Yuriko awoke the next morning just before dawn, though it was not by her design. Rather, she heard the insistent ring of a call from her smartphone, the tune a rather upbeat melody that eventually grated on her senses the longer it played.

She blinked at the ceiling for a couple of seconds, then grabbed the phone with her kinesis. The number displayed was Alexis Dun's, and she thought he wouldn't call in the odd hours of the morning unless it were important. Less of an emergency, probably, since they hardly knew each other, but it was also possible he had lost track of time. He was a physician after all, and doctors worked odd hours in a hospital. Come to think of it, she didn't know where he actually worked, unless it was under Lilibeth's grandfather's company.

Well, she wouldn't know unless she answered the call. "Hello. You do realise that it's quite early in the morning."

"Good morning, Miss Lawson. I do bring news that is time sensitive," Alexis said evenly. "Thirty minutes ago, one hundred thirty-one longstrides northwest of Neo Prism City, five longstrides east of the town of Sillyputty, the Unfettered member, Pride, was spotted through a traffic camera. He is in a recreational vehicle driving towards town. If you have any means to detect rifts into Interstitial Space, you might catch up to him, and hopefully, the other members of the band. I'll forward the images, the map coordinates, and the telemetry to your civilian phone."

Yuriko blinked, then hummed, "Thank you, I appreciate it."

"You're welcome."

Almost as soon as she hung up, Desire's fingers traced Yuriko's bare skin. They circled her more sensitive bits, prompting a quick reaction before she could rein herself in.

"A problem, Master?" Desire whispered against her ear. Yuriko shivered as her blood rushed, but it took only a thought to negate the physical reaction. Her Chaos Lord noticed and held herself back with a sigh, not that she had real cause to, considering they'd been at it most of the night. She hadn't washed the dried, yet sticky fluids off her body before they slept, too.

"Business calls, I'm afraid," Yuriko admitted as she untangled herself from Desire's limbs. The other girl nodded and pulled the sheets off herself.

"I heard some of it, Master."

Yuriko nodded as her kinesis pulled her Regalia costume out of the closet. At the same time, she prepped the shower to cleanse herself—she wasn't about to get into tight-fitting clothing while covered in seminal and other body fluids.

"A sighting of the Unfettered. They're the ones whose lair is located in Interstitial Apace. I've had you looking for them…"

"I apologise for not finding anything." Desire murmured as she rose to join Yuriko in the shower.

"No matter. Astoria is too big for one person to scour its underlayers. But we have a chance now, I think."

"They have offended you greatly, Master?"

"More annoyed at first, but they implanted a parasite in Scarlett's head, and the other club members too, which resulted in memory loss. Among other things. Plus, they spread fear and death. Practically speaking, aside from it being the right thing to do, it will also bolster Regalia's reputation."

Desire squeezed into the shower and started scrubbing Yuriko's body with her bare hands. If those fingers lingered overmuch, Yuriko didn't mind, though she did admonish the girl, "Behave."

"I always do, my Master."

Desire's sultry whisper didn't help much. Her own fingers brushed the other girl's smoothness. Her ascension to Chaos Viscount had altered Desire's fundamental form, though she wasn't sure what the difference was compared to Devotee's. The latter had simply changed her physical sex, and as far as Yuriko could tell, her demeanour hadn't changed all that much. But then again, she didn't know Devotee all that well before subduing and binding her.

Desire, on the other hand, was more than passingly familiar. Within the Chaos Lord was the Anima of a friend, whose name had been forfeited. She couldn't say, or even think of that name, without causing some little bit of pain to Desire. The Chaos Lord hid it well, but it hadn't taken long before she noticed. She was also sure that Desire's being was composed of more than her friend, though the bindings and the connecting threads told her that the dominating personality was Ash…that friend's.

She banished regret and sighed fitfully while luxuriating in Desire's ministrations and the hot water. She was tempted to linger, but she didn't know how long the Unfettered would stay where they had been sighted. That half an hour had already passed meant that they could be anywhere by now, but hopefully, they would remain in the general area. In Interstitial Space, if not in the real world.

"Will you join me?" Yuriko asked as soon as she finished drying off. She put on her Regalia outfit, hastening the process with fine-tuned kinesis control.

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"I cannot fly as quickly as you can, Master, so you'll have to carry me."

"Alright." Yuriko went out of her bedroom and scanned Scarlett's room with her perception. Her former body's friend was still asleep. She was tempted to just leave a note, but Scarlett would want to know what happened. She knocked on the door and felt the other jolt awake.

"Lily? Why're you waking…haaah…up so early?" the smol redhead scrubbed at her eyes when she opened the door.

"I'm headed north. Got a tip about the Unfettered."

Scarlett stiffened, then growled, "I'll come with you!" She ran towards her bathroom even before the last word left her lips.

"Can we afford to wait, Master?" Desire asked waspishly.

"Five minutes!" Yuriko called out.

They could, probably. It would take a few minutes to fly there, she knew, but only if she wanted to shatter the sound barrier. Twenty minutes to half an hour was more reasonable. With Desire on the team, they were just as likely to pick up the trail as to directly encounter them.

