Yuriko sighted down the barrel of her training Plasma Caster. She was prone on top of a wall on a smallish lookout overlooking a trail that would eventually lead to the regiment's fortress. The Radiant Sun was but an hour from the eastern mists.
From her position, she could survey about five hundred paces of the trail before the rolling hills and the thick vegetation concealed the lay of the land. The entire Reserve Officer Training class had left campus before dawn, gotten on troop transports and found themselves just north of the city, along a wider expanse of the plateau and thrust into an elaborate king of the hill exercise.
Her team, the other members of Sharom's Elite class, were ill at ease behind her; only Ella-Mai showed steady nerves. Yuriko had been placed into squad leadership simply because neither the Esras nor Kinnock wanted the other to lead.
The lookout tower was barely a couple of storeys high, made of wood, and was plonked on top of a hill. The path was what they needed to protect but if their opponents came from the opposite direction, they would be in a bad position.
Tatsuhiko, Diya, Korban, and Nathan volunteered to keep watch on the other side and would give them enough time to abandon the watch post should it prove necessary.
"I don't think it'll come to that," Ella-Mai said. "If the enemy moves to flank us, that means the other watch posts are overrun."
"Can't be too sure," Yuriko muttered.
Emyr, Anika, Cole, and Marcus, were the remaining members of the class. And the lot of them made for a rather lopsided squad. Most of them were Destroyers and Controllers, the only Scout being Ella-Mai and not a Warder amongst the lot. Still, the rest of them carried Plasma Lancets and spears.
"This is boring!" Emyr complained. "I think I'd rather go to the library to read."
"Now, now, Mister Kinnock," Marcus Scott said, "this is part of our curriculum."
"Yeah, but we're Sharom. Putting us into frontlines is a waste."
"Sometimes, you won't have a choice," Yuriko said.
"Come now, Miss Davar, we aren't in the frontier," Cole Whyte replied. "The city has layers of defences to protect us citizens from the depredations of the Wyldlings."
Yuriko clicked her tongue but didn't comment. Instead, she focused her Animus into her eyes. She thought she saw movement in the tall grass.
"Shh!"
There it was. Movement, indeed. She tightened her focus, struggling to see past the green blades rustling in the wind. The grass bent with the wind, all in one direction. Except for those bits over there moving contrary. Yuriko trained her Plasma Caster and waited.
When the breeze ceased, the rustling in the grass stilled. A few minutes later, when the wind once again blew across the grass, the movement continued. It moved parallel to the road, coming ever so closer to the lookout post.
"What is it?" Ella-Mai asked.
"Intruders."
Yuriko's patience paid off and a gap in the grass cover revealed green camouflage gear as cadets older than Yuriko's group, crept closer. The tall grass had been cleared around the lookout but only for fifty paces down the road. Their location was a natural chokepoint, with thick thorny bushes and a cliff face to the right, and a relatively low lying area to the left, with almost no cover for longstrides.
The path led past them and into the fort. Their mission objectives were simple. Prevent passage and fall back as necessary.
As soon as she saw a definite target, she took the shot. A brilliant golden bolt shot from the muzzle, though this being a training rifle, it was harmless light that would mark the target as eliminated through the pendants they all wore.
"Arrgh!" A scream from the target as the bolt splashed against his side. A shot from a Plasma Caster was considered fatal unless the target had a powerful defensive technique. In this case, the target was eliminated.
But no sooner than Yuriko celebrated her success than a rain of fire came from the grass. Dozens of cadets rose in a line, about a third with Plasma Casters.
"Ancestors!" Yuriko rolled out of the way while her position was peppered with bolts.
The lookout tower absorbed the harmless light, though technically, the superheated plasma would have lit the thing on fire. Of course, a proper lookout point was built of stone, but here they were.
"Chaos!" Ella-Mai nursed a shoulder that got clipped by a bolt.
The other Sharom students huddled behind the wall while Yuriko waited for the barrage to end. Once there was a respite, she peeked over the wall and saw about a dozen cadets charging down on them. In a minute or so, they would reach her.
A couple of shots later and that number was down to ten. She ducked before their covering fire could take her head off then crawled over to a different part of the wall. There she popped up, aimed quickly and took down another opponent.
"There's too many!" Emyr yelled.
"Start shooting then!" Yuriko yelled back.
She popped off another shot and took out another but they were too close now. Yuriko slid down the ladder, hooked the rifle across her shoulder and drew her side-blade, Animus circulating in the second dance.
The door faced the other way so they weren't immediately swamped but as soon as she broke cover, plasma bolts flew her way. She parried one that came close to hitting her, using her Animus to protect her blade. Then the battle was joined. With the melee fighters too close for the marksmen to safely shoot, she fended off aggressive attacks while heading down the path. Her teammates fought as well as they could, but outnumbered and outclassed, only Yuriko was left after a minute into the skirmish.
She broke off after drowning her fifth opponent, rushed over a hill and ran down the path. She spotted the other members of her team still on their watchpoint and saw Tatsuhiko pointing at her.
"Retreat!" she yelled.
Surprised, the three boys and Diya shimmied down the tree and ran down the path. A minute later, Yuriko dodged plasma bolts fired from atop the hill. A glance back showed that the enemy had taken their watch post, though no one ran after them.
Half an hour later, they were at the fort, a temporary base of operations hurriedly built by someone who could manipulate dirt. Yuriko was let through, and the rest of her team followed. She headed to report to the commandant and resigned to the walls.
