How had it comes to this?

Mio backs away, slowly, into a wall of lockers. It’s like she can feel each individual cell in her body, every one of them experiencing its own personal earthquake. All the while her chest tightens, her heart fulfilling the role of an entire percussion section at once.

Across from her, Jun’s terrifying, werewolf-esque familiar takes form behind the sweet boy, eyeing her with that ravenous, blood-red glare. A stark contrast to the baffled, horrified stare he gives the beast, himself. “This monster is my…?”

Familiars: Manifestations of an Esper’s psychic energy and something… else, tamed by the power of science. But one look at those snarling fangs, those jagged quills, and knife-like claws makes Jun’s heart sink into his stomach. Whatever creatures lurk around outside the city walls… they’re worse than this? A lump forms in his throat.

Another sharp tone interrupts the scene and Jun holds up his Link as the automated voice chimes out from it. “Royale Combatants are within proximity. The match may now begin.”

Jun inhales, his breathing shaky. Out comes a trembling “Morioka-san…” He flips his scarf over his shoulder and sluggishly turns himself around despite how heavy and stiff his body feels, looking upon Mio with those soft, kind eyes and that warm smile she’d begun to grow accustomed to.

Yet when Mio looks upon that face, she sees only sadness. “Serizawa-san?”

“Try to win… okay?” The statement takes Mio aback entirely. But then Jun bows his head to hide his face. “Thing is… I’m a total coward. I’m scared out of my mind. Look how long it took me to even talk to you. I probably wouldn’t last five minutes, out there. But I don’t want you to get sent out either.” His hands tremble and his body stiffens as his Familiar looms over him from behind. “I’m just not strong enough to forfeit. I’m too scared.” Reaching up, he wipes his face with his hoodie sleeve, raising his head with a deep breath, adopting a hollow expression. A turbulent gust blows through the entrance hall as a mass of psychic energy surges out from within him, rattling every locker. His scarf flows in this personal storm and he continues with a somber “So please… try to win, Morioka-san.”

Mio stands in a daze. No. This isn’t fair. She wants nothing to do with this. Why should they have to fight? She raises an arm to shield her eyes from the intense burst of wind, pages being torn from the sketchpad in her hand. One of them flies across the hall and unexpectedly into Jun’s face. He pulls it away, only for Mio to be long gone by the time he does. His familiar snarls down the corridor to his left and he turns his head to see one of the doors at the end, swinging shut, along with a strange trail of luminescent mist left in the girl’s midst. Without a word from him, his ferocious familiar tears off after her, running on all-fours, leaving Jun to adjust his scarf, pulling it up over his mouth and slowly walking after the beast.

Mio races through the school halls, panting and gasping for breath. But everything around her is tinted red. An alarm sounds over the intercom and that automated voice blares in every room. “Students and Faculty. There is currently a Royale Match occurring on the premises. Please remain in your classrooms, away from the windows or doors so as to not be in harm’s way until it has ended. As is standard procedure, defensive measures are now activating.” Defensive measures? Didn’t that mean-? Mio reaches the teacher’s room but, just as she reaches for the door, her hand is repelled. A faint blue glow lingers around the frame and she’s unable to even get to the touch panel to let herself inside.

Try as she might, Mio can’t get any but the hall doors to open. No matter how frantically she tries. Every door is slammed shut with a protective barrier of repelling energy around it, rejecting her every attempt to get inside. The windows looking into the rooms are no better, blocked with blast shields of some kind and coated with the same blue fields. She finally reaches her own homeroom and wails on the door with both fists and every ounce of energy she can muster up. But the field denies her, blunting the impacts and even bouncing back their sounds. Her mouth is dry, her eyes sting, and her stomach feels like it may lose its lunch at any moment. Then, amidst all of that, a loud crash from around the corner gives her a start.

