[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/h5xf31C.png[/img][/center][hr][i][b]//Day 2 | Location:[/b] Nameless Forest - Lakeside[/i]
[sub][@Vertigo][@baraquiel][/sub]
Mayumi felt a migraine was inbound. [b]“What is that idiot [i]doing[/i]?”[/b]

[b]“Mine.”[/b] Kunio slipped into the waters of the lake, detouring the boisterous Duncan and his pink-haired catch in order to retrieve the skewered fishes.

Ayano let out a dramatic sigh as she looked up from her task of doing absolutely nothing. [b]“Ugh, fooling around at a time like this…Rin! You can make a rope swing, right?”[/b]

Daisuke side-eyed the fashionista, before cupping his hands around his mouth. [b]“C’mon, Duncan! Let’s see a proper jump!”[/b]

Tsubaki was caught between conflicting feelings herself, but kept it to herself, a wry smile forming before she got back to adjusting to her one-handed life.

The inclusion of the watchtower-turned-diving tower looked to have improved the mood somewhat, at least. Dripping wet from the initial dunk, Duncan practically hoisted Asahi with him for a second go at it, while Rin made herself scarce, already moving on to her next construction project. It was a warm summer’s day, despite it all. A friend had died in the morning, and yet the world kept turning. They were stuck in the Otherside, but it felt like a camping trip. And all it too for that mental switch to happen would be to throw one’s self off a tower and let the adrenaline take you.

A curious thing, that.

Perhaps Asahi too, would have felt a switch, if only his senses were a touch duller.

But they weren’t.

Ten meters up once more. Breaking past the treeline. Exposed to the entirety of the sky, the horizon so much clearer. The mountain in the distance too, so much closer. Its jagged peak, like a shark’s tooth, gnawing at the heavens. It was entirely unlike the mountains of Kuroshio, wholly barren and malicious, promising no opportunity for life except through the deliverance of death. The sensation had been masked before, masked by closer concerns of shelter and food, of healing the injured. But his classmates were now either healed or dead and others were moving to hunt for larger prey. The shelter had already been built, and it would only approve as time went on.

Now, Asahi could feel it.

A magnetic pull and a creeping trepidation.

Something was there, in that mountain.

Something that would be their ruination and their salvation.

Something…that would have to wait until after this slow-motion journey from tower to lake concluded.

[hr][i][b]//Day 2 | Location:[/b] Nameless Forest - Forest Trails[/i]
[sub][@Yankee][@Nakushita][/sub]
A spinning axe kick!

Though Oros was not by any means the fastest, she had spirit if nothing else, and she had seized the initiative immediately. Both her heels slammed into the crown of the chalk-turtle, the impact like a car crash. Pain shot up her tendons, but the force had driven the monster’s face straight into the dirt. It had to have been effective, right? Even if it wouldn’t be a killing blow in the same way that Shun could deliver a killing blow, Oros had presented herself as a threat and, according to Masato’s own plan, her threat would cause the monster to turn around and run away…right into the tip of Masato’s spear.

Except it was a turtle. And turtles did not run.

She had failed to stun it and had failed to scare it off. Instead, Oros decided to start [i]yapping[/i], while the chalk-turtle itself retreated its limbs and head into the crag-like shell upon its back, completing its transformation into a boulder. If that was it, then the two Awakened could just argue with each other before thinking up a solution for breaking open the shell and getting the soft turtle meat beneath.

But it was Masato who heard the hum in the air first, sensed the danger in the too-many holes, in the multitude of imperfections within the chalk-turtle’s shell. Why those structural weaknesses? What purpose did they serve? How could such a slow creature avoid predation from the hulk-phants and the wolf-bears?

The humming could now be heard by Oros, and its origin became clear.

A symbiotic relationship.

One between the chalk-turtle and the…dragon-wasps!

Wriggling out from the chalk-turtle’s shell, elongated wasps with stingers that looked more like hooks crawled out, before their four wings buzzed and they took flight, a murderous swarm that spread out to dive right for Oros! This was no boulder, this was a [i]hive[/i]!

[hr][i][b]//Day 2 | Location:[/b] Nameless Forest - The Den[/i]
[sub][@AThousandCurses][/sub]
They did not understand human words.

But they did understand the yowling of a mad beast.

Her tendons snapped like rubber bands as Shun propelled herself the second time, Overclock misfiring from lack of energy. She crashed into the neighbouring hulk-phant, feeling its shoulder bones fracture from her head-long charge, but before she could follow up, a wolf-bear lunged for her, swatting her off its packmate. The two of them tumbled away briefly, a tangle of limbs and rage, bloodied teeth and sharpened fangs. Shun could feel the weakness of her own limbs still, the aching [i]looseness[/i] of her ruptured tendons preventing her from springing back up to her feet.

Suddenly, the weight of the wolf-bear is gone, the beast springing away to reveal two paws like tree-trunks, raised up in the air to smash into her while she's prone. She had broken the hulk-phant's shoulder, but so what? It had three more limbs to go, and enough mass to smash her flat!

And yet, in that same instant, in the slowed time that was brought by a life-and-death confrontation, Shun could finally feel the flesh she had consumed be distilled into a drop of [i]fuel[/i]. Flesh knit near-instantly, her tendons connecting once more as the forge flashed in an ecstatic surge of energy!

It was do or die.

But that just made it another day on the highway.