[April 11th]
Mia had already dealt with two Revenants that day, and had been called in for a green-haired teenage boy turned villainous.
She stepped inside the china shop, civilians that weren't from China & china that was from China around. She heard someone shouting "Detroit Smash!" from the backroom ahead, and in the next instant -
- the floor started to shake & stagger; screams filled her ears, walls suddenly growing cracks and starting to collapse, roof up above starting to crumble -
" - Worldwide!" she shouted; a cloud of ice scarabs flew in to the ceiling -
- and new ice formed to prevent the building's collapse as she rushed across the room, civilians safer now & fleeing behind, backroom ahead with the door still closed. With no time to waste, she pressed against the wall, sword & scarabs readied, and in the next instant -
- a shockwave blasted the wall to bits & her away with it -
- but a swift wall of ice caught her & kept her flight from going too long, landing only twenty feet away from her previous spot; she heard her foe's fingers snapping ahead -
- and another shockwave blasted her against her own wall -
- and another -
- and she melted her wall of ice before the third could plaster her to it, third wave blasting her away and back to the store's entrance, grunting as she landed and the smoke cleared ahead. She saw her green-haired & teenage male foe stomping out ahead -
- and a fissure shot through the floor and towards her -
- turning her in to a woman of laughter as she filled it with water & swept to the side; her electrical scarabs flew in to the sudden flood, and as the electrical current entered his body -
- the next scene was instant. His right leg kicked -
- and a shockwave blasted him with the strength of a thousand away & through the back wall -
- and surprisingly not another, flying out to the avenue outside & landing there, disappearing behind the rubble and out of Mia's sight. With no time to waste, she rushed across the room, came in to the back, hole ahead & sidewalk & road beyond with parked cars -
' - as if.' she thought; a pillar of ice burst below her feet and launched her up -
- and her body burned blue to get her through the roof, landing on top of the building with a better vantage point; below, she saw her foe with a black whip in hand -
- with one end attached to the building, starting to yank it down; she staggered -
- but the next scene was instant. She leaped off and down; below, his free hand formed one fist to catch her as she fell, and as she drew within range -
- an electrical arc sparked -
- and yanked a car with the strength of a million in to him from behind; a horrific shriek erupted from him as he was launched forward -
- and Mia laughed as she landed safe where he'd just been a second ago, turning to face the china shop and laughing as she spoke - " - that's why you need more experience!"
Ahead, the building started collapsing as her ice repairs melted, ceiling crumbling & starting to rend inward -
- but her foe punched his way out of the ruins, grunting as the smoke cleared, one red rib jutting out of his chest. Mia rushed back to the further sidewalk, slicing through one car's gas tank with her blade and making it drip, fifty feet separating the two as she turned back.
"B-Blackwhip." he grunted; his black whip shot towards her -
- but retreated as soon as she raised her burning purple blade to block it, now wary of Mia's sudden counter. Blade drawn, she started stepping towards him; leg readied, he kicked towards her -
- and a shockwave erupted out -
- but a wall of ice burst up ahead to block it, seemingly absorbing the foul wave as Mia swept against it for cover. She'd learned a trick to deal with wind Revenants recently, laughing as she heard another few shockwaves enter her wall of ice but do nothing at all. She felt his whip hit the wall -
- and the chill froze it immediately; a sweep of burning purple went through it -
- and disintegrated half of it without a single ash left before it scurried back to its master; her ice wall lowered as she rushed forward, boy's right arm starting to crack ahead -
" - O-One-For-All!" he shouted, right leg sweeping forward -
- and a gust of wind blasted him with the strength of a thousand away, sailing over the rubble & behind the ruins; Mia sighed as she rushed in pursuit and up a ramp of ice, no counter for that tactic yet as he landed in another road ahead next to three cars -
- which another shockwave blasted towards her; her body burned blue as she rushed through them, and as she came up over him on a platform of ice -
- she jumped down, only fifteen feet separating the two; a blast shoved her back -
- right in to another wall of ice; with a groan and a curse, she swept behind it for cover, only twenty feet separating the two -
- and another flurry of shockwaves entering her wall of ice but doing nothing.
