I Got You

Maya: "....Fine. Just do whatever you want. But don't blame me if anything happens to you or say that I didn't warn you."

My ears perk up in glee after receiving a half hearted approval from her.

Me: "Thanks, Maya."

Maya: "Jeez, sometimes you're so stubborn when it comes to saving someone."

Me: "Well, that's what a great hero does."

Maya: "To be frank, you're not a great hero. You're just an airhead and foolish hero who always thinks about other people's lives instead of your own."

Me: "Hey, that's mean! I'm not an airhead."

She deliberately turns her face away from me.

Maya: "Is that all you're going to say for yourself?.... But that's also why I chose you in the first place.... Stupid."

She softly whispered to herself, carefully trying not to let me hear those embarrassing yet warm words spouting from her small mouth.

I mean, I can hear you, you know. I'm right beside you.

Then, she looks at me again with the seriousness flaring in her eyes.

Me: "Oh, seems like you're ready."

Maya: "Hah, right back at you. I'm always ready."

Me: "Let's do this then."

I steadily lend my right hand in front of her as she did the same to me, holding our hands caringly.

A strong yet gentle aura flows between us two while Maya turns herself, taking a form of a blue mist of data.

Me: "[Spirit Synchronisation]"

Thus saying the word, Maya smoothly transferred herself into me in a small wave of aura as we've combined ourselves into one, enveloping a tremendous sort of power within.

Me: "Now this is better."

Maya: "We need to hurry. Remember-.."

Me: "Yeah, yeah. I know. We only got 30 minutes of limit for this sync."

I fake jogged at the same place where I'm standing to test my physical condition and as expected I'm doing pretty well.

It's been a while since last we use this synchronising protocol. I always use this technique when I'm in a tight spot and now it seems to be a good call to use it.

However, something feels missing.

Something important.

....!

Me: "Where is my phone!?"

Maya: "....."

Even though Maya is in her synching dimension, meaning in my head....sort of, I can sense her silence is quite strange.

Me: "...Maya."

Maya: "Yes?"

She replied telepathically to me.

Me: "Where is my phone?"

Maya: "What phone?"

She replied in a very innocent tone which I know that she definitely knows something about it.

Me: "Maya!"

I snapped at her, which was not intentional, of course.

Maya: "Ok, I'm sorry! I don't know, alright! It flew away right after the explosion happened!"

Me: "Flew!? Explosion!?"

Maya: "Hey, you can't blame me on this one! It was for a good cause!"

Me: "Dammit, Maya!"

I groaned stressfully at our current situation as we're back at square one; not knowing how to find Noah.

Ok, ok. Breathe, Bal. Breathe. Be cool. Think carefully about what you should do next. You have experienced this kind of stuff in your old world.

Me: "Haaah~"

This is nothing. There must be another way.

When I tried to think about the solution, a brilliant idea cheerily says its greetings to my brain as it's passing by.

Me: "Aight, I've decided. We will search for my phone and fix it right away."

Maya: "That's right! Good way of thinking, Bal."

Me: "Just so you know, you're still not going away with this."

Maya: "Rahh!"

Me: "Don't complain. It's your fault for being sloppy."

Maya: "But I just save your life-.."

Me: "Hush. We've no much time so let's move."

Maya: "UUUGHHHHH!!!"

Me: "So which way did my phone got blown away again?"

Maya: "I think it's on your...left?"

Me: "You think?"

And what's up with the pause?

Maya: "Fine, it meticulously and precisely got blown on your left into the forest! Happy now!?"

She said in a very harsh tone upon delivering her sarcasm out of annoyance.

Me: "That's better. Confidence is the key to completing your mission."

Maya: "Oh, don't lecture me. Just thinking about when you pathetically screamed after you saw a spider inside the forest and ran away, now you're preaching on me about confidence?"

Big oof.

Me: "Ooh, someone's being salty today."

Maya: "And whose fault is that!? Hmph!"

Aww, she's cute when she's angry.

