novelnext Book 18-5.3: Busy Nights
Book 18-5.3: Busy Nights
Contrary to what she expected, the footsteps passed her door and continued to the occupied room just a couple of doors beyond hers. She heard them fumble with something, curse softly enough that she couldn’t make out the words. Then she heard the rattling of metal against metal, then a door being pushed open, then slammed shut. Yuriko sighed, not quite sure if she was relieved or disappointed. Her heart rate had increased with anticipation, only to fall back once no battle was offered, then she returned to her meditations. She kept a strand of consciousness focused on her perception aura, not that she hadn’t done that earlier. She just didn’t have it expanded into the hallway.
She continued to forge the Sword Seal while pondering what she could actually do with the Unyielding Guardian Sword, aside from the reflexive defence, anyway.
But she didn’t know how to experiment with the new Ennoia without being in a fight. Unlike the other two, this one needed to be defending something, right? Well, perhaps she should focus on what could be practised alone.
She dedicated a single strand of consciousness to that effort while the rest focused on forging. One strand to gather excess Radiance from her body, another to convert it to Animus. A third was used to infuse the Animus with the Ennoia of the Unyielding Guardian Sword, and the fourth to shape and hammer it into place around the Ennoia core. It was slow, but steady progress, and it took until the small hours of the morning before she was done. She had two Seals now, as well as the core seed. She could sacrifice a Seal to put up an Adamant Guardian Seal, which would be more wasteful compared to the pure Animus version, except that the Sword Seal was more…flexible? The original Guardian Seal lasted a few seconds and negated attacks directed at it. The Sword Seal version felt like it could last much longer, and she could stop and restart the active part as much as she wanted to.
“Five seconds?” she murmured. “Maybe it’ll last longer with practice.” Most attacks didn’t last that long anyway, and she could flicker the Seal so that she could block more than one attack, or she could expand it to cover more ground. Huh, she could also send it away from her even while active.
The question she couldn’t answer right away was whether, if she didn’t use up the Seal, would she be able to repair it by forging? It took her eight hours to forge the second-layer Seal, and she had a suspicion that it would take twice as long to make the third. Swordlight Strands must be completed in one go, which forced her to make sure she’d be uninterrupted in the process. The process of forming the core meant each Swordlight strand would be longer than the last, but the requirements didn’t double for every level. If needed, she could actually create strands of similar length and just sorta stitch them together to form the requisite length. It would lead to some waste, but it was much more convenient. Huh, she wondered if her greater self realised that or if it wouldn’t have occurred to her until she started Seal forging. She did a mnemonic lock on that bit of insight for when she synchronised.
The pager had been silent the entire time, even when she turned it on. It had a limited memory for messages and only displayed the last one Lucian sent. She fiddled with it after she completed the second layer, but discovered that it was a rather simple machine. She could probably trace the electromagnetic signal, but it wouldn’t really do much other than point her towards the nearest broadcast tower. Besides, tuning her sight to normally invisible light was distracting and needed at least one strand of consciousness to parse through properly. In Astoria and Shangria Station, the light was blinding, though it wasn’t so bad here. Either way, it wasn’t as if the pager could lead to where her brother was, though it might be used to trace her, too. Well, it would be a useful test to see if they had tracked her that way, but she’d kept the thing off most of yesterday and the night before.
With little else to do, she began forging the third layer, but stopped an hour later to take a nap instead. She woke up to more footsteps outside, but none stopped at her door. She wasn’t sure what time it was, but she could see sunlight coming from the windows. The bedroom didn’t have curtains or blinds, but the shadow of the building across the alley blocked the morning light.
She wondered how long she could squat here, or maybe she should actually rent the apartment. Overnight, her Radiant Physique continued to change her features, and soon, she was sure Lucian wouldn’t recognise her as Amalia anymore. Which was probably for the better, but there was a pang of regret in her heart.
Well, once she completed her Radiant Physique, she could probably temporarily alter her features back to Amalia’s, and since she had taken a memory lock of the girl’s features before Radiance changed her too much, that shouldn’t have any problems. Though only if she wanted to make contact in the first place.
The open-ended desire of the dead girl was frustrating. How long did she need to watch over Lucian? Until he died? Until he grew strong enough to protect himself? The former would take decades, and she wasn’t sure how the latter could be accomplished unless she trained him or empowered him into a Mystic. She wasn’t about to waste the Ambrosia, however, though she should probably bring some over through the dreamscape.
She made sure that the hallway was empty before she left the apartment. The water supply was turned off, and there was no power either. She could have turned both on, but that would give her away. She hadn’t decided what to do yet, but she did want a bath.
