Emiya walked around the desk, crouching down to stare at the sleeping Matriarch beneath.
"What are you..." Liara began, as she walked up behind him just in time to see him poke Baliya's nose with a finger. A second later he was being pulled away from the sleeping curator by the incensed asari. "What are you doing?!"
He blinked, tilting his head.
"This is no way to—"
"I leave waking her up to you then," he said with a shrug, turning around before Liara could gather steam.
Might as well make some coffee, he thought. Judging by the progress of the cataloging on the computer, she must have at least gotten a few hours of sleep by now, meaning she would be waking up soon.
But without coffee, there were no guarantees of any coherence on her part.
"Ah? W-waking her up? That, well—I understand. Not that you can hear me," she said as she realized he was leaving it to her then, determination and hesitation equal as she turned around to look at the sleeping elder.
"Then, what should I do?" Tyra asked, bouncing up to him with animatedly.
"Hmm..."
She blinked, suddenly realizing something. "Oh... Right, umm, you can't hear me at all, can you?"
"I can."
"Huh?"
He winked at her with a smirk. "Don't tell Liara."
"O-oh! Yea-yeah, okay. But how can you hear again? What happened? Is everything okay? What happened down there? How did we escape, and why are they going through all this trouble? It's crazy!" The flood of questions did not seem to have any end as she looked at him.
Emiya raised a hand to forestall any further questions.
"Perhaps I owe you two some explanations, but let's wait until Baliya wakes up to keep the repetition to a minimum"
"Oh, okay! I'll go help Liara then!" Tyra nodded and rushed past him.
He huffed with some amusement as he could hear Liara's scandalized chiding of Tyra for being too rough, knowing from experience that Baliya was a very deep sleeper. Well, until she realized he was making coffee anyhow. That usually got her to accept that it was time to rejoin the ranks of the conscious.
Ignoring the collectively rowdy trio behind him, he set about grinding the roasted beans. He made sure to take it slow and on the coarsest setting, drawing out the process as he glanced at the rousing Matriarch. The slight twitch here, a slightly sharper inhale through the nose there.
She was waking up despite her best efforts.
"Professor Haphia, please wake up," Liara repeated for the nth time as she gently shook her shoulder to no effect.
"I told you, she's not gonna wake up if we don't get a bucket of cold water. That always works on the biotiball camps when someone won't get up!"
"No, Tyra! We cannot—Hey! Wait! Listen to me, Tyra!" Liara shouted, getting up to haul back her excitable roommate who was running out of the office.
Emiya continued grinding the beans alone.
As the water came to a boil he took out the French Press, noting with some disdain that it had not been cleaned since last he had been here, quickly taking care of that. As he cleaned the press and some cups, he drank about a liter of water and swallowed three whole pemmican balls, forestalling any rumblings of his stomach. He had been running around for a while now and since his actions in his physical body and his use of magical energy were both dependent on his body's ability to generate life force, it remained doubly important to maintain proper nutrition and hydration.
If he came down to just fumes it would be all downhill from there.
Each portion of pemmican swallowed whole felt like a ball of lead in his gut at first. But mere seconds later he realized how hungry he had become as a ravenous appetite was roused. And like a raging river, his blood began to pool in his gut and his energy levels drop and his focus turning sluggish. The coffee would come in handy.
He ate another two balls, just to be sure, now that he was risking downtime anyway.
Finishing with the preparations he poured the slightly-cooled boiling water into the French Press and put on the cap. It would have to sit for a few minutes before it was ready; generally, he liked to wait until all of the coarsely ground coffee had sunk to the bottom but he knew Baliya liked even stronger brews, meaning he could wait as long as he'd like and let all the caffeine suffuse the water.
Perhaps I shouldn't be fueling her growing caffeine addiction like this, he thought as he noticed she was slowly being drawn back into the land of the living by the wafting scent of freshly ground beans, like some long-dead corpse reanimated by the power of necromancy.
Sitting up, Baliya blinked and looked around groggily.
First, her eyes went to the terminal where she sat for several seconds in silence, looking at the completion bar of the cataloging process still slowly filling up, taking in the minutiae of progress. Then, she looked around while yawning widely. Spotting Emiya she froze for a second as their eyes met for a moment of incomprehension and alarm.
"Oh, Fujimura! It's just you, huh..." She relaxed. "I thought there was someone else here..."
"Good morning, professor Haphia. The coffee will be ready in a moment."
Yawning, she stretched her arms and neck as she stood up. "Really? Thank you, you're always—Hmm, what are you wearing?"
"This? I just returned from Dretirop," he replied, brushing at the breast of his hardsuit with one hand.
The EMP had disabled it for the most part but it still looked fully functional. Well, he was certain it would protect him from a few bullets, but with the kinetic barrier belt and internal computer fried he would have to get another one soon. If he was doubling back, then it wouldn't be a problem, but normally finding any in his size would have been a problem on Thessia.
"...Oh, right," she said, nodding once as she scratched her back. "How was it?"
"Hot. Mostly sand and caves around the outlined areas, as the reports indicated."
She smiled, nodding at him. "Yes, it is quite often like that on dig-sites. But the finds they brought back were quite fascinating. Ugh, I have been working non-stop since they returned with everything. There's just so much of everything and I have to sort it out before we start with the testing, you know?"
He blinked, noticing how she seemed to be avoiding looking around too much. As if moving her neck was awkward or painful. Pushing off the wall he walked up to her, put a hand on her shoulder, and squeezed lightly.
"Hmm, you are tense. I've told you about your sitting posture before, haven't I?"
"Ahh, a massage? Thank you~ I feel alive again..." she moaned as she slumped down onto her office chair.
"You should ditch the chair, standing is a lot better for your back and shoulders. Your posture is terrible enough as it is," he noted as he buried his thumb in between her shoulder blades to get at a particularly tight knot of tension.
"No way... I'd have to stand all day long then..." she complained as he switched to light chopping with the heel of his palm, moving up and down, which caused her voice to gain a staccato undertone to it as she spoke. "Ohhh, right there... That's goooood..."
He had been roped into massaging others during his life often enough that he at least knew the basics, though more often than not those sessions had mutated somehow into pro-wrestling matches. Baliya—luckily enough perhaps—was not quite as active as that other mooch he could still vaguely remember from his youth.
The door opened then, with Tyra barging in with a large bucket in her hands that looked like she had pilfered it from a service closet. She blinked, staring at the two with obvious surprise.
A second later Liara caught up, panting and lagging behind the more physical biotiball player. "Tyra...!"
She too stopped to blink at the scene before her.
Baliya blinked, swallowing as she suddenly stood up ramrod straight. The two asari by the door blinked in unison before their gazes turned to Emiya who was half-smiling at the sudden awkward silence.
"I managed to get her awake."
He didn't even stop his rapid drumming-like massage as he turned to look at the two who had returned, merely adjusting for her standing up.
"Wha—" Tyra shouted, dropping the bucket she had been carrying. It made a deep clonk as the water sloshed onto her feet, but it did not fall over.
"Saiga, What are—" Liara began to shout, her eyes wide and mouth hanging wide open, but...
"Wha—Wha—What are you doing!" Tyra burst forward jumping over the desk with one stride, completely muscling out Liara's surprise with her own.
Baliya took a surprised step back at the sudden intrusion into her personal space. "Who—What are you two doing here?!"
"That's what I should be asking!" Tyra shouted at the curator.
Baliya, still off-kilter by the sudden appearance of the two froze as she realized in what kind of position she was with—what was technically a student of hers—in front of two, apparently unknown asari, as Tyra stopped right in front of him, jabbing an accusing finger into Emiya's chest.
"I take my eyes off of you for one moment, and, and you!"
Emiya raised an eyebrow at her reaction. "Yes?"
She stared at him, the purple flush on her face receding as she crossed her arms and turned around with a huff. "I can't believe you."
"Umm, ah, eh, do you know these people, Fujimura?" Baliya asked, looking around with wide eyes at the two asari.
Liara, apparently realizing how cocked-up her introduction was going, sallied to salvage it and sharply straightened up. "Professor T'Soni, I am Baliya—I mean, professor Bali—Haphia! Professor Haphia! I am Liara T'Soni and I have read all of your papers! Your work on clarifying the various Prothean ages and pioneering cross-referencing dating techniques are incredible!"
"Thank... you?" Baliya blinked, turning to look at Emiya with a complete deer-in-the-headlights look as she silently asked him who the hell he had brought over.
Hmm, even the ever-diplomatic and charismatic asari can become this tongue-tied? He mused with some amusement.
He smirked at her, raising a hand to gesture at Tyra first. "Professor Haphia, these are some friends I recently made in Usaru. I'd like you to meet Tyra T'sanis and Liara T'Soni. They're a bit of a handful, but I'm sure you'll have no problems getting along."
"Ah, it's nice to meet you?" Tyra suddenly said, realizing that she probably hadn't been making the best of impressions, acquiring the same shade of abashed embarrassment and confusion as the other two asari.
"Yes, it is, ah... a pleasure to make your acquaintance?" Baliya replied in a stilted fashion, equally perturbed as she looked at Emiya out of the corner of her eye, asking the insistent but silent question of who the hell these people were supposed to be anyhow, the names alone having told her nothing.
"And well, they have something for you. Liara?"
"Huh? I mean, yes! I—No, where did I put it?!" Liara said, only to realize that she did not have the Prothean gun on her person. She began to look through her pockets, turning around on the spot as her panic was growing at the thought of having lost the Prothean artifact.
"It's on the desk, where you left it earlier."
"Oh!" Liara jumped forward, grasping the gunblade as she walked up to Baliya who was growing even more and more confused by the second.
Liara took a deep inhale, before presenting the gunblade with both hands to the Matriarch. There was a second of pregnant silence before Baliya finally reacted. Tilting her head, she took a step forward and leaned to take a closer look at the pistol without touching it just yet.
"It's..." Baliya hesitated, running a thumb gently along the surface of the pistol's side.
"Yes," Liara immediately said, nodding vigorously.
"But the handle design is clearly of..."
"Late sixth age."
"But the condition and the..." Baliya frowned, moving her finger along the barrel.
"Exactly, and..."
The two asari met eyes, a moment of silent communication occurring. The Matriarch's eyes widened, lips parting in a silent query.
"Yes!" Liara nodded again, vigorously.
They're unexpectedly in tune with one another. Emiya blinked as he looked at the two.
He turned to Tyra who was standing by the side, owlishly looking at the excited pair of archaeologists. Eyes outside the world of the Prothean gun met, and they shrugged in perfect unison, realizing they should have seen this coming.
Shaking his head, he moved over to the French press.
"Would you like some coffee?"
"Coh-feh? Huh? What's that?" Tyra asked, hovering by his shoulder, having placed herself deliberately—and what she must have thought was surreptitiously as well—between him and Baliya.
"A human beverage. It's a bit of an acquired taste, but..."
"I'll try it!" Tyra immediately responded.
Nodding, he settled to prepare cups for all four.
"Make it double for me," Baliya remarked, glancing up for but a fraction of a second from the pistol she was looking over. "I still think I must be dreaming..."
They stood there for a relatively quiet five minutes, as Liara and Baliya intently went over the pistol piece by piece, part by part, with the younger asari heatedly whispering and pointing out features and characteristics of this and that to the elder who silently nodded and occasionally noted something herself which would without fail elicit an impressed reaction from the undergraduate.
Finally, as he prepared and poured coffee for all, they sat down in a rough circle around a table Tyra had cleared.
"So... What exactly is going on?" Baliya asked as she sipped her coffee. The immediate effect—mostly a placebo from the heat and taste than anything else—was obvious. The slouch melting away, her body language turning far more controlled and composed. The shift in tone and words had a visible effect on the other two asari as they too straightened up in response. Clearing her throat, she continued: "I was not expecting visitors—I have been quite occupied with arranging and sorting the various items discovered on Dretirop, you understand. I must apologize for the state of my office in which you've arrived to..."
"No, professor, it is we who must apologize for suddenly intruding in this manner." Liara was immediately apologizing.
She was like a schoolgirl who was nervous about being scolded by her headmistress, still switching between that and her fawning awe at the drop of a hat. Their first impressions had been rather informal, yet this quickly they had fallen into their usual mannerism. Or rather, they had overcompensated by going into an extremely awkward mood as the asari tried to maintain or regain the proper sense of propriety.
"Yeah—I mean, yes. It is most unfortunate that we had to, uh, intrude on such a lacking notice," Tyra added. It was obvious that of the three, she had the least experience when it came to the appropriate decorum.
"Of course. Then we must accept circumstances as they come," Baliya acquiesced with an almost sage-like nod. "As you may already know, I am Baliya Haphia. A humble curator and researcher here at the Museum of the University of Serrice."
Emiya raised an eyebrow at the contrast from her usual self at that moment, especially since it seemed to have such a great impact on both Liara and Tyra, both being completely reeled in by the introduction.
He had seen her like this before, of course; her public appearances were all like this and it had taken her years to let up and relax around him to the point of her 'usual self' emerging. But while the regal, Matriarchal, ancient asari act apparently came quite naturally to her, it was something she was used to wielding rather than something she actually embodied.
