Yuri's Origins

"Huh? You're asking about Yuri's past?" Cana looked at Erza in disbelief. Erza had actually approached her to ask about someone else.

After all, when Erza had first joined the guild, she had ignored Cana even when Cana had tried to talk to her.

"That's right. You've been in the guild longer, Cana, so I thought you might know more," Erza said frankly.

A week had passed since Yuri and Erza returned to the guild. Perhaps because Yuri had returned to the guild after such a long absence, she had heard quite a few things about him during that time.

Erza felt more than curiosity about Yuri.

From the promise he had made to Sonia, Erza could tell that Yuri had some connection to the mysterious person.

As Yuri's companion through the incident and Sonia's friend, she naturally wouldn't take it for granted that Yuri should bear everything alone.

That was why she wanted to learn about Yuri's past and see whether she could find any clues.

As for why she didn't ask Yuri directly... that would probably just earn her some nasty teasing.

Cana hesitated for a moment. "I do know a little, but I heard it from Macao, Wakaba and the others. I don't know whether it's actually true."

The Macao and Wakaba Cana mentioned were two longtime guild "veterans," and she was particularly close to them.

"Please tell me everything you know," Erza requested.

"You don't have to be so formal. It's not a secret or anything. Pretty much everyone who's been in the guild for more than five years knows."

"You have to have been here over five years to know, and you say it's not a secret!" Gray, wearing nothing but his underwear, popped out from who knew where.

"I told you, it's not a secret! People just don't usually bring it up. I only found out after they got drunk." Cana reminded him, "Also, Gray, where are your clothes?"

"Ah! When did that happen?"

"Why doesn't anyone want to bring it up? Is there something difficult to talk about?" Erza asked worriedly. If that were the case, she would stop asking.

"No, it's not that. If he really cared that much, knowing Yuri, he would've beaten up anyone who talked out of turn a long time ago."

That was true...

The two thought back on Yuri's rather nasty personality and came to the same conclusion.

"They say Gildarts brought Yuri back from a mission one day seven years ago."

After establishing that there was nothing she couldn't tell them, Cana began telling the two about Yuri's origins...

In the year X770, Gildarts, Fairy Tail's sole ace S-Class Mage, accepted a commission at the age of thirty-two.

The commission was to "investigate the Sky-Splitting Grand Canyon," and its difficulty was rated as a Ten-Year Quest.

A mage's career was always accompanied by countless missions. These missions were divided into different ranks according to their difficulty: D-Class, C-Class, B-Class, A-Class, and finally S-Class, the dividing line for mages.

Above S-Class were SS-Class Missions and Ten-Year Quests, as well as the legendary 100-Year Quest, the only one of its kind in the world!

As the name suggested, the 100-Year Quest was a mission that no one had managed to complete in the hundred years since it was issued. By the same logic, a Ten-Year Quest was a mission that no one had completed in over ten years since it was issued.

But unlike the one-of-a-kind 100-Year Quest, Ten-Year Quests varied considerably in difficulty... sometimes enormously so.

A mission that had gone uncompleted for ten years qualified as a Ten-Year Quest, and a mission that had gone uncompleted for fifty years would also be rated a Ten-Year Quest.

So could the two missions really be equally difficult?

Even though they belonged to the same class, the gap between them was definitely greater than the gap between D-Class and SS-Class.

If S-Class was a dividing line for mission difficulty and a mage's ability, then Ten-Year Quests could almost be considered the ceiling for missions.

After all, there was no record of anyone ever completing the 100-Year Quest above them.

And the commission Gildarts had taken this time had gone uncompleted for a full seventy-three years. People had given it names such as "the quest that might become the next 100-Year Quest" and "the king of Ten-Year Quests."

"No one could finish it for seventy-three years... What was in that canyon?" Natsu asked in wonder.

"Inside was... Wait, where did you come from?" Interrupted halfway through her story, Cana asked in annoyance.

"Come on, forget about this slant-eyed idiot for now! Tell us what was in there!" Gray said impatiently.

"Huh?! Who're you calling slant-eyed, you droopy-eyed underwear pervert?!" Natsu shot back, annoyed.

"You, you slant-eyed bastard!"

"You wanna fight?!"

"Bring it on!"

Sparks flew from their eyes as they pressed their foreheads together, only for both of them to crash into the floor the next second.

"No fighting!" Erza stepped up and punched each of them, putting a timely stop to the fight.

Then she dragged the two unconscious boys back to their chairs and motioned for Cana to continue.

"..."

Cana was speechless for a moment before continuing. "It's said that everyone who accepted the commission vanished in the canyon..."

The Sky-Splitting Grand Canyon was an exceptionally long canyon, so straight that it cut through an entire mountain range.

Its earliest history could be traced back some four hundred years. It had been named for its smooth cliff walls and its long, straight course.

People all said the canyon didn't look as though it had formed naturally. Instead, it looked as if someone had carved it out with a blade.

Of course, some dismissed that claim, saying it couldn't possibly have been made by a person. After all, the canyon was nearly a hundred kilometers long.

But that still failed to explain why the canyon's cliff walls were so smooth.

In any case, opinions varied, and people said all sorts of things.

The canyon's air of mystery also occasionally drew treasure hunters, explorers, archaeologists, and others to investigate it.

But... not a single person who went to the canyon returned alive.

Everyone said there was a man-eating monster in the canyon... Gradually, the Sky-Splitting Grand Canyon also came to be known as the Gaping Maw Grand Canyon.

The name meant "all who enter are devoured; none come out."

"What happened after that? If a monster appeared in the canyon, how did Gildarts bring Yuri out?" Erza asked.

"He must've sent the monster flying!" Natsu, now awake with a large bump on his head, waved his fists as he spoke.

"Obviously. There's no way any monster could beat Gildarts." Beside him, Gray, who also had a large bump on his head, folded his arms, his words full of confidence in Gildarts.

"That's the thing!"

Cana looked around at them, unconsciously lowering her voice. She leaned in close and whispered, "Gildarts didn't encounter anything!"

"..."

As soon as Cana spoke, the air around them seemed to fall deathly still.

Gray was silent for a long time before he spoke. "You're messing with us, right? You have to be messing with us!"

Natsu didn't believe it either. "How could there be nothing? Wasn't Gildarts supposed to fight a magic beast next?"

"Come on, how should I know?!" Cana said angrily. "Anyway, that's what everyone says. There was nothing at all in the canyon except Yuri, all by himself. Gildarts took pity on him and brought him back."

"Tch!" Natsu and Gray scoffed.

"I thought it was going to be some wild story, but it's so boring."

"Yeah, exactly. If I'd known it would have such a lousy ending, I wouldn't have listened in the first place."

While the two single-celled organisms were bitterly disappointed, Erza sat alone to one side, thinking about many things.

A commission that stayed active for seventy-three years couldn't possibly have come from nowhere... And there's no reason for a child of only five or six to appear in a canyon with nothing in it... Not to mention that no one wants to talk about the truth...

Could it be?!!!