Cruel Medical Thesis

"If you do not cease your economic terrorism, we will be forced to report you to the Revenant Trade Commission. Statute 45.1a of your country's law states: any Urasaria Academy student who is found to be producing commodities with their Revenant for profit shall be subject to immediate expulsion, and-"

Mia laughed. "Do you really think they would ever expel me? As if they would do so at the suggestion of a small African country. It's true that their protection of me is only a pale sort of bargain, based on what I provide for them and the trouble they prevent, but I have recognized such a harsh truth rather than deluded myself with a gentle lie. I am both Urasaria's president and the strongest host in the US, if my temperature is any indication. Who's above me? I have no confines.

You seem confused by how I have acted. If I were violent, I would not confound you. But instead what myself and my squadron have done in the past few days is to attempt to correct the inequality that has existed here for hundreds of years. My squadron has given the people here food, luxury, entertainment items; we have not harmed a single person besides the business owners who have punctured holes in this land and left it dry. And for all of this you threaten me: not only myself, but you threaten my Revenant and you threaten my squadron.

You see, I see much of myself in how those of this country are often forced to live. They are certainly as ware as I was, as a young American girl, that when I went through the door to life, those with money went one way and those without it went another. Only via the sacrifice of a very noble man was I able to develop myself freely: so that even had I not become a student, I would not have constraint stamped upon me from the circumstances of my birth and where I lived. It was those circumstances that have led me to expect less out of institutions like the Revenant Trade Commission then you could possibly know.

I have heard what they do, and I know what they allow: they allow millions to starve despite infinite food, a system where the people of your country are forced to mine jewels they themselves will never wear, where Revenants have been deemed legal so long as they are only used to harm other human beings.

If I held malice towards your country, distinct from *you*, I would never act how I have. I was never obligated to treat you easily. It isn't my most effective method of attaining information. While your president has a Revenant, I suspect you do not, and I find civilians are still ignorant when it comes to what hosts can do: so allow me to explain. I could flash a wave of blue fire over your crops and make it so nothing will grow here for two hundred years. I could order my squadron to begin poisoning your rivers until the grass it feeds shrivels and loses its color. I could reduce your entire capital to a graveyard the likes of which the earth has never seen.

But I have not, not of an obligation to yourself but of to your innocent people.

So let us return to how you have treated me since I entered this country and asked for information to help my friend. First you denied me. Now you seek to bind me with pointless legal threats. Stupidity like your's is a wonderful balm against what terror I should beget in you. But it is Ronald Sharp's location I want, and that location which you have refused to give me. But do not think you can threaten me with legal consequences: I'd disintegrate the sun if it insulted me. And as I could do away with it, so could I you, that sort of unfair play that governs how you must treat me as a host and how I could treat you as a civilian.

Myself and my squadron will continue until you have given to me the information that I demand. You told me earlier that morality is a luxury that the C.A.R. cannot afford. I agree. I only hope that when we leave here, your people will recognize who it was that tried to prevent us from providing them more. I hope that one day their wrath will ripen, and they will show you exactly the worth of your morality. Only that, unlike myself, they won't do so by phone, but by gun and lamppost."

Mia hung up, and felt proud, for these monologues tended to be herself with poetic license. She would giddily write them by herself in her office.

Matoi was in the room with her, coughing through most of this. Mia went over to her and crouched down, checking her. "…er, sorry, I..."

"A-At least y-you s-sounded good."

"They're much better than the ones I wrote in middleschool." she muttered. "…and much more violent, but -- how are you feeling? I know it isn't 'alright'."

Matoi coughed again. "…W-Wedding's durability is w-weakening. T-They'll send professionals after you and t-the rest."

Mia picked up on this quickly. "I think you should be with Junpei and Yamato, for your safety."

"N-No, M-Mia. I-I don't need that. I-It isn't that--"

"No, let me rephrase: you *will* be with Junpei and Yamato for your safety."

