Needless to say, this was what Matoi carried with her the next morning as she drove back to Mr. Sharp's home. The police chief had notified them of an accusation the ice sculpture Rin had brought in had made: that Mr. Sharp had hired him to murder Sabrina Sharp.
As one may expect: this disloyalty was very atypical for Sharp, and had it been in Africa, Sharp's government connections would have ensured the man's entire family would be strung upside-down with their post-humuous reputation ruined as well. In America, the man would simply fall over and die from Sharp's Revenants 72 hours after his own was removed.
They pulled up to the mansion's gate. Matoi sighed as she found the guard missing, and in the next instant -
"( - Matoi - blast us left!)" shouted Rin, and in the next instant -
- one shockwave blasted them with the strength of a million through the gate; another blasted them left -
- just in time to dodge the wave of magma that'd been shot at them from behind; car still flying left, another shockwave slowed its roll -
- and landed right in a patch of wax-covered hedges at the lot's south&left corner, mansion at the center and outer wall at their left & back as they got out of their car. With no time to waste, the two turned towards the gate -
" - Sekisetsu!" shouted Rin; a wall of ice burst up ahead & right -
- and blocked a second wave of magma, chill solidifying it & turning it frozen, two stepping back and in to the patch of wax-covered ground. Matoi felt a presence behind and turned -
- just in time to block one waxman's fist from behind; one hand gripping his wrist tight, two lasers shot through his chest -
- but she sighed as the heat only set him aflame, wax dripping but still barely melting. She shouted for Rin at her back -
- and one swipe from Rin with Matoi's sword tore the waxman in two, goo falling rigid as the two stepped back; at her side, Rin handed Matoi her sword, wall of ice still standing at their rights. Something started rumbling in the distance, and in the next instant -
- the wall of ice shattered in to a hundred shards, and flew towards them -
- but one missile met it head-on, shockwave blasting it with the strength of a million away. More waxy & trampled hedges were still laying ahead, pale goo rising up and starting to grow limbs. The two started rushing forward, keeping along the left & outer wall.
"Kekkonshiki." muttered Matoi, and in the next instant -
- two shockwaves blasted the women with the strength of a dozen forward -
- narrowly dodging the wave of magma that'd come from the right side of the lot; the two hit the ground running as they landed, coming up to the mansion's left wall, still rushing as Matoi glanced back. More waxmen were growing out of the waxy hedges underneath her car. She sighed as she saw another wave of claim her vehicle -
- which shuddered, buckled, roof melting in to its seats -
- but still stood at the end, Matoi blinking at it & reminding herself to buy it once they were done -
"( - here!)" shouted Rin, tapping the mansion's left wall - "( - inside!)"
- and Sekisetsu froze the entire wall solid, one section of ice peeling back to allow them in; in to the mansion's main lobby swept the women. Another twenty waxmen separated them from the staircase at the other end, mansion's front door at the right; Matoi gripped her sword as the two rushed forward, Wedding's lasers superheating her blade as she swung it -
- and a sweep of superheated steel charred half their foes without a single ash left; she shot off to meet another five -
- and Rin's icicles impaled the last five of their foes, two nodding as they kept their rush going across the room, coming up to the staircase & speaking as they climbed -
"( - the wax one has to be here, right?)" panted Rin -
"( - presumably.)" said Matoi, coming up to the staircase's tip. One hall was to their left and another to their right. Superheated blade readied, the two rushed right & down, doors at regular intervals and one at the end of the hall; behind, they heard a soundwave blast down the mansion's front door; ahead, they saw more waxmen bursting out of the doors -
"( - Fallen Snow!)" shouted Rin -
- and a volley of frozen red crucified every last waxman to the wall, candlesque men groaning as the two rushed past, immense chill keeping them from dripping. As they ran, Rin glanced back -
- and sighed as she saw their wax contort around the frozen nails, bodies morphing to set them free - "( - are you kidding-?)"
"( - they're immune to temperature?)" said Matoi, coming up to the door at the end; Rin sighed as she glanced forward -
"( - I - think so, but -)"
"( - Wedding!)" shouted Matoi, and one missile blasted the door down -
- and in to the bedroom swept the women; Matoi didn't wait for the next instant scene. A line of missiles erupted from Wedding's shoulders and flew across the room -
- and the explosions tore every last nightstand & painting & scented bedsheet in to chunks of lavish gore, wax within the drawers getting splattered on to the walls - but no sign of the host. With a sigh and a grunt, the two turned back to the hall -
- and a bizarre scene met their stare fifty feet away.
