The sunblade shards responded to Yuriko’s slightest impulse. As soon as she saw the ice and fire arrows, the shards revolving protectively around her shot up into the sky and smashed apart the falling Animus projectiles.

Haxe had pushed off against the ground and created distance while Rhain was bloody and beaten, but his eyes still shone with avarice, riveted to Fri’Avgi. His control over the leaves hadn’t been broken and they continually danced around him. Every time a shard slashed or burned a leaf, another would take its place.

Worse, she wasn’t the only focus of his spell. Shards of bark and roots entangled and pierced Lucentians at the front, or tried to drown the L’tik and Buwak on the shores. A quick survey showed Otlaca and Irseso blasting away at the Vizugmon regulars. Their frantic movement belied desperation as they sought to deal as much damage as they could before the Tiathans came closer.

There was no retreat for them now. The camp was just a couple hundred paces back. With all of its fortifications and weapons. Wait…

“Fall back to the camp!” Yuriko yelled, but of course, the Lucentians didn’t listen.

She wasn’t their commander, and the two Elders were too preoccupied. Gritting her teeth, she resolved to incapacitate or kill Rhain and Haxe before the two humans arrived. A tall order, she knew. They were already close enough to attack.

All this ran through her head even as her voice hung in the air. She flared her Anima and a burst of confidence shot into her mind. She could do it. She would win.

“Go!” she yelled, prompting the shards still harrying Rhain to redouble its attacks.

Strike left, draw the defences that way. Attack right while there’s an opening! Cut the leg, cut the arm, strike down the leaves and roots. Quick hit and run tactics, the first dance infused into the shards.

But the swirling leaves had too much volume. There was no way to draw all the defences in one direction as there were hundreds more than the three shards she focused on him. Then, there was only one thing to do.

Yuriko held Fri’Avgi over her head and charged. Rhain’s face paled in fright, but he stood his ground. His hands fluttered as his fingers danced. The leaves flurried towards her, but any that came close were intercepted by the four shards or the defensive rays coming from Fri’Avgi’s gem. She smashed the artefact down, aiming to cut him in twain.

“Grah!” Rhain dove to his left, rolling into a heap.

Swish!

A shard pierced a Tigris man’s head as he tried to stab Yuriko with his pike.

Snick!

Another shard cut off a Kutin woman’s arms, then the metal string of her crossbow. The bolt flew off and buried into a tree trunk.

Yuriko sent more shards at Rhain, abandoning the defensive ones. She held Fri’Avgi broadside across her chest and focused on controlling the sunshards. She felt the connection to them, but her vision remained centred around herself. She didn’t know how far they could go, but it wouldn’t matter if she couldn’t see them. Her spatial awareness regarding the shards was far from perfect.

She drove them to stab into the Sorcerer, but he covered himself with a wall of leaves. The shards burned them, but not quickly enough. And the blackish smoke covered her vision.

Then, it was too late.

“Hiyaa!”

The human with the fireballs revolving around his head jumped in between Rhain and Yuriko, and swiped a sword at her. She jumped back just enough to let the tip of the blade come within a hair’s breadth from touching her Anima, then countered with a swipe. The man, who had dark hair and grey eyes and a sardonic smirk, met Fri’Avgi’s blow by blasting it with blue flame. The fire clung to the Animus blade and started sizzling, while she kept the pressure.

Whoosh!

An icy lance came from the right.

Crack!

A sunshard met it point to point, and they deflected off each other. The human woman, with blue hair and eyes, was just a dozen paces away. She pulled her arm over her shoulder even as a spear, no, an icicle javelin formed between her fingers. With a thought, Yuriko sent a shard to spike the woman and the other ducked out of the way, though not before throwing her weapon. It flew wide, sticking into the dirt behind.

The man leapt back while Yuriko was distracted.

“Looks like you’ve got your hands full!” He grinned at the Sorcerer who glared back with animosity.

“Just shut up and attack, you lump!”

“Hiek hiek!” the man laughed.

He held out both hands towards Yuriko, palms facing outwards. The balls of fire rushed to his palms and converged. In the blink of an eye, they started to combine and elongate.

Yuriko wasn’t about to stand there and let him complete whatever he wanted to do. She sent five shards towards them, three aimed at Rhain and the other two and the fire wielder.

Shards of ice blocked the sunshards, and they didn’t erupt into steam. In fact, the sunshard’s glow dimmed when they came into contact.

“None of that now.” the woman scoffed. Both of their Wojan was fluent, though there was a strange accent Yuriko couldn’t place.

“Who are you?” Yuriko asked as she took a step back, making sure that all three of them were within her visual range. Oh, and Haxe too. Where was he?

The rushing wind from behind was her only warning. That and the other three attacked her within an instant of each other. Yuriko followed her instinct and spun in a circle, with Fri’Avgi held out. The second dance combined with the fourth caused the artefact to form afterimages, then, an instant later, each of the images acted independently.

One afterimage smashed aside the shards of ice, one blocked the fireball. Another cut the vines creeping up towards her foot, and the last swatted Haxe into the air. Except, these weren’t separate bodies. They were all Yuriko.

In her perception, time slowed to a crawl while her body moved at its usual speed. She blocked each of the attacks and counterattacked, and each happened nearly simultaneously. But the cost to her Animus was great. Every action drained several lumens, and by the time she had defended herself, a quarter was gone. But she wasn’t finished.

But…the first step she took towards the Sorcerer drained just as much Animus as her defence did. If she took two more, her entire reserves would drain away and she’d be helpless! Reluctantly, Yuriko released the fourth dance.

