A Burden Has Been Lifted

Earth Land, Ishgar, Kingdom of Fiore, Akane Beach.

September, x784.

A few hours after their night activities ended, Alfonzo was the first to wake up, as usual. When he did, he first took a few seconds to properly boot up his brain. After that, he smiled at the four girls clinging to him in their sleep.

"Damn, that was much wilder than usual." Alfonzo muttered quietly while he swept Elicia's hair out of her face. "I guess getting rid of that god damn tower took a lot of weight off my shoulders. Well, not just mine, but Lici's and Erza's too."

While speaking to himself, Alfonzo circulated his magic power through his body once, to knock off any lingering effects of sleep. However, when he did, he noticed something different.

"I guess I had some kind of mental breakthrough, too." Alfonzo muttered once again. "It feels like my magic power is flowing much smoother than before."

Like that, Alfonzo continued to experiment with how well his magic power flowed, occasionally flaring it to assess how quickly he could gather his magic power to perform spells. Unfortunately, although he tried to keep the output as low as possible, his little experimentation session was noticed by two of the four sleeping girls. Namely, Cana and Erza.

"What are you doing so early in the morning, Fonzie?" Cana asked in an annoyed tone as she rubbed her eyes with her right hand.

"I felt your magic power, Alfonzo, is something wrong?" Erza asked, much more alert than Cana after waking up.

"Sorry about that." Alfonzo replied with a wry smile. "I just felt like my magic power was flowing much better after yesterday's fight. So, I tested it out a bit."

"So, now your magic power can improve after we have sex?" Cana asked curiously. "If that's the case, we should do it more often."

"But Cana, we do it almost every night." Erza replied. "How can we do it more often?"

"We'll have to start doing it during the day, then." Cana replied as if it were obvious.

Watching Cana and Erza discussing the best way to increase the amount of time they could have sex daily; Alfonzo could only shake his head.

"As tempting as that sounds, I wasn't talking about THAT kind of fight." Alfonzo said, interrupting the discussion with a wry smile on his face. "I meant the fight with Jellal."

"I see." Erza replied with a slight blush and a nod.

"So what?" Cana said. "That doesn't mean we can't' increase the amount of sex we have, does it?"

Smiling wryly once again, Alfonzo decided to not entertain that line of questioning… For now. Instead, he went on to explain what he meant, which gained a cute pout from Cana.

"As you both know, Lici and I lost our parents due to the cultists that started building the Tower of Heaven." Alfonzo said in a solemn tone. "And we were finally able to get rid of it yesterday morning."

That was enough to stop Cana's pout while she and Erza focused all their attention on Alfonzo's following words.

"Now, after finally having the time to relax, I felt… different." Alfonzo continued. "Lighter. As if a burden that was weighing me down had been removed. Obviously, the existence of that tower was bothering me. But I guess it was worse than I realized."

Hearing that, Cana instinctively hugged Alfonzo tightly while Erza grasped his hand lovingly.

"But now that the burden is gone, everything feels like it's flowing more naturally." Alfonzo said, his explanation nearing its end. "And when I say everything, I mean everything. My magic power flows better. My body feels more coordinated, and my mind feels clearer."

After saying all that, Alfonzo turned towards Erza before he spoke once again.

"I would bet that you and Lici are probably going through the same thing, too, Erza." Alfonzo said with a gentle smile. "Now that the tower that caused you so much pain is gone, there's no way you can't be feeling better. Or so I would imagine."

Hearing that, Cana also turned towards Erza with curiosity in her gaze. Meanwhile, Erza closed her eyes to consider Alfonzo's words while simultaneously checking the condition of her body and magic power.

"It would seem that you are correct." Erza said after a few moments. "I feel… free. Like my limits have been removed. But I do still feel some regret that we were unable to find Jellal after everything was over."

"Yeah, that's really weird." Cana chipped in. "I mean, it's not like you two talked all that long after the fight was over. On top of that, you weren't that far away. So, how could the current have carried him out of the range of any of our [Magic power Detection] in such a short period of time."

