This wasn't a threat.
There wasn't even the slightest trace of malicious intent on that youthful, delicate face, nothing that suggested he was trying to intimidate those who came after him.
"I tried everything I could think of."
Zeref tilted his head slightly, looking up at the pale snowflakes drifting down from the sky.
"Lost Magic, unknown rituals… I traveled to every corner of Earth-land."
"But it was useless. Under the cold gaze of the gods, human resistance is like an insect struggling in a web. The more it fights, the deeper it sinks. All it does is add more pain."
"By now, I no longer hope to break the curse. I only want to die… whether it's in peaceful sleep or the most unbearable agony. As long as this endless torment can end, I would accept anything."
"But even that most pitiful wish is something the gods refuse to allow."
"I cannot die… I can only go on bringing ruin to life, over and over again."
Listening to that flat, emotionless explanation, Ultear's breathing faltered slightly.
She didn't speak. She simply tightened her grip around the hand interlocked with Shane's.
She kept staring stubbornly at Zeref, as if glaring hard enough could somehow refute the "reality" he was describing.
Seeing the girl clinging so desperately to something, Zeref lowered his eyes, as though reminded of memories he would rather not revisit.
He took two steps back and quietly warned her, "If you care that much about the boy beside you… then one day, you may be the one who kills him with your own hands."
"Under a god's curse, an extravagant emotion like love is not something you are allowed to keep."
"The moment you feel love for him, the miasma of death will instantly take his life."
"It's not that I care that much about him," Ultear said coldly. "I just… don't want my own affairs dragging anyone else down."
"Hey…" Shane muttered from the side, displeased as the person actually being discussed.
Ultear pretended not to hear him.
After being struck by one shock after another, her extraordinary mental resilience had finally managed to drag her reason back up from the brink.
She took a deep breath. "If, as you say, the curse that descends from the gods can't be removed, then that means… if the curse hasn't actually descended yet, there's still a way to interfere with it, right?"
"That's exactly what I was about to tell you."
Zeref lifted his eyes slightly.
The truth was, even he had never expected to encounter two people this reckless.
People who, without understanding "the rules" at all, had dared to tamper with life and death so freely.
To most, that would look like stupidity and arrogance.
But perhaps because they had done the same foolish thing he himself once did for the sake of reviving his younger brother, the heart inside him—long since numbed by centuries of deathly miasma—had, for once, stirred. That was what drove him to come here and see what kind of people they really were.
"You guessed correctly. As long as the curse hasn't truly descended yet, then there is still a chance to change things."
Zeref gave a small nod.
"The reason the gods cast their gaze upon you is because you pulled back someone who was meant to die."
"A life continuing is never an isolated event."
"That means the one who should not have survived is now breathing and walking in this world. Every choice she makes, every destiny she changes, will spread outward like ripples from a stone cast into a lake."
"The greater the impact she has on this world, the further the original timeline will be pushed off course."
"And as the world line deviates, the gaze cast down from the heavens will intensify by the same degree."
"Until that deviation in causality accumulates to a certain critical point. A moment where the rules can no longer tolerate it."
"And when that happens, the curse of punishment will truly descend."
"A critical point?" Shane narrowed his eyes, falling into thought.
"Think carefully," Zeref said. "In your understanding, at what future point in time would that person's continued existence create the most violent, irreversible clash with the 'original world'?"
"X784?"
Shane and Ultear answered almost simultaneously.
That was the moment when the Time of Memories had been used, when all causality had been fundamentally overwritten. It was the beginning of everything diverging, the exact point where the world line split.
The collision of cause and effect would reach its absolute peak there.
"It seems you've already figured it out."
Zeref nodded, and a bleak kind of gentleness entered his voice.
"Then, before that day comes… live happily if you can. Or try to do something. Perhaps that might delay the arrival of that moment."
Still, he did not speak of any method of lifting the curse, because centuries ago, every path that could be imagined had already been personally tested by him and had led nowhere.
He had come today with only one purpose from the beginning: to give these two people like himself a warning. To let these young transgressors spend the time they had left with clear minds, and to prepare them…
for a future as miserable as his own.
