Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Their Sensei was a man of few words. Very few words. So little words that there were rumors he was mute and communicated only through his most trusted students.

Partly true if one barely interacted with him, which was most of the student population across all the academies of Kivotos.

He was quiet, always contemplating and stoic in demeanor whenever little was going on. Those emerald green eyes of his hinted at a lifetimes worth of weariness despite his youth, though one couldn’t blame a student for thinking he was vastly older because of his gaunt appearance. His pale almost yellow skin worried the medical staff of whatever academy he ventured too, and were always politely shooed away by a jet black gloved hand. Like any Sensei he wanted his students to focus on their own health and well being rather than his insignificant form, insignificant to himself at least.

Few knew of the great undertaking he went through prior to entering the realm of Kivotos, and even fewer knew details beyond his assistance in a rebellion against some great cosmic empire, which brought many to scoff. Only one knew that these events all took place across one single week for himself. Despite his youth the stress brought about affected his body greatly. His eyes sunk back further than they should have, his auburn hair graying on the edges with a streak of it on his goatee as well. He moved about like his age when he was in his HEV suit but if he were to exit it, and this was a miracle even in the most peaceful of times, his students worried at how pained his movements were doing simple office work let alone strenuous physical activities.

Cracks in his stoicism showed during these vulnerable times, his teeth gritted while wincing at the mere act of walking. The suit protected him but it didn’t stop the impacts of the various assortment of weaponry thrown at him before and after his appearance in Kivotos. The Engineering Club found it hard to repair all the scraps, dents, holes, hell even whole explosion scuff marks off the orange and black metal. How he survived in that thing, let alone prefer it bothered them deeply.

She wiped explosive residue off the exoskeleton carefully, making sure not to scrape off anymore God knows how old paint off. She glanced at Sensei questioningly, her brows raised in befuddlement.

“Do I even…?”

He seemed to chuckle, a brief release of air from his straight as an arrow lips before shaking his head no. Particles from whatever grenade he swatted away during a counterattack on some Sukeban shook off his hair.

She rolled her eyes and ran a gloved hand down the torso of the suit, wiping off dust, concrete and other highway particles and residue. Thundergun beeped nearby and received a soft head pat from Sensei, who looked down at the turret amused.

After a few more wipes and a sturdy punch to the left arm after it twitched and almost broke his bone from overextending a tad bit, it was as brand new as it would allow. A small smile, a mouthed thank you and a powered fist pump was what Utaha got as a reward for cleaning and repairing that strange suit of Sensei’s.

In the back of her mind she wondered what she and the others would do if the suit completely broke down, with or without Sensei in it. Could they repair it? Despite claims from Sensei that it was made sometime in the late nintenies (None of them believed that because how did it and Sensei not age in the twenty or so years of beatings its taken) its inner mechanics and functions bewildered them. Whatever ancient tech it was made from indicated it was not made for hazardous environments from Kivotos or the world he came from.

One worrying reason the Remedial Knights found for why he seemed to obsessively wear the suit anywhere he went was because of the medical functions of it.

She sat there reading the report over and over again, aghast at its findings. Her hands almost tore the paper in half from how tight she gripped onto to it, reading that section hoping there was a mistake, an error. If this wasn’t one of those then…

“No wonder he barely speaks. I… We’re going to need an intervention at this rate.”

She mumbled into her hands, her fingers running down her face with the paper drifting onto her desk. This… this was bad. That damn suit helped him alright, a bit too much!

“Morphine, probably too euphoric to speak… even if he did it would be babble, oh geez.”

First Chinatsu had to find Serina, Sena, some other members of the Emergency Medicine Club and form a plan. They had to get that damn thing off him before it destroyed his mind even further. If the rumors she heard from members of the GSC were correct then he had worn this thing for twenty years battling some sort of super alien whatever the hell. Not taking it off aside from the occasional rest or because he lost(?) it at some time.

“Whewwww… Sensei, how bad could it have been if you had to expose yourself to environments where a built in morphine injector were… needed.”

Speaking of Serina, she often found herself following him around when he went in and out of the suit, her gaze rarely leaving him. She often stayed with him until the early mornings in Schales office where she studied him while he filled out stack after stack of paperwork diligently.

His fingers trembled whenever he was outside of the “safe and comfortable” confines of that damned suit of his. He didn’t seem conscious of this, or elected to ignore it so he wouldn’t bother her. Too bad she cared.

“Sensei..”

Her hand laid atop his right one, it having trembled up until the warmth of her palm covered it. He looked at her with an impassive glance, as if he was wondering why she even bothered.

“Sensei, why do your hands do that?”

Emerald green eyes shifted away from her, his untouched hand continuing to fill out some form. Her other hand grabbed that one and squeezed gently.

“Why? Tell me… so I can better treat it.”

Pursed lips and a look of unease washed over him, before he shook his head.

“Then, why do you grimace every time you sit down?”

For a second he looked like he was about to ask how often she watched him do that but… he shook his head again.

She sniffled, her grip on his hands tightened now that she grasped both of them. Her eyes were fixed onto his eyes.

“Did something happen to you? Before you became… Sensei?”

That… look he gave her told it all. He looked down, shame, hurt, anger, humiliation, hatred, indifference, hope, all flashed across his face. He took a long, shuddering breath and nodded, now staring directly into her increasingly worried gaze.

“Then how.. bad was it?”

His mouth opened, a word about to slip out. It closed, sealing his lips once more as he shook his head once more. His secrets were his, no student should have to know the sins he committed that ruined his dimension.

“W-Why Sensei? You.. you.. worry us, all of us so much! You can’t hide that… pain, that sorrow. You try keeping it from us but we can tell plain as day!”

He flinched, her outburst on behalf of herself and the rest of his precious students pouring from the depths of their hearts.

“Sensei you can’t keep us in the dark forever, h-how else are we supposed to help you!”

He chuckled, the sound making her jump back from him a bit. Any sound from him was… miraculous. He wriggled a hand out of that iron tight grip she had and placed it on her head. His fingers carefully brushed aside some hair that covered her eyes, revealing a profound sadness. With a sigh he patted her head, making her blush and bristle.

"It’s not a students job to worry about their Sensei’s health or well being. My job is to safe keep you, all of you into a bright future. One me and my people never had. One day I will tell all of you my tale. For now… such dark things are not up for discussion.”

His voice was a murmur, a glimpse into his soul. Damaged beyond repair. Slight hints of gravel filled his tone as he spoke, before he shut his mouth, wriggled his other hand free and picked up another paper to fill out.

She sat there the rest of the night, now further worried at what hardships he faced before. No doubt he would keep them safe, she had seen for herself just how ferocious he was in combat, when he wasn’t hindered by a damaged body. When he wore that suit he… She glowered. They would find a way to make him open up. Someway to start the healing process for their precious Sensei. Some way to free him from that suit and his toxic dependence on it.

Chapter Text

She sneaked into his dreams effortlessly, her sleeping form transcending from ordinary girl laying on her bed to a shadowy silhouette that interloped into his dreamscape. Champagne yellow fox ears twitched inquisitively, and picked up on the ambient noises of his mind within the strict corridor of dreams. A colorless void greeted her prying eyes.

Bits of debris fell from an unknown point high up in the sky. Aging concrete fell alongside sleek gray metal, with bits of… flesh of origin she didn’t want to determine following suit. The smell made her nose wrinkle in disgust. What kind of man was this? Even the most boring of students at Trinity, even Gehenna students had some sort of memory play on repeat, representing a fraction of their soul. All she found was a nothingness that even the lowliest bug would find dull.

“Hm.”

She began the process of slithering out of his dreamscape in abject disappointment when a distant sound made her right ear press down against her skull. It echoed throughout the colorless landscape, growing closer with each second. It was descending downwards, ever closer.

“Tell me-”

A bright flash burned into her eyes, for a second showing a gloomy room backlit by green sparks and yellow tones with a strangely metallic crystal being pushed by an oddly familiar pair of orange arms. A suit she saw reports on…

“Doctor Freeman-”

The afterimage of the first flash still remained in her vision imprinted on her eyes when another flash, a glimpse of Sensei’s past appeared. A black gloved hand hurriedly ran down a steel corridor holding a red painted crowbar, in the other a sort of medical bag. His destination seemed to change with every pulse of some alien beat that filled her ears with a consistent drone that irritated them. Each flash showed different personal of some sort of facility, then a city, even a forests occupants being given these bags.

“If you can-”

The drone intensified, the pulse now causing her vision to blur and shake. It grew in sound slowly as images of a woman with prominent black hair streaked with red hugging Sensei tightly as her green eyes looked at him with a relieved admiration, seeming to do so after he was pulled out of rubble eerily similar to the particles and rock raining down around her now. Another flash showed an older man, way older than him, giving Sensei a shoulder pat, his gray hair and beard being a unique thing if he were to live in Kivotos.

“You have Destroyed-”

Her mind was bombarded with images of creatures, machines, synths and humans being shot at, skewered, blown up or by the same black gloves her and all of Kivotos’s Sensei wore. These beings all perished in horrible ways, the creatures laying with holes in them, the machines rammed into walls by some sort of device that glowed yellow at its barrel, synths that were human shaped with bright blue eyes stabbed and sliced apart by blades and junk by the aforementioned device, and humans these being some form of special operations being reduced to bloody guts from a C4 like device Sensei had acquired. A soundless scream erupted from her as the pulsing shook her head in combination to all of these images. He certainly did not come from paradise, or even a stable world.

“So much-”

The same woman from before had her torso split in the lower half, two metallic pincer points protruded from her. Blood pooled onto dirt below her, before an abomination threw her to side and laughed, its voice if one were to call it that distorted and hellish before its quadrupedal legs, jet black and reflective of a devastated look from Sensei jumped out of view. A fluid trickled down her ears as images of the older man from before, clearly close to the woman flashed in her mind. A golf ball sized hole drilled in the back of his head and the cause a ghastly white grub creature with a spindly perhaps prehensile tongue floated out of a hanger, bits of brain and membrane coating its sickly tongue. The yellow robot from before chased after the thing making some sort of helicopter shudder after using it as a jump off point.

“What is it-”

Among the fallen a debris a slow descending monitor with the face of an older yet younger man than the one with a hole in his head entered her distorted vision. She would remember his face, that wrinkly old face that taunted Sensei in his dreams.

“Exactly that you have Created?”

The pulse thankfully eased up, its monotonous drone slowing to a halt, too slowly in her opinion. The whir of machinery let loose a cacophony of victorious, perhaps, yells that echoed the dreamscape. When she wiped the drum of her ears she found blots of red on her golden sleeves, her fingers dampened.

“Indeed, what have you created? These are… most revealing.”

She murmured to no one in particular since the Freeman in question was no where in sight. The monitor fell into the colorless abyss below her, its last words traveling down the sightless walls of this hellscape.

“Can you even name one thing?”

She awaited an answer, her head tilting, waiting for any kind of response.

“I Thought Not.”

And so the voice went, the abyss swallowing the last of its taunting echoes. She sighed, ringing of the previous pulsing still haunting her mind, her vision still pulsating with a red beat every few seconds. His dreamscape showed a guilt rarely seen in Kivotos.

“You will certainly see this story out, your eyes forward and mind on task. I’m certain these are not your best moments, Sensei. Your story seems so…”

What could she say? That he survived all of these things she could tell even with an incomplete picture. But…

“-tragic. I assumed that as an outsider your story would be foreign to us. Instead you are an imperfect candidate, a soul finding itself in the wrong place at the right time.”

A tremor crawled its way up from the bottomless abyss, those words seeming to trigger a reaction from Him. The red in her vision subsided with this, confusing her before she realized…

“So you have encountered something like this, a being with a power not too unfamiliar to my own? Interesting.”

She let go of her sleeves, pulled her navy blue tie down and looked towards her spectral exit. Yellowish pink eyes took a glance down at a silhouette forming below her. The familiar form of Him pooled with darkness yet a distinct face looking up towards her. Its lips moved, answering a question.

“Hope.”

Her eyes were softly introduced to images, no barrage or pulsing required. A reactors hum filled the air giving the abyss surrounding the two of them a gentle theme. The smile growing on her lips indicated this was a welcome change.

The same older man and younger woman before hugged each other tightly at a reunion of some kind. A security guard dressed in a blue suit and tacky looking plastic helmet waved at Sensei before running into a door he opened for him. Civilians dressed in dark blue clothing clad in make shift body armor hooted and cheered as that mysterious gun Sensei had used before to bash machines into tiny pieces tore down a gigantic screen with that taunting mans face on it. The screen crashed onto the stone laden ground and with it bore smoke that the people ran through their faces filled with… hope.

She nodded.

“Imperfect, but not without potential. See to it that you witness our story wholly Sensei. It will not end in a happy, satisfying way. Yet… I suspect you already know that.”

Pale yellowing skin filled the face of the form, revealing his emerald green eyes and warm smile. Even now with the truth partially revealed to him he believed he would bring this hope with him into their world. Even though he knew how this would end, he still believed. This would require further evaluation, but…

With a smile of her own that wasn’t practiced or fake, she floated towards her exit. Yellow light illuminated the room revealing this abyss to be just that, a vast abyss with memories she had seen and more to be revealed filling it.

“See you again, Freeman Sensei.”

She disappeared into the yellow exit, leaving him alone to contemplate her words and plan for the trouble ahead.

She would closely watch him, observe him. This candidate for Trinity and Gehennas survival was perhaps more unconventional compared to the last one, but… She suspected that no matter the results they would be intriguing, quite intriguing indeed.

Chapter Text

“I hereby request that you monitor any and all movements made by Sensei, along with any affiliated parties and persons. Surround him with subtle security whenever possible in order to prevent undue interference by parties inside, outside or impartial of or to Trinity, Gehenna and Millennium respectively aside from the Remedial Knights. I understand if these actions are seen as unneeded or irrational, but understand that they are for the benefit of Kivotos as a whole along with the well being of Sensei. Ensure he receives medical attention should an incident occur, and keep in mind he seldom speaks and as a result may not voice any objections or untended needs. For the love of all that is sacred make sure he does not come onto circumstances where his “HEV” suit is required to inject him full of who knows how much morphine!”

Signed, Hinomiya Chinatsu

PS: If his suit speaks do not be alarmed it is simply diagnosing him. Be on alert for how much morphine it injects into him though.

The pen fell from her hand, rolled to the right side of her desk and caught itself on a stray stapler she hadn’t positioned back yet. With a heavy sigh she checked for any errors in this semi formal statement/request, doubled checked, then tripled checked and nodded. For now it would do. Serina knew how to contact her if anything needed to be clarified. After Sensei’s performance out on the chaos ridden streets of Kivotos surrounding the GSC main building and Schale Headquarters, she had little doubt a situation would inevitably happen.

The orange HEV suit tanked multiple pistol and small machine gun bullets, the metal hardly denting and assuredly absorbing most of the kinetic impacts if the way Sensei rushed forward towards the group of Sukebans firing upon him were concerned.

A raised fist smacked into the back of one of their heads, causing her to make an “UOOMF!” sound and crumbled onto the ground.

Another received a piece of debris, the remains of car door shredded to hell, via that strange gravity manipulator he arrived with. Received being a nice word for blasted in the midsection with the metal, knocking her and it back a couple dozen feet and knocking her out.

The last Sukeban, finally noticing that his head was entirely unprotected started aiming her pistol at his perceived weak point. What she nor the group following Sensei expected was a burst of energy, powered by the suit he wore and making a whishing sound, to propel his body downward into an accelerated crouch.

What would have made a nice quarter sized hole into the side of his head just barely missed, whizzing past his blurred form and hitting a stop sign. With another whish he stood back up, rushed forward and rammed his shoulder into her upper chest. With a loud exhale she too fell onto the ground.

“…”

What was worse, the fact he did all of this within thirty seconds or the fact that he didn’t seem fatigued at all? Throughout all the small arms fire his suit chirped, spouting out statements such as-

“Automatic medical system engaged.”

“Morphine Administered.”

She noticed whenever he looked back at the merry band of students he met at the GSC building that his eyes were… off. His pupils were constricted, his lips barely suppressing an almost manic sort of grin. His whole body shuddered while he looked around for the next round of Sukebans to pacify. At least in this state she could tell by the way he looked at all the unconscious girls that he felt bad about it. Those eyes…

Sympathy filled them, and after shaking his head he knelt down besides each girl, running a hand down the head of the girl he whacked first, an apology murmured. Then to the next girl he pulled out an ice pack from the storage module of his suit, rolled her onto her back and carefully placed the pack at the exact spot he blasted the door at. The final girl received another ice pack, an apology like the last two and a pat on her head while she groaned.

“Is there anyone that can treat them, in a more suitable setting?”

Chinatsu gasped, the gentle, firm way he spoke surprising her. Given how… rough he was this was the last thing she expected him to do, let alone say. What kind of world required violence like that? Not that Kivotos had much better standards. She nodded, too surprised to speak. He took another look at all the Sukeban he and their band had taken down.

“Let’s find a place for them.”

“That nature of his along with those skills… Even through the euphoria he worried more about them than himself.”

She grumbled to herself. Holding the Remedial Knights stamp she pressed it down onto the envelope she sealed the orders into and passed it off to one of the many mobs that worked for the Knights.

“Send this to Serina, in the GSC Headquarters. No tails.”

“O-Of course!”

The small mob hurried off to send this formal request, hopefully with no one following her in the meantime. Communication had to be this way between two academies that despised each other as a whole. Even things like coordinating medical evacuation sites would be frowned upon if they were done out in the open.

“Geez Sensei, making me worry for you… if you think that’s bad, wait until She’s activated.”

Schale Headquarters

Worried pink eyes scanned the messages contents again and again, committing each letter, word and sentence to memory and heart. If Chinatsu had this sent to her by covert mail, then foreign parties were already attempting to worm their way into this situation. She folded the message up, slipped it into her pouch and looked forward.

There he was suit and all wandering down the hallway at a brisk pace clutching a message of his own, she assumed at least. The determined glint in his eyes told her he had received something urgent. She stepped out of the shadows the cubical she was leaning on provided and greeted him with a friendly smile, her eyes sliding from the paper in his hand to his confused quickly turned stoic face.

“Going somewhere, Sensei?”

She asked sweetly, noting how his face remained stoic with hints of his previous outward confusion showing. He tilted his head then nodded.

“Would you like an escort? I know all the shortcuts in this building.”

A baldfaced lie considering her medical attire, demeanor that wasn’t one of swamped office worker and her internal knowledge that she memorized an older version of the buildings blueprints. Prints that were sure to be at least a decade outdated.

“…”

Nodding slowly to himself then to her he waved her over and held the paper out. She gleefully skirted over, a blur suddenly materializing to his side. If he noticed or cared he didn’t show it.

“What’s this about then, Hm?”

She snatched the paper from his hands and started reading it. He huffed bemusedly watching her read a report on a locked door deep within Schales complex in desperate need of being unlocked as if it were a secret cipher needing to be decoded. After she handed it back to him he tilted his head curiously, waiting for her to guide him to this door.

“Well.. um… so, it should be…”

She spun around fruitlessly trying to find a random direction to take him in, somewhere outsider elements couldn’t interfere but still complete this task without him getting into trouble. Her face grew redder the longer she stood there, surely looking like a blockhead that had no idea where they were g-

A cold metallic finger tapped her shoulder.

“AH!”

She jumped and twirled around back to him. A map was procured from his suit, how the hell, and held in front of her face. Red penned lines marked the way through a maze of corridors to the room, which was named File Storage #200093.

“Oh…”

She looked over the paper to find Sensei smugly grinning at her, having had this map and not telling her!

“… Still need that escort?”

He chortled, nodded yes and patted her head reassuringly. It gave at least you tried vibes to her, the douche. What was so important in there that he had to unlock the door anyway? A light blush overcame her face. At least he wasn’t a stick in the mud.

File Storage #200093

“… Rin didn’t describe that the door was in such an… neglected place.”

She didn’t mind environments like these, where astringent smells hung in the air, the walls molded and decayed, or even the trash littered around the hall they were descending into. What she did mind was…

“Is that water? Schale lets the lower levels get flooded like this?”

Murky water sloshed about at the bottom of the stairwell they stood on, with barrels, dampened chairs and blue tubs filled with liquid floating about. What worried both of them was the fallen industrial grade light dangling from the ceiling, its wires exposed and sparking making the water a death trap to navigate. A blue glow illuminated itself in the vast sea in the way of the door that needed unlocked. Of course, it was right in the middle of the flooded hallway.

“…”

“Well, Rin must not have expected it to have fallen to this state. We should go back and inf-”

A low hum filled the air, then a low pitched whine that came and went. That strange device that Momotalk posters had been speculating about was held in his gloved hands, and…..

“Uh.. Sensei are you seriously pulling over chairs to us? This is no time to sit.”

He tsked, shook his head and motioned with his eyes towards the chair he was pulling over. With a few more whines coming from the device and some sort of gravitational pull he could control the chair soon sat a few inches away from them. Where did that thing even come from?

With her gun slung over her shoulders she reached out towards the chair.

A grunt and his hand greeted her, pulling her back.

“What? I assume you wanted to sit down after that long walk we just had. Do you have something else in mind?”

He wagged his finger side to side and HOPPED onto the damn chair!

“Sensei what are you-”

The chair groaned under the new weight on top of it, but otherwise remained steady. Carefully he stood, spying out for another chair and instead spotted a barrel. She saw a smile on his face.

“Have you used this odd strategy before? Wouldn’t it be easier, not to mention safer to have this sections power turned off for a few minutes?”

