Miharu's grumble garnered great grandeur, so far.

A consternated disappointed sigh, filled with all the hopes and dreams of a lifetime beyond the interim authority she held.

The Prefect Team were strangely cooperative, what with how they went around with the information that she was an interim Sensei.

Maybe it was because of how she carried herself with the lack of nonsense and how she made sure they listened to every word she spoke, regardless of courtesy.

And so, here she sat, on a couch with a cup of tea on the table in front of her while Chinatsu stood by. Iori was at the balcony, an overwatch of sorts in case anything or anyone suspicious peeked their head out for an unjust cause.

For some reason, she pulled on her socks up to her knee as if she was traumatized by something. A whisper through the spacious lounge indicated of an incident pertaining to Sensei stuffing his mouth with her foot.

"......."

Disgusting. But the context of it being which to assist Abydos's students in uncovering a Kaiser Corporation conspiracy made it a warranted decision.

Is what a warped individual would say.

The doors soon bore open, and she watched as the President of the Prefect Team made her way to the other side of the couch, poised, with an expression that she couldn't read at first glance. When she sat down, she watched as she crossed her legs, before Chinatsu immediately had a fresh cup of tea given to Hina.

"Thank you, Chinatsu. You're too kind."

"Anything to help you, President Hina."

Chinatsu bowed in response, before she took a sip, her eyes staring into Miharu's. Miharu, who seemed to slouch forward, her knees resting upon her thighs while intertwining her fingers to support her chin, stared back, eyes half-lidded as she waited until she was done.

A sigh left Hina as she set down the cup.

"So, you're here for our help."

"I'm not asking you to."

"Besides the point. We've already received the information and awaiting the shipments of metal detectors to the Prefect Team. For that, you have our thanks."

"But that's not why you brought me here."

"Correct."

Hina sighed. "Your methods are not quite the pedagogical methodology typically approved by SCHALE. I find it hard to believe that you're an interim Sensei as you claim to be."

"Yeah, well, the Arius Sensei isn't going to be operative and you all know why." She looked at Chinatsu. "Especially you."

Chinatsu's eyes closed, and she could still see it. Blood wasn't exactly an unfamiliar sight. She was once a member of the Medical Emergency Club, after all. Bruises and small cuts weren't exactly the most egregious injuries she couldn't clean.

But wrapping bandages around a bleeding hand that was once stabbed with a butterfly knife was a different story. Add in how bruised he actually appeared on his face and under the shirt told her that he truly wasn't a fighter. Just a bureaucrat who snapped at the slightest hint of an injured student.

A terrifying thought.

"And Sensei himself?" Miharu continued. "He's probably still asleep on his bed. So by all means, the GSC needs a face to resolve the chaos, so I'll be it."

"So what are you here for? To save face? To clear Arius's name from all the information we've received in their instigation?"

"Because no one else could."

"So this is what it came down to." Hina leaned forward. "Desperation."

"On your end or my end?"

"Ours."

Chinatsu cut their pedantics effectively, with two pairs of eyes now looking up to her.

"It's clear that you're here to help Gehenna. And it's clear you acknowledge our competence on the matter. This crisis should be our precedence, President."

"......."

Hina closed her eyes, a smile forming upon her lips.

"And here I wanted to extend our conversation just a bit more," she stated, before taking another sip of her tea. Then, she spoke again.

"Apologies for asking this, but... Who are you?"

"Me?" Miharu tilted her head, before scoffing. "Miharu Yoshikawa. Just a tourist."

"A tourist. Of Gehenna? Of Kivotos?"

"Yes. But we're wasting time, aren't we?"

A generalized answer. Good enough.

"Very. Let's put this operation to the test--"

Hina noticed it before most of the others did. A glint of glass in the faint distance of a clock tower in Gehenna's own academy. Her first instinct was to take hold of the table.

"Iori, catch!"

Iori turned around in confusion, before noticing the table flying towards her. Deftly, she slid under it, catching one of the legs mid-slide before propping it immediately into an emergency cover.

A bullet pierced through the hard wood, but came into contact with no living being.

"Who was that?!" Iori inquired, while Miharu threw herself to the side, with Chinatsu following suit.

