Waterstrider

Little Celah, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Fourthmonth, 1634 PTS

The plan was simple. Apparently, it was well known within the station’s underworld that finding Astna’s location was an impossible task, one that none of her enemies even bothered with any more, instead focusing on finding and eliminating any informants of hers within their organization. It was a surprise to me to hear that there was such a person, one with such a wide ranging and deep network of contacts. She truly was like a spider, hiding within her web and pulling on the strings to capture her prey.

Unfortunately for her, the layers of encryption and proxy networks, though almost impossible to trace for mortals, was trivial for a Terran given sufficient time. According to Rachel, she had done it on a whim while she had been trapped in the warehouse for a number of years. Every time Astna sent or received messages from her contacts, Rachel was able to trace the signals back to her location.

I had quickly agreed to her plan about finding out about this, as the biggest problem could be negated entirely. Due to how hidden her location was, she had few guards, and her physical strength was merely at the level of a mortal Jobu, meaning I would have little problem subduing her.

I had initially intended to simply perform the operation alone, but as Rachel had reminded me, I was a sect leader now, and it would be an insult to my own sect’s capability were I to do everything myself. Still, it was very early in the sect’s existence, and I dared not trust the martial capability of even one of my subordinates. Ultimately, I had decided to simply bring a squad along with me. Even if they had nothing to do, this strategy would be more effective for our image.

I had simply taken a group of the former gangsters, some whose levels were midway through the meridian establishment realm or beyond. Rachel’s projection came too, so that we could speak without the sect members coming to realizations that we did not wish them to. All of those in the core formation realm had important tasks they were up to, so I had chosen not to take any of them. It was a flaw of our culture which prompted us to always promote the strong to vital organizational roles. It made it difficult to muster them for fights. The matter was made worse by our lack of a steel palace leader, who in part should exist to serve such a role.

In this part of Little Celah, even one Seiyal would attract attention, much less a group of seven. For this reason, we had used an aero to travel as near to our destination as possible. After all, chances were that if any residents saw us, our target would be one of the first to know about it.

After setting down, I led the group in sprinting for the nearest stairwell to make our way to the building where Astna currently resided. It was an interior design firm, and Rachel had commented on the flight over how she expected Astna was likely using a demo room of theirs to sleep in.

According to Rachel, Astna was so cautious that aside from hotels and houses, the ‘Real Spider’s’ temporary abodes included all sorts of establishments, just to make herself even more difficult to pin down. I couldn’t help but think that her actions were excessively paranoid, and for a moment I wondered whether Astna had an experience in her past that drove her to this insane level of wariness.

We quickly reached the location, which turned out to be rather nondescript, like any other building in Little Celah. I motioned to the strongest of the sect members I had brought with me, a man who simply went by the name of Whitedust. In response he slammed his stocky frame into the hatch, using the full extent of his genesis-enhanced musculature to bash through the entryway. I gave him a nod of appreciation as I followed inside, trailed by the remaining sect members, many of which had anxious looks on their faces. I didn’t bother trying to calm them. That would be a waste of both breath and time.

I had expected to find guards inside, but was surprised to find the interior empty, causing a sense of unease to well up in my chest. Were they located deeper inside of the building?

“Rachel, which room is she in?”

She pointed a slender finger to a hallway leading deeper into the building’s interior.

“She should be further inside. The lack of guards is suspicious, so be careful.”

So she agreed on that point. I rested my hand on the hilt of my sword, ready to draw it at a moment’s notice. My soul’s senses stretched out into the rooms around us, but I felt nothing.

I could feel tension mounting in my shoulders, and the anxiety growing in the sect members around me as we creeped further into the building. I almost thought she had known we were coming and fled in advance, but I couldn’t see how that was possible. After all, we had thought up the plan merely hours before.

The hallway was sparse, but it led into a back room filled with small sets, as if several unique bedrooms had been set up in one larger space. False walls separated them from one another, making the place almost look like some sort of film set. Each of the faux rooms, ranging in purpose from living rooms to bedrooms, to dining rooms, featured unique and aesthetically pleasing designs in various Celan styles.

All the room lacked was an occupant.

“Rachel…” I said, the word left as an unfinished question, as I knew she would catch my meaning.

“Hm?” muttered Rachel in response. “This can’t be right, the signals are originating from- shit! How the hell did she…”

A smug, laughing voice resounded, coming from what seemed to be a bed in one of the false bedrooms. I glanced over, only now realizing that there was a small rectangular tablet resting on its surface.

The voice, which belonged to Astna, I presumed, laughed mockingly as she spoke to us in our own tongue.

