CoESC Book 18-12.1: Threshold (Patreon)

Yuriko looked out into the sea of darkness so deep that any pinprick of light that could be seen would have come from a long distance—and would have been bigger than what was apparent. The window into the darkness was as long as the hallway, though the wall was opaque a few inches from both the floor and the ceiling. It was a measure to prevent vertigo, she assumed. 

The outer rings of Shangria station, the ones that led to and from the nodes, were almost all like that. Most had transparent metal that showed the view of the darkness of the Void and of the planet Shangria. 

‘But maybe I shouldn’t call this the Void,’ Yuriko mused to herself. ‘The Void Ocean is the gap between the planes and the varied canvases of reality.’ Though what would she call this emptiness? This dark space? Empty space? 

‘Good enough,’ Yuriko decided. She glanced towards the opposite wall, where the view was of Shangria. The planet was more than two and a half thousand leagues across—according to the data from Shangria’s Network—but she hadn’t seen it for herself. Certainly, it was more than that around, and she was sure there was an arithmetic formula to find out the particulars, but the view from above was both breathtaking and frustrating. 

What she could see of Shangria’s surface was nothing more than a mirage, yet even so, it was beautiful. 

She stared at the planet for quite a bit of time before she continued down the hallway. Within a few days, the mobile headquarters would be finished, and they could return to Shangria and delve as deeply as they could go. 

Yuriko’s walk was slow and steady, though anyone who observed her might note that she looked like she was walking through mud. Even more to the point, she was one of the few who were actually walking on the ‘floor’ of the ring hallway, as the majority floated in the middle and were moving with the aid of a floating contraption that they clung to, or by their own power. The hallway didn’t actually have gravity, and all of the resistance she experienced was due to using nearly all of her prodigious Animakinesis as a restriction. At the same time, she projected her perception aura as far as it would go, but she carefully avoided touching anyone. 

The people who live in Shangria Station were well aware of how Ancients and Mystics used Anima to perceive, and it was considered rude to prod people with it, even if they couldn’t feel it. There was always someone who was able to perceive, and Yuriko was certain that the security cameras were also able to register her base perceptive aura. She’d long learned how to thin it further so that the only feedback she had was the presence or absence of life. At the moment, most of her focus was on what she felt outside of the ring hallway, and truly, empty space wasn’t all that empty. 

Little fragments of metal and other molecules existed outside, and her perception could feel them all, especially when there was such a big gap of emptiness between each particle. Her reach was more than seven hundred paces, even after restrictions due to Damien’s memories, and that was a whole lot of space to feel all at once. Initially, she’d been overwhelmed and had been forced to ignore large chunks of her territory, but she’d figured out how to filter things en masse by using several strands of consciousness. She didn’t have the capability to look at everything at once that she had back when her reach was less than a hundred paces, but she hoped to eventually reach that capability. It didn’t really help that her Anima continued to grow in reach—a pace in distance from her skin every day—and each increase in radius meant a larger increase in volume each increment. 

She ought to focus on getting used to her perception, but if she did, she’d have little time for everything else. 

Even with the nifty trick of peeking into her partitioned incarnation’s mind—without that consciousness realising—hence benefiting from the time dilation, though the headache got worse the longer she kept at it, there just wasn’t enough time. 

‘I’m complaining about my good fortune,’ she thought ruefully. She was sure other Ancients didn’t progress as fast as she did, and she had little desire to rub their faces on her growth. Not that she’d actually met any other Ancients that were higher than Actualisation anyway. 

Anywho, it took about an hour to finish her ten-longstride ‘walk’. She emerged back into the node where she and the others were staying, which was also connected to the orbital elevator that led back to the surface. The mobile headquarters was also being assembled here, and they had nothing to do but wait. And train, actually. 

She headed towards one of the training halls that her team had rented to check up on the others. They rented the entire place for a few thousand credits for the week so far. The exact amount, she wasn’t sure of, and she’d thrown off Amalia’s ridiculous fixation for tracking her finances…

…somewhat. 

She actually found herself interrogating Ilvara about how much they made, how much they spent, and how much they had remaining after everything—roughly two million—unified credits left. She didn’t need to know where every last bit went, nope, not at all. 

The training hall was located on the east floor. It was still a bit strange to walk up to a vertical surface and feel gravity just shift and change. The wall suddenly became the floor, and what once was a floor was now the wall. The training hall itself was a blocky building that blended in with everything else. 

Her companions were mostly training separately. The nearest training room from the entrance was Carina’s, and while Yuriko expected the greenette to practice her shooting, the young woman was actually performing drills with a Plasma Emitter. Well, doing poorly at that. 

A Plasma Emitter was basically a sword with a contained plasma blade instead of a metal one. It couldn’t really be used as a standard sword since the plasma didn’t actually have any kind of stopping power. It would cut through things even when unenhanced, for much the same reason why Rumiga used Plasma Casters to kill Wyldlings. Emitters, at least the ones Carina used, didn’t have much of an internal power source. It had a battery for refined esoteric energy that had to be filled by the wielder, and as a result, the plasma blade wouldn’t cut or harm them directly. Considering how often Carina’s blade inadvertently sliced across her leg or her side, that was all to the good. 

