It took the work of another couple of minutes to knock out the rest of the gangsters, but unfortunately, the ones she didn't use her Mien to force them to unconsciousness didn't remain incapacitated.

The first ones she hit on the chin, at the stairwell near the fourth floor, stirred and struggled to their feet, muttering curses she couldn't quite make out. The air was filled with a static feel that stung her perception. It wasn't all that painful but was quite distracting, and left a slightly numb sensation, like pins and needles all over her body, except it was all over her aura instead. It only affected her thinned Anima perception, and when she reinforced it to the point that there was a visible glow, hence nullifying the advantage of being invisible, the numbing stings receded.

She wasn't distracted to the point that she didn't notice someone peeking from the stairs leading to the basement, a rather burly man wearing a brown trench coat and a domino mask on his face, as well as a flat cap. His eyes were covered with mirrored lenses, his mask hiding his reaction when he caught sight of her. His surprise only lasted a moment.

Next, he pointed a metal stick at her and yelled, "Sagitta Arcana!"

To her surprise, a mandala formed from the tip of his wand. It had three arcane circles and had runescript symbols for nodes. The entire thing was about three inches across, and the mandala took a fraction of a second to draw in the necessary energies before spewing out dozens of arrows made from condensed force.

About half of them shot directly at her, while the other half curved outwards only to converge towards her at the midpoint. There being less than a dozen paces between them, the force arrows didn't diverge much from the centre line, which made it easy to block them with condensed aura plates she interposed along the path.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

The arrows burst against the plates and unexpectedly stung her enough to make her flinch.

'What?'

She frowned as another barrage emerged from the wand with a different cry: "Sagitta Ignis!"

This time, the energy gathered was distinctly Fire Elemental energy. The motes of orange-yellow light materialised from out of nowhere and converged into the mandala.

The formation of the fire arrows was slower than the force variant by a full second. The Magi realised it almost as soon as he began to cast, his face paling under his mask. She could have attacked immediately then, with kinetic aura fist, or with Invisible Edge, but she chose not to do so quite yet. She examined the spell-casting implement visually and tried to touch it with her perception aura, but the man's grip on it made contact difficult. There wasn't anything she could see on the surface, but the runescript lines could have easily been created by the pattern of the metal's grains inside it.

Of greater interest was how the man called Elemental energy from beyond the material layer of reality. The motes were small enough that she wondered if they were able to freely pass through the layers without needing a rift. And if Elemental motes could do it, what about other esoteric energies? Hmmm, answering such questions wasn't really a priority, so she shunted the thoughts over to her true body's consciousness strands.

The fire arrows blasted out of the mandala and struck her aura plates. They shattered into sparks and cinders, and didn't even sting. Yuriko shook her head ruefully and punched the Magus on the chin with an Animakinetic fist.

The kist slammed into the man, but instead of striking flesh, her Anima-shaped fist struck a barrier of blue light. It negated most of the force she imparted into her blow, though it wasn't much to begin with since she didn't want to blow his head off. Some of the momentum still staggered the Magus, and his barrier popped. The second blow hit true, and he dropped like a bag of rocks.

Even unconscious, he didn't let go of his metal wand. His fingers were clenched tightly, and when she prodded them with her toe, they unconsciously tightened. Huh. She hadn't met any Magi in Astoria before, and it was likely that the man had Altered to some kind of ability that mimicked Arcana Weaving. Or perhaps his power was the Magic Arrow spell with variable elements.

"Sleep for a while," Yuriko enforced with her Mien.

She scooped him up and placed him to the side where she'd dumped all of the unconscious goons. Then, she pushed her way towards the basement stairs. She noticed the security camera in the corner, and she crushed it with a casual wave of her hand. Someone soon cut the light and plunged the stairwell into absolute darkness, but that didn't really hamper her. There was a simple trap to the stairs as it descended deeper into the earth than where the door to the basement level was, but since she knew the building's layout, she stopped at the door and kicked it open.

She was met with bullets accelerated and empowered beyond normal gunpowder. Just like with the force arrows, the empowered bullets stung her through the aura plates, though oddly, to a lesser extent. The shooter was the man who took the laser cylinder from the mechanic. He stood behind some cover at the end of the hallway, shooting through a shimmering oval of pale blue light hovering in midair. The bullets from his assault rifle passed through the oval and accelerated threefold faster than they should have, while picking up enough Elemental energy traces to interact properly with her Anima.

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After several three-round bursts, and the fact that the attack was ineffective, the guardsman ducked out of sight. Yuriko's perceptive aura ran into heavy interference as the agitated Elemental energies interacted with the Altered's source energy to muddle her view. She was somewhat wary of the RuiNation members' escape through a hidden route, but her primary mission wasn't to kill or capture them but to take out the safehouse and rescue the captives.

'I wonder if the mechanic is a captive, an unwilling crafter, rather than a member.'

