The frantic pitter-patter of footsteps echoed in the empty halls of the Chaldea Security Institute as a young lady ran, panicking.
This wasn't supposed to happen, but here she was, lost in an unfamiliar building and possibly late for the Director's introduction speech!
It was bad enough spending time in her assigned dormitory fussing and fidgeting over her new uniform (the top felt too much like a straightjacket and the white heeled shoes were just not her type), but she had completely lost track of the hour in the process. It was only when she absentmindedly stared at the clock in her room that she realized it was ten minutes until the orientation started!
While sprinting across the halls, she had come across a man dressed in fancy green clothes. Screeching to a halt, she cautiously approached him with a look that screamed lost and desperate. At least, she thought so. People often told her she was easy to read.
The man in green looked at her expectantly, but never once opened his eyes. That looked suspicious. Even so, she needed directions and anyone would be of help at this point.
"Uh, sir? Do you happen to know where the Central Command room is? I'm uh, lost."
"You must be new here, yes? Just go straight down the hall. You can't miss it. Oh, and do hurry, the meeting starts in 5 minutes. You wouldn't want to strike a bad first impression with the Director!"
The young lady quickly thanked the kind but shady green stranger and ran down the hall at a pace that would make a track runner coach impressed.
Five minutes?! Ah jeez, what would the employees say about her now? From the comment of the green man, the Director was the type to keep mistakes like these in mind. Oh, she would definitely be on the radar. For sure.
Unfortunately the young lady was so lost in her thoughts she didn't notice she was rapidly approaching somebody up ahead-
- and proceeded to collide with the unfortunate soul, causing both to tumble onto the floor.
"Ghk!"
"Owww…"
The floor felt a lot squishier than she had expected. Oh crap, did she just use a person as a meat shield?
"Oh my gosh. Oh jeez. I'm so sorry!" The young lady scrambled to her feet, knees aching from the impact. She peered over the poor person lying face-down, who looked to be an average looking guy with dark brown hair.
"I am so, so sorry, I was on my way to the Orientation, and I don't really know my way around this place! I was running all over the place looking for the command room and this man told me it was down this hall so I ran but I didn't see you! Uh, um, my name's Chiaki by the way, and, and, and-"
He wasn't moving from his position down on the floor. Either this man died or he was ignoring her. Ooooh, she was going to be late if this guy didn't respond right now!
"Hey, are you listening to me?" Chiaki pouted, arms crossed and her foot impatiently tapping the floor.
"I heard you." Finally, the boy attempted to stand up, hands on the floor for support. "My name's Ryuuto. You mind giving me a hand up?"
Chiaki's features softened into an embarrassed smile. "Oh right, sorry." She held a hand out, and pulled Ryuuto up. Silly girl, no one dies from a collision like that!
And so both of them went down the hall, though Ryuuto was slightly limping.
"So um, you know the way to the Central Command Room, right? You've got the same uniform on, so I figured you're a part of this program too." Chiaki kept the embarrassed smile all the way through. It was a tad unsettling, but it was clear it was due to stress.
The brunette nodded. "Yup, that's right. I found the pamphlet in the mail, applied on a whim, and got accepted."
"Huh, that's what I did! Except I didn't really believe the response they gave me at first. Did...did some people bust down your front door a week later and kidnap you with magic chloroform too?"
Ryuuto stared at his new companion like she had grown another head.
"Uh, no? I got the letter in the mail and booked my flight here like it told me to." Admittedly he didn't think about the job seriously, but if magic was real, then that was an opportunity he did not want to miss. Oh, and the payment looked great.
Chiaki laughed. "That was a joke! If that actually happened, I would be scared and nervous about everything!"
"Okay then." For some reason, Ryuuto found it hard to believe that. It sounded way too specific. Was everyone here this strange?
Chiaki found the entrance and both opened the door into the Command Room, hoping they made it in time.
The Command room looked packed with other candidates, except for the front row where coincidentally, two seats were open. Oh no, right in front of the Director! Ryuuto internally cursed his luck.
Both newbie candidates shuffled to the open seats. Fortunately, the director was talking to somebody and everyone else was engaged in idle conversation.
"Phew." Ryuuto let out a sigh as he and Chiaki sat down. The person next to him turned to face him and gave a friendly smile. It was a young man who looked about his age and had messy dirty blonde hair.
