Page 28 of A Soul to Touch

Really? She brought me here just to cut down a tree?

If it were anyone else but her, Kitty would have been annoyed he was being used in such a way. He probably also would have said no and walked off.

Kitty stood and began to revert to his humanoid appearance. He wouldn’t be able to do this task properly in his more animalistic form.

His fur began to shorten. His legs, although rather thick in the thighs due to muscle and slightly bowed, became more like hers as partial feet formed. The tips of his toes were like fat paws with claws that could retract.

There had been bones covering much of his flesh when he’d been beastly. They mostly sunk underneath his body except for his hand knuckles and upper ribcage. His skull and ram horns remained the same throughout the transformation.

The clothing that rose from beneath his flesh was a pair of trousers that had managed to remain mostly unscathed and a long button-up shirt with a handful of claw marks. His cloak was tattered at the ends, not that he cared.

Once the transformation was complete, Kitty began chopping into the tree Mayumi had pointed to in order to cut it down. She sat on the one laying on its side and watched him with her expression neutral.

“I didn’t realise you could change or that you were wearing clothing.”

“There are many things I can do that you wouldn’t know of,” he answered, his voice finally back to its normal depth.

I am thankful I have seen many humans do this.Otherwise, he would have needed to go through the embarrassing conversation of figuring out what she wanted him to do.

The blow from his first chop was deep, and the sound spooked nearby birds into taking flight while squawking. He felt his muscles tensing as he wiggled the blade free before he broughtthe axe diagonally from his shoulder and then swiped it through the air.

The blow was just as damaging.

Mayumi was right. He was much faster at doing this from what he’d seen of humans. On his third chop, he could tell he’d blunted the blade and had to put additional force into his swings to give them a more violent blow.

Within a matter of seconds, he was halfway through the trunk, and it began swaying. Creaking and cracking noises came from where he’d been chopping.

“I figured out your new name,” Mayumi chirped from the side as he cut into the tree again.

“Have you now?” he remarked as he went to strike again. There was no need. Under its own weight, the tree began to fall in the opposite direction. “And what might that be?”

Although his tone was sarcastic, his orbs brightened from their usual yellow, and his heart began a strange dance in anticipation.

Whatever it was, he’d accept it.

He turned toward her suddenly, revealing that she’d beenbitingat her bottom lip while leaning her hands back on the dead tree she was sitting upon.

He had no idea what her expression meant, but she quickly stopped and darted her gaze around. It was almost as if she’d been caught red-handed doing something she wasn’t supposed to be.

There was no redness in her cheeks from embarrassment, but she did clear her throat.

“Well,Faunus, you did a wonderful job of cutting that down. In what? Only a minute or two?” She clapped her hands in a way that appeared... mocking, her palms never parting and only her fingers tapping.

He walked over, flipped the axe until he was holding the back of the blade, and offered her the handle’s side.

“Faunus? That is your name for me?”

“Yes.”

She took the axe as she stood and clipped it to her weapons belt.

She never asked him if he liked it, which he did, but he appreciated the lack of need for thanks or even appreciation. The name was given without a requirement from him.

“Now, you and I are going to strip the tree of its remaining leaves.”

The tree had been mostly barren to begin with, considering its leaves had wilted due to winter. A few stubborn dead leaves had fallen over him and the ground when he’d been cutting it.

Mayumi looked up with her hands on her small hips. Then, like she wasn’t some tiny creature standing in front of an omen of death that she had just witnessed destroy a tree in a matter of minutes, shefuckinggrinned at him.

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