Haiiro turned around and sighed, “She’s all yours.”
“Haiiro!”
“Kuro-chi, give him a chance. You’ve had your turn now let him have his.”
“This isn’t about whose turn it is!”
“You’re right,” Shiro interrupted, “It’s about making it out of this alive. Something I can do better than you.”
“Shiro! We can’t just leave them.”
Shiro took control of the body and sighed, “You hardly know them, why should we go out of our way to save them?”
Kuro clenched her fists, “Why do we need to have a reason to save anyone!?”
“Then why do I need a reason to abandon someone?”
“That’s…that’s...” Kuro paused, “That’s because it’s wrong!”
“Perhaps to you maybe.”
Shiro stretched his arms and fingers, quickly adapting to their body’s short stature. He looked at his broken arm and sighed, “Did you really have to break our arm?”
“Did I have to? No~. Did I want to? Yes~.”
Shiro furrowed his brow, Well there’s nothing I can do about it now. I should have taken over earlier.
Shiro bent down and looked at his shadow, then he turned his head towards some rocks in the distance. As he stood back up, his shadow stretched unnaturally towards the rocks to hold them in its hands.
Kuro looked on in surprise, “This is!”
“Magic, to be exact Shadow Magic.”
“But how are you doing that!?”
“The System. As soon as I thought of it, I instinctively knew how to do it. Or at the very least something along those lines, right Haiiro?”
Haiiro laughed, “You sure catch on fast, Shiro-chan~.”
“That explosion earlier was too unnatural. That was your doing wasn’t it?”
“Bingo~.”
“Tell me, this world’s magic, it’s not like this is it?”
“You’re right again~.”
“I see, that’s all I needed to know... for now. Now, onto the next experiment.”
Shiro raised his head and closed his eyes, standing completely still. Kuro tilted her head, and Haiiro looked on confused.
Kuro asked, “What are you doing?”
And Haiiro complained, “Come on Shiro-chan, just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they can’t see you.”
The two pouted but were ignored. Shiro suddenly opened his eyes and turned towards a couple of bushes behind him. Moments later, the bushes rustled and both Kuri and Kasuka ran out.
“Yuya, are you okay!? You can’t just run off like that.”
Shiro smiled, and spoke politely, “I’m sorry brother, I don’t know what got into me. It sounds like there are more wolves back there, let’s run the other way.”
Shiro pointed to the east, and Kuri and Kasuka pulled him along with them. He repeatedly gave them directions, telling the two to go left here or right there managing to somehow avoid all the other wolves.
Kuri and Kasuka looked back surprisingly at Shiro, while the two inside him were just as shocked, Kuro asked,“Shiro, how are you…”
“Clairvoyance.”
“What?”
“Don’t act so surprised, play with the system a little why don’t ya. You might be able to figure something out.”
“Oh~,” Haiiro commented, “That’s quite the interesting skill you have there, I bet it’ll be quite useful later on~.”
“Not as useful as yours.”
“Oh? Is that so~.”
“There’s no point hiding it, in my current state I clearly don’t have enough strength to send a wolf that size flying. And it’s just not a matter of not being used to this body. When Kuro was in control she couldn’t exhibit nearly as much power.”
“Then what exactly are my powers Shiro-chan~?”
“Something along the lines of Super Strength, or a Physical Boost of some sort. As well as a Fire Affinity. You probably have some other tricks up your sleeves too.”
“Ding Ding~ 7 out of 10. You were so close!”
“...”
“But unfortunately, you just weren’t there yet. As for what my abilities actually are, well why would I spoil the fun~?”
“You’re insufferable you know that…”
Haiiro laughed, “I’ll take that it as a compliment!”
“I figured as much.”
“Anyway, shouldn’t you be paying attention? There’s a limit to what that Clairvoyance of yours can do at the first level you know.”
“Oh don’t worry about that, I’m well aware of it’s limitations. That’s why I spent all my Skill Points on it.”
“Eh? You’re serious?”
“Naturally.”
