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Moogle x Slime-cat-girl-thing", "writing": "VoCT Round 4.\n\nTsumi vs. Misa Tamamori.\n\nCharacters © their players.\n\nStory © Tsumi Moogle ’09.\n\nEach foot-fall echoed softly down the long, empty streets; the only sound amidst the dead city. The welcoming warmth and humbling glow of his camp-fire, forgotten to the elements as he made after Sefra towards the ominous mountain, pitch-black against the starry sky like a void. Though he had bolstered himself with determination to see this tournament through, and take back what had been stolen, the moogle faltered with almost every street he passed. Despite the city lying in ruins, with every long, still street, every broken and forgotten building, Tsumi swore he could see one of the shadows leaping.\n\n“There’s nothing there.” Whispered the voices, as the moogle turned swiftly, trying to catch the shadowed form, or forms. He subdued a shiver, at the idea of unseen, semi-visible forms lying all around him in wait… The inhabitants, perhaps, of this abandoned place. Turning back to the faint light of his hanging pompom, Tsumi calmed himself and continued for the base of the mountain he’d been directed to, so long ago by that cheekily-smirking Rabbit, who had egged him all the way here; against Charlie, to keep him fighting, and then after Kraz…\n\nHadn’t the promise of going home, been enough for him? Did he need the extra incentive that Sefra had so aptly claimed..? Recalling the look on the face of his former opponent, Kraz, as he’d been weakened by his own final attack and lay helpless before the pink moogle, Tsumi sighed. True, his vengeance would have only carried him so far… A sick guarantee, to be sure.\n\nBecoming so lost in his thoughts, the ground began to rise before the moogle knew it, causing a foot to scuff the Rocky earth. Snapping out of his haze, he looked up, frowning at the slight vertigo of the mountain raised now, right before him like a skyscraper.\n\n“Up there, huh..?” Tsumi murmured to himself, resting a hand against the cool, dark rock that stretched up into the sky, before turning to rest his back against the base of the mountain and look out over the island he’d traversed over to get here.\n\nThe ocean was all but gone from his perspective; hidden, far beyond the reach of the haze that he knew to be the trees on the edge of the Wastelands… Whose darkened soil laid now almost an inky black, even with the faintest tinge of green upon the eastern skies border. The ruins, too, lay before him ending some way before where his path had risen; as quiet, as peaceful as they ever had been. The shadow no longer chased him. Able to take it all in and appreciate the island’s serenity for a moment, the moogle sighed in contemplation, feeling the weight of the trinkets of those he had overcome in each of those places.\n\n“…Almost there…” The moogle thought quietly, turning from the peaceful scene to continue up the sloping path leading up the mountain when he paused again. His pompom was glowing an ominous ochre colour, before an odd sound seemed to rise up from the earth; an intense rumbling growl like some trapped beast beneath the ground, followed by a subtle tremor that grew quickly to a great staggering quake. The ground avidly rocked and shook with a terrible force that despite Tsumi’s best efforts, threw him to the ground. His eyes wide as he looked about, grasping to the ground and looking to the mountain; though the quake was powerful, the giant pillar of earth stood solid: Barely a rock falling from those great heights.\n\nThe roaring earth grew quiet and still once more within a minute, leaving the shocked moogle to pick himself from the hard ground, blinking. “That felt close..” He mused, looking up as his pompom whispered;\n\n“It came from the island. …But it was not natural. Be careful.” It’s glow returned to its softer, pearly sheen before Tsumi nodded, continuing up the path. \n\n“I can only hope that wasn’t another of the contestants..” He spoke with a tentatively wistful grimace.\n\n“…Unlikely.” They responded simply, before falling into silence.\n\nWorking his way up the slight, winding path, the moogle kept a hand to the wall, as he looked over the unfolding scenery below. He watched the tinge of green on the horizon spread into a steady gold and pink, as the sun began peaking over the ocean; starting to spread light along the trees and buildings below. Smiling still, Tsumi turned to walk higher up the mountain, before stopping as he stared up at a form walking towards him, dressed in a long hooded cloak; One of the strikers!\n\nHis gasp of shock drew the shrouded form’s attention from the ground, but rather then that omniscient sense that Sefra gave off, this striker jumped a little, hands raising to his side quickly, one holding an odd spherical capsule, before the form hesitated… and returned the orb to his side.\n\n“…Just a competitor..” The cloaked frame sighed with relief, shaking his head slowly, and moving to walk past the moogle. Stepping aside, Tsumi blinked at the taller frame walking past and frowned as his pompom glowed green. \n\n“It’s you..! That fox, Kupo! …Wait!” The moogle reached out to grasp the striker’s arm, and gulped as The cloaked frame stopped.\n\n“..Your goal is on top of the mountain, Moogle, Not me.” The fox said, not unkindly. He seemed a little weary. “…And it’s Verace.” He continued, lifting his hood back and looking the moogle’s face over. \n\n“I- I know that… I just- ...I want to ask you something.” Tsumi inclined his head, watching the look of hesitation on Verace’ face and slight anxiety to do his duty, whatever it was.\n\n“…Make it quick.” Verace nodded.\n\nSighing softly, at last able to get some proper answers, the moogle released the Striker’s arm and frowned a moment; wondering where best to start.\n\n “…I finished.. my fight with Kraz, down there, in the ruins. I- I beat him, did what I had to, to move on.. and was resting. Another one of.. of you guys came, a rabbit.. He must have been watching all my fights so far, because He’s talked to me before… and… he took something of mine… something special. A-… a crystal. He told me it would be my prize, if I won, and ran off…” He trailed off, as Verace seemed a little perplexed. The fox sighed slowly and shook his head. \n\n“…Sefra.” He looked aside a moment. “…He’s been doing some things around here that he hasn’t asked or talked about with us first..” The fox admitted, his voice subdued with regret. “The whole bit about eating the competitors to move on, We didn’t all agree on that. …At least, Alex and I didn’t. I know that much. And odd things have been going on in the island, which we’re unsure of.” Tsumi nodded quietly, able to think of a few things immediately; those dark flames he could see when he danced, foremost.\n\nContinuing on, Verace sighed again. “Sefra won’t tell us what’s going on, or what he’s planning. So, I can’t say much more then that… My brother Alex and I are looking about, trying to find out the reasons... so… Just go along with the tournament for now, please. We’ll handle it.” He finished, slowly petting the moogle’s hair. “..You’re doing pretty well, if you made it this far. In a way, I’m glad I picked you. But at the same time… I’m sorry.” The fox said quietly, splaying his ears apologetically. The moogle blinked, leaning his head into the soft paw, and sighed. \n\n“…You didn’t know. So …I can’t blame you, Verace. ..Good luck, searching, kupo.” He offered with a small smile, as the fox withdrew his paw. \n\n“And you, with your next match. Don’t make me regret choosing you.” Verace smiled back almost playfully, before lifting his hood back up, and continuing down the mountainside a ways and vanishing into the ruins.\n\nConsidering the green fox as he kept climbing, the ground seeming to grow a little rockier, looking rather more effected by the quake… Tsumi looked to his pompom; still gleaming its innocent pearly sheen. “…You didn’t alert me to him, or when he was going to attack.”\n\n“…There was never a need to. He is not an opponent. And battle is not foremost on his mind… …Stop.”\n\nThe moogle blinked at the sudden suggestion, and looked around faintly. Here the earth was quite flat, a broad sided path, with its raised-lip edge peering a good way down the mountain. The mountain wall lay rough and disturbed with a good portion of rubble and boulders. Rather non-descript, and the moogle highly doubted the possibility of someone ambushing from behind those heavy rocks.