The morning sun crept through the grimy windows of the Fairy Tail guild hall like an uninvited guest at a party, casting golden rays across the perpetually sticky floorboards and illuminating the dust motes that danced through the air with the kind of carefree abandon that only dust motes could achieve. Birds chirped outside with almost aggressive cheerfulness, completely oblivious to the chaos that was about to unfold within the ancient stone walls of Magnolia's most notorious—and by "notorious," one meant "constantly under investigation for property damage"—magical guild.
Kazuki Tanaka, formerly known as Kevin Thompson from suburban Ohio, sat at his usual spot at the bar, nursing a glass of orange juice—because despite being reborn into a world of magic, dragons, and scantily-clad wizards, he still couldn't bring himself to drink alcohol at nine in the morning like apparently everyone else in this godforsaken guild could—and contemplated the absolute absurdity that had become his existence.
Ten years.
Ten whole years since he had opened his eyes in this world as a squalling infant, memories of his previous life as a twenty-five-year-old accountant slowly filtering back to him over the course of his childhood like the world's most confusing Netflix series playing on shuffle in his brain. Ten years of learning to walk again, learning to talk again, learning that apparently magic was real and he could manipulate sand of all things, and learning that the anime he had casually watched on lazy Sunday afternoons was now his actual, genuine, terrifyingly real life.
He had joined Fairy Tail at the age of seven, mostly because his new parents had died in a tragic accident involving a runaway magic vehicle and an unfortunately placed fruit cart—because apparently, this world's commitment to giving wizards tragic backstories extended even to unremarkable reincarnators with sand magic—and Makarov had found him sleeping behind a dumpster in downtown Magnolia.
"More orange juice, Kazuki?" Mirajane asked, leaning over the bar with a smile that could melt glaciers and had, on at least three separate occasions, caused visiting merchants to walk directly into walls while staring at her.
Kazuki looked up at the white-haired barmaid and nodded absently. "Sure, thanks Mira."
He didn't notice the way her cheeks flushed slightly pink, nor did he register how she lingered just a moment too long when their fingers brushed as she handed him the refilled glass. He was too busy mentally cataloguing the seventeen different ways today could go wrong, based on his extensive experience with Fairy Tail's particular brand of mayhem.
At twenty-seven—well, seventeen physically, but twenty-seven if you counted his previous life, which he absolutely did because he was not going through puberty emotionally twice, thank you very much—Kazuki had developed what he liked to call "Fairy Tail Survival Instincts." These instincts had been honed through countless guild brawls, three separate incidents involving Natsu accidentally setting his hair on fire, two occasions where Gray had frozen his drink solid while in the middle of an unconscious stripping episode, and one memorable afternoon where Erza had mistaken him for a training dummy and he had spent three weeks in the infirmary.
His sand magic—the one ability this world had decided to gift him with, in its infinite wisdom—was not particularly flashy. It was not particularly powerful. It did not breathe fire or conjure ice or requip into three hundred different types of armor. It made sand. He controlled sand. He could become sand, technically, though doing so felt roughly equivalent to dispersing his consciousness into a million tiny pieces and then reassembling them, which was about as pleasant as it sounded, which was to say not at all.
But he had practiced. Oh, how he had practiced.
Because here was the thing about being reincarnated into an anime world: you knew things. You knew that dragons would attack. You knew that dark guilds would rise. You knew that someone was always trying to destroy the world, and that somehow, someway, this ridiculous guild of alcoholics and exhibitionists and people with way too much emotional baggage would be at the center of it all.
So Kazuki had trained his sand magic until he could use it in his sleep—literally, on one occasion, when Natsu had tried to prank him at 3 AM and had found himself encased in a sand coffin before Kazuki had even opened his eyes.
He had learned to compress sand until it was harder than steel.
He had learned to sense vibrations through sand like the world's most paranoid seismograph.
He had learned to create sandstorms, sand clones, sand weapons, sand shields, and on one memorable occasion when he had been really, really annoyed, a sand tsunami that had accidentally destroyed two city blocks and resulted in a very strongly worded letter from the Magic Council.
But it was still just sand. Not exactly the most intimidating magic in a world where people could literally eat elements and punch through mountains and transform into Satan.
Or so he thought.
The guild hall doors slammed open with the kind of dramatic force that could only mean one thing: Natsu had returned from a mission.
"WE'RE BACK!" the pink-haired dragon slayer bellowed, his voice carrying through the hall with the subtlety of a freight train. Happy flew in behind him, blue fur slightly singed, carrying a fish that was somehow also on fire.
