Toddler-like

Before returning to the main narrative, a word on Urasaria Academy's political representation.

Urasaria's Congressional district is peculiar in its social progressive constituency contrasted with their utterly destitute views on crime; many of Kirihara's civilian kills were assumed to have deserved it. Justification is often assumed to be the creator of certain things, but it more often follows necessity. Thus with no physical recourse, many locals just believed that those impudent fucks had been harassing a woman who does much to keep us safe -- and little did they know that there would be consequences! Kirihara was nobody but was one who enjoyed having a tongue or two on her pussy, so she never corrected this mythos.

So when Mia overheard civilians near Urasaria talk positively of Kirihara, she felt it injustice towards her own father. Adding to her hatred of the media was that Rochelle had also let her know that there was an article going around recently, outting Serena as transgender, and that if Serena needed to "find out where the writer lives", then Rochelle could likely use her connections in the media for that. Serena was oblivious to any of this, for she barely knew who the president of the United States was, and so Mia decided here, in Japan, it would be best to mimic her protege's ignorance towards all this afterwards. If others wanted to attack her opened identity, she felt she could slag it off by now: no need to test that.

After two hours of varied questioning, Mia was allowed to leave with Matoi & Daishi outside of the news station, and in the next instant -

- a series of screams arose from within the building -

- and Mia glanced back as she rushed as fast as she could away, sighing as she couldn't join Matoi & Daishi against it. She checked her phone for the route they had walked over, following it through numerous streets and running as she saw Junpei flash past her, and as she crossed one corner -

- underneath three arrows she dodged, her foe standing 20ft away and readying another volley -

- but a set of icicles shot through him and crucified him to the wall; another disc of ice followed and sliced his head clear off, and Mia glanced left to see Rin & Yamato standing across the street waving to her.

"Go." nodded Yamato, and Mia nodded as she kept rushing down the street.

As she glanced back, she saw Rin, seemingly in a panic, rush over to the corpse, trying to reattach its severed head: why this was she did not know. She realized something else mid-sprint and stopped, checked her map to take a slower detour, and found no other host on her way back to Ueno. Mia did not fully realize what this meant at the time, but she felt a similar sense to the one Matoi had with the tabloids as she went back up to her room, and saw a few other Ueno students leaving to deal with other hosts.

As she paced, she realized she hadn't texted Serena yet and quickly did so.

(Mia) "I'm sorry if I made you worry - I'm alright."

(Serena) "me too"

(Serena) "wait did something happen?"

"Why didn't I expect that." she muttered.

(Mia) "…I'll tell you later."

As she sighed, began to sit down, she decided instead to step outside of Ueno for some crisper air, though she would not go too far. She walked outside and to the mural of students, and as it had at Serena & Yuruko's house, was reminded of her friends at Urasaria. She was soon interrupted by three men belligerently yelling at her and sighed as she turned to them.

"Yes?"

"Oh, now the bitch acts so politely. How about those thirty people you killed, or all those houses?"

Had Mia an ear like Matoi's, she would have noticed these men clearly did not actually speak English. Mia began to walk past them, but one attempted to shove her; she did not budge and summoned a Worldwide scarab under her skin to heat it. "Get the fuck away from me."

"Why? You can't do shit to us. You'd get kicked out of the entire country if you did."

One of them tried to grope her thigh and she shoved him back, light enough it was only a few feet away. The catch-22 was that for all she could not exert Worldwide upon them, the more violently she imagined pulverizing the little shits in to paste. "Get the fuck aw-"

- a man shouted in Japanese behind them, and as the three men turned -

- Mia couldn't stifle her gasp at who it was.

Akira rolled his eyes as the three yelled at him, and he shouted back: "Abayo, kusotarre!"

Mizuchi swallowed the men and they were gone. Mia looked at him, aghast. "What the hell did you do to them?"

"Tell me, carbon-Ryumi. Do you actually care about the answer to that question? You don't, of course. I've noticed this in students; you don't realize that however much the public may like you, or even despise you as they currently do here, if one of you stopped moving, it wouldn't affect them one iota."

"What the hell is your point?"

"Think of it the next time you're hesitating to Sun Ray."

She frowned. "You know, then."

"Of course I do. But I enjoyed the story you told the press. It reminded me of Magnus: sometimes Nikolai would discuss something with him with the intent of arguing, yet subtly adopt his way of thinking afterwards without having even intended to. He was as adept at lying to himself as he was to others. Still, I thought I might have needed to tear Worldwide out of your corpse."

