A/N: Welcome to the second installment in my 5+1 Shinya ficlet. My most sincere and heartfelt thanks to everyone out there who read the first chapter and told me that they wanted more! It means so much to me that you guys are liking this ficlet, you have no idea. :D

Anyway, about this chapter: Shinya's not five years old anymore, but he's still a kid in this chapter (smol Shinya!), so no Guren obviously because they don't meet til high school. Basically it's more angst and suffering for our precious Shinya, because...I'm a terrible person? XD Oh, also this installment's a little longer than the first. ;D Enjoy!

二番目の発生/The Second Occurrence

The second time Shinya gets blindsided by a panic attack, it's not long after he's killed for the first time.

At first, right after it had happened, he hadn't felt much of anything. Just...numb. Horrified, in a strange and distant way.

He was seven years old now, and after two years of strength training, endurance training, sorcery training, and just general training hell, the overseers in charge of the facility where the Hīragi adoption candidates were being groomed and monitored had decided that it was time to begin the "elimination fights".

They claimed it was for the greater good, to weed out the weak ones from the ones with true potential.

And it made sense, of course. Once Shinya had arrived at this facility along with all the others (so many that he'd lost count, but there had to have been at least three hundred other boys his age), they had been told that the one who was selected at the end of the five-year selection program would be adopted into the Hīragi family as the eventual spouse of the family's daughter, Mahiru.

The Hīragi family wanted only the strongest and most skilled to add to their prestigious bloodline, and so they were determined to push all the candidates to their limits, both physical and mental.

The first round of elimination fights happened exactly two years after they arrived at the facility, and the selection of candidates to fight was entirely randomized. The best candidates, the worst candidates, the ones that were merely average...their current ranking didn't matter; they were each assigned a number and if your number was called, you fought.

Of the two hundred and fifty who had survived until that point, fifty more were dead by the end of the first two days, and another twenty by the end of the third day. Another fifty or so had lost their fights but not their lives...yet. They were currently laid up in the infirmary, being assessed for whether or not they were still "viable" for the candidacy program.

Shinya fought on the second day, when his number was called along with that of another boy named...Hideki? Hideyoshi? He couldn't remember. And given what had happened, maybe it was better that way.

The fights weren't technically to the death, but when a critical injury or failing to distinguish yourself meant that you would be "terminated" anyway...well, no one was willing to risk their own lives by not going all out against whatever opponent they wound up fighting.

Shinya's fight started off slowly, with both of them feeling each other out, but after the proctor supervising their "test" made a comment about uncertain combatants not being worth the time and trouble it took to oversee them, Shinya abandoned all of his reluctance, and it seemed like his opponent did the same.

Neither of them was willing to be the loser here. Neither of them wanted to die.

But Shinya was better. Stronger, faster, and smarter. He used his quick reflexes and his natural skill with magical talismans to bring the fight to a swift and brutal conclusion; by the time the proctor blew the whistle to signify the end of the fight, the other boy that Shinya had been fighting was...unrecognizable, for lack of a better term.

And at first, Shinya didn't...feel anything, really. He was a little alarmed at how easy it had been to take another person's life...how could it be over so quickly, like a candle being blown out? And there was a sort of vague sense of accomplishment, coupled with an almost crippling sense of relief that he'd won, he'd done it, he wouldn't be eliminated, at least not yet. He'd get to live...for at least a little longer.

But once the three days of elimination fights were, and Shinya was left alone with his thoughts...well, he'd already learned that being stuck with only himself for company was not...ideal. He couldn't, at this point, trust any of the other candidates to not stab him in the back if he let his guard down, but even dealing with that was preferable to just sitting alone and stewing in his own thoughts.

He was sitting in his tiny, sterile cell of a bedroom when one of the facility managers came by to inform him that another round of elimination fights would be taking place in another six months, after another stretch of training and smaller, but no less important, assessments.

Shinya stared at the man for a few seconds, his mind thoroughly blank. But then he remembered himself, remembered how he was supposed to act, how he'd decided to behave, and he forced a smile onto his face and thanked the man for the information.

The man looked at him intently for a moment, made one last comment about striving to excel, and then left.

