There are memories that return to the mind only through the scent of burning rubber. Others nestle into the crevices of the conscious, a burr upon the everyday, until a sight hooks it out from one's mind and allows it to become an object of our narrative.
Such was often the way Matoi Kujo existed in the minds of others, for she was not a woman who made her self well-known, despite being the second-year student with the most recorded kills in Urasaria's history. She was so forceful a presence that she evoked a reaction; typically not entirely positive; in all who encountered her, thus forcing the construction of a Matoi in many students' minds, one whose progenitor was often ignorant to the mirages which wheeled around herself.
One such mirage was the morning of the mentor-protege midterm duel. Samuel had been relegated to living in one-star housing; a mismatched assemblage of boards, deliberately poorly constructed to motivate students to achieve better housing; and he had been denied even that when Matoi's missiles blasted it all to bits and left him standing in the middle of his destroyed kitchen, with naught but an oiled and bent frying pan in his right hand, Outcast's armor fortunately censoring himself from the rest of the campus. None had seen Matoi directly, of course, but she had been observed patrolling the perimeter of his home the night prior, allowing Wedding's missiles to burrow underneath the foundation until the weight of his movement would trigger them buried beneath.
In the present, Matoi stood across from Samuel in the alleyway between two buildings in Lathusser. It was a small town, largely known for its cobblestone paths and few roads; the students had needed to park quite a distance away to stay here for the night.
As another missile from Wedding flew towards Samuel, ghastly blue hands redirected it above and it exploded with a shockwave yet no other warhead. They had gone away from the others to train. A few civilians had opened their windows to yell at them below, but upon seeing they were students, relented and merely evacuated instead. A Chinese woman with a cyst growing out of her neck had passed by a few minutes earlier.
"Again." droned Matoi, Wedding's Shinto hood summoned and its silos at her back. Another explosive barrage erupted outward and the storm of missiles flew at Samuel; a wave of telekinetic hands barraged against the onslaught, slowing heavily yet not fully pausing their advance.
Samuel grunted as if he were pressing them back manually. "A-As I was saying, it was mighty kind of you to let me sleep through the night."
"Only because the sight of you shambling out of your ruined house in your pajamas would have been too cruel to inflict on other students."
Samuel laughed, and the missiles shot forward an inch; another barrage shockwaved behind themselves, and as Outcast's telekinetic force relented, he redirected all but one of the missiles upward; the first blasted a chip in his armor, but as the projectiles flew overhead, then shot down into him, a single missile erupted from himself and blasted many of them away, if but unable to prevent the rest from exploding and charring his armor.
"An innovative idea, if you were attempting to immolate yourself." droned Matoi.
"Would've killed any other student, no?"
"Precisely my disappointment - you've grown too durable for me to even kill you properly."
"You know, given how much Outcast weighs, you could try just dropping me off at the bottom of the ocean and wait it out."
"Unfortunately, we're in the middle of the country, so I'll settle for drowning you in a swamp."
"You've certainly got an eye for how to humiliate someone."
"On the contrary, I thought it would be kind to reunite you with your natural habitat. Humiliation is for rogue hosts, not students. ... Some students, at least."
Samuel laughed as he leaned against the wall, almost buckling the entire building behind him as Outcast began regenerating. "You ask me, I think plenty of students already live humiliating enough lives. You've got third and fourth-years who still live in one-star housing, never climbing the ranks. How does that even happen?"
"They usually blame it on their Revenant."
"There's a dozen storage facilities for alternate Revenants in New York alone."
"A fact they conveniently ignore, or claim they're too attached to their worthless Revenant to give it up." Matoi shrugged. "It's never been easier to accomplish something of worth than ever before, yet it's similarly never been simpler to complain about one's inability to do so."
"Seems the dilemma of modern society is people so hesitant of failure that they won't even bother to try."
"It's an ostensible fear of failure, yet one that preemptively soothes itself away from the possibility of success at all. It's an odd dance these people do, who have so obviously ravenously affixed their sense of self to their identity - artist or athlete or writer or however - yet claim that they do not care if they are good at it, do not care if they improve, then lash bitterly out at those who do, as if the source to their internal miasma."
Samuel mused for a while. "We could just be crazy and everyone else sane."
"I would rather be insane than realistic."
Matoi glanced up the alleyway and saw a headless & feminine figure shambling towards them, her right arm missing but her knife outstretched. As she glanced behind and saw another three like it enter the alleyway, she said: "Stab yourself and assess."
