2/2

"Siegrain did that?" Ichigo looked at Jellal with a calculating glare. "Are we sure we're looking at the same person? This doesn't look like he could do such a thing, though he certainly doesn't seem to be acting as he was when I met him that one time."

"He's lost his memories," added Hibiki helpfully. "We're trusting him for now."

"That's fine with me. So long as he doesn't harm us, I won't complain. But why did you lie earlier?"

"He has history with Fairy Tail from what the Master told me. You weren't there at the time so you wouldn't know but he caused some of their members a lot of pain. And I've heard rumours about how Erza acted around him when he was Siegrain. I don't think she would take kindly to his help. And right now, we need the help."

"Help?"

"Yes," said Jura, walking up to Ichigo. "I'm afraid that despite taking out three of them that we still have problems. I'm able to manage at least one of them I believe, and we still have a team of Gray and Lyon out there too. Erza may be able to take a second one out but it is debateable at this moment. Shinji is out there somewhere but will he even find one of them? Jellal will help fill the gap for now."

"Wait. What about me?"

Jura patted Ichigo on the back. "Sorry about this."

Before Ichigo could react, Jura slammed a fist into his stomach. Ichigo doubled over in pain but Jura wasn't done, bringing the arm that had been around Ichigo's back and using it to smash Ichigo against the ground.

Wendy started rushing towards them the moment Ichigo hit the ground, not seeing a single bit of movement coming from Ichigo outside of natural breathing. "Why did you do that?" she demanded, her Magic already springing into life to begin trying to wake Ichigo.

Jura reached forward quickly and pulled her away. "No. Leave him like this." Before anyone could stop him, Jura grabbed Ichigo's body and marched over to Jellal, reluctantly placing Ichigo in the man's arms. He did the same with Natsu before facing Jellal seriously. "I'm putting my faith in you for now, trusting you won't betray us. Ichiya will report to Hibiki when you reach Christina once more. After that, hunt down any members of Oración Seis that you can."

Jellal nodded before his Magic burst to life around him, taking off and flying away. Jura watched him leave before finally turning to face an impatient Wendy and Hibiki. "Go on, ask away."

"Alright then," started Hibiki. "Why did you do that? Ichigo could have helped? Didn't we do all of this to get Ichigo back into the fight?"

"Did you not look at him?" Jura shook his head. "No, he wasn't in any condition to fight effectively. Did you not see how easily I took him down? That shouldn't have been enough in normal situations, even with a surprise attack."

Wendy slowly raised a hand, drawing Jura's attention. "But… he healed with help of my Magic."

"He healed the poison, but there is a difference from his normal condition. The drain on his Magic is a significant issue, one that we can't fix and we shouldn't get his friends to fix, not when they need as much power themselves as possible. And consider how much strain his body must have endured from rapidly absorbing Magic as he was doing."

"But he looked fine," said Hibiki. "We saw him. The cracks closed."

"And they might reopen if he started suddenly using Magic. He still needs rest. Uninterrupted rest without his Magic being used during that time period. It doesn't matter how effective he is normally if he can't even reach that level."

Hibiki sighed in resignation. "We better not need him then."

"Don't worry. I'm sure he'll be up soon enough. While I may have knocked him out for now, I doubt he would let it keep him down for long. And if we haven't defeated Oración Seis by the time he awakes, then at least he'll be in the right condition to actually do something."

Wendy softly tugged at his arm. "Why did you lie to him before though? About with Magic? That isn't how Magic works."

"I know. Your description made it sound as such. But Ichigo didn't hear everything, and it is better that way."

"But why-"

"He has no idea of what he was doing. Tell me, can Magic willing do what I said to it could to Ichigo?"

"No."

"And why can't it?"

Wendy huffed in annoyance. "I told you, Magic is alive. But even if it likes him, it doesn't mean it will do anything he can't do. Just because we can absorb Magic, doesn't mean we can alter the rate at which is happens at, and the Ethernano in the air doesn't affect that no matter how it acts. All it could do was offer its help and be there ready for use."

"That is what I thought. And if Ichigo doesn't know he has the ability, then how can we explain what he was doing if we don't even understand how he did it himself? I'd rather be able to give him answers when we eventually tell him."

Wendy sighed. "Fine…" Jura quickly glanced to Hibiki only for the Mage to hold up his hands in surrender.

"I'm fine for now. There's something I may want to ask you later if you don't mind, but it isn't very urgent."

"Good." Jura raised an eyebrow at something before he gestured a hand to something behind Hibiki. "Should that be doing that?"

Hibiki frowned and turned to look at what Jura was talking about. He frowned, looking at the Archive screen innocently hanging there. He didn't remember creating that one. And why was it flashing?

