A chill wind rose from the Veil, the barrier separating the plane of Rumiga from the endless Chaos outside. It swept past the mountains, cutting into the three-tiered city eponymously named Rumiga City. The Radiant Sun rose, casting its powerful light across the land, banishing the trace amounts of harmful Chaos that had seeped in from the outside.

The wind brought with it dark clouds. Lightning danced it its midst, followed closely by thunder, a loud crack that startled the sleeping populace. Though there was a fair share already awake and getting ready for the day, a blustery, and cold day at that.

Yuriko Mishala Davar tossed fitfully in her bed. Her blankets wound around her legs while the cold wind blew into the room through her open windows. Cold raindrops plopped on her forehead.

“Ancestors!” she moaned, kicking her blankets off and rolling off the bed. She landed on her hands and feet on the wooden floor. Her eyes felt grainy; not unusual considering that she hardly had any sleep with last night’s thoughts disturbing her peace. She shuffled to the window, yawning into her hand and slammed the windows closed, though not before a swift shadow darted inside. “Huh?”

“Myaaah!”

Yuriko secured the windows then looked over her shoulder. A grey and white tabby cat with bright green eyes meowed at her from atop her bed.

“Oh, hello there.” Yuriko yawned. “I guess you came in from the rain?”

The cat gave her a quiet meow and jumped out of the way when she sat on the bed.

It was actually already past the time that Yuriko should have woken up and started her training regimen. After a brief mental struggle, she shrugged and headed to her closet, pulled out her training clothes and tossed them on the bed.

“Meow!”

The cat, a tomcat from the shape of his head and general size, Yuriko thought, was probably one of The Golden Willow’s resident mousers. He jumped onto one of her chairs, made a little circle, then settled in though he kept his eyes trained on the girl.

Yuriko, for the most part, ignored the tabby. She shucked out of her pyjamas and into her training gear. She tried her best not to think and just go with her habits for now. Well, with the rain, it would be an uncomfortable run, but she didn’t just want to run around the courtyard. Well, the cold rain would just make the hot bath all the sweeter afterwards.

“Are you just going to stay here?” Yuriko asked the tabby when she was just about to leave the bedroom.

With the windows shut, the kitty wouldn’t have any place to go and, of course, she didn’t want to come home to a mess.

“You better not make a mess here,” she said but mostly without any heat. The cat gave her a wide yawn.

Rolling her eyes, she left the bedroom door ajar and made sure the living room windows were open, too. The messenger crane aperture above the entrance door was too small for the cat to fit through so she had to leave another way out.

She did her warm-up stretches inside before coming out to run, already feeling better after moving around. She’d thrown on her forceweave jacket before she left; at least her sweater won’t get soaked in the rain that way. She pulled the hood over her head once she exited the dorm’s main entrance, noting that the lounge was mostly empty save for the door guard who gave her an easy nod.

Stuffing her voluminous tresses under the hood took some effort and even so, her fringe stuck out. The wind cut right through her leggings though the jacket kept her nice and toasty. She sprinted as soon she came out, sneakers splashing against the newly formed puddles. She almost slipped on that first stride but it was incredibly easy for her to maintain her balance. Her body simply adjusted and compensated, and off she went at her fastest run. The raindrops pelted her face and bounced off her shoulders and arms, her breath coming out as plumes of steam.

It was all worth it though. For the next half hour, as she ran around the Academic Roundabout, the perimeter road around the Central Reserve, she felt all her worries and anxieties drain out. But they were back almost as soon as she finished running and her bodyweight exercises.

Next on her routine would have been the sword dances but doing so reminded her of the Golden Silhouette. It also brought back the thought of the strange voices that had been weighing in on her thoughts a few too many times to be a coincidence. She had initially assumed that it had been Fri’Avgi and the Ancestors knew how she missed the artefact greatsword. She briefly wondered how long it would take for the license to be ready.

“Need to write Marron about it,” She reminded herself while she spun the training swords in her hands.

If she closed her eyes and thought of the weapon, she could vaguely point out where it was. West. Well actually, a bit southwest and not true west. Still, she was far enough away from the artefact that she was reasonably sure that it wasn’t the voice in her head. Would it really be that bad if it wasn’t Fri’Avgi?

