nina inoue

  If April were here, she'd be laughing at Nina, right? Nina was in public, so maybe April would try to shut herself up? She'd be less blatant about mocking Nina. So poised, April would put her hand to her mouth and stifle herself. Her laughter would come out scattered, in staccato chirps.

  Nina would stutter, slow down. She'd be so desperate. Couldn't April just say what she were thinking? Couldn't she just spit it out?

  April could do whatever she wanted, anything and everything. She'd oblige Nina, eventually. Something like...

  "Ehe. Heh. You're so stupid!"

  Wasn't she right? Nina had been stupid! So stupid. April would lecture her about it, and then—

  No, no. That wasn't Nina's world anymore.

  Was this? It all seemed so fake. She was on a bus or coach or whatever. It idled. They weren't going anywhere, yet. A girl called Emmy or Emi or something or whoever sat next to her.

  They were talking, weren't they? Weren't they talking?

  Nina's next line should be…

  "It's probably really shocking, suddenly becoming a girl," Nina said.

  "Haha, it was," Emi said.

  "The 108 have done so much work, to make such sudden shifts impossible... to prevent anything from corrupting our human bodies. I think it'll work out for you, though. It'll probably work out for you! I've been doing it for as long as I've lived."

  Nina lilted the lo in the long. She had to sound like she was enjoying herself, really!

  "I suppose that you're very good at it, then. Being a girl," Emi said.

  Was Nina good at anything? She paused to think.

  She drifted away. Emi nudged her.

  "Oh. I'm about average. At being a girl. Aren't most girls?" Nina asked.

  Maybe this was a mistake. Fifteen minutes, they'd realise something was wrong with Nina, and then they'd give up. Malice, ill-thoughts, pretending to care but not really caring... the exalted Haze House would figure out that Nina was irredeemable, completely, utterly, and they'd give up on her. The Nina Inoue who signed up to this? Probably someone else. They'd realise that, and she could sneak out.

  Fifteen minutes had not yet passed.

  "Oh. That's a cool way of putting it!" Emi replied.

  Some laugh slipped out. "Ehe. Thanks."

  Emi beamed.

  What a worthless compliment. Don't let yourself be goaded this easily, Emi. Nina's words didn't really mean anything. Don't act genuine, or faithful.

  They were all a little worthless, weren't they? That was why they had signed that contract, and had done that microritual. They each had some lack in them. Nina had nothing but that lack. Nothing but nothing. Mentally ill, totally ill, physically, spiritually sick. It was something like doing this or it was worse, way worse.

  "You're welcome!" Emi said. Her blonde hair obscured her eyes, so Nina couldn't see through her.

  Why was she here? Did this girl want for anything? It didn't seem like it to Nina. In so many minutes Emi had already given so many details about herself. She'd done the ritual, it had made her into a girl, how confusing, haha…

  Emi was incapable of magic. She'd said so. No, not incapable, but she belonged to the ninety-nine out of hundred that hadn't had their minds-bodies-beings-souls sundered with it already. She said that she 'didn't really get it.'

  That was sure believable—if anything ever could be believed, anymore. Truth, reality, sanity: each had slipped out of humanity's grasp. The entire world had been filled with outside powers, obeyed outside principles, but—but, but, even still, Emi could afford to not understand magic. How lucky of her! What a charmed unenchanted life.

  Emi treated the miracle that had befallen her as if it were nothing special, like she were nothing special for receiving it. There were many people who would kill for something like that to happen to them: didn't Emi realise? Innocent and arrogant, she didn't seem to understand anything at all…

  Emi didn't understand that she shouldn't admit everything. Emi's family was under Haze House's aegis. Nina knew then that she was rich, and that not all of the girls here were equal, or regarded equally by their employer. Emi's mother and older sisters were happy when the miracle occurred. Adding another young woman to their family wasn't at all a burden for them.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  They had taken Emi's measurements. Nina asked Emi if she had measured well, but Emi responded as if getting your measurements taken wasn't a win-lose game? Then they had taken Emi shopping at high-end outlets in the city of Adelaide, had actually gotten clothes tailored for her. Really, they just pampered her!

  So fortunate...

  "Hey, Nina?"

  Nina had zoned out.

  "Y-yes?" Nina said.

  "You know, you're really nice." Nina did not know this. "You remind me of..."

  What?

  "I mean... how do I say this?"

  What?

  "Since we're kinda... there's an affinity between us, right?" Emi said. "Could you teach me... how to be a girl?"

  Okay. Whatever. "Oh, that would be wonderful," Nina lied. "I'm not sure that I'd be very good at it, but I'll give it my best attempt!"

  She pumped her fists. Fake enthusiasm.

  "Thank you, Nina! For bearing with me…"

  Thank you was right. If Nina deserved anything at all—she didn't deserve anything at all, but if she did—she deserved thanks for enduring the cheeriness, desperation from someone who had no need at all to be desperate.

