Morning.
The alarm buzzed weakly from the nightstand, its tinny ring scraping against my ears. I slapped it off without looking, staring at the ceiling above me. White paint, cracks in the corner, the faint hum of the pipes running through the walls. It was the same view I'd seen for seven days straight. Seven days of staying inside, trying to convince myself I was still human.
I sat up slow, my bones creaking though they shouldn't. I had regenerated from worse—hell, I had come back from death itself—but the weight pressing on me didn't come from the body. It came from the inside.
Dragging myself up, I shuffled to the bathroom. Toothbrush in one hand, my reflection staring back at me. Blonde hair, messy and cheap, sticking in clumps where the dye had fried the strands. I ran my fingers through it, half-heartedly trying to flatten it down. My skin looked pale. My eyes, hollow. No one would've guessed I was the same person who threw a man across concrete like a ragdoll.
I brushed my teeth, spit into the sink, washed my face. The routine felt alien, like I was pretending to be normal.
The uniform lay on the chair by my bed. White button-up, red tie, slightly baggy jeans. I put it on without thinking, the motions mechanical. Tie crooked. Shirt half untucked. Didn't care.
By the time I walked outside, the sun was already blinding. The streets leading toward Hanwool High buzzed with chatter, louder than usual. Students in groups of twos and threes crowded the gate, their voices carrying.
I didn't even have to listen hard to know what they were talking about.
"—Did you see that video? The guy ran so fast the camera glitched—"
"No way it's real. Has to be CGI."
"CGI? Bro, the government literally made a statement. They called him a threat."
"W.I.A. That's what he called himself, right? Sounds like some wannabe villain name."
I walked past them. Alone. Always alone. Their eyes skimmed over me, slid past like I was invisible. Not one of them noticed I'd been gone for seven whole days. Not one.
That should've hurt. Instead, I just laughed under my breath. Maybe I liked it better this way.
Classrooms buzzed the same way the gates did. Whispers slipping between desks, kids crowding around phones, videos replaying on loop. Clips of me running, vanishing, reappearing. Clips of me lifting cars. Blurry frames of me fighting. And then—the other one. The bad one. The one in the tunnel.
That part was quieter. No one knew what exactly happened, but the rumors spread like fire.
"I heard he killed someone."
"No, no, he didn't kill anyone. They said it was a stunt, like pro wrestling but with powers."
"You're stupid. Why do you think the government called him a national threat? People don't get labeled threats for stunts."
"And what if he's not the only one?"
That question made the whole room go still for a moment.
Then laughter, nervous and sharp.
"I mean… what if more of us have powers and just don't say anything?"
"I do." One kid raised his hand jokingly. "I can hold my breath for two minutes."
"Shut up."
Laughter again.
But some weren't laughing. Some looked down at their desks, quiet, shoulders tense. Like maybe they did have something. Like maybe they weren't sure if it was safe to say.
Me? I just sat there in the back. Alone. Listening. Detached.
By lunch, I was done. Couldn't fake it anymore. Couldn't stand their voices, their speculations, their cluelessness. None of them knew what it felt like. None of them had died and come back.
So I slipped out. Past the cafeteria. Past the gates. Out into the streets.
The air was heavy. Or maybe it was me.
When I finally made it home, I didn't bother turning on the lights. I lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling again. Same cracks, same pipes, same hum.
My mind spun. Detached. Like my body was here, but my soul was drifting somewhere else.
And then, slowly, a thought pressed through the fog.
Validant.
The organization. The one the man had mentioned when we fought.
Why make an organization like that? Why gather the powered?
I'd seen anime. I'd read comics. Organizations like that always popped up. But this wasn't fiction. This was real. And I didn't trust it.
I laughed. A low, bitter sound.
"Maybe I should just destroy it," I muttered to the empty room. "Go rogue. Wipe it all out. Villain, hero… what's the difference anyway?"
The thought twisted in my head. Sharp. Tempting.
I stood up.
The outfit lay folded in the corner: black jeans, black shirt, black gloves. Ski mask. Paint to black out my face.
The moment I pulled it on, I felt myself shifting. Not a student anymore. Not a son. Not Nam Seop.
W.I.A.
I had remembered, a paper the person I fought who told me about Validant they gave me had an address. Secluded. Far from the busy parts of Seoul.
When I arrived, the street was dead quiet. A cracked sign leaned against a rusted pole. The building itself was nothing special—just an old warehouse, its windows broken, walls covered in graffiti. But the closer I looked, the more I saw the same word repeating:
VALIDANT.
Spray-painted in red. Black. White. Over and over, like a chant.
I found a door tucked into the side. Rusted metal, but it opened easily.
