He woke to a pair of eyes. Not sleepy, not wandering — full, stupidly curious. Somebody had their shoulder pressed against Yuki's headboard and was staring straight down at him like a cat that'd found a new toy.
The man had a wolf tattoo curling up his forearm, the ink black and bold, fangs baring around the crook of muscle. He smelled faintly of the wind and something like ink — a gym smell masquerading as cologne. Up close the stare felt invasive. Yuki pushed himself upright without panic; training had taught him calm, even when the world hated him for it.
"What the—what are you doing?" Yuki asked, voice still thick from sleep. He didn't shout. No point in making a scene before breakfast.
The guy blinked, like he'd been caught mid-sin. "Curious," he said. "About you. Heard you arrived last night. Heard things. Wanted to see if the rumours were true." His tone was easy, all bravado and lazy grin. "You got…energy. What's your magic?"
Yuki blinked. This was the part where one either plays coy or explodes into a show. He picked coy. "Just a bit of…normal magic," he said. Liar—half-lie—truth bent for safety. The academy had teeth. Yuki had been told once, firmly: don't parade everything you are.
The wolf-guy whistled. "C'mon, show me." He kept staring like a child waiting for fireworks.
"No," Yuki replied flat. "I don't perform for strangers."
The guy didn't take no for an answer. He pushed until Yuki moved: nudged his blanket, cracked the window a fraction, asked another dozen questions about the city and the academy and if Yuki liked meat and whether Yuki had a family crest and — finally — whether Yuki thought wind was superior to water.
Yuki dressed slow. His roommate had been annoying but not threatening; the campus room was civilized — three beds, three closets, three washbasins. Each pair of student rooms had a small private bath for their use. The third bed was empty: someone not yet checked in. The hostel catered to the rich, that was obvious from the embroidered curtains and the carved wooden locker. Yuki didn't belong here in most senses, but now he did, and he'd learn to use it.
The wolf-guy — Samir, he introduced himself with the grin of a man who loved names — finally relented and followed Yuki down to the mess. On the way Samir kept nudging, testing, making light jokes. He smelled of wind and mischief. Yuki kept his answers short.
At class he found the room buzzing. First years packed the chamber: noble kids in embroidered coats, fledglings with gaudy rings, children with royal bearing and the kind who wore anonymity like armor. Yuki kept to the edge, watching the ecosystem – who shoved, who whispered, who watched everyone else like they were moving chess pieces.
Then they divided. Magic class, Warrior training, Alchemy, Weapons. Yuki had signed up for all four; practicality and curiosity made a good pair. The rumor mill churned when he joined the magic room: a quiet boy with his trench coat and his hands that looked soft but probably weren't.
Samir nudged him and said, loud enough for five people to hear, "So what magic do you have? I thought you were a wolf, how can you do magic?"
"Shut up," Yuki muttered. The class snickered. He could see the pattern forming: looks and assumptions, the easy categories. Slender, quiet, probably no muscle — a target. He'd learned to make targets regret it.
Then the bully stepped forward.
He was the type that rotted the air around him: broad shoulders, gold teeth, a nose that wanted to split the world. He stepped into Yuki's line of sight with the casual menace of a man who believed rules were suggestions. "Hey, pretty boy," he growled theatrically. "You lost your way to the garden party? Cute little hands. Bet you can't even—"
He reached for some petty magic — the sort academies bred: petty earth manipulations for intimidation. He started the chant, words sliding from his lips with glee.
Before the spell finished, the wolf-guy moved.
Samir's hand shot out like a hook of wind. He cracked the bully's shoulder with a single clean impact, not a brutal punch but a strike that disrupted balance, a precise blow delivered where it would hurt the most without breaking skin. The bully went down mid-chant, spell collapsing into a hiss of wasted energy.
Silence snapped. Then a kid off to the side blurted, "He—how did you—?"
The class realized at once: Samir had not used a long, poetic incantation or a drawn rune. He'd moved. No chant. No show. Just movement that ended the fight before it had begun. A chantless type — terrifyingly effective. The bully scrambled up, rubbing his shoulder, glaring at Samir. He'd been humiliated, and for pride that big, humiliation tasted like rust.
A tall girl with a ring of bindings and a notebook — a summoner student — muttered something about calling the infirmary for protocol. She watched Samir with that mix of interest and frustration that people had when they couldn't pigeonhole someone. The bully tried to get up and spit threats. He looked for something magical to hold onto — a spell, a name — but the room had already pivoted away from him. He stalked out, furious, and the teacher's entrance timing saved him from further public embarrassment.
The woman who walked in was nothing like Yuki expected for an academy instructor. Haruki Hino — the name introduced itself like a brand — had shoulder-length blonde hair, an impatient glare, and the kind of eyes that could judge felonies before the trials started. She moved like someone who'd been a storm on two continents and bore the scars like medals. People whispered: demon-blood, left the Demon Continent, couldn't stand their brutality.
Before anyone could overthink the bully's exit, he doubled back with the stupid idea of swagger and vengeance. "You common—" he started, trying to insult the teacher's commoner status as if that would make a difference in front of a classroom full of nobles.
Haruki smiled in a way that made the room go cold. "Try that line again, and I'll show you what common means." Her voice was silk over steel. The bully sneered and spat out one last slur — then smelled something like a match struck too close.