While her slovenly and slothful self was without a doubt her truest nature, she wasn't a renowned figure for nothing.
A Matriarch is as a Matriarch was.
It was somehow amusing to watch how all three who he had come to know relatively well, changed entirely at this moment. He was no stranger to rigid social protocol and propriety, hailing from Japan once, but he had never been one to care much for such things, and somehow this awkward and stilted conversation was reminding him of times long gone.
At his quiet chuckling, all three eyes turned to look at him.
He could almost physically feel the weight of group condemnation. Peer pressure at work, trying to shame him into toeing a line. Even if none of them quite know what that line was right now they were all keenly aware of its existence somewhere. And for a species as socially aware and sensitive as the asari, such things would be doubly effective.
Of course, he blew right past all of that.
"I need two favors," he said without preamble.
"Ah," Baliya mouthed, blinking as her composure broke for the moment again.
Such direct statements were usually rare in polite asari company.
They were to be hinted at, to be skirted around until the whole of the matter was obvious even without it needing to be said aloud. It was quite similar to the concept of 'face' from Asia in a sense, where asking the question directly would be akin to saying that the other party lacked either the intelligence to infer the need for help or was too callous to offer it if not directly confronted with the matter.
It was a facet of their nature as a race that prided in their ability to empathize, understand, and cooperate with everyone.
Of course, that was among asari specifically.
He was a human - they knew that and would take no offense. Intellectually, at least. Indeed, he knew it was common for asari to speak in rather mercenary terms when dealing with humans directly, 'stooping to their level' as it were, seeing it as another facet of their natural empathy to mirror their conversational partners. Give and take—equivalent exchange—supply and demand. These were concepts humans understood much more clearly, compared to the delicate and polite exchanges the asari preferred amongst themselves.
But the problem was that he had stuck them into a wholly new situation where two conflicting modes of behavior were clashing, especially in the manner in which he had rather forcefully introduced the two parties. He was a human, necessitating a certain style of conduct, while they were a pair of Maidens and a Matriarch meeting for the first time. Something that also necessitated a specific style of conduct.
There would usually be introductions, casual questions, and artful asides aplenty in this situation.
They would try folding him into that first. Since he had lived among the asari for years they would attempt to treat him as one. But once it became obvious that he either would not or could not fulfill such a role in this conversation, he would be excluded from that rule and they would pretend as if he was not there unless directly talking to him, in which case they would revert to a more suitable mode of conduct.
It was like watching a mother struggling between keeping a rowdy and demanding child satisfied while at the same time interacting with her peers and trying to maintain a respectable figure. There was usually a touch of something intangibly awkward about seeing something like that in public.
Outwardly the asari were a united front to all other races, but internally there existed innumerable cracks and divisions just like this. This moment was in the heart of asari deep culture, something members of other races would rarely ever see, or even be able to recognize.
But he didn't have time for any of that right now.
"He's enjoying this, isn't he?" Liara spoke past him under her breath, still believing that his hearing was shot.
"I take what I can get in these trying times," he opined and waited a second. As Liara's eyes shot wide and she turned to look at him, he merely gave a knowing smile that told her that, yes I heard everything even if he had only heard half of what she had been saying about him. "But more importantly, we don't have all that much time."
"Huh?" Baliya blinked.
"I'm currently being chased by at least one Spectre, with both the Serrice Guard and the Special Tasks Group assisting her. On the way here, my skycar got shot out of the air and I had to carry these two when they were knocked out by some form of knock-out gas attack."
There was a silent moment as Baliya frowned and for a moment there was a spark of something in her eye. She turned to look at Liara and Tyra, but upon seeing their serious faces she turned to look back at Emiya. "How did that happen? Does this have something to do with Nirida?"
He shook his head. "No, it's something unrelated to that. I didn't find her, but it's still in the works."
"Then, what is this all about?"
"Well, have you heard about a hacker called 'redhax'?" he asked as at the same time he reached out to the terminals and omnitools in the room, lighting them up all at once.
Baliya nodded hesitantly, as Liara's and Tyra's eyes shot wide open as they began to connect the dots.
"No way...!"
Looking at Tyra who had spoken, he gave a small smirk as he used the sound synthesizers in all of the computers in the room to speak.
"And, well. There are a lot of people who have taken exception to his actions in recent years. Though mostly I believe they're looking to either recruit me or learn how I do what I do. Hence all the softballs until now."
All three asari shot up, looking around the room at the various speakers. Three heads slowly turned to look at Emiya who was still seated. He smirked by way of answering their unspoken question.
"I—I see." Baliya looked completely and utterly lost at this point, glancing between Emiya and the various screens around her. "But, what does that—any of this, I mean—have to do with me?"
He nodded at Liara and Tyra. "These two were pulled into all of this and they have nothing to do with it. Not beyond being immediate acquaintances with me. I only met them a few days ago, but they've somehow been pulled into this mess."
Baliya blinked, turning to look at the two again. "But, what do you expect me to do?"
"You're a consultant and friend of a certain Matriarch, one Councilor Tevos, I believe."
Tyra and Liara gasped at that, staring at Baliya.
Much like in human society, there was always a higher up in the hierarchy. A Matriarch was not always the same as a Matriarch and being the sitting member of the Citadel Council—the representative of all asari to the whole of the Milky Way—was about as high up as a pair of young asari could imagine.
"How do you..." Baliya blinked as she sat up straight. Then, she turned a suspicious eye at her terminal. "Have you been hacking into my terminals?"
"There was a picture of you two on that wall," he said as he raised his thumb to point at a corner of the room. "Behind the boxes, I mean. I saw it when you asked for help with finding that one report, two years ago. I asked about the cracked frame."
Her mouth went completely round as she blinked at him. "O-oh? I had a picture like that...? Ah, that's... Tevos would kill me if she knew..."
Whispering to herself in a quiet voice that only Emiya could hear, she got up to hastily go fetch said picture, only to realize it was not there. Turning to Emiya, he pointed at the desk. "I fixed it and put it on your desk back then. You never even noticed, did you?"
"Ah... Uh... D-don't tell her I forgot about it, she uh... Gets angry when I forget about her gifts like that..."
"That seems a rather common trend," he remarked with an amused look.
She coughed, clearing her throat as she sat down and deciding to move on with the conversation, reeling back in that authority before the other two owlishly observing asari. "If there are Spectres involved, I don't know what I could do to help. It is not as if I have any real political power like that, and Telos is on the Citadel right now."
"Would she read a message you sent before the end of the day?"
"Tevos is a friend and yes, she does ask for my help on occasion with some private deals and buying antiques, but... It is not as such matters call for hurry, usually."
Emiya grunted.
With the STG around and the quarantine in place, getting a message out to the Citadel could be a tricky affair. Especially if they managed to connect the dots to his presence here. If the two had been in more regular contact, perhaps a message could have slipped by notice, but it was better not to risk it.
He had hoped she might have had something up her sleeve for a situation like this, but it couldn't be helped.
"Then, can you keep these two here until I've managed to sort things out?" he asked. "Just to keep them out of harm's way for a few days."
It was not like Baliya would be leaving the museum for the foreseeable future, anyhow.
"Wait, you're leaving us here?" Tyra suddenly shouted, standing up in a rush and startling Liara.
But neither paid her outburst any attention, aside from Baliya giving the pair a quick glance, before motioning for him to continue.
"For whatever reason, they showed up at my house just before the Spectre—Tela Vasir—made her move." Emiya went on, ignoring the outburst. "There's no reason for these two to be involved, yet that Spectre went out of her way to include them in all of this. I think she might be acting on her own here, that she might be corrupt or working another angle. I'm not sure yet, but it simply doesn't fit with what she should be doing to capture me."
He didn't know exactly what was going on, but he knew that something did not make sense here.
Of course, having taken Tela Vasir out of commission for the moment, he was fairly certain someone else had taken the helm during the chase, as evidenced by the change in tactics by his pursuers. He suspected someone from the STG or a local huntress, perhaps.
Baliya blinked, slowly nodding as she frowned. "How can I help?"
He huffed.
"You're you. That's all they need."
The Matriarch blinked at that, before turning to look at the two Maidens. Though the Matriarch's untouchable image had been quite energetically eroded, the two still sat up noticeably straighter under her gaze. Liara in particular still seemed like she was boiling over with the desire to ask a million questions right then and there.
Baliya sighed then, and he knew he had her help. "Very well, I shall... shelter them here for a time, until I can contact Tevos, at least."
He nodded. "Good."
"Saiga, you can't just leave—" Tyra objected again, but paused as Liara had taken a hold of her arm, shaking her head at the standing asari.
He looked at her and their eyes met as she looked back.
"I'm leaving Thessia. There's nothing more for me here now."
"I..." She flinched, looking away. Quietly she sat down again, eyes downcast and fists balled.
Emiya turned back to Baliya, ignoring the look in her eye at the byplay just now. "The second favor you can probably already guess."
"...That Prothean relic miss T'Soni had?"
He nodded.
"I found it on Mars and I need to know how old it is."
"Mars? But by the Citadel conventions, any finds in home system territory belong in totality to the race who inhabits the system. That is property of the Systems Alliance, I couldn't possibly—"
Liara jumped into the discussion then. "Please, professor. The site cannot be accessed through regular means if what he says is true. But, aside from his word, there is no proof of it coming from Mars! Even if we were to return it now, they would not believe us."
Baliya frowned.
"Is it that important?"
Liara hesitated, glancing at Emiya who crossed his arms and sat silently. She nodded then. "I believe him, in so far as it can be tested. If he is right, then it could be the find of the millennia simply waiting for us."
The curator followed her gaze, looking at him and trying to discern his thoughts. Finally, after several seconds of silent contemplation, she nodded.
"Very well. It is not as if I will be able to let something like this remain uninvestigated now that my curiosity has been piqued." Baliya stood up. "I don't know what you've gotten yourselves into and honestly, I don't want to even know. But I can't simply ignore an artifact like this when it has been brought before me. They can stay here while I investigate this relic, at the very least."
As expected of the shut-in collector; she's honest to her passions, Emiya thought while carefully keeping his face blank. Outwardly, he simply nodded again.
"Thank you."
;
"Anything?" Nihlus asked.
When no one answered, he knew that the trail had settled and gone cold. It had been an hour since they had lost track of the target and the longer they had to wait the longer their odds of reacquiring their target grew.
Their original assumption had been that Shirou Emiya was seeking to hide in the underground facility and to hack it for a distraction at a time of his choosing once an opening at his preferred point-of-exit appeared. With that in mind, the scenario they had prepared for was every single skycar and shuttle in the facility being hacked and being sent flying out the parking hall like a swarm of locusts.
In the confusion of so many vehicles in the air, hiding in any one of them would be quite an effective tactic for escape.
The best countermeasure they had come up with was to shut off the Automatic Parking System's power... But that would not affect the skycars and shuttles themselves. If every vehicle in the underground was set to leave on forced autopilot heedless of the lockdown, that could spell catastrophe. Not only to the skycars and shuttles but to critical Serrice infrastructure as well. Even without building up speed, any craft capable of exiting the atmosphere possessed immense power, and with the water-purifying plant just to the north and the underground holding rooms for the fusion plant to the west...
They could not act hastily.
Even the Spectres and STG could not justify collapsing a major asari city in the name of a mere manhunt. So for now it remained a race against time and credits. But given the rate at which credits—real and potential—were being burned, a collapse might just become the most cost-effective option.
Nihlus had been hoping it would not come to that.
And then their target had been spotted leaving through one of the maintenance ways leading further towards Serrice, to his equal confusion and relief.
Did that mean he had been trying to escape through another route instead? Why had he taken the time to escape to the center of Serrice where the STG would have their talons unsheathed? With so much cover and concealment, their greater numbers, mobile drone wings, and satellite overwatch it would turn Serrice into nothing short of an inescapable snare.
If he merely wanted to create a panic or increase collateral damage there was no need for him to physically head further in.
It did not make sense.
...Unless it had to do with the two as-yet-unknown asari he had with him.
Where had they even come from?
The STG had been unable to identify them—even acting evasive—and Tela Vasir had called them in as latent hostiles, but... Nihlus Kryik's instincts could not see them as anything less than harmless. His mandibles quivered with pent-up aggression again. At least all of this wasn't happening in Usaru. It was an unbecoming thought for a turian Spectre, but it still allowed him to take a step back from the entire affair and view it through more objective eyes. As a matter of numbers rather than people.
With so much of their miniature drone force taken out and with the scale and complexity of the underground ways, it was not looking good. It had become a deadlock again. A waiting game.
Were it any other world, a drawn-out manhunt would certainly be Nihlus' stratagem of choice.
But this was Thessia - the beating heart of galactic commerce.
Did he know? He must have to have chosen such a perfect move to put pressure on them.
Beyond merely the Parnitha relay's lockdown, there was a quarantine on Thessia itself. No unauthorized vessels could enter or leave the planet under the pain of being destroyed by the local asari cruisers. Not a single unaccounted FTL-capable starship was within a light-minute of Thessia. But this planetary quarantine had been pushed through under the promise of this being a swift and clean operation. Not as a necessity in case of their target escaping, but as a necessity to bind his hands and weigh him down.