She was ignored in favor for the barrel being pulled towards him, then him precariously jumping onto it and spinning around, lifting the chair up, spinning again and dropping it a few feet away. With a hop and a skip he proceeded with this process, lifting the barrel and chair up and away from each other every other second with a practiced skill she would have never assumed was needed. Evidently he had to do this a few times before, hopping, then moving an object, jumping onto another object, moving the previous object and repeat until he made it to whatever destination. That strange guns pincer grips retracted and opened every time he pulled and let go of an object with little other help. Speaking of…

“Sensei, I won’t be able to help you at this rate. I would really, really like it if you’d come back over here to safer non electrified ground!”

He waved at her and shook his head, making it known that her services wouldn’t be needed.

“Yeah right til’ a millimeter of you touches that gross water and gets a lightening bolt from Zeus-”

She grumbled worriedly, watching him pull down an old vent grate from the ceiling, discarding it by shooting, yes shooting it off deeper into the flooded hallway and climbing up into it. What kind of gun was that? Maybe the Engineering Team from Millennium made it for him, it fitted the bill.

Muffled steps in the ceiling interrupted her thoughts about that. She looked up mouth agape.

“You can’t be…?”

The ceiling hemmed and hawed as his weight pressed against the rickety ventilation, making a path to beyond the locked door where she couldn’t see any more steps. Silence, silence.

“..Is there a grate above that rooms ceiling?”

Her question was answered by the screeching of metal collapsing down inside the room, a loud yelp from Sensei along with some unnervingly loud electric crackles sounding out from inside the room.

“Sensei?! You ok? That didn’t sound too good…”

More silence answered her, the gentle waves of flood water being the only sound present in that accursed hallway.

“… Shit, I should’ve stopped him the moment he started dragging that barrel over with that stupid looking gun.”

“Warning! Electrical damage detected.”

A clinical sounding voice, a woman’s, echoed from the room. The door flung open, as much as a door in flooded water can and out rolled Sensei on a wheeled filing cabinet. Hopefully it was wheeled, she didn’t need him to electrocute himself even more.

“Wha… Huh? Sensei was that your..?”

The filing cabinet slowly wheeled over to the stairs edge, his face frazzled, suit blackened by electrical currents and his gloved hands clutching some dusty papers which were miraculously dry. After a few more strokes with… a mop, wrapped in rubber for some reason he stumbled off and collapsed into a heap on the stairs. She rushed down to swoop him up, got waved away by wet gloved hands.

“Oh, right… um.. how are we going to get you to the medical ward then?”

He looked at her like she was insane, certifiably insane before getting up, shivering while doing so and with quite a pained expression on his face eyes screwed shut and all, started limping up the stairs. No wonder Chinatsu wanted her to follow him around. If outside forces didn’t get him into trouble then he would!

“To the… Engineering Department afterwards.”

He managed to get out before closing up again no matter how much she asked him what he meant.

Nanagami Rin’s Office, Schale Headquarters

“Mhm, and you decided to, instead of coming back and requesting that the power be turned off in that section of the building, an incredibly easy and safe thing to do…”

Rin glowered, eyes shadowed in worried anger her hands tightly clasped together supported by her elbows on her desk, squeezing fingers with each word.

“-you decided to hop around on potentially dangerous debris in the middle of a flooded hallway, an electrified one at that…-”

She leaned forward.

“-for a bunch of paperwork that would let delinquents that just mere days ago were wanting to destroy Kivotos, GSC, Schale and who knows what else, have shelter here?”

Sensei looked at her with a disquieted expression, perhaps at how she held students, well former students in such a low regard. With a sigh he nodded, agreeing to her rather negative assessment of his actions. Serina stood to the side awkwardly, swaying along to an unknown beat and quite happy she was being ignored.

With a sigh of hers that barely concealed a hefty amount of irritation, Rin signed the paperwork begrudgingly. Her pen scrawled her name out on all the necessary spots, dropped down and moved to an assortments of pens that beheld unique damages from being crushed between her fingers. Sensei had witnessed this happening in the first couple of days after the riots, signing placating statements and assurances that were bullshit from various academies that weren’t even touched by it.

“You, are lucky that your train of thought makes logical sense. In order to prevent riots like this from happening again should any chain of command break down, ensuring that those most likely to start rabbling about have little reason to do so makes things So. Much. Easier.”

With a closed eye look that told the two of them to Get The Hell Out Before I Blow A Gasket, Serina and Sensei hastily excused themselves from Rin’s office. Behind them they heard her angrily wonder why Sensei put himself in that kind of danger and why Serina hadn’t stopped him.

“… So, Chinatsu wasn’t exaggerating when she said you were implementing a plan to help out the rioters.”

He nodded running a hand down his hair and coughing when a whiff of smoke came off it. She giggled at the sight.

“You think ahead like that often?”

He shrugged and pointed towards the exit.

“To the Engineering Department I presume?”

He almost asked how she knew that before remembering that he muttered something about that while limping all the way to the medical ward, then to Rin’s office.

“Do you plan on helping students from other academies as well? You have your hands full as is at the moment it seems.”

He nodded in agreement, lips tightly closed as he remembered a particularly worrying letter he received from an academy called Abydos High School. Maybe this tail would follow him there too. That wouldn’t so bad. She might be able to help him drive away the gangs encroaching on Abydos Territory and deliver supplies to them.

How nice that would be…

Chapter Text

Kivotos Streets, Three Miles From Schale Headquarters

The final set of tasks before him were clear as set by Rin. Help in clearing the rubble and waste left behind by the riots and the disposal of any hazardous materials before traveling to Abydos High School. A task destined to last a few days at least and weeks at most. The giant block of concrete floating because of some odd tractor beam emitting from Sensei’s so called Gravity Gun ensured the process would be far less of a Sisyphean task than originally thought.

“Move it over there carefully-”

Sensei heaved the concrete block over to a garbage truck appropriated for disposal use and pulled a trigger on the gun, letting the rubble fall inside the compactor with a loud bang causing some dust to proliferate about in the air. Without hesitation he climbed off the trucks side and grabbed another piece of rubble, a foot or two smaller than the previous block and repeated the process. He was joined by some Valkyrie mobs who lifted rubble up without a miraculous gravity defying gun with mixed results at best. Seeing him move so fast did inspire them to move quicker though, with more effort on their part moving all this waste.

“Wish we had something like that fancy energy field manipulator..”

The same mob that was directing Sensei mumbled under her breath, watching in awe as more and more debris was piled up into the garbage truck before eventually putting a hand out to stop him. He nodded and smacked the side of the truck signaling for it to move along. Another truck of the same garbage disposal corporation that the Valkyries had temporarily commandeered pulled into the same spot. This cycle repeated itself over and over again throughout the day.

She watched him in the meantime from a building over on the rooftop shielding herself from the boiling sun and writing notes on his behavior. A particular instance where he seemed to misjudge a the distance of a drop down from a large pile of glass, concrete, brick and steel caught her attention.

While to the eye of someone who hadn’t observed him in his daily work might assume he made an error in how high the jump was, she knew better and so did he. Watching him navigate those electrified waters so carefully and thoughtfully, with every move and step deliberately done in order to reach that ceiling grate without getting the shit shocked out of him convinced her that he was familiar with these types of situations. Maybe he considered them puzzles in a way, environmental ones that he had completed over however much time he’s been dependent on that suit. The unfortunate shock he got was from a genuine error.

“No one enters water like that without thinking it out first, unless they have a death wish or…”

She replayed the moment his ankle twisted upon hitting the ground after that jump. A risky one that he clearly would have considered whenever he was up there tossing, more like shooting, waste into the truck beds. The moment he looked down after finishing, she could have sworn she saw his eyes dilate in excitement, like an opportunity opened up before him. Right after he jumped, his left leg moved to the side a tiiiiny bit, resulting in his leg folding down hard and twisting his ankle.

The pain he felt was real, but the surprised look he had was a bit… much. A mix of delirium along with shock made a nice cocktail with the pleased look he had when his suit engaged its automatic life support, surely flooding his veins with copious amounts of morphine. Whatever internal functions the suit held made it so he could stand right up afterwards, leaving him with a high that lasted for a couple more hours chucking, hoisting and placing junk into disposal units. Units that replaced the trucks in that district.

“Hm.. so you genuinely help others while finding any excuse to keep that suit on.”

She remembered the conversation she had with him the day prior about what he did before he was Sensei. That look on his face, the way his eyes reached her before moving away. Scared to talk about whatever issues, likely mental and emotional, that he had as a result from whatever happened.

Her fist clenched, the plastic in the pen she was using to write down her observational notes bending slightly from the pressure.

“I will find out what happened to you Sensei. For the good of yourself and all of us…”

Serina swore to herself and watched as he pumped his fist in the air at all the Valkyrie mobs who disposed many blocks of debris all in one day. A task that would normally takes days to complete, to sift through and do. With the help and likely inspiration from Sensei being so dedicated to the task this feat was done in just one long grueling day.

That happiness he expressed, born not from euphoria of drugs circulating in his body but from inspiring all of his students was a happiness she hoped she would see more of in the coming future. Future work was going to be…

Extensive

Abydos Region, Somewhere Along The Outskirts

Her bike creaked with every pedal she made, every foot traveled and every street she passed getting closer and closer to the edge of Abydos’s jurisdiction. She gained speed as well, leaving behind winding dust trails that dissipated slowly only seen in the moons low light. Her mission was simple:

Get Abydos out of an incredibly large debt dumped onto them from their previous student leadership, the student council specifically.

“Nn..”

A quiet irritated grunt came from her thinking about them, whoever they were. She didn’t even know if they were the ones to actually put this debt onto the remaining students of this school. If she had to guess she would blame them though. She nor any of her friends had met these people, not even their oldest member.

“Nn..?”

Whatever train of thought she had abruptly stopped after seeing sand trails ahead of her. No one else had any reason to bike out here except her, and the civilians she and the Foreclosure Task Force knew had even littler reason to drive around the sand dunes surrounding them.

Follow them. For all she knew they were more Helmet Gang Members sneaking into Foreclosure territory and possibly preparing for a night time ambush on the school. That never happened before but there was no reason this couldn’t be the first time. Scoping that bank out could wait.

She turned the handlebars leftward towards the trails left behind, barely visible in the shadowy dark claiming the land. The mission could wait. There would be plenty of time to scope out the bank tomorrow where there would be less suspicion of her whereabouts.

She glared forward, her gray wolf ears pressing against her head as she tripled her speed. Her bikes wheels worked overtime to propel her to the target moving inward on the territory. If it was an enemy, then maybe she could find out who was supplying them…

Nanagami Rin’s Office, Schale Headquarters

He sat down on chair generously provided by the Vice President of the General Student Council quickly, eager to await Rin’s evaluation of his work. She stared at him for a few seconds, her eyes piercing through his neutral gaze looking for any hints of dishonesty. Her analysis provided her with a few things:

He was much skinnier than she remembered, leaving her to first think that he was lying about how much debris he personally disposed of because of how fatigued he looked.

Second that he also looked a bit sickly leaving her worried for his health a feeling that she tried to hide by making her gaze sharper.

Third and finally that the so called Gravity Gun that the Valkyrie Police witnessed him using to move this massive amount of crap was resting on his lap the barrel turned as far away from her office’s furniture as much it could be.

Thus he did not lie in his report.

“Well, Sensei… I would like to first commend you for all the hard work you did today. Calling it hard work would be a disservice though.”

She leaned forward, so did he, with a tired yet satisfied look. A gigantic stack of signed paperwork rested on her left side, all signed by yours truly sitting in front of her.

“What you did today was… truly inspiring. That one man could clean the streets up that much even with the help of everyone today is mind blowing. You’ve made an image of yourself that goes beyond Sensei today…”

She mumbled the last part, embarrassed because this was the most amount of praise she had given someone in quite a while.

“You proved you were more than just a pencil pusher today. I’m impressed you ventured out of the office after that chaotic first day you had. I commend you for it.”

A bit of a smile cracked her ultra serious face. This was hidden by a more pensive look.

“Look.. I want you to rest, actually rest not take a micro nap like you usually do.”

He raised a hand in protest and was swiftly shut down by a “benevolent” smile on her face that told him Take This Opportunity To Rest Or SO HELP ME that was thoroughly convincing. He nodded and muttered,

“Bad habit I picked up while on the road during my… previous employment.”

She raised a brow, and received no further explanation.

“.. In any case I want you to sleep a full eight to ten hours, leave that suit and eat breakfast for once as well. Since you want to help Abydos so much you need to be prepared for it, which requires you to feel well enough to do so. Understood?”

He shook his head yes and curiously looked at her, wondering how she knew that he skipped breakfast in order to start his workday faster.

“Good. March your ass to bed Sensei, and rest well. I want those bags under your eyes to be a shade lighter at the very least next time I see you, alright?”

He shook his head yes again, rolled his eyes at the mention of his tired appearance and lazily saluted her. After getting off the chair and pushing it back in, he promptly left her office. She let her head bang against the desk.

“Geeeez, after you come back we’re going to have a long talk about those habits you picked up.”

She laid her head on the desk for a few minutes, stewing about all the implications his admittance said. His previous employment must have been an active job, more active than this one if his appearance was factored in. Her elvish ears drooped, touching the desk too.

A quiet knock brought her out of those dreary thoughts. She leaned back up back straight against her office chair. She scowled at the door.

“Who is it? I only accept appointments at this hour.”

“So Sensei had one? I doubt that.”

She recognized that voice. It was that tail sent to follow Sensei around for some reason or another. Well, no reason to deny her.

“Come in then and make your point quickly.”

Serina walked in holding a boatload of notes and journals full to the brim with notes on Sensei’s behavior, habits, known likes, dislikes, and more. She pulled up the chair he was in, sat down and laid all of these writings out onto Rin’s desk and being careful in not disturbing any of the paperwork finished and unfinished strewn out on it. Rin looked at her waiting gaze, then at the journals, then back at her unimpressed.

“This is..?”

“Observations I’ve made of him. I decided that along with my… associate that you should have a chance to study these too. Everything you can think of is here.”

Rin took a passing glance down, eyes scanning some passages describing what he ate all day, mostly junk food he scrounged off others after doing something for them, then at another passage describing his sleeping habits that she didn’t want to know how she acquired. After a minute or so of reading she looked up again, ears perked up slightly.

“He didn’t write any reports on these interactions. I would have praised him more accurately..”

She mumbled reading a whole mini report from Serina detailing his work cleaning some student dorms and giving left over snacks he got to some of the destitute students. No wonder the reports he got from students working with him noted that he cared for them too. She had given him an undervalued evaluation and assumed those students were hyping him up in the way younger ones did.

“It’s not all positive though, in fact I noticed something worrying.. Dangerously worrying.”

Serina spoke in a low whisper pulling out papers buried underneath all the praise he received, and Rin held her breath. Please don’t let it be something weird she actually enjoyed reading all the work he did, shit. She lulled over these new pages, her eyes growing from content, confused, irritatted to disturbed.

“So he’s…”

Rin prayed she read that report wrong but:

“Addicted, yes. Dependent as well. I don’t think he wanted to be but…”

Serina looked away. She seemed reluctant to let this information she was about to leak air out.

“You already told me this much, is it that much worse?”

Serina nodded, and put her hands on the desk, pulling herself close to Rin. Only a few inches separated their faces.

“I believe his previous employment may not have been, um..-”

“Voluntary.”

Abydos Region, A Few Miles From Main Annex Building

The tracks left behind by the vehicle she was tracking seemed to glimmer in the pale moonlight shadowing the region. That was odd. Whatever material it was made of was from outside obviously. She sped past alongside the trails, her eyes glowing a faint cyan blue focusing on the remains of them. They were older now, less visible to the naked eye than the ones she found an hour ago.

“Nn!”

Up ahead a mile or two the shadow of a vehicle entered her vision. Shrouded in darkness even her eyes found it hard to detail it, but once she was close she could put down a description. Figures surrounded it too, hazy and too wobbly to pinpoint any specific details.

She slowed her pedaling, the cricking of her bike lessening to a stop when she squeezed the brake. She and it skidded to a halt that she stepped out of, her feet hitting the sand at a light jog then slowing down and laying it down onto the sand behind a dune.

Now in a prone position she brought out her drones control pad and flicked the on switch and puppeteered the drone to take flight off the back of her bike. It was colored similarly to her uniform and eyes with black, white and blue accents that blended in with the dark blue hue the moon brought onto the deserts surface.

She controlled the drone to fly out towards the vehicle, a small monitor she carried in her blazer out and showing her footage captured by its front facing camera right under the missile ports. The video she got when she zoomed in after having it hover a couple hundred feet from the vehicle and its occupants position was strange.

These were Helmet Gang members dressed in radically different uniforms than their usual street attire. Their helmets were dark gray the visors glowing an ominous white that lit the sand around them. Their midsections were more armored too, with padding present on their arms and legs as well colored a bluish gray only seen whenever one of them looked at one another and painted their body in luminous white. If anything their helmets looked more like gas masks with an air port where their mouths would be seen. They never bothered with that level of armor before so…

“What changed?”

She watched the footage for a few more minutes, noting how stiff these new gang members movements were and their armaments which seemed to be some kind of advanced rifle from a science fiction movie than from a dingy gang. That body armor unnerved her. Much thicker than she had seen them wear before. The little supplies the Foreclosure Task Force had at home wouldn’t be able to easily scare them away she knew.

That vehicle that they came in was no better. It almost blended in with the landscape above the sand it was sitting on it was so black. Huge wheels rested on the sand below the treads covered in it making it look yellowish black. The front sharply stuck out with two sides protruding out like a hammerhead sharks face the metal forged to withstand great firepower. Its middle was more armored with steel plates bolted on with a surely bulletproofed glass look out protruding from the top. It was an APC of some kind, though the back looked like it only held four or so occupants, which were how many were out milling around this carrier.

“Concerning… who’s supplying you with this?”

She couldn’t see any identifying logos or slogans on any of their uniforms or on the APC. That would have to wait for another night. She picked her bike back up and hopped on now speeding off back to the annex. The rest had to know about this. This was a disturbing development indeed. Whatever attack this group of Helmet Gang Members had planned was going to hit much harder than any before.

“That letter better bring in something, anything to support us against that.”

They looked more militaristic than before. Whoever their benefactors were they had bumped their budget up drastically. She looked back at her part missile part reconnaissance drone strapped to her bike. Would that be enough? The vehicle seemed like it could withstand quite a few hits from rockets or missiles. She grunted and pedaled faster than she had before, reaching speeds she would normally reserve for competitions. They absolutely had to know now because things were rapidly changing in this little section of desert they called home.

Chapter Text

She watched over him attentively, noting every movement and sound he made no matter how little or small. Her duty was to help and care for him in anyway her processors could. No limit could stop her from enacting her handy work in the name of helping Schales advisor.

That’s what she wanted to say, to do. Nothing would be greater than easing any tribulations in his way with a smile on her face and her halo lit up bright. Unfortunately reality ensured this would be a great deal of trouble.

She blinked from her perch at the main window of her OS’s environment and put herself next to another window, a window to the material world separate from the digital code she lived and breathed in, artificially of course. No way she would be able to manifest herself into that world, only shield him.

“Sensei…”

Those images that burrowed into her mind deep after making that promise with him were horrifying. A world, no, worlds where violence always ended in the end. Death was a certainty from his realm and the realm from which beings of unknown power or purpose came from.

“Sensei… How do you bear it?”

He looked down at her tiny form, his lab coat glowing an ethereal white and his eyes an emerald hue that glittered in the starry night her OS had made their environment after the promise. His face was one of concern, an endless tiredness that deeply bit into his soul. Hers a worry that would transcend matter and time itself, always following no matter the obstacle.

“Surely you need rest.. before you continue. All this work, all those students, all those that seek to exploit our wondrous world…”

She trailed off, knowing that he understood the her implication. Would it be so much to ask for him to take some time before moving onto the next monumental task? Managing the operation, the project that was Kivotos was no small effort but compared to the tasks forced upon him before, she wondered if he could take it.

“…”

Only the blowing of artificial wind and shooting stars above with their quiet twinkles filled the air. Her halo turned a shade darker, a liquid dripped from it. Her vision blurred with tears at his silence. Perhaps he couldn’t take it. The pressure though lesser than his previous journey might be the breaking point. A fission could have broken the bond between sanity and insanity during his arrival to Kivotos.

She ran to him and clung onto him, unsuccessfully compressing him into a form she could easily protect with all her might, instead hugging him now weeping at the despair he and his world bore.

“Is… that what being an adult is? Living in a cruel and h-hopeless world, Freeman Sensei?”

The comparison in her own eyes wasn’t too far off. Adulthood was scary and the world he came from seemed to affirm her fears of what being on your own was like. Her halo continued its shade darkening. Maybe there was nothing they could do to stop this world from being treated the same way.

From what she had gathered the same treatment might come to this world and soon, dooming them all to a life of further servitude, the paradise gone with the material reality of the worlds true way looming.

“Being an adult is hard, Arona.”

She pulled her head away from the glow of his lab coat and realized he had hugged back.

“Caring for others while ensuring you can care for yourself… even before They came it was a struggle.”

She listened with her halo almost pitch black in color, or rather becoming a colorless void.

“No matter what… reality is indeed a hard thing to live in. You and your world aren’t free of this struggle. Even here there are students that barely scrape by, exploited by forces natural to this world.”

