Ur's arrival did something to Sabertooth that no one had managed in months. The guild had been sitting still and stagnant, like water that had nowhere to go. She walked in and got things moving.
It did look a little strange from outside, admittedly. A group of people working in the cold with their coats and trousers off was not a normal sight for passersby. But by the time the sun was starting to drop toward the horizon, the work was done.
The guild hall glowed in the evening light. Clean walls, cleared floors, everything in its place. The building standing at the center of town looked nothing like the wreck it had been that morning. For a guild that had been days away from disappearing entirely, it was a remarkable thing to see.
"So then." Ur settled herself on the front desk, one hand on her hip, completely comfortable in her minimalist swimsuit, totally unbothered. "Did everyone feel the effects of the special training?"
Minerva and the others were spread out across the floor, exhausted, arms and legs gone heavy. They raised their hands in response, slowly, shakily.
"We... felt it..."
They had already figured out what kind of guild master they were dealing with. She looked like a cheerful, easygoing older sister. She probably was, most of the time. But the moment training started, she became someone else entirely. The kind of strict you couldn't argue with.
"Good. That's it for today." Ur clapped her hands together. "Everyone rest, get cleaned up, and then Mr. Chase is taking us all out for a proper meal!"
"Hey, hey." Chase immediately objected.
"We just arrived at the guild," Ur said, completely ignoring him. "We should get to know everyone in Sabertooth properly. And after hard work, what you need most is a good meal to recover. That's just basic logic."
"That still doesn't explain why I'm paying."
"Well, you have to see a thing through to the end, right? I genuinely cannot scrape together even a thousand Jewel right now." Ur scratched her head with no embarrassment whatsoever. "Just put the bill on Gray."
She had never been the type to stress over small things like this. She had already started thinking of Chase as a real partner, and partners helped each other out. The favor would get paid back eventually. That was just how these things worked.
"Fine. No problem." Chase agreed without much resistance.
The two of them reached their agreement cheerfully, giving absolutely zero thought to the wallet of a certain young man currently on vacation somewhere far away.
"Um. Mr. Chase."
Minerva approached with some difficulty, her face flushed, her hands fidgeting slightly in front of her. She stopped in front of him and bowed deeply.
"I haven't had the chance to say this properly until now. Thank you very much for saving my life back at the Erma Ruins."
And for helping me understand, once and for all, that my father's belief in the strong trampling the weak was wrong.
"The guild master already told me the general story. You don't need to be so formal about it."
Chase reached over and patted her on the head.
"If you really want to repay it, then get stronger. Make the name of Sabertooth ring out across all of Fiore. That's more than enough."
He thought about it privately, the version of Minerva from the original story, cold and cruel and deliberately vicious. Looking at the girl in front of him now, it was hard not to feel something about it. He genuinely wished he'd hit Jiemma a few more times when he had the chance.
"Okay!" Minerva nodded hard, her whole face lit up.
Standing right in front of the person she admired most, talking to him directly like this, her heart was going faster than she could account for.
"Um. Um, Mr. Chase."
She reached into her battered pocket and pulled out a card and a pen. She held them out toward him, trying not to look too eager about it.
"Could I ask you for an autograph?"
The card was blank on the front, with a dark gold spiral pattern on the back, exactly the same design as the cards Chase used. Somehow, Minerva had gotten hold of merchandise like this. Nobody asked where.
"Sure."
Chase took the card and signed his name on the front.
Minerva thanked him very politely, then immediately pressed the autographed card to her chest with both hands and ran over to show it to Rogue and Sting.
Rogue and Sting watched with obvious envy. Not enough envy to actually go ask for their own autographs, though. Their heroes were Natsu and Gajeel, and that loyalty was solid.
Lector and Frosch stretched their necks over to get a look at the card Minerva was holding up.
"He's such a great person," Lector said, frowning slightly. "I didn't expect his handwriting to be this messy."
Frosch raised a small paw. "Frosch thinks so too."
Minerva turned and glared at both of them. "You can't even read. How would you know it's messy? That is clearly art."
"She's still a teenager, at the end of the day." Ur watched the whole thing from across the room and sighed softly to herself. She still didn't fully understand how that little girl had made it through the years she'd had.
"Guiding young kids and helping them grow," Chase said. "Isn't that your specialty?"
"Even if you saved my life, I will still get upset if you say something like that to a woman in her prime." Ur held up one finger, expression very serious.
"Fair enough. Though Gray and Lyon are living proof it works."
"That's true. Those two little ones who used to cry and trail after me everywhere are actual independent mages now." Ur's expression shifted. Then her eyes went wide and she grabbed her own head. "Wait. If I calculate it that way, I'm already incredibly old?!"
Did she really only just figure that out?
Chase looked at her and started quietly reconsidering whether handing Sabertooth over to this person had been the right decision after all.
Then came the sound of footsteps from the entrance. Unhurried, flat-footed, a little wet sounding. Plop, plop, plop. A long shadow stretched in through the doorway on the back of the setting sun.
"This is Sabertooth, yes?"
