The sound of a jawbone cracking was the unofficial morning bell in Class 2-F of Black Fang High.
It was a wet, percussive sound, followed by a choked gurgle and the heavy thud of a body hitting the grimy linoleum floor. No one flinched. No one gasped. A few students, placing bets in the back corner with worn-out playing cards, glanced over with mild annoyance before a wad of cash exchanged hands. The winner grunted in satisfaction, the loser cursed under his breath. It was just another Tuesday.
The classroom was less an educational space and more a post-apocalyptic den. The walls were a canvas of spray-painted tags, crude drawings, and the faded, brownish stains of long-forgotten brawls. Half the desks were splintered, their metal legs bent into abstract sculptures of violence. The air was thick with the smell of stale cigarette smoke, sweat, and the faint, metallic tang of blood. The windows, overlooking a courtyard of cracked concrete, were so layered in filth that they filtered the morning sun into a sickly, jaundiced yellow.
At the front of this war zone, a man who had long since surrendered his soul sat behind a chipped wooden lectern. Mr. Tanaka. He was a husk in a frayed suit, his eyes fixed on a page in a textbook he hadn't actually read in years. He heard the fight, of course. He felt the vibration as the 200-pound student hit the floor. He simply turned the page, the rustle of paper his only contribution to the chaos. He had learned his lesson in his first week at Black Fang: the teachers weren't here to teach, they were here to mark attendance and pray they made it to the final bell without needing medical attention. He was a zookeeper who had long ago accepted that the animals were in charge.
The victor of the brief skirmish, a brute with a shaved head and a snarling pitbull tattooed on his neck, spat on his fallen rival. "That's my seat, trash," he growled, his voice a low rumble. He kicked the unconscious body aside like a sack of garbage before plopping down, propping his heavy, steel-toed boots onto the desk. He was a lieutenant in the school's dominant gang, and this was his daily ritual of asserting dominance.
It was into this perfectly balanced ecosystem of predator and prey that the classroom door slid open.
The sound was a quiet, unassuming creak, yet it cut through the room's cacophony like a razor. Every head turned. Conversations died. The card game paused. Even the brute with the pitbull tattoo lowered his boots, his eyes narrowing. An interruption to their routine was rare, and usually meant one of two things: a challenge from another class, or a new piece of meat for the grinder.
Standing in the doorway was a boy.
He wasn't large or imposing. If anything, he looked deceptively average. He was tall and lean, wearing the standard Black Fang black uniform, though his was unbuttoned at the collar and untucked at the waist, less an act of defiance and more one of complete indifference. His hair was jet-black, a messy thatch that fell over his forehead, casting shadows over his face.
But it was his eyes that held the room captive.
They were silver-gray. Not the bright, shining silver of polished metal, but the flat, matte gray of a stormy sky right before the world goes dark. There was no light in them, no emotion, no fear, no curiosity. They didn't shine; they absorbed. They were voids. Looking into them felt like staring into an abyss that stared right back, unblinking and ancient. He carried a single, worn backpack slung over one shoulder, and his posture was relaxed, almost lazy. He radiated nothing. No killing intent, no fighting spirit, no nervous energy. To the dozens of honed delinquent senses in the room, he was a ghost. A blank slate. A nobody.
Mr. Tanaka finally looked up, his weary eyes blinking slowly. "Ah. The transfer student," he mumbled, his voice devoid of any interest. "Ravi Sharma."
A few snickers rippled through the classroom. "Ravi?" someone whispered. "What kind of pansy name is that?"
The brute with the tattoo grinned, a predator spotting a lost lamb. "Fresh meat, boys."
Mr. Tanaka gestured vaguely with a limp hand. "Whatever. Class is in session. Find a seat. Or don't. Just don't bleed on my lectern." He then returned his gaze to his textbook, his duty for the day officially complete.
Ravi's silver eyes swept across the room once. It was a slow, deliberate scan that took no more than three seconds, but in that time, he had processed everything. He saw the power dynamics, the unspoken territories, the hierarchy of violence. He categorized them in his mind with the detached clarity of a god observing a petri dish of bacteria.
The Alphas, his mind noted, his gaze passing over the tattooed brute and a few others. Loud, territorial, insecure. They rule through noise and simple violence. Their power is a brittle shell.
The Jackals, he thought, seeing the gamblers in the corner and the whispering sycophants. Opportunists. They cling to the strong and feed on the scraps. Cowards at heart.
The Ghosts. His eyes fell on a few students in the corners, the ones who made themselves small, who tried to be invisible. The prey. They exist in a state of constant fear, their spirits already broken.
It was a depressingly familiar landscape. He had seen this same structure in galactic empires, in celestial courts, in warring dimensions. The scale was different, but the nature of mortals was always the same. Arrogant, fearful, and loud. So very, very loud.
His gaze finally settled on the only empty desk in the room. It was in the far back, by the grimy window, a seat isolated from the main clusters. It was the unofficial leper's colony, the desk no one wanted, a symbol of ultimate weakness. Perfect. Quiet.
He began to walk. His steps were silent, his movements fluid and unhurried. He walked past the tattooed brute, whose massive frame was meant to intimidate, yet Ravi didn't even grant him a sideways glance. The air crackled with unspoken tension. Every student watched, waiting for the inevitable confrontation, the "welcome ceremony" that every new transfer faced.
But it didn't come. Ravi simply moved through the classroom like a phantom, his void-like presence offering no friction, no challenge. He was so devoid of presence that to attack him would feel like punching at smoke.