Not only the Spectres and STG, but all the Council races had exhaustively worked to ensure that starships could not and would not ever be weaponized against garden worlds. Because in the worst-case scenario, it had been laid out that Redhax had the ability to take all of Thessia hostage, should he feel cornered enough and have to access any FTL-craft in the planet's vicinity.
As things took an unexpected turn for the worse, he was forced to extend the duration.
The Council was certain to level complaints at him due to the catastrophic economic fallout of the extension—far beyond what had been accounted for during the original approval of the joint operation—but as long as he could point to the ongoing chase he could still somewhat defend himself.
But now that they had lost sight of him he no longer had anything to use as a justification.
"Lift the quarantine."
Jondum Bau looked up, clearly startled. "Sir? But..."
"We can't keep this up. He might be able to stay here for a month and hide but we can't," Nihlus stated the obvious, judging by the salarian's grimace, before looking away and nodding to himself. "Thus, we must turn proactive: Announce publicly that the operation was a success and fall back. Have the Serrice Guard stand down, but tell them to post guards at the public transportation facilities and to be on the lookout for accomplices — use that to justify the continued relay lockdown as well."
With the talons loosening their hold, the prey will open up its shell and seek to escape...
"Do you think he would be arrogant enough to attempt something so obvious as using public transportation?"
The turian shook his head. "No, but we must make the attempt to appear as if we are doing something. As long as he thinks he knows what we are doing, we can act with impunity outside of that theater."
Jondum nodded slowly. "So he will attempt to leave on his own, then... But sir, if we enable planetary traffic once more, will we even be able to contain him?"
If it was possible for the hacker to control all the skycars and shuttles in parking, then what of all of Thessia's orbit?
Nihlus shook his head, looking up.
"Is that not why we brought along the AI?" An absolute ace-in-the-hole in terms of cyber-warfare. Conventionally, at least. The turian turned his sharp gaze to the salarian again. "The dossier said they would be able to scour through a hundred thousand systems in a minute. Or are they not sufficiently docile to be trusted?"
Letting AI loose on Thessia was in a sense no different from a starship crash in terms of the havoc it could wreak, though in a far more insidious manner.
The salarian nodded, not wanting to openly contradict the STG's claims, yet still obviously hesitant. Nihlus pretended to not see the moment of hesitation just now — practically an eternity for a salarian to think something over given their swiftness of thought.
But that was what set this salarian apart in the turian's eyes. The ability to step on the brakes and slow down at will and not always accelerate heedlessly onward as so many of his kin were wont to do.
"...Yes. Then, we shall set a bait before him and catch him when he tries to leave the city. With the satellite coverage and the AI, we will have a much better time of finding him the moment he returns above ground," Jondum finally answered.
"We'll still be maintaining the trailnet and extranet sift, despite the physical quarantine's removal. Has the list of flagged search terms and sites been updated yet?"
"Yes, the operators will be monitoring for unusual activity while the AI are crawling through systems and looking for him." While the AI would be actively searching the sifters would be lying in wait in ambush, forming a hammer and anvil, respectively. "All outgoing traffic is still being routed through the analysts," the salarian added after a second, glancing at a team of physically plugged-in cyber-operators.
They were deathly still, belying the sheer speed at which they could operate their terminals; a single one of them was worth a team of data specialists in terms of sheer raw output.
He rolled his eyes uncomfortably.
It was said that the cyber-operators lived three times as long as any other salarians, their unbound minds free of their withered husks capable of processing information without limitations. But it was difficult to see them as anything other than slaved biological components to computers, no different from shackled AI put to work.
"Good. But for now... we're going to Serrice as well."
Jondum looked up, rolling his eyes in surprise. "Sir?"
"Get the equipment ready; stun gun, rifle, and all. We aren't going to find anything here." The turian consciously flexed his mandibles before he continued speaking. "Therefore, we need to get inside of his head. It's the essence of the hunt - to lead the head rather than to follow the tail."
Jondum nodded with understanding. "His apartment, then?"
"Of course," Nihlus said, revealing his teeth in a ferocious smile. "Where else but his roost, to know how he grooms his crest."
;
"You have everything you need here?" Emiya asked, following after the Matriarch.
He knew she was the expert but he hadn't known whether all the necessary facilities would be right here or if this was simply a location to store and display artifacts. There had been large parts of the facility he had never visited before. It would simplify things if they didn't need to leave campus grounds and risk detection again.
"Of course." Baliya huffed, though whether with indignation or with pride he couldn't quite tell from behind her. "This isn't merely a museum - this is a place of learning and study, you know!"
Liara who was walking behind him chose to add her own excited piece then.
"Serrice University is at the forefront for exo-archeological and paleontological studies of the entire galaxy. It would not be an exaggeration to say that almost half of what we know about the galaxy's pre-history is built on Professor Haphia's work alone!"
"I see," he said with a nod before glancing back at the subdued Tyra - wondering whether he had been too harsh on her for a moment before shaking aside that thought as a pointless worry. "How will you determine the gun's age?"
"There are many ways of dating pre-historic items. It all depends on what you're looking at and how much time and credits you are willing to spend on the effort," Liara explained. "For example, if you know that in a very specific time and place it was common to use very specific materials or techniques, then by recognizing those you can easily and quickly place and date an item."
"Indeed, that is called relative dating," Baliya added. "However for this gun, I do not think such a thing will be enough. Such techniques are limited, and with highly advanced societies it becomes rather difficult to make any definitive conclusions. Especially for starfaring civilizations, where trends and techniques often transcend their own limited lifespans with long voyages allowing them to echo time and again through the eras." The Matriarch stopped, turning to enter a section of the museum Emiya had never had cause to enter before.
"Therefore, we will be using something known as absolute dating instead. The university laboratory is one of the best in the galaxy!" Liara excitedly exclaimed, obviously being familiar with the place they were headed to.
"Radiocarbon dating, then." He nodded.
"No, that would not work." Baliya shook her head as she entered the lab, re-assuming the air of authority like a familiar cloak. "Excuse me, I will be joining in unscheduled. Apologies for the..."
Her words trailed off as she looked around the empty room.
Emiya inhaled slowly, looking in over her head and shoulders. Datapads were left haphazardly on the tables, chairs were in a state of half-disorganization across the floor and two large terminals were humming by the side, unattended.
"Huh, it's empty? That's weird, it should be fully booked with the Dretirop expedition's return... Oh well." Baliya shrugged, moving on without skipping a beat.
Must be the evacuation order.
At least some good was coming out of this manhunt. As for the room itself...
Pristine white, was his first and only impression for a good moment. White floor, white ceiling, white walls, white tables, all overpoweringly bright and spotless, making the eye slide over in search of a single detail to latch onto. It was a large space, enough to fit twenty people working by the various terminals and long tables. The walls were propped with strange and unusual-looking machines, no doubt each with a very specific and expensive function.
"So why wouldn't it work?" Emiya asked as he followed after her.
"This, 'radiocarbon dating'? I do not believe I have heard of that technique before..." Liara confessed, picking back on the topic.
"I am not surprised - it is one of the techniques humanity first used, if I remember correctly," Baliya replied distractedly. "But on a galactic scale, it is simply too limited." She shook her head. "To begin with, it is only usable on organic matter and it is quite sensitive to changes in the atmosphere. For accurate measurements, it requires that two specific carbon baselines be created. For planets that have long been inhabited and with sufficient records and samples, this can be done with enough time and credits. But for garden worlds with entirely unfamiliar ecosystems, it is much too difficult." She shrugged, then. "That, and due to the short half-life of carbon-14, it is of very little use in studying the Protheans."
"Hmm, I see," he nodded. "Though I would interject that it can be used for dating iron that has been heated using fuel created from biological material. It has been used extensively with iron age materials on Earth - forged weapons and tools and such."
Baliya paused, raising an eyebrow at him.
"Yes, now that I think about it, you're right. You're always knowledgeable about the strangest of things. Still, the oldest sample that can be used with radiocarbon dating is fifty thousand years, which—the tail end of the sixth age aside—makes it rather useless for Prothean studies. Hence we use other methods."
"But the principles are the same?" Emiya asked.
"It depends. You are aware of how half-lives work?" The Curator paused, giving the group a once-over, and noting the look of incomprehension on Tyra's face chose to elaborate, the long-ingrained instincts of an educator surfacing. "Radioactive materials decay and 'vanish' at a steady, predictable rate with time, much like eezo. By comparing the amount of two substances with known half-lives in a sample it is usually possible to put a relatively accurate date to it. For example with the radiocarbon method used by humans, they compare the stable carbon-12 with the slowly disappearing carbon-14 that is naturally formed in the atmosphere due to cosmic radiation," Baliya explained as the younger asari nodded. "If one assumes both existed in equal amounts originally, then by comparing how much of the carbon-14 has disappeared comparatively then it becomes possible to say how old the item is. Usually, anyhow. It is not quite that easy, since one has to account for many factors along the way, but the principle is quite simple."
"For a pistol such as this, there are at least five main methods, no?" Liara noted like a student eager for attention, and Baliya nodded with a glance. "Voltametric, magnetic imprint, thermoluminescene, radiometric and element zero dating."
"Indeed, those are the common methods. Though, they all work on very different principles. Carbon dating only shares methodology with the last one. Take a seat," Baliya said as she began to turn on various unused terminals and lights in the laboratory. "Voltametric dating is useful for when the exact atmospheric conditions are known, as by comparing how well certain conductive materials are able to transfer electricity one is able to tell how long the item has been corroded. The poorer the conductivity, the older it is. Depending on materials, of course.
"Thermoluminescence is used on ceramic and minerals to discern when they were last heated. By heating up a sample and measuring the light emitted, it is possible to date the item. Of course, it is a rather destructive method, which makes it rather cumbersome to use. A last-ditch measure, usually."
"Like when glazed pottery was made, or when a soil was last affected by sunlight?" Emiya nodded with a faraway look, trying to piece it together like a puzzle.
"Exactly. Magnetic imprinting on the other hand is quite simple and robust, simply being the records that various magnetic fields leave in metals. It is similar to how many civilizations used magnetic bands or tapes for storing information at one point or another. Every planet with a magnetic field is more or less unique and they change with time. It is not feasible to date an item purely through the imprint in a vacuum, but if you know a certain item is from a certain time and place and know its imprint, you can compare it to another item that might be harder to date and say they must have been made and used in the same place around the same time."
Hysteresis, in other words.
The closest he could imagine to his own Structural Analysis. That, or radiological dating, or a mix of the two.
Though Mysteries could not be directly linked to scientific methods and that which is known and understood, it was a fact that they eroded magecraft. In other words, the Mystery was being subsumed and sublimated. True Magic and magecraft become science and technology. So he had to wonder given the limitations he had been struggling with in regard to the Protheans and this ancient gunblade - what was Structural Analysis?
But none of the methods Baliya had explained quite fit what he did with their respective limitations, so perhaps it was just another fruitless line of thought.
"Radiometry I already explained and it can also be done by comparing more elements and isotopes than merely carbon, so long as they are prone to radioactive decay. But it requires a very thorough timeline of the planets the materials have been taken from, which can be difficult with starfaring civilizations. The iridium might be from an asteroid, the frame metals from a moon, and the rest of the materials from the planet it was created on. In the worst-case scenarios, the materials are not even from the same system, which requires us to compare known trade routes and Mass Relay routes. It can quickly grow into incredibly complex levels," Baliya happily explained.
He was sure that when she said 'incredibly complex', what she really meant was 'really interesting'. It was obvious that this was her passion and life, from the way she spoke about it.
"There are more methods, but those tend to be incredibly narrow and specific in use, so we don't have the tools for those here. And generally, we seek to use at least two methods for every piece. The first part of this process is to take the relic apart and discern what can be used for what methods. After that, we shall attempt to narrow down where it was made, and only after that can we reliably begin to discern when it was made."
Emiya nodded. "You need to know the conditions where it was created for the baselines you have on record."
"Exactly," Baliya said nodding. "Even if you use the exact same materials and methods, the location will always leave a unique imprint."
As she said that, she brought up a profile of Mars on one terminal, the red planet slowly spinning on one display. Beside the rust-colored planet lay columns and rows of information regarding the planet's current and past conditions.
"I see... A very weak magnetic field and atmosphere. Well, assuming the standard Prothean life support, I can make some hypothetical baselines, through which..."
As Baliya and Liara set about taking a closer look at the pistol and trying to dismantle it, he set about accessing the university extranet connection. Giving one last glance at Tyra who was still quietly standing at the side, he closed his eyes and turned his focus outward.
Alright, to start with let's figure out what I can about Hosin and Roane.
It took him a few minutes but he finally found her.
She was in a holding facility in Ulee, one of the largest centers of commerce on Thessia. Located at a higher altitude than most other Thessian cities and near the equator, it was one of the easiest spots to get into orbit from historically. While mass effect technology had made it much easier to get off of planets, when hundreds and thousands of ships had to get into outer space every day, fuel expenditures would rack up. Especially on Thessia, with its strong gravity.
That actually worked out rather well for him, given that it was also where the Athena Nebula Central Bank lay, another place he had business at given his recent run-ins with well-moneyed criminals on Dretirop. But as for Roane...