Inside was a tunnel. Long. Dark. The air smelled like dust and iron. The walls were plastered with the same logos, the same graffiti. VALIDANT. VALIDANT. VALIDANT.
Each step echoed. My heartbeat matched it.
At the end, another door. Bigger. Reinforced.
I pushed it open.
And there they were.
Dozens of them. Men, women, some young, some old. All with something different in their eyes. Some lit with excitement. Some wary. Some sharp with hunger.
The moment they saw me, silence swept the room.
Then a ripple. Whispers. Gasps. Recognition.
"It's him—"
"The one from the videos—"
"W.I.A—"
One rushed forward. A tall guy, maybe twenty, eyes shining like he'd just seen his idol.
"You're the one who started it, aren't you? The first! The reason the world knows now!" His words tumbled over each other. "How—how does it feel? To have power like that? To stand above everyone else?"
Others crowded closer. Questions flying. Voices blending.
"Are you the strongest?"
"Are you a villain? A hero?"
"Did you kill him?"
"Can you teach me?"
I barely answered. Eyes scanning the room. Expression flat. Detached.
Finally, I spoke. My voice cut through the noise.
"Who runs this place?"
The crowd shifted. Eyes darted. Finally, someone pointed.
At the back.
A man in a gray suit. Messy gray hair. Blank face. He was pretty..good looking.
The leader.
And he smiled faintly.
"Nam Seop," he said. My name. My real name.
The air left the room. Everyone stiffened.
"How the hell do you know my name?" I snapped.
He raised a hand, calm. About to explain. About to expose me.
But I didn't let him.
I blasted off my feet, the floor cracking under me. Wind tore through the room, lifting papers, chairs, even people into the air. In a blink, I was in front of him, my hand gripping his collar.
I slammed him into the wall. The concrete cracked. His blank expression barely shifted.
And then I hit him.
Again. And again. My fists blurred, smashing into his face. Bone crunched. Blood sprayed.
But he didn't stay still. He blinked—no, disappeared. Teleportation. He reappeared behind me, his hand snapping toward my neck.
I twisted, my foresight flashing. Three seconds ahead. His hand missed. My fist didn't.
The fight began.
His body flickered like static—here one second, gone the next. Every time he reappeared, his hand came for my throat, my chest, my skull. Teleportation wasn't raw speed. It wasn't something you could dodge with reflexes alone. But I had something else.
Three seconds ahead.
Every time he vanished, my vision split. In one strand, his fist crushed my jaw. In another, his hand pierced my ribs. But in the one I chose, I was already moving. Twisting. Blocking. Striking back.
My knuckles tore into his ribs, the shockwave echoing through the hall. He teleported behind me—I was already spinning, my elbow smashing into his jaw. He blinked above me—I launched upward, headbutting him so hard his teeth scattered across the floor.
Blood sprayed, dotting my mask. My breaths came harsh, ragged.
"Who the hell are you?" I growled.
He staggered, nose bent sideways, blood pouring. But his eyes—cold. Blank.
"Nam Seop," he said again, voice muffled through broken teeth. "You are… proof."
He blinked. My vision flared—three seconds. He appeared behind me, knife in hand. I sidestepped, the blade slicing air, then grabbed his wrist and snapped it backward with a twist.
His scream cut short as my boot rammed into his chest, sending him crashing through a table.
The crowd around us had gone silent. Dozens of powered. Dozens of witnesses. None dared move.
I dragged him up by the collar again, slamming his head across the concrete wall. Again. Again. His skin split open, bone scraping against the surface. Blood streaked the graffiti. My hand didn't stop.
"Tell me why you know my name!"
He laughed through blood, his jaw unhinged at an angle it shouldn't. "Because… you can't hide anymore. The world already knows what you are."
Rage surged. My fist caved his face into the wall so hard the concrete cratered. His body went limp. Still breathing, but barely.
I dropped him. He slid down the wall like a discarded doll.
And then I turned.
Slowly.
To the crowd.
Silence thickened, heavy as smoke. Dozens of eyes on me. Some wide with fear. Some sharp with challenge.
One voice broke the quiet.
"You think you can just walk in here and do that?" A tall guy in a leather jacket stepped forward. Lightning crackled across his hands, blue veins of electricity snapping in the air. His grin was feral. "This ain't your stage. This is Validant's."
The room shifted. Confidence swelling behind him. Others nodding. Whispers—"Yeah, who does he think he is?"
My foresight flickered. I saw it. Three seconds ahead—him lunging at me, lightning surging. Others piling in after.
I smiled under the mask.
"Good."
He charged, lightning arcing toward my chest.
I moved. Faster than their eyes could track. My hand caught his face mid-swing, slamming him to the ground with such force the concrete split like glass. The lightning fizzled out as his body convulsed, limbs jerking, then went still.
