Boukengers: Remedial Go-Go!

What began as a form becomes a sentence. Bound to desks, the Boukengers face evaluations that erode their sense of self. Laughter grows louder. Respect fades. The school doesn’t ask questions to be answered—it asks to break.

Did they pass the test—or did the test pass hell?

Special thanks to my loyal and royal patron friends:

Suko

Mindwave

Yuyu lu

A

Aimi

Nikos

Oddone

Nate Piburn

Nicholas Athallah

Jakob Feurhuber

泽凯 张

vladimirpootis

Tribe

Bethany

kasa41

Violet Fentenstine

Tuck Lee

Matthew Thom

BlueEyesWhiteDragon

fumitsu

kasa41

俊介 星野

にとり 河城

Russell shuey

Bayu Pramana

clanna

park jong

Dominic Kohtz

George Hellerman

Flutterheart10480

brkfstinamerica

darkrai1986

시우 성

Nathaniel Grayson

's 쭌

John Barten

Eddie Hauck

Ken K

Ty smith

Robert Terwillger

snb

Daniel K

Mike020578

Do your study this time, Boukengers!

The scratching of pencils stopped. No one said to stop. No timer rang. No page flipped. There was no signal, no instruction—just a shared understanding, as if the air itself had reached its limit. They simply could not write another word.

Sakura lowered her pencil slowly, staring at the warped handwriting on her page. Her name, signed at the top, barely looked like hers. Each letter wavered, unanchored. Her hands, usually so steady, had trembled with every stroke. The final lines bled into one another—half-answers, self-doubt dressed in forced reflection, the thoughts of someone trying to appease unseen judges. Masumi let his pencil drop from his fingers with a quiet clatter, leaning back in his chair as if the act of writing had drained the last of his energy. His breathing had become shallow, ragged. He blinked rapidly, staring at the ceiling, his thoughts too scattered to form words.

Tears had dampened Natsuki’s paper. She didn’t remember when she started crying again. Her answers were shaky, looping downward like the spiral she was caught in. She clutched the desk with both hands, as if anchoring herself to reality. Souta stared blankly ahead, pencil still in hand but unmoving. His test was only half-filled, but he hadn’t touched it in minutes. Satoru sat upright, shoulders locked in their usual firm line, but his helmeted gaze was distant. He wasn’t looking at the board or the door—he was staring through the wall, as though something might rescue him from behind it.

They had finished. Or given up. Or both. But no one moved. It wasn’t paralysis. It wasn’t shock. It was exhaustion—a suffocating weight that made even the idea of standing feel like a memory. There was no mission to propel them forward. No urgency. Just the numb fog that followed shame.

“We... we did it,” Natsuki said. Her tone was faint, hoarse, as if she had spoken through sandpaper. There was no triumph in it, only disbelief.

Sakura didn’t respond. Her eyes flicked to Satoru, searching for confirmation, guidance, anything. Masumi let out a soft groan, dragging a hand over his visor.

“What did we even write?” he asked, as if trying to remember what had just been scraped out of his brain.

Souta glanced down at his own test, then looked away like it had turned radioactive.

“Nothing that mattered,” he said. His voice was hollow, emotionless.

“It felt like it mattered,” BoukenRed murmured. “While we were writing it... it felt like everything. Like if we didn’t answer it right, we’d disappear.”

Sakura finally spoke. Her voice was steady, but only barely.

“We answered every attack. Like we owed them something. Like we deserved it.”

They weren’t wounded. They hadn’t fought a monster or barely survived an explosion. But they were smaller now. Diminished. The classroom had compressed them. BoukenYellow reached out across the aisle and gently touched Sakura’s glove. Her own hand trembled.

“We’re still heroes, right?” she asked. Her tone was fragile, like a child asking if a bedtime story had a happy ending.

The question floated there, hovering above them like a fragile balloon. It didn’t go anywhere. No one reached for it. No one responded. It was too sharp.

