[ARC 1: SCOURGE OVER URASARIA]

  Rita Kuznetsov is dead.

  This sentence is separated from all that is to come because all that is to come is a result of this statement. It is a fact, and it is of reality.

  More important to this novel, however, is perception. Perception is a separate beast from reality, the former almost the entirety of human experience, and the latter brief slices of objective existence only occasionally accessible to ourselves. Through the imposition of our senses upon reality, we filter it into a more palatable form to ourselves as creatures of thought, and name this a reality, into which we invest what we consider the most vital parts of ourselves. Stated differently, the traits of objective existence are not as important as the thoughts, fantasies, emotions, and memories that they trigger in their observers.

  What arises then is the flaw of perception, which is not what is overlooked or forgotten, but what is created or imbued. The strength of this gaze overpowers the reality of past events by the distortion that is memory. It inverts internal habits of thought outward into what we call interpretations or predictions, atmospheres of our perceived existences. We as observers become monoliths of past moments made to interpret fresh events, yet are unable to reinvent ourselves without sundering what we consider to be existence itself, for we have invested into our perception what we call reality.

  What is not subjective is that Rita Kuznetsov is dead. She had been dead for five years, as she had been killed in 2013. She was not a particularly kind nor bright person, and only later will it be apparent why any words should be spilt over her. For now, however, she was a female host, women who carry out tasks of death and errands of regret, of Rita Kuznetsovs and other such weatherers of life.

  But none of the above was at the tip of the mind of Mia Schultz at the beginning of August 2018. She was a 6'0" tall young white woman with mid-length white hair, who typically dressed androgynously in a button-down shirt tucked into her pants.

  Tact had never been one of Mia's better traits, and she had nurtured an anger, generally, to things in life that bothered her. In those swells of emotion she could feel something deeply, for otherwise her life was comprised of many things that elicited little response. She was a loner and did not speak much to others in real life, although she argued much on the internet. The internet had become her own focused slit of perception through which she had retreated herself, as many others have since the emergence of Revenants. Although the internet is not reality, it was one to Mia.

  She had not socialized with many others her age but Urasaria students, a few of whom used to flirt with her until she let them know she was underage (although she occasionally declined to mention it). She identified herself with Urasaria students, although to what extent this identification was due to her own genetic inability to become a host is for others to deem, for since the time she was a teenager she had been aware of a substrata of life she would be permanently disbarred from accessing.

  She had become an observer of others, whether as a young girl at others' birthdays, usually sitting alone, a shy girl observing, storing things inside herself that she might later communicate to someone older. This erudition and introspection had continued to swirl her to the edges of others, the deepening of herself into as an odd an interest as Urasaria Academy students; the development of herself had followed the development of her circumstances as well.

  Today she was visiting a building whose purpose had become nearly superfluous in recent years: a prison for former hosts. There was a man whose name she knew as Rodale at the front desk, along with his supervisor.

  "Afternoon, Mia." said Rodale. "Here to visit your father?"

  "Yes."

  He started typing. "I'll have them bring him out soon, then. Any particular reason you were so late today?"

  "Revenant."

  She turned away, and heard the supervisor titter with some comment to Rodale before she sat down and took out her phone. She then continued to engage in one of those endless internet arguments she constantly placed herself in; she had increasingly begun to use the internet as a punching bag. To her mind, her years as a latchkey child walking home with Urasaria students had grounded an obligation to defend them, acidic as she was.

  *Go ask a radiation victim in California if students are too violent.*

  *I would rather have a lesbian student my age helping me instead of a dumb fascist cop, but I've actually dealt with both of them, unlike you.*

  *Cops abuse their de-facto legal immunity for decades and no one cares, but a student shoplifts and this is what you sanctimonious dipshits care about?*

  She had seen enough violent hosts with Revenants to feel no sympathy over their deaths. She had seen her first corpse when she was nine years old, though felt nothing for it, even after the realization of what it had been struck her weeks later. The residential areas around Urasaria Academy are paradoxically safe yet considered dangerous; students are able to respond quickly to all rogue hosts, though the frequency of such attacks is high. Similarly paradoxical is the disconnect between social politics and criminological stances in the surrounding counties, which is best summed as the median voter believing lesbianism should be applauded and criminality executed.

  Mia was able to step outside of her own geographical region, somewhat, yet still had been seeped into by some of these stances. But, rent had been cheap around Urasaria Academy, and she came from parents who never had much money until her father's arrest.

