If there was a poll on who had suffered the most from Arthurs' particularly nasty quirk, Maria would be the firm number one with no contender.
As one of the strongest students in their class, it was only natural that she would be going on tasks and missions with the other strong students, Arthur being one of them.
Which means she knew very well about his 'quirk' and the signs that showed when it had won over his mind. She still had light trauma from the last time she got caught up in the consequences of his episodes and she knew damn well she would never want to live through it again.
As a first hand observer about the double edged nature of this quirk and how unreliable it could be, it was easy to come to the conclusion of how this battle would end, especially when she took into account the other factors of his condition and the environment.
'He is going to lose.'
There were things that only outside observers could notice because it would be ignored by the fighters in the heat of battle, and she could clearly see that his body was not faring well in any way.
It was hard to miss the way his skin was turning purple and black in some places and the way tumors seemed to be growing all over his body.
But this alone wasn't enough to warrant her confident conclusion. The main factor for that was the tentacle that she could feel worming through the ground towards Arthur.
It was so blatantly obvious that she had picked up on it almost immediately, which showed that the vestige was in too much pain and turmoil to make a sneak attack at this moment like the one it did before.
Arthur would've noticed this too.. if only he was in the right state of mind now.
But talk less of sensing the incoming ambush, he couldn't even sense his body's worsening condition.
Her mind kicked into overdrive, thinking of all the ways she could help Arthur in this situation.
Several ideas flashed through her mind and were discarded either because there was no time to carry them out, weren't feasible at this time, or were just plain stupid and suicidal, all this while getting up and running towards him, knowing that a second that she wasn't moving could be the difference between if he survived or not.
At this point she had been almost fully healed and with the help of the new potion that Arthur had given her, her organ degradation had paused and was even starting to mend up.
But if she started using her ability now it would've caused her organ to stop healing and instead get worse.
She could also wait for it to heal up but she didn't have that kind of time and knew she would have to make due with what she had.
So apart from getting to him before the worst case scenario happened, she had to also think up a feasible plan to defeat the vestige and strike a balance between her organ healing and degrading.
What sounded like a herculean task for anyone else was actually the kind of situation she thrived in the most as in high stakes situations like these she shone brightest and was at her calmest.
Back to the issue at hand, she cycled through her options in her head at a speed faster than most people thought of one thing. But it didn't take her long to notice something else.
While her mind was naturally faster than average she knew that the speed she was thinking in now was entirely unnatural even for her.
Her mind briefly noticed that she had multiple thoughts that weren't her own, and her thought process was significantly faster, but as the reason was less important than her current predicament, she shelved the thought for later.
'Why this is happening, I don't know. But I sure as hell can use it to my advantage'. she thought as she began using this discovery heavily, trying to think up a way to, if possible, a flawless victory.
One thing that she immediately noticed was that their method of battling the vestige, namely one person fought while the other rested that started from Arthur's first injury, would definitely not work anymore due to how injured both of them were, as she knew she wouldn't last any reasonable amount of time against it and the battle would leave her useless for days.
So while running to save Arthur she was also thinking of a way to finish this vestige off once and for all with the limited strength that both of them could use right now.
She kept thinking, using the limited amount of time, information and resources available to her to try and think up a plan with about a half a decent chance of success.
Her thoughts flashed to the new manifestation of her ability she had just discovered and its effects.
Her eyes widened in understanding and realization and sharpened in resolve as a plan involving Arthur and her started to form in her mind. It was only a rough plan but she didn't have the time to iron out the details.
The tentacle was about to reach Arthur from underneath and for this plan to work, he had to be in a somewhat healthy condition.
***
Arthur.
Arthur was oblivious to anything going on in his surroundings, completely focused on the shrinking sphere of flames that he was controlling, his manic grin not showing signs of fading.
'I wonder, can I use this ball of flames as a capture method? But it would most likely burn up what I'm trying to capture.'
'I'll have to test this out later on. For now though...'
The flames continued trying to shrink, burning up the vestige inside and eliciting even louder screams from it.
But even with his increased motivation from his condition he was finding it harder and harder to continue closing it down.
On a normal day he would've found different, more effective way to do this but the hyper-fixation caused most of the logical part of his brain to be muted.
Instead, he tried harder and harder and put in more and more concentration and energy to get the same results he was aiming for initially, completely ignoring his worsening condition and surroundings.
Which was why he didn't notice the blast of air pressure that knocked him away before it was too late, or that the said blast also saved his life from a tentacle that burst out of the ground from beneath him.
'I almost lost control of the flames there! Is there a new enemy?', he thought as he moved most of his focus away from the vestige and finally started paying attention to his surroundings.
While surprised from the hit he was a bit angry that someone had interrupted his fight, not realising that it saved him from a particularly gruesome demise and allowed him to live to see another day.
But in the same vein though, the vestige also got the same chance.
Once it noticed that the pressure on the ball of flames surrounding it had lessened considerably, with a single large burst of pure energy, it managed to wrest control over the flames and dispel them.
This left behind the vestige, now a large ball of flesh with its outer area charred black, free to start regenerating in earnest.
It quickly shook off the outer charred parts and started to heal from the damages at a fast pace, the red all over its body dimming at a rapidly.
Its single tentacle that had wormed its way through the ground to give it a chance joined back to its body to give it the mass needed to create more, smaller tentacles, which it used to pick up the charred remains and anything else near it, using it to make up for its lost mass.
At the end of it all it was left as a mass of flesh, stones and wood that had lost that bright red skin it had before but still had the markings all over its body.
Meanwhile, Arthur finally saw the face of his 'attacker', and he was ready to give them a piece of his mind for their disruption, until he saw their face.
Towards him was walking Maria with a face that he could only describe as the most serious and calm face he had ever seen on her. He had only seen a face similar to that twice and it was never at this intensity.
But every time he saw this face he knew that their situation was beyond dire.
The realization snapped him out of his state as he knew that if he wasn't careful from now on it wouldn't end well for them.