“I have to say, Riverfiend, your Shade did an expert job. I had not anticipated my network having been infiltrated to such an extent. It’s simply a shame you believed that you could trust your sect members. Alas, your revenge will have to wait.”

While Rachel continued to curse, I approached the device, giving it a quick inspection. Had she set it up to send signals out, faking her presence here? It was rather creative. It would also mean that she had known very soon after we brought some of our sect members into the fold, and we had brought all of them with us.

My eyes narrowed as I turned to inspect the faces of the sect members that had arrived with us. Was one of them really a spy?

It was not a ridiculous idea, as I doubted a mere few weeks of sect membership was enough to build loyalty among a group of former gangsters. It was entirely possible that the mole had been part of Astna’s network since even before I had taken over Hidoro’s gang, informing her about their activities.

I realized then that this was the problem with taking action against her. Astna had her fingers in every pocket, eyes and ears everywhere. She collected vast swathes of information, looking through it to decide for herself whether it was of use or not. A vast tapestry of connected individuals, paid by her for every detail they found.

And so we had become caught in the very web we wished to capture, stuck in a trap. I imagined she had long informed the Heirs about our presence, and they had merely kept far enough away to escape my and Rachel’s senses.

I chuckled to myself. The situation was bad, very bad. But I couldn’t help but find humor in it. I hadn’t had a proper fight since before my injury. I slid my jian from its sheath, holding it in one hand as I slowly shifted into a combat stance, ready for whatever might happen. There would be enemies, I thought. Or perhaps they were already here?

I glanced at those surrounding me, faces all filled with horror, eyes focused on myself, as if waiting for orders.

“Why aren’t you running, Cyrus?” asked Rachel, fervently. “They should be here any minute.”

I could tell she was trying to avoid a panic, and I found it silly that an existence of her nature could still be prone to such pointless emotions. That thought made me realize that there was something wrong with me. My emotions were in turmoil, and my mood was unfitting for the situation. Somehow, I was thinking and acting as if I was calm, but they were not the sort of thoughts I would usually have.

My meridians shifted inside of me, my soul trying to reform itself. I was losing my grip, I realized. It had arrived so suddenly, without any sort of advance notice. Insanity had taken hold in my shock and stress, my soul and personality acquiring formless attributes.

I gritted my teeth, thoughts awhirl. I had really, truly believed in the plan, that we could use Astna for a lead on the treasures I so desperately needed. It was all for naught, because of a traitor. A traitor… hadn’t I been one, once? No, they had…

My head ached, like a portion of my brain itself had liquefied, and I could feel my emotions go even further into turmoil. I had felt this before.

So this, I thought, was all it took. I was so close to the end that just one bad moment, one minor betrayal was all I needed to lose myself. I wondered whether or not I would be able to regain control. The cost I had paid the previous time this had happened was extreme, and at the moment I could not use the method I had previously. I wondered if this was the end.

“Shit. Shit. Shit. Cyrus… Cyrus, get a hold of yourself.”

The words, spoken by a feminine voice, washed over my mind, unable to grasp my attention.

“Cyrus, calm down. There will be other opportunities. We can-”

The voice sounded familiar. For a moment I wondered who she was talking to. Perhaps she had noticed the changes in the shape of my tattered scrap of a proper soul. It didn’t matter. My hand gripped down tighter on the handle of my sword, my eyes glancing downwards.

I watched a bead of sweat drip from my palm down onto the handle, falling down the pommel, and sliding along the tassel. It dripped onto the floor with a crisp sound, barely audible amidst the clamor in the room. It was as if time had slowed down.

My sword lifted as if on its own accord and I cleaved right through the shocked face of the man beside me. The sensation made me chuckle as blood splattered across my robe, creating a pattern of red on red. For a moment I wondered if he was the one. I supposed that it didn’t matter.

Perhaps they should all be considered loyal, I thought. The purpose of a subordinate was, after all, to die for their employer.

The Price of Unorthodox Arts: [Unorthodox arts are not a unified school. They range from simple use of certain types of miasma such as sanguine or formless, to dangerous arts such as miasmic poisons. Each forces its practitioners to bear a cost in some way, one damaging enough for the creator of martial arts herself to ban their use in organizations she held influence over. For the sanguine arts, it is the risk of becoming a true conduit, connecting to that which one should not. For the forbidden extant arts of intangibility, it is the loss of physicality entirely. For poison arts, it is a slow, inevitable, and painful death when the body ceases to be able to metabolize the very substances it produces and enhances. For formless miasma, the cost is madness and the dissolution of the very shroud which holds the soul together.]