"As expected from the legendary demon, Mirajane," a low, gravelly voice echoed through the trees.
On the trunk of a massive tree up ahead, the bark twisted and warped like something out of a nightmare. Slowly, a sharp, wooden-carved face pushed its way out. The wood grain faded away, turning flesh-colored, followed by a ripped, muscular body and limbs.
A guy with spiky, pinecone-looking hair stepped completely out of the tree and landed with a thud. Azuma raised his head, eyes burning as he locked onto Mira—like a hunter who'd finally spotted his prey. Pure excitement and bloodlust practically dripped off him.
"That last attack… you blocked it like it was nothing," he said, grinning wildly. "You're strong. Fight me. All out. No holding back."
Mira narrowed her eyes, sizing him up. Spiked-up hair, ice-cold expression hiding a total battle junkie… yep, he matched the intel Roger had passed to the guild perfectly. Just another fight-crazy maniac who lived for dueling the strongest.
Off to the side, Lisanna's eyes lit up with the same fire. She dropped into a fighting stance, her mermaid tail flicking excitedly. "Big sis Mira, let's take him together—quick and clean!"
Azuma barely glanced at her, voice flat. "Mirajane the Demon's twin sister, Lisanna. Threat level: weak. Specialty: support magic and water-based spells."
His gaze slid back to Mira, dripping with open disdain. "I don't waste time on weaklings."
Lisanna practically exploded. "Hey?! Who're you calling weak?!"
Her scales looked like they were about to stand on end from sheer rage. "Just wait till I drop you on your butt—you'll be the one crying for mercy!"
The second the words left her mouth, she felt a weird surge of magic all around her. Her tail whipped hard, launching her into the air like an arrow.
A split-second later—
SHHHK! SHHHK! SHHHK!
Dozens of thick, spiked vines burst out of the ground like angry cobras, shredding the exact spot she'd just been standing in.
Azuma's cold mask cracked for the first time—he actually looked a little surprised as he stared up at her. "Your reaction time's faster than the reports said. Looks like the rumors were off."
Right then, a haunting flute melody floated through the air.
Mira had somehow pulled out a weird-looking flute and was playing it cool as you please. As the notes spread, countless green firefly-like sparks started peeling off the vines that had just attacked. The vines withered and crumbled in seconds—turning gray, dry, and rotten right before their eyes.
All those green sparks drifted lazily toward Mira's flute and got sucked right in.
She slowly lifted her head, locking eyes with Azuma. Every trace of her usual gentle smile was gone. Those purple eyes were pure ice. "If you'd come at us fair and square—if you'd stepped out, looked me in the eye, and asked for a one-on-one duel… I might've actually said yes."
"Fighting someone strong is a good way to get stronger, after all."
Her current Take Over started dissolving into green sparks.
She took one calm step forward—and the second her foot touched the ground, an absolutely monstrous wave of dark-purple magic exploded out of her like a sleeping beast finally waking up. It shot into the sky like a pillar of pure power, swallowing the whole area. The pressure was so thick the air felt like syrup.
"But—" Her voice turned razor-sharp, every word coated in frost. "You attacked my friends. My family."
"And just now, right in front of me, you tried to sneak-attack my little sister."
The magic around her boiled like a living abyss.
"That's the one thing I will never forgive. The one thing I hate more than anything in this world!"
Azuma's eyes shrank to pinpricks as that terrifying magic locked him down completely. For the first time, real shock cracked his face. "This magic power… impossible! She's supposed to be Great Demon Lord class at best! How the hell is she giving off the same pressure as Master Hades?!"
A dark-blue magic circle flared under Mira's feet.
[Satan Soul: Halphas]
In a flash she was wearing a blue-and-white battle outfit. Two snarling demon-face pauldrons sat on her shoulders. Massive deep-blue wings burst open behind her—covered not in feathers, but layered, shimmering fish-scale-like plates. Creepy blue patterns crawled across her pale cheeks, and her whole aura turned deep, ancient, and scary as hell.
She raised one hand. A gigantic ink-blue magic circle over three meters wide instantly formed in front of her palm, swirling like a deep-sea vortex.
"You wanted to fight someone strong so bad?" Her voice echoed with overlapping tones—cold, regal, terrifying. "Fine. I'll give you exactly what you asked for."
"And I'll show you what real strength looks like."
[Deep Sea Spiral]
BOOM—!!!
A five-meter-wide torrent of deep-blue magic roared out like a compressed ocean vortex. It tore through the air so fast it warped light itself, heading straight for Azuma.
Too fast—way too fast to dodge!
[Tower Prison of Trees]
At the last possible second he slammed both palms into the ground. Countless thicker, metallic-green branches erupted like crazy, weaving and twisting into a massive, airtight ball of wood around him.
KABOOOOOOM!!!!!!
The blue vortex smashed into the green sphere with an ear-splitting explosion. Shockwaves ripped outward, kicking up dirt and debris like a hurricane.
When the smoke finally cleared…
Juvia sucked in a sharp breath.
That "impenetrable" tree ball was now just a thin, cracked gray shell clinging to Azuma's body—barely holding together. Everything outside it had been obliterated into dust.
Through the cracks you could see Azuma on his knees, coughing blood, body torn up bad.
A five-meter-wide, charred crater had replaced the ground around him.
He coughed again, blood dripping down his face… but the guy actually grinned like a total psycho.
"One hit… did this much to me… you really are… insanely strong!"
He tried to stand, eyes blazing with excitement, ready to keep fighting.
But then his magic suddenly jammed—like someone had thrown a wrench in the gears.
"What the—?!" His face went pale. "Why can't I move my magic?!"
The sky above darkened without warning. Thick black clouds rolled in, heavy and suffocating.
Then a ghostly, ethereal song drifted down from above—like something from the bottom of the ocean.
Azuma looked up.
Lisanna was floating in mid-air, hair flowing like living seaweed, hands clasped over her chest, eyes closed, glowing with soft blue light.
Drip… drip…
Raindrops started falling.
A few at first—then a total downpour. Every drop shimmered with visible blue energy.
"It's her magic!" Azuma snarled.
"No—wait! It's not just sealing my magic… my body feels heavy! My power's dropping—my physical strength too?!"
"It's like the weakening effect from human subordination?!"
Before he could figure it out, an even more terrifying wave of magic surged from straight ahead—like a volcano about to blow.
Every instinct screamed at him to move.
But his body wouldn't listen—like invisible chains had locked him in place.
"I can't move?!!"
He looked down in horror and saw a super-faint blue film coating his skin.
"That woman's magic too?!"
At the end of his line of sight—Mira, fully charged.
She brought her hands together in front of her like she was about to fire a Kamehameha.
Every drop of rain in the sky obeyed her like she was their queen. They shot toward her palms, spinning, compressing, forming a basketball-sized sphere of deep-blue destruction.
[Soul Extinctor]
Her icy gaze locked on Azuma.
She thrust her palms forward.
VWOOM—!!
The sphere shrieked through the air and slammed dead-center into his chest.
The instant it touched him—
KABOOOOOM!!!!!
It detonated into a massive pillar of blue light that swallowed him whole and punched straight through the clouds.
When the light faded…
Azuma was a charred, smoking heap at the bottom of the crater—out cold.
[Ding – Acquired 270,000 magic power + "Blade of Leaves" magic] (Roger & Lisanna)
[Ding – Acquired 600,000 magic power + "Arc of Trees" magic] (Roger & Mira)
Juvia stood there with her mouth hanging wide open in a perfect "O," totally speechless.
"One of the Seven Kin of Purgatory… just got wrecked like that?"
"He barely even got to fight back…"
"See that?!" Lisanna canceled her Take Over and landed lightly, hands on her hips, puffing her chest out like a proud little peacock. "That's the real me!"
"If I hadn't run into Erza first during the exam and gotten taken out before I could do anything, we probably would've passed the first round easy!"
"That was seriously amazing," Juvia said honestly, then tilted her head, confused. "But… Juvia still doesn't get it. Why did that guy suddenly freeze up at the end? He looked like he still wanted to fight."
"Hee-hee, that was my magic!" Lisanna grinned. "I can change the weather in a certain area—like the rain zone I just made."
"Inside my rain, my water messes with the enemy's magic flow and silences them for a bit. It also binds their movements so I can control them. Oh, and it powers up allies while weakening the enemy's strength and defense!"
"Ohhh!" Juvia's eyes went wide. "So that's the 'silence and control' you were talking about earlier!"
"No wonder Miss Erza took you out first…"
Lisanna suddenly smacked her forehead. "Oh crap, that's right! You showed up late, so you didn't know what 'silence' meant. My bad!"
Mira walked over with a helpless smile and lightly bonked her on the head. "Seriously, you teamed up with Juvia and didn't even explain your own magic?"
"You lost the very first step, kiddo."
Lisanna stuck her tongue out playfully. "Hehe, I'll remember next time!"
A few hundred meters away, a massive black airship that looked like a sleeping beast slowly approached Tenrou Island.
Inside, Hades—sitting on the captain's throne in his heavy armor—snapped his eyes open. "Azuma's life signs just vanished. He's down."
"Tch." The guy next to him with wild golden lion-mane hair and creepy red spiral eyes snorted loudly. "Told you that idiot wasn't reliable. Bet he ignored your orders and went straight to pick a fight with Fairy Tail."
Ultear, lazily spinning a crystal ball in her fingers, smirked. "Well, knowing Azuma, I'd be more surprised if he didn't go looking for a brawl."
She tapped the ball lightly. "Still… he went down way faster than I expected."
"Ul! Look outside!" A pink-haired girl with wing-shaped headphones—Meredy—suddenly yelled, pointing frantically out the window.
The second Ultear heard "Ul," her smile froze solid. She whipped her head around, eyes like daggers. "I told you—don't call me that!"
Meredy shrank back like a scared puppy, voice tiny. "S-sorry, Ultear—!"
Before she could finish—
Whoosh!
A weird ripple of magic swept through the entire airship.
Suddenly everyone felt weightless—like the floor just vanished and they were falling.
"It's a spell! A powerful one just triggered!" Meredy shouted.
Hades looked up through the reinforced glass. Floating in mid-air was a string of glowing purple runes:
[No-Fly Zone: Within this domain, all that flies shall fall.]
"Hmph. Child's play." Hades didn't even blink. He raised two metal-clad fingers and rapidly scribbled glowing counter-runes in the air, then flicked them forward.
They smashed into the purple text.
Crack!
The runes shattered like glass and dissolved into sparks.
Hades was about to order the ship to climb again when his eyes narrowed.
Those purple sparks didn't disappear—they got sucked back together even faster, reforming into new, blood-red text:
[Explosion: Within this domain, all things of iron shall detonate!]
White-hot light instantly flared across his armor and every metal part of the ship—explosive energy building fast.
A double-layered trap?!
Hades didn't miss a beat. He kept writing counter-runes while barking, "Ultear!"
"On it!"
She thrust both hands forward, two silver circles spinning to life.
[Arc of Time: Rewind]
An invisible wave spread out from her. The blinding white light on the brink of exploding suddenly reversed—shrinking, fading, and vanishing like it never existed.
At the same time, Hades finished his new runes and shattered the second spell.
The airship steadied.
But everyone on board knew—this fight had only just started.