Renegades: Battlegrounds.-Chapter 28: The Morning After

April 8, 2005,

Day 1 of the Three-Day Deadline,

Kaito’s Apartment - 6:47 AM.

Pain.

That was the first thing Ren registered when consciousness dragged him back to reality.

Not the sunlight streaming through thin curtains. Not the distant sound of traffic or the neighbor’s television bleeding through the walls. Just pain.

Everything hurt.

His ribs screamed with each breath—a sharp, stabbing reminder of Yuto’s fists. His jaw ached, tender and swollen on the left side. His knuckles were purple and black, the skin split across two knuckles where they’d connected with something hard. Maybe Yuto’s face. Maybe a table. He couldn’t remember.

Ren tried to sit up but it was a big mistake as his body protested violently. Pain flared in his abdomen forcing him back down with a big groan.

"Fuck..." he muttered, voice rough.

He lay there for a long moment, staring at the ceiling noticing details he’d never truly seen before. The water stain in the corner, the cracks in the plaster that looked like a tree if you squinted hard enough.

"This is what fighting gets you. " He thought. "Pain, injuries that’ll take weeks to heal and for what? "

Slowly, agonizingly, Ren forced himself to sit up. His abs, still bruised and battered, felt like they’d been hit with a baseball bat which, in a way, they had. Yuto’s punches had come like freight trains, relentless, punishing, and terrifyingly precise.

He swung his legs off the futon, feet touching cold floor. Even standing felt like climbing a mountain.

The apartment was small. Studio layout. Kitchen in one corner, bathroom in another, everything else crammed into a single room. Kaito’s belongings still everywhere, manga volumes stacked haphazardly, posters of bands Ren didn’t recognize, a forgotten punching bag gathering dust in the corner. Ren limped toward the bathroom.

The fluorescent light flickered to life. Ren looked at himself in the mirror and barely recognized what looked back.

His face was a battlefield. A deep purple bruise spread across his left cheekbone, extending up to his temple. His right eyebrow had a butterfly bandage holding together a split that would definitely scar. His bottom lip was swollen, crusted blood at the corner of his mouth. Both eyes had that puffy, tired look the kind of tired that no sleep could fix.

He looked like he had been hit by a truck or fought the Mad Dog of Sakuratei.

He reached out, touching the bruise on his cheek gently. Pain struck him like a spark.

"Yeah it’s real alright. All of it. "

He splashed cold water on his face.

The sting made his eyes water, but it helped. Washed away the dried blood, the sweat but the damage remained.

He dried his face carefully with a towel, careful around his injuries.

When he looked up again, dripping water, the injuries were still there. "Before yesterday I was just a nobody, just the new transfer student trying to stay invisible. "

And now he wasn’t invisible anymore.

He thought of the cafeteria. The fight. The way Yuto’s fist had felt connecting with his ribs. The moment everything had gone black after Soma had sucker-punched him from behind. The roar of the students around him. The way Hasegawa’s voice had echoed through the PA system like the voice of god.

Now I have three days to decide if I’m joining Sakuratei or walking away.

He dried his face with a towel, careful around the injuries.

Three days.

Two days and seventeen hours now.

The clock was ticking.

Ren pulled on a clean shirt slowly, because raising his arms above his head made his ribs scream when he noticed his phone on the nightstand. It was vibrating again and again. He picked it up.

Thirty-seven missed calls. Fifty-two text messages. His stomach dropped.

"What the hell? " He unlocked the phone.

Most were from numbers he didn’t recognize. But there were familiar ones too.

Shiinchiro - 5:47 AM "DUDE"

Shiinchiro - 5:48 AM "DUDE CHECK YOUR PHONE"

Shiinchiro - 5:49 AM "REN YOU’RE FAMOUS"

Shiinchiro - 5:52 AM "EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT YOU"

Shiinchiro - 6:01 AM "Seriously man pick up. You need to see this. "

Ren’s thumb kept scrolling.

