As Hibiki's Archive panels faded, the mood shifted from discussion to action.
Jura cleared his throat, voice firm. "Now that we know our enemy—six cores, plus a possible seventh—we move to Phase Two."
Above the hall, the Magic Bomber Christina droned—a massive airborne siege weapon lent by Blue Pegasus. Its engines hummed with raw potential, capable of leveling structures from the sky.
With his Archive still active, Hibiki stepped forward. "Here's the plan: we group up the Oración Seis, and use Christina to bomb them into dust, hopefully we won't have to fight them directly.
Above them, the Magic Bomber Christina droned ominously—an enormous airborne siege ship from Blue Pegasus, bristling with magical firepower.
Jura raised a challenging eyebrow. "If it comes to blows, no one goes in alone—minimum two mages per engagement. If someone is caught solo, they risk being killed; that goes for me and Sir Aelius, too."
A chorus of muted agreement filled the room. Erza adjusted her gauntlet. Lucy tested a star key that fit in her hand. Gray shot a knowing glance at Natsu. Wendy gripped Carla's ear. And then, without waiting, Natsu shouted, "Let's go!" and bolted out the door—without a second thought.
Gray shook his head and chuckled, "Probably didn't even listen to a word Hibiki said."
Erza exhaled in amusement, "He never does."
Lucy added with a wry smile, "We should probably catch him before he tries to fight all of them at once."
Natsu sprinted off, with Happy fluttering after him in cheerful pursuit.
The rest followed swiftly: Erza, Lucy, Gray, Lyon, Sherry, and the Trimens—all moving as one, stepping into the gathering storm.
Inside, only three remained.
Aelius, leaning against the stone pillar, watched the others depart.
Jura, steady as a mountain, remained silent.
And Ichiya, impeccably dressed.
"They can never wait, can they?" Aelius muttered under his breath, the edges of his tone threaded with dryness. His masked face remained unreadable as the others bolted ahead.
He pushed off the marble pillar with measured grace, cloak swirling lightly. "I suppose it's just the three of us for now."
Jura nodded, composed and thoughtful. "Quite. Though I suggest we catch up before they engage."
Ichiya adjusted his posture between the two Saints, his voice unexpectedly earnest. "Then tell me, Wizards of Saintly renown: how does one lead such a storm?"
Jura's reply was quiet but firm: "By guiding others to live, not just survive."
Aelius inclined his head in acknowledgement as the distant rumble of battle edged closer. "Not much of a leader myself
Ichiya's posture straightened, nodding respectfully. "Amazing." He paused, then looked from Jura to Aelius. "And you… You'll stand there instead of leading?"
Aelius inclined his head once, voice quiet yet firm: "I'm no front-line leader."
Ichiya smirked, glancing between them. "Neither of you stands above Master Makarov in capability?"
Aelius's rare smirk was masked, but his posture tightened. Jura's voice remained level. "No. Makarov's on a different level."
Ichiya exhaled, relief flickering across his carefully composed face. "Thank the gods—that makes my job easier." His hand emerged from his coat folds, uncapping a small vial. The air shifted—chemicals biting, stinging.
Within seconds, Jura's knees locked, joints stiffened, his breath came in ragged gasps—paralysis coursing through every ligament, every joint. The symptoms mirrored Ichiya's earlier flippant "two‑Saint" question: precise, controlled.
Aelius reacted a moment later. The toxin took hold near-instantly. His legs seized, arms froze mid-motion, the elegant motion of his cloak halted as if he'd been struck by unseen chains. His green eyes, visible beneath the mask, widened with keen calculation as paralysis crept upward, matching Jura's symptoms nearly perfectly—a cruel mimicry.
Then came the laughter.
Ichiya—still flamboyant, still too smug—let out a velvety chuckle. But something was wrong now. Not just theatrics. Beneath the charm, the softness, there was a blade.
"Oh, don't struggle," Ichiya cooed, tossing a small glass vial into the air before catching it again. "It's a special fragrance. Sorry—parfume. A blend designed specifically for troublesome mages, Saints…the difficult ones."
A sickly shimmer began to flicker around him—his form bubbling, splitting. The real Ichiya's image fragmented like a glass mosaic under pressure, until it shattered entirely in a burst of blue-white magic.
Where he had stood now hovered two small beings—barely taller than a child, both with bobbed aqua hair and half-lidded eyes. Gemini.
"Ughhh," groaned one, clutching their face in visible disgust. "Do we have to keep the pervy memory soup?!"
"His thoughts are so gross," the other agreed, shuddering. "Like, so much cologne and sweaty monologues about love and manliness—make it stop!"
Aelius, still frozen, narrowed his eyes. Even now, his expression barely shifted—but the focus in his stare could've flayed stone.
The air rippled.
And a new figure stepped out from behind a falling curtain of golden light. Slender, aloof, cruel in her elegance—Angel.
The Oración Seis's own celestial manipulator.
"Well, well," she purred, brushing a lock of silver hair from her shoulder. "You two really do know how to make an entrance. But no complaining, you're not done yet."
She stepped lightly across the marble floor, each movement practiced, graceful like a predator who knew no haste.
