Chapter 2: Saiyans and Cana
Twelve years is a long time.
It is easily long enough for three infants who arrived on a foreign world with nothing but a mother's arms to mature into what could only be described as a beloved natural disaster.
The backyard of Gildarts Clive's home had borne the full brunt of that evolution.
The grass had surrendered somewhere around year three. The eastern fence post carried a deep, obsidian scorch mark that Uruk had never explicitly claimed responsibility for, and the old apple tree in the corner leaned away from the yard at a defensive angle, as if it had made a conscious decision to stay out of the splash zone.
Every morning at six sharp, rain or shine, that yard came alive with focused, brutal energy.
Kizuna moved first—always Kizuna, who had never once waited for permission to begin anything. At twelve years old, he was built like someone had drawn up a blueprint for danger and started construction early: all lean, coiled muscle and explosive momentum. The Earthland sun had tanned his skin a shade darker than his siblings', making his hammered-gold eyes stand out with sharp intensity. He wore a black sleeveless top, dark blue pants, green arm bracers, and matching green boots—a surprisingly coordinated ensemble he had stubbornly insisted on picking out himself at the market.
Three meters away, Uruk ran through his own forms. Where Kizuna was raw instinct, Uruk was cold economy. Every strike was deliberate, calculated, like a scholar working through a proof rather than a fighter in the dirt. Lighter-skinned with jet-black eyes that went hyper-focused whenever he trained, he wore a teal tank over a long-sleeved blue undershirt, his hands wrapped in orange knuckle bandages that left his fingers free.
Then there was Sala. Technically the youngest by roughly a month—a technicality she refused to accept and disputed regularly—she moved with a light-footed agility that caught everyone off guard. Dressed in a purple shirt, grey shorts, brown boots, pink wristbands, and a hand-strung jade necklace decorated with bear teeth she had hunted herself, she was quick and calculating. Watching her spar was like watching someone play chess while her opponent was still figuring out the board.
And from the base of their spines swished three brown, furry monkey tails.
The tails had been the talk of Magnolia for their first two years in town. Eventually, like Macao's mustache or Fairy Tail's habit of accidentally demolishing public property, they simply became part of the local scenery. Prehensile, hyper-expressive, and routinely weaponized as a fifth limb during spars, the kids used them with absolute natural ease.
They trained until the back door creaked open.
"Alright, you three. That's enough."
Teilanne's voice carried the precise pitch and volume developed over twelve years of herding Saiyan children without annoying the neighbors. All three froze instantly.
She stood in the doorway, composed and striking. Twelve years in Earthland had refined her. Her raven hair fell to the middle of her back, framing silver, wing-shaped earrings that caught the morning light. She wore an ocean-blue karate gi-style training dress stitched with red thread, falling just above her ankles over practical black shoes. She occupied the exact space where a warrior and a mother met, looking entirely capable of attending a formal dinner or putting her fist through a stone wall.
"Are you ready?" she asked.
Sala's face lit up instantly. "More than ready, Mom."
Uruk wiped sweat from his forehead. "So today's actually the day?"
"The day we finally join Gildarts' guild," Kizuna confirmed, crossing his arms with a satisfaction twelve years in the making.
"It is," Teilanne said, her voice carrying a quiet warmth that made all three sit up a little straighter.
A short silence settled over the yard. Then Sala, tilting her head with the innocent expression of someone dropping a live grenade into a room, spoke up.
"Mom?"
"Yes, Sala?"
"When are you going to tell Mister Gildarts how you feel about him?"
The air in the yard froze. Teilanne opened her mouth, closed it, and a deep, furious flush spread across her cheeks—a color that had no business being on the face of a Saiyan warrior.
"I—Sala, sweetie—that will come in time, I promise," she stammered, frantically smoothing the front of her gi. "I just... I don't know him well enough yet to—"
"Mom," Kizuna interrupted in a flat, deadpan voice. "We've been living in his house for twelve years."
"That isn't—I am well aware of how long—"
"You know how many scoops of sugar he takes in his tea," Uruk added calmly. "You know which floorboard to avoid so you don't wake him up at night. You spent three days stitching him a new cloak for his birthday because his old one was fraying at the elbow."
"I was merely being a considerate houseguest—"
"Mom."
