Chronicles of the Exalted Sun Child

Book 18-3.3: Contact Other Plane

Yuriko blanked out for a long moment before surreptitiously glancing at everyone else in the diner. She didn’t quite expect the apathy from the customers, and even the waitress and the barista barely glanced at the television set. The man who had control of the TV’s remote scoffed at the news anchor, then flipped the channel. Was she safe or not? She wasn’t quite sure. At the very least, the picture displayed on the screen was of the old Amalia, along with the previous physical description. She was already at the correct height of seventy-two inches, while the girl was at sixty-six. Her shoulders had started to broaden, and her muscles began to rebuild themselves. If the transformation weren’t fuelled by her Radiant Physique, she would have been writhing in pain.

Her facial features hadn’t changed much yet; she was stopping that transformation from completing until she met Lucian, otherwise, Amalia’s brother wouldn’t recognise her. Though it would have had the added benefit of basically causing the dead girl to disappear. 

She was still beset by a guilty conscience, though, and Amalia’s lingering regrets had taken root. It might be best to resolve them rather than to ignore them, else she wouldn’t enjoy living with this incarnation. 

Sticking around ran counter to her goals, though, so it was a conundrum. What were Amalia’s lingering regrets anyway? They remained annoyingly opaque, and she probably needed to meditate on them to find the specifics. Just that there was a mass of resentment seated at the base of her psyche, and left to fester, they would pollute her strands of consciousness. 

Once she was done with her meal, she asked for the bill, which came up to about twelve Weyrmarks. Unlike Astoria, the server’s gratuity was already built into the check. She had three hundred and twenty-eight Weyrmarks left. 

Yuriko blinked as her fingers lingered on the bills and coins. Interesting. She’d never been keen on keeping track of her personal finances simply because it was rather easy to gather resources. For her true body and her 1st incarnation body, at least. Her 2nd-incarnation body might have issues, but she could probably liberate resources from the criminal elements of society. Given how corrupt the government is, should she consider them bandit barons, or something? 

A matter to consider later. She walked out of the diner with her head held high. What was her budget for clothes? A hundred Weyrmarks, maybe? The thrift store was just a couple of blocks from the strip mall she’d originally intended to shop at, and it should have plenty of cheap clothes to choose from. She hoped there were clothes of the right size for her. She was notably taller than any other woman on the street, and she knew she drew eyes just from that alone. Her Mien started to express itself in force after the synchronisation, and that too drew eyes. 

She was halfway to the thrift store when a police cruiser pulled up next to the pavement. She intended to ignore them despite guessing that they were there for her. It made little sense for her to want notice to be put up in the news and not the police. 

“Miss, shouldn’t you be in school?” the cop on the passenger seat called out to her after rolling down the window. 

Yuriko paused for a moment, glanced at the man disdainfully, then continued past them. 

“Alright, maybe not,” she heard the man mutter. “Hmmm.” 

“Hey, she looks familiar.” Another voice, from the other police office. The cruiser’s door opened, and the first officer climbed out. 

“Hey, hold up a moment, miss. Don’t ignore me!” He barked. She heard the click of his firearm holster snap open. 

Yuriko paused, then said, “Don’t.” 

There was a moment of stunned silence, then the man scoffed. “Or what?” The gun slid out of the holster. “Hands behind your head. Now!”

Yuriko unfurled her Anima perception, and she felt the man shiver as it washed over him. 

“Wha—?”

He was holding the same type of gun that she liberated from the corrupt police office last night, but that just made sense considering they were both in law enforcement. She wondered if these two were also corrupt, or rather, what level of “dirty” were they? Low enough that they would immediately pull a weapon on a student? 

His partner was just about to leave the police cruiser, and he looked surprised at the other man’s reaction. He glanced at her as she turned around, and his eyes widened in both surprise and recognition. 

So they were briefed about her. To kill or not? 

Irisvaile’s civilisation seemed similar enough to Astoria’s that she was reasonably certain that dead cops would merit a deadly response. If she killed them, then the others of their ilk wouldn’t hold back either, which would probably force her to kill them, too. She also had the feeling that the increased attention would be detrimental to her, even if her face was already changing away from Amalia’s features. Besides, Mum and Lucian would be affected. 

Well, broken it is. 

The first officer had already toggled the gun’s safety off, just from feeling the dread from her perception aura. And probably her fearless response. 

The Ennoia seed and the seals within it throbbed. Almost subconsciously, she shifted her weight just enough to bring her body away from the path of the bullet released by the cop’s twitchy finger. She knew how many steps she needed to take to reach the man’s gun and what angle to strike to take it off his hands. She did just that and became the possessor of another police gun. Another easy five hundred, probably. That’s a thousand Weyrmarks in illicit firearms. A third one should come from the other cop. Ah, plus whatever’s in their wallets, she supposed, though…nah, the guns were spoils of war, while taking their personal effects would be theft. 

