I Know Nothing Of Life

Mia awoke in an infirmary with someone over her, filling a glass of water. Her vision was in a mist, and she felt nauseated & weak.

The woman glanced at someone at the end of Mia's sight. "People just call her the Major, though."

"Didn't some movie about that come out a few years ago?" said a female voice at the cliff of Mia's hearing.

"Uh, we don't talk about that." said another female.

"Yeah, it sucked." said the woman as she drank water to Mia, streams of fog helping her swallow.

"Something you have to watch in the original Japanese." said a male. "With your body pillow."

The woman walked away and sat down. "Um, they're called dakimakuras."

"Maybe we should get her one." said the male. "Could we get one made of Aimee?"

Mia weakly laughed and the four shot up.

"I- Mia?" said Serena, rushing over to her. Streams of fog checked her for wounds. "Are, are you up?"

"….nnnf…"

A dozen wounds on her face burst open, blood not dripping out as Blackburn filled them.

"I-I got you." said Serena quick. "J-Just be c-careful, please. D-Don't move too much."

"Y-Yeah." said Yuruko beside.

Mia's left arm pressed against the bed, but it snapped backwards as she sat up & back in to the bed she sank, fog healing her as she groaned, then saw Sylvia & Samuel.

"U-Um, she told you to be c-careful." chimed Sylvia.

"…w-what … what happened?"

"You were in a coma for a few months." said Samuel. "We were worried you weren't gonna wake up. You're at Timepact."

"Um, do you want me to let Aimee know?" said Serena and Mia nodded. "Okay." She tapped her tablet. "She was a-"

- Aimee appeared right next to her & she shrieked -

"Really should've expected that." winced Yuruko, relevantly, glancing away as Aimee came close to Mia, but did not touch her.

"Should go outside for this." said Samuel, and the three nodded as they left.

Aimee was excited. "I-I'd kiss you, but, u-um..."

"…I feel awful." Mia winced and could barely move. "I-It's fine. I-I can t-tell you're relieved."

"Yeah, t-that's why." nodded Aimee. "Just d-don't want to a-accidentally hurt you. Host strength and a-all."

"Is W-Worldwide still working?" Mia tried to push herself up, then groaned as something cracked and she slumped down.

"Yeah. Hirogane, um… c-came over to check. Guessing you're still feeling pretty out of it, t-though."

Aimee pulled up a chair beside Mia, and slowly, tried to fill her in on what information she could. She had been in a coma since her fight with Daigo, but Yuruko's data had ensured that he was indeed disintegrated without a single atom left. Yet Aimee seemed distracted by something, and her primary questions answered, Mia asked why.

"…nah, it's just... It's not about you. I'm glad you're alright. Was p-pretty worried about you."

Mia closed her eyes. "…I don't mind l-listening, f-for now. I-I assume Serena's already healed me."

"Her and Saya have had to heal you pretty much every day, yeah. They've stayed here for the summer."

"There's something else bothering you. What is it?"

Aimee seemed sullen, at least for some seconds. Eventually she said: "…well, I haven't been here all summer, either. After the first two months, I was starting to worry. I knew you'd be safe h-here with u-us, but I-... needed some time away. Do you remember that dog I've told you about?"

"…yes. T-The one you always felt you looked like."

"Well, she's ugly, yeah. And part of me started dreaming about her again. I f-felt like I needed to go to where I hadn't been in real life, not for years. So, I went back to my parents' neighborhood. I don't know, I started looking around for her. I think she was a stray, or maybe just one of our neighbors' that didn't care for her much.

While I'm there, s-someone I know approaches me. She said she wouldn't be able to make it to the funeral, but she wanted to give me her, uh, r-regards or whatever. Found out from her that my mom had died, maybe a... month or two back. …yeah, I see you smiling. It's fine. And I found that dog, anyhow, actually. Tried to raise her for a few days, but she was pretty scraped up and old. Seemed almost like something had permanently snapped in her to where she wasn't able to trust humans anymore. I was able to get her to follow me if I had food, but that was about it.

…but, I told this lady to tell my dad I was around, and would be around for a week or so. I figured out where my mother was buried, too. Didn't take much time with Rider. I had that dog with me, and I... remember that she seemed to recognize it, a bit. Not the headstone, not the cemetery: but she seemed to recognize death. She looked at me as if wondering if that was what was happening to her. And I started crying. Not for my mom, not much, but because of what that death meant to this dog.

I don't know. I spent so much god-damn time when I was younger, psychoanalyzing her. But what does it matter? I doubt she felt any guilt over me before she died. It hasn't changed anything with my dad -- he doesn't want to see me or you. Mostly, it's just proven to me that I've been trying to imbue into those memories and make them a bit warmer than they actually were, just as I probably am that dog."