Reaching out towards it cautiously, the light intensified on the screen before blasting towards Hibiki. He screamed in pain as Jura and Wendy ran towards him but managed to get a few words out urgently. "DON'T DO ANYTHING!"

The two other Mages stopped, both looking like they wanted to jump straight towards their ally to stop his pain. The screams Hibiki made slowly decreased in intensify and his breathing slowly down to normal, his hands coming away from his head where they had clutched it during the brief session of pain he had just been subjected too.

"Are you-"

"I'm fine," said Hibiki as he cut Wendy off. "Just an overload of information, all travelling through two different Archive systems before decompressing inside my head at a rapid pace." Hibiki blinked, looking confused. "How did I know that?"

With a flick of his wrist, a dozen screens appeared around Hibiki, his fingers dancing along the controls with unnatural ease and speed. His eyes jumped from one screen to another as data rapidly appeared on each screen. "Incredible."

Jura coughed into his hand, catching Hibiki from his strange task. "What is?"

"Oh!" Hibiki scratched his head awkwardly. "I'm finding it hard to explain. It's like a mass array of knowledge was just shoved into my head, just like how Archive can transmit data. However it's different. This was done at an alarming pace for such large amounts of data. A normal Archive can't even achieve that kind of power."

Hibiki glanced at one of the screens in interest. "And that's not all. This information… It's about Nirvana."

"Nirvana." Jura stepped forward to have a look for himself. "I thought you couldn't find anything more."

"I couldn't. But someone did. Or maybe this is new information that they sent from a personal Archive system. I have to take the memories and information I just gained and input it straight into my private system just to make sense of it all."

"Is it safe?"

"As long as I don't transmit it, yeah. The moment it gets shared with someone, it leaves a data trail, and then anyone can get it if they have the skills. The guy who sent it to me, I don't know who he is but that Archive isn't normal. I can't even find the connection he made with the server."

"It seems we have a helping hand here then." Jura gestured towards a screen with what looked like a giant structure with eight legs showing on it. "These look like blueprints. Could this be Nirvana when it is unsealed?"

"Maybe." All but one screen vanished as Hibiki stored the information away once more. "Most of this doesn't seem helpful at this stage in time. I guess it will be eventualities and design plans for Nirvana and ways to stop or delay it. But this kind of information is rare. It's the kind of stuff only the Magic Council would be privy too, maybe just the Chairman himself."

"They know we are here. And they are supporting our endeavours here today. That is… Well that is something at least. I guess they know we engaged Oración Seis and this is a sign that we are getting let of the hook for illegal fighting, for today at least. Hopefully they sent something about how to reseal Nirvana permanently once more."

"Are we still alone?"

Hibiki and Jura looked at Wendy, a worried expression being shown by the girl. "What do you mean?" asked Hibiki, not noticing as Jura tensed himself.

"Something seems strange." Her eyes darted to a speck of darkness in the trees, as if looking for something. "It feels like there's someone else with us."

"What? That's impossible." To prove it, Hibiki brought up an Archive screen showing a map of the area. Small blue dots appeared to represent them and Hibiki pointed at the three bunched together. "See. That's us. No one is nearby."

"We're leaving," saying Jura abruptly.

"Huh?" Hibiki gestured back at the screen in annoyance. "Trust me, no one is here. Even suppressing your power wouldn't hide this close to us with a rapid scan of this kind. No one is there."

"Where do you think you saw someone Wendy?"

Wendy raised a hand and pointed into the darkness of the trees. "I think I saw someone over there."

Without waiting to hear anyone's protests, Jura shot a fist out, earth rocketing out of the ground and locking on to the area Wendy pointed to. Jura didn't wait to even see if his attacks connected, grabbing both Wendy and Hibiki as he threw his staff at Hibiki to grab. The earth shot out from beneath him, sending them flying away on a small board of earth. They managed to stay in the air for a few moments before crashing back into the ground. They had travelled a large distance in that time however, the boost as they shot from the ground getting them away from their original position.

"WHAT WAS THAT FOR!" demanded Hibiki, shoving Jura's staff back to its owner. "I TOLD YOU-"

"Have you ever gone on a true S Class Quest?" Jura's voice was surprisingly quiet.

"What… a true one?"

"Yes. There are the normal S Class Quests, some that could be compared to a more advanced normal Quest. What I refer to as a true S Class Quest however is one where you go alone, facing challenges that you couldn't predict and with no one to watch your back if you're wrong. When you take these missions, you learn that you have developed a gut instinct of sorts. And you learn quickly to trust it too."

