[ He only has to win. That single thought loops in his mind at a blistering speed, repeating a dozen times in the mere seconds it takes for all of this to come to its resolution. As Howl's talons crash through the branches, he can see his victory at hand — even as the sharp points of splintered wood drive into his flesh through the force of his weight, and his shattered leg splatters blood across the leaves, and the fire —
Fire. Not just any burst of flame that any wizard could conjure, but a massive, overwhelming conflagration. It slams into Howl like storm winds, singeing his thick coat of feathers and reaching the bloated flesh underneath. Another monstrous screech cuts through the noise, now completely devoid of any humanity at all. Memories of the war in Ingary flash before his eyes, of bombs falling on homes, and of wizards throwing away everything in service of the king, and of airships exploding in hellish plumes of fire as his talons tore through their hulls. The fire back then hurt, too, although not as much as it should have. Howl's magic was tempered in fire, after all. The fire of a fire demon, but fire nonetheless. Calcifer was there with him, during every one of his foolish forays into the battlefield. Calcifer, the source of his power... his oldest friend. His only friend. Now just as dead and gone as everyone else in his world, nothing more than a memory, the same as the war, and the other wizards, and his castle, and Markl, and Sophie...
The fire rages around him; every feather on his hulking body alights in a flash. And yet... it does not overwhelm him. The pain is there, but it isn't like the pain when her fireball hit his wing. It isn't even like the pain he felt when he let out that scream an instant ago. With each hundredth of a second that passes, it winds down into a tepid ache. Through the fire, Howl contorts his neck to look down at Akua with one piercing blue bird's eye, enlarged and bulging out from the mop of long feathers hanging from the top of his head. His talons find their mark, plunging into her body and flexing mercilessly to tear her entrails apart. ]
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Fire. Not just any burst of flame that any wizard could conjure, but a massive, overwhelming conflagration. It slams into Howl like storm winds, singeing his thick coat of feathers and reaching the bloated flesh underneath. Another monstrous screech cuts through the noise, now completely devoid of any humanity at all. Memories of the war in Ingary flash before his eyes, of bombs falling on homes, and of wizards throwing away everything in service of the king, and of airships exploding in hellish plumes of fire as his talons tore through their hulls. The fire back then hurt, too, although not as much as it should have. Howl's magic was tempered in fire, after all. The fire of a fire demon, but fire nonetheless. Calcifer was there with him, during every one of his foolish forays into the battlefield. Calcifer, the source of his power... his oldest friend. His only friend. Now just as dead and gone as everyone else in his world, nothing more than a memory, the same as the war, and the other wizards, and his castle, and Markl, and Sophie...
The fire rages around him; every feather on his hulking body alights in a flash. And yet... it does not overwhelm him. The pain is there, but it isn't like the pain when her fireball hit his wing. It isn't even like the pain he felt when he let out that scream an instant ago. With each hundredth of a second that passes, it winds down into a tepid ache. Through the fire, Howl contorts his neck to look down at Akua with one piercing blue bird's eye, enlarged and bulging out from the mop of long feathers hanging from the top of his head. His talons find their mark, plunging into her body and flexing mercilessly to tear her entrails apart. ]