The afternoon sun was bleeding a deep, bruised purple through the classroom windows. Teacher Yoshiro was currently under a desk, muttering about career changes and becoming a professional hermit, while Ruleus was trying to see if he could stick a pencil into the ceiling using only the power of his intense, vacant stare.
Ichikawa stood near the back of the room, his hand resting on the red ring, the sinkhole his mother, Kyoki, had forced upon him.
1%, Ichikawa thought, his gaze fixed on Ruleus's back. I have 1% of my divine essence left to work with. It's a drop of water compared to my true ocean, but even a drop of a God's power is enough to map the soul of a mortal. Let's see what this 'transcending time' nonsense is actually about.
He closed his eyes. Instead of looking at Ruleus, He shifted his perception, opening a tiny, microscopic sliver of his divine awareness.
Ichikawa expected to see a large amount of mana. Maybe even a lake. Something impressive for a human, sure, but ultimately something he could crush with a thought if he ever got his ring off.
What he found was not a pool. It was a Geometric Catastrophe.
The moment Ichikawa's 1% perception brushed against Ruleus, the classroom didn't just disappear the very concept of room threatened to ceased to be relevant. Ruleus wasn't just strong. His existence was a Non-Conceptual Totality. Ichikawa's divine mind began to reel as he processed the data:
Ruleus's energy didn't occupy 3D space. It sat atop an Infinite Hierarchy of Dimensions, each one viewing the one below it as nothing more than a flat, fictional story.
His mana wasn't flowing, it existed in a state of Active Totality, meaning every spell he had ever cast and ever would cast was happening simultaneously in a point beyond the framework of space-time.
Ichikawa realized with a cold shudder that Ruleus's mana had a Defense of the Absolute. If any mortal, or even a high-tier demon had tried to sense this power, their very soul would have been instantly, erased from the archives of reality. Not killed. Not destroyed. Deleted. They would have never existed, their parents would have never met, and even the memory of them would have been bleached from the universe.
Only Ichikawa, with his 1% of True Divinity, was able to witness this cosmic horror and remain anchored to the floorboards.
Ichikawa's eyes snapped open. A single bead of sweat rolled down his temple. His red ring was glowing a frantic, warning crimson, vibrating against his skin as the sinkhole struggled to process the sheer Wrongness of Ruleus.
"I... I see," Ichikawa whispered, his voice trembling slightly. "He isn't a student. He isn't even a hero. He's an Ontological Glitch."
He looked back at Ruleus.
Ruleus had finally succeeded in sticking the pencil into the ceiling. However, he had also managed to get his tie caught in the pencil's eraser, and he was now dangling three inches off the ground, looking like a very confused, silver haired pendulum.
"Uh, Ichikawa-kun?" Ruleus said, his voice completely flat and unbothered by the fact that he was currently defying gravity and logic. "I think I've reached a new level of magic. I call it The Hanging Man. It's very peaceful up here. I can see the dust on top of the cupboards. It's... majestic."
"Ruleus," Ichikawa said, his deadpan mask returning with a vengeance. "You are currently a threat to the infinite hierarchy of the multiverse."
"Is that good?" Ruleus asked, swinging back and forth. "Does that mean I get extra pudding at lunch? Because I feel like a threat to some pudding right now."
Teacher Yoshiro poked his head out from under the desk, saw Ruleus hanging from a pencil by his tie, and immediately went back under. "I'm not seeing it. If I don't see it, I don't have to write a report. I am a paper crane. I am a paper crane..."
Ichikawa sighed, looking at his hand. 1% was definitely not enough to deal with this.
"Mother," he muttered toward the ceiling, "why did you give me him as a partner? I'd rather fight a world eater. At least world eaters don't hang themselves from school supplies."
The free period had arrived, which in this school usually meant a brief window of time where the laws of physics about to took a desperate, unpaid break.
In the corner of the courtyard, Teacher Yoshiro was engaged in a life or death struggle with a plastic wrapped sandwich. He was currently losing. Every time he tried to peel the plastic, the sandwich seemed to gain sentience and slide further away, eventually resulting in Yoshiro accidentally stabbing himself in the eye with a stray piece of lettuce.
"The greenery... it strikes with precision," Yoshiro whispered, weeping into his egg salad.
Meanwhile, Ichikawa leaned against a crumbling stone pillar, watching Ruleus try to balance a spoon on his nose while sitting upside down on a bench.
"Ruleus," Ichikawa said, his voice dropping into that low, cinematic register that usually signaled a plot twist. "I need to know. That 'stunt' you pulled with the Eternal Silence... I need to see if it was a fluke or if you're actually broken."
Ruleus tilted his head, the spoon falling into his eye. "A test? Is there a prize? If I win, can we go to that café that sells bread shaped like sad turtles? I feel a deep, spiritual connection to depressed pastries."
"If you win, I'll buy the whole bakery," Ichikawa lied, his hand moving to the red ring on his finger. "But first... we need a proper stage. The 'Living World' is far too fragile for what I'm about to do."
