Once they found the nearest hotel, Mia and Makoto waited with Aimee outside as Aimee called Marisa.

  "It's me. You got your tablet? ... Location on. Look, okay, I get it, I just - I needed to make a decision to kill him quickly, and I got overzealous... yes. Yeah, that's fine - okay, I'll have someone pick you up. What kind of chocote? ... Alright. Stay where you are and see you in a bit." She hung up and turned to Mia and Makoto. "Marisa wants someone to pick her up and bring her some chocotes. I've gotta figure out our new route and let the government know, too, and... shit. Mia, are you okay going with Makoto?"

  "Only if you apologize to me afterwards." said Mia, then with a smirk strode up to Aimee, then dipped her finger under Aimee's chin and tilted her up. "I want something sweet waiting for me when I come home, too, you know."

  Aimee gulped. "I-I- yeah, I can arrange that. I-I..."

  "Good butch." Mia kissed her, then went off with Makoto, who walked through the parking lot, examining every car. "We can just order a-"

  "Nah, fuck that, I'm not getting driven around by a civilian again. I'm just looking for... fuck yeah." Makoto crouched down beside a sports car, then pyed a slight Hymn melody that repaired the door to 'unlocked'.

  Mia slipped in the passenger seat, and watched with disgust as Makoto set her mouth to the ignition, her cheeks bulging as she whistled with lockpicking precision, and the car hummed to life. She removed her mouth and drove.

  "Was that really necessary?" Mia leaned back in her seat.

  "Uh, stealing a car? Yeah, because it's the difference between going 40 miles per hour and 200."

  "I suppose I'll take anything that shortens the length of time I have to deal with you."

  Makoto sped up to 60 mph, then 100, topping out around 190mph; host reflexes would prevent any crash or at least allow them to survive any they caused. Mia muted the GPS as it gave increasingly frantic directions.

  "Anyway, Marisa wants chocote?" said Makoto. "What's her favorite kind? I'll buy her some for Valentine's Day."

  "Stay away from her." said Mia defensively.

  "Wow, possessive much? Sorry for finding your mentor attractive. She's single, though, right? She must be, 'cuz otherwise you'd say some shit like 'she has a girlfriend', so thanks. I definitely wouldn't mind taking her out for dinner and seeing if-"

  "If the only topic of conversation you have pnned for this drive is how you want to fuck my best friend, then I would prefer silence." Mia sighed and looked out the window. "She wouldn't be interested in someone like you, regardless. She's overly romantic, not desperate."

  "Meaning?"

  "Stop it."

  "Wow. Weird how you and Aimee can do everything but fuck in front of everybody, but I can't even be attracted to your mentor in front of you. Couples' privilege, much?" said Makoto. "If you think about it, it's actually worse because I've known Aimee for years, so for you to just funt that you're obviously drilling her little butch pussy so deep that when you pull out your strap it's covered in oil, that's basically sexual harassment-"

  "Oh, god damnit, fine, go back to Marisa!" groaned Mia. "Perhaps you'd have a better chance with her if you didn't insist on always being the most obnoxious person in the room."

  "Coming from the woman of poverty who talks like a medieval princess, that's fucking rich." said Makoto, then in an imitation of Mia's voice that she hated for its accuracy: "'Oh, I suppose.' 'Er, yes.' 'Perhaps philosophy is simply a shield upon the real world, in much the same way religion is, but I suppose that I believe-'"

  Mia's teeth grit. "I'm going to have a very stern word with Aimee about what conversations she tells you about."

  "Hey, she wouldn't have kissed you if not for me calling her a spineless bitch, so mock me all you like, but you can thank me when you get married in ten years."

  "And I suppose you can thank Aimee for telling you what it's like when two intelligent people have a conversation, given you've never been part of one yourself."

  As Makoto nattered on, Mia leaned back and filled her own ears with scarabmetal, mostly shutting Makoto out for now. Her brief respite, however, was interrupted within a few minutes as she heard Makoto gradually whistling and her scarabmetal plugs cracking, and so removed them. "What?"

  "Nowhere's open this time of night, so your beautiful mentor is getting gas-station chocotes, sorry." Makoto swerved and parked in front of the gas station. "Come with me in case there's a host."

  Mia sighed as she followed Makoto inside. She looked down at Makoto's 4'8" frame and had an urge to punt it as far as she could. But she decided to channel this urge less destructively and picked up a bottle of wine. Normally Mia didn't drink for particur reasons; she thought she might need it here.

  Makoto eyed the alcohol. "Aimee doesn't drink, by the way. Unless you fucked that out of her too."

