For the rest of the day Iris rested or went to the gym, the investment of herself into individual recovery or construction an adequate balm against her fears of speaking with Olivia. Of late she had been looking more at Amelie, and the thought of their prior relationship continued to hang about in her mind, buoyed by recent experience and other methods of sublimating her thoughts.
The following day she went with Amelie to investigate, leaving Suki & Amelie's protege with Eva to protegesit.
"Well, the police did tell us a few leads, which I assume you've already either confirmed or falsified. They say that she was drowned in the swamp-"
"No, she wasn't."
"They were also suspecting a man who… apparently lives in his car, near the park-"
"Not him. Not a host."
"Then I won't bother with the third one."
"No, you might as well tell me."
Amelie told her.
"Really?" Iris sighed. "Well, still. I told you yesterday that she wasn't drowned in the swamp. As for the homeless man who believes he isn't homeless, he's delusional, but he isn't a host. I don't know what to tell you on the third one."
Soon they arrived at the widower's home, who greeted them when he arrived, although they knew he was sublimating all emotions that come with grief, just as this text shall do.
"I only hope you're not here to execute me." he said.
"I've already verified it was a host who did it and they've already verified you're not a host. Excepting a hired host, which I'm doubtful of, I've no reason to suspect you." Iris shrugged. "And if the police try to claim you did it, you can call me as your lawyer. They'll find I'm a far more unassailable witness. Can you tell me about the last time you saw her?"
"I had just dropped her off at the mall. I had a few errands to run, and she had wanted to window-shop a little. But- it, it isn't close at all to that nature trail the police were talking about. It's why I was shocked when… I don't know if she could have been taken over there somehow, or-"
"She wasn't. Not conventionally. Was she meeting anyone there?"
"No, not that she mentioned to me."
Iris's mouth stiffened. "Much as I hate to ask, any evidence of infidelity? Anything you ever thought she might conceal from you? Romantic rivalries?"
"No, nothing at all. Nothing at all like that. And while I won't say I-I occasionally thought I was batting a little out of my league, I-I don't know anything about jealousy or anything like that."
"What did she do for a living?"
"She was a therapist. She… she often worked from home. I turned one of our guest rooms into her own little office."
"Any idea if one of her clients might've…?"
"I-I don't know."
"She never spoke to you about her work?" said Iris, then remembered they were heterosexual: it was an eighth wonder of the world he even knew what her profession was.
"No, she really did believe very much in client-therapist confidentiality. She kept her personal life and work completely separate. Separate phones, as well."
"Well, that's the first I'm hearing of it." sighed Amelie.
"Last Tuesday. Where were you?"
"I-I was probably at home, I suppose. Waiting to receive the news. They gave me a few days off at the museum, just in case I needed… I mean, I suspected things, and I knew if it was a Revenant, maybe I wouldn't have anything of her left, but…"
Iris frowned, and she felt a bit guilty as he began to cry. She decided that for now she had done enough questioning. Later conversations with him would reveal that his wife had seemed a paragon of the community, and Iris wondered if it had been this that irked whoever who had killed her; that the like of others' had been a mark of hatred projected upon herself.
Iris headed out with Amelie to that outlet mall, occasionally looking over at her when she would not notice. She hoped that Olivia would not call today, or at least would not find out Amelie was with her, then felt guilty over such.
She stepped out of her truck, Kairos clinging to her back as she continually scanned the past states of the infrastructure around her.
"What are you thinking?" said Amelie.
"Most likely she was grabbed from somewhere here and shunted into one of those swamp tunnels. Kept there for days, then either starved, constricted or drowned, and brought ashore."
"Do you think there's a tunnel under here somewhere?"
"I'm not sure. Seems like a hell of a lot of freedom for a Revenant if it could transport to anywhere from anywhere. If he wanted her body to be obvious, he wouldn't have needed to choose a swamp; similar if he wanted her body hidden. No, my suspicion is that he used the sewer infrastructure somewhere here."
"It wouldn't be able to transport her through those pipes. It isn't like older films where it's full tunnels."
