"Fiore's very first Inter-Guild S-class advancement exam," the cheerful announcer declares happily, "after a long, long LONG preliminary challenge and EVEN LONGER round of various matchups, here we show you, the long-awaited Top Twelve wizards!"

Eir groans into his arm as he waits to be called on.

He wanted to lose right away in the preliminaries, but it was a horde of magic beasts, and while he was trying to get things over and done with one Gale Burst.... He ended up finishing just in time to be in the top twelve bracket. He was going to cry.

"Pulling up right at the end is Phantom Lord! We have the Earth Mage, Sol of the Land; and the air mage: Aria of the Heavens!"

He frowns at that.

Who invited Phantom? Oh right, they're legal. He keeps forgetting that.

He sighs as the abnormally slim man bounds up to the center of the arena, fixing his monocle as the crowd cheers.

Eir looks out as it's almost his cue.

The other guilds have been announced-- Hound Holy, Titan Nose... Two of the girls have their names in Sorcerer's wanna-be-my-girlfriend rankings, so he's worked with them before. Then the lone guy in the pack is Bora the Prominence, though... doesn't he have a pretty bad record or something?

"Pulling up is Quatro Cerberus! Bacchus Groh and Rocker will be with us today! Ain't that a Wild combination?"

Eir stretches, getting ready to go.

So Cerberus made it in too... he'd crossed paths with Bacchus in the preliminaries and he was drunk. Eir wonders if he has a mode other than that.

"Now, the moment you've all been waiting for! Hailing from Fairy Tail, we have Eir Macmillan!"

He enters the stage.

-

The crowd roars, and he finds the Fairy Tail stand in the crowd, where his kids were probably the loudest voices in that area. Except Laxus, who was being quiet.

Eir waves at him.

He waves back after a second.

Eir smiles-- at least until Ichiya and Jura come in and the tournament bracket is announced. It's a classic 1v1 competition where the winner advances-- oh, whoever's the poor guy that has to deal with Jura in round one, let everyone pat him on the back.

"It seems like you're my first opponent, Eir," Ichiya says, posing dramatically as he wishes his bangs out of his face.

Eir checks the tournament bracket and his face scrunches up in displeasure.

This tournament bracket is rigged, he mirthfully realizes, because he's wrapping the ends with Jura. Which means they're hoping for a Jura vs Eir final battle before it even damn well begins-- what the hell?

"Are they allowed to do that?" he asks.

"For the publicity, young Eir," Ichiya says, as if he knows exactly what Eir had just thought, "everything herein is just a show, after all. The matchups don't matter here-- your guild masters will be watching your battle closely, and if they deem you qualified, you can be an S class even if you lose."

"Wha-- then what's the point?!" Eir throws his hands into the air, "can I leave? I don't even want to be S-class."

"No can do, young Eir," and there's Jura, grinning in his regal, sagely manner, "you might not be interested, but you can do enough to help the Masters judge the other candidates, won't you?"

Eir makes a face that indicates he would rather die horribly than give a shit.

Jura barks out a laugh. "Don't complain now, it's all a part of your ambassador duties," he says, ruffling the boy's hair. "I'll be waiting for you in the finals, Eir."

"Oh, that's a high declaration," Ichiya says, approaching them with a confident smirk, "have you forgotten who he's facing in round one, Jura-san?"

Jura grins.

Eir groans. "Don't issue a challenge to everyone in the bracket for me, Jura. Look at them, they're all mad now."

He gestures at the other contestants, who were watching them with narrowed gazes, menacing glances, and stiff postures.

Jura laughs, "well, that's the spirit!"

"He's evil, isn't he?" Ichiya whispers audibly to Eir.

Eir mutters right back, "and no one ever believes me."

-

His battle with Ichiya was harder than he thought.

It would be one thing if it were a normal battle, but to make things interesting (who the hell came up with this? This is a test, right?) they spin a roulette on the lacrima vision to determine the latent weather condition of the field.

A mild sandstorm. A river field with lots of mud and stone. A forest field with an occasional boar in the mix. Or the perfect field for Ichiya-- the light breeze that flows in eternal circulation around the perimeters.

And who the hell are these announcers? They're getting everything wrong.

Eir's magic was too strong to ride the already-present breeze. It's only getting in his way by creating wind resistance. And Ichiya being primarily a short-ranged fighter? He's a fumes mage, for god's sake. He thrives upwind!

"AAaaand! That's it, folks! The winner of this battle is Eir Macmillan of Fairy Tail!"

Eir stumbles his way back toward the waiting room. Just a nasty bruise and a really bad headache-- he falls against the wall.

"So Ichiya's knocked out, but Eir's in a much worse shape, eh?"

He looks up to see Jura, and he groans, planting a hand at his eye.

"Oh, shut up," Eir groans. "Just let my guard down."

"It's unlike you to get kicked twice before responding," Jura offers him a hand, and Eir takes it just to get back up on his feet.

He sets his hand on the wall for balance.

"Who knows what the hell Ichiya put in the air," Eir mutters, wiping away some blood at--. yikes, a split lip. This with the bruise in his ribs? Ugh, he wants to go home. "He got me good. I didn't even notice until my ankle gave in at that last step."

