Stick to the Plan and Sneak
Then again, the whole objective of this little trial is to avoid detection. Master Kokoemetsu would probably frown upon getting so far only to succumb to a youthful delight in conflict; so you instead decide to crawl on the lower path beside him, trying to be as stealthy as possible.
This turns out to be exactly what your ki has been waiting for, and as you slink along on hands and knees, your body changes more and more.
Your arms and legs swell, and your clothing simply fades from your form as you grow a thick coat of golden fur to cover yourself. Your shoulders and hips quietly pop too, a sound that comes in time with the shifting of your lower body.
You naturally begin to walk on your hands and feet-though they're beginning to look more like paws with every passing second. Your fingers and toes swell along with your palms and soles; and thick leathery pads cover your new palms to make your movement even stealthier.
You were stealthy before, but now your body barely makes so much as a sound as you creep closer and closer towards your goal: the artifact room. All the while your body continues to swell and bulge, human bone and muscle replaced with something almost leonine.
And yet your face and wings remain mostly unchanged; though the latter do slide a little down your back. Luckily for you, they remain folded tightly to your body for stealth's sake, even when you sprout the sleek and swishing tail of a lioness.
In the few moments it takes to steal across the grounds, your body has settled into a new form, one with a lioness's frame, an eagle's wings, and a beautiful human face. And yet you still know nothing of this, too focused at the task at hand.
You slip past Thomas's hallway with ease, a bare corridor now all that stands between you and your next level of mastery.
This is it; this is what you've been waiting for. Some niggling doubt in your mind tries to warn you of something; but you quell these thoughts, too preoccupied by the chance to truly be something more.
You've waited long enough; now it's time to...
Written by SketchySeraph on 07 March 2016