The crowd froze.
And then chaos erupted.
A man with molten arms screamed, hurling lava across the room. I sidestepped, the heat searing past me, and in the same motion crushed his skull with a knee to the temple. The explosion of fire lit the walls, painting everything in orange.
A woman leapt at me, claws extending like blades. My foresight split her path three ways—one at my throat, one at my chest, one at my spine. I ducked beneath all three, caught her wrist, and dragged her face across the ground until her skin shredded into ribbons. She screamed, then gurgled, then went quiet.
More piled in. Super strength. Telekinesis. Fire. Ice. I tore through them all.
One hurled a car-sized block of concrete at me—my foot lashed out, shattering it into dust before it touched me. Another tried to freeze my legs solid—I dashed forward, so fast her head twisted the wrong way before her power even finished.
Blood sprayed. Bones snapped. Screams filled the hall.
And I didn't stop.
Didn't hold back.
Didn't hesitate.
Because why should I?
They wanted a monster.
I'd show them one.
Time blurred. My foresight wasn't three seconds anymore—it was constant. A river of possibilities, all collapsing into the same conclusion: them dead, me standing.
I dragged one man's body across the graffiti-covered wall, his blood painting over "VALIDANT" in long red strokes. I grabbed another by the legs and swung him like a weapon, his body breaking others with every impact.
Someone screamed, "He's not human!"
They were right.
I wasn't.
It became art.
The art of destruction.
The ground was painted in blood, bodies piled like rubble. Fire licked the walls. Smoke choked the air. And in the center of it all, I stood. Breathing hard. Mask drenched. Fists raw.
The last one standing tried to crawl away. A boy. No older than me. His power had been to harden his skin into steel—but his fear made it brittle. His legs dragged across the floor, leaving streaks.
I caught up in a blink, pressing my boot to his back.
He froze, trembling. "P-Please…"
My foresight split. In one strand, I let him live. In another, I crushed his spine.
I chose the second.
The crack echoed. His body went limp.
Silence followed.
Real silence.
Not a single survivor breathing.
I stood in the center of the carnage, chest heaving, the weight of what I'd done settling like ash.
But instead of regret, a strange calm spread through me.
Because for the first time in days—maybe weeks—I felt alive.
Not human.
Not normal.
Alive.
I raised my head. The broken leader still lay slumped against the wall, blood dripping from his jaw. Barely conscious, but alive enough to witness. His eyes locked on mine, wide now.
And I spoke. Voice hoarse.
"Validant is mine now."
His lips parted, but no words came. Just silence.
I turned, walking out of the room. Boots crunching over glass, bones, fire still crackling in the background.
The tunnel stretched ahead, endless, darkness swallowing me whole.
The air outside hit colder than I expected.
I staggered out of the tunnel, each step crunching against gravel, blood dripping off me in little trails that stained the ground behind. My body felt heavy, sluggish, like I was wading through water. The screams and the cracking bones still rang in my head.
And then I saw them.
A group. Waiting.
All of them in suits.
Men. Women. Some tall, some short. But all dressed the same way, neat and sharp, as if they'd been cut from the same clean cloth. Their silhouettes against the night looked like shadows that had learned to walk.
I squinted, blood sticking in the corners of my eyes. "…Why the fuck is it always suits?"
I muttered it to myself, half amused, half tired. My hand reached up, yanking off the ski mask. The air hit my sweat and blood-soaked skin. My face was still smeared black with paint, streaks running down from sweat, mixing with blood until I looked less like a person and more like a monster trying to pretend.
The group didn't flinch.
They just stared.
At the center of them stood a man. He wasn't like the rest. His presence wasn't sharp or intimidating—at least, not in the usual way. He had middle-parted black hair, neat and perfectly falling into place even with the breeze brushing past. His face was clean, young, and infuriatingly good-looking. Brown eyes. But what froze me was his smile.
A soft smile.
Not mocking. Not cruel. Just there, like it had always been there and always would be.
He stepped forward slowly, shoes clicking on the ground.
"You went rogue," he said simply, his voice low but carrying over the night like he didn't need to try.
I didn't respond. My chest heaved with heavy breaths.
He stopped just a few feet away, looking me up and down—at the blood soaking my clothes, the fragments of flesh still clinging to my gloves, the cracked paint over my face. But his smile never faded.
"That state you just entered," he continued, tilting his head slightly, "that is what happens when the thread inside you snaps. It's not simple rage. Not simple instinct. It's… inevitability. You do things you never thought you would. You let yourself be free. And once it's done—"
He paused, eyes narrowing slightly, though the smile stayed.
"—you'll find yourself wanting to indulge it again."