Me: "Anyway, do you know how far my phone went into the forest?"

Maya: "....Do you want me to cancel the sync, hm? Is that what you really want? If that's what you really want me to do here I could might as well just cancel it, right here, right now and let you rot here all alone!"

Me: "Alright, alright! I was kidding! Chill! You're not trying to kill your precious partner right?"

Maya: "Only when she wants to."

She stated herself with an eerie, cold tone and I don't know why but I could see her smiling when she said that, looking down at me with her eyes devilishly.

I know that she was joking with me about that because of a fact that a contracted either a low rank spirit or divine spirit cannot kill its own master or let its master die otherwise it will as well kill them too.

Me: "Whatever you say."

I walked myself nonchalantly towards the...

Forest!

A weird cold sensation that came not from my surrounding but my fear self swiftly arouses with my heartbeat starts to elevate, slowly but dreadful as I halted my pace halfway a few metres from the forest in front of me while I look at it frightfully.

Hell no I'm going back in there! I almost died by just walking in it!

Me: "I think I've had enough jungle trekking tonight."

Maya: "Wait what? You can't be serious! What about Noah? About Jonathan. You promised!"

Me: "I know! But... But I just can't! It's coming back! It's all....coming back."

Maya didn't say anything after hearing my whining as she's processing what I'm trying to say.

But only for a moment thus she speaks.

Maya: "Is this about what happened in the past? When you had your first summer training camp?"

I just shamefully nod at her questions.

Like pressing a button we're both went silent. Like there's no one dare to break the silence between us.

Fuck. I hate this so much. I hate myself so much.

Why can't it just go away? The memory. Those terrible memories.

I feel like I'm starting to cry again. Why am I so useless?

My legs are trembling as like I'm about to fall anytime now.

The stinging pain from my eyes can be felt as it gets teary, thinking about what happened 8 years ago.

I... I think I'm hyperventilating. I can't control my breathing!

Shit! Fuck! Why can't it just stop!? WHY!?

Maya: "Shh, there there. I got you now. So you can calm down a little."

A gentle flow of energy swerves around me as it tenderly clouding my chaotic self of anguish and grief.

Maya: "Those were in the past now. Just forget about it. I know it's not easy but you have to try. Because I am here now. You're not alone in this no more."

Me: "...."

Maya: "Let's do this. Together."

.....

As much as I want to cry and complain... She's right. I can't do this forever, can I?

Noah needs me more than anyone else. I need to find him before it's too late.

And I can't do this alone.

Me: "I'm calm now. Thanks for keeping me straight, Maya."

Maya: "Anytime. Remember, we're in this together now."

Me: "Yeah, you're right."

Maya: "Let's go then."

Me: "Ughh, fuck me..."

Maya: "Language~"

Embarking into the unkind forest which I assume hates me very much it wants me to die, heeding Maya's encouragement we finally begin our first step into the forest.

-15 minutes later-

We've been walking inside the forest which I absolutely reluctant to go into for a while now in searching for my blown up phone...which I honestly hope that it still intact in one piece.

Even though it's night and the whole area was covered with trees, this place for some reason is overwhelming with heat.

My fur that I just realized got some peck of blood on it is now matted with my stinking sweat and it's really, really uncomfortable for me to walk with.

Me: "This place is hell to me."

Maya: "Stop being overdramatic and keep walking."

Me: "Tsk. Is it really this way, Maya? Are you sure about that?"

Maya: "I'm your Divine Spirit and not a talking compass. And if it's not because this world is so old fashioned that it got no satellite with it I would have found it a long time ago."

Me: "Oh, so you realized it too?"

Maya: "Why yes. This kind of information already been stored in my Data since the first time we came here into this world. And I sure you already know about this too about this world has no technology resides within it. Not a single trace of electricity could be found, so to speak. Not even a little. This world we are in is known as the region of Meruvel, only covered purely with mother nature with either the human or wild creatures inhabit inside it. And I bet you knew that this kind of phenomenon is just as the same as the other places in this world of human."

