward in a wide radius this time, covering more of the ring than the previous attempts, and Caius read it and moved toward the edge of the affected area rather than off it entirely, using the motion to come around Aelius's left side.
The axe came in horizontally. Aelius got under it and came up inside Caius's reach, both hands going for his chest. "Plague God's: Touch." Caius drove his knee up before the contact could hold and caught Aelius in the sternum, the impact breaking the hold before the rot had two seconds to work, and followed with a straight elbow that Aelius took across the jaw and turned with, using the momentum to put three feet between them.
"Blood God's: Tide." The ring flooded scarlet, and Caius was moving through it immediately, the blood magic carrying him faster across the surface, and the axe came down from above with the full weight of both arms behind it. Aelius stepped into the compressed air beneath his feet and went up, the axe passing below him, and rained "Plague God's Crown" downward in a concentrated column as he rose.
Caius moved, and the column caught him across the left shoulder instead of full on, the spores biting into the joint and the gray spreading from the contact as the blood magic burned to meet it. He rolled the shoulder, the movement grinding the two magics against each other in the tissue, and looked up at Aelius above the tide with the axe loose in one hand.
Aelius came back down on the far side of the ring away from the tide and swept both arms outward. "Plague God: Breath." The rot spread slowly and wide across the stone, thickening the air, and Caius pushed through it at a run, blood magic burning a path ahead of him, the spores charring before they could settle on his skin. The axe came in on a diagonal, and Aelius caught the shaft with both hands, the impact driving him back two steps before he arrested it.
He shoved the shaft upward and drove his shoulder into Caius's chest. "Plague God's: Bloom." A second eruption of roots from the shoulder contact, these targeting the collarbone, wrapping and digging before Caius got a hand between them and pulled Aelius off by the back of his coat, the roots tearing free with strips of burned skin where the blood magic had gotten to them before they set.
Caius looked at his collarbone. The gray was already receding at the edges. He looked at Aelius. He swung.
Aelius went under it, came up on Caius's right, and drove his elbow into the gray on the left shoulder from the Crown, pressing the rot already there deeper into the joint. Caius turned into it faster than the shoulder should have allowed given the damage, and the headbutt that followed connected squarely with Aelius's mask, the force of it snapping his head back and sending him two feet sideways.
The mask cracked along the left side.
Aelius straightened up and touched the crack with two fingers, checked it, and looked at Caius.
"Blood God's: Marrow." The blood magic went internal in both arms, driving through the tissue and burning the rot from the shoulder joint from the inside out, the process visible in the way Caius's expression tightened briefly before the joint came back to full movement.
Aelius pressed his palm flat to the stone again. "Plague God's: Festering Ground." A wider radius than before, nearly half the ring, the stone softening and graying across the surface, and this time, rather than staying on the edge of it, Caius came straight through the center, the blood magic burning through the corrupted stone beneath his feet with each step, and the axe came in low and hard and clipped Aelius across the hip before he could fully clear the angle.
The impact turned him,m and Caius's free hand got to his back before he could reset, the blood magic detonating from the palm. "Blood God's: Scarlet Flood."
It hit the construct and found nothing useful and dispersed, same as every time it had tried that avenue, and Caius felt it happen through his palm and pulled his hand back.
Aelius swept around with "Plague God's: Carrion Gale" at close range, the corrupted wind hitting Caius from a foot away with considerably more force than the distance suggested it should have, and Caius dug his feet in and leaned into it rather than being moved by it, the blood magic burning through the rot in the wind before it could settle on him.
They stood in the middle of the cracked and corrupted ring, the tide long since dissolved, the stone around them gray in patches and dark where the blood magic had burned through it, and neither of them had a decisive hold on the other, and both of them knew it.
The announcer's voice came down across the ring. "Ladies and gentlemen, I've just been informed by the head judge that due to time constraints, this battle is being called a draw. Both Fairy Tail and Asteria will receive full points." He paused. "Given what we have all just watched, I think we can agree that is the correct decision."
The stadium was loud for a long time after that.
Caius looked at Aelius across the ring. The grin was back. He picked his axe up, settled it across his shoulder, and walked toward the competitor's exit without a word.
Aelius watched him go. Then he stepped up into the air and crossed back to section nine.
He came over the railing and sat down.
Nobody spoke immediately.
Macao broke first. "Why were you holding back?"
"Caius is working for someone," Aelius said. "Almost certainly Nehzhar."
Macao went still. "That's the same man who nearly killed Juvia. Before the S-class trials."
"Yes."
"And neither of you were really trying."
"No." Aelius looked at the arena floor below. "The only reason Caius wouldn't go all out against me is if his endgame is more entertaining to him than winning today."
He didn't say the rest of it out loud. Fun to Caius, more fun than fighting Aelius without restraint, would have been a slaughter unlike anything the world had seen. That thought sat in the back of his chest and stayed there.
"What does that mean for us? Macao said.
"It means more work for me," Aelius said simply, and stood. "I'll be in my room at the hotel." He made it to the edge of the box before he stopped. "And Macao." He didn't turn around. "Us implies you can assist against him, or Nehzhar. I suggest choosing your words better, because someone might actually take you seriously."
He left before Macao could respond. "....He's not wrong," Wakaba said.
"I know," Macao said. "Somehow that makes it worse."
"He's going back to how he was when he first came back, you know that r, right?" Wakabe said again, sighing and leaning back as best he could against the stadium chair.
"... what exactly can we do? It's up to Vanessa and Laxus, and honestly? If what he showed me on the lacrima was any indication, they may not be enough to; kid only listens to strength." Macao said back, releasing his own sigh as he stared into his drink.
"You said he showed you a dragon, yeah?" Bisca asked from the row behind them, leaning forward.
"It once was," Macao said. "But Aelius, or maybe something related to him, had changed it." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I can say it was easily the most horrifying thing I've ever seen, and I don't think anyone else on this planet could even contend with that thing. Just thinking about it gives me nightmares."
"...How big was it?" Romeo asked.
"Big, though it's not likeI'vee actually seen another dragon to compare it to." Macao looked at the arena floor below, at the cracked and corrupted stone still being assessed by officials. "And he asked for advice on how to kill."
"... That's gotta count for somethin', right?" Wakaba asked hesitantly. "I mean, he's still joking somewhat; that's better than when he first came back"
"Barely, but you do have a point." Macao sighed, rubbing his head as he released a tired groan. "You know, I bet a lot, and I lose even more…but im willing to put money down. Aelius might very well be the strongest man in Fiore"
"You don't mean that. I mean no one's seen the top five saints in action in years, and even if he did, God Serena is called that for a reason." Alzack piped in, somewhat shocked.
"God Serena, or God Slayer," Macao muttered, letting out a dry chuckle. Well,l if the titles are true for the number one saint, I did say Aelius has a head start. Don't ya think?