"Two Wizard Saints in one room, completely immobilized," she mused, glancing at Gemini with clear amusement. "You've outdone yourselves."
Then her eyes landed on Aelius.
"Oh, and you're the new one, aren't you?" Her smile was all teeth.
Aelius's silence remained unbroken. His body refused movement, but his gaze didn't.
It stared. Cold. Unrelenting. Already analyzing.
Angel crouched beside him, voice a conspiratorial whisper. "It's a shame, really. You look like you could've made things… interesting."
Her hand hovered by the edge of his hood.
"But then again," she mused aloud, "the interesting ones always fall first."
Jura's body trembled faintly as he fought against the toxin strangling his nerves. Muscles rigid, lungs struggling to draw breath, he forced his head to tilt just enough to catch sight of the traitor—the twin figures of Gemini still lingering where "Ichiya" had been.
His voice came out like gravel soaked in wind.
"H-How…?"
The question wasn't aimed at Aelius—he already knew the young man had fallen to the same technique. No, Jura asked it of the false Ichiya. Of them.
Angel only chuckled, slow and indulgent.
"Oh, darling," she said, leaning in close, her voice a purring whisper against the sound of Gemini's faint snickering. "Isn't it obvious? You've been duped."
She spun on a heel, arms spread wide in a theatrical bow, her silver cloak catching the light like she was performing for a crowd.
"We copied your dear comrade," she said, gesturing to the pair of blue-haired beings hovering with smug satisfaction. "Every twitch, every smell, every obnoxious cologne-drenched thought—they mimicked it all. Gemini doesn't just copy bodies, darling… they take the soul's flavor too."
Gemini struck a pose mid-air, one holding a hand to its chest, the other dramatically flicking back imaginary hair.
"We hated every second of it," one groaned.
"So many roses and awkward metaphors," the other added. "It's like his brain was a perfume commercial written by a lunatic."
Angel waved them off, returning her attention to Jura and the paralyzed Aelius beside him. Her tone sharpened—less amused now, more cutting.
"Don't you see, little warriors of light?" she said, stepping between them, her boots clicking on the cold stone floor. "There's no stopping the Oración Seis."
She looked down at Aelius, crouched once more, eyes narrowing.
"You Saints think your ranks matter. That your titles mean anything. But one got paralyzed without throwing a single spell, and the other—" she smirked and glanced at Jura, "—was so busy guiding others to live that he forgot to keep himself alive."
She stood up slowly, brushing nonexistent dust from her gloves.
"This alliance of yours is a dream made of broken glass. Shiny, but one good stomp—" she raised her heel and slammed it hard into the ground, "—and it shatters."
Then she turned away from the Saints, already bored with their silence.
"Come now, Gemini," she called sweetly. "Kill them quickly and come, we've got more pawns to sweep from the board."
"So that's the extent of your plan?"
The voice came low, unimpressed—cold in a way that cut deeper than mockery. Angel stopped mid-step. Gemini froze in the air.
"And here I was," Aelius continued, straightening slowly, deliberately, as if he had never felt the effects of the toxin at all, "hoping I hadn't dirtied my cloak for nothing."
He rose to his full height, shadow draping over the marble like a drawn blade, the hem of his cloak whispering against the stone. His mask remained fixed over his face, but the gleam of his green eyes was unmistakable now—sharp, alive, watching.
Angel turned back, confusion flashing across her features, quickly veiled by irritation. "That's not possible," she hissed. "You breathed it. The dosage alone would put down a dragon."
"Then I suppose," Aelius said, brushing a bit of dust from his shoulder with measured grace, "you should have aimed for a dragon."
A flicker of heat passed through the room, not from flame but from sheer tension. Aelius stepped away from Jura's still-paralyzed form, his boots echoing clean and steady across the stone as though mocking the silence Angel had so confidently left behind.
Gemini stared, faltering in their floating. One of them whispered, "B-but we saw him lock up—he was down—!"
"He mimicked it," Angel snapped. "He faked it."
Aelius tilted his head faintly, like one might indulge a particularly dense child.
"Not so fun to be on the receiving end, is it?" he said, voice filled with mockery and annoyance, "I learned long ago that predators who believe the prey has already died… stop watching it."
And then, very gently, he rolled the knuckles of one hand, the sound like bones clicking in and out of place.
"Now," he said, his tone sharpening like a drawn wire. "You were saying something about shattering dreams?"
Angel's smirk faltered—but only for a breath. Then she barked out a bitter laugh, summoning her keys with a practiced motion.
"Well," she said, steel returning to her voice, "it seems some of us didn't come to die as quietly as the others."
Aelius stopped, just a few steps from them now.
Angel's narrowed eyes flicked between Aelius and Gemini, her smirk tightening with defiance—but a flicker of unease danced behind her lashes. Still, she brandished her Celestial Key with practiced grace and thrust it forward.
"Gemini," she called, her voice cracking like a whip through the still air, "copy him. Now."
The twins floated forward reluctantly, glancing once at Angel, then back at Aelius. He didn't move. He didn't speak. He merely tilted his head ever so slightly, as if curious.
