“Still think you can act tough in front of me?” Her voice cut like frost on glass, a blade glinting in winter light.

Half crouched, Nana Toki fisted the mohawk’s hair, a hunter pinning prey beneath thorny branches.

“Really think I’m easy prey? The Suo Sen you used to bully is dead. The one before you is me.” Her words hit like sleet, sharp and relentless.

The onlookers flinched as if doused by a bucket of snowmelt, a ring of faces pale as drifted ash.

What does this woman even mean? The whisper moved like startled sparrows, wings beating the air.

“Uh… mm… ah…” The mohawk sagged half-prone, dragged by his hair, a broken-backed dog whining in red mud.

“What? You not convinced?” Nana Toki yanked his head higher, forcing his eyes up like a drowned man hauled to the surface.

Those nearest caught sight of his face and hissed like wind through reeds, the air stinging their lungs.

Brutal—his face wasn’t a face anymore, just a blood-mask, cheeks and brow and nose painted a gruesome sunset.

On the ground lay a few white bits, pebble-pale in muddy blood; a closer look showed they were his front teeth, scattered like chipped shells.

The crowd froze under the sudden ruthlessness, as if a wolf had padded into a schoolyard at dusk.

They’d brawled before, sure—broken bones, lost teeth, a storm now and then—but never this flavor of iron and thunder.

In Nana Toki’s force was kill-intent, thick as wet steel, a tide that didn’t ebb till the shore lay silent.

Next to that, their scuffles were child’s play, sticks on puddles, not a river that could drown you.

The mohawk was proof enough: one strike, and he was candle-flame thin, flickering in a draft.

More breath out than in, his chest moved like a torn bellows wheezing smoke.

Nana Toki’s eyes stayed calm, a black marsh deep in a briarwood, no ripple, only depth.

Meet that gaze, and chill ran the spine like cold rain down the collar; instinct turned faces away like flowers closing at night.

The mohawk stared up from arm’s length and felt his soul drift, a moth winging toward a dark well.

This woman felt too strange, so strange he doubted the Suo Sen from yesterday and the one here shared a sky.

Yet her clothes and stance were familiar, a pattern stitched tight; this was Suo Sen, said the cut and color.

He didn’t know yesterday’s Suo Sen was already gone, a lamp snuffed at dawn’s first wind.

He didn’t know today’s Suo Sen was only a vessel, a jar holding someone else’s storm.

“You all seem pretty unhappy with me, don’t you?” She let his hair go, stood, and smiled crooked, a sickle moon over a cold field.

“Why not use this free time to settle our debts?” Her gaze swept them like a rake through fallen leaves.

Silence answered, a dead pond with no frogs, no rings on the water.

This wasn’t something Suo Sen used to say; the thought trembled like a curtain in a draft.

“No one? No voices?” She didn’t spare the mohawk a glance, a corpse-shaped bundle at her feet.

She stepped on his back and walked over him, footprints like crow tracks, heading for the Tinglan High school building.

“Since you’re quiet, I’m off. Class is starting. I’m a good student—I listen. We can talk after.” Her tone was dry tinder.

“If you’re here to cause trouble, though…” She paused, glanced back, and smiled winter-cold, a knife reflecting snow.

“I suggest you file your withdrawal papers early. Otherwise I’ll have to invent a reason for your sudden disappearance, and that’s a hassle.”

She left that line hanging like fog over a ravine, then swaggered into the building, a lone wolf slipping between trees.

As for the mohawk at the gate—let him lie like a kicked can in the gutter.

No one moved to help; their hands were pockets-deep, their eyes like shutters in the rain.

No one wanted ties to a Suo Sen whose temper had flipped like a table in a storm.

By afternoon, rumors flowered like weeds: outside-school lapdog, shame of Tinglan, headlines sprouting in every crack.

Nana Toki finished a day of classes with a flat heart, a lake under ice; beneath that calm, a laugh coiled like smoke.

Bunch of idiots. Soon enough I’ll make you kneel and sing “Conquer” at my feet, like crickets forced to chirp in the dark.

I’ll show you why the flowers are so red, petals drinking dawn like blood.

…

“Hey, Suo Sen, someone’s looking for you. Said meet on the rooftop later.” A yellow-haired kid called from the doorway, his voice a bouncing ball.

In the classroom, Nana Toki sat at her desk with a black notebook, eyes steady as night over a quarry.

“Rooftop? Not going. No time.” She didn’t look up, her refusal a door slamming in wind.

“He wants me to go to him? What a big shot. Tell that dumb*** Chongming Yan to crawl.” Her words snapped like a brittle twig.

“You—!” The yellow-hair’s anger flared and guttered, a match in rain.

Nana didn’t need to guess; it had to be the Protagonist Lord, trouble rolling in like a summer squall.

Someone tattled, then bent the truth, painting me black with smoke, she thought, a grin thin as a blade.

After this morning’s beating at the gate, anyone with a brain wouldn’t link arms with her shadow.

Especially now, past the last bell, halls empty as dried riverbeds; staying alone with a “crazy woman” felt like sleeping beside a live wire. (Nana Toki: Who are you calling crazy?)

So the yellow-hair swallowed his bark, memory full of fists—he’d watched the mohawk get pressed into the dirt like a nail.

Picking a fight alone now was walking into lightning; he pivoted and left, quick as a rat to a drain.

Weighing risk and gain, he hurried off to report to Chongming Yan, feet tapping like rain on tin.

Watching him stomp away, Nana Toki almost laughed, a cat’s tail flicking in sunlight.

She slipped the black notebook into her hand and drifted out the school gate, a shadow crossing the curb.

Host, what are you reading? The System’s voice was a bubble rising in a dark pond. Is that black notebook important?

Hm? This? Not important. Her tone was air-light, a feather on stone.

System: …

I don’t buy that for a second. Its doubt buzzed like a trapped fly against glass.

It had watched her stare at that black notebook all day, eyes latched like hooks; as for class—

Class, my ass. The teacher didn’t even show, a chalkboard waiting for rain.

Not important, and you stared all day? The System felt bullied, a tiny boat shoved by a tide.

Really not important. Nana Toki toyed with the black notebook, casual as tossing a pebble into reeds.

“It’s just the incriminating loot our dear heroine left at our side.” Her smile was fox-sly, tail hidden in grass.

Eh? The System blinked, stunned, thoughts gathering like clouds as it eyed the black cover with “Chen Yiyi” written stark as bone.

Incriminating loot? The word hung like a raven over fresh snow.