Matoi grumbled, but eventually assented. And so both reached the conclusion they had intended anyhow, if a little left-handedly.

After another afternoon of economic damage, the Royal Four met back at their hotel room. Mia had not received another call, and had managed to find a news station in English.

"…man." winced Serena, ripping her anime head off. "Those things are uncomfortable."

Yuruko frowned as she took off her own. "…wait. Why did you have me be Misato instead of Rei?"

Serena cleared her throat, hoping she'd wear it elsewhere too.

"There you are." murmured Mia, watching the screen.

"…in the footage here, we can see that the bag does appear to be empty before the second suspect pulls the money out, indicating the possible use of a creation Revenant. Some citizens have posted online asking the Revenant Trade Commission to investigate, though a spokesman declined to comment."

Mia studied the screen a little worriedly.

"Guessing they're as impotent as the UN." said Samuel. "You know, the UN always likes to tell countries there'll be consequences on the count of 3, but we all know they're stopping at 2¾."

"They tried to get me to work for that, uh, commission." said Yuruko. "I turned them down. But they just try to entrap people and shit, anyway. I don't think they even have any offensive Revenants -- it's all disguises."

Mia glanced at Serena knowingly and the two smiled.

"You know, half the problems they deal with they probably cause themselves." said Samuel.

"Here he goes again." muttered Mia, smiling a little as Yuruko & Serena laughed.

Her & Samuel had spoken politics plenty. It always seemed like he hated any element of society that didn't involve a blue-collar at every step, whether it was newspapers, academia or federal agencies. Neither conservative nor libertarian, he tended to believe in half-true conspiracy theories and let his prejudices fill in the rest.

In contrast, Mia doubted Serena even knew who the president was.

"Exchange rate is already dropping." said Serena, checking her phone.

"Wait, doesn't France use this, too?" said Yuruko. "That's not good."

"France doesn't even let their students kill." Samuel shrugged like this was the weakest thing a country could do. "They won't do anything to us."

Mia nodded slowly, thinking of a friend far from there as the news continued.

"In our next story, anti-poaching officials have begun investigating the mysterious disappearance of Bebe, the last rhino of her kind."

"I'm gonna go out." said Serena suddenly.

Yuruko looked over at her and grinned. "What's wrong?"

Serena was already putting her boots on. "Don't believe anything you see on television."

"Are you going to commit more economic terrorism?" said Samuel, relevantly.

"Yeah, sure, why not?" Yuruko shrugged and got ready with Serena. This seemed like an alright way to spend the night.

While Samuel & Mia learned of this mysterious rhino, Yuruko started to form a Rei mask-

"Um, can you be Misato again?" whispered Serena.

"Why?"

"P-Please." she panted.

"Okay. But just this once, Shinji." She formed a Misato mask for herself and an Asuka mask for Serena. (Mostly to avoid Mia asking why Serena was wearing a boy's mask.)

They went out and committed some more economic terrorism, which consisted of depositing bags of diamonds outside of jewelry stores so that those who mined them may have them, food & water to those that needed them, and evacuating banks so that they might fill the building with francs. These acts would bring anger to the rich of the country, who would retaliate by no longer allowing the sun to rise and pausing the rains that made crops grow.

On the way back to their hotel, they took some detours to avoid being tracked. One was through an alleyway, and as they passed through it, Serena wrapped her arm around Yuruko's stomach and pulled her tightly. She lifted her own mask, just a bit, as she kissed Yuruko's neck.

Yuruko laughed. "Come on. What's gotten into you?"

"What, I'm not allowed to give you some affection?"

"Oh, c'mon. You know you haven't been like this lately."

"Well, maybe you've been too busy lately, too. But we're still a couple, aren't we?"

Yuruko laughed, and as she disintegrated their masks, Serena kissed her again. She resisted, a little playfully, until Serena tickled her and she giggled. She kissed her.

