Chapter 65 - The Fabric of Fate

Yuzu felt a rush of energy flood into her body as the white light blossomed around her. The corridor under the import store vanished, replaced by an endless white void. A gale rose up, swirling furiously as she rose into the sky.

A thick white line of light extended out of the space below her and fused into her body. This was the energy that Argus was providing her as he channeled the energy of the dimensional pocket under his control.

Features and buildings began forming below her. She found herself hovering above the import shop that was tucked between the tea cafe and the grocery store. The white world spread out before her for two kilometres in every direction, a far greater distance than she’d been able to see in her previous visits. The colours had been completely washed out and whitened, but otherwise they appeared exactly the same as in the physical world. The area that she could see in the white world seemed to be centered on the tether that originated in the Import Shop, limiting the area she could influence.

Even still, it took Yuzu a moment to get her bearings. She had never seen TyeAn street from so high up. Hundreds of tents packed the streets between three and four storey buildings. Tiny alleys criss-crossed at various angles between the main streets. At the edge of her awareness to the west was the large open plaza in front of the Tye-An Cathedral, though the cathedral itself was outside of the range.

There were no people or creatures in this world, but Yuzu could feel it brimming with life energy. All around her, golden strands of smoke floated in the air, thousands upon thousands of threads all mingling and weaving together into a fabric that spread out across all the streets and buildings.

She could see the threads through the walls, as if the walls were just an illusion and did not hold an actual form in this place. The threads often gathered in groups of cables, splitting and coming together in twists and knots. Each thread represented a single person and encompassed their past, present and future. The tapestry formed from the threads was not static, though there was definite structure to it. From afar, the thousands upon thousands of threads appeared like a shimmering three dimensional fabric of incredible complexity.

As Yuzu looked upon the vast web of threads, she felt something ‘click’ in her mind. Earlier when she was in the market she had been overwhelmed by the hundreds of golden strands and was unable to make sense of them. But now, despite being in view of thousands of strands, she felt like she could grasp the nature of the fabric.

It was the difference between walking around in a maze and looking at the same maze from above. It felt like Yuzu had been stuck looking at the individual pieces of a puzzle, unable to see how they fit together, but now the puzzles had formed a cohesive whole. From this vantage point, bolstered by Argus’ spiritual assistance, Yuzu quickly understood the nature of the conflict unfolding in the streets below.

Dozens of strings coated in a black, sticky substance writhed about the market. These were the threads of people that had lost their lives to the Devileyes parasite. They were the primary source of chaos and danger. Many people had already died or been infected, and without intervention the night would end in a massive loss of life.

Amongst the myriad golden threads, Yuzu also saw silver and white strands. She reached out to them and saw that they were people whose bodies had been attuned to various Exalted Domains.

A number of the Exalted were by themselves or in groups of two or three. They locked themselves in houses or safe rooms or were actively fleeing the area. There were some Exalted that were fighting the black threads, though they were only handling the ones in their direct vicinity.

Only four of the Exalted strings were police officers dressed in uniforms. They were leaders of squads filled with normal police officers, trying to calm the public and bring order to the chaotic streets.

There was a small number of black threads as well. Yuzu was careful not to disturb them - her spiritual intuition told her that direct contact with those threads would be dangerous.

Though panic filled the streets in the physical world, the white world of the astral plane was silent and peaceful. Even when the sticky black threads ended the life of another, it was almost a peaceful process. The strands of golden smoke would simply falter and fade, and the sticky thread would move on.

After taking in her surroundings, Yuzu didn’t hesitate any longer as she reached out to a nearby sticky black thread. With a gesture of her hand she plucked it away from other threads, freeing up a number of golden threads and isolating the sticky thread.

Illusory sounds and images blossomed in Yuzu’s mind. An infected man suddenly lost grip of his prey and stumbled forward momentarily. The people around him fled in panic.

Yuzu held onto the sticky thread, frowning as she realized she wasn’t able to cut it directly. If she let go of it, it would start chasing after targets again, so she needed to find a way to deal with it.

Remembering how she had saved Char Char from the wolves, Yuzu reached out to a nearby white police thread and twisted the strands together. The black thread snapped, resolving its future.

