There were benefits to having your Guild Hall outside of town— no one ever filed noise complainants when parties lasted into the night, bird songs were a nice gentle alarm clock for those days when you woke up passed out over the table where you'd been drinking, and lastly, when you needed a nice natural area to put a bunch of prospective newbies through their paces, it was only a short walk to reach the perfect place.
Harry was sitting once again, only now he had a plush recliner instead of a stiff wooden chair. Harry pulled a lever on the side, extending the footrest. He sighed contentedly. Roughly twenty steps away, the seven candidates watched on, waiting for the strange guild master to get to the point.
The spectators weren't so restrained.
"Get on with it! We don't have all night," shouted Ultear, her hands cupped around her mouth.
She was perched on the branch of a tree, legs dangling off, with Meredy beside her. Jellal leaned against another tree not far away. Laki, Macao, and Wakaba were watching from the other side of the clearing. Directly behind where Harry was sitting Jet, Dyst, and Droy watched beside Reedus, the painter already having an easel set up and his brush in his hand. A creek cut through the clearing Harry had chosen, flowing to the left of his chair at a mellow burble. Bisca, Alzack, and their daughter Asuka watched from upstream, the four year old girl splashing in the shallow water while they waited for the show to start.
"Don't rush me!" Harry yelled back at Ultear.
"Someone has to!" she said.
A few of the other members, like Wakaba and Jet, jeered Harry, urging him to speed up. Sighing, Harry flicked his wand.
"And here I was enjoying the sunset…"
As the sky turned orange, Harry sent seven wooden rings floating through the air. They were just large enough to be worn around the wrist, though they noticeably came with chords to turn them into necklaces if one so chose.
"Put those on and make sure you've chosen a safe spot," Harry said. "There are two ways to pass this test. First, you get me to stand up."
He paused, a benign smile on his lips.
"If we make you stand up, we pass?" Yomazu asked.
"No," said Harry, "if any of you can make me stand up, you all pass."
Some of them shifted. A few murmured. Yukino glanced at the mages watching them, disturbed by the lack of reaction as Harry offered such generous terms.
"You're underestimating us," Chrissack said.
"I don't think so. But wouldn't it be cool if I was? Maybe you'll pass easily, and Fairy Tail will be all the stronger for it," Harry said.
His smile hadn't changed. Mary squinted at him, trying to puzzle out his secrets. The contestants were starting to don the wooden rings. Yukino slipped hers onto the metal band that held her keys. Chrissack and Totomaru hung theirs around their necks. Yomazu and Kageyama took a wristband approach, while Flare set hers on top of her head like a miniature crown— her hair shifted around the wood, strapping it in place, and she did a little twirl, excited by her newest accessory. Finally, Mary chose to slide hers into a pouch on her hip.
She challenged Harry with her eyes, daring him to say that was against the rules. Harry kept smiling.
"The second way for you to pass is to steal another contestant's ring," Harry said. "In that case, they fail, you pass, and you can no longer interfere with the test. I'm a fair kind of guy. Tricks are encouraged, but cheating is forbidden. If you break a rule you won't enjoy how it turns out."
"What qualifies as making you leave your seat?" Kageyama asked.
"My butt is no longer touching the cushion." Harry chuckled, though none of them could tell why. "Like I said, I'm a fair guy. I won't be a sore loser if you get me."
"What if we lose our ring, then someone makes you move?" Yukino asked.
Harry shook his head. "If you've lost your ring, you're out. Someone else's work can't save you."
"When do we start?" Totomaru asked.
"Whenever you're ready—"
Yomazu charged.
The goat-like samurai lowered his head and tore forward. When he'd covered the first half of the distance, he sprang into a flying leap, swinging his sword down in a shining arc.
Harry swished his wand.
Yomazu struck him directly. Staring in shock, the former dark mage looked at his prized sword, the blade of which had gone limp and floppy. Harry smiled at him, the wilted blade laying harmlessly on his face.
"Good initiative. Let's see what else you have."
A second later, Yomazu was sent hurtling back, struck in the stomach by a blunt force. He rolled through his landing and looked down at his nullified weapon, shaking it in confusion, watching it wiggle.
