There is a fine line between audacity and idiocy.

Those were wise words from his father that Zuken Banksi followed to this date. Over the years he’d spent cultivating a powerful reputation both in Haviskali’s Underground and Noble Courts, that little tidbit of advice had come in very handy.

And then he’d encountered Lukas Aguilar, a person who seemed so very like him, yet so unlike him, given how the young man kept dancing around that fine line countless times despite his uneasy status as an Outsider in the Asukan Empire.

And now… this.

A large earthen contraption sat before him, holding the unconscious body of Lukas Aguilar within. Unconsciousness caused by hitting him hard on the back of his head. While Zuken would have liked to stay as far as possible from such crass tactics, sometimes simplicity was best.

Besides, if he remembered correctly, Aguilar had himself agreed that there were things out there— the underground Anomaly back in the Desert for example —that could screw around with his head. It was an interesting coincidence that this was the second time it had happened, and the timing had coincided with two other events.

One, Aguilar was alone with Tanya. And two, they were not in the World.

Zuken was no expert, but he had studied the nature of anomalies before he left for the mission, a habit he had continued with a greater zeal after returning. As outrageous as it sounded, an anomaly was indeed another world. One that existed atop another. It stayed there, growing, consuming, evolving, biding its time before it could evolve into a singularity and escape from the Primary World’s orbit.

Anomalies became singularities. singularities evolved to become realms. Realms revolved around their World, the Great Mother that birthed all.

Just what was it about Aguilar that being in another world, be it an underground anomaly or a shattered realm like Ikai, affected him so badly? Was it simply the result of extraneous circumstances, his plain stubbornness, or something more sinister?

Zuken didn’t know, but he did know who would. Someone that had been apparently incommunicado for quite some time. Someone currently standing on the other side of the door.

Concentric brown rings appeared upon his wrist. With a slight twist, Zuken re-did the enchantment, sinking the contraption beneath the floor which opened up in a chasm, gobbling it up in one go. He let out a harsh breath and intoned in the most authoritarian voice he could manage.

“Come in.”

The door opened, and Tanya stepped through. She looked far from the Little Miss Stability that he remembered, even during tense struggles in the anomaly. Her fingers twitched now and then, and her eyes kept darting around. She was constantly operating in a fight-or-flight mode.

“I see you got my missive. Have a seat.”

Tanya fidgeted for a second but didn’t move. It would be all the reaction he’d get.

“I was wondering why you weren’t responding to my usual messages,” Zuken began, “despite receiving a letter from the Keep stating payment in full with the successful completion of the mission.”

That got a reaction. Tanya stood ramrod straight, her posture stiffened to the point of looking painful. He wondered if his suspicions were true, that she had something to do with Aguilar’s current condition. Though, considering that Aguilar had ended up being tossed out of the Well of Kami, it was possible that she didn’t know what transpired with him.

Unless….

Zuken exhaled. There would be time for speculation later. For now, he needed the facts.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, keeping his tone as genial as possible. “I seem to remember telling you about the changes I made to Iylaerion regarding your new offices. So color me surprised when neither you nor Aguilar turned in, despite the mission being a success.”

A slight twitch in her lips told him he was heading in the right direction.

“Speaking of, where is our mutual friend? I’d have thought Aguilar would have been right behind you. I even warned Togun about his… tendencies, hoping to avoid a conflict. But I don’t see him.”

Tanya opened her mouth to say something, but then apparently decided better.

“Something wrong?” he asked, keeping his tone casual.

“There’s… a problem.”

Zuken nodded slowly. “I’m listening.”

“The mission was a success,” she began, her tone utterly hollow, “Lukas and I took the svartalfar collector with us safely to the borderland, where she wanted to mine for urathril.”

As someone that operated in the Haviskali Underground, he knew just how precious urathril was. It was a metal that the svartalfar kept for themselves, creating some of the strongest weapons the Empire had ever seen. Even the great blade Kusanagi that the God Susanoo claimed for himself had been a svartalf-make, crafted out of pure urathril.

He doubted Aguilar knew that his double-bladed ax had a similar composition, albeit one far diluted in comparison.

“Yes,” Tanya muttered.

“A substantial treasure of urathril. I assume the svartalfar are having a field day.”

“They are, and it’s the substantial treasure that’s the problem.”

Zuken arched an eyebrow.

