The cruelest command is the one never spoken-because it leaves you waiting forever.
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Ayanokouji: Phase Two
He knew Ryuen was unraveling.
Not because of anything overt.
But because of the absence of overt behavior.
There were no staged confrontations. No shadowed threats behind the school. No coded messages delivered by Ishizaki. Just... stillness. A void shaped like a boy who once shook entire classrooms into submission.
And Ayanokouji had designed that void himself.
Phase Two wasn't about pressure. It was about pulling away.
He had mapped Ryuen's responses with surgical precision-cataloged when his resistance waned, when his pulse jumped, when his posture subtly leaned forward before obeying a single-word instruction.
What interested him most was the fallout of removal.
What happens when someone who thrives on rebellion is given nothing to push against?
Answer: they begin to eat themselves.
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Ryuen: The Slow Disintegration
Four days.
No interaction.
No eye contact.
No voice.
Not even proximity.
At first, Ryuen had clung to the silence like armor. See? I don't need you. I'm fine. He told himself that over and over.
By day two, the silence had texture. It pressed against his skin, humming at the edges of his thoughts like static.
By day three, it became physical. A tension in his jaw. A tightness in his throat. His knuckles split from clenching his fists too hard during math.
By day four, it was a withdrawal.
Not from drugs. From structure.
From him.
He didn't want to admit it. But the moment Ayanokouji had stopped speaking to him, it was like the entire architecture of his days had collapsed.
He didn't know when to move.
Didn't know what to fight.
Didn't know who he was meant to be.
And that terrified him more than anything else.
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Controlled Chaos
He tried to recreate it.
Told Ishizaki to report to him in exact five-minute intervals. Ordered the others to walk in precise formations through the halls. Started practicing breathing exercises-not for calm, but because he needed rules.
And still, none of it mattered.
Because it wasn't Ayanokouji.
And nothing else could replicate the weight of that voice.
Ryuen passed him in the corridor once.
Ayanokouji didn't even look at him.
Didn't flinch. Didn't pause. Didn't recognize him.
It was surgical neglect.
And Ryuen felt like he was disappearing inside his own skin.
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ESTÁS LEYENDO
Chains of Command
FanfictionAfter the rooftop confrontation, Ayanokouji defeats Ryuen-physically. But what neither expected was what the fight would reveal. Ryuen discovers something he can't unfeel: a need for structure, for control-not to exert it, but to submit to it. And A...
