Chapter 77: Nirvana's Collapse, the Unfulfilled First Love (1)
Seeing Nirvana fully activated, Natsu's group rushed forward, but to their surprise, the moving fortress was far too fast for them to keep up with.
"What the hell, why is this thing so damn fast?!"
"Well, with that massive body, isn't it obvious?"
"So that's the true form of Nirvana..."
"At this rate, we might not be able to catch up..."
They tried to pursue it together, but their speed simply couldn't match Nirvana.
Hibiki attempted to use Archive to connect with Erza and Ciel, who he suspected were inside Nirvana, but no matter how he tried, the link wouldn't go through. Explosions erupted from the top of the fortress.
Just what in the world was happening inside?
"Damn it... what's going on in there?"
"If only we had some kind of transport right now..."
"Where the hell is that Ichiya guy anyway?"
"Now that you mention it, where's Christina?"
While Gray and Lyon kept questioning Ichiya's absence, a grand booming sound rang out above them—along with Ichiya's booming voice.
[Maaaaan~! Are you all safe down there?]
"Ichiya-sama?!"
"Oi, old man!"
Appearing above with Christina, Ichiya's sudden arrival brought relief to everyone—everyone except Natsu. After all, at this critical moment, a much-needed transport had shown up.
Christina descended, landing in front of them. Everyone except Natsu and Happy climbed aboard.
"Natsu, aren't you coming?"
"Nope! Happy and I will go on ahead. You guys catch up later."
"W-Wait, Natsu!"
"See ya, I'm off!"
With that, Natsu took off on Happy's back, soaring straight toward Nirvana, while the others reluctantly boarded Christina.
Inside the control room, all the members of the allied guilds—except Natsu, Happy, Wendy, and Charle—were gathered.
As Lucy and the others entered, they were greeted by the sight of Ichiya standing there with a solemn face... wearing nothing but underwear.
"Maaaaan, it's only been half a day, but it feels so long since I last saw your faces."
"KYAAAAAA!!!"
"What the heck?! Why are you only in your underwear?!"
"Ichiya-sama! What happened to you?!"
Lucy and Sherry screamed, while Hibiki was horrified—his supposedly dependable senior stood battered, half-naked, and covered in wounds.
But Ichiya, more composed than ever, struck a dramatic pose and said smoothly:
"I just came back from savoring the fragrance of a toilet."
"...What?!"
Everyone tilted their heads in utter confusion, but Ichiya quickly shifted the topic back to Nirvana.
There was no way he could ever admit it.
That while relieving himself, he had been ambushed, strung upside down... and in that position, his own urine had flowed back and soaked his clothes and face.
"That's a trivial matter! What's important is that we destroy that monstrosity at once, maaaaan!"
"You're way more of a monstrosity than it is!"
....
"Kuahahahahaha! Traitorous wench! That's the fate of betraying me!"
"You bastard!"
"So you're Titania, Erza...? Strong, perhaps, but still just a child! You think you can defeat me?!"
"Shut your mouth!"
While Erza clashed with Zero, I lifted Sorano's wounded body from the ground.
My white shirt was stained crimson, but it wasn't my blood.
Instead, my mind was in chaos as I stared at the gaping wound in her chest.
"Ah... ah..."
My thoughts froze, my hands trembled, and my chest felt tight—like someone had struck the back of my head with a heavy blow.
Why was I feeling this way?
...
I had seen subordinates die countless times before.
And yet, in all those moments, I never faltered.
No grief, no rage.
Just the cold calculation: one more tool lost, the fighting strength diminished.
But now... this emotion tearing at me was something else entirely.
Then—something unexpected happened.
Sorano, whom I thought unconscious, suddenly gripped my trembling hand.
Blood dripped from her lips as she coughed and whispered to me—
"You're not... someone so weak... are you? Go... go and fight..."
"Why... I can't understand you. Throwing away your life for someone who isn't even family... How can you do that?"
For the first time, even the polite speech I usually used slipped away—I was too shaken. My voice trembled as I asked her.
It was something I simply could not understand.
To love another person sincerely... to risk one's own life for that...
Love... just what is it?
That feeling of loving someone not as family, but as the opposite sex. A sentiment I had never known, an emotion I had always feared and refused to touch.
And yet, Sorano showed me that very feeling—the one I had been too afraid to reach for.
Even as she lay dying, she smiled brightly and soothed me, who was the one in turmoil.
"Silly, isn't it...? That's what love is. It's no different from when you throw yourself into danger for your family... or your comrades. That instinct—'I must protect this person, no matter what, they're more precious than my own life'—your body moves before you even think. Haven't you ever felt that way before? Loving your family, loving someone... they're really not so different."
"....."
I couldn't make sense of her words.
Her voice mixed with fragments of my memories, and an unfamiliar storm of emotions surged up my throat, threatening to choke me.
She lifted her hand, reaching to touch my face.
Her blood-stained fingers left a sticky trace across my cheek—yet instead of revulsion, that touch brought me a strange, quiet peace.
"That expression doesn't suit you... Even if it was just for a brief moment... you fulfilled my prayer."
"Sorano...?"
"This... is enough..."
"Sorano!!"
With those last words, she closed her eyes.
And for the first time in my life, I was shaken by someone's death.
Why... why did the sacrifice of a woman I had only known for a single day stir me so deeply?
My hands trembled. A silent, burning voice roared within me, impossible to suppress.
The chaos in my head was swept away—leaving only this blazing emotion to consume me completely.
"...This feeling... What is this...?"
....