'I wonder when he'll realize.' she thought, burning purple blade starting to run out of oil. She snuffed her blade and tried not to laugh at his kicks of frustration behind, and as he started panting & pausing -
- a dozen jets of water burst out of the wall and towards him -
- and she glanced back just in time to see his shockwaves blast the liquid to the ground, no direct streak connecting them but a pool still ahead of him, exasperatingly asking - " - why the fuck isn't it working?!"
" - does this work?" shouted Mia; one ice scarab flew to the pool as another dozen water jets shot towards him -
- he kicked -
- and as soon as the shockwave hit the frozen pool underneath, he was doomed and he knew it; it shattered in to a hundred frozen shards -
- whose keen ends ripped his chin off of his hair; a terrible noise passed him as he staggered back -
- just in time for Mia's thrown burning purple blade to impale through his front & out his back -
- and three electrical arcs yanked three cars in to him, bones crunching & sandwich of gore oozing out and between the metal; another arc peeled them off him in the wreckage and she knew that he was dead.
"'Why isn't it working.'" she laughed, crouching down to scan.
SWARM (325)
CARVE (323)
As she usually did after fights, she waved the civilians back out from their hiding spots. In some cases she would identify if there were any children and try to reassure them personally, a habit she had adopted after remembering a lesbian couple who did the same with her as a child. (This lesbian couple did not actually exist, and was one of several student encounters Mia had unintentionally created; this far in you can reason out many causes.)
She saw no children, so she went back around the block and was pleased to find someone walking her way.
"I already dealt with the Revenant, Kirihara!" She laughed and waved her tablet. "Here, would you like to check? I'm ahead of you!"
"Don't start with me today, bitch. I've got enough problems without running into you." Kirihara turned around and started to step on Carve, but stopped as Mia sneered at her back.
"Fine. Go and act all sullen over it like you usually do. You know, you really are so easy to provoke."
Mia grinned as she saw Kirihara turn back to her, as Carve formed into a spiked baseball bat. "But, I just wanted to--"
"Get the fuck out of my sight. I'm not gonna tell--"
"Hahaha, is that supposed to scare me? I know you aren't going to attack me, you fucking creep. You wouldn't even attack Matoi and Matoi's actually blown your limbs off, and you expect me to think you can threaten *me*? What a fucking joke. Yes, I'm so scared of the Great Kirihara Kishor, who gets laughed at by anyone she can't intimidate and beats up civilians to make her feel strong. The only reason someone hasn't put you in a garbage bag yet is because you're a host. Well, don't worry, Kiri, because you're not going to be a student for much longer. Matoi didn't expel you: I will."
"Still got eighteen days left in the month, you fucking cunt. And what's with calling me *Kiri*, huh? What the fuck's that mean?"
"Exactly what I meant."
"Oh, you like to think you're real fucking insightful, huh? Yeah, like you've never thought of smashing some guy's skull when he calls you a cunt or your mom calls you a bitch. That's what pisses me off about you and everyone else. You act like my urges are so fucking--"
"Kirihara, normal people don't have *urges*. Not even normal hosts. I'm not surprised you don't realize that."
"Everybody's got urges. Even you."
"No, I have emotions and thoughts, unlike you, who just acts out whatever you feel like some fucking animal. Just look at you -- you aren't even listening to me, you're just waiting to explode again. Before you say anything, maybe you should think about why it's so easy to wind you up like this."
Kirihara steadied herself against the wall and started shaking as Mia laughed at her again. The Catch-22 of her rage was that for all the more she tried to suppress it, the more she knew it was becoming visible. She felt an urge to move; but no, that would be cowardly shit -- at least in the ever-present now in which she lived.
Mia shook her head. "By the way, I just felt my tablet vibrate, so obviously, so did your's. Yet you're still here. Why? Shouldn't you go off and get the kill before I do? You move faster than I do. And yet you stand here, with that vacant look on your face, raging like everything I say against you is an act of war."
"Go ahead, call me crazy and tell me I should go see somebody or some shit. Fucking cunt. I've heard all that shit before. You set up all this shit like you're the one who's sympathetic, and I'm -- I'm the one who's got problems? Yeah, some joke. My life's been shit since the day I was born -- not that you'd know anything about that. Ever had to sleep without a mattress or air conditioning, in fucking Arizona?"