Occasionally when she expressed love with Serena, she worried that she would unconsciously replicate Tammy's habits into it. Not here, however. The cold of her home would not matter to Yuruko. And it was then that, if there had been a hope of her returning to it previously, it evaporated then.

She would sit out together with her father on the patio after Tammy went to bed, and sometime before she left for Urasaria, he had told her this:

"In two years, you'll be attending Urasaria and studying Phantasmology. I'm sure you've looked up the dropout statistics. It will be a very hard major, but it's important you know that I believe you can graduate. You have something to you. I can't explain it, exactly, or describe it, or otherwise I would know what it is. There's many people who passively observe the world with no desire to add to it, but you are different.

But that also means I don't want you to be dragged down with me. I know how your mother treats you, and you're old enough now that I can tell you she's sometimes said worse things about you, in private, things I don't want to repeat. People like her are contagions. They sometimes manage to pull weak people down their level and infest them. But, I don't want you to hesitate if there comes a point in your life where you must give up on someone. Even me."

It was this word 'contagion' that Yuruko had latched onto, and she worried if it meant there were pieces of Tammy floating within her that she needed to expel. Whether some of her earliest behaviors towards women, emotions that had long since hardened into habit, is exaggeration is irrelevant: people become who they pretend to be. She had stayed at Serena's for last Christmas and Thanksgiving, and she would do so this year.

Sometimes, imagining Yuruko, years on from when you are reading these words, the image brought to oneself is of her sitting alone at her laboratory at Timepact, where she works at a sole research. She uses For-Medicinal-Use-Only for her experiments, and by herself she has produced mutant variants of her own bacteria and frequently implants them back into herself. The foundational research she provides will, decades later, make things easier for the students who come after.

She will take her respirator off as she allows her tests to run, and the chemicals will billow their scents under their fume hood and into their ventilation. Soon, she thinks, she may be able to produce an injector that supercharges Revenants for a time. She will think over how she could explain any of her excitement to Serena, who understands very little of Phantasmology, or to Aimee, who will soon ask their benefactor for funding on her behalf.

Manu times she has been asked to sit in the meetings at Timepact discussing their plans for the year, and her eyes will capture out at the cosmos, from its largest galaxies to the finest molecules, the same lure that her father was unable to elude. The loneliness of the great scientist is that she will never learn as much of Revenants as she wishes to: but in this she is still attached to the enduring condition of humanity, to the man who must alone himself from the tribe for a time to scavenge through the mires of the wild.

++++++

On the condition he not kill, Sekani had been called in to the capital to deal with two counterfeiting hosts. Nephila's hundred eggs formed on his back as he turned the corner, two women handing a loaf of bread to a civilian in front of a store 50ft away. One was wearing a bodysuit & a cartoon mask with blue hair, the other black hair with a red streak.

"(There are condoms in this.)" nodded the blue-haired woman. "(No need fridge.)"

The civilian walked away as Sekani watched them carefully.

Serena looked Yuruko Ayanami down. "What does Rei think of you wearing that?"

"She'd probably say I look good."

Serena looked down at Yuruko's ass. "…yep..."

"Hang on, lemme do the toast in mouth." She pulled another loaf of bread out of her burlap sack, and in the next instant -

- a geyser of something white but not sticky shot through her bag; the two animewomen swept with the speed of light back -

- and saw Sekani standing 50ft away, Nephila's spider-eggs growing on his back as he started stepping towards them. Yuruko Ayanami nodded to Serena Matoi, throwing her right hand over Serena's right arm -

- and forming a prosthetic claw to hide her tentacle later.

"Uh, shouldn't it be a red glove?" frowned Serena, relevantly.

"It was on her left hand, dummy." muttered Yuruko, picking up her sack, and as she stuck her hand inside -

- she shrieked as the maggots within bit her fingers -

- but she threw the sack to the side before they could fully latch, backup bag forming behind her back so she didn't have to directly show Medicinal later.

