Mutsuki stared up at the night sky. One single star could be seen flickering in the distance through all of the light pollution of Kivotos. She relaxed and smiled, content with her life. As soon as she was about to doze off, her phone's ringtone blasted loud enough to reach her ears through her bag. Mutsuki heard yelling coming from the ground floor of the building she was laying on top of, but she paid them no mind. She took the phone out and bought it up to her ear.

"Hello~⋆｡°✩"

"H-hi Mutsuki." Haruka's voice came out of the other end of the phone.

"What's up? Something happened?"

"Yes. Can you come to the school building?"

"What, Abydos?"

"Yeah."

"I'm a little busy right now. What do you need me for?"

"U-um, we might have gotten into a fight and we're getting our butts kicked."

Mutsuki smirked at Haruka's timid confession.

"Huh? How did that happen? I thought you were sneaking in at night to avoid getting caught?"

"It's Hoshino."

"Oh. Well, I guess that makes sense! Anyone else you have to deal with?"

"Well, not exactly, but Abydos is a very scary place. I-it's a lot scarier than Gehenna."

"Haha! What? Scarier than Gehenna? There's no way that can be true. Don't tell me they have real ghosts or zombies or something?"

"They have a bunch of robots that we didn't know about."

"Oh! Robots! No problem! We kick their ass all the time! You're probably in this situation because you weren't decisive enough!"

"Decisive? I don't get it."

"Yeah, what I mean is that you didn't go into the fight with 200% full force! You need to use every trick in the book to get the upper hand! We never fight fair, we only fight dirty! That's the Problem Solver way! That's what Hoshino's doing, right?"

"Um. I see. Hey, what's that sound coming from your end?"

"Huh? What sound?"

Haruka's mention of the sound snapped Mutsuki back to reality, and she started hearing the sound she was talking about. It was a siren in the distance, oscillating slowly between a high and low pitch.

"Oh yeah! That sound! Don't worry about it."

"So, anyways, how fast do you think you can get here?"

"Well, like I said, I'm a little busy right now, but I'm sure you can handle it! Hoshino can't possibly be that scary!"

From the other end of the phone, Mutsuki heard Kayoko's voice quietly make its way through the speaker.

"Hey, can you hand the phone over?"

"Sure," replied Haruka.

A few seconds later, Kayoko's voice came through the speaker, loud and clear.

"Where are you?"

"Um... I'm deep in the downtown area right now. I'm pretty lost, so I don't think I can make it to the school that quickly!"

"You're not actually in Abydos, are you?"

Mutsuki bit her lip and looked up at the huge skyscraper overlooking her position. It was currently missing a big chunk at the top and on fire.

"Nope."

"...Fine. Tell Hina I said, 'Go fuck yourself,' for me, okay?"

"...Will do!"

Kayoko hung up the call on her end.

Mutsuki walked over to her bag and bought it over next to the edge of the roof she was on. She made a few adjustments just to make sure the placement was just right, then smiled and nodded to herself. She then walked back to her attempted napping spot and picked up her machine gun, then walked back. Mutsuki sat down on the ledge, looking back at the door.

Right on time, it opened, and a very furious Iori glared at her.

"I finally found you, you fucking bitch! I'll kill you!"

Iori took one step through the door and promptly exploded, courtesy of a land mine Mutsuki placed at the entrance.

"Yawn," Mutsuki said back to her foe, who was now tumbling down the staircase. "This fireworks show sucks. Only one boom and that's it? And leadership wonders why everybody thinks Gehenna can't throw a fun event. Abydos is better at throwing ragers than you guys. I'm outta here!"

Mutsuki picked up her bag and balanced it on the edge of the rooftop. She jumped on top of the bag and looked back at the door. More prefect team members were pouring through the entrance.

Mutsuki bid them off.

"Later, haters!"

Mutsuki leaned towards the edge and fell off with her bag underneath her. Using the bag as a makeshift streetboard, Mutsuki coasted down the side of the building with the wind in her face.

"HAHA! YEAH! THIS IS AWESOME!" she shouted.

Mutsuki descended faster and faster as she reached closer to terminal velocity. Mutsuki inched closer and closer to the ground. Right before she was about to hit the ground, she kicked her bag towards the ground. The bag collided with the ground and exploded, producing a shockwave that sent Mutsuki the other way for a second, allowing her to do a flip before landing on the ground with an action pose.

