"Give the egg to Lisanna first."
Shane's expression turned serious, his tone leaving no room for argument.
"I need to talk to you."
"Huh? Does it have to be right now?"
Natsu looked completely unwilling, still clutching the egg tightly in his arms.
"I'm really busy here! This is a matter of life and death…"
"Cut the crap."
Shane didn't give him any chance to refuse. He grabbed him by the collar and dragged him straight toward the corner of the guild.
"Hey, hey, hey! Easy! The egg's gonna break!"
Natsu yelped in panic and hurriedly tossed the egg toward Lisanna nearby.
"Lisanna! Catch!"
"Huh? O-okay!"
The short-haired girl fumbled to catch the heavy giant egg, nearly getting knocked over by the momentum.
"Hey! You're way too rough!"
Along with Natsu's fading cries of protest, Shane mercilessly dragged him into a room deep in the hallway.
Bang.
The door shut, cutting off the noise outside.
Natsu dropped onto the floor with a huff, arms crossed, head turned away in annoyance.
"What is it, anyway? Why are you acting all mysterious?"
Seeing him sulking like that, Shane didn't get mad.
He obviously couldn't directly bring up Igneel. If he did, this idiot would absolutely lose it.
But fortunately, Shane had a tried-and-true method for dealing with a single-celled organism like Natsu.
"Work with me here."
He held up a finger and waved it in front of Natsu's face, lowering his voice tempting him like a devil.
"After this… I'll give you a ball of my hottest Heart Flame to eat."
"Really?!"
Natsu's eyes instantly turned into stars, and all his complaints vanished into thin air.
That was Shane's unique flame—blazing hot and powerful. Natsu still hadn't managed to conquer it, and it had been bothering him ever since.
"When have I ever lied to you?" Shane said with a smile.
"Alright! I'm ready!"
As expected, Natsu stopped asking questions. He immediately sat cross-legged, obediently closed his eyes, and put on a look that practically said Go ahead and examine me.
Shane took a deep breath, the smile fading from his face.
He walked behind Natsu and gently placed a hand on the boy's shoulder.
He focused his mind.
The next second—
Bzzz—
A familiar sensation of dizziness hit him. The space around him seemed to twist and stretch.
Along with the familiar smell of sulfur and scorching heat, Shane's consciousness was instantly pulled out of the real world.
When he opened his eyes again—
He was no longer in the cramped, dim storage room, but in a crimson world engulfed in roaring flames.
And in the middle of that endless sea of fire, a massive golden dragon eye—so huge it was suffocating—was staring at him from point-blank range.
"Igneel?"
Shane didn't panic.
Having gone through this once before, he merely adjusted his breathing and asked calmly,
"You pulled me in so suddenly. Is something urgent going on?"
He remembered very clearly that Igneel had said before that, to avoid a certain risk, it couldn't reveal itself casually.
"Human…"
Igneel's low voice rolled through the space like thunder, churning the sea of fire.
"The aura of 'dragonkind' on your body… has grown much stronger."
"Why?"
"Stronger?"
Shane froze, instinctively pressing a hand to his chest.
There, his heart was still beating powerfully.
"Is it because of… the [Dragon Reactor Core]?"
Realization dawned on him.
Although he had already dispelled Lancer's heroic spirit form, in yesterday's battle against Jose, he had pushed that dragon heart almost beyond its limits.
A dragon's magic at that level had probably left quite a bit of residue inside his body.
"Is that a problem?" Shane asked with a frown.
As far as he was concerned, that thing had only brought him immense power. It shouldn't have been a bad thing.
"It is. And a very serious one."
The giant dragon head slowly drew closer, exhaling a wave of scorching breath that carried undeniable pressure.
"Didn't I warn you before? We dragons who crossed through time from four hundred years ago—if we reveal ourselves rashly, we will attract 'that gaze.'"
"Yes. I remember," Shane said, nodding.
"It's the same for people in the present age."
Igneel's voice grew incomparably stern, even tinged with a trace of agitation.
"The medium that draws that attention is not only dragons themselves, but a strong, pure dragon aura."
"You are a friend acknowledged by me, Igneel, so I must warn you…"
"The dragon aura on your body is far too strong now. It's already reached a dangerously critical point. Even through Natsu's body, I can clearly smell that 'scent.'"
"No matter how you became tainted with that aura, you need to find a way to remove it—or hide it."
"Otherwise…"
"It'll be dangerous?" Shane asked.
"No."
Igneel's giant golden pupil suddenly contracted.
"You will die."
"What that dragon aura calls to you will bring you death without the slightest doubt."
"…"
Shane's heart skipped a beat.
