The next morning came fast.
Way too fast.
Daiki was subconsciously dragging himself out of bed to be thrown into hell.
And he barely had time to become conscious before the sound of Kojiro's whistle ripped through the training grounds like a gunshot.
"UP! MOVE! BEDTIME IS OVER, GET TO MOVING!"
Class 1-F scrambled out onto the track, groaning and stumbling.
Daiki was still half-asleep.
The sun wasn't even fully up yet.
But unsurprisingly, Kojiro was wide awake, grinning like a man who lived for this.
He probably did.
"Yesterday," Kojiro said, pacing in front of them with a hand on his katana, "was just the warm-up. That was me being merciful."
Daiki wanted to yawn really badly, but he didn't want to know if Kojiro considered that disrespectful.
"For the next couple of weeks," he continued, eyes gleaming, "you will endure those three phases of training I put you through. Every. Single. Morning."
Everyone was far too tired to make any comments, and no one dared to groan.
That made Kojiro smile.
"Good. Now it's time to start."
Kojiro blew the whistle again.
"RUN!"
Phase One: Conditioning.
They ran.
And ran.
And ran.
The laps began to blur together in Daiki's head into a messy mix that he couldn't count anymore.
Ten.
Twenty.
Thirty.
The air in Daiki's lungs felt like fire, and his legs were screaming at him. Sweat soaked through everyone's uniforms. Footsteps became sloppy. Breathing turned ragged.
Beside him, Ren looked miserable for the first time ever.
Yui's breathing was shaky, but she was still keeping pace.
Two more hours passed.
No one collapsed.
Kojiro wouldn't let them.
"KEEP MOVING!" he barked. "ONLY I DECIDE WHEN YOU STOP!"
By the time he finally raised a hand and called for a break, almost everyone dropped to the ground like corpses waiting to be buried.
"Five minutes," Kojiro said cheerfully. "Drink water. Don't sit. If you sit, you get expelled."
Daiki bent over, hands on his knees. "....Being expelled doesn't sound so bad right now."
Yui stood upright, putting her arms on a nearby gate to make sure she wouldn't fall.
Daiki noticed something about her immediately.
She was tired like everyone else, but was mostly composed.
That made Daiki calm and stand straight.
Five minutes passed in what seemed like seconds, and the whistle screamed again.
"COMBAT!"
Right back to hell.
"One by one," Kojiro said, rolling his shoulders. "Just like yesterday. You may use your Ketsugojin. I will not."
He smirked.
"If you manage to get a clean hit on me, you win. If you hit the ground, you lose."
Phase Two: Combat
The first challenger was...
Ren Takagi.
He cracked his neck, grinning despite the exhaustion. "Everyone step back, I got this."
Kojiro raised an eyebrow.
Ren slammed his foot into the ground, reinforcing his body with the stone beneath him as his Ketsugojin activated. His body hardened, and he moved more heavily.
Essence Reinforcement.
"Alright, I need payback for yesterday, so let's go!"
He charged forward like a bull and began delivering blows.
Kojiro dodged, weaving between blows, watching carefully.
Ren pressed forward, increasing the volume of his attacks, trying to overwhelm through sheer brute strength.
Kojiro slipped past a punch and sent a firm palm-strike square in the chest, sending him to the ground.
"Done."
Ren stared. "....Seriously?"
Kojiro snorted.
"You hit hard, but that doesn't matter because..."
Kojiro began to think of a word to use.
He decided to just be straightforward.
"You're an idiot. You don't think, you just swing. That works on the street, but not here. You don't win by punching first. You win by punching right."
Ren scratched the back of his head. "...Yeah. Fair."
After that, Daiki looked to his left, and then his right, and then looked back at Kojiro.
Nobody wanted to step up.
A long and deep sigh exited from Daiki's mouth without him realizing.
He decided to step forward.
"Don't blink," Ren muttered from behind him. "He'll flatten you."
"Good advice," Daiki said. "I'll try not to."
He rolled his shoulders once, inhaling slowly.
The adrenaline began to rise like the heat in a sauna.
Surge responded to it immediately.
Reiki flared beneath his skin like a firework. His pulse thundered in his ears. The exhaustion from the run dulled, then vanished entirely, replaced by heat and sharp clarity.
Kojiro tilted his head.
"Oh?" he muttered. "Move first, lamb."
Daiki didn't hesitate.
He launched forward, feet cracking against the stone as he accelerated fast.
He fired a punch at Kojiro's head, which Kojiro ended up blocking with his forearm.
Daiki followed up with a kick to his chest, which Kojiro sidestepped.
Then Daiki tried a hook to his chin, which Kojiro redirected with his palm.
Daiki kept moving forward, each punch gradually growing in strength and speed as Surge amplified his strength. He threw a barrage of strikes without pause, chaining punches and kicks together like he was trying to drown Kojiro in momentum alone.
Despite it all, Kojiro moved calmly through the storm.
He stepped aside. Redirected. Let Daiki's lack of control burn him down to the ground.
Daiki adjusted, pivoted, and then attacked again.
Harder. Faster.
His foot slammed into the ground, cracking the stone beneath him as he launched forward with another wild burst of force.
His legs trembled. The bruises and splits on his knuckles reopened.
That was his body was screaming at him to slow down.
It didn't matter.
