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MMA - Highschool Victory Road!

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Time: 8:15 AM The February sun streamed through the high windows of classroom 1-A, illuminating dust particles dancing like tiny stars. The smell of waxed wood, new chalk, and the clean scent of freshly pressed uniforms filled the air. Twenty-five chairs were arranged in a semicircle, most occupied by teenagers whose eyes mixed excitement and anxiety. Teacher Homura, a man in his fifties with salt-and-pepper hair and thin-rimmed glasses, was gently tapping a ruler against his palm. — Well, it seems we're almost complete — his voice was calm, teacherly. — Just one missing... ah. The sliding door opened with a soft shhhk. All eyes turned. Ikaw stopped in the doorway. His new uniform — navy blue blazer, impeccable white shirt, gray pants — seemed almost strange on his transformed body. His shoulders filled the fabric in a way the tailor hadn't anticipated. The shirt, tight on his arms, outlined the definition of his biceps and deltoids. Hikari, seated in the third row near the window, was leaning forward, whispering something to a girl with curls when the movement at the door caught her attention. Her blue eyes (today's lenses a crystalline blue) traveled up Ikaw's silhouette from bottom to top. Her upper lip, discreetly filled, parted slightly. 'Him...? No. It's impossible.' Her mind rejected the information for a second. The Ikaw she remembered was a skinny boy with slumped shoulders, who wore shirts a size larger to hide his body. 'This one...' Her eyes fixed on his shoulders. On the way his neck met his defined trapezius muscles. On his posture — straight spine, level chin, not the downward gaze she'd associated with him for a decade. Her heart gave a strange leap. Not attraction — not exactly — but something like recognition, like seeing a cocoon open to reveal something unexpected. Kuroda Ryoma was sitting at the back of the room, his muscular legs almost not fitting under the desk. His uniform was open, tie loose. When he saw Ikaw, his small, penetrating eyes narrowed. 'Tanaka?' The information processed slowly. 'Kaito's weaker brother? The one who cried when he pushed him against the lockers last year?' His square jaw tensed. Something was wrong. The boy had the same facial structure — the eyes, the forehead shape — but the body... Kuroda felt a primitive instinct awaken. The instinct that made him scent challenge on the football field. The entire room underwent a subtle atmospheric shift. The whispering ceased. Girls who had been adjusting their ties or checking their phones under the desk looked up. Some tilted their heads slightly. A skinny boy with glasses stopped drumming his fingers. Teacher Homura smiled slightly. — Ah, the last one has arrived. Come in, please. You must be Tanaka Ikaw, correct? Ikaw gave a confirming nod and entered. The sound of his shoes on the wooden floor — tok, tok, tok — was more solid than it should be. More deliberate. There was a cadence to them that was missing from the hesitant walk of the other freshmen. Hikari unconsciously observed the way he walked. There was a soft swish of the pants against his thighs — thighs that were clearly not those of a boy who spent his days sitting. His hips moved with a contained, economical sway, like a feline walking. 'Did he train? Gym?' Her influencer mind began to calculate. 'But in two months? Impossible. Maybe he always had this build and hid it...' She felt a strange heat rise up her neck. She remembered how, at ten years old, he had carried her on his back when she twisted her ankle. How his skinny arms trembled, but he didn't let her fall. The feeling was quickly smothered by a more recent memory — her laughing when Kuroda knocked Ikaw's books to the floor in the hallway. Kuroda didn't think in memories. He thought in hierarchy. His enormous hands, with fingers thick as sausages, slowly closed over the desk. His knuckles whitened. 'He's walking as if... as if he were someone.' That's what irritated him. Not the muscles — he knew plenty about muscles. It was the posture. The lack of hesitation. Kaito's weaker brother shouldn't enter a room like this. He should crawl. Apologize. Be invisible. The teacher indicated an empty chair in the second row, between a girl with braids and a boy wearing a band t-shirt under his uniform. — Sit there, please. And since you're the last one, how about we start the introductions with you? A whisper ran through the room. Hikari held her breath without realizing it. Ikaw walked to the indicated chair. As he passed Hikari's row, he didn't look at her. Nor at Kuroda. His eyes were fixed ahead, but not empty — focused, as if he were observing something in the far distance. Hikari smelled him as he passed. Not the teenage sweat odor she expected, but something clean — neutral bar soap, a faint trace of sports deodorant, and underneath... it was strange, but it smelled like fresh air. Like laundry drying on a line. Her own expensive perfume — Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb — suddenly felt heavy, artificial. She watched as he turned to face the class. The blazer pulled slightly over his back as he turned, revealing the breadth of his shoulders. The fabric strained dangerously around his deltoids. 'What the hell did he do during the holidays?' The coarse language in her thoughts surprised her. Kuroda let out a low grunt that sounded like "hmph". The boy beside him — a skinny wide receiver named Taro — laughed nervously. The teacher made a gesture. — Please, introduce yourself. Name, something about you, your interests. The standard. Ikaw stood before the class. For a moment, he just stood there, breathing. The room became so quiet that the distant hum of the air conditioner seemed loud.