  She heard the front doors open and a Urasaria student stepped inside. She was a young redhead whose movements were akin to that of a millipede, and as Mia would confess, she was not a particularly normal woman. They had spoken a few times before, yet Mia found that she spoke as awkwardly as herself, with even more esoteric interests. But Mia supposed that hosthood, as with all other forms of freedom, acted as amplifiers for all that existed within a person; the violent grew more violent, the odd odder, and the sullen would retreat into their eyes alone as bearers to their existence.

  The redhead pulled out a cigarette. One of Manufacture's metal rods formed in her other hand, and an electrical spark from it lit her cigarette as another arc pulled the smoke away.

  Rodale spoke up. "This isn't a smoking prison, miss Star Thrower."

  "I have to smoke to power my Revenant."

  "Never heard of one like that."

  "Then you -- you should be grateful I-I informed you. You know, i-it purifies the chemicals out so I can spew it at enemy ho-hosts. It's environmentalist."

  Rodale sighed and a guard called out to Mia. She stood up and was about to be escorted, then said to Rodale: "I'm glad she could clear that up for you." She was escorted to the telephone visitation hall, then sat across from her father Stefan.

  She put the phone to her ear. "There was a Revenant, I'm sorry I'm so late."

  "That's alright, I'll just have to speak quicker." He laughed. "So, first off, let me know - who's on guard today?"

  "It's Julia Bates. Star Thrower. The redhead. She's a second-year, her Revenant is Manufacture, and her name comes from a Loren Eiseley story about throwing starfishes-"

  "Alright, you don't have to give me the fansite version."

  "Julia doesn't have fans. She constantly offers that up herself. Perhaps she craves praise while doing the oppose of everything that would garner it. I don't know."

  "Well, hopefully they'll have a real celebrity tomorrow. What about… college admissions are soon, right? Those going well?"

  "They did. I already told you I was accepted, didn't I?"

  "Good, good. And your major? Is it still going to be Psychology?"

  "That or Criminology, yes. I would need to be in school for longer with a Psychology degree, but Criminology, there's plenty of careers that would open up with that. Some of them with alphabet agencies, some with police, which I don't love, but…" She sighed. "I hadn't expected to talk about this when I came here, but I've done my research when it comes to that. I know I'll need to support her when her hands do finally give out, but how much financial support does she actually need from me?"

  "Age introduces a lot of unforeseen costs, Mia. You know that a Psychology degree is affordable for us. Any degree is. But I would prefer you go with something a bit more direct in terms of a path to a career."

  "Why are my interests always being put on hold? I could support her fine with either of those degrees, and it isn't as if I'll be single my entire life, either. A college education is valuable regardless of the field - it's a ward against poverty."

  "Well, I suppose we'll have to discuss that as we get closer. But there's no guarantee that what Alina has isn't genetic, and I would hate for you to get trapped in that terrible situation just like her and I were."

  "I understand that, but... I feel like your desire to force me not to experience poverty again is almost as stressful as the memory of it itself."

  "Fine. Then I'll let you go home with it. What about your dating life? Anyone new in that?"

  "Never mind, we can go back to the poverty." muttered Mia. "I… well. Maybe that'll improve at college, as well."

  "I'm sure you'll do well. You know your mother says you have the height of a model."

  "I know I'm not exactly in short demand with women. I just haven't felt the impulse yet to seriously date, and it isn't for lack of wanting some attachment, but… I don't know."

  Stefan grinned. "And is Julia single?"

  "Oh God, no." Mia's face scrunched. "Please. A-and even if I were into her, students don't date civilians, regardless. Not to any serious extent. It's just inherently depressing. We die. They don't. Not naturally, at least."

  They continued to talk, yet still Mia felt her life was being gripped by her parents again; she felt these interrogations were slights against her, intentional or not. She had difficulty letting such things go, and held almost all of them in her skull akin to the hooks of Velcro, a score kept track of in only her singular mind.

  She still loved her father, perhaps moreso than she did her mother, though not to any sense of identifying more heavily with one or the other. It was merely that her father had sacrificed himself for their family, and thus any resentment she could hold towards his absence seemed ungrateful. Since Mia was a child, her mother Alina had been unable to work long hours due to a persistent issue in her hands, one of those primarily female illnesses with no known cause and that most doctors disbelieved: partially why Stefan had always been bullish on Mia's education.

