Have you ever had a dream? Not the kind that you have when you're sleeping — but the kind that makes you want to be more. More than you are.
For Yugo, that dream had just crashed into a brick wall. A wall made out of paper and bad ink.
"A one? Is it even possible to get a one!?"
His mother's voice sounded more surprised than furious. Scoring a 1 out of 5 in every single discipline wasn't just failing. It was failing, it was a definition of failure.
Yugo, fourteen years of age, freshly out of middle school, didn't look even remotely concerned. He stood with both hands laced behind his head, wearing a disarming grin, as his mother waved the entrance exam results in his face.
She had wanted him in a proper high school. A good one. The kind that produced scholars.
"Yugo, what am I going to do with you?" She sighed, her gaze drifting past him. "Maybe your father was right..."
She trailed off. Her eyes settled on the family photo by the door, where incense curled in slow, quiet ribbons beside it.
In the photo, a younger Yugo sat perched on his father's shoulders, gap-toothed and gleaming. His mother was beaming beside them. But it was his father that catched any eye — dressed in a military uniform weighted down by far too many badges for an ordinary soldier.
Despite her best efforts, her one-point wonder wasn't going to get into any of the schools she'd dreamed of for him. Even a Military Academy would take something close to a miracle.
But Yugo stayed positive. During the break — before he found out whether he'd been accepted anywhere at all — he trained every single day. Just like his father had taught him when he was small.
— ✦ —
The day finally arrived.
Yugo looked the same as ever. Same grin. Same spark. But his arms had bulked just enough over the break that he could finally wear his late father's army jacket. It still hung oversized off his frame, sleeves swallowing his wrists — but he wore it like an armour.
"Mum! I'm heading out!" he shouted from the doorway.
"Please be careful." Her voice softened. "Tokyo is a huge city."
"You bet! Dad's gonna be proud of me!"
He marched toward the train station with his head high and his hands shoved in his jacket pockets. On the way, a headline glowed from a digital newsstand:
CRIME UP 10% THIS YEAR. IS POWER THE CULPRIT?
Yugo didn't stop. He was too excited to think of anything else.
On the train, he leaned his head against the window. His obsidian eyes reflected the pale morning sky — and when he let them close, the world shifted.
There it was again. That feeling.
It was like he could see the other passengers without looking. Not with his eyes — with something else. He felt their warmth, their flickering energy, a buzzing static pressing in from all sides. Too much, sometimes. Like trying to listen to a hundred radio stations simultaneously.
It was the reason he couldn't sit still in class. The reason test answers blurred before he could read them.
He breathed out slowly. Focused on the hum of the tracks.
"The Tokyo train will shortly arrive on Track 7. For your safety, please step behind the yellow braille blocks."
He had arrived.
— ✦ —
Power Tokyo Academy. PT Academy for short — built for one purpose: forging new power soldiers.
Most recruits who enrolled came chasing something. Money, status, and even just the thrill of battle for some. They came from all kinds of backgrounds: but the elites had private academies that had shaped them almost since birth, while the common recruits were products of the public system — for some, this would be their first time training their Power in any official capacity.
Yugo on the other hand wasn't after glory. He just knew this was his one shot at following his father's footsteps. He'd been taught the basics of Power as a child — his old man had been a power soldier, after all.
As Yugo saw the colossal academy gates opening, his excitement went higher than them.
"HAHAHA."
His grin turned into laughter and his body moved on itself into the most unhinged justice hero pose ever so that half the entrance plaza turned to look at him.
— ✦ —
"Look at the lens! Ready for the flash!" the registration staff called out.
Even in his official ID photo, Yugo's grin went ear to ear. His midnight-black hair was as unruly and defiant as ever.
He was officially enrolled.
As he made his way around the Academy — a sweeping fortress of glass and steel that felt like a place straight out of a comic book — and yet only a few hundred recruits were joining that year.
As his group was guided toward the dormitories, Yugo found himself drifting to a stop in the courtyard. Boys' dorms on the left. Girls' on the right. He'd already stopped listening to directions. Lost somewhere in his own head, he imagined himself as a war hero: decorated, stoic, respected. He clenched a fist slowly. His eyes glittered like someone had lit a match behind them.
"HAHAHA!"
From across the courtyard, a clique of girls caught sight of him.
"Pfft — look at that guy. What is he doing?" one giggled.
"Is he... posing?"
They assumed he was performing for them. But a trio of boys nearby wasn't laughing.
"Look at that goofball," the leader muttered.
"That's the one-point kid," the second added. "Only got in because of his old man's rep."
"Dead weight," the third agreed.
"Maybe I should teach him what a real soldier looks like." The leader cracked his knuckles and stepped forward.
The air in the courtyard thickened for a moment.
Then a voice cut through it.
