Chapter 27: Daybreak Part 3 Finale

Beta read by Shigiya and Darklord331

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-Duke Everlue Manor-

The moment Erza sliced through the wooden doors with her spear, the Duke had already disappeared through the soil somewhere.

Nevertheless, the freakishly hideous maids had already reacted to her presence and blocked her path with the giant one missing.

"Hoho! We won't let you pass through, miss ugly face."

"Yes, yes! Ugly will be taught a proper lesson!"

"No wonder the Master couldn't stand to see her, such savagery!"

"She can never reach our level, pathetic."

Each of their words further infuriated the redhead more than she wanted to admit. But her focus still was Everlue, rather than his involvement with the incident a few years ago with her first mission as an S-class wizard. A grudge she kept after hearing that the mayor was getting financial aid from the Duke.

"Don't waste my time!" Erza shouted, swiping her spear in an arc, creating a large gale of air from the accumulated ethernano inside her weapon. A weapon she got as a gift from one of her many missions in the past.

"W-Whaa!!!"

Crash!

The move easily overwhelmed the four women or goblins as she heard Lucy whisper previously. They were sent flying through the halls and through the walls all at once before losing consciousness.

"You seem to hold some grudge against the Duke, Erza." Before she was about to rush forward, a large hand touched her shoulders, which stopped the girl in her tracks. Broly stood beside her with a gentle smile on his face which slowly extinguished the growing fury inside her heart from the olden memories. "Tell me what happened, and we'll help you."

As he mentioned in the last part, both Lucy, Cana, and Natsu ran inside the manor with their magic ready to be fired. Lucy followed inside, feeling uncomfortable moving around her maid costume. Cana held a few glowing cards in her hand while Natsu burst inside with his hands on fire.

"Ah… we got here too late. Erza already took out those ugly maids!" Natsu shouted with regret. But that didn't last long before he got up and looked around him with anticipation. "Wait, I don't see the fat one, so she must still be around somewhere!" As always, he paid more attention to the upcoming conflict than anything else.

"Is something going on?" Cana said, glancing between Erza and Broly.

"..."

Looking over her options, Erza sighed as she decided that it was better to tell them the details of the Kakeri village incident.

"Listen, all of you. Long ago, when I first gained my title as an S-Class, both Mira and I went on a particular quest." She went on to explain what happened on the mission. From their arrival to the town to when she found the people trapped inside the cave along with the many casualties… Erza told them everything.

Lucy and Natsu listen with horror-stricken faces. The latter, more furious than anything else, if the growing rage on his face to the intensity of his flames flickering darkish red. Cana and Broly listened with blank faces that didn't display any change in emotions.

"They did what!? I'm going to burn them to ashes!"

"I… I can't believe that such people can exist in this world."

Erza nodded at her sentiment as she continued her retelling of the story. "When we returned to interrogate the mayor, I soon learned that their sponsor was Duke Everlue. But unfortunately, due to the lack of any concrete evidence, I was unable to report his crimes to the council and have him arrested.. So when I heard of this mission, I had to come and take care of this matter once and for all. The Magic Council also warned me to drop the case, stating that they will be looking into the case."

"Humph, as expected from those old geezers. Too tangled up with politics and unable to do their jobs." Cana commented, taking a swig of her bottle of booze. "Well, now that we're here, better try and dig up any potentially incriminating evidence and lock the guy up. You with me, Lucy, Natsu?"

"Of course!"

"I'm all fired up!"

Broly squinted at the hole down on the ground, closing his eyes and letting his senses take over. "He's close by. I'll chase him while all of you take care of the quest and search for any evidence."

"Chase him? You're too big for the hole, Broly." Even Erza didn't know she could fit through that with her current armor, and she was still smaller than him!

The Saiyan didn't say anything else. His body started to float in the air, eliciting a few surprised gasps from the others before he flew right to the ground.

Crash!

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Cough! Cough!

