Men Are All The Same

A week later, with no news from the Russians, Mia looked up from her plate of lobster, caviar, and hollandaise sauce at a sideroom at Timepact. "This is horrific. I shouldn't have ordered this."

"Just because it's expensive doesn't mean it's good." nodded Samuel, eating a normal breakfast beside. (As much as his breakfasts could be considered normal.) "Should've been wary once she said she'd need to look up a recipe for it."

"Out of all the cookbooks she has in that room of her's..." Mia shook her head. "Well, it's good she seems happier now than when she was working at Urasaria. Luna. She doesn't ever have to see her rapist again."

"Did Matoi ever tell you about how Saya went to her about that?"

"About … what was his name? Harry?"

"Something like that. I was over at Matoi's house - mansion by that time, I believe - and Saya comes over. She asked me to leave the room, which in hindsight, I'm a touch offended by, but I leave. She explained to Matoi that something had happened between him and Luna, how she had reacted to it, that she would be hearing rumors about what he did, but sue asked Matoi not to do anything rash in response to it. I specifically heard her say: 'You mean well, but it's better that you don't do this.'

God, when Saya left, Matoi was absolutely pissed. And I'm not saying she was wrong to feel so, but she almost seemed to disregard how Luna felt about it and how she wanted it handled. Obviously, I eventually understood what had happened between them. But I think it was rather difficult for her to understand how someone could react to that without aggression. She said there was no difference between vengeance and justice."

"Well, is she wrong?"

"Well, for Luna, I think so. Part of what I noticed with Matoi's reaction was that it acted to amplify what impulses had already focused her to that belief."

Mia nodded. "I did say goodbye to them when her and Saya left, but -- I don't know. I've never been very good at knowing what to say in those sorts of situations. Even Aimee wasn't quite sure what to do once staff refused to expel him. We were talking recently about her presidency, comparing mine to her's, and she mentioned... well, she felt a bit guilty for it, in a way, because she hadn't been as aggressive as she should've been. Then, we got to talking about Nuiko and Jeanne, because Nuiko was runner-up for presidency, and… well, I don't recall too much of them. That was a rather hectic year."

"Then there was the artifact."

"There was that, yes. I can remember a bit of that trip: my first month mentoring Serena." Mia sighed. "But Japan and all those times I embarrassed myself around students as a teenager, those I recall very easily. You know, it's just like a memory to be so stiff, to become further lodged in the more I try to forget it."

"I know what you mean."

Mia felt a bit embarrassed, for she knew what still lingered over him. "…this year was very quick, wasn't it? It felt faster than my first or second year. I've heard that when you get older, time starts to move faster. I can't imagine what that'll be like at 160 or 180."

"I wonder what type of problems we'll have then." muttered Samuel. "I like being a host, no doubt, but it's going to be odd when civilians don't know what we're saying if we talk about where we grew up. What music you listened to or films you like. I don't think humans were meant to lack a common social foundation."

"Well, I'll just only talk to other hosts."

He nodded. "Maybeso."

Mia looked off, then seemed to be frustrated. "You know, I had a federal agent call me a *government employee* recently. I know it's small, but it just annoyed me having someone who works for the FBI barge into my office and try to compare me to him, as if I'm like him or any other cop. I've never killed an innocent civilian. I've never forced one to play a game and threatened to kill them if they don't comply. I don't commit more crimes than I solve. My first encounter with the government was them kicking my apartment door in and leaking my father's name to the media."

"You know, I meant to ask you - I was curious - did you ever get that Urasaria stipend?"

"Yes, we lived close enough for it. It was just usually so meager that we just immediately had to give it to our landlord."

"Well, that's how it works. They'll let the rich take as much as they want, but at least they give half of it back."

"And that's why I have about as much trust in them as you do. The media, government, corporations: all three can fuck off, for all I care." she muttered. "…well, alright, the media except for... there was that one lesbian outlet at the last press conference we did. They always give me such easy questions. They never bring up my father. …and they have that cute little reporter I like."

"Should I keep that a secret from Aimee?" said Samuel.

"Oh, please." she laughed. "Just because I'm married doesn't mean I can't look at the menu a little. Aimee does the same thing. I haven't spent much time around civilian lesbians in a while, you know. Even when I was single in my first year, I just... I assumed they all would hate me from all the arguments I was getting online, saying that we were just like civilian cops... and it isn't like I don't still see that, a bit. But it's a bit less frustrating knowing they don't all think of us like that."

