CoESC Book 18-12.2: Threshold (Patreon)

The realisation catalysed within her Anima, and she had to fight the urge to immediately follow through. For everything Damien—her lovable, old pervert version anyway—had done for her, the twisted, nearly mindless version her 1st-incarnation body fought had shown her just what sort of danger she could look forward to if she remained careless. 

There was little doubt that she benefited from Damien’s memories, but she hadn’t quite thought of the actual dangers. Perhaps this was actually what his last words meant, not just a warning about his other incarnations, but of the dangerous, double-edged gift he’d left behind. 

But…she didn’t want to lose access to knowledge. Information about the time before the Shattering was scarce, and she had little doubt that those who possessed it wouldn’t share so easily. She wasn’t sure about their biases, either, not that Damien didn’t have any. But better a tainted source than no information at all. 

As soon as she figured out how she was being insidiously affected by the personalities of the dead girls, Yuriko had completely partitioned her memory storage. But if she wanted to access it later, she’d need to let it back in, which also ran the risk of further contamination. 

Yuriko didn’t want to lose the advantage, nor did she want to be tainted. A conundrum that she’d been wrestling with for the past several weeks. She even snuck in several strands of consciousness into her Irisvaile incarnation to take advantage of the time dilation to think, while keeping the partition up. That wasn’t a secret to her other self, as when they synchronised, everything was shared. It was that separation, and the ability to discard what she didn’t want, that gave her a clue on what to do. 

She needed to form another incarnation, though perhaps that wasn’t the correct term. She would have to attach several strands of consciousness to it; otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to learn through his memories. But she’d have to partition them from herself carefully. 

There was also the question of where she would keep the separated Anima. It would have to be a true severance, too, as she wouldn’t be able to grow her Anima reach to her limits otherwise. She also thought that ascending to Manifestation while hindered by the memories wouldn’t be wise, and from the few bits she absorbed from his memories, she thought she was right. Either way, she hadn’t realised earlier, but she wasn’t actually absorbing the knowledge properly. 

She’d judged it by how her Anima reach had been hindered, but her method had been flawed. She only realised her mistake once she grew more adept with arithmetic…or mathematics, as the people of both Astoria and Irisvaile called the discipline. Simply put, each inch increase in the radius of a sphere created more volume than each inch previous. Which meant that the progress she thought she had made when the memories took less Anima reach to contain was, in reality, no such difference. 

A sobering thought, which just made the decision easier. 

Still, she’d already created two incarnations, even if none of them was exactly through her initiative. She knew what it felt like, and she had an inkling of what was necessary to actually perform the severing. Afterwards, it would take several days, probably half a Season to recover, then she’d be well on her way to reaching Transformation's limits. 

Every other qualifier was at the threshold except for her reach. The idea that her Irisvaile incarnation had about how to progress her Sword Seal core had been something she’d never considered. She could do the same with her Colligia. In fact, it was probably one of the ways to progress. Once she had the idea, a memory unfolded from Damien, which told her what a Reperta would look like. 

If the Ennoia looked like a coating of Radiance that covered a core, and the Colligia was the penetration and proliferation of Radiance throughout the core, then the Reperta looked like a planet with satellite orbs. The number depended on skill, but the more there were, the more difficult to create and to balance. There was probably a limit, but she could find out once she continued to progress. Ascension to Manifestation didn’t require anything more than the first step of Reperta, and that only needed one satellite. 

The satellite swords could count, but she didn’t want to merge Radiance with her Truth of the Sword simply because she wasn’t done with the latter. It meant she’d have to make sure her satellite swords orbited both the main core and the eventual satellite orbs.

Come to think of it, Radiance was already part of her Truth of the Sword. But the crucial fact was that the opposite wasn’t true. Her Radiance was pure, and now that she thought about it, it was purer than Damien’s. She wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, though, since her Radiance was…well, neutral, or balanced. Movement came from imbalance, and she wondered if she’d be forced to choose eventually. Existing in balance with Radiance was pleasant, though, and oddly empowering. 

The decision was abrupt, but that only meant she needed to hold back and think it out properly. There was no life or death situation that made things urgent, just the silent realisation of her path going forward. 

That evening, she asked her lovers for a chat. Well, more of a serious discussion rather than the pillow talk they indulged in when they caught their breath. 

“You want to sever another part of your Anima, this time the part that contains…” Gwendith winced before she could voice the rest of the question. Yuriko nodded and idly noted that the restriction regarding several subjects had either loosened around her Squires or they were growing strong enough to resist it. From the look in Gwendith’s eyes, she had an idea what Yuriko talked about. 

“Yeah,” she answered easily. Heron, who sat on a chair with his arms crossed, nodded thoughtfully, not quite ready to give his opinion. 

“Will it be dangerous? No, of course it will be,” Gwendith huffed. “You’re putting yourself in danger again.” 

Yuriko offered a twisted grin, and Gwendith rolled her eyes. 

“You will do this under our eyes,” her lover stated. 

“Seconded,” Heron piped in. 

“I’d have it no other way,” Yuriko agreed with a grin. “So I take it neither of you has alternatives?”

