Fairy Tail: My Magic is a Yu-Gi-Oh! Deck — Chapter 98

Chapter 98: Mystogan, Let’s Have a Showdown!

“The Council is here! Run!”

Compared to the calm demeanor of Chase and the rest of the guild, Natsu—an idiot whose brain only functioned properly in the middle of a brawl—instinctively turned tail and bolted. In his simple, straightforward worldview, anyone wearing a Magic Council uniform was bad news.

However, he barely made it two steps before a magic circle etched with glowing, ethereal runes flared to life beneath his sandals, locking his feet firmly to the earth.

The caster was Lahar, the bespectacled, refined-looking captain of the Custody Enforcement Unit, resting one hand casually on the hilt of his longsword. It was a rule-based barrier technique, strikingly similar to the jutsu-shiki used by Freed of the Thunder God Tribe.

“This idiot…” Gray dragged a hand down his face, groaning.

“Natsu, don’t be nervous. We’re the victims here,” Mirajane reminded him, a pleasant smile gracing her lips.

“As expected, we have no choice but to twist Natsu’s legs into a pretzel to keep him out of trouble.” Erza’s expression remained deadpan, radiating an aura that suggested she wasn’t joking in the slightest.

“Yes, yes, Mira is absolutely right! Mr. Envoy, the Council must uphold justice for us!” Makarov suddenly threw himself to the ground, launching into a theatrical display of misery. Snot and tears streamed down his wrinkled face as he wailed, “It’s too hateful! They actually reduced our precious guild—the very home we rely on for survival—into this wretched state!”

His exaggerated, miserable act was so over-the-top that the Fairy Tail members had to turn their heads away, shoulders shaking as they desperately suppressed their laughter.

The Council Envoy and Lahar frowned in unison. They looked at the weeping Makarov, then shifted their gaze to the ruined, sunken wreckage of the Phantom Lord headquarters out on the lake. Finally, they looked at Jose and his elites, all of whom were battered, bruised, and swollen beyond recognition.

For a long, silent moment, it was incredibly difficult to tell who the actual victim was.

“We will investigate the situation thoroughly. For now, all of you must proceed to the temporary station outside the city for questioning,” Lahar stated, his expression perfectly blank.

In truth, before leading the Enforcement Unit here, the Council already had a solid grasp of the incident. They knew Fairy Tail was entirely in the right this time. However, judgment required a formal process. If they simply declared Fairy Tail innocent on the spot, the Council would lose face as the supreme governing body of the magic world. At the very least, they needed to suppress the arrogance of the guild that had just toppled Phantom Lord, ensuring they didn’t get too full of themselves.

This was a direct mandate from the Council Chairman.

“Wait, questioning? Isn’t it obvious what happened?!” Cana crossed her arms, glaring at the knights.

“Exactly! No matter how you look at it, we were just defending ourselves!” Max added.

Laki, however, tapped her chin thoughtfully. “I’m actually quite good at questioning. I have plenty of wooden torture tools back at my dorm that provide a wonderful sense of distance from the soul—”

“Get a grip on the situation! We’re the ones being questioned!” Macao snapped, his face pale. “And what the hell does ‘sense of distance from the soul’ even mean?! Why do you have torture tools?!”

According to the girls in the guild, Laki’s room was apparently a terrifying museum of bizarre wooden contraptions.

“Princess, I agree with the punishment.” Virgo abruptly popped out of the dirt, her deadpan eyes shining as she stared longingly at the halberds held by the Enforcement Unit.

“You really never miss an opportunity, do you?” Lucy covered her face with one hand, utterly exhausted. After venting her emotions earlier, she was at least feeling much calmer now.

This chaotic, inexplicable banter left the Council Envoy completely stunned. Even the Enforcement Unit knights, who prided themselves on strict, unyielding law enforcement, stood frozen with complex expressions, entirely unsure of how to proceed.

“Quiet, everyone. Just cooperate with the Council.”

Makarov finally dropped his crying act to stabilize the situation. Although the Fairy Tail members were thoroughly annoyed, they respected the Master’s orders. Grumbling under their breath, they obediently allowed the knights to snap magic-sealing cuffs onto their wrists.

Chase, having recovered a fraction of his strength, pushed himself up from the rubble. He strolled over to the Council Envoy, offering a lazy chuckle. “Yo. We meet again, Mr. Envoy.”

“You—just stand right there!”

Startled by the sudden approach, the Envoy scrambled backward, instinctively shrinking behind Lahar. When dealing with the rest of Fairy Tail, or even Makarov, he could maintain his arrogant superiority thanks to his status. But Chase genuinely terrified him. The memory of that unreasonable, devastating punch Chase had thrown when summoning Erza during their last encounter was permanently burned into his mind.

