VERiTY (Fairy Tail Fanfic)

53. Fired Up.

"Aww, and no one invited me?" Gildarts asked, over the magic lacrima. "I drop in for my once-a-blue-moon contact only to find out you guys left me out of the fun? I feel betrayed."

"We're not trying to commit murder here, Gildarts," said the Masters at once.

-

The previous joint S-class tournament had been a huge success.

People were fueled by Eir and Jura's performance to become stronger, and the standard of mages in Fiore rose. It still wasn't enough for guilds to accurately assess their S-class mages on their own, but it was enough to consider that, a few more years down the line, they could.

"What a shame! We're not going to have an excuse to come to Crocus for tournaments soon," Karen rested her head on Pappa, hand interlocked under her chin. "I wonder if we can continue having these tournaments, just, not necessarily as S-class exams. Just as like, a Fiore bonding thing."

"I'd love to come watch next year too," Ren said. "But I wanna participate, even more!"

"It'd be weird, though," Gray mulled, holding onto Pippi, who was tied to a rope and functioning as a leash. (Nevermind the feral gnawing noises from Natsu, who's on the other end.) "Eir's going to pass this year, so he won't be fighting anymore."

It's unanimous, that no matter how well Eir performed this year, he would be S-class by the end of it, simply because he'd surpassed the standards last year in that match with Jura. The King Fiore was really going to have some words with them if they repeated last year's damage to their nation's cultural heritage.

But then again, losing Eir wasn't too big a hit on the popularity of these contests. The upcoming lineup of S-class prospects had all ears and eyes in the country glued to the screen, and magazine tabloids just never stopped talking.

"Natsu, could you stop that already!" Erza snapped, whacking the flat of her sword over the boy's head if it would stop his attempt to hurl himself over the balcony to where he could smell the participants getting ready to enter.

Jellal, and Kagura, both of which had been holding one of Erza's hands— yelped at that, though, when Erza turned to them confused they both covered their faces embarrassed by the noise they made. They weren't the ones getting hit, but somehow, the violence just utterly baffled them. They really weren't used to any of it at all.

Peppe giggles, floating around his head.

"I AM A WARRIOR TOO!" Natsu declares. And Puppu, the utter menace, echoed every last syllable in its waily shriek. "I am the Son of Igneel! I refuse to remain complacent whilst the child of raging storms adorns the masses!"

"Adorns the— how do you wear the masses?" Gray asked.

"He means 'getting the attention', I think," Karen contributed, because one does not become a Celestial Mage without knowing some fancy-smancy folktale speak.

"Child of..." Kagura repeated, in awe, "child of raging storms..."

Jellal toyed with his fingers nervously, "I want a cool nickname like that too..."

"He wants to grace the masses with his presence, I'd say," Bickslow said, offering his theory. Because he, too, is mildly fluent in this after trying to interpret some of his less coherent and modern spirits for a few years.

"So, simply put, what he's saying is?" Erza prompted.

And Bickslow mimed the most annoying shrilly voice he could into the distance, "it's not fair Laxus gets to have fun! I want attention too!"