A/N: Drabble that came to me after we see what the Soloman company can do.
.o.o.o.
For all the enthusiasm, for all the bravado, there is fear behind it.
They liked the tournaments, the gang skirmishes, even the hugely overblown schoolyard tussle with the Upstarts.
Up until Furuichi almost died.
Then it was real to them. This wasn't some other class to battle, this wasn't a fight with the mostly-honorable Pillar demons, and it wasn't a fight for the top of the totem pole.
It was war.
Kanzaki had to fight in an arcade to protect his nice from agents.
Kunieda found her brother's preschool teacher replaced and barely got them both out alive.
Tojo was being run ragged trying to keep some of the street kids he watched over safe.
Furuichi hadn't even gone home.
They could be attacked anywhere at any time, and it wouldn't even be directly.
The same thing had happened to Santome's generation of fighters, during that war. Most hadn't made it out alive, much less with their sanity.
So he swore to himself that it wouldn't matter this time. This time there was someone strong to help them, someone who lived through it. He made sure to ward the delinquent's houses so they could worry less about their families. He upped their crest training, upped Furuichi's ability to call the Pillar squad, upped everything he could think of because he could not let this take them like it took his friends.
Moments like this, when they're distracted by video games and arguments and food, he likes to believe that he can.
But even then he's not sure.