This chapter is what we been waiting for nearly a month, a redirection to the main plot. Hiro Mashima must be taking plot direction lessons from Kishimoto for it seems like Fairy Tail is actually starting to become more complex and deep with it's plot and this chapter is proof of that, then again Kishimoto has been taking notes from Mashima judging by how Sakura suddenly went Erza on all of us .
We start the chapter up with a recap of events regarding the plot so far within the perspective of Chibi Ultear and Meredy a. The Eclipse project and the prophecy of destruction stated within year X784 in Fairy Tail shortly after the Tenroujima event, then it goes to 7 years later down the timescale to the events of the Grand Magic Games where all the events occurred, including the arrival of Future Lucy and Future Rouge. The Eclipse Gate is revealed to have two outcomes and two effects on the future, leaving the gate open would have the world destroyed by the 10,000 dragons which is Future Lucy's future and the 2nd future is caused by Lucy closing the gate which causes Acnologica to take over the world himself.
In either scenario, the world is destroyed and therefore the human race is ended but this still leads to the question what happened to the Dragons within the mainstream timeline regarding Igneel,Metalicana and Grandeeney ? Are they under Acnologica's control and what is Zefer up to and where he's been all this time ? It seems like the plot is really starting to take fold and starting to connect further into past events.
Moving on, we then get the showdown between Natsu and F. Rouge again with Natsu managing to break Altas Flames out of Future Rouges dragon control magic with the power of firendship . I know this is an overdone thing within this series and it can be a problem but here it's just badass. Natsu makes friends with the damn Ghost Rider dragon and manages to break the dragon out of the control of Future Rouge.
This leads to a multitude of questions regarding the dragons themselves . While Zirconis was revealed back at 301 to be willingly involved with the destruction of humans and revealed to hate humans, what about the other dragons ? Are they also having their wills overwritten by Rouges magic ?And even so, can the Dragon Slayers bring themselves to take the lives of the dragons ? So far the only one i don't see having a problem with slaying a dragon is Cobra given he used t be a villain but what about Natsu and the others,especially Wendy ? So far the dragons while belligerent and malevolent have still shown human traits and the only ones who actually killed dragons out of the band of 7 dragon slayers were Sting and Rouge .
We then get the start of Motherglare vs Altas Flames and despite being a 3 page showdown so far has plenty of promise, especially when one of the vaporizes an entire mountain with a single Dragon Roar .HOLY FUCKING SHIT ! THOSE DRAGONS REALLY ARE COMPARABLE TO ACNOLOGICA IN TENORU ISLAND ! I can see that Zinocris wasn't kidding when he said that the dragons scarred and ripped apart landscapes within their battles ! This further makes me grateful Lucy and Yuniko closed the gate because they're no way they can deal with 10,000 of these dragons. This further confirms that all Dragons are on par Bjuus and now that we have an attack with the blast radius comparable to a Bjuudama, let a cold sweat down you body because if a weak dragon compared to Igneel and Acnologica can do that, imagine the scale of Acnologica's real power .
Etiherway both the Nic Cage Dragon and and Motherglare are evenly matched and can't do much damage to each other with Rouge watching the two dragons fight when Natsu absorbing the power of hellfire uses his newly enhanced strength to hit with a Falcon Punch . FUCK YEAH ! NOW NATSU CAN STAND ON EVEN GROUNDS WITH F. ROUGE ! Also look at the force and size of the punch alone, it easily engulfs the dragon and unleashes a devastating shockwave on them . Looks like we're in for a wild ride regarding Natsu and .
Meanwhile the King and his royal guards look at the destruction caused by the dragons and mages occurring across the city which has caused widespread destruction with the King fearing the destruction of not only his kingdom but the world itself. King Mato kinda annoys me giving he's standing there in harms way but to be fair, if you saw dragons firing nuclear laser beams at mountains and at your city, you'll freak out as well and be paralyzed with fear.
But believe it or not, that's not even the best parts of this chapter. Rouge of the present meanwhile fights one of the dragons with the dragon revealing he wasn't ordered to kill Rouge. Rouge naturally asks why the hell not and this is where the moment i've been waiting for in over 10 chapters finally comes into fruition. Rouge learns the dark truth of what's to become of him . He learns that he'll be the only survivor within the future and he'll turn into a malevolent king and learns that the dragon was ordered to keep present Rouge alive and he was the trigger to all the events happening now which then reveals the dark shadow that processed him far back within the Grand Magic Games.
It's revealed that the shadow that controlled Rouge is part of Future Rouge and is the darkness within Rouge . Rouge overwhelmed with this revelation tries to deny the fact but the dragon confirms that Rouge's hatred and anger caused by this event would cause him to get consumed by darkness and lose his sanity like what's going on currently. This reminds me of Danny Phantom where the death of Danny's family causes him to overwhelmed with grief to the point he removed his humanity to deal with the grief of the lost of loved ones which results in him going insane as the darkness within his heart engulfs him and he becomes pure evil . Future Rouge seems to lost nearly all of his humanity at this point.
The we cut to Ultear and boy has time been kind to her . We then recap back an hour ago shortly after Rouge attacked and nearly killed Natsu and Medery and Ultear brought Natsu up to good health as he mourns the lost of Future Lucy . Natsu explains to Ultear that the Rouge causing all of this chaos came from 7 years in the future and that he's an enemy of humanity. Ultear proposes a rather clever idea to kill the present Rouge in cold blood which of course Natsu rejects for it goes against everything he believes in , Ultear makes a promise to Natsu. a promise she doesn't intend to keep as seen within her final actions.
Ultear being within character decides to go against Natsu's wishes and prepares her assault against Present Rouge . Okay we already know she's not going to succeed in killing Rouge for several good reasons.
1) This is Fairy Tail, Rouge hasn't done anything wrong and it's extremely rare that good guys come close to death let alone die
2) She has to deal with the Dragon protecting Rouge and her magic is ineffective against Dragons
3) Dragons and Dragon Slayers have enhanced smell and hearing abilities so an ambush isn't going to work
Also assuming Ultear does kill Present Rouge, that would be a major anti climax and upset to the entire plot as well as all the character development we're going to get out of having the Dragons fight the Dragon Slayers. Still i definitely appreciate Ultear's well intentioned extremist ideals and we're finally going to see Ultear in action again, hopefully she has a decently length fight with Rouge before either being stopped by Medery or the dragons.
Speaking of which, where the hell is Merdery ? Hopefully she's going to find Erza and Kagura and heal her of her wounds already. Also where's Kagura ? I really miss her and we need to put a closure to the character arc set up by the Grand Magic Games,also we need to know what Future Lucy wrote within the dairy.
Overall, excellent chapter which really sets the tone and wants you coming back for more as more subplots are solved opened up.
Overall : A +