Era

32

A somber atmosphere had taken up residence in the 1-C prep room, greying any enthusiasm with a fatalistic sort of dread that was only heightened by the dull roar of the crowd that rumbled through the building. The hushed tones and murmured cynicisms left Era with a restless sort of tension that manifested in disassembling and reassembling her gear where it lay on the table.

Everyone but Shinsou gave her a wide berth—that had been a constant since the post-USJ incident-incident where she none too subtly threatened to take a classmate's finger off, but it seemed like the phenomenon had only intensified the longer she'd worked with Hatsume on both of their gear.

Soot stains, despite what some may think, didn't make for a great conversation starter when people already considered you a little past unstable. Neither did throwing knives. Or rifles.

"I can't believe they let you bring that," muttered Shinsou, head barely lifting from where it rested on his arms. "You look like an arms dealer."

Era scoffed. "None of this stuff would sell on the black market. It's just an airsoft gun, for fuck's sake."

"Knives?"

"They aren't really balanced right," Era grumbled, pulling one from its sheath and attempting to lay it flat across a finger. "It's workable, but I couldn't get the consistency to—"

"I'm talking about the fact that they let you bring knives in the first place."

"Oh, okay. Sure. Like this is more dangerous than the kid who can make explosions with his hands. Or the one who produces acid. Or the girl who can make literally anything."

"It's not really—"

"And, did you know that Power Loader pulled me aside to talk about handling weaponry in a safe and responsible manner?" Era continued hotly, twirling the knife around her fingers. "As if to imply that I don't know what I'm doing, like how insulting is that? This stuff is practically children's scissors."

"How dare they," said Shinsou resignedly, letting his eyes fall closed once more. "They should give you a written apology."

"I know you're just being obnoxious but they really should."

Shinsou gave her a noncommittal grunt, and Era sighed.

"You sure you don't need to warm up or something?"

"This is my process. You have whatever crazy bullshit you're doing over there, and I have my pre-competition nap."

"Sounds boring," Era muttered, fiddling with her belt and counting her magazines for perhaps the fifth time.

Maybe she had gone a bit overboard, but it had been such a long time since she'd had the opportunity to gear up like this, even if at the end of the day it was mostly just toys dressed up to look like real weapons. After a fierce argument Power Loader had eventually acquiesced to her request for actual throwing knives, with the caveat that she have an alternate, dulled set to use on her opponents. She didn't bother pointing out that chucking a hunk of metal at someone was still likely to cause some damage, sharp or not.

The guns had been another point of contention, but at the end of the day, after bringing up several examples of her competitor's quirks and how they could so easily be used to kill, he allowed it with a couple conditions. One, she wouldn't aim for the face, and especially not for the eyes, which was a bit of a ridiculous specification because of course she wouldn't do that, she wasn't a fucking animal. And two, he or any of the judges reserved the right to rescind the registration if things "got out of hand". His words. Era still wasn't exactly sure how she was supposed to interpret them.