Once they returned to Urasaria, Serena had asked Jeanne & Mia not to reveal she was responsible for the return of other students' money, so Jeanne came up with this story: they had planted a tracking device in the briefcase, and after Serena ensured Maria was safe, Jeanne & Mia set out and killed the man themselves.
Given this was far smarter, Serena wished she had come up with this herself, but this is the type of story that was more believable to most students than the reality that Serena decided to eat her money & have it too. It's interesting how people are more willing to believe in a story whose characters act rationally, even when the daily news is filled with criminals who stupidly rush in to bullets & bats.
December 13th, 2019, Serena was in her room finishing up her last anime review before winter break.
'The second half of the show only happens because they let the villain get away the first time instead of murdering him instantly. 6/10.'
She frowned, feeling nervous over what she had planned today.
'7/10, because the intro song is good.'
Nodding to herself a few times, she went out to Mia, who was finishing folding her own clothes in to a suitcase in the living room. "Um, Mia, are you busy?"
Mia glanced up and noticed her tone was more prepared than usual. "Is everything alright?"
"Yeah. It's just, um…" Serena took a deep breath. "…um. I want to tell you something. I was talking about it with Yuruko, and I wasn't sure if I was going to tell you, but ... I'm transgender."
Mia's brow raised, and she cursed herself for having a reaction. "I- oh!"
Serena nervously laughed. "Um, you can -- react, it's okay."
"I- er, no, I'm just… I'm sorry if I've ever…"
"It's cool." Serena smiled. "Um, I'm male-to-female, but you've always been good with it, so. I figured you'd be chill with it."
"I am." nodded Mia, putting on an exaggerated show of acceptance, as allies often did. "I - I am chill with it."
"Man, c'mon." laughed Serena. "But, um, I take hormones, and I started when I was younger, so…um. My gender is legally changed, too. Hirogane said you probably saw I was listed as female when I got assigned to you."
"…er. Is it alright to ask if this has anything to do with your money?"
Serena nodded. "I'm saving up to visit a woman in Thailand. She has a Revenant that can change someone's sex for $50,000. That's why I had all of that money saved, yeah."
This was something she understood, Mia thought. "It's $50,000 just for one Revenant?"
"I mean, she probably only has a market of like, a dozen or so people." shrugged Serena. (Medical Revenants only worked on hosts.) "I'm still thirty-thousand away, but… I'll get it eventually." She smiled. "U-Um. I-I still need to go pack up a few things, but you can always ask me anything if you're confused or if you're worried about offending me, so. Don't be afraid to ask."
Mia hugged her. "I'll… need some time to process it, but I support you, Serena. I'm sorry, I was just caught a little off-guard."
"It's coolio." Serena hugged her back. "Thank you."
As Serena walked back to her room, Mia sat down on the couch, still surprised. Though she knew little about transgender people, she resolved not to let her knowledge of Serena's sex make any silhouette on her prior portrait of her.
A few minutes later, Serena came out of her room. "Um, are you sure you don't have any questions? Yuruko asked me to come over, so."
Mia went over and hugged her again. "If I have any questions, I'll let you know."
"Coolio."
Serena smiled as she left, and when she went over to Yuruko's house, the first thing her girlfriend asked was how Mia had reacted. If it had gone poorly, Yuruko had already been preparing to swap proteges; she was glad to see herself disproven on *this* lesbian, at least.
"That's good." She smiled, pulling up a chair next to her computer. "Uh, they finally added support for Hyrule Warriors, so. Wanna play?"
"Sure." Serena sat down beside.
Yuruko handed her a second controller. "Uh, you have to use my third-party controller, though, sorry. It's basically the same, though."
Serena looked down at it: to her, it looked nothing like the official models. As she picked it up and started playing with Yuruko, though, the game onscreen centered her eyes, and she forgot what, exactly, had seemed wrong with it. Aside from an off-center trigger or smaller button, nothing bothered her in it.
