By the time a huffing Gwendith managed to arrive on the hilltop where the army had set up, the battle was already concluding. She stifled her irritation as she surveyed the utter devastation her beloved had caused.

There were clouds of ash from the disintegrating daemon apes, as well as a few infantry corpses littered on the slopes. Once she used Enhanced Senses, she was able to discern what was happening on the opposite hilltop. The two crests’ elevation was only within a couple of paces of each other, so she couldn’t see deeply into the top, however, what she saw were mostly ash piles and kneeling Confederate soldiers with their hands behind their heads. Their rifles, bombs, and sidearms were piled in a heap.

Yuriko’s presence was unmistakable. Her Anima glowed and covered a huge space, sixty paces wide. It was more than enough to cover a third of the hillside. Amidst the golden glow, streaks of golden light flew and struck from above. Yuriko’s sunshards were as glorious as always, and Gwendith couldn’t help but sigh in admiration. Her own meagre skill with frost blades was but a pale imitation, although she had made inroads with making the skill completely hers. The key, she knew, was not complete mimicry but using what she could and substituting her own power. Her Ennoia was one of heat and cold—two sides of the same coin. She didn’t know anyone else who used the same concept, so she was incredibly surprised to find out that her thinking was not only common here in Karcellia, but was actually one of the foundations of their sciences. She spent several weeks just studying their science journals and textbooks, and that knowledge had broadened her horizons.

Still, just because Karcellian sciences worked here didn’t mean that it was universal everywhere else. Perhaps the physical laws were the baseline, but then, the density of Chaos altered such things so that what was right would eventually become left. Or maybe even up or down, heh.

“If we let Magus Davar loose against the Confederate forces, I think the war would be over in short order,” Douglas Hart murmured, and the stunned soldiers around them nodded in agreement.

Gwendith snorted, and Heron laughed. “Aye, but this isn’t our war. And Yuri wouldn’t want to kill humans indiscriminately.”

“True,” Douglas answered. “But soldiers are soldiers.”

Gwendith frowned at Douglas’ sentiments, but she supposed that was true enough. Soldiers in Irvalla had to follow their officers’ commands even if they didn’t completely agree. Ah, but she’d also read of mutinies and rebellions in their history books, so not everyone would follow without thinking. So perhaps, they weren’t so different after all.

Boom!

The hillside shuddered as a dust cloud rose from the opposing hilltop. Flames raged and Yuriko’s sunshards danced. Her beloved had already moved deeper into enemy lines, but something must have gotten her really agitated. She could see bodies flying, both human and those blood-red monkeys.

Bra-koom!

Another large explosion and it wasn’t just bodies flying, but also dirt and boulders. Gwendith and the others waited on the hilltop, with very few of them daring to wade into the carnage. Soon enough, the quaking settled down and Yuriko walked out of the enemy fortifications. Even from here, Gwendith could tell she was upset, and though she wanted to rush downhill, she opted to wait.

The soldiers on this side began to advance, and with no counterfire appearing, they hurried across the valley.

By the time Yuriko climbed up the hill, most of the infantry had charged over, followed by a couple of fellows in an automobile that somehow managed to go down the hillside without toppling over.

“What is it?” Heron asked as soon as Yuriko came within earshot.

“The daemons opened a rift to let in more of them.”

Gwendith said, “You stopped them?”

“Of course,” Yuriko nodded, “but…” She pursed her lips. “I think that’s what the beachheads are for.”

“What, to open rifts to where daemons come from?” Douglas gasped, his tone unbelieving.

“Yes,” Yuriko said. “I’ve closed the rift by killing the daemons, but I left most of the runescript circle alone. I removed the links that transferred Animus though, so it shouldn’t activate. Nevertheless, have your mages look them over.”

“Uhm,” Douglas coughed. “I’ll need to report that. Dar, you mind looking at the circle?”

“Sure, I don’t mind,” Darren answered easily, “but only if teacher’s around.” She grinned.

Gwendith knew of her true gender since Yuriko told her, but she hadn’t informed anyone else, nor acted differently around Darren.

“I don’t mind,” Yuriko answered, “and perhaps we can work on your Animus techniques while we’re at it.”

Darren visibly paled and stammered, “Ah, yes.”

Gwendith stifled a giggle and rounded on Yuriko. “Yuri…do you mind leaving enemies to fight for the rest of us?”

“Yeah,” Sheamus piped in from behind. “It's getting boring, you know.”

“Ehehehe,” Yuriko laughed awkwardly.

“Oh, Yuri…” Gwendith sighed.

“Buuuut!” she protested. “The soldiers needed help!”

“Sure.”

“Really! I didn’t want people to die unnecessarily.”

“Thanks a lot!” One of the soldiers who’d been eavesdropping yelled happily.

“You’re welcome! Oh, what news about the southern beachhead?” Yuriko asked.

“Nothing yet. Are you going to go?”

“Hmmm, not until we secure this site.”

Gwendith pursed her lips as something occurred to her. “Yuri, what about the northern one? Do you think they’ll be able to stop the daemons in time?”

Yuriko shook her head, “I’m not sure, and we won’t know until word comes back. If they fail…well, then we’ll have more daemons incoming.”