Ichikawa don't have to cast a spell. He just tapped into the sinkhole on his finger, forcing the 1% of his divine essence to flare.
The air Itself seemed to apologized.
With a single, sharp snap of his fingers, the courtyard vanished. In its place, Ichikawa constructed a Transcendental Hyperspace. This wasn't just another dimension. it was a localized Nothingness that existed outside the concepts of space, time, causality, and duality. It was a metaphysical white room where the very idea of destruction didn't exist unless Ichikawa allowed it.
The hierarchy of this space was infinitely higher than the multiverse they had just left. Here, stars were smaller than dust motes, and the laws of nature were just bad fan fiction.
"Welcome," Ichikawa said, his voice echoing with the weight of a thousand dying suns. He stood at the center of the void, his school uniform fluttering as if caught in a cosmic gale. For the first time, he let the full power of his 1% radiate. "This is a space where I don't have to worry about accidentally deleting the continent. Here, Ruleus, you can show me your deadass truth."
Ichikawa's aura was no longer Zero. It was a concentrated, needle point of Absolute Authority. Even at 1%, he was a Being who could rewrite the definition of Up and Down with a sigh. His red ring hummed like a trapped hornet, struggling to contain the pressure.
"Alright, Ruleus. Hit me with everything. Don't hold back. If you're truly a Transcendence of the Linear, then this 1% shouldn't even blink."
Ruleus stood at the other end of the infinite white void. He looked around, his silver hair glowing with a faint, lazy light. He didn't look impressed. He didn't look scared.
He looked... mildly inconvenienced.
"Wow, Ichikawa-kun," Ruleus said, picking a piece of lint off his sleeve. "This room is really big. Do you think we could fit a bounce house in here? Or maybe a very long slip and slide? The floor seems really slippery since, you know, friction isn't a concept here."
"Ruleus... FIGHT ME."
"Okay, okay! Bruh, you're so moody today. Is it because of the Saturday thing? I told you, Saturdays are for naps, not geometry dash!"
Ruleus took a single step forward.
He didn't move across the distance. Because Ichikawa had removed the concept of space, Ruleus simply overlapped with the destination. He bypassed the necessity of travel entirely.
Before Ichikawa could even process the mathematical impossibility of the movement, Ruleus was standing six inches from his face, his deadass silver eyes staring directly into Ichikawa's divine soul.
"I don't really have a full power," Ruleus whispered, looking genuinely confused. "I just kind of... exist? Is that enough? Or should I make a cool face like they do in the comics?"
Ichikawa felt a cold sweat break out on his neck. His 1% power, the power that could rearrange the concepts, was currently screaming at him that Ruleus wasn't just strong.
Ruleus was ....The Exception.
The Transcendental Hyperspace was silent, a white, infinite void where the laws of physics had been replaced by Ichikawa's 1% divine will.
Ichikawa didn't waste time with a monologue. He stepped forward, and his fist became a Conceptual Eraser. This wasn't just a physical punch anymore, it was a strike backed by the authority of a God, designed to collapse the target's History and Form into a single, localized point of impact.
BOOM.
the hyperspace itself screaming as Ichikawa's fist connected squarely with Ruleus's cheek. The force would have turned a galaxy into a marble, and a marble into nothingness.
Ruleus's head snapped to the side. His silver hair whipped around his face. He stood there, motionless, his feet still anchored to the nothing beneath him.
Silence.
"Oh," Ruleus said, his voice as flat as a week old soda. He slowly turned his head back, looking at Ichikawa with those vacant, silver eyes. "Was that the start signal? I was actually wondering if this white floor is made of clouds or just really bright linoleum."
Ichikawa stared at his own fist, then at Ruleus's unbruised face. The *red ring on his finger was vibrating so hard it almost was starting to smoke.
"You... you didn't even try to dodge," Ichikawa whispered, a cold sweat breaking out on his neck. "That was a strike that transcends the concept of Impact. It should have rewritten your DNA into a haiku."
"Right! Dodging!" Ruleus suddenly cheered, a manic, wide toothed grin splitting his face. "I totally forgot that's what people do in fights! My mom always says, 'Ruleus, if someone hits you, make sure to hit them back so they don't feel lonely!' Here I go!"
Ruleus didn't wind up. He didn't take a stance. He just... swung.
To a normal observer, it would have looked like a clumsy haymaker from a toddler. But to Ichikawa, whose 1% divine perception was currently screaming at him in ancient, forgotten languages, the attack was a Multiversal Catastrophe.
The punch didn't just move through the hyperspace. It outscaled the very void Ichikawa had created. The fist was coming from a direction that didn't exist in the X, Y, or Z axes. It was a strike that ignored the Speed limit of the universe because it had already arrived at the destination before Ruleus even decided to swing.
"Shit... shit, shit!" Ichikawa hissed under his breath.
His eyes glowed a piercing, celestial gold. He pushed his 1% power to its absolute limit, manually overriding the "sinkhole" ring for a split second. He twisted his body, performing a dodge that required him to temporarily phase his existence into a state of Pure Probability.
