Shojiro stood over the corpse.
Steam rose from the Berserker's ruined body in thick, stinking coils, black ichor pooling in the cracks of the shattered street. What had once been a towering nightmare was now a heap of broken meat and splintered bone—its skull caved inward, its limbs twisted at impossible angles, its molten veins cooling into dull, lifeless slag.
Shojiro's chest heaved.
Each breath came sharp and ragged, scraping his lungs raw. Blood dripped from his fingertips in slow, heavy drops, splattering against the asphalt with wet taps that echoed far too loudly in the sudden quiet. His arms trembled, slick with gore that wasn't all the demon's. His legs felt distant, numb, as if they no longer belonged to him.
The city was silent.
Not peaceful—never peaceful—but hollow.
No screams. No sirens. No crashing buildings.
Only the faint crackle of distant fires and the grotesque, sticky sounds of blood sliding down broken concrete.
Shojiro's eyes still burned faintly red, pupils blown wide, his vision swimming at the edges. He waited for something—anything—to happen. Another roar. Another attack. Another reason to move.
Nothing came.
"I… won," he muttered, the word tasting wrong in his mouth.
His knees buckled.
Pain hit him all at once, like a tidal wave he'd been outrunning until now. Every joint screamed in protest. His wrists collapsed inward with a sickening grind of bone. His shoulders burned as if molten lead had been poured into them. His right knee popped out of place, sending a lightning bolt of agony up his spine.
Shojiro gasped and fell forward, catching himself on shattered knuckles that no longer closed properly. White-hot pain exploded through his hands, forcing a strangled sound from his throat.
So this is… what it costs.
He tried to stand again.
His body refused.
Muscles that had carried him through fire and death now trembled uselessly beneath him. His legs shook, then folded, dumping him hard onto the blood-slick street. The impact knocked the breath from his lungs. He lay there for a moment, cheek pressed against cold asphalt, tasting iron and ash.
No strength left.
No rage to burn it away.
Just pain. Endless, merciless pain.
Shojiro clenched his teeth and dragged himself forward, elbows scraping, torn skin peeling against concrete. Each inch felt like a mile. Every movement sent fresh agony screaming through shattered joints and fractured bones.
His vision swam.
Dad.
The thought cut through the pain like a blade.
Shojiro lifted his head, forcing his eyes to focus past the corpse behind him, past the wrecked cars and collapsed buildings. There—amid the debris and blood—lay Tetsuro Momo.
His father's body was barely recognizable.
Ribs crushed inward, blood spreading beneath him in a dark, soaking halo. One arm lay twisted at an unnatural angle, fingers twitching weakly. His chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven jerks, each breath sounding like it might be his last.
Shojiro's heart stuttered.
"No… no, no, no—"
He crawled faster, ignoring the way his wrists screamed, the way his knee dragged uselessly behind him. His breath came in panicked sobs now, tears blurring his vision.
"Dad… Dad, I'm here…"
His fingers reached out, trembling, brushing against his father's blood-soaked sleeve. The warmth made his chest tighten painfully.
Tetsuro was alive.
Barely.
Shojiro let out a broken laugh that turned into a choke. Relief flooded him so suddenly it almost knocked him senseless.
"I did it," he whispered hoarsely. "I beat it. I—I killed it. You're safe now… everyone's safe…"
The words sounded hollow even as he said them.
His body sagged beside his father's, exhaustion crushing down on him like a physical weight. The adrenaline that had kept him moving was gone, leaving nothing behind but wreckage.
He stared up at the smoke-choked sky, vision dimming around the edges.
I really thought… he could never lose.
His father had always been immovable. Unbreakable. The man who stood between danger and everyone else. The man who always won.
Seeing him like this—broken, bleeding, barely breathing—felt wrong. Like the world itself had cracked somewhere deep and fundamental.
Shojiro swallowed hard.
"Hang on," he whispered, voice shaking. "Please… just hang on a little longer."
The street answered with silence.
Behind him, the Berserker's corpse lay still, cooling ichor glistening dully under the firelight.
For a brief, fragile moment—
Shojiro believed it was over.
Shojiro crawled closer.
Every movement sent jagged lightning through his nerves, but he didn't stop. He couldn't. The world had narrowed to one point—to the battered man lying in front of him, to the rise and fall of a chest that looked far too weak to belong to Tetsuro Momo.
