“You really think that’s going to work on me?” Chase shook his head, more amused than annoyed, and peeled Dark Magician Girl off his leg like a stubborn bandage.
He nodded once, satisfied, slid the cards back into the deck, and straightened up, his expression turning serious.
“There’s something important I need your help with.” He pulled the Slifer card back out and held it up for her to see.
Dark Magician Girl had clearly been planning to keep milking the cute act, but the second she saw the card, her pupils shrank and her whole expression went dead serious.
“Wait, this is…
Slifer the Sky Dragon?!” “That’s right.
Picked it up after the fight with that fire dragon.
I’ve been on the road ever since, so this is the first chance I’ve had to show you.” “That fire-breathing, smelly lizard!
Next time I see it, I’m giving it the beating of its life!” Dark Magician Girl’s fists clenched just thinking about that dragon’s terrifying strength.
Back in that fight, she’d barely finished materializing before one of Ignia’s claws, wreathed in dragonfire, had run her straight through, and she’d retreated back into the deck to lick her wounds without ever getting a hit in.
“Revenge can wait.
Right now I want to try summoning it.
Can you keep Book of Secret Arts active for me?” Chase stood and handed her a spell card as he said it.
Book of Secret Arts: a tome of dense, arcane knowledge that raised a mage’s maximum magic reserve, if only a little.
The moment Dark Magician Girl took the card, a magic circle lit up beneath her, and an ancient book with a floating quill hovered just above her open palm, its pages turning slowly on their own, throwing off little flecks of starlight.
Chase closed his eyes, and his chest swelled just enough to show the boost taking hold.
Under normal circumstances, he could have held the Book’s effect on his own, no help needed.
But summoning Slifer was dangerous enough that he needed every scrap of focus he had, with nothing left over to risk on maintaining a second effect at the same time.
It was exactly why he’d chosen to test this now, safely back home in Magnolia, instead of somewhere out in the field.
“Alright.
Let’s begin.” Under Dark Magician Girl’s anxious watch, Chase took a slow breath to settle his rhythm, pressed his index and middle fingers together, lifted the card, and held it high above his head.
His face went serious, and he began muttering under his breath.
“When the sky fills with thunder and chaos, let the ancient tomes bound in chains gather, their power without limit.” “When good and evil meet as one, let the ritual to summon the judge of hell begin.” Chase’s eyes snapped open, Slifer’s name half-formed on his lips, when a loud crash tore through the room and cut him off cold.
No, not now— “Hey, Chase!
We came to hang out!” A familiar, brainless voice rang out from the smoke still billowing through what used to be his front door.
Natsu strolled in over the wreckage like he owned the place.
Behind him came Lucy, wrapped in a bath towel that did nothing to hide how flustered she was, and Happy, mouth already open on the first syllable of “Aye.” The two groups stared at each other across a room full of drifting sawdust.
Lucy’s eyes landed on Chase, still frozen mid-pose with the card held high over his head, and her expression shifted into something very strange as she remembered the lines she’d “accidentally” overheard through the door on the way in.
Who knew the terrifying Mr.
Chase secretly had a whole dramatic incantation thing going on.
She caught herself a second later and snapped into an apologetic bow, exactly ninety degrees.
“Mr.
Chase, I am so sorry!
I was going to knock, I swear, but Natsu just barreled straight through before I could stop him!
I’m really, really sorry!” A few minutes earlier, right around when Chase had first gotten home.
Across the river from his place, in a second-floor apartment with a decent view of the water, Lucy sat at her desk, freshly showered and wrapped in a towel, quill pen in hand, working on her novel.
My second day at the guild, and I already feel like I know everyone a little better.
That cat Happy swindled me out of three thousand gold today.
I am never forgetting this debt.
Tomorrow, first thing, I collect.
She wrote down everything she’d seen and heard at the guild that day, all of it, the good and the infuriating both.
Writing about the guild’s chaos pulled a smile out of her without her noticing.
Writing about Happy made her fists clench all over again.
The best part of the whole day was meeting the famous Mr.
Chase and hearing all about dragons.
The S-Class mages of Fairy Tail are terrifyingly strong.
I wonder if I’ll ever get there myself.
Oh, come on.
Listen to me.
Getting ahead of myself already.
Lucy shook her head hard, cheeks going a little pink as she wrote it.
I’m still a complete nobody.
No reputation to speak of, nothing.
Honestly, though, Mr.
Chase turned out to be a lot kinder and gentler than everyone made him sound…
She was still turning over how to describe him when the sound of chewing drifted in from the little living room outside her door.
A thief?
On my second night here?!
Every nerve in her body went tight.
She grabbed one of her Celestial Spirit keys off the desk and crept to the door on her toes.
What she found on the other side broke something in her.
Natsu and Happy had let themselves in without a sound and were now tearing through her refrigerator and the snacks she’d bought that very afternoon.
Bone fragments and torn wrappers were already scattered everywhere, giving her clean, cozy little living room a real lived-in touch.
“Natsu!
Happy!
What are you two doing here?!” Lucy demanded, thoroughly rattled.
“Hey, Lucy.
Evening.” Natsu greeted her with a grin, grease from the grilled meat still shining at the corners of his mouth.
“Evening my foot!
This is my home!
My private space!” “Ha, who cares about that?
We’re here to hang out with you anyway.” “I don’t recall ever inviting either of you as guests!” Lucy glared at Natsu’s completely unbothered face, practically spitting the words.
“And you!
Dead cat!
Quit sharpening your claws on my newly renovated wall!” “Aye, Lucy, have some delicious dried fish.” Happy pulled a blue dried fish out of the bag behind his back.
“…That was bought with my money, wasn’t it?” Lucy’s lips twitched, a vein ticking steadily at her temple.
“By the way, Lucy, what were you doing in your room?
I could’ve sworn I heard a quill scratching.” Natsu leaned forward, craning his neck to peek curiously through the doorway at her desk.
Panic shot through Lucy at the thought of her secret novel-writing getting discovered.
She spun a full hundred and eighty degrees and drove a kick straight into the side of Natsu’s head, sending him into the wall by the door hard enough to spiderweb the plaster.
Natsu coughed up blood on the spot, dropped instantly, as if just showing his face had been a capital offense.
Happy trembled, muttering, “Lucy is so scary, Lucy is so scary.” Once the dust settled, Lucy softened, and instead of hauling the two of them off to the Council for breaking and entering, she made them each a cup of hot tea instead.
The plan had been simple: get them to drink up fast and leave.
But between Natsu’s endless pestering, she ended up walking them through a full demonstration of the Celestial Spirit Magic she was so proud of, whether she’d meant to or not.
Natsu and Happy were thoroughly impressed.
“Hey, Lucy, wanna head over to Chase’s place?
It’s right across the river, practically next door!” Natsu tacked the suggestion on at the end, grinning in a way that meant nothing good.
He’d gotten flattened by Chase with one punch earlier that day, and the grudge was clearly still fresh, revenge already turning over in his head.
“Wait, what a coincidence, Mr.
Chase lives right across from me?!” Lucy’s eyes went wide.
“I mean, it’s only natural for a junior to pay their respects to a senior, but isn’t it a little late?
Shouldn’t we wait until tomorrow?” Before she could finish the sentence, Natsu grabbed her by the hand and hauled her straight toward the window.
The glass shattered outright with a bang, shards flying everywhere.
Lucy’s furious scream rang out from somewhere in the middle of it.
“So you weren’t asking my opinion, you were just informing me!” “At least let me change into real clothes first!” “And another thing!
Could we not use the window as the front door?!”