The living room felt smaller than it had ten minutes ago. Raiken sat on one side, his presence a heavy, gravitational pull that seemed to warp the very air. On the other side, T’Jadaka and the rest of the group were bunched together, a united front of bruised ribs and simmering resentment.
T’Jadaka didn’t blink. He just stared at the man who shared his face, his tattoos, and his blood. The silence stretched until it was brittle.
“So,” Raiken broke the quiet, his voice smooth and terrifyingly calm. “First time meeting your father and you don’t have much to say? I thought there would be more... dialogue.”
“I
thought
I wasn’t going to see you in this life,” T’Jadaka countered, his voice a low, jagged rasp. “Since you’ve been a deadbeat pops and all.”
Raiken let out a short, dry laugh. “Ah, yes. A 'deadbeat' father.” He leaned back, crossing one tailored trouser leg over the other. “It means ‘a father who willfully neglects his legal, financial, and emotional responsibilities to his children.’ I learned the definition not too long ago.”
Ruy stared at him, his mouth hanging open. “Dawg... you’re just now finding out what a deadbeat dad is!? Where the hell have you been living?”
“In a five-star suite where everyone gives me exactly what I want,” Raiken replied simply. “Where no one says no to me, and where I sometimes bully my maid for the sport of it.”
Ruy’s ears flattened against his head. “Oh, nah. You’re a straight-up demon!”
“And no,” Raiken continued, ignoring the outburst. “I am not a ‘deadbeat.’ My parenting style is just... different.”
“Oh, really!?” Vitaliya snapped. She stood up, her tail lashing behind her like a whip. She held up one finger, her voice shaking with a raw, jagged fury. “You never came to visit!” She snapped up a second finger. “You left your son in a hellhole like this where people are killing, raping, and god-knows-what every single night!” A third finger joined the rest. “And he tells you his mom—the mother of your child, the woman who loved you—is
dead
...” She pointed a trembling hand directly at his chest. “And you have the balls to sit here and act like everything is okay!? THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!?”
Lila reached out, her face pale. “Vitaliya... I don’t think it’s a good idea to make him—”
Raiken held up a single hand. The room went instantly silent. He didn’t look angry; he looked... curious. “No, it’s fine, Lila. But thank you.”
He sat there, his star-lit eyes moving slowly from Vitaliya to Ruy, then to Lila, and finally settling on T’Jadaka. He didn’t speak. He just looked at them, his head tilting slightly as if he were observing a strange new species of insect.
“Does he actually have to
think
about what she said?” Ruy whispered, leaning toward T'Jadaka.
“Of course he does,” Vitaliya spat, though she didn’t sit back down. “He’s a selfish piece of shit. Even thinking about other people must be a brand-new concept for him.”
Lila shook her head, her gaze fixed on Raiken’s unreadable face. “I don’t think that’s it, you guys.” They all turned to her. “I think this is the first time he’s ever been challenged morally. Like... ever.”
T’Jadaka leaned forward, his eyes locked on his father’s. “Yeah. I think human sympathy and empathy are just... alien concepts to him. He’s not being a dick on purpose. He literally doesn’t have the hardware for it.”
Raiken finally spoke, his gaze pinning Vitaliya to the spot. “Ok... ‘Vitaliya,’ was it!? To answer your question, there is nothing inherently wrong with me. I’m just not human. How you care for your young is fundamentally different from how my people do.”
“What do you mean by that!?” Vitaliya snapped, her tail lashing.
T’Jadaka didn’t look away from his father. “He’s saying he’s not human at all.” He leaned forward, his voice a low, dangerous hum. “That’s what you’re trying to say, right... Dad?”
Raiken nodded, a slow, deliberate movement.
“Not human at all!?” Ruy looked between the two of them, his brow furrowed in confusion. “He looks human enough to me.”
“My people just evolved... closest to you,” Raiken explained, his voice devoid of any pride or shame. “That’s why we look the way we do. But our marks are a dead giveaway.” He stood up, the movement fluid and predatory, and pulled his shirt off. His torso was a canvas of dark, tribal-like patterns that seemed to writhe beneath the skin—the exact same marks T’Jadaka carried. “Look familiar?”