  "They're not for her, you moron, they're for me in lieu of general anesthesia." grumbled Mia.

  "Host anesthesia is called Penxeno, by-the-by." chimed Makoto helpfully. "Xenocyclin and Penxeno. We have our own antibiotic and our own anesthesia, and they kill anybody who knows the formu for either of them. Personally, I'd call that unprovable thoughtcrime, but I'm just paid to execute the w and not define it."

  "Why did someone like you even join Urasaria?"

  "Because having a Revenant is cool and bsting dumb fuckheads into pink mist rules. I'd do this shit even if they sent me to Egypt or Iraq. Sorry that not everybody has some epic story about being chosen by a headless psychopath to carry on his dead wife's Revenant or whatever."

  Mia sighed; she had realized over the past semester that Makoto's was generally the modal reason for joining Urasaria, with some variance. She still felt there was no nobler profession than conveniently the one she desired most, but nobility as an ancilry fact of studenthood rather than its primary purpose to most.

  "Look at those spinning hotdog rollers there." said Makoto. "It's like a metaphor for getting friendzoned. They're always rolling towards you but never getting closer. Hey, that reminds me, what's Marisa's-"

  "No."

  "Is that going to be your response to everything I ask about her tonight?"

  "Come up with an original thought and I'll give you an original answer. I should have asked Matoi to come along instead."

  "You know she killed her dad, right?" said Makoto. "That's why she isn't in Japan anymore, they expelled that psycho. She's only in Urasaria because the other option was prison. Chick just likes to kill."

  "Then it sounds like she's acquainted herself quite well with American values." chimed Mia sarcastically. "Have you ever considered having an unexpressed thought about someone else?"

  Makoto smiled. "I'm having one now."

  Mia sighed as she followed Makoto down the aisles of snacks at the end of the store, the cashier far behind them. She heard the door open and gave it an instinctual gnce; a Chinese man with short bck hair recognized her badge at the speed of a rogue host, and he rushed to the cashier with a knife drawn; before Mia could react, Makoto's trumpet had formed and bsted a hole in the ceiling that tumbled its rubble into the bck-haired man and smashed into his head, staggering him back; the cashier backed away, then fell suddenly to the ground dead, the final motion of his fingers suggesting a pain in his skull.

  Mia pressed her back against one of the aisles as Makoto fnked her, and she shouted with more acrimony than usual: "Do you have a fucking death wish?!"

  A volley of thrown knives came from the aisle and hit the back wall, ricocheting back towards the women; Mia swept her palms forward and felt a past remembrance align her scarabs in a forward line, cursing as she reorganized them mentally into a ball of fire that shot out too te to prevent a knife from entering her chest and stabbing her deep, far worse pain than normal as it sank in her skin; at her side, Makoto attempted the same with her trumpet bst and missed, but ripped the knife out of her chest and threw it back down the aisle -

  - but an array of bagged snacks fell and into the bags went the knife, no harm done to their foe still at the register beyond the aisle.

  A flurry of thoughts rushed through Mia's mind as she pulled the knife out from her chest, cauterizing with fire her wound; she had felt momentarily disoriented, and the knives had changed position with such swiftness she felt it may be his Revenant, or perhaps wind, or the creation of soft material-

  "-probability Revenant, fuck this stupid luck-based shit-" groaned Makoto and Mia deferred to her experience. Another volley of knives came out from the aisle, and we they ricocheted again: "-dodge forward-"

  Mia fell under her bizarre order quickly and attempted to dodge forward into the knives; her right foot hit the ground and she tripped to the floor, as did Makoto beside, but the knives sailed uselessly overhead. Gncing back as she pressed herself up with some difficulty, she sought to summon a shield of ice in the aisle, but again a remembrance ascended upward from Ryumi's colony as she swept her palm up; an obelisk of scarabmetal formed, and she cursed as she was forced to dissolve it into steam which bsted away the next volley of knives, but obscured sight of their foe ahead.

  Beside her, Makoto whistled and bsted an exit out of the gas station at the wall beside them, only a few seconds of running; she gestured to Mia as she started to run towards it, then tripped on her face and smmed her bobblehead-like-skull into the floor and Mia burst out ughing.

  What was not funny, however, was the next volley of knives that erupted from the mist; Worldwide's scarabmetal sword formed in Mia's hand, heat to mold it and cold to solidify; but her heat was too high and the sword was beginning to melt-

  "-Symphony: Hymn, lucky I'm doing this shit for y-"

  - Worldwide's bde reformed properly and Mia deflected the next volley of knives, sending them sailing back into the steam with no harm done. A thick mist was beginning to fill the gas station, and as Makoto got to her feet ahead, she gestured again to Mia to rush out with her.

