It took an embarrassingly long minute after sunrise for Yuriko to realise that doing nothing at all wouldn’t allow contact with her greater self. Her mind was locked in a full partition against the rest of herself, but it wasn’t as if she couldn’t initiate contact. It occurred to her that more ti must have passed than she expected, so she reached towards the ‘wall’ and knocked.
It took so ti, roughly another minute or two, before a pinhole opened in the wall. The flow of consciousness was tentative, and it took a few seconds for the two halves of herself to connect.
…the ti dilation was brutal. Yuriko’s mories and consciousness rged, and she beca quite aware of several things. It had been sixty days since the manifestation seed was exiled from Astoria by the tower spirit, and in that ti, many things had happened.
The most important being that all of her had continued working on the Sword Ennoia that just felt out of reach, and it all coalesced when her greater self took in the manifestation seed incarnation—2nd incarnation body—had an insight about perception playing a greater part in defence as much as everything else.
All three of her bodies felt it then.
The Ennoia of the Unyielding Guardian Sword.
The world around her stilled. Shangria, Astoria, and…Irisvaile.
The na ca from the depths of Yuriko’s mory. Irisvaile. The plane resisted the manifestation of Yuriko’s Truth, but it hardly mattered. With the connection between her bodies, what one felt, the other two felt also.
The synchronisation of mories should have felt jarring, but everything slotted in easily. Yuriko had always had more than one strand of consciousness, and what were the six strands that were part of the 2nd incarnation body? They were part of the whole.
Her doubts were washed away. The isolation from the greater whole had taken a bit of a toll, and it wasn’t just because of the stretch of ti she’d been disconnected. The ti dilation also played a part, and previous experiences hadn’t been pleasant. But the major difference was that between the other two planets and this plane, and between Shangria and the daemon nest, the dilation didn’t fluctuate. It was at a steady five tis faster than the other two locations. That ant she didn’t have to adjust every ti the dilation changed. Still, the flow between Irisvaile and the others was still an unpleasant experience. If she stayed completely connected, she’d be forced to speed up her consciousness all the ti. Outside of combat, it was just tedious.
She decided that contact between the partitioned mind and the rest of her would occur during dawn, Shangria ti, rather than Irisvaile ti. If there were problems, then she would adjust. For now, all she wanted to do was imrse herself in the incredible feeling of touching upon a new Ennoia, and…
Was she mistaken?
She could feel Radiant Flying Swords, Bladeless Sword, and Unyielding Guardian Sword resonate. Ancestors! She could rge the three into a complete Sword Ennoia!
Well, more complete anyway. She couldn’t forget that for Truths such as the Sword, new, unique Ennoias could be created. No single Truth now could encompass everything, but so fundantals underpinned everything, and she thought she had it. There was no reason to rush, however, and she needed to explore the Unyielding Guardian first. See what made it tick, how it lded with every other sword, and how it fared alone. The latter was the most important, really, because no Ennoia should be dependent on another in order to be viable. Well, it seed her 2nd incarnation body would be perfect to experint.
Every other concern took a step back, and she focused on the particulars of the Unyielding Guardian Sword.
Bladeless Sword was cultivated using swordlight strands that she rolled up into a core. Radiant Flying Sword was subsud in the Colligia of Radiance, but she needed to separate it from the Radiant core and make a secondary to properly rge the other swords to it. But she imagined that to cultivate it, she’d need to forge flying swords that would orbit her Radiant core.
The Unyielding Guardian Sword had its roots in the Adamant Guardian Seal, she realised. The Adamant had been sothing she learned from the Kogasi plane, harvested from a mysterious artefact and transmitted directly to her mind. Damien hadn’t comnted on it, but he seed familiar with the technique. Ah. The relic ca from the Siderious, which had been a planar fortress as well as a repository for pre-Shattering knowledge. Damien was from before the Shattering, so he must know the principles of the Adamant Guardian Seal, and he must have judged it a satisfactory technique for her level. But she was no longer at Actualisation, and the Seal hadn’t been that useful at this point. Or it was more accurate to say that she hadn’t encountered a foe that required the absolute defence that the Seal gave her.
Well, before she could find out what she could use the new Ennoia for, she needed to establish her core.
In her 2nd incarnation body, Yuriko tuned out everything else. The empty sun cast shadows across the roof, and she was settled in a seated ditation pose. She gathered the Radiance within her body and converted it to Animus. The process was entirely internal, as whenever the luns leaked out, the plane either suppressed it or siphoned it away. Any free energy she didn’t contain within a spell or technique was affected that way.
She slowly ford an Ennoia seed, filled with the mindset and emotions of a defender. The Unyielding Guardian didn’t just protect herself; she protected those important to her, too. Beyond close companions, friends, and family, the next tier involved…?