She tried to recall the voice. She suddenly realised that she had paused and cocked her head, waiting for it to comment. There was only silence though, not a stir in her mind. Well, the voice hadn’t said anything that harmed her; the truth was, it had often pointed out some things that she had been blind to.

Well, Yuriko decided, there was nothing to do about it now. Or she could talk to Krystal about it. Even if Krys didn’t have any useful advice, just talking about it should ease Yuriko’s fears. Unless Krys told her she was insane, of course. Well, there were specialists who knew how to deal with illnesses of the mind. Still, she wasn’t sure she was ready to bring herself to the infirmary. A part of her thought that she was blowing things out of proportion. Perhaps it was only her own thoughts after all.

Keep telling yourself that.

“Oh!” Yuriko gasped.

She had been in midswing, and with her focus interrupted, she barely completed the manoeuvre, and she grounded the training swords onto the dirt. What was that?

Again, only silence. Shaking her head, Yuriko finished her training routine. Whatever solace she found in working her body had disappeared like a cold mist in the hot sun. Well, she was feeling quite wet and miserable now. The Golden Willow’s courtyard was open to the rainy sky and the ground was a muddy, slippery mess. She managed to return indoors without incident but her training shoes were caked in brown muck. She scrapped as much of it off as she could with a scrapper thoughtfully provided by the custodians near the entrances and she trod back to her room, face dripping wet from the rain.

She passed by several dormers who threw exasperated looks at her dripping wetness. When she arrived at her suite, the tabby was stretched out on the sofa, giving her a challenging look.

“This is my room, you know,” she said while rolling her eyes. The cat merely yawned and turned away from her.

A long soak in the bathtub with steaming hot water nearly made her nod off. With some reluctance, she donned her uniform and made her way to the cafeteria.

“Yuri!” Krystal called out.

She, Millie, Maryn, Danika, and Ishika, were just headed to a long table. Yuriko waved back as she went in line for her breakfast tray. As soon as she had her food, she made her way to the others and sat across from her childhood friend.

“You look beat,” Krys observed around a spoonful of pudding.

“Didn’t sleep well,” Yuriko grunted as she buttered her toast. Breakfast today was a pair of sausages, baked beans, toast with butter and orange marmalade, a rasher of bacon, and a mug of hot tea.

“You didn’t sleep well?” Millie raised an eyebrow. “That’s unusual. Don’t you adhere to a strict schedule?”

“Strange thoughts.”

“Ah, of course.”

“I’m worried, too.” Krys sighed.

“About what?” Ishika asked idly.

“Our parents.”

“Oh…oh! Er…sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Krystal put another spoonful of food in her mouth, chewing slowly.

“No, it’s not about that.” Yuriko interrupted, then let out a deep sigh. “Well, now that you’ve reminded me of it, I’m worried again.”

Krystal grunted and the girls continued eating in silence. When they finished, they headed off to their classes. Yuriko, Maryn, and Ishika headed straight to Sharom Academy, each of them wearing a rain cloak that was part of their uniform for use on such days. Sharom’s cloak was a deep blue with several sunburst patterns that lit up with their Animus, generating a field that kept most of the rainwater off. By the time Yuriko reached the Song Building, she’d used a couple of lumens worth of her reserve.

“See you two later!” she said with forced brightness and a wave.

In Jade 101, the Sharom Academy’s Elite Class’ room, Yuriko found that a bit less than half of her class was there. According to the schedule, they would have another class with their adviser, Master Kiyo Alfein, a beautiful woman with cat-like almond-shaped pupils and a tawny mane of hair, regarding the basics of Animus manipulation.

Yuriko’s seatmate, Ella-Mai Wol, was already on her seat, studiously reading through the Treatise of Chaos and Will. When Yuriko placed her bag under the desk and sat down, Ella-Mai looked up at her and blinked.

“‘Morning,” she greeted. “Terrible weather we’re having.”

“Yeah,” Yuriko nodded in agreement. “I didn’t expect it to be this cold.”

“Why’s that?” Ella-Mai lowered the book and closed it, turning slightly so that she faced Yuriko.

Yuriko shrugged. “It didn’t get this cold back in Faron’s Crossing, at least not until it was already in the Season of Water.”

“Ah, it’s probably because Rumiga City is higher up.”

“Probably. You’re in the Martial Sciences class later right?”

