Fairy Tail - Twilight Empire

Chapter 75 - Demon Takes Queen

The rebels sprang up all over the place. The FACE map was alight with action from each location Hisui sent her allies to. Unfortunately, that indicated magical use.

The fighting had started.

She kept her arms folded, wishing she could peer closer and get some sort of birds-eye view of everything to see how the fighting progressed. As it was, she could only watch tiny dots blink. Each time it slightly faded, she sent a silent prayer that it'd come back to life.

The good news was that most of the tiny dots indicating other wizards in the rebellion were all fizzling away from the outposts she'd honed in one. One, Oak Town, was not like that. Were those rebels reluctant and making a final stand against Tartaros or something?

Mest stood off to the side behind her, also watching, but there was far more external tension from him. Hisui didn't bother saying anything. It'd probably lead to an argument.

Irene was also still in the room, her ghostly, crooked smile cracked on her lips. She shifted her staff from hand to hand idly but watched with as much intrigue as Hisui as if she could see the action as it transpired. Knowing her magic power and seemingly limitless abilities that was probably the case. She, of course, was the calmest of the three, if only because she had nothing to lose out of all of them.

"Erza will hold out," Irene said. "I'm not sure about the others, though."

Hisui said nothing and made no gesture otherwise. Mest did glance back at Irene.

"I still can't fully trust that you're not in some way working with Tartaros. How convenient that you'd arrive and this offensive takes place."

"This offensive," Irene said, giving Mest a moment to consider the words he'd just uttered, "started days before I even set foot back on Earth land. Tartaros has had this planned for some time. Trust me, nothing Mard Geer does is spontaneous." She cocked her head. "If anything, Hisui, you need to plan your next five steps. Mard Geer already knows what to do next."

"Any predictions?" Hisui snapped.

"One," Irene said. "He'll use the Plutogrim to wipe out a significant rebel figure. Perhaps Jura, or Bob and Ichiya. Perhaps you."

"It'd be foolish for him to try and find me," Hisui said. "This is a completely unknown facility. Even August doesn't know about it, there's no way Mard Geer has anything close to that."

"I don't know what the demons conjure in the darkness," Irene said.

"You know something," Mest said. "Admit it."

"I do," Irene said. "Upon rewriting their text such that they were entirely loyal to Zeref, and not driven by a desire to kill him, Zeref shoved the demons of Tartaros far into the bowels of Mercurius, only to be used in measures of extreme shows of strength."

Mest gritted his teeth. "Bosco..."

"It was only after the Empire forged its alliance with Tartaros that they became somewhat active again," Irene said. "Something to do with the Stellanium they'd acquired, though I'd have thought Ajeel the Desert King would have more to do with that, given his division's fascination with gem-based magic."

Hisui couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at that. Was that why they were called the Crystal Division? Ajeel was the strongest Sand wizard in the world, as far as she knew, and beyond that, none of the wizards she knew of under his employ were gem-based.

Irene didn't clarify, but continued, "Then most recently I heard that they were going to do something to build an airfield as modern as the high-speed trains Zeref enforced creation on, but it sounds to me that production of that was halted. Torafuzar was likely only recruited due to its proximity to the sea, and his supposed strength by the sea."