Unknown - 11:47 PM (last night) "Kaito’s brother is a beast 💪"

Unknown - 12:23 AM "Stay out of Sakuratei business if you know what’s good for you. "

Unknown - 1:15 AM "You just made an enemy. "

Unknown - 2:34 AM "Welcome to the war, Ryūhara"

Mom (Aiko) - 10:15 PM:

"Saori-san told me you were in a fight. Call me when you can. I’m worried."

Ren stared at the message.

His mother. Living two cities away with his stepfather.

His thumb hovered over the call button but he couldn’t. "What would I even say? "

"Hi Mom, yeah I got into a massive fight with the most dangerous student at school. But don’t worry, the gang leader personally invited me to join. How’s your week going?"

He closed the message. Couldn’t do it. Not yet.

Instead, he started deleting messages. The threats, the random congratulations, the random numbers trying to friend him or warn him or recruit him.

Within minutes, his inbox was manageable again.

But his mom’s message remained, the only one that mattered.

By 7:30, he forced himself into the day. His uniform jacket concealed some of the damage on his arms and hands, but not his face that was another story.

No amount of concealer (note he didn’t own any) could hide the purple across his cheek or the split eyebrow.

He looked like what he was, someone who’d been in a fight.

The morning was beautiful, which somehow made everything worse. The air smelled like spring, fresh and clean. Cherry blossoms floated down lazily, landing on sidewalks and shoulders, like they always did in Hanasakura District.

"Beautiful day but damn my body feels like hell. "

He walked down the familiar streets toward Sakura High. Ren past the convenience store where he bought breakfast, past the small shrine with its red torii gate, past family-owned shops just opening for the day.

The usual morning crowd filled the sidewalks. Salarymen in suits rushing to catch trains. Students in various school uniforms heading to their respective schools. Shop owners sweeping storefronts, arranging displays, preparing for the day.

Normal. Peaceful. Routine.

But today, something was different.

People stared.

The old woman sweeping in front of the bookstore paused mid-stroke when Ren passed, her eyes tracking his bruised face.

A group of middle schoolers across the street stopped their conversation, pointing at him, whispering silently.

"That’s him. That’s Kaito’s brother. " one said.

"He fought Mad Dog Yuto and survived. I saw the video. " another added.

"I heard he’s joining Sakuratei. " a third whispered, hushed but excited.

"A video? There’s a video. "

"Of course there was a video. Everyone had phones. They were capturing everything, uploading it immediately, spreading his face across Yugen City in minutes. "

More students appeared the closer he got closer to the school. The sudents noticed him and they moved like water parting around a stone. They stepped aside, creating a path.

Some stared openly. Others whispered to friends. A few looked away quickly, as if eye contact might be dangerous. He kept his head down, hands in pockets walking through the impromptu corridor they’d created.

"This is insane, yesterday I was invisible. Today I’m.. something else. "

Ren walked through those gates today and the atmosphere completely shifted. Conversations paused mid-sentence, heads turned, eyes locked on him.

"Just keep walking. " He told himself. "Don’t make eye contact. Get to class. Just survive the day. "

But he couldn’t help noticing things. To his left, near the courtyard fountain, a group of students in white jackets, Sakuratei members. He recognized a few faces from the cafeteria fight—upperclassmen who’d been sitting at that long table when everything exploded.

They were watching him. One of them, a tall, shaved head, hard eyes nodded once acknowledging him.

Ren didn’t know what to do. Nod back? Ignore them? Wave?

He settled for a stiff nod. The boy smirked and said something to his companions. They all turned back to their conversation, but Ren could feel their attention lingering even as he walked past.

"They know. Hasegawa must have told them. About the offer. About the three days. They’re waiting to see what I choose. "

To his right, another group of students but this ones, the way they carried themselves, the wary glances, the tight formation suggested they were from a different faction.

One of them spat on the ground as Ren passed.

"Kaito’s little brother thinks he’s hot shit," a muttered voice said.

Ren’s jaw tightened but he kept walking. "Not worth it. Not today. "