Chapter 64: Book 1-23.2: Return

Yuriko dreamed though at times, she forgot that she was dreaming. Other times she knew she was dreaming and during those times, she wondered what in Chaos was she seeing and why she hadn’t woken up yet.

 

In her dreams, she looked through eyes that definitely weren’t hers, in a body completely male and far larger than she was. Whenever she caught a glimpse of her reflection in a stream or in a gleaming blade as it headed towards her, she saw a man in his prime with golden hair cropped close to the skull and blues eyes the same shade as hers.

 

The muscular figure she saw definitely looked like the masculine Golden Silhouette that visited her in the dreams before this one. Well, appearances aside, the annoying thing about this particularly long, semi-lucid dream was Yuriko was but a passenger in the man’s mind, feeling everything he felt, but she couldn’t do anything other than experience what was happening. The sensation of her body moving without her permission was disturbing to say the least; sometimes, she felt completely violated.

 

The man only did three things. The first one was relatively acceptable: fighting.

 

Blood sprayed up from the severed neck that her body had just decapitated. Red, sticky blood that tasted unpleasantly of both salt and metal when she licked the droplets off her lips. Fri’Avgi was in their hands, cutting down a parade of aggressors: humanoid things that were garbed in black cloth, faces masked, revealing only empty eyes. 

 

In this particular instance, Yuriko and the Golden Silhouette had been leisurely strolling down a wide street, though it was empty now in the twilight save for a few beggars and furtively peeking eyes behind windows that were quickly shuttered at the slightest sound. Their assailants had sprung from the alleys, the sewers, and even from the rooftops, bared blades gleaming. 

 

None of their daggers or swords so much as touched the man as they were fended off with an almost casual swing that beheaded three of them when Fri’Avgi’s Animus edge suddenly extended and curved. 

 

“Come, try and make this exciting, at least,” the Golden Silhouette taunted. His voice was a rich baritone and it seemed to stun the others and draw them in. Yuriko certainly found it quite pleasant.

 

In that moment of silence, the Silhouette swung the weapon again and this time, the Animus edge spiked towards the dozen remaining attackers. Only one managed to react in time to dodge.

 

“Disappointing.”

 

The words struck the other like a blow to the head and this time, he was unable to avoid Fri’Avgi. 

 

All fifteen assailants lay like spokes of a wheel around Yuriko, equidistant from each other, with their severed heads landing in just the right place such that if one were able to view their figures from above, they would see the runescript word for “boring”. 

 

“Hmmph.” The Silhouette snorted and he proceeded to walk at a sedate pace, Fri’Avgi disappearing from his grasp. The artefact had materialized out of nowhere when the attack began and now it was sheathed in that same hidden place Yuriko had yet to find.

 

Yuriko very much wanted to look at the buildings and homes of wherever she was but the Silhouette kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead. She had to settle for seeing things out of the corner of her eyes or far off in the distance but she couldn’t channel Animus to her eyes to sharpen her vision.

 

What she did see fascinated her. The homes were grandiose, more akin to the Temple in Faron’s Crossing than the flat-roofed domiciles she was used to seeing. They had evidently moved to a well-off neighbourhood while she was distracted. And right now, she really wanted to be distracted because she knew where the Silhouette was going.

 

Sure enough, around the bend, they beheld an opulent three-storey mansion. The plethora of scantily clad ladies lounging by the front porch giggled and waved when the Silhouette walked up to their front door.

 

“Ah, good evening, my dears. I hope you missed me,” the Silhouette crooned with a charming lilt to his voice.

 

The women giggled and simpered before a bunch of them met him by the door and started running their hands all over his chest. Yuriko tuned out most of their conversation, finding more interest in the beauty of the diaphanous cloth that served to accentuate more than hide. The way the scarves and ribbons floated in the air was quite mesmerising. 

 

Yuriko’s lucidity started fading out when the Silhouette entered the mansion, as the second thing that the man always did started. She half-wondered what he did there most of the time. Amusing conversation and delicious food?

 

When she next regained lucidity, they were in a large room that was accoutred gorgeously. Tapestries depicting fractals, flowers, or battle scenes hung along the walls along with oil paintings on huge canvases. The subject of such paintings were often mountains and lakes, with enormous care taken to detail every blade of grass and the way the sunlight shimmered on the still waters. 