"You are warned to cease at once!" shouted Sekani, tone showing he didn't know English. "If you do not comply, I will be forced to apprehend you!"

"Professional." winced Yuruko. "Great -"

" - haruka mirai mezasu tame no! Hane ga aru kotooooo!" shouted Serena, relevantly; Yuruko laughed at her side -

" - zankoku na tenshi no te-ze! Madobe kara yagate tobitatsu!"

"Hotobashiru atsui patosu de!"

"Kekka dake ga!"

Serena frowned at her forgetting the lyrics to Cruel Angel's Thesis, and in the next instant -

- another geyser of maggots shot towards them, and Serena slashed the wall at their rights -

- and swift & invisible streams of fog corroded an entrance; in through the sudden hole swept the women, only a few maggots nipping at Serena's neck as they ran inside the store, back wall up head. Yuruko's hand went to Serena's neck and tried to sweep the maggots off -

" - they're - fucking multiplying -" - she winced, knife forming at her fingertips - " - gonna have to -"

- and a whirl of steel ripped them up by their roots; Serena shrieked as a dozen jets of blood burst out of her neck -

- but a swift tap with her claw filled her wounds as they rushed up to the back wall, puddles of blood left on the floor behind as the two looked back -

- and saw the maggots drinking it & multiplying by the second, vampiric swarm slithering towards them with no sight of Sekani yet. Claw readied, Serena slashed a hole through the back wall -

- but the next scene was instant. Jets of concrete burst out of the maggots and in to the hole -

- plugging it back up as the two swept away to dodge it. Yuruko's shotgun forming, she dumped one shot in to the maggots -

- and Serena winced as she felt a few bullets enter her neck. Her claw slashed another hole that another jet of concrete plugged up, hungry swarm fast approaching with no escape in sight.

"Didn't use Xenocyclin. Was testing." winced Yuruko, reloading. "They're eating the floor and - spitting it out -"

- Serena nodded, reaching in to Yuruko's bag. Blackburn gave her a grenade and she threw it at the ceiling; the explosion sent bits of rubble crashing on to the maggots as she turned slashing through the back wall again -

- and out through the sudden hole & in to another street swept the women, maggots still trying to chew through the concrete buffet behind. Serena & Yuruko glanced right and saw Sekani 50ft away & further up the street, line of stores at their right as they backed away quick.

"You are warned to cease at once! If you do not comply, I will be forced to apprehend you!"

Serena stifled her distinctive mouth, and in the next instant -

- three geysers of gasoline shot from their left towards them -

- and in to the two animewomen splattered the liquid, wall beside them catching the rest; ahead, Serena saw Sekani light up a match -

- but the next scene was instant. Her right arm went tentacle and shot through the wall, filling it with heat -

- and in to flames burst the entire store, impoverished building standards ensuring it'd spread fast. A line of fire shot down the line of buildings and every store went up in a cloud of smoke; they saw an expression of fear flash across Sekani's face before the smoke swallowed them & him, and in the next instant -

- a grenade came through the mist and landed at his feet. Instincts quicker than his mind, he swatted it away -

- and didn't see the other three pins attached to it -

- and the secret Kunst technique blasted his right arm off and sent it in to the fires & the flames; he stifled his scream as he staggered back, swarm of maggots replacing his gone-arm & chewing on the blood that was left. Another jet of white hit the flames at his left and started feasting, nodding as he rushed off to find his foes again.

In the next street over, Serena & Yuruko ran down the middle of the road, line of buildings & alleys in their rightful place.

"Time for real terrorism." mumbled Yuruko, relevantly.

"I'm pretty sure the civilians got out, I think -" winced Serena, and as she glanced back -

- a green jet of liquid hit her mask's enormous right eye, and she clutched it as she staggered back, clawed hand catching the next one before it hit Yuruko -

- and the two saw Sekani back again 50ft away, right arm formed of caterpillars & dripping maggots now.

