The bell's shrill cry tore through the classroom, a mercy for everyone except Kenji Tanaka. Lunch break. Around him, students blossomed into motion: unpacking bento boxes, forming chatter-filled clusters, or fleeing toward sunlight like prisoners granted parole. Kenji saw none of it. His world had narrowed to a single, scorching objective: find his sisters.
Stay? Clear up that trainwreck of an introduction? The thought flickered weakly before being incinerated in the furnace of his resentment. No. There are vipers to be throttled. He surged from his seat, the legs of his chair shrieking against the floor like a dying animal. Heads turned, curiosity morphing into mild alarm at the storm cloud radiating from him. He ignored them. Their pity, their confusion, are just worthless static. His focus was absolute, honed by years of staring down batters with the game on the line. This was war. And his sisters were about to face a fastball aimed directly at their smug faces.
He barreled into the hallway, a lone figure cutting through the lunchtime current. His internal monologue was a litany of vengeance.
Blackmail. That's step one. Photos? Emails? The time they tried to dye the neighbor's poodle purple? Good starting point. Squeeze until they squeak. Throw compassion out the window and lock it shut. It won't be enough, nothing could ever repay stealing my dreams, but it'll be a down payment on their suffering.
His steps were swift, purposeful. After all he'd done his homework, alright. After the soul-crushing discovery of Kuoh's baseball void, his research had taken a darker turn. Locate the enemy. His sisters, Hina and Yumi, were second-years. Class 2-C. Second floor, west wing. Near the chemistry labs... fitting, considering the toxic concoction of their personalities. He took the stairs two at a time, his mind already scripting the confrontation: the widening of their eyes, the stammered excuses, the glorious moment their precious social standing trembled...
He rounded the corner onto the second-floor corridor, a predator zeroing in on its den. And slammed face-first into a wall of unreality.
Lyra Alamilla stood before him.
Kenji physically recoiled, his murderous momentum evaporating.
WHAT?!
His brain short-circuited.
Impossible! I left the classroom before her! I didn't see her sprint past me! Did she teleport? Phase through a wall?! Is she part ninja on top of being a walking Renaissance Faire reject?!
She blocked the hallway, her crimson cloak settling around her like spilled blood. Silver hair caught the fluorescent light, ruby eyes fixed on him with unnerving intensity. A faint dusting of chalk still clung to her sleeve from her board-butchering performance. She radiated... anticipation.
"Move," Kenji growled, the word scraped raw from his throat. It was the single syllable of a pressure cooker about to explode.
Lyra didn't flinch. Instead, she took a step towards him, invading his personal space with the confidence of a knight confronting a dragon. Her gaze swept over him, not with pity like his classmates, but with the analytical scrutiny of a battlefield surgeon.
"Nay, Sir Kenji of the Muted Fury!" she declared, her voice dropping to a resonant, dramatic whisper that somehow carried over the distant lunchtime hum. "I cannot yield the path! For I sensed it, a tempest brewing within your spirit! A deep, righteous vengeance pooling around your very being like storm clouds charged with celestial wrath!" She leaned in, her voice dropping even lower, conspiratorial and sharp. "Tell me... is it about the venom? The insidious drip of the two-headed serpent that coils within these halls?"
Kenji froze.
Serpent.
Two-headed.
Venom.
The words struck him like physical blows. His carefully constructed rage faltered, replaced by a chilling wave of disbelief.
How? HOW does she know?
He hadn't spoken a word about his sisters. Not their names, not their grade, certainly not their shared, viper-like ability to poison his life. He'd barely grunted his own name in class!
His mind raced, scrambling for logic.
Coincidence? Overheard gossip? Did she see me glaring daggers at their class photo in the hallway display?
But the specificity... "Two-headed serpent." It wasn't just accurate; it was poetically, terrifyingly apt. Hina and Yumi were a unit, a single entity of synchronized annoyance, their words dripping a shared, saccharine venom.
The hallway seemed to tilt. The fluorescent lights buzzed louder. The scent of Lyra's cloak filled his nostrils. His meticulously planned blackmail operation lay in ruins at his feet, trampled by a silver-haired lunatic who spoke in riddles and apparently possessed psychic powers fueled by delusion.
He stared at her, his expression shifting from fury to stunned incomprehension. The "Silent Warrior" had been rendered truly speechless. The only thought echoing in the sudden void of his vengeance was a desperate, bewildered scream.
How. Does. She. KNOW?!
