Chapter 57 - The Captain's plans?

"Well in that case we're done here. As for your Captain, I have this to say to him… If you're interested in taking vengeance for Krax and Zult then come here and Fairy Tail will wipe the floor with you, no need to play hide and seek with help from your cronies, capt'n." Arthur said, looking dead into the eyes of the enemy spy.

The events after that proceeded as usual, with Carl's eventual death at the hands of the word soul magic user and the loss of connection with the devil fruit user's body.

The "Captain", had watched the events unfold with a smirk on his face. He extended his arm and a dark mist enveloped his hand, once the mist was gone there was a black fruit in the shape of a ninja star with spirals placed in his palm.

"So, the fool finally got himself caught, huh?" The voice of a middle aged man rang, deep and gruff. It was certainly not the voice of a thirteen year old participant which you might have expected to hear.

Yet, was the captain who possessed the power to create devil fruits not a participant? That seemed highly unlikely.

The captain wore a black coat, leather pants and a white buŧŧoned shirt.

He currently sat upon a large chair, his huge frame towering over a long table. Obviously he was in a dining room, one that you might find inside a castle or similar structure with many expensive decorations all around the walls and ceiling. Some other figures also stood across the table, seemingly eating their food in peace.

"Mmm… That Word Magic user certainly holds potential, I didn't think he'd be able to find my little agent for at least another three or so years! ZEHAHAhaha!" The captain laughed, throwing the devil fruit across the room where a person wearing a black suit quickly caught and stored it inside of a ċhėst with his swift hand movements.

"Captain," The man spoke, "Should I send this fruit to our next best spy?" He asked.

"Gah! I don't particularly care, you can give it to Brain if you want even. He'd put it to good use." The captain waved his hand, indicating disinterest in the topic as he spat on the ground.

"Understood, sir." The man said and quickly left the room, leaving only those who sat on the dining table to their lonesome.

After a moment of silence, a feminine tone was heard.

"So, will you still leave that kid alone after this?" The young voice of a girl spoke, she was perhaps around fifteen or sixteen years old, wore a blue dress and had silver hair long enough to reach her feet with a single bright blue strand of hair going from her forehead down to her abdomen. Her eyes were seemingly ice cold with a bright magenta color filling her iris.

She was holding a glass of wine which she was currently playing with while gazing at the captain with interest vivid in her eyes.

"Yeah, we have bigger matters to attend to anyway. Besides, those three he killed had long since proven wasted investment, I might as well thank that kid for killing them for me! Zehahahaha!" The captain laughed once more.

"Mmm, still." A young boy spoke. "Killing three of our members is unacceptable! Allow me to go and purge that cretin myself!" He said, standing up from the table and hitting it with his hand.

The boy was about the same age as Arthur, he had spiky black hair and razor sharp teeth similar to a shark's. One of his eyes was of a fiery red color, the other was ice blue.

"Calm down, Raze!" Another boy spoke, "You know there's no reason to kill him yet! A lone 'Chosen One' with official social standing like him that has such strength and popularity can be easily used to our advantage, instead of going after someone with a powerful hidden group of 'chosen ones' backing them it would be far easier using him to reach one or two of our goals in the future. Good use of pawns equals Victory." The boy finished reprimanding the kid named Raze.

That boy wore a white robe, had a dark seemingly blue hair color and wore glasses on his bright blue eyes.

"Mmm, still! I don't like it, Nirn! Y'all will kill him later anyway right? We have enough strength to achieve our goals I'd reckon too! Why can't I kill em now?" Raze asked the boy named Nirn with a glare.

"First of all, you alone can't." The captain replied with disinterest, biting into a piece of pie he had in hand.

"Wha?!" Raze turned to him with a shocked expression.

"This lone 'Chosen One' is quite strong, I'd have to admit… He might even put up 'Some' resistance against Cornelia over there in fact!" The captain said whilst looking over to the aforementioned silver haired girl, his mouth filled with pie.

Cornelia's eyes twitched at the words, however she remained silent.

"Seriously? Mmm, still! I find that hard to believe, this chick is bloody overpowered after all! She'd smash his head in with one fist alone I'd reckon! Surely I'd be able to beat him with some difficulty at least! Grahahahah!" Raze said with a laugh.

"Potentially." The captain said, reaching out for a bottle of ale. "However, the second thing about that is that I've already got plans for him, if you're that interested in fighting the word mage, then you can maybe go wait at the Tower of Heaven. That guy will sooner or later find himself there after all, ȧssuming he lives that long." He suggested.

"Mmm, still! I'd have to wait for quite some time wouldn't I...? Oh well, by your orders then captain! Me shall listen!" Raze decided he'd agree with a salute and smile.