They coughed from the dust and smoke before it cleared up soon after. When opening their eyes, the group witnessed something quite weird. A larger hole in the group but this one was different from the previous mole hole.

Cana was the first one to speak, "Did he just… slam his body against the ground and pass through the earth like it was wet paper? And-and he can fly!?" The ride here would have been so enjoyable and less deadly if she had had him carry her here. Still, just seeing the silhouette of Broly's figure now outlined on the ground just showcased how physically durable this guy was.

"Woah! That's amazing! Let's do the same the—uuf!" Natsu was about to mimic Broly and nearly face-planted against the marble floor until Erza sucker-punched him right up the jaw.

"No time to mess around. Let's hurry inside his library. Broly will bring that pig soon enough." The party agreed and followed Erza as their leader, who guided them through the maze-like hall while dragging the still dazed pinkett. To be completely truthful, the redhead herself didn't know where she was heading to, but she expected to, luckily, end up at her desired location.

{Break}

Woosh!

Within the underground layer of the manor, where Everlue built a row of dungeons and prisons for his enemies, the Duke himself emerged like a mole. Aside from being a Celestial wizard, Everlue also was quite proficient with earth magic which he taught his female servants — a neat spell he learned from Virgo. This allowed him and the others to seamlessly dig through the estate without damaging the foundation.

"Humph, ugly girls think they can catch my eye without possessing a lick of beauty or charm within them. Disgusting! Now, time to go play with my beautiful maids~♪!" He said cheerfully, skipping through the corridor without a care in the world, lost in his imagination.

"Hm?" He stopped in his tracks, feeling the ground and ceiling starting to shake out of nowhere. "An earthquake?" It got stronger and louder till he started worrying that the entire structure might fall apart.

To his shock, the ceiling broke apart, with dust flying everywhere. Coughing, he gasped his breath while staggering backward. "Who dares to — WHAT THE HELL!?" He felt his heart stop for a moment when Broly's face emerged a few inches away from him, both eyes glaring at him with an invisible pressure descending on the Duke's shoulders like a boulder. Unlike Everlue, who used magic to dig through the ground without damaging the foundation, Broly just bulldozed through everything in front of him, breaking the supports and his entourage without hesitation.

"You savage! Don't you know who I am!?" He roared out loud, falling to his but when facing this unexpected intruder. His hands scrambled for his pocket, where he retrieved a single golden key.

"I don't care."

When Broly saw the key, his eyes widened with surprise.

"Boyoyoyoyo! Afraid right? Now, Gate open, Virgo!" In a move similar to Lucy, a sight he'd seen countless times in the past whenever she called forth Aquarius, Capricorn, Cancer, and many other of her spirits. The ground lit up with a giant magic circle before a familiar giant woman jumped through. To his surprise, the woman was far bigger than him, and for once, he twisted his head to look up to another person.

"Hello," his frown disappeared as he greeted the spirit with a friendly smile similar to what he used with the others. "I want to talk with Duke Everlue about a matter of the past."

"Stop with the nonsense. Attack that gorilla, Virgo!"

"Understood, master!"

The giant woman raised her fist before sticking Broly right in the middle of his chest! With a thunderous boom, the Saiyan was thrown into the wall behind him. His body impacted the ground hard but bounced back up again. "You need some punishment for disturbing my master!" Virgo moved fast despite her size, already by his side, and stomped on his body which buried him inside the rubbles, making it disappear from view.

"Boyoyoyo! Defeated in one attack, guess those muscles of yous are just for sho — What!?"

He watched in disbelief as Broly casually walked out of the rubble, pushing away large stones and boulders as if they weighed nothing. He looked at his torn sleeves in sadness, ignoring both Virgo and Everlue — the latter whose face had turned red with veins bulging across his temple.

"Ah, I just bought this… maybe I can ask Gretel if she can fix it." The Saiyan quite liked the coat, which could change colors, and the damaged area returned to a brown hue. "That wasn't nice of you." Despite the power behind the attack, there wasn't a bruise on his face or his chest where Virgo hit him.

