Chapter 15: Kakeri Village Part 2

Beta read by Shigiya.

.

.

.

Kakeri Village-

(Midnight)

In the dead of night, the mayor and the house servants had gone to sleep. At this time, a slight squeak noise came from the hall, where a large set of doors opened, and two figures dressed in black form fitting outfits that showed off their budding development sneaked through the mansion's gallery.

"What do we have to wear such clothing!?" Mirajane whispered harshly to the leading figure of Erza, who was acting as if she was a ninja. She adjust the black spandex once again, pulling the cloth from between her ass cheeks.

"Shush! Lower your voice! You might wake someone!"

"Your 'Shush' was louder than my whisper—You know what? Never mind, let's just get going."

She didn't want to start a fight and ruin their plan by waking everyone up with their fighting. And by the gods did she want to punch Erza in the face to have somehow convinced her such clothings!

Mirajane wondered why they didn't just fly away with their magic. Erza could use Heaven's Wheel while using her Satan Soul, but her partner objected. She said something like it was too flashy and someone might notice them using magic. Honestly, Mira just thought the latter just wanted to play ninja and didn't want to admit it.

"I told you I haven't got that armor yet! And if we mess up this mission, I won't be able to buy it anytime soon!" Erza glowered at her.

Did she say that out loud?

Oops.

'Kinda surprised that she's doing a good job sneaking around. Erza isn't exactly a stealthy person to begin with… then again, I'm not that stealthy either.'

Through some sort of miracle, they continued to sneak through the halls while staying undetected. Erza even bumped against a table with a vase on it and nearly broke it if it weren't for Mira catching it at the very last second.

"Your butt is too big!"

Erza's eyes twitched as she tried to push down the need to bring out her swords and deliver divine judgement on her partner, the girl couldn't go a single minute without throwing insults at her.

"Shut up, we're nearly out."

As they finally reached the front gates, and making sure to not be spotted by the guards, immediately ran as far away from the mansion until they were out of sight..

"I think this is far enough," Erza said as both hid behind a giant boulder, big enough to cover them.

The two removed their ninja outfits before requiping their normal clothes, both not minding or caring, on seeing the other naked.

"I'm surprised your fat ass didn't alert the guards," Mirajane smirked before activating her magic.

"[Take Over - Satan Soul!]"

Bright red light burst from her body as she began changing form.

Her eyes start to become darker, her eyelashes grew longer, with a dark, zig-zag pattern forms on the right side of her face. Similar patterns start to form above her right breast and on both sides of her outer thighs.

Her hair slowly rise upwards, becoming wilder and curlier, with her pony tail releasing itself from it's bow. Her ears start to transform as well, becoming longer and pointyer as they jutted backwards, resemelding those of elves. Her hands and arms also start to change as they become larger and more claw like, looking more like gaulets then hands, with a fin like material growing up the arm. Lastly, a long lizard like tail forms behind her, and a pair of large black bat-like wings.

Erza's eyes twitched once again as she looked at her new clothing.

Gone was her gothic dominatrix attire, replaced by a dark red, skimpy one-piece leotard which reveals her arms and legs and is open on the front and the back, exposing most of their belly and budding cleavage.

'Urgh, and SHE calls me a slut.'

With a single flap of her wings, Mira was quickly flying up in the air, leaving the red-head behind.

"Hey, don't leave me! [Requip - Blackwing Armor]!"

Unlike Mira, whos takeovers physically changed her body, hers was more of an clothing change.. Erza Heart Kreuz armor disappear and was replaced by a black armor with silver trimming, and silver crosse emblems in several places on the armor. It came with a revealing silver-edged breastplate and plates flanking her hips that reached down to her waist guard. The waist-guard leaves the front of Erza's body exposed, with her groin covered by a dark imbuement. With two large plates guarding her legs and two wings with black metal "arms" acting as the wings' leading structure, the parts used to fly were composed of a membrane-like material.

Even her hairstyle changed to a ponytail.

With a substantial jump, Erza launched herself off the ground in pursuit of Mira. The armor was still new, and she hadn't been able to get used to flying yet. So catching up to her partner took a while before she finally reached her.