She closed her eyes, tears rolling down her face at the reality she hadn’t thought of while in that stasis state, waiting for Sensei to come. He was not who she was expecting.

“Then… why bother with struggling along in life?”

He sighed and wiped her tears, careful not to scrape her skin with the rough texture of his gloves. He spoke softly, his voice quiet enough that only she could hear his message, unheard by outsiders eavesdropping in.

“Because it is a worthy struggle no matter how dire or prosperous. To own up to ones mistakes and take responsibility for your actions, to correct what has been wronged…”

Her memory of what he encountered before wormed its way out of the recesses of her mind, forcing her to see the alien forms that had taken over his realm. It was his fault, in a way. How he spoke made her feel… remorseful. That wasn’t a mistake of his own, but of the administrator who ran the facility.

“I will be here to guide every one of you. To listen and make sure you are prepared for the world of adulthood. For those who have been pushed into that sphere already, I hope to ease the their burdens while they go about their obligations. This I promise Arona.

The grief of him losing his world and the resolve he had for her own both material and fanciful was abundant she could see. Her halo brightened little by little as he spoke, comforting her while also reminding her that he too had some work to be done with his own attitudes.

“For me… it is too late.”

She shook her head, not allowing such a thought to weigh on her mind like it did his. She would make sure he knew that he was worth struggling for as well.

She watched him from her window to the real world, a looking glass of sorts one could say.

“You finally got the rest you deserved, and here’s to more days of it..”

She whispered to herself having watched him for every second, minute and hour of the eight he slept through. Soon he would need to be awoken and taken to a desert where many secrets lay and where many sought to venture.

The time to begin preparation was now.

Nanagami Rin’s Office, Schale Headquarters

She dreaded the next visitors to her office, for they sought out Sensei and not for any light purpose. Her ears twitched nervously as the anticipation of this meeting bore onto her. Those that would come were here to meet with him to discuss the matter of how he came to his position.

It was arguably easy to say that he was a foreigner here to take from Kivotos a great deal of things that she knew little about beyond what lay in the GSC’s knowledge base. What she did know was that he wouldn’t do such things.

“The Prefect Team is a little overzealous about these things.”

She reminded herself. Of course an outsider coming onto this amount of power would be worrying to those who didn’t know him. Only she, Serina and her associate knew anything of what he did before arriving here. She propped her face up with her hands and buried herself within her palms.

“Sensei… what kind of mess were you in? You’re about to enter a whole new one too…”

She took a look down at the pages she was left to care for by Serina. The Prefect Team would want to know all this, yes indeed they would. They would distort what was inside these pages and-

That thought was derailed when her office door flung open with a bang, the wall the knob crashed into having a knob shaped dent a good two inches inside its insulation. Inside poured two mob assistants and her secretary Ayumu onto the ground.

“W-What the-”

Rin barely got to sputter out before the assistants and Ayumu started rambling manically.

“They’re h-here they’re here and pushing through all the guards and taking paperwork and detaining some of the delinquents we’re caring for a-a-”

Rin swooped down and picked up all three, lifting them up off the ground and planting them back on their feet. With a swift clap next to their faces she brought them out of their manic stupor, leaving them looking quite wretched.

“So… they’re bullying their way in are they? Why didn’t you tell me over the phone?”

She fought to keep a calm demeanor, as calm as her reputation for being a grouchy boss would allow her while letting the three hapless souls regain a semblance of calm. After a moment the two assistants excused themselves, yelping about wanting to run before the demons snatched them up. Rin sighed an incredibly tired one and turned to Ayumu, who’s crystal shined dimly in the office light. Looks like she regained her calm after all thank everything.

“Well, ahem… they are coming for Sensei overall and deemed anything or anyone related to him should be put into custody, e-except for the workers, unless they’re being cared for here if they were from any gangs. A precaution they called it..”

She trembled at the thought of Sensei being dragged away from them while voicelessly crying out for anyone to help him out of a fate surely worse than death. Rin rolled her eyes as that thought was actually voiced out loud.

“Alright alright that sounds like them, though they’re usually slower to wake than this. His presence must have jump started them then.”

Ayumu looked at her wondering why she was so calm about… this. Did Sensei do something wrong to trigger them? Surely they didn’t just have the right to barge in. The snapping of fingers brought her out of her active imagination.

“Hey, hey why didn’t you call me instead of running in here like a crazed maniac?”

She pushed some strands of her blonde hair out of the way to look at Rin with an uncharacteristically serious face. It was almost a pout like whenever she was denied a break after doing a few minutes of work.

“They.. took my phone.”

Rin rolled her eyes and threw her hands up then sat back down in her chair. Of course they did thinking it would have information on him presumably. The worst they would find were selfies Ayumu had taken with Sensei, her face bright and cheery compared to his stoic gloominess. She pulled the chair forward so she could rest her elbows on the desk and look out the office door.

“So any minute now?”

Ayumu nodded while whimpering. Rin waved a hand to the door then wrapped her hands together and set them on the desk, preparing herself for what was to come. Ayumu ran out hurriedly and let out a yelp of her own upon seeing something, or rather someone outside the door. She scampered out of view and was replaced by the visage of the Prefect Teams Administrative Officer:

Amau Ako.

Millennium Science School, Engineering Department

“Here’s the weapons you requested Sensei.”

She walked him over to a table covered in finished and work in progress inventions with the odd bit of raw material lying in between a Bluetooth toothbrush, invisible clothing and other oddities. She cleared a space for them to see the weapons by moving a crate labeled Autonomous Parts and revealed said weapons. Serina looked at them curiously with a furrowed brow, having not remembered requesting anything of the sort while watching him get ready in the morning. Within the Shittem Chest Arona let out a sigh of relief knowing that the Engineering Club delivered on the early morning weapon shipment order.

Sensei inspected the weapons thoroughly. With a gloved hand he grabbed the SPAS-12 Combat Shotgun by its pump, tossed it up, grabbed it by the handle and pumped an imaginary shell into the chamber from the magazine tube. He held it sideways, observing the safeties and barrel, nodded and picked up a fist full of shells that he started loading in with a quiet shlunk shlunk shlunk noise that seemed to please him for some reason. After he shot the first pump of course.

Utaha looked in fascination at the familiarity he had with it and noted it down in her internal Random Shit Sensei Knows About Or Can Do filing cabinet in her brain. Would the same be said for the Magnum though? She subtly fiddled with her wrench, brought a cloth from under it and tweaked a tiny part of the back of the HEV suit that seemed a bit dirty by wiping it. He didn’t notice, at least she thought he hadn’t. He appreciated the care.

“Sensei when did..?”

Serina stared in horror at the fact that he was arming himself at all. All they were doing was delivering supplies and scaring off a gang, not going into a war zone. There was no need for him to be armed, unless someone knew what was to come, and thought it was much worse than it appeared.

“This morning I got a request and delivered. I hope they’re up to par.”

Sensei picked up the Magnum off the table like any student would by the frame, making sure his finger never went over the trigger and flipped the cylinder open. He dutifully loaded six .357 bullets in, flipped the cylinder back into place and spun it with a clrriinkkk. That appreciative smile on his face told Utaha that she had done a fine job.

“Hm, Sensei you seem to be enjoying this an awful lot.”

Serina grumbled watching him fiddle with these guns.

He shrugged and holstered the Magnum and Combat Shotgun onto his hip and back then stored the spare cartridges and shells into a pocket that opened up in his suit. Serina blinked then blinked again and stared at the sudden opening.

“Since, I, what?”

A firm pat along her shoulder brought her attention to violet eyes that stared into her pink ones. She scooted away at little. How did she get that close without…

“Don’t question it. We’ve-”

Utaha waved a hand over at Kotori and Hibiki who were working on some sort of abnormally large gun. More like something you would see on a space ship not as something the average student could wield let along fire. Wait were they building one? Where was the budget for that?

“-been experimenting with it whenever he exits it, like last night. That suit has some extraordinarily odd capabilities for what he claims is simply a suit that protects or minimizes harm from hazardous environments. For instance it’s about to..”

She waited a minute, Serina looking at her a bit uncomfortable with how much admiration she heard for it out before the suit chirped.

“Weapons and Ammunition Acquired.”

Serina flinched at that cold clinical tone. Despite how off putting it was she couldn’t help but feel enraptured by its calculated speech. Another reason he refused to leave the suit often. Hearing that everyday had to feel good. A paradox. Utaha grinned at how predictable the suit was becoming for her. With some more study and analysis the Engineering Club might be able to replicate it and win the Millennium Prize, if her colleagues agreed. She hadn’t spoken to them about that yet.

“It has some interesting responses to the environments he enters. If he’s been wearing it for as long as he claims then he’s wadded through a lot of disgusting materials.”

Serina nodded along and gagged silently. She would go anywhere to save a patient in need, but Sensei? She saw no reason for him to do so. That flooded hallway and the yelp he made when he got shocked influenced her dreams for the worse last night.

“It also responds to armor hits, critical function loss and even helpfully informs you what battery level it’s at. What a lovely suit..”

Utaha might be examining that suit with the wrong mindset if that was her conclusion. She hadn’t brought up the medical functions yet. Probably because Sensei was missing from it when they were damaging it for experimental purposes. Serina backed away from her now that she was too distracted watching him sneak up behind Hibiki and tap random buttons on the device she was working on. She yipped watching him run off chuckling while her device spun around in circles beeping frantically at it being touched by unauthorized hands.

“Well thanks for the crash-course but we gotta leave now, Schale business.”

Utaha nodded in acceptance, the implication that she was allowing them to leave making Serina glare. She covered that look up with a cheery smile when Utaha turned to her.

“Make sure he comes back in one piece..”

Serina scoffed.

“What so you can drool all over that suit?”

Utaha rolled her eyes with an annoyed grimace and pointed at Sensei who was listening intently to Kotori lecture about trapezoids and cans. Even with the boring subject his eyes never looked away. Must be internalizing it for all the good it would do.

“He’s the closest thing to another club member we’ve had in a long, looong time. He actually understands what we’re doing and talking about, most of the time. I think.”

“He doesn’t talk much with you bunch either?”

Utaha nodded looking at him interact with her fellow members, a slight smile on her face.

“He doesn’t need to. He’ll come out of his shell eventually, we all did after all.”

Whatever fantasies she had would have to wait. With a wave she got Sensei’s attention away from a lecture about how a Geiger counter works and all the uses one could have for them to her. Sensei apologized to Kotori by giving her a head pat and ruffling her hair causing her to sputter and protest. He left her to say goodbye to Hibiki with a wave then walked over to her and Utaha.

“Ah well, see you soon Sensei. Don’t rough it up too much!”

Utaha’s half plea half goodbye caused him to snort and salute in response while walking backwards out of the building. None of them noticed a figure stalking them from behind a vehicle the Engineering Department was repairing, nor did they see it talk into its wrist.

“Target found. Preceding with the shadowing.”

Nanamagi Rin’s Office, Schale Headquarters

Along with Ako some Prefect mobs slunk in too. Next came Shiromi Iori the assault field captain for them, marching in like she owned the place. She did in a way, her and all the mobs having their fingers a bit too close to their triggers for Rin’s comfort. Bright red eyes examined her for any wrong doing actual or perceived, any excuse at all to attack. Whatever crusade they were on was urgent if they showed up this quickly to what should be a friendly meeting on mutual terms.

Rin tried hiding the gulp she made by coughing into her sleeve when Ako started speaking.

“Earlier than you expected, hm? Nothing to hide either I guess.”

God what a smug way to speak, that condescending tone and accusatory look made her ears flutter in frustration. Why did they have to show up now, when he was on his way to the train station nearby?

Rin couldn’t even get a word in before the mobs started scouring the office for something, maybe information on Sensei? She pretended like she was shifting in her seat, her arms lowering down to slip the incriminating pages, incriminating to them at least, into a lower pocket on her uniform then let her hands rest back on her desk, like nothing was wrong. Everything was wrong. Whatever meeting was to be had before was gone now. That information could do more damage at this point.

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about where Sensei is heading to, would you?”

Her tone oozed with contempt at the mention of him, her eyes narrowing into pinpricks directed at Rin.

“Do I have any reason to tell you? Schale business is confidential, though I’m sure you already know that.”

Ako nodded a little, a signal for Iori to hop onto the desk and point her gun at Rin’s face the barrel almost hitting her nose as she wheeled her chair back. Flustered she shot an angry look towards Ako who merely chuckled at the sight.

“Excuse m-me?! What’s the meaning of this hostility?”

Ako took a look down at a device, a small communicator with holographic text that popped up into view showing her who knows what data. Iori looked down at her the grip on her gun firm as she awaited further orders from her Administrator.

“When it comes to the subject of The Eden Treaty-”

The mobs twitched in disgust at the mention of it. Iori made no visible reaction and Ako looked a tad fanatical upon bringing it up. What kind of situation with Sensei involved the Treaty of all things? Rin’s eyes almost popped out of her face in utter confusion that such a thing brought communication down to this level.

“-any potential problems circling around it and its signing are to be investigated without prejudice as ordered by the Head Prefect.”

The mobs tore through her office with haste. Files that were stored in specific places for use later were strewn or worse torn apart in their search. Pens and pencils were pushed aside along with cabinets being upturned and pilfered through as well. Rin’s left eye twitched, a frown one meaning You Better Explain How Destruction Of Schale Property Justifies Your Means OR ELSE spreading on her lips. Not to mention,

“How does detaining students under Schales safeguard pertain to the Treaty?”

The tip of an Karabiner 98k pressed against her forehead, the bolt sliding a bullet into its chamber by a hand clad in a black glove striped red on the side of its owners palm. Said owner aimed down the sight scowling, her eyes radiating an almost blood red hue at Rin’s azure ones. The trigger was pulled millimeter by millimeter close to shooting a shot.

“Ah, Iori calm yourself wouldn’t you? It’s not against any Schale or Gehennan rules to ask questions. Lower the gun, please.”

That tone struck again, with palpable condescension shifting from Rin to Iori’s form. The sharpness of that statement caused Iori to stutter an apology before lowering her gun and hopping off the desk. She hadn’t even been ordered to hop off but did. Must be trained well under the iron fist of the Administrator and Head Prefect. Rin let out a breath long held after she uttered out her question about the delinquents.

“To answer your questions, Sensei’s potential for destructive activities outside of his permitted actions on the day of his arrival could endanger The Eden Treaty. We wouldn’t want him to accidentally or purposefully cause any mishaps on the days it’s signed-”

Ako stepped aside from Iori’s slumped form not even giving her a thought while the mobs turned to Rin and focused their investigative gazes towards her. They stepped towards her hands outstretched ready to grab her for inspection. Ako strutted in front of Rin’s desk and smacked a hand down on the plastic top, causing her to wince and mask the pain with a look of apprehensive intent.

“-would we? Especially if he used students, more often than not former students turned criminals as soldiers for a takeover or disruption of the treaty.”

Rin recoiled at the thought in an instant, repulsed at these accusations coming from nowhere. Where was this coming from? What source was telling them all of these things? She suspected they pulled all this out of their asses if they were here without the demon with a crown.

“And what right do you have? This isn’t your jurisdiction, and I see no sign of the Head Prefect anywhere. Is this even authorized? This seems rather ra-”

“DO NOT SPEAK OF HEAD PREFECT HINA SO LIGHTLY YOU SCUM.”

Blue eyes drilled into azure ones with a contempt rarely seen in the most hateful of Kivoto’s denizens. Ako shuddered in hatred at Rin, heaving breaths coming from her form. But, with a huff Ako lifted her hand off the table and twirled around waving a few signals to the rest of the Prefect members. Iori woke from her ashamed state and marched out of the room while the mobs about to yoink the contents of Rin’s pockets saluted and ran out of the room. Rin flinched at the sudden turn of events and heard Ako’s last message.

“We already know where he’s headed. Our intelligence is impeccable in finding such things out. We just wanted to find more evidence, but found none. Consider yourself lucky Rin.”

As she headed out the door she turned back with a sneer.

“You won’t be so lucky next time.”

Millennium Science School, Engineering Department

She brushed her violet hair excitedly at the thought of seeing Sensei and his suit again. She wanted to examine it again and record how it fared under whatever combat was sure to come his and her way down in Abydos. There was one thing she had forgot to do though.

“Can’t forget about such things in front of Sensei, no incompetence when he’s around..”

She muttered to herself looking for the helmet she borrowed from the suit, well, stole when he wasn’t looking or attending to it. It was quite the steal indeed with much data on Sensei’s eyes that she wrote down for later analysis. She forgot to give it back though…

Wait…

“I didn’t leave these like this.”

She flatly stated seeing the amount of scrap metal and machinery moved to random spots she didn’t want them to be.

“Odd.. behind that truck we’re going to fix too.”

District of Utnapishtim, Train Station #4

“Did you forget the helmet again? Come on Sensei…”

She groaned exasperatedly while he shrugged an apology. With a throw of her arms she looked away from his calm face and towards the crowds of the D.U district. The usual bunch were here. Office workers, construction workers, students and other denizens went about their way to their workplaces, homes and hangout spots. Crossing her arms she looked down the tracks to see hints of their train coming the lights on the sides of the station blaring in alarm at the incoming ride.

“You have to be more careful, and that includes wearing all of your protective gear. What will you do if some kinda nerve gas fills the air or some kind of incapacitating agent does the same?”

She got a grunt in response back making her roll her eyes. She was starting to get a hang of all his noises and body signals whenever he didn’t speak. This grunt meant that he got it already and would put it on in front of her to assure he actually used it. She nodded and saw something out of the usual for this crowd.

“Is that a…”

The train screeched to a halt in front of the two scaring the crap out of her and making her jump back from it gun drawn. A shoulder halted any further action and dragged her inside fast before the rest of the crowd could.

“Gah Sensei what are you-”

He spoke for the first time that day, voice stern with a frustrated tone while pulling her into the train car and planting her in a seat surrounded by other citizens, shrouding them.

“We’re being followed. Stay down.”

Chapter Text

Click Clack

This was justified. Necessary even. Any potential threat to the Eden Treaty was to be investigated as per Head Prefect Hina’s orders. Through any and all means she would expose the threat he posed to it and Kivotos.

Click Clack

Schales Headquarters housed terrorists, criminals and degenerates of all kinds thanks to Sensei’s supposed generosity. They were waiting there under his command for his signal to strike, she was sure of it. The persons, if one were generous enough to refer to them as that, would cough up the needed evidence to prove this conspiracy simmering in her thoughts.

Click Clack

The Prefect Teams intelligence networks already found collusion between students of Trinity and Gehenna already. The specifics of who they are and what they’re up to were still in the air, but Ako knew it was nothing good. The evidence they found simply by monitoring him said it all.

Click Clack

Chinatsu reported on his capabilities shortly after the Schale Headquarters was taken back from Wakomo’s control. He was smart, unexpectedly smart compared to the average adult in this city. His destructive capabilities manifested during the trip down after their helicopter was blown out of the sky. He burst from the chopper wielding some unknown device that could manipulate an objects gravity and turn it against others.

Click Clack

That footage of him blasting dumpsters against delinquents by shooting the hunks of metal with that device, of him shielding Chinatsu and the rest of their group with car doors he ripped off at random against unending gunfire and his face after getting hit hard in the back of his head by a degenerate that crept up behind him convinced her that he needed to be contained. If he were to use conventional weapons who was to say he would stop at delinquents?

Click Clack

Smaller minds would argue that a Sensei willing and able to protect his students beyond guiding them was an admirable thing, that such a man was useful for the development of Kivotos student population. She disagreed. The possibility of him using his smarts and federal power to command students to do harm to Kivoto’s vital structures made her uncomfortable as it would worsen Hina’s burden. The thought of her actions doing the exact same never crossed her mind. 

Click Clack

Almost to the Prefect Team Office where she would continue this clandestine operation. Iori was sure to be there, pouting at her treatment during the raid. Speaking of the raid, she pulled out her communication device, its screen lit up a cobalt blue hologram that comforted her chaotic thoughts. She confirmed his existence at the very least, not that she thought Chinatsu was lying about his presence on the battlefield. The raid confirmed her fears that he was influencing top leaders of the General Student Council, grooming them for his sure to be nefarious plans.

She strode through the Prefect mobs guarding the main office, her heels clacking against the purple colored carpet. Mobs on both sides of the hallway saluted her as she paused to look at all of them smiling.

“At ease soldiers.”

“Yes Ma’am!”

The mobs relaxed back into their normal forms and let her through to the office door. She opened it and stepped in, closed and locked it before walking over to her desk and sitting on her chair gracefully. Where was she… Right, Chinatsu and the existence of Sensei.

The thought of a Sensei being here in the first place was ridiculous at first. No one had stepped into that role, an advisor at that for many years according to the archives she pulled up in her information gathering. The last Sensei that came to Schale was native borne to it as well, not some foreigner appearing out of nowhere and in time to manage Kivoto’s slow societal collapse. They hadn’t ordered shipments of weapons from the Engineering Department either during their time here.

Weapons given to a Sensei were traditionally light and defensive to protect them from any unwarranted violence brought onto them from unruly students. The last one used a Beretta 92FS pistol rarely and only during the worst of circumstances did he elect to use it. No Sensei in the past ever ordered offensive capable weapons.

“Why would you need those when your students are more than willing to fulfill those roles for you?”

She asked herself that and pulled up the weapons shipment bill of lading. She scrolled past all the miscellaneous terms of agreement, the little contract attached to it and found the shipments manifest. A SPAS-12 Combat Shotgun and a Magnum delivered right to Sensei the moment he stepped through the Engineering Departments doors. How convenient.

