Two weeks ago, Rin had made an offhand comment to Matoi about a report that'd come across her desk, and Matoi was suddenly interested in its source now.
"(What did you see, exactly?)" said Matoi in Japanese, the three standing outside of his house.
"(It looked like an eyeball, or s-something like that )" he said. "(I was in my yard gardening, pulling out a few weeds. S-Someone's been putting something in my soil recently - I've never had this bad of an infestation.)"
Rin glanced at Matoi, letting her know why she'd initially disregarded it.
"(A-And I saw this eyeball appear to my left, and when I looked at it, it began floating away. Very, very quickly.)"
"(What direction?)" said Matoi.
"(That way.)" He pointed west.
"(And nothing else has occured since?)"
"(No, nothing at all. I tried to dig around to see if there were any more, but that was the only one I saw. I-I hope it isn't going to affect my azaleas.)"
"(If you see any other occurrences like that, report it to Ueno again. One of us will look in to it.)"
"(And please do not mention this to anyone else.)" said Rin. "(This is an ongoing investigation.)"
"(T-Thank you.)" He bowed. "(I-I'm glad that Ueno has you as president now, Frostbite)-chan."
"(Do not address me like that.)"
"(I-I apologize.)"
"(Good.)"
Matoi figured her feminism had rubbed off on Rin by now; she had to deal with twice the disrespect President Matoi did. In America, men had known to only call her a cunt out of earshot; in Japan they diminished Rin openly.
A bit stiffly, Rin walked off with Matoi and up the road. She said nothing as they walked up another few streets, and in the next instant -
- the two heard something sizzling in the air above, and as they turned their eyes up -
"( - here we go.)" sighed Rin, relevantly, volley of scorching boulders raining down from above -
- and she pulled her Matoi back as the entire barrage hit the road ahead and blasted it to shreds, sizzling concrete shards erupting out & towards them -
- but a swift set of shockwaves blasted them up & away; above, they heard the next volley seeking their heads -
" - Sekisetsu!" shouted Rin; a dome of ice formed over the two, and as the scorching barrage hit it -
- the dome melted in to water that bent but didn't break, boulders floating downstream outside, smog leaking out of them as soon as they hit the ground. Sight & sound obscured, Rin glanced back and a tunnel of ice formed ahead, instantly melting in to a tunnel of water.
No time to waste, the two rushed through it, waters parting to allow Wedding's missiles out, shockwaves blasting away the ashy clouds outside, and as they saw something sitting on a house 100ft ahead & left -
- one boulder broke through the tunnel and smashed Rin's shoulder in a burst of fiery blood; she shrieked as Sekisetsu froze it solid, but the two started coughing as more smog leaked out of it -
" - Kekkonshiki." coughed Matoi; one laser shot towards it -
- but she sighed as the smoke swallowed up her scorching ray; another three boulders broke through the tunnel ahead -
" - S-Sekisetsu." winced Rin, snapping her fingers as the smoke started choking them out -
- and the watery walls went down; two mega-missiles erupted out of Wedding's shoulders -
- and the shockwaves blasted all of the smog outside away, clearing their vision to see a 20ft tall volcano planted on somebody's roof; the two saw a spot of motion they knew was their foe behind it, and rushed forward with no time to waste. More boulders crashed around them and filled the air with ashes, but shockwaves erupted out of Wedding's shoulders to clear them out -
"( - it's - ) - fucking - ( - starting to clog it.)" coughed Matoi, tapping the two holes in Wedding's shoulders her missiles launched out of. A micromissile exploded in it and when the ashes cleared out they sent a few scars down Rin's cheeks, and they felt the heat growing as the smog covered them again -
- and as it cleared again, they saw lava flowing out of the volcano's mouth 50ft ahead & approaching fast, constant volley of meteors hitting the road and destroying their path forward. Rin's foot tapped as they rushed forward and a platform of ice formed between two rivers of lava, and as she rushed on to it -
- her ice melted to water, bending but not breaking as she ran, volcano only a few seconds up & away now as her water broke -
- but not that kind, and the next scene was instant.
"Sekisetsu!" "Kekkonshiki!"
A volley of missiles erupted from Kekkonshiki's shoulders, and Rin tapped them as they flew past her -
- freezing them in to mid-air platforms; she vaulted up one and jumped on to the next, Sekisetsu freezing it as she leaped on to another -
- and another, one final leap up on to the roof -
- and Matoi watched her ice plug up the volcano for good as soon as she touched it; Rin swept behind & out of her sight, and she heard the host screaming as the volcano & lava disappeared.
A few seconds later, Rin threw his frozen body off the roof and in front of the house, and she came down & Matoi came up.
Matoi noticed deep bruises on his frozen neck. So far as she knew, Sekisetsu didn't normally cause them. Rin tapped her phone and a familiar transporter appeared.
