While the Elite Four ate & ate again, Kate had brought another three men to the storage unit she had rented. She had recently received a complaint about the smell from the owner, who while he knew exactly what she was using it for, had asked her if she could call a crime-scene cleaner in that usual deference civilians show students. It was this deference Kate usually enjoyed, yet she had felt conflicted over it recently; she knew in-part that they saw her as yet another police officer.
But, she had procured the cellphone of one of her victims, set up an appointment with a man he seemed to have consistently been texting coded messages to, and was soon disguised & knocking at his apartment door. She was holding a bag with a beating Revenant inside when he answered the door and led her in.
"Got it just this morning." she said, setting it down on the table.
"What's its ability?"
"It lets her control her hair. I got it from one of the students."
(Most of this was improvised: Kate had no real idea what this operation entailed, aside from that transferring Revenants was involved.)
He unzipped the bag, looked inside, nodded to Kate and took the bag. "You know my wallet. Two coins, and you'll have it back within two weeks."
"And after that?"
"After what?"
"After I get it back, I'll need it to be re-transferred."
The man frowned. "I've already told you who to -- why are you asking me this?" His mouth went grim, and as his eyes went wide -
" - Split!"
- and the two swept with the speed of lightning away from each other, purple fists forming on her foe's hands, four fists of hair bursting out of her disguised cheeks, table & still beating heart between them. Two hair-fists grabbing the table, she flipped it up and in to him -
- but a sbarrage of purple shattered the table to wooden chunks, shards flying behind & in to the wall and ceiling, twenty feet separating the two as he stepped back against the stove.
'Out of range.' she thought. 'Need to get closer.'
"I-I don't know how you disguised yourself, but -"
" - Split!" she shouted; one hairfist burrowed in to the floor -
- and ripped up the entire line of tiles; the man gasped as he stumbled, sudden footing lost -
- but a purple punch hit the ground, and the tiles flew back to their former position, Kate nodding as she realized it.
'Repair. Know what he'll do if I step forward.' she thought, stepping forward, and as she stood where the table had been -
" - Unbreakable Diamond!" he shouted, tapping the wooden shards behind -
- and the next scene was instant. The shards started to fly towards her -
- but out of the chunks burst her embedded hair, gripping his arms as they flew -
- and slamming him with the strength of a thousand against the ground as Kate swept left to avoid the table's half-repair; the man struggled against the floor as she rushed up -
- and four fists of hair smashed his nose back in to his skull; he started to scream as he thrashed -
" - could go much easier!" shouted Kate, one hairhand gripping his neck back as another shoved him down -
- and her blow to his stomach couldn't even fold him as he gasped, purple fists still thrashing against new restraints against the floor. Split's hair formed spikes on her boots -
- and two stomps left his arms with a dozen leaking holes, Kate grunting as she stomped again and again, purple fists losing their struggle as his bones broke -
" - p-please -"
" - sheathe your fucking Revenant and start talking, now -"
- he tried to scream -
- and a bouquet of hair burrowed down his throat, man thrashing & gagging, strands tightening around his limbs -
" - ggggf! Ggffff!"
" - going to try to scream?" She saw consciousness start to leave his eyes, but Split yanked out of his mouth, wringing itself out on him as she stepped off. He started to scream again, but a punch to his stomach folded him like a jackknife and his breath died in a single gasp for air. "No, go ahead. Scream again. Make my day, creep."
"H-Help -" he panted; another punch, and Split threatened under his nails. "P-Please - all, all I - stop, please, I can't - I can't think with how hard you're gripping -"
"What are you doing with these Revenants?" Split's grip started to choke, so she slammed him against the wall, one giant hairhand gripping him tight.
"I-I…" He panted. "P-Please - please don't kill me -"
" - start talking." One strand peeked under his thumbnail. She was a pro, and there was no guilt in torturing an evil thing.
"A-All - anything - a-all that happens - I, I get - I get told if - someone's fought a Revenant -"
" - from what? The news?"
"M-Maybe -"
- one strand came inside; he screamed as it dug deeper - " - n-no! No! N-Not the news!"
"Stop fucking lying to me. One more time."
"I-I - please - please s-stop -"
" - answer me. How do you know someone's fought a Revenant?"
"S-Someone calls me -- they call me, a-and give a location a-and -- G-God, please -"
" - next set is going in your fucking eyes -"
" - Blackburn!" shouted a familiar voice behind; she turned -
- just in time to see familiar fog corrode the door away, others right behind Serena -
" - oh, hey Kate." said Serena, recognizing Kate's disguised face; she pressed Naomi & Julia back.
Split slammed the man to the ground and wrapped him in a cocoon of hair as Kate turned, a bit flustered. "You didn't check your texts?"
Serena shook her head and spoke with Kate, who explained that she had spent the night prior interrogating the host Yuruko & Serena had fought. As they spoke, Julia was muttering to Naomi. "I-I thought beards were just for gay men and not lesbians."
"Kate's not even a lesbian." whispered Naomi. "She's straight, too."
"Oh great, now you're telling me there's two of you." mumbled Julia. "You can't just be a miserable dyke with a personality disorder like everybody else on campus?"
"If it makes you feel any better, I'm sure you have better choices than I do when it comes to dating."
"Yeah, I-I got a choice between a bunch of shallow but beautiful women o-or mature women who look like runaway Hungarians. And lemme tell you, given my past relationships, I've got confidence a notch below Kafka in my ability to choose correctly."
Kate began to explain what she had just been doing, but the man's screaming was annoying her hair. "I- god damnit -- Serena, knock him out."