  Having grown up in poverty, hearing this dictum and others, she had felt an accretion of adult stressors upon herself far earlier than usually appropriate. Even as an 18-year-old woman now, she felt still this wall of fear that even her happier expressions could barely rise over; she was not depressed, but rather ruminated and had been forced to ruminate more than was entirely healthy. And though she hated her father's imprisonment, a part of her was grateful that his arrest and the money he had stolen, still obtainable by the family, had alleviated somewhat her stressors, to where recently she had felt a gradual sinking back into her own age.

  After a guard escorted Mia back to the waiting room, she noticed the Urasaria student Julia was still smoking. The cancer risk was no obstacle to Julia; Mia had seen students survive amputation before, for the bacterial colony on their hearts gave them intense durability. As she walked past, Julia pulled the smoke away from her eyes.

  On the way home, she decided to walk closer by Urasaria Academy's street, though she always could imagine it deeply in her head. Businesses and places of residence gradually thin until there is a long unpaved road with no speed limit sign posted; not that students would have understood the concept of one; and the tall walls covered in fireflies, along with the rural country almost intentionally barren with aged weeds, as if meant to project an austerity that did not match most students she knew and liked. There are their various courts for host versions of sports and other hobbies that would kill a civilian to even attempt, and other amenities students have constructed themselves.

  Students are kept almost unnaturally separate from the civilian population, which along with the natural segregation of the immortal and mortal, means that most interactions students have with civilians are in hostile or investigative contexts. Yet it was occasionally this tendency that Mia had been able to exploit, for a show of admiration or respect was enough to melt the corners of most's mouths into a smile.

  As she made her way over, she texted her mother, then heard a voice murmur "FTL." behind her as four arms gripped her from behind and she fell unconscious.

  ===

  [Mad Dog]

  Mia awoke in an unfamiliar room and was bound tightly to a bed by several bars of steel. Before she could react, the pink-haired woman standing over her was already speaking: "-gue host, I state again! You thought that you could escape the long eye of Urasaria Academy, but your criminal days end today, mongrel. I will give you two choices: to fight for the military or fight for Urasaria. If you refuse, you shall be ground alive and scattered among us students as food. I have killed and eaten hundreds of rogue scum like you, and one more will be no different. Your bones will provide great power to my Revenant."

  "…er... I'm not a host…" mumbled Mia.

  A trumpet appeared in the woman's hands. "Would you like to retract that little statement, worm? I could kill you with a single toot of this horn of truth. You are kept ignorant by the media we control as to how us students truly act, but now I will exact-"

  "I know students don't act like this."

  "Uh, yeah, we do."

  "No, you don't. You're normal women, just desensitized to violence and lesbianism. You just think it's funny to lie to civilians."

  "One, it is, and two, fuck you for not playing along. I already hate you."

  Mia sighed. "Well, I-I'm not a host, so why am I bound up?"

  "Uh, because you are a host."

  "I'm not."

  "No, you are."

  "I'm not."

  "Fuck this! I'm waiting for Aimee."

  She turned and walked out. Mia waited for her to realize if Mia actually were a rogue host, she could not leave her alone in here, then the woman quickly realized and stepped back inside.

  The woman sat down and browsed absentmindedly on her phone. Her name was Makoto, and she took it as a rigid fact that anything involving work should be left to someone else: typically Aimee. Whether the fear she could have induced in Mia was wrong did not really enter her mind: to Makoto the discomfort of others had always approached her as ideas to be dispelled, whether via humor or minimization. It was not entirely that she was insensitive to the suffering of others, but rather that she viewed them as she did fiction: there was always a relentless failure of reality in Makoto's mind.

  Soon another woman entered, and Mia felt a little excited as she recognized her as Urasaria's student-president, Aimee Sato. She was a muscular butch whose black hair was rather uneven, and she wore a denim vest to which she always had a knife affixed. Her Urasaria badge read: MAD DOG. "Okay, what happened?"

  "This chick claims she's not a host, but she is, so I'm pretty sure she's either lying or brain damaged." said Makoto. "She turned up unconscious at the front gate. She's already been tested."

  "…okay." Aimee sat down. "Um, why do you claim you're not a host, miss…?" She looked to Makoto. "…miss…?"

  "Er, she doesn't know my name." said Mia. "It's Mia. Mia Schultz."

