The moment Mirajane said the word—
"Phantom."
The basement went cold.
Natsu's constant, stupid grin vanished, his face going completely dark. Gray stopped leaning against the wall, his jaw tightening as flakes of frost literally started freezing the edge of his table. Erza's hand dropped straight to her sword hilt. Even Lucy, who didn't know the history, felt the air get so heavy it was hard to breathe. Cana just scowled into her cup, her fingers tightening around the handle.
Mira nodded, her usual sweet smile totally gone. "The Phantom Lord Guild. They got us good."
"Those absolute bastards..." Gray muttered, his voice dropping low. "They've always hated us. Ever since we started taking the top jobs in the region, Jose's been throwing a tantrum."
"But wrecking the hall?" Erza's voice picked up a dangerous, lethal edge. "That's crossing a line. You don't mess with a wizard's home."
Mira sighed, gesturing toward the back staircase. "Come on. Sitting in the rubble won't fix it. We moved the bar to the basement pub for now to continue operations. Master and everyone else are down there."
The group followed, their footsteps echoing heavily against the stone. Walking through the debris, Lucy kept looking up at the splintered roof. It felt unreal. Fairy Tail always seemed bulletproof. Seeing it smashed left a sick feeling in her stomach.
As they walked, Lucy subtly straightened her posture, her eyes flickering toward the stairs with a faint, involuntary spark of expectation. She looked over at Cana. "Wait... where's Kai?"
Cana shrugged, balancing an entire massive barrel of booze on one shoulder without her spine so much as popping. "Huh? Oh, the giant idiot had some work."
Erza looked back, her armor clinking. "Work? The mission is finished, isn't it?"
Natsu snorted, crossing his arms behind his head. "Probably found a dark corner to take a ten-hour nap."
Cana laughed dryly. "Nah. Government business. He practically dragged himself onto the high-speed train back to Crocus the second we cleared the perimeter. He had to escort the archaeological research team back, deliver the official report on the ruins, and handle the state payroll."
Immediately, the whole team sighed in collective pity.
"Ah. Poor guy."
"Drowning in paperwork. Sounds miserable."
"Serves him right for being a fancy department head," Natsu grumbled, though he looked secretly disappointed to miss a chance to brag about his own fights.
They descended the long stone steps, the rowdy noise of the guild getting louder until the basement opened up. The temporary pub was packed. Mages were drinking, throwing cards, and shouting, but the atmosphere felt slightly gloomy. Everyone was trying way too hard to act like their house hadn't just been flattened upstairs.
Right at the center table sat Master Makarov. He was thoroughly flushed, a bright, alcohol-induced crimson as he waved a massive mug of ale in one hand, completely looking the part of a carefree, drunk old man.
He saw them and raised his mug. "Oho! Welcome back, my bratty little troublemakers!"
Natsu's eye twitched. "GRAMPS!"
The roar rattled the stone arches, sending Macao and Wakaba scrambling over their cards. Makarov just blinked, entirely smiling and unfazed. "What? Why are you screaming, boy? You'll sour the beer."
"How can you be so carefree right now?!" Natsu pointed a furious finger at the ceiling, flames starting to lick at his shoulders. "The guild is a pile of toothpicks! Phantom came into our town and demolished our home! We need to go wipe them off the map right now!"
"Yeah!" Gray agreed, stepping up beside him. "Master, do you not see what's going on? We aren't just going to take this lying down, are we?"
Makarov took a slow, deliberate sip from his mug, his narrow eyes remarkably clear despite the alcohol. "Idiots," the old man drawled, his voice relaxed. "They attacked an empty building in the dead of night. It's a cowardly, petty stunt. Why should we waste our energy throwing a tantrum over a few broken planks?"
Lucy blinked, entirely bewildered by his lack of righteous fury. "Empty?"
Mira explained from behind the bar. "They hit us at night, Natsu. Nobody was inside. They didn't want a fight—they wanted to look tough."
