"Come on, boys, get into my tight, little hole. He he he."
…?!
'What the actual hell?!'
Even with Death practically tap-dancing on his chest, Kaladin doubted he was hallucinating. It had been dead silent just moments ago—until that cursed voice slithered into his ears like an unsolicited sales pitch.
Straining his head, he blinked through the curtain of rain and the fog of blood loss. His vision wobbled like a drunk trying to parallel park, but he saw him—the source of the profane invitation.
The guy was crouched on the ground like he was about to start a campfire, dressed like a failed magician—shirt tucked into pants, held up by suspenders, and, most importantly, rocking the goofiest pair of glasses Kaladin had ever seen.
The dude looked like he spent his evenings collecting stamps and writing conspiracy theories about sentient pigeons.
And the worst part was that, the guy was grinning. At the three corpses. Kaladin's three very dead friends. Like this was some kind of sitcom and they'd just flubbed their lines.
'Who is this bootleg Gojo Satoru with a budget haircut?'
Kaladin thought, barely keeping his soul anchored to his body.
Then the guy started fanning the corpses. With both hands. Like he was some kind of demented game show host summoning ghost contestants. His arms flailed like confused cobras.
"Arise. Arise… Oh, damn! Is this copyright infringement?"
He froze mid-wave, eyes darting around as if expecting a lawsuit to materialize out of the rain. Then, with a casual shrug—
"Nah, Sun Junju isn't that petty."
And just like that, he went right back to flapping his hands over the corpses like he was airing out a fart.
Kaladin blinked. Once. Twice. Thrice.
Was this really the grand finale of his life? Was this how his tragic saga ended? Not in a blaze of glory, not in a heart-wrenching last stand, but by watching a Gojo Sensei knockoff try to resurrect his dead friends like some third-rate necromancer on a budget? Seriously?!
But no matter. Even at death's doorstep, Kaladin felt a deep, primal urge—to correct this absolute blasphemy.
Kaladin was a man of culture. So it was only right after all.
And so, with the strength of a man who had nothing left to lose, he croaked out:
"It's… It's not Sun Junju… It's Sung Jin—"
He never got to finish.
Because the moment the words left his lips, the psycho bastard snapped his head toward him so fast Kaladin thought the guy was about to break the sound barrier. That smile. That psychotic, unblinking, teeth-baring smile.
Kaladin froze. His throat went dry. This was not a normal person.
For a couple of seconds, the wannabe Gojo just… stared. Unblinking. Unmoving. Grinning.
Kaladin swallowed. Hard.
Then, suddenly—
?!
The wannabe Gojo crouch-walked at him. Fast.
Not a normal crouch. Not a casual approach. This was some unholy, unhinged, crab-walking horror movie nonsense.
And Kaladin—who was literally dying—felt the overwhelming, primal, caveman instinct to stand up and sprint for his life.
Because, honestly, who the hell wouldn't?!
It was goofy, sure—but at the same time, something about it was deeply, soul-shakingly terrifying. Like watching a child's toy suddenly scuttle toward you in the middle of the night.
The guy came to a stop right next to Kaladin. Then, just like that—silence.
One second.
Two seconds.
And Kaladin braced himself.
For whatever fresh hell was coming next.
"Nani, nani, nani! It's Sun Junju! I'm sure of it! That's the guy's name, I promise!"
"..."
"..."
"It's… Sung Jin—"
"NOOO!! STOP! PLEASE!! Don't say the full name! I was joking! He is a petty bastard! He'll sue the hell out of you just for speaking his name!!!"
A beat of absolute silence. Just the rain. Just two idiots staring at each other.
Even though Kaladin couldn't see the guy's eyes behind those stupid glasses, he could practically feel the deranged gleam lurking behind the lenses—like the kind of unhinged stare you'd expect from a raccoon that just discovered energy drinks.
"Who… who are you?"
The reply came at the speed of light, as if the question had been expected.
"Sun Junju…"
"Bruh..."
"..."
"..."
"Nani! Nani. Nani. You don't believe me?! Watch this!"
And just like that, the nasty bastard spun around and crouch-walked back toward the dead bodies—once again moving with the eerie grace of a goblin scuttling to steal your snacks.
Kaladin felt his already freezing body somehow get colder.
There was something fundamentally wrong with this man. Something that transcended simple weirdness and crossed into full-blown "I need an exorcist" territory.