"(Junpei.)" said Rin. "(Take this host to the police. Let them know I'll visit later for my report.)"
"(Yes, Frostbite.)" he said, bowing, and he was gone.
Rin checked her phone for directions, then started walking.
"(You're not usually that violent.)" said Matoi evenly.
Rin sighed. "(Well, can you blame me when they make me do it? It's not like I enjoy having to tell them off like that. It's as if when I was only a student I was no threat to their male egos, and now that I'm president, they have to diminish me. It's as if I'm punished for my own success. And I have this suspicion that I'm being assigned more investigations than Daishi was. Yamato, I understand: he was just so inept. Why they allowed someone with no expertise into that role...)"
Matoi mused. "(Perhaps the issue is you let a lack of qualifications stop you.)"
Rin laughed.
"(I'm serious.)"
"(No, I know. I should be ignorant like a man.)" Rin smiled. "(I don't know. You know I'm not as aggressive as you are: I mostly do it passively. The police sometimes override my suggestions, and I always have a bit of hope they'll fail afterwards so I could throw it back up to them.)"
"(It's a start.)"
Rin laughed. "(Oh, stop it.)"
"(Did your publishing deal go through?)"
Rin nodded as they continued walking.
Art had been a minor hobby for Rin before, and Japan's persistent survival of small presses had made it easy for her to find a publisher now. She'd hidden her identity from both them & her readers; she wanted her being from Ueno to take no part in her popularity.
Privately, Matoi didn't appreciate that her stories were often veiled depictions of their relationship - positive as it was - but she supposed a woman had to put up with a few things. Saccharine as Rin's writing was, Matoi admired her competitiveness when it came to art.
"(…you know, I wish you would consider coming back.)" said Rin. "(I'll be getting a bit of extra money through that, and I'm already guaranteed for a professional position. I'm sure Wedding wouldn't be *that* big an issue.)"
"(You know I didn't leave because of Wedding.)"
"(Yes, but that was ten years ago, and you did not have a Rin.)" she chimed. "(It isn't all anime and manga, you know.)"
Matoi found anime & manga's enduring popularity annoying, but she found most things annoying - anyone who disrespected her Rin, how no driver near Urasaria used their turn signal, and how out-of-shape Americans were. In their first months together, this had worried Rin, but she felt slightly perverse now for finding it one of Matoi's most attractive traits. She knew, deep down, that Matoi's dislikes were usually mirrors of her past selves, and in the ambitionless faces she despised, she saw her own, if she ever let herself decay.
After they took a train to Tokyo, Rin scanned her badge & eyes at the metropolitan government's building, and the two knocked the door of an office on the second floor. A familiar muscular man opened it.
"Matoi-kun, Rin-kun." he bowed. "(It's good to see you. Come in, please.)"
"Daishi-kun." bowed Matoi, stepping inside with Rin.
Besides Samuel, Daishi was about the only man she liked. While he was in an untouchable position now, he never believed any of that Japanese foolishness about seniority equaling expertise; he evaluated every idea on its own merit and rarely spoke an opinion he hadn't researched. For his fundamental decency, he was despised by every politician in Japan.
He closed the door and the three sat down. "(I apologize for not having any food or drinks to offer you. I was asked to guard the Prime Minister today, but, well. Hopefully the next assassin succeeds.)"
Matoi laughed. "(He's that unpleasant?)"
"(Japan First at least outright says they hate foreigners. Minister Nagao prefers to call it patriotism. Men like him can't go extinct soon enough.)" He pulled his notes out of a drawer and handed them to her. "(Regardless, I was able to question the woman you were asking about. She said she saw an eyeball floating southwest. I told her not to make any mention of it, but… Do you have any leads on what it could be?)"
"(I do.)"
"(I assume you can't say.)"
Matoi's head shook. "(It's caused by a Revenant, though I doubt the host is in Japan. Let me know if you find any other witnesses.)"
"(Of course. Will you be needing anything else before you return to Timepact?)"
Matoi's eyes fell towards Rin. She hardly admitted it, but she felt a bit protective of her; Rin's exterior had hardened over the past months, but she still spent most nights waiting for Matoi's next visit. "(…no. But I'll be visiting Kofu before I leave.)"
"(Understood.)"
She left with Rin, and as she rode the train over with Rin, she felt a sort of continuation of her young life in this place, as if all of Japan was filled by subtle replicates of those she had known and who she had lived with. Yet she noticed how women here still rode in the women's-only carriage of the train to avoid sexual harassment, and she felt some solidarity that she had not been able to fully access in recent years.
Vaguely, she felt there was a whole direction that Japanese women could go, that there was a way their gnawing hunger and spirit could be fused. A strong woman would eventually band them together and lead them to end their oppression and submission under men; to direct their streams of aspiration to together melt a cold wall.
