Juna ran on all fours through the trees while her hands and feet found the ground in a rhythm that asked nothing of her.
The boar ahead carried two Shards in slow orbit around its tusks, crashing through the underbrush while she held her place behind it.
"Push it toward the open ground," Hajin called from somewhere back in the trees, with branches breaking where he came through, "I would rather not follow it into the thick stuff."
"You are slow," she said without turning her head, "for someone who wanted to come out here."
"I am pacing myself," he said, sounding a good deal further back than he had a moment ago, "one of us has to survive the walk home."
'Why does this feel so different,' she thought, with the wind coming past her ears while her legs did work they had never done before.
In her old life she had hunted small game, then run from anything bigger, so nothing in her memory matched what her body was doing now.
Her claws opened grooves in the ground at every stride.
The weight on her back moved with her, a single wing of faint gold light that spread behind her shoulders then folded again each time she pushed off.
'What even is this thing,' she thought, watching it take the air off her shoulder, 'it feels like part of me.'
The boar cut its own line and came around at her, hooves throwing up ground while its tusks dropped level with her chest before she had finished the thought.
'Crap,' she thought, with her legs locking under her while the distance closed, 'I stopped paying attention.'
A kick landed against its side before she could move, so the boar went off its line into a tree, then the trunk cracked under the weight of it.
"You alright?" Hajin asked, landing in a crouch between her and the tree, with his head turned just enough to see her.
She sat back on her heels while her heart caught up to the miss.
"I'm fine," she said, getting her feet under her while she shook the last of it out of her head, "thank you for that."
"No big deal," he said, already stepping wide of her line with a tip of his chin toward the tree, "go on, give it hell."
"You could have finished it yourself," she said, with both ears coming up while she watched him back off, "that would have been faster."
"It would," he said, checking the edge of his sleeve where a bristle had caught in the weave, "except I am not the one out here who needs to find out what she can do."
The words got in under her ribs where she had not left room for them.
She went down into a low stance instead of answering him.
The boar shook its head clear of the tree and shoved itself upright, bristles moving in waves while it turned a bloodied snout toward her.
She did not wait for it to finish standing, so she went forward with everything she had, then mana ran down her arms in the air until her claws came out as blades of light.
The boar squared up to meet her with its head down, though the ground under its hooves ran downhill against it.
She came down on its face before it had its feet properly under it, so the claws went through hide into bone with a wet sound that put blood and bristles across the ground.
It kicked twice, then it stopped.
Hajin stayed where he was with the whole mess in front of him while his understanding worked to catch up with his eyes.
'Her panel listed one skill,' he thought, watching the light go out of her hands, 'so where exactly did that come from?'
Nothing about it had carried an activation.
The mana had simply taken whatever shape she wanted out of it.
'She worked that out standing up,' he thought, turning the last few seconds over again, 'so that is either luck or genius.'
Juna stood over the body with her fingers opening then closing while blood came off her claws into the ground.
The last of the light went out of them, though the power stayed in her arms where she could feel it waiting on her.
'Is this because he summoned me,' she thought, running a thumb over her palm, 'is this what being summoned does to a person?'
She looked at him from the corner of her eye, then back at her hands while one ear turned on its own.
'I never heard of a summoner who pulls beastkin out of the dark,' she thought, swallowing once, 'and dead ones at that.'
The wind shifted and brought his smell over to her again, clean in a way she could still not place.
'This human is really weird,' she thought, with her chest tight for a reason she did not care to look at, 'but maybe...'
She cut the thought there, turned back toward him, then put two fingers up with a small smile.
"Easy work," she said, holding the peace sign out until he had properly looked at it.
He almost laughed, then lifted one open hand toward her with something close to real congratulation behind it.
"You did really," he said, with his hand still up while the smile went wide across his face.
The body came off the ground behind her before he could finish, neck bent wrong while blood ran off its face, its dead eyes coming around to find her where she stood over it.
Its shoulders swelled while the front legs stretched forward, so the blunt paws split into short clawed limbs with the hindquarters left low and heavy.
"Juna, watch out!" he shouted, already coming off his back foot toward her.
The second went long for him while the shout tore out of his throat, then she began to turn far too late.
One of the thickened limbs came around into her side and took her off her feet, so she went through the air into a tree hard enough to split the trunk.
Blood came out of her mouth when she dropped, with one hand over her ribs while the other went into the ground to hold her awake.
'What just happened,' she thought, with the pain moving out through her chest in waves, 'I did not even see it.'
She heard him shouting her name, then saw him coming toward her with a look on his face she had never once seen him wear.
The trees ran together as the world tilted, so she was gone several long moments before he ever reached her.
Her fingers stayed buried in the ground.
Across the churned ground the boar turned its bulk in a half circle while it learned the joints it had not owned a minute before.
Hajin was still eight strides out when the boar came sideways across the ground and cut the line between them.
It brought both new limbs down together, throwing the ground up in front of him, so he went back off his heels into a slide with his teeth shut.
'That thing was dead,' he thought, with his eyes on the way its body pulsed, 'I watched her open its skull.'
He looked it over once and found the part that ruined the rest of his day.
Three Shards turned around its tusks now instead of two.
They came around faster than the pair had, while dark mana rolled off the body in rough waves.
'It is evolving,' he thought, with his jaw setting hard, 'so I have to put it down before the process finishes.'
He put his hand out and took the cheap sword out of the system, then cut it once through the air to loosen his wrist while he set his feet under him in the churned ground.
"I have to finish this quickly before it fully evolves into a three-Shard," he said, with the blade coming up between himself and the thing.
The boar lowered its head at him while the Shards picked up speed.
"Stay down over there," he said toward the tree where she lay, though nobody at that tree was in any condition to hear him, "I will be a minute."
He stepped wide to the left so the tree at his back stopped being something the thing could throw him into.
'A cheap blade and one shot at this,' he thought, with the grip settling into his palm, 'so it has to be done properly the first time.'
He put his weight forward onto the front foot, then let everything past the boar go quiet at the edges of him where it could not reach him.