The vast size of the forest was a sight to behold as it stretched across the entire west, south, and east. In contrast to those acres of greenery, a thick fog of snow sat in the northern quadrant, boxed in by mountains and valleys on all sides.
Like most of the ground, the ruined shrine was hidden beneath the tall wintry trees, leaving only a crooked outline visible from miles away.
Yes, miles away.
At such a distance, Damon's eyes had never been able to make out structures before. As he neared the treeline, his gaze stayed fixed on the fading shape beneath the canopy of leaves. He wasn't sure how or when, but he was certain he would find himself there again.
'Just you wait, I'll definitely shatter those stupid statues.'
Damon's grin stretched from ear to ear, then soon faded. He lowered his head, watching the forest floor rush closer, and his brows furrowed.
'This doesn't look good...'
'Maybe I should strengthen my legs with more spiritual energy...?' He pursed his lips and thought it over for a few seconds before giving up on the idea.
A single mistake while falling from this height could easily shatter bones, and there was no way to be certain of the outcome. Worse, if he misjudged how much energy was needed, he'd waste a precious vial to fix his limbs.
Without a moment's hesitation, Damon reached for the dagger at his waist and drew it free.
The thick six-inch blade caught a glimmer of sunlight as he twisted his body sideways.
Sadly, Damon had no time to admire it. Instead, he thrust the weapon behind him and into the nearest tree. The cold metal pierced the bark, and the resistance slowed his fall.
Arching his back, he entered a crawling form and pressed his boots against the tree. The grooves on the bottom made for a half-decent foothold but wore down quickly.
With one hand gripped tightly around the dagger, he pressed his other against the dark wood, heat and tremors spreading through his limbs.
Chunks of bark splintered away as his descent slowed, and in one final jolt, he stopped roughly ten feet above the ground.
"Hah...That was close." Damon pulled the dagger free with another deep breath and dropped from the tree. His feet touched the ground, and a faint tremor ran through his knees, but he managed to straighten his posture.
Right after, a flutter of wings echoed overhead.
"Hey, how did you do that!?" Kuroushi swooped down.
"Well, I just jumped..." Damon replied flatly. He slid the blade back into its sheath as the crow tilted its head, looking almost comically human.
"Jumped? That high?" Its beady eyes were full of skepticism.
"I used spiritual energy to enhance the elasticity of my calves, and it just happened," Damon replied. "Has Miss Tomoe never done something like that...?"
"Lady Tomoe is able to skywalk, but this one has never seen her leaping through the air," the crow huffed, fluffing its feathers. "This one nearly fell out of the sky from the shock."
'That should be my line!? What do you mean that pervert can walk through the sky!?'
'In the first place the sky has no surface; how would someone even walk on it!?'
Damon's expression nearly faltered as he tried to make sense of this. He had read many novels, yet none had described such an ability without wings.
"I'll try to give you a heads-up next time."
"You had better. There are other beasts lurking above, and it would be best we don't disturb them." Kuroushi hopped to a lower branch and peered down at him. "The tiger's trail should be near a stream about half a mile west of here. Follow me, and try not to launch yourself into the clouds again."
Damon nodded.
"I'll follow you through the trees," he said, already positioning himself beneath a low-hanging branch. "If I relax my muscles and control the energy flow, I'll be fine."
"You wish to leap from branch to branch like a squirrel?" Kuroushi blinked.
Damon took a few seconds to stretch his legs and smiled. "Something like that."
"Very well." The crow gave in after a bit of hesitation.
Damon's boots swiftly found purchase on a thick limb as he watched the bird weave through the trees. He pushed off again, keeping a steady rhythm as the leaps carried him further forward.
Without a doubt, his body had adjusted to the movement.
"There," Kuroushi called out, dropping toward a path below. "This is where Rudy and the others spotted the Icelandic Saber."
Hearing this, Damon landed on a lower branch and looked around briefly. He then dropped to the ground and rose without pause, his eyes still scanning the forest.
The path was seven feet wide, modest compared to the open space he had seen at the foot of the shrine and Tomoe's home. Trampled shrubs and broken branches lay scattered along its edges. A narrow stream cut through the far side, glistening under the pale light filtering through the clouds and flowing west.
Damon stroked his chin thoughtfully.
While he searched for anything out of the ordinary, it wasn't long before he noticed several things off.
"You find anything?" Kuroushi fluttered down and landed on his shoulder.
Damon crouched over some dirt before responding, "The soil here has been pressed down, like someone trampled it lightly."
Then he lowered his voice, pointed west, and added, "I also saw several broken branches over there."
"Ah, that's the direction Rudy and the other two went in." The crow shrieked and followed his hand. "It's impressive you noticed that so quickly."
"I've had some training." Damon traced a faint impression in the uneven dirt with his fingers. "Back where I'm from, we learned how to read signs in the forest. It's not my specialty, but I can manage."
'Though it's hard to tell what tracks were left by the beast and what by some other creature that came through here too.'
'If only we could lure it to us somehow...'
As that thought crossed his mind, Damon froze. He glanced at the crow on his shoulder from the corner of his eye.
"Kuroushi, you're a beast, right? Can you communicate with the tiger?" he asked.
"This one is nothing like that brute." Kuroushi's feathers bristled at once.
"That creature is a mutant of impure spiritual energy. This one, on the other hand, was originally an ordinary crow raised by Lady Tomoe's spiritual energy. I am not some mindless beast driven by instinct."
"...I see," Damon muttered, half-heartedly.
He had hoped they could simply provoke the tiger out instead of wasting time searching for it. Apparently, things would not be so easy.
