The afternoon tea with Emyr Kinnock proceeded much as Yuriko expected. He brought her to the Whispering Treat, they ordered a tea set, practically the same one the Esras cousins ordered, and made small talk until they'd finished the course then Emyr popped the question.

“Will you come with me to the Daffodil Cotillion?”

“Ah,” Yuriko stuttered despite expecting the question. “Well, yours is the fifth invitation I’ve received.”

“Just five? I find that hard to believe.”

“Five is what it is,” Yuriko chuckled, “and even then, I’m not sure I’ll say yes. Master Nuada never said that an escort was required.”

Emyr raised his eyebrow and snorted. He held his teacup daintily with his thumb and forefinger while keeping his little finger extended. The pinky was for when he lowered his cup to the saucer, to make sure that the porcelain wouldn’t clink.

“While that’s true, you’ll be paired off with those who don’t have a partner if you attend the cotillion without one. So you might as well pick one instead of getting a random person.”

Yuriko nodded thoughtfully while they finished the tea set and bid each other goodbye. She gave Emyr a firm response though.

“Thank you for the offer but I’ll have to decline.”

“I see. Perhaps another time?”

“Perhaps.”

Yuriko waved goodbye as Emyr headed to Learner’s Pass. Her route took her through the Central Reserve. She trailed behind a group of girls who looked like they were in their second year or so. They were talking in loud voices, gossiping from what she inadvertently overheard. She brushed past them since they were slow.

“...oh look, it’s that jade grubber I’ve seen her at the Treat with quite a few boys, Kinnock and Esras.”

“Seriously? She’s playing both factions? Well, she looks nice but is her lineage that good?”

“Who knows. Hie hie, I wonder if she’s aiming to be a consort…”

She fought down the urge to spin on her heels and confront them. While she didn’t care much about reputation, she wouldn’t suffer such attacks. Still, confronting them, satisfying as it may be, would probably do little more than fan the flames. And they were already gossiping about somebody else by the time she moved out of sight.

She headed straight back to her room and fished Fri’Avgi out from under her hiding place under the bed. The weapon sent a warm pulse through her hand, a feeling of trust and protectiveness, as well as a desire to stay with her bonded.

“How?” Yuriko muttered.

From Damien, she knew that there was a way to dematerialise the artefact. She vaguely remembered her dream coma and their short talk in the dreamscape confirmed it. But of course, he didn’t tell her how.

“How do I take you with me?”

She could feel Fri’Avgi pulling at her Animus strands and she let her. Yuriko relaxed her control over her Anima and the golden flames covered the entire length of Fri’Avgi. Letting the artefact control her strands felt strange, like someone moving her hands for her. The instinct to take back control was there and she pulled the strands out of Fri’Avgi’s figurative hands more than once. They did it over a couple more times before Yuriko mastered her reflexes.

The strands crawled up the hilt, going through a labyrinthine set of lines that hid under the surface. There were a dozen of them that she could make out. Fri’Avgi moved her through one of the lines as it twisted around the hilt, doubling back to the pommel before ending up in the weapon’s core, the red gem set in the crossguard.

Yuriko closed her eyes and focused on the sensations. She couldn’t see through her Animus strands, but she could feel them. Her mind knew where the strands were as easily as knowing where her hands and feet were without looking.

The strands were looping around a central axis, a glimmering seed in the midst of a maelstrom of light. Fri’Avgi released her control and almost immediately, Yuriko felt the strands start to tangle up.

The spinning subjected her strands to forces that made it jiggle, and with the variance, it touched and clung to itself. It would eventually turn into a tangled knot if she did nothing. Following instinct, she drove the tip down into the seed, struggling against what felt like hurricane-force winds.

Closer, go closer!

She gritted her teeth, held her breath and pushed as hard as she could. The tip moved ever so slightly closer to the seed.

What this would accomplish, she didn’t quite know, but she felt that it would be a good thing. Ever since she held Fri’Avgi, she felt it had a consciousness. Perhaps the core held it. Once she connects to it, she should be able to find out more of the artefact’s secrets.

The Seeker of Delight’s words back in Shillogu Woods stung her.

“You don’t even know how to use Fri’Avgi properly.”

What was the artefact? A tool? A weapon? It was more. She knew this but she couldn’t treat the greatsword as anything more than a big side-blade. Her blades rarely lasted more than a few skirmishes and she knew that the greatsword would be her weapon for the entirety of her life.

The strand pushed closer. The winds. She couldn't move past the winds!

Thock, thock, thock.

The noise jolted her out of her meditations and her strands tangled hopelessly into a snarl worse than when Hunter Kitty managed to get to a skein of yarn she used to practice knitting. With an annoyed sigh, she cut off the strand, allowing the Animus to dissolve into ambient Chaos before the tangle could draw more out of her reserves. She’d lost about a fifth of her reserves just then.

“Who is it?” she called out as she exited her bedroom.

“It’s Krystal. Come on, Yuri, it’s time for dinner!”

“Ah, yeah.” Scratching her head in frustration, she went to the living room and opened the front door. “Hi, Krys.”

“Are you alright?” Krystal lowered her hand to her side and cocked her head. “You look, er, discomfited.”

“Just worried thoughts.” Yuriko shrugged. “Come on, I’m hungry.”

Afterwards, she sequestered herself back in her room. After spending some time eating and relaxing she was in a better frame of mind to control her Animus strands. She allowed Fri’Avgi to draw her into the red gem. It took her almost until midnight to use up all of her reserves and she was no closer to success than the first time she tried. With an exhausted breath, she returned Fri’Avgi to her hiding place and settled to rest.

