The experience of having an incarnation had not been all that much different from Yuriko's normal. At least, at first. When the portal opened and took part of her with it, she had been frightened of losing part of herself. That she only felt the cold of the void around the little bit of her that separated had increased her worry, but she had to push that aside to deal with Johann's questions. But afterwards, the sensation remained.
She hadn't thought that going through a portal took a long time, but having two separate points of view made it clear. Walking across a tunnel torn through the fabric of reality was not instantaneous though it might feel that way. There was a dullness that came through her separated strands of consciousness after all.
Having little recourse, she continued down the tunnels underneath the mountain to further her exploration of Severing Shard. It was only after nearly a day did she feel something different.
Yuriko had not thought about what having an incarnation felt like. She only knew that it was far beyond what she should have been capable of and it was only with the Tower Spirit's help that this was possible in the first place.
It wasn't as if having the spirit withdraw its support would cut off the connection or destroy the incarnation. No, the help had been needed with separating the incarnation from herself, and configuring it to be self supporting. Her thoughts within her true body and within the incarnation were the same. It was the same mind and not a copy of her, and she could process both points of view at the same time. It was just that she would have another body to control that was different. The idea had thrown her off at first, but she soon realised that it was no more difficult than moving her arm. She could split her focus more than a hundred ways before the split, and having ten of those strands of consciousness forcefully locked into another body didn't really bother her.
However, perhaps it would be better to create a bit of separation? The incarnation was in another space, with a different environment from the one her true body was in. It would be unpleasant to become confused and react to things that weren't there for one body or the other. She was more than capable of focusing on different things and to have several trains of thought. Ancestors knew how much her mind galloped into different directions while she was doing something else. Putting a semi-partition would ensure that the proper body reacted to the stimulus around them rather than to each other's events. She would still be connected, she would still be Yuriko.
The sudden shift was a bit too abrupt. One moment, her incarnation…she was in the void, traversing the tunnel while feeling more than a bit fuzzy. The next, she had the impression of an enclosed space, it was dark and the air felt oppressively heavy. She spotted the woman on her back, arms and legs spread akimbo, in the middle of a runescript circle written in blood. It was bright crimson, though the edges were turning dull brown. Five equal points on the circle had anchor points that looked to be pieces of paper torn from a book. On each leaf were large runescript words where most of the fetid energy gathered…and faded.
The woman on the floor was taking her last breaths. Her wrists and ankles were cut, and the blood running from her veins connected to the ritual circle. There was no one else in the small room, and Yuriko wondered if this was a suicide or something else gone horribly wrong. The glazed look on the woman…young woman's face didn't provide much of an answer.
Her incarnation was but an orb of combined flesh, blood, Anima, Chaos, and Animus, and she slammed into the woman's chest. The orb broke apart and Yuriko melded into the woman…Lilibeth Lawson.
There were but a few lingering thoughts, and regrets, but nothing else. The body was practically empty, with nought by the dying embers of life, Anima long gone. There was also that strange energy in the air that had mixed in with the body, but the moment Yuriko's Radiant energy touched, it was devoured. The counterforce of the devouring consumed an equal amount of Radiance, however, and she was left with a net zero.
The dying thoughts invaded Yuriko's mind, along with a host of memories that came as a tide. It wasn't to the same point as Damien's, of course. That perverted old man had lived for millennia, if not longer, and the weight of his memories needed fifty paces of reach to hold at bay. Lilibeth's didn't need much, just a couple of inches, and already it was starting to assimilate. But Yuriko pushed it all off, taking nothing but the body's name and her dying circumstances.
This…what was this?
Lilibeth died, and it was her own doing. Mostly. Partially. The ritual.
A summoning circle? A ritual to open a hole in the fabric of creation to call a…Neomah? A fleshcrafter.
Eh? What was there to craft? Yuriko's incarnation slowly melded with the body. Most of the blood was gone, so that was where she filled things in. It was a reflexive act, with her flesh Transformed. Her Anima, sixteen paces of reach at the outer part of her Anima, which meant that if it served as the core, it would definitely exceed that range, envelope the body, and attune it to herself.
A portion of her Anima suffused the flesh, and in the process of melding and attuning, consumed some of its volume. The rest condensed. Beyond ten paces from the skin, Yuriko suddenly felt as if she could go no further and that her Will was stretched to its limits. As a result, the Anima squished down upon itself, growing denser and denser until it was three times as much as it would normally be. It was a distinctly odd feeling, but she was going on instinct for now.
"Ahh..." She moaned as she fully became Lilibeth Lawson. Radiant energy spilled out of her body and burned away the ritual circle etched in blood. "Oh!" she exclaimed softly, realising that maybe she shouldn't have erased the evidence.