“Yes.” Ella-Mai looked down for a brief moment, a strange look on her face.

“You don’t want to?” Yuriko guessed.

“No! No, no. I, uh, I want to attend.” Ella-Mai nodded sharply, though a moment later, she looked away. “I mean, it’s my duty.”

“Oh.”

Yuriko settled down to wait for class to start. She and Ella-Mai were early by a few minutes, so she decided to do as the other girl did and pulled out her copy of the Treatise. Ever since she realised, or rather, the voice in her head told her to use her Animus to see past the book’s protections, she had an infinitely easier time reading. Well, it was honestly still dry and boring but at least she didn’t get a headache reading.

“How did you figure it out?” She glanced at Ella-Mai and asked absently.

“What? Figure what out?”

Frowning, Yuriko nodded to the book. “How did you read past the runescript in the Treatise?”

“Oh, that? It’s a common enough technique.” Ella-Mai shrugged. “It’s something most of the students from the Capital know about. At least the ones from the noble families.”

“I see,” Yuriko muttered. She could barely think about the implications but it did leave a sour taste in her mouth.

“Well, it’s not so bad. Someone who didn’t know it could figure it out after a while and you’d learn a new technique in the process,” Ella-Mai continued with a grin.

Yuriko just nodded. A few minutes later, the rest of the class had arrived and so did their adviser.

“Good morning, kids,” Kiyo Alfein greeted lazily. “Well, I hope you’ve read through the first part of the Treatise of Chaos and Will. Before that though, there are a few announcements I’d like to make. Namely, about half of this class has progressed to Apprentice Anima level of strength while the other half teeters at the brink. Now, it’s in your best interest to achieve Apprentice as soon as possible ideally, no later than the end of term. No student who has not progressed past Novice will be allowed to remain in the Elite class, no matter their other qualifications.”

She shuffled the papers on her desk and then looked at Yuriko in the eye.

“Miss Davar, your Animus Cap is already at the Sollus state. It should take no more than the effort to learn more about your Heritage and Facet to catapult you to the next level.”

She looked at Diya Esras, Anika Finley, Korban Greenwood, and Nathan Slith next.

“The four of you have the opposite issue: your Cap isn’t Sollus. Make sure to receive your allocation of Zoi elixir from the Student Affairs department. Two or three elixirs should do it. You may purchase additional Zoi at cost, but remember not to take more than one per week.

“Now then, the question that we haven’t answered here but is in the book: please give me the answer.”

Ella-Mai raised her hand and, at Master Alfein’s nod, said, “According to the Treatise, there is no difference between ambient Chaos and Animus except that one exists outside and the other is found within a person’s Anima.”

“Correct. Do you all agree?”

Yuriko, along with everyone else in the class, nodded.

“Then you’re all idiots,” Master Alfein declared in a flat tone. She continued before Yuriko could do anything more than widen her eyes. “The very fact that Animus exists within a person’s Anima means it is already different from ambient Chaos. Amafi Garderon posited that they are fundamentally the same save for where they exist. Their place of existence is what makes them fundamentally different!”

Master Alfein gave each of them a toothy grin.

“Garderon’s theories had long been hotly debated in the Imperial Capital back when she was still alive but new research showed that the little fundamental difference is all that’s needed to differentiate. Now, why am I saying this to you kids?”

She looked at them expectantly but when no answer was forthcoming, she sighed.

“Don’t believe everything you read just because it's there. Also, keep an open mind and always consider that what you know as true may not be the truth as you know it. Now then, let’s discuss the fundamental differences between ambient Chaos and, shall we say, Pure Animus and if there are any practical differences at all…”

Yuriko covered her mouth and tried to squelch her yawn. She failed miserably, of course, but Master Alfein didn’t seem to notice. The others in the class had their attention riveted to the cat-eyed woman. Perhaps any other day, when she’d had a full night’s sleep, she would have found the discussion interesting, but right now, she was fighting off her sleepiness. At least she had Martial Sciences to look forward to this afternoon.

Now, it would be wonderful if the minutes didn’t slow to a crawl. She looked down at her desk and her hands.

She’s got interesting ideas. They’re not completely right, but what can one expect? Heh.

Aaaand, just like that, sleepiness faded away and her heart started to race.