About half an hour earlier, a strange purple light had suddenly flashed outside the Fairy Tail guild.
When the light faded, five figures were sprawled on the ground, staring at one another in confusion.
"W-what happened? We ended up outside?"
Lucy sat up with a dazed look, taking in the familiar street around them and blurting the question out.
Just moments ago, she, Erza, Natsu, Gray, and Happy had been inside the guild library, sorting through books.
Then, the instant she opened a certain volume, a magic circle had lit up beneath their feet.
The next thing they knew, the five of them had been teleported right into the middle of the road.
Erza was the first to recover. She stood, patted off her skirt, and began scanning the surroundings.
"Where is this... It feels kind of familiar."
Before she could chase that familiarity to its source, the blue cat Happy pointed ahead in surprise and shouted,
"Look over there! Is that...!!"
Everyone turned to follow the direction of his paw, and saw it at once.
The Fairy Tail guild, in its old form, before the reconstruction.
"That is... from before the guild was rebuilt?! How is that possible?!"
They stared at the building they remembered so clearly from the past, and all shouted in shock.
Erza froze for a second, then picked up the book that had triggered everything.
"Could it be because of this book?"
Instantly, Natsu and the others all turned their gazes on it.
...
"Ah... that hurts. Walk slower."
All of a sudden, a voice drifted over from not far away.
"Someone is coming. Hide."
Hearing that, and still not understanding what was going on, they hurried over and crouched down behind a few nearby crates.
A moment later, they saw them.
Kabe, limping as he walked, and Mirajane carefully supporting him at his side, appeared in their line of sight.
"Idiot, you really did not hold back with that kick.
If anything down there ends up not working properly, I swear I will personally kill you."
Mira's cheeks were pink as her eyes flicked quickly to his lower body. She snorted and replied,
"Serves you right. It would be best if you ended up completely useless, so you stop causing trouble for other people in the future."
"What did you say?! That is my most important partner. Hurry up and apologize to it... and to the future you!"
"Ugh, you are such a pervert! What does that have to do with the future me?!"
Bickering all the way, the two of them argued their way into the guild.
As their figures disappeared through the doors, Erza, Lucy, Natsu, Gray, and Happy all sprang up from their hiding place at once.
"H-how is that possible? Those were Mirajane and Kabe as kids?!"
Gray could not believe his eyes. He rubbed them hard, as if that would change what he had seen.
Happy's cat face tensed with alarm as he voiced the most reasonable guess.
"Could it be... we went back to the past?"
"Eeeh!!"
Natsu stiffened like a statue.
"No way! I worked so hard to grow up. I definitely do not want to go back to the past!"
"Idiot. We only came to the past. Our bodies did not shrink."
Gray complained about this single celled brain's logic with a look of pure exasperation.
"But whether it is good or bad, going back to the past is not a simple matter.
Erza, we should hurry and think about how to return to our original time."
"Kawaii... Little Kabe is just too cute..."
Erza cupped her cheek with one hand, squinting as she fell into open fangirl mode.
Lucy nodded in heartfelt agreement, but still could not help grumbling,
"Cute is cute, but telling dirty jokes seriously should not start at that age."
"Hey! You two need to tone it down!"
Under Gray's fierce scolding, the two girls finally managed to wrench their attention away from Kabe.
But clearly, both of them had already realized that being in the past was kind of fun.
Even normally composed Erza could not stop herself from suggesting, eyes shining a little,
"It is rare to have the chance to see our younger selves again. How about... we go take a look?"
Lucy, Natsu, Happy: "Agreed!"
Gray: "..."
Watching the three humans and one cat already stepping toward the guild, Gray grabbed the back of Natsu's vest with one hand and Happy's tail with the other.
"You idiots, this is not the time for that. We need to find a way to get back to our own world first!"
Natsu hooked an arm around his neck, unconcerned as ever, his voice full of excitement.
"What is the problem? It sounds fun. No harm in taking a peek, right?"
"Yeah, yeah!" Lucy and Erza nodded, eyes sparkling.
"Smack."
Gray slapped a hand over his own forehead.
Looking at this hopeless bunch, he could only feel waves of exhaustion roll through him.
"Fine, do whatever you want.
But listen up. If this really is the past, then we absolutely cannot do anything that might change the future, or even history."
"You mean a time paradox?"
After being warned several times, Erza finally calmed a little and started thinking seriously about the relationship between past and future.
"Time what? We are just going to look. At worst, we just make sure not to get caught, right?"
With Natsu's brain, expecting him to understand something like a time paradox was clearly impossible.
After saying that, he ignored Gray's protests entirely and snuck over to a side window of the guild with Happy, pressing his face to the glass to watch with great interest.
"Well, Natsu is not wrong, so... I am going too."
Lucy was the third to lose her self control and hurried over as well.
Seeing this, Gray gave Erza, the one who was supposed to be the voice of reason, a deeply pained look.
But Erza just smiled awkwardly, took two small steps back, then turned and followed them.
...
The timeline snapped back to the present.
Hearing Lucy's excited sigh, a hint of nostalgia flickered in the eyes of Erza, Natsu, and Gray.
But soon Happy spoke up again.
"Hey, Natsu, Kabe, and Erza do not seem to be in the guild right now.
And Macao and the others all look like they are hungover. What exactly happened in the guild on this day?"
"Well..."
The three of them exchanged a glance, digging through their memories.
Suddenly, Erza clenched her fist and smacked it into her palm, as if something had just come back to her.
"So that is it. If I remember correctly, today is the day Kabe became an S Class mage.
We held a banquet for him, and everyone had a really wild time last night."
"Oh, so it is that day!"
"Oh, that day!"
With that reminder, Natsu and Gray also slowly recalled the events of that night.