And every time those goofy-ass glasses turned in his direction, Kaladin felt something deep in his soul scream:
"RUN."
Kaladin had already made peace with death before this lunatic showed up.
He had accepted his fate, embraced the void, and was even feeling kinda sentimental about dying next to his last remaining friends—the only people he had ever truly loved...after his family, of course.
But now? Now he just wanted to get the hell out of here and die literally anywhere else.
A ditch? A gutter? The bottom of a maggot-infested compost bin? Didn't matter.
Anyplace was better than being stuck here, watching some deranged necromancer reject wave his hands around like he was auditioning for a ghost-themed boy band.
Well… it's not like dead people can complain about what happens to them, right?
"Hey, hey, little Timmy, watch this!"
The lunatic chirped as he crouched near the corpses, raising his hands like he was about to pull a rabbit out of thin air. Then, mid-motion, he paused, turned his head to Kaladin, and flashed a smile that belonged in a horror movie.
Then, as if nothing happened, he turned back and started fanning his hands over the corpses again.
"Arise…"
He only said it once.
Kaladin blinked. Once. Twice. Thrice. His brain struggled to process what was happening—until reality finally smacked him across the face.
"Holy HELL!!!"
Panic punched him in the gut. His throat dried up despite the pouring rain. Instinct screamed at him to GET AWAY, to run, to crawl, to do literally anything to remove himself from this hellish situation.
His hands slammed against the ground, pushing his upper body up in a desperate bid to move—
—only for a fresh wave of agony to rip through him.
Kaladin froze. His breath hitched. Oh. Right.
There was a katana sticking out of his body.
Lodged sideways through him like he was some kind of tragic kebab.
The blade had gone all the way through, the pointy end poking out the other side like it was waving at him.
And judging by the sharp, paralyzing numbness creeping through his lower half…
Yeah. His spine was very, very broken.
Kaladin let out a slow, shaky exhale.
"Oh. That's… not great."
And yet, somehow, being impaled wasn't nearly as terrifying as the grinning psycho still waving his hands over his dead friends.
"Oh? You wanted a front-row seat to watch your friends rise from the dead? Oh, how sweet of you. So caring. I'm impressed…"
The lunatic grinned, clearly having the time of his life.
Behind him, three figures stood up.
Lazily cracking their necks and rolling their shoulders, they moved like they had just woken up from a hangover so bad it reset their brain functions.
Kaladin, in his overwhelming horror, completely missed the fact that there were still three very dead bodies lying right by their feet.
"Told ya, I'm Sun Junju, Ruler of Death."
He puckered his lips and blew kisses.
Kaladin, despite being on death's doorstep, managed to stop looking horrified just long enough to give him a completely deadpan look.
"It's Monarch of Shadows, you stupid—!"
The guy scowled like a kid who just got corrected on his homework, then wordlessly pointed behind him.
Kaladin, against all survival instincts, turned his gaze back to his now-standing dead friends, and resumed his horrified screaming.
But just as the existential dread was settling in, the lunatic did it again.
He started crouch-walking toward Kaladin.
Again.
And just like last time, every fiber of Kaladin's body demanded he get the hell out of there.
But before his fight-or-flight instincts could properly kick in, something else caught his attention.
His friends.
They were walking.
Not toward him.
Toward something.
Something oval-shaped. Man-sized. Its insides were swirling, an eerie mix of ash and gray, shifting and twisting like a storm trapped in a bottle. And they just casually walked inside them, the weird thing swallowing them.
The lunatic stopped beside Kaladin, grinning like a used-car salesman unveiling a terrible deal.
"That's my tight, little wormhole. Expressway straight to hell."
Kaladin stared at it. Then at the guy.
"...Hell? Who the hell are you—"
Before Kaladin could even finish his sentence, the guy suddenly jammed a finger between his lips—
And rapidly wiggled it up and down.
Effectively silencing the dying man.
Kaladin's brain crashed.
This was it. This was how he was spending his last moments on Earth.
With a katana in his gut, dead friends being zombie-escorted to hell, and some unhinged lunatic treating his mouth like a doorstop.
He had never been more done with life.
"Listen, little Timmy, I don't have time for this."
The guy let out a dramatic sigh, hands on his hips like an exhausted babysitter dealing with a particularly annoying toddler.