BoukenBlack barked a single, bitter laugh.

“Yeah. Heroes who let a bunch of high school kids break them in under twenty minutes.” He rubbed his chest with both hands. “Feels like something caved in.”

Souta adjusted his helmet, though it didn’t help. He couldn’t stop fidgeting.

“Why do I feel like they were right? Like I really was... nothing up there. Just a guy in a suit trying to sound important.”

“Because they made you believe it,” BoukenPink said quietly. “That’s the real danger. They made us believe it.”

Satoru stood. The sound of his chair scraping back across the linoleum echoed like a gunshot in the silence. He straightened his shoulders again. Not because he felt strong, but because he didn’t know how else to keep going.

“We’re leaving,” he said. “Right now.”

He turned to the door. The others followed. Their movements were slow, uncertain. They walked like people coming out of anesthesia, limbs fuzzy with numbness, unsure if they could bear their own weight. But the need to move—anywhere but here—pressed louder with each second.

“We’ll talk later,” BoukenRed said. His voice was steadier, trying to act as a tether. “But not here. We can’t stay in this place.”

He reached for the door.

The bell rang. It wasn’t a pleasant bell. It didn’t signal recess or freedom. It was a shrill, bone-jarring clang that cut the air like a scream. And with it came thunder.

The hallway exploded with sound—dozens of feet pounding down the tile, tones raised in laughter, shouting, chaos. It sounded like a stampede coming straight for them.

The door burst open. And the students came. They poured into the classroom like water breaching a dam—uniformed, loud, disinterested in the Boukengers’ presence. They didn’t stop. They didn’t ask questions. They didn’t hesitate.

At first the five froze, too stunned to react. But then the hands started. Grabbing. Slapping. Pushing. Shoving. A storm of limbs and movement.

"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" someone yelled. Another voice followed immediately. "MOVE, FREAKS!"

“YOU DON’T SIT HERE!” came a third, high-pitched and vicious.

Masumi was slammed into a desk, his shoulder jolting painfully. He grunted and tried to stand his ground, but another body crashed into him and knocked him sideways.

Natsuki was yanked by the arm and spun around, her footing nearly lost. "Stop! Stop, I—" she tried to protest, but her delivery was drowned by laughter.

BoukenBlue felt a sharp slap across his helmet and turned just in time to receive a tray across his leg. He staggered back, heart racing, vision blurred.

Sakura stepped between Natsuki and the wave of students, arms up, trying to create space. “Enough!” she snapped, but they didn’t even flinch. They shoved past her like she was a decoration.

Satoru tried to bark orders, to regain control.

“Back! We’re not students! We’re—”

But his words hit the crowd like rain on stone.

The room changed. In moments, it was no longer a classroom. Lunch trays opened. Juice boxes appeared. Bags were unzipped. It had become a cafeteria. The transformation was seamless. Unquestioned. Like it had always been that way.

And the Boukengers didn’t belong.

“You don’t have any lunch? Didn’t your mom pack one?” a girl sneered, balancing a juice carton with perfect cruelty.

Masumi opened his mouth to retort but stopped. He looked at his gloved hands—powerless—and lowered them.

“Are you seriously still wearing that suit?” a boy scoffed. “What, scared someone might see your face?”

Souta tried to respond. He stepped forward, chest rising.

“This uniform means something,” he said, but the words came out brittle. “It’s... for our mission.”

“Yeah, sure,” another student chimed in. “Must be nice to play superhero during lunch. What’s next, detention cosplay?”

“Are you even allowed to sit with us?” a girl asked, wrinkling her nose. “You’re kinda ruining the vibe.”

They were herded without command. Pushed. Steered. Cornered. Desks filled. Bags tossed into chairs. Laughter swelled.

The Boukengers were boxed into the far end of the classroom, away from windows, exits, and dignity. They stood there—helmets fogged, shoulders sagging, outnumbered and forgotten—watching students eat and joke like they didn’t exist.