Serena went over and gave him a kick to the head that flipped his lights off, then remembered three seconds later Blackburn could have done it.
"Well, that works." muttered Kate. "C'mon. Let's search his apartment, and, uh, once he wakes up -- see if he'll respond to some interrogation."
Serena seemed to perk up at that, yet Naomi frowned. There again was Serena's sadism. She had trouble looking at Serena & Kate standing together, as if an intangible pipe was melding their selves and transferring the resultant slurry between them. In some alternate universe she felt that Kate could be Serena and Serena could be Kate, so far as in their treatment of criminals. She said she would keep watch outside, and as she was walking out Julia caught up beside her.
Naomi sighed. "God, I wish she didn't revel in it so much. Serena or Kate."
Julia shrugged. "What do you expect from students? I just walked out 'cause you did, I've got no issue with it."
"You don't think there's anything wrong with torturing someone?"
"Why would I? Killing somebody is worse than torturing them. I mean, y-y'know, you got people that say that isn't true, that death isn't worse than t-torture 'cuz some people desire death but not t-torture, b-but that's bullshit. It's a judgment based on emotions rather than looking at it intellectually."
Naomi looked off. "…maybe it's not about that. It's the type of person Serena would have to... be, to do such things. You know, how she uses her Revenant, and whenever she prolongs our kills. The more I see her like that, it worries that someday I'll accidentally peel part of her back and see something ugly inhabiting her."
Julia smiled. "Well, I-I don't think it indicates anything about her. Y'know, she's a host -- this just isn't a situation of somebody shoving cats into ovens, where it says something about how they'll treat people."
"I didn't mean she... god, cats in ovens?" Naomi winced. "What kind of person would do something like that?"
"I dated somebody who did. He was, u-uh… transgender, transgender man, y-you know. Don't ask why me, a lesbian, would be -- y'know. I was a teenager. He lived with another transgender guy, one of whom once threatened to beat the shit out of me -- me, a host -- and the one I was dating was arrested for videotaping himself burning cats alive." Julia shook her head. "Y'know, t-the guy was already gonna pass as male, he didn't need to show off his masculinity like that. Never had a relationship go more than six months after that. With my luck if I was a politician I'd be honest."
Naomi sighed, and still seemed distraught.
"Naomi, I'm not begrudging you for your morality, but the world doesn't care what you give into it. What do you think t-they do if they kill a female student? Catch one? T-They don't get any guilt over it. Y'know, most of 'em are amoral, they're like Judah Rosenthal from Crimes & Misdemeanors -- they change their morality to suit w-whatever they want to do. You've got no eye of God judging you, nobody at Urasaria cares about some light torture. What makes you wanna act like a Girl Scout against these scumbags?"
"I guess I don't feel a lack of consequences is a reason to give up my morality, Julia." said Naomi. "I think that's a fundamental difference in how we want to see the universe. … Can we talk about something else?"
"You mind if I-I talk about a fun contract I-I had, once?"
"If it doesn't involve torture."
Julia shook her head, and told Naomi about the contract detailed in ARC 5.5. In particular the most enjoyable contracts for Urasaria students are those, like the aforementioned, where they are given a list of targets and told to surprise them much like criminals so often do them. People often fantasize about the ability to free their muted impulses and exact them upon the world, and perhaps the reversal of roles makes students feel like minor agents of cosmic justice.
Soon they were called back in. Yuruko was sitting at his computer, with the others nearby her. The man was not there.
"Did you find anything?" said Naomi.
"Sorry." mumbled Serena to Kate.
"Hey, that's on me. I shouldn't have hiccuped when Split was grabbing him. Looked like somebody squeezing an orange."
"I found his cryptocurrency wallet." said Yuruko.
"His what?" said Kate.
"Cryptocurrency?"
Kate asked Yuruko to please explain cryptocurrency to Julia & Naomi.
"Okay, so imagine if you could leave your car idling to solve sudoku puzzles you could trade for heroin."
"What?" said Naomi.
Julia nodded. "Yeah, go on."
"Uh, you understood that?" said Serena.
"Yeah, I've been trying to get jobs in California. You get people who'll tell you the U-US never left the gold standard and they won't pay you in anything but crypto."
"It's digital money?" said Kate.
"Basically. I don't think you can actually trace it." said Yuruko.
"That's why you trade it for heroin." nodded Serena sagely.
"But, uh, I can see... it has his transactions, but it's all to other wallets that I can't trace. Get it? Like, they're not associated with any person."
"I guess." Kate frowned. "Can you see anything else?"
"Nope, I can just see what he gave and received. Jesus fuck, he got sent 100 coins back in September 2019."
"Is that much?"
"It's three million dollars."
Kate blinked. "…alright. Just tell me the rest."
"So, every few weeks, this guy gets sent a few coins, and then he transfers that out to a few other wallets."
"…which is why he asked me to pay him for a Revenant. I'm assuming the three million was startup costs for wherever he was going to send the Revenant if I gave him. My payment was meant to go to him, and he could pay out whoever was actually doing the work on it. You mentioned it's untraceable, correct?" (Yuruko nodded.) "Figures. You know, I usually figure the government's better off not interfering with people given how many left-handed nephews they get to run it, but there's no other use in that but crime. Anyway, my presumption would be it involves doing something to Revenants that's useful to whoever hosts it. Most likely he was going to give me the heart back, afterwards, seeing as I was disguised as someone he knew had a Revenant. Yeah?"
"I don't get it." mumbled Serena, as she often didn't.