\n\n“What is it, kupo..? I don’t see anything weird-“\n\n“…There is something here. …it is… Not natural.”\n\n“Not natural? What do you mean? Something man-made?” Tsumi questioned, skeptically to himself. Machines were never an issue to his pompom.\n\n“It is alive and yet… it does not live…” The confused sounding voices uttered cryptically, throwing tsumi for rather a loop; something that the voices did not understand was generally something to worry about.\n\nStepping forward slowly, he flicked his ears at an odd noise, seeming to come from the rock-wall, beneath the rubble and watched his pompom giving an awkward pulse; trying to find this ‘anomaly’ amongst the flow of things it recognized.. Before the ground cracked and split open as Tsumi took another step forward.\n\n“Gaaah! Free at l-mmph!” Came an exasperated and bright voice, from directly under the moogle’s foot, followed by an awkward squish as he stepped down. With a yell, Tsumi leapt back quickly, staring in the growing dawn light at the head sticking out of the ground that looked incensed. “My face! Alex! What’d you do that f- …wait, you’re not Alex… Where’s he gone? And what happened here?” the face, looking obliviously bewildered, started crawling from the ground in a most unique manner; Her(?) form rippling upwards, like jello being gooped up into an invisible mold. As more of the opaque goop settled into this critter’s apparently normal shape, it took on density and colour; those of an orange feline with black stripes. Her- ..Yes, definitely a ‘she’, from the curves forming, the neat and clean bob-cut hairstyle and being plainly clothed with a tight-holding blouse and a low-cut, simple skirt.\n\nRather shocked at the sight of this oddity, Tsumi faltered a moment as his brain tried to catch up with the questions.\n\n“K-kupo.. Sorry! I-.. uhmm.. I didn’t see you!” He scratched the back of his neck. “I-… There was an earthquake earlier… If that was a cave…” He looked to the rubble, then to the ‘feline’ as she suddenly wailed;\n\n“An Earthquake!? Alex! No! Not another friend! I mean.. He wasn’t a kitty, but he still looked out for me!” She hurried to the fallen rocks, and started hauling the smaller rocks aside, though some never seemed to leave her paws, just vanishing… She was absorbing them? Tsumi could only blink and stare a moment before his pompom glowed…\n\n“I-.. There’s no one under there… Your friend wasn’t in there, when the earthquake happened.” He said uncertainly, with the suggestion of the pompom. Looking up from the rubble, the feline blinked, her wide eyes distorted, hopeful and overly large.\n\n“Are you sure?! How do you know?” She mewled, and hurried towards the moogle, causing tsumi to take a step back. \n\n“Ah-..! My-.. ..this told me.” He looked pointedly up to his pompom, causing the blob’s face to suddenly light up with delight. \n\n“Oooh! Look at that! You have a toy on your head! That’s so cute!” She giggled avidly, before reaching to try and swat at it. Tsumi softly ‘erp!’ed and ducked under the swatting. \n\n“P-please, kupo! Don’t touch it.. it’s sensitive.” He smiled apologetically, sighing and straightening as the feline returned her arm to her side, though her eyes kept on the pompom for a covetous moment or two longer.\n\n“So… what exactly are you?” The slime-cat asked spontaneously, smiling brightly at this new acquaintance of hers. “I mean, you sort of look like a Kitty, but you’ve got wings, and… a small tail and that funny thing on your head! Are you like, a big pixie or something?”\n\n ***\n\nMeanwhile, in the ruins, Verace walked with his hood drawn and his brow furrowed in contemplation. What the moogle had told him was rather disconcerting; Sefra, stealing things from people? Well, so far, just one. \n\n“A special crystal? …His prize?” He recalled aloud, toying with the lining of his coat as he turned a corner to proceed down the long and empty street, in an easterly direction. His shoes came to rest at the hilt of a curious weapon, looped lazily by a chain; Chinese by design, from what he could tell. It had a clean split in its middle, looking like it could join somehow into a glaive of sorts. He recalled one of the contestants having handled it, the other moogle. Kraz.\n\nHe shook his head softly with a frown, stepping over the weapon. “So the moogles faced one another…” The fox looked to the sky, lightening steadily with the sun creeping higher from the horizon.\n\n“You’re not watching any matches, Verace.” Came a voice from above the fox, rather suddenly. “Something on your mind?” As Verace looked to its source, he eased his hood back. \n\n“…Sefra.” The green vulpine murmured. “…There was, actually. I bumped into one of the competitors earlier, Tsumi. He told me something curious.”\n\nThe rabbit grinned lightly, leaning on an arm on the tattered edge of the roof he sat on. “Oh..? What all was that?” The look on his face told Verace that the Moonblossom knew only too well what Tsumi had told him. \n\n“What are you planning, Sefra? This competition’s changed from the word go, and I don’t like it anymore. …You’ve changed.” The fox frowned, lowering his gaze a moment. A soft laugh from in front of him lifted Verace’s vision to the Moonblossom standing before him.\n\n“I’ve changed? Don’t be silly, Verace. I’m just… spicing things up a little...” He grinned in a disconcerting way. “So, you can’t just be down here having a stroll; where are you headed?” The smug look on his face, the slight grin, kept Verace assured of one thing; Sefra was well aware already. \n\n“The city. Then I’ll return to watching the matches.” The fox said simply, lifting his hood and moving to walk past the rabbit, a hand firmly grasped about the capsule within his pocket, he could feel the rabbit’s eyes on his back…\n\n ***\n\n“So… This ‘Sefra’ guy made off with your friend?” Misa asked, peering at the recently dubbed ‘moogle’ beside her. The duo had retreated to one of the large fallen rocks, and gotten to talking. “And he’s the one who’s been making people fight this whole time…?” Tsumi nodded grimly, giving a little sigh and looking lightly to the sky, as it started easing to a robin’s-egg blue.\n\n“More or less… He was the one who laid down the rules at the start, remember? The bunny on the screens that- Hey!” He’d ducked again as Misa took another gigglish swipe for his pompom, and straightened up, looking stern at the cat, now trying not to look too pleased with her mischievousness.\n\n“Sorry, Tsumi. It’s just.. it’s practically screaming at me to play with it!” She eyed it again, but settled herself down once more, to behave. Shuffling himself to the other side of the rock as a precaution, tsumi inclined his head.\n\n“I’m sorry we can’t do anything about your friend..” He offered sympathetically, “But surely there must have been another way, I mean; you just up and ate her..? Like that?” The moogle blinked, as Misa’s face sharpened in a frown.\n\n“What do you mean ‘Like that’? We didn’t have a choice! I never wanted to fight Samantha! This mean guy made us do it!” The cat retorted huffily. Tsumi blushed and splayed his ears back. \n\n“I-.. I guess not, sorry.” He petted Misa’s shoulder apologetically, and sighed as he considered his position with the slime. It had been an incredibly welcome reprieve, just to be able to sit down and talk with someone. Perhaps not the most apparently sane, but, he hadn’t laughed in a long time, and had welcomed the opportunity.\n\nBut remembering Sefra’s words from when he had been so adamant on not fighting Charlie, looked to the smiling ‘feline’ beside him. “…We’re going to have to fight, you know…” The moogle said quietly, before long, causing his acquaintance to look to him in shock.\n\n“We are..?” Misa blinked confusedly. “But we’ve become such good friends! Why do we have to fight now?” She pouted her lips, trembling the lower and sniffing, as thick and honey-like tears oozed down her cheeks.