The two stayed in their hotel for the rest of the week, and Mia found that Rider was still as useful for passing the time as in her first year.
Her mind foggy from lack of sleep, Mia waited outside of an airport's gate the following Monday, and smiled as she saw Yuruko stepping out behind Serena & Samuel. It seemed right to her, not because she had entirely felt sad over Yuruko leaving, but because she had tied a certain measure of her hope to her idealization of her squadron. The Royal Four was an extension of herself, one stamped with a quintessential Mia-ness.
She was embarrassed that she was the first president she knew to have a member leave.
"You were able to reschedule your exams, Yuruko?"
"Yep." chimed Serena.
"Yeah, I got a three month extension for the possible apocalypse." said Yuruko. "…so is Sylvia not coming?"
"Not after Mia tore the Great Wall of Maria down." chimed Serena and Mia sighed.
"…I was very stressed that day. God, I just despise her."
Looking back on it, there'd been no reason but Daigo for her to let Maria provoke her like that. She hated Maria, but there wasn't any reason to make it mutual & push thorns in to her friendship with Sylvia. She took no pleasure that she'd warned Sylvia against that relationship.
"Haven't seen her around lately, at least." said Samuel. "Sylvia hasn't mentioned her."
"Maybe they broke up." said Serena and Mia's head shook.
"I spoke to her earlier - they're still together. She wasn't sure if she could rejoin the Royal Four once this is over."
Samuel looked prickled. Mia had rarely seen him show anger: she heard it now. "She'd be making a mistake."
"I know, but I can't stop her from making that decision. She said she felt like she had to choose between us or Maria, and if she thinks Maria will change…" It annoyed Mia how Sylvia seemed to accept her fate. A woman always had a choice, no matter the conditions.
"…Kate, then?" said Samuel.
Yuruko avoided eye contact, but Mia knew she'd made her decision; she came along for Serena, not for her.
"…maybe." she muttered. "But let me fill you all in."
++++++
Two weeks later, Mia received a call from China's representative. Her squadron outside his office, she stepped inside and closed the door, sitting down across from him. A blank screen was on the wall. "What did you need to discuss?"
"We've finished our investigation in to Daigo." he said. "Your hypothesis was correct - we've tracked his location to a province far north of here. I won't bother naming it, as I doubt you could place it on a map regardless."
Mia frowned as he handed her a set of pictures. "He hasn't changed his face?"
"Presumably, he doesn't believe there's a need. It was difficult enough evacuating the area without alerting him." He turned to the screen. "However, I thought it would be useful for you to watch."
Mia kept her eyes on him as she turned. "You're certain it's him?"
"He has no birth certificate, no medical records, no matches for his face in our database, and his neighbors rarely see him leave his home. A few mentioned that he only had one eye until a few days ago, and security footage confirmed it." He shrugged. "He'll be dealt with in short order. Hosts are rarely apprehended alive in China."
"Or in America."
"Precisely. Your government understands that, as far as hosts are concerned, a state's duty is to its citizens first and the law last." He leaned back. "But I will reiterate that I meant no disrespect by my earlier comments. We're both accomplished killers, and I understand how it can feel to… be passed over for a job you know you deserve."
The screen flashed on.
"Who's filming this?" said Mia.
"A particular host of our's. She's not in any danger."
Mia watched a man wearing a tiger mask step up a dirt road with solar-paneled houses. In China's rural country, slow industrialization had allowed them to skip over the fossil fuels Western countries would spend trillions dismantling. Whether their speed in construction was from state involvement or Revenants was something argued but never certain.
She saw nothing which made Daigo's home look different from the couple dozen already evacuated, as he stopped and pointed towards it. A black sun appeared over Daigo's house, and Mia saw the other homes dripping as it shone, the feed blurring under the heat. The grass disappeared from the area in puffs of blue flame; solar panels melted and dripped off of their roofs.
"Zhurong." muttered the representative. "I remember when he bought that mask, and now, he isn't allowed to be seen without it."
