Seven years had passed since Akari's blood was washed away by the rain, but for Riku Aoyama, time had healed nothing. Time had only allowed the wound to fester.

  Now, at seventeen, Riku was a skeletal shadow wandering the streets of District 9. He didn't live; he merely existed. He slept in a makeshift shack made of corrugated metal sheets and plastic tarps, squeezed between two condemned buildings. His "home" was damp, cold, and infested with cockroaches, but it was the only place where the world couldn't reach him.

  To survive, Riku did what no one else wanted to do: he cleaned septic tanks, carried toxic debris without protection, and scavenged for scrap metal. But the weight of the work was nothing compared to the weight of the contempt.

  That gray morning, Riku walked down the main street dragging a bag of recyclable trash. He tried to become invisible, keeping his head down, his greasy black hair covering his lifeless eyes. “Hey! Look at the Walking Corpse!” shouted a shrill voice.

  They were children. No more than eight or ten years old—the same age he was when he lost everything. They were playing ball on the sidewalk, but they stopped as soon as they saw him.

  “My mother says he brings bad luck,” said a chubby boy, picking up a stone from the ground. “She said his whole family died because they were cursed.”

  “Get out of here, trash!” shouted a girl, throwing the first stone.

  The stone hit Riku’s shoulder. He didn’t stop. He didn’t run. He simply continued walking at the same monotonous pace. More stones flew. One hit his thigh, another grazed his ear. The children laughed, encouraged by his passivity. To them, Riku wasn’t human; he was a target, a scarecrow destined to absorb the cruelty they learned at home.

  Riku clenched his teeth, the bitter taste of bile rising in his throat. "They're monsters," he thought, hatred seething beneath his pale skin. Children, adults, the elderly… there is no innocence. The seed of evil exists in all of them. If they could, they would kill me just to see the color of my blood.

  Further on, the real danger awaited him.

  "Well, well. If it isn't the neighborhood's favorite punching bag."

  Three older teenagers—aspiring members of the local gang—blocked his path. They wore counterfeit designer clothes and smelled of cheap tobacco. The leader slapped Riku on the back of the neck, making him drop the bag of scrap metal.

  "How much did you collect today, Riku?" The thug kicked the bag, scattering cans and copper wires across the filthy street. "That's protection tax."

  "I have nothing," Riku murmured, his voice hoarse from disuse.

  "Liar!"

  A punch landed in his stomach. Riku bent over, the air being forced out of his lungs. They kicked him to the ground, laughing. People passed by and looked away. A shopkeeper closed the door so he wouldn't have to see. No one intervened. No one ever intervened.

  As he spat blood onto the asphalt, Riku didn't feel like crying. He only felt that black flame in his chest grow stronger.

  The world is a slaughterhouse, he concluded, wiping the blood from his nose as the thugs walked away with their few coins. And I am the cattle. But one day... one day the slaughterhouse will burn.

  Night fell, and Riku's hunger turned into a sharp physical pain, like claws tearing at his stomach. He hadn't eaten for two days. Desperation drove him to the bar called The Broken Tooth, a hole in the wall frequented by low-level criminals and decadent mercenaries.

  He wasn't there to drink, but to look for anything that would bring in money.

  In the darkest corner of the bar, a man in a gray suit—completely out of place in that filthy environment—gestured toward him. Riku approached, the smell of smoke and sweat filling his nostrils.

  “Are you Aoyama?” the man asked without looking at him, swirling a glass of whiskey. “I was told you’re… disposable. That nobody would miss you.”

  Riku didn’t answer. It was true.

  The man pulled a black briefcase from under the table. It was made of heavy metal, with a complex digital lock that blinked with a faint red light.

  “I need this delivered to the Government Headquarters, District 1.” The man pushed the briefcase toward Riku with his foot. “Don’t ask questions. Don’t stop. And under no circumstances try to open it.”

  He threw a stack of bills onto the table. It was enough money for Riku to eat for a month. Maybe even rent a room where the rain wouldn’t get in. “Why me?” Riku asked suspiciously. “Why not an official messenger?”

  The man smiled—a smile devoid of any human warmth.