\n\n“Because I have to continue to the top of the mountain, to find Kyt… and… you’re a competitor, too. If one of the strikers sees us walking our separate ways, or climbing to the top together, they’ll probably grab us and eat us anyway… they’re the rules…”\n\nMisa sat, looking rather conflicted, thinking on what Verace had told her and Samantha the round before, drooping her ears and sighing, before suddenly flaring up with a shriek of; “It’s not FAIR! I have to eat all the friends that I make on this island, because of some silly rules?!” before beating her fists with a ‘squelch’ on the rock the duo had sat on, Tsumi eep!’ing and rolling off, before picking himself up and backing away from the slime some; Misa sniffing as she stood up, turning to face the moogle. “I really don’t want to have to do this, moogle-kitty…” Before with a pained yowl, she whipped a heavy, slimy arm towards her friend-turned-opponent. Starting to duck and dodge, the moogle moved swiftly under and around the Slime’s arms as they swung out brutally, seeming to lengthen a great deal, as the other arm would shorten comparatively. Whether to claw at him, club him or enfold him; Tsumi didn’t want to know.\n\nMisa sobbed, her form losing her definitive colors as she whipped at the moogle, body becoming more streamlined. As the distressed slime threw an arm forward, Tsumi gasped, stepping back, and watching it plough into the ground at his feet… Before the ground rumbled audibly, and the arm burst from the ground behind him, snaking around to snare him! Turning to face it, the moogle winced as his pompom flared.\n\n“Behind you!” The voices called, Bringing Tsumi’s attention back to Misa.\n\nShe had flung herself at him bodily, Form spreading open like a great, shimmery sheet of water to enfold the moogle. Tsumi froze, as he stared at the rippling form ready to smother him, feeling an old, familiar, and terrifying memory welling within him… The open white expanse of the snowy hills lay freshly powdered with a night’s worth of soft snow. His town of tiny snow-men lay, squished and indented, ruined at his feet. Mogzilla. A cheeky grin on his face as his cheeks stung a little from the soft, but harsh breezes in the chilled air. One more remained. One tiny little snow-man; screaming silently in the morning sun before him. Stepping with a muffled crunch of the carpeting snow under his wet boot, another, before lifting his foot, looming over his final target in his make-believe town.\n\nCRACK!\n\nThe ominous noise alerted the young pink mog that something was off. Casting his eyes around for a moment, he felt his breath catch in his chest, stabbed in place by fear; the lake. And he was atop of it.\n\nNo sooner had he realized his folly, then the snow-covered ice split apart with another terrible CRACK! plunging the moogle beneath the searing, icy water. The terrible cold froze his scream of agony and terror on his throat, the heavy weight of the water gripping at his body and thick clothes, the stabbing feel of icy water paralyzing his desperate struggles, filling his lungs as darkness steadily engulfed him, dragging him down, down, down…\n\n“Tsumi..!” came a muffled voice, through the water in his hazed mind… “Tsumi!” It was someone familiar; his brother..? Julius…?\n\n“MOVE!” The voices screamed in his head, wrenching the moogle from his memories, and causing him to leap back, slamming against the wall behind him whilst Misa collided into the ground in a great mass.\n\nThe moogles’ chest heaved in quick, trembling breaths, eyes still wide as the sensations he remembered lingered on the edge of his mind; still feeling the icy-chill on his fur as he stared at Misa, slowly ‘standing’ back up and turning to face him, that distressed look on her opaque-features hardened, as she raised an arm, to strike again. Still trembling, Tsumi ducked, as the arm swung brutally at his head again, keeping low to the ground and scrambling towards the slime. Unable to sense the slime’s intent, the moogle’s pompom could warn him only of attacks as they were thrown at him.\n\n“Balanca!” The voices began urging to throw the slime off with her attacks; tsumi moved his torso side to side as he moved, feigning a leap to either side. “Au sem Mao!” as one of the lashing arms whipped in from the side, the moogle pushing firm off his feet and into an aerial cartwheel over the slimy limb. With the slime turning, and throwing her arm forward again to grab the moogle, Tsumi’s pompom glared red once more. “Reverse Xango!” Tsumi planted his hand before himself, and throwing his weight forward, pushed off the arm, and arced over the tendril, though he felt it whipping past his fur.\n\nLanding before Misa, Tsumi panted, as throwing himself into a Ginga stance for a single beat, his pompom lead him into a Rabo-de-Arraia, Tsumi turning his back, dropping to all fours and thrusting a leg back for Misa’s abdomen; the slime looking quite unfazed at the leg thrusting at her. The moogle gasped as his pompom flared again. “Stop! Not there!” But not fast enough, Tsumi’s shoe connected with his opponent with an awkward ‘squish’. A smirk almost seemed to cross Misa’s face, before tsumi pulled bodily, yanking his foot free, and throwing him-self forward in a roll as Misa pounced forward to engulf him once more. The duo both getting to their respective feet, eying one another, before Tsumi leapt forward and spun, throwing his leg out in a brutal, spinning Martelo Rotado for the slime-girl’s head. He grinned for a moment as the slime gave a shriek of worry, pulling her arms up to protect her head, before his leg impacted with the arms with another dull ‘squish’, sinking in a ways. \n\nLanding awkwardly with his leg still impacted, Tsumi gave a cry as with a sudden searing sensation he realized; the slime was caustic all over. Whipping his leg back before Misa could engulf his leg; he stared at the patch of missing denim and red, raw looking skin on his leg. Another ill-timed flare from his pompom had the moogle leap back, watching as Misa tried to swarm over his body again… But this time, she didn’t fully reform her shape…\n\n“This is crazy… I can’t touch her without getting hurt! How am I meant to win against this?!” the moogle thought worriedly, leaping aside as Misa resorted to a new tactic; Throwing her body in great tackles, trying to simply bury the moogle in her acidic mass. “She’s like water, too… every time she lunges, I feel it… that icey-!”\n\nAnd leaping back towards the edge of the mountain, Tsumi waited, shivering a moment… Misa turning her now-glaring face to the moogle and leaping again, following his body with her eyes as he ducked passed her soaring frame, waiting for the ground to catch her to lunge again. …But it wasn’t coming. Looking forward, Misa pulled herself together, flailing with a carrying scream of terror as she plunged down the mountain side.\n\n“She’ll be back…” Whispered the voices warningly.\n\n“…I’m counting on it… because I have an idea…” The moogle panted, looking to the pompom.\n\n“…If you’re sure.” They whispered, before fading into the beat as Tsumi began dancing, wincing softly when he put pressure on his burnt leg, but working through it, building up a steady rhythm within his mind. The mountain was a steady, solid ochre in his mind’s eye… the sky quite still and devoid of sound …and still, dancing about his legs lapped those black flames he could sense, though they were almost muted now. The steady rhythm of the mountain and the still air gave birth to a softer, lighter tone; a light blue that began to evanesce through the air about the pompom, pulsing steadily. Tsumi; moving his arms down slowly, kneeling, focused solely on that tone within his mind and waited.\n\nAs Misa returned, bare minutes after her fall, having leapt up the cliff-face in her slimy self, she grasped over the edge of the ledge she’d leapt off and pulled herself up, panting disheveled and glowering at the moogle who knelt; panting heavily and shivering and holding his leg, like there was not an ounce of fight left in him.\n\n“Hmph! You’re a mean moogle-kitty! Throwing me off a cliff! But it doesn’t look like you’re gunna be able to fight back anymore.” She frowned, stepping towards the moogle to be sure he couldn’t dodge this time. “Don’t worry, if I find your friend, I’ll let him be with you…” The slime smiled, in her ‘fair’ reasoning, before lunging at last over the moogle, who gasped a moment, his pompom flaring bright blue.