He had to grow stronger.
Kojiro waited...
And waited.
Until the moment came.
Daiki overextended on a wide hook.
Kojiro slipped inside the arc of the punch and punched Daiki right in the gut.
Hard.
"Done."
Daiki fell to his knees, grabbing his stomach.
"...That was cheap," he muttered.
Kojiro walked past him and laughed.
"No! You're just weak."
Daiki clenched his fists, frustration flashing across his face as he looked up at Kojiro.
"I almost had you."
"You almost ran yourself into the ground," Kojiro replied coolly. "You treat every opening like it's the end of the fight."
That made Daiki shut his mouth.
"You're like a racer that immediately goes to a hundred miles per hour and gets shocked when he crashes. You can see it all over your body."
Daiki swallowed and put his head down.
Kojiro paused just long enough to add, "Learn to pace yourself. If you don't, a predator will bait you into killing yourself."
Daiki stepped back into the line, heart still racing.
Ren stared at him.
"You did pretty good."
Daiki wiped sweat from his face, jaw tight.
"Yeah," he muttered. "I guess."
After that, several more students went, most losing quickly, some barely lasting longer than a breath.
Eventually, only one student remained.
Yui Tsukiko.
She stepped forward quietly, hands clenched at her sides.
Kojiro watched her closely. "Take your time."
Yui nodded.
Her Ketsugojin—Yurei Sovereign—activated smoothly and precisely. Her Reiki flowed outward, forming delicate patterns in the air before merging into shape.
One Yurei manifested. Daiki recognised it. It was the short, fat one[1] from the Hollow District.
It looked way calmer than before. Less feral, like Yui had taken the violence out of it.
After that, two more were released as well.
One appeared like a wolf, with white fur and a cloud-like tail[2].
The other looked like a slightly oversized owl. It stood on Yui's shoulder[3].
Daiki didn't recognise those two.
She had probably gotten them from Mushin City.
They stood around her, forming a loose and defensive perimeter.
Kojiro's eyes sharpened.
"Good," he said. "Show me something."
Yui didn't rush.
She moved backwards as the fight began, guiding her summons with hand gestures. Yoshiro lunged low for Kojiro's legs, while Mokkori jumped in the air to punch Kojiro's face.
Hoosuke stayed on her shoulder with watchful and piercing eyes.
Kojiro punted Yoshiro away like a football, then dodged Mokkori's punch.
And then....
Yui waved her finger.
And seemingly out of nowhere, Reiki flared behind Kojiro.
A cluster of distorted figures emerged from thin air.
That made everyone's eyes widen.
It was a pack of Yurei, claws inches from his back.
Daiki recognised them immediately.
The same ones that nearly killed them.
Yui took the opening, directing the three other Yurei to collapse inward at once.
Kojiro grabbed his katana from his sheath for the first time and twisted at the last moment, releasing multiple rapid strikes in a 360-degree motion, which sent all of the Yurei flying back.
The class gasped.
Kojiro's grin transformed into a wild smile.
"Well done, little lamb."
Then he moved.
In a blink, he stepped forward, cutting through the air in a straight line.
And then he delivered a palm strike into Yui's stomach.
She fell to the ground immediately, and her summons returned to her chest in the form of wisps.
"Done."
Yui stiffened, then looked up at Kojiro, breathing hard.
Kojiro looked down at her.
"Excellent battlefield awareness. Your control is incredibly refined. But you rely too much on distance."
He tapped his own chest. "If someone gets inside your range, you're finished. Improve your close-quarters combat. Learn to fight along with the monsters that fight for you."
Yui nodded, absorbing every word carefully. "...Yes, sir."
She stepped back into formation.
Daiki glanced at her. "You almost got him."
Yui shook her head. "....I got lucky."
Phase Three: Control
Kojiro paced slowly in front of them.
"A lot of you still lack control," Kojiro said plainly. "Which makes you exactly what the school thinks you are."
He stopped in front of them all.
"But that," he grinned widely, eyes sharp and uhinged, "is perfect."
That made everyone turn their heads.
"None of you possesses 'weak' Ketsugojin. Far from it."
A moment.
"What separates you from everyone else is the way you use it. These last two days served as the knowledge I needed to refine you into something brand new."
He spread his arms wide.
"I lied to you lot again. These last two days were not training."
His grin twisted into a smile.
"They were evaluation."
Kojiro began softly laughing to himself.
"The phases were bullshit, kinda. If I trained you like normal students, you'd grow stronger. Sure."
He shrugged.
"But you still wouldn't surpass the other classes."
His gaze sharpened.
"And I have absolutely no interest in raising sheep."
Something more dangerous began to climb into his voice.
"From this point on, I will individually transform each and every one of you into lions that will devour anyone in your way."
He blew the whistle one final time.
"Training dismissed."
Groans echoed across the field like an orchestra.
Daiki wiped sweat from his face.
His legs trembled.
His arms hurt.
His heart pounded like a drum.
Today had hurt.
Tomorrow would be far worse.
Daiki didn't know what Kojiro had planned up his sleeve.
But for the first time ever—
He was looking forward to it.
[1] Special fact: Yui's Yurei all have names! This one is: Mokkori.
[2] This one's name is Yoshiro.
[3] This one is Hoosuke. There is a reason why Yui names her Yurei that will be explained later!