'...This story won't end before I get a fudging arc.'
Seven mumbled it with confidence his frail body did not deserve because he had no idea how to beat the fudge out of the aberrant before him.
Still…
Roll~
All of a sudden, his head was severed cleanly from his neck. His body knelt as if in prayer, followed by the warm blood that blossomed across the snow.
Or at least, until the scene shattered as it was only the artifact's foresight.
Hence, as soon as the vision showed him his own decapitation, he ducked as fast as he could.
Chrskk—!
The tree behind him split as a black blur slammed into it. Its claws missed his scalp by inches, and it made no sound even after the bark scattered into pieces and rained down like snowflakes.
The only sound present was…
Cra— Crackle!
…the sound of black zaen crackling through its muscles like lightning veins, dancing erratically beneath its mottled skin.
Crackle!
'It's fast.'
Despite not being a feline, the aberrant landed way too light and too fluid.
Grrr—
Again.
He angled his foot just enough to send him sliding left as the paw struck the earth behind him, carving out a crater half a meter deep. He did not stop there, and turned it into a dive as he bounced off a half-buried root with a knife swinging out to meet the side of its neck.
But.
It was too shallow.
No.
It was more like his hand jarred from the hit as the blade skidded off its hide like it had just hit an impenetrable metal.
The trajectory displayed a tail sweep and he immediately jumped. Then again, it was wrong.
The trajectory changed.
His foresight stuttered and a sharp static pain stabbed behind his left eye as the tail lashed his calf mid-air and threw him sideways.
"Khh—!"
He hit the snow awkwardly, vision flickering, not from pain— but from overuse of foresight. The fight just started, but the artifact's strain was already catching up.
"...Fudge."
He rolled on the snow as his breath came in short and ragged gasps. His ribs ached from the impact. Still, he pushed himself up and tightened his grip on the two knives that remained on his grasp given that…
Haah…
…dying here would be easy, and living was the only insult he had left to give the world.
He had no time to check his wounds as the aberrant stalked forward again, slowly this time, with mouth hanging slightly open, and vapor rising from the joints of its limbs as if it were burning from the inside out.
'Is it playing with me?'
He thought, as the aberrant could have just moved in a lightning fast speed like earlier— now it seemed like it was interested in Seven as he had dodged him two times.
Step.
He took three slow steps back as he traced the gaps between the trees, snow depth, wind direction, and everything around but the monster before him.
The aberrant's muscles bunched.
'...Above, fake left, tail twitch, actually lunge will come from the right.'
That was what the trajectory of the vision showed him.
So he dropped low and obeyed the script that had not happened yet.
Crsskk—!
It passed overhead in a blur of black smoke and fur, landing behind him with enough force to send flakes airborne.
'Got you.'
He turned the other way, knife scraping bark as he used the trunk to pivot around and slash at its right rear flank as the aberrant did a feint.
But.
Not all the script was meant to be followed.
After all, the aberrant continued the left strike as if it had not intended to do a feint at all.
He caught it across the ribs.
"Urghk—"
He flew backward, feet leaving the ground and smashed through a thin trunk and landed in a half-melted drift, chest screaming with each breath as his vision swam with blood.
The wind howled through the pines, and the cold took hold of his body like claws as he lay there, back flat, with one leg refusing to move.
Grrrr—
The aberrant circled him slowly, like the way a cat might with an insect that still twitched.
'It really is enjoying this.'
Standing up means the aberrant would likely rush towards him, thus he flicked the shorter knife between his fingers instead and focused his zaen into it.
Swoosh—!
The knife sang through the cold.
It struck.
The aberrant flinched as the knife hit its eye, but it did not do much as its body flickered a black zaen that deflected the blow.
He knew it already.
But knowing meant nothing when his body could not match the knowledge. If only he had enough zaen reserves and progress of the third gate, this much would not be a piece of cake.
However, no matter how useless it might have looked, that single flinch of the aberrant was enough for him to take the liquefied zaen in his pocket.
Grrr—
As if the aberrant reacted, it stopped circling and lunged fangs first.
He twisted into a roll to avoid the charge and the timing was right, but the tail still slammed into his spine. His body crashed through a rotten tree hollow instead of a clean boulder, and the snow beneath him collapsed.
Tumbling into a shallow depression, he was half-submerged now and soaked in freezing water that sent his lungs seizing.
"Hhkk—!"
At this moment, everything seemed repetitive.
Thus.
He took a deep breath with his eyes closed, immersing himself into the vision.
'Left.
'Circle clockwise and pause two steps from pine.
'Then leap.'
Thus he moved while the future became present.
He climbed the rock, fast, limping, with his one arm bleeding whilst clutching the liquified zaen and the other dragging the remaining knife.
His feet slid on the ice and vaulted over the other side just as the aberrant cleared the treeline and landed where he stood a second ago.
Step.
He turned mid-fall and threw the liquified zaen towards the aberrant, then followed it up by the knife.
Boom!
It exploded.
The impact was not deadly, but loud enough to disorient and make the aberrant snarl and whip its head in all directions.
He landed on a branch and it cracked. Still, he dropped anyway and ran.
Step. Step.
A tactical retreat, if one would say.
The forest thickened ahead, trees closer, terrain sloping down into an old half-frozen ravine he passed earlier. If he could draw it there—
'Above?!'
He jumped forward, and the branch above shattered as the aberrant dropped but its claw still reached.
He was slammed into a pine and fell again.
Face down.
Snow filled his mouth.
But beside him was a bush where a hilt of a weapon was peeking outside— the saber he lost earlier that belonged to George.
"Fudge…"
He stood up with wounds everywhere and gripped the saber.
'It's watching me?'
It did not roar. It only watched and its grin stretched across too-wide with blood still drying on its fangs— Seven's blood— and then it vanished into mist.
Cough.
He coughed, and coughed again from suffering too many wounds at once.
"Urgh…"
He stabbed the blade into the ground to hold himself up.
Step.
The beast moved forward.
Slowly.
Like it knew.
He would not last.
Hff…
Slowly, he slid his hand behind the root at his back, careful not to draw the aberrant's eye.
The snow gave way beneath his fingers, and there warm despite the frost, he felt the subtle pulse of liquefied zaen and was bubbling against his palm.
'If I hit the branches, the snow will fall.'
He stood up, gripping it in one hand and a snowball he formed by his palm in the other as he let go for the saber temporarily.
Grr—
Again, as if the aberrant could sense the liquefied zaen, it lunged one more time.
Swoosh!
He threw the bubble upward, followed by the snowball infused with zaen.
Boom!
White flashed as snow collapsed from above.
Hwwwll–!
The aberrant howled.
Not in pain, but in irritation.
'Now!'
Seven picked the saber and dove to the side, but a claw clipped his ankle.
Still.
He did not stop, but used the slope.
Slid.
Fell.
He crashed through brush and brittle ice, sliding helplessly until the ravine swallowed him whole. Its lake was shallow and still as the water was impossibly unfrozen like the winter dared not touch it.
Grr—
Above, the aberrant did not rush anymore.
Step.
It descended.
Step.
Step by step, stalking like a god of death in the snow.
Step.
He stood at the bank, water beneath the ice groaning.
Hff…
Breath weak.
Haah…
Leg broken.
One arm limp with a saber raised.
He had no clever plan left. The time left before his death as displayed by the vision was…
One second.
Grr—!
The aberrant jumped downwards, aiming directly for the kill.