The eastern coast was several leagues away from Fordja, more than twenty, actually. But Yuriko felt there was little need to hurry there. The aircraft penetrated deeper into Karcellian airspace and whatever they were dropping were also falling closer to the city.

Boom! Boom!

There were bombers, too, and she could see the KAF sortie from their bases. Wide beams of light flared from the ground, brightening the clouds. But the Confederate aircraft were too scattered to be easily caught.

Lines of fire rose from the ground, anti-aircraft guns followed along behind the lights. A beam caught one of the falling bundles, giving Yuriko the chance to make out what it was. At this range, it was nearly impossible to view the fine details, but she could see that the lumps were quite larger than the bombs but were soon slowed by dark parachutes.

Several lumps fell on the countryside, and the nearest was less than a league from Fordja.

"Let's go," she said to her troops, which consisted mostly of her friends. The marines weren't drinking in the Dancing Ox but at another pub.

She picked up Gwendith and Heron with her Animakinesis, leaving the twins to coordinate with the others. They practically flew across the countryside, but even so, by the time they reached the drop site, the only things left were planks of wood and a parachute.

With her perception aura, she quickly found traces on the damp ground. Booted footprints and palm-shaped marks that were three times bigger than the boots, as well as small clawed feet. They were headed due east.

"Do you see anything?" she asked idly. Heron closed his eyes and she could feel his Will infuse into the surrounding winds.

She and Gwendith exchanged glances, and her friend whispered, "Since when was he able to do that?"

Yuriko could only shrug.

"One longstride that way," Heron said after a minute. The direction wasn't directly east and was roughly east-southeast.

"Well done," Yuriko said, and Heron grinned and whispered just loudly enough for her to hear.

"I wonder if I could get another kiss."

Yuriko rolled her eyes, though she felt herself blush lightly. She flared at him and muttered, "You're not going to stop teasing, aren't you?"

He smirked. "Probably not."

"Eh?" Gwendith's confused grunt brought them back to focus.

"Let's head them off," Yuriko said.

"Aye."

Heron led them this time, adjusting his heading every now and then. A couple of minutes later and their quarry was within sight, and of course, they were easily spotted too.

Yuriko whistled as she saw them. A dozen blood apes, along with half their number in Richmond infantrymen. The edges of her light sizzled and three six-legged lizards popped into view.

For a timeless moment, the three of them, and the score of enemies merely stared at each other in shock, then, the infantrymen yelled, pointed their rifles at her, and pulled the trigger.

The sound of gunfire was deafeningly loud.

Plink! Plink!

Only for the bullets to flatten against Yuriko's condensed aura. She unleashed the entire might of her Anima, thrusting against the nearest soldier directly. The front of his combat uniform flattened and he was flung back so quickly that he only left an afterimage.

Crack! Thud!

The trunk of the tree he hit broke and fell over his prone form. Meanwhile, the blood apes roared and charged towards her.

Gwendith intercepted one, conjuring several ice daggers out of thin air. Heron shield slammed into another, and the remaining ten were bowled over by a hasty push.

Her Anima reach had tripled and her control was clumsy at best. The most she could do now was to simply bludgeon her foes.

Unlike the soldier, the blood apes weren't knocked flying. But it did buy her enough time to conjure sunshards. A dozen mini-swords spun into existence and drove towards each blood ape's face. Eight out of ten were struck blind, while the remaining two managed to raise their arms in defence. A futile effort, unfortunately, as the shards circled and struck them from behind.

Gwendith danced away from her rampaging ape, striking at its vital points, joints, and senses with her flying daggers. She didn't allow them to break and freeze, opting instead to wound and weaken it.

Heron was actually grappling with his foes and they matched each other strength for strength. The ape was half again as tall as he was, and twice as broad, but his condensed Anima and physical enhancement was more than a match. Then, while he had the ape occupied, a hardened air shield materialised beside him, and its edge was razor sharp. The shield struck at the side of the ape's neck and embedded several inches into it. The ape roared, which then tapered to a whimper.

As for the soldiers, after a stunned moment, they broke and ran.

Yuriko bit off a curse. The six-legged lizards were gone, too. She tracked a couple of soldiers and captured them with her Animakinesis. Actually, she could have caught all of them, but the blood ape Gwendith was fighting pivoted and ran for the hillside. Yuriko would rather allow the humans to go than the ape, so she focused on that one and clipped its legs out from under it. At the same time, Gwendith’s daggers struck its eyes, nose, and ears, fatally wounding it. As had happened before, the apes’ bodies disintegrated, leaving little but ashes and pools of blood.

The soldiers she caught were easily disarmed. Yuriko took all of their weapons, including a few hidden knives, and pistols. Then, she was torn between taking the prisoners to the authorities or chasing after the rest. More importantly, the lizards had gone invisible again, and those could wreak far more havoc than the men.

But even with her Anima in full flare, they were nowhere in sight. Every second counted and they were in the woods. The trees were widely spaced, each one at least five or so paces from the others. She focused her Anima into as thin a stream as she could and pushed it farther in one direction. Before absorbing the crystal, she could stretch her Anima tendrils three times as far as her reach, which was also how far she could send her sunshards out. If she only focused on moving one tendril, could she reach farther?