He took a moment to reflect and said sincerely, "Sorry, I didn't mean to compare you with them."
"I know you did not intend any disrespect," Kuroushi grumbled.
Damon nodded as he stood up. He turned toward the bushes littered with scattered leaves and broken branches, then changed the subject. "I think we should follow the tracks of those explorers. Knowing that beast, it likely went after them."
"You speak as if you encountered it before?"
"It's not the one we're hunting, but I did get attacked by one of those things last night." Damon's expression darkened as he replied. He then moved off the cleared path and through the broken hedges leading west.
...
Another ten minutes flew by as they crept quietly through the path on foot. They had lost sight of the river by then, but Damon could still hear the gentle stream. He was sure the beast could hear it too.
'Any sensible animal would stay near it to keep hydrated, and the beast might not be used to the warmer air.'
As he had this thought, he noticed the trees growing less dense and crouched down. With sunlight peering through the gaps between trees, he worried the beast might ambush him again in an area without enough cover.
The crow looked at him but stayed silent, careful not to startle him.
Hidden in the bushes, Damon squatted and inched closer to the light. He poked his head out slightly and surveyed the area ahead.
In a few strides, they reached the edge of a narrow clearing bordering the banks of the river. His body tensed as he looked toward the center.
Two figures came into view.
The first was all too familiar, a feline form covered in white fur and black stripes. Its thick tail was raised as it stood fiercely, staring down the figure across from it.
Damon thought he might be hallucinating, but the tiger's eyes were golden brown, not the empty blackness dripping dark, murky fluid.
At that moment, the tiger looked nothing like an apex predator, just a brazen animal.
The beast in its path, by contrast, was a monster.
It stood over six feet tall, a nightmare of a hare warped for war. Its hunched torso was covered in dark gray fur as thick as wool, and two thick, meaty hands cast a large shadow, each one twice the size of the tiger's head. But they weren't the most terrifying part.
Its long, heavy ears dragged low like worn leather banners, and its two legs were stumpy at the thighs, corded with bulging muscle. Sharp claws twitched as if ready to strike, and its soulless black eyes gleamed with intensity.
Its maw dripped with clear fluids like a starving man seeing a buffet.
Seeing this, the white tiger growled and leapt forward fearlessly, its sharp claws seeking to tear into the creature's flesh.
The creature easily dodged the strike. In the same breath, it grabbed the tiger by the neck and tightened its grip.
The tiger let out a whimper at once.
Damon's heart clenched as he watched. He hastily pulled his head back and pressed himself against a tree, not daring to interrupt.
"What are you doing?" Kuroushi asked. "There's the saber; hurry up and kill it so this one can take a nap."
"And how am I supposed to do that without catching that thing's attention!" Damon replied, keeping his voice low. He instinctively knew the monster was far more dangerous than the tiger.
'There's no way I'm going out there.'
Damon slowly straightened his knees and turned to leave. The creature gave off a presence that had scared him witless.
Realizing he was serious, Kuroushi peered into his blue eyes. "So you came all this way just to give up...?"
His footsteps halted at once. He knew the bird was right.
His jaw tightened as he stood there, frozen between the instinct to flee and the nagging weight of his brother's voice echoing in his skull. Vincent's words from years ago surfaced unbidden, spoken after a particularly humiliating sparring session.
"If you can't face the fear now, you'll spend your whole life running from something."
Damon had scoffed at the time and thought it was just dramatic drivel. But now, with his back to two monsters, the words felt less like advice and more like prophecy.
'If I run now... I'll run from everything.'
At that moment, a new sound cut through the air, a defiant growl that seemed to shake the very ground.
Damon's eyes widened.
He turned his head slowly, peering back through the gap in the bushes.
The creature still held the tiger by the neck, its massive hand wrapped around the feline's throat like a vice. The tiger's legs kicked weakly, its claws raking uselessly against the beast's thick gray fur.
It should have been drawing its last breaths.
Yet the tiger, pinned and helpless, had bared its teeth and snarled at its captor. Not a whimper of surrender. A challenge.
'Is it insane...!?' Damon thought, his breath catching.
As if responding to the insult, the creature let out a pained roar. It slammed the tiger down onto the hard stones of the riverbed with enough force to crack the rock beneath. Water splashed upward, and Damon winced, certain the blow had been fatal.
But the tiger rose.
Its legs trembled, and blood matted its white fur in patches.
The creature raised its injured hand and stared at the gash in the center of its paw. Thick veins pulsed along its forehead, dark and grotesque, as its black eyes burned with something beyond rage.
'That tiger is fighting a beast twice its size... and it drew blood.'
Damon watched the tiger growl back, unyielding, and felt something shift in his chest.
He thought of the tiger from last night. The one with empty sockets and cruel patience. The one that had taken his arm and eaten it while watching him bleed.
This was not that tiger.
The beast standing stubbornly was smaller and clearly weaker. Its golden-brown eyes held only the raw instinct to survive, and through that desperation, it had wounded the creature. It had drawn first blood.
Damon wanted to be like that too. He clenched his fist. His heart hammered, but slowly his breathing steadied as he began to think it through.
'Mother didn't raise me to be a coward.'
He looked at the enraged creature, then at the tiger. The tiger was weakening by the second but still fighting.
'If I time this right... I can let them tear each other apart.'
Damon's eyes scanned the ground and found scattered stones, some small enough to throw, others large enough to do damage.
A grin spread across his face.
"Hey, Kuroushi," he whispered, keeping his voice low. "Have you ever heard of a game called Fastball?"