One week has passed since the end of the Fantasia parade and Laxus's excommunication. Apart from helping with the cathedral repairs, Meliodas spent a majority of his time researching any more leads he could find about the mysterious Anima that Mystogan brought up.
'Still nothing… there's no mention of anima in any of these books. And Mystogan has already left...' Meliodas sighed as he finished reading through another book. When the parade finished, he could not find where Mystogan went and had to take the research into his own hands. There were a limited amount of books about spatial magic in Fairy Tail's library. Although it was a long shot, Meliodas started reading through the history of Fiore, to see if there was an event that happened that might be what he's looking for. He had learned an ample amount about this world but nothing specifically he was looking for. Meliodas placed the book back on the shelf and walked back upstairs to the main guild hall.
As he walked up the stairs back into the guild hall, he could hear Natsu yelling something about Laxus again, an event that has been going on for the past week after Makarov revealed to the guild that he excommunicated Laxus.
"It ain't right old man!! Why did you have to drive Laxus away?!" Natsu shouted. He stood in front of Makarov with an irate expression on his face. Makarov remained silent as Natsu kept pestering him about the subject.
"Give it up Natsu!" Erza yelled from behind Natsu. She approached Natsu and grabbed him by his vest, trying to pull him back as he resisted.
"I still want to fight him, and this time I'll be the one to take him down!" Natsu exclaimed as he tried to power through Erza pulling him. Meliodas approached the two of them, interrupting their conversation. Both Erza and Natsu stopped what they were doing and looked at Meliodas.
"Hey Master do you have a moment?" Meliodas asked.
"What is it?" Makarov asked.
"Have you seen Mystogan?" Meliodas continued. Erza and Natsu's eyes widened upon hearing Mystogan's name. After seeing him with Jellal's face, they still had many questions about him.
"No I have not, at least not since the Fantasia Parade." Makarov responded.
"What do you know about Mystogan?" Erza asked. She gave Meliodas a skeptical look as Natsu stared at him.
"Not a lot." Meliodas replied. "But I'm guessing what you're asking has to do with his appearance. I can't really say much since I don't know a lot myself, but he's not the person you think he is."
"I see…" Erza said quietly. She turned around and began to walk away, dragging Natsu with her, to his dismay.
"Well thanks anyway!" Meliodas said to Makarov as he began walking towards the exit of the guild.
--
Meliodas looked up at the sky as the sunlight poured down. 'Still got some time left.' He walked away from the guild and walked down the main street of Magnolia. Despite being relatively familiar with the city now, he still enjoyed the view. As he walked down the street, he looked down at his clothes. In every fight, something happens to his clothes where either his sleeves get blown off or his entire shirt goes missing. At this point, Meliodas only had a couple of spare sets of clothes left.
'I think it was Heart Kreuz. I should buy some more clothes there.' Meliodas reminded himself as he looked around, eventually finding the shop. He walked into the store, only to find that it was full of customers, most of whom were females. Meliodas watched as the people were fighting each other over clothes. One particular pair of customers were playing tug of war with the clothing.
"HEY I SAW THAT FIRST!!! A young girl said as she grabbed the coat.
"GET YOUR GREEDY PAWS OFF THIS IS MINE!" Another young girl said as she tried to pull the coat way. Tears in the fabric were becoming noticeable as they tried to pull the coat away from each other.
Meliodas found their fight briefly amusing but shrugged the thought as he began weaving through the thick gaggle of customers. Eventually he managed to get through to the section of the shop he had previously bought his clothes in.
Meliodas looked around. Through the crowd of people, he noticed the young woman who had helped him last time and walked towards her. She was currently speaking with a customer.
"Yo" Meliodas greeted her.
She turned towards Meliodas for a brief moment and nodded before returning to her conversation. Once she finished assisting the customer she turned towards Meliodas.
"Hello young man, it's nice to see you again." The woman said. Meliodas was a bit surprised by this.
"You remember me?" Meliodas asked. It had been months since Meliodas set foot in Heart Kruz, and he had only been inside once.
"Of course, we remember most of our customers." She replied with a smile. Truthfully that wasn't the case. It was just that Meliodas was a rather unique customer. The last time he had come, he was wearing bloodied and tattered clothes and pulled out quite a bit of money. Not only was that surprising enough, he also looked to be around 12 years old. A customer like that would naturally be quite memorable.
"Wow, that's impressive." Meliodas replied.
"Thank you, we here at Heart Kruz do our best to support our customers! Is there anything in particular you were looking for." She asked.
"Hmm." Meliodas mused for a moment. 'I should probably stay away from full sleeved clothes for now... they keep ripping apart…'
"Do you have some sleeveless shirts?" Meliodas asked the store associate.The lady thought about Meliodas's request for a second before replying.
"Something like a vest?" She inquired back. The store associate continued to spend another few moments thinking when she remembered something.
"We do have a new vest design for kids that was just released, please give me a moment, I will bring it to you." She said before heading to the back of the store.
"Wait, I am not a k… forget it.." Meliodas stopped his sentence midway. He gave up explaining it to people. Let them assume what they want.
Around 10 min later, the lady came back with a set of clothing in her hand.
"Here you are, it's the new design. Not only is it stylish, but it's also made with a good fabric that's very durable."
Meliodas took the clothing from her and raised it up in front of him. Despite the associate saying it was from the kids section, it looked anything but childish. It was a sleeveless high collared red shirt with white Heart Kreuz symbols sewed neatly inside of the collar. The attendant had also brought over some form fitting black slacks.
"Please consider wearing the pants with the shirt, they will go well together." The associate said.
"Thanks, do you mind if I wear them out?" Meliodas asked.
"Hmm, normally our guests just take them home. But if you'd like, you can use the back room to change."
"Thanks, also please bring me a few more sets of these clothes." Meliodas said before walking into the back to change.
A short minute later, Meliodas walked out of the changing room, wearing his new clothes. 'Not bad. It's really comfortable.' Meliodas thought as he walked out. The pants, despite looking tight, had a lot of room for movement. By the time he came out, the attendant was already waiting for him. She was carrying a few sets of the same clothes that Meliodas just wore. Meliodas grabbed his clothes and walked to the counter. He finished paying his jewels and left the store.
The sun was still shining and Meliodas realized he still had a few hours to kill. Instead of going home, he walked around town and took in some of the views. This world was far more advanced than the one he had lived in. He walked around town and looked towards the alley he had landed in.
He sat on a bench nearby and laid down. He had been here for nearly 5 months with barely any information on how to return. He closed his eyes and pondered his next steps.
'I have to find more clues. I can't just ask random guilds and I doubt the council would provide me anything. Especially after that whole princess ordeal…'
Meliodas spent the next few hours relaxing on the bench, even taking a small nap. Meliodas got off the bench and made his way home, the sun had already set, and the night was illuminated by the stars.
"Well… time to head home."