Everlue's face twisted, sneering with contempt as he disregarded Broly's words. "A poor peasant like you should keep quiet. Wait… you must be with those ugly bitches from before! Humph, I'll make them regret their life when I get my hands on them!"

"... I'm giving you another chance to step down. I don't want to hurt you."

"Be silent, brat! Get lost!" The Duke noticed the sudden change in tone, though he ignored it and kicked the ground with his foot. "Get him!"

Broly looked at Virgo, "You're a Celestial spirit, right? I'm friends with Aquarius and a few other spirits. My friend Lucy is a Celestial mage as well, and she has a goal of gathering every golden key." He knew spirits couldn't just break their contract so easily without some rules or punishment holding them back. "Are you willi—"

"—Stop trying to steal my servant! Virgo, kill him now!" Everlue's shout cut him off his speech. He ordered Virgo to attack him, which she followed but there was a slight hesitation in her attack.

"Haa!"

Following her last attack, she launched another punch right for his face, this time with a much faster speed. Seeing this, he dodged it with ease and spun around her arm, grabbing her hand and twisting it at the wrist with his own strength. She screamed in pain before releasing her grip on him, leaving Broly to spin around her a couple of times before having a small green orb form within his palm.

"This is going to hurt. I'm sorry." He whispered, feeling a bit guilty. Nevertheless, he continued with his action and thrust his arm right to her abdomen, where the small marble-like ball of energy expanded and bathed the corridor in emerald light.

Crash!

{Break}

A crash resounded within the Everlue manor as Erza and the others continued to break through door after door, trying to find the library. Cana complained about how they would end up breaking every single door at this point. Fortunately, it didn't take long before they came to the main library.

And mostly…

Two of them didn't really care.

"Finally!" Lucy shouted out loud, tired of having to run around aimlessly for so long.

"Ah, man, I didn't get to use my ninja skills!" Natsu moaned in disappointment, having caused no damage whatsoever so far, given Erza was the one doing it in the first place.

Speaking of the redhead, on the side searching the shelves, she immediately went to the desk in the middle and started going through the papers and documents one by one.

"Haa… Natsu, I don't haa… I think you know what a ninja is." Cana said while breathing harshly. She wasn't as physically gifted or athletic as the rest, so the constant running tired her out a bit. After a bit, it didn't take long for her to regain her breath. "Anyways, the book should be here somewhere, right? Daybreak or something, I gotta be honest, with how big the place is, it might take us a long time to find it."

"Found it." She nearly faceplanted to the floor when Happy took out a golden book from the shelves, with Daybreak written clearly as the title.

"Good job, Happy!"

"Hehehe, thanks, Natsu!"

"Now, let's burn it!"

Before his flames could touch the pages of the book, Lucy swept the book away from Happy's grasp — startling both of them as she held it protectively like a mother would do for a child.

"Do you know what this is!? This is Kemy Zaleon's work! It must be an extremely rare book, and we can't just destroy it!" A renowned author from whom she read countless of his works of literature, to find a book unreleased to the public in this place was astonishing in itself. But the fact that they had to destroy it as per the client's request was heartbreaking in itself.

"Lucy, who cares who this author is? We need to destroy it as per the client's request." Natsu urged the girl, but she ended up ignoring him and reading the book. Using her Gale-Force-Reading Glasses to accelerate the process of reading the book.

"Just give me a bit of time. Let me at least read it once!"

While both were bickering, Cana joined Erza, who rummaged through the contents of Everlue's desk.

"I'm still shocked to hear about what happened in Kakkeri village, to think so many people have died and the perpetrator had been running around freely all these years. So I guess you're going to search for any incriminating proof against him?"

Erza nodded her head, "Even if the majority of the criminals responsible for that tragedy are behind bars now, I can't rest easy with this Everlue not getting served a sentence as well. Fortunately, I don't have to look far. There is already enough evidence here to put him behind bars for life…."

