Chronicles of the Exalted Sun Child

Book 18-1.1: We, Yuriko

The act of smashing through the barrier covering the world of her unknown children wasn’t easy by any means. Yuriko was more surprised by how her manifestation seed remained intact. It certainly knocked her senses spinning, such that she didn’t even know where she wound up, or whose body she took over. She had a snapshot of the world…plane? It wasn’t a flat plane like Rumiga or the other planes of the Empire, and it wasn’t a planet like Shangria. If anything, it was a curved plane, and the inhabited portion was the face where the edges curved down from, which meant that the experience of living there would be similar to life on a planet. There was a landmass in the middle of a vast ocean that was three times wider. She only got as far as seeing that there was also an inner sea that took up the majority of the landmass before she careened towards a city on the inner coastland. Then, her seed smashed into a wall of fog, then she slammed into the wall of a brightly lit building, somehow passed through all of the concrete, then the next thing she knew, she merged with a freshly dead body. 

Amalia…the girl’s name was Amalia. And…someone was biting her neck. Her vision was still fuzzy, but she knew the feeling of teeth against her skin, since all of her lovers liked to nibble. But it was more than a love bite, since the body she overtook, Amalia, wouldn’t be dead otherwise. 

Her body was numb, but that was to be expected. Her Anima had not slotted into it quite yet. Her strands of consciousness had just settled in the brain, and her Willpower was just diffusing into it. Her Anima filtered in, then Radiance ignited. 

The veins were nearly empty of blood. She could feel two fangs pierce into her veins, which were somewhat hollow as they slurped up the crimson flood. Her circulatory system, void of blood, was suddenly filled with Anima and Radiant motes. Flecks of sunlight that were suddenly sucked up by Amalia’s assailant. 

He pulled back with a scream.

“ARGH!”

His fangs tore open her flesh, and more Radiant motes spilt out. Instead of holding their shape, the motes flared brightly, then popped like bubbles. Yuriko couldn’t help but stare. That wasn’t what normally happened to Radiance. 

Then, her attention was riveted to Amalia’s assailant. It seemed he swallowed the mote…motes of Radiance and whatever his constitution was, Radiance reacted explosively. She barely registered what he looked like, what he wore, or even the expression on his face—other than pain, anger, then terror—before he burst aflame. He didn’t even get the chance to stop, drop, and roll to put out the fire. He didn’t even manage to drop. He simply turned to ashes, the particles glowing with heat, before they darkened and dropped. 

Yuriko’s breath hitched as her eyes twitched to and fro, only to turn into a sigh of relief. She was in a small chamber, perhaps three paces wide and four deep. She was seated on a padded bench, and her clothes were dishevelled. The back of her head was also damp, and strands of brown hair flitted before her eyes. She could also hear the rhythmic thump of music through the walls. There was a door across from her seat, but it was latched closed. 

Her Anima filled her veins, and she quickly began the process of establishing her Radiant Physique. Her manifestation seed didn’t have as much as her original incarnation, perhaps a third as much? The seed had not been made by the tower spirit, after all, and she wasn’t at the right ascension to split off incarnations as she pleased. 

Of greater import, she quickly realised, was that this version of her was partitioned from the rest of her, and it was apparent why. She was under time dilation, and if the trickle she could feel from her true body was right, this world was going five times faster than the rest. Wonderful. 

With the partition in place and the directive to connect only at dawn, this was as independent as an incarnation could go. The constant reconnection should prevent a divergence, and she didn’t want to become completely independent…come to think of it, that was impossible anyway. Both incarnations cannot persist without a connection to the true body, she was sure. Not at this level of strength. What was the level she was at, anyway? 

She couldn’t check quite yet. Ah, but she did have the remnants of that corroded divine shard. And as she purified it with Radiance, she barely had enough to build a Radiance furnace. Not an Ennoia core, but something that was seated within every cell of her body. She just had one, at the moment, but it created enough Radiance to build another every minute. If she used that one to build another, then used those to build more, doubling every time, then it would take just a bit under fifty minutes before her entire body was saturated. Afterwards, she could establish her Radiant Physique. The question was whether she had enough time to do it. 

She didn’t waste any time dwelling on what-ifs. Even if she was interrupted, it wasn’t as if the work would be ruined. She set her Anima to sustain her body first, and channelled Recovery. The first thing that did was replenish her blood, then it healed her outside wounds. The stickiness at the back of her head was probably why the girl had died even before her blood was drained. 

Urk. She could feel her broken skull re-knitting. The memories were hazy, and they weren’t overwhelming. Amalia Roth, a fifteen-year-old high school student. Ancestors, why was she in a nightclub? Orphaned? No, but she might as well be. Amalia’s mum was addicted to a new drug that came from the north, Stardust. It left her manic and chasing the high to the exclusion of everything else, including her daughter and her son. The names escaped her for now, but Yuriko hoped that she’d eventually remember. The father had died ten years ago, in some kind of military action, and Mum lived off the widow’s pension. 