\n\nWrapping her frame about the crouched body, Misa could feel the kneeling moogle moving, pushing here or there at the walls enclosing him… before a most bizarre sensation began to steal over her; It started at the ground, which was slowly creeping with frost, like on a cruel winter’s morning… sealing her body to the ground, and swiftly running through her in a shocking chill.\n\n“Wh-what’s going on?!” The slime-girl gave a shrill cry, drawing her head away slowly as the frost crept higher and higher; the numbing sensation almost up to her head as she started to sluggishly pull away from the frozen portion of her body. It could of course, be replaced. Turning from the encapsulated moogle, Misa sluggishly tried crawling for the ground, the icy- touch of her body slowing her irksomely, before her frozen frame gave an ominous lurch, a rattle... as with a great shattering noise and gasp of air, Tsumi kicked his way free of the frozen blob around him, looking about anxiously.\n\nHis body was shivering terribly, a mixture of intense fear, nerves, and the effect of his spell on himself. His lips were slightly blue, and some of his fur was encrusted with patches of frost as well, which he avidly shook off as he stood, and looked Misa over, with the feline’s head turning to look in shock at her opponent leaning down to grab her. Sinking his hands into the icy-cold blob, Tsumi shuddered, as he pulled slowly, watching her neck stretching precariously thin, like taffy, from the point at which her body became fully frozen, at the shoulders. \n\nYawning his muzzle wide, and hoping his suspicions were correct, the moogle slowly stuffed the now silently sobbing slime-cat’s head past his jaws, wincing at the awkward goop seeping at the edges of his lips and cheeks. With a wince at the chill of the icy-gelatinous feline’s body against his teeth, he bit down, and slowly drew his head back, pulling slowly at the still-stretching body, before at last the final strands of Misa’s body released, leaving her head within his maw, steadily thawing her with Tsumi’s returning body-heat.\n\nClosing his eyes at the most awkward sensation of swallowing a bucket’s worth of jelly, the moogle leaned his head back, and gulped, feeling Misa’s head deforming and squishing down his slimy gullet… when at last the slime fully emptied into his belly, Tsumi sunk to his knees and back onto his rump on the cold ground, panting slowly as he watched the remaining body still mostly frozen before him. The sunlight bounced of its crystallized shape and curves, whilst the unfrozen portion just slowly oozed and dripped. No reshaping, no changing. It was done.\n\n“…Kupo. I’m... Sorry, for your friend Samantha, but she’s gone… Kyt’s not…” He spoke apologetically to his stomach, watching it squirming, faintly and only able to imagine Misa sprouting tiny tentacles to try and push back out. “If not... for this tournament, I would rather have liked being friends with you, Misa… even if I’m not a ‘kitty,’ kupo.” He smiled feebly, and slowly slumped back. The morning sun’s warmth easing through his body, with the previous night’s events all crashing in on him proved too much, and dragged the weary moogle to sleep…\n\nIt was a soft twinge in his body that awoke him, Tsumi’s eyes slowly opening, the sky was… darker now. But it wasn’t late. The sky had slowly blanketed over, thick and grey clouds having rolled in whilst he was out-cold. Sitting up, he looked over the remnants of his opponents’ body. It had since thawed, and lay in simple, clear ooze on the ground. With a soft sigh, the moogle gently rested a hand over his stomach, blinking at the tightness within, and groaned as he hurried behind one of the rocks, to relieve himself…\n\nThankful it had not been a Charlie worth of business to handle, Tsumi soon stepped back from make-shift toilet, and slid his pants up, sighing as he began to slowly trudge along the path to the summit.\n\nIt did not feel like a victory. She had been closer to him, then most on the island, if only for a little while. He had almost forgotten what it had felt like to smile, and wondered quietly if he would be able to, should he reach the end of the tournament. Considering all he had come through, and lost. His prize lay ahead, but what could he do with just a shard, just a memory? Slowly the moogle came to a stop as a slow roll of thunder ebbed along the thick clouds above, leaning his shoulder against the wall of the warm mountain, and sinking to his knees. Trembling, he closed his now burning, watering eyes against the rising slope and the dark clouds, against the vision that tried to replace it within his mind of that self-same world, in music. What was the point…; to return home, a murderer, with a crystal to remind him those others who were lost to him? With a soft hiccup, he leant his head against the rocky wall as the sky above opened up, beginning to rain over the island. The water was cold, matting his fur down, mingling with his tears as the moogle shook, helpless and lost, with the sky reeling above with its growling waves of thunder.\n\n“Tsumi…?” Came a voice in the pouring rain, muffled, foreign to him. He didn’t care. Surely it was just them, telling him to keep going.\n\n“Easy for you… You don’t have to do anything… Make decisions… Kill people…” The moogle murmured with an aching throat, opening his bleary eyes to look to the pompom above. It wasn’t glowing now.\n\n“What?” The voice enquired, seeming to get closer, before a hand rested on the moogle’s shoulder, making him lurch forward and look back in a moment of fear.\n\n“…Misa?” He asked weakly, as the cat-slime’s frame came into clearer vision. Had he gone mad with guilt? The slime squatting slowly before him, to his level.\n\n“Why are you crying? You’re not the one who got eaten, and digested… Ew…” She added as an after-thought. Tsumi choked softly, on a lurch of momentary amusement and a sob.\n\n“B-.. Because I can’t.. do it, kupo.” He sniffed, wiping his eyes. “Everyone I come across, I have to beat… and eat, here. Like... you. And you’re a friend… or-… Well, I dunno if you’d want to be friends with me, after what I did. For what..?”\n\nA guilty smile crossed Misa’s face as she considered the thought, before frowning. “…For your friend, right?” She seemed shocked that the moogle had forgotten so easily.\n\n“But-… He’s-.. Just a crystal. He lost, on the island.” The moogle sniffed weakly, lowering his gaze before gasping as Misa hugged him. The embrace was so alien, and so familiar that he just leant into it, to remember the feel.\n\n“…It shouldn’t matter what shape he is; he’s still your friend, right?” The feline asked, smiling as she eased back from the moogle. “I mean, just look at me, no matter what shape I’m in, I’ll still be your friend.” She beamed brightly, placing her hands on her hips, before offering the moogle a hand.\n\nTaking it, and slowly letting himself be pulled to his feet, he took a shaky breath to steady himself as he looked up to the slime, hopefully. \n\n“…I can’t save Samantha, Misa…” He said quietly, gulping softly. “…But I feel I could really use a hand in saving Kyt, if you’d help me?” A smile crossed Misa’s face, as she nodded gently.\n\n“…I’d love to, so long as you never have to eat me again, Moogle-kitty.”\n\n“Deal.” Tsumi smiled readily, feeling the muscles aching from lack of use, but happy to feel they still worked… He and Misa both paused, as his pompom began glowing again, a faint white colour.\n\n“…You need to be careful, Tsumi… Something is happening. There are threads coalescing, as well as old ones that had been lost, returning. There is something desperately wrong going on, but we cannot read what it is yet… We may yet have to-” The voices stopped abruptly as Misa’s paw suddenly batted the bauble.\n\n“Finally got it!” She giggled, batting it back and forth, making Tsumi shudder and jerk, before ducking out of the way. \n\n“Misa--! Kupopo!” Tsumi cried out exasperatedly, watching Misa bounding ahead with a cheeky laugh, before following after her with a sigh. “…May have to what..?” He asked quietly to his pompom, as it’s blinking glow returned, steady.\n\n“…Interject.” They murmured grimly.\n\nAnd falling silent, leaving the moogle to ponder those words, Tsumi gulped, and hurried after the slime.\n\n“…So, how did you survive?” He asked Misa sheepishly.\n\n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "VoCT Round 4.

