Mia spent the rest of swap week with Aimee, and was excited to learn that there had begun rumors of Mia & Aimee as an item around campus. A common refrain, one that made Aimee blush and change the subject whenever it came up, was that Mia had been spending enough time at Aimee's house that she was likely spending some of it in Aimee's bed as well.

  Aimee did not want to be accused of anything improper, but neither Mia or her discouraged such speculation. Mia had noted of late the way other women spoke to her, attempting to wheedle more out of her; whether for gossip or out of jealousy she did not know, yet she felt it odd how Aimee had almost instantly become more attractive to others merely because they thought Mia deemed her so, her own beauty a transitive object that she had chosen to bestow to Aimee, a gaze through which others swarmed to look.

  Swap week passed, and the following Monday in September, Mia and Marisa were exchanging what they had learned while walking down a city street.

  "Kirihara is a complete fucking idiot. If it wasn't for Urasaria she'd be a psycho yelling at street pedestrians."

  "I already knew she was a bitch, Marisa, I just thought it would be funnier seeing you realize it."

  "Well, it wasn't funny calming down civilians when she'd yell at them, but yeah, like. Some people just like to destroy. Why? To destroy. I wish she had gotten Matoi instead."

  "Matoi would have shoved her into an oncoming train."

  "Matoi wouldn't delegate something that important. She always thinks she's the only one able to do anything correctly, which is usually true, sadly. Anyway, how's it been?"

  "Well, and I told you I had Jeanne for all of thirty minutes."

  "Jeanne is nice. Just, uh... not nice enough for anyone to be friends with." said Marisa, a bit cheerfully. "Sorry, that's mean. But she's always read to me like someone who everybody will say needs a friend but nobody ever approaches, y'know? Plus, her protégé is Kirihara, so."

  "God, no wonder she smokes."

  "Weed or tobacco? Because if it's tobacco, don't worry for her, 'cuz-"

  "Hosts don't get cancer." recited Mia, recalling it from the odd redhead Julia in the first scene of this novel. She remembered an incident between Julia and another student where Julia had, in her usual bizarre logic, said that it was actually all other students who were odd for not smoking cigarettes given no permanent damage could come of them.

  Urasaria is generally considered the land of fruits & nuts, and at this time, Julia was the queen cashew.

  "But I did have a very nice time with Aimee this week. I'm sorry that I've been ignoring you lately, it's just..."

  "Awww. Hey, I don't mind you spending a lot of time with Aimee. You two are sweet together." Marisa smiled. "She keeps you safe and you like each other. You aren't leading her on, right? I mean, you know that she's super into you, right? Don't be a clueless lesbian."

  "I'm not, don't worry. I know she is. And I... think I am too. My mind rests on her very often. But I haven't wanted to give it a name just yet."

  As they moved past a mass of civilians, Mia felt nervous as she noted one move mechanically about past her. It - she always referred to these husks as it rather than them - did not mind her in particular. She had heard they would commit suicide in front of others, but never her. She seemed bizarrely spared of much emotional effect, or at least that which was evoked on anything but a screen. She wondered occasionally if she was somehow selfish for her lack of trauma, yet a counter-reaction would wax in her that there was no need for her to absorb others' emotions so readily; she had needed to prioritize herself to last as well as she had in life. For Mia there was still a vague distrust she had of others besides students that hosthood had amplified, not alleviated.

  "That's a good idea. Every lesbian loses their identity for the first few months of a relationship, I think. But maybe you can stave that off a bit."

  "If anything I'm worried that Aimee might be trying to accommodate me too much. I'd like to know more of what she is without me, even if I want to be closer with her." said Mia, though even this had been difficult lately; hunting with Aimee and seeing her covered in an enemy's host blood, her muscular arms drenched, usually gave Mia half a mind to rail her on the spot. Biologically driven or socially conditioned, it was a sight that seemed a perfect expression of Urasaria attractiveness, thus it was one Mia attempted to use as an outline for what she should be leaning herself towards.

