"Lisanna~ Ti to get to work~"
"Coming~"
Fairy Tail soon returned to its usual rhythm after the wedding chaos.
So mbers, like Elfman and Evergreen, accepted quests and set off. Others lounged around the guild as if nothing had changed. And, as always, a few hadn't shown up since morning.
After half a day of helping out, Lisanna slumped at the counter with Laki, staring off into space. "Why does it feel like there are fewer people than usual today?"
Laki leaned over the bar. "Because a lot of them started training, that magic Rhodes ntioned."
"You an what my brother-in-law talked about?" Lisanna tilted her head, recalling the notice Rhodes had pinned on the bulletin board. "Second Origin?"
"Yep," Laki nodded. "From what I know, Wendy, Cana, and Gajeel are already working on it."
"What about Natsu and Gray? I can't imagine those two letting themselves fall behind."
"Them?" Laki chuckled. "They don't have enough saved up yet. They probably won't start for a few more days."
"Living expenses, huh…" Lisanna covered her mouth, giggling.
Natsu and Gray seed to worry about rent and food more as they grew older. Maybe it was because when they were kids their destructive power wasn't quite so terrifying, so the bills were easier to manage.
Just then, Makarov shuffled slowly down the stairs, glancing around the hall. "Lisanna, Rhodes hasn't been by today?"
"Nope. Brother-in-law and Sis went off on their honeymoon."
Makarov froze mid-step, silent for a long mont. "So he really ran away."
"Ran away?" Lisanna blinked in confusion. "Did sothing happen?"
Makarov swallowed his sigh. 'Because I was planning to make him the next Guild Master.'
That brat, the mont he heard it, he bolted. Was being Master of Fairy Tail really so shaful?!
And after all the trust I placed in him!
Inside, Makarov cursed Rhodes a hundred different ways, 'idiot, coward, ungrateful brat,' but outwardly he kept his kind smile. "It's nothing. We'll talk about it when he gets back. Just tell them to enjoy themselves."
…
Lisanna didn't know whether to laugh or sigh. 'They've already left, how am I supposed to tell them anything?'
"Master," Laki piped up, "I haven't seen the First Master today. Did she leave?"
"Oh, that reminds ." Makarov waved his hand. "She returned to Tenrou Island yesterday. Said she had a wonderful ti here, and that she'll visit the guild again when she feels like it." With that, he trudged back upstairs, there were still idiots making trouble since last night.
"Visit when she feels like it?" Laki whispered to Lisanna in confusion. "But… she's a ghost, right? Is she really that busy on Tenrou Island?"
Lisanna tilted her head, thoughtful. "Maybe she has so role there, like a guardian of the island?"
—
anwhile, Rhodes and Mira had already checked into a hotel in Crocus, the capital.
Rhodes was convinced this was the perfect beginning to their honeymoon. Their new life as a couple had to start here.
As she unpacked, Mira looked back at him. "Are you sure it's okay to sneak away without telling anyone?"
Rhodes wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, watching her move about the room, and sighed. "What choice do I have? We just got married, and the Master already wants to throw to the wolves."
Mira chuckled. "How could Master ever want to harm you? What did he and the First Master talk to you about yesterday?"
At first, it seed like an ordinary conversation. The First Master shared a few things about Zeref. But then…he had accidentally seen the First Master's naked body.
That fact was not sothing he could easily explain aloud.
Yesterday, Makarov and Mavis had summoned him to the guild's underground chamber, unlocking a sealed room to reveal Fairy Tail's greatest secret.
Never in his wildest imagination had Rhodes expected that the founding of Fairy Tail was so deeply tied to Zeref.
The original founder had learned magic directly from Zeref.
And Mavis herself had fallen victim to the curse of the god Ankhseram because she used an incomplete version of Fairy Law.
Yes, the very sa curse that plagued Zeref.
That day she witnessed the birth of Yuri Dreyar's son and gave him his na: Makarov.
On that sa day, the curse claid Makarov's mother.
Rhodes couldn't forget the look on the old man's face as the First Master told it. His mother had died because of the curse burdening the person he revered most. Even after eighty years of trials, Makarov was stunned into silence for a long ti.
But he quickly gathered himself. It wasn't the First's fault. She had gambled her own soul casting Law to save Yuri's life. The old man could only sigh at the cruelty of fate and then, like a true elder, comfort a guilt-stricken Mavis.
Then Mavis told a story even stranger.
Terrified of hurting anyone again, she left the guild. Like Zeref, she tried countless ways to die, and could not. Eventually they t once more. Sharing the sa curse, the sa loneliness, they fell in love. And that love triggered Zeref's malediction first, stealing Mavis's life.
Because she bore the sa curse, immortality, death could not complete its work. Mavis slipped into a liminal state, neither fully living nor truly dead.
Later, Precht tried everything to save her, and caused the accident.
"Lun Histoire," the Fairy Heart, was born: Mavis's body transfigured into a core that could supply infinite magic power.
The "grimoire heart" Precht carried on Tenrou was only a crude imitation, a bauble compared to the true Fairy Heart sealed beneath Fairy Tail. Even its creator, Hades, could never reproduce a second Fairy Heart.
By origin, Fairy Heart is tied to a curse and would seem "black", yet the power it radiates is blindingly pure, almost sacred. It refuses simple labels.
That nuance didn't matter to Precht as much as the danger. Infinite magic ans infinite energy, endless war. Once exposed, grasping hands would co from every corner of the world, Ivan and his kind foremost among them.
So Precht sealed it in the guild's deepest vault and marked it Guild Master–eyes only, the highest of secrets.
Rhodes realized, then, that even after turning to darkness, Precht had never tried to steal Fairy Heart. Perhaps that is why Makarov and Mavis could, in the end, let him walk away.
And then the dissonance struck Rhodes, a secret ant for Masters alone… so why were they telling him?
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