A Dumbass Creep

After a night of searching through the man's emails, Kate had found that he had been renting a storage unit at the same lot she was. She knew the owner wouldn't be arriving to the lot until 11AM, so Split's hair had swung her into its lot with a half-hour left.

Half-hour later, the owner's truck pulled past her and in to its spot at the end of the lot. She started walking towards him as he got out -

- and another man ran past her, fifty feet away; she watched him sharply as he rushed up to the owner -

" - you - I need - I need the key to my storage unit -"

" - slow down." winced the owner. "Which - which is your unit -"

" - my fucking storage unit, man! #8! I need the -"

" - Miss - Urasaria!" shouted the owner, and in the next instant -

- a fist went through his chest & out his back, non-beating heart in its grip as he went rigid; the man turned back -

- and groaned as he saw Kate, fifty feet separating the two, aisles of storage units right of her and foe ahead. She saw his jaw start to unhinge as he crouched down; a roar erupted out -

- and Split's hair yanked her twenty-five feet back before the waves of sound caught her ears, man's skin cracking & bursting open ahead, limbs growing and head peeling open, and in the next instant -

- there transformed her foe seventy-five feet away, yellow lizard the size of two cars, spines erupting out of its maw&head.

'…one of the ones Matoi mentioned, too.' she thought as she stepped back, aisles of units right&ahead, foe straight ahead. 'Might need to keep his Revenant.'

She saw #8 at the end of the aisle right; with no time to waste, she started rushing towards it, Split's hair yanking her up to the units' roofs as she saw her foe running towards it on the other end, and as he roared again -

- Split's hair shot over her ears, black earmuffs covering the sound & dulling her stagger as she rushed along the roof, strands assuring she was quicker than her foe, #8 up ahead as she leaped -

- and landed right on the roof; her eyes turned down & left, seeing her foe standing on four limbs below, two combatants with eyes on each other, only twenty feet of height separating the two.

'Wants to destroy whatever's there first.' she thought, stepping forward. Split's hair burrowed in to the roof behind, nodding as her follicles felt the storage unit's door. She saw him roar again -

- but no stagger came, Split's earmuffs growing plugs to block it, brief breathing to allow her some hearing once it passed. Her foe started rushing right & down the aisle, and she saw it tear through #6 on the other end as she leaped down -

- and two hairhands threw the door up as she rushed inside, no sight yet as her back hit the wall & she glanced right, knowing her foe expected her to be here now. Another fist smashed open the left wall, sunlight peeling through the aperture, and in the next instant -

- she heard her foe rushing back up the aisle -

- and appeared before her in the next, leaping with the speed of a lizard towards her -

- but the next scene was instant. Split's embedded strands yanked the door down -

- and cleaved halfway through halfway through the creature as it hit the ground gasping, trapped & thrashing as Kate rushed forward, more hairhands keeping the door smashed down, but in the next instant -

- a dozen spines shot out of its head -

- but a dozen spines returned them to sender; six hands shoved six spines through its mouth's top -

- and another six impaled right through the bottom of its maw, rabid beast with maw trapped, thrashing and gagging yellow blood as it screeched -

' - could knock it out - no, too risky -' thought Kate; nearly all her hair expended, two strands burrowed in through its eyes - '- gotta have some fucking brain in there, right -'

- and she nodded as she felt her strands travel deeper in -

- and snap its brainstem from the inside in the next; she heard his screams turn human through her muffling set, lizard starting to transform back to man -

- and a whirl of sharp hair went through him a thousand ways, shredded discs of skin&blood falling in four directions and rigid to the ground, still-beating heart carefully carved out.

"Alright." she muttered, hair stitching her wounds. "No scanning."

She turned into the lit unit, and saw it was full of shattered scalpels & scissors, a surgical bed, chunks of a machine's arms.

'…medical equipment. Right. Brand name on any of these…'

She flipped over one white arm, inset for a syringe.

'Some type of arm. Maybe those robo-surgeries.'

She nodded. Another dozen black chunks were in the corner, shattered bits of a screen.

'…okay. Screen for how they use it. Probably. Guy could repair, so…' She flipped over one. 'Intuitive Medicine. Got it.'

Kate knew Yuruko was studying to be a Revenant researcher and sent her a text.

(Kate) "Any idea what this is?"

(Yuruko) "intuitive medicine makes robotic surgery machines."

(Kate usually felt Yuruko disliked her: this was not so, merely that Yuruko despised meandering in conversation.)

(Yuruko) "can you show one of the white arms?"