Change Of POV - Inside Lyra's Mind
Hehehe! The Silent Warrior is stunned! Mission accomplished!
Her mental voice was a gleeful squeal, utterly at odds with her solemn exterior.
Took the servant's stairwell, dashed past the third-year art exhibit, while nearly tripped over that awful abstract statue, looped around the library annex. And that "two-headed serpent" line? Pure improvisation! Sounds properly ominous, right? Like something the Arch-Lich of Sorrows would command! He definitely looks like he's plotting against something scaly... or maybe just really annoying? Close enough! Poetry for the win!
Change of POV - Back to Default
Kenji stared at the silver-haired roadblock, his initial shock curdling into a familiar, weary frustration. The cosmic weirdness of her pinpoint ambush had momentarily doused his murder-rage, leaving behind the cold, damp ashes of resignation.
Okay. Deep breath. She's just... incredibly fast and weirdly motivated. And lucky with metaphors.
His logical mind, battered but still functioning, supplied the perfectly reasonable explanation: Coincidence. Dumb, dramatic coincidence.
He desperately wanted to defuse this. To explain, calmly and clearly, that he wasn't channeling celestial wrath, just deeply annoyed sibling energy. The words formed neatly in his head, a model of strained civility.
"I'm sincerely sorry for my outburst, really. It's just that I was in a hurry and needed to meet someone who has some... explaining to do. Very quickly. No serpents involved, metaphorical or otherwise. Could you please let me pass?"
What actually emerged from Kenji Tanaka's mouth, scraped raw by social anxiety and lingering irritation, was a flat, gravelly monotone.
"Please move out of the way."
It landed like a dead fish. Not polite. Not explanatory. Just... blunt. Demanding. The exact opposite of the apology he'd mentally crafted.
Lyra's reaction, however, was not offense. Her ruby eyes widened, not with hurt, but with dawning, terrifying understanding. She didn't move. Instead, she clasped her hands dramatically over her heart, the tarnished lion brooch pressing into her palm.
"Ahhhh!" she breathed, the sound full of revelation. "The clipped command! The unyielding gaze! Truly, the mark of a warrior burdened by a sacred oath of silence, forced to conserve every precious syllable for the battles to come! Your restraint speaks volumes, Sir Kenji!"
She took another step forward, her cloak swirling. "Your brevity confirms it! You do march against the Twin Venom! The serpent's hiss is unmistakable to one who has heard the whispers of the Void! Fear not, Silent Warrior! You do not face this scaled peril alone!" She flung her arm out, the crimson sleeve snapping like a banner. "Lady Lyra of Exelia, Scourge of Shadow Legions, hereby pledges her blade, and her boundless wisdom, to your righteous quest! TOGETHER, WE SHALL ROUT THE SERPENT FROM ITS DEN!"
Kenji stared, utterly defeated. His simple request to walk down a hallway had just been drafted into a fantasy war against his own sisters. Her "boundless wisdom" seemed to consist entirely of making spectacularly wrong assumptions with absolute conviction. Trying to correct her felt like trying to explain quantum physics to a brick.
He closed his eyes for a brief second.
Baseball. Think of baseball. Fastball down the middle. Clean. Simple.
He opened them. Lyra was still there, radiating heroic fervor, blocking his path to sibling vengeance.
His shoulders slumped. The blackmail operation was officially compromised. Probably by a girl who thought his sisters were actual snakes.
"Fine," Kenji ground out, the single syllable heavy with the weight of impending, cloak-induced chaos. "Just... move." He gestured vaguely past her, already bracing for her to interpret this as a strategic flanking maneuver.
Lyra beamed, mistaking his surrender for tactical assent. "Wise! Always scout the terrain before engaging the foe! FORWARD, COMRADE-IN-ARMS! THE DAWN OF RECKONING AWAITS!" She finally stepped aside, but only to fall into step beside him, her presence now a constant, chattering, crimson shadow.
Kenji Tanaka walked towards his sisters' classroom, no longer a lone avenger, but the bewildered commander of a self-appointed, delusional Hero.
The walk to Class 2-C felt like a march to the gallows. Kenji kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, ignoring the whispers and stares that bloomed in their wake like poisonous flowers. He couldn't blame them. Objectively, Lyra Alamilla was stunning. Her silver hair cascaded like moonlight, her ruby eyes burned with unnatural intensity, and even the ridiculous short red cloak somehow added to her striking, otherworldly aura. He registered the beauty the way one might acknowledge a particularly vibrant, dangerous-looking orchid: aesthetically impressive, best admired from a distance, definitely not something you brought home.
