He didn't remember dying.
If anything, he remembered warmth—soft, indistinct, like sunlight through closed eyelids. Then cold. Then sound. A steady rhythm, close and intimate, like a drum beneath skin. Voices came next: muffled, hurried, overlapping. A sharp cry tore through the haze, and only after it ended did he realize it had been his.
He opened his eyes to white light so bright it felt like it touched the inside of his skull.
The world was huge. His body was small.
Someone leaned over him—blurred at first, then sharpening into the shape of a woman with tired eyes and trembling lips. Her hair was damp with sweat, strands stuck to her forehead. She smiled, and that smile carried relief so deep it looked like grief had melted into it.
"He's… he's looking," she whispered.
A man beside her let out a breath that sounded like he'd been holding it for years. "He's strong," he said, voice rough. "He's really here."
The baby—him—didn't have words yet. But his mind was awake in a way his body wasn't prepared for. He couldn't control his arms. He couldn't sit up. He couldn't even focus for long without the room swimming.
But he understood language.
Not all of it. Not immediately. The sounds were familiar, yet not. Japanese. It settled over him like a coat he had worn in another life, the fit strange at first and then suddenly natural.
A memory flashed—another language, another place, another self. A desk. A phone screen glowing late at night. The words "Classroom of the Elite" and an image of a school campus that looked too perfect to be real.
Then that memory shattered like glass, scattered into pieces too sharp to touch.
His breathing hitched.
The woman—his mother, his mind supplied with quiet certainty—noticed and pulled him close. Her heartbeat filled his ears again. It steadied him.
"You're okay," she murmured, stroking his cheek with a finger. "You're safe."
Safe.
He didn't know if that was true. Not in a world like this.
Not if the memory was real.
Not if he had actually… arrived.
His name was given to him three days later, spoken with ceremonial care.
"Ren."
A simple name. Normal. The kind of name that wouldn't attract attention in a classroom, on a roster, in a crowd.
Ren Kurose.
His father liked the sound of it. His mother said it felt gentle. Ren, meanwhile, lay in their arms and accepted it like a mask he would wear for a long time.
Because he had already learned his first lesson:
In a system designed to measure you, your name was just the first number.
Ren grew quickly.
Not in an unnatural way—his body developed like any healthy child's—but his mind… his mind was awake every moment. Even when he slept, the edges of thought never fully disappeared, like a lamp left dim in the corner of a room.
At first, it was terrifying.
There were nights when he woke up sobbing, not from hunger or discomfort, but from a sudden wave of panic he couldn't explain. Memories that weren't his—yet were—crashed into him: an older version of himself walking to a convenience store, laughing at something on a screen, feeling ordinary and anonymous.
Then he'd wake up and see his small hands and remember he had no control.
His mother would soothe him, rocking him until he drifted back into the warmth of her chest.
His father would stand in the doorway, quietly watching, as if afraid that if he blinked, his son might disappear.
Ren learned something else in those nights.
These people loved him.
Whatever brought him here, whatever "transported" him, it hadn't dropped him into the world alone.
He had a family.
And that mattered more than he expected.
By the time he was two, he could walk without wobbling.
By three, he could speak clearly.
By four, he could read.
That last one… they tried to pretend it was a coincidence.
His mother would say, "Maybe he just memorized the picture books."
His father would laugh too loudly and tell relatives, "He's curious, that's all."
But when Ren picked up a newspaper and read a headline aloud, the laughter in the room died.
His mother's eyes widened. His father stared as if the paper had turned into a weapon.
Ren, sitting on the tatami floor, simply folded the newspaper with careful hands and said, in a child's voice that didn't match his calm tone, "Is that wrong?"
There was a long silence.
Then his father knelt down and ruffled his hair. "It's not wrong," he said slowly. "It's… amazing."
Amazing.
Ren didn't feel amazing.
He felt like someone trying to survive a test he hadn't signed up for.
