As Cluney stormed past him, the Celtic Guard abruptly stopped fighting the vortex that had swallowed him.
A brief smile crossed his usually stone-serious face.
Hand-to-hand with his summoner?
Now that’s going to be an eye-opener.
Cluney never noticed the flicker of expression.
One hand still gripping the churning vortex of Chaos Space, the other curled into a black demon claw, he strode toward Chase with total confidence.
Seeing no sign of Chase reaching for a card, Cluney felt his own read on the situation solidify.
That reflection spell must have burned through nearly all his magic.
He can’t have anything left to summon.
“After all this trouble, after every one of my crew, it’s finally my turn.” Cluney could barely contain himself, already picturing the new era waiting for him once he handed Chase over to Lord Marshall in chains.
Riding that high, he settled into position and waved Chase over, casual about it.
Watching the guy celebrate like the fight was already won, Chase just chuckled and shook his head.
Under Cluney’s confused stare, Chase tore off the cape and let it fall, revealing the muscle underneath.
The scars crossing his chest and shoulder stood out clearly in the last light of the setting sun, radiating a kind of hard-won strength.
Every one of them was proof of a fight against something that had actually mattered.
That’s not right.
He’s lost the cards, so why isn’t he scared?
If anything, he looks almost…
excited?
And since when does a card mage have scars like that?!
Cluney felt something twist wrong in his gut, a bead of cold sweat cutting a line down his bloodied forehead.
Panic started creeping in.
“I really can’t do anything with you, Guild Master Cluney.” “Since that’s how you want it, fine by me!
Let’s have ourselves a passionate brawl!” Chase cracked his knuckles, grinning wide.
Truth was, his magic wasn’t nearly as drained as Cluney assumed.
He could still summon an ace monster if he wanted, Dark Magician included.
But those were the kind of cards he should be saving for the real target hiding behind all this.
Marshall.
No reason to burn them here.
Besides, Cluney was a genuinely solid opponent in his own right, and it’d be interesting to see if fighting him all the way through earned him a new card.
And more importantly than any of that…
This fight was actually fun.
Cluney stared blankly up at a sudden stretch of blue sky, watching crows wheel and drift lazily away, completely lost.
What just happened?
What’s going on?
Why is the sky suddenly sideways?
No, wait— A tearing pain in his chest yanked him violently back to reality.
Cluney’s eyes snapped open, and he realized with a jolt that he was lying in the wreckage of the shattered bow.
Through the drifting dust and splinters, he could see Chase, the same man he’d been sure he could “smash in a few punches,” slowly pulling back an arm that had clearly just finished swinging straight through him.
He didn’t even see the guy move before he went flying?
“Impossible!
How?!” Cluney scrambled to his feet, roaring.
He couldn’t accept it, not after countless real battles, not losing to some card mage.
The churning vortex twisted and collapsed into a shockwave, blasting straight at Chase.
The explosion tore what was left of the already-ruined deck apart.
Where Chase had been standing, there was nothing.
He reappeared a heartbeat later, already airborne, directly above Cluney.
Cluney’s eyes went wide, and he threw himself into a scrambling series of rolls to dodge the flying kick coming down.
The impact cracked straight through the bow floor, leaving a deep, boot-shaped crater.
Before Cluney could even catch his breath, a gust of displaced air hit his face, and Chase’s fist filled his vision, closing fast.
Pure instinct crossed his arms up in front of him to block.
The impact landed with a dull, heavy thud, and Cluney went skidding backward, stopping right at the very edge of the broken bow.
One more step, and he’d have gone straight into the ocean behind him.
Cluney looked down at his own trembling arms, pain from the shattered bones tearing through his nerves.
Only now, belatedly, did the dark guild master, so sure of his own melee ability a minute ago, realize just how badly he’d miscalculated, bypassing the swordman to trade blows with Chase directly.
This Fairy Tail mage, this guy right in front of me, is some kind of unstoppable monster!
The shock passed, and Cluney’s eyes went dark and hard again fast.
He still had one card left to play: the “capture alive” clause Lord Marshall had specifically written into the commission.
As a guild mage bound to that commission, Chase couldn’t afford to actually kill him if he wanted the job done properly.
With that loophole in hand, Cluney could throw every last bit of caution away and come at Chase with absolutely nothing held back.
“I’m Cluney Barnes, the pirate!
A brat like you is a hundred years too young to be the one who kills me!” As if worried Chase might have somehow forgotten the terms of his own commission, Cluney shouted it out loud, hammering the point home.
Then he clenched both fists, drew the vortex in tight around them, and charged, launching an attack Ina and the others could only watch in horror, certain it was suicide.
Even knowing exactly what Cluney was counting on, Chase made no move to dodge.
Instead, he slowly raised one finger.
Another one of these damn card tricks?!
The familiar gesture threw Cluney off his charge for half a second.
He’d apparently developed a full psychological flinch response to the sight of Chase’s cards by now.
His fear was justified, in a way.
Chase really was about to make a summon.
Just not the kind with a card attached.
“I summon my fists!
In attack position!” Chase clenched both hands and stepped forward, meeting Cluney’s charge head-on without a shred of hesitation.
The two collided, fists blurring fast enough to leave afterimages in the air, trading blows with everything they had.
The heavy, rhythmic thud of impact after impact echoed across the wreckage, the shockwaves strong enough to make Ina and the others, watching from the merchant ship, shudder with every hit.
It was hard to believe this was actually a fight between two mages, and not two brawlers going at it in the street.
Even Dash, who fought with his own fists for a living, stood there stunned, jaw hanging open.
He tried, just for a second, to picture himself in that exact fight, and came up with exactly two words for what would happen.
Lights out.
The brawl dragged on for nearly a minute.
In the end, Chase, held back by more than one consideration, not least of which was a real reluctance to kiss nine hundred ninety million Jewels goodbye, never landed the single punch that would have ended it outright.
Instead, he simply wore Cluney down until the man collapsed, utterly spent, sprawled across the deck in defeat.
“You…
you’re stronger than any of those self-proclaimed S-Class mages I’ve fought…” Cluney lay flat on his back in a spreading pool of blood, staring blankly up at the sky, and said, quiet, “I…
lost…” Chase, feeling thoroughly refreshed, took a deep breath and wiped a smear of blood from the corner of his mouth.
He wasn’t in any rush to deal with Cluney.
Instead, his attention turned inward, toward the card space waiting somewhere deep in his own mind.
A card hung there, floating in the void.
Lucky me.
Actually managed to pull a new card off Cluney.
The card flipped itself over, revealing a small dragon, blue from head to tail.