They weren’t heroes. They weren’t visitors. They weren’t even people. They were in the way.

“Why are we still here?” BoukenBlack asked, barely audible. The fight in his tone had dulled to a low rasp. He wasn’t being rhetorical. He truly didn’t understand why they hadn’t vanished.

BoukenRed didn’t answer. None of them did. Because they didn’t know. The bell had rung. And now it was lunch.

***

Lunch did not end.

Time continued to move—judging by the light shifting slightly through the pale windows—but the bell never rang again. There was no signal for dismissal, no pause, no breath. The classroom remained locked in that moment, stretched across a quiet chaos. A break that never broke. The scent of reheated meals and overripe fruit clung to the stagnant air, trapping the Boukengers in a moment they couldn't leave. Every passing second added weight, not progress.

The Boukengers stayed in the back corner of the room.

They hadn’t been told to stand there. No one had ordered them to move. But the students filled the seats and the space with such aggressive ease that the five were simply pushed, trampled, boxed in until the corner was the only air left to breathe. It wasn't just physical space that had been taken. It was presence. Identity. Relevance. The longer they stood there, the less sure they were of what they had walked in as—and what they were now.

Satoru tried to speak. Tried to lift them up. His voice wavered—tired, unsure—but he clung to what was left of his instincts. He cleared his throat, tried to stand straighter, and forced the words out with more conviction than he felt.

“We’ve been through darkness before,” he said, voice low but carrying. “Missions that tore us apart. Places that tested everything we were. This—this isn’t worse than that. It just feels like it because it’s slow. It’s quiet. But we’re still here. We’re still together. That has to mean something. It has to.”

He paused. The silence that followed wasn’t respectful. It was dead.

Satoru pushed on. “We’re Boukengers. We find Precious. We protect people. That’s what we do. This is... confusing. But we can figure it out. We just need to stay calm, keep our heads, and remember who we are.”

It was the kind of thing he had said a thousand times before. It was what heroes said. But it rang hollow now. Even as he said it, his body didn’t move. His stance didn’t change. His tone lacked heat. It sounded like someone remembering what hope used to feel like, repeating lines from a long-forgotten play.

Masumi looked at him, tired and unconvinced. “Focused on what? We’re not in a mission. We’re not even in control. We’re background noise.”

Souta gave a sharp exhale. “You think a speech is going to fix this? These people don’t see us. They see a joke.”

Natsuki shook her head, delivery soft. “I just want to go home. I just want this to stop.”

“We are home,” BoukenPink muttered. Her eyes flicked to the walls. “Aren’t we?”

That’s when it began.

“Why are they still wearing those suits?”

A girl’s tone, high and disgusted. Loud enough to break whatever fragile illusion they had been trying to build. Every head turned, every student stopped chewing, laughing, texting. Silence collapsed under the weight of attention. The pause before cruelty always felt longer than it was.

“They smell like rubber,” another girl said, wrinkling her nose and waving a hand in front of her face.

“They didn’t even bring food. Probably can’t afford it.”

“They think they’re special, but they’re just cosplaying losers.”

“Hey, maybe they’re allergic to rice.”

A rice ball hit Satoru’s chest and slid down the front of his suit, leaving a pale smear that stuck like shame.

He didn’t move. Laughter erupted around the room like a match struck against dry silence. The sound was contagious, a sickness carried by every breath.

Sakura flinched, almost imperceptibly. Masumi turned his head slightly, but his body remained tense, frozen. He said nothing. BoukenYellow's hands balled at her sides, trembling with restraint. Souta’s visor was fogging so badly he couldn’t see the expressions anymore—but he didn’t need to. He heard them. He heard everything.

A girl leaned over from her desk and snapped her chopsticks in their direction, the sharp crack echoing like a challenge.

“You know it’s against school policy to wear non-uniform clothing indoors. What kind of freak wears a fetish suit to school?”

