Yuriko barely kept herself awake during History class. It was with the rest of the first-year students of Sharom so there were about one hundred thirteen-year-old boys and girls in a single lecture room with the lone professor whose voice, unforutnately, droned monotonously.

Half of their first class was spent with each student introducing themselves then the instructor started talking about the Empire’s history, specifically the founding days. Normally, this would have been a rather exciting lecture, save for the fact that it was basically a repeat of last year’s history classes back in Faron’s Crossing.

The Empire began after the Shattering of the Planes when the God-kings of old warred: whether it was with each other or with the Chaos Lords, it wasn’t truly known. All they knew of it was from the Empress: that there were many enemies and no single group caused the entirety of the war. The God-king artefacts were tools by the inexplicably powerful God-kings, thus making them the property of the Empire. The God-kings were so powerful that they could bend reality to their will as easily as Yuriko could control her Animus.

What made the God-kings? Yuriko wondered. Such power couldn’t have sprung from nothing. Unless they were Chaos Lords. But why would they war with the Chaos? And they lived in the planes, something the Chaos dwellers hated.

Either way, the God-kings had died off, to each other or to their enemies, or possibly from when the gigantic origin plane broke apart. Who knew? Well, the Empress did but she wasn’t telling.

Class couldn’t end sooner for Yuriko and when it did, she bolted outside. She was already halfway to the Golden Willow when Orrin caught up with her.

“Hey, Yuri!” he greeted brightly. “Headed back to the Willow?”

“Yeah. I need to finish the book.”

“What is it anyway?”

“The Treatise on Chaos and Will.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’ve seen that yet.”

“I have to finish the first part by tomorrow.” Yuriko shrugged. They reached Central Reserve Avenue and Yuriko turned left. Orrin followed behind her. “Aren’t you heading back to the Oak?”

“Weren’t we playing Tracer?”

“After dinner?”

“Oh, I thought we could, er, spend some time together?”

“What about Braden?” she asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Er, he’ll come to the Willow later.”

“Ah. Hmm, I still have to finish reading, so don’t distract me, please.”

“Why don’t we go to the strip instead? There’s a place there called the Nook. They serve tea and have books the patrons can read. It’s a pretty tranquil place.”

“I was planning on staying in my room, actually,” Yuriko said. “I’ll see you after dinner instead, Orrin. For the game.”

“Oh, sure.” He visibly wilted. “Then, I’ll see you later?”

“Yes.” She waved goodbye.

She glanced back at the curve and saw that Orrin was still standing there while other students walked past him. He started when he met her eyes, blushed, gave a quick wave, spun on his heels and left.

When Yuriko returned to her room, she latched the door shut, dumped her things on the sofa and hurried to the bathroom to wash up and change her clothes. When she was done, she headed back to the living room, opened the windows to let the breeze in, and began reading.

She struggled through the second half of the first chapter, unable to continuously read it. She grew nauseated after a couple of paragraphs and only a copious amount of chamomile tea helped with her headache.

“Why is this so hard!” she growled to herself.

I don’t know. Maybe you’re reading it wrong.

What, was she supposed to read it bottom to top, or maybe from the centre of the page and spiral outwards?

Or, use your Animus to see through the interference.

Right, use her enhance senses technique to read something that was less than a pace away.

Try it.

Fine.

She channelled some Animus into her eyes, with the Intent of seeing clearly. It didn’t quite work as she expected though. Her eyes weren’t impaired in any way and she could easily read the small letters on the wall ten paces away without resorting to using Animus. What was it that made her head hurt when she read this book?

It wasn’t the cramped letters though those weren’t easy on her eyes either. She used enhanced senses to magnify her vision before and it didn’t help. The contents of the book weren’t that hard to grasp. Amafi Garderon wrote that there was practically no difference between the composition of ambient Chaos and Animus. They were identical.

The only difference was that Animus existed within one’s Anima, drawn thereafter as someone breathes in the ambient Chaos. From there it changes to match that person’s Anima qualities, and that allows the Anima to infuse Intent and Willpower into the Animus.

Yuriko blinked as she read on. Her mind was oddly clear. She didn’t even notice it but her Animus had circulated a little pattern between her eyes. The haze the words created…the headache-inducing pattern, it was clear.

“What is this?”

An ill-conceived test. Probably.

Yuriko slammed the book shut with a grunt. After she saw through the runescript hidden in the letters, words, and even spaces, it was an easy enough read. She wondered if it was the original author’s idea or Master Alfein’s. Well, she would find out in class tomorrow. But who knew that Danika, Heron, and Zeyn had been right during the Atavism Ritual when they said that Animus had something to do with Chaos.

Yuriko felt a little ill at ease at the thought though.

Well, she was done with her reading and feeling much more refreshed, she wandered to Krystal’s room and dragged her out to have dinner at the cafeteria. Her friend looked exhausted.

“Don’t you wish you joined me in more training?” Yuriko asked with a smirk. “You wouldn’t suffer like this if you did.”

“Yeah, instead, I would have suffered more in your hands,” Krystal shot back..

“She’s trained that much?” Danika asked dubiously. The stocky girl with chin-length blonde hair flexed her biceps at them. Unlike Yuriko’s arm, Danika’s muscles were much more defined.

“Oh, yeah!” Krystal shook her head. “Take our current PT and double it. That’s how much Yuriko trains every day.”

Danika looked at Yuriko from head to toe and back. “You’re kidding! I mean look at her. She looks so scrawny!”