Rin looked over at Matoi as they rode the train back, and she seemed steep in thought with these things. Her fingers tightened, and her facial structure thinned with past hatreds. But it was these traits, undesirable to any man, that had begun to exert themselves again after a day of calm, and Rin found odd harmony in.
++++++
Back at Timepact, Aimee & Mia & Marisa met back with Charlotte & Makoto.
"How'd it go with the Russians?" said Aimee. "Find anything?"
"Uh, that their fetal alcohol syndrome rate is in the triple digits." yawned Makoto.
"Lot of flat upper lips." nodded Charlotte. "But, uh, they all said the same thing. Started seeing bits of blood, intestines, stuff like that - forming out of nowhere and just flying off."
"Did you check near Moscow?" said Mia.
"Yep. Everyone said it was going south, southeast."
"Yeah, and here's what everyone *in* Moscow said." said Makoto. "… … … Nothing. They're all dead after your last host nuked the place or whatever."
"Everyone in Thailand said north. He may be in China." Mia frowned as Aimee sighed.
"Might be, yeah. Gotta wait on Matoi for Japan, but, uh, Timepact isn't authorized in China yet - probably never will be. Government should be able to handle it once we let them know, though."
Charlotte laughed. "He couldn't have been somewhere like - I dunno, Italy or something? Seriously, what if it's China? How are we gonna tell them apart?"
Mia winced. From what Aimee had told her, Charlotte wasn't a racist, but often told jokes to no laugh but her own & Makoto's.
"…uh. Need to call Codex and check on Matoi." muttered Aimee, leaving the room.
"Sure making a lot of phone calls." chimed Makoto.
Makoto had been one of the few who'd never matured in to Timepact, but no matter, Aimee paired her with Charlotte now anyway. The two could make every dirty joke about their co-workers they wanted to then.
"I mean, do they need to hear every time we take a shit that kinda looks like him?"
"Maybe he'll appear in somebody's toast." said Charlotte and Makoto laughed.
"Be done in a few days, anyway. It'll be like every other host."
Marisa sighed. "This isn't just another host, Makoto."
"I'm still not sure I can achieve Absolute Hot yet." muttered Mia, realizing a second later she probably should not say that.
Charlotte blinked. "Absolute Hot?"
Aimee came back. "Still waiting on Matoi - government said they'll transport her back here in a minute. If it's China, they want us to meet with some Chinese representative, let him know what we've found. Said they would probably be able to find Daigo as soon as he shows up, since, uh - they've got a ton of facial recognition cameras."
"But he can change his face." said Mia.
"No, they'll know because he doesn't match up to anyone." said Makoto. "You have to get your face scanned to buy anything in China."
"Yeah." nodded Aimee. "Already use it for regular hosts, so."
Charlotte mused a while. "Must be pretty hard for them to tell them a-"
- she coughed as Matoi entered the room. "…uh, pretty hard to keep track of all that."
"What did you find?" said Aimee to Matoi.
"Every report mentioned it was traveling west." said Matoi as she sat down. "I spoke with Rin before I left - she offered to let Japan know, if needed." She neglected to mention the inquiry she'd asked Rin to relay to Daishi.
"It's not like they're allowed to kill anyway." said Makoto.
Matoi ignored her, as she usually did. "What were we discussing?"
"Everyone in Thailand said north." said Aimee. "Everyone in Russia said south, so… probably somewhere in China. Just gotta wait on the government for that. Should be able to find him pretty quick after he shows up, but, uh..." She gestured to Mia. "Still want me and Marisa with you?"
Mia shook her head. "Once we're allowed to enter China, I'll call my squadron."
"Sure."
The phone rang in the other room. Aimee left to answer it.
"With Sylvia or with Yuruko?" said Matoi.
"No, not Sylvia, er…" said Mia. "I'll explain it to her, of course, but I would prefer Yuruko. We have more experience fighting together."
"Wait, Sylvia's in your squad?" said Marisa and Matoi nodded.
"Yuruko left, and Sylvia was her replacement, correct?"
"Yes." said Mia. "I can make sure she has enough time for her schoolwork, so it'll depend mostly on her."
"Yeah." nodded Marisa, utterly clueless. "Uh, how's she doing anyway, like? Sylvia."
Mia's mouth went grim. Before she left for Timepact, Maria had stomped unannounced in to her office & Mia had chewed her down to the bone, leaving Sylvia in the unenviable position of smoothing Maria's ruffled feathers now.
Aimee walked in and nodded to Mia. "Profile is unlocked."
Mia left with Aimee to a private room, locking the door behind. They went over and sat at a computer as Aimee jostled it to light. "Was just about to pull up her profile, so..."
Mia stared at the screen. Recently, she had felt bitter at the encroachment of Ryumi into her own constructed identity, yet she still admired her and hoped it would not shatter now. She could not be alone, but she could not be too close.
She read over her profile, and reached 'Worldwide' before she started crying.