She shrugged.

"And those who do: I don't know. I'm not denying there aren't students like Kirihara or that trio of women I expelled, but a lot of students don't fit the assessment they casually set upon the rest of us. Their interpretation of us is too solidified to incorporate anything new: they're no longer reacting to me as a president but their memories of other students."

"Well, that's the problem with memory, isn't it? Not what somebody forgets, but what they create or imbue."

"Exactly." She glanced down. "Do you mind asking Luna to make me something else?"

"Sure."

"Thanks." She handed him her plate. "Just... I don't know, waffles or something."

As he left, she thought over what they had spoke of, and of arguments from her past. She felt that this version of Mia & students some had was sinewed by an inscrutable malice, in some sort of alternate reality where students killed innocent civilians and deserved the despisal they received. For her first years at Urasaria these memories had been a parasite upon her reality. Now she did not really oblige them.

As she waited for Samuel, she thought over her father, who was going to be released later this year. Nostalgia and anger seemed an entwined existence with her father, for whenever she thought of him, she would also remember the numerous articles around his arrest. They had called for his execution: they had published her family's name and photos. Because she was poor she had been looked upon as subhuman. For much of her teenage years she had raged against that constructed Mia that lived in the skulls of others. Memory had been a parasite upon her reality.

Of late, she had been assigning fourth-years to guard his prison and check up on him: she had not had the time to do so recently. She remembered there had been a childhood rhyme he would sing to her, when he would bathe her and wash rather roughly behind her ears:

Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home,

Your house is on fire and your children are gone,

All except one, and her name is Ann,

And she hid under the baking pan.

It seemed grim for a children's rhyme. She supposed they must have burned alive; perhaps only because she was a host.

Her tablet vibrated and she wiped her eyes before answering. "…yes, who is this?"

"My name is Konstantins Konstantinovs, with the Russian government. This is Swarm, correct?"

"It is."

"I have some important news to relay to you."

For years, much has remained unknown about the 2022 St. Petersburg bombings perpetrated by Daigo Yashukure. Contemporary information was often an amalgamation of sources from within the former Russian government, rumors from those who had their own reasons for embellishment, and the private testimonies of the Royal Four.

It began with the destruction of Shzya'zovat Academy, resulting in the death of 23 students, 20 professionals, and over a million civilians, followed by a sustained eco-terrorist campaign within Russia's former borders. Historical estimates place the lives lost during this week, either directly or indirect due to lack of law enforcement, at nearly ten million. Nearly half of Russia's power plants were sabotaged by various groups, and though many were speculated to have links to Daigo, the extent to which these groups were truly connected or mere opportunists remains unknown.

Only eleven captured hosts have ever spoken of meeting Daigo Yashukure, with one prominent group confessing that they had been offered 30 billion rubles to steal Revenants from storage facilities and drop them off near the mouth of the Katun River. Had Swarm not disintegrated them all, one such Revenant might have been 'Otkrytiye', a Revenant with the ability to manipulate liquids, and the ability to prevent her use of Mizuchi.

He relayed to Mia the government's progress in tracking Daigo. Due to their experience nine years prior, and with Russia's other agencies preoccupied, Oleksandr's division had been assigned to track back the source of these bombings themselves. This investigation would never conclude: all but three would be found as statues of stone in their homes. It remains unknown how Daigo knew their addresses.

The details of all this would leak into the public consciousness through the years, and in the absence of governmental reassurance, all the typical muck of conspiracy theories soon arose from an unspoken curiosity. A few hosts would even try to assassinate Swarm as a result: none would ever succeed.

She asked if Oleksandr had been killed by Daigo, and was told that he was currently considered missing. It was a matter they no longer had the capacity to investigate. She was warned that they would be evacuating Russia soon, and would call her again if new information arose.

After hearing all of this, Mia leaned back, sinking in to her chair and seeming to become one with it. Samuel was with her now: he had walked in halfway through it.

"…this is China's fault." Her expression tightened. "If they hadn't been so *fucking* selfish - I could have fought Daigo instead, and this would have ended weeks ago. They couldn't even realize that the longer Daigo survives, the more people die, and..." She frowned, staring at her phone. "I should have told them what China did."

"You know it wouldn't make a difference whether they knew or not." said Samuel. "Would just make it worse once this is over. Serena and Yuruko know that, too."