Even Councilman Siegrain seemed powerless against this guy. What puzzled the Envoy even more was that before they departed for Magnolia, Ultear—who rarely involved herself in guild disputes—had specifically warned them not to make things difficult for Fairy Tail, and especially not for Chase.

“Don’t be so tense. I’m a law-abiding citizen of Magnolia,” Chase said, his smile widening as he willingly held out his wrists.

In his current state of severe magic depletion, wearing the cuffs made absolutely no difference anyway.

That sounded incredibly fake! the entire Fairy Tail guild thought in unison.

Eventually, everyone involved in the war—including the unconscious Jiemma and the entirety of the battered Phantom Lord guild—was escorted out of the city by the Enforcement Unit.

A steep cliff in the mountains overlooking the city outskirts.

The fading afterglow of the setting sun painted the horizon in bruised purples and deep oranges. A mountain breeze rustled through the forest, catching the edges of a dark cloak.

Mystogan sat casually on a protruding boulder, his right arm resting on his knee. His lone visible eye quietly tracked the massive procession being escorted out of Magnolia by the Council knights. Behind him, the five massive magic staves strapped to his back pulsed with a faint, residual glow, a clear sign they had just been heavily used.

“It seems I did something unnecessary…”

Mystogan murmured the words to the wind. He raised a hand, unfastening the clasp of his black cloak.

Rustle, rustle, rustle.

A massive pile of torn, scorched fabric tumbled from his grip. Dozens of Phantom Lord guild flags, representing various branches and colors, fluttered through the air, scattering across the surrounding trees and bushes like fallen leaves.

Upon learning that Phantom Lord was mobilizing to attack Fairy Tail, Mystogan had decided to cut off their reinforcement lines and throw their entire network into chaos. To do so, he had systematically hunted down and annihilated every single one of Phantom Lord’s satellite branches.

Entirely by himself.

The Enforcement Unit’s temporary station was erected on the southern outskirts of Magnolia. It was a massive encampment consisting of dozens of large tents, all bearing the imposing emblem of the Magic Council.

Fairy Tail and Phantom Lord were segregated into two isolated zones. Sabertooth, having only brought about ten members, was unceremoniously lumped into the Phantom Lord camp.

The Council’s medical team, having anticipated a bloodbath, immediately sprang into action. They hauled the critically injured from both sides onto stretchers, rushing them into triage. Their swift response made it glaringly obvious that the Council had been fully prepared for this outcome.

There was a distinct reason they hadn’t intervened earlier to stop the war. Fairy Tail and Phantom Lord were both massive, influential guilds, and neither was particularly obedient to the Council’s mandates. The governing body needed a legitimate excuse to break their pride and solidify the Council’s absolute authority.

, the blood feud between the two guilds ran deep. Forced mediation would only treat the symptoms, not the disease. The Council itself was fractured into political factions—some backing Fairy Tail, others Phantom Lord, and some remaining neutral. Rather than wasting vast resources constantly policing the two rivals, the higher-ups decided to simply let them slaughter each other until they were exhausted, solving the problem once and for all.

It was a brutal, pragmatic political maneuver.

As night fell, cold moonlight washed over the canvas roofs of the encampment.

Chase and Natsu waved goodbye to the blushing nurses and stepped out of the medical tent, escorted by a pair of Enforcement knights back toward the Fairy Tail containment zone. They were the only two from their guild who actually required treatment.

Chase was suffering from severe magic depletion. His condition mirrored Makarov’s state after being ambushed by Aria, though significantly milder. A few hours attached to a Magic Power supplement IV drip had stabilized him.

Natsu, having brawled like a wild animal against Gajeel, was covered in blunt-force trauma. Fortunately, the Dragon Slayer’s constitution was freakishly resilient. After some basic first aid and a hefty meal of high-quality flames, he was practically bouncing off the walls again.

Phantom Lord, conversely, had dozens of members still groaning in the intensive care wards.

“Ahahaha! Chase, did you hear them whining earlier? Those Phantom Lord guys are so weak! Some of them were begging for buckets of water!” Natsu threw his head back, laughing loudly at the memory.

“If you had salted fish violently shoved down your throat for an extended period, you’d be dying of thirst too,” Chase replied, shaking his head with an amused grin.

He imagined those unfortunate Phantom Lord mages would probably experience severe PTSD whenever they saw a blue cat or a dried fish for the rest of their lives.

“That’s what they get for underestimating a mage of Fairy Tail! Happy is amazing!” Natsu cheered, pumping his fist toward the Phantom Lord side of the camp. He and Happy had been inseparable since childhood, and hearing about his best friend’s chaotic battlefield success filled him with immense pride.

Right on cue, a familiar blue blur zipped through the air.

“Aye!” Happy landed on Natsu’s head as they crossed the threshold into the Fairy Tail zone.

