Separating Ender’s Waltz from the Ennoia of Radiant Flying Swords was harder than Yuriko expected. She still managed it after a couple of minutes, and when she engaged it, images that foreshadowed her target’s movements appeared in her vision.

Her Animus drained away at ten lumens per second, and if it weren’t for her Transformation ability, she would have been drained dry in a couple of minutes. She hadn’t actually expanded her reserves by much and had simply created reserves for differing Animus densities. She knew that Knight-Commanders had Animus densities that could reach up to twice more than a Knight Captain’s. It was still liquid, all things considered, but it was more like honey compared to water.

When it became a consistency similar to mud is when a Knight-Commander had reached their peak and was ready for an ascension attempt.

Hmm, technically she was only equivalent to a Knight Captain but she knew she could match Knight-Commanders now. Not easily, perhaps, but she would not be defeated without a long, drawn-out fight. If she continued to progress beyond the initial stage of Transformation, then the chances of a Knight-Commander beating her dwindled to practically nothing. And at that point, she might be able to match a Knight Dominus.

Trying to condense Animus to the consistency of honey proved almost impossible, however. The most she managed was about a tenth more dense than water, but even so, the potency of Animus that dense was quite evident. Not that she would use it against Krystal as that would defeat the purpose of the spar.

Anyway, ten lumens a second of consumption was nothing to her now. Radiant energy bubbled from within the particles of her body, easily changing to enough Animus to cover the drain. In the meantime, the Radiant energy was quickly replaced by her Essence, and even the Radiant fragments that existed within each and every part of her produced more energy than could be consumed.

The excess Radiant simply dispersed out of her body and into her Anima. The excess within her Anima was used to expand her reach by a minuscule amount, which meant that at this point, increasing her reach didn’t need her to strain and break herself. Well, training and danger still accelerated growth so she wasn’t about to abandon that. Hmmm, some of the excess Radiant energy from her fragments melded into her body and slowly made it stronger, too.

From Damien’s memories…the longer she lived, the stronger her body and her Anima became. And as a Transformation Stage Ancient, she wouldn’t age and live for as long as nobody killed her.

That had not been something that she’d really thought of, but then, the term Ancient used to name the Way meant exactly that. Followers of the Imperial Path, the Geist System, and the Spirit Binders all had limited lifespan which grew progressively higher the further they advanced.

It was a strange revelation and not really all that relevant at the moment, but she had strands of consciousness to spare.

Almost as soon as she began to move, slowly to be sure, Krystal’s future phantoms began to split into several images. The first one reacted to her initial movement. The second reacted to her reaction to seeing the first phantom. The next one reacted to the reaction, and so on and so forth until the space around Krystal was completely covered with phantoms, neither of them moved, and Yuriko’s Animus expenditure increased tenfold.

A hundred lumens per second was still within her capacity, but the power of it leaked into the environment. Radiant flares, ambient Chaos swirls, and random explosions popped up around her.

She could see Krystal frowning as sweat began to bead on her forehead. Her blade twitched every now and then, which prompted new phantom strains to form. This also increased her Animus consumption by another hundred. Nearly ten seconds later and Krystal’s phantoms flickered, then disappeared, followed by her friend collapsing bonelessly on the floor.

“Krys!” Mikel yelped and leapt to catch her.

Yuriko beat him to it simply by using her Animakinesis, though only because Mikel wouldn’t have been able to catch Krystal before she hit the ground. She easily allowed Mikel to take her off the kinesis.

Yuriko tossed her wooden sword, which landed into the training sword holder without her having to use her kinesis. She hurried to Krystal who had definitely fainted. Her skin was clammy and she was shivering.

“Animus depletion?” Mikel murmured.

Heron was furiously painting, held by his trance-like state. There was nobody else in their corner of the gymnasium, though there were other students and teachers in another section of the space. Yuriko grabbed Krystal’s wrist and patted her hand.

“I’m not sure that’s it. She might have exhausted her Ennoia energies.”

Mikel looked at her. “And what energies are those?”

“We don’t know.”

“Tsk, what can we do then?” he asked, desperate.

“I’m not sure. I’ve never actually depleted my Radiant energy,” Yuriko said helplessly. “Although whether it is Animus depletion or Ennoia exhaustion, the simplest solution is to have her rest.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“I guess you’re right.” He paused. “I’ve not noticed a segregated storage for Animus and Ennoia energies in mine.”

“Perhaps you keep them in the same core?” Yuriko asked. “I did that before mine became a Colligia.”

“Ah.”

Mikel lifted Krystal in his arms, though he wobbled alarmingly. She provided surreptitious support and he nodded in appreciation. “Infirmary.”

“Alright,” Yuriko said after checking Heron again. He was still preoccupied so she left him to it.

They headed down the hallways. The students and some of the faculty left in the gym noticed the commotion and were curiously looking in their direction, but they only started to head towards Heron by the time her perception left the gym.

At the infirmary, the healer, an older redheaded woman with blue eyes, cast her checkup technique on Krystal. The Animus swept across Yuriko’s best friend and lingered right above her tummy. The woman tsked. “Animus depletion. She’ll be alright in a few minutes, maybe an hour.”

“Thank you, Healer Garderon,” Mikel said.

“She can rest here in the infirmary bed,” Healer Garderon said. “It might take a bit longer for her to awaken…”

She cut off when Krystal stirred, blinked, then opened her eyes. Her wince was painfully obvious as she immediately shut her eyes closed, “Owie…” Krystal moaned.