Mia slowly nodded as she sat up. "…I remember when Akira first told me, I thought about my first semester - when Urasaria's staff thought I was responsible for Magnus. I remember sitting on Marisa's doorstep and crying, because I didn't…" She sighed. "…everything has to involve me."

"You wish sometimes it didn't?"

"No. There's no one else who would have been able to kill Daigo. It's why Magnus chose me, and I've accepted that." (Samuel saw guilt glint her brow again.) "…I just wish I hadn't seen that footage."

"Going to be thinking about it for a while." nodded Samuel. "Few years from now, though, time'll rough the edges off of this. My father told me that, although… bit different context."

"…I do think it was a bit insensitive for him to say that, though."

"Well, no, I found it useful. He was right that I had huddled my anger too closely to me, and that it would affect me the longer I kept it carried. And not so much in direct ways, but indirectly. If Outcast hadn't activated, I suppose I'd most likely have ended up like those others and have plenty of emotional problems later in life. Some form of submerging that invisible anger and shame."

Someone knocked at the door.

"Diavolo!" said Serena's voice, relevantly.

"Doppio!" said Yuruko's voice, relevantly.

Mia smiled and went over to open the door, otaku couple sitting down with their breakfast. Putting her tablet away, Mia looked at Samuel for a second, then shook her head. "How did you sleep?"

"Was up pretty late last night." yawned Yuruko.

"Sure was." chimed Serena, tentacle patting Yuruko's shoulder.

Mia almost imperceptibly shuddered. Unbeknownst to her, Yuruko's exhaustion was from a new anime & not Blackburn.

"Did you get any news?" said Yuruko as they started eating.

"Er, not yet." Mia shook her head, then looked at Serena. "Aimee said she would be here soon."

"Coolio." said Serena. "Um, she said she was just gonna bring her's, too, so."

"Did she want anything from Flashbulb?" said Yuruko and Mia shrugged.

"I suppose w-"

" - open up!" shouted a familiar voice at the door, and in the next instant -

- one Avalanche-punch bashed it down, and the four laughed as Naomi stepped inside holding five boxes.

"Hey." she chimed, setting them down. "Gotta head back in an hour, but I can stay a little while."

"Just you, right?" said Serena, going over to refill the entryway.

Naomi smiled. "Just me, yeah. No boyfriend."

A pity she wasn't single, Samuel thought as she sat down. If the tightness in her tracksuit was any indication, her boyfriend was a lucky man.

Naomi had started dating again a month ago, and found to her flattery no shortage of suitors on-campus, most of them honorable as men went. The worst trouble she had so far was Avalanche coming out unexpectedly in bed.

"Uh, speaking of missing. Is Sylvia not…?" Naomi gestured vaguely and Mia nodded.

"I thought it would be better to bring Yuruko instead."

Naomi nodded, a little quicker than usual. "Yeah. I-I'm sure you can do it, yeah, d-dealing with - yeah."

Serena knew she was nearly as worried over Daigo as Mia, but she couldn't control her emotions well enough to not show it. From what she'd heard, Naomi usually dragged her boyfriend along to see cheesy romances & the occasional Julia-recommended character study: but she was never work-shy, either. Who she'd inherited that from, Serena had no clue.

Yuruko looked over the boxes as they distributed them out. She had never received fanmail from her mother Tammy, for she had preemptively set up a filter against such. It hadn't prevented Tammy from still, many times, sending her letters that were immediately filtered to the trash. Yet this caused a sort of guilt in Yuruko, for however much she loved her father, ignoring the letters also meant that he would bear the front of her mother's envy against this mismatch of love.

It seemed Yuruko could never win in that regard.

"Who wants to go first?" said Mia.

"Um, me." shrugged Serena, pulling a letter out of her box. "'Dear Miasma. Thank you for proving one otaku can reduce the crime rate through nothing but excessive violence.'" She glanced down at the rest of the letter, and Mia noticed her blink a few times.

"Is there more?"

Serena shook her head. "No, um. Naomi."

Naomi nodded, pulling a letter out, then smiling.

"'Dear Blank Slate,

{A pretentious epigraph goes here, by an academic whose cock and/or asshole I have licked/sucked/fucked in the past year. Metaphorically, or literally. It does not matter.} -- i. m. ahack

I'm glad you got to the end of your second year, and I hope you're working well with your new protege. I saw she got two-star a few days ago, which already makes her a better host for Baal than the last one.