"Were you looking for Mr. Sharp?" shouted, ahead -
- a wall of wax blocking the hall, candlesque eyes & features growing from the goo, expression contorting and grinning as it spoke - " - because I'm afraid he's already -"
- and the next scene was instant. Matoi felt something heat up behind her&Rin -
"( - Wedding!)" she shouted; her lasers burnt a hole below the two, and in to the sudden burrow they fell -
- and swept back as soon as they hit the floor before the wave of lava could drip in through the hole. Rin threw a disc of ice to plug up the hole, speaking as the two stepped back.
"(I realize why they're together. If one is lava -)"
"( - it's immune to it - somehow.)" muttered Matoi. Rin nodding, one missile blasted through the wall at their backs, and the two rushed out -
- to at last come outside the mansion again, rushing up & along the right wall now, one section of the outer wall having melted from the scorching wave earlier.
"(Fortunately, there's an easier way to solve this.)" said Matoi as they ran; Wedding's shoulders rumbled -
- and a constant line of missiles flew in to the mansion as they ran along the right wall, explosions tearing through the walls & foundation and setting it rocking; Rin rushed up along the lot's outer wall, and as her fingers tapped it to turn it to ice -
- a current like a thousand volts entered her; she shrieked -
- but Matoi gripped her tight and pulled her back to her as she ran, Wedding's insulation absorbing the excess as Rin winced & groaned - "( - I - I can't turn - is it elemental -?)"
"( - waves. Soundwave - lava - electrical.)" said Matoi as they turned the corner, and Rin nodded, hair still twitching as they rushed along the back wall. More explosions tearing through the back half of the mansion, three stories started teetering & tottering, roofs collapsing and rooms starting to crumble - "( - back!)"
- and the two rushed as fast as they could to the back & outer wall, turning back just in time -
- to see the entire mansion collapse & shudder, buckle inward & shatter in to a million ashes, smoke and ashes popping out of the ruins as every last room tore itself to shreds -
- and nodding with no rest, Matoi blasted the back & outer wall to bits, shockwaves clearing the rubble from their path. Sweeping out of the lot, the two rushed right, still along the wall. Matoi stopped suddenly and climbed as fast as she could with her sword, trying to find their second foe's location -
- then swept with the speed of light back to the ground -
- dodging a wave of snow that'd been blasted towards her, wave of white flying over them above, nodding to Rin as she spoke - "( - remember what I told you about Mia?)"
"(I - yes.)" nodded Rin quickly - "( - I - tried to practice it with Yamato -)"
"( - good.)" Matoi nodded, and the next scene was instant. One laser disintegrated the ground below; in to the sudden hole fell the women -
- and the two started their tunneling, Matoi's lasers acting like Mia's fire & Sekisetsu's ice acting as the frozen ceiling, Rin & Matoi running together as they tunneled.
"(I'm -)" - Rin panted - "( - also - freezing different paths above - to, to distract him -)"
"( - good. I'll tell you when.)"
"(Y-Yes.)"
The two kept it up for another half-minute, and in the next instant -
"( - now!)" shouted Matoi; one disintegrated a hole above their heads, and out of it swept the women -
- to at last stand outside of the lot and in the grass; Matoi turned, their second foe only thirty feet away, still oblivious & turned away, left&right arms contorted like waves. The mansion's outer wall was at his left; one missile flew towards him, and as he turned -
- his eyes widened - " - Su-"
- and the shockwave blasted him with the strength of a thousand in to the wall, soundwave erupting from his limb but catching only air, rubble smashing his skull in; Matoi rushed up with superheated sword readied, and she cleared the clearing -
- for one sweep that cleaved his right arm clear off in a shower of blood, and in a second sweep on the return -
"( - WAIT!)" shouted Rin, rushing up beside - "( - MATOI -)"
- and Sekisetsu froze him alive before she could go for the double. She glanced at Rin like she wasn't killing someone -
- and as her eyes visited the mansion, she saw it then. A pool of wax the size of the building was rising out of the ruins, dozens & dozens of limbs growing a hundred feet away.
"(Here we go.)" muttered Matoi, relevantly, ideas rushing across her head.
"(We - we need to find the host.)" winced Rin, and Matoi nodded. "(We can try to ask him.)"
"(Unstasis him.)"
Rin snapped her fingers -
- and the man shrieked in agony as he unfreezed -
- for Matoi's blade at his neck - " - where the fuck is the other host -"
" - go fuck yourself, y-you f-fucking -"
- and Wedding's laser burnt a screaming hole through his leg. Their foe hit the ground, hands clawing at his leg. This time she judged it right. She stepped up and Wedding's beam turned him in to a falsetto.
"I can be much worse."
" - he - it f-f-fucking po-po-posseses him - he's i-i-i-in that fucking thing!" he gurgled.
"Then you're freezing him." Matoi pulled him up by his neck, fingers nearly gripping through his skin. "Use your snow -"
" - y-y-you think I'll do -"
- and one superheated blade went through his eye & out his skull; he screamed as a man in mortal agony, desperately trying not to stagger. Rin knew her girlfriend had a good reason for that one.