  "Hey, did you try out for basketball, too?" said Marisa. "I remember telling you that you should, 'cuz it's the only sport where boys have an advantage since most of us are short. But with you, you're so damn tall, that maybe you can even it up..."

  Marisa was referring to Urasaria's intramural sports leagues, women against men (hosthood equalized biological advantages), playing versions of popular sports modified to be difficult for hosts; host basketball was played with a 100ft hoop and a titanium basketball. "Aimee suggested that too, and I tried, but it's apparently on hold after an... altercation between a player and a civilian."

  "Oh, yeah, but that's on them for heckling. Plus, we make them sign a liability waiver to even be allowed to spectate, so."

  "If only it had been a life insurance policy." said Mia grimly. "Still, Revenants being banned does make it tempting. I wouldn't be much use if they weren't."

  "Yeah. Plus, the best part is if you find out someone on the other team used their's, the other team has to let you all gang up and beat the shit out of him."

  Mia smiled. She hoped one day she could be part of a group curb-stomping. She heard a series of explosions behind herself and was startled, then turned to see rather close - a minute's run by host pace - another explosion blast apart the roof of a hospital, until a tongue of flame reached out from the building and lapped it back into its own flaming self. Marisa was already running towards it, and Mia followed, realizing quickly: "It's -- it's directed at me, I saw one of those civilian husks before - when we were walking-"

  "-here we go again." Marisa's hands worked quickly tearing fabric out from her dress, then handed Mia a Boudoir-sword. "If we get separated. It's hard but flammable. There's a guard on it - soft, bouncy. And if you need strands, dig under the grip, okay?"

  Mia nodded, and the experience of her colony calmed her slightly as she took it; she still did not know why her bacteria was talented so with a weapon.

  They were thirty feet within the front doors when monstrous tendrils of flame burst from within, thick fingers of fire shooting around Mia and gripping her tight; but no damage came; she felt the warmth but her body did not acknowledge any deleterious effect from it. This did not surprise her; she had learned in a few ways that she seemed mostly immune to fire, at least any that came from a weaker host.

  Realizing its mistake, it released her quickly, then shot towards Marisa; she shouted for Boudoir as her strands shot down from her gloves and burrowed into the water pipes underground, spraying the tendrils of flame with gusts of water, amputating them like a knife through fingers; the fire continued within the hospital and a barrier of flame consumed the perimeter, but Boudoir's strands stiffened and a pressurized jet of water cut a path through, Marisa shouting: " - Mia, if you can- help anyone out in there, I can handle this - "

  Mia winced as she rushed through the barrier of flames unabated, crashing through the front doors into the lobby, a hallway beyond; she heard all around herself screaming and a line of husks drenched in flame shambling towards her ahead, then rushing at her as if activated to some deeper purpose; she hacked and slashed and smote her way through, a little guiltily yet knowing these civilians were already dead as she burned and cut her way through the first floor.

  The screams around her brightened, then suddenly dimmed into a dull shriek, all of similar intonations, until among this sea of agony there crested a singular line of pain, husks aflame, yet as she hacked and slashed and cut through more, she followed this map of anguish until she was at the second floor. Men and women exited their rooms; a dull influence encroached against her mentality as if to ascertain her location, then was gone once more as she reached the stairwell to the third floor, rushing up them and burning all that she found, until as she entered the middle of a hallway, an unknown force crumbled the ceiling above her; she shouted for Worldwide and a flash of scarabs consumed the troublesome rubble, as she turned and saw her foe, behind a mob of husks, fifty feet away from her.

  As he saw her, he began running away past the corner; Mia began in pursuit, then paused as she recalled the layout she had seen on a map earlier; the hospital's floors were arranged in a gridlike pattern, three vertical strips of halls flanked by patient or other rooms. She was at the center-west point; she had seen him run from the northwest to the north.