Erza's shoulders dropped as she let out a long breath of relief. "So no one got hurt. That's good."
Cana popped a cork with her teeth, setting the massive barrel down with a thud. "Well, good thing no one stays here at night. Just property damage. It's annoying, but nobody's bleeding."
Makarov laughed, spreading his arms like a goblin. "See? I told you! A pub is just wood and nails, my children! The true guild is right here in this basement! So instead of crying, we celebrate your return! Cheers!"
"No," Natsu growled. CRACK. His fist slammed down, and the heavy wood table split entirely in two. The room went dead silent. The fire on his shoulders reached a terrifying, roaring height. "I'm not celebrating crap. Not until I kick every single one of those Phantom bastards into the dirt and destroy them."
The temperature in the basement spiked. Gray glared at the ground, gritting his teeth, and even Cana looked profoundly annoyed. The whole room wanted blood.
But suddenly, Makarov's eyes snapped open. The drunken act vanished, and a heavy, terrifying pressure flattened the room.
"That's enough, Natsu!" the Master shouted, his voice cracking like a whip. "We are dropping this topic. We will handle job requests down here until everything gets fixed."
Natsu growled, opening his mouth to deny the order, but before the bickering could escalate, Makarov sneakily leaned over and loudly smacked Lucy's butt.
SMACK.
The entire basement froze. Lucy slowly turned her head, her face turning a demonic shade of red as she looked at him with tired, homicidal eyes. "...Why my butt?"
Makarov hopped off his stool, laughing uproariously. "Because it was right there!"
"KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF, YOU PERVERTED OLD FOSSIL!" Lucy shrieked, swinging her entire bag of celestial keys like a flail. Mira immediately marched over, scowling heavily. "Master! Stop harassing girls!"
The old man just laughed, jumping over a bench and running off into the back rooms while everyone else just stared in disbelief.
Natsu growled, crossing his arms. "How can Gramps be so carefree?"
Mira sighed, smoothing her apron as her expression softened. "Don't let him fool you. Master is just as angry as you are." She looked at the grouped mages. "But the Magic Council explicitly forbids wars between guilds. If we strike first, they will blame us. He's keeping us safe from the law."
Erza nodded solemnly. "If Master has decided that, then we must accept it."
Cana let out a long, tired sigh and walked over to a corner table, sliding onto a bench with the barrel of alcohol she had carried.
Before she could pour a drink, Makarov poked his head back into the room, looking curious. "By the way, Cana... where is Kai? Did he really not return with you? And what actually happened on the mission? Did you save the research team?"
Lucy, Erza, and several others quickly nodded, leaning in.
Cana paused, a highly amused, calculating smirk playing on her lips. "Man... you all really love that guy, huh?"
"WHAT?! NO!" Lucy and Erza quickly denied at the exact same time, their faces turning red, while the rest of the guild just burst into rowdy laughter.
"Right, right, sure," Cana smirked, tapping her empty wooden mug against the table. "Anyway, like I said, he's back in Crocus. But as for the mission? It was one hell of a ride. From mana-draining ruins to ancient, immortal monsters... honestly, my throat is practically parched just thinking about it."
The surrounding crowd—including Levy, Jet, Droy, and Gray—practically vibrated with curiosity. Sensing the signal, Macao and Wakaba instantly slid four bottles of premium liquor and a whole fresh keg over to her like a bribe.
"Now we're talking," Cana approved, taking a deep draft. "Alright, listen up. The story starts with us getting to the site of the ruins, right? And this complete idiot grabs me by the shirt and jumps straight off a three-hundred-foot cliff. No magic, no ropes, nothing."
"HE DID WHAT?!" Lucy shrieked. Erza's eye twitched, and Gray just put his face in his hands.
