Chronicles of the Exalted Sun Child

Book 17-23.3: Reunion

Yuriko’s sunblade was already hilt deep into Shrouded Damien’s chest, and she couldn’t push it any deeper without it going out the other side. So she reflexively wiggled it around and effectively eviscerated his torso. Well, that’s what would have happened if they were in the physical world rather than a reflection of the internal self. The grin widened grotesquely until it practically stretched from ear to ear. Then, inexplicably, Shrouded Damien disintegrated into Radiant motes, revealing the source of its power. 

The divine shard wasn’t something she really saw when her version of Damien used its power to defeat the Chaos Duke. She merely had the impression of a perfect gemstone in a tetrahedron shape. What she saw was a ragged stone in an irregular shape, pockmarked with tiny craters and cracks spiderwebbed across the surface. 

Yuriko’s metaphorical breath hitched. The divine shard started to crumble under the influence of her Willpower and Anima. Radiant energy burst from the ground, and the walls and ceiling began to collapse. The throne behind the shrouded Damien remained, but up close, it was clear that the old pervert hadn’t been sitting on it. Instead, he had stood a couple of paces in front and about a pace below. 

The corroded fragments rushed towards her body, and if she had more of her wits about her, she might have tried to evade. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t have worked as even when she reacted and jumped back, the fragments simply accelerated and collided with her Willpower. She expected mutual annihilation, honestly, and was resolved to lose that much of her Anima and her strands of consciousness. 

Instead, the corroded parts bonded to her and burned. The corroded bits flaked off, and what remained were her scintillating motes of Radiance, devoid of Willpower or ego. The shrouded Damien ceased to exist, and she didn’t know why. 

Why did he attack her to begin with, if he only wanted to…invade? Possess her? 

Wait, corroded. He might not have his wits intact either. The frozen expression, the monotonous attacks, and the puppeteering of the vessel didn’t sound like a healthy mind. What happened to the divine shard? 

The inner world manifestation crumbled around Yuriko, and she subconsciously reclaimed as much of her Anima and Radiance as she could. Intent and Will remained stable, but somewhat diminished. She had half of what she started with, but if she managed to reconnect with her true body and her incarnation body, it shouldn’t be an issue. 

Still, she was wary of what she was forcibly absorbing. Did she even have a choice? She tried to push the motes away from her manifestation, but it was no use. It mixed in with her Anima, though it was fully denatured—or it appeared as such—so there was no imminent danger. She would have to watch herself to make sure nothing dangerous slipped in…actually, she couldn’t merge back with her incarnation body now. 

If it were a trap, a poisoned drink, then it would serve Damien’s purposes if she brought it back to her bodies. Would she have to dissipate to negate the danger? But it would probably only release it back in the wild. No, she had no choice but to bear this burden, and she wondered if she would have to be barred from connecting back to her other selves. 

Other selves? 

Was she not Yuriko? No matter how many bodies she possessed, no matter how many times she partitioned her minds, she was still herself. 

But then, would this mean that the poisoned gift was already received? What was the right move here? 

No. Think! Her bodies didn’t share Anima. The incarnation body’s reach was limited by her true body, but they did not cross over. They were in different parts of the Eternal Tower, and the only real connection between them was in the dreamscape. Even so, she could only move Ambrosia from the dreamscape to the material world. She couldn’t even do it the other way around! The only one that could cross was Fri’Avgi, but even so, the Anima Telum sacrificed a lot of energy to cross dimensions. It was not an easy journey, and she could only hope that the distance involved would protect her true body. 

Then again, it might also be nothing. But who was to say that she could sense if there was something wrong, diminished as her manifestation was. 

Then…she felt it. She could make another incarnation. Well, as long as she took over another freshly dead body, probably. The bits and pieces of the divine shard degraded into possibility. She could align it that way, and in doing so, she’d probably lock in whatever Damien tried to slip into the rest of her into that incarnation. 

She…probably shouldn’t stay in Astoria then. This part of her anyway. But…where would she go? 

With a jolt, she realised that she’d already begun the process of turning this manifestation into an incarnation seed. It was only because she’d already experienced it before that she could even do something like this, and it was incredibly diminished compared to her first incarnation body. It would turn out even weaker, probably, but then, it also meant she could try out a new Sword Truth as the basis of her core. Well, that was the silver lining. 

But the question remained, where would she go? And more importantly, how would she go about it? 

She ran out of time while contemplating. The inner world finished disintegrating, and the divine shard melted and melded with her manifestation. A moment later, she materialised above someone she assumed to be the vessel, and she barely paid attention to him as she rocketed away. A quick glance showed that she was several leagues north, just above the beachhead fortress. 

A moment later, she felt the partition in her mind come down. 