There was no doubt that she was a criminal.
But even so, he felt the keen pull to help her. Because he had known that for years and had even relied on and made use of it for his own convenience. If he judged her by inaction now was that not a repudiation of his own earlier assessment?
A hypocrisy born of convenience.
Officially she was being charged with eezo smuggling and tax fraud.
Eezo smuggling was by asari law rarely punished with anything more than hefty fines and community service and a mark on your record given how difficult the laws were to enforce. Rather, the focus was on social pressure and exclusion by making eezo—the source of biotics and nearly everything from the ground up in asari culture—something sacred. So in human terms, she was being charged with something like graverobbing, or a lesser desecration of some kind. Certainly, something like that would make working difficult and it would remain a stain in her life for hundreds of years - but she could live with that.
He could not see how she had truly hurt anyone given the sheer size of the eezo industry on Thessia.
And tax fraud charges were what governments used when they had nothing to could make stick yet; used to buy time or to justify further investigations.
But the impression he had gotten from Hosin's note was that things weren't quite that simple. The report filed to the Serrice Guard was little more than a note of holding without anything pointing to the original cause of the arrest, the charges appended only at a later date to justify her continued imprisonment. Probably to forestall any questions by the locals...
As for the slippery quarian himself, Emiya couldn't find anything about what had happened to the mechanic or the asari child that had snuck onto his rental ship a few days prior. No arrest records had been made, and no updates on the orbital station's official extranet site or on social media accounts. Nothing. He had simply vanished.
Assuming he left that note for me, that would mean he has a plan of his own in the works...
Emiya blinked suddenly, frowning as he read the public announcement over Serrice networks.
They removed the travel ban?
His attention was drawn to the two Prothean experts who were struggling with the pistol currently by a brightly-lit table. Both were wearing thin, skintight gloves as they tried to field strip the pistol by the looks of it but weren't quite managing. Sighing, he got up and walked over to put on a pair of gloves himself.
"Here, let me."
Baliya turned to frown at him, then looked down at his extended palm. "Have you opened it before? This is important: it may have contaminated the insides if you have. There are tests which will still work, but..."
"I haven't," he reassured her. "It's in the exact same condition as when I found it."
"He did however have it hidden away inside his apartment's wall," Liara noted, glancing at him sideways.
Baliya blinked before staring at him incredulously.
"It's in exactly the state as when I found it in the ruins," he repeated with emphasis.
The curator nodded slowly, though it was clear that she did not quite believe him. Nonetheless, she handed it to him. Accepting it, he put his thumb in the slide release where the omniblade cartridge was stored. The two blinked as the empty container popped out and was placed on the table.
"That is..." Liara blinked as she picked up the omnigel cartridge. "Lubricant, perhaps?"
"It was for the blade the comes out from here, to here," he noted as he reached in with a thumb and worked the ammunition block loose after which he could remove the rail slide off the top and get to the trigger mechanism and the internal computer.
"A blade? Why would there be a blade on the pistol?" Baliya asked. "Curious. Are you certain?"
"It's like a bayonet, and yes."
"...Did you use it?" She peered at him with suspicious eyes.
"No. Just take my word for it."
"Hmm..." Liara did not seem to believe him either, based on the knowing glances the two asari seemed to be exchanging.
He ignored them and set about dismantling the pistol into all of its base components.
Whether or not any of the absolute dating methods worked would have little to do with how he had pulled it out of a wall, he suspected. The question was: how faithful were his reproductions and how this Noble Phantasm regarded the hundred-some individual pistols that it originally was? Was it a composite of all the pistols he had seen or was one chosen as a representative somehow?
Emiya had no idea and he was quite curious. This was a first for him, in many ways.
As he continued taking it apart with great methodical precision and efficiency, as if he had done it a thousand times before and only applying just the right amount of force where dust and time made it necessary, Liara's and Baliya's surprise and apprehension at him continued to grow every passing second.
"You..."
"How are you able to do that so easily?" Baliya asked, peering closely as he took it down into ever smaller pieces. "I can see familiar design characteristics from common Prothean industrial methods, but I haven't ever seen a gun like this before... Are you sure you have not dismantled it before?"
"I just know weapons, that's all," he said as he finished. The Protheans did not seem to use anything like screws or bolts, thus there was little need for any precision tools as could be necessary with modern firearms when it came to a complete strip down.
"I see..." The curator nodded slowly. "Well, let's get back to it."
Taking a step back, he let them take over again.
At the same time, he returned his focus to his efforts in searching the extranet for useful information. As he tried to access the Ulee node to continue his search for Roane, he noticed something had gone awry.
It was just a subtle thing at first, but quickly enough he realized what was going on.
A man in the middle attack? No, I was directed to a shadow network?
Baliya hummed thoughtfully as she began pointing out specific pieces as she spoke, more for Liara's benefit than his he suspected. "The silicate chips used in the computer can be dated using thermoluminescence usually, while the rails and capacitors can be usually dated with a powerful enough magnetic reader. Of course, since one must know what kind of magnetic field it was used in to compare with, if we know where it was made and used it's useless."
"Yes, I see. And with this surface rust, it should be possible to perform a non-invasive voltametric test to discover how much of the conductive materials have corroded." Liara nodded in understanding. "But unless we have an atmospheric sample, it will not be very reliable."
"Indeed," Baliya said as she looked at him with questioning eyes.
He shrugged - gases remained beyond his ability to reproduce. A shame, given it would eliminate a lot of his dependencies with projecting hardsuits.
"Didn't think to bring anything like that."
She sighed, nodding. "Well, it can't be helped."
Returning his focus to his attempt at investigating Ulee, he exhaled slowly.
As he prodded around the network he gained more and more confidence in the belief that that was indeed some kind of dummy. It seemed like much of the extranet traffic was being routed onto various mirror servers, created to look like the originals he was actually trying to access. It was not something as simple as merely copying and pasting a bunch of files and directories to make it appear the same on the surface since hardware differences would stand out to someone keen enough. The STG must have brought out a ridiculously powerful computer of some kind and set up virtual machines to also look like the original machines the copies were being hosted on to rebuild entire networks.
In other words, an elaborate and intricate trap. A shadow cast by the original network - if one wanted to think about it in those terms.
Everything here is probably being monitored in real-time. Can't just abruptly disconnect, I have to make it seem natural. Most users relied on automatic string searches and direct addresses to directories. By manually going through directories in his usual shotgun pinging method, the same way he would finger through a physical cabinet or folder, he would stand out from the masses of normal users. Right, I'm using the university connection, I should use that.
Connecting to the shadow network's version of Ulee University, he accessed the local intranet and downloaded a publicly available lesson plan for the coming week before disconnecting from the network. It was an innocuous enough act to pass by the surveillance since he had noticed the strangeness from the moment he had connected. Or so he hoped.
I'll need to actually fully dive in if I want to be able to look around properly without being traced down.
But with the signal problem in his brain, did he dare to do it here? He needed some kind of signal dampener. A Faraday Cage, perhaps...
"Additionally, if we discover trace amounts of radioactive elements, we will also be able to use mass spectrometry. But unless there is very much of it, or the half-life is sufficiently long—in the range of hundreds of thousands of years and more—I doubt we will be able to find anything there."
"Prothean weapons usually do not have anything like that, do they?" Liara asked.
"You are right. Generally, the quality control they employed was superb. But look here, see this?" Baliya pointed at the trigger mechanism.
"It looks different from the other metallic parts... A later replacement?"
Baliya nodded. "Just as we do today, the Protheans also performed field repairs with field printers and omnitools. While their industrial standards were top-notch, omnigel is notorious for its ability to absorb trace amounts of other elements from the air when performing repairs."
Liara nodded with wide eyes, obviously taking mental notes as she listened.
Emiya listened with just one ear as he got back to keeping tabs on what was happening over the extranet locally. Though official channels were as useless as usual with nothing of actual substance to say, social media were a constant buzz with misinformation and misconclusions firing away at a blistering pace. There had been an immense level of censorship at work with posts being taken down in seconds, but he had still been able to catch glimpses of the flow of events by trawling through the public websites.
Now, however, that seemed to have changed.
Just as the planetary quarantine was being removed and the Serrice Guard was pulling back, the information suppression and control imposed on Serrice were also being lifted, finally opening the proverbial floodgates for the masses to make their complaints heard.
Would they give up that easily?
Something was going on and he couldn't get a feel for it from here.
It was time for him to leave.
He looked at the two asari by the table, excitedly going over the Prothean gunblade and discussing observations at a rapid pace. Baliya may have been something of a loner and obsessed with her job to a rather unhealthy degree, but he knew she was competent in a fight. He had never seen it. But her record spoke for itself. She could keep those two safes and afterward vouch for them, once things had calmed down a little bit.
I can ask them later about the results. In fact by leaving I'll be drawing the heat away from them. There was no reason for him to remain then. He got up, turning to the door to leave.
"I'm going to get my backpack," he said simply as he moved for the door.
Liara glanced at him and gave him a dismissive wave of her hand as if saying that he was unnecessary. With an amused huff, he left, the door closing behind him as he walked with brisk steps back the way they had come earlier.
In the office, he grabbed his backpack before pausing at the half-empty cups of coffee he had handed to Tyra and Liara. Setting down his gear with a sigh, he grabbed the cups and poured away the already cold contents, and then rinsed the cups before putting them back. As he did, he noticed his i'usushij again. They were little more than blunt training swords in the likeness of his favored blades, though he had gotten quite good with them as well.
Might as well.
It wasn't like he had any other weapons on hand, anyhow.
Emiya leaned down and grabbed them to test their heft and balance, examining the polish and shapes for any misuse since he had last seen them. Satisfied, he spun them around in his hands, observing the internal structure with an application of Structural Analysis, closing his eyes. A thought occurred to him, something he had never before had cause to experiment with in their designs.
Hmm, they're quite anemic, since I made them specifically to be safe to use against others in sparring. Might as well beef them up a little if I'll be using them...
"—Trace, on"—begin synchronization, begin projection;
Expanding the internal structure of the hollows inside the i'usushij, he filled the expanding pathways with more eezo. Before they began to swell in his hands, he dispelled the excess steel and discarded it like so much rust and grind-off.
I'usushij worked off of ambient magnetic fields, transforming kinetic energy into a voltage inside their internal circuits, which in turn formed and powered biotic fields. The blades would in effect resist movement, not with a change in mass or perceived weight, but in kinetic resistance much like a paddle through water. Having before limited himself to mortal parameters meant the fields could only be so strong, but if he allowed himself to truly exert himself in full...
Opening his eyes, he looked them over and nodded with satisfaction. They were still blunt but that was fine: he wasn't planning on cutting anyone down with a tool created for sport.
With a spinning flourish that ended with both blades in a reverse grip, he with slow care slid them up onto his back between his longcoat and hardsuit. The Van der Waals-strips on his hardsuit had not been affected by the electromagnetic pulse, meaning the patch he had applied on the blades easily locked into place on his shoulder blades. The longcoat hid the blades well enough to avoid immediate scrutiny and with the hilts sticking down and out just above his waist they felt secure enough.
It wasn't quite instantaneous projection, but he could draw them on a dime from a casual stance this way. It would do.
Grabbing his backpack and throwing it onto one shoulder, he nodded to himself. Giving the office one more look, he took his things and went for the door. It opened at his approach, but what stood beyond forced him to stop in his tracks.
He blinked, locking eyes with Tyra.
;
Miranda exhaled, eyeing all of the asari around her.
The hardsuit's helmet brought a sense of distance—hiding her features and physically shielding her from all others—yet she still felt ill at ease. They had landed on Thessia safely and unseen by the outskirts of Usaru. They had been picked up not soon after, their Injectors sequestered into a larger ship and quickly hidden as they were flown to the heart of Usaru. Landing in an opulent palace, they had been greeted by a dozen asari clad in flowing purples and blues and were guided in amidst song and dance.
If it had been meant to relax and welcome them, it had failed miserably. Kai Leng had almost gutted a pair of asari dancers as they attempted to shroud him in their silken sashes and Rasa had sped up her pace to walk past the guide to avoid being in the middle of the dancing entourage. Miranda had had to remind them in heated whispers that they could ill afford to offend their host, which had not helped any of their tempers at all.
"Matriarch Trellani will see you now," the asari before them said as she bowed deeply.
Miranda nodded and entered the chamber. Ahead and alone in the opulent room stood a voluptuous asari wearing a knowing smile and little else, her bumpy blue skin revealing firm contours and taut features.
For someone seven hundred years old, she certainly has aged well...
For a moment she wondered how she would age. Miranda knew she would live in excess of one and half a hundred years with some of the estimates even ranging into the two-hundreds... But how would she look in her dying days, she wondered. Numbers and prognostics on a screen didn't quite have the impact of seeing someone's age with your own eyes. There weren't any like her in the world—her younger sister aside—so there was no telling how many of the performance-enhancing modifications and tweaks would affect her later in life.
Miranda was brought out of her musing as the asari gave a minute bow, causing a shimmering veil to appear on her body. All three humans blinked as they realized the Matriarch before them had been clothed all along, but that the material was such that it could appear completely transparent, as if to make them question their own senses - whether the display had been nothing but a mirage born of their own desires.