"Stalker," Miharu replied. "The sniper followed me since I dropped myself off in Gehenna."

"But they didn't shoot you in Pandemonium?" Hina questioned, taking cover behind the couch with Miharu. Another bullet whizzed above their heads, breaking off a shelf floor from their multitude of shelves in the room.

"No. Must've waited till you got here."

Her eyes were at Hina. She looked back, blinking once, before it all made sense.

She was the strongest and competent individual in Gehenna. There was no doubt or reason to question that proclamation. And by that virtue...

She'd have been the biggest thorn on their side, whatever their cause may have been.

"What do we do?" Miharu questioned.

"Isn't that an easy solution?" Iori chimed in with a hiss. "We get outta here. They're just stuck in a clock tower, after all, someone's gonna find out about them sooner or later and take them down."

"Ako," Hina called out, as a hologram of the blue haired girl appeared on her device. "What can you see from the sniper?"

"Checking..."

Another bullet struck the table Iori took cover behind. Her eyes visibly widened at the very virtue of the bullets actually cleanly piercing through wood.

Were these the halo breaker bullets?

"No heat signature... Wait, that can't be right..."

"....."

Motherfucker...

Miharu swore under her breath, incomprehensible to the students to hear. If the sniper wasn't even a student, but a drone, automaton or something not alive, why bother with a scope?

Because they want it to be known. And for what reason? A clue? An indicator that they didn't start the Arius smear campaign?

That's too obvious...

They're out here making things more complicated than they should out here, but if they knew exactly what they're doing, and the Prefect Team don't, it means they're working and the Prefect Team were steps behind.

"......."

Then that also means she was supposed to be the target, was it?

"Okay, listen," Miharu called out. Eyes quickly went to her.

"I'll take attention off of the drone. Iori, was it? Make those seconds count."

"What? You're crazy! You're not afraid of getting shot?!" Iori questioned incredulously, before another bullet pierced through the table, much closer to her this time.

"Tungsten carbide is meant to be used as armor piercing. But because it's made for that purpose, it also pierces the body and doesn't have stopping power."

Arona and Plana's offhanded mention on her way to Pandemonium Society was helpful, to say the least.

"So if I get shot, it'll go right through me."

"You do know if it hits anywhere vital, you'd die?"

She glanced at Chinatsu, who looked back at her when she asked the question. Another shot blared, whizzing past their cover, and in that moment, a silent conversation came about from the two.

Chinatsu sighed, before nodding. Miharu nodded back. An agreement.

"... Just be safe...." Hina stated, before Miharu slipped out of cover, towards the other side of the room. Right out in the open. Iori, Hina and Chinatsu watched, with great concern at what could potentially happen.

It's time to risk it.

She stretched her arms out, ready for anything that they could blast away at her. The glinting scope glared against her eyes, and she glared back, ready.

But nothing. She knew it was looking straight at her, but was doing... Nothing?

From the corner of her eye, she noticed an arm raised away from cover.

A shot fired.

"AH!"

Chinatsu's voice was rife with pain, before Iori took her chance, and opened fire. Miharu observed as a faint explosion occurred right then and there on the clock tower. And it dawned on her.

They didn't target her because she most likely didn't have a halo. It's why students of Kivotos are more likely affected by it... And they target as such.

She immediately pried her eyes away, to immediately check on Chinatsu, who held her wrist. Blood dripped down her left forearm, with a single entry wound and no exit. Her bottom lip was bitten down to stop herself from making any more noise, even as tears strewn down her cheeks.

Her halo flickered, an indication that she had been gravely injured, but still hanging on to her consciousness. The halo ensured she was protected. Not fully, considering how the bullet pierced through skin, but at least the bullet is still in her, instead of piercing right through.

In other words, tungsten carbide halo breaker bullets don't provide stopping power, unless you're a student with halos.

Miharu quickly acted.

The duffel bag of medical supplies Chinatsu carried were immediately going into use, as Hina crawled to Chinatsu and applied pressure to the injured area. Chinatsu let out a pained squeak as she did so, while Iori carefully eyed their surroundings, just in case. Miharu, her knowledge on trauma first aid going into effect, acted quickly.

