The following Monday, Mia and Marisa separated at the arena they had met, into their respective first-year & second-year lines. Mia knew everyone in her class at this point, enough to where she could later be assigned on investigations with most of them without any incidents occurring. Rochelle had not spoken to her again; either scared off by the rumors of her and Aimee or chasing some airhead, Mia figured.

  Who Mia also noticed was a Japanese second-year woman with long black hair and strong features. Over the coming years, what would strike Mia most about this woman was that her eyes always seemed to be looking down upon, regardless of how they were angled.

  Her name was Matoi, who Mia had heard of from Aimee. She was perhaps the most lesbian of lesbian students; not necessarily a good thing; and had immigrated from Japan as a teenager, widely assumed to be because she had either killed someone there or was a better culture fit here. To those who asked, she spoke disdainfully about her former country, though one suspected that her primary issue with it was the same problem she had with any other one - that men were in charge of it.

  As Mia's eyes waved across her, she realized Matoi had looked away from her in that too-hasty reversion of a glance that had accidentally lingered.

  "One of you will be stuck taking care of the pig for a week." muttered Matoi. A few second-years nervously laughed; she was referring to her male protege, which had been two tricks played by fate on her - the first that he was male, the second that she grew to like him anyhow.

  Marisa looked down at her tablet, and with a smile that betrayed absolutely no clue what a hellish clusterfuck this week was going to be, said: "Kirihara?"

  Kirihara shoved her way out of a line that did not need shoving out of.

  The lines dwindled until it was just Mia and an orange-haired second-year woman, freckled and wearing an outfit both out of style and hygiene. Had Mia ever seen a Godzilla movie, she might have described this woman's eyes as akin to that of Minya's, Godzilla's son who blew smoke rings rather than fire, and whose large eyes always seemed tired. The woman smiled as Mia came over, then introduced herself as Jeanne Belmont.

  Mia suspected there would not be much training or hunting done this week.

  Jeanne was not particularly motivated to help others - not recently, anyhow. The difficulty of what Jeanne was, a woman with depression, was that her affliction had sank into the familiarity of an identity; she was not a woman with depression but a depressed woman. It seemed the correct mental illness for her to have, absurd a statement as that is. She was a visual artist who romanticized the depth of her interior introspection even as her outward talent and ability shriveled - more dangerous than believing there was no point to her life was believing this was the point to it.

  "Hey." she said. "So, umm... I guess we can start with a duel first. Give you an idea what my Revenant can do. I just need to do something at my house first, so if you wanna wait here or come with me -- yeah. No pressure."

  "I... suppose."

  Mia went with Jeanne, who lived in one of the two-star houses; she had once been three-star near the end of her first year, but without her mentor did not stay there long.

  As she walked into Jeanne's home, she realized the scent it had immediately; Jeanne might as well have been blowing it into her face. But she said nothing as Jeanne sat down at her kitchen table and packed a bowl of marijuana into her bong.

  "Do you need help lighting it?" said Mia.

  "Sure. Do you want any?"

  "Er, no. I don't do that."

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  "Okay. I grow my own... medicinally. It actually is for medicinal purposes. My Revenant can get pretty intense, and if I over-exert myself..." Jeanne made a popping sound and pretended to be knocked out. "Not good in a fight. So these help keep me in check."

  Mia lit Jeanne's bong and Jeanne smoked.

  Afterwards, Jeanne led her to her mentorship room in the second-year building. She unlocked the door to her mentorship room, its primary distinguishing feature being metal walls flowing like static water. She had thought it an impressive artistic achievement, although it was more technical than artistic.

  Jeanne turned to see Mia cautious to step on the floor and laughed. "It's safe."

  Mia carefully stepped inside. "This is your Revenant?"

  "Kinda. Okay, so, we're gonna duel, and then... whatever. I just want you to try to hit me once."

  "Alright."

  "My Revenant doesn't really have a nonlethal option and I don't want to hurt you, so, yeah, so. Just me. I can get hurt. I was three-star one time. Even if I got carried." Jeanne giggled. "Dream." A spraycan appeared in her right hand, and at some command her mind must have made, Mia noted the top half turn kaleidoscopic and begin to flow like the walls; it then paused and the bottom half flowed, then paused and the top half flowed. "Let's go."

  A spray of blue erupted from the can and hit the floor, and into it Jeanne fell and disappeared from sight; Mia rushed up with scarabs drawn, yet the floor had solidified once more and she found no Jeanne; she spun and kept her eyes sharp around, then saw Jeanne rising lazily out of the floor some thirty feet ahead of her, Dream's spraycan drawn again.

  Tentatively, Mia started towards her, then rushed at her again; her right foot hit the ground and the floor bounced her up like a trampoline into the ceiling, smashing her head and sending her back down past Jeanne; laying on her back, she turned and sent a swarm of scarabs at her, but again Jeanne disappeared within the floor, a slight splash in her escape which Mia pondered:

  *She's transforming the floor into water, but retaining its appearance...*

  For a moment she saw Jeanne rise again at the other end of the room, then wooze in & out from her sight as a mist burst from Dream; a dozen bricks from above fell upon Mia, but a swarm of scarabs burnt them to ash, Jeanne's image meekly bursting from the static afore Mia's eyes now. Again Mia stepped forward, and cursed as she felt her step stuck to the floor akin to a boot in tar; in the next instant, a row of doors appeared afore her, and she sighed as she ripped herself off from the sticky floor and pondered the three choices ahead of her.

  *This isn't her Revenant's main ability, obviously...* she thought. *She changes appearances - no, she-* She nodded. *Change appearance but retain properties. Change properties but retain appearance.*

  She stepped to the first door, wondering if Jeanne could see her in the separation of this false-mist; it appeared to her as any door might, yet she knew it was the appearance of one sprayed onto the mere air. As she leaned in to open it, she placed her hand and inch before the doorknob before blasting three balls of fire through every door and hearing a surprised gasp from Jeanne at the other end; she shot out another dozens and the illusions faded, Jeanne slowing as she escaped into the water-floor once more, yet Mia was able to hit her with one final fireball that left the scent of burnt clothes behind.

  For a moment Mia worried how Jeanne was going to next emerge, and heard the floor bubble and part behind herself; she turned to launch another lash of flame, then stopped when she noticed Jeanne was no longer moving or attempting to dodge, stuck within the liquid hole Dream had dug and her head limping against the solid floor. Rushing over to her, Mia checked her pulse, then with not much effort lifted her up out of the liquid-floor, knowing her next stop.

  ===

  Hirogane drew Pulse's tendril out of Jeanne's heart. "Her damage is healed, but she'll still be in a coma for another few days. Least she warned you about it, though."

  "She did." said Mia. "But I don't understand why that happens. Is it something innate to her Revenant? Some sort of medical issue?"

  Hirogane sighed, exasperated. "I shouldn't tell you private health information, but annoyance with a patient is enough for me to overlook confidentiality. 'specially when there's no consequences to breaching it anyhow. If Jeanne would allow me to take a sample of her Revenant and send it to Urasaria's phantasmologist for diagnosis, we could know. I've offered it after every coma and she refuses. Behavior or epigenetic mutation, we can't know because she won't have it tested."

  "You can't force her to? I can't imagine it's not affecting her ability to hunt."

  "I agree, but Urasaria's policy is a student paid for doing nothing is better than a rogue host desperate for money."

  "I suppose. Still, why won't she have it tested? Does she not trust you?"

  "Says she trusts me fine, it's the government she doesn't trust."

  "We work for the government."

  "Jeanne's one of those students who thinks she works for the good government and everyone else works for the bad government."