Archive of Our Own ^beta

Test, test.

Guess it works, then.

I can’t believe they took my phone. Wouldn’t have thought I’d care this much. It’s not like I ever listen to these back, so I shouldn’t care, right?

I dunno. Just feels like an extra fuck-you. Why do I care? I shouldn’t. It shouldn’t be losing my phone that bothers me most right now. Nothing makes sense.

It’s not like I had much worth living for anyway. What was I hoping would happen? Eiri showing up at the door with a hug and a billion yen and an absolutely immaculate apology? Am I stupid?

They took my fucking phone. His voicemail was on there.

I can’t fucking believe this.

Okay. I’ll just keep going. Maybe they’ll give me my phone back eventually. Or at least bury me with it. Whatever.

Usually I’d have shit to say about my day. I could still say that stuff, but almost feels like… I dunno, like lying.

I woke up, afternoon, same as usual, got dragged to Ash’s part-time with him, worked a few hours. Came back. Studied.

I started Plato’s Symposium, actually. Liked that bit Phaedrus had about Orpheus being a sad little coward. Was looking forward to more of that.

…Guess they’d have sent someone to wipe Ash’s memory. Wonder how thorough they go. Ash, yeah. My boss, sure. Ash’s boss? Hah, imagine the look on his face if he goes into work tomorrow and that old sweetheart is like ‘just you today?’ Ash wouldn’t spend more than half a second puzzling at that. He’d just say ‘You’re losing it, grandpa,’ and the poor old man would believe him.

Silver lining. He didn’t need me bringing him down.

Usual time, got dressed for work, got on the train. Weekend. Busy. Long ride. The water under the Rainbow Bridge had that, you know, the colors. Bridge lights striking a million glancing blows on all its folds and creases. Pretty.

My phone buzzed, so of course I had my usual heart attack.

It’s never Eiri, obviously. Won’t ever be, now. Fuck.

That’s the worst part, the worst part of this, this whole—he’s not coming back. Even if he wanted to, even if he cared, even if he tried to, he’d never find me now. I don’t even have the same fucking phone.

I gotta take a walk or something. Talk to the sky. I feel like I’m gonna suffocate. Or scream.

Thought me and Ash lived bad, but dunno. At least our building was up to code.

Eiri’d laugh so hard. Me in a church? Me living in one?

Wonder if it even looks crazy here, walking around alone speechifying to myself. Who cares. I will be mad though, if anyone does think it’s weird. Like seriously, look around and fuck off. Wouldn’t say that to their face, they’d turn me into sludge or something. I’d think it though. And mean it. Secretly.

Right, okay. Train. Phone.

And the weirdest thing, that bit. Like sure, what happened after was probably weirder, but not the way that was. That message, I kinda wish I still had it, because it’s where all this started and it’s just so off. No. The opposite. Just so… onto something. Onto me, even.

Wasn’t anyone in my contact list. I only have like five contacts, so I’d know. Had a handle, though. “Mina.” Had an icon. Spider lily.

Said, “I’m glad you’re lonely, too.”

If that doesn’t get you curious, you must be dead.

So I replied, obviously. Like, of course. C’mon. Eiri and Ash both would call me crazy, but what’s the worst that could happen? It’s some creep? Somebody fishing for the bank account info I don’t have? Someone wants my very valuable drop out identity? My credit score? Have it. Have it, for free, on me. Go wild.

Can’t remember what I said and what Mina said, not verbatim. The gist of it is that, like something out of a horror movie, Mina knew me, knew where I was, was on the same train, and then she called me. I say ‘she’ because she sounded like perhaps ‘she’ fit. She says, ‘I’m coming to meet you.’

Wonder, in retrospect, if that was like a vampire sort of deal. If I’d had said no thx pls, pls do not be doing that ty, would the rest have even happened? No Mina, no berserker, no ominous escort, no Darkwick? No new phone with an empty voicemail?

Anyway, me and my Thanatos drive was like ‘ok’ and then the call dropped. And I sat there, numb and brainless, looking at my phone screen while Mina’s messages started counting down train cars toward mine at perilous speed. Which, you know, I was watching those messages flash past, and—

Even after seeing her and everything, I still think, that was way, way too fast. Maybe my memory’s got it twisted.

And I dunno, I do not know when it happened. But I was staring at her messages going ‘You’re not in 6,’ ‘you’re not in 5,’ and then I had a sort of spike of, what, brain function? And I looked up and everyone in the car was gone, and the water, and the world—

They’ve got me living in a church, so maybe that’s why I’m being so melodramatic. There’s that one verse that kinda sounds right: And I will break the pride of your power; I will make your sky as iron, and your earth as brass. What’s that, Leviticus? Anyway. That was the world, all of it, and the moon as well, eating its way through the empty shadows. Iron and brass.

Then Mina was there.

Her fingers on my shoulder. Long nails. Sharp. Wet. Scared me–but her face–

Eiri went to the US once, before he left. He told me about Appalachia, and at the time, I didn’t quite get it, when he talked about the mountains there. Weren’t mountains, he said, not anymore. He told me the trees had swallowed them, and then some kind of vine had swallowed them in turn, so it was all just a riot of life smothering life. He called it “the green.” Too much, he’d said, it was alien, and he’d shuddered as he said it. Wouldn’t have thought there could be such a thing as too much green, too much life.

Mina was too much. Too much life. Not just green, but this—this kaleidoscope of living color, a geyser of it. She was—I don’t have words for it, but I can see it, right now I can see it, like she’s a basilisk hack, like every trick evolution knows is flashing in front of my face. Courtship display, aposematism, pollinator enticement. It makes me—it makes me sick, it makes me gag, it makes me horny and hungry and furious and scared, scared out of my mind. And that’s just—that’s just remembering her.

It feels like she’s spored her way inside me. I can’t stop thinking about her. She’s that malignant type of life. Cancerous.

That fucking eye, blooming open in the center of her alien garden, like some kind of floral crown jewel. Fuck, I have to sit down.

I think I’ve been put off flowers for good. Anyway.

So Mina happened, then that guy happened. He—I dunno, he’s clearly deranged or whatever, but on the whole, it’s extremely cool of him to not be another peeled-open eye nestled in uncanny nature-gone-whatever-the-fuck. I think that’s just great. Love him forever for that.

