Chapter Text
The meeting room was too bright for anything that was about to become irreversible.
White fluorescent lights pressed down on the space, washing out color and depth. Even the maps on the table looked unreal, like they belonged to a world that had already stopped feeling human. Voices moved across the room in calm, careful tones. Strategic. Controlled. The kind of voices people used when talking about outcomes they would never personally face.
Takemichi Hanagaki sat still among them. Straight posture. Calm face. The kind of stillness that wasn’t natural anymore, but learned over time until it became normal. He listened without interrupting, not because he cared deeply about every word, but because he had learned that staying alive in places like this depended on understanding things before reacting.
Beside him, the room felt different.
Takumi Sato[1] leaned slightly closer, just enough to speak without breaking the briefing. His voice didn’t match the room at all. That was intentional.
“If we survive this,” Takumi said quietly, still looking forward, “I’m taking you somewhere expensive. Somewhere you’ve probably never been.”
Takemichi didn’t look at him. “…Focus.”
Takumi smiled a little, like that answer was expected.
“Yeah, I am,” he said. “I’m just thinking about how crazy it is that they call this a ‘deployment zone’ like that makes it sound normal.”
He paused for a moment, the humor still there but softer now.
Then, quieter:
“Still… when this is over, we should actually go somewhere. Not like this. Not in uniforms.”
Takemichi didn’t react on the outside. But he didn’t reject it either.
The silence between them said enough.
Takumi understood that. He didn’t push further. He just stayed beside him.
That was how they worked—Takumi talking like pressure could be turned into something lighter, and Takemichi taking everything in without letting it spill out where anyone could see.
~
The transition into war did not arrive as a moment.
It arrived as the disappearance of everything that was not noise.
The world broke into movement and impact. Gunfire stopped being sound and became part of the space itself—something constant, not something that started and ended. What mattered wasn’t sight, but position. Not breath, but timing. Not thought, but reaction.
Takemichi moved through it with control. His body reacted before his mind fully caught up. He wasn’t the strongest or the fastest, but he was steady in a way that made him hard to read. Every movement had purpose. Every step adjusted to information that only lasted for seconds.
Takumi stayed close for as long as he could, still talking even when the situation should’ve shut him up.
“This is honestly annoying,” he said once, ducking behind cover like it was just another inconvenience. “If I die here, I’m going to be pissed. I still haven’t had a proper milkshake in months.”
Takemichi didn’t answer. He stayed focused on moving.
But Takumi kept talking anyway.
Then everything shifted without warning.
A sudden change in movement. A body hitting into another with too much force, breaking rhythm instantly.
Takumi stumbled into him.
Takemichi caught him on instinct, steadying him before he even fully processed what had happened. For a moment, it was just physical contact. Then the meaning followed.
Takumi blinked once. Then let out a short breath, more annoyed than afraid.
“…Man,” he muttered, voice already thinner, “I promised myself I’d get one more milkshake before I died.”
It should’ve sounded like a joke. It still almost did.
But it wasn’t going to stay one.
Takemichi adjusted his grip immediately, already working through what needed to be done. His face didn’t change, but something behind his eyes tightened.
“You’re not dying,” he said quietly.
Takumi gave a weak laugh. “That’s a terrible lie.”
Silence followed.
Takumi’s breathing wasn’t stable anymore. His focus narrowed, not from fear, but from fading strength.
Takemichi looked at him.
Takumi still had that faint smile. Smaller now. Less certain, but still there.
His grip on Takemichi shifted weakly as his body started to give out. His voice came in broken pieces now, no longer forming clean sentences, but still trying.
“…You’re really bad at this whole emotional thing…”
He pause, taking a short breath.
“…That’s probably why you’re still alive…”
Takumi’s breathing changed again. Worse now, but he kept speaking anyway.
“…You know,” he said slowly, “I used to be different.”
Takemichi didn’t look away.
“Back then… I was a nerd. Small. Glasses and everything.” A faint breath. “Thick ones. I couldn’t even see properly without them.”
There was no humor in it now. Just distance.
“I hated it,” he continued. “So I changed. Started wearing contacts. Tried to act different. Joined the military because I thought… if I forced myself into something like this, I could become someone else.”
His fingers twitched slightly against Takemichi’s arm.
“…Guess I got part of what I wanted.”