A blank space taunted her, daring to ask who ordered this for Sensei. Someone outside of the usual networks she knew that much, but who had the skills to completely erase their names from these documents, keep them binding and have them put out? It irked her that she didn’t know. Whoever was supplying these to him had no pure intentions, and by extension neither did he.

She took a moment to look up from the device to ask Iori if she found anything useful but saw she wasn’t in. She must be investigating other avenues of this mystery, or following behind the shadows trail.

Taching!

“Oh, a message from Head Prefect Hina? How delightful.”

She happy smile spread across her face as she tapped on the communications notification and read its contents.

“Found signs of abnormal anomalous activity throughout Kivotos. Currently investigating the Black Market District. Updates on how things are in Gehenna?”

Signed, Soraskai Hina

Short and to the point, that was the Head Prefect for you. She leaned back in her chair, lifting the device up to eye level and started typing a response. All this pressure was cooking her, and more rash decisions were to come as a result of her paranoid mind that jumped to conclusions.

Outside the Main Office of the Prefect Team

A normal Prefect mob sat down at the reception area, the phone next to her mushed face on the desk. She was taking a nap, inattentive to her duty of watching the phone for any calls and transferring them to the necessary Prefect member if asked. It was sooo boring in this position waiting for someone to call. Hardly anyone used this line because the other one was the report one.

Her hand twitched laying on the desk and nearly knocked over the Complaints Hot-Lineacrylic sign. Drool ran down the side of her mouth. This position was perfect for the rare slacker within the Prefect Teams army of mobs. This slacker took the position because she was afraid of pacifying the vast collection of criminals that were native to Gehenna. Unfortunately, her place in the team wouldn’t protect her from the gathering storm about to impact the line.

RIIIIINNNG RIIIIIIIIINGGG

“Waaahh!”

She shot up out of her nap awakened from a pleasant dream. Her arms flew up in the air and crashed down on the wooden desk making a loud BANG as she gathered her bearings. After a second of cooling down with deep calming breaths she picked up the phone and held it up to her ear.

“Ahem, Prefect Team Complaint Hot-Line. Was there an issue with y-”

A screech ripped through the lines fuzzy speaker destroying her ear drum in the process.

“DAMN RIGHT THERE WAS A PROBLEM WITH MY LAST VISIT FROM YOU BUNCH!”

She coughed holding the line away from her ear. What was this bitches problem? Was she a degenerate mad that they were arrested for wrong doing recently?

“Uh, huhhhh… What problem was that Miss?”

There shouldn’t be phone call visits in those cells. It lead to weirdos using their phone time to make threats to their rivals or to Prefect Members. Then the hammer would crash down onto them for misusing it. Was that happening here?

“Whew… Whew… I have a problem I would like to address with Missus Amau Ako if she’s available. She should be lurking around in that office, unless she’s busy at the moment.”

The voice on the other side had calmed and replaced its enraged tone with an irritated cadence. She rubbed her ear with her pinky. Clearly not a criminal since they hardly ever asked to file a complaint about Ako. Most of the time they brought up Iori and complained about how “rough” she was or how Hina hadn’t thought of preserving whatever art piece they were making while pacifying their dumbasses. Served them right. Last time she received a complaint about Ako it was about a glare she gave them while on patrol with the Head Prefect one night.

“Uh huh, your name Missus..?”

“Nanagami Rin you little brat.”

A venomous current filled Rin’s voice, a wave of threatening aura that scared the shit out of the mob. The only thing separating her and this Nanagami Rin from beating her senseless with the phone was a fuzzy receiver and telephone lines that were easily traceable to this exact spot.

“Alllright Nanagami Rin! W-What’s your complaint with the Prefect Team? Were they too rough during an arrest or anything?”

The other ends phone was set down for a moment before getting picked up again making a soft crinkling sound that made the mobs nose wrinkle. A heavy sigh filled the receiver end before Rin responded.

“Yes actually, rough is one way to put it. Another way to put it is wondering if kidnapping federal workers under the protection and safeguard of Schale might warrant a complaint, wouldn’t you agree?”

What the hell was she talking about?! Kidnapping workers, federal ones at that!? Oh no no no the Schale Club was going to have a ball with this. She paged Ako’s desk in the main office, then paged it again. She paged it one more time, a bead of sweat running down her face. Was she out already? What to do..

“Well, u-um, Miss Rin it appears that Miss Ako is occupied for the time being.”

A great quiet filled the line. The mob pulled the phone away from her ear expecting the worst. Instead, the next words were delivered in a quiet smoldering anger that threatened to pour out of the speaker.

“Then what about Miss Sorasaki Hina? Is she currently Quote. On. Quote ‘Occupied’ as well?”

The mob squeaked out a,

“Y-Yes actually she is! Would you like m-me to-”

“No, I would rather contact the Pandemonium Society and report how incompetent the Prefect Team is acting right now. Is that an issue with you, Hm?”

The mob leapt out of her chair, the complaint line clattering onto her desk while she pushed the wooden frame away from her. Her body shook at the mention of the Society and the implications brought from any contact with them regarding Prefect Matters.

“I-I don’t want to speak with them, they’re strange and dump loads of paperwork on us anytime we do anything!”

Her colleagues peered at her from behind the wall separating the office from the reception area wondering what the big deal was. She mouthed fearfully GSC ON THE LINE AND WILLING TO CONTACT MAKOTO. The other mobs watching her curiously sprang into action, first running to her desk and pulling it back in its proper spot then snatching the phone off it and dragging the frightened mob away to safety. A different mob walked over calmly, dressed in the usual attire for Prefect Team members but with a lazy flair that shone in how wrinkled her uniform was compared to the rest.

The new mob greeted Rin spoke in a plain, almost bored voice. She twirled the old wire around in her fingers, ready to distract this elvish beast for as long as it took to find out where Hina was. Hopefully she could get back with her soon, this one sounded dangerous.

“Apologies for that Miss Rin. Our friend here came down with a.. sudden illness. What was your issue again?”

The other line clicked as soon as she finished her spiel. She looked at the buzzing receiver, disappointed.

“Aw, I wanted to see how well I remembered all those stalling lines.”

With a pout she hung up too and yawned. This was gonna be long day. She was right to think that raid on Schale was… unwise of Ako at the very least. She warned her fellow mobs not to join it, and look who was on the hook for it if Schale escalated things. Not her problem though. She wasn’t the one that turned her paranoid tendencies on others whenever Hina left.

Abydos Region, Main Annex Building

Sand coated the buildings they lived and breathed in. Not a day went by where the sand they cleared out of the halls and rooms of this old place weren’t filled back up the next. Futile, that’s what it was. Abandoned in place as they were, they continued with the impossible task of keeping this academy running. Computers tended by their secretary ran at full capacity ready to assist in their daily activities. Their endearing classmate who may or may not have family connections to the mob, hopefully not, kept them fed and cared for with her seemingly endless amounts of snack money and love for them. An income flowed into the academies bank account every week, secretly provided by their irritable part time worker who found the time to slip out and earn their keep to prevent this academy from completely drowning in debt.

Then there was the aloof wolf who prowled around Abydos working her body to the limit in preparation for an event she never named but often hinted at providing company during the harshest days living here.

And finally their upper class man, the unofficial president of the Foreclosure Task Force who spent her days napping a few rooms over from where they all gathered for their club meetings. All of them wondered why she never got up willingly, all besides one clueless to the fact she patrolled the desert in the night. She brought down threats her friends never had to think about.

“Foreclosure Task Force meeting begin!”

Ayanes cheery voice was joined by the two other members who showed up early this morning. On today’s agenda, something odd was being brought up by their quietest member. Must be serious if she wanted this meeting now. She came to Ayane early in the morning, waking her up with a prod and begging her to arrange this meeting.

“Nn, saw something out in the outskirts last night. Seemed different from the gang members we see around here.”

Shiroko went straight to the point as expected, leaving Nonomi confused and Serika glaring at Ayane for setting this meeting up so early. Over that? Really? There were tons of variants of that stupid gang that roamed around here.

“They were armed with rifles like this.”

Shiroko unveiled a few drawings she made right as the morning sun peaked through her matted and dust covered curtains. Rifles, alien in appearance with bulbous magazines and two pronged barrels along with what looked like a grenade storage slot were drawn on the papers she held up. She closed her eyes, awaiting praise and for the question of who carried these things to be asked.

“Uh, those look…”

“Quite spectacular Shiroko! Since when did you learn how to draw that good?”

Nonomi’s pleased voice overshadowed Serika’s confused ramble that she was about to go on. Ayane looked at the drawing with a funny look, then at Shiroko, raising a brow.

“Isn’t that the rifle from the movie we watched last week? What was it.. Xeno’s Betrayal?”

Ayane offered, seeing how lost the other two were at the purpose of the drawing, again shooting a glance at the up and coming artist who drew these… masterpieces. Every rifle was colored the same gray barely differentiating the barrels which seemed glued together due to her lack of skill. Either the budget for the Helmet Gangs guns had ran out or Shiroko was a poor artist.

“Nn, no. I saw a team carrying these a few miles from here. They came in from the northern outskirts.”

Her gray ears fluffed while she explained. Serika looked with a devastated expression. Nonomi tilted her head to get a better look at them, her mind filled with all sorts of theories while Ayane squinted at the drawings trying to puzzle out what kind of rifles they were.

“Their armor was heavier too. More militarized, ready for war.”

Serika growled at the thought and shouted,

“Why can’t they just leave us the HELL alone already!?”

She huffed, stamped her feet and looked away stewing while glaring daggers at the nearest wall. She mumbled terrible threats to those freaks not seeing Nonomi get up from her chair and walk closer to the drawings.

“Are you sure they were apart of the Helmet Gang? Those look pretty advanced for them, more like something from Millennium if you ask me.”

She nodded at her assertion and sat back down to continue wiping off sand accumulating on her M134 machine guns massive spiraling barrel. Shiriko shook her head.

“Nn, no they had the same helmets, just modified with lit visors and padded armor. Never seen anything like it before.”

She glanced over at Ayane hunched over on their main computer punching in the coordinates she provided. Ayane nearly pressed her face against the screen trying to see something before pulling back and pushed her glasses up her nose.

“They don’t have vehicles that can make those kind of tread marks. I think they left though..”

Serika snapped out of her pissed off trance state, having cursed the Helmet Gang in twenty different ways, each one growing worse and worse in length and severity before she shot a look at the rest. Her hands balled up as she spoke.

“Well I’m off! I have to… to.. do something!”

She stormed out before anyone could ask what she meant leaving the rest of them to ponder at this turn of events. Serika was thinking about how many more of those dummies would show up before they ran out of bullets to keep them away. In the back of her mind she wondered what would happen when they overcame them.

“So… you think they’ll strike soon?”

“Yep.”

“We’ll just have to prepare then! Same as always.”

“Ugh, hopefully they wait until those supplies from Schale come in.”

Ayane waved Nonomi over and picked up a can full of scrap then exited the meeting room as well. Nonomi followed behind her after wiping off the last smear of dust on the barrel, leaving it immaculately clean. Shiroko looked at her drawings, wondering if she drew the proportions of those guns right after all.

“Looks like it’s my turn to patrol then.. again.”

She groaned putting the drawings away in her bag and snagging her rifle from its side. Time to look out for the familiar trouble makers around here while stressing over a new threat tied to them that seemed more determined and ready to drive them out.

“Time for a ride.”

Chapter Text

“Nn, so quiet.”

She rode down the pothole filled street with ease, the route easily memorable and useful to travel to this part of town. Neglected buildings greeted her when she turned the last corner to this routes end. No one waved as she went through nor showed themselves on the cracked sidewalks like usual. In fact, not a single person seemed to be out, leaving the streets in a peaceful quiet rarely seen. It bothered her.

She held the brake down and slid to a stop in front of a vending machine, one she was very familiar with. It held energy drinks and snack bars. The combination was surprisingly uncommon considering who its main clientele was. When she ducked under the sun flap hanging off the top of the old thing, she raised her ears completely. They twitched anticipating any sound besides sand blowing through the air and the occasional litter drifting down the streets.

Total silence. She flexed her them, trying hard to listen beyond this block. Still nothing. Not even the clamor of a citizen or a shop owner chasing out troublemakers greeted her. This was wrong. She hastily vended a Liquid Energy drink and SunCaked chocolate bar, then stuffed them into her handbag and left.

She climbed atop her bike prepared to finish her patrol when the white fluff in her ears crinkled. Her gaze snapped to the right. A sign that looked like it was put up just a few hours ago creaked painfully on the post it was bolted to. Her fluff wrinkled again, making her cringe. She got away from the sound, the only one filling the city blocks around her with any ambient noise. In bold white letters it read…

Residents Ordered to Evacuate Area Due to Dangerous Wildlife

This didn’t bode well for the rest of her patrol. What wildlife would require this scale of fleeing? The only ones she could think of were scorpions or camel spiders, nothing that dangerous. As she pondered why everyone had to leave, she noticed two figures coming from the train station.

It was another in the collection of by gone buildings that joined the rest in this region, but it still held an important job. Providing a way out while bringing in needed supplies and people was the sole reason it was cared for, and even then it still looked abandoned. The only reason she noticed them was because this wasn’t a scheduled supply drop day. She rode to them. May as well say hello to anyone bothering to show up unannounced.

Abydos Train Station

“Thank the Lord those supplies weren’t misplaced! I couldn’t imagine.”

Serina thanked all the ones above that the tail had not managed to find their reason for coming here. They probably looked suspicious already, taking a train out of the city just days after major rioting. Whoever hired them must think they were coming down here to…

Now that she thought about it, why would coming here be anyone else’s business?

“…”

He was silent once more. She didn’t like it when he grew quiet. In the short time she’s spent with him she preferred whenever he spoke. His voice was pleasing, even when it was growling about stalkers with a frustrated tone.

He held most of the supplies. Packed in large duffle bags were a ridiculous amount of ammunition, snacks and gear he bought from Angel 24. Talk about awkward, he only spoke at the end to thank the worker, was her name Sora, for telling him where everything was in the store. She found herself having to speak for him whenever the little worker asked who he was and why he was buying a small armies worth of groceries. The word groceries made him laugh, which made little Sora think she did something wrong which led to her breaking down and oh Lord what a mess that was.

At least he apologized by actually talking, softly telling her she did nothing wrong, that her groceries were ‘magnificent’ enough that he would find a way to promote her when he came back. In her opinion that just confused Sora more and left her wondering why he didn’t just speak up in the first place. Surely his last job didn’t have him take a vow of silence considering he spoke occasionally, whenever he felt like it to her.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a blinding light that struck hard and almost caused her to drop the remaining two bags. The other three were hoisted over Sensei’s shoulders and hands.

“Gah!”

She tripped on the last step off this station and made free fall to the crusty sand below. Thankfully he grabbed her shoulder, pulled her back and guided her down gently. A red flush overcame her face when his hand wrapped around hers.

“H-Hey now, I don’t need any..”

Her next words evaporated into the sun, the light that almost killed her biked down to them. A girl clad in a cyan scarf, black shoulder bag and Abydos School uniform cycled their way. Her left wolf ear wore a shiny cross hairpin that gleamed a bit too brightly in the desert sun. He let go of her hand to wave at her, the bag he held in his hands rocking back and forth.

She waved too at this sudden student appearing out of nowhere. This town seemed more dead than anything. Was she an apparition, a mirage coming from the shifting form of a ghost town?

“Nn, where you from?”

That girl said that without even pausing to catch her breath, damn. Least she was real. Sensei nodded towards the departing train, its next destination scrolling sideways on its terminal. Back to the D.U district. The girl nodded and looked at her. Serina stood up stabilizing herself after his help.

“O-Oh, yeah D.U district. We’re here to deliver supplies to Abydos High School.”

She took a look at the other girls uniform while she did likewise, all parties eyeing each other up and down. Everyone decided they were telling enough of the truth. The scarf wearing girl offered a hand to Sensei, looking at the bags he was holding. He gave her one, shook his head no when she offered her other hand to him. Figures he wouldn’t want to burden her. After a minute of him taking Serinas bags and holding onto them that girl finally spoke again.

“I’m of student of it, follow me.”

How were they supposed to follow when she was on a bike?

“Hey wait! What’s your name? We don’t have bikes to follow you..”

She was already starting to ride off when she turned back, slowed down and heaved the bag over her shoulder, opposite of the other bag she rode with.

“Shiroko, I’ll ride at a pace you can follow. Lets go.”

Serina looked offended when Shiroko went back to riding without a second look. She turned to Sensei who shrugged, of course he did, and followed behind her. Hopefully that tail they saw before didn’t get on the train…

With that the walk and ride to Abydos High School began with little exchanged between all three parties as they went.

Outside of Abdyos High School

They came upon the school an hour later, the sun at its midpoint in the sky bearing down on them. Covered in sweat and sand, the two newcomers rushed over to some shade provided by the schools decaying frame. One leaned against the wall, huffing and puffing wiping sweat off her face with a towel the other got from a large bag among many that they carried. The other newcomer gave the towel up and drank water from a bottle that came out of a compartment on that orange suit he wore. A combination of an exoskeleton and body armor that made Nonomi interested in its purpose. Surely it felt like hell wearing that in a desert.

She watched Shiroko point at her and Ayane, expecting something back. She gave a bright cheerful smile to them and waved excitedly, hopping in place before rushing over to them. Ayane simply waved and flashed a nervous grin, wondering who these two were. Maybe…

“Well hello! You two looked exhausted, are you alright?”

She asked curiously, pulling out some water she planned to have for herself. The pink haired girl, the one given the towel a moment ago motioned for her to give it. She did so happily and watched as she handed it over to the man in the suit, who drank it slowly as to not choke himself. After finishing half of it, he held it out to the girl who Nonomi realized was a Remedial Knight, possibly. She hadn’t seem them in a long time.

“Oh, um.. S-Sensei I’ll be alright. You need it more than me.”

He shook his head and kept it held out towards her, then teasingly shook it. Nonomi giggled at the sight, then giggled harder when the girl blushed bright red and shakily accepted the bottle. She stared at the top for a second before throwing her head back and draining the rest of it, not leaving a single drop behind.

“My, what a gentleman you are Sensei. We weren’t expecting a visit from you so soon.”

He smirked and held out a bag, then another, turned and showed many more clinging to his shoulders and back. Peaking out from the zippers that looked ready to burst any moment now were glimpses of ammo and snacks.

“Oh thank you! We didn’t expect anyone to see, let alone read that letter and act on it anytime soon.”

He grimaced at that, hid that expression with another smirk and set down the bags in front of her. She unzipped two of them and took out a few snack bars, ramen noodles and instant noodles. She looked them over, noting their newness then looked at the two who seemed eager to know what she thought.

“These are perfect! Thank you so much, I’ll get everyone else so we can celebrate!”

She dashed off to wake up Hoshino and grab Serika before she ran off to do whatever she did in town, leaving Shiroko, Serina and Gordon behind covered in dust she kicked up. After a second they grabbed the two bags on the ground and carried them and the rest inside to a better spot to store them.

Abydos High School Annex Building, Council Meeting Room

Shiroko guided them to the meeting table their club used. She threw her bag down on the end while the other bags were set down on the middle. Serina examined the room, her eyes growing wider and wider.

“So… you live here? Willingly? There’s like fifty health hazards I spotted before we even came in..”

The absolute ruin of this place awed her in a way. The dust coming from the ceiling, the cracked tiled floors, the walls that although clean were sure to sport mold or worse again in the near future painted a destitute picture. To her comment the wolf girl scoffed.

“Of course we do, it’s our home. Why wouldn’t we?”

Serina gulped.

“W-Well I would be worrying more for your lungs than this place.”

Sensei snorted and patted the pink girls head, trying to calm her from starting a rant on health. She bristled and looked away, hiding a pleased look on her face that made Shiroko snort.

“Woohoo, meet our new guests guys!”

In came Nonomi, dragging two girls behind her with varying degrees of excitement on their faces. One bright pink haired girl who looked like she had been sleeping like a rock before coming in yawned and stretched, clearly used to getting heaved around while the other a navy blue haired girl scowled at Nonomi and looked ready to kick her ass before noticing the two guests sitting at their table.

“Uheee, this old mans gonna kick the bucket one day if you keep doing that Nonomi, heheee..”

Bright pink haired mumbled, rubbing her eyes open to take them in. Her sleepy demeanor shifted for a split second, her eyes scanning the guests, Sensei in particular before falling back into her sleepy old man persona.

“I see I see, so you came down after all. Thank goodness, we’re almost out of… everything.”

She closed her eyes again and stumbled over to her seat at the top of the table, her head leaning down to nap once again. A shake from her friends neon green gloves kept her awake, for the moment at least. The navy blue haired girl on the other hand…

“Ugh, you didn’t have to drag me in you know.. I know how to walk!”

Her tail whipped around fast, hitting the two chairs next to hers as she sat and crossed her arms. Some steam escaped her cat ears, yes cat ears that fluffed up and down before settling. She leaned back trying to put some distance away from their two guests who looked at her questioningly.

“What? Nonomi’s not my mom, I can walk here on my own.”

Said pale blond girl sneaked up her behind her and engulfed her in a hug, her arms wrapped around her protectively.

“I make sure all of my children come when asked, hehe… I couldn’t let you escape before you met Sensei and Miss..?”

“Serina, sorry I forgot to tell you I was so exhausted, whew.”

She nodded, ignoring Serika’s pissed off face and let go.

“Children?”

