Chapter Text
It was early April in Tokyo, spring was in full swing with rain pouring down on the citizens of Japan. An audible cacophony of rainwater beat on the umbrellas of commuters. The angry horns of cars stuck in the horror of everyday morning traffic was the soundtrack for all to… enjoy? Amongst the crowd, one person managed to stick out enough not to be utterly consumed by the tsunami of commuters. Standing around 5’ 10”, he was wearing a bright blue shirt that had the word NOOB plastered across it and a red beanie on their head that was covered in several pins that referenced different gaming franchises, terminology, and memes. The rest of his outfit, was simple plaid jeans and a Shujin High School Blazer, both of which clashed with the shirt and beanie denoting his usual style. He planned to fix that problem and get new clothes during spring break, however, when the latest edition of the arcade classic “Gun-About” was brought into his favorite arcade in Akihabara, he had no choice but to spend his time securing, and then diligently defending his title as Shinya, “The King,” Oda. Of course, his title wasn’t so important that it would come before his classes, endangering his grades, just so he could beat some kids at a game. He didn’t need to be strong like that, that's what he learned a few years ago.
He tried his best not to forget them, but it’s been six, no, four years since he saw them last? That member of the Phantom Thieves helped him change his mother's heart. What happened to him? He never saw him again after teaching him the last of his Gun-About moves. “... What happened to you?” Shinya asked himself, trying to investigate the depths of his memories, finding nothing more than what he hated remembering, the arrest of the Phantom Thieves.
It wasn’t the time to think about this, he still had to figure out the train schedule to reach Shujin Academy. Shinya was in Shibuya now, all that was left was to hop onto the Ginza line and ride it to Aoyama-Itchome, then it would just be a short walk and he’d experience his first day of high school. Constantly going back and forth between riding and fighting against the wave of fellow commuters, he would finally reach the line and manage to get a seat just before the train left. He let out a heavy sigh of relief, then pulled out his phone to text a friend when he noticed some strange app, “What the hell? Did I download another mobile game by accident?” He questioned himself as he opened it trying to see if it was a fun one or just the usual false marketing garbage. However, doing so he just saw what appeared to be a text box for some sort of search input, which appeared to have the option of taking vocal commands too, weird. He decided to worry about it later when he suddenly got a text from someone.
Kk: “Hey dude, where are you? I’m waiting at the front gate.”
Yep, it was Kanemoto Kitasato, one of his closest friends. They became friends once Shinya realized he was bitter and aggressive as a kid and tried to make amends.
He opens up the texting app and taps away at the screen to respond, “What the…?” It was that weird app search box, he closed it back down and reopened the texting app again.
So: “Yeah sorry, I thought I would get there sooner but I missed the first train to Shibuya, didn’t get up quick enough. Should be there in time for class, make sure to save me a seat
Kk: “Damn, that sucks. First day though so even then you’d probably be fine. Oh btw my uncle told me someone beat your score apparently, figure you’d wanna know considering the whole King schtick”
So: “Seriously? Just when classes started too. Know who it was?”
Kk: “Nope, apparently it happened when he was on break and one of the new hires was covering for him.”
Shinya sighed.
So: “Ugh, well thanks for letting me know, real lucky of us that your uncle works there. Lotta good intel to get from him about my opponents.”
They ended texting with thumbs-up emojis. Shinya then looked around, he maybe had 20-ish minutes till the train would get to his stop, and he could probably fit in a quick nap before he arrived…… When he woke up he looked around to see he wasn’t on the subway. It looked like a bus but everyone was wearing weird black and white striped outfits like cartoon crooks. Was this like one of those dreams where people show up to class in their underwear or something?
“Alright everyone listen up!”
Shinya’s attention was suddenly pulled to the front of the bus as a tall man stood at the front with a baton in hand and was dressed in a velvet blue guard uniform and some sort of mask covering his face.
“From here on out you will be living under my master's roof and under his roof you will live under his instructions which are my instructions by extension, is that clear?”
The other passengers, other teens it seemed, all responded with a simultaneous and downtrodden, “Yeeesss.”
“What the?” Shinya looked around confused, and then he noticed Kanemoto sitting on the other side of the bus. Normally, he would just text him but feeling his pockets, he couldn’t find his phone, so he just decided to try and get his attention verbally. “Hey pssst, Kanemoto-Kun!” He waved to Kanemoto but his view of them was quickly blocked by the guard.
“Hey! Sit down and shut it!” Now that the guard was closer he would have a sudden horrifying realization, his skin wasn’t skin, it was more like some slime or thick oil… adding to the strange appearance of the guard was the mask he had on his face, which was a book with ‘YEARBOOK’ written along the spine of it.
“Oh uh sorry was just trying to say hi to-”
“I said quiet!” He raised his baton and swiftly began to bring it back down on Shinya’s face. Shocked and suddenly terrified of the coming pain he gasped and raised his arms to block his face, only to suddenly awaken again, as a man with messy brown hair, glasses, and a big brown coat gently shook him.