Erza nodded in agreement with Cana's suspicions. Meanwhile, Alfonzo closed his eyes for a moment. Then, once he gathered his thoughts, he opened his eyes and spoke them aloud.

"Something tells me that someone.. or something was influencing Jellal's mind." Alfonzo said cautiously. "After I landed my last attack and he was floating on the water's surface, I noticed something different about him. Though I can't put my finger on what it was. Still, it seemed like something had changed."

In response, Cana started contemplating Alfonzo's words. Erza, on the other hand, latched on to one part of Alfonzo's analysis.

"Something was influencing him?" Erza asked, now gripping Alfonzo's hand with both of her own. "What do you mean?"

"If I had to guess, it had been going on for a long time. It was probably the reason why he changed so much after the rebellion, too." Alfonzo said. "While I was fighting him, I kept my [Magic Power Detection] active the whole time. I mean, he was pretty fast. And even though I'm confident in my speed and reaction speed, losing track of him would have been pretty amateur, ya know. Anyway… While I can't detect which spell will be performed with [Magic Power Detection] I can feel the flow of magic power in others. And when he lost, the flow of his magic power changed completely."

Once again, the trio fell silent after Alfonzo's declaration. Eventually, Cana was the first to break the silence.

"But couldn't that just be attributed to the fact that he was on the verge of unconsciousness?" Cana asked.

"It could." Alfonzo replied with a nod.

"But you don't think that's it." Erza followed. "Do you?"

"Nope." Alfonzo replied with a shake of his head. "There are two reasons for that, actually."

Once again, Cana and Erza focused on Alfonzo's following words.

"First, I saw his magic power flow before the fight." Alfonzo said. "And it was completely different than how it was after the fight."

Nodding in understanding, Cana and Erza waited for Alfonzo to continue.

"Second, and this is just speculation, but why would he just disappear like that after the battle if something fishy wasn't going on." Alfonzo asked, slightly furrowing his brow. "Unless the one who was influencing him was afraid that the authorities would find out what was happening after scanning Jellal's mind for whatever reason."

"Like you said, for whatever reason." Cana said. "I mean, that's not something that happens very often. The only reason they would do that is if they thought Jellal had information they wanted. But other than creating the tower, what else could he have known?"

"That's why I said it was just speculation." Alfonzo replied. "But I an think of a few reasons why they would want to take a look inside Jellal's head. Chief among them being the fact that he was a spy on the Magic Council. There's no telling what else he had his hands in while he was there."

"I guess you're right." Cana replied with a contemplative expression on her face.

"Ugh…" A groan sounded from nearby, interrupting to the discussion.

Looking over, Alfonzo, Cana, and Erza noticed that Ultear had awoken and was wiping the sleep out of her eyes.

"It's too early for such deep topics of discussion." Ultear said, clearly still exhausted from last night's activities.

On a side note, Ultear was probably the most exhausted of the four girls after last night's fun. For some reason, she continuously provoked Alfonzo into punishing her. Which Alfonzo did. As a result, Ultear lost consciousness several times during the course of the night before completely passing out just before Alfonzo's last round with Erza.

That was the reason why, despite being an early riser, like Alfonzo, she did not wake up immediately after Alfonzo started flaring his magic power during his experiments on his magic power flow.

Something else to take note of is the fact that Elicia was also extra wild last night. The likely reason being that the disappearance of the Tower of Heaven's burden on her heart and mind made her much more energetic than usual.  Though, that had no bearing on the fact that she was still asleep, even now. Since it's a well-known fact that Elicia is not, and never will be, a morning person.

"Let everyone wake up properly first… Maybe have some breakfast… before having that kind of conversation." Ultear continued.

In response, Alfonzo smiled wryly while Cana simply shrugged her shoulders. Meanwhile, Erza turned towards Ultear and spoke with sincerity.

"Please forgive us, Ultear." Erza said, clenching her fist in front of her still naked chest. "WE had no intension of waking you. As recompense, you may strike me, should you desire to do so."