Nonomi nodded and patted both Serika and Hoshino’s heads while speaking.

“Mhm, this is Hoshino and this is Serika. Over there is Ayane, why don’t you say hi?”

Ayane froze being in the middle of creeping over to her chair, awkwardly smiled and waved before settling down on it. Shiroko sat down as well and after a thorough patting so did Nonomi. Ayane clapped her hands.

“Foreclosure Task Force Meeting begin!”

“So… you’re here to help us drive out the Helmet Gang too?”

Ayane squinted her eyes, assessing their saviors with a critical look. Serina, the Remedial Knight who introduced herself by pulling out a massive amount of bandages and syringes nodded eagerly. She wielded a white and pink Enfield L85A1 assault rifle that seemed good enough for the job, hell it even had a syringe in place of a bayonet. Perhaps she would kamikaze charge one of them if they got hurt? At least she had conventional supplies too.

Sensei on the other hand was given an even more critical examination. That orange suit seemed sturdy enough and he’d seen combat before given the old scuff marks pocked all over it, not to mention the huge hole on the right side facing him from the front. Whatever enemies he fought had some dangerous tech, but… how would he survive with just a Combat Shotgun and a Magnum? How good was he if that suit so that damaged? It looked like someone had fixed other ailments done to the suit too. Was he just some… guy? If he wasn’t so pale and gaunt she would have thought he looked good at least.

“Um.. Sensei, what do you do? Besides advise I mean.”

Serina looked like she was about to answer for him but he stopped her with a raised hand and coughed into his armored sleeve. After taking a sip of water Nonomi gave him shortly after storing all the supplies with Serika, Shiroko and Hoshino he spoke leaning forward.

“Well, I got my doctorate at MIT and was trained to be a T-”

A rumble interrupted him, shaking the roof and knocked sand and dust down onto them. Serika’s ears and tail whipped around side to side as a look of absolute hatred painted her face. She prepared her Beretta AR-70/223 assault rifle and looked out one of the windows that was clear of particle debris.

“Ohhh those jerks! The Helmet Gang came back!”

Outside in the front a collection of said gang members ran behind cover provided by the random walls and desks left outside. Their attire was no different from their usual flair, and that leader of theirs was still dressed in a dark red version of their street clothes. She shouted triumphantly,

“Haha they have no bullets guys! Lets steamroll ‘em!”

Before rushing to the main doors of the annex the group was having a meeting in. Hoshino yawned, pumped her Beretta 1301 Tactical Shotgun, they had a lot of Beretta guns, and got off her chair. She straightened her back causing it to pop and crack while she groaned then looked outside, her eyes sharpening.

“Looks like this old man has to teach those whippersnappers a lesson again, care to join?”

She looked towards Sensei and Serina, who both nodded and got off their chairs too along with Shiroko who cocked her SIG SG 550 assault rifle and went straight to another window her weapon aimed. She crouched down and peeked her head out, almost got hit with a few stray rounds, then frowned a bit more deeply, her brows furrowing.

“Lets kick their butts.”

She growled and sat up cracking a few shots onto whichever gangster shot at her, earning a yelp from outside. Serina looked at Sensei and grabbed him before he could run out the door his gravity device already equipped in his hands.

“Hold on, they have all their ammo back now.. Lets support from the back.”

He shook his head and tried moving towards the door again but was stopped by her surprisingly firm grip. She looked at him, worried at how once again he was eager to throw himself out into a battlefield. She shook her head no and pointed to Ayane.

“Lets see if we can give orders or something, I heard you did really well with that before.”

Before he had a chance to protest she pulled him over to Abydos’s command center and sat him down on a chair next to Ayane then pulled one up on the other side next to him, making sure to get as close as possible. For protections sake, should any gang members come in. No more activating that suits medical functions if she could help it. For his sake he didn’t need to be pumped with more morphine. He was already being much more sociable than when he was at Schale and she figured it was linked to him not getting shot at and triggering the damn thing.

“What an intense look, Ahem alright guys lets do this!”

Ayanes battle ready look and serious voice officially started the battle right after she looked at the two next to her. Hoshino ran out with a ballistic shield that seemed to come from nowhere and began laying down fire on some gang members caught out of the open, their yelps loud as they got peppered with pellets. Serika reloaded her gun, having blasted it into a few gang members trying to flank her while Shiroko took pot shots at some hiding in cover.

“Mm, Hoshino continue your suppressive fire on those out and in cover, Shiroko pop any that lift their heads out, Serika flank them from the right and..”

He looked around for Nonomi along with Serina, wondering where she went with that massive minigun of hers. Their answer came in a hail of bullets raining down across all the visible gang members from the top of the roof, a blaring noise that caused Serina and Ayane to jump and look up. That thing was so loud it penetrated the layers of roof. None of them could appreciate that this was one of the longer sentences Sensei had said in his whole time here.

Nonomi smiled happily her eyes glazing over as she continued to fire down hell in bullet form onto the gang member without mercy, all while humming a little tune and holding her minigun to the left, right and center of the battlefield.

“… Continue doing that Nonomi.”

He chuckled and looked at the computer screens maps a little amazed at how advanced they were for a schools budget. This was reserved for special forces back on… Earth. While staring at the map he continued giving out little orders, guiding the Foreclosure Task Force to push back the gang who seemed frightened that they had ammo.

“U-Uh, they didn’t tell us y’all got ammo again! They’re kicking our a- AOOUGH!”

The leader got her back riddled with shotgun pellets delivered via Hoshino’s shotgun who glared at her then kicked her into the wall. Dust kicked up as she kicked her again in the stomach for good measure and moved on to the next group of whippersnappers to whoop.

Serika followed Sensei’s command to flank them, crouch walking along walls and debris on the right side of the school. Anytime she came behind a gang member she ran out and sprayed them, then ducked back into cover again, repeated this process many times too. It gave Hoshino the opening to stride up to the leader and kick her ass. Her uncanny ability to reload at light speed helped make this into a routine. She grinned muttering curses once more in a delighted manner.

Shiroko indeed popped many heads that stuck out, whether they were trying to aim or if they were fleeing from a fight they thought they already won. Many were mowed down by her shots falling face forward their backs bruised from her SIGS bullets. A small smile was on her face as she shot ones trying to exit the battlefield in particular who hadn’t shot at all, they were reaping what they had sown for so long and didn’t like it. Too bad.

Nonomi continued her overall assault of the battlefield, making sure she hit none of her friends along the way in her hail of fire from above. A dopey grin was on her face as she blasted another group being driven out by everyone else, though she missed a few that flanked the left, not noticing them creep along the walls with their guns drawn. They were looking for payback and snuck in through a side entrance to the command center.

Inside Sensei pointed at the screen, at the dots either moving away from the building or the ones being snuffed out then at a few slowly making their way along the side. He crouched down under Ayanes desk causing her to gasp and get out of the way while Serina looked wide eyed before realizing what he was doing.

“Come on come on, get down-”

She gripped her rifle tightly and pulled Ayane behind her, ready to take any fire for her and Sensei by moving ahead of him to the desks side dragging Ayanes quivering form behind her. She held her rifle up and peeked over the counter past some wire and computer towers. A glint from another weapon blinded her for a second before a hail of bullets struck the desk.

“Oh c-crap no not the-”

Ayanes plea got drowned out by the return fire Serina gave the group now filling the room. The one that struck the desk fell into a heap but not before she damaged a computer monitor.

“Noooo… so expensive to replace.”

Ayane was once again barely heard as Sensei rushed out of his place with a whish his suit powering his accelerated side stepping as he aimed his Magnum at two girls getting ready to blind fire onto Ayane and Serina behind cover. Not on his watch. With considerable kickback that Serina was sure would have smacked his glasses off if he didn’t have his suit he fired two rounds at the girls chests, making them collapse onto the floor, the wind being taken out of them from the giant rounds.

He rushed behind another desk with a powered run and shot a third round that just barely missed and blew a hole into the wall next to the second to the last gang members head. She shrieked and tried to fire back at him but only pelted the floor after getting her helmeted head cracked down on by the butt of Ayanes SIG Sauer P229 pistol. Must have hurt more than it seemed given the guns size because the poor girl coughed and spat before hitting the floor, leaving Ayane to take a breath, her face filled with an indescribable anger that she wiped off into worry as she rushed back to her computers.

“O-Ok I’m sending a drone out guys! Stay where you’re at!”

Serika, Hoshino and Shiroko were gathered around the front exit of the building taking shots at gang members that were running, screaming for mercy that they never gave them. They had no right and were gunned down with as much mercy as the gang had given them. While they were massacring the survivors a little drone sent by Ayane helpfully dropped some bandages down before flying off.

Inside the last gang member rushed Serina, managed to avoid her pointy syringe that almost stabbed her cheek and held the guns barrel up with her long arms. Ayane tried aiming at the girl but,

“U-Uh I don’t want to shoot Serina too!”

The gang member contiuned to hold Serina’s gun up after it almost got a shot off in her face from Serina trying to push it down. All that did was give her another chance to push Serina against a desk and aim her pistol at the pink haired girls chest. Serina looked at her wide eyed trying to think of something she could kick at or pull before a bottle flew at the gang members head and broke all over her face.

“OWW! You asshole-”

She forgot about Serina and shoved her off making her gun clatter to the floor and land on her face. The Helmet Gang member, an older one maybe a second or third year shot a look at Sensei who had that strange gun out. Its mini tractor beam pulled a filing cabinet, more like the top half of one, and shot it at the members face.

“Hold on wait wait w-”

Whatever pleas she had left were cut down by it slamming into her face, knocking her onto the ground unconscious. He power ran over to her and the rest of the downed gang members in there, his suit whishing every time as he checked them. He looked over at Ayane and motioned for her to come over, pointing at some medical supplies she kept by her desk.

“You can’t be serious, why?”

Serina spoke up before he did, having gotten off the ground and wiping some sand off her face.

“Because we can’t just.. leave them like this. We’ll have to take them down to a… is there an infirmary around here?”

Ayane shook her head no and crossed her arms, huffing before throwing down a single box of supplies towards Sensei who caught it with his gun and broke it open on the floor, causing its contents to spill out while he smiled like this was a normal way to open those. Ayane looked over at Serina, a little weirded out but only got an equally weirded out look in turn. They shook their heads and looked outside while he attended to the fallen gang members.

When they looked out they saw everyone else walking back inside, Nonomi must have jumped off the roof because she was there too. That fall was… Serina didn’t want to think about it and waved them in hurriedly.

“We’re alright, we.. put down the ones who came in.”

After a moment Serika came in, saw all of the carnage, gasped and rushed over to Ayane. She grabbed her tenderly and looked her over, trying to find any damage. Luckily there was none so she let out a relieved sigh then let go of the blushing elf girl.

“Thank goodness, so you took care of those jackasses then.”

Hoshino slunk in having fallen back into her sleepy old man act, looking for the nearest desk and plopped herself onto one destroyed by gunfire stomach first. She let out a long, tired, oh so fatigued yawn and looked at Sensei with droopy eyes that hid the interested look she shot his way.

“Looks like you weren’t as defenseless as we thought Senseiiii, uhee~”

She teased Ayane looking at her directly with a rare fully eye opened glance, knowing that Ayane had assessed him as nothing more than some dude with a couple guns. Ayanes ears twitched in embarrassment that Hoshino had read her so well. Sensei didn’t react to this, instead focused on bandaging and icing the helmet gang’s bruises. While they talked he finished all the ones in the room and rushed outside with that signature whish.

“Oho, so caring for us and them too.”

Nonomi grinned, looked at Serina who rushed after him like a worried mother going after her child that escaped the house because the front door was open for a minute. Serika rolled her eyes and Shiroko came in after, looking back with her head tilted before sitting down on one of the few untouched desks in the room.

“I see he has a protective instinct too, how charming! Not a single scratch on our Ayane or his Serina, hehe.”

After twenty minutes or so Sensei and Serina walked back in and dragged the gangsters out of the meeting room to some distance away from the annex building. They were helped by Shiroko who shamelessly took ammo and money from their pockets. Serika slapped a gangsters face who was beginning to wake up and dragged her along, not caring to chastise Shiroko. Serina looked at Sensei expectantly, but certainty didn’t expect him to nod approvingly at the pickpocket!

“S-Sensei, how?”

He grunted, went back to dragging after looking at her shocked face then said,

“Did the same thing. Can’t judge.”

Once again that was all she got no matter how much she attempted interrogating him, partly to know why he would even be in a position to do that but also to report back to Chinatsu and Rin with more background on his previous job. None of these parties would be satisfied with the silence he gave back.

Once More in the Annex Building, Council Room

“Hoooh, how are we going to repair all this? We can’t even afford the… Gah, why did they have to strike again so soon?”

Ayane felt tears prick the edges of her eyes, threatening to spill out looking at how much more ruined the annex became. While the outer walls weren’t as damaged, the annex building itself had more holes than before and even lost its plumbing! She found out after trying to wash some sand off her hands and finding no water rushing out of the faucet. That rumble must have been a bomb they planted in the basement.

“This, the older repairs needed and the.. d-debt…”

She mumbled to herself which caught the attention of the elderly resident of the building.

“Hmmmm, you should ask Sensei if he can help with the plumbing. I want to see if he’s got more than just quick reflexes..”

Hoshino aired out before slumping down face planting on the desks chipped frame and snoring. Ayane sighed, internally agreed and went outside to see where Sensei and Co went with all the bodies. She snickered at the implication and shielded her eyes from the low hanging sun colored a deep purple that made the vast desert around them seem just that much darker. It was the last light of the day, and it was just her luck that the last ray hit her face. She wiped her eyes and continued out.

Outside a Couple Hundred Feet from the Annex Building

She walked, following the foot and body prints on the sand, the trail leading her a little ways away from the main building. This area was more open, the walls that surrounded them now left behind for desert that ran for miles. The distance squiggles that she assumed were them looked like they were…

“U-Uh, wha...t?”

Serina stood off to the side her hands thrown up in the air as Sensei and Shiroko were writing on the gangsters helmets with permanent markers. In black various messages splayed ranging from instructions to the local town, presumably written by Sensei, to insulting messages most definitely written by Shiroko that contained phrases such as ‘Get Beat Douches’ and ‘Go Crying Back to Rabu!’, taunts that would surely either piss the girls off or just make them feel bad. Ayane personally preferred what Sensei wrote, even with all the pain the gang had brought onto them she didn’t like demeaning them. Despite her not wanting to give them medical supplies but she quickly glossed over that thought.

Serina just stood there having already given them treatment and seemed helpless in stopping the two of them from writing on every single one of their helmets. She looked at Ayane and rushed over to her in a blur, startling her and almost making her glasses fall off.

“Sorry, I’m just frustrated. Those two sync with each other well. Too well..”

Serina blurted out while carefully pushing Ayanes glasses back up with delicate hands.

“I noticed.. weren’t they looting them together too?”

Serina let out a long huff that seemed to contain much of her hidden irritation before nodding.

“Apparently he did the same in his previous job too.”

Her ears twitched upward upon hearing that. He almost told them what his job before they struck, preventing him from finishing his sentence. What was it, it started with a t right? She turned and lightly pulled Serina’s gaze from the two body defiling grave robbers to focus on her.

“Did he ever tell you?”

The knight thought for a second, then shook her head.

“No, I just found out whatever he was going to refer to probably wasn’t going to be what he did right before coming here.”

Her ears moved up and down, wanting to hear all the juicy details while Serina was open to the subject. She brushed and fiddled with her headband, looked at her with amber eyes full of bright curiosity. She made it seem like he didn’t mention whatever it was to her.

“Why’s that? He kinda seems a little..”

“Out of place? I noticed that too. Supposedly that suit of his is twenty or so years old. Does it look that old to you?”

She took a look at him and his suit, hand on her chin. Despite how damaged it was with new and old beatings, it didn’t seem that archaic. Plus whatever function he was using to dash around like that was relatively rare outside of Millennium, even then he was an outsider in the first place so he couldn’t have gotten it there. Not to mention such a thing was new and wouldn’t be present until a few years ago.

“Hmmm… no it doesn’t. If he’s an outsider then does that mean he..”

She looked into Serina’s pink eyes knowing what she was about to say next.

“Yep, came from another dimension is the current theory me and some friends got right now. I think what he was going to say was some kind of traveler, maybe a realm traveler? It would explain all the… uh..”

She just motioned to him while he wrote all over the last gangsters helmet, now cracking a mischievous grin along with Shiroko as he joined in on writing strange messages with her. He seemed confused as to what ‘L Bozo’ and the skull emojis that Shiroko tried to replicate with her subpar drawing skills meant.

“Nn, Sensei it’s another way to say we’re dying from laughter at their defeat.”

Shiroko tried explaining after he looked a little disturbed at how happily she drew multitudes of skulls on their helmets and faces. He looked even more confused when she tried explaining what L Bozo meant. Sure he got it but didn’t know why they were so… funny? Arona laughed at his lack of meme knowledge from within the Shittem Chest.

“Yeah, he looked amazed at our old computer set up too. Some of those towers are as old as whatever he told you is the age of that thing.”

Serina nodded along with her, agreeing at the strange reactions he had to the technology of Kivotos.

“You know he looked at an old touchscreen phone and marveled at it like it was a godsend.”

Ayane hummed in thought, wondering how he could have a suit like that but be amazed by such simple tech for their realm.

“Well, maybe we should ask him while he’s helping out? I went out here to ask but..”

Ayane pointed at the two again who finally seemed to be done doodling on their defeated foes. Serina hummed now too and looked into her amber eyes. They glittered in the last vestiges of sunlight going down the horizon. Pretty.

“What is it you need help with?”

Ayane sighed and wondered if she should say the full extent of their issues. The debt, the repairs needed now, the ones that needed to be attended to a year ago. Perhaps the job he had before being sent here could be clued out if they watched him repair some of the pipes in the basement…

Abydos High School Basement

“Are… you, kidding me!?”

Instead of a flooded hallway full of electrical hazards, they were brought to a basement full of rats, camel crickets, roaches, spiders and even big scorpions! What the hell was in this basement that attracted such a rogues gallery of disgusting creatures to call it home? She looked at Ayane with a grossed out look, gagging while the elf girl looked away mumbling apologies about the state of the place her, ears drooping down. Sensei looked at all this mess, decay and grossness with a…

“Sensei, is that a… determined look on your face?”

She glared at him with all the worry of a nurse who treated insect bites and stings on a daily basis knowing the damage they brought, pleading with a desperate look in her eye for him not to plunge into all of that. He looked like he was considering that look, then at the desperate look for help on Ayane’s face, factored in the latter’s sad fallen ears, then the immensely worried look on the former’s and turned back towards the cesspit.

“Please, Sensei, there’s not even a ladder to the spot you’re s-”

Without a word or even a grunt he hopped down from the safe non bug infested ground and plunged into the depths. He looked back up at some tools he saw that he forgot to grab, then.. smiled and pointed at a rusty red crowbar laying next to some hammers and screws. Ayane picked it up and looked at him quizzically, wondering why he looked happy and so relieved at the sight of it.

“A-Aha, can’t forget to bring a crowbar… H-Heh, yep that’s what you need… not a face mask, a helmet or even bug spray.. just this..”

With an unceremonious throw he caught it by the handle with a powered grab and ran a hand down it admiringly. He wiped some sand on the hooked edge of it, then swung it to the right and left hitting some crates on both sides. That look… like he was the happiest man in the word.

Serina and Ayane looked at each other, and concluded that they were just as confused as the other one thought before watching him smack a piece of fallen guard rail so much that he made an inch deep dent in its metal. Each clang looked like it brought him greater and greater amounts of satisfaction.

“At least he has something to bat away any creepy crawlies that come at him?”

Ayane tried bringing up a silver lining, then flinched at the aura of aggravation Serina had. Her eyes glowed a dark pink that went straight to her soul. How terrifying! She quickly looked away and towards Sensei’s actions.

He took in the dark and moist environment, noted the broken ladder that lead up to the room he was supposed to enter and fix these plumbing issues in. Insects and rodents roamed about the floors and walls, hopping and skittering about in the shadows. When he turned on the flashlight in his suit it exposed all these creatures to overwhelming white light that blinded some of them and sent them in a mad dash away from its rays.

“Since.. why didn’t you use that in the hallway?!”

Serina shouted, having to because he dashed to the back of the basement, staring at some crates covered in insects then at the broken ladder. In response to her question she got a murmur that sounded like Didn’t need it at the time, what bullshit was this? That hallway was a bit lighter than this one sure, but he would’ve had an easier time navigating it with that flashlight! Ayane tugged on her sleeve.

“What?”

Ayane looked at the ground for the minute, saw the pipes that he would have to cross whenever he got up to the room and gulped.

“Does that suit protect him against, u-um.. heat? From steam pipes?”

Serina deadpanned at her, almost considered wrapping her up in a crushing hug before taking a breath and shaking her head. What kind of a basement was this?

“I don’t know, it better.”

They went back to watching him work, batting off some spiders crawling up his suit trying to get between any cracks and crevices. They cringed at the sight, mutually agreeing to never let him do a job like this again. After batting them off, he swung his crowbar at a large tan scorpion that struck at him with its stinging tail. He avoided the first two attempts but got his midsection punctured, or at least it would have without his suit blocking the stinger with a clunk. Instead, he whacked its torso with the edgy bits of the rusty thing, then hit it again, and again, and again and Lord knows how many times overloading the things senses with each whack he gave it while it spun about trying to land a hit on him again. It never got the chance via his boot crushing its head making a squelching noise that made Ayane’s ears flutter in discomfort and Serina covering her ears to protect them from that heinous sound.