++++++

Mia broke every bone in her body the next day, but was healed by the time of Timepact's meeting. Sylvia helped her in to her chair, and she noticed an absence as she sat down.

"Where is Akira?"

"He left as soon as he brought you back." yawned Makoto. "Guy was a fucking weirdo."

"He knew you were going to kill him after." said Serena and Mia nodded.

"And if I ever see him again."

Mia glanced over to her, wishing she could read whether those eyes had broken up with Maria. She'd made no mention of her or the Royal Four, but graduation would soon make both irrelevant.

"Got it set up?" said Aimee to Yuruko, forming a projector screen at the tip of the room.

"Yep." she said, and Mia nodded to her as she began. She discussed much of what Codex's profile of the event had noted, and referenced a few papers researching how the universe had shifted, as thorough as she usually was as Timepact's researcher. "…uh. GPS was down for a few months, too, but they said it's mostly good now."

"Felt pretty bizarre, though." said Samuel to Mia. "Most people had the feeling of something moving while staying still."

Mia nodded. "What about Russia's citizens?"

Aimee winced. "I don't think you killed anyone besides some hermits that didn't evacuate, but they..."

"What, did they ban me? I can handle that."

"There isn't a country to ban you from."

Yuruko flicked her remote. A map appeared on the screen and Mia gasped. Russia's destruction had been far worse than Japan's; Moscow's ring now encompassed much of the western half of the country.

"I… Christ, I knew it was going to be something, but..."

"Last thing I saw on the news was discussing which country was going to annex it. Their president wants you extradited, but they have no leverage, so."

Serena nodded. "Um, you were getting attacked a lot while you were in your coma, t-though. Someone found out where Timepact is, but we didn't want to move you..."

"Luna and I were walking home a month ago." muttered Saya. "A woman approached us and tried to offer us ten million dollars if one of us were to poison you."

Luna nodded and said nothing.

"People from the government were trying to make us move you to one of their facilities." said Samuel. "But, well, I figured if you were conscious you would've declined that, so we did."

"…correct." muttered Mia.

"People figure there's some link to you leaving Urasaria and what happened, but you have nearly every western democracy in the world running propaganda for you. It works for war criminals: it'll work for you."

"As has Japan, although I suspect the motive is mostly ulterior." said Matoi. "They also lifted your ban."

"As if I'll ever go again." said Mia.

Matoi smirked. "You'll need it to visit myself and Rin."

"….er, they allowed Wedding? I thought one of the issues was -- the lethality."

"Timepact's Japanese liaison." chimed Aimee and Matoi nodded.

"They approved it on the condition I only hunt with Rin or Daishi. I'll be moving there within a few months, though I, obviously, wanted to wait until you were awake."

"Uh, speaking of…" Marisa grinned and turned to Mia-Mia. "Congrats, Ms. Threat Level Existential."

Mia smiled. After the rest of her agency caught up with her, she spoke with her squadron, which was something she had not done in months. They discussed the delayed race for presidency, in which Serena and Kate were close. In private, Serena discussed with Mia her plan to come out as transgender publicly, and if Mia could help her in navigating the media when she would do so.

In the remains of this day, the worries that had held Mia over the past months fled, and she felt obligated to take account of her strange mixed life, how she had moved through it. She thought over her past four years, and there was one moment that took preeminence in her mind, for it had long stood in the changeling sands of her moods; her sense of her relationship was secured to such a moment.

It was October, and likely could have been any autumn day for the couple. Mia had wanted to attend an art gallery recently, and though Aimee grumbled a little, still she went with the promise of dinner afterwards. They had come across a painting of medieval queen, surrounded by servants and fruit. Aimee tried to imitate the pose depicted in the portrait, and in that moment, somehow, Aimee became a Renaissance-era Queen. The music seemed to play close against the windows, and around the shafts of light of the room, even though Mia could remember no direct source.

But she had laughed, and the moment perfect passed as they moved onto the next painting. It was both to Mia the most perfect expression of what the couple was, but of Naomi's revelation, the ability of humans to imbue love into a mindless universe, and find joy in their friends, chosen family, as compensation for the cosmic indifference the cosmos exacts upon us. Such imbuement had been what she had once done with Ryumi; to project only idealized versions of her into her own future, however fearful she might have once been of not embodying her, for she had not believed she could arrive at actualization alone. A hollowed brutishness Ryumi had once possessed with Worldwide, yet it was not one Mia's scarabs had filled, no matter the weight of such a nightmare. She no longer felt eluded by that shape of life that her molding touch could tell her was her own, multitudinous and emergent, formed of what was no longer but had still become.

[END OF MIA YEARS]