A small, broken laugh left him. Quiet. Real, but weak.
“Never thought it would end like this.”
The laugh faded quickly after that.
Takemichi kept working, but his posture tightened.
Takumi’s voice dropped lower.
“Hey… vice cap.”
Takemichi finally looked at him.
Takumi’s expression was still there, but fading at the edges.
“Don’t screw this up.”
No answer came. Not because it wasn’t heard. But because there was nothing to say that would change it.
Takumi stayed looking at him for a moment longer, forcing himself to stay aware.
“…You still owe me that milkshake,” he said quietly. “Make it a good one…”
His eyes didn’t close right away. They just lost focus slowly, like the world was slipping out of reach piece by piece.
Then his voice stopped.
Takemichi stayed there only long enough to know it was over.
Around them, the battlefield continued like nothing had changed.
Then he let go and moved again.
~
The battlefield did not pause for grief. That was the first thing Takemichi realized after leaving Takumi Sato behind.
Nothing changed. Not the gunfire. Not the shouting. Not the smoke thickening through the air in layers heavy enough to sting the throat every time he breathed.
The world continued moving with brutal indifference, as if a person disappearing from it was too insignificant to interrupt momentum.
Takemichi kept moving because his body still understood orders even when the rest of him was beginning to fracture somewhere underneath the surface. His boots dragged through dirt darkened by mud, ash, and blood that no longer looked separate from each other anymore. Bodies littered sections of broken terrain in unnatural positions, some disturbingly still, others twisting weakly while medics screamed over overlapping voices trying to identify who was still worth carrying away.
The smell had changed too.
Earlier, the battlefield smelled mostly metallic—gunpowder, smoke, heat.
Now it smelled opened. Like flesh split apart and exposed to cold air before it was supposed to be.
Takemichi stepped over someone whose lower jaw no longer existed properly, the remaining half hanging loose against shredded skin while the man made choking sounds that barely resembled breathing anymore. Another soldier nearby was pressing both hands against his own stomach desperately, trying to keep loops of slick intestines from slipping further through fingers already too coated in blood to hold anything securely.
Takemichi didn’t stop. Not because he lacked empathy. Because stopping here meant dying beside them.
His rifle remained steady despite the exhaustion beginning to settle deeper into his muscles. He adjusted position automatically whenever gunfire shifted direction, reacting to movement without fully processing individual decisions anymore. The battlefield had long since stopped feeling like a place occupied by people. It felt more like a machine built entirely to grind bodies apart until nothing recognizable remained.
And somewhere inside all that noise, Takumi’s voice still lingered.
You still owe me that milkshake.
The memory surfaced at the worst possible moment.
Takemichi’s grip tightened unconsciously.
A sharp pressure bloomed through his chest immediately afterward—not sudden enough to feel dramatic, but deep enough to make his next breath uneven.
He ignored it. Because there were still people shouting. Still movement. Still orders being thrown through static-filled radios. Someone grabbed his shoulder roughly while passing.
“Vice captain! We need to move east side—now!”
Takemichi nodded once. His body followed automatically. But the pressure in his chest stayed.
The extraction point was already collapsing by the time they reached it.
Vehicles crowded the ruined staging area at uneven angles, headlights cutting through smoke thick enough to distort shape and distance. Medics were dragging bodies across the ground so quickly that some heads bounced violently against debris with each pull. Blood smeared beneath boots in wide dark streaks, mixing together until it became impossible to tell where one person ended and another began.
A soldier stumbled past Takemichi carrying someone whose entire left arm had been torn away above the elbow. The wounded man wasn’t screaming anymore. He was making short, wet noises through clenched teeth while blood pulsed rhythmically from the mangled stump despite the tourniquet tied high enough to bruise flesh purple.
Another body nearby lay motionless beneath a thermal blanket that was already soaking through.
Takemichi kept moving. One step. Then another.
But something about his balance no longer felt correct.
The world lagged slightly behind itself every time he turned his head too quickly. Sound distorted at the edges, voices stretching unnaturally before snapping back into place.
A medic approached him halfway through the staging area, grabbing his vest.
“Sir, you’re bleeding.” Takemichi looked down automatically.
At first, he didn’t understand what he was seeing. There was blood across the front of his uniform. Too much of it. Dark. Wet. Still spreading.
