[ti]private[/ti]Burning the Field

Kazuki’s brows furrow. He pinches the bridge of his nose, wondering just how on earth Verai has managed to decipher words from—from a hole in the ground.

He glances at the Precipice, and Verai’s voice sounds by his ear, almost wistful. He has a brief concern over him entering it. “Then we aren’t going in there. You’ve already walked through hell once, you are not going to do it again.”

Then the hopelessness. It grates him even more than the inexplicable wonder in Verai’s voice. “It better fucking be!” He hisses. “It’s a game! If it exists here, then someone put it here.”

He waves his hand, pulling up his UI. “If we have to report this shit, I’ll do it. Have them finally answer to all the glitches we’ve dealt with.”

As he’s flipping through random information, trying to find anything, anything that could be useful, his hand freezes over his own profile, above an unfamiliar icon. A ring of teeth, like a leech’s maw. “What the fuck?”

Verai asks him a question, but it’s background noise. His eyes linger on the symbol, its greeting that causes his hairs to stand.

“I think,” he says as his eyes trace the description, a feeling of dread looming over him, “I might’ve brought something back I wasn’t meant to.” He remembers the mission. Corruption samples. Is this part of it? Is this what Verai is dealing with?

He shakes his head, turns his attention to Verai. “Ver, have you checked your profile?”

And then something dawns on him. “Wait, shit. Can you access it?” He was able to fast travel, so surely.

Hearing the actual sample Verai obtained only serves to sink the dread further into him. He shouldn’t be bothered by this. It’s a subclass, so it’s clearly designed for players, and he hasn’t noticed anything particularly strange since Mistra.

He can mind it later.

“So, you did get a subclass,” Kazuki says, a little triumphant. “Never heard of a Seer, though.”

Verai struggles through the commands—so it seems he relies on audio cues in this mode, of course—but eventually blinks.

The color that returns to his eyes has never looked more vibrant.

“Your eyes are back to normal!” Kazuki grins, pushing up to his face to get a good look, seeing the light that shines over the shrine dance over them. He's reminded that red is his favorite color. “Fucking finally! Now we can get on with our lives.”

Something’s wrong. There’s something like distress in Verai’s face, but he can’t decipher it. Knuckles come to slam into his cheek, forcing his face to pivot.

“Fuck!” He curses, touching the point of impact. It radiates pain. Shoes scrape the grass as Verai gets to his feet, his eyes wide and frenzied like a panicked animal—like an angry one. It’s a complete 180 of his previous temperament, and Kazuki can’t even fathom what caused it.

“What is wrong with you?” he says, trying to stand as Verai hisses at him. Why is this happening? The hell had he done? “I was just trying to—”

He’s tackled back to the ground. The shock punts the air out of his lungs, his body kicking into self-defense as he braces for attack. His hand shoots up to grab Verai’s jaw, grab it the same way one would if attacked by a frothing dog. “Ver- VER! Get off! Listen to me!”

He’s trying to push Verai’s face away when the man pulls back and clamps his hand between his jaws. There’s nothing playful about it- he bites hard enough to snap bone, and without a second thought, Kazuki throws a punch into his temple, whatever concern and confusion he felt now replaced with red-hot fury.

“Enough!” Ignoring the pain, Kazuki pushes, shoving his hand further into Verai’s mouth and yanking the man's head as he twists his body to flip their positions, his knee poised to pin the rabid armorer on the ground. His hand is bleeding down his wrist.

This isn’t a fight he wants. Verai is writhing like a man possessed. His injured hand protests, but he does his best to hold the man down, his mind reeling as he tries to figure out what set him off. Verai's eyes are normal. His blood is on his chin. “Snap out of it,” he growls low, tightening his grip over Verai's mouth and exacerbating his wounds. "Let go of my hand, or I'll knock the shit out of you."

He lands a second hit when no response beyond more feral growling comes. Verai goes boneless under him and he freezes, eyes wide, his fist raised and bleeding. It unfurls, reaching down to touch the man’s neck. Checking for a pulse. If he had hit him enough to breach his pain threshold, he should’ve disappeared and later respawned at the foot of the shrine.

Gradually, Verai comes to, and a tension Kazuki hadn’t realized had settled over his shoulders dissipates. He remains there, however, bracketing Verai with his legs, not quite believing he’s back to normal until he hears his voice.

He breathes when he does. “In the flesh,” he says, but it’s a lifeless quip. He slowly rises to get off of him.

Verai is eyeing him with a squint. Kazuki meets his gaze with a complicated expression. “You don’t remember what just happened, do you?”

He raises his hand. The gnarly bite mark is still there, still bleeding. Every indent human, save for four particularly deep indents of fangs. "That's too bad. It turns out you've got a hell of a fucking bite."