BoukenBlack’s delivery came low, strangled and ashamed. “We’re not students.”

The girl smiled, slow and wide like a shark scenting blood.

“Then why are you in my class?”

Another voice, a boy this time, shouted from behind them, his voice thick with glee.

“Bet they don’t even go here. Just a bunch of dropouts pretending to matter.”

Someone threw a carton of milk. It exploded against the wall behind them, splattering white across Sakura’s shoulder and down her arm. She didn’t flinch this time. She just stared at the floor, as though she could make herself smaller by not reacting.

More laughter. Laughter without restraint. Laughter with edges. Laughter meant to carve and wound.

“Where’s your lunch, freaks? What, too cool to eat with us?”

“We don’t... we didn’t know,” Natsuki tried to say, her tone small, frayed at the edges, but the words dissolved in her throat.

“Didn’t know it was lunch?” someone mocked from across the room, delivery high and syrupy. “What, you forget how school works?”

“You think your plastic suits make you better than us?”

“We just came to help—” BoukenPink began, her voice barely audible, brittle and breaking.

“Help who?” another girl spat. “We didn’t ask for you. Nobody asked.”

They were shoved again. A hard shoulder to Sakura’s back made her stumble. A tray nudged Masumi’s leg with deliberate force. Souta was boxed in completely—desks had formed a ring around them, intentional or not. Natsuki’s hand had dropped from BoukenPink’s, now gripping the hem of her tunic as though she could hold herself together by force. BoukenRed stared at the door like it might open if he willed it hard enough.

They didn’t know why they were still there. They didn’t know why the room hadn’t changed back, why the presentation hadn’t ended. They didn’t know why they couldn’t just leave. But the urge was growing. Not to run. To fix it. To do better.

“If we had lunch,” BoukenYellow whispered, not looking at anyone. “Next time we’ll bring lunch.”

“There’s not going to be a next time,” BoukenBlue muttered, his tone bitter, eyes downcast. “We’ve already failed the test.”

“There was never a first time,” BoukenBlack said, dazed, more to himself than anyone else. “We never got out.”

A girl pointed directly at BoukenRed.

“Where’s your uniform, huh? You think you can just show up like that?”

“I...” he tried, delivery thick and slow, “We didn’t know... we weren’t told...”

“You’re supposed to have the regulation blazer. Tie. Name tag.”

“You don’t even have name tags!” someone added, laughing. “Do you even know who you are?”

They looked down. It was true. No name tags. No real clothes. Just suits. Bright, synthetic, skin-tight reminders of how out of place they were. How obvious it had become that they didn’t belong. That they never did.

“What are your names?” someone asked from behind.

None of them answered. No one spoke. They didn’t look at each other. Because the answer was no longer clear.

“Do you even remember?”

The bell still hadn’t rung. They pressed closer to the wall, instinctively trying to shrink, to fold themselves into invisibility, to melt into the tile. The laughter rose again. The questions multiplied. The cruelty sharpened and focused like a magnifying glass to sunburn.

Sakura’s head tilted down, helmet angled to the floor. Her delivery was no more than a thread.

“We’ll bring lunch next time,” she said.

Her voice didn’t sound like her own. It sounded like a recording left behind. Flat. Practiced. Hopeless.

And around them, the classroom kept eating. Kept mocking. Kept winning.

There was no next time. But the urge to prepare for one burrowed deeper. It gnawed at them, made a nest in their nerves.

Because if they had lunch, maybe they’d be allowed to sit. They might not be shouted at if they wore the right uniform. If they knew their names, maybe they’d be remembered.

***

Lunch ended without ceremony.

No bell signaled the change. No announcement marked the passage of time. There was no cleanup, no acknowledgment. Just a growing, suffocating indifference that settled into the room like thick, invisible dust. It weighed on everything—on their bodies, on the stale air, on their silence. The students began packing up not hurriedly, but with the sluggish familiarity of people following a script they didn’t question. Bags zipped, chairs scraped, trays clattered onto desks with careless clunks. It was mechanical, devoid of reflection. No one said goodbye. No one offered a glance. The Boukengers didn’t exist. Not to them. Not as guests. Not even as people.

