A shriek tore through the hallway outside.
Our teacher, Mr. Yoshida, went to check. He opened the door, looked out, and froze.
"Everyone stay in your seats," he said, his voice shaking. He slammed the door shut and locked it, his face completely pale.
"What's going on?" someone asked.
Mr. Yoshida didn't answer. He backed away from the door as something heavy slammed against it from the other side.
THUD. THUD. SCRATCH.
The banging got louder. More insistent. Mr. Yoshida's hands trembled as he fumbled with his phone, dialing what I assumed was emergency services. He pressed it to his ear, waited, then his face went even paler.
"The line's busy," he whispered, more to himself than to us.
My training kicked in, analyzing the situation.
Compromised entry point. Unknown hostile. Civilian environment. No weapons. No backup.
All the scenarios I'd failed in training were suddenly very, very real.
That's when panic started to ripple through the classroom. Whispers turned into urgent conversations. Someone near the window stood up.
"Mr. Yoshida, who's the maniac slamming that door?" someone asked. None of them realized we were in actual danger. Some gave Mr. Yoshida a "please don't fool us" kind of look, thinking he was trying to pull a prank like the last time he made us believe that there was a gas leak in the chemistry lab, complete with fake smoke bombs and everything, just to 'test our readiness. Half the class had panicked, the other half had filmed it for social media. He'd gotten a formal reprimand from the principal but somehow kept his job.
They all thought this was just Prank 2.0.
But the fear in his eyes was real
"Sit down!" Mr. Yoshida snapped, but his authority was crumbling. "I need to, I need to check with the principal. Nobody leaves this room. Understand?"
He didn't wait for an answer. He unlocked the back door, slipped out into the hallway, and locked it behind him. We heard his footsteps running down the corridor, then... nothing.
For about thirty seconds, there was silence except for our collective breathing and the distant sound of sirens outside.
"Did he just leave us?" someone muttered.
I glanced at Miraza. She was gripping her desk so hard her knuckles had turned white. I wanted to say something reassuring, but what could I say?
That's when Daichi stood up.
Daichi Mori. Built like a tank, ego twice as big. He'd been held back a year, which made him nineteen and the oldest guy in class. He liked to remind everyone of that fact by acting like he owned the school.
He has permanent sneer, the kind of guy who peaked in high school and would spend the rest of his life talking about it. He had two friends with him as always, Kenji and Masa, his personal entourage of mediocrity.
"Well, isn't this cozy," Daichi said, stretching his arms above his head. His eyes landed on Miraza, who sat two rows ahead of me. "Hey, Miraza. Since we might die today, how about you finally give me your number?"
She didn't even look at him. "Not interested."
"Aw, don't be like that. I'm just being friendly."
"Leave me alone!"
He reached out and grabbed a strand of her hair, twirling it between his fingers. "Oh, come on. You're always such a stuck-up—"
I was on my feet before I realized what I was doing.
"She said no," I heard myself say.
The words were out before I could stop them. Twenty pairs of eyes turned toward me. Daichi's sneer widened into something uglier.
"What did you just say, Hajidan?"
My heart was hammering, but I kept my voice steady. "I said back off. She told you to leave her alone."
Kenji's friends started laughing. One of them, a guy named Riku, slapped his knee like I'd just told the funniest joke in the world.
"Oh man, this is rich," Riku wheezed. "The weakest member of the shadow crane thinks he's tough now?"
My jaw clenched. Everyone at school knew about the Shadow Cranes, or at least, they knew the cover story. "Elite youth leadership organization." They didn't know about the midnight training sessions, the weapons drills, the classified briefings about threats.
They also didn't know I was washing out.
"Shadow Cranes?" Daichi mocked, pushing off from Miraza's desk to face me. "What are you gonna do, Zenjiro Hajidan? I heard you failed your last three evaluations. Can't even handle a training dummy without getting your ass kicked."
"How..." My voice was barely a whisper. "How do you know that?"
"My brother works there, second in command, he keeps tabs on all you little wannabes. He tells us every failure, every screw-up, every time you embarrass the organization, it all gets documented."
