The next few days passed in both a blur and what seemed like a crawl. Yuriko spent them cooped up in the estate. The city was in turmoil, though she only watched from a distance. News was brought by Juan Carlos and his staff and it wasn’t anything good.

The girls she rescued, along with the ones she found in the sewers, had only been a fraction of those abducted. Practically every major household that had a smidgen of power and was aligned against the Scions of Virtalla had been hit. It made things rather obvious who the culprits were, but considering that they were working with the traditional enemy of the nation, they couldn’t possibly sink any lower.

Three days passed like that. Yuriko spent most of her day in meditation, trying to increase the number of sunblades she could control, hence increasing her Intent and Will. Her measurements were a bit crude, but she could feel that she could use her maximum number of sunblades, which was roughly fifteen times her reach in paces, excluding Anima focused on holding memories, for about ten minutes before her reserves depleted. Recovery of said reserves took longer the lower they got, and the threshold was every minute used or ten percent.

At a minute’s depletion, all she needed to do was meditate for a short while, a minute or two of absolute focus, or several minutes in light activity, and she would recover to fullness. But if she depleted all the way to nothing, then it would take a week of rest and light activity to recover. And during that time, according to Damien’s experiences, she would be weakened and slow of thought. At halfway depleted, it would take only an hour’s meditation, so she felt that was her absolute limit.

Working to increase her sunblade numbers was tedious and slow, but she didn’t know what else to do. She could work on combining and merging sunblades too, but that was even slower going. Some of the knowledge she gained from studying Arcana Weaving helped, specifically in how the runescript components worked seamlessly with vocal and somatic nodes, but she felt she would need years of dedicated training to even merge two sunblades properly.

The possibilities Damien showed her were tantalising, but she also knew that sunblades had not been his main technique. They were a passing hobby, according to his memories, and he focused on something else in his youth. How long his life had been, she didn’t know, but he was as old as the Empress, at least. Possibly older.

The flow of time within his memories was blurred, or simply missing. And since Ancients did not really age once they achieved Actualisation, there was no way to tell by his looks. He looked like a man in his prime, but that in itself wasn’t telling. He certainly didn’t look like a teenager like she did.

She absently cupped her bosom, wondering if they would ever grow bigger. Her cousin Miya’s pair were aesthetically pleasing, but considering Mum’s bosom wasn’t all that much bigger than Yuriko’s, she didn’t hold much hope. Oh! But Aunt Layla’s were pretty big for her height, so maybe her Davar lineage had a bustier figure.

But she wouldn’t really change all that much. She could use her Transformation Stage abilities to sculpt her body, but preliminary experimentation had her feeling that whatever changes she made would always feel strange. Not unnatural by any means, but one way or another, her form now was what she would always look like.

‘I wonder if Ancients who Actualise younger than me look like kids.’ That must be inconvenient. ‘Or they’re discouraged from Actualising so young.’ There might be some truth to that.

The fact that Fluffington was able to use his Anima like that meant that the Ancient’s Way probably wasn’t extinct. There must be some other Ancients not related to her lineage out there. It was a wide world, after all, and the Arcadia Region was thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of leagues wide. According to the geography books in Nirlith anyway.

“Shouldn’t your armies be mobilising?” Yuriko asked with no small amount of frustration.

Juan Carlos nodded. “They should, and word has been sent to the capital. The mobilisation point is at Greytih Fort, a hundred leagues south of Virtalla, which guards the gateway to the west. The reinforcements from the city…” He shook his head, “There’s no news…”

“So what are you planning?”

“I can’t risk my family. Professor Davar, please.”

Yuriko nodded. “How can I help?”

She anticipated being asked to join the frontlines, and she wasn’t all that averse to it. Ishodir abducted her handmaiden, and according to her communications with Gwendith before they moved beyond True Connection’s range, she remembered that the Empire there had been hostile, too.

“Please bring my granddaughter and her mother to Nirlith. Bring them away from here, please.”

Yuriko blinked. She wasn’t being asked to fight?

Perhaps he sensed her doubts, but he said, “With the turmoil in the city, there isn’t any safety to be had. I’d rather you evacuate. I cannot and will not abandon my home, and as a reservist, I could not do so without losing honour. But my children and grandchildren are not combatants, and most of my staff are the same. I will keep a small pool of volunteers, along with the house guards, and join the city’s defence. The Ishodirians are still days away from reaching here. It’s no small feat to pacify the countryside.” He paused for a long moment, “Roses, Acin, Pastor, and Pedrero families, also asked for help bring their noncombatants to Bresia City, or Nirlith.”

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“It’s only a couple of days’ journey through the Vallavega Pass.” Yuriko said, “If you have the transports, I can escort them through it.”

“Thank you!” Juan Carlos took her hands and bowed over them. “I…the Abad family will never forget your benevolence!”

“When do we leave?” Yuriko asked.

“The other families and their escorts can be here by noon. I will prepare the supplies.” With that, he left in a hurry.

Yuriko returned to her room, and with Ryoko, packed up their luggage. Then she flew out of the window and played with Fluffington. She scratched his back all over, and when her fingers touched a spot between his shoulder blades, both of them were surprised when his left hind leg started thumping.