"Dad…" Shojiro croaked.
His father's eyelids fluttered.
For a heartbeat—just one—Shojiro saw him again. Not the broken body on the asphalt, not the blood-soaked wreckage of a man. He saw the immovable pillar. The man who stood straight no matter the storm. The man whose back never bent.
Tetsuro's lips twitched, splitting into something that might have been a smile if it weren't drowned in blood.
"Sho…jiro…"
Shojiro grabbed his father's hand with both of his own, fingers slipping against slick crimson. Tetsuro's grip was weak—terrifyingly weak—but it was there.
"I'm here," Shojiro said desperately. "I got them underground. Everyone made it. You did it. You saved them."
A faint exhale escaped Tetsuro's lips. His chest shuddered.
"Good…" he whispered.
Shojiro laughed again, broken and breathless. "Of course you did. You always do. You always—"
Tetsuro coughed.
Blood spilled from his mouth in a thick, dark stream, bubbling between his teeth. His body convulsed, ribs grinding audibly as something inside him shifted wrong. Shojiro froze, panic seizing his chest like a vice.
"No—no, stop—don't talk, just—just stay awake—"
Tetsuro's hand tightened suddenly, strength flaring for just a moment. His fingers dug into Shojiro's palm with surprising force.
Shojiro looked down.
His father's eyes were locked onto his—not stern, not commanding, but sharp with a clarity that hurt to see.
"Listen," Tetsuro rasped. "You… did well."
Shojiro shook his head violently. "Don't talk like that. Don't say it like that."
A faint chuckle rattled in Tetsuro's chest, turning into another wet cough. "Heh… you always hated… that tone."
Shojiro's throat closed.
Growing up, there had never been doubt in his mind. His father was invincible. Not in the exaggerated way kids talk about heroes—but in the quiet, absolute certainty that no matter what happened, Tetsuro Momo would stand at the end of it.
The dojo. The training. The discipline.
Every scar on Tetsuro's body had been earned—and none had ever slowed him.
Even now, broken as he was, part of Shojiro still believed this was temporary. That his father would grit his teeth, push himself upright, and bark orders like always.
That belief shattered when Tetsuro's breathing hitched.
His chest barely rose.
Shojiro felt it then.
The wrongness.
The absence of strength beneath the skin. The way Tetsuro's muscles no longer resisted pressure, no longer held tension. The way his body felt… empty. Spent.
No.
Shojiro's vision blurred. "Dad, please… you're not allowed to die. You can't. You—"
Tetsuro's gaze shifted past him.
Shojiro frowned. "Dad?"
The grip on his hand loosened.
Slowly, Tetsuro turned his head—not toward Shojiro, but toward the ruined street behind him.
Shojiro followed his gaze.
At first, he didn't understand what he was seeing.
The Berserker's corpse twitched.
Just a small movement. A twitch of ruined muscle. A faint, wet sound—like meat being kneaded.
Shojiro's breath caught.
"No…" he whispered.
The demon's shattered skull pulsed.
Cracks filled with molten black light. Bone fragments dragged themselves together with sickening, grinding noises. Torn tendons slithered back into place, reknitting like living worms. The pool of ichor beneath it crawled upward, flowing back into the body as if pulled by an unseen force.
Shojiro stared, frozen.
Impossible.
He killed it. He destroyed it. He—
The Berserker's chest expanded.
It inhaled.
A deep, monstrous breath that dragged heat and smoke toward it like a vortex.
Shojiro felt Tetsuro's hand slip free of his.
"Shojiro…" his father whispered, voice barely sound anymore. "I'm… sorry…"
Shojiro snapped his head back. "No. Don't—don't apologize. We'll fight it again. Together. We—"
Tetsuro shook his head—just once.
That single motion said more than words ever could.
The truth hit Shojiro like a hammer to the chest.
This wasn't a rematch.
This wasn't another round.
This was the end.
The Berserker rose.
Its body rebuilt itself with horrifying speed—muscle layering over bone, molten veins reigniting beneath cracked stone-like skin. Its head rolled back into place with a wet snap, eyes flaring crimson once more.
It turned.
Not toward Shojiro.
Toward Tetsuro.
Shojiro's heart stopped.
"No—!"
The demon moved faster than thought.
Its arm blurred.
