95Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or Fairy Tail. They belong to Kubo Tite and Hiro Mashima.
'Thinking'
'Zanpakuto thinking'
Chapter 11: Preparations
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"Hitsugaya!"
Erza, not wasting a second, immediately rushed towards the unconscious boy and Shadow Gear team. Checking them over, she sighed in relief.
'None of them have any serious injuries. A few bruises here and there, maybe, but that's the worst of it.'
Looking up, the woman searched the skies for Happy who -luckily- happened to fly over at that moment.
"Happy!" Turning at the call, the flying cat instantly flew over at the sight of the four Wizards laying unconscious on the ground, freaking out in the process.
"Erza! What happened?! Are they okay?! Are they hur- HAPPY!-" The cat flinched slightly at the yell, shutting his mouth to listen. In a much calmer voice, the Wizard relayed her orders.
"Go find Natsu and the others and bring them here. You should go alert the other Guild members of what is happening as well. Master Makarov is your first priority. Now GO!"
"A-AYE!"
The cat quickly flew off in search of the others, leaving the red head alone with the unconscious Wizards. Sighing, she looked pass the destroyed remains of the Guild Hall and towards the horizon.
'How did this happen? Was it Phantom? No, I can't make assumptions, that will only make things more difficult.'
Sighing for what felt like the hundredth time that night, the beauty watched as the sun started to rise, tinting the sky stunning shades of pink and orange. The light reflected on her hair and face, making her seem to glow as Hitsugaya's white locks turned into a mix of pastel pink and orange.
'The sky, it's so beautiful. It's actually a little ironic.
The sky looks so peaceful, and yet I'm sure today won't be.'
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"Gajeel, my boy. I heard you fought with a rather interesting character today."
Back in Jose's private quarters, the Dragon Slayer tisked, still salty about how his fight had been interrupted. 'Right when it was starting to get interesting, too.'
"What did you learn about the boy?"
"Nothing much. He never used any Magic except this one disappearing act he pulled. He's pretty darn strong, too, and merciless. 'Not sure what he's doing in with the Fairies. He'd do great in a Dark Guild."
"Is that so? Well then, is there anything else you learned?"
"Nope. Nothing."
The Phantom Master raised a brow.
"Nothing? Nothing interesting at all?"
"Nothing."
The two men stared at each other, both unyielding to the others gaze, before Jose finally sighed, nodding to the door.
"If that is all, then you may leave."
Gajeel walked away, his back turned so that the other male couldn't see his large smirk. 'Yeah, nothing that concerns you. After all, I'm the one who's gonna teach that brat a lesson he'll never forget for walking out in the middle of a fight.'
As the door shut behind the dark haired male, the air warped before Aria showed himself.
"He's hiding something."
They were both silent for a few moments, before the Phantom Master smirked.
"Oh well. It doesn't matter. After all, once I have that boy under my thumb I'll have all the information I wanted. Speaking of which, get the other elements ready to collect blondie and snowie. I want them here as soon as possible."
"Yes, Master."
And with that the man disappeared, leaving Jose to smirk to himself alone in the darkness of the room.
"This should be interesting, at least."
Darkness and death. Both of these elements were growing, festering, and spreading. And they weren't just coming from Phantom. Deep within a certain individual, a plague-like black was corrupting their soul. Slowly.
Unnoticed by all.
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The Guild was silent, solemn, as Makarov looked at the four unconscious forms of his Guild members within the white walls of Magnolia Hospital.
His children.
Lucy looked on, lost. She was worried, sad, confused, and she had no idea what to do. No idea how to solve this situation.
And that scared her, but not any more than seeing Hitsugaya's unconscious form on a hospital bed in front of her, side by side with team Shadow Gear. Her friends, family, who -in her mind- had done absolutely nothing wrong.
And yet it was them lying in those blankets, oblivious to the disbelieving and worried stares of the others.
And then, without warning, Makarov crushed his cane into splinters. The look on his face was murderous.
"Master..."
"I can sense the Magic of the one who destroyed the Guild Hall on them."
That immediately quietened the Celestial Wizard, who snapped her mouth shut.
"Old man..."
Looking to her side, the blond felt her terror grow tenfold at the pure, boiling rage bubbling in Natsu's eyes. His fists were clenched so much blood dribbled through his fingers, Lucy speculated with concern.
"Phantom, they're involved in this. They dared to touch my children."
Golden light flowed around the short male like a raging fire.
"I can forgive destroying our Guild, but no one, no one, hurts my children."
Lucy could sense the malice flowing throughout the room, a mix of fiery, icy, beastly and demonic rage. It was almost suffocating, the tension was that thick.