Seeing the fate of his fellow swordsman, Totmaru took the ranged approach, hurling balls of fire at Harry. Lackadaisically, Harry conjured a glove, enchanting it with a powerful cooling charm. The flames failed against his palm.
Instead of backing off, Totomaru clapped his hands together. "Rainbow Fire: Color Burst!"
Three new fireballs shot at Harry, these ones varied in color. One was a normal red, while the other two were blue and bright yellow respectively. Harry raised an eyebrow.
As they flew at him, he conjured small scraps of paper in their path. The red fire burned the paper it hit, the blue fire froze its paper, and the yellow fire seemed to carry no physical effects, though as it came closer a foul smell infiltrated Harry's nostrils. Around the battle, spectators cursed and covered their noses.
"That's disgusting!" Macao complained.
"Behold, my S-Class might!" Totomaru cackled.
The glove Harry had conjured flew off of his hand as he moved his wand. It intercepted the red fireball, canceling that one out. The blue fire Harry hit with a warming charm, neutralizing it in mid air. He hesitated a second longer when faced with the foul-smelling yellow fireball. Ultimately, Harry created a bubble around it, sealing the smell off, and directed the bubble to fly up into the sky, disappearing above the trees. More than a few spectators cheered, and Jet could be heard shouting for Harry to beat the hell out of Totomaru. That yellow fire had made him no friends.
Totomaru started to cast something else, striking a pose that would lead into his next spell, but Harry decided it was time to give someone else a turn. He created a nearly-invisible tripwire close to the ground, one end moored around a tree while the other snaked out, seeking to ensnare the fire mage's ankle.
Totomaru saw it coming. The wire caught the light slightly and he tried to spring away. Except, despite his speed, his body was not fit for dexterous movements. He stumbled. The opening allowed the wire to capture him and drag him toward the tree, moving with a life of its own.
"Open: Gate of the Paired Fish, Pisces!"
Yukino was holding one of her golden keys above her head, the metal shining as bright as a star.
In a flash of light, two eel-like fish flew out. One was white and the other was black, the same blue symbol marking both of their foreheads. They thundered through the air toward Harry, blue magic circles appearing in front of their mouths. The fish fired twin beams of water at his stationary form.
Harry answered with fire, countering the beams of water with two pillars of flame. The two attacks canceled each other out in a screen of steam. Carefully, Harry fired two Befuddlement Charms.
The two fish lost their way in the steam. With the help of his magic, their sense of direction became twisted and lost, to the point that they turned straight toward each other, clashing heads.
The two halves of Pisces bounced apart, falling to the ground on either side of Harry, who was still perched calmly in his chair. The smile he'd worn since starting his explanation was in place, even as Yukino gaped.
"Move."
Mary Hughes barged past Yukino, producing something that made Harry lean forward for the first time.
She had a wand.
He was curious to see how she'd use it. The same as him, maybe? It was like no wand he'd ever seen before, tipped with a wooden hand holding out an accusing finger. Would she direct some kind of element with it? Change a force of nature, like gravity?
"This test was made for me," Mary said, smirking. "First Movement: Rise!"
Harry was possessed by an urge to stand up. His body was being controlled as if he had strings attached, and Mary was plucking them. Despite himself, Harry developed a fierce frown.
Control Magic. That was what Mary called it during the interview. He officially hated it. This spell reminded him too much of one back home.
Too bad for Mary, Harry had always been strong against that one.
"No," Harry said.
His willpower crushed the impulse that had been planted in his mind. Occlumency helped reject Marry's magic, rebuffing her spell. Without warning, Mary's unusual wand exploded, forcing her to drop it and sending her to her knees. She looked in shock at her palm, which had been left trembling from the blast.
"No shortcuts allowed," Harry said.
"Libra, reverse his gravity!"
Mary's spell had strained his composure. For a moment, Harry stopped paying attention to the other competitors, something Yukino used to summon the spirit inside her other golden key.
This one looked like a human woman dressed as a belly dancer and bearing olive skin. She held halves of a scale in either hand, her hair sticking up from the sides of her head like two horns.
Harry was treated to a feeling that he quite enjoyed. It reminded him of taking flight on a broom. He was lifted into the air, carried up until he was floating ten feet off the ground.
