He senses the second the hands on his ruff loosen and he already knows what's going on before the weight even leaves his back. It has his claws digging into the uneven surface under them as he skids into a curving turn. It's a bit different when his body is elongated instead of mostly upright but it's a bit like the dynamics of being on top of Fenrir and he lets the weight of his back half work for him in the turn. His speed still has him a good distance ahead of where the smaller version of him is tumbling.

It occurs to him that he should let the kid deal with the results of making a choice like that. It's going to hurt like hell and it serves him right. It's not the worse thing he's ever going to go through in his life.

Except Cloud's already moving, muscles bunching and straining hard to pour on the speed and agility needed to charge back the way he came. Because it's someone who's going to get hurt. It shorts out the parts of him that insist they don't care and has him rocketing back the way he'd just come. He doesn't consider himself a hero. But he is a protector. Even to younger versions of himself that insist on getting themselves in bad spots. Which is some kind of awkward paradox he decides he doesn't want to think about too closely. He can't stop all of the kid's tumble but he puts his furry, non-rock and non-pointy body directly in the path of that freefall, angling himself to take the brunt of the impact and the resulting blows. It's what he's been built for and it's what he gave up almost five years of his life to be able to do.