"Then we realize the entire ruin is systematically draining our internal ethernano," Cana continued, her voice dropping into a theatrical rhythm. "And out of the dark, we run into this rogue swordsman named Rei. Insanely strong. His blade synchronization felt native, like an extension of his soul. He and Kai almost took the ceiling down just trading introductory slashes before Kai let him go."
"A rogue swordsman?" Gray muttered, shifting closer to listen.
"Yeah. But the real nightmare was the primary chamber," Cana said, her eyes flashing with pride. "The ruins were guarded by an ancient, immortal runic guardian. It was completely resistant to standard magic. Kai literally crushed its skull, ripped out its limbs, threw it across the corridors, and buried it under five tons of rock—and the damn thing just kept standing back up because the ruins were regenerating it."
"THAT SOUNDS AWESOME! I WANT TO FIGHT IT!" Natsu roared, his fists igniting.
"That sounds like a horror movie!" Lucy shuddered.
"So while Kai is busy keeping its attention and keeping me from getting pulverized, he looks at me and tells me I'm limiting my magic. Called it 'stopping at the edge.' And somehow, it clicked. I managed to push past my limits and create a completely new card called Override. I used a localized inversion matrix to directly strip away the entity's connection to the ancient runes, and Kai elbowed it to death."
A collective murmur of awe rippled through the basement. Levy's eyes were shining. "Cana, that's incredible!"
"Yeah, well, that was just the warm-up," Cana grinned wickedly. "We find the core, but the structural matrix goes completely volatile. The whole mountain is about to cave-crash and bury us alive. So what does Kai do? He reverse-engineers the lost runic dialect of an active, exploding core in under four minutes. It literally explodes in his face, and instead of stopping, he fuses his own magical signature directly into the active core to control the ruins and stop the collapse."
The entire basement went dead silent. Even Makarov lowered his beer, his face turning entirely pale.
"He... what?" the Master shouted, his head practically expanding to giant size as his sanity snapped. "What did that brat do?! He fused himself with an active magic core?! Doesn't he know how dangerous that is?! The mental feedback, the pure ethernano overflow, the physical vessel pressure alone should have killed him!"
Makarov threw his hands up, groaning heavily. "....Why do I even question him? The boy is a walking disaster."
The basement exploded into loud shouting, laughing, and cheers. Levy was frantically scribbling in her notebook, mutating between academic awe and terror. "He reverse-engineered a core with unknown runes in minutes and fused with it... that's amazing and... and terrifying!"
Lucy threw her hands up, looking thoroughly horrified. "Why are you guys acting so casual?! He literally ate a magical bomb!"
Mira laughed softly, patting her shoulder. "Lucy, dear... you've already seen the things he does, haven't you?"
Lucy opened her mouth to argue, but the memories hit her hard.
Kai jumping off a moving train with her...
Threatening to kill a dark wizard horribly with a deadpan smile...
Making underwear jokes while facing an S-class criminal like Erigor...
Stealing Lullaby and apparently turning the mass-murder flute into a literal healing tool...
Lucy stared blankly into space, completely defeated. "...I hate that I feel it's normal."
The guild burst into another wave of roaring laughter, the dark cloud of Phantom Lord temporarily forgotten.
Crocus — Mercurius Palace
Meanwhile, a few hundred kilometers away, Kairos Sunveil was actively tuning out the universe.
He was walking down the grand, vaulted corridors of the royal palace, his hands buried deep in his leather coat pockets. Princess Hisui was marching right next to him, her fancy green hair perfectly styled, though her expression was anything but regal. She was holding a heavy ledger, actively nagging him with the persistent, rapid-fire cadence of an irritated academic. Walking several steps behind them, Captain Arcadios looked like he was one stressful sentence away from fainting.
And the Princess refused to stop talking.
"How exactly did you beat Lullaby, Kai?"
"What happened inside the ruins?"
"What are the tattoos on your body?"
"What about the core you spoke about?"
"Kai?"
"Kai."
"KAIROS."
Kai's left eye twitched, his face a mask of pure, miserable boredom. Suddenly, Hisui stepped right in front of him, hands on her hips to block his path.
