Lavanya blinked repeatedly, unsure why she had responded so defensively. He had called her "Yug," and she had instinctively corrected him with her real identity, even though he barely looked interested in her at all.
He was standing too close. The hallway was so quiet she could hear his faint, steady breathing.
His dark brown eyes looked entirely devoid of life. His hair was an untamed mess, and he stood just slightly taller than her. His expression was completely blank—an unreadable void—yet his gaze was locked onto her, as if he were trying to dissect her and find something buried deep within.
She took two quick steps backward, putting a safe distance between them.
"Who are you?" Lavanya demanded, deeply unnerved by his intentions. She instantly raised her guard, her muscles tensing in preparation.
Having survived this university for two and a half years, she knew better than to trust anyone. Not a single person on this campus could be described as normal. The entire environment was a psychological minefield, and she had absolutely no way of predicting his type, how he would react to her, or his real reason for approaching her.
"I'm..." Yug parted his lips to explain himself, but her reaction made a flicker of irritation cross his blank features.
He wasn't annoyed that she had stepped back to create distance. He was irritated because her eyes were staring back at him with unwavering confidence. She looked at him as though she truly believed she could handle him if things escalated.
"What does it matter if you are confident and ready for this?" he murmured. "Let's just end it quickly."
His voice was calm and chillingly calculated, but beneath it lay the one thing he always hid: his own immense pride. Yug's pride was absolute. It was the reason he looked down on everyone around him, holding respect only for those who were undeniably superior to him—like those five who had stood against him in the past, the ones he still couldn't defeat. Her confidence felt like an insult to that pride.
Lavanya flinched, slightly caught off guard by the sudden, dangerous shift in his aura.
But deep down, she had been waiting for exactly this.
For months, something had been quietly stirring within her—a dormant instinct desperately trying to awaken, though it had remained stubbornly stuck. Yet, seeing Yug, feeling the oppressive, heavy weight of his intent, made a strange, thrilling excitement flare in her chest. She realized this clash might be the exact catalyst she needed to break the seal.
After years of surviving this ruthless campus by erasing her own identity and mirroring everyone else, she was finally on the verge of grasping something that belonged entirely to her.
"You are still too young, little kid," Lavanya blurted out with sudden confidence, a mocking grin spreading across her face.
Her expression had shifted as she took in just how young Yug actually looked. Standing there, he reminded her of exactly how she used to be when she first arrived—arrogant, fiercely confident, and eager to challenge her seniors. And just like her past self, she assumed he was about to experience a crushing defeat without her even needing to lift a finger.
Yug flinched slightly. His internal calculations ground to an absolute halt.
"Come at me, kid," she taunted.
"Hah..." Yug exhaled a sharp, hollow breath.
He sprinted forward. His immense pride whispered that she didn't even deserve his full attention, but the violence began anyway.
The clash didn't last long at all. In less than five brutal minutes, it was entirely over. Lavanya lay collapsed on the cold hallway floor, violently gasping for air. Hot tears of physical pain and utter humiliation welled in her eyes as the reality of the power gap crashed down on her.
"Hey. I told you once," Yug spoke, his voice surprisingly sincere. It was a cold reminder of the very first time they had met in the dirt. "If you still have your memories, you are much more normal than I imagined."
He paused, looking down at her battered form. "Do you get it now?"
Lavanya stared up at him, her eyes widening in absolute horror. Her fingers twitched uncontrollably against the cold floor. A violent shiver ripped through her body, as though a deeply buried nightmare had just been forcefully dragged back to the surface. Her tears stopped instantly, the remaining spark of life draining completely from her eyes.
She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. She could only stare helplessly at his back—a broad, unreachable back she felt like she had been staring at her entire life.
"I can't be you, huh," she finally whispered.
A forced, hollow smile stretched across her face, leaving her drowning in sheer despair. The realization turned her heart to ash. It forcefully reminded her of what she had been doing her entire life: she had been frantically following a shadow. A shadow of the unknown. She had broken herself trying to become a reflection of a boy she couldn't even defeat.
That brief, brutal interaction violently ripped her back to her own reality. The shock of it lodged deep within her psyche.
She spent the rest of her third year in an eerie, hyper-focused peace. By the end of the term, her rank had skyrocketed to the top fifty. For any normal university, a jump like that would be shocking to the entire class. But here, in the shadow of the vanishing rankers and the true monsters above her, no one cared in the slightest.
"Hello, guys! This is officially the end of my third year at this wretched university," Lavanya spoke into the lens, forcing a familiar, practiced smile. "I used to count down the days, wishing I could escape this place the exact moment my final year arrived. But now that it's actually here... I think I want to stay. The brutal competition, the relentless challenges, the profound rush of chasing absolute knowledge—it's everything everyone here lives for. I've actually started to fear losing all of this, fear turning back into a norm—"
She abruptly stopped speaking.
The word died in her throat, catching like a physical weight. A sudden, cold reminder washed over her: she wasn't anyone special. She wasn't a hero destined to change this place or stand above the rest. She was just a survivor.
She lifted her head, staring blankly at the lens. Seeing the reflection of the campus behind her through the camera screen, she realized her life as a mere student was drawing to a close. A new chapter was beginning—shifting from a terrified girl into a calculated, half-ass actor playing a part to survive.
She took a breath, pasting the mask back over her face.
"Well, from today onward, I'm going to make a lot more videos and vlogs," she stated firmly. As the words left her mouth, a wave of genuine relief washed through her, accompanied by a sharp, lingering uneasiness.
"Thank you, guys, for staying by my side through all of this. I promise I will never stop making videos again. I'm going to stand my ground, stay exactly who I am right now, and become the greatest tech engineer this world has ever seen. Just watch me."
With a soft click, she finally shut the camera off.
Her fourth and final year began.
Word around campus was that Yug hadn't moved a single inch past Rank 6. People had started openly shaming him. Back during his first year, he was famous because everyone assumed he would effortlessly seize the number one spot, but now, that assumption had rotted into a dead rumor. The student body mockingly referred to him simply as "Rank Six."
Hearing this, Lavanya felt a strange mix of vindication and quiet pity. Pushing the thought away, she threw herself into her final year, determined to manufacture a sense of peace and excitement.
"Hello, guys! This month I heard..."
She kept her promise to the camera, flawlessly uploading a new vlog every single month. Academically, however, she had hit a wall—or rather, she had chosen to stop climbing. She remained safely anchored at Rank 50. She never crossed paths with Yug again, which was exactly how she wanted it.
The months vanished in the blink of an eye. She produced countless videos, living her entire final year safely behind the lens. Deep down, she knew the ugly truth: she hadn't just lost her competitive edge; she was completely terrified of it. Her fake, cheerful vlogger persona had swallowed her whole, becoming a flawless act she maintained every single day of her fourth year.
She aggressively ignored the campus gossip. Even when her few friends brought up the endless, dark rumors surrounding Yug, she deflected the topic, refusing to be reminded of her own humiliating past.
But there was one thing she couldn't ignore: her younger brother, Abhi.
He had started genuinely following Yug, drawn into his strange, fiercely loyal inner circle. It was a terrifying, unacceptable development to her, but her spirit was already broken. She had no power left to stop it, so she simply let it go, forcing herself to look the other way.
The year finally came to a close. Lavanya graduated at Rank 50.
As she stood in her graduation robes, a wide, radiant smile was plastered across her face. It was the most intricate, perfect lie she had ever told in her entire life—and as the cameras flashed, capturing her fake joy forever, she finally accepted that this lie was who she was now.