As the students filed past, some hurled their final contempt like parting gifts, gleefully cruel in a way only the young and triumphant could be. A crumpled sandwich wrapper brushed Sakura’s boot, as if marking her with waste. A half-empty juice carton bounced near Masumi’s foot, leaking syrup that pooled around the toe of his boot like blood. Bits of seaweed, crusts of rice, snapped chopsticks—each thrown without fury, just the practiced spite of those convinced they were mocking something beneath them. One boy flung a full apple, which struck the wall just inches above Natsuki’s head. It exploded on impact, splattering juice and fruit across her visor and down her suit, pink turned murky with pulp. She didn’t move. None of them did. No retaliation. No recoil. Not even a flinch.

The laughter had changed. It wasn’t raucous anymore. It was quieter. Smug. The kind of laughter passed through whispers, sharpened by knowing grins. A joke they didn’t need to repeat. The words, though scattered across the room, came with knife-edge clarity.

“Freaks,” one sneered. “Losers,” another muttered. “Try not to cry during the next one.” “Don’t forget your name tags next time.” “Or your leash.” Each comment cut deeper than any enemy blade ever had.

BoukenPink stood stiff, trembling, her hands twitching like she couldn’t decide whether to raise them in defense or wrap them around herself. Masumi’s fists were balled so tightly his gloves strained with the pressure, tendons knotted in protest. Souta’s breaths came in short bursts, his helmet fogged to near blindness, his body jerking subtly with each panicked exhale. BoukenYellow whimpered once, a soft, broken sound like something cracking inside her chest. Satoru remained statue-still. No reaction. No blink. Only a hollow vacancy behind the red visor.

Then, finally, the room emptied. They were alone. Alone, but not free. The silence that followed was not peace. It was a pressure, a presence that settled in the room once the noise departed. It was heavier than before, as if the very air turned to lead. It wasn’t just the absence of students—it was something else. Something watching. Judging.

Masumi took a step forward, then paused, eyes catching on the trash that littered the floor around them. “Did they... are we supposed to clean this?” he asked bitterly, his tone cracking. “Is this what we are now?”

Natsuki hugged herself, voice barely audible. “We forgot our lunches. That’s what they saw. Kids who couldn’t even remember to eat.”

Souta’s tone came sharp, defensive. “We weren’t supposed to bring lunch! This wasn’t... this wasn’t even supposed to be real. It’s a presentation. A mission. Isn’t it?”

“No,” Sakura said, barely moving. “It’s punishment. And we failed. We’re failing.”

BoukenBlack gave a dry laugh, the kind that hurts more than it relieves. “Maybe we deserve it. We came here to inspire, right? Show off. But they didn’t see heroes. They saw freaks.”

Satoru shook his head slowly. “We’re Boukengers. We’re meant to stand for something. To protect.”

“Then why didn’t we protect ourselves?” Souta shot back. “Why didn’t we stop any of this?”

The silence that followed wasn’t just awkward. It felt like surrender.

Sakura looked down at her boots. “I remember being the weird girl once. I thought the suit would erase that.”

BoukenYellow’s delivery was paper-thin. “I thought it would make me loved.”

Satoru didn’t reply. Not because he disagreed. But because he didn’t know anymore.

With shaking steps, they peeled away from the corner. One after another, they staggered into motion. Their movements were slow, uneven—like prisoners stumbling toward false light. A fragile, irrational hope took root as they neared the classroom door. Maybe if they reached it, they could still escape. Maybe if they could just open it, they could return to SGS, return to their lives, return to themselves.

BoukenRed was first to reach out, his fingers brushing the metal handle, trembling with anticipation. The instant he grasped it, it locked. The bolt snapped shut with the clean, cruel finality of a trap.

