"It's exactly what it sounds like — the special class the school is establishing." Rina-sensei let herself have that one.
The class stared at her blankly.
She relented. "It's an honors class. Specifically created for students with exceptional talents — students like Ren Isana."
She explained briefly: students whose gifts positioned them across multiple advancement paths would be grouped together for intensive, specialized training. A class built exclusively for genuinely rare talent.
The room was quiet for a beat. Then the staring started.
Ren accepted the attention calmly. Nobody could argue the logic — if the description of his talent was even half accurate, dropping him into a single-track class would be a waste.
"Alright — everyone to their assigned classes. Ren, with me." Rina-sensei gestured and walked out.
He grabbed his bag and followed.
"You're still my homeroom student," she said as they moved through the corridor. "Having a talent like yours is wonderful, but talent without effort only carries you so far. Don't let this go to your head."
A quiet warning, delivered honestly. Ren nodded.
She didn't know much about him, she admitted — he'd been a quiet presence in class, grades strictly average, nothing remarkable in either direction. She'd seen too many students hit their talent awakening and immediately start acting like they'd outgrown the world. The fall from that kind of arrogance was always ugly.
This one, though… he had a settled quality to him. She breathed a small sigh of relief.
They walked to the second floor of a different teaching building and stopped outside a classroom.
"This is where you'll be from now on. Go ahead in — the others will arrive soon." She gestured for him to enter.
The room was empty. Completely his choice of seats.
Ren walked in, looked around, and headed for the back row by the window. The view overlooked the sports field.
The back row by the window — home of the powerful and the wise.
He settled in, arranged his books, and immediately pulled his phone back out. The videos weren't going to watch themselves.
Rina-sensei, still in the hallway, heard the audio drifting through the open door. She glanced in once, saw what he was doing, and chose not to intervene.
Is learning through internet videos even effective for someone like him? She filed the question away for later testing.
Students began drifting in as the morning progressed. A few at first — then more, some from other schools, evidenced by unfamiliar uniforms. They filed in quietly and found seats, each sizing up the others with the carefully neutral expression all teenagers use when they haven't decided yet whether to be friendly.
Ren glanced up from his phone to do his own scan.
Then a small group of students from the neighboring Foreign Language School came through the door. The most striking among them was a girl with long, straight black hair who moved through the room with the composure of someone who'd never once second-guessed herself.
She surveyed the available seats, walked directly to the one in front of Ren, and sat down. A faint floral scent drifted back.
Out of habit, Ren glanced at the name written on the books she slid onto her desk.
Yukino Yukinoshita.
He went very still for a moment.
Wait.
He stared at the name again. Then at the back of her head. Long dark hair. Perfect posture. That specific quality of composed, deliberate distance she was maintaining from everyone around her.
Holy — is this actually an anime world?!
He sat back, mind running.
If she's here, who else? Are there more?
There were still plenty of empty seats. The teacher was still outside. Ren looked around the room again, this time with entirely different eyes.
No other familiar faces — yet.
But then again, this world is full of dimensional rifts. The existence of anime characters here isn't even that weird, when you think about it. They probably crossed over somehow and built identities here.
The realization settled in slowly, and then all at once, Ren found himself actually excited for class for the first time in either of his lives.