At the top of a small hill at the edge of town a creature sat atop a grave. The creature had short orange fur covering its rather large foxlike body, its four thin legs and two smaller appendages protruding from its stomach were all comfortably tucked under its body. The creature had a long thin snout making its head shaped like a cone, three pairs of small eyes stacked vertically down the snout leading to a seventh large eye that remained closed under the oppression of a large scar that tore across it. The seventh eye was positioned under the right set of eyes and its unique make up had been a hugely beneficial tool in the past for the creature’s hunting. The creature chose to sacrifice that eye for a very noble cause, one that it had never regretted. Even now as the creature used its remaining eyes to peer at the other hill directly opposite of the one it stood upon the creature’s long bushy tail more than thrice the length of its own body wagged happily at the sight.

A small heard of obedient sheep were grazing on the open grass. No shepherd could be seen guiding them, but the animals behaved in a perfectly ordered manner, they never strayed from the group or fought among each other. The creature felt a tang of nostalgia, there had once been a time where it was the creature’s responsibility to care for those very sheep along with its owner.

The creature did not have an owner any longer. In all truth it never had an owner for long to begin with. The creature was old and had lived a long life, older than most humans at the very least. Regardless, it was the short few years it had spent with its owner that outshined any other experience it had in its long life: the games, the laughs, the smiles. Ten short years of a brilliant purity.

It was because of that purity that the creature was so willing to sacrifice itself and its eye. For all intents and purposes the creature was not living, it had no bond to the soul sea, no soul at all. This was a stark contrast to who the creature used to be. The creature used to be bathed in those grandiose ethereal waves, a convergence of life and death, history and future, all weaving into a single tapestry of colored time. An essence that balanced on the border of it all.

The creature had to give away its soul. Give it to its owner, it had to strengthen the owners tie to the soul sea or else they would have been lost forever. The creature did not care if its owner died, death was but a trivial matter for a creature that half existed within the soul sea, but pure non-existence? The eradication of a soul was something the creature could not allow. The creature’s sacrifice had succeeded, its owner continues to exist, it was probably tending to the sheep at this very moment, but with the severance to the soul sea the creature could not see. It had saved its owner but lost the ability to see its owner.

The creature stood up. Today was a special day. Its owner’s family would be visiting on this day and the creature had to prepare the place to look proper. The creature’s tail functioned well as an oversized broom that it could use to dust off the gravestone and vase. It did not know what to do about the wilted flowers in the vase though. The creature’s owner’s sister often asked him to care for the flowers while she was gone but he would always forget. She would definitely scold him when she saw how he had abandoned the flowers again this year.

She just didn’t understand, it was hard to keep track of whether things were living healthily or not without his soul sense. Besides, he couldn’t spend the entire year watching the one bouquet. He may not be able to see all of his soul friends in the graveyard anymore but he knew they were still around, as the only one present that could interact with the tangible world he felt responsible to take care of all of their graves. Not every soul in this grave had as dedicated and loving a family as his owner.

It may think itself as a guardian keeper of the graveyard, a noble leader for the physically incapable, but it also was an animal; animals like to have fun. On a completely unrelated note, the creature did not have time to worry about the wilted flowers because it had the much more pressing concern of having to fill all these holes strewn around the yard. No one said being caretaker of the afterlife was a full-time job, or that it required constant maintenance and upkeep of the graves. It was in the creature’s nature to burrow and dig, it was just so fun it couldn’t help it. The creature never really understood why humans were so attached to their old bones, they didn’t need them anymore. The family would definitely disagree on this topic though and so the creature had to clean up.

The creature was a diligent worker once it decided on accomplishing a goal it did nothing but. It scurried from trough to trough speedily pawing the soft dirt into the holes. With the aid of the creature’s incredible speed and powerful strength it did not take long to finish up its task.

When the family arrived, its owner’s sister would probably want it to play with the kids to allow her some private time with the grave so the creature should eat up now to gather energy. Hunting was once a beyond trivial task when it could see all souls around it. Now that it was practically blind it had to dedicate some effort to the hunt. Not much effort given how inferior most of the beings around here were but effort nonetheless.

The creature could hear every burrowing mole, smell each clambering monkey. The creature decided against capturing any moles since it had just finished refilling a bunch of the pits from its previous escapades. Just when the creature thought it would have to go through all the tiring effort of running up trees to taste some monkeys a plump peafowl strutted into view.

The vibrant colors of the tall bird enticed the creature’s attention, the small appendages from its stomach instinctively extended forward, then the creature regained its senses, without being bound to the soul sea it could only retract its appendage. It stalked forward towards the snacking bird.

