The silence that Ravi commanded was absolute. It was not merely an absence of sound; it was a physical presence, a crushing weight that pressed down on every person in the courtyard. The chaotic energy of the battle vanished, sucked into the vortex of calm that surrounded the boy in the center.
Renji Himura felt it most acutely. The bloodlust, the joyous thrill of battle that always sang in his veins, was silenced. It was replaced by a strange, cold pressure coiling in his gut. It wasn't fear—Renji didn't believe he was capable of fear. It was… anticipation. A deep, instinctual recognition that he was no longer facing a mere fighter. He was facing an event.
He grinned, a rictus of sharp teeth and scarred lips. The pressure didn't intimidate him; it excited him. "So you're the one," he growled, his voice a low rumble that felt like a sacrilege in the holy silence. "The King of Silence. You've got a lot of balls, showing your face after letting your little friends get their asses kicked."
Ravi didn't reply. He simply started walking towards Renji. His pace was unhurried, his hands in his pockets. It was the walk of a man crossing a street, not a man walking towards a monster famed for crippling his opponents. Each step he took seemed to amplify the pressure in the air.
The Crimson Fist students, who were frozen between Ravi and Renji, began to feel an overwhelming, primal instinct to move. Two of them, standing directly in Ravi's path, scrambled to get out of the way, tripping over themselves in their haste.
"What are you morons doing?!" Renji roared at them. "He's just one man! Kill him!"
Five of Renji's elite guards, brutes who were second only to Renji himself, shook off the oppressive aura, their loyalty to their king overriding their fear. With savage roars, they charged at Ravi from different angles, aiming to swarm him. One swung a pipe at his head, another a chain at his legs, while three more went for his body with fists and feet.
They were the top five fighters of Crimson Fist High, second only to their king. A force that could have conquered any other school in the city on their own.
Ravi didn't even break his stride.
As the pipe swung down at his head, he didn't dodge or block. He simply tilted his head a fraction of an inch to the side. The pipe whistled past, missing by a millimeter.
As the chain wrapped around his legs, he took a step. His foot landed on a single link of the chain, pinning it to the concrete with the weight of a mountain. The student pulling the chain was yanked off his feet, his face slamming into the ground.
As the three fists and a kick converged on his torso, Ravi did something that defied all logic. He exhaled. A single, soft breath.
FWOOSH.
A wave of invisible, kinetic force erupted from him. The three charging thugs were blasted backwards as if they'd been hit by a claymore mine. They flew through the air, their bodies limp, and crashed into the concrete ten feet away, knocked unconscious before they even landed.
In the span of a single blink, the top five fighters of Crimson Fist were down. Buried in the concrete of their own failure.
Ravi hadn't stopped walking. He hadn't taken his hands out of his pockets. He hadn't even looked at them.
The silence that returned was now laced with pure, undiluted terror. The remaining Crimson Fist students stared, their mouths agape, their minds unable to process the casual, effortless devastation they had just witnessed.
On the rooftop, Reina lowered her binoculars, her knuckles white. She had expected power. She had not expected this. The sheer, contemptuous ease of it was breathtaking.
Takeda, who had been ready to charge into battle, now stood frozen, his wooden sword feeling as heavy and useless as a twig. He was finally, truly, seeing the gap. It wasn't a gap. It was a chasm. A universe of difference between his level and the one Ravi occupied.
Renji's grin vanished, replaced by a look of stunned, furious disbelief. His eyes, which had been filled with predatory glee, now burned with a mad, obsessive fire. The strange pressure he felt wasn't an opponent's aura. It was a law of nature.
"Impossible…" he breathed. He then threw his head back and let out a deafening roar of pure, ecstatic rage. "YES! THIS IS IT! THIS IS THE FIGHT I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!"
He stomped his foot, and the concrete beneath it cracked. "I don't care what kind of tricks you have!" he bellowed, his muscles bulging, a dark red aura of pure, malevolent chi flaring to life around him. "In the face of my 'Demon Hands,' all tricks are useless!"
