A Vengeful Retribution

Chapter 31: No Way Back

3rd POV

The morning sun spilled lazily through the IS Academy's windows, casting golden lines across the polished floors of Class 1-1. The classroom was already buzzing with quiet chatter, some students flipping through textbooks, others yawning as they stared out the windows. A few glanced nervously toward the door every now and then.

And then—

Click. The door opened.

Yap Haruto stepped in, wearing the school uniform with his usual laid-back slouch. His presence alone was enough to turn heads—but this time, the collective attention was tinged with visible concern.

"Heyo." He raised a hand lazily. "I'm alive. Not dead, discharged."

He gave a wry grin as several mouths dropped open in disbelief.

"Shit..." he winced suddenly, touching his side instinctively, where bandages still clung underneath his uniform. "I forgot to put in my checklist to not show off..."

A few students awkwardly chuckled, though some were more visibly alarmed by how casual he was being. One girl gasped, "You shouldn't be moving around like that!"

Haruto ignored it and hobbled his way toward his seat. "Aannyyway," he drawled, "I should be fine."

Charlotte turned toward him with narrowed eyes. "You're limping."

"Observation: 10/10, Charl. Next, you'll tell me I'm sitting crooked," he muttered as he carefully lowered himself into his seat with a soft hiss of breath.

Ichika glanced over from a few rows away, expression concerned. "They really should've given you more time to rest..."

"I'm a Class Rep. Can't exactly slack off forever, or someone might start thinking I lost my touch," he replied with a mischievous wink—though it didn't quite hide the exhaustion behind his eyes.

Laura, already seated next to him, simply reached over and flicked him on the forehead.

"Stupid Liebe."

He chuckled at that.

As the bell rang, Chifuyu Orimura entered the room with her usual brisk steps, clipboard in hand and presence sharp as ever. The class immediately straightened up.

Her eyes briefly locked onto Haruto. Just for a moment. No words exchanged.

She continued as if nothing happened.

"Everyone, settle down. This week we'll be transitioning back into the regular curriculum. The Kyoto incident has already been reported to the proper authorities, and we'll no longer dwell on it unless asked to cooperate in follow-ups."

A few nervous glances shot around the room. Haruto simply folded his arms behind his head, reclining with a careful exhale.

"Normal. Finally. Whatever that means anymore."

The room returned to its usual rhythm—but for Yap Haruto, this normalcy felt almost foreign. After all, he'd danced with shadows far beyond the school walls. And even if no one else noticed, he did.

The world hadn't gone back to normal.
He was just pretending better than the rest.

The days after Yap Haruto's return blended into a rhythm that was... deceptively ordinary. Classes resumed, instructors returned to their usual hard-nosed methods, and students slowly adjusted back to pre-Kyoto life — as much as possible, anyway.

But for Haruto, every step was calculated, every choice filtered through a mental checklist.

"IS training? Uh..." he blinked as one of the instructors passed by after class, clipboard in hand.