The fist grazed his school blazer.
The wind from the punch, which shouldn't have existed in a vacuum, ripped through the hyperspace, tearing a jagged hole in the Nothingness and revealing the swirling, chaotic raw mana of the higher realms beyond.
Ichikawa skidded back, his boots carving deep furrows into the non-existent floor. He was breathing hard, his lungs burning with the effort of surviving a single casual swing from a silver haired idiot.
This is impossible, Ichikawa thought, his heart hammering against his ribs. Even at 1%, I am an Absolute Authority. But his power... it's not just high. It's Irrelevant. He's bypassing the hierarchy of the Void itself.
"Wow! You're like a ninja, Ichikawa-kun!" Ruleus shouted, bouncing on his heels with a cheerful, deadass expression. "Most people usually just turn into red glitter when I do that! You're definitely my best friend! Let's do it again, but this time, I'll try to use my slight Serious Face'!"
"Ruleus, stop!" Ichikawa shouted, holding up a shaking hand. The red ring was glowing so bright it was blinding. "If you use a Serious Face, you're going to accidentally delete the concept of 'Monday,' and I really don't want to explain that to Teacher Yoshiro!"
Ichikawa's 1% divine perception saw it coming. a slow motion nightmare wrapped in a silver-haired, deadass grin.
"Ruleus, wait! The curry! Think of the spicy—!"
It was too late. Ruleus wasn't listening. He had reached that level of Protagonist Hype where the background music in his head was probably a high speed techno remix of a nursery rhyme. He didn't just punch; he launched a trans-dimensional erasure event masquerading as a right hook.
Ichikawa realized with a jolt of pure, unadulterated terror that dodging was no longer an option. The punch had already occupied every coordinate of 'Where Ichikawa Could Be.' It was a Sure-Hit Command written into the source code of the hyperspace.
"Fine," Ichikawa hissed, his eyes flaring with a desperate, golden light. "I'll just have to tank it!"
He crossed his arms in front of his face, manifesting the Aegis of the Fallen Star, a conceptual barrier that, even at 1% power, should have been able to withstand the collapse of a multi-layered multiverse.
The moment Ruleus's fist met Ichikawa's forearms, the Big Mistake became apparent.
Blocking Ruleus wasn't like stopping a physical force. it was like trying to stop a Narrative. Ruleus's punch didn't care about the Aegis. It didn't care about Divine Defense. The fist simply treated Ichikawa's 1% power like a minor formatting error in a Word document and clicked Delete.
CRACK BOOM.
The sound was the hyperspace literally shattering. The white void inverted. The Nothingness turned into a chaotic slurry of colors that shouldn't exist, and the concept of Up was suddenly replaced by the concept of Yellow.
Ichikawa felt his arms go numb. Not 'I can't feel my fingers" numb, but 'My arms have been moved to a different timeline' numb. The sheer pressure of the hit bypassed his guard, bypassed his divinity, and sent him hurtling backward through the infinite void at speeds that made the concept of Instant look like a slow Sunday crawl.
"SHIIIIIIII—!" Ichikawa's voice was stretched across different dimensions as he flew.
Ichikawa finally skidded to a halt, his heels digging into the floor of the hyperspace, which was now vibrating with the sound of a thousand screaming kazoos. His school blazer was in tatters, and his red ring was glowing a frantic, pulsating violet, desperately trying to siphon off the excess energy so Ichikawa didn't accidentally explode anything like a new Big Bang.
He looked up, his hair a mess, his arms trembling.
Ruleus stood at the center of the chaos, looking completely refreshed. He was dusting off his knuckles with a cheerful, blank expression.
"Wow, Ichikawa-kun! You're so sturdy!" Ruleus shouted, his voice echoing perfectly even though the air was currently made of static. "It felt like I hit a very expensive piece of reinforced concrete! Or maybe a giant loaf of stale bread! My hand tingles! Is this the power of friendship?!"
"Friendship...?" Ichikawa wheezed, falling to one knee. He looked at his forearms. There were literal glitchmarks on his skin—flickering pixels where Ruleus's punch had temporarily disrupted his physical existence but regenerate quickly. "You... you nearly punched me into a 'Was-Not.' you just treated my defense like a suggestion!"
"Oh! Look!" Ruleus pointed toward the edge of the hyperspace.
Because of the impact, a massive tear had formed, and through it, they could see the real world, specifically, the school cafeteria. Teacher Yoshiro was visible, still crying over his sandwich, but now he was also being stared at by a very confused pigeon.
"The hole leads to the snacks!" Ruleus cheered. "Let's go before the lunch lady closes the shutters! The punch made me hungry!"
Ichikawa stared at the silver haired boy, then at the shattered remnants of a Non-Conceptual Hyperspace that had been dismantled by a single, accidental haymaker.
"I am definitely," Ichikawa whispered, "joining that cult. Tomorrow. First thing."