Fairy Tail: My Magic is a Yu-Gi-Oh! Deck — Chapter 125

Chapter 125: Live-In Sons-in-Law? The Strongest Team!

“Speaking of which, Mira, you really take super good care of Chase. Leaving a fresh breakfast out for him every single day~”

Watching Chase wolf down his food at the bar, Lucy leaned across the counter toward Mira, her voice dripping with pure, unfiltered gossip.

Just moments ago, Happy’s snarky comment about her revealing clothes had earned her a chorus of unwanted “compliments” from the peanut gallery, leaving her thoroughly embarrassed. Now, Lucy was out for blood. She wanted to see the unflappable Mirajane Strauss blush crimson.

Hehe, this is definitely going to be good!

“Well, Chase did help me quite a bit back on Erma Ruins Island,” Mira replied. She smiled, tilting her head as she calmly wiped down a glass, her blue eyes meeting Chase’s for a brief moment.

She instantly saw right through Lucy’s mischievous little scheme.

“Ah, so that’s how it is…”

The completely airtight, perfectly reasonable answer deflated Lucy’s sails. Disappointed that she couldn’t use any of the teasing follow-ups she had spent the last five minutes preparing, she let out a heavy sigh and rested her chin on the polished wood of the counter.

Lucy had already given up, but Mira’s counterattack arrived with lethal precision.

“But what about you, Lucy? You brought Natsu and Gray to meet your parents so quickly. How did that go? Did Jude mention which one he preferred?”

The white-haired barmaid’s smile was gentle, sweet, and utterly devastating. Hearing her father’s name dropped so casually, Lucy’s spine snapped straight. She tensed up, her eyes darting wildly around the guildhall. Only after confirming that the usual gossips were still busy arguing over Laxus did she frantically wave her hands.

“P-P-P-Preferred who?! There’s absolutely nothing like that! Natsu and Gray just barged in there on their own!”

“Oh, so it’s a ‘live-in son-in-law’ arrangement, then.” Mira tapped a finger against her delicate cheek, pretending to analyze the situation with the utmost seriousness. “If he didn’t explicitly pick one, it seems Jude wants you to make the choice yourself. Personally, I think Natsu would—”

“I’m sorry! I was wrong, Mira! I yield!”

The increasingly scandalous narrative completely broke Lucy’s defenses. Face burning red, she lunged across the counter, throwing her arms around Mira’s slender waist and burying her face in her apron, begging her to stop talking.

She knew all too well how terrifyingly fast Mira’s words could spread through Fairy Tail. If the resident busybodies caught wind of the phrase “live-in son-in-law,” there would be twenty different, highly embellished versions of the rumor circulating by tomorrow morning!

Watching the blonde celestial mage cry and beg for mercy, Chase swallowed his last bite of food and shook his head.

You’re a rookie, Lucy. Why would you ever pick a fight with Mira’s hidden sadistic streak? That’s like a goblin trying to arm-wrestle a dragon—doomed from the very start.

“Although that Laxus guy is indeed annoying, his ranting just now did remind me of something.”

The heavy clanking of armor approached, arriving just in time to save Lucy from her impending social ruin.

“Thinking about it, we seem to have been spending a lot of time together lately.” Erza stopped in front of the temporary bar, resting a hand on her hip as she looked at the group. She smiled warmly. “Natsu, Gray, Happy, and Lucy… let’s make it official. The five of us should form a permanent team!”

Natsu and Gray blinked. “?”

Lucy pointed a trembling finger at herself. “Huh? Me?!”

The surrounding guildmates instantly erupted into cheers and whistles.

“Took you guys long enough! I thought you were already teamed up!”

“Erza, Natsu, and Gray… man, that might actually be Fairy Tail’s strongest team!”

“Don’t forget Lucy! Her unmatched ability to complain definitely rounds out the roster!”

“Ahaha! Ain’t that the truth!”

Listening to the peanut gallery chime in, Lucy covered her face, twisting her body in embarrassment. “Is it really okay for me to team up with you, Erza? I’m just a newbie… I don’t have that much strength.”

She stared at the floorboards, genuinely worried that her lack of raw firepower would only hold the monsters of the guild back.

“It’s not a question of whether it’s okay,” Natsu said, flashing a massive, toothy grin. “The team is only complete with you in it, Lucy!”

“Aye!” Happy threw a paw into the air, offering his firmest salute.

