Chapter 74: Jellal Makes His Move

After getting the guild mark, Natsu and Kagura left the guild to find a new home for her. Natsu suggested she stay at his place, but she quickly refused, saying it was inappropriate. He didn't continue pressing her to stay with him, knowing it was hard for a traditional girl like Kagura to stay with an unrelated man under the same roof.

So, both of them started their hunt for a nice apartment to rent. It was challenging to find a nice apartment for affordable rent in Magnolia, but they didn't give up and went all around Magnolia to find a suitable place.

Finally, after searching for the whole day, they found a lovely apartment for 70,000 Jewels per month, located only 15 minutes of walking distance from the guild. Natsu directly paid the rent for the whole year at a discounted price of 700,000 Jewels to the landowner. Kagura wanted to stop him, but Natsu insisted on it since he knew she couldn't take any requests since she hadn't started her mage training.

Kagura could sigh seeing his insistence and smile warmly. She knew Natsu did this to help her, which she was grateful for. She felt indebted to Natsu for all his help.

Both of them left the landlord's place and headed out to have supper. It was getting pretty dark, after all. Natsu was starting to get hungry.

"Natsu-sama, thank you so much for your help. I'm forever indebted to you. So, please don't hesitate to ask me if you need anything from me." Kagura said with a determined expression making her look cute in front of Natsu. She wanted to make it clear to him that she wouldn't hesitate to do anything he asks of her.

Natsu smiled and pinched her cute nose, "You don't need to worry about it. I didn't want any distractions for your training. Starting tomorrow, you can't make any excuses to stop training hehe…"

Natsu gave her a playful chuckle, in the end, making her sweat nervously. She felt that her happy days were over starting tomorrow, but she still faced him with a determined expression. She didn't want to be afraid of simple training. Little did she know that the training she would be undertaking wouldn't be so easy at all.

"I won't let you down, Natsu-sama. Please don't go easy on me. Please make me strong enough to find my brother." She spoke with a burning desire, making him sigh. He didn't want to crush all her hopes by telling her the truth. He wanted to deal with the Tower of Heaven incident first before reuniting Kagura with her brother. She wasn't strong enough to go there after all.

"Of course, I will. You're my first student, after all. Let's go and eat something now. I'm hungry!" Natsu said while his stomach started grumbling, making her giggle. Then, both of them headed to a lovely family restaurant and had a nice meal. Kagura made many small talks about her new family with Natsu occasionally teasing her making her pout.

---

After leaving Kagura, Natsu headed straight to his home. He needed some quality rest and relaxation. When he was at his house, the communication lacrima which was connected to Ultear started vibrating making him surprised. He thought Ultear wouldn't contact him anytime soon. He activated the lacrima by infusing some of his magic and connected the call.

"What's up Ultear? I didn't think you'd contact me so soon. Did you miss me that much?" Natsu mischievously questioned, feeling like teasing her a bit.

"Hehe, of course, I missed you a lot. You're a bad boy to leave your girl alone with such a dangerous task. I'm so lonely without your touch at night." Ultear said, faking her sadness. She wanted to gain his sympathy by acting like a victim, and it worked as Natsu had a sad expression on his face listening to her.

"I'm sorry about that. You know you can always leave if you want. You just need to wait a little more, and we can be together in public. You know, we can't have an official relationship with all those dark guilds on your back." Natsu said with a tired sigh. He wanted to at least destroy Jellal and 'Grimoire Heart' before introducing her to everyone. He always felt terrible for making her do his dirty work, but it was necessary to make things smoother in the end. He didn't want her to live with people constantly hunting her down.

"Yeah, I know all about that, but sometimes I also want some sort of reward for doing all of this. It will motivate me to do the job perfectly." Ultear said slyly, trying to exploit his guilt. She was jealous of Mira and Erza who could spend time with her darling in the public while she was always in the shadows. So, she wanted some rewards for her actions.

"Sigh… You don't need to ask me that. I will do anything for you unless it's impossible or goes against my principles." He said, accepting her proposal. He also felt Ultear deserved some sort of reward for her job. He didn't want to seem like a stingy person who doesn't care about his lovers.

"Yippee! That's great. Then, I want you to go on a date with me." Ultear chirped making Natsu smile. She always wanted to go on a date with her beloved. It was one of her childhood fantasies while she was imprisoned.

"Sure. That's fine with me. When do you want to go?" Natsu readily accepted her demand. This was an easy request for him, after all. Also, who wouldn't want to go on a date with a beautiful woman like Ultear?

"Hm… I'm not sure about it. I'll tell you when I've decided. Anyway, I have some news for you. Jellal is making his move soon. He sent some people to kidnap Erza." Ultear changed her tone to a serious one signifying the seriousness of the information. She wanted to inform Natsu of the future trouble so that he could prepare for it.

---

~Edited by Nyanodesu

Read up to chapter 75 in advance at my p@treon:

p@treon. com /xumit

(A/N: Don't worry there won't be any more drama.)