I bought this typewriter recently and have found it to be quite useful at upping my social standing in Hollywood, where (as I mentioned before) I now guard one of those poser-directors that all real artists despise. I loathe him, Naomi, and he recently has said to me he hopes to make a documentary about Urasaria students. Why one would find the quiet mass of desperation there interesting, I don't know. God, Woody Allen's depictions of these upper-class WASPs were merciful.

I hope you're not still having to eat that crap from the cafeteria. Ever since Luna left, they started putting everything through the deflavorizing machine. I don't think I'll get that absence of taste from those boiled ribs out for another hundred years, or by the time art is good again. I am currently slowly trying to infect this director with my views on art, so that I might subtly wind through him like a computer virus (or at least, that is the most apt metaphor I can currently summon).

Julia Bates

P.S. Remember, when your boyfriend tells you he wants to exchange ideas, what he really wants is to exchange fluids.'"

Naomi laughed, then stopped as she found everyone staring at her. "…uh. It's from someone I know. Uh, Mia next?"

Mia pulled a letter out of her box, opened it, then frowned as she disintegrated it. "…it started by calling me 'Sexy Swarm'."

"Can save the world and some men will still only care about how you look." said Samuel. "There's a message there."

"Yes, that Matoi was right." muttered Mia and everyone but Naomi laughed. "Samuel."

Samuel pulled a letter out of his box, one brow raising as he read it. "You sure you want to hear this?"

"Yes." said Mia.

"'Boar, let's make this simple. I've attached my picture, my address, and the times my husband isn't home.'"

"What does she look like?" said Yuruko.

"Depleted." Samuel shrugged. "Some people'll do anything if they think it gives them a connection to someone famous. Did you want to try again?"

Mia pulled one letter out, then a stack out. "I recognize these from my fanclub." She sighed as she disintegrated them.

"Bunch of men?" said Samuel and her head shook.

"No, women asking me to stomp on their necks." She looked to where the letters had been. "Honestly, if I had known about them sooner, I could have put them to use and had my own lesbian propaganda outlet as president."

"Yeah, but you know what they say." chimed Naomi. "'Today they adore you, and tomorrow it's one of these.'" She mimed firing a gun and frowned as no one laughed. "…uh. It's from a film. Stardust Memories."

She remembered something Julia had said to her about good taste in art being a social barrier; but then again, Julia hadn't made any friends before Woody Allen either. The hardest work she did some days was making all her neuroses seem inevitable.

Mia shook her head. "Go ahead, Yuruko."

She pulled one out. "'Genesis-domo, I have made a grave error in not depicting you properly! Please accept this humble offering as my apology!'"

She flashed the second page out - a drawing of herself holding a dozen guns covered in Japanese, captioned 'URASARIA'S #2 OTAKU'.

"Now you match." chimed Mia, relevantly.

"What's the text say?" said Serena, peeking over. Yuruko took her phone out, and the two frowned as her camera translated it. "…uh. Milk? Bullet? Mushroom?"

"Did they just use Google Translate for this?" frowned Yuruko. "Fucking weeaboos. Uh, Naomi."

Naomi frowned as she read over her's.

"Creepy?" said Yuruko and she nodded.

"…uh, yep." She crumpled it up, wondering why the hell her boyfriend had never written a poem about her. She had not learned Julia's cynicism towards relationships, at least not yet. "Samuel."

Samuel nodded and started flipping through his letters.

"Jonathan, Joseph, Bruno, Annasui…" he muttered, relevantly. "Seems like most of these are from men." He tore one open and laughed after reading it. "I'm definitely not reading these out loud."

Mia had made a bet with Serena for this, and said while looking at Samuel: "How does it make you feel?"

"Makes me wonder what it's like to play for that team-"

" -FUCK!" shouted Serena, slamming the table as Mia laughed -

" - I - I thought he might have been -"

" - wait, did you have a fucking bet -" cackled Yuruko as Samuel laughed & Mia continued -

" - Serena thought you were gay, but - because I remembered how you acted around that one woman, and in Japan -"

" - you know -" - he laughed - " - I could still be bisexual, you do realize -"

" - are you?" laughed Yuruko -

- and Mia frowned as she remembered when they'd visited Samuel's mansion, and the muscular posters on his bedroom's walls. She thought it strange they hadn't been in his gym, where they could motivate him. Perhaps they still were; merely for a different activity.

"…er. Are you?"

Samuel just pulled out another letter. Mia blinked across the table to Serena, unsure how to distribute the winnings now.