Lila leaned in, her eyes tracing the intricate lines. “T’Jadaka’s marks are like yours... but his patterns are slightly less rough. Smoother in some parts.”
Raiken’s lips curled into a faint, knowing smile. “You must be my son’s mate. Or have been intimate with him in some way.”
Lila’s face went a sudden, violent shade of crimson. She ducked her head, covering her face with her hands as the heat radiated off her skin.
T’Jadaka ignored the jab, his focus remaining on the mystery. “But why are you here now? After eighteen years... what made you want to come back after so long?”
“It was the promise I made to Farrah,” Raiken said.
T’Jadaka raised an eyebrow. The name of his mother, spoken by this man, felt like a heavy weight dropping into the center of the room. “My mom told me about it... but she never explained. I’m guessing you’re finally going to.”
“Yes,” Raiken said, his voice dropping into a low, steady register. “The deal I made with your mother... when you hit seventeen, I would come and train you myself. But only if you were willing to come with me.”
T’Jadaka leaned back, a cynical smirk tugging at his mouth. “Well, I think you lost track of the calendar, Pops. You’re a year late. I get that you’ve been around since the dirt was new, so I understand your time management might be garbage.”
Raiken let out a short, genuine laugh. “Yep. You’re mine, alright. Cracking jokes when the air is thick with tension. But no... My timing isn’t the problem. I’ve actually been dead for the last year.”
The room went cold. Ruy’s jaw practically hit the floorboards.
“Hold the fuck up...” Ruy stammered, his tail going rigid. “You’ve been dead for a whole-ass year!? What, were you in a coma or something?”
“More like completely annihilated by an anti-matter laser cannon,” Raiken replied, as casually as if he were discussing the weather.
The silence that followed was absolute with jaws dropped.
“Wait... how!?” T’Jadaka’s brow furrowed, his mind racing through the physics of it. “When matter meets anti-matter, they’re both destroyed in a massive release of energy. It doesn’t matter how durable the matter is—it’s erased on a subatomic level. There shouldn’t be anything left to come back to.”
Ruy blinked, looking at T'Jadaka like he’d suddenly started speaking another language. “When the hell did you learn that!?”
“What, you think I’ve only been hitting punching bags for three years with the Stygians?” T’Jadaka shot back, his eyes flashing. “I’ve been reading. They have actual teachers, Ruy. Good ones.”
He turned his focus back to his father, his gaze searching. “So... if you were erased at the subatomic level, how are you sitting in my living room right now!?”
Raiken tilted his head, considering the question. “I honestly don’t know. All I can say is there was just enough left to come back from. But it was so small that I had to regrow every cell from scratch. Took a year.” He crossed his legs, looking entirely too comfortable. “But at least the same trick won’t work twice. Or at least... it won’t be as effective.”
He leaned forward, his star-eyes locking onto his son. “But that aside... I would like to know your—”
“Hell no!” T’Jadaka stood up, the movement sharp and final. “I just got back from three years of hell with the Stygians. You may be my dad, but you’re no different than a stranger to me.” He stepped back, wrapping his arms around Ruy and Vitaliya’s shoulders. “I want to spend time with my family. I don’t care if I live a fuckin’ million years... I want to be happy for as long as I can.”
Raiken let out a long, slow sigh. “I feared this might happen... I should have seen this coming years ago.”
In the blink of an eye, Raiken vanished. Before T’Jadaka’s brain could even register the movement, his father was standing directly in front of him.
Holy shit! He’s too fast!
Raiken’s hand shot out, bunching T’Jadaka’s shirt into a fist and hoisting him off the floor with one arm. “I thought you would be as strong as I was when I slept with your mother... but you’re not even close to that.”
Ruy and Vitaliya didn’t hesitate. They both drew their weapons, the muzzles leveled at Raiken’s head.
“Put my brother down, bitch!” Ruy barked.
Raiken let out a soft, mocking laugh. “Please.”
He gave a casual wave of his free hand. A jagged arc of blue lightning hissed from his fingertips, snapping into Ruy and Vitaliya. They didn’t even have time to scream before they collapsed to the floor, their bodies twitching as the current faded.