The next day, she pushed herself as hard as she could in training, adding another ten Jin to the backpack she wore as she did her exercises. She’d pushed herself until sweat poured down her face and her legs and sides started cramping. A spate of Recovery took care of both the fatigue and pain afterwards but she ate through five servings of breakfast.

The cafeteria lady behind the counter stared at her with an odd look then said, “Hoping to grow fat round your chest?”

Yuriko’s face reddened but she stammered out, “Hungry from training.”

“Ah, those will go there then,” the woman said with a knowing wink.

Back at her table, Krystal muttered, “You’re nuts, Yuri. You don’t have to hurry so much, you know.”

“I train hard but I don’t think I could even do half of what you do,” Danika said incredulously.

“You know why, Krys,” Yuriko said.

“Yeah, but honestly Yuri, you won’t make Knight in a couple of years even if you try your hardest. That’s the minimum you need in the Chaos Sea.”

“Don’t you want to enjoy campus life?” Maryn asked, bemused. “You worked hard to be here, but you barely do anything other than attend class and train. Come on, Yuri, how about giving it a rest? Come with us this Sixthday evening. Let’s go dancing!”

“Uh, where?”

“The Blue Butterfly Inn along 3rd Avenue. There’s music and dancing in the common room there every night. Zeyn took me there last week. Lots of kids our age go there after class ends for fun.”

Yuriko glanced at Krystal who grinned. “Well, I could use a break from everything Agaza’s making us do.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun!” Maryn insisted.

“I suppose.” Yuriko surmised. “Well, I was planning on more training, but I suppose a break would put me in a better frame of mind.”

“Great! Just a girls’ night then!”

“You’re not asking the boys to go with us?”

Maryn shrugged. “Won’t be fair to these three.”

Ishika punched Maryn’s shoulder.

“Hie hie.”

The rest of the week was much the same. Every night, Yuriko tried to bond deeper with Fri’Avgi, but ultimately failed to access the seed core. Her other training paid off wonderfully though.

She asked Kale to spar with her one afternoon by sending him a messenger crane and the two of them met in Agaza’s gymnasium. There they crossed training blades.

“You’ve gotten much stronger,” Kale yelped when she easily overpowered him when they locked blades.

“I advanced.”

“Ah, of course. Well then, time to stop holding back,” he replied gleefully.

Yuriko’s eyes widened as his crimson Animus covered his body and his power increased twofold. It was all Yuriko could do to stop him from knocking her several paces back with a single swing.

“That’s more like it!” he roared as he lunged, planting his feet and swinging horizontally.

Yuriko’s Anima erupted as her control slipped, coating her in golden flames. Just as the wooden blade touched the edge of her Anima, it slowed dramatically. The force still transmitted to her but she was easily able to shed it with a couple of steps. The sword dance’s pattern circulated in her body, transitioning to the third. Jagged spikes of golden light coated her blade as she swung.

Kale jumped back, his reflexes also improving dramatically.

Yuriko’s dance shifted to the second and her body practically moved without her conscious control, ducking and sidestepping, while thrusting with the greatsword.

The gap between their physiques wasn’t wide to begin with, and at the start she was the one in the lead. But when Kale activated his Boost, the gap reversed and she was the one on the back foot.

They exchanged several blows, Kale using his superior speed, strength, and skill to batter down her defences and soon, she was at the edge of the sparring ring. With another swing that suddenly transitioned into a thrust, Kale drove her out of bounds.

He spun his blade above his head before grounding it and gave her an insouciant grin.

Yuriko sighed and gestured to the middle of the ring. “Another match?”

“Of course.” Kale carried his training blade over his shoulder. “I must say I’m enjoying our matches. I didn’t think I would need to exert myself sparring with someone two years my junior, hahaha!”

Yuriko shrugged. “Well, none of my peers gives me a challenge on the sparring ring and I don’t really know anyone from the second year.”

“There are only a few people hoping to become an Armsmaster,” Kale said while he put himself into a ready stance. “Most Agazans don’t have a weapon-focused Facet unlike the two of us.”

Yuriko sidestepped his vertical slash, the tip of the blade pausing a couple of inches from the floor and abruptly transitioning to a sideways swing. She parried it, angled her blade and pushed off at the right moment to make it slice above her head. She lunged and attempted a pommel strike, though he managed to reposition his crossguard to block her. Still, the force of her blow made him stagger a couple of steps back.

She used the first dance since Kale’s defences were such that he could easily ameliorate a powerful blow as long as he was ready. They fought for more than an hour until they were the last ones left in the gymnasium and the sun set on the western mountains.

“Well, I think we should finish,” Kale said, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. Sweat made his training shirt cling to his skin outlining the shape of his torso. “It’s getting late and my mum will miss me for dinner.”

“Oh, apologies for keeping you here,” Yuriko said. Her back was soaked in sweat too, and her shirt clung to her front. She could feel his eyes on her skin, and it made her heart flutter oddly.

“No matter, it was quite enjoyable. Tomorrow?”

“Firstday, if you please,” Yuriko smiled. “I’ve an engagement tomorrow evening.”

“Ah, yes. Sixthday evenings. Huh, I haven’t been out on evenings in a long while.”

Yuriko shrugged, “Well, perhaps I’ll see you about town.”

“Perhaps.”

“Thank you for teaching me, Senior Kinnock.”

“Oh, call me Kale. We’ve been through an action. No need for formality since we’re not in the same battle group.”

“Then thank you, Kale, for teaching me Sweeping Wind and for sparring with me.”

“You’ve learned quickly. A few more sessions and we can start on the second form.”

“I look forward to it.”

They parted ways at the entrance of Vinze Hall. Yuriko waved goodbye as she left down the Academic Roundabout. The Season of Air’s evening breeze was cold, but it felt wonderful against her flushed skin.