He had a gun that looked like it was from Jazz Age America, and I’m pretty sure he shoved broken glass in that drum magazine. Not that he was carrying broken glass around in his pockets or anything. That’d be far too normal. Nah, he smashed out a window with his face, got it that way.

Baffling behavior. He could have used Mina’s face? Guess she wouldn’t have just let him. He could have used my face. Nice of him not to, but from his perspective, why? Wouldn’t he though? It didn’t have to be a face, come to think of it. Kick it or something. Smash it out with the butt of your Murder, Inc. Tommy gun.

Who am I to judge, though, really. I’m the one who answered a call from Alien Cancer Botanical herself and said ‘sure come over.’

Ow, fuck, let fucking go of me you—

Get off me. Get. Off me.

Give me that back.

I wasn’t calling anybody. Can I please have my phone back.

I was talking about me, prick. And you know what? Some bratty wizard kid just told me I’m dead in a year anyway, and I said sure, why not, fine by me. And you don’t have any windows to smash around here, anyway. So.

Gimme my phone. Please.

Congratulations for making me press play on one of these for the first time ever. Why did I listen to that?

Never felt this weird about doing this. So thanks for that, freak.

Ash crashed a couple of these before, but that didn’t feel all—he was just like ‘whatever does it for you, for me it’s big butts’—which is not what this is, Jesus Christ, but he didn’t dwell on it and I didn’t dwell on it so nothing was weird.

You made it very weird.

Not in a bad way, maybe. Maybe. Color me nonplussed, I guess, on the whole.

And you—you really—you really were gonna take me? Take me with you? That’s really what you were gonna do, jump us out of that window together?

That’s—that’s what I thought. That’s what I—

Stupid. Talking like I’m talking to him.

Woke up this morning cuz some bastard—cannot begin to guess who—threw this phone through my window. It was very startling. It was 4:30, maybe quarter to five? Smash shatter bang—clunk shiny glassy tinkle sounds, me sitting up in bed blinking, too off guard to even be that scared. I mean, after the last few days, might have burned myself out on fright for like a year.

So for life, I guess, probably.

I can’t be mad. Wasn’t like I was sleeping great anyway. Wasn’t like the windows in this creepy place aren’t broken already. Wasn’t like I actually cared about this phone.

If it’d been my old phone, yeah, okay, I would be mad. This one though, who cares. And it’s clearly tough as nails. Can’t see any cracks or anything. Darkwick makes ‘em durable apparently.

I can’t even begrudge them putting me up in a safety hazard like this, not anymore. How many times do you fix windows before you give up? He’s done in two in two days, and that’s just what I’ve seen.

So I got out of bed at 4-whatever AM, saw my phone, picked it up, sliced myself open on some of the window glass, cute and fun, picked up the ugliest candlestick in here—and there’s some ugly ones, so that’s saying something—and threw it out the broken window, back at him.

Silly. Childish. I get it, tantrums don’t get you anywhere, and he was long gone. Made me feel better though.

Swept up the glass, sat in a stupor. Blinked away Mina, or tried to.

Appreciated him, honestly, for giving me something else to think about for a minute. Never occurred to me to check to see if he’d done anything to my phone, or I could have enjoyed that distraction longer.

Left at 7. Had a meeting with the chancellor. I’ll give the kid credit: chancellors can probably get away with not being in their office at 7:30. Especially him, he’s got cats for all that kind of minion busywork. But there he was, ready and waiting with a stack of bureaucracy before breakfast. Gotta hand it to him for that. Made me pick a house, sure, fine, paperwork. Went to class at 8:00.

Okay, classes here—now that we can talk about. Holy shit. Classes here are something else. Speaking of lovely nice scrumptious distractions, like—

These textbooks. I’m not actually leaving Plato behind, very cool—but look: Levi’s Doctrine of Ritual and High Magic, the Lemegeton, the Chaldean Oracles, the Book of Kells, Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy—they’ve got us reading the Simon Necronomicon, aaaaahah, that kills me. This place, clearly it’s a mad cage of monsters by madder worser monsters but am I not supposed to be just in raptures over their required reading?

Eiri, oh, hell. You’d—he’d love this. We’d… we’d really…

Classes are all across the board. Astronomy was lecture, anomalous biology was lecture, but then there was combat training. You sure can pick the ghouls out of the crowd there, let me tell you. And then artifact training.

Which, hmm. Which I’m not sure I’m thrilled with, how that one turned out.

So students get assigned an artifact. The prof, name of Moby—cephalopod, or possibly cephalopod just runs in the family? Look I’m not gonna think too hard about that—said that the artifacts assign themselves to students, is more how it works. And I’m very unsettled by what went down with mine.

Moby took us to the artifact storeroom. Storeroom, is what he said, and that misled me totally. ‘Storeroom’ had me imagining some long dark room with uniform aisles of all the same utilitarian free-standing shelving, where you turn on the lights and they goes ‘thoom, thoom, thoom’ as each fluorescent row hums on and you realize the place is even longer than you thought, brown boxes all the same color but different sizes stacked on all the shelves and labeled some esoteric catalogue code only the archivist understands.

It was more like a library, a huge one. Vaulted ceiling, at least two floors. The ‘rows and rows’ from my imagination were right, but rather than shelving, this was rows and rows of what looked like card-filing stations. On the walls, display cases with all sorts of tools and oddments. Swords. Spears. Scissors. Couple plushies. A quilt. Books, watches, shoes, a trumpet, a deck of cards, a frying pan, a—was that really a human kneecap? A stop sign, scrolls, a bridle, a dress, a rocking horse–

And overhead, like fifty, sixty briefcases. At least. Hanging. Suspended from the ceiling. By chains.

Utterly bizarre.

There were also plotted plants of all sorts of who-cares varieties sitting cute and friendly on each of the card-filing stations. I did not pay attention to them, probably because of this stubborn new habit of defensive blindness I’ve recently developed toward plantlife—can’t imagine why—but also because I had my eye on those briefcases.

I will not accept any criticism for that. I defy anyone who could walk into that room, look up at those briefcases dangling by chains up there, and think ‘very good, nothing to see here, carry on.’ Why are they up there, though? What’s in them? Why is what’s in them not allowed to be down with their friends in their nice cozy display cases, basking in that nice streamy sunlight from all those big windows?

