"I'm sorry, okay?" said Marisa. "I didn't realize what I was pulling on!"

  "Marisa, you aimed right for his asshole!"

  "So you should be glad I was on target and not two inches down!"

  "God, that would have been even worse, I don't even..." Mia sighed and pulled what remained of his large intestines off from herself akin to unwrapping a scarf, the rest of her outfit crusted in blood, torn skin, sinew and pieces of his organs. "I just - I don't like getting bits of half-digested food on me! It's disgusting."

  "Well, excuuuuse me, but it was the only target I could hit with Boudoir and pull."

  "I never have to deal with imprecision with Aimee." grumbled Mia.

  Mia and Marisa made their way back up the street.

  "Okay, okay. What about if I steal you some sweets to make it up to you?" said Marisa.

  Mia sighed. "You're only asking that because you want to go steal some sweets for yourself."

  "Oh, yeah, I'm gonna do it anyway, but you know, two birds with one stone."

  Marisa pointed to the gas station at their left, and Mia felt a disturbance begin on the blood on her cheeks; in the next instant she froze it with her ice scarabs, then gasped out: " - god damnit, this monumental fuck-up is-" - she felt her frozen blood begin cracking and reinforced it with more ice scarabs, Mizuchi's maw attempting to burst from within yet finding little liquid from which to burst out of; at her side, she saw Marisa shooting a burrowing string into the ground, and as she offered it to Mia's lips she retched from the scent, yet groaned as she drank the liquid regardless and spat out in the next instant; Mizuchi's full form & Rayaka emerged from the liquid, landing five feet from her and turning with flair, until he realized he was covered in gasoline, then said: "Oh shit-"

  - and he was gone as flames consumed his body and his screams disappeared into the drop of petroleum into which he was forced to make his agonizing escape, as Mia shouted: "-AND STAY AWAY, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!"

  Marisa giggled.

  Mia coughed, vaporizing the rest of the gasoline she had drank out of herself. "G-God, I assume you wouldn't have fed that to me if it were h-harmful to hosts."

  "I tried to get you leaded because it tastes sweeter." Marisa shrugged and pulled up her hand, to which Boudoir's burrowing straw was affixed. "We can have Saya empty your intestines just in case."

  Mia sighed. "I would be more afraid of him if he weren't such a fucking moron. But he's obviously surveilling me. I'm hoping we can kill him before I fight the dreadnought again."

  "Hey, if you've still got Worldwide powers to go, then maybe the next one will really fuck him up." said Marisa. "...so, uh... sweets... y'know... mmm, yummy..."

  "I have a stomach full of gasoline and you're worried about your goddamn bonbons?!"

  "Yeah."

  Mia frowned in recognition and lit her stomach on fire from the inside-out; not a pleasant feeling, but she burped out some smoke and felt better. "Well, alright." Fortunately, Worldwide's immunity to heat extended to other areas. "I'll wait out here. Can you get me some of the ultra-spicy Korean ramen if they have it, though?"

  "Sure thing, Mia-Mia."

  As Marisa went inside, Mia sat down on a nearby bench. Most likely Marisa would be in there for a while, tearing open bags of sweets she didn't know and taste-testing them before throwing them back. Mia had still not adjusted to the typical Urasaria diet; given health effects were of no consideration, students typically only avoid that which gives them indigestion.

  As she commanded Worldwide's scarabs to crawl over her arms and felt soothed by the directed patter of their legs, she thought over the interrogation again. She felt embarrassed by her humiliation and desired further strength to never be made to feel such again. She had learned that it was not happiness money or power bought, but rather freedom; without either, her emotions were dependent on the whims of another, whereas if she possessed both she could at least always be the arbiter of her own fate.

  Then there was how Aimee had defended her. She had not seen such anger from Aimee before, but hoped something else might happen to herself to pull it out from her again. She loved how she had felt defended. She felt this aggression Aimee occasionally displayed was a peel upon her personality, that if Mia could learn to grip and tug at, would only deepen the attraction she felt; it was not a flesh of kindness she sought but rather a core of her own flaws repeated, for Mia herself was a temperamental woman prone to anger.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Sometimes she wondered why she was attracted to such things, but rationalized it as an attraction to confidence.

  She was interrupted by someone sitting down further up the bench, their hoodied figure sheathing their greater appearance from Mia, yet wearing a Urasaria badge that read 'SUNEATER'. "'Today, the astronomer senses the galaxies fleeing from the infinity of darkness...'" they said. "I once sat here somewhere like this and read Loren Eisely. I doubt he would have known what to say about Revenants. They defy the laws of physics too much."

