“You know, it hasn’t occurred to me to ask, but what exactly is the Gala Presentacion?” Yuriko asked as she sipped a cup of breakfast tea. She and the others, including Ryoko, and the same maid who fetched her from the guest room for last night’s banquet, were serving breakfast in one of the Abad estate’s parlours.

Sofia looked up from her own cup, then said, “Neither do I, come to think of it. Spill, Julie!”

“Julie?” Juliette mouthed with a frown, before she shook her head and turned to Yuriko.

The table was a marked difference from every other one Yuriko had seen, mainly because the surface was made of thick glass rather than wood. It had three thick legs crossed over and supported a shallow wooden bowl containing decorative stones and shells arrayed in a pretty pattern. The circular glass that covered the bowl served as the table’s surface, though Yuriko felt the need for greater care when she touched the plates, the utensils, and the cup. She didn’t want to break anything after all, and even with powerful restrictions on her body, she was still much stronger than she looked.

“The Gala Presentacion marks the start of high society season,” Juliette finally said with a snort.

“High society?” Sofia snorted derisively. “You mean snobs, rich folks, and brown nosers?”

“Quite,” Juliette remarked. “Simply people of class.” Her falsely arched tone dissolved when she giggled. “But yes, snobs, layabouts, gossips, and social climbers.”

“So why are we going there?” Yuriko asked.

“It's the Presentacion.” Juliette pointed out, “Only once you’re of age can you attend it. Oh, folks who are younger can attend the following balls and gatherings, but the first of the season, that’s always special.” She had sparkles in her eyes, and she looked out into the garden and sighed longingly.

“So what happens there?” Yuriko persisted. She couldn’t really decide if she wanted to bother. With a whole new city to explore, she could spend her time getting to know the place and the people, all of the people and not just the upper crust. She’d had enough of that in Realmheart.

“Well, there’s the sit-down dinner, for one, the group dances, the music, the gathering, and the presentation of debutantes…” Juliette said.

“Hmmm, you mean we will be parading ourselves in front of everyone?” Yuriko asked, suddenly worried that her Mien would have a field day when that happened.

“Yes and no?” Juliette murmured, “There’s at least a hundred debutantes on the list, and I think there are more boys this time around. Anyway, the presentation is simply a series of dances. Oh, you two will have to practice, I think.”

Yuriko sighed and shook her head, “Maybe I shouldn’t be attending this.”

“You can come and watch us anyway,” Juliette said. “Few people would actually believe you’re that young anyway. Your aura’s too powerful.”

“Hmm, I guess that works,” Yuriko muttered. “Oh, but didn’t your grandfather already include me in the list?”

“It should be easy to amend,” Juliette said offhandedly, “and maybe he hasn’t given it yet.”

That turned out to be false as Juan Carlos had already submitted the list and it was far too late to make changes. At the very least, the dances were simple, but the matter of her gown was the greater issue.

“I’ll handle it, young mistress,” Ryoko said. “Just enjoy your stay here.”

“I will.” Yuriko sighed. The presentation dance was easily memorised and even with slight practice, she had little trouble and wouldn’t disgrace herself. Quite the opposite actually.

“I don’t want to dance next to you,” Sofia said bluntly after they did a round in the estate’s dance studio. It was midmorning, and Yuriko planned to explore Virtalla afterwards. She thought of having her lunch there rather than at the estate, so she could experience the tastes of the local cuisine. Her Anima reach had grown faster because of the novelty, though her other training, Wil and Intent, had not changed much.

“I agree,” Juliette huffed.

The dance instructors, a butler and a maid, stood at the side and looked quite incredulous at Yuriko’s performance. The other two weren’t bad at all, in Yuriko’s opinion. They were Battle Magi, and having trained in Roaring Volcano and Sweeping Gale over the past Season, they were quite graceful too. Well, Sofia’s movements were fierce and abrupt…so she wasn’t actually doing as well as Juliette.

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Roaring Volcano’s forms were all about fast and abrupt movements. It wasn’t a direct interpretation of fire, and more that of an erupting volcano. But there were different types of eruption. She didn’t know about them when she was in Sharom Academy, but her intermittent studies in Karcelia, and in Niria’s library had given her a lot of knowledge. Mostly trivial, and commonplace, but that was more than what she had five years ago. Plus, Karcelia and Bresia’s environments were different from the Myriad Planes, too. What was common knowledge here may not be true there, but there were definitely commonalities. It was in these common intersections that Yuriko felt like she could glimpse beyond the veil of reality and touch upon Ennoias.

Either way, Sofia has been training the fiercer parts of Roaring Volcano, and it looked like it was time to have her focus on the gentler and more subtler aspects. Fire did not just blaze fiercely, it could also be banked, it could die out into embers but suddenly flare to life. It could creep hidden underneath the surface before flaring into fullness.

“Sofia, let’s work on your Roaring Volcano.”

“Huh?”

“Follow.”

Yuriko performed the higher-numbered stances of the style. She conjured a sunblade too, with the Radiant energy and heat completely contained. The stances were softer and flowed into each other, and it was quite unlike the initial stances of the style. In truth, Yuriko was more than capable of tweaking the stances and yet retaining its capability to resonate with the elements, and what she was doing diverged from the normal style. But it should suit Sofia and complement what she already knew.

