Rumors Spread

The legend of the rooftop massacre spread even faster than the story of Riku's defeat. It didn't just move through the school; it tore through it like a wildfire. This time, there was a witness—the one conscious, sobbing gang member who stumbled down from the roof, his face ashen, muttering like a madman.

"A ghost… he's a ghost…" he'd repeated to anyone who would listen, his eyes vacant with shell-shock. "He didn't even get hit… not once… he just walked… and everyone fell…"

His testimony was corroborated by the thirty bodies that had to be helped, carried, and dragged away from the rooftop. The injuries were precise and terrifying. Broken wrists, dislocated shoulders, shattered kneecaps, and a dozen cases of sudden, unexplained unconsciousness. The school nurse, a grizzled old woman who thought she'd seen everything, had to call for backup from a nearby clinic, her face grim and pale.

The name "Ravi Sharma" was no longer just a whispered curiosity. It was a brand. An omen. It was spoken with a hush, a reverence usually reserved for gods or demons. The rumors became wilder, more mythical.

"They say he can stop your heart just by looking at you."

"I heard he's an escaped government experiment, a super-soldier."

"No, my cousin in Class 2-F said he's not even human. When he fights, his eyes glow silver."

The students of Black Fang High, a population weaned on violence and cynical brutality, were now faced with a power that transcended their understanding. And their reactions split into three distinct camps.

The first, and largest, was fear. Students would now actively change their path if they saw Ravi walking down the hall. His corner of the cafeteria became a fifty-foot-radius dead zone. If he sat down at a library table, everyone else would quietly pack their things and leave. He was treated like a leper king, a plague god walking among mortals. No one made eye contact. No one dared to speak his name above a whisper in his presence.

The second camp was one of awe and admiration. These were the oppressed, the bullied, the ghosts who had lived their lives in the shadows of brutes like Riku Sato. To them, Ravi wasn't a monster; he was a liberator. A silent, terrifying arbiter of justice. They watched him from a distance with wide, hopeful eyes. They saw him not as a threat, but as a new kind of power—one that didn't prey on the weak, but simply erased the arrogant.

The third camp was the smallest, but the most dangerous. These were the other power players in the school: the leaders of smaller gangs, the ambitious lieutenants, and the hidden figures who manipulated events from the shadows. They saw Ravi not as a god, but as a disruption to the ecosystem. He was a vacuum at the top of the food chain, and they were beginning to plot, to wonder how this new, immense power could be tested, defeated, or perhaps, even controlled.

Ravi, the center of this storm, was blissfully, willfully ignorant of it all. Or rather, he chose to be.

He continued his routine with a stoic, almost monastic dedication. He would arrive at school, walk to the now-silent Class 2-F, and take his seat by the window (the wall was now covered by a large, hastily-nailed sheet of plywood). He would spend his classes staring at the sky or napping. At lunch, he would find a quiet spot, eat, and then retreat to the rooftop, his new, private kingdom.

He ignored the whispers. He ignored the fearful glances. He ignored the wide berth everyone gave him. In fact, he welcomed it. The fear, while tiresome, was an effective repellent. For the first time in a long time, no one was bothering him. The silence he craved had finally, blessedly, arrived.

It was a fragile peace, and he knew it. But he would savor it for as long as it lasted.

One afternoon, as Ravi was leaving the school, his path was blocked.

He stopped, his silver eyes registering the figure before him. It was Riku Sato.

He was out of the hospital, though he looked like a ghost of his former self. His arm was in a heavy, complex cast, held in a sling. His face was bruised, and there was a haunted, hollow look in his eyes. The arrogant fire that had once defined him was gone, replaced by something subdued, something broken. He looked older, wearier.

The few students remaining in the schoolyard froze, watching with bated breath. Was this Round Two? Was Riku insane enough to challenge the monster again?

Riku stood there for a long moment, his gaze fixed on the ground. He seemed to be wrestling with a great internal conflict. Finally, he took a deep, shaky breath and looked up, meeting Ravi's calm, unreadable gaze.

Then, he did something that sent a shockwave through the silent onlookers.