When he first started to rise, Yukino's face lit up. As he continued to rise, her expression dropped just as quickly.
"What's wrong?" Harry asked. "Not what you were expecting?"
Still slightly reclined, with the footrest raised, his chair had floated into the air with him as if it was a part of his body. Sticking Charms were a wonderful use of magic, and he'd arrived prepared.
There was a lull as some of the spectators laughed. Asuka Connel was pointing at Harry and talking rapidly at her mother, begging for a flying chair of her own. Those taking the test took a moment to regroup, Totomaru cutting himself free of the wire that had grabbed him while Yukino dismissed the defeated Pisces back to the spirit realm. Harry could see them all thinking, coming to terms with their task being far more complex than expected. Hope draining out of them. This was where the real test began.
Chrissack was the first to come to a decision.
"I apologize," he said. "This is the better way."
Vortexes swirling around his hands, Chrissack turned sharply toward another one of the contestants yet to try their luck. Flare was preoccupied touching the pretty crown she had been given, her eyes crossed as she tried to look at the object on the top of her head.
"Fierce Wind: Severance!"
The wind around Chrissack's hands launched a succession of arc-shaped blades. The trajectory made some of those watching cry out, but Chrissack's aim was perfect. His wind magic targeted only the crown on top of Flare's head.
The attack landed, too. Chrissack's shock was on his face when the wooden ring wasn't knocked loose— his wind magic failed to cut a single strand of Flare's hair.
Flare's pupils slid down, looking straight at Chrissack. "You attacked me."
"We fare a better chance against each other than we do pitting ourselves against that beast," Chrissack said. "He gave us two options for a reason."
That much was true, Harry mused.
Bringing his fists together, Chrissack formed a larger cyclone, launching it at Flare. "Fierce Wind: Tumbling Twister!"
Flare cocked her head. Her powerful hair was blown around as the attack approached, until she suddenly tightened it into eight strands.
Her hair carried her out of the way of the attack quickly, moving like the legs of a massive spider. Flare paused, suspended by her hair, and stared at Chrissack. She watched him impassively, even when he launched more attacks, which she continued to dodge dismissively.
"I grew up far away, and I am still not used to people like me," Flare said. "Is this what they call assault?"
"Consider it competition!" Chrissack said.
The man who opened his interview with his strong resume looked unnerved. He wasn't happy that the strange girl who barely seemed to know what was going on could outpace him this way. Wind exploded around his body as he called on his full reserves of magic.
"Fierce Wind: Super-Spinner!"
He created a tornado based around Flare's position, forcing the girl to shield her face for the first time. Still, Harry and the other combatants didn't intervene, content to watch for their own reasons. Flare started to be lifted, the wind threatening to spin her into a dizzy mess.
She gave up holding onto the ground. Flare's hair extended in eight directions, grabbing the trunks of different trees. Chrissack bellowed, redoubling his wind attack. The ground itself groaned— until all eight trees were torn out of the ground at their roots.
Spectators dove aside, Jet cursing as Droy had to tackle him out of the path of a stray root. Flare was finally spun around. Unfortunately for Chrissack, she was carrying weapons.
Flare twisted sideways, spinning horizontally within the twister, and brought all eight trees down on the man one at a time. It only took a few impacts for the wind magic to dissipate.
Flare stepped forward, cocking her head as she approached Chrissack's unconscious body half-crushed beneath the last tree. She didn't find what she was hoping for.
"Looking for this?" Harry asked.
He was holding Chrissack's wooden ring. Flare pouted.
"That's mine!" she complained.
"I never said that I couldn't take them." Harry tossed the ring up in the air slightly, daring someone to make a play for it, before catching it again. "You have to steal one. That could mean from me, or another competitor."
Flare looked upset, her hair fanning out as she considered attacking Harry for his new ring. Before she could, someone laid a hand on her shoulder.
"I know the way to win," Kageyama said. "Would you like to hear it?"
Flare looked at his hand, then up at the man himself. Slowly, her hair calmed down.
"Okay," she said.
Flare wasn't the only one Kageyama recruited. He called for a group huddle. Fearing a trick Mary maintained a healthy distance, while Yomazu was still on his knees staring pitifully at his wilted sword.
