PAT! PAT!
The sound echoed through the dimly lit, closed warehouse on the coastal outskirts of Tokyo. The air inside was thick, heavy with the stench of saltwater, oil, and rust. The vast expanse of concrete floors stretched in every direction, littered with crates, barrels, and old machinery. The only light came from a flickering bulb hanging from the ceiling, casting long, jittery shadows across the room.
At the center of the warehouse, a man hung by his wrists, his arms stretched painfully above him. Rusted chains dug into his skin, cutting into his flesh with each small movement, each twitch of agony. His body was bloodied and bruised, the wounds on his face and torso a testament to the brutality he had endured for days. His once-stylish suit was torn and discarded, leaving his back exposed beneath the wavering light.
Across that back stretched a tattoo like no other—an ancient, living thing, defiant even in silence. It was a demon, a fierce, otherworldly beast immortalized in ink and fire. Black and red spiraled across his spine, the creature's molten eyes burning like embers beneath the skin, its jagged claws curled in eternal, screaming rage. Flames danced around its coiled form, tendrils of smoke seeming to rise from the flesh itself.
The artwork breathed fury. The demon was no mere decoration—it was a declaration. Of power. Of fear. Of the name once whispered through Tokyo's underworld with reverence and dread.
Crimson Shura.
The youngest wakagashira in the Kurojin-kai syndicate's bloody history.
Once, men bowed when he entered a room.
Now, they watched him bleed.
"Still alive, huh?"
A voice slithered from the darkness, sharp and smug. Footsteps followed—slow, deliberate, the sound of leather soles clicking on concrete. From the shadows emerged a man in a crisp black suit, his tie loosened, cigarette burning between his fingers. His expression was casual, almost amused, but his eyes held the same cold detachment as a man gutting fish at Tsukiji Market.
"You always were a stubborn bastard, Ren," the man said, exhaling a stream of smoke. "Even death doesn't want you."
Ren didn't respond. Couldn't. His lips were cracked, his jaw swollen, one eye swollen shut. Blood matted his hair, dried in streaks down his chest. But there was something in the one eye that remained open—something that hadn't died. Not yet.
Hate.
Not the kind that burns hot and blind, but the cold, deliberate kind. The kind that remembers every face. Every betrayal.
Another man stepped forward from behind, holding a wooden bokken—already splintered from repeated strikes. He raised it and brought it down hard.
CRACK.
Ren's body jerked, but he made no sound. No scream. Only the chains creaked.
"You know, I truly considered you to be my brother. Even Kurumi loved you more. But you—"
The man in the suit paused, inhaled deeply from his cigarette, then let the smoke curl out through his nostrils. His voice dropped lower, tinged with something raw and sour.
"—you just had to take everything, didn't you? The respect. The fear. The dream. I built it with my own hands, and you waltzed in like a fucking myth."
He stepped closer, his polished shoes stopping just before the pool of blood gathering beneath Ren's feet. The bokken wielder retreated into the shadows, silent and obedient.
"Crimson Shura," the man mocked. "What a joke. You were nothing without us. Without me."
Ren coughed, a low, wet sound, and spat blood onto the concrete. It landed near the man's shoe, a defiant splash of red against black. His eye flickered—not in apology, but in contempt.
"Jealousy doesn't suit you, Kaito," Ren rasped, voice hoarse and broken but laced with venom. "You've always been second-rate. Even Kurumi knew that."
Kaito froze. The cigarette trembled between his fingers. Then, with quiet fury, he flicked it at Ren's face. The ember kissed his cheek, burning flesh with a faint sizzle, but Ren didn't flinch.
"Well," Kaito sneered, stepping even closer, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "Kurumi doesn't seem to miss you now. Not when she's in my bed every night."
The words weren't meant to wound. They were meant to kill something inside. To twist the knife where fists and bokken had failed.
For the first time, Ren's eye twitched.
Not rage. Not sorrow.
Something colder.
"You're lying," he murmured.
"Well, see for yourself," Kaito fished out his smartphone and played the video.
The screen glowed in the dim warehouse, casting flickers of pale blue light across Kaito's face. The audio clicked on—a soft gasp, a whisper, a name.
"Ren…"
Kurumi's voice.
Ren's breath hitched.
On the screen, a woman appeared. Disheveled, tear-streaked, her mascara smudged from crying. She was kneeling on a futon in a darkened room, lit only by moonlight. Her voice was shaking, desperate.
"Please… If anyone finds this… don't let them tell Ren I gave in. He needs to believe I hated him. That's the only way he'll survive…"
The video cut to static.
Kaito's smirk had vanished.
For a moment, the warehouse was silent, the flickering bulb above Ren the only thing that moved—until he laughed.
A hoarse, broken, blood-soaked laugh.
Kaito's brows furrowed. "What the hell are you—"
"You're a fool," Ren whispered. "She was never yours."
With a sudden jerk, the chains rattled.
A creak.
A snap.
One of the rusted links—eaten away by salt, strained by weight and time—gave way with a shriek of steel.
Ren's right arm dropped, limp at first. But then, slowly, his fingers curled into a trembling fist.
Kaito stepped back. "No. No, no—you're done. You're finished!"
The other chain snapped, and Ren fell.
But he didn't crumple.
He landed.
On his feet.
Knees shaking. Breathing ragged.
But standing.
The demon on his back seemed to shimmer in the flickering light, as if awakening from slumber.
Ren lifted his head. Blood dripped from his jawline. His eye, the one still open, burned—not with hate, but with purpose.
A reckoning.
"Kaito," he said, voice low. Steady. "Run."
The bokken wielder stepped from the shadows, panic in his eyes. He swung.
Too slow.
Ren caught the strike with one hand. The wood splintered against his palm, shards ripping through skin—but he didn't flinch. He pulled the man forward and drove his elbow into his throat. The man collapsed, choking, gasping on the floor.
Kaito turned to flee.
Ren's hand shot out, grabbed a broken chain still dangling from his wrist.
With a flick of his arm, the rusted iron snapped taut—then lashed out like a whip.
CRACK.
The chain wrapped around Kaito's ankle, dragging him off his feet and slamming him to the ground with a bone-jarring thud.
Kaito screamed.
Ren limped forward, the chain unspooling behind him like a vengeful serpent.
He loomed over Kaito, chest rising and falling with labored breaths. Blood ran freely down his arms. But his voice—his voice was clear as thunder.
"You should've killed me when you had the chance."
He raised the chain.
And brought it down.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Until Kaito stopped screaming.
Until the only sound left was the echo of PAT! PAT! —blood dripping from the demon's claws.
"Fast! Shoot him before he kills anyone else!"
The voice came from the far corner of the warehouse, frantic, cutting through the tension that had built in the stillness. It was high-pitched, desperate. The man's order was shaky, his authority trembling in the face of the brutal scene unfolding before him.
Ren's eyes flickered to the sound, but his focus never wavered from Kaito. He was beyond fear, beyond rage—he was simply moving through the motions now, each strike methodical, each blow a statement of purpose. The world seemed to stretch, each moment lasting an eternity.
The click of a gun's safety being disengaged echoed in the vast emptiness. A figure emerged from the shadows—tall, poised, and masked. His fingers gripped the cold barrel of the gun, pointing it directly at Ren, his stance firm but visibly anxious. A cold sweat glistened on his forehead.
He hesitated.
Ren's lip curled into a smirk, a cruel, knowing expression as he turned his head slowly toward the gunman. The demon on his back seemed to writhe, the flames around it crackling faintly in the dim light. Ren didn't look injured. Not in the way he should have been. The chains, the wounds, the blood—they all seemed secondary to him now. What mattered was this moment. His moment.
"I don't think you're going to shoot me," Ren said, his voice a low growl that carried through the warehouse like a storm on the horizon.
The masked man's eyes flicked nervously to Kaito's unmoving form, then back to Ren. He was breathing heavily, hands shaking as the barrel of the gun wavered slightly.
"You—" The masked man's voice cracked. "You can't get away with this. You don't understand what you've done."
"Don't I?" Ren's eyes glinted with something dangerous. His hand gripped the chain tightly, the metal groaning beneath his touch. His gaze lingered on the masked man, but then he looked down at Kaito, who was now barely breathing, his face a grotesque mask of brokenness. "You people never learn."
The gunman's finger twitched on the trigger.
"Do it," Ren said quietly, almost mockingly.
With that, several men started pouring in—black suits, rifles raised, the kind that didn't hesitate. The warehouse doors burst open with a metallic clang, floodlights flaring to life and blinding the dim interior. The flickering bulb was drowned in white brilliance, and with it, the illusion of isolation shattered.
They moved like trained hounds, encircling Ren in seconds. Thirty barrels aimed squarely at his chest.
Yet he didn't move.
Didn't flinch.
Didn't raise his hands.
The masked gunman stepped aside, swallowed by the tide of professionals. His role had been merely to stall. The real storm had arrived now.
From behind the advancing soldiers, a man walked in—no weapon in hand, no armor. Just a calm presence dressed in an ivory coat, unbothered by the blood that stained the air. His hair was silver, not from age but from choice. Styled. Controlled. His face was angular, untouched by emotion, eyes hidden behind thin, tinted glasses.
His name was Junichirou Saeki, head of the Metropolitan Task Force for Criminal Activity.
Ren's gaze flicked over the soldiers, then back to Junichirou Saeki. The man didn't hold the typical air of a thug or gangster; there was no arrogance in his posture, no heat in his eyes. He was cold. Calculated. A leader by intellect, not force.
"You've made quite a mess, Crimson Shura," Saeki said, his voice smooth, almost clinical. He didn't seem fazed by the blood, or the broken bodies scattered around him. "It's rare for someone in your position to fall so... dramatically. But I'm sure you know, your time's up. All that's left is for you to make this easy."
"Do your worst—"
"Shoot."
But before Ren could finish, Saeki uttered a single harmless word which—
BANG! BANG! BANG!
BANG! BANG! BANG!
BANG! BANG! BANG!
...
For more than two whole minutes, firing had echoed through the warehouse, an unrelenting barrage of bullets tearing through the air. The soldiers, their fingers locked on the triggers, didn't hesitate. The metallic echoes of the gunfire mixed with the sickening sound of flesh and bone being torn apart, the rhythmic barrage was designed to obliterate the once-legendary Crimson Shura.
With that legendary Crimson Shura died a brutal death, which even the Angel of Death would find unsettling. The barrage of bullets continued until the very air itself felt thick with smoke and copper, the pungent stench of gunpowder saturating every breath. As the final shot rang out, the echo of Ren's name seemed to linger in the stillness, a silent whisper lost amidst the carnage.