With a swirl of twin-colored light, the transformation began. In a flash, one of the Geminis shifted—hair deepened to moss-dark green, cloak stretching out around a lean but commanding frame, and the blank mask settled over their face with a final, sealing click.
For a heartbeat, silence.
Then another.
And then—screaming.
The Aelius copy froze, its entire body seizing up violently. The green eyes beneath the mask widened—not with cold calculation, but with primal, formless terror. The other Gemini looked on in confusion, but the shrieks began to spill from the mouth of the first. Not words. Not even curses.
Just raw, unfiltered agony.
They crumpled forward, clutching their heads as if trying to dig something out of their skulls. The mask cracked down the middle with a sharp snap and dissolved into light, the entire mimic form shattering back into the base form of Gemini. Both collapsed onto the ground, weeping and trembling, huddling together in a babble of incoherent whimpers.
Angel took an instinctive step back, her face pale.
"What… what was that?" she breathed.
The real Aelius hadn't moved. Hadn't blinked. He regarded the whimpering twins with the same detached indifference as one might offer to a broken tool.
"You should be more careful," he said evenly. "Delving into someone's realm without consent can be costly."
One of the Geminis coughed a sob, mumbling, "It was dark—it was screaming—it was burning—"
The other clung to them, face buried in trembling arms.
Angel gritted her teeth, trying to compose herself. "What are you?"
Aelius walked past them, letting his cloak drag a line across the stone as if dividing them from him with sheer disdain. "Something your Oración Seis should've left unbothered."
Edge of sleep. The air shifted around him. The world slowed. Dust floated upward. The edge of his cloak began to glow with a faint, sickly-green shimmer, coalescing at his palm.
His voice was calm, the words slipping out like ritual—measured, ancient, reverent.
"Plague Gods: Somnus Caelorum."
A sigil ignited beneath Angel's feet. It was not the clean geometry of modern lacrima circles—it was twisted, archaic, crawling with threads of dying starlight and decayed divinity. It pulsed in time with a heartbeat that wasn't hers. The spell didn't explode—it sank, as if the floor itself reached up to drag her down.
Angel's smirk faded.
She swayed.
"W-what did you—"
The spell took hold mid-breath. Her knees gave out first. Then her arms. Her body slumped like a marionette with its strings abruptly cut, hitting the stone with no more grace than a sack of bone and silk.
Unconscious.
No violence. No impact. No scream.
Just an absolute sleep—total, impersonal, unstoppable.
Gemini, still curled up nearby from their failed imitation of Aelius, recoiled further, whimpering. The psychic echo of what they'd seen inside him hadn't faded.
Aelius lowered his hand slowly, like drawing a curtain over the moment. "Plague Gods: Somnus Caelorum," he murmured again, his voice barely more than a breath. "It only touches minds weak enough to fold—hardly something I find occasion to use often."
He glanced at Jura—still frozen, though his eyes followed every word—and gave the barest nod of acknowledgment.
Aelius approached Jura's prone form in slow, measured steps. His cloak whispered across the stone floor behind him, the long hem stained with dust and fragments of Angel's shattered magic. He came to a stop, then knelt beside Jura in a smooth, deliberate motion—one that somehow radiated both grace and indifference. His mask caught the fractured light overhead, but it was his hand that drew attention next.
From his palm, black-green energy flared to life—alive, almost fluid, curling with tendrils that seemed to pulse like a heartbeat. It wasn't light. It wasn't heat. It was something more ancient, more invasive. And yet, as it hovered mere inches above Jura's chest, the tension in the older Saint's limbs began to fade. His jaw unclenched, fingers twitched, and breath returned in fuller rhythm. The paralysis receded like the tide.
Jura managed to turn his head slightly, voice hoarse. "How…?"
Aelius didn't answer immediately. His hand remained extended, the eerie magic whispering its way into Jura's veins and unmaking the toxin's grip one strand at a time. Finally, after a moment of silence, Aelius tilted his head ever so slightly.
"I'm not in the habit of explaining my magic to strangers," he said, tone mild but edged. "But considering Angel tried to kill us both, I suppose that makes us a little less than strangers now."
He withdrew his hand. The black-green glow fizzled into motes of shadowed mist.
"I'm a Plague God Slayer," he said, quiet but unflinching. "Immunity to poison is a fringe benefit. One of the few compared to the cons."
Jura blinked, his throat working once as if to respond—but Aelius had already stood, his cloak falling back into place like a curtain closing on the scene.
Aelius stood tall once more, the folds of his dark cloak settling around his frame with a soft rustle, as if gravity itself bowed subtly to his will. His green eyes—cold, steady, and alert behind the shadows of his mask—drifted down to where Jura was still recovering, now propped against the base of a broken column.
For a moment, silence lingered. Not the empty kind, but the type that stretches taut between two people who have both seen enough death to recognize when the tide hasn't yet turned. The hallway still bore the echo of Angel's brief scream, the scattered remains of her spell sigils slowly evaporating like smoke in the air. The scent of her perfume lingered, acrid and floral, like a funeral wrapped in roses.
Then, Aelius spoke, low and flat—yet the weight of it landed like a closing verdict.
"Come on," he said, his tone not quite impatient, but measured, as if he was already adjusting mental calculations, the battle map reshaping itself behind his eyes. "One down."