The girl followed as closely as she could, but it was evident that her training with the original set hampered her progress. Still, with Yuriko’s guidance, and quite a bit of prodding from her Anima kinesis, by the time the practice session ended, Sofia was much improved.

“There, now you won’t be embarrassed,” Yuriko nodded.

Sofia and Juliette exchanged exasperated glances, and Juliette complained, “It was supposed to be a dance practice.”

“Of course.” Yuriko said with a grin, “Dancing with the sword, dancing in the ballroom… What's the difference? Both involve moving the body.”

“They’re completely different!” Sofia yelped.

Yuriko shrugged, “If you say so.”

“When are you going to teach me the next set?” Juliette asked impishly.

Yuriko raised an eyebrow, “We can do that now, if you prefer?”

Juliette hesitated and looked at the mechanical clock set on top of a cabinet by the wall. The piece was as tall as she was, and the bottom housing had a bronze pendulum that swung to and fro. The intervals were supposed to be a single second from one side to the next but it was just a little bit slower than that. In a hundred days, the clock would be late by fifty minutes.

“Yes, I’d like that.”

Yuriko nodded and reviewed Sweeping Gale with several consciousness strands. Like Roaring Volcano, Sweeping Gale had a gentler aspect to it, almost opposite of the powerful swings and momentum-based strikes of the initial stances. But…Yuriko had not noticed those before.

The Ennoia of Radiant Flying Swords had subsumed her experiences with the Four Phases of the Sword. She remembered because she had attempted to form another Ennoia while she reached for Transformation.

The insight into opposing interpretations was interesting, and she felt that the gentle and fierce versions of the styles were basically two sides of the same coin. And with that insight, she realised that gentleness or fierceness applied to the entire set of stances, not just the first or second half. And if the stances of each style could be tweaked like that, what else had a mirrored stance? An interesting thought, and she explored it with Juliette and Sofia as she converted the entirety of Roaring Volcano and Sweeping Gale. She also demonstrated Flowing Water and Jade Mountain.

Small sparkles of enlightenment lit up her mind, and she paused in her demonstration. Metal. Wood. Radiant. Light. Shadow. Luminescent. Elemental Affinities whirled around her, and she grasped the easiest and most familiar one she could recognise. Radiant Flying Swords was composed of two things, Radiance and Flying Sword. The latter was a derivative of the broader concept of swordsmanship, being a singular type of weapon. But her skill with the sword was more than just her use of sunblades. But should she even try to broaden her Ennoia?

She could sense the boundary stretch as she pushed. She could claim a larger slice of the concept of Swords to include in her Ennoia, and it would empower her in a more holistic manner than what she had now. But, instinctively, she knew that it would make it harder for her to advance that Ennoia.

The thing was, the Radiant Flying Sword was just her secondary Ennoia. The Colligia of Radiance was her primary, and that was where most of her efforts should go. But she also knew that broadening her secondary Ennoia would make for a better foundation, and… if she succeeded, it would allow her to grasp a tertiary Ennoia.

Ennoias were one of the foundations that made Ancients so powerful. Her Anima was another, and her Intent and Will was the third. Strengthening one makes everything else that much more powerful, and a deeper and broader foundation would allow her to build a higher tower. She would build it all the way to Ascension and beyond.

So if she wanted to reach her ambitions, she would have to take the harder path, wouldn’t she?

So she would. She reached for beyond the boundary and grunted as she fell far short. She couldn’t. The Sword was more than what she had already put in, and it would take far more to encompass it.

Yuriko couldn’t help but grin. At least now she knew a path. It shone brightly in the distance, and as she walked through the darkness of ignorance, she had her guide.

“Yuriko?” Juliette poked her side.

“Hmm?” Yuriko grunted as she realised she had been standing like a statue for the past couple of minutes. “I’m fine. Though I think that’s all the time we have.”

“I agree.” Sofia said, “As eager as I am to learn, we’re on vacation and I’d like to actually do something other than train!”

Yuriko tilted her head and said, “There’s more than training?”

For a moment, Sofia and Juliette gaped at her in surprise, though only until she burst out laughing.

Yuriko changed out of her training outfits and into a white sundress. The four of them, well, five, since Juliette brought a maid along with her, left the estate inside a horse-drawn coach. Fluffington remained in the estate, content to sunbathe in the gardens and chase rabbits in the bushes.

Come to think of it, Blanca said that she would follow Yuriko to Virtalla after she finished catching up on her paperwork. She should arrive right after the Gala Presentacion.

“Where do you recommend we go first?” Yuriko asked Juliette as the coach approached the city.

“Hafton Court.” The dark-haired girl said. “That’s where all the good cafes, shops, and boutiques are!”

“Works for me,” Yuriko shrugged.

“Yeah, but how expensive are the places there?” Sofia asked with more than a bit of concern.

“Worry not, I’ll handle your bill.” Juliette said gallantly, but quickly amended herself when she saw Sofia’s sly grin, “Within reason!”

Hafton Court was in the southern half of the city. Yuriko thought it would only take a few minutes to get there from the outskirts, but the boulevards were jam-packed with people. “What’s going on?” She muttered as they descended from the coach. The way things were, it would be faster even if they walked slowly.

The crowd wasn’t moving much and there was a dull and ugly feel to the crowd. Yuriko’s Mien practically quivered. Then, somebody in the distance shouted, and the crowd burst into angry roaring.