11

After the assembly, students flooded the halls, splitting into their newly assigned squads. First-years whispered excitedly about their first mission, second-years rolled their eyes like veterans of war, and third-years acted like they were above it all.

Squad 8 was assigned Classroom 3-C for their briefing.

Hikaru trailed behind the others, shoving his hands into his pockets. That weird flicker in the system still nagged at him. Ren's name had glitched for a second. But the system didn't make mistakes. Maybe he was just seeing things again. Immortality had that effect after a while.

"Alright, let's get this over with." Tsubasa shoved open the door, walking in like he was dragged here against his will and placing his tablet on a desk he was leaning on. "How long do we have to do this squad nonsense before they let us stop?"

"Come on, it's fun!" Kaede plopped into a chair, spinning it around. "Teamwork, friendship, explosions-"

"Those are three completely different things," Yuna muttered, already flipping through the mission briefing file.

Hikaru glanced at the last member of their squad. Hoshino Kuroya, who sat with his arms crossed, legs stretched out in a lazy sprawl. His broad frame took up too much space, and he hadn't spoken a word since they got here. He's known to be powerful in battle. Maybe he's here to balance them out for the lack of offensive abilities, since nobody in the group can actually fight monsters, except maybe Hikaru. And also the fact that they have Kaede, an underage student. Who even thought it was a good idea to have underage students take part in these missions?

Tsubasa groaned, rubbing his face. "Ugh, why do we have to work with a musclehead?"

Kuroya didn't even look at him. "Didn't ask to be here either."

Tsubasa narrowed his eyes. "Oh great, he speaks."

Kaede kicked her feet up on the desk. "You two should fight. Like a sparring match!"

"Absolutely not," Tsubasa deadpanned.

Ren had been quiet the whole time, sitting at the edge of the room, fingers lightly drumming against the desk. She looked like she was thinking about something, but she always looked like that.

Hikaru leaned against the wall. "So, what's the mission?"

Yuna adjusted her glasses. "Patrol. Basic recon. Shouldn't be dangerous."

Hikaru sighed, shutting his eyes for a second. Patrols were boring. That was good. Boring meant nothing would go wrong.

Then again, he was still alive. The world always failed him, all the way back from 500 years ago, the day he was born. That meant something was bound to go wrong eventually.

He sucked it up. Whatever. Maybe he just needed more sleep.

And if it wasn't the sleep, he'd deal with it.