Following Light

“You don’t have to repair the entire room, just what’s preventing us from controlling the mirrors.”

“Yes, you say that, but I don’t even know what I’m looking at.”

“For being someone in charge you complain a lot.”

The silent to confident act that Karen underwent started to grate a little. Yumi almost preferred the other version of her. She was just going to have to deal with it. “Just tell me what we have to do.”

“That’s the right attitude!” Silence followed Karen once she got Yumi completely onboard for the repairs. It lasted for a few seconds making Yumi think that she had left them alone without any further aid. They needed her direction if any sort of repairs could happen.

Fortunately, something happened without waiting too long for Karen. A transparent representation of the room that they were in covered the surfaces. Clearly, they weren’t going to be expected to make it look like that again. Though they didn’t get any immediate order from Karen on their target. The projection of the room altered with the wall panels being removed and exposing the internal works covered up.

It still gave them nothing to go by for repair. “Since the main lines into the control room are destroyed, you’re going to need to reconnect the lines via the sub junctions. They aren’t normally designed for this sort of load, but they’ll survive until we can do proper repairs.”

“Physical labor was asked for, not technical knowledge.”

“Yes, I know. I’m filling space while I’m pulling up the schematics for that area.”

“Then maybe you can just say that. I don’t need the technical explanation for what I’m doing.”

“So you’re just a musclehead then.” Hearing that from Karen hit a surprising nerve for Yumi that she didn’t expect. The woman’s direct and blunt delivery shouldn’t have gotten to her the way that it did. If she had been a little more reckless, she would have started yelling at the woman. Yumi didn’t like the idea of being called a musclehead. The woman had no idea what she was talking about and knew nothing about her.

Slowly things changed in the half destroyed room giving more clues to what their job would be. What appeared to be pipes or tubes of some sort ran behind the panels showing to her what they would be working with. It remained just a recreation of reality, so they still waited for directions. But it started to give them a sense of things.

It might be possible with them.

Chapter 478 – Following Light

“Everything’s loaded up now!” reported Karen with the projection no longer changing. Layers of panels were peeled off in simulation along with text labels for everything. It was about as easy to understand as it was going to be, terminology notwithstanding.

“I can see that. What’s the first thing we need to do?”

A square in the simulation lit up that sat behind all of the destruction. The square itself highlighted nothing. There wasn’t even a wall there as best as Yumi could tell. Some hours ago that appeared to be a different case, but now it was just exposed innards of the station with holes everywhere. “You need to reach this part of the wall. I’m detecting that this is the least damaged section.”

“I think that might be a little relative. But alright. We can get there, give us some time.” Yumi stared at the wreckage before them trying to identify the fastest way to it. There was a lot of debris around where she highlighted for them. Even if they climbed over it, they were not certain that they wouldn’t fall or be injured by whatever might be unstable in the area. “Nerine, you wait—“

“Yes, I have arms,” confirmed Nerine, who hadn’t even noticed until this moment. She was so used to her having her injuries, but her powers made up for the loss so it wasn’t really an issue. So seeing her with arms wasn’t a surprise that Yumi focused on when they arrived, but now that she actually thought about it she needed a second.

“Are they real, not your powers?”

“They’re real in that they’re not my powers, but they’re not real.” Nerine showed Yumi her forearm with it appearing to be completely normal until there was a black mark that she found near the elbow that wasn’t right. “They appear to be some sort of prosthetic. Given the level of technology of this world, it’s something that they could create.”

“I guess that’s good then, you can give us a hand.” Yumi stepped forward to the first bit of debris to carry away and give them a safe path to their destination. Nerine quickly came to her aid as the two began to haul away twisted metal. Much of the substance didn’t seem to have the same sort of weight that she expected it to have. They were able to haul it away without feeling strain.

However, a few minutes into the clearing by the time that they had nearly reached the former wall, Yumi looked back to see that Yori hadn’t budge since they started. He refused to help them. She dropped what they were carrying and walked over to him, interrupting their work. “What do you think you’re doing, Yori?”

He refused to answer her. Yori turned away from her, giving her his back to stare at, not even wanting to have a confrontation. But Yumi ignored his wishes and grabbed his shoulder and turned him back to face her. “I asked you a question.”

Silence.

“We agreed to do this. Silence was an acceptance of this job. You followed us. You’re helping out.” Yumi grabbed him tightly and pulled him towards the damaged section. She could feel him trying to resist her, but her strength won out against him. Despite not having her powers anymore, it seemed that some amount of her physical training carried over for some reason.

She was actually stronger than him.

That bit of information came as a surprise more to Yori than Yumi as he found himself unable to get any meaningful footing to put up resistance. His feet just slid over the floor more in danger of stumbling than anything.