Mia adjusted her beak as the black sun went supernova, and the shockwave left nothing but Daigo's home and molten metal for debris. His front door opened and he stepped out. He had chosen the appearance of a middle-aged man, one who hadn't shaved in a while. Mia kept her breath rigid as Daigo's Revenant formed, miles of black tendrils drooping out of his back and burrowing underground. From what she had read, these only modified non-biological materials.
One hundred feet separating the two, Daigo stepped out to the road, and the ground rumbled as puffs of blue flame erupted out of it. She stifled her grin to find Zhurong's fire was only blue, then frowned as she realized what it meant about his temperature, and in the next instant -
- one explosion of black tore an enormous hole out of the ground to Daigo's left; his step staggered for a second -
- just in time for a whip of black flame to wrap around his right arm and rip it clear off, disintegrating it without a single ash left; Mia saw Zhurong holding the other end and lashing out with a second sweep, and as Daigo raised his left hand to block it -
- any section of whip touching him disappeared as he let his legs steady, ground repairing itself as he began stepping towards Zhurong again. Bones & blood appeared and reformed his right arm, and in the next instant -
- all the ground disappeared from the area, and Mia thought of her ice as Zhurong fell -
- but a cloud of black flame caught him and kept him hovering above the lack of ground, dirt reappearing a second later. A pillar of black flame claimed Daigo's body, then dispersed as he walked out of it unharmed, Zhurong backing away with fifty feet separating them.
Out of her eyes' corners, Mia noticed the sunlight hitting the molten solar panels to the side; streaks of black flame stitched them together, and in the next instant -
- one ray of sun disintegrated Daigo's head without a single ash left, and he staggered back as another set of explosions went off underground -
- but Zhurong doubled over and Mia saw a jet of his bile hit the ground, gasping with sweat suddenly forming -
" - radiation." she muttered, watching him stagger back.
Another black sun appeared between & above the two, immense heat melting Daigo's flesh as it grew darker & darker. A whip of black flame appeared in Zhurong's hands and when he lashed out it shot in to the sun, and in the next instant -
- ten black whips burst out of the molten solar panels' stitches, gripping Daigo's arms & legs tight, skin melting between the fingers of flame. He staggered like a man in a ghastly nightmare towards Zhurong, his arms fell in to the dirt as 25ft separated them. Zhurong's grip tightened as the sun's heat grew; blood ran out of his eyes.
The ground between them disappeared for a second, and Mia saw the entire web of black tendrils underneath before it reappeared.
Daigo's skin turned to liquid, his bones falling to ash but reforming again. He lunged towards Zhurong with his head still gone, a one-fingered hand crept through his breath, his eyes turned to stone -
- and Zhurong turned in to a statue of stone, the two disappearing as the black sun went supernova.
Mia felt the dread rising in her but did not show it. "Where is he now? Daigo?"
"If he performed it right, Daigo should be in someone's oven in Bilibino. It's a small northeastern town in Russia - and fortunately, further away from China."
"He … what?" She realized it and her dread turned to rage. "This is why you wanted him to fight Daigo first."
He leaned back. "You were right, of course. I had hoped, a little, he could have dealt with Daigo, but we'll leave the rest to you and the Russians. It's out of our borders now."
"You're not a human. You're a fucking viper." she grunted, purple fists clenching. She could feel the heat rising in her scarabs.
"China has a population of 1.4 billion people. Russia, only 150 million or so. What you call snakelike behavior, I call pragmatic. Your government would do the same in -"
- she smashed him in the mouth and he fell off his chair, and if he didn't keep rolling her kick would've torn his spine in half. He hit the wall and laid out on his back, his chest heaving.
"It's a good thing I'm not the government, then. Because I can give you something no one can remove."
She yanked him up by his legs and he screamed, his hands clawing at her ankles. "Solar Beam."
An orange beam disintegrated his right leg without a single ash left and a scar formed over all of his body, and she threw him to the wall as he cursed in agony.