??
In the afternoon, the sun blazed overhead beneath a cloudless sky.
In short, with the sea and weather so clear, and after the competitors had rested for over two hours, the quarterfinals of the first Fairy Tail Martial Arts Tournament were finally about to begin.
To keep the tournament moving and decide the winner as quickly as possible, all four quarterfinal matches would take place at once on the enormous floating arena, now divided into four sections.
The competitors had already drawn lots to determine their opponents.
But no one felt like checking the matchups just then. All eight competitors were standing in their respective sections, silently facing off against their opponents. There was no need for anyone to look at that boring notice board.
At that moment, the quarterfinals consisted of four matchups:
Spirit Mage Annie Hastur VS Fire Dragon Slayer Mage Etherious Natsu Dragneel
Iron Dragon Slayer Mage Gajeel Redfox VS Titania Erza Scarlet
Ice-Make Mage Gray Fullbuster VS Demon Mirajane Strauss
Lightning Dragon Slayer Mage Laxus Dreyar VS the mysterious Mystogan
"..."
(??ˇ?ˇ??)
"Natsu! How about you just surrender before the match starts? Then I won't beat you up. You can't win anyway—you've tried plenty of times before, haven't you?"
(?￣??￣??)??°
While they waited for the match to begin, during the time set aside for the competitors to mingle and warm up, Annie stood facing Natsu, who was seriously going through his warm-up routine. She gave him the same sort of advice that Lucy had given her earlier.
"Your Fire Dragon Slayer Magic only gives you two boring ways to attack: close combat and breathing fire. And you know I'm just like you—I'm completely immune to fire!"
?(???c)
"And if you dare come at me for close combat..."
?乛?乛?
"I'll turn you into a frog and