Kazu rushed at the defenceless Gildarts at insane speed. The sharp sound of his fist moving through the air resounded in the clearing.
"Mizuwari"
Just as Kazu was a few metres away, Gildarts stomped the ground, breaking everything around him. The ground turned into small, disconnected cubes.
He intended to make Kazu lose his footing.
However, the plan failed when Kazu made a barrier beneath his foot to use as a footing and kept moving.
"This is dangerous." Gildarts deflected the punch with his palm, going completely against the assumption that Kazu had made.
Gildarts wasn't completely defenceless without his crush magic.
"Let's end this." Red hue of crush magic covered Gildart's right foot as he kicked at Kazu's gut at a shockingly fast speed. The latter failed to react.
THUD
The blow connected cleanly, causing Kazu to cough up blood before he was sent flying.
CRASH
Anything that came in his path was crushed. Before long, Kazu's body stopped. His eyes were rolled back. Unconscious.
"It's a shame that I wasn't able to see the limits of that form." Gildarts shook his head. 'It would have been too dangerous for me if he nullified all of my Crush magic. From what the old man was talking about, after analysing all of Eris's spells, he had neutralised even a new spell which Eris had shown first time. I need to prepare countermeasures for such kinds of spells.' He whistled as he walked towards Kazu's unconscious form.
"Still. He seems to hold reasoning quite well in that form, seeing how he analysed my spell while in that state. This is paradoxical to him losing his sanity... Or was that instinct?" Gildarts stopped before Kazu. The ethernano surrounding Kazu had receded.
Gildarts then turned in the direction of the goal. "Guess, Laxus won. Oh well, he was already S-rank material. It should be interesting to see his performance in the final round." He shrugged before picking up Kazu and heading towards the goal.
---
"So...what happened?" Makarov frowned as he crossed his arms.
"Nothing. I just lost. Laxus was able to get the flag from me." Gildarts said with a nonchalant expression, pointing towards Laxus, who was sitting on a large stone.
"No, I mean. Wasn't it mainly a fight between you two? Why is Kazu the one who looks like he had fought a war?"
"He was the backup plan. The bait." Laxus shrugged.
Gildarts shrugged. "He got the short end of the stick."
Makarov deadpanned. He glanced at Kazu's unconscious form. 'Oh well, his injuries aren't anything serious. So, he should be fine. Still, I can't let it be too easy for Laxus.' He turned to his grandson.
"Final round starts now. You need to go alone for this." Makarov pointed in a direction. "There's a mountain range in that direction. There's an S-rank beast there. Unicorn or something. Neutralise it and bring its body back." Makarov pulled out a stopwatch from his pocket.
"Wait, wait. What about recovery time? You know the idle time between the rounds?" Laxus shot him a disbelief look. He was low on Ethernano, so it was pretty important for him.
"In a battle, you won't be given that luxury. Time limit is 30 minutes. It starts...NOW!" Makarov started the stopwatch.
Laxus wanted to retort, but seeing the watch, he gritted his teeth, stopping himself. "Damn you, old man!" He turned into lightning as he rushed in that direction.
Gildarts shot him a baffled look. "Wasn't that a bit too harsh?"
Makarov shrugged. "It just felt the right difficulty. We can't have them whining just because they are low on Ethernano. He should have prepared for this possibility beforehand."
"No, no. Not about that. I mean, why did you give him the wrong direction? The mountain range is in that direction." Gildarts pointed in the opposite direction.
Makarov's eyes widened. "Wait, what?..." He glanced in the direction where Laxus had disappeared.
"Well, reconnaissance is also part of being S-rank. This mirrors the part where the information you receive about the mission is flawed. Worthy of being the final trial." Makarov nodded to himself.
Gildarts deadpanned. "Right..."
---
Kazu felt his head throbbing. It felt as if somebody had hit him on the head with a metal pole.
"Ugh..." He groaned as he slowly started opening his eyes.
The first thing he saw after regaining his vision was Cana's face.
"So, you are finally awake." She had her arms crossed.
"Oh, it's you."
Cana furrowed her brows. "What do you mean by me? Did you expect Gray to be here? Unfortunately, he was too beat up, so I sent him home."
"Is that so? But from what I remember, I had only made him sleep in the first round. How is he beat up?" Kazu looked around and recognised the place. He was in the guild's infirmary.
'Lucky. At least, I am not in that crazy old hag's place.' He secretly released a sigh of relief.
"From what I heard, they both had woken up and had come across Erza in the first round itself," Cana said with pity in her tone.
