On a certain cold, hard marble floor, where the occasional dripping water from the leaky ceiling was enough to make an echo through the empty hallways, lay an unconscious adolescent boy. There were no injuries on him – no bruises, no concussions, nothing at all. Of course, it didn’t mean that he was completely unharmed, for the boy had already ingested a large dosage of anesthesia, resulting in him sound asleep like a princess waiting for her prince charming.

The only problem was that there was no Prince Charming, and the place was no magic castle in the woods.

The cold floor the boy was lying on was in fact the Infinite Prison, where the most heinous criminals gathered. Or at least, it used to be that way.

Now, the prison was only a shell of its former self. For one, there was no one else there. All of its prisoners were pardoned by none other than the World President himself. With its inmates gone, the prison served no purpose anymore, except being a somewhat odd hangout for its former wardens.

Then, one might ask, why was this boy lying unconscious in this prison in the first place?

A droplet fell on the boy’s face, finally waking him from his long slumber.

As his eyes slowly opened, only for the dim, red light to invade his sight, the boy could only mutter:

“Wh—Where am I?”

Even if you asked the one in question himself, he wouldn’t know.

All he knew, was that he got involved in something too dangerous for his own good.

It was a death game between his best friend, a former convict, and his upperclassmen in the Student Council. He did not remember how the game ended, for he was already knocked unconscious by one of the upperclassmen long before it did. Then, the next thing he realized, he was already here – in the Infinite Prison, which he still had no idea about its true identity.

The boy looked around, only to see four brick walls – shoddy brick walls at that, with cracks appearing all over the place, and their paintjobs fading into the standard dull grey of cement.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” Putting his hands around his mouth to act like a megaphone, he shouted. The only answer he received, however, was the echo of his own voice.

The boy looked around the area once more, trying to find out where exactly he ended up. It wasn’t hard for him to detect the pile of tables and chairs lying around, all flipped over in a horrible state. Their legs were all broken and rusted, while their surfaces were rotten by termites. But looking at their general shapes and sizes, the boy could make an educated guess that these were some kind of diner’s table, and he was in a facility of that sort. However, without the obvious structure of a counter, he also knew that the restaurant angle was not true, and by the process of elimination…

“Looks like an abandoned cafeteria,” the boy concluded. “But where exactly is this place? Is there such a place in Aoba?”

Little did he know, he was not even in Japan anymore. Without another soul to confirm or deny his claim, however, the boy could only rely on such misled intuition.

Fortunately for him, since he had solved the first layer of his location problem, the boy at least had an idea of what his next step should be. Naturally, he made it to the door at the other end of the room.

Perhaps he was still drowsy from the aftereffects of the anesthesia, or perhaps he just didn’t think it through. But the moment the boy noticed that the door’s lock was a turning knob, he should have realized that something was up. After all, modern doors didn’t use knobs and locks anymore.

Nonetheless, the boy continued towards the dark hallway. A moldy, damp smell shocked his brain, causing his muscles to lightly contort as a reflex. With each step he begrudgingly took, a sloppy, sticky feeling of mud and half-dried cement sent chills all over his body. Not having lights turned out to be a blessing in disguise, for the boy feared that he would not have had the courage to continue if he had known what exactly he was stepping on.

However, the darkness was never his ally. Blinded, the boy could only take one step at a time while throwing his hands around, hoping to touch the walls for at least some sense of direction. This, and the fact that the ground itself was not so pleasant to walk on, resulted in the boy’s progress being painstakingly slow.

He might not have a watch with him, but the boy could somewhat tell that he had wasted no less than an hour in this dark corridor. And like it or not, his body – which was never considered to be called athletic – was starting to give up on him. But the boy knew that dropping down on his knees right now would be akin to suicide. If he was in that room, he at least had lights to accompany him. Here, he was alone in the dark. There was no telling who, or what, might just jump out of some corner and throw a knife at his throat.

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And so, even if his legs were shaking, the boy continued. Soon enough, his effort had paid off.

A dim light could be seen at the end of the hallway. But for the boy, that light was brighter and more beautiful than anything else he’d ever seen. Not even caring about the darkness anymore, the boy sprinted forward, running towards the light as fast as his beaten legs could take him. When he was just a step away, the boy made a leap of faith, stretching out his arms as if to embrace the gentle light that would be his savior.

Only after crossing the fated luminous source did he realize the dreaded truth.

He had just returned to the first room where he came out.

Tired, frustrated, and panicked, all these emotions combined together to create the perfect catastrophic storm inside the boy’s already fragile mind. Dropping to his knees in utter defeat, the boy let out two streams of silent, painful tears.

Where was he? What had he done to deserve this? Those were the questions that plagued the boy’s mind. But just like how there was no one to hear him wallow, there was no one that could solve these problems for him.