Tsumi vs. Misa Tamamori.

Characters © their players.

Story © Tsumi Moogle ’09.

Each foot-fall echoed softly down the long, empty streets; the only sound amidst the dead city. The welcoming warmth and humbling glow of his camp-fire, forgotten to the elements as he made after Sefra towards the ominous mountain, pitch-black against the starry sky like a void. Though he had bolstered himself with determination to see this tournament through, and take back what had been stolen, the moogle faltered with almost every street he passed. Despite the city lying in ruins, with every long, still street, every broken and forgotten building, Tsumi swore he could see one of the shadows leaping.

“There’s nothing there.” Whispered the voices, as the moogle turned swiftly, trying to catch the shadowed form, or forms. He subdued a shiver, at the idea of unseen, semi-visible forms lying all around him in wait… The inhabitants, perhaps, of this abandoned place. Turning back to the faint light of his hanging pompom, Tsumi calmed himself and continued for the base of the mountain he’d been directed to, so long ago by that cheekily-smirking Rabbit, who had egged him all the way here; against Charlie, to keep him fighting, and then after Kraz…

Hadn’t the promise of going home, been enough for him? Did he need the extra incentive that Sefra had so aptly claimed..? Recalling the look on the face of his former opponent, Kraz, as he’d been weakened by his own final attack and lay helpless before the pink moogle, Tsumi sighed. True, his vengeance would have only carried him so far… A sick guarantee, to be sure.

Becoming so lost in his thoughts, the ground began to rise before the moogle knew it, causing a foot to scuff the Rocky earth. Snapping out of his haze, he looked up, frowning at the slight vertigo of the mountain raised now, right before him like a skyscraper.

“Up there, huh..?” Tsumi murmured to himself, resting a hand against the cool, dark rock that stretched up into the sky, before turning to rest his back against the base of the mountain and look out over the island he’d traversed over to get here.

The ocean was all but gone from his perspective; hidden, far beyond the reach of the haze that he knew to be the trees on the edge of the Wastelands… Whose darkened soil laid now almost an inky black, even with the faintest tinge of green upon the eastern skies border. The ruins, too, lay before him ending some way before where his path had risen; as quiet, as peaceful as they ever had been. The shadow no longer chased him. Able to take it all in and appreciate the island’s serenity for a moment, the moogle sighed in contemplation, feeling the weight of the trinkets of those he had overcome in each of those places.

“…Almost there…” The moogle thought quietly, turning from the peaceful scene to continue up the sloping path leading up the mountain when he paused again. His pompom was glowing an ominous ochre colour, before an odd sound seemed to rise up from the earth; an intense rumbling growl like some trapped beast beneath the ground, followed by a subtle tremor that grew quickly to a great staggering quake. The ground avidly rocked and shook with a terrible force that despite Tsumi’s best efforts, threw him to the ground. His eyes wide as he looked about, grasping to the ground and looking to the mountain; though the quake was powerful, the giant pillar of earth stood solid: Barely a rock falling from those great heights.

The roaring earth grew quiet and still once more within a minute, leaving the shocked moogle to pick himself from the hard ground, blinking. “That felt close..” He mused, looking up as his pompom whispered;

“It came from the island. …But it was not natural. Be careful.” It’s glow returned to its softer, pearly sheen before Tsumi nodded, continuing up the path.  

“I can only hope that wasn’t another of the contestants..” He spoke with a tentatively wistful grimace.

“…Unlikely.” They responded simply, before falling into silence.

Working his way up the slight, winding path, the moogle kept a hand to the wall, as he looked over the unfolding scenery below. He watched the tinge of green on the horizon spread into a steady gold and pink, as the sun began peaking over the ocean; starting to spread light along the trees and buildings below. Smiling still, Tsumi turned to walk higher up the mountain, before stopping as he stared up at a form walking towards him, dressed in a long hooded cloak; One of the strikers!

His gasp of shock drew the shrouded form’s attention from the ground, but rather then that omniscient sense that Sefra gave off, this striker jumped a little, hands raising to his side quickly, one holding an odd spherical capsule, before the form hesitated… and returned the orb to his side.

“…Just a competitor..” The cloaked frame sighed with relief, shaking his head slowly, and moving to walk past the moogle. Stepping aside, Tsumi blinked at the taller frame walking past and frowned as his pompom glowed green.

“It’s you..! That fox, Kupo! …Wait!” The moogle reached out to grasp the striker’s arm, and gulped as The cloaked frame stopped.

“..Your goal is on top of the mountain, Moogle, Not me.” The fox said, not unkindly. He seemed a little weary. “…And it’s Verace.” He continued, lifting his hood back and looking the moogle’s face over.

“I- I know that… I just- ...I want to ask you something.” Tsumi inclined his head, watching the look of hesitation on Verace’ face and slight anxiety to do his duty, whatever it was.

“…Make it quick.” Verace nodded.

Sighing softly, at last able to get some proper answers, the moogle released the Striker’s arm and frowned a moment; wondering where best to start.

 “…I finished.. my fight with Kraz, down there, in the ruins. I- I beat him, did what I had to, to move on.. and was resting. Another one of.. of you guys came, a rabbit.. He must have been watching all my fights so far, because He’s talked to me before… and… he took something of mine… something special. A-… a crystal. He told me it would be my prize, if I won, and ran off…” He trailed off, as Verace seemed a little perplexed. The fox sighed slowly and shook his head.

“…Sefra.” He looked aside a moment. “…He’s been doing some things around here that he hasn’t asked or talked about with us first..” The fox admitted, his voice subdued with regret. “The whole bit about eating the competitors to move on, We didn’t all agree on that. …At least, Alex and I didn’t. I know that much. And odd things have been going on in the island, which we’re unsure of.” Tsumi nodded quietly, able to think of a few things immediately; those dark flames he could see when he danced, foremost.

Continuing on, Verace sighed again. “Sefra won’t tell us what’s going on, or what he’s planning. So, I can’t say much more then that… My brother Alex and I are looking about, trying to find out the reasons... so… Just go along with the tournament for now, please. We’ll handle it.” He finished, slowly petting the moogle’s hair. “..You’re doing pretty well, if you made it this far. In a way, I’m glad I picked you. But at the same time… I’m sorry.” The fox said quietly, splaying his ears apologetically. The moogle blinked, leaning his head into the soft paw, and sighed.

“…You didn’t know. So …I can’t blame you, Verace. ..Good luck, searching, kupo.” He offered with a small smile, as the fox withdrew his paw.

“And you, with your next match. Don’t make me regret choosing you.” Verace smiled back almost playfully, before lifting his hood back up, and continuing down the mountainside a ways and vanishing into the ruins.

Considering the green fox as he kept climbing, the ground seeming to grow a little rockier, looking rather more effected by the quake… Tsumi looked to his pompom; still gleaming its innocent pearly sheen.  “…You didn’t alert me to him, or when he was going to attack.”

“…There was never a need to. He is not an opponent. And battle is not foremost on his mind… …Stop.”