She sometimes knew her own students would inevitably screw up somewhere at some point with chemical burns, but bullets were a different issue.

Tossing Hina the dressing, of which she caught with her bloodied gloves, Miharu proceeded to press the gauze right on the wound, with Hina wordlessly wrapping the dressing around Chinatsu's arm.

"Why did you do that?" Miharu inquired.

"I..." Her blood seeped onto the dressing, something Hina noticed and immediately wrapped more dressing onto. "I saw that it wouldn't shoot you... I had to try to see... Who it targets."

"You shouldn't have done that, you dummy!"

Her outburst caused the Prefect Team to flinch, Chinatsu in particular.

"I did what I did so that you don't have to, and here you go, doing what you did, and look what you have to go through..."

Chinatsu's head hung low, her body shivering at her words.

"Hey, leave her alone!" Iori defensively interjected.

"She needs to hear what she needs to hear. And I'm the adult here, so do you know who's responsible if any of you get hurt?!"

"Us?"

"No, me, damnit!!"

They flinched. They didn't expect someone to care as much as she did.

Only Sensei was as much. But hers was more forthright. Stronger. More forward perhaps.

With a final wrap in the hopes that for once, it's holding together, she took a nearby tablecloth and fashioned it into a sling, resting Chinatsu's hand onto it.

A temporary solution until they can get proper medical emergency, something she should be doing.

"The Medical Emergency Club..." Chinatsu mumbled under her breath.

"I know," Miharu whispered under her breath, before slowly carrying the girl. "You three, search through the whole district... And be safe, please."

That was perhaps the one thing she let them knew came truly from her heart.

--

Beatrice was a woman of patience. A woman with ambitions that simply reached the deepest depths beyond even the grip of Gematria, the organization she was to be a part of and eventually was banished away.

Examining the tungsten carbide bullet, right between her index and middle finger, her red eyes, all 9 pairs of them, watched, her red skin glistening from the stained glass of the chapel. She found herself chuckling, remembering.

Watching. The mere despair of the few students of those so called 'newly formed' Arius district at the leaked information that their beloved Arius's Ghost is undergoing intensive care.

Even as informants, Beatrice knew that their love for that damned man, Kize Seikato, was deep. Or supposedly so, considering how they seem to revere him less than how they revered her in the years previously.

She remembered how it all began.

She was an outsider, managing to squeeze herself just barely into Kivotos years ago, just to find herself overlooking a civil war in Arius, a district both unknown to many, yet burned in notoriety for Trinity.

She saw this as an opportunity to seize power for herself.

Latching herself onto Arius Satellite School, a school amongst many in the district, she aligned herself to them, the promise of power, the promise of revenge.

"Your skills are formidable. But they're not enough to kill your opposers. Let me ensure they won't even fight you anymore, because you, my dears, are more valuable as soldiers than you are as corpses."

Her words had a near similar sensation of burnt sugar, and yet...

"We will follow to your word, Madam Beatrice."

"They will die for their disobedience."

They listened to her.

They obeyed every order she had for them.

Her authority extended, heard like a moniker across Arius district. Her promises of uniting the district was unheard of, radical.

"Nothing in this world matters. Nothing in this life or the next will give you any more purpose than I do. So listen to me."

To one of the students, a 3rd year student with black hair and dark gray eyes named Zenpou Saho, was an initial opposer to her.

"You're a fraud..."

"Oh, but don't you think your friends would be saddened to see you die without any purpose?"

"....."

"Come now. The world is better off under my rule."

Almost everyone listened to her commands. And with that, the civil war ended.

And the schools? What schools? Arius Satellite School was the only pilgrimage they all took and believed to be the only sanctuary for them all.

For 8 years, her rule persisted. Training these students for years and years, instilling in them hatred. Not against the world. No. Against Trinity.

"That is the truth of the matter. Trinity caused your suffering. They're heretics, blasphemous against my teachings. One that provides you with the purpose you need. Your reason to be alive."

Those that disobeyed?

There were always horror stories told by Arius students of a depot in a land unclaimed between Arius and Trinity. Screams of the students they once recognized, slowly mangled and lost to time, or returned, eyes glazed and lost. Shivering, for some. Suicidal to few.