After saying that, Zeref lowered his head and slowly adjusted the white cloth tied around his robe.
"I cannot remain in one place for long, so I'll take my leave now. I wish you… good luck."
"Wait."
Just as he was about to go, Shane suddenly spoke.
"If human magic cannot oppose the rules of the gods…"
"…then what if a being of the same rank as a god intervened? Could a curse like this be forcibly removed?"
"…"
Zeref's departing steps stopped short.
He turned back, and a self-mocking, distant smile touched his face.
"The gods, huh… Unfortunately, they always remain far above us. I've never truly laid eyes on one. But if it were a god… then perhaps it might be possible."
After that, Zeref didn't linger another moment.
Just as suddenly as he had appeared, he vanished from sight without the slightest hesitation.
"I see…"
Looking toward where Zeref had disappeared, Shane murmured thoughtfully.
Ultear turned to him, quickly noticing the unusual glint in his eyes.
Her brows drew together. "You… have some kind of idea, don't you?"
"It's a shame," Shane said, answering with a smile instead of answering directly. "I was hoping to watch you fluster like that a little longer."
"Just being upset won't change anything."
Ultear bit down hard on her lower lip.
She couldn't understand it. After hearing something so heavy and dreadful, how was this guy still able to smile?
Surely he wasn't going to tell her he had already come up with a solution that even Zeref, after living five hundred years, had failed to find?
"Of course I can smile," Shane said, immediately seeing through her thoughts, his tone certain. "Because I've already thought of a way to solve it."
"Do you remember what I told you before?"
"You don't need to feel guilty. You don't need to feel afraid. Trust me. I'll handle it."
He lifted their joined hands slightly and gave them a small shake.
As he did, he thought again of the golden cup he had been so troubled over, unable to decide what wish to use it for.
Surely, that cup had been given to him precisely for a moment like this.
If the problem had come from the gods, then it would be solved by a miracle on the level of a god.
Ultear stared at the side of his face.
For an instant, her mind blurred, and she remembered that snowy night when he had fulfilled her wish.
Back then too, Shane had spoken in exactly that same certain voice and made her a promise.
And then he had actually done it. He had returned her mother—who should have been dead—whole and unharmed to her side.
"Why is it…"
The girl tightened her fingers, and a faint unwillingness rose inside her.
"Why do I always end up depending on him?"
She hated how weak and powerless she always seemed in front of this boy.
And yet…
the ease of knowing that if the sky fell, someone would still stand beneath it and hold it up…
really did feel nice.
"Let's go back for now. Everyone at the guild is probably looking for us by this point."
Shane took two steps forward.
But no footsteps followed behind him.
"Hm?"
He turned back, puzzled.
Ultear was still standing exactly where she was, unmoving.
In the wind and snow, her eyes were gently closed, her long lashes trembling faintly.
She didn't say a word. She simply tilted up her slender, pale neck, graceful and fragile, like a swan upon a frozen lake lifting its throat to the blade.
She waited quietly, even with a trace of anticipation, for her hunter to come and finish the kill.
"…"
Shane's breathing hitched.
He had to admit, the girl's body had matured quickly at this age.
Perhaps because she was a year older than Erza and Mira, much of the childishness she once carried had already begun to fade.
Her waist was so slender it looked like it could be encircled in one hand. The curves of her chest were already beginning to take shape. And that pale, delicate face of hers carried a breathtaking charm in the winter light.
The breeze brought with it her unique scent—a faintly cool, sweet fragrance.
Looking at her like this, poised as if offering herself up completely, Shane's heart skipped a beat. Maybe it was just this body's teenage hormones acting up.
But he wasn't used to intimacy like this.
"Stop acting spoiled. It doesn't suit you."
Avoiding her gaze a little awkwardly, he tossed out the same kind of teasing remark he always would and turned to keep walking.
But the girl behind him was more stubborn than he had expected. She remained where she was, not moving an inch.
"…"
Looking at how absolutely unwilling she was to give up, Shane clenched his jaw helplessly.