Letters belonging to members of dark guilds, assassination requests against his competitors, illegal acquisition of funds, black mail against politicians… "Though I can't still find anything to link to that incident at Kakeri Village."

Cana whistled, "I'm not an expert, but isn't that enough evidence to put him in prison? We can just show the Rune Knights these papers, and boom, Everlue is caught and detained."

"... If you say so." For some reason, Erza didn't feel satisfied with that thought. That man deserves far worse than just being locked inside a cell for a lifetime or a few years if he had connections. A small voice inside her head pushed her into darker thoughts which she immediately crushed. No, she promised Mira never to go to such extremes. In the end, there wasn't much she could accomplish, and she sighed. "Also, we got trouble incoming."

"Hm?"

As soon as she said that, the library shelves began to separate, and everyone's attention went to the two dark figures.

"So it's finally time for business?"

"The boss isn't here, but it's still our duty to keep intruders out of his private affairs."

The first one to speak was a man with a long braided ponytail reaching his back, wearing a tunic coupled with a strange weapon he was wielding — a wok.

"Mama would scold us for receiving money without working for it. Look at those symbols. We're dealing with Fairy Tail wizards."

The second man stood taller than her partner, with bigger muscles, wild hair, and a large nose. Though the trait that drew the attention of everyone in the room was the tattoo on his forearm.

"T-That mark belongs to the Southern Wolf Bodyguard guild!" Happy exclaimed, flying behind Natsu, who was already getting excited by the idea of a battle. He barely hit anything this entire journey and remained silent for the most part due to fearing Erza's wrath. But now… he could go all out!

"You want us to take care of them, or do you want to do it?" Cana, for the most part, wasn't worried about these clowns. Natsu alone was more than enough to handle them while she wasn't a pushover herself. Erza joining was pushing things too far, and a massacre was waiting to happen.

"Leave it. There's no need for anyone to battle them."

"Eh?" Confused at her words, the brunette was about to ask for clarification until she felt the ground beneath her tremble.

Crash!

"Wah!"

"Shit!"

Both of the mercenaries couldn't have expected the ground beneath their feet to break apart before the body of a large woman took them by surprise. Their bodies got crushed under immense pressure before both lost consciousness.

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"Oh come on!"

"Well, that was lame," Cana said, giggling at Natsu's crestfallen face. He was looking forward to the fight but got beaten to it by the giant maid… who was dissolving into motes of light?

"Heeeeee!" A loud screech came from the hole, and soon after, Broly climbed out of it while holding Duke Everlue by his ankles like a chicken ready to be cooked. "U-Unhand me! The mercenary brothers! Where the hell are you two!? Come out and save me!!"

His response came when Broly walked over two groaning men who were frothing from the mouth.

"Oh, hey guys, didn't expect that the library was just above me… what is wrong with Lucy?" From the corner of his eyes, he saw the blonde sweating profusely with glasses he only saw her wearing once before. She looked rather disturbed and was quickly going through the pages, which already made him dizzy thinking about it. Gretel did offer him some books to read in his spare time, but he just couldn't get into it.

"Long story," Cana said before tapping his shoulders. "Also nice work catching this little pigmole. With what Erza said about the Kakeri village incident and everything else that we found, this bastard needs to go to jail pronto."

She made sure to give a kick to the struggling Duke.

"Don't you dare kick me, ugly!"

She hit again, harder this time, making him squeal in pain.

Erza walked closer to the Duke. She squinted her eyes, glaring at him with restrained wrath. She grabbed his collar before lifting him up in the air. "I have a few questions for you. Answer them or else suffer."

The man struggled under her grasp, trying to escape but unable to do so. "Hmm, y-you… I know you! You cost me my mine!" Recognition finally crossed his eyes now that she brought up matters related to that village. "You ugly bitch! Because if you I lost so much money! Tens of millions of Jewels flushed down the toilet because of you!"