"Tada! Gonna go with eight out of ten points for that one. I need to work on my poses."

Mutsuki picked up her perfectly intact bag off the ground and started leisurely walking away. She had a hunch something was up, and looked in that direction. She saw an object falling towards the ground from the building she was just on.

"What the hell?"

That object was Iori. She was diving through the sky, and right before she made contact with the ground, she flipped to turn herself rightside up. She landed and rolled to offset the force. As soon as she recovered, she scanned the area around her to look for Mutsuki. When she found her, she immediately raised her rifle and took a shot.

Mutsuki raised her bag in front of her to block it. Mutsuki was quite upset. "Hey! What gives! You're supposed to do a cool trick when you jump off a building! Not whatever it is you just did!"

"Shut up."

Iori fired another round at Mutsuki, who dodged it by ducking under it to get a good grip on her machine gun. Mutsuki began spraying her gun in Iori's general direction, forcing her to take cover and allowing Mutsuki to start running backwards.

Mutsuki got around a corner and pulled out a belt of grenades from her bag. She pulled a string, which removed all the pins from the grenades, then threw the entire thing around the corner. She wasted no time in sprinting the other way, as she felt and heard a loud boom seconds later.

Mutsuki jumped over a ledge to land on the proper ground level of Gehenna. The streets of Gehenna were always fairly active at night, but due to a certain act of terrorism by a certain impish individual, there were more hooligans than usual out on the streets doing whatever they wanted. Mutsuki passed by two students spray painting sexual graffitti on a school building. Mutsuki paused long enough to warn them, "Hey, guys! The prefect team is coming this way!"

The two of them immediately stopped what they were doing and picked up their guns.

"What!? Are you bringing them right to us?"

"Fuck you!"

The two of them started spraying down Mutsuki, who took cover behind her bag.

"Hey! What's the big deal!? I'm trying to help you out! Ungrateful assholes!"

Mutsuki peeked over her bag and countered with her own barrage of bullets. Both of the delinquents took cover behind a rock. Mutsuki kept the pressure up, her gun allowing her to shoot for longer periods of time than their rifles.

"Yeah! Not so fun when you're getting shot at, huh!?"

From the corner of her eye, Mutsuki spotted Iori coming around the building she was just at and aiming her rifle at her.

"Shit."

Mutsuki ducked just in time to dodge a bullet.

"The prefects!" the delinquent girls properly assessed.

"Run!"

The three of them started running away from Iori.

"Oi, NOW you're running away?" Mutsuki sneered.

"Yeah! I don't want to deal with this shit!" one of the delinquents responded.

"There's a big crowd we can hide in down this street!" the other girl said, pointing down a fork in the road.

The three of them ran in that direction and immediately located a big crowd. They ran into it and dispersed.

The people in the crowd were agitated and pushing over each other, and some people carried large bags and boxes. Numerous buildings around them had sirens going off. Screams of pain and chanting were all around Mutsuki as she wadded her way through it.

"They can't stop us all!"

"Move!"

"Get out of the way!"

"I want a new phone!"

"I need a new phone!"

Mutsuki was trying to push herself perpendicular to the flow of people to limited success. Curiosity got the better of her, and she did try to see what people were so upset about. They were trying to make their way into what she thought was a big electronics brand store.

"The heck's this about?" she asked out loud.

Suddenly, she heard a loud and familiar voice coming from the direction she came from.

"This is the Prefect Team! Everybody scram and go home!"

Iori shouted at the crowd through a megaphone then shot her rifle up in the air. The crowd immediately took notice and started stampeding the other way.

"The prefects!"

"Run!"

"Why are they here so fast!?"

Mutsuki was caught in the middle of this and had no choice but to follow the flood of people.

Push and pull.

Eventually, the flow of the crowd stopped moving and panic set in.

"They've got us boxed in!"

Mutsuki jumped to see what was going on and noticed a wall of riot shields blocking the crowd from leaving. Mutsuki looked behind her to find another way out, but it was the same story there. Mutsuki looked up and saw Iori standing on the roof of a building with a radio in her hand.

Iori looked straight at her, lowered the radio, and smirked.

