Cana's head was already spinning a little.
Erza and Mirajane had worked together so quickly that they had directly shoved this responsibility onto her.
But just as Erza had thought, there was really no way Cana could just ignore Gildarts. As a member of Fairy Tail, she couldn't do that.
It wasn't that Gildarts literally destroyed everything wherever he went. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't act like that.
The real danger was if he suddenly zoned out while walking.
That was when things became most dangerous.
It was just like Midnight's space-distortion magic automatically activating while he slept. Even if Gildarts himself drifted off mentally, his magic didn't.
If he was about to run into something, his Crush Magic would activate, clearing the way for him.
Fortunately, Gildarts at least knew to avoid walking too close to people, so even in that kind of state, he wouldn't hurt anyone.
But buildings, flowers, grass, trees, and the like would receive no such mercy.
That was why, whenever Gildarts wandered around town, it was best to have someone keeping an eye on him—someone ready to step in and remind him if things started looking bad.
Cana let out a sigh and finally followed after him.
She walked quietly behind Gildarts, keeping some distance as she watched his back.
Looking at that figure, her heart was filled with all kinds of tangled emotions.
Gildarts.
Her father.
The father she had never acknowledged.
Right now, the relationship between them was only that of guildmates.
In Gildarts's eyes, she was probably just a shy, unsociable, withdrawn little girl who didn't like joining the crowd.
After all, whenever the other kids swarmed around Gildarts, Cana always stayed far away, watching from a distance, never once going over.
Didn't she want to? Of course she did.
She wanted to go to him. She wanted to be close to her father.
But she couldn't.
Because she was a forgotten child, a child who had never been noticed...
Cana wanted to achieve something. She wanted to succeed. She wanted to attain the same rank Gildarts had, and then acknowledge him.
She wanted this man—her father—to look at her with fresh eyes, to praise her, to admire her ability.
Without becoming an S-Class Wizard, Cana didn't know how to face Gildarts.
Was she supposed to come before him as a discarded, forgotten child and beg for his affection?
Cana's mindset was a little stubborn, a little trapped in its own corner—but it was understandable.
She had been very young when she first came here.
She had no idea what kind of attitude Gildarts had held toward her and her mother.
At first, from Cana's point of view, Gildarts was a father who was both unfamiliar and powerful, and perhaps even a little cold.
After all, he had never gone to see her or her mother. Until her mother died, neither of them had ever met Gildarts.
So when Cana first came to Fairy Tail, it was perfectly normal that she didn't dare acknowledge him.
Even though, through later observation, her impression of Gildarts had gradually changed, once she missed that first chance, speaking up later became far harder.
Cana found herself a goal—a direction to move toward.
That goal was to become an S-Class Wizard.
As soon as she became an S-Class Wizard, she would directly tell Gildarts the truth!
But now it seemed that goal had been a little too idealistic.
Fairy Tail's standards for S-Class Wizards were simply too high!
Sometimes even Cana herself would sigh in private. She had worked hard for so many years and still hadn't succeeded even once.
Instead, each failure had only made her more aware of the gap between herself and true S-Class Wizards.
Becoming an S-Class Wizard was starting to feel like an impossible dream.
But if she were to just give up like this, Cana couldn't accept that either.
She couldn't persuade herself to let go.
She would rather just keep going like this.
"Cana? What are you doing here?"
Just as Cana's thoughts were surging wildly, Gildarts's puzzled voice rang out, snapping her back to reality.
She looked up.
Gildarts had already stopped a short distance ahead and was looking at her in confusion. If Cana had taken a few more steps forward, she would have walked straight into him.
"Uh... nothing. Just taking a walk."
Faced with Gildarts's question, Cana casually made up an excuse.
"Oh..."
Gildarts scratched his head awkwardly and responded with a slightly embarrassed sound.
When it came to Cana, he really didn't know how to talk to her.
The main reason was simple: the two of them barely interacted.
To put it bluntly, they just weren't close. They were ordinary guildmates, with no personal relationship at all.
Gildarts turned and kept walking away, while Cana continued silently following behind him, faithfully carrying out her assigned duty.
"..."
Gildarts turned back to look at Cana.
He could understand the guild sending someone to keep an eye on him, and he supported that arrangement too.
It was a reasonable way to stop him from accidentally damaging the city.
But she couldn't just keep following him like this forever, could she?
"How about... we walk together?"
Cana was tailing him so openly, step for step, that even Gildarts felt awkward. So he took the initiative and invited her along.
They might as well just walk together.
"Magnolia's changed a lot, after all. There are plenty of places I'm not familiar with anymore. Let's take a walk together, and you can tell me about them."
Gildarts smiled as he invited Cana to walk with him.
His temperament really was that good. He treated the younger members of the guild like kids, even when they clearly seemed distant toward him.
"...Together?!"
Faced with Gildarts's invitation, Cana was stunned.
This really was the first time there had ever been anything like this between them as "father and daughter."
It was the first time Gildarts had ever invited her.
More than that, it was the first time the two of them as "father and daughter" had even spoken for this long.
"Is that inconvenient?"
Gildarts looked puzzled.
In his mind, wasn't she already here to accompany him?
Keeping watch from a distance or walking beside him was basically the same thing, wasn't it?
"..."
Cana didn't answer.
She simply lowered her head and walked a few steps forward until she came to Gildarts's side.
Of course, she still left a little space between them.
That action alone was answer enough: she had accepted his invitation.
Gildarts smiled.
He thought to himself that this kid really was painfully shy.
It had to be said, Gildarts really hadn't paid much attention to Cana or formed much of an impression of her.
Otherwise, he definitely would have noticed that the way Cana acted around him was different from how she acted around others.
There were so many wizards in Fairy Tail, and far more of them actively clustered around Gildarts.
He really didn't have the spare energy to pay special attention to one child who never took the initiative to get close to him.
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