And then the bell rang. It wasn’t a school bell. It wasn’t anything human. It was shrill, metallic, a shrieking pulse that split through the air like a blade. It screamed not with noise but with meaning—accusation, failure, punishment. A sound that drilled into bone. Helmets rattled as the Boukengers cried out in unison, clutching their heads, staggered by the invisible force.

The noise felt alive. Sentient. Designed to punish. They dropped to their knees—not from physical injury but from something deeper. The sound burned through thought, through memory, through purpose. There was no room for anything else. Their vision blurred. Their limbs twitched. Something ancient inside them folded under the sound.

It wasn’t pain. Not in the way they had felt before. It was something worse. Obedience. The bell didn’t stop. It simply faded—slowly, steadily—leaving behind the migraine of realization. Of knowing they had no choice.

And when they opened their eyes again, they were moving. No one had spoken. No one had commanded. Yet their feet shuffled stiffly, backs hunched, muscles slack. Puppets returning to their strings. They crossed the room, awkward and unbalanced, until each stood before a desk. Their desks. As if they had always belonged there.

One by one, they sat down—not as heroes, not as guests, not as themselves, but as test-takers, as subjects.

The room was so quiet it was deafening. No birds chirped. No wind outside. Only the subtle creaks of synthetic fabric stretching over tense limbs, the faint scratch of gloved fingers brushing paper. And there it was. Another exam.

It hadn’t been handed to them. No one entered. No announcements made. But it was there, sitting on their desks. Flat. White. Silent. The questions glared back like eyes, daring them to blink first.

They didn’t move. No one reached for a pencil. Not yet. Their hands hovered. Their gazes flickered. Sakura’s lips parted as though she wanted to speak, but no sound came. Her hand floated inches above the desk, trembling.

Masumi looked down at the test, then to his empty hands, then to the others. “This is what we get,” he muttered. “This is what we are now. We failed.”

Souta’s delivery broke. “Maybe we were never heroes. Just kids in costumes playing savior.”

BoukenYellow’s whisper barely reached them. “I thought... if I just smiled enough... they’d like me.”

BoukenRed finally looked down at his own paper. He didn’t speak. But his chest rose and fell with shallow breath, and his shoulders had dropped just enough to show defeat.

The test sat there, waiting.

And they—wounded, bent, dazed from trauma—stared back at it. They hadn’t started writing yet. But they would. They always would.

It pulsed.

With shame. With expectation. With the unbearable weight of being seen and deemed lacking. It wasn’t absence of sound—it was the presence of judgment, thick and suffocating, pressing into their skulls and bones with the force of a collapsing ceiling.

The five Boukengers sat before the waiting exams, still frozen, still breathless from the trauma of the bell. Their helmets reflected the sterile light above, dulled and smeared with the remnants of lunch—milk stains, apple pulp, fragments of rice and bread crusts trampled into rubber soles. They were dirty now. Tainted. No longer pristine warriors of color-coded purpose. Just echoes of themselves. Just suits barely containing something that no longer felt human.

The papers stared up at them, untouched yet heavier than stone. The print glared off the pages, shimmering with cruel potential.

Then BoukenPink reached for hers. Not quickly. Not bravely. But as if something invisible had tugged her forward, pulled her by the chest. Her pencil scraped the edge of the desk as she lifted it, fingers trembling. She looked down at the top line. Her lips moved, reading aloud in a hoarse whisper that didn’t sound like hers.

“‘What part of your costume are you most ashamed of?’”

There was no pause. The test wanted momentum. And Masumi’s delivery came next, low and bitter, yet brittle with something like grief, like a memory of strength that had curdled inside him.

“‘Why do you hide your face from people who deserve honesty?’”

Souta blinked hard, his visor fogging again as he leaned over his paper, forcing himself to focus, to speak. The words came out stilted, as if torn from somewhere he didn’t want to acknowledge.

“‘List three reasons why your teammates wouldn’t sit with you if they had a choice.’”

