The news cycle in a place like Black Fang High moved at the speed of gossip, which was faster than light. By the time the fourth-period bell rang, signaling the end of lunch, the story of what happened in Class 2-F had already mutated into a legend.
It started as a whisper in the cafeteria.
"Did you hear? Riku Sato got his ass kicked."
"By who? Someone from Crimson Fist?"
"No… the new transfer student."
By the time students were heading back to class, the story had grown.
"They said the new kid didn't even touch him. He just looked at Riku, and Riku flew into a wall."
"I heard he flicked a pebble at him and it went through the wall like a cannonball."
"My friend was in the class. He said the new kid's a demon. He blew up the room with his mind."
The truth was far more terrifying than any of the rumors, but the effect was the same. A new name was on everyone's lips: Ravi Sharma. It was spoken with a mixture of disbelief, fear, and a morbid, electric excitement. The school's rigid, violent hierarchy had been shattered, and the students were buzzing with the uncertainty of what came next.
The school administration, for its part, handled the incident with the practiced apathy of a corrupt bureaucracy. Two paramedics were discreetly called. They scraped Riku Sato out of the wall, loaded him onto a stretcher under a white sheet as if he were already a corpse, and carted him away. The official report would list the cause of his injuries and the destruction of the wall as a "gas leak explosion." It was a convenient, paper-thin lie that everyone knew was false but would accept because it was easier than confronting the truth.
Vice Principal Kaido, watching from his office window as the ambulance pulled away, tapped a perfectly manicured finger on his polished mahogany desk. A thin, serpentine smile played on his lips. "Ravi Sharma," he murmured to the empty room. "How very… interesting. An unexpected variable." He made a call. The cleanup was to be swift. The incident was to be buried. But the boy… the boy was to be watched.
Meanwhile, Ravi had found a new sanctuary. The school rooftop.
He had bypassed the locked door not by breaking it, but by simply stepping through the metaphysical "seam" of the lock, a minor manipulation of space that was less effort for him than turning a key. The roof was a wide, flat expanse of sun-baked tar, littered with vents and rusting pipes. A high chain-link fence surrounded the perimeter. More importantly, it was empty. It was quiet.
He sat with his back against a large ventilation unit, his legs stretched out, his eyes closed. The afternoon sun was warm on his face. The distant sounds of the city, the shouts from the courtyard below—it all faded into a gentle, white noise. This was all he wanted. A moment of peace. A moment to feel the world turn without being obligated to turn it himself.
But peace, for him, was a fleeting commodity.
His eyes snapped open, his head tilting slightly. His divine senses, which were always active, had picked up the subtle shift of dozens of feet gathering at the base of the stairwell door two floors below. He heard the low, angry murmurs, the clinking of metal, the heavy breathing of nervous anticipation.
They'd found him.
He sighed, a long, weary exhalation of pure annoyance. He had hoped they'd be more intimidated. More intelligent. Clearly, he had overestimated them.
He didn't move. He simply waited, closing his eyes again, feigning sleep. He could hear them ascending the stairs, their footsteps heavy and clumsy. They fumbled with the locked door for a moment before a heavy crunch echoed up the stairwell—someone had used a crowbar.
The rooftop door creaked open, then slammed against its stop. A wave of hostile energy washed over the rooftop.
Sunlight streamed in, silhouetting a crowd of figures packed into the doorway. At the front was the tattooed brute from his class, his face now a mask of vengeful fury. Behind him stood a sea of angry faces, the core members of the Black Fangs gang. There were at least thirty of them. They were armed with lead pipes, baseball bats, and bicycle chains. They were here to avenge their fallen king and reclaim their honor.
The tattooed brute, whose name was Kenji, stepped onto the rooftop, his eyes scanning the area before locking onto Ravi's resting form. A cruel, confident grin spread across his face.
"There you are, you son of a bitch," Kenji growled, brandishing a heavy lead pipe. "Thought you could hide?"
Ravi didn't open his eyes. "I wasn't hiding," he said, his voice calm and clear. "I was napping. You're interrupting."
The sheer, breathtaking arrogance of the statement stunned the gang for a second.
"You got a lot of nerve, asshole," another gang member spat, stepping forward. "You're alone up here. Did you really think you could take on Riku-san and get away with it?"
Ravi finally opened his eyes, the silver-gray orbs seeming to absorb the bright sunlight, making them look even colder. He surveyed the crowd of thirty armed and angry delinquents. He noted their stances, their weapons, their nervous energy masquerading as bravado. They were a pack of dogs, relying on numbers to feel brave.
"You needed this many?" Ravi asked, his tone one of genuine, academic curiosity. "For me?"
Kenji's face flushed with anger. "Shut up! We're going to beat you until your own mother can't recognize you! This is for Riku-san!"
With a roar, he charged. The rest of the gang, their courage bolstered by their leader's cry, surged forward with him, a wave of violence ready to crash down on the lone figure.
Ravi remained seated.
He watched them come, his expression unchanging. The first one to reach him was Kenji, his lead pipe raised high, ready to bring it down and crush Ravi's skull.