The moogle blinked at the sudden suggestion, and looked around faintly. Here the earth was quite flat, a broad sided path, with its raised-lip edge peering a good way down the mountain. The mountain wall lay rough and disturbed with a good portion of rubble and boulders. Rather non-descript, and the moogle highly doubted the possibility of someone ambushing from behind those heavy rocks.

“What is it, kupo..? I don’t see anything weird-“

“…There is something here. …it is… Not natural.”

“Not natural? What do you mean? Something man-made?” Tsumi questioned, skeptically to himself. Machines were never an issue to his pompom.

“It is alive and yet… it does not live…” The confused sounding voices uttered cryptically, throwing tsumi for rather a loop; something that the voices did not understand was generally something to worry about.

Stepping forward slowly, he flicked his ears at an odd noise, seeming to come from the rock-wall, beneath the rubble and  watched his pompom giving an awkward pulse; trying to find this ‘anomaly’ amongst the flow of things it recognized.. Before the ground cracked and split open as Tsumi took another step forward.

“Gaaah! Free at l-mmph!” Came an exasperated and bright voice, from directly under the moogle’s foot, followed by an awkward squish as he stepped down. With a yell, Tsumi leapt back quickly, staring in the growing dawn light at the head sticking out of the ground that looked incensed. “My face! Alex! What’d you do that f- …wait, you’re not Alex… Where’s he gone? And what happened here?” the face, looking obliviously bewildered, started crawling from the ground in a most unique manner; Her(?) form rippling upwards, like jello being gooped up into an invisible mold. As more of the opaque goop settled into this critter’s apparently normal shape, it took on density and colour; those of an orange feline with black stripes. Her- ..Yes, definitely a ‘she’, from the curves forming, the neat and clean bob-cut hairstyle and being plainly clothed with a tight-holding blouse and a low-cut, simple skirt.

Rather shocked at the sight of this oddity, Tsumi faltered a moment as his brain tried to catch up with the questions.

“K-kupo.. Sorry! I-.. uhmm.. I didn’t see you!” He scratched the back of his neck. “I-… There was an earthquake earlier… If that was a cave…” He looked to the rubble, then to the ‘feline’ as she suddenly wailed;

“An Earthquake!? Alex! No! Not another friend! I mean.. He wasn’t a kitty, but he still looked out for me!” She hurried to the fallen rocks, and started hauling the smaller rocks aside, though some never seemed to leave her paws, just vanishing… She was absorbing them? Tsumi could only blink and stare a moment before his pompom glowed…

“I-.. There’s no one under there… Your friend wasn’t in there, when the earthquake happened.” He said uncertainly, with the suggestion of the pompom. Looking up from the rubble, the feline blinked, her wide eyes distorted, hopeful and overly large.

“Are you sure?! How do you know?” She mewled, and hurried towards the moogle, causing tsumi to take a step back.

“Ah-..! My-.. ..this told me.” He looked pointedly up to his pompom, causing the blob’s face to suddenly light up with delight.

“Oooh! Look at that! You have a toy on your head! That’s so cute!” She giggled avidly, before reaching to try and swat at it. Tsumi softly ‘erp!’ed and ducked under the swatting.

“P-please, kupo! Don’t touch it.. it’s sensitive.” He smiled apologetically, sighing and straightening as the feline returned her arm to her side, though her eyes kept on the pompom for a covetous moment or two longer.

“So… what exactly are you?” The slime-cat asked spontaneously, smiling brightly at this new acquaintance of hers. “I mean, you sort of look like a Kitty, but you’ve got wings, and… a small tail and that funny thing on your head! Are you like, a big pixie or something?”

 ***

Meanwhile, in the ruins, Verace walked with his hood drawn and his brow furrowed in contemplation. What the moogle had told him was rather disconcerting; Sefra, stealing things from people? Well, so far, just one.

“A special crystal? …His prize?” He recalled aloud, toying with the lining of his coat as he turned a corner to proceed down the long and empty street, in an easterly direction. His shoes came to rest at the hilt of a curious weapon, looped lazily by a chain; Chinese by design, from what he could tell. It had a clean split in its middle, looking like it could join somehow into a glaive of sorts. He recalled one of the contestants having handled it, the other moogle. Kraz.

He shook his head softly with a frown, stepping over the weapon. “So the moogles faced one another…” The fox looked to the sky, lightening steadily with the sun creeping higher from the horizon.

“You’re not watching any matches, Verace.” Came a voice from above the fox, rather suddenly. “Something on your mind?” As Verace looked to its source, he eased his hood back.

“…Sefra.” The green vulpine murmured. “…There was, actually. I bumped into one of the competitors earlier, Tsumi. He told me something curious.”

The rabbit grinned lightly, leaning on an arm on the tattered edge of the roof he sat on. “Oh..? What all was that?” The look on his face told Verace that the Moonblossom knew only too well what Tsumi had told him.

“What are you planning, Sefra? This competition’s changed from the word go, and I don’t like it anymore. …You’ve changed.” The fox frowned, lowering his gaze a moment. A soft laugh from in front of him lifted Verace’s vision to the Moonblossom standing before him.

“I’ve changed? Don’t be silly, Verace. I’m just… spicing things up a little...” He grinned in a disconcerting way. “So, you can’t just be down here having a stroll; where are you headed?” The smug look on his face, the slight grin, kept Verace assured of one thing; Sefra was well aware already.

“The city. Then I’ll return to watching the matches.” The fox said simply, lifting his hood and moving to walk past the rabbit, a hand firmly grasped about the capsule within his pocket, he could feel the rabbit’s eyes on his back…

 ***

“So… This ‘Sefra’ guy made off with your friend?” Misa asked, peering at the recently dubbed ‘moogle’ beside her. The duo had retreated to one of the large fallen rocks, and gotten to talking. “And he’s the one who’s been making people fight this whole time…?” Tsumi nodded grimly, giving a little sigh and looking lightly to the sky, as it started easing to a robin’s-egg blue.

“More or less… He was the one who laid down the rules at the start, remember? The bunny on the screens that- Hey!” He’d ducked again as Misa took another gigglish swipe for his pompom, and straightened up, looking stern at the cat, now trying not to look too pleased with her mischievousness.

“Sorry, Tsumi. It’s just.. it’s practically screaming at me to play with it!” She eyed it again, but settled herself down once more, to behave. Shuffling himself to the other side of the rock as a precaution, tsumi inclined his head.

“I’m sorry we can’t do anything about your friend..” He offered sympathetically, “But surely there must have been another way, I mean; you just up and ate her..? Like that?” The moogle blinked, as Misa’s face sharpened in a frown.

“What do you mean ‘Like that’? We didn’t have a choice! I never wanted to fight Samantha! This mean guy made us do it!” The cat retorted huffily. Tsumi blushed and splayed his ears back.

“I-.. I guess not, sorry.” He petted Misa’s shoulder apologetically, and sighed as he considered his position with the slime. It had been an incredibly welcome reprieve, just to be able to sit down and talk with someone. Perhaps not the most apparently sane, but, he hadn’t laughed in a long time, and had welcomed the opportunity.

But remembering Sefra’s words from when he had been so adamant on not fighting Charlie, looked to the smiling ‘feline’ beside him. “…We’re going to have to fight, you know…” The moogle said quietly, before long, causing his acquaintance to look to him in shock.

“We are..?” Misa blinked confusedly. “But we’ve become such good friends! Why do we have to fight now?” She pouted her lips, trembling the lower and sniffing, as thick and honey-like tears oozed down her cheeks.

