Mio
The sun was trying to kill her.
She squinted, eyes watering, not ready for the world to see her.
The crowd pressed in. Shoulders, elbows, the sharp corner of someone's bag.
She pulled up her status. The numbers were burned into her eyelids by now, but she checked anyway.
[Status]
Name: Tamei Mio
Class: Healer
Grade: F
HP: 106 / 106
MP: 77 / 77
[Abilities]
Mend: Cost 32 MP. Restores 45 HP.
[Defect: Overheal]
All healing abilities cost 213% normal MP. Excess healing is wasted. External healing sources are rejected. Healing yourself is 50% effective.
Most F-grade healers spent fifteen mana per cast—surgeons with magical scalpels.
Mio was a firehose with the valve on full blast. She couldn't scale it down, even if she wanted to. To make matters worse, she couldn't heal herself. The irony wasn't lost on her; it just didn't help.
She'd traded a normal life for that broken valve during the three days of fever when the Integration hit. She'd woken up to a world with monsters and a set of instructions.
The pamphlets called it Integration Shock. They made it sound survivable.
She'd been out of her room for twenty minutes and she missed it already—the cup noodles on her desk, the three monitors glowing in the dark. The only light she'd trusted for weeks.
Her phone buzzed against her thigh.
"Mio! Are you here yet? Don't tell me you bailed. Did you say hi to Nana?"
Aoi's voice crackled through the speaker, half-drowned by what sounded like the Bureau's lobby. Hard to tell with Aoi.
"...Yeah."
"Yeah you're here, or yeah you said hi to Nana?"
"Both."
One was a lie. She hadn't said hi to Nana for Aoi. She'd barely said anything at all.
"Okay, good. Setagaya incursion, E-grade, should be quick. Rin's getting twitchy and Shiori keeps recalculating our survival odds, which is not helping morale. Shibuya branch, main floor. Hurry up." A pause. "Miss you, love ya, bye."
The call ended before Mio could even respond. She lowered the phone and stood there, swaying slightly as the crowd parted around her.
Two runs now, and the outside world still felt like enemy territory.
Her collar brushed her cheek and she caught it. Faint, almost gone. Nana's shampoo. The cheap strawberry kind from the convenience store.
She hadn't made Nana a real meal in weeks. The DO NOT DISTURB sign was still on her door, the words "That means you" scratched out so hard the paper tore. Underneath, if you looked close, you could still read "Onee-chan."
Mio had knocked anyway. Told her through the door she was leaving money on the counter, curry in the fridge, back by evening.
Silence. Then Nana's breathing on the other side. Then the door opened and thin arms wrapped around her waist, face pressed into her spine.
"You smell like fish-sauce."
"That's because I've been eating fish-sauce."
"That's disgusting."
"At least I don't eat eggs with ketchup."
Half a laugh, half a gag. Then Nana let go, and the door clicked shut.
Don't take too long.
Her chest locked.
The sound of a horn brought her back to the platform.
Around her, half the crowd had their eyes on nothing. Scrolling screens only they could see. A livestream of some C-grade's dungeon ran across a digital overlay on the subway visor. Nobody cared.
The train to Shibuya was packed. She found a spot near the door, shoulder pressed to glass, watching Tokyo blur past.
Fifteen minutes of strangers' elbows. A woman near the door had faint blue lines up her neck—some Class side effect, or just the new normal.
She caught her reflection in the window. Green eyes. Her father's eyes.
"Arriving at Shibuya," a synthesized female voice announced over the intercom.
Mio pushed toward the doors.
The Bureau's Shibuya branch smelled like burnt coffee. She'd been here twice before.
The clerk looked up. Cardigan, reading glasses. Mio kept her eyes to the floor.
"Name?"
"Tamei Mio."
Typing, then the pause. Mio knew that pause.
"Healer, F-grade. Lucky your friends let you tag along." He slid the form across without looking up. "Next."
"I know," she said to no one.
Agents moved through the lobby like they owned it. They did, technically. Bureau badges and Bureau insurance. The kind of job her mother would've never approved of.
Mio found a gap by the vending machines. She stared at the floor, counting the tiles. Counting runs.
One. Two. Thre—
"Mio!"
Silver hair cut through the crowd. Aoi grabbed her arm before Mio could flinch away, already pulling her toward the gate.
"Finally! Come on, Rin's been giving me the look for ten minutes." She glanced sideways. "You okay? You're pale."
"I'm fine."
Aoi's grip tightened, searching Mio's face for something. Whatever she found, she let it go.
They crossed the floor together, weaving through parties that parted for Aoi's silver hair and closed again behind Mio like she wasn't there.
The platform for Setagaya was half-empty. Late morning, between commutes.
Rin was already waiting by the yellow line, shield propped against her leg. Its surface was dented and etched with history, each one an impact that would have killed Mio outright. D-grade tank.
She looked up as they approached. Didn't smile.
Beside her, Shiori's fingers twitched at her side, sorting invisible inventory.
E-grade buffer. Maybe thirty words to Mio across two incursions.
"Odds are 71% with just us," Shiori muttered, not looking up. "With a real healer, we'd be at 84%." She tapped her screen. "With you? We cap out at 76%."
Five percent above nothing.
Aoi squeezed her elbow. E-grade rogue. The only reason Mio was here at all.
The train pulled in. Other delvers pushed past them toward the doors. For them, this was a commute.
For Mio, it was a promise she might not keep.
But Nana was waiting at home.
Her feet moved before she told them to.
"Let's go."
Rin straightened. Shiori's eyes refocused, actually seeing her for the first time.
The doors closed behind them.