  Aimee looked over to Makoto, and as she had many times, wonder what it was that drove her to be friends with this monumental moron. She had become a friend of location for Aimee, someone whom she only interacted with primarily because they were in the same place and that she had known her since she entered Urasaria. "Okay. I'm Aimee, and this other woman here is not important. I'm Urasaria's student-body president."

  "Decided by kills, not popularity, by the way." said Makoto. "Violence over democracy. Like the Urasaria motto says: when a host-"

  "She doesn't need to know that." sighed Aimee.

  Mia knew the rest of that motto: when a host by their reprehensible behavior practically cries out to be destroyed, it is our moral duty to oblige them of their wish. It is mostly a motto students prefer not to tell civilians of, along with similarly violent language; she knew that students referred to what they did not as investigating but hunting. She had often attempted to appropriate student language in such a way, as if her own individuality was a strand of hair unfortunately intruding upon the bald nape she desired.

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  "But, um, Mia." said Aimee. "It's okay if you're a rogue host. I don't know what Makoto told you before I got here, but we're not going to hurt you. You would just need to have your Revenant removed or join Urasaria or the military."

  Mia sighed. "B-But I can't be a host. I don't have the gene for Volgari proteins, I can't… I can't host a Revenant. I wish that I could, but I can't."

  "Do you have a test result proving that?"

  "My mother would have it. Alina Schultz. I-I was tested when I was 16."

  "Her phone is over here." Makoto picked it up out of the corner, and before she could go through it, it disappeared from her hands and into Aimee's. "Hey, what the fuck?"

  "You couldn't even ask her what her name was, I'm not letting you handle this." said Aimee. "Mia. Do you remember anything before you woke up here?"

  "I was visiting my father at Ocean Prison. I left, and I felt someone- someone attacked me, and I woke up here. I was on my way home to my mother."

  "Okay. Um, gimme a minute, please. I'm going to have someone from the infirmary give your mom a call and explain what's going on, so she doesn't worry." Blue tendrils burst from Aimee's wrists and she disappeared. In the ten seconds she was gone, Mia became aware that there was blood on her own mouth, though it seemed not from any wounds she bore. Aimee reappeared, blue tendrils retreating into her wrists. "Okay. Just need to wait, u-uhm. Probably feeling uncomfortable with all the restraints, right?"

  "A-A little bit." Mia coughed.

  "Let me undo them some." Aimee reached over and bent a few of the steel bars restraining Mia back. "Better?"

  "Thank you."

  Makoto noted that Aimee had fumbled some with unrestraining Mia; clearly she was nervous for rather predictable reasons, physically attractive as Mia was. She resolved to treat this new weakness in Aimee as she did any other in her friend: mercilessly mocking her for it in private. And throughout every following conversation she observed between the two, did Aimee stutter or tense in some way; not entirely expressed only in word but through the architecture of her body.

  Aimee spoke. "So, we have to keep you here until we confirm you don't have the host gene, but…"

  "Yeah, except you're either a lying host or a medical marvel and one of those is way more common than the other." said Makoto. "Rogue hosts lie as easily as they breathe. I wouldn't believe you if your tongue was notarized."

  "I don't think she's lying." said Aimee.

  "Well, I guess she did have brain damage when she got brought in. Maybe her memory is all busted up. Plus that glassy-eyed shit at the start? ... Tell you that later."

  "Brain damage? Glassy eyes - what are you talking about?" said Mia.

  "Makoto, just leave." sighed Aimee. (Makoto snickered and left.) "I'm sorry that you have to live in a world where Makoto's mother chose to give birth."

  "What was it she said about brain damage? Both of you keep saying I was tested, but I-I don't understand what you mean and I feel like I'm being p-pranked again. You took a blood sample?"

  "I promise you aren't being pranked. Maybe Makoto would, but I'd never do something like that. Umm... specifically, it's that Saya, one of our medics, was able to heal you. Medical Revenants don't work on non-hosts. You had some brain damage from being knocked unconscious by an electrical Revenant, but it's fully healed now."

  "…alright. But I still feel some blood on my mouth. Is that not mine?" She made to move her arms, and Aimee nodded as she bent back her restraints fully, so Mia could wipe her mouth on her sleeve.

  "I don't think it is. She said there weren't any other wounds on you. But you probably have a Revenant now for the same reason you had someone else's blood on your mouth, since, umm… that was the only other trace we found."

