The next day, Ellen was slumped over her desk. It was Monday, school had started again, and like any other teenager, she didn't want to be here. But she had to.
Yawning, she dragged a hand across the inside of her desk drawer, her slender fingers brushing past every book, notebook, and scrap of paper without touching what she actually wanted.
Something was off.
She pushed herself back with her toes, letting the chair slide a few inches, then bent down to peer inside the desk drawer more carefully. After a moment of squinting, she spotted it: her lollipop, buried all the way in the back like treasure hidden under a pile of boring responsibilities.
She reached in, grabbed it, peeled the wrapper, and popped it into her mouth.
Only then did she stretch, spine cracking lightly as a bit of life returned to her tired body.
"Hey, Ellen, did you hear? We're getting a new transfer student."
Ruby, blonde hair, bright eyes, and a voice too energetic for a Monday morning, leaned across the desk, peering at the tired shark girl.
Ellen raised a brow, the lollipop stick tilting slightly. "Huh? It's already the middle of the school year. Which fool would transfer now, all of a sudden?"
"I heard it's a cute girl," Monna, the bovine Thiren, chimed in from behind Ruby.
"No, no, I'm pretty sure they're male," Lynn added, sitting neatly beside Ruby with her usual calm expression.
With that, her small friend group launched into a back-and-forth over whether the new transfer student was male or female, cute or plain, interesting or totally not worth talking about.
Ellen rolled her eyes and let them debate. She didn't care either way. A transfer student was just another student, nothing that would make her Monday better.
A few minutes later, their homeroom teacher walked in, clapping her hands sharply.
"Alright, settle down, everyone. Before we begin, we do, in fact, have a new transfer student joining us today."
That quieted the room instantly.
The teacher turned toward the door. "You may come in."
The classroom door slid open, and every head in the room turned.
A purple-haired fox Thiren stepped inside. He wore a plain white shirt and black pants, glasses, but the rest of his uniform… looked like it had lost a fight. His school blazer was draped across his shoulder like a cape, his collar was open, and his tie was nowhere to be seen. He looked like he'd rather be anywhere but here.
Ellen's jaw dropped.
That was Tsutsumi Ryoko, New Eridu's new youngest Void Hunter.
He walked to the front like a delinquent forced into class, posture relaxed, expression bored, eyes scanning the room like he was already over it.
"Hoshimi Nagant…" he said in a flat voice when asked to introduce himself. His face practically screamed, I don't wanna be here.
The class froze.
Whispers buzzed around instantly, not about his attitude, but about his family name. Hoshimi. A name people didn't take lightly.
But Ellen wasn't focused on that.
Her eyes were glued on him because she knew exactly who he really was: Tsutsumi Ryoko, the new Youngest Void Hunter who supposedly soloed an Ethereal Swarm from Section 6. Citizens knew the name and the feats… but nobody knew what he actually looked like.
Their teacher nodded, still keeping professional composure. "Nagant, please take the empty seat in the back, right beside Ellen."
Ellen stiffened, seeing Tsutsumi sitting beside her.
Their gaze met, but before she could say anything.
"Hoshimi Nagant. You can call me Nagant," he said flatly.
Ellen immediately understood what he was doing. He didn't want anyone to connect him with his real name, Tsutsumi Ryoko, New Eridu's youngest Void Hunter. She nodded subtly.
"Uhh… hi. I'm Ellen Joe." She quickly introduced herself as he dropped into the seat beside her.
The class began. Or rather, the teacher began. Tsutsumi didn't even pretend to care; his eyes were fixed on the drifting white clouds outside the window, his face bored and half-asleep.
He honestly hadn't expected this. His mother had insisted he attend school, but he thought it was just a passing comment. Instead, after dropping Wise and Ellen off the previous night, she and Yanagi had immediately registered him. According to them, the purpose was very noble:
"Experience a regular school life."
But the truth was more transparent than glass.
Miyabi had used her own identity. Yanagi had used her "careful" wording. Together, they had worked the poor principal into overtime. If everything went well, they could easily brag later:
A Void Hunter studied under them.
That alone would skyrocket their reputation.
The homeroom teacher, meanwhile, had her eyes sharpened like daggers. She noticed instantly that Hoshimi Nagant wasn't paying attention.
"Nagant," she snapped. "Come solve this formula on the board."
He sighed, got up, and walked over with the enthusiasm of someone being dragged out of bed. But he solved the formula effortlessly after a quick glance at it.
The teacher frowned. "Another one."
He solved that too, faster. And he even gave a more accurate explanation.
And, thanks to Azu, he even wrote the steps down clearer than the textbook. A few students actually whispered "ohh" under their breath.
The teacher's irritation boiled over. Seeing him solve her problems with little respect and even better clarity, she blurted the first thing her frustrated brain produced:
"If you're so good, then why don't you come teach the class for me!"
Ten minutes later…
The homeroom teacher sat at a student desk, face red and stiff with embarrassment, while Tsutsumi stood calmly at the board, actually teaching.
And he is doing it really well.
His explanations were far more detailed than hers. Whenever a student struggled, he rephrased the concept in simple terms, step by step, until they understood.
He taught with no ego or frustration. Just cold efficiency like someone who has done this for far too long.
By the time class ended, the teacher practically speed-walked out of the room, too mortified to look anyone in the eye.
Tsutsumi only sighed as he returned to his seat.
He wanted to feel sorry for her. Really. But he didn't.
A normal human mind simply couldn't compete with a hyper-advanced super-AI giving answers in his mind. With Azu at his side, the more time he spent in any world, the more data she collected. Information flowed to him effortlessly.