“Ruy! Vitaliya!” Lila screamed, rushing to their side. She shook Ruy’s shoulder, her voice frantic. “Guys, wake up!”
“They won’t be waking up for a while, but I didn’t kill—”
Raiken’s sentence was cut short by a fist slamming into his jaw. The force of the blow sent him hurtling backward, tearing through the hotel wall and smashing through several adjacent buildings in a rain of brick and dust.
T’Jadaka stood in the wreckage of the room, his hand trembling.
If getting erased by an anti-matter cannon didn’t kill him, I don’t know if anything can even stagger him...
“
We need to get outta here!” Lila cried, looking at the gaping hole in the wall.
“No...” T’Jadaka stared into the settling dust outside. “He just wants me. You guys will be fine.”
“But he can kill you, Jadaka! You can’t fight that!”
T’Jadaka looked back at her and forced a small, grim smile. “I don’t think so. If I can prove I’m strong enough, maybe he’ll just leave.”
A massive explosion of rubble erupted from the street below.
“Just wait here.” Before she could protest, T’Jadaka dashed through the hole in the wall.
***
Down in the street, Raiken stood up from a pile of pulverized concrete. He calmly dusted off his suit, checking the seams.
Damn, good thing they made this suit out of durable material or I’d be pissed. I’m tired of being naked after every damn fight.
T’Jadaka landed ten feet away, his boots cracking the pavement.
“Ah, so you actually have the backbone to strike me?” Raiken asked, a faint smirk playing on his lips. “I thought the human side of you would have made you too soft to hurt your father.”
“Well, not knowing you that much makes it a lot easier, you asshole.”
Raiken’s smile widened, turning predatory. “I’m glad, actually. Though you may be way weaker than me, you’re still not afraid to attack a superior opponent. This pleases me.”
“So if I’m strong, you’ll just piss off again?”
“Hmm, not quite. If you’re strong, I’d gladly leave. If not... then I’ll just keep beating you until you are.” Raiken settled into a loose, terrifyingly relaxed stance. “You’ll have a week to recover between sessions, but I’m gonna try not to kill you.”
He vanished again. T’Jadaka spun, swinging a blind kick behind him, but there was nothing but air.
“This is what our people call the ‘Time of Adulthood,’” a voice whispered directly into his ear.
T’Jadaka’s blood went cold. He went for a spinning heel kick, but Raiken caught his shin with a casual block. In the same motion, Raiken’s fist punched straight through T’Jadaka’s stomach.
The air left T’Jadaka’s lungs in a spray of hot blood. Raiken pulled his arm back, the gore dripping from his sleeve, and wiped it away with a handkerchief.
“I see... your Viltrumlight blood doesn’t let you regenerate well,” Raiken noted clinically. “You heal faster than them, normally, but that’s about it.”
Holy fuck... what kind of tradition is this!?
T’Jadaka collapsed to one knee, clutching his midsection as he tried to hold his guts in.
If he’d hit my heart, I’d be dead. Is this what all Mazokus do!? Just beat the shit out of their kids the second they turn seventeen!?
Raiken grabbed T’Jadaka by the back of his shirt, hoisting him up until they were eye-level. “Come on now. You of all people should know not to hold back on me.” He flashed a devilish grin. “Plus, it won’t be as fun.”
T’Jadaka’s marks flared to life, his eyes turning a solid, ink-black. He stiffened his fingers into a spear-hand, lunging forward with everything he had left, aiming straight for Raiken’s heart.
CRUNCH.
T’Jadaka recoiled, his hand throbbing. Every single one of his fingers was shattered, the bones snapped against Raiken’s chest like dry twigs.
“Right for the heart. Not a bad move.” Raiken grabbed T’Jadaka by the hair and slammed his face into the asphalt. “But that won’t work on me.”
He began to run, dragging T’Jadaka’s face along the pavement for three blocks, smashing him through the corner of a brick building as he went. “I see your problem now, son. You’re trying to fight like a human.”
He launched T’Jadaka into the air and jumped after him, catching him mid-flight.
He’s just toying with me...
T’Jadaka thought, his vision blurring.