  This meant nothing to Mia. "...er. Are you a student?"

  "I am. You're Mia, yes? I've heard the news, distorted it may be. Something about the staff believing that you're responsible for the recent gang activity."

  Mia sighed. "Yes, and it wouldn't be the first time I've had such blatantly false information printed about me. I'm in the process of trying to clear my name. It's been very bothersome, and… even if other students mostly don't care, I just despise that only a few people believe me in that I have nothing to do with all of it."

  "There's no need to take a democratic approach to truth. The opinions of others should not bother you. But, let me illustrate this through anecdote. There was a conference a few years ago on Revenant research: phantasmology. I assume you're in your first-year."

  "I am."

  "Then I will simplify this. One hypothesis for the origin of Viscera exspiravit, often held by civilians, is that Revenants are assumed to be aliens that feed upon something. A soul, essentially. That every human has one soul, and this is why most experiments to host more than one Revenant have failed. Unscientific, but in the absence of knowledge, people turn to religion for the unexplained. When they cannot comprehend the real milieu of existence, they turn to the spiritual. Regardless, there was a reporter who went around, asking us -- myself, particularly -- if I believed in this sort of theory. Conducting some poll. Do you know my answer?"

  "What?"

  "I asked if she would like to put the law of gravity to a vote."

  The two laughed.

  "But, few people question anything: even researchers." they said. "Certain facts become dogma until science is forced to reorient itself, and solved riddles begin reopening themselves for examination."

  "...what do you mean?"

  "Only that I still talk too much about my work." They paused. "I read that Urasaria's staff threatened to remove your Revenant."

  "They did threaten it."

  "Have you considered it?"

  "I haven't. It's... Worldwide is very personal to me." she muttered. "They claimed it would prevent civilian deaths, and even as I'm uncertain of that, it was a difficult decision, knowing perhaps I could have prevented... but… I've become attached to Worldwide. I've fought both physically and verbally to keep it now."

  "You say it was difficult because of civilian deaths. Has any civilian you know or cared for died for you keeping it?"

  "No, but why should that prevent me from caring?"

  "A thousand died in China a week ago, a hundred in Japan. A man committed mass murder in France six months ago, having brought some American values with him. People can say that they are greatly upset by such things as mass death of strangers, but that simply isn't reality. A person does not matter unless you have some connection to them, imagined or real. But make such an obvious observation in public and you'll find your humanity questioned, as if that was contingent upon such frivolous things, regardless."

  "But one should care about such things, no?"

  "No, and to say that is to simply not understand how humans are. We rationalize and compartmentalize as creatures of thought, not only for evolutionary reasons, but simply to continue living."

  "So the nature of humans is to be fundamentally selfish? To be evolved to think that even if a million people die in agony, if I still have my Revenant and my friends, then everything in my world is fine?"

  "Whether you draw that conclusion is your's to make, but it isn't contained in the query itself. Moreover, people say and believe what they will of it, but most, if not all, act along with that 'selfishness'. I don't believe in observing how humans are and scorning them for it, when one could learn from it instead. Morality has no relation to Darwinian science or its observations. Man is the only animal able to buttress himself about a shadow realm of his own thoughts, for instinctual thoroughness strikes out philosophical notions in lower creatures." they said. "You say that you should care, and yet you wouldn't give up your Revenant even to stop it, would you?"

  "Not if I can have both. I suppose you're right that I wouldn't, otherwise I might already have. And perhaps it is some selfish or rational connection I have to Worldwide, not because it was given to me, but because I've fought for it. I chose my attachment to it. Perhaps nothing is innately worth respect or love, but that should make my choosing it all the deeper - if not like a child, but as I would a close pet."

  "The relation between host and Revenant has no apt metaphor, of course - partially why it vexes civilians so. But a fitting observation about choice and love when there are more parents who abuse their children than there are owners who abuse their pets. Children are loved largely for the ways they reflect their parents, which is also why they can be so loathed, whether due to their parents' distorted desires or the need for the parent to prove their importance by replicating themselves into another human being. Pets, however, are a chosen love for the personalities they display independently of their owners." he said. "Urasaria has made no attempt to forcibly remove your Revenant, then?"

  "No, and I have people close to me who would never allow them to."

  "And yourself?"

  "Never."

  "As I expected. So they have only words left." muttered the figure. "There's a Schopenhauer quote for you. 'There is no surer sign of a great mind than that it refuses to notice annoying and insulting expressions, but ascribes them to the defective knowledge of the speaker.' FTL." And he was gone.