Based on how she interacted with the guards, she suspected it was true. Still, allowing hostiles to escape didn't sit well with her, so she flew down the short hallway in pursuit.

When she turned the corner, it was to the sight of the guardsman practically flying away from her, with the fading remnants of the momentum reinforcement mandala right in front of her. Bemused, but not exactly worried, she floated through the mandala and felt it try to push her down the hall. The effect was weak and grew even more so by the second. It also wasn't strong enough to jostle her Anima anchors, so all it did was give her a nudge.

While her perception aura grew more clouded by the second, it wasn't entirely gone. She could see that captives weren't being moved, and the guards were all moving to engage her. But there was one exception. She could barely make out the sound of curses coming from the mechanic's workshop.

She flew after the guardsman, but he seemed well-versed in using his ability to flee. Around the corner, she could only see another mandala. Since it was a T-junction, she could see two mandalas with no clue where he went. But since the workshop was a level below this one, she headed to the next set of stairs down the left-hand side.

A burst of laser light entered her control zone—the heat was easily absorbed by her Anima. When she glanced back, the guardsman was shooting at her with both rifle and laser cylinder, the latter being attached underneath the rifle's barrel much like a bayonet would have been.

She formed an Anima fist and punched the guardsman, but he quickly threw a mandala between her attack and his body. She felt her attack slow down, and he managed to duck out of the way. He quickly retreated around the corner, and she decided to take him down before he could take any hostages. She crossed the distance in the blink of an eye and caught up to him before he could hide around another corner. He glanced back, his face blank with focus. He shot at her, but the bullets flattened against her aura.

Snap!

An Invisible Edge sliced his gun in twain, and he was left holding just the stock. He stared at it in surprise and wasn't able to react before she slugged him on the chin. Once he was down, she commanded him to sleep, and that was that.

She flew towards the stairs and descended. She wasn't sure how many gangsters were left, though she'd detected half a dozen on this level before the interference happened. As soon as she reached the second basement level, she came across a barricade manned by those gangsters. They opened fire at her, but the bullets were no more effective than normal. She walked through the bullet rain without attacking, felt their terror and the subsequent fear-thread. Only then did she knock them out.

The barricade was nothing more than a couple of tables on their side, though she wondered if they would have blocked bullets. A casual touch revealed that the tables were metal that had been stylised to look like oak wood. The mechanic's workshop was just a few paces away, and she pushed her Anima perception ahead, even increasing the density of her Anima to visibility to allow her a good view.

The mechanic was screaming at the guardswoman as the latter wrested her away from her workbench and tools.

"Let me go, you oaf!" the mechanic yelled. "Go and run, you coward!"

"Jessa, you know the boss won't allow you to remain, despite what you may want," the guardswoman, and probably bodyguard, said mildly.

"Leave me alone, you farker!"

"Can't do that. The boss would have my hide."

Yuriko tapped the doorsill loudly to catch their attention, and both women froze as they turned to look at her.

"Who're you?!" the mechanic, Jessa, demanded.

"Ah, so you're not a captive, then?"

"No. Why would you think…"

"Hush, girl," the guardswoman said while she pressed a finger across Jessa's lips. She eyed Yuriko from head to toe, "Any chance you'd let us go?"

"You work for the Nation, don't you?" Yuriko asked. The two nodded. "Then, I'm afraid I'll have to take you in."

"Who do you work for?" Jessa demanded.

Yuriko shrugged, not about to reveal anything, and she wasn't about to lie.

"Then I will face you," the guardswoman said.

"Acceptable," Yuriko hummed, then added with a grin, "If you entertain me well enough, I'm not averse to letting you go."

The guardswoman said, "Arrogant, aren't we?"

"Confident."

"Very well." The woman puffed up. "Remember my name, Crasher."

"Regalia."

Crasher continued to flex, and somehow, her upper body swelled up threefold. Yuriko blinked in surprise as the woman almost doubled in height and width. Her clothes ripped apart, revealing an underbody suit that was flexible enough to keep Crasher's modesty.

They eyed each other for a long moment while Jessa backed out of the way, then the bulky woman lunged. A fist the size of Yuriko's head rocketed towards her face.

Boom!

Shockwaves and a vapour cone formed around the limb.

Blag!

And was stopped against Yuriko's palm.

Squenk!

Yuriko's feet dragged against the tile as she was pushed back a few inches, and though Crasher looked surprised, she didn't freeze for too long as she threw another haymaker. This time, Yuriko ducked under the limb instead of blocking it, and she darted forward and slammed her own fist against Crasher's sternum.

Boom!

The woman was pushed back a few inches as she pulled her arms back into a boxer's guard. Crasher didn't look winded at the blow.

Yuriko stood back and held up a hand.

"What, you're giving up already?" Crasher asked.

"Not at all, but I'm wearing a helmet, and it tilts the odds against you." She shaped an Animus construct into a domino mask to conceal her features, then removed the helmet. "Now, let's play."

Crasher slammed her fists together and grinned savagely. "You're on!"

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