The Ichinomiyas were one of the five clans sworn to defend the pillars that keep all of Japan safe, and within their jurisdiction stood the headquarters of the Association of Practitioners.
The Skull of Nirvana’s infiltration into the headquarters and their escape with numerous dangerous talismans in hand were still fresh in everyone’s mind; the Association’s security was known for being incredibly tight, making the shock to the practitioner world that much greater.
However, the talismans were safely reclaimed and returned to their rightful place, while the Skull of Nirvana’s members, boss included, were all taken into custody.
As much of a relief as it was to have the incident so cleanly wrapped up, the Association couldn’t have anything of the sort happen again, so they reevaluated their security measures to strengthen them even further.
The captured Skull of Nirvana members belonged to the domain of practitioners, so they weren’t handed over to the police. Instead, they were imprisoned in an underground facility beneath the Association Headquarters, a place designed to contain dangerous, problem-causing practitioners. The Skull of Nirvana members were confined to solitary rooms and placed under twenty-four-hour surveillance.
On that day, like any other, two security guards were assigned to observe them via a live camera feed. That was when one guard noticed something odd.
“Hmm?”
“What’s wrong?”
The other guard seemed puzzled as to why his partner had suddenly leaned toward the screen.
“Well, doesn’t something seem off to you?” the first guard said, pointing at the screen. It displayed a male Skull of Nirvana member lying on his side in bed.
“Huh?”
When the other guard looked closely, he saw that the man was clutching his chest. He even seemed to be in pain.
Not long after…
“Aaaauughh!”
The man cried out in agony and flailed around, making the guards scrambled to their feet.
“What is it? What’s going on?!”
“I don’t know, but we should go check—”
Before the guard could finish saying check on them, a prisoner on a different monitor began screaming as well. Alerted by the sound, the guard looked over at that monitor and saw that the prisoner was writhing on the floor.
And it wasn’t just these two; the cameras in each and every room showed their prisoners shrieking and struggling one after the other.
“What the heck’s going on?!”
“First, call for backup! We’re gonna need more than the two of us!”
“Got it!”
The guard hurriedly reached for the phone and requested assistance.