Chapter 83: The Lightning's Judgment
The town of Clover was quiet in the afternoon heat. Merchants called out to passing customers. Children ran through the streets with sticks for swords and dreams of joining famous guilds. The sun hung low and heavy, casting long shadows across the cobblestones, and the smell of roasting meat drifted from the open doors of taverns where men who had finished their work sat drinking and laughing and reading the latest issue of Sorcerer Magazine.
Laxus Dreyar walked through the main square with his hands in his pockets and his eyes fixed on nothing. He had been traveling for days, moving from town to town, city to city, looking for something he could not name and would not admit to wanting. The magazine was tucked under his arm, the pages already worn from being folded and unfolded, the cover creased where his fingers had pressed too hard.
He stopped at a stall selling roasted nuts and bought a small bag. He did not want the nuts. He wanted something to do with his hands.
A group of men sat at a table outside the tavern across the square. They were merchants by the look of them, soft hands and fat bellies, the kind of men who had never thrown a punch in their lives and would not survive a single real fight. They were laughing. Loud, wet, ugly laughter that carried across the square and made the children stop their games and look.
One of them held up the magazine, the same issue Laxus had folded and unfolded a dozen times. He was reading aloud, his voice pitched for performance, his words dripping with mockery.
"'Fairy Tail: The Guild That Rose from the Ashes.' Listen to this. 'In a stunning display of artistic expression, new member Gajeel Redfox performed an original composition for his guild mates. Witnesses describe the performance as emotionally raw and deeply moving.'" He snorted. "Emotionally raw. The man ate a tomato to the face. There is a photograph. You can see the seeds in his hair."
The others laughed harder. One of them wiped tears from his eyes. Another pounded the table with his fist.
"And here," the man continued, "here is the best part. 'Celestial Spirit Mage Lucy Heartfilia surprised the guild with an impromptu dance performance. Her creativity and confidence have made her a beloved figure in the newly rebuilt hall.' Impromptu dance performance. She was wearing a bunny costume. There is another photograph. You can see her falling off the stage."
More laughter. Louder now. One of them reached for another drink. Another pointed at the picture and made a sound like a rabbit.
"The great Fairy Tail. The legendary guild. Reduced to a man singing about friendship while getting pelted with vegetables and a girl in a bunny suit who cannot dance." The man shook his head. "My grandfather used to tell stories about them. About the heroes who fought dark guilds and saved villages. And now this. This is what they are. A circus. A joke. A…"
The chair splintered under his hand. Not the chair he was sitting on. The chair beside him. The one that had been empty a moment before.
The men looked up.
Laxus stood over them. His hands were still in his pockets. His face was calm, almost bored. His eyes were not.
"You were saying," he said.
The man with the magazine opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. No sound came out.
Laxus reached down and took the magazine from his hand. He looked at the cover. The photograph of the rebuilt guild hall. The headline about rising from the ashes. His grandfather's face on the front, smiling, proud, surrounded by children who did not know what they were doing and did not care.
"My grandfather," Laxus said, "built that guild. He built it with his hands and his magic and his blood. He held it together through wars and plagues. He raised three generations of wizards who have saved this kingdom more times than any of you could count."
He flipped through the pages. The photographs of the café. The souvenir shop. The pool. The stage with the tomato pulp still visible on the floor. Gajeel with seeds in his hair. Lucy with her ears falling off. Natsu looking like he had just crawled out of a fire.
"And this is what they have done to it. They have turned it into a playground. A circus. A place where children dress like animals and sing about friendship and call themselves heroes."
He closed the magazine. He looked at the men. They were not laughing anymore. They were not moving. They were not breathing.
Laxus smiled. It was not a kind smile. It was the smile of a man who had been holding something in for a very long time and had just decided to let it out.
"You want to know what Fairy Tail is? What it really is? I will show you."
He raised his hand. Lightning crackled at his fingertips. The air in the square grew heavy, charged, wrong. The merchants stopped their calls. The children stopped their games. The dogs began to howl.
