Chapter 257
"Natsu’s Magic Power is still rising... fifty thousand... sixty thousand... eighty thousand?! Marshall, is this actually normal?!"
Up on the judges’ platform, Mira was playing with Marshall’s Magic Power Detector, watching in disbelief as Natsu’s reserves suddenly climbed until they were almost on the same level as her own.
"Well... honestly, I’ve never completely understood Natsu either." Marshall rested his chin on one hand, equally intrigued by the numbers.
"That guy really can’t be measured by ordinary standards. His Magic Power is heavily influenced by his emotions—sometimes he acts even more like a demon than an actual demon. Every now and then, I genuinely feel like taking him apart just to see what’s going on inside..."
Makarov immediately turned toward him in horror.
"Marshall! Don’t you dare do anything stupid!"
...
Down on the battlefield, Laxus raised an eyebrow as he studied Natsu. "Your Dragon Slayer Magic can do something like this too?"
"Hahaha! Didn’t expect that, did you?!" Natsu laughed wildly, drunk on the power surging through his body.
Lightning and fire continued erupting from him as his Magic Power climbed higher and higher.
"This is my new power, Laxus! Your lightning doesn’t scare me anymore! I feel ten times stronger than usual!"
Laxus gave him a faint, almost contemptuous smile. "You’re not afraid of lightning anymore? So what?"
The next instant, his body dissolved into a flash of electricity.
Natsu barely had time to raise his arms before Laxus’s fist smashed directly into his face.
The blow sent him flying across the battlefield and straight into the lake, where he skipped over the surface before crashing down hard enough to leave a long trail of spray behind him.
Natsu crawled back out of the water a moment later, looking thoroughly irritated.
Worse, he had nearly managed to numb himself with his own lightning while submerged.
His Lightning Magic was only around LV1, so his resistance to electricity was nowhere near high enough to let him ignore something like that.
"Hey! Laxus!" Natsu shouted as he climbed back onto the island. "Where’s your honor?! That was a sneak attack!"
"The match started ages ago." Laxus looked completely unimpressed. "Was I supposed to wait until you finished taking a nap?"
"Damn it! Again!"
Natsu roared and charged straight back in.
The two immediately erupted into another brutal exchange, and the intensity was no weaker than the previous day’s S-Class battle.
Natsu’s flames now carried lightning within them, dramatically increasing both their destructive force and his own speed.
For a short time, his overall combat ability jumped several levels beyond what he could normally achieve.
The problem was that Lightning Fire Dragon Mode couldn’t be sustained for long.
If Natsu wanted to win, he had to end the fight quickly!
"...."
And then... the fight ended quickly.
Just not in the way Natsu had hoped.
Laxus looked down at him lying face-first on the ground, his face swollen and bruised beyond recognition, and gave a cold laugh.
"Natsu, you’re still not good enough. Keep training."
"..."
’I should’ve just surrendered when I had the chance...’
Natsu no longer had enough strength left to complain aloud.
His sudden power-up had certainly been spectacular, and Lightning Fire Dragon Mode was frighteningly powerful, but the temporary boost still wasn’t enough to completely erase the gap between him and Laxus.
Laxus had entered the fight in excellent condition, whereas Natsu was relying on an explosive state he could only maintain for a limited time.
It would have been stranger if Natsu had actually won.
That said, Laxus hadn’t come through the fight untouched either.
Natsu’s new mode had forced him into a surprisingly rough brawl, and the two spent more than ten minutes trading punches at close range.
Laxus hadn’t had such a straightforward fistfight with anyone in quite a while.
Once Natsu finally ran out of strength, Mest’s attempt to steal the flag failed as well, and the Fire Dragon Team was officially eliminated.
On the way back from the battlefield, Laxus and the Thunder God Tribe happened to cross paths with Marshall’s team, who were preparing to enter for the second semifinal.
Marshall’s eyes immediately landed on the faint bruise on Laxus’s forehead.
He lowered his voice and smiled wickedly.
"Oh my~ Looks like Natsu actually managed to give Boss Laxus a good time. Why does your face look so bad? Oh? Did somebody actually hit you?"
