The insistent, frantic trill of a smartphone alarm shattered the morning silence. It pulsed against the nightstand, a digital demand for Rin Kuga to abandon the sanctuary of his dreams.
He stirred, squinting against the soft morning light filtering through the clock shop's windows. With a heavy yawn, he tossed back the duvet and let his feet find his slippers. He navigated the sea of brass gears and ticking pendulums toward the bathroom, moving with the sluggishness of a man who had spent the previous night rewriting the laws of physics.
When Rin had first manifested in this reality, he had discovered that the Singularity Interface provided more than just the Ohma Zi-O Driver and the Kujigojido sanctuary. It had seamlessly woven him into the fabric of society as a high school student.
Initially, he had considered discarding the persona entirely. Why play at being a student when I hold the power of a Demon King? With the Interface gone, there was no need to go to school.
However, he quickly realized the necessity of the mask. This wasn't just a world of ordinary teenagers; it was a volatile intersection of realities, teeming with the protagonists and predators of countless histories. Beneath the surface of student councils and club activities, the shadow of the Amazon threat loomed. Furthermore, he discovered a chilling limitation: the world-resetting capability of the Ohma Zi-O power—the ability to restart time itself—was locked. To use it in this fractured, overlapping reality would cause the entire dimensional tapestry to unravel beyond repair.
For now, he would play the role assigned to him.
Emerging from the bathroom, Rin pulled on the tailored blazer of his new school. He slung a drawstring bag over his right shoulder and stepped out into the crisp morning air.
Shuchiin Academy. It was a fortress of the elite—a sanctuary for the heirs of conglomerates, the children of political dynasties, and the most brilliant minds of the generation. It was into this den of privilege that Rin Kuga had been dropped as a mid-term transfer student.
As he walked the paths paved with pristine stone, a familiar, irritating sensation prickled at the edge of his awareness. The air around him was thick with whispers. Groups of girls paused mid-sentence, their gazes lingering on him with a focus that bordered on predatory.
"Who is that? I haven't seen him before... look at his face. He's really handsome."
"Right? He looks like he walked straight out of a magazine. I wonder if I can get his LINE?"
"Forget LINE—I'd die happy if a guy like that just looked my way..."
A sea of fluttering pleated skirts and youthful faces blurred past him, their hushed excitement trailing in his wake. Rin ignored them. He kept his stride steady, heading straight for the administrative wing.
A short while later, he stood at the front of a classroom.
"I'm Rin Kuga. I'm a transfer student starting today. I look forward to working with you all."
The introduction was perfunctory, delivered with a practiced apathy that leaned heavily on the tropes of the very media this world seemed to mimic. To Rin, this classroom was merely a forward operating base—a place to monitor the ripples in causality and hunt the monsters hiding in human skin.
The reaction, however, was anything but subtle. His presence hit the room like a heavy stone dropped into a mirror-still pond. A collective gasp rippled through the rows, followed by an immediate, frantic buzz of conversation that the teacher's desperate shouts for order could not suppress.
In the back corner of the room, Utaha Kasumigaoka sat frozen.
The moment the first syllable left his lips, a jolt of recognition electrified her. She didn't need to see the armor to know that voice. Her eyes narrowed, sharpening into silver blades as she locked onto the young man standing by the podium.
So, we meet again sooner than I thought.
A slow, dangerously carnivorous smile spread across her lips. She traced the lines of his silhouette—the same one that had walked away from her in the dark.
"Rin Kuga, is it?" she whispered to herself, her voice a silken promise of trouble. "You've got quite the nerve. Now... let's see how long you can keep that bored expression when I'm finished with you."