His gaze lifted, drifting toward the fractured Archive screens still flickering at the edge of the chamber. The faint ghostly projections of the other Oración Seis members hovered there, almost mocking in their calm. Aelius's voice deepened a notch, less of a statement now and more of a forecast.
"Five to go… or six."
Jura's brow furrowed slightly, catching the implication.
"If the rumors are true," Aelius went on, "if they're no longer the Oración Seis, but something more—Oración Siete—then we're still a step behind." His green eyes narrowed, his mask casting a shadow down his cheeks like a line of warpaint. "And if that seventh is anything like the others… or worse…"
He didn't finish the sentence.
He didn't need to.
Instead, he took a step forward, pausing only briefly to extend a hand—not out of sentiment, but efficiency. Jura, still not at full strength, accepted it and hauled himself upright. The older Saint gave Aelius a look of quiet gratitude, tempered by concern.
"You believe the rumors, then?" Jura asked, voice low.
Aelius glanced sideways at him, cloak flaring slightly as he turned.
"I believe people don't go to this much effort for a group that isn't growing," he replied, matter-of-fact. "And I believe an organization calling itself 'Oración Seis' while moving in sevens doesn't make mistakes like that. Not if they want to stay in the dark."
He began walking again, boots tapping against stone in slow, echoing rhythm. As he passed through the dust-thick air, his silhouette was outlined by what little light filtered through the shattered windows.
"If they're evolving," he added over his shoulder, "then we have to stop pretending they're the same threat we were warned about."
Jura steadied his breath, then moved to follow. His footsteps were slower—more deliberate—but no less certain. Though his body still ached from the paralysis, his focus had sharpened. And as Aelius's cloak whispered ahead through the dust, trailing like smoke behind fire, Jura kept pace just enough to hear the younger Saint's voice when it came again.
Aelius didn't stop walking. He didn't look back. But the question slipped from him like the draw of a blade half sheathed—quiet, edged, and purposeful.
"Can I kill her?"
Jura blinked, caught off guard not by the words themselves, but by how detached the question was. There was no emotion in it. No anger. No righteous justification. It was a simple query—a weighing of options.
Aelius continued, still facing forward. "You saw what she did. She tried to kill us. That wasn't restraint, that was intent. Poison, deceit, Gemini's mimicry—all without hesitation. You said yourself, we fight in pairs to minimize casualties. She came for two Saints."
Jura's brow tightened. "She did."
Aelius's stride slowed—not a full stop, but the kind of pause that left just enough space for an answer.
"I'd rather not," Jura said at last, his voice firm but not judgmental. "Not unless we must. If you're certain your spell will keep her down, then let her sleep. I would prefer we deal justice after we've dismantled their plans, not before."
Aelius finally halted, half-turned, his green eyes catching Jura's. For a long second, he said nothing. The torchlight down the corridor flickered across his mask, etching shadows like war paint across his features.
Then he spoke again.
"I'm not certain of anything when it comes to minds like hers," he admitted. "But the spell was layered—Plague Gods: Somnus Caelorum doesn't simply induce sleep. It burrows into the weaknesses that exist already. The more the more…frazled one is, the longer it takes them to claw back out."
He turned away again, voice flattening back into indifference.
"She'll be out for hours at least."
Jura nodded, accepting the answer for what it was. "Then let's hope you're right. She may deserve punishment—but not execution."
Aelius said nothing in return. But his pace resumed, deliberate and silent, until the stone doorway swallowed both Saints and the scent of that strange perfume began to fade.
Behind them, Angel lay still on the cold floor, her breath steady but shallow. Gemini were gone, vanished after their failed copy. The air was quiet, but thick with something unsaid—like a storm that had passed, only to circle back around.
The forest ahead was long and slashed with dappled sunlight, seeping through trees high above like pale blades. Dirt stirred with every footfall, Aelius led the way, his cloak trailing in deliberate rhythm—every stride measured, controlled. Jura kept pace beside him, silent for a time as the weight of what they'd just witnessed continued to gnaw at the edges of his composure.
But at last, the older Saint broke the silence.
"That—what happened with Gemini…" Jura's voice was low, thoughtful, but unmistakably curious. "Do you want to explain it?"
Aelius didn't slow, but his posture shifted ever so slightly. His left hand—still faintly lit with remnants of that sickly green-black energy—clenched, then eased. His reply came flat, unmoved. "Not particularly."
Jura's brow lifted. "Not even a little?"
"Couldn't even if I wanted to," Aelius murmured.
Jura gave him a long, sideward glance. "You don't know what happened… or you don't know why they couldn't copy you without breaking?"
Aelius's stride faltered for half a second—just long enough for Jura to notice—but he picked up again, seamless as flowing cloth. He didn't answer right away. For a while, the only sound was the echo of their boots and the distant whisper of fortress winds.
Finally, he stopped walking. The corridor stretched ahead in silent darkness, a yawning vein of stone and tension. Aelius turned slightly, not enough to face Jura fully, but enough that the green sheen of his eyes under the hood caught the moonlight with a glint like tempered jade.