  "...I d-don't understand." muttered Mia. "I don't understand how it could flip my genetics l-like that. I-It's not that I'm not grateful if it's true, it's that it shouldn't be possible. I don't produce Volgari proteins."

  "Well, um… I don't know. It'd have to be gene therapy, but I thought that doesn't work in humans. Something about the immune system shutting it out?" Aimee winced. "Hey, the important thing is you're a host now, and… look, I-I don't think you're lying. Maybe a Revenant did this to you. Maybe- um, I don't- sorry. Do you want anything to eat or drink while we wait for your test results? I-I should've asked that earlier."

  "Er, water, if that's alright."

  "Okay."

  Blue tendrils burst from Aimee's wrists, and she disappeared, then reappeared outside of the room, in Urasaria's infirmary.

  "You can thank me for making you look great by comparison, by the way." said Makoto. "I'm always looking out for you."

  "Yeah, thanks, now she'll associate me with you." said Aimee. "I can't believe Hirogane was stupid enough to leave you alone with her. You didn't even ask her what her name was?"

  "Hey, I was leaving that for you, stud. Not my fault you're fucking hopeless when it comes to acting normal around women. Stuttering and anxiety are not attractive traits, you know."

  "Yeah, okay. I remember when you told me your first year that you masturbated so much your fingers were pruned for a year. You've never met a situation you couldn't ruin with your sexuality."

  "At least I don't have to repent every time I think a woman is hot, unlike you."

  "I just don't judge women by their appearance like you do."

  "No, you're just ashamed of being a lesbian, but you call yourself predatory because that's a nicer word than sinful." Makoto shrugged. "Anyway, what do you need?"

  "I was just getting her a glass of water."

  "Oh, that's nice."

  This type of banter was typical between the two; why Aimee put up with it, she surmised only as loneliness and that Makoto's debauchery provided a useful antidote against the conservatism of her own religious upbringing.

  Aimee sighed and went to Saya's office in the infirmary. Saya was a black-haired woman who dressed modestly, and the infirmary's secondary medic - she always referred to herself as a medic rather than a host. "Hey, I just need a glass of water."

  Saya nodded, pulling one of the glasses out from her desk and handing it to Aimee. Streams of black fog extended from Saya and transformed into water as it filled the glass.

  "Is Luna in today?"

  "She is, but she asked for time alone. She wanted to try socializing a little."

  Aimee nodded, but figured the infirmary's freckled chef was likely cooped up in her office. It was known around Urasaria that it took Saya to get anything out of Luna - whether they were best friends or best girlfriends was something speculated but never certain. "How's that going?"

  "She's… still in her office. I should check on her."

  Saya left, and Aimee sighed as she sat in her chair, turning to Makoto. "Okay. Anyway, I'm not letting you back in when I give this to her, so get out what you wanna say now."

  Makoto snickered. "She's so fucking hot."

  "Not really what I was focusing on."

  "Oh, now we're back to religious guilt again? Won't let yourself admit it?"

  "Look, she's pretty, but I don't even know if she's a lesbian."

  "If she keeps the Revenant, she'll become one anyway. And if she's not single, she'll leave whoever she's dating once the personality changes start and she sends them a bouquet of severed heads for Valentine's Day thinking it's cute."

  Aimee frowned. She wished someone would get her such an adorable gift. She had become marinated in host culture, more specifically student culture, to where death and gore had long ceased to have any effect but pleasure on her. She felt frustrated over her attraction to Mia, though it was not a religious guilt she felt, rather a general guilt she always had over her attractions; she had not only a fear of being misinterpreted, but an interrogation of her motives behind such, as if they needed to be purified before she would allow them to become action.

  She wondered if it was because she had felt not much to be proud of in herself; her Revenant was naturally strong enough that she had thought almost anyone could have become student-president with it; and if she were attempting to compensate such with a surplus of empathy away from herself. This was another difference between herself and Makoto; Makoto would let her bitchiness be known, yet Aimee internalized everything and grew ulcers.

  Lastly Aimee checked in with Hirogane, who was Urasaria's primary medic and a man who wore an ornamental white robe with black splotches. "What did her mom say?"

  "Said the same thing -- swears she doesn't have a Revenant or the gene for Volgari proteins. I asked if she could fax over her test result. Should be coming over in a few minutes."

  "A fax? Why not a fucking email?" said Makoto.

  Hirogane shrugged. "S'what I grew up on."

  "I forget sometimes you're much older than you look." said Aimee. "Kinda nice hosts don't age."