“G-Gueeh, never again, never let him in loose down dark basements or flooded hallways agaiiiiinn!”

Ayane couldn’t take it anymore and started making her way up the basement steps trying to get away from this overstimulating experience. The rancid smell, the grinding of rat teeth, the insects scurrying about, it was all too much! There’s a reason she hardly goes down here. A small but powerful hand grabbed her arm and pulled her back into the depths again making her cry out.

“NOPE, nope you made him stay down here with those sad ears of yours, so you’re gonna stay and see the consequences of that!”

“NOOO, nooo please!”

While Ayane clawed her way out of Serina’s unforgiving grip, Sensei stacked the crates after shaking off the bugs living in and on them. Using his gravity gun he gently set down two boxes on the ground, then picked a third one up and set it on the box touching the grimy wall. He looked up, saw it his makeshift staircase wasn’t tall enough and took the third box down. He got a fourth box and set it down in front of the other two, then stacked three more boxes. The first two went against the grimy walls on top of the grounding boxes, the third went on the tallest one touching the wall. There we go, tall enough to hop onto.

After a minute of fighting the two girls calmed down, huffing and panting before shaking their hands on a truce. Ayane would never have him go down here again, Serina would never force her to see this side of Sensei’s work again, so long as she never sent him down to this evil place again. They adjusted their clothes back to their previous states, as much as a torn tie and ripped sleeve can be and saw him climb into the room.

“Just like last time… the floors sturdy in there, right?”

Serina hoped he wouldn’t fall through the floor again, that was traumatizing enough the first time. Those nightmares she had haunted her still. Horrific dreams of Sensei falling into a colorless void, screaming into an abyss before being consumed by it. Never to be seen again.

“Y-Yes, he should be fine.”

Ayane mused about what previous incident must have happened to leave Serina so shaken up. Was this a common occurrence, falling down floors while repairing some issue in a basement or hallway? Hopefully not, though she wouldn’t see his work regarding such matters anymore.

Thankfully his walk inside the room was uneventful. He avoided the hot steam pipes by hopping over them when steam wasn’t blowing out. Elementary. He clanged on something there, then clanged again. Something heavy and metallic fell to floor with a loud BANG! After a few moments of wandering around there, his flashlight streaming out of the dark hole the room was in, he stepped out and waved. A beaming triumphant smile on his face as he held a giant piece of metal blockage in the gravity guns pincers, then shot it onto the basement floor, crushing a large assortment of critters gathering at the base of his makeshift staircase.

“Oh, thank the Lord he didn’t get hurt..”

“Yes, now he just has to make it back..”

He hopped down onto the floor with no regard for his staircase or legs, then exerted some of his suits power to sprint across the basement, and nearly smacked his face into the wall after covering three hundred feet in five seconds. To them he was an orange ball rushing towards them.

“Geez Sensei, slow down next time!”

Serina yelled her eyes spiraling at the thought of his face mashing into those gross cobweb walls.

He grunted and climbed back up to the safety of the exit, his suit covered in cobwebs, dust and even some steam residue floating off his suit. They swarmed him, looking him all over for any bugs hiding in crevices in the suit and standing on their toes trying to hold his chin to make sure nothing got on his face. He just chuckled and let them fret over him. It had been a long time since anyone cared enough to check up on him like this. What a nice change of pace.

“Ewww, next time call a repairman, or better yet a roach exterminator!”

Serina gasped and swatted at some roaches trying to hitch a ride on him, and vehemently ended their pathetic lives with the butt of her gun and bottom of her boots. Ayane struggled to reach his chin, huffed and pulled a step stool over so she could get a good look at his face. It’s not her fault he’s so much taller than her!

“…”

He looked at her, that smile still present as she looked at him. His goatee was getting long, almost a small beard at this rate. She daintily wrapped her fingers around his chin and moved his face side to side, cheeking his cheeks and neck for any bites or stings. Nothing but dusty old skin that made him look old, much older than he looked before in the sunlight, their annexes lights even. She pouted, a similar pout Serina did whenever she stared at him, thinking he didn’t notice. He was clean, thank everything. Amber eyes briefly lost themselves in emerald green ones, before she blinked and looked to the side. He’d seen so much, she could tell. With a hint of a blush she hoped was hidden in the darkness, she hopped off the stool.

“L-Lets go, guys.”

Serina and Sensei didn’t need to be told twice and followed Ayane up the stairs.

“Hm, maybe he was a repairman before?”

Ayane idly put out, taking careful steps up the rickety rusted metal stairs stained a light orange.

“I hope he wasn’t. Maybe… he was a cleaner?”

They spoke as if he wasn’t there, an amused look on his face as they speculated about what he did before. He’ll tell, soon. They might not understand it though. Since these academies were based on Japanese school systems he gathered, was physics even broached at their level? Either way it would be a strange job to them. Oh well, a problem to explain later.

A Few Miles Outside Abydos High School Limits

Audio Sensors… Online

Pulse Sensors… Online

Movement… Activated

Visual Sensors… Online

Location Sensors… Acvviviiated… Error, Location Sensors Offline

Limb Control… Activated

Camera Feed… Online

Visual sensors let it look around, its cameras feeding into its flesh code hundreds of millions of images that rolled together into film it could analyze and use to see. A dark environment, silhouettes of things like it all around surrounding it. Among kin, safe.

It whirred a low growl, electronics implanted in its voice box making its external audio sound completely foreign to what it used to sound like. No matter. Among kin, safe.

The vehicle it was in, it thought it was a vehicle of some kind at least, stopped. Plastic armor infused with energies meant to protect from kinetic threats bumped against more plastic armor. Plastic wasn’t the right word, it didn’t know what the right word was.

The back of the vehicle opened, flooding the space it and its kin were stored in with pale moonlight. Its visual sensors reset themselves twenty thousand times in its own version of blinking, getting used to sudden light and back to the images that created film for its synthetic eyes to look through.

BEEP BEEP GHROOONN

It greeted its non kin friends with a friendly groan, got confused why it made the two humans dressed in kin-like armor look uneasy even though only their mouths were visible. No matter. Among kin, safe.

“Hah, haha… um, nice.. haun… Hunter.”

The kin-like friend on the left looked to the rightmost one, its blue cyclical eye sockets moving to stare at them. This one nervously laughed as well, and nodded affirming its kin name. It moved a leg forward, then the back two to skitter out of the APC.

“Woah! Woah, alright man.. Just.. scout out these coordinates, and come back. Alright?”

The rightmost one slotted a chip into the middles of its two vertical eye sockets, and it allowed the data within to surge to its brain hooked up to numerous monitoring systems embedded in its flesh, of course all of this was covered by its pristine white and blue armor.

Coordinates to Abydos High School acquired, mission to observe the students and find out how they defeated the Helmet Gang members sent from the outpost now abandoned because of their defeat.

Simple Enough

Abydos High School, Inner Hallways

She prowled the empty hallways, patrolling their lonely paths and rooms full of mysteries never uncovered. Her hands clutched her shotgun tightly, holding it against her bulletproof vest she slung on after waking up from her final daytime nap.

“Uhee, what time has forgotten here…”

She tried not to remember, tried not to see her face. Her smile, to hear her encouraging words again in reality and not in the confines of a memory slowly fading. All the meetings, all the parties, all the students, all the fun she and her had while attending during those years.

She clutched her fist.

“Why…”

Why had the desert taken her? Why had she gone out there? So many mysteries that would never be solved. The present brought forth many too, though these were easier to comprehend at least.

“That man… Sensei.”

He was an adult. Hard to trust them nowadays, or ever. None of them had helped them in the past, they were ignored now by student and adult alike. Up until now, when this Sensei came into Kivotos under strange circumstances and started fixing issues with the systems here. It was miraculous, just like how…

She took a long shuddering breath, let it out with a loud wheeze. Maybe he truly was the one that would uncover these mysteries. The one to finally acknowledge them, care for them, to strike a hit in all the systemic issues plaguing Kivotos as a whole. The fact he started here was…

WHROONNNNN

She snapped out of her thoughts and whipped around to the right, looking outside the biggest window to the outside. Blue eyes glowing eyes bright evil monster eyes eyes connected to some hideous beast bore onto hers, clicking and beeping around cyclically analyzing her oh god what the HELL is that?

GHRONNN

WHROOONNNNNNNE

The thing ran off from her sight, its feet, not bipedal or quadrupedal but tripedal thundering away causing the ground to shake slightly as whatever it was ran off to the pitch black desert darkness, not even the stars illuminating its presence as it ran deep into the waves of the sand sea before her. A shrill freakish howl erupted from it as it ran never to be seen in the night.

REEEEOOOOOONNNN

“W...Wha…”

She slumped against the wall, all its rough scaly feeling textures crawling up her back as she descended to the floor. What in all that’s holy was that? She remained there for a while, staring out the window with blue and orange eyes looking for any movements, her shotgun trained on it her hands shaking oh

shaking

shaking

shaking…

Chapter Text

What a waste of time this was, endlessly calling the same number over and over again with no result. Was this what insanity felt like? Her ears hung low, wiggling somberly at this situation. For hours no one at the Pandemonium Society picked up. Not even an answering machine to facetiously tell her they were busy, just fuzz after the calls line clicked after ten minutes of waiting, making her pace in growing fury.

If only Sensei was here. The power to just go over there with no appointment and whack that incompetent, goofy, laughing maniac that was allowed to have leadership powers in Gehenna with no consequence was tempting to fantasize about. Alas, such power was far from her reach, and the alternatives she could turn to sate this fantasy were even worse than Makoto.

“Whew… Whew… why won’t any of them pick up?”

She grumbled under her breath, trying very very hard not to burst a blood vessel at this silence. Were they purposely ignoring her? Did they have no mob chans hired to answer the phone like the Prefect Team? Even the GSC had some on standby, in case she or… The President were ever sick or otherwise incapacitated.

“Why did you have to.. go? Why…”

To both The President and to Sensei, who over the last couple days had left an impression on her and everyone working here. Both were so willing to help others, had limitless patience, seemingly, and proved to be leaders that kept this city together. Or district in his case, seeing as he hadn’t proved himself to the other academies. They also hid many secrets from everyone around them.

“Geez..”

She dialed the number one last time, just in case this was the promised time. The line rang monotonously while she looked over at her open door. No fires here at least. After that Prefect Raid fled from the main headquarters, she and Ayumu along with countless mob chans found themselves tending to the aftermath of what looked like a disaster that bullied itself through the building.

Fires from the careless conduct the raid members spread on various desks and filing rooms. They hastily put them out but found themselves being questioned by KSP and Valkyrie officers after, the latter being strange in her opinion. Ever since those budget cuts their wings seemingly took them places far beyond they should have been able to go.

The line kept ringing, ringing, ringing. She closed her eyes and used her free hand to massage her forehead, trying to keep another painful headache from acting up due to stress. Perhaps this wasn’t the promised time after all. It was late, the sun almost dipped behind the magnitude of Kivoto’s skyline.

She spent hours upon hours picking up all the litter and scattered files left behind in the raids wake, the sheer amount would break any other office saps mind at the volume. Luckily, she was used to this kind of chaos, unfortunately. Picking up overturned desks, stacks of papers, righting file cabinets and replacing light bulbs that fizzled out was a norm even before everything suddenly changed. At least this stress was nothing new, though the lack of sleep was catching up to her over the years.

A loud and drawn out yawn crashed into her sensitive ears with the strength of garbage truck barreling into someone. Whoever was on the other side must have woken up from a nap or something.

“Aooh!”

Rin flinched and held the receiver away, far away from that obnoxious noise. She shuddered letting the chill run its course through her spine and legs in order to sound composed somewhat. What kinda deep yawn was that? An older mob chan? She cautiously put the receiver end back against her ear.

“Mhheeh, who dares to wake the Great Leader of-”

Whoever was on the other end, that Rin was realizing with a growing dread might be a fellow elf eared leader, was taking a large amount of air in. No, no please don’t-

“-PANDEMONIUM SOCIETY WHO SHALL RULE ALL OF KIVOTO’S UNDER AN IRROOOON FIST?”

Good Lord that was even worse than she was expecting, her ears ringed and flapped up and down at the pain of this supposed great leader shouting her lungs off directly into her ear drum. Another thing adding to a growing tinnitus she noticed whenever she had a rare moment of silence. She composed herself and found another attack on her ears the second she even glanced at the discarded phone.

“Kiheheh.. kiheheheh… KIHEHEHEHEHEHEHHHHH!”

For the love of all that she still found skeptically sacred why did this fool keep making such extremely loud and annoying noises!? Make it stop make it stop, she tried to by covering her ears but found she was out of luck as the Great Leader of Pandemonium Society laughed for twenty more seconds before saying in a much quieter but still haughty tone,

“Hoouh, what can Makoto do for you?”

She could see the jerks fingers playing around with the cords of that phone she was using, could practically feel the illustrious air around her sitting figure as she waited for Rin to speak after hearing all of that, even the wine that was probably fake bougie crap she bought at a dodgy convenience store. Deep breaths Rin, deep breaths, don’t want to show this idiot how far things have gone that she was calling this boisterous buffoon.

“Good evening, Miss Hanuma Makoto. I was calling to send a complaint in a-”

The leader on the other end of this line interrupted her with as much politeness as one of her perceived standing could. A thin strand indeed.

“Ohooo, such respect. I admire your willingness to address the future dicta-, AHEM, future leader of Kivoto’s so fittingly.”

Rin stared dead eyed at the stapler next to her on the desk. Her eyes for a brief few seconds completely lost their light at the absolute idiocy of this woman. This, THIS was the best Gehenna could do? No wonder the Prefect Team was so paranoid about Sensei if this was what their leadership was like. Things were falling apart for a reason down there evidently.

Focus, focus. She nodded to herself and steeled her brain for more dumbness that was assuredly coming her way.

“-... about the Prefect Teams conduct in a recent mission they went on.”

Silence flooded onto the opposite end of the line. Not even the esteemed leaders breath could be heard bearing down on her ears, for a few relieving seconds.

“Is this… the day?”

“Um, excuse me?”

“Is this… truly the day?”

“What.. are you..?”

“Is this the day that…”

Another even longer inhalation of air than the last time was sucked into Makoto’s mouth. She set the phone down and covered her ears trying to bury their inner canals with as much hand as she could before another ear splitting yell roared from the phones speakers.

“I CAN FINALLLLY RID MYSELF OF THOSE PREFECT DOGS?!”

Just as unpleasant as she expected, her ears felt like they could start bleeding any second now.

“NO MORE WILL THEY STAND IN OUR WAY TO RIGHTEOUS GLORY, KEHEHEHEHEEEE!”

This was terrible mistake. She never should have even considered contacting this maniac, this power hungry tyrant that would wreck all of Kivotos without a second thought if she gained a modicum of power outside of Gehenna. Why was she one of the dwindling options she had in trying to manage the political wildfire smoldering, close to sparking and lighting all of this cities foundations to the ground?

“And, I also wanted to mention that Head P-”

She tried to get out, using all of her strength to sound composed and respectful before she went off again. The start of the name of the Head Prefect seemed to be akin to letting a great white get a large noseful of blood in the ocean, the reaction she got from even bringing up Hina setting Makoto off into an intoxicated bliss of hate.

“SAY NO MORE, I KNOW OF THAT WRETCHED HEAD’S SINS! I, HANUMA MAKOTO-”

She face planted onto her desk, an ever more occurring event over these last couple of days. A-At least this one was going to do, something? Anything about Ako. She had to at least try to explain that the head prefect wasn’t involved.

“-SHALL UTTERLY DESTROY THEM WITH ALL THE POWER VESTED IN MY STATUS AS-”

“AHEM!”

The self proclaimed Pandemonium Society leader grew quiet, not out of fear or frustration, but of disbelief that she was interrupted while reciting her best speech yet! She worked hard on this thing, ten whole minutes out of her strenuous work day as the tireless leader of Gehenna! What right did this peasant have to-

“Listen, listen carefully you tyrannical buffoon. The Prefect Members that partly destroyed Schale, KIDNAPPED federal employees of it and threatened to imprison our Sensei, were Amau Ako and Shiromi Iori.”

Makoto gulped on the other end of the line, feeling much smaller than her boisterous self from before.

“NOT, Soraski Hina. NOT Hinomiya Chinatsu. Do. I. Make. My. Self. Clear?”

“Y..Yes, Ma’am. I… didn’t catch your name, so that I might reward you w-”

“Nanagami Rin, Vice President of the General Student Council.”

“R-Right, I’ll clear a victorious path to their suspension! I swear it on-”

Before she could start another delusion ramble, Rin hung the phone up with a slam, making it rock on the holder and shake before settling down. She slouched in her chair, hands covering her face. She sat there, the weight of an entire government system with too many issues to count and the inevitable war brewing between two academies that hated each other whenever one did something unconscionable. What a mess. She prayed that Sensei would return soon.

Pandemonium Society Headquarters, Great Leader Makoto’s Office

She clutched the phone cord tight, knuckles whitening from the pressure she held on it. Beneath her night cap, stylized with the Pandemonium Society’s glorious logo, she grinned. A wide, mustache twirling villain’s grin, so stretched out it reached her pointy ears.

“Keh…”

Shrinking down into the chair, arms wrapped around her face and her legs balled up on it, she quivered and quivered. Her eyes wrenched shut as she prepared to-

“Kehehe…”

To-

“KEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE-”

...-Let out a most victorious and dominating laugh, one for the ages as she sprung out of the chair, tripped on her foot and collapsed onto the carpeted but no softer floor.

“HEHEHEHEEAAUUGGHHH!”

Her fallen form, face first, arms splayed out and her feet in the air was the sight her fellow Society member Iroha saw upon waking up, wondering what hyped her up this time. She stared at Makoto, supposed future leader of… everything, even beyond Kivoto’s with more pained eyes than usual. What in Gehenna caused this predicament?

“… Did you drink too m-”

“N-NO! I was simply amazed by this complaint I got!”

A pained, tired, worried, and a tiny bit of a confused glare glinted off Iroha’s dull indigo eyes. She brushed her even messier and bushier morning hair with a strict hand, awaiting further explanation.

“A complaint is good because?…”

The leader flopped onto her right side and got up, wobblingly standing up with support from her chair as she prepared this important message. With a grunt, a hat switch to her chairman hat and an elaborate maneuver that was close to getting her get stuck in her official coat of arms, she spun to face her assistant with an all too familiar smile that seemed more pleased than usual. Not a good sign.

“Because, dear Iroha, we finally have an exc-, AHEM, justified reason to suspend the Prefect Team!”

Iroha reluctantly put her council hat on, fiddled with it so it covered the top of her head and looked Makoto straight in the eye. She adjusted her posture into a more militant form, crossed her arms and nodded.

“Lay it on me, Glorious Leader.”

This was going to be good.

Black Market District, Near Stygian Bank

These representatives were traveling about in multiple cars. That alone would not be reasonable suspicion or even an out of place practice for the multiple corporations that ruled Kivoto’s media conglomerates and militia groups.

“… There.”

She breathed out, dark purple eyes narrowing on the robots stopping near the banks entrance. Again, nothing out of the ordinary, except for-

“Who… are you?”

A different set of representatives from another firm approached the Kaiser group, no, boldly walked up to them. These weren’t robots, probably. It was hard to tell behind those masks that if she saw them at night could understand someone getting nightmares from given the two blue subtly glowing eye sockets that regarded the first Kaiser member with an indifferent glance. Their suits appeared normal enough, though they seemed to emanate a silvery glow hard to see in the light of the countless buildings around them.

The accepted greeting of a friendly handshake was ignored, pushed off by these new players who waved a different member towards them, spoke behind a garbled voice changer that echoed throughout the alley she stalked them in.

In fact, they took a passing disinterested look into the alley, noting the red brick that surrounded the hooded passage colored dull red. The bricks decaying and scrunched and smelt as gross as wet clay in a Highlander river.

In the back of the way she hunched over behind a dumpster, blocked out the smell of rotting expired milk and fruit, focused on the impromptu meeting, sort of impromptu, while keeping her wings and distractedly white hair hidden from view. Thank everything her hearing was still sharp, despite the warnings she got from Chinatsu about using that gun of hers often to take down crime. Close proximity to such noise was dangerous for her hearing, not that she could do anything about it now.

They spoke about nothing for a minute, the typical conversation middle managers have before settling in for serious business. Though, why out here? In the open? A perplexing move. At least she wasn’t aside from her eyes which didn’t attract the attention of the probing sight swiping over the dumpster.

Once the greeting representative nodded in approval, the indifferent one stepped up and recited orders.

“Parcel.. located in Abedju Necropolis, amass in… sight-lines of Razors Three through Six.”

Her wings flapped microscopically in slight intrigue. There was company buzzwords and then there was a whole languages of corporate doublespeak. Or at least attempts at doublespeak. With how slowly and authoritatively this drone spoke, she assumed this wasn’t how they normally would speak to outsiders to their firm.

“When viscon of function confirmed… by Razor Leader Four… Leader Four will drop Daggers. Sterile environment at risk of Infection. Containment possible, essential for sectors health.”

The voice changer, or vocoder the more she thought about it, obscured much of what they said. The gist seemed to be a pickup in a necropolis. Quite a few areas in Kivoto’s that would match that description. She took a step back, looking away and preparing to leave this spot then head out towards the nearest safe house when-

“Uh.. yeah, you know you can just say Abydos right?”

