The twelve keys are gathered! This will be interesting.

Summary:

As Natsu is facing what seems to be the leader of the Executioners, the guild master is thinking about apology letters. The guild members who aren’t participating in the tournament are worried but they must have faith in Natsu’s team.

Natsu’s opponent pulls out two huge blades shaped like wings with arms attached to them. He swings them at Natsu who dodges the attacks. The knight appears to be aiming at Natsu’s neck only.

Lily is facing the biggest knight who fights using acid, something Lily can’t block with his sword. Mira is up against Kamika who is using green papers this time – poison. Wendy is being attacked by Cosmos who is using her spore bombs. The spores can make people fall asleep so Wendy slowly dozes off.

Uosuke changes the ground Lucy’s team is standing on to one with lava. The ground breaks apart and everyone grabs ledges to keep themselves from falling down. Happy and Charle rush in to save their comrades but Uosuke changes the gravity to smash them down on the ground. Arcadios watches Yukino and Lucy struggle. He tells the girls that they’re the only hope they have. Without them Eclipse can’t begin. For that, he won’t regret sacrificing his own life to save the girls.

Arcadios rushes through the burning lava and lifts up the girls so they can climb up. Arcadios tells Lucy and Yukino to meet the princess if they make it out alive. He also tells them that they should decide for themselves whether Eclipse is the right path or not. Having said that, Arcadios sinks in the lava but is saved by Horologium. Lucy is surprised to see her stellar spirit, but Loke appears and reminds Lucy that he can freely pass through the gate.

Loke hands Yukino her keys. Now that all twelve keys have been gathered, the team prepares for a counter attack. Before the chapter ends, we see Natsu blocking one of the leader’s attacks by grabbing a blade and breaking it. It seems that the tables have been turned.

The fight is on! It’s exciting to see how the battles play out. As it is now, most of the FAIRY TAIL members are at a disadvantage, but I expect things to change like they did for Lucy’s team and Natsu.

Natsu’s opponent still has no name so I’ll call him “leader”. The leader did not appear to be very impressive to me. His weapons have a very peculiar design… The leader seemed strong; I actually thought he’d be the strongest in his group but it turns out that he is very simple minded. While his attacks are dangerous because he goes straight for the neck, it’s also easy to fight an opponent who only does one trick. But who knows? He might have more attacks (like magic), however, I’m sure Natsu will defeat him.

Perhaps Mira and Wendy are facing the toughest opponents? The two of them haven’t made any progress in their battles, and their opponents use very flexible magic. I’m not worried about the girls though, especially not Mira. Lily is at a disadvantage in his battle but I don’t expect him to lose. He and Gajeel went through training before the tournament began. We haven’t really been given a proper chance to see any of them use their new-found strength so I hope this battle will allow Lily to show off.

While all battles were shown, the main one this week was Lucy and Yukino’s against Uosuke. The knight sure has a very strange magic. Changing the ground to lava and controlling the gravity? Maybe he is the strongest Executioner? Watching Arcadios walking out in the lava (is that even possible?) to save the girls while sacrificing himself actually made me feel nothing towards the character. It was a heroic act, but still, it makes me wonder if it’s all staged. What if Arcadios simply did this to make Lucy feel guilt and proceed with the Eclipse plan? There is something that isn’t right…

The highlight of course, was seeing Lucy’s keys being returned to her. Loke sure has been missed but I’m a bit surprised he showed up now. Where were her spirits during the Naval Battle? Do the spirits only show themselves if Lucy is facing death? Their way of appearing whenever they wish to do so is weird and somewhat rude. While they’ll be of great help in the current battle, they’ve been needed before as well. I also wonder if the spirits can sense Lucy being in danger from afar or if the keys need to be close to her. What if Arcadios brought the keys to the Hell Palace? Yukino is his ally after all and her keys were there as well. Maybe I’m thinking too much into it but the curiosity kills me.

Whatever happens, the upcoming battle will hopefully be a spectacular one. I have high expectations for it. With all twelve keys gathered, something amazing is bound to happen. I’m really looking forward to the continuation of Lucy’s battle, as well as the others’, but mostly Lucy and Yukino’s.

Moete kitazou!

33 Comments

  1. Natsu, well am not to worried about. Wendy is a different story, that women doesn’t seem like the “I love cute girls” type.

    Zeref, when will you appear I wonder, likely when one of the members of Fairy Tail loses likely.

    L002
  2. Looking forward to what everyone will be able to do during this fight.
    BTW: I didn’t know you can stay in lava for more than 10 seconds, but have your body intact….
    Ehhh…. who cares, right?

    Michael
    1. Tons of people got burned, struck by lightning, etc and turned out fine. They’re still in one piece, at least. Lava’s probably a teeny bit tougher, but as long there’s magic in their bodies, meh… it’s no big deal.

    1. Maybe I’m wrong, but aside from pre-story characters (Ul, and Loki and Aries’ first master), has anyone ever died in Fairy Tail? All characters who have lost battles and been attacked have only ever been taken to the point of death at worst. I guess it’s just because the show is essentially aimed at a younger audience as well, so they take it as far as they can (brilliantly) without crossing the line and making it dark.

