"How does having a spirit inside complicate things? I thought you said this form was the point." Reiko asked, suppressing a triple wave of panic.
"Well... back ho that sort of thing isn’t exactly legal. I an, it’s not illegal, but onmyoji are very restricted on the kind of things they can use as shikigami- uh... spirit vessels. Normally the spirit is supposed to be completely outside when it’s not inside, which I thought was why Kamui Crimson was out here... Which one of you has the kami inside of her?"
Reiko raised Kordia’s hand.
"Right. You should probably not let any angels see you... or you’ll be, uh, executed..."
"We don’t intend to submit to such treatnt from anyone," Reiko frowned. "Though now we must ask, are you still alright helping us?"
"Well, I do owe you my life. And an Amanogawa always does her duty! Hehe..."
"We’d rather not have things be so... transactional. If you help us, we’d consider you free to co and go as you wish."
"Oh, uh... I really wouldn’t know what to do, hehe... and it’s not like I have any money or resources to travel, so sticking with you is sort of my best shot at making it ho..." she lowered her voice along with her eyes, "...if they even want back."
"Don’t sell yourself short. You’re still young. There’s plenty of ti to work on yourself."
"Oh, thanks. I an... I’m about to turn seventy-five this sumr... so I’m not that young..."
Reiko was nearly floored by the revelation. How could this elf be so dense? To look as young as she did at that age ant she was at least equivalent to an archmage or century mage. She didn’t look a day over her twenties, but then again, her age might have had sothing to do with her lack of confidence. It was not a problem Reiko felt she had any right to solve with soone she’d just t.
"Well... we should get started with that technique of yours..."
As it turned out, applying three minds to the sa problem gave Reiko a very rapid learning experience as Akane stumbled through her explanations with nervous ticks every so often.
Reversing the technique, Reiko cald her breathing and focused on reducing her dominance of Kordia, Lapins, and Sin’s thought processes. As she did, she felt a little discomfort from the rising desynchronization, but not the pain that had occurred when she’d tried walking everyone apart.
The more she ditated, the more she felt she was approaching a sort of threshold, and it was only at the last mont that she wondered, Wait, am I about to-
"-die?" Kordia whispered as she ca to, experiencing a brief mont of disorientation as she blinked rapidly.
Lapins and Sin likewise blinked away their confusion before releasing hands and looking about.
"Wow, I did not expect any of that," Sin said, her voice noticeably higher now that the three of them were no longer speaking in chorus. She brought her tails in front of her and made a happy noise at seeing all three tails really were there.
Lapins grimaced as she touched her new ears. "Is this really happening?"
"Oh, that’s probably just a physical expression of a spiritual trait... happens all the ti to onmyoji," Akane explained. "It’s because spirits are different from familiars. Almost like how having a demon familiar can give you demonic traits... not that I’d ever truck with demons."
Kordia winced at that statent but held her tongue. Now that they were all separate, it felt strange to think that they’d been one person for the last few hours. The glimpses she had of Lapins life showed a lot more neglect than Lapins had ever admitted, and what she saw of Sin’s life explained a lot about how sheltered she’d been.
"Did you feel those spells we cast, though?" Sin asked, a smile creeping across her face. "They were so big and I didn’t feel any strain at all."
"A multiplicative increase in magical power is one property of reitai and hive-mind spirits," Akane said sagely. "I understand you don’t get a lot of either this far in the west, but closer to Diurnus we deal with a lot more spirits and monsters, hehe."
"The sense I got from the spirit inside is that the dragon is from far, far to the west," Kordia bit her thumb as she thought. "But if what you say is true, we might need to be Yoko in order to fight this dragon." Looking at Lapins and Sin, Kordia got the sense they had the sa feeling as her, that it would be easier to unify again now that they’d done it. In fact... "Can you two hear , by the way?"
Lapins and Sin both jumped a little. ""We can!"" they said at the sa ti.
"Wow... I think we just did the sa thing that happened with Kir... only we seem to be sharing a lot more than just thought connections." Kordia said, finally looking at her seven tails and seeing that the spectral ones had disappeared.
"What makes you say that?" Sin asked.
"I can still feel Lapins’ tail inside her skirt. It’s quite uncomfortable."
