On December 9th, Mia watched as Marisa came out to the living room carrying six Boudoir-bags on her back, for she would be going home for Christmas. Students typically chose Thanksgiving or Christmas for their time off, although given the geographic distribution of hosts and that no student would decline a call for help, these were not entirely vacations.

  "Good lord." muttered Mia. "Do you really need all of those bags for the holidays?"

  "Oh, some of these are empty, I'm about to go out and steal shit."

  A mask, much like the iconic purple one wore by The Lavender Menace, burst out of Marisa's face with no mark to her skin. Mia smiled in recognition; like many female hosts, she had, as a civilian teenager, wrapped a purple scarf or other item of clothing around her face as a crude mimicry of this mask.

  Mia nodded. "Your family is upstate, right?"

  "Yeah, but not too far. So if you need me, or if you wanna train - I know Aimee will keep you good, but- yeah. And I'll be back on December 19th to help give you support the day before, okay?" Marisa smiled and hugged Mia, her Boudoir dress sinking slightly to allow her to hug Mia deeper. "I just gotta make a run at the department stores before they put up their posters of me. Happens every year. Last year I could've waited until the 23rd, but they're smarter now."

  "As if they could stop you."

  "No, but sometimes they hire professional hosts and they're really mean." Marisa rubbed the back of her head. "Uh, speaking of, if anything ever happens to Aimee and you like older women- professionals are super desperate. I know how much you like women with money. Anyway!"

  Mia said defensively: "I-I do not-"

  But Marisa had already swung out the door.

  Pushing down how much she enjoyed Aimee spoiling her, Mia went to her bedroom. As she began picking out her outfit for her date with Aimee tonight, she had time to ruminate over her past four months at Urasaria.

  Hosthood had claimed somewhat what was Mia before. She had no longer, if she had much before, strong reaction to the idea or reality of violence; she desired almost constantly to bring it about to an enemy host, for her Revenant supplied her the enjoyment needed for its use. Threats of murder and death came more casually from her lips, and though she had before been desensitized to the idea of violence, she now enjoyed the actual, if not to the extent she had prior pretended.

  She had not entirely liked civilians before, but now she distrusted and sometimes entirely disliked them beyond her family. And still there would occasionally be some image or rebuke that reminded her of what sensibilities she had before, yet she instinctually rejected such to defend her identity; her objective physical superiorities had dripped into her mentality to where she unconsciously believed that hosts were smarter as well.

  But you yourself have perhaps castigated one group or another as stupid or untrustworthy for nothing but the fact that you have defined yourself as this group, not that group, likely on more frivolous criteria than this. To speak of flaws or what empathy is deserved in what area of which student is to miss the point that they are unfortunately human and thus still bound in some way by the chains of evolution that formed from strange long wanderings underneath the attic of forest roofs translated into pictures upon cave walls. By the time man adapts to modern conditions then he will again be outdated by the measure of his own current time; he will always in vain attempt to stretch himself into a form perfectly suited for his own present conditions.

  As for more positive development, over these past months, Mia had felt an adoption in herself one of those traits she most liked in other students - the dropping of gender expression as a thing that mattered. She dressed more androgynously than she had before, felt no guilt or gendered shame over her thoughts, became more a mosaic. She sent money back home to her mother every month, though her legal immunity meant it did not affect her own standard of living, and assured knowing that there is always work for a host.

  She texted Aimee to let her know she was coming over in a few minutes, then thirty minutes later knocked at her front door. Aimee and Makoto both answered it. Mia ignored Makoto as all women of good sense did, and smiled as she lifted Aimee up and kissed her. "How is my favorite butch?"

  "Good." laughed Aimee as Mia set her down. "Especially with you here."

  "That's right."

  "Much better company."

  "Yeah-yeah." said Makoto and left.

  Mia smirked as she took Aimee's hand in her's, and off they went into the evening outside of Urasaria. "Really, why do you continue to keep that little runt around?"

