EMPIRE | j. fernandes

Chapter Four: Her Aura

Disclaimer: Any word/sentence with a superscript will have a note for it at the end of the chapter.

Finding his way to the Fairy Tail guild, the lapis haired male had managed to keep a good hour or so without breaking out into another migraine. He was still curious as to why it had suddenly occurred out of nowhere. His muscular hands had pressed against the wood of the door, managing to thrust the doors open. There was a heavy silence that abruptly filled the room. That's right. He wasn't supposed to be there. Many of the wizards from Fairy Tail still perceived him to be a villain.

Yes, Jellal was a criminal. He wasn't going to deny that, but he truly regretted his actions. Erza didn't deserve to be used as sacrifice, she didn't deserve to be kidnapped in the first place. The amount of silence that the guild had given him made him feel like an utter fool, his darkened hues darting from the front of the guild, down to his feet. His adams apple bobbed, only the sound of his footsteps could be heard. The rest of Crime Sorcière had been outside of the guildhall, waiting for Jellal to return when he had been finished. Honestly, Jellal wouldn't of been surprised if they just all wandered off to do their own thing. He was used to working alone.

Taking a seat at the bar, he received a smile from the snow tressed female from behind the counter. Mirajane had always been nice to everyone; especially Jellal. Everybody had known of Erza's crush on Jellal, and Mirajane, well, she was someone who knew the most. She'd be secretly planning weddings in her spare time, and both Erza and Jellal just happened to be one of them. It was a habit Mira had picked up. Handing the individual his drink, she leaned on the counter, resting the palm of her hand.

"How is it? I tried something new today." Mira gazed at the males' large hands, mentally devouring herself in absolute revere. Jellal was definitely attractive. He was in Sorcerer Weekly in the list of top ten ideal boyfriends.¹

"It's different." His voice had been quite raspy, especially from keeping quiet for the majority of the day. "I don't drink too much though, so I can't tell you if the alcohol is good or not." Jellal joked lightly, getting a small reaction from the other.

"Aha, yeah. Erza told me." Her orifices rolled to the back of her head before making contact with the boys' [seemingly] golden ones once more. Quickly, she glanced back down at the drink she had whipped together for the male. "Did you come to see her?"

Jellal remained quiet. He actually hadn't come to talk to Erza, which was definitely a surprise, even for himself. "No, but it would be nice to say hello." Tapping his index fingertip over the glass mug, his shoulders rolled into a shrug. "If she's busy, I really don't want to be a nuisance." The mage ran his lengthy fingers though his silky locks, his tresses falling back into place once he removed his hand. Applying his chin to the palm of his hand, his elbow rested on the top of the counter.

"You seem exhausted." Jellal felt a hand on his shoulder. Although just getting comfortable, his head tilted upwards to see who it had been.

"Hello to you too, Erza." Along with her scarlet hair which cascaded down her back and over her shoulders, her armour glistened under the dimmed lights. Her hazel hues. Jellal couldn't seen to take his eyes away from the figure before him. She was beautiful, but sadly, he couldn't give in to be with the warrior. He committed a great sin in his past, almost killing the ruby haired female in the process. He couldn't possibly give into his instincts.

Erza let out a small laugh, removing her hand from the males' shoulder. She sat down on the seat which stood next to him.

"We were just talking about you." Mirajane commented, wiping down the bar with a damp cloth. "Not that it was in a negative way- oh no, I swear it was nothing like that!" A light panic was evident in her eyes.

"It's alright. I understand. How are you doing, Jellal?" Erza's head tilted, her gaze adjusted over to the male beside her, watching the drink in his glass gently shift around. It was almost full; you could barely tell he had drunken any. "Is there, you know, anything new?" Erza was curious. She had been fully aware of Jellal's denial of spending more quality time with her. She wasn't oblivious to the idea of Jellal feeling insecure. She didn't mind the wait. If Jellal was comfortable, then that was all that mattered to her.

Responding to the question given, Jellal had taken a glance over to the job requests behind Mirajane, set on a bulletin board above on the wall. "No, not really." He fixed his glance back onto Erza "I recently found a new job request to take up on. It seems pretty simple." He explained.

"That's understandable, but if you really want to, we have some S-Class jobs that you should take. We don't have too many S-Class wizards here in Fairy Tail, so it would be nice if someone helped us clean those jobs up." The scarlet haired female allowed a small giggle to slip through. "They're really not as hard as they look." A section of her locks slipped over her visage, though in just a few seconds, Erza was quick to tuck it behind her ear. "There's one that's been sitting on the board for a while now. It seems pretty timely so not a lot of us want to do it."

With that being said, Mirajane was quick to pull the advertisement down from the bulletin board from behind her. Taking one quick glance at it, she set it down in front of Jellal.

"It's about some girl. There's no description of her— so we don't know what she looks like. Apparently the Black Wizard has been searching for weeks, and Hisui Fiore² wants to see her. She's from the Alvarez Empire, so a lot of us refused. The reward is fifteen million jewel– it feels like a scam. The girl is definitely not a part of the Spriggan Twelve since first master hasn't mentioned her." Mirajane explained, leaning onto the bar with both hands pressed against it.

Jellal took interest. "Does it give a name?"

"No." was all Mirajane could make out. "I don't understand it either. Why would they make a job request about it and give absolutely no information on the person they're looking for?"

"If I were to guess, maybe there is no information about her." Erza loosely examined the paper, swallowing down her saliva. "It says that she has some kind of aura that differentiates her from others. I don't know for sure though. That's only what I heard. Then again, we don't know what it's supposed to feel like if they can't tell us." Erza's armour clanked at the smallest movement. "If first master can't tell us, then I'm not sure who else to ask."

Jellal fiddled with the corner of the page. There was a brief moment where he remained silent, attempting to process the information given to him. This job request was surely interesting. "May I?" He asked, referring to the page before him.

"Yeah, go ahead." Mirajane approved, removing herself from the table to clean up a few of the appliances that sat on the counter behind her. There was something definitely alluring about this advertisement, and truthfully, Jellal couldn't decline. He was intrigued. Nodding to Mirajane, he took another sip from the drink that stood before him.

"Yeah, I'll do it."

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INDEX
1: There's an easter egg in Fairy Tail where Jellal, as Siegrain, was on Lucy's "Perfect Boyfriend" list, right on top of Loke.

2: Hisui (E) Fiore is the queen of Fiore.

AUTHORS NOTE
again, i'm so sorry for the slow updates 😔😔 i promise i'll try harder to get updates in.