📅 July 4, X791
📍 Mercurius Castle Rooftops & Crocus City Streets
Above the towers of Mercurius Castle, the night stirred with quiet unease. A restless wind curled against stones like a serpent coiling to strike. Moonlight washed the rooftops and spires in silver, casting skeletal shadows across empty streets below. The stars, unusually still, seemed watchful—as if the sky itself braced for what would come.
Teresa glided over the highest rooftop like a wraith, silent as snowfall. Moonlight caught the edges of her armor and dress cloak, resulting only in shimmering flickers that vanished in the void of night. The black Fairy Tail emblem on her back was still—a sigil of both identity and detachment.
Her sword remained equipped away. She did not need to flaunt steel; her mind itself was sharpened as a blade. Orlando atop the castellary spire, she paused, flicked her gaze across the fabric of clouds and magic currents, and felt something stir.
There was a pulse.
Not a heartbeat, nor a spell—but a primal rhythm ancient enough to predate prophecy, returning to a song it once led. Threads of distortion twisted toward the rooftops, slight but real. A tremor in magic beneath the stone bones of Crocus opened.
"A pulse beneath the skin of the world," she murmured, blade-sharp voice low. "And it's growing stronger."
Down below, Crocus strained under the change. Mages darted through alleys delivering warnings; low arcane sigils glowed on rooftops—a web of emergency enchantments. Citizens were guided inside winding lanes and behind secure doors. Wandering lamplights blinked with magical patterns—signal flares cloaked as mundane.
In a twilight-shaded alley, a faltering mage from the Blue Pegasus guild collapsed to his knees. He clutched at his chest, gasping, his leg turning cold.
"It's... crushing me," he choked out. "What is this weight?"
Around him, others faltered too. A tremor of ancient magic pried at lungs and nerve—fear drawn deep into bone.
Teresa observed all of this from above. Those flickering pulses mapped a language of dread—a melody of unspoken panic. They hadn't learned to interpret it yet. But she already spoke fluent fear.
"They don't know it," she whispered, still internal, distant. "But something's coming. And at least... they feel its edges."
She turned her focus outward—beyond the city's lights, past the choked alleys—to the horizon where the Eclipse Gate lay hidden. Though obscured, the distortions bled outward like diluted poison. She felt them: slow currents shifting toward the city's heart.
"So the door truly opens," she said softly. "Its claws stretch already."
Behind her, light footfalls touched stone. She didn't turn. She already knew who it was.
Romeo Conbolt approached slowly. His violet flame sword pulsed at his side—its glow soft, warm against the cold night. Shadows stretched behind him like roots reaching into the dark.
"Teresa… are you keeping watch?" he asked, voice gentle—afraid to break her silence.
She turned at last, silver eyes meeting his steady warmth.
"Not watch," she replied. "Observe."
He stepped closer.
"But you didn't leave. You stayed near us. Even if your purpose differs."
Her cloak shifted behind her. The emblem caught the moonlight one final time before he spoke again.
"I stay because there's something worth studying," she said. "These distortions tonight... deeper than before. And yet... they cling to something humans call warmth."
Romeo held her gaze.
"That's what we fight for. Fairy Tail taught me how to stand through pain—then taught me why to stand."
She considered him. His flame flickered. He did not demand comfort. He stood despite it.
"You believe that?" she asked quietly. "Now, when the city shakes, the future bleeds?"
"I do."
He stepped closer. "Because if we don't hold each other... we're left with fear. With echoes that break."
Her lips twitched. "You speak like a soldier."
"And still carry the spirit of a child," he said.
"Children don't face prophecy," she murmured.
"But sometimes a child faces a giant," he replied. They did not smile.
Another pulse thrummed through the night—that one louder, tremoring the rooftop beneath. Magic cracked like ice under pressure.
She turned sharply toward the horizon. The distortion had deepened. Hunger coursed in its rhythm.
"This is not magic. Not human. Not mortal. It hungers."
Romeo tightened his grip on his sword. The violet flame flared, confident.
"We'll face it. Together."
She paused. The air between them stretched taut.
He said nothing more. Just stood.
The night sky trembled.
A low, resonant roar pulsed across the city—silent but insistent.
She nodded.
"Perhaps."
Below, the city's bells tolled—warning across rooftops, echoing down narrow lanes. Rune Knights gathered. Wise mages lit precautionary wards in every ward and window. The Eclipse Gate's magic was stirring faster than anyone anticipated.
Above it all, Romeo and Teresa remained.
He was the warmth.
She was the blade.
Together, beneath the stars that feared to move, they stood silent—two shadows shaped by different pasts, united beneath one terrible, fragile hope.
The future pressed near, rotten with wings and fate.
They might be all that stood against it.