Teilanne pressed her lips together, hovering on the razor-thin line between maternal irritation and total embarrassment.
"I suppose," she said with immense, shaky dignity, "that you might have a point."
"Just ask him when he gets back from his next job," Uruk suggested reasonably. "Then tell him."
"...Yes. Right. I will do that."
Over her head, the three children exchanged a silent glance. She's got it bad. They'd known it since they were seven, and they had zero intention of letting her off the hook.
They set off toward Magnolia's central district.
The morning air was crisp. Shopkeepers were rolling out awnings, the bakery on the corner smelled of fresh sourdough—a scent Sala always slowed down to inhale—and locals called out friendly greetings as the four passed by. The townspeople had watched the three kids grow from quiet, wide-eyed survivors into confident youths who walked the cobblestones like they owned them.
Teilanne walked beside them, watching the Fairy Tail crest rise above the rooftops in the distance.
She had given up trying to reconcile Earthland with the planetary data in the old Saiyan archives within her first month. The magic, the geography, the guilds—none of it matched. This was not the Earth she had aimed for.
But as she watched Kizuna laugh, Uruk adjust his wrappings, and Sala bounce on her toes, she felt that same quiet certainty she'd felt in the pod years ago.
Home, Teilanne thought, isn't a set of coordinates. It's what you build while you're busy living.
The Fairy Tail guildhall was, as it almost invariably was at mid-morning, loud.
Not dangerously loud—not yet. That tended to escalate toward afternoon. But it was loud in the comfortable, layered way of a large group of people who liked each other and saw no particular reason to use their inside voices. Conversations overlapped, someone was laughing in the far corner with the unbridled enthusiasm of a person who found something genuinely hilarious, and there was the low bass undertone of a minor argument building in the center section that hadn't yet decided whether it wanted to turn into a brawl.
Then the double doors swung open.
Four people walked in.
The noise didn't stop all at once. It degraded—first the people nearest the entrance went quiet, then the silence rippled outward as heads turned, elbows nudged neighbors, and the hush spread like a stone dropped into still water. Within ten seconds, the entire ground floor of the Fairy Tail guildhall had gone quieter than it had been since the last time Erza had walked in wearing an expression that suggested someone was about to have a very bad day.
The reasons for this were simple:
Three children with brown, furry monkey tails, which was unusual even by Fairy Tail's generous standards.
And one woman who had apparently decided to walk in looking as striking as she did without any apparent awareness of the effect she produced, which somehow made it hit twice as hard.
The male wizards of Fairy Tail demonstrated their depth of response with impressive uniformity.
"Hey—who is that?"
"Never seen her before. Never. I would've remembered a face like that."
Macao had apparently forgotten how his jaw worked. Wakaba's pipe nearly slipped out of his mouth. Several people in the back stood on their chairs for a better view, displaying a complete lack of subtlety.
"She's gorgeous," Wakaba managed, stating it like a mathematical fact.
Teilanne continued walking forward with the composure of a woman who had been a Saiyan warrior long before she was anything else. She had developed a remarkably high threshold for intimidating atmospheres, which apparently extended to a room full of staring wizards.
Among the women, the reaction was somewhat more measured, though no less attentive.
Cana Alberona—currently occupying a bar stool with the practiced ease of someone who had claimed it through right of seniority—looked up from her juice, took in the newcomer, and said simply: "She's so pretty." It wasn't envious. It was purely appreciative.
Laki nodded in silent agreement.
Erza Scarlet frowned—not with displeasure, but with the specific focus of someone trying to pull up a buried memory. "Isn't that..."
"Who is she?" Mirajane Strauss asked, appearing beside her with her uncanny talent for materializing wherever the gossip was freshest.
"I think..." Erza's frown deepened. "Isn't she the woman who lives out at Gildarts' place? The one he stays with when he's actually in town?"
The sentence landed in the brief quiet like a boulder dropped into a calm pond.
The guildhall exploded.
"EHHHHHHH?!"
The sound was less a word and more a collective sonic boom—three dozen wizards simultaneously realizing that the legendary, elusive woman from Gildarts' home life was standing right in front of them, processing the implications in real time. Tables rattled. Someone knocked over a pint. The minor argument in the middle section abandoned its ambitions entirely.