My hands twitched. Something deep inside me knew he was right. The calm after the slaughter still clung to me like warm smoke. My heartbeat wasn't panicked anymore. It was steady. Too steady.
I swallowed, tasting copper, then pointed at him lazily, my voice hoarse but sharp.
"Who the fuck are YOU?"
The suits behind him shifted. Some tense, some smirking, some whispering. But none dared step forward. Only him.
He let the question hang for a moment, then answered.
"Someone who understands."
I barked a bitter laugh, shaking my head. "No. That's not an answer. You're standing there with your perfect hair, your little smile… watching me like I'm some fucking experiment." I took one step forward, the gravel scattering beneath my shoe. "So again. Who the fuck are you?"
The man's smile widened—barely. Almost invisible, but I caught it.
"My name doesn't matter," he said softly. "Names are fragile things. What matters is… I saw you tonight. I saw what you did. And unlike the ones in there—" he glanced at the tunnel, "—I don't see a mistake."
I froze.
He kept talking, steady, calm, like he had all the time in the world.
"You think this scares me? No. This is proof. Proof of what you are. You're not like them. You're not like anyone. You broke the rules of being human tonight. And instead of crumbling… you stood."
My jaw tightened. His words hit harder than any punch from the gray-haired leader had.
One of the women behind him finally spoke up, her voice sharp. "He's unstable. Look at him. He'll kill again without thinking."
I whipped my head toward her, eyes narrowing. She flinched but held her ground.
The man raised a hand slightly, silencing her. His eyes stayed on me.
"Maybe she's right," he said. "Maybe you are unstable. Maybe you will kill again without thinking. But that doesn't make you weak. That makes you inevitable."
My fists clenched. My breathing grew heavier again. My mind screamed to run, to hit him, to do something. But my body wouldn't move. His words wrapped around me like chains.
Finally, I rasped, "…What do you want from me?"
That smile never left.
"I don't want anything from you," he said. "But soon… you'll want something from me. From us."
I scanned the group again. Men and women, all silent now, their gazes locked on me like I was the center of gravity pulling them in. Some faces curious. Some cautious. Some hungry.
"You think I'll join your little suit club?" I spat, blood flecking the ground.
He chuckled lightly, shaking his head. "No. I think you'll tear it apart. Just like you did in there. And when you do… when you've burned through everything and there's nothing left to destroy… we'll still be here."
I blinked at him, thrown off by his calm certainty. "…Why?"
"Because," he said, tilting his head again, those brown eyes glinting under the dim streetlight, "the world doesn't need another hero. It doesn't even need another villain. It needs someone who's willing to do what neither side can stomach."
My lips parted, but no words came.
The soft smile never wavered.
I felt the night stretch around us, the air cold, the blood drying on my skin. My chest rose and fell, my body aching, my mind burning. But all I could see was that smile.
Unmoving. Unending.
But in my mind, I knew I'd probably end up killing them too... I didn't know why I had become so blood driven...
The silence stretched. The air was too still. I could feel the eyes of everyone in suits locked onto me, but it was only his that mattered—the man with the middle-parted hair, the unshakable brown eyes, the soft smile.
My jaw cracked as I ground my teeth, blood still dripping from the corner of my mouth. Finally, I laughed, low and bitter, shaking my head.
"You don't get it," I said, voice raw. "You won't stop me. None of you. You stand here like you've already figured me out, like you've got some leash ready to snap on my neck. But all I'll do… all I'll ever do—" I pointed at the tunnel behind me, the reek of iron and rot still burning in my nose. "—is kill. You step close enough, you'll end up just like them. Every last one of you."
The group shifted uneasily. I heard one of them mutter, "He's feral…" another whispering, "He'd rip us apart before we could blink."
But the man didn't flinch. He just tilted his head, his smile still there, soft and unbroken.
Then he spoke, calm as a whisper but cutting sharper than a blade.
"Maybe you're right. Maybe you will kill us. But if that's all you're capable of, then you're already finished."
My eyes narrowed. "…The fuck did you just say?"
His smile widened a fraction, and he slipped a hand into his suit jacket pocket, pulling out something small. He turned it in his hand, letting the faint streetlight glint against the surface. A phone.
He tapped the screen once, then held it up so I could see.
The video started playing immediately.
I froze.
It was me.
Blood-smeared, eyes wide, grin cracked across my painted face as I tore through Validant's so-called soldiers. Dragging one man's skull across the concrete until bone split. Smashing another into paste with my fists. My body moving faster than the camera could fully capture, but every pause, every frame told the story.
The massacre.
All of it.
Caught in clear, shaking footage.
The man lowered the phone just enough for me to look back into his eyes.