He remembered enough to know what kind of world this could become.
A world where talent was measured. Where ability was currency. Where a school could turn children into assets, rankings, numbers.
A world where the quietest person in the room might be the most dangerous.
And in the center of it, like a gravity he couldn't escape…
Ayanokōji Kiyotaka.
Even thinking the name made something cold twist inside Ren's chest. Not fear—something closer to respect mixed with caution.
Ayanokōji wasn't a villain.
But he wasn't safe, either.
And Ren's existence—an outsider's variable—could change everything.
Or be erased by it.
He decided early:
He would be excellent.
Not because he needed to dominate. Not because he needed attention.
But because in an environment like this, weakness wasn't just a disadvantage.
It was a label.
A permanent one.
He would become someone the system couldn't easily dismiss, someone people couldn't easily manipulate.
A normal human.
But the best kind of normal human.
At five, he entered kindergarten.
It was his first true battlefield.
Not because of danger, but because of the thing that controlled every child's life: perception.
Ren understood quickly that children were honest in the cruelest way. They didn't hide their thoughts behind politeness. They didn't soften their words to protect feelings unless they were taught to.
His class had leaders and followers within the first week.
A loud boy who claimed toys like property.
A girl who cried if anyone looked at her too long.
A small group that formed around whoever had the most exciting snacks.
Ren watched them like someone observing an experiment.
He didn't isolate himself. That would draw suspicion.
He didn't try to lead immediately. That would create resistance.
Instead, he did something simpler:
He became useful.
When a child dropped crayons, Ren picked them up before the teacher noticed.
When two children argued over a toy, Ren suggested taking turns and gave a time limit.
When the loud boy tried to bully the quiet girl, Ren stepped between them—not aggressively, but with a smile and a suggestion that made the bully feel like backing off was his own choice.
Ren wasn't the biggest.
He wasn't the loudest.
He didn't intimidate.
But he made the room smoother.
And people—children and adults alike—liked smooth.
The teacher began to trust him, assigning him small responsibilities.
The children began to treat him like a natural part of their day, as if he had always been there, calming things down.
By the end of the first month, the loud boy had stopped trying to challenge him, not because he lost a fight, but because he couldn't find a reason to.
Ren learned another lesson:
Strength didn't have to be visible to be real.
At home, his parents noticed.
"Ren is… mature," his mother said one evening as she washed dishes.
His father looked up from the table. "He's too mature," he replied, half-joking but with a shadow in his eyes. "Sometimes it feels like he's thinking about things he shouldn't even know exist."
Ren sat on the floor with a puzzle, pretending not to listen.
He didn't want them to worry.
He didn't want them to feel like their son was a stranger.
So he did what he did best.
He adjusted.
He laughed a little more.
He asked childish questions even when he already knew the answer.
He ran around the house sometimes, deliberately clumsy, letting himself trip into pillows just to make his mother giggle.
It wasn't deception for cruelty.
It was kindness.
And also strategy.
He couldn't afford to stand out too sharply at home, either.
If he wanted to survive the system later, he needed his base to be stable.
A family that trusted him.
A home that felt real.
At seven, his father enrolled him in a swimming club.
Ren didn't complain.
He learned. Quickly.
Not in the way of an unnatural prodigy—he still swallowed water, still got muscle cramps, still had days where he came home exhausted and sore.
But he listened. He analyzed. He practiced.
Within a year, he moved to the advanced group.
At nine, he won a local competition.
His father was proud. His mother cried at the ceremony.
Ren smiled for the photos.
Inside, he counted.
Swimming gave him stamina and discipline.
It also gave him something important:
A reputation.
If someone later looked at his record, they'd see consistent excellence—not sudden perfection.
A believable progression.
That mattered.
Academics were similar.
Ren's grades were always high, but never in a way that looked impossible.
He made mistakes on purpose sometimes. Small ones. Harmless ones.
A wrong kanji.