Cuz what’s down there out in the open on those filing stations are already health and safety hazards. Are the briefcases inhabitants worse than a potted plant that snakes up over your shoulders and wraps itself around your neck and roots itself into your throat?

I mean, could be, I guess. Could always be worse.

If I never see, smell, or think about a flower again, it will be too soon.

So I’m stuck with this thing. It’s tight and I hate it, and I can already tell these leaves are gonna poke me if I sleep wrong. But if I ever do get sent on some anomaly hunting mission, I guess maybe it’ll come in handy. If I hate myself with particular gusto that day, anyway.

Artifact practice was all us new kids learning what our artifacts do. This thing–well, it looks like I’m doing something wrong, or maybe I’m just wrong, but what it’s supposed to do is ‘influence redirection.’ That’s what the file on it said, which is not supremely helpful in isolation. Moby did some practical demonstrations. Those helped.

If you’re here to steal my phone again, fall out of that window and shatter your spine. Please. Thanks kindly.

Get your own phone.

Why?

I’m not an idiot. You really think I’d be like ‘what, this?’ and go all limp and jumpable? Fuck off.

I know it is. Thanks.

It’s called False Worship. It lets me redirect anything acting on a target I’m touching to myself instead. Or vice versa. How about I grab you by the face and you shoot me, and we test it?

It’s peckish.

Get out.

Why the fuck would I.

You use that line to paw through all the girls’ private fucking things, captain?

Um. You—you do have permission to shoot me for this, if you want.

I do it because I feel like I’ll explode if I just… sit with stuff. You could do that too? If you want. With your own ph—

I see how it might feel good. If there’s stuff you want out. While you still remember it.

Heaven forbid. Just think it might feel better. For, five seconds or whatever.

Five seconds are more than no seconds, so.

Don’t throw it through the fucking window, please. Phones aren’t meant for that.

Yeah, well, B&E’s don’t give you a lot of time to put your house in order.

Okay. The burner is a good idea.

Dunno what I could say that matters, but you’ve been here a lot longer than me, and so has your vice. It does not make sense for you to be saying whatever you want into Big Brother’s in-house recording device. It doesn’t make great sense for me to be doing that either, but I’m a clueless little nothing and you’re some kind of demon-powered wrecking ball with an agenda you only remember a quarter of the time.

So the burner is absolutely a good idea. My two cents. They are good cents. Very shiny.

Kinda making a pretty big assumption, aren’t I? Dunno why I keep expecting you to crash through the window and take this thing again. You’re clearly a lot of things, but predictable does not seem like it’s one of them. Nor reliable. Nor capable of keeping to a schedule of any kind.

Nor sensitive to urgency.

Nor considerate of others’ time. Nor grateful for their creative attempts at outreach.

You’re a bit of a dick, is what I’m saying.

Me, ranting like it’s some kind of conjuring trick. Insult him at steadily intensifying intervals, and once you find the sweet spot, up he pops. Bitch, Aite, that’s you.

Whatever. If he comes, he comes.

The burner is a good idea!

You hear?

Might as well do my thing. My obligation’s satisfied. Bet even that lawyer kid would agree.

Woke up without anything flung at me through my window. Class. Class. Got nabbed during lunch by one Romeo Lucci, vice-captain of my new house-that-I-didn’t-think-mattered. He’s very pretty and very rude, which I’m sure he hears a lot. Recognized him from—well, guess.

It is weird talking about this, given the aforementioned ‘this would be smarter with a burner phone’ deal. I hate it, can I say that? I do this because it’s an outlet, that’s the whole point for me. Now I have to be all clenched butthole and delicate. Ugh. I don’t want to tiptoe, I want to vent and dissect and be all mopey and overwrought. Stream of consciousness. Vulnerable and that. Fuck a sinister shadowy cabal, fuck them right in half, fuck them straight into the sun.

Gist of it, he gave me back this phone, then goes ‘you’re moving into our dorm.’ I was like ‘why’ and he was like ‘because Unfamiliar Acronym #1, #2 and #3.’ I did not and still do not follow the particulars. BTH, huh? Bastardy Temperamental Ho? Boss That’s Hot? Can’t be that one, that’d have to be BTIH or something, need some sort of qualifier to set the right tone. Hmm. Bitterly Trying Hoodlum?

We could be here all night.

I am a BB, I’ve been told. I’ll be assuming that’s Basic Bitch, cuz, yeah, fair enough. If it’s meaner than that, don’t tell me, I’ll cry. Unless it’s funny, in which case definitely tell me. I do love to laugh.

Anyway, I’m apparently still registered as residing at that church, but Romeo marched me back there, had me pack, marched me right back out, into a desert, into a cruise ship, into a casino—Darkwick sure is an especially imaginative hell, isn’t it—into this room.

My nice new room that isn’t a busted-up church steeple tower, wherein I am more conveniently available for any phone-obsessed burglars to accost, at whatsoever hour of the day or night the fancy strikes them.

I don’t… hate that.

I should hate that. I’ve got an Ash and an Eiri on my shoulder telling me how any reasonable person would be demonstrating their reason right now by definitely hating the idea of moving closer to the crazy no-boundaries hates-windows Mafia guy.

Fuck off, Eiri. You left your right to having an opinion behind when you fucking left.

Sorry, Ash. Don’t have an excuse for you. Chalk this one up to me letting you down again, man.

You are shitting me.

Yeah, okay, that makes more sense.

Sure thing.

C’mon in. Mind—

Yep.

To my point. Burner.

What in the Christ—

How many different guns does a guy need?

If you’re expecting me to remind you why you’re here, I hate it say it, cap, but I can’t help you.

Look, shoot me or don’t, but stop poking me with it, fuck.

Do you wanna come in?

This is just me guessing. Ritsu brought you the burner, and you didn’t like it.

Okay.

We—oy, hang on. Is that recording?

Can it not be?

Oh, good. Okay. Yes, of course, sure. Fine. Indeed. Terrific. Clenched butts and delicacy with a Smith & fucking Wesson on the side, frabjous, my very favorite, the best.

Taiga—sorry, captain. If I dropped that phone in a puddle and got a new one instead, would you still wanna get at whatever I recorded on it? On the new one, I mean.