  Aimee laughed. "Just out of habit, I guess. That, and I do go hunting with people that aren't you, you know. She's the one who pushed me to make a move on you first."

  "Well, I suppose I can't mind her too much, then. And at least she makes a good medic for your squadron."

  "Yeah, that was one of the reasons she got assigned as my protege."

  "She- what? I thought she was just your friend." Mia palmed her face. "Oh, but of course, you've never mentioned having a protege... But isn't she in your year?"

  Aimee laughed. "It was a weird situation where, after my mentor Renee died - black-hole summoning, phasing in and out, stuff like that... after he died, there weren't any second-years without proteges, so they figured just sticking two first-years together would be good enough. We flipped a coin for which one was mentor, I cheated it and won, and so she's still my protege despite us being in the same year."

  "Is that why you felt so comfortable yelling at her during that fight with Mizuchi?" Mia laughed. "I can't imagine she didn't want to give you an earful after."

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  "Oh, she did, and she knows I'll do it next time, she'll get pissed off at me about it. She'll say: 'Dude, I don't need you yelling in my fucking ear to hear you', and I'll say 'I wouldn't yell in your fucking ear if it wasn't the only way my voice could reach that tiny brain of your's', and she'll say... yeah."

  Mia laughed. "You mimic her too well."

  "Well, Makoto's secret is that she hates her Revenant, too, because with Hymn, it's stronger the stupider that she keeps herself. Not that she would have ever been a genius, but she couldn't even go to class when she was first starting out because whenever she'd come up with some idea for a counter, she'd get told it wouldn't work, and then she'd get pissed because now it really meant she couldn't do it anymore."

  "Does she really use her Revenant all that much? I know you mentioned not to correct her if she does something incorrect in a fight, but I can't imagine..."

  "Half of what's in her house doesn't work how it actually does. Her microwave cooks from the inside-out. She won't leave electric fans on because she says they steal your breath away when you're sleeping. Stuff like that. And the problem is, in her house, that actually is what happens, so I don't ever contradict her because I never know if this monumental moron's going to be in a fight where she has to kill a sleeping host with an electric fan or rapid quicksand or shit like that. She's repaired a house that only works because her brain doesn't. Literally, one time she was heating up something at my house, and it was cold in the middle, so I had to tell her my microwave works differently..."

  Mia listened to her talk of Makoto more. Though there was fondness to the mockery, at least on Aimee's side, what stuck with Mia was that Makoto was of all students the least able to grow, and not only that, but aware of her inability to grow.

  There are times in all humans where we hold an idea to be burnt into the fiber of our being, yet only in later comparison, with another witness or someone we deem more knowledgeable, can we realize that such ideas are false, or at least not how we conceive of them, and suddenly a significant portion of what we take to be true no longer is. For Mia, hosthood, and her ability for it, had been one such rupture that would remain eternally with her, but she recognized that much that she took about herself now; her essential Mianess; could flow with little consistency from one age to the next, and that by the end of her four years at Urasaria, there would be traits of herself that she could name no origin of from this then-hardened year, but which she had nonetheless named her own.

  This was not where Makoto was, nor could she be. She had erected a sense of self distinguishable by that it could not be made to move, for she felt rightfully that a collapse of a single idea could shudder all else; if there was a hesitant hand at Hymn's harp then she could not fight as smoothly as she did, and having never been possessed of a desire to learn regardless, she hated any word that could restrain her instrument.

  Fortunately, however, this will be the last mention of Makoto (at least in this arc), and onward Mia & Aimee went into the city. An unusual fact of Urasaria's location is that while one may believe the densest areas would be nearest to the academy itself, given the short response time, this is not so; the area around Urasaria is sparsely populated, part of an old superstition that hosts always attract other hosts.

  Thus the density of urban life around them grew the further they were from home, albeit still lower than what New York might have been without the emergence of Revenants.

  As they waited for their food from a local food cart, Mia draped her arms over Aimee and pulled her tight to her chest from behind. She grinned as she sensed Aimee's confidence immediately grow, then leaned down and kissed her forehead. "Enjoying yourself?"

