Arc 4 | Chapter 144: Manufactured Hatred

“⸂I was messing with my water bottle, and boom!⸃” Emilia thrust her arms into the air for dramatic effect as she and V made their way to where the rest of the group was gathering. The other visitor seemed to be enjoying her reenactment of what had happened, the real story quickly jotted down as she raced down the stairs for her. He had read it, nodded and eaten the piece of paper, which had been both strange and helpful—Emilia hadn’t been sure how she was going to get rid of the evidence of where the kids had gone and why they wouldn’t be saying goodbye to them.

⸂It seems powerful…⸃ he noted, turning the {Blood Ball} around in his hands. Not having examined it herself, Emilia was amused to find it function like a toy, squishing and bending in the man’s hand. He tried throwing a bit of energy into it, but nothing happened. ⸂Looks like it has to activate on its own,⸃ he noted, throwing it back to her after shrinking it slightly.

Emilia thanked him before reattaching it to a clip that had appeared on her {Blood Armour} after the ball came into her possession. It swung slightly as she walked, but having it on her seemed the better option than just stuffing it into her bag with the other blood items she didn’t use often.

⸂Oh dear,⸃ Phlostra sighed when they entered the room everyone would be gathering it. Nearly everyone seemed to already be there, slowly sorting themselves into squads for the assault. ⸂How did that happen?⸃

Emilia bounced as she told the woman—the entire group, really, given how loud she was—what had happened. She needed to keep her brain moving—keep it loud and distracted, lest she give away what had happened to anyone but V.

⸂Well,⸃ Phlostra sighed as they stopped beside a group that included Yuka, Fran and Jerrina, unfortunately, ⸂that’s fine. I would have had to release my magic anyways, as we’ll be in different groups. Don’t worry!⸃ she laughed, having heard Emilia’s thoughts immediately turn to panic. ⸂Jerrina has gifted me two grandchildren, and has agreed to take over for me.⸃

Forcing down her thoughts on the sensibility of this proposal was difficult—not when Jerrina clearly didn’t like her—but she didn’t think anyone hearing her concerns would be useful—everyone, including Phlostra, had already proven themselves unmovable in their opinions and plans. Still… the sensibility of putting her with both Fran and Jerrina, who had been death glaring her since they met, obviously upset that Emilia had gotten V, who—

⸂Where did V go?⸃ Emilia thought, the words flooding out of her as she looked around.

⸂What, can't be away from that guy for more than a few minutes?⸃ Jerrina sneered, her hand smacking over Emilia’s. Magic surged through her, snuffing her aethervoice out. ⸂Don’t look at me like that.⸃

“Like what?”

⸂Like you’re surprised I’m shutting you up. My mom asked, so of course I’m going to. Plus,⸃ Jerrina turned away, her braids slapping against Emilia’s arm with the force of it, ⸂the last thing any of us need is to hear you whining about how V took his cock elsewhere.⸃

Yuka shifted, looking uncomfortable with their step-aunt’s words, but said nothing. ⸂You should join your group,⸃ they said instead, words directed at Fran. ⸂We will be leaving soon.⸃

“I thought she was coming with us?” a visitor Emilia had seen at the meeting asked, their flickering, panicked eyes implying they had no idea what had happened between Fran, V and her.

⸂I was, but then we got word someone will be meeting you in the city before the siege. I’m the easiest person to move.⸃ Fran smiled, red curls bouncing as she pushed her way by Emilia. ⸂I’ll say goodbye to V for you.⸃

Emilia watched her go, practically skipping her way over to the group V had been thrust into. His eyes met hers, filled with concern, his voice sliding through her and willing her to be safe.

“You too,”

she signed, choosing to use her own personal sign language. Internally, she might be denying herself full acknowledgement of who V was, but she couldn’t completely shake off that knowledge, and the person V was knew her sign language.

The man blinked back at her as Fran popped up in front of him. The way his expression hardened was amusing, the move so subtle she doubted the local woman even realized she was intruding where she was unwanted. V tore his eyes away from her to address the woman, his body shifting backwards slightly—moving out of the local woman’s space—and Emilia turned back to her own group.

Each group was composed of five people: a leader, three locals and two visitors. How they had split each group up, Emilia had no idea. Personally, she thought it would have made more sense to keep her and V together, given they knew each other. Yuka tried to convince her it was because Vermilion—the other visitor—had received a gift that could augment their movements, making them faster and quieter. Emilia wasn’t completely convinced, and from the looks of it, neither was Vermilion, the two of them exchanging silent words as their leader explained their mission.

Kyren was a gruff man, towering over each of them. He was a serious man, but it was clear that while he was officially in charge of their group, Yuka had more say in how things went. Why? Emilia had no idea, Yuka leaning into quiet and refusing to answer questions about anything but the mission as they moved through the building towards the location of the landing pads. What Emilia could see was the way people made way for Yuka. They might be young, barely in their 20s by the looks of it, but they were clearly either powerful or belonged to a powerful family—possibly both.

The landing pads with Clarity’s City System were slightly different from those outside it, the arrays powering them strange and mangled, like someone who hadn’t quite known what they were doing had hacked a collection of arrays together in order to get the desired result. Said result was what she and Phlostra had discussed when they first met: a city that could only let certain people in.

Unlike in the city system above, where locals could transport themselves anywhere, at any time—assuming they had the magic needed to do so—but generally chose to use landing pads in order to lessen the possibility of landing on another person or splicing themself landing in objects or buildings, Clarity’s City System could only be access via several tunnels or the landing pads. While anyone could use the tunnels, only someone who had ever exited via the landing pads could return through them.