Harry hovered in the air, making no move to stop them, giving them all the time they needed.
The stream trickled past. Spectators who had been dislodged by Flare's fight with Chrissack found new vantages. The orange sky grew pinker, then incorporated shades of gray as the sun continued to sink. Finally, the six mages turned to face Harry once more.
Or, five of them did. Yomazu didn't rise.
"Get up, goat," Mary said. "Are you giving up so easily?"
"I know strength," Yomazu said. "That man is too strong. The test is impossible. We cannot compete with him."
On her branch, Ultear shook her head, releasing a sigh loud enough for Harry to overhear. She looked disappointed as she stared at the goat-man. They had belonged to the same guild at one point— she was one of those Yomazu was thinking of when he said he knew strength. Meredy looked similarly frustrated as they watched a former Grimoire Heart mage throw the towel in so easily.
Yomazu's wooden ring slid off of his wrist, hurtling through the air into Harry's grasp to join Chrissack's. Harry said nothing. He wasn't going to allow anyone to pass as cheaply as robbing a mage who'd given up the will to fight.
Mary looked disgusted. "Useless." She held her hand out, intoning, "Third movement: Armor."
Glowing characters appeared in the air as if they'd been sucked directly out of Yomazu's body. They swirled around Mary, moving closer, until they fused onto her. She tilted her head back and shut her eyes, absorbing the power. One character fused onto her right arm, another onto her left arm, and a third covered her legs. Harry's gaze grew slightly sharper, but he said nothing.
"I'm ready!" Mary announced. "Let's drag him back to earth!"
Yukino moved left, Libra walking with her. Totomaru moved to the right. Mary hung back, and Flare walked straight at Harry, still looking at the wooden ring she felt had been stolen from her.
As the formation was created, Harry noticed that Kageyama disappeared, sinking straight into the ground. Light was starting to fade as dusk arrived.
"Let's see what you cooked up," Harry said.
"I'm going to get that pretty ring back," Flare said. "And I'm going to take your other one, too. Then I'll have three rings!"
Her hair formed cones that ended in sharp points. Spears, Harry thought.
He was forced to reconsider seconds later as Flare's hair started spinning. They were drills.
Flare grinned viciously as she sent the drills curving toward Harry and his chair. Any ideas of blocking were purged from his mind by the humming noise behind the attack. Shields were notoriously weak against attacks with a grinding effect.
So Harry dodged, his chair quickly losing altitude and flying under the attack.
The Sticking Charm wasn't the only thing Harry had prepared for this test. If a wizard were to investigate his trusty chair, they'd find all the enchantments you'd see on a rudimentary broom. Even though he was trying to keep a professional attitude, Harry couldn't hold back a brief whoop as he executed a Wronski Feint in a recliner.
Strands of red hair grabbed his ride, stopping its momentum. Flare looked up, happy to have caught him.
She didn't consider that most of her hair had been used in the last missed attack, leaving little of it to defend her body. Harry leaned over the armrest and aimed a fairly nasty Bludgeoning Curse at her body.
The strands of hair she tried to block with were battered aside. Flare had time for her naturally-wide eyes to stretch further in realization over her helplessness—
A hand sprouted from her shadow and pulled her into the ground. Harry's spell hit the ground harmlessly as he found himself the target of a burning rainbow.
"Rainbow Fire: Full Spectrum!" Totomaru yelled.
Seven different types of fire, one for each color of the rainbow, swirled toward Harry in a dazzling spiral. The yellow, blue, and red flames were all there, earlier experiences telling Harry that the other four colors would all carry their own unique effects. He didn't have the benefit of carefully picking out each one's special abilities, so he took the easy out and dodged, laying on the speed to fire his chair forward.
"Libra, weaken his gravity!" Yukino said.
Harry was prepared to be pulled in some direction or another (probably up, given the nature of the command). Instead, nothing happened to him. He spotted Totomaru drawing his sword. He had never been the target.
"I'm the S-Class magic tutor, Totomaru, and I'll make everyone remember the name!" Totomaru bellowed.