It wasn't loud. But it had weight — the kind of weight that stops anyone on their tracks.
"Listen up, because I'm only saying this once."
An older man shuffled into the courtyard. He looked less like a soldier and more like a man who had been awake since the previous century. Half-dead eyes. A crooked, defeated posture. Long, matted dark hair framing a face that could only be read as: I'd rather be sleeping. His uniform hung off him like he'd pulled it from a bin.
"We aren't your friends," he exhaled — the sound like a slow leak from a punctured tire. "We aren't your parents. This isn't recess. And despite what your mothers told you..." — "You're not special."
The entire courtyard went silent. Even the trio of boys had gone still.
This was Mr. Numbers.
"Captain! Please, wait!" A panicked female assistant scurried behind him, notebook clutched to her chest. "I don't believe this is the right group! These are batch C-1 recruits — not Elites—"
Mr. Numbers didn't listen. He walked in a slow, shuffling line and stopped directly in front of Yugo.
Silence fell over the courtyard like a dropped curtain.
He circled Yugo the way a primate might inspect a suspicious fruit. He bent at the waist and squinted at his arms. Then, without ceremony, he yanked up Yugo's shirt and poked him in the stomach.
Yugo's wide grin turned into a confused, half happy, half shocked smile..
"You don't scream anything special," Mr. Numbers muttered, his voice like gravel. Then, for just a fraction of a second, something sharpened behind those half-dead eyes. "But you're definitely the one."
He straightened — or as close to straight as his back seemed to allow — and exhaled slowly.
"That's it. I'm taking this batch."
"But sir!" the assistant stammered. "That's not how this works — protocol, rankings—"
He turned and fixed her with a brief, flat look. The words dried up in her throat. Her pen scratched furiously across her notebook.
Before Yugo could get a word out, Mr. Numbers shuffled away, his assistant trailing behind him like a nervous ghost.
Yugo's grin stalled. Mouth half-open, as he watched the ragged Captain disappear through the buildings.
"What just happened?"
— ✦ —
Then the dormitory doors banged open.
"HEYYYYA!! Welcome to the dorms!"
A girl with gold hair and green highlights burst into the doorway — a bolt of lightning in human form.
"Boys to the left! Girls to the right! Don't get confused and don't waste time!" Doing a little dance while pointing the way.
Then a "Hahahaha!" as she tilted her head with an expression of happiness.
Without missing a beat, Yugo appeared beside her at the top of the stairs mimicking her pose.
"HAHAHAHA!"
The other sixteen students — nine boys, seven girls — stared up at them. It looked like someone had opened the doors of a mental asylum.
A shoulder slammed into Yugo's.
"Move it, goofball."
The boy who'd bumped him radiated trouble the way a live wire radiates danger. Hair like flickering flames. Narrow, predatory eyes. Teeth sharp like razors. He walked as a street brawler straight out of juvie.
That was Jin.
Yugo didn't flinch. He snapped his heels together and delivered a crisp, rigid salute — the kind pulled straight from an old military manual.
"My name is Yugo! It is a pleasure to meet you, comrade!"
Jin's face twisted.
"Humph." He shoved past, his two lackeys falling into step behind him.
Yugo's smile dimmed, just slightly. Uncertainty flickered across his face like a candle in wind. Was that... not how you made friends?
He didn't let it slow him down. He greeted every student who passed with the same relentless energy:
"I'm Yugo! Nice to meet you, comrade!"
"I'm Yugo! Good morning, comrade!"
"I'm Yugo! Pleased to meet—"
"You're Yugo, right?" The girl with the gold-green hair and mustard-coloured eyes closed up on him, almost too close, grinning. "Nice to meet you! I'm Rita!"
He responded immediately. "I'm Yugo! Pleased to meet you!"
She laughed — a big, unguarded sound.
"Man, you're funny!"
Yugo pumped a fist in a quiet, invisible triumph. Finally, someone who didn't think he was a weirdo.
"Alrighty, I've got to go sort my belongings," Rita said, already backing away with a wave. "As a second-year, I'm your Dorm Patron — if you need anything, I'm your girl! See ya!"
He watched her go, feeling like he'd just gained his first ally.
— ✦ —
He headed into the boys' wing. At the end of the corridor, the last door read:
JIN / YUGO
He grabbed the handle. It didn't move. He pulled. He pushed. He gave it a polite, soldierly knock. Silence.
Perhaps jammed or completely bolted from the inside.
Yugo glanced across the hallway at a small cleaning cupboard.
"Tactical reassessment," he muttered.
— ✦ —
The 6:00 AM assembly bell screamed like an air-raid siren.