She prepared a few sandwiches and a thermos of coffee for each of them, managing to finish just in time for Scarlett to come out of her bedroom in her Harakin costume. Wordlessly, she enveloped both women with her kinesis, pulled them close to her body, and they exited the apartment through the balcony. It was early enough in the day that there were few witnesses to their egress, and she headed directly up before she oriented herself northwest. She opened her smartphone's map function and located Sillyputty, then off they went.

Carrying two women with her meant that her flight wasn't as fast as she was used to, though her reach in her incarnation body was already at seventy paces, more than twice what she started with. Which meant her flight speed was just below what she could have accomplished several cycles ago.

In the meantime, she devoted some of her strands of consciousness to reviewing the data her grandfather's organisation had given her earlier.

Pride was the codename for the Unfettered Altered Human who created the lioness minions. Probably the winged women, too, now that she thought of it. The creatures weren't truly real, considering they didn't quite leave bodies behind. However, considering the monsters her true body hunted in Shangria, it might well be that Pride created those minions using actual bodies implanted with his power rather than creating them whole. They had not been much of a challenge, but they were able to scratch her Anima. It was a pity her incarnation body didn't really help grow her true body's reach. Not directly anyway.

There was also the creature called Mauler. That one was a vicious, sadistic—and perhaps masochistic, too—monster that had an insane regeneration power. She hadn't had time to do more than cut him to pieces so she could move on, but apparently, the thing had survived directed Radiant energy. To finish him off, she might have to use a Radiant Lance to scour every last bit of him. She hadn't tried to Shape Sorcery in Astoria yet. She just hoped that if she were forced to, the dreadful amount of Radiance wouldn't consume everything around her.

Hmmm, but perhaps with her bolstered Intent and Will, she could more easily control her Sorcery once she let it loose. Something to practice, but probably not in Astoria.

A third member of the Unfettered was someone called John Smith. A rather normal name, and when she looked at the profile, she saw several dozen faces, mostly male, but a few female. A shapeshifter, though most of the data contained more hearsay than hard fact. She was sure that the man hadn't been there during the attack at camp.

There were three other suspected members of the group, but only one was named. Stalker was a creature more machine than flesh, and according to the intelligence, was the one who was capable of creating and maintaining their pocket space. The creature looked more like a store mannequin than anything else, though hints of circuitry and gears were shown through the gaps of its joints.

Stalker was key to undoing the Unfettered, she thought. Without being able to hide and more through Interstitial Space, they wouldn't be able to avoid the law's scrutiny and pursuit. Though she would finish all of them off when given the chance. Come to think of it, why were they travelling across the prime material rather than through the Interstitial? Some limit of Stalker's power, perhaps.

The last two were fairly new, and aside from pictures containing their masked appearances, there was nothing else of note. One looked like a skinny teenager, and the other's profile didn't even have a picture, though they were suspected of being mind controllers. Her thoughts immediately darted to the events of the joint raid with Speedrun and Brilliance. Scarlett encountered one of the thralls who also served as a power conduit. However, she wasn't sure if that mind controller and the one belonging to the Unfettered were the same. She also couldn't be sure that the gangs would be alright with working with the murderous fiends.

Perhaps if enough wealth were thrown around? She had little experience with criminal activity and motivations, if she was honest with herself. Lilibeth dabbled a bit, she recalled, prompted by her obsessive paramour Andrew Evans. That odious fellow not only got her drugged up, but she was pretty sure he passed Lilibeth around.

Shaking her head, she slowed their flight as she checked her phone for the location tag. They were over a strip of highway that wasn't particularly distinct. Dozens of cars passed underneath, and of course, there was no sign of the RV the Unfettered used. Not that she expected to spot considering they were driving towards Sillyputty.

They were about a hundred paces above the ground, and it was by no means high enough to be invisible. She noticed more than a few incoming vehicles slow down. She ignored them in favour of flying towards the town instead. Desire and Scarlett were conversing in a low voice, and while she could just as easily eavesdrop, considering both were within her Anima, she didn't bother to. Both women were slightly antagonistic towards each other, with Scarlett vociferously asking her how she met Desire and why Yuriko trusted the Chaos Lord.

Unable to give any credible reason, other than the truth of the matter, Yuriko simply elided it and said they met in Interstitial Space and that Desire had sworn fealty to her. She had to press her Mien on Scarlett for the girl to accept that, but since she didn't want to divulge her true origins, it would have to do. If it came to a point that her incarnation body had to merge back into her true body, she might revisit it.

Not that it was easy to lie. It wasn't, and it only took a minute for the other girl to point out the inconsistencies…

Soon enough, they arrived at the edge of town.

"Dee. Head over into the Interstitial Space and see if you can track them down. Scar, let's see what we can find here."

"Alright!" Both of them answered in unison. Yuriko brought all three of them to the ground, and her Chaos Lord slipped through the tiny gaps between reality's canvas.

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