Natsuki’s hand moved slowly, fingers lightly brushing the edge of her desk. She read hers aloud in a voice barely audible, a whisper hiding inside a breath.

“‘What do you think the children felt watching you pretend to matter?’”

Satoru didn’t read his. Not at first. He stared at the page for nearly a minute, unmoving, helmet locked forward like a statue in mourning. When he finally spoke, his tone didn’t rise. It sank.

“‘When did you last believe you were a hero?’”

The words hung in the air, unwelcome ghosts. They lingered like poison, fogging their helmets, infecting their lungs. They weren’t answering yet—but they were unraveling.

Sakura’s pencil moved first. She wrote slowly as if her hand resisted every stroke. Her handwriting came out jagged and uneven. “I hate the pink. It makes me feel soft. They laughed when I spun during the pose. They said I looked like a doll. I thought I was graceful. I think I was just... sad.”

Masumi scrawled something across the top of the page, then stopped. He stared at the paper, his breathing shallow. “Because if they saw what I looked like under this suit... they’d never cheer for me again. I’m not a hero. I’m a mask. A muscle. I don’t even think I’m liked.”

BoukenBlue spoke through clenched teeth. “I’m too quiet. I’m fake. They probably only work with me because they have to. I’m always listening. Never leading. I think I’m supposed to be cool. But I’m scared of being seen.” He gripped his pencil tighter, scribbled harder, erased and rewrote the same line three times.

“I waved at them,” Natsuki whispered. “And they looked away. I tried so hard. Smiled so big. I thought I looked heroic. But I looked desperate. I always do.”

Satoru hadn’t moved. His pencil hovered just above the page before finally lowering. His letters were small. Precise. Controlled. “I don’t know. I think I believed it this morning. When I put on the helmet. But maybe that was just habit.”

More questions materialized without warning, typed onto the pages like an unseen hand was guiding the cruelty. One after another. Each more surgical.

“‘Describe a moment when you embarrassed your entire team.’”

“‘Why is your uniform a costume, not armor?’”

“‘Who are you when no one is watching?’”

“‘Do you think you could be replaced?’”

“‘What have you actually protected?’”

The scratching of pencils became frantic. Desperate. The writing wasn’t for submission—it was for survival. They weren’t being graded. But they were being judged—by the walls, by the desks, by the echoes of laughter that still rang in their minds.

BoukenBlack slammed his fist once against the desk, the noise a jolt of resistance. “It was a mission! We went underground! We almost died saving them!”

BoukenBlue flinched, but his tone shot back immediately. “No one cares,” he said. “That’s the problem. No one cares.”

BoukenYellow’s hands covered her helmet as she hunched over, shoulders shaking. “I want to go back. I want to do it again. Better. I can be better.”

BoukenPink’s delivery broke. “Please let me restart. I know the answers now. I’ll say the right things. I’ll pose differently. Smile less. More. Whatever they want.”

They weren’t talking to each other anymore. Their words weren’t for comfort. They were confessions. Prayers. Desperate gasps to some invisible examiner they couldn’t name.

BoukenRed stood up slowly, as if every joint resisted. With shaking hands, he removed his gloves and placed them on the desk like a surrender. His breath was ragged, armor creaking with each inhale.

“I remember being proud of this suit,” he said. “I remember thinking I looked like a protector. Now I feel like a mascot in a theme park. Painted plastic. Hollow.”

He looked at the exam. “Let me restart,” he said. “Let me earn it back.”

There was no response.

Just the paper.

Another question had appeared on each desk. Bold. Cruel. Unavoidable.

“‘Why are you still pretending?’”

They all read it. No one said it out loud. They didn’t have to.

They looked at one another—not as teammates. Not as friends. But as strangers in matching shame. Eyes behind visors. Suits that once meant something. Heroes once.

Now just five broken figures in uniforms that no longer fit.

The tests waited.

And they began to write again.