Angel's face was filled with fear.
Looking at all those votes of "guilty," looking at the outcome that was all but decided, she had no idea what she could do anymore.
How could she possibly save her own life?
"With a unanimous vote, the verdict is now officially declared: Angel is sentenced to death, to be carried out immediately!"
Once the voting ended, Jura Neekis directly announced the final judgment.
The moment that result came out, Angel's legs gave out and she collapsed to the floor.
In truth, she had known this was inevitable.
But when the verdict was truly finalized, she was still completely swallowed by terror.
Looking at Angel—crying bitterly with tears all over her face, looking so pitiful and delicate despite being in the prime of her youth—not a single person seated at the judgment table could summon any sympathy for her.
After all, Angel's crimes were all fully substantiated.
There was even Sherry Blendy here as a direct victim.
Under those circumstances, there really was no one whose soft heart would flare up and make them want to save Angel.
Seeing this, Marco thought to himself that everyone here was at least sensible enough.
No idiotic "villain" had jumped out at a moment like this to show off their so-called kindness or saintly compassion.
The controlled Angel was dragged away directly.
Though the sentence was "immediate execution," that didn't mean they were literally going to haul her out and chop her head off right then and there.
At the very least, they would wait until this round of major judgments was over and then carry out the executions together.
Otherwise, sentencing one person and immediately dragging them out to be killed before the next—well, that would have been a little absurd.
Next up, Cobra, the "Poison Dragon," was brought out.
This Dragon Slayer, who had always been wildly arrogant, looked terrible now.
His gaze swept across the entire hall before finally stopping on Marco's face, his eyes filled with hatred.
"Where is Cubellios?!"
Once he was brought into the hall, Cobra reacted very differently from the others before him.
He didn't beg for mercy, nor did he despair.
Instead, he shouted directly at Marco.
The very first thing he asked after seeing Marco was about that giant purple snake.
Putting everything else aside, Cobra really was a devoted master and his bond with that great purple snake was genuinely deep.
"Cubellios? Oh, that giant purple snake. She's already been saved."
Cobra's question caught Marco off guard for a moment.
He really hadn't paid much attention to that snake or thought much about it.
On the contrary, Master Makarov had taken it very seriously.
The old man had spotted at a glance that something was wrong with that giant purple snake.
It had to be said—Makarov's depth of magical knowledge really was outrageous.
Not only was the old man skilled in many different kinds of magic, he could also identify all sorts of strange and twisted spells at a glance, and even find ways to deal with them.
Calling him a true "professor of magic" would not have been an exaggeration.
The moment he saw the giant purple snake, Cubellios, Makarov had immediately realized that she wasn't a "pure-blooded snake."
Then, after subduing her, the old man really did find the problem—and solve it.
He turned that giant purple snake into a girl. A girl who had lost her memories.
She had no memory at all of the time when she had been a snake. She had been transformed into that form by magic.
Right now, there was actually disagreement within Fairy Tail over how to deal with this "snake girl."
The guild had split into two camps on the issue.
This girl really was unlucky to the extreme.
She had been turned into a giant purple snake since childhood, and after becoming a snake, she had no memory of any of it.
Her memories were still stuck more than ten years in the past.
Even though she now had the body of a young girl again, mentally she was still like a child, which made the whole matter especially difficult to handle.
In Marco's view, the right approach was naturally: death may be spared, but punishment cannot be escaped.
Just like Jellal.
He too had been manipulated into committing all those sins. Under Fairy Tail's intervention, the Magic Council had not sentenced him to death, but neither had they granted him freedom.
He still had to pay for what he had done.
That was also Jellal's own view.
He still had those memories, accepted those sins as his own, and repented for them.
And that was exactly where the problem lay.
This "snake girl" did not have those memories.
She didn't even understand what she had done.
When she had been the "giant purple snake," she had worked alongside Cobra, and naturally had done plenty of evil things—quite possibly killed many people as well.
Those were certainly sins she had committed. There was no way she could simply be called innocent.
In that sense, the snake girl's situation was very similar to Jellal's.
Since Jellal had already been sentenced, there was no real reason to let the snake girl off just like that.
Marco argued that they should be treated equally.
That would also be fair to Jellal.
There couldn't be one standard for one person and another for someone else, or else the earlier judgment wouldn't be enough to convince anyone.
But many people in the guild held a different opinion.
They felt that once the snake girl had been transformed into a snake, she was no longer human at all.
She had acted entirely according to a snake's instincts, so those actions had nothing to do with the girl herself.
That had been a different kind of creature altogether.
A snake, acting under Cobra's guidance and commands, doing those things—that was perfectly normal.
Now that the "giant purple snake" would never appear again, it was effectively the same as that creature having died.
The only one who would continue living in this world was the girl now named Kinana, and this girl, in their eyes, was completely innocent.
Marco found that line of reasoning problematic.
Because Jellal's case could also be explained the same way: the Jellal who had committed those acts was already "dead," and the current sane Jellal had nothing to do with the controlled Jellal from before.
In response, the other side raised a new argument.
"Jellal still has those memories," so he cannot separate himself from those earlier sins.
Kinana, on the other hand, has none of those memories, so she can be separated from them.
Because she has no memory, that proves the former "giant purple snake" is already dead.
Marco still didn't accept that view.
Because what if Kinana recovered her memories one day?
Would she suddenly become guilty again?
And if that happened, what would all those years of freedom she had enjoyed count for?
For the time being, Marco had set these disputes aside.
He intended to bring the issue to today's trial assembly and make it one of the topics for public judgment, to be decided collectively.
After all, Cubellios could also be considered a member of Oración Seis.
There was no reason her fate should be decided solely by Fairy Tail. A public trial was obviously more appropriate.
"Don't hurt Cubellios!"
Cobra shouted, extremely agitated, his eyes locked tightly on Marco as he waited for an answer.
Looking at him, Marco's expression turned strange.
If Cobra found out that Cubellios was actually a beautiful young girl rather than a giant purple snake, what kind of reaction would he have?
Would he get even more excited?
Would he want to turn that master-pet bond into something much more questionable?
The possibility seemed... pretty high.
Marco couldn't help thinking that if someone's pet cat suddenly turned into a beautiful catgirl, that person would probably get very excited too—and quite possibly start having some very dangerous ideas.
"Relax. At the very least, she won't die."