"You still have a second -"
" - O-O-OUT!" he shouted; Matoi yanked her blade out as he swept his left arm back -
- and a dozen waves of snow burst out of it, shooting towards the waxy beast starting to rise out of the ruins -
- and even it couldn't stand the chill, icicles forming all over it; beside Matoi, Rin threw another heavy volley of her own in, waxy limbs starting to fill with ice, another dozen waves of snow claiming it as another hundred icicles shot towards it, and as another twin volley hit the beast -
- the two nodded as they saw it freeze entirely solid, no cracks coming in the ice mountain ahead, limbs trying to move but freezing before they could rise -
- and disappeared right in to the ruins in the next, mountain of ice falling to the ground of the ruined lot with its support lost & shattering as it hit the floor, no wax left but plenty of ice. Rin nodded to Matoi, and in the next instant -
" - Wedding!" shouted Matoi, and in a single sweep seeking his left arm -
- that cleaved it clear off in a geyser of blood, and in a second sweep on the return -
" - Wedding!"
- that cleaved his right leg off in a shower of blood; a horrific shriek erupted from him as he fell back -
" - Wedding!" shouted Matoi, superheated blade seeking his left leg -
- and disintegrating it off the rest of his body, man dead & not even able to reach for his lost limbs, quadruple on the pavement -
" - okay, Matoi, that's a little much." winced Rin.
Matoi shrugged. "…M-Mia's protege is even worse."
'And knowing Americans, she's probably the most popular one.' though Rin, relevantly. "…okay. Um, we should check the wax Revenant."
Matoi nodded, and the two stepped up to the demolished mansion. One frozen corpse was in the rubble, and the two sighed as they saw it, normal number of fingers on his hand.
"No leads and he's clearly fled." muttered Matoi. "I wonder what the glowing hands were."
"Could it be something with his Revenant?"
"…it's possible." Matoi frowned, and expended the rest of her thought of this investigation on this: "It almost seems as if this was either intentional, or one of his subordinates made a mistake he needed to hastily cover. You and I both saw him: I already could tell he's a very thorough person."
"You mean that someone made a mistake in the initial murder?"
Matoi looked over at Rin as they walked back to her car. "I find it doubtful that a man like him would bother doing it personally. The only lead we might have is another subordinate sent to murder his father, although..."
Rin frowned as she sat in the passenger's side. "Then he might already be dead and the culprit fled. We'll need to, um…" She noticed Matoi taking her phone out. "Aren't we driving over?"
"I'm going to call the hospital and see if another student can check on it."
After doing so, Matoi verified that Richard Sharp was alive with no attackers and sent the nearest student to Rook Hospital over. Matoi called up the police chief to relay what they hadn't found, and he paused for a while.
"…well. That might be it, then. We'll make sure people keep an eye out for him. Whole state. We'll let you know as soon as we see anything."
Matoi glanced at Rin. They had a week before she had to leave, and the future started forcing a tear out.
"Can we send a squad car over to the hospital?" he said.
"…you can." said Matoi, taking her tablet out. "There'll be two other students when you arrive. I'll let you know their names. They'll be taking over the investigation."
"Is there something wrong?" he said and Matoi's head shook.
"No. I'll be busy for the rest of the month." She tapped two names. "One of them is named Wraith - he'll be with his protege. Let him know any relevant information."
"I... can't stop you, I suppose."
"Exactly." Matoi tapped her phone off and Rin looked at her in confusion.
"Matoi, what did you say?" she said in Japanese.
"I told them we won't pursue the investigation further, and I'll be handing it off to two other students."
"W-What? But we have to find him."
"They only needed us to fight Revenants, Rin. If he shows up again, they can -"
" - Matoi, you -- we agreed to help them investigate. We can't just quit on-"
"If he was telling the truth about having a business in Africa, he may have fled there. Rin, there isn't a reason to continue investing time into this. I took two weeks off for both of us; not so I could spend hours driving a day."
A bit of guilt came over Rin. This felt like something out of one of the romance novels she loved to read, but at least they gave you the plot's answer, too! She was frustrated, almost annoyed at Matoi for throwing off her responsibility. This was truly a different Matoi, one she hadn't known in their five months together.
"One of them is two-star. They won't have any trouble dealing with other Revenants if needed."
"…yes. I know, but…" Rin frowned, but laughed as Matoi kissed her cheek. "…well, alright. I-I'm feeling a little tired, anyway. I-I haven't been able to see much of America like this. Can we do a few items on my list tonight?"
"Of course."