"Hey, nice to meet ya. I'm Alpha. Are you a rookie candidate too?"
Ryuuto nodded. "Yeah. I just had the craziest time getting to know this place."
"Tell me about it!"
And so he did, from the notice of the job opening to the encounter with Chiaki.
...
Meanwhile, Chiaki turned to face her new neighbor, who was staring at the Director. He had slightly tanned skin and was pretty tall.
"Heya, watcha lookin' at there?"
He didn't turn to face her. "The Director, she's totally hot. I mean, I'd let her step on me."
There were no words coming out of the young lady's mouth for a minute after that. Did this guy have no shame?
"Uhuh, yeah, um, so what's your name? I'm Chiaki." She made a nervous chuckle, and Chiaki internally cringed at her wavering confidence.
"Mi chiamo Naughty." He mumbled.
Was that Italian? It sounded Italian. But that name definitely did not.
"You're kidding, right? You can't possibly be called Naughty."
"And you can't possibly be called Chiaki." He turned around, green eyes laughing with a teasing smirk.
"Touche." She grinned.
"I'm Italian, not French." And then the grin fell. At least her hunch was right.
This conversation was going nowhere. Chiaki made a face and twirled a strand of red hair with her hand falling silent with defeat. But thankfully, it looked like the meeting was about to start. The green man she met earlier had ceased to talk with the director, who was making her way to the front of the stage.
Now that Chiaki had a better view of her, Naughty wasn't wrong. The Director was very pretty. She had a nice figure and her outfit was elegant, but personally, those orange colors were kind of tacky. Part of her white hair was caught in a weird braid, and it was a silly detail Chiaki couldn't help but stare at.
And then the woman began to speak. Chiaki felt a wave of drowsiness hit her, and realized it was going to be a long talk.
…
The orientation came and went, and it ended with the Director shooing the front row out to get basic training after discovering most of them were "amateur civilians". She made a big ruckus out of it, which felt completely unnecessary. Saving the world? Time travel? Preserving human history? It felt like a lot of things were being thrown all at once over something that should have been in the manual.
And so Ryuuto found himself with the girl who ran him over earlier, a nice new friend in Alpha, and a tall guy who tagged along, all in one small conference room.
Somebody else had entered shortly after; a man dressed in scrubs and had hair up in a fluffy ponytail. He took a seat at the head of the table.
"Hello everyone, my name is Dr. Romani Archman but you can call me Roman. It's shorter and sweeter.
You are all going to be part of our Chaldea Beginner's Group, since you all are well, beginners with magecraft. I'll leave you all to your own devices since I'm needed to deal with the other groups in preparation for the Rayshifting. But I suggest you all get to know each other."
And with that, the man in scrubs unceremoniously left the room, albeit in a hurry. Yeah, it was safe to say everyone in here was strange.
Chiaki broke the silence. "So would it be safe to assume all of you lied about your names in the application?"
Everyone nodded without any shame.
"And that we didn't take this seriously?"
Again, everyone nodded with no hesitation.
She sighed. "Well, dang. Now I'm curious as to why any of you would sign up for a job in the middle of frozen nowhere. I'm just here for work experience."
Ryuuto did a double take. "Is this your first job or something?!" To be fair, she looked really young. He didn't believe her when she said she was over eighteen on the way to the Command Room.
"Huh? No, I've worked before. Just not anything as high-profile as this."
Ryuuto sighed. "I'm also here for a job. There's nothing else to it, except that maybe learning magic would be cool. If it's real, anyway."
The blonde guy smiled, but it wasn't really a happy smile. It was the grimace of a person who was depressed. "I'm Alpha. I'm here because I feel absolutely done with life and I wanted something to do. The stakes being high don't matter. Maybe I'll die here or something."
Chiaki swore the room felt a lot emptier after that statement.
"Same here." said Naughty, who was again wearing a smirk on his face. "But I want to at least die surrounded by bella donnas with huge br-" Chiaki slammed her hands down on the conference table.
"Okay! Okay, I think we got a good idea of what you're looking for, Naughty. And uh, Alpha? Try to lighten up. No one is dying. Heck, nothing bad has happened yet."
And then the lights went out, with a terrific boom shaking the room. It felt like an earthquake hitting without warning.
"Why did you have to say that?! You jinxed us! Look what happened."
"Well excuse me, do I look like I see the future?"
"This is fine."