“Because I have to continue to the top of the mountain, to find Kyt… and… you’re a competitor, too. If one of the strikers sees us walking our separate ways, or climbing to the top together, they’ll probably grab us and eat us anyway… they’re the rules…”

Misa sat, looking rather conflicted, thinking on what Verace had told her and Samantha the round before, drooping her ears and sighing, before suddenly flaring up with a shriek of; “It’s not FAIR! I have to eat all the friends that I make on this island, because of some silly rules?!” before beating her fists with a ‘squelch’ on the rock the duo had sat on, Tsumi eep!’ing and rolling off, before picking himself up and backing away from the slime some; Misa sniffing as she stood up, turning to face the moogle. “I really don’t want to have to do this, moogle-kitty…” Before with a pained yowl, she whipped a heavy, slimy arm towards her friend-turned-opponent. Starting to duck and dodge, the moogle moved swiftly under and around the Slime’s arms as they swung out brutally, seeming to lengthen a great deal, as the other arm would shorten comparatively. Whether to claw at him, club him or enfold him; Tsumi didn’t want to know.

Misa sobbed, her form losing her definitive colors as she whipped at the moogle, body becoming more streamlined. As the distressed slime threw an arm forward, Tsumi gasped, stepping back, and watching it plough into the ground at his feet… Before the ground rumbled audibly, and the arm burst from the ground behind him, snaking around to snare him! Turning to face it, the moogle winced as his pompom flared.

“Behind you!” The voices called, Bringing Tsumi’s attention back to Misa.

She had flung herself at him bodily, Form spreading open like a great, shimmery sheet of water to enfold the moogle. Tsumi froze, as he stared at the rippling form ready to smother him, feeling an old, familiar, and terrifying memory welling within him… The open white expanse of the snowy hills lay freshly powdered with a night’s worth of soft snow. His town of tiny snow-men lay, squished and indented, ruined at his feet. Mogzilla. A cheeky grin on his face as his cheeks stung a little from the soft, but harsh breezes in the chilled air. One more remained. One tiny little snow-man; screaming silently in the morning sun before him. Stepping with a muffled crunch of the carpeting snow under his wet boot, another, before lifting his foot, looming over his final target in his make-believe town.

CRACK!

The ominous noise alerted the young pink mog that something was off. Casting his eyes around for a moment, he felt his breath catch in his chest, stabbed in place by fear; the lake. And he was atop of it.

No sooner had he realized his folly, then the snow-covered ice split apart with another terrible CRACK! plunging the moogle beneath the searing, icy water. The terrible cold froze his scream of agony and terror on his throat, the heavy weight of the water gripping at his body and thick clothes, the stabbing feel of icy water paralyzing his desperate struggles, filling his lungs as darkness steadily engulfed him, dragging him down, down, down…

“Tsumi..!” came a muffled voice, through the water in his hazed mind… “Tsumi!” It was someone familiar; his brother..? Julius…?

“MOVE!” The voices screamed in his head, wrenching the moogle from his memories, and causing him to leap back, slamming against the wall behind him whilst Misa collided into the ground in a great mass.

The moogles’ chest heaved in quick, trembling breaths, eyes still wide as the sensations he remembered lingered on the edge of his mind; still feeling the icy-chill on his fur as he stared at Misa, slowly ‘standing’ back up and turning to face him, that distressed look on her opaque-features hardened, as she raised an arm, to strike again. Still trembling, Tsumi ducked, as the arm swung brutally at his head again, keeping low to the ground and scrambling towards the slime. Unable to sense the slime’s intent, the moogle’s pompom could warn him only of attacks as they were thrown at him.

“Balanca!” The voices began urging to throw the slime off with her attacks; tsumi moved his torso side to side as he moved, feigning a leap to either side. “Au sem Mao!” as one of the lashing arms whipped in from the side, the moogle pushing firm off his feet and into an aerial cartwheel over the slimy limb. With the slime turning, and throwing her arm forward again to grab the moogle, Tsumi’s pompom glared red once more. “Reverse Xango!”  Tsumi planted his hand before himself, and throwing his weight forward, pushed off the arm, and arced over the tendril, though he felt it whipping past his fur.

Landing before Misa, Tsumi panted,  as throwing himself into a Ginga stance for a single beat, his pompom lead him into a Rabo-de-Arraia, Tsumi turning his back, dropping to all fours and thrusting a leg back for Misa’s abdomen; the slime looking quite unfazed at the leg thrusting at her. The moogle gasped as his pompom flared again. “Stop! Not there!” But not fast enough, Tsumi’s shoe connected with his opponent with an awkward ‘squish’. A smirk almost seemed to cross Misa’s face, before tsumi pulled bodily, yanking his foot free, and throwing him-self forward in a roll as Misa pounced forward to engulf him once more. The duo both getting to their respective feet, eying one another, before Tsumi leapt forward and spun, throwing his leg out in a brutal, spinning Martelo Rotado for the slime-girl’s head. He grinned for a moment as the slime gave a shriek of worry, pulling her arms up to protect her head, before his leg impacted with the arms with another dull ‘squish’, sinking in a ways.

Landing awkwardly with his leg still impacted, Tsumi gave a cry as with a sudden searing sensation he realized; the slime was caustic all over. Whipping his leg back before Misa could engulf his leg; he stared at the patch of missing denim and red, raw looking skin on his leg. Another ill-timed flare from his pompom had the moogle leap back, watching as Misa tried to swarm over his body again… But this time, she didn’t fully reform her shape…

“This is crazy… I can’t touch her without getting hurt! How am I meant to win against this?!” the moogle thought worriedly, leaping aside as Misa resorted to a new tactic; Throwing her body in great tackles, trying to simply bury the moogle in her acidic mass. “She’s like water, too… every time she lunges, I feel it… that icey-!”

And leaping back towards the edge of the mountain, Tsumi waited, shivering a moment… Misa turning her now-glaring face to the moogle and leaping again, following his body with her eyes as he ducked passed her soaring frame, waiting for the ground to catch her to lunge again. …But it wasn’t coming. Looking forward, Misa pulled herself together, flailing with a carrying scream of terror as she plunged down the mountain side.

“She’ll be back…” Whispered the voices warningly.

“…I’m counting on it… because I have an idea…” The moogle panted, looking to the pompom.

“…If you’re sure.”  They whispered, before fading into the beat as Tsumi began dancing, wincing softly when he put pressure on his burnt leg, but working through it, building up a steady rhythm within his mind. The mountain was a steady, solid ochre in his mind’s eye… the sky quite still and devoid of sound …and still, dancing about his legs lapped those black flames he could sense, though they were almost muted now. The steady rhythm of the mountain and the still air gave birth to a softer, lighter tone; a light blue that began to evanesce through the air about the pompom, pulsing steadily. Tsumi; moving his arms down slowly, kneeling, focused solely on that tone within his mind and waited.

As Misa returned, bare minutes after her fall, having leapt up the cliff-face in her slimy self, she  grasped over the edge  of the ledge she’d leapt off and pulled herself up, panting disheveled and glowering at the moogle who knelt; panting heavily and shivering and holding his leg, like there was not an ounce of fight left in him.

“Hmph! You’re a mean moogle-kitty! Throwing me off a cliff! But it doesn’t look like you’re gunna be able to fight back anymore.” She frowned, stepping towards the moogle to be sure he couldn’t dodge this time. “Don’t worry, if I find your friend, I’ll let him be with you…” The slime smiled, in her ‘fair’ reasoning, before lunging at last over the moogle, who gasped a moment, his pompom flaring bright blue.

