The silence that followed my small and, in my opinion, wholly justified provocation about the size of weapons and the insecurities of their owners lasted exactly 3.7 seconds. I counted. It was a delicious, almost palpable silence, laden with an impotent indignation, a barely contained fury, and probably a few more litres of blood being forcefully swallowed up there, in the command tower of that floating monstrosity. I could almost taste the metallic tang of José Porla's rage in the air. I could almost hear the grinding of his teeth, or what was left of them after my affectionate and educational welcoming kick.
And then, as I knew it would happen, as anyone with the slightest knowledge of the fragile psychology of megalomaniacal villains with inferiority complexes and a questionable taste for giant cannons could have predicted, he took the bait. Hard. With all the rotten teeth of his wounded pride.
The Jupiter cannon began to glow. And it was no longer that contained glow, that lazy pulse of a predator who knows its wounded prey has nowhere to run. No. Now it was an intense, growing, violent glow, like a miniature supernova forming in our back garden. The purple runes along the entire gigantic barrel lit up in sequence, faster, brighter, and the sound of an absurd amount of energy being channelled filled the air like the roar of thunder forming in the heart of a cosmic storm. The very air around the fortress began to vibrate, to tremble, charged with a concentration of Ethernano so dense it almost became visible.
"HE'S GOING TO FIRE!" someone screamed behind me, their voice shrill, full of panic. A scream of pure and utter obviousness.
"EVERYONE, FALL BACK! TAKE COVER! NOW!" Erza's voice cut through the air, firm and authoritarian, an order that brooked no argument or hesitation.
I heard the sound of hurried and desperate footsteps behind me, of bodies moving in panic, of wounded mages being dragged away from the line of fire by their comrades. But I did not move. I did not retreat a single centimetre. I just stood there, at the edge of the lake, my arms crossed, watching, with a calm that probably looked like madness to anyone watching, the growing glow of that weapon of mass destruction pointed directly at my head, at our guild, at our home.
(Eos,) I thought, with a tranquillity that surprised even myself. (Analysis of the imminent shot's power. And please, be brief. I'm trying to enjoy the pyrotechnic spectacle.)
[Analysing energy accumulation patterns from the Jupiter lacrima, Azra'il,] Eos's voice sounded in my mind, as calm and dispassionate as mine. [The estimated power of the shot is equivalent to approximately 2.7 megatons of destructive force, concentrated in a single, directed energy beam. In terms your organic brain can visualise, it would be enough to completely vaporise the guild building, cause severe and irreversible structural damage in a 1200-metre radius, and leave a crater approximately 300 metres deep at the point of impact, likely altering the course of the local river and causing considerable property problems. Estimated time until firing: 47 seconds.]
(Impressive. For this world's standards, at least. A bit too flashy for my taste, but the intention is clear. A seven out of ten for the dramatics.)
[Do you intend to move at any point, Azra'il? Or does your strategy involve being the epicentre of the crater for a more in-depth field study?]
(Eventually, my dear. Perhaps. I'm still deciding if the effort is worth it.)
It was then that I felt it. The familiar sound of metal materialising in the air, the golden glow of a Requip magic I knew so well. And a presence, an aura of steel, determination, and a subtle scent of strawberries and stubbornness, positioning itself beside me. Erza. And she was no longer wearing her standard armour. She had equipped something different. Something heavy. Something definitive. Something I recognised immediately from the files Eos had compiled on the skills and arsenal of Fairy Tail's most powerful mages.
The Adamantine Armour.
A massive cuirass, of a dark, almost black metal, so impenetrable it seemed to absorb the light around it. It was an armour that sacrificed all mobility and offence for a single, absolute purpose: defence. Two enormous shields, as large as Erza herself, joined in front of her body like the wings of a metal angel, an impenetrable fortress. An armour that, according to records and legends, was capable of blocking virtually any frontal magical attack.
"Erza," I said, my voice still calm, without taking my eyes off the cannon that now pulsed like a diseased heart, almost ready to fire. "What, in all of existence, do you think you're doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?" she replied, her voice firm, determined, without a hint of hesitation, her feet planting themselves firmly on the ground. "I'm going to block this shot. It is my duty as an S-Class mage of Fairy Tail to protect the guild. To protect our home."
