A/N It's not as long as the last chapter. The chapters will not be that long anymore. I have discovered that when I work on two projects simultaneously (the other project being my Naruto story on fanfiction.net), it takes longer than it would've done if I'd just done them individually. Also, I have school. Bad school. It wasn't this bad last year, but now it's all work, work, work. So, updates will be slower and shorter.
In more cheerful news, Sasuke has now gone to Orochimaru! By Sasuke, I mean Chelia, and by Orochimaru, I mean- well, I'm not gonna tell you that, but it happens in this chapter. No, it's not the vampires.
All the villagers stood gathered around Natsu. The village chieftain was giving a motivational speech to the villagers. Natsu had absolutely no idea why. The villagers weren't the ones destroying the moon, after all.
"And now, give it up for the murderous young man who has agreed to destroy the moon for us!"
Natsu interrupted, "I didn't 'agree' out of the goodness of my heart, by the way. It was an S-Class mission, and I assume there are mission rewards?"
"Oh, yes, sir, of course!" Natsu hadn't acted nearly as scary as he used to for a few weeks now, and he had missed this. He knew it was bad, but he had. If Igneel had been there, he would've told him something or the other about dragon urges, dominance, etcetera, and Sanguinia would have made some comment about dominance that Natsu now understood was lewd, after being exposed to Cana's influence.
Natsu was broken out of his reverie, only to see a legion of bug-eyed demons looking at his melancholic smile. He coughed once to hide his embarrassment, sneaking a look at Lucy, who was standing on the sidelines. He took a deep breath, blood engulfed his body, and he shot skywards.
It was exhilarating to feel the wind on his body, and he accelerated even more. There was a small boom as he broke the sound barrier, and he allowed himself a small smirk. He was going to destroy the moon!
Wait, was that a-
THUNK!
No, the barrier wasn't nearly strong enough to stop him. However, he hadn't expected a barrier, so it severely messed up his momentum. He still rose for a significant length, but frowned as he came to a stop.
Then his eyes widened in horror as he started falling downwards. He quickly called out, "Happy!" It was Happy's mission, and he would definitely come soaring through the air like a big damn hero, yell "Aye sir!", catch him, and then ask for fish!
Cut to Happy, who had forgotten completely about the mission and was being fed fish by Mirajane.
Cut back to Galuna island, where Natsu crashed onto the demon chief with absolutely no injuries to his person.
"Well", he said, dusting his pants, "That didn't work out well. Hang on, lemme try aga-" he looked at the demons to see them looking at their bodies in wonder.
"Ooh", they said together, "We were actually demons!"
"Of course you were", Natsu said irritably. "I could have told you that myself. Now hang on, let me destroy-"
"No, sir, we don't need you to destroy the moon anymore!"
Natsu turned to them with a flat "What?"
After some polite discussion, during which Natsu was assured that they would still get a Golden Key as a reward (which Lucy identified as Sagittarius's key), they went back to the cave where Deliora used to be frozen.
"You know what, maybe I will try to forge a contract with Sagittarius", Lucy spoke up suddenly, looking at the key. "I mean, I can always try, right?"
A little insight into the Celestial World and how summoning works is required to understand how unlucky Lucy was.
The Celestial realm was a huge place, filled with spirits of all shapes and sizes. A small fraction of them trained to be spirits, and an even smaller fraction of them succeeded. It was the goal of every spirit to be the next Golden Spirit. At the moment, most of them were waiting for Loke's expiration to become the next Leo.
Each Celestial wizard (yes, every single person who owned a Celestial Key) had a tower designated to them, where all the spirits they had, lived. During their off-time, they left the tower (which was why their contracts mentioned specifically when they could be summoned) and could not be summoned from outside. Which was why spirits could be summoned when they were 'just about to go on a date', but not when they had actually left on the date.
Typically, new spirits stayed in the tower until they were called upon to make a contract, so as to be available for the contract, Virgo being the living embodiment of that norm. The others were decidedly more lax, having been there for years. Upon being teleported into the tower, Sagittarius had been waiting patiently, trying not to go outside to that delicious pan-fried hay outlet.
Seeing his forlorn expression, Cancer said, "Equine friend, you can go out if you want, she won't call you."
"She never does", Taurus added bitterly.
Aquarius looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Don't say it like that, it's not her fault."
"Yeah", Taurus levelled her with a look. "It's yours."
"It was a miscommunication-"
"THE HELL IT WAS", the bull man roared. "IT WAS YOUR FAULT, AND NOW OUR MISTRESS IS NEVER GOING TO CALL ON US!"
Aquarius looked down, not replying.
"Why are you SILENT?!" the cow said, reaching across the table with a raised fist.
Then his hand was caught in an elegant but unmovable vice grip. "Taurus-san", said Virgo in a deceptively light tone, the use of Japanese making her words sound just that much more dangerous, "You will apologize now, or I will cut your skin into ribbons and bind you with them. Wouldn't that be nice?"
"I- I'm sorry", said Taurus, gasping as he tried to free his hand, "I lost hold of myself."
Aquarius stared a bit at him with empty eyes, then looked at Virgo.
