Hasib sat quietly, letting the murmurs and stares of the crowd wash over him without response. He didn’t have the energy to argue with any of it.
Rocky noticed him sitting there, shoulders slumped, and let out a short, dry laugh, lips curling into something halfway between a smirk and a challenge.
"Hope you actually get Selected tomorrow," he said. "Otherwise you’re going to be a Legendary Warrior in name only."
He turned and started walking off without waiting for a response.
"Hey Rocky, wait!" Sara jogged after him, falling into step at his side. "I’ll walk with"
"Don’t," Rocky said flatly, not slowing down. "Go home, Sara."
She stopped mid-stride, her expression darkening as he kept walking without so much as a glance back.
Hasib watched the exchange, and something about the way she deflated pulled him out of his own gloom for a moment.
"Hey," he called after Rocky, forcing some life back into his voice. "That whole aloof, cool-guy act isn’t going to scare me off that easily. You and I are going to clash eventually count on it."
Rocky glanced over his shoulder, the faintest smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. "You sure about that?"
"Positive."
Beside him, Hina’s lips curved into a small, genuine smile.
The Principal approached a moment later, resting a hand briefly on Hasib’s shoulder. His voice, when he spoke, was quieter than usual meant for Hasib alone.
"Don’t let what everyone else thinks weigh on you," he said simply, then turned and walked away before Hasib could respond.
He’d barely processed that when Madam Habi arrived, sweeping him into a crushing hug against her chest before he could react.
"You’ve changed history today," she said, voice thick with emotion. "You shattered the indicator completely. Bravo, my boy!"
"Mmph Mam" Hasib tried, muffled, to pull his face free, and the moment he succeeded, his cheeks were burning red, whether from the hug or the sheer volume of the praise, he couldn’t say.
Far from the crowd, at the edge of a towering mountain ridge, Rocky sat alone in the branches of a solitary tree, staring out over the darkening horizon. There was no color in his expression at all flat, lifeless, his brow furrowed tighter with every passing second.
What am I even doing. His jaw tightened. How much longer until I’m actually the strongest?
A faint crackle of electricity began sparking across his skin, thin blue-white threads racing along his arms.
"I’m still so far behind," he muttered, fist clenching until the sparks snapped and hissed against his knuckles.
Bzzt.
He bared his teeth at the empty horizon.
"...We’ll meet again soon. I promise you that."
By the time Hasib said his goodbyes and started the walk back to his room, the streets had grown unusually quiet around him not silent, but hushed in a way that made his skin crawl. People he passed didn’t just glance at him; they stared, lingering a beat too long before looking away.
A shopkeeper ahead fumbled the tray of food in his hands, and it clattered to the ground the moment his eyes landed on Hasib.
"The devil’s shadow has fallen over this street," the man breathed, backing away.
A customer beside him blinked, confused. "What? What are you talking about?"
The shopkeeper pointed, voice rising. "That boy. He’s got dark power in him. I’ve heard about it already, everyone has."
Hasib stopped walking and turned toward them.
"I don’t have any ’dark power,’" he said evenly.
"I saw it myself," the shopkeeper snapped back, taking a step forward despite his own fear. "Your Nature reading turned black. Black! With my own eyes!"
"There’s nothing dark or evil in me "
"Shut your mouth."
Before Hasib could finish, a hand seized the front of his collar, yanking him forward. The shopkeeper, an iron ladle still clutched in his other fist from whatever he’d been cooking a moment before, swung it hard against the side of Hasib’s forehead.
CRACK.
"AH !"
Pain exploded through his skull, bright and sudden and in the same instant, a dark, jagged ’#’ -shaped mark bloomed to life beneath his hairline, pulsing faintly.
Something in Hasib snapped.
His hand shot out and closed around the shopkeeper’s throat, lifting him clean off the ground. The man’s feet kicked helplessly at the air, hands clawing at Hasib’s wrist, face rapidly reddening as he fought for a breath that wouldn’t come.
The street erupted into chaos. People screamed, scattering backward. A few braver bystanders rushed in to pull Hasib off only to be thrown aside like they weighed nothing at all, sent sprawling across the dirt.
