"Here's 'me'… as a woman?"
Being repeatedly examined and discussed by a crowd as if he were some rare animal made Shane feel like there were needles pricking at his back.
Thinking carefully, when he met Mystogan again after waking up with longer hair, the guy's reaction had seemed even more extreme than before.
So this was the reason?
But even for counterparts from parallel worlds, changing even the gender felt way too outrageous.
"Woman? Hmph."
Levy, who was standing on the table, let out a disdainful snort.
"That cold-blooded thing can hardly be called any gender anymore. She threw away her human identity a long time ago in pursuit of magic."
The others in the hall nodded in agreement. Then those hostile, unfriendly gazes all landed back on Shane again.
"Rationally, we know we shouldn't treat you as the same person," said Macao, the one wearing glasses, in a cold voice. "But I'm sorry. With that face, we can't welcome you here. Please leave."
"…"
Shane helplessly rubbed his brow. The other version of him really was hated here.
He didn't want any meaningless conflict with people wearing the faces of his companions, so he sighed and said,
"Fine. At least please treat Mira's arm. I'll wait for her outside the guild."
With that, he turned to leave, but a gentle voice suddenly called out to stop him.
"Wait."
Shane turned back in surprise. The one who stopped him was actually Edolas's Mira.
"The bone in her arm is injured. She needs a quiet place to rest properly. This isn't the kind of light wound that can recover right away after a quick bandage."
Mira's counterpart looked at Shane and softly suggested,
"How long are you planning to wait outside like an idiot? During that time, take her to my house and let her rest."
"Hey! Mira! Are you crazy?"
It wasn't just Shane who was confused. Someone in the hall immediately shouted in protest. "No matter how kind you are, you can't just shelter a dangerous person with that face!"
"Didn't all of you just say it yourselves? We shouldn't confuse people from two different worlds."
Mira's counterpart smiled faintly. Her tone was gentle and soft, yet her words carried a strange, unquestionable force.
She turned toward the two people in the corner. "Besides, I'm not bringing him into the guild. I'm only taking him to my home. Lisanna, Elfman, you two agree too, right?"
Hearing their sister call on them, Elfman and Lisanna were obviously stunned for a moment.
The two exchanged a glance, as if they had suddenly thought of something, then nodded repeatedly.
"In that case, Lisanna, the emergency medicine at home is well stocked. Take them home and treat her wound."
Mira smiled as she instructed her. At the end, she looked at the white-haired girl who had her head lowered and added softly, "Also, find a way to cheer 'me' up."
After leaving the noisy guild, the four of them walked along a path lined with giant mushrooms.
Mira, still somewhat lost and dispirited, walked silently ahead with Lisanna and Elfman accompanying her on either side.
Shane followed quietly behind the three of them.
Compared to Mira's daze, his mind was much clearer.
Why would this world's Mira go against everyone's opinion to speak up for him?
Surely she wouldn't shelter a person wearing her enemy's face just because he was her counterpart from a parallel world.
Holding those questions in mind, they arrived at the Strauss family's mushroom house. Lisanna immediately pulled out the medical kit and began re-treating Mira's wound.
Removing the splints, cleaning the injury, applying medicine, bandaging it again… the girl's movements were very skilled and efficient, the entire process smooth and practiced.
At least from Shane's perspective, this was much better than Jack's abstract surgical skills.
"Do you do this kind of thing often?" Shane leaned against the doorframe and couldn't help asking.
"Yeah." Elfman, standing beside him, scratched his mushroom-shaped hair a little sheepishly. "I'm always clumsy and hurting myself. Lisanna patches me up every time."
"Hehe, that's because you're too careless, Brother." Lisanna chuckled softly. Her fingers moved quickly, and at the end, she tied a pretty bow on the bandage around Mira's arm.
Shane quietly watched this scene, a faint strange look flashing in his eyes.
For some reason, whether it was Elfman or Lisanna, neither of them had shown any real hostility toward his face, even though that face had stirred up so much resentment back in the guild.
That was far too abnormal.
