The students crowding the hallway had been so mesmerized and shocked by everything that had happened so far, most of them had completely forgotten to take out their phones.
But now that it was just Max and Ko left standing in the room, phones were suddenly everywhere, raised high, recording every second of what was about to go down.
"Hey, who do you think's gonna win? Should we start a betting pool or something?" one student whispered.
"I mean, Max just took out like half the class. He's gotta be tired by now. Still, I'm kinda rooting for him. Ko and his crew were total jerks to him the whole time."
"Yeah, I feel like they went way too far," another agreed.
"True, but if we're talking about who's gonna win... it's probably Ko. He's got natural talent. I heard all the sports teams begged him to join."
"He's fast, skilled, but hates putting effort into anything. That's why he never signed up. Instead, he ended up living this kind of life."
"Yeah, there's a reason Ko's the head of the class," another student added. "It's because he actually knows how to fight. No one messes with him because they know they'd never win."
Regardless of the whispers and rumors, the students were buzzing with excitement, eager to see what would happen next.
"Haha, Max, I think you've been hit in the head one too many times," Ko taunted. "Let me fix that, maybe a few more hits will knock some sense into you!"
Ko charged in, launching a high kick aimed straight for Max's head.
Max raised both arms just in time to block the strike, but the impact was heavy, his forearms stung, already going numb.
'This damned weak body!' Max cursed internally.
Ko didn't slow down. A second kick slammed into Max's stomach, forcing him back. He stumbled and felt his spine slam into one of the desks pushed against the wall.
Seeing Max cornered, Ko rushed in again, until a whole pencil case came flying out of nowhere and smacked him right in the face.
Items scattered everywhere, and Ko naturally blinked. Right after, he saw a large head come his way, and it was swung right into his nose.
The full force crashing. A crack was heard and blood was gushing from Ko's mouth.
"The head and forehead is a lot harder and heavier than people think!" Max shouted.
"Sure, you might know how to fight a bit, but you don't know how to really fight!"
While Ko was startled from the hit to the head, Max didn't let up for a moment as he charged in.
He could see Ko was panicked and threw out another kick, but just like before, Max had predicted this and moved to the side, and with a heavy kick of his own, had kicked the other foot still on the ground.
He had swept him up, causing him to fall right to the floor. Right after, Max lifted his foot and slammed the heel of his foot right into Ko's stomach.
Forcing all of the wind and air out of his body. Ko could hardly breathe, but Max wasn't done there, he was nowhere near done.
He then started to drag Ko by his head, pulling him to the edge of the table.
"You wrote all of those words on that table, right?" Max said. "You couldn't let things go even after death. Sam can never use his hands again, and you have decided to use your hands to do something like this."
Max then had picked up one of the pencils, and spread Ko's hand right out on the table.
In one smooth motion, he lifted it and slammed it right down. The pencil went right through Ko's hand and stuck to the table, sticking out.
"AHHHH!" Ko screamed as he felt pain run up his entire arm, and he had no clue what to do. If he tried to move his hand away, the pencil might rip further into his body.
He went to try grab the pencil with the other hand of his, but it was grabbed by Max before he could do anything.
"Right, a person has two hands, right?" Max said, as he placed it on the table again and grabbed another pencil, and shoved it right through Ko's other hand, sticking them both in.
"ARGHH!" Ko screamed once again.
"Come on," Max said as he left Ko be to look for something else in the classroom. "How much punishment, how many things did you do a day to Max and Sam, huh? And now for one day, I give you a little pain and you can't take it?"
Saliva was falling from Ko's mouth due to all the pain. He had no idea what to do as he stared at the two pencils that had lodged in his hand and were partly in the table itself.
The children watching, some of them had stopped recording, others wanted to get it all down.
But they were in shock, and they were afraid.
"Hey, should we go do something… if we don't head in there… do you think Max might kill him?"
It was the worry on all of their minds. They were there every day in class; they had seen what Max went through on the daily.
Which was why they wouldn't be surprised that now Max had this opportunity, that he wouldn't have gone as far as that.
"Ko, I said you would receive the worst punishment of all," Max said as he took the cap off a marker he had found on the floor.
He then used the marker to carefully write on his forehead. The letters spelled out M.u.r.d.e.r.e.r.
Sheri continued to watch this outside the window, and she didn't understand how any of this had come about.
"What happened to him? Is this really the pushover Max… that I know?" Sheri thought.
Max then turned the table around, and Ko moved along with it, worried that his hands would suffer more pain, and now they could all see the words drawn on his hands.
The tears and dribble flowing out of Ko's mouth. As nearly the entire school watched.
Several of the students were taking photos and filming it all.
"No… no… stop!" Ko shouted. "Stop!!!"
Just then, pushing through the crowded students and managing to get in the class was the homeroom teacher.
"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF ALL THIS!" the teacher yelled.