As Samuel read aloud, Naomi wondered why anyone would've thought him gay; her view of gay men was that they usually weighed a hundred pounds, depending on when their last blood transfusion was. This wasn't caused by any real maliciousness; she'd simply never met anyone but lesbians, mostly.

"Serena." said Samuel.

Serena nodded, streams of fog opening a few of her's. A sense of guilt came over her as she flipped through them, then pulled another one out.

"'Miasma, proving that anime is real since 2019.'"

"Short and sweet." chimed Naomi.

"Mia." muttered Serena.

Mia pulled another letter out of her box, then sighed. "Finally. 'Dear President Swarm,

I know it sounds creepy, but I've been a big fan of your's even since your first year, and seeing you grow from orange to purple has been awesome to watch - and you even got married, too! I'm sure you're busy, so I'll keep my one request short. If you're ever in town, let me know so I can feel your boots smash my skull in to bits of bo-"

- she slammed the table - " - ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING -"

- the four burst in to laughter as she continued - " - it - it would be better if they all weren't so fucking violent -"

" - they're more violent than Serena -" cackled Yuruko, relevantly -

" - is that a lesbian thing?" cackled Naomi, and Mia sighed.

"It's - it's not even because I'm…" She closed her eyes, laughing between her cheeks. "…it's because I'm tall. I think it's because I'm tall. Aimee or Matoi never received letters like this."

"Is that your theory?" said Samuel.

"I know how lesbians are." She laughed, gesturing to Serena pulling a letter out of her box. "Go ahead."

"'Serena Kunst - or Miasma.'" she said, reading. "I hope that you're feeling well. I realized I…" She trailed off, and held it a little closer so the others couldn't see. She spoke with some difficulty. "…u-um. Sorry. Just… something personal."

Mia nodded a little. "…alright. We'll go on to someone else."

Yuruko nodded and took a letter out of her box.

Serena looked down at her own letter and felt anxious.

Why did she have to be reminded of this in a way the others were not? Why did she have to live like this? She looked to Mia and Yuruko and felt that no matter how they treated her, that others would always view her mannerisms one way and their's another. She was still seen as male around campus, and because of that she was seen as predatory. She still could not be much more than herself, and that was transgender.

"U-Um." She stood up, clutching the letter. "I-I need to step out for a s-second."

She stepped outside, bracing herself against the hall's wall as she closed the door. She closed her eyes and started shaking. Vaguely, she felt apologetic towards a formless mass of constructs and stereotypes she had long internalized; that if she were to do so enough then it would cleanse her of her unease. It had been a ritual for much of her since-breathed life.

"Serena?" said Mia's voice at the door. "Are you alright?" She felt Mia come closer as the door closed. "…was it something personal?"

Serena started sobbing. "…y-y-yeah. I-I-It w-was a-and..." She hugged Mia tightly as she showed her the letter. "I-I just wish they would stop sending me s-stuff like this. I-I can't even read t-those out, e-even if I-I wanted t-t-to, a-and..."

Mia read over it, then placed her hand on Serena's shoulder. "…Serena. Why does it bother you when they say you're transgender?"

"B-Because I'm not trans anymore. I-I'm not."

"But they mean it positively, Serena. I can see that." said Mia. "They look up to you. There's some lesbians who don't like me, or any of us. It doesn't mean that I'm not still a lesbian, Serena. Even if-"

-Serena's head shook. "N-No. That's different -"

" - I'm not saying -- you are female, Se-"

"- i-it's different. I-I know I a-am, it's just - it's still fucking hard seeing you and Yuruko and everybody e-else a-and you g-get to, y-you get to have being a woman in common a-and I-I don't. Y-You got to-"

" - Serena, I… Just because I grew up as a woman doesn't mean that - it doesn't mean that I have a lot in common with most women. You and Yuruko have more in common than I do with her. Matoi, she … lived in Japan until she was a teenager. Aimee's family hates her, but my parents were always supportive."

"You still got to grow up as a woman. I-I'll never get to have that. I-Instead I-I got to grow up with men treating me like a woman and women treating m-me like a man."

Mia rubbed Serena's shoulder as she listened.

"…you k-know, I-I got arrested as a teenager j-just because I dressed like I-I do now. There's p-people on campus who call me a r-rapist creep just because I'm trans. And e-even after I went to Kamon, I-I still feel fake. I-I still have to view everything about me and worry w-what's going to make people s-say I'm male. And I-I can't pretend th-that doesn't make me feel b-bitter w-when I get to see someone like you n-never have to l-live like that."