Teilanne, for her part, navigated through the thunderous noise with her children tucked close behind her, coming to a halt before the bar counter. Standing on a stool behind it was a short man with a magnificent mustache and the absolute stillness of someone who was used to being the calmest person in any chaotic room.
"It has been a long time, Master Makarov," she said, her voice cutting cleanly through the ambient roar. "It's me—Teilanne."
Makarov regarded her for a moment with sharp, practiced eyes that had seen far too much over the decades to be easily rattled. Then, a slow, warm smile broke across his face.
"So you've finally decided to join us, have you? How long has it been?"
"Twelve years, sir."
"Twelve years." He made a thoughtful sound, tapping his chin. "And I take it you haven't come alone?"
"Not at all." She stepped aside slightly, and the three children arranged themselves with varying degrees of willingness.
Uruk stepped forward with a directness that was entirely his own. "Nice to meet you, Master Makarov. I'm Uruk."
Beside him, Kizuna offered a short, confident nod. "Kizuna."
Makarov's gaze moved to the third child—and found her not where he expected. She had retreated behind her brothers with a speed that suggested considerable practice, and was now visible only as a pair of wide, dark eyes peering around Kizuna's arm with the intensity of a small forest animal assessing a trap.
Kizuna let out a long sigh. It was the sigh of a brother who had been performing this exact intervention for roughly eleven years. "Sis." He turned his head slightly. "We have been over this. Approximately one million times. You will have to talk to new people at some point—it is an unavoidable feature of existing. Now." He reached back, found her arm, and pulled her out into the open with the brisk efficiency of someone who had zero patience for prolonged theatrics. "Out."
Sala stumbled forward two steps, caught her balance, and stood in front of Makarov looking thoroughly exposed.
"Hello there," Makarov said gently. His tone shifted into something much warmer—the voice he used when he knew someone needed a softer landing. "And what might your name be?"
Sala's chin came up just a fraction. "I-It's Sala Ginè, sir. But... just Sala is fine."
"Sala," he repeated, letting the name settle with apparent pleasure. "What a very pretty name for a young lady."
A brilliant, spectacular flush bloomed across her cheeks. "T-Thank you, Master Makarov, sir."
"Well then," Makarov said, hopping off his stool and grabbing a heavy brass instrument from under the bar. "Follow me, all four of you."
The bar counter had seen this ceremony hundreds of times.
The guild stamp was a simple tool—metal worn smooth by years of palm pressure, the Fairy Tail crest carved deep and precise. But the moment of its application always carried a strange weight, as if the ink itself understood what it meant to offer a home.
Makarov set it down and looked at the family. "Who's up first?"
"I will," Teilanne said, stepping forward.
"Color and placement?"
"Purple. On my left forearm, please."
The stamp pressed down. For one brief second, a brilliant flash of magic flared before settling into her skin—a permanent, vibrant mark. Something she had chosen for herself. Teilanne stared down at it for a moment, her dark eyes holding an expression too deep for words.
She stepped back, and Makarov looked at Uruk.
"Black," Uruk said without an ounce of hesitation. "Left shoulder."
Clack. The mark bloomed against his skin.
"Orange," Kizuna piped up next, tilting his head before Makarov could even ask. "Right side of my neck, just above the collarbone."
Makarov paused, raising an eyebrow. "Interesting spot. My grandson wears his in almost the exact same place."
Kizuna's expression didn't change, but his eyes flickered as he filed that piece of information away.
Last was Sala, who had been watching the process with the intense focus of a scholar taking mental notes. When Makarov turned to her, she squared her shoulders, having reached her conclusion.
"Red," she said, her voice firmer than it had been all morning. "Back of my left hand."
"An excellent choice," Makarov approved. He brought the stamp down gently, and the crimson Fairy Tail mark bloomed on her hand like a banner.
Sala stared down at it, her expression complex—the face of a child born between the ruins of one world and the wild magic of another, who had just been formally told that she belonged right here.
Makarov turned toward the silent, watching hall and raised his arms.
"Listen up, brats!" his voice boomed, rattling the rafters. "Say hello to the newest members of our family!"
The guildhall blew up into a wall of cheers, whistling, and clinking mugs.
The four Saiyans stood together in the avalanche of noise, simultaneously executing a synchronized sweat-drop—a collective habit honed over twelve years of living together.