The men at the table scrambled. Chairs overturned. Drinks spilled. The one who had been reading the magazine fell over his own feet and crawled backward, his hands raised, his face white.
"We did not mean anything," he said. "We were just joking. Just having fun. We did not…"
Laxus let the lightning go.
It struck the table. The wood exploded. Splinters flew like shrapnel, cutting into the cobblestones, tearing through the awning above, embedding themselves in the wall of the tavern behind. The men screamed. One of them caught a splinter in his arm and blood sprayed across the white tablecloth. Another fell to the ground with his hands over his head, crying, shaking.
Laxus walked through the wreckage. His boots crunched on broken glass and shattered wood. His hands were still in his pockets. His face was still calm.
"Run," he said.
They ran. The one with the splinter in his arm ran fastest, leaving a trail of blood behind him, his friends stumbling after, their fine clothes torn, their soft hands bleeding, their laughter forgotten.
Laxus stood in the middle of the square and watched them go. The lightning faded from his fingertips. The air returned to normal. The dogs stopped howling. The children crept out from behind the stalls and stared at him with wide, frightened eyes.
He did not see them. He was looking at the magazine on the ground, the pages open, the photographs of his grandfather's guild turned into a circus, the faces of the people who had taken something sacred and made it a joke.
He picked it up. He folded it carefully, the way he had folded it a dozen times before, and put it in his pocket.
A sound behind him. Soft. Deliberate. The sound of someone who wanted to be heard.
Laxus turned.
The man standing at the edge of the square was not a merchant. He was not a traveler. He was not any of the soft, frightened things that Laxus had been surrounded by for days. He was tall and thin, wrapped in bandages that covered his face and neck and hands, the kind of bandages that men wore when they had something to hide. His eyes were dark and empty, the eyes of a man who had seen things that could not be unseen and had stopped caring a long time ago.
Zatô of Naked Mummy.
Laxus knew the name. He knew the guild. He knew the reputation. A dark guild that operated in the shadows, that took jobs no one else would take, that left behind bodies and blood and nothing else.
"You have a temper," Zatô said. His voice was dry, papery, the voice of a man who had not spoken in a long time and had forgotten how to make it pleasant. "I was watching. The way you destroyed that table. The way you made those men bleed. You wanted to kill them. I could see it in your eyes."
Laxus said nothing.
Zatô stepped closer. His bandages fluttered in the wind. His eyes moved across Laxus's face, his hands, the pocket where the magazine was folded.
"Fairy Tail," he said. "The great guild. The legendary heroes. I heard about your master. Makarov. The one who uses Fairy Law and pretends to be kind while the world burns around him." He tilted his head. "You hate him, don't you? You hate the way he smiles. The way he laughs. The way he lets children run wild in the halls he built with his own hands."
Laxus's jaw tightened.
"I saw the article," Zatô continued. "I saw what they have done to your grandfather's legacy. The bunny girl. The singing iron eater. The dragon who cannot control his own fire." He laughed. It was a dry, rasping sound, like paper tearing. "They have made your guild a joke. And you let them. You stand here, destroying tables, frightening merchants, playing at being strong. But you do nothing. You change nothing. You let them ruin everything your grandfather built."
Laxus moved.
There was no warning. No lightning. No flash of light or crackle of power. He simply crossed the space between them and drove his fist into Zatô's chest. The impact was wet and solid, the sound of bone cracking, of lungs emptying, of a body folding in on itself. Zatô flew backward, ten feet, twenty feet, and hit the wall of the building behind him. The stone cracked. Dust and debris rained down. Blood sprayed from his mouth, dark and thick, staining the bandages that covered his face.
He slid down the wall and landed on his knees, his hands pressed against his chest, his breath coming in short, wet gasps. The bandages on his face were red now, soaked through, and the eyes beneath them were wide and terrified.
Laxus walked toward him. His hands were still in his pockets. His face was still calm. But his eyes were burning, and the air around him was crackling, and the lightning that had been held back was gathering now, building, waiting.
