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"Well. He fainted just like that."
Noah looked down at the Cloaked Man, who had rolled his eyes and gone limp from sheer fright. The fearsome durian in Noah's hand quietly transformed back into a string of grilled chicken wings.
That was right. The durian had never existed. It was an illusion created with Magnetic Field Power, wrapped around an ordinary skewer of grilled chicken wings all along.
Noah was not that kind of person. Who would actually carry a durian around?
He tossed the Cloaked Man into the Shadow Kingdom for the Shadow Eater soldiers to deal with, then headed back toward the inn, finishing his skewers along the way.
On the way back, he found Natsu and Happy at a well-known local restaurant. Having eaten their way through the menu without a jewel between them, they were now unhappily washing dishes and mopping floors in lieu of payment.
Noah paid off their tab and collected the pair.
He thought that was the end of it, but there was another one to retrieve.
Gray had, through force of unconscious habit, removed his shirt in the middle of a public street. A passing sheriff had spotted him immediately, concluded the worst, and hauled him off to the police station for a formal reprimand.
Gray had already spent a day in a cell on the Western Continent for the same reason, mistaken for a public nuisance, and had apparently not taken the lesson to heart. Noah bailed him out, gathered the dejected fire-and-ice duo and Happy, and the four of them made their way back to the inn without further incident.
They did not even make it to their rooms.
Erza and Mirajane, who had returned earlier, pulled all of them into Éclair's room the moment they appeared in the corridor.
Natsu and Gray, bracing for a scolding, looked around the room and saw the signs of a struggle. Their expressions changed. Erza looked at the two of them and said, "While you were out, Lucy and Éclair were attacked."
"What?! Lucy! Are you all right?!"
Natsu and Happy immediately launched into a frenzy, circling Lucy and inspecting her from every angle with the kind of agitated energy that would have alarmed a stranger on the street.
Lucy pushed Natsu back before he could press his face any closer. "Nothing happened to me. The attacker was after Éclair, but Noah's Shadow Eater soldier grabbed him in one bite."
Éclair, holding Momon, gave a small nod but said nothing.
Mirajane turned to Noah, and before she could ask, he explained. "I've already dealt with him. The man was reluctant to cooperate, but I got everything I needed through mind-reading."
"He's from a Dark Guild called Carbuncle, which specializes in assassination contracts. The one who hired them to capture Éclair is Prince Cream of the Principality of Veronica."
The Principality of Veronica.
Erza opened a map and located it: a country sharing a short stretch of border with the northern edge of the Fiore Kingdom. That was why the name had nagged at her.
The principality's land area and military strength were considerably inferior to Fiore's, but it had a history of over three hundred years that Fiore could not match.
Mirajane recalled a rumor she had heard somewhere and shared it with the group. "There's a story that the Veronica royal family has an ancestral treasure, but only half of it. It's said that if the missing half is ever found and the two pieces joined together, the bearer gains immortality and dominion over the world."
Every pair of eyes in the room settled on the half of the Phoenix Stone hanging around Éclair's neck.
The Veronica royal family's ancestral treasure was almost certainly the other half of the Phoenix Stone. Combined with the fact that Prince Cream had hired Carbuncle to seize Éclair, the conclusion was difficult to argue with.
There were not that many coincidences in the world.
Unfortunately, even with the mastermind now identified, Éclair had no memories connected to Veronica or its royal family. The night ended there. Everyone returned to their rooms to rest.
The next morning, Noah rented a six-seat Magic-powered carriage from the inn and set out directly for Boundary Forest.
The forest lived up to its reputation. Giant plants grew to impossible heights, and enormous animals moved through the undergrowth with the slow confidence of creatures that had never needed to fear anything. But size alone was not magic.
Despite their scale, the creatures here had no Magic Power, and a group of mages this capable handled them without breaking stride. After dealing with a few oversized animals that had wandered into their path, the group reached the inner reaches of Boundary Forest without any real difficulty.
At the center stood the remains of a building, reduced to rubble by centuries of weathering.
While exploring the ruins, Natsu stumbled across a hidden mechanism and promptly fell through the floor into a basement. Sensing nothing dangerous, the rest of the group followed.
Noah snapped his fingers. A soft orb of magical light bloomed in his hand and pushed back the darkness, illuminating a dry underground space lined with shelves of books and research equipment. Most of the text on the books had long since faded beyond legibility.
Lucy noticed a portrait on the wall that might have shown a family of three, but the faces had been torn away. What she did not notice was Éclair standing beside her, staring at the same portrait with a faintly puzzled expression.
"What's this?"
Natsu, wandering the far end of the room while everyone else searched, found a dusty crystal ball sitting on the desk. Curiosity got the better of him and he gave it a poke.
The crystal ball immediately emitted a narrow beam of light that swept across the group. A moment later, a projection unfolded in the air, and the image of a gaunt, weary middle-aged man appeared within it.
"It's a recording Lacrima," Noah said briefly, and fell quiet.
In the projection, the man's gaze seemed to find Éclair's.
"I am Kalard, Éclair. If you are seeing this, then I was not able to escape those demons after all."
"I heard from other survivors of the Fire Village what happened to your people. I am so relieved you managed to get away. But knowing the fate you carry..."
"The time I spent with you was the happiest of my life. But you are the Priestess of the Fire Village, and I have my own mission: to create the magic that will destroy the Phoenix."
"The final spell is complete. But I cannot wait for you to bring the Phoenix Stone to me. I have stumbled upon the truth behind the Phoenix's mutation, and those responsible will not let me live long enough to see you."
"I am sorry, child. I failed you. But with everything I have, I hope you find companions worthy of your trust."
"My dear daughter. Éclair."
The light faded. The last trace of Magic Power sustaining the recording Lacrima winked out, leaving only an ordinary stone. But the words it had carried were already etched into Éclair's heart.
"Father..."
The word left her lips barely above a whisper, and then the memories came. Not slowly, not in fragments. They surged back all at once, unstoppable.
She remembered who she was. The Priestess of the Fire Village. On the night her people were destroyed, the village elder had pressed the incomparably precious Phoenix's tears into her hands, granting her immortality, and entrusted her with half of the Phoenix Stone, with a single instruction: find Kalard.
But the years that followed had been relentless. Pursued without end, wounded again and again, Éclair's memories had blurred and then faded. And with them, so had everything else. Her feelings had gone quiet. Her sense of self had gone quiet. Time had done the rest.
Over four hundred years, she had gradually lost herself. Forgotten everything. And wandered on with nowhere left to go.
Until she arrived at the forest where her father had spent his life's work.