#ft 522

You stepped over the fucking line, Gray!!!! PLS MAKE IT STOP. 😩

A/N: I just had to write this because I’m beyond upset right now about where Mashima is going with Gray’s “Trump Card”. I still have hope, and I trust sensei. But I need to channel my frustrations somewhere before the official chapters are out lol. 

(I was gonna write a Valentine’s Day special for my OTP, but after these recent chapters I’ve been in a bit of a slump)

Everything was finally over. And as he sloppily got up from the ground, he saw her. She was making her way slowly over across what was left of the battlefield, with Wendy supporting half her body weight.

His eyes lit up. “Juvia!” 

Her sky blue hair was stained purple at some parts from blood, but her face, although twisted in pain and some other emotion he couldn’t read, still looked as pretty as ever. Juvia stumbled towards him while clutching the wound on her stomach with one hand. 

Gray rushed over to her as quickly as his broken legs could muster. 

“Juvia! You’re ok-”

A sharp, deafening sound echoed across the ruins as her hand collided with his left cheek. The impact made him stumble back, and he instinctively brought his fingers to the side of his face, which was now bright red in colour. Gray’s eyes widened in shock, and his breath caught in his throat. But the harsh, stinging pain from the slap couldn’t compare to the look of utter betrayal written on her face.

By now, the water mage had broken free from Wendy’s hold. The sky dragon slayer’s nervous attempt to calm her down seemed to go unnoticed.

“Gray-sama... how could you?” The water mage bit out, tears threatening to fall. 

He still couldn’t move. What was happening? Did Juvia just... slap him? Were the fire and anger in her eyes directed at him?

“Lost Iced Shell?” She said menacingly. “How could you use something so despicable?!”

Her voice pierced through his ears and made his stomach clench uncomfortably. It was the first time she’s yelled at him. 

“How could you try to erase yourself from existence after Juvia tried everything to bring you back!”

Gray felt his blood boil at that, the words reminding him of that dreadful moment when he thought he had lost her forever. His hands shot out and grasped her shoulders roughly. “Who told you to save me? Who gave you permission to sacrifice your life for my sake Juvia?!” 

She threw his hands off and pushed him away. “Yes, Juvia saved you because she would rather have Gray-sama live on happily than for both of us to meet a meaningless end. However, Gray-sama had a choice. And despite knowing that all your friends would be against it, you still chose to die!”

“Gray-sama is ungrateful and selfish,” she continued tearfully. “Who does Gray-sama think he is... to erase such an important person from everyone’s memories!”

“Juvia-san...” Wendy eased her grip on the water mage’s arm and tried to hold back from crying.

Gray swallowed hard in response to Juvia’s scolding. As much as he hated to admit it, she was right. He didn’t realize that by casting Lost Iced Shell, he was robbing everyone’s memories of him without their permission. And he had no right to make that decision for them. 

“Gray-sama...” she sniffled, “probably never intended to share a future with Juvia, that’s why he was willing to perish without giving her an answer.” 

“What?!” The ice mage whipped his head up and took a step forward. "Juvia, you know that’s not-”

“But even so!” she interrupted. “Juvia is not the only one who loves Gray-sama. So please, don’t try to solve everything by yourself all the time. Rely on someone, even if it’s not Juvia....” 

“Wait!” A strong hand found her wrist and formed a death grip. “Juvia, let me talk.” Her words suddenly spiraled him into panic. He wanted to tell her that she’s got it all wrong, that his answer had been ‘yes’ long before he’d realized his feelings for her. But his fingers only trembled against her unmoving hand, and his breath became quick. Why couldn’t he shake the feeling that he was going to lose her a second time? 

The water mage gently pulled her hand out of his grasp and turned away, eyes hidden by her bangs. “Juvia will give up now, Gray-sama.”

His heart stopped.

“Juvia is... so tired.” 

Let’s dive into chapter 522 of Fairy Tail, “Gray’s Trump Card”

So here’s our color cover and finally no more glamor shots. Honestly this looks fine, pretty standard fair for Hiro.

So we open with Zeref apparently trying to psychoanalyze Gray.

Gray! Your not suppose to point out why Zeref doesn’t make sense, that’s my job.