Every soldier and native Karcellian shuddered at the thought. But it wasn’t as if Yuriko could reach either beachhead quickly enough. The rest of them strolled back towards the opposite hilltop, and once there, Gwendith’s eyes zeroed in on the runescript circle. She didn’t understand most of what was written as there was very little in common with what she’d learned back in the Academy. It was really just the basic kit of the campfire, water condenser, and light, so of course, almost none of the runescript was the same.

Those who were well-versed in runescript were staring pretty hard though. Sometimes, Gwendith could barely believe that Yuriko was so good at it, considering that at the Academy, runescribes weren’t the most athletic of students. And here was Yuriko, who was quite the musclehead.

The rest of the day was devoted to studying the pattern. The more time Yuriko spent on it, the more her frown grew. In the meantime, the marines and beastkin had gone off towards the coast to capture the Confederate soldiers. Not all of them surrendered, and not a few had tried to escape.

She looked over to the sea, noting the three battleships of the Karcellian Navy, as well as the wreck of a Confederate transport. The naval battle had been far more exciting than the one here.

Midafternoon they received news that the southern beachhead had been destroyed, but the casualties had been heavy. Several thousand were wounded, and hundreds slain on the Karcellian side. As for the Confederate casualties, it wasn’t reported.

Perhaps because the northern beachhead was so far, there had been no news at all. An hour later, war correspondents, a strange occupation that reported stories of the fighting to the civilians, had arrived and were taking pictures of the scene. A few of them were interviewing Karcellian soldiers. One grizzled-looking man even talked to Douglas, who gesticulated in excitement. He also pointed towards Yuriko and Gwendith, but she supposed they didn’t want an Outsider perspective. The man did use his camera to get a few photos of Yuriko.

Towards evening, they returned to the city of Hampton, took rooms at an inn, and retired for the night. Yuriko still looked preoccupied even while she ate dinner, picking at her food while staring at a notebook filled with copied runescript.

“What’s bothering you?” Gwendith asked.

“Hmmm, oh.” As Yuriko blinked, Gwendith was mesmerized by how her eyelashes fluttered. She had to bite her lower lip to regain her focus. “... some recurring words in the circle, and I don’t understand them. Or rather, they don’t make much sense.”

“Words? What words?” Gwendith asked.

“This part here, and here,” Yuriko said as she flipped through pages of the notebook. After staring at them for a while, Gwendith did make out a few similarities. But they weren’t by any means identical. When she pointed that out, Yuriko answered absently, “Oh, they’re conjugated differently, but the root words are the same.”

“And those are?”

“That’s the thing. It doesn’t make much sense. The conjugated word seems to mean tower or building? The attacking tower? The tower’s remnant?” Yuriko muttered. “The words preceding seem to be pleas. To beg for mercy or ask for death…” She looked up and met Gwendith’s eyes, “I’m, er, not even sure if they’re really about a tower though.”

“Then maybe you should cross-check?”

“You mean with the southern beachhead?”

“Yup!”

“Alright. We should go tomorrow!”

“Is it possible?” Gwendith asked Douglas, who was also poring through copies of the runescript circle.

“Uh, should be. I can ask,” he answered absently.

“We’ll go anyway,” Yuriko said firmly.

Gwendith swallowed and tried to conceal how much an assertive Yuri was giving her the shivers. She leaned on Yuriko’s shoulder and sighed contentedly. The war in Rumiga, the war here…they weren’t really that important to her now. All that mattered was that she was here with Yuriko, and that they got to cuddle in bed every now and then.

__________

The next morning, Yuriko brought Gwendith, Douglas, and Darren to the southern beachhead. The others stayed at the eastern beachhead to hunt down the remaining daemons. While most of the crimson-furred apes had been slain, there was still a fair number remaining. Even as she boarded the locomotive to bring her back to Lindorn and from there, take another train to bring her to a southern town, she felt Heron flare his Anima and touch on the Ennoia of the Winds. The connection between the two of them had strengthened by a large degree after she…er, took advantage of him.

She felt her cheeks colouring as the memory and shook her head to try and clear it. Now wasn’t the time to remember how much she enjoyed…er, how nice his arms felt around…no, no, don’t think about it!

She sighed as she felt his emotions turn towards her and flared. He was thinking of her, too, and probably lingering on that shared moment.

She shook her head again and focused on the notebook she used to copy the runescript circle. It was different from the Karcellian syntax or the Imperial one. She asked Sheamus about his runescript knowledge, but his was rudimentary and cobbled together many styles, from Imperial, to his home plane of Chalda, and even a little bit of Belrathian…

Belrath Xylarchy. She frowned and turned the notebook sideways, and then upside down. Looking at it from another angle, the tower word could also spell out Belrath, couldn’t it? No, not quite that name, but parts of it. As if the word had been shattered into different pieces and rearranged. Belrath would have been it, but the sense that it was a cobbled-together word form was strong. So, probably not, unless it was a reference.

Runescript circles allowed one to write one way and mean many different things. They could mean different things read left to right, the other way around, maybe bottom to top? Or spiralling outwards, or inwards. And the rather frustrating thing about the subject word was that it had meaning in every different method of reading!

She worried about that thing for hours until they arrived at the southern battle site. But, unfortunately, the runescript circle had already been erased. They kept copies, of course, but even if they managed to get it accurately, something would still have been lost.

She was perusing the copied runescript circle when she felt a familiar presence arrive in the building. She looked up and saw Casper Nichols in his human form, standing at the threshold. He eyed her defensively before he said, “We need to talk.”