"With that armour? Against… that?"
"The Adamantine can withstand any attack. It will hold," she said, and there was a conviction in her voice that was almost… religious.
I finally turned to look at her properly. She stood there, a statue of determination and metal, the shields already positioned in front of her, her face a mask of absolute concentration, every muscle tense, ready to receive the impact. And, beneath that mask, behind the façade of steel and the determination of Titania, I could see it. With a clarity that broke my heart. The fear. Not the abject fear of dying; Erza Scarlet had never been afraid of death. She faced it head-on every day. But a much deeper, much more terrible fear. The fear of failure. The fear of not being strong enough to protect. The fear of seeing someone else she loved torn away from her.
And it was this fear, this raw and desperate vulnerability, hidden under layers and layers of steel, discipline, and a stubborn pride, that made something inside me clench in an almost painful way, an ancient and dangerous emotion that I usually kept under seven locks and a barrier of indifference.
"No," I said simply. The word came out dry, final, a command.
Erza blinked, the surprise breaking her concentration for an instant. "What?"
"I said no." I took a step forward, my small, unarmoured body deliberately positioning itself between her and the cannon, an act of pure and utter insanity to any observer. "You're not blocking anything. I am."
"Azra'il, that's ridiculous! Be rational! You don't have any defensive armour! You don't have—"
"What I have, Erza Scarlet," I interrupted her, my voice now softer than I intended, almost a whisper, but laden with a weight that made her fall silent. "Is a silent promise I made to myself, and to you, the day we left that cursed Tower." I turned to face her, my blue eyes meeting hers, and for a brief instant that felt like a lifetime, I dropped all my masks, all my sarcasm, all my calculated coldness, and let her see, perhaps for the first time, what lay beneath. "The promise that I would never, ever let you get hurt if I could, in any way, prevent it. And, in this case," a small, genuine smile touched my lips, "I can prevent it. So, please… Little Red," I used the nickname with a gentleness that was not my own, "…leave this part to me. Just this once."
The shock on her face was almost comical. The great Titania, the Queen of the Fairies, the woman who faced entire armies without flinching, stood there, mouth agape, completely speechless before my unexpected declaration and my rare sincerity. And, before she could find her voice and start to argue, to shout, to call me an idiot and try to pull me out of the way by force, as I knew she would in a few seconds, I had already turned back to face the cannon.
[Estimated time until firing: 23 seconds,] Eos informed, with her usual, helpful precision.
(Perfect. More than enough time for a short, dramatic warm-up.)
I walked with calm, deliberate steps to the edge of the precipice, the churning, dark water lapping at the rocks. The Phantom Lord fortress was there, imposing, grotesque, a monument to arrogance and bad taste. The Jupiter cannon now glowed with an almost blinding intensity, the accumulated energy visible as a small, unstable purple sun forming within its barrel.
"Azra'il! What the devil are you doing?!" I heard Natsu shout desperately behind me.
"SHE'S GONE COMPLETELY MAD!" Gray, ever so helpful.
"Azra'il, get back here right now! That's an order!" Erza, of course, trying to reassert the control she had lost.
I ignored them all. My mind was no longer there, on that lakeside. It was somewhere else. In another life. In another world. On a sunny and peaceful farm, with a blue sky that seemed to stretch on forever.
(Eos,) I thought, and a slow smile, full of a nostalgia that took me by surprise, formed on my lips. (Access the memory archives. High-priority file. Life number 404. Planet: Earth.)
[Accessing… File found and opened. Life as a hybrid Saiyan descendant. Biological father: Son Goku, a low-class warrior from the extinct Planet Vegeta, later recognised by various deities and cosmic bureaucrats as one of the most powerful and consistently hungriest warriors in the universe. Life cycle duration: 92 Earth years. Cause of cycle end: natural death from old age, surrounded by a frankly excessive number of annoyingly loud children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren with questionable hairstyles. Status of memories and motor skills: completely preserved and integrated.]
(Excellent. One of my favourites, that cycle,) I thought, feeling a familiar warmth. (Now, please, be a dear and remind me of the fundamentals of that energy technique that the stubborn old man, my father, taught me when I was just a brat. The one he, with his irritating simplicity and unexpected wisdom, used to say was "the basis of everything, the beginning and the end.")