  "Until you're 800 and you were born in a country that doesn't exist anymore." said Makoto. "Old age, lesbianism, and hosthood. Most people barely survive the loneliness of one of those."

  Aimee rolled her eyes, then went over to Mia's door. Makoto mimed like she was following her, until with one hand Aimee picked her up by her collar and deposited her around. "Go." She stepped through the door and sat across from Mia. "Hey, sorry for the wait. Your mom said she's sending over the test results now, so."

  "Alright."

  "Um, so- I guess I mentioned who I was earlier, but I wanna reassure you again that you're not in trouble. Maybe you're not a host, maybe you are, but I'm not going to hurt you or let anyone else hurt you."

  "You're Urasaria's student-president, aren't you?" Mia laughed nervously. "I'm- a bit of a fangirl, but I've never gotten to see you out and about before."

  "Um, yeah, that's right. I… mostly handle students getting themselves in trouble. Assigning investigations, helping out if something happens pretty close to campus. Medical marvels getting dropped off at the front gates and m-making me nervous, that type of stuff. Sorry."

  Hirogane stepped inside holding a sheet of paper. "She didn't have Volgari proteins before. She has them now. You were tested when you were sixteen."

  Mia nodded. Her pillow had been damp the entire week after that result.

  "So, medical marvel to host a Revenant without proteins, or another Revenant gave it to her." said Hirogane. "She doesn't have an allergy to Penxeno, either. Saya already checked her with Blackburn."

  Mia smiled and was a little giddy, although with that there was a counter-wax against such hope. "I- is there any possibility it could die out? I-If I weren't actually producing proteins."

  "The colony won't take without proteins." said Aimee. "Right, Hirogane?"

  "S'right."

  "When will it activate?" said Mia.

  "Sometime within the next few weeks." said Aimee. "And then, um… do you want to keep it?"

  Mia nodded. "Absolutely. I've always wanted to join Urasaria, assuming it- yes, I do."

  Aimee smiled as Hirogane left. "Okay, good. I can go over that with you now. So, you would start out with being given a tablet, and-"

  "I know." nodded Mia.

  "…the mentors?"

  "Yes."

  "The rankings?"

  "Yes. I've read about it all online or heard it from students directly."

  Aimee wondered how much of Mia's information was correct; she knew of one redheaded student who told civilians that all students had a bomb implanted in themselves that destroyed their Revenants upon death. "Alright. But ask me if you need any clarification, okay?"

  "Er, I did need to ask something. I know that Revenants turn women gay. What happens if you're already a lesbian?"

  "You keep your sexuality."

  "Oh, thank god."

  "Yeah, it's just a flip in the rate of sexuality. Sometimes you get straight women who get turned gay and they aren't sure whether to be grateful or not."

  Mia laughed. "So they're doubly-blessed. God, I just hope it actually does take, I've just... I've wanted to be a student for so long, but I-I couldn't produce the proteins, you know?"

  "Kinda surprising to hear you say that. I mean, not that it's bad, but civilian women usually don't like Urasaria. I didn't really consider that someone could grow up wanting to kill for a living like we do."

  "Then perhaps I'll continue to surprise you." Mia sat up and smiled as Aimee pulled up a chair. "But you're ridding society of violent people. You're in a community where lesbianism is the default. Civilian mockery and insults and abuse don't mean anything, and you're the architect of your own circumstances. That's what appeals to me about it."

  Aimee subtly noted that Mia had not spoken of the actual primary purpose of Urasaria; to protect civilians from violent hosts; but perhaps that was such a foundational assumption it was not worth noting. "Can't say I didn't feel a lot of that when I first joined, too. Guess it's different since I was born with my Revenant. Feels like it's mostly been a different type of stress compared to civilian life, but I wouldn't have anything else to compare it to, really."

  "Then I'll be sure to fill you in." chimed Mia. "But you're providing a much kinder introduction to Urasaria than that other woman did."

  Aimee nervously laughed. "I'm sorry again about Makoto. I mean, I'm going to talk to her about that and tell her it's not acceptable, and-"

  "I get the feeling she's been told that a lot." Mia laughed.

  "True. But I got presidency a few months ago, so now she has to listen."

  Mia nodded. "Since May 1st, yes. You're... a lot nicer than the fan profiles made you out to be, admittedly. But most of those student profiles that fans write are from non-locals."

