Chronicles of the Exalted Sun Child

Book 18-6.2: Behind the Masks

Imposition of Will. That was the name of Tobias Lang’s focus Discipline, one that Clan Weissnacht wasn’t that well-versed in. He thought sourly. Not a single art that could be applied directly. No, they wanted to set up everything in a line to fall into place once the first slab was tipped. Sure, it was more impressive that way, and it involved far less brute force, but when the chips came down, and one only had an instant to act, an instant to determine life or death, thaumaturgy and arcana weaving was just too slow. 

Take, for example, his current circumstances. If he had stuck with the traditional clan Disciplines, he never would have mastered how to shoot accurately from hundreds of paces away. He would have learned how to launch a projectile at least a league away and have it strike its intended target within an inch instead, which, in hindsight, might have been better. Of course, the ritual needed to do the latter would have taken the better part of an hour if he had to do it alone, but rituals seldom required singular performances, which led to his dilemma. He didn’t want to have his combat abilities tied to a group. 

Speed in battle was life. 

Along with more than a few tricks up his sleeve, he’d lived a long and fruitful life indeed. 

Blood sweat collected at his back and soaked through his undershirt. His hand would have trembled had his skill in the Discipline of Strength been any less. He wanted to run, however, because his half-inch calibre revolver bullet just pancaked on the target’s left breast, and it didn’t even have the grace to jiggle properly. 

Only Imposition of Will actually allowed the bullet to bypass her defence, and only because he was convincing reality that he was actually a couple of inches left of where he currently was. If the two bullets he shot at her were ineffective, then not even the blade he had strapped to the small of his back would help. He…needed to escape. 

The anomaly looked more confused than distressed, and he knew if he shot her again, it would probably galvanise her annoyance enough to do something ruinously fancy. He subtly adjusted his Imposition so that his image was completely divorced from his physical self. The door to the room was ajar, but he didn’t have enough control over his Discipline to actually make the illusion independent of his movement, not without moving his focus away from his foe. He aimed the magnum at her centre mass, and he saw her eyes momentarily track his illusion self, before a terror-inducing moment when her eyes snapped towards where he was. 

He couldn’t say a word, and thankfully, he didn’t have to bear the full brunt of her attention. 

Marian Rittermann, a great brute of a man that he was, crashed into the room via the same window that the anomaly used to corner Tobias. Rittermann was several inches taller than he was and was at least twice as broad as the woman. His arms were bare, mostly to expose the cruel talons that grew out of his fingers. Talons that could carve through steel, and gave wounds that were difficult to heal from. 

“Got ya!” Marian roared as he lunged.

The anomaly didn’t even turn to look as she sidestepped the brute’s charge and used a combat knife to deflect those deadly claws. The girl’s eyes never left Tobias.

Marian stumbled slightly as he passed her, and almost slammed into him if not for a similarly quick sidestep, which, he soon realised, gave away the fact that he wasn’t where the image was at. There was no reason to dodge when it shouldn’t have hit in the first place. 

Marian spun on his heels and continued his assault. In the meantime, Tobias snuck out of the room in a hurry when the girl finally deigned to pay attention to the berserker in front of her. He spared a thought for his likely to be lost sniper rifle, the Keisinger 140, but no amount of Weyrmarks was worth his immortal life. 

He did attempt a parting shot, but Marian and the girl were already in the midst of a deadly dance, and the brute wasn’t quite as resistant to high-calibre bullets compared to the anomaly. 

__________

When Yuriko failed to parry the second bullet, her interest was more than piqued.

She could see the trajectory of his shot, she could feel her Ennoia guiding her hand, yet she missed. By a fraction of an inch, from the looks of it, but she missed the deflection entirely. If her body had not been reinforced by Anima, it would have been a crippling shot. The large-calibre bullet would have entered her torso, and it would have perforated her lung. 

Ancestors. If her body had not been in the process of Radiant Physique conversion, she wasn’t sure the Anima reinforcement would have been enough. Unlike how she normally deployed her aura shield, her Anima was stuck underneath her skin. 

Subdermal armour was the closest approximation she had for her current set-up, and it had been used extensively in Dragon Fall City, as well as by a few factions in Shangria. It would stop a bullet from hitting her organs, but did nothing for the kinetic force imparted by said bullet. The only reason she could stand unaffected after two such bullets was that her Radiant Physique practically ate the kinetic energy and used it as fuel to produce more Radiance. The conversion was completely efficient, but the spillover was weak enough that the force was either easily absorbed by her muscles or transmitted to the floor by her legs. 

Still, it was a conundrum, how she was hit in the first place. The shooter had backed off, and he hadn’t shot her a third time. How nice of him, and she probably would spare his life, considering how interesting his technique was. 

