Mio
The sun was trying to kill her.
After weeks of monitor-blue darkness, December light hit like an interrogation lamp. She squinted, eyes watering, not ready for the world to see her
In twelve hours, she'd watch her party die. She wouldn't lift a finger to stop it.
She didn't know that yet.
The crowd pressed in. Shoulders, elbows, the sharp corner of someone's bag.
She pulled up her status to escape. Muscle memory. The numbers were burned into her eyelids by now, but she checked anyway. The way you probe a bruise just to confirm it still hurts.
[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.
[Defect: Self-Healing Penalty]
Healing yourself is 50% effective.
Most F-grade healers spent fifteen mana per cast. Surgeons with magic scalpels.
Mio was a firehose with a welded valve. Couldn't scale it down. Couldn't lightly heal a scratch.
Forty-five HP, full blast, every time.
A healer who couldn't heal herself. The irony wasn't lost on her. It just didn't help.
Integration Shock. The pamphlets made it sound survivable.
Twenty minutes out of her room and the sun already felt like punishment. Cup noodles on the desk. Dust-married curtains. 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. Impatient, maybe worried. 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.
Three runs. And the outside world still felt like enemy territory.
She pulled her jacket tighter against the crowd. The collar brushed her cheek and she caught it. Faint, almost gone. Nana's shampoo. The cheap strawberry kind from the convenience store.
Thin arms around her waist. Face pressed into her spine. Don't take too long.
Mio's lungs felt like they'd shrunk a size too small.
She hadn't made Nana a real meal in weeks. Barely left her room except to use the bathroom. The "DO NOT DISTURB" sign on Nana's door. That means you.
The last two words were scratched out so hard the paper tore:
Onee-chan.
She could still read it underneath.
Mio had knocked anyway. Told her through the door she was leaving money on the counter, that there was curry in the fridge from yesterday, that she'd be back by evening.
Silence. Nana's breathing on the other side. Then the door clicked open, and thin arms wrapped around her waist.
You smell like MSG, Nana had mumbled into her hoodie.
That's because I've been eating MSG.
That's disgusting.
It's efficient.
Something between a laugh and a gag. Then Nana had let go, and the door clicked shut.
The words she hadn't said felt like grit under her tongue. Mio stood in the hallway, paralyzed by the sudden, freezing quiet of the apartment.
The memory dissolved. She was back on the platform.
Around her, half the crowd had their eyes on nothing. Scrolling screens only they could see. Gear drops. Bounty boards. A livestream of some C-grade's dungeon run, chat scrolling too fast to read.
The other half kept their heads down, pretending the Integration hadn't happened to them.
Mio wasn't sure which group she belonged to.
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 and recycled air. A woman near the door had faint blue lines tracing up her neck. Some Class side effect, or just the new normal. The train swayed. Someone's bag dug into her hip.
She caught her reflection in the window. Green eyes. Her father's eyes.
Nine months, and she still couldn't look at them without flinching.
"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 as Mio approached. Middle-aged. Reading glasses. A cardigan that didn't belong in a building full of weapons.
"Name?"
"Tamei Mio."
Typing. Then the pause. Mio knew that pause. The moment when someone's screen told them everything they needed to know.
"Healer, F-grade." He stamped the form without looking up. "Lucky your friends let you tag along, Tamei-san. You'd never make quota on your own."
"I know."
He slid the stamped form across the counter, already looking at the person behind her. "Next."
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.
The contractors stayed near the walls.
Mio found a gap by the humming vending machines. She stared at the floor, counting the tiles.
Counting the runs Aoi had let her drag along out of pity.
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 transport gate loomed ahead. Black arch. The air around it hummed with something that made Mio's teeth ache. Tasted metallic. Like blood pooling under the tongue.
Rin was already waiting, shield propped against her leg. Its face was a topography of dents and gouges, each one an impact that would have killed Mio outright. D-grade tank. The kind of delver who treated incursions like morning cardio.
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. That's what she was worth.
Aoi squeezed her elbow. E-grade rogue. The only reason Mio was here at all.
Other delvers pushed past them toward the gate. For them, this was a commute.
For Mio, every crossing felt like stepping off a ledge and hoping there was ground.
But Nana was waiting at home. Nana who made her own lunches now because her sister couldn't get out of bed. Nana who'd pressed her face into Mio's back and held on like she was trying to memorize her.
I'll come back. I'll always come back.
Mio's feet were moving before she decided to move them.
"Let's go."
The others looked up. Rin straightened. Shiori's eyes refocused, actually seeing her for the first time.
Mio stepped through the gate.