Yuzu’s eyes lit up as she nodded to herself. If she could bring the policemen and other Exalted to the infected, she could effectively control the danger. She could also guide regular people to safe places and minimize the amount of tragedy that occurred.

~

In the physical world, an Exalted police officer suddenly felt his spiritual intuition trigger as he was walking past an alley. Their squad had been tasked with securing this specific intersection and guiding the people to safety.

“Take command for a minute.” He told one of the other officers.

His eyes narrowed as he quickly took off down the street. After a few blocks he heard screams and cries for help. He drew his pistol as he rounded the corner, seeing a man covered in vines and disembodied eyes attacking people who were running away.

Blam blam blam! The officer shot the infected man with silver bullets, blowing a huge cavity in his head. The man collapsed to the floor in a heap of vines, the eyeballs flailing around wildly before falling limply to the floor.

He stepped over to the corpse of the parasite, confirming that the host and parasite had both died. He frowned as he holstered his weapon, looking up at the sky.

The hazy image of long, flowing white hair lingered at the edge of his mind. He couldn’t quite place it or make sense of it. After a moment he shook his head and began shouting at the people around him to direct them to safety.

In the white world Yuzu was hard at work.

There were far more Devileyes than there were police officers and the police did not seem to have a way to track down the infected. There were large swaths of blackened threads that had torn holes in the fabric of fate threads. These were the areas where the Devileyes wreaked the most havoc.

Every few minutes a pulse of black energy would ripple through the world around her. It seemed to originate from the east, far from where she was floating, but each time it pulsed the sticky black threads would thicken and strengthen, and the infection would spread. At times Yuzu would even have to go back to areas that she previously had mended, as pockets of black popped up from the foreign demonic influence.

Even so, as Yuzu wove the white, silver and golden threads about, the holes began to mend and the fabric of fate grew strong and more resilient to the demonic energy. At first she spent a lot of time on each individual location, carefully entwining the threads and observing the results. But as the night grew long she became more and more proficient in the manipulation of the threads, and the pockets of sticky black threads rapidly shrunk.

Yuzu also began flying above the area, to get a better perspective of the strings that she was manipulating. She felt like a benevolent spirit from her stories as she flew through the sky to help those in need.

After all this effort Yuzu’s hands were trembling and her body was feeling weak. This was exhausting work and she felt that the flow of energy being provided by Argus was starting to wane. Only a few major pockets of blackness remained in her sphere of influence.

Yuzu floated high above the world, looking down at her work. The golden tapestry which originally had been chaotic now flowed in a gentle, ordered manner that was pleasing to the eye. She knew she had already saved hundreds of people from death and even more from infection.

I can maybe manage one more... Yuzu concluded as she analyzed her condition. If that’s the case, then I should focus on the largest area before my strength runs out.

She flew over to a block where a number of golden threads were presently surrounded by Devileyes. They were trapped in several closely clumped buildings, beset on all sides. The entire area would turn black by the end of the night. Even now, the situation was dire with many people already dead.

Yuzu glanced over to the nearest white and silver threads. They were all occupied, dealing with issues that Yuzu had previously ‘assigned’ them to. If Yuzu were to drag them over to this spot, then the holes that Yuzu had previously mended would open up. These threads included both officers, but also unofficial Exalted that had remained in the area.

After all, people could only be in one place at a time. Most of the Exalted had been tied to several consecutive locations. It was like Yuzu was playing an incredibly complex game where every action counted, and where actions had to be planned many moves in advance while also keeping in consideration the effect of previous moves.

Somehow, she was able to keep it together through a combination of spiritual intuition and intense concentration.

With no free white or silver threads around, Yuzu wasn’t sure how to handle this hole. If she had enough power she could try to forcefully part a hole in the sticky black threads and guide the golden threads out, but manipulating whole portions fabric like this would take a lot more strength than she had.

As she contemplated her options, one of the golden threads caught her attention. It was intertwined with many people, a number of which had been saved or able to escape solely due to this thread. After saving many lives it eventually perished with the rest of the group that remained trapped in the buildings.

Yuzu reached out to the thread, and blinked in surprise as she realized that she knew the person it belonged to.

“Char Char?”

In the physical world, Char Char’s head looked up as she heard a faint ethereal voice call out to her.

Her eyes narrowed as she called out, “Who’s there?”