“Hey, are you alright? You were thrashing around a lot.” The man who woke him asked.
Disoriented and groggy Shinya looked around a bit and rubbed his eyes, “Huh? But I was, uh, right sorry. Thought I’d nap, just had a weird dream is all.” He responded, not overthinking what he saw in that dream, at least for the moment.
The man smiled. “Oh good, just want to be sure, better to be safe than sorry. Especially now.”
Shinya goes to look up at the man, “Uh Yeah thanks I gu-” The man was suddenly gone… Shinya decided taking a nap wasn’t the best idea at the moment.
What was meant to be just a 20-minute ride became 40 minutes because of a delay at the station, eventually he got off the S-train. After some walking, he finally arrived at the front gates of Shujin Academy. It was a nice enough building, he thought. He glanced around and didn’t see Kenemoto, they must have gone in already. He didn’t see anybody around actually. “The hell? This is Shujin Academy right?” As he went to check his phone and text Kanemoto, he saw the app was open and he noticed 3 small checkboxes in the app UI stating that 3 search terms were needed: Name, Location, and Distortion. The middle one, Location, had been checked off. “Fuck this things annoying, that's it.” He closed the app and then swiftly deleted it from his phone. That was when he suddenly noticed the time portrayed in the top left corner of his phone screen. SHIT! CLASS STARTED! He quickly bolted into the building. “Fuck fuck fuck, who’s class am I supposed to go to again? Daisuke Suto?” He failed to notice that his phone buzzed in his pocket with a confirmation notification. “No, that's the principal, who the hell is my teacher again?” He dug into his bag to find his schedule, not paying attention to the direction he was running in when he suddenly ran into somebody and fell back onto his butt as a result. “Woah! Ugh, sorry about that.” The person stood there, unresponsive. “Hey uh, do you know where… Arisu-san's classroom is?”
The student stood silently for a moment before pointing down the hall. “Room one three.” They responded.
“Oh thanks man I-” Before Shinya could finish saying thanks the student pushed past him and started going up the staircase nearby. “Okay then, rude.” He sighed before remembering he was late and quickly ran towards his class. Meanwhile, the strange student marched up the stairs until he reached the door to the school roof. Usually, it was supposed to be locked but for some reason, it wasn’t, he turned the doorknob and pushed it open.
Shinya arrived at his classroom door and with a sigh, cracked the door open to peek in. Inside he saw all the students were currently focused on the teacher up front. His eyes immediately widened and he smiled as he spotted two things. First was his friend Kanemoto, who was half asleep, in the same class as him. Kanemoto didn’t stand out as much with his clothes as Shinya did, usually wearing just jeans, long sleeves, a button-up shirt, etc. Though, right now he just had his Shujin uniform on. The second even better thing, there was an open chair right behind him! He whipped out his phone and started texting Kanemoto, who, on the verge of passing out, jumped in his chair surprised as he heard his phone jingle.
“Ughhhhh… wha?” He does his best to pull out his phone in a manner that the teacher won’t see, setting up a book to hide his phone behind.
So: “Yo, I’m here, good news: we're in the same class. Bad news for you, I’m cashing in my favor”
Kanemoto had almost forgotten that he owed Shinya for showing him how to properly combo and play in a bunch of the fighting games. The tournament he won with those lessons’ reward was so good he knew he’d end up needing to pay him back.
Kk: “So you did show up late, okay what's up.”
So: “Don’t wanna just walk in, catch everyone's attention, and get nagged by the teacher. That’d be embarrassing.”
Kk: “I thought the ‘King’ liked the spotlight?”
So: “Yeah at the arcade where I’m awesome! Here? Idk, I just wanna keep my head down till I can do something worthwhile.”
Kk: “Right, well what is your favor then?”
So: “I need a distraction so I can get in the open seat behind you!”
Kk: “Really man? Want me to just shout out to look out the window and then stutter about how I thought there was something cool orrr?”
So: “Idk! Just please”
Kk: “Alright dude come on, you're treating this place like standing out is gonna get you killed, like some old prison movie.”
Shinya sighed reading Kanemoto's response. “I mean it’s not much better than a prison, being stuck in classes all day, lunch probably sucks, not to mention the history of death and delinquency this place has. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if the principal looked and acted like the warden from that Alcatraz movie.” He chuckled to himself, not noticing as the texting app closed and the strange navigation app opened, with distortion filled out all 3 of the search criteria were filled.
“Destination found, beginning navigation”
He raised his phone and looked at it confused seeing that strange app open. “Wait but I del-”
The classroom door was opened by Arisu-San, the class's homeroom teacher. “Hello?” She looked around for a moment but seeing no one she shrugged and decided to simply step back into class to continue teaching. “Sorry about that class, thought I heard someone.”
Meanwhile, down the hall, someone was watching from around a corner… a young woman with long black hair that had a white streak in it and a Shujin Student Uniform, unsure of what to think of what she just saw before shaking her head and glancing around before deciding to hurriedly step out from the corner she was hiding behind to make her way back upstairs to her classroom.