Me: "Just as I thought. It seems that our abilities have been limited stupendously from 100% to 30%, huh. This is bad."

Maya: "Heads up. On your twelve."

Me: "Hm?"

I stopped my walking into a pause as I look up at a freakishly huge, tall tree that stumbled upon in front of us...

...With my phone hanging dearly at the tree branch of the very peak of the tree.

Me: "How the hell did it get up there?"

Maya: "That's a huge tree, all right. Like about 200 feet tall."

Me: "Could you fly up there and get it for me?"

Maya: "And leave you to rot here? Do you have a death wish or something?"

Me: "Bad idea, huh?"

I sheepishly chuckled at my own stupidity.

Maya: "Come on, Bal. It's not like you can't get it from down here. Don't be lazy and get to work."

Me: "Stop telling me what to do. You're not helping."

I let out a sigh loudly at her useless ranting and continuing to work off this issue myself before my head explodes from her pointless raving.

Firstly, I'm taking the action of pointing my hand, straight at the centre of the tree trunk with my paw and the top of my hand facing side to side whilst concentrating on my breathing procession perfectly with my surroundings.

I close my eyes thus seeing nothing as the darkness instantly enveloped itself against my vision with me standing steadily in my fighting stance.

Me: "*Breathe in*.... *Breathe out*.... *Breathe in*.... *Breathe out*...."

Repeating the breathing technique, I finally launch a powerful attack of a punch at the tree trunk simultaneously creating a loud bang generated from the impact yet didn't harm the surface of the trunk whatsoever.

The tree didn't take any kind of damage from the attack except for the very fibre of the tree that vibrates from below, all the way to the upper part of the tree, causing my phone to fall from its tree branch and landed flawlessly on my paw including the dry leaves and twigs, covering the ground beneath.

Maya: "See? Not so bad, wasn't it?"

Me: "Whatever."

I dust the small dry leaves that'd fallen on my shoulders and proceed to inspect the phone that I've newly acquired.

Me: "Holy shit."

My phone is completely wrecked.

The screen is violently cracked and a big portion of its interior parts also seemed to be missing.

Maya: "Wow, looks like it's gone for good. Can you actually fix it?"

Me: "Heh, look at who you're talking to."

I continue examining my phone intently, nook and cranny. Not leaving every detail of the missing parts of the phone and starting to intonate my spell protocol.

Me: "[Mage Protocol, Class 1, Solid Fix]"

The phone that lays in my hand then emits a bright blue light with small clouds of nanites made out of my aura drifting in the air, swirling itself into the phone like a small form of a vortex and gradually fixing the phone as well replacing the missing part exactly like the original one.

Finally, the phone had it entirely fixed like a brand new one, unscathed.

Unexpectedly, the phone then abruptly rings itself into life, disrupting the silence of the eerie forest with its loud ringtone from a call.

Me: "Oh fuck!"

Maya: "Hey, watch it! Don't break it again!"

Me: "And whose fault was that!?"

Maya: "Touché."

I return my attention to the phone as I gaze at its screen again and saw the words 'Phone #2' written on it.

It's Noah.

I hastily answer the call as I swipe the answer call button upwards and put the call on speaker.

My phone(Noah): "Hello!? Bal! Can you hear me!?"

Me: "Yeah, I can hear you, Noah."

My phone(Noah): "For fuck sake! Please pick up your damn call faster next time! I thought you were dead!"

Noah's voice boomed out from my phone.

Me: "Ey, language. And I was dying earlier."

My phone(Noah): "What!?"

Me: "Nevermind that. Anyway, what's up with your breathing? Are you running or what? You sounded like you're on edge. Why are you calling me for?"

My phone(Noah): "Yeah, about that. For your information, I am running right now. And second, I called you to warn you."

Me: "About what?"

My phone(Noah): "Wolves."

Me: "Wolves!?"