“Stop acting like a child and be the man that you used to be!”

Silence.

Nerine could only stare and watch hesitantly seeing the siblings arguing with Yumi completely controlling the situation. She couldn’t even think of words to say to them. Ever since the incident with them in the other world, things were no longer the same. It wasn’t something that she had advice to offer. Yuki was better suited to it, if he were only still around.

Yumi threw Yori into the remainder of the pile with his uniform getting a little torn up in the process. She stood in front of him blocking his exit. “Now you either help or talk, you’re not leaving.”

‘You’re being too forceful Yumi…’

“So what’s it going to be, Yori?”

He slowly stood up ignoring the cut on his arm to stare at Yumi. Despite her pressing the issue, he still remained mute. It hadn’t been enough to crack into him. Even if he couldn’t stop her strength, he could resist her in other ways. Ignoring her warning, he attempted to go around her leaving the area, but she grabbed him.

“That’s not an option.” She pulled up a piece of wreckage. “Why don’t you try to be an adult and actually talk?” The torn up and twisted piece of paneling divided them as she held it between them. “If you can’t manage that then I won’t treat you like one.”

‘You sort of gave that up when you started to drag him around.’

His continued silence left Yumi with the only option of putting the panel piece in his hands. Pressing it up against his chest, she forced him to catch it and push him on his way. “Fine, act like a child!” She walked around him getting back to the work with Nerine helping her.

It only took another minute to clear away the space, no thanks to Yori immediately stopping after he was finished with the one piece. She could not afford more emotions for his behavior. “Alright Karen, we’re here. What’s next?”

“Yes, I see that you’re set.” The highlighted area disappeared with the next part becoming highlighted. “The lines are completely beyond repair past this point. You need to purge the damaged sections so that you can connect up the rerouted ones you will create.”

“Purge…right…” Yumi leaned around following the instructions from the projection. ‘I expected this to be a little harder given the level of technology, but it explains why they could send us to do this.’ The directions of the lights took her to a panel with a physical button on it, something that she hadn’t seen before. It told her to push it, so she did.

Nothing.

“Karen…”

“Hmm…looks like the purge controls are damaged. There’s backups. There!” The new instructions guided her to a lever beneath the panel. She pulled on it struggling with the strength needed. It barely budged for her, but she could feel a little give in the lever. Some amount of progress was being made, even if it was only a small amount. Yumi threw her whole body behind it with seconds passing before it all finally released at once.

The lever fully came down with connectors to the caps of the lines popping out. They shot out perpendicular to her and fell harmlessly away. Now that what kept everything locked together was removed, she could start pulling on the damaged lines. Nerine with her added strength of her artificial arms managed to give most of the strength needed.

Yumi stepped back waiting for the next instructions. “Damaged lines removed.”

“Now we’re going to need to find some undamaged lines you can use to bridge the reroute. Give me a moment.”

Taking a spare moment to break, they walked back out to the safer section of the room near the hall. Yumi looked over at Yori, who continued to remain silent and unresponsive. ‘I can’t believe he’s still caught up with that. It’s been five years. He needs to move on.’ She glanced over at Nerine, who looked a little off put by having her limbs back, even though it was something that she had known for most of her life. It left her a little shaken from what Yumi could tell.

“Found it!” Karen announced, with the instructions coming back to life for her. She directed them back out into the hallway. “You’re going to have to remove the panels from the wall and disconnect the lines. I’ve got everything deactivated so they’re dead. You just need to pull out what we need to make the connection.”

“Sounds straightforward! We’re on it!” Motioning to Nerine, they began their work. It thankfully was no more harder than it seemed. Since everything was undamaged, it actually functioned better than the area that they were repairing. In about half an hour they had all of the spare cabling that they needed. It would just be a matter of hooking everything up.

Nerine worked on the end in the hall while Yumi focused on the damaged section. They followed the instructions that Karen sent getting everything reattached. Power could now be rerouted for them to get control back of the mirror.

Yumi stepped away ready to let Karen know about their work when a rumbling came through the whole station. New alarms went off as she looked around to see if there were any new threats for them. “What’s going on? Is it another attack?” There was nothing from Karen. Yumi ran over to Nerine to check on her in the hall. “Anything wrong here?”

“Nothing, I think it’s further away.”

“We didn’t do anything wrong, right?”

“It’s all foreign to me. I don’t know.” Suddenly another rumble erupted through the station this time creating new rumblings closer to them turning into quakes. What had been distant arrived closer to them. They both looked back to the hall where a red mark on the panels started to appear. Nerine reacted first, understanding better than Yumi and pushed her back into the room as an explosion completely consumed the hallway.

“Nerine!”