While the children outside debated hero ethics, the young girl inside the bus brought out the lunch she had packed, a carton of still-steaming Chinese food purchased from Panda Way. Holding it between her thighs, she pulled out a set of ear mufflers next, sparing only a half-friendly nod at Axel as the brown-skinned prospect set the baby doll down properly in the ‘safe zone’. That was a clean assertion, wasn’t it? Though it may have been unintentional, or on a whim, it was not without merit.

She kept that in mind as she snapped open her chopsticks and popped the first lump of sesame chicken in her mouth. No one else did much of anything, other than debate and discuss about the particulars of the exam rather than its contents, and as she leaned her head against the window, watching their mouths flap wider and wider, a full range of emotions explored within five minutes. A bit boring, huh?

She readjusted her ear muffles to account for the buns on either side of her head, before turning back to her food. Mm, fried noodles and saucy chicken, a truly excellent combination.

[hr]
It started not with a blare, nor with a beep.

It neither warned with a countdown, nor with a message.

No, the signal was nothing so clear, nothing so kind, for it was a roar of sound, a cacophony that tore apart the solemn silence of the fog and replaced with terror that was almost palatable. Distorted by the mist, a dozen voices cried out in pain, a hundred voices cried out in fear, and still more voices cried out just to cry, men and women, elders and children all alike in their abject despair as that vicious, unkind amalgam of sound rushed over all sixteen students simultaneously. They felt it in their bones, felt it rush up their spines, and soon after, could hearing destruction in the distance as well, explosions resounding with enough depth that it shook the ground beneath them.

Was this simply atmospheric, or was this the caliber of the villains they were to face? No matter what the quality of the ‘civilians’ they were to rescue, no matter how many corners they were allowed to cut in terms of their treatment, it was clear that Jigokuraku Academy weren’t kind enough to create an utterly saccharine environment for their entrance exam. The screams were half-deafening, the environment seeped with chaos, and the identities of their enemies were utterly unknown.

That’s Hell they’re walking into.

But to be a hero in such a tumultuous era, such was the barest requirement.