"You… you don't regret your actions, do you? All those people…" The room grew colder from her whisper, Natsu, Lucy, and Cana felt a chill run up their spine. Broly frowned, turning his head toward Erza as she was exuding a familiar feeling to him.

Everlue wriggled like a worm, his expression getting increasingly distorted and hideous.

"Why would I care about them!? I gave those peasants a chance and they didn't listen to me, so of course I told the mayor to get rid of them. They're from a backwater area! They're just worthless peasants! Why would you even care!?" He retorted angrily, everyone including Lucy who was concentrating on the book stopped and looked at the man in astonishment and disgust.

Bang!

"Heeeee!!!"

An armored fist hit the ground next to Everlue's face. A small crater formed from the impact, cause the pig like man to piss his pants

"You're worse than I imagined." Erza raised her fist again and aimed it straight at the man who was starting to beg for mercy, and he surrendered. A hit like that would crush his skull easily!

"Erza…" Cana tried to intervene as she noticed something wrong with her friend but was stopped by Broly, who put his arm before her. He gave her a nod, conveying his intentions to let Erza handle the matter.

The armored fists were shaking. Holding herself back from crossing that line. It was harder than she expected. He deserved it more than any other criminal she had met in the past. But Erza couldn't do it, or else she would no longer be a Fairy Tail wizard.

"Haa… you're done."

Bang!

She bashed his head, holding back enough to render him unconscious without cracking his skull. But it was definitely going to hurt when he woke up. "It's not my place to decide his fate… and I care more about my family than you." She got up, walked away from the group, and left the library.

"Go with her. She needs some company. I'll take care of things from here." Broly said to Cana and Natsu who walked out soon after, leaving only him and Lucy who had finished reading the book. He sighed, knowing the urge Erza must have experienced at that moment more than anyone else. He was proud she managed to overcome it and didn't let it control her. The Saiyan grabbed the sole golden key from the key chain and went to Lucy.

"Is that the book we were told to destroy?" He asked, wondering why she was reading it. "Did you find anything interesting?" If she decided not to destroy it, then there must have been a reason.

Lucy nodded, "Yeah… this entire book… It's special. No, I can't even call it a storybook. It's a personal letter from a father to a son."

"A father to his son?" Those words resonated with him

"Yes, and his son is none other than Kami Zaleon, the person who gave this quest." Lucy proceeded to give a detailed explanation of some of the content and magic she understood from the book itself and the actual message itself.

"..."

A son who wanted to destroy the last message of his father… Broly could not understand the motive behind such a decision, and he didn't even want to know.

"B-Broly?" Lucy blushed when he put his hand on her head.

"Hahaha, why are you so shy? There's no one in this room aside from us."

"Still… I'm not a little girl anymore." Even if she grew up and turned into a woman many dreamed about, Broly still treated her the same as always. She both loved and hated that attitude. A part of her wanted to keep this relationship, while another sought something more. A burning sensation in her heart grew restless at times like these.

"I know, you've grown up a lot." He said gently, stroking her hair which she didn't oppose. "You did the right thing, and I'm proud of you."

Lucy leaned in against him, resting her head against his shoulders. "Can… we stay like this for a bit?"

"Sure, I don't mind."

As both Saiyan and Celestial wizard relaxed within each others' company, neither noticed a person standing near the broken entrance — Erza, having come back to see what was taking so long and ending up stumbling upon the scene before her.

She stood there quietly, biting her lips while her hands clenched tightly. This… this felt weird. She didn't like the scene before her for some odd reason. An inexplicable feeling Erza couldn't put into words, especially how he treated her with the same tenderness and care Broly gave her whilst inside the Tower of Heaven.

Now someone else was getting it.

Shaking her head, she walked away, thinking that Everlue's words must have shaken her mind more than she expected.

{Break}

-Shirotsume-

"Why did we not accept the reward!?" Walking away from the manor they first crashed into, Lucy couldn't help but exclaim out loud.

