A Complete Monster [Arc 13]

[START OF URASARIA ACADEMY: YEAR THREE]

[ARC 13: SWIM LIKE AN EEL]

In early August, Matoi, Mia, and Marisa were waiting outside of the staff's office for Samuel, whose flight was slightly late. Reviewing her folder with some documents inside before their meeting with the staff, Matoi looked up and saw Samuel entering the hallway. He walked over and apologized for his tardiness.

"Apology not accepted." muttered Matoi, reading to herself.

"Is everything going good with the... uh, survivors?" said Marisa.

Samuel nodded. "Kate should be back before the first week. She said Serena can have her protege if she isn't."

"I'll let her know." said Mia.

Mentor & protege pairs had already been assigned for the year, and as Hirogane had explained to Serena, there were too few incoming first-years for all second-years. This was an uncommon occurrence, he said, and was primarily the fault of her classmates for being too good of hunters.

Matoi heard her name being called, and flashing a slick grin that enjoyed cruelty, opened the door for the rest and took her place at the table inside. Eleven members of staff were sitting across the table, including Armstrong. (Matoi had requested to Hirogane that he not attend.)

Matoi leaned over and shook Armstrong's hand, and let him speak first: "It's good to see you, President Rain-On-A-Wedding. We haven't spoken in nearly a month, it feels like."

"Two weeks, as I recall. Shall we start?"

"Yes, let's. As you are all aware, by the end of every August, Urasaria Academy's budget for the following year is submitted to the government for consideration, as well as any policy changes concerning students. This includes student amenities, and were Mr. Hirogane here, I'm certain he would explain how this relates to the infirmary. Unfortunately, he told me this morning he had a meeting with a soon-to-be second-year who he's considering for his new assistant. Thus his absence."

To herself, Matoi glanced over her first paper in her folder. "I... had planned to discuss something with him, yes. Perhaps I'll speak with him afterwards. Regardless, my first order of agenda is wages. Many students have come to me over the previous months expressing concerns over their salaries. I'm sure you're aware the current salaries were initially set in 1986, with no increases since."

"It was 1983." said one of the staff.

Matoi smiled and closed her folder. "My mistake. Regardless, keeping pace with inflation, these salaries should be nearly double what they currently are - $6,000 for one-stars, $12,000 for two-stars, and $24,000 for three-stars."

"Ah, but you're forgetting your legal immunity." said Armstrong.

"Which we lose upon graduation."

"Yes, at which point you have the option of joining the military full-time, for an increased salary - albeit workload, of course - or if you have personal objections to that, then the private sector. For your four years at Urasaria, legal immunity certainly suffices. I'm not aware of any student who would take a pay-raise in exchange for losing it. In fact, that was the initial purpose of it, as a method of compensation."

Mia frowned. "No, it wasn't. It was created after Los Angeles was nuked, because students were worried they would be sued if they killed enemy hosts."

"She's correct." said Matoi. "However, I am willing to negotiate down on salary doubling. Even something more modest like, say, $500 monthly, could be amicable."

"Yes, but consider the state of the economy. It's been in a downswing recently. State budgets all over the country have been experiencing a crunch, let alone federally-funded institutions like Urasaria. And, while I see the use of an increased salary for students like yourself, you must surely be aware that most one-star students never achieve two-star. They often sit at home and respond to calls once a month, if that. I don't deny their concerns, and I'm sure you're correct that they've come to you begging for increases in their salary, but it's always the laziest who benefit the most from egalitarianism. Not only that, but they tend to be unwilling to compromise. I hope you don't plan to be their representative." He glanced to Mia. "This was one of the primary spots of disagreement I had with your predecessor. However, that doesn't mean we can't work together on some sort of agreement, I'm certain. I listened to your speech, at the end of last year -- about how you want to improve Urasaria. I think that's admirable. It was an impressive speech."

"Mm. It certainly was." said Matoi.

"In your previous meeting with me, you told me you were considering a new policy towards hero names. Care to mention it again?"

"One moment." To herself, Matoi opened her folder and flipped through the loose papers within. "Look at this for me." She placed one face-up on the table.

Mia gasped as she saw it, then felt disgusted: not in a way Worldwide would dull.

Matoi spoke: "This isn't amusing to you anymore, is it? You're aware I have you covered. That I know where you were thirty four days ago at 2:33 in the morning, outside of Collingswood, the large oak, the tufts of black hair, your Skoda Superb. This irks you, Armstrong. I can tell. There's a bead of sweat collecting beside your eyebrow because you know that this meeting is no longer what you expected it to be -- some anodyne negotiation where I would capitulate to necessity as every previous president. The difference between myself and them is they had the luxury of morality -- but, I am an end-oriented woman."

She placed another few papers on the table, with similar reactions.

