[ARC 15: FILL IN THE BLANK]
[October 20th, 2020]
When Mia & the others had returned from Japan, she took a visit to Timepact to see Aimee, once the latter had time off. They were sitting at a computer desk in a private room.
"…and apparently, they're discussing banning me from the country."
"You think they'll do it?" said Aimee.
Mia shrugged. "I don't really care, to be honest. I apologized for what happened, but after how people continued treating me, I have no desire to ever visit there again." She frowned. "Er, speaking of, Akira approached me in Japan, also."
"You told me." nodded Aimee. "Um, you feeling okay otherwise? Sorry that it took a while for me to get time off for another visit..." She kissed Mia's cheek, who smiled.
"I'm feeling better. Matoi apologized for the interview, also. The one where she told me not to mention you."
"Hey, you didn't have to make her do that." Aimee smiled. "I get it. I mean, I had parents who told me they'd kill me if I ever turned out gay, and probably the only reason they didn't is because they couldn't. I get Matoi trying to keep you from getting harassed. I dunno what it's like in Japan, but I remember when I was a kid, they made me go to these huge Pentacostal gatherings where everybody was fucking crazy homophobic."
"The ones where they speak in tongues?"
"Yeah, weird shit like that." Aimee frowned. "You know, I still fucking hate her, but I kinda pity my mom sometimes. She's some respectable lawyer, but she was always scared of going to Hell and all that. Seemed like sometimes the more she put in to God the less she had of herself. And I remember, one time, I was listening in on her and my dad talking, a few weeks after her sister died, and she pointed to this popup Bible we had and said she sometimes felt like those people. All hollowed out in the back."
"I'll hollow her out in the back if I ever see her." muttered Mia.
"Just be glad you never have to meet her." said Aimee. "Hey, uh, while you're here, I wanted to check on something. So, after that stuff in Japan, someone came to Timepact and interviewed me, and I wanted to check if..." She started typing. "Aww, there's your government profile."
"Threat Level National." Mia smiled.
"'Has achieved Sun Ray, Ryumi's signature ability. (Refers to it as Solar Beam.'"
Mia frowned.
"Ruthless." grinned Aimee. "Lemme check on Akira, too."
"…this is old." muttered Mia. "Akira Kagume - deceased employee of the Eastern League - Revenant FTL? 'Possesses the ability to transport its host and two others to any location instantly, so long as Akira has not been touched in the past ten seconds.' That was Dreadnought's transportation Revenant."
"Uh, so Dreadnought took his Revenant? Doesn't that need surgery?"
"I don't think he was that precise about it." muttered Mia. "I don't understand why he let Akira live."
"Or why... ugh. I mean, you said he seems to like - what's his name, Magnus?-, right? And Ryumi?"
"He seems to have been friends with them, but..."
"...lemme see." Aimee scrolled to the footnotes. "Ugh, half this shit is redacted."
'November 26th, 2013: In the event Ryumi Egashira dies, it has been requested that:
1. Magnus Egashira and Akira Kagume not be allowed near her corpse.
2. Xenocyclin not, under any circumstances, be used on Ryumi's Revenant. More details will be relayed in-person by Nikolai next month.'
"Akira didn't want me using Xenocyclin on Worldwide, either." Mia frowned. "Why?"
"Must have something to do with the extra strength? I mean, that's why you didn't get Xenocyclin used on it, right?" Aimee sighed. "Ugh, dunno. I get not letting Magnus see her corpse, 'cause they knew he'd go ape shit once he did, but if it's not just Akira saying it... Guessing he died before relaying that, too."
"Magnus never told me not to have Xenocyclin used on it, either."
"Yeah, but he also didn't tell you it needed it."
"…there's obviously a deeper reason for this, but..."
"…yeah." Aimee sighed and leaned her head on Mia's shoulder. "We can talk more about it later, if you want. Got our, um, reservations in an hour."
Mia kissed Aimee's forehead. "We'll talk about it later."