Okay. If you go back to Ritsu—or his corpse, I guess, let’s not be too optimistic—you will find that he has what you—

Ah, lovely. Off you go then, pip-pip.

What is the problem, exactly?

You don’t like what? Its mouthfeel?

Not for this I won’t, no. I’ll get my satisfaction from something that isn’t manufactured and distributed by the people that took my sorry excuse for a life away. I don’t mind you getting your—whatever—outta my coping mechanism, too, but give me some fucking control. Please.

I take back that ‘please,’ actually. Give me some fucking control.

Shut the hell up.

Hey. By the way, dick, did you put this in here?

This candlestick.

You did.

I cannot tell if you really don’t remember or if you’re messing with me, but you did, for sure.

—cuse me–asshole, if you think two drinks—

You want him to hear this, because you’re a sadist.

You’re a terrible boss.

Trickle down culture, huh?

Hmm. Which one is the noun?

C’mon.

Is the T ‘That’?

Hmm. Probably the H is the noun, then.

Mm, cheers.

Ho.

Taiga’s.

Well, it’s not ‘Brat That Hungers,’ for one.

Not Ho, huh? He-Beast?

Hardass. Terrible guess, don’t say it, he’s not. His ass is changeable as the moon.

Hobbledehoy.

You’re right, not nearly mobster enough.

Hussy. As in ‘Bungling Turbulent Hussy.’

Oh?

Baffling. No. Blundering.

Sounds like you need an HR department more than anything, vice.

Absolutely not.

Pass.

Mm, see, we're all wise to your mess.

Touché.

‘Blundering,’ hmm. Hoodlum.

Uhhh. Hoon?

Hooligan.

Oh my god, okay—‘Blundering something Hooligan’? Romeo, you’re such an asshole.

Toxic.

Truant.

Fucking watch it, hottie. Refill me.

Troublesome. No. Testy. No, weak. Tyrannic. Twisted.

Oh, suddenly you don't take responsibility after all, hmm?

Thoughtless.

‘Blundering Thoughtless Hooligan.’ Aww. That’s actually a little bit cute.

Eh, maybe that’s just what this mystery cider thinks.

Fair. Valid.

Look, it’s fine. You’ve got a me a job, I’ve got classes. I’ll last until I don’t. I’m not putting down any roots, don’t worry.

Sure they might.

I appreciate you forwarding my paycheck. Means a lot.

Can’t imagine so.

Nope.

I better call it here. You use the same app as the cafeteria?

Nah, rather he not. There’s a limit, y’know?

I’m mostly not drunk.

It would be irresponsible of me to take any action which might have consequences for others, yes, yes, I would not drive I would not work I would not text an ex, et cetera and so forth.

I would think I could, though, blather on about the minutiae of my day in the privacy of my own room without dreading how I might regret it in, I dunno, four to fourteen hours. So don’t make me regret this, mkay? I’m just talking. To myself. To the air.

Class, class, a fitting, class, class, then I started my first day on the job. Asked Romeo if I could work the casino first thing, really, yesterday, when he moved me in here. He was kinda cagey at the time, so I wasn’t sure that’d happen, but must’ve read him wrong. Or maybe last night changed his mind? I did have that whole sitdown with his lawyer kid, worked out how to make phone deal work. Which wasn’t really any of my doing—cept, last night when I got you back to your room, they were both looking at me like I was some kinda…

Dunno. You got the whole place on tenterhooks, you know that? Asshole behavior.

But I kinda admire it. One thing you can count on, nobody’s ever gonna take you for granted. Wouldn’t dare. If they wanted you gone, they’d have to shoot you. They’d be way too scared to just leave.

Anyway, seems like Gyges worked out in the end. Yay.

And maybe that’s what got Romeo to give me a gig as one of the girls. Though seems like he’s understaffed bad enough that he’d yank me off the floor and get me working on files and this and that instead. Bunny-suit desk candy, that’s me.

He needs the help, obviously. Shit’s a mess. I don’t know how to run a casino, but like, there are certain things that just make sense. He could not tell me how many dealers he had? Or how he trained them? He doesn’t bother keeping minutes during all-hands meetings? Is he just calling everyone into the nearest broom closet, screaming ‘Make me more money, more, you swine’ and then trotting off like ‘there now I will become richer more richly’?

I am just not sure that everything is being implemented with, say, the full attention of a human brain behind it. Which is asking a lot? I guess?

So I’m one of the floor girls but also the filing gremlin and the ‘is that in writing’ nag. Whatever job that is. Romeo called me Sinostra’s secretary, but dunno. More like Sinostra’s bitch.

Which, sure. Fine by me. What else am I gonna do?

I got, dunno, three hours into that and realized that I was perhaps valuable enough to get away with weeny requests. Like an extra smoke break or a Keurig for the break room, that kinda thing. So what did I do but go as big as I could, as soon as I could, like a buffoon.

Romeo said sure, though.

Which I’m still kinda processing, frankly. And yes, it is making me feel guilty—but I can tank a bit of guilt for Ash, after everything he’s done for me. There’s no way in hell he can pay full rent himself, not even if he went back to working at my—the old place. He wouldn’t do that, thank god, but even if he did, wouldn’t cover it. That was the only way we could work out surviving Tokyo cost of living, sharing a place.

That’s the scariest thing about Darkwick yoinking me. So they wipe Ash’s memories of me, fine. How’s he gonna get by, though? How’s he gonna live and stay out of that shit?

S’why I wanted a job here in the first place, but dunno how I’d have gotten Ash any money without somebody like Romeo handling it.

I owe him, now. Obviously.

I’m not stupid. I get that I’ve kinda sold my soul here.

Whatever. Not like I had big plans for it anyway.

Make yourself at home, why don’t you.

This what you're here for?

Give it to Ritsu after, if you think of it. Kisses.

There you go. It’s rolling.

Yep.

Yes. I was and currently am satisfied with the conditions of my employment. And with my employer.

Romeo Lucci.

I’m currently satisfied with my employer, either interpretation thereof. Got no problems with them.

I get the impression he’d like you to drop the surname when you call him Fico. That’s just, going off the vein in his temple and the grinding thing his jaw keeps doing.