My phone(Noah): "Do I really have to repeat myself for you? Yes, wolves. Remember when I told you about there's water streaming nearby? I'd found the river but at the same time I also found trails of paw prints scattered around near the riverbank."

Me: "Woah, woah, woah. Back it up a little. Didn't I tell you to don't go anywhere and stay put!?"

My phone(Noah): "Yeah, I know. But I was thirsty."

Me: "That's still not a good reason for you to be wandering around by yourself!"

Maya: "Bal, I think this is not a good time to be arguing."

Me: "Yeah, you're right. Sorry."

My phone(Noah): "Hm?"

Me: "I'm not talking to you."

Right, I forget that Noah can't hear Maya.

Me: "You should hide."

My phone(Noah): "No, I'm following their trails right now."

Me: "Why the hell are you following them!? Can you just stay put and stop getting yourself in danger for one second?"

Maya: "How does it feel like to taste your own medicine?"

Me: "Shut it!"

My phone(Noah): "But I didn't say anything."

Me: "I'm not talking to you, Noah."

My phone(Noah): "Then who?"

Oh my fucking lord, this is very stressful. I think I could shed my fur any minute by this huge amount of stress I'm having right now.

Later, right about when I tried to compose myself from losing my sanity, faint cracks and scraping sounds of twigs and dry leaves can be heard coming from the darkness of the forest.

Maya: "Bal..."

Me: "What!?"

Maya: "Look around you!"

Me: "Huh?"

I did just what she told me to do and there I saw messes of glowing orbs floating, moving and shifting within the forest in a circle, surrounding me.

Forms of dark silhouettes could be seen lurking and crawling behind the trees and bushes.

Dreadful sounds of growling and snarling of wild beasts slowly could be heard loud and louder by the seconds.

Shit! There are lots of them! We need to get out of here and fast!

Soon, those moving silhouettes become unwinded as a pack of wolves emerge, creeping out of the shadow menacingly towards me from every direction, one by one whilst baring their pristine white fangs.

Maya: "I take back what I said before. This is hell."

Me: "Noah, I will call you back."

My phone(Noah): "Nonono wait-!..*Beep*"

I ended the call.

Noises of thumping footsteps against the ground are getting rowdier, trashing the twigs and dry leaves while they're at it.

They seem to be running around in a circle to prevent me from escaping. There are twelve... No, sixteen wolves in total.

Me: "What should we do now?"

Maya: "What do you mean by "What should we do now?"? Just beat them up!"

Me: "B..but, I have never hurt an animal before. I don't think that I could ever hurt them."

Maya: "Bal, are you kidding me right now!? You are about to die here! Please stop being considerate about others and start valuing your own life!"

Me: "But..."

Maya: "Ok, if you so kindhearted and won't attack them, could you at least talk this through with them? You're a wolf too, aren't you?"

Me: "Har har, very funny. I'm a wolf beastman. Not a wolf from National Geographic."

Maya: "You mean Nat Geo Wild?"

Me: "Same thing."

Maya: "But it's worth the shot."

Me: "But it has already been proven that beastmen do not have the capability of communicating with wild animals whether of the same species or not."

Maya: "Hey, you're the one who chose not to fight to begin with. Now suck it up and talk to them."

Me: "Fffffffffine. You win."

I sighed softly in defeat thus slowly and carefully approach those circling wolves, trying so hard not to give out a sign of hostility.

The wolves then instantly stop their pace of running around as they growl at me furiously as they don't let their guard down.

Me: "Hey guys~ From wolf to another, could you please not try to eat me?"

I asked them in the most polite voice possible.

I feel stupid. Despite knowing it is useless on talking with wild animals, deep inside of me still hoping that they could understand what I'm saying.

Thereafter, one of those wolves then carefully approach me with a deep growl under its breathe and fearlessly launch itself, flashing its claws towards me.

Even though the attack was precise but it is still predictable and terribly unkempt.