Shojiro barely had time to scream before the Berserker's claw punched forward—
—and Tetsuro stepped into it.
The impact was catastrophic.
The claw drove straight through his father's torso, bursting out his back in a spray of blood and shattered bone. Shojiro felt the warmth hit his face. The sound—flesh tearing, ribs snapping—was burned into his skull forever.
Tetsuro's body jerked.
Blood poured from his mouth in a choking flood.
But even then—even impaled, spine shattered, organs ruptured—
Tetsuro wrapped both arms around the demon's limb.
He held it.
Shojiro screamed.
"DAD—!"
Tetsuro turned his head, eyes locking onto his son one last time. His face was pale, blood-soaked, but his expression was calm.
Proud.
"Run…" he whispered.
Shojiro couldn't move.
His legs refused. His mind shattered under the weight of it. The man who could never lose—the man who taught him how to stand—was dying in front of him, holding back a monster with nothing but will.
The Berserker snarled, trying to pull its arm free.
Tetsuro tightened his grip.
With his last strength, he held the line.
Shojiro's vision darkened.
Something inside him cracked.
And the world tilted toward something far worse than grief.
Shojiro screamed.
It tore out of him raw and animal, shredding his throat as it clawed its way into the burning air. The sound didn't feel like his own. It felt older—something dragged up from deep inside his bones, from a place where fear and restraint had never existed.
The Berserker wrenched its arm free.
Tetsuro Momo's body fell.
It hit the asphalt with a dull, wet sound that didn't belong to a man who had once filled entire rooms just by standing in them. Blood spread beneath him in a widening pool, dark and steaming, crawling into the cracks of the street like it was trying to flee.
Shojiro didn't breathe.
He couldn't.
His eyes locked onto his father's still form, onto the way his chest no longer rose, onto the hand that had just moments ago been gripping him with quiet strength—now slack, fingers curling inward like they were already forgetting how to exist.
Something inside Shojiro broke clean in half.
Not slowly. Not painfully.
Instantly.
The world snapped into focus.
Every sound sharpened. The crackle of distant fires. The wet drip of blood from his own knuckles. The low, grinding growl rolling out of the Berserker's throat as it turned toward him again.
The demon tilted its head.
Curious.
Shojiro stood.
His body screamed in protest—joints grinding, torn muscles shrieking—but he didn't feel it. Pain had become irrelevant. Meaningless. Small.
There was only one thought now.
DIE.
The Berserker moved first.
It charged, each step caving the asphalt inward, debris launching into the air like shrapnel. Its claw swung in a brutal arc meant to tear Shojiro in half.
Shojiro vanished.
He didn't dodge.
He erased the distance.
His fist smashed into the demon's forearm with a sound like a bomb detonating inside meat. Bone exploded outward in a spray of black fragments. The claw bent backward at an impossible angle, tendons snapping like overdrawn cables.
The Berserker roared.
Shojiro didn't stop.
DIE.
He stepped in again, driving his shoulder into the creature's chest. Ribs collapsed inward with a wet, cavernous crunch. Ichor burst from its mouth in a thick, tar-like wave, splattering across Shojiro's face, his hair, his teeth.
He didn't wipe it away.
He grabbed the demon's jaw with both hands.
His fingers sank into soft tissue. Nails tore through flesh. He wrenched downward with everything he had, tearing the mandible apart in a spray of teeth and gore. The Berserker's scream fractured into a gurgling howl as its jaw split open like rotten wood.
Shojiro slammed his forehead into its face.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Each impact sent shockwaves through the street. Bone cracked. The demon staggered, molten veins flaring wildly beneath its skin.
DIE. DIE. DIE.
The Berserker swung blindly, catching Shojiro across the ribs and hurling him through a wrecked car. Metal folded around him, glass exploding into glittering shards. His body slammed into the pavement hard enough to crater it.
Shojiro rolled to his feet instantly.
Blood poured from his mouth.
He laughed.
The sound was wrong—hoarse, broken, edged with something feral.
"Is that it?" he snarled, voice shaking with rage. "That all you've got?"
He sprinted forward again, faster this time.
The Berserker raised its remaining arm.
Shojiro slid under the swing, grabbed the creature's knee, and twisted.
The joint detonated.
The demon collapsed with an earth-shaking crash, its leg bending backward, bone punching through skin in a grotesque white spear. It tried to rise, claws gouging trenches into the asphalt.
