Waterstrider

8th District, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Thirdmonth, 1634 PTS

The effect of the Heart of Rainfall technique faded, leaving me tired and weary. I stood atop the wreck of an enforcer that I and the siblings from the Hadal Clan had defeated together. I felt like a wreck myself as I carefully circulated my miasma to soothe my battered meridians.

I glanced at my newfound companions, seeing that Taek was heavily wounded, leaning against the enforcer’s side while his sister frantically attempted to bandage him. I silently wished her luck, as I felt a slight camaraderie with the man. Had he not joined the fight against the enforcer, I would have been the one close to bleeding out.

Though the odds were that I would soon be in that position myself, given the enforcers ahead.

The only thing I could think to do was run back into the warehouse and take advantage of the chaos to hide and wait for the barrier to drop. I refused to believe that they would be able to maintain it indefinitely.

My body was slow, however, barely the speed of a normal martial artist of my realm. I would need several minutes to recover enough to reactivate my movement technique without risk of internal damage. I turned to Ria, who was still fussing over her brother.

“I apologize for dragging you into this poor situation, and wish the two of you luck today.”

I had considered offering them a favor from me later on if they survived, but decided not to. Favors owed were a liability I refused to allow.

Ria did not respond, so I ran past the battlefield of the weaker forces, where the martial artists of the Hadal Clan had finished slaughtering the celan’s soldiers.

A part of me felt like I had been fleeing for far too long. I had fled from Sunlit Hall, I had fled from myself, I had fled from my world, and now I fled from the Heirs of Ottrien. I didn’t want to run anymore, but I refused to submit myself nor die. And so my legs continued to churn. I felt like a bug fleeing from the housewife’s sandal.

The interior of the warehouse had become unrecognizable since I had left. It was a blasted hellscape, filled with traces of gunfire and martial arts of great power. It was impressive that it even remained standing.

There were even more corpses here than there had been outside. The ground was littered with unlucky martial artists and the black market customers who had been too slow to flee the scene. The enforcer and the Hadal Clan’s spirit refiner’s battle had clearly been an immensely destructive one. It seemed the old man had come out on top, however.

The spirit refiner’s clothes were matted with blood, and he lounged peacefully atop the machine in a butterfly pose, drinking from a ceramic bottle shaped like a gourd. As I entered, he wiped his mouth and turned to me.

“Running back in? How poor is the situation outside, boy?” he asked.

Rather than ignore him and run for the stairs, I paused my run to respond. Putting aside the fact that the man was far stronger than I, I figured it was best to be on relatively good terms with the only spirit refiner in the district, at least until I found a way out of the situation.

“We has won the fight, but reinforcements arrived. Your…” I tried to remember how two siblings had addressed him. It was difficult to guess whether he was actually their uncle or if it were merely a term of endearment. After a pause, I chose to avoid the topic. “Taek became injured and Ria stayed behind to ensure he does not bleed out.”

The man stroked his beard for a moment before nodding, solemnly.

“I see. Mind if I ask, young sir. Exactly what was it you took that has the Celans so up in arms?”

I pondered the question for a moment. Dismissing the man entirely was a poor idea, as it bore excessive risk of angering him, and I liked to be careful with those in a higher realm than my own unless I had no choice. Still, I lacked the time to think of a suitable lie.

“I’m afraid I cannot tell you. Perhaps I will discuss it with the Matriarch should the… proposition your clan offered to go through,” I said.

The old man nodded sagely.

“I suspected as much. Alright, you may go now. My name is Wei Hadal. Should fate wish, we will meet again.”

With that, he hopped up from his position on the enforcer and dashed his way out through the breach from which I had entered. I assumed he intended to protect his niece and nephew. As I watched his exit, I returned to the task at hand.

It took me some time to find the stairwell, despite the fact that I had climbed it less than an hour before. It was buried under a pile of debris, and I could see hints of light peeking through cracks in the tightly compressed pile of rubble.

This posed an issue. I should be able to destroy it if I used successive techniques at full force, or alternatively I could just start picking the pieces up one by one. The latter method would take far too long.

I situated myself behind the pile in a butterfly position and meditated, very carefully cycling the formless miasma around my body to soothe my meridians. The process would take around two minutes, but I trusted Spirit Refiner Wei to stall the enforcers for at least that long.

When I finished, I opened my eyes to see the barrel of a gun pointed at me. If I were standing, it would be trivial to dodge from this distance, but I had no footwork usable from a seated position.