I am easily able to dodge myself from the attack to the side and push the wolf away from me to the opposite direction while it's in midair.

Damn, this wolf sure is heavy!

It whimpered softly as it landed safely on the ground.

Me: "I guess that's a no then."

Maya: "Exactly! That's the point I'm trying to get here! There's no other way than defeating them in a fight, idiot!"

There she goes again. Scolding me even when we're in huge trouble.

But she does have a point. What did I really expect from those animals?

I'm an idiot, all right.

The attack was then followed by another wolf doing a similar attack as the first one and again, as expected, I dodge it effortlessly.

After that without a warning, two wolves dash in high speed from both sides with their powerful jaws ready to rip my body apart.

But not today. Ready for the right time, I simply rolled myself out forward as the two wolves, with a loud thud, bumped their heads altogether and cried and whimpers from the hardcore head butting they made with each other.

It was quite a funny sight. Seeing them squirming on the ground, rubbing their forehead with their paws.

Suddenly, another one sneaks up behind me thus jumping with its right claws sway at my back.

Me: "Another one!? This is not good. They keep coming at me nonstop."

I dodge the attack by ducking myself downwards, letting the wolf fly pass by me from above and landed onto the ground with its legs in front of me excellently.

The result makes it growl in dissatisfaction and hostility.

Huh, this one seems different. It got pitch black fur and have a long scar across its right eye but not blinded by it.

And those eyes. I recognize those kinds of eyes. Those bright, golden eyes filled with superiority and confidence in leadership.

It must be the alpha of this pack.

The scarred wolf then howl vocally, resonating the whole area with its voice as all the other wolves start to gathering themselves and running in a circle again approximately 10 metres away from my vicinity in sync.

Me: "Changing the plan, are we?"

Maya: "This is getting us nowhere. You need to get out of here before it's too late."

Me: "I know. But..."

Maya: "There's no time for but! It's kill or be killed!"

Before I got the time to react, a small huff was let out by the alpha simultaneous ordering its whole pack to attack me from every possible direction.

It's like dancing as they're all moving at the same time elegantly following their leader's command.

No hesitation. No fear. No retaliation. They are all in perfect synchronisation.

I can't believe that I have the time to admire their quality play as a strong and reliable pack.

My ears keep picking up their footsteps getting closer and closer towards me as their pace gradually increasing while hearing them snarling, growling and barking while they are at it.

Why am I not attacking them? This what they called empathy, right? Or out of kindness? Perhaps both?

I mean, these wolves are attacking me because they must be hungry. They must be live on by following their survival instinct in order to live, right?

...Maya was right.

I need to stop being considerate of others and start thinking about myself.

But the worst part of it is that I already know that.

I always run away, always hesitating, always freeze whenever I tried to hurt somebody either a person or an animal.

Because they are people. Even if they are not, like these wolves, they still have families and life to move on(except for those degenerates like the Devillings because they were already evil.)

This is my biggest weakness.

My curse to be kind and an incomprehensible act of empathy towards someone. It's just who I am. And I know that I will hurt myself someday- No, it has already happened.

Because of this, I am hopeless.

Maya: "Bal, snap out of it! Focus on your fight-.."

Before she could even finish her sentence, she lets out a sharp gasp.

Maya: "Bal, look out!"

In a blink of an eye, a wolf suddenly jumped itself at me and with a quick slash of its wolf claws on my right shoulder, it cut deep.

Me: "Arrh!"

Fuck, that hurts!

Huge amount of blood dripping out from the cut wound.

Maya: "Balthazar!"

She cried.

Another wolf emerges and attacks from behind.

It strikes itself at me with an ugly snarl thus clinging on me with its claws at the back of my body.

Me: "Hey, get off me!"

With its heavyweights, it tried to disarrange my stance by swinging itself violently against my back.

Hence, with a herculean bite of jaws and fangs at the back of my left shoulder, it rips open the skin tissue as blood starts to spurt out from the bite wound, filling up its mouth with a spray of my sweet blood.