A half-hour later, the assailants were besieging them, and two hours later, they were defeated.
"What a waste of time!" Emyr grumbled as they returned to the campus near midday. "All we did was stay at a dingy post and then we got overwhelmed!"
Yuriko leaned back against the back of her seat and sighed. What was the purpose of the exercise, she wondered. It was a nice fight, but she didn't like losing to overwhelming numbers. She didn't surrender at all and was only taken down when a cadet Kato's age had duelled her. Well, three of them did, and it took all three to defeat her. But at the end there, she was pretty much a straw target.
"Your sword work is amazing," Diya said to Yuriko.
"Thanks."
"Huh, but why focus on Martial Science?" Emyr asked.
Yuriko just shrugged.
"Well, Miss Davar did last quite long against the attackers," Anika said. "Part of our curriculum is also to be sent to the front lines to assist. Even well-protected fortresses will get attacked and everyone inside needs to know how to protect themselves."
"Yes, but we're going to end up as Rune Scribes or Spellweavers," Emry insisted. "In the front lines, we'll have guard attachments."
"And what happens when they get killed?"
"If they can't handle it, I doubt half-hearted training will help us."
"So don't make it half-hearted," Yuriko interjected.
"But I want to be a Spellweaver. I don't have enough hours in the day to train my physical skills." Emyr said. "Frankly, I'm surprised you can get away with it."
Yuriko snorted. "To be honest I wanted to enrol in Agaza but got forced into Sharom instead."
"Ah yes, elder bro said as much."
"Well, if the Academy determines your place to be in Sharom, you must have more potential here than at Agaza," Ella-Mai said.
"So they've said," Yuriko replied morosely, "but I've yet to see evidence of it."
"I'm sure it'll turn up," Emyr said diplomatically.
Yuriko just nodded and stared out at the countryside until they arrived. Then she headed straight back to the Willow, bathed and ate lunch. The rest of the afternoon she used to try and deepen her bond with Fri'Avgi.
Just at sundown, Krystal knocked at her door. Yuriko had put on a dark blue dress that left her arms bare. The hem fell just above her knees. It had a couple of deep pockets at the sides where she placed her coin purse. Her safety pouch was in the other pocket, secured thereby a fine chain.
"Here, it's cold out." Krystal handed her a patterned wool shawl. The two of them met the other girls at the Willow's entrance hall. They walked to the campus gates and from there, took a Circuit Tram to 3rd Avenue.
The sun had just completely set by the time they got there, with the establishments throwing warm inviting light from their open windows and doors. Music drifted on the breeze, an amalgam of a dozen different melodies that somehow blended into pleasant noise.
"Come on, the Blue Butterfly's over there!" Maryn giggled.
Sure enough, the inn's common room had a slightly raised platform with a three-piece band playing a slow melody. The room was about thirty paces to a side, with tables scattered around the edges. The space was lit by candlelight reflected on glittering mirror squares, giving it a shadowed mystery. Most of the people inside were students, even the band members looked no older than Kato. A crowd in the middle were gyrating to the music, following no pattern dance that Yuriko knew of. Instead, they were spinning and twirling with natural grace and abandon.
"Er…" Yuriko glanced at Krystal, who started back and shrugged, giving a nervous grin.
Millie grabbed Yuriko's hand and dragged her to the dance floor where she threw up her hands and started swaying her hips. "Come on!"
After an awkward moment, Yuriko followed suit, copying the people around her.
"That's it!" Millie giggled. After a while, the crowd shifted, and they danced, twirling and giggled, and mouthing the words of the ballads. It was certainly different from what Yuriko expected, and they danced for what seemed like hours.
That is until someone pinched her bottom. Yuriko whirled around, but whoever that was, she couldn't tell. Discomfited, she walked out of the dance floor and looked for a free table. She saw Millie seated on one near the serving bar, rubbing the soles of her feet.
"Tired already?" Millie asked in surprise.
"Not that." Yuriko frowned. "Somebody pinched me."
Millie raised an eyebrow. "Can't say I blame them."
Yuriko rolled her eyes.
"Did you see who did it?" Millie asked after a while.
"No, I wasn't paying attention."
"Huh. Did it hurt?"
"Not at all. I barely felt it actually," Yuriko muttered.
"Do you want to go back home?"
"Are you done for the night?"
"Pretty much. I'll tell the others we're going ahead."
Millie returned a minute later, picked up her shawl and the two of them headed out. Yuriko's tummy growled slightly, but during their time there, they had finger foods to take the edge off. It was late though and the Circuit Trams weren't running anymore. Yuriko yawned. It was past her bedtime.
"Well, it's not a long walk," Millie shrugged.
The late evening air was quite cold. Millie drew her shawl around her shoulders tightly. For Yuriko, it wasn't so bad. The Waning Crescent Moon gave sufficient light though it didn't drown out the Chaos streams.
There were few people out and about with most having turned in for the night.
They walked for several minutes before Millie froze. Frowning, she looked behind them, squinted, then shook her head.
"What's wrong?"
"I think someone's following us," Millie said in a hushed voice.
All at once, any vestige of sleepiness vanished from Yuriko's mind, replaced by determined focus.
"Who's there?" Yuriko called out.
Tap, tap, tap.
Footsteps against the cobblestones were her only answer.