The stares prickled. Some were pure, unadulterated envy from guys wondering how the monosyllabic new kid scored the silver-haired goddess. Others were softer, dreamy looks from girls whispering behind hands, "Look how close they are! He's so serious, she's so dramatic! Opposites attract!" Kenji's jaw clenched. This was a tactical disaster wrapped in a delusional package. Anyway, he braced himself for the true horror: his sisters.
He could already hear their voices, sharp and saccharine.
"Kenji-chan! Already snagged a girlfriend? We knew sending you here was genius!"
"Ooh, is she rich? Foreign? Tell us everything! Don't be shy, little brother!"
His fingers twitched towards his phone, the weight of his carefully curated blackmail folder feeling like a comforting rock in his pocket.
Just let them open their mouths. Just one smug word.
He'd shove the evidence down their throats faster than a 150km/h fastball. Operation Serpent Smackdown was greenlit.
He reached the door of Class 2-C, a surge of grim determination momentarily overriding the sheer awkwardness of having Lyra practically vibrating with heroic anticipation beside him. He took a deep breath, pushed the door open with perhaps more force than necessary-
And stepped into a void.
The classroom was empty. Utterly, completely, soul-crushingly empty. Sunlight streamed through the windows, illuminating rows of neatly arranged, vacant desks. The only movement was dust motes dancing in the beams.
Kenji froze. His meticulously constructed vengeance narrative, the righteous fury, the blackmail payload... it all evaporated. The world didn't just tilt; it performed a full, nauseating backflip.
Of course.
The realization hit him like a line drive to the gut.
Lunch break. The canteen.
Hina and Yumi were creatures of habit. They always, always went to the canteen together for lunch, dissecting school gossip over questionable cafeteria curry. How could he have forgotten? In his rage-fueled tunnel vision, focused solely on their location during class, he'd completely ignored their routine. He'd stormed the castle only to find the drawbridge up and the moat filled with the bitter waters of his own stupidity.
His inner world, so carefully armored with plans and resentment, didn't just crack. It shattered. Like a priceless vase knocked off its pedestal by a rogue baseball, it exploded into a million irreparable shards of pure, unadulterated failure. The air whooshed out of his lungs. His shoulders slumped, the fight draining out of him faster than air from a punctured ball. The phone in his pocket suddenly felt like a useless lump of plastic.
Beside him, Lyra inhaled sharply, her ruby eyes scanning the deserted battlefield. She placed a hand on Kenji's slumped shoulder. Her touch was surprisingly light, but it felt like the weight of her entire delusional kingdom.
"Ah!" she breathed, her voice hushed with grave understanding. "The cunning serpents! They sensed the gathering storm! They have slithered into the shadows, retreating to their foul feeding grounds!" She nodded sagaciously, her silver hair catching the light. "A tactical withdrawal, no doubt! They fear the combined might of the Silent Warrior and the Scourge of Shadows!"
She spun around, her cloak flaring dramatically, blocking his view of the empty room and filling it with crimson wool instead. She struck a pose, finger pointed down the hall towards the distant cacophony of the canteen.
"But their flight only DELAYS THE INEVITABLE!" she proclaimed, her voice rising back to its full, hallway-filling resonance. "Come, Sir Kenji! We shall pursue the Twin Venom to their very nest! The Cafeteria of Sustenance shall become their FINAL STAND! ONWARD! FOR JUSTICE! FOR THE DAWNWARDENS! FOR... LUNCH!"
Kenji stared at her, then at the empty classroom, then back at Lyra, her finger still dramatically aimed towards the canteen chaos. The shattered pieces of his plan seemed to rattle inside his skull.
Blackmail was now the least of his problems. He was about to storm a crowded school canteen, trailing a self-proclaimed hero-general shouting about serpents and final stands. He closed his eyes, a single, despairing thought echoing in the void where his vengeance once resided
I am so very, very screwed.
Resigned to his fate as Lyra's unwilling comrade-in-arms, Kenji trudged behind the billowing crimson cloak like a condemned man following his own executioner.
So much for vengeance.
The thought echoed dully in his skull, a flatline where righteous fury once roared. He actively dimmed his senses, the chatter of students, the fluorescent glare, the overpowering scent of Lyra's "heroic aura". It was the sensory equivalent of pulling the curtains shut on a disaster movie.
Just get through it. Find them. Endure whatever this is.