Me: "Uggh!"

Maya: "Bal, please! You need to do something! You're bleeding too much!"

Without any further, I grabbed the wolf by its fur instinctively from the neck, off from my back and throwing it simultaneously slamming its back hard on the ground with a loud thump, shattering its spine.

Cracking sounds could be heard from the dire wolf, squirming and whimpering in pain. Blood gawks out from the wolf's mouth as it finally lets out its last breathe.

Looking at its bright eyes now filled only but darkness and death.

Me: "I.... I..... I didn't mean to kill it. I.... I'm sorry."

I knelt on the ground, full of grief and shock after realizing what I have done to the wolf.

I wanna cry.

I wanna scream.

But only a voiceless cry is all I could do right now.

The tragedy of the wolf's demise didn't even make the other pack members flinch for a second and continue to attack me.

Six wolves are rushing towards me in unison, with their sheer will, blazing within their predatory spirit.

I can't hear anything right now but only distinct noises came from those wolves' footsteps coming right at me.

Me: "Hah.... Hah.... Hah...."

My head is spinning like a rooftop. My sight is getting blur and blurry. My breathing is getting shallow by the extent too.

This must've happened due to excessive blood loss.

I'm screwed, aren't I?

Maya can't get out of her synching dimension in order to support me in strength.

But sadly, I didn't even take advantage of her assistance to the fullest because of my cowardice.

Besides, if only I could cancel the Spirit Synchronisation manually before the time limit.. No!

That would also lead her to her death because of me dying!

Either way, at this point we're both gonna die.

I'm sorry Maya.

For being such a burden to you this whole time.

It seems that I don't have much fight left in me.

Me: "...I'm sorry-"

Maya: "Dammit, Bal! I told you to not give up yet, didn't I?!"

Me: "Huh?"

Maya: "There's still hope!"

Hope? Whatever did you mean by that?

Maya: "Look up."

My ears begin to twitch after hearing a long, faint whistling coming from the night sky.

In tiredness, I force myself to look up to the sky of the forest thus see a small lit up arrow flying upwards, chained with a tail of smoke beneath its stick.

It seemed that the arrow came from the nearby forest.

Me: "...I can't believe it."

The arrow then shortly explode as it blooms out an extraordinarily bright red flare, illuminating the whole area with a boom.

The wolves that were intently trying to kill me heard the explosion and saw the red light from the sky began to flinch in confusion but not enough to scare them away.

Subsequently, more whistling sounds emerge as a couple of smoked arrows popped out, flying into the sky and explode with a relatively loud boom, emitting the same bright, red flares.

Eventually, the wolves begin to tremble in fear and started to run away including the whole pack into the darkness of the forest, never to be seen again.

Me: "We're... Saved."

Soon after, suffering from severe blood loss and extreme exhaustion my body collapses on the ground as my consciousness immediately blacked out.

Maya: "Bal, no! [Inactivating Spirit Synchronisation]"

In a hurry, Maya left my body in a form of a small wave of aura simultaneously converting herself into a person of a small, white hair girl she was before.

Tears flow abundantly from her eyes down to her plump cheeks whilst kneeling next to me.

Maya: "Bal, you can't die here! I still can save you! So please don't die on me!"

She shouted in sorrow under her tears at my dying self like a little kid she is.

...

Later, the rustling sound of bushes can be heard from afar.

Like a bat from hell, Noah finally shows his very existence and run towards me hastily at the scene.

Noah: "Bal! I'm glad that I finally found you-..! HOLY FUCK! YOU'RE HORRIBLY COVERED WITH BLOOD! What the hell happened to you!?"

Then Noah's eyes directly gaze at Maya who's still crying over me.

Noah: "And who are you!?"

Maya: "Hm?..*sniff*.."

Maya slowly paid her attention to Noah as she lifts her head to look at Noah at a better angle and her eyes suddenly wide open as she sees him.

Maya: "You! You can save him!"

Noah: "What?"