      Celecia01
  3. I agree, Natsu’s opponent will probably take it up a notch once the story can focus on that fight (after everyone else’s probably) and I imagine it will get much more intense, given how strong Natsu is at this point, and to compensate for any ‘final battle’ he would have had in the tournament. Wendy is my number one concern, she seems the most likely to be defeated, although she does use wind magic, which is technically the perfect match for spore type magic. Mira and Lily have yet to actually respond to being attacked, but I imagine they can hold their own. Once again, loving the art in this week’s manga, not sure who draws it as Fairy Tail is still new to me, but I think they’re one of the best I’ve seen so far.

    Also, I think it would be epic if Lucy and Yukino perform a unison raid and summon all 12 of the golden key spirits at once!

    Celecia01
  4. Is it just me, or does Loki seem a lot thicker/buffer under that suit now? He used to be pretty slim, but now…

    And I’m not going to rule Arcadios out yet as a ‘baddie’. Some people are just that fanatical to do something like this. If these guys were such GOOD executioners, Arcadios wouldn’t be alive right now in the first place. Suspicious~…

    Arakan7
  5. Loki is really a great and a wonderful Spirit, He always shows up to protect Lucy( somehow I knew He would come to her rescue ) unlike other spirits like Aquarius who would abandon her to go be with her boyfriend. He is always useful and reliable. He didn’t just return Lucy’s
    keys but Yukino’s keys as well.

    K C M
  6. Guys I think that Yukino is going to be the next member of Fairy Tail and the only ex-member of Sabertooth to join Fairy Tail, some still think that Sting and Rogue might join too but I don’t think so, that will mean six Dragon Slayers and five exceeds in Fairy Tail, I think that’s a bit too much. It’s fair to have one more stellar Mage and I wish Yukino Aguria will be welcomed to Fairy Tail.

    K C M
  7. I doubt doubt Arcadios at all. While he still might be hoping for FT to go back to the past for some ass kicking (as he clearly tells Lucy as well), I commend his efforts to save them regardless. He is not a bad man at all.

    dimasok
  8. Maybe I’m being naive but perhaps Hiro Mashima has changed his mind in having Arcadios as the main antagonist of this chapter? Like when Gajeel was ‘revealed’ as a spy for Raven Tail only to be presented as a double agent at the end of the arc. I always felt that the little bit about Gajeel back then was Hiro Mashima having changed his mind about having him as a bad guy. Certainly if a villain is only pretending to care about the good guys he wouldn’t run into lava to save them, unless…perhaps the nature of his magic is something that gives him enhanced resistance. Perhaps he is not a villain in the sense of just being evil and wanting Zeref’s power, but rather he really does believe that going to the past is the only way to make sure Zeref and Acnologia are not born yet he also believes that preventing their ascension to power is very well worth costing someone their life, you know like “the end justifies the means”.

    Side Note: I’m almost sure that Acnologia belongs to the past and hasn’t actually lived for 400 years until the present. The reason for that is that the dragons disappeared 14 years ago, perhaps as I mentioned the same date of the previous attempt at Eclipse. The carving the minister referred to showcased Acnologia as well and it could be that when they sacrificed Lucy’s mother Layla they actually brought Aconolgia from the past to this time, and the currently remaining dragons sensing the Dragon King showing up disappeared knowing that he would most likely go after them. That said maybe…just maybe Arcadios’ current aim is to go back to the past and prevent that screw up that brought Acnologia to this time line from happening? That’s a pretty big aim that may or may not warrant someone to want to even sacrifice people to get it done.

    gawrshness
    1. because
      A) they’re not really aimed at being a darker mooded series.
      simply throwing around death in a series that’s not really that dark to begin with doesn’t make for deeper better writing, contrary to what some think.
      it’s actually just rather cheap and meaningless.

      B) because the reality is outside of hardcore otaku (who may skew older, but are equally as devoted to their characters) and westerners (who tend to get into manga older than native japanese), they’re aimed at a young audience.
      they don’t kill many protagonists in American Saturday morning children’s cartoons either.

      Joe
    2. Killing a character is a huge investment that most Shonen will not make. They invested a lot of time building, creating and showing a good character. This causes a fan base around that character as people invest their time with them, so Shonen Mangas will never kill their good character as it has too big of a fan base.

  9. I hope Lucy redeems herself here! She already shamed FT twice! I hope she at least get a redeeming fight since Gray got one.

    I must say, I expected Lucy and Yukino to fight. So it was really a pleasant surprise to see them fight together next chapter.

    underMebius
  10. Still doubting Arcadios? Come on. Its not like him being saved by a stellar spirit was part of his plan, nor could he have seen it coming. He was seriously about to sacrifice his life to save Lucy and Yukino. Again what merrit does his oh so diabolic plan have if he dies? None.

    Sure I’m not throwing out the possibility that Arcadios can still be a bad guy, but right now he’s leaning more towards the good guy side to me.

    YanDaMan

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