As the pipe began its descent, Ravi moved. His left hand, which had been resting on his knee, shot out. It wasn't a block. He didn't meet the force of the pipe. His fingers, moving with serpentine grace, simply wrapped around Kenji's wrist.
Kenji's attack stopped dead. A look of confusion flashed across his face. He hadn't felt an impact, just a light touch, yet his arm was completely paralyzed, locked in place.
Ravi squeezed. Just a little.
CRUNCH.
The sound of bones in Kenji's wrist grinding into powder was sickeningly loud in the sudden quiet. Kenji's eyes bulged, a scream of pure agony tearing from his throat as the lead pipe clattered uselessly to the ground. Ravi hadn't just broken his wrist; he'd obliterated it.
Before the scream had fully registered, Ravi used his grip on Kenji's now-useless arm to pull him forward and pivot. In a single, fluid motion, he swung the 220-pound brute like a weapon, his body a blur of motion.
WHUMP. CRACK. THUD.
Kenji's body slammed into the next three gang members who were charging in, sending them down in a tangled heap of limbs.
Ravi released his grip. Kenji collapsed to the ground, cradling his mangled hand, his face pale and slick with sweat, his screams reduced to horrified whimpers.
The entire exchange had taken less than two seconds.
The rest of the Black Fangs, who had been charging with bloodthirsty momentum, skidded to a halt, their faces a mixture of shock and terror.
Ravi slowly got to his feet. He brushed a speck of dust from his trousers, his movements calm and unhurried. He stood in the center of the rooftop, a lone figure against the blue sky, surrounded by thirty armed men.
And he smiled.
It wasn't a friendly smile. It was a cold, sharp, terrifying thing. It was the smile of a predator that had finally decided to stop playing with its food.
"My turn," he said, his voice soft.
What followed was not a fight. A fight implies a contest, a back-and-forth struggle. This was a culling.
Ravi moved. He was a phantom, a whisper of motion. He flowed through the crowd of frozen thugs like water. He didn't use grand, flashy moves. He didn't need to.
Tap. An index finger touched a man's temple. The man's eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed, unconscious before he hit the ground.
Thrust. The tips of two fingers jabbed into the solar plexus of another. The man folded in on himself, all the air driven from his lungs, his body paralyzed.
Sweep. A casual-looking leg movement, impossibly fast, took out the knees of three men at once, sending them crashing to the tar with screams of pain.
A baseball bat swung at his head. He didn't even look. He simply raised a hand, caught it, and snapped the thick ash wood in two with a single-handed squeeze. He then gently tapped the attacker on the forehead with a piece of the broken bat, and the man went down like a puppet with its strings cut.
They couldn't land a single blow. They couldn't even track his movements. He was everywhere at once and nowhere at all. To them, it was like fighting a hurricane. All they could see was the devastation he left in his wake.
Ten seconds.
In ten seconds, twenty-nine members of the Black Fangs were on the ground. They were a scattered mess of groaning, unconscious, and whimpering bodies. Some had broken limbs, others were simply knocked out, but all of them had the same look of utter terror etched onto their faces.
Only one was left standing. A young, skinny kid at the back of the pack who had been too scared to charge in. He now stood alone, a bicycle chain clutched in his white-knuckled fist, his entire body shaking uncontrollably. He looked at the carnage around him, at his fallen comrades, then at the silent figure standing in the middle of it all, completely untouched, not even breathing hard.
Ravi turned to face him, taking a slow step forward.
The kid let out a terrified squeak. The chain dropped from his nerveless fingers, clattering onto the rooftop. Tears streamed down his face, his legs gave out, and he fell to his knees.
"Please," he sobbed, his voice cracking. "Please... don't kill me... I'm sorry... I'm sorry!" He bowed his head until his forehead touched the hot tar, prostrating himself in absolute submission.
Ravi stopped a few feet away. He looked down at the weeping, terrified boy, and the cold, predatory smile faded from his lips, replaced by his usual, unreadable mask. The flicker of annoyance was gone. Now, all that was left was a familiar, profound sense of exhaustion.
He looked up at the sky, at the vast, empty blue. He had shown a fraction more power, and this was the result. More fear. More problems. More noise.
He turned his back on the scene of devastation and the weeping boy. He walked towards the far edge of the rooftop, away from the carnage, and sat down again, resuming his original position.
He looked out over the city, his silver eyes distant.
From the doorway, hidden in the shadows of the stairwell, Reina Kurozawa watched the entire scene unfold, her heart hammering against her ribs so hard she thought it might break. She had followed him, her curiosity and sense of duty overriding her fear. She had arrived just as the gang charged.
And she had witnessed a massacre.
Ten seconds. Thirty armed men. She replayed it in her mind, but the details were a blur of impossible speed and terrifying precision. It wasn't a brawl. It was surgery. A flawless, brutal, and efficient takedown that left her breathless.
She looked from the groaning heap of defeated thugs to the lone figure sitting peacefully by the edge, as if he had just finished a mild exercise.
The question in her mind was no longer who he was. The question had become far more terrifying.
What was he? And what would happen to their world now that he was in it?