Miraculously, the journey to the cafeteria was uneventful. Lyra, for once, seemed focused on the "pursuit," marching with grim purpose rather than declaiming prophecies to passing freshmen. They pushed through the double doors, and the wave of noise, steam, and the clatter of trays hit Kenji like a physical blow. His eyes scanned the chaotic sea of students.
There.
Near the window, bathed in sunlight that glinted off identical, perfectly styled dark hair, sat Hina and Yumi Tanaka. Alone. Sharing a container of suspiciously vibrant orange curry. Their heads were bent together, whispering and giggling, undoubtedly plotting their next act of sibling terrorism or dissecting some poor classmate's fashion choices.
Kenji's deadened senses snapped back online. His spine straightened. The embers of his fury, thought extinguished, roared back to life, hotter than ever. A manic, internal grin split his mental landscape.
FINALLY!
The universe had thrown obstacles, sent a delusional knight-errant to dog his steps, shattered his plans like cheap glass... but here they were. Vulnerable. Unaware. Ready for reckoning. He could practically feel the satisfying thump of metaphorical blackmail folders hitting the table before them. Lyra's presence? A minor, buzzing gnat he'd swat away with a curt explanation. His sisters alone were the target. This was it. Operation Serpent Smackdown: Reloaded.
He took a decisive step forward, ignoring the bewildered stares drawn by Lyra's dramatic entrance behind him. He opened his mouth, ready to unleash a torrent of accusations sharpened by months of baseball-deprived resentment...
BRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!
The lunch bell. Not the gentle chime signaling the start of lunch. The harsh, metallic SCREECH that signaled its brutal, untimely END.
The sound didn't just ring through the cafeteria. It detonated inside Kenji Tanaka's skull.
The fragile, hastily glued-together vase of his hopes , the one he'd painstakingly reassembled from the shattered pieces left after finding the empty classroom, didn't just crack. It exploded. Not with the dramatic crash of the first shattering, but with a sickening, effortless puff, like dust disintegrating in a breeze. The shards this time weren't porcelain; they were atoms. Pure, hopeless nothingness.
His forward momentum died. His jaw, primed for verbal combat, hung slack. His hand, halfway to his phone (his weapon!), fell limply to his side. He stared at his sisters. They looked up, startled by the bell, then spotted him. Hina raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. Yumi offered a slow, infuriatingly smug wave, her eyes flicking curiously between Kenji and the silver-haired storm cloud looming behind him. Their expressions clearly said, "Ooh, look who finally found us. And who's your... flamboyant friend?" But they were already gathering their things, the moment for confrontation slipping away like sand through his fingers.
The cafeteria erupted into motion around him, chairs scraping, trays clattering, students surging towards the exits. Lyra, however, remained a statue of heroic indignation beside him. She placed her hands on her hips, surveying the fleeing students like a general witnessing a cowardly retreat.
"COWARDS!" she boomed, her voice cutting through the din. "THE BELL OF RETREAT SOUNDS, AND THE FOE SCURRIES LIKE VERMIN! FEAR NOT, SILENT WARRIOR! THEIR FLIGHT IS BUT A TEMPORARY REPRIEVE! THE TWIN VENOM MAY SLIP THE NOOSE TODAY, BUT TOMORROW..." She slammed a fist into her palm. "TOMORROW, JUSTICE SHALL BE SERVED UPON A PLATTER OF THEIR OWN DECEIT!"
Kenji didn't hear her. The noise of the bell, the chatter, Lyra's proclamations, it all blurred into a distant, meaningless roar. He stood motionless in the emptying cafeteria, a lone island of shattered dreams in a sea of departing students. The only thing piercing the fog was the phantom sensation of a baseball's perfect stitching beneath his fingers, and the crushing, absolute certainty:
The universe hated him. And baseball.
His sisters vanished into the crowd, casting one last, amused glance over their shoulders. Lyra tugged insistently at his sleeve. "COME, COMRADE! WE MUST REGROUP! THE BATTLE IS MERELY POSTPONED! TO OUR NEXT STRONGHOLD!" (She meant class).
Kenji Tanaka allowed himself to be led away. Not towards vengeance. Not towards baseball. Towards Algebra. His soul felt less like a shattered vase and more like a discarded gum wrapper trodden into the linoleum. Victory had never felt so much like abject, cape-accompanied defeat.
Change of POV - Inside a small pond in the Academy's gardens
The water lily pad was a far cry from the marble balconies of Olympus. Prince Vincent, formerly of the flowing golden hair and muscles that gleamed like victory itself, hunkered low, his amphibian belly pressed against the cool, damp leaf. Below, the koi fish circled like indolent, orange submarines.