Inside the cleaning cupboard, Yugo's eyes snapped open. He'd been curled between a mop bucket and an industrial-sized container of floor wax, his oversized jacket crumpled around him, his backpack serving as a pillow. Despite the circumstances, he looked like he'd slept in a five-star hotel.
He kicked the door open, stretched until every joint in his body popped, and dragged a hand through his unruly hair.
"Good morning, comrades!"
But the only thing he heard back was his own voice echoing.
A slip of paper fluttered across the floor toward him.
I had to check on everyone this morning for your first day, that's when I found you sleeping like a baby, so I couldn't bring myself to wake you up! Meet your class on the training grounds. Starts at 6 AM — don't be late! Hahahaha! — Rita
"Hahahaha!" Yugo struck a heroic pose.
Then he noticed the time on the cracked digital watch he had by his belongings. 6:01.
"AHHHH!"
He shouted as he became a complete blur, running like his life depended on it.
— ✦ —
At the training grounds, the new recruits were almost unrecognizable. Gone were the hoodies and civilian clothes. In their place: crisp PT Academy training suits — dark tank tops, navy trousers, boots polished to a mirror shine.
Yugo stumbled into the light, still wearing his father's jacket.
Every head turned. Then the entire class snapped to rigid attention, delivering a unified salute.
"Sir! Good morning, sir!"
Caught completely off guard, Yugo stood tall and saluted back — pride surging through his chest — until a shadow passed behind him.
Mr. Numbers. He didn't need to speak to command silence. His presence did it for him.
"Start your day with a hundred push-ups," he rasped.
"SIR, YES SIR!" the class thundered in unison.
Yugo was about to drop into position when a hand landed on his shoulder. He looked up. Mr. Numbers' expression was unreadable.
"Follow me."
Yugo grinned, immediately assuming: secret training room. Special assignment. Perhaps a weapon of some kind.
As they entered the main building not far from where they were, they stopped in front of the Trophy Wall.
It was a monument to history — names, dates, black-and-white photographs of the men and women who had helped build the world. At the centre, five soldiers stood beneath a five-star plaque engraved with the words:
SACRIFICE OVER HONOR. HONOR OVER SACRIFICE.
Yugo's eyes moved across the faces in the photograph. They landed on one in particular.
A man in the centre of the group. Grinning ear to ear — a grin Yugo knew very well, because he saw it every time he looked in a mirror.
His father.
He looked at the four soldiers beside him. One tall. One scarred. And one — unmistakably — with the same heavy, half-lidded eyes.
Yugo turned slowly with a half-gone grin and looked at the man standing beside him.
Mr. Numbers said nothing. No speech about duty. No lesson about sacrifice.
He simply placed a heavy, calloused hand on top of Yugo's messy hair.
"Show your dad what you've got," he said quietly.
The grin left Yugo's face for the second time that day. What replaced it was quieter — a stillness mixed with something warm and complicated that he didn't have a name for yet. The hum of Power settled deep in his chest, slow and steady.
"And don't think you're off the hook," Mr. Numbers added, his voice returning to its usual rasp. "You didn't even change into your training gear, that tells me you were late. Two hundred push-ups for you instead."
Yugo snapped to attention, eyes burning.
"SIR, YES SIR!"
As they arrived back at the training grounds, everyone assumed Yugo got the biggest scolding ever for being late.
And Mr. Numbers' expression hadn't changed towards Yugo at all. It never did.
Yugo caught his gaze once or twice across the yard, but it was like the moment at the Trophy Wall had never happened — sealed away behind those flat, half-dead eyes.
Yugo didn't mind. He kept his proud smile fixed firmly in place as he worked through his two hundred push-ups, still in his father's jacket, still not having eaten breakfast — it was served at 5:45, and he'd missed it. But anyone watching him might have thought he'd just come from a full meal and a solid eight hours of sleep.
And just like that.
"198... 199... 200."
He was on his feet in an instant, like someone had flipped a switch.
Around him, some of the class was still grinding through their hundred. Apart from Jin who finished first — no surprise. His two lackeys followed close behind. After them came Gad, Lot, and Emma in quick succession, then Ken and Tom neck-and-neck like they were racing each other. Yugo finished 9th.
One by one, the stragglers finished.
But no one was given a moment to breathe.
One hundred sit-ups. One hundred squats. Then a ten-kilometre run around the training grounds.
By the time it was over, the recruits looked like survivors. Sweat-soaked, hollow-eyed, breathing through their teeth.
"Attention."
Mr. Numbers moved through the line slowly, correcting posture with a firm hand and zero comment. Almost everyone had something wrong — slouched spines, dropped shoulders, heels not quite together. He adjusted each one without a word.
Only Jin and two others didn't need Mr. Numbers correction.
When he reached Yugo, he stopped.
