Makarov announced the next morning that he’d be away for a week or two — “guild business,” he said, vague enough that I understood exactly what kind of business it actually was without him needing to spell it out in front of everyone.
He left Macao in charge, gave a few quick instructions about not letting the hall burn down in his absence, and was gone before most of the guild had even finished breakfast.
Go get them, old man.
The days that followed left me with a lot more time to sit with my own thoughts than I particularly wanted.
Was that the right call.
Telling him.
Breaking Erza’s trust to do it.
I turned it over more times than I could count, and kept landing in the same place — yes, it was right, the tower needed someone stronger than two traumatized kids to actually finish tearing it down properly, and waiting years for us to grow strong enough ourselves meant years more of Millianna, Simon, and Sho suffering in the meantime.
Right didn’t make it feel good, though.
Right and comfortable were apparently very different things.
So, mostly to keep from spiraling further into that particular loop, I threw myself into training with big brother instead.
“Teach me to borrow your mana properly,” I said, one evening, during our usual conversation.
“Not just theory.
Actual practice.” Hone your body first, he said, patient as always.
You’re not ready to channel something my size through a frame this small.
Not without consequences.
I can handle a little discomfort.
Just let me try.
Kid— Please.
He was quiet for a moment, and I could practically feel the reluctant sigh in it even without a body to sigh with.
Fine.
A little.
Against my better judgment.
I felt it the second he let a trickle of his mana actually flow through me — and “trickle,” it turned out, was a generous word for what my body experienced as something closer to being set on fire from the inside out, specifically concentrated somewhere around my abdomen.
I doubled over, vision going white at the edges, and the last thing I remember before waking up in my own bed was a distant, exasperated voice telling me exactly how badly I’d misjudged that decision.
Told you, big brother said, the moment I was conscious enough to hear him again.
…Yeah.
Okay.
Point taken.
Your body needs conditioning before it can handle my mana passing through it.
Physical strength, endurance, all of it — build that up properly, and your system adjusts.
Eventually you’ll be able to draw on me without your insides trying to stage a rebellion about it.
Eventually being the key word there.
Eventually being the key word, yes.
So it’ll always hurt at least a little?
Yes.
Less, over time, as you condition yourself properly — but yes.
Some.
I let out a long, deeply put-upon sigh at the ceiling of my dorm room.
Wonderful.
Love that for me.
Guess I’ve got a miserable training regimen ahead, on top of everything else.
Welcome to having a dragon inside you, kid.
Nobody said it came with a warranty.
A week passed like that — training, healing from training, more training, all while Makarov’s absence stretched a little longer than the “week or two” he’d promised, which left a low, persistent unease sitting in the back of my mind that I mostly tried to ignore.
Nothing to do but wait, and waiting had never exactly been my strong suit.
The one genuine bright spot in that stretch came entirely by accident, when Gray — apparently deciding he had something to prove — challenged Erza to a sparring match in front of half the guild.
It did not go well for him.
Erza requipped into her armor before he’d even finished his opening taunt, and from there, it was less a fight and more a swift, methodical demonstration of exactly why nobody else in the guild had been eager to volunteer for the same challenge.
Gray got in maybe one decent Ice-Make attack before Erza was already past his guard, and the rest of the match consisted mostly of him getting knocked around the training yard like a stray dog that had wandered somewhere it very much shouldn’t have.
“Yield?” Erza asked, sword resting lightly against his throat, not even breathing hard.
“…Yield,” Gray wheezed, from flat on his back.
I laughed harder at that than I had in longer than I could remember, and honestly, the sheer joy of watching Gray get thoroughly humbled carried my mood for the next several days — a small, stupid, wonderful distraction from an old man who still hadn’t come home yet, and a promise I could only hope he was somewhere out there keeping.