To that, Alfonzo's wry smile widened. At the same time, Cana and Ultear also put on wry smiles. Though, all three of them were happy that even after going through something that dealt with her traumatic past, Erza was still the Erza they knew.

"*Sigh* This isn't an anime. This world is as real as any other.' Alfonzo thought to himself while looking at the sincere expression on Erza's face. 'I mean, this event could have left some PTSD with any of us. Especially me, Lici, and Erza. But I'm glad it didn't… Or doesn't look like it did for now. I mean, what if Lici lost her bubbly personality? Or what if Erza ended up acting all emo.'

After finishing that thought, an image of Erza dressed in all black with black armor, her hair dyed black, and black nail polish appeared in his mind. On top of that, she was wearing a black eyepatch with a silver Fairy Tail emblem stitched on it.

Then, to complete the image, Erza raised her right hand and covered the eyepatch as she said: "This eye patch is used to seal the darkness in my heart. Should it ever be removed, a calamity shall befall this world."

Immediately after that image flashed in his mind, Alfonzo shook his head vigorously with a weirded out expression on his face.

'The fuck is wrong with me?' Alfonzo asked himself. 'How did I mix some chuunibyou into my image of emo Erza?'

"Alfonzo, are you okay?" Ultear asked, concern filling her tone.

Ultear's question snapped Alfonzo out of his internal musings. Then, he looked around and noticed the expressions of concern on Cana, Ultear, and Erza's faces.

"I'm fine, don't worry about it." Alfonzo replied with a reassuring smile. "I was just thinking about something, that's all."

'Damn, I gotta stop thinking about stupid shit like that.' Alfonzo scolded himself mentally. 'I bet I was making a pretty weird face while I was thinking about that shit. And that's probably why they look so concerned.'

*Growl!*

Before the girls could ask Alfonzo anymore about it, the atmosphere was broken by the sound of  a growling tummy.

Naturally, the four knew who it belonged to. So, they all looked in the direction the growl came from. And unsurprisingly, Elicia's eye lashes were starting to flutter as she was waking up.

A moment later, Elicia sleepily opened her eyes. Then, she let them lazily scan her surroundings before they landed on Alfonso and stopped.

"Fonzie… I'm hungry." Elicia said in a groggy tone. "What's for breakfast."

After the conversation from before, Alfonzo and Cana both smiled at Elicia, happy that she, like Erza, had not changed after the whole Tower of Heaven incident. Meanwhile, Ultear only rolled her eyes, having expected the first words out of Elicia's mouth. Erza, on the other hand, nodded in agreement with Elicia's statement as she placed her left hand on her tummy.

"Indeed." Erza said after nodding. "We used up quite the large amount of energy last night. I think it would be in our best interest to have something to eat."

Hearing Erza's logical statement, everyone nodded in agreement. However, her following words caused all of them, even Elicia, who was still half asleep, to deadpan.

"And I think strawberry shortcake would be the perfect breakfast after a night like the one we had last night." Erza said with her eyes sparkling. "The carbs, the fruit, and the sugar would be a perfect pick me up after such an intense evening."

Instead of responding, everyone simply looked away and started getting out of bed.

"So, what do you guys feel like having for breakfast?" Cana asked. "Personally, I'm good with anything as long as they have mimosas."

"Of course you are." Ultear replied while rolling her eyes.

"Fonzie, I want you to cook something." Elicia said while draping herself on Alfonzo as he walked towards the bathroom to get cleaned up for the day.

"No can do." Alfonzo replied. "You all picked a room without a kitchen, remember? You said something about me not cooking because we were here to relax."

To that reminder, Elicia, Cana, and Ultear all groaned in disappointment at themselves for such a stupid decision as they all disappeared into the bathrooms in the suite.

Meanwhile, Erza was left sitting alone with a confused expression on her face.

"Why did they all leave?" Erza asked herself aloud. "Did they not think strawberry shortcake for breakfast was a good idea? But I listed a few reasons why it would be. *Sigh* I don't get it. OH well, I guess I should go to the bathroom and get cleaned up, too."