For a moment, something shifted in Mr. Numbers' face — so brief that most of the class missed it entirely. A ghost crossing familiar ground. Maybe it was the jacket. Maybe it was something else — something in the way Yugo stood, chin up, grinning despite harsh exercises and no breakfast, that dragged a memory up from somewhere deep.
He saw Yugo's father.
Some of the recruits whispered that Yugo's posture must have been spectacularly bad to cause that kind of reaction.
Without a word, Mr. Numbers adjusted his stance.
"Forward, March!"
And with a single command everyone was led to the far side of the training grounds, an obstacle course.
"As you've had a thorough warm-up," Mr. Numbers said, without irony, "you should have no trouble with the next task."
No one dared respond. Even the recruits who looked ready to collapse said nothing.
Yugo threw a crisp salute.
"Sir, yes sir!"
It was completely out of place. But something about the sheer conviction of it made the rest of the class say it too, a half-second behind — a reflex, like an echo.
Mr. Numbers didn't react. He continued:
"This course is not about who finishes first. It is about who finishes. Expect to fail. In the history of this Academy, only three recruits have completed this course on their first day." He paused. "Principal Storm was one of them."
Something lit up behind Yugo's eyes.
From the spectator stands, a group of second-years had arrived, settling in to watch. Rita spotted him immediately.
"YUGO! HEYA!" Rita waved to Yugo like she'd just seen a long-time friend.
"HEYYYY! WHAT BRINGS YOU HERE?!"
"WE FINISHED TRAINING EARLY, JUST ENJOYING THE SHOW!"
"COOL, I'M ABOUT TO DO THE OBSTACLE COURSE!"
"NICE, GOOD LUCK!"
The exchange concluded. The entire class had been watching in stunned silence. Even the second-years were caught off guard by the interaction.
Mr. Numbers raised his hand.
"Start."
— ✦ —
Even after what Mr. Numbers said about this not being a race, most treated it as one.
Despite the exhaustion dragging at their limbs, the gaps between recruits stayed surprisingly close. Through the mud pit. Over the log skips. Up the rope climb. Under the wire crawl.
Until they hit a wall. A literal wall.
It rose out of the ground like the side of a building — sheer, smooth, offering nothing to grip. No footholds. No rope. Just a flat, vertical face and the empty sky above it.
Jin was the first to stop. He stood at the base, looked up, and said "I give up.". His two lackeys stopped beside him without a word. Whatever Jin's fire was made of, it wasn't stupidity — he could see exactly what the wall was asking for, and he knew no one in their year could answer that request. Not yet.
Some tried anyway, throwing themselves at it until they slid back down the smooth surface. Eventually, one by one, all dropped away.
Until there was only Yugo.
He stood at the base of the wall, head tilted back, mouth hanging slightly open. He looked like he was trying to solve something. The grin was still there, but quieter — less performance, more thought.
Then he started moving.
He ran at the wall, planted his foot against the surface, pushed off, reached — and fell back.
He tried again. Same result.
"Give it up." A voice came from the stands. "You're wasting everyone's time."
Rita said nothing. She watched.
Yugo got up. He looked at the wall. Then, slowly, he reached up and peeled off his father's jacket.
He looked at it, like a treasure for a moment — just a breath — then wrapped the sleeve around his right forearm.
He stepped back, rolled his neck. Set his jaw. And then he ran.
Not the same run as before. This was something else — low, fast, deliberate. His expression had changed. The grin was gone. What replaced it wasn't anger. It was focus — the kind that doesn't have room for anything else.
His right foot hit the wall. His left. His right again. He climbed higher than any of his classmates had managed — and then the momentum died, and he was about to fall.
That was when he snapped his arm out, sending the jacket up as a whip. The end of one sleeve on his hand, the other went over slapping the back of the wall. With a momentum of physics and timing — Yugo used that small window to clear the wall.
For a half-second, he was just sky — and as he made it over the wall, his grin was back, big as always.
But everything that goes up...
"Oh."
Must come down, and he did — face-first.
The courtyard went utterly silent.
Rita broke it first.
"YOU DID IT!"
Yugo peeled himself off the ground. His face was bruised, dirt-streaked, and wearing a grin wider than before.
"HAHAHA." He struck a hero pose.
Voices bled in from the crowd:
"He cheated, right?"
"Look how he landed — what a clown."
"That didn't count, surely."
Jin said nothing.
Jin knew better. Even with the jacket, what Yugo had just done wasn't possible for anyone else standing in that yard — not today, not in the state they were in. He'd seen the runs. He'd seen the wall. He'd done the math.
"Dismissed."
As the recruits filtered out, Mr. Numbers' gaze lingered on Yugo — bruised, beaming, jacket clutched in one hand.
He said nothing.
But something had shifted in those half-dead eyes. Perhaps the boy wasn't just chaos.
— End of Chapter 1 —