Monday Morning. History Class.
The bell rang, a shrill, mechanical shriek that made half the class jump, their nerves still frayed from the recent "gas leak" evacuation.
St. Swithin's was back to "normal," or at least, the version of normal that Akuma Cronus had paid for. The shattered glass in the main hall had been replaced overnight, the new panes gleaming innocently in the morning sun. The blood had been scrubbed from the marble with industrial chemicals that left a faint, stinging scent of lemon and bleach in the air. The rumors of a "deranged intruder" and a "tragic accident" had been circulated, digested, and accepted by the student body because the truth was too terrifying to believe.
But the air in the classroom was thick enough to choke on. It felt heavy, charged with static, like the moments before a thunderstorm breaks.
Eiden sat in the back row, the seat nearest the wall. He was wearing his uniform, the blazer pressed and the tie knotted correctly, but it felt like a costume on a stranger. Underneath the crisp white shirt, his chest was taped tight with layers of compression bandages to support his three broken ribs. Every breath was a negotiation with pain. His burned hand was wrapped in a black compression glove that he kept hidden under the desk. He sat still, unnatural stillness, a statue of discipline amidst the fidgeting students. His eyes weren't watching the blackboard; they were scanning the exits, the thickness of the glass windows, the hands of the teacher reaching for a piece of chalk.
He wasn't learning history. He was assessing kill zones. He was a Wolf in a pen, waiting for the butcher.
The door opened. The sound of the latch clicking echoed in the silence.
Emily walked in.
The room went dead quiet. Not a whisper. Not a rustle of paper. She was the Princess, after all, and royalty commanded attention. But today, she looked... different. She was immaculate, her uniform pressed to military precision, her hair a perfect, shining curtain. But her face was a porcelain mask. Her eyes, usually full of fire or laughter, were flat and hard like colored glass.
She walked down the aisle, her footsteps rhythmic and deliberate. She didn't look at her friends, Sasha and Luna, who watched her with wary expressions. She didn't look at the teacher, who paused mid-sentence.
She stopped at Eiden's desk.
The entire class held its breath. The last time they were seen together, they were the "power couple" of the school, the inseparable pair who ruled the hallways. Now, the air between them was cold enough to frost the windows.
Eiden looked up. He expected anger. He expected the "Dragon" who had shot men in the crypt, the girl who had looked at him with betrayal in the vault.
Instead, Emily looked at him with a soft, sad expression. It was a fleeting thing, a crack in the ice.
"Is this seat taken?" she asked quietly, her voice devoid of its usual sharpness.
Eiden blinked, caught off guard. "No."
She sat down next to him. She placed her books on the desk with precise movements. She didn't speak for the rest of the class. She stared straight ahead at the chalkboard, her posture rigid.
But under the desk, her hand moved.
Eiden felt a light touch on his knee. He didn't flinch. She slid a folded piece of paper onto his lap.
He waited until the teacher turned to write a date on the board. He opened it carefully with his good hand.
The handwriting was elegant, sharp, and hurried.
Don't talk to me. Don't look at me. My father is watching. Every shadow in this room belongs to him. If you care about your life, stay away.
Eiden looked at the note. He read it twice. It wasn't a threat. It was a warning. A desperate plea from a girl trapped in a tower.
He looked at her profile. She was staring straight ahead, her jaw set so tight a muscle feathered in her cheek. She looked terrified.
She's protecting me, Eiden thought, a wave of relief washing over him, dulling the pain in his ribs. She knows her father is the monster. She's playing a part to keep him happy, but she's still with me.
He folded the note and hid it in his pocket, close to his heart. He didn't see the slight, almost imperceptible tremor in her hand as she gripped her pen. He didn't know that she wasn't protecting him. She was hunting him. And the most effective trap—the one that catches the Wolf every time—is the one that looks like a shelter.
The Lunchroom
"She's lying," Hazel whispered.
The "Pack" was gathered at a small table in the corner of the cafeteria. Harry was picking at his food, looking nervous. Margot was watching the doors.