"I don't give a shit about your justifications. You're just like any other bully: a dog pissing in her own corner. I remember when you tried to provoke me, after Jeanne died. I could've burnt that hole through your head and not your neck -- but I didn't. I controlled myself. You don't realize that you're always going to be on the periphery of life because people can sense what you are: a hollow coward who'll never develop anything close to a mature grasp of things. Or, maybe you do realize that, but I don't care. I'm not interested anymore in what causes something like you."
"Yeah, well, speaking of that, maybe I'll pay that little protege of your's a visit when I'm back."
"Right. How did that work out for you last time?"
"I would've fucking killed her if you weren't there."
Mia rolled her eyes and burst into blue flames as she walked away. "Kirihara, you have many interesting ideas, and they're all very stupid."
Kirihara felt an urge, or emotion, to smite this thing before her. Yet she knew that Mia was the rare individual for which she could not intimidate or enact violence upon. At some level, this justified Kirihara's intensive training, for she wanted to ensure that she did not need to block off any more Mias or Matois from the rest of her id. This was how she was with much of her life; when she did not feel like justifying it or arguing it she simply cordoned it off. On rare occasions where she was asked how she excused her abuse of civilians, she usually fell back into nonsense about her childhood or her alcoholic mother.
It would be folly to sort out any logic to Kirihara's actions, for she bordered on psychosis; she was proficient at lying to herself yet had none of the charisma to do so to others; no objective ear could believe her various justifications of herself. Small surprise was it then that few ever asked for her opinion on any matter, and this only intensified her boil against *them*, an ever-changing category to which Kirihara ascribed whatever current rot held her life. In the past year she had developed this sort of paranoia, and further isolation & social ostracization had self-valorized her malignant agencies; they could now lay their own eggs.
Thus to Kirihara, women like Jeanne, Mia, Matoi and her mother were not only evil, but the source of all evil in the universe. There is too little space to explore the treatment of Kirihara by her mother here, and even if there were, one novel cannot give you the whole woman. It can only give moments:
As a child, her mother had once taken her to a playground on a hot day. Kirihara's agileness as a young girl proved useful as she aged, but she would often get into fights with other girls. On this day, a few other girls got involved in a spat with her, and when one shoved her onto the metal slide, the heat burned Kirihara's calf to it, and when she tried to unlodge her leg it ripped off some of her flesh with it.
Through all of it she screamed, and she could remember how her mother came over and began berating her for two things: one for being so stupid as to get into a fight, and two for being unable to win it, for she hated losers even worse than those who never got involved. She did nothing but bitch about what an inconvenience it was going to be to take Kirihara to the hospital, even as Kirihara felt it was barbaric to build a metal slide in Arizona because of this exact situation.
But now you may ask: why has Kirihara never killed her mother? Well, because the woman was already stuck in her own world of booze by the time Kirihara was able to leave for Urasaria, and would likely deteriorate until she just one day died. Kirihara killed her with kindness in that regard.
And to translate Kirihara in to a language more familiar: perhaps if she had been a civilian she would have used her misshapen body to manipulate men or enjoy sabotaging their personal relationships, but instead Carve's activation inspired her to physical violence; it hollowed her into a walking reservoir into which her gashed soul could leak and collect. What had allowed Kirihara a life separate from her mother only amplified her.
[April 14th]
Kirihara had gotten called in that day to deal with a clothing thief with an eyepatch, though the thief wasn't there yet when she arrived at the store. Covertly, she browsed one rack at the front, glancing back at the door fifty feet away. As with most stores of the type, there was one center aisle & rows of clothing flanking it.
Another call came up on her silent tablet, but if she left now, they'd show up as soon as she left. She sighed, glanced back to the front door, and in the next instant -
- a woman wearing an eyepatch walked inside. Kirihara stepped near the end of the aisle, and felt the woman come up to the other side. Kirihara glanced over, and in the next instant -
- the woman started walking away, no clothes in-hand -
" - hey, dick!" shouted Kirihara; Carve's saw formed and flew towards her -
- but the next scene was instant. The woman shrunk to a microscopic size and fell to the floor -
- but Carve's saw scrubbed the floor -
- and out of the steel teeth popped the woman's liquid corpse & one pilfered shirt, still-beating heart left on top of the saw.
"Nice and easy." muttered Kirihara. She crouched down to scan, and Carve destroyed it once she finished.
