-=[Celes Rada]=-

Celes didn’t tell Ash a whole lot of things. When she had met the strange silver-blue haired girl, the geisha only taught the little orphan the vaguest basics about chakras. However, with every step of the way Celes was liking Ash more and more… and she had no idea how to deal with such foreign feelings and emotions. The geisha had been living in the Gold city for a long time, nearly fourteen years now and she’s managed to make exactly zero friends. People saw geishas as tools, property of their high-cultivator Masters and not someone that they could have a chat with.

Celes had learned a lot during her compound-bound existence and while attaining geisha cultivator knowledge was interesting and useful, she had discovered the most interesting things from a human girl called Ash Sparks in just one day. Ash was unlike anyone else in the Gold city - she appreciated servitors, she inexplicably understood and embraced things that everyone else feared.

Celes knew exactly where she was heading. She smelled death and shuddered as she walked into the compound, re-entering her gilded cage. She did it because Ash was her friend. A friend of monsters and phantoms, whose head was filled with vast... ancient knowledge. Ash was special. Ash was weak. Ash had to be protected at any cost because only she had offered things like Celes a future.

The kitsune bravely stepped under the gate even if it spelled certain doom for her. As the geisha passed through the gate, she smelled the lingering sweat of the low-cultivator guard. He nodded at her from his post. Celes gifted him with a feeling of inner peace and a small bow.

Celes felt in her bones that someone knew that she was coming. She somehow knew that they were waiting. She kept on walking forward, following the exact path set out for her.

She entered into the cobblestone courtyard and found herself face to face with silver-haired High-Inquisitor Pikoss Rhondarius and his young scribe Kraze Kodea.

“Ah, geisha Rada,” the High-Inquisitor spoke with a cold, clear voice. “Just the person I was looking for.”

The kitsune froze. This was the exact kind of trouble she was expecting.

“Yes, lord High-Inquisitor, how may I be of assistance?” Celes bowed, softly projecting her serenity aura towards the pair of investigators. She started with the lowest radiance, slowly cranking it up so that they would feel at ease with her without realising that she was manipulating their decisions.

“High-Administrator Han Sempiter just arrived at the compound landing site extremely injured,” Pikoss said. “He was attacked by unknown means and the seven beast cores he carried were taken. Do you…”

Celes knew that she could not lie to the Inquisitor or his scribe as both of them could easely smell the truth of any statement.

“Oh! My Chorus’ chosen! Is he alright?!” She quivered dramatically, nearly bowling the scribe over. “Tell me that my High-Lord is alright! What frightening news!” Celes didn't lie. She was truly terrified by the prospect of facing her Master. The Immortal had recovered far too quickly from such a powerful explosion.

“He is quite fine, geisha Rada.” Scribe Kodea gripped Celes. “You need to…”

“Are we not safe?! I heard such horrific, terrible news at the market! Convergence! Six days to Deathstorm Convergence! It’s on everyone’s lips!” Celes cried, pulling her serenity field in a specific pattern that usually caused a resonance of worry in humans. “Do you think that the Deathstorm is related to the attack?!”

She added a pitch of divine-song to her declaration, making her voice vibrate as if she was half-singing the words. This effect made her lament a lot more dramatic. The minute inclusion of divine-tones in regular speech had an interesting effect on humans which Celes had learned long ago. It caused a mental disruption, confusion, and threw off whatever they were thinking priorly. She was getting better at this sort of deception.

Ash in her brilliance or perhaps foolishness had used a potent beast core on Celes - to make her and her little ferret spirit stronger. The young thief had no idea what she had done, had no idea how much power she had inadvertently poured into Celes. A spillover from seven hundred and eighteen years of stored Qi had jump-started something within the dark kitsune beast-core of the geisha’s real heart. An arcane furnace of power ignited, waking up something within Celes - something aberrant and dangerous.

The geisha had been feeling it all day, a change in herself, a moment of awakening from the dream of being just Celes Rada. A part of her was becoming more aware with every passing hour. They were just flashes, visions of the Dead Sea, of the all-killing heat, strange, foreign memories from an impossible place filled with ancient ruins and alien life. Celes didn’t like what she saw. She refused to accept what these memories were telling her.

The geisha knew that she was starting to act out of character. She had threatened and bargained with Arianna Manning earlier today. She’d even slapped the seventh scion of the Magistrate, not caring if she was making a dangerous enemy, and now she was actively manipulating the High Inquisitor himself!

“Yes. This is indeed a grave problem for us,” the High-Inquisitor sighed, looking tired. “Someone has leaked information about the Deathstorm event.”

