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The disturbance passed quickly.
With Stella's army maintaining order through the streets, the Royal City of Altair settled back into something resembling calm.
Sonya, the kingdom's Saintess and its most important living figure, made an announcement to the citizens. Three dangerous individuals, namely the Pope of the Black Magic Cult, the former Magic Council Chairman Crawford, and the former Minister of State Zash Caine, had launched a coordinated attack on the Stella Kingdom. In the course of the assault, King Animus had "unfortunately" lost his life.
The good news was that the mages of Fairy Tail had arrived in time and dismantled the attackers' plans. Apart from Animus, no one else had perished in the upheaval.
That truly was unfortunate about the King.
The citizens of Altair received this news and, after a brief pause to absorb it, began to celebrate. They had very little feeling about Animus one way or another. The Saintess was alive and unharmed, and that was what mattered.
The reason for that indifference was simple enough. After Animus had established the Stella Kingdom, the Dragon had spent most of those three centuries recuperating from its injuries within Sonya using the Dragon Soul Technique, leaving the actual work of governing to Sonya herself.
To explain why the Saintess never aged, Animus had created the position as a formal title, second only to the king, and arranged for each new "generation" of Saintess to carry the name Sonya.
Periodically, Animus would erase portions of Sonya's memories and subtly alter her appearance, convincing both Sonya and the people around her that she was simply a new woman who had taken on the role.
The result of three hundred years of this arrangement was that the Saintess had accumulated a depth of loyalty and affection from the kingdom's people that the king had never come close to matching. When the king died, almost no one asked why.
Inside the royal palace's great hall, the tables were loaded.
Sonya had arranged a banquet to thank the mages of Fairy Tail properly. This was a royal banquet, the kind none of them would ever have attended under ordinary circumstances, and Fairy Tail handled the situation as Fairy Tail always did, eating and drinking without restraint, working through courses that would have cost a month's worth of mission rewards at any normal establishment.
Sonya sat at the head of the table. Her color was still a little pale, but the relief in her face was unmistakable. She had spent three centuries without a moment that was entirely her own. The difference showed. She thanked Noah, Erza, and the others repeatedly, with a sincerity that did not diminish with repetition.
"Mr. Noah, everyone from Fairy Tail. I cannot express how grateful I am."
"Without you, I do not know how much longer Animus would have controlled me, and this country would have been steered toward disaster."
"Please accept this as a small token of my appreciation."
She passed a folded contract to Noah. He glanced at it and handed it sideways to Erza. Makarov had not made the trip, which meant matters of this kind fell to her by default.
Erza had changed into a dress in the Stella style, the formality of it softening the sharp edges she usually projected. She opened the contract, read the first clause, and her expression changed.
Sonya was gifting five percent of Stella's annual Stellanium production to Fairy Tail.
Five percent might not sound like much. But a single piece of high-purity Stellanium could fetch hundreds of thousands on the open market. Five percent of the kingdom's annual yield, purely in sale value, would be a significant sum even for a guild that had been doing well lately.
And that was before accounting for its practical uses. Stellanium absorbed starlight Magic and reduced magical damage by roughly ten percent when worked into weapons or armor.
It was among the finest crafting materials on the continent, and access to a consistent annual supply of it was the kind of arrangement that other organizations would go to considerable lengths to secure.
Sonya saw Erza's expression cycling through several things in quick succession and misread it as dissatisfaction. "I know our kingdom does not have a great deal to offer," she said, with a touch of embarrassment. "Stellanium is really the only thing we produce that is truly worth giving. I hope you are not disappointed."
"Disappointed? I am overwhelmed," Erza said quickly. "I am simply struggling to believe you are giving this much away."
The phrase "only Stellanium is worth giving" was going to stay with Erza for some time. If this five percent were put on the open market, half the continent would be fighting over the contract.
Noah made a small gesture to move them past the formality. "We'll accept it gratefully. But Sonya, what comes next for you? This country runs on your presence. People here have known the Saintess their entire lives."
Sonya looked toward the window, where the sounds of the city drifted in. Her expression was quiet and a little complicated. "I have watched generations of people in this city grow up, grow old, and die. I would be lying if I said I felt nothing for it."
She paused. "But I want to put this responsibility down for a while. I want to see the world that I have been kept from. All of it."
She turned back to Noah, and something shifted in her expression, a tentative anticipation. "There is actually something I would like to ask of your guild. There is someone I am looking for. Would it be acceptable to ask for your help?"
Noah leaned forward slightly. "Tell me who it is first."
This had caught his genuine interest. Sonya had spent three centuries either under Animus's direct control or having portions of her memory routinely erased. The number of people she could have formed any lasting connection with was extremely small.
A faint blush rose on Sonya's face. "Last month, I saw someone in the city. Just a glimpse of his back, but I am completely certain. It was the young man who avenged me and my village all those years ago."
Noah's first thought was that this was about to be another person who had been alive for over four hundred years, somehow.
He glanced at Irene, who was working her way through a plate of desserts in the corner with quiet focus. Erza understood immediately and went to bring her over.
If there was anyone who could place a Dragon Slayer from that era, it was Irene. Genuinely capable Dragon Slayers had been rare even then, and the kind who could kill multiple Dragons alone were rarer still.
Irene listened with the dessert plate still in one hand while Sonya described what she remembered. The young man had dark blue hair that fell to his waist, brown skin, a necklace strung with the teeth of some unknown creature, and strength enough to cut down several Dragons by himself as a human being.
Irene was quiet for a moment. Then something crossed her face that was not quite recognition and not quite surprise, but some combination of both, followed immediately by something more complicated.
She set the dessert plate down.
"As far as I know," she said, "there was only one mage in that era who matches that description. You have all heard his name before."
She said it plainly.
"Acnologia."
"The Black Dragon?!" Erza's composure broke for a moment, and several heads at the table turned toward her.
Acnologia, the Black Dragon, the Black Wing of the End, a being so dangerous that both the light and dark factions of the Magic world had quietly agreed never to discuss him openly, had been human once. Four hundred years ago. Standing in a burning village, killing Dragons with his bare hands.
Natsu's head snapped up from across the table. He had caught exactly two words and had been heading over before Erza finished her sentence. "You said Black Dragon. Where is he? I want to fight him right now."
The excitement in his face was completely genuine, and it was immediately matched by Gajeel, who had also abandoned his seat, and then by Wendy, Sting, and Rogue, who drifted over from different parts of the hall within seconds.
After everything that had come out on Tenrou Island, the Dragons hiding within their respective hosts had decided they could not keep the truth from the people they had raised.
Igneel, Metalicana, Grandeeney, Weisslogia, and Skiadrum had all communicated through the Dragon Soul Technique connection, explaining what they had done and why.
The reason they had entered their human children's bodies was to accumulate enough strength to face Acnologia. The reason Dragon Slayer Magic had been developed in the first place was to stop him.
Natsu and the others had not taken the news lightly. But the result was that all five of them were now acutely aware of who Acnologia was and what their foster parents had sacrificed, and every single one of them wanted a part in ending it.