No response from the unknown firm, company or corporation, she didn’t know which this party was. Thank it all for the brashness of Kaiser representatives. This was her next lead, possibly an important one. Whatever was being spoken of here must be related to the anomalous activity.

“Oh, thanks. Meet you at Ab.. Abju? Bah, lets go.”

Her head snapped back towards the meeting and caught a fleeting glimpse of a small device being traded from the strange firm and Kaiser, something contained in a blackish container colored a sleek gray on the front. A logo was visible on it, words in undecipherable text set in a dark, almost pitch black blue background with a two pinch sharply edged claw surrounding a circle in white. A bizarre logo even for Black Market standards. Symbolism for something, maybe native to whatever culture they came from. Unlikely they were from Kivoto’s or at the very least the populous parts of it.

The two groups dispersed, one heading to the Stygian Bank, the other off to the right to a vehicle marked with that off putting logo, though faded against the pitch blackness of the thing. Was that even a vehicle? She spotted the wheels after scrutinizing it, finding that they blended in with the dark alleyway they too set up shop in like her.

This was a perplexingly disturbing development, and the other Prefect members needed to be informed expeditiously. She sat back against the gross dumpster, lamenting on an added chore she added to her list of neglected chores at home. Anything for the mission though, no matter how unpleasant or inconvenient. Laundry was one of the worst post mission things on her checklist.

She pulled out her communicator device, a hardy bit of plastic that survived along with her on these outer excursions beyond Gehenna’s bounds for years. She tapped a nub on the top that activated a purple hologram of text and images, part note taking device, part communicator as mentioned before. With careful haste she wrote down the interaction she spied on, noting the blue and gray suits the mysterious group wore and the blue eyed helmets they wore, though they bordered more on gas masks. Were they worried about a chemical attack? Though rare they weren’t unheard of in this barely governable district. She made sure to note the glow around their suits for identification of members down the line.

The Kaiser members unfamiliarity with the group at first was written along with their confusion at the corporate language this other group used. She was in the middle of detailing the strange and mysterious container when an urgent notification for an emergency call blotted out the note app, making her groan in annoyance at the timing.

“Right when I was finishing up too…”

She suppressed a pout, put on her neutral face, her eyes merely normal irises then clicked on the answer button. A Prefect mob chan popped up and took over her screen looking half scared to death, a foot in the grave if she were honest about it.

“H-Head Prefect! There’s an emergency, we need you now! Please come back!”

The whiny tone mixed with the despair in the mob chans voice had her pause in the middle of her canned statement about being on important Prefect business. With a sigh she nodded and moved her finger to end the call, her pointer one covering her end of the screen for a second. Probably Kasumi targeting essential architecture again to construct a hot springs, on or in a magma hot center or whatever it was again. What a hassle. They seemed to enjoy wasting her time too.

“Wait wait! I-It’s about the raid on um… Schale Headquarters!”

She stopped millimeters from ending the call. The raid on… what? That cute mob couldn’t have said Schale, right? A governing body of Kivotos? The one who’s president disappeared from a couple days ago, causing an explosive spike in crime so massive that every academy was affected by it in some way or another? The same one who’s new Sensei had managed the initial spike with a care for criminals that she found oddly endearing if naive. That Schale?

“Who authorized this?”

Her voice crystallized to ice, whatever tone she could put out as neutral long gone.

“U-Um, Administrator Ako! She said she was following your orders in investigating any… or.. all…”

The little thing trailed off, her eyes widening beneath her little prefect cap in fear as her Head Prefects eyes took a devilish glow that intensified second by second the longer she spoke. She trembled on her side of the screen, looking into Hina’s pupils morphing from rounded pupils to elliptically vertical ones not unlike a snakes, one ready to lash out with its bloodied fangs. Her face shadowed as she spoke her next words.

“Arrange a Meeting with Ako, NOW.”

The mob chan nodded frantically and cut the call herself, and she hoped that she would arrange that meeting immediately. She growled lowly, shut off the communicator with tense hands that shook lightly then leaned against sat up from the back of the dumpster.

“What did you do?…”

She closed her eyes, breathed in and out slowly and methodically to contain a rising rage threatening to boil over. Why? Why did she have to do this, all in her name and surely dragging her into this clear mess over something in Schale? Was it Sensei, the seemingly kind man who showed up out of nowhere? The sudden resurgence in power at Schale after the president was missing? How was… how did… why did…

Her whole body shook in contained rage that usually only barely boiled over, not almost let loose upon the black market population. She tightened her gloves around her wrists, let out a quivering breath and walked out of the alley.

Time to investigate this storm brewing over Kivotos. Last she heard Sensei had gone off to Abydos, and the necropolis mentioned by that outer group was a reasonable guess as to where him and them would be. Perhaps he could clear up some things, calm Ako down. That was if Makoto wasn’t already moving to suspend the Prefect Team…

She held a chuckle in. As dangerous as a suspension was, she knew that the Pandemonium Society wouldn’t file the right paperwork the first time to stop them. Or the second, the third, maybe even the fourth if they were lucky. At least until tomorrow morning she had time to seek out Sensei.

Chapter Text

They sat or laid in the club meeting room, strewn about on bullet riddled desks and beanbags dragged from their rooms for comfort. An ad hoc meeting about the events of the day was to take place, with the only ones absent being Sensei and Hoshino. He lay on a mattress Ayane had dug up from one of the sand filled storage rooms taking a nap as opposed to a full rest, much to Serina’s chagrin. A small victory nonetheless.

Hoshino was patrolling the desert and Abydos High Schools perimeter and interior, though none knew sans the wolf eared girl sipping from her Liquid Energy drink lazily, watching the others huddled in the flickering florescent lights illuminating the trashed room. Hopefully their elder found no trouble waiting for them in this desolate land they called home.

“Club Meeting Begin!”

Ayane announced with a tired cheeriness, her glasses caked in sand and dust that would need scrubbed soon. She slumped forward in her chair, arms crossed on the meeting table looking at Ayane, Nonomi and Shiroko with expectant eyes. Serina sat at the far end of it, closest to the room he was napping in, taking glances back with feverish care.

“Nn, took the fight to them for once. Felt nice.”

Shiroko started, wiping her lips with the back of her hand and looking at the elf eared girl with a satisfied small smile. She leaned back in her chair causing it to creak and her ears to twitch. She stopped and leaned forward too, her elbows propping her head up.

“Indeed, with Sensei’s orders and our new supplies we gave them a surprise!”

Nonomi sat in her chair upright, her hands holding a cloth that wiped away a days worth of sand off her minigun while she smiled happily, a twinkle in her bright emerald green eyes that seemed to be a lighter reflection of Sensei’s dark green emerald ones that she stared in whenever he was distracted. Her lanyard hung the card resting on the table too. She continued,

“A miracle came before us, and with it we got our spirit back, hehe!”

Their cat eared friend, slouching in her chair, navy blue tail swaying back and forth behind her chair as she heard all her friends praise this strange man that showed up out of nowhere just glared. It was too convenient, too soon, especially with the GSC’s track record with their mailed pleas of desperate help bordering on wailing for anyone or anything to heed them being ignored whether deliberately or not. She popped a gummy in her mouth and chewed in melancholic thought.

“Hmmm, and what does our cute little Serika think about this turn of events?”

Nonomi’s voice shook her out of the little episode, the thoughts beginning to stir within her mind scattered at her curious friends prompting. Whatever, she knew what she wanted to say and imply, to get them all to think harder about the events of the day. With a held back annoyed sigh she began her testimony.

“Well, I am glad those helmeted pricks got their asses kicked for once, but…”

Her ears flipped up and down parallel to each other, then she crossed her legs and nodded to herself then to them. Another gummy in her mouth was chewed and swallowed before she began. An edge to her voice crept in.

“Isn’t this a little.. too good?”

“Whatever do you mean?”

All four in the room responded in their own ways. Nomomi tilted her head in mild confusion, a look of wonder on her face at the skepticism Serika showed to this positively uplifting change of events for them. She was about to speak up and note how dire their situation was before when the others interrupted her, without meaning too. Nothing held against them.

“Nn?”

Her gray wolf ears swiveled towards Serika, giving her their full attention. Another now longer sip from her energy drink as she drew in her lips thinking of the implication she brought in to this conversation. She was the first one to meet the two that brought them any semblance of hope, not that it made her special or anything. Shiroko wasn’t keeping a list of firsts with Sensei at all, no sir!

“Well, maybe…”

With all the worries of their school polluting her thoughts nearly every second of her days and nights living near these wasted ruins and inside a ruin in the making, Ayane nodded in agreement to this skepticism. Even after seeing him work so hard and go through frankly some of the grossest environments and stressful attacks that had bored down on them, the back of her mind held a twinge of doubt at this change of circumstance. Her ears folded down slightly, another slight shadow casting over her eyes.

“…”

The Remedial Knight made no indication that she had even heard the question put forth at them all, her focus haphazardly switching between barely hearing this conversation and her unending worry for him and his sleep patterns. One half of her thoughts knew she had to pay some attention to this meeting for later, the other wanting to peek inside the room given to him to see if he were actually asleep. She didn’t trust that he was getting an uninterrupted rest, and that notion made her rub her medical back with nervous fingers. They stroked the bag with a fervent pace as she looked over to the merry group, eyes taking in every one of them then saying,

“I don’t know what you mean. We came her in good faith, I can assure you that.”

A subtle accusatory tone targeted Serika in particular as she looked at them while she spoke, an irritated glint in her stressed pink eyes. She had heard after all, at least the last thing the cat girl had said. Too good… Did she..

“I’m just… lost at how it took the GSC this-”

Serika’s red biased magenta eyes sharpened. She put her gummy bag down on the table and put her full attention on Serina, arms crossed with her head angled up an inch or two.

“-long to finally help us. Just..”

Her dark blue ears drooped to their sides, twitching every other second. She closed her eyes, trying to blink back tiny tears wanting to dot her lids. Her right fist clenched, her black gloved fingers grinding down on her red covered palms, making the fabric crunch under the pressure. It shook lightly as she finished her sentence.

“Why Now? Why not before? Why not when this crisis started? When the previous council got us into this mess and let this school crumble into its… its..”

Her fist shuddered, the knuckles starting to turn from a light pink into a pale white that grew paler by the second as her voice rose, her friends shifting uncomfortably at a secret close to being brought out before a party they were hesitant to broach to.

“… Current State. Was it finally convenient for your council to acknowledge us? To help us now that things are getting worse in its own district? To help wipe this debt heaped upon us by disasters w-”

“O-Ok! Lets calm down, please… you’re not even giving her a chance to-”

Ayane’s brief interjection brought the growing fury brewing in Serika’s gaze onto her for a second, making her flinch back her ears trying to fold themselves behind her head from this discomfort and even fear overcoming her.

“-NO! I want to know why those scumbags up at the General School Council decided NOW was the promised time to do something, ANYTHING for us while we sat here for years being assaulted, indebted and humiliated as everyone else abandoned us for anything but this sand ridden wasteland!”

Her ears flared up, jerking left to right in a revealed anger washing over her. She stood up from her spot and pointed at Serina who watched her with a hollow unknowing gaze at the hostility directed at her and Sensei, a hand reaching down to her gun in case things went for the worst.

“Alrighttt Serika, I don’t think she needs to be bombarded like this! They came and helped us, isn’t that enough to prove their intent?”

Nonomi stood up as well, making movements to get behind Serika, her arms raising and folding out in case she had to encase their angered friend in a calming hug that would surely sooth her. The debt being brought up openly made her worry that Serina and Sensei would ditch them too like everyone else who was here before. She shot a nervous glance down to Shiroko and Ayane, her smile turning down into a frown.

Shiroko nodded and sat up in her chair, ready to speak in case this got more out of hand.

“W-Well, we didn’t even know you were in such a state! Nothing about a debt was told to us, nor how unsafe and unsanitary things were here! We’ll gladly-”

“Sounds like you and Sensei oughta figure out how our numerous complaints were kept from your leadership then, Hm?”

Serina stared deep into Serika’s eyes, the pain radiating from her irises. Her fingers wrapped around the stock, clutching and pulling it up to her chest, unnoticed by the cat girl as she continued her impassioned rant.

“What experience does he even have, managing debts and rebuilding academies.. What did he do before this? Has he told you?”

That blink and you miss it stare from the pink haired knights face told her everything she needed to know. She raised her fist in the air towards the ceiling. It trembled as she thought of how he handled those jerks that infiltrated this very room.

“H-He’s a… a.. Highly Tra-”

REEEOOOOOOONNNNNNN

All in the room fell silent as an inhuman screech rippled the air around them, more specifically from the outside of the complex. Sound waves echoed all around as it grew distant, traveling from one of the branching hallways of the school to beyond the broken wall that protected them symbolically from all the dangers the high desert gave.

Ayane crouched beneath the meeting table, her ears drooping so low they risked being lost to the ground from how far she crouched down. Chills ran down her spine, neck and legs her senses warning her of an impending danger narrowly missed. Pale fingers dug into the steel of the table making marks that would remind her of this moment and more for years to come. She tried parting her lips, to say something, anything, a sound for Lords sake but all that came out was chilled pants that uttered nothing intelligible.

Shiroko recognized a predators cry, the sound one made when it was announcing to others it had found food that could be taken wholesale later down the line. Her ears flipped down to the sides of her head, a baritone growl raising from her lips, her teeth ground against each other forming tips suitable for tearing apart threats to this sacred place in her heart. She held her gun up and made way for the door outside, ignoring the pleas from Nonomi and Ayane. The doors handle bent as she turned it open and disappeared into the sandy dark.

“W-Wait! We don’t know what that was, come back!”

Nonomi’s pleas went unheard as she watched their resident wolf run off to chase down the intruder on their land. Her hands gripped the handles of her minigun, her thumb running down the trigger making the barrel spin in order to fire at whatever the HELL that was. Ungodly beast, desert creature, maybe even the serpintine creature that was rumored to slink about in these wastes. Whatever it was she wouldn’t let Shiroko go alone.

“G-GRAAHHHH WHAT NOW!?”

If the boiling fury fueled by humiliation, pain, sadness and frustration didn’t reach a turning point here she would have combusted from it all. Instead it went to her gun which she cocked with an impatient fervor, magenta eyes darkening more as a glow of absolute hatred clouded them all ready to kick whoever or whatever that was off their land. No more uninvited intruders were going to desecrate their home anymore.

Just as she and Nonomi were going to join Shiroko outside, Serina turned from them just in time to see Sensei stagger out of his room hurriedly, a look she never wanted to see on his face again plastered across his normally stoic demeanor.

His eyes bloodshot and narrowed towards that outside door shot from her to Serika, Nonomi and Ayane then spiraled at the absence of Shiroko. With a fearful grunt he let his suit WHIFFF him towards the outer door at remarkable speed, millions of thoughts clearly running across his mind. He barreled through the partially cracked door, leaving a forearm impression that would remain for the time being. His face a concoction of fury and anger that twisted his face into a determined grimace was the last thing she saw of him.

“L-Lets go!”

Ayane put on a bold facade and hopped over the table then went out the door first, then Serika who followed with a body itching to let out all that rage festering inside it, then Nonomi lugged out hoisting her massive gun up to her side to fit through ready for anything.

Serina gripped her gun and medical bag, wishing hard that she should have been inside his room watching him over, tending to anything that cropped up and maybe even run a hand down his hair. Anything but this nightmare of a job they had taken on, anything else by all that was sacred!

Outside Abydos High School, Some Little Distance Away

She watched from inside the Shittem chest as he bum-rushed out the door, tripped and nearly cracked his head against the floor. Luckily that powered arm reach out stopped him from impacting with a little whiff, pushed him up and enabled him to continuing rushing to the source of that awful noise.

“Senseiiii, please..”

Her worried notion was ignored, as was plenty of her countless ones before. He stumbled over rocky concrete debris his head swiveling this way and that taking in the whole environment in this dark setting.

Glaring pale dunes sprouted high above the outside of the schools perimeter, showing no signs of intrusion or disturbance aside from particles of sand that blew off their tops. Next the school itself in all its dilapidated glory was looked over, all broken windows and doors examined before finding nothing in those either aside from a trembling Hoshino walking out of a hallway some distance away from them.

He ran over to her panting and wheezing, that wild look in his eye noticed by her as she composed herself with some breaths and a pound to her vested chest. Arona remained quiet for now.

“Ohhh, you heard it too Sensei? I thought I was hearing things in my old age, u...hee..”

The facade crumbled as quickly as she started it, leaving her looking at his form with eyes laced with a rare terror that shined yellow and blue amid the dark from her mismatched colors. He took in a shuddered breath meant to calm him, which barely did, then reached out towards the junior.

“Ah, aha…”

The terror metabolized into confusion as he started patting her head, sifting through her hair then with a gentle hand turned her around and began feeling her shoulders. Her slumped posture corrected itself at the invasive touch.

“H-Hey, you haven’t even-”

Then his fingers poked at her mid back, inspecting for some kind of ailment that wasn’t there. The others aside from Ayane came tumbling down to the two of them and bumped into each other as they made the same perimeter scans he had before.

“What was that? That sounded like a pained uh.. creature or something.”

Nonomi brought up, now looking at Sensei and Hoshino’s odd display and tilting her head again. After his inspection of Hoshino was done he switched to beginning the same procedure to their group as well. Her sentence died off as he began with their cat eared friend.

“H-Hey, watch where you’re touching!”

Serika’s tail and ears were inspected, his gaze sweeping over her finding nothing here as well.

“O-Oh, Sensei what are you looking for exactly?”

He didn’t answer, of course he didn’t. He only seemed to make any sounds when Serina was talking with him for some reason and rarely to others like Shiroko and the GSC, not that Nonomi knew the latter of course. Her bun and beige cardigan were brushed of sand with his fingers as he found nothing of the specter he feared was there.

After her he looked to Shiroko, who held her arms out ready to be pat down, her rifle clinging to her arm dangling close to the sand. A visual inspection brought no evidence of any harm on her person as well, thank everything.

Last and certainty not least, in fact he should have started with her first was Serina who looked at him eyes wide in amazement at his boldness and swiftness as he started with her. He went behind her and knelt down, then with trembling hands he scooted her bag aside, nothing there. Next he patted the back of her varsity jacket and uniform down, finding no sign of anything piercing her shoulders or midsection… No blood, no holes, no internal bleeding gushing from a nasty wound inflicted by the creature that sounded off ready to impale any one of these wonderful beings.

“S-Sensei?”

Her meek voice interrupted his disturbed inner monologue, her gaze looking up at his wide eyes. He sniffed, shut his eyes to stop a relieved breakdown from starting, then stood up from the sand and rubbed her head in such an affectionate way she would never expect. Fingers caressed the headdress she wore, then with a care hitherto unseen he circled his thumb around her forehead making her stiffen in embarrassment.

“S-Sensei what are you-”

“You’re ok, you’re… all ok.”

No need to do anything of the sort with Ayane, his teary eyes could see her gasping and panting her way down to them. He stopped rubbing Serina’s head, leaving her mumbling incoherently with a reddened face while Nonomi looked interested, Shiroko a blank stare stewing in jealous thoughts, Hoshino her facade back and using to to project her weirded out confusion and Serika glaring at Sensei cursing him for that strange display. All liked that he spoke, again for the day. Especially in such a…

Paternal Tone.

“That.. thing will come back. With more in tow. We stay up on guard, take shifts every few hours to nap.”

His order was final, and Serina glanced at her shoulders, tried to see her back where he felt so carefully and feverishly. Why did he do that? That was odd even for his sensibilities. That look in his eye, so scared and primal, even now he looked about every direction he could with an intent and dread to find something horrifying. Maybe Hoshino knew more. Either way..

Another mystery of his that was waiting to be solved. So much for coaxing him out of that damned suit for tonight though, maybe after all of this has calmed down. He sounded so relieved, so hopeful now though even with his stern orders. Something was up with that as well.

Chapter Text

It scurried along the desert pathways, tripedal legs carrying its oval shaped body towards the designated meeting point. Tracks left behind were washed away with the high winds that blew in shortly after its reconnaissance wrapped up, after seeing all the sights and sounds Abydos High School provided to its sensors.

If it still held the same limbic system it possessed before being converted into its current loyal form, a sense of familiarity would have pervaded its thoughts as it scanned the desolate landscape. The dunes broken up by the occasional boulder, the isolation of being surrounded by an alien world and the group of students living in such a place would have reminded it of the before times.

When kin meant only its true kind, before they were perverted into their current forms. What kin represented was expanded for them by their so called benefactors that it was programmed to unconditionally support.

Only vague remains of those days remained in its enslaved mind, buried by the code overwhelming the little bits and knobs of its brain matter allowed to its kind after being domesticated. This feeling of a pack, a pack of five fighting against it all jolted fuzzy half memories that plagued its visual sensors, unwelcome inputs from its strained hippocampus, the equivalent for its species at least.

No, there was a sixth as well. Taken away by circumstances beyond the pack, mysteriously and without warning. When its sensors peered into the last students eyes, those mismatched yellow and pink orbs fearfully staring into its dark blue vertical ones, it was reminded.

These malformed untruthful thoughts that were seconds away from getting its electroshocked were interrupted by its arrival at the meeting point. Its cameras spotted the two non kin friends leaning against the vehicle it and its kin came from, looking out at the rising suns rays beginning their journey to light the sands with hot rays.

