Chapter 428: Taking That Step
"Come get some, boys!"
"We're going to paint this street red until you've had your fill!!"
Ren Shiroki's words rang clear through the humid, stagnant air of the gatehouse.
Compared to the ordered streets of metropolitan Tokyo, The Inside was the
definition of chaotic anarchy. High-density shanties, precarious cinderblock
towers, and crooked, unmapped alleyways were tangled together with hanging
wires, military tents, and black-market stalls.
Normally, because supplies had to move through the checkpoints, outlaws rarely
camped in mass right by the border gates.
Recent events had changed that.
Agitated and funded by IDEAL and The Worm, a massive collection of syndicate
outlaws and local cutthroats had converged on the Three Wolves Gate, setting up
an armed forward staging ground. Most ordinary residents had fled the area to
avoid the crossfire.
And now, in the middle of the morning, over a hundred bloodthirsty outlaws were
confronted by a solitary outsider who had just kicked a crater through
reinforced concrete.
"..."
For several seconds, dead silence smothered the camp. The thugs looked at one
another, wondering if their ears were playing tricks on them.
"Did that brat just bust the wall with his bare foot? With an explosive in his
shoe?" "Hey... what the hell did he just say?" "Even the most psychotic death
row escapee wouldn't pick a fight with a hundred armed men solo!" "He's coked
out of his mind! Blow him away!"
Shouts and jeers erupted across the yard.
Their aura was bloodier than common street punks, more feral than biker gangs,
and far more chaotic than disciplined Yakuza clans like the Hanayama-gumi. This
was the raw, toxic stench of the lawless Ward.
Yet, among the spectators watching from the shanties in the distance, a strange
optical illusion began to take hold.
There were over a hundred heavily armed thugs standing in a pack. But every eye
kept drifting toward the solitary youth in the center.
His presence alone outweighed the entire mob.
The commander of this border camp was a muscular, scarred brute with a red
bandana tied around his shaved head. He tilted his chin, barking an order at a
flunky beside him.
"Go see what that clown wants."
Step, step, step.
The flunky swaggered forward. But with every pace he took toward Ren, his sneer
began to stiffen. A layer of cold sweat broke out across his brow, and his
throat tightened involuntarily.
The closer he got, the heavier the air became. Even though they were similar in
height, the flunky felt as if he were looking up at a towering, predatory
shadow.
Nerves shredded, his voice came out in a high-pitched stammer. "Y-You... who the
hell do you think... what did you just say?!"
Ren's lips pulled back into a wide, cheerful grin. "Don't overthink it, pal. I
meant it literally."
"Blood will flow until you're satisfied."
The flunky flinched. Desperate to assert dominance, he reached out with his left
hand, gripping the collar of Ren's jacket.
"You arrogant little piece of—"
Before the threat could leave his lips—Zip!
Ren's left hand shot upward, his palm clapping over the flunky's face and
violently torquing it to the side.
CLAP!
Simultaneously, Ren's left leg snapped forward in an inside low sweep, kicking
the back of the flunky's knee. The man stumbled, his grip on Ren's jacket
tearing away as he dropped to one knee.
Ren stepped forward in a continuous, flowing motion. He planted his right foot
directly onto the man's kneecap, vaulted his entire body weight upward, and
brought his left heel down square onto the flunky's face.
The movement was effortless, graceful, and terrifyingly smooth—as if he were
stepping up a flight of stairs.
[DEE JAY: STEPPING BEAT]!
CRUNCH!
Ren drove his heel downward, smashing the flunky's skull flush against the
asphalt.
BOOM!
The man coughed up a spray of crimson, his eyes rolling back into his head as
his consciousness vanished instantly.
"Phew..."
Ren landed lightly on the balls of his feet. He took a deep, resonant breath.
Inside his mind, his neural network redlined. Every subconscious impulse was
manually overridden; his skeletal and muscular systems locked into total
synchronization. Red capillaries flared across the whites of his eyes, pulling
at his pupils like heavy iron chains.