My stomach dropped. The Shadow Cranes were supposed to be compartmentalized. Information siloed. But if someone high up was leaking training records to their civilian family then it means....
He saw the whole class were laughing in a mocking tone and decided to increase the tone of his voice. "He told me how you froze during the hostage scenario. How you couldn't even neutralize a single threat in the urban warfare simulation. Said you were so bad, they're considering whether to quietly discharge you or use you as an example of what NOT to do." Daichi stepped closer, looming over me. "So what makes you think you can stand up to me? You can't even handle some training dummies with foam weapons. What are you going to do against real people?"
I didn't answer. Couldn't answer. The classification protocols were burned into my brain.
"Hajidan." Riku's mockery was completely gone now. "How did you get recruited?"
Before I could respond, my pocket buzzed. I pulled out my phone with trembling hands. The screen showed a single message from an unknown number:
SIGMA PROTOCOL ACTIVE. ALL SHADOW CRANE UNITS REPORT TO RALLY POINT GAMMA. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.
Below it was a map pin. Rally Point Gamma was the underground bunker beneath the Civic Center, three kilometers away through the chaos outside.
The thought sent ice through my veins, but I didn't have time to process it.
"Just leave her alone," I said, pulling Miraza behind me.
Daichi's smile disappeared. "You know what? I'm tired of your mouth."
He moved faster than I expected. His fist came at my face like a hammer.
But I'd seen this punch a hundred times in training. My body reacted on instinct, muscle memory from countless failed sparring sessions. I slipped to the left, his knuckles grazing past my ear. Before he could recover, I drove my fist into his solar plexus.
Daichi's eyes went wide. He staggered back, wheezing, unable to draw breath.
For one beautiful second, I thought I'd actually won.
Then Riku grabbed me from behind in a rear chokehold, sloppy, but effective with his weight advantage. Taro came from the side with a haymaker.
I dropped my weight, making myself dead weight in Riku's arms, then drove my heel down onto his instep. He yelped, his grip loosening. I twisted free just as Taro's punch came in, catching him with an elbow strike to the ribs that made him grunt.
But there were three of them. Four, once Daichi caught his breath.
The fourth guy, Masa, grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back. Pain shot through my shoulder. Daichi, red-faced and furious, stormed forward.
"You little—"
His fist slammed into my face. My vision exploded into white stars. Then another punch. And another. I tasted copper. Felt my blood trickling from my nose.
I failed again. Just like training. Just like always.
"Daichi, stop!" Miraza's voice sounded distant, muffled. "You're going to kill him!"
"Good!" Daichi snarled. He grabbed me by the collar while Masa still wrenched my arm behind my back. "I'm so sick of you pretending to be some kind of operator. You're nothing, Hajidan. Everyone at the Shadow Cranes knows it. You've always been nothing."
He raised his fist for another punch.
That's when the fire alarm went off.
The blaring noise shattered the moment. Daichi dropped me, and I collapsed to my knees, gasping. Blood dripped from my nose onto the floor.
"What the hell?" Taro looked around, confused.
The intercom crackled to life. The principal's voice came through, but it was panicked, breaking up with static.
"...all students and staff... evacuate immediately... this is not a drill... I repeat, this is NOT A—"
The transmission cut off mid-sentence, replaced by a horrible screeching sound that made everyone clap their hands over their ears.
Then the lights went out.
Emergency lighting kicked in a second later, bathing everything in a dim red glow. Someone near the windows screamed.
"Oh my God! Look outside!"
I dragged myself to my feet, my ribs screaming in protest.
I saw black smoke rising from multiple points across Jonakvi City. In the distance, I could see flames. And people, looking like tiny figures from this height, running through the streets in complete chaos.
Something was moving between the buildings, twitching and jerking like broken puppets.
Sigma Protocol. It's actually happening.
"What... what is that?" someone whispered.
Daichi's bravado had completely evaporated. He stood by the window, his face pale, his earlier anger forgotten.
The door to the classroom rattled. This was a violent, aggressive pounding. The wood actually splintered near the lock.