Yuriko couldn’t help herself. She just floated above the fighting, about fifty paces away, and just watched. She perched on top of a tenement building five storeys high. It had a flat roof and a guard wall that was about thigh high to her. It was grimy and stank of dried feces, rotting pigeon feathers. She also spotted the truck driver cowering behind a set of stairs by the pavement, hands over his head and trembling like a newborn foal. He was out of the line of fire, though. 

Speaking of the fight, that tentacle woman’s reach was a good fifty paces or so. The tentacles—or perhaps tendrils would be a better descriptor since they didn’t have suckers or anything—continued to protect the rival gang from multiman’s shooting, but something else happened.

The trenchcoat man jumped off the hood of the pickup truck and flicked a couple of cards towards tentacle girl…tentagirl? The card spun as it flew, and sheared right through the forest of tentacles and straight to the girl’s body. One of the other capes, one wearing a modified Battle Ball uniform, threw a battle ball at the card. The official battle ball was something the size of a bowling ball, and almost as heavy, but had some give so that it wouldn’t break limbs or noses when it hit players. The guy threw it at speeds that almost broke the sound barrier, and it hit the card from the side rather than head on, which negated whatever cutting effect it had. Ah, he also materialised the ball midthrow rather than carrying a bunch around. Once it intercepted the card, it vanished. But there was a second card, and this one grazed Tentagirl’s bicep. It sliced through her sleeve, and she shrieked in pain. 

The shorn tentacles writhed in a frenzy and reached for the card-hurling trench coat dude, but it fell far short. Battleball dude threw one at trenchy, but one of Multiman’s clones blocked the ball. The clone’s chest caved in before it burst into fireworks. 

All the while, several clones moved to flank, hoping to get a better angle to shoot. More of him popped out, and Yuriko identified the body that it came from. All of the additional clones, about one a second, came from there. A weakness of his alteration? Perhaps it could be trained out of it…hmm, but why was she thinking of training bandits?

Her perception spread into the tenement building and found it mostly abandoned. The few residents were separated from the action by the concrete wall and several drywalls, but that might not be enough to shield against assault rifle bullets. Well, as long as they stay away…

Why is that man peering out the window with a smartphone pointed to the ground? Do you have a death wish, boy? 

The tenement building on the opposite side of the road was mostly the same. About half of the apartments were deserted or damaged, and about a quarter of the remaining were filled with trash. The remaining quarter had signs of habitation, but those were the ones that were facing the road, hence, the rubberneckers were peeking out and taking videos. Seriously, where was the fear about Altered Humans? Just because the terminology suddenly changed to Capes, heroic or villainous, something shifted in the public perception? 

Yuriko paused. Was it possible someone Altered had powers that could affect this? But what kind? She felt no touch on her mind, but she was shielded by her Anima. Anything that happened would be subtle, though, which was why nothing happened to her. Assuming her thoughts were on the right track anyway. Any kind of social manipulation power that affected the city…did it also affect the nation as a whole? For what purposes? 

Could she assume that the current, perhaps previous now, animosity against Altered Humans was engineered, too? If so, whoever did it was entrenched firmly in the halls of power. Rooting them out, finding out what they wanted…well, that would be quite problematic—and a potentially good challenge. 

Hmm, but why should she root them out? They weren’t actually affecting her adversely, at least not now. As long as she kept her cape identity from her civilian one, she would reap fame from both ends to produce more Ambrosia. If she did this right, she might double the speed of production, then she’d be able to convert both Ryoko and Saki, and maybe Ilvarra, too, if she wanted, within the year…no, by next year, probably. By then, she would be able to use the Ambrosia to further the growth of her Will and Intent reserves, the two resource pools that bottlenecked her advancement to the Manifestation Stage. Hmmm, but why did it feel like she’d be taking illegal drugs when she thought about assimilating Ambrosia? Astorian media were filled with warnings about drug abuse, especially those coming from the southern continent. Eh, maybe she was inundating herself with too much TV. 

Anyway, the root of the issue was that whatever social engineering was happening, it was making her life easier. Now that she was aware, albeit without any real proof, that something was happening, she shouldn’t be blindsided. Hmm, come to think of it, if the social engineer was aware of her and worked against her, it would be remarkably easy to turn people against her, right? Unless she used her Mien to actually enthral people rather than Inspire them, or really, enhance their admiration for her. 

Come to think of it, there was no reason to assume they didn’t know of her beforehand, right? No, no, that was paranoid of her. The world didn’t revolve around her. 

Unless she took the Empty Radiant Throne.

Yuriko blinked, then huffed. The air around her trembled with the thought, and she felt an odd pressure against her mind. It wasn’t that strong, but it felt…familiar. She pushed it off with some effort and was startled when half of her Will was depleted. Rotter! She felt a bit odd now, but nothing too bad. Will and Intent took longer to replenish the more depleted it was, and according to Damien’s knowledge, Will at fifty percent took an hour to get up to sixty percent. From there, and for every ten percent refilled, it took forty-five minutes, fifteen minutes, five minutes, and one minute. If her Will or Intent dropped below fifty percent, getting back to fifty would have taken a full twelve hours. 