An alarm started to blare off, and the lights returned with a pulsing red glare. An announcement ordering evacuation from the Command Room came over the PA speakers, and the atmosphere automatically turned tense.
"We're not far from that place. If we leave now, we can make it out, right?"
"I'm perfectly fine with this situation."
"Alpha, what the hell? This isn't the time for jokes!"
"Sorry, sorry. But wait, what if someone needs help?" He had a point. There were a number of people in that room that stayed. What if there were survivors?
Ryuuto made his way to the door. "We gotta do something. There could be injured people, and more people carrying them out will make evacuation faster."
Chiaki nodded. "Yeah, I agree." She turned to face the remaining two guys. "You guys are coming?"
Alpha and Naughty shrugged and joined them, the Beginner squad quickly shifting into the Beginner Rescue squad.
…
The Command Room was a complete disaster, and the situation felt utterly hopeless. The Chaldeas planet model burned an angry bright orange, matching the flames incinerating the walls and unstable scaffolding. Pieces of the ceiling had fallen, and the floor was scattered with debris, mixing with the smoke-filled air.
No survivors.
That's what it looked like upon coming here, and Chiaki felt her heart drop. This wasn't supposed to happen. None of this was supposed to happen. Everything should have been normal, well, as normal as the Grand Order mission could get, but a tragedy like this felt unreal.
The man from earlier-Dr. Roman, was it?- yelled something about keeping the light of Chaldeas on and evacuating, but nobody really listened. The doctor left, probably believing that they did.
Alpha stared at it all, paralyzed in despair. Naughty and Ryuuto were running around, looking for survivors with futile effort. Chiaki was-
"Hey! Alpha, snap out of it!" Chiaki was shaking his shoulders, forcing the blonde out of his mental state of uselessness. "You gotta help us, ok? Nothing good will come if you just stand there!"
She then left to help the other guys.
"H-hey…"
A weak voice whispered for attention amongst the chaos. Chiaki stopped and turned around but saw nothing but rubble behind her.
"Guys! I think I heard something!"
Naughty, Alpha, and Ryuuto ran over with urgency, and Chiaki put a finger over her mouth, asking for silence.
"I'm, over, here…"
The group made their way to the source of the voice.
A pink haired girl with glasses was weakly smiling at them from the floor. She seemed to be wearing some kind of plugsuit, but it was hard to tell since she was pinned under a huge pile of wreckage.
Suddenly, the PA system crackled to life.
"180 seconds until all containment measures close. Please evacuate immediately."
"Looks like, we're all, stuck, here…"
Chiaki knelt down next to the girl. "We'll figure out a way." She turned to the guys. "Let's try to lift the debris off of her!"
Alpha shook his head. "It's no use. It's like she said: we're all stuck here. We can't possibly get her out in two minutes."
"He's right. I really hate to say it, but he's right. I'm sorry."
Chiaki's face crumpled, hurt. "I know, but I wanted to try."
Ryuuto, Alpha, and Naughty made their way towards Chiaki and the injured girl.
"We're all going to die here, huh? Merde. And I thought I could score a pretty lady before I kicked the bucket."
"Naughty, you have the weirdest priorities. Also, that's a French curse word." Chiaki gave a light chuckle.
She turned to face the other girl in the room. "Hey, I know this is the most unlikely place to do it, but can I know your name?" It felt dumb, but Chiaki felt it might bring some comfort.
"I'm Mash...Mash Kyrielight…"
"Well, I think that's a lovely name."
Mash gave a tiny smile.
The most unusual introduction sequence ensued in the smoldering rubble of the command room.
"I'm Chiaki. Sorry we had to meet you like this."
"And I'm Ryuuto."
"My name's Alpha."
"Mi chiamo Naughty, lovely lady."
The Chaldeas computer started to activate and list off technical jargon. The surrounding screens started to glow brighter.
Mash spoke. "Everyone...will you hold my hand, please?" She weakly extended her hand out to the group.
One by one, everyone stacked their hands on top of Mash's, as if readying for a team cheer.
Chiaki closed her eyes and prayed for a miracle. Alpha waited for the sweet embrace of death. Ryuuto thought about how crazy the situation was, but at least he'd be going out with a bang. Naughty hoped the afterlife had blackjack and hookers.
There was a blinding flash of light and a roar of wind, and everyone's consciousness faded to black.