"I'm moreso thinking that the sewer itself is infused with his Revenant. Something where he could pull her in through any body of water here."
Amelie frowned. "…yes. Well, if it's transported by Revenant, there's likely some physical threshold it requires. Remember that there's transportation Revenants that rely on the presence of water. It could be that it transports between swamps, although what constitutes that for his Revenant is obviously subjective."
Iris nodded, and as she glanced up saw many people around shopping, shrugged, then began slashing apart the ground with her wind. Eventually after many burst pipes she found the main line to the sewer, crouched deeply within this hostmade hole twenty feet down, then focused. "Kairos: Timeline."
At the edge of her Timeline there was a clot of water forming, but the present could not penetrate the past; no shit could enter the shat. Iris winced, then cut into the sewer line with her wind; with some difficulty, she stayed the pieces of it so that she could examine it within, her million-eyed scan a sieve through which that stream of time flowed. She wavered near the day she had gone missing and a dint of the water's disunity screeched into her senses; there was a glob of water not of city water but a swamp. "Found it. It's manipulable, at least. Have to follow it back up."
Amelie glanced over at the pipe clogged at Timeline's entrance, then formed Delinquent's full suit. Her voice distorted: "Lead the way."
Iris nodded, and as she left Timeline the pipe exploded and covered her in what it contained, causing Amelie to burst out laughing as Iris grimaced and reverted herself clean.
The pipes burst again and another rain of dirty water came down upon them; they realized it was a Revenant as the hail of rain fell far faster than normal upon them, many bubbles contained within the rain and popping -
" - Delinquent!" shouted Amelie; a parasol sprout from her pink & black hair and shielded them from the sudden rain, denting but unable to penetrate yet. Ahead and below, the sewer pipe began dissolving and more rain burst up out of it, pulled towards them as if redirected by an invisible hand; Iris shouted for Meteorology and a wind swept over the incoming projectiles -
- yet something in the air tonight blocked it and the projectiles remained undeterred; she launched herself & Amelie left slightly to dodge it, still far below ground level and standing in a pit of sewage slowly filling around themselves, more bubbles simmering within and more hidden beneath the surface.
Iris glanced up and saw a dome of rain beginning to form but not yet fall; if they could not escape soon it would cover the entire pit. More sewage was bubbling up from below, and Amelie spoke quickly: "-Iris - slight up-"
She launched them one foot above and avoided their two feet below being encased in the sewage; it sliced in upon itself as Iris's wind kept them hovering, scanning around herself as the sewage rose below. More bubbles were popping below and attempting to intrude into the air below her air, and in the next instant, she felt the air itself harden, then suddenly soften as if to spring them up -
- but she grabbed Amelie and Delinquent's suit densified, no movement but for what it would allow, Iris muttering: "Softness. It- springs back to normal when it isn't being manipulated, he's softening the air to create cushions -"
- more jets of sewage came slicing up at them from below and the softness of the air around it guided it towards them, but for the next instant scene. She shouted for Kairos and the state of the air ahead of the sewage revealed itself to her; she felt the softness of the air around it guiding it like a tunnel of cushions and could not revert this directly, yet decayed the air ahead of the stream and let the laws of osmosis force it to repair itself by pulling from the softer air, enclosing the cushioned tunnel and dulling each stream in its impenetrable casing; before the host could realize what had occured, she glanced up to the dome of frozen rain above and pulled away the softness keeping them there the same way, forcing them to fall upon the two -
- yet more bubbles shot around the rain of sewage, softening the air above them, then rehardening as if a pulled spring to shoot the rain into the two -
- but Amelie aimed her parasol high again and the next scene was instant. A tube shot down past her leg and siphoned the sewage into her parasol, many miniscule vents forming above; Iris heard Delinquent's internals rubbing vigorously against itself, the friction boiling the sewage and spewing out in several jets of steam & god knows what other unholy gasses at incredible pressure that bulwarked against the rain, slowing its advance into her parasol and leaving only a few dents in her armor; in the next instant a hook of wind pulled herself & out of the pit to at last land back at ground-level of the outlet mall.