Ghastly hands ripped the woman's knife out from her hand and drove it into Samuel's armored back, and he grunted slightly: "Resurrection of killed hosts."
"How vague."
Another ten appeared on both sides of the alleyway, and there was no time to clarify before they charged at Samuel and caught him in melee; Matoi's missiles blasted the first wave rushing at her into chunks of gore, and twin lasers burst out from Wedding's chase, slashing apart what few survived the initial volley as more descended upon them from above and around. From the roofs of the buildings there fell corpses, decapitated or slashed or otherwise disfigured but for the weapons they held in mangled hands and mouths and skulls, dropping into the melee that raged within the alley.
Missiles and blades and fists and lasers whickered wildly about, a cycle of death churning into a rain of gore and blood all around the duo. The alleyway was narrow but growing thick with the shambling masses; a river of explosions shot down one half of the alleyway and gave Matoi a moment's rest as Samuel tore through his own platoon behind, ankle-deep in blood already with no sight of slowing.
More fell from the roofs upon them, and Matoi turned, blasting them apart and skyward; a shambler grabbed her from behind and tried to bite her neck, but Wedding's katana formed into existence at her back and a shockwave blasted it clear through him, bisecting him laterally as she turned, the blade returning to her hand as a bit of steel leaps to a magnet; yet the pressure grew by the moment, the passage swarming with already-corpses, a carpet of bodies that would conceal any legless stragglers if the students remained here.
In battle it is often best to make a decision quickly, then hope later it was a good one; as Matoi drove her blade through another, her missiles blasted through the wall of the building behind herself, and she shouted at Samuel to later group as she turned and swept into the lobby of the building, empty but for the front doors ahead and a light on overhead.
Rushing up to the front doors, a web of golden tendrils shot out from the light and towards her; but her missiles were quick. A barrage flew out and blasted through the ceiling, a storm of destruction that crumbled the building utterly as she rushed out to another alleyway and heard the rubble crush to undeath the army of darkness behind.
Glancing up the alleyway, she burst into laughter as she saw another corpse attempt to run at her. It was headless and armless, barely able to balance itself as it staggered. She recognized the imprint of the large bootprint on its chest, and two lasers sliced its legs off and left it to skid past her as she resumed her northward run.
She came out into another walkable street, no roads but for cobblestone pathing in all four directions; as she spun, she hacked through another three shamblers, another horde making their way through the building's ruins and towards her.
*Revival of hosts we've killed.* She rolled her eyes. *Without their Revenants, it's more tedious than dangerous.*
She noticed Samuel some fifty feet to her left ahead, still within the initial alleyway. A hellish melee raged around him, but he had formed a crude barricade using the building's rubble, funnelling all challengers into his hallway of slaughter and death.
Another group burst out from the remaining rubble ahead , then rushed at Matoi; as she hacked and smote like a woman possessed, she shouted out to Samuel: "Tired yet?!"
Samuel stomped another shambling host into pieces as he swung with his entire muscular body at another, punching clear through their chest and ripping up through their weak flesh until they were bisected laterally; he turned to feel another weak pair of hands grasp at his obsidian flesh, which he grabbed and ripped clear off. He was coated in flesh and blood and skin and bones and sinew, none of it his own. "I wish we could fight this fucking Revenant every goddamn day."
Another crowd was upon Matoi in seconds. Step by step, the pressure of their strikes forced her further back; a barrage of missiles reduced the frontline utterly, but more continued to come, reassembling into a patchwork of flesh and bones and heads where they should not be. Within the shambling mob, she noticed a Chinese woman, dirtied yet barely disguised, a cyst growing from her neck unlike any host Matoi had killed previously, and as a line of missiles attempted to reach her, the horde threw their bodies over the explosives to protect her.
The strength of the horde grew as the female host grew closer, yet Matoi's missiles were stronger; a wave of gore blasted out ahead of her and her lasers boiled it to a heat that set aflame the next wave, slashing wildly as she smote another batch. The enemy host glanced back, her body sluggish as if in argument with another that agitated her deeply, her face knurled in defiance, and in her distraction Matoi shouted: "SAMUEL- ATTACK MY MARK!"