Suddenly, everybody in the crowd turned to face one direction, as chills were sent up their spines.

Way off in the distance, Hina walked up on a stage with a megaphone in her hand and then threw her voice across the mob.

"Attention! Everyone present here is in violation of civil ordinance! A riot has broken out and there is a wanted terrorist on the loose! The Prefect Team is now declaring a curfew! Everybody leave peacefully or be arrested for disturbing the peace!"

Rather than backing down, the crowd started jeering.

"Boo!"

"Down with the prefects! Down with the Pandemonium Society!"

"What have they ever done for us!?"

Hina grit her teeth and continued speaking.

"We understand you're frustrated with the state of Gehenna right now, but we and the Pandemonium Society are doing our best to fix the standoff with Millennium!"

"I haven't had working heating for a month!"

"I can't fix my phone!"

"Can't even fix your own school!"

"Please-" Hina continued, "-stay calm. There are better ways to voice your dissatisfaction than rioting and looting!"

"Like that would fix anything!"

"What a load of shit!"

Mutsuki was zoning out of the conversation the crowd was having with Hina, as her focus was merely on finding a way out of this situation. Suddenly, her bag was yanked out of her hand and her arms were locked behind her back.

"Wha- Hey! Let me go!" she shouted.

Prefect Team members were holding Mutsuki in place, not allowing her to move or fight back. The other members of the mob were backing away from this display, forming a circle around Mutsuki as Prefect Team members surrounded her and aimed their guns outward.

"Asagi Mutsuki," the prefect holding her announced. "You are under arrest for acts of terrorism."

Hina declared to the crowd, "Again, everybody present. Leave immediately. This is your final warning."

People around Mutsuki started yelling.

"We can't leave! They're gonna arrest all of us!"

"We don't have to take it!"

"If we fight back, we can get out of here!"

Some of the other mob members started reaching for their guns. The Prefect Team members yelled, "Drop it!" in response. When they didn't, the Prefect Team opened fire on the mob.

Screaming erupted through the frenzied mob, and the sounds of gunfire soon drowned out the noises of screaming.

Loud booms reverberated through Mutsuki's chest and a stampede started moving towards one of the exits. Mutsuki used this opportunity to elbow her captor and fire bullets into the prefects immediately surrounding her. Other protestors joined her in gunning down the hopelessly outnumbered prefects that tried to arrest her. Mutsuki picked up her bag from the prefect and started running with the other protestors.

The crowd broke through one of the Prefect Team chokepoints and started fanning out. Mutsuki followed her side and stepped over a Prefect Team member who was laying on the ground. Mutsuki kept running, attempting to avoid hazards on the ground like that, until she came across a poor girl who was laying right side up and getting trampled. Mutsuki was about to jump over her, but she got bumped into from behind and stumbled into her body and tripped, falling over onto the ground, where Mutsuki herself started getting stomped on.

The hysteria only got worse when one of the protestors yelled out, "GAS!" Suddenly, the tide of people started turning the other direction, as the mob evidently didn't want to suffer the effects of tear gas.

Mutsuki used this momentary lapse to stand up and reach into her bag.

"Where is it?"

Mutsuki dug around until she located her target item: a gas mask. She wasted no time putting it on.

"Damnit, I should have thought about using tear gas myself. I'm slipping."

Mutsuki broke through the retreating crowd members. She saw a large cloud of gas on the road and leaped into it. She dodged around various students coughing and trying to find their way out of the cloud, and used it as cover to make her way to the other side. Mutsuki found a door and entered it. She ran through the hallway and emerged in the center of the Gehenna Student Square. Seeing that she was safe, she took off her mask.

"I hate using that. It's stuffy."

Mutsuki turned back only to find that Iori was blocking the entrance she just came from. Iori smiled at Mutsuki's discomfort.

"Well, we were hoping to catch the rest of the mob, but you'll do just fine."

Iori took out her radio and announced to it. "All units, Mutsuki has been contained in the Student Square. Requesting backup."

To Mutsuki, Iori stated, "You're fucked now."

Mutsuki raised her machine gun.

"We'll see about that."

Mutsuki opened fire on Iori, but she dodged out of the way and took cover behind a stall. Mutsuki stopped firing and attempted to reach for a grenade, but Iori took this opportunity to rush out and pelt Mutsuki with bullets.