All around them were civilians running and stamping, unknowing of the students in their midst even with Amelie's suit still dripping with sewage; a gust of clouds claimed them and sent them all away, Iris figuring the host was likely in the crowd and the attacks would temporarily cease, yet in the next instant -
- the floor below them dissolved and a jet of sewage from below shot clear through Iris's arm; she staggered back as Amelie crouched down and covered the dissolving sewer line below with her expanding metal hands, shouting: "-cover with your lava!-"
- and she pulled her hands back just as a geyser of lava hit the line and hardened into a pipe of obsidian; another blast of lava cooled into an island of obsidian that Iris's wind pulled them both to, their own safe archipelago amidst the dissolving ocean of flooring around them, ultrasoftening like a collection of waterlogged tissues and dozens of bubbles beginning to rise. They turned wildly around and searched for their foe, and soon found him waiting at the entrance to a store 40ft away, by his stare & lack of fear alone the knowledge that he was their foe; Iris threw her bleeding hand out towards him -
- but a bubble popped ahead and Iris felt the cut growing on her arm, the slow dulling of her limbs; she cursed as she felt her blood vessels soften and beginning to allow air within, blocking their passage as she gasped out: "-b-blocking blood, fuck-"
- a patch of lava cauterized her wound closed, yet her blood was still clogging within and could not resume its normal passage; her heart murmured as her limbs dimmed, her legs staggering with a stumble; she hit the obsidian ground with her hands and Amelie crouched behind her, more bubbles floating towards them as her arm rapidly morphed behind.
"I hope this doesn't go shooting out of you." muttered Amelie, Delinquent's arm forming into a syringe; she pierced it through Iris's back, drawing out all blood she safely could and tapping it once to remove all remaining air, and in the next instant, whispered for Iris to not react as she slammed down on the plunger to re-inject -
- and a shot of pain went through Iris as her blood was forcibly pumped back through with her blood pressure reading in the thousands, yet her vital functions animated once more as more bubbles swarmed Amelie, softening Delinquent's armor -
- but layers of its softening sheath simply shredded and the pink & black mantle underneath rapidly hardened against such intrusions, Amelie's movements flummoxed behind as she prepared to slam the plunger once more, their foe distracted by her supposed failure for a moment -
- until a jet of boiling water shot out of her arm with such force that it pierced clear through his chest and out the other end; he hit his back to the door as blood spurted from his wound, gasping out: "- S-Spicy Ma-"
- another bubble shot out of the ocean of sewage and shot towards Amelie's open tube; she could no longer risk opening an entrance into Delinquent and closed herself off completely for her own safety (not the first time she had done so), her right arm forming into her dual-pronged rail gun with a bullet at the center, and as Iris hit it with a pulse of electricity -
- their obsidian island tilted back and the bullet hit air, the back of the island softening as a swarm of bubbles awaited their back below; a cast of snow covered Amelie's steaming arm as the two rushed up the tilting isle, yet their boots were sinking in the softening obsidian and Iris hated what she was forced to do; she launched herself over & towards their foe with her arms outstretched, and she was 20ft within for the next midair instant scene.
A swarm of bubbles shot up from below and covered her arms, ultrasoftening her skin until the pressure of the air crumpled her bones and cracked her muscles -
- but Kairos stilled the air around her arms and no pressure could enter; she landed a few feet away from him and turned to hit him with a bolt of red lightning that blasted the top half of his skull off, leaving him a shambling man with bubbles spewing from his heart as he lunged at her; she swept his legs out from under him and on his way down punched clear through his chest and out the other end, narrowly missing his heart as she rose her hand and his corpse slid down her impaling arm.
Amelie smiled as the outlet mall reverted to normal around them, and she went over to crouch down to scan.
[SPICY MAN: Bubbles that control softness.]
"Saw some swamp water back in those pipes." said Iris, discarding his spinning corpse to the side and forgetting (in usual Urasaria fashion) that this sight would traumatize every civilian that bothered coming back. "Hoping I can manipulate it without a Timeline and track it back to whatever pipe it came from."
