Chapter 42 - Back to the Beginning.

We walked along the roads of Magnolia with Erza leading the way, people passed by us undoubtedly going about their day like normal.

After a while we reached the river side and walked down to the river bank.

Erza sat down on the grass and gestured me with a pat on the ground to sit next to her. I complied and sat beside her, waiting for her to speak.

She didn't talk for a bit, maybe thinking through what and how she wanted to say her piece.

"Arthur, remember when we talked here last time?" She asked without turning to me.

I gave it some thought, unable to figure out what she was trying to remind me of.

"I... uh... Wait do you mean when we talked about our pasts?" I said, the memory having suddenly clicked with me.

"Yes, right before we went on that job where we met Rowl and Lazarus... As well as those two 'Chosen ones' or whatever they were." Erza replied.

"Do you want to ask me about them?" I inquired.

"No, not yet. While I would love to know what the whole asking you to join them and being chosen is about, I'll ask you after." She replied.

"Then what's this about?" I asked, interested in what she wanted to say.

"When we talked here originally, you asked for the location of the Tower of Heaven... I wasn't in any state of mind back then to tell you or even trust you with such information..." She spoke with her head slumping down towards the ground as she held on to her knees.

"..." I listened to her in silence.

"Jellal, an acquaintance of mine if you can call him that, took over the tower of heaven at the time of my escape. He allowed me to leave, I didn't escape with my own strength... The last thing he told me was a warning and a threat. He said he would kill my friends were I to ever return there and try to stop him from completing the R system which the tower was being built to execute." Erza explained her story.

This wasn't anything new to me, but I still listened attentively.

"So that's why you denied me the information on the island's location." I said.

"Yes, but now I want to fix that." Erza said, now turning to me with renewed determination.

"Arthur, over the course of my stay in Fairy Tail I grew to love the guild. I see it as my home and my one place in the world where I know I can always return to. But I can't forget all the people I met at that tower, despite the horrible situation in which we met each other they're still my good friends whom I can't leave behind! I've grown stronger in this last year, and you! You have grown even more so! We both have people we care about there, we've both attained S rank and we're both more than ready to face our demons." Erza half yelled towards the end, grabbing me by the shoulders as she spoke.

Her reassurance seemed to be more directed at herself than it was to us both. But that's alright, I'm happy that she was able to come out of her shell so soon.

"It's alright, I promise you that we won't fail in saving our friends. This Jellal fella is in for a beating!" I said with a grin, though it was more of me attempting to make her feel at ease.

"Right. I'm counting on you Arthur!" She said with a smile, wiping the forming tear from her left eye with her sleeve.

"Of course! I've got this don't worry, haha. So when do you want to go? I'm ready whenever you are, Erza." I said, still trying to put her at ease with my apparent confidence.

Truth is I need to be careful, from my understanding the revolt happened when Zev and his father were missing or something, maybe out to do some kind of chore.

Otherwise Erza would have never managed to escape, for the revolt would have been useless in the face of those monsters.

The fact that both Matthew and Lilith were taken there proves there isn't another tower...

I might need to do a rescue mission instead of a raid in this case, Jellal definitely didn't stay in power for long...

Though that begs the question, with Ultear being a member of Fairy Tail, who brainwashed Jellal?

For now, let's at least scout out the terrain before doing anything rash...

"We can head out tomorrow then, I want to prepare myself for this." She replied.

"Don't you think we should ask Gildarts and Ur to accompany us? Even one armed, Gildarts could definitely put up quite the fight! I would know." I gave the suggestion.

"That perhaps would be for the best, however we should first go there ourselves and scout the region. Then we can always teleport as many people as we want through your gate spell." Erza replied, giving her take on the mission at hand.

"Alrighty then, sounds like a plan to me!" I replied and stood up from the ground.

Erza followed my example shortly before speaking.

"I'll see you tomorrow Arthur, let's meet here in the morning after sun rise." Erza set the time of our meeting before starting to walk away and waving me goodbye.