And the students, if they grew too old? They were sent off elsewhere to be more useful of other purposes.

Selling their children to her had always been an appealing business.

This was how she took in Zenpou Amaya, a small child at the time who was the spitting image of her mother that now became that wretched Sensei's staunchest believer.

This was also how she was able to find Arius Squad. Joumae Saori, Imashino Misaki, Tsuchinaga Hiyori, Shirasu Azusa, and most importantly, the future heir of Arius, Hakari Atsuko.

She would raise them, just like the rest. But unlike them, they had something in them that she detested.

The very slightest spark of belief. The spark of loyalty not to her, but to themselves.

And knowing this, she hatched a plan.

The Chroma.

A power so unquantifiable, so unknowable, that she knew she had to find a way to call upon them. She had only known them from the tomes of the old, extinct Justina faction. One that she destroyed meticulously, brick by brick. Student by student.

Her trigger finger never felt lighter than that very day.

But to think of the endless possibilities of the Chroma. To use their powers to no longer take control of Arius, but the entirety of Kivotos. It was possible.

She just needed a sacrifice. And who else could be the perfect sacrifice, than the heir herself?

And when Saori heard of it... Oh, she remembered the deal.

"We will listen to you, Madam Beatrice," Saori pleaded, kneeling down before her with the rest following suit. Misaki out of nihilistic obligation, Hiyori out of fear, and Azusa out of mere internally annoyed obligation.

"Listen, to what?"

"To every order you give upon us. Just so long as you hold off on making Atsuko your sacrifice."

She chuckled.

"Very well, then... Upon my name, Beatrice, phantasm of all pilgrims, I promise it. Just so long as you ensure that Trinity... No. Gehenna, too, falls."

And for a woman who managed to slip her ways through all the conniving ways, she kept her word.

Because Arius Squad had proven themselves to be far more subservient with a hostage.

And they were just between eleven to twelve years of age. How mature.

5 years passed since their promise, alongside her induction to Gematria due to her political standing with Arius. And through the tomes, she discovered more and more artifacts, one she felt that could be interpreted for her own use and advantages.

One caught her eye: a spherical object with incomprehensible letters and arrows, yet the arrows brought to a conclusion:

An explosion. And the drawings of haloed students losing said halos.

A halo-destroying bomb. A possibility.

But she kept its production a secret, knowing they... She, will need it. Not for protection. But for any hint of disobedience.

Of course, such authoritative power came clearly with the thought that they should address problems.

Namely, that Sensei.

Not him. But the true Sensei. The one who seemed to unnecessarily care for his students. And he was growing in influence. And who she noticed were slowly growing closer to Trinity and Gehenna.

She was beginning to see it. There was less control she had. Only slightly. Very slightly, as she began to notice a single girl escaping the school district just to return with some food.

Kakehashi Subaru. A girl with dark hair and purple bangs, with propensity with the harmonica not unfounded. The students even called her big sister.

She barely tolerated this. She knew they can't work on an empty stomach.

It was why every time Subaru returned, Beatrice would be the first one she would see. A reminder of what she was doing and who loomed over her in constancy.

And then, she heard the whispers of the outside world. The story of a treaty between Gehenna and Trinity.

Eden Treaty.

Oh, she knew she couldn't let this go to pass.

She watched Arius Squad meticulously, as they were approached by a Trinity student for an agreement of sorts.

Oh. It's a Tea Party Member. Misono Mika. Her eyes glinted at the mere thought of slitting her throat... But held off that desire, as she came to realize that the girl was there not to liberate Arius.

She was there to enact the plan with them. And she took in Azusa as a guarantor.

How pitiful. This was how they would operate their plan?

"They have taken Azusa. She's our eyes and ears in Trinity," Saori reported to her.

"Good. The Eden Treaty must not be allowed to pass. Disappoint me, Arius Squad..."

"We will not, Madam Beatrice."

Desperation. How cute.

But she could already tell it was a recipe bound to failure. It was why she made sure Atsuko stayed, while Arius Squad head off to enact their plan.

