Kenji’s world narrowed to the cold steel of the lockers pressing against his back. The clang still vibrated in his teeth, a hypnotic sound of fear.


    Before, it signaled class. Now, it was the soundtrack to his personal apocalypse.


    They were circles of faces, but faces warped into grotesque masks of amusement and malice.


    Biao’s eyes, sharp and predatory, devoid of passion, just a glacial amusement at Kenji''s terror.


    Chun, a wall of flesh, breathed through his mouth, making low rumbling sounds that portend pain.


    Brad, always wearing a fake smile, flitted around like a scavenger bird, his words already sharp as claws.


    “‘I don’t have it,’” Biao repeated, the words mocking Kenji’s stammer. He tilted his head, as if considering a particularly dull insect. “Such a boring lie.”


    Kenji swallowed, the lump in his throat becoming a physical impediment. “I… I really don’t. My… my oba-chan…” He trailed off, shame choking him. Grandma scrimped and saved for his bento. Admitting poverty here was like confessing a fatal disease.


    Chun chuckled. It was a wet, ugly sound. He moved closer, and the shadow he cast enveloped Kenji. The scent of sweat and cheap ramen rolled off him in waves. Kenji instinctively took a step back, but the locker held him firmly in place.


    “‘Oba-chan’?” Brad mimicked, his voice dripping with saccharine sweetness that was more venomous than any shout. “Awww, did the little baby spend his lunch money on candy?” He flicked a dismissive hand. “Pathetic.”


    Biao remained still, observing, the silent conductor of this fierce orchestra. His passivity was more terrifying than Chun’s bulk or Brad’s words. It was the calm before the storm, the promise of calculated cruelty.


    Then, the storm broke.


    Chun’s hand, thick as a ham hock, slammed into Kenji’s shoulder, not a punch, but a brutal shove. Kenji’s head cracked against the locker, a sharp, blinding pain exploding behind his eyes. Stars swam in his vision.


    “Look at him,” Chun grunted, enjoying the tremor that ran through Kenji’s small frame. “Like a twig.”


    Brad cackled. “Maybe he is made of twigs. No wonder he’s broke.” He reached out, deliberately slow, and snatched Kenji’s bento box. The carefully packed lunch, his grandmother’s love made edible, was now in the enemy’s hands.


    “Let’s see what ‘Oba-chan’ packed,” Brad sneered, flipping open the lid. The aroma of tamagoyaki and rice filled the tense air, a fragile scent of home against the backdrop of impending violence. Brad’s face twisted in disgust. “Egg? Rice? Is this baby food?”


    Kenji’s stomach clenched. He wanted to protest, to beg them not to touch it, but the words wouldn''t come. His voice was trapped somewhere beneath the rising tide of fear.


    Biao finally moved. It wasn’t a violent gesture, but chillingly deliberate. He took a single step closer, invading Kenji’s already nonexistent personal space. His gaze locked onto Kenji’s cheap, wire-rimmed glasses.


    “Take those off,” Biao said, his voice low, devoid of emotion, making it all the more menacing.


    Kenji blinked, confused. “M-my glasses?” He needed them to see. The world swam into blurry indistinctness even now.


    Biao’s lip curled, a flicker of impatience. “Are you deaf, loser? Take. Them. Off.”


    Chun’s hands pressed down on Kenji''s shoulders again, this time holding him like a vice, making it impossible for him to escape. Brad, still holding the bento, watched him with predatory delight.


    Kenji took off his glasses with trembling fingers, and the world in front of him fell into a soft and blurry haze. He was defenseless, stripped of even the illusion of clarity. He held them out, offering them like a surrender flag.


    Brad snatched them, a glint of pride flashed in his eyes. “Look at him now! Blind as a bat!” He held them up, examining them with amused contempt. “Cheap plastic. Just like everything about you.”


