"You must be the new member. Nice hair there." Kazu interrupted their conversation.
Natsu turned towards him. "Who are you?"
"I am Kazu. Nice to meet you." Kazu stretched his hand towards him.
Natsu looked at his hand in confusion. Then a look of realisation dawned on him.
"I don't have any money."
"..."
"..."
"..."
Everyone was rendered silent by his statement.
"I was asking for a handshake, not money." Kazu awkwardly said. 'Well, from what I know, he was raised in the wild. So, maybe he was not that used to human civilisation or something at this time.'
"What's a handshake?"
Kazu patiently explained. "It's a way of greeting. Anyway, I heard Cana mentioning something about dragons."
A guarded look appeared on Natsu's face. "Yeah. Igneel raised me. He is a fire dragon. Have you heard anything about him or dragons in general?"
Kazu shook his head. "No. It's my first time hearing. Did something happen?"
"Igneel disappeared a few days out of nowhere."
"Really? That's bizarre. Did he say something before he left? Or anything crucial a day before he disappeared?"
Natsu made a thinking expression.
He scrunched his eyebrows as he thought hard.
"I don't remember anything related to that." He finally said in resignation.
"Well, maybe he left to do some important stuff or something. You said to everyone in the guild, right? It would be pretty hard to miss a huge ass dragon. So, the news would travel fast if he were spotted in Fiore." Kazu patted his shoulder.
Throughout the entire conversation, Grey and Cana were giving Kazu a confused look. Their reaction was understandable, as the first reaction when hearing something like 'dragon' would be disbelief.
'Now that I think about it, Kazu does always talk in a kind of supportive way? to everyone. Though that does make him feel distant.' Gray thought as he glanced at Cana, who shrugged.
"I heard that you almost beat Gray. Is that true?" Gray's head snapped towards Kazu so fast that one would think that he broke his neck.
"Who said that? I effortlessly beat him. Not even a scratch."
Kazu glanced at Cana, who whistled.
"That's not true! You were almost on your last legs." Natsu protested.
"Yeah? You wanna go again to check?" Gray was ready to throw hands.
"You guys..." Cana looked at them with a disapproving expression. 'I want to try out that ice-cream.'
"I will be the referee then." Kazu smiled.
Cana shot him a betrayed look. "What about the ice cream?"
"This fight won't take so long. We can go after that. In the meantime, you should check if Erza is present in the tavern or not."
Cana pouted. "Fine..."
Kazu then turned back to the two of them. "You guys can go all out. I will make sure you don't get hurt."
"That's even better. Let's start this." Gray joined both his palms as he flowed his Ethernano in his hands.
"It's on." Fire sprouted on Natsu's fist as he cocked his right arm back.
"Start!"
Almost instantly, Natsu sprinted towards Gray.
"Deathly Icy wind!"
Multiple small blades made of ice appeared in front of Gray as they rushed at the approaching Natsu.
Natsu mid-way jumped as he inhaled large amounts of air.
'Fire Dragon's Roar'
A large concentrated beam of fire erupted from his mouth as it clashed with the innumerous amount of blades.
'They are evenly matched.'
The fire met the ice between the two. Stream arose at the point of contact, reducing the visibility.
'Though... Gray's stamina is much larger than Natsu's. Moreover...'
In the next instant, multiple ice constructs: Spear, sword and whatnot appeared around Gray and shot towards the airborne Natsu in an almost curved way, avoiding the path of Natsu's dragon roar.
Natsu's eyes widened as he moved his neck all around, attacking the upcoming projectiles.
However, due to the spread, the intensity of the flames at each point got lower. Low enough for some of the projectiles to pass through the fire.
CLANG
"And that's it. Gray won." A yellow barrier surrounded Natsu, stopping any of the ice weapons from reaching him.
Gray stopped his assault. Natsu followed the same.
The former shook his head. "I told you. He is 10 years too young to challenge me."
"I will beat you next time," Natsu said with determination.
"That was pretty good. Gray is pretty experienced. You will get better with more training and fights." Kazu said, almost in a placating tone.