  “Because if an official messenger is caught with this, it becomes a diplomatic scandal. If you get caught… well, you’re just a rat from District 9 who stole something he shouldn’t have. Nobody will investigate your death.”

  Riku looked at the money. Then at the briefcase.

  He knew it was dangerous. He knew he could die. But the alternative was to starve to death in his cold shack.

  Screw it, Riku thought. If I die, at least it’s all over.

  The man in the suit returned to his drink.

  “Good. Go. And pray you don’t run into the Iron Dogs on the way. I hear they’re restless tonight.”

  Riku left the bar, the heavy briefcase in his hand, walking into the night and toward his destiny—unaware that this delivery would mark the end of his human life and the beginning of his demonic reign.

  The path between District 9 and the government zone was a bridge between two worlds that hated each other. As Riku walked, the weight of the briefcase seemed to increase with every step—not only because of the metal, but because of the suffocating premonition creeping up his spine.

  Riku avoided the main avenues, where the neon lights of the corporations made muddy puddles shine in artificial colors. He preferred the shadows. The briefcase knocked against his thigh, cold and silent. He felt that he wasn’t carrying just an object, but a dangerous secret pulsing against his palm.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  As he crossed “No Man’s Land”—an abandoned industrial zone separating the poor districts from the city center—the silence began to unsettle him. Usually there were sounds: rats scurrying, steam hissing from broken pipes, other wretches hiding nearby. But today, the air was static.

  Something is wrong, Riku thought, his senses sharpened by years of surviving on the streets. He squeezed the handle of the briefcase so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

  He remembered the man at the bar. “No one will investigate your death.” Those words echoed like a sentence being passed. Riku began to sweat despite the icy wind. He looked back. The faint lights of District 9 resembled distant, indifferent eyes. He was alone. He always had been.

  As he entered a long corridor formed by corrugated metal warehouses, Riku stopped abruptly. The smell of rusted metal was replaced by something metallic and sweet… the smell of fresh blood.

  On the ground, a few meters ahead, he saw a dead cat. It didn’t look like it had been attacked by an animal; it had been torn apart with cruel, almost ritualistic precision. A chill ran through Riku. For a brief second, his mind drifted to his sister Akari’s face at the moment the light left her eyes.

  “Tomorrow will be better…” her voice whispered in his memory, sounding like a cruel joke.

  A sudden spike of pain stabbed into Riku’s head. A fleeting image crossed his mind: a sea of red flames and a throne made of black bones. He shook his head, trying to drive the vision away.

  “It’s just hunger…” he muttered to himself, but his left hand began to tingle intensely.

  He tried to quicken his pace, but as he turned the corner into the alley that served as a shortcut to Central Avenue, he saw them. Three large silhouettes blocked the exit. The flickering light of a broken streetlamp above revealed the faces Riku feared and hated most.

  They were the same bullies from that morning. But now they weren’t just looking for fun. They were armed with iron bars and chains, and their eyes gleamed with savage greed.

  “Well, well… look who we found. The rat is carrying a treasure,” said Goro, the leader, stepping forward. The sound of his metal teeth clacking together was like a warning of death.

  Riku looked back. Two other men had sealed off the entrance behind him. He was trapped. The briefcase in his hand seemed to vibrate for a fraction of a second, as if eager for what was about to come.

  “Hand over the briefcase, Aoyama,” Goro growled. “And maybe we’ll only break your legs this time.”

  Riku looked up at the dark sky, but there were no stars—only smoke rising from factory chimneys. The bad feeling finally hardened into absolute certainty: his life, as he knew it, would end there

  The alley seemed to close in like a concrete jaw. The sound of rain striking the metal sheets created a funereal rhythm for what was about to happen.

  Riku did not hand over the briefcase. He clutched it against his chest, a final act of stubbornness from someone who had nothing left to lose.

  “No…” he murmured, his voice breaking.

  “‘No’?” Goro laughed, a dry, cruel sound. “Did you hear that, boys? The rat learned how to talk.”

  The first blow came from the side. An iron bar smashed into Riku’s ribs with a dull crack. He dropped to his knees, the air ripped from his lungs, but his arms remained locked around the cold metal of the briefcase. The second kick landed squarely on his face, snapping his head back and sending hot blood pouring over the collar of his worn shirt.