For a brief second, his mind refused to connect the image with consequence.
Then his chest tightened again—harder this time. His next breath failed halfway through. The medic’s expression changed immediately.
“Jesus Christ—”
Hands grabbed him before his knees fully gave out. The world tilted sideways violently.
Takemichi barely registered being lowered onto the ground. Around him, voices overlapped too fast to separate clearly.
“When did this happen?”
“He’s losing too much blood—”
“Pressure here, now!”
“Stay awake, vice captain!”
Takemichi looked downward again.
The wound sat slightly below his chest, torn through fabric and flesh in a ragged opening that looked almost unreal beneath the flashing emergency lights. Blood kept spilling out steadily between gloved hands trying uselessly to contain it. Every breath pushed more warmth out of him.
That explained the pressure. That explained why breathing had become difficult. Oddly enough, realization didn’t frighten him. It just felt distant.
The medic pressing against his wound kept talking rapidly, voice cracking with urgency.
“You hear me? Stay awake. Look at me.”
Takemichi tried to respond. Nothing came out except blood.
It spilled warm from his mouth immediately, thick enough that he tasted iron across his tongue before it dripped down his chin onto his collar.
The medic swore loudly. More pressure pressed against the wound. Agony finally arrived properly after that. Not sharp. Not clean.
It felt like something inside him had ruptured beyond repair, every breath dragging broken heat through the center of his body. His fingers twitched weakly against the dirt while noise around him grew increasingly distorted.
And through all of it—he suddenly heard Takumi laughing again. Not actually there. Just memory.
That’s a terrible lie.
Takemichi’s eyes drifted upward slowly. The moon was visible above the smoke. Still distant. Still untouched by everything happening beneath it.
The battlefield noise began stretching strangely after that, voices slowing unnaturally before becoming incomprehensible entirely. Someone was shouting directly beside him now, gripping his shoulders hard enough to hurt, but the words no longer arrived properly.
Only fragments.
“…vice cap…”
“…stay with…”
“…don’t close…”
His body felt heavier. Not just physically. But I internally as well.
Like every part of him was slowly disconnecting from the others one by one.
Breathing became difficult enough that even trying started feeling pointless. Each inhale stopped halfway, collapsing into wet choking pressure that forced more blood into his throat.
He coughed again. More red spilled across his mouth instantly. The medic holding pressure against his chest looked terrified now.
Takemichi stared upward blankly. The moon remained exactly where it had been before. Unaffected.
And for some reason, that became the only thing he could still focus on clearly. Not the screaming. Not the pain. Not the hands trying desperately to keep him conscious.
Just the moon.
Then someone else’s voice broke through the noise sharply enough to briefly reach him.
“Vice cap!”
Takumi.
Or maybe memory pretending to be him. Takemichi couldn’t tell anymore. “Don’t close your eyes yet!”
The voice sounded desperate now. Familiar enough to hurt. Takemichi tried to answer. Tried to say something back. But his mouth only filled with blood again.
Warm liquid spilled from the corner of his lips while his vision blurred at the edges, the battlefield lights stretching into smeared streaks of white and red.
The moon became softer after that. More distant. Like it was being pulled away from him slowly. And somewhere between one failed breath and the next—the world stopped holding together.
~
The first thing Takemichi became aware of was motion.
Not pain. Not darkness. Not even confusion.
Just movement beneath his feet, steady and mechanical, accompanied by the dull vibration of metal grinding against metal somewhere underneath him. It took several long seconds before the rest of the environment assembled itself around that sensation properly.
A train.
The overhead lights buzzed faintly above rows of passengers too absorbed in their own lives to notice him standing near the doors unmoving. Conversations overlapped softly throughout the carriage while the train rattled forward with rhythmic consistency. Someone farther down yawned loudly. Another passenger leaned against the window half-asleep, headphones hanging loose around his neck.
Everything felt painfully normal. Which immediately made it wrong.
Takemichi stood there silently, posture naturally straight despite the lingering exhaustion buried deep inside his body. The battlefield still existed somewhere in the back of his mind in broken fragments.
Smoke. Blood. The metallic taste filling his mouth every time he coughed.
Takumi’s voice.
You still owe me that milkshake.
And then—“Oi, Takemichi!”