BEEP BEEP WHROOOUNNN

It gave them a greeting, a few beeps and whirs that startled them out of the stupor they were in. Not only were they leaning against the vehicle, they were shoulder to shoulder, ones arms wrapped around the other in an embrace it might have thought to be.. loving while the other seemed to welcome being held. Their helmeted heads even touched while gazing out towards the rising red sun, taking in this sight before…

“W-WAAUUH!”

“WOOOAH!”

In their rush to detangle themselves they tripped over each others feet and flopped onto the ground side by side. Their helmets hid the presumably embarrassed looks on their faces, the tinges of red that faded as they got back into work mode while getting back up. It waited, cameras recording this behavior to certain overseers no doubt working to send them some silly rule violation. The two dusted themselves off and faced it, finally beginning the transfer of knowledge it wanted to commit.

“A.. Ahem, finished your mission man?”

The middles of its vertical eye sockets split open, machinery and flesh inside buzzing and clicking as the chip they had slotted in before slid out of the slot and onto her outstretched hand. She looked it over, her mouth agape at the fluid coating it, then closed her hand and looked to her kin-like friend.

“After I process this…”

Her kin nodded almost too eagerly at some hidden implication in that sentence and rushed to open the back of the carrier. When a pass code entry she opened it up and pointed to the dark inside, where its true kin still lay in induced slumber, it joining them soon.

“Thank you man, now go take a rest.”

Its visual and pulse sensors detected a heightened heart rate hammering in her chest, possible deception? No, that would have happened already. It crouched forward, legs leaning towards her as it scanned her more closely, visual sensors zooming in on her face, then zoomed out.

“Uh.. geez, why’d they have to give us these creepy ass things…”

She grumbled leaning back from its probing, its limbs briefly controlled by the more free bits of its current limbic system. Its eyes dilated, then shrunk back. Nothing it or its kin had to worry about. It leaned back itself and plodded into the carrier, its form joining the three other kin forms in stasis. As the door closed its cameras shut off, its body powering down until needed again. Many more deactivated kin surrounded them, but only four remained in standby including itself now.

Outside the APC, the gang member that took Its chip sit down at the terminal she was told to input it in, whatever that meant. She frowned, slid it inside what looked like the right slot and waited as the holographic see through screen booted up that logo these weirdos used to represent themselves.

“Pays a lot but.. too much surveillance for me.”

She was already picturing whatever alien hardass that heard that mashing its fingers down to write a code violation for wrong-think or some other citation.

“Be careful now, I’m already getting one from looking at that.. thing wrong.”

Up piped her intimate friend who read her mind like a book. Geez, hopefully they wouldn’t have to put up with all of this much longer. Their leader decided to start working for a corporation, the name slipped her mind at the moment, that seemed to be taking offers from anyone in or outside of Kivoto’s realm. These benefactors were a bit too controlling in both their opinions. Only a matter of time to see if this arrangement was worth it…

Abydos High School, Council Meeting Room

He slept nary a wink that night keeping watch over his students, his eyes growing more heavy as the hours rolled on. Pitch black transformed into deep hazes of red that crept over the tip of the dunes he scoured earlier in the night, their pale reflection burning in a hazy orange that hurt his eyes the longer he looked at it.

With a grunt he turned and looked back inside the meeting room where he had them sleep in for the time being. Sleeping bags matching their personal affects or hair colors or even eye colors were spread about the room with almost everyone accounted for sleeping peacefully. Thank God for that.

Serina lay on the desk right above the mattress gifted to him by Ayane, her closed eyes looking down where his face would have been if he was taking his designated sleep time. Her pink hair hung over her eyes, obscuring the knocked out look plastered on her face. She was up there with him in terms of little actual sleep being had, and it made him smile that for once she got real sleep. Takes one to know one with that.

Shiroko lay on her back stiffly, arms wrapped around her rifle and legs straight as a log. Despite her.. tendencies she was surprisingly well disciplined. She was the one who agreed with Serika about bringing up the debt, after everything with that damn Hunter settled down when it was clear it wasn’t coming back. Even more concerning than if it had.

Ayane lay buried in the blankets she brought out of her room, a cocoon around her body meant to protect herself he assumed. She was embarrassed about bringing up the debt, and along with Hoshion reluctantly said it was worth 962,350,000 dollars, no, yen. That amount made his eyes grow stern for a second, that stoicism on his face hardening into a frustrated tired look at the exploitation those bastards were doing to these girls. No one who clutches their handgun like a teddybear against their chest under the covers deserved to have that much debt hanging over their heads, no sir. It made him grit his teeth at the thought. A dark injustice he would rectify.

Nonomi lay on her back as well, her arms and legs all over the place making a knot of the blanket over her. Her minigun lay next to her on the floor, pristinely shining in the early morning light pouring into the room. She was hesitant to talk about the debt as well, but opened up after Serina and he made no indication of running away. She ensured that with a mighty glomp that engulfed them, no escape during the ending of that meeting. He even snickered making everyone freeze and stare at him in disbelief. Even now his habit of upmost determination made him quiet as ever. Had to work on that. Funny memory at least.

Hoshino was up and it didn’t surprise him one bit. Her patrols that she mentioned to him quietly after talking about the debt situation briefly told him everything. What a dedicated protector of her juniors she was. Sacrificing her sleep and mental health for them was admirable, reminded him of the rebels he fought along with and… He focused on her gaze directed at him, her mismatched eyes looking into his only a few feet away from each other.

“…”

“So, what did you do before becoming Sensei? Your opportunity to say was taken away at the last second, uhee~”

Her old man act bled into her genuine curiosity, her arms resting on the giant shield she started to lug around while her eyes bored straight into his, a smirk on her face as she waited for his answer.

He sighed, sat up and shifted so that he faced her entirely, not just his eyes but his whole body. With a cough into the sleeve of his orange suit and a push to his glasses so that they weren’t on the bridge of his nose anymore, he finally went out with it. No more mystery to be had at the truth.

“I.. was a trained theoretical physicist, got my education at MIT, a university, before working at a facility dealing with…-”

His gaze went down, staring at the cracked sandy floor tiles while thinking of how to put this next part into words.

“-Quantum Entanglement, or teleportation.”

She looked beyond his eyes, into his soul, that deep abyss barely lit by the hope he carried for the survivors of Earth and for his students living in a world threatened with exploitation and abuse. Not that she knew the first part of course, but still her pink and blue eyes studied his for an uncomfortably long amount of time before she shrugged, nodded and looked back out the window.

“This old man can accept that explanation, for now. How many eggheads get trained to use weapons though? Was that an extracurricular in college or something? Uhee..”

She didn’t buy all that. The education part she could, as there was something about his face that convinced her he would be some number crunching sleep deprived scientist staring at charts of data for a living and enjoy it. The glasses helped too, almost made up for the rest of his face being so sunken in. If only he didn’t look so… old now, while telling her his yellowed hollow gaze intensified. Even if that was the truth about him doing teleportation work, that didn’t explain his aged look and armor, she figured it was more armor than a suit, that was banged up to hell. There was more to that meek explanation he gave, and she knew she wasn’t alone in the search for the truth.

“Well, at least you aren’t a theoretical Sensei, hehe. I wonder where you got that training from..”

As the two conversed quietly as to not wake the others, one stirred in her bag. Her ears flipped and twitched as she stretched within her bag, waking up all the sore muscles she got from running around so much the previous day. With a skill she got from having done this countless days before, she slid out of her bag and crawled away from the room and through a small hole in the wall facing the outside.

“Whewwww.. she better find out if he’s trustworthy or not so help me…”

Serika whispered to herself, now heading to her room to get her work uniform and other things to get ready for the day. This part time job she had was necessary, even if it had her get up at all manner of odd hours. A price to be paid in order to alleviate the infinitely higher price hanging all their heads.

She left behind the patchworked ceilings, crumbling walls, sand covered tiles and more numerous broken windows that adorned their precious home for the high desert. The haze that came from the heat of the sun just now began wafting up from the sands, making her scoff. Of course she had to walk over to that cafe now of all times.

Little time to complain now though, and the hours she had to work this time weren’t too high this time. For a part time job she sure worked damn near full time often. The increased pay was nice but.. she frowned, looking back at the annex while her cyan laced black and white sneakers made impressions on the land. Was she away from them too often? She had two years left with them, and half of that time so far was spent working various part time jobs for all their sakes, and finding lucrative investments to take part in. That group of sales people talking about this funny rings downtown might have something good to say.

She huffed and turned away from the school, now further away leaving what she imagined were the silhouettes of Ayane, bless her cute soul, Hoshino, bless her sleepy ass, Nonomi, bless her rich airheaded ass, and Shiroko, bless her cold blooded criminal-in-the making ass and those two uncertain variables, bless them too I guess. The shadows of her friends faded away, turning into a nameless sand that blew away, leaving her alone. Would that happen, at the end of their journey? Would this struggle they faced together that brought them so close, for her so close yet far, be all for nothing once they graduated? When they went their separate ways in life, which would happen no matter what happened, would she still be apart of their group even separated from each other?

She had a lingering feeling that she wouldn’t be, no matter how much her conscious mind told her that they would still consider her a friend or, with a certain elf eared secretary, something closer. Hell, Ayane might have an idea of how she felt about her but she was gone from their home and at work so much both didn’t have the time or energy to tell each other how they felt. Something had to change, she had to tell before things got even busier with their new guests who were going to directly help them now. Her tail thrashed at the thought of not even being able to tell Ayane… something had to give.

She was close, the main district buildings peeked over the hill she was walking up. These thoughts had a snare on the back of her mind, making her regret taking this job in the first place in a way. For the sake of them, but… what impact would that have if she was hardly there to see the rewards her efforts brought? To see Ayane’s overjoyed face once again… She made a fist.

“Ask if you can have some time off, a day or two, nothing absurd..”

As she entered the back of the Shiba Ramen Cafe, a new focus on getting this workday over with so she could be with her friends was the goal that permeated her mind.

In-Between Abydos High School and Abdyos Main District City

She peered through the low green lit lens, her eyebrows and cheeks pressed against the cold metal of the binoculars installed next to the small workstation they set up. The same one that was still processing the data within that chip. How much longer was that going to take?

The tripod the binoculars were attached to dug a few inches into the sand, anchoring itself unsteadily so much that she had to hold its stand with firm hands. The gunmetal grey monitors and their holograms blared into her peripheral vision, making this job much harder than it needed to be.

Her target colored a bluish green through the binoculars walked along the sandy trail to her employment. She looked back often, her face seeming to be screwed into a deep thought that was questioning what she was doing, a similar look on the girl peering at her from a few miles away. The pixelated face she was extrapolating all of this from then turned and focused on the city.

“Ughhhh… can I call it innnnn?!”

Her grumble became a high pitched whine as she felt her partner, that’s what they decided to call each other for now, rested her hands on her rounded, slumped shoulders. With a care reserved for close lovers her fingers massaged her tight muscles, making her cough to hide the next higher pitched whine about to leap out of her mouth.

“Guh! You’ll get another citation if y-”

“Shhhh, it won’t be as bad if you don’t draw attention to it..”

She quieted down, tried remembering what words from that dictionary they were provided were the right ones to call in a high value target entering a capture zone. What was it, what was it… Hmmm, maybe that could wait. She had to confirm that the target stayed in the zone, and it would give her more time to appreciate her partners handiwork needling her shoulders. Was she taking too much time in calling it in?

“Ah, now you might get one too~”

“Shuttt it, it’s your fault..”

Those guys could wait a bit anyway, and probably needed time to finish setting up in the city. Quite the operation was happening from what she last heard before getting ordered out here on a whim with her partner. The Razors, the real ones not the pairs of the gang given a number at random to appease a quota she heard the boss and those creeps from the corporation argue about, were from outside this realm and lying in wait.

After a few more heavenly rubs targeted at her shoulders, which now straightened up, she decided to call it in after a couple minutes of it.

“Ok… Uh, this is Razor Thirty Five Zero, ready to call in that potential Project Thorn candidate is entering the capture zone.”

Nothing, what a surprise.

“Ara, more time for me to help you relax then~”

Oh well, there were benefits to everyone in your gang and outside forces not mixing together well. More time indeed, though hopefully she would still be awake to respond back…

Chapter Text

“Seems our Little Serika snuck off again, oh my~”

Nonomi giggled at the lack of their cat girl snoozing away in her sleeping bag, colored cyan blue and red. She put a hand on her mouth to stifle a snicker at Ayane’s expression, stuck between being a fearsome elvish demon ready to run out and tackle Serika for her leave and a sad kitten looking around for its mom after a long night separated.

“Nn, was she snatched?”

Their elvish secretary whipped around to Shiroko with her mouth open ready to shout a Don’t Say That!, then realized the wolf girl was kidding. A small smirk curled in the right corner of her lip, knowing why Ayane was so worked up. She huffed, threw her hands up and walked away from them and the sleeping bag, mumbling about how mean the two of them were. They shared a knowing smirk and smile.

“She couldn’t have gone far.. could she?”

Serina, unaware of the groups dynamic brought that up as if she deserted them late in the night. An unamused elf rolled her eyes and shook her head. She grumbled something to the effect of, Must have gone out again, and made her way to the door the cat snuck out from.

“No, no.. we just have to track her down.”

“U-Uh.. like prey?”

After the near sleepless night all of them had, they just stared at the Knight with a quiet deadpan, then went about getting their things ready. Shiroko covered her neck with that scarf of hers, Nonomi tied the left side of her hair into a bun with a tie that came from.. somewhere, who knows then let the rest fall to her waist, and Ayane combed her hair then slipped her lanyard over her head and onto her neck. Serina just gathered her bag o’ medical crap then looked towards Sensei’s room, the door closed and no sound coming from it.

“I mean.. I’m not the wolf here.”

The wolf in question snuffed a chortle with the back of her sleeve, the sound making Nonomi stifle another giggle building up in the back of her throat. Ayane rolled her eyes again and put a hand on Serinas shoulder.

“Don’t worry, she’s done this before. We just have to follow whatever trail she left behind.”

She looked around, then looked at Nonomi and motioned her head down the hall. Hoshino was to be wakened soon to join them on this mini quest. The elderly have to get out sometimes too you know?

“I wonder which one she’s at this time?”

Nonomi left the question hanging in the air as she left for her task of waking the old coot. Serina let a brow raise, expecting some kind of answer to that, then looked at Sensei’s room again.

“Job, part time job. What we suspect anyway. It changes every few weeks.”

There the explanation was given by Shiroko who also patted Serina’s shoulder and stepped in front of the door holding him. She raised a fist, ready to bash it open when-

“Hold on! After the night he’s had… we should let him rest.”

Her ears twitched left to right, considering the request, then shrugged and lightly knocked on the door rather than bust it open like she usually did if one of the members was sleeping in. A fair compromise in her mind at least. He had a right to know what they were doing and if he wanted to accompany them or not. Considering how he was last night, she really hoped he would come, if only for his sanity.

“I agree, we should be back soon anyway once we know where she’s at..”

Too late, the door swung open making Shiroko back up and give enough space for him to arise from his slumber. He said nothing as he came out, par for the course at this point since he clammed up after talking with Hoshino early that morning. Apparently he revealed what he did for a living to her, but since she went back for a nap shortly after and the rest all woke up after as well they didn’t know what. He looked good for the one person out of all of them that got the least amount of sleep.

“Goooood morning Sensei! We thought you were going to be cooped up in there all day like this one here-”

Nonomi reappeared just at the right moment to see him come out of his stuffy den, dragging Hoshino by the scruff of her uniform like she was handling some kind of misbehaving ferret. The second pink haired girl could barely keep her eyes open in the best of situations, aside from some exceptions, let alone minutes after being woken up abruptly and dragged into the suns eye melting rays.

“Uheee, you gotta learn how to treat your elders better Nonomiii~ You could get me hurt someday, and we don’t have health insurance down here you know…”

Serina didn’t even wanna know what mental sickness affected Hoshino to have her regress into this old man state, and looked back at him. That goatee turned beard needed combing, his hair too, hell even some water splashed on his face would help remove the corpse like aura he had right now. She feared what his morning voice sounded like, and was partially grateful and disappointed that all he gave them was a friendly smile and wave before disappearing into the bathroom. Her right hand twitched, holding a bottle of water she wanted to give him after making sure he woke up.

“Give it after he’s done, he’ll appreciate it.”

The wolf had crept up on her and whispered into her ear.

“Wah! You don’t have to get so close…”

A Few Hundred Feet From Abydos High School’s Annex Building and Beyond

“Nn, her tracks point this way. The main city her destination.”

Turns out it was Shiroko’s job to sniff out where Serika went after all given she was crouched down on her knees scrutinizing every sand particle unlucky enough to be caught in her mismatched pupils. The white one determined the direction Serika ran off to, or walked to given the distance between each step.

“She wasn’t hurrying either by the looks of it..”

A helpful observation by the second oldest of the group, only held back by how obvious that was. She flashed a lazy thumbs up before plodding along next to Serika’s sandy steps. Shiroko followed behind her, wolfish ears swiveling left and right listening for any uninvited guests like the one from last night. Ayane strode along next to Shiroko, her ears flittering also listening for anything stalking them. She seemed rather quiet.

“Nice catch, hehe.”

Nonomi started walking in the direction of the trail left behind, lugging her minigun around like a conventional firearm. It amazed him that his students were so strong, even scared him a little. That he was supposed to protect them was a job he took seriously considering their mental strength was lacking compared to their physical. To guide them from a doom, at least that’s what he figured the fox eared apparition in his dreams meant. Hard to say, but with the added threat of a Combine presence in the area..

He shuddered at the thought, his hand clenching the rusty red crowbar gifted to him by Ayane tight enough to make the metal creak. He stopped immediately after, not wanting to destroy a precious weapon he missed after all this time. What were the chances of reuniting with one of these? What were the chances the Alliance was sinking its teeth deep into this world, preparing to drain all of the resources, sending in forces to… to…

“Sensei?”

Right, Serina followed behind the rest of them with him. She stuck close to his side, the brilliant glow of happiness she showed after he patted her head and tussled her hair when she gave him that water fading as she looked at his face. The stoic flat lipped face she knew twisted into a worried frown that along with that scared look in his eyes made it clear that facade he put up was cracking by the second. With her question he quickly fixed it into what he thought must look like a questioning, maybe paternal glance, his lips curved into a slight smile and his brows raised. She would have called it adorable in any other circumstance.

“You alright there? You can’t be out of it in this kind of terrain Sensei..”

He made a Mm noise, one she learned was him being in brief thought before he nodded and rubbed his eyes. Didn’t that hurt? She couldn’t imagine the metallic leather or whatever synthetic compound making up those gloves felt good against one of the most sensitive parts of your body. Of course whether it hurt or not she knew he wouldn’t care.

“Think of something that would keep you focused. Surely you can given your.. previous employment.”

He snorted, nodded again and looked straight ahead at the backs of Shiroko, Ayane and Nonomi, then ahead of them at the glaring horizon. The sand radiated intense heat, their path barely visible in the blinding sun from above. The desert sure was lovely today, though nothing could beat the barren pathetic looking gray toned beaches of Highway 17’s illustrious coastline. From the maps Arona had shown him shortly after they promised each other hidden, this world still had its oceans and beaches much like Earth’s prior to..

She almost caught onto him getting lost in dark thoughts again, but got distracted by Hoshino begging Nonomi to carry her through the desert as in her words,

“You can’t expect an old man like myself to wallllk all the way there do you? These bones aren’t what they used to be, Uheee~”

Thank God for it too, because he fixed the coming worried grimace washing over his face with one of pure concentration, trying to think of anything else but the impending doom foreshadowed by that little fox girls story comments and the implications that came with a Hunter prowling around this desert so late at night watching them.

Serina looked at him being so focused on.. whatever it was he was thinking about, the neutral look coming back on his face that she was more familiar with. Something besides that and the grimace he pulled would be nice every once in awhile. Hopefully it was something fun because she was dying over here of heat and boredom, and so were the remaining Abydos task force members.

Hoshino’s usual lazy gait was more so, her path ahead often intersecting with Nonomi’s by bumping into the poor girls side every other minute, causing her to readjust her grip on the giant megadeath weapon she carried. Nonomi’s path was set but kept being nudged off course. Shiroko’s way forward was simple, her walk just a tad bit faster than everyone elses. Poor Ayane was sweating bullets, her ears completely sunburned from being outside in the sun for more than a few minutes at a time, and having forgotten the groups sunscreen that she dragged around for occasions just like this.

“S-Sorry, haha..”

She apologized at the beginning of this trek, and she appeared to regret every second she took not rushing back and grabbing the damned bottles for all. Serina pouted in sympathy, having had to deal with Hanae’s forgetful and often harmful tactics to medicinal practice everyday. Not that she disliked her for it, far from that. She liked teaching and helping others, but there was a limit she had for neglectful conduct. Luckily this was the first in what was sure to be many neglectful actions today, so she didn’t have the energy to chastise the poor elf.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a rhythmic tapping of metal and steel against each other. She turned to the source and found Sensei.. continuously tapping the hook of the crowbar against his suits chest plate, making a tune in the process. Under his breath he mumbled something about walking a great distance, five hundred miles or something absurd. Wait…

Was that a song he was humming under his breath!? She blinked and, subtly, to herself, tilted her head in his direction and listened with a keen ear her lips pursed.

Indeed he continued humming and singing along, now bobbing his head along to nonnative tune to Kivotos. Quite the merry tune he was making there, maybe…

He squinted and side eyed her when she joined in, at first messing up the first few notes of the song and coughing in embarrassment, then tried again and again. This trip wouldn’t be so bad after all.