(Yuruko) "okay"

(Yuruko) "it's called a Hades system, one sec"

(Yuruko) "They're specifically made for Revenant removal."

(Kate) "By itself?"

(Yuruko) "no but it makes it easier. you still need to know how to do it."

(Yuruko) "here's the Wikipedia page, they're super expensive. like, millions of dollars."

(Kate) "Guessing it's stolen."

(Yuruko) "maybe. it's broken, too."

(Kate) "I fought somebody who could've repaired it."

She stood there for a while, thinking, then called the rest over to guard it. She figured she would go over to the hospital to find Dr. Fujishita and chat with him, and had wanted one of them to go with her (secretly hoping it would be Serena) -- instead Naomi had asked to stay with Serena & Julia.

Kate was not entirely pleased by this decision, but no matter. She usually felt odd around Yuruko, not out of any particular discomfort, but in that Yuruko made her wonder why someone would date a transsexual; not in a disgusted way, merely the awkwardly curious. This was how she was with Serena's transgenderism, where she felt it would be offensive to ask her questions about that sort of thing. It was part of an old reserve that often held Kate back from fully belonging at Urasaria, even if perhaps she would not have admitted so.

As previously mentioned, her father was a retired police detective whose devolution through conservative talk radio had taught him many values: the righteousness of obeying state power and the duty to fight back against tyranny, service to the nation and the virtue of individualism, the importance of religious compassion and contempt for the weak. His daughter inherited most of these views, of course. The strongest predictor of one's politics is their parents, given how much of the love given to a child comes from how they reflect their guardians.

In that regard Kate was a half-loved daughter, and the couple liked her so long as they never spoke politics.

Kate went up to the receptionist. "Hi, I was here about a week ago. I'd like to meet with Dr. Daigo Fujishita."

"He's not in right now. Would you like to leave a message?"

"Where could I find him?"

"…well, he said he would be gone for a few weeks, so--"

"His home address?"

The woman's eyes narrowed. "If this pertains to an investigation, you need a warrant for that information. Do you have one?"

"Yes I do." Kate handed over her Urasaria badge. She didn't find that amusing: Kate leaned into her. "Lemme illustrate something. Compared to you, I've got about five-hundred times the strength. I'll live twice as long. I've got a reaction about one-hundredth of a second. If I wanted I could tap you once and make your eyes hit the ceiling. Now, all that in mind, I could've just gone right to whoever runs this building and see if they understand this better than you do, but I didn't. I was nice, and I went to you. You won't like me when I'm not nice."

They soon found Daigo Fujishita's listed address, and were walking on his house's street, when in the next instant -

- the hollow point of six bullets entered their chest, foe with six revolvers on his shoulders and fifty feet away -

" - Split." grunted Kate, swift hair ripping out the projectiles, streets clear ahead, foe reloading on the other end -

" - got something." whispered Yuruko, relaying it to Kate quick.The hairwoman laughed as she cut a pouch of hair off & handed it to Yuruko, and as the chemist dipped her glove inside -

- the next scene was instant. Throwing it up in to the air, Split's hair formed a baseball bat beside -

" - batter up!" shouted Kate; Split's bat hit it towards the man, and as the projectile smashed his skull -

- the explosion within tore his body in a dozen chunks of homerun gore, two laughing like true players as he fell dead -

" - homerun!" laughed Yuruko, and Kate nodded as she stepped up, hair she'd sliced off regrowing.

"Revenant still survived, too. Good job."

"Yep. Uh, no scanning, right?" said Yuruko, and Kate nodded.

"Yep. Gotta be careful." Her hair formed a pouch for it, another strands cutting their sisters down. "Fujishita's house is right up here."

The two stepped up to Fujishita's house, a two-floor home with a few added rooms. His car was still in the driveway. Yuruko turned the door to water as they stepped inside, and once they verified there wasn't a Revenant, Kate called the airport.

"Hi, this is Anagen. I'm a Urasaria student -- I need to have someone check your flight records for a certain individual. Badge number 678786. Yes, I'll hold." Ten minutes. "A warrant? Yes, I'll deliver it to you in-person. Sooner than you think."

If it isn't clear by now, Kate consciously embodied the archetype of a hard-boiled detective that could right all mortal wrongs. She was a self-made hagiographer, and in her boredom tended to concoct all sorts of internal melodramas like the above. Where persona and person melds is for your imagination, but it allowed her to tend the ferocity she bore, and as she told Yuruko & walked out of the home, feel an eerie pride over her very powerful stride.