"I didn't say I had no idea," he said quietly. "I said I wouldn't be telling."
Jura studied him, reading not the words, but the space between them—the slight grit in Aelius's voice, the guarded pause before his answer. It wasn't evasion. It was restraint. Precision. The words of a man who knew the weight of what he wasn't saying.
"You're not going to tell me why mimicking you sent them into a screaming breakdown," Jura said, not unkindly. "Even though it could be important."
Aelius shrugged. "Could be. Could also be irrelevant. Maybe their spell was unstable. Maybe Gemini just picked a bad mind to borrow."
Jura folded his arms. "And maybe something inside you burned them alive from the inside."
The silence that followed was heavy, like stone settling into place.
Then, after a long pause, Jura gave a quiet nod and stepped forward, resuming the path without pressing further.
"I understand," he said. "We all carry pieces we'd rather not put into other hands. Especially not the hands of people we barely know."
Aelius followed, his tone unreadable as ever. "That generous sentiment almost makes it sound like you trust me more now."
The two Saints walked on, the tension drifting behind them like old dust. Whatever mystery lingered in Aelius's silence—whatever buried thing had shattered Gemini's magic—would remain tucked beneath that green-eyed calm.
Aelius's fingers brushed the side of his head, almost absentmindedly, just beneath the curve of his hood. A subtle, passing motion—like someone checking for a headache that wasn't quite there. Jura noticed, of course. The elder Saint's gaze flicked toward him with quiet attentiveness.
"Something wrong?" Jura asked, slowing his pace to match Aelius's.
Aelius didn't break stride, his cloak trailing behind him with its usual muted rustle. He gave a soft scoff beneath his breath, barely audible, as if the question had been more amusing than concerning.
"Nothing," he said easily. "Old habit. Had a sharp pain behind the eye a few days ago. Must be lingering."
Jura gave a nod, but his eyes lingered a moment longer on Aelius's face before looking away. "Don't let it slow you down."
"I wouldn't dream of it."
The forest ahead remained quiet—just the rhythmic tapping of boots on ground, the low drone of distant engines, the faint, charged hum of magic in the air like static before a storm. To Jura, all was as it appeared.
But to Aelius, the silence was far from quiet.
It had started barely two hours ago, during the cart ride to their rendezvous point.
At first, it was little more than a vague disturbance—faint murmurs threading just beneath the threshold of hearing, like wind slipping through cracked glass. Their cadence was strange, syllables malformed and broken, as though spoken by mouths unused to human language. Unclear, incomplete—too fractured to decipher, yet too structured to dismiss as illusion.
He'd instinctively attributed it to fatigue. The result of long days with too little rest, or the lingering aftermath of old enchantments and curses he'd crossed paths with in previous engagements. Maybe even the residual toll from delving too deeply into his own studies—esoteric rites, forbidden lore, rituals that laced through the nerves like wire when channeled too long.
Aelius had heard things before. Every mage did if they walked long enough through power's darker corridors. But this—this was different. These whispers weren't echoes of memory or exhaustion.
They were new.
But now…
Now they were louder. Closer.
Not screaming. Not even speaking clearly. But present, pressing, constant. Dozens of indistinct murmurs curling beneath his thoughts like smoke through keyholes.
They didn't hurt. Not yet. But they clung to the edge of his consciousness like cold fingers, brushing the inside of his skull every time he blinked too slowly or let his breathing settle too deep.
He didn't know where the voices came from. But something inside him whispered that he should.
There was a shape to the unease that clung to the corners of his awareness—not panic, not confusion. Something older. Something buried. It felt like déjà vu wearing someone else's skin. A flicker of familiarity wrapped in unease. A memory not yet remembered.
It had surged as they crossed the gates of Blue Pegasus's manor. As the wheels of their transport ground to a halt and polished marble steps rose into view, something in Aelius's mind had snapped taut. For the barest moment—less than a breath—his focus had narrowed, locked onto some silent realization just out of reach.
He had stopped, eyes scanning the air as if it had shifted. As if the world had.
But the instant passed. Whatever thought had stirred, whatever thread had begun to unravel—
It was just gone.
Erased with a near-surgical precision, leaving behind only the ghost of a question: What was I just thinking?
Now, walking beside Jura, he kept his head tilted slightly downward, cloak swaying at his ankles, the green of his hair brushing the edges of his mask. On the outside, composed. Quiet. Listening.
But inside, his thoughts clawed backward—What was it? Why did it feel so familiar?
He could feel the gap. Not in time, not in memory—in self. As if part of him had been peeled away, momentarily revealed, then shoved back beneath the surface before he could see what it truly was.
And still, beneath the silence between his footsteps and Jura's, the whispers crawled at the edge of hearing. No words. No tone. Just presence.
Closer than ever—But still out of reach.
The trees thickened.
The light overhead grew fainter—not from clouds, but from the way the forest leaned in, its ancient limbs weaving tighter, casting longer shadows across the path. Moss clung like rot to the trunks. Leaves above trembled without wind.
And still, Aelius and Jura said nothing.
Their boots pressed onward through dirt and mulch, the sound of footfalls softened by pine needles and fallen leaves. The trail was long and winding, but neither of them needed signs to navigate it. The path forward, for now, was simple: rejoin the others. Regroup. Reassess. Move with caution.