At once, the effects of her actions happened. The ice shards shattered, the fireball exploded away from her, the creepers were sliced to ribbons, and Haxe catapulted away.

The three humans’ jaws dropped in surprise, but the woman quickly recovered. Rhain and the fireboy were still staring at her when the ice queen blasted her with a gust of freezing wind.

With an angry swing, Yuriko turned Fri’Avgi’s blade into an enormous fan and disrupted the wind, even as she sent the shards over and behind.

The woman’s ice mirrors, each the size of a buckler and there were three of them, interposed. But three mirror shields cannot block seven shards, not when they come from different directions. Only one made it through as the shields swept more than one away, and that one impacted against the middle of the woman’s forehead.

Her head snapped back and she collapsed in a heap. There was no blood though, and from the impact point, billows of steam rose. Of the shard, there was nothing left, and Yuriko caught a glimpse of shattered ice. Somehow, the woman had created a layer of hard ice between her forehead and the attack. But while that spared her from suddenly having a third eye, the force had knocked her silly.

That seemed to shake some sense into the men. Yuriko didn’t stop advancing, and now they were within a single lunge from being cut in twain. The fireboy gestured and flames in the shape of a serpent, its body as thick as her wrist, shot out from his palm. Yuriko desperately called the shards back, but only a single one was quick enough to interpose.

The fire snake skidded off the shard, but it twisted in the air and struck her. Her golden Anima sparked as it resisted the heat and impact. Yuriko gritted her teeth and pressed on, swinging Fri’Avgi in a brutal arc. The man yelped and dove to the side, but Rhain, who was her real target, got blindsided even as he tried to cast another spell.

Fri’Avgi’s blade cut into his arm and continued on. Bone and muscle were sheared off, the dismembered left hand spun in the air. The green creepers he used to close and protect his wounds slithered out of his torso and entangled the artefact greatsword only to be cut when they touched the Animus blade projected from the blunt edges.

Still, it was enough to save his life, if not his hand. The creepers squished together and green Animus pooled out of the vines. This turned the sharp edge dull enough that his chainmail and leather spread the cutting force. Rhain took the force of the slash to his side and it blew him into the air, spinning in a deceptively slow cartwheel.

“Rhain!” The man yelled.

His fist clenched and the fire snake redoubled its efforts to penetrate her Anima shell. She felt the pressure of the bite, and the intense heat that would melt her skin the moment it touched her. But the Sorcerer was almost done for.

Shards of her sunblade caught up to her and she sent three of the remaining five towards the flying Sorcerer, and the other two toward the fireboy’s eyes. With a frightened yelp, the man threw his hands up and the shards punctured his forearms. Blood turned to steam and jetted out of the wounds and the scent of roasting meat lingered in the air. The scent, so close to her favourite meal, sickened her to her toes and she almost threw up then and there.

Rhain was too confused and stunned by his grave wound. Too shocked to even notice death coming for him. The first shard pierced into his leg. The second one hit his hip, and the third started to cut into the chainmail above his heart.

It was then that a flower of ice blossomed between her and Rhain. For a moment, Yuriko was struck with the beauty of the frozen tulip. Then it shattered and spread razor-sharp shards of ice. It pierced into her Anima, the opposing nature of her flame-like Anima and the freezing ice allowed it to bypass most of her protection. Sharp fragments cut the sleeve of her Dougi into ribbons. But her skin was tough enough that they didn’t even scratch.

The moment she lost sight of her sunshards was the moment they lost forward momentum. Or perhaps they reached their absolute range. Either way, the wounded Sorcerer bounced off the ground and rolled away. Before she could take a step, nearly a dozen warriors, humans and feline-kin alike, threw themselves bodily to block her path. Still, there were three more troubling foes nearby.

“You rotting girl!” the woman screamed even as she formed a spear of ice and charged at her.

The man’s grin had turned into a deep frown as sweat streamed down his cheeks. The firesnake had turned from blue to orange and the heat had diminished, but it was inching ever closer to Yuriko.

Then, with a flash of inspiration, Yuriko swiped at the man to fend him off, then twisted and deflected the woman’s spear to strike at the firesnake. That should put it out!

The woman’s mocking grin startled Yuriko, and the ice lance passed through the snake without extinguishing it. The tip of the lance pierced through the shell, and only a frantic twist managed to bring Fri’Avgi to bear. The point skidded up and over the broad blade, and drew a line of pain as it skipped past her cheek.

Fear and anger in equal measure coursed through her mind and her eyes burned with golden flame. As the woman recovered her thrust, Yuriko lunged then planted a foot into the ice queen’s abdomen.

“Argh!”

Yuriko’s strength outstripped the woman’s by an order of magnitude and she flew back a dozen paces. Then, she focused her attention on the firesnake that was still gnawing on her Anima shell. She smashed it to pieces with Fri’Avgi.

Four enemies that had the same level of power as her and all of them had been repelled. One or two gravely wounded. Yuriko’s hands tightened on Fri’Avgi’s hilt. The Anima Telum had been the reason why she could fight against them so easily. A part of her mind resented it. Her strength wasn’t enough and she had to rely on a weapon. But another part whispered that Fri’Avgi would not work for anyone but her, and the Telum was already part of her strength.

No, now wasn’t the time to think of such things. Yuriko regulated her breathing. The brief minutes of heavy combat tired her more than running and training for hours on end, and things were far from over.

Worse, she could feel a powerful gaze on her back, and she didn’t know where it was coming from.