"Finally, found you."
Chills ran down Veyren's body as he saw Kazu's smile... It was so unnatural.
Bright Yellow Ethernano emitted from the boy. It was so dense that Veyren didn't think Kazu had this much magic power left despite his starved state.
'Where is he looking at?' Veyren turned his head in the direction Kazu gawked at.
His eyes widened in realisation. 'Shit. He now knows where my real body is.' The Veyren in front of Kazu was not a real body, but rather an illusion.
The blood circle he made around Kazu was also an illusion. The real one was made around Veyre,n who was more than one kilometre away from the current position.
"It's too late. This spell couldn't be stopped once it starts." The illusion said. Blood lines started moving away from Kazu's body—towards Veyren's real body.
"Hahahaha" Instead of being worried, Kazu started laughing out loud.
'Has he gone insane?' Just as Veyren was going to ask, he saw the lines stop.
"What the—?" Among the dozens of times he had done this, it was the first time Veyren had seen those crimson lines stop.
"Did you know? Once upon a time, a genius illusionist imparted some wise words to this foolish world. Did you know what?" A mocking smile appeared on Kazu's face as he continued to look in the direction where Veyren's real body was.
As if he could see the man clearly.
Veyren felt his throat go dry. He wanted to move his real body away from the position. Yet, the spell he had used prevented him from moving.
His instincts were warning him that if he didn't, then he would meet his end. A primal fear rose within his heart after a long time.
"There exists no technique without any weakness."
CRACK
The red lines broke like fragile glass.
'Run.' Veyren instinctively moved his body. His mind was clouded with fear.
However, even he knew that his efforts were futile.
BOOOOM
A loud sound shook the mountain range. Veyren found a ringing noise in both of his ears, indicating that he had lost his hearing.
However, even before he could register that—
"Don't expect an easy death. I will make you pay." He lip-read Kazu before his vision went dark.
---
Splash
Veyren felt something wet on his face as he started waking up. His head still throbbed as if somebody had hit him with a hammer.
"I told you, we should cut some of his fingers off beforehand. He won't easily break."
Whatever grogginess he was feeling vanished when he heard that comment. His whole body went into fight or flight instinct as he blinked his eyes a few times.
When his vision cleared up, he saw an unknown man looking at him. Beside him was Kazu, who was looking at him with a gleeful expression.
"You'd better answer things quickly. I am hungry." Kazu said while softly rubbing a knife in his hand.
It looked rather comical seeing a 12-year-old threatening a grown man, causing a few chuckles in the room. But to Veyren, who knew Kazu to some extent, it may as well be a devil smiling at him.
Veyren forced himself to remain calm when he realised that he couldn't access his magic and both his hands and legs were tied.
He slowly moved his head around the room to see the other people in the room.
His heart almost came out of his chest when he recognised the faces. Not one, not two, but 10 faces he recognised.
How could he not?
They were the most powerful people on the continent of Ishgar.
Ten Wizard Saints.
The heads of the Magic Council.
All the thoughts of possibly running went out of Veyren's head as he forced himself to think of ways to escape this predicament.
'I need to blame that ki—'
"I need to blame this kid."
Veyren's eyes widened as he looked at Kazu, looking at him with an amused smile.
'Am I under a spell?'
"Am I under a spell?"
Colour started draining from Veyren's face as he looked at Kaz,u saying his thoughts out loud.
"Hahaha. I didn't expect you to be this shocked. Didn't you expect that somebody else could use a spell similar to the one you use on others? Luckily for you, I don't know such a spell. Your thoughts are pretty easy to guess."
'He knows!' Veyren hadn't expected that Kazu knew the subtle spell he had been using on the latter. It was difficult to notice that the amount of Ethernano is even less than normal Ethernano in the atmosphere, making it perfect for using it for long periods.
"Since when?" He finally muttered, as calmness started returning to Veyren's face.
"Since when have you been using it. You know, around the time when I got a room in the mayor's house."
Veyren looked at him for a few seconds. "So...my whole plan..."
Kazu nodded. "Yeah. I only gave you the information that I wanted to give you. I knew about the illusions, too, though they were pretty real even if knowing that. Good job on that." A mocking smile appeared on Kazu's face.
"Haha, haha." Veyren let out a self-depreciating laugh. He had been so careful in making sure that Kazu was under his spell, yet all that was in vain as the foundation of his plan itself was shaky in the first place.
"So, what were the things that felt unusual? You know that gave away my existence apart from that." Veyren had been quite confident in his illusions for stealth.
It was also the reason Kazu played along with his plan to get a chance to see his real body.
"That beast attacking me randomly was unusual. I also had a feeling that somebody was watching me for a long time, so I was on guard since I entered Murkwell. Then I saw that poison mage's body. I didn't see any explicit signs of him dying, which made me believe that he somehow died due to asphyxia.
But that itself was weird. How can a mage die from that? I noted that point and moved on. My guard increased when you talked about Anne. Unfortunately, your research was bad. Anne had left the guild long before 10 years, though maybe that's what you wanted me to think. To suspect Dave?
Anyway, things became concrete when I felt myself saying my thoughts out loud. It was pretty scary when I noticed an unnoticeable spell on me. Scary stuff. Anyway, after that, I let you go with your plan.
It was pretty good to lure me into an isolated range, use illusions to trap me and make me go insane before making me not able to sleep and eat properly." Kazu didn't mind divulging information.
Veyren suspected that he was talking more to the other people present in the room than him.
"How did you have energy in your body when I showed myself?" This was the most confusing part for the man. He had waited for a few days to check Kazu's body condition and was pretty cautious about that.
Kazu chuckled. "I had put an energy bar in my body even before I entered Lusia, using a barrier. That was the only part when you weren't stalking me, so I decided that in extreme cases, if my food gets compromised, I will have a backup plan."
'He seems to have a way to track when I was watching him. No wonder... This plan was doomed to fail. If only I had known about this boy before.' Veyren internally sighed.
"Anyway, enough questions. It's time you answered this guy's questions. Otherwise, you would be losing some body parts." Kazu patted the man beside him, who blankly looked at Veyren.
'They won't sentence me to death. So, I still have a chance. I just need to get into prison once.' Veyren had a backup plan. He didn't mind if the world knew his secrets as long as he could live. So, he didn't dare to lie in front of the strongest people on the continent and answered whatever questions the man asked truthfully.
It didn't take him long before the inquiry was done and he was taken out of the room by the same man.
The last thing he saw before exiting the room was Kazu's calm smile. That smile...something was wrong.
---
"Old man, how about we have some lunch? I haven't properly eaten in days. Actually, what's today's date again?" Kazu looked at Makarov before turning his gaze to a nearby calendar.
"Already 3 months since I started this mission. Well, whatever." He shrugged.
Kazu didn't bother giving much attention to the other Wizard Saints, other than just polite greetings at the start.
"Just give me a while. This meeting won't last long." Makarov shooed him out of the room.
Fairy Tail already had a pretty bad reputation, and Council currently had a beef with the guild due to one specific reason.
Kazu.
How he had publicised Anne's incident had brought down the fame of all the magic guild and the authorities of Ishgar.
It had significantly affected the funding.
Though the higher-ups weren't affected much, the Magic Council as a whole was affected completely.
"Fine. I will be downstairs." Kazu left the room, ignoring some of the stares he was receiving.
'Though he said a bit, this meeting won't end that soon. I will just grab quick food to get some energy for what I am going to do next.' Kazu's moved his eyes towards the floor.
His gaze wasn't on the floor... but rather on something beyond it.
Veyren Kalt.
Kazu had already marked him.
His fate was sealed the moment Kazu captured him.
***
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