"…I'm sorry, Serena. I know we used to talk about these things a bit more openly. I hope we still can. …and I don't know how much this helps, but I can relate to some of that. Maybe not to the same extent as you, but when you talked to me about feeling predatory, before you were dating Yuruko. A lot of lesbians have trouble with that, too -- and like you, much more than they should. When you tell me about how you have to view your behavior in terms of gender, and how you feel illegitimate if it doesn't… I think of how I still get called a bitch under men's breaths when I'm angry. I think you and I have both been conditioned to disguise ourselves under that same pasteboard mask. But I've never once thought of you as male, Serena."

Serena nodded, and did not say much. "…I-I shouldn't have said that. M-Maybe it's not any better growing up like that, either. I-I'm sorry."

Mia headed her off. "You still had to endure a lot, Serena. I don't want you to think that you have to downplay your struggles for me."

"…I guess. I-I just need time to think about this."

"Will you be alright?"

Serena mumbled out some things, but eventually said: "Y-Yeah."

They hugged and went back inside. Serena sat down next to her girlfriend Yuruko, and they continued to read their letters. But Serena's voice was dimmer, at least for now. She was realizing that there was a sort of bitterness she carried with her against her own womanhood. Only under duress has she accepted its limitations; only under agitation had she accepted its dictates of living. It had ruled her, not only in how she thought about herself, but about other women who were not like her.

She felt guilty for how she had reacted to Mia, but if she had felt sure of herself, she would not have reacted the way she had. If she had not been made to feel fear and illegitimacy then she would not have denigrated the woman in the diner. In her reactions to transgender women of late, she was not really reacting to them but how she herself was perceived; that by smudging out her common connection with them she felt it might do so for others as well, so that she would no longer need to fear what they thought of her. It was not that she was an abnormal transgender woman for feeling this way: she could only ponder how there were not more that did.

Yet in her need to do so, what had once been her attempts to stretch herself into this stream of legitimacy and recognition had become channels that sapped away at the base of her nature, lingering at the edges of her dammed life, and deepening the icy rhythms under which, now, Serena Kunst finally saw herself, in a thawed flicker of air.

++++++

A week later, Mia met with a high-ranking Russian official alone. He let his parentage show in the way he put his words together.

"Our preparations are nearly finished for evacuation. We've shut down non-essential businesses, stockpiled all of our food, and will be disposing of our nuclear munitions shortly. We have some evacuation Revenants, but it will still take much time, and…"

"Japan has a transporter." said Mia.

He nodded. "We've put in a request for his services temporarily, yes. China offered their's, as well. It should… only take a few days, hopefully. When Absolute Hot occurs, what will be the extent of its destruction?"

"…I don't know. I assume it'll be the size of Moscow's Ring, at least."

"We'll place our citizens as close to our eastern boundary as possible, then."

Mia frowned. "They're not leaving the country?"

"We were told that if we sent any refugees over, they would be gunned down at the border."

Mia was shocked.

"Did you expect differently?" he said.

"I had... thought they would at least allow some people in. I understand it's 140 million people, but they know that Daigo would -- if he destroys Russia, then-"

"Yes, they're aware that if Daigo destroys Russia, their own country and citizens are at risk. But the idea that a global threat would cause the world to act together in one common interest, it's... it's fiction, it isn't reality. Perhaps you read too many American comic books. Matters aren't quite so simple as that. I am angered by their decision, yet I cannot deny the political need for it. Whoever accepted any of our refugees would certainly be blamed for the violence and crime it would bring, no matter how temporary. We no longer have leverage, and our currency will soon become worthless. It's ironic. Russia, ourselves, we've done much to limit immigration, some of which I've participated in myself: sometimes through careful manipulation of data, or using utterly false arguments rather than correct the public's conveniently held notions. And for all of it I have ended up here."

He tried to smile a little. "If it were up to me, I would remind somewhere like the Ukraine that we still have thirty students and dozens more professionals than they do, but those above me think differently. The Revenant Trade Commission, at least, has allowed us to rebuild afterwards using our creation Revenants. If… necessary, I would ask for your squadron's assistance in that."

Mia sat back. "…yes, I... When will you begin evacuating?"

"We already have begun, as well as with the plan you suggested to us. This is the last time any Russians will be seeing you, Swarm. We cannot spare any more of our hosts searching for Daigo."