A forgotten minus sign.
Because perfection was suspicious.
And suspicion was attention.
He didn't want attention.
Not yet.
His social life developed naturally—almost too naturally.
Ren was friendly. Not overly cheerful, not fake. Just… attentive.
He remembered birthdays. He noticed when someone was quiet. He listened more than he spoke, and when he spoke, he chose words that made people feel understood.
Adults adored him.
Children trusted him.
Teachers praised him.
But Ren always kept a distance inside his own head.
No one, not even his closest friends, ever reached the part of him that remembered another life.
That part stayed locked away like a sealed letter.
Because he didn't know who in this world might recognize the handwriting.
When Ren was eleven, he first heard about Advanced Nurturing High School.
It was on television—some documentary about elite education, showing a campus that looked like a futuristic city. Students laughing near modern buildings. Cafeterias that looked like restaurants. Dorm rooms like apartments.
The narrator's voice was smooth. "A government-backed institution designed to nurture the next generation of leaders…"
Ren's hands went cold.
That was it.
The place he remembered.
The place that made "Classroom of the Elite" more than a title.
His mother, watching with him, smiled. "Isn't it amazing?" she said.
His father hummed thoughtfully. "It's hard to get in," he said. "Even smart kids can fail."
Ren didn't blink.
Hard to get in?
In the story he remembered, students were chosen for more than grades. More than skill.
They were chosen for potential… and for the kind of problems they could create.
Ren wondered what the system would see when it looked at him.
A perfect student?
A useful asset?
Or a dangerous anomaly?
His mother looked down at him. "Would you want to go there someday?" she asked gently.
Ren's throat tightened.
He forced a small smile. "Maybe," he said.
Inside, he answered honestly.
I have to.
That night, he lay in bed staring at the ceiling.
He tried to recall everything.
The classes: A, B, C, D—rankings based on points.
The rules: private points as currency, class points as survival.
The special exams: designed to expose weakness, reward manipulation, and punish incompetence.
The key players: Horikita Suzune, sharp and isolated. Kushida Kikyo, sweet-faced and poisonous. Hirata Yosuke, kind and fragile. Ryuen Kakeru, violent ambition. Sakayanagi Arisu, elegant cruelty.
And at the center…
Ayanokōji Kiyotaka.
Ren didn't know if Ayanokōji would be exactly the same here. This world already had Ren in it. That alone could shift countless decisions.
But Ayanokōji wasn't someone you "shifted" easily.
Ren understood something deep and uncomfortable:
If Ayanokōji wanted to remain hidden, he would remain hidden.
If Ayanokōji wanted Ren to fail…
Ren would probably fail.
Unless he prepared.
Unless he became a person even Ayanokōji had to acknowledge.
Not as an enemy.
Not as prey.
As a factor.
A variable.
Ren sat up in bed.
He was still a child, still years away from the school.
But time moved faster than people thought.
He looked at his hands in the moonlight. Small, clean, harmless.
"I'll be ready," he whispered.
Not a dramatic vow.
Not a heroic declaration.
Just a quiet decision.
Because he understood the kind of world this was.
And he understood the price of being unprepared.
The next morning, he woke early.
He ran outside before breakfast, breathing cold air into his lungs, feeling his heart push against his ribs.
He returned, studied for an hour, then helped his mother without being asked.
At school, he listened closely. He watched faces. He learned how people hid things even when they thought they were honest.
A normal day.
A normal child.
Preparing for an abnormal future.
And somewhere far away, in a place that looked like a city built for students, a system waited—silent, patient, hungry.
Ren didn't know it yet, but the moment he was born, his name had already been written into a ledger.
The question wasn't whether he would be tested.
It was whether he would survive the test without losing himself.
Ren smiled at a classmate's joke and laughed lightly.
He played the part perfectly.
And inside, his mind stayed calm.
The real game hadn't started.
But he could already feel the board being set.
End of Chapter 1