Her heart nearly stops. Slowly, she turns around to find that spiny, hulking wolf creature hunkered down at the far end of the corridor, shaking off running headlong into one of the walls from sliding on the polished floors. It looks to her and bears its mouth of knives. In a panic, she brings up her Link. “Pairing…” Yet she continues refreshing the display. Rapidly mashing the button on the side of the device. No change. Jun’s Familiar begins to inch toward her, its pace eventually picking up to a brisk trot, then a full sprint as Mio turns and runs around the corner. Finally, it breaks out into a wild charge as the werebeast rounds the corner and switches to all-fours. But by then, Mio is gone again.

The girl sits inside a maintenance closet. The only other door she could get open, covering her mouth with both hands as the beast slowly surveys the area outside. Even from in this dark, tiny room, she hears it sniffing the air, lumbering around, growling. But the sounds of the hunt die out with time. The beast must have passed her by. Now in a frenzy, Mio desperately mashes away at the button on her Link, refreshing its display as quickly as she can until… “Pairing Complete.” The sigh of relief built up in her lungs dies almost immediately when the next screen comes up. “Processing…” What? What does that even mean? This is the first she’s heard of that at all.

However, in the middle of this quandary, a light footfall drags Mio’s attention back to her surroundings. She covers her mouth again and her widened eyes travel over to the door, body shaking as if she’d locked herself in a freezer. Sweat drips down her brow like rain as a tapping meets the door. The door’s access panel lights up green and Mio springs to her feet, throwing herself forward to hold the emergency handle and keep it from sliding open. It works for all of three seconds. Then a monstrous claw tears into the glossy, smooth, white polymer like tin foil. Before Mio even has a chance to process what’s happening, the door gets ripped out with her still clung to it. Losing her grip, she flies across the hall, her back hitting the energy-shielded window opposite the closet, knocking all of the air out of her body, as well as making her spine scream when the repulsion field pushes her away to the floor.

Jun stands back as his Familiar discards the door on its claws. “I think one of my abilities lets me see scents. So hiding doesn’t work,” he says.

Her head spinning almost as much as the halls, Mio looks up at the boy who, just a few hours ago, had been asking her on a date. He looks… utterly defeated, even despite his clear advantage. With the monstrous familiar stalking over to her, she tries to shuffle back, only to meet the wall beneath the window behind her. The growl of the beast sends tremors through her very bones. She knows she’s in no immediate danger. Killing isn’t allowed in the Royales. But the look in that monster’s eyes… it’s almost like someone neglected to tell it that.

Then a meek “Gomen’nasai…” trembles out on Jun’s voice as he steps forward, pulling his scarf down from over his mouth.

The werecreature snatches Mio up and tosses her back across the hall, where she bounces from the wall and drops to the ground in a heap. Not until she tries picking herself up does she notice the small gash on her head, dripping blood down the bridge of her nose from her hairline. A low, building hum sees her lift her head to find Jun looming over her, taking a deep breath. “S-Serizawa-san?” The more air he takes in, the deeper that hum gets.

Then he unleashes a ghastly, weaponized shout. Like the cry of a wolf, laced with some kind of eerie violet light. A sonic howl so forceful its mere waves throw Mio back-first into the wall, beating against her like a tide to hold her there. It lasts only a matter of seconds. But that small space of time may as well be an hour as it leaves the girl’s entire body feeling like jello. When it finally ends, she flops back to the floor. The LED on her Link turns from solid to slowly flashing, an automated voice speaking from inside. Something about vitals. Not that Mio can hear it. Her ears are much too busy playing out a full choir of nothing but high notes in her head.

Even so, her body levels out, given a few moments. The ringing doesn’t stop. In fact, now her ears are even bleeding. But soon she’s able to sit up. Still, there Jun stands over her, about to pull the very same move again. And here she is, unable to do anything about it. Perhaps… this is for the best? Who’d even miss her if she were removed from the city, after all? She stares the boy in the eye as he takes his next breath. Then she hears it. Not his howl. A tiny voice telling her to move. To resist. To… “Jump.”