"Hurgh, and YOU call me a slut? Just look at yourself!" Mira repeated the same thought Erza had before, pointing at the amount of skin that the armor is showing.

"Shut up, and let's get done with this quest."

Stopping their feud for the moment, the girls left the village and flew further north towards the dense jungle of the outskirt of the village.

They passed through many beasts and monsters which roamed the area, yet none of them attacked the two.

Since it was in the middle of the night, there was no trace of the Sunflower Hornets near the jungle. Thankfully, Erza did her research before coming to the town and knew that these bugs slept in underground hives that are commonly found inside caves near mountains.

"There, that should be it," Erza said as she pointed at the bottom of a mountain where both saw a cave covered in a disgusting green substance that looked to be harden.

Again, there were no traces of wandering hornets or beasts who dared to venture near the area.

Erza and Mira landed before the cave, and the latter tapped some of the hardened goo. "It's weird. We call them Sunflower Hornets since normal hornets don't usually produce honey, or whatever this is. Sunflower Bees sound more accurate; don't you think so?"

"Because that's not honey… it's their excrement." said Erza, her disgust evident on her face.

"WHAT?!"

Shocked and disgusted, Mira immediately removed her hand and proceeded to shroud her hand in a black haze of dark magic.

"Ew! Why didn't you tell me!? It might even be contagious or poisonous!"

"How could I have know that you would immediately touch things you aren't supposed to!? And aren't you highly resistant to poison in that form?" Erza shouted back, wondering what the hell kind of logic this bitch was saying.

"Doesn't make it any less disgusting! Ew, Ew, Ew!"

The redhead knight just shook her head. Her partner could be such a kid at times. Not realizing the irony, both of them were still teenagers at fifteen years old. Very devolped teenagers, but still teenagers.

She found something weird, even if Sunflower Hornets weren't nocturnal monsters, there still should be some soldier hornets patrolling the nest.

"Should we just blitz them?" Mira asked after she recomposed herself. Her anger was bubbling beneath her skin even if she calmed down from her previous outburst.

The Satan Soul form was currently her strongest form, but it had an enormous drawback. It enhanced her negative emotions like rage, anger, and bloodlust to a high degree. Making it easy for her to fall into a murderous blood rage if she wasn't careful.

Though, some would argue that her usual attitude. Of course, no one would ever say that to her face unless they wanted a demonic fist smashing their faces.

"I'll hold the entrance in case some get past you." Erza kept her Blackwing armor equipped and got into position with her sword drawn.

A grin stretched on Mira's face as she got her signal to let loose.

Ever since she was accepted into Fairy tail, Mirajane learned over time about her magic and how to use them. She used the desire to protect her siblings as the key to getting better with each fight. Her matching Erza in a fight proves enough of her dedication to getting stronger was well founded.

She still harbored resentment towards the villagers who chased them away from their homes because they thought of her as a demon, but it did not mean that she would not prove them wrong.

'I'll show them a true demon!'

Mirajane initiated a move by gathering magical energy from the surrounding area between her hands, which subsequently took the form of a large, black globe of maliciouse energy.

Erza's expression changed drastically to surprise as she quickly distanced herself from the demoness. She was familiar with that attack; being on the receiving end during the S-class trial gave her first-hand experience of how dangerous this magic spell is if not careful.

The globe grew in size till it was as large as of Mira's head. A dark and evil sensation crawled under Erza's skin the more energy she gathered.

"[Soul Exctintor!]"

With a loud shout, she launched the attack inside the cave, which turned into a sizeable black-purple beam that generated a devastating explosion

Boom!

The inside of the cave exploded with dark stained fire. If Erza hadn't stepped away in time, she would have been caught by the blast and potentially had some damage done to her armor.

If any hornets were prowling inside the entrance, they were most likely all turned to ash from the attack.

"Ha! That felt good! I needed that after yesterday!" stated Mira as she stretched her arms above.

A lot of pent-up frustration had been released at that moment. Having to travel all day with Erza and dealing with that lard tub mayor had really got on her nerves.

"Did you really have to use that much energy?"