She certainly enjoys her theatrics.
"Welcome to Usaru, dearest friends," the asari declared as she stood up. "I am Matriarch Trellani and I bid you peace and prosperity upon your greetings."
Miranda reached up for her hardsuit's helmet, taking it off with a hiss of the seals and a flourish of her long hair, making sure to draw as much attention as she could to the action, her own vanity not seceding an inch before the Matriarch's. "Thank you for receiving us, honored Matriarch. I am Miranda Lawson."
No need to introduce the help, she thought as she replicated a bow back at the asari.
"Please be seated, we have plenty of time to discuss over the uiia."
A tea by the looks of the steaming ceramicware.
Miranda nodded and she sat down, dismissing Rasa and Kai Leng with a gesture. The real reason why she had been assigned as the head of this mission was quite simple: she was the only one with enough restraint to not sabotage the tenuous alliance out of hand along the way to accomplishing their primary objective.
Kai Leng had a proven record in combat while Rasa was an expert among experts when it came to infiltration and subversion. But both had much too strong feelings when it came to the other races. A trait she did not share with either. Friend or foe, human or asari, it made no difference in the end. All that mattered was how useful someone could be.
As if thinking the very same thing, Matriarch Trellani gave Miranda a small smile as they were seated.
Well, then... Let the negotiations begin.
;
"You're leaving."
Emiya said nothing, staring down at Tyra who was blocking the doorway. Her tone wasn't so much questioning, as much as it was an accusing one.
"There's nothing more for me to do here, is there?" He raised an eyebrow.
She looked down, balling her fists. "Then, then take me with—"
"No."
Tyra blinked, looking up with wide eyes. There was shock and surprise in equal measure in them, as she tried to understand what he had just said.
"Why—"
"Because you would just get in my way."
She took a step back, tears welling in her eyes then. Yet, he did not feel moved by the display. It was the truth. Stepping forward to walk past her he said simply, "Stay here. Tell Professor Haphia I'll be in contact at a later time."
He managed to walk five steps before she ran up to him and stopped in front of him, blocking him bodily. "Where are you going? Why can't you just stay here?"
Emiya said nothing as he stared down at her.
"If, if you're that guy redhax... Then you haven't done anything wrong! You said it yourself, they didn't want to kill you. And, and you're friends with that professor, aren't you? She's a Matriarch and knows the Councilor, right? Can't, can't you just talk it out?"
"...I probably could," he admitted.
"Then...!" Her eyes sparkled at that, he could see the rising hope and excitement at those words in them.
"But I won't."
She blinked, taking a step back as if he had struck her. She ground her teeth and it was obvious that she was growing agitated again. "Why not?"
"I see no reason to get involved with them. That's all there is to it."
Tyra shook her head as if not a word he spoke made any sense. Then again, he supposed it wouldn't to someone like her. She was still young by her race's standards, barely out of her adolescence, and with very little understanding of independence. It didn't help that the very raison d'etre of the asari was cooperation and symbiosis.
Then again, it wasn't as if his reason for refusal was entirely logical.
She inhaled and glared at him as she spoke. "Do you have some plan to get away? Like, like with the house and the parking hall? Do you really think you can just escape, just like that, again—from, from everyone on Thessia?"
"Not really." He shrugged. "As far as I know, they've called in reinforcements from the nearby systems. Since they've raised the quarantine on Thessia, they instead set a check by the Mass Relay, going through all leaving ships. Leaving Parnitha system is probably already impossible."
"Then, then why!?"
"I have things I need to do."
She opened her mouth, looking for words to say for several seconds before she closed her mouth with a click of her teeth. She looked away, her distress and confusion obvious.
"But, but can't you..." She inhaled, looking at him straight in the eyes. "Can't you just stay here?"
"No. Even if none of this had happened," he said while gesturing vaguely with one hand. "I would still be leaving Thessia soon."
The silence stretched on for several moments.
"This is goodbye Tyra. I enjoyed our time together, but all things must come to an end," he said, patting her on the head as he walked past her.
As he left through the exit at the end of the hallway he thought he might have heard a sob, but reaching for the door he ignored it altogether, merely satisfied that she had finally relented. Except...
Running steps.
Emiya swirled around, half-sidestepping and half catching the asari as she tried to tackle him with outstretched arms.
"Tyra—?" He tried to ask as she squirmed in his unyielding arm, staring at him with fierce, equally unyielding eyes.
Emiya saw the slap coming a mile away but resolved to take it without stopping. He didn't know what had caused this outburst, but he was certain he could weather through whatever she wished to throw at him in this final tantrum.
Of course, what he hadn't expected was the jolt of electricity running through his spine as the deceptively soft hand found his cheek. He realized only a moment too late, that she hadn't been trying to slap him, but to find purchase against his bare skin for a meld as her eyes went completely black.
"What are—you doing?"
Immediately he pulled back completely, receding from his own mind and blanking out his whole being, becoming so transparent as to become one with the world, his self fading away to nothing.
"Saiga...?" Tyra called out and he could make out her existence through the meld. "Where are you...?"
At first, he thought it might have been his cybernetics acting up, as he realized he could sense everything in double along with other ghostly sensations going through his mind. Almost instinctively, he reached out and only then realized he was seeing through Tyra's eyes. Mentally reeling, he pulled out and away and isolated himself wholly from any contact.
Focusing, he reached up with a hand and with careful slowness pushed her back, removing her hand from his cheek with the effort. The connection broke and he exhaled slowly—deliberate to keep the angry growl from becoming audible—as he stared down at Tyra.
She seemed dazed and confused, before looking up at him with wide eyes with a tear rolling down her cheek. "It's... you're really like that on the inside too..."
He blinked, confused despite himself at that reaction.
"What?"
She looked up with murky eyes that seemed to be clearing much too slowly. "I... I wanted to be with you, to know you. But you, you wouldn't tell me anything, so, I—if only I could..."
"Thought to figure it out for yourself directly."
"Yeah..." She looked down, shaking her head as she stepped back half a pace away from him. "I... I know what you want to say—But, I know you, now."
His eyebrows rose at that as he had no idea what she was talking about now, some of the indignation returning.
"You're strong and kind, but so stubborn and single-minded. I thought... I thought you needed someone to lean on, someone who could understand you and help you..." She shook her head as she looked up at him. "But you're not like that at all. At all. It's like—it's like you can't accept any compromise or delay, you just keep going! Like slowing down is too painful, even if you know you have to! Even if you know I can't keep up with you...
"I thought," she said, drawing a shuddering breath. "I thought you were restless and worried and scared, like - like I was. That you were suffering with everything going on... But this is your normal. It was before that you were weird; when you were willing to just play around and... just spend time with me, aimlessly." She said the word with such scorn, her eyes going wide a second later. "No, it's not that you were playing around, you were just waiting, getting ready for everything to come crumbling down. Like you were waiting for it all along."
That answers how big of a risk melding is...
He inhaled slowly, narrowing his eyes. She had barely even touched his soul just now. At least it didn't seem like she had managed to glean any specifics or concrete information from him. Nothing that would put her at risk or would force him to take to more drastic means.
Now unaware of his current thoughts and embroiled in her own, Tyra continued.
"You're empty. There's a hole inside of you..." She placed a hand against his chest, the palm pressing right where his heart was. "An emptiness that can never be filled, which keeps you running forward. Constantly, without end. It's not that you won't stop, it's that you can't anymore. It's like asking you to stop breathing..."
She shook her head, her eyes finally returning to the present, looking up at him with a lost, sad resignation.
"Did you really think forcing yourself on me would change anything?" He asked as he pushed her back from him again, as she had been pushing against his touch. Standing at arm's length from her, he exhaled again. "Well, are you satisfied? With whatever this was?"
"I... yeah." She looked up at him, locking eyes with him then. "I love you. I know it's just been... days, since we first met. But, I know it's true. 'Half a heartbeat to espy a hundred years' love' as the song goes." He said nothing, raising an eyebrow which only made her let out a sad laugh. "And you don't care at all... There's no place for it in you, is there?"
Tyra shook her head, stepping back as she smiled at him. It was a bittersweet thing.
He narrowed his eyes as he exhaled, wondering just how much had happened in that one instant. For one, he could feel his sense of touch and proprioception somewhat righting themselves from the contact with her. Like an anchor to reality had pulled him level again.
And also...
He felt like he could understand her somehow. There was a moment of utter stillness, as something about the asari as a whole simply clicked into place in his mind. It was the archetypal behavior patterns, which had still eluded him after years. Or just a hint of them, anyhow. Several illogical decisions he had not understood prior somehow began to make sense to him now. The long view on things, the understanding of others, and the drive to help and guide through empathy; through personal connection rather than...
Emiya shook his head.
"Sorry for being a bother." Tyra looked at him, putting her hands behind her back as she gave her best smile to him. "Goodbye, Saiga. Even if... No. I'm glad I met you."
With that, she turned around and walked away.
He blinked, still reeling. A part of him was angry, another was confused and a third was simply telling him to get over it and get moving. Heeding the most useful line of thought, closed his mind and inhaled deeply. Holding his breath, he settled his mind and on the exhale blew out all of his conflicting thoughts.
It has nothing to do with me anymore, just keep moving and deal with it later if you have to.
Turning around, he left the museum.
Outside, Parnitha was starting to settle down the horizon already. In a few hours, it would grow dark and as night fell, visibility would drop to zero. That actually suited him quite well since it would make it more difficult for passive satellite surveillance to keep track of him. Making his way back to the underground parking hall, he moved by the concealment offered by trees and buildings.
While it would be quicker to move above ground it would also make an obvious trail for those trying to hunt him down to follow, negating the first layer of protection of leaving Tyra and Liara with Baliya.
Thus he made the same way he had come back to the underground parking hall. By now, between whatever Tyra had done and the help of his omnitool, he had managed to sort out most of sight, hearing, and balance. Though most of his other senses were still posing some difficulties in differentiating between.
He ignored the ghostly sensation of a brushing hand across his cheek.
It's enough that I won't need to constantly use Structural Analysis anymore, at least.
Though the planetary quarantine had been lifted, by no means was he through this yet, so every little bit of his magical energy he could save helped.
Getting his way back to the asarihole, he removed the cover and jumped down, grabbing the ladder to halt long enough to be able to drag the cover back on. Since he would sooner or later reappear somewhere else, obvious questions would arise as to what he had been doing in the parking hall and where the two asari had disappeared. To counteract that, he had switched to pathways that could not be accessed without breaking walls, making sure to repair them after his passing so as to break his tracks.
But even so, if someone stumbled here, they would surely start connecting the dots. Therefore...
"—Trace, on"—begin synchronization;
Pushing outward with his magical energy, he subtly changed the condition of the cover. By weakening the material's innate capacity to resist change, he was able to impart a patina that would have taken decades normally to occur. Just enough to make it an extremely tight fit without making it obvious that it had been touched up. He hoped that would dissuade anyone down here from trying to look around topside too much if they did come looking here. Then he simply dropped down into the darkness.
Landing on all fours, he exhaled and cycled his magical energy again, letting the heat and thrum go through his circuits.
Reinforced eyes opened and he could see ahead in the near-pitch black without issue. Not that he needed even that much, as he had already memorized the internal structure of this section well enough to be able to move freely.
Setting a brisk pace, he moved out.
;
"Good job."
Nihlus nodded as the porch door was opened by the salarian Spectre candidate. Jondum Bau nodded, giving way for the turian to enter the apartment. Nihlus walked in, eyeing the spartan décor and ascetic interior design with wary eyes as he answered.
"Has the ground team managed to analyze the fortifications yet?"
"No. They're having difficulties getting samples. Non-invasive means show no unusual features or materials for construction, either."
The turian's mandibles pulled back in a grimace. There was too much about all of this that did not make any sense. Looking around, he noted how the insides matched the footage taken by Tela Vasir prior to the operation. He wanted to chew out the asari for failing to notice the house being a veritable fortress, but in all likelihood, he would not have noticed anything either had he been the one to reconnaissance the house.
They walked through every room, one at a time with weapons drawn and clearing them with silence and precision. As they did, grew increasingly clear why this house had been chosen by their target.
"Did you notice?"
The salarian nodded. "Windows everywhere. Nominally a structural weakness, but with the fortification they give him perfect awareness of the entire area. They don't match the original blueprints, either. Self-modified."
"He built this place to withstand an army," Nihlus said as he turned to walk to the kitchen. Opening the fridge and pantry, he inhaled slowly. "Enough food to last weeks, and judging by the breaks in the walls he had other caches prepared as well..."
Jondum Bau did not say anything, having concluded much the same.
Redhax had been until now a mystery that had invited much speculation among the intelligence services of the Citadel Council. With the probable identification as a human being much of that had been cleared, ceding ground to more probable conclusions; the prodigious hacking was not so impossible if his race's drive for developing and using AI was factored.
Neatly also explaining the System Alliance's reticence in accepting the recent cybersecurity bill.
The peculiarities of who he chose to target and his active hours could also be adequately explained away as the quirks of the human having to actively handle and control such creations, too...
But the events of the last few hours wiped all of those theories away.