It soon became apparent, when some of Lilibeth's memories trickled in, that the girl, who was close to Yuriko's age, had not been suicidal. Something, or perhaps someone, had killed her, and the instrument had been the ritual circle. Yuriko's Anima spread out into the room and she had not found a bloody knife or any other sharp implement. Plus, there was the lingering regret and despair, the desire to survive, that resonated fiercely within the woman's…Yuriko's body.
Still disoriented, Yuriko pushed herself off the ground and groaned. The bloody ritual circle had been partially erased, but the paper anchor points remained intact. She was just about to reach for them with her kinesis when she stopped and used her real hands instead. The paper crinkled against her touch. It felt fragile and she knew it would crumble the moment the energy contained within it ran out. Faster if she used her Animakinesis.
The runescript words were almost the same as the ones on the circle itself, though they were slightly faded.
"A print," Yuriko muttered.
The anchors were the ones responsible for drawing the circle. She stared at the words with a frown.
"Aren't the channels really wide?" she muttered. She quickly compared it with the remnants and noted the same. It would have taken a lot of Animus, or whatever energy that the ritual needed, to activate this properly. She looked at the other pages and swore loudly. One of them had a formation that substituted blood and lifeforce if the atmospheric energies were insufficient.
She tossed the papers aside. They were already crumbling even before they left her hand. Lilibeth's memories were muddled, too, and she couldn't get a better picture other than the ones highlighted by great emotion.
Perhaps more importantly, Yuriko couldn't tell where she was. Oh, she knew that the continent was called Northern Astoria, but…where was Astoria? The nation she was in was called the Republic of Astoria, and the nearest city was Neo Prism City…
"I'm a student of Trinity University," Yuriko muttered suddenly. She blinked in surprise, feeling the memories rise up and seep into her mind. She shook her head and staggered away from the ritual circle, absently noting that the room was barely twenty paces square. Her Anima was a bit sore, so she didn't push through the walls to ascertain her surroundings. The room was only lit by a couple of electric-powered lamps and she noticed most of the furniture were pushed to the walls. There were three doors leading out of the room, a couple were ajar while the last, the main door, she supposed, was closed and latched. The other two being open allowed her perception to cross easily and revealed themselves to be a cramped bathroom with a shower, and an equally cramped bedroom that had a wide bed that barely fit the space.
There was a sink across the bathroom door, and a kitchen countertop filled with cooking devices. She didn't recognise anything, though she could read the labels, despite the language not being Wojan or Dawnspeak. Astorian, she realised, using a different set of letters than what she was used to.
"I least, I can understand," she muttered to herself.
Her body was sore, but that was understandable. She was also a couple or so inches shorter than her true body, and that wouldn't do. That wasn't the only difference aside from her facial features, but she could already feel her bones, muscle, and skin, slowly adjusting. "I'd look back to normal in a few…weeks? Lunar cycles?" she muttered.
Should she care if the change was too obvious?
Yuriko tilted her head in thought. Yes. Yes, she should. She was Yuriko Mishala Davar, but at the same time, she was Lilibeth Lawson. This incarnation anyway. She was in a strange land, again. But this time, she wasn't a stranger, but a native. Kogasi, Bella, the Federation, Irvalla, Bresia, Xotha, and Dragon Fall City. She had tried to keep a low profile, but she had never succeeded. Except for Kogasi, but she was the only one there, so it didn't count. This time she had a legal identity. That was important.
A simple look around the room gave her enough of a hint. This place was similar to Dragon Fall City. There was a television set hanging on the wall. There was a small tablet, a communication device called a phone, on the countertop. There was an actual tablet, or rather a personal laptop computer, next to the phone. She could feel electricity running inside the walls, confined in place by metal wires.
And she knew that just like Dragon Fall City, existing here without an identity would draw completely unwanted attention.
What was it that the Tower Spirit told her to do to complete the trial? Survive. Thrive. Learn.
She swallowed convulsively. Lilibeth had been dressed in a nightgown, but it was now tattered and stained. Yuriko walked towards the bedroom, shedding clothes with every step. A glance down her body made her pout and pinch her waist. Flabby. Her thighs were jiggly, her arms were noodly. Discounting the injuries, which had now closed, her body was weak. That would have to change.
She felt her Anima settle within her core, and she spread it out again. Golden light filled the room. The small bedroom had a window. She crawled over the bed and pushed the window covers to look through. The outside was lit up with pockets of light along the streets, and in the distance, was the skyline of Neo Prism.
It was lit up with undying lights and revealed tall, thin towers that reached for the skies.