Lucy’s breath hitched. Her pupils contracted slightly, and a soft, rosy flush dusted her cheeks as a wave of genuine warmth washed over her.

Watching the touching scene unfold, Chase leaned back in his stool, a dry smirk playing on his lips. Classic. The hot-blooded shounen protagonist dropping high-EQ lines on the easily swayed heroine.

Across the bar, Dark Magician Girl materialized, intimately looping her arm through Mira’s. She leaned in, whispering into the barmaid’s ear. “Wow, Mira, I didn’t peg Natsu as such a smooth talker!”

“You can never underestimate Natsu, you know~” Mira giggled, gently patting the spirit’s hat. As she spoke, her gaze drifted, intentionally or otherwise, landing squarely on a certain dense Duelist.

Just as the heartwarming atmosphere peaked, Natsu and Gray finally remembered they were standing next to each other. The two troublemakers instantly locked horns, aggressively listing off each other’s faults.

“I’m not teaming up with this droopy-eyed popsicle!”

“Who are you calling a popsicle, you squinty-eyed matchstick?!”

“Do you two have any objections?” Erza asked. Her voice was gentle, but the dark, murderous aura radiating from her armor was anything but.

The two boys instantly slammed their mouths shut. They threw their arms around each other’s shoulders, laughing loudly and pressing their cheeks together with even more forced intimacy than Alzack and Bisca.

“Actually, I originally wanted to invite Chase as well,” Erza continued, her expression dead serious. “But if I did, I just felt like something wouldn’t quite fit.”

The entire guild fell silent.

Is it really okay to just blurt out your thoughts like that?!

Your current lineup is already a natural disaster! If you add Chase to the mix, there won’t be any bounties left for the rest of us to survive on!

“I’ll pass on the team-up, Erza,” Chase said, waving a hand dismissively. “Besides, why would I want to babysit Natsu and Gray? Two weaklings who could drag me down at any given moment.”

Compared to a fixed party, Chase preferred to operate alone. His deck provided him with a small army of monsters, and his future enemies were only going to get more absurd. To properly grind his strength, he couldn’t waste time on low-level requests; his absolute minimum would be S-Class quests. In the entire guild, only a handful of people could even survive those environments alongside him.

“Damn it, Chase! There’s no way we can pretend we didn’t hear that!!”

Being openly looked down upon, Natsu and Gray gritted their teeth, flames and ice flaring from their fists. They wanted to duel him right then and there. Yet, hilariously, neither of them took a step forward, both waiting for the other to act as the vanguard.

“Phew… It’s a good thing Chase didn’t exclude me,” Lucy muttered, breathing a sigh of relief.

“Aye~ Or maybe you’re just so weak that Chase couldn’t even be bothered to name-drop you, Lucy,” Happy pointed out, delivering a critical hit of absolute truth.

“Stupid cat! You’re in the exact same boat!!” Lucy shrieked, strangling the air in front of her.

Though Chase’s mocking words were functionally identical to Laxus’s earlier insults, the crowd’s reaction was night and day.

“No way, he just called you guys dead weight and you’re taking it?!”

“Man up! If you’re a man, prove it with your fists!”

“If Chase said that to me, I’d definitely fight him to the death!”

Instead of hanging their heads in dejection, the guildmates were wildly cheering, aggressively egging Natsu and Gray on to throw the first punch.

“Hey, hey, you guys are being too mean—” Cana burped loudly, slamming an empty wine barrel onto a nearby table. She wiped her mouth and grinned fiercely. “Hey! Natsu! Gray! Do you idiots not even have a shred of courage left?!”

One should never harbor intentions to harm their guildmates. But if the ones being harmed were Natsu and Gray? Then it was a moral obligation to happily join in the dogpile.

Cana’s taunt completely crushed the boys’ last ounce of hesitation. Driven entirely by their fragile pride, Natsu and Gray roared at the top of their lungs and charged blindly toward Chase.

A split second later, the scene shifted.

The two hot-blooded rivals were flat on their backs in the dirt outside the guildhall, identical smoking lumps protruding from their foreheads as they quietly admired the bright, sunny sky.

“Hahaha!” The guild erupted into roaring laughter.

“Oh my, oh my.” Mira chuckled softly behind the bar.

“A completely unsurprising result,” Lucy snickered, shaking her head.

“You two…” Erza sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.