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"Fear" and "pleasure" are two sides of the same coin.
They appear to be opposites, but in reality they are separated by only the thinnest of lines.
Pleasure is something every human possesses.
Pleasure is joy, and it differs from person to person; there is no fixed form.
For example, hedonistic pleasure—surrendering to impulsive or physical urges.
For example, political pleasure—craving status or prestige.
These, I believe, are among the ambitions most people secretly harbor.
But as I said before, pleasure varies by individual.
There are things that cannot be classified—exceptions.
And that applies to my own pleasure as well… to Ryuuen Kakeru's pleasure.
My pleasure lies in victory over others.
The moment someone submits to me, my brain finally registers joy.
I've never done drugs, but I imagine the sensation is something like this.
I thought about what I needed to do to obtain a pleasure different from everyone else's.
The answer I arrived at was "violence."
This world is ruled by violence.
Survival of the fittest, taking the enemy's life… the power necessary for victory.
Yes, true strength in this world is determined by the strength of one's violence.
I reached this truth around the time I entered elementary school, and I still remember the feeling that the individual known as "me" was born in that moment.
At the same time, I also became aware that I was an abnormality.
An alien existence draws hostility from the majority.
That was when it started—when enemies began gathering around me.
Even the guys I'd hung out with until then sometimes treated me as something to be purged.
I was attacked by random crowds who'd heard rumors about the freak.
Yet even then, I never felt "fear."
No matter how many times I was overpowered by irresistible force, no matter how persistently I suffered vicious harassment, I never feared—I only laughed.
All I thought about was how to get revenge, how to turn the tables.
My life until then had been nothing but repeating that cycle.
And I couldn't get enough of how fun it was.
In the end—everyone knelt before me.
A true strongman is one who possesses unparalleled violence.
And I was confident that I, having overcome fear, was its embodiment.
This twisted pleasure shaped who I am and allowed me to conquer fear.
This distortion is my essence.
But as middle school graduation approached, obtaining pleasure grew harder, and boredom began to assail me.
The boredom of realizing no one could ever beat me.
To escape that boredom, I enrolled in this strength-supremacist high school.
With the faint hope that someone here might distract me from it.
And this school lived up to my expectations.
The new classmates were clearly full of oddballs, and the unusual school system made inter-class conflict predictable.
From that moment, I decided to make this class my kingdom.
I'd start by observing, but I'd play every card I could and seize the initiative.
First, I looked for others obsessed with violence like me and planned to turn them into pawns.
…It took time, but I gained two loyal pieces.
One was a thug-looking guy who submitted to me without much fight.
The other was a black man who was clearly an impressive expert in violence with a great build and strong muscles.
So I lost to him, repeatedly.
My violence was utterly crushed by his.
But after so long, defeat made my heart dance.
Starting the day after I lost, I challenged him again and again until I could win.
The first three times ended the same—I licked the dirt over and over, bruises covering my body.
But from the fourth, I refused to go down so easily.
That must have made him start feeling fear toward me.
He began sensing something indescribable in an opponent who kept standing no matter how many times he was crushed.
And finally, on the seventh try, I made him submit.
The flood of adrenaline in my brain that day made me feel truly alive and banished the boredom.
It was around then—about a month after school started.
One of the school's systems had been exposed, and I finally began preparing for class warfare—in other words, building my nation.
What I did was simple.
I declared myself king and crushed everyone who disagreed, turning them into pawns.
Some refused to follow even after being crushed. Breaking them was another pleasure.
But my real interest lay elsewhere—not in that level of pleasure.
It was in the two who showed no interest in me when I declared myself king, and no interest in the class conflict itself.
One was a long-haired girl. She didn't feel like a strong person, but despite having zero interest in class warfare, she was firmly established as an individual. Quite intriguing.
The other was a long-haired guy. Strange appearance in various ways, but the aura he gave off—nothing at all…
So I dismissed him as a poser weakling.
But that was a mistake.
When I finished uniting the class, one of the girls I'd defeated and forced to follow told me the long-haired guy had already seen through the school's system.
That was the first time I became interested in him.
I decided to call him to a spot with no cameras and make him submit.
All I could think about was how immense the pleasure would be when I broke a guy who'd figured out the school's system at least as quickly as I had—maybe faster.
—I never imagined that day would become the trigger that changed Ryuuen Kakeru.
I challenged the long-haired guy, Kamukura Izuru, and lost.
Not an ordinary loss. I'm used to those.
I learned what "fear" truly is.
Even the pawns I'd worked so hard to obtain were brushed aside like dust, and my own violence didn't touch him at all.
Because this man possessed not only violence that allowed no pursuit, but intellect that analyzed and predicted every future.
And something else I didn't know—an unknown.
Confronting the embodiment of what lies beyond fear—"despair" itself—I wanted to look away.
I wanted to cry.
Something threatened to spill from my mouth.
My whole body shook, and I couldn't think straight.
I nearly gave in to self-destruction and wished for a scapegoat.
I wanted to run from that place right then and never get involved again.
—For the first time, I knew "fear." I never knew it was this horrifying.
It's true that humans don't know their true selves until they're cornered.
In the end, I hadn't overcome fear at all. I'd thought winning was overcoming fear.
But that was only suppressing it by fixating on victory as a goal and averting my eyes.
My confidence, my violence, the twisted pleasure I believed set me apart—all of it crumbled.
That day, I vaguely realized I was about to cease being "me."
Even so—no, precisely because of that—I resisted.
In the depths of that despair, I never once thought my way of living was wrong.
Yes, my perception had been mistaken. My arrogance had been extreme.
But I didn't want everything I'd lived until then destroyed.
I didn't think desiring victory was wrong.
Even if I was abnormal, I didn't think pursuing my own pleasure was wrong.
In other words, even I—who boasted I'd use any dirty means—apparently had something resembling pride.
I stood against him with the childish stubbornness of not wanting anyone to block what I desired.
And though I lost, I slightly—just slightly—exceeded that man's prediction.
At that moment, I didn't feel the pleasure I'd known until then. Yet for some reason, I felt refreshed, as if I'd accomplished something great.
I still don't understand that final sensation, but I believe it's connected to what I truly seek.
…Since that day, I've had two goals.
The first is to overcome "fear," and face it without looking away to restart and obtain true strength.
And the second is revenge against Kamukura Izuru. To show him the unknown, to make him truly acknowledge me this time, and force him to submit.
Intuition tells me that achieving these goals will make me a true strongman.
And when that happens, the pleasure I feel will be greater than anything I've ever experienced.
"Ishizaki, it's time for work. I'm going to explain the plan to crush Class D."
I'll move forward.
That is my pleasure, my way of living—and my hope.
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