The peafowl soon noticed the approaching predator; it unveiled its long tail revealing tall beauteous plumage. The massive multicolored feathers scraping at the sky depicted many watching eyes. The peafowl appeared many times larger than it originally had, it presented itself as a horrendous monster, a terrifying opponent that none should dare make its enemy.

The creature was not just another dumb animal though, it had garnered over a century of experience and knowledge, it would not fall for such a simple illusion. The creature pounced forth driving its giant claws into the helpless bird quickly sinking its teeth into the bird’s neck before it could react. The creature allowed its heavy jaws to snap shut crushing the feeble neck. The peafowl went limp and the creature could begin to feed.

First, it had to defeather the meal. The creature was not a savage, a noble beast such as itself must carry honor in all its deeds including eating just as its owner had taught it. But the food did smell very tasty, and it wasn’t like its owner was here to scold it if it did just chow down right away. Before the creature could even finish the debate within its mind it had already finished eating the succulent peafowl.

The creature laid on the soft grass of the hill trying to tongue out a few bits of tendons stuck between its teeth when it heard the loud squeak of a young human “Basal!” The creature turned to face the source of the voice that had called its name. Basal saw the family walk towards it. Of course the family came without Basal’s owner, or perhaps Basal’s owner was there, Basal just had no way to tell.

Basal stood up and charged towards the young child that had called its name. Basal dived onto the child’s chest knocking them down to the ground and licking the child all over. The rough scratching of Basal’s tongue against the child’s soft skin tickled them causing them to laugh out uncontrollably.

Basal loved this family, Basal loved its family. Basal may have failed to completely preserve its owner in its original living state, but it still felt a grand responsibility in caring for its owner’s immediate relatives.

Basal stopped tickling the child when Basal’s owner’s sister approached it. “Hello Basal, how is Ignis?”

Ignis is what the other humans called Basal’s owner. Basal felt true pity for these humans, humans were quite pathetic at observing the soul sea so they had no way of knowing that Ignis was still alive out there somewhere. They must have thought that Basal completely failed to save her, that Basal had lost its eye for no reason. Basal, though having the intelligence to understand basic human speech simply lacked the biology to replicate it. Basal’s only way to communicate Ignis’s safety was to give out the most reassuring bark he could muster.

Ignis’s sister clearly had no ability to understand the meaning behind Basal’s bark besides a basic understanding of confidence. She gave Basal a painfully fake smile, seemingly the only emotion she knew how to show Basal and spoke. “That’s wonderful to hear.” She pulled out a small, dried hunk of meat from a little pouch handing it to Basal. Basal slightly regretted eating that peafowl now, but he would always have room for dessert. He happily much down on the wonderfully salted snack while Ignis’s sister patted him on the head.

The young child scrambled up to their feet, their face covered in slobber. “I want to feed Basal too! Can I? Can I?”

Ignis’s sister handed the bag of treats to the small child and turned to Basal giving him pleading eyes weighed down by turbulent emotions. On This special day she would probably want to spend some quiet time with the grave and would probably appreciate Basal playing babysitter for a while just as he had predicted. Basal didn’t mind babysitting Ignis’s family, they were family. Basal clamped down on the sleeve of the young child and started guiding them away from the grave for the more somber members of the group to have their time.

Like an impervious magnet, Basal’s actions seemed to have dragged along another child. This child was a little bit older than the first but was still a part of the same family. The older child broke into a jog so that they could keep up with Basal’s expedient pace. The older child called out “Hey Basal! Do you want to play tag?”

Basal knew this game, he was taught it long ago and had been trained in it extensively. Basal knew the first trick to the game was to always strike first. Basal released his grip on the youngest child and burst out towards the other one nudging their body with his nose and giving out a friendly bark.

The older child laughed shooting out a reactionary flail of their arm to try and tag Basal back. “No fair, I wasn’t ready yet!” Basal easily twisted out of the reach of the child’s attack and proceeded to adeptly dodge and weave around each of the child’s amateurish strikes.

Eventually Basal would let himself be caught and try with great difficulty to hold himself back enough to not immediately tag them back. The game continued like so until suddenly Basal heard the chime of a bell.

Basal instantly turned on the spot and dashed towards the sound of the bell abandoning the children. He identified that the sound came from right above Ignis’s grave in front of the sister. Whoever this enemy was they had a death wish if they wanted to mess with his family. Basal positioned himself in between the family and the sound ready to attack at any second. He released an intimidating growl to the empty space before him, he may not have his full eyesight, but he was still a force to be reckoned with.

In between Basal and the grave there was what seemed to be a small pink rhombus, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other shapes. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with two limbs. One arm was outstretched towards the empty space above the grave, and the other was outstretched towards Basal. Each arm held onto a glowing parchment, Basal looked over the parchment in front of him: It read.

You have been invited to The Tournament You are The Animal