"You think you're untouchable," he said softly. "But you're already a ghost in this world. One click, and every screen in Korea—hell, every screen in the world—will know exactly who W.I.A is. They'll know you're not a symbol. You're not a mystery. You're just a monster."
My heart pounded. I took a step forward, fists clenching, the gravel grinding beneath my shoes. "Delete it. Now."
But his hand didn't tremble. He didn't back away.
"No," he said simply. "Not until you listen."
He raised the phone slightly, thumb hovering over the screen.
"You've got two choices, Nam Seop."
My stomach twisted at the sound of my name spilling out of his mouth.
He noticed the flicker in my eyes, and his smile deepened.
"Yes," he said. "I know who you are. The world doesn't. Yet. But I do. And if I show them this…" He waved the phone lightly, as if the weight of my whole life wasn't trapped inside it. "You'll have every hunter, every government, every trembling human and hidden power chasing you down. You'll never get to breathe again. You'll never stop running. And you will die, Nam Seop. Not gloriously. Not epically. Like an animal. In a corner."
The suits behind him stayed silent. They weren't smirking anymore. They weren't whispering. They just stared, watching the man strip me down piece by piece with nothing but words.
My lips curled, blood-slick teeth flashing. "…And the other choice?"
His voice softened further, so calm it made my skin crawl.
"You work with us."
I barked a laugh, sharp and broken. "Work with you? After what I just did to your little clubhouse?"
"Yes." He didn't blink. "Because what you did… was necessary."
That froze me.
He stepped closer, close enough that if I wanted, I could've ripped his throat out before he took his next breath. But he didn't care. That smile never faltered.
"You think I mourn them?" he asked, tilting his head. "I don't. They were weak. Pretending at strength, clinging to an organization they thought would protect them. You proved what I already knew. They weren't worthy of surviving this new world. But you…"
He leaned in slightly, eyes locking onto mine with that unwavering softness.
"You are."
My throat tightened. My fists shook at my sides. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to split his face open and see if the smile would finally crack. But my body stayed still, trapped in the web of his words.
"So that's it?" I muttered. "Either I dance on your strings… or you bury me."
"No," he said, straightening his suit jacket. "Either you drown in the blood you've already spilled, or you let me wash it away. I can cover this up, Nam Seop. All of it. No one will know what happened in that tunnel. To the world, Validant still lives. The men and women you slaughtered? Vanished on assignment. Nothing more. But for that lie to work… I need you alive. I need you with us."
I swallowed hard, heat rising in my chest.
"And if I refuse?"
His thumb hovered just above the screen again.
"Then I show the world what you are. And we see how long the rogue lasts before it's hunted down like a rabid dog."
The suits behind him stiffened. Some looked at me like I was a bomb about to go off. Others looked at me like I was already theirs.
The blood on my gloves had started to dry, pulling tight against my knuckles. My jaw ached from clenching. My mind screamed to run, to fight, to kill. But some deeper part of me knew: if I lunged now, if I ripped him apart… it wouldn't matter. The video would survive. Someone else would send it. And everything I'd done, everything I thought I still had… would be gone.
The man knew it too. That's why he smiled. That's why he never stopped smiling.
I took a long, slow breath, the night air burning my throat.
"…So you're blackmailing me."
He chuckled softly. "Call it… perspective."
I stared at him, eyes burning, fists trembling.
And for the first time since I'd walked into that tunnel, I didn't know what I was about to do.
But a feeling echoed through me. I knew JUST WHAT TO DO.
My throat burned as the words tore out of me.
"You think you own me? You think you can wave a phone in my face and leash me like some dog?!" My voice cracked into a scream, echoing against the buildings, rattling in my chest. I jabbed a finger at them, shaking with fury. "I don't care if the whole fucking world hunts me down! I don't care if every army, every so-called hero, every monster comes after me—I'll kill them all! Do you hear me? I'll kill every single one of them!"
The suits flinched. Some stepped back. But others, maybe braver or just dumber, surged forward.
Two of them slammed into me, iron grips locking onto my arms like vices. Their strength wasn't human—muscles flexing like steel cables as they pinned me down. My feet scraped against the cracked pavement, teeth bared, every nerve screaming to break free.
Then another stepped forward. His arm twisted grotesquely, bones snapping into jagged claws, fingers stretching into curved blades. My eyes widened for a fraction of a second before he rammed it forward.
Straight through my chest.
The claws tore into me, slicing flesh and muscle like paper. Hot blood gushed out in a wave, spraying across the black suits. My body jolted, a wet, rattling gasp tearing from my throat as the claws punctured my heart.
I spat blood, the taste metallic and thick, dripping down my chin. My knees buckled as my body tried to collapse, but the ones holding me up forced me still.
The clawed man grinned. "Got you."