Cana answered her question.

"Well, it's technically your fault. You went ahead and discovered the true meaning behind Daybreak or should I say 'Dear Kabi'? Anyways, given after that revelation and how his father actually wrote a book all to his son instead of creating a story whilst as a slave for Everlue — the client no longer wanted to destroy the book. Do you understand what that means? We didn't accomplish our objective and thus couldn't accept the payment."

Lucy was struggling to decide whether to be proud or regretful of her past self's actions. That was enough money to rent a luxurious apartment, and she ruined it!

Curse her morality!

"Who would have thought that the manor, as well as fake, belonged to one of his friends? Then how the heck did he get enough money to increase the reward beyond a million jewels!?" The blonde grumbled, wanting to go back to Magnolia and take a long sleep. "Then again, his dad was a famous writer, so it's possible he left his son a small fortune… I think."

"Oh, I knew that wasn't his house," Broly commented, feeling happy after handing over Duke Everlue to the Rune Knights. He wanted to pull off the same move he used on Bora, but that could potentially lead back to him, and thus they would realize that he was the one behind the previous death as well. A shame, really, but at least he broke enough bones in that man's body to make him bedridden for months, if not a whole year.

"Ehhh!!? How?"

"Because of the smell," this time, Natsu answered instead. "Kami smelled nothing like his own house."

"Exactly." Broly was amazed at Natsu's senses, though given the boy grew up in the wild with a dragon along with his dragon-slaying magic to boost his senses. It wasn't that much of a surprise.

"And how we never saw a single servant the entire time while his wife had trouble finding the spoon for a good minute." Cana chimmed in, followed by Erza. "Like you could see that his wife was slightly unfamiliar with the environment."

"There were no pictures of the family or them in either place," Erza added her part.

"Did everyone know this from the start except me? Since when were you all detectives!?*"

Broly chuckled at Lucy's reaction, finding it very entertaining. Right now, they needed a way back to Fairy Tail, given how Erza's magical device was sent to the shop to be repaired.

But then, Broly remembered an important detail. In particular, a certain key in his pocket. "Ah, Lucy, I have a gift for you. Since we didn't get any rewards from this quest, then this will definitely cheer you up." He showed her the key to the Gate of Virgo. Lucy's previously gloomy face turned bright in an instant, stars showing inside her eyes as she jumped towards him. Her arms went around his neck for a tight hug.

"You found one! How? When!? This beats any kind of prize money this quest could have ever given. I'm so glad!!! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

"Hahaha, did you forget about the giant maid who I beat? Well, that was Virgo."

Horror surfaced on the blonde's face, "What!? That was Virgo!? Oh well, it doesn't matter anyways. Every Celestial spirit is unique in its own way. Now I have both a butler and a maid by my side." Lucy let go of him and happily hummed a song as she added the key to her collection, deciding to form a contract after returning to Magnolia.

One thing Broly realized, he liked getting hugs from Lucy no matter what the reason. It felt both comforting and amazing to have such an interaction.

Meanwhile, Erza's frown deepened.

"Stop messing around." She exclaimed with a bit of venom in her tone, unknowingly. "We need to get a carriage and return to the guild as soon as possible."

Some flinched from the sudden change in tone, while the rest didn't see anything wrong with her.

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(At the edge of Ishgar, Midi)

Where once stood a luscious verdant forest had now turned into a batten wasteland of craters, fire, and destruction in every corner of one's vision.

In the middle of the land was a man with tattered clothes, burned and shredded — leaving him with barely scraps for him to wear. On his left chest was the iconic mark of Fairy Tail. With orange hair and an impressive physique, he was none other than Gildarts Clive.

Known for his Crush Magic, capable of defeating any and all foes, here he was completely exhausted.

Roooarr!

"That damn lizard…."

