The CRACK echoed.
It was a sound so sharp, so clear, so utterly alien in the context of a high school classroom that it seemed to suck all other noise from the world. For one suspended second, the only thing that existed was that sound and its horrifying implication.
Takeda's brain took a moment to catch up to the signal of agony screaming from his wrist. His eyes, wide with shock, travelled down his arm to see his hand hanging at a nauseating, impossible angle. The thick, powerful limb that had been his instrument of intimidation was now a broken toy.
Then, the pain hit.
It was not a dull ache. It was a white-hot, blinding explosion. A guttural, animalistic scream ripped from his throat, a sound of pure agony that shattered the spell of silence.
He reflexively tried to pull away, but Kenji's grip was still on him, an iron manacle. Kenji's expression was the most terrifying part. It was one of mild disappointment. He looked at the broken wrist as if it were a faulty piece of equipment.
"So fragile," Kenji thought, a flicker of genuine concern in his mind. "His training must have been woefully inadequate. Grandfather would have called this negligence."
He released his grip. Takeda stumbled back, clutching the ruined wrist to his chest, his face a contorted mask of pain and disbelief.
Yui Amano, who was inches away from the act, hadn't even blinked. She was frozen, her mind a blank slate. She had seen Takeda break a student's arm once against a locker. It had been a messy, brutal affair of screaming and twisting. This… this was different. It was clean. Surgical. It was the effortless snap of a master calligrapher breaking a dry brush. It was the work of something that was not just strong, but understood the very mechanics of destruction.
Takeda's two cronies, Kenta and Sho, stared for a half-second, their brains short-circuiting. Then, primal pack instinct took over. Their leader was wounded. The enemy was before them.
"You bastard!" Kenta roared, his face turning crimson with rage. He launched himself forward, throwing a wild, looping right hook aimed at Kenji's head—a street fighter's haymaker meant to end things in one blow.
The other students gasped. A few squeezed their eyes shut.
Kenji didn't retreat. He didn't even raise his arms to block. As the fist sailed towards him, he took a single, small step forward and to the left, his body rotating slightly at the waist. It was a movement so subtle it was almost missed. Kenta's fist, aimed where Kenji's head had been, sliced through empty air, throwing the big thug wildly off balance.
As Kenta's body hurtled past, carried by his own foolish momentum, Kenji's right hand shot out—not as a fist, but with his fingers held stiffly together like a spear point. He didn't aim for the head or the throat. He jabbed forward precisely, striking Kenta directly in the solar plexus.
Thok.
It was not a loud sound, but it was absolute. Kenta's eyes bulged. All the air in his lungs evacuated in a single, silent rush. His roar of rage died in his throat, replaced by the frantic, fish-out-of-water gaping of a man who had forgotten how to breathe. His legs gave out, and he folded in on himself, collapsing to the floor in a wheezing, twitching heap, completely incapacitated.
The entire sequence had taken less than a second.
Sho, who had been charging from Kenji's other side to try and tackle him, saw his friend drop and a flicker of fear pierced his anger. He was committed, though. He lowered his shoulder, aiming to drive Kenji through the window.
Kenji hadn't even turned his head. As if he had eyes in the back of his skull, his body continued its fluid, rotational movement from the first takedown. He pivoted on the ball of his left foot, and his right elbow, hard as a granite spike, came around in a short, brutal arc.
It connected with the side of Sho's head, just above the ear.
THUD.
The impact was sickeningly solid. Sho's eyes went blank, the lights instantly switched off. His charging body went limp mid-stride, and he crashed to the floor, skidding a few feet before coming to a stop, utterly unconscious.
Silence.
A new kind of silence. Deeper, heavier, and colder than before. It was a silence born not of tension, but of absolute, mind-numbing shock.
The entire classroom stared, their faces a gallery of disbelief.
"Wha-… what just happened?" one student thought, his mind unable to process the speed. "They… they just fell."
"I didn't even see him move," a girl whispered to herself, her hand covering her mouth. "He was here… then they were on the floor. It's like a magic trick."
"His eyes…" another student thought, shivering. "There's nothing in them. No anger. No fear. Nothing. It's like swatting flies to him."
Mr. Ito, the teacher, was pressed so far against the blackboard he looked like he was trying to phase through it. His face was the color of ash. His mind screamed at him to do something, to call for help, but his body was locked in place by a primal fear he hadn't felt since he was a child. He was witnessing a paradigm shift. The laws of his jungle were being rewritten by a creature he couldn't comprehend.
Yui Amano finally took a breath. Her gaze was fixed on Kenji's back. He stood in the space between the three fallen bodies, perfectly calm, his posture relaxed. He hadn't broken a sweat. He wasn't even breathing heavily. He had just dismantled the three most feared thugs in the class in less time than it took to say their names. And he had done it all because Takeda had grabbed her wrist. Because she had dropped a pencil. The sheer absurdity of the cause and the terrifying finality of the effect made her head spin.
Kenji looked down at the three figures. One broken, one winded, one unconscious. His internal diagnosis was swift.
"Improper footwork. Over-extended attacks. No guard. They telegraph every move. And their bodies are so brittle. The city air must be bad for bone density. Grandfather always said the mountains provide all one needs for a strong vessel."
He glanced at Takeda, who was now whimpering, scrambling backward on the floor, using his good hand to push himself away. The bully's face was a mess of tears, snot, and terror. The alpha predator had been reduced to prey in an instant.
Kenji took a step toward him.
Takeda flinched violently, letting out a choked sob. "Stay away from me! Get away!"
Kenji stopped. He tilted his head again, that look of simple confusion returning. He had already collected the debt for the transgression against Yui. The fight was over. Why was the man still so agitated? Perhaps he was in shock.
Deciding the situation was resolved, Kenji turned around. The path back to his desk was blocked by the unconscious form of Sho. Without breaking stride, Kenji gently nudged the body with his foot, rolling it aside as if it were a misplaced log.
He sat down in his chair. The wood didn't make a sound.
The entire class held its breath.
He picked up his pencil. He looked towards the front of the room, at the petrified Mr. Ito.
His voice, calm and clear, filled the dead air.
"Sensei," Kenji said, his tone one of genuine academic curiosity. "You stopped writing. My apologies for the interruption. Did I miss the notes on the early trade policies of the Meiji Restoration?"
The question was so mundane, so utterly disconnected from the brutal carnage he had just wrought, that it shattered the last vestiges of everyone's sanity.
It was no longer fear they felt. It was something else. A chilling, spine-freezing awe.
He wasn't a thug. He wasn't a delinquent.
He was a monster wearing a human face.
And across the room, hidden behind a textbook, a student's trembling hand held up a phone. The camera was still recording. His thumb flew across the screen, typing out a message to the school's underground forum, a place where all the real news was shared.
He attached the video file.
The title was simple, and it would change Seiryu High forever.
"Class 2-B. Takeda is finished. A Demon has taken the throne."