He charged. He moved like a runaway truck, his feet pounding the ground, each step shaking the courtyard. He pulled his right arm back, his fist glowing with the dense, crimson energy of his chi. This was his signature move, the punch that had shattered limbs, broken spirits, and earned him his demonic moniker.
Ravi stopped walking, now standing just ten feet from the charging behemoth. He finally, slowly, took his right hand out of his pocket.
He didn't tense. He didn't enter a fighting stance. He just stood there, his hand hanging loosely at his side.
He watched the crimson fist, a projectile of pure destruction, hurtling towards his face. He watched the mad, gleeful light in Renji's eyes.
Just before the moment of impact, he acted.
He threw a punch.
It was a simple, straight jab. There was no flash, no glow, no earth-shattering buildup. It looked like a textbook punch from a beginner's boxing class. It looked almost lazy. Compared to Renji's apocalyptic charge, it seemed like a pathetic, insignificant gesture.
The two fists met in the space between them.
There was no sound.
No deafening boom. No crack of bone. No shockwave. For a single, surreal moment, there was nothing. Just the sight of Ravi's simple, unadorned fist touching Renji's massive, glowing one.
Then, the world broke.
Renji's crimson aura didn't just dissipate; it was annihilated. It vanished as if it had never existed. The mad, gleeful light in his eyes was extinguished, replaced by a look of pure, uncomprehending shock. He felt it. The power behind Ravi's simple punch wasn't kinetic energy. It was… nothingness. An absolute void that didn't just stop his attack, but consumed it. It devoured his chi, his momentum, his will, everything.
A line of red appeared on Renji's knuckles, then traced its way up his arm. It was not a cut. His skin was splitting apart from the inside, unable to contain the force that had been reflected back into it.
Then came the sound. It started as a faint crackle and grew into a tidal wave of noise. The air behind Renji, compressed by his own forward momentum and the force of Ravi's punch, detonated.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
A sonic boom, a visible cone of distorted air, erupted behind Renji. The entire Crimson Fist army was blasted off their feet, sent tumbling backwards like bowling pins. The windows of the school building behind them shattered, raining glass down onto the courtyard. The ground itself seemed to groan.
Renji himself did not fly backwards. He simply… stopped. He stood frozen, his fist still connected to Ravi's, his body trembling violently. Blood began to pour from his nose, his ears, his eyes. He tried to speak, to ask what had just happened, but only a wet, gurgling sound came out.
Ravi pulled his fist back. It was completely unmarked.
He looked at Renji, his silver eyes cold and empty, holding no trace of victory or pride. It was the look of a man who had just completed a tedious chore.
Renji stood there for a second longer, a statue of broken power. Then, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed. Not backwards, but forwards, falling at Ravi's feet like a felled tree, landing with a heavy, final thud. Unconscious. Defeated.
One punch.
Ravi looked down at the unconscious form of the "Demon Hands," then lifted his gaze to the remaining hundred or so Crimson Fist students, who were now scrambling to their feet, their faces masks of pure, mind-numbing terror.
He took a step towards them.
As one, they flinched back, a wave of panic washing through their ranks.
Ravi said nothing. He simply looked at them. And in that look, they saw their own demise. They saw an abyss, a power so absolute and uncaring that their lives were less than meaningless to it.
A boy in the front rank dropped his weapon. Then another. And another. Soon, the sound of pipes and bats clattering on the concrete was the only sound in the courtyard. They didn't run. They were too scared to even turn their backs on him. They just stood there, disarmed, defeated, their spirits shattered.
The war was over. It had lasted less than five minutes.
Ravi turned and began walking back towards the school building, his hands back in his pockets. His work was done. The noise had been silenced.
He walked past Takeda, who was on his knees, his wooden sword lying broken at his side, his face a mess of tears and broken pride.
He walked past the Silent Guard, who were all bowing their heads in reverent, fearful silence.
He glanced up at the rooftop, his eyes meeting Reina's for a fraction of a second. She stood frozen, binoculars clutched in her hand, her mind reeling.
One punch. One blink. An entire army, and their demonic king, buried in concrete and despair.
The King of Silence had held court. And the verdict was absolute.