A few minutes in, she accidentally pressed some extraneous button. Her character onscreen began spamming the same attack, and she paused as she mumbled to Yuruko she must've accidentally hit its turbo function. As she unpaused, her grip clenched, then relaxed, knowing she would not be bothered again until these features again appeared too steep.
+++
Over the winter break, most of the women you have this read about went home for Christmas: Matoi was the exception, Yuruko was not. Yuruko had found that her & Serena lived only two hours away from each other, but she decided that she would never subject Serena to meeting her mother, and that only her father would know of her new girlfriend.
Standing in a spare room of her parents' house that served as her father's chemistry lab, Yuruko showed him a picture of her & Serena. She was holding Serena's tentacle like a caught fish.
"Is that part of her Revenant?" he said. "Well, I suppose it would have to be, unless they began nuclear testing in the States again."
"Yep." Yuruko began forming her respirator.
"Does she also have autism?" (For Yuruko's father, this term held no negative or positive judgment: he had always raised Yuruko how he wanted to anyhow.)
"No, but she could if she wanted it. I mean, she's really in to videogames and anime, so." Her gloves formed.
"Well, if you ever want her to meet us, then..." He looked at the door. "Or maybe just me."
"Maybe."
"We'll discuss it sometime. Now, I know this is a little... below your skill level, but I thought you would like it. I'm sure you won't mind, given how difficult you said your Revenant research exams were." He went over to a table where he had pre-placed a large mirror.
Yuruko followed him as she formed her own respirator and he put on his own. "It's not too bad yet. I mean, the first two years are still like undergrad for regular science."
"Well, except without those useless humanities." he muttered and Yuruko grinned. "I've told you before: if chemistry was studied like psychology is, then they would say silver reacts with sulfur because its sole purpose in life is reacting with sulfur. Or something like that."
"Or because silver wants to fuck its mom."
"Or sulfur told silver's mother it was going to - god, I shouldn't. Here, form a flask for me."
"Okay." She did.
"Aqueous silver nitrate, and dilute with sodium hydroxide."
She nodded and dipped a finger in to the flask, letting clear liquid drip out of her glove. "47, 7, 8 and 11, 1, 8."
"You can see the precipitate forming, yes?"
"Yes. It's brown, it's… silver oxide. 47, 47, 8."
"Dissolve it with ammonia."
"Done."
"Pour it on the mirror."
She nodded, poured the clear liquid on the mirror, and smiled as they saw their reflections as ones in a disturbed pond, liquid mirror shimmering as she poured out more of it. "Coolio."
"Tollens' reagent - this tests for aldehydes. Normally, you'd need to have an aldehyde on the mirror, or a reducing sugar - but we formed it quickly, so we didn't have to. Still. We can't let this stay out for too long. It'll decompose to silver nitride."
"Explosive." muttered Yuruko, nodding. She swept her hands across the liquid, and her father laughed as it disappeared.
"Somehow, I still forget you-"
Her mother's voice came through the door. "Are you through making Yuruko do your little experiments? Someone needs to come wash the dishes so this place isn't such a pigsty."
The phrase 'little experiment' stabbed at who Yuruko's father was and what he had tried to impart to his daughter.
Such emotions must eventually be given their due, so as he took his respirator off, he turned to Yuruko, then let her watch as he walked to the door, and the corners of his mouth tighten.
+++
While Yuruko was involved in her family's drama, Mia had gone to visit Aimee at Timepact; the name of her new agency, whose base had been constructed within a gash of rocks cut in to an enormous coastal cliffside (likely breaking several zoning laws in the process), was bankrolled by the type of loony anti-government libertarian Tuyuan would have admired, and that could only be accessed by boat.
As she stepped off of the boat and to the platform, with Aimee, they came up to another door that served as the main entrance, cut within the rock. It opened, and out stepped Makoto. "Oh, you're bringing your girlfriend here? Does the local libertarian know?"
"It's fine." said Aimee, pressing her way past quickly. "Just wanted to show her what we got recently."