He’s my supervisor and also who hired me. He’s the vice captain of the Darkwick house I’ve been assigned to. As part of my job, I help him with some of his office stuff. That’s our relationship, basically.

No.

Yes. Yes, question mark? I suppose I haven’t been here long enough to really tell. You seem to think I have, though—could you explain what you mean?

Sorry.

Yes.

No, it’s fine. I don’t mind.

Look, you’re looking at this from a sort of liability angle, right? You’re covering your asses so I don’t sue or whatever? I’m telling you, it’s fine. We’re good. We’re on the same page.

Right, Fico?

If you really want to duck the favoritism stuff, I’d sure better start calling you that.

Oh.

Do not tell me to call you Lulu. You could not waterboard that name outta me.

I am not disgruntled. Fairly little gruntles me, turns out.

Are we finished?

Like what?

There has to be something else you can get mad about. I’m really not worth the energy.

Mm. Been a long time since I had these. Salty.

Eiri and I used to spit them into the river, see who could get ‘em farthest. Wonder if I could make it out the window from here.

Yep. I’m a champion. How bout—

Hoo, she scores.

Geh, okay, no longer a champion.

I should not be spitting seed shells onto the floor of my dorm room, probably. Somehow that seems like something ye old Pretty Eyes McGee would lose his head about. Charge me for a whole carpet change. And Ritsu would make it stick. Truly Satan’s strongest soldiers, those two.

Hmm. Must have stopped following me. Well, we’ll see.

Wonder if I could figure out some kinda feeder. Maybe—

Yeah. I could hook something here—and here—and kinda, join ‘em out here so it’d hang—

Owwwww, fuck. Hi, Taiga. Hssss, haaah, fuck.

Sure, laugh it up. Should have locked my door.

Uh-huh.

Checking that my skull’s not split open.

Sunflower seeds. There was a bird, been following me around all day.

Uh. I’ll be done if you come back in, dunno, half an hour? Wasn’t expecting you yet. I’ll leave it for you.

Er—

I feel a bit under the gun here. Which, the irony is not lost on me. Any, uh, requests?

I like the music here. Thought at first it’d make sleeping even harder, but it doesn’t.

It’s kind of like being on a sleeper train. Sounds that you’d think would keep you up, but the whole ambiance just sort of washes over you, knocks you right out.

It’s better than that other place, all dry bones and creaking ruin. It was the opposite there. That cute little loft room should have been cozy, but I just couldn’t shake the doomsday-chic of the rest of it.

Mm-mm. Third day.

Yah.

Feels longer to me, too.

Don’t take that to heart, please. Stockholm syndrome, possibly. Or just, dunno. Like there’s no way there’s been enough minutes to hold all the shit in my head now. New people, new places, new stuff, new life, new rules. And her. Just constantly her.

Don’t wanna talk about her. How about literally anything but her.

Sunflower seed? Or two? Ten?

I’ve been spitting the shells out the window like a grandpa. Don’t tell your vice or his lawyer.

Oh. Taiga. Here’s a question.

You keep listening to these like you’re wanting something out of ‘em, but then you say you’re bored.

Yeah. So I wanted to ask—look, if Darkwick bores you, then I dunno, man, I’m not sure how to help you. Is there something you want me doing that isn’t class and work?

Oh. So keep on keeping on and just put up with you railing about how boring it is afterward? Don't spit that on the floor, c’mon, at least try for the window. You sure you don’t want me to take up alligator wrestling or something?

Who’s Harry?

Damn. You're even better at that than Eiri.

I will look into this ‘Harry’ fellow and his nugget and also his snacks.

I can’t talk all that much more. I gotta go fill in for one of the dealers in a couple minutes. By the way, and very possibly there is no need for me to say this out loud, but I’m going into the bathroom to change. Don’t follow me, okay?

We can’t always get what we want, can we. Also, no you don’t. I have to, like, jump to get this shit pulled on. Anyone who sees that will lose all respect for me, and I can’t be having that.

Really?

You’re gonna fuck up your neck, sleeping like that.

No more bets.

27, red. Winner.

You gonna make a charm bracelet outta them?

In his office, second floor.

Runner!

So place your bet or get off my table, boss. Clearly no one likes the look of you.

I am at work and also my money is spoken for. Are you actually going to keep those?

Of course you are.

Hey—grab me some paper from the back, could you? Paper and pen. Thanks.

No more bets.

8, black. Winner. Reputation well deserved, I see.

Is there something on my face?

Remember what?

Place your—oh, thanks. Okay, hang on.

Kay. Shake ‘em in here.

You’re gonna fill that rack in like five minutes, obviously. Heaven forbid you lose your chewed up seeds when you cash out.

Terribly sorry, sir, I am sealing away a biohazard and appreciate your patience.

Don’t worry about it.

Well, don’t be. Go on, get our boss to your office and I’ll get back to making you money.

Can I forge fucking signatures, is that what you’re asking? No, Fico, I am sorry to say that I can’t, and I do have Ritsu on speed-dial.

Okay. Guess what. I am not on the floor tonight and am nobody’s bitch until Romeo kicks my door in about some money he’s gotta launder or some widows he’s gotta shakedown or whatever. So, until my empty schedule gets NWDed, we are going to science today. Today is a day about science.

I have a couple different things on the docket, but first, the cute little idle science because it doesn’t matter and it feels good to have something going on the side, you know, that’s like, who gives a shit.

The guy formerly identified to me as “Harry” is Haru Sagara, runs a house that doubles as, like a nature preserve dealio. The alleged “fat nugget” is a precious chompy baby critter called a Peekaboo. I did play peek-a-boo with it, because how could you not. Nothing happened, particularly, besides it and Haru being tickled by the whole experiment, so I don’t really know why it’s called that.

I am capable of reading a room, so I did not say to Haru “my boss called your cutie a scrumptious nugget.” I did, because for all my many faults I’m not a slippery two-faced snake, tell Haru that I’m a Sinostra student and employee when I introduced myself, and the guy did indeed go a bit gray in response.

So. Taiga. My guy. Bossman. Leave the Boo Nugget alone, could you please. It’s a very cute lil bean, and also it’s unspeakably uncouth to threaten to eat people’s pets, especially their favorite pets. And it makes my efforts to entertain you with top tier alligator wrestling difficult, because you’re clearly right, Haru is the guy to ask, and if he passes out with anxiety because of my association with you, I’m going to have a tough time meeting your standards.