"Shut up and let me vent!"

The two glared at each other for a moment, before Erza let out a sigh.

"Let's check the inside."

"Why? I'm pretty sure my attack just about killed everything inside." she wanted to go back and see the mayor's face when they informed him that the job had been done. And if he didn't pay up, they would take the issue to the Magical Council.

Not that they would or even succeed with how the Council didn't have a good image of her guild, but

But it's doubtful that he knows that and she would like to see his mortified expression.

Erza didn't bother with her and walked inside the burning cave.

The walls and floors had been charred from the blast, with the hardened excrement having been eradicated. She ventured deeper into the cave and realized the place was much larger than Erza had initially thought. There was already no trace of Mirajane's attack, which reached so far inside, and she had yet to find any Sunflower Hornets' corpses.

"Argh!!"

Her eyes widened as she unexpectedly heard someone scream deep within the cave.

"Hold on!" she shouted and dashed forward, going deeper inside the cave.

It wasn't until a few seconds later that she started seeing corpses of Sunflower Hornets on the ground, having been cut down. Not just that, there were traces of a recently built railway and minecarts scattered around the expanding cave system.

"Oh no…"

Up ahead, she saw a corpse. It was that of a man in his middle ages, his body filled with holes most likely done by the hornets. It was not just him. More dead bodies started to appear the deeper she traveled. From one body to ten… ten to twenty and a hundred, it just kept increasing.

Among them were the elderly, kids, and women, who all wore regular civilian clothing that looked like rags.

It looked like a nightmare…

It felt like a memory…

"This is horrible!" she cried in shock, and anger crept into her voice.

Whoever was responsible for this tragedy will pay!

Clang!

Clang!

Skecht!

Kreeeeeee!

Erza finally reached the source of the earlier shout and saw a heavily injured man defending a small group of similarly injured citizens against a group of hornets.

The man was on the losing side and was getting ganged up by the giant monster group. One of the Sunflower Hornets managed to sneak up on him and stab his forearm with its stinger. Caught off guard, the man dropped his sword and stumbled backward while grasping his bleeding arm.

"Jeel!" The people behind him cried out in worry as they were about to witness their defender soon be murdered by these horrid beasts.

"[Requip - Flight armor]!"

Before she could even fully transform, Erza rushed forward at speeds beyond what she had shown in the past. With what could be faster than what could the normal naked eye could see, she closed the distance instantly.

Swish!

An arc of light formed in the air, and in less than a second, the hornets were all cut in half.

Their bodies fell to the ground, green liquid pouring from their wounds.

As the white light settled, everyone could finally see Erza in her new armor.

Though, calling it armor would be a stretch.

Featuring significantly few armored parts compared to what she wore before, the armor was more like a fancy attire bearing reminiscence to a cheetah. Its breastplate took the form of a very revealing, armored cheetah-patterned top, with some bare armor protruding from the upper part of it, in correspondence to Erza's budding breasts and some fur lining the lower edges, exposing her stomach and some slight cleavage.

The outfit was completed by a large collar around Erza's neck and a tail hanging from the back of her shorts, both made of bushy fur, plus a pair of large cheetah's ears adorning both sides of Erza's head.

This was the Flight Armor, it was made to enhance her speed beyond her limits but it lacked defensive properties.

"A Fairy Tail mage?" The burly man—known as Jeel—who was confronting the hornets previously said as he noticed the emerald green guild mark on her upper arm.

"Yes, Erza Scarlet, S-class wizard. Please sit down! You're hurt!" Erza quickly came by his side and requiped her emergency aid kit. "Stay still; it'll hurt." She disinfected the wound before stopping the bleeding and wrapping it with a tight cloth.

"Please, I'm fine." The man tried to stop her, but Erza insisted as she continued to her work.

"Shut up! This won't be enough to fix the other damage. We'll need to bring you to the closest healer to get fully healed." She wasn't a miracle doctor like Porlyusica, but she could still manage using first aid.

"What happened here!?" Mira also joined as she finally caught up to Erza. The former looked more disturbed with the many corpses she came across on her way to the red head's location.

"Mira! Come and help me! There are several injured civilians, and need medical attention!"