"Master, you need to calm down."
The man looked to his side, staring at the red head who spoke. Without flinching, she continued.
"It's true that I can sense the Magic of what I'll assume is the Iron Dragon Slayer on them. However, I also sense something else. Something that I don't believe we should ignore. Before we do anything drastic we should try to gather all of the details and figure out what happened."
There was silence for a while as the two stared into each others eyes.
"I-I agree with Erza."
Lucy almost yelped as all eyes turned on her. Swallowing, she continued to speak, hoping they couldn't hear the quiver in her voice.
"W-We don't know what actually happened. We can't do anything drastic yet otherwise there may be consequences."
"... It's true that we don't know all the details."
Lucy smiled, relieved that the Master was considering her words.
"However..."
The old man's eyes bore into the Celestial Wizard, however she knew their malice was not directed at her. They were filled with fury, hostility, and determination.
"It's clear that whatever happened involved Phantom. Whether they attacked us or we attacked them, it doesn't matter. Either way, it's too late for peace.
Either way, this means war."
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Back in the basement of the Guild, Erza watched as the Guild prepared itself, enraged and determined looks marring their faces. She, herself, held a blank expression which almost completely disguised her growing concern. Something didn't feel right...
"Erza."
Looking to her side, the woman saw the Master watching his children with a serious look on his face before looking up, motioning for her to follow him. Walking out of the room and into the moderately intact library, they remained silent for a while.
"...Master. You know, don't you? That something isn't right."
"I knew something wasn't right from the moment I saw four of my children lying unconscious in hospital beds with barely any injuries. Those four aren't weak, so the fact that they were defeated with barely a scratch on them is odd."
"There's also that strange Magic."
"... Yes, that as well."
Once again, they fell into silence, lost in their own individual thoughts.
"... That Magic, it felt like Hitsugaya's. And yet, it felt... darker."
Looking down again, Erza knew that they were following the same train of thought. One of them just had to say it.
"If that Magic truly was Hitsugaya's, then there is a lot more to him than we could have ever imagined. A darkness in him that we can't trace. And, one day, we will need him to tell us exactly what it is, otherwise it may consume him."
"Hopefully, we aren't already to late."
After that, the two stopped talking, lost in their thoughts, before the Re-quip Wizard finally excused herself. Once she was gone, Makarov sighed.
There was something going on, something above a simple rivalry between Guild's.
'I'm glad that Gryder showed me that one Memory Alteration spell, otherwise this would have become much more complicated than necessary.
After all, the last thing I need right now is Natsu pestering me about that dragon, Hyorinmaru.'
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Lucy sat by the bedsides of team Shadow Gear and Hitsugaya, thinking. She stared at the prodigy, the now non-existent scowl that usually marred his face gone. It left him looking almost innocent, more child-like then any of the Fairies had ever seen him.
He looks so... peaceful. So uncorrupted. So out of character.'
The Celestial Wizard took a few moments to really look at the prodigy. Without his scowl he actually looked rather cute, with his golden skin, large eyes, long eyelashes and slightly pink lips. She had no doubts that he would be a lady killer when he was older and no idea how someone could attack him.
Looking down, the teen was surprised to see a slight bulge in the blankets on top of the boy. Lifting them, she blinked.
Curled up, right over Hitsugaya's heart, was the mysterious squirrel that always followed him around. No one really knew where it came from, nor what it's purpose was, only that it was there.
'Seriously, what's up with this squirrel?'
Smiling slightly the girl stood up, passing one last glance over her friends.
'I need a walk. Maybe I could get some more groceries since Natsu and Happy ate most of my food yesterday.'
With that thought in mind, the teen walked out of the room, ignorant to the pair of ice blue eyes that watched her go.
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A.N. Hi! Here's the new chapter. It's not the longest, sadly, but I like the way I ended it. I've thought a lot and I think I know what I want squirrel-thing's back-story to be. I'm pretty happy with it so hopefully it'll turn out well (after all, there's no turning back now). I would've uploaded this chapter yesterday but something came up and I wasn't able to start writing. Oh well. I've thought about it, and I've decided to put an alert in the A.N.'s to show that I'm still accepting snippet ideas. This is what it'll look like;
~~~ALERT~STILL_ACCEPTING_SNIPPETS_RANGING_FROM_THE PROLOGUE_TO_THE END_OF_THE_PHANTOM_LORD_ARC~ALERT~~~
I hope you all enjoyed the chapter regardless of it's length and I hope you have an absolutely FABULOUS day :D.
Ja ne!