[April 17th]
Kirihara had gotten called in that day to deal with a Cambodian man with dual daggers. She stepped in to the skyscraper's lot, building two hundred feet away & her foe a hundred. Carve readied, she started stepping towards him already ranting.
" - we are all ruled by something greater!" he shouted, fifty feet separating the two - " - memes! The DNA of the soul!"
["Stains of Time" - Metal Gear Rising. Instrumental is acceptable.]
'Great.' thought Kirihara. 'Whatever. Time to let it rip.'
Carve's sawblade formed ahead, and as it flew forward -
- the next scene was instant. The man's arms separated in a hundred sections, purple lightning connecting the floating pieces, dagger in both hands; both arms detached and shot towards her -
- and there was no memory, only dry inside as she swept back, sinking deeper in to the mud and in to a peaceful life; two daggers of Carve formed as his arms flew towards her -
- and met them dead-on, four daggers sparking as they met; bowing to her mental command, another dagger of steel formed above his wrist & tried to stab it -
- but it swept with the speed of light back and shot towards her -
- just in time for one of her two daggers to meet it again, Kirihara stepping back, trying to keep track of both hands - but a divided mind couldn't fight an equal battle. Inch by inch, the pressure of his strikes forced her back; one arm swept behind her -
- and a plate of steel formed over her back just in time to block its stab; Carve's dagger blocked his from the front again -
" - war is a cruel parent!" he shouted fifty feet away - " - but an effective teacher!"
" - Carve!" shouted Kirihara; another sawblade appeared above his floating elbow -
- and tore right through it in the next; sudden limb lost, the front half of his arm fell limp & to the ground -
- and Kirihara spun just in time to sever the second arm from the wrist-up; no arms left but still twitching, she started rushing towards him, Cambodian foe still staggering on the other end. As she drew within range, Carve appeared at her side and flew towards him -
- but the next scene was instant. His body separated in to a hundred shards, electrical arcs keeping them together but floating independently -
- just in time to let Carve pass right through the hole where his stomach had been a second prior; behind, Kirihara heard something rumbling -
- but didn't turn in time for two daggers to enter her back & go out her chest; grunting as she staggered, two saws formed over her wounds -
" - free will is a myth!" he shouted, and in the next instant -
- a current like a hundred volts went through her; wounds charring with no rest, she swept with the speed of light right, building up ahead & a hundred feet away, foe only a dozen feet to her left as she turned to face him, limbs glowing purple & crackling now.
'Gotta get him against the wall.' she thought as the two started circling. One limb shot towards her; she raised her sword readied -
- but it swept back to its master before the two met, still circling. She waited until his back was towards the building before she rushed towards him -
- and two spears of Carve burst out of the ground, impaling his flying wrists; only his body left to fight, she rushed up to him with shoulder sawblade readied -
" - Carve!" she shouted as it detached and flew towards him -
- but his body flew back to dodge it; behind, she heard his flying wrists escape their spiked prison -
- but another wall of spikes burst up behind just in time to impale both of them on the way back, and she rushed up to him with sword readied -
- just in time for him to dodge back again; only thirty feet separated him from the building now. Inch by inch, the pressure of her strikes forced him further back, and as his back touched the wall -
" - Mons-"
" - CARVE!" she shouted; her sawblade flew forward -
- and the next scene was instant. Four bars burst out of her saw and bound him against the wall; spikes grew as their ends dug in to the wall, and as they touched the wires within -
- a current like a thousand volts went through him; he shrieked as his body fell in to a hundred pieces, detached head left on the ground -
" - HERE!" she shouted, ripping one bar out of the wall, metal bat forming with her foe still stunned below - " - TRY TO FUCKING DODGE NOW!"
- and one bash slammed his skull right in to his jaw. Kirihara grunted as she stomped&stomped, more pieces of Carve forming to tear him in to a thousand, and as for his blood -
" - DEAD-ON!" she shouted, another bash -
- and it would come like a flood of pain, pouring down on her, and it would not let up until the end was near; and it would come, through her darkest day, in her final hour -
- and it would never rest until the clouds were clear, until it finds her dreams have disappeared.
Once she calmed, she scanned and checked her position.
CARVE (328)
SWARM (325)