Gray followed, missing his shirt, his pants, and apparently his sense of shame, wearing only his underwear and a scowl. "For the last time, you pyromaniac, you didn't have to BURN DOWN THE ENTIRE BANDIT HIDEOUT!"
"They were bandits! They deserved it!"
"THE REWARD WAS FOR BRINGING THEM IN ALIVE!"
"Details!"
Erza Scarlet entered last, a mountain of luggage floating behind her in her typical impossible fashion, her expression suggesting that she was approximately three seconds away from knocking both of them unconscious. Again.
Kazuki watched this familiar scene unfold with the tired resignation of a man who had seen it approximately eight hundred times before. He took a sip of his orange juice.
And then he noticed something that made his stomach drop.
Makarov was standing on the second-floor balcony.
This, in itself, was not unusual. The tiny guild master often perched up there like a wizened gargoyle, observing his chaotic children with a mixture of pride and exasperation. What was unusual was the expression on his face.
He was smiling.
Not his normal smile, the one that said "I love my children even though they cost me more in property damage than most countries spend on their militaries." Not his slightly perverted smile, the one that appeared when someone bent over in his line of sight. Not even his battle-ready smile, the one that preceded someone getting crushed by a giant magical fist.
No, this was a different smile entirely.
This was the smile of a man who had just pulled off the greatest prank in the history of pranks and was about to watch the chaos unfold.
This was the smile of madness.
"Children!" Makarov called out, his reedy voice somehow cutting through the noise of Natsu and Gray's fight, Cana's drinking contest with herself, Elfman's passionate speech about manliness, and the general background chaos that was the Fairy Tail guild hall's default state. "Gather round! I have an announcement to make!"
The guild fell silent.
This was unprecedented.
Fairy Tail did not fall silent. Fairy Tail was constitutionally incapable of silence. There were guild members who had been known to talk in their sleep, in comas, and on one occasion, while technically dead. And yet, at the sound of Makarov's tone—that slightly unhinged, definitely-planning-something tone—every single person in the hall stopped what they were doing and turned to look at the balcony.
Kazuki felt a chill run down his spine that had nothing to do with Gray's ambient temperature reduction.
"As you all know," Makarov began, his grin widening in a way that made him look less like a beloved grandfather figure and more like a goblin who had just discovered where someone hid their gold, "I'm getting old."
"You've been getting old for fifty years!" someone shouted from the back.
"SILENCE!" A giant fist materialized and slammed into the general area of the heckler. "As I was saying. I'm getting old. My back hurts. My knees hurt. The Magic Council sends me at least three complaint letters a week, and I'm tired of writing responses that are just increasingly creative ways to tell them to go reproduce with themselves."
Muffled laughter rippled through the hall.
"So," Makarov continued, and his smile somehow got even wider, even more manic, even more absolutely terrifying, "I've decided to retire."
The silence that followed was so profound that Kazuki could hear his own heartbeat.
And then the explosion of noise hit.
"WHAT?!"
"YOU CAN'T RETIRE!"
"WHO'S GOING TO BE GUILD MASTER?!"
"IS IT ME?! IT SHOULD BE ME! I'M THE MANLIEST!"
"Elfman, sit down."
"FIGHT ME FOR IT, GRAY!"
"Natsu, NO—"
"Is it Laxus? It's Laxus, isn't it? He's going to electrocute us all!"
"Laxus isn't even here!"
"THAT'S WHAT MAKES IT TERRIFYING!"
Makarov raised his hand, and another giant fist materialized, slamming down on the bar with enough force to make everyone's drinks jump six inches into the air. Miraculously, none of them spilled. Cana caught hers without even looking, her reflexes honed by years of professional alcoholism.
"The next guild master," Makarov announced, drawing out the moment with the theatrical timing of a man who had been waiting for this his entire life, "will be..."
He paused.
The entire guild held its breath.
Makarov's grin threatened to split his face in half.
"KAZUKI TANAKA!"
Kazuki, who had been in the process of taking another sip of his orange juice, inhaled it directly into his lungs and proceeded to have what could only be described as a coughing fit of legendary proportions.
"WHAT?!" he wheezed, orange juice dribbling down his chin in a deeply undignified fashion.
"WHAT?!" the guild echoed, though with considerably more confusion and considerably less orange juice.
Makarov was laughing now, great wheezing guffaws that shook his tiny body like a leaf in a hurricane. "You heard me! Kazuki! My boy! You're the new guild master!"
"I— but— you can't—" Kazuki's brain was experiencing what could only be described as a critical system failure. "I have SAND MAGIC!"