"What do you mean?" Eiden asked, keeping his voice low.
"The note," Hazel said, analyzing the handwriting. "It's too perfect. 'My father is watching.' It establishes a common enemy. It isolates you from her, but keeps you on her hook. It's a classic manipulation tactic."
"She saved my life in the vault," Eiden argued.
"That was before she talked to Akuma," Hazel countered. "People change, Eiden. Especially when their world breaks. Look at her."
Eiden looked across the room. Emily was sitting at the "Royal Table" with Sasha, Luna, and Sophia. She wasn't eating. She was holding court. She looked cold, regal, and untouchable.
"She's scared," Eiden insisted.
"She's preparing," Hazel corrected.
Suddenly, the cafeteria doors slammed open.
It wasn't a student.
It was a boy, roughly Eiden's age, but twice as wide. He wore a heavy coat that looked like it was made of stitched-together leather scraps. His hair was a shaggy mane, and he had a scar running through his eyebrow.
He didn't carry a tray. He carried a presence that smelled of wet fur and ozone.
He walked into the room, kicking a chair out of his way. It skittered across the floor and crashed into a wall.
Silence fell instantly.
"The Bear," Eiden whispered.
It was Kane. The assassin from the Bear Claw Clan.
Kane stopped in the center of the room. He sniffed the air.
He ignored the teachers. He ignored the terrified students.
He turned his head slowly until his eyes locked on Eiden.
"Found you," Kane rumbled. His voice sounded like rocks grinding together.
"Who is that?" Harry squeaked.
"Trouble," Eiden said, standing up. "Clear the area."
Kane didn't wait for a duel. He charged.
He moved with the momentum of a freight train. He grabbed a heavy oak table and flipped it as he ran, sending plates and food flying like shrapnel.
Eiden shoved Harry and Hazel out of the way. "MOVE!"
He barely had time to brace himself before Kane was on him.
Kane didn't use technique. He used brute force. He swung a fist the size of a ham.
Eiden ducked, the wind of the punch ruffling his hair. He tried to counter with a "River" strike to the ribs, but he was too slow, too hurt. The movement pulled at his own broken bones, and his hit lacked power.
It was like punching a brick wall. Kane didn't even flinch.
Kane grabbed Eiden by the throat, lifted him off the ground, and slammed him into a concrete pillar.
Eiden's vision went white. His broken ribs screamed in agony.
"Wolf pup," Kane sneered, tightening his grip, cutting off Eiden's air. "Vorian sends his regards. He wants your head."
BANG!
A ceramic plate shattered on Kane's head.
Kane roared, dropping Eiden. He spun around, wiping gravy from his eye.
Emily was standing there. She had thrown her lunch plate with perfect accuracy. Her eyes were blazing.
"Get out of my school," she ordered.
Kane laughed, a deep, rumbling sound. "The Princess. I heard about you. Vorian said you were the bait. You have a good arm."
He backhanded her. It was a casual blow, but it had the weight of a sledgehammer. It sent Emily sprawling across the floor, sliding into a table.
Something inside Eiden snapped. The pain vanished. The "Devil" woke up.
He didn't think. He lunged.
He tackled Kane around the waist, driving him backward through the swinging double doors into the kitchen.
They crashed onto the tiled floor amidst screaming staff and clattering pans. The kitchen was a maze of stainless steel prep tables, steaming pots, and open flames.
Kane roared and threw Eiden off like a ragdoll. Eiden slid across a prep table, knocking off a tray of cutlery.
Kane grabbed a heavy meat cleaver from a butcher block. The steel glinted in the fluorescent light.
"I'm going to carve you up, Wolf," Kane growled.
Eiden scrambled back, grabbing a heavy wooden rolling pin. It was a pathetic defense against a cleaver.
It was a brawl. Messy, violent, and desperate. Steam hissed from overturned pots.
Kane swung the cleaver, chopping deep into the steel table where Eiden's hand had been a second before. Eiden smashed the rolling pin into Kane's wrist, but the Bear just grunted and swung again.