Her extended perception aura kept track of the sniper’s position, but…there was something off. She wasn’t quite sure, and it was as if her perception was being forced through a filter. Ah. She was sure the man wasn’t where he looked to be, and the same happened with the bullets. It was just strange and slightly frightening that her defence-oriented Ennoia had been fooled. But then again, Unyielding Guardian Sword was only at the first stage of Truth. She was sure an obscuring Ennoia at a higher level, or even applied with much more finesse than a freshly touched Ennoia would override whatever enhanced senses hers gave out. 

It was a reminder not to believe in absolutes since a higher stage trumped a lower one. But what if she infused her perception with Radiance? 

She did just that, and she felt reality stutter. Radiance burned out at a rate she couldn’t sustain, but she saw the man a couple of inches to the side of where his figure was. Her eyes tracked his position, and from the expression on his face, he realised he’d been made. Before he could make a move, however, someone else joined the party. 

“Got ya!” A bear of a man yelled as he jumped into the sniper’s nest through the window she had entered. With her perception expanded and infused with Radiance, she had little trouble tracking him. 

Like the sniper, he was armoured in the same way that the mercenaries had been—dark, camouflage-patterned clothes, a bullet-resistant vest, and a helmet with a full faceplate. The main difference was that his hands were bare, and for good reason, considering that the phalanges were large talons instead of fingertips. Those alone would not have worried her, but she detected a whiff of daemonfyre on them…or something reminiscent of daemonfyre anyway. Not the same at all, but the general feeling?

Either way, they tripped every sense for danger she had, and felt that if those things touched her, she wouldn’t have a pleasant time. Nothing fatal, she thought, but definitely unpleasant. She easily parried the man’s first swipe, and she stepped out of his way. She kept her eyes on the sniper, as getting shot now would be a distraction. They decided to vacate the room; however, she focused on the clearly more dangerous foe. 

The bearman, though he wasn’t really a human-bear hybrid, but possibly someone with the same kind of power as those bloodsuckers, spun on his heel and lunged at her. He paid no attention to his defences, and Yuriko arched an eyebrow as she casually deflected both claws, then sidestepped out of the way. The room wasn’t that big, and the man seemed to fill half of it up. Still, there was more than enough room to manoeuvre. 

“Stay still, you slippery slime!” He roared as he spun around and pressed his attack, this time leveraging his body weight and width to restrict her to a corner of the room. The sniper’s room was completely devoid of furniture, or even electricity, for that matter. The fight had been going on in relative darkness, but none of them was hampered. 

Yuriko shifted out of the way of a vicious swipe, stepped into his reach and stabbed with a combat knife. The tip slipped under the vest and sliced through the cloth, but it jammed against the bearman’s skin and skidded off. Yuriko hummed as she backstepped out of a grapple attempt, then snapped a kick at the man’s knee with enough force to snap it like a twig. It didn’t snap. 

The man grunted in pain, however, and muttered, “Stronger than you look, but that's normal, I guess.” His glare could be felt through his opaque faceplate. “Surrender, girly. You can’t escape.”

Yuriko snorted in laughter, “I have no intentions of escaping, and,” she slapped the man’s grab then punched the man’s shoulder while she dragged the knife against the inside of his arm. The blade sliced through the fabric but didn’t penetrate his skin. Actually, it looked more like a hide, didn’t it? Was this man really part ursine? She remembered the bear-kin she encountered in her travels. They were relatively huge and resilient. But they hadn’t channelled weird energies into their claws, though. “You’ll find that it is you who will find escaping difficult.” 

“Yeah, right.” The man snorted just before Yuriko infused her switchblade with Radiance. He flinched at that, but didn’t let it distract him. 

Yuriko feinted with the blade while she held the combat at her back, and stealthily infused that with a bit of Radiance. He parried her stab with his strange energy empowered claws, and when Radiance, at whatever that was, clashed…

The results looked like fireworks. 

Both of them jumped at the interaction, but she pressed her advantage. She also began to conjure a mini-sunblade, though she had that tucked into her belt rather than floating behind her. She could feel the plane reject the construction of a Flying Sword, and while she felt she could push through the restriction, it would cost far more resources than she was willing to spend. 

The man feinted a high swipe that would have carved into her eyes, so she blocked it with her switchblade, but then, he jabbed his other claw at her centre. She caught that attempt with her combat knife. 

The clash of energies knocked the contact points away, but Yuriko frowned at the state the metal had been left in. Nicks and rolls along the blade were normal with use, but the edges looked like they had rusted off. 

The bearman grinned as he pressed the attack, this time, obviously going for a grapple rather than a strike. Yuriko tossed the switchblade at his faceplate, which didn’t make him flinch, then reached for her mini-sunblade. She stabbed clean through his bullet, and probably stab resistant vest, and when she pulled back, the wound was cauterised. Strangely enough, he didn’t turn to ash. 

Yuriko grinned as she allowed the sunblade to expand to its full length while the bearman backed off. “So. Who wants to escape now?”