A week later, Mia returned for another interrogation with Urasaria's staff and relayed her conversation with the dreadnought as Aimee & Marisa sat with her. Hirogane remembered his appearance from ten years ago, and the way Mia had said he had spoken reminded him too. His mentor had always needed to drag him in for healing, and Hirogane had the feeling they hated everyone but themselves. Didn't seem so long ago, really. Perhaps this was the fractioning of time age brings, to where how long ago an event feels is determined by the proportion of one's own life rather than the actual number of years.

  "And now, he's speaking to you directly." said one of the female staff members; privately Mia noted Urasaria's female staff treated female students the worst. "What did his badge say?"

  "I don't know." stated Mia.

  "You noticed it was a Urasaria badge, but not the name? How the hell did you not notice -- he's fucking headless!"

  "He was wearing a jacket-"

  "-one that would-"

  "I know what I saw!" Mia tried to take this as one of those annoying expressions. "No, I-I did not see what his badge said."

  "No doubt because your mentor that was so eager to take ownership of the investigation was spending her time shoplifting sweets rather than protecting our villain's target." said Armstrong. "By the way, have you read your reports from this morning, Ms. Sato? You might have noticed a hundred civilians killed themselves yesterday morning, if you haven't already stained the pages with something else."

  "Your dumbshit innuendos aside, this is our investigation." said Aimee. "You wanna try to guilt us over civilians and hosts? What about the mind control Revenants from last year? The copy Revenant from two years ago, the breach Revenant from six months ago? Seems pretty suspicious that you wanna claim this is about dead students and civilians, but I never heard a fucking word from you on that. Almost as if it isn't the investigation you're concerned about. You drag her in here without anyone else's say and you try to scare her. For what?"

  "I personally find it suspicious that a woman claiming to be innocent has been so consistently argumentative. She takes open questioning as direct hostility and small criticisms as heinous accusations, a trait the three of you share." said Armstrong. "As for why we have dealt with Mia directly on this and not other incidents; because those were your job to handle. Student affairs that might require expulsion, particularly such odd 'coincidences' as this case, belong to us."

  "Funny how you never mentioned to her I have veto over student expulsions, too. Like I said. Almost as if it isn't the investigation you're concerned about."

  "There are forces whose word goes above your veto, if we choose to seek them, but let simple fact not prevent you from playing the righteous hero in front of doting eyes."

  "Oh, like who? The government? That's some fucking joke. You think they've got so fucking little to do that they want to listen to your dumb little spats? They'd tell you to fuck off and not bother anybody who actually does important work, unlike you. That's why you got employed here, because you're a failed professional nobody ever trusted to do any real work, so they let you be a glorified stop sign and a shitstain to students. You want to talk about civilians and hosts and villains? Why? It's all fucking abstract to you anyway. I've killed hundreds of hosts and saved thousands, tens of thousands of civilian lives. What the fuck have you done? Do you think anyone's ever been grateful for your existence? Ever had a civilian family come up to you thanking you? No, I already know they haven't. The only emotion you've ever inspired into anybody else is frustration and disgust, anyhow, maybe relief if you ever dropped dead.

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  I mean, really, when's the last time you saw combat? Oh wait, they don't even trust you stupid fucks to fight enemy hosts anymore. That's a shame for you, because the best end to your career you can hope for is if some dumbass rogue host thinks you're actually worth a shit to anyone and assassinates you, because the only place anyone would ever pay attention to you without being forced to would be your funeral."

  Silence perdured, until eventually one of the security guards spoke: "We still need an update on your progress-"

  "Fuck you."

  Aimee stormed out, then felt guilty as Mia & Marisa were forced to join behind her. She was angry enough that all felt reviled in the world, her fingers gnarled. When she struck upon an emotion it was difficult to prevent herself from continuing to feel it; her mind had little motion it could put into eroding such a thought, for as with many victims of abuse, what she had needed to define herself was primarily by her ability at persistence than it was many other traits.

  This was partially why Mia unnerved her so, for she represented a possibility at difference. A romantic relationship was already a difficult odyssey to latch oneself to even without the confounding fears Aimee held of such. She had never dated nor had sex; she had spent so much time preparing herself that she felt she was now far behind in what, by her age, she was expected to be experienced in.

  Marisa laughed. "Jeez, where did that come from?"

  "I've always been fucking pissed at staff, I've just been feeling more confident about it lately." muttered Aimee. "I just know I'm the only one really able to speak up to them like that, but it doesn't change anything. They're there to say no and get yelled at, and the next time I need a student expelled, they'll veto me on it just to be petty. Can't threaten them into doing a different job than the ones they got hired for."

  "Are they always this irksome?" said Mia.

  "Yeah, Mia-Mia." said Marisa. "I mean, we can't complain that much because of legal immunity, but the cafeteria sucks, a third of the housing sucks, and the salary sucks, so your housing after graduation is fucked if you wanna move anywhere people actually live. I don't mind stealing, but it's shitty that everyone expects us to and they don't know it's because it's the only way for us to have a full life, you know?"

  "I tried to see if I could do something about it." said Aimee. "They won't admit it, but the main thing is the government doesn't want students with high salaries, because then they can say our legal immunity is there to supplement it, except the actual reason for students having legal immunity is so cops can ask students to do shit for them, so. Just wish I could prevent it somehow."

  Mia frowned, for she noted again Aimee's tendency to rend the world's misery into herself; she was religious in that she almost did not allow herself happiness if there was a suffering she could fix; anxious pathology rationalized as simple empathy. She rubbed Aimee's shoulder. "Well, I loved what you said to defend me. And if that was you feeling more confident, I would love to see you fully confident. You should give yourself a little more credit, you know. I never hear anyone saying you're a bad president."

  "Besides Nuiko, but she always likes making herself miserable." shrugged Marisa.

  "Then she's a bitch and you shouldn't listen to her. Is she in your year?"

  "She's a third-year, but she's going to be making your two-star costume eventually, so be careful talking about her in public."

  Mia huffed. "Can't I call her a bitch to her face now and have you make it?"

  Marisa looked from Mia to Aimee. "Depends how wiling she is to give you a presidential pardon, 'cuz I'm pretty sure that falls under student disputes."

  "Mia, as student-president, I can't openly go around encouraging you to call Nuiko a bitch." Aimee sighed. "So instead I'll just privately encourage it."

  Mia laughed and drew closer to Aimee, running her fingers down her chest. "You play such favorites."

  "Can't blame me when it's you."

  Mia grinned and pressed her face close to Aimee's. "Is that so?"

  Almost forcibly, Aimee said: "Fuck, you're- you're so pretty when you're this c-close."

  "So are you. Or do you prefer 'handsome'?"

  "Handsome is good."

  Mia ran her fingers down Aimee's back, and she felt an urge. "We should spend some time..." She looked over and noticed Marisa had left. "...well, she certainly disappeared quickly."

  "She knows what's coming."

  Mia grinned. "Indeed she does."

  "Wanna go out somewhere?"

  "Of course."