The beast (whom Faiz decided to name Fluffy, in honor of its magnificent mane of fur) seemed unaffected from its headlong tumble into the trees, shaking off the errant leaves and twigs from its crash, as it peered hungrily at him. A natural predator, this one; Unfortunate, his reality shifts hadn’t displaced this one.

  The burning sigil hovering next to Faiz’s chest appeared to have a warding effect, being the only object stopping Fluffy from attacking again immediately. The rippling rainbow blaze was (magically, most likely) able to burn in thin air and- now that Faiz had a second glance -looked to be using the world itself as a fuel and source, boring a hole in this plane for itself to inhabit. Difficult to look at, even harder to maintain, but mesmerizing.

  Fluffy chose that exact moment to reach into its reserve of courage, and growled courageously as it advanced. “Confound my inconvenient spurts of assessment..how do I attack again..?” Intent was all it took to send the magic symbol cutting down before, right? Faiz thought death very hard towards the advancing murder-thing.

  The flaming arc morphed into a pointed arrow and launched straight at the monster’s head. A green aura crackled around Fluffy, and it aside, at a supernatural speed, fast enough to leave an after-image. Not fast enough to avoid the weapon in its entirety, the shape scoring a blazing trail across the animal’s hide, setting some fur ablaze.

  “Heavens above, you can use ?! Ow, m-my head…” That strain settling into him once more, manacling his flesh and mind. The onset of lethargy allowed him to do aught except stare as the disoriented but by now thoroughly enraged beast shook its burning mane and launched itself blindly in his direction.

  Luckily for Faiz, he didn’t get skewered or rent by a claw or tooth. Unluckily for Faiz, it just meant he was able to experience the sensation of being bowled over by a smouldering, hefty animal. He only managed to avoid being crushed…well, he didn’t know exactly how he wasn’t reduced to paste, but the impact seemed to have done away with his exhaustion for the moment.

  Wincing as he dragged himself up to his feet, he looked at the path of destruction Fluffy had carved into the forest in its mad writhings. A shimmering trail of heat and the horrid stench of burning pelage gave him a useful trail to track the creature (not that finding it was difficult, given the anguished cries echoing out every so often) and so Faiz limped onward. He really didn’t want to go where the beast had trundled through, but orders were orders…

  By the time he’d managed to shamble his way to the depths of the forest, the strain had receded considerably, and he didn’t feel so half-dead, only slightly trampled upon. As for his maybe foe… ‘Fluffy’ seemed less apt a descriptor now, more than half its hide now an eruption of kaliedoscopic raging heat, the flesh below its ruined coat of fur melting and crackling.

  Faiz was rooted, overcome with a sick and creeping fascination as he watched thispopped from the heat, oozing rainbow laced blood) fixed on him. Suddenly, its contortions stopped, and it took a heavy, painful step towards him. And another step, and another.

  Perhaps in its dying throes, the beast that was no longer Fluffy wanted to take him down with it, or maybe just get revenge on the person who wronged it before it went down in a blaze. Whatever the case may have been, it was slowly gaining speed, a climactic second wind. An ominous purple light flickered across whichever area of its flesh wasn’t currently burning, and its claws extended like white knives. One half of its maw was a landscape of vomit-inducing wet wounds and sizzling strips of flesh, but the other was perfectly functional and bared….

  …and the gaze it leveled at Faiz held neither hunger nor fear, only hatred. Right in time for him to find out he summon the weapon again, or at least, not before it reached him.

  Time to get running, since Faiz really didn’t think he’d be getting another shot with his weapon before fainting, and he really wanted to avoid being eaten or burned by his own armament while being mauled by a dying beast. He heard a wretched yowling hiss behind him- seems the fire managed to reach Not-Fluffy’s throat -and starting fleeing faster, as speedily as his aching, bruised and exhausted body could move anyways.

  Faiz chanced a look behind him, only to freeze dead in his steps. There was…nothing. What? Had it given up? Was he safe? Seems his weapon was effective after a-

  He dropped to his knees as fast as he could, throwing himself to the side. This time, he wasn’t so lucky. A sharp heat and deep pain erupted in his side, causing Faiz to hiss in agony as he looked back at the now visible beast, its body twitching oddly as it rose on shaking paws. “! Y-you..filthy..”

  The beast advanced, and Faiz scrambled back, right up until his back pressed up to the trunk of a tree. Right, the biggest problem of being in a forest...sometimes there's nowhere left to run towards. Facing approaching death, he had a realization on how he'd escape the thing. That ever burning fire, it was already killing Not-Fluffy, some parts of its skeleton now showing beneath the musculature. He just needed to…outlast it.

  “I hope you aren’t weak, tree..” He begins climbing, the bark rough and scratching his hands, splinters piercing his palms and arms. Faced with a yowling fiend below, he tolerates the pain. And then the tree started to shake. Belatedly he recalled that he’d found the beast lounging in tree initially. A fearful gaze down confirmed his fear.

  “?! Your face is…melted

  The force and inaccuracy of its attempts at gaining footing led many of the sharp claws it had used to grip the tree with being splintered and driven into the meat of its paws, shredding what flesh remained. And still…it climbed, faster and faster. Faiz yelped and redoubled his efforts, desperate to get away from the abomination.

