A couple moments after that moment, Kaio went back to lay himself against the bed, facing up to the ceiling, sighing a bit, when all of a sudden, the door to his bedroom door started knocking, startling the young man.
"Yui-san?" Kaio asked, facing the door, but no response came back from it. He gulped dry, then the door knocked again.
"This isn't funny, ok, you know how easily I get scared…" He said again, only now noticing that there was a weird bright light coming out from behind the door, which made him even more scared, but at the same time curious. Out of instinct, Kaio went next to his closet, where he kept an old, worn-out baseball bat, and took it out, just to be safe.
"If this is not Yui… just warning whoever you are, I'm armed!" He stood close to the door, armed with the bat, not noticing the soft breeze coming out from behind the door, and he noticed it too late, with his hand already grabbing the handle and opening it. "What the…"
With a resounding slam against the wall, the door quickly opened, revealing a blinding light behind it, almost as if it was a black hole, it was sucking in pieces of dust off the floor and into himself.
"Aaaaah!" Kaio yelled, stepping back and falling onto the floor, the bat clanging next to him, as the light's vacuum slowly got more and more intense, ripping posters and figures off the wall and into itself, even his bat caught up in the light;
"What… is-" The young man was too shaken up by pure fear to do anything, and inevitably… the light swallowed Kaio too, which apparently made the light satisfied, and vanished as suddenly as it appeared.
"Hey, I just heard some light noises over there, you ok?" Kaio's phone vibrated on his desk, from Yui's message.
—----
"...caravan, to see if there's anything salvageable in there." She said, pointing the end of her bright staff at the fox beastman's face. "As for you, don't worry. I'll make it as fast and painless as I can, foxy~" She chuckled sadistically, but as soon as the staff's light shot at him-
WHAM!
It was almost like it happened in slow motion, to all three of them. The mage was shocked as she saw a young man, appearing out of nowhere, slamming himself against the fox beastman, the staff's blazing fire ray narrowly grazing against said young man's spiky bleached hair, as they were both sent down the dark abyss below them.
"Well… that's certainly an interesting turn of events…" Azora couldn't help but chuckle, not knowing if they were going to survive or not, but not caring either way. "Either way, did you find something interesting in there, Satoshi?" She turned around and left the cliff, reuniting herself with the swordsman.
Kaio could barely put himself together. At one moment, he was just at his house, talking with his friend. The other… he was now freefalling, into the dark woods below him… surely he was gonna die here, huh?
His instincts kicked in, looking around for any help, but none, except for the bleeding man next to him, and as soon as he started shouting out "Someone, please help-" he felt a hand hold against his arm, then a blood-curling yell.
"VULPES!" The beastman roared, and almost like magic, his fox tail and ears began glowing, the veins on his arms and legs sharing that same glow. It was almost ethereal, and scary in a way. And then, his hands and feet suddenly poofed into big, large paws, with sharp claws on them, with that hand covering Kaio's whole forearm.
With animal-like reflexes, the beastman latched himself into a nearby tree, finching his claws directly into its bark. while it didn't obviously halt the fall, it certainly slowed it down.
The fox lost his grip on the tree moments after, however, but at that point, both men fell down into a wildberry bush, cushioning their falls to a certain degree. They're somewhat injured, with the fox being the most from what happened earlier, but at least they're not dead.
After a few minutes, the young man woke up, holding his bleeding forehead. "What… where…" The scene before him was really hard to see, thanks to the night looming over the land, and what little moonlight was up in the sky, it was blocked by the thick foliage above him, with some rays of moonlight passing through little holes between the leaves.
Instant dread loomed over him, checking if the fox man next to him was still alive, and thankfully he was, although badly bruised up. As he was checking the fox man out, he suddenly put up two and two together and realized something. "Wait, he's… am I… why am I…" He started to mumble to himself, and while doing so prancing around the bush in a pure panic breakdown. He looked around again, being able to hear the wildlife bustling through the woods through his short, panicked breaths.
Without hesitation, Kaio picked up the closest tree branch next to him, his bruised body shaking with fear but still somewhat determined. He sat down next to the bush, taking deep breaths while holding the branch, waiting that hopefully, the beastman would wake up soon.