"And to make sure none of you cause a nuclear explosion while using it."
Kagerou wasn't joking. Kenji wasn't sure how he knew, but his instincts were screaming at him. It told him that there were at least four nuclear warheads primed right in front of him.
'What are those things made of?' Kenji bit his cheeks to stem the nervous chill up his spine.
Shō said that the Choir was leagues above everyone else in this world when it came to technology. Given the amount of crazy little gadgets he'd seen from his relatively short period here, Kenji had reason to believe that.
But to hand over what amounts to nuclear weapons to a bunch of young adults...
'Is that really the smartest thing to do?'
With a flick of his wrist, Erhardt called upon a few white drones to fly down. One white drone transformed into a high-tech-looking table, with circuitry and pulsing vein-like wires giving it a strangely ominous look. The others hovered over the boxes, carrying them with hooks before settling them on top of the table.
"Well, what are you waiting for!" Kagerou called out, her tone tight, clearly forced as if mustering as much energy as she could. "Come get your new STCTs!"
Kenji could at least commend the effort. Somehow, she sounded both energetic and exhausted at the same time. It was akin to seeing a gravelly-voiced man singing a beautiful solo piece.
He blinked; the image of Anselm Grimmel singing on stage caught his mind. He grimaced, shaking the thought away.
The four eventually got up and walked in front of their respective boxes. Each differed in length; Aiden's was the smallest, while Octavia's seemed to dwarf theirs in length. Kenji could already tell what his would be, especially since it's a very particular length that he's pretty familiar with.
'That sounded wrong.' Kenji shook the thought.
Kenji peered into his box, eyes bulging as if trying to dissect the container. The metal was a shade of gray, tactical and sleek. There was a panel on top that ran a red light over it.
"Place your fingers on the panel." A yawn marred Kagerou's words. She clicked her tongue twice and let out a deep sigh. "The box'll scan your fingerprints and collect your blood to confirm it's you."
Kenji gulped, then looked down at the panel. Along with the red scanner, there was a tiny pricking needle. Was he seriously meant to pierce his skin with this? He took a deep breath; he's suffered through worse injuries than this.
He pressed his thumb against the panel, then with a quick push...
Kenji hissed as the needle bit into his thumb. A brief flash of red light pulsed across the box before it flicked to green with a mechanical click. Then, with a hiss of decompressing air, the container unlocked and twisted open.
Inside lay—
'What the fuck?'
It looked, at first glance, like a baseball bat. Smooth, silver, and perfectly ordinary. Kenji picked it up, testing the weight with a skeptical toss. Light. Balanced. He spun it once in his hand, searching for any hint of high-tech design: gears, lights, wiring.
Nothing.
'This is it? A damned toy?' He furrowed his brow. 'What a rip-off.'
"The long face doesn't suit you, Kensei," came Erhardt's unmistakably smug voice.
Kenji's irritation found its target immediately. "The hell is this, Erhardt? It's just a bat!"
Erhardt clicked his tongue, amusement curling in his tone. "Look closer, Kenta. Much closer."
Kenji exhaled through his nose, turning the bat in his hands. Then he saw it. The bat had a small circular port near the base of the handle, barely visible. Curious, he pressed a finger over it.
The bat roared to life.
Internal gears churned and whirred. Metal plates split and shifted, revealing a row of spinning, serrated teeth that ran from the top of the bat down to the handle. The sound was vicious, a growling hum that reverberated in his chest.
Kenji released his finger, and the weapon fell silent once more.
He blinked, then, on a whim, brushed a finger lightly against the chain. A sharp sting cut across his fingertip. Kenji yanked his hand back with a hiss.
'At such light contact?!'
Blood welled where the teeth had grazed him. The edge wasn't just sharp, it was hungry.
"Serrated teeth made from the same material as your chains," Erhardt explained, eyes glinting behind his glasses. "Or at least, the closest recreation of their immaterial make. The entire bat is forged from a specialized alloy of my own design, something that allows you to channel the effects of your [Subroutine] directly into the metal. Meaning…" He smiled, wide and a touch too pleased with himself. "You won't need your chains to create an effect anymore."
Kenji stared at the bat, speechless. Moments ago, he'd been ready to toss it aside; now, his doubts twisted into electric excitement. It was perfect. Before, he'd always had to wrap his chains around a weapon to imbue it with his power. But now, with this, he could apply [Subjective Law] straight through the alloy itself.
'I need to test this…'
He gripped the handle tightly, his pulse quickening.
————————
[ Subjective Law — Subroutine: Your chains are an immortal inferno. Your blade will reduce your enemies to ash.
————————
The air shimmered. A faint vibration coursed through the bat before it ignited.
Flame coiled along its surface, consuming the serrated teeth as they spun to life with a thunderous whirr. A metallic shriek tore through the air as fire met motion. The blaze danced with each rotation, wild and furious, yet completely under his control.
Kenji's eyes reflected the burning weapon, a grin tugging at his lips.
'Now this… this is my kind of upgrade.'
As for the rest, they were similarly engrossed. Octavia pricked her finger against the panel, letting it bleed. With a hiss, the metal box opened, revealing a sleek black blade. Octavia smiled, taking the blade and testing the weight. To Kenji's surprise, it wasn't a rapier at all. It wasn't long, thin, nor was the blade light. Instead, it was massive. A cleaver-length blade that was her height.
'How is she carrying that...'
Kenji couldn't help but gawk. Then another thought came, jnbidden.
'And how is she supposed to carry that?'