A figure walked in wearing a Council uniform. Squat and round, with large eyes and smooth pale skin, he looked like a toad wearing official clothes. His posture carried that particular flavor of bureaucratic self-importance that Council envoys seemed to develop naturally.
He stepped inside and swept the room with a look that said he was used to people adjusting themselves for him.
Then he saw Chase.
His expression collapsed. His hand went to his stomach, which apparently remembered something.
"Ch, Chase? You're here too?!"
Right. This was the same man Chase had dealt with before.
What a reunion.
The toad-like man steadied himself internally, pushed through the discomfort, and turned his attention to Ur with a look of forced professionalism.
"Miss Ur. Here are the official documents and Guild Master's badge issued by the Council. After taking Mr. Makarov's letter of recommendation into account, the councilors have approved your appointment as the new Guild Master of the Sabertooth Guild."
"I didn't expect the Council to move this quickly." Ur took the document bag with a smile.
The speed was not hard to explain. Makarov's recommendation carried real weight. And then there was the fact that Ur happened to be the mother of councilor Ultear. The toad-like man kept that observation strictly internal.
"Additionally." He produced a second document. "This is the application form for the Ten Wizard Saints assessment. If you are interested, fill it out and send it to Council headquarters."
The Ten Wizard Saints were not a title handed out like ordinary guild master appointments. They represented the peak of the Ishgar continent's magical strength and required serious investigation and assessment. Especially now, with someone like Jellal in the picture, standards were being watched carefully.
But Ur was a clear exception to the usual process.
Makarov's recommendation aside, and the connection to Ultear aside, Ur herself had a solid reputation that preceded her. Her character was known. Her magic power was well above the basic requirements for candidacy. The one thing she genuinely lacked was a record of contributions on Ishgar specifically.
With two spots sitting empty after Jose and Jellal, the Council had quietly relaxed that particular condition.
"Ten Wizard Saints? For me?" Ur blinked at the form.
She understood exactly what the title meant and what it carried with it.
"This is candidate eligibility only," the man clarified. "Whether the title is actually granted depends on passing the formal assessment at the end of the year."
With Chase present, the toad-like man had absolutely no desire to stay longer than necessary. He wished Ur good luck, turned, and made for the door at a brisk pace.
"Hey, old pal. No rush. Sit down and have some tea first." Chase called after him pleasantly.
The man's footsteps sped up. His flat feet hit the floor faster and faster, making a rapid series of plopping sounds as he disappeared through the entrance, which was honestly fairly funny to watch.
"Mr. Chase," Ur said, looking after him with genuine puzzlement. "Why does that Council man seem so terrified of you?"
"We had a small exchange before." Chase kept it brief and gave her the short version of events.
Ur listened and then gave him a thumbs up with real admiration. "You actually hit a Council envoy. That takes nerve."
"But while we're on the subject." Chase nodded toward the Ten Wizard Saints application form in her hand. "We might be rivals going forward."
Ur looked at him sideways. "You applied for the assessment too?"
She had her own reasons for wanting the title. Beyond making Sabertooth's name more known, the position would open doors to the other Saints, people she could actually exchange techniques with and push her understanding of magic further. A bit more responsibility and visibility was a fair trade for that.
But Chase, with his relaxed habits and his obvious preference for keeping things uncomplicated, did not seem like the type to voluntarily chain himself to something like the Ten Wizard Saints.
"I have no interest in it personally," Chase said, sounding slightly defeated. "The old man signed me up without telling me."
"Makarov wants you to be Fairy Tail's next guild master."
Ur saw the whole picture immediately and smiled. "That is a lot of trust to put in someone."
Chase looked up at the ceiling with the expression of a man who had been outmaneuvered.
"Being guild master sounds exhausting."
Across the room, Minerva and the others had been listening to all of this quite openly. Their eyes had gone bright.
Their new guild master was a candidate for the Ten Wizard Saints. The Ten Wizard Saints were the title everyone on the continent knew. Every guild that had ever produced one had its name remembered. If Sabertooth could get there someday, if they could stand alongside Lamia Scale and Fairy Tail...
Minerva stared at the thought of it with something quietly catching fire behind her eyes.
Sting and Rogue were already somewhere further ahead in their imaginations, picturing the day years from now when the Twin Dragons of Sabertooth would be names that rang through all of Fiore. They clenched their fists without really noticing they'd done it.
The other members, the older ones especially, the ones who had been in the guild even before Jiemma's time, stood quietly with wet eyes. They had been waiting for this feeling for a long time. The guild rising again, a real master leading it, the name Sabertooth meaning something good.
With a Ten Wizard Saints candidate and Fairy Tail as an ally, who would hesitate to join?
And like that, with the future looking better than it had in years, everyone went back to the lodgings, cleaned up, changed into whatever decent clothes they had left, and came back to the guild.
Chase was true to his word. He took the whole group to one of the better restaurants in town and ordered everything worth ordering, comfortable in the knowledge that Gray was technically footing the bill.
By the time the meal was over the sky was completely dark. The last train back to Magnolia was long gone.
Chase decided he couldn't be bothered summoning his City Guard Winged Dragon to fly back tonight. He found a nearby inn and stayed.
***
At the same time, the Council headquarters blazed with lights.