A little defensively, Mia said: "I-It was eight fucking hosts. How would Ryumi have handled that?"

Akira laughed. "She wouldn't have ever visited this country: they would have preemptively banned her. It's obvious what you're attempting to do, by the way -- you're trying to compare yourself at 21 to where Ryumi was at 21. I'll satisfy your curiosity: her flames were white."

"Very funny."

"There are stronger hosts out there than Ryumi. Grow stronger than her, so you don't simply win, but could fuck over anyone preventing you from doing so." said Akira. "Regardless, I came here because having Xenocyclin used on Worldwide would, obviously, prevent that."

"Who said anything about Xenocyclin?"

"One of the many suggestions from the media. I presume you won't be taking it."

"What the hell makes you think I would have Xenocyclin used on it? I've spent three years building up Worldwide, and just because a few times it's…" She trailed off.

Akira did not smile nor nod, but simply stared at her, said Mizuchi and was gone.

Mia frowned and stood there in the evening for a while, shook her head, then began walking back to her room at Ueno. Was Ryumi indeed a miserable person for associating with someone like Akira? Had her association with Magnus poisoned her, and possibly Mia? She had suspected she could look up Ryumi online to find old articles about her as a student or professional, but had declined to do so. She sought now to revivify her memory of Ryumi, to make it something that could move again, yet worried that in doing so it would die and become corrupted. Later, she felt in her worse moments that she was just a shitty copy of Ryumi.

As she came back to Ueno and thought over this, she waited near the gate, and eventually saw Matoi & the others return. Matoi was conversing with Daishi, seemingly annoyed as Daishi sighed and gestured to himself. Mia waited until they were finished talking to go up to Matoi and tell her to speak with her in private. Matoi obliged and went off to a sideroom in their suite, whereupon Mia turned to her and asked: "Why the hell did you tell me not to mention Aimee?"

Matoi winced. "I thought you might have forgotten that already."

"Well, I didn't, and I know *you* obviously don't give a shit what anybody else thinks about you, so why-"

"-because I thought it may divert some of the focus away from you." Matoi sighed. "...I apologize. Japan is still very homophobic, and there's already people who have threatened to kill you."

"Civilians? Well, obviously, I know-"

"Ueno's medic refused to heal you." (Mia frowned.) "Obviously, it isn't an issue with Marisa here, but I thought it would be best not to worsen it with lesbophobia. I apologize, but I hadn't intended it as harmful towards you or Aimee."

"...did Daishi allow that? With Ueno's medic?"

"He threatened to have her fired, and I waited until she began walking over to tell her she wasn't required."

"That does sound like you." muttered Mia, relevantly. "...still. If I'm asked about it again, I'm not going to deny it. She's my girlfriend."

"Have you called her?"

"I texted her and told her I would later."

Matoi nodded, and sighed as she looked off. "I was speaking with Daishi earlier. Obviously, public opinion is already very strongly against you, and there's pressure to have you expelled from the country. I very much doubt Daishi would prevent that, or even attempt to. Not because he agrees with it, necessarily, but he's ridiculously conflict-averse. He's beginning to remind me of Moriko."

"Moriko?"

"I've told you about her before, haven't I? I was friends with her in preschool. She was kidnapped as a child, and she was..."

"...oh. Yes." Mia nodded.

"I was friends with her until I left Japan, and for most of the time I remember, she either had myself or her mother walk her home. She refused to take public transportation by herself."

"That doesn't seem so odd."

"It wasn't. But eventually, when we were teenagers, she began asking me for advice: on dating, on how to deal with certain things, whether I thought a certain boy was safe to be around or not. I eventually realized that she simply wanted me to tell her what to do, and she often shut down if I began asking her questions on why she felt certain ways. I believe I was essentially her tether to reality, in some ways; she needed someone else to draw up rules for her to follow.

So, she was my friend, but I found it difficult to respect her. Respect is only valuable if it's earned, not immediately granted. I would often hear students making fun of her, or calling her soft and easy. Even a few of my female friends felt that way towards her: one even accused Moriko of putting it on in some way. Of course, then, I always defended her - but I despise to now think they were right."

"But she must have been strong to go through all that."

"If she had eventually moved beyond it, yes. I don't know if Samuel has ever told you about his own trauma, but his isn't something you can detect by looking at him. Obviously, I've already told you about my own father. But to dwell on it for a decade afterwards invites pity, not empathy, and people often mistake the two." said Matoi. "I don't believe Daishi had a traumatic childhood, but I can't explain why I feel that same beast inhabits him."