บท 9: best
Silence reigns before the Simone fall back a few paces to gossip in a whisper.
The Discipline Committee is highly respected because they are the best at what they do, and because of that, the public defer to a red armband automatically. They're an exclusive group, the very first protectors of Namimori, and yet it's a relatively small gathering of high schoolers. Because of this, everyone in the safe zone knows the names of every DC, especially since Hibari Kyouya doesn't give anyone a red armband anymore.
However, even though the TV station is starting up and the speed of communication around Namimori is fast, faces of the DC aren't well known apart from the main representative; Vice Chairman Kusakabe Tetsuya.
So, technically, Enma and his friends should know this teenager's name.
They hiss at each other, going through a mental list, but rumours of personality and features don't match with any of their guesses. Maybe if they saw a weapon they could pinpoint the identity.
They turn a corner, obediently following at the DC member's heels, and step into a boxing gym.
The interior is the entire two floors, while any boxing equipment seems to have been packed away and instead blue training mats are set out.
Along the edges of the room sit a huge number of guns and a mix of every weapon Enma could name and then some. Also along the wall, on the second level, is a catwalk that circles the room for any observer.
A large group of lilac armbands stand at one end, silent as they listen to a DC girl explaining the itinerary.
The male DC Enma is following strides to the middle of the room and stops.
The girl gestures for her listeners to turn and gives a respectful nod to the male. "To summarise; this your only opponent, you have three hours to take him down, use whatever you can to do so."
The recruits fan out, snatching up weapons and circling the teenager. Some look more wary than others, but the ones who are cautious also seem to have given up already.
"Fatal attacks are allowed as you can't afford to hold back," the girl continues, striding to the stairs and making her way up to a catwalk. "But any injury to your fellow recruits will have you stripped of your armband."
The Simone take up position against a wall and simply observe for the moment. They already know what they're supposed to be doing so this is just to get a feel for the opponent.
The teenager turns in a slow circle, scanning the group he's up against. All of the armbands hold two or more stripes out of the maximum five, since this side of Namimori faces the larger cities with more infected.
Then a gleam of silver reflects off the florescent lights, weapons suddenly appearing in the teen's hands.
Metal tonfas.
"Hibari Kyouya," Enma breathes out, finally placing a name to the DC member.
The recruits who looked so confident before suddenly drop back, but the Chairman follows in a blur.
...
The Disciplinary Committee member strides across the catwalk as the last recruit collapses, already unconscious. Her Chairman lets the metal staff drop from his hands, panting. He moves around the room, snatching up fallen tonfas and getting his breathing under control.
The DC girl catalogues his expression and puts it through a mental translator. The Chairman seems to be rather content with the recruit's abilities, but the set of his mouth says he would have preferred it if they actually managed to knock him out.
"Chairman," the girl greets as she climbs down the stairs from the catwalk. "Thank you for doing this. The recruits tend to get arrogant when they have more stripes."
"No matter," Kyouya hums. "It was my pleasure." A flick of his wrists clean the blood from his weapons, followed by the spikes retracting, and finally the tonfas being tucked away.
She smiles at his response and watches closely, taking out her roll call to note down comments as he weaves through the bodies, making a slow circuit of the room.
"Down a stripe," he orders. "Up one, down two, down, down, up, take this one's band away, up, up two, down," he dictates as he passes over the unconscious victims.
Most of them have been promoted properly by the DC, but some sneak past the grading. She's happy to note that the ones she graded have correct stripes.
Kyouya stops at the group that followed her Chairman inside - the ones late to her training session. He scans the bodies and she remembers how well they fought.
They lasted two hours and forty-three minutes -the last ones standing in fact- dealing a great amount of damage. The long haired girl even put a dent in one of her Chairman's tonfa while the entire group worked together to wrench the weapons out of Kyouya's hands.
They fought well together, moving in ways that dealt to their strengths. If the Chairman was only restricted to mastery of his tonfas, they would have won.
Unfortunately for them, her Chairman is Hibari Kyouya.
"Five stripes," Kyouya says simply.
She blinks in shock. "They'll be the first," she sounds out, not exactly questioning the Chairman but asking if he's certain. She saw how strong they are, but the current order has no five stripes – partly to make people work for it but mostly because no one is strong enough. "Only six percent of your forces reach four, with thirteen percent at three."
Kyouya hums. "Perhaps I'm too strict."
"Of course not," she snaps, angry at someone questioning her Chairman, even if it's the Chairman himself. "They're the ones letting you down. They should all be five stripes by now."
Kyouya gives her a look to shut her up, but he's too amused for it contain much of an edge.
She feels like a pet that did something wrong but is too adorable to scold properly. Admittedly, she heard the last time a DC snapped at him and tried to order the Chairman around, that smiling radio host had just propositioned Kyouya.
The host isn't dead, only because the public find him amusing. That wouldn't normally bother the DC, but apparently hangings aren't a thing anymore - especially when the dead man walking has public opinion on his side.
Pity.
"Sorry, Chairman," she says. "But only for yelling at you. I'm not retracting my opinion."
"I wouldn't expect you to," he murmurs, staring at her until she twitches before turning back to the unconscious teens. "They're five stripes, but only when they're a team…"
"Shall I send them to Vice Chairman Kusakabe?" she offers. "He's been asking for strong recruits who work well with a team."
A sigh escapes her Chairman. "Fine - but if I see them stalking me on his orders, I'll bite them to death."
She smiles as she writes down the note.
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