User blog comment:Inept Wiki User/Question: Sacrifices/@comment-3424593-20130826022504

I would redo the timeskip and how it was handled. I know that Mashima wanted to do 7 years because everything in FT is related to 7, but because having his characters age 7 years would be make them too old or make them change too much, he froze them and instead gave them only 3 months of training or unleashed Second Origin, something that DaRinor would call "being pulled out of Mashima's ass". But lately, thanks to the Law of Retrogression, I've been thinking of a way Mashima could have handled the timeskip instead of the way he did. So here is what I got so far: (:
 * During the Fairy Tail-Grimoire Heart war, Hades wants to unleash a Black Art that is in 'between' Living Magic and Death Magic that was created by Zeref 400 years ago, in order to destroy the world. I've named this Magic, Magic of Origin. What this Magic does is very similar to Law of Retrogression. When Magic of Origin 'infects' a being, it starts de-aging them (making them younger) by around 1 year for each hour that passes until they become nothing.
 * Hades wants the Tenrou Tree in the middle Tenrou Island destroyed because, 400 years ago, Mavis created the giant tree to counter the Magic of Origin and heal the 'infected' and created the Fairy Tail Guild as protectors of the tree.
 * After Azuma destroys the tree, everyone with the Fairy Tail mark in the island starts getting infected and starts de-aging.
 * When Ultear returns the tree to normal, after about 4 hours since it was destroyed, the de-aging effect stops, but it doesn't return the FT members' bodies back to normal so now they are 4 years younger.
 * After GH leaves and Acnologia attacks the island and Mavis traps everyone inside Fairy Sphere, Mavis tells the Fairy Tail members that, even though the tree has been restored, the island's soil, the air, the water, even their own bodies have already been 'infected' by the Magic so they cannot leave the sphere until everything and everyone has been healed. If not, anyone the water touches will become infected, anyone the air touches will become infected. (Kinda like a chain effect, where anything touched becomes infected)
 * Everyone agrees to stay until they, and the island, has been healed, but Lucy proposes to send a letter to let the rest of Fairy Tail know that they are alive at the bottom of the sea and not dead; but Mavis tells her that air touched by the letter will become infected, and anyone that touches the paper will become infected and you get the point.
 * So the FT members live at the bottom of the sea, inside a giant bubble for seven years, when everything is healed.
 * Outcome: Fairy Tail members are 3 years older than when they arrived at Tenrou Island and are seven years stronger.