The voice snapped through his thoughts cleanly. Takemichi turned his head slowly.
Four familiar faces stared back at him from farther down the carriage.
Familiar enough that something uncomfortable shifted faintly inside his chest.
Atsushi Sendo stood closest, waving impatiently with the same loud energy Takemichi remembered too clearly. Atsushi always wore his emotions openly no matter what they were. Nervousness, excitement, panic—it all showed immediately on his face whether he wanted it to or not.
Beside him stood Makoto Suzuki already looking mildly annoyed despite nothing even happening yet. Takemichi mostly remembered Makoto as loud. Loud complaints. Loud confidence. Loud panic whenever situations became real. Also a pervert.
Takuya Yamamoto looked as lazy as ever, shoulders slouched slightly, expression relaxed in a way that suggested he’d rather be literally anywhere else.
And beside them stood Yamagishi adjusting his glasses while staring at Takemichi curiously, probably already preparing to dump some random “insider information” nobody asked for.
The Mizo Middle Four.
Or rather—the group he stopped seeing after middle school slowly pushed everyone in separate directions.
For a brief moment, Takemichi genuinely believed this had to be death.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
His mind automatically searched for explanation through logic first. People talked about things like this all the time—how the brain replayed memories before death, how your final moments supposedly dragged old experiences back to the surface while your body shut down somewhere else.
That explanation made more sense than whatever this was. Because the alternative was insane.
Still, Takemichi said nothing.
Years in the military had long since trained immediate emotional reaction out of him. Panic wasted energy. Confusion solved nothing. His face remained calm almost automatically now no matter what happened internally.
So instead, he simply followed them off the train.
Atsushi immediately started talking the moment Takemichi caught up. “What were you doing back there? Hurry up already!”
Makoto snorted loudly. “He’s probably scared.”
“Shut up,” Takuya muttered. “You were freaking out earlier too.”
“I was not.”
“You literally said your stomach hurt.”
“That’s because the train smelled weird, idiot.”
Their voices blended together naturally after that, loud and careless in the way middle school conversations always were. Takemichi walked slightly behind them in silence, listening.
It felt strange. Not emotionally. Structurally.
These voices belonged to a period of his life that should have stayed behind him years ago.
Then his steps slowed.
A mirror mounted along the station wall caught his attention.
At first, Takemichi only glanced toward it absentmindedly while walking.
Then he stopped completely. Someone stood in the reflection ahead.
Small frame. Bright hair. Thin shoulders.
For one brief second, his mind failed to connect the image properly.
Then realization hit hard enough that his eyes widened slightly before he controlled the reaction immediately.
No. What the fuck—Takemichi stepped closer to the mirror slowly. The reflection copied him perfectly.
That stupid hairstyle. That awful piss-colored hair. The scrawny body. The narrow shoulders. No scars. No hardened muscle built through years of training. Nothing.
His gaze locked onto the reflection harder as disbelief started pushing against the controlled stillness on his face.
What the fuck is this.
My body was built.
I had scars all over my arms.
My shoulders were wider than this.
His expression remained mostly unreadable, but internally his thoughts sharpened rapidly the longer he stared.
Oh my god.
I actually looked like this?
This is horrible.
What the hell was wrong with my hair?
Why did nobody tell me I looked this stupid?
His hand immediately shoved into his pocket instinctively, searching for anything familiar, anything grounding.
Instead, his fingers pulled out a crumpled candy wrapper.
Then a single 500 yen coin.
Then—a flip phone. Takemichi stared at it for a second. The sight alone felt bizarrely nostalgic. He hadn’t held one in years.
The thing looked ancient now in his hands, small and awkward compared to what people normally used. His thumb flipped it open automatically.
The screen lit up.
July 4th, 2005.
Takemichi’s eyes narrowed slightly at the date.
Twelve years. Twelve entire years backward.
The train station noise suddenly felt distant for a moment. Not because it actually became quieter.
Because his brain was finally beginning to understand that this was not behaving like memory anymore.
Memories didn’t continue after observation. Memories didn’t let you check the date.
And memories definitely didn’t let you feel the cheap plastic texture of a flip phone in your hand.
“Takemichi!” Atsushi's voice snapped him out of it again. “Stop staring at yourself already!”
Makoto laughed loudly. “He probably thinks he looks cool!”
