Somewhere between now and Jun’s attack, something… happened. Something that resulted in Mio leaping through the air, clear of her opponent’s sonic howl, much to his, and even Mio’s absolute shock. W-what? Mio touches down behind the werecreature, as flummoxed as both it and its master. Her body feels… tingly, but fine. More importantly, that voice. How had she heard it? Her ears are still…

“Again! Jump!”

Again. Before Mio even knows what’s happening, she flings herself into the air, just avoiding the pounce of Jun’s Familiar. As such, the hulking monster slams, face-first, into the polished floor and slides a good ways. What’s happening? A question that becomes all the more potent when she realizes exactly where she is upon seeing Jun gawking up at her. She’s… clung to the ceiling somehow. The smooth, white polymer ceilings with no holds possible. 

Before Mio has a chance to process… any of this, a little black mass materializes on her shoulder, eventually giving form to a small, lizard-like critter with an ash-black body, beady orange eyes, and sharp little teeth. “There! Keep going like that!”

But the girl just freezes. Its mouth hadn’t moved, but did this little gecko thing just… talk? “Heh?”

“Dodge! Dodge already!”

Mio looks up or… down? Being upsidedown is disorienting. Even so, she leaps to the side like a frog just as another sonic howl batters the ceiling where she’d clung. Now stuck to a wall, her eyes dart between Jun and the monster, her mind racing like a formula car. Is this thing my…? Again. And again. Mio jumps and jumps, doing everything the little lizard says. In time, the hall is barely recognizable from the wolf’s lunging and Jun’s shouting in every which direction to stop her.

Jun watches, his jaw hung open in astonishment. “C-catch her!”

“Get close without letting it grab you!”

Mio balks at the mere suggestion of getting close to that monster. “Eh?! B-but-!”

But the little one snaps at her. “Uruse! Boke! You wanna die?! Then quit being useless and do it!”

Mio gulps, rushing headlong towards the feral mass of spiny fur and jagged teeth. From there she’s like a pinball. It swipes at her with its claws and she’s on the ceiling again in a blink. Jun tries to shout her down and she’s hugging the wall again, faster than he can adjust to catch her. But just when it seems she slips away from another swipe of the monster’s claws, another unexpected twist. Like darts the spines on its shoulder fire out, one of them just glancing by her cheek and leaving an open cut. Another clips her in the side, leaving a rip in her school uniform and instantly canceling all of her momentum.

Distracted by the attack, Mio winds up clotheslined by another of Jun’s sonic shouts that cracks every window around them, even through the shielding, sending her flying down the hall, only to slide to a pitiful stop. Upon realizing she isn’t moving, a sense of absolute dread comes over him and a faint “Morioka-san…” trickles out as he stumbles forward, nearly breaking into a sprint to reach her. But he catches himself upon one key acknowledgment. Her Link’s LED is still on. Flashing rapidly. But still on.

Sure enough, the girl’s motionless body twitches and she struggles to raise just her head. The cut on her face closes up, entirely on its own, leaving Jun completely stunned. Healing? Then, though strained, she gets out a weak “Familiars… don’t have… a scent.”

That statement shakes Jun to his core. He jolts around to Lycan and, indeed, there sits Mio’s familiar, cozy atop the hulking werebeast’s head. Before the boy can say anything, the little lizard bites down on the monster’s ear and out comes a pained howl. A red glow fills Lycan’s body from its very center, running up through its limbs like its insides are on fire. And perhaps they are. In seconds, the enormous, wolflike Familiar is running mad through the hall, slamming into everything, smoke pouring through either side of its snout. Jun backs away as his familiar rampages. “Lycan? Lycan, stop!”

Meanwhile, Mio’s familiar trots down the hall and back to Mio, climbing onto her shoulder as she pulls herself to her feet. Her wounds repair themselves. Slowly. The pain doesn’t quite subside and she undeniably still feels weak. But at least the ringing in her ears has stopped. “What’s happening?”

Try as he might, nothing Jun does gives Lycan any pause in its frenzy. And Mio’s own familiar snickers at the sight. “Something funny.”

Overcome with an uncontrollable feral rage, Lycan thrashes about. Jun backs away further and further, eventually taking in a deep breath. But just before he can let it out, the monster’s forearm cracks across his face and knocks him to the floor, sliding a few feet on his back. Before he has the chance to get up, the beast pounces him, pinning him down. Mio lurches forward, reaching out to Jun. “Serizawa-san!” However, her legs give out, still weak and wobbly from the thrashing she’d taken, and she falls forward without getting far.

“Idiot! Be careful; I’m up here!” the lizard protests.