With a sickening twist, he yanked backward.
My world went white with pain. My chest cavity ripped open, ribs cracking like brittle wood. And then I saw it—my heart, twitching weakly in his jagged grip, strings of muscle still clinging to it before snapping.
My vision blurred, red flooding everything.
Then—searing pain again. A blade whistled through the air, and in a single clean motion, my head separated from my neck.
The last thing I saw before darkness swallowed me was my own body crumpling to the ground, chest caved in, blood pouring like a fountain, while my heart still beat in the claws of the grinning man.
"Pathetic," one of them said.
Another voice joined, cold and final. "How sad. You could've been the strongest."
My body twitched once, then stilled. My head rolled, paint-streaked face pressed to the gravel. For a moment, there was nothing.
But they had forgotten.
They had no idea what I was.
A sound like tearing fabric ripped through the silence.
The nerves in my exposed chest—frayed strands of glowing threads—suddenly writhed to life. They slithered out like living wires, lashing toward the clawed man. He didn't even have time to react before they coiled around the heart in his hand and yanked it free.
The crowd of suits shouted in alarm as the glowing tendrils dragged the heart back into my chest cavity. The nerves pulsed, knitting veins and arteries together, forcing blood to surge again. Skin crawled over exposed flesh, stitching itself closed in seconds.
At the same time, more glowing tendrils whipped out from my neck stump, wrapping around my severed head. They dragged it across the gravel with a sickening scrape and reattached it to my neck.
A white-hot agony surged through me as the flesh fused, bones reconnecting, nerves sparking like electricity as they found each other again.
Then—silence.
My eyes snapped open.
I drew in a single, rattling breath. And then I smiled.
Not a shaky grin. Not a smirk. A full, wide smile, blood still dripping down my chin.
The black paint that had once covered my face was gone, scrubbed off by the regeneration. What stared back at them now was me—barefaced, unmasked, no disguise left. My true self.
The crowd froze. Some gasped. Others muttered in disbelief.
"Impossible…" one whispered.
"He—he came back—"
"Even after that?!"
I flexed my hands, blood dripping from my fingertips, chest rising and falling like nothing had happened.
"Do you get it now?" I said, my voice low but sharp enough to cut glass. "You can stab me. Rip me apart. Tear my head off. It doesn't matter. I'll always come back."
The clawed man stumbled back, his grin gone, replaced with wide-eyed fear.
"Stay the fuck away from me!" he yelled, but his voice cracked.
I took a step forward, slow, deliberate, savoring the sound of their shoes scraping against the ground as they backed away.
Then I screamed.
"You think you can control me?! You think you can fucking stop me?! I'M DONE LISTENING!"
The air vibrated with the force of my voice. Windows rattled. Birds scattered from the rooftops. My chest heaved, every word tearing itself raw from my throat.
"You tried to kill me—" I jabbed a finger at the clawed man, who flinched like a child. "—and you failed. You'll always fail. Because I'm not just alive. I'm more alive than any of you will ever be!"
The suits around me froze, torn between fear and the instinct to rush me again.
The smiling man, still standing calmly in the center, raised a hand. His voice was gentle, patient, like he was soothing a beast.
"Nam Seop… listen. You need to calm down—"
"CALM DOWN?!" I snapped, the words hitting like gunfire. "You pull my heart out, cut off my fucking head, and now you tell me to calm down?! Do you think I don't see it? Do you think I don't know what you're doing?!"
My hands shook, but not with weakness. With power, overflowing, boiling in my veins.
"You all want to cage me. Control me. Make me your weapon. But I'm not your weapon. I'm not your soldier. I'm not your savior."
I stepped forward, and the ground cracked under my foot.
"I wonder whose good idea it was to give some kid these powers."
the never ending smile had faded from the man after he said that, he knew what was gonna happen to him. Just by looking at me.
My smile widened further, stretching too far, too sharp.
They moved as a single decision—ten bodies sliding out from the tunnel like a net dropped to catch a falling thing. Suits. Faces hard with resolve. Powers humming at their palms. The smiling man stayed where he always stood: in the center, hands folded, watching like a calm judge while the rest readied to kill.
I didn't waste words. Words were expensive things and I'd spent mine. The thing in my veins was awake. It thrummed under the skin and then, like someone striking a chord, my blood lit up. Green — neon, almost obscene — bled up from the veins in my forearms, along my neck, around my eyes. The whites of my sight took on a faint glow. The air tasted electric.
One of them—Mina, scales shining at her wrists—stepped forward first. "You don't have to—" she began, voice fragile. I wanted to hear the rest, but the thing inside me didn't like conversational pauses. It wanted motion.
I moved.