[Retrieving technical data and sensory memories… Technique identified: Kamehameha. Description: a concentrated Ki energy wave, channelled through the body and released in a single, potentially devastating directed beam. Fundamental principles: concentration of Ki in the centre of the body (Dantian), visualisation of the energy flow as a river, and a controlled, explosive release through the cupped palms. Mastery level achieved in the previous life: Absolute Master, with several variations created and perfected by yourself, including the "Sarcastic Kamehameha" and the "Lazy Kamehameha," both of questionable effectiveness but undeniable style.]
Ah, yes. Now I remembered. I remembered that old man, with that idiotic, infectious smile of his, patiently teaching me in the farm's backyard, among the cabbage patches. I remembered his large, calloused hands correcting my posture, his calm, simple voice explaining the flow of energy, the power that comes from the heart, the importance of fighting to protect those we love. I remembered a lifetime of training, fighting, surpassing limits, growing. A life where I had been, for the first time in hundreds and hundreds of reincarnations, genuinely and undeniably happy to fight, to become stronger, to face ever more powerful opponents, not out of duty, but for pure and simple joy.
(Thank you, old man,) I thought, with a nostalgia so sweet and so strong it almost made me falter. (This one is definitely for you. And for the stubborn redhead behind me.)
[Estimated time until Jupiter fires: 7 seconds.]
I opened my eyes. The nostalgic smile vanished, replaced by a cold, absolute concentration. And, slowly, deliberately, I assumed the stance that my body, my soul, remembered as if it were yesterday. Legs apart, knees slightly bent, hands moving to the side of my body, palms facing each other, fingers curled.
And I felt it. The change. The world responded. The ambient Ethernano, that abundant and ethereal magical energy that permeated every atom of this world, which was the source of power for everyone behind me, began to flow into my body in absurd quantities, not because I was pulling it, but because my very presence attracted it like a magnet, like a vacuum. And then, in the centre of my being, in a core of power that I had cultivated and refined over countless and painful lives, this energy, the Ethernano of this world, was… transformed. Purified. Dismantled. Distilled into something completely different, into something this world did not know.
Ethernano was magic. It was external. It was manipulable. A tool.
Ki was life. It was internal. It was intrinsic. An extension of the soul itself, of existence itself.
And I, in that moment, was doing the unthinkable: I was taking the magic of this world and converting it, in real time, into the life energy of another. A process that, for any other being, would be like trying to turn water into blood through sheer force of will. A heresy against the laws of nature and magic.
But I was not any other being. And my willpower, my stubborn soul, had already broken and rewritten laws far, far more resistant than those of this small and noisy world.
The air around me began to vibrate. No longer just with Ethernano, but with something different. Something the mages of Fairy Tail behind me, with all their experience, had never felt before. Something older. Purer. More… primordial.
Ki. The energy of life. The force that connects body, mind, and spirit. The very essence of life, forged and concentrated into a weapon of pure and absolute power.
A sphere of bright, pure, intense blue light began to form between my open palms. Small at first, the size of a tennis ball, almost harmless. But growing. Rapidly. Exponentially. With every second, with every beat of my heart, it expanded, intensified, the glow becoming so strong it was almost unbearable to look at directly. The air around me crackled, not with electricity, but with contained power, with the promise of an energy release of unimaginable proportions.
"W-what… what the devil is that?!" I heard Natsu shout behind me, his voice full of an astonishment that bordered on dread.
"What kind of magic is that, Erza?!" Gray.
"I… I've never seen anything like it in my entire life…" It was Erza's voice, and there was an awe in her tone I had never heard before.
I ignored them all. My concentration was absolute. Total. The world around me had disappeared, reduced to nothing. There was only me, the pulsating sphere of energy between my hands, and the grotesque target before me.
"You know, José…" I said, my voice calm, almost conversational, but somehow echoing across the silent lake like thunder, overpowering the growing hum of his own cannon. "As I told you before… size, in the end, really isn't everything. And the bigger the weapon, the more insecurities there usually are behind the one who wields it."
The sphere of blue energy between my hands was now the size of a volleyball. Then, a basketball. The dazzling blue glow illuminated the entire lake, the face of every Fairy Tail member, the horror in José Porla's eyes that I could imagine from up high. The air around me crackled with a power that yearned to be released.