‘Why didn’t she ask for help?’ Yuriko wondered. 

She marched towards the training room and entered. Carina yelped at the sudden intrusion, dropped the Plasma Emitter, and if it weren’t for the automatic cut-off switch, would have carved a furrow into the floor. Well, it would have if the training room were made of mundane stuff. As it were, Carina’s eyes darted to Yuriko’s and her flush was visible even under her brown skin. Sir Blue, her spherical wisp familiar, bobbed joyfully in the air, projecting not a little bit of amusement at his master’s embarrassment. 

“Lady Yuri! W-what a surprise!” Carina sputters as Yuriko levelled a pointed look. 

“You’re learning the sword…and didn’t think to tell me?” 

“Aha-hahaa…” Carina quickly picked up the fallen Emitter and fiddled with it, “I’m just trying to patch up a weakness. I’ve noticed it long ago, but…”

“But you can’t ignore it now?”

“Yeah, and I didn’t want to waste your time.”

“You aren’t,” Yuriko shook her head. “You’ll waste more if I have to correct bad foundations. Ancestors knew how much trouble it took to correct mine.” 

Carina, and for some reason, Sir Blue, gave her a flat look, but they shook it off a moment later, “So…what brings you out of your training routine?” 

Yuriko shrugged. “Just reflecting on things, and I noticed you practising with the Emitter.”

“Ah, the Pem? It’s not really a good option for blocking, but it's easy to draw even if I’m holding my rifle.” Carina clipped the Emitter on her belt, grabbed her Plasma Caster and mimed shooting it. Then she let go of the handle, grabbed her sidearm, and did a quick slash. The plasma blade materialised mid-cut and would have gutted anything that came within range. 

“Good choice,” Yuriko agreed, “Do you want to learn a Sword Style for it?”

“Would it actually help?” Carina shook her head, “no, sorry, that wasn’t what I meant. Would I be able to learn it without spending Seasons in training?” 

“You can get the basics down in a few hours,” Yuriko said, “and it’ll be up to you to work on it afterwards. You can ask me for more when you reach a plateau in your training.” 

“Oh, thank you!”

At her level of insight, it was child’s play to devise a Sword Style that focused on a Plasma Emitter’s lethality and lack of tangibility. There were no blocks in the stances she made, and it focused on footwork, and quickly thrusts and cuts designed to harry. Decisive blows were also part of the style, but the practitioner had to be mindful of the fact that the Emitter blade might not be able to damage a foe even if she hit. The lack of kinetic impact had to be adjusted to, but there was also the fact that the blade was practically weightless. The Emitter was balanced towards the pommel anyway, which meant it was rather easy to manoeuvre the fiery blade around. 

They spent a couple of hours with basic movements, and afterwards, Yuriko gave Carina a set of exercises to work on at her leisure. Afterwards, she went on to check up on the others. 

Ilvara wasn’t here, of course. The woman from Dragon Fall City, their little defector from a mega corpo, was busy managing their finances as well as overseeing the mobile HQ. However, Ilvara’s combat ability was a bit too low for Yuriko’s taste. Even Ryoko, her ostensibly non-combat handmaiden, would easily overpower the silverette. Still, there was ample time to do so during the delve. It would take an estimated ninety days to delve all the way to the bottom, and that was the most optimistic timeline, so it would probably take a couple of Seasons or so anyway. 

Heron had restricted his body in the same way Yuriko had, and was training with a spearmaster. The martial artist was weaker than he was in terms of absolute power, but was quite skilled with his chosen art. Yuriko watched them from the door while they sparred, then exchanged techniques and martial stances afterwards. She left before the hired help could notice her, though she knew her lover had. 

Gwendith was doing the same thing, with a barehanded martial artist as well as a quarterstaff master. When Yuriko peeked at her other lover’s training, Gwen was cycling through numerous stances rather than exchanging pointers. Her instructors felt a bit standoffish toward Yuriko’s sensibilities, but since they were professionals, she didn’t really mind. 

Saki hadn't been training since she’d been dragged by Ryoko to finish shopping for half a year’s supply. Food and other necessities were the goal, and Yuriko didn’t bother learning the particulars. Devotee, on the other hand, had spent most of the break refining his Chaos well to make sure he didn’t leak his power into the atmosphere. 

Satisfied with her companions’ activities, Yuriko spent the next few hours in meditation. She wasn’t pondering how to advance her Ennoias, nor was she refining her physique. In truth, her Colligia of Radiance was ready to advance, and her Radiant Physique was as good as it was going to get without spending years eking out minor upgrades. 

Instead, it was her Anima reach that was lagging behind, and of greater concern was the bulk of Damien’s memories that took up nearly fifty paces of reach. She could have focused on absorbing the memories, but the divergences with her own mind after the 2nd-incarnation was partitioned from her was alarming. What would happen if she simply allowed another’s memories to merge with hers? 

No. She was growing certain that she had to do something drastic to solve her problem. 

She would have to cut off another part of her, so that the greater whole retained its integrity. She’d have to cut Damien’s memories out of her own Anima.