Or so he thought.

“Finally woke up, have we?” A voice sounded from within the empty room. Surprised, the boy turned around to check for any human activity, only to be utterly disappointed when he found out that the voice came from a small speaker hanging in the top left corner of the room, right above the pile of tables and chairs.

Even though the speaker’s quality was shoddy at best, in this kind of unknown situation, the boy could clearly realize a familiar voice when he heard one.

“President!” Still in tears, the boy exclaimed. “Where are you? Please help me!”

As soon as the words came out of his mouth, a swift wind blew in the room, kicking up the dust and dirt on the floor and walls all over the place. Despite being almost blinded, the boy was delighted, as he knew his help was finally here.

Appearing at the scene was a young man, slightly older than the boy. He might seem lean, but in truth, his muscles hidden beneath his officer’s uniform were more developed than the boy could ever dream of. Though his overly long red hair might make him stand out too much for a policeman, the young man still carried the same dignity and poise of a man of the law.

However, his deadly cold gaze towards the boy was not that of an officer to a normal citizen.

“Pre--”

Without even letting the boy finish his sentence, the young man had already stepped forward at a blistering speed, so fast that the boy couldn’t even tell his silhouette moving. And before he knew it, the boy had already received a punch, not to his stomach, but straight to his face.

“But--”

He didn’t get to complain, either, for another kick was aimed at his chin, knocking off a few teeth in the process.

With a bloody mouth, a black eye, and a concussion, the boy was in no shape to say anything anymore. But it didn’t mean that his suffering ended there.

Another flurry of punches and kicks, aimed at all sorts of spots on his body – all vital spots, no less. Throat. Neck. Joints. Groin. It was as if every single hit was delivered with the intention to kill.

In the end, the boy’s face was distorted into an unrecognizable state – covered in pure crimson.

But it didn’t stop him from finally uttering a single word. “W… Why…”

He could only say so much before the unbearable pain finally caught up to him, and the boy collapsed on the spot.

At the same time, another person came into the room – a large man with a large beard and muscles to spare, the classic type of “all brawn, no brains”.

“Cadet Fuuma,” the man let out a snide grin. “We don’t take prisoners anymore. What’s this?”

Replying to him was the same kind of conniving smirk from the young redhead. “As long as the World President doesn’t know, we can do anything in this place. Wasn’t you the one who taught me that, Superintendent Bruce?”

“… Never took you for the type to play with your food,” the man, now Bruce, snickered. “Don’t break him too soon now, will you?”

“Speak for yourself,” the young man retorted. “Who was it that caused the first Course Incident again?”

“You mean that lowlife?” Bruce’s eyebrows squinted, each of his facial muscles twitching uncontrollably as he was reminded of a past he’d rather forget. “I could get him any time I wanted.”

“Don’t kid yourself, old man. I fought him, and I know he’s out of your league.”

“Oh, please. Just because you have some moves, you think that you’re the top dog here?” Bruce gritted his teeth, but still tried his best to maintain a smile. “You weren’t there when he was still around. I owned him.”

“And yet, you let him escape and roam free for a year.”

“… Like you’re any better! You didn’t capture him back either, right?”

“Of course, because I know my limits,” answered the young man. “I could best him in combat, sure, but restraining him would be a whole other task. And I doubt he’d let me capture him in peace; that’s just the type of guy he is.”

There was no joke, no arrogance in the young man’s voice. That was why Bruce had always hated him. Unlike the other officers he’d worked with, the figure before him was part of an elite force, even if his current position was that of a lowly cadet. A special hound of the World President, one bearing the title of Fuuma was a cold, ruthless soldier with only the words of his master in mind. It was why throughout their conversation, he might have acted like that, but Bruce never believed a word Fuuma had said. If this unknown boy was brought here by the crimson officer, to the now abandoned Infinite Prison, then he must have some kind of worth that only the World President was able to see, and it was none of Bruce’s job to know what that was.

And it pissed him to no end. That was why he had to make do with constantly poking the cadet as a way to ease his frustration, only for it to backfire spectacularly. Never before could Bruce imagine a mindless killing machine like that one would be able to talk back to him like that.

But he also knew that he couldn’t win this argument anymore. So, Bruce had no choice but to retreat with some dignity left, by letting out an angered huff before leaving the room, not forgetting to slam the door as loud as he could to show who was the real top dog in this facility.

Of course, the target of such scare tactics didn’t even pay a lick of attention to it. For in his mind, there was only a single mission present. But not one that Bruce, or the unconscious Lewis, could ever imagine.

Yusei Kotaro, the heir of Fuuma, had one job. To be the judge of Lewis’s final, biggest test, as well as to bring back the strongest help he could get for his real lord.