It took an instant for him to appear in front of Harry. The move was so fast that Harry thought it was teleportation, until Totomaru dodged his first spell point blank and proved it was nothing but speed. The katana's blade swung at Harry's legs, trying to force him to move them out of the way.
Instead, Harry did teleport, Apparating behind Totomaru while bringing his chair with him. No matter how fast Totomaru was moving without his weight holding him back, there was no chance he could dodge a spell coming from his blindspot.
Harry's Stunning Spell missed.
At the moment of casting, a shadowy arm sprouted from the ground, extending more than ten meters to grab his wrist. The well-timed tug ruined his aim, giving Totomaru a chance to spin around and kick Harry's shoulder.
Another Apparition took him away from the blow. Harry appeared directly above Yukino and her servant, Libra. The Celestial Spirit mage threw her arm out as she shouted, "Libra, double his—"
She couldn't finish the request before Harry silenced her. He bound her in thick ropes that jumped from the tip of his wand and tethered around her body. Yukino fell backwards… where her shadow swallowed her. The now-useless ropes were spat back out, with Yukino reappearing on the other side of the clearing, still missing her voice.
This was getting frustrating, Harry thought with a smile.
Totomaru landed back on the ground. His weight had returned to normal, leaving the heavy fire mage gasping. He supported himself on his katana, using it as a cane for a moment. His eyes settled on Harry and their disrupted formation… and he came to a decision.
Totomaru shot forward as fast as he had when Yukino temporarily canceled his weight. He appeared on top of Harry, wheezing with exertion.
That didn't stop him from throwing his arms around Harry's chest while hanging off the back of the chair. He dug his ankles into the armrests, pulling up with all his might.
"Kageyama, get the rings! At least one!" Totomaru yelled.
The shadows rippled.
Instead of stealing one of the rings Harry had confiscated, the shadow spat out Flare, her hair wrapping around Harry and the chair. As Harry tried to pilot his chair higher again, Flare held him tight, the panting Totomaru still weighing down his back as well. Shadowy arms like the one that ruined Harry's aim earlier grabbed the chair in a dozen places, helping to hold it still.
For a moment, Harry was immobilized. Yukino and Mary saw that they had the opportunity to strike. A glow enveloped Yukino. She still couldn't speak, but she activated a spell that seemed to merge her with her spirit. Libra disappeared as did Yukino's outfit, replaced by belly-dancer garb like what the spirit had worn. Yukino held her hands out and Harry felt gravity intensify on him, further restraining him.
It all fell to Mary.
"Seems like I'm the main character." Mary brushed her hair back, sauntering forward. "The stage is all set!"
She bent her knees, adopting a stance at Yukino's side, and said, "First Form: Freeze!"
Nothing happened to Harry. Flare strained to keep hold of him, Totomaru's flabby arms were getting so sweaty they threatened to slide off, and Kageyama's shadow hands failed, retreating back into the ground. The gravity spike focused on Harry disappeared as soon as it had started.
It was easy to see why. Yukino was frozen in place, unable to move an inch. Mary strolled around to the other side of her.
"Get him already!" Totomaru bellowed, unable to see what was happening.
"Flare can't hold on for much longer…" Flare groaned.
Mary didn't glance at them. She bent down, her hair blowing in a passing gust as she lifted Yukino's wooden ring off of the metal loop where she kept her keys. Mary held it in the air.
"I pass," she announced.
Her voice broke Flare and Totomaru's concentration, leading to the latter's arms giving out and the former's hair losing its grip. Harry broke free, flying into the air where he hovered. Harry looked at Mary, his face giving nothing away.
"Should I wait with the other members?" Mary asked, smirking.
"Eliminated participants are not allowed to interfere with the match," Harry said.
Mary's smile dipped. A succession of emotions crossed her face, bouncing from confusion, to irritation, to panic. The last of these was when she looked down, spotting the open flap of the pouch on her hip.
Mary forgot everything else, digging her hand into the pouch that had held her wooden ring. Her hand thrashed around, finding nothing.
"How? How?!"
Silently, Harry flicked his chin, gesturing behind her. Mary spun, her eyes finally landing on her wooden ring.
It was in the hands of a figure that only looked half-there. If you squinted, you could see through them. Only the hairstyle and the calm, dark eyes identified it as Kageyama.
