The ground shook endlessly with the stomping of the beasts. The school charred amidst the raging flames. Jean felt himself growing angrier at the sight of the chaos. A deep shaking resonance rumbled within Jean’s arm. Something within Jean told him to move forward. Taking one step at a time, he soon came face-to-face with a massive beast. It’s long and disheveled dark fur ruffled in the wind as it turned its hideous mug to face Jean. A small porcelain mask covered the top-half of its dog-like face.

The creature’s long boney torso twisted around as it’s rear legs followed. It’s slackjaw hung low, baring its disproportionate set of teeth. It reared its head back and let out a high-pitched screech into the night. Jean stood before it, unfazed by its ear piercing scream. The rumbling in Jean’s arm grew stronger. Standing still before the towering beast, he glared at it in silence. The beast leapt forward, swinging its claws towards Jean.

The rumbling in Jean’s arm, seemingly reaching its peak, made him stretch it out to his side. The sound of a crashing window pane followed by the swirling of air flew out from the school. A silhouette of a black sheathe came spinning towards Jean’s outstretched arms. Catching the handle of the blade mid-spin, he flung his arm forward, causing the sheathe to propel itself towards the beast, leaving the blade in his hand. The impact of the black casing shattered the forehead of the beast with an audible crack of the mask alongside its skull.

The beasts reflexes fell short, failing to recover before one of its arms went flying off into the distance. Leaving behind a gashed and bleeding stump, the beast fell on its back, thrashing around on the ground. Dashing around its body, Jean slashed away at its remaining limbs, ripping them apart without mercy. The beast lay on the ground motionless, leaking blood from its immobile torso. Jean pulled himself atop the creatures forehead.

Jean stared into its glowing red eyes intently. There was something somber about them. They stared back at him as if the grotesque creature below him was begging for mercy. The sympathy was short-lived as the image of his friend being plastered across the ground flashed through his mind. Jean pointed the sword downwards and without hesitation, began stabbing its eyes.

Stab after stab, the blood spurted out from the beasts eye sockets. His hands stained with fresh red blood, he pulled out the sword out. A long-held breath finally escaped Jean’s from between Jean’s lips as his arms went limp and his body lax. He stepped onto the beasts belly and sliced it in two, exposing a pulsating core.

“Beast 101… They aren’t dead until you destroy the core.”

A heavy arcing slice came down through the shoulder of the beast.

“Run…” Eve said.

The group of crying children huddled against a brick wall stood up and scrambled away from the chaos. A voice crackled through the radio static in her ear.

“If you’ve cleared the west end, get back here! Something big’s coming!” the voice shouted.

“Okay…”

With her axe still in hand, she dashed back towards the front gate. Eve slaughtered any beast that stood in her way with a prowess matching that of an animal hunting easy prey. Her eye’s constantly scanned her surroundings, looking for anyone or anything. Halfway from reaching her destination, she spotted Jean.

She changed her original path and began to dart towards Jean. Her eyes widened as she saw Jean eviscerate the beast before him. She reached Jean just as she witnessed Jean plunge his sword straight into the beasts core.

“Hey...”

Jean turned to face her, but Jean didn’t know how to react considering the situation. He assumed that she was aware of his half-beast nature, but didn’t know whether she knew about him being put in solitary.

“Eve…Uh, I can explain th-”

“It’s fine,” she said, cutting Jean off.

"Come with me," she added.

“Wait. There’s something I have to do,” Jean said.

Eve watched silently as Jean walked over to pick up his sheathe and the body of a little girl. Holstering the sword to his hip, he knelt down to pick her up. He held her in his arms, cradling the lifeless body. As he walked back to Eve, she asked;

“Did you know her?”

“Yeah… Her name was Alyssa,”

“I see,”

Without saying another word she turned around and signaled for Jean to follow her. Moving fast, Eve lead Jean towards the front gate where there were scattered gathering of guards, students and teachers. Students who were able-bodied enough to fight, were holding off smaller beasts that had made their way onto school grounds in groups of two to three. The guards were grouped up at the front gate, fending off any approaching beasts. A few of the elderly teacher’s were moving groups of injured students and children towards something that seemed like a bunker.

The remaining teacher’s stood spread out amongst the area fighting off the larger beasts. Eve and Jean met up with a group of teachers consisting of the Headmaster, Klaus, Serizawa and Mrs. Yannis.

“I saw you managed to save the kids. Thanks Eve,” the Headmaster said.

Eve nodded in acknowledgment. The Headmaster, noticing that Jean was standing behind Eve, immediately fell into a state of confusion.

“Jean!? Wha- I mean how!?”

Before another word was said, a shrill howl resonated throughout the area. The sound sent a paralyzing shock throughout every person's body. Jean felt his legs almost give out upon hearing the howl. The beasts that were surrounding them grew passive for a moment, before their eyes began to emit an even brighter glow. Soon after, as if overtaken by an even greater force of nature, the beasts began to dismember, crush and tear apart every living thing with an even greater aggression.

Without hesitation, the teachers sprung into action, leaping in different directions. Eve did the same, launching herself into a backflip and releasing an onslaught of downswings and upswings onto the Beasts.

Jean found himself surrounded by a familiar chaos once more. Still holding onto Alyssa’s body, Jean felt his sense overload.

“What do I do!? HEY YOU FUCKING BEAST! WHAT DO I DO!?”

There was no response.

Jean felt rhythmic gusts of air begin to hit his back and soon found his leg’s froze in place.

“No, no, no. Not again! I killed one just fine! Why can’t I just move!?”

The all too familiar feeling of fear overtook his body. He didn’t have to turn his head to see what was towering behind him. He couldn’t turn around even if he wanted to. He was paralyzed. There was no moving from where he was. Jean felt tears welling up. There was a disappointment he felt in himself. A question of where all the resolve from earlier went filled his head.

Jean unable to do anything, simply closed his eyes, just as he did before and waited. The sounds around him began to fade out, leaving only the crackling of burning wood to permeate his senses.

A razor-sharp whirring flew overhead. Then it stopped. A fleshy thud hit the ground as Jean opened his eyes. Mustering enough will to turn his head, he saw Klaus cleaving away at beast behind him. There was a sense of desperation in Klaus’s attacks. With every slash he took, it grew slower.

“Run Jean!” Klaus shouted.

Where would he go? What would it matter if he ran? It was then Jean realized something. He truly had been running away. Even before he knew about this other side of him, Jean was always running away from a fear of something. And he finally knew what that something was. Jean broke free of the fear inside him and gently put Alyssa down.

Klaus continued to sluggishly attempt to kill the beast. Barely managing to dive away from its attacks. Beads of sweat rolled down Klaus’s face as his breathing grew shallow with each passing second. He hovered a hand over one of his jacket pockets before returning his grip to his sword. The beast, visibly growing agitated by Klaus, took another shot at Klaus. Once more Klaus dove out of the way, but found his body being lifted up and his waist being crushed by the same beast’s tail. As it’s long snake-like tail coiled itself around Klaus, he felt whatever air he had left in him being forced out.

Jean dashed towards the beast, unsheathing his sword in the process. With one fell upswing, the beasts tail was severed. Klaus dropped to the ground. Jean quickly helped Klaus recover. The beast’s staggered upon receiving the injury. But as Jean and Klaus had expected, it recovered almost immediately, growing a new tail.

“Don’t you fucking touch him,”

Klaus glanced up to see Jean’s back.

“Looks like you’re the one protecting me now,”