Fairy Tail: My Magic is a Yu-Gi-Oh! Deck — Chapter 111

Chapter 111: Resurrecting Jude!

“Sorry, I actually do,” Chase said, his tone entirely indifferent.

Jude’s pupils contracted. Staring into the young man’s calm, waveless eyes, a critical piece of information belatedly surfaced in the tycoon’s mind. He had overheard it at a high-society banquet—a rumor about a Mage from Fiore who had turned the Guiltina Continent completely upside down.

And that Mage’s name was Chase of Fairy Tail.

If the rumors were true, this man standing in his study was exactly the kind of lunatic who would annihilate the Jellal Nannu family without a second thought. Even the sprawling Heartfilia Estate could be reduced to rubble in mere minutes!

A flicker of genuine panic finally cracked Jude’s arrogant facade. Men of immense wealth and status like him feared only one thing: wild cards like Chase who operated entirely outside the rules of high society.

“It seems you still haven’t grasped the crux of the problem.” Chase let out a soft, exasperated sigh.

While threats of violence might force Jude to back off from Fairy Tail and abandon his plans for Lucy’s political marriage, fear alone wasn’t the goal here. After their brief conversation, Chase knew perfectly well that mere words wouldn’t penetrate the stubborn capitalist’s skull.

Since diplomacy was off the table, it was time for a more specialized approach.

“Mr. Jude, because you are Lucy’s father, I genuinely didn’t want to resort to this.”

“W-What are you going to do?!”

Seeing a card materialize out of thin air between Chase’s fingers, Jude’s composure shattered. He instinctively stumbled back two steps, his back hitting the heavy mahogany desk.

Chase’s voice remained perfectly level. “Spell Card: Brain Control. Activate.”

A magic circle flared to life in the center of the room, bathing the study in an eerie, pulsing light. From the glowing ring, a pair of sinister, spectral demon hands clawed their way out. Jude threw his arms up to shield his face, but the phantom claws phased right through his flesh. They expanded rapidly in his vision, plunging straight into his skull and gripping his brain.

In an instant, Jude’s world went entirely white.

Time lost all meaning. When Jude finally blinked his eyes open, the heavy atmosphere of the study had vanished. The room was deathly quiet, and Chase was nowhere to be seen.

Outside the open double doors, servants trudged down the corridor carrying heavy travel bags. Their faces were drawn, radiating a deep, suffocating gloom.

“Spetto! Baylor! What is the meaning of this?!” Jude barked, his temper flaring as he marched toward the door.

The head maid, Spetto, paused. She turned toward the study and offered a deep, trembling bow. “Master… even though the consortium has gone bankrupt, please don’t let the grief consume you. Please, take care of your health.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “Thank you so much for everything over the years!”

Me? The consortium… bankrupt?

Jude’s eyes bulged. Before his mind could even process the absurdity of the statement, a white-hot spike of agony drove itself through his temples. He let out a raw, guttural scream, collapsing into the corner of the room and curling into a tight ball as foreign memories flooded his mind.

The vicious backstabbing of his most trusted business partners. The slow, agonizing encroachment of rival guilds. The cold, mocking stares of his former allies as his empire crumbled to dust.

These memories felt too real, too vivid.

Jude’s arms fell limply to his sides. His eyes turned glassy and hollow as the crushing reality of the Heartfilia Consortium’s absolute ruin settled over him.

“No… No!” he rasped, scrambling to his feet. “There’s still a chance! If I can just open up the northern market, I can rebuild!”

He paced frantically, muttering to himself. “Capital… I just need enough capital for the travel expenses. I can make a comeback!”

Penniless and desperate, his mind immediately snapped to his daughter, Lucy, who was working at Fairy Tail.

What followed was a blur of misery. Unable to secure the funds, he walked for days on end, his expensive shoes wearing thin as he witnessed the brutal, unforgiving underbelly of society. After finally scraping together a meager living in the northern merchant towns, he began his grueling climb from the absolute bottom.