Amelie nodded as Iris walked back to the main line and crouched down, letting Kairos scan underground for the dint of swamp water again; she found it quickly, and began walking up the mall as she reverted its path below as Amelie spoke beside her. "By the way, I was going to thank you for not renaming Timeline to Omniscience."
"I thought you were the one who suggested Omniscience."
"No, why would I? Omniscience is Latin and Kairos is Greek."
"Isn't Timeline also Latin?"
Amelie sighed. "Well, yes, but I wouldn't expect you to change that, as it's descriptive."
"Then we're in agreement."
Amelie nodded, and they walked for some time more. "But, you know, it would be nice if it was something like Chronology."
"Why?"
"Because then it would be Greek, Greek, Greek. Whereas how you have it now is Greek, Latin, Greek."
"Greek Greek Greek?"
"Yes, Greek Greek Greek."
"What's the third Greek?"
"The third Greek is Kronos, which I did thank you for keeping."
"It would have been Loki if not for that comic book character."
"Oh yes, and I suppose you would have modeled yourself after the version where he becomes a horse?"
"I can't say I couldn't be tempted into a horse-sized strap."
"Yes, I'm certain your ego would love that. Well, still, it would have been worse if you went with Loki. Then it would be Greek, Latin, Norse."
"I can't be a multicultural woman?"
"Yes, and what will you do once your... whatever it's… your Hyper Ability activates? Hyper Abilities? Will you choose a different culture for every one? What's next, Hinduism or ancient Egypt? Will you call it Tandava or Apopsis? Really, Iris, where does it end with you?"
Nathaniel was completely agog at observing the above, even more at the fact that this was what Urasaria students spent their time arguing with each other about, and even moreso that this idiotic young woman did not realize that CHRONOLOGY was already Latin, not Greek. How did any criminal with any sort of intelligence have trouble evading these students? Especially as Urasaria likely had 50 Kronoses and 50 Night Surgeons, if not more.
He found it laughable the sort of mythology that endured around these women, the draw of unknown celebrity something more exaggerated than the celebrity itself. He had been a sort of minor celebrity as a teenager, praised as gifted; that he was someone who would go on to matters of importance, hailed as prodigy as a young artist. It was this praised he still occasionally leaned himself upon in advertising his photography business, yet photographing mere fashion models was never enough for him.
He had once submitted his more artistic photography to local magazines and museums, in hopes that he might make money or let known his deeper talent; yet something odd had occured a year ago. He had received a reply back from a local museum that said they were interested in more of his work and asked for more of his portfolio, and he had submitted such, along with a few prior accolades; then was suddenly given a form rejection with no real reason attached.
It galled him so, until he learned that around this time, the museum had promoted a new curator, a man he had known in highschool who had always seemed to envy Nathaniel's accolades. And as this man was known in many of the same artistic circles, rejections continued Nathaniel's way. He understood now the apothegm that in the arts, it was not who you knew but who you blew. He would laugh occasionally at the pettiness of some people, that what had occured between them was cause enough to blockade his career, as if a personal white whale that gnawed more at itself than it did its percipient.
Yet over the years he was taken by a fact; that though he believed himself still of good talent, the claims of himself as a future prodigy were mere puffery by schools that needed to praise their students regardless of accomplishment and newspapers that did the same for their local citizenry. It was not reality, but a form of it that others suckled at with their own, so dull were their own lives. But, who has not done that same varnishing over thought & afterthought, to wonder if a memory is something one experiences or something one recalls? He felt that he had grown in this recognition, a slit of reality had opened into an objective truth, that the philosophy of all others was in process of attempting to negate.
What Nathaniel did not realize was that the memory of this other man's envy had lodged far deeper into the mind of Nathaniel than it had the other man, who would not be able to summon the name Nathaniel if asked. It was not the realm of objectivity that he had opened via the realm of thought, but another channel of human delusion, that of this severe, gaunt young man who alone explained his failures.
Still Iris and Amelie were arguing, or what passed as it for the two.