Kazu cringed. 'Right... No wonder he was beaten up.'
"Wait, what happened with the exams? Did Laxus pass?"
Cana's eyes lit up at that. "Yup. You won't believe it, but he barely passed the exams. If he were 3 seconds late, he would have failed." Her words shocked Kazu.
"Wait, what? What was the condition of Round 3? It shouldn't have been that hard for him." 'Did he have to fight both Makarov and Gildarts together for a few minutes or something?'
"From what I saw, he was low on Ethernano and wasn't given time to recover. He was given 30 minutes to find and kill an S-rank unicorn. Moreover, he was given wrong directions. It took him more than 20 minutes just to find that unicorn. It was so fun." Cana really liked watching the arrogant boy suffer. She was not the only one in the guild who enjoyed that.
Kazu clicked his tongue. "Guess, I missed an awesome scene." 'It was a wise decision not to take part in the trials this year. I would have failed anyway. Luckily, this way I made some money.' Kazu had made a deal with Laxus that, in exchange for being a partner in S-rank exams, he would take 10 million Jewels.
"You did. Anyway, was that the new form you were talking about before? It was so sick." Cana made some motions, clearly excited.
"Right...Though it's pretty dangerous, as I am not really fully sane." 'Though this time, I was in more control. At least, I remember what exactly happened when I was in that form.'
"Yeah, I know. It's still cool to look from afar. What is it called?"
"Emotional Amplification: Unleashed"
"Lame." Cana deadpanned.
Kazu shot her an exasperated look. "You are the one to talk. Who names a technique One-hit KO?"
"People who have good naming sense. Unlike you."
Kazu didn't rise to the obvious bait. "Anyway, this reminds me, your dad is really strong. I had actually thought that he was disadvantaged against Laxus initially. Guess, I was too naive."
'If he wanted, he could have broken the lacrimas from the beginning. Though in a long-drawn battle, he was at a disadvantage against Laxus, the 'long' there would mean nearly a few hours to possibly days. Though it's due to age difference, Gildarts has more than 10 times Ethernano capacity than Laxus.'
"I know, right. He even took you out despite you using 'Destructive Interference' on his spell." Cana raised her head proudly, as if she were the one who did that feat.
"Yeah. He was too fast with casting his spell. Moreover, even without Crush magic, he seems to have high mastery over Enhancement or something similar type of magic. It was a losing battle from the beginning." 'No wonder Cana was able to create 'One Hit KO' so easily. She must have talent with that after all.'
"Losing battle? Can't you like nullify Enhancement with your spell?"
Kazu shook his head. "See, the thing is, you do know that there are two types we could break enhancement, right?"
"Internal and external." Cana nodded. This was basic knowledge. In the beginning, Kazu had focused on honing them separately.
"Yeah, so the thing is, after you have mastery over both, you could do them simultaneously with no Ethernano shows on both, yet the strength is the same as doing both normally." External enhancement was clearly visible due to Ethernano covering a body part.
"Wait, what? How?"
"Basically, we keep the ethernano just beneath our skin, so everything is already enhanced. This way magic circle isn't visible to others. This is the reason it's pretty hard to analyse it, as I can't observe it in the first place."
"Oh..." Cana nodded.
Kazu got up from the bed, stretching his body. 'I really need to get stronger. Can I become strong enough to reach S-rank by the time the next exams come?'
"This reminds me. You never told me what colours of your Ethernano meant, which emotions."
He turned to Cana.
"I haven't? Let's see. Black means hatred."
"Yeah. I could just feel it from a distance. It was the same one you showed in the mission involving Anne." Just as Cana said, she instantly regretted it.
"It's fine. Yeah, it's that one." Kazu saw through her thoughts and waved his hand before she could say something.
"Anyway, Red is angry. Cyan is fear. Blue is sadness, and Yellow is Joy." 'There's also pink I saw in the older version, but I am not going to tell her that.' The last thing Kazu wanted was for Cana to tease him for the next few months with that.
Cana blinked. Kazu could see gears turning in her head, making him confused. 'What is going on in her mind?'
"Wait, does blue mean sadness?" Cana asked for confirmation.
"Yeah."
"Isn't your Ethernano always been blue normally? I have rarely seen yellow. Heck, any other colours. Just blue."
'Fuck.' Kazu instantly realised his mistake. He wasn't supposed to say that. Just as he was going to come up with an excuse, Cana beat him to it.
"Does this mean you have always been sad for the last few years...since I have known you?"
***
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