Serena tried to open her right eye and a disorienting scene met her stare; half of her vision was normal & the other half was 5 seconds late. Her stomach reeled with sickness until she forced her right eye shut, barely seeing Yuruko catch the next jet of green in her burlap sack, and definitely not seeing the puddle of maggots land at their rights.

Yuruko's handgun formed. She squeezed the trigger 3 times and Sekani staggered back when the bullets hit his heart, surprised a firearm could hurt him; Yuruko yanked Serena with her as she rushed left & away, and as the puddle of maggots leaped towards Yuruko -

- the next scene was instant. Her bodysuit's right sleeve loosened to let the maggots inside -

- and streams of fog flew under her suit to ensure Blackburn wasn't seen, dissolving the insectile invaders as the two ducked in to an alley, stopping quick with Serena staggering away. "Slow - slowed my eye - and claw -"

" - gotta repair your mask." winced Yuruko, peering around the corner to see Sekani rushing at them 40ft away. She placed her hands on Serena's mask - " - what anime should we do next?"

" - um, Fate Stay Night?-"

" - isn't that a pair with a guy?"

" - no, it's an anime -"

" - no, the - "

" - Madoka?-"

" - that's bad luck!" - Yuruko groaned -

- and ripped Serena's anime-head off, new long & red-haired mask and loose brown jacket forming. She shoved them both on Serena, and as she shoved her own black-haired mask on -

- one spiderstrand landed outside and yanked Sekani 5ft away from them -

- but one shotgun blast tore half of his face off & left it hanging from his skull; agony pushing him back, half of his lips mouthed Nephali as another set of strands shot towards Yuruko -

- but she swept to the left wall and Serena swept right. One sweep of Serena's claw & one sweep of Yuruko's hand and the two fled in to opposite buildings, both of them closing up the sudden holes behind.

Sekani grunted as he stepped in Serena's direction, spiderstrands pulling his expression back together. No time to waste, one spiderstrand brought him to the wall, and up he climbed, reaching the roof quick and rushing across to peer over the entrance 2 stories below.

12 seconds passed as he waited to see if she'd rush out, and in the next instant -

- an explosion from below split the building like an earthquake had hit it, and as the roof started to collapse -

- a swift set of strands pulled it back together and kept it safe for now, footing staggering but no new damage yet. His right hand aimed in to the crack and a flood of maggots & caterpillars dripped in to it. Serena couldn't stay inside for long; if Nephila's venom hit her other eye she'd be functionally blind.

He crouched down and spent another ten seconds staring down in to the crack. He glanced left and saw a crowded restaurant across the street -

- and his breath froze as he saw Serena rushing over to it; no time to waste, he swept down the wall as fast as he could, seeing her rush in through the front doors -

- and his breath pierced his lungs as a dozen explosions claimed the front half of the building, smoke shrouding the screams coming from inside -

- just in time for a Penxeno bullet to burst through his left arm & shoot through his heart, and Yuruko knew she was to blame for why he was sleeping before he hit the ground.

From the roof of an adjacent building, she climbed her way down the wall, Medicinal forming subtle footholds. The smoke cleared and Serena stepped out of the still-standing restaurant, civilians sleeping peacefully inside. Yuruko guessed she'd planted explosives outside the store & Blackburn had kept the walls repaired inside.

Yuruko frowned as she crouched over Sekani's body, motioning Serena to her as she whispered. "…uh. What're we gonna do with him?"

"…umm… Can you make his Revenant weaker?"

Yuruko shrugged and tapped her finger near his heart. A bit of Xenocyclin dropped through his pores.

"…um. I know you're Revy from Black Lagoon, but who am I supposed to be?" whispered Serena.

"Kurisu Makise from Steins;gate."

Yuruko coughed, hoping she would wear it elsewhere too.