"You should be able to sense how strong the dragon aura on me is, right? Even with power like this… I'd still die?"
"You would absolutely die."
Igneel didn't hesitate for even a moment. His answer was immediate and decisive.
"In front of that thing, you have no chance whatsoever of surviving."
"I understand."
Shane fell silent in thought.
If anyone else had said something like that, he might have questioned it.
But this was the Fire Dragon King.
If even Igneel was willing to risk exposing itself just to come warn him, then the seriousness of this matter had obviously exceeded Shane's expectations.
There was no way he could treat that warning lightly.
But what he was thinking about now wasn't just his own safety. He was also trying to figure out exactly where that "gaze" came from—the one even Igneel feared so deeply.
He suspected that the mission which had driven Igneel to cross four hundred years of time and hide inside Natsu's body was probably closely tied to that very source.
Unfortunately, there were still too few clues.
"Can I ask something?"
Getting nowhere in his thoughts, Shane looked up and met the majestic dragon eye directly.
"What exactly is the owner of that 'gaze'?"
"If you can't say, that's fine too."
"…"
Igneel fell into a long silence.
The flames burned quietly through the space, broken only now and then by sharp crackling sounds.
After quite a while—
"If you truly intend to investigate, then there should still be traces of it recorded in the present age. So there's no harm in saying it."
The fire churned, and Igneel's voice seemed to come from ancient times, carrying the heavy scent of blood.
"The owner of that gaze… is a dragon."
"A dragon that feeds on dragons, a dragon that seeks to devour all things in the world—"
"The Black Dragon!"
"A dragon?!"
Shane's eyes widened.
He had assumed it might be some powerful mage hidden in the dark, observing the world through magic. At one point he had even suspected Zeref, the black mage who had lived from ancient times until now.
But it was actually… a dragon!
And a dragon that fed on other dragons?
In a flash, Shane immediately thought of the giant dragon silhouette he had glimpsed when the Book of Heroes first opened the Long Chain Trial.
Black wings. An aura of despair.
"So it was that thing…"
Shane muttered to himself, his mind shaking violently.
"Go back, human."
Igneel seemed unwilling to say more about that forbidden existence. Exhaling scorching breath, it dismissed him.
"Remember—find a way to weaken the dragon aura on your body."
"And one more thing… do not tell Natsu about my existence! The time is not yet right!"
Bzzz—
The red world shattered.
The scorching heat receded like the tide.
Shane's eyes snapped open, and his vision returned to the dim storage room.
He was still standing there with a hand on Natsu's shoulder, but his state of mind was now completely different from what it had been just minutes earlier.
The amount of information Igneel had revealed—and the force of it—was overwhelming.
The sense of security Shane had felt after gaining Lancer's form and blasting apart one of the Ten Wizard Saints in a single strike had now mostly disappeared.
In its place was an intense feeling that a storm was coming, that the curtain was about to rise.
"They really won't even give me time to catch my breath…"
Shane slowly clenched his fist.
He had only mastered Lancer's form and unlocked barely half of its true name, yet it had already attracted this kind of trouble.
Given the status of that silver-haired knight, once he fully unlocked that form in the future, he was destined to draw that gaze upon himself one day.
"Every time I think I can relax a little, something even more terrifying suddenly shows up and starts chasing me again."
"Hey, Shane?"
Natsu's voice snapped him out of his thoughts.
"What are you muttering to yourself about?"
Natsu had kept his eyes closed and sat there quietly for a long time, but he was starting to get restless. He cracked one eye open and looked at Shane strangely.
"Can I open my eyes now? Where's my fire?"
"…"
Shane took a deep breath and quickly adjusted his expression, hiding the heaviness in his eyes.
He removed his hand from Natsu's shoulder, casually rubbed up a ball of crimson flame, and stuffed it straight into Natsu's mouth.
"There. We're done."
"Mmph! So tasty!"
Natsu bit down on it in one gulp. Even though he couldn't swallow it into his stomach, he still chewed away happily, mumbling that it was delicious.
"Go find Lisanna."
Shane patted him on the back and nudged him toward the door.
"And when that egg hatches, remember to bring it to the guild so I can take a look."
"What the heck… that's it?"
Natsu wiped his mouth, feeling like Shane had been acting really weird today. He'd dragged him into a dark little room, only to do basically nothing except feed him some fire.
Still, he didn't think too hard about it. With his usual carefree grin, he pulled open the door and ran out.
"Just wait and see—I'm gonna hatch a giant dragon!"
Watching Natsu's carefree back disappear, the smile in Shane's eyes gradually faded, replaced by a deep and solemn gravity.
"A dragon that feeds on dragons… the Black Dragon…"
~~~
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