"Shit!"
Sakura thrust herself through the dense foliage, swearing profusely as she did. Her composed demeanor had all been stripped away. In the end, it happened. The thing that she feared the most.
"Come out now, Sakura! You can't hide from us!" Viviane cackled. "We're everywhere!"
It was the absolute worst possible situation.
Sakura leaned against a tree, sacrificing a few seconds to rest her aching muscles. She knew she wouldn't have long to rest. The thing that looked like Viviane would be coming after her soon.
It's not too late. I can still fix this... She's not a complete Jade Beauty just yet! Sakura held onto that thin thread of hope as she pushed herself off the tree and continued to run. She couldn't help but think that if Riku had been present, they probably could've taken care of this already.
But he wasn't. All Sakura had was her half-drained body and her wits. She ducked into a thick underbrush as she heard the sound of Viviane's approach, only to stumble as her foot was pulled back.
Struggling to stifle a yelp of surprise, Sakura peered down to find herself stuck in a quagmire of mud. She risked a quick glance behind her back, but Viviane was nowhere to be seen. After pulling herself free, Sakura gave herself a quick sigh of relief before rolling into the bush.
It can't complete its transformation without my ki, so as long as I manage to find an opening... Sakura nodded to herself as she rapidly devised a plan. And a very risky one, at that. ...That's the only way I'll be able to do this. Shit!
Again, Sakura moved, not allowing herself to stay in one place for too long. The possessed Viviane hunting her was one thing, but she feared that she might lose what little hope she had if she stayed put and prayed for the best.
The one saving grace was that Jade Beauties didn't always have the intelligence of the body they were possessing. Born from an amalgamation of life force overdrawn from different sources without being refined in a timely fashion, the Jade-Beautified Viviane's current level of intelligence was a jumbled mixture of her own as well as the sources of ki currently circulating within her.
In other words, the trees, grass, and other plants that had been within Viviane's vicinity when she had begun absorbing ki. It was no wonder why the partially-formed Jade Beauty possessing Viviane wanted Sakura so badly. Other than completing its transformation, it desperately needed Sakura's intelligence to pilot its stolen body properly.
The Jade Beauty crashed through the foliage with Viviane's body, tearing her expensive dress in various places as it continued its hunt for Sakura. Its viridian eyes flickered around wildly, but to no avail.
Sakura held her breath as she watched from above, perched upon a particularly thick branch of a tree she'd managed to scramble up while the Jade Beauty had been stumbling along.
Just a little more... She thought as she gripped the tree's trunk so tightly that her fingers began to bleed against the rough bark. It hurt, but she knew it was nothing compared to what Viviane must be feeling right now, powerless to do anything as a foreign entity rampaged around with her body.
"I can smell you..." The Jade Beauty's voice rasped, a disgusting mockery of Viviane's soothing sound.
Sakura shivered. For a moment, she considered fleeing, and with each passing second, the feeling of mounting dread grew stronger in her heart. Still, she refused to allow fear to cloud her mind.
No. It shouldn't be able to... Its sense of smell isn't any better than Viviane's, Sakura thought. Regardless of what the truth was, the Jade Beauty had reached the position that Sakura was waiting for.
It was time to act.
Sakura leapt from the tree, descending upon the Jade Beauty and slamming her to the ground. Though the Jade Beauty was strong, Sakura wasn't worried as she leveraged her superior momentum to push her opponent into the muck she'd discovered just moments ago.
"G-Guh! What is this!?"
Sakura ignored the Jade Beauty's feeble attempts to squirm out of the thick mud that encased the two of them. While something of this caliber normally wouldn't have posed an obstacle for a Jade Beauty, the mud's quicksand-like consistency coupled with Sakura's mounted position made it pretty much impossible for anyone but a knight to escape.
Quickly, Sakura wrapped her hands around Viviane's head and focused intently, extracting as much ki as she could in a single attempt.
A long time ago, she'd learned that the only way to prevent a Jade Beauty's transformation was to forcefully extract the overflowing ki before the transformation was complete. In theory, it was simple. In practice, Sakura found it far more difficult than she'd anticipated.
Please work, please work! Please just work!
A second later, Viviane screamed, her howl of pain piercing through the thick canopy of the trees and reaching upward into the sky.