She supposed she could buy time at a love motel to do her ablutions, or perhaps a membership at a gym? The motel would offer more privacy, though, even if it would be more expensive. A couple of hours at the nearest establishment costs about a quarter of the Weyrmarks a full stay at her previous motel would cost. But then, she’d have a bed, a bathroom, running water, and all that. Well, first, food.
Ah, it was already too late to try and catch her brother’s roomies before they went to work, but she could catch them at their work site instead. Hopefully, Lucian had returned. But in the case that he didn’t…
Hmmm. Did she know her brother’s pager account number? She frowned as she delved into the girl’s memories. Ah, she did know. The number was practically thrown up from the depths of her psyche.
She could contact Lucian if she couldn’t find him, though that would run counter to her intentions. But it was impossible to search for him in the city without any leads. Rakkisgrad was a hundred longstrides across in both directions. That was ten thousand square longstrides to search, though he should reasonably still be in District 4.
She found a breakfast diner, spent a dozen Weyrmarks for a meal and coffee. The bitter drink was actually quite nice if she added quite a bit of cream and sugar. Then again, anything would be great with sweets. Sugar had a distinctly different taste from honey, or rather, it mixed in with other things easily without adding any other accents other than sweetness. Hmmm, she still preferred honey.
Another twenty-five Weyrmarks was spent at a nearby love motel so she could bathe and do her other ablutions. She observed her features in the mirror and nodded to herself. Her hair had turned completely golden, and her face slowly changed to match her true body’s. It would take a while to complete still, but the suddenly longer hair, and being blonde to the roots meant that she would no longer need to hide from the casual gaze. It was better to expose her hair, actually. It wasn’t quite long enough to get a proper braid, so she had little choice other than to put it up in a ponytail. The tips brushed against her shoulder blades, which was another point of difference between herself and her former identity. Amalia’s hair had just brushed against the nape of her neck and was dark brown. Her eyes had turned into her usual pale blue as well, compared to the girl’s darker hue.
She didn’t find Lucian in his workplace, but his roommates were there. They didn’t look worried, but she wasn’t sure if it was apathy or because Lucian had contacted them about his circumstances. While she waited, she continued to forge the third layer Seal, and by the time the sun set, she was barely at three-fourths done.
Her pager beeped a few times during the day, but no messages came through. She wondered how long its battery would last, but she didn’t have the cords to plug it into the electric grid. The indicator revealed that it was at half power, so probably a couple more days. She could probably buy a new charger, and she could charge it the next time she booked a room. Her funds had diminished to two hundred and sixty-eight Weyrmarks after she bought lunch and dinner.
Without any other leads, she determined that she’d have to leave a message on Lucian’s number, but she was still hesitant. Amalia’s resentment didn’t prod her either way…
Haaah. Perhaps, she could try tomorrow. Her brother almost got kidnapped, after all, and if the two who rescued him weren’t benevolent…if they also wanted to kidnap Lucian, then it was likely that he wouldn’t even be able to check his pager. Or worse, perhaps they would be able to see her message and arrange something nefarious.
Alternatively, she could use the dreamscape to track his thread? Were they actually connected? He was Amalia’s brother, not Yuriko’s. But…by taking over the body, hadn’t she taken over the girl’s Thread of Fate too? It also wasn’t as if she could access the dreamscape easily here. The time dilation between this place and where her other bodies were meant that if she tried to access the dreamscape, it would be like trying to walk against a strong current. Possible, perhaps, if she were stronger, but easier if she had help. The next scheduled synchronisation was in four days at dawn, so she could wait to track him using the threads that way. At the very least, a weak connection existed between them, and it was enough to determine that he was still alive. On the other hand, the thread between her and Amalia’s mum was so thin that she could only detect her survival if she was close.
As she made her way back to her purloined apartment, she heard the pager beep. She fished it out of her pocket and glanced at the screen. The battery life indicator was a set of four bars stacked on top of each other, and the second from the bottom was blinking. Strange.
She was about halfway to her tenement when her danger sense twinged. She was on a rooftop and was just about to hop over to the next one when her left hand darted up, over, and behind her head.
The sound came after the bullet hit. Yuriko immediately expanded her Anima perception, just in time to notice another two bullets entering her space. She leaned out of the way, then leapt off the roof and plummeted down to the street. She landed with a soft thump, then sprinted towards the direction of the first bullet as the other two were from different angles.
Before she could reach the intersection, a couple of black vans skidded around the corner, and there was somebody sticking out of the sunroofs. One had a rifle, while the other had a long, tubular firearm that he pointed at her. His finger squeezed the trigger, and a bloom of flames shot out, directly towards her.