The panic attack hit just a few seconds later, when he started to recall bits and pieces of his elimination fight. The tang of ozone in the air from some of the magical talismans that had been used, the glint off the edge of the dagger he'd been wielding...

The bright red blood covering his hands and the deep gash across the other boy's throat as the light faded from his eyes and his body went limp.

I don't even remember his name, Shinya thought again, clenching his hands into fists as something sharp and painful flared to life in his chest, stealing his breath away.

This time, at least, Shinya knew what it was, knew what was happening to him. He'd seen it happen to another candidate a year ago, after a survival test involving poisonous snakes had triggered some sort of a meltdown. Shinya had heard the facility overseers discussing it, after the survival test was over. They had called the other boy's hysterical reaction a panic attack, said that it wasn't so surprising, given the circumstances.

But they had also said it was an inexcusable weakness, a vulnerability that could be exploited and therefore couldn't be tolerated.

The boy who'd panicked over the snakes was terminated without warning or comment two days after the survival test, and while Shinya was bizarrely grateful that at least now he had a name to put to the disorder, he had also realized that he could never, never allow himself to slip up.

So he held himself together until he was absolutely sure that the man who'd come to his room was definitely gone from the hallway outside. Then, though, he felt himself start to shatter apart.

It was worse than the last one he'd had, the first attack that had hit two years previously after his initial selection as an adoption candidate.

This time, he felt hot all over one moment and then freezing cold the next, his heart was beating so strong and fast that his ribs hurt and all he could hear was a rushing sound in his ears, and no matter how many times he tried to open his mouth to suck in some much-needed air, all he managed to do was give a gasping, choking wheeze.

He ended up tumbling off his small military cot and onto the hard cement floor, acquiring a few new bruises to add to the collection he'd already had from his elimination fight. He didn't care about more bruises, though; he was too far gone for it even really register.

Shaking and crying and hating himself for it, he curled up into a ball on the ground, wrapping his arms around himself and praying for this terrible paralyzing terror to go away. It wasn't fair for this to be happening to him; he was stronger than this...wasn't he?

Maybe I'm not, he thought. Maybe I'm not strong after all. Maybe I'm weak. Maybe soon...I'll be eliminated, too.

It was a train of thought that really didn't help his panic attack in the slightest, so he quickly forced his thoughts to something else. Since the few memories he'd retained of his life before coming here were distant and faded, all he had to draw inspiration from was the last two hellish years of his life here in the facility. As a result, there wasn't anything happy to focus on, but at least he could concentrate on something inane like layout of the first obstacle course he'd been forced to navigate, instead of being stuck in an endless loop of I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die.

Of course, thinking about that obstacle course got him thinking about the candidates who'd been eliminated for not completing it to their overseers' satisfaction, which dragged his thoughts back to all the others who'd been killed in the elimination fights or terminated afterwards, and that in turn triggered another downward spiral of I'm not strong enough, I need to get stronger, I need to win, I need to win, I can't let myself die here.

Eventually, however, the worst of the terror began to ebb and recede, to his immense relief.

It still felt like an eternity before the fear strangling him eased up enough for him to become moderately functional again, even though Shinya knew logically that he probably hadn't been incapacitated for more than a few minutes at most. It took some effort, but he managed to heave himself back up onto his cot, his heartbeat finally starting to slow as his breathing began to even out.

I have to get stronger, he thought as he stared up at the plain white ceiling above his cot. I need to get stronger, to survive this hell I'm trapped in.

I need to win.

And then maybe, just maybe, once he won and was adopted into the Hīragi family...maybe then he would finally be safe. Maybe then he would be able to stop this horrific struggle for survival and not have to smile to hide his pain anymore. Maybe, if he won, he could have a chance to truly live, instead of just surviving.

A/N: My precious baby Shinyaaaa... *sobs* Writing this is breaking my heart into little itty bitty pieces. *sniffles*
On a more serious note, I truly would appreciate any feedback you guys have to offer; this is, as mentioned previously, my first Owari no Seraph fic, and also my first 5+1 fic, so I'd love to hear what you guys think so far! :)