As the commotion settled into general celebration, a young girl detached herself from the crowd near the bar. She moved with the easy confidence of someone who knew every inch of the hall, wearing a simple yellow dress, her brown hair falling softly around her shoulders.
She stopped in front of the newcomers, offering a wide, sunny smile.
"Hi there," she said warmly. "I'm Cana Alberona. It's really nice to meet you guys."
Sala looked at the girl for a long moment, running her through that quick, quiet assessment kids do when meeting someone new. Then, with absolute directness, Sala said, "I really like your dress. It's very pretty."
Cana blinked, utterly caught off guard. The sheer, unprompted sincerity bypassed her defenses instantly. "You... really?"
"Yeah. And your name is pretty, too. Cana." Sala tested the word on her tongue. "It suits you."
Cana's smile shifted—losing its polite edge and turning into something real and delighted. "Thanks! What's your name?"
"Sala. Sala Ginè, officially, but 'Sala' is easier."
"Sala," Cana repeated softly, her eyes brightening. "That's a beautiful name." She tilted her head, taking a half-step closer. "Do you want to be friends?"
The directness matched Sala's own. Something guarded in Sala's posture melted away, replaced by a shy, genuine warmth.
"Yeah," Sala said softly. "I'd really like that."
A few feet away, Teilanne watched the exchange. A mother's quiet anxiety—the constant, unspoken fear for a daughter who found the world a little too loud and strangers a little too overwhelming—eased out of her chest. Her shoulders dropped half an inch.
She caught Makarov's eye. He followed her gaze from the two girls to the far end of the bar, where a tall, broad-shouldered boy was leaning against a pillar, trying his absolute best to look like he was completely above the room's energy.
"Master Makarov," Teilanne murmured softly, "is that your grandson?"
"Ah. So you noticed." Makarov turned and cleared his throat. "Laxus! Get over here a minute."
The boy straightened up, dragging his feet with the practiced indifference of a teenager who had decided the best defense against caring was looking like he didn't give a damn. He was built big for his age, carrying a heavy, static tension in his shoulders, but his scowl was a bit too rehearsed.
"What?" he grunted, crossing his arms.
"I wanted you to meet Teilanne," Makarov said. "She's been staying out at Gildarts' place—he's been looking after her family when he's back from jobs."
Laxus shifted his gaze to Teilanne, performing a quick, guarded evaluation. "Yeah. Hi."
"It's wonderful to meet you, Laxus," Teilanne said, her tone warm and entirely unbothered by his sharp edges. "Gildarts talks about you quite a bit."
Laxus opened his mouth to utter something cool and dismissive—and then his eyes dropped about three feet.
Sala had materialized beside her mother within the last five seconds. She was looking up at Laxus with an expression of absolute, unabashed fascination, a bright flush rising on her cheeks that she seemed entirely unaware of.
"H-Hello, Laxus-senpai," she stammered, her voice attempting to sound composed and failing by a wide margin. Before anyone could save her, she let out a tiny, nervous giggle—causing Laxus to sweat-drop so hard it was practically visible in the air around him.
Teilanne pressed her lips together to hide a smile.
Makarov let out a quiet, deeply amused chuckle.
"Aw," Teilanne hummed, keeping her voice low enough so only the Master could hear. "It seems my daughter has taken quite a shine to your grandson."
"Heh," Makarov smirked, stroking his mustache. "So it would appear."
Laxus beat a hasty, stiff-backed retreat toward the far side of the hall to preserve whatever dignity he had left, while the rest of the morning dissolved into the grand, chaotic warmth of Fairy Tail.
Kizuna found himself flanked.
He had been standing near the back wall, systematically cataloging the guildhall with the practical focus he brought to any unknown territory, when the two of them arrived at his sides. They moved with the synchronized precision of people who hadn't coordinated at all, but had simply zeroed in on the exact same target from opposite angles.
On his left: white hair, brilliant blue eyes, and a pleasant, measured smile that held the unmistakable edge of someone taking your exact measure.
On his right: scarlet hair, iron armor, and a glare so direct it suggested she viewed eye contact as the opening exchange of a duel.
Both of them wanted to talk to him first. He could tell.
He could also tell that neither was going to acknowledge the other's presence, which meant this interaction was going to turn tedious in about five seconds.
"Hey," Kizuna said calmly.
Both girls paused.