Eiden slipped on spilled soup, falling hard on his injured side. He gasped, paralyzing pain shooting through his chest.
Kane loomed over him, raising the cleaver for a killing blow. "Done."
"NOW!"
A voice cut through the noise. It wasn't Eiden. It wasn't Emily.
It was Hazel.
She stood at the kitchen door, calm as a general surveying a battlefield. She pointed a finger.
"Harry! The suppression system!"
Harry, who had scrambled onto a high counter near the ceiling, jammed a long screwdriver into the emergency sprinkler valve's release mechanism.
HISSSSS!
A torrent of white, chemical fire-suppression foam exploded from the ceiling nozzles directly above Kane. It was thick, blinding, and cold.
Kane roared, blinded, swinging the cleaver wildly at the air. "I can't see! What is this?!"
"Margot! The oil!" Hazel commanded.
Margot appeared from under a prep table behind Kane—she had been there the whole time, unseen, waiting for the signal. She kicked a five-gallon drum of used cooking oil over.
The golden liquid flooded the floor around Kane's feet.
Kane took a step back to wipe the foam from his eyes and hit the oil slick.
His feet went out from under him. He crashed down with an earth-shaking thud, the cleaver skittering away across the tiles. He tried to get up, but the oil made it impossible; he was like a turtle on its back, slipping and sliding.
Eiden didn't waste the opening. He scrambled up, grabbed a heavy cast-iron skillet from a burner, the metal still hot.
He brought it down on Kane's head with a resounding CLANG.
Kane groaned, his eyes rolling back, but he was still trying to rise, his Bear endurance unnatural.
"Clear out!" Eiden yelled at his team. "Go! Now!"
Harry dropped from the ceiling, Hazel grabbed Margot, and they scrambled back through the doors just as Kane roared, throwing the skillet aside. But the fight was out of him. He was blind, slick with oil, humiliated, and sirens were wailing in the distance.
He smashed through the back delivery door, taking the frame with him, and vanished into the alley.
Silence fell in the kitchen. The only sound was the hiss of the dying foam and Eiden's ragged breathing.
He leaned against a counter, wiping white foam from his face. His ribs were throbbing in time with his heart.
Emily stood up from where she had fallen near the entrance. She wasn't looking at the door where Kane had fled.
She was looking at the kitchen entrance.
Harry, Hazel, and Margot were standing there, looking at Eiden with concern. They hadn't run away. They were waiting for him.
"You okay, boss?" Harry asked, adjusting his crooked glasses.
"That was... effective," Hazel nodded, checking her watch. "Response time was adequate. Though the foam was messy."
Margot ran to Eiden, handing him a clean towel. "Your ribs! I saw him hit you. Are you bleeding?"
Emily walked over. Her steps were slow, crunching on broken glass. The ice in her eyes had cracked, revealing confusion, and then... a terrifying realization.
She looked at Harry, the nerd she had ignored for years. Hazel, the genius who sat in the back. Margot, the invisible girl she used to bully.
She looked at Eiden, the center of their orbit.
"You..." Emily whispered.
The three students froze. They looked at the Princess, fear creeping back into their faces.
"You're not just students," Emily said, her voice trembling with a mix of awe and horror. "You're... his."
She looked at Eiden.
"You built an army," she said. "Right here. In my school. Under my nose. While I was 'protecting' you."
Eiden straightened up, wincing. He didn't deny it. "I needed eyes. I needed to survive."
"You needed spies," Emily corrected. Her face hardened again, the mask sliding back into place, colder than before. The doubt was gone. The narrative her father had spun was true. He was a Wolf. He did hunt in a pack. And he had turned her classmates into his soldiers.
"My father was right," she whispered, stepping back from the oil slick. "You infect everything you touch. You turn children into weapons."
She turned and walked out of the kitchen, stepping carefully over the mess.
Harry looked at Eiden, terrified. "Did we... did we mess up?"
Eiden watched the door swing shut, cutting off the view of Emily's retreating back.
"No, Harry," Eiden said softly. "You saved my life."
He looked at his Pack.
"But I think I just lost her for good."