He heard stories about dragons, mighty creatures known to have ruled the world many centuries ago. That Natsu brat wouldn't stop babbling about his father Igneel, how he could casually crush a volcano with nothing but a single clawed hand or cause an earthquake just by flying. Gildarts had doubts about such claims, given dragons were known to have gone extinct long ago, but he also trusted Natsu.

Now… Now he was fully convinced that the boy's claims were actually quite tame compared to the real thing. That black dragon… was it Igneel?

"No, Natsu… Natsu said his father was a fire dragon with red scales. That thing doesn't use fire, ugh!" The last clash broke his left arm. Fortunately, he managed to dodge it in time, or else… Gildarts didn't want to imagine the aftermath.

He gazed at the sky, where a black figure floated, casting a giant shadow upon the land. With scales as dark as night with blue swirls around its body and those ominous white eyes — it was a monster beyond anything he had faced in the past.

"—!"

The beast's mouth opened with a whirlwind of ethernano gathering in a dense sphere. The dragon surrounded its body with a dark aura of magic power so thick and heavy that it immobilized the strongest Fairy Tail wizard from a distance. An attack with such a wide range, the same energy blast that annihilated the entire forest was about to be fired right at him again.

With an earth-shattering roar, the dragon fired, the breath attack already halfway to wear Gildarts stood.

"Crushing Evil, Spreading the Truth: Absolute Heaven!!!!"

The power he wielded, Crush, was an extremely powerful Caster Magic that smashed everything the user came into contact with into pieces. Able to be used to crack magic into pieces, thereby nullifying its effects, as well as to reduce the magic's power and deflect it. Even the most powerful spells were rendered useless when faced with this destructive and advanced magic, which was difficult to control even for someone like Gildarts.

Yet here he let everything loose, using every scrap of reserves to face this dragon. Not to defeat it but just to survive.

Boulders were reduced to dust, and the ground broke into thousands of pieces. Mountains were flattened, if this was in Magnolia then the entire town would have been wiped from the face of the map.

"Haaaaaaaaargh!"

This dragon was playing with him. That much was obvious. His fist struck the white energy blast, destroying a part of it, but more kept coming like a never-ending cascade of overwhelming destructive energy.

Woosh!

Then all of a sudden, it stopped.

With depleted stamina, Gildarts fell to the ground, unable to move a single muscle… clenching his teeth as he waited for a second strike.

It never came.

"Haa… Haa… Haa… what is going… on?"

A strange sight occurred, and the dragon's attention turned to somewhere else. Its nose and pointed ears twitched as if sensing something familiar. Completely forgetting about Gildarts, it flew away. It didn't take for it to disappear into the clouds above.

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"The fuck just happened?" Gildarts spoke after a few seconds of silence. "That dragon… is it searching for something? Or someone?"

He didn't care at this moment what the answer was — the dragon didn't kill him.

He gazed at his broken arm. The attack just now nearly cost him his limb if it went on for longer. Part of his skin was already charred, coupled with a few broken bones. Thankfully, his fingers still moved. Maybe paying a visit to a local doctor would do some good. Too bad Porlyusica was back in Magnolia. Her help would've been a godsend.

"I guess I failed my quest… there's no way I can defeat that thing. It barely even tried the entire time, distracted by another entirely." He chuckled at that thought, "Who would have thought someone like me would be worth so little in the eyes of another being… I still haven't reached my limit."

With no reason to continue traveling and changing after the dragon, Gildarts decided that it was best to return and rest. A few years have passed since he sat in the halls of Fairy Tail, and he wondered how the kids were.

"For now, I'll sleep."

In the middle of the smoking field, Gildarts closed his eyes and started snoring.

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The next 5 chapters of Snafu, Harry Potter and my 3 other Fate fics (Fate Coiling Sword with 3 chapters, A Fake Familiar Reborn with 3 chapters and To love a sword having 4 chapters) are already available on my P@treon. With 4 more Broly chapters at /NimtheWriter. Also, I post monthly commissioned arts on each story, already posted a few on an Archer's Promise, Broly and Snafu.