"Don't try to soothe me the way you'd soothe that silver-haired idiot out there."
Her words came out stiff, but Ultear still didn't brush away the hand Shane had on her cheek.
After sitting quietly for a while, the girl suddenly stood up and smoothed out her skirt, clearly preparing to leave.
"Even if you told me not to worry and just leave this to you…" Ultear lowered her eyes, her long lashes hiding whatever was in them. "I'm still going to act in my own way."
Even if Zeref had already spent five hundred years proving it was futile, she had no intention of sitting still and waiting for the end.
There were still plenty of books in Fairy Tail's library she hadn't read.
Once she got back, she planned to ask Makarov for access and keep digging into anything related to gods and causality.
Shane sighed helplessly. He knew how stubborn this woman was, so he didn't try to stop her. He simply got up and walked her to the door.
The moment they reached the entrance, Erza and Mira—who had been sparring in the yard—both stopped at once and turned to look over.
"All done talking?" Erza walked over, smiling brightly as she looked between the two of them standing there one after the other.
Mira, however, didn't care about any of that. She rushed up in one step and shoved her hand out under Shane's nose again.
"The negatives. Hand them over. I'll take them and leave immediately."
Shane didn't even lift his eyelids. He treated her like empty air and stepped around her to open the gate.
"Don't push me!" Mira bit down hard on her back teeth, furious at being ignored. "If you still won't give them back, I'll spread your disgusting little fetish all over the guild!"
That actually made Shane laugh.
He stopped, turned around, crossed his arms, and looked her up and down with obvious interest.
"I honestly didn't know you had anything you could hold over me, Mirajane. Go on, let's hear it."
"..."
The yard fell into a weird silence.
With three pairs of eyes fixed on her, Mira's fierce expression visibly began turning red.
But now that she had gone this far, she could only grit her teeth and force it out with her eyes shut:
"You… you're into girls' socks! On the train, you grabbed my sock and wouldn't let go! You're a total pervert!"
"..."
Shane's face went black instantly.
Who was it that had started things by sticking her leg over to provoke him? He had just grabbed it and pushed back a little, and this idiot woman seriously had the nerve to turn that into blackmail material?
Her ability to reverse blame had truly reached an artistic level. For a moment, Shane was too exasperated to even argue.
"Likes… socks?"
Still standing by the doorway, Ultear murmured softly.
She lowered her eyes and looked over the women in the yard one by one.
First, Erza.
The red-haired girl was wearing loose training pants today.
He remembered Erza once saying she used to like dresses, but Shane had sternly corrected that habit by saying, "How are you supposed to swing a sword properly in a skirt?"
Then there was Mira, wearing her usual skimpy outfit. Under those dangerously short hot pants, her long, pale legs were fully on display in the daylight.
And finally, Ultear's gaze dropped to herself.
Under her fitted dress, her slim legs were wrapped in sleek black tights.
No matter how she counted, out of the three of them… she was the only one who really fit that description.
Ultear's eyes flickered slightly.
So this lazy-looking man had actually been hiding a taste like that all along?
Now that he had accidentally revealed such an interesting "weakness," perhaps she could afford to put a little more thought into what she wore from now on.
If she could use that small fetish of his to take more initiative in their future dynamic, then "making use" of it a little seemed like an extremely worthwhile choice.
"..."
After a brief silence, she slowly raised her eyes and looked at Shane.
The look in them instantly became… deeply suggestive.
"If you're leaving, then hurry up and go. Stop standing there listening to that idiot run her mouth!"
Being stared at with that loaded expression made Shane's scalp prickle. Irritated and flustered, he stepped forward and herded Ultear out through the gate like he was driving off a chicken.
Thankfully, Ultear was reserved by nature. She wasn't like Erza, who might have blurted out something outrageous like, "If you like them, I can give you mine."
At least he'd managed to preserve the last scraps of his dignity.
Bang!
He slammed the gate shut, turned around, and glared viciously at Mira, who was still trying to act tough.
"If you dare spread nonsense about me again, I swear every new member who joins the guild from now on will have their welcome ceremony begin with an exhibition of your glorious photos from that day."
"You—!"
The moment Mira imagined him actually doing something that morally bankrupt, the self-proclaimed future "big sister" of the guild went a little pale.
The thought of losing all her dignity in front of future recruits and never being able to hold her head up again made her immediately lose some confidence, though she still stubbornly stuck her chin up.
"I-I wasn't making things up… you really were playing with it at the time…"
Luckily, Erza stepped in before Mira could continue stumbling right up to the edge of her own destruction.
With a quiet sigh, the red-haired girl walked over and pressed the now-sealed envelope into Mira's hands.
"Mira, since you're heading back to the guild anyway, could you mail this for me on the way?"
Being ordered around by her rival made Mira instinctively want to fling the letter right back.
But then she caught a glimpse of Shane's expression—which looked like he was on the verge of eating someone alive—and besides, she did technically owe Erza one.
"Tch… just this once! Don't go ordering me around again!"
She snorted unwillingly, grabbed the envelope, and stormed off like a gust of wind.
Once her footsteps faded into the distance, Erza turned back, brow slightly furrowed, and looked at Shane.
Her instincts had always been sharp. Even after all that chaos, she could still sense the lingering gravity around him.
"Did something troublesome happen?" she asked seriously. "Do you need help?"
"It's nothing major."
Seeing the concern in her eyes, Shane felt a small warmth rise in his chest. He smiled and waved it off.
"Don't worry. I'll handle it soon enough."
…
The next few days fell, almost miraculously, back into something like ordinary life.
Aside from Mira occasionally showing up at the gate, hands on her hips, shouting "Give me back the negatives!", and Ultear dropping by from time to time to exchange bits of information, Shane barely stepped outside at all.
The instant the Golden Cup's twenty-four-hour cooldown ended, he would immediately dive back into his sea of consciousness and continue his great "divine gacha" campaign.
Over those few days, like an obsessive gambler, he made wish after wish.
Gentle ones. Violent ones. Cold ones. Vast, overwhelming ones. Slightly weaker ones. He tried almost every kind of Heroic Spirit presence he could sense.
And the result was devastatingly consistent:
the gods, for the most part, refused even to engage.
The kinder ones would simply brush his consciousness away like dust.
The harsher ones wouldn't even let him finish introducing himself before dropping a full "divine punishment package" on his head.
And as for why he said "for the most part"…
That was because just yesterday, having learned his lesson, Shane had deliberately avoided the presences with overpoweringly terrifying divinity and instead settled on a golden light that felt relatively less horrifying.
The being inside had indeed been one of the rare few willing to let him finish speaking.
But what made him want to cough blood was what happened next.
Just when Shane thought he was finally getting somewhere, the being coldly said, "Who gave you permission to look directly at the king's visage instead of bowing your head while presenting your wish?"
And then, with zero hesitation, rejected him.
Worse still, the bastard had then summoned a rain of weapons and skewered his consciousness full of holes on the spot.
Whenever Shane thought about that arrogant man coated in gold from head to toe, his teeth started itching with irritation.
Judging from how the man kept calling himself "King," he was obviously some ruler from one of the great civilizations in human history.
But no matter how much Shane racked his brain, he could not figure out which era's king could possibly have developed such hideous taste—drenched in gold like some vulgar nouveau riche and arrogant like the entire world owed him money.
"This damn cup is absolutely messing with me…"
Shane had just been thrown out by yet another refusal and was bitterly tossing the dimmed Golden Cup back into his sea of consciousness when—
from outside the house came Erza's bright, delighted voice:
"Kagura! You got here so fast!"
~~~
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