“Hmm, earlier than expected,” Healer Garderon said. She took a flask from a shelf, which contained a blue liquid. “Drink this down, should help with the depletion.”

Krystal scowled after downing the vial, “Blergh!”

“Bad?” Yuriko asked.

“Like stale sweat from old socks,” Krystal muttered.

“You girls have it easy,” the healer chuckled. “Old restoration elixirs tasted like ale barrel sludge after a rat floated on the drink.”

Yuriko winced at the graphic description while Krystal looked like she’d hurl.

“Did that ever happen?” Mikel asked curiously.

“More often than you think.” The healer laughed.

“I still feel like a knife’s pressing into the back of my eye.” Krystal whined, then glared blearily at Yuriko. “I knew I shouldn't have fought!”

“But both of you barely moved!” Mikel protested.

“Then how do you explain my depletion!”

“Er…”

“We sparred,” Yuriko grinned, “through the realms of probability. I didn’t expect that, and my Animus consumption went to two hundred lumens a second by the end.”

“Two hundred?” Krystal and Mikel gasped. Yuriko noticed the healer’s cautious attention, too.

She waved off the incredulity by saying, “It’s mostly photonic.”

“Ah.”

Healer Garderon asked, “How is your Animus still in photonic state? Are you not a Knight Captain?”

“Hmmm, I’m not on the Imperial Path or any of our foes’,” Yuriko answered easily.

“I see. Curious.” The woman left it at that.

“You should relax,” Mikel said. “And we should wait for Heron to finish.”

“Huh, yeah,” Krystal muttered as she laid back and covered her eyes with her arm. “I don’t think it's just Animus depletion though.”

“Most Ennoia energies require Will or Intent to function.” Yuriko mused, “Perhaps you overdrew that resource instead?”

“And so what should I do to recover?”

Yuriko shook her head. When she ran low on the resource, she simply stopped. It didn’t help that Intent and Will could not be measured, so she didn’t know her capacity. Or rather, she had a crude way of measuring it, which was to create and control as many sunblades as she could. Three thousand was her limit.

She did know that only a good night’s sleep could really restore Intent and Will to fullness, and maybe meditation. Hmm, would straining to increase the number of sunblades she could control work to strengthen her Intent? What about her Will? Intent was an active component of her mind and Anima, the quality that allows her to affect reality around her. Will was the other side of the coin, the quality that allowed her to remain herself and unchanged in the face of Chaos and other influences. She could only think of exposing herself to those kinds of situations would be the way to train her Will.

She was tempted to delve Damien’s memories, but not right now. It would take too many strands of consciousness to do so without being overwhelmed by the strength and breadth of his experiences. It was also the reason she didn’t accept it fully. She was aware of the changes her mind and body had due to their influence…

Ah, that was it. Resisting his memories’ influence would be a good whetstone for her Will. Unfortunately, it also opened her up to his many proclivities and who knew what had already seeped in? After all, she would never have thought to just ask Gwendith or Heron to ravish her…

Feeling her mind stutter at the thought, and her cheeks redden, she checked the seals on her mind, looking for wherever the leak was and to plug it so tight that nothing would come out… except, there were no leaks.

“Yuri, you alright?” Krystal thankfully interrupted her spiralling thoughts.

“I’m fine,” Yuriko said quickly.

“You sure?” Krystal continued after Yuriko nodded, “So…we’re done right? I think I want to rest.”

“Oh, of course. Do you want me to bring you back home? Or would you rather stay here in the meantime?”

“I…”

Yuriko looked towards the hallway when she felt Heron enter her perceptive range.

“At the infirmary, Heron,” Yuriko said, allowing the sound to focus through her aura so he could hear her even though there were several walls and doors between them.

“He’s done painting,” Yuriko said to the other two.

“That’s frighteningly scary,” Mikel muttered.

“What is?”

“The way you can see and talk to someone not even here.”

Yuriko shrugged. “It’s similar to the Knight Domini’s Domain, though obviously not as strong.”

He shook his head. “This is making me think twice about accepting your offer of taking the Ancient’s Way.”

Krystal chuckled and nodded while Yuriko blushed hard.

“Ah, sorry. I ran out of Ambrosia so I can’t, right now. Uhm, when I get more?” Yuriko sputtered.

Krystal laughed. “No worries, we’re mostly kidding.”

Yuriko shook her head. “I wasn’t. Uhm, but if you do want to, I’ll do it. Uhm, it's best if you stay under Knight.”

“No worries,” Mikel said. “We’ll revisit when we have to. It’s not as if it’s easy to get to Knight.”

“Aren’t your Heritages complete?” Yuriko asked, a bit bewildered.

“Yes, but that’s still no guarantee.”

The infirmary door slammed open, prompting a glare and a sniff from Healer Garderon. Heron ran inside, carrying his painting. The oils were already dry, no doubt from his use of his Ennoia. His face was a mask of deep concern, and without preamble, he presented his trance-induced artwork.

The central piece was Krystal, of course, but Yuriko’s form was on the left side. That wasn’t what was concerning. Krystal’s silhouette body was tangled with dozens of lines, all leading up towards the top of the canvas, and disappeared into a cloud of colours.

“Fate’s Marionette…” Krystal whispered, and Yuriko felt the world pulse in response.