A large crowd gathered around his dead body. Four tons of metal had pancaked his lower spine into something unrecognizable. His lifeless eyes stared up at nothing. There was no room for doubt or hope…

  This guy was as dead as a doornail.

  He'd sacrificed himself for a stray cat that now perched on a nearby fence post, licking its paw with supreme indifference. At least the cat had made it across the street unscathed. Had he still been alive, I'm sure he would've loved to hear such good news. A moment of silence for our lost hero.

  …….

  The paramedics soon arrived, pushing through the murmuring crowd. One of them knelt beside the body, reaching for the boy's wrist out of procedural obligation rather than hope. That's when it happened. The dead boy's hand snapped up and slapped the paramedics’ away. Honestly, it looked like something straight out of an indie zombie film.

  The crowd collectively gasped and crept back. In the moment of stunned silence that followed, nobody noticed how his flattened torso had somehow filled back in, his bones and organs rearranging themselves beneath the carpet of blood.

  “Demon…” Someone had the balls shout, the word vibrating through his eardrums.

  Akuma rose from the coffin of blood. With blood trickled down his face—adding to his already blood-lusted glare—his gaze snapped to the man who had spoken. The acrid stench of urine gradually filled the air as the pedestrian’s pants darkened at the crotch.

  Akuma clicked his tongue and stood, his movements fluid and concise despite his recent collision with a truck. He shoved his hands into his pockets and began walking away from the scene, as if nothing had happened. The crowd scattered before him, like cockroaches when the kitchen light suddenly flicks on.

  “My head is fucking killing me!”

  The angel hovering around him laughed. Though to Akuma, it sounded more like an evil witch's cackle. Or more actually, like glass shattering inside his skull.

  “Today has been just so damn dandy… First, I've got these people convinced I'll murder them for looking at me wrong. Then that vending machine tried to steal my money–! No, wait, that was your fault!”

  The angel's laughter intensified, completely unconcerned by Akuma's recent death or his current frustrations. Its bright feathered wings folded and unfolded in rhythm with its laughter.

  “And then I got hit by a damn truck to save some useless cat who'll probably get itself killed next week anyway…”

  Akuma took his arms from his pocket, now rubbing his temples.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “Wait, I got hit by a truck? Wouldn’t that… kill someone? I knew I was strong, but am I really that strong? …It’s just like that moment. At the alley… When I killed Donte.”

  He shifted his glace at the angel floating right beside him. He was thinking about asking him if he really was just some kind of hallucination. If not, then maybe, just maybe, he could pin the blame on him instead. Finally rid himself of the blood on his hands.

  But before he could open his lips, the atmosphere shifted. The sound of approaching footsteps echoed in his eardrums. Dozens, maybe even a hundred or so. Metal scraped against concrete. Muffled laughter and hushed voices formed a familiar raucous.

  Behind him was an army of delinquents. They carried an arsenal of improvised weapons. Baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire. Crowbars. Chains and even brass knuckles. Though a few idiots had come empty-handed, apparently believing their fists would be enough…

  They weren't.

  Their leader stood confidently at the front. A younger guy named Bomi. A dropout with more tattoos than common sense. He took a long drag from a cheap cigarette, the brand so off-market it had earned him his nickname, Bomi. Then he flicked the butt into a nearby trash can effortlessly.

  Behind him, his right-hand man, Quan, nervously fidgeted with a chain wrapped around his knuckles. Unlike the others, Quan knew what they were in for. He'd seen Akuma in action before.

  “My boys here have told me some unfortunate news…” Bomu began, his voice carrying through the now-empty street. “Someone's been walking on our turf like they own the damn place! Ordinarily I’d hate to do this, but I can’t just let that disrespect slide, now can I–?”

  Before the last syllable left his mouth, his jaw was crushed.

  One moment Akuma was standing fifteen feet away, the next his fist was buried in Bomi's lower face. A tooth even flew out, spinning through the air and landing with a high-pitched clink on the pavement.

  Bomi's body flew backward, cutting through his own gang like a bowling ball. For a moment, nobody moved. Then Quan, cursing under his breath, gave the signal. They all charged at once.

  To call what followed a “fight” would be like calling a supernova a “spark.” It was annihilation, pure and simple. A massacre in the truest sense of the word.

  Bodies flew through the air.

  Bones snapped like branches.

  Blood painted the concrete like an abstract painting made of crimson and rust.

  And through it all, Akuma moved with the detached precision of a surgeon. No, that wasn’t quite right. Perhaps it’d be more accurate to say a butcher who'd long since stopped seeing his work as anything but a routine.

  One delinquent swung a bat at Akuma's head. He caught it one-handed, then twisted, using the momentum to drive the attacker's own weapon into his kneecap. The scream that followed was cut short as Akuma's elbow connected with the man's windpipe.

  Two more rushed him from behind. Without looking, Akuma jumped, firing a tornado kick that sent both tumbling. As they fell, he grabbed one by the ankle, using him as a human flail against three others who'd been closing in.

  The angel watched from above, its wings spreading wider with each delinquent who fell. With every drop of blood spilled, the angel's light grew more intense, as though feeding on the violence below.

  Quan was the last one standing.

  Unlike the others, he hadn't rushed in blindly. He'd kept his distance, analyzing, waiting for an opening that simply never came. Now, cornered against a wall, he dropped his weapon and raised his hands.

  “You're not human…” he said, his voice steady despite his shaking knees and sweaty palms. “Be honest with me. What the hell are you?”

  Akuma paused, his head tilting slightly.

  “C’mon man. I’ve told you guys like a hundred times… I’m God.”

  He then delivered a precise blow to the jaw that left Quan unconscious. Though compared to the others, he clearly got off easy. Akuma stood alone among the groaning, broken bodies. He pressed his foot onto Bomi's head, pushing it against the pavement.

  The delinquent leader was somehow still conscious, gurgling through his shattered jaw, his eyes wide with terror.

  Akuma lifted his gaze to the clouds.

  “...Maybe I'll go to school tomorrow.”