He bowed.

It wasn't a small nod of the head. It was a full, formal, ninety-degree bow, a gesture of absolute submission and respect. His back was ramrod straight, his head lowered completely.

"Please," Riku's voice was hoarse, stripped of all its former arrogance. It was the voice of a man who had his entire world dismantled and was now trying to build a new one from the rubble.

Ravi remained silent, simply watching him.

"Please," Riku said again, his voice cracking with emotion. "Teach me."

The request hung in the air, stunning the onlookers even more than the bow. Riku "Fangbreaker" Sato, the proudest, most violent delinquent in Black Fang, was asking to become a student.

Ravi's expression did not change. He looked at the bowed figure of the former king, a boy whose pride he had shattered. He could see the sincerity in the request. Riku wasn't asking for power to get revenge. He was asking for understanding. He had touched the void, and it had changed him. He now knew there was a world of power beyond his comprehension, and he was desperate to learn its language.

Ravi could have said yes. He could have taken on his first disciple, laid the first stone in the foundation of a new empire. It would have been easy.

But that was the path of a king, a master, a god. And that was the very thing he was trying to escape. An empire was just a larger, more complicated cage.

He gave his answer without a word. He simply stepped to the side, walking around Riku's bowed form as if he were a statue, and continued on his way, his footsteps silent on the pavement.

Riku remained in his bow, not moving, even after Ravi was long gone. He didn't look up. He didn't seem angry at the rejection. He seemed to have expected it. A single tear dripped from his eye and hit the dusty ground. He understood. He was not worthy. Not yet.

From a second-story window, Reina watched the exchange, her arms crossed. She had seen Riku waiting and had stayed to observe. She saw the bow, heard the desperate plea, and witnessed Ravi's silent, cold rejection.

Part of her felt a flicker of sympathy for Riku. Another, larger part of her felt a growing frustration with Ravi. His power was absolute, yet he refused to acknowledge it. He was a king who refused to wear his crown, a god who insisted he was a man. His passivity, his determined inaction, felt like a waste. More than that, it felt dangerous. A power that great, left untended and without purpose, could become a cataclysm waiting to happen.

Her obsession was solidifying into a goal. It was no longer enough to just understand him. Someone needed to guide him. Someone needed to force him to accept what he was, for the good of everyone. And since no one else dared, it would have to be her.

As Ravi walked down the street towards the bus stop, another figure limped out from behind a corner, intercepting him. It was Kenji, the tattooed brute, his arm in a sling, his face pale but resolute.

Ravi stopped, a flicker of annoyance in his eyes. "You again?"

Kenji flinched at his tone, but he held his ground. He didn't bow like Riku. Instead, he looked Ravi straight in the eye, his expression a mixture of fear and a strange, newfound determination.

"He… Riku-san… he was our King," Kenji said, his voice shaky but firm. "You beat him. That makes you the new King. That's the rule."

Ravi just stared at him.

"We… the Black Fangs… we're yours now," Kenji continued, forcing the words out. "We'll follow you. Just… just tell us what to do."

Ravi looked from Kenji to the shadows behind him, where he could sense two dozen other gang members hiding, waiting, their auras a mix of fear and desperate hope. They were a ship that had lost its captain, and they were now begging the storm that sank him to guide them to shore.

Ravi felt a headache coming on. This was getting more complicated by the minute. He had two choices: accept their loyalty and become the thing he despised, or reject them and leave a power vacuum that would surely descend into a bloody, chaotic war among the lesser gangs.

He looked at Kenji's desperate, fearful eyes. He looked past him, towards the school, where he could feel Reina's intense, analytical gaze still on him. He looked up at the sky, as if seeking an answer from the cosmos he had abandoned.

Finally, he looked back at Kenji. He gave him the first order of his unwanted reign.

"Then shut up," Ravi said, his voice flat. "And watch."

He turned and walked away, leaving a stunned Kenji and two dozen hidden gang members to puzzle over their new king's cryptic command. He didn't want followers. He didn't want a gang. But if they were going to follow him anyway, the least they could do was be quiet about it.