"And?"
"AND IT'S SAND! IT'S NOT IMPRESSIVE! I'M NOT IMPRESSIVE!"
This statement was met with a strange, heavy silence.
Kazuki looked around the guild hall, confused by the sudden shift in atmosphere. Every single member was staring at him with expressions that ranged from disbelief to outright horror.
"Did..." Mira said slowly, her voice carrying a note of something Kazuki couldn't quite identify, "did you just say you're not impressive?"
"I mean... yeah? I have sand magic. Gaara from Naruto had sand magic and he was cool, but that's because he had a demon inside him and tragic backstory powers. I just have sand. Regular sand. Beach sand. Desert sand. Playground sand. Sand."
The silence continued.
Finally, Erza stepped forward, her expression unreadable. "Kazuki. Do you remember the incident in Hargeon Port three months ago?"
"The one with the sea monster? Yeah, I just—"
"You turned the entire bay into a sand trap and suffocated a Class-S magical beast in approximately forty-five seconds."
"I mean, it was mostly sand already, I just had to—"
"Do you remember," Gray interrupted, for once not in the middle of removing an article of clothing, "the mission where we ran into that dark guild in the desert?"
"The ones who were, like, way too confident about their fire magic? Yeah, I just kind of... absorbed the desert and dropped it on them."
"You buried seventy-three dark wizards in a sand tsunami and the Magic Council had to send an excavation team to dig them out. They're STILL finding them."
"To be fair, the desert was right there—"
"WHAT ABOUT THE TIME," Natsu shouted, an unusual intensity in his voice, "YOU FOUGHT THAT SANDSTORM GUY FROM THE WHATEVER GUILD AND YOU JUST—" He made an aggressive grabbing motion with his hands. "—TOOK HIS MAGIC?"
"He was using sand. I also use sand. I just... used his sand better? It's not that—"
"You ripped control of his magic away from him mid-attack and used it to encase him in a sand coffin that was so compressed it took three hours to cut through with industrial equipment."
Kazuki blinked. "...okay, that does sound kind of cool when you say it like that."
"KIND OF COOL?!" multiple voices shouted in unison.
Up on the balcony, Makarov was wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. "Oh, this is even better than I imagined. My boy, do you genuinely not understand why the Magic Council is terrified of you?"
"The Magic Council is not terrified of me," Kazuki said flatly. "I've never even— wait, is that why they always send extra guards when they visit? I thought they were just being thorough."
"They send extra guards," Makarov wheezed, "because the last time a Council member tried to give you a warning about property damage, you absently turned his shoe into sand while you were reading the paperwork and didn't even notice!"
"I was stressed! And it was an ugly shoe!"
"He was wearing it at the time!"
"...okay, I might have been more stressed than I realized."
Cana slammed her barrel of booze down on the table with enough force to crack the wood. "Kazuki. Buddy. Pal. Do you genuinely not know that you're one of the most powerful wizards in Fairy Tail?"
"I'm— that's— no. Absolutely not. You have Erza, who can requip into armor that could probably fight gods. You have Laxus, who's literally made of lightning when he wants to be. You have Gildarts, who can disassemble reality just by touching it wrong. You have Natsu, who— okay, Natsu might actually be weaker than me, sorry Natsu—"
"HEY!"
"—but the point is, I have sand. It's just sand. It's not special."
The guild exchanged looks.
It was the kind of look that said, very clearly, "he genuinely doesn't know, does he?"
Mirajane, who had been watching this exchange from behind the bar with an expression that fluctuated between fondness and exasperation, finally spoke up. "Kazuki, do you remember what you did during last year's Fantasia parade?"
"I made some sand sculptures? For the kids?"
"You made a perfectly scaled replica of the entire city of Magnolia out of sand, complete with moving figures, working water features, and a light show that rivaled the actual parade. It was three stories tall and you maintained it for six hours while also participating in the parade itself."
"I was bored. And the kids liked it."
"The mayor tried to give you the key to the city."
"I thought that was a joke!"
"It wasn't a joke. You turned the key into sand and walked away."
"I thought he was being sarcastic!"
"He cried, Kazuki. The mayor of Magnolia cried."
Kazuki opened his mouth to respond, found that he had absolutely no response to that particular revelation, and closed his mouth again.
Makarov, finally having recovered from his laughing fit, spread his arms wide in a gesture of theatrical magnanimity. "And that, my children, is exactly why Kazuki is going to be the perfect guild master!"
"Because he accidentally makes mayors cry?!" Kazuki demanded.