"I see you, Renault, wondering, revisiting the speech I gave months ago: if I knew about the argument with your first wife, the one where you still seize for a second whenever you encounter a woman with her name. The tree opposite from the elm, across from where you laid the shovel. You were ready to laugh, weren't you? Even now, I see your pupils dilate, Crowley." Matoi showed how many papers filled her folder. "How intoxicatingly stupid you were to take my speech at the level most of the auditorium received it. The meetings I had with some of you, how you introduced me to your children. Of course, this hadn't been part of my primary plan, but after I threatened Kirihara, I needed to endear myself so you would allow your emotion and appetite for praise override your judgment -- that you could rationalize it as some rivalry rather than subduing an insect.

But, what I say and how I act now are precisely who I am, and I promise you, you have never dealt with someone like me. Four hundred and thirty-eight corpses would attest to that. Yes, I could easily release this evidence to federal authorities and have whatever staff members I choose removed. Perhaps it's unethical that I do not, but I prefer to keep your testicles in my grip. Camden, where you realized--"

"-I-I believe you've made your point."

"Have I?" Matoi sneered. "I haven't finished yet. Of course, I realize it would be all too easy to extract my demands from you, and perhaps you think that by indulging myself, and what I paid for, that I am cravenly displaying my superiority over you. I am. Most people never unwed their actions from emotion, and perhaps I haven't, either. But I have zero respect for you or anyone who acts as a bulwark between myself and what I will achieve."

She laid most of the other papers on the table.

"This is only a fraction of the dossiers I have compiled on each of you, and I am not so stupid as to leave copies of it solely in my own possession, or to be left unreleased in the case of my disappearance. Read over them, if you would like. I don't care. My last document is for you, Armstrong, listing what you will do and what you will tell the government."

Matoi pulled a paper out of the folder and passed it over.

"And let me explain something to you, lastly, and show how even now, I am committing a minor act of mercy. There was a documentary on insects I watched, recently, and on ants in particular. It explained that there's a particular type of any that consistently, every spring, kills the queens of its colonies. Afterwards, the new colony begins with only one new queen, which eventually becomes several, and with each new queen, they compete over a smaller and smaller set of resources, leaving less of the scraps they give to the worker ants.

The queens try to control the discontent among the lower ants by taking away their food, but eventually, the other ants realize how easily they outnumber them. So, they begin by killing the least productive and most selfish queens. This isn't a quick process. It can sometimes take days of them biting at her, pelting her with acid, preventing her from moving until she dies of starvation. But they eventually succeed, and so goes one less drain on their deserved resources. Even queens who initially may have had a sense of charity now realize that rage erases such petty distinctions, and eventually, all of them are killed."

Matoi turned her chair, leaned back in it, and her gloved fingers steepled.

"Eleven replaceable seats, or four students with a combined 1,500 kills."

She left, and the rest of her squadron followed her to the hallway outside. Near the end of the hall, she breathed, paused, and leaned against the wall. "We'll leave for... lunch, or something. I only need a minute."

Three years hadn't dulled Mia's memories of her first-semester interrogations. "I was hoping you would kill one of them."

Matoi smirked at her, then pulled up one of the papers from her folder: it read the names of a few Revenants and their abilities. Mia was impressed, for she could see Matoi had devised both secondary & tertiary plans involving this.

But for Marisa, this had not been what she expected when Matoi mentioned buying something for staff. "…um, Matoi, that was... I-I really think you should report Armstrong, at least."

"I considered it." Matoi glanced forward to the door. "However, Marisa, let's say I had - what would be the benefit? Yes, I clearly have enough evidence, and some of the other staff would be willing to testify against him, if only to protect themselves. But consider our position afterwards. His replacement would be some other socialite who blew his way in to the position, one who likely also murders to protect his own wealth and privilege, or perhaps commits even worse crimes because the justice system protects him. The difference, however, is I have no blackmail or leverage over the latter."

"You don't think Armstrong doesn't realize that, too?" said Marisa. "It's somebody -- *multiple* women's lives -- and you're just going to let that get swept under the rug? What about the rest of the staff, too? What the fuck good is leverage without justice?"

"Matoi, what was in the list of demands?" said Mia.

Matoi could feel the heat rising in her face. "I told you morality was a luxury I couldn't afford. I spent $50,000 of both my own **and** my mother's money-"

"-so you can be a better president? Is that what this is about? The way you act so fucking self-important, and that lets you treat things like you don't have any control over how it turns out? Mia, back m-"

"-it was a list of requests students made to me over the past year." Matoi glanced to Mia. "Repairs and additional constructions on one-star housing, so they're no longer either living with their mentors or in squalor. Hero names chosen during the first week to protect anonymity. Official procedures for student expulsions. A thousand dollar payraise at every rank -- because people continually came to me and told me their legal immunity doesn't compensate their inability to have savings. It's a thousand dollars more, *monthly*, for you to send to your parents, Marisa."

"Don't you dare bring my family in to this."

Matoi seemed genuinely angered, and nearly shouted: "Do you think you're the only person in this squadron who has to send money home?"

Marisa was discomfited, and became silent.

As was Mia, yet as she looked to Matoi, she thought of how Serena would react to the pay-raise, and smiled, for this was something more relevant than morality, that most feline of human creation.