It's Complicated

Chapter 8: Festive Jitters

Hello!! Finally had time to update this! XD Here's a little something for you guys~! Happy "a day after" Valentine's Day! :3 Oh the joy of being single... TT.TT I made this chapter extra long to compensate for my four whole months of not updating *wink* *wink* ;)

~ Utashi-chan

I watched silently, beads of sweat trailing the edge of my face. The fifty foot water beast that once stood proudly had taken complete defeat against Elizabeth. The chibi lightning mage trashed "Jugo" (as Juvia called it) all by herself no sooner when it was summoned.

"T-that's..." Natsu muttered beside me.

The only response I gave him was a shudder. She definitely got stronger the last time I fought her, and that was just a few days ago! I glanced over to Erza whose expression remained unfazed. Was she perhaps expecting this to happen?

Titania continued observing Elizabeth for another few moments then immediately turned to the dragon-slayer of the group "Natsu."

"Already on it!" The hot-head replied.

Natsu began wearing the ninja costume he got from the market the other day. Sigh. If he only knew how stupid he looked. The moron kept mentioning how COOL it was to dress up like one of those stealthy silent assassins. Tch. Well, I beg to differ. Although, this is MUCH better than the bear costume. Sheesh. The things gramps makes us do. Why can't we just test the girl's abilities without this stupid charade?

While I was complaining to myself, Natsu happily put on the mask and set out towards the trio, attacking Elizabeth head on. The second part of the test commenced, Elizabeth fighting Natsu one on one. The girl not noticing the absence of her earlier companions set out full power towards Natsu which the latter quickly evaded. The dragon-slayer gave her one of those signature fire-throwing circus act of his but she was too fast for him, avoiding each one of the fireballs that he threw at her. The fight was really intense and I don't want to elaborate on it too much because of the little incident that I REALLY, REALLY want to erase in my mind. (It involves a certain someone crashing on top of another someone during the battle) Damn that Natsu! I'll have his head for that! That brainless idiot just decided to slip and throw himself right at her... umm... things! He probably did that on purpose! It was a good thing that Erza held me back, (she was grabbing the collar of my shirt) otherwise I would have gone down there and beat the crap out of him.

"Dmmn ummph Nnn!" I tried shouting but Erza's hand got in the way. Titania gave me a good slap and asked me to shut up.

"You'll blow our cover!" Erza angrily whispered to me.

"But I also want to smoosh my face...!" I tried protesting but was soon cut off by one of Titania's flying fist of fury.

"Pervert." She muttered and crossed her arms.

The battle ended up with Natsu flying off the horizon. Yeah, such a beautiful sight to see. The blushing lightning mage lightning kicked Natsu right after he *ahem* smooshed his face on her... umm.. you-know-what. The intensity of that kick was probably a hundred times harder when she did it to me. Hah! Serves him right! Stupid Natsu.

Erza decided that it was time to end the test so she asked me to go and get Elizabeth.

"Hey! What happened here?" I asked innocently as I approached her. In all honesty, I really feel bad for lying to her like this. But, a mission is a mission.

"We..." she suddenly stopped finally discerning the absence of her companions. "Where did they go?"

"I ran into them earlier on the way to town, they were trying to catch some shady guy that appeared here. W-well... that was what they said." I covered up.