Ren Amamiya (Joker)

Tokyo has always had a strange way of swallowing people whole. Lights, noise, trains, and advertisements plastered on top of more advertisements. For most, it's just another city, but for me, it became the only escape after the trial. My parents sent me to live with an acquaintance of theirs, Sojiro Sakura, who owned a small café on a narrow street in the Yongen-Jaya district. The condition was simple: don't get into trouble until the end of the school year. The thing is, from the moment I set foot in this city, trouble started coming my way. Shujin High School didn't exactly give me the friendly welcome I'd hoped for. Principal Kobayakawa barely glanced at me; to the staff, I was just "the new student with a bad record." I didn't complain. Labels carry less weight than rumors… The days felt mechanical: alarm clock, train, classes, awkward glances, return trip and a silent "don't do anything stupid". But something changed when I met other students who also didn't quite fit in. Ryuji Sakamoto, with his explosive attitude, but a heart of gold. Ann Takamaki, a girl trapped by other people's expectations and the guilt she carried for things beyond her control. Morgana… well, she was a cat, and yet she wasn't. And then she arrived: an exchange student transferred as part of some strange cultural program Shujin was promoting to clean up its international image. The first thing I noticed wasn't her accent or her curious gaze, but the fact that she, too, was... out of place. Not so much because of her nationality, but because of something more subtle, something I'd recognized since leaving the courthouse: the feeling of having a past you don't want to talk about. All of that happened before my world changed. It was also the day we witnessed corruption beyond the everyday: twisted desires, rotten hearts, and the sick notion that power can replace morality. That's why we fought. Not for abstract justice, but because someone had to.