[h2]Mika Alkaev - "Meat" and Greet[/h2]
Staring blankly ahead with not a care in the world, Mika brought the complementary chocolate chip muffin up to his mouth and took another tiny bite. His teeth tore through the soft, dough with ease, leaving small crumbs along the corners of his mouth and the neck of his white uniform. It took a bit more effort to crush the harder chocolate chips, but the feeling of them shattering under tooth was rather satisfying.


[i]’Who the f… heck even is this guy...? I haven’t even talked to him before and he’s saying all these weird things,’[/i] he thought. By his distant expression and blase muffin eating, it was pretty plain to see that he wasn’t really focusing all that much on the the taller, dark-haired young man - Rouka - that had suddenly appeared in front of him and Aria, talking about boiling blood or some other rot. Maybe he should get that checked out with a doctor. 


At any rate, Rouka had stuck his hand out for a shake. Normally Mika would have been a good little boy and reciprocated, but the rather impolite fact he had been playing with his phone the entire time he’d been talking to him - [i]and[/i] while he had his hand out - quickly turned him off to the young magician. “Right. If you don’t do your best, you don’t pass.” Mika said flatly, lifting the muffin in his hand as a token excuse for the lack of hand-shaking,  “And no one would want that, right?”


At that moment, a cold chill ran down Mika’s back. Turning his attention to the source of the sudden temperature drop, he saw two people just within the boundaries of the atrium. The first was unmistakable: it was Adam Pride, Sasaki’s boss and scientist of the millenia. The second was… some girl with a look that Mika really didn’t like the vibe of.


This hunch was validated when he watched her [i]drop kick Adam fucking Pride[/i]. 


“Christ,” Mika quietly exclaimed, expression visibly shocked before falling into a vaguely unsettled one. Did this kid have some kind of deathwish? She was probably important if she could get away with that kind of thing. He breathed a sigh of relief when she went up to Rouka. 


As the two had their frivolous conversation, Mika looked over his shoulder at the long snack table and then directed it in the vague direction of Aria.. “...I’m going to get another muffin from the table, you want anything?” He didn’t wait for her to answer before turning tail. Unfortunately, before he could leave, he and Aria were approached by the strange teenager. 


[i]‘Damn, getting called short by a middle schooler. What a wonderful world,’[/i] the speedster thought frustratedly, giving an obvious roll of his eyes in response. “She’s probably off teaching or something,” Mika explained a bit saltily. He shifted uncomfortably in place, eyes glancing around at all the people paying attention to them.  “And I don’t think it’d be good to interrupt her.” 


He quickly looked down at his D-Watch and checked his notifications. None of them were new. He clicked it off before anyone else could see. “...Looks like I have somewhere to be,” he lied, turning tail again. Unfortunately, just like last time, he was interrupted by another strange event.


The screens placed around the atrium flashed through frames faster than any eye but his own could see, before finally settling on what seemed to be a type of contortionist’s display? Mika recoiled when he realized what he was looking at through his slow-motion filter. “That.. is not… What…?” He lifted an eyebrow, his expression turning into some combination of uncomfortability, morbid curiosity, and disgust . “But there’s no way that the human body coul-” He paused, putting his hand to his mouth. “I stand corrected.”


“...I’m gonna get that muffin and some fresh air,” Mika announced to the group, turning away from the screen and immediately attempting to scrub his mind of the depravity through meticulous muffin examination. "Feel free to join in, I guess. [sub]Any distraction is useful[/sub]."


[h2]NPC - Daigo Kobayashi[/h2]
Meanwhile in the dean’s office, words like ‘PR nightmare’, ‘complete disaster’, and ‘scandal’ were being thrown around like dust in the wind. Ironically, none of these were being said by the dean himself, who instead was busy looking at funny pictures on the internet while the appropriate surveillance feed played in a small window in the corner. Notifications of new emails kept popping up and would have been making annoying noises had he not muted it.


After refreshing the page and looking over his computer screen to the ENMA PR officials that had suddenly stormed into his office, Daigo Kobayashi spoke: “If you fellows are just here to comp…come and tell me about this fiasco, I advise you to go do your job and deal with this pressing situation.” 


There was silence before the room was filled with voices again. Turning his attention away from that shitshow, he realized that his own computer was now part of the [i]other[/i] shitshow.


“...I mean, he’s not wrong,” Daigo muttered to himself with a mirthful snort, his voice drowned out by the all the business-talk, “At least he’s polite about it - even left a name and some words of wisdom.” He made an exaggerated, thoughtful expression. “Guess he could’ve done it more elegantly, maybe using some kind of deep, subjective, modern art p-” he flinched as his eyes focused back on the screen. “...Ouch… That does [i]not[/i] look comfortable.”


[h2]Faction Movement - ENMA University[/h2]
[quote=...is being displayed on all official broadcasts of the ceremony][center]WE ARE CURRENTLY EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES
PLEASE STAND BY[/center][/quote]


ENMA University personnel are moving to address this situation.


[h2]Faction Movement - Cog[/h2]
The Hand of God Private Military Company’s contact email receives a very, [i]very[/i] lucrative offer from the organization known as Cog. Though the actual reason for hiring doesn’t seem to be included in the offer, it states that should they accept, they will send a liaison to Rutherford Plaza to meet a representative of theirs with further information the following morning.