  They didn’t stop. It became a storm of kicks and strikes. Riku tasted iron in his mouth, smelled mud and rain, felt the unbearable throb of pain. Each blow was a reminder of his weakness. Each laugh from the thugs was another nail in the coffin of his humanity.

  “Take that damn thing!” Goro ordered.

  They kicked Riku’s arms until his muscles finally gave out from sheer trauma. The briefcase was ripped from his grasp and thrown into the mud. Goro pulled a heavy construction hammer from his belt.

  “Let’s see what this worm’s life is worth.”

  With a brutal strike, he shattered the electronic lock. The briefcase hissed open with a release of pressurized air.

  The thugs stepped closer, greed shining in their eyes. But what they saw left them speechless. At the center of the briefcase, resting on black velvet that seemed to absorb all light, lay a ring. It was heavy, made of a worn, reddish metal, coated with the patina of centuries. On its top, a symbol resembling a claw or a flame had been crudely carved.

  “That’s it?” Goro shouted, his voice thick with rage. “Just this? An old brass ring?! I wasted my night for some museum trinket?”

  He picked up the ring with contempt and looked at Riku, who lay on the ground coughing blood, barely able to keep his eyes open. A twisted idea crossed the brute’s face.

  “You know what, Aoyama? You were always trash. But today, I’ll give you a farewell gift. They say these things bring luck, right?”

  Goro walked over to Riku, grabbed his left hand, and with brute force that nearly dislocated the bone, shoved the ring onto the boy’s finger.

  “Fits you. Old and broken.” Goro straightened up and delivered one final kick to Riku’s temple. “Die with style, rat.”

  The instant the ring settled onto Riku’s finger, time stopped. The rain froze in midair. The sound of the thugs’ footsteps retreating stretched into an endless echo.

  Riku felt searing heat. The ring wasn’t just on his finger—it was going inside him. Thousands of invisible hooks pierced his skin, fusing with his nerves. He tried to scream, but his throat filled with a hot, black substance.

  “Finally…” A deep voice echoed inside his mind, as if rising from the depths of the earth and from a forgotten age. “Seven millennia of silence… broken by the hatred of a human whelp.”

  Who are you? Riku’s thought was a flash of pure terror.

  “I am your new God, little worm. I am Kael’Zhorun, the Scourge of the Infernal Plains. And you… you are my feast and my throne.”

  Riku’s wounds began to close instantly—but not through healing. They were filled with a pulsating crimson mass. Red light erupted from the ring, enveloping Riku’s body in a dome of dark energy.

  Goro and his men turned back, shielding their eyes.

  “What the hell is that…?!”

  The dome exploded outward in a shockwave, hurling the thugs against the alley walls. Where a dying boy had once lain, there now stood a figure born of nightmares.

  The armor was both organic and metallic. Plates of obsidian-black metal covered the chest and limbs, with joints that looked like exposed tendons—red, muscular, and glowing. The helmet was smooth and mouthless, marked only by a single horizontal slit radiating a malevolent scarlet light. Thirty-centimeter claws extended from its fists.

  The air around him began to hiss. The temperature in the alley rose sharply.

  “Riku Aoyama…” Kael’Zhorun’s voice now boomed through the armor itself, a fusion of Riku’s human tone and a demonic roar. “They treated you like garbage. They killed your hope. Look at them. They are afraid. Their fear is your nourishment. Kill them. Drink their terror and give me the strength I need to reclaim my rightful throne!”

  Riku felt the power. It was a violent intoxication. All the hatred accumulated over seven years of misery finally found an outlet.

  Goro tried to stand, his knife trembling in his hand.

  “S-stay back! What are you?!”

  Riku took his first step forward. The concrete cracked beneath his armored foot.

  “I am the future you never knew,” Riku’s voice—distorted by the armor—rang out like a judge’s verdict.

  The air in the alley froze, heavy with the promise of violence. Goro, gripping his rusted knife, looked pitiful compared to what Riku had become.

  “Stay away from me, freak!” Goro stammered, fear replacing bravado in his eyes. His cronies, paralyzed by terror, tried to crawl away.