"Does it actually matter," he asked, with the patient exhaustion of a boy settling an argument before it could start, "who I talk to first?"
Silence fell between them.
"That's what I thought." Kizuna turned to his left. "You were about to say something. Mirajane, right?"
Mirajane Strauss blinked—a quick, recalibrating flutter of her lashes—before her smile snapped back into place. "Right! Yes. I wanted to ask—what kind of magic do you use? None of us have ever seen a signature like yours, and I couldn't identify the origin."
Kizuna considered how to phrase it. "It isn't really magic," he explained. "Or at least, that's not what we call it, though I get why you'd think so. It's called Ki."
"Ki," Erza repeated, testing the syllable on her tongue.
"Think of it this way," Kizuna said, raising his palm slightly. "Wizards channel magical power from an internal tank or the ambient ether. Ki is life energy itself. It exists in everything—living beings, rocks, the air. With the right discipline, you don't just cast with it; you shape it. It lets you force a physical body way past its natural limits."
Mirajane's blue eyes sharpened. The polite curiosity vanished, replaced by a sudden, intense focus. "That sounds remarkably similar to raw magic control."
"Specifically," Erza added, stepping half an inch closer, "it sounds like an unmapped branch of lost magic. Nothing documented in Fiore matches that description. And I am familiar with most texts."
"If Erza hasn't read about it," Mirajane said, casting a sweet, knife-sharp glance across Kizuna's chest at the redhead, "then it's safe to say it doesn't exist on Earthland."
Kizuna nodded simply. "That would make sense, given where my mother comes from."
For the next half hour, he broke down the mechanics—not just the theory, but the physical reality of it. He explained internal circulation, sensory awareness, and how energy could be concentrated for offense or hardened for defense. He flared a tiny, dense needle of gold light at his index finger, letting the density of the pressure ripple through the air between them.
Both girls leaned in, completely oblivious to how close they were standing.
Mirajane was thinking of her Takeover magic—the volatile, demonic power she kept locked in her chest, constantly threatening to tear through her control. Ki's emphasis on absolute internal discipline offered a framework she hadn't known she was looking for.
Erza was thinking of her Requip—about how Ki-enhanced perception could shave off the micro-seconds between armor shifts, turning her reaction time from fast to instant.
They arrived at the exact same realization along two totally different paths. They looked at each other, looked back at Kizuna, and spoke in unison:
"Could you teach me?"
Kizuna looked at Erza. He looked at Mirajane. He glanced at the noisy guildhall around them.
This, he thought with dry resignation, is going to be a very exhausting workout.
"Sure," he said. "Whenever you're ready."
Meanwhile, on the other side of the hall, Sala and Uruk were being introduced to Natsu Dragneel and Gray Fullbuster. It was an educational experience.
Natsu was pure, unfiltered momentum—loud, impossible not to like, and exhausting in the way a wildfire is exhausting. He laughed with a wide, toothy grin that functioned as an open invitation to cause trouble. Sala took an immediate liking to him and said so directly, a compliment Natsu accepted as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Gray was a bit more complicated—mostly because Gray possessed a personal habit that he seemed entirely oblivious to. Within three minutes of conversation, he had passively shed his shirt and boots, standing casually in nothing but dark trousers.
Sala stared flatly at his torso.
"Why," she asked with zero hesitation, "are you taking off your clothes?"
"Huh? Oh." Gray blinked, looking down at his chest with the vague surprise of a man discovering a mild administrative error. He casually reached for his shirt on a nearby table.
"That's so weird," Sala declared. She wasn't being mean; she was simply applying her usual unvarnished assessment of the world.
Sitting on a stool nearby, Cana didn't just laugh—she collapsed entirely. She folded forward over the bar, her shoulders shaking violently as she made breathless, wheezing sounds that bypassed spoken language.
Natsu pointed a triumphant finger at Gray's face. "HA! See?! She's completely right! You're a creep!"
"Who asked you, flame-brain?!" Gray's eye twitched as he yanked his shirt back over his head.
"The truth doesn't need to be asked!" Natsu roared back cheerfully. "Does it, Mister Walks-Around-In-His-Underwear?!"
"You want to go, you loud-mouthed matchstick?!"
"Anytime, ice-pervert!"
The resulting brawl was instantaneous, loud, and thoroughly destructive.