Shojiro mounted it.
His fists came down like meteors.
Each punch pulverized flesh, shattered bone, sent fountains of black blood spraying into the air. The demon's skull cracked open, molten ichor spilling out as Shojiro drove his knuckles deeper and deeper, screaming wordlessly with every strike.
DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!
His hands broke.
He didn't care.
He slammed his elbows down next, crushing what remained of the creature's face into unrecognizable pulp. The Berserker thrashed, claws raking across Shojiro's back, tearing flesh to ribbons—but Shojiro didn't flinch.
He leaned close, blood dripping from his chin, eyes burning.
"You don't get to stand," he whispered. "Not after him."
The Berserker convulsed, gathering what little strength it had left.
Shojiro tore its arm free at the shoulder.
The sound was obscene—sinew ripping, bone snapping, ichor exploding outward like a geyser. He lifted the severed limb overhead and brought it down again and again, bludgeoning the demon's skull until there was nothing left but fragments and paste.
Finally—
Silence.
Shojiro stood over the ruin.
His chest heaved. His arms hung limp at his sides, fingers twisted at impossible angles. Blood—his, the demon's, his father's—soaked him head to toe. Steam rose from his body in the cooling air.
The Berserker did not move.
Shojiro turned slowly.
His legs buckled.
He fell to his knees beside Tetsuro's body, the rage draining out of him all at once, leaving behind something hollow and unbearable.
"…Dad," he whispered.
There was no answer.
Only the ruins.
Only the blood.
Only the echo of a man who had never lost—finally gone.
Shojiro crawled.
His hands slipped in blood—too much blood. His blood. His father's. The demon's. It didn't matter anymore. The street felt distant, unreal, like he was dragging himself across a memory instead of shattered asphalt.
"Dad…"
His voice cracked, thin and small, barely loud enough to exist.
Tetsuro Momo lay still.
Too still.
Shojiro reached him at last, fingers trembling as they brushed against his father's arm. The skin was already cooling. The strength that had once felt immovable—unyielding—was gone. Just flesh now. Just weight.
"No—no, no, no…" Shojiro pressed his forehead against his father's chest. "You're not allowed to stop. You hear me? You don't—"
He listened.
Nothing.
No heartbeat.
No breath.
The silence hit harder than any blow the Berserker had landed.
Shojiro's body shook. Not from pain—he'd passed that threshold already—but from something deeper. Something that hollowed him out from the inside.
"I made it," he whispered desperately. "I came back. I— I did what you said."
His throat closed.
"You were supposed to see it."
A wet sound echoed behind him.
Shojiro froze.
Slowly—too slowly—he turned his head.
The Berserker's corpse was moving.
Not rising.
Rebuilding.
Torn flesh pulled itself together in sickening, crawling motions. Bones slid back into place with grinding snaps. Molten ichor flowed like liquid veins, sealing cracks, reforming muscle. The crushed skull bulged, reshaping, glowing veins pulsing brighter with every heartbeat it shouldn't have had.
Shojiro tried to stand.
His legs collapsed.
His body finally betrayed him.
His joints screamed as they failed entirely—knees popping out of place, shoulders slipping loose, wrists bending backward uselessly. Every injury he'd ignored now demanded its due all at once. He gasped, a wet, broken sound tearing from his lungs.
"No…" he rasped. "No—stay—down—!"
The Berserker surged upright in a single, violent motion.
It looked at him.
Not with curiosity this time.
With certainty.
Shojiro tried to move toward his father—just one more inch, just to shield him—but his arms wouldn't obey. His fingers dug uselessly into the ground, nails tearing free as his body refused to respond.
The demon stepped forward.
Each footfall shook the street.
Shojiro's vision blurred. Blood filled his mouth, metallic and hot. His heart pounded weakly now, stuttering, uneven.
"So this is it…" he thought dimly.
Not in a ring.
Not standing.
Not strong.
Just… too late.
The Berserker raised its arm.
Time slowed.
Shojiro saw everything.
The cracked sky above.
The fires eating through the city.
The faint glow from the shelter hatch beneath the rubble—people still alive because of him.
The boy.
The autograph.
The promise.
"…I'm sorry," Shojiro whispered. Not to the demon. Not even to himself.
To his father.