"Cool." Aimee smiled and sat up. "Um, before we go back out, too, I wanted to ask you something in private." She rubbed Mia's thigh. "I was, um, thinking we should probably start talking about getting married."
Mia blushed and smiled. "Are you proposing?"
"I-I didn't want to do that without asking you first. I was thinking we could go engagement ring shopping together, and then I'd surprise you over the summer. O-Or you surprise me."
"Er, I'd prefer you surprise me." Mia nodded: though she felt slightly cheated out of something.
+++
Was it better if she observed life and did not try to live it? Did most humans ever fully know themselves, or was it her amnesia that caused her to desire something no human could access? These were the questions punctuating Naomi Eskel's past few months, and so far she had no answers. She fought well with her mentor Serena, even as she was revulsed by her violence, and was on her way to achieving two-star; yet it all seemed mechanical. Serena seemed to only see life as a constant pursuit of enjoyment, so she knew she had no help there.
If Naomi could grasp such a concept, she might have said she wished for an increase of herself, and that she feared one day looking up from her life to find something with which she should have been filling it.
She had sensed Yuruko was the more intelligent of the couple and hoped she could perhaps leech something from her, but Yuruko's classwork busied her lately, and even were it not she was reticent with anyone but Serena. The otakus always spoke to each other in their personal mix of esports, videogame and anime references: Naomi never had any real clue what they were talking about. Soon she believed even Yuruko would be unable to help her with this feeling, one which seemed to grip her the more she attempted to sublimate it, tightened by something other than the breaths she took, yet she looked around to find herself surrounded within it.
She often felt alien eyes walking upon her, like insects on a corpse, and it is not improbable this feeling first arose in Naomi after the events of her last arc, when her and Serena had returned to the hospice home to recheck the corpses. As Serena spoke with one of the nurses there, who was clearly not interested in their queries, Naomi stared at the corpse and tucked all else behind her mind's near-midnight landscape, envisioning herself in its position, near here yet unknown by so many. Thus when returning to Urasaria, she was pondering matters seemingly profound as Serena was inane.
Checking her phone Yuruko had bought for her, she saw she had a text, and went up to the Elite Four's office. Mia & Serena were already speaking, Matoi checking through her tablet.
Mia handed Serena a bag of Japanese manga and smiled to Naomi. Before she could speak, Matoi glanced up from her tablet and said: "Naomi, it's officially your house now, also."
"Um, thank you." she said as she sat down.
"It's my old house." chimed Mia.
"…as for the contract..." muttered Matoi. "This is time-limited, unfortunately -- the hosts are considered escape risks. There's been a string of violent robberies in the past year, in a town a few states west. There's security camera footage of the two." She passed her tablet to Naomi. "Judging by the voices, it's two men, possibly in their early thirties. As you can see, one has an innate disguise due to his reptilian Revenant, though I'll also note that there have been several Revenant-related robberies that haven't involved either."
"So we're dealing with multiple guys?"
"I would assume so. If they've had their Revenants since birth, they'll have far more experience - be careful. With hosts like this, they're generally more willing to flee town when students show up, which is why the civilian police have set up checkpoints on all roads leading out. I doubt they'll keep it for more than a few weeks."
"Okay." Serena nodded, then looked to Naomi as if she were expecting something. "Um, is that everything? Naomi?"
"No, I'm good."
"Before you leave, I wanted to ask Serena something." Matoi's fingers steepled. "Would you mind repeating your nickname for me to Mia?"
Serena blushed. "U-Uh, what nickname?"
"What, Satsuki?" said Naomi. "What's wrong with that?"
"I don't understand it either." said Mia to Matoi. "I'm sure she doesn't mean anything insulting by it."
Matoi's eyes had not moved off Serena, who was avoiding any contact. "Show her an episode or I will."
"U-Um, when w-we get back." nodded Serena, then quickly got up and walked out. Maybe that way everyone would forget about it.