Blossoms Who Are Without Equals

Hana Itou, a girl with short pink hair walked along the crowded street, one hand pulling on the wheeled-luggage behind her and the other holding a map. Her head was moving up and down repeatedly as she was reading the map and looking around at the same time. “Ah! I’m lost!” she whined, stopping and sitting on her luggage, burying her face in her hand.

After a while, she lifted up her head and sighed, just watching the people around her moving about, minding their own business. One of her hands moved up to stop one of the passers-by but fell back to her side almost immediately. She turned to look at her side when she felt something tugging at the hem of her knee-length skirt. She blinked to see a little boy with dark hair and friendly eyes. “Nee-chan, do you need help?” he asked with a big smile on his face. She smiled back almost immediately and nodded.

“I’m lost,” she admitted shyly, her face blushing rapidly. She showed him the map in her hand. “I’m looking for a guild called Fairy Tail,” she explained. The boy beamed brighter at that, showing all of his teeth, resting both of his hands on his waist and thrusting his chest forward.

“I know where it is! Let me show you!” he replied enthusiastically, pulling on her hand. She quickly got up and grabbed the handle of her luggage and followed the excited boy. “My name is Romeo, by the way.”

“Hello, Romeo-kun. My name is Hana. It’s nice to meet you,” she introduced herself politely. Romeo grinned widely and kept walking forward with her following him closely. The street of Magnolia was always busy and occasionally, she would get cat-calls from several men lounging against the walls of the shops by the roadside. She paid them no attention though.

“We’re here!” he announced after a few minutes, standing in front of a big building. Hana stood there in awe, staring at the vast building in front of him that had a logo of the guild she had been dreaming of joining since she first learned the art of magic from her mother. Romeo tugged on her hand and urged her to go inside. She did. Tentatively, she let the little boy opened the door and she took timid steps inside, inhaling deeply and held his breath.

The interior of the guild was bigger than it looked from the outside. There were a lot of tables where the members of the guild were lounging around, some of them eating, drinking or just talking to each other. At a corner of the room, there was a notice board of some sort. Further into the room, there was a bar and a young woman with white hair and beautiful face stood behind it, wiping on the table while chatting with a man.

She walked further into the guild and followed Romeo who was leading her towards the bar. He took a seat on one of the stools and beamed at the woman behind the counter. “Romeo-kun, you’re back,” the woman greeted warmly and Hana realized that she was Mira-Jane, one of the most popular female wizards that was always featured in the Sorcerer’s Weekly. She sat quietly on a stool between Romeo and a girl with short blue hair. Mira tilted her head to the side and shot Hana a questioning look.

“Hi, there. How can I help you?” she asked in a friendly tone and Hana smiled back.

“I’m Hana Itou. I’m a wizard and I wish to join this guild,” she said earnestly, both her fists resting on top of her knees. Romeo looked at her in surprise.

“You’re a wizard? What is your magic?” he asked, standing up on the stool before the man that was talking to Mira earlier pulled on the collar of his shirt and forced the boy to sit back down. “Dad!” he whined.

“Sit properly if you don’t want to fall,” the man said sternly as Romeo just pouted. Hana smiled, and noticed a bunch of flowers in a glass jar on the top of the bar counter. She picked up a flower that’s still in its bud state.

“Romeo-kun,” she called. “Look.” She held up the flower with one hand, holding the stem between her thumb and forefinger. With her other hand, she pointed her pointer finger on the flower and muttered, “bloom!” Slowly, the flower’s petals opened and bloomed beautifully, the scent filling the guild. She handed the full-bloom flower to the boy and smiled sweetly, her head cocked slightly to the side. “For you.”

“Thank you, Hana nee-chan!” Romeo exclaimed, jumping from the stool and went to the other members of the guild to show off his flower. She giggled a little before turning back her attention towards Mira. Mira smiled back, taking out a stamp with the guild’s symbol on it and a magic ink.

Hana let Mira to stamp the symbol at the back of her neck and was feeling beyond happy that she was now officially a member of the guild. “Thank you,” she said gratefully, her eyes glinting with happiness. The blue haired girl that was just watching the whole ordeal from the beginning tapped Hana’s shoulder and shot her a friendly smile.

“I’m Levy,” she introduced herself. “That flower is so pretty! Can you make one for me?” Hana nodded and did the same with another flower from the jar and gave it to Levy. “Ah! So cute! I like you, Hana-chan!” Levy exclaimed, hugging the girl and she couldn’t help but blush at the compliment.

“What the hell are you saying, Wakaba?”

Hana quickly turned to the direction of the commotion as her eyes widened to see two men arguing in the middle of the room. One of them was Romeo’s father. “You’re a useless old man, Macao. I’m just stating the truth,” the guy with a smoke between his lips replied with a sneering tone. Macao pushed the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbow and pushed on the one called Wakaba. The latter stumbled a few steps backward.

“Look out!” Hana called out when she realized that he was going to bump into a dark-haired girl that was drinking a pint of beer. But it was too late as he crashed into the girl, making her drop her pint and spill the beer. Everything happened so fast and the next thing she knew, the calm environment in the guild had suddenly turned crazy. Chairs and tables flew everywhere across the room. Romeo was rolling on the floor, laughing hard as Levy hid her face in her palm, shaking her head lightly.

A stray chair flew towards her direction and Hana was quick to dodge, however, Mira-Jane wasn’t as lucky as the wooden furniture hit her square on the head. “Mira-san!” she exclaimed, mortified as Mira had lain on the floor, a huge bump already formed on her forehead but she still had that friendly smile on her face. She lifted up a thumb in an ‘okay’ sign before passing out.

As if the situation wasn’t hectic enough, not too long after that, the door to the guild burst open and two boys walked in, auras of flaming-red and icy-blue coming out from the both of them. “Say that again, squinty-eyes and you’re dead!”

“You’re a stupid droopy-eyes,” the one with a pink hair much like Hana’s own said, one of his hands suddenly turned into flame. Behind them, a blonde girl entered tiredly and made her way straight towards the bar and sat on the other side of Levy, totally ignoring the chaos inside the guild.

“Are you okay, Lu-chan?” Levy asked the blonde girl and she let out a sigh, resting her chin on the wooden counter top.

“All the rewards we got from the job was used to compensate for the damage they created. How am I gonna pay for my rent this month?” the blonde ranted, but straightened up when she saw Hana. “Hi!” She smiled.

“Lu-chan, this is Hana, she’s the new member of the guild,” Levy introduced her to the blonde.

“I’m Lucy. Nice…” She didn’t get to finish her sentence as she was suddenly thrown out of her stool when the pink-haired boy crashed into her. He grinned when he looked at Hana, one hand on his waist and the other on the back of his head. He was wearing a mafla around his neck.

“I’m Natsu!” he said. “Welcome to the guild. Come on and join us have fun,” he continued, pulling on Hana’s hand and pulled her from the stool. Hana looked at Levy for help but the blue-haired girl just smiled at her helplessly.

“Hey! Squinty-eyes, leave the girl alone and fight like a man!” the other boy that was previously fighting with Natsu stood in front of them and for some reasons, all of his clothes had gone and he was standing only in his boxers. Hana screamed, covering her eyes.

What was this guild? She thought as Natsu left her and went on to fight with the boy who she faintly heard Natsu had called Gray. “This is Fairy Tail.” Hana turned to see Mira-Jane standing next to her, smiling fondly at all the members in the room. “You’ll find yourself loving every second of this chaos,” the woman said, smiling brightly and Hana found herself smiling back.