"I am going to train hard." Natsu nodded seriously.
"Yeah, there are a lot of things you could focus on in elemental magic. Just ask Cana or even Gray. Also, one more thing. Was that Dragon Slaying magic?"
"Yeah. What about it?"
"Well, it's one of the lost magics. So, it's pretty rare to find somebody using such types of magic. Like in our guild, only Laxus knows Dragon Slaying magic. He is a Lightning Dragon Slayer."
Natsu's eyes widened. "He is a dragon slayer? Where is he?"
Gray rolled his eyes. "Hold your horses. He rarely visits the guild, so you would have to wait for a bit. Also, he is pretty strong. Like Third Strongest?..." Gray turned to Kazu. The latter nodded.
"Yup, he is the third strongest, right after Gildarts and the master. He is the closest to S-rank in the entire guild. You should definitely meet him and maybe ask for advice or something. Anyway, there's a new ice-cream shop that opened. Do you guys want to come?"
Gray rolled his eyes. "I don't know why you even like that thing. I will pass."
"Well, maybe coz you are an ice-mage, but whatever. What about you, Natsu?"
Natsu blinked. "What's an ice-cream?"
"Something cold and sweet. You should definitely come to try. Also would be a good chance to interact with Erza. Have you met her?"
On the mention of Erza, Natsu shivered. "yes...she's scary."
Kazu raised an eyebrow. He looked at Gray, who had a similar expression to Natsu on his face.
"Yesterday, we had fought in the tavern only."
Kazu deadpanned. "Well, what else did you expect? Erza has become pretty strict about not breaking things in the guild. Though you guys are overreacting."
'I shouldn't have mentioned to her about how much of the guild funds go into buying repair stuff.'
"I didn't finish. While fighting, we accidentally... hit the cake she was eating."
A look of horror appeared on Kazu's face.
"I...see. You guys really have balls of steel. Even I am not that daring." Kazu patted the two on their shoulders.
"It was an accident... I hope it doesn't happen again." Gray involuntarily shivered again when he saw Erza following behind Cana.
"Well, it would be fine. Erza is cool. You just... met her at the wrong time." Kazu patted Natsu's shoulder. The latter had an unconvinced expression.
Soon, everyone except Gray went to the new ice-cream shop.
---
Date - 3rd December x777
"Why does Gray randomly lose his clothes?" Natsu wondered out loud as he took a sip of orange juice.
"Never ask him that," Levy said with the most serious tone she could muster.
This caused Natsu to look at her in confusion.
"Why?"
"It's a curse. A terrible one. That was the only thing I was told." She made a sympathetic expression when looking at Gray bickering with Macao about something.
Natsu made an uncharacteristic, serious expression as he pondered on her statement.
"No wonder he is like that. It all makes sense." Natsu nodded to himself, as if understanding everything.
Suddenly, the tavern became uncharacteristically silent.
Natsu turned towards the door.
There stood Laxus, who walked towards the counter.
"It's Laxus!" Natsu broke the silence. As if like a domino, everyone started talking again.
"Right, that reminds me. Didn't you challenge him last month?"
Natsu nodded. "I am going to fight him again." He stood up from the chair.
"Guess, I really have good timing today. How about we have a spar?" Before Natsu could move, somebody beat him to it.
Natsu frowned. "But, I was first..." He muttered as he looked at Kazu.
However, suddenly a confused look appeared on his face. "Now, that I think about it, I haven't seen Kazu fighting anytime."
"Really? Well, he has been training on a mountain nearby, so he rarely comes to the tavern, no wonder."
Natsu turned to Levy. "How strong is Kazu?"
Levy shrugged. "Why don't you see it for yourself? In fact, I am also curious. If he is showing himself now, then he must be done with his training."
CRACK
Just before Natsu could say something, the sound of lightning crackling reverberated throughout the entire tavern.
***
A/n- Guys, I will appreciate it if you guys could leave some reviews
***
Join my Patreon to support me.
You can even find 20 advanced chapters there:
- DESIRE96
(search it up)
Check out my other works.