  Riku—or the entity he had become—did not respond with words. The black armor, its crimson veins pulsing, emitted a low, guttural growl that resonated with Kael’Zhorun’s presence. Then he moved. It wasn’t a step—it was a blur.

  Goro barely had time to raise the knife. Riku’s armored hand, ending in claws sharp as blades, seized Goro’s wrist. The sound of bone shattering was sharp and unmistakable, muffled only by the thug’s shrill scream.

  “Feel the pain you caused, worm…” Kael’Zhorun’s voice echoed inside Riku’s mind, a dark whisper of approval.

  With a swift, brutal motion, Riku twisted Goro’s arm at an impossible angle, tearing the knife from his useless hand. Without hesitation, Riku’s claw lunged forward, punching through Goro’s chest as if it were paper. The man’s heart was crushed before shock could even register on his face. Goro’s eyes widened in horror and disbelief before going dark

  His lifeless body collapsed to the ground like a sack of meat. Blood poured out, spreading through the muddy puddles.

  The other two thugs, witnessing the massacre, finally found their voices.

  “Run! It’s a demon!”

  They turned to flee in desperation—but the alley was a dead end for them.

  Riku leapt. The armor seemed to defy gravity, propelling him forward with brutal force. He landed in front of them, cutting off their escape.

  One of the men collapsed to his knees and begged:

  “P-please! Don’t do this! I have a family!”

  “Family?” Kael’Zhorun mocked inside Riku’s mind. “Family is the excuse the weak use to justify their cruelty. Did you show mercy to our vessel’s family? Did you show mercy to his sister?”

  Driven by the demon’s fury and his own buried hatred, Riku grabbed the man by the throat. He lifted him into the air with one hand. The man thrashed and choked, legs kicking helplessly.

  The other thug, in a final act of desperation, grabbed a stone and hurled it at Riku’s head. The rock shattered harmlessly against the black helmet.

  Riku tightened his grip. The man’s neck gave way with a dry crack. The body went limp.

  He turned to the last one. The thug stood frozen in terror, eyes wide, mouth open in a scream that never came.

  There was no mercy. No hesitation. Riku attacked. The scene was fast and brutal—a dance of claws and shadows—ending with the wet sounds of flesh tearing and bones breaking. Within seconds, all three thugs lay dead, their bodies scattered through the alley like broken toys, the rain washing their blood into the gutters.

  The armor’s pulsing slowed. The heat diminished slightly, but power still radiated from Riku. He stood amid the carnage, surrounded by the bodies of those who had humiliated and beaten him for years.

  The helmet retracted, revealing Riku’s face. His eyes, once lifeless, now burned with a golden glow, their pupils vertical like a predator’s. A sense of power—of control—washed over him, something he had never felt before.

  “Well done, vessel,” Kael’Zhorun’s voice purred inside his mind, softer now, almost satisfied. “Do you feel it? The power? The justice? It’s a bittersweet taste, isn’t it? The freedom their fear grants you.”

  Riku looked down at his hands, the claws retracted but still coated in a thin sheen of blood. He felt no disgust. No regret. Only a cold, profound satisfaction. The rage, the hatred, the pain—everything had been released.

  “They deserved it…” Riku whispered, his voice trembling yet steady.

  “Oh yes, they did,” Kael’Zhorun agreed. “They were filth. But they are only the beginning, aren’t they? The entire world ignored you. The entire world trampled you. What will you do with it now that you have the power to change it?”

  Riku lifted his gaze to the night sky, the golden glow in his eyes reflecting the distant city lights. He remembered Akari’s final promise.

  “Tomorrow will be better,” she had said.

  “She was wrong,” Riku replied, his voice carrying a new and dangerous resolve. “Tomorrow won’t be better. I’ll make sure it’s… different.”

  “Exactly,” Kael’Zhorun roared, his voice trembling with triumph. “This is our pact, Riku Aoyama. You give me your body, your rage, and your thirst for vengeance—and I will give you the power to reshape this world in your image. Or, more fittingly, in our image.”

  Riku closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in the scent of rain and blood. When he opened them again, all hesitation was gone. The scarlet slit slid back over his face.

  “Let hell begin,” Riku whispered—and the armor answered with a blinding glow.