To say that the Chaos Storm was a surprise would be false, Yuriko knew. The Imperial Calendar told them that they were still just past the middle of the Season of Water, which was when the Sea was most prone to throwing up storms.
The irony of the fact that something that embodied Chaos was beholden by the regularity of Seasons and weather patterns was more than a bit unsettling, but only on the surface level. Bits of memories from Damien drifted in, which Yuriko purposely allowed. She would have to assimilate everything eventually, just that she didn't want to overwhelm her mind with his. That would defeat the purpose of his sacrifice.
Damien's memories spanned millennia, maybe even hundreds of thousands of years. She wasn't sure, and without assimilating, she couldn't really know. So she let dribblets in, slowly digesting them and making them her own, while keeping her mind stable. It was also an excellent way to train her Will.
Ehehehe. She had been concerned about how to train her Will and Intent, the two qualities she needed to uplift in order to reach the next Stage in the Ancient's Way and the Road to Exaltation. And the methods had been staring at her the entire time.
Assimilating Damien's memories while resisting being assimilated herself. Strain to control more and more sunblades. Those were her paths. Perhaps when she finished assimilation, and when she could control a million sunblades at once, only after then should she find a new method. Those seemed so far away, though.
Anyway, while Damien didn't really know about the modern conditions, he had been able to decipher and analyze the underlying reasons and laws of the Chaos Sea. A little bit of that seeped in, while the majority of his insights were kept away. She instinctively knew that taking on those memories would make it nearly impossible for her to advance farther along the Way, not when the insights weren't hers. When she had her own, she could cross reference.
And the one relevant insight she got, that wouldn't affect her progress because on one level, she already knew it, but just didn't apply it broadly enough, was that the Chaos Sea, for all its might and breadth, was still affected by the two Celestial Bodies. Which meant that the Radiant Sun and the Luminous Moon were greater than the Chaos Sea.
At least on the surface at Equilibrium.
So while there was no predicting when Chaos storms would come, it was well-known and expected that they would come most frequently during the Seasons of Air and Water.
And perhaps the weight of mortal perception, spread across thousands of thousands of thousands of people, influenced the Chaos, too.
Hmmm, that was something she hadn't thought of before, and…
The Chaos Sea rippled, as though it wanted to deny her thought. She could feel the idea slowly being siphoned away…
And with a flex of her Will, and her Radiant Anima, the pressure disappeared.
Shaking her head, Yuriko forced most of her consciousness threads back into the present. She would need every fibre of her being to keep the Wind Darter from being blown off course.
With Bella and Kogasi foremost in her mind, she manoeuvred the sloop towards the edge of the storm, which happened to be towards the right of the bow. Desire and Devotee were on either side of the deck, hands splayed against the Protective Sphere. Yuriko could see both Chaos Lords absorbing the energy from the Chaos winds and currents and using it to feed unaspected Chaos into the Sphere. Since Devotee was stronger than Desire, his side of the barrier was tougher.
Desire's side was eroding faster than it could regenerate, and the holes let in large clumps of Chaos onto the deck. Ryoko was the only vulnerable member of the team, and she was sequestered in the crew quarters, protected by Saki and Heron. Gwendith was at the stern, where she blasted the Chaos clumps with her Animus and imprinted them with cold or heat, using the same defence principle used in Rumiga. The resulting aspected Chaos was easier for Gwendith to manipulate and convert to denatured Animus, which she fed to the engines.
Yuriko diverted some of her Animus to shore up the left side barrier even as she pushed the sloop to accelerate. The Chaos-gathering sails billowed and snapped, and the retractable mast creaked. Ah! The ship's manual indicated that the mast and sails should be retracted during a storm!
She used her Animakinesis to trigger the retraction. The sail folded close first, though the winds interfered. She had to shield it first before it folded properly. An ill-timed gust keeled the ship over, nearly throwing Desire overboard through a hole in the Protective Sphere, but Yuriko caught her with kinesis. That moment of distraction caused her to lose control of their bearing for a moment, and the bow turned towards the storm.
She wrestled with the wheel and forced the bow to turn right, but now the winds and current actively pushed them the opposite way. The image of Bella and Kogasi in her mind wavered as she was forced to attend to other things, though she managed to keep a couple of consciousness strands on their destination.
The Chaos storm continued to worsen. The Wind Darter dipped below Equilibrium, falling to 1.2 iarvesh. The increased pressure shattered the surface layer of the Protective Sphere and caused both Chaos Lords to pale.
She spent more of her Animus reserves to shore up the Protective Sphere, wrestled with the helm, and kept half of her consciousness threads of keeping the Bella-Kogasi image stable. Or rather, with trying to stabilise them. Her image was being distorted by the storm, and she had to reinforce it, spending her Will in her haste.
The image firmed and the sloop turned to exit. Only, the storm had moved and the edges were no longer in sight.