Anyway, he told me that this bird doesn’t eat seeds actually. So this is me tonging cubes of raw beef onto my windowsill. Here, birdie birdie birdie. Here, weird carnivorous birdie. Snackies.

I heard folks talking ‘bout how it’s a “Like Dove” or whatever a couple days ago. Haru confirmed my assumption that that was bullshit campus legend. He thinks it’s some kind of anomaly that’s drawn to mammalian outputs of some kind. Could be something like heartbeat or body temperature? Dunno. But his advice was, when in doubt, critters like food more than they like anything.

Means, if I really wanna figure out how to get a bird-feeder out my window, I’d have to be filling it with raw meat all the time. Which, yes, sounds pretty gross, when we start to think ahead to stuff like maintenance and cleaning.

But I do kinda want something I could do my real science with. “Real,” air quotes. If I could get some kinda creature trained for it, that would make everything easier. ‘Specially since Moby says a human partner might be kinda… not a great idea, long-term.

Also, what if I could train it to take this thing to your room after I’m done. Vice versa. That would be so many headaches saved. A whole year of ‘em maybe. Doesn’t that sound fabulous?

So, yeah, that’s the weeny baby side science. Let’s do the real stuff now.

First time I had that artifact practical training, I had no idea what was going on. Been sat with theory and readings since, finally had another practical class today. And I’m not gonna say I get it, not by a long shot—but I’m closer than I was.

False Worship, it roots into something. Me, physically—but something else, metaphysically. It roots in both directions, and works kind of like a nervous system. What one rooted thing would receive, it can instead reroute to the other rooted thing. Darkwick calls that “influence redirection,” which kinda could mean anything, but here’s the practical face of it: if somebody punched me, and False Worship was rooted in some secondary host thing in addition to me, it could redirect the kinetic force of that punch into the secondary host. If somebody lit me on fire, the other host would burn, not me. Theoretically.

The limitations, currently, are that I, the primary host, have to be touching the secondary host. So if, hypothetically, I was holding the hand of that asshole frosh from Vagastrom while I got hit by a train, he’d splatter. I wouldn’t.

Except there are other limits, too. Stuff transfers much easier between two similar host objects, so it’d be easier to splatter Kurosagi than, I dunno, a Kurosagi-shaped bag of beets. And a metal statue would be even harder. Bad example, because obviously if we’re talking about taking a train to the face, it’s gotta work perfectly or the whole thing’s a bit of a wash.

But by the same token, weaker influences are easier to redirect. A little bit of kinetic force is easy to throw onto something else. Thermal energy is harder. For example, today, in class, I pricked myself with a needle and could get a piece of paper to get poked instead of breaking the skin of my finger. No problem. Same with the opposite direction. I can prick at a piece of paper and draw blood on my finger. Easy. When I played with a match instead, it was harder to send that through—only got the paper burning once, only got hot fingers twice, outta something like twenty-five, thirty tries.

Moby said it comes down to two things: self-preservation and practice. Apparently if I've got contact with an easy target for the reroute and get into some kind of danger, False Worship tends to protect the primary host as a means of protecting itself. He also said it isn’t supposed to need the hosts to be in physical contact with each other. It should be something I can learn to… direct, I guess? Which requires some kinda, like, metaphysical thinking. That’s part of why he thinks redirecting influence onto other people should happen easier than shoving it at an object. Easier to conceive of personhood than thingness.

Says him. Show me a person who’s ever understood another person, actually, meaningfully, and I’ll show you either a bald-faced snake-oil-peddling liar or a great big dumbass.

There’s also the problem of this fucking thing getting hungry, and then getting full. Gonna happen a lot faster if it’s chewing through me into something me-similar.

So. I have a lovely little assemblage here, and I shall explain it, for posterity.

I’ve got in my hand here a big rubber eraser. Sitting in front of me are two plastic spoons, which I have taped together so that each end has a ladle. They are propped up on a—fulcrum, we’re calling it a fulcrum but really it’s four pencils taped together into a little two-wide, two-tall pencil plank, because I couldn’t find anything better to use. This spoon catapult device is on the floor with me, ready to launch a peanut M&M straight into my victorious mouth. It’s as calibrated as I’m capable of making it, which means that M&M has about a 20% chance of making it into my stomach, and maybe a 45% chance of just getting kinda pathetically bounced straight up. The rest of the time it’ll just smack me in the face. Which might be a me problem, frankly.

So what I’m gonna do is toss this eraser—and when I catch it, I’m gonna try to use this wretched slurping plant on my neck to redirect the kinetic energy that impacts my hand onto the empty side of the spoon catapult. Without touching anything. The way this damn thing is supposed to work, according to the ancient papyrus scrolls of doom Moby’s been having me read for a week.

Okay. Here we go. Hup.

Nice clean perfect failure. We love to see it.

Take two.

Be the spoon, Aite. Be like unto a spoon.

Spoon thoughts. Spooning.

Hmm. Maybe if I throw it higher?

Oho! Oho oho~

That was god awful. Is it replicable though?

Gah!

Ahaha, okay, we are getting somewhere.

That hit my tooth, c’mon.

Eiri, look, I’m a really shitty wizard! Magic is real and I’ve fused it with simple machines so I can clock myself in the teeth. Could you actually be any prouder?

I can just see your face.

Ash would be hooting and hollering.

Geh—ack—did—did it! Ehehe, uh, gah, fuck if I almost died though. Right in the back of the throat, ack. What if I choked to death on the floor of a casino hotel room on a yellow peanut M&M and recorded it all on a flip phone so that when my boss finds my body in a couple hours he has an easier time with the paperwork? My final, greatest secretarial act of wizardry.

I think I’ve got this. I’m quantum entangled with that spoon now, lookit me.

Less good at the aiming bit. Maybe if I stacked on another row of pencils?

Eh—

Holy shit, and the side science as well.

Haru was right, huh? It likes meat.

Oh my god—

Hiya, critter. My meat is unavailable, sorry.

Nutty chocolate candies, though? If you’re not particular?

You’re pretty friendly, huh? Don’t bite me, please. I’d scream, and it’d be very embarrassing.