Tanya exhaled and sat down on the sole remaining chair in the room. “Urathril deposits are usually formed above the magma. Underwater volcanoes, dormant magma pools, that sort of thing. Problem is, those locations are also hounded by troublesome creatures.”

“Ifrit,” Zuken muttered in distaste.

Tanya’s eyes widened in surprise. “You know?”

“I may not look it, but I am a spiritist. It’s common sense to know the types of kami one might encounter or enslave before attempting such an act, right?”

“You’d be surprised,” came the dry response.

“So…. an ifrit.” That was certainly interesting. “I imagine it was a nasty one.”

Tanya snorted mirthlessly. “You have no idea.”

“What happened to it?”

“Lukas fought it. No, he dominated it.”

“Dominated an ifrit,” Zuken mused, his mind returning to the state Aguilar was currently in. “Sounds fascinating. May I ask how he did it?”

“He performed a Shikigami Ritual.”

“…A Shikigami ritual,” he dumbly repeated. He certainly hadn’t expected that. “Are you certain?”

“Well, not exactly a Shikigami ritual. He didn’t use the common pentagram. It looked like a five-pointed star, inscribed in a circle.” She applied a little lifeforce at the tip of her finger and etched the geometrical figure in the air, leaving behind a dazzling white residue.

Zuken stared at the figure in silence, contemplating what he knew about the ritual. Geometry, he had learned at an early age, was a vital part of ritual symbolism. The art of Feng-Shui, used by construction specialists and geomancers in the Asukan Empire, used predetermined shapes to conduct the proper transfer of energy from the suns to ward off evil spirits that might try to corrupt the dwellings at night.

At first sight, there wasn’t much of a difference between the usual pentagram and this new figure. But the more he dwelled upon it, the more differences arose in his mind. The original design worked on focusing the energies of the kami within the five sides, functioning as a sealing contraption that kept the mana from corrupting the rest of the body. The armbands that every adventurer wore had symbolic ties to the design, channeling those energies and moving them around and around, concentrating them, increasing their potency until their eventual release.

This, on the other hand, was different. This design did not focus on sealing, but on harmonizing.

The five-pointed star had its vertices touching the circumcircle as if pouring its energies into the circle. The five vertices were equally spaced out, allowing maximum balancing of the five energies. Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Spirit— all of them releasing their contents into the circle that enclosed them and at the same time, connected the rest of the body with them.

This was a configuration that allowed assimilation of mana into the individual, or as Asukan scholars would say, corruption. If Zuken didn’t know any better, he’d have thought he was seeing the mechanism of how a bremetan could be converted into an oni, through continuous discharge of mana into their bodies and corrupting them from the inside out.

But Lukas Aguilar was no oni. Stubborn or not, he was in complete control of his faculties, mental and physical. In that light, the geometrical figure yielded a whole different meaning.

Harmonization of elemental energies into an individual that could use them directly, without having any effects on the individual’s constitution. Someone who was perfectly well-attuned to wield both lifeforce and mana with equal ease and dexterity.

Like Lukas Aguilar.

“He used this…” Zuken paused. “I imagine you taught it to him? The original ritual?”

Tanya flinched. “Actually. I didn’t.”

“You… didn’t?”

She shook her head.

“Then how did he….”

“I have no clue. All I know is that he etched this onto the ground and then channeled his energies through it, trapping the ifrit inside.”

“And how powerful was this ifrit?”

“Even ignoring elemental vulnerabilities, Ezzeron would have a tough time fighting it.”

Zuken tried very hard not to let his jaw hit the floor. The Wind King’s kami Ezzeron was regarded as one of the mightiest kami in the surrounding kingdoms, if not the Empire itself. It was a pity that Tanya had not leveled enough to allow a complete manifestation of the wind spirit in the real world. Like every other Asukan, she was limited by her soul capacity.

A crippling limitation that did not seem to apply to Aguilar.

And if he had bound the ifrit to himself and was able to use its powers…

“By the Great Goddess, I do not know whether to be exhilarated or terrified.”

“I second that,” Tanya mumbled, “but that’s not the real problem.”

Zuken took a second to decide if asking her was worth the trouble or not. Something told him he was better off not knowing whatever it was she was about to say. He pondered if he should just reveal Aguilar’s body to Tanya first before she could continue her shocking revelations. “Tell me, have you heard of the Kotoamatsukami?”

The three heavenly kami, gods of the kami world, Zuken remembered with a growing sense of horror. He felt a pressing need to take a seat. It was definitely going to be one of those days.