It was short before they reached Chicago, and as Iris had not ate, the two ate at a local diner before booking a hotel (only because Suki was not yet used to the nausea of Meteorology's wind-transportation). While there Iris researched recent calls regarding hosts in the area, and after some filtration, found that a man had been killed a week ago at a local beach in a manner befitting that wielded by a host, along with the name of a woman reported to be an eyewitness to such. Though Iris loathed to rely upon any report but her own, she found the woman's face through social media and decided it would not be harmful to attempt to visit her.
She tried the beach first, and with a little surprise eventually found her there laying on a towel. She was wearing a small two-piece, though neither Iris's nor Suki's eyes glanced there. They walked up to her, and she said: "Yes? Do I know you?"
"We were wanting to gather some information about the murder of Marcus Crenshaw."
"What, about that lunatic who ran after him and chopped his body up like a sack of meat?"
Iris nodded and thought over that image for a few moments. Perhaps she could bring something similar into reality herself soon. "The very same, yes."
"There isn't much to say. I was coming back from my boyfriend's car after getting something for him, forgetful idiot that he is, and on my way back, I saw a tall man grabbing another man's wrist from behind. His body fell apart like he had been put through a deli slicer -- not exactly a sight I find enjoyable, so I'm sorry that I immediately looked away. I don't know where he went to after that."
Iris noted that she had not reacted to a hole decayed in her towel; thus her ambivalence to violence was likely personality-driven rather than a biological (or not) directive. "To your knowledge, was Marcus a host?"
"I have no idea. Why are you asking all of these questions, anyhow? Are you with the police?"
"No, we're Urasaria students."
"O-oh." She hurriedly covered herself up with her towel and moved away. "I-I didn't realize you two were homosexuals. You should have told me."
Suki spoke up. "Don't worry, you're not attractive."
Iris caught herself before she bust into laughter. "That's all the information we needed." She walked away with Suki, and once out of earshot said: "Suki, that wasn't very nice." She stroked her chin. "But it was funny."
"I'm tired of straight women thinking just because I'm gay I must wanna fuck them. I hate that shit. Hate when girls get hurt by guys and say they're gonna go gay. Bullshit, I'll hurt you just as bad."
Iris suspected that Suki had never met a woman she couldn't offend, for there seemed no part of herself she would not vocalize at the most inopportune of times. To Iris's mind she seemed that particular form of lesbian who often joked how undatable she was yet was hurt that no one wished to date her.
But for Suki she had often felt herself ugly in some sense, and as most humans fail in fairness, had hoped that she eventually might be the one to determine others' worth by their appearance instead. Rather than the avoidance or subversion of that which she had been taught, she sought an ingratiation of herself to such systems; her thoughts had no molding characteristics towards that which it beheld, and so the slow weathering of her view of Iris had been a thing she felt rather than a thing she had chosen. She envied her for her physical attraction and muscularity, her strong Revenant and hot girlfriend, yet sought to smother such through outward belligerence, for she felt such things stabbed at herself in a way; she viewed the life of all others in relation to herself, a judgment that she thought visible to all others as well.
It should suffice to say that Suki did not like others much, and so by some terrible alchemy did she often confuse sympathy for pity and trust for manipulation. Thus, how the world turned for Suki was through the expulsion of all others who attempted closeness with herself; unlike Iris who wanted to be liked yet felt herself a corrosive influence on others, Suki almost wanted to be despised for allowing others into her had always corroded herself.
For now Iris continued her invasion of privacies through the internet; it was not long before she had the victim's address, and with a bit more research she likely could have known whether he was circumcised. The two visited his home, still abandoned and not yet resold, and Iris reverted the front door unlocked to walk through and crouch down to focus on the living room. After an hour, she reverted to the day before the murder, then saw his sliced corpse leave for the beach; no heart beat in his cavity, and she surmised such must have been destroyed in him at time of death.
She began fast-forwarding through her Timeline, pulling her extended strip of time towards herself until an explosion blasted her left leg off from below and she had only a second to duck before a hundred bullets shot over her head; in the next instant the front wall rotted away and Iris blasted Suki away with a wind that shot her out of the home, and ahead The Norwegian was without emotion.
Her mechanical hand twitched back and a swarm of explosions claimed the room; Iris had only a moment to decelerate the air and force out her own sphere of wind as a barrier against the shockwaves, no shrapnel but the sharp air nicking her skin, a well of pressure building around her and seeking to crush her; a thousand bullets at immense momentum shot at her from ahead, and she had only an imperfect counter for the next instant scene.
A spot of air opened at her right leg and the pressure rushed into fill the gap, crushing her one leg into a stick of flesh & gore; yet the tension was dispersed enough for her to launch herself back and repeat The Norwegian's explosions back upon her advancing bullets, slowing them as Iris crashed through the wall to the bedroom; midair a second wind blasted herself out the decaying window & outside, two limbs gone as she launched herself up & over the home.
Dipping for a second into Kairos' range, she reverted and filled the room below with explosions again; yet another swarm of bullets shot up towards her, and as she swept her wind out to block them -
- the bullets ricocheted off each other and the air itself, spreading & bouncing in random directions, their final path centered upon Iris in the midst of this cylindrical swarm -
" - Kairos!" she shouted; her drills reverted to her hands and decayed into millions of shards, their prior spins repeating on their millions of bits around herself; the bullets came upon her yet most wilted against her churning barrier, and as one bullet passed through her right arm -
- it exploded and its shockwave ripped up through her flesh -
- but she blasted her third gone-limb and herself in two separate directions, and though her ego despised it, she coated her retreat in a swarm of clouds; another hundred bullets tore through them, but she was already gone and burrowing below, blasting through a decaying underground and repairing it all behind herself, at least until she was a few miles away and could unburrow to launch herself back to Urasaria's infirmary and call Suki.
"What in the French-fried tittyfuck was that?" said Suki.
Iris hovered into the infirmary and noted Emilia eyeing them with concern as she hailed Serena down, who came over, asked if Iris had cut herself shaving, then filled her limbs back. "That was The Norwegian, as I told you before."
"Shit. Did you get her?"
Iris was bemused, then realized Suki was serious. It was difficult for her to recognize that because she was a somewhat strong host, to Suki Iris was the strongest host in the world, both physically & Revenant-wise, which had helped her confuse strength for emotional security. Bizarrely, she felt it akin to a paradox of masculinity; that the capacity for strength was not defined by that strength itself, but rather the ability to not project weakness. "Not yet. Eventually. Not going to be able to Timeline that home again, though." She frowned, then realized there was likely a reason why The Norwegian had known she would Timeline this home; this was likely not an investigation solvable, at least for now.