CHAPTER 15: THE ILLUSION OF MASS
Following that final, fateful night within the cold, black walls of Hakuho Academy, Renjiro Hoshino's world had fundamentally changed.
Akuro's reign of terror had ceased entirely. Perhaps the brush with death he had experienced at the hands of Raizen Kurotsuki had burned away the demon's arrogance, turning it to ash.
Under President Souma's strict new regulations, the overt, physical bullying had dwindled, but the isolation in Renjiro's life had only deepened into a dark, bottomless abyss.
Meiko Fujiwara had started ignoring him completely. The girl for whose fake smile Renjiro had risked his life now actively changed her path whenever she saw him in the corridor.
The people around him still treated him like a plague. Renjiro, in turn, had given up hoping for friendship or sympathy.
He was a living ghost haunting the school.
His massive body moved through the halls, yet his existence mattered to no one.
But in the deafening silence of his isolation, a single voice echoed relentlessly in his mind.
It was the icy, calm voice of that white-haired boy, Raizen, outside the convenience store:
*"Don't try to become like me...
make your weight, your heavy skeletal frame, your greatest weapon.
If you have absolute control over the ground beneath your feet, the enemy's impact becomes zero."*
That night had ignited a fire within Renjiro. He promised himself he would turn his perceived weakness into his ultimate strength.
He would become an immovable, massive 'Mountain' just like his grandfather, Kenji Hoshino.
His grandfather was his hero, his god. When everyone else saw a weak, fat child, it was his grandfather who had placed a hand on his head and told him he would be strong one day.
But the tragedy was that a lonely, broken sixteen-year-old boy had completely misunderstood Raizen's advice.
Renjiro believed that becoming a mountain simply meant increasing his sheer mass.
He thought that the wider and heavier he became, the more gravity would anchor him to the earth, rendering him immovable.
That innocent misconception dragged him into a horrifying, lethal diet that would have caused a normal person's organs to fail.
Seven thousand calories a day.
Food was no longer a means to satisfy hunger. It had become a chore, a severe punishment.
He abandoned healthy food entirely, developing a dark addiction to junk food.
His daily intake was nothing short of a grotesque joke.
On a normal day, he forced down ten heavy beef burgers, five whole cheese pizzas, a massive bowl of french fries, and no less than twenty cans of black cola.
Even when he wasn't hungry, he forced himself. His body constantly tried to reject the garbage, but he violently shoved more food down his throat, telling himself,
*'Grandpa did this too...
Grandpa was heavy too.'*
His body had become entirely dependent on this high-calorie sludge.
One night, sitting alone in his room, he swallowed his fourth heavy beef burger and two cans of black cola in quick succession.
His breathing was already heavily labored.
Suddenly, a terrifying, agonizing cramp seized his stomach.
Renjiro's eyes went wide.
His massive frame lurched forward.
A strange, sour, and metallic taste flooded his mouth. His breath hitched.
He pushed himself up from his chair, his legs feeling like lead.
Dragging his heavy footsteps, driven by fear and pain, he bolted for the bathroom.
He shoved the door open and collapsed to his massive knees right in front of the toilet bowl.
He gripped the edges of the porcelain so tightly that his thick knuckles turned stark white.
In the next second, his stomach violently rejected the horrifying seven-thousand-calorie intake.
He began to vomit brutally.
His gigantic body convulsed and trembled with every violent heave.
The dark, acidic mixture of half-digested beef, cheese, and black cola burned his throat as it spewed out.
The veins in his neck bulged as if they were about to burst. It felt as though his internal organs were trying to rip their way out of his mouth.
After three or four agonizing bouts of vomiting, his breathing shattered. He collapsed onto the cold, white bathroom tiles.
Acid and saliva dripped from his lips, pooling on the floor. His throat was on fire, and hot tears of pain and absolute helplessness streamed from his eyes.
He lay there on the ground, his cheek pressed against the freezing tiles. His breathing wheezed like a ruptured pipe.
*"Grandpa..."*
he whispered to himself, his voice raw and broken.
*"Grandpa...
why does becoming a mountain...
hurt so much...?"*
He wasn't a glutton.
He was just a sixteen-year-old broken child who, in his desperate bid to become 'strong', was slowly torturing himself from the inside out.
But the fat boy who gagged on garbage in the daylight was someone entirely different under the cover of night.
Dead silence blanketed the house.
His parents were fast asleep in their room.
In Renjiro's room, a small desk lamp cast a pale, jaundiced glow over his sweat-drenched face.
On his desk sat the framed photo of his grandfather.
And right in front of that photo, resting on the floor, was a hundred-kilogram rusted iron barbell.
Renjiro peeled off his sweat-soaked T-shirt and tossed it onto the floor. He was panting.
He stepped forward and rubbed chalk powder onto his massive hands.