    Then, with a sickening crunch, Brad brought his heel down on the glasses. The fragile frames shattered under his weight, the lenses cracking into spiderweb patterns. The sound echoed in the suddenly silent hallway, a small, violent punctuation mark in Kenji’s humiliation.


    Kenji gasped, a choked sound of despair. His vision swam further, tears blurring what little he could still see. The glasses… they weren''t just lenses. They were his shield, his way of navigating the world. Now, even that was gone, deliberately destroyed, just for… fun.


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    Chun shoved him again, harder this time, sending him stumbling sideways. His back slammed against the lockers again, the impact jarring his teeth. The pain was becoming a dull roar, constantly bubbling beneath his terror.


    “Where’s the money, nerd?” Chun demanded, his face inches from Kenji’s, spittle flying. “Don’t lie again.”


    Kenji shook his head, tears now streaming down his face, hot tracks on cold skin. “I… I don’t… please…” The pleas were so pathetic and feeble that even he could hardly hear them.


    Having enjoyed the destruction of the glass, Brad now turned his attention to the bento. He jabbed a chopstick into the tamagoyaki, spearing it cruelly. “You know what? Baby food for a baby.” He raised the chopstick, the egg dangling precariously. “Let’s see if babies can fly.”


    He flicked his wrist. The tamagoyaki sailed through the air, arcing towards the ground. But Brad didn’t let it fall. With a practiced movement, he caught it in his mouth, chewing with exaggerated relish, his eyes fixed on Kenji with a look of mockery and smugness on his face.


    He swallowed theatrically. “Mmm, delicious. Thanks, nerd.” He tossed the bento box aside. It clattered on the concrete floor, the remaining contents spilling out, a pathetic scattering of rice and vegetables amidst the dust. Kenji’s carefully prepared lunch, defiled, discarded.


    Biao finally spoke again, his voice still low, but now laced with a sharper edge, a hint of steel. “You’re wasting our time.” He gestured to Chun. “Teach him a lesson.”


    Chun grinned, a wide, cruel flash of teeth. This was what he’d been waiting for. His knuckles cracked as he clenched his fists. He stepped fully in front of Kenji, blocking out what little light remained.


    Kenji squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the inevitable. He wished he could disappear, melt into the lockers, cease to exist. He was nothing, nobody, prey in a world of predators. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat of pure, unadulterated terror.


    Then, a different sound cut through the fear-filled haze. Not a shout, not a cry, but something else entirely. A sound that silenced the hallway, that made even Chun pause, his fist half-raised.


    A quiet thud.


    Heavy, resonant, undeniably present.


    It landed just beyond the circle of bullies, close enough to make them flinch, far enough to be clearly intentional.


    Dust puffed from the concrete floor where something had struck.


    All eyes, even Kenji’s tear-blurred ones, turned towards the origin of the sound.


    Standing at the edge of the dispersing crowd, posture taut yet impossibly still, gaze fixed, was Muren.


    And in his hand, which shone dimly in the corridor light, was a single, unpolished stone.


    ---


    Muren drank the scene through slit-pupil eyes. Revulsion slicked his ribs like old grease, but his face stayed a weatherworn gargoyle.


    Sakuragoka didn’t tolerate softness; the school chewed tremors into meat slurry. Kenji’s rabbit-quiver spine, the hyena-grin boys circling—all actors in this asphalt Darwin ballet.


    He’d almost ghostwalked away. Not my circus. The lie hummed rusty in his teeth, same as always.


    But something shifted within him. The phantom weight of the Wakizashi, the War Spirit’s silent command – Vanquish. It wasn''t altruism. It was… opportunity. A test. A way to measure the edge of his new weapon.


    He made up his mind and acted immediately without hesitation. He picked up a loose stone from the ground - a rough piece of concrete, an inconspicuous piece of construction waste. Weight, trajectory, force - based on the instinct honed by years of observing the physical laws of school violence, a series of calculations flashed through his mind in milliseconds like lightning breaking through a rain cloud.


    Then, he threw.


