The Magic Council's official letter had rested quietly in Makarov's pocket for less than a minute.
When Natsu heard the word "questioning," he slammed the table and sprang to his feet. "Are they going to arrest Lin Yuan? Then let's beat up the messenger first!"
The messenger outside the door slipped, turned, and ran.
"Stop right there!" Makarov pressed Natsu back onto the table with a giant hand. "It's just routine questioning. I'll take Lin Yuan there in three days. Anyone who dares follow us will be cleaning for a month when we get back!"
Gray silently put down the coat he had just picked up.
"Where are you going with that coat?"
"I just suddenly felt a little cold."
Erza stared at him suspiciously. "Then why aren't you wearing pants?"
Gray looked down, and his scream rang through the hall.
Lin Yuan found that at Fairy Tail, it was usually hard to seriously worry about anything for more than three sentences.
That afternoon, he went to the back courtyard to train, following Makarov's new instructions.
Ten wooden posts stood in a circle, each with a bell hanging from its top. Lin Yuan's task was not to smash the posts, but to fold the distances between himself and the bells one by one and pluck them down without moving from his spot.
"Don't knock the posts out of place, don't break the strings, and definitely don't swallow the bells," Makarov stressed. "For every one you're short, I'll deduct it from your job reward."
Mira sat on the wall, swinging her legs. "That last part was the important bit, wasn't it?"
Lisanna and Elfman sat outside the safety line, in charge of keeping count.
The first bell landed smoothly in Lin Yuan's palm.
The second was no problem either.
As he reached for the third, Natsu suddenly sprang out from behind a post and threw a punch straight at the side of Lin Yuan's face.
"Duel!"
The fist passed through folded space and struck Gray, who had poked his head out on the other side to watch.
"Why did you hit me?!"
"Lin Yuan sent you over here!"
"Then couldn't you have stopped your punch?"
The two immediately started wrestling, knocking down three posts in succession.
Lisanna held up the record board. "Lin Yuan didn't knock them over, so there shouldn't be a deduction, right?"
"Of course we'll deduct it from Natsu and Gray," Mira said.
"Why us?!" the two shouted at once.
Makarov nodded with satisfaction by the window. At least someone in the Guild had finally learned to calculate compensation on their own, though the person who had learned was one of the biggest sources of compensation claims.
Training resumed.
Lin Yuan did not set the posts upright again. Instead, he folded the slanted distances section by section. The bells slid down from different directions at the same time, finally forming a neat row in front of him.
Ten bells, not one missing.
The onlookers immediately burst into cheers, as though they had completed the training themselves.
"Twenty-seven breaths!" Elfman announced the time.
Erza walked over with a training sword in hand. "Too slow. If your enemy keeps moving, your targeting will be disrupted."
"Then make the enemy stop."
"How?"
"Punch them."
Mira leaped down from the wall. "Easy for you to say. I'll be the target. If you can touch me once, you win."
Black magic spread from her demonic right arm to her shoulder. She still could not maintain her complete Satan Soul at will, but she could already strengthen her legs and back for a short time.
A pair of incomplete black wings spread behind her.
"Go, big sister!" Lisanna immediately sided with her sister.
Elfman hesitated. "Then I'll cheer for Lin Yuan?"
"Why was that a question?" Lin Yuan asked.
Mira shattered the ground beneath her feet and sped past the posts. Lin Yuan folded three stretches of distance in succession, but each time he caught only a wisp of black magic.
She circled behind him and kicked.
Without turning around, Lin Yuan folded the distance between them into a ring. Mira's leg swept past his front, nearly kicking Erza, who had just arrived.
Erza sidestepped, bringing her training sword down on Mira's ankle in the same motion.
Mira lost her balance and crashed headfirst into Lin Yuan's arms. The two rolled across the safety line, crushing the record board in front of Lisanna and Elfman into two pieces.
The back courtyard fell silent for a moment.
"I won," Lin Yuan said.
"How did you win?!" Mira sprang up from the ground. "Erza interfered at the end!"
"No one guarantees you'll face only one enemy in a battle," Erza said seriously.
"Then I'll beat you first!"
The two girls immediately chased each other out of the back courtyard, fighting as they went. Natsu and Gray joined in when they saw them. No one knew who knocked the front door open, but all four fought their way into the Guild hall.
Makarov watched a table come flying out and silently tore up his train tickets for three days later.
It looked like he would have to buy tickets for the next train.
At dusk, the melee ended with everyone subdued beneath giant hands.
Mira lay on the floor, still glaring at Lin Yuan in defiance. "Today doesn't count. Tomorrow, let's go outside the city and have a proper fight."
"What's the wager?"
"Of course, we have to make it a big one."
She held out her demonic right hand and grinned.
"The loser agrees to do one thing for the winner."