Sabertooth

Chapter 6) Bonds

Pain flared across Raika's wrist. Kale's nails had dug in like a drill, making his arm bleed profusely as he stampeded towards the beast.

The pain was nonexistent though. All that mattered was Atsuki's safety. The yellow eyed beast wouldn't feast on a prey when another would try to take it from him. At least, that's what he hoped.

And he was right. The beast gnashed its outer fangs together and strode forward, looking more viscous then before.

Raika couldn't help but realize it didn't look like it was in this for playing anymore. It would kill his prey this time, not just detain it. And of course, he was that prey.

Raina met the beast halfway like two preparing to engage in a brawl or sword fight. The beast bit down, hissing with its adults teeth open wide.

It jumped and Raika hit the dirt clumsily. The beast lurch over him, it's yellow eyes like golden pyramids. Raika turned over to see the beast gnashing its teeth in disgust.

"GRRR-RRRRR-RRRR" it sneered, it's hair raising defiantly.

Raika heard a clang and turned back toward the plain where the beast had first run rampant. There in the grass a few feet away was the brown knife Atsuki had shown him hours before. Just after Kalein went to sleep.

Kalein.

Raika grabbed the sizable blade and rotated back, starting a run. And just as he thought, the beast was standing still, it's nose raised in the air. It could smell the girl.

Raika, absorbed with the fear of death still strides towards the carnivorous beast. It greeted him again with its sizable tusk-fangs.

Then it thrashed, stabbing its lengthy teeth into the soil, causing Raika to stagger back and almost trip. Then he was on him like a fishermen unto a fish. Predator unto his prey.

Raika staggered further and further until he stumbled on his back. The beast inches away. It was over, even as he held the brown knife in hand ready to stab its underbelly.

As the beast came down, it's teeth visibly powerful and its claws ready to pounce, something unusual occurred.

The ground began to flow, vines sprouting up as if planted moments before and accelerated with time. The beast batted at the growth to no avail. It was trapped.

"Gut him, Rai!" Kale cheered from a ways over.

Raika stares longingly into the predators eyes that were now the prey's. His viciously feral eyes have a sort of electric spark into Raika. He actually felt sorry for the beast.

He felt what the beast did. It was defeated, depressed, and agitated that it had lost to such children. That it, the night hunter, was now ensnared and caught.

Atsuki stood always from the beast, now closer to Raika. Kale soon followed suit, they were both coming to see him slay the beast.

But he couldn't. He wouldn't. It was an animal, a mighty beast of the forests. Not a meal you could put upon a dinner plate.

Raika reached out ever so slightly and touched the beast on the forehead. It gave no resiliency. It didn't even blink.

Raika's eyes widened when the feral yellow irises transformed, they became darker and more fixed. The glowed and swelled and became green. In fact, the same green as Raika's own eyes.

"Was this..?" Raika wondered. But his thoughts were cut off when an odd feeling rested on his heart. He moved, and no more than a moment later he heard the air sharpen. Something shifted inside him, and the wind picked up ever so slightly.