"I don’t have a tail!" Lapins ntally exclaid, before twisting and pulling on her trousers. "Oh gods I have a fucking tail now." The little diamond tuft of blonde fur with a white underside wiggled as Kordia and Lapins looked at it, the forr’s tails wiggling a bit in sympathetic mirroring.
Experintally, Kordia pinched herself on the arm.
"Ow!" Sin exclaid, while Lapins flinched.
"Uh... what’s happening right now?" Akane looked at each of them with confusion in her ruby-red eyes.
"We’ve been ntally communicating. I think we might still be more deeply linked as a result of being Reiko than I thought," Kordia said.
"See how you like it then." A mont later, Sin pinched herself on the thigh and it was Kordia’s turn to exclaim.
"I felt that, but it was a bit dull," Lapins spoke as Kordia rubbed the spot where she’d felt the pinch. "Also, while we were Reiko, I saw so of your mories... I’m sorry if that was rude."
"Mine too?" Sin asked, blushing, to which Lapins nodded. "I-I saw so of yours too, but I was hoping it was just ..."
"The sa thing happened with ," Kordia said, thinking through the sensations and emotions she was still feeling from both of them - more vibrant now that they were separate and distinct instead of parallel. "I suspect that because I have Silver inside of , we’re all linked together through ..."
Lapins blanched, her ears flopping backward. "Oh, gods. Does that an if you die we die?"
Akane cleared her throat, "It is typical of onmyoji-"
"There’s no way to be certain, so let’s not find out," Kordia interrupted the foreign elf with a slight glare. She didn’t want to be rude, but she could feel Sin on the verge of a panic attack.
"Oh gods you saw... If you saw my mories you saw it..."
A flash of thought flew across their link, and Kordia had to stifle a laugh as she rembered Sin in a mirror, preening about at the age of eight while wearing her mother’s ceremonial robes and clogs - which were hilariously oversized for her - as she declared "Let the festival of cake begin! Because I like cake!"
Lapins wasn’t nearly so reserved as she burst out laughing.
"Sh-shut up!" Sin said. "I didn’t even rember that until we were Reiko!"
Akane tried to say "Spirit bonding does improve mory-" but then Kordia interrupted.
"Sin, it’s alright. You know we accept you for who you are... but it was a very cute mory."
Lapins continued to cackle, and Sin finally reached a breaking point. "Oh yeah? Well, y-you once told rcy to drink your spit!"
"Who’s rcy?" Akane tried to ask.
"Oh co on! I was six!" Lapins exclaid.
"Girls!" Kordia pinched the bridge of her nose as she tried to think. "Let’s focus here. There’s a dragon outside and this dungeon is clearly no longer safe for us. Do we want to try being Reiko again for the power, or should we stay split up?"
The silence that descended was weighty as they each contemplated what they’d felt about being Reiko. It took only a few minutes for them to realize that being Reiko could definitely shore up their weaknesses since Kordia was over-specialized in defense and healing while Lapins was specialized in offense. Sin had a basic level of versatility expected of first years, but was likely behind her classmates as a result of their journey.
In the end, however, it ca down to a more romantic notion than anything else.
"If we’re going to fight, win or lose, we should fight together." Lapins’ words made both Kordia and Sin blush, and they both nodded their agreent.
After joining hands, sliding into being Reiko proved to be as easy as taking a deep breath.
"We’re back," Reiko announced, feeling strange for knowing that she’d continued to exist inside of her three aspects without any discontinuity.
"Very nice and all, but I estimate we have less than an hour to plan before that thing reaches us," Crimson tilted his head at the approaching crystallization. "I’ve been talking to Akane about her abilities, and, well, I’m not really a ’details’ sort of fox, so let just show you..."
A bit of mana passed from Crimson to Reiko, unpacking into a confusing jumble of sensations, impressions, and ideas that would have overwheld any aspect of Reiko individually. Together, however, they were able to parse that while Akane couldn’t do more than wield a sword to save her life, she could put up a fortress in re monts using nothing but stone, mud, or pure mana - though the last would only work for a few seconds.
It was enough, however, to give Reiko an idea of how they could beat the dragon.
"Here’s what we’re going to do..."
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