She pushed her Anima, but she couldn’t seem to grasp even a narrow thread. At least once it was beyond her normal reach. The tendril was thick and clumsy, and couldn’t even get to ninety paces away…

“Burning Moon!” she cursed. The lizards escaped! But the soldiers…they could still be caught. She formed Animus ropes and quickly bound the captured two. The first one was dead, crushed by either her kinetic push or the weight of the tree once it fell on him. “Take them to the constables,” Yuriko said to Heron, who nodded and carried both Richmondians under his arms.

She swept for footprints, finding the remaining three going in different directions. One was headed to Lindorn, another was to the east, and a third had run straight north.

“Kill or capture?” Gwendith asked.

“Capture if they surrender,” Yuriko said. “I’ll go get that one, you go for the one headed to the south.”

“Alright!” Gwendith said as she sped off. Yuriko launched herself after the soldier and caught up to him within a minute. She caught him with her kinesis, but…

Crack!

“Argh!” The man screamed as his leg broke. Yuriko clicked her tongue and muttered a quick apology in Karcellian, but the soldier had passed out from the pain. She relieved him of his weapons and dragged them along with her as she went for the last one. She caught up in a few minutes, too, though that one had tried to hide under some bushes. Her perception easily found him.

“I know you’re there. Surrender.” When the man said nothing, Yuriko sighed and reached out with her Animakinesis, trying to be gentler. The man yelled and fired his pistol. The bullets smacked against the condensed aura over her chest, the bullets flattened but she kept them in her pocket anyway. She could throw them with her kinesis and there was no sense wasting the metal. Once she subdued the soldier, she picked him up with her kinesis, went back for the first, then headed south, looking for Gwendith. She caught up to her about ten minutes later, standing over a corpse.

“He didn’t want to surrender,” Gwendith said in a flat voice.

Yuriko nodded and carried the weapons Gwendith had looted. “Let’s get back to Fordja.”

“Yes.”

It was well past midnight by the time they arrived. Gwendith was yawning into her hand, while Yuriko felt a bit sleepy, too. But that was more force of habit than anything else since she had slept past noon yesterday. The town was quiet but the area near the constabulary was busy. They ran into Heron as he was leaving the building. His eyes darted towards the captured soldiers and he held the door open for Yuriko.

She dropped off the soldiers in the jail and left Gwendith to fill out the paperwork while she hurried outside. The air raid was done, it looked like, but there had been hundreds of parachuters. The darkness of the night certainly wasn’t helping.

One of the constables came out of the building with Gwendith. The man had bags under his eyes, and he said, “Thank you for your aid, Magus Davar. Please stand by at your residence so that messengers can reach you.”

“Alright.”

On the way back, Saki found them and made her report. “It doesn’t look good, young mistress. Infiltrators have struck against the country’s coastal defences. I think it’s the prelude to an invasion.”

Yuriko nodded. “I think so, too. We’ll have to help beat them back. Do you know where they’re gathered?”

“Probably across the narrowest part of the channel. But the defences there are tight,” Saki frowned.

“Do you think they’d go to less protected parts of the eastern coast?” Heron asked.

“Perhaps. It would allow them to land their forces under minimal defences,” Yuriko said, “but the unit we intercepted had twice as many daemons as human soldiers.”

“That means they might use the daemons as shock troops,” Saki said.

“Six-legged lizards were part of the unit we intercepted but they escaped,” Yuriko said grimly. “What do we do?” she grumbled. “Head east and intercept the landing? Wait here for word? Or do we…”

“Yuri,” Heron clasped her shoulder. “Let’s wait for the Karcellian response. As much as you want to help, we’re not part of their armed forces. We’re auxiliaries at best. Let’s see where they need us first. And now, I think we need to rest. But let’s gather at your place.”

Two other houses near hers were occupied by her group. None of the other cottages were as close to each other as there. Those were Asami and Saki’s cottage, as well as Heron and Sheamus’.

She wondered how the others’ hunt fared. With no clue where the infiltrators were, it was better to stay put and respond to calls than to run around blindly. She could cover a lot, with her speed and her perception range, but that was still only a small slice of the area the country covered.

She returned to her cottage and found Desire fitfully meditating in the living room. Her Chaos Lord ran up to her and glomped her, crying, “Where have you been? I was so worried!”

“Ah, sorry, Des,” Yuriko said while patting the girl’s head. “Do you need more Chaos?”

“I always do.” Desire pouted. Yuriko chuckled and gave her several motes of distilled Chaos. “So much?” Desire gasped.

“Yes, we might be in combat soon. Prepare.”

“Yes, master!”

Yuriko did her nightly ablutions and turned in while Saki kept watch. The others probably trickled in as the night wore on because as soon as she woke up at dawn, many of them were gathered in the living room. She distributed the looted rifles, bullets, and explosives, had breakfast, and then meditated. She needed to regain finer control over her Anima as soon as she could, but she had only been at it for an hour when word finally came.

The Richmond Confederacy had landed on Karcellia’s shores and their ships disgorged thousands of soldiers, and multiple times that in daemons.