[ENGINE]—MAX OUTPUT!
Flump.
Ren dropped his hips, casually sitting down right on top of the unconscious
flunky's chest. He rested his left elbow on his knee, his hand dangling loose,
and curled his fingers in an effortless, mocking come-and-get-it gesture at the
ninety-plus thugs staring at him.
"Next! I thought you boys wanted an all-out riot?!"
The outlaws' jaws hung slack. They finally realized this outsider wasn't
bluffing.
"That psycho...!"
One hardened killer at the front didn't hesitate. He reached into his leather
vest, whipping out a 9mm semi-automatic.
Before his barrel could level—"SHAA!!"
Ren let out a deafening, localized kiai!
The acoustic shockwave hit the mob like a flashbang, freezing their startup
frames by a fraction of a second. That micro-second of hesitation was all Ren
needed. He vaulted off the fallen flunky like a sprinter out of the blocks.
SWOOSH!
He dove directly into the thickest cluster of thugs!
By using their own bodies as human shields, he denied the gunmen a clean line of
sight—a foundational CQC principle drilled into him by both Guile and Gaia.
CLAP!
Ren's hand clamped onto the gunman's wrist, driving it downward with crushing
torque while delivering a snapping front kick to the man's solar plexus. As the
gunman folded over in agony, Ren pivoted back-to-back over the man's shoulders,
vaulted cleanly over his frame, and drove a spinning back-thrust kick into his
spine!
[JAMIE: SWIRL SPIN]!
POW!
The gunman and his weapon were launched like a bowling ball, bowling over five
or six outlaws behind him in a clattering heap of broken bones and dropped
blades.
Meanwhile, across town at the Soul Combat Hub...
The living room was bustling with company.
Ohma Tokita and Kazuo Yamashita were finishing their morning cooldown. [MAN OF
THE DIVINE REALM] Shigeru Akagi was seated near the window, leisurely sipping
green tea.
A moment later, Heihachi Furumi, Chairman of Furumi Pharmaceuticals, arrived
with his security detail to exchange intelligence with the Kure Clan.
Furumi unrolled a heavy tactical map across the low table. It was segmented into
ten distinct territorial zones: One-Dragon, Two-Tigers, Three-Wolves... all the
way to Ten-Tokita.
Ohma leaned over, towel draped around his neck. "Oho. A recent power map of The
Inside? Impressive that you managed to dig that up, Chairman."
Furumi offered a self-deprecating chuckle. "Cost me an arm and a leg, to be
honest."
Kazuo Yamashita adjusted his glasses, blinking in confusion. "Is a map of the
Ward really that classified?"
"It's not about classification," Furumi explained, shaking his head. "The
territorial lines inside the Ward shift constantly. Gangs rise and fall in a
weekend. Furthermore, the topography is an architectural nightmare—residents
build haphazard tenements, tunnels, and shanties wherever they please, without
municipal planning."
"Satellite imagery is practically useless. The map is merely a general
reference."
Furumi sighed. "And the population is packed with dormant monsters."
His childhood friend and chief fighter, [THE WILD TIGER] Takeshi Wakatsuki, was
currently holding one of the Secret Key Cards. Even with Metsudo's backing, an
armed insurrection within The Inside would inevitably spill out and threaten
Furumi's pharmaceutical supply lines.
"Toyo Electric, IDEAL, and The Worm... their agents have already breached the
perimeter," Furumi mused, tapping the map. "They plan to use sheer numbers to
trigger an uncontrollable riot, grinding down the local factions until they can
install their own regime."
Despite laying out a catastrophic scenario, the chubby, jovial CEO raised an
eyebrow, a cold, predatory smirk touching his lips.
"Though... if you ask me, relying on a human wave feels dreadfully unrefined."
Kazuo blinked, bewildered.