But caution meant time.
And time, in a war, was a luxury one paid for in blood.
Aelius's mind was not quiet. Beneath the calm veneer—his straight back, his fluid pace, the careful drape of his cloak as it slipped through the air behind him—his thoughts stirred like serpents in a deepening pit. The voices had receded slightly since the bridge, as if sated by the brief encounter, or perhaps merely retreating to regroup. He didn't trust the reprieve.
Jura glanced sidelong, watching the younger Saint's silhouette framed by green-gold light between trees. Still composed. Still too silent.
"Do you think the others have already encountered the remaining Oración Seis?" Jura finally said.
Aelius didn't answer at first. His green eyes tracked the ridgeline to their left, the way the trees sloped downward sharply and then opened toward sky—barely visible through the canopy. He could see birds there. Or rather, he could see that there weren't birds anymore.
He slowed.
Jura followed suit, eyes narrowing. "Something wrong?"
Aelius looked up. Not toward the treetops—but past them.
His voice was low. "Do you hear that?"
Jura closed his eyes for half a second, then turned his ear skyward.
A distant rumble—too faint at first to distinguish. A tremor in the air, not on the ground. Faint. Rising. Like the wheeze of a colossal beast drawing breath.
Then came the boom.
Not thunder.
Impact.
Their heads snapped up in unison.
Through the trees, the veil of green broke open just enough for them to catch sight of the sky above the ridgeline.
And what they saw stole the breath from both their lungs.
Christina—the Magic Bomber, pride of Blue Pegasus, a fortress in the sky—was falling.
It dropped like a dying star, flames spewing from both sides of its hull, one wing half-detonated and dragging a trail of molten steel behind it. Its forward cannon—once an elegant testament to magitek precision—was now a crumpled gash of warped metal, useless and hemorrhaging smoke. The air around it screamed as enchantments tore apart under strain.
"No," Jura breathed, already surging forward, leaping up the incline for a better view. "No—"
Aelius followed, cloak whipping behind him as they broke through the treeline and emerged onto a stony overlook just as Christina began its death spiral in earnest.
Below them, the valley spread wide. Trees stretched for miles, dotted with outcroppings of broken stone and long-dead roads. But none of that mattered now.
All eyes were on the sky.
The ship twisted, one engine sputtering blue flames, the other belching debris.
It wasn't just fire.
Aelius's eyes narrowed—sharp, calculating.
The flames licking across the Christina's frame shimmered the wrong way. Not heat distortion. Spellweave rupture. Someone had hacked the enchantments—or worse, infected them.
"Anti-sigil corruption," Aelius muttered. "Runic malware, layered across the containment wards."
"You think this was sabotage?" Jura asked, voice dark.
"No," Aelius said. "I think it was infection."
The ship's nose tilted downward as the main core imploded with a sunburst of white-blue light. The explosion didn't expand—it caved in. A vortex. A void that ate its own structure like rot hollowing a tree from within. The metal screamed as it folded, and one last pulse of pure magical discharge ruptured outward, rattling the very trees where they stood.
Seconds later, Christina struck the far edge of the valley.
The impact silenced everything. Not with noise—but with absence. Magic shimmered outward in a radial pulse, flattening trees, scarring rock, and sending a rolling wave of heatless pressure out like the last breath of a dying god.
Aelius didn't move. Not as the wind slammed his cloak back. Not as debris whistled overhead, hissing past in streaks of broken armor and shattered enchantment.
He just watched.
Eyes fixed. Mind a blade sheathed in ice. The Magic Bomber Christina, a fortress in the sky mere minutes ago, was now little more than a shattered wound in the earth—its elegant hull fractured, engines sputtering smoke into the ash-choked valley. The last arcane discharges danced weakly across its cracked frame like dying nerves.
The valley was unnaturally quiet in the wake of the crash—no birds, no engines, no voices.
And then—
A shout.
"Agh—back up! Lucy, behind me!"
Another voice, sharp with urgency: "That's them!"
A gust peeled the smoke back like the parting of a curtain, and from the height of the overlook, Jura stepped forward to see. Aelius followed in silence, his boots moving as if unconcerned with the churned dirt and settling ash beneath them.
Below, at the rim of the crater, two forces now stood poised.
The Oración Seis had arrived.
Cobra, poised like a coiled spring, head tilted with predatory stillness. Racer stood beside him, twitching with barely restrained impatience. Midnight floated lazily above the ground, arms folded, as if bored already. Hoteye knelt beside one of the crater's edges, muttering with shining eyes, and Brain—their architect—hovered calmly behind them, flanked by darkly robed aides inscribed with pulsating sigils. The whole formation looked like a surgical strike had just stepped into place.
And standing with them, impossibly, unforgivably—was Angel.
Jura blinked, tension snapping through his spine like a struck wire.
"What…?"
His voice came out tight, low, and stunned.
Aelius said nothing. Yet.
Angel stood pristine. No burns. No blood. Her hair fell perfectly in place, silver strands catching the low amber light of the fire. Her cloak fluttered in the updraft from the still-burning wreckage, and her expression was composed, unbothered—as if she had not been unconscious and broken on a stone floor less than an hour ago.