Or rather, blown them to pieces.
"Where the hell did he even come from?" he had to give voice to his frustration and confusion.
"Sir?" Jondum asked.
"Not talking about his records - I already know that. But before the Systems Alliance Navy, he must have come from somewhere." The turian turned to face the Spectre candidate. "You must know something, you have been investigating him for years now."
The human couldn't be a part of humanity - if the Systems Alliance had access to whatever materials or methods used in the reinforcement of this house then there was no way they would not have heard about it by now. If it was so available that it could be smuggled onto Thessia of all places, to waste on a single house, then there was no way the Alliance wouldn't be building entire warships out of it by now.
Meaning Redhax had to be someone unrelated to the Systems Alliance. Someone completely unrelated to any of the known factions and players.
Just who the hell could Shirou Emiya be?
The salarian said nothing, rolling his eyes once, no doubt aware of all this by now and having analyzed everything the turian had been thinking about for a dozen other angles by now.
Growling, Nihlus shook his head as he flexed his talons. "Fine, don't tell me."
"There..." Jondum said, before hesitating. As Nihlus paused, narrowing his eyes at the salarian, the candidate sighed and spoke in a low voice. "A few decades back, there was an incident."
The Spectre nodded slowly.
"A ghost ship appeared in the Antilin system. At first, it was thought to be an asteroid of some kind but upon closer inspection, it was revealed to be a ship. Though it lacked any kind of eezo core, causing the investigators to suspect it must have set forth from a system without a Mass Relay. Its power banks had long since run out, causing all of the ship's functions to shut down."
Nihlus listened without interruption, even as his talons itched to do something.
"As the ship was boarded it became apparent that it had no life-support systems or other necessities for a crew. Yet it could not be an automated reconnaissance or scout ship either, as it was simply too large to be something like that. It took the STG investigators some years to discover the true nature of the ship after decrypting the numerous computers on board.
"They found that it was all that remained of a long-dead civilization whose home system had been destroyed by its star going supernova."
"A seed ship?"
"No, they found no biological samples or materials anywhere onboard the vessel." Jondum hesitated, before leaning in to speak as quietly as he could. "The leading theory is that they somehow managed to upload their minds into the computers, hoping to use the numerous servers as some form of virtual world for themselves until they could escape their system into another."
The Spectre felt his blood run cold. "And you think Shirou Emiya might be a survivor from that vessel?"
Jondum did not deny it, keeping carefully still for several long seconds—the salarian equivalent of a shrug, or acknowledging that they could not say—though it was not a confirmation either. Instead, he continued speaking. "By referencing the heading of the ghost ship, it was noted that it could have been headed for Arcturus before its power ran out."
"And if these aliens, these..."
"There is no official name, but the investigators have taken to calling them virtual aliens." Jondum supplied.
"These virtual aliens knew that they would run out of power, they would attempt to do something about it, wouldn't they? Something like sending a smaller, faster ship with the last of their power in hopes of perhaps letting some of their kind survive?" Nihlus supposed.
"It's possible, though so far very little proof has been found. But given what we have been able to piece together of their technology... we believe it might be possible."
Nihlus nodded in understanding, turning around. It did not explain everything, but it did give something of a clue for him to work with. "What can—What does the STG believe these 'virtual aliens' are able to do?"
"There were signs of a cloning facility of some kind, but it had malfunctioned at least a thousand years prior to the discovery of the ship and as mentioned, there was no biological material on the ship that could have been used as the basis for growing any clones. The records we have been able to piece together... Well, you have seen the results in the last three decades' advancements of simulstim technology," Jondum said as he rolled his eyes nervously.
"Hmm... Why has the Council not been informed of this? At the very least, none of the material I had access to make any mention of this."
Jondum looked away. "The Council is aware. But insufficient evidence posits it as merely another hypothesis among a dozen others. This is merely the most probable theory according to the internal consensus among the Special Tasks Group."
"I see." The turian nodded slowly.
"There are..." Jondum hesitated for a moment. "There are certain factions which seem to believe it more strongly than others, though for reasons not bearing mention."
"Problematic factions?"
The salarian shook his head to denote a negative. "No, not as such. Simply... Some who are more removed from the everyday operations."
Nihlus nodded, saying nothing. That would be the cyber-specialists then; those who had taken their self-mutilation further, even beyond the unusual standards of their race. Certain salarians—male salarians—wished to push onwards with cybernetics research in hopes of transcending their mortal bodies. Not a goal he could find fault with, as more than once he too had been awed at the keen insight and deep wells of experience of veteran STG members who seemed to live every moment under a dozen fold scrutiny.
What could they accomplish if they could live beyond a paltry forty years? What if they could make it to a hundred?
But it would not be.
Something in their genome seemed dead-set on insuring that the quick-witted aliens would never see it on biological terms. And to make matters worse, among the Dalatrasses who eschewed all cybernetic enhancements and maintained their generational transfers of power as the highest priority, anything which undermined their authority was a taboo of the highest order. Indeed, the Lystheni 'offshoot' of the salarians had become collectively persona non grata in all of Council space for crossing the Dalatrasses one too many times.
Nihlus shook his head, this wasn't the time...
Turning around, he continued walking around the house. He was noticing a certain pattern in the windows. Narrowing his eyes, he turned around and looked at the other windows.
"Now I see," Nihlus said as he arrived at the bedroom. This was the only aperture that did not overlook anything outside, the sloping hillside making any approach on foot too slow and vulnerable. All the other windows looked at some angle or corner that an attacking ground force might use, but not this one.
Opening the glass door he walked onto the balcony and let his gaze roam. Before him, the Serrinan sea stretched out as far as the eye could see, with nothing else in sight until he walked out far enough to be able to see over the edge. The turian revealed a ferocious grin, baring sharp teeth as he made a small satisfied laugh.
"The marina."
;
Emiya looked around, spotting the Serrinan sea as the skycab he had called in slowed down and began to descend near the shore.
So far, so good.
His faith in his cyber-warfare superiority had begun waning as of late, but it was still better to take the risk with a skycar than to try to walk out in the open and be spotted by a satellite. The hunt for him might have lessened in intensity, but it had broadened in its scope instead; already he had needed to dodge three teams of asari huntresses on the lookout for him, all dressed in civilian hardsuits and without uniform.
To avoid prying eyes above and on the ground he had projected a wide-brimmed hat, something in season and fashion among beach-goers along this time of year, keeping it low to cover his face and skin from the rare passersby.
As the cab landed, he paid the fare and jumped out.
Just a little more to the RX-5...
Ahead he could see numerous low buildings and huts, dotting the beachfront and built along the long strip of golden sand. It looked quite alike to many of the paradise beaches on Earth, especially with the setting Parnitha giving everything a golden-brown hue. Turning towards the front gate to the piers, he scanned around.
There was not a soul in sight.
Usually, there would be hundreds if not dozens of beach-goers still around to partake in the evening's beauty. Almost everyone had scurried into their homes following the earlier chase.
He hurried on forward, head on a swivel for anything.
So far, he had managed to avoid getting spotted or into a fight along the way. Of course, that was mostly due to the fact that the Serrice Guard had pulled back from the air along with the drones. He didn't buy for a second that they had given up on the search just yet, but it did seem that they knew better than to exhaust themselves so soon. This was a marathon, not a sprint. The quarantine would have required him to wait it out even longer, sitting in hiding somewhere for days or weeks until he could find a safe way out, so perhaps this was only a ploy to entice him out into the open.
It was time he couldn't afford to lose, however. Not if he still wanted to follow Professor Henell's trail.
So to Ulee he marched.
Hurrying on through a gate in a fence, he entered the marina visible from his bedroom balcony. Countless ships and boats of varying sizes, styles, and shapes were moored along the many piers. Asari had something of a connection to the sea, leading to the presence of various seafaring vessels from all over the galaxy. Curious and socially conscious as they were, they hoarded ships of all kinds here. Lately, human surfing boards had been a huge boom, especially windsurfing and supposedly there were efforts for creating biotically powered versions already in the works since the waves weren't quite as good as on Earth.
But none of those would be suitable to him right now; even the skycab from earlier would be faster, though just as easily spotted by a satellite.
Escaping Serrice once his cover was blown had always been a concern.
To justify taking the risk of living here, he had meticulously planned out and prepared for various eventualities, including means of getting out from Serrice into those preparations. By air was no good, once he had been made and they knew what to look for. Air control was too tight and he would be far too vulnerable to starships and satellites. Land travel was also difficult, due to the limited roads in a society that had always been able to use advanced hovercraft.
That left him with just the sea.
Despite the asari fascination with the sea, they had not in modern times developed any advanced naval forces due to the immediate superiority of hovercraft, and as such there was very little in the way of surveillance or restrictions out at sea. As long as he found the right ocean current, getting to whatever city he desired would be a simple matter. Even Ulee, some 700 kilometers away as the bird flew, would be within his reach.
Emiya slowed down, coming to a complete stop as he inhaled slowly.
"Quite the sunset, isn't it?" A turian wearing a black hardsuit with red highlights spoke as he walked out into the open, some thirty meters ahead. His dark scales were highlighted by an intricate pattern of white paint on his face and a pair of green eyes seemed to be glowing from his deep-set eyes.
Emiya nodded, glancing at the setting sun as it dyed the Serrinan sea a molten red. The words were spoken in the turian's native tongue, so he answered in kind.
"So it is. A few days back I thought that I really should go fishing someday, while I still had time for it. The clear, still sea reflects the night sky and stars with such incredible clarity. The fish come to the surface and their scales glitter with the moonlight like another hundred dancing stars, too," Emiya said, shrugging. "Or so I hear, anyhow. Pity, I won't have time for it now."
"Are you so sure? Is there no room for talk between us - must we be enemies?"
Emiya smirked, looking the stranger over. "What's this? A turian willing to talk before shooting? I thought those were just a myth."
"I am an, ah, how do you say it... something of an 'odd bird' among my species." The turian was amused despite himself, his mandibles twitching. "But what of yourself? Will you disprove the myth of human inability to back down and admit fault? All this can still be worked out, I believe." He made a slow sweeping gesture with his talon at the shooting stars and silent city. "It's not too late, yet."
"Unfortunately, I've made it a point to make stubbornness my most outstanding characteristic," Emiya said with a wry smirk. "So I will have to refuse."
"...I see." The turian nodded. "Is this stubbornness what let you cling to life as you hurled through the dark of space?"
He's fishing for something. Is the Council still curious about the skycar incident...?
Emiya shrugged.
The silence stretched just to the point of awkwardness, and the turian finally accepted that he would not be getting any further answer. "What of the two asari you had with you? I don't see them anywhere. How are they related to all this?"
He doesn't know anything about them... Or so wants me to believe, at least.
It had nothing to do with him anymore, though; he could trust Baliya to do right by them.
"Well, I wonder."
The turian's eye twitched at that, before letting out a sigh of annoyance. "Very well, then. Shirou Emiya, Saiga Fujimura, Redhax, whoever you are... I am placing you under arrest by the authority bestowed upon me by the Citadel Council. Do not resist and you will not be harmed."
"What am I being arrested for, anyway?" Emiya asked with some amusement as he raised a hand to his hat. "For all the dust you kicked up today, I can't seem to recall what I'm being charged with."
"That can be decided later," the implacable turian said. "At a more suitable time and location, once your cooperation has been acquired ."
Emiya nodded, then suddenly whirled around pirouette, swinging his hat around in a wide arc around him with a flourish as he did.
The turian had flinched at the sudden movement, taking a step back.
There was a moment of utter silence as Emiya reached into the hat and pulled out something; a metal cylinder between two fingers. He gave an impressed whistle. Looking up at the turian he flicked its tip with a finger, causing a sharp needle-tip to shoot out and spurt a clear liquid into the air.
"An armor-piercing tranquilizer dart from a silenced rifle to the back while you acted as a distraction in front of me. Phasic, too? And if I'm not entirely off the mark, that hovering gunship in the distance would be your reinforcements," Emiya said as he tossed aside hat and dart. "But what now? Don't tell me that was all?"
"You... what are you?"
"Hmm?"
The turian ground his teeth, then. "No matter how I look at you, there's no way you're human at all."
Emiya shrugged as he took a step forward, beginning to walk towards the turian. "Does it really matter?"
The black armored figure took another step back, his arm going for his waist and pulling out a shotgun.
"Stop!"
"Well, what will you do? I'm unarmed - as you can see. But are you fine with killing me? I can tell it's just you two here right now. Do you really think you can take me alive with those odds? Might as well let me pass and try your luck later, no?" Emiya smirked as he continued walking towards the turian, unaffected.
"I can't do that...! You've disrupted too many lives with your reckless vigilantism."
Emiya had to chuckle at that as he looked away.
"Right, 'disrupted'."
"I said hold it!"
The turian did not notice the change in tone as he held his ground, his talons nervously adjusting their hold on the shotgun as he kept a shaky bead. Emiya didn't bother so much as slowing down, walking right past the hesitating turian still waiting on his hidden partner for help.
If you can't even look me in the eye then how do you expect me to take your threats seriously?