  Nodding to herself, she turned and rushed into the nearest room she found; a flash of fire burnt clear through the wall, and out she swept to the center point just in time to catch him with a slash to the gut that left his intestines hanging out from himself; he staggered away, and as Mia lunged to him, he shouted "Surt!"

  An enormous and flaming hand burst out of the floor and gripped Mia tight, no damaging heat but still restricted as she thrashed against her restraints; as he ran away again, Mia dug under her Boudoir-sword's grip and threw out a strand that lassoed around his legs and yanked him back; the hand of Surt threw her down the hall and past him, crashing into the south wall and cracking it in her landing.

  Grunting with a stagger as she stood, more husks rushed at her from all directions; a swarm of scarabs flew through them all and they collapsed as a pile of bones in the next, flesh dangling from their insectile pincers. Her current foe was still a hundred feet away of her, yet not approaching her, watching her warily; she thought this odd.

  She rushed down the hall towards him, and felt pockmarks form within her thoughts; she recalled action and reaction, but in ellipses; that she was now

  30ft from him suggested to herself that she had ran quickly in the past few seconds; another hand of Surt burst out of the wall to grip her from her right, but she coated herself in scarabs; the pressure of his grip burst them open into several geysers of flame that tore through his weaker fingers, and she hit the ground running as he ran away from her again.

  Readying to lunge forward with blade drawn, she felt the heat from the burning hospital gather all into himself, trails of fire absorbed into him; he turned and hit her with a beam of concentrated heat that she did not feel, and she slashed his left arm clear off in a single cleave; as he stumbled back, another hand of Surt threw him back down the hall and to the south; she turned, moving her hand to throw out another lasso, but a hole opened in her mentality mid-action and she was left with her hand on her blade, knowing by his continued flight that she had not thrown it; yet the flaming hand of Surt caught him suddenly and paused him, letting him down midway in the hall.

  Mia continued her pursuit, but he glanced back as if terrified of something he had felt. At this unknown perimeter that seemed visible only to himself, he paused and began to beg, surrendering to Mia; she blasted a ball of flame at him and as he backed instinctually away from it, a ghastly noise caught in his throat as his features stilled; the ball of flame shot through him and left a clear hole through his torso; yet no blood dripped nor flowed, his own organs in thrall to what soon laid claim to his mind.

  Taking care of the problem for Mia, he set his hand to his own throat and ripped it clear out of himself, which made Mia giggle. His body fell and a swarm of scarabs burnt it to ash, and tentatively Mia approached it. She felt a dull beckon into where what had enthralled him extended its suffocating influence. She could not go further down the hall without entering it directly.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Hesitantly, she put a hand to it as a woman does the entrance to a pond. Her fingers slowed their response to her mental commands, then resumed unabated, as if familiar with these attempts and resistant. At the edge of her hearing, there was an absence of sound; not silence, which at least contained ambient noise; rather that at the point of the perimeter, sound merely ended.

  She continued southward through the hall, then found the stairwell to the fifth floor nearby. The heat had abated from the hospital, but within this placid realm, no sensation stirred her senses; her touch dimmed at her weapon, yet at the glance of her grip, she knew that she was holding it as strictly as she had before. No motion of air thawed the smell of sterile halls into her nostrils, but the continued movement of herself assured her that she breathed.

  As she reached the entrance to the southernmost hall, centered, again facing a hallway that run north:

  "FTL."

  Sound resumed and Mia startled, the puppeteering miasma disappearing yet resuming where the dreadnought was fifty feet ahead of her. He set one of his three hands out, then seemed irked when Rayaka arose from Mizuchi out of a drop of water upon his fingers.

  "Oh, FUCK! She actually came!" laughed Rayaka. "Not much for water in this little firebox, but still, I can feel the sweat dripping down her face. The liquid in her eyes, the water running through the pipes- somewhere a few miles from here, someone's getting their face shoved into a sink-"

  The dreadnought gripped Rayaka by his neck and threw him to the ground; Mizuchi fell with him, a pitiful gasp escaping it before the dreadnought stomped on Mizuchi's head. Blood squirted from both it & its master's eyes. The dreadnought leaned his full weight upon it as the serpent thrashed in pain below. Its movements began to dull as more blood seeped out from it.

