Minutes prior.
"That cylinder"
Iye, holding the can Am pointed at flailed it around.
"..You mean the spray can?"
She answered as if it were natural to do so.
"That, or whatever it is"
Am, still looking outside, spoke to Iye.
"Give it to me"
"Huh? Why-"
Her words cut short, sneaking a glance upwards, realizing what he meant easily, or at least had the notion he understood.
'Well, that could also work'
The spray can was tossed towards Am, he grabbed it without even looking back. But when he didn't do what was expected, she grew confused
Brows tightly knitted together, bewilderment quietly apparent in her tone.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
At the edge of her wait, she asked.
Step
"!"
Am took a step forward, but not towards where Iye thought he would go to, but to outside. Even the Oksi held a startled look on its face.
"M-My brother?! Where are you possibly going!"
'It seems this object can seal and solidify into a hard substance'
Am's previous observations proved this to be right.
"You.. are not possibly thinking of saving him?"
Am answered back swiftly to her question.
"I am"
"Don't be stupid"
'And what kind of fucking reason would an Oksi save someone else? It isn't in their nature to do so anyway, in fact they would be the first to abandon their comrades, well except for the nobles'
She was fuming with anger, while her calm voice betrayed her anger, hands had tightly grabbed the mahogany roots that let out a rosy scent along with a sting of a charred smell. It tore apart under her strength.
"Come back in"
"Make me"
"...."
She for obvious reasons couldn't waste strength on him
'What the hell is wrong with this guy?'
"You are quite the hypocrite Am or whatever your name is"
Iye popped her elbow and cracked her fingers.
"It is a title"
"Shut up"
The mood for smart talk had long passed.
"Just moments ago you tried to kill me, yet now you try to save someone else? Are they perhaps a friend?"
Ethics were probed.
"He is not"
Logic followed in line.
"Then what in the world are you doing? Get back in here, you are no hero, especially so when you let your 'brother' die by watching me kill him in front of you"
Am rolled his eyes to the invisible figure that stayed crouched. He wanted to say something like 'Well, you were dangerously strong, and it truly seemed like you could kill me without much trouble'. This however sounded like an excuse to the dead. Which he grew tired of repeating.
"...."
"Now you get it? I didn't give you that spray can for you to play some budget hero, I gave it to you for survival"
His mouth parted, but only a mumble came out.
"I don't like this accursed tradition of safeguarding either"
"What was that?"
"I have no reason to hear you"
He ignored the slightly startled words of Iye and walked away from the gaping hole. Iye shouted for him to stop and come back right this instant, which he also naturally ignored.
Inhaling the air tinged with a charred smell, he rushed forward, now that no light of the spotlight shone on him. Like a shadow.
He planned to completely disable the movements of a dangerous predator.
***
Guoaaa!!!!!!
The beast still scraping a bloodcurdling scream out of its throat, flailed around under the surprise attack.
'Oh? Does it have different effects against other lifeforms?'
Am for a moment marveled at the sight of the predator turned to a wailing baby.
He didn't dwell much longer. Hooking his slender long-arms under the humanoid creature with mushrooms sprouting in different areas of the body, he picked him up with almost no difficulty.
Turning around, he started running back where he came from.
"...."
Am's face contorted in small regret, he could have saved his brother... at the expense of his life however, which was sure to happen if he did intervene in the battle against the mysterious transparent woman.
But he knew all too well of the weight his life carried.
Thus, he could not fall to some random enemy wanting to save one of his own.
It was just how it is in his tribe.
"Huuuu"
Inhaling the air deeply, Am's chest expanded like a balloon's.
"Hang on tigh- Oh, you are unconscious..."
'Anyway'
Grasping Tiju into a princess carry, Am...jumped off the branch?
Eyes cast downwards, pupils shrank as if zoomed in, looking awfully similar to dots with intricate shapes, creating a picturesque scene only those who squinted really hard could see.
Thud
His feet landed softly, though unlike a normal mammal, they didn't land on the branch like an obvious thing that should have happened.