"Yeah! You got it, I'll be here!" I said as I also waved her goodbye.

Tomorrow is the day I finally find that damn tower!

Wait for me you guys...

I'll get you out soon!

The day soon passed, night fell and I slept early as to ready myself for the next day.

I woke up just about ten minutes before the sun had risen. Knowing such an amount of time was still remaining before our meeting I decided to sleep in five more minutes.

By some miracle, perhaps plot armor, I stood true to my statement and got up from bed after five minutes, using a few words of power I got myself ready for the long day ahead of me!

Just as the sun broke on the horizon, I popped up at the meeting spot with a quick teleport and waited about a minute before Erza arrived.

"Are we all set and ready to head out?" I asked Erza.

"We are, open a gate to the closest point you have that's near the southern most edges of Fiore." Erza said, taking out a map of Ishgar and pointing towards our destination.

"Sure thing, I know a small town that's near the coastline there. {Gate}" I said, opening a portal to southern Fiore.

"Great, that should lessen the journey by a decent amount of miles." Erza said and moved through the gate with me following shortly after.

She seemed a bit stiff and nervous, but the determined look in her gaze begged to differ.

On the other side of the gate we were met with a small town akin to any other you would find all around fiore.

It was called Aster town, named after a flower like all other populated towns and cities in Fiore.

After eating breakfast at one of the town stands that sold potato bread and bidding the stand owner farewell, we made our way towards the ocean shore.

"The tower island is located south of Fiore, near the coast of the Caelum kingdom. I'm not entirely sure how they remained hidden until now but that's their general location." Erza explained as we approached the shoreline.

"The Caelum kingdom, huh? I think I read about it once, apparently dragon slayers like Natsu and even Phoenix slayers were abundant there at one time. Enough for a war to start between them in fact. The two species of Phoenixes and Dragons have been thought to be extinct there ever since." I gave my rough understanding of Caelum.

It turns out Phoenixes and Phoenix slayers are, or at least were a thing in Earthland!

Who would have thought?

"Arthur, you wouldn't happen to have any type of fast traveling vehicle for water transport would you? Going by boat takes a full day. I would know..." Erza said, probably remembering of her struggle in reaching Fiore.

"As a matter of fact I do!" I replied, taking out a speed boat from my storage

"I've been meaning to use this one for a while now, perfect opportunity wouldn't you say?" I said with a grin as the boat floated over the water.

"Indeed, let's get going. We still have a ways of travel ahead even if that thing can move fast." Erza replied and we both got on board.

I started up the boat's engine and we soon darted towards the general direction Erza pointed out from the map.

Going by memory, she knew the direction from her docking spot to the tower and used it to pinpoint the Tower of Heaven's location on the map.

It was a ways away, but not impossible to reach by the time Natsu woke his sleepy ȧss up. Perhaps three or four hours with this here boat o' mine.

That said, I used spells like {Speed UP} and {Acceleration} on the boat as a means to get there even faster, it most certainly worked and the time needed to reach our destination was a mere hour now.

The problem was that we kept going towards the islands direction until we reached the main land of the Caelum kingdom.

"Did we overshoot by a bit perhaps?" I asked Erza who was concentrated heavily on the map.

"No… We should have been in the right direction, but then again with such big measurements it could be true… Yeah, let's check again. We have fewer waters to cover now that we're here." Erza said and pointed me as to where to go drive the speed boat next.

For hours, hours and hours we drove around the ocean, incapable of finding the island where the Tower was supposedly located.

Now it had even turned dark outside, our entire day being spent searching for the tower from the boat.

"I'm so confused, where is that blasted tower?!" Erza yelled as she tore the map in half.

"Hey, hey! The map's not the enemy here. {Repair}." I said fixing the map back to its original condition.

"Haaaaa…" Erza sighed, "You're right… But the island should be here! Like, right here! I can ȧssure you it's supposed to be here! Yet… It's almost like it vanished…" She said with obvious irritation in her voice.