"Mistress?"
"Virgo, I'm not your-" Aquarius stopped, suddenly tired. Virgo chose not to say anything, grabbing her shoulder and leading her to another room.
The remaining spirits looked a bit 'eyebrow-raise-y', and so Sagittarius changed the topic quickly.
"Uh, moshi moshi, so, I can go out, right?"
"Uh, yes, you can."
"Okay... great... Bye!" The centaur bolted from the crazy house.
Of course, it was at that moment that the gate of Sagittarius opened inside the living room, searching for the equestrian spirit.
Taurus's jaw went slack for all of two seconds before he bolted towards the gate. Not being able to force himself through it, he turned his back to it, pushing the table to get himself through. It was very difficult to use someone else's gate.
He didn't succeed. The gate closed, and Taurus sat down on the floor in defeat. The first time in many years that their mistress called upon a spirit, and the spirit was missing. What horrible luck!
What Lucy saw was a bit worse. From her perspective, she had opened a gate. Not only had the spirit not answered her, but somebody had pointed at her with part of their butt, which was obviously a blatant insult, and not an attempt to go through someone else's gate. Obviously.
"Well", she said, putting the key back in her keyring, "That was very informative."
Natsu wondered how to broach the topic of spiritual murder.
The Dark Guild Eisenwald was in hiding. Instead of going deeply underground, Erigor had opened a store. From the outside, it looked like a shop made by a cringy anime fan. It had obscene ("tastefully lewd", Erigor would say) anime fanart on the walls. Obscene fanart of Aizen. They had named the place Aizen-World. No one ever entered the place.
Of course, that was by design, since they didn't want anybody to find them. Therefore, they were very surprised when somebody knocked twice on the door.
Erigor opened the door, scythe hanging on his back. "Yes?" he asked, looking down at a pinkish-red haired midget. "Who are you?"
"Are you Erigor?"
"Depends", Erigor said, frowning suspiciously. "Are you a Rune Knight in disguise?"
"No."
"Yes, I'm Erigor, what do you want?"
The midget entered, a cold, dark expression still on her face. She looked around the room, eyes passing over age-inappropriate photos in a detached manner. "I hear that you use wind magic. I want to kill someone. Teach me."
"Well, there are several vulnerable areas that I can-"
"I don't care about that. I want to kill one specific person, who can eat my magic. She's faster and stronger."
"Eat your magic?" Erigor frowned, remembering something he's read in a book. "So she's a slayer? What magic do you use?"
"I use Sky God Slayer Magic."
"Huh. So, if she ate your magic, she has to be a Sky Devil Slayer, and not a Dragon Slayer."
"Why?"
"Well", Erigor gestured with his hands, "It's like rock-paper-scissors."
"She grew wings when she ate it."
"...Oh. Then she's a Dragon Slayer."
"Well?" Chelia asked. "Which is it?"
"You know", Erigor said, frowning, "You're being rather rude."
"I'm seven."
"Yes, I get that you don't have manners yet, but this is a dark guild. We're murderers. Don't you have any sense of self preservation?"
She looked at him like that Tanjiro meme, staring at him as if he was, and I quote, 'a creature or something'. "Again, I'm seven."
"Fair enough", shrugged Erigor. "Wanna join the guild?"
Chelia thought for a bit. "I'll leave after I get stronger, and recreate my old guild. Is that fine?"
"Yes, it is, although I suspect you'll change your mind. Welcome aboard, kid."
"Don't call me 'kid'. I'm not a kid."
"Oh, really?" said Erigor, baring his teeth in a grin. "Didn't you just say you were 'seven'?"
In the magic council lab, a few of the members were observing a creature. A humanoid creature. A humanoid, female creature that had been caught by Lamia Scale, and was being restrained with about the amount of magic contained by fifty people.
"Has she spoken?" the tall, bulky leader of the council asked. He received no answer.
"Are you even li-" he turned to his fellows and froze. One of their heads rolled down the floor, blood spilling from their necks. And suddenly, there was a voice in his ear.
"Die." The word used, shiine, was said in Japanese, because, according to Vlad, that sounded way scarier. Of course, since the wizard had not learnt the language, he did not understand it as his head joined the others on the floor.
"Well", said Vlad, "That was simultaneously easy and unsatisfying. Should've kept one alive to play with."
Jellal, on Galuna island had been lying down with his eyes closed. Erza had had her hand near his hair, pondering whether she should stroke it or not, when he sat upright, clutched his head, and screamed.
"Jellal?! What's wrong?!" asked Erza, looking around frantically for anything to help him.
"They- They-", gasped Jellal, "They're all dead. The magic council is dead!"
A/N So... that happened. I have a disturbing habit of sending kids to live with evil wizards. Also, I had a religious epiphany. I'm an atheist, but I had the thought, what if- hear me out- what if there's a god who doesn't know we exist? Like, a writer. Maybe god is a 4-dimensional writer, and wars happen not because he or she is evil, but for the same reason dark stuff happens in any book (like mine). For plot!
No, this is obviously not a serious thought. It just feeds my own god complex, which I like.