“That hairstyle’s hopeless,” Yamagishi added immediately.
Takemichi closed the flip phone slowly without taking his eyes off the reflection yet. The face staring back at him looked weak.
Awkward. Young. A person who had not suffered enough yet to understand anything properly.
And for the first time since waking up on the train, something cold settled fully into his chest.
This wasn’t memory. This was real.
~
The summer heat pressed heavily against the neighborhood as they left the station behind, warm air clinging to skin and fabric with uncomfortable persistence. Cicadas screamed from somewhere beyond the rows of cramped houses and tangled electrical wires overhead, their noise blending together with the distant sounds of traffic and the occasional bark of a dog hidden behind fences.
Takemichi walked slightly behind the others, one hand still inside his pocket, fingers loosely wrapped around the flip phone resting there like physical proof that this wasn’t some dying hallucination.
July 4th, 2005.
Twelve years in the past.
Even now, his mind kept trying to reject the conclusion despite all evidence pointing directly toward it. It simply didn’t make sense. Time travel wasn’t real. Nothing about this should’ve been possible.
And yet every detail around him continued existing with unbearable consistency.
The heat felt real. The pavement beneath his shoes felt real. Even the faint smell drifting from a nearby shop felt real.
Ahead of him, the others continued talking loudly without noticing anything unusual.
“So basically,” Makoto said while walking backward slightly, “we go there, ask around for the second years, and beat the hell out of them.”
“You say that like it’s easy,” Atsushi muttered.
Makoto scoffed. “It is easy. We’ve got Masaru backing us.”
The name immediately pulled something from Takemichi’s memory.
His cousin. Loud. Overconfident. Always pretending he had more influence than he actually did.
Atsushi scratched the back of his head. “Still… we’re really just gonna walk into another school and pick a fight?”
Makoto rolled his eyes. “Don’t start getting scared now.”
“I’m not scared!”
“You sound scared.”
“I just think we should’ve brought more people!”
Yamagishi pushed his glasses up. “I heard the second years there are dangerous. Like, really dangerous.”
Makoto frowned. “Where’d you hear that?”
“…Sources.”
“You don’t have sources.”
“I do too.”
Takemichi stayed silent, walking slightly behind them. It felt strange. Not emotionally. Structurally.
These people, these voices, this situation—it all belonged to a version of life that should’ve stayed buried years ago.
And yet here it was, moving again.
As they entered deeper into the neighborhood near the school, more students started appearing along the streets. Uniforms, laughter, casual conversations. Nothing like the world Takemichi remembered after everything had fallen apart.
Makoto immediately straightened his posture as they entered the area.
Atsushi was the first to approach a group of students walking by.
“Hey,” he called out, trying to sound confident. “You guys know where the second years are?”
The students looked at each other. “Huh?”
“The second years,” Makoto repeated, stepping in. “Where are they?”
“We’re first years,” one of them answered awkwardly.
“Yeah, but where are the second years?”
“How would we know?” The group quickly walked off.
Makoto clicked his tongue. “Useless.”
Atsushi tried again with another group further down the street.
“Oi! You know where the second years hang out?”
“We’re first years too!” one of them said before leaving quickly.
Yamagishi tilted his head. “They might actually be avoiding us.”
“No way,” Takuya said. “You just sound weird asking.”
“I do not sound weird.”
“You absolutely do.”
They kept moving, repeating the same questions to different students. Every answer stayed the same.
We’re first years.
Don’t know.
Never seen them.
Some avoided eye contact entirely. Others crossed the street immediately after being asked.
Takemichi watched quietly the entire time. And slowly, memory began aligning itself.
The school. The search. The playground. And what came after.
His expression tightened slightly. Because he remembered exactly how this ended. The current Takemichi hated this memory.
Not because of pain. Because of weakness.
Atsushi glanced back. “Takemichi, you’ve been quiet.” Takemichi looked at him calmly. “…Just thinking.”
Makoto snorted. “He’s scared.” Takemichi didn’t respond. His eyes stayed forward.
And the closer they got to the school, the heavier something in his chest became.
~
The walk toward the playground didn’t take long, but the atmosphere shifted in a way that made it feel like distance itself had changed its weight.