Ultear sat at her desk in a fitted white dress, looking at the document in front of her without really reading it. The document confirmed Ur's appointment as the new Sabertooth Guild Master.
"It couldn't be avoided forever."
Her eyes went dim. She exhaled slowly.
When Makarov's letter of recommendation had first come across her desk, she'd been genuinely caught off guard. She hadn't expected that angle. Still, she had been the first one to raise her hand in approval.
She was full of things she couldn't answer for. She had no face to stand in front of her mother and say anything. But if the job required it, if they had to be in the same room because of official business, that was different. That she could manage.
She told herself that quietly, and mostly believed it.
"Jellal's condition is starting to improve. I don't have much time left."
She closed the document, stood up from her chair, and walked out of the room. Her footsteps were steady and unhurried down the corridor that led toward the underground prison, where she would continue the slow work of reaching Jellal, guiding him back through the darkness by force of words and will.
Her mind was already made up. When Jellal was recovered and her current responsibilities at the Council were settled, she would face the Heart of Evil directly. No more waiting.
The shadows of the prison corridor closed around her as she walked, swallowing her figure until it was gone.
She had chosen this path herself. The path of atonement did not end anywhere comfortable. She knew that. She had always known that.
***
The next morning Chase said his goodbyes to Ur, Minerva, and the others and made his way back to Magnolia.
The new Fairy Tail guild hall had been finished while he was away. The last details were done.
It was a real building now. Solid walls with the Fairy Tail emblem marked clearly on them, and passing through the main gate brought you into an open-air area where guild members were already sitting at tables. Mostly arguing, not talking. That was normal for Fairy Tail.
Across from the open-air section was a small commercial strip. Marcus was standing there with his short hair, talking with a delivery merchant and wearing a smile that had something behind it.
Makarov had put him in charge of a general store on the strip for the time being, selling official Fairy Tail merchandise. Wool coin pouches, cups, figures of the members, the usual spread.
"Chase, you're back." Marcus spotted him and waved. The smile didn't change. "Come have a look, something interesting just arrived in this batch."
Chase had a reasonable idea of what he was about to see. He walked over.
"Guild Master had these made specially. Same scale across all of them."
Marcus turned around and pulled a Lucy figure out from the pile to demonstrate. He pressed a small button on the back. A little sound effect played. The figure's clothes split apart neatly to both sides, revealing a small sculpted figure in a swimsuit.
Chase stared at it.
Of course. Of course it was.
"Pretty good, right?" Marcus was very pleased with himself. He reached back into the carton and produced another figure. "By the way, there are two hundred of yours in this batch alone."
"Mine? With how people in Magnolia feel about me, are you sure those will actually sell?"
Chase took his own figure and looked at it. The craftsmanship was genuinely unsettling in how precise it was. Every detail accurate. Even the scars were replicated exactly. Someone had clearly done research they had no business doing.
"Hard to say about the others, but yours are already getting asked about before the store even opened. People have been coming by."
"Is that right." Chase nodded, allowing himself a small measure of satisfaction. "I suppose even if they complain, they do actually like me."
"Well." Marcus paused. "They said they'd buy them to keep at home, and take them out to hit when they're in a bad mood."
Chase's expression stopped moving.
"How much for all of them? The whole lot."
"What?"
"Every single one. I want them all. Not one left on the shelf."
"Chase, this merchandise is for the public. It's part of the launch promotion for the new guild. Buying up the whole stock defeats the purpose."
"I'll pay extra."
Marcus's eyes lit up immediately.
"Done."
Honestly, what was a promotion compared to making serious money right now? The new guild could promote itself some other way.
"Oh, and while I have you." Marcus leaned against the counter after the transaction was settled. He liked having someone to talk to. "Two new members joined the guild today. Besides Juvia, who everyone already sort of knew was coming, there's one more you really wouldn't guess."
"Gajeel," Chase said, examining a Dark Magician Girl figure from the display.
Marcus stared at him. His mouth opened.
"How did you know that?"
"Intuition that comes with being S-Class. You'll understand when you get there."
He put the figure down and started walking toward the guild hall.
"That's still a long way off for you, though."
"If I wasn't completely sure I couldn't take him, I swear to every god I know!" Marcus gripped the edge of the counter. He stood there for a moment wrestling with the impulse. Reason won, barely, and he let out a long breath.
Chase walked into the guild hall.
Mira was behind the bar with the guild stamp in hand, ready to put the Fairy Tail mark on the two newest members. Juvia stood on one side. Gajeel stood on the other, arms crossed, looking like he wasn't sure how he felt about any of this.
Macao, Elfman, and several others were crowded around with the specific energy of people who had been waiting for exactly this moment.
"Hey! Gajeel!" Macao was grinning like he'd been holding this in for weeks. "You remember where Chase and Natsu drew on you before? Right on the backside! Just put the tattoo there, it's perfect!"
"HA! That makes complete sense!"
"Come on, man! Stop dragging your feet, just take your pants off already!"
"I still have the newspaper from that day right here, look at this! Tell me that placement wasn't inspired!"
---
Want to read 40+ chapters ahead? Join me on Patreon: patreon.com/Keep_ItUp