Hibiki's eyes widened as he understood. "You had that feeling just now didn't you?"

"Not until Wendy said something. There was someone there, I'm sure of it."

"But who?" asked Wendy. "I couldn't find him properly. I only saw a disturbance of sorts."

"I don't know." Jura sighed. "Why didn't they attack? Were they too weak? Or did they want something else? Information? Nirvana? I don't like this. There are too many unknowns today."

"That's not the only thing," said Hibiki, panic entering in his voice. Slowly, red dot after red dot began appearing rapidly on the map, their numbers far surpassing their own. For every blue dot on the map, there were fifteen red ones to oppose them. "We need to keep moving. Oración Seis is taking this far more seriously now Nirvana is getting closer and closer to their grasp."

Wendy began shaking from the sheer number of enemies that were appearing. "It's all over…"

A reassuring hand landed on her shoulder, Jura smiling down at her. "Don't be scared. We're all still here. We won't lose hope as long as a speck of light still shines."

"That's all the Dark Guilds under Oración Seis," whispered Hibiki, making sure Wendy couldn't hear him. "Hope is getting smaller and smaller. How can you still believe we can win?"

Jura smiled at the man sadly. "Because if I don't then how can I expect anyone to fight for that cause?"

Protector Of The Fairies

As the sun set, Gray and Lyon rushed through the trees, searching for the member of Oración Seis they had spotted earlier. They had been chasing the man for a while now, and they didn't know what his game was.

They had found Midnight barely an hour ago, and since then he had led them on a wild goose chase, purposely dragging them along the worst paths possible. They had lost him as many times as they had found him by now, and the man refused to even stay and fight them. It was infuriating for both of them that Midnight didn't even acknowledge them as a proper threat to be faced.

It didn't help that they had to follow the man closer and closer to that pillar of black light. It seemed wrong, and it had to be what Nirvana. What else could it be?

And to make matters worse, they couldn't even contact Hibiki and the others anymore. The closer they had gotten to Nirvana, the more interference they had gotten. At first they had lost the ability to communicate in response to what they heard. Later on it had been missing parts of conversations. And now they couldn't even contact him.

It made things dangerous. How could they contact for help if they couldn't contact anyone? And it looked like Midnight was slowly down bit by bit. There was no way it could be exhaustion, as it was too deliberate. He was purposely slowing down, likely happy with where he had lead them too.

It sudden occurred to them that perhaps this was what Midnight had wanted from the start. To draw them somewhere where he would have an advantage, one likely to be tremendous due to the time he had spent looking for one.

Both suddenly stopped as Midnight froze, turning back round to face them with a sinister smirk on his face. His hands slowly rose and both Ice Mages brought their hands up into a creation stance, one closed fist on top of an open palm. However Midnight only clapped, the smirk never vanishing.

"I didn't expect you to pursue me so long. I guess I've played long enough. Father did say that if no one changed then I could do as I wished."

Changed? What was Midnight referring too? Gray and Lyon glanced at one another before tensing, ice gathering between their palms and their fists.

"Well then, will you help me pass the time? It's been a while since I truly got to cut lose."

Protector Of The Fairies

For all of you who thought Ichigo was already to go once more… Yeah… Sorry about that. He's out of danger but he's not in any good condition to fight. Gray and Lyon have their own opponent soon as we see here, which leaves a few others out there. Shinji is still lose but I've finally done his fight scene. I've actually gone on a bit of a writing binge and gotten to the end of chapter 41, which leaves about 1-2 more chapters of the entire arc left. I've got some nice long chapters soon, mainly chapters 39 and 40 as I feel like they should be longer as the end parts of the arc. The remaining stuff after that is closing the door of the arc before the next one can take the stage. By the way, any particular people you want to see in the Edolas Arc? I have some ideas already but I haven't written anything yet so I can still alter a few parts as I go if I think they could fit.

You can see that Ichigo isn't favoured by this new Chairman, and Org gained some respect for him as we saw. I still remember when he met Ichigo that first time in chapter 5 or 6. It's been a while. A slight bit of Isshin being mentioned, but not the one who is getting sent. Take your bets now on who it is. Also, it makes sense the Chairman has access to Super Archive as it is their central database for all the knowledge the Council has.

With the manga stuff, Kenpachi is awesome. And Fairy Tail, Wendy is awesome. And the chapter after I reveal her ability gives us a chapter where she does a Quincy type thing. I love it, and she looks awesome with Dragon Force. So far I think Natsu is the one with the most normal looking Dragon Force, well him and Laxus. All the others had more Dragon features to them from what I remember.

Anyway, till the next time. I've been Takei. Thanks for reading.