At Ankh's house, inside the manor that Natsu and the other little fairies jokingly called a "shelter"...
The father and son, whose ages were not actually that far apart, sneakily slipped into the study.
Anmi was worried about being discovered by people from the past and affecting the future.
Even though Ankh had already explained to him that time was not something so fragile, this kid was still as uneasy as ever.
Only after they entered the hidden study did Anmi let out a breath of relief and collapse onto the sofa inside.
Ankh poured him a glass of water, then went out and called over the maid, asking her to bring Mirajane, Gajeel, Natsu, and the others to the house.
After finishing all that, Ankh finally sat down in front of his son and smiled. "Now you can explain properly, right? What did you come to this era to do?"
Anmi pouted, his gaze drifting as he said, "It's a long story…"
"No rush. We have plenty of time."
Ankh expressed that he was all ears, his eyes filled with rare curiosity.
Anmi cleared his throat and prepared to start from the beginning.
"All right, then I'll start from the very beginning. I came from the future seventeen years later. I just turned fifteen. At that time, Fairy Tail…"
"Good… good…"
Anmi had only just begun when he saw Ankh, who seemed to be deep in thought, sigh emotionally.
"Two years later, huh… Looks like I still wasn't working hard enough."
Anmi could not help rolling his eyes again and retorted, "You worked hard enough already! I forgot to tell you, I also have one older sister, two younger brothers, and three younger sisters!"
Seeing that his father finally shut up, Anmi continued.
"Back then, you took over as Fairy Tail's Sixth Master. After doing it for two years, you found it boring, so you handed the position over to Uncle Laxus and went traveling everywhere with Mom and the others."
"Later, Uncle Laxus also felt that being guild master and managing people was incredibly boring, so he found an excuse and handed the position over to Aunt Lucy."
"After that, Uncle Laxus took his wife…"
"Wife? Who?!"
Ankh suddenly interrupted again, his eyes shining as he asked.
He really wanted to know about the future love life of this good brother of his.
As Laxus's close friend, Ankh knew that back when this brat had been arrogant and not particularly steady, he could almost be called half a playboy.
Ankh even knew Laxus had dated a few girls outside the guild, but they were all unfamiliar faces to him, probably minor characters unrelated to the main story.
It was just that every one of them had been scared off by Laxus after only a few days, so Ankh never even had time to get to know them.
After the Fairy Love Festival, things seemed to improve quite a bit.
Based on Ankh's observations, there were a few possible targets in the guild too.
One was Cana, who got along with him very well. Another was Lisanna, whom he spoiled like a younger sister and interacted with quite closely.
And then there was…
Freed…
After being interrupted again, Anmi said irritably, "I can't say."
"Why?"
"Uncle got married late to begin with. If I affect the future, I'm afraid Uncle Laxus will beat me up when I go back."
"…And you're not afraid I'll beat you up?"
"You're my real dad, so you won't go too far. But him? That's hard to say."
Ankh sucked in a sharp breath, then patted Anmi on the shoulder in admiration. He could not help pointing at him and laughing.
"You really are Mira's son! I really can't do anything to you…"
After being interrupted twice, the topic finally continued. Anmi went on.
"After Aunt Lucy took over Fairy Tail, the guild temporarily fell into a period of emptiness. The S-Class mages were either away on missions or out on vacation. The only S-Class mage left in the guild was Uncle Natsu."
"And it was during that time that Frimorh attacked Magnolia."
Ankh frowned. "Frimorh?"
"The God of Plague and Disease. Also, during that war—"
Ankh watched Anmi's lips continue moving up and down, yet no sound came out. Suspicion immediately rose in his heart.
He raised his hand and stopped Anmi. Then he leaned closer, pulled down Anmi's collar, and revealed his neck.
At his throat, a golden pattern was shining faintly.
"Divine power of reality… Looks like the future me doesn't want the current me to know about these things."
Sensing the power contained within that mark, Ankh smiled and sat back down, then instructed him.
"Talk about something else. Avoid that topic."
Anmi obediently nodded and continued. Sure enough, his voice sounded again.
"Although Frimorh's strength had greatly declined, he joined forces with Soda, the still-powerful God of Souls, and spread a plague through Magnolia. They nearly destroyed the entire city. Thankfully, Aunt Lucy led the guild members and protected everyone."
"But Ophiuchus, whom you had entrusted to Aunt Lucy to protect the guild, was accidentally controlled by the two gods. Frimorh forcibly turned Ophiuchus into his god successor and forced her to fight us."
"Later, when the guild's S-Class mages returned, Soda and Frimorh used Ophiuchus's identity as the Ophiuchus Celestial Spirit to flee into the Celestial Spirit World. Then, with their special abilities, they contaminated and occupied the Celestial Spirit World."
Ophiuchus got into trouble…
And the Celestial Spirit World fell too…
Ankh's brows tightened more and more.
Then he ask, "What does that have to do with you coming here?"
Anmi could not help shrinking his neck slightly.
His tone became rather guilty as he said, "Aunt Lucy wanted to save the Celestial Spirits, but she couldn't find a way to enter the Celestial Spirit World. So after the guild and the kingdom's higher-ups discussed it, they came up with a new plan."
"They would use the remains of the Eclipse Gate, which had been strengthened by the gods, to connect to the few days of solar eclipses created many years ago when the Eclipse Gate was destroyed. Through that, we would travel to this era, when the Celestial Spirit World had not yet been sealed off, and enter the Celestial Spirit World within a limited time to place the fragments."
"At that point, everyone in the future would be able to use the resonance between the fragments inside and outside to force open a gate through space-time and rescue the Celestial Spirit World!"
"The flaw is that… the Eclipse fragments brought here would invisibly connect with the Celestial Spirit World occupied by the evil gods. Most likely, they would accelerate the Celestial Spirits' corruption and rebellion."
Hearing this, Ankh's pupils suddenly shrank.
He hurriedly took out Ophiuchus's golden key, released Magic Power toward the front, and swung it.
There was no sound at all!
"Open, Gate of the Ophiuchus!"
There was still no response…
It was as if the golden key was nothing more than an ornament.
Anmi lowered his head and tried hard to recall Lucy's words.
"In Aunt Lucy's diary, she recorded that these few days were the days of the Celestial Spirit rebellion. But anything written after that, even she no longer remembered. The diary also had no traces left. So everyone guessed that the past and future we traveled through might be a closed loop. Once everything settles, the timeline will correct all memories again."
Although Anmi's explanation was very messy, Ankh had roughly sorted out the situation.
Future Lucy and the others had decided to save the Celestial Spirit World, so they chose to return to the past.
But they could not create a parallel timeline like the one caused by Future Lucy during the Grand Magic Games.
Because of that, they had to create a closed loop and let the timeline continue moving forward normally.
And to complete this mission, the people traveling back to the past could not be like Future Lucy or Future Natsu, where two versions of the same person existed in one era.
They could not gamble on the uncertainty of time.
Therefore, the little fairy team that had not yet been born in this era, while also knowing Magnolia well enough, became the most suitable candidates to carry out the mission!