Karma started in the D Class.
His parents had warned the school about his violent behavior, and the administration decided to start him at the almost-bottom, just in case. If the boy showed promise, he would have a chance to redeem himself, albeit a small one; and if he was, as most of them suspected, an impulsive wreck, it would be simple enough to transfer him to the very bottom, where he would have no hope of returning.
At first, it seemed that it was going to be the latter. Karma's devil-may-care, cold demeanor did not attract his classmates, who all sensed something off about the boy.
Karma, for his part, defiantly kept up his old ways. He threw in the air the knives he'd slipped from the kitchen. He stared at people with a manic gleam in his eyes. If he was paying attention to the teacher, he didn't show it. He saw no reason to change for a bunch of kids he didn't care about.
Then the grade results came, and the whole class was in an uproar.
Karma Akabane had come out on top.
Because Karma was clever. He saw patterns where people only saw abstracts, created plans and schemes in his head when his classmates only daydreamed about tugging the pigtails of the girls that they liked. What interested him, he pursued because it fascinated him - and it was not like anyone else was going to give him the answers he wanted. Nearly everything fascinated him.
It turned out that kind of mind-set was useful in the close-to-impossible exams, and before he knew it, Karma was surrounded by questions and inquiries on how he'd achieved such a glorious feat. Classmates who'd previously been turned off now smiled at him, invited him to play, begged him to tutor them. Teachers who had cut him down sharply because of his behavior now turned a blind eye in how he acted.
Oh, Karma thought. Now I see.
Everything had a price; and as disturbing and abnormal as people found him, the chance to be liked and revered was still there. The price of being himself, it seemed, was to get as many high grades and honours as possible.
Well. He was up to the challenge.