Octavia examined the blade in silence, tracing her fingers along its edge before rotating it according to her earlier specifications. If her calculations were correct…
With a soft click, the weapon began to shift. A glow pulsed from its core—brief, contained—and the massive cleaver folded in upon itself, collapsing into a simple black pen. The excess mass seemed to disperse into the light, vanishing entirely.
"I'm impressed," Octavia admitted, a slight note of surprise threading her tone. "You actually managed to pull it off."
Kagerou shrugged.
"Specifications for a variable-mass weapon modeled after Anselm's blade were… challenging," she began. "Particularly with the anti-psychic shielding. Only the cutting edge is lined with the same ontological alloy as his original weapon. The resonance effect is weaker, but in exchange, it allows us to manipulate its physical mass density."
The blue-haired girl tapped the side of her tablet, bringing up a faint holographic diagram of the sword's internal framework.
"When it shifts, the excess material is phase-shunted into a localized mass-compression manifold. It's a self-contained spatial pocket stabilized through quantum anchoring. Compact, efficient, and, in theory, infinite."
Kenji couldn't wrap his mind around the explanation. He must've looked foolish because Kagerou turned to him and smiled.
"You ever played that old game? The one where you capture monsters in tiny little balls? Think of that. Pocket dimension, basically."
'Then why make it sound more complicated than it is?' The corners of Kenji's mouth twitched. There was no other reason to do this other than ego, and looking right at Kagerou...
She yawned, a casual glint in her eyes. But she held the same predatory look in her eyes that Erhardt did whenever she looked at the STCTs.
'Is everyone in Ars Animus insane?'
Octavia twirled it around her hands, then shifted it into a longsword, then a rapier, then a mace. Each time it turned, she skillfully tested the weight. Spinning the blade around, slamming the mace down before stopping just before hitting the ground.
"Oh, I think I'd get used to this." Octavia smiled.
Surprisingly, both Aiden and Yeon were a little more lowkey with theirs. Aiden's was a simple-looking watch, while Yeon's was a pair of earphones. Kenji blinked for a moment, so they wouldn't reveal what they were.
Aiden simply stared at his, his curious blue eyes staring at that gold-laced watch. He wrapped it around his wrist, then took in a deep breath. He said nothing else.
Yeon took hers and then connected it to her phone, blasting music through it. She placed both pieces into her ears and then smiled.
"This sound quality is insane." Yeon smiled.
Kenji dryly looked at her. 'Did she just order a pair of normal earphones?'
There was no chance that it was. It meant Yeon was hiding what her STCT did, for one reason or another. It was another reminder that even though the four of them did hang out, they were still strangers with secrets they'd like to keep. So why bother trying? Perhaps all four were starving for any notion of normalcy, themselves, even with the secrets they all carried.
Kenji sighed, looking up at Kagerou and Erhardt. "So what? Do we get to keep these?"
He expected them to say no, but instead, Erhardt nodded. Surprise crossed all of their faces, and Kenji's mouth went agape.
"Oh, don't look so surprised. Unlike your Psychic Abilities, we can control your STCTs. If any of you act out of line, we can simply disable it remotely. There isn't as much of a risk letting you all out with them on, given that each would look like normal items minus their special properties." Erhardt explained, holding a hand up.
"That being said, try not to lose them." He began, "It'd be a hassle having to retrieve every lost bit of technology."
With a flick of his wrist, Erhardt turned and walked out dramatically. His lab coat flew under the gesture, akin to a showman's own flair. Shō sighed at the display, turning to the group with his piercing red eyes.
"We fly tomorrow at six. Get some good rest, and pack some clothes with you. Briar Hollow lies at the other side of the country." He began.
They were flying to a new state altogether? That was surprising. He suddenly recalled all of Shō's business trips to foreign nations; this must be the reason why they were all so frequent. He supposed he'd have to expect the same thing on his end. Part of him was giddy; he'd never traveled outside of Union Bridge in over ten years. But another was nervous, precisely for the same reason.
'You fought anomalies and you're scared of that?' Kenji chastised himself. 'Get a grip, Kenji.'
"You're all dismissed." Shō then said, turning before leaving. If he felt anything from having his brother join in the mission, Shō didn't at all reveal anything. Kagerou followed, soon after, yawning and muttering something about missing her bed.
The group chatted soon after, mainly speaking about their STCTs. They had all seen Kenji's; both Aiden and Yeon gawked at how cool it was. Octavia huffed, as usual, instead stating its impracticality as a weapon.
She said, "Chainsaws are horrible weapons. They can get caught by most pebbles, and the resulting kick-back can harm you. Not to mention that you'd need to keep your weapon lodged in an opponent for it to be in any way effective."
To which Kenji replied simply, "Okay, but it's cool."
And she couldn't deny that. Aiden and Yeon kept their own STCTs on lockdown, unable to tell them what they were. Aiden's reasoning was simple.
"I want to have a cool badass moment where I reveal my STCT at the right time."
Ever the illogical fool, this man. Kenji let out a sigh. But he couldn't tell if that was the real reason or not. Kenji wasn't good at reading people, not at all. But Aiden's knight act garnered a strange unease in him. It felt...
Unnatural.
But he said nothing else. If Aiden wouldn't reveal anything, then Kenji wouldn't pry. He neither had the skills to make him talk, nor did he truly care.
As for Yeon, her reasoning was more straightforward.
"I don't trust any of you."
It was blunt, and he didn't expect it from the easygoing Yeon Su–Mi he had known. The group looked at her strangely for a moment, but all four couldn't deny her words.
Because in the end...
They all felt the same.