Then, from two directions at once, a pair of long ribbons snapped through the air and wound tight around Hasib’s wrists, yanking his grip loose in an instant.
The ’#’ mark flickered once and vanished.
Hasib’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed to the ground, unconscious before he even hit the dirt.
The street didn’t calm down. If anything, it grew louder.
The shopkeeper, released and gasping on his knees, clutched his bruised throat and coughed violently between words. "M-monster... he’s a monster. A devil "
"How does a boy his age have that kind of strength?" someone else shouted. "That’s not natural. That’s dark, demonic power, plain and simple!"
Yamin Sir stood at the edge of the gathering crowd, ribbons still taut in his hands, eyes closed, brow furrowed in something close to restraint.
"Quiet," he said, low.
Nobody listened.
"I saw it with my own eyes!" a voice shot back. "Am I supposed to just stay silent after that? That boy needs to be thrown out of this city! Yes out! All the way out!"
A ripple of agreement spread through the crowd, voices rising in a chorus of "Yes! Out with him!"
Somewhere above, a sharp, distant cry split the air an eagle circling high over the rooftops.
Yamin Sir opened his eyes at last, and when he spoke, his voice carried an edge sharp enough to cut straight through the noise.
"Oh, is that so?" A humorless smile crossed his face. "Then I suppose I’ll be leaving this city right alongside the boy."
The crowd fell into stunned silence.
"What do the rest of you have to say to that?"
The Principal arrived at the scene, and the crowd’s anger cooled almost instantly, voices dropping into a respectful hush as he passed through them. Even the shopkeeper, still rubbing at his throat, straightened up and lowered his eyes.
They came at him all at once after that complaints, accusations, demands, everyone talking over everyone else, all of it circling back to the same point.
Make a decision. Decide what happens to the boy.
The Principal let them finish. Then he looked out over the crowd, his magnified eye unreadable behind the glass.
"Tell me something," he said, voice calm but carrying easily over the murmurs. "Are you pressuring me into a decision or is it that none of you actually trust my judgment?"
The crowd faltered. Nobody seemed to have an answer for that.
"No, sir, it’s just " someone started, then trailed off, unable to finish the sentence under his stare.
The Principal said nothing further. He didn’t need to.
Somewhere far from the noise of the street, Hasib’s eyes opened onto familiar darkness.
...What happened to me?
A translucent screen flickered into existence in front of him, cold blue script scrolling into place.
[SYSTEM — DAY 2]
[TASK 1 — Stretching]
[TASK 2 — Running]
[TASK 3 — Movement & Posture]
Hasib let out a slow breath.
Right. Straight back into this, then.
He almost laughed.
Honestly... better than whatever’s waiting for me out there.
He made his way toward the training space, and the threads were already waiting for him, drifting faintly in the air like they’d been expecting him. The moment he stepped close, they moved snapping around his shirt first and yanking it clean off in one motion before he’d even registered what was happening.
"H-hey! A little warning would be!"
The threads didn’t answer. They simply tightened, wrapping around his wrists and ankles and hauling him into position, and this time the stretch was worse than before far worse, joints and muscles pulled past anything they’d been asked to endure yesterday.
"AAAAGH!"
He gritted his teeth against the scream trying to tear its way out of him, sweat already beading along his hairline.
Fine. Fine I’ll take it. I’ll take all of it if I have to.
I’m not going to spend my life being a Warrior in name only. You hear me, Rocky?
"Auuh—! Easy—just, ease up a little—!"
The threads gave no indication of caring.
By the time the final stretch released him, Hasib was on his knees, breathing hard, hands trembling as he reached for his pants’ belt and fumbled it back into place.
A soft chime sounded.
[TASK 1 COMPLETE]
[REWARD: GREEN BOX]
He cracked the box open without much enthusiasm, already half-expecting what he’d find inside.
Of course. Boiled mushrooms and juice. Again.
He ate it anyway, forcing it down without complaint, the familiar warmth spreading through his chest exactly as it had the last time.
Another chime.
[TASK 2 — RUNNING]
Hasib rolled his shoulders, pushed himself back onto his feet, and exhaled.
"...Let’s go, then."