He lay back onto the cold, unforgiving iron bench.
He gripped the iron bar with both hands, his knuckles turning white.
The barbell lifted slowly from the rack.
A hundred kilos of solid iron hovered directly over his chest.
Renjiro took a deep breath and lowered the bar.
The muscles in his chest ignited.
His massive frame began to shake.
He pushed the bar up with everything he had.
He swallowed his grunts so he wouldn't wake his parents. His triceps and chest fibers stretched to their absolute limits.
Sweat dripped from his forehead into his eyes, blinding him and amplifying the sting.
He did set after set of bench presses.
After that, he hoisted that same hundred-kilo barbell onto his shoulders and performed deep squats on his heavy legs.
The wooden floorboards of his room creaked agonizingly under the immense combined weight.
His breathing would fracture, his knees would threaten to buckle, but he would stare at his grandfather's photo in the mirror and force himself back up.
Every night, while the world slept, Renjiro fought a lonely, death-defying battle in his room.
He channeled the massive energy from those horrifying seven thousand calories into pushing that heavy iron.
Without knowing the sports science behind it, the boy was executing a monstrous 'Dirty Bulk'.
Because of the heavy lifting, deep beneath his chest, his shoulders, and his thighs, solid, iron-like muscle mass had begun to build. Right beneath the fat, a literal monster was being forged.
It was the kind of brutal core strength found only in heavyweight powerlifters.
But the tragic irony was...
nobody could see that strength from the outside.
The seven-thousand-calorie junk food diet had completely buried that iron-hard muscle beneath a grotesque, thick layer of flabby, hanging fat.
When Renjiro walked, people didn't see his core strength; they only saw the fat on his arms and thighs jiggling.
All his grueling hard work was trapped inside the ugly cage of his own obese body.
An entire year passed.
Renjiro was now seventeen.
He had crossed the six-foot mark, and his weight had reached a terrifying one hundred and fifty kilograms.
One night, at two in the morning, having just finished his squat session, Renjiro stood drenched in sweat.
He racked the barbell, turned around, and stood before his full-length mirror.
He looked at the photo of his grandfather on the desk.
In the picture, his grandfather stood in the center of the ring.
He had a thick, imposing sumo-belly, but above that belly, every cut and muscle fiber on his chest, massive shoulders, and legs was clearly defined.
He truly looked like a god of war, a sight that would dry the throats of his enemies.
Then, Renjiro looked at his own reflection.
There was no mountain.
There was only skin marred by angry stretch marks and hanging, stubborn fat.
His chest, which had become as hard as rock from lifting, looked bizarre and weak from the outside due to the fatty deposits.
His massive thighs chafed together so badly that even walking normally was a painful chore.
"What have I become...?"
Renjiro's lips trembled.
The sound didn't belong to a seventeen-year-old boy; it was a whimper of total psychological defeat.
For the past year, he had sacrificed his sleep every single night.
Yet, he couldn't see a single inch of that iron-like muscle in the mirror.
All he saw was his obesity.
He remembered Raizen's words. He remembered the voices of the school bullies calling him a pig.
"Is it possible...
that Grandpa's strength just isn't meant for me?
I'm not becoming a monster...
I really am just a weak, ugly, fat pile of trash."
In a violent storm of anger, depression, and absolute self-loathing, Renjiro drove his massive, clenched fist straight into the wall next to the mirror with every ounce of his power.
THUD
The punch carried such terrifying force that a chunk of plaster exploded off the wall, and blood began to stream down his knuckles.
But he didn't feel the physical pain.
The one-hundred-and-fifty-kilo giant dropped to his knees in front of the mirror and broke down, sobbing uncontrollably.
His spirit was completely shattered.
That night...
exactly one month ago, Renjiro Hoshino gave up.
After that night, he permanently stopped lifting the iron.
The barbell sat in the dark corner of his room, quietly gathering dust.
But his body was so deeply addicted to the junk food that even after stopping the workouts, he couldn't stop eating the garbage.
The lifting stopped, but he kept eating through his depression.
Another month passed.
It was daytime. The dining table was littered with empty food wrappers. Without pausing, devoid of any emotion, Renjiro was shoving a third heavy beef burger into his mouth.
His white school shirt stretched taut across his heavy stomach, looking as if the buttons would pop at any second.
His mother, Yui, stood by the kitchen counter. Tears welled in her eyes, her hands trembling.
She rushed to the table and desperately tried to snatch the burger from Renjiro's hands.
"Renjiro... stop it, honey.
Please, I'm begging you,"
Yui cried out, her voice laced with agony.
"What are you doing to yourself?
Do you know what the doctor said?
Your cholesterol and blood pressure are like a sick old man's!
You're going to kill yourself!"
Renjiro gave his mother a dead, hollow stare.
He casually picked up a second slice of pizza and kept eating.
