The Divine Empress

Chapter 11

Arriving just on time in front of the guild, Lucy opened up the doors only to see the guild with a disappointed look. They were ready with party poppers in their hands but much to their dismay, it was a false alarm. 

"Sorry it's not Master that's standing here right now," Lucy said apologetically. 

The guild quickly shook their heads.

"Don't worry about it, Lucy. We should've known that Master wouldn't be back until thirty minutes later," Yukino said. The guild members all nodded in agreement. 

"By the way, Lucy," Rogue asked. "What did you go out and get?" 

Lucy smiled. "It's a secret." 

Before she had entered the guild, she had put the cake in an empty space that she had cut out from another dimension and had put the large cake box in it. Knowing how much they loved that ice cream, she wanted to surprise them with an original ice cream cake that the owner had made. Not only did she want to surprise the guild, but she also wanted to surprise the master since he, too, favored that specific store. After putting it away, she looked at Nagi and he nodded his head in understanding. Now, the two were smiling at one another. 

"Are you two hiding something?" Minerva asked suspiciously.

"Nope. Not at all," Lucy and Nagi both said at the same time as they smiled. 

"Now I know you guys are definitely hiding something," Minerva said as she began tackling Lucy to spill it out. Sting soon joined in but suddenly stopped when he noticed something.

"What's wrong, Sting?" Minerva asked.

Sting looked at Lucy with furrowed eyes. Lucy looked at him, perplexed.

"You...why do you have Natsu's scent on you?" Sting asked. The guild soon turned to look at Lucy, curiosity in their eyes. 

"Also, why did you take so long? Every shop is only ten minutes away from here. There's no way you would take more than thirty minutes to get back here even if you were retrieving something," Sting questioned Lucy.

Lucy continued to stare at Sting, her chocolate brown eyes unwavering. Nagi stood by his mother's side as his face had a clouded expression. 

"What if..." Lucy began to say slowly, her soft lips perfectly shaping her words. "...that it was Natsu Dragneel that stopped me in my tracks of getting back to this guild."

The guild went silent at the mention of the infamous fire dragon slayer. Soon, the thundering of chairs and tables sounding against the floor could be heard as each and every one of them began yelling and screaming to rush to Fairy Tail to beat the crap out of Natsu. Even Minerva was shaking with anger as she thought about someone blocking her friend, not to mention from getting to her father's birthday party. Minerva narrowed her eyes and balled her hands into fists by her side. Just as the guild was getting ready to march towards Fairy Tail, Lucy moved swiftly to the guild doors in a second and held a hand up. 

"Lucy! Move out of the way! We're going to Fairy Tail!" Sting yelled. "Trying to stop you from coming to this guild, it's unforgivable!" He was furious that that Natsu had dared to block her despite everything he had done. He could barely control his anger and rage and even he had no idea why he was going so far, farther than he should.

"And what makes you think that you have the right to do that?" Lucy demanded. "Think about what the original plan was today."

The guild stopped chattering and looked towards the floor. 

"If Master comes back here and sees a deserted guild on his birthday, how do you think he would feel?" Lucy demanded once again. "The feeling of being left alone on one's birthday, I know that feeling all too well."