Wonder if you’d let me—

What the hell are yo—aaaaaaaaaahhhhh—

God—

At least you’re eating it.

I don’t have one fucking thing more to say.

—an you not put me down, though? Please, maybe?

Oh, by any impressions of, okay.

Down. Please. Taiga. Now.

Great—advice, mmph.

Ugh. No. We don’t need that whole song and dance, Ritsu. Liability whatever. Skip the compensation stuff. It was a weird confluence of—it was my fault.

Yep.

Four is rather long. Hope it earns it.

Right, of course, yes. Even his own mother thinks so, yes, she told me so herself.

The “mister” is killing me every time it happens. How you holdin’ up, there, Fico?

Oh, was the bird not enough for you?

Can you get off me and go sit somewhere I can look you in the face, also? I—bleh—I keep getting your hair in my mouth.

Nah. Look, it’s a whole stupid misunderstanding. He didn’t bite me. He bit a bird. I was practicing with this stupid thing and kinda—was stupid, and so when he bit the bird I got bit instead.

Yes, it’s as dumb as it sounds, okay? Get off, please, Taiga, ouch, don’t fucking poke me there, that’s where I got fucking bit by a shark-toothed dangerghoul on accident and it fucking hurts, so—

He sure is.

Okay. I was in my room. I was practicing with my artifact. It does a—do I need to give you the whole spiel, or—

Aight. So I was practicing. I’d also put out food for this bird that’s been following me around for a bit. The one people call a “Like Dove.” It’s been following me, so I—

Yep.

Let it all out, vice-boss.

You’re being cute about it now, but you—Taiga, do you remember what you were thinking when you went for it?

Well, it wasn’t like you were playing cat and mouse with it. Wasn’t… predatory. More like…

I dunno, nevermind.

Not relevant.

Are you being a SPMP right now, whatever that means?

Guess it felt more like you had a reason. Not just hunger, I mean. Like… you were eliminating a threat.

Got nothing to base that on, mind. Vibes only.

You can’t just say that and not elaborate, Romeo.

Rude.

Yeah. You can tell from the way his face is all scrunched up.

Yeah. Basically that.

It wasn’t… exactly conscious. I’d been practicing. I, I kinda had a thought that I might be able to use a living, non-human partner for False Worship practice, like five seconds before this guy blew past me and tried tearing off its head with his teeth. So I guess I just—instinct?

I wasn’t planning to torture the thing. I was—well, I was thinking about, like, trying to redirect a box fan at it, if you must know.

Love you too, Fico.

Noted.

Ouch—don’t pull that off, it was hard enough to—

Ack—don't tug at my collar, dick. Choking me here.

I mean, yeah. Could have chomped right through my spine.

Don’t sni—don’t fucking—gah, get off!

Thank you. I was kidnapped by this psycho perhaps two minutes after dumping half a bottle of H₂O₂ on it. After that tongue, probably needs another.

Motherfucker, you just said it looked clean—

That’s for me to know and your underboss to guess, bub. Turn this thing off alread—

Oy.

Watch what, bastard, I need to get out of the bathroom.

Ugh—

What’d you—do—shove—a fucking—bookcase—agai—

Gah!

Were you—just sitting on the floor?

Against the bathroom door?

While I was in the shower?

There is a line, Taiga.

Don’t—gimme that, creep.

Look. I’m not your fucking cat toy. I’m only here because I—I thought you were—ugh. Nevermind. I won’t let in anymore birds, okay? Lesson learned. Really learned, a lot learned, learned real good. So can we drop this, this whole living-in-your-room-now thing? I get it.

Yes, clearly. You power-tripping though, that’s coming through loud and clear. You get what you want. Whatever psychotic thing that is. A whole raw warm bird, feathers and all? Sure. Some random new girl’s phone while she’s freaking out over her life ending? That’s yours too. Twenty-four-seven access to somebody’s personal space? Absolutely, man, all yours.

Don’t look at me like that when you’ve got my fucking bath towel hanging out of your mouth.

It’s laugh or cry, so.

Taiga—

I’m a houseguest. I am dignified, I am reasonable, I am not churlish. I will not throttle my own captain in his own room with his own suspenders, even if I am being actively goaded to do so.

No, no Taiga, I don’t, not when you’ve got such a shit-eating grin on your face about it. What, do you have some kind of elaborate torture chamber tucked away in here that you’re gonna gleefully spring on me?

Excuse the hell outta me?

I did not say that, you preening little liar.

Oh, for crying out loud.

Rough one, today.

Not really today that was rough, I guess. Just—yesterday. That stuff Romeo had me slather on this bite is the stuff of miracles, but it’s not quite healed up all the way yet. So I’m sore. Slept on Taiga’s couch and was just about rigid the whole time because why wouldn’t he go berserk at 3 AM and shoot himself a few new windows and have to teeth on something. He didn’t, he was fine, but can you blame me for expecting it? So I’m doubly sore. My neck’s all cranked.

And the front of my neck feels worse than my shoulder, even. I get it, what Moby said, about the more influence you direct the more this thing chews. It feels like somebody stuck a railroad spike in my throat—not really, I’m being melodramatic. It stopped bleeding before the bite did. It’s not that bad. It’s just… eerie. Body horror. Dunno. I hate it.

When I looked in the mirror and saw the flower, Jesus. That’s not—it shouldn’t have, but that—fuck me.

The leaves were bad enough. A flower, though. I’m just—it just feels so personal. Custom-built to make sure I can’t ever forget her. Why couldn’t have I gotten an artifact that, I dunno, makes confetti shoot out my fingers or something? Why do I have to have this strangling blood-sucking masochist’s-best-friend that pranks me with yet another nightmare flower sometimes?

False Worship. Give me a fucking break.

I went and read about false holly, because of course I did. Hanakotoba, it’s supposed to mean ‘the better part of valor.’ And this artifact, with its combat use case documentation so focused on being a meat shield for somebody else on the front line–well, fuck me, I get why, now. Hah fucking hah.

But it’s not even that, it’s not the damn artifact or the bite or the chewing or even the damn flower blooming out of my throat that’s got me so—so sick, really. Mina takes a back seat today, can you even believe it.

It’s the bird.