Mia nodded, keeping her left ear open so she could hear if Makoto fell in to the ocean. Aimee led her to a room with a computer and two chairs; she let Mia sit down first, glanced to make sure the door was locked, then sat down in her lap. "H-Haven't gotten to do that in a while."
"Or other things." muttered Mia, kissing Aimee's neck. "…er, was there something you wanted me to see?"
Her voice a little fast, Aimee nodded and moved to the other chair. "I- yeah. So, they - they gave us access to the government's database, recently, they keep track of heroes and villains and all t-that, and, uh... They have these threat levels they classify people by. When they gave us access, they told us to make sure we only look up people relevant to our current investigation, never show it to anyone outside of our agency, that was it was super-confidential; so, first thing I did was think of you."
Mia nodded. "Am I considered a threat?"
"Nope. Already checked."
Mia frowned. "Check again."
"Yes, Mistress." mumbled Aimee. "See? Filter by current Urasaria students, and..."
Mia sighed, then laughed. "Of course she is."
"I mean, if it was gonna be anyone, it'd have to be her, right? Threat Level: Local. Should tell her that next time you see her, she'd probably, uh, get a kick out of it."
"I'll let her know." Mia smirked. "Er, shouldn't Yuruko be on there, as well?"
"Why?"
"I thought that… the person who nuked Los Angeles. Dio? Diego?"
"Oh, uh, Daigo?" said Aimee. "Yeah, I was just reading a bit about him, since - uh, I'll get to it in a minute, but - yeah. He had atomic manipulation, but Yuruko doesn't have the same... she can't use it on people."
"And he put Ryumi in to a coma, so..."
"...yeah. Might've, uh... I mean, she killed him, so - maybe something to do with her organs."
Mia nodded. "I was just remembering what Magnus told me."
"Yeah. That's, uh, what I wanted to talk to you about, because..." Aimee started typing. "So, the three classifications are Local, National, and..."
Mia frowned. "Ryumi Egashira, Queen of Scarabs... Existential? Why?"
"Her profile's locked. Doesn't tell me, see. Wasn't sure if you knew anything about that. Existential is like, 'end the world' type stuff: that's why Daigo's there, too."
Mia shook her head. "I- I haven't felt anything that could 'end the world', no."
Aimee shrugged. "That's what I figured, yeah, um. But - but they did let me see Magnus's profile, didn't find anything else in there except what you told me, uh... except he took Ryumi's name when he got married. So, at least he was a feminist."
Mia laughed, then leaned back. Later there would be time to ponder over this: right now she was still thinking about Serena.
"But, uh, maybe she just got Existential for killing Daigo."
"…possibly." muttered Mia. "…Aimee, do you know anyone who's transgender?"
"Uh, no. Why?"
"Someone came out to me recently, and I'm having some trouble... understanding it."
"What about it?"
Mia was a little embarrassed: she recognized she sounded like a homophobe here. "I... don't understand why someone would want to change their sex, I suppose."
"Well, wait, they don't change their sex, right? They change their gender. That's why gender and sex are different. I don't think anyone can change their sex."
'If only you knew.' thought Mia, relevantly. "But is it just like sexuality?"
"Yeah, I think it's just something you're born with or not. I've never really thought about it, but... I mean, if he identifies as a guy and wants you to say 'he' and call him something, I mean... seems like a pretty small thing to do to make him comfortable."
Mia decided not to correct her: partially so as not to out Serena. "I know. I just wanted to make sure I was being supportive, is all."
"Yeah. I mean, I don't really know that much about it, but if he says you're good, you're good." said Aimee. "Actually, I guess I did see some video of somebody talking about gender dysphoria, one time, and that sounded pretty rough. Like, not just hating how you look, but hating your body for doing everything it's *supposed* to do, since you've got the right brain in the wrong body. That's tough. That, uh, puts calluses on somebody."
This gave Mia some better information, at least. She decided that she would read online & check with Serena for clarification, but resolved to support her, and felt proud not only of her friendship & mentorship of Serena: but of their mutual rank, for that despite all the mediocre first-year Urasaria students, Serena was never adding to the stink.