Daigo now existed to Mia's mind. That may seem obvious, given the last chapter and her reactions, but more importantly is to deflect accusations of an inaccurate portrayal. It may seem ridiculous that for four years Mia has risked her life, lost & regrown limbs, had her eyes sliced & gouged, faced country bannings and dealt with reviled cretins like Kirihara, to only now become paranoid and frightened.
But he terrified her precisely because she was a host she could not react to, thus she could not control him. While every human fears losing control, it more deeply scares a student precisely because they have greater control over their lives. The civilian lives in a time safer than any in human history, and one can still see those carrying guns around supermarkets on the hypothetical scenario that a masked perpetrator will come into the store, and they will be a hero. And while many will never use their guns, it quells their imagination in the sense of control it provides, that they too may exact the violence a student is native to for all of her adult life.
And it is this sense of control that persists in a student, even in the knowledge that life is much more composed of luck than any can venture; a grimly admitted fact, for it means that much of where & why one is has been determined by external factors, deep in the past, which have set her adrift to float in mediums outside of her own creations, yet somehow she looks around to find herself embedded within it.
This was where Mia Schultz was as March 2022 neared.
She had avoided all public appearances yet again, and was reticent towards hunting as she sat in her living room alone, thinking. She received a text from Serena asking where she was, and soon let her into her mansion.
"Hey, um, Mia." Serena reached out to hug her, but Mia's shoulders almost imperceptibly shuddered. "…um. I was looking for you, but you weren't in your office, and Rochelle said you were at home, so..."
"I know." muttered Mia, glancing back at Serena as she led her to the couch. She sat rather warily away from her, looking for what unnatural movement might have betrayed her Daigoism. "Serena, I haven't really been in the mood for hunting lately, alright?"
Serena nodded and did not say much, but her eyes hunched over. Of late Mia had treated many people like this: her fans, students who tried to approach her, even Rochelle at times. She felt guilty for it here.
"…Serena." she muttered. "I need to tell you something."
"Sure." said Serena. "What's wrong?"
Mia relayed Daigo, and Serena stayed silent for a while.
"…that's why he gave you Worldwide."
"Y-Yes." Mia grimaced. "A-And now, I don't know if Ryumi failed or if anyone walking on the street could be Daigo and I-I wouldn't know until they touched me a-and -" - she hugged Serena tightly as her tears started.
"It's, it's okay." Serena quickly hugged her back.
"W-When I was f-focused on Sylvia, I w-was able to keep my mind o-off of it, a-and now I-I can't stop -"
" - he wouldn't know to target you, though, right? U-Um. If, if he's even still alive. I-I can ask Yuruko about that. I bet she would know something."
Mia wiped her tears. "…I-I suppose. I-I don't know if h-he would know, either."
"…b-but, um… I know you can do it if you have to, right? If - if he comes back, then - then he's… I-I'm sorry, I just don't really know what to say. I know you can do it if you have to, and I don't want to say you might not have to, because…"
Mia's phone vibrated and clenched her eyes. "…I need to stay at Timepact. I-I need to take time away from - I just need to…" She took a deep breath, heart reeling over Ryumi. "…I just need time away from U-Urasaria. I-I don't need students seeing me like this."
She told the rest of her squadron about Daigo and temporarily left Urasaria for Timepact.
As Timepact had made copies of the tapes, she listened to them again, primarily so she might construct a personality out of Worldwide's previous host that had seemed a force of mist in her Urasaria years.
Over her month there, she almost resented the Revenant that locused her for the past four years - then towards Magnus. She should've known something was amiss from the start - he wasn't a spiritual man, and she now doubted he *ever* believed that crap about Ryumi's spirit living on through her. As Timepact had made copies of the tapes, she listened to them again, hoping to construct a personality out of the headless man that had seemed a force of mist in her first Urasaria months.
Ryumi appeared no more worried about Daigo than she was any other host, and spoke candidly about a villain she had disintegrated along with two hostages via Sun Ray. There was no guilt in her tone. She was a loner in her early 30s and spoke scornfully of Akira, yet she loved her husband; not obsessively the way Mia thought Serena & Yuruko did each other, but she recognized in Ryumi's dialogue a romantic undercurrent that had kept into their marriage.
With each tape she listened to, she was impressed by Ryumi and her exploits of hunting. She seemed an upper echelon of host that Mia wanted to be on her way to becoming. But oddly, with each bit of praise Mia found for her, there was a counter-reaction where she needed to revivify Ryumi, to make her a living thing again, to try to collect what made her flawed so that she would not feel quite distant from Ryumi.
She was taken by the realization that she felt almost resentful of Ryumi, though for what, she did not know. Was it because of her failure to deal with Daigo? Her husband for putting Mia into this position? Her own difficulties at taking pride in herself? She thought distinctly of her own sense of self, integrity, and privacy: all that had made her Mia during the time in the cosmos. But she realized that the thing that had lived steadily in her skull was not Ryumi. It was not her remains. A notion of Ryumi had invaded her mind: an idea, but only an idea.
"Schultzy." said Aimee before she came in to Mia's room. "Yuruko thought you should see this."
Mia nodded. Yuruko had been sending her papers of phenomena similar to Daigo's possible revival, checking satellite data for the past ten years to disprove Mia's fear Ryumi had succeeded. If he had been disintegrated without a single atom left, the universe should've shifted. This and Ryumi's last recorded temperature being far below it had stifled her anxiety some.
Aimee showed her an article on her phone. Mia frowned as she played the video.
"Says that people started seeing this back in, uh, 2015 - but it was usually out in the middle of nowhere, so… First time enough people've gotten video of it."
"…it's blood."
"There's a few videos where it's - yeah, that one. Pieces of skin appearing in midair and just floating off. Like it's … going somewhere."