For a single moment, Yuriko thought that she was in a nightmare.

She was sleeping in the Ebon Horizon and any moment now, she would wake. Or even better, the past year had been nothing but a lucid dream and she would wake back in Fort Aegermonth, or in her room in the Golden Willow.

She could see and feel it. Her memories, her thoughts, focusing on home. She wanted to return there and wanted to embrace her brothers, not the pale imitation cousins and aunt that she’d never seen before in her life. She wanted to hug and squeeze her Da. Virgil Davar had always been the bedrock of her existence, always there to hold up the sky, to shelter her, and to show the Chaos lords why nobody invaded Faron’s Crossing.

A single moment of weakness. And it wasn’t by her desire, it was something else. Something that was drilling into her Anima.

Blood. Crimson light and a malevolent Will.

Everything around her was red and the only thing keeping it from touching her was her condensed Anima. No, it was already touching her! Her Anima was her. It wasn’t a tool or weapon. Her Anima was the seat of consciousness and she used it as though it were nothing more than a technique, an object. It was like peeling back skin and using her raw muscles and nerves as protection instead. A shudder ran through her body, as she saw the blood form tendrils as it wormed its way towards her.

No. The exposed Anima wasn’t her seat of consciousness.

Something whispered in her mind. It wasn’t Damien though, she was sure. It was a certainty she knew. Just as she knew where her left hand was, where her feet were. Even without seeing it, her Anima was a part of her body, and the one exposed was the same as the one within. Well, it was fundamentally the same, but it was the same difference as her hand, heart, and mind. Her hand was a part of her body and was connected to both heart and mind, but it wasn’t that.

Her flared Anima was nearly the same as the Anima that held her consciousness and her core, but it was still different.

The problem was, a parasite could enter her body through a wound on her hand and eventually make it to her heart and mind. As for what was happening now, the blood creature used her flared Anima as a channel to get within her. To get at her core and her true self.

She couldn’t move her body, otherwise, she would have tried to escape. Her hands were clasped around Fri’Avgi which was still buried in the humanoid form of the blood warrior. About a fourth of the mass had turned to liquid, while the rest of it kept the artefact from moving. She could feel Fri’Avgi struggling, but not to get free. No, the gluttonous artefact was trying to absorb the blood!

Tendrils of blood slowly crept up the blade’s furrows, heading towards the red gem. But unlike the tendrils, those were trying to escape.

Yuriko’s Anima moved. It was the only thing she could do. Her vision slowly faded away, replaced by emptiness. She pushed it away, determined to fight to the bitter end. How many tendrils were there in all?

One, two, three…five, nine…twenty? Twice more than how many Animus strands she could control at once. Her condensed Anima pushed and disintegrated the tendrils, but it was too slow. More blood came from the creature, and it didn’t look like it would run dry anytime soon.

Somehow, she managed to thicken her Anima, a single point right where a tendril pressed against her. She pushed, twisted, devoured. Crimson particles burst from the tendril, slowly dissipating from her defence.

That was one.

But even as her focus was through there, the other nineteen burrowed further into her. They were merely a couple of inches from her skin, more than halfway through her condensed Anima field. Even as she looked, they closed by another quarter inch.

She split her control in two, then four, then eight, each one condensed a shard that pierced and cut the tendrils. Every bit she cut, burned to nothingness. But for every moment she spent cutting, burning the tendrils, the others dug in deeper and deeper.

If only she had more time!

Seized by an impulse, she flared her Anima as far as she could from her body, hoping that by expanding it to full length, it would buy her the time to fight.

It worked.

Her Anima blasted outwards, and the tendrils were thrown back with it. From only an inch left, her expanded Anima forced the tendrils to nearly ten inches away. But now her Anima wasn’t as dense as it was.

Lightning quick, the free tendrils wriggled through her Anima as though it were nothing but air. She only had time to gasp at her own foolishness then they touched her. Then, the entirety of the blood warrior burst into liquid and followed the paths into her. The next thing she knew, a heavy pressure exerted from all around her and squeezed her body so much that she couldn’t even breathe. Then the tendrils entered her body. Heat, fire. Radiant. They faded away.

A creeping cold seeped in. Moving from outside in. Her fingers and toes grew numb, and the coldness crept up. Slowly, her legs froze, then her arms, then her torso. Then, the only thing that was warm was her heart. The centre of her Radiant Refinement.

The world faded away when she blinked, and when she came to, she was in an empty field. Blood red energy filled the skies, and slowly stained her golden light.

____

“What happened to Miss Davar?”

“The blood warrior!”

“Oh no! It’s…infecting her? Is it taking over her body? No, look, her skin’s turning red!”

“What do we do?”

“Ah, she might turn into a monster more terrifying than those things!”

“Slit her throat?”

“No! Don’t touch her.”

“But, your Highness!”

“What kind of ingrates would we be if we kill our saviour?”

“She won’t be our saviour if she kills us!”

“Hold your tongue! Don’t do anything unless I tell you to!”

“... yes, your Highness.”

______

A blade of Radiant light cut through the swarm. Yuriko dodged out of the way as a bee, a bug the size of her fist, careened towards her face. The blood tide smashed against the barrier of her Anima, and she cut down those that managed to seep through. She’s been at it for a while, and she was afraid that she was fighting a losing battle.

She was only one person and the expanse of her Anima, from how she envisioned it, felt as wide as the Sharom campus. Swarms punched through from hundreds of points, though each one only let in a handful of bees, that still meant they added up. Now, there were more than enough of them to cover an entire building.

She slashed with her sunblade, burning everything she touched. But it was too little. More and more of them appeared, and soon, she wouldn’t even have enough space to dodge, much less strike.

