Walking in the school hallways with multiple eyes on him, as other students were gossiping, whispering to each other about an eccentric with a gloomy and sullen guy wearing the same outfit as them walking past.
The guy is walking slowly, step by step as if his body is refusing to move, even though he was walking with his face down, staring at the floor, they could see on his face an emotionless and hopeless expression.
He heard what people were saying about him as he passed by them, but he had no intention of caring; instead, he continued walking in the direction he had set out for himself.
When he finally reached the destination, lies in front of him is a closed, wooden sliding door of a classroom; through the door, he could hear the sounds of chatting and laughing, and the voices were very familiar.
But before he opens the sliding door, he takes a moment to take a deep breath and glance again at the item he prepared in his pocket.
Screeeecchh!
"Hey, Shuku! You're late!"
Out of the eight people present, one tall and slightly chubby man called his name as soon as he opened the door and they all saw him.
"..."
Without giving Shuku a chance to react, the guy ran over and wrapped his arm around Shuku's neck, which he only lightly resisted.
"What did I tell you yesterday? There will be consequences if you don't behaveee!"
"..."
Shuku, still, doesn't say a single word, however, he stopped resisting and slightly nodded his head with an emotionless face.
The fat dude pats his shoulder and then removes his arm from Shuku's neck.
"That's more like it, now, since you are here, how about you go get us some sandwiches!"
He pushes Shuku's chest, urging him to immediately get him a sandwich.
And he obeyed, Shuku walks out of the classroom and shuts the sliding door behind him, and headed for the canteen, even though the chubby dude didn't give him any money for the sandwiches.
"Kubo! What did I tell you?"
After Shuku left, Kubo, the chubby guy who had instructed Shuku to buy the sandwiches, was approached by a long, black-haired girl wearing the school uniform and a skirt.
"I told you not to bully Shuku! And now you are ordering him to buy you sandwiches?!"
With an angry expression, furrowed brown eyes, hands on her hips, and a haughty tone of criticism, Kubo could only laugh and reply wryly.
"No, no Nozomi-chan! We are friends! He was just going to buy us breakfast! Besides he hang out with us many times, who would bully their friends?"
"This is not the first time! I have seen you forcing Shuku to do bad things! I have seen you use violence with him and I have warned you many times that if you continue, I will report you to the teachers!"
"Oh come on! It's not like the end of the world if we do this or something. Besides, Shuku doesn't resist, so why worry?"
"He doesn't resist because you threatened him! First Sano-kun now Shuku?! Honestly, I cannot withstand your bad behaviors anymore!"
"OK, how about you give me a chance? I promise this is gonna be the last time!"
"I have already heard your 'last time' enough Kubo! As a class monitor, I do not accept bullying behaviors in the class, and I will fulfill my duty by reporting you to the teachers!"
"What the FUCK did you say you little bitch?!"
Kubo grabs her collar.
"Bitch?!"
When Kubo starts to use curse words in the conversation, other students understand that things are going out of control.
"Woah Woah, hey! Calm down." The class's star, Hikari Yokoyama who have blonde hair, tries to ease the situation.
"Yeah, big bro! Chill!" His sister, Shina Kubo, from the lower classes, exclaimed.
Masahiro, Kubo's friend who is seated in the chair in the corner of the class, appears to be grinning despite the seeming gravity of the situation.
"Can you repeat what you just said again?!" Kubo looks menacingly at Nozomi as he asks with a threatening attitude.
"I said I will report you to the teachers!"
Kubo, who was already furious, had reached his breaking point and raised his fist.
As he was about to punch Nozomi with a fist, Masahiro jumped out and stood between them.
"Ok, things are about to go out of control, and you Nozomi, should know that fighting is against the rule."
"Me?! He's the one who did it first!"
Masahiro pushes Kubo away from Nozomi in an attempt to reconcile them.
"Ok, how about we go like this? You and Kubo will stop arguing and go back to your seats and start the lessons like always, and we will stop doing... whatever we were doing with Shuku, alright?"