"Allow me, then, to demonstrate exactly, and in a very didactic way, what I meant."
[Jupiter firing: imminent. Good luck, Azra'il. And try not to wipe the continent off the map by accident,] Eos said, and for the first time, I detected something that resembled… concern.
The cannon fired.
A massive, devastating, disgusting beam of purple energy tore through the air towards our guild, towards our family. The sound was deafening, a roar of pure and absolute destruction that made the very air tremble and the water of the lake evaporate in its path. The light was so intense it illuminated the entire city of Magnolia, an artificial and sickly sun.
And I, with a fluid, ancestral movement that my body, my soul, remembered from a lifetime of training and battles against cosmic tyrants, pushed my hands forward, joining my wrists.
"Ka… me… ha… me… HA!"
The beam of blue energy, the wave of Ki, exploded from my palms. It wasn't big. Not at first. It was thin, concentrated, almost delicate in its purity, compared to the misshapen purple monstrosity coming towards us. But it was dense. Incredibly, absurdly, dense. Every inch of that blue beam contained more pure energy, more life force, more… reality… than most mages in this world would see or feel in their entire lives.
The two beams, the purple and the blue, magic and Ki, met in the middle of the lake.
The impact was… cataclysmic. And silent. For an instant, the sound of the world disappeared.
A purely physical shockwave exploded from the point of collision, raising a wall of water dozens of metres high in a perfect ring around the epicentre. The sound of the world returned all at once, a vibration that was felt in the bones, in the teeth, in the soul. The light was so intense that even with my eyes closed, even with my back turned, I knew that everyone in the guild probably saw only white for a few seconds.
And then, to José Porla's horror and my friends' stupefaction, slowly, inexorably, like the high tide against a sandcastle, the purple beam from the Jupiter began to retreat.
It was not an even fight. It was not a dramatic tug-of-war between two equal forces, with shouting and sweat. It was a demonstration. A lesson. The Kamehameha, that seemingly small and insignificant blue beam, was simply… pushing. Effortlessly. Pushing the Jupiter's shot back. As if it were nothing. As if that weapon of mass destruction, that pride of Phantom Lord, were just a minor inconvenience, an irritating insect to be swatted away.
(More. I need more power. To finish this quickly so I can go and have my tea,) I thought, and my body, my soul, my cultivation, obeyed instantly.
The blue beam intensified. Doubled in size. Tripled. The energy flowed through me like a raging river, inexhaustible, the magic of the island being sucked in, converted, and released, and I channelled all of it, absolutely all of it, into that single, devastating attack, the legacy of a father from another life.
The Jupiter's shot not only stopped advancing. It was swallowed. Absorbed. Disintegrated. Annihilated.
And the Kamehameha continued.
Relentless. Unshakeable. It passed through the point of collision. It passed through what was left of the lake, turning the water to steam. And it hit the Phantom Lord fortress head-on.
The Jupiter cannon, that grotesque symbol of compensatory power and masculine insecurity, simply… ceased to exist. It didn't explode in the traditional sense of the word. It was vaporised. Disintegrated at a molecular level, broken down into its constituent atoms. And the destruction, as I had wanted, did not stop there. The beam of Ki continued, tearing through the layers of metal, the gears, the towers, opening a huge, smoking, and perfectly cauterised hole right in the centre of that hideous fortress.
When I finally ended the attack, lowering my hands which were now visibly trembling from the effort, the silence that followed was absolute. Total. The kind of silence that exists only after events that fundamentally change the perception of reality of all beings present and, possibly, of the local geography itself.
The Phantom Lord fortress, what was left of it, was still standing, floating pathetically in the now half-dry lake. But there was a cavernous, smoking hole right in the middle of it, where its glorious cannon and a large part of the frontal structure used to be. Black smoke and arcane sparks billowed from the cauterised edges of the open wound. Chunks of molten and incandescent metal fell into the lake with hissing sounds, like the tears of a dying monster. And, more importantly, there was now an entrance. A large, convenient, and newly created entrance, right in their face, for anyone who, by chance, might want to invade.
I turned slowly, my heart pounding in my chest, to face my guildmates.
