Chapter 79: Family Bonding

Sparda looked at the half-demon standing before him, his eyes shifting from the youth’s quiet gaze down to the sharp, dark sheath of the katana in his grip. The longer he stared at the weapon, the more a strange resonance hummed through his own hand—it was connected to Force Edge.

Looking past the boy, Sparda took in the unfamiliar stone buildings and the foreign scent in the air.

"Are you not going to answer?" Sparda asked, his tone carrying the weight of a seasoned warrior.

Rudra didn’t reply immediately. He simply tightened his grip on Yamato, his eyes locked onto the Legendary Dark Knight.

"Then tell me," Sparda rephrased, "what year is this?"

"It’s X791," Rudra said, his voice flat.

Sparda nodded slowly to himself. "Eight hundred years into the future..." He let out a long sigh, his brow furrowing. "Mundus... that three-eyed fool. How low have you fallen, summoning me across time just to deal with a child? No... a half-demon."

Sparda drew Force Edge, the broad blade gleaming beneath the sky. "Forgive me for what I am about to do, young blood. But I am Sparda, and the blade of Mundus must carry out his command."

Rudra didn’t flinch. He adjusted his stance, his thumb resting gently on Yamato’s guard.

"Just my luck," he thought to himself. "Why did it have to be the Sparda from before he turned on Mundus?"

In the next breath, both figures vanished from their spots. A split second later, the air shattered at the center of the courtyard as Yamato and Force Edge locked together, sparks showering the pavement beneath their feet.

Pushing back against the heavy blade, Rudra turned his head toward the side and shouted, "Hisui!"

The princess was still sitting there dazed, tear marks fresh on her face.

"Listen to me! It’s no time for self-remorse! Lucy and her future self will be arriving here in a moment’s notice—help them destroy this—"

Before he could finish, Rudra’s Observation Haki screamed at him to dodge. It was a bizarre warning, considering his Kamui was already active and making his body intangible. Yet instinct took over, and he jerked his head violently to the right.

A sharp sting sliced across his cheek—a line of blood drawn from a blade that should have passed right through him.

Sparda lowered Force Edge slightly, genuine surprise flickering across his face. "Strange. I was certain I took your head with that."

Rudra touched his cheek, his fingers coming away stained red. He stared at the Legendary Dark Knight, his mind racing.

"Kamui is useless for defense against him," Rudra realized, wiping the blood on his coat. "I have to rely entirely on Haki."

I thought that might happen, the System’s voice chimed in his head. Since this guy eventually creates Yamato from his own power, his energy carries the same space-severing properties. Right now, he’s from the era before he forged it, but the concept is already innate to him.

"Gee, thanks for telling me something I couldn’t figure out," Rudra snapped back mentally.

Anything for you, boss! the System replied cheerfully.

Rudra ignored the voice, instantly slipping into a defensive flow as Sparda pressed the assault. Blade trails of raw demonic energy carved through the air, forcing Rudra to weave, parry, and duck by mere millimeters.

"You dodge well for someone relying on trickery," Sparda noted, his heavy strikes driving cracks into the cobblestones. "Yet your eyes move before my sword even begins its arc. A spatial phase and foresight... who trained you?"

"Self-taught," Rudra gritted out, deflective sparks flying as Yamato redirected a lethal overhead swing.

Out of the corner of his eye, Rudra caught a flash of bright blonde hair. Both Lucys—present and future—had finally reached the massive archway of the Eclipse Gate.

"Time’s up," Rudra muttered.

Before Sparda could trace his glance, Rudra thrust his right palm forward, channeling a sudden, massive gravitational force.

"Shinra Tensei!"

The invisible shockwave slammed directly into Sparda’s chest with absolute brutality, blasting the Legendary Dark Knight backward across the courtyard, smashing him through three stone pillars and into the far ruins.

Without breaking stride, Rudra raised his right hand to the open sky, his fingers curling tight into a crushing fist. He pulled his arm down violently, hurling the sky itself toward where Sparda had landed. High above the clouds, a massive, burning meteor tore through the atmosphere, descending straight toward the crash site with a deafening roar.

Rudra snapped his head toward the frozen princess. "Hisui! Do what you need to do!"

Before she could even answer, Rudra vanished, reappearing mid-air in a streak of purple lightning, speeding straight toward the impact zone at terrifying speed.

The meteor struck with a blinding flash, a colossal explosion of heat and shattered rock swallowing the ruins. Rudra landed on the rim of the freshly formed crater, Yamato drawn, his Haki flared to its absolute limit as the smoke cleared.

From the center of the molten crater, a towering wall of dark blue energy swept outward, clearing the dust in a single pulse. Sparda stood there, his armor scorched, Force Edge resting lightly on his shoulder.

"Summoning a star to crush a single man?" Sparda said, wiping a streak of ash from his jaw with a light chuckle. "You have flair, kid. I’ll give you that."

"I was hoping it’d slow you down," Rudra said, touching down inside the crater. "Guess I asked for too much."

"A rock won’t slay a demon," Sparda replied, stepping forward as his aura flared violent and bright.