He had finally come out of the shadows, and he brought the shadows with him.
Kageyama met Harry's eyes, receiving a nod in return, confirming that he passed. Instead of celebrating, he tossed Mary's stolen ring away without looking at it.
"You— When—?" Mary said.
She got her answer when Kageyama went to Yukino's side. The movement was instant to the naked eye, heralded by a stirring of wind. Mary's hair was blown around by her proximity. She connected the dots, realizing the wind that blew by her as she grabbed Yukino's ring had been a thief eliminating her.
Kageyama did it again, effortlessly pilfering Yukino's ring, returning it to the still-frozen girl. Mary's magic finally broke and allowed Yukino to take the ring in her hands. She looked gratefully at Kageyama, before her face fell.
Flare was wearing a similar frown. Totomaru struggled into a sitting position, but was too exhausted to do more than that. The three of them looked at each other.
"Take my ring!" Yukino said.
She held out the circle of wood she'd just gotten back, offering it to either of the other two.
"We can't beat him," Yukino said. "Kageyama passed, so he can't help us anymore."
She didn't mention Mary at all, ignoring the traitor like she didn't exist.
"I don't have any energy left," Yukino confessed. "Just take it. At least one of you will pass."
Flare looked covetingly at Yukino's ring. But she didn't reach for it.
Instead, her hair let go of the ring on her head, and Flare took it in her hands, holding it out the same way Yukino was.
"I've read about this," Flare said. "It's called sacrifice, right? Flare would like to sacrifice herself! It sounds fun. And it seems like it might make my chest feel less funny…"
Totomaru tore his necklace off, holding his own ring out. "I don't even need this job! Why are you both trying to give it to me? One of you, take my ring! I'll show you how generous a first-class S-Rank magic tutor can really be!"
"You don't need to bother," Kageyama said. "We've all passed."
"..What do you mean?" Yukino asked.
The shadow mage walked forward, his cloak of shadows fading with each step. When he stopped below Harry's floating chair, he was back to his original appearance, staring up.
"The point of the test was to see if we would take the easy way, fighting each other instead of challenging you," Kageyama said. "You wanted to see if we would sacrifice others for our benefit."
Mary scowled, crossing her arms defiantly. Harry didn't spare her a look.
His chair dropped out of the air, landing with a squawk of springs directly in front of Kageyama. Harry leaned forward, smiling. "That's an interesting theory. What if you're wrong? Maybe I wanted to see if you could make the pragmatic choice. Maybe I wanted you to turn on each other. What then?"
"Then this isn't Fairy Tail," Kageyama said. "Just a pretender hiding behind their name."
Yukino gasped. Totomaru was sweating a little extra, while the spectators watched on silently.
Ultear snorted.
"He's got you!" she said. "Let's get this finished already. I'm getting cold."
Harry stood up, leaving his chair willingly to clap Kageyama on the shoulders.
"Welcome to the guild!" Harry said, beaming smile providing half = the welcome, "Let's get you four a drink in your hands!"
That got a cheer from the spectators, led primarily by Wakaba and Macao. Mary Hughes slunk away into the night, followed shortly by a downtrodden Yomazu. Ultear and Laki worked together to dig Cossack out from under the trees Flare buried him beneath. They threw the unconscious man over Droy's shoulder to bring him back for treatment.
The procession headed for the alcohol-stocked warmth of the guild hall, chatting and laughing and bandying introductions in loud voices.
That was the first time Harry saw Kageyama smile.
O-O-O
"Ouch," Harry grumbled, holding a hand to his face. Covering one of his eyes made the sun's light feel less blinding, putting dampeners on his roaring headache.
"Are you alright, sir?"
Harry waved off the reedy, moustached man walking in front of him. "I'm fine. This appointment is just a bit early in the day for me."
The man leading him glanced at the sky, confirming that it was past noon, before deciding to just do his job without comment.
"As I was saying, you can't find a better location. There's a reason your guild used this building for decades. It's even undergone renovations in the time since you moved out, including a revamped second floor, a fully equipped basement for storage…"
Harry lent half an ear to the landlord's prattling. The man had introduced himself as Benson, a non-mage with a thin build and high-quality clothes. As Benson opened a set of tall gates with the key, pushing the metal bars open, Harry studied the building facing them.
