“Brother, I can’t see!” Kiruna complained. She scratched at the woven cloth covering her eyes. “I wanna see!”

“No, Kiru, you need to rest them,” Lukas said tiredly.

Lukas glared at Aengus, one of the few he actually knew from the Council. They shouldn’t have come here. They should have stayed back at home, safe. Aengus returned his look apologetically.

“It’s not bad,” he tried to say.

Lukas swiped his hand in a fierce gesture, along with his glare, and Aengus swallowed his words. It wasn’t bad, yes. But that was because they didn’t really know the extent of her change.

If they had remained in the Lower Ring, the brunt of the storm’s fury wouldn’t have affected Kiruna in such a way. Sure, the winds and rain might have blown the roof off, or waters could have flooded in from the streets, but that would have been it. Instead, Kiruna had been exposed to an inordinate amount of Primordial Chaos.

Kiruna was unawakened. She wasn’t like those noble kids who were trained to use their Animus even as children. If Lukas knew how to do it, he would have taught Kiru, but he didn’t. He was barely Awakened and everything he knew was something he either taught to himself or just recently learned from the Council’s instructors.

Unawakened kids should not be exposed to a Chaos storm. That was wisdom passed down through every parent for hundreds of generations. There was a minuscule chance that the child would Awaken. Another minuscule chance that the child would…change. And the greater part would be that they wound up dead.

Lukas had tried his best to cover Kiruna during that dreadful time between the storm suddenly coming in and the door closing. But that had not been enough.

When she woke up, her eyes were black. No sclera, no pupils, irises, or any other part of the human eye. No, her eyes had been windows in the Deep Abyss and it was only when Kiruna spoke, complaining that she couldn’t see that he knew she was still alive, and relatively unharmed.

They should have stayed at home!

His hands clenched into fists, knuckles whitened at how tightly he held them closed. He wanted to punch Aengus in the eye. He wanted to break into the Council’s secret chambers and kill them all. He wanted to kill Mazer too.

But none of that would help Kiruna.

They covered her eyes with cloth. It was a stopgap measure, something to be done so that she wouldn’t panic. He told her that she needed to rest them and perhaps they would go back to normal on their own. The chances of that were slim though. Maybe she had awakened part of her abilities, unlocked the Animus in the core of her Anima.

What little good that did was nothing compared to now.

“We need to bring her to the…” Aengus started to say.

“Bring her where?” Lukas asked sharply. “Where, Aengus? I don’t have the coins to pay for any kind of treatment and I sure as Chaos isn’t going to leave it up to charity.”

“You’re mistaken,” Aengus shook his head, “the Academies take in Chaos changelings and try to return them to some measure of normalcy. It’s part of their duties. You won’t have to pay anything.”

“That’s the worst kind of cost,” Lukas said bitterly. “It might not be in coin, but what will they ask of her?”

“Who knows?” Aengus shrugged. “Whatever happens, I think it’ll be better if we bring her.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “The Council doesn’t have the expertise to handle this but they won’t leave either of you high and dry.”

Lukas grunted. They could do nothing now other than wait for the end of the storm and bring Kiruna home. Afterwards, he’d do what Aengus said and try to get her to the Academies.

The rest of the day was spent in cold silence, with Kiruna dozing fitfully. She woke up every now and then, complaining that since there was nothing wrong with her and she wasn’t feeling anything, they should let her remove the blindfold.

“No, Kiru, we should have your eyes looked at first. We don’t know what would happen if it gets exposed to more ambient Chaos. At least wait until the end of the storm.”

“But I’m so bored!”

“Well, what do you want to do?”

“Give me my cloth strips. I’ll make some more lanyards.”

“Eh? You can do that without looking?”

“Yup!”

He did as she asked, and sure enough, she was slowly braiding the cloth strips.

“Tell me the colour of the strip,” she demanded.

“Er, that one’s white, that other one’s yellow, and the third one is red.”

“Thanks!”

By the end of the day, Kiruna had used up all of her spare strips and made two dozen lanyards. Aengus brought them some food and they ate slowly, both savouring the taste. The next morning, Lukas had bags under his eyes and an aching back. He hadn’t slept easily at all.

The rest of the day, Lukas asked for cloth scraps that some of the families could spare and returned to his sister with a treasure trove. He traded some of the lanyards away for it though but came back with enough cloth to make the losses twice over. Well, anything to keep his sister from being bored.

She grew more adept at manipulating the cloth, her hands almost blurring with how fast she managed it. But nothing prepared him later that afternoon for when her hands suddenly started to glow orange.

“Kiru!” he gasped.

The cloth practically braided itself, as several pieces around her moved on their own and turned into lanyards.

Kiruna gasped afterwards and fainted dead away.

“I guess she was lucky,” Aengus muttered from behind Lukas, prompting him to turn and glare at the pseudo brunette.

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“Lucky? She can’t see!”

“And in exchange, it looks like she Awakened. I wonder if it's a complete Awakening or a partial one?” Aengus chuckled. “Well, I'm sure you won’t have any problem getting help from the Academies now.”

“You mean that wasn’t a sure thing?” Lukas gasped.

“Of course not.” Aengus shook his head. “But your chances are better now.” He patted Lukas’ shoulders. “Take what good things you can get, Lukas, you never know what will happen.”

“Don’t talk to me.”

“Fine, fine.”

Lukas had nothing else to do, so he gathered everything that Kiruna made and put it in his pouch. His sister slept for the better part of an hour and woke up only when the door to the tunnels opened.

No increased density of ambient Chaos came, and with a relieved sigh, Lukas knew that the storm was over and it was once again safe to return to their home--whatever was left of it.

_____

Coming back out into the sunlight felt so cathartic that Yuriko couldn’t help but let out a moan. The warmth suffused her body, lighting up every inch of skin she had exposed. Her hands seemed to have a mind of their own and started unbuttoning her coat. She rolled up the sleeves of her undershirt and barely had the presence of mind not to shred her tights.

“Ancestors, Yuri. What are you doing?” Millie prodded her from behind. Well, Yuriko wasn’t blocking the passageway, so most of the girls ignored her after a measuring look.

“It feels nice. The afternoon sun.” Yuriko replied absently, tilting her head up to have as much of the rays touch her face.

“Yes, but look.” Millie poked her side.

“What?” Yuriko glanced at her friend. A second look at where Millie pointed made it clear what she meant though. Out to the west, plumes of black smoke drifted up to the skies. Whether they were from beyond the cliff face, the Lower Ring or the Mid Ring, she didn’t know.

The trees around their entry point were bare of any leaves and there were broken branches on the ground. Broken glass and shutters from windows also littered the pavement, along with scraps of cloth, and other debris.

“Oh.”

“Let’s hurry back to the Willow,” Maryn said from behind.

Unlike when they first entered the underground tunnels, they emerged from a small building near the edge of the Central Reserve.

The girls trudged in a group, following the others who came up ahead of them. The devastation wasn’t so bad. At least none of the buildings had fallen. The roofs were still there though likely littered with just as much debris as the streets.

Once they arrived at their dormitory building, they found it relatively unscathed. They dispersed to their suites with Yuriko finding hers mostly intact though the winds broke the window latch and let in some water, twigs, and leaves. She cleaned it up as much as she was able to.

The litter went into the bin, the soaked rugs and carpet had to come off. She put those in the laundry hamper and wrote up a requisition for replacements. The wooden floor was damp which worried her somewhat. She knew it was bad for wood to remain wet, so she did her best to dry them, using a couple of rags that didn’t stay dry for long. Afterwards, she tried running her Animus, infused with heat Intent, over the boards to evaporate the wetness.

After a while of that, a long while since the air was still quite humid and the heat from her Animus wasn’t enough, she wondered if she could suck up the dampness instead. One abortive trial wherein the wood warped dangerously and she was back to doing it the first way.

When it was time for dinner, there were only a few damp spots left. Thankfully, the curtains in her bedroom had blocked most of the moisture and debris from coming further into the room, so she only had to have them changed.

At the cafeteria, the staff hadn’t had enough time to prepare the usual meal. They were offered plain ration bars that Yuriko took with her back to her room. She put on a pot of water and boiled the ration bar on the induction stove, added some spices from her collection and had a single bowl of spicy porridge that she washed down with plain water.

The next few days afterwards were spent helping clean the campus up. There were hordes of maintenance staff, of course, but they weren’t enough to get everything up and ready. Krystal and the others enrolled in Agaza didn’t return to their respective dormitories until the 35th Day of Air. Classes would resume the next day and they barely had the Restday to recover from their ordeals.