"Why should I trust you?"
"Because that's my promise, not Kubo's. And I never break a promise!"
After giving Masahiro's offer some thought, Nozomi agreed it was a good temporary solution for the situation.
"Fine, but this would be the last time I see you bully Shuku-kun, if I see you guys do it again, then I won't compromise anymore."
"That's a correct choice." Masahiro answered.
Then, like what they agreed on, Nozomi goes back to her seat and takes out the books, and gets ready for the class to begin.
Meanwhile, Kubo takes Masahiro to a corner of the classroom and whispered:
"Why did you stop me?"
"Remember what we were doing last night?" He whispered back.
"Oh! I see what you meant."
"Let's do it for real tonight."
"Good idea, time to teach that bitch not to become cocky."
Nobody knows what their intentions are, but based on their tone and their despicable expression, it is possible to assume that whatever they have in mind will be absolutely terrible.
Just as their conversation has ended, Shuku came back with the sandwich in his hand.
"Oh, you're back, you're lucky this time... just give me the sandwich-"
The entire class watches in disbelief as they realize what they just saw, and fear and anxiety suddenly reappear on everyone's faces as if a switch had been flipped.
As soon as it went, the horrible atmosphere returned. Shuku, without warning, disdainfully threw the sandwich at Kubo's face.
"What the fuck did you just do?!"
Shuku, for the first time in the day, opened his mouth. And his words are filled with anger and bitterness:
"You know what? I have had enough of you two, this is a school but all you did was take me out in a dark corner and beat me up every single day.
You made me go buy food for you, pay protection money for you, used me as a punching bag, and threatened me if I didn't obey your orders."
He paused for a moment to take a breath, then continued his denounces.
"And I thought you could only do that far so I patiently endure it till it's over. But no, you two not only bullied me but also harmed unrelated people, that's when I don't want to endure you anymore.
All the humiliation, and pain that you caused me, today I will repay it in full. And you rotten pigs shouldn't exist."
Shuku's word has left the entire classroom speechless, all the attention now points at Shuku and Kubo standing in the middle of the room.
They were all surprised to witness Shuku confronting his bully Kubo for the first time.
Others watch in terror as conflict is about to reach its climax.
"What the fuck did you just say?"
"Hey, calm down now Kubo! He's probably joking!" Masahiro stands on the chair.
Despite his efforts, Masahiro can't undo what has happened.
Kubo's anger is at its peak, and the fist he is making is the strongest he has ever made.
He is furious, especially after being embarrassed by Nozomi earlier and now by Shuku.
It's too much for him to handle, and he's like a volcano ready to erupt, even if others try to calm him down, they won't be able to stop the inevitable from happening.
"OH MY GOD! SOMEBODY CALL THE TEACHER!"
A girl screamed, despite her pleas, however, everyone is too terrified to move even an inch, hoping that they won't be dragged into the conflict.
"Shuku, what are you saying? Say Sorry to Kubo, NOW!!"
Yokoyama desperately makes a final attempt to diffuse the situation, but when Shuku repeats his words, it is all for nothing.
"Did you not listen carefully? I SAID YOU ARE A BUNCH OF PIGS WHO ONLY LIVE TO SATISFY YOUR BRAIN FULL OF SHITS!"
It's too late. Kubo's eyes are now filled with pure rage and anger as he clenches his fist tighter and tighter with veins popping out of his forehead.
And Shuku himself knows what was coming and he was ready for it.
The terror has reached its peak as Kubo's arm swung back, ready to deliver a fatal blow to Shuku's face.
"I'll KILL YOU MOTHER FUCKER!!!!"
As Kubo's fist came hurtling toward Shuku's face, the world around them seems to slow down to him, his decision right now would be the turning point of his fate, and he is sure and determined about what he was ready to do.
Then all of a sudden...
"What the-!"
"Why is the floor glowing?"
Everyone, even Kubo and Shuku, halted and looked down at the wooden floor, which had transformed into something that was emitting a blindingly bright white light.