However, two steps after passing the turian by, Emiya sensed something. Not quite killing intent or bloodlust, but a spiking resolve from the turian. His hand shot for the small of his back and found the left blade, brandishing it as he spun around.
The sword flashed, swatting aside a metal projectile attached to a wire, entangling the still whorling wire around the tip as their eyes met past the weapons.
A stun gun?
The ends of the wire crackled as the turian pressed the trigger on the stun gun, spitting out crackling sparks. The steel blade conducted electricity just fine—causing the eezo inside to react a bit peculiarly as the various functions warred inside—but he held on with faith in his hardsuit's insulation.
The turian realized he had failed half a second later as his eyes shooting wide at the acute sight of the blunt sword in Emiya's hand. He jumped back, dropping the stun gun and turning around to jump. Emiya had to blink upon the realization that the turian's hardsuit was equipped with a jetpack, as seconds later the alien was flying away.
Emiya considered chasing after the turian for a moment, before shaking his head and swinging his sword once to clear it of the tangling wire.
With another twirling flourish, he sheathed it on his back again under the longcoat and turned to leave.
He made perhaps fifteen meters before the second spike of intent blazed to his senses and he realized it wasn't over yet, and that—It's fast!
Too fast!
With no time to dodge, he raised his arms to cover his head as what had to be a cannonball struck him with all the force of a starship's main gun just beneath his tucked elbows. All the air in his lungs rushed out of his body as the combination of his longcoat and the hardsuit's protection kept him in one piece, spreading the force to mitigate it and adding it instead into his own hasty jump.
Swords rippled beneath skin - steel and flesh overlapping for an instant.
His body was thrown backward from the impact and he lost his balance mid-air, but rolling with the first reunion with the ground he managed to recover and even convert the violent acceleration into a dodge around the concealment of a building's corner where he could get back to his feet in a crouch.
Emiya exhaled slowly with a hiss—bellows spitting bright sparks and acrid smoke—gingerly feeling at his ribs and shaking his head. Nothing was broken, just some bruising and aches. A fair bit of bruising and ache, he amended with another wince.
That hit would have left anyone out of armor little more than pink mist and giblets.
Expected a kinetic barrier? Not the turian; escalation much too stark. The sniper who had been in hiding acting on their own? Wrong angle. The reinforcements? No, the gunship was still too far away and its angle was wrong, too. It was difficult to tell with so little information to go by...
But it was probably a third party joining in.
Emiya shook his head again as he got his breathing in order.
The spike in intent had been accompanied by a mass effect field. A biotic field, specifically. Not that of a charging mass accelerator like a railgun, but that of a Throw. A ridiculously strong one, too. A glance to the side confirmed his thoughts - the scattered bits and pieces of an anvil-sized block of stone all that remained of the earlier attack.
Just how far away had it come for him to not notice the build-up? A biotiball pitch's—or two's—length? It was going at least faster than the speed of sound since he hadn't heard a damn thing coming. Probably closer to three, judging by how far he had been thrown.
He couldn't sense anything now against the ambiance of Thessia's gravity well and the churning Serrinan sea, though.
Falling deeply into himself to blot out all but his hearing, he closed his eyes and suppressed the sound of rushing blood in his ears. No one approaching... Keeping their distance or some kind of sound suppression?
For all that he specialized in super-long-distance ambushes, he was hardly any better at receiving them than anyone else.
He exhaled slowly one last time to dismiss the pain, pushing outwards with his magical energy into his hardsuit and the longcoat to feel it out with his Structural Analysis. The hardsuit had taken a good hit but was mostly fine, having dispersed most of the blow over his torso without warps or tears. The fibers of the synthetic weave and all of the diamene layers of the coat on the other hand had taken a real beating from the Throw, left frayed and shattered by the impact as if his side had exploded outward.
It was more than a little hot to the touch, too.
That's fine, it's why I bothered with the damn thing.
With a second exhale, he pushed and repaired the image of the weave, returning the longcoat to its former pristine state. A layered defense that could be repaired on the fly, light enough that it wouldn't get in his way; while he had originally in the end settled on a different design, the concept was still proving itself valid.
Though without the hardsuit beneath he would have been in trouble.
Might be time to look into new armor, if I'm finally getting back into action outside of the extranet...
"And I really should have brought a damn helmet..." he grumbled under his breath as he got up and began moving again, before whoever had attacked him came to see if he was still reeling. The pain that should have been radiating purely from his ribs was being spread out into his other senses as well, causing him to hear a tingling, wind-chime-like sound as he started running.
Moving from cover to concealment, avoiding open ground and predictable paths, he kept his eyes on the marina. Weaving between small sheds and benches and tables, he dashed through the various restaurants and shops that faced the beach.
It wasn't much more to the rental shop from here...
As long as he could just—Emiya skidded to a halt as he felt another build-up in the distance.
He frowned, tasting at the edges of the rippling phenomena, recognizing it as the mass effect field from before. How had it generated such a powerful Throw? It wasn't that large. Not compared to any of the many ships he had been onboard before. But somehow it was deeper, in a way he hadn't felt before.
And this pattern...
Charge & Nova?
His eyes shot wide open as he ducked into a full sprint. He recognized this sequence as a common move in i'usu. Biotics used Charge to cover a large distance which built up a lot of internal static which they dumped into their Barriers, allowing them to soak up ludicrous amounts of punishment, followed by a powerful omnidirectional blast of force using all of that pent-up power to clear their surroundings or to land a coup de grâce.
Move, move, move...!
He had just managed to make a dozen strides when the hammerblow of a god thundered behind him, not only audible but tangible as cracks and ripples spread through the pavement and walls all around him. It was as if a runaway starship had rammed itself into the ground at full burn from orbit.
And then, a second later the burst of pure force went off behind him.
Emiya was nearly thrown off his feet again as chairs, tables, potted plants, and entire walls were sent flying by the bonfire of brilliant blue behind him. He rolled for cover again as he slowly inhaled through grit teeth, satisfied that he had at least managed to get out of the blast radius.
It was powerful but its range was short: unlike in actual explosions, the biotic force did not travel beyond the immediate radius.
They called it a Nova and for good reason as it crowned the biotic royalty on a battlefield, wreathing them in a radiant corona that allowed them to rip through armored vehicles and leave entire squads in tatters. In high-level i'usu the combination was relatively common as an all-or-nothing Hail Mary maneuver; the Charge could instantly cross the distance between two combatants and knock down even a guarded opponent, with the follow-up Nova exploding with such power that few would be able to remain conscious through it, much less standing and ready to keep fighting.
He had witnessed it often enough to know the timing even with his eyes closed, the push and pull on the fabric of space extremely recognizable.
But something was off, though.
The purple flickering power wasn't vanishing, bright motes were still hanging in the air all around, spreading and blanketing his surroundings in their eerie light, even catching loose objects, turning some weightless and pushing others around with random vectors of force.
It's not gone, he realized with scarce belief; some of the pent-up biotic potentials of the Nova were still suffusing the space around him. But that should be impossible.
The Nova was a detonation of the biotic's Barrier expressed in outward force from the eye of the storm, leaving the user drained and without protection. All mass effect fields caught in it would further feed the violent explosion. Theoretically, some combinations of biotic techniques could occasionally fail detonation, but to do something like that intentionally was...
He blinked, realizing just how familiar this level of biotic control actually was. It was exactly how biotic chefs sensed and controlled delicate foods through their fields.
Even if she can't see me...!
Emiya jumped to the side and an instant later a slab of stone—a large terrace floor tile from a nearby restaurant, he noted distractedly, realizing he was surrounded by loose rubble suitable for a biotic to use—went howling through the spot where he had just been, tearing at the air itself with its whipcrack acceleration. He judged that it must weigh at least over thirty kilograms and had to have been going at the speeds of a full-speed biotiball Throw as it shattered in the distance behind him with a thundering crack echoing between streets.
This had been slower than the first Throw, though. Did she need more time to build up potential?
Standing up and dusting himself off, he came face to face with an asari who was slowly walking out of the large crater formed by her explosive landing. Even through the tendrils and flares of dark energy dancing across that furious face, he could recognize this as an Asari Matriarch.
Sheesh. No wonder they don't let the older asari play with the kids.
He could defend against these attacks without getting battered around, so long as he didn't get caught in a biotic hold.
"Where is she?"
The sheer anger in that voice, along with the depth and distortion of the sound from the mass effect fields around her gave him pause for a second.
Then, he huffed to himself as he shrugged casually.
"You're going to have to be a little bit more specific than that," he said as he dropped the backpack onto the ground. It would just get in the way now. "Since there are about five and a half billion 'shes' around here."
In a split second, a second slab of the terrace floor was ripped loose and flung straight at his legs, aimed to shatter and fold in both of his knees.
He jumped over it, but a third—the second in the quick one-two combo—was coming directly for his torso while he was in the air and unable to dodge.
His left arm went to his waist and drew the blade in a reverse grip, angling it against his right forearm and palm for support, receiving the projectile with the flat and allowing it to slide off of the i'usushij with a grinding screech and shower of sparks, sending it flying to the side at an angle and giving him enough spin for two full rotations in the air before his feet hit the ground again, where he dissipated the rest of the angular momentum with a twirl of the blade.
A restaurant's large window exploded into shards with a loud clatter, a rear wall groaning from the impact.
The Matriarch looked surprised, caution cooling some of her earlier frothing anger.
"Can't say that rings any bells," he said, crossing his arms while still holding onto the curved blade in a reversed grip. "Try using words, that usually helps."
"You bastard!"
The re-enraged Matriarch punched out, four bright blue orbs blurring at him from her outstretched fingers. He recognized them as a pair of Pull & Throw's - another basic attack combination—aimed to lift him off his feet and then send him flying and leave him with a concussion in the best of circumstances. The Pull alone would leave him floating, weightless and helpless in the air, unable to dodge any follow-up attacks.
Most needed a few seconds to set up a single pair.
She had thrown all four in one and was well into setting up a Shockwave to follow in their immediate wake, all while directing them manually to home in on him from the left and right to deny him the privilege of cover.
Dashing to the left, he hooked up a chair with his blade and slung it in the way of the first pair of orbs as he jumped behind the cover of a large marble-and-brass table, the chair going careening through the air above his head as the protection of the table groaned against his shoulder from the double-impact of the second pair, holding firm only by virtue of being practically bolted to the ground.
He didn't stay there for a second longer, as the powerful Shockwave would no doubt shred the table like wet paper.
Rolling out of cover into a sprint he could hear the marble crack and brass screech before it was torn into pieces and sent flying all over the restaurant scant instants later. Before he could get out from the open into the shop on the other side of the street, he felt the familiar accumulation of force again behind him.
Another Charge.
Emiya turned on his heel and flipped up the sword in his hand and threw it spinning up above the buildings. Bending his knees, he inhaled and then sprang three meters straight up into the air.
A second later the Matriarch came barreling through the spot he had been standing in, screaming past and slamming straight into a wall behind him with enough force to send the rest of the open-air souvenir shop it belonged to flying as if a bomb had been cast inside.
At the top of his ascent, Emiya kicked out with his leg to twist around mid-air as he drew the second i'usushij from his back, using the full body spin to send it flying straight for the unguarded back of the Matriarch who had yet to realize she had missed.
Though the i'usushijs' external shape was similar enough to his favored twin blades, they actually quite a bit differed in design. The right blade was essentially unchanged, but the left blade had a subtle alteration made to its blade and center of balance.
In layman's terms, it flew like a returning boomerang and would meet its pair with the Matriarch in the middle.
The right blade hit the back of the Matriarch first, impacting harmlessly against the biotic's Charge-refreshed Barrier — or so it should have been given that Emiya had thrown it in mid-air with no ground to draw leverage against for his throw. But as it reached the Matriarch's back it practically exploded with writhing warp fields, sending her stumbling two steps forward against the wall in shock, draining most of the Barrier's integrity in a shower of coruscating dark sparks that seemed to be drawn into the blade.
At the same instant it clattered against the hard floor, his feet hit the ground and he exploded forward, with the asari stumbling around to face him, unaware of the second blade sweeping in for her turned back.
Their eyes met—and for an instant of stillness in the chaos of the fight, he could see his own smirk reflected in her wide, confused eyes—the moment it slammed into the back of her head, making her flinch and close her eyes in surprise. The curving left sword was much weaker, but it was enough to drain the last of the Barrier, a final halo of blue sparks scattering from the asari's silhouette impotently.
"Gah!"
She recovered just in time to open her eyes and catch his flying kick to her chest, which flung her back against the wall she had Charged into moments before, slamming the back of her crest and head against a battered souvenir stand's remains and nearly making her slip on the debris beneath.
Landing again, Emiya crouched and grabbed the blade at his feet, gingerly gripping it around the pommel. Sparks were coming off of the blade, seeming ready to crack loose a bolt of electricity any moment now as he held it away from himself stiffly.
The beefed-up circuit was enough to charge up both capacitors to this extent? Her Barrier's no joke, either.
He swung the blade up as if fan her with the flat once, twice, and on the second fanning uppercut the air shimmered around the i'usushij, an arc slamming from the tip into the ground as the first capacitor discharged and a blue orb sprung forward. The Matriarch shook her head at the sound, eyes swimming as she tried to see straight and dodge the projectile on punch-drunk feet, only to have her movements turn even less controlled as she suddenly found herself weightlessly flailing in the air under the effects of the Pull.