"Sorry. I'm a little tired. I'd like to rest for a while."
Unlike Shane, who was thinking through the oddities, Mira only felt a sting in her heart as she looked at the siblings who should have been hers, yet now seemed strangely unfamiliar.
She suddenly stood up and spoke in a low voice.
"Ah… Mi—Sister, then… I'll take you to the inner room." Lisanna looked flustered, even stumbling over what to call her.
She quickly stood up and led Mira into a guest room deep down the corridor.
She pushed open the door.
"Rest here for now. I still have something to take care of. I'll come over soon."
After settling her in, Lisanna hurriedly closed the door and left like a child who had done something wrong.
Looking at the girl's retreating figure, Mira sat alone on the edge of the bed, her expression growing even dimmer.
She could clearly feel that, compared to the clever, lively little sister in her memories, this child was less spirited and more excessively obedient and accommodating.
Mira buried her head deep in her arms, her expression sorrowful.
"What's the point of thinking so much…"
There was already an answer. The real Lisanna wasn't here.
Her stubbornness over the past year now seemed like nothing more than the one-sided fantasy of an idiot.
"Someone seems to live here."
Shane, who had come in with her, looked around the room.
It was a carefully arranged room.
There was unfinished needlework on the desk. The wardrobe was half-open, revealing several brightly colored dresses for a young girl. There were even freshly picked wildflowers in a vase at the bedside.
Back in the living room, they had clearly explained that the three siblings each had their own separate rooms.
By all logic, this supposed "guest room" should have been empty year-round. Even if guests occasionally stayed here, it absolutely shouldn't have contained so many strong traces of daily life.
"Why did you come in? Can't you let me stay alone quietly for a while?"
Mira was in no mood to care about these irrelevant details.
She turned her face away, not wanting Shane to see how red her eyes were or how weak and powerless she looked.
"Standing in the living room with this face felt kind of awkward."
Shane casually found an excuse.
He walked to a corner of the room and casually materialized a dagger.
With one clean motion, he cut off his nearly waist-length black hair, leaving it at a neat length just around his ears.
"They didn't seem all that hostile to you either," Mira said, unable to resist taking a jab as she watched him slice through his hair like mud.
"That's what I find strange too."
Shane put away the dagger and shook out his newly shortened hair. He was just about to analyze his guess.
Thump.
Before he could finish, Mira suddenly stood up, crossed the few steps to him, and buried herself in his arms.
"You…"
Shane's body instantly stiffened.
"Don't talk… just let me stay like this for a while."
The girl used her uninjured left arm to wrap tightly around Shane's waist, burying her face deep against his shoulder.
Shane lowered his head and looked at the thin shoulders trembling in his arms.
"Are you crying?"
That knowingly stupid question circled in his mouth once, but in the end, he wisely swallowed it back down.
He didn't push her away. Instead, he slowly raised a hand and gently patted the Strauss family's eldest sister, who had forced herself to be strong for an entire year, as if soothing a frightened infant.
Until—
Click.
The room door was suddenly pushed open from the outside without warning.
"Mira-nee, Mira-nee! How did you get here to our—"
"Lisanna," who had only left a little while ago, appeared at the doorway in a rush. Halfway through speaking, her voice abruptly stopped.
The girl widened her lively eyes, staring at the two people tightly embracing inside the room, her face full of shock and disbelief.
"Eh—"
She covered her mouth and let out an exaggerated gasp. "Sis… what is Sister doing with Shane-nii?"
Mira froze and lifted her head from Shane's shoulder. The tears still turning in her brown-blue eyes all froze in place.
She stared blankly at the girl who had appeared like a phantom in the doorway, her voice dry and trembling with disbelief.
"Lisanna… is it really you?"
"It's me, Mira-nee!"
The girl quickly walked into the room, a dazzling smile spreading across her face.
She pointed at Shane, who was still awkwardly in the hugging position beside her, and winked playfully.
"Think about it. Everyone in this world hates Shane-nii to death. Other than me, who else would call him that?"