I looked up to see the one who had snuck up on me. He seemed to be a short, slender Jobu, having a body shape more similar to a Seiyal than not. But he was not a Seiyal. He had the graying skin and sturdy soulshape of a Jobu. Perhaps, I thought, he was a member of that same celan subrace as Hestky.

He was wearing dark clothing. Brown pants that wouldn’t have been out of place if worn by a factory worker rested under a tight green jacket. Odd metal and stone plate. were strapped in various places such as his ankles, wrists and chest. His long hair was carefully tied up, presumably to avoid its becoming a hindrance in a fight. The oddest part, though, was a yellow blindfold that had slipped down around his neck. He had a deep pair of blue eyes that met my gaze without flinching.

“What a pleasure to meet the one they are calling Riverfiend,” he said.

“I would reply in kind, but I am unaware of your identity.”

He laughed, his gun barrel not shifting in the slightest as he did so.

“I could say the same, truthfully. I imagine not even the Seiyal here, kind as they were to bestow this epithet upon you don’t even know who you truly are. A mysterious follower of the unorthodox path coming all this way just to rob some aliens. While we’re on the topic, would you mind telling me who you work for? It’s not the Hadal Clan.”

I shook my head.

“I don’t work for anyone,” I said. “I had simply been under the impression that such a well-equipped warehouse must have a formless treasure or two.”

It was the truth, though I had left out any references to Rachel. I wanted to see what he knew about her. He sneered in response.

“Of course. You just happened to arrive on a day when a corrupt member of our force shifted personnel allocation to leave the building practically unguarded. How plausible. Your little mole friend is dead, you know. The Leader had him flogged and shot in front of all the officers.”

“I’m not sure what to say,” I replied. “I was simply lucky.”

He clearly did not believe me, which was not unexpected. But he seemed to move on, not considering the line of investigation worth more of his time.

“And what of the treasures you did take? Where are they?”

“I sold most of them-”

He cut me off.

“I know which ones you sold here, what I want to know is where you’ve put the rest.”

“Sold those too, at another black market,” I said. He gave me a blank stare.

“Sell the bullshit to someone else. Tell me where it is and I’ll let you go.”

I laughed at the comment.

“Now who’s selling bullshit?”

“I can at least make your end less painful.”

“Forgive me if I have no wish to help someone who intends to take my life,” I replied. I saw one of his muscles start to tense, so I rolled, beginning to shift before he managed to actually pull the trigger of his pistol. I had shifted enough that the bullet grazed the side of my head rather than going through it, and I thanked the immortals that I had been so lucky.

I rolled to my feet, dodging backwards to gain distance as he fired another shot.

“I would appreciate it if you would make this easier for me,” he said.

This time I didn’t dignify him with a response.

1st District, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Thirdmonth, 1634 PTS

“Hm?” said Ifre, looking at the odd reading.

The display showed a lengthy list of loud noises, vibration, and indications of ashatic readings far beyond the norm for anything there should have been in the station short of an ashatic reactor. In addition, flight paths were having to shift because of what was apparently some sort of large dome going up within the eighth district.

He fiddled with his input device, shifting the display to show a view of the eighth district from one of the multitude of dome cameras. He let out a surprised chuff of shock he saw what was happening.

One of the stacks had been sealed off by what had to be some sort of energy shield, and within, small armies of Seiyal and Celan forces were fighting or already dead on the ground. Outside of the barrier, he could see more forces from each side arriving, and even a hole in the stack where some sort of aero seemed to have crashed right through the floor.

To make matters worse, he could see some incredibly flashy fighting going on between a Seiyal martial artist and a pair of Celan enforcers. It was already a fight with the potential to level multiple stacks, and there was the risk, he worried, of it spiralling into a full blown gang war.

Ifre picked up the phone, dialing his boss’s number. This was far, far above his paygrade.

Merris: [One of the three surviving races from Celah, the Merris are often considered to be a subtype of Jobu. There is a strict, fundamental difference between the two. Merris are roughly standard in body shape for a humanoid race, smaller and slender than the Jobu, but far more dextrous. They are stronger and swifter than their appearance would imply, and have highly adept senses. It is said that they are the descendants of a genetics program from the days prior to the scourging of Epon Celah. The Merris tend to live in tightly knit communities of their own race alone, and those isolated from their people often experience intense symptoms of depression. Rumor has it that there is a deep relationship between the Merris and the Shades that originated on Celah, and they are not considered welcome within Sheneth-Ari territory.]