  "That makes sense, yeah. Only time most students run into civilians is investigating them." Aimee looked to Mia, thought about saying something, then did not.

  "I know you recognized my name."

  "Same one?"

  "My father is Stefan Schultz, yes, and the memorability of that acronym didn't help with the media." Mia sighed. "But we've both been caught in that distortion, haven't we? The way I was treated when I was just a young girl. Sometimes I worry if I let myself display all of the anger I actually had around it, I would end up... well. We should, er, switch subjects. Something else. Back to my sudden Revenant?"

  Aimee nodded. "So, as for the original kidnapping, one issue with Revenant investigations is hosts don't typically leave much evidence, so…"

  "I assume there weren't any samples taken of my clothes. But I did wake up with blood on my mouth. Was that my own?"

  Aimee felt embarrassed. "Kinda assumed it was your's. We didn't check it or anything. Most we're going to be able to do is find who dropped you off here, at least, since the academy is under surveillance. They're already working on that, but um, once your Revenant activates, we'll have a better idea. Might be a clue there, too, depending on what it is. Kinda why they're not going to let you leave until then."

  Mia shook her head. "That's alright. I thought they wouldn't, but I've wanted to be a student for years. Getting to look around campus will be wonderful."

  "You mean around the infirmary? They're not going to let you out anywhere besides here."

  "…oh."

  Aimee nervously laughed. "Sorry. I trust you, but it's not my decision. I'm sorry. But I'll be helping you find out once we know more, u-um, if you want."

  "I would. Thank you."

  Aimee would not be normally involved in an investigation, yet she knew she would be because of Mia; for a moment she could delude herself into believing that a single woman on the planet cared if she was a good investigator. Yet this ostensibly altruistic act guilted her, and she wondered at her own desire, for by some strange sanctity did she feel things needed to be pure with herself; others were allowed ulterior motives, but not herself.

  This construct had bound itself with intensity through her corporeal being, however spiritually located such origins were; it had been easy for her to cast God out in thought, but harder still was why he remained in herself. Her own thoughts walked through a hallway of groping hands that interrogated her movement, and she thought such a self-centered restriction strange, for none others she encountered had such limitations of thought.

  For now she blinked such things clear from her mind. She had always been adept at stowing such things away into the vacuoles of the every day, however heavily these anxieties would later exert themselves upon her being. She had been student-president for about two months after leading the rankings in May, yet still could not settle herself into her role comfortably. She was expected not only to continue her student role as the finder and murderer of criminal hosts, itself no difficult task for her, but also the mediator of student issues; of translating the dictums of the academy's facility; and dealer of punishment as necessary. These were not skills she possessed.

  Though there are many words yet to be spilled over the lives of hosts, what will suffice for now is to note the integralness of their Revenant to themselves and from which all traits flower. A glance at the personality of a host in some ways always suggests back to hosthood, whether it be in the many uses or abuses of their legal immunity, or in their tendency for rebellion, the ability to destroy others and themselves far more than is allowable by laws natural or written; thus there is always the difficulty of reconciling a population whose survival is not dependent on traits of kindness nor agreeableness, but rather methods of murder and measures of violence.

  ===

  [Worldwide]

  Mia was not allowed outside of Urasaria until her Revenant was active, but she was content. She enjoyed talking with Aimee, who visited her daily, and felt the subsumption of herself into community with others. Out of the third-floor window of the infirmary room she was kept in, she had seen the rows of student housing and the mansions near the front gate & walls. Relatively isolated in location, the area directly around Urasaria Academy had little of the resonant glow life as an urban woman had conditioned her eyes to imbue in night.

  She noticed that as essential as Urasaria was, most of the funding didn't show in the housing. Aimee had pointed out the squat brick of mismatched boards that was row of one-star housing, along with her own mansion: a fact that seemed to embarrass her.

  Aimee's parents were lawyers and had always afforded a high standard of living for their daughter, who they had later abandoned, yet Mia's parents were poor until her father had robbed a bank for his daughter. Given that Aimee had lived within that economic substrata always denied to Mia (for even now they needed to hide the excess money her mother still had), it was not unusual for Mia to ask Aimee much about her home life, yet Aimee continually seemed apologetic of such. Mia was still emotionally situated within her former poverty and Aimee her former riches, both attempting to compromise themselves into the duller woes of a different class, and so it was not surprising that they enjoyed finding what they had in common.