The Saints had left her sleeping under the effects of a mind-breaking spell. Her consciousness had collapsed under the weight of Somnus Caelorum—plunged into depths she should not have escaped for an hour at the lowest.
And yet there she stood.
Conversing.
Smiling.
Beneath them, Fairy Tail's core fighters stood scattered and weary but determined. Natsu, arms trembling with fury, stepped forward. Gray mirrored him, teeth clenched and already charging ice. Erza, slightly bloodied but unwavering, drew another blade from light. Lucy backed into formation with Wendy, who was crouched beside Happy, helping him to his feet.
They were alive. Fighting. Reeling from the crash—but not broken.
Jura stared down at Angel, unable to tear his eyes away. His lips parted.
"She couldn't have made it here. Not after—" He turned to Aelius. "How did she beat us here?"
Aelius's voice came slow and final.
"She didn't." He stepped forward again, until the hem of his cloak hovered just over the drop. "She was brought here."
Jura's brows furrowed. "Then someone retrieved her?"
"She shouldn't have had the strength to stand," Aelius said. "Let alone teleport. Or fight. The spell wasn't broken—it was cut away."
Jura turned his full attention on him, unease mounting. "Are you saying someone intervened?"
"I'm saying," Aelius replied, green eyes fixed like iron on the woman below, "this is why she should have died."
Jura's breath caught.
There was no rage in Aelius's voice. No flourish. No threat.
Just the implacable logic of someone cataloguing a preventable mistake.
"She knew the path we, the others, took," he continued. "She knew our plan. And now she's here, ahead of us, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of the Six, like nothing ever happened."
He turned his head just slightly toward Jura. His voice dropped lower, but sharpened.
"She was compromised. And I let her walk away breathing."
Below, the confrontation deepened. Natsu shouted something they couldn't hear over the distance and wind. Brain answered with a raised hand and a flick of magic. Hoteye's weeping intensified. Racer zipped forward, only to be pulled back by a gesture from Cobra.
Below, the confrontation deepened.
Natsu shouted something lost to the wind, his voice raw with fury and smoke. Flames licked along his forearms, dancing in spirals that cast flickering shadows across the cracked stone of the crater. Gray stepped closer beside him, ice spreading from his boots with each slow breath.
Brain raised one hand—a casual flick of his fingers—and a ripple of warding magic unfurled before the Oración Seis like a curtain of liquid runes. Cobra smiled but said nothing. Racer zipped forward in a blur of red and silver, but was immediately yanked back by a motion from Cobra, who muttered something inaudible, sharp and controlling. Midnight stretched in midair, languid, already bored.
A tension hovered in the space between the two groups. Something about to snap.
And then—
From above, a shadow dropped—a silhouette framed in dust and firelight.
Aelius descended.
No flourish. No spell circles. Just gravity and will.
He fell fast, cloak snapping violently in the updraft, the wind howling in the seams of his garments. The ground rushed up to meet him—and his boots struck stone with a deep, cracking force that sent shockwaves through the crater's fractured rim.
The impact kicked up a ring of dust, and his legs broke on contact.
Both tibias splintered, sharp and sudden—sickening fractures just beneath the knee.
But Aelius didn't so much as grunt.
His magic laced into his limbs flared to life, crawling like veins made of moss and shadow. The bones knit themselves back together in seconds, the magic restoring them with invasive, ruthless efficiency. The flesh rejoined. The pain was real—but it did not slow him.
He rose.
Cloak billowing, hair stirred by smoke and wind, Aelius stood between the two factions.
The air trembled—not with power, but with expectation. It felt like something terrible had just stepped onto the field, not with rage, but with certainty.
Behind him, Natsu's flames curled higher. Lucy let out a small breath of relief. Gray, already readying a spell, hesitated just long enough to recognize what that presence meant.
But in front of Aelius, only the Oración Seis stood.
They hadn't moved. Not one step back.
Cobra stared directly at him, as if straining to hear something that wasn't being said. Racer tapped one foot rapidly, magic twitching beneath his boots. Midnight gave a slow, upside-down stretch in midair. Brain smiled—slight and amused, as though a new equation had just entered the room.
Her eyes met his across the shallow battlefield, and she smiled—not like a stranger. Not like a friend. One filled with malice like Aelius's very existence was her bane.
Jura arrived a breath later, landing more cautiously on a ledge a short distance behind Aelius. He took in the scene at a glance—and froze.
He stepped up beside Aelius, voice taut. "That can't be her."
"It is," Aelius replied, not looking away.
"She was out cold. You said—"
"I know what I said."
Angel tilted her head. "You didn't expect to see me again."
Aelius's voice came flat. "No. I expected you to stay down."
Her lips curled faintly. "Pity, then. I recovered faster than you planned."
"You weren't supposed to recover at all."
Erza's head turned sharply. "Aelius—"
He ignored her.
But in front of Aelius, only the Oración Seis stood.
They hadn't moved. Not a step.