Meanwhile, as Ciel watched over Sorano's condition, Erza continued her battle with Zero.
But Zero's magical power outclassed hers.
Her illusion-based swordplay was at a disadvantage against Zero's formless necromantic magic.
"Kh...!"
"Oh? You're moving a little better than before. Dark Capriccio."
"Wha—?!"
"Don't mistake me for Brain. All the destructive magic he discarded in his pursuit of knowledge—that power belongs to me now."
"My attacks... aren't landing..."
When she tried to close the distance, Zero's martial skill countered her. When she tried to retreat, his necromantic spells overwhelmed her.
Unable to find a way through, Erza watched as Zero raised his hand, unleashing another spell.
"Dark Capriccio!!"
"No... I have to dodge—?!"
Erza leapt aside, but her foot caught on a root—sending her tumbling.
And bearing down on her with merciless speed, Zero's magic descended.
Erza was about to be struck down, helpless and unable to do anything.
"...."
"What—?!"
"Ciel...?!"
Just as she cried out, Ciel rushed up in front of her and opened a door with the misty stone slab he carried, swallowing Zero's attack.
Erza stared, stunned that the same Ciel who had been frozen by Nirvana's effects only moments ago now appeared before her, radiating enormous magical power.
Zero was shocked too. It wasn't only that Ciel's power had risen astonishingly—what startled him most was that both of Ciel's hands and his cheeks were covered in red scales, and an indescribable indigo mana wrapped his whole body.
"Th—this light... Dragon Force?!"
Zero looked at him in horror, as if he recognized what he was seeing.
Dragon Force: the final form of Dragon Slayer magic. A power said to rival dragons themselves, a force that destroys everything.
The word "destruction" flashed through Zero's mind and he sneered, taunting Ciel.
"How amusing. You woke up after watching a woman you met for half a day die? Did you fall for that foolish woman? Well, there are those who grow strong over petty reasons like that. I don't care. Your destruction versus my destruction—let's see which prevails, power of the dragon!"
"...."
As soon as Zero finished speaking, Ciel vanished.
Ciel's sudden disappearance came after Zero had left a gap when he launched an attack.
"Gyaaagh!!"
"...."
"So fast...!"
Even the veteran wizards Erza and Zero couldn't perceive his movement—Ciel reappeared behind Zero with a speed beyond recognition and kicked him.
Zero, taken by surprise, was sent crashing through the wall and out beyond the bounds of Nirvana.
He tore through structures and skidded along walls, his body riddled with scrapes and bruises, but regained his footing and prepared to fight again.
Ciel, however, gave him no opening to counter.
"...."
"Ughk!"
"...."
"Ghhh!"
A punch came again, and its tremendous shockwave collapsed the surrounding buildings into rubble.
Zero received attack after attack with no chance to strike back. One stomp cracked the ground; a kick leveled dozens of houses.
A thunderous roar shook all who heard it and crushed the will to fight.
"Th—this is... dragon power...?!"
What stood before him was no mere human. It was literally dragonpower itself.
Zero, convinced he was not facing a human, quickly put distance between them and poured all his available mana at Ciel.
"I am Zero, Master of Oracion Seis! I will not lose to a regular guild like you! You're not the kind of trash who can fell me alone! Genesis Zero!!!"
"....."
As Zero gathered magic between both hands, the very air warped.
The space fractured, revealing a distorted underworld—wailing shades of the dead and the yawning gate of hell itself rose up, seizing Ciel's arms and legs as he charged forward.
Ciel's movements bound by the grasp of the damned, Zero threw back his head in crazed laughter.
"Travelers of the void! Devour his soul, his memories, his very existence!"
"...."
"Begone! In Zero's name!"
"—Useless things."
"Wha... what?!"
Zero's grin froze when, instead of fading, Ciel's voice echoed from within the sea of the dead.
A magic that erased identity, memories, and being itself at a mere touch—and yet Ciel was laughing in its depths.
"The voices of such pitiful things cannot reach me."
"This... this can't be?!"
Terror struck Zero as he saw it. Ciel wasn't just resisting—he was consuming the underworld itself into his body.
The warped space unraveled. The sea of the dead was pulled into the dragon's scales that cloaked him, vanishing from sight.
"My ultimate strike... a blow that strips one's very self away, devoured so easily...?"
"...Then I'll show you. A single strike worthy of the name 'ultimate.'"
Ciel raised his right hand. From his fingertips erupted an indigo flame that soared into the sky, taking on the colossal form of a dragon.
The dark flames swirled within, interwoven with black fire, as the endless dragon-shaped inferno swallowed the clouds and roared from above.
When Ciel cracked his hand like a whip, the flame-dragon opened its maw and descended upon Zero.
"Dragon Slayer Secret Art—Execution!"
Phantom Demon Dragon-Slaying Fist!!
The dragon's overwhelming wave engulfed Zero.
Within the inescapable flames, consumed alive, Zero understood.
This was the power of a Dragon Slayer—not mimicry, but the true force to destroy dragons.
That realization was his last.
Skin stripped, flesh shredded, mind intact to feel every shred of pain as his body and soul were torn apart and reduced to ash—devoured whole by the dragon of flame.
The dragon ascended, swallowing buildings atop Nirvana before vanishing into the heavens.
"...."
As the raging mana dissipated, Ciel's right arm bore the vivid scar of scales burned into his flesh—a dragon's brand left by his own secret art.
Gazing at the falling ash, Ciel spoke quietly.
"Zero, your only mistake... was that I was your opponent."
With that, he turned his back and began walking toward where it all began.
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