Meanwhile, on the other side of the ruins…
“That man is Noah Hopelight, an S-Class Mage of Fairy Tail. They call him the Sage.”
“The Sage? What kind of title is that?”
“Don’t underestimate him!” Yuka warned.
“I’ve heard he’s even stronger than Titania. Years ago, Sorcerer Magazine named him the most gifted Mage of the younger generation, and he was even considered a serious candidate for the Ten Wizard Saints. You just haven’t heard much about him lately because he’s barely been active in the magic world these past few years.”
Yuka’s explanation immediately drew startled looks from his companions.
“A candidate for the Ten Wizard Saints? Seriously?”
Several of the lesser Mages around them visibly tensed.
They were speaking quietly, but everyone present could still hear them clearly.
Noah folded his arms across his chest and adopted a suitably imposing pose.
His cloak billowed dramatically behind him in a breeze that seemed to have appeared from nowhere, and although he kept his expression composed, he was thoroughly enjoying himself.
Anyone with that kind of reputation would have felt at least a little pleased hearing strangers recite their accomplishments.
Cana and Loke exchanged a glance.
‘There he goes showing off again.’
“Stick to the plan,” Noah told them.
“Choose your opponents.”
With that, he started walking forward on his own.
His real interest was the Moon Drip.
He wanted a closer look at it to see whether there was any way to collect and preserve some for future use.
Yuka stepped forward to intercept him.
From his perspective, the situation was straightforward.
It was three against three, and since he was the strongest of their group, his job was to hold Noah back until Lyon could return and support them.
Yuka had never seriously imagined he could defeat Noah.
He understood the difference in strength between them far too well for that.
Unfortunately for him, events immediately refused to follow his plan.
“You’re not getting past us!”
Yuka swept out one hand and released a vibrating wave of magic.
Sherry cracked her long whip through the air while Toby raised his clawed hands, and all three attacked Noah at once.
Before any of their spells could reach him, however, a golden burst of light and an energy-charged card shot in from opposite directions, smashing their attacks apart.
Cana stepped in front of Noah with a deck of cards fanned across one hand, while Loke stood beside her, idly turning the ring on his finger.
“Hey, Loke,” Cana said, her eyes narrowing.
“Looks like these guys are underestimating us.”
“Yeah.” Loke smiled.
“Let’s show them what Fairy Tail Mages can actually do.”
Cana glanced toward Yuka.
“You take the short one. I’ll handle the other two. No problem?”
“Of course not.”
If this had been a show, the battle music would have started right about then.
“Radiant Light!”
“Solar Flare!”
They attacked simultaneously without exchanging so much as a glance.
That kind of timing did not require planning.
Years of fighting alongside—and frequently against—one another inside Fairy Tail had given them an instinctive understanding of how the other moved.
Explosions tore across the ruins one after another.
Boom!
Boom!
Dust and smoke swallowed Yuka, Sherry, and Toby.
Then the haze began to clear.
All three were still standing.
The opening exchange had been little more than a probe, but Cana and Loke had learned enough from it to reach the same unpleasant conclusion.
These opponents might actually be troublesome.
Yuka’s cold voice came through the drifting smoke.
“If you want to fight three people with only two, you’d better have the strength to back it up. If that’s all Fairy Tail has to offer, I’m disappointed.”
He glanced toward his companions.
“Sherry. Toby. Show them what we can really do.”
“Wave!”
“Go, Angelica!”
“Paralysis Claw!”
The three of them had once belonged to Lamia Scale, which already placed them well above ordinary henchmen.
Yuka used Wave Magic, producing vibrations that could neutralize or disperse many forms of magical attack.
Even during his days in Lamia Scale, he had been known for being particularly effective against other Mages.
Sherry used Doll Attack, a form of magic that allowed her to manipulate living creatures other than humans.
The enormous rat beside her, Angelica, was one of the creatures under her control.
Toby fought with his Paralysis Claw, while his naturally flexible body allowed him to twist and evade attacks with unusual ease.
Individually, none of them was overwhelmingly powerful, but their abilities complemented each other well enough that fighting all three at once was another matter entirely.