Raiken gripped him by the throat, suspended high above the city lights. “You’re holding yourself back, Jadaka. You’re fighting your Mazoku instincts—the same instincts that drive us to get stronger. Why would you suppress that side of you?”
“
You wouldn’t understand...” T’Jadaka wheezed, blood bubbling between his teeth. Raiken raised an eyebrow, his grip on T'Jadaka's throat tightening just enough to bruise. “You’re not human at all. You wouldn’t understand a single word I’d say. It’s too foreign for you.”
Raiken’s expression shifted into a mask of cold disappointment. “You’re right. I probably wouldn’t understand at all. But I understand one thing about humans.”
He looked down, his star-lit gaze cutting through the dark to find Lila. She stood in the street far below, a small, vulnerable speck looking up at the sky with terror-stricken eyes. “Since you are human, I wonder how you would respond to loss.”
T’Jadaka went deathly pale. Raiken’s free hand moved, extending a single finger toward the girl below.
“NO! STOP IT, YOU BASTARD!”
T’Jadaka erupted. He lashed out, his fists a blur of desperate motion, slamming into Raiken’s face over and over. Raiken didn’t even flinch. Each impact was the sound of T'Jadaka's own knuckles shattering against a mountain, the bones splintering and instantly knitting back together through his forced regeneration. Raiken’s head didn’t budge an inch.
T’Jadaka screamed, kicking at the arm Raiken had leveled at Lila. His shin snapped against the limb, the bone jaggedly breaking before his
Mazoku
blood forced it back into place. He did it again. And again. Each strike was a sickening
CRACK
, followed by the wet squelch of healing.
“FUCK!!”
“Come on now, son,” Raiken said, his voice a calm, terrifying contrast to T'Jadaka's panic. “This can’t be all you have.”
The tip of Raiken’s finger began to glow with a concentrated, violet light. “I know your human sympathy won’t allow her to die. Show me what that’s worth.”
T’Jadaka’s mind fractured. He pulled his arm back, every ounce of his bio-energy screaming as it flooded into his fist. The air around them began to ignite, the friction of the energy turning the sky into a pressurized furnace.
“BIO-ATOMIC IMPACT!”
He drove the punch into Raiken’s cheek.
The world didn’t just explode; it vanished. A blinding, white-hot sphere of energy expanded from the point of contact, a localized sun born in the middle of the night. The shockwave tore through the clouds, clearing the sky for miles in a single, thunderous pulse. The light was so intense it turned the midnight sky of the Inside into a searing, artificial noon.
***
Miles away, in his high-walled estate, Osvaldo stood by his window. The crystal wine glass slipped from his fingers, shattering on the expensive rug as he stared at the horizon. The sky was a bruised, pulsating white, the silhouette of the city buildings etched in sharp, black relief against the glare.
“My god...” Osvaldo whispered, his voice trembling. “If that had been at ground level... the whole Inside would be a crater. What the fuck did that!?”
High in the bruised purple of the sky, T’Jadaka hung suspended, his body smoking from the sheer friction of his own energy. He panted, his lungs burning, his vision swimming in a haze of white heat.
Then…
Beep.
A thin, clinical needle of light lanced through the settling smoke. It struck Lila.
T’Jadaka’s heart stopped. He watched, paralyzed, as Raiken drifted through the haze. His father was untouched, though the top of his suit had been vaporized, leaving him in scorched trousers that had been shredded into shorts.
They descended in a heavy, suffocating silence. The moment his feet touched the pavement, Raiken let him go. T’Jadaka scrambled to Lila, his knees hitting the asphalt with a bone-jarring thud.
“Lila… Lila, come on. Wake up…” He shook her, his hands trembling so violently he could barely grip her shoulders. He pressed his ear to her chest.
Nothing.
A jagged, broken sob tore from his throat. He buried his face in her neck, his tears hot against her cooling skin. “Lila… Oh god, Lila… No, not you too.”
With a detached, effortless flick of his wrist—
Beep. Beep.
—Raiken fired two more streaks of light. They punched through the hotel wall, finding Ruy and Vitaliya where they lay unconscious.
“Now,” Raiken said, his voice as calm as a summer breeze. “You have no more of those weak human bonds. Now… what will you do?”
T’Jadaka didn’t move. He sat in the dirt, cradling Lila’s lifeless weight. “Nothing? Nothing at all?” Raiken prompted.
“Why…?” T’Jadaka’s voice was a hollowed-out rasp. “Why would you do this..?”
“It was your fault. Your weakness got them killed.” Raiken walked toward him, his boots clicking on the stone. “See, the difference between us is that I test myself every single day. Mentally. Physically. You’ve never risked it all to win. You just get 'strong enough' to do what you think is necessary.”
Raiken rose into the air, hovering like a god over the wreckage. “You haven’t even scratched your potential. I can fly. I’m immune to every poison known to man. I am almost completely unkillable. But you… you choose to act like one of these lower beings.” He looked around at the district, his lip curling in disgust. “I barely love-tap them and they die.”
“So Mom was a 'lower being' to you, too..?”
Raiken waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, not at all. I knew she was Yamazato. I meant their kind. She was… a very good mate. But these humans killed her people. I have no sympathy for them.”
A low, vibrating hum began to emanate from T’Jadaka. The air around him started to distort, the temperature plummeting as a massive, dark aura of bio-energy began to bleed from his pores. Raiken’s eyes widened.
“You killed my family…” T’Jadaka’s voice had changed. It was deeper, layered with a guttural, animalistic snarl. “You took away what I spent years trying to protect… like they were nothing..!”
“So? What were they doing with those fragile little lives anyway?” Raiken flew into the shattered hotel, emerging a second later with Ruy and Vitaliya’s bodies gripped by their collars. He drifted back over T’Jadaka. “You know I’m right. If I dropped them now, they’d go splat. See?”
He let go.
T’Jadaka was a blur, catching both of them before they hit the ground. He laid them gently beside Lila, his chest heaving.
Raiken let out a long, bored sigh. “Really? Saving corpses, son?”
“DON’T FUCKIN’ CALL ME THAT!!”
T’Jadaka’s bio-energy detonated. The shockwave leveled the surrounding trees and shattered every remaining window for blocks. Raiken didn’t flinch; he smiled.
“Yes! YES!! Let it flow! SHOW ME YOUR INNER MAZOKU!!”
T’Jadaka’s body began to warp. His hair lengthened, turning into a feral, obsidian mane. His Mazoku marks didn’t just glow; they shifted, carving new, primal geometries into his skin. His complexion deepened, turning two shades darker as scales began to shimmer across his chest, arms, and legs. His fingers lengthened into wicked claws, and his teeth sharpened into jagged fangs.
He didn’t look human anymore. He looked like a nightmare carved from shadow and spite.
Raiken began to clap, his eyes dancing with a manic, star-lit joy. “Well, I’d be damned! You finally did it! You’ve truly awakened! I’ve never been so proud of anything in my life!”
T’Jadaka didn’t speak. He knelt one last time, kissing Lila, Ruy, and Vitaliya on their foreheads. A silent goodbye. Then, he turned.
“So, how does it fee—”
Raiken’s words were cut off as T’Jadaka’s knee slammed into his eye. It was followed instantly by a kick so powerful it sent Raiken hurtling into the stratosphere.
Raiken stabilized himself high above the clouds, his breath hitching. He felt something warm and wet trailing down his cheek. He reached up, touching his left eye.
His fingers came away red.
He… actually damaged me?
A huge, terrifying smile split Raiken’s face.
He actually damaged me! I’m fucking bleeding!
He laughed, a wild, echoing sound.
The emotional trauma made him strong enough to actually hurt me!
Then, his smile faltered. He looked at his hand again. The cut wasn’t closing.
Wait… why am I not regenerating?
T’Jadaka appeared behind him, his shadow falling over Raiken’s back. “We’re not done, 'Dad'.”
He brought both fists down in a massive sledgehammer strike. Raiken plummeted, a streak of fire as he broke the sound barrier. He slammed into the forest below, the impact triggering a mushroom cloud of dirt and fire that turned the woods into a blackened crater.
T’Jadaka hung in the air, a dark, scaled silhouette against the smoke, his eyes scanning the burning treeline below.
“Stop with the hiding! I know that didn’t kill you! Come on out!!”
A sudden, searing light erupted from the haze behind him. Raiken reappeared, his palm leveled, venting a massive, concentrated beam of bio-energy. T’Jadaka didn’t dodge. He spun, his hand a blur as it snatched Raiken by the face, the force of the grip grinding bone. With his free hand, T’Jadaka lashed out in a jagged arc, shearing Raiken’s blasting arm clean off at the elbow.
“This is what the fuck you wanted, huh!?” T’Jadaka’s voice was a distorted, primal roar. He drove his claws into Raiken’s chest, the sound of rending meat wet and heavy, and ripped his father’s heart out. “IS THIS FUN NOW FOR YOU!?”
Raiken coughed a spray of dark blood, but the grin on his face was wider than ever. “Very much so.”
The cavity in his chest knitted shut instantly, the muscle weaving back together before the blood could even hit the ground. Raiken slammed his forehead into T’Jadaka’s nose with a sickening
CRUNCH
, then tackled him, driving them both toward the earth.
They fell like a dying star, trading a frantic, animalistic barrage of blows. Punches, elbows, knees, even teeth—it was a chaotic blur of Mazoku instinct and human desperation. But as they neared the canopy, the rhythm changed. T’Jadaka wasn’t just swinging anymore; he was slipping. He parried a straight lead, countered with a lightning-fast elbow, and pivoted in mid-air.
What the hell is happening?
Raiken thought, his purple eyes darting.
He’s getting stronger, but he’s still not at my level. His techniques... they’re evolving.
Yamazato-Ryū...
T’Jadaka slipped under a roundhouse, his palm glowing with a low, humming frequency. He drove it into Raiken’s solar plexus.
Shinkai no Koe!
A massive, high-frequency vibration rippled through Raiken’s entire skeletal structure. His nervous system misfired, his muscles locking in a rigid, agonizing spasm.
What the fuck!? I can’t move!
T’Jadaka didn’t waste the opening. While Raiken was suspended in the air, paralyzed, T’Jadaka launched into a vertical spin. He delivered a vibration-infused heel kick directly into Raiken’s ear.
Tengū no Narukami!
Raiken’s equilibrium shattered. He clutched at his head, his body beginning to tumble out of the sky.
Wait! Why can’t I stay in the air!?
T’Jadaka snatched him by the throat as they plummeted. “You said you’re close to humans... that means you have the same weaknesses. If you’ve never been hit like that, it means you haven’t adapted yet!”
He shoved Raiken toward the ground, following him down like a predator.
Yamazato-Ryū... Rekkaryū no Nagare!
T’Jadaka unleashed a blinding barrage, his strikes hitting every vital point on Raiken’s body—temples, throat, liver, joints. Each hit landed with the weight of a falling mountain. “Then... Tenshō Enbu!!”
T’Jadaka spun like a top, his momentum building until he delivered a final, vibration-heavy kick to Raiken’s jaw. The impact sent Raiken hurtling down like a meteor. When he hit, the land didn’t just crater; it split. Two massive tectonic masses groaned and tore apart, the earth opening up like the Red Sea.
T’Jadaka hovered above the canyon he’d just created. He leveled two fingers, his hand shaped like a gun.
I don’t know if this can keep him down, but I’m gonna try.
The tips of his fingers began to glow, the light turning from a soft hum to a piercing, concentrated white.
Compress it... make it denser! DENSER!!
At the bottom of the jagged trench, Raiken lay in the dirt, his body a broken mess of snapped limbs and ruptured organs. He started to laugh, a wet, rattling sound.
Wow... my son is amazing. Attacking his friends brought out a power I didn’t even know he had...
He tried to lift an arm, but his nerves were still screaming from the vibration.
Ah, I’m paralyzed, too. Guess I’ll just have to take it all, then. Not like it can kill me.
He closed his eyes, a peaceful, ecstatic smile on his face as he waited for the end.
“HEY, RAIKEN! LET’S SEE YOU TAKE THIS ONE HEAD ON!!”
A small, impossibly bright ball of bio-energy flickered at the tip of T’Jadaka’s fingers.
“BIO-BUST FLASH CANNON!”
He fired.
The beam was narrow, but the moment it touched the bottom of the trench, it expanded into an atomizing sphere of pure destruction. The explosion didn’t just level the forest; it vaporized the bedrock. A mushroom cloud of white-hot plasma rose into the atmosphere, so massive and bright that it was visible as a pinprick of light from the cold vacuum of space.
***
T’Jadaka lay in the center of a glass-lined wasteland, his lungs burning with every ragged breath. The forest was gone, replaced by a scorched, silent desert that still shimmered with the heat of the blast. His Mazoku marks receded, the dark ink bleeding back into his skin as his energy bottomed out.
No way that killed him...
he thought, staring up at the smoke-choked sky.
But I just hope I put him on his ass for a little—
The sound of footsteps shattered the quiet.
Crunch. Crunch.
Someone was walking across the vitrified sand with a steady, unhurried pace.
“AW... FUCK!” T’Jadaka groaned, his head falling back against the dirt.
Raiken drifted into his field of vision. He was completely naked now, his suit having finally surrendered to the atomic heat, but his skin was pristine. Not a scratch, not a scar—even the eye T’Jadaka had managed to cut was perfectly restored. He looked down at his son with a calm, clinical approval.
“You fought well, T'Jadaka. I have to say, that last attack... it impressed me. It wasn’t refined, though. I’m guessing you just came up with it on the fly?”
T’Jadaka didn’t look at him. He stared at the horizon, his jaw tight. “You killed my fucking friends, remember!? I don’t want to fucking talk to you.”
Raiken gave a casual, dismissive wave of his hand. “Oh, no. They’re not dead at all.”
T’Jadaka’s head snapped up, his eyes wide with a jagged mix of shock and burgeoning fury. “WHAT!? Nah... nah, you’re fucking with me. They had no heart rate! They weren’t breathing! I felt them go cold!”
“A simple trick of the nerves,” Raiken explained, as casually as if he were describing a card trick. “It’s a mix of induced narcolepsy and cataplexy—a death-like catatonic state. Their hearts and breathing haven’t stopped completely; they’ve just slowed to a crawl that a human—or a half-human—wouldn't be able to detect. It’s actually a pretty funny prank to pull at parties.”
T’Jadaka stared at him, his brain struggling to process the sheer, casual sociopathy of the man standing over him. “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, DAD!?”
Raiken’s face lit up, a genuine, delighted smile spreading across his lips. “Yes! You called me 'Dad' again!!”
***
The transition from the “death-state” was like dragging themselves through thick, cold mud. One by one, they gasped back into the world of the living in the sterile, dimly lit ward of the nearest hospital.
Ruy was the first to groan, his hand flying to his temples. “Uhh… my head… what the hell happened?”
Vitaliya sat up next, her lynx ears twitching irritably. “I think Raiken knocked us out… damn dickhead…”
“Uhh… God,” Lila muttered, rubbing her eyes. “It feels like I got drugged…”
They all looked up to find T’Jadaka standing over them. His face was a wreck—salt-streaked and puffy, his eyes red from a kind of crying they’d never seen from him. Before they could even ask if he was okay, he lunged forward, pulling all three of them into a crushing, desperate hug.
“Thank God…” T’Jadaka sobbed into their shoulders, his frame shaking. “Thank God for real… I—I thought I lost you all today. That was the biggest scare of my whole life.”
They froze for a second, then melted into him, hugging him back as the weight of the day finally settled.
Lila pulled back just enough to look at him. “So… I’m guessing you were strong enough to make him leave?”
“No, not really, kiddos.”
They all jumped, nearly falling off the hospital beds. Raiken was sitting in a plastic chair in the corner, casually flipping through a book. He’d found a T-shirt and shorts somewhere, looking entirely too relaxed for a man who had just leveled a forest. “But he did fight well. So, welcome to your Mazoku adulthood, son.”
Ruy’s tail bristled. “Oh, hell no! Jadaka, why the hell is your demon-time, mentally unstable-ass daddy still here!? It’s bad enough he almost killed us, now he’s just hanging out!?”
“Actually, I only knocked you and Vitaliya out at first,” Raiken noted, flipping a page without looking up. “I 'almost' killed Lila before you two.”
Vitaliya glared at him. “Well, whoop-dee-doo! Was that supposed to make us feel better or something!?”
“Nope. Just getting the facts straight.~” A small, infuriating smirk played on his lips.
Ruy flipped him off. “Eat a dick!”
“Yeah, Dad, you really need to work on that…” T’Jadaka sighed, wiping his eyes. “But besides that, he actually has something good to tell us.”
Lila looked skeptical. “Like what?”
“Well, the good news is that T’Jadaka is letting me train him,” Raiken said, finally closing the book. “But he told me he’s not leaving without you three. So, I’m taking you all out of here with him.”
The room went silent. The shock was palpable.
“Since the hotel got destroyed because of me,” Raiken added, “it’s the least I can do.”
Ruy looked at T’Jadaka, his eyes wide. “He’s bullshitting, right? He has to be!”
“Nope,” T’Jadaka shook his head. “We’re all getting out together. New lives, new opportunities. Face it, we were only staying because of the hotel, and now that it’s gone… we can live a real life. No more dealing with this bullshit. Look, if you don’t trust my dad, trust me. You all trust me, right?”
They looked at each other, the realization slowly sinking in. A normal life. Away from the blood and the dust of the Inside.
“You’re my ride or die,” Ruy said, a grin finally breaking through. “And I’m riding ’til I die.”
“I’m gonna miss the hotel…” Vitaliya admitted, her voice soft. “But everyone else we know is dead. We keep moving forward.”
Lila walked close to T’Jadaka, lacing her fingers through his. “Whatever we face… we’ll face it together.”
Suddenly, the light in the room shifted. It didn’t flicker or go out—it just became unnaturally, suffocatingly dark. The sun was still up outside, but a shadow was swallowing the district.
“Does everyone else see this?” Vitaliya whispered, her ears pinning back. “It got dark all of a sudden.”
Raiken bolted upright. He stared at the ceiling, his star-eyes flashing with a sudden, cold dread. “They wouldn’t dare…” He lunged forward, grabbing all four of them in a single, iron grip.
“Dad! What’s going—”
“No time to explain! You all need to get out of here NOW!” Raiken reached into his pocket, pulling out a piece of black chalk. He hit the floor, drawing a jagged, glowing symbol with frantic speed.
T’Jadaka’s eyes widened as the realization hit him. “The anti-matter cannon…” he muttered, his voice trembling. “They’ll kill everyone here!”
“Not if I can help it.” Raiken finished the symbol and shoved them all into the center of the chalk lines. “I’ll teleport you to my hotel suite. If you need anything, tell my maid, Adriana.”
Before T’Jadaka could even reach out to him, Raiken clapped his hands together.
“Ianuae!”
The world vanished in a snap of black light.
***
In a high-end hotel suite miles away, Adriana was lounging on a silk sofa, sipping a margarita.
“Ah… finally,” she sighed, leaning back. “With Raiken gone, I don’t have to deal with his bullshit for a while.” She took a long sip, staring at the ceiling. “Though… he was slowly changing. Three years teaching at that school… he’s more mellowed out. Still a dick, but a 'lesser' dick. Hell, that sentimental side of him was kinda hot.”
Suddenly, the air in the living room tore open. T’Jadaka, Ruy, Lila, and Vitaliya tumbled onto the expensive carpet in a heap.
“AH! WHAT THE FUCK!?” Adriana shrieked, jumping nearly three feet. Her glass hit the floor, shattering and soaking the rug. “AW! COME THE FUCK ON!!”
T’Jadaka didn’t hear her. He scrambled to his feet and ran to the floor-to-ceiling window.
He saw it.
High above his home district, the sky opened up. A massive, obsidian beam of pure anti-matter lanced down from the atmosphere. There was no sound at first—just a blinding, world-ending flash of white that turned the horizon into a void.
“Dad…” T’Jadaka whispered.
He stood there, his forehead pressed against the cool glass. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. But the sadness was too heavy, too vast to be carried by something as small as tears. He was the last of two people now, and the silence of the room felt like a grave.