 

Figurines carved from jade, silver, or gold were scattered about on small pedestals or shelves. A heady scent wafted from incense burning in two corners of the room. There was a mattress on the varnished wood floor and it wasn’t empty. A couple of half-naked women slept there and she wondered if they were warm enough. 

 

The Golden Silhouette’s body was sitting in a meditative pose in front of a floor to ceiling mirror, wearing only a pair of shorts to cover his manhood. Yuriko would have admired the oil-slicked muscles on him if she hadn’t been distracted by what he was doing with his Anima and Animus. Though their eyes were half-closed, she could see him circulating his Animus, not in his Anima but outside of his body.

 

The strands first transitioned into the physical body from the Anima, and from there they sprung out of the body from several places. Yuriko could see it seeping out from the middle of his forehead, from the palms and fingers, from the centre of his chest and another from his navel. The Animus gathered around him like a cloud and then was sucked back into the body by a sharp inhalation. She could see it swirling around his body, touching every bone, organ, and muscle, before transitioning back into the Anima through a strange crystalline structure near the heart. 

 

She did her best to memorise the patterns he created in the air but it was futile. The patterns disappeared from her mind as soon as she sought to commit them to memory, like a snowflake melting in her hand.

 

This lasted for a while, long enough for Yuriko to grow bored. Well, this was the third thing the Silhouette did most of the time. He could keep this up for hours and it was during these times that she felt most keenly that she was dreaming and she desperately wanted to wake up. She didn’t even remember why she was sleeping this long anyway.

 

It wasn’t as if she could do anything other than watch. She couldn’t move the body, couldn’t move the Animus, and her thoughts were never heard or even noticed by the man. She idly prodded at the golden Animus floating around them and watched it swirl in obtuse patterns at her touch.

 

The man’s eyes snapped open and he stared at the cloud. Yuriko stared, too--that had never happened before. The man’s eyes narrowed and he looked into the mirror. The man’s nearly-naked body in the mirror seemed to waver and in an instant, it was gone. Yuriko found herself staring at her own body’s reflection and before she could blink, something shifted and she was staring out of the mirror at the Golden Silhouette’s body.

 

He stared into her eyes for a long moment before speaking. But, as before, she couldn’t hear him. He realised it soon enough when he paused and she didn’t speak. With a sigh, he recovered all of his Animus then he pointed at her face with a thick finger. 

 

With a slow gesture, he brought his hand close to his heart and tapped it with his fist. Then he pointed at his head and then pointed at her heart. The meaning was lost to Yuriko and her confused expression must have been evident. He laughed and then flexed his biceps, making the muscles bulge. Then he pointed at her which she took to mean only one thing: she needed to get stronger. She flexed her arms, toned but nowhere near as muscular as his, and raised a questioning eyebrow. He then pointed at his forehead then at hers. 

 

Did he mean her Facet?

 

She pointed at her own head and pantomimed her Facet, the stylized sun, but he didn’t seem to understand. Instead, he pointed at her head again then flexed his arm. 

 

Feeling like she understood, she nodded. The man gave a relieved sigh. And then he gave her a cheery wave.

 

Something snatched her from behind and the next things she felt were exhaustion and a deep-seated ache. 

 

Yuriko found herself blinking up at a strange, unfamiliar ceiling. Rubbing her eyes with her palms, she sat up. The room was dim, barely enough light to make out the figure sleeping on a bench beside the bed. She stared at it for a few seconds before she recognised who it was. 

 

“Marron?” she tried to say. The sound that came from her lips was, “Mah...hack...rooh?”

 

Her brother was startled awake and fell off the narrow bench, jolting a laugh out of her.

 

“Ack,” she coughed. Her throat was parched. 

 

“Yuri! Thank the Ancestors!” Marron cried out. “You’re awake at last.”

 

“Urk, ahem,” she coughed.

 

“Oh, water, yes. Here,” he handed her a glass from a nearby table and she greedily drank. Marron turned on the lights by palming a jade panel on the wall and allowing his Animus to activate the runescript. 