"Because you're powerful enough to keep this guild in line, humble enough not to abuse it, and completely oblivious enough that all the paperwork and political nonsense the Council throws at us will simply... wash over you like water off a duck's back!"
"I'm not a duck!"
"No, you're a desert! Deserts don't care about water at all! It's perfect!"
"That doesn't even make sense!"
"NOTHING IN THIS GUILD MAKES SENSE, MY BOY! THAT'S THE BEAUTY OF IT!"
And then Makarov pulled something out of his robe—a small, ornate box that Kazuki recognized with a sinking feeling of doom. It was the guild master's seal. The official, cannot-take-it-back, legally-binding symbol of authority that meant—
"No," Kazuki said.
"Yes!" Makarov cackled.
"Absolutely not."
"Absolutely yes!"
"I refuse!"
"You can't! I've already filed the paperwork with the Magic Council! As of—" Makarov pulled out a pocket watch and checked it with exaggerated care, "—ten minutes ago, you are officially, legally, and irrevocably the Fourth Master of Fairy Tail!"
Kazuki's eye twitched.
His left eye.
The one that only twitched when things were about to go catastrophically wrong.
"The paperwork," he said slowly, each word carefully measured, "was filed. Ten minutes ago."
"Indeed!"
"Before you made the announcement."
"Correct!"
"Before you asked me."
"Asking is for people who don't have centuries of wisdom and a keen understanding of what's best for their children!"
"You're not even two hundred years old!"
"I'm old enough to know that you'd say no if I asked, so I didn't ask!"
"THAT'S NOT HOW CONSENT WORKS!"
"It is in this guild!"
Kazuki turned to look at the rest of Fairy Tail, hoping—praying—that someone would back him up, that someone would point out how insane this was, that someone would—
Erza had her fist pressed to her heart, eyes shining with what looked suspiciously like tears of pride. "I always knew this day would come. You'll make an excellent master, Kazuki."
"Erza, no—"
"I'll support you with my life. And my swords. All four hundred and seventy-two of them."
"That's too many swords!"
"You're right. I'll acquire more."
"THAT'S NOT WHAT I—"
"This is gonna be awesome!" Natsu shouted, flames literally erupting from his excitement. "Now I can challenge you for the guild master position! Fight me, Kazuki!"
"I'm not going to—"
"FIGHT ME!"
"Natsu, we've been over this, fighting me is a bad idea because sand puts out fire and I will absolutely bury you—"
"THAT'S WHAT MAKES IT EXCITING!"
Gray had, at some point during this conversation, removed his remaining clothing and was now standing in just his underwear, nodding sagely. "He's got a point. You've beaten pretty much everyone in the guild at least once. Might as well make it official."
"WHEN DID I— I have NOT beaten everyone in the—"
"You buried me in sand last month when I accidentally froze your lunch."
"That was a reflex!"
"You trapped Erza in a sand coffin during that training exercise."
"She asked me to go all out! I thought she wanted to practice escaping!"
"She didn't escape. We had to dig her out."
"She said she was fine!"
"She was unconscious."
"Respectfully unconscious!"
From the back of the guild, a gruff voice called out: "He beat me too."
Every head in the room swiveled to look at Gildarts Clive, who had apparently been sitting in the corner this entire time, nursing a drink and watching the proceedings with an amused smile.
"He beat YOU?!" multiple voices shouted.
"To be fair," Gildarts said, raising his mug in a casual salute, "I was drunk and it was technically a tie, but he definitely got some good shots in."
"When did I fight Gildarts?!" Kazuki demanded.
"Two years ago. That bar in Crocus. You probably don't remember because you were also very drunk."
"I don't GET drunk!"
"You did that night. Pretty sure someone spiked your orange juice. You went on a whole rant about spreadsheets and quarterly reports and then challenged me to a fight. It was actually pretty impressive—you turned the entire bar floor into quicksand and kept me off balance for like twenty minutes."
"I... what?"
"Don't worry about it. We were both pretty out of it. But my point stands—you're plenty strong enough to be guild master."
Kazuki sank onto his bar stool, the weight of this absolutely insane situation pressing down on him like a physical force. He had spent ten years in this world trying to be normal. Trying to be unremarkable. Trying to just... exist without drawing attention to himself.
And now he was guild master.
Of Fairy Tail.
The most chaotic, destructive, notorious guild in all of Fiore.
"I need a drink," he muttered.
Cana immediately slid a barrel in his direction. "Way ahead of you, boss."
"Don't call me boss."
"Whatever you say, boss."
"Cana, I swear to every god in this world and my old one—"
"You're cute when you're stressed, boss."