They remained stationary in the blowing wind.
Guaaa!!!!!
Eyes, still stitched tightly together, yet the platys was capable of somehow climbing up the branch and rushing towards where the contracting muscles were sensed, the breathing it could hear from the arrogant prey resounded in its amazing hearing.
Leaping towards the source with near impossible accuracy for someone who had been blinded just moments ago.
Despite the increasingly closing distance of the platys towards Am, no rushed emotion could be felt, nor surge within.
Only a serene calmness followed, a calm mind was after all needed for his insight to work at maximum after all.
Like giant springs attached to the legs, the moment they rose from their spot and leaped away. Am had been launched away from the closing maw of the platys.
He flew like a jumping frog, the ground zoomed further in the more gravity tugged him like a child tugging its balloon.
Crash!
Am's body rolled and crashed into another spiraling branch, almost falling at the edge.
At the same time, the fearsome platys, vision stripped away, tumbled down, barely away from touching the fog and only survived by digging its sharp claws into the tree.
"..."
A chill ran through Am's spine, he gulped his warm saliva down.
'It...seems...quite mad'
Guoooo!!!!!
In the distance, a roar faded away with the passage of time.
'I should go before it catches up'
Fixing the body of the unconscious Tiju in a more comfortable position, Am marched towards the crevice in steady steps and breaths.
Ta
Finally, reaching and getting back, he softly set on the ground the fast regenerating corpse, he looked back at the silent Iye. A gaze full of questions bottled themselves in, her voice came low and screeched against the scorching air.
"You did quite..."
"..."
"A useless thing"
She said plainly, sneaking only a glance at the wounded person Am saved.
"This person is done, it would be a miracle if he only could wring out comprehensible phrases after what just happened to him"
Her gloved hands twitched, her index finger tapped against the air, but she only said this.
"Your efforts.."
She raised a finger up and pointed at dangling lamps, then she pointed at the spray can as she spoke.
"Will be in vain, if you don't do the whole reason I gave you that in the first place"
Am craned his head up.
Knees buckled, and-
Thwack!
He leapt like a tightly pressed spring, his arms waved against the searing breeze and in just a few seconds.
Tuk!
His left arm latched onto the closest lamp, he shook the can a few times before sprinkling it on the lamp.
Iye looked at the branches, pebbles and all kinds of small objects alike.
".....?"
They...shook.
Rumble!
A dragging, increasing quaking sensation enveloped them all, a certain hum hauntingly persisted throughout the process.
In the distance, the gaping hole in the Ohrn tree begun to close slowly.
However, there was also one more thing that caught the eye in the distance.
"Oh..."
Up high in the Ohrn tree opposite to them, a creature perked and stared at them...despite its eyes being closed with a solid liquid coating them shut.
At its paws, a strange malformed bird had its wings torn apart from it, its pained screams did not faze it, nor did it care.
For the first time in a while, Iye could feel her hairs standing on end, a shocking chill had run through her in spite of the burning air singing in her throat.
The hole, eventually, after a creeping silence and staring, closed up neatly. The insides of the tree were dark, however, the lights dangling from above gave some spotlight through the clinging dark.
Am, finished, fell lightly to the floor. Iye didn't waste any time and remarked his actions.
"Well? what now, sudden wannabe hero?"
Am's nose scrunched at the remark.
"I never was a wannabe"
"Ah, I see...so what you mean is..."
Iye openly sneered her frustrations outwards.
"Despite being some 'hero'...you were quite quick to abandon your so called brother"
The Oksi who had been defeated prior, clenched his jaw and his face contorted with his features rifled with bulging veins.
"You say that as if you know anything about us!!!"
Iye, looked back at the Oksi, now paces away from her.
'Guess he ran away when I wasn't looking'
This wasn't good for Iye, if they were to fight now, it would be difficult to recover afterwards.
Am let his mouth part ways and speak, Iye however cut him off and continued.