Potential snacks, if one were slow or stupid.
Vincent noted grimly. He flicked his tongue, snagging a hapless fly. It tasted like dust and humiliation.
Damn Tyche!
The thought was a familiar, venomous chant in his mind.
Goddess of Fortune, my slimy hindquarters! More like Goddess of Catastrophic Practical Jokes! One ill-timed wager over the outcome of the Titanomachy Centennial Rematch (obviously, Nike's champions would win!), and bam! Prince of Victory reduced to Prince of Pond Scum.
Exile from Olympus hadn't been a formal decree. More of a... biological incompatibility. A frog, even one housing a sliver of divine essence, couldn't withstand the sheer, radiant weight of the Pantheon's presence. Just being near Zeus's sandal would have likely resulted in spontaneous amphibian combustion. So, he'd hopped. And hopped. And hopped some more. Centuries blurred into a damp, insect-filled purgatory.
But Vincent was no ordinary frog. The ambrosia he'd consumed in his glory days still burned within him, a low, stubborn ember of immortality. It fueled his senses, sharpened his mind, and ensured he avoided becoming lunch for herons, cats, or overly ambitious toddlers. He observed. He learned. He plotted.
His webbed toes curled against the lily pad as his ruby-red eyes scanned the manicured banks of Kuoh Academy's ornamental pond.
Devils.
The place practically hummed with their infernal energy. Pesky, arrogant creatures. So much ambition packed into such fragile vessels, most of them barely stronger than the mortals around. Oh, a few exceptions existed: that crimson-haired Gremory heiress radiated power, and the Sitri girl had a calculating chill, but most? All swagger, no substance. Like peacocks armed with toothpicks.
Yet... amidst the devilish din, Vincent had noticed a fascinating pattern. A concentration. Sacred Gears. Those curious, soul-bound fragments of divine or draconic power, slumbering within humans. They seemed... denser here, in territories claimed by ambitious young devils.
Why?
His cunning mind, honed by millennia of strategy (and recent centuries of survival!), chewed on the puzzle.
Perhaps, it's not a coincidence.
He mused, watching a particularly smug-looking low-tier devil strut past the pond.
Perhaps these devils, with their reincarnation rituals and peerage-building... they act as catalysts?
The theory sparked with self-satisfied brilliance.
Yes! Their infernal energy, their very presence poking at the fabric of mortal souls... it agitates the dormant Gears! Awakens them! Like poking a sleeping dragon with a very long, very stupid stick!
It proved his long-held suspicion: power, even chaotic devil power, attracted other power. It was messy, inelegant... but exploitable.
A plan, fragile yet fiercely hopeful, solidified in his froggy mind. The Sacred Gear Gambit. He needed one. A specific one. One capable of sundering the vile, laughter-infused curse Tyche had woven around his very essence.
The reason he was searching for this kind of Sacred Gear was because... well, his options for liberation were... limited.
The Gods? Hah! Beg Olympus for mercy? After Tyche's prank? They'd likely turn him into a smaller frog. Or a particularly ugly garden gnome. Unthinkable. Dragons? Either napping in dimensional pockets deeper than Tartarus, perpetually grumpy, or very, very dead. Notoriously unhelpful, either way. Devils? Absolutely not. The sheer, soul-crushing embarrassment of pleading with some preening, winged upstart for help... No. A thousand times no. He'd rather remain amphibian.
But a Sacred Gear... wielded by a malleable human host? That held promise. Some Gears held power that brushed against the divine, the conceptual, the very laws of reality. If he could find one attuned to curses, soul manipulation, fate-weaving... Victory could be snatched from the jaws of amphibian obscurity! It was elegant. It was subtle. It leveraged the devils' own chaotic meddling against the cosmos itself!
His gaze drifted towards the school building, settling on a particular window. He'd felt it earlier, a strange, destabilizing pulse. Unique. Unrecorded. Like a tuning fork struck against the fabric of souls. Kenji Tanaka. The boy radiated awkwardness and baseball obsession, but his potential... oh, his potential was a flickering, unstable star. Destabilizing souls on contact? It sounded... deliciously disruptive. Possibly curse-breaking? Maybe. It was a gamble, a long shot fired from a lily pad.
But Prince Vincent, Champion of Nike, Promised Prince of Victory, knew this: even the longest odds could be overcome. Especially when you had nothing left to lose but your green, slimy skin. He just needed the right pawns...