Ring ring ring.
Ring ring ring.
The sharp ringtone pierced through the peaceful morning silence.
Hayato groaned, his face buried in the pillow. He'd finally managed to get a solid night's sleep after everything that happened yesterday, and now someone had the audacity to wake him up with a phone call. The good mood he'd woken up with evaporated instantly.
His hand fumbled blindly across the nightstand, fingers finding the phone. Without even opening his eyes, he swiped to reject the call.
Silence returned.
Hayato let out a satisfied sigh and started drifting back to sleep.
Ring ring ring.
You've got to be kidding me.
"Are you serious right now?!"
Hayato snatched the phone up, squinting at the bright screen. Unknown number. He jabbed the answer button with more force than necessary.
"You've got some nerve hanging up on me! Did you grow a death wish overnight?!"
A woman's voice exploded through the speaker like a lion's roar. Hayato jerked the phone away from his ear.
Still half-asleep and thoroughly annoyed, his brain struggled to process who this even was.
"Who the hell are... you..."
"What!"
The irritation in his voice was obvious. Hayato didn't have the patience for this right now.
"Look lady, I don't want insurance, I'm not interested in whatever you're selling. Try someone else."
Hayato moved to hang up again, but the voice blasted through before he could finish.
"Do you have any idea what time it is?! Are you seriously planning to skip class today?!"
Class?
"I'm going to see Mai today. Not coming."
Click.
Hayato hung up and dropped the phone back onto the nightstand with a dull thud. He stared up at the ceiling, watching the morning light filter through the curtains and paint patterns on the white surface above him.
A few minutes passed as consciousness slowly crept back into his brain. The fog of sleep started to clear.
"Wait a second... class? School?"
Hayato grabbed his phone and checked the time. 9:03 AM.
"Yeah, there's absolutely no way I'm making it now, even if I wanted to."
Hayato relaxed back into the mattress, feeling the tension drain from his shoulders. The pillows felt too comfortable to abandon anyway.
"Even if I rushed out the door right this second, I'd be ridiculously late. And besides..."
He frowned slightly, turning the thought over in his mind.
"I don't even know where my classroom is supposed to be."
That was the problem with being a transmigrator in someone else's body. No memories from the original owner meant no useful information about his daily life. All he had was a passport sitting on the desk across the room. No student ID. No class schedule. No helpful notes about which room to go to or what subjects he was supposed to be studying.
Originally, he had planned to visit the embassy and try to piece together information about his situation that way. Get official records, maybe claim he'd lost his documents.
But now that this teacher had called him directly... that opened up a different route he could exploit.
"The question is how I explain the whole amnesia situation to her without sounding completely insane."
Hayato rubbed his face with both hands, thinking it through.
"Screw it. I'll just tell them I have amnesia and run with it."
Last night's murder case at the concert made for a perfect cover. He could blame the trauma, the shock, whatever. It was a solid excuse that had the benefit of being partially true. He'd give them the explanation, lay it out clearly, and whether they actually believed him or not... well, that was their problem to deal with.
Still, lying in bed wasn't going to solve anything.
"But do I actually need to bother with school?"
The thought had been nagging at him since he woke up. What was the point, really? He wasn't here to get a normal education and graduate into a normal life. The Death Game had already pulled him into a completely different world.
He stared at the ceiling, weighing his options.
"Probably should go, at least for now. It's not like I can find a better civilian identity at my age."
There were practical reasons to maintain the student cover.
First, getting isekai'd into a second chance at high school life actually sounded pretty decent when he thought about it.
Japanese high school, from everything Hayato knew, was supposed to be the time when students actually got to experience youth. Clubs, festivals, friends, maybe even romance.
"Second, if I want to know some Death Game information, I need a solid civilian identity to fall back on."
That was just common sense for survival. Too many weird behaviors, too many anomalies in your daily life, and people started asking questions. Questions led to investigations. Investigations led to exposure.
Hayato was absolutely certain the government knew something about the Death Game. No way they were completely in the dark. He'd bet decent money that they already had players embedded in their organizations, maybe even specialized departments set up to monitor and respond to supernatural incidents.
Unless the Death Game became so widespread that players were commonplace and impossible to track individually, staying under the radar was the only smart move. Keep your head down, blend in with normal society, don't give anyone a reason to take a closer look at you.
"And third..."
A small smile tugged at his lips despite himself.
"I'm literally living in an anime world right now. Might as well actually experience a proper anime high school while I'm here."
It was a childhood dream, wasn't it? Every otaku who'd ever watched a slice-of-life anime had probably fantasized about it at least once. The cultural festivals, the sports competitions, the classroom dynamics, all of it.
"Wonder which school the original owner of this body even went to."