"Ah...!"
But he wasn't done yet - the third fanning uppercut in the immediate wake of the second loosed another violent arc discharge from the tip into the ground, causing a slimmer second blue bolt to shoot forward like a javelin. It hit her right below where the first had, slamming her back against the wall a third time before she bounced and went spinning into the distance over the rows of houses on the opposite side.
The good old one-two combo with Pull & Throw was a classic for a reason: it worked.
"What a mess..." Emiya noted with a sigh as he looked around at the wrecked street, restaurant, and shop around him. If one Matriarch could cause this much property damage in mere seconds, he couldn't even imagine what they could do inside a starship. "...Still, definitely went better than the meeting with Benezia."
He shook his head and picked up the other i'usushij, returning both between his coat and hardsuit with a spinning flourish.
Judging by the sudden shift in the fabric of space in the distance, the Matriarch had managed to arrest her fall and recover without too much trouble. Surviving such a basic biotic attack from his hack job i'usushij without major injury was probably child's play for any experienced biotic, so she would no doubt come roaring for round two any minute now.
And looking over towards Serrice proper it looked like a dozen or so huntresses were now aware of his presence.
The gunship was getting uncomfortably close and would soon be in range to do any number of bothersome things to him, too...
I really don't have time for any of this.
A twinge of intent caused him to duck and he could barely pick up the report of that suppressed rifle again; the turian's accomplice must have been trying to put crosshairs on him all this while, hoping the big blue distraction would prove sufficient for a lucky shot.
Naive.
Zig-zagging back to his backpack he grabbed it before turning up a gear and sprinting full tilt towards the marina, leaving the scene of the fight to gather dust. Seconds later he could hear the Matriarch's vengeant return through another poor restaurant over the softly beckoning murmur of the Serrinan sea ahead.
Parnitha's last rays broke across the horizon as plumes of sand erupted with his every step over the beach. Reaching the lapping dark waves he crouched in a final step and sprung into a leap that carried him well into the water, landing onto a shack floating out in the water—practically invisible in the dark waves, now—with a thump of impact and whoof of air, the bearing pontoons bobbing gently. Backhanding the door open, he quickly entered and closed the door behind him before dropping everything on him to the floor in a hurry.
Tossing aside the longcoat and letting it unravel he began to tear off the hardsuit as quickly as he could, hurriedly discarding pieces.
Finally naked, he tore open the backpack and up-ended its contents on the floor. One side of the floating hut was filled with lockers and shelves, all locked. Finding the ones he wanted he grabbed the i'usushij off of the floor and smashed the lock - the key must still lie in some cupboard back at his old place. Pulling out a waterproof waist bag, he filled it with only the base necessities before throwing it aside by the corner by the broken door. Unlike a backpack designed for carrying on land, the waist bag was designed such that once he was underwater it would settle between his legs to minimize his drag profile.
In return, it would force him to abandon the rest of his stuff.
Emiya glanced outside one more time, scanning the immediate surroundings before he crouched down and promptly scarfed down the rest of his pemmican supplies and another two liters of water.
Reaching again into the locker he pulled out the special hardsuit he had cached there and used Structural Analysis to check the seals and material integrity while hastily donning it; it had been a year since he had last checked it. It was a much heavier set, with features he thought would be useful for diving with the core design principle being energy efficiency, both for minimizing waste and its radiation profile to scanners. The last of the rigid seals snapped shut around his neck and jaw, he grabbed the waterproof bag and slung it around his waist, leaving it to hang at the small of his back.
The heads-up display booted up but he ignored the flashing numbers and update logs for now.
Rounding up the rest of the gear he had brought with him, he stuffed it all in the backpack. Grabbing the pair of i'usushij he considered them for a moment, before shrugging and placing them on the back Van der Waals-strips like before. The brine would play havoc on them, but he might as well take them along since they were the only weapons he had right now.
Finally, he went to the locker one last time and grabbed the two RX-5s within.
Yellow, about the size of a fire extinguisher and twice as heavy, it was essentially a very expensive toy called a sea scooter. Making use of no mass effect technology, it was nothing more than a portable propeller that you strapped to your arm so it could drag you along underwater.
And they would be his ticket out of Serrice.
He pushed one onto his right arm and the other to his left, adjusting the internal straps to his hardsuit's forearms, leaving his hands and fingers free to move before checking the power cells carefully. They were the real game-changers here, costing three times as much as the scooters and hardsuit put together, each. He had two for the scooters and one for his hardsuit here. As the helmet's heads-up display finally finished booting up and connecting to the RX-5s—the connection to his own cybernetics forming equally sluggishly—he noted with satisfaction at the charge levels displayed.
Couldn't go wrong with two months of operation time in low power mode.
Finally clipping on a belt with extra oxygen capsules on his waist—having learned from the time with the skycar in space—he knew he should be ready to leave, but restrained himself.
Emiya did a final double and triple check before he finally let out a sigh of satisfaction. Turning around, he opened the floor hatch that led straight into the sea and tossed in the backpack. Checking that he hadn't left any obvious signs of his passing beyond the broken locks, he nodded. Not that it would matter much, given that he was probably still under live satellite surveillance right now. Shrugging, he jumped in after the sinking backpack.
Goodbye Serrice, he thought one last time as he looked out one last time at the distorted lights of the city, upside down and beneath the waves, before he spun around and began swimming away.
;
"Where is he?" Nihlus ground out, stomping up to the seated Matriarch. "Where is he?"
She looked up slowly, the fire in her eyes having been doused to little more than embers now. But the turian did not back down, clenching his talons as his mandibles flexed.
"If I knew that, I wouldn't be here right now, now would I?"
He exhaled slowly as he tried to gather his thoughts. He had pulled back for just a second to regroup and figure out how to stall the human, only for the Matriarch to come barreling in with her commandos. The turian had felt like his head was about to explore with how everything was about to go so very wrong, very quickly, right before his eyes.
And then the human effortlessly beat back the thousand-year-old asari warrior. As effortlessly as he had walked past the turian's own stand. Those piercing eyes staring back at him from the other side of the shotgun's sights would not leave his mind. Burned in and carved into his psyche as they were.
Stop thinking about it, it didn't mean anything. Focus on the mission!
Nihlus was rattled. He knew it, but he couldn't accept it.
He turned that self-recrimination and doubt into anger, swiveling to look at the asari again.
"Do you have any idea what you are doing?" Nihlus asked, leaning in so closely that he could have bitten her nose off. "Do you realize just what kind of effort you are obstructing here?"
"That bastard killed my daughter!" Aethyta roared as she sprung up to her feet. "I don't care who or what you are, no one... No one! No one... is getting in my way to him!"
Nihlus inhaled slowly through his sharp teeth. "Don't think I can't arrest you, even if—"
"Sir, we have satellite on him! He's running north of your position, headed for the beach!" Jondum's voice broke off his line of thought.
He shook his head, taking a step back as he focused on the mental exercises for focus and clarity he had trained a thousand times before. Exhaling, he turned and sprinted at top speed as he followed Jondum's instructions.
Finding the floating beach hut in the dark of the sea took much too long and he only arrived a minute after the gunship had brought in a full squad of STG operatives who were scouring through the hut. Using his jump jets, he leaped all the way to the hut and entered, pushing past two STG operators stationed by the door.
"Where is he?"
The salarian officer of the squad looked up, rolling his eyes before pointing at the open floor hatch that showed the dark waters below.
"Where is he?!" Nihlus shouted.
"He's gone, sir," a salarian replied.
"Then find him! He can't be far!"
The salarians looked at each other, initiating a confab.
"He's underwater."
"Parnitha below horizon, visibility below water extremely poor."
"Extreme diffusion of lidar and other common ranging methods, requires specific sonar equipment."
"Asari may possess some, perhaps requisition from hunt on collaborator?"
Nihlus growled, grabbing the nearest salarian. "Then fetch the gear they were using earlier!"
"Pointless. Could not find rogue Justicar during day time with better preparations. Suspects possess underwater vehicle capable of hiding from scans, must have picked up both, meaning hid near Serrice all along despite active searches. No hope of finding him now."
"Damn it!" Nihlus exhaled slowly, before lashing out with his talons and hitting a locker as hard as he could.
I had him within arm's length!
Unnoticed by the turian, the salarians exchanged silent glances. One of their number looked up from an omnitool and subtly nodded at the officer.
In response, they smiled in unison for just an instant before resuming their natural expressions.
;
CODEX:
5. [ Unnamed i'usushij practice blades ]
The exact way bio-electrical input (biotics) differs from normal electrical currents' (mechanical mass effect fields) function is yet not wholly understood, but it has long been noted that experienced biotics such as Asari Matriarchs can yield mass-altering fields far in excess of what their natural bio-electrical output should suggest. Mimicking this phenomenon, ancient asari smiths created complex laminated blades with circuits and capacitors, allowing them to store up static build-up that occurs through the use of mass effect fields, to power up even greater mass effect fields.
Or so the mainstream theory supposes, as very few functional examples remain.
Modern examples function along the same principle as natural biotics do by using a minor current (usually generated through moving a simple circuit through a magnetic field where in the body it is usually the natural bio-electric signals of the nervous system) to create a mass effect field that in turn attracts a greater charge into the circuit through triboelectric accumulation. This charge can then be either applied to an eezo core or into a capacitor, allowing it to build up in potency for more powerful bursts.
This is unlike the method used in most mass effect field generators where a steady current is fed from a generator or power cell, as without the fine-tuned control and feedback of a biotic unpredictability and uneven output remain a problem. While the i'usushij is not connected to the nervous system of the biotic and thus does not benefit from the same level of control and feedback, for simple techniques the sensitivity of a hand is sufficient.
This pair of simple blades, made in the rough likeness of Kanshou and Bakuya, were crafted by Emiya in his efforts to understand eezo and biotics, supplementing his studies at Serrice University. In his efforts to experiment with i'usu biotics to mimic the ancient i'usushij housed in the museum he ended up straying considerably from most mainstream designs seen in modern i'usu that usually focus on supplementing the biotic wielder's abilities.
The left-hand blade is a work in progress, as yet largely untouched beyond its external modification and a simple internal circuit, the general concept of creation being a long-range throwing blade that mimics the complexity of the married blades that inspired it.
Externally it has been modified into a lift-generating airfoil design, with the uneven mass distribution generating gyroscopic precession to mimic returning boomerangs. Thus when thrown the blade will curve in flight, with the exact arc depending on the angle of the throw and the difference between rotational and forward momentum, allowing for it to return to the thrower's hand, to spin around objects or cover, or to simply achieve extremely long casts, allowing for much more charge to be built up with a single throw. Internally it has only a simple circuit that activates when rotating, generating a mass-altering field that lightens the blade to extend its airtime, using a feedback loop of Lorenz force and the mass effect field's triboelectric build-up to power itself, as relying solely on the Lorenz force would only result in a net loss of momentum.
As a result of its rudimentary internals, it is more rugged than its more elaborate pair.
While lacking notable external modifications, the second—right-hand—blade is much more complex in internal design, with layered functions utilizing the material lamination to a much greater degree to isolate stacked circuits and capacitors from each other.
When thrown, two things occur at once; firstly, a slight mass-increasing field is generated along the edge of the blade, improving stability, accuracy, and power in flight which also enables the triboelectric effect to gather additional charge; secondly, a small freely-moving block inside a hollow section of the blade's spine is pushed by centripetal force to complete a capacitor circuit where the accumulated charge is dumped from the generated field.
Upon impact, however, the sudden stop will cause the internal block to dislodge, allowing the built-up electricity to discharge back into the mass-altering circuit that had been gathering charge previously. With the block bouncing inside the hollow section's two ends, the generated field will switch between lightening and heavening polarities, creating a small but potent Warp field along the edge. Much like a Disruptor Torpedo in ship-to-ship combat, this primary circuit is designed to weaken defenses and crack open Barriers, but as the violent Warp field comes into contact with a repulsive field such as a Barrier, it enables a secondary circuit to leech power from the churning forces into a second set of capacitors, draining the Warp's and Barrier's chaotic interaction to fuel itself, potentially doubling or even tripling the total charge in the blade.
The accrued charge in the second set of capacitors can then be used for another function by discharging into a tertiary eezo circuit inside the blade using a specific type of movement (using a similar moving block design as with the primary function that remains neutral during a primary-charging spin) that are not normally used within swordsmanship, minimizing the risk of accidental discharge. The currently installed circuits are the two simplest of biotic techniques, known as Pull and Throw, which can be used separately or in conjunction for great effect, and with practice it is possible to expel both charges very quickly and accurately.
The right-hand blade's internal design is made as a rough copy of a more complex i'usushij blade stored in the Musem of the University of Serrice—the Serri'usushij as it is commonly called—designed with somewhat similar ideas in mind as far as Emiya has been able to decipher. He personally believes them to be still half-baked proofs of concept, barely out of the draft, but should they have been made available for study they might have brokered several breakthroughs in i'usu design and understanding.
;
Thanks to Tactical Tunic for proofreading.