“Are you ready?”

Gwendith gulped, feeling a touch of nerves. It's been a long two weeks of waiting and training. Yuriko had also taught her an Anima Recovery technique that she was to use during the Chaos baptism.

The two of them were in their tent after the taller girl chased everyone else away. Now, both sat on their heels and Yuriko had positioned herself behind Gwendith. She was in her underwear, and the cold air felt nice against her skin.

“Not really,” she muttered. “This is safe, right?”

“By no means.” Yuriko’s amused voice sent a thrill down her spine. “I’m going to inject distilled Chaos into your body and Anima. This isn’t safe at all but it is how one can unlock the Ancient’s Way and strengthen the Anima.”

During their long discussions, Yuriko had told Gwendith how she started on the Way. A weak Heritage, the luck to have a knowledge-based Facet, and the extreme luck of finding an artefact. All based on luck, Gwendith commented, to which the other just shrugged.

“I did what I had to with what was given to me,” Yuriko replied.

Moments before the distilled Chaos would flood into Gwendith’s system, she was having second thoughts. Her future was secure. Her Heritage led all the way to Knight. She also had an inkling of what she needed to do to advance further. She could feel it in her Anima and in her mind. She merely needed to grasp it.

Why was she risking everything for something so uncertain?

She turned her head to catch a glimpse of Yuriko’s serious face. Well, the girl was typically expressionless but Gwendith had learned that minor facial movements were the norm. A slight twitch of the lips might have been outright laughter for someone else, and a slight narrowing of the eyes meant rage. Either way, the moments that she saw Yuriko’s facade crack, when she laughed, chuckled, or smiled, were what Gwendith lived for.

So it was love? Perhaps. She didn’t know what future the two of them would hold. She didn’t even mind sharing Yuriko with Desire, much less boys. At least, she told herself that. That Yuriko was engaged meant that she would eventually share the girl with the husband. Ah, look at her. She gazed at a future that had no certainty of coming to fruition. She hadn’t even told Yuriko her feelings and desires yet.

‘Soon,’ she thought.

The most important reason for choosing this uncertain path was because of Yuriko. And not just because Gwendith was smitten. No. By her own admission, Yuriko was only at the level of Knight. She was unmatched at that level. Any actual Knight, or Chaos Baron, who fought her was easily overwhelmed. Yuriko fought Chaos Viscounts to a standstill too, instead of being overwhelmed. And that was alone.

A Chaos Viscount, or a Knight Captain, could be fought evenly by at least three Knights, or by a Knight piloting a Certus Colossus. And that was only against a new or weak Knight Captain.

Yuriko, a freshly advanced Knight equivalent on the Ancient’s Way, fought evenly against an opponent a level above. While she was only fifteen years old. The majority of her peers, like Gwendith, would either be at High Apprentice or First Order Journeyman.

So, despite the danger, it was clearly the superior path. And Gwendith wanted that. She desperately wanted to avoid being under someone else’s power again. Well, she’d probably be under Yuriko, but that one she didn’t mind at all.

“I’m ready,” Gwendith said after taking a deep breath.

“Brace yourself.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Gwendith saw Yuriko summon her artefact from thin air. The golden greatsword was fascinating to behold. Aside from its improbable size, two paces long, the blade was a dozen inches wide, and about an inch and a half thick, the way Yuriko wielded it was as though the entire thing was made out of incredibly light wood. Motes of dense green light rose from the crossguard’s red gemstone, and Yuriko gathered all of it in the palm of her hand. Then, she pressed it into Gwendith’s back, right behind her heart.

Yuriko’s hand was warm. She could feel the other’s thumb press against her spine, and those long slender fingers brushing against her shoulder blades. She shivered in suppressed pleasure.

When Gwendith settled into a meditative trance, she envisioned her Anima, and she saw the motes of distilled Chaos worming their way inside her. They slowly spread out, trailing both warmth and cold as they dissolved into her body and Anima. It didn’t feel like anything at all…

Then…there was pain. As the motes dissolved into her body, she felt her flesh slowly unravel. Nerves were afire, muscles were crushed and torn, and blood seeped out of broken vessels. She felt as if tiny ants wandered around her flesh and nibbled where they will, and she felt every bite.

But when it came to her Anima, it was much worse. It felt as if she was slowly burning up. The green light contaminated her Anima. Slowly…slowly…she could feel herself change. What…what had she done? Why? No!

“...late it! Circulate it! Anima Refinement!” Yuriko’s voice was a beacon in the sea of darkness and despair.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

What? Anima Refinement? What was that… Ah! The circulation pattern!

With mental hands grasping her Animus, she pushed them to form a runescript sigil. The threads were slippery, as though coated in butter and she lost control several times before she managed to start. But then, the next problem was catching the green motes into the pattern.

It took several agonising minutes before she got the pattern running. By then, her skin practically wept blood. There was a dull ache in her bones, and she felt faint. The moment she lost focus she’d probably faint.

“You can do it, Gwen! Keep it up!” Yuriko said, her hand on Gwendith’s back was the bedrock that she leaned on. The trickle of distilled Chaos slowly resumed once the Anima Refinement worked, and from there, it was only a matter of time.

The edges of her vision faded away as the green overtook her body. The Anima Refinement was slow, and it had to switch with Recovery every so often otherwise her body would break. Making the switch was tedious and she made errors now and then, forcing her to stop. Whenever the concentration of Chaos in her blood or her Anima grew a bit too much, Yuriko would stop infusing her with distilled Chaos and she would press Gwendith’s hand onto her artefact’s hilt.