"On it!" Mira didn't even bother to argue with Erza for commanding her. When it came to the safety of other people, both put their differences aside and worked in unison.

"Thank god you've arrived, Fairy Tail wizards… I almost felt like you had missed the quest I had posted." Jeel said, much to the shock of both Mira and Erza.

Something didn't sound right.

"What? The quest that… you posted?" Said Mirajane, wondering if she misheard him.

How could it be his post if the mayor mentioned that he was the one submitted the quest in the first place? Fortunately, they didn't have to ask that question as the man in front of them seemed to have figured out their confusion and decided to elaborate further.

"Indeed, I am Jeel… Kakeri Village's mayor."

"..."

"From your expression, I can safely say that you've met Rican and are confused about what's going on." he said with a solemn face.

His words carried a large amount of hate and rage when he mentioned the Rican's name.

"The quest mentioned your village's flower fields being invaded by Sunflower Hornets. Your village needed our help to get rid of them to resume the fieldwork… right?" Erza recounted what she heard from master Makarov.

"Correct, at least, that's how it started in the beginning."

Jeel started explaining everything from the beginning.

"Rican and I competed for the position of mayor last month since the previous mayor died of old age. Since I was more familiar with the people and used to be a former farmer, everyone decided that only someone like me could understand their hardships and become a suitable leader and as you may expect I had won in the end by a large margin, much to that fatso's disappointment. Not that he would win with what he had planned for this village."

"What was it?" Mirajane asked curiously.

Jeel sighed.

"This might surprise you, but our village is built upon a large gold vein running through the entire area."

Erza was surprised by that information. Such a discovery would push most people to try everything in their power to take hold of such a resource.

"Both Rican and I were long time rivals, even with our differences we knew each other like the back of our hands — I was proven wrong. I don't know what happened to him, but after getting hold of this information, he had changed for the worse. The villagers and I had agreed to split the amount equally amongst ourselves… but Rican objected heavily to my decision. He despised the idea of sharing that much resources with multiple parties and reducing our own cut by a lot and tried to usurp my power as mayor multiple times. At first, he tried to offer different sorts of riches to me so that I would hand him over the title, of course, I denied. But he wouldn't stop, each day, his schemes and plot were getting more obvious and… dangerous. It went so far that I threatened to lock him up in jail by the Magic Council if he didn't calm down."

Tears streamed down Jeel's face, feeling the weight of his actions.

"I was too naive and suffered the consequences."

"Tell me what he did…." Erza's voice went deadly for a second, and Mira didn't like the look her partner had on her face.

"After our last argument, our village suddenly began being invaded by Sunflower Hornets. At first, I thought it was a m-migration of beasts attracted by our fields and sent a quest to get rid of this problem. It was not long after I—I learned of the truth. This was all Ricans doing. That crazy, greedy man hired a d-dark wizard with the ability to co-control these monsters and began terrorizing our village each passing day. When I learned the truth, it was too late. The dark gu-guild he contacted had sent more reinforcement, and those people forcibly gathered everyone up and locked us away in this cave to later be a source of sustenance for the leader's h-hornets." he explained in between his sobs.

Many people started crying in the back. Some had lost their entire family to them, and others have lost their friends, loved ones, and even their children. What amounted to almost a thousand villagers got reduced to less than a hundred people, some of which are barely alive.

When they tried to escape, they found the exit to be blocked by the hard wax-like substance from the hornets. Since none of them could wield magic, they slowly got killed one by one by their captors.

If it wasn't for the brave ones who sacrificed their lives to save the others, there would have been no one left alive in this cave.

"...So Rican preferred to kill everyone just to get access to a few more amounts of gold, huh…." Erza's tone was flat, cold, sending a shiver down everyone's spine. Her eyes were shadowed by her hair, not allowing anyone to her expression.

"Then that whole talk the butler gave us about how the guy helped to help the village grow prosperous—"

"—Was a lie." Her partner answered, going silent for the next couple of moments.

"Erza…" Mira tried to talk to her, but she didn't get any response.