Kazuki's brain, which had been struggling to process the "you're now guild master" revelation, completely failed to register the implications of that statement. He grabbed the barrel, considered his life choices, and then put it back down because he still didn't want to drink alcohol in the morning.
"Fine," he said, his voice carrying the exhausted resignation of a man who had just accepted his fate. "Fine. I'm guild master. Whatever. But I'm instituting some new rules."
"Rules?" Natsu looked personally offended by the concept.
"Rule one: No fighting in the guild hall before noon."
"WHAT?!"
"Rule two: If you destroy public property, you're filling out the paperwork yourself. Not me. You."
The hall fell silent.
"Rule three: Anyone who calls me 'boss' has to buy me a new orange juice."
"That's barely even a rule," Gray pointed out.
"Rule four: Gray, you have to be wearing at least one item of clothing at all times while in the guild hall."
"That's discrimination!"
"It's decency."
"SAME THING!"
"Rule five." Kazuki paused, a slightly unhinged smile crossing his face for the first time. "Anyone who gives me trouble about being guild master has to fight me. Personally. In the desert training grounds that I will construct specifically for this purpose."
The smile widened.
"In the desert that I control completely."
The smile became something approaching Makarov-level madness.
"With no escape."
The guild, as one, took a step back.
Makarov, watching from the balcony, felt a tear of genuine pride slide down his cheek. "That's my boy," he whispered. "I knew I chose right."
The next few hours were chaos.
Not unusual chaos—that was just the baseline for Fairy Tail. This was celebration chaos, which was chaos but with more drinking, more hugging, and more people crying for some reason.
Kazuki found himself passed around the guild like a particularly reluctant trophy, receiving congratulations, back slaps, and in Natsu's case, several attempted punches that he deflected with walls of sand that materialized seemingly from nowhere.
"How does he even DO that?" Lucy Heartfilia whispered to Levy McGarden, watching as Kazuki casually blocked another Natsu attack without even looking. "There's no sand in the guild hall!"
Levy, who had spent considerable time researching Kazuki's magic out of academic curiosity (and absolutely no other reasons, she told herself firmly), pushed her glasses up. "He carries sand. Always. In his clothes, his shoes, even his hair—there are microscopic particles of sand everywhere on his person. And he can create more by breaking down any silica-based material around him."
"Any silica-based—that includes glass, right?"
"And stone. And concrete. And most building materials."
Lucy paled. "So he could literally destroy the guild hall at any moment?"
"Theoretically? He could destroy most of Magnolia at any moment."
They both watched as Kazuki sighed deeply, dissolved Natsu's latest fire attack by suffocating it with sand, and then absently reformed a broken window that someone had shattered in the celebration.
"Why does he think he's not impressive again?"
"I have absolutely no idea."
Across the hall, the subject of their discussion was desperately trying to escape to his room. The celebration showed no signs of stopping—if anything, it was intensifying as more guild members returned from missions and heard the news—and Kazuki's "dealing with people" meter had reached critically low levels.
"Excuse me— sorry— can I just— Mira, you're standing on my foot— thank you— no, Natsu, I will not fight you— Erza, I appreciate the sword gift but I don't use swords— Elfman, I understand that becoming guild master is manly but please stop crying—"
He finally managed to reach the stairs that led to the second floor and the private rooms beyond. Just a few more steps. Just a few more steps and he could collapse on his bed and question every choice that had led him to this moment.
"Kazuki!"
He stopped, one foot on the first stair.
Makarov was standing behind him, the manic grin finally faded into something softer, warmer.
"A word, my boy?"
Kazuki sighed but turned around. "You're not going to apologize for not asking me, are you?"
"Absolutely not. But I did want to explain."
"Explain?"
The old master gestured for Kazuki to follow him, and they walked together to a quiet corner of the second floor, away from the chaos below.
"When you first came to this guild," Makarov said, settling onto a worn couch that was probably older than most of the guild members, "you were a strange child. You knew things. Understood things. Had a... weight to you that children shouldn't have."
Kazuki stiffened slightly. He had never told anyone about his reincarnation. Never so much as hinted at it.
"I didn't know what it was," Makarov continued, "and I didn't ask. That's not the Fairy Tail way. What matters isn't where you come from or what you carry—it's what you do with the time you have."
"That's very philosophical."
"I'm old. I'm allowed to be philosophical." Makarov's eyes twinkled. "But that's not why I chose you."
"Then why?"
The old master was quiet for a moment, watching the celebration below. Natsu was now on fire. Gray was now naked. Erza was lecturing both of them while somehow eating cake simultaneously. Lucy was trying to hide behind a pillar. Typical Fairy Tail.
