The Assassin Student

The declaration came the next morning. It was not a whisper or a rumor, but an official, school-wide proclamation. Large, professionally printed posters appeared overnight, plastered on every bulletin board, every hallway wall, and on the main entrance gate.

The posters were stark black and white. At the top was the official crest of the Black Fang High Student Council. Below it, a grainy, candid photo of Ravi walking, his expression unreadable, his silver eyes seeming to stare out from the page. And beneath the photo, the text, written in a bold, authoritative font:

OFFICIAL WARNING

STUDENT: RAVI SHARMA (CLASS 2-F)

VIOLATIONS:

Gross destruction of school property.

Extreme physical assault resulting in the hospitalization of multiple students.

Willful creation of a destabilizing atmosphere and incitement of gang-related conflict.

Ravi Sharma is hereby declared a Grade-A Threat to the peace and security of Black Fang High. All students are advised to maintain a safe distance. Association with this individual is strongly discouraged and may result in disciplinary action.

This is the first and only warning.

- Black Fang High Student Council, Takeda Shingen, President

The effect was immediate and electric. The school, which had been buzzing with a fearful reverence for Ravi, was now officially polarized. Takeda's plan was working. He had given a voice and a banner to the fear. Students gathered in tense knots, discussing the posters. The declaration gave them permission to treat Ravi not as a myth, but as a legitimate enemy.

The ambitious smaller gangs saw it as a green light. The Student Council, the school's "government," had just sanctioned a war. Alliances began to form in hushed conversations in locker rooms and behind the bleachers. The school was a powder keg, and the Student Council had just lit the fuse.

Ravi, for his part, walked past a dozen of these posters on his way to class without giving them a second glance. He was aware of them, of course. He could feel the shift in the school's atmosphere, the fear curdling into a more pointed, aggressive hostility. It was all just more noise. He proceeded to his classroom, sat in his seat, and began to watch the clouds, his routine unbroken.

His classmates in 2-F, however, were terrified. They had been front-row spectators to his power. They knew the posters were a death sentence—not for Ravi, but for the Student Council and anyone foolish enough to challenge him.

The first test came later that day.

Ravi was on his way to the rooftop after school, his one place of peace. As he walked down a deserted corridor on the third floor, a section of the school that was rarely used, he felt a subtle change in the air. A drop in temperature. A faint, almost undetectable scent of ozone and bitter almonds. A flicker of movement in the reflection of a classroom window.

He kept walking, his pace unchanged, his posture relaxed.

A shadow detached itself from a dark alcove fifty feet behind him. The figure was clad head-to-toe in black, a modified school uniform with the insignia torn off. His face was covered by a black cloth mask, leaving only his cold, dark eyes visible. He moved with a liquid silence that was utterly different from the clumsy stomping of the Black Fangs. This was not a delinquent. This was a predator.

In his right hand, he held a short, thin blade, like a tanto, its edge gleaming faintly. He flowed down the hallway, closing the distance to Ravi with terrifying speed and silence. He was a ghost, an assassin.

This was the Student Council's hidden trump card. Not one of their official members, but a "specialized" student from another class on a scholarship for his "unique talents." His name was Jin, and his talent was killing. Takeda had given him a simple order: "Incapacitate Sharma. Make it public. Make it hurt."

As Jin closed to within ten feet, he raised his blade, preparing for a strike aimed at the tendons in Ravi's leg—a crippling, non-lethal, but humiliating blow.

Without turning, Ravi spoke, his voice calm and conversational, echoing slightly in the empty hall.

"The poison on your blade is amateurish. A neurotoxin derived from pufferfish, but poorly synthesized. It would cause mild paralysis in a normal person for about an hour. On me, it wouldn't even register."

Jin froze mid-stride, his eyes widening in shock. How? How could he possibly know? He was behind him, and Ravi hadn't even turned around.

"Your stealth is decent for a mortal," Ravi continued, still walking away from him. "You control your breathing, you shift your weight to the balls of your feet. But you drag your left foot ever so slightly. An old injury to your ankle. It creates a faint, rhythmic disruption in the air. It's as loud as a drum to me."

Panic, an emotion Jin rarely felt, began to prickle his skin. This was impossible. His target was dissecting his entire methodology without even looking at him. This wasn't a fight; he was a lab rat being observed by a scientist.

"And finally," Ravi said, coming to a stop. "You use smoke bombs as a distraction. There are three in your left pocket. They are filled with magnesium powder to create a bright flash upon detonation, meant to disorient your target while you move in for the kill."

Jin's blood ran cold. He instinctively touched his pocket. The three small, spherical bombs were there, exactly as described.

"But you've made a tactical error," Ravi said, and now, finally, he began to turn. He moved slowly, deliberately, his silver eyes locking onto Jin's. "You chose a hallway with no cross-ventilation. A smoke bomb here would blind you just as much as it would blind me. Inefficient."

Jin, his carefully constructed plan and his confidence completely shattered, fell back on pure instinct. He let out a sharp cry, a kiai to focus his will, and lunged. He abandoned stealth for speed, his blade a silver streak aimed directly at Ravi's heart.

Ravi watched him come, his expression one of mild disappointment.

As the blade was about to pierce his chest, Ravi's hand moved. It was a blur, too fast for the human eye to properly track. He didn't grab Jin's wrist. He didn't block the blade.

He simply reached out and caught the blade itself.

He plucked it out of the air, his thumb and forefinger pinching the flat side of the steel.

Jin's forward momentum came to a dead, jarring halt. He stared in disbelief at his empty hand, then at the blade, now held casually in Ravi's grip, inches from his own masked face.

"Playtime's over," Ravi said, his voice flat.

He applied the slightest pressure with his fingers.

C-CRACK.

The sound was sharp and clean. The hardened steel blade, a weapon Jin had treasured and maintained for years, did not bend. It shattered. It broke into a dozen glittering pieces that fell like metallic rain onto the linoleum floor, the sound echoing in the horrifying silence.

Jin stared at the hilt still clutched in his hand, then at the shards on the floor, then back at Ravi's impassive face. His mind, which was trained for violence and death, simply… stopped. It could not compute what had just happened. Breaking a steel blade with two fingers was not in any manual he had ever studied. It was not a human feat.

Ravi took a step forward. Jin, his body acting on a primal fear that bypassed his conscious thought, scrambled backward, tripping over his own feet and landing hard on the floor. He looked up at Ravi, who now stood over him, a towering silhouette against the dim hallway light.

"Go back to your masters," Ravi said, his voice dropping, carrying a weight that seemed to press Jin into the floor. "Tell Takeda and the others on the council this: I am not a king to be challenged. I am not a problem to be solved. I am a fact. And if they force me to act again, I will erase them. Not from the school roster. From existence."

He let the remaining piece of the hilt in his hand drop to the floor, where it clattered next to the shattered pieces of the blade.

Then he turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing down the hall, leaving Jin sitting on the floor, trembling, surrounded by the glittering remains of his weapon and his pride.

For a full five minutes, Jin didn't move. He just stared at the spot where Ravi had stood. The rumors, the whispers, the posters—they were all wrong. They had called him a monster, a demon. They hadn't gone far enough.

A demon could be exorcised. A monster could be slain.

But what do you do with a god who has decided he's had enough of your noise?

Jin finally gathered his shattered will, got to his feet, and ran. He ran not back to the Student Council room to report his failure, but in the opposite direction, out of the school, away from the thing in human skin that could break steel like a twig. He ran in pure, absolute terror.