She absentmindedly slapped the man’s chin with enough force to shake his brain. He collapsed on his knees, groaning, while the other man quickly drew his firearm, screaming his head off. As he was on the opposite side of the car, the steps to disarm him took longer. She calmly sauntered around the car, and every time he squeezed the trigger, she moved out of the way just before the gun fired. Each shot was loud, and the pedestrians dove for cover. She was at least certain that nobody was behind her, but the way the man shot, he was trembling in fear and more than a bit erratic. 

She disarmed him before he got a third shot, and she slapped him unconscious. She thumbed the safety switch on both guns, then stowed them in her backpack, something she liberated from the gym’s locker room earlier. A purse on her current outfit would be out of place after all. 

Both men were down, so she headed to the nearest alley to take to the roofs. She retracted her perception aura as soon as she was out of sight. Thankfully, Rakkisgrad didn’t quite have as many security and traffic cameras as the Republic of Astoria, so she was certain her actions were unrecorded. But then again, while she felt Amalia’s push to care for her sibling, Yuriko didn’t have the same bonds. Let the dice fall as they will. 

Hmmm. What of her plans, then? Ah, she might as well try Lucian’s apartment first. He might have seen the broadcast and…wait. 

She fished the pager—a device that was about a couple of inches to a side and a quarter of an inch thick—out from her pocket. It was turned off, but when she powered it on, it received a message from her brother. 

Well, she could use a payphone to call his home. She frowned as she tried to remember his apartment’s phone number, but came up blank. Rotten memories full of holes!

With a sigh, she ran across the rooftops to get to his tenement. At the very least, the area was filled with similar structures, so she didn’t have to descend to the street level to access his place. That was convenient. She arrived at 32 Windlass Road, Diamond Apartments, after a quarter of an hour. The roof access door was open, so she slipped inside. His apartment number was three, on the ground floor, so she had to descend the five flights of stairs to get there. She was tempted to jump through the middle as a shortcut, but dropping all the way down to the ground floor might be too much for her current body to take without reinforcement. No need to leave a trail for that woman to follow easily.

Once she was on the bottom floor, she made her way to the apartment, only to realise that it was empty. Where did he intend for her to go, anyway? She couldn’t even call him from the landline phone, since she also didn’t remember his place of work, much less his landline. She could hang around here until he got back? 

The apartment was small for four people to live in. There were only two bedrooms with a bunk bed in each. The place also had the funky, unwashed male smell that…erm, somehow wasn’t that unpleasant. Oh, Ancestors. With her changing body came the appetites of a Mishala. It wasn’t that strong yet; in fact, she could easily ignore it. But she knew it would grow stronger over time, and she’d be forced to deal with it one way or another. 

With a sigh, she took a notepad from the table next to the landline and wrote down a message for her wayward brother. 

She could have left it at that, but Amalia’s resentment wouldn’t allow her. She’d stick around for a while and see if her enemies tried something with her brother, and when she felt that the heat was gone from him, and probably her mum, then she’d leave. She had to get her bearings and plan anyway, since crossing the majority of the plane, not to mention an ocean that was about three thousand longstrides across, wasn’t done without preparation. 

She rooted around the place trying to see if she could spot his work address, and remembered that all four of them worked for the same place, Bastion Construction Corporation. Their current work site was at the outer edge of District Four, opposite the way she was headed, and they were demolishing an old, dilapidated building. 

Amalia’s worries meant she’d want to head there and make sure he was alright. It would take an hour’s run to get there, though, and she might as well get her other errands done. She did requisition Lucian’s clean sweatpants from his closet. He was tall enough that her ankles weren’t exposed. She kept the sandals, though.

Well, first things first was to get rid of the guns. She spotted a pawnshop’s sign a few blocks away, though she wondered if they would even accept the illicit goods. Considering the seediness of the place, probably. 

The door triggered a bell as it opened, and the proprietor looked up from behind a barred frame. He eyed her warily, but nodded a greeting. “How may I help you today?” 

Yuriko smiled. “I’m looking to sell some guns.” 

“I don’t buy firearms.” He instantly rebutted, but there was a glint of interest in his eyes. 

“I’m not looking for anything official.” 

“I see.” He gestured towards the access tray in front of him. 

Yuriko withdrew the pistol from her backpack and placed it on the tray. The man frowned as he gingerly fiddled with the gun. He removed the magazine and the chambered round and glared at her for good measure, then sighed, “This is a Geffenwaffe 9P. A police gun.”

“Surely it isn’t only used by them?” Yuriko arched an eyebrow. 

“Yes, but this is hot.”

“Uh-huh.” 

“A hundred.” 

Yuriko frowned. That was a fifth of what she expected. “Those are worth five.” 

“Brand new and clean, sure,” he scoffed. 

Yuriko sighed. “Fine, but…” she pulled out the other two, and the man’s eyebrows reached his hairline. “Five hundred for all three.” 

He looked like he wanted to haggle more, but Yuriko’s cold eyes made him swallow nervously instead. “Agreed.” 

Yuriko smiled, then said, “Now let me take a look at your blades.”