“I’m right here, you know!”

“No offence,” Danika said offhandedly.

“Well, go wrestle and figure out who’s stronger,” Krystal said crossly.

“Well? Wanna have a go?” Danika smirked. “Let’s do it before we fill our bellies. Come on. I don’t believe you’re stronger than me.”

“I guess we could,” Yuriko said doubtfully, “but I’m not trained in wrestling techniques or much of unarmed combat, really.”

“Well, I’ve seen you practice with your swords and while I’ll admit you’re better with those, we’re talking about sheer muscular strength here.”

“Well, Yuriko’s just as much of a musclehead as you are,” Maryn sniggered.

“Am not!”

“Well, let’s have a go at the courtyard!” Danika challenged again.

“Fine, fine, Yuriko sighed. “You won’t stop until I agree, I suppose.”

“Alright!”

Thankfully, Yuriko had put on a pair of loose slacks and a comfy tee shirt, so she had no problem with a little tussle. The courtyard was nearly empty as it was the dinner hour, though there were a couple of senior girls reading on the bench under the lamppost.

Ishika, Maryn, Millie, and Krystal watched with amusement as Danika and Yuriko squared off at a clearing. The grass was cut short there but it was still nice and springy.

“First to knock down or push out of the circle,” Danika declared.

The other four girls surrounded them, leaving a space about five paces across. Danika was still shorter than Yuriko by about an inch or so but she was half again as wide. Danika held out both hands up, palms facing outwards.

Yuriko stepped closer, holding out her hands so they could grab each other. As soon as both palms touched, Danika grasped her and attempted a pull. Yuriko staggered a step forward but managed to brace herself before she lost her balance.

Danika grunted and attempted to push her backbut instead, she managed to push herself back when Yuriko didn’t move.

“What?” she yelped.

This time, Yuriko pulled the other girl, leaning back and stomping her foot, pivoted and catapulted the stocky blonde out of the circle. Danika’s feet left the grass for a moment and when her feet made contact with the ground, she was already out of the circle.

“No fair!” Danika wailed.

“You lost fairly,” Krystal said easily. “See, both of you are muscleheads.”

“Krys...” Yurikko growled.

“Eh? Ow!” Before Krystal could react, Yuriko already pinched her side and twisted.

“Stop saying that!”

“But iz twu!”

“No it’s not!”

“Hie hie!”

“Urgh! Let’s go eat. I’m hungry.”

“But how?” Danika said once they were headed to the cafeteria.

“My Facet let me activate Strengthen Physique a while back, so it’s that, I guess.”

“Oh, well, yeah, that’s not fair.”

“You’re welcome to join my morning training if you’d like. I get up half an hour before dawn to run.”

“Fine, let’s see if your training is as hard as Agaza’s.”

Dinner was the same variation as what they had the week before. Meatloaf with gravy, sauteed mushrooms and garlic, roasted potatoes, and chilled sweet tea. When she finished, she headed out to the dormitory lounge and found Orrin and Braden standing near the reception counter.

Yuriko waved to them and the three of them went to the corner where the board games were. Golden Willow’s Tracer Board was a newer model with more nodes than the one in the Watchtower. Still, that only made it easier for Yuriko to beat the twins. They played about eight games before she called it quits.

“Nice game.” She smiled at both of them. Orrin was staring forlornly at the board.

“Indeed.” Braden shrugged. “Here’s our forfeit.” He handed over a small box.

“Is this?”

“A chocolate truffle,” Braden grinned. “Found some in the shop and thought we’d give it to you since you loved them so much.”

“But…”

“No buts, we insist. Good night, Yuri.”

Braden and Orrin gave her a small bow and waved goodbye. Yuriko stared at the box for a long while, feeling her mouth salivate. She shook her head and waved goodbye.

In her room, she placed it next to her bed, not quite sure what to think. Chocolate was exorbitantly expensive and they just gave another to her? She settled in for the night, activating her Facet right after she turned off the lights. There wasn’t anything new being shown but it was reassuring to watch the Golden Silhouette perform the dances for her. Well, nothing new, but the dances were adapted to each weapon system she practised with and then once more after everything was done, showing only the intrinsic part of the circulation pattern.

However, Yuriko found her own practice stagnating. There was only so much she could do practising by herself. She needed to test her skills against a skilled opponent or maybe use it in a real fight. Her experiences during the training camp had been quite fruitful despite the danger. She was confident that, if anything similar happens in the near future, she would be able to hold her own.

Of course, that didn’t include fighting another Chaos Lord. That was a fluke and she used an artefact, too. Fri’Avgi rushed to the forefront of her mind and she realized she’d barely given the Anima Telum any thought for the past weeks.

‘I wonder if Fri’Avgi’s in the Watchtower with Marron? Well, she should be in good hands.’ Absence either made the heart grow fonder or made it forget entirely, Yuriko thought in her half-asleep state. In its own way, Fri’Avgi had a will of its own and she felt it during the times she used the greatsword in battle and during meditation. She had felt warmth and fondness, as well as a fierce desire to protect and strengthen. Why, she felt almost as if Fri’Avgi spoke in her mind a few times.

She chuckled to herself. Well, there’s no way the artefact that was more than a hundred leagues away would be able to speak to her mind now. Which did beg the question, who or what was it that was offering its insights as a voice in her mind just a few hours ago?

Her eyes shot open and suddenly, she wasn’t so sleepy anymore.