She saw Amalia’s purse on her left, and while her limbs still felt clumsy, it wasn’t bad enough that she couldn’t open the thing. Inside was a wallet with some bills—money that she didn’t know the name of, nor the value of—a compact with powdered blush, a lipstick that was as red as freshly drawn arterial blood, some eyeliner, and a strange rectangular plastic box that had a narrow screen along one edge, and a bunch of buttons. She was sure it was a communication device, but it wasn’t a mobile phone, that’s for sure. What was it…a…pager? How did that work? Either way, it was off, and she didn’t feel the need to turn it on, just yet. 

Where was she? 

The voice that spoke in her head was a remnant of Amalia. A bitter, hardened girl who thought she’d found a way out of hardship, only to be brutalised by the uncaring masters hidden in the dark. 

Yuriko shivered. The girl was younger than she was, but had long lost her innocence. She sighed as she pulled away from the memories and thought to let them gather naturally rather than see through them piecemeal. More importantly…

“Hey, Jacob! Aren’t you done yet?” A harsh voice came from behind the door. “Oi!” 

Yuriko didn’t answer, of course. Her body tensed as she scrabbled for a weapon. Her Radiant furnaces were far from complete, though Recovery had returned her body to working order. 

Nothing. Well, there was a small cylinder inside the purse that was labelled pepper spray. She wasn’t sure how useful it would be, but it was better than nothing. Amalia’s assailant didn’t have anything…wait. She pushed herself off the bench, staggered and extruded her Anima to steady herself. Only…

The air around her thickened and blocked her Anima from escaping. She tumbled to her knees with a thud. 

“Don’t tell me you got drunk!” The voice chuckled. It was a masculine voice and had a cruel lilt to it. Yuriko held in a growl and focused a strand of consciousness to the situation while the rest of her attended to the rotting problem. 

Her Anima wouldn’t come out. It was still within her, and she could easily reinforce her body with it, but anything more than perception-level density was rejected by the laws of the plane. It was a planar law, she was sure, and if she were here in her true body, then she would have ripped through the restriction as easily as tearing paper. But she didn’t have her strength. She wasn’t even sure if she was at Actualised level…no, she was at that level, otherwise she wouldn’t be able to build her Radiant Physique. She was on the weaker end of it, rather, close to what she was almost at the beginning. Her perception covered the room, but she couldn’t push past the walls. Another complication. 

The ashes contained a few solid objects, mostly the soles of his shoes, a belt buckle, and the thing she sought. A switchblade. The handle was barely longer than her palm—Amalia’s smaller palm—and the blade itself wasn’t more than three inches long. Far from ideal, but she felt she could use her Sword Styles with it. She could use Invisible Edge, but she didn’t have as deep a well of Willpower as normal. Rather, she had what she brought over, and she wouldn’t get more to grow her reserves until she synchronised with the rest of her. She didn’t know what time it was, just that it was night, from Amalia’s vague memories. 

“Jacob, oi! What’s wrong, man? You got her too drunk, and you can’t handle it?” There were grumbled and unintelligible words that followed, then, “After you’ve had your fun, make sure to mark the door for bloodbag disposable. No need to dismay the plebes upstairs!” 

Yuriko relaxed slightly once she heard footsteps moving away from the door. She could defend herself, but it was better not to risk things when unneeded. She had a goal when she entered this plane, unlike her arrival in Astoria. 

Her hands were sticky with the ashes that clung to the switchblade, and she resisted the urge to wipe them on her skirt. It was a rather short skirt, and tight. It reached mid-thigh, and her legs were bare until her calf-high boots. She also had a cropped short-sleeved shirt, pale blue, and a light grey cardigan that was stained with her blood. Amalia had a brass bangle on her left wrist, and her nails were painted a garish pink. The room didn’t have a mirror, but her perception revealed the ragged girl underneath the clothes and the makeup. She grabbed the purse and secured it across her shoulders, then palmed the knife. It was open, but with her hand down, it was hidden against her skirt. 

She had to leave this trap, but she had a choice. It didn’t look like she’d be disturbed for a little while yet, but if she took too long, then a fight was certainly in the offing. 

And considering the sort of people that preyed on fifteen-year-old girls…was there a reason other than prudence that prevented her from slaughtering them all? 

Well, other than the fact that she was too vulnerable as she was. Without her Animakinesis, a weapon, and Radiant energy, she was disturbingly vulnerable. 

Well…she probably could wait half an hour to decide. And if it meant that the first victim of her revenge would be those who knew what was happening…then it was just as well.