Kai stopped, looking down at her tiredly. "Every time I come here, Princess, I am reminded why I don't like being here. Aside from those other old geezers and the paperwork, you won't stop talking."
Hisui pouted annoyedly, glaring up at him. "You think I am annoying?"
Kai just stared blankly. "Did I not say it clearly enough?"
"You are so annoying!" Hisui growled, sharply hitting his arm.
Kai didn't even feel the hits, letting out a slow sigh before his signature, wicked smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth. "I'm not annoying, Princess. I'm just very good at making dumb people angry."
Hisui froze, her face turning bright red. "You called me dumb?!"
Kai shrugged, stepping around her. "I didn't say that, Princess. I just said dumb people get annoyed easily. See? Captain Hook back there isn't annoyed."
Arcadios offered a very quiet, disciplined sigh. He desperately wanted to respond that he was deeply annoyed, but he knew that speaking up would just prove Kai's point and drop him right into a rhetorical trap.
"You are impossible," Hisui huffed, running to catch up. "But you better have brought me back an exploration souvenir!"
Kai let out a loud, theatrical groan. Before she could react, he casually bent down, scooped her up by the waist, and threw her unceremoniously over his right shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
"K-Kai!" Hisui gasped, freezing in pure shock.
"KAIROS!" Arcadios nearly had a heart attack, his hand instantly flying to the hilt of his ceremonial sword. "DROP THE PRINCESS IMMEDIATELY!" Several nearby hallway guards panicked, drawing their spears.
Kai ignored the weapons entirely, continuing his lazy, slouched walk toward the throne room. "Relax, Captain. She's tiny. It's like carrying a small sack of flour. Besides, I don't like repeating the same report twice, tiny princess. So just come with me to His Taxness and you can listen."
Hisui froze, a sudden, helpless chuckle breaking through her blushing embarrassment. "You called Father 'Taxness'?"
"Your ears are ringing, Princess," Kai drawled.
He reached the massive gold-leafed double doors and finally set her back down. Hisui spent ten frantic seconds fixing her gown and reclaiming her royal dignity before glaring at him.
The doors swung open, revealing the grand council chamber. Sitting atop the modest inner throne was King Toma E. Fiore, surrounded by the kingdom's stiff ministerial heads: Minister of Defence Darton looking as rigid as ever, Minister Vitai of the Treasury, Minister Armis of Immigration, and finally, the vacant seat belonging to the Ministry of Research and Development—led by Kairos Sunveil. It was a division formerly known as the Ministry of State, completely overhauled after the traitorous betrayal of Zash Caine.
Kai stepped into the room, his loose, slacker character seeping through his stride. He didn't drop to one knee, offering only a functional, polite bow—just enough to pass protocol—before sliding into his assigned seat at the round table. Darton looked slightly annoyed by the casual entry, but since Kai remained technically respectful, he couldn't say anything.
King Toma smiled warmly, nodding to the young director. "Ah, Kairos! You are rarely here nowadays, so it feels good to have you back."
"Greetings, Your Majesty," Kai greeted back, leaning back. "I must say, the addition of a clock tower in a palace where you have to go a few miles away to look at it, that's just fabulous."
King Toma just chuckled. "Certainly, Kairos, I will keep that in mind." He coughed a little before speaking. "While I would definitely like to chat with you more, for now, let us receive the report regarding the Kaldor ruins, Lullaby, and the temple you explored."
Kai nodded. "Indeed, let's get the headaches out of the way. First, the temple ruin—just ancient stones and low-tier monsters. Nothing to report, I've already marked and mapped the terrain. Second, the Lullaby incident."
Kai folded his hands, calmly throwing the Magic Council under the bus. "A dark guild named Eisenwald stole the forbidden artifact due to the Council's brilliant security lapses. They planned to use it, but my guild found out. I accompanied them out of curiosity. I took down two of the responsible wizards and secured the flute, but it unfortunately manifested into a giant Etherious demon on the Kunugi Plains. To prevent mass casualties, I had to completely dispose of Lullaby. My team took out the rest."
