Miya Mishala leaned back against her seat, sighing in both annoyance and exhaustion. The Silver Tiger was a luxury yacht but it wasn’t unarmed. Aside from the forward Plasma Carronades, and the smaller arms at the sides, the Tiger also had a “tiger cub” system that basically mounted a small calibre Plasma Carronade onto a hovering chassis controlled by a pilot. Though the controller was safely within the Tiger rather than inside the fighter. An Animus tether was extracted and woven from the pilot, and this determined the range of the tiger cub.

The tiger cub was annoyingly shaped like a stuffed toy cat, too. Miya glared at the representation of her fighter, which was the cat in recline. The carronade was placed on its roaring maw, and runescript formations along its side and back allowed it to manoeuvre. With Miya’s Animus quality, the cub could fly all the way to the edge of the Planar Suppression, just a bit over a league away, now that the Silver Tiger had taken the place of the Green Swan as the linchpin.

She'd been controlling the rotting thing for nearly half a day now, and her mind and Anima were strained to the breaking point. The mini carronade consumed nearly fifty lumens a shot, though thankfully, that hadn't come from her personal reserves. Instead, the tether acted as a conduit to the Silver Tiger's powerful Animus Engines. Its output was more than enough to power hundreds of tiger cubs at once, so there was no shortage of energy.

The strain of channelling that power fell solely on the controller pilot, and few of the Silver Tiger's crew were capable of piloting the cub for more than an hour. In truth, it was the number of controllers that was the bottleneck, not the number of cubs or the Animus Engines.

That meant everyone not directly involved in the battle had been put on rotation. Just her luck.

Miya did enjoy watching the squidships and their Chaos dweller crew puff into ashes and dust whenever she got a good hit in, but the novelty of fighting had worn off. It didn't really matter if the tiger cubs got damaged either since it was easy to recover the wrecks. Fabricating one took some time, but the Chaos ship could do it easily and there was a stockpile. Having the cubs break returned some of the trauma through the tether, but as long as she cut it before complete destruction, she'd avoid most of the consequences other than losing a bit of her reserve.

And now, she was one with her shift. Good riddance. Miya undid the control apparatus strapped to her limbs and around her forehead. Sweat had beaded underneath the things and she took care to wipe them off. Thankfully she didn't really wear a lot of makeup considering the Mishalas natural good looks. Only a hint of colour on her cheeks and her eyelids. She wasn't well versed in illusory techniques otherwise those would have been better than what she had on. Of course, make-up couldn't be disrupted, unlike illusions, and that had its own advantages especially when some people set up dispelling pranks in the Academy.

Miya chortled as she remembered poor Akina Garderon who thought putting on illusory clothes would save her time. When the dispel went off, she'd been left in her ratty underwear.

Nope, she wouldn't make that mistake, especially since she overheard dear cousin Yuriko's shadow guard complaining that her cousin's Field stripped away her shadows. Yup, if Miya had any illusions on, they'd be gone just by coming near Yuri.

She made her way out of the controller pod. The chamber was spatially expanded, but even so, it was still luxuriously appointed with soft carpets, tapestries, and gold and silver ornaments. There were seven pods in the first chamber and each one was occupied. She approached a wall panel and touched it with her palm, allowing the crystal screen to note her finished shift. Before the process was completed, another pod's indicator lights blinked and the hatch opened.

A youngish man crawled out, blinking in confusion. Miya pursed her lips as she considered him. He was clearly not of Mishala blood and she thought that he'd been in the same party as her cousin. He had tousled sandy hair and pale brown irises. And he was incredibly easy on the eyes, too.

The man saw her looking at him, started, and reddened slightly.

"Oh, hello!" he said brightly. "Nice fight eh? Never thought I'd be fighting on the front lines."

Miya gave him a soft, enticing smile. Such enthusiasm! "It was quite wearying," she pouted. "Were you drafted into the rotation, too?"

"Oh, no, no. I volunteered. Been feeling useless lately." He had an odd accent that Miya couldn't place. Not an Imperial then?

"Nice to meet you. I'm Miya Mishala."

The man blinked then stuttered, "Oh, where are my manners?" He sketched a bow. "Douglas Hart, at your service, my lady."

Her smile couldn't help but widen. "You came with my cousin, Yuriko."

"Yes. She was our instructor." Douglas scratched the back of his head and chuckled. "We came from a…well, I guess ‘backwards’ would be the right word…plane. Certainly, we don't have anything like this wondrous ship back home!"

"Exotic lands…my, how thrilling." Miya sashayed closer to Douglas and laid her hand on his shoulder. He was just a little bit taller than she was. Wonderful. "I'm curious about where you came from. Do you mind regaling me with tales of your adventures?"

"Um, I, uh, don't mind…"

"Good, good," Miya smirked, though she kept it from him. "Let's go."

It looked like the day wasn't a waste after all.

________

Yuriko floated in the Chaos Sea, Fri’Avgi at her side. It was the sixth day of the battle, and things had been kept to a low simmer. Mum had taken over Legate Jiro Segawa’s position as the centre of the Planar Suppression Formation, and the differences between their Domains couldn’t have been made clearer.