Fluffington met her eyes with a pleading gaze, and with a laugh, Yuriko scratched his back, just with a tiny bit more pressure than before.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

The rhythmic thumping brought even more laughter until he rolled over to his side with his tongue lolling.

Preparations were completed soon after and she left the Abad household for perhaps the final time. She wondered if the estate would escape devastation, but thought that was rather unlikely.

The front courtyard had a dozen wheeled and Steeld carriages, the ones that didn't require anything to pull them. Each one could seat six people comfortably, with a driver in the front compartment and footmen at the back. Ryoko stowed their luggage inside the lead carriage.

Yuriko examined the passengers briefly. She didn’t recognise half of the passengers, which meant that they were probably from other wealthy families that the Abads were connected with. There were also about twenty guards, and each of them carried a rifle rather than a spell activation tool.

Without much fanfare, though Juliette had a teary goodbye with her grandfather, they left the manor. Juliette, her mother, Ester, and Sofia, sat inside the lead carriage, along with Ryoko. Yuriko’s space was there too, but she opted to sit on the carriage driver’s bench, next to the actual driver, who kept giving her sidelong glances. Unlike traditional carriages, the driver’s cabin for these had a roof and a glass windshield. The controls looked intuitive and reminded her of the landcraft back home, though these did not have Animus intake panels and control orbs. Instead, there was only a control stick to make the thing move forwards, backwards, and sideways, and a small wheel with a little handle jutting out to make the Steeld carriage turn.

They followed the road towards the Vallavega pass. While the Steeld carriages could travel without a road, it was simply faster and safer to do so.

It took a bit less than an hour to circle the city, and another half an hour to move westward. The carriages weren’t the only ones on the road, and there were dozens of caravans with them. A few, anxious ones jostled and tried to overtake slower vehicles, which sometimes caused tussles by the irate drivers or annoyed horses.

It would take half a day to reach the Vallavega Pass entrance, and they could either settle down to rest in one of the parkways or switch drivers and press on. She noticed lanterns powered by Arcana Weaving built into the carriages, so if they had to, they could go through the night.

It was midafternoon when they had to stop. The road…the carriages, caravans, wagons, and a few pedestrians had stopped. Yuriko flipped over to the roof, lifted herself a dozen paces, and saw that the road was completely packed with vehicles and that none were moving. The road led directly to the Vallavega and was full up until the very entrance of the pass. There was a barricade stopping anyone from entering the narrow part, and there were hundreds of soldiers stationed there. Whose soldiers she couldn’t quite tell. The uniforms looked Bresian, but why were they stopping people from entering?

“What’s the hold-up?” Ester Abad stuck her head out of the window and yelled up to Yuriko.

“There’s a blockade at the pass’ entrance,” Yuriko said, not bothering to lower her voice. The others with them on the road murmured in worry.

“Goddess’ bloody milk!” Ester swore, and Yuriko couldn’t help but notice Juliette and Sofia’s ears reddened at the woman’s oath. “It’s either the rebels or the Republic’s army decided to prevent infiltrators from getting to the rest of Bresia.”

“What’s that mean for us?” Sofia asked.

Yuriko dropped back down to the ground and said, “I’ll call the others. We’ll have to see what we can do.”

It was easy enough to use her Anima tendrils to project her voice, and soon, the guardians of the other families gathered around the lead carriage. Ester and the two girls exited the carriage while Yuriko went up to observe what was happening at the pass. When nothing untoward occurred, she dropped back down into the burgeoning argument.

“...I say we wait. They’ll have to let people through eventually.” One of the guardians, a matronly woman with greying hair and a stern face, said.

“...and if the rebels strike? And if they’re rebels in the first place?”

“They could hardly be rebels while letting all of us stay on the road!”

“...who knows who’s really there anyway…” Another muttered.

Yuriko snorted, then said, “I’ll fly over and check.”

The gaggle of matrons goggled at her, but she left them before they could say anything. She careened towards the barricades, but before she could close, she was suddenly beset by gunfire and fireballs. And even worse, the familiar obsidian arrowheads shot at her from behind.

She ducked and weaved, even as she cast a Sending spell to Juliette. The convoy was about a league down the road, and hopefully out of immediate danger. “Barricade manned by hostiles. Turn the caravan around and leave. I’ll follow once I shake them off.”

Spell sent, Yuriko growled and looked for the elusive Magus even as she conjured hundreds of sunblades. Below her, on the road, panic spread amongst the people trying to leave the invasion zone. Yuriko pushed herself away from the road and over the rolling hills. The obsidian arrowheads continued to shoot and track her. Condensed Anima deflected most of the force, but there was a bit of a burning sensation from the tips when they pricked her Anima.

The rebels at the barricade…no, it was actually a full wall with battlements now, and one built to defend against foes from both sides of the road, stopped shooting at her once it was clear she was out of reach. She contemplated blasting them with Radiant energy but settled for etching a sunblade with the Bolt spell. She sent several of those towards the wall and grinned at the turmoil it caused.

She still couldn’t pinpoint the elusive Magus, and after half an hour of continuous dodging passed, she grew tired of the fruitless battle and flew away. A couple of longstrides later, the obsidian volleys stopped, and she was left with a sour taste in her mouth.