"Luci is on my ass to haul your asses to his lair so he can torture your asses… BUT..."
He suddenly raised an eyebrow, tilting his head like a cat judging your life choices.
Now that he was uncomfortably close, Kaladin noticed something very, very wrong.
The guy wasn't drenched.
Not even a little bit.
Despite standing in the pouring rain without an umbrella, a raincoat, or even the slightest hint of concern for basic physics.
It was like the raindrops took one look at him and noped the hell out.
"...Who are youuuu—"
Before Kaladin could finish, the finger returned.
That. Damn. Finger.
And once again, the lunatic motorboated his lips like a child making fart noises on a car window.
Kaladin couldn't even fight back.
His entire existence had been reduced to making garbled noises against this maniac's wiggling finger.
"Do you have a wish?"
Kaladin suddenly paused and for a second, and thought about them. The day he lost them, he felt a piece of himself being torn and getting lost, and he was never whole again.
"Aww, little Timmy has a BIG wish, huh? How noble. The poor boy wants to see his deceased family one last time. Ohhh, how tragic. How heart-wrenching. I'm literally crying right now."
To really sell the act, the bastard wiped away nonexistent tears.
Theatrically.
Dramatically.
Like some soap opera villain who just found out their twin had amnesia.
'What a diva!'
Kaladin thought, but at this point, reality had long stopped making sense.
He was dying.
His dead friends were walking.
There was a literal swirling portal to who-knows-where.
If a flying cow suddenly dropped from the sky, Kaladin wouldn't even blink.
"But too bad, little Timmy. You'll never see them again. Wanna know why?"
The bastard grinned.
"Because your goodie-two-shoes family is in HEAVEN… but YOU—"
He leaned in, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
"You, my little drug-dealing, delinquent, no-good naughty boy, are going STRAIGHT to Lucifer's lair."
Kaladin just… stopped.
Stopped speaking.
Stopped reacting.
Stopped trying.
Because at this point, he was 100% sure that no matter what he did, this unhinged bastard would FIND A WAY to annoy him.
But even if this guy was a certified lunatic, there was one thing that gave Kaladin the tiniest bit of peace.
His family was in heaven.
Did he actually believe this deranged weirdo?
For literally everything else—hell no.
But for this?
Yeah. Yeah, he'd take it.
"Hey, hey, hey... Don't be sad, baby girl. I can let you see them... again... if you want to... only if you want to..."
The psycho cooed like a shady vendor offering free samples of poison in fancy wrapping.
He slurped his lips—loud enough to make a snail cringe—and began rubbing his hands together like a budget-level Bond villain with a Groupon for soul-deals.
Kaladin squinted. He'd seen actual con men on the streets of lower districts, but this guy? This guy was the final boss of scamming.
And yet... if there was even a sliver of a chance to see his family again...
"How...?"
BOOM.
A low rumble rolled out from the swirling hell-hole behind them. The portal shook like it had just heard something offensive.
The psycho didn't even flinch. He just stared at Kaladin with those unblinking cartoon villain eyes.
"Oops. Sounds like Luci's getting cranky 'cause his Amazon Prime delivery is late. We need to hurry."
Kaladin wanted to ask, "Hurry where, to hell?!" but decided to keep his mouth shut. This man fed off reactions like a demon feeds on trauma.
"Do you want to see your family or not? Are you ready or not?"
He raised a hand—dramatically, of course—like he was offering a ride to either salvation or an MLM pitch.
Kaladin looked at it. A trembling, scheming hand. This had "scam" written on it in bold, underlined, double-italic font.
But what did he have left to lose? His dignity was long gone. His spine was probably in three pieces. And Death was already circling like a vulture on Red Bull.
So he croaked:
"Yes..."
Then, with the strength of a half-boiled noodle, he lifted his hand—only for the man to spit on his own palm at the last moment.
SPIT.
Right before their hands met.
Kaladin didn't even flinch anymore. He just closed his eyes like a man accepting his fate, the way one does when they realize they're about to be hugged by a sweaty uncle at a family reunion.
"Let's go, Little Timmy, before Luci shows up and beats my ass like rent's due."
SNAP!
The man snapped his fingers like a magician late for his own show.
And just like that—
Poof.
The psycho and the dying boy vanished, as if the universe itself had sighed and said, "I'm done with this nonsense."