  "Definitely."

  Mia whispered in her ear. "Just wait until I get you home."

  Aimee panted. "Not sure how long I can wait if you're going to whisper like that to me. Did you still want to go to the beach after?"

  "I haven't exactly gotten to enjoy the sight of water lately, you know." Mia smirked. "And besides, are you going to decline seeing me in a two-piece?"

  Aimee rapidly shook her head no.

  "Good butch."

  After they ate their meals, they were in walking distance for hosts to the nearest beach. Once there, Mia began sliding her shoes off, then her socks, then her pants, then her shirt; she had indeed come prepared in a two-piece underneath, and knowledgeable of the fact that hosts do not require sunscreen. "And it'll all dry so quickly. Lovely."

  As Aimee looked to Mia, she felt her brain fizzle and crack as it short-circuited. Mia glanced up, noticed her stare, then grinned as she pulled Aimee in for a sweet kiss that suggested more. "Go on. Touch me."

  "In public?"

  Mia grinned with terrifying energy. "If you're good, maybe we'll find out if our legal immunity extends to public indecency." She kissed Aimee again, who grabbed the back of her thighs, her strong hands making their way gradually up to Mia's ass. They made out for a few minutes, at which point Mia pulled away, gasping out: "A-Actually, if we keep this up, then- let's not find out if... immunity..."

  "Y-Yeah." panted Aimee.

  "Swim. Swimming!" Mia smiled, then leaned down and kissed Aimee quickly again.

  She rushed off to the water, a sight Aimee enjoyed but could at least calm her more than the prior display. As she watched Mia, she felt strange, for this relationship seemed yet another aspect of herself that, while positive, had been almost wholly determined by luck. Aimee had needed to be born with a Revenant strong enough to attain presidency and the type of spite that had driven her to achieve it; she had needed to meet Mia at the infirmary; she had needed to not reveal certain parts of herself inopportunely; how many times could she have accidentally ruined her chance at Mia, even unknowingly, but did not?

  Then there what had needed to occur in Mia as well; the dejection of a failed hosthood test that had led to an obsession with students; to be chosen by this dreadnought; all life events that had made her Mia, compatible with Aimee and desirous of each other. In the immense web of associative events that had needed to occur for her relationship with Mia to happen, her own choices seemed rather superfluous.

  Other may see this unbroken link of events as evidence of God's plan, but this was not so for Aimee. She felt that the universe was essentially random and filled with nothing deeper, for no force, natural or not, could reasonably be thought of as caring to tend each event themselves. And even if there were a god, she thought, then his acts would look no different than that of random chance regardless.

  She saw Mia waving to invite her in, and although Aimee was hardly dressed for it, she went to Mia regardless. They played together in the water; mostly splashing superheated waves against hyperaccelerated waves until they remembered there were civilians around; and Mia pulled Aimee down underwater with her, kissing her for the extra minutes of breath hosthood allowed them, until even these women needed to surface again.

  Eventually they began back to Urasaria, running intermittently, and the two felt content. As Aimee unlocked her mansion's doors, she felt Mia's hand at her back press her hard inside the home; she turned to receive Mia's lips on her's, a few scarabs locking the door behind them, as she lifted Aimee up against her again.

  Their kisses drew deeper, and as Mia dug her fingers into the muscularity of Aimee's back, she felt desire boil in herself. Again she pressed herself deeper into Aimee, and for a second considered ignoring the tension she felt in Aimee that, unlike in their consensual encounters, was not dimming with further touch. But she recollected herself and recognized Aimee did not want this, for what reason she was uncertain; she sensed again what would be a persistent issue for the two; that because Aimee thought that if Mia left her she had no other options, Aimee would rarely vocalize against anything Mia did to her. Thus Mia was in the position of both communicating herself and acting as Aimee's vector for communication; a flaw that, while significant, did not override the love she had of Aimee. So she set Aimee down, who smiled and kissed her as Mia lifted her up and carried her to the couch rather than bed.