The next morning, the four were called back to the station for bizarre news.
"The woman you brought in yesterday doesn't have a Revenant." said the detective. "Or so the surgeon said, at least: you can read his report here." He pressed it over. "No colonies, no bacteria, not a single trace of a Revenant. He was almost worried he would've put her in to a coma if he tried to use Penxeno on her."
Naomi frowned. "I'm telling you, she had a Revenant. I hit her with this arm and she didn't die."
"And I believe you, too - I'm sure that you fought - I'm sure you didn't just drag someone in random from off the streets, but…" He sighed. "…she's refusing to talk, too, and we… We can drum up some excuses to keep her here for longer, but…"
"Did you check if she had a gemstone on her?" said Viktoria and his head shook.
"Already checked everything on her. Unless she's hiding it somewhere deep."
"I…" Naomi sighed. "…I guess I'll - ugh. Natasha, let's go back to the jewelry store from yesterday and - maybe someone saw us fighting or they have video or something, right."
"Okay." nodded Natasha, standing with her.
As they walked over, Naomi suddenly frowned after a minute of silence. "…I just realized something. Natasha, do you remember where the morgue is? How far it was?"
"Um, fifteen minutes?"
"And Viktoria said they came back ten minutes later, right? After they dropped the guy off?"
Now Natasha frowned. "…yeah."
"…she could've… Maybe she took a shortcut, but…"
"Um, or a taxi, maybe."
"I guess, but - right to the jewelry shop?"
"I-I don't know."
"It's cool." Naomi smiled. "Just thinking that... ugh, I dunno. Maybe that wasn't the same guy that killed him, but… it'd have to be a duplicate Revenant or something."
Natasha nodded.
"Jewelery store is around the corner." said Naomi, and as they turned the corner & came up to it -
" - are you fucking kidding me?" groaned Naomi. "He actually sold it?" She closed her eyes and sighed as she leaned against the glass door, no light inside as she knocked with her flesh hand. "…ugh. Wall is made of concrete, so…" She shook her head and stood up, nodding to Natasha. "Okay. Ready?"
"Um, what are we doing?"
"Going inside."
Avalanche's arm formed, and in the next instant -
- one punch blasted a part of the wall across the room, and in to the store swept the women as the alarm started shrieking - " - let's, ugh - let's see if they have their security room on-site, right?"
Natasha nodded and let Naomi vault over the counter first, merchandise gone as they came up to a door. Another bash cleared it down, but Naomi sighed as they stepped inside to an empty room - " - god, seriously -"
- and the two heard a voice speaking outside of the store; Naomi glanced back and saw a man calling someone on his cellphone, and back out the lobby rushed the two women -
" - students!" shouted Naomi, flashing her badge out to him - " - we're students!"
He scowled with lips dry enough his face looked split. "What the hell do you think you're doing here?"
"We're trying to f- we're trying to investigate." sighed Natasha. Nothing set her off quite so much as the tone older men often took with her.
"We're students trying to investigate, yeah." said Naomi, walking up to the hole she left.
"I'm the new owner of this store you've just made a fucking mess of." he said, stomping up to them. "Both of you are trespassing, breaking and entering, and -"
" - I'll repair -"
" - I don't give a damn about the repairs, get the hell out of here before I call your school and -"
" - we're not going anywhere until -"
- he put his hand on Natasha's shoulder and tried to yank her out -
" - Meteorology!" shouted Natasha -
- and a gust of wind sliced through his right arm, leaving a gash that was gonna stay for a while; he staggered back - " - e-excuse m-me - control your protege!"
"You deserved it." shrugged Naomi. She treated civilians respectfully whenever she was forced to deal with them, but secretly thought they were often obstacles to enforcement of the law in cases like this. "Where the hell are your security cameras? We need them."
"Transported off-site, of course. Along with the rest of the merchandise."
"Excuse me?" Naomi stomped as the three stepped outside and a wall of stone plugged up the alarm's crying.
"D-Do you have a warrant?"
"Why would you even ask a student that?" Naomi groaned. "Where are your fucking cameras?"
"You can stop with the ru-"
"No, you shut up and let me tell you something, buddy. My 'protege' and I fought a Revenant here yesterday. If we hadn't been here, your whole shitty new purchase *and* the guy who bought it from would be fucking dead. I know students who wouldn't put up with people like you, and who treat civilians like shit. And when I have to deal with some asshole like you, it makes me think how much easier I could make this for me and not for you. Got it?"
She left a glare on him that went to the blood.
He gave her an ugly look. "…fine. For my cameras - they've already been wiped. I can tell you it wasn't me."
Naomi didn't believe him, but she couldn't very well Avalanche-punch everyone. "Was that so fucking hard?"
"I value my privacy very highly. I think it was a terrible idea to give people like you legal immunity: you can't even control your emotions at eighteen, yet you're expected to enforce the law? You come up to a store and the first thing you think of is to bust the door down and not try to contact the owner?"