What could she do? She knew that if they struck her, that would be it. Her manifestation was the last threshold. Once her form was destroyed, she knew that she would be no more. To die here, in the dreamscape, was to die in truth.

The Church of Everlasting Order spoke of the cycle of rebirth, the cycle of life and death. Once someone died, a remnant of their Anima, the core and the seat of consciousness would detach from the body.

Last Rites and Rituals would prevent the remnant Anima from clinging to the corpse. It allowed the remnant to safely slip out of the plane and into the Primordial Chaos Sea. Then they would be cleansed of life and memories which then allowed that core to be reborn anew.

But the dreamscape…somehow, Yuriko knew that to die here was to have the core of herself dissolve into nothing. If she died here, there would no longer be a Yuriko in the myriad planes in the future.

So she sliced, stabbed, cut, and swatted the blood-red bugs. But she couldn't keep up. And at one point, she felt a sting, then a wave of numbness from her back. She collapsed to her knees, panting roughly.

Snickt! Snickt! Snickt!

More stingers plunged into her flesh, and a wave of cold nearly overwhelmed her. The bugs congregated and formed a humanoid figure. It reached with its hand and touched her forehead.

“I…I will not…give in...” Yuriko growled.

Insect.

“Says the one who was a bunch…of bugs!”

The blood creature tilted its head, then shrugged.

You came into my realm, and you fought my small selves. Now, become one with me.

“Urk!” Yuriko grunted as the tendrils pressed into her forehead.

Surrender.

No.

You have no choice.

No.

Yuriko gritted her teeth, then swiped at the humanoid with her blade. The creature momentarily dissipated to let the blade pass through, but before she could capitalise, it rematerialised and pressed down on her head again.

Save yourself the trouble.

No!

Why are you so stubborn, girl? What lurks behind that mind of yours that gives you the gumption to resist? Let me see.

The sheer violation of feeling those tendrils enter her mind nearly made her faint.

“Get out of my head!” she yelled.

Who are you?

Images surfaced from the depths of her mind. Her life in Faron’s Crossing. Her Da, her brothers, and Mum.

Who are you?

Memories of prep school, her friends, her training surfaced.

Eh, why was her impression of everyone else but Krystal and Mikel faint? Eh, Heron was nice and solid in her mind too. Oh, Orrin and Braden. Huh, but she’s barely known them for a year. Come to think of it, didn’t she see them during her Atavism Ritual?

Nebulous forms materialised right in front of her and shaped into the twins. Huh? Did they grow that much over the year? How would she know what they looked like now, anyway?

“Yuri!” both yelled, their surprised faces turning to joy, “You’re alive!”

But before she could answer them, before she could so much as speak a word, the blood creature swiped with a thick limb and dissipated them.

“Ah!” Yuriko gasped. “Chaos burn you!”

The Chaos cannot burn me. Not when I am its source.

“You…?”

Bright connections, forged in the flames of life, lust, and death.

Who are you?

Memories spun in her mind, dashing through the forefront of her mind. But at the same time, images that weren’t hers appeared.

The Pure Lands. The concept of purity was much more frightening than she expected. Purity meant that nothing that wasn’t of it, would be destroyed. Or worse, changed.

More of me is inside you now. Soon, you will be just another self.

The entirety of her Anima was red. Nothing remained of the golden light save for what came from her envisioned body, her core. Was this it? Would she end her journey in this little plane made of nothing?

No. No. NO!

Fool child, you are nothing.

And you’re nothing but a fool.

Damien!

A golden light emerged, not from within her, but from the borders of her Anima. A dome of golden fire locked in the blood monster, even as it burned the tendrils that led out into the dreamscape.

You!

Yes, I. Damien’s mental voice was filled with sardonic amusement. I’ve been waiting for you.

Fool! This is just a small self. My greater being will hunt you down and devour you!

Only if you can return outside. And now, you are nothing. Ah, no, you are something. You are…food.

The entirety of her Anima was suddenly filled with Radiant light, and it burned the blood creature, boiling its very fabric of being.

But no matter how hot the Radiant light became, it couldn’t completely boil away the creature. Its loud screams burned her ears, and she shuddered in terror.

I can’t do this alone.

"What…what must I do?"

Devour him. Take his essence and turn it into yours.

"But…isn't that dangerous?"

The Radiant Sun takes the Chaos and turns it into its own power. Burn the Chaos, and use it to create Radiance.

"How? I…I don't know how."

There is no one way. Follow your instinct. Ah, bring Fri'Avgi here. She'll show you a method.

Yuriko's hand flexed and it took but a thought. But the artefact's presence brought inside more of the blood creature. Damien's image materialised around her body, like a shroud. She could feel the strain he bore, a weight so heavy that it would crush her should he slip.

She stabbed Fri'Avgi into the creature's centre of mass, and the artefact practically glowed with a golden flame. A whirlpool of blood formed around them, and the funnel led directly to the red gem.

But how did it all fit into that small space? What did Damien mean by burning and devouring? Was it as simple as forcing Radiant energy into it?

She summoned those reserves, slightly depleted from Damien talking. She shoved the light into the blood and caused it to steam and boil. The smoke wafted up, while the boiling left a small remnant, dust, at the ground. As for the light, it shone brightly.

Now, take that within you.

Yuriko hesitated in confusion, but the only thing she could feel from Damien was calm confidence.

So she grabbed the dust and swallowed it. Then she emptied her lungs and took a deep breath, sucking in the smoke. Her body burst with golden light, and the next thing she knew, she was lying in Reinhardt's arms.