“What about your other abilities, how are you going to fight?”
“I have a few ideas in mind.”
Haiiro paused, then turned to Kuro. Kuro scratched her head and said, “Um.. have a little faith in him... I guess?”
…
Shiro led Kasuka and Kuri through the forest. Left, right, back, and forward, Shiro ran circles around the pack of wolves. It was an exhausting but extraordinary feat to avoid beasts of that size for so long.
Unfortunately, the process was far too taxing on their young bodies. Shiro could feel his lungs burning and his feet aching. Kasuka and Kuri were panting desperately to the side, taking a minute to catch their breath.
Shiro sat down for a second and thought to himself. There are nine wolves who’ve formed a perimeter. They’re closing in and killing everything they can find. I don’t have to worry about the two or three eating, and a couple of wolves chasing those brats around. But it seems there are a few more wolves fighting outside the perimeter, and I can’t seem to find their leader either...
If I were to leave these two behind, I’d have a better chance of escaping. But I doubt I’d be able to out maneuver beasts of that size. And I can’t leave it to Haiiro or Kuro to get us out of this mess. I can’t hide, and I can’t fight, so that leaves only one other option…
Shiro turned to the Kasuka and Kuri, “Hey, I’ve got a plan.”
“Hmm?”, Kasuka turned his head, “That’s rare. What do you have in mind?”
“We won’t be able to keep running like this. We’re going to have to fight and break out of the circle.”
Kuri got up and smacked Shiro’s head, “Are you insane! You’ve been acting weird lately but that does it, you’ve really gone insane!”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“We just have to keep running until the adults come and save us like they always do!”
“And do you think we’ll really live that long? Think about it, if we try and break through it’ll be 3v1 at most 3v2. But if they close in on us, all of them will attack us relentlessly.”
“That’s…”
Shiro stood up and began walking northwards, away from the village. Kasuka stood up and went after him, “Yuya wait!”
But Shiro ignored him and began running ahead. Kasuka turned around, and grabbed Kuri’s arm, “Kuri hurry up we need to chase after him.”
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“But Kasuka…”
“I promise I’ll protect the both of you!” Kasuka turned around and pulled Kuri along with him.
Kuri blushed, and mumbled, “That’s not fair…”
...
Up ahead Shiro located a wolf within Clairvoyance’s range. He continued forward, making his shadow pick up several sharp rocks along the way.
When the wolf came into sight, Shiro lowered his only good hand to grab some stones from his shadow before throwing them at the flaming beast. After being hit by the stones, the wolf leisurely looked up front the large boar it had been eating and opened its bloody maw, spewing forth a large ball of blue flames.
Shiro yelled, “Dodge!” And jumped to the side, watching the blue flames crash into the nearby foliage, felling trees and burning the vegetation a pitch black before quickly disappearing.
Kasuka screamed, “Yuya!”
Letting go of Kuri's hand and charging forward with reckless abandon straight through burning trees and leaves, Kusuka pulled a small stone knife from his pocket and rushed at the wolf.
He screamed loudly as he jumped at the wolf. But with a swipe of its paw, Kasuka was easily sent flying into the underbrush.
“Kasuka!” Kuri screamed. She quickly produced several reddish orange balls of fire and charged forward, throwing them at the wolf to distract it.
The wolf opened its jaw, spewing another ball of flames that easily dwarfed Kuri's. But the moment the several fireballs collided, both Kuri and the wolf were knocked backwards.
The wolf stood up and caught sight of its ruined meal. The boar, having been hit by the force of the explosion, had flung all over and was giving off a nasty burnt smell. Aggravated by the loss of its food, the wolf growled and glared at the girl that was sent flying into some branches.
The wolf leapt towards Kuri, but suddenly Kasuka jumped out of the underbrush, stabbing his stone knife into the wolf’s chest. The impact caused the wolf to snarl in pain and sent it slightly off course, hitting the ground to the left of Kuri.