His attention was caught for a moment and a flash of lasers marked overhead the woman; in the next instant, a swarm of ghastly blue hands grappled the remaining rubble of the ruined building, molding, beating, battering it into a sphere of concrete, then arcing it upward like a catapult; it went slightly too short, but a single shockwave blasted it overhead its intended recipient and delivered the boulder straight onto the woman to crush her into a million pieces.
The shamblers dissipated all around, and Matoi glanced at Samuel as he came up. "You missed."
"Must've been the wind."
"Hm. I'll allow it." she muttered as she blasted the Revenant to pieces. "A waste of a host and a waste of a Revenant."
She checked her tablet and noticed that Aimee & the others' locations were all huddled close to each other, their dots red to indicate an elevated pulse due to fighting another Revenant. Students are typically discouraged from joining other students' fights without warning, so they proceeded back cautiously through the town. There were few roads but for walkable brick paths and alleyways between businesses and restaurant.
They heard no sight nor sound of a fight as they approached the small two-story shop the others were huddled within; the front was boarded up by Boudoir, though merely to block sight of what was within. Carefully, Matoi sliced their way inside; the floor was covered in civilian corpses with electrical burns across their necks, as if hung by the wires hanging from the ceiling.
As Matoi glanced up, she noticed a volt of electricity from one of the wires grow into a golden tendril much like she had seen earlier, flailing and searching; Samuel threw himself in front of it and it left a scorch mark on his armor; he grunted as he grabbed it, redirecting it into himself, until the current reversed and the wire exploded into pieces.
No electricity animated anything else in the store, nor air conditioning; it had been cut off from the rest of the electrical grid. She & Samuel climbed the set of stairs at the upper-right, and as she peered out to the hall beyond, Aimee blinked into existence about 30ft ahead of her; she had some burn marks on her arms. "Figured it was you two. C'mon."
Matoi went off with her to the side-room where Mia & Makoto & Marisa & thankfully no other names starting with M- were gathered.
"And now, Samuel: the ability." said Matoi drolly. "For those who aren't aware: Outcast allows Samuel to absorb a Revenant and repeat it back."
"In direct proportion to how much it's damaged me, mind you, not unlimited." said Samuel as Makoto played him healed. "Can't even pronounce the name, but it's foreign. Electrical tendrils, remote Revenant, long enough range that it isn't worth noting." He breathed. "They... hm. Sprouts from power grid connections, feels like. Don't think the host has much control over them."
"They're autonomous?" said Mia.
"Not entirely. They seek out hosts, but they don't provide sight back to me. Feels more like I'm sending the dogs out to hunt rather than holding the gun myself."
"They may sense the difference in conductivity between hosts and civilians." said Matoi. "Our skin has... peculiar properties."
Mia nodded, for she had felt it herself; there was an odd resistance her skin had developed ever since she became a host, that allowed all normal touch to continue yet shunted out hostile Revenants; thus she could feel Aimee kissing sensually down her thighs yet also still fuck her butch pussy so hard & deep that when she finally pulled her strap out it was covered in oil.
She shivered as she realized she was more than a bit horny. They had been eating lunch before this Revenant attacked; she had been looking forward to dessert before the interruption.
Samuel spoke. "You know, the most disappointing experience I've had in my life isn't finding out Santa isn't real, it's finding out remote Revenants are."
Everyone groaned in agreement; remote Revenants were those with ranges over a few hundred feet, albeit always with some clue pointing to the location of its host.
Aimee glanced out of the window to the street below. "They'll know we're in here. Got a minute before they collapse onto us." She looked to Matoi and winced. "Uh, also, saw you got attacked - destroyed the Revenant, right?"
"Have I ever disappointed you?"
"Doubt you ever will."
Mia smiled at the proceedings, then gripped Aimee's arm with enough force to let Matoi know she could rip her's off if ever needed.
"Me, Mia, Makoto." said Aimee. "One way. Matoi, you and Samuel and Marisa another."
Mia glanced out to the street below; it was a grid of alleyways and walkable architecture, more akin to a European city; she did not see a car in sight and instinctually her American sensibilities reviled this. They had parked a ways away to the east, but she doubted they could go back now. She saw a web of electrical tendrils patrolling, rooted upon any electrical wire and power line, hunting, then disappearing from sight as they circled back around to the front of the building they stood within.
She felt Aimee's hand on her arm as Makoto stood beside Aimee, then nodded. They vaulted out the window and to the street two floors below; with a roll they landed and hit their forward run ahead, flanked by a series of shops and the cobblestone pathways below. She heard Matoi blasting the building behind down, then a shout of Boudoir and the others were gone; whoever attained a vehicle first would pick up the others.