  Many spoke of Aimee as a woman whose only inheritance from her wealthy parents was a firm sense of guilt.

  Aimee told Mia much about Urasaria's operations, and brought her whatever food and gifts and possessions she asked for. Makoto was no longer allowed around until Mia was officially a host, and she had learned Aimee was the rare student who did not seem to possess much of an ego; she had not been able to enter Urasaria with one, abandoned and loathed as she was by her parents before. Thus, there was a fraudulence to the occasional overt confidence she displayed to Mia, along with a sheathing of her more frayed or host-like parts, but they still grew as things Mia wished to nurture herself.

  On the first quarter of the eighth night, something in Mia's room screeched 'WORLDWIDE!' and she woke up screaming.

  Hirogane soon came in and turned the lights on, causing her to wince and throw her hands over her eyes. "What the fuck was-?!"

  "Your Revenant activated. That's what the scream was."

  "W-What? Did you hear it too?"

  "No, I just remembered I forgot to tell you it would scream in your mind. Figured that's why you were screaming. What's its name?"

  Mia sighed and tried to calm herself. She had realized over the past week that Hirogane's bedside manner was far worse than Saya's. "Please just give me a minute..."

  "S'fine." He sat down beside her, and pulled an oily tendril out of one of his robe's black splotches. "Have to check if it's truly active, though, with Pulse." Once Mia was calm, he drew it up her vein, and she felt calmly disgusted as it slithered up inside her arm and touched her heart. He pulled Pulse out. "It's active. Should be able to summon it."

  Mia sighed; she would prefer to wait for Aimee. She called her first, and though Aimee's mansion was farthest from the infirmary, she still got there within a minute. She explained what had occurred, and tensed as she prepared to summon her Revenant. "Worldwide." A dozen scarabs appeared on her right sleeve, golden with a single red line down their backs. One flew above her head and exploded in a tuft of red flame. She smiled.

  "Wanna try it with Rider?" said Aimee.

  Mia gave out her wrist. Blue tendrils burst out of Aimee's wrists, which Mia knew as Rider; some sort of enhancement when dipped into the veins of hosts. Rider's tendrils dipped in her veins, and as another scarab exploded, a tuft of orange flame puffed out; occasionally color changes demarcated differences in strength. "Er, I'm not sure if there's any other ability to it, or..."

  "That's just something you kinda know innately. Can you extinguish it, if you set something on fire?"

  "I don't believe I can." frowned Mia.

  "Oh. Um, do you know about host auras?"

  Mia blinked. "I… I actually don't."

  Aimee snickered. "It's okay. Hard to describe, but it's kinda extending yourself into what you're wearing or holding. Sometimes if you're close to an object and your Revenant is doing something to it, you can extend your aura into it. Revenants can't harm their own hosts or their auras, so if you extend your aura into something, it should extinguish anything that's on fire."

  A scarab exploded on Mia's sleeve, and she nodded as no flame lingered. "Time to apply to Urasaria?"

  "On it." Hirogane yawned and walked out.

  "Should just take a minute." said Aimee excitedly. "Luna's not here, o-otherwise we could celebrate. Maybe tomorrow we could go out fighting and get to know Worldwide, maybe?"

  Mia smiled. "I appreciate the offer, but I'd still like to practice more."

  "Oh, u-um, yeah, sorry. Sure thing, yeah."

  "But, eventually."

  Hirogane came back with her registration papers, and Aimee helped her through them. Once Mia had finished, she wanted sleep again, so Aimee & Hirogane left to the main infirmary. Hirogane gestured Aimee out to the hall.

  "Something's odd with her colony." he said. "Bacteria's highly concentrated in one area of her heart. It's not spread out like a normal Revenant."

  "...I mean. It just activated, right? Even if it was someone else's."

  "My concern is that someone will be coming back for it."

  Aimee frowned. Revenants cannot survive more than 30 days without a host; it is not unthinkable one could use another host for extended storage. "Hopefully not. I'll make sure she gets assigned under Marisa. I'd trust her to keep her safe."

  Hirogane nodded, and as Aimee walked away and out of the building, his eyes leaned to the window to watch the smudge of darkness fade her silhouette. He returned to sleep eventually that night, yet, for the next month, after he had heard the name Worldwide, he felt that odd dance memory has with someone that it has once filed long ago, but cannot yet fully rise into the brew of word or thought. But eventually we shall know the face that filled his memory: that is why the novel does not end here.