“Try to keep it up as long as you can,” came Yuriko’s soothing words, and Gwendith persevered. She would grasp this power, she would walk the Ancient’s Way. And she would walk beside Yuriko, and be the master of her own Fate.

She didn’t know when she lost consciousness, and when she did, she was only vaguely in a dreaming state. She could feel warm caresses all over her body, and the soothing cold of the air around her. She felt Yuriko’s warmth and the gentle stroking all over her body. And when she woke up, she was completely naked, though clean.

“Yu…” she croaked, her throat was unbearably dry.

She struggled to sit up and felt a warm hand on her back. It wasn’t Yuriko though, it was the Mishala attendant, Saki. The woman gave her a mug and motioned for her to drink. It was water, though there was something sweet within. Warmth spread throughout her abdomen and to her limbs. Then her Anima, and a moment later, a bluish light, tinged in the pink hue of her Animus, radiated from her skin, stopping about two and a half inches away.

Saki nodded. “Congratulations. It seems you succeeded in doing as the young mistress wanted.” The woman smiled but there was a smirk hiding at the corner of her eyes.

Gwendith fell back into her bedroll after returning the mug. She felt as though she’d trained all day and forgot to use Recovery, except it extended throughout all of her, instead of just her body. But a laugh bubbled up from her lips.

She’d done it.

______________

Congratulations on inducting another into the Ancient’s Way. Damien’s dry voice came as soon as Gwendith passed out. Yuriko ignored him for the moment and used her kinesis to sluice the blood and dirt off Gwendith’s body. She also had to remove the other girl’s soiled clothes, noting with some interest that her body had filled out quite well since the rescue.

Gwendtih’s body had a more hourglass shape, or it did after a couple of weeks of eating well. Her skin had a nice tan to it, similar to what Yuriko had before. She couldn’t help but be envious of the sun-kissed complexion since she knew her skin would never take that colour again. No, her skin was alabaster white now and it was nearly translucent when she stood under the rays of the Radiant Sun. That fact was hard to notice though since she always released a bit of a Radiant glow in those cases. Hmmm, Gwendith’s bosom was a bit larger than hers, too, though she couldn’t quite get why other women preferred a sizable bust.

Her own bosom already got in the way when she trained or fought and, if not for her breast band, they would bounce around painfully. Still, Yuriko’s bosom was more modest than her Mum’s, but since she was only a fifteen year old girl, that was just about right anyway.

Except…she remembered her incarnations griping about her nearly pubescent features and that even though they had been decades older than fifteen, they still looked like teenagers. Since she was a Knight…er, Actualised now, would it mean her features would remain frozen like this for the rest of her life?

No. You will look at your ideal best, more so when you reach the Transformation Stage. Your own body image determines your looks, although… He muttered, The presence of the Mishala Mien may have some consequences.

‘So you don’t know either way.’ Yuriko shot back.

Of course not. You’re the first Ancient who has mixed origins, not to mention your Anima… He trailed off.

‘What?’

Nothing. I’m merely thinking out loud. I can’t confirm anything and my opinion may colour yours.

They lapsed to silence as Yuriko finished cleaning Gwendith up and tucked the smaller girl into her bedroll. From the looks of her, she needed to sleep.

As she was about to leave the tent, she wondered why Damien wasn’t ogling the naked girl. He’d never shown any hesitation before. No quip came back, so she just shrugged and left.

It was a blustery day, with intermittent snowfall. Her kinesis shovelled the freshly fallen snow off the makeshift path. Her attendant stood next to the tent’s entrance, looking a bit bored.

“Watch over Gwendith, and give her this when she wakes,” Yuriko commanded as her kinesis grabbed a wooden mug off a side table. She filled it with water from her canteen and surreptitiously added a drop of Ambrosia.

You’re remarkably free on spending a precious resource. Damien said in a mocking tone.

‘You said I’d need an entire lake of it to advance quickly with Ambrosia. There’s no point keeping it unused.’

Hrm, well, it’s your treasure. Just make sure you keep at least a hundred droplets for your use. You’ll need it when you take hold of an Ennoia. It will save you Seasons of effort to stabilise it.

‘Alright. There’s more than nine hundred drops left anyway. Ah, thanks, for back then.’

Well, since you inducted her, she’s your Squire now. You were the one who gave her baptism, and you are bonded now.

‘What do you mean, bonded?’ Yuriko froze. Was it the Mien? Had she somehow affected Gwendith with it so much that she became a…a thrall?

No, it's not the Mien. With the act of Chaos baptism and its success, you’ve created a tie between the two of you with the Threads of Fate. Be careful and don’t turn a simple knot into chains for either of you.

But…the Threads…she remembered the chains that bound her in the past, how they forcefully changed her thoughts and feelings. Would the same happen between her and Gwendith?

If you so choose, and if she accepts. Yes.

Yuriko shook her head. She would not. No, she cannot do that! She would not be like her Mishala cousins who used their Mien on their friends and allies to get their way.

It’s not like that. Calm. This is a natural bond between teacher and student. If you sever it, then that girl would lose the Way.

‘Oh, that’s good.’

Besides, you don’t seem to mind using your Mien to support your allies in battle, and to demoralise your foes.

‘That’s different,’ she protested.

If you say so.

With a huff, she marched towards the command transport. It was just short of noon, and she could spend the rest of the day on a patrol. No sense in being idle or careless.