  Rayaka gasped out: "B-Boss, what's t-the-"

  "I do not have the time nor care to include you in the following matter." said the dreadnought in a distorted otherworldly tone. He stepped from the serpent, and with one hand lifted Rayaka from the ground by his throat; his second hand shot through Rayaka's chest and all Mia made out in the cloud of blood was his fingers ripping out Rayaka's still-beating heart, his veins still connected around it. "Hollow vessel in the form of man. Heed the will of your new master."

  He set his heart back in, and Rayaka rose up like a man in a surf, eyes blank as he walked past the corner with his horrendous wound undripping. He turned to Mia again, the ebb of his influence waxing against her yet causing no crash of waves.

  Mia grunted. "N-Not going to fight me with your underling?"

  The dreadnought laughed. "Only a man who has lost all sense would trust one who has never had any. But you have come as requested, and matters are simpler the fewer people are involved. Your heart, by some idiotic mistake, has come into possession of a Revenant unsuited for yourself. It is not of your origin; the beat of your blood cannot properly sustain it. More relevant, however, is that I require it and you do not. Allow me to take it from you, and you have my promise that you shall retain your ability to host, if not your colony."

  "A-As if I would believe that."

  "If you will not believe, then recall. Urban islands of death, suicide, maimed and the burned that fill this building, itself soon to crumble. A thousand more lives; another bombing; another hospital; all that you have already seen, heard, knowing they could be repeated easily. Images greyed by your violent biology that they may be, foreign archipelagos of death that dot your senses only in the most static of ways, and yet nonetheless they should exert upon you a desire to halt it all; that is why you came here and why you continue to be led. Had I the desire to kill you for Worldwide, I would make no offer; I would simply strip it from your corpse. That I have not may be to follow one mistake with another, though cleansing this will be far less troublesome. Surrender willingly that Revenant which is not your's, and the knowledge you have prevented worse will be a fine enough anodyne for heartache. Refuse, and die for your stubbornness."

  Mia frowned. Again and again she had seen those images, and though a functionary human empathy swayed her, this still was not much reason to give Worldwide over. She wished Aimee or Marisa were here to make the decision superfluous, or able to strip responsibility for her decision from her. Over the past months Worldwide had become not only her own but that which she could not be made to sacrifice. She feared that to remove it would be to remove all roots of identity that had grown from her in the past months; she was not only a host but a host who had as natal a Revenant as one like her could have.

  She did not know what this all made her, but she suspected again she was being forced to follow what was set for her. "I-I refuse. And I-I have no fucking reason to trust you."

  "Yet no reason to believe that I would not be able to strip it from your corpse if forced. Violence is a fine balm against arrogance, however little time you would be have to benefit from it."

  "I've-- I've already resisted your controlling aura. You aren't nearly as imposing as your appearance suggests."

  At the mention of her resistance, there was an almost imperceptible twitch of his shoulders to indicate it affected him; by the tone of his voice, deeply. "Then let us make words irrelevant. FTL."

  Sound resumed in the area before its removal in his appearance directly behind herself; she turned with Boudoir-blade drawn and blocked the first and the second and the third strikes, turning her blade for his fourth armored strike that cut deeply into his armored fist; something alerted her to sweep right and she did so, stabbing through his leg in a gush of blood, sweeping her blade up to block his assault again, until the pressure of his next strike flung her staggering down the hall and on her back; standing quickly, she yanked her blade back to herself with Boudoir's strands secured around her wrists, the two combatants cautious as they glared, flanked by many empty hospital rooms.