Mutsuki panicked and ran away. She ran down an alley in the side of the square while listening to Iori's taunts.

"Running away again? All you Problem Solvers ever seem to do is run away from problems or cause them yourselves!"

Mutsuki halted her tracks, spun around, and sprayed all over. Iori jumped to avoid the bullet spread, then shot one of her own at Mutsuki. It hit her hand, causing her to drop her gun. Instead of picking it back up, Mutsuki elected to keep running.

"Hit a nerve, did I?" Iori yelled after her.

Mutsuki ignored her and kept running. She found a dead end rapidly approaching, but noticed a ladder leading to the roof of the building. She took out a flashbang from her bag and dropped it behind her. Iori was tailing her and didn't notice the flashbang, so when it went off, she covered her eyes and tripped over in pain. Mutsuki climbed to the top and mined the exit to make sure nobody would follow her.

Out of nowhere, an object dropped from the sky like a missile, covering Mutsuki in debris. When the dust settled, it revealed Hina, whose wings were outstretched and eyes glowing a deep purple. Hina leaped over to Mutsuki, grabbed her by the collar and jumped into the air, bringing both of them fifty feet up. Hina aimed their trajectory to go towards the center of the Student Square, and used her wings to propel the two of them towards the ground in that direction.

Mutsuki had no choice but to brace for impact. The wind rushed past the back of her head. Soon, the wind was replaced by rocks.

The resulting crater was at least two stories deep.

Hina grabbed Mutsuki by the throat and raised her in the air with one hand.

With no emotion, Hina simply said, "Explain yourself."

Mutsuki was gasping for air and clawing at Hina's arm without providing an explanation. Hina then threw Mutsuki into the ground, expelling the last of Mutsuki's air from her lungs. Mutsuki keeled over and started taking in rapid breaths through her mouth.

Hina stomped on her back, pinning Mutsuki inside the body shaped hole she just made.

"Some people," Hina started, "were trying to get a good night's rest in tonight. But SOMEBODY bombed our dorms and started a riot."

"Woah, woah-" Mutsuki said, before coughing. "You're acting like I started that. I didn't start that riot. It was just a happy coincidence."

Hina pressed down harder on Mutsuki's back.

"You better have a good reason for being here instead of in Abydos."

Mutsuki struggled to gasp out, "You made Aru and Haruka cry. And that's just unforgivable! Thought I'd- urgh! -teach you a lesson."

Hina's blood boiled hearing this. "That's it? I hurt your friends' feelings? Unbelievable."

Iori and other Prefect Team members approached the hole and looked down with their guns drawn.

Hina kicked Mutsuki over so that she was staring back up at the night sky. She couldn't see any stars through the smoke overhead.

Hina stepped away from Mutsuki.

"I'll admit, you have a lot of talent and skills, and I'd hate to waste it. I think, given proper guidance, you could turn from being a drain on society to a great addition to the Prefect Team. You're disbanding Problem Solver 68 after this, right? You get what I'm saying, right?"

Mutsuki coughed up blood. She turned her head towards Hina with a smug grin on her face.

"What, and be a goodie-two-shoes square with no personality like you? No thanks."

Hina just sighed.

"I'm giving you a way out."

"Whatever punishment you give me, it can't be any worse than working for you."

"Your choice."

Hina jumped out of the hole and raised her arm.

"Prepare to fire."

Hina paused and looked down at Mutsuki.

Mutsuki stared back at Hina with a defiant and ever smug expression.

Hina sighed.

"You should have just taken the offer."

Iori couldn't help herself but to utter to Mutsuki, "Go fuck yourself."

Mutsuki responded with, "Hey! That's my line! Oh yeah, Kayoko said-"

Hina lowered her arm, refilling the hole with bullets.

A/N: This was supposed to be just an introductory blurb at the start of the next Abydos chapter to explain what shenanigans Mutsuki was up to, but it expanded to be large enough to cover an entire chapter all by itself. This chapter, we get glimpses of the aftershocks the Millennium Incident had on one of the larger schools, accidentally set off by one of Mutsuki's impulsive schemes. Next time, we go back to Abydos to play Doom Eternal with Hoshino!