    Not a wild fling, but a controlled, focused projection of force. The stone was a simple messenger, announcing his arrival, disrupting the carefully constructed theater of cruelty.


    Thud.


    The stone drew a precise arc, shattering the stagnant air. The bullies all turned their heads, and shock instantly tore through their ferocious masks. Kenji was still curled up beside the locker, his tear-stained eyelashes trembling constantly, and in his blurred vision, his red and swollen eyes were desperately trying to see the shadow in front of him.


    Muren moved. There was no exaggerated stride, only a subtle shift of center of gravity—a precisely controlled glide that swallowed up the gap between him and the predator''s encirclement.


    Windless Paradise activated. He didn’t need grand gestures, no dramatic poses. Just a flick of his wrist, barely perceptible, channeling the pact’s energy through the talisman hidden in his pocket.


    The chaotic hallway air, unseen currents of movement and noise, seemed to part around him. He felt a subtle lightness, a frictionless glide, as if the world’s resistance had momentarily lessened just for him. It wasn''t flight, but something… cleaner. More efficient.


    He stopped just outside the bully’s circle, facing Biao directly. His gaze, sharp and steady, met Biao’s cold eyes. Expressionless face against cruel smirk. Predator facing… an anomaly.


    “You finished playing games?” Muren''s voice tore through the frozen air, low but clear, his pronunciation as precise as a scalpel, and with an intimidation that was not in line with his appearance. It was not a provocation, nor a question, but a verdict of the law of the jungle. The jungle of survival of the fittest has its own language—the grammar he was writing with blood and bones.


    Biao’s smirk faltered, a flicker of confusion in his eyes before it hardened back into a sneer. Unknown variable. Unacceptable. “Who the hell are you?” The question was laced with irritation, territorial aggression.


    *Who dares interrupt their hunt?*


    Muren didn’t answer directly. His gaze flicked to Kenji, still trembling, then back to Biao. A silent message. This is about him.


    Brad sneered and took half a step forward, his chest puffed out exaggeratedly, using bravado to fill the power vacuum left after Biao''s brief disruption of dominance. “Mind your own business, runt. Unless you want some too?” He cracked his knuckles with an exaggerated snap and struck a threatening gesture.


    ''Intimidation attempt. Predictable.''


    Muren’s gaze remained fixed on Biao. He ignored Brad completely. In the predator hierarchy, Brad was just a noisy hyena, Chun the brute force. Biao was the alpha, the one who called the shots. Deal with the head, the body falls.


    Biao narrowed his eyes like a fierce wolf, sensing that the stagnation emanating from this heretic was destroying the magnetic dynamics of the hunting ground. A brilliant light shone in the depths of his pupils. Beneath the icy depths, a swirling vortex of calculation was stirring. He understood this silent struggle: under the jungle law of the survival of the fittest in Sakuragoka, the leader wolf must never show the slightest fear in front of his pack.


    His voice dropped to a graveled rasp—not a shout, but the low-frequency rumble of a junkyard dog guarding its territory.


    "Think you’re some kinda motherf***ing hero standing there?" Biao ground the broken glass on the floor with the tip of his shoe.


    His fingernails dug into Kenji’s nape.


    As the boy gasped for air, a half-smile tugged at one side of his mouth:


    "Or are you saying…"


    His knuckles whitened, the uniform collar biting pale grooves into Kenji’s neck. "...you wanna find out what three broken ribs feel like?"


    The corners of Muren''s lips curled up into an imperceptible arc. It was not a smile—it was a mysterious, hidden echo. It was a tacit approval of the rules, a prejudgment of violence, and a tacit greeting to this hunting game.


    His center of gravity shifted again, with a degree that was difficult for mortal eyes to grasp.


    The imprint of the War Spirit contract was hot in his palm, condensing his murderous intent into every bit of power in his right fist.


    The dormant ''Locked Jab'' tensed along his bones, waiting for the moment to rip apart his prey’s windpipe.