The streets gradually opened into a wider space bordered by low fences, scattered trees, and a worn-out playground that had clearly seen years of use. Rusted metal bars, faded paint on the slides, and uneven ground where dirt had been kicked into permanent patches of dust and gravel.
Takemichi noticed it before anyone said anything.
This place. It wasn’t just familiar. It was anchored.
Like something important had already happened here once, and the space itself had never fully recovered from it.
Atsushi slowed slightly. “This… is it?”
Makoto stepped forward immediately, confidence returning like he was entering territory that belonged to him.
“Yeah. This is where they were supposed to be.”
Takuya yawned. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s here.”
Yamagishi adjusted his glasses again. “That would actually be statistically consistent if they are avoiding confrontation.”
“No one asked for your statistics,” Makoto snapped.
Takemichi stayed behind them, eyes scanning the playground without reacting outwardly. But internally, something had already started tightening.
Because he remembered this. Not clearly at first. Not like a full image. More like fragments trying to assemble themselves into something coherent.
Voices. Laughter. Fear. Dust in the air. And then pain.
Atsushi walked toward the center of the playground and called out loudly.
“Oi! Second years! You here or what?!”
His voice echoed slightly across the empty space. For a moment, nothing responded.
Only the sound of wind moving through rusted metal and distant traffic beyond the neighborhood.
Makoto clicked his tongue. “Tch. Told you—”
Footsteps. Not rushed. Not uncertain. Deliberate.
From the edge of the playground, a group of older students emerged slowly, as if they had been there the entire time and only chose to become visible now.
Their presence immediately changed the atmosphere. Not visually. Not dramatically.
But in the way everyone else instinctively became aware of hierarchy.
One of them stepped slightly ahead of the rest.
Kiyomasa.
He looked at them with a calm expression that carried no curiosity, only evaluation. Like he was deciding how much effort this situation would require.
“Second years?” he repeated.
Atsushi straightened slightly, trying to match confidence with confidence.
“Yeah. We’re looking for them.” Kiyomasa tilted his head slightly.
“And why would you guys be looking for second year?”
Makoto immediately stepped forward.
“Takemichi's cousin Masaru runs this place,” he said quickly. “So if you’re second years, you better not mess with us.”
There was a pause. A brief one.
Then, from behind Kiyomasa, someone laughed.
Masaru. Takemichi’s cousin.
He was pushed forward without warning, stumbling slightly before catching himself awkwardly. An arm immediately draped over his shoulder in a way that wasn’t friendly at all.
“Go get me a soda,” one of Kiyomasa’s followers said casually.
Masaru hesitated. His mouth opened slightly like he wanted to argue. But nothing came out.
His eyes flicked toward Kiyomasa for half a second. And that was enough. Whatever confidence he had been pretending to hold collapsed immediately.
“…Fine,” Masaru muttered weakly, turning slightly like he was already trying to escape the situation rather than resist it.
Makoto’s expression changed. “…Wait.” The realization hit him a moment later. “That’s your cousin?”
Takemichi didn’t answer. He was watching Masaru closely now. Not surprised. Not confused. Just observing.
Because this wasn’t new information. It was just confirmation of something he already understood. People like Masaru didn’t actually hold power.
They borrowed the idea of it from people stronger than them.
Kiyomasa stepped forward again, cutting through the moment without urgency.
“So that’s your backing?” he said calmly.
Makoto tensed. “Yeah. So what?”
Kiyomasa stared at them for a second longer. Then smiled faintly. Not friendly. Not amused. Just decided.
“I’m from Toman,” he said. The name landed heavier than anything else said so far.
Atsushi felt it immediately.
Not because it meant anything to these kids right now. But because he knew what it would become later.
Tokyo Manji Gang.
The kind of name that stopped sounding like a school-level threat and started becoming something else entirely over time.
Kiyomasa lifted his hand slightly. “Beat them.”
The order was simple. Almost casual. Like it was routine. And then the space broke. Not instantly chaotic. But structured.
The third years moved in formation, not randomly. Each one choosing a target, spacing themselves out like this had been done before.
Atsushi barely had time to react before someone grabbed his collar and yanked him forward.
Makoto immediately swung a punch, more instinct than technique, connecting poorly but still trying to assert dominance through force.
Takuya stepped back instinctively, already losing positioning.
Yamagishi froze for half a second too long, processing what was happening instead of reacting to it.
