Yumi opened her eyes, looking around the room, as she scanned her surroundings her eyes landed on Aluric, slouched down in a chair sleeping peacefully, but what caught her eye was the large blood stain on the left side of his coat, and the four claw marks that appeared on it

She shuffled around and then a sharp pain entered her head causing her to hold her head in agony, as she moved her hand a trickle of blood ran down her face and dropped onto her pants,

she simply sat there trying not to panic as she tried to gather her thoughts from what happened last night,

she recalled the party and leaving to sit on the wall before going outside the base to investigate something, but she couldn't remember what happened after that, everything seemed fuzzy,

As she sat there the pain began to worsen, causing her to constantly groan, her mind focused on trying to block out the pain, but all of her constant groaning caused the sleeping Aluric to awaken, he got up and gently placed placed his hand on Yumi's shoulders, this caused her to jump out of the chair, she stood there glaring at him with one hand on her forehead while the other stayed clenched as she prepared for a confrontation,

"you know despite how happy go lucky you act you are one seriously tough person", Aluric stated,

" I mean look at you being able to move let alone jump so suddenly after having been attacked by a semi divine, Mountain Tiger", Aluric continued,

"wha....what are you talking about ?", yumi asked,

But just as she did, her head began aching again this time the memories of what happened last night started to rush back into her head, the image of the beast he was talking about also flashed in her head, it was large tiger about seven feet tall when standing on all fours and it had a very powerful body, but what set it apart from normal tigers was the fact that it had golden scales running along the middle of it's back, this meant it was only semi divine as fully divine mountain tigers had a full pelt of golden armored scales,

Aluric let out a sigh, "it seems like it got a good hit on you", Aluric stated as he walked towards Yumi,

with every step she grew more and more tense, and Aluric could see that that was the case,

"Yumi, relax the last thing I want to do right now is harm anyone, especially you", Aluric said, with a soft caring look in his eyes,

This caused Yumi, to lower her guard as this was the look he so often gave her whenever she got hurt, she felt on some level in her being that he still cared,

she dropped back into the couch she was sitting on before, and let out a sigh of relief, Aluric stepped in front of, kneeling down to her, he placed his hand on her forehead , moving her hair out of the way as he examined her wound,

As she sat there while he examined her wound closely, all of her missing memories came rushing back to her, After jumping off of the wall to investigate the strange light she had seen, she ran across Aluric being attacked by the mountain tiger, she had instinctively jumped in the fight, All the while questioning Aluric why he was out this late in the forest, but he never answered her, and before she could do anything else the mountain tiger had caught her off guard and with its powerful paws, it came baring down on her hitting her on her head, slapping her into a tree knocking her out,

she remembered that after hitting the tree she felt a burning sensation coming from her head, she looked to the right of her, seeing Aluric rushing towards her with his hand out, but the next thing she saw was the semi divine tiger's claws ripping through the side of Aluric's trench coat and knocking him though the forest, after that everything faded to black,

Yumi then remembered she was still in a room with aluric and regained herself,

Aluric had stopped looking at her wound and then reached into his trench coat pocket and took out a small container with some blood inside of it, he took off the cap and poured a couple drops onto the Back of his hand, after a short period, the palm of his hand began to glow a bright green, as this happened he stretched out his hand towards yumi, but she quickly pulled away,

"relax it's just a healing ability that one of guild members posses, and you know how my power works, so there ain't nothing you got to worry about", Aluric stated,

'He was right', yumi thought to herself, although he was now a really insufferable bastard who led many to kill and destroy families, he never told any lies, plus his convenient power of being able to use someone elses power once he had physical contact with any single part of their body inside or out, and the longer he touched them the longer and stronger he could use their power,

"fine, go ahead and do what you have to",Yumi relented,

Soon after he had placed his hand on her forehead, a soothing warm feeling washed over her entire body, and for a couple seconds this caused her to forget about worrying over her situation,

"there all done, that shouldn't be bothering you anymore, but you do have a small scar there now though, but I find that kind of adorable on you", Aluric said chuckling to himself,

" so why didn't you just heal me when we got here, wherever here is ?" Yumi asked him,

'well I'd been tracking and hunting that tiger for the entire day, and fighting that and saving you completely drained me , so as soon as we got here I passed out", Aluric answered,

"not to mention this", Aluric pointed down to his coat which had four claw marks ripped through it,

Aluric stood up from crouching in front of her, he held his hand over his wound as the green light once again appeared, yumi watched on as the wound began to heal, and the blood coming from it began to trickle off of Alurics hand slower and slower,

" what happened to that tiger anyways ?", Yumi asked,

"well he has been taken care of so to speak", Aluric answered, in a dry voice,

Yumi sat there watching Aluric, with things as they are now it was hard to think he was currently taking over this continent by force, and that he had killed so many up till this day,

she then let out a loud sigh, " I can't believe I ended up in here with you, it's only when we're together, when it's just the two of us that I seem to mess up as much as I did last night", she said,

"i really wish things stayed the way they were, before all of this", yumi continued, as she looked up towards the roof reminiscing on the days she was at the guild,

"yeah that would have been nice", Aluric replied,

"so why did you do it ?........Why did you sell out to the king and start this war ?", Yumi asked aluric,

"If I told you right now you wouldn't believe me", Aluric answered, looking at his hands, with a dissatisfied and disappointed look in his eyes,

"you should go and get back to my brother before he starts to panic, we aren't that far from your base, Just head north and you'll be back there soon", Aluric told Yumi,

Yumi got up and walked to the door, putting her hat on her head,

"whatever it is that caused you to start this war I hope it was completely worth it in the end", Yumi stated as she walked out the door,

As she walked out the door Closing it behind her she looked around, when she heard the sound of a lot of flies buzzing, and when she looked down next to the door, there it was the semi divine mountain tiger's corpse laying there, it's back and tail bare, it's golden scales completely missing

Yumi looked away, reminded of just how terrifying the man named Aluric was, as she headed off back towards the base,