"But weren't you already…" Mira asked blankly.
"Ahaha, that's a long story."
The girl awkwardly scratched her cheek, then stuck out her tongue and explained,
"When I got sent flying by out-of-control Brother Elfman, I thought I was definitely dead too. But then this strange light suddenly fell from the sky and sucked me straight in."
She gestured animatedly.
"When I opened my eyes again, I just happened to see this world's Lisanna slip and fall off a cliff. I grabbed her and pulled her back up."
"Then she brought me home because I had nowhere to go. Edolas's Mira-nee protected me and kept secretly hiding me in this room the whole time."
Lisanna briefly laid out what had happened to her over the past year, then proudly added,
"To keep anyone from noticing, 'Lisanna Number Two' and I usually take turns going to play at the guild!"
"Lisanna… Number Two?"
Mira was still a little dazed. Her brain had not fully recovered from the enormous shock of regaining the little sister she had thought dead.
"Yeah!" Lisanna puffed out her chest righteously. "Because I saved her life at the cliff, so by order of ranking, I'm the glorious Number One!"
Hearing this, Shane, who was standing to the side, finally connected all the clues.
"No wonder. I was wondering why Edolas's Mira and Elfman didn't show any hostility toward me, and instead seemed kind of at a loss."
He rubbed his chin.
"So it was because you had already told them about me, right?"
"Mm-hm!" Lisanna nodded repeatedly, like a child showing off treasure. "I've always been telling them stories about our Fairy Tail in Earth Land."
At that, the girl's big eyes darted around. She leaned closer, looking back and forth between the two of them, then fired off questions like a machine gun.
"Speaking of which, when did Shane-nii wake up from underground? And also, also, you two were hugging so tightly just now. Does that mean… you finally developed that kind of embarrassing relationship?"
At that point, Lisanna dramatically covered her mouth with both hands. "Oh my gosh! I thought Shane-nii would definitely end up with Erza-nee!"
Lisanna's accident had perfectly caused her to miss the dramatic confrontation between Erza and Ultear in the guild later.
"How do you know he and Erza aren't a couple?"
Mira's voice suddenly became faint and eerie, carrying a trace of chill.
The next second, she quickly let go of Shane, raised her left hand, and rained down a merciless barrage of forehead flicks onto the girl's smooth forehead.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
"That's for sneaking off behind my back! That's for going with Elfman behind my back to take on a dangerous S-Class job! That's for disappearing for a whole year!"
As she flicked, Mira gritted her teeth and scolded her. "Do you know how worried I was? Do you know how worried everyone in the guild was?"
"Ow! Waaah, Mira-nee, stop flicking me! It really hurts!"
At first, Lisanna covered her head and ran around shouting in pain.
But when she heard the tremor hidden in her sister's angry voice, she stopped dodging.
The girl put away all her mischievousness and suddenly threw herself into Mira's arms, hugging tightly the sister who had stayed strong for her for an entire year.
"I'm sorry, Mira-nee… I'm really sorry."
Mira's hand froze in midair.
After a moment, she slowly lowered her arm and hugged her recovered sister tightly, allowing the tears of reunion to silently fall.
All the despair, self-blame, and pain vanished in that real embrace.
Shane stood a few steps away, watching the touching scene in a very good mood.
Although the process had been a little rocky, the fact that things could end so perfectly was obviously the best possible outcome.
At the very least, all those cold looks he had endured because of his counterpart's terrible reputation had not been for nothing.
"Now that we've found her, I can finally return to Magnolia early and keep planting flowers…"
The perfect reward for the Trial of Innocence was still waiting for him! Shane happily planned out his upcoming schedule in his head.
But…
Just as he was about to stretch and relax, the smile on his face suddenly froze.
He abruptly realized something very, very serious.
When he came here, he had indeed asked Carla at the guild how to follow the traces of Anima to Edolas.
But… he had been in such a hurry to leave at the time.
He seemed, maybe, probably…
to have completely forgotten to ask that white cat how to return from Edolas to Earth Land!!!