Kapitel 230: As I Had Once Ago
After delivering the painting, Olivia & Naomi & Iris returned to Kate for debriefing. Serena was there, and playing some anime game on her phone. Occasionally she seemed sad or happy at the anime women on-screen. Perhaps some day she could be an anime as well.
"You're telling me Viktoria abandoned the contract?" said Kate.
"Yep. She just left one morning." said Naomi. "She'll probably come back with some stupid reason why she left. She just likes to make shit up about me and Olivia. I don't know what it was I ever did that stuck me up her ass so much."
Olivia shrugged. "She's a total blithering idiot. Without Urasaria she's just a schizophrenic rambling on the street corner at pedestrians."
"Don't forget she's also a bitch." added Naomi.
"Seems like I'll be calling her up to my office and whipping her until there isn't a patch of skin left on her." Kate sighed. "As much of a gutless bitch she is to abandon a contract, I doubt staff would expel her, given she's a third-year. Eventually some people become too embedded to be cut away even when they should."
"Could demote her a rank." suggested Naomi. "Isn't she three-star or something?"
"I'll look into it. Still, Iris and Olivia, are you working well together?"
Iris nodded. "We are."
Olivia smiled.
"Good. I have an investigation to send you on, though it won't be right now. There's a potential serial killer up in Loncastle, a few states away. This is mostly preliminary -- they're not sure yet if a host is involved or not. I told them to call back in a week and let me know, and if it is a host, I'll send you, Amelie, and her mentor, Claire. Amelie's mentioned liking you before, Iris, so I figured so long as you focus on the contract, I don't mind slotting you two together."
Olivia looked to Iris, who felt numb.
"Did you say 'and her mentor'?" said Iris.
"I'm presuming she's told you about the trouble she's had with her, but yes. She wants to do right by Amelie."
"…alright."
"I'll contact you within the week. Dismissed."
Iris and Olivia left.
"Who's Amelie?" said Olivia.
Iris frowned and rubbed her neck. "She's someone I haven't spoken to since..."
She considered asking to be excluded from this contract, yet she knew that would beget another permanent series of questions from Olivia and Kate, none of which would get her out of it. She told Olivia that she needed to speak over things with Amelie, and that she would meet with Olivia at the infirmary after. Iris went over to Amelie's house, then knocked.
Amelie answered. "Oh, Iris." She reached out to hug Iris, yet something told her she should not. They had been apart for long enough that she sought to feel out if she was still as she remembered; she looked at Iris like a refugee from a long-dead war. "…I'm sorry. Can you please come in?"
"Kate assigned us to a contract together."
"In Loncastle?"
"Yes. She said there might be a serial killer there."
"Yes. That's… that's what she told myself and Claire. You know, I've tried to reconcile with her a bit."
Iris said nothing.
"She's… somewhat improving."
"I came over to ask if you would be alright working with me."
"Yes, that isn't an issue."
Silence dominated. Iris thought to leave; it was not a thought that entered often when she was around Amelie, at least not before. "It'll be with Olivia. She's a second-year with me."
"I don't believe I've seen her. No, maybe I have."
"Her hero name is Lucifer."
"…I don't recognize that name. Maybe it'll come to me later."
"It might."
"I suppose we can drive. Loncastle isn't too far away... a few states."
Iris nodded, and she made to leave, but a saddening of Amelie's expression told her not to. Amelie gestured Iris inside; she did so and sat apart from Amelie.
"…I'm just terrible at these things, Iris. I'm sorry. I never know exactly what to say. I didn't mean to come off how I have." Amelie looked to the side. "Admittedly, I thought I had done something to make you angry at me."
"I just feel it's ironic for you to offer me condolences only weeks after."
"But Iris, you hadn't messaged me. I was on a contract; I only heard about it when I was back on campus. By then, I thought that perhaps you... didn't want sympathy from me. And you-... Iris, it's always been difficult for me to separate what I think and worry over from what actually is. I feel I'm not phrasing myself well, here, but..."
"Maybe so."
Iris still felt a bit resentful of Amelie. Of late she had displaced Natasha's death in this way, to where as the event grew dimmer so too did the cause of it. Her blame for it had been, relatively speaking, somewhat adrift from rationality recently.
"…well, I... I heard you began hosting her Revenant. I think that's wonderful."
"Mostly, but even that screwed up. I have Meteorology, but I still have Phantom. It activated as 'Kairos' -- so far as I can tell it has both abilities. I'm going to Hirogane to have it checked."
"Alright, Iris."
Iris thought to ask Amelie about Claire, but did not. She did not look at Amelie as she went to the door to open it. Once, twice it caught, and she thought even these two-star houses were poorly built. Breathing once, she placed her hand again on the handle, pressed it open, stepped out, letting go of it, and all before. She went up to the infirmary and met with the woman that was waiting to see her.
"How'd it go?" said Olivia.
"We'll be alright working together."
Olivia nodded and did not ask more. She called over Hirogane, who noted that neither had wounds on them: thus he expected either internal bleeding or bizarre bullshit.
"I've had something odd go on with my Revenant recently." Iris sat down on one of the beds. "Do you remember my first Revenant, Phantom? And how Meteorology was transferred to me?"
"Mostly." he said.
She summoned Kairos and allowed Hirogane to slide Pulse up her vein, and said: "As far as I can tell, both Revenants are still active. I have Phantom's time manipulation and Meteorology's weather. It activated as Kairos; far as I looked up online, it's a Greek word meaning both time or weather."
A glint of recognition furrowed his brow as Pulse touched her heart. "Would explain why it was so aggressive." He drew it out. "Obviously, you have something with your Revenant I doubt I'm qualified to diagnose. You mind if I take samples of it to send to a doctor you've never met, to be stored in a laboratory you'll never visit?"
Iris shifted. "To do what?"
"To analyze it. It's someone I trust."
"What did you mean by 'aggressive'?" said Olivia.
"When I was performing surgery on Iris to remove her Revenant, it started attacking me. Now, s'pretty typical when removing a Revenant - civilian surgeons wear protective gear - and it doesn't usually cause injury, but it did even to me. Just assumed it was a normal fluctuation." He glanced over to a sideroom. "Come with me and I'll take a few samples to send off to Dr. Yuruko Ichibangase. She's a former student."
With trepidation, Iris went off with him, yet she felt a bit frightened. It was ridiculous, but she had always distrusted doctors a little bit; she felt they were rarely receptive to her needs and she never liked visiting them. But she allowed him to use Pulse's tendril to touch her heart again and transfer a sample of both Revenants to a vial, then told Emilia to put it in cold storage and ship it off (or hand it to Dr. Yuruko's girlfriend).
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein