"You’re serious about this?" Zen asked, breaking the silence.

Ryuji nodded firmly, his hand instinctively gripping the end of his robe. "That boy… He looked at me like I was his last hope. I can’t just let him be consumed by that monster."

Zen rubbed the back of his neck, then put it on Ryuji's shoulder, "Let's get you to sleep, young man."

But Ryuji's declaration was stubborn:

"I mean what I've just said, Zen. If there is even a slight chance that the boy is still alive, Let me take it. I won't try to defeat the Weeping brother, but i want to at least try and see if i can escape with that boy out of there. That is why. Please. Give me that sword. You don't use it anyways, right?"

Zen replies, "That is utter foolishness, Ryuji."

"I am aware about it as much as it is possible to be aware about it."

Zen looked at Ryuji with an expression of confusion, lingers for a bit, as if considering what he just said and then sighs, looking at him:

"I'll agree. But the only rule we will follow is that we won't try to fight that thing. We will check if the boy is somewhere we can find him, and if we do, we will try to free him out of there."

Ryuji turns his head to Zen, an expression filled with surprise on it, "We?"

 Zen stands up, turns towards the figure of Ice sleeping and whispers so that he won't wake her, "Yeah. For some reason, i don't want to leave you alone. And also, we won't go until this storm subsides. It's real suicide to just go there during these hours."

Ryuji hugged his legs and smiled, thankful to having met Zen and Ice, thankful that Fate turned it's strings in such a way that he fell in the lap of the people who must've taken care of him when he was born.

After sitting at the mouth of the cave for a few minutes, he fell asleep too, taking rest for the last time since the next day could very well be the death of him.

**

The next day, Zen revealed their plan to go and rescue the boy to Ice. Not to their surprise, they were met with heavy retaliation and resistance. However, after a while of consoling and constant repetition by Ice, telling them that they "WILL NOT" engage in a battle with that beast and only watch from afar if the boy is actually there, they were finally allowed to proceed.

Even Ryuji knew he couldn't fight that thing at all. He wasn't strong enough. And with an Ashened core, he might never be. But that didn't matter. He wanted to do the least he could do.

After making thorough preparation, Ryuji and Zen left the pit.

Zen was clearly not very fond of the old man, but he nonetheless left his wife in Spider and White's care. The survivors were all sent to hunt for food too and would probably not be back soon.

Zen and Ryuji traversed the hellish regions with extreme caution. One wrong step and they could land in the jaws of some other creature they had never seen. But having Zen by his side made things a lot easier. He knew all the ins and outs of this place. He had decades to analyse the whole place afterall.

Ryuji had Zen's Katana in his Hand held tightly. They walked for hours, sometimes rested for water and food they had taken with them, and then started their journey again. Thankfully, both of them only had to deal with a couple Dormant beasts that Zen had taken care of. The third one they encountered fled when Ryuji managed to impale him with his sword techniques.

After restlessly walking for hours, Zen and Ryuji were finally able to catch the trail of the Malformation and started following it. The trail usually disappeared for a few metres, and then reappeared again which made Ryuji and Zen shudder, wondering what kind of traversal methods that beast must've used.

After what feels like hours, the trail finally disappears for good. They are left hopelessly searching for their target in a vast forest made of trees which are too huge to be compared to any living thing they must've ever seen. They were only a little smaller than an average skyscraper.

Suddenly, Zen hushes at Ryuji and draws his attention, pointing at the top of a tree branch in a distance. Ryuji didn't see anything for a while. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to look for in that vast canopy of those crimson leaves. That was until he noticed the trunk looked like it was... Breathing? No, it was The Weeping Brother. Maybe The Weeping Brother had an ability that allowed it to camoflauge itself and change its color to match that of it's surroundings.

When Ryuji paid enough attention, he saw the distant figure of the boy there too, visible shaking even from that distance.

Zen and Ryuji nod at each other and approach the place. For now, The Weeping Brother looked to be sleeping.

As they reach closer to the figure, getting closer and closer until they were directly below it, Their conversations grew quieter and quieter.

Zen says, his voice quiet enough that it'd not reach the blade of grey grass currently wrapping itself around Ryuji's leg either, "Please don't wake it up..."

Ryuji gave him an assuring smile, "Don't worry. It'll be alright."

Saying that, he grabs a vine wrapping itself around the whole tree, seeming to choke the tree itself and stars climbing it. The tree itself is extremely tall. So tall that Ryuji looks like an ant trying to reach for a bread crumb left somewhere on the top of the tree.