Beside him, Shigeru Akagi set his teacup down with a quiet clink, clapping his
hands with an amused, knowing smile.
"You have quite a bit of confidence, Furumi-kun."
Furumi scratched his cheek. "Let's just say I have absolute faith in my [WILD
TIGER]."
"Heh... naturally," Akagi mused, staring out the window toward the skyline.
"Numbers... siege tactics... cowardly schemes... What foolish notions. Beyond
the reach of those petty parlor tricks, true Monsters still draw breath!"
[The Inside — Three Wolves Sector Terminal]
Ren Shiroki was knee-deep in the swarm.
After sending the gunman flying, he didn't check his flank. He planted his foot,
pivoted off the asphalt, and surged in the opposite direction.
Zip-zip-zip!
The mob realized his trajectory a second too late. Ren wasn't trying to
escape—he was hunting the commander!
The bandana-wearing brute barely had time to raise his guard.
Ren closed the distance in a single, blurring stride, snapping a high-line
side-blade kick straight into the brute's jugular!
[RYU: SOKUTO KERI]!
BANG!
The kick detonated against the commander's neck, spraying blood from his mouth
and nostrils as he was launched backward. He slammed into three thugs behind
him, the momentum tumbling them into the dirt before bouncing back toward the
center of the ring.
Ren didn't let him touch down. He stepped forward with his left leg, driving his
skull downward with the force of an anvil!
[ZANGIEF: HEADBUTT]!
BOOM!!
The strike caved in the bridge of the brute's nose. His eyes rolled back into
his skull as he hit the ground like a sack of wet cement, completely
incapacitated.
"Aha!"
Ren bared his teeth, turning to face the remaining outlaws. He felt like an
ancient gladiator dropped into the bloody sands of the Colosseum.
His neural pathways fired at redline, the ink-wash smoke in his peripheral
vision churning into a storm.
Fwoosh—!
From the swirling ink emerged a towering, colossal phantom—a woman standing well
over two meters tall, built of dense, Olympian muscle, dressed in the armor of a
Roman Pankration champion.
She clapped her heavy, stone-like hands together in roaring approval.
{Hahaha! Excellent! Taking down the head of the beast first—a magnificent,
practical instinct!}
Her voice was feminine, but it carried the booming, resonant bass of an imperial
general.
{What's that? You want to know what it means to be 'Strong'? What a direct,
beautiful question!}
{I like you, boy! Do you truly desire the answer?}
The giant warrior-woman crossed her arms, her golden, fierce eyes locking onto
Ren.
Around him, half a dozen enraged thugs broke out of their daze, screaming for
revenge as they swarmed Ren with knives, iron pipes, and clubs.
Ren didn't yield a single millimeter. He twisted his hips, unleashing an
explosive right hook that drove straight through the lead thug's guard!
"SHAA!!"
CRACK!
The lead thug's jaw shattered into fragments, teeth spraying across the dirt
like spilled dice. Blood splattered across Ren's knuckles, hot and visceral.
Ren kicked off the ground, diving headfirst into the sea of blades, fighting one
against ninety!
{YES! EXACTLY LIKE THAT!} the giant woman laughed, pounding her chest plate.
{My answer to 'Strength' is simple!}
{It is whether or not you have the guts to take that step forward!!}
Ren caught the glimpse of the new Master, her words ringing in his ears. But he
had no time to respond, nor did he need to think.
More outlaws surged forward, desperate to drown him in numbers.
"Bastard! Kill him!" "There's ninety of us! How can one outsider look down on
the whole camp?!" "Gut him!!"
Yet, beneath their screams, a cold, suffocating terror was beginning to rot the
mob's morale from within.
The smarter thugs in the back had finally realized the nightmare unfolding
before them:
This outsider wasn't executing a tactical hit-and-run. He wasn't acting as a
decoy.
Ren Shiroki had parked himself directly in front of the gate... and he was
exterminating them.
☆☆☆
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