VERiTY (Fairy Tail Fanfic)

31. Heavy Rain

"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?"