The scene that greeted me was, I must admit, deeply and deliciously satisfying. Natsu's mouth was literally hanging open, the flames on his fists completely extinguished by pure, absolute shock. Gray had, in fact, forgotten to take off his shirt, which in itself was a miracle worthy of note. Lucy looked as if she was about to faint from sheer sensory overload and, perhaps, from admiration. Happy had fallen to the ground, his wings gone, probably in a state of terminal shock. Mirajane had her hand over her mouth, her large blue eyes wide with a disbelief that bordered on reverence. And Erza…
Ah, Erza. She was standing exactly where I had left her, the magnificent and powerful Adamantine Armour still equipped, but her shields, once so imposing, were now lowered, useless, forgotten. Her face, usually a mask of determination and strength, was now a canvas of pure and absolute shock. And, beneath the shock, beneath the disbelief, I could see something else. Something that made my heart give that damned, irritating lurch again.
Admiration. Reverence. And perhaps, just perhaps, a delicious touch of healthy fear.
"That…" she began to say, but her voice failed her. She tried again, a whisper. "What… what was that, Azra'il?"
I shrugged, with a casualness I definitely did not feel, my legs aching and a little shaky from the effort of channelling so much power. "A technique," I replied, my voice a little lower than usual. "One that I learned, a long, long time ago, from someone terribly stubborn and with an appetite that defied the laws of physics." An amused, perhaps even nostalgic, smile touched my lips as I remembered that old idiot. "He wasn't the type to give profound lessons on life or inspiring speeches. In fact, he could barely stand still for five minutes without wanting to punch something." I looked at the smoking hole in the fortress. "But he taught me, even without realising it, that sometimes the best way to protect the people you care about… is simply to be strong enough to stand between them and anything that tries to hurt them."
The silence stretched on for a few more seconds. And then, as if a spell of muteness had been broken, the entire guild erupted into a chaos of screams, exclamations, overlapping questions, and a premature celebration.
"THAT WAS THE MOST INCREDIBLE THING I'VE EVER SEEN!"
"WHAT KIND OF INSANE MAGIC WAS THAT?! IT SWALLOWED JUPITER!"
"SHE DESTROYED THEIR CANNON WITH A SINGLE, MEASLY BLOW!"
"AZRA'IL IS A MONSTER! A REAL MONSTER!"
I let their chaos unfold around me for a moment, feeling the adrenaline begin to subside, leaving behind a deep exhaustion and a hunger that could rival Natsu's. And then, with a voice that cut through all the noise like a cold blade, I said:
"The way is open." I gestured with my chin towards the smoking and inviting hole in the fortress. "Phantom Lord is inside. Wounded. Exposed. And, I imagine, terribly surprised. They are waiting for us. And I suggest, with all the sincerity in my heart, that we do not keep our ill-mannered hosts waiting for too long. It would be rude on our part."
Natsu was the first to react, of course. The shock in his eyes was replaced by a flame of pure fury and excitement. His hands exploded into flames again, more intense, hotter than before, fuelled by the sight of what I had just done. "YOU HEARD HER! THE FRONT DOOR IS OPEN! LET'S WIPE OUT EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE BASTARDS!"
And so, with a war cry that echoed throughout the city of Magnolia, the wounded, tired, but now furious and undeniably hopeful army of Fairy Tail began its invasion. The real battle was just beginning. And frankly, I was already ready for another cup of tea.
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🎆 New Year's Message – Author's Note 🎆
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Hi, my dear readers 💜
I'm stopping by real quick (which is obviously a lie) to wish you all a Happy New Year! May this new year bring you health, peace, great stories to read, characters that emotionally destroy you (in the best way possible), and hopefully, a little less suffering… or at least well-written suffering.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who read, commented, screamed internally, theorized, suffered along with me, and stayed here. Truly, this story exists because of you just as much as it exists because of me.
I've posted a brand new chapter as a New Year's gift. Consider it my way of saying "thank you for staying" and "let's start the year together, emotionally unwell, but happy." 💥📖
I hope you enjoy it, feel it, yell a little (internally or not), and step into 2026 with me the same way you stepped into this story: curious, invested, and just a little bit emotional.
Happy New Year, you wonderful people.
See you in the comments 👀💜
With love (and chaos),
The author ✨