"Good, glad you're able to wait till then! For now however, we have more pressing matters to attend to." He continued, having set aside the matter of Raze's thirst of battle.

"Right. How do we deal with that new breed of 'Vampires' that have been popping up and wreaking havoc to our men?" Cornelia asked, slowly bringing up the glass of wine up to her lips and drinking but a single sip from it, while the captain did the same for his ale, only difference was he drank the whole thing down to the last drop.

"Mmmm…" The captain mused, placing a hand on his chin and the bottle on the table. "They only appear at night as the only thing that seems to kill them is sunlight, whoever their leader might be he definitely seems quite interested in our group and keeps attacking our Devil Fruit users… Does he want a devil fruit for himself perhaps? Is he interested in them as items? Maybe he wants to gain his own army of devil fruit users? I do not know." He explained with a shrug.

"Mmm, still! Lemme fight that guy then!" Raze said, looking to his captain with expectation filling his eyes.

"…" The captain gave him a side glance of apparent disappointment and annoyance, clicking his tongue before ignoring him completely. "Tsk. We don't know how many of them there are, but we did learn something else, they used to be humans…" The captain said as he stroked his beard.

"Oiii! Capt'n!" Raze's voice came out once more, only to be ignored completely.

"That is most interesting," Cornelia said. "Is this leader of theirs perhaps a 'Chosen one' with a power granting ability like yours captain?" she asked.

"You are definitely correct on that there Cornelia, and that can certainly prove troublesome… Luckily for us neither party knows where the other's HQ is for the moment, so that means that we can still focus on our other more important goal." The captain said with a grin.

"Capt'n Answer me-" Raze began to say again, only to be shut up by Nirn who walked up to him and grabbed him by the face.

"Yup, once we've done that our power within Ishgar will soar, we might even be the strongest group out there~!" Cornelia said with a warm smile, leaning on the table with her chin in hand.

"MMM! MMGHMM!" Raze protested as he got held down with his mouth shut.

"Indeed," Nirn spoke whilst holding Raze down. "Our reach will become far and wide throughout the entire continent, the network system we will have would be second to none and we'd be able to keep tabs on each 'Chosen one' that was born in the year X765. Information equals Power." Nirn explained, pressing his glasses in with a finger.

"Yes, with that in mind we can ignore both the word mage and the 'vampires' for the moment! Once that goal of ours is achieved, wiping them both out would be child's play to do." The captain said, grabbing a piece of meat to chow down on as he finished.

After that conversation finished, the four continued with casual banter and enjoyed their small feast.

Nirn was in fact worried that the captain would end up growing a large belly, however he decided to remain quiet as the man in question ate more and more food. Be it healthy or not.

Raze on the other hand tried to fight with Nirn, on account of his previous 'assault' only to get his head smashed in by Cornelia before he could even launch his first attack.

She sighed and returned to her seat, drinking wine at her own leisurely pace while reminiscing the past and how her future might turn out with this crazy bunch of maniacs.

And the captain? As previously mentioned he was stuffing himself with food.

All was well inside of this faction despite the looming threat of two potentially dangerous enemies.

One with plot armor included.

They had their plans to deal with them so why bother worrying right?

Right?

...

Hello there everyone, Author-san here speaking!

It's about my upload schedule obviously, for starters sorry for the lack of chapters. Took me almost a month to make this short chapter... The reason for that is because surprisingly it's really hard to get to writing when you decide to make a random plot point after thinking "Hey! That's a fantastic idea! Let's do it!" And then realizing that the timeline event you had planned to follow it up with is WRONG and now it's a big mistake which you have to fix with making a whole Arc else it's just not fitting into the story properly!

This basically ended up screwing with the already planned plot line... Which lead to the all fabled "Writer's Block"...

Yeah... Not a good idea on my part to be honest!

Thankfully, I think I fixed it with a general idea of how to do things and even came up with some new characters. I'll need to plan an outline for it however because I don't wanna screw this up, considering how it could actually end up as a really good arc if I do it right! Like it's a damn fine idea that fixes the problem completely! I think!

So, wish me luck~ I'll do my best to make it a success!

As for future updates and specifically for the next month or two... I'm actually gonna be having exams, and I have a lot to study so I probably shouldn't procastinate on that too much, that does mean that I might have trouble with writing again.

Finally, Next chapter MIGHT be soon, I promise absolutely nothing! There's some stuff I have to do still before that Arc I'm planning starts, like Arthur right after the Spy thing and Happy being born and a bunch of other stuff till the end of X778. Hopefully that's soon and enjoyable for you all~

For now, that's all! Thank you for your patience!