Matoi stepped outside to call the pair of students and filled them in on the investigation, leaving Rin in the car by herself. When she came back, Rin was leaning back in the passenger's seat, and in that almost annoyingly persistent habit of her's was reading a yuri manga. Somehow she never ran out of them.
Matoi sat in the driver's seat. "I hope you're not planning on reading that aloud to me."
"Maybe you could learn something from these. Like how to be a little more romantic, a little more affectionate." Rin giggled.
"I am affectionate. You just don't notice it when it isn't in a lesbian manga."
"Oh, lesbian manga, you say it so derogatorily. You know, I wouldn't mind being treated a little bit more like *your* girlfriend than *a* girlfriend. Sometimes you do leave a little bit to be desired on that front."
"And yet I'm still dating you, aren't I?"
Rin smiled and let Matoi drive without another word. During their trip back to Urasaria and with the driving skills of a host, Matoi would look over at Rin reading through her romance manga, assuredly pasting herself into it as the main character and Matoi as her dominant lover. How these silly stories so affected an intelligent woman she could not understand.
She watched as Rin gave a dim smile into something she had just read, and a single tear pooled in the corner of Rin's eye and landed in the page. The music from the car radio seemed to dance around the slices of sunlight through the window, and she brushed her hair to the side in such a way that for a moment she appeared to have no eyes nor mouth, but still spoke and looked at Matoi. There as Rin was Matoi and as Matoi was Rin. They were among each other and their relationship, in a compromise of their respective affectations that just occasionally would result in their melting into a moment like this. Yet so rarely did their relationship unfold along the intentions either had for it, only occasionally one would notice it and wonder if the other had as well.
Then perfection passed, and Matoi was at her computer writing in her weekly journal. She had typed out some of her time with Rin, what Revenants they had faced go later concoct ways she might murder a similar one more efficiently. Of late she had been thinking of the title of one of Rin's favorite mangas 'BLOOM INTO YOU', and of a dream she had recently been having.
'…but I have seen Rin off at the airport, and I will have more to say on that later. I prefer not to think of her for now, though I will call her later to make sure she arrived safely. It isn't a real fear that I have, of course, but I sometimes worry my aloofness causes her to subtly distance herself from me. I'm aware the relationship I was most modeled at home was certainly atypical, and in my early years at Urasaria it took some time for me to understand Mia and Aimee -- how they could spend time together without talking. I believed romance to be a simple, shallow thing.
So, these paths of thought seem to inexorably lead me back to my father. I've had again the recurring dream I have mentioned over the past few weeks. I was again floating over the green shadows of Kofu's vegetation, and I can see Mt. Fuji smudging over the skyline, reminding me of how my mother would bring me to Maizuru-jo Koen and press me over her head into the upper reaches of the universe.
I was then a street away from my elementary school. Hands pummel at a young boy below me, and I do not know whether the father is the victim or one of the perpetrators. I see him in a backroom, perhaps of a smoke-encrusted pachinko parlor or strip club. By his age I know this is after I have left Japan, and occasionally I see him around other women or mediating drug deals between other yakuza. He sometimes looks to me, and although no voice is summoned from his lips, he asks the question the whale hunter had: whether I would do the same if I could have the same prestige. Before I consider an answer, a pale shade glooms into my view and fills all that is to be seen.
Most recently, I have found I am able to exert some lucid control and force it to resume. It isn't a share. but the head of a man whose facial features I don't recognize; though he reminds me of a boy who harassed Moriko in middleschool. I find my dreams usually involve situations from school, but aged-up, where my teacher is Mia, my backpack Boudoir, the lunch lady Samuel. Sometimes Moriko and I are at Zushi Beach as adults, throwing seashells into the currents as we once did, and in my ignorance I do not realize I have grabbed the same shell I had tossed a year prior.
The boy, now adult, stabs my father, and a few other men tackle him. I wonder if he is in the same position my father must have once been in; a narrow-souled and pathetically manipulateable man made to kill by the order of another, with no awareness as to his own repugnancy.
As he leans back and clasps his wound, his upward gaze is still inhabited by the petulant austerity I had last seen in him, and was what had once given me pause as I stood over him as he laid next to my mother, and I summoned Kekkonshiki. Neither of us have ever told this to Fuyuko, nor was it my only attempt. From then-on I attempted to distance him from Fuyuko. Myself, as well, though his calloused miens has been a lure I find difficult to elude.
I do not believe in visions, but I find it easy to believe that he has kept well in Japan, continuing to wind himself through life as a virus and keeping himself coiled around my mind, however much I might attempt to slash and defray him. Rin has not yet asked in detail about him, but I fear she will eventually share with me this same obsessive malignancy. For love and otherwise, I will have little recourse until I again can separate our intricate yet hermetic lives through dream.'
[END OF ARC: (NOT) BORN IN THE USA]