"That’s the thing, old man," Rudra spat, shifting his grip. "Even if I wanted to kill you, I can’t. If you die here, the consequences will end the world."

As soon as he said that, Rudra’s eyes suddenly widened as a realization hit him. Why did Sparda come out of the Eclipse Gate instead of Mundus?

Before he could process the thought, Sparda appeared right beside him. A heavy fist slammed directly into Rudra’s jaw, sending him crashing straight through a row of stone houses in a trail of dust and shattered wood.

"Dazing off during a life-and-death battle always leads to death, boy," Sparda warned, chasing after him in a dark flash. Yet despite his sharp tone, the young half-demon’s words lingered in his mind, sparking a deep curiosity.

Rudra pushed himself out of the debris, wiping blood from his mouth. "Dammit..."

"Explain what you meant," Sparda said, stepping over the ruined wood with Force Edge resting on his shoulder.

"I can’t do that, you old geezer!" Rudra snapped, raising Yamato into a defensive guard. "If I tell you even a single detail, it could alter the future!"

Sparda swung Force Edge in a lethal arc. "Well, that makes sense. But still—"

Yamato parried the strike with a violent clash of metal, but before Sparda could finish his sentence, Rudra drove a Haki-infused fist straight into Sparda’s jaw. The blow sent the Dark Knight soaring back into the open sky.

Rudra immediately thrust both hands toward the air, his eyes spinning. "Chibaku Tensei!"

A black sphere of gravity formed above Sparda. Massive chunks of earth, shattered houses, and boulder debris tore free from the ground, rushing violently upward to bury the demon knight. Within seconds, the debris condensed into a colossal, floating sphere of stone, sealing Sparda entirely within its core.

Rudra stood panting, staring up at the massive orb hanging motionless in the sky. He watched it for a few tense seconds, seeing no movement.

I don’t think that’s gonna work, Host, the System said in his mind.

True to the System’s words, the very next second, radiant blue light pierced the dense stone. The massive sphere was sliced into countless neat segments before detonating outward, raining shattered rock across the town.

Sparda hovered high in the sky, his dark demon wings fully unfurled, completely unharmed.

Seeing the legendary knight descend like a meteor, Rudra glanced back toward the gate one last time. "Lucy, you better destroy that thing fast..."

He barely managed to bring Yamato up as Sparda slammed into him from above, their blades locking once more in a blinding shower of sparks.

____

Meanwhile, back at the Eclipse Gate, Hisui, with the help of both Lucys, had managed to force the massive heavy doors shut. But shutting it was only half the battle—now they needed to destroy it entirely. It was a daunting task, as none of their magic seemed to leave so much as a scratch on the ancient alloy.

As they stood lost in thought, a localized earthquake shook the ground beneath their feet, causing them to stumble. Looking up toward the distant city skyline, they gasped as a massive, floating stone sphere hovered in the air. Before they could even make sense of what they were seeing, the sphere was sliced into thousands of pieces, revealing Sparda hovering high above the ruins with his dark wings unfurled.

"Is Rudra really going to be alright fighting that thing on his own?" Lucy asked, her voice trembling as she watched the sheer scale of the battle.

Future Lucy shook her head slowly, her expression grim. "I don’t know..."

Hisui turned to her in disbelief. "What do you mean you don’t know? You’re from the future! You should know what that creature is!"

"I really don’t," Future Lucy confessed, her eyes wide with fear. "In the future I come from, this never happened. Only dragons came through that gate!"

Lucy’s breath caught in her throat. "How can that even be?"

"Because someone hijacked the gate and summoned him instead," a soft voice chimed in.

Both Lucys spun around to see Mavis Vermillion standing nearby, her gaze fixed intently on the dark silhouette hovering in the sky.

"First Master!" both Lucys exclaimed in unison.

"Master, do you know what that thing is?" Lucy asked urgently.

Hisui blinked, looking back and forth in confusion. "Lucy... who are you talking to? There’s no one there."

Mavis smiled faintly, snapping her fingers. Her ethereal form instantly materialized into a solid figure right before the princess’s eyes.

Hisui stumbled back in shock. "The First Master of Fairy Tail... but you’re supposed to be dead!"

"Details for another time, Princess," Mavis said smoothly, turning her attention toward the battlefield. "As for that creature... I know who he is. He is a figure from an era far preceding even my time. The warrior who saved the human realm long ago—the Legendary Dark Knight, Sparda."

Future Lucy and Hisui nodded slowly as the heavy information settled in. Current Lucy’s eyes widened as a memory suddenly sparked in her mind—the book she and the other girls had read back at the guild, which they had dismissed as a mere fairy tale.

"No way..." Lucy muttered to herself, her hands shaking slightly. "That story was real?"

She turned back toward Mavis, a chilling thought striking her. "Master... is Rudra somehow related to him?"

Mavis shrugged her small shoulders, offering a subtle smile. "That, I couldn’t say. Besides, shouldn’t we focus on our main goal?"

Lucy took a deep breath and nodded, brushing aside her anxiety for the moment. "Right! We have to focus on destroying this gate."