  “ugh-why is it always me…” His limbs still did not burn from the effort, and perhaps he could’ve climbed forever, were it not for the sad fact that trees are finite in length. The slender branches above were far too weak to bear his weight, and a bit too narrow for comfort besides. Not-Fluffy’s distorted and monstrous cries grew closer yet, and so Faiz decided to crawl out to the end of the longest branch he could.

  Finally, with nowhere else to run, and his hands and knees bloodied with effort, Faiz turned his gaze back at the monster. It could not be called anything else, a mangled skeletal horror with more bone than flesh, the entire left side of its body long melted away, with other parts in a similar, though less advanced, state of ruin. Where its paws used to be, now existed bleeding stumps, the creature managing to retain its grip on the bark by a frantic scrabble of its hind-quarters, and the bite of its exposed jawbone into the tree. A flickering green light flitted now and then between its empty ribs.

  Slowly but surely, dying as it was, the thing inched upwards, that hateful eye still locked on him. Faiz’s body started to tremble then, as he falteringly called out, “Please…please just die Stop it stop itstopitstopit-”

  The abominations only reply was a nauseating watery chirrup, the ruined flaps of its throat spurting pus and blood as it spake with what little remained. The sentiments Faiz divined from the garbled noises consisted solely of hatred and the impending joy of tearing him to shreds. The hum of Mana filled the air as it readied itself for a final leap at him.

  Faiz grit his teeth. He…wouldn’t die to some up-jumped furred fiend with an attitude problem, and certainly not so anticlimactically before he ever managed to find his Allie..He pushed through the deleterious agony of feeling something wrench inside him, reaching out out to the lightdial, scrounging for that visualized weapon one last time. A weak, but unerring curve slowly burned into being in front of him.

  With no time to send it flying, he clutched it in his hand- - while turning back to Not-Fluffy, bracing as it bore down on him, his arm swung forth and connected with its face-

  And a massive wave of fiery light drowned the world in prismatic shades.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Given his unfortunate track record with the phenomenon of ‘faint whenever something bad happens to you,’ Faiz was instead pleasantly surprised to find himself wholly awake in the wake of the explosion. The force and heat of the blast had managed to blow apart Not-Fluffy, leaving only superheated viscera behind, which coated his entire body. He wasn’t hurt by the detonation of the arc, thankfully, but he was knocked out of the tree.

  He had a lovely view of the mellow red sky, rustling leaves and tall trees, various small and brightly feathered things, and more as he fell. He would’ve preferred less terrible circumstances to appreciate natural beauty, but he’d take what he could get. Faiz idly wondered when the impact would come, closed his eyes in acceptance of the end.

  Certainly he couldn’t resist, what with him lacking wings or sticky appendages, and being ensnared by that all-grasping enervation that came with using his weapon. His fate was entirely out of his hands, and that brought a paradoxical rush of (probably pre-mortem) freedom. At least he’d gone down fighting on his own terms; A true shame that his death was to a fuzzy beast, and he hadn’t managed to find Alducine, yes…but he could certainly say he had tried, and that counted for something right?

  Speaking of trying, Faiz had been attempting to distract from his impending doom for a while now, and yet he still wasn’t splattered on the ground. Had he misjudged the distance? Had space and measures taken a vacation today? Surely trees didn’t take so long to fall from.

  “You are safe. You will not perish.” He blinked slowly and looked up, opening his eyes. Oh, there was Aujyav…carrying him?

  “..Hi…Did you catch me?”

  “Yes. Some time prior. You were in a reverie.” Faiz blushed slightly hearing that, before shaking his head and attempting a glare.

  “You can’t criticize me on this, where were you?! I trusted that you’d be there to look out for me like you said, but instead I had to fend off that all by myself! W-what even was t-that? It just wouldn’t stop trying to kill me!” Faiz thought he’d managed to convey as unhappy a tone as he could, his exhaustion making the effort of mustering rage very hard.

  “If mortal peril were to befall you, intervention would have been seen. You are not wounded, and have slain your foe. Admirable effort. I was watching always, rest assured.” The impaled man spoke in his usual monotone cadence, but some effort to calm Faiz was evident in the words.

  “Not injured? Have you seen me? I’ve got gashes in my chest and splinters and blood all over-my..arms..?” Faiz stopped, confused. He could’ve sworn his body felt more injured. Craning his head down, he saw his shirt, ripped and bloody, but lacking any actual wounds. “Wait, no I swear I felt those claws digging into me.”

  “The Union healed your body. Every strike of outward ruin begets internal mending. You are hale.”

  “That is mighty convenient…if only I was able to attack more than, what was it, twice per battle. Might have managed to kill Fluffy faster. Still not sure why that thing became a flaming skeleton though..” He shuddered just thinking about that terrible monstrosity, its sickening decay.

  “Your armaments are Ruin. The destruction of spirit before flesh. Your foe had strength enough to resist immediate dissolution. Hence flesh warped as the soul burned. It is gone now. You are safe.” Aujyav finished speaking as he set Faiz down, on some soft bedding.

  “Scary magic, that little arc. Where are we?” A quick look around confirms the two were back in (the tree) , under the stars. “Wait, how did you carry me here without cli- Actually, forget I asked, must be some weird space nonsense…”

  “Indeed. Rest a moment. We set off towards greater prey soon. You will end them all.” The man looked as stoic as always, as if he hadn’t just pronounced Faiz’s death sentence.

  He looked up with disbelief at Aujyav, before groaning and falling back against the bedding, “…Why…is it always…meeee…?”