It began to rain unceasingly. At midnight, the end of the Celestial Refraction, the skies opened up and poured down a light drizzle, growing heavier by the hour, until by the end of the day, Yuriko could barely see through the pouring water.

“The garden’s flooded!” Rami complained as he stomped into the kitchen from the backyard, the morning on the 2nd Day of Water.

Yuriko grunted around her toast, shuffled off the kitchen table stool and peeked out of the door. There was about an inch of water over the yard, while the incessant sound of the rain drowned out everything else. The Radiant Sun’s rays felt thin and she missed the warmth.

The vegetable patch looked miserable in its sodden state, and if things continued, she was sure they would wilt. All that effort for extra food would go to waste. What could she do, however?

If they modified the perimeter fence, maybe it would keep the water out, but the problem was the rain, and if the excess can’t exit the yard, it’ll amount to the same thing.

“We need to raise the garden plot,” Ryoko said as she came to the table with a fresh plate of egg toast. “Don’t worry, young master Rami, we’ll take care of it.”

Frowning, Yuriko extended her Animakinesis towards the floodwaters. She managed to scoop up a handful, but just as with her hands, the water dribbled out. It took a bit more focus to make her kinesis grasp the water without it seeping out.

She wandered over to the vegetable plot. Scooping water was one thing, but sheltering herself from the rain was easier. She could already prevent herself from becoming wet even when she swam underwater, so an application that would exclude the water from the plot shouldn’t be difficult, right?

Well, it turned out that even if she fenced the water out, some of it seeped up from the ground. She’d have to stab her Anima into the dirt, and from there, prevent the water from excessively soaking the plots. It took a bit more finagling to do it, and the extended range her Anima received after her foray into the dreamscape helped quite a bit.

She struggled with the task for quite a while. She even forgot the piece of toast hanging from her mouth. For that matter, how could they have toast when all food had been converted to ration bars? Ration bar toast? What miracles had Ryoko wrought? She didn’t even realise when she came downstairs.

Now that she managed to isolate the patch of earth from the flood waters, raising the patch above it was the next step. She pulled out chunks of earth from the surroundings and pushed it under the roots of the vegetables. Soon enough, the vegetable patch was about five inches above the backyard’s ground level, and she hard-packed the dirt to resist erosion.

The problem was that no matter how much she compacted the stuff, it would eventually saturate and become mud. There were a few decorative stones placed at the edges of the yard. She took them, dug out pebbles of all sizes underneath, and used them to shore up the raised plot. She packed the pebbles tight, going so far as to melt the edges to fuse them together. Once she was done, the plot was safe from erosion. At least for the near future.

Her Animakinesis could more easily penetrate the dirt now, taking only about three times as much distance as it could in the open. It meant that her Anima could penetrate more than two paces of dirt and she could perceive, and just as importantly, manipulate, objects buried underneath her, or through walls. “It probably takes more to penetrate stone and metal.” She muttered to herself, “But the efficiency has risen.”

“Big sis…” Rami gave her a blaming look, “It looks ugly.”

“Ehehehe.” Yuriko stuck out her tongue, nearly dropping her toast in the process. Her kinesis caught it before it made a mess. “At least the veggies are safe.”

“Hmph!” Rami snorted, then rounded on Ryoko. “Help me fix the garden!”

“Of course,” Ryoko laughed while giving Yuriko a defeated look.

Marron was by the kitchen table now and was slowly eating his breakfast. Niamh was next to him, spoon-feeding him, despite his protests.

The truce had lasted longer than she expected, but it was making her nervous rather than grateful. What was the Federation army planning?

The rest of the day, other than practising her Radiant Body Refinement, which had gone up to 40%, Yuriko kept watch on top of the observation towers and patrolled along the walls. Nothing happened.

The next day was the same, except that Rami and Ryoko managed to fix the garden’s potholes by transferring soil from elsewhere. Her little brother also beautified the vegetable plot and built a little roof to prevent it from being drowned.

On the 4th Day of Water, Yuriko remained on the observation tower for her shift. The rains had continued, but the council had done something. The Protective Dome, under its low power state, didn’t stop the precipitation, but by increasing the Animus expenditure, the water could be excluded. The Dome now sluiced the rainwater into the moat and the town had finally gotten a reprieve.

The humidity was thick enough to suffocate, at least that’s what she felt like. And on the colder days, fog rolled off the river. Tomorrow was the 5th, the Empire’s Foundation Day, but there were no indications that the Federation would continue to hold back.

Midmorning, Yuriko was surprised to see Heron climbing up the ladder.

“Yuri,” he waved as soon as climbed up.

“Heron,” Yuriko gave him a soft smile. “You’re on break?”

He nodded. “I requested leave. I, er…”

Yuriko raised a questioning eyebrow.

“I wish to follow the Ancient’s Way,” he said in a rush.

Yuriko’s jaw almost fell to her bosom. But she quickly regained her equilibrium. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

There was a bit of conflict on his face, but she felt his eyes were quite resolute.

“I’ll need to examine your physique and see how much work we’ll have to do,” Yuriko muttered.

“Er… alright,” he muttered. Was that a flush on his bronze skin?

Shaking her head, Yuriko enveloped him with her full perception, handily ignoring the more intimate details of his body and focusing on his muscles and bones. Eh? Her gaze lingered on five faint marks on his chest. Weren’t those the scars he got from the Hunter a couple of years ago?