Wrapping her frame about the crouched body, Misa could feel the kneeling moogle moving, pushing here or there at the walls enclosing him… before a most bizarre sensation began to steal over her; It started at the ground, which was slowly creeping with frost, like on a cruel winter’s morning… sealing her body to the ground, and swiftly running through her in a shocking chill.

“Wh-what’s going on?!” The slime-girl gave a shrill cry, drawing her head away slowly as the frost crept higher and higher; the numbing sensation almost up to her head as she started to sluggishly pull away from the frozen portion of her body. It could of course, be replaced. Turning from the encapsulated moogle, Misa sluggishly tried crawling for the ground, the icy- touch of her body slowing her irksomely, before her frozen frame gave an ominous lurch, a rattle... as with a great shattering noise and gasp of air, Tsumi kicked his way free of the frozen blob around him, looking about anxiously.

His body was shivering terribly, a mixture of intense fear, nerves, and the effect of his spell on himself. His lips were slightly blue, and some of his fur was encrusted with patches of frost as well, which he avidly shook off as he stood, and looked Misa over, with the feline’s head turning to look in shock at her opponent leaning down to grab her. Sinking his hands into the icy-cold blob, Tsumi shuddered, as he pulled slowly, watching her neck stretching precariously thin, like taffy, from the point at which her body became fully frozen, at the shoulders.

Yawning his muzzle wide, and hoping his suspicions were correct, the moogle slowly stuffed the now silently sobbing slime-cat’s head past his jaws, wincing at the awkward goop seeping at the edges of his lips and cheeks. With a wince at the chill of the icy-gelatinous feline’s body against his teeth, he bit down, and slowly drew his head back, pulling slowly at the still-stretching body, before at last the final strands of Misa’s body  released, leaving her head within his maw, steadily thawing her with Tsumi’s returning body-heat.

Closing his eyes at the most awkward sensation of swallowing a bucket’s worth of jelly, the moogle leaned his head back, and gulped, feeling Misa’s head deforming and squishing down his slimy gullet… when at last the slime fully emptied into his belly, Tsumi sunk to his knees and back onto his rump on the cold ground, panting slowly as he watched the remaining body still mostly frozen before him. The sunlight bounced of its crystallized shape and curves, whilst the unfrozen portion just slowly oozed and dripped. No reshaping, no changing. It was done.

“…Kupo. I’m... Sorry, for your friend Samantha, but she’s gone… Kyt’s not…” He spoke apologetically to his stomach, watching it squirming, faintly and only able to imagine Misa sprouting tiny tentacles to try and push back out. “If not... for this tournament, I would rather have liked being friends with you, Misa… even if I’m not a ‘kitty,’ kupo.” He smiled feebly, and slowly slumped back. The morning sun’s warmth easing through his body, with the previous night’s events all crashing in on him proved too much, and dragged the weary moogle to sleep…

It was a soft twinge in his body that awoke him, Tsumi’s eyes slowly opening, the sky was… darker now. But it wasn’t late. The sky had slowly blanketed over, thick and grey clouds having rolled in whilst he was out-cold. Sitting up, he looked over the remnants of his opponents’ body. It had since thawed, and lay in simple, clear ooze on the ground. With a soft sigh, the moogle gently rested a hand over his stomach, blinking at the tightness within, and groaned as he hurried behind one of the rocks, to relieve himself…

Thankful it had not been a Charlie worth of business to handle, Tsumi soon stepped back from make-shift toilet, and slid his pants up, sighing as he began to slowly trudge along the path to the summit.

It did not feel like a victory. She had been closer to him, then most on the island, if only for a little while. He had almost forgotten what it had felt like to smile, and wondered quietly if he would be able to, should he reach the end of the tournament. Considering all he had come through, and lost. His prize lay ahead, but what could he do with just a shard, just a memory? Slowly the moogle came to a stop as a slow roll of thunder ebbed along the thick clouds above, leaning his shoulder against the wall of the warm mountain, and sinking to his knees. Trembling, he closed his now burning, watering eyes against the rising slope and the dark clouds, against the vision that tried to replace it within his mind of that self-same world, in music. What was the point…; to return home, a murderer, with a crystal to remind him those others who were lost to him? With a soft hiccup, he leant his head against the rocky wall as the sky above opened up, beginning to rain over the island. The water was cold, matting his fur down, mingling with his tears as the moogle shook, helpless and lost, with the sky reeling above with its growling waves of thunder.

“Tsumi…?” Came a voice in the pouring rain, muffled, foreign to him. He didn’t care. Surely it was just them, telling him to keep going.

“Easy for you… You don’t have to do anything… Make decisions… Kill people…” The moogle murmured with an aching throat, opening his bleary eyes to look to the pompom above. It wasn’t glowing now.

“What?” The voice enquired, seeming to get closer, before a hand rested on the moogle’s shoulder, making him lurch forward and look back in a moment of fear.

“…Misa?” He asked weakly, as the cat-slime’s frame came into clearer vision. Had he gone mad with guilt? The slime squatting slowly before him, to his level.

“Why are you crying? You’re not the one who got eaten, and digested… Ew…” She added as an after-thought. Tsumi choked softly, on a lurch of momentary amusement and a sob.

“B-.. Because I can’t.. do it, kupo.” He sniffed, wiping his eyes. “Everyone I come across, I have to beat… and eat, here. Like... you. And you’re a friend… or-… Well, I dunno if you’d want to be friends with me, after what I did. For what..?”

A guilty smile crossed Misa’s face as she considered the thought, before frowning. “…For your friend, right?” She seemed shocked that the moogle had forgotten so easily.

“But-… He’s-.. Just a crystal. He lost, on the island.” The moogle sniffed weakly, lowering his gaze before gasping as Misa hugged him. The embrace was so alien, and so familiar that he just leant into it, to remember the feel.

“…It shouldn’t matter what shape he is; he’s still your friend, right?” The feline asked, smiling as she eased back from the moogle. “I mean, just look at me, no matter what shape I’m in, I’ll still be your friend.” She beamed brightly, placing her hands on her hips, before offering the moogle a hand.

Taking it, and slowly letting himself be pulled to his feet, he took a shaky breath to steady himself as he looked up to the slime, hopefully.

“…I can’t save Samantha, Misa…” He said quietly, gulping softly. “…But I feel I could really use a hand in saving Kyt, if you’d help me?” A smile crossed Misa’s face, as she nodded gently.

“…I’d love to, so long as you never have to eat me again, Moogle-kitty.”

“Deal.” Tsumi smiled readily, feeling the muscles aching from lack of use, but happy to feel they still worked… He and Misa both paused, as his pompom began glowing again, a faint white colour.

“…You need to be careful, Tsumi… Something is happening. There are threads coalescing, as well as old ones that had been lost, returning. There is something desperately wrong going on, but we cannot read what it is yet… We may yet have to-” The voices stopped abruptly as Misa’s paw suddenly batted the bauble.

“Finally got it!” She giggled, batting it back and forth, making Tsumi shudder and jerk, before ducking out of the way.

“Misa--! Kupopo!” Tsumi cried out exasperatedly, watching Misa bounding ahead with a cheeky laugh, before following after her with a sigh. “…May have to what..?” He asked quietly to his pompom, as it’s blinking glow returned, steady.

“…Interject.” They murmured grimly.

And falling silent, leaving the moogle to ponder those words, Tsumi gulped, and hurried after the slime.

“…So, how did you survive?” He asked Misa sheepishly.

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