Jura laughs at that. "He's a good fighter, no matter what everyone says. You did well winning there."

Eir scoffs, walking onward with a hand at his stomach. "Whatever," he tosses a hand back in lieu of a goodbye, "good luck on yours. Don't lose till the finals, got it?"

Jura smiles. "Wouldn't miss our fight for the world, Eir."

-

"Eir."

Eir had been finishing up the bandages around his stomach when the voice came through the door. Laxus walks in, none of the kids in tow.

"The others went to get Levy and Sherry," Laxus says before Eir could get the question out. Eir hums to acknowledge the answer, pulling his shirt back over his head.

"They'll be here by the next battle, then," Eir says, "it's a relief they got a half-day today. Sherry was really looking forward to it."

"Eir."

Just one word, his name-- that doesn't mean anything good.

Laxus looks him in the eye, and there's a mountain of a burden in them. Eir stares back, and he knows what he's going to say.

"My next opponent is from Phantom, isn't it?"

A rhetorical question. Laxus nods. "It's also an Air mage-- Aria of the Heavens or something," he tells him. "We don't know his deal, but his previous opponent's in the hospital. Gramps has a really bad feeling about him."

An Air mage. (Air, and specifically not a Wind mage?)

"They're saying he might have Magic Deficiency, but in the middle of a battle? That's weird," Laxus says. He shrugs, "we all think Aria did something."

"Oh," Eir says, vaguely, "so he's like me?"

Laxus raises his brow. "Huh? I mean, the announcer says he's a wind mage too, but he hasn't used anything remotely like your or Ren's magic--"

"Laxus," he interrupts, "air and wind-- do you know the difference?"

Laxus blinks.

Eir sighs. "They're not entirely interchangeable. My enchants are Wind Magic; Ren's magic is Air magic. I wield the currents to make a blade-- Ren takes hold of a fixed amount of space-- and changes its properties."

Laxus looks even more confused now. "Is that why yours is sharp and his is soft?" Then a second later, "wait, you're being confusing. What do you mean, he's like you--"

Eir pats him on the head. He sets his cookies aside, untouched.

"Nothing much. Go watch from the stands, Laxus. Say hi to Levy and Sherry for me."

-

And Laxus did.

He watched from the stands, slightly irritated. He had gone all the way to warn Eir of his next opponent, only to get the kid treatment and sent back with cryptic responses, just like usual. When will Eir stop treating him like a kid?

Sherry returned to the Lamia stand, where Toby and Yuka were ready to reel her in. Ren and Karen sat in the Blue Pegasus stand, watching eagerly as Eir came out again.

The field was a concrete labyrinth, surrounded by nothing but gray walls and narrow paths and no exit. There was an overcast, and it was going to rain.

Cana and Laxus watched with bated breath. Levy, Gray, and Bickslow didn't know much of their strained relationship with Phantom Lord, so they were naively excited.

But Aria was bad news. Very bad news.

(His previous opponent was green to the face, and the latest update of the situation was that he's had severe magic deficiency disease-- he'll be fine, just barely.)

Eir was fine. He can win-- Eir hasn't lost in a fight, ever. Not even against Phantom and their stupid cheats, their brutal fights, and their tendency to abuse their opportunities.

Eir would be fine.

-

(And in a way, Laxus was right.)

(Eir won.)

The rain came down as a roaring downpour. They couldn't quite hear the announcer over everything, but they didn't need to-- he wasn't saying a thing.

No one moved an inch, the air was thick, the rain was thick.

If you threaded a hand through it, it'd gather in your hands like the fabric of a curtain. Except, nothing lay beyond it but sheer, poisonous dread.

Eir's hand-- just one hand-- held Aria up by the head.

The other man was limp, arms by his side-- was he unconscious? Well, if the screaming earlier was anything to say-- he's completely out.

Eir drops him.

And Aria collapses like a dead body, wordless.

The lacrima vision stayed too far away, unable to get any closer due to the rain. As if even the cameras were scared of him-- they stayed, painfully far away from the scene.

Is Aria dead? They didn't know for sure.

(Someone... someone, go check? Please? But no one dared to go.)

Eir turns away, and leaves the arena.

There were no cheers.

Just the dreadful panic of the crowd as someone screams for the medical team. Someone rushes forward, but who? There's a lot of action as the crowd panics, wondering if they'd just witnessed a murder in the field.

Aria is taken to the hospital.

Laxus stares Eir as he leaves, silent, cold-- and, and nothing like what they've ever known of him.

Gray whirls back to the arena, rushing off to Eir's waiting room. Bickslow and Levy follow, but Laxus doesn't realize the rest of the guild's all gone until Cana's taking him by the arm, dragging him in the same direction.

All that lingered was one line in his head.

("So he's like me?" Eir had said.)

The rain continued to pour.

-

Eir doesn't like to fight. He uses magic to survive, to protect-- but never to stand above others. That's why he doesn't want to be an S-class wizard-- he doesn't want any of that prestige.

Laxus bitterly realizes that they've never seen the full extent of Eir's abilities, and perhaps, there was a good reason for that.