Sala watched the two boys tumble through a wooden table with the neutral expression of an auditor taking inventory. She turned back to Cana, who was still clutching her stomach, her stool vibrating from her laughter.
"Are they..." Sala started, pointing at the dust cloud.
"Always!" Cana gasped, tears wiping from her eyes. "Every—snort—every single day!" She dissolved again, burying her face in her arms.
"...Hm." Sala sweat-dropped, making a quiet mental note. She looked over at Uruk.
Uruk looked at Natsu and Gray, who were currently wrestling near the request board. He looked around the rest of the hall, where the other wizards were casually stepping over the rolling fighters without breaking their own conversations. He looked back at Sala.
"This guild," Uruk observed carefully, "is going to be a very specific kind of chaotic."
"Yeah," Sala agreed, a small smile tugging at her mouth.
Cana was still giggling, the empty barrel beside her explaining at least part of her enthusiasm. Sala watched her new friend until her own cheeks began to ache, and finally gave up, letting out a bright, ringing laugh that blended right into the noise of the hall.
Teilanne found Gildarts on the dirt road leading back into Magnolia.
She almost always did. It wasn't something they ever scheduled; it was just a habit formed over twelve years of living under the same roof. Whenever he was returning from a long job, she would find herself walking toward the outskirts of town, and they would wind up walking the final stretch together.
Gildarts looked up as she stepped out from the treeline. A slow, warm smile broke through his unruly beard—a look of genuine, easy pleasure that made Teilanne's chest feel pleasantly tight.
"Job go well?" she asked, adjusting her pace to match his heavy, relaxed stride.
"Not bad. Took down a rogue creature out near the mountains." He glanced down at her arm. "You all go to the hall today?"
"We did. All four of us." She raised her left forearm, tracing the fresh purple crest with her thumb. "It felt like it was time."
"Good." Gildarts stared at the mark for a second, his expression unreadable. Then he cleared his throat. "Hey, Teilanne... let me ask you something."
She turned her head. "What is it?"
"Do you and the kids... I mean, do you actually like living out at my place? Even with me stomping off on jobs for months at a time?"
The question carried a blunt, self-doubting sincerity that was quintessentially Gildarts. Teilanne stopped in her tracks, taking a moment to answer—not because she was unsure, but because a man like him deserved the truth without pretense.
"Gildarts," she said softly, "that is a remarkably silly question."
He paused, turning back to look at her.
"Of course we like it," she continued, her voice steady and warm in the late afternoon air. "We love it. You took us in when we were strangers who fell out of the sky. You gave us a home without asking for anything in return. We've grown to love you the way people love family—not a sudden decision, but a quiet truth you realize has been there for years." She smiled faintly. "Sala has told me, on more than one occasion, that she wishes you were her real father."
Gildarts went entirely still. "She... said that?"
"Several times. And she meant every word." Teilanne stepped closer, her dark eyes locking onto his. "They all love you, Gildarts. Each in their own quiet way."
The wind rustled through the canopy above the road, scattering golden light across the dirt path.
"Gildarts," she said softly.
He held her gaze. "Yeah?"
She had thought about this moment for years. She had drafted speeches in her mind, discarded a dozen variations, and fielded unsolicited romantic advice from her three twelve-year-olds for half a decade. But standing here now, the complicated speeches evaporated, leaving only the simple, immovable truth.
"For twelve years, you have been consistently, unconditionally kind to me and three children you owed nothing to," she said quietly. "You treated them like your own flesh and blood. You treated me... like someone worth protecting." A faint, rare blush touched her cheeks, but her eyes never wavered. "I didn't plan on falling in love with you. I don't even know the exact day it happened. But I did. Part of it is because you carry the same quiet strength as my late husband, Yuren... but mostly, it's because you are Gildarts Clive. And I cannot imagine my life without you."
She took a slow, deep breath, laying her soul bare.
"So I am asking you—please. Take us as your family. Not out of charity, and not as an arrangement. Be my husband, and be their father. Nothing in this world would make us happier."
Gildarts stood frozen in the middle of the dirt road.
The legendary Ace of Fairy Tail had fought monsters, leveled mountains, and survived impossible horrors. He carried his own heavy, permanent grief—the quiet kind that never leaves, but simply makes room for life to go on. Yet standing before this proud, fierce woman, he looked thoroughly overwhelmed.