Thinking back to the last time—when she had been the one to take the initiative—he finally bent toward her.
The moment he got close, her cool hand shot out and fisted in his collar.
Ultear rose to meet him, and in the warm touch of her lips and tongue, he immediately tasted that familiar sweetness with its faintly bitter floral undertone.
…
At the same time, far away on a high ridge outside Magnolia—
Rustyrose was preparing to head back.
At the last moment before leaving, he materialized a magical spyglass and swept Magnolia one final time.
The image sharpened, and he clearly saw Shane and Ultear leaving the city together, only to meet a strange black-haired boy out in the wilderness.
"Who is that?"
Rustyrose pushed his glasses up. Acting on instinct, just as he had done before when recording Ur's resurrection, he immediately took out another recording crystal and preserved the entire scene.
Then a pair of wings manifested behind his back, and he turned into a streak of light, flying at great speed toward the open sea where Grimoire Heart's command airship lay hidden.
…
Several hours later.
Deep within Grimoire Heart's flying battleship.
Inside the dark, oppressive throne hall, only a few dim green magical lamps flickered eerily.
At the foot of the throne, Rustyrose reported everything he had seen, including Shane's absurd manifestation of the city and all that had followed.
"You're saying…"
On the throne above, the old man wearing an eyepatch, his body radiating suffocating dark magic, looked down at Rustyrose kneeling below.
"…that Fairy Tail has produced a monster who can casually manifest a real city spanning hundreds of square kilometers?"
"Yes, Master Hades!"
Rustyrose lowered his head, his voice still carrying the shock of what he had witnessed.
"And then… please look at this, Master."
He respectfully brought out the recording crystal and activated it with magic.
"This is the woman who looks so much like Ultear."
The moment the image projected into the dim hall, it showed Ur fighting the killer in London, using Ice-Make magic.
As he watched the short-haired woman on the screen, Hades fell silent.
Ur… wasn't she dead?
That certainly explained why Ultear, who had always been so fixated on reviving her mother, had kept slipping away from his sight.
But the greater problem was this: how had a dead Ur returned?
Was it just resemblance? Or some kind of summoned phantom?
Tch. What a foolish, weak woman.
At the most crucial juncture, on the verge of bringing about a new age of magic, she was still indulging in this pathetic little family drama.
A useful piece had slipped out of his control, and now an unknown variable had appeared in the game. It left Hades in a very poor mood.
But not a trace of that showed on his face. His tone remained cold and authoritative.
"Is this everything you had to report, Rustyrose?"
"No! Not just that, Master!"
Sensing the displeasure in Hades's voice, Rustyrose hurried to add more.
"After the exam ended, I captured this as well!"
"Ultear and that monster named Shane secretly left the city and went to meet an extremely suspicious black-haired boy in the mountains outside!"
"I suspect Ultear has already leaked all of our guild's information."
"Oh?"
Hades raised a hand and activated the second crystal.
The projection slowly unfolded in the dark hall.
At first, Hades's eyes merely swept casually over Shane and Ultear. But in the next instant, when the image focused on the black-haired boy wrapped in white cloth—
"…"
The entire throne hall seemed to freeze in that moment. Even the air stopped moving.
Hades's remaining eye contracted violently.
"This is impossible!"
"Why would you be there?"
He shot to his feet from the throne. On that face worn by age and authority were now shock, disbelief, and a nearly burning kind of warped ecstasy.
But before there was even time to think through the reason, every question in his mind was crushed beneath overwhelming joy.
His hands trembled as he stretched them out, as though trying to seize that figure through the image itself, and even his voice shook.
"I found you…"
"At last… I've found you…"
He shouted without the slightest dignity.
As for Shane, as for Ultear—both had already been completely thrown to the back of his mind.
At this moment, in his eyes, in his whole world, only that single figure in the projection remained.
The one he had spent his life pursuing, the one he had sunk himself into darkness to seek…
the ultimate abyss.
"The King of Darkness… the source of magic…"
"Zeref!!"
~~~
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