  Why was Emiliya here? Did she think she was going on a journey of self-realisation? Was she going to make loyal friends? Was she going to crawl through inferno and come back covered in ash, hacking up all the ill in her chest, choking, burnt away and reborn? A brilliant fire smouldering within the hearth of her heart... was it like that? It had to be. The company pamphlet was wholly honest, right?

  Repeat it and try not to laugh. They'd become brilliant young women under the tutelage of their supervisor. They were just a search party: they weren't a combat group under real threat. When they entered situations that presented a risk to their wellbeing, the bonds between them would manifest as their power, allowing them to defend themselves and each other. In the end, every agony would wash away. They'd become greater.

  It would all be thanks to Haze House.

  Unbelievable, right? Nina really hated words like that. Everyone had always told her to just get better; Nina never could. Nina was less than nothing. Not nil nor nihil nor nothing not zero but minus five. Nina was this absence that abnegated the sparkling futures of five other girls, her town, her country.

  Everything nice was false for her, wasn't it? All of these nice words that Haze House had written for her, they couldn't be true!

  No. One thing had to be true. The Red Eyes and Incarnadine Hands were real, right? Even if Haze House was lying to them, even if they were actually here to do something completely different, the act of searching for them could make them real. There were other powers like the Red Eyes and Incarnadine Hands, anyway. There was precedent. They were probably real.

  If Nina won, she could be repaired and rewritten. Things wouldn't have to be like this. They could change!

  She had to pretend to be nice to get it. Keep the harmony, pretend to be likeable even though everyone had hated her for seventeen years—next month, they would have hated her for eighteen! Smile. Fake happiness. Entertain Emi.

  Emi hummed, unable to bear silence.

  "Yeah?" Nina said.

  "It's weird that the back of this bus smells like disinfectant," Emi said.

  Nina gripped the metal underside of her aisle seat.

  "We're next to the toilet and washing machine," Nina said. They were at the back left corner. The bus was fitted with amenities and modern conveniences. They had to live on it for so many months, after all.

  "It's really strong..." Emi said.

  "Do you want to move?"

  "No... I prefer the back."

  That wouldn't do, would it? Nina stood, hovered.

  "We're just a search party," she said.

  "Huh?" Emi said. Oops.

  "N-nothing," Nina said. "We should probably get to know everyone else." Nina and Emi had to. There was no victory if they didn't play along.

  "Hm. Maybe. Yeah. That's a good point," Emi said.

  Emi was indecisive, wasn't she? Could she be trusted with anything? It should be fine. Nina was very good at dealing with the caprices of indecisive girls. Emi started to follow her, golden retriever bounding, blushing.

  Nina felt her warmth. Emi was a head and a half taller than her. Maybe a little more. She had a living body. Ah, it was weird to put it like that, wasn't it? Almost everyone did. She was more shapely than her, in every way. Such a nice body, Emi! Why did you get to have ample everything?

  There was a method. Nina looked at the door to the washroom.

  The magic used in the microritual they had all done to join this mission, the type of magic governing bonds, was known as the magic of the heart. There were other powers that governed bonds, but Nina had done her reading, so she knew it was the magic of the heart in this case.

  Prior to 2037, this magic was blood magic, and remained capable of transmuting the human body. After 2037, the 108 Great Houses (their employer, Haze House, included!) had cut that off, as part of the Treaty of Nowhere, established to maintain the integrity of humanity and reality. The magic of the heart could transform bodies, still, but not living human bodies. Corpses, animals, but not humans, for humanity was sacrosanct, and allowing the transmogrification of human bodies threatened the species and allowed that which was not human to seep in.

  The magic of the heart retained its birthmarks. It had a definite cost. This cost could be paid in bonds; it could also be paid in blood.

  Nina led Emi away from the back of the bus.

  What did she think was in the washroom?

  Poorly-phrased question. Nina said things so stupidly.

  The washroom had an auto-refilling water tank, as buses did not have plumbing. It had a bathtub and a separate shower that drained into a pit in the floor. Where did that pit go? What did it do?

  Haze House was so space-efficient. As far as Nina knew, it hadn't even bothered to figure out a way to use dimensional warping to fit bedrooms in. Why waste space on a separate bathtub and shower?

  There were axes by the cutlery. If Nina let her ESP flicker on, then she could feel it, some liquid on them.

  They'd be stained. They'd all be stained…

  So it was! Emi hesitated a little, though the back seemed to creep her out.

  The bus engine hummed.

  "It'll be okay," Nina said. "We're stuck together for at least six months, aren't we?"

  "Right," Emi said.

  "Better six months with people you like than any time with people you despise," Nina said.

  "You're right. It's just... I've only ever had a handful of real friends, at home. Most people are vapid. I have lots of trouble with new people. I find it hard to make myself heard in a crowd. And, and, nobody ever really comes to me. You're one of the only people who can really see—"

  Nina couldn't see anything at all. "Let's start, today. To a better future..."

  Emi giggled.

  Paranoia premonition—abattoir. Where were they heading together?

  Why ask useless questions? Nina was about to find out.