It's so bright that most of them had to cover their eyes with their arms, but's that not the only thing happening.
"OH, MY GOD!! Our bodies are disappearing! What is happening!!!"
They start to notice their own bodies are disintegrating into shiny particles beginning with their heads and the tip of their fingers down to their hands and going to the bottom of their feet.
"HELP!!!"
"I'm disappearing! HEL-"
"SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP U-"
Asking for help in hopelessness when their bodies continue to disintegrate with no one from outside knowing anything.
Since the disintegration started from their head, their brain was the first thing to disappear, so they lose consciousness as soon as they notice the strange phenomenon happening.
And a few seconds later, the entire classroom became empty, nine students who were just standing in there were now evaporated into thin air.
But that's what outsiders would see, for the ones who are really experiencing the disintegration such as Shuku, all they could see is the blindly bright white light suddenly turning into something dark and pitch black.
Their consciousness ceases to exist for a second, and their experience we like as if they weren't existing at all.
Then all of a sudden, everything came back, their vision, senses, and bodies rushing return and in front of their eyes, there is a gigantic and deep white hole.
This hole resembles a black hole in the universe, except its white, it is so big and deep that they couldn't see where it ends, and they both felt their bodies moving at speed faster than light but also motionless at the same time.
But unlike a black hole, the hole they are falling into is full of light, and colorful rays of color spanning from red, green all the way to purple hit their eyes forming a rainbow spectrum halo around the bright white background.
And in the middle of the hole they could see a pitch black point so tiny and so far away into infinity that everything seems to come out of that point, that's the singularity.
This experience happen for about a couple of seconds, during that time they couldn't blink, talk, or even move at all but can still witness and feels everything.
Until the hole starts getting brighter and brighter and the rays start getting more and more intense, the singularity suddenly moves further away from them despite they feel they are traveling even faster and more violently until they could not see anything else but just white light as if someone has taped a flashlight into their eyes.
Then, slowly, everything came back to normal, the white light in front of their eyes began to fade away, giving back their ability to control their own bodies and their normal vision.
For Shuku, he could see his "friends", all 8 of them with him lying on the ground, suffering from dizziness and nausea feeling after the disintegration.
But aside from the same uniform, they were in another place, it seems like they have been teleported to somewhere else, somewhere so unfamiliar that they don't know whether it was the same world they used to live in.
Because hitting their eyes is a big room with white walls possibly made of made limestone or marble, on top of them is a big, shiny ceiling chandelier made of gold.
As Shuku came to realize when his fingers touch the ground, they are lying under a red carpet that felt very comfortable, he moves his eyes to follow the red carpet trail that leads to a few small stairsteps.
And an adult man with a brown and curvy beard sitting on a giant golden throne with a shiny diamond crown on his head and a red robe around him appeared.
Next to him stands an old man who wears a white suit and a white robe with golden lines, he wears a big hat with the same style on top and a cross necklace, and Shuku immediately recognizes the similarity between the old man and the pope of a cult.
'Christianity also exists in this world?'
But there were other people aside from his friends and the two-man he saw.
Currently surrounding them in a circle are six soldiers who wear medieval-kind metal armor, the soldiers are pointing swords and spears at them.
"Ehem! Greetings great heroes from another world!" The pope guy suddenly spoke up.
"What the heck? Where are we? Who are they?"
A classmate exclaimed, after the whole group stabilized the situation, they kept silent to listen to what the pope had to say.
"We welcome you to the land of Apomis, you are summoned by the Great King of Apomis, King Solus! All of you here to help us save the world from the rising forces of the Demon Lord."
"What did he say?"
"Demon Lord?"
"Are we reincarnated? Into another world?"
Right at the first sentence, the pope shocked them with his earth-shaking announcement.
They soon understand that they are no longer in their old world, they are asked to be the heroes and save a world in which they don't even know with.
Would this new world be an opportunity for them? Or would it turn out to be something worse?