akane: The festival had been a blur of meaningless light and color, passing by her like so much dust. But even something meaningless could be made meaningful by her, who was meaningful. And so Akane had made the most of it, putting THAT conversation in the locker room behind her. Nakamura had been...unhelpful. What little pleasure Akane had derived from the ~~gossip~~ juicy details of the game of love that Nakamura played out had been all together dulled by the ache of the impact her other words had left on Akane.

(flashback here)

Then the screams.

The clouds of dust.

The smell of fear.

***SHARP BLADES TO DECAPITATE, DESTROY, DISEMBOWEL!!!***

Akane couldn't breathe. Her mouth was open but she couldn't take in any air. She pounded her chest with one fist, the 'clank' that emerged informing her that her armor had come up, made her stronger than steel ~~not strong enough that enough steel couldn't kill her~~. She hit her chest again, and now she was breathing, but the air was coming too quick, too fast. Her armor covered her face now and the air came in even more dampened and sluggish, condensing and dribbling down her skin in such a way that she reflexively jerked a hand up ~~oh thank Heaven it wasn't blood from her head being cut off~~.

*Move! Move! MOVE, YOU COWARD! MOVE, SHIGE AKANE! EVERYONE'S WATCHING!*

Akane did not move.

But Michael did. Teinosuke did. Even Ryota did.