Will described the power of her consciousness that assured her body, mind, and Anima would be sacrosanct against external influence. But it was also the power that gave her volition. It was why using a Manifestation required both to be appropriately autonomous. Intent was that power given a goal, or something like that. 

There was something outside of her perception that influenced her thoughts, and it was only because she reached enlightenment regarding the nature of Ennoias that she was able to resist now. Both of her bodies had been tested, and both were at fifty percent Will. Frightening. Or perhaps that was just how things worked? 

All of her consciousness strands stuttered when the feedback from the world disturbed her. It wasn’t much of an issue with her true body, since she had been meditating after riding Gwendith hard. Her incarnation body had lost focus on the gang fight for a few seconds, and she missed quite a bit of what happened so far. 

There were three capes on Tentagirl’s side, while there were two on Multiman’s. She found the third one by the simple expedient of noticing that he wore a costume and a mask, though the third guy was just a simple black domino mask. She didn’t know what his Altered power was, but he was hunkered down behind cover. 

Multiman’s clones had increased by another dozen or so. Should have been more, probably, but they died to Tentagirl and Battleboy. Or no. She saw a couple of clones touching hands after performing a weird two-second dance that involved spinning around in opposite directions, only to finish by clasping hands, turn into a bright light, then merge into one. Actually, about eight pairs did that, then they repeated the process twice more until there was only one left. Nothing much distinguished it from the other clones, but when he fired his assault rifle, it tore large holes through the tentacles that would have hit the girl if she hadn’t dived for cover. 

Battleboy was having a throwdown with Cardsharp. As in, they were standing about ten paces away from each other and flinging their projectiles without moving a step out of the way. The cards and Battle balls met in midair and cancelled each other out, and they kept doing it. Unfortunately, Yuriko thought Cardsharp would be the loser in the exchange, considering he had to use up his playing cards while Battleboy conjured up his weapon. It looked like that would be the conclusion, but Cardsharp pulled out a fresh pack after the current one ran out. Battleboy froze for a second, and very visibly cursed, before he started juking around to avoid getting perforated. 

“Hah! You flinched, loserboy!” Cardsharp yelled, and as if that was the signal to escalate, he pulled out another deck and flung all of it at once, creating a veritable storm of ultrasharp cards. But the guy wasn’t all that accurate. Sure, the cards curved towards Battleboy, but only a sixth of the cards actually hit him. The others flew all over, and while some cut off his escape path, all the sporty cape had to do was fling half a dozen Battle Balls in quick succession, and he managed to create a window of safety. 

Hmmm. While the capes were fighting, the regular gang members had snuck up towards the loaded vans, and driven off the drivers in a shower of bullets, taking control of the stolen goods. 

Well, that wasn’t good. Yuriko wondered what she should do. Keep enjoying the battle? Stop the actual theft? Or intervene and fight everyone? She had little doubt that all five were villains, though she didn’t think any of them would put up a good fight. Oh well, they were all in her range anyway. 

She snapped her fingers and sent an Invisible Edge into the van’s wheels. She had enough control and power by now that the single Edge slashed both front tires. She sent another one to the other van. Now they were trapped. Amidst the swearing and shouting, Yuriko returned her focus to the fight. The third cape somehow managed to sneak around the battlefield to flank Cardsharp.

Hmm, no, he’d just neutralised Multiman’s clones whenever they came close. Somehow, he had handily avoided getting shot simply by avoiding the line of fire from the assault rifles, and when he touched the clones, they slumped into unconsciousness. 

He snuck up behind Cardsharp and was just about to touch the back of his head when one of the clones tackled him. It fell bonelessly asleep, but the damage was done. Cardsharp threw a card at Sleeptouchy, and it passed right through his guts and out the back. He gasped and clutched at his wound while staggering away. 

With Cardsharp’s attention away from him, Battleboy managed to slam a ball at the small of the cape’s back. There was a nasty crack and he was flung off his feet. 

“No!” Multiman’s clones all screamed together.

In the intervening time, a couple more eight-merged clones were produced, and they shot at Battleboy. This time, the sporty cape didn’t avoid the attack on time, and while his body armour might have protected him, the gun’s penetrating power had been magnified. 

A moment later, hundreds of tentacles emerged from the shadows, from Multiman’s shadows at that, and wrapped around his clones. The single clones popped almost instantaneously, while the eight merged ones resisted for a long moment before popping. The original squealed in panic and started to run away, sacrificing his clones as he did so. But Tentagirl was on the war path. She wrapped Cardsharp with a dozen tentacles and started squeezing. 

Yuriko didn’t quite want to see pulped flesh and exploded blood, so she jumped off the roof to finally intervene.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep