"Are you insane?! There are over two hundred Veinmarked Goblins outside that door! That's an entire class above all of you! You step out there, you're not heroes—you're minced meat with aspirations!"
"..."
The boy didn't even flinch. Just sat there, silently wiping down his katana with a kind of unnerving calm, as if Jace had just warned him about a light drizzle instead of a horde of bloodthirsty goblins.
"Kai, I'm serious," Jace snapped, the metal of his shackles clinking with every frantic word. "Six of you can't take that horde! You'll die the second you open that door!"
That got a reaction.
Kai stopped wiping the blade, paused, and let out a soft, almost amused chuckle. Then he turned his head and looked Jace dead in the eye.
"Six of us? Nah, Jace. You're coming with us."
Jace blinked.
Then his whole face twisted into a cocktail of horror, betrayal, and absolute what-the-hell.
"I saw you as my brother, Kai! Damn it, we were family. Just listen to me — this is all a mistake, a stupid misunderstanding! Kai... please, let me go..."
"You were my brother. Once. But now? Now, you're just the offering to finish this trial."
Before Jace could respond—
DUM! DUM! DUM!
The heavy wooden door groaned under the force of something massive slamming into it. Dust fell from the hinges. Jace flinched.
He looked around the room, hoping—praying—someone else would stand up and voice some sanity.
But instead, the other five just glanced at each other… then turned their eyes back to Kai, who had already resumed polishing his katana like he was prepping for a dinner party instead of a massacre.
"You're all mad. You'll die. Every single one of you will die if you listen to this lunatic!"
Still, no one said a word.
Not a protest. Not a peep.
"Death, Jace, kissed me once."
Kai's voice was low, almost reverent, as he gave his blade one final swipe with the cloth and rose to his feet in one fluid, effortless motion.
"And now, that same endless dream is my patron. And I... I am his Outrider."
The way he said it—calm, unwavering, almost poetic—sent a chill down Jace's spine.
Kai turned his head slightly, eyes gleaming like storm-lit steel.
"I'll survive this. Like I always survive. And with your blood in that hall..."—he smirked—"I'll complete this trial too."
He gave Jace a respectful nod, like a man tipping his hat before throwing someone into traffic.
"It's time."
Jace didn't even have a moment to argue. Before a single syllable of protest could leave his lips, he was hoisted clean off the ground and flung like a sack of potatoes over a broad, muscled shoulder.
"HEY! HEY! PUT ME DOWN YOU PSYCHOPATH—!"
DUM! DUM! DUM!
The pounding on the door intensified, the sound of clawed hands and snarling voices now unmistakable.
The other five stood tall, shoulder to shoulder before the door, each one inhaling slowly—deep, grounding breaths, like it was their last taste of peace.
Jace, still dangling, flailed weakly. "This is not a formation! This is not a plan!"
Kai reached for the door handle.With a serene smile that looked far too peaceful for what was about to happen, he muttered,
"Let's dance."
And then—
CRRREEAAAAK—BOOM!
The door swung open and all hell broke out.
...
Ten days ago, on a storm-choked evening, when the world was nothing but a wet, suffocating blur of gray and rain...
"Are you sure about this? Like, really really sure?"
The strange man crouched low to the ground beside three very dead bodies, his tone oddly cheerful for someone hanging out with corpses.
His silver hair flopped over his glasses, and if anime had taught Kaizen anything, it was that this guy looked suspiciously like a bargain-bin Satoru Gojo—if Gojo moonlighted as a late-night game show host.
"Once you say yes, there's no going back."
"..."
"So I'll ask one more time, little Timmy—" he grinned, flashing too many teeth for comfort, "do you have what it takes to be an Outrider?"
Kai coughed. He was already one foot from the grave—no, correction: one foot from literal Death.
"That's the... cough cough... only option, right?"
"Of course not! Silly boy. You've got other options. Lucifer's waiting for you with open arms! Your friends are already there, remember? You can go snuggle up with them in Hell's cozy VIP lounge if you want to. Hehehe."
If someone offered you a second chance—to start over in a new world, one full of mystery, monsters, and mayhem—would you take it?
Kai once would've said no.
He'd already lost the last three people who mattered.
He didn't want to live in his own world, let alone wake up in a stranger one.
He didn't want to survive if it meant surviving alone.
But this man's offer...
It wasn't about survival.
It was about a promise.
To become whole once again.
Kai looked up, blood in his mouth and fire in his eyes.
"...Yes."
"Ha ha ha! Yo waimo! HA ha ha! That's what I like to hear from my Outrider. Yo waimo!"
The man cackled, throwing his head back like he'd just nailed the punchline to a joke only he found funny.
The Japanese? Butchered. The energy? Unhinged.
Kai stared blankly. That phrase—"yowai mo"—he was pretty sure it was something the original Gojo used to say in that anime.
But whatever this lunatic just spat out was... not that.
Scammer.
That had been Kai's first thought when the man appeared—cheerful, barefoot, and grinning like a demon on vacation.
His three friends were already dead by then, limbs sprawled out like discarded dolls. Kai had been lying in a puddle of blood, waiting for death to knock—
Instead, this deranged psychopath kicked the door open with a smile and an offer.
Now the man stood over him, eyes gleaming with something dangerous and divine, and extended a black katana toward Kai, hilt-first.
It was the same blade.
The one that carved through his friends like butter.
The one that nearly sent him to the afterlife two stab wounds ago.
"Take it, little Timmy. Go on. Don't be shy. Don't be afraid. There's nothing to fear... not when I'm with you. Hehehe."
From the man's thumb, a drop of blood slid down the blade.
Only... it wasn't red.
It was gold.
Liquid gold.
But Kai didn't ask.
Because honestly? He was too tired to care.
Overconfident. Eccentric. Arrogant.
Narcissistic to the point of clinical concern.
And unempathetic enough to make a rabid cat look emotionally available.
If Kai had to describe this lunatic in one word?
Psycho.
But what could he do? Even if every cell in his body screamed "Don't trust this maniac!"—He'd already witnessed the impossible.
This guy had ripped a katana out of Kai's stomach, casually touched his solar plexus, and poof—His broken spine was healed. His gushing wounds were closed. Internal bleeding? Not anymore, sweetheart.
That wasn't a trick. That wasn't sleight of hand.
That was magic. Pure, unfiltered, reality-defying anime-tier sorcery.
And now, that same katana—black as void and dripping with golden blood from the man's thumb—hovered before Kai like an invitation to madness.
Kai stared at the blade, then at his own trembling, blood-slick fingers.
He didn't ask about the gold blood.
He didn't ask why the blade hummed, like it was alive and waiting.
At this point, he had learned one very important rule:
Never ask this man questions.
Slowly, Kai reached out and wrapped his fingers around the hilt. It was warm. Too warm. Like it remembered everything it had cut through.
The man's eyes sparkled with glee.
"YES! You are trappe—uh, I mean, you've completed the pact! Yo waimo! Ha ha ha!"
Kai blinked.
"…Did you just say—"
"ANYWAY! Time to go, little Timmy!"
The man crouched again like a sprinter prepping for blastoff. His grin was stretched wider than physics should allow.
"But hey! Make sure you remember my three pieces of advice for whatever you see on the other side, alright?"
Kai, dazed, bloodied, and now partially committed to spiritual bankruptcy, just nodded.
"I will see you on the other side, little Timmy."
The man snapped his fingers—
Snap~
And just like that—
Reality shattered.
The world flipped.
Not metaphorically.
One moment, he was under a thundering sky soaked in blood and rain—The next, he was falling into a different kind of darkness.
This one didn't roar.
It breathed.
He hit solid ground with a grunt, jagged stone scraping at his palms.
He could feel it—rough, ancient, real.
Torchlight flickered from high up on either side of the corridor, casting long shadows that danced like silent witnesses.
Kai groaned, his voice barely audible in the void.
"Where… am… I?"
And then—A voice.
Not from outside.
From inside his skull.
It echoed like a god whispering into a tomb.
And with it came words—Not spoken, but seen, hovering in the air before him like ghostly etchings in the dark:
[Death has chosen you as his Outrider, Kaizen…]