Zen waits below, guarding him from anything that could try to reach Ryuji from below. But it felt like the whole area was... Scared of this devil. It seemed like everything had fled the area. All the area this thing walked through was practically empty. Either everything was too scared to approach this creature, or this creature was smart enough to move only through places where it knew nothing would disturb it.

Ryuji was trying his hardest to be able to climb the thing, but as he kept climbing more and more, his body couldn't seem to endure the pain. But he still needed to go up, as much as he could, and he needed to have enough energy to come back down along with the boy. So he tried.

After a long amount of time, time that Ryuji had lost track of, he was finally up on the branch of the tree that the thing rested on. The branch was as wide as a road. No wonder the Malformation was sleeping so peacefully and comfortably there. It was safer to sleep on this tree for him and for the boy since not everything would go to such extents to climb that thing just to fight a prey they weren't sure they could succeed in killing.

Ryuji made a slight crackling sound using a leaf lying at his feet to draw the attention of the boy. When the boy Saw him, he suddenly lit up with relief and happiness, tears dwelling up in his eyes. He probably wanted to scream, and was about to, but Ryuji gave him a sign to stay quiet and stealthily follow him.

The boy immediately went quiet and started sliding a bit away from the disgusting Malformation. When he felt he was at enough of a distance to not touch the Malformation when getting up and walking, he stood up and walked towards Ryuji.

Every step felt like a confrontation with death. If he fell to his right, he'd look like a watermelon that fell from such a height and spilled all of its contents. If he fell to the left... Well... All three of them would face that ending then.

But he didn't want to just stay there and do nothing. So the boy walked, even if slowly and carefully, trying his best not to make a sound. He'd find himself feeling horrified enough to stagger to the side whenever the Creature made a growling sound in it's sleep, which to the boy and Ryuji was the trumpet of their death.

Soon, Ryuji got a hold of the boy and comforted him for a while. He was cold, Wet and shaking uncontrollably. He was traumatized. But he was finally saved. It seemed the Malformation didn't care about the boy's well being at all. It was just gonna keep him with himself like a trophy until the boy died of starvation or thirst. Or maybe even just pure horror if he saw the monster feed.

Ryuji kept those thoughts aside for a minute and held that boy in arms, instructed him to grab him as hard as he could, and started sliding down the vine. The vine came from a collosal titan of a tree so... It's vines were obviously extremely sturdy. Some were even thicker than Ryuji. This one however was made out of a small part of a bigger vine and was much thinner. Enough for Ryuji to be able to hold properly.

After a while of Descending, which was much easier compared to the ascending, both Zen and Ryuji looked at each other and smiled. They just couldn't believe that they just saved the boy from a Malformation of the Eclipsed rank. They still choose not to say a word, unsure of how good the Malformation could hear and decided to be back on their way. Or maybe they just wanted to get as far away from that thing before it could wake up.

As soon as they started moving their feet though, a loud rhythmic sound of a person clapping their hands reverberated through the entire place. Ryuji and Zen's blood grew cold when they heard the simple sound echoing and reverberating so much through the dense forest. They moved their heads, looking for the source. When suddenly to their right, an old man wearing a devilish grin on his face appeared from behind a tree. Behind the man, was a tall and confident woman, her eyes closed shut. She tried to look confident again, but Ryuji couldn't shake off the feeling that her body was trembling. It was White and Spider.

Zen was the first one to speak, his voice still scared and low as a whisper:

"Bastard! Just what are yo-"

But he was cut off by the Old Man's loud voice that echoed through the whole place, "C'mon, Zen! Are you really such a scaredy cat?! Speak like a man! You're unsure about your ability to kill that beast?"

The whole forest suddenly shuddered as the creature shifted in it's place, clearly disturbed but not yet awake from that disturbance. Just the simple motion of that creature shifting was enough to scare them to their boots, which they didn't have.

Ryuji was the one to reply after that, "What is the meaning of this, Old Man? Why are you here? And why are you doing something so foolish right here? You'll wake the beast up."

The old man smirked, "Oh i am aware about my actions. Very much so at that. But... I'm afraid you're going to have to leave that boy with... Me."

His sentence ended with a wide devilish grin reappearing on his face.

"So, Is it gonna be that boy... Or all of us, Noble Soul."

Ah... It was true afterall... Only Demons inhabited the hell.