The sound was deafening, but hope returned to Sakura's eyes. It was a single coherent sound unlike the jumbled swarm of voices that belonged to the Jade Beauty.
It was Viviane's scream.
"Viviane! Viviane!" Sakura cried urgently. "That's you right!?"
"U-Uwaaaah! S-Sakura...!" Viviane blubbered as tears began running down her face even before the emerald taint could fully fade from her features.The sharp claw-like nature of her nails that were previously digging into Sakura's arms had receded, leaving long gashes in the foreign lady's arms.
Blood seeped from her wounds, but Sakura paid it no mind. Instead, she grabbed hold of Viviane's arms and quickly pulled her upright. If Viviane didn't refine the ki in time, this would all be for naught.
"It's not over yet, Viviane! I know it's a lot to ask, but you have to focus right now!"
"W-Weh? W-What do you mean it's not over!? I... I...!"
"Viviane!" Sakura shook her, perhaps a little too hard. "You have to trust me! Remember how you felt when you first absorbed ki? You have to remember that feeling right now!"
Viviane was clearly still panicked, but she struggled to focus as she recognized Sakura's urgency. "O-Okay! Okay! I just don't want to get t-taken over by that thing again!"
"Hold onto my hands tightly, alright? We're going to fix this right now!"
"Y-Yeah! Okay!"
"On the count of three! One... two... three!"
Viviane wrenched her eyes shut, trying her best to summon an image of Medrauta to her mind. Gleaming silver hair, brilliant blue eyes, and most of all the warm smile that refused to give up, no matter the obstacle before her.
I-I can do it! My journey's only beginning! Help me, Medrauta! At once, that familiar warmth flooded Viviane's body once more, coursing through her entire being. But this time, that feeling was almost overwhelming. It poured out from her body, touching every tree and every blade of grass around her.
"L-Lady Sakura! I feel so... big! It's almost like there's a second me!"
"That's right, but don't focus on that, Viviane! Focus on the rhythm of your heartbeat and with each pulse, you have to draw that warmth closer and closer, got that!?"
"I-I'll do my best! Closer and closer...!"
Sakura's eyes widened the moment Viviane started refining the ki within her body. The overflow was sucked in precipitously, so much so that Sakura didn't even have time to react. She'd intended to help Viviane through the process by absorbing some of the ki, but the Avalynian noblewoman had managed just fine.
What the hell!? I thought she was weak, but is she actually a genius...!? This is insane!
"U-Uhm! It can't get any closer, Lady Sakura! What do I do!? I-It feels like I'm going to explode!" Viviane's voice snapped Sakura back to reality.
"That's fine! Let it unravel slowly. If you can visualize the clearing we were in, then that's even better."
"G-Got it!"
Bit by bit, the surplus ki flowed out from Viviane's body, returning to the forest where it belonged. It trailed through the air in the form of thin green threads like a brilliant aurora, weaving itself back into the trees, the bushes, and the grass as the clearing gradually returned to life.
With her eyes closed, Viviane could not see the gossamer strands of emerald slowly flowing back into the flora whence they came. Yet, she alone was privy to the strange intimacy that suffused her very being.
Each breath she took breathed life into the trees, and every sway of her hair in the wind was mirrored by the countless blades of grass regaining their lives. As ki flowed from her body and returned to the forest, she was entwined with them in a sort of oneness that allowed her to feel everything that the forest felt and see everything that it saw.
And as the last thread of light departed from her body, for a very brief moment Viviane and the forest were one.
She gasped deeply at the magnitude of sheer life that the forest not only possessed, but supported. Both the fragility and the resilience of life, Viviane came to understand very well.
And though the immensity of her enlightenment frightened her, it also gave her hope.
Throughout all this, Sakura couldn't help but marvel at the sight speechlessly. After all, it was the first time she'd ever seen something like this before.
Only when Viviane finally opened her eyes did Sakura dare speak.
"...You did it, Viviane."
Viviane nodded slowly. Cautiously. Though she no longer felt as if she wanted to explode, she could feel an almost boundless source of energy circulating within herself. "...I never wanna do that ever again," she laughed.
Sakura let out a peal of laughter before collapsing onto the ground, a great deal of terror and anxiety lifting off her shoulders all at once.
"Yeah. You can say that again."