Takemichi moved first. Not because he wanted to. Because his body didn’t wait for permission anymore.
A punch came from the side. He shifted slightly, redirecting the angle instead of blocking it directly. The impact still grazed him, but not cleanly enough to stop his movement.
Another attacker stepped in immediately. Takemichi adjusted again.
Not strength. Timing. Space.
He stepped into an angle that made the next strike miss by inches instead of impact. His expression didn’t change.
But something inside him was already calculating faster than before.
This wasn’t strength-based combat. It was control-based survival.
Atsushi shouted somewhere behind him. “Takemichi!”
Another hit landed somewhere near his ribs. Pain registered, but didn’t interrupt movement.
Makoto was shouting too now, but it was already becoming less structured.
Kiyomasa watched from a short distance. Not interfering yet. Just observing.
Like he was waiting to see what kind of resistance this would become.
Takemichi exhaled once. Then shifted his weight again. And moved forward instead of backward this time.
~
The order had already been given.
“Beat them.”
Kiyomasa didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. The second-years moved like they had been waiting for that exact permission, splitting across the playground in clean, practiced angles.
For a moment, everything felt evenly distributed.
Then it wasn’t.
Takemichi noticed the shift immediately—the way pressure stopped being spread and started being focused.
Akkun got grabbed first.
A hand locked into his collar and dragged him forward like he weighed nothing. His shout came out sharp, panicked, already cracking at the edges.
“Let go—!”
Makoto tried to step in again, but his movement got interrupted mid-swing. A third year intercepted him cleanly, not even bothering with a full counter—just enough force to break rhythm and push him off balance.
Takuya backed up too late. Two steps turned into a trap. The space behind him disappeared faster than he realized, forcing him toward the side fencing of the playground.
Yamagishi froze again.
Not out of cowardice alone. Out of processing delay.
His eyes flicked everywhere at once like he was trying to calculate an outcome instead of surviving the current second.
And Takemichi moved. Not with panic. Not with hesitation. With adjustment.
A punch came from his right side. He didn’t block it head-on. He turned his shoulder just enough to redirect the angle. The impact still landed, but it slid off instead of stopping him completely. Pain registered cleanly—sharp, immediate—but it didn’t interfere with motion.
Another step came in. Takemichi shifted forward instead of back. Into the gap. Not away from pressure—through it. The next strike missed by a narrow margin.
His expression stayed flat, controlled, almost detached on the surface. But inside, his mind was already breaking everything down into structure.
Angle. Timing. Distance. This wasn’t chaos. It was pattern recognition. And patterns could be read.
Atsushi shouted again somewhere behind him, voice higher now. “Takemichi!”
Another hit clipped his side. Pain flared, but his breathing stayed steady. He exhaled once. Then kept moving.
Kiyomasa watched from a short distance. Still not participating. Still observing.
But his eyes narrowed slightly now, like something about Takemichi’s movement didn’t fit the expectation of a middle school fight.
It wasn’t strength. It wasn’t aggression. It was control under pressure.
“…He’s not just flailing,” Kiyomasa muttered under his breath.
Behind him, Masaru stood at the edge of the playground. Still there. Still useless in the moment that mattered.
A second-year casually grabbed him again, almost bored. “Go get the soda.”
Masaru hesitated. Longer this time. His eyes flicked toward Takemichi again. There was something there now.
Not confidence. Not leadership. Just awareness that the situation had already decided what he was.
“…Yeah,” Masaru said finally. And walked away. No resistance. No argument. No change.
Takemichi saw it clearly. And it didn’t surprise him. It confirmed something he already knew from years ahead: People like that didn’t break systems. They adjusted to them.
Makoto shouted something incoherent while trying to swing again, but he was already losing structure. Atsushi was being forced backward, step by step, each movement stripping him of space.
Takuya got shoved into the fence. Metal rattled loudly on impact.
Yamagishi tried to say something—some kind of plan, some kind of logic—but it never fully formed before someone closed the distance on him and forced him to retreat again.
The group was collapsing in real time. Individually. Not all at once.
Takemichi exhaled again. Slow. Controlled.
His body adjusted automatically to another incoming strike. He didn’t overpower it. He redirected it. He wasn’t winning. Not yet.
