"Let's settle this once and for all~~~!"
What nostalgic sounds.
What nostalgic words.
Those nostalgic figures.
These familiar scenes.
This nostalgic scene dispelled the out of place feeling he had due to being away from this place for 4 straight years. It also made him grin at the sight of it all.
This scene seems like it just happened yesterday, and he reacted as if he had just done the same feat yesterday as well. Noah lifted his arm and clenched his fist before striking the pink haired youth in the solar plexus with speed many times faster than what the youth could muster.
Bam
"Ogh!"
With a moan, the pink haired youth went stiff while his eyes started to bulge before he fell to the ground in a limp.
"I just came back and I could use some rest. Can we continue this the next time?"
Noah withdrew his fist and smiled at the collapsed youth before greeting him under the speechless gazes of the other guild members.
"It's been a while! Natsu!"
"He⊠HeheâŠ"
Natsu grew much taller and his face also matured a lot since the last time he saw him. However, his refreshing smile is still plastered onto his countenance as the guy shouted out loud while holding down his aching stomach.
"Still so excitingly strong as usual!"
Noah smiled but before he could say anything, a small figure descended from above and landed beside Natsu.
"Natsu, are you okay?"
"Eh?"
Noah is amazed.
For no other reason than because the creature that landed at Natsu's side is but a cat. It's a blue cat with a pair of pure white wings.
"I am alright!"
Natsu energetically jumped up and rubbed his stomach before turning towards the cat with wings.
"This kind of damage is nothing, Happy!"
"Happy?"
Noah curiously examined the cat with wings.
"You're Happy?"
"Aye!"
The blue cat named Happy responded with vigor.
"Happy hatched from an egg that squinty eyes picked up from somewhere, it happened not long after you were gone!"
From within the crowd, a black-haired kid with the guild insignia on his right chest walked out. He was bare-chested of course, with only a short pants he came and hugged Noah.
"Finally home, ya bastard!"
"Gray!"
Noah returned his hug and then laughed.
"It's been so long since we last see each other and I see that you still haven't changed, you are still not a big fan of shirts."
"Crap! I forgot!"
Gray looked like he just realized this now, the guild members can't help but laugh in an uproar.
"Heeerrâ!"
A tender voice came and a figure appeared behind Noah before lifting her legs and kicking at his Noah's direction.
Even before he heard the noise, he already sensed her appeared behind him.
The rapid kick turned into afterimages as it approached him, the winds the attack drew also started hitting his back. Noah kept smiling like he hadn't noticed a thing. His figure shifted half a step to the side in a deceptively slow speed which in reality was a very rapid dodge.
Swish
The kick cut through the air around where he was standing just a short while ago.
"Heeeerrrâ-!"
Another tender sound came and another figure appeared at his other side, a short glint of light appeared as an arming blade materialized. The figure grabbed the blade and swung it at Noah with a faster momentum than the kick before, it's path leaving a trial of sword light, its owner clearly isn't holding back on this attack.
Ding
Noah didn't even bother to dodge. He lifted his hand and pinched the sword in the middle of its rapid slash some 10 centimeters away from his face thereby thwarting the attack.
The whole process seemed complex but to the other guild members, they just heard two tender kiais within the short frame of a second. After that, Noah shifted to his side by half a step as a leg poked out from where his right torso was at. Meanwhile, he is pinching a blade that is aimed at his head from his left side.
The two figures finally appeared.
The onlookers finally dropped their jaw when they saw what happened and subsequently registered what had happened after adding in the details of the assailant to their cognitive processes.
Noah showed a helpless expression at the sight of it all.
'Is this how you girls greet people?"
The assailants who kicked and slashed him withdrew their stances and walked in front of him.
The two assailants are young girls close to Noah's age, around 17 years old.
The girl on the left had long white hair which reached down to her waist tied up in a ponytail by a butterfly looking hairband. The shirt she was wearing could do no more than cover those magnifent twin mounds on her body but could do little to hide her navel. The shirt certainly didn't cover her back as well. She wore black mini skirt and black kneesocks.
The girl on the right had flaring red hair reaching her waist, she donned a silvery armor with a blue pleated skirt and had an arming sword in her hand. She looked like a total martial goddess with how heroic she looked.
These two girls are very familiar existences to him.
Different from Lisanna, they each transformed in a way. They are no longer the little girls he had known in the past, they had matured into mature maidens. They are Mira and Erza.
"You asshole!"
Although she had grown up to be a very charming girl, her verbal mannerisms are still unchanged from how he knew it. Crude and very fierce, even her eyes that are directed at him were filled with killing intention.
"So you still knew what it means to come home huh?!"
She sounded very fierce but no matter how one looks at it, it sure sounded like a wife scolding her husband for messing around outside and never returning home.
In stark contrast to Noah, Erza very simply stored away her arming blade and greeted him with a smile after sizing him up.
"Long time no see, you have changed."
"You girls changed drastically as well."
He expressed that line very emotively especially after inadvertently seeing those big ass jugs that her small vest can barely hold. (Tl: "inadvertently". Er huh.)
"So much in fact that quite frankly I almost didn't recognize you girls."
"Noah, surely you haven't forgotten about us!"
At one of the table on the sides, a tanned beefcake with white hair wearing a high school uniform stood up while grinning at Noah.
"We are over here!"
"Oh, you've returned?"
A young girl in a bikini who had curly long black hair called out to him after chugging down a huge barrel of booze, she is clearly intoxicated.
"Finally, a fine specimen of a man in this guild!"
"You guys are⊠Elfman and Cana?"
Noah asked in a startled manner.
"Wow had you guys changed or what, and you Cana, when did you start drinking?"
"Maa maaâŠ."
Cana heartily laughed while flushing from the inside of her.
"Don't mind the small stuff!"
He glanced through those faces and recalled what his childhood friends used to look like and he compared them to what they looked like now. He could only sigh at how time can change anything.
At this point, a midget of an old man walked over from the bar and arrived in front of Noah.
The guild stood still as Noah looked eye to eye with this old man who he hadn't see for 4 years. The emotional turbulence within their eyes is something that not many could detect.
After quite some time, the old man finally opened his mouth.
"You've grownâŠ"
Noah nodded and responded with all his feelings in his sentence.
"I am back, grampsâŠ"