"I don't understand." said Amelie. "It's 100% pain for a week or 50% pain for a month. Why would you want the latter?"
"Is it supposed to have a logical answer?"
"Well, it can be understood as 7 days multiplied by 100, so 700% pain total, or 50% pain for 30 days, so 1500% pain total. Who would choose the latter?"
"I would."
"Yes, and you're wrong."
"If it's a simple math problem, why did you ask me it?"
"Because I thought you would answer it correctly, obviously. I apologize for setting my expectations so loftily."
"I did answer it correctly. 50% pain is a hell of a lot more ignorable than 100% pain for 7 days. You know, relatively, if you were in that much pain, time would slow down so it felt like a month regardless."
"You think you could ignore 50% of pain for 30 days?"
"I could ignore enough of it, and on the off chance it flares up, it still wouldn't be as bad as feeling the entire 100% constantly."
"Yes, but it wouldn't be constant, it-"
"It's here, by the way."
Iris motioned to the business at their left: a small clothing store. They went inside, still covered in blood & Iris's right arm dripping in entrails; the man at the front desk jolted, realized, then calmed. (Civilians generally assume that all gore-encrusted women they see in public are Urasaria students, which has allowed the more ambitious of the female civilian set to occasionally get away with certain things.)
Iris showed her Urasaria badge, noting that his eyes glanced to it at a typical civilian's neolithic pace. "Who had access to your bathrooms last Friday?"
"Uh, I'm pretty sure our toilet was broken that day. We were using Nathaniel's if we needed to go. He runs a photography studio next door. He was in that day, thankfully."
Iris's mouth stiffened. "Interesting. Did he happen to stop in here?"
"Yeah, he tried to fix whatever was clogging it up. He's usually only in by appointment, I think, or... I don't know. He might be in Monday, if you want to talk to him."
"Suppose we might."
As she walked outside with Amelie, she thought of how Amelie had smiled at her after their fight, and she noted something that had happened more often recently: whenever she went to the infirmary with blood dripping down her muscular arms, some women looked at her in ways not purely platonic. She had not yet grown Natasha's physique, but was growing her attention.
Iris doubted Amelie yet knew of her relationship with Olivia, otherwise she would not extend such an invitation to her; or so it was to Iris's mind, for most likely it was her own imbuement into such things.
She had dealt with the idealizations of those she dated by these attempted distancings, a belief that love was no possible thing; she had felt this at the dinner with Olivia, and had rationalized her abandonment of Amelie in such a way. Only in such mental fiction did she feel fully allowed independence from the weight of previous selves.
"Well, did you want to investigate further today?" said Amelie. "I can tell you're exhausted, however well you might think you're hiding it."
Iris shook her head no, and off they went, her mind brimming with what it had just felt. Truthfully when Amelie wouldn't notice, Iris had looked at her; she was a pretty woman, and Iris remembered her nude; how her breasts would rub against Iris during sex, her feminine moans; there had been a brutish beauty to how Iris had fucked her. Amelie still represented the only piece of her life before Natasha's death that she could haul forward; if she could have Amelie again then perhaps she would have the rest of it as well.
She felt guilty, even moreso because Amelie had not noticed. In her memory there was herself as a child, her mother reading her a children's book of a character with enormous eyes, and how she would see her parents' faces swirl and merge with this character, and the panicked aloneness such a terrifying sight evoked in her. She was not alone, yet understood herself to be alone. And at the experience of the aforementioned present was the emotion of the latter, recreated in the almost infinite array of herself.
She tried again later that night, and with a shower, the memories of the day turned to rivulets of liquid. She viewed Olivia's attractiveness almost in a disembodied objectification of herself; she was attractive because she contained physical traits that were attractive to Iris, yet in her wholeness there was still the difficulty of human interaction, or more pertinent for Iris, of romance. With Amelie there was familiarity; she knew how and in what ways Amelie was neurotic. But with Olivia she had felt still not an iota of what she feared could be revealed; she seemed for Iris not an object of romantic love but an opening of self-hatred.