Speed isn't pretty. It's a cut. It's a bruise. I was a strike before her thought finished shaping in the air. My elbow found her ribs with enough force to sound like an animal shout. Scales shattered. She spun and hit a pillar, the impact folding her like a book. She tried to push up. I finished the motion and didn't look at her fall.
They came in waves after that. Steel-skinned big man—his chest a slab—tried to stop me with a shoulder like an anchored gate. I used him as a step, drove my weight through him, heard metal tear and men curse. He became scrap and clattered to the floor. The electric-haired girl threw staccato bolts; lightning cut the shadow but I stepped through the crack and caught her wrist, felt her muscles tremble like a live wire and slammed her face into concrete until the light left her eyes.
They attacked organized. They tried flanks and pincer motions. That's what organizations teach: timing, patterns, fallback. Timing is only useful if you can out-time it. I could see three seconds ahead and the thing in my blood fed off that view. I saw arcs of motion the way a hawk sees mice—tiny trajectories, tiny certainties. My body obeyed before my mind finished the thought.
A young man with shadowed arms wrapped tendrils around my ankle and yanked. Pain ripped up. They wanted to hold me. I wanted to unmake the hand that had grabbed me. The tendril came tight, then tore when my fingers found it and crushed it—wet, synthetic tear. The man screamed and turned into a stack of useless rope and then nothing.
They hit me. That has to be said. A blow cracked the side of my ribcage so loud my teeth rang. For a second the world blurred and my body met stone like a sledge. Pain is honest: I tasted iron and white fire. My lungs found the air again because they had to. My skin stitched in little, smart stitches. Tears plugged themselves. The thing in my veins hummed, stronger for the wound.
I hit back. I took a man with knives for fingers and grabbed him by the wrist. He thought steel would win. He found out how quickly steel bends when you have a fist the size of a sledge. I snapped his arm and the knives fell, clanking. He didn't move after that.
They tried spells and artifacts. A device sent a rolling pulse that should have scrambled my muscle coordination; I saw its sweep three heartbeats in advance and stepped through the blind spot while it nipped the ankle of the person who deployed it. He fell with a curse. The neon in my veins brightened like a warning beacon. Every strike the enemy threw became data. I consumed it and returned it as pain.
At one point—mid-smash, mid-rip—someone shouted my name like a benediction or a death warrant. "Nam Seop!" A woman with a knit cap—older, voice fragile—kept calling. "Please—stop, you don't have to—" The word "have" came out like a prayer and it scraped my skin. For half a second a thin strip of the old me wanted to listen. Maybe I almost did, but the thing that had threaded through my blood wanted the end result. It didn't negotiate.
I moved through them like a hard season: precise, mechanical, relentless. I tore arms that were reaching for me, not to kill out of hatred but to stop me, and the sound of wet muscle and snapped bone was a new kind of music. I slammed one attacker into a concrete pillar so the wall accepted his shape and then wouldn't give it back, a spatter of red and quiet. A man with molten fists struck; I caught his hand and felt heat like a live coal. I twisted and felt tendon and bone obey—his arm folded and the magma turned to harmless drips. Another lunged with a glaive of ice; I pivoted and used his own blade to send him sliding into the next man like a hockey puck. The ice cracked him clean.
They tried to trap me with teamwork. It almost worked once. Twin ropes of binding energy caught my torso and jerked. The world slowed, because they believed in ropes and patterns. I saw the arc: the angle the last man would try to pull to break my balance. I used that three seconds and became a pendulum, my foot braking the binding like a saw cutting rope. The man fell. His neck made a sound the room won't forget.
I was not elegant. I was not cruel for cruelty's sake. I was exact. The neon grew brighter with every end. My eyes, faint halos now, watched a thousand milliseconds before they happened. I pulled a woman's head back by the hair and felt the spine snap like a twig; she went taut and then limp. There was no satisfaction in it; only the work being finished. The thing in my nerves liked completion.
They tried a final gambit—conscious coordination, the sort of desperate strategy that forms when squads realize their training will otherwise be useless. They picked someone to throw their entire power through at me: a kid who could focus force into a single, devastating pulse. He gathered his breath like a diver, summoned the blast, and unleashed it.
It hit. The room collapsed in a pressure wave that tried to push my bones into dust. I saw the blast approach three seconds early, saw the way the floor buckled, saw the shard of light the pulse would leave as it passed. The thing in my blood didn't flinch. I walked into the heart of it and used my shoulders like ramrods. The force slammed through me, but I anchored, and then I returned it like a punch through air. The kid folded onto himself where he stood. He did not get up again.
They were ten when the dance began. When it was over there were fewer. Some lay stirring, moaning. Some did not move. Blood painted the concrete in jagged veins. The neon in my veins glowed like the lines of a circuit under stress. My lungs filled and emptied; my knuckles were shredded, slick with dark. The thing inside me tasted the chaos like a feast.