Darton scoffed slightly, rubbing his chin. "The Magic Council continues to overstep its administrative bounds while letting its actual security slip. If they cannot police their own sub-sects, the Crown's military will have to keep intervening in municipal territory."
Kai hummed, agreeing with him. "They sure love flaunting their authority with no work to show for it."
"As for the Kaldor ruins," Kai continued, his tone shifting into a crisp, analytical frequency as he laid out the facts. "It was an ethernano-draining ruin guarded by a giant guardian and several smaller constructs—all functionally unkillable due to the ruins supplying them with stolen leyline mana. I found the core, disabled the primary matrix via my magic, and permanently locked the siphon. The zone has been safely sealed with zero casualties."
Kai reached into his coat, pulling out the small, intricately carved stone idol—the neutralized, dark metallic core of the ancient guardian—and placed it casually onto the royal presentation table. "These markings on my arms are merely the localized runic feedback from becoming the core during the integration. It's completely stabilized. The threat is cleared."
The entire room went silent, processing his words. Minister Vitai sighed heavily, muttering about the budget and the loss of another historical artifact, though he nodded in relief that it was contained. Minister Armis simply nodded.
King Toma leaned forward, examining the object with a soft murmur of impression. "An exemplary extraction, Director. Your methods remain as unorthodox as ever, but your efficiency is beyond reproach. The kingdom thanks you. I presume you must be tired, so you may take your leave."
"Much obliged, Your Majesty," Kai said, offering a brief nod as he stood up. "You always speak my mind. And while I would love to say that if anyone requires me for the next twenty-four hours I will be legally dead... I don't think someone here is going to let me rest." He glanced pointedly at Hisui.
The king chuckled as Kai swiftly walked out of the room. Hisui quickly bowed to her father, taking her leave to follow him, with Arcadios trailing safely behind.
Hisui caught up to Kai in the sunlit corridor, matching his long stride. "You really said that in front of Father?"
Kai hummed, not looking back. "Said what?"
She glared at him before letting out a soft sigh. "Nothing. But you really didn't bring me anything from the exploration? No souvenir?"
Kai continued walking, his eyes fixed ahead. "I can't believe there's anything I could find between old rocks that a princess would like... besides a fairy tail." He stopped, giving her a sharp, knowing look, his voice dropping into a quiet register. "Besides... I believe you already know exactly what you want."
Hisui's royal mask slipped, a genuine, quiet smile breaking through.
Kai sighed, reaching into his coat, pulling the processing idol back out, and casually dropping it into her hands. "Take it, Princess. Just don't channel your own magic into it, or you might end up with permanent tattoos like me. No breaking it, else the residual ethernano will bleach your carpets."
Hisui and Arcadios both froze, staring at the core. "Are you serious?" Hisui asked.
Kai smirked wickedly, turning on his heel. "Who knows?"
Hisui laughed softly, clutching the ancient artifact like spun glass, and instantly grabbed Kai's sleeve, dragging him toward the eastern wing. "Come with me. I'm reviewing a highly complex, 'theoretical' magical framework, and several of the foundational equations are completely refusing to align. I need your structural input."
Kai allowed himself to be dragged, his shoulders slumping deeper. "I somehow always feel a shiver whenever I help you, Royal Bean."
They entered her private study, which looked less like a royal sanctuary and more like the frantic den of a magical conspiracy theorist. Massive chalkboards, complex diagrams, astronomical alignments, and dense unmapped geometric arrays covered the walls.
"This place looks like a hamster's hole," Kai insulted dryly.
Hisui punched his arm, her face burning. "It is not! Look at this board. This formula is derived directly from a standard text on third-century spatial compression, but the output keeps collapsing. It isn't equalizing."