Previously, Legate Segawa had used water discs, spears, and jets to protect against the third Chaos Marchioness’ sacrificial blast. Now, when it was time for the Chaos dwellers to burn to ashes, it was Mum who defended. The dark light blasts simply…missed. When they entered the Planar Suppression Zone, it looked like the beams would hit the ships, but each of them simply passed through and continued on to the opposite side without hitting anything. Not even one of the stray warriors on their side who flitted about. It was as if the beams simply didn’t want to hit anything. It made Yuriko’s mind ache whenever she thought about it, so she simply focused on the fight.

Without being aboard Eli’Theria, Yuriko’s effectiveness was practically cut to a tenth, but there was something freeing about fighting with just her body. The Chaos didn’t even press down on her that hard, as her condensed Anima was more than enough to weather this kind of pressure.

According to the analysts, nearly a sixth of the Chaos dwellers’ forces had been consumed by whatever process it was that allowed the Marchionesses to bring them back. From three thousand squidships down to two thousand four hundred. There had been a hundred twenty or so Behemoths at the beginning. That number would have been more than enough to overrun a plane, but here on this battlefield, they were merely the shock troops. It was actually the Chaos Barons, Viscounts, and Earls that gave the Imperials the greatest casualties., and from the count, there were actually a couple of Earls roaming around the back. There were five viscounts and a hundred barons, but each of them was protected by a hefty guard of a hundred or so nameless each. In fact, the proper Chaos Lords were all linked to the nameless in one way or another, and any wound taken by the baron or viscount would be instantly transferred to the guards. The wounds would close, crushed limbs fixed themselves, and even should they get beheaded, their heads would fly back and reattach in a gruesome display, while one of their nameless guards would lose theirs.

Right now, she was facing off against a couple of viscounts, one of them rather familiar. The Weaver of the Warp and Weft of the World. While the other was a stocky being with thick arms and short legs. He had a beard that practically covered his front like a tabard and carried a couple of double-bladed axes on either limb.

“So this is the one who trampled on you, Weaver?” The bearded viscount scoffed, “You pathetic mongrel, your cowardly ways ensure your life but at the cost of your power.”

The Weaver scowled, but kept a wary eye on Yuriko, “You say that but I’ve lived ten of your lifespans, Oathsworn.”

“Length of life is no measure of success. It is what you do with it that matters.” The bearded Chaos Lord said feistily. Then he looked at Yuriko, his gemstone-like eyes glimmering with eagerness, “I am Oathsworn Cleaver of Dreams, and it would please me greatly to cut you down, Ancient.”

Yuriko sniffed but gave her name anyway. “Yuriko Mishala Davar.” Then she grinned, “I hope you present a better challenge than your friend.” When her eyes met the Weaver, the man shivered and trembled, before stepping back.

“I…uh, I think I’ll just go.”

Oathsworn’s head slowly turned to the Weaver and his jaw dropped. Or at least that’s what Yuriko thought it did, since his mouth was entirely covered by his beard. That thing was so full of tangles and knots that it was a wonder how it actually stayed confined to the man’s front. “You’ll just go?”

“She killed me twice already!” Weaver blurted out. “And I've no desire to die to her blade again.”

“Fine, go! Coward.”

Weaver stiffened. “Merely prudent.” Then, he tried to whisper, “I’ll aid when I can.”

Yuriko heard it all, but it didn’t really matter. She was three times stronger than when she fought him, and she could probably wipe out the Oathsworn just as easily. Well, if they weren’t protected by the nameless anyway.

Hmmm, if she used the Trinity, would the damage spread to all the linked nameless? Those guards were keeping quite a distance from her. For that matter, the three of them faced off at the edge of the Planar Suppression Zone, with her within while they were just out of the effect. And it didn’t look like they would step inside the zone any time soon. Has she ever faced a Chaos Lord in the open Chaos Sea before? They should be stronger, right? That should make this fight worth it.

Grinning to herself, she stepped towards them while they bickered, but as soon as she touched the border, their focus immediately went back to her. Weaver’s eyes widened in alarm at her temerity, but the Oathsworn scoffed in derision.

“Your funeral.”

He launched an attack as soon as she was outside. Purple arclights from his battle axes flew towards her head, but Yuriko simply condensed shields from her Anima. The arclights struck head-on, and the kinetic force ground her to a stop, but as soon as the lights faded away, she simply kept walking. Fri’Avgi held firmly in her hands, Yuriko began to weave sunshards around her.

Oathsworn didn’t let her have the time, and she felt the Weaver affect the space around her. Unlike in the plane, when her Anima sought to grasp the Chaos around her to keep her still, the hooks of her Anima simply slid off and she suddenly found herself within an inch of getting struck. The beardy viscount was less than a pace away from her, and his beard bristled into spikes and he tried for a tackle while attempting to hack at her from either side.

“Soft,” she murmured and her Animakinesis pulsed. The Oathsworn froze, the blades and bristles not an inch from her body. But that was as close as he could get.

The Chaos around her seemed to contract, then explosively expanded. The Oathsworn was launched backwards, tumbling head over heels in a bid to regain control. But Yuriko’s focus went to the Weaver, who had begun to run.

Ignoring the battlefield around her, Yuriko muttered, “How many times must I kill you for it to stick?”

And the Weaver simply kept running.