“There is also a tale making rounds across the city of a silver-haired, sixteen-year-old new messiah,” Kraze commented. “Supposedly she’s going to save the city from the Deathstorm Convergence!”

“Nonsense.” Inquisitor Rhondarius waved her off. “It won’t last long. We’ll catch this… what was her name?”

“Hrm… Lady Sparks!” Kraze flipped through her leather notebook.

“Right. Have it dealt with.” the Inquisitor affirmed with an uncaring eye roll. “Once or twice in a generation of mortals we get some idiot prophet or a chosen one that touches an angel. The problem this time is that there’s an information leak. Send out a high-cultivator hunter to capture this self-elected messiah. We’ll put her in chains in the middle of the market and whip her until she confesses to being a liar in front of the gathered crowds.”

“Yes, excellency,” Kraze nodded, flipping through her notebook. “I believe that Hunter Tasman Hastiglia is available for this mission.”

“Yes, Hunter Hastiglia is a nice choice. Have him deal with this,” the High Inquisitor nodded. "Prepare four Inquisition teams to quell the mortals tomorrow evening if they continue to gather over this nonsense or express further support for this fake messiah. A few public executions should end it."

The Scribe nodded.

Celes hissed inwardly. She managed to redirect the attention of the Inquisition pair towards Ash instead of herself. Just as she tried to step away, Kraze addressed her.

“Geisha Rada,” The scribe denoted. “I believe you were the one who saw Enforcer Sempiter last, yes?”

“Yes,” Celes nodded, thinking of how she could get out of the conversation now.

“This courtyard isn’t a good place for our interview, please follow me to the Temple of Inquiry,” Scribe Kodea spoke, leaving no room for argument.

“Do let me know how the interview goes,” the High-Inquisitor noted.

“I’ll have a report ready for you asap, excellency,” Kodea bowed.

“Follow me, Rada." The Scribe shook her short auburn hair. Celes had no choice but to follow as the eyes of the High-Inquisitor glanced at the departing pair.

As they walked past various temple buildings Celes thought of a hundred ways to get out of this. Alas, none of them were realistic. She wasn’t Ash - she couldn't cut the Gordian knot of this terrible problem with rational knowledge from a thousand years ago, coudn’t bamboozle Kodea. All Celes could do was try to trick the Scribe, somehow delay her before she sent the Hunter out after Ash.

As they entered into the temple of Inquiry and passed down a hallway into an interrogation room, Celes slowly continued to crank up the serenity field focusing it on the Scribe. Maybe if she could get the girl to trust her…

Kraze shut the door behind them with a bang.

“So,” she said as she looked at Celes, not even offering the geisha to sit down. “Something is going on here. I want to know what.”

“I.. um…” Celes tried to stall.

“Out with it, Rada! I am well aware that you bloody know something! You look guilty as Qi-ssin shit!” Kraze barked, slapping her hand on the marble table.

Celes gulped, not saying anything. She focused all of her geisha knowledge on tuning the serenity field to the Scribe, trying to tune the girl towards friendship, towards conversation and revelation. Celes had done this for years to Han Sempiter, perfected the technique for avoiding answering questions and getting answers. The Enforcer was incredibly strong physically, but he was also a bit of a clueless brick when it came to the subtle mind-influencing arts.

"The new messiah…" Celes whispered.

“Yes! I’ve never seen the city so abuzz!” Kraze continued. “I’ve read of prophets and messiahs, but they were all unsupported fools - accidents that the cult crushed very quickly...”

Celes remained silent. The kitsune's heart-furnace reinforced the threads of control over the ranting Scribe, pulling on the part of the girl’s mind that made conversation trickle turn into a raging torrent.

“But, this time things are very different! I think that the Guilds are all in cahoots, as if they’re all in on this. Have you heard of the latest rumour? A secret meeting in the Bell lake!"

Celes nodded.

"The office of the magistrate isn’t stamping out the panic either," the Scribe ranted. "It's intensifying it, promoting Lady Sparks as if she really is the gods chosen one! What in the hells is going on?!”

In that moment, Celes felt an invisible manifestation of a tail that she didn’t have wrapped around the Scribe. Could it be? Did she actually awaken? Celes wasn’t sure. She tightened the invisible tail around the Scribe.

“We have to protect the city,” Celes whispered looking into the wide eyes of the Scribe. The geisha pushed all of her Qi into her words, intertwining them with her divine-song-tones. “This is our ONLY chance. Will you help me save the Gold city’s people from the Stormweavers?”

“Wh… what? How?” Her victim blinked, entranced. Uncertainty and confusion was swimming in her red eyes.