And if he truly needed to, he could use the Final Kamen Ride: W! Xtreme! card, gaining access to the Gaia Library, a subspace storing the collective memory of the entire planet. Paired with his ability to move between worlds, that ability could theoretically work anywhere… but only in W Xtreme or Decade Complete form.
The only real problem was that present him hadn't fully realized the potential yet.
Only future him knew the weight of that power, the curse of knowing too much.
...
"I didn't expect you to come to this school of all places." Ellen leaned against the metal fence of the rooftop, arms crossed, the wind tugging gently at her hair.
"This is completely pointless," Tsutsumi replied.
He was lying flat on the concrete, hands behind his head, staring up at the bright blue sky as if it personally offended him.
Originally, the idea of a normal school life had sounded… nice. Simple and relaxing. Something he could never have.
After the incident in the IS world, whatever desire he had for "normal school life" had been crushed beyond repair.
Everything comes with a price.
You could reach for anything behind the Door, but you always paid in something precious.
With each world he visited and every new power he claimed, mundane things, school subjects, daily routine, teen worries, became painfully dull. Why memorize formulas when Azu could pull up everything in less than a second? Why sit through lectures when he could learn the entire curriculum of a world in a fraction of the time?
Personal skills, cooking, cleaning, driving, etc... those were useful. Those transferred between worlds.
But school? School never brought him anything except problems.
This wasn't even his first school. Far from it. Every time he enrolled somewhere, trouble followed like a curse. He was in those worlds for only a week or two each, yet school always found a way to be the most dangerous place.
The only reason he was still at U.A. was because it offered connections and a chance to uncover what happened to his mother. And Beacon... He didn't know the world well enough to leave… and if he was being honest, he didn't dislike his teammates enough to abandon them.
Ellen watched him quietly, her expression softening. "I can see that," she said with genuine sympathy.
She had seen firsthand how effortlessly he took over their class earlier, how he explained the lesson better than their teacher, how he embarrassed her without even trying.
"Seriously," Ellen sighed, "it's hard to tell if you came here to be a student or a teacher."
Tsutsumi didn't respond. He just kept staring at the sky, the silence saying more than words ever could.
Just then, a thunderous crash ripped through the air.
Ellen's head snapped toward the direction of the sound. Tsutsumi, who had been lying down, sat up immediately, eyes narrowing as he followed her gaze.
Students and teachers were already screaming below. The courtyard erupted into chaos, shouts, panicked footsteps, desks scraping, doors slamming. People froze like startled birds, too afraid to move yet too shocked to run.
Then the sound of a camera shutter.
Ellen's head whipped around in disbelief.
Tsutsumi had stood up, calmly raising his camera, snapping a picture of the massive black sphere spreading to the campus.
Ellen's eyes widened. "Y-you, are you seriously taking a picture?"
"It's the Hollow." Tsutsumi's voice was steady, almost bored, as he watched Ethereals crawl out from the shadows below the teaching building.
Ellen nearly screamed at him.
How can you be this calm?!
But she caught herself. Right. He was a Void Hunter.
So she clamped her mouth shut, cheeks heating with embarrassment.
"Stay close to me." Tsutsumi said, already moving toward the rooftop door.
Ellen followed quickly, jogging behind him as they descended the first set of stairs, until a shriek echoed from the corridor.
"Ah! Ethereals! They're charging into the classroom building!" A student yells.
Ellen's instincts flared. In one breath, her demeanor changed, her posture lowered, her eyes sharpened, her muscles coiling as she shed her "normal student" persona.
She sprinted forward, but a blur overtook her.
Tsutsumi moved past her like a gust of wind. The Ethereals clawing at the classroom door didn't even have a chance to react. Tsutsumi's kick slammed into the front one, sending it hurtling backward into its own kin like a bowling ball made of violence.
The whole group rolled and tumbled down the hallway.
Ellen skidded to a stop beside him, her black leather shoes screeching across the floor. Her eyes locked onto the Ethereals regrouping ahead.
The creatures raised their blade-like forelimbs, their metallic edges gleaming with cold, predatory light.
They screeched and charged.
While Tsutsumi simply slid two cards into his Driver.
Attack Ride: Electrification!
Form Ride: Faiz! Axel!
Crimson light burst from the Driver, armor plating snapping into existence across his body, encasing him in a sleek red-and-black form while magenta lightning flared around his body.
Start Up!
And then, he vanished in a red and magenta blur that tore through the hallway and school building. The Ethereals froze, then, one by one, their bodies split apart, dissolving into drifting particles of dust.
Students and teachers were left stunned into silence. All they saw was a streak of light, and then the Ethereals were dead before they even knew it.
Time Out!
The mechanical voice echoed behind her.
Ellen spun around. Tsutsumi was skidding hard across the floor, boots carving dark streaks along the tiles.
And he had severely underestimated his own speed after mixing his power.
"A."
He crashed straight into her.
Both of them blasted through the wooden classroom door, splinters and dust erupting everywhere.
Tsutsumi's hand shot out mid-crash, catching a falling desk. Momentum carried them forward until his body hit a chair. He landed sitting perfectly on it as if he'd meant to do that all along, back against the chair's wooden rest, one hand gripping the desk beside him for balance, his other leg swung over the other.
He leaned back, letting Ellen fall on top of him, cushioning her fall.
Ellen blinked, finding that she was sitting on his lap. Her thick shark tail curled around his leg, her thighs resting across his lap, her back pressed against his arm.
Tsutsumi looked effortlessly, sitting with one leg over the other, a shark girl seated on him like he was posing for a magazine cover.
Their classmates stared. And Ellen's face went bright red.