The way it was—dead, yeah. Yeah, Seeing it dead, dead on the floor.

Thank god he ate it. If he’d have—have left it there—

I’m not so out of touch that I don’t realize that sounds crazy. I get it. The whole eating-just-a-fresh-ass-dead-ass-bird thing, probably should not be a relief. There’s the hygiene bit. The parasites bit. The no-gag-reflex bit. The entire concept of not only clacking your teeth against extremely too many tiny little bird bones and feeling ‘em snap all sharp and hollow and how they’d catch on the inside of your cheeks and then in your esophagus on the swallow,  organs popping between your teeth like warm wet juicy prawn, the beak, the scaly feet, the dry feathers sticking in your mouth—

Yeah, yes, correct, I would rather make myself ill thinking about the tactile experience of raw bird eating than think about a bird sitting there dead. Limp. Inexplicable. Somewhere it shouldn’t be.

Your fault, Eiri.

I am realizing that I’m going to die without knowing why you left half a dozen dead birds for garbage pickup, the day you left. I’m never going to know why I came home to nothing, nothing else, no devastation, no explanation, nothing but a little garbage bag set out a day early, triple-knotted and full of dead fucking birds.

That’s all I get. That’s just, that’s all you left me. A voicemail heart attack, and that.

So Eiri, how about this. You should have fucking eaten them, you heartless fuck. Wouldn’t have been that hard. Not compared to this.

Moby was talking about, like, the history of occultism as understood by the regular folk. The regular scholar, rather. He was talking about grimoires, ‘specially stuff like the Lemegeton and what followed after, how they weren’t really supposed to be instructions for demon summoning and more like allegory. Meditative guides for life improvement. Whatever.

Which is how Eiri and I always read them, because, setting aside literally every second of the last week, obviously that shit’s fake as hell. Says me, sitting in a busted hellchurch, watching statues’ faces melt twixt rapture and unspeakable torment. Wild to think I thought that, once. Obviously it’s not fake as hell.

‘Cept Moby says it is. Says that’s a combo of intentionally incorrect misinformation and folks who weren’t really occultists buying in or seeing a way to make a quick buck of the rubes. Which, okay, fair. God knows I could use some kinda meditative technique to turn off my brain right now. Maybe I should whip out a few quick demon circle sketches and do some chanting, calm me down.

But the thing is, once it occurs to you that someone could be lying, you start seeing lies everywhere. So is he right? Or is he lying, too, and that shit would work, actually, they’re just discrediting it so the start of every school year here isn’t lousy with bungled attempts at attaining ghoulhood?

Hyde got into tulpas, too, which does make you think. If folks get it in their heads that a bullshit method for summoning demons isn’t bullshit, aren’t there consequences for that? Wouldn’t that kind of hunger carry its own nasty inevitability to term?

There’s just so much to process. I keep thinking, stuff’s getting lost in the cra—

Who the fuck—?

Oh, uh, hi, Professor.

No, sir, nothing like that.

I appreciate that.

Er—on the—

Didn’t you say you needed the Kyklos itself to really have a chance at treatment?

Mm.

Uh—

Is that why Ritsu Shinjo was selected for Sinostra? Because he seemed reasonable?

I’d appreciate that. A lot.

Even the ones who are really just subjects?

This place really is making me pick a poison and stick to it, huh?

So they can’t find him either. Arghh.

Eiri, you punkass shithead coward. Where are you?

Taiga, get this to Romeo or Ritsu. Something’s—wrong.

I’m outside Taiga’s room. I took a picture. They come from down the hallway, farther in. Texted you from the other phone, but didn’t wanna say…

Color’s wrong. Smell’s… kinda wrong. But I think it’s… what it looks like. In the picture. Fuck. Okay.

I’m going in now.

Taiga?

Taiga.

What—

If you really don’t want me to move, just shoot me.

Gonna slide it to you.

Just—

I have to go see what happened, Taiga, but I can’t leave you like this.

I can’t.

—n’t wait, no, that will take, I dunno, hours, Taiga.

I’m gonna go see what happened. You stay.

Do what you want. Shower. Go see a doctor, even, you look–not good, man. You’d say, if you were hurt?

Okay, then I’ll be back.

Ouch, Taiga. I need that arm.

Gah—

Something like what, maybe?

You have a phone, you dunce.

How long you think he waits before he checks his voicemail?

Ritsu. Aite. At the armory. Something’s weird, there’s a—

—oh my god.

Okay. Fucking. Get here.

Taiga.

Tell me you remember—anything. Any single thing of this.

Go get Romeo.

Watch your feet. Don’t—step—ugh—

Please go get Romeo.

Don’t walk through it—

Sinostra uniform, so.

… Won’t be able to ID him from his face. It’s gonna have to be, I dunno. Fingerprints. Dental. Wallet.

Hey, are you stupid? Don’t walk through the—don’t touch—

Why are you acting like—do you know what’s going on here? Are you—don’t fucking tell me—

No. Excuse me, no.

What is going on? One of your people’s dead on the floor—exploded on the floor, fuck, look at him—why do you sound like you know why?

…You think he did this?

Have you looked at him? He’s half-fucking-dead! How’s he going to do something like this?

What kind of gun pulps somebody up like that? He’s been—

Speak of the devil.

He’s Sinostra’s lawyer, Fico.

Ritsu, hi. Get to the armor—good. Yes, it is a nightmare. Next-of-kin nightmare. Aight.

He’ll be here any second.

We need to tell the school. I can call—

You can’t keep this secret, Romeo. Somebody’s dead.

Something I’ve been doing recently, is I’ve been eating a tiny sliver of a gun every day, to build immunity. Just so you know.

Probably lock it behind you.

We don’t know. I found Taiga in his room, but he clearly came from here.

Not yet.

Yeah. I was vague about it. But—

Hold the fuck on. This is sounding like a cover-up.

You can’t cover this up. A guy’s dead.

A guy. Is dead, Ritsu. This isn’t about Sinostra.

It’s—you both think it was him? You’re kidding me.

Taiga. Did you kill this man?

That’s not a ‘yes,’ and your lawyer heard that it wasn’t.

What’s the fucking motive, then?

Oh, is it?

He didn’t—

That’s not—

You’re really just going to pretend this didn’t happen.