  Mia pressed herself up, got her tall legs underneath her, then ran and tripped and her nose hit the floor first and Makoto burst into a mimicry of Mia's ughter, backing out of the store, onto the sidewalk, then shrieking as she tripped backwards into a parked car; the arm erupted out from it and the sudden noise shocked her enough that she could not dodge the next knife that came out from the mist and impaled clear into her heart.

  Mia winced as she felt the ws of probability weigh heavier upon them, a general maise of her Revenant unable to buck away external circumstance as she felt scarabs bite at her neck. She could not press herself to her feet, but as she felt a presence emerge from the mist, she rolled over with a scarabmetal dagger just in time to block his vicious swipe; her skill in melee outweighed any possibility of failure, and she blocked him again & again, then shed out with a ssh that cut his hand clear off; he gasped in agony as he backed away, clutching his gone-limb, then ran towards the far easier target in Makoto as he frantically grabbed another knife from his pocket.

  Prone and turning to face him, Mia threw her dagger towards him with a scarab to guide its flight -

  - but a swift wind veered it off-course and into the gasoline tanks behind, sshing through but leaving no damage but a steady leak; Makoto was bleeding out ahead, but a swift strum of Hymn's harp and the gasoline tanks repaired; he was only a second from striking Makoto when she shouted- "-ashes to ashes, motherfucker!"

  She hit a whistle that sshed through the tanks of petrol behind; all but her stared stupidly for a moment, until an enormous explosion cimed the entire lot, constantly chaining and re-reacting with the gasoline lines below; a globe of ice formed around the woman as the bsts threatened to destroy everything in a mile radius, until at st the smoke cleared and Mia stepped out into the rain of gore that had been their foe. No Revenant could be seen, however.

  Mia was about to ask Makoto why the tanks of gasoline exploded when struck, then recalled the naivete of Hymn again; objects repaired by it reacted according to the myths Makoto believed rather than objective fact. This was why the explosions had hurt him at all; luck could not py a factor in that which should not logically have been able to happen.

  Makoto shrugged as she started walking back into the defaced storefront. "Well, anyway. Now we can steal shit without anyone bitching at us."

  Mia followed her inside. "What about the Revenant?"

  "Uh, be my guest if you wanna search for it. I just cause corpses, I don't touch that gross shit. I'm not searching through all five hundred pieces of him for it."

  Mia sighed as she peered over the counter and looked at the cashier's corpse. She recognized he had likely died of a brain aneurysm caused by this Revenant, and pced 20 on the counter to compensate for the goods she was about to take. "He could have waited ten minutes for us to leave. Even if it were us he was after, he didn't have to kill this innocent person."

  "Dunno if you've noticed yet, but rogue hosts tend to be dumb as fuck." Makoto shrugged. "Besides, he probably knew we'd - well, you, I don't really care - get guilty over what we could've done, maybe if we were quicker, yadayada, all that shit."

  "Why would he care about what we think?"

  "Because we're Urasaria students. You ever notice how rogue hosts attack us all the time but cops barely ever get shot at? Retively, obviously. It's because people get shit in their head about Urasaria Academy. We're not like cops where you can see them driving and walking around normally. We're a bunch of weirdo supernatural lesbians who show up in your town randomly, question you under threat of death without any consequences, then leave without any sign that we did anything good except a mangled corpse in the street who you're supposed to assume was a bad person."

  "You almost sound sorry for civilians there."

  "I mean, that's just how shit has to be. It's not like we can put a student in every city. People just wanna hate shit they can't change. But that's why Urasaria makes these dudes' dicks feel small or they think it's oppressive or capitalist or communist or feminist or fascist or whatever. And 'cuz they know they're on a level pying field to us, retively, some of these dudes think they gotta do something about the secret den of torture they think we're hiding."

  "Part of what always drew me to Urasaria is the secrecy around it, admittedly. It's the same reason I was interested in criminology."

  "Yeah, and at least you had actual students to talk to. But that's my point. One reason why Aimee told the media to stop reporting on student deaths is because it nationalizes shit like that. Rogue hosts know you can't intentionally get famous these days, but you can get infamous for killing one of us." Makoto shrugged. "So, all that and then people tell us we just need to be more transparent? Bullshit. All transparency means when it comes to government is being able to control what questions people ask. And at least for Urasaria, we handle our own shit better than anybody criticizing us could. Aimee's good at that."

  Mia smiled. She swiped a few sweets off the shelves, as did Makoto, and they returned to their stolen car, under the iced shimmering of stars which pattered their dashboard almost to Marisa.