 

She was feeling more than a bit out of sorts with a dull ache in her midsection and limbs. Why was she here anyway? Was this the Temple or the Watchtower? The infirmary on either site looked much like this. The Watchtower? The Wave!

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“What, what happened?” she asked hoarsely, anxiety spiking through her body. “Where’s Da? Did the Wave end? What--?” Her gaze gravitated to a spot near the foot of her bed, and she relaxed a little bit when she saw Fri’Avgi’s golden alloy. 

 

“Easy there, little sis,” Marron said, “you were in a coma after you injured your Anima.”

“My Anima? How?” She didn’t even know how one could injure the metaphysical part of herself. 

 

“You drew too much Chaos with your Anima Telum.” He gestured towards Fri’Avgi. “How in the Nine Circles of Reincarnation did you wind up with this thing?” 

 

“Uh, I don’t...um. Well, it's a long story.” 

 

“We have time. And to answer your other questions,” Marron said, “your team defeated the Will of the Wave and that’s that. All that’s left is the cleanup and rebuilding.” Marron sighed. “We were really caught unprepared for the intensity of this one.”

 

“How long ago was that?” Yuriko trembled. 

 

“Today is the thirty-fifth Day of Fire. You’ve been unconscious for more than a week.”

 

“The Full Moon has passed?”

 

Marron gave her a look that said, of course, you idiot.

 

“Da?” she repeated, eyes filled with hope. But inside, she knew he wasn’t back. He wouldn’t stay away if he knew his daughter had been injured.

 

Marron shook his head sadly. “We don’t know yet.”

 

“He said he’d be back by the Full Moon.”

 

“I know. But none of them are back.”

 

Hot tears fell on the back of her hands. Marron wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Nothing is certain yet.”

 

She nodded but couldn’t stop the tears. After a while, she sniffled a bit, rubbed the snot off her nose, and surreptitiously wiped her hand on her hospital gown. She felt dreadfully hungry and the moment the thought crossed her mind, her stomach growled in response.

 

“Yes, you need food, don’t you?” Marron said with a grin. 

 

Someone knocked on the door and with a quick “Come in,” from Marron, Krystal, Mikel, Kato, and Rami walked in. 

 

“Yuri!” They cried out in unison as they rushed to embrace her.

 

“That was a very long nap, big sis!” Rami scolded her. “You aren’t normally this lazy.”

 

“Ehehehe.” 

 

Rami squeezed her hard while burying his face in her chest. “Don’t do that again.”

 

Krystal was smiling widely, her cheeks a bit wet. Mikel stood back and released a couple of messenger cranes before he reached out to squeeze her shoulder. 

 

“We survived,” Mikel said quietly.

 

“Yes,” Yuriko nodded, “we did.”

 

“I hope we won’t have such adventures again,” Mikel sighed, while Krystal and Yuriko’s brothers laughed. 

 

“On the contrary, this is just the beginning.” Kato snorted, “Back when I had my training camp, we never had anything so exciting.”

 

Marron knuckled Kato over his head. “Have some sense, would you? Not everything is sunshine and rainbows.”

 

“The others?” Yuriko asked. “Braden?”

 

“He’s fine. Woke up before you too.” Krystal said with a small wink. “Legion Vagaris is here in town. They’re the reinforcements.”

“Vagaris!” Yuriko yelped. “Oh wow, I wanna see them!”

 

“Oh, you will. They have some questions for you with your role in this whole thing,” Marron said. “Well, after you completely recover anyway.” 

 

Yuriko nodded, excitement replacing her anxieties. Legion Vagaris! The very legion she so dreamed to be part of!

 

‘Ancestors! I hope I make a good impression!’ she thought furiously.

 

Rami hugged her again, “Big sis, you have to rest first!”

 

Yuriko patted his head and smiled. “Don’t worry, Rami, I will.”

“Yes!” Rami smiled. Then his nose twitched and he frowned. “What’s that smell?”

 

“Huh?”

 

She’d been feeling a bit of discomfort for a while now but what did he mean? She pushed off the blanket and felt something sticky on the gown. She immediately regretted doing so in full view of everyone in the room. There on her gown was a reddish-brown stain that seeped through the white cloth.

 

Scarlet mortification suffused her face.

 

“Oh.”

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