Several days had passed in relative quiet. Or, what passed for relative quiet in Mitakihara’s new normal. 3:26 AM, right outside of the only checkpoint remaining for supplies in and out of the city. A large, unmarked, plain white truck approached the station where the lone pair of JSDF guards kept watch. Neither looked too…

Niko: Ghh… Fuck… There is darkness all around Niko when she opens her eyes. It takes her a few seconds to realize she’s even awake. She is lying on her belly, making it hard to breathe, and when she tries to roll over, she notices it’s harder than it should be. A thin wire —…

Koharu snaps awake, before finding herself still strapped into her chair in the back of Hikari’s car. She blinks a few times, but then unfastens her seatbelt and immediately leans in to check on her family members in the front seats. They’re gone. Nowhere to be seen. Koharu: … Mom? Mom! In a panic, she…

Mei: Yo, uh… Master? You seein’ this shit? Yui: Don’t call me that. And yeah. She’s there, inside The Bends.   Mei: She just ran inside like she meant to go here from the start. Y-You think…? Hotaru: … She’s going to see a band? Yui: I wish, Hotaru. No, Mei’s right. This is a trap.…

Like a thunderclap, a deafening sound of metal clashing with metal reverberates across the park when the ensuing shockwave sends two combatants — Kohaku Hayama and the enigmatic young woman calling herself “Punisher” flying in opposite directions. As if out of thin air, the latter produces a Chinese guandao halberd into her hands and plants…

Clutching her shoulder with one arm, the other one limply dangling to her side, Alice groans in pain as she stumbles back into the gym, sighing as she witnesses the state the main training area was left in after Yui’s fight with the mysterious visitor. Alice: Fuck. So much for all the hard work. Alice…

In the Dreamscape, the pale fog continues to ebb and flow around Niko’s little island, as the new warden of the domain, along with Shinju and Koharu are hunkered down around the latter’s mother, who groans as she gets up. Hikari: It… God, girl, you look like a mess… I… Why am I— Koharu: Do…

As the sun goes down, Kohaku makes her way back to the pavilion in the park that serves as the base for her and the other JSDF soldiers that have volunteered for peacekeeping. Once a simple picnic shelter, the pavilion has been shored up with wood and sandbags, to better defend against the hoodlums roving…

After sliding a newsletter under the door of every apartment on the top floor of a small condominium, Yosuke jogs down the stairs, marking off the final few addresses on his to-do list. Yosuke: There we go. The news is out there. (he stretches his arms, walking up to Koharu who is waiting next to…

In one of Mitakihara’s many alleyways, behind an inconspicuous facade, life is brewing like nowhere else in the city. While most shops have closed or moved their wares to one of the communal markets, Yui and Alice are in the middle of renovating the former’s gym, moving boxes about and trying their best to take…