Lycan holds Jun there, snarling and bearing its mouthful of razors. It draws back but just when it bucks its head forward to snap at the boy, it stops cold. Something comes over it, freezing it in its place with Jun held under its weight. It appears… surprised. A sensation soon mimicked by not only Jun, but also Mio as the beast bursts into flames. The school teaches that familiars are manifestations of psychic power. Could they feel pain? A question often asked by experts who’ve studied them. And the wail of this wolflike beast would make for a rather compelling argument. But that howl echoes through the school halls even after its body evaporates into nothing more than particles of pinkish light, no different than those it’d originally spawned from.

Thus Jun is left there on the floor, his heart still pounding away. Given a moment’s time, the light of his and Mio’s Links return to their blue color. A tone rings out from inside of them, soon followed by that same automated voice. “Royale Battle Concluded. The Final Result is Victory by Familiar Incapacitation in favor of Morioka Mio. Thank you for your cooperation.” The instant her Link’s voice stops, the same voice echoes from the intercom throughout the halls, announcing the end of the fight and the deactivation of security protocols in the next few minutes, after custodian drones have cleared the damage.

A victory. Strange. Had this been anything else, would it feel so… hollow? Further down the hall, Jun sits upright with his back to Mio. It’s only natural that she carry herself over to him. But, completely robbed of the ability to say anything, she simply stands there. She steps forward and tries… but nothing comes out.

“Yokatta… Congratulations, Morioka-san,” Jun says, taking Mio by surprise. Only furthering this is his face when he turns around. A… smile? A tearful one, certainly. But a smile. Mio has nothing. No response to that at all. What is there to smile about? And congratulations? For what? She hadn’t wanted to win. She hadn’t wanted to fight at all. So why congratulate her? Her body locks up the faster her mind moves. But Jun continues, trying in vain to wipe the streaming tears from his eyes. “Arigatou.”

Caught off guard by this, Mio staggers back. “Huh?”

Jun stands himself up. “I told you, right? I didn’t want to be responsible for kicking you out. I wanted you to try to win. So… thanks, Morioka-san.”

Thanking her? For beating him? No. That’s wrong. That doesn’t make sense. Doesn’t this boy understand what that means? And yet… there’s no helping it. Of course there isn’t. This is just how things are. Unable to put together a proper response, Mio looks to the floor, shaking her head with a somber little grunt of acknowledgment.

Jun’s Link flashes white and an automated voice speaks from inside of it. “Serizawa Jun. Due to your elimination, you will be given 24 hours to gather any personal effects and vacate the city. Your participation helps make Beacon the bastion of safety that it is today. Thank you for your cooperation in the United World System’s Royale Initiative.”

Neither Jun, nor Mio says anything for what may as well be an eternity. Even now, Jun wipes his face with his sleeves repeatedly, barely holding himself together. But Mio remains… blank. Finally, the young man lifts his head, still smiling. That warm smile from before, corrupted with tears of too many emotions to quantify. “Well, I guess I better get going, then.”

A quiet “Gomen’nasai…” slips through Mio’s lips and Jun pauses.

Rather than turn to leave, he steps over to her and places his hand on her shoulder, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about it.” Yet Mio keeps her head down, unable to even look Jun in the eye. “But if you want to make it up to me that badly, I think I can let you off easy if you call me Jun.”

“Heh?”

“That’s my condition. Take it or leave it.”

Mio stands there in a stupor, unsure of what to make of that strange request, at first. But what does that matter? Her body still tense, Mio bows, surprising Jun to say the least. “Jun-kun, gomen’nasai.”

A long period passes with nothing. No response. That is until Mio sees droplets of water hitting the floor. Lifting her head again and straightening her posture, she finds Jun beaming at her, having long since lost the war with his tear ducts and ceased trying to stop it. Concerned that she’d only made it worse, she reaches out. But Jun shakes his head, covering his face with his arm. “What are you talking about? You had nothing to do with it.” His face now as clear as it’s likely to get, Jun turns around and takes his first step off. “I… should get going, now. Don’t have a whole lot of time, you know?”

“Right.”

And like that, off he goes. But he stops upon reaching the doors, looking back and waving. “Sayonara… Mio.”

That goodbye. Expressionless though she remains, something about it strikes the girl. And then he’s gone. Mio is left the only one standing in that hall, processing all that’d just happened with her little lizard familiar still sitting pretty upon her shoulder. But she’s not quite as alone as she seems. Further down the hallway, sitting hunched forward in one of the stairwells, is a certain bleached blonde gyaru, blowing a gum bubble.