Chapter 198: Another Fairy Tail
"The Guild?!"
Ren and Natsu were both stunned.
They stood at the edge of a precipice that shouldn't have existed. Where the bustling, boisterous Fairy Tail Guild hall once stood, there was now only a colossal, perfectly spherical crater. It wasn't just the building; a massive chunk of Magnolia Town had simply ceased to exist, scooped out of the earth as if by the spoon of a god.
The wind howled through the empty void, carrying dust and the scent of ozone, but no laughter, no clinking beer mugs, and no magic.
"It's true! Only the three of us are left!"
Natsu stared blankly at the abyss, his mind refusing to process the visual information. His knees trembled, not from fear, but from a sheer disconnect from reality. He suddenly whipped around, grabbing the small Sky Dragon Slayer.
Natsu grabbed Wendy's head and shook it frantically. "Wendy, did you hit your head and become silly? Tell me this is a hallucination! Tell me!"
"N-Natsu-san! Stop, I'm dizzy!" Wendy cried out, her eyes swimming.
Ren frowned, his gaze shifting from the crater to the sky. High above, the clouds were still swirling in a unnatural spiral, a remnant of the spatial breach that had taken place. His Six Eyes scanned the residual energy signatures. It wasn't destruction magic; it was displacement.
It's finally started, Ren thought, a cold realization settling in his chest. The Edolas Arc.
Just then, Carla appeared from behind a pile of rubble. Her white fur was ruffled, and her usually composed face was etched with a grim solemnity.
"What Wendy said is true," Carla stated, her voice trembling slightly.
"Carla! That's great! You're okay," Wendy gasped, rushing over to hug her partner.
At this moment, a blue blur shot across the sky. Happy flew over in a panic, his wings beating furiously against the wind. "This is bad, Natsu, Ren... the city is gone!!"
Seeing that Carla hadn't returned earlier, the loyal cat had rushed out to look for her, only to witness the horrifying topography of the town. He was so scared he had hurried back to where the Guild should have been, only to find... nothing.
Natsu heard Happy's words and looked back at the crater, finally accepting the grim reality that both the Guild and the streets had vanished. The denial in his eyes was replaced by a burning confusion. "What exactly is going on? Why did the Guild and the streets disappear? Buildings don't just walk away!"
"They were all sucked away by the 'Anima'." Carla's voice was low, carrying the weight of a judge reading a sentence.
"'Anima'? What is that?" Natsu demanded.
Ren crossed his arms, his expression serious. He knew the answer, but he let Carla explain. This was her story to tell.
"The Super A-Space Magic 'Anima' is a weapon used by the Edolas world to absorb magic power from other worlds," Carla explained, pointing a paw at the swirling sky. "That spell just now absorbed Magnolia Town and converted it into a giant Lacrima crystal to harvest its magic power."
"Lacrima..." Lucy—no, she wasn't here. It was just them.
"Edolas is completely different from here," Carla continued, her tone heavy with knowledge she had suppressed for years. "Magic there is starting to gradually disappear, and magic power is finite. It's a world running on fumes. If it continues to be used, magic will eventually vanish completely from that world. To save their dwindling magic power, the King of Edolas absorbs magic power from other worlds—specifically, from this world, Earth Land."
Natsu's aura flared, the heat around him spiking. "Why did they have to absorb Fairy Tail?! We didn't do anything to them!"
Carla looked down at her paws. "Because Fairy Tail has many powerful Mages. It is a dense concentration of magic power. To the King of Edolas, you aren't people; you're just fuel. That's why it was chosen as the target for absorption."
"Fuel?!"
Natsu yelled angrily at the sky, flames erupting from his mouth. "What a bunch of tyrants! Give everyone back, you bastards!! I'll turn you all to ash!"
Wendy looked at Carla, puzzled. The specifics were too detailed, too precise. "Carla? Why do you know so much? You've been with me since you hatched."
Carla closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. "Because I came from that world, and the male cat is the same. We are Exceeds. We received a different mission from the Edolas Kingdom and were sent to this world."
The silence that followed was deafening. Happy blinked, pointing at himself. "M-Me?"
"Impossible! You hatched from an egg! Right here in this world!!" Natsu shouted, stepping between Happy and Carla.
"Happy too! I found him!" Natsu insisted. "He fell from the sky, sure, but he was an egg! We raised him! Lisanna and I..."
Wendy and Natsu immediately refuted this. When they found Carla and Happy, they were just eggs, and they were the ones who gave Carla and Happy their names. They were family, not alien spies.
"That's right, we were indeed born and raised in this world," Carla admitted, her voice cracking. "But the knowledge of Edolas and our mission were imprinted inside us genetically. We should have known everything when we were born, so why do you know nothing?!"
Carla was very angry looking at the ignorant Happy. She had been troubled by her mission—to kill Dragon Slayers—since birth, living in fear of her own destiny. Meanwhile, Happy remained blissfully unaware, asking for fish and being happy all day long. It felt unfair.
"Th-then..." Happy's voice was barely a whisper. He looked at his paws, then at the empty crater where his friends used to be. "Is the disappearance of the Guild and the streets our fault? Mine and Carla's?"
"Indirectly, yes," Carla said ruthlessly. "We were the beacons."
"I... I..."
Happy instantly became somewhat dejected and self-reproachful. His ears flattened against his head, and tears welled up in his eyes. He felt like a traitor to the very people he loved most.
Ren stepped forward, his shadow covering the small blue cat. He crouched down and gently patted Happy's little head.
"Don't listen to that nonsense, Happy," Ren said firmly. "You are Fairy Tail's Mage, Happy. You aren't some tool of a King you've never met. Besides, since the situation is clear, it's easy to handle. I'll just go to Edolas and bring everyone back."