Oh you know also how Lucy has 9 zodiac spirits, her abusive father, she summoned the celestial spirit king. Happy, an exceed from an alternate universe and was raised by Natsu. Yeah some research man. Maybe they did that to save time but still really feels like you don’t know anything about them. 

So Gray asks what Zeref’s after.

Okay so by the Zeref is talking it seems like he’s back in his contradiction mindset. Which is strange cause I thought this was abandoned after he realized Natsu couldn’t kill him with Igneel’s powers. Maybe this is just something he hasn’t told anyone about.

Wasn’t the whole point you wanted Fairy Heart to kill acnologia and die? Later we see this conversation with Gray and Zeref and it seems to imply that Zeref told him he wants to die but we’re never given an answer as to what Zeref says because we cut away.

We cut to the badassdry that is Gildarts vs August. We get some small back and forth fighting from them.

Okay that was awesome! Even while disassembled August managing to hold together, damn this fight is enjoyable.

So Cana has joined the fight... Okay I like Cana. She’s a side character who I wish got more time spent on her and she’s very interesting when not dealing with groping Lucy. But she is not SS-class level. Seriously, we know August is the King of Magic and is hailed as a living calamity and Gildarts is not one to hold back, remember tenrou island and what he did. So Cana really shouldn’t be here. I’d love it if she got to face a spriggan but damn these two are just in another league. All I can think she has is Fairy Glitter but even that isn’t proven to be a easy win solution.

We cut back to Fairy Tail’s guild hall.

Again from the dialogue, it seems to imply Zeref is talking about he wants Fairy Heart to die. They go on to talk about how Natsu is coming here and how if one of them dies then Natsu is pretty much a goner.

THANK YOU GRAY FOR RE-OBTAINING THE REASONING YOU APPARENTLY FORGOT AFTER YOUR FIGHT WITH INVEL!

And Iced Shell once again. Okay Iced Shell isn’t used as many times as people make fun of it being used. It’s only been used 2 times before this to my recollection. The first with Lyon and the second with Silver. I’m actually pretty okay with this because it actually makes sense. Look Gray first wanted to used iced shell against Lyon not knowing if he could win but Lyon and Natsu both pointed out how stupid that would be, which lead to Gray’s growth. The Second time, against Silver, was really just a giant bluff. But this time it is a necessary idea. Zeref can’t die, what else are you going to do but seal him. He’s not some really strong demon or wizard that we can just punch out and in the end the problem is solved, no this is an immortal. Also he is a master of Magic so if Gray were to take him head on there is a great chance that Gray will be taken down and killed. So really this is the best option.

last line and god this is stupid. Now before that he says I’ll wipe my existence from their memory. Also this is a “Lost” iced shell. How? There’s nothing to imply that this Iced Shell is really different from the standard one except zeref saying lost attribute. But seriously, why doesn’t even need to be different. It’s strong already give life for a seal that is almost unbreakable. Is this just going to be a Fairy Law thing where we retcon the power. It just exsist at that point to add melodrama of “everyone will forget me.” WHY?

Post Chapter Follow up: Honestly, not bad. It wasn’t a great chapter but overall it felt pretty solid.

In the positive aspects I’ll give Gray points for actually doing something that makes sense in this war which only now FT seems to be making these kinds of decisions a lot more recently.

The Gildarts vs August fight is going pretty well, I’m still iffy on Cana being there but maybe we’ll get some more development.

On the negative side, pacing. Again pacing really is an issue in this chapter with a lot of the events just going by quickly. These aren’t too big of moments that I’m angry were not getting more depth to unlike the Natsu and Igneel stuff. But everything just felt fast.

Another thing I didn’t like was Gray’s reasoning. Now I understand the Iced Shell and how so many keep sacrificing themselves for him and that be good. But we’ve seen that before. I wish there was more Gray going for logos in that speech to Zeref and not pathos. Now granted that I think is more a matter of POV and think this could go either way for people.

And then the big thing is the ending page. Why does this Iced Shell need to be different? It just exists to add more drama when we have enough. It just is stupid.

Final Verdict: 5/10

Nothing too bad

Pretty decent action

im shook