Civilians littered the streets as they continued to run, and for an unpitiable instant Mia thought to shoot a tongue of flame into the air that would make them scatter; a Chinese man came out of an alleyway to their right and ahead, shouting at them; from the cyst growing out of his neck Aimee knew he was a host; Rider's tendrils went taut and a warrior of sunlight burst up behind the three students, but he exploded into gore in the next instant and the solar soldier withered in the next as Aimee shook the blood off from her knife.
This sufficed to scatter the civilians wildly in random directions, and the women veered left down another path to avoid the crowds, one much like the previous but for-
-a bevy of electrical tendrils whipped Mia from behind and she screamed like a woman in agony as it scorched through her flesh; a whirl of steel and scarabmetal and trumpet went through them and slashed off the troubling offenders, yet all around them as they ran were electrical tendrils growing from the buildings beside, bursting out from any wire they could find and trying to grab the women as they weaved and ran at the edges of their range.
"Any idea where we're fucking going, or are we just assuming we'll find something eventually?" groaned Makoto as they ran, pulling her phone out to check. "Fuck me, don't they have enough rogue hosts in their own fucking country without-" Her phone disappeared as Rider's tendrils went taut, then reappeared in her pocket- "-nice invasion of my privacy, fucking di-"
"-as if anyone would be interested in going through your private photos, you intolerable little sh-" groaned Mia-
"-fuck you, white-hair princess-speaking motherf-" Makoto caught the look in Aimee's eyes- "-mother figure who's a great girlfriend to my dear friend-"
"-go right." sighed Aimee as she veered right down another path, down another alleyway and between a pair of buildings; a bat flew in front of them; the bat screeched and a wave of momentum blasted the three back; Rider's tendrils went taut and Mia paused in her flight, suddenly in her butch's arms, Makoto groaning as her body hit the path behind them and the host ahead disappeared before Aimee could strike him.
As Aimee lowered her down, Mia glanced to the building at her right; a ramp of scarabmetal formed up to the roof, and Aimee nodded as Rider's tendrils went taut; she disappeared; then reappeared with her path known, running down the alleyway to their left as Mia & Makoto followed behind.
"Think I know that one." muttered Aimee. "Wish I got a report about these fucking tendrils, but-"
As Mia ran with the others, she saw many vectors of escape, if but by burning many buildings down and escaping within the smoke; the destruction it would wreak did not matter but for her own safety and Aimee's. She had viewed hosts as more important than civilians before, but upon her mentality there seemed a deeper rationale, not of her making, yet one her thoughts attempted to pull into themselves, as if she were justifying in chorus with herself.
As they turned right once more, occasionally scattering their path as civilians all around ran to & from them, Mia frowned as she recalled what Samuel had said earlier; that the electrical host did not need direct sight to attack, and yet consistently the tendrils shot directly for the women with no hesitation.
She noticed at their backs a Chinese woman who had been following them for a while, running at the speed of a civilian yet oddly able to keep pace with them whenever she ducked into various alleyways out of their sight. She had no cyst upon her neck, but Mia muttered to Makoto: "Makoto, trip her. Behind us."
Makoto glanced behind. She whistled and blew a few potholes ahead of the woman's step, who stepped over them with the reaction times of a host; in the next instant Makoto turned and a blast of her trumpet blew a clear chunk out of Mei's right arm, and as Rider's tendrils went taut -
- a dart from Mei entered Aimee's arm; a dart entered Makoto's arm; a dart entered Mia's arm; their Revenants fizzled for a moment, and by the time they returned Mei was already gone down another alleyway and away; the women grunted as they ripped the darts out, turned forward and resumed their rush again. The tendrils grew vaguer in their attacks, unable to locate the women as they ducked and dodged through several more alleyways, to at last come out to a road that led to a parking lot far ahead and right.
As they came to the parking lot, Aimee smashed the window of the most expensive car she could find, took the driver's side, allowed Makoto to Hymn the engine active, then started to drive. "Had to have been their medic. Wouldn't send a group without a medic."
"Be nice if our's could do shit like that." yawned Makoto as she played them healed.
"Yes, if only you spoke a different language, preferably one I don't understand." groaned Mia.
"Always gotta be me." muttered Aimee as she checked the other trio's locations to pick them up. "Always gotta be us."