Ren's tone was so casual, so full of absolute confidence, that the heavy atmosphere instantly lifted.
Natsu clenched his fist, the fire in his eyes returning. "Exactly! Those guys dared to take everyone; we must teach them a good lesson! Spy or not, Happy is Happy!"
"I want to go too!" Wendy said, stepping forward. Her small hands were clenched into fists. She was now a member of the Fairy Tail Guild, so naturally, she had to contribute. She wouldn't run away.
"Are you really going? Your opponent is an entire Kingdom! And we aren't even sure if we can return alive after going there." Carla looked at them with concern. She didn't want Wendy to take the risk.
Ren stood up, a smirk playing on his lips. "Don't underestimate me, Carla. It's just crossing worlds. Very distant worlds might be troublesome, but nearby worlds are quite simple."
He tapped the air with his finger. As someone possessing the template of an Arrancar, specifically Ulquiorra, Ren had access to Garganta—a technique that literally tore open the fabric of space to travel between dimensions.
"Arrancar almost all possess the fundamental skill of Garganta, a divine technique specifically for crossing worlds," Ren explained briefly, though he kept the intricate details to himself. "The dimensional barrier between Edolas and Earth Land is thin right now. It is roughly the same as the distance between Hueco Mundo and the Living World."
Hearing Ren's words, Natsu clapped his hands, smoke puffing from his palms. "Then there's nothing to worry about! Ren's got a magic subway ticket!"
Wendy asked, "But how do we get there? Do we need to build a portal?"
"Fly over!" Carla said abruptly.
"What?!"
Carla pointed to the sky, where the faint outline of the Anima's passage was still visible, like a scar on the atmosphere. "Before the passage disappears, as long as we fly through it, we can reach 'Edolas'. Our wings grew specifically so we could return to Edolas."
"I see! Let's go, Happy! Let's go see your homeland!" Natsu grinned, showing his teeth.
"Aye!"
Happy wiped his tears. He didn't fully understand, but he trusted Natsu, and he trusted Ren. He immediately spread his wings, grabbed Natsu by the back of his vest, and flew upwards.
"Carla..." Wendy looked at the white cat.
Carla sighed, then grabbed Wendy and flew toward the sky.
Wendy hadn't expected Carla to choose to go to Edolas as well, considering how afraid she seemed of her mission.
"I am a member of Fairy Tail after all," Carla said softly, her gaze determined. "And if this is Wendy's wish, I will definitely help you fulfill it."
Seeing Wendy so determined to save everyone in the Guild, it could only fulfill Wendy's wish.
The group ascended rapidly, the air getting thinner and colder. The pressure from the dimensional tear began to weigh on them.
"Male cat!! Release your magic power!! Let's enter Edolas through the remnants of the 'Anima', using our wings to charge through!" Carla commanded.
"Okay!!"
"I'll give us a boost!" Natsu roared.
Natsu blasted fire from his feet, creating a jet-propulsion effect that helped Happy accelerate against the gravitational crush of the portal.
They hit the barrier. Light exploded around them—colors that didn't exist on Earth Land, sounds that felt like vibrations in their bones.
Finally, just as the passage disappeared, the group rushed into Edolas.
The transition was jarring. One moment they were in a tunnel of light, and the next, they were in open air.
At this moment, a very strange scene appeared before everyone: in this world, the geography defied physics. Many giant planets were visible to the naked eye in the cosmic backdrop, along with huge islands floating in the air, suspended by invisible tethers. There were unfamiliar birds with multiple wings, weird beasts roaming the floating landmasses, and rivers flowing in the middle of the sky, defying gravity as they wound their way through the clouds. It looked incredibly marvelous and spectacular.
"Oh oh!!"
"So this is Edolas..."
"It really is... another world..." Wendy whispered, awestruck.
"Oh no! Big Brother Ren!"
Wendy suddenly remembered that Ren didn't seem to have followed them. He didn't have wings! Happy took Natsu, and Carla took her, completely leaving Ren behind on the ground.
"I'm right here."
Ren's voice rang out above their heads, cool and composed.
They looked back and saw that Ren had transformed into the appearance of Gojo Satoru without them noticing. He was floating effortlessly in the air, his white hair flowing in the wind, the dark blindfold covering his eyes. He sat cross-legged on thin air, as if resting on an invisible throne.
When Happy flew up just now, Ren received the Gojo Satoru template overlay and used the Limitless technique's spatial manipulation—essentially short-range Teleportation—to arrive in this world first.
"Ren! You can fly too?" Natsu asked, surprised.
"Something like that," Ren replied.
Just then, a crisis struck.
Poof.
Happy's and Carla's wings suddenly disappeared.
"Eh?" Happy blinked.
"Yaaahhh!"
"Uwaahhh!"... The group screamed as gravity reclaimed them. They plummeted downwards like stones.
"My magic... it's gone!" Carla cried out in panic. "This world... there's no Ethernano in the atmosphere!"
Just as they were about to hit the rugged ground of a floating island, Ren uncrossed his legs. He pointed a finger, and an invisible force—Blue—pulled them towards him, neutralizing their momentum instantly.
Ren reached out and grabbed them, preventing them from falling to the surface.
"W-we're saved!" Wendy gasped, clutching her chest.
"Thank you, Big Brother Ren."
Ren set them down gently on a dirt path. "Be careful. This world rejects Earth Land magic."
They looked around, getting their bearings.
Just then, a strangely shaped building appeared before them. It looked like a giant tree root, gnarled and ancient, bearing the Fairy Tail banner. But it wasn't the guild they knew. It looked rougher, wilder.
The name 'Fairy Tail' was written on the main door.
"It's Fairy Tail!!"
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