Landing pads that led stars knew where. Somehow, Emilia didn’t think the Risen Guard—who managed the landing pads above—wouldn’t notice a random pad suddenly appearing alongside their official pads, welcoming people from some unknown location. More likely, the exit pads were hidden elsewhere, and when their group emerged into a cavern, she was unsurprised.

⸂We are below Hurland. There is an access point in the city, which leads to the Ingogia estate,⸃ Yuka said, their tone falling into one that screamed authority in a way that made Emilia very much

not

want to do what they wanted. Did Yuka want anything from her at the moment? Not really. Didn’t stop the bratty, rebellious part of her from rising up with a vengeance.

There was no time for that—not right now, not when they were heading into what may very well be their deaths. During the meeting earlier that day, Ajarni had made it clear: this was very possibly a suicide mission. It wasn’t guaranteed, but the implication had been there: if you aren’t willing to die for the cause—die today, tomorrow, this very minute—back out now.

Only one visitor had backed out, unwilling to go along with the plan when they still had time—although Emilia actually had no idea how much time was left in the raid—to find a way to win without risking their life for some group they had no connection to. The fact that they had seemed more concerned with their life within the raid being snuffed out a bit early and not all the lives that would likely be lost tonight…

Emilia shook herself as they walked, Kyren reiterating their team’s plan and goals and drive towards sacrificing their lives for the so-called greater good. It was insufferably, and the plan was terrible, effectively amounting to

charge in the front door and hope everyone is so distracted with their holiday celebration that their presence wouldn’t be noticed.

It was a plan that screamed of desperation—and indeed, she’d seen that desperation before. There had been so many times during the war when someone had made a last ditch effort to break through the enemies, especially before a Free Colony backed out of the alliance—although that rarely lasted long, the war a constantly growing organism that rarely released its claws from ground it had gained—or a solider retired. Not many had retired, but sometimes the war and injuries got to a person.

The thing was, while she saw that desperation in the plan itself, she didn’t consistently see it in the people, and when she did, it seemed… manufactured. Their claims—the words Ajarni had spewed during that meeting—screamed of over-exaggeration and falsehoods, the reasons underlying them a stretch that made her already nerve wracked body ever more uncomfortable.

Sure, as Ajarni had droned on about, the Risen Guard and Enclave had their problems. There was corruption and a willingness to kill civilians to get what they wanted, but this sort of desperate plan was strange. Emilia wanted to chalk it up to the raid coming to a close, except that hadn’t even been mentioned in passing.

Instead, there had been references to various events of the past during the meeting, vague mentions of so-and-so dying and such-and-such event, but they had never been expounded upon. All the locals knew the stories, although they had really only rallied behind such mentions when prompted—like they needed a reminder to feel sorrow for the dead and departed, for the so-called tragedies that had formed the world and their hatred for the groups that had controlled it so harshly for the last 80-some years.

On the other hand, the group seemed to be expecting the visitors to just be so greedy to win that they’d be willing to go along with anything. That was definitely the vibe she was getting: you are here to fight and get answers and follow orders.

It really fucking sucked, and no one was answering her questions! Even when she asked how everyone seemed capable of hearing visitors, no one answered her! It was almost like they were gaslighting her! Trying to convince her the times they had spoken to her or answered other questions had been a figment of her imagination!

It was terrible! And definitely wasn’t endearing her to their cause any more than she already was!

Honestly, with the kids gone, she was half tempted to just take off as well. She wouldn’t—she still didn’t want to leave and forever be wondering whether anyone was tortured because she hadn’t been there to tell the torturer to stuff it—but man, oh man did she want to.

Idly, as they exited the cavern and made their way through the streets of the city to meet their mysterious sixth member, Emilia pulled up her message to Boundary. He had never responded to her question of whether he had heard of Clarity or not, but for all she knew, he had and the {Blood Ball}’s barrier had just bounced it away. Interestingly, while the barrier had erased Phlostra’s magic from her body, her Risen Guard system access had remained.

Didn’t mean the barrier hadn’t fucked it up, however.

Tugging her hood further over her head, trying to hide her silver colouring from the locals wandering the midday streets, she pulled up Honey’s messages to her instead. The most recent messages were new—one that hadn’t been there when she’d glanced through the girl’s messages before Conrad’s arrival.

Most of the new ones were talking about the holiday, about how it was a rare event where most of the Risen Guard went home, although not this year, what with all the chaos ripping through the city system. Honey never went home, though. Honey had a fake family: a distantly related Enclave family. Her own family’s status as an Enclave family had been burned since the last visitation, but they had managed to have Honey without the Risen Guard noticing. Since then, she’d visited her real family occasionally, but largely been raised by her fake family.

Normally, these weren’t words Emilia—adoptive child that she was—preferred. From Honey’s messages, however, filled with anecdotes about how her fake family sucked, and she hoped one day she could return to her real family, who were much nicer, Emilia couldn’t fault her for thinking in terms of

real

and

fake.

Another message appeared just as Emilia reached the end, a note to try something called

⸂huffing cake⸃

if she got the chance. She hesitated for a moment before sending her first message to the trainee, asking if she had heard of Clarity.

A flurry of messages struck through the system. One, ten, twenty, each one burning Emilia’s brain and leaving her nauseous.

“Are you alright?” Vermilion whispered, her arm slipping through Emilia’s to help keep her standing as she forcibly closed Honey’s message log, the burn immediately lessening when she could no longer see the chaos of the girl’s thoughts.

Emilia nodded, but was thankful for both the other visitor’s support and Yuka informing them they were almost there—almost to their final member.