The scent was sudden, sharp, and then the bully's hair popped like toast. People heard the tiny crackle. Puffing, the bully clutched at his head. Hair came away in singed clumps, and a soft popping sound completed the symphony. He stumbled back, exposed scalp bright as someone who'd forgotten sunscreen in winter. Panic replaced anger. Haruki's lips quirked dangerously. "The infirmary will help you," she said in a voice that everybody understood as: you'll be gone from my class until you can look in mirrors again.
The bully fled, a tragic figure of baldness and diminished bravado, and Haruki took her place at the front like a general claiming a battlefield. She looked like the kind who liked testing fire on bones — and not just academically. The class murmured, and Yuki snorted despite himself. The timing was beautiful. He didn't feel bad. The bully had earned humiliation.
Haruki's first act was to intimidate the room into order, then show the grunt respect to her dignity with a politeness that felt like a blade wrapped in velvet. She laid down expectations: no bullying, no nonsense, and if anyone tried to use the Academy as a playground for petty domestic wars, she'd professionally and precisely make them regret it. The bully's loss of hair had done more to set tone than any speech ever could.
Introductions followed. People stood, said their names, their bloodlines, and the Academy measured them like buyers at a market. When it came Yuki's turn he kept it short. "Name: Yuki. No surname," he said. It felt clean and honest — a half-truth. Nobles blinked, some annoyed at the lack of ceremony. One student piped up to ask why he had no surname. Yuki shrugged. "No surname. It's convenient." He left it to implication and the room filled the gaps however it wished.
He added a lie because he'd been ordered to: "My magic? Fire." The Academy liked boxes. Declaring only one element would put him in safe lanes for now, a precaution his father had insisted on — old masters prowled the Academy like wolves in suits, jealous of power, ready to suffocate talent before it rose. Saying less kept predators from circling. Yuki felt the smaller lie settle into the air and did not bother to explain.
Eyes lingered. Amabie — a girl whose hair shimmered like the sea and who sat with an aloof, careful posture — watched him a moment longer than the others. There was a cold in her gaze, not unfriendly; she was calculating, and that made Yuki keep a note of her. He didn't know then that she'd later notice his frost-taste and try bargaining. For now she merely sat with that islanded expression and scribbled the name in her book.
Galen lounged back, expression cool and unreadable; Shion's eyes burned with an inner flame that could not be satisfied by lectures; Liliana's hands twitched with careful mercy at her sleeve; Estelle watched like a spider selecting threads. The room ached with personalities, and Yuki — slender, too quiet, dangerous under still skin — fit neatly into their web.
When the teacher asked Yuki about magic again, someone curious, he repeated, "Just fire." Haruki's mouth twitched with a half-smile, a teacher's mask that did not betray much. "Fire, huh? We'll see how well you handle it without burning everything and everyone."
Yuki checked himself in the standing silence with a point of private satisfaction. When he whispered to himself after the teacher left the front — where his ears registered only his own thoughts — he pulled up the status window: one practiced breath, a system ping, and the translucent interface blinked into being behind his eyelids. He made it quick. He needed to know what the training left him with.
───────────────────────────────────── > Name: Yukiharu Akio > Level: 1 EXP: 0 / 1000 Title: Scion (Sealed) > Bloodline: Asura Clan — Sealed (Legacy: Unknown) ───────────────────────────────────── HP: 1000 MP: 0 (Sealed) STR: 145 AGI: 119 DEX: 121 VIT (Endurance): 126 INT: ?? (Sealed) DEF: 110 LUK: 45 CHA: 60 CRIT: 8% SPD (Speed): 11 Skill Slots: 0 / 3 Ability Points (AP): 0 Hidden Trait: Accursed Soul (Dormant) ───────────────────────────────────── Status: Awake — Fatigue 72 / 100 Notes: "Recent combat training — small increases applied" ─────────────────────────────────────
The boost felt decent. Strength and HP had shifted upwards enough to make a tangible difference. The sealed things were still sealed. That mouthful of mystery tugged at him, but for now he had movement, muscle, and a signature the world would start to notice: crimson-ice under his skin, a fuse that could change anything when he learned to braid it.
He slid the window away and kept the information private. The room flowed into a practical lecture, spells and fundamentals, Haruki's competitive barbs acting as both instruction and hazing. The bully, for all his pride, missed the first hour in the infirmary and the class learned faster that day to keep their mouths measured.
When a summoner girl tried to extend courtesy to the wolf-guy — "That was rather clean work —" — Samir only snorted and looked utterly uninterested. He'd been allergic to formalities since birth. Yuki watched them both, thinking: alliances made here would be useful. Friends from strange places, enemies with sharper teeth. The Academy smelled like currency.
By the end of the morning the class had seen three things happen: a bully exposed and humiliated, a chantless strike that broke the fight before it started, and a quiet boy who lied about his magic because lying now equaled safety later. Little ripples started to form. In a place that bred greatness and monsters in equal measure, the smallest waves eventually hit shore.
Yuki walked out with Samir at his shoulder and a new tally in his head: people to note, habits to cultivate, a lie to keep, a thread of frost to hide. He had come to test himself. The Academy would provide tests in spades. He only had to survive the first day.
And he would. He had to.