Hayato knew there were anime schools in this world. Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School, Sobu High School in Chiba. He'd recognized them from the anime he'd watched in his previous life.
"If I'm not already enrolled in one of those... I'm definitely transferring. No way I'm wasting this opportunity on some random normal school."
The phone buzzed again, vibrating against the nightstand.
Hayato let out a long sigh.
"Here we go again."
He picked it up, half-expecting another angry tirade. But this time, when he answered, a different woman's voice came through. Softer, more measured, but with an underlying note of concern.
----
SLAM.
In an office at Sobu High School in Chiba, a woman in a white lab coat slammed her phone down on the desk hard enough to make the pencil holder jump.
"That little punk... I'm so angry! I'm going to give that kid a personal lesson with my fists!"
Hiratsuka Shizuka cracked her knuckles, each pop echoing in the small office like a threat. The sound would've made any student listening run for their life.
"Um, Hiratsuka-senpai..." A gentle voice spoke up from near the doorway. "Teachers aren't really supposed to use violence on students..."
Tachibana Hina stood there with a helpless smile on her face. Her chestnut shoulder-length hair was neatly styled, and she held a folder against her chest like a shield. She'd only just graduated and started teaching, but she was already learning that her senior colleague had a... unique approach to student discipline.
"Hina, you didn't hear what that brat just said to me!" Hiratsuka turned to face her, eyes blazing with righteous indignation. "That brat told me straight up that he's going to see Sakurajima Mai today instead of coming to class! Yesterday, he completely ditched school to go to some idol concert, Hoshino Ai? I think it was her name, and today when I called to check on him, he had the nerve to just casually refuse like it's no big deal!"
She paced back and forth, her agitation clear in every movement.
"The complete disrespect! The total disregard for his education! Students like this need to understand there are consequences. They need discipline. They need to learn that you can't just do whatever you want! It's time for my iron fist act!"
Tachibana Hina stepped further into the office, her expression sympathetic but understanding.
"I know it's frustrating, but... boys at that age being interested in celebrities and entertainers is pretty normal, isn't it? It's part of growing up."
"Normal is fine! Being interested is fine!" Hiratsuka threw her hands up. "But it absolutely cannot interfere with their studies! He's already cutting classes, Hina. This isn't just harmless teenage behavior anymore. He came here on a foreign exchange program to Sobu High. His family sent him here to study, to get an education, not to chase after idols and actresses!"
Tachibana Hina recognized this reaction for what it really was. Her senior wasn't just angry. She was genuinely worried about this student's future. If Hiratsuka-sensei truly didn't care, she could easily mark him absent repeatedly and push through expulsion paperwork. The fact that she was this worked up meant she saw potential worth saving.
That was what made Hiratsuka Shizuka a good teacher, even if her methods were sometimes questionable.
"Hina, you just graduated and became a teacher recently, so you might not fully understand this yet." Hiratsuka's voice became more serious, the anger fading into genuine concern. "But students like this, the ones who start down this path early, you can't afford to let it slide. You have to establish boundaries from the very beginning. Make them understand the importance of their education while they're still young enough to course correct."
She sat down heavily in her chair, some of the fight going out of her.
"Because if you don't... if you just let them do whatever they want... they'll really throw their entire future away. And by the time they realize it, it'll be too late to fix."
"I understand, Hiratsuka-sensei." Tachibana Hina bowed slightly, taking the lesson to heart. "Thank you for teaching me."
"Mm." Hiratsuka nodded, seeming satisfied.
A moment of silence passed between them.
"Hiratsuka-senpai..." Hina spoke up again, carefully. "How about I try calling him? Maybe a different approach might work better?"
Hiratsuka considered this, then picked up her phone and handed it over.
"Alright. Give it a shot. But I'm warning you, that kid's got an answer for everything."
"I'll do my best."
Tachibana Hina took the phone and selected the most recent outgoing call. She hit redial and waited, listening to the ringtone repeat several times before the connection finally went through.
"Hello, Hayato-kun? I'm—"
"Sensei." The student's voice cut through immediately, sounding oddly serious. "I have something really important I need to tell you."
Tachibana Hina blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift in tone. She glanced over at Hiratsuka Shizuka, who raised an eyebrow and nodded for her to continue.
"Of course. Go ahead, I'm listening."
There was a pause on the other end of the line. When the student spoke again, his voice was quiet, almost uncertain.
"I... I think I have amnesia."
Tachibana Hina's eyes went wide.
Hiratsuka Shizuka's jaw dropped.
What?
Was this brat actually playing the amnesia card after that shout?!
Trying to dodge responsibility for cutting class by claiming memory loss? What kind of ridiculous excuse was that?!
There was absolutely no way that was real!