"Because you care about them," Makarov finally said. "All of them. You pretend not to. You grumble and sigh and act like everything is a burden. But when Natsu's nightmares get bad, you put sand in his window that hums with vibrations to help him sleep. When Gray's stripping bothers Lucy, you subtly create sand clothing that dissolves before anyone notices. When Erza is too hard on herself, you leave her favorite cake in places she'll 'coincidentally' find it."
Kazuki's face was slowly turning red. "How do you—"
"I'm the guild master. Was the guild master. It was my job to notice."
"That's... invasive."
"That's family." Makarov smiled. "You're good at taking care of people, Kazuki. Better than you know. And this guild... it needs someone to take care of it. Not just lead it or fight for it—take care of it. With Laxus still finding himself, and Gildarts gone more than he's here, and my old bones getting older... I needed someone I could trust to love them. Even when they're annoying."
"They're always annoying."
"Yes. But you love them anyway."
Kazuki wanted to argue. He really did. But the words wouldn't come, because the old man was right. Despite everything—the chaos, the destruction, the constant property damage, the endless paperwork, the inexplicable nature of everyone's magic, the way they somehow managed to turn every simple mission into an apocalyptic event—he did care about these idiots.
They were his family.
His strange, loud, fire-breathing, ice-stripping, armor-wearing, alcoholic, exhibitionist family.
"I still think you should have asked," he finally said.
"And I still think you would have said no."
"I absolutely would have said no."
"Then I made the right choice." Makarov stood, stretching his tiny body with a series of alarming pops. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go drink heavily and celebrate my retirement. Try not to let them burn the guild down before morning."
"That's not encouraging!"
"It wasn't meant to be!"
And with that, the former guild master hopped off the balcony, landed on Gildarts' shoulders, and was absorbed into the celebration below.
Kazuki stood there for a long moment, watching his guild—his guild now, apparently—celebrate in the way only Fairy Tail could.
Natsu was now fighting Gray, their attacks colliding in spectacular displays of fire and ice that somehow hadn't destroyed anything yet. Erza was referee, which meant she was hitting them both whenever they got too close to her cake. Lucy was taking notes, probably for that novel she was always working on. Levy was reading in the corner, using a translation spell to decipher an ancient text while somehow also keeping track of every word of the fight happening around her.
Cana was drinking.
Cana was always drinking.
Elfman was crying about manliness.
Elfman was always crying about manliness.
Gildarts was arm-wrestling someone and clearly holding back, letting the younger wizard think they had a chance.
Mirajane was at the bar, watching the chaos with a fond smile, occasionally intervening when someone got too rowdy.
And scattered throughout, doing their own things, being their own weird selves, was the rest of Fairy Tail.
His family.
"I'm going to regret this," Kazuki muttered to himself.
He walked back down to the guild hall, sand swirling absently around his feet—he hadn't even noticed he was doing it, a nervous habit he'd developed years ago—and was immediately accosted by Natsu.
"GUILD MASTER! NOW YOU HAVE TO FIGHT ME! IT'S TRADITION!"
"There is no such tradition."
"THERE IS NOW!"
"If I beat you, will you leave me alone for the rest of the night?"
"...maybe?"
"Good enough."
What followed was not so much a fight as it was a masterclass in how not to fight Kazuki Tanaka.
Natsu opened with his usual Fire Dragon's Roar, a massive column of flame that would have incinerated a lesser wizard. Kazuki raised one hand, and a wall of compressed sand materialized between them, so dense that the fire splashed against it like water against rock.
"That's not—"
"Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!"
Another sand wall. Natsu's fist hit it and stopped dead.
"That's really not—"
"FIRE DRAGON'S WING ATTACK!"
Twin sand walls, curving to redirect the attack upward and away from the guild.
"Natsu, you're not even trying different tactics—"
"FIRE DRAGON'S BRILLIANT FLAME!"
Kazuki sighed, snapped his fingers, and the floor beneath Natsu's feet turned to quicksand. The dragon slayer sank to his waist before he could react, his flames sputtering out as sand crept up his body and wrapped around his arms.
"That's really not fair," Natsu wheezed.
"You challenged a sand wizard to a fight inside a building with stone floors," Kazuki said flatly. "What did you think was going to happen?"
"...I didn't think?"
"You never think."
"THAT'S MY SECRET WEAPON!"
Kazuki couldn't help it. He laughed.
It was a small sound, barely audible over the noise of the guild, but it was genuine. For all his complaints, for all his protests, for all his insistence that this was a bad idea and he was completely unqualified...