"You are right, I do not know anything about you. But"
Her head tilted to the side, as if asking for a kind man to explain to her something she just could not understand on her own.
"If I am understanding this correctly...you have some kind of heroic ideal or something close to that right"
Am, nodded his head, the movement hesitant.
"So what gives?"
She spread out her arms and fingers apart, letting her cloth speak what she felt before the mouth.
"Why did you try to kill me?"
'If you were that much of a hero, why not hesitate about killing them and instead help them like the person you just saved?'
"Your brother might hav-no, he would still very much be alive, here with us"
It was a hypocrite's heroic thinking to save one person and kill the other for no reason.
"If only you tried to communicate peacefully to me, with no ulterior thoughts, our little rustle and bustle from before would have been nonexistent"
Then, in a dramatic motion, clasped both of her gloves together behind her back and spoke again.
"I guess what I'm really getting at is"
Her head craned forward as if offering a neck for a question to be asked in exchange.
"Why in the world were you so hell bent in screwing me over and killing me?"
She placed the nail in the coffin, awaiting for a satiable smack from the hammer to resound to her question, and it did just that.
"It is quite...unbelievable for me to explain this"
Am sighed, letting his eyes fall on his dead comrade.
"But the moment you came in this tree"
He raised his eyes, finally giving them permission to take in the noble figure of the translucent woman.
"You held no other thoughts except for one"
The Oksi's face close at the side of Am contorted in a tight furrow, while Am, only coldly stated what he knew.
"Killing us"
The instant her appearance made its debut, the three of them realized one thing.
'There is no negotiating with this freak'
Am may have had many misunderstandings of Iye, but this was the one thing he was one-hundred and ten percent sure of.
She did not care, or rather she could not care less about them. From the very beginning, Iye never thought of them as anything more than dangerous animals. Animals with no hope of properly communicating peacefully.
If they had shown sympathy to such a person...It would be catastrophic for Am and the tribe.
In other words.
"You are an enemy, an enemy that does not care of the process, whether pride plays a part or not, someone who would achieve their goals no matter how many backs she stabs from behind"
Am pointed a finger at Iye, his voice came out with a certain tone of duty.
"Would you...trust your back to someone like that?"
"...."
Far away from watchful eyes, she let lips etch into a grin.
'They are a bit more, perceptive than expected'
While the Oksi were supposed to be very smart, they weren't capable of surviving for long unless they were a noble like Am, which made it hard for them to mold a high perception against deception.
Which would make it easier for Iye to overall manipulate them, not that it was actually the plan all along.
'Now that I think about it'
She pursed her lips together, the charred smell growing more intense for her.
'Is that Oksi...also a noble?'
Her mouth opened, but as if a breeze of karma passed by. Am coincidently cut her off.
"What is it going to be?"
"...."
"Don't drag this, tell us if you are still going to be an enemy or not"
Translucent brows knitted tightly together, face twisted into a frown.
"Hey, you talk as if"
".....?"
Am raised an eyebrow, but let her continue nonetheless.
"An escape route had already been established"
It felt like they were asking whether or not Iye wanted to join a party without them actually telling her and performing many mental gymnastics to get an answer from her.
"Because...we do?"
The Oksi at the side answered as if it were the most obvious thing.
"How do you think we came here without any injuries?"
"Ah"
Suddenly, all of it clicked.
'While I may know a lot of the paths....'
She couldn't possibly know the paths the creatures of the Sabe used to get around. Natura had personally not allowed them to document it, saying something along the lines of 'It wouldn't be fun to just reveal the shortcuts! Find them yourself!!!'
"Just for clarification, does the path have any name?"
Most paths in the Sabe did have a name, but she asked just in case one of them overlapped with what she knew.
"Huh? Well, we are the only ones who use it so..."
The Oksi at the side timidly spoke, afraid of being rushed at over disrespect or acquiring the ire of Iye, like a dog that was all bark.
"We call it the 'Tierre Path'"
Iye crossed her arms together.
"Ah, that path"
Which she knew nothing about.