BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
Rocks and dust stung the air. Rihan took blow after blow; his body felt like it belonged to someone else—echoing pain where bone and flesh should be steady. Above him, Tita moved so fast he blurred into a streak. From below, it looked like lightning splitting the sky.
"Ugh… what the fuck. I… I will kill you," Rihan spat blood into his palm, each word torn out between ragged breaths.
Swish—
Tita's fist struck Rihan's chest. The hero went airborne, hurled from blue sky toward the ground as if gravity itself had turned traitor.
FWOOOOOM—BOOOM—KRRRSHHHHH!
The asphalt exploded where Rihan hit. Cracks spidered outward. Dust rolled in choking clouds. He coughed, tasted grit.
Ughhh… cough! Thoo!
Blood pooled at his temple. One eye swelled shut. The corner of his lip split—crimson and stubborn.
"Heh… hehh… snickers… you really thought you could win?" Tita lunged forward, voice serrated with amusement.
"I… cough… I will kill you. You monster." Rihan's voice was strained but fierce, a sliver of defiance in the wreckage of his body.
Tita slowed and walked toward the nearest reporter, who trembled at the edge of the press crush. The man's hands shook around his microphone; even the camera moved as if the lens feared what it would see.
Bridge: the city held its breath.
"Record him close," Tita said to the reporter. "Don't keep people watching from far away. They should see their hero die up close."
"Every scream should be heard. Everyone must see how his fire slowly dies."
The reporter's voice faltered in his throat. He swallowed hard. The cameraman edged forward, lens hunting the fall of a symbol.
"Br—breaking news. Sob. Today we have lost one of our heroes. Blazefury has been killed," the reporter stammered.
Tears leaked down the reporter's face, not born of fear but of honest grief—an ache at the sight of a protector crumpled under a stranger's cruelty.
Across the world, people watched. In America, someone whispered, "Oh my God. He's only eighteen. Where is God?"
In India, crowds jammed streets in Mumbai as a huge billboard looped the live feed from Gurugram—each replay another fresh wound.
Tita lifted Rihan like a broken doll. He dangled limp, as if suspended by threads no one could see.
Crunch—
The sound of bone snapping was clean, obscene. Tita broke Rihan's right hand until it hung useless.
"Ah… ahhhhhh…" Rihan screamed. The sound tore through the square, raw and human.
Tita's laugh was a razor. "Look closely, insects disguised as people. Watch your hero scream in pain."
He tore at the other hand and snapped that bone too. Rihan hung there, limbs gone, consciousness slipping. Pain hammered; the body surrendered.
The crowd went hollow with shock.
Without ceremony, Tita dropped him from a height that made stomachs lurch.
Swoooosh… THA-DOOOOM!
Rihan slid across concrete and slammed into an ambulance. Paramedics erupted from the vehicle; uniforms moved with practiced urgency. A doctor forced himself through the crowd and knelt beside him.
Hic… sobb… sobb.
The doctor's hands shook as he searched for a pulse and pressed an ear to Rihan's chest, listening for the steady drum that meant life. Tears spilled down his cheeks—tears not of fear but of witness to sacrifice.
"He… he's dead… Blazefury is gone," the doctor said, voice breaking.
*****
Wails rose like fresh rain. On Mumbai's streets, grief poured from people's faces; none could stop the flow of shock.
"No… our hero cannot die!" some screamed, voices cracking.
The same thought threaded through every stunned viewer: another young hero ripped away.
fear rippled like a tidal current, reaching cities and screens and the quiet rooms between.
*****
In Gurugram, Tita laughed without restraint. He leapt like someone enjoying the culmination of a performance, moving from one stunned zone to another. He made himself small—shrinking for the cameras.
"In this sea of thousands, who knows how many heroes there are," he told the broadcast. "But not one stood up. All of you hid because of fear."
He smirked with theatrical cruelty. Tears glittered at the corners of his eyes—not real sorrow, but the glee of a man who delights in control.
"God granted humans strength," Tita said, voice rich with scorn, "but not wisdom."
"There are two kinds of people," he continued. "The coward and the fool."
Silence pressed in. Faces in the crowd paled, eyes dropping with shame as his words sank like stones.
"Those hiding in the crowd are cowards. Their presence or absence changes nothing."
"And the corpse on the ground—your young hero Blazefury—is foolish. His pride in his power made him a fool."
He spread his hands wide and looked across the gathered mass. "Which is better: cowardice or foolishness?"
Heads bowed. Shame and mourning mixed into something heavy and sharp. Not just in Gurugram—Mumbai, Delhi, towns far beyond—viewers watched and the same dull grief spread.
He laughed again. "Your downcast eyes and the fact that you live show cowardice wins. Better a long life bowing to fear."
Cough… cough… cough.
for a suspended heartbeat, the whole world seemed to accept that verdict.
Then, impossibly, Rihan's chest twitched. Breath returned—not a glorious surge, but a thin, stubborn thread. His eyelids fluttered open; dust shadowed the pale irises. He drew in a shallow, ragged breath and the grit around his mouth scattered into the air.
Tita's smile faltered into something tight and furious.
"You're like a mosquito that still wants to twist before the end," he sneered.
Rihan tried to speak. His voice was a dry wind, audible only to the doctor crouched beside him. The doctor leaned in and, against the chaos, offered a small, fierce smile—a look that said he was proud of the human who would not die quietly.
The square seemed to shrink under that look. People shifted. Some sobs stilled. A child stopped crying. Somewhere, a man clenched his jaw as he watched a broken boy lift his eyes.
an ember kindled where everyone expected ash.
Rihan breathed again. His arms were broken. His body was a map of new wounds. Still, his eyes found the crowd. Inside those dark wells burned a calm wrath—quiet and patient, a promise that pain had not finished teaching him how to fight.
"Hmm. Let's see how your hero would feel if I killed these innocent little kids".