Kai stood before the board, his lazy demeanor fading into a sharp, quiet intensity as his golden eyes tracked the massive, hidden calculations. He dragged a hand over his face. "This writing is even more horrible than mine..."
He stepped forward, analyzing the chalk lines, and scratched his nonexistent beard. "Did the standard text you read actually tell you to compress the ethernano flow horizontally?"
Hisui looked confused, trying to recall the ancient script before shaking her head. "Well, nothing specific was given, so I assumed the flow lines followed the rest of the linear functions."
Kai nodded, taking a piece of chalk between his fingers. "Well, that might be one of your problems. Ethernano flow doesn't compress horizontally, Princess. It folds along its axis—like this." With a few swift, authoritative strokes, he drew a dense, multi-layered geometric correction on the board.
Hisui stared in utter surprise. "Really? Is that it?"
Kai shrugged, tossing the chalk back. "...Honestly, i have no idea. Just an observation. I can't guarantee it because I haven't read this standard text you're mentioning... because wasn't this project supposed to be entirely 'hypothetical'?"
Hisui froze awkwardly, realizing she had completely cornered herself, while Arcadios just let out a long-suffering sigh in the background.
Kai just shrugged, turning toward the door. "Now stop wasting my time, Royal Bean. Give me the actual source text if you want real help. We have a lot of work to do eventually."
The Next Morning — Magnolia
The morning sun usually made Magnolia loud, bright, and full of life. Team Natsu walked through the cobblestone streets, having spent the night stretching out on the floorboards of Lucy's apartment.
But as they neared the center of town, Natsu stopped, rubbing his nose. "Something's wrong."
The usual morning chatter of the civilians was entirely missing. A strange, suffocating silence hung over the streets. They quickened their pace, rounding the final avenue toward the central park, and froze. A massive crowd of townspeople had gathered, standing in a quiet, terrified circle. Pushing through the front line, they found the rest of their guild—Cana, Mira, Elfman, Loke, Laki, Macao, and Wakaba—already standing there like statues.
"No..." Lucy whispered, her hands clapping over her mouth as her knees violently trembled, a cold, visceral terror seizing her chest.
Crucified brutally against the thick trunk of the town's massive, ancient oak tree, suspended several feet above the ground, were the battered and unconscious bodies of Levy, Jet, and Droy. Team Shadow Gear. Heavy, brutal iron stakes had been driven straight through their clothing and shoulders, anchoring them to the wood like criminals displayed for execution. Deep purple bruises and swollen contusions covered their torn clothes, and painted crudely across Levy's stomach in dark, mocking ink was the insignia of Phantom Lord.
A low, terrifying vibration began to shake the very ground beneath their boots.
From the back of the crowd, a pair of deliberate, heavy footsteps broke the silence. Master Makarov walked forward, his cane in hand. The drunken, carefree old man from the basement pub had completely vanished.
With every single step he took, the stone path beneath his sandals began to crack and grind into dust. He stood at the base of the tree, looking up at his broken children. His face was cast in total shadow, but the sheer, crushing weight of his magical aura began to leak out, warping the very air around him.
CRACK. The heavy wooden cane snapped completely in half under his bare grip.
"Master..." Natsu growled, the flames exploding from his arms reaching a terrifying, white-hot height, his eyes locked onto the tree with pure, unadulterated vengeance. Gray's face was a mask of lethal ice; Erza's hand white-knuckled her sword pommel until the metal vibrated.
Makarov didn't shake. He slowly raised his head, his eyes burning with a blinding, golden magical aura that tore the clouds completely apart. When he spoke, his voice dropped like a deep, echoing rumble that literally shook the dirt beneath their feet.
"Destroying our pub... I can forgive that," the Master whispered, his voice rising into a terrifying, apocalyptic declaration of war. "But no parent in this world can overlook the blood of their children. Fairy Tail... we are going to destroy Phantom Lord!"