Years bled away. During his struggles, he caught wind of a horrifying rumor: Fairy Tail had mysteriously vanished. Stricken by regret, he began writing letters every year on Lucy’s birthday, pouring his unspoken love and apologies onto the pages.

But the letters went unanswered. In the end, the grief and exhaustion broke him. He withered away from illness, dying alone in a freezing, empty bed…

Jude gasped, his chest heaving violently as his eyes snapped open.

He was back in his study. Warm sunlight filtered through the grand windows, chasing away the oppressive chill of his deathbed.

Slumped in his leather executive chair, Jude stared wildly around the room. His panicked gaze finally locked onto Chase, who was sitting casually on the nearby sofa, legs crossed, taking a slow sip from a porcelain teacup.

“Mr. Jude,” Chase said, a faint smile playing on his lips. “How does it feel to be reborn?”

He hadn’t used Brain Control to forcefully rewrite Jude’s free will. Instead, he had used the card’s influence to plunge the man’s consciousness into a hyper-realistic simulation of his inevitable future. To avoid temporal paradoxes and unnecessary complications, Chase had kept the simulation vague on specific future events, focusing entirely on the emotional devastation of Jude’s bankruptcy and subsequent isolation.

Jude sat frozen, unable to form a coherent response.

For Chase, the entire ordeal had lasted no longer than it took to brew and drink a cup of tea. But for Jude, he had just lived through years of agonizing struggle, regret, and a lonely death.

The whiplash of waking from that suffocating nightmare left the tycoon’s mind reeling. His worldview had been violently shattered and stitched back together in the span of a few minutes.

After a long, heavy silence, Jude moistened his cracked lips. “That… just now… what was that?”

“Don’t worry too much about it. I just gave you a very vivid dream.” Chase set the teacup down on the saucer with a soft clink. He stood up, casually brushing a speck of dust from his coat.

Jude’s breath hitched. He stared at the young Mage, utterly bewildered.

“If you get the chance, try actually listening to Lucy’s thoughts and wishes for once,” Chase remarked, heading for the door. “By the way, the tea here is awful. I’m leaving.”

Having accomplished his goal, Chase waved a hand dismissively over his shoulder.

“Wait! Hold on!” Jude called out, his voice cracking.

His mind was still spinning with a hundred unanswered questions about that terrifyingly real magic. But above all else, he needed to know one thing. Was that truly just a dream?

Chase paused, turning his head slightly. “Is there something else?”

Jude opened his mouth, then closed it. The sheer complexity of his emotions choked the words in his throat. He didn’t even know where to begin.

“Who… who exactly are you?” he finally managed to ask, his tone stripped of all its former arrogance.

“Didn’t I tell you at the very beginning?” Chase’s lips curved into a bright, easy smile that caught the sunlight streaming through the window. “I’m Lucy’s older brother. That’s all.”

Jude stared at that simple, unburdened smile, feeling a deep sense of shock ripple through his chest.

“Oh, right,” Chase added, his tone shifting to something slightly more businesslike. “Lucy is Lucy, and you are you. We should keep our business matters strictly separate.”

The cryptic addendum left Jude momentarily stunned. Then, completely abandoning his dignified persona as a ruthless financial magnate, he threw his head back and let out a genuine, booming laugh. “You Fairy Tail Mages… you really are a calculating bunch!”

His laughter faded, replaced by a solemn, deeply earnest expression. Jude stood up from his desk, straightened his posture, and bowed deeply toward the young man.

“Thank you,” Jude said, his voice thick with newfound resolve. “Thank you for making me understand what a father should truly cherish.”

When Jude finally raised his head, the study was empty. Chase had vanished without a trace.

The room looked exactly as it had before the “dream” began. But the man standing inside it had undergone an devastating transformation.

Outside, the unconscious guards and servants slowly began to stir, shaking off their confusion as the Heartfilia Estate returned to its usual tranquil state.

However, that peace was short-lived. Down in the front courtyard, a familiar blonde girl suddenly marched through the gates.

Lucy had returned.