"August... I'm so sorry."
Mavis lowered her head and began to cry quietly.
She felt as though she had failed too many people—Yuri, Rita, and now August.
She had been his mother, yet she had never held him, protected him, or watched him grow.
Although Mavis still possessed the appearance of a young woman, her soul had remained on Tenrou Island for many decades. In actual age, she was not younger than August and had no difficulty accepting an elderly man as her son.
She already treated Makarov as a junior.
Besides, even her youthful body had technically existed in the world for over a century.
August's expression softened.
His Divine Ears could not hear Marco's thoughts, but everyone else remained perfectly clear to him.
Mavis's voice within her heart was impossible to mistake.
The woman standing before him, weeping as she apologized, was giving August something he had desired all his life and long since accepted he would never receive.
Love.
Not the love of the father who had never recognized him, but the love of the mother he had believed was dead before he ever knew her.
August had never resented Mavis for failing to love him. He had genuinely believed she was dead.
Expecting a dead woman to return and care for him would have been unreasonable even by his standards.
"No. None of this was your fault," August said gently. "None of us wanted things to happen this way."
He tried to comfort the mother who looked young enough to be his granddaughter.
Through her thoughts, he could feel the depth of her pain, and he did not want her crying because of him.
"So Father... truly is dead?"
Everything before him forced August to accept the possibility he had never imagined.
"Zeref made his own choice," Mavis said after a brief pause. "It was the ending he wanted. He was exhausted, August. He needed to rest. He wanted... release."
She understood now why August had refused to believe it.
Zeref had carried a curse of immortality. His death should have been impossible.
But August could see Mavis standing alive before him, free from the same Curse of Ankhseram that had once killed her. With his intelligence, there was no point continuing to deny the truth.
"Release..."
August repeated the word, then gradually smiled.
"Yes. He needed that more than anyone."
That was a choice August could believe his father would make.
Zeref had been tired for longer than most people could comprehend.
Buzz.
Marco released August from the Crystal Wall.
August could not hear Marco's thoughts, but Marco could see through everything within him.
There was no longer any reason to restrain the old mage.
August had accepted the truth. He had no intention of resisting or doing anything reckless.
"You two should talk somewhere private."
Marco waved a hand, and Mavis and August disappeared, transported to a quiet place away from the others.
A mother and son meeting for the first time after more than eighty years deserved privacy.
Marco was not worried about them.
Both Mavis and August were mentally stable and possessed fairly gentle personalities.
There was little chance of their reunion turning into a disaster.
The other mother and daughter were another matter.
Erza was not the problem.
Irene was.
The mother of Dragon Slayers had suffered severe psychological damage.
Her personality had changed almost completely from the woman she had once been.
Her current behavior made that obvious. Irene was crushing every emotion that rose inside her and refused even to look directly at Erza.
"Mother... I know everything now."
Erza gazed at her with aching sympathy.
The situation was almost the exact opposite of Mavis and August's reunion.
There, Mavis had grieved for the son she had never raised.
Here, Erza was the daughter grieving for her mother.
"You've suffered for so long..."
Erza's voice was gentle.
Titania had always been kind beneath her stern exterior, with a powerful sense of duty and deep empathy for others.
She understood Irene's choices almost too well, and she already felt admiration for the legendary woman her mother had once been.
Had Erza lived through the same events, she would probably have made the same decisions.
She too would have sacrificed everything to protect her kingdom and its people, just as she would now give up anything to defend Fairy Tail.
Those feelings were no different at their core.
Irene's body trembled.
No matter how tightly she suppressed herself, Erza's words still reached the part of her she had tried to bury.
"Why keep forcing yourself not to feel anything?" Marco asked from nearby.
His words were directed at Irene.
She presented herself as cold and heartless, but the love she held for Erza had never completely disappeared.
Abandoning her daughter had arguably been the final correct decision Irene made before her mind collapsed entirely.
At the time, she had become so desperate to regain a human body that she had considered taking Erza's for herself.
The instant she realized what she was about to do, Irene abandoned the child.
Even the fiercest beast would not devour its own young. No matter how overwhelming Irene's desire to become human had grown, she could not allow herself to harm the daughter she had given birth to.
Marco sighed.
"You know, I can turn you back into a human."
"What?!"
Irene finally lost her composure.
For centuries, returning to humanity had been the one wish she could never let go of.
In that sense, Irene was an extreme believer in human supremacy.
Even becoming a dragon—one of the most powerful life-forms in the world—had never changed what she wanted.
Perhaps becoming a dragon was exactly why that desire had grown so obsessive.
If she had transformed into some other creature, she might not have hated her own existence quite so much.
"I mean exactly what I said," Marco continued. "I can change your dragon body back into a human one."
With his current abilities, it was genuinely possible.
The power of the Ophiuchus Gold Cloth allowed him to control and reshape the body with extraordinary precision.
He could alter someone's physical form almost however he wished.
Transforming a dragon into a human would be more challenging than ordinary healing, but it was still well within his ability.
He had never attempted it before, yet Marco was confident he could quickly work out the process.
Irene's current appearance was only a magical disguise.
Her true body remained that of a dragon.
Irene's expression filled with desperate hope.
Erza stayed silent beside her.
After hearing Irene's history, she understood how important this was.
The inability to become human again had been what finally drove her mother into despair.
Most people might struggle to understand such an obsession, but Erza could.
Irene had been humanity's champion against the dragons.
Then she became the very creature she had fought, only to be tortured and rejected by the humans she protected.
The emotional damage had destroyed her.
"Please..." Irene's voice softened completely. "Help me."
By now, she had also begun to accept that Marco was telling the truth.
She could not read minds, but August's reaction had already revealed enough.
Zeref was really dead.
More importantly, he had chosen death without regret.
That meant the plan he had spent years preparing against Acnologia was no longer necessary.
"The Black Dragon..." Irene raised her head and asked one final time. "Is he truly dead?"
"Yes. I killed him."
Marco gave her a clear, unwavering answer.
This time, Irene did not challenge him.
Zeref had once saved her and used transformation magic to restore a small part of her humanity.
That debt was the reason she had served him for so long.
If Marco could truly return her to a human body completely, then Irene would owe him gratitude beyond anything she had ever felt before.
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