  Again he lunged at her and his fists met with Boudoir;

  she felt again this odd inherited skill with a blade, yet only in interstices; she did not recognize why she should stand here and grip the blade here, but did so and her parries and strikes slashed through his hands several times; his figure shriveled only for a moment before lashing back out at her with a punch that would have shattered her arm had she not blocked it, and again she slashed his hideous chest open as blood spewed from him; again she swept suddenly back, both combatants surprised at her skill.

  She paused only for a moment before they returned to their melee down the hall, dodging and weaving and slashing; as she swept back from another vicious blow, she set her blade aflame and slashed out at him-

  - but a cloud of blue-lined scarabs burst out from his wrist, exploding to form a frozen blade in his grip; the blades met aligned, yet the sudden thermal shock extinguished Boudoir as he craned against her, the chill temperature threatening to crack it open, pressing her back & down -

  - but a gust of flame burst out of the tip and set aflame the wall beside them; a glut of smoke burst out and coated him, blocking her from his sight as she disappeared and he swung wildly about, scarabs with blue-lined backs exploring all about in an explosion of icicles. A swarm of fire scarabs met with the next volley and the heavy mist of their collisions coated the hall in a deeper fog, and he felt her blade enter his back once, twice, until his arm swept back out at her; she swept underneath and burnt a hole in the floor below that she fell through, stumbling as she landed on the lower level, turning her head up; above, he stomped and a rain of rubble fell upon her head, and she made the mistake of attempting to block the debris directly; icicles grew and slashed through her flesh, staggering her back in pain as she melted the troublesome knives, panting, again looking above tk see no sight of him.

  "FTL."

  She swept her sight back, yet he had appeared close ahead of her; waves of ice shot towards her, and as she made to summon a swarm of fire scarabs, holes opened in her mentality; in the next conscious instant the waves of ice slashed through her and she melted them away with extreme pain, raising her blade just in time to block the next vicious swipes that game. Inch by inch and foot by foot, the pressure of his strikes forced her further back and down the hall, almost stumbling over the burnt corpses that littered the area; she was running out of space behind.

  Recalling another property of Boudoir's blade, she lowered her grip at her weapon; she readied to block using the bouncy hilt, and the next strike he landed was launched clear back into his own headless armor, a grunt of genuine pain and shock escaping him; Mia slashed through him again, then shot a fireball through him that burnt a clear hole in his right arm that allowed her a few more blows and feet of ground.

  As she blocked and stabbed at him again, he moved deliberately for her blade to enter this burning wound; she did not realize why until the heat had already transferred to Boudoir and another set of ice scarabs chilled it to zero; the thermal shock shattered the blade completely and left it a cracked weapon held together only by tenuous strands; in an instant Mia swept back, then again, then back again, desperately attempting to reform it; yet she knew she needed space first.

  Geysers of flame burst out from the walls and spewed smoke at him as she rushed into a room at her right, then rushed up to the wall, burnt her way through it, then rushed into the next room; up & up & through & through she ran, hearing him in pursuit behind, chasing and crashing through every wall as she still attempted to piece Boudoir together, muttering desperate curses to herself as she burnt through the next wall, shot out, then was facing the stairwell to the next floor again.

  She turned and saw him only a few seconds away ahead as she backed into the stairwell; carefully, she ripped more strands out of Boudoir, throwing them up to the next floor and yanking herself up in time to avoid his lethal lunge.

  She was back on the fifth floor again and out from his sight for a moment; she entered the southern hall and a swarm of fire scarabs lit everything she saw aflame, her mad and arsonic dash coating the entire floor in smoke and disappearing her from his sight.

  He stomped and entered in after her, yet the smoke was again so thick that he could only barely see her figure at the wall to his right; he lunged at it and the scarabs the figure was composed of dispersed, and a blade entered his back; spikes of ice burst out from his back and impaled its wielder, yet he realized it was another figure of dispersed scarabs; more and more blades slashed through him, random and directionless, cutting across him with seemingly no hilt; tiring as he staggered in pain down the hall, he shouted for Scourge and the smoke parted to allow him sight of Mia at the end of the hallway, Boudoir's broken pieces connected by strands all returning to her, having been flung about by her scarabs akin to a fragmented kusarigama.