"Tsk! That might not be too far-fetched…" I said, furrowing my brows in thought.

"What do you mean?" Erza asked concernedly.

"It's not entirely impossible to move an island, there are a few ways they might have done it but I don't know why they would do it in the first place…" I replied.

"Are you serious? Moving an entire island?! I find it inconceivable… Wouldn't it be more likely they've set up a barrier that prevents us from finding it? Like Tenroujima?" Erza suggested, point up a finger and looking as if she was hoping that was the case.

"No, if it was like that I'm sure we would have found it. I've been using detection magic and clairvoyance the entire time we were out here at sea. After dealing with Rowl and his master I'm quite confident in my illusion resistances and perception so I can certainly deny the possibility." I gave my thoughts on the matter.

Upon hearing my explanation, Erza's shoulders slumped and she sat down on one of the seats the boat had.

"S-So… We can't save them after all, huh…? Haha… Of course not, should have known not to get my hopes up…" Erza muttered, perhaps thinking something unreasonable but I didn't notice at the time.

"Damn it…" I said, biting my nail while thinking over where they might have moved to. "We shouldn't give up immediately, I'll scout out the region on my own for now as it would be faster than by vehicle. Erza, you should head back home and get some sleep." I suggested.

"I… okay." Erza glanced at me as she replied, she moved her gaze away afterwards seemingly very down about the whole situation.

I can understand her perfectly, after having spent who knows how long preparing herself mentally to tell me the location, only to have her piece of knowledge end up being old news and useless…

Of course she'd be down.

"{Gate}. Go on then, it leads straight to Fairy Hills. I'll head back home myself after a few more hours of scouring the seas." I said, watching Erza slowly get up and walk through the gate.

"Thanks, Arthur. And sorry for not being able to do anything here…" Erza said in a depressing manner before passing through.

Before I closed the gate, I watched her receding figure for but a moment before shouting.

"You have nothing to apologize for! I'll take it from here, don't worry! This is more than enough and better than anything I had previously!" I yelled, but got no response.

"See you tomorrow…" I said meekly with a wave, waiting for a response that I never receive before closing the gate.

Ugh… I can't have her efforts be in vain, this tower will be found by sunrise!

I swear it by the damn horse masked pervert that sent me here!

With that final thought I took the boat back into my storage and flew up into the sky with both {Wings} and {Flight}. Using {Strength UP} to strengthen my wings and {Speed UP} to add even more speed to the flight spell than it already had, after lowering my weight even with gravity magic the speed boost was immense.

I then proceeded to move towards a random direction that I thought the island might have been moved to.

With a mutter, I cast {Accelerate} and shot up to high Mach speeds through the air, going westwards for a while until I reached some decently sized islands, definitely not what I was looking for.

Teleporting back after scouring the area for about three hours, I went east until I reach the coast of Minstrel and checked every region on my way there and around the general coastline of the country until dawn broke.

In the end, the island seemingly didn't exist anymore.

It had disappeared like a phantom. But how did they obtain a method of doing it? Why did they do it?

To avoid Zev and his father?

But that would be ȧssuming they immediately moved the island… Which is impossible!

Crap… I was so close!

Am I really back at the beginning again? With no clues as to their location?

"FUCK!" I yelled in frustration, releasing my magic power all around with enough force to create small waves in the calm sea below.

"How do I find them now…?" I muttered, having my best option shattered before teleporting myself in my house's bed, tired both mentally and physically after twenty four hours of searching for a ghost island.

"Sorry, Erza… I guess I'll have to make you wait on my promise from before…" I muttered as I laid in bed.

Thinking everything through, the answer is one of two things.

Either Zev's father returned and moved the island with the help of an item, or perhaps by his own strength depending on what kind of magic he practices.

Or…

Whoever brainwashed Jellal in the place of Ultear was responsible for the Tower of Heaven vanishing!

…