Another flash happened inside the cave, and the Flight armor changed back to the Blackwing set. She flew off at high speed, leaving Mira behind.

"Shit! Erza!"

Mira became extremely worried.

That look wasn't something she had seen in her partner's eyes ever before. She didn't want Erza to do something she might heavily regret in the future. Erza always had a tendency to go a bit far during her missions and end up wounding her targets a bit too much on some occasions. Fortunately, she never killed anyone or else she would have been throw out of the guild, but now...

"Go after her, young lady!" An old lady came beside Jeel and began taking care of his injuries. "I'll manage everything here. Go!"

Nodding to the lady, Mira flew in pursuite of Erza, hoping that she reached her in time.

{Break}

In an exquisitely decorated room, adorned in gold-plated portraits of Rican and some of which he stood together with various members of nobility.

As was the role, Rican wrote weekly reports to the Devon Group. Owned by Marquis Venol and received financial support from Duke Everlue, Rican couldn't miss out on any detail of his plans in this region.

'After that damnable Jeel decided to turn his back on me and my idea of a future filled with riches, may he rot in damnation with the people he wanted to protect for ridiculous reasons. The people? His ancestors? Fucking idiot.'

Knock

Knock

Rican frowned at the sudden disturbance. Who would come knocking at his door so late at night?

"Enter." As the doors to his room opened, a figure walked inside.

"I'm afraid I have bad news, Rican." said the figure, which was revealed to be the butler who welcomed Erza and Mira.

"Master Eudy?" Eudy Klysse is a member of a dark guild, infamous for its members being well versed in the art of controlling monsters and magical entities. Eudy, who was disguised as his butler, was the one who owned the Sunflower Hornets and brought them to the town.

His services didn't come cheap. Rican had to ask the Marquis and Duke Everlue, who supported his project here for a cut of the profit, for sufficient funds for his plans. It worked beautifully at first. The regular attack from the hornets drew enough attention of Jeel away for Eudy to bring in more people from his guild to capture the people of the town and trap them in a cave Rican had prepared for him under the guise of mining for more resources.

The village population was unprepared for a few dozens of dark wizards and their monsters to complete the task.

Unfortunately, those two nuisances showed up.

Unknown to him and Rican, Jeel had sent a quest to Fairy tail of all guilds! If it was any other guild, Rican was convinced he could pay them off or bribe them. But these Fairy Tail people were to never be messed with using such tactics.

The best outcome is for there to be no fights for them to get involved and for the two girls to return back to their guild. Hopefully not raising any suspicion,

Too bad Eudy found their rooms empty and immediately searched for them.

Even the guards didn't see anyone exit the manor.

"What!?" Rican jumped out of his chair, making all the fat on his body bounce around and jiggle.

"They must have gone to the ca—Boom!"

Before he could even finish his sentence, there was a loud explosion that came from the other side of the room, and a large piece of wall flew through the halls and hit an ill-prepared butler/dark mage in the back of his head, imbedding him in the wall, and cracking his skull. Fortunately or unfortunately, the mage passed out before he could feel the pain.

"RICAN!" A silver light flashed across the hall, and the man found a blade pushing against his skin, drawing blood in the process.

"Hiiiiiiiih!" The man screamed in fright as he saw the absolutely murderous look in the redhead Fairy tail wizards' eyes. He could see his death approaching him.

"No! Please don't kill me!" He begged the girl, only to receive a headbutt to the face.

Crack!

"Aaaargh! My… my nose!"

He could no longer focus after the blow.

The pain and panic made him slightly lose consciousness before he was brought back with a heavy punch to the stomach, feeling his lunch and bile exit his body.

"You killed all those people!" Erza screamed in a fury, ignoring the pathick man vomiting on the floor. Images of what happened in the Tower of Heaven resurfacing in her mind. Bringing back old wounds from the past, how she couldn't save her friends, how she let them die for her mistakes and how she was the cause for Broly's state back then.

Never would Erza let such scums get away!

"N-No! I didn't do anything!" he pointed at the passed-out Eudy on the wall. "It's that guy! He's the one you want! I'm innocent, I swear!"

Unfortunately, his lies didn't go unnoticed, and Erza didn't fall for them.