But he wasn’t getting erased either. And in a fight like this—that already meant something.
The next punch that came at him didn’t get redirected. It got answered. His fist connected, but it didn’t feel like it used to.
Too light. Too small. Too weak. His expression tightened slightly.
This body…
It’s still this scrawny.
Another attacker rushed in.
Takemichi turned his shoulder, slipped inside the angle, and struck again. The impact landed cleanly enough to knock the opponent back, but even he could feel it—there was no weight behind it. No real destructive force.
Just precision. That irritated him. Because he remembered something else. A different body. A different version of himself that didn’t struggle this much just to make contact matter.
But there was no time to dwell on it. Another step forward. Another strike avoided. Another counter. The rhythm changed quickly after that. Not because the opponents got weaker.
But because Takemichi stopped reacting like a student and started reacting like something closer to what he had become later in life—someone used to survival, not rules.
One by one, the second-years started falling back. Not instantly. Not dramatically. But consistently.
Each of them getting intercepted, redirected, or struck hard enough to break their momentum.
Makoto, Akkun, Takuya, Yamagishi—slowly, space returned to them.
And the group that had moved in so confidently began to lose structure. Until only one remained standing.
Kiyomasa.
He looked at the scene in silence for a moment. Then he smiled. “…Interesting.”
His gaze locked directly onto Takemichi. “You,” he said slowly, “join Toman.”
A pause. Not hesitation from Takemichi. Just stillness.
Then—a glare. Cold. Flat. Unmoved.
He didn’t answer. Not because he was intimidated. Because he already decided what gangs meant to him.
Not ideology. Experience.
In the military, he had seen enough groups built on power and control to understand the pattern. Names changed. Flags changed. People didn’t.
Survival always looked the same underneath it.
Kiyomasa’s smile faded slightly. “…You’ve got guts,” he said quietly.
Then he stepped forward. One slow step. Then another.
“How do you want to die?”
The air shifted again. This time, there was no group. No distraction. Just distance closing between two people.
Kiyomasa moved first.
A clean, aggressive strike meant to overwhelm quickly. Takemichi barely managed to block it properly. Pain shot up his arm instantly. The difference in strength was obvious. He clicked his tongue internally.
Still too weak.
The next exchange came immediately. Then another. And another.
It stopped being a fight and became endurance.
Kiyomasa was stronger. Heavier hits. Better raw pressure.
But Takemichi had something else—timing, survival instinct, and refusal to break.
Minutes passed. Then more.
The world around them blurred into repetition: impact, breath, step, impact again.
Takemichi’s breathing grew heavier. His body started lagging behind his decisions. Every movement cost more than it should. Every block hurt more than it should. But he didn’t stop.
I’m going to train after this.
The thought kept repeating in his mind like an anchor.
I swear I will.
Eventually, Kiyomasa’s rhythm slipped. Just slightly. That was enough.
Takemichi stepped in. Not with force. With timing. A clean opening. A final exchange.
And Kiyomasa finally staggered backward.
Silence followed. Not immediate cheering. Not celebration. Just disbelief.
Kiyomasa dropped to one knee, breathing hard, staring up at him like he couldn’t fully accept what just happened.
Takemichi stood over him for a moment longer than necessary. Then the tension in his body finally gave out. His legs weakened. The exhaustion hit all at once. He started to fall.
“Takemichi!”
Atsushi moved immediately. He caught him before he hit the ground. His grip was tight, shaky.
“…You idiot,” Atsushi whispered, voice breaking slightly. “Why did you—”
Takemichi didn’t look at him. Didn’t respond properly. His mind was already elsewhere.
Training. Conditioning. Fixing this body. Fixing this weakness.
Atsushi lowered his voice. “…Thank you.”
Still no real response.
Takemichi finally pushed himself slightly upright with effort, eyes shifting toward the others for a moment.
Then— toward Masaru. His expression didn’t soften. Didn’t change. Just hardened slightly.
“Stop hanging around with losers like this.”
No explanation. No emotion. Just a statement.
Then he turned away.
~
A/N:
Yay! I was kind if looking forward to this AU since I've been dreaming of it after re-reading God of Blackfield and Mercenary Enrollment, so the moment I pressed the Post, I was really excited! Kindly leave kudos guys! Oh, and don't forget to subscribe. =)