Back in the audience area, everyone could see a large projection in the sky, showing various perspectives. This was achieved through an artefact. A guild member was assigned to oversee which perspective to display.
"Gray and Natsu had made contact with Kazu."
"Guess, it's the end for them."
"You shouldn't come to conclusions this early. I heard that both of them had been performing quite well in the last few months. They might surprise us."
Everyone focused on the screen, which was magnified now."
"Now, I didn't expect you two to partner up. Let's see how far you both have come." Kazu grinned.
Whoosh
Immediately after Kazu said that, multiple bullets formed around Kazu, before they shot towards the duo at blinding speeds.
Gray jumped in front of Natsu just as a magic circle materialised in front of him.
"Ice-Make: Absolute Freeze!"
Ice started forming on the ground, with him as the centre.
Ice started forming around the Ethernano spheres as their speed slowed down, before stopping completely before they could touch Gray.
His expression magnified on the screen.
"You need to try harder," Gray smirked.
"Wooh!"
"Damn, he knows how to put on a show. Looking at him, I think I might have to up my training" Macao rubbed his nose in embarrassment.
"Jeez. Didn't you become a father recently? You should spend more time with your family instead." Wakaba sipped from the beer can he was drinking.
"Maybe."
Back to the screen, Kazu raised a brow. "Aren't you getting a bit arrogant these days. How about this?"
A big sphere of Ethernano materialised in front of him, before it started getting compressed.
BOOM
As if a gun had fired, a loud voice reverberated throughout the forest, as the small compressed magic bullet rushed to Gray.
"Fire Dragon's Roar!"
A beam of fire shot and intercepted the magic bullet, before engulfing it.
Kazu jumped back as he barely dodged the fire.
"Oh my god. You two haven't done any doping, right?" He asked while fanning his head due to the heat. He looked back and saw all the trees behind him on fire. 'That was my strongest magic bullet, yet Natsu easily overpowered it. Truly a protagonist material.'
"Nope. We tried your training method. You know, just focusing on training and nothing else in an isolated place. It seems it wasn't a bad idea, seeing your reaction."
Kazu raised a brow. "Wow! That's amazing. How about we do some close-combat?" He disappeared from his position and appeared in front of Natsu with his arm cocked back.
Yellow coloured Ethernano covered his fist as it clashed with Natsu's flame-covered fist.
"Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!"
BOOOOM
Air violently trembled as both of them clashed. Nobody moved back for a moment, as if evenly matched.
However, a few moments later, Natsu shot back like a Cannonball.
"Okay, so, my offensive power still is workable against you. You almost made me doubt myself for a second." Kazu chuckled.
He then looked down and found his legs frozen in ice.
"Your barrier can stop the ice from reaching your barrier, but I can still freeze the barrier. Moreover, you are still affected by temperature, no? Not only did you get sweat from Natsu's attack, but you still need air to breathe." Gray smirked as multiple ice projectiles formed around him before rushing at Kazu.
Kazu smiled. "You got me." Multiple magic bullets, along with barriers formed around to intercept those projectiles, as Kazu punched at his legs. Shards of ice broke out.
'The air is too cold. I can't breathe that.' Multiple magic bullets formed around him as they rushed at the ice beneath him, breaking him free.
Kazu then bolted back, away from Gray.
He took a deep breath. 'Natsu's ranged attacks are stronger than mine. And I can't get closer because of Gray...Their improvement is crazy. I won't be surprised if they could easily overpower Erza together. Though that's considering that Erza hasn't had any significant improvement like that.'
Kazu was truly baffled at their improvement.
"Fire Dragon's Roar!"
Natsu fired another roar at Kazu. This time, the latter didn't move.
'Destructive interference' A magic circle formed in the path of the fire, as the spell broke down.
Kazu frowned as a large portion of the original attack still rushed at him.
'Damn it. Gray must have trained him in converting the Ethernano into fire in the start only. The only thing my spell could break is the aim part, and keeping most of it together, but those become meaningless when his roar reaches within the area I could use Destructive Interference, as by then it's too close.'
THUD
A barrier formed in front of Kazu as it tanked the attack.
Kazu jumped back, away from the heat.
"Damn. Did you two improve your skills in this way to counter me?"
"Maybe." Gray's smirk gave away the answer.
Multiple weapons made of ice ran down on Kazu, as a barrier formed around him, stopping everything.
'Well, this is to be expected. As I become famous, people will bring ways to counter me. For such incidents, either I need to become so strong that even if they know my abilities, they couldn't do anything or...' Kazu rushed at the two.
His smirk made Gray confused and cautious. "What are you up to?"
"Do you know the problem with specialisation? You would have a weakness to things that you aren't good at."
A green barrier enveloped both Gray and Natsu.
"Break the barrier. I don't know what it does, but quick!" Gray shouted, but he got no response.
He glanced back and saw Natsu lying on the ground, unconscious.
'Huh, when did—' Suddenly, a wave of drowsiness washed over Gray. He struggled to keep his eyes open.
"Maybe you should also work on improving your skill set to counter such effects." That was the last thing he heard before sleep overcame him.
Kazu looked at the passed-down duo with a smirk. 'The other way would be to have a hidden card, like this. Though it's not really reliable in the long term. I really need to become stronger.' He looked at the sky before releasing a sigh.
---
Laxus looked at 4 individuals in front of him with a neutral expression.
"Can we pretend that we didn't see each other and go our own way?" Levy nervously suggested.
Evergreen beside her frowned, but remained silent.
"How can we do that? It's not every day we geta chance to fight a powerhouse?" Dolls started floating around Bickslow before they started firing energy blasts.
CRACK
Lightning emitted from Laxus's body in a protective cocoon, shielding him from any blasts.
"Do we really have to do it? It would have been much better if we had avoided him." Fried sighed as he unsheathed his sword.
Though all three of them were newcomers in the guild, they weren't oblivious to Laxus's reputation.
A volley of purple beams came out of his sword as they rushed at Laxus.
'Dark Écriture: Pain' His right eye turned purple.
Just as Fried released his attack, Evergreen removed her glasses and looked directly at Laxus, waiting for him to look at her to turn him to stone.
"You guys really have interesting magic. Two people with eye-related magic. Pretty interesting."
Fried flinched when he heard the voice from his side.
He quickly snapped his head towards his right and saw both Evergreen and Levy knocked out.
'Did he know about her magic? Or did he guess it by his own experience? I didn't even see him move.' Fried raised his guard to the maximum.
"You seem pretty good with that sword. How about you show me some of your moves?" Fried didn't have time to react as Laxus appeared before him, before punching towards his face.
Fried barely ducked in time. 'This is actually good. I just need to get one hit on him.' Fried didn't show any change in expression outwardly, but internally, he was feeling happy as he might have gotten the best opportunity to take down Laxus.
Runes covered his sword, causing it to shine in a purple colour.
Fried slashed at Laxus, who sidestepped his attack, before counterattacking with a kick.
What followed was a series of close combat between the two. From a distance, it would look like both of them were evenly matched, but that was far from the truth.
"You have got some pretty good fighting skills. I only know one person who could beat you in pure close-combat. It's a shame that you are too slow for me." Laxus shook his head before deciding to end this.
A beam of lightning erupted from him as it rushed to defenceless Fried.
The latter's body twitched for a few seconds before he dropped to the ground. Unconscious.
Laxus turned to the Bickslow. "That's two down. One more left to—" Laxus stiffened when he made eye contact with the latter.
'He can also use eye-magic!?'
***
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