My name is Naoki.
To the world, I am nothing but a shadow. To the people around me, I am the boy they mock, the one they shove into walls, the one they strip of dignity day after day. They think their laughter makes them gods. They think their fists make them kings.

But they don’t know me.
Not yet.

While they laugh, I sharpen my resolve. While they spit on me, I carve their names into the walls of my mind. Every insult, every bruise, every moment they made me kneel—these are debts, and I am the collector.

My mother sleeps in a hospital bed, locked away in a silence she cannot break. She is the only light I ever had, and fate ripped even that away from me. Now all that’s left is the darkness. And I will use it.

This is not a story of friendship.
This is not a story of love.
This is a story of vengeance.

I will burn their laughter into screams. I will twist their power into fear. One by one, they will learn what it means to create a monster.

They made me weak.
Now I’ll show them what weakness becomes…
when it learns how to bite back.

Chapter 42 - no