Fairy Tail: The Faint Smile in Earthland

Date: Year X786 — Mid-June

Location: South-Eastern Trade Route Crossings — Fiore

The forest pressed in around her like held breath.

It was too quiet — the kind of silence that didn't feel natural, that left a cold taste on the back of the tongue.

Teresa knelt low, her hand brushing a shallow groove in the dirt. The wheel mark was sharp, impossibly recent. Yet the track vanished just meters ahead, swallowed abruptly as if the world itself had chosen to forget.

She let her fingers linger there, feeling the earth's faint tremor — the echo of frightened lives hurried away.

Above, a single cicada stuttered into the stillness, then fell silent.

She rose slowly. The pale shimmer of her partial Requip armor caught the thin light filtering through the canopy, and her white cloak curled behind her, restless as her pulse.

"Void Sever."

Her blade drew a silent arc, and the illusion crumpled like wet parchment.

A ragged line of false brush evaporated, revealing a corridor of hidden traps and makeshift cages. The smell hit her first — sulfur, sweat, and the faint iron tang of old blood.

Then her eyes fell on a single object: a small red-stained shoe, perched atop a crate, its tiny guild emblem scorched beyond recognition.

Her breath faltered. Just for a moment.

This wasn't a raid. This was a message — one designed to carve into the mind rather than the flesh.

Elsewhere — Council Surveillance Chamber, Era

A cold blue glow washed over the council hall.

"Her Requip signature just pinged near Route 7C," a surveillance mage called, squinting into the crystal's shifting light. "Armor active. Cloak deployed."

Org leaned forward, fingers tented in front of his mouth. His eyes were narrow slits, tracking invisible possibilities.

"No official report," the mage added, voice tight.

"Of course not," Warrod's low rasp broke in, the old man's eyes half-lidded but sharp. "She won't file anything until it's done."

Another mage fidgeted nearby. "She's hunting dark guild cells again. Without sanction."

Org's lips twitched, somewhere between a sneer and resignation. "We don't grant her sanction. We observe. We learn... if she decides to let us."

"Should we alert local patrols?"

"No," Org said, voice flat and final. "She works alone. We'd only be stepping into the teeth of her hunt."

Back at the hidden clearing

Teresa stepped forward, moving carefully across broken crates and crushed wards.

Five cages lined the far end of the pit, scrawled with half-erased runes that had once sealed magic into flesh. Two cages still held captives.

A man inside the first cage flinched hard as she approached, throwing up his scarred wrists as if expecting the lash.

She knelt, her voice soft but edged like a cold blade.

"Who do you serve?"

His throat bobbed, eyes darting over her armor as if trying to find something human.

"We... we were Guild of Stone... before Voldane took our routes... before... before..."

His voice faltered into dry sobs.

She waited. Silent.

The silence squeezed the rest from him like water from a rag.

"Velgeth," he spat finally. "They call themselves Velgeth now. Splinter cells... they use new names every month... steal trade, force conscripts..."

She nodded once. The movement was so small it might have been a trick of light.

"You're free."

He blinked. Twice. Confusion gnawed at his features.

"What?"

Her blade whispered through the air, and the cage lock snapped. The door swung open with a groan that seemed too loud for the forest.

A young woman in the next cage clutched her side, eyes wide, two fingers missing. Her voice came out in a thin thread.

"Why... why help us?"

Teresa didn't look back. Her hand slid the blade away, her steps already pulling her beyond them.

Because you remind me there's still something worth saving.

Because every child's shoe should come home with warm feet inside it.

Because once, long ago, no one came for me.

But none of these words passed her lips.

Later — Velgeth's Trail

The trail curved northeast, toward lonely farmsteads and forgotten trade posts — places too small to warrant a Rune Knight patrol.

Perfect prey.

She found them at dusk, eight figures clustered by a ransacked silo, voices sharp in half-code, half-threat.

She didn't announce herself.

"You've trespassed."

The words dropped like a stone into water.

Panic skittered across their faces. One man lunged for a binding rune — slow, clumsy.

"Phantom Step."

She vanished and reappeared behind him, her elbow driving into the nerve at his neck. He collapsed before breath escaped his lips.

Another archer grabbed a flint arrow.

"Void Sever."

Her blade traced a shimmering line, slicing the shaft in half before it could ignite.

A third hurled a lightning curse, his eyes wide with desperation.

"Silken Nerve."

She dipped backward, the curse grazing the white edge of her cloak.

"Drill Sword."

Her blade spun, its momentum carrying her forward as she smashed the next attacker's stomach — a sickening gasp echoing in the dark.

The remaining rogues scattered into the woods, their footfalls frantic and ragged.

She let them run.

Not out of pity.

Out of design.

Fear spread quicker than blood. And tonight, she wanted whispers to move like wildfire.

Hours Later — Magnolia Guild Hall

Macao closed the fresh report with tired fingers. The paper felt heavier than it should.

"Another cell dismantled. Three safehouses cleared. Camps abandoned without a single fight," he murmured.

Kinana sat nearby, her eyes on the floor. "They know she's coming for them now."

Reedus leaned forward, pen tapping against his lower lip. "Then why keep moving? Why provoke her at all?"

Warren flipped a page, the network diagram fluttering under his touch. "Because Voldane wants her active. Wants her to act without orders, outside the law."

Romeo's small voice trembled across the table. "So the Council starts to fear her… more than they fear them."

"Exactly," Macao said.

"And when that happens," Wakaba finished in a low growl, "she becomes the blade everyone fears, but no one controls."

Meanwhile — Voldane's New Cell Hub, Far West

A lone operative slid a report across a table stained with spilled ink and old blood.

"Eight agents down," he whispered.

Voldane's gaze stayed on the map before him.

"Three described her," the operative continued, his voice shaking slightly. "They said she moved like mist. One claimed she bent around his curse like wind."

Silence settled like ash.

The operative swallowed hard. "Do we escalate...?"

Voldane's head tilted, a slow, serpentine movement.

"No," he said at last, his voice thin and precise. "We adapt."

He lifted a black marker, tracing a slow, deliberate arc across a network line — one that veered toward the Ky'run mines.

"She is surgical. Precise. Non-lethal when possible."

Another operative dared a question. "Predictable?"

Voldane's smile flickered — something cold, intimate.

"Not predictable," he said softly. "But readable."

He placed a single black token on the map, covering Ky'run like a closing eye.

"She is not a god," he whispered. "She is a hunter."

His fingers lingered on the token as his grin sharpened.

"And every hunter... can be baited."