Kasuka raised his arms and his nails elongated. He swung his claws down, frantically clawing at the wolf’s chest and ignoring the blue flames coating its body.
With a growl, the wolf slammed Kasuka into a nearby tree, knocking the boy off of itself. Kasuka lay on the ground, glaring at the wolf. “Just try, and touch them… I’ll kill you...”
The wolf stared at Kasuka for a moment, then raised its claw to crush him when a voice came from above, “Aren’t you forgetting someone?”
Shiro, surrounded by eighteen black arms, each holding a rock, that extended out from under the remains of his dress, jumped from a tree to land on the wolf's head.
While falling, Shiro raised his leg, ignoring the fact that he was in a dress, and a shadow extends from the back of his heel to form a blade. Shiro swung his foot and those eighteen arms of his down simultaneously.
The shadowy hands aimed their rocks at the wolf's delicate eyes, and Shiro's heel smashed directly into the wolf's forehead. Having lost both of its eyes, the flames on the wolf's back erupted in anger.
It madly began swinging its claws left and right, hitting tree after tree and burning everything around itself.
Shiro jumped off the wolf, landing next to Kasuka. Turning to the other two featureless beings in his mind, he said, “I’ll leave the rest to you.”
Shiro ceded control back to Haiiro, who quickly grabbed Kasuka and Kuri and ran away with them on their shoulders. Shiro commented, “Oh, you do have some common sense.”
“Shiro, you bitch! If you were gonna fight them in the first place, you should’ve just let me do it! Why’d ya have ta bring my cute Kasuka inta it!?”
“He was an excellent distraction.”
“You son of a bitch!”
“Anyway, head north for a few more meters, then turn west. You can rest over there.”
Haiiro clicked his tongue, but followed Shiro’s directions and made his way to a wide open clearing burnt pitch black. Kuro stared at it for a moment, and said, “This is Old Raccoon Man Rock’s clearing! We’re back where we started!”
The oddly shaped rock that should have melted under the heat of the fire wolf’s flames was completely intact. Not only that but the area a few meters around it was completely unscathed.
“Didn’t that thing melt earlier?”
Haiiro replied, “Doesn’t matter at the moment.”
Haiiro walked up to the rock and placed both Kuri and Kasuka down against it. Kuri, though bruised and having a few cuts and scratches, was fine. The earlier explosion merely rendered her unconscious. Kasuka, however, was covered in blood and had burns and cuts all over his body. It was likely that a large number of his bones were broken, and if nothing was done soon he'd die of blood loss.
Haiiro muttered to himself, “This is bad…”
To make matters worse, several wolves suddenly ran out of the forest. Haiiro sighed in annoyance and clenched his fists. “You pests really don’t learn do you…”
Just as Haiiro was about to charge forward, one of the wolves was suddenly pierced by a large spear. Several other spears soon followed, flying out and impaling two more wolves.
The wolves growled, spewing flames into the forest, but to their surprise, someone jumped straight into the flames and punched a wolf straight into the air.
He was a large tanned man with gray hair and similarly gray cat ears and tail. He laughed loudly, “You think a puny flame like this could stop me! If I was stopped so easily then I wouldn’t have been able to marry my dragon of a wife!”
“Pfft, as if you could handle her flames” a man flew forward and decapitated a second wolf, “You should have seen yourself after you proposed to here”
“It’s not like you can handle your wife either, Nayer.” The gray-haired man said as he grabbed one of the spears out of an impaled wolf and pierced it right through the beast’s heart.
Nayer sighed, “Yeah, yeah. She’s about to give me hell after all this is over. But anyway, Daddy’s here kids!”
----------------------------------------
Authors Note:
To make things easier on us, and cause it's a pain ending the story with a choice every time the story is going to go like this. Choice with a poll, resulting chapter, choice with a poll, result chapter, and so on and so forth. This is a chapter resulting from the previous poll so next chapter you get to choose how things go next. You can leave comments to suggest what should happen next chapter, and we might add it. So anyway thanks for reading, and I hope you liked it.