Shaking her head, she determined that he looked to be close to the needed strength and resilience. What he needed was the Body Forging technique specifically tailored for his physique. She still had nearly eight QiRen of Ambrosia, secured in her hip satchel. Making a seed for Heron would take about half a QiRen, or about fifty droplets.

“I’ll give you something tomorrow to start the process. Your physique is in a good state. We can start your Chaos Baptism in a couple of weeks, I think. After you practice Body Forging for that long.”

“I see. Thank you,” he said with a wide smile.

“Mind telling me why?”

“I…I’m not strong enough. It’s that simple. The two of us started at the same point, but look at you now. I want the same. Thank you for giving me the chance.”

“Sure.”

When Yuriko got home that night, she wove a skill seed for Heron. She wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted to accomplish, but a balanced growth similar to hers should be fine. Only…when she took the Ambrosia and wove it with her Animus, her Mien reared up and injected itself into the process.

Eye widening in alarm, Yuriko moved to cut it off, but it was done in the blink of an eye. She examined the thing for several long minutes, but the only thing she saw that was different was the Body Forging’s focus. This one went for resilience of mind and body.

The Ambrosia had already been shaped, so there was no changing it back. After ensuring that there were no threads or chains embedded in the thing, she resolved to give it to him the next day.

And on the dawn of the Empire's Foundation Day, the Federation army resumed their bombardment.

____________

In the midst of the Chaos Sea…

The Chaos Streams swirled in a wide vortex, but unlike one inside a plane, the Chaos vortex’s outer parts swirled faster than the eye. Bubbles of reality, Fysalli, moved along the sides, bobbing up and down as well as side to side. Some Fysalli crumbled from the force, while others changed and adapted.

In the centre of the vortex, a bubble moved against the flow. It wasn’t as large as a typical Fysalli, but the Veil was thicker and more resilient. Time lost meaning as the bubble pushed outwards, and only those who were stuck within it would know how much time passed inside. Eventually, the bubble pushed past the event horizon, and it popped.

Revealing a fleet of Chaos ships.

____________

Inside the bridge of the lead Chaos ship, the Green Swan, Legate Jiro Segawa leaned against the command chair and grumbled complaints to himself.

“How much time did we lose?” he asked out loud.

His Tribunus, Maruko Manuela, frowned as she observed the ship’s instruments. “I can’t tell yet, Legate. There are too many Waypoints between our position and the Rumiga plane.”

“Psha!” Inquisitor Yama Kinohara spat out. “That rotting Chaos storm came out of nowhere! The Temporal anomaly is…” He frowned as his Animus contorted itself into dozens of runescript patterns. “Huh, now that’s odd.”

“What is it, Kinohara? Don’t make me guess,” Jiro grumbled.

The white-haired old man gave him a side-eye. “Why don’t you deploy your Domain and secure the rest of the ships? The Silent Jade Falcon and the Fortuitous Stone are too lumbering and slow. If that storm comes back, they’ll be caught.”

“I don’t need you to remind me, old man,” Jiro snorted.

In truth, he’d already deployed his Domain. Water was ever present, even more so in the Chaos Sea. Nearly every mote of ambient Chaos had water, or the potential for it, locked within. There was water within humans and Chaos Lords too, though some forms of the latter could consist of different elemental energies.

Hence, his dominion of the water element meant that he had dominion over every living thing within longstrides of his position. Of course, if that water was attached to something with its own Will, humans or Chaos Lords, for example, he would have to contest that before he could take control. It was easier to take outside water, turn it into a blade, and stab at the enemy than it was to control the water within them. Still, it could be done. But on a more useful note, he could use his dominion over water for detection. And right now, at the edges of his perception, he could feel lifeforms coming into contact.

They skirted along the edge, as though they could feel him looking, which meant they were capable of perceiving advanced Animus techniques. Which probably meant they were Chaos Lords. Barons, or Viscounts, from the strength of their Wills.

“We’ve got incoming,” he said softly. Then, he grinned at Manuela. “Go send the Colossi. Shake the rust off their skills.”

Maruko gave him an annoyed look. “Can’t you kill them yourself? Writing an after-action report and all that! Too much paperwork!” she grumbled.

Jiro rolled his eyes. “Fine. But find out where and when we are. I’d like to reach Inquisitor Gorlyn as soon as possible.”

Maruko smirked. “Your Will be done.”

Jiro shook his head. The Chaos Lords had grown a bit bolder and had pressed into his Domain. The fact that he hadn’t retaliated or made any sign that he’d noticed them must have prompted this foolishness. He tightened control over his territory and condensed several million Uren of water, more than enough to fill a dozen lakes. He relished the looks of horror on their faces before he crushed them under the enormous pressure until only their Anima remained from their ruined Corpus.

Of those, he plucked several Nyctferrum needles attached to the Green Swan’s hull and used those to stab the Anima amalgamation. The needles disrupted the Chaos that kept their parts stitched together, and the Chaos Lord’s Animas…split apart. Rest and reincarnation for the fragmented Animas.

Jiro only needed to raise his finger, symbolically, to end the threat. But doing everything himself meant that his troops would lose their edge. Only because of their circumstances did he do it now. Otherwise, Knight Domini were better off matched against Chaos Marqui or Dukes.

“Sir,” Maruko said as soon as he relaxed, “I’ve pinpointed our temporal displacement.” Her voice reeked of tension and disbelief. “A year and a half.”

Jiro’s eyes widened and he cursed. “Swarm fodder!”