Naomi snapped her fingers and concrete replaced the damage.
"Uh, you can join the military at eighteen, too." shrugged Natasha. To her, eighteen was plenty mature, despite her father's protests.
"That's little better. In the military, you might at least be beholden to someone who's passed puberty. Did you have any other questions to berate me with?"
'Should've given him another scar.' thought Natasha & Naomi.
"What's your name?" said Naomi.
"Arthur Berin-Gotren. It's hyphenated."
"And you have no security footage from yesterday? That's what you're telling me?"
"It's standard practice during a business transaction. If there was something on there you needed, I apologize."
"Why did you buy this place?" said Natasha, glancing back. "Seems like, um, a-a bad investment."
"I enjoy taking risks. When I was younger, I remember the days where business was a little fun, when you worry whether you'll be forced back to working some menial desk job, doing tasks that become useless to the universe three seconds after they're finished. The fear of every small business owner is that they might have to work a day in their life. Through a bit of acumen, I have a reasonably large business in a much more secure area of the market, but when you have enough money, it begins to lose value if you hoard it up, never risking it on anything. I enjoy a bit of controlled fear. The poor ride rollercoasters and watch horror films. I spend a bit of my fortune gambling legally."
Natasha blinked, comprehending none of it. The most fear she enjoyed before Urasaria was sneaking in to her gym after-hours, knowing she would be dead if she failed the next set of bench press.
"Enjoy your store, dick." grunted Naomi, and the two went off. Probably when she got back Viktoria was going to ask her all about how she handled it, with an underlying tone that she would've had the entire case solved now if it wasn't for everyone else getting in her way. Some students took it displeasurably that they had to work with *anyone*, but even Mia had a squadron, and Viktoria was no Mia. She wasn't even a Kate.
She stopped herself and took a few breaths before they stepped in to the police station and met back with the detective & the others.
"Did you find anything?" he said.
"Nope." Naomi frowned. "Someone bought out the store. They said the cameras were wiped."
Viktoria mused. Naomi hoped she would say something to set her off, having thought of a few retorts on the stomp over. "…you still have her in custody, yes?"
"We do." he said. "I suppose we could release her to your care, if needed."
"Let me meet with her. It won't be to torture her."
"If she's not talking to us, I doubt she'll want to talk to students."
"I have my ways. Where is your interrogation room? Bring her to me."
He pointed her down the hall, and she nodded as she stood, three students following behind. "I'll go get her."
The four went to the interrogation room, and Viktoria was still standing over her chair when her & the detective came in, handcuffed as she sat down.
"No, no. Stand up." she said, yawning.
She stood up, and in the next instant -
- a slimetentacle went all the way through her & took her mouth as an exit; Naomi threw her hand out -
- but the woman was already dead before she slid off of Otstoy's tendril, Viktoria scooping something off the ground below her corpse.
"Ah, just what I thought." She held up a ruby. "This was his Revenant, then."
"Excuse me?" sputtered the detective.
"There was a gemstone like this yesterday, on the man who attacked the docks. I thought it was unusual he would be carrying something so valuable on him -before- doing something so stupid."
"And… if, if that hadn't worked?! You would have just -"
" - whatever you're about to say, it's not going to convince me, and whatever I would say in response wouldn't convince you either. It worked. I prefer to deal with things how they've occured and not how they could have gone, yes?"
He sighed, looking to the mangled corpse with no disgust. "…should've expected this from a student."
"…Revenant." muttered Naomi. "Natasha, how hard did you, uh, attack that guy? At the store?"
"Um, pretty hard."
"You attacked someone?" grinned Olivia. Hopefully, Natasha would be that aggressive with her some day.
"Test it on me." said Naomi, giving her flesh arm out. "Just like you did it."
"Meteorology."
A gust of wind sliced through her right arm and left a scar.
"That's how hard you did it?" said Naomi and Natasha nodded. She frowned. "…that's not much, but… It wasn't much on him, either. I just thought you pulled it."
"It kinda hurt my ego, actually." she mumbled and Olivia laughed.
"Am I going to have to deal with a pissed off civilian calling the station about you four?" said the detective.
"Uh, he said his name was Berin-Gotren." said Naomi and he sighed.
"He's still using that name. It's not his real one, if you're wondering about that. He fancies himself some sort of playboy type - all mysterious, hedge gardens and marble statues in his yard. It's all talk, but the papers here like him enough to call him Berin."
"What's his actual name, then?"
"…I'll have to look it up. Sheremet, something. Might take a while for that."
"Then notify me as soon as you do." said Viktoria. "As for us, I checked again at the docks last night - they said their manager who hired Emil was taking the week off to visit his mother in the hospital. Fortunately, there's only two he could be talking about, if they're anywhere near here. Olivia and I will go to one of them, and you two the other."