Cobra's eyes tracked him with cautious calculation, as though listening to something just out of range. Racer twitched in place, boots scraping impatient lines in the dirt. Midnight remained suspended in his inverted, floating sprawl, arms crossed and head tilted, one eye barely open. Brain said nothing—but his faint smile spoke volumes, a scholar seeing a new variable introduced into his well-laid plan.
Aelius stood motionless.
The crater wind stirred the edges of his cloak, the tips brushing cracked stone. The green-black threads of magic still whispered at his boots, low and steady—like roots waiting for soil.
Behind him, Jura landed with a controlled thud, knees flexing as he straightened from a lesser but still forceful descent. Dust rippled outward from his boots. He stepped beside Aelius without a word, but his sharp intake of breath said enough.
He took in the Oración Seis's formation, the battlefield, and the still-burning wreckage of the Christina behind them.
And then—Jura's eyes flicked to the gathered members of Fairy Tail, fanned out behind Aelius in a makeshift semi-circle. Tired. Hurt. But not broken.
Natsu's hands were ablaze.
Gray stood ready with a wall of jagged ice spears already half-formed behind him.
Wendy hovered near Lucy, who clutched her keys tightly, her eyes darting between foes.
And then came Erza—sword in hand, helm of resolve settling across her brow like a crown.
That's when Aelius spoke.
Not to the enemy.
To his allies.
His voice cut across the space like a blade sheathed in control.
"You're all disappointments."
Erza froze, her expression shifting faintly, caught off guard.
"You're supposed to be a leader," Aelius continued, his voice low but edged like tempered steel, aimed at Ezra. "And you went off without your two strongest wizards."
A beat passed.
Wind curled around them.
Erza's grip on her sword tightened. "We didn't have time to wait. We had to act—"
"No," Aelius said flatly. "You had to think." He didn't turn to face her. "But you didn't."
The silence that followed was loud.
Behind Erza, Natsu opened his mouth, but Lucy lightly touched his shoulder, shaking her head. Jura watched Aelius with an unreadable look—somewhere between agreement and restraint.
Cobra chuckled faintly under his breath across the battlefield. "Tension in paradise?"
Racer smirked. "They brought a broken front line. How cute."
Aelius ignored them. He stepped forward, his boot crunching softly against the crater's edge. His presence dragged every eye back to center.
"You had no idea what was waiting here," he said, not to any one person now, but to all of them. "You moved without cohesion. You underestimated the Oración Seis, even after all they've done."
His gaze swept the ruined valley.
"You assumed victory was just a matter of force."
Behind him, Fairy Tail's mages stood straighter. Not in shame—but in understanding.
Gray finally spoke, his voice steady. "What's your call?"
Aelius took one more step forward.
"We outnumber them," he said. "Their powers are unknown; power is presumably higher than most of ours."
His hand lifted, and the air thickened.
"You hold this line," he instructed. "No charges. No scattered duels. We fight in pairs. Reinforce each other. If we stay together, be ready to switch targets at a moment's notice."
His eyes narrowed beneath his hood. "We bleed them out. Efficient. Contained. effective ."
Midnight raised a hand lazily. "Boring," he muttered. "Can we start yet?"
Brain's smile stretched wider, measured, and venomous.
"You've had your moment, Saint," he said smoothly. "Now it's ours."
His tone dripped with amusement, but his eyes gleamed with something colder—calculation sharpened into threat.
"From what Angel told us, you've already pieced together something about our…Well, you call him our seventh. He's not quite one of us, but close enough. An ally. A weapon with matching interests."
He paused, letting the implication settle, watching Aelius for any flicker of response. There was none.
Brain's smile twisted, just slightly, as if tasting something sour and enjoying it anyway.
The smile turned razor-edged.
"And apparently…" Brain's voice dropped, a touch of reverence sliding in like a poisoned thread, "he's very interested in you."
Aelius didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Didn't breathe.
Brain's smile twisted into something cruel.
"His exact words were—let's make this fun… N."
Aelius's eyes widened.
That one sound—that letter—had weight behind it. Memory. Recognition. Something deeper. Buried familiarity. The fog over his mind cleared—he knew why this felt so familiar—the whispers roared in his mind, for less than a moment before dying, as a sound split the air.
Not a spell. Not a roar. Not even a scream.
A wet, ripping sound—the unmistakable violence of something organic being torn open.
Muscle. Flesh. Blood.
Everyone's eyes snapped to Aelius—just in time to see the front of his cloak blossom red.
A hand—not his—erupted through his chest.
Slick, long-fingered, pale.
Gripping his heart.
Still beating.
Still warm.
Held before him like an offering.
The battlefield went still. Time bent inward.
The hand trembled, ever so slightly, as if savoring the moment. The blood dripped, thick and deliberate, down Aelius's stomach and onto the fractured earth.
No footsteps. No teleportation. No warning.
Whoever—or whatever—had done this had bypassed every magical perimeter, every eye, every sound.
Only the heart remained, twitching weakly between the stranger's fingers.
Aelius looked down—not in horror, but in calculation. His gaze followed the slick line of the forearm, tracing it backward through his own body as if mapping an equation in reverse.
His mouth opened slightly.
And then he looked behind him.
Only the faintest whisper escaped his lips:
"…you were already here."