Just then, his father, Katsuya, stormed into the hall, his face flushed with anger.
He walked straight to the table, grabbed the can of black cola, and hurled it at the floor.
The dark, sugary liquid splattered everywhere.
"Stop eating this garbage!"
Katsuya roared.
There was less anger in his voice and more of a father's crushing helplessness.
"What are you turning into, Renjiro?!
Your mother cries day and night, and you don't even care?
You can't even climb a flight of stairs properly, your knees are giving out!"
Renjiro stopped chewing.
He slowly raised his heavy head.
"I... want to be strong, Dad,"
Renjiro said, his voice carrying a strange, chilling flatness.
"Strong?!"
Katsuya grabbed his own hair in sheer frustration.
"This is your strength?!
You're dragging your grandfather's name through the mud! Kenji Hoshino was a sumo wrestler,
he had god-level strength inside him.
He became a mountain through hard work and discipline.
And you?
You're just becoming a sick boy taking out the frustration of his failures on fast food!
You're not getting strong eating this trash, you're just getting lazy and weak!"
"You... wouldn't understand,"
Renjiro muttered, his voice quiet and trembling.
Beneath the table, his fists clenched tightly.
He pushed his chair back, struggling to stand.
Dragging his heavy feet, he walked to his room and locked the door behind him.
His parents never knew that for an entire year, their son had been breaking his bones lifting heavy iron in the dark confines of that room.
They assumed he had been lazy and weak from the start.
And now...
now he had truly stopped lifting that iron for good.
Behind the locked door, he simply sat in the dark, entirely broken.
A few more days passed.
It was evening.
Renjiro lay on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.
The whole house was as quiet as a morgue.
Suddenly, the sharp ring of the landline echoed through the hall.
Katsuya was sitting in the living room, reading the newspaper. He casually picked up the receiver.
"Hello, Hoshino residence."
For a few seconds, there was dead silence on the line. Abruptly, Katsuya's spine straightened.
His facial expressions shifted second by second—from confusion, to sheer shock, and finally, to deep-seated dread.
Katsuya slowly placed the receiver back onto the cradle.
His hands were shaking violently, as if he had just conversed with a demon.
He stood rooted to the spot, his mind completely numb.
Yui walked out of the kitchen, wiping her hands. Seeing her husband's pale, drained face, she stopped in her tracks.
"Who was on the phone, honey?
Why did your face just go completely white?"
Katsuya took a deep, shuddering breath.
His voice caught in his throat.
"It was a call from Hoshigawa,
Yui...
Hoshigawa High School."
The towel slipped from Yui's hands and hit the floor.
Her eyes widened in disbelief.
"Hoshigawa?!
But... why would they call us?
We don't have any connections or standing there."
"I don't know either, Yui,"
Katsuya said, gripping his head with both hands.
"They said their Principal directly approved Renjiro's admission.
He specifically requested Renjiro to come in tomorrow morning."
Yui panicked entirely.
She knew her son's fragile state.
"No! Katsuya, we can't send our son there to die!
You know what kind of school Hoshigawa is, right?
The brutal discipline, the elite kids...
they'll eat our Renjiro alive!
Normal kids at Hakuho beat him half to death,
the ones at Hoshigawa will break his very soul!"
Katsuya's voice suddenly rose, thick with pain.
"Then what should we do, Yui?!
What is he gaining by staying locked in this room?!
After what happened at Hakuho, he's basically become a living corpse anyway.
Maybe he needs this final, strict push.
Maybe a new environment, completely new people, and Hoshigawa's ruthless atmosphere will break through this depression once and for all.
As a father,
I can't watch my son rot away right in front of my eyes every single day.
I'm sending him to Hoshigawa.
Tomorrow."
Standing right behind his locked door, Renjiro had listened to every single word intently.
His mother was fearing for his life, while his father saw this brutal school as a last, desperate hope to fix him.
But nobody knew why an elite institution like Hoshigawa had specifically selected Renjiro's name.
It was a question no one had the answer to—not Katsuya, and certainly not Renjiro.
Renjiro looked down at his massive, heavy fist.
He had tried being afraid at Hakuho.
He had tried hiding in his house.
But until now, whenever it was time to show real strength, he had always backed down.
Hoshigawa High.
He knew the students there would be a thousand times more dangerous and arrogant.
He was going to be a prime target the second he walked through the doors.
But today, this time... instead of fear,
there was a strange,
numbing coldness settling in his chest.
The next day,
Renjiro packed his heavy bag and set out toward his new destination.
The most terrifying crucible of his life was about to begin.
And the towering, gleaming iron gates of Hoshigawa High School were still completely unaware that this morning, a one-hundred-and-fifty-kilogram broken mountain was about to take his first step into their spotless, disciplined corridors.
A mountain that, deep inside, still harbored iron.
End Chapter 15