Atsuko, for the fact that she seemed to know her inevitability, was awfully calm. It almost unnerved her.

She wouldn't admit it.

"Madam Beatrice, for what cause do you believe to hold me here?" Atsuko questioned.

"A bargaining chip. Of course, you're my student too, so it's important you listen to me and obey every order I have."

"I will."

Good.

She never told Arius Squad that she had been tied to the cross already, her formerly glorious chapel with stained glass to glorify her stature right behind Atsuko.

Beatrice personally tied Atsuko herself, her rope an incandescent, otherworldly red like a thorn or the strike of lightning.

She beckoned upon the Chroma to come get her.

"Bless me with your power--!!"

"Freeze!!"

Arius Squad barged in, a distinct lack of Azusa amongst them.

A traitor of traitors.

And then, she saw him.

The man with the lanyard of SCHALE. That Sensei.

"Put her down, Beatrice. It's over!" He declared.

"Over?" She cackled. "Sensei, you are such an impudent man. Who do you think you are?"

"I'm a Sensei. Guess what I do."

She didn't remember how it happened. But when she came to, she was dragged away from her chapel, to her safehouse in case everything went wrong.

And just when she thought it couldn't get worse, it did.

The Chroma heard her call, yes. But it proceeded to overtake every technology Gematria had, rendering the organization completely useless.

An event known as 'Volume F' commenced.

To Kivotos, it was a fight for their lives, their identity, their home.

To Beatrice, the inconvenient realization that that power should've been hers. An amplified sensation when she was officially banished from Gematria for her invocation of the Chroma.

Those pests...

The only silver lining to it all was that Sensei was unconscious by the end of it all, the one significance of it becoming her cornerstone to begin her reign for Arius... Only to realize that Trinity had cordoned off the district for their own uses.

By the time they left, even she knew Arius District was officially defanged.

They had no power. Just as she had, too.

Loyalists? They existed. They're just her toys. Her puppets to be discarded and toyed at her will.

And then, just a month after that world ending cataclysm that Kivotos fought and won against...

He emerged.

Beyond the holographic screen was the expression of a man who was clearly forced to be a reluctant stopgap. A man who was to be anywhere else.

An outsider, just like her. But unlike her...

She cracked the bullet in her hand. Or tried to, as when she opened her palm, the bullet remained unscathed.

Resilience. Defiance. Just as what he cultivated within Arius. And she knew...

He needed to be rid of.

It was why she found the one man who discovered his 'target' was gone.

Haruto Kuzaka.

A co-conspirator, searching for a man that looked exactly like him. And with his idea of aligning himself with Kaiser Corporations, the once powerful but now financially bankrupt megacorporation in due thanks to him, it gave them the means to re-arm themselves once again.

Kaiser Corporation had been nothing more than a means to an end. Their wealth will be put to better use than to build yet another redundant animal themed park.

And so, the halo breaker bullets were formed.

All dark colored. Armor piercing. More concentrated and more reliable than the halo destroying bombs, which were failures.

Haruto had perfected a formula he never even saw. It annoyed her, but the results were inevitable.

A bullet that could pierce through cover, strike students through their halos, and deal damage far more effective than a simple spray of normal bullets.

But what about the simple spray of halo breaker bullets?

She found herself chuckling, just as a loyalist strolled into the chapel. One haphazardly formed, but one of her worships nonetheless.

"The drone. It had been shot down two hours ago. They have metal detectors now. They'll find those sacred bullets."

The drone in Gehenna. So they found out already. And the lack of either Sensei means that that woman was the one making the moves.

Very proactive of her. An antithesis to the two that it disgusted her that she almost thought to compliment her.

She's fostering a kind of attitude she knew would brew even the strongest wills to her cause. Simply because her cause to protect them was stronger than her will to keep herself safe.

Beatrice flicked the bullet to the air.

"Good. Now they're truly going to start scanning all of Gehenna. Away from SCHALE."

The loyalist looked to her.

"Will we... Finally...?"

"Yes. We will."

She stepped past the girl, her 9 pairs of eyes glowed maliciously. Brighter than even the stained glass against the evening sun.

"We will have our vengeance against those Senseis in one. Fell. Swoop."