At school, Kouta stifled a yawn, his mind adrift in a sea of boredom. The teachers' lessons were painfully basic, information he could recite word-for-word after his library downloads.
When the final bell rang, he trudged to his shoe locker. As he swung it open, a splash of color caught his eye: a letter with a pink heart sticker on it.
"Hmm," he murmured, genuinely surprised. He wasn't exactly the social type.
He opened it and scanned the neat handwriting.
Dear Kouta,
I've been thinking a lot lately about how much has changed over the past few months, especially you. Watching you grow and change has been the best part of my day, and I've realized that my feelings for you have grown, too.
If you have a moment, I'd love to talk to you for a bit after school today. I'll be waiting behind the storage building. I hope to see you there.
Kouta's eyebrow arched slightly. 'Who could this be?' Curious despite himself, he decided to check it out.
When he arrived behind the storage building, he didn't find a shy admirer. Instead, four delinquent-looking students were leaning against the wall, conversing. One had blonde hair and tan skin, another with a long black ponytail, a third with messy white hair, and the last one sported spiky brown hair.
Kouta sighed quietly, the picture becoming clear.
The group spotted him and burst into laughter.
"He's here!"
"You totally got pranked, dude!"
"It work, you see"
But instead of looking annoyed, a small, amused smile touched Kouta's lips. "If there's nothing else, I'm leaving," he said, turning to go.
"Wait up, bro!" the blonde one called out.
Kouta paused. "What is it?"
"We're heading to a computer cafe. Wanna join us?"
The offer was so straightforward and unexpectedly kind that Kouta was taken aback. He considered the empty evening ahead. "Sure," he agreed.
As they walked, the one with the ponytail spoke up. "You seem way more confident these past few months. And bigger, too. What kind of training have you been doing?"
"Just normal martial arts," Kouta answered simply.
"We saw you practicing behind the school once. It was amazing. You gotta teach us," the spiky-haired one chimed in.
"I can, if you want," Kouta offered.
"Seriously?" the white-haired one asked, his eyes widening.
"Yeah, it's not that hard to teach the basics."
The blonde leader nodded thoughtfully. "So, what made you decide to come with us?"
Kouta shrugged. "I'm bored."
"Understandable," the leader laughed.
They soon arrived at the computer cafe, booting up a popular 5v5 MOBA. Kouta was initially terrible, his strategic mind better suited for reality than virtual lanes. Annoyed at feeding, he quietly activated the peak cognitive function rule.
Within minutes, he went from a liability to a terrifying carry.
"Quick, kill him! He's low!" the ponytailed one shouted.
"Got it,"Kouta said calmly, securing the kill. "There's another one trying to flank. Get him."
The afternoon dissolved into a blur of shouted commands, triumphant cheers, and the frantic clicking of mice. It was, against all odds, genuinely fun.
Hours later, as they finally left, the spiky-haired one grinned. "You should play with us again. That was awesome!"
The white-haired one elbowed him. "You only say that because he was hard-carrying us!"
"Same thing!"
"If I have free time, sure," Kouta said. "See you guys."
"You too, man!"
As Kouta walked home alone, a real, unforced smile lingered on his face. It had been an eventful, strangely relaxing day. And though he'd forgotten to ask for their names, he'd somehow made his first friends in this world after months living here.
When he returned home, he found several stacked boxes in a corner and a few specialized items laid out on his table. He ignored them for the moment, heading straight to clean up, as he still hadn't had dinner.
He then knocked on Rika's door. She opened it, noticing his later-than-usual arrival.
"Where have you been?" she asked, her tone more curious than stern.
"I was at a computer cafe with a friend," Kouta replied casually.
Rika's eyes widened slightly, then softened with genuine warmth. In all these years, he'd never mentioned having friends. A small, relieved smile touched her lips.
"That's wonderful," she said. "Tonight's dinner is just porridge, I'm afraid. I was a bit too busy to cook properly."
"It's okay," Kouta said.
After finishing his meal, he returned to his room and resumed his project, now that the materials had arrived. On his laptop screen glowed the blueprint of a suit, a sleek, white set of armor reminiscent of a knight, complete with a belt.
Kouta leaned back, studying the design.
"I've got about seven months left," he murmured, eyes fixed on the progress bar of his most important creation.
. . . .
In an abandoned warehouse, within a cage reminiscent of a UFC octagon, Kouta stood dressed in his signature mask and newly added gloves. Across from him, his opponent snarled, a woman whose Quirk had given her the armored, formidable appearance of a humanoid crocodile, standing a head taller and broader than him.
"I'm gonna eat you alive, little man," she hissed, saliva dripping from her elongated jaws.
Kouta remained silent, his focus internal. In his mind, this wasn't just a fight; it was another live-fire training session, another chance to refine his control.
"Don't you ignore me!" she roared, charging across the cage with surprising speed.
As she closed in, she lashed out with a clawed swipe meant to disembowel. Kouta simply weaved to the right, the claws whistling past his chest, and answered with a short, sharp punch to her exposed flank.
CRACK.
A sound like shattering ceramic echoed in the cage. The crocodile woman stumbled back with a pained grunt, clutching her side where several of her thick scales had splintered under the impact.
Kouta advanced slowly, a predator assessing his prey.
Enraged, she charged again, this time jaws gaping wide enough to swallow his head whole. Kouta didn't retreat. Instead, he dropped into a low stance and launched himself upward in a fluid backflip, his heel connecting squarely with her jaw in a vicious axe kick.
THUD.
Her head snapped back, more scales fracturing and falling away like broken tiles. She reeled, disoriented.
'Alright,' Kouta thought, his movements becoming more economical. 'I'm starting to get the hang of modulating the rotational force. Good.'
The fight became a one-sided display. Every lunge, swipe, and tail whip the crocodile woman attempted was met with a precise, shattering counter, a kick to the knee, a punch to the shoulder, a forearm block that cracked her wrist. The damage was accumulating, but Kouta was pulling each blow just enough to avoid lethal force, using her durability as a living gauge for his control.
He wasn't trying to win; he was practicing.
"Stop playing around with me!" she screamed, her voice a mixture of fury and dawning humiliation. She was a training dummy, and she knew it.
Kouta offered no reply. It was time to end it. She gathered herself for a final, desperate charge. At the last second, she feinted with her claws and whipped her massive, armored tail around in a sweeping arc meant to crush his ribs.
Kouta saw it coming. Instead of blocking, he launched forward in a Superman punch, leaping over the sweeping tail. He soared through the air, his glowing fist aimed like a piston.
The punch connected with the center of her broad, scaled back.
BOOM—CRUNCH.
The sound of the impact was followed by the unmistakable snap of vertebrae. The force lifted her off her feet and sent her crashing into the cage fence, where she crumpled, motionless for a second before a raw, agonized scream tore from her throat. She couldn't rise; her spine was broken.
In the secluded VIP booth overlooking the carnage, Roxana watched, a pleased, almost hungry smile gracing her lips. She hadn't bet on the reptilian brawler; she had bet on the mystery.
'Win more, Belial,' she thought, her crimson eyes gleaming. 'Keep winning. You're my ticket out of this gilded cage.'