The smiling man stepped forward. He did not raise a hand to stop them before they fell. He let it happen. He watched with the same soft grin. Up close, his face was anointed in shadow and light. The neat hair, the black suit, the brown eyes. All of it a mask of calm.
"You wasted them," he said. Not angry. Not pleased. Observational. Businesslike. "You killed what could have been guided."
I laughed, the sound a raw edge. If there had been pride in my chest, it thinned and burned. "You keep saying that—guided. Like a leash. Like a ledger. Like a thing you can file." My voice went rough. "You'd file us, label us, sell us to governments with clipboards. You'd let them cage us in the name of safety."
He folded his hands. "We would keep them alive. We would teach them to not lose themselves." His gaze skimmed the massacre and came back to me. "But you are different. You chose a path. You made a choice."
I didn't answer. I didn't need to. My body had made choices for me. There was a thin, new clarity in me now: finish the work, move on, leave the scars.
The knit-cap woman—her face pale, eyes swollen—crawled toward me on shaking hands. "Nam," she whispered. "Listen—" She tried to reach me with something like compassion, like a plea, but the motion felt small to me now. The neon in my veins thrummed, and my eyes, still faintly green, rested on her.
I bent. It would have taken a second to kill her, an instant to end the small shake of hope she offered. Instead, I placed both hands on her shoulders. My fingers were damp and cracking with blood. I let my breath fog over her face and then, without warning, I pulled and set her up on her feet.
She sobbed and leaned into me, and for less than a blink I felt something almost human. The thing in my blood took no notice of that fraction; it was content to let the behavior happen so long as its hunger felt satisfied. For the first time since the first strike, I felt a drip of the old me—guilt, maybe, or the phantom of it. It didn't last.
"You can kill me," I said flatly, to the smiling man. "You can show them the video. You can drag me through every court and every feed. I'd die a thousand times if it meant not living that ledger."
He smiled the same soft, unhurried smile. "You could be hunted, Nam Seop," he said. "Or—" he extended one hand, palm up, steady as a table in a storm—"—you could be invited in. We can cover what happened tonight. We can bury the right footage. We can teach you how to slice without burning everything down. We can help you turn inevitability into purpose."
I looked at the blood on my gloves. At the neon throbbing under my skin. The thing inside me hummed with the echo of destruction. It had tasted the rush and wanted more. It wanted the next edge, the next impossible risk.
"Why suits?" I asked, stupid and angry at the same time. "Why always suits? Why always the same goddamn look?"
He tilted his head like someone answering a small child's question. "Suitability," he said. "Suits are a promise. They are formality for a world that likes form. They are a uniform that says, 'We are more civilized than you.' It comforts those who must sign the papers."
The knit-cap woman muttered, voice ragged. "We'll bury it. We'll make it look like a misfire during training. The footage—" She swallowed. "We can cut it. We can slow-release versions that make sense. We'll protect you—if you want protection."
I stared at them. The neon in my veins pulsed, as if agreeing that this was an option. My heart beat under my hands—steady, repaired, impossible.
"I don't trust the word 'protect,'" I said finally.
He nodded as if he expected it. "Trust is not currency here. Utility is." He took a step closer, and the light hit his face. He looked almost young under the fluorescent spill—too tidy, too practiced. "Make your choice. Walk alone and be hunted. Or walk with us and bend the world in your image."
The thing inside me answered with a feeling that wasn't quite mine: hunger for shape. For rules you could break on purpose rather than be broken by accident. For a map rather than aimless hunger.
I let the silence hang. Behind me, the tunnel breathed and the city hummed like an animal waking. The neon in my eyes faded a notch as if the aftershock of violence had sated the immediate need.
"I'll think about it," I said. The words tasted like compromise and poison both.
He smiled. That smile never left. "Good," he said. "We'll speak again."
I walked away. The knit-cap woman called after me, something about wounds and stitches and names. I didn't look back. My boots squeaked over the blood-streaked stone and then the night swallowed me.
Whatever the thing in my blood had wanted when it ignited, it had been fed. It wasn't quiet. It had the patience of predators. I felt it settle into me like a second pulse: always present, not always loud. The neon glow slowed to a faint hum under my skin.
I ran until the city blurred, until the lights were teeth in a distant jaw. I did not know if I would bow to him, to the suits, to the ledger. I only knew one thing: the world had crossed a line the second it saw me really move. They could try to catalog, to corral, to tidy—but I had tasted the unfixable. And I would not be a thing to be filed.
The smiling man's voice stayed in my head, soft. "We will speak again."
I kept running.