Maybe this wouldn't be so terrible.
"Fine," he said, releasing Natsu from the sand with a wave of his hand. "You get one free fight per week. Scheduled in advance. In the training grounds. Where I can't cause property damage."
"YES!" Natsu pumped his fist, flames erupting in celebration. "I'M GONNA WIN EVENTUALLY!"
"You're really not."
"THAT'S WHAT MAKES IT EXCITING!"
The guild erupted into cheers, and Kazuki found himself smiling despite himself.
He didn't notice the way multiple pairs of eyes watched him with something more than friendly interest.
He didn't notice Erza's calculating gaze, assessing him with renewed focus.
He didn't notice Mira's soft smile, the way she unconsciously leaned toward him whenever he was nearby.
He didn't notice Lucy's blush when he absently fixed her torn sleeve with a touch of sand manipulation.
He didn't notice Levy's detailed notes in the margin of her book, observations about him that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with the way he laughed.
He didn't notice Cana's lingering looks, hidden behind her barrel.
He didn't notice the way Juvia, who had just returned from a mission, stopped dead in the doorway and stared at him with an intensity that had nothing to do with Gray for once.
He didn't notice any of it.
Because Kazuki Tanaka, former accountant, current sand wizard, and newly appointed Fourth Master of Fairy Tail, was perhaps the most romantically oblivious person to have ever existed in any universe.
And that, as Makarov would later tell anyone who would listen, was exactly what made this so hilarious.
Meanwhile, in the Magic Council headquarters in Era...
"He's WHAT?!"
"Guild master, sir. Of Fairy Tail."
Org, one of the senior council members, felt his left eye begin to twitch. "The sand wizard. The one who can apparently manipulate any silica-based material within a hundred-meter radius. The one who accidentally destroyed two city blocks with a sneeze—"
"To be fair, sir, he was very congested—"
"—is now guild master of the most destructive guild in Fiore."
"Yes, sir."
"And Makarov just... retired."
"Yes, sir."
"Without telling anyone."
"He filed the paperwork ten minutes before the announcement, sir."
Org sat down heavily. He was too old for this. He was too old for this when Makarov was guild master, and now—
"Get me a drink."
"It's ten in the morning, sir."
"I'm aware. Get me a drink."
Across the council chambers, Gran Doma was already drinking, his face locked in a permanent grimace that had only deepened upon receiving the news.
"This is a disaster," he said flatly.
"With respect, sir," said Lahar, who had been tasked with delivering the news and was deeply regretting every choice that had led him to this moment, "Kazuki Tanaka has one of the lowest personal incident rates of any Fairy Tail member. He rarely causes unnecessary property damage—"
"Unnecessary being the key word."
"—and he's generally cooperative with Council requests."
"Except for that time he turned Councilman Jethro's shoe into sand."
"He's apologized for that. In writing. Three times."
"Jethro was wearing it!"
"He's apologized for that as well."
Gran Doma drained his glass and immediately refilled it. "I want increased surveillance on Fairy Tail. Double the Rune Knights assigned to their area. And for the love of all that is magical, get me everything we have on Kazuki Tanaka. Everything."
"Sir, I should mention... our file on him is already quite extensive."
"Extensive how?"
Lahar pulled out a folder that was approximately three inches thick. "This extensive, sir."
Gran Doma stared at the folder. Then at Lahar. Then back at the folder.
"Why do we have this much information on one B-class sand wizard?"
"Well, sir, that's... actually part of the issue."
"Explain."
"We've been trying to classify his threat level for years. Based on pure magical power, he's... average. Maybe slightly above average. Nothing remarkable. But based on his combat record, his demonstrated abilities, and what we've been able to piece together about his theoretical maximum power..."
Lahar hesitated.
"Out with it."
"He should probably be classified as an S-class threat, sir. Possibly higher."
The silence that followed was absolute.
"You're telling me," Gran Doma said slowly, "that we have an S-class threat who thinks he's B-class, who just became guild master of the most chaotic guild in Fiore, and we have no idea what he's actually capable of."
"That's... accurate, sir."
Gran Doma looked at his drink, considered it, and then drank directly from the bottle.
"I need a vacation," he muttered. "I need a long vacation. Somewhere without sand."
Back at the Fairy Tail guild hall, the celebration was finally winding down.
It was nearly midnight, and even Fairy Tail's legendary stamina had its limits. Natsu was asleep on a table, Happy curled up on his head. Gray had passed out at some point and was now somehow wearing even less than his underwear—Kazuki didn't want to know. Erza had retreated to her room with the last of her cake, and most of the other guild members had either gone home or found somewhere to collapse.