Hearing the commotion, their guildmates poked their heads out from the flaps of their respective tents. Seeing that neither Chase nor Natsu were missing any limbs, a collective sigh of relief rippled through the camp, followed by a chorus of warm greetings.

“Members of Fairy Tail, you are still under Council custody. Please remain in your assigned tents unless strictly necessary,” the escorting knight announced loudly. He then turned to Chase and Natsu, pointing toward a specific canvas structure. “Gentlemen, your quarters are right there.”

Due to limited space, the guild had been divided into groups of five per tent to simplify the interrogation process scheduled for the morning. Happy, legally classified as a pet, was allowed to roam freely within the perimeter.

Chase glanced at the tent the knight indicated. Unlike the others, the entrance flap was tightly laced shut, and no one was peeking out to see the commotion. He wondered who he had been bunked with.

Before he could process the thought, Natsu impatiently shoved past him, tore the flap open, and marched inside.

A second later, a loud, startled yelp echoed from within.

Very few people in the guild could make Natsu react with such genuine shock. Curiosity piqued, Chase ducked through the entrance.

The interior was spartan. Five military cots lined the walls, a wooden table sat in the center beneath a glowing magic bulb, and a water dispenser rested in the corner.

Currently, the two old perverts, Macao and Wakaba, were huddled together by the water cooler. They were practically drooling over the latest issue of a gravure swimsuit magazine they had somehow begged off Makarov. The two were so engrossed, occasionally letting out sleazy snickers, that they hadn’t even noticed Natsu and Chase enter. Or, more likely, they simply didn’t care.

“Oh? This is certainly unexpected. You’re here too?” Chase ignored the two old men entirely, his gaze locking onto the cloaked figure sitting silently in the far corner. “Mystogan.”

“I participated in the battle against Phantom Lord. It is only natural that I submit to the Council’s questioning,” Mystogan replied, his voice a low, smooth baritone.

He had turned himself in voluntarily to explain his actions to Makarov and the Council. Annihilating every single branch of a rival guild was a massive incident; trying to hide it would only put Fairy Tail in a worse political position when the Council inevitably found out.

Mystogan lifted his head, his single exposed eye locking onto Chase with a flicker of genuine surprise. “Though I did not expect to be assigned to the same quarters as you.”

His original plan had been simple: use his magic to put his roommates to sleep, endure the questioning tomorrow, and then vanish into the wind. He hadn’t anticipated the sheer bad luck of being roomed with Chase—the only person in the entire guild currently capable of resisting his sleep magic.

“Ah! Ah! Ah! He spoke! Mystogan actually spoke!” Natsu pointed a trembling finger at the cloaked man, his eyes wide with absolute terror.

“Aye~! I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard his voice!” Happy gasped, clutching Natsu’s scarf.

Even Macao and Wakaba, previously lost in their ocean of cultured literature, snapped their heads up. They stared at the corner as if they had just witnessed a mythical beast descending from the heavens. Their intense reaction was justified; most of the guild rarely even saw Mystogan, let alone heard him hold a conversation.

Perhaps it would be best to put them to sleep right now…

Mystogan frowned beneath his mask. He slowly reached over his shoulder, his fingers brushing the wood of his staves. The Enforcement knights had removed their magic-sealing cuffs upon entering the camp, knowing full well that with Makarov present, no one from Fairy Tail would be stupid enough to attempt an escape.

“Hold it right there!”

Seeing Mystogan reaching for his weapons, Natsu snapped out of his shock. His fists ignited with roaring flames as he dropped into a combat stance. “Mystogan! Let’s have a showdown!”

Perfect, Mystogan thought. That settles it. Sleep magic it is.

Just as the staves began to emit a faint, hypnotic glow, Chase sighed. He stepped forward and drove his fist directly into the top of Natsu’s skull, leaving a smoking, comical bump.

“Idiot. Read the room. We’re literally sitting in the middle of a Magic Council military camp!” Chase scolded.

Despite his reprimand, Chase felt a twinge of sentimentality. From Mystogan’s actions, it was glaringly obvious how deeply he cared for Fairy Tail. Knowing that this man would eventually return to his home world of Edolas and be permanently separated from these people, Chase decided to intervene. He wanted Mystogan, who always isolated himself, to actually interact with his guildmates and forge a few lasting memories while he still could.

“Speaking of which,” Chase said, pulling out a chair at the central table and sitting down casually. He looked past the groaning Natsu and focused on the cloaked mage. “You mentioned you participated in the battle against Phantom Lord. But we didn’t see you at the headquarters at all. Where were you?”

Mystogan looked at Chase, then glanced at Natsu, who was currently rolling on the floor clutching his head.

Finally, the masked mage let out a soft sigh, his hand dropping away from his staves.

“I took down all of Phantom Lord’s branches.”

He delivered the world-shattering revelation with a perfectly calm, flat tone, as if he were discussing the weather.