  She stood her ground as he rushed towards her, her back against the wall, welding Boudoir back together under her heat. There was a weakened segment of the floor ahead that she expected him to hit and crash through as he rushed at her, yet before he did so, he shouted for FTL and appeared ahead of her and hit her with a momentum-fueled blow that sent her crashing clear through the wall; and another; and another as she was launched out of the hospital, a five-floor fall to the asphalt below as she sailed through the air, and a signpost crunched into her skull as she landed and smashed right into it.

  Stars lit her vision as she shrieked; rivulets of blood drained into her eyes, already bloodied and heavily bruised.

  She tried to crawl back but felt the bent sign her head had just crashed against block her retreat; she moved, misjudged and slammed her head back into it when she attempted to lurch back and away, her gasps of pain starting to die away.

  Ahead, he leaped down; he waited three moments and said "FTL." and was twenty feet ahead of her.

  "You run because you are afraid." he said. "But I will heal you and purge you of your fear here and now."

  He held one of his hands out as if to receive something, and Mia's ribs began creaking inwards. Again that heavy aura was upon her, the lull of her mind and miasma of her slowing thoughts, yet she tried to resist such with much greater effort than before. He was still moving towards her, and with every step she felt this control crash more violently against the limits of her mentality, eroding at her memory and focus; she tried desperately to keep herself aloft, gasping and bleeding heavily from all of her wounds. Slowly she stood herself and tried to make her limbs work at their full speed again. With each gasp she felt the skin of her chest buckle inwards as if to make way for something attempting to escape it.

  She raised her blade against him and a wave of thoughts slowed her slash at him; he stood unmoving as a swarm of blue-lined scarabs merged with Mia's own swarm of red-lined scarabs, chattering loudly enough that in the confusion of her mind she could not tell which was which, and it was then that she realized his fist was impaled through her chest, the dune of her flesh bursting up around it; yet there was no pain or shock; something seeped calm into her as blood poured out from her.

  Her consciousness slowed, a wave of outside thought that carried her emotions away from herself. Her mind began to fold over itself when a scene appeared ahead of her of Aimee, Rider's tendrils extended, only a second away from landing onto his back to stab him; judging by her expression, Rider's time dilation had been cut shorter than expected; before her knife could slash his skin he said "FTL." and was behind her; she landed and turned only in time to receive a slash to her throat that would have decapitated anyone else.

  Mia staggered back and fell as pain flooded once more into herself.

  Again Aimee tried to lurch but moved as a woman in a disturbed pond; she was clearly having far more difficulty with that suffocating aura than Mia had. She dodged underneath another strike and tried to make her Revenant move again; she was behind the dreadnought once more, who stated "FTL." and was again behind her with a slash to her back that staggered her forward; through blood and fear Mia could see Rider's tendrils resisting an invisible force attempting to slither them back inside Aimee, and in the instant they attempted to go taut but could not, he had kicked her onto a carpet of frozen spikes behind and punctured her body in several places.

  His voice boiled: "THIS BATTLE IS NOT YOUR'S! SCOURGE!" With swiftness beyond what he had shown Mia, his fingers ripped open Aimee's chest and pulled her still-beating heart out yet kept it attached as he intoned: "Hollow vessel in the form of man. Heed-"

  Mia grabbed her blade again, aiming in the interstices of "-the will of-" and threw her blade forward before his sentence finished; the keen end cleaved through half of his left arm in a shower of crimson, staggering him back and his grip dropping Aimee & connected-heart; he assessed his arm in disbelief, a swarm of scarabs forming within the horrific wound and burrowing themselves upward into his body, burning, chattering and screeching until Mia passed the precipice of her exertion and fell into unconsciousness.