Happy stood there with a magic artefact in his hand.
A wave of beam erupted from it and directly engulfed the heart.
Mira watched the beam with bated breath. Each second of seeing it only served to increase her anxiety. She could hear the sound of her heart beating in her ears.
After the next few seconds, the beam finally stopped.
Gone.
The heart was gone.
"I got the last hit. Doesn't this mean I am the one who completed the mission?" Happy said with a Cheshire grin, trying to make a peace sign, which he miserably failed at.
Mira sighed in relief, allowing herself to fall on the floor.
"How did you get an offensive artefact? All Kazu gave us were defensive ones?" Natsu pointed his finger at the cat in an accusatory tone.
"Hehe. Kazu gave me multiple offensive ones, too." Happy pointed at the bag on his back.
Levy shook her head. "This is blatant favouritism. I was already suspicious when Happy got so many magic items."
"At least we stopped that thing." Mira cancelled her magic, transforming back to her human form.
Suddenly, all four of them stiffened.
They felt a large amount of Ethernano coming from far away.
However, what made this Ethernnao distinct was the emotion radiating off it.
'Such hatred... Is that Kazu?' Mira turned her head towards that direction.
---
"Domain: Soundless Death"
Before Kazu could even process what had happened, Laxus kicked him, sending him flying in that direction.
If Kazu had not put a barrier at the last second, he might have gotten some serious organ damage due to the sheer force of the blow.
'What the fuck?' It was only when Kazu stabilised himself a large distance away did he realised why Laxus did it.
"Did he cover the area around him with his Ethernano?" Kazu felt like he was in the wrong universe.
He saw air violently vibrating in an area around both Laxus and Eris, preventing anybody from leaving or entering.
Not only that, but Kazu saw Laxus stuck in the same position.
"He can use his magic directly anywhere in that area?" Kazu's eyes widened in shock. He saw small magic circles around Laxus, emitting Eris's vibration magic.
He gulped. 'If I were caught in that, then I would have been directly decapitated irrespective of Laxus's presence.'
Eris's vibration magic was a natural counter to Kazu's barrier magic. The only reason Kazu was still not out of the battle was that for Eris to disable it directly, he needed to make contact with Kazu, which Laxus's presence stopped.
However, being in that domain spell is equivalent to Eris always touching Kazu.
"Be quick with whatever you want to do! I don't think I will be able to hold on for a long time. Didn't think he was hiding such an area of effect spell." Laxus grimaced.
Kazu stopped analysing the incident and immediately got to work.
'I think I have been delaying this for so long. I didn't want to use this, especially since I don't have control over it, but I have no choice."
"Fine. Just remember that I would lose my sanity. I will be counting on you to pull me back." That was the last thing Kazu said before he put a lot of barriers around him and closed his eyes.
'You could learn to condition yourself to feel certain emotions. This is a skill.'
It all started when Kazu had a dream involving some memories of his previous life. Though he didn't like his previous life's parents, he couldn't bring himself to hate them either.
Makarov had once told him that he feels emotions intensely than others. Kazu wanted to deny it as he saw himself as a person who was numb to emotions generally, but he couldn't deny the evidence.
He had almost killed Cana when he felt intense emotions. That was the first time he became aware of it. After that, he had noticed several times when his emotions had leaked.
So, he came to terms with that. He indeed felt emotions intensely than others.
To prevent the incident with Cana from happening again, he had invested a lot of time in controlling his emotions. To catch himself when he felt too many emotions and get them in check.
However, during his training, he suddenly had a crazy idea.
If he could feel emotions intensely than others, then can't he force himself to feel certain emotions?
This was inspired by his previous life's mother, who claimed it to be a learnable skill.
A wizard's Ethernano becomes stronger when they feel intense emotions. Kazu wasn't foreign to this fact. The author of the series had milked this fact throughout the entire show, and screw the power scaling.
Kazu had also read in the books that magic was tied to one's own self and emotions directly influence it.
This is also the reason he feels way stronger when he is angry or hates somebody.
'Emotional Amplification: Limitless'
Kazu started recalling all the bad things he had experienced in his life.
"We're not hungry."
"Your mother's cooking filled us with just the smell."
He remembered the day when it all started.
'If you had willed it, you could have saved at least one of them instead of your own, your second life. How selfish could you be?'
Kazu could defend himself, but he chose not to.
"Don't be sad about her death. It's an honour. I needed the power to change this corrupted world."
He remembered the day when he lost Yui.
'You didn't even try killing that clown. The actual killer of Yui. Yet, you console yourself by making Zeref the killer. You just needed a target of your revenge to hide your incompetence.'
Kazu clenched his fist so hard that blood started seeping out of it.
"Is this all it takes to break you, boy? One little girl?"
He remembered Anne's expression after she had killed the siblings.
'Not only did your foolish actions lead to the death of those siblings, but they also led to a little getting tortured. A 4-year-old girl! And what did you respond to that? You fucking did the same thing when your sister was killed!
Fucking doing nothing. What if Anne had decided to kill you and Erza at the same time? When things actually count, you just become a burden!'
Kazu felt as if somebody had plunged a knife in his chest.
"Damn. You didn't really stop, did you? Guess you were out of your mind."
Lastly, he remembered the day when he had plunged the sword into Cana's heart.
'...' This time, no thought came to his mind.
There was nothing left to be said regarding that matter.
Kazu had never forgotten anything. He hasn't completely forgiven himself for the actions he took, leading to everyone else's suffering.
Sometimes it's easy to forget in the moment, but they haunt him whenever his mind is idle.
He had always suppressed these thoughts by always doing something—either it be training or talking to somebody.
Because he knows that, if he doesn't, his thoughts would haunt him.
The only thoughts that can break through these notions are those about Cana's near-death experience.
Kazu still has thoughts regarding it to this day, whether he is training, talking to anyone, or doing anything.
Keeping himself busy wasn't enough to prevent them from resurfacing.
This was his biggest mistake to date. He...he will never forgive himself for that.
His breath grew uneven. Each inhale scraped his throat as if his lungs were rejecting air. He ignored that.
Kazu gave in to the thoughts that tried to consume him. He repeated the scenes of his failure again and again in his mind.
His Ethernano started changing colours to respond to the emotions he was currently feeling.
RED
He was angry at himself for his actions.
BLUE
He was sad at the consequences of his failures.
Red and Blue merged to give another colour.
PURPLE
However, purple never came up in his Ethernano. Neither was red nor blue.
How could they? Another colour overshadowed all the colours.
BLACK
Kazu hated everything.
He hated the famine that took his parents from him.
He hated Yui's killer.
He hated Anne for doing what she did to the siblings.
He hated Tracy, who almost caused Cana's death.
He hated the entire world, which caused him all this pain.
However, there was another being that he hated more than any of the above individuals.
The one who had a hand in all of these incidents.
Kazu Sukehiro
He hated himself.
After all,
He was the one who chose to prioritise himself over his parents.
He was the one who left Yui alone that day.
He was the one who caused those siblings' gruesome ending.
And he was the one who almost killed Cana.
That was the first time Kazu Sukehiro gave himself completely to his emotions.
It was also the first time this world witnessed such a being.
***
Join my Patreon to support me.
You can even find 20 advanced chapters there:
- DESIRE96
(search it up)
Check out my other works.