Marshall leaned in slightly.
"How rare~"
Laxus’s eye twitched.
How had he never noticed before that Marshall could be this irritating?
"You little brat..." Laxus growled. "You’d better make it through your match. I hope I see you standing in front of me tomorrow, because I’m going to beat the hell out of you."
"Ooh, scary~"
Marshall cheerfully walked right past him and led the girls toward the semifinal battlefield.
Once they were out of earshot, he let out a long sigh.
"I really don’t want to fight Erza. That woman has never understood the meaning of ’holding back.’ The last time I actually fought her properly was when we were kids..."
Levy covered her mouth and giggled. "It’s fine. You’re the one who has to fight Erza, not us. We can go bully Laki instead."
Back when Erza had first become obsessed with claiming the position of Marshall’s big sister, the two had clashed constantly.
They fought almost every day for a while, and Marshall basically never won—he just got beaten over and over again.
Eventually, he accepted the simple truth that there was no rule saying he could only have one big sister.
At that point, Marshall stopped resisting.
After all, there was wisdom in knowing when to give up. Defeating Erza was difficult; surrendering to reality was extremely easy.
From then on, Marshall embraced the life of a salted fish and never voluntarily challenged Erza to another fight.
Lucy had only just returned from her trip into the past, so anything involving everyone’s childhood immediately caught her interest.
"Wait. Did all of you fight Erza when you were little?"
Levy shook her head frantically. "No way! Who would be stupid enough to voluntarily fight that musclebound gorilla? Having Marshall be that idiot was more than enough."
Marshall stared at her. "Huh?! You were the one who kept egging me on to fight her! Do you have no conscience at all?"
"Hehe. Those are two completely different things."
Juvia shook her head as well.
"Erza... as a romantic threat, your rating is honestly rather low. Juvia usually goes easy on you."
"?"
Naturally, what Juvia was talking about was her private love-rival rating system.
Within that system, Erza only received a single star and therefore wasn’t considered a serious threat.
Juvia’s hostility toward her was so weak that she occasionally even felt a little sympathy for her.
Lucy understood the strange workings of Juvia’s mind well enough to pretend she hadn’t heard any of that and quickly dragged the conversation back on topic.
"Anyway, Marshall will handle Erza. How are we dividing the other four?"
Levy immediately raised her hand. "I’ll take Laki!"
"Then Juvia will deal with Millianna," Juvia declared. "She looks like a suspicious little cat."
Marshall glanced toward Cana. "Sho uses Card Magic, so I’ll leave him to you."
Cana smiled confidently.
Lucy blinked.
Everyone had chosen an opponent.
Which meant the only person left for her was...
"Wait."
Her expression slowly stiffened.
"I’m fighting Wally?"
Lucy had spoken with Wally before during the Oración Seis operation, so she knew enough about him to understand that this was not exactly a free victory.
The guy loved tough-guy Western movies, knew Spatial Magic, carried Holder-Type magical firearms, and was genuinely quite strong.
’Uh...’
’Can I actually beat him?’
Lucy suddenly wasn’t so sure.
Then she looked around at the rest of her team.
Marshall hardly needed explaining.
The brat was so absurdly strong that he barely seemed human anymore, and even Erza herself had admitted that she was still below him overall.
Levy was Laki’s direct superior at the company and understood her abilities extremely well.
Looking at that matchup, Laki was probably doomed before the fight even began.
Juvia’s Water Magic was practically bugged even by Fairy Tail standards.
There simply weren’t many people in the guild who could confidently defeat her.
And Cana was one of the guild’s foremost experts in Card Magic.
Against another Mage from the same general system, she knew exactly how to exploit every opening.
Lucy slowly grew tense.
’Wait...’
’Doesn’t that mean our team is basically guaranteed to win?’
Everyone else had a favorable one-on-one matchup.
And in the end... would she be the only person getting beaten senseless?
Lucy broke into a cold sweat.
’Don’t tell me...’
’Am I the freeloader on this team?!’