“I think it’s hasty, honestly,” Gwendith added. “But I know why you want to rush. Or perhaps, we’re not moving as fast as we should be?” She tilted her head. “You’re worried about something you can’t tell us?” 

“Contamination of thought.”

“Ah, like with your incarnations.” 

“Yes.”

“Then by all means. What’s holding you back, though?” 

“I don’t know where to put the severed part.” 

Gwendith blinked, and Heron barked a laugh. He leaned on his knees and commented, ‘It cannot be the norm that incarnations are built from Anima and corpses. Perhaps, just, I don’t know, hold it in place? What were you planning to use to cut your Anima anyway?”

“Fri’Avgi.” 

Heron and Gwendith nodded, then the other blonde asked, “Why not leave the resulting fragment inside Fri’Avgi then? That sword has a spirit, right? And I’m sure she can corral whatever you come up with.” 

“Huh.” Yuriko hummed. “That’s a good idea, I suppose.” And with the Anima Telum mostly contained within her own Anima, the knowledge wouldn’t be lost or even too far away should she need it. 

There wasn’t any more talk of the upcoming severance, and their room was silent save for the moans, squeaks, and squeals that made those listening in with cheeks aflame. 

A couple of days was what it took to get herself ready. Two synchronisations where she checked her ideas against other perspectives. She’d also semi-partitioned her Astorian incarnation, though not to the extent of what she did for her Irisvailian self. It’s proven its worth, though perhaps she should leave her 1st-incarnation body alone for longer than a day. 

Nothing much happened in Irisvaile as far as she could tell. Sailing across an ocean wasn’t exactly exciting, especially after the novelty wore off. It wasn’t as if she’d never been on a similar vessel, and the yacht looked like those old Chaos ships back in the Myriad Planes. What was of greater interest were the adapted spells that the Irisvailian magi used. 

Bresian Arcana Weaving incorporated quite a bit of a show as the components manipulated reality to suit their purposes. It was similar to Sorcery in the sense that it was both reality-shaping. Her own Sorcerous Implements were sorta rusty in her Anima, since she hadn’t used them since she arrived on Bresia’s shores. Sorcery was useless without a large…actually huge amount of Free Chaos, and obtaining that much was difficult without cutting into the canvas of reality into Primordial Chaos. At that point, other techniques would work just as well. 

But perhaps she shouldn’t focus so much on destruction, huh? Arcana Weaving was quite versatile, and Sorcery could be the same. At the very least, a grand Sorcerous Working wouldn’t need as much groundwork as Arcana Weaving would, if not for the fact that the former would put up quite a show.

Something else to ponder. 

As for her Astorian self…after several weeks of fighting, she’d gone back to her original purpose of expanding the ring of Worship that was needed to harvest Quintessence and Ambrosia. 

At the moment, that meant continuing her celebrity activities, which were mostly modelling and acting gigs. The Last Warrior movie she starred in had just been completed and was slated to start showing in a few weeks. She’d been tasked by her agency to join the promotion tour, which would start in a few days. The first activity was an interview with a talk show host, though she couldn’t quite remember the name of the show itself. She wouldn’t be alone, of course, as the rest of the main cast would be there. 

The mobile HQ would be finished in another couple of days, and they would begin their delve soon afterwards. Yuriko determined that she should complete the severing that night, as she didn’t want to do it in Shangria. 

Ilvara arranged a training chamber for her that was away from the node, just in case her Anima ran out of control. By now, her reach exceeded seven hundred paces from her skin, which meant nearly a longstride and a half across. The sheer force she could apply across so many surfaces meant that it wouldn’t actually take more than a flash of irritation to break apart the two-pace-thick outer walls of the station. By taking one of the more isolated training areas, she’d limit casualties in case of disaster. Her companions stayed nearby, but only her lovers and Devotee could easily survive the airless environment of empty space. 

Once she sealed the chamber, she called Fri’Avgi to her hand and sat in a meditative position. Damien’s memories were stored inside her body, compressed into her mind, and supported by nearly fifty paces' worth of Anima reach. Memory palace was a technique she devised after seeing Damien’s memory fragments, which also helped her isolate all of it from her mind. It was the work of hours as the memories weren’t all one big chunk. 

It was a tedious affair, but soon enough, it was done. All of the memories were gathered at the forefront of her mind, and she moved them out of her body. A dense orb of Anima and Radiance materialised above her palms, while out of the corner of her eyes, she could see tendrils of her strands of consciousness that connected the shards and her brain. It wouldn’t be as easy as cutting things off after all. 

Thankfully, Fri’Avgi’s third form resembled a syringe as much as anything else. Even though the Anima Telum’s spirit was mostly asleep, it didn’t take much for her to shift the forms. The outer blades curved around the boundary of the memory orb, and with a careful thrust, Fri’Avgi’s tip just about penetrated the covering. 

An act of Will and Intent activated the artefact, and the memory orb was extracted from her Anima, though it was still connected via her five strands of consciousness. It was remarkably painless, and she was a bit taken aback by it. The memory orb slid from the blade’s tip all the way to the red gem at the crossguard. 

A moment later, a bright light burst out of the gem and nearly burned through the walls. When the light receded, Yuriko blinked in surprise at the cross look Fri’Avgi’s spirit had as the latter glared at her master.