Oh, Ancestors! Which way did they have to go?
Her instinct was to turn away from where the storm was pulling the sloop towards, but when she did, the suction transferred over that way, and soon enough, they got turned around so many times that Yuriko lost all sense of direction.
"Not that you had a good one," Gwendith snarked with a strained smile, attempting to lighten the mood.
Yuriko's lips twitched and she sighed. Well, it was somewhat true. However, the Orb of Authority nestled within her Anima still gave her a bump of direction and distance…eh? Just direction now? Even that was fluctuating, and the movement was independent of which way the Wind Darter turned. Annoying.
The storm continued unabated for hours on end. It weakened slightly after that, just enough time for her to rest for a couple of hours, eat, and do her ablutions. Heron took over with the steering while she went to the lavatory to freshen up. When she came out, Gwendith gave her a ration bar to eat, then kissed her fiercely, and whispered teasingly, "To give the bar a sweeter taste, ehehe."
Yuriko rolled her eyes but hugged her lover before plopping down onto the bed. She woke up with the sloop swaying ominously, and when she returned on deck, the Chaos Storm had picked up even more power.
When she took over the helm, she forced the image of Bella-Kogasi to the forefront, but it looked and felt faded. Gritting her teeth, there was little else to do but press on. She half decided to turn the sloop around and return to Rumiga or Delovine, except when she tried to change the destination image, it was as if she was back to her pre-Atavism level and she was attempting to push the Watchtower over.
With little choice, Yuriko returned to the Bella-Kogasi image, but even so, it looked even more faded than before she attempted the switch. Oh no.
They wrestled with the winds and the storm the entire day, only earning a little bit of reprieve in the evening. How could the storm last this long? Whatever Fysalli it slammed against was obliterated to pushed aside. Ah, and the sloop was moving with the storm! That's why it seemed endless.
"Rotting storm!" she yelled as the sloop almost flipped over. The Animus engines didn't have the spare energy to keep them firmly on the deck! Even Yuriko's formidable regeneration and conversion were slowly losing ground to the relentless assault.
They persevered the next day. And the next. And the next. Perhaps they were nearly ten days into the journey, and eight of those days were spent trapped in the storm. Despite everything they did, Yuriko was nearing exhaustion.
The destination image of Bella-Kogasi almost completely faded away, and with her consciousness flickering, her thoughts began to wander.
Different places suddenly appeared in her mind. Rumiga. Ulmira. Realmheart. Irvalla. Siderious.
She shook her head and focused on Bella-Kogasi, but the image wouldn't form. The storm flung the sloop to and fro, as though it were deliberate. As though there was an intelligence behind the natural force. Whose?
Damien's? He warned her before he died. Warned her to watch out. But she didn't know who or what to be wary of. There was nothing in his memories that she could easily find.
But was it really him, or a different version of him? After all, the shard he wanted had more than one component, and she only got a single piece. Were there others like her?
Those thoughts slid across her mind like oil on a hot surface. Sizzling.
What was she thinking of?
"Yuri!" Someone screamed at her. Several someones.
Her eyes snapped towards Gwendith at the stern, then to Desire and Devotee. All of them were staring straight ahead, and it was only then that Yuriko noticed it.
The storm of swirling Chaos had formed a vortex and it was sucking everything into it. Natural runescript formations appeared, discharging lightning and heat. The view to the centre distorted then faded into darkness. And it didn't take much for Yuriko to equate it with the portal that brought her and the others across an unimaginable distance.
And the worst part? It wasn't the only one.
Behind. To the left, and the right. Below, and even above. Natural portals, gaping maws of darkness, and glimmering red lights. Any movement by the sloop, any direction, would lead them directly into one of the vortices. Staying still was impossible too, as the current was pulling them in six different directions. Perhaps if she managed to push the sloop into the midpoint each of the forces would cancel out…?
No, it was too late. The sloop was drawn towards the vortex in front. Yuriko gritted her teeth and shoved the helm to the right, and at the same time, she blasted all of her power towards the left. The sloop skittered over the Chaos Sea, and away from the current drawing them towards the front vortex. And almost at once, they were caught by a different one.
The Wind Darter crossed the threshold, and there was nothing else she could do. She didn't even consider abandoning the ship. Even if the others survived, Ryoko would not. And there was no way to know if she could even escape…
But there was one last gambit. She conjured hundreds of sunblades and flung them at the gaping portal maw, hoping to disrupt whatever process created the things. But almost as soon as the Radiant energy touched the naturally formed runescript formation…
The portal maw froze. And for a moment, relief overcame every other emotion. Then, as if water had been thrown into an oil fire, the maw erupted. It surged towards the Wind Darter, and in the blink of an eye, the sloop was within.
And the next thing they knew, it was as if something took hold of their very being and yanked them forward towards an unimaginable distance.