With a hard kick to the chest, the man screamed in pain as he felt several of his ribs crack. Erza watched the man squirm and writhe on the floor, crying from a little pain.

She found it to be completely pathic.

"People like you who bring suffering to the world! Those who bring abuse others for their own greed! And for everything you've done, there is only one way for you to pay for your actions!!"

Erza's sword was brought up her head, her intent extremely clear to Rican, who raised his hand in desperation and pleaded of his life.

Swoosh!

Her sword was brought downwards with a quick swipe. It all happened in an instant, blood flew everywhere and splashing her face. The man looked in horror as his hand touched his bleeding stomach.

"What did you do!?"

A demonic arm grabbed the blood soaked blade, showing Mirajane, who put herself between Erza and leathaly wounded Rican. She looked disbelievingly at her partner, who was just committed the greatest taboo of their guild.

"Are you out of your fucking mind!?" shouted the Demoness, shielding the man from another deadly strike, he was still alive, maybe they could call for help before it was too late.

"Move, Mira… this man needs to pay for what he's done!"

"And killing him is your answer for that!?" she pushed back the enraged knight away. "Are you even aware of what you were about to commit just now? You were about to break our guild's number one rule; no killing!" Mira wouldn't let her friend go down that path on her watch. Erza was not thinking clearly. She needed to punch some senses back into her empty-headed thick skull!

They engaged in a brawl, a clash of steel against her hardened scales. Erza wasn't fighting as usual, her moves were sloppy and kept trying to go for Rican. Mira pushed away all of her partner's attack until she managed to use Erza's tunnel vision to catch her off guard with one of her energy attack and got the redhead to fall on her back.

Before Erza could recover, Mira sat on her body, preventing the former from getting up.

"Let me go! What about everyone who died in that cave? More will fall to such an end with this man being kept ali—Bam!"

Erza got hit in the face by Mira.

The knight fell to the ground and was about to get up, but was pinned by the demoness.

"I don't have the time nor the will to listen to your messed up words."

She struck Erza's face again.

"If you think I'll let you kill that worthless scum bag and be thrown out of the guild, THEN YOU'RE WRONG!" she continued her assault on the redhead. "I'm not going to stop until you return to your senses, you fucking bitch!"

As the fire spread all over the room, Mira never let Erza move from her spot. The floor was already dented, with Erza's head continuously bashed against it. But with each strike, Mira's fist held less and less force behind their attack. Her last punch was only a light tap to her bruised cheeks.

Drip

Drip

A couple of drops of water fell on her face. Erza looked up to see Mira crying. "Mira…"

It felt like she was splashed with a large bucket of cold water, all of the anger that burned inside her heart extinguish in an instant.

"Sh-Shut up, I don't want you to leave the guild for having blood on your hands… I don't want you to leave us. So please… stop."

It hurt Erza.

She didn't think that seeing Mira in such a state could have caused so much pain in her heart. Despite their rivalry, she was still a precious comerade and friend.

For now, she would restrain herself.

Just this once.

For Mirajane.

"Fine... Let's just call the Rune knights over and get done with this quest."

That day, both Rican and his butler were arrested on charges of murder and working with forces opposing the Council and its laws. Both were sentenced to life in prison without having any chances to be set free. But in the end, the injured man was barely clinging on to his life, the medics stating that he probably wouldn't live to see another day. Mirajane talked on behalf of Erza, stating that she did so out of self defense.

Knowing of Fairy Tail's rules and having some personal vendetta against the nobleman, the leader of the Rune Knights let them go, stating that he wouldn't report this incident to the higher ups.

On the train back to Magnolia, both girls had fallen asleep from exhaustion. Leaning against each other, offering both comfort and support from the unexpected outcome of the fight, both Erza and Mira were not glad with the outcome tonight—but at least they had each other.

She didn't regret her actions, but promised Mirajane that she would change.

Erza just wished she could share this moment with all of her past friends and family.

-------------------------------

The next 5 chapters of Snafu, Harry Potter and my 2 Fate fics are already available on my P@treon. With 4 more Broly chapters at /NimtheWriter.