He reached the desk, dropped his bag beside it with a soft thud, and slid into the seat. He turned his head to look out the window, at the gray, uncaring sky beyond the dirt-caked glass. As far as he was concerned, the day's excitement was over. He had found his corner. Now, he just wanted to be left alone.
The class, momentarily stunned by the anticlimax, slowly returned to its previous state of managed chaos. The card game resumed. The whispers started again, this time focused on the new kid.
"What's his deal?"
"He's either a total moron or suicidal."
"Nah, look at him. He's just a twig. Riku's gonna have fun with him at lunch."
The name "Riku" was spoken with a mixture of fear and reverence. It referred to Riku Sato, the true King of Class 2-F and the leader of the Black Fangs gang. He wasn't in the classroom at the moment, which was the only reason the tattooed brute had dared to act so brazenly. When Riku was present, all other predators became jackals.
Meanwhile, in the hallway outside, a different kind of power patrolled the corridors.
Reina Kurozawa walked with a purpose that made other students flatten themselves against the walls to let her pass. Her raven-black hair was tied in a severe, high ponytail that swung like a pendulum with each precise step. Her violet eyes were cold and sharp, missing nothing. As the Head of the Disciplinary Squad, she was the enforcer of the school's only real rule: do not cause problems that attract attention from the outside world.
She paused by the door of Class 2-F, her senses on high alert. This classroom was a constant source of trouble, a festering wound on the school. She could feel the usual energies radiating from within—the hot, aggressive spike of rage from the brute, the low thrum of fear from the weaker students, the greasy static of petty scheming. It was a symphony of negative emotions she knew all too well.
But today, there was something else. Or rather, a lack of something.
In the back of the room, near the window, was a hole. A blank spot. A patch of absolute nothingness in the vibrant, violent tapestry of auras.
Her eyes narrowed, focusing on the source. A boy she'd never seen before. A transfer. From her position, all she could see was the back of his head and his relaxed posture. He was doing nothing. Just staring out the window. Yet, his presence—or lack thereof—was more unnerving than the most powerful delinquent she had ever faced.
Skilled fighters like her could read a person's spirit. A strong opponent radiated pressure, a killer exuded bloodlust, a coward reeked of fear. This boy… he radiated a vacuum. It was like a black hole had opened in the middle of the classroom, swallowing all energy, all intent, all light. It didn't feel human.
A flicker of genuine curiosity, an emotion she rarely felt, sparked within her. Who was he? What was he? Was his lack of aura a sign of absolute weakness, making him a true "nobody"? Or was it a sign of something else entirely? Something she couldn't comprehend?
She filed his face away in her memory. Ravi Sharma. A name to watch. She continued her patrol, the click of her boots echoing down the empty hall, but her mind remained on the black hole sitting in the back of Class 2-F.
Inside the classroom, Ravi rested his chin on his palm, his gaze distant. The noise of the room had faded into a meaningless background hum. He let his mind drift, not to memories—he had sealed most of those away for a reason—but to the simple sensations of this new life. The feeling of cheap fabric against his skin. The hard plastic of the chair. The cool glass of the windowpane.
It was all so wonderfully… mundane.
For eons, his existence had been defined by cataclysmic events. Shattering galaxies with a thought. Unraveling the fabric of reality for sport. Silencing arrogant gods who dared to challenge him. It was a life of infinite power and infinite boredom. A cosmic throne was the loneliest place in all of creation.
So he had made a choice. He had shed his divinity, sealed his power, and cast himself into the cycle of reincarnation, hoping to find something he had long since lost: a sense of meaning. He wanted to experience life not as a god, but as a man. He wanted to feel the warmth of the sun without causing it to go supernova. He wanted to feel the rain on his skin without commanding the storm. He wanted peace.
Of course, the seal was imperfect. His core nature, his divine essence, could not be entirely suppressed. It leaked out in his indestructible body, his subconscious mastery of all combat, and the suffocating void of his aura. And it meant that wherever he went, trouble, like moths to a flame, was inevitably drawn to him. This was his third high school in two years. The pattern was always the same.
He would arrive seeking quiet. The local "kings" would see him as a target. They would push. He would ignore them. They would push harder. And eventually, they would cross a line, forcing him to act. And when he acted, even with a fraction of a fraction of his true power, the result was always the same.
Broken bodies. Broken spirits. And a new, unwanted crown placed upon his head.
He sighed, a soft, almost inaudible exhalation. He had hoped Black Fang High, despite its reputation, might be different. That its sheer, overwhelming level of chaos would allow him to blend in, to become just another shadow on the wall.
A loud bang from the front of the classroom shattered his reverie. The main door had been kicked open, slamming against the wall.
Standing there was a young man with spiky, bleached-blonde hair and a vicious, arrogant smirk. He was tall, built like a linebacker, and a jagged scar ran through his right eyebrow. This was Riku Sato, the true King of Class 2-F.
The room went dead silent. The tattooed brute who had been preening moments before was now hunched over, trying to make himself small. Riku's presence filled the room with an oppressive, aggressive energy that demanded submission.
Riku's eyes scanned his territory, a king surveying his domain. They passed over the cowering students, the nervous gamblers, and finally, they landed on the back of the room. They locked onto the one person who wasn't looking at him. The one person who hadn't reacted at all.
Riku's smirk widened into a predatory grin. His gaze fixed on the messy black hair and the indifferent silhouette of the transfer student.
"Well, well," Riku drawled, his voice dripping with malicious amusement. "What do we have here?"
Ravi didn't turn. He didn't move. He continued to gaze out the window, his silver eyes reflecting the gray, empty sky. A faint, tired thought drifted through his mind as he felt the predator's gaze on his back, the familiar prelude to a storm he did not want.
Same as always. Dogs barking.