"You want to know what I think of my grandfather?" Laxus said. He stopped in front of Zatô, close enough to touch, close enough to kill. "I think he is weak. I think he has always been weak. He lets children run wild. He lets enemies into his home. He lets the world laugh at everything he built because he is too soft, too kind, too afraid of being cruel."
He reached down and grabbed Zatô by the throat. The bandages tore under his grip. Blood welled up between his fingers. Zatô choked, his hands clawing at Laxus's arm, his legs kicking uselessly against the stone.
"He had a son once," Laxus said. "A son who was strong. A son who should have led the guild. A son who went and abandoned me because my grandfather was too weak to do what was necessary to make him stay." His voice cracked. Just a little. Just enough. "And now he sits in his rebuilt hall, surrounded by children who dress like animals, and he smiles. He smiles like nothing is wrong. Like everything is fine. Like the world is not laughing at us."
Lightning gathered in his hand. Yellow and white and terrible. Zatô's eyes went wide. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. The lightning spread from Laxus's fingers, across Zatô's throat, down his chest, through his limbs. The bandages caught fire. The skin beneath blackened. The smell of burning flesh filled the square.
Laxus held him there, suspended, burning, dying. He watched the life fade from Zatô's eyes. He watched the terror turn to pain and the pain turn to nothing. He watched until there was nothing left to watch.
Then he dropped him.
Zatô's body crumpled to the ground. His clothes were smoke and ash. His skin was cracked and bleeding. His chest rose once, twice, three times, and then it stopped.
Laxus stood over him, breathing hard, his hands shaking, his lightning fading. He looked at the body. He looked at the blood on his hands. He looked at the square around him, the broken table, the shattered glass, the children hiding behind the stalls, the merchants pressed against the walls, the dogs still whimpering in the distance.
He reached into his pocket. He pulled out the magazine. It was folded and creased and stained with blood. He looked at his grandfather's face on the cover. The smile. The pride. The love that Laxus could not understand and did not want.
"He should have been stronger," Laxus said. His voice was low, meant for no one, meant for himself. "He should have made us stronger. He should have cut out the weakness before it spread. He should have…"
He stopped. There was nothing else to say. There was no one to say it to.
He folded the magazine again and put it back in his pocket. He stepped over Zatô's body and walked out of the square. The merchants watched him go. The children watched him go. The dogs, finally, stopped their howling.
Laxus walked through the streets of Clover, past the shops and the houses and the people who did not know what he had done, did not know what he was going to do. He walked until the town was behind him and the road stretched out ahead, empty and white and endless.
He stopped at a crossroads and looked up at the sky. The sun was setting, painting the clouds in shades of orange and red, the colors of fire, the colors of blood.
He thought of his grandfather. He thought of the guild hall, rebuilt and bright, filled with laughter and light. He thought of Natsu Dragneel, covered in soot, surrounded by women who loved him. He thought of Gray Fullbuster, healed and happy, walking through the halls with a blue-haired girl at his side. He thought of all of them, laughing, playing, pretending that the world was not a place where men died in squares with their bandages burning and their eyes wide open.
He thought of what he was going to do.
"I will fix it," he said. His voice was steady now. Certain. "I will make them strong. I will make them remember what we are supposed to be. And if my grandfather will not do it, then I will. I will cut out the weakness. I will burn away the softness. I will make them understand."
He started walking again. The road stretched ahead, white and endless, and Laxus Dreyar walked it alone, with his hands in his pockets and his lightning waiting and his grandfather's face folded against his chest.
Behind him, in the square, the body of Zatô lay in the dust. The merchants had gone inside. The children had gone home. The dogs had stopped their howling.
Only the blood remained. Dark and thick, pooling in the cracks between the cobblestones, drying in the sun, a stain that would not wash away, a warning to anyone who came after.
Fairy Tail was a joke. Fairy Tail was weak. Fairy Tail was soft and kind and foolish.
And Laxus Dreyar was going to burn it all down and build something stronger from the ashes.
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Next Time: The Harvest Festival Begins