The Berserker struck.
The claw punched through Shojiro's abdomen with obscene ease, tearing through muscle and organs like wet paper. Pain detonated—white-hot, absolute—stealing the air from his lungs in a soundless scream.
Blood erupted from his back in a violent spray.
His body lifted off the ground, impaled, twitching.
Shojiro's vision tunneled.
He felt his insides shift. Tear. Spill.
He couldn't scream anymore.
He couldn't think.
Only one thought flickered weakly in the darkness:
I'm dying.
The thought should've ended him.
Instead—
Something refused.
Shojiro's body hung on the Berserker's claw, blood pouring down his torso, soaking the demon's arm in heat and red. His heartbeat thundered in his ears—slow, heavy, wrong. Each pulse felt like it might be the last.
The Berserker leaned closer, savoring it.
Its molten veins flared brighter. Its jaw opened in a guttural, satisfied growl, hot breath washing over Shojiro's face like a furnace.
Weak. Broken. Finished.
That's what it saw.
Shojiro's head lolled forward… then stopped.
His fingers twitched.
Once.
Then clenched.
The pain didn't fade.
He simply stopped caring.
Something primal tore loose inside his chest—past fear, past instinct, past reason. Not courage. Not hope.
Spite.
If this was where he died—
Then this thing was coming with him.
Shojiro lifted his head.
His eyes were no longer unfocused.
They burned.
The Berserker froze for half a second—confused—just long enough.
Shojiro's hands shot up and locked around the demon's forearm, fingers digging into molten flesh. His grip should've failed. His arms should've shattered.
They didn't.
Muscles screamed as they contracted beyond limit. Tendons threatened to tear free. Bones ground together—but held.
Shojiro roared.
Not in pain.
In defiance.
With a violent twist of his torso—ignoring the claw still buried inside him—he wrenched.
The Berserker bellowed as its arm was dragged sideways, joints shrieking, ichor spraying in scorching arcs. Shojiro planted his boots against the demon's chest and pulled again, spine arching, vision flashing white.
Something gave.
The sound was wet.
Horrible.
Final.
The Berserker's arm tore free at the shoulder in an explosion of flesh, sinew, and black fire.
Shojiro ripped free with it—his body crashing to the ground in a rolling skid, the claw sliding out of his ruined abdomen as blood flooded the asphalt.
He didn't stop.
He couldn't.
He staggered upright, clutching the severed arm like a grotesque weapon, blood pouring from his wounds in sheets. His legs shook. His breath came out in broken, animal gasps.
The Berserker reeled, clutching its torn shoulder, roaring in fury and disbelief.
It took one step toward him.
Shojiro met it.
With a scream torn from the bottom of his soul, he charged—every step fueled by collapsing organs, shredded nerves, and pure hatred.
He leapt.
Using the Berserker's own arm, Shojiro drove the claw straight into its face.
The impact was catastrophic.
Bone exploded.
Teeth shattered.
The claw punched through skull, through brain, out the back of its head in a geyser of molten ichor and gray matter.
His eyes burned crimson.
"I don't care what pit you crawled out of…
If I die…
I'm dragging you back down with me."
Shojiro didn't let go.
He forced it deeper.
The Berserker spasmed violently, limbs flailing, roar choking into wet, gargling noise as its body convulsed around the embedded limb.
Shojiro screamed again—one final, furious cry—and twisted.
The demon's head split.
The Berserker collapsed like a felled tower, its massive body slamming into the street, twitching once… twice… then going utterly still.
Silence.
Shojiro stood there for a heartbeat longer, blood streaming from him, chest barely rising.
Then his legs gave out.
He fell beside the corpse, still clutching the arm that had killed it.
His vision dimmed.
The city faded.
And as the world slipped away, the last thing Shojiro felt wasn't pain—
It was victory.
Shojiro collapsed beside his father, blood pooling rapidly beneath him, warmth bleeding away with terrifying speed. His chest hitched once. Twice.
His heartbeat slowed.
The sky dimmed.
Sound faded.
As his vision went gray, Shojiro's eyes drifted one last time to Tetsuro's face.
"…I did my best," he whispered.
His fingers twitched.
Then stilled.
Shojiro Momo died there in the ruins of Tokyo—
Not as a champion.
Not as a weapon.
But as a son who ran toward hell and did not turn back.