Kazuki sat at the bar, nursing his seventeenth orange juice of the day, and contemplated his existence.
Guild master.
He was guild master of Fairy Tail.
"You know," a familiar voice said, and Mira slid onto the stool next to him, "most people would be celebrating."
"I'm grieving the death of my quiet life."
"You never had a quiet life. You joined Fairy Tail."
"I could have had a quiet life. In theory. In an alternate universe where I made better choices."
Mira laughed, and Kazuki definitely didn't notice how nice her laugh sounded, or how close she was sitting, or how her eyes seemed to sparkle in the low light of the nearly-empty guild hall.
"You'll be a good master," she said. "You care about everyone. Even when you pretend you don't."
"I don't pretend—"
"You made Natsu a sand dragon sculpture for his birthday because you heard him say he missed Igneel."
"...that was just magic practice."
"You stayed up all night helping Levy research a curse that was affecting her friend."
"I couldn't sleep anyway."
"You brought me flowers when I was recovering from—" She stopped, her smile flickering for just a moment. "After the incident with Lisanna."
Kazuki was quiet. He remembered that. The grief that had consumed Mira after her sister's apparent death. The way she had closed herself off, transformed from the demon she had been into the kind, gentle barmaid she was now. He had left small gifts—flowers, her favorite foods, books he thought she might like—always anonymously, always when she wasn't looking.
He hadn't thought anyone had noticed.
"That was—"
"It helped," Mira said softly. "More than you know."
Something in her voice made Kazuki's chest feel strange. Probably indigestion from all the orange juice.
"Anyway," he said, clearing his throat and definitely not fleeing from the emotional moment, "I should probably get some sleep. Tomorrow I have to... actually figure out what a guild master does."
"Mostly paperwork, from what I understand."
"Great. My favorite."
Actually, that was true. Kazuki, having been an accountant in his past life, had a genuine and unironic appreciation for well-organized paperwork. It was one of the few things from his old life that had carried over without any complications.
"Goodnight, Kazuki," Mira said, and there was something in her voice—something warm and hopeful and slightly expectant—that Kazuki completely failed to register.
"Night, Mira. Thanks for... you know. Being here."
He walked away before he could see her expression soften into something very close to adoration.
He walked away before he could notice the slight blush on her cheeks.
He walked away completely oblivious, as he always was, to the fact that yet another person had just been added to the ever-growing list of people who had feelings for the completely clueless sand wizard.
In his room—which was notably one of the few in the guild hall that wasn't constantly on fire, frozen, or otherwise magically compromised, mostly because Kazuki had reinforced every surface with compressed sand—he collapsed onto his bed and stared at the ceiling.
Guild master.
He was guild master of Fairy Tail.
In the anime he vaguely remembered from his past life, Makarov had stayed guild master until... well, until a lot of bad things happened. Things Kazuki was now in a position to potentially prevent.
That was a terrifying thought.
But also, maybe, a hopeful one.
If he was guild master, he could help prepare for what was coming. He knew about Laxus's eventual rebellion—maybe he could prevent it, or at least minimize the damage. He knew about Phantom Lord, about Edolas, about Tenrou Island and the seven-year timeskip. He knew about Tartaros and Zeref and—
Actually, he was remembering more than he thought he would.
Maybe all those late nights binge-watching anime instead of sleeping hadn't been a complete waste of time.
"Okay," he said to the empty room. "Okay. I can do this. I can... actually make a difference. Maybe save some people. Maybe prevent some disasters."
He paused.
"Maybe finally teach Natsu that fire doesn't solve everything."
He paused again.
"No, that's probably impossible. Baby steps."
With that encouraging thought, Kazuki Tanaka, Fourth Master of Fairy Tail, closed his eyes and fell into an exhausted sleep.
He dreamed of sand.
Of endless deserts and shifting dunes.
Of protecting his family from threats they didn't even know were coming.
And in the morning, he would wake up, drink his orange juice, and begin the next chapter of his ridiculous, impossible, absolutely insane new life.
But that's a story for another day.
END OF CHAPTER 1
Author's Note: And so begins the tale of Kazuki Tanaka, the most oblivious guild master in Fairy Tail history. Next chapter: Kazuki discovers that paperwork is actually the least of his problems, Natsu learns that challenging the guild master has consequences, and the Magic Council sends a "routine inspection" that is anything but routine. Also, the harem grows. Kazuki remains clueless. Makarov laughs from his beach vacation.