Three points of view merged, and Yuriko frowned. There had been some corruption in her manifestation’s strands of consciousness, but nothing worse than what her incarnation body experienced during that disastrous foray into the daemon nest. A matter of being isolated and having experiences that diverged from the greater whole. 

It was easy enough to reconcile the differences, and she did agree with her isolated self’s thought of being careful. In the aftermath of the attack, she’d lost consciousness, but her true body forced her incarnation body to regain consciousness. Desire had taken her away from danger, and since it was only Shrouded Damien left on the battlefield, they were unopposed in their escape. 

There was a powerful elastic force that tugged at the manifestation seed, trying to rejoin the incarnation body, but she resisted. The force built up, and she was a hairsbreadth from cutting open the canvas of reality to take her chances in the spaces between, when another force wrapped around both her incarnation body and her manifestation seed. 

Then, a familiar voice spoke. 

Only one avatar is allowed in the Eternal Tower. Prepare for exile. 

The Tower spirit spoke, and there was a feeling of choice. Which body would go? Yuriko’s manifestation seed made the call. 

Very well. Leave the Tower. 

The force built up to a painful degree, and the canvas of reality split. It was a finer cut than what she could manage, even with Fri’Avgi. Granted, she hadn’t tried with the Anima Telum and the Bladeless Sword, but oh well. Wait, where would she go? Would she emerge back in the Bresia region? Dragon Fall City was part of the Tower, so she couldn’t return there. 

The gap opened, and she found herself entering the darkness of the Void. Wait. Why?

She wrapped her Anima tightly around her manifestation seed and hardened it against the nothingness. A moment later, the manifestation seed was pushed out of Astoria. 

Yuriko almost partitioned that mind immediately after, as she was almost overwhelmed by the dissonance in the passage of time. The moment the seed exited Astoria, she froze, and no time seemed to pass. But because she was also in Shangria and still in Astoria, time had to pass. 

But it wasn’t moving. She had no destination, and the Void didn’t contain anything. Not time, not space, and definitely, not life. 

But that couldn’t be right. She knew that in the Void was a source of esoteric energy that ran counter to Radiance and Luminescence. For it to exist, then something must control it. Anything that exerts control must have life, in one way or another. 

The Void was nothingness, but it was also connected to everything else. 

And in those connections, she finally saw a way. Or rather, she saw the threads that connected her to others. And that brought another unsettling realisation: was the dreamscape a part of the Void too? 

Primordial Chaos was infinite potential, and it too existed in one way or another alongside the Void…

She growled as she raised barricades within her own mind, but she didn’t completely block off the manifestation seed. Instinct warned her that to do so would completely cut off that part of her, and in the Void, that meant there would never be a connection between the manifestation and herself. 

She needed a destination, and she was tempted to return to Rumiga immediately. She could feel it. If she picked that, her manifestation seed would emerge in the Shattered Sea. Hopefully close to the Empire, and preferably in Rumiga already. 

But…

There were two things that stopped her from doing so immediately. One was the severed thread of her brother, Kato. She’d lost hope initially, but the continued existence of the thread revived it. 

But since it was severed, she couldn’t exactly follow it along the Void. Besides, she’d have a better chance delving the Tower. 

The second was the twinned threads of her children. She neither bore them nor gave birth to them. She didn’t even know of their existence until after the fact, and she was pretty sure that they were made by enemy action. That still didn’t mean she should abandon them. 

And between going home, going after Kato, and those kids, there was a clear choice. She would have three bodies soon, and well, each one could follow different paths. Besides, she needed to find Kato with her true body, so she could bring him and her friends back home. 

Choice made, she, in her manifestation seed form, tugged at the twinned threads and pulled herself along. 

In the Void—the gap between the layers of reality—time held no meaning. But since she had outside perspectives, time flowed anyway. And it was that paradox that brought about pain. 

Her true body collapsed into a heap, as did her incarnation body, as fire lanced within her Anima. Heat, followed by cold, powerful enough to cause the air around her bodies to freeze. Beside her true body, Gwendith yelped at the sudden ice and mist upon her naked body. Her incarnation body was seated inside a car, and that one just froze over. A moment later, Gwendith absorbed the flames that burst out of her body, while the car was slagged into molten steel. 

Her manifestation seed hurtled across the Void, and roughly ten minutes later, she had arrived. Not at where the children were, and from what she could see from the dreamscape, the threads had split completely. The two weren’t together, and she couldn't tell how far they were from each other in the physical world. 

Of greater importance was the dreadfully opaque barrier that blocked her way. It wasn’t in the Void, but layered across the fabric of reality. This time, she wasn’t aided by the tower spirit. She would have to make her own entrance, and she didn’t have the luxury of trial and error. A single failure would see her manifestation seed shatter, and it would be lost. 

She screwed up her courage and adjusted her manifestation seed to penetrate the barrier. And with stubborn determination, she flung herself at the barrier…and punched through. 

End of Book 17.