“Ugh! We scoured the tunnels for swarmlings and other Wyldlings that might have been left behind. Do you have any idea how long those things are? And how deep they go?” Krystal complained. Both of them were in Yuriko’s room, taking in some tea and pastries.

“I wish I could have helped. It sounds like fun,” Yuriko said wistfully.

“Well, it wasn’t. I was mostly walking. Walking, and marching, and looking around. We barely found any Wyldlings. I think they were all killed the day after the storm. Oh, and you wouldn’t believe what we found instead?”

“What?”

“Rats.”

“Rats? Pests?’

“Huge rats! Swarm fodder, they were at least as big as that cat!” Krystal pointed at Hunter Kitty who yawned and flicked his tail. “Probably bigger. And vicious! As soon as they saw the light of our Animus, they charged us. Ew!” Krystal shuddered.

“Where did they come from?” Yuriko asked, feeling emphatically horrified, too.

“Who in the Burning Moon knows? They could have been regular rats that got changed by the storm.” Krystal glared at the table. “I heard that that’s what we’ll have to do next Sixthday? Hunt down more rats!”

“Er, sure. I suppose that’s better than marching around in circles.”

“Oh, well, there’s one piece of good news,” Krystal continued with a smile. “I’ve managed to advance! I’m on the Apprentice level now!”

“Oh. Oh! Wow, congratulations, Krys!” Yuriko leapt up and caught Krystal in a vice-like hug.

“‘Ey, le’ go!” she squeaked.

“Hee hee! No!” Yuriko spun Krystal around until they both collapsed, giggling and dizzy. “I didn’t think you’d advance so soon!” Yuriko said wistfully.

“Honestly, I expected you to advance first. You still have more Animus in your reserve than I do.”

Yuriko shook her head. “It’s different for you. Your Heritage is complete. Mine is…well, barely there.” She sighed. “I did receive knowledge on how to advance and I feel I’m really close, too. But, I thought I’d advance after the storm and it turns out that it wasn’t enough.”

The cracks in her Anima had healed over and she didn’t have any distilled Chaos left in her system. Meditating to gather more of them proved quite difficult after the storm, as the ambient Chaos levels had dropped precipitously. It was as if the storm had gathered as much Chaos as it could, and after blowing hard, used up all of it. Maybe it would take some time for the ambient Chaos in the capital to recover. Either way, she was just a hair away from progress, she was sure of it.

She was no closer to modifying or improving her Facet but taking in Damien’s words on the path ahead, she didn’t need to. Still, it was frustrating.

“You’ll advance soon, I am sure of it,” Krystal said. “Why didn’t you use your Zoi Elixir?” She asked, pointing at Yuriko’s desk. The vial was there, sparkles of light in the liquid easily catching the eye.

“It’s useless to me,” Yuriko shrugged, “My reserve is already beyond what can benefit from it.”

“Why don’t you sell it back to the Academy?”

“Well, I’m not really short on funds. I just recently sold a Hunter’s Chaos shard and pocketed fifteen hundred Sovereigns. Hmm, I used most of it to buy a new side-blade though.”

“Can I have it instead?” Krystal asked.

“I guess so. Just fill in the paperwork.”

“Wee! Thanks Yuri! I owe you one.”

“Think nothing of it,” Yuriko said absently. Still, the conversation reminded her that she needed to push for advancement. Hopefully, Damien could tell her how close she was.

The two of them ate dinner at the cafeteria and chatted about other things.

“I asked Mikel to the cotillon,” Krystal snorted. “That little twit couldn’t come up with the courage to ask me even though it was clear he wanted to.”

“Did he say yes?” Yuriko asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I think so. He went all red, fainted, and then when he came to, he was all smiles.” Krystal shrugged. “Well, who’re you going with?”

“I dunno. Probably alone.” Yuriko muttered.

“Didn’t Heron and the twins ask you?”

“Well, yeah. But how can I pick?”

“Just go with the one you like the best.”

“Huh, but I like them equally well.”

Krystal rolled her eyes. “Well, I don’t think it’s a requirement to go with a date, so I guess that’s fine.”

Late that night, after her evening ablutions, Yuriko readied herself to activate her Facet. The previous nights she did so, Damien hadn’t appeared, but something told her he would tonight. She channelled her Animus to her Facet and was brought to the dreamscape.