Loke might originally have been Leo, one of the strongest of the Twelve Zodiac Celestial Spirits, but he had spent three years trapped in the human world.
At present, he could only channel a fraction of his magic through his ring, and even his physical abilities had deteriorated considerably.
Cana relied almost entirely on the cards in her hands.
If her own physical combat ability were judged separately, speed was probably the only category in which she could genuinely call herself impressive.
And so the familiar Fairy Tail battle routine began.
Once the enemy finished revealing their abilities, Cana and Loke, who had looked extremely impressive for all of two seconds, immediately started getting beaten into the ground.
Every burst of Loke’s light was scattered by Yuka’s Wave Magic, while Toby nimbly avoided Cana’s cards no matter how she angled them.
Her attacks repeatedly struck empty air, and whenever either of them exposed an opening, Angelica charged in from the side.
They avoided the first few attacks.
Then one got through.
Then another.
With their magic being countered, their physical abilities offering no clear advantage, and the numbers stacked against them, Cana and Loke rapidly lost the momentum they had seized at the beginning.
Eventually, both were knocked off their feet and sent crashing across the stone.
Sherry looked down at them with open contempt.
“When the two of you tried to hold all three of us back, I thought you must be powerful Mages. Turns out you’re just a couple of loudmouths.”
She lifted her chin proudly.
“Kneel before Lord Reitei and repent!”
Compared with Sherry, Yuka and Toby were considerably quieter.
Yuka preferred saying as little as possible because it made him look cool.
Toby was quiet mostly because he was an idiot who rarely managed to say anything properly.
Sherry, meanwhile, was perfectly happy to keep provoking them.
“Weren’t you going to show us how powerful Fairy Tail Mages are? If this is all you can do, then Fairy Tail isn’t much after all.”
Cana’s eye twitched.
Loke’s expression changed.
“What did you say?”
Sherry had successfully stepped on the one land mine no one should ever step on when fighting a Fairy Tail Mage.
The two slowly pushed themselves back to their feet.
Loke brushed dust from his clothes.
“Getting mocked by people like this is pretty embarrassing.”
Cana flexed her shoulders.
“And if we lose here, Noah’s going to laugh at us for the rest of the trip.”
“Loke, you’ve still got enough strength left, right?”
“Of course. Compared with some of the monsters back at the guild, these three aren’t even close.”
Cana glared at Sherry.
“You loudmouthed bitch. You really shouldn’t have said that.”
Loke’s smile disappeared as well.
“You actually said Fairy Tail was nothing?”
He looked directly at the three opposing Mages.
“Do you have any idea who you’re fighting?”
Noah, watching from nearby, nearly smiled.
‘There it is.’
The cheat-code phrase had finally arrived.
“We’re Fairy Tail!”
And just like that, the imaginary battle music started all over again.
Cana reached for another set of cards.
“Let’s use those and finish them in one shot.”
To be fair, without some kind of extra advantage, Cana and Loke really would have struggled against these three in their current condition.
But when had anyone in Fairy Tail ever suffered from a shortage of unfair advantages?
After invoking the sacred name of their guild, Cana and Loke straightened up and revealed their second set of cheats.
The magic ring made by Noah.
And the Magic Cards made by Noah.
Loke thrust his hand forward.
“Flash Storm!”
Countless streaks of light erupted around him and tore through the air from every direction, converging on Yuka at once.
“What?!” Yuka’s eyes widened.
“That many attacks, that fast?”
His surprise did not slow his hands.
“Wave!”
A burst of vibration scattered one beam.
“Wave!”
Another vanished.
“Wave!”
Then another.
Yuka’s arms moved constantly, sending wave after wave of magic through the incoming barrage, but the light attacks were simply too numerous and too fast.
They came from different angles with almost no pause between them, forcing him to defend again and again without a chance to reset his stance.
Most of the opponents Yuka had faced in the past had been weaker than him, and his Wave Magic had usually shut them down with ease.
That experience had left an obvious hole in his fighting style: he had relatively little practice dealing with sustained attacks coming from several directions at once.
Before he could adapt to the sudden increase in pressure, Loke had already closed the distance.
Five steps remained between them.
And Loke was still advancing.
End of Chapter 13