#periodopen

Those words evoked a feeling long since forgotten within Kyousuke.

The last time he had attended school had been at the age of seven -- he had joined the Japanese army's Esper Unit that summer, and from then on his life had been one of constant strife and struggles, first against the Allied forces and then against the normals who sought to oppress espers the world over.

Technically, then, he had never completed even elementary school -- however, the life experience he had gained from over seven decades of fighting and surviving had been something very few individuals could ever dream of... as was, Kyousuke supposed, the situation he was currently in; he had been kidnapped along with seventeen others and forced to take part in... something, the true nature of which he had guessed at but which had yet to be confirmed.

At any rate, the man left the classroom after explaining to his "students" the rules of the game in which they would be taking part.  Kyousuke was highly tempted to follow him; after all, the mastermind likely had a secret room somewhere, on the campus at least if not in the school building, where he could monitor and direct the events across the island.  A voice at the back of his head, however, the result of decades of outwitting and outsmarting others, advised him against it -- who knows what the man would do to him were he to stick his nose where it did not belong.

Additionally, as tempting as it was to explore the forbidden zones into which the man had warned against venturing -- under penalty of death by collar explosion -- Kyousuke was not certain that he would be able to activate his psychokinesis in time to shield himself from the blast and repair any already-incurred damage by the time the damage to the collar caused the limiter to deactivate...

Kyousuke silenced his thoughts.  Such speculations were pointless in the face of the palpable dread that permeated the classroom.  

Those were the imperious words of one Byakuya Togami, heir to the Togami Conglomerate. A man assured in his way and his future... or at least, he had been. But the situation he had found himself placed in was truly an unusual one. His fingers hovered over the collar at his neck, aware that too much pressure could potentially detonate the device. Considering its seemingly mechanical nature, it probably had some sort of tracking device, as well as a deterrent from leaving wherever they were.

The last thing he remembered was a dark figure that had actually managed to overpower him. Presumably, he had been brought here for some dark purpose... which would mean this was also where some of the missing students had gone. All of this figured out in less than three minutes. That was the analytical skill he possessed, and the reason he had risen to the top.

Without hesitation he stood up, surveying the room he was in. Mostly there were prone bodies. These people... they went to school with him, didn't they? He strode over to the nearest person and shook them awake.

Kyousuke had finished up a round of negotiations with the Comerican ambassador and had been returning to the Catastrophe, that much was certain.

However, when he stepped through the gate...?

"Must have been a new type of ECM," the white-haired man mused to himself, recalling the struggle he had put up in vain trying to eliminate the black-clad figure who had somehow broken through 08's psychic protection on the ship and hidden himself -- a feat nigh impossible for one as skilled in  psychometry as he -- before ambushing Kyousuke as he stepped across the gate onto the massive cruise ship he called home, at the precise moment his guard was down. And then...... and then what, exactly?

At any rate, he had made a grievous error, and now he found himself... somewhere.  He tried reading the location using psychometry, but found that he could not.  Wherever he was, they'd psychically fortified the place well, or......

Kyousuke felt around his neck, and sure enough, there it was -- a cold metal collar resting against his skin.

Surely, he realized, this was an ECM, a device designed to limit the psychic abilities of anyone exposed to it or even in its vicinity.  This one must be quite powerful, for generally it takes a good handful of high-end ECMs to fully suppress the powers of the most powerful being on the face of the earth.

Oh well, he mused.  No point mulling over matters like this.  I'll just get out of here and have Magi remove this fo--

His thoughts were interrupted as he attempted to walk in a direction in which he imagined an exit would be -- and immediately tripped over something.  Indeed, his psychic abilities were completely sealed.

Looking down, Kyousuke saw what he had tripped over, a human body that had been lying next to him on the floor -- a body that, to Kyousuke's surprise, began to stir.