She felt emptiness waiting to be filled. Her subconscious thought was to protect the innocent, but…what exactly did innocence an? She knew that definition and enforcent were a burden she had to bear, so it was better to define it rather than leave it nebulous. The Ennoia’s possible techniques involved autonomous reactions she knew, and having vague instructions would leave her vulnerable.
Children.
She was here to look for her kids. Children that she had no part in their creation, yet were still hers anyway. She felt the bond, and while they weren’t quite considered family yet, they were her blood. Children in general deserved to be protected, she decided. The third tier of her Ennoia’s foundation was thus set. She could have left it blank, but she needed at least three tiers.
Three Ennoias that resonated. Three tiers of foundation. She had to adjust the other two to match the Unyielding Guardian Sword, otherwise, there would be dissonance that would tear the rger apart. It wasn’t the 2nd incarnation’s problem, though, so this body focused on the Unyielding Guardian.
With those set, she finished the Foundational Seal. The core of her new Ennoia sat comfortably within her centre, and she giggled with elation. She had so ti yet, but it was also ti to separate from the greater self. The ti dilation was causing a headache, and she needed to focus on other things.
The partition ca back up, but the pinhole remained. She could connect with the rest of herself in an instant, in case she had an ergency. Her 1st incarnation body hadn’t quite finished recovering, but she managed to grow another two strands of consciousness so that both incarnations had six each. Her true body’s Anima reach had grown by over sixty paces and was that much closer to reaching a thousand paces. Just a bit more than a quarter of the way left. At the rate she was going, she’d have it in three Seasons.
The seed was done, but it felt empty by itself. She also had enough Radiant energy left over to create the first layer seal to go over it. This would be the usable and consumable portion of the core, the one that she’d probably use up to create an Adamant Guardian Seal.
The process took much longer than she anticipated simply because it took much more Radiance than expected. That, and Animus conversion was tedious at best, and she would be better served to fill her body with it and allow it to circulate and regenerate automatically. She couldn’t do that until her body was done changing, but she didn’t want to delay the core formation anyway.
When she finished, she was just about to start the second layer when she was jolted out of her ditation by the ringing of the school bell. Yuriko blinked in confusion and cursed.
“Rotter.”
It was already nine in the morning. She needed to warn her brother before she could leave. Er, she also needed to see a planar map; otherwise, her only choice was to head directly to one of the beacons. That would lead to no end of trouble, she thought.
Grumbling to herself, she stood up and moved out of cover. She glanced over the roof’s edge, then ntally plotted where she’d go. Lucian’s current job had him helping around a construction site. And…rotter, she should have headed straight to his apartnt as she didn’t know where he worked. If she rembered correctly, his day started at dawn, and he’d have long gone to work by now.
Oh well. She needed to buy new clothes anyway. Er…she forgot to loot the rcenaries. She only had three hundred and forty Weyrmarks, and while that was enough to buy serviceable clothes, she’d need most of it for food. Already, her tummy growled in hunger.
Well, she wasn’t about to steal food or Weyrmarks from soone who couldn’t afford to lose it. She could hunt down those rcenaries, but that was likely to draw even more attention to her.
She casually made her way to the roof access and ambled down the stairs. Though Amalia was supposed to attend classes, she had no intention of doing so. She allowed mories to guide her as she made her way to one of the unattended exit points, then slipped out of school. She crossed a couple of blocks, then thought to head to the strip mall to buy food and clothes, only to be brought up short by the realisation that the place wouldn’t be open until an hour or so later.
Huh, maybe Lucian’s place had so spare clothes. His apartnt wasn’t too far from here, and who knew, maybe he had a day off or sothing. Amalia didn’t know her brother’s schedule as she hadn’t seen him in a while. He sent Weyrmarks to her regularly, but that was only enough for her basic needs. Ah, she could withdraw the rest of the girl’s savings.
Grrrgle.
Too hungry.
She subconsciously headed to a diner that Amalia often visited when she was younger. It was on the way too, and before she knew it, she was across the road from The Coffee Shoppe. The scent of the eponymous drink was quite tantalising and familiar. Amalia lived on the stuff, and it seems her body craved it.
The diner was about half full. There was a bar counter that dominated half of the interior space, then several booths that could seat four. The bar seats were full, so she took one of the booths on the opposite end from the door. There was a television set hung up on the wall, and a custor was flipping through the channels.
Yuriko had taken a nu on her way to the booth, glanced through it, and ordered the breakfast special, with a cup of black coffee. A couple of minutes later, the waitress plopped a large plate with three sausages, scrambled eggs, baked beans, and toast. She forced herself to eat at a normal pace rather than inhale everything in one go.
She was sipping the coffee when her attention was caught by the blaring of the news on the television.
Huh? Why was Amalia’s face plastered on the screen? Wanted for murder?
Rotter.
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