"I never knew," he said rasped, his voice rough. "I didn't think... you felt that way."
"I know," Teilanne replied with a wry smile. "I should have said something sooner. The children have been telling me to for five years."
A sudden, deep chuckle rumbled in Gildarts' chest. He stepped forward, reaching out with his broad, calloused hands to gently wrap around hers. His left hand cradled hers tight, while his right settled softly at her waist, drawing her close with a tenderness that spoke louder than any grand speech.
"How," he murmured, his dark eyes shining with genuine, unreserved warmth, "could I possibly say no to that?"
Teilanne's breath caught. "Gildarts..."
"I'd be honored to take you as my wife, Teilanne," he said softly, looking down at her with absolute certainty. "And those three wild, brilliant kids as my own. Nothing in this world would make me happier."
Teilanne closed her eyes, letting out a long, shuddering breath she felt like she'd been holding since Planet Vegeta fell.
"Thank you," she whispered, leaning her forehead gently against his chest plate. "Thank you, Gildarts."
When they walked through the double doors of the Fairy Tail guildhall twenty minutes later, hand in hand, Kizuna caught sight of them from across the room.
He raised a hand in a brief greeting. "Hey, Mom. Welcome back, Gildarts."
Beside Kizuna, Mirajane stopped mid-sentence. She looked at Teilanne, looked at Kizuna, and did a rapid, visible mental calculation.
"Wait..." Mirajane blinked. "That's your mother?"
"She looks so young," Erza noted, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion as she tried to reconcile Teilanne's youthful, vibrant appearance with a twelve-year-old son.
Without a word spoken between them, Kizuna, Uruk, and Sala subtly maneuvered their new friends toward the far side of the hall, clearing a respectful radius around their mother and Gildarts.
Behind the bar, Master Makarov took a slow sip from his wooden mug, a knowing, satisfied smirk hiding beneath his white mustache as he watched the new family take their place among the chaos.
Gildarts rubbed the back of his neck, his broad shoulders shifting awkwardly under his cloak. Beside him, Teilanne stood poised and straight-backed. They shared a swift, private look—a quiet, unspoken confirmation between two people who had made up their minds—before turning back to face the packed room.
"So," Gildarts drawled, clearing his throat.
The guildhall fell utterly silent. Even Natsu and Gray paused mid-tussle, hanging suspended off the edge of a splintered bench, waiting.
"We're getting married."
For one fragile second, the air left the room. Silence hung suspended in the rafters like a drawn breath.
Then, the roof nearly blew off the building.
"EHHHHHHHHHHHHHH?!"
It was a wall of sound far louder than their arrival three hours earlier, powered by dozens of wizards who had spent the morning nursing rumors, only to find out the reality was tenfold bigger than anything they had imagined. Chairs scraped violently against wood. Drinks sloshed over tables. Macao nearly choked on his foam, while Wakaba stared blankly as his pipe finally hit the floorboards with a soft clack. The minor brawl that had been brewing in the middle of the hall dissolved instantly into pure, unadulterated shock.
Standing behind the bar, Makarov took a long, slow sip from his wooden mug. He set it down with a satisfied clink, a knowing glint in his sharp eyes, looking for all the world like a man who had watched a long-shot bet pay off exactly on schedule.
"Well," the Guild Master chuckled, his voice easily carrying over the din to those nearby. "That is certainly something."
And because this was Fairy Tail—where any piece of news, good or bad, was treated as a mandate to throw a festival—the ambient noise instantly pivoted into a full-scale celebration. Mugs were raised high, barrel taps were thrown wide, and the hall burst into a bright, raucous fire of laughter, music, and clinking glass.
In the center of the storm stood Teilanne.
She looked around at the wild, chaotic warmth surrounding her: Cana dragging Sala into a lively dance, Kizuna trying to explain Ki to an increasingly enthralled Erza and Mirajane, Uruk calmly intercepting a flying turkey leg with one hand, and Gildarts' broad arm resting comfortably around her waist.
A soft, disbelieving laugh slipped past her lips.
I still have no idea what world this is, she thought, pressing her shoulder against Gildarts' side and watching her children smile. But it's mine now.
Next Time — Chapter 3: A Fairy Tail Wedding