“Think, Kraze! Ash Sparks is just a sixteen-year-old urchin,” Celes pressed her case. “If you send the hunter after her, she will become a martyr.”

“Hrmm...?” The Scribe raised an eyebrow. “... a martyr?”

The kitsune nodded, letting the Scribe’s mind percolate the suggested thought.

“So… what you’re saying is… THERE is indeed a shadowy cabal behind this unique phenomenon.” Kraze rubbed her chin. “If we execute this urchin girl, it will serve the goals of this cabal. But… what do they want? Do you know their goals, Rada?”

“The old men always want more power, that is true. However, the goal of Ash Sparks is to protect the city. To save as many as possible,” Celes declared. “There is no evil in her, I swear!”

Kraze’s eyes shone like rubies, scanning the geisha’s words for the truth. She sniffed and found that the Geisha wasn’t lying at all. “Impossible…” the scribe muttered. “There is always an agenda for wealth or power, especially in the mind of a starving street-rat!”

Celes stepped to the scribe and took her hand in hers. The invisible phantom tail was tightly looped around the Scribe and through it Celes was reading her emotions and playing on her secret, hidden desires.

“Listen to my words of truth - Ash, who stands at the head of this movement, only wants to help people. Her revolution is pure at its heart, like a mountain river, like a polished diamond. She is our city’s only chance to warn people about the Stormweavers. The longer she lives, the more people will survive, hide in the catacombs. I lost my teacher to the Deathstorm. Please, don't send the Hunter out."

“You… you really believe that.” Scribe Kodea looked into the gold eyes of the geisha. “Interesting. A crystalline revolution figurehead? If Lady Sparks lives longer… then the cabal of the Guilds won’t get whatever it is they’re after?”

"Yes." Celes nodded with conviction, thinking of the monstrous Barber Guild leader and his celesteel sword.

The Scribe frowned. “I can only delay sending the Hunter for so long, Rada. I cannot disobey the order of the High-Inquisitor. At best I can give you a day.”

“A day is more than enough,” Celes bowed. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet, geisha,” Kodea sighed. “Do you know who attacked Han?”

Celes raised an eyebrow, not answering. The phantom tail worked overtime to make Kodea think that the kitsune looked like a clueless geisha, an invisible wallflower pattern that had no brain, no mind of her own.

“Right, stupid question,” the Scribe muttered to herself. “He was knocked out of the sky seven thousand elbows up, you weren’t there… you’re a geisha and geishas can’t fly...”

She suddenly squinted at Celes. “Do you know how to make beast cores explode?”

Celes nearly balked at the question, but managed to keep her emotions in check, stilling her heartbeat. The Scribe was dangerously clever. She must have been a studious investigator and learned of such esoteric key knowledge in the cult archives.

“I swear upon my life, I didn’t make any of the seven cores in Han’s case explode,” Celes uttered. “I don’t know how to wield my Qi to explode anything - I’m a geisha, not a pyromaniac! I am not working for the Stormweavers!” She announced resolutely to hammer in how devoted she was to the cult.

“Good,” the Scribe deflated, scribbling the answer down in her leather book. “I was suspecting you for a second there, but you’re telling the truth.”

A lull in their impromptu meeting revealed itself, giving both parties a moment to breathe. The Scribe flipped furiously through her notes. Celes kept her serenity field flowing at a moderate pace.

“How do you know Ash Sparks?” The Scribe continued the interrogation.

“You know that I’m close to retirement, yes?” Celes asked.

Kraze nodded.

“I tried teaching Ash Sparks the basics. You know, the way we test girls to see if they would make a good geisha,” the kitsune explained, twisting her words in a tapestry of truths to hide the lie in between the seams.

“And? How did the interview go?”

“She is too impatient and stubborn to wield the power of serenity.” Celes sighed theatrically.

“I see.” The scribe wrote the answer down in her book. “Now, did you tell Ash Sparks about the Deathstorm Convergence date?”

“No!” Celes shook her head. “She was the one to tell me about the Deathstorm date! I had no idea that it was every thirteen years until she told me.”

“Hrmmmm…” Kodea tapped her chin with her Qi pen.

“Can I go now? I’d really like to see how my Master is doing.” Celes made begging fox-cub eyes at the Scribe, nervously wringing her hands.

“Fine, fine, go on.” Kodea waved the geisha off, unlocking the Interrogation room door with her artifact ring. “I’ll send my servitor your way if I need more answers.”

Celes stepped out into the daylight with a smile on her face. She actually did it! She managed to distract the Scribe from demanding too many answers while using honesty as a weapon the same way Ash had done with Arianna.

The kitsune gave her friend another day to live and she truly believed that for Ash a day was more than enough time to move the world.