Starting from the top and working down, there was a tower with a heavy bronze bell perched in it. Below that was a single room, probably an office or private apartment, which made up the third floor by itself. The second floor was wider, with a sloping roof of red shingles and green trim. Then, there was the ground floor, twice the width of the one above it and covered in semi-circular windows to let light in.
It was a far cry from Fairy Tail's current headquarters. It was clean, for one thing, and didn't look like it had been patched up by amateurs in three dozen places. Most of all, it was over twice the size of their current Guild Hall. That was the most needed upgrade as their numbers continued to swell.
"She's beautiful, isn't she?" Benson said.
"Feels like home already," Harry said.
"Well, on that topic, about the price…"
Harry winced. The guild hadn't moved to the edge of town for no reason. They weren't able to afford rent, and buying back a building like this in downtown Magnolia Town was bound to be steep.
"One hundred thousand Jewels. I'll accept no less!" Benson said.
Harry opened his mouth briefly, hesitating before he spoke. "I'm not the best with money, but that seems… cheap."
They'd been paid twenty times that much for the raid of Death's Head Caucus, and that was after splitting the S-class mission rewarded four ways with the other guilds.
"You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Potter. Fifty thousand Jewels then!"
"I wasn't trying to— Why?" Harry asked.
Benson's lips twitched, making his moustache shimmy. He didn't answer promptly, and when he did speak, he took the slow route to the heart of the matter.
"I have a brother," Benson said. "And this brother of mine has a family. They live a modest, comfortable life close to the city. So imagine my surprise when they showed up on my doorstep one night carrying what belongings they could, bloodied and robbed of all their wealth. A Dark Guild had attacked their village, transforming it into the delinquents' newest base."
"Zaxsa," Harry said.
Benson smiled. "I went to Twilight Ogre, of course. They were Magnolia's guild. I filed the mission and waited, and waited, and waited. No one took it. They were very fond of missions that were safe, but if there was danger involved? Well, I learned how they worked very quickly. My brother and I gave up hope on getting his home back. Until one day, news came that Zaxsa had been wiped out. It felt like a miracle… Or perhaps a memory." Benson tilted his head, twirling one end of his long moustache. "Days later, news reached us that Fairy Tail was back."
There was a lot Harry could have said, but he settled on, "We don't plan to leave again any time soon."
"I'm thankful to hear it," Benson said. "The city is better with you in it."
They shook on the deal, Harry purchasing the entire building for the equivalent of one month's rent on a cheap apartment. Benson left him to explore Fairy Tail's new home on his own, the men parting with a friendly goodbye.
It was surprisingly clean inside. The building had sat empty for over a year from what Benson said. It was best suited to what it had been constructed for— being the base of a large Mages Guild. Twilight Ogre had their own Guild Hall, and with Fairy Tail moving out, that meant it had spent the better part of five years empty. Clearly, someone had been keeping it up during that time.
Harry meandered around, his footsteps clopping against the wooden boards. He slapped his hand on the old bar, finding it to be made of sturdy stuff.
"I can't wait to drink Macao under this," Harry said. He turned in a circle, sizing up the space. "We'll need some new tables to fill the extra space. Maybe a bigger Jobs Board while we're at it, given the way they've been flooding in…"
He paused, resting his hands on his hips, before nodding to himself. He was smiling. "Feels like home," he said.
"A bold claim, when you don't even know the secrets it holds."
Like most Aurors, Harry was not fond of being snuck up on. It was a particular dislike for him because he wasn't used to it happening. He could barely remember the last time he'd been truly surprised, but there had been no warning about the man who was sitting on the stairs to the second floor, watching Harry from a relaxed stance.
The mysterious stranger was tall, wearing a full suit of golden armor. A fur-trimmed cape hung over his shoulders and around his neck. Staring into his impassive helmet, Harry gave the only appropriate answer.
"Who the fuck are you?"
The man chuckled, the sound coming out warped through his helmet.
"You can call me Alexei," he said. "I come with an offer, Harry. Would you like to meet Fairy Tail's dark heart? It's close at hand…"