Riku walked through the muddy streets of District 9, the black armor emitting a metallic hiss with every heavy step. When the rain touched the metal still heated by the massacre, it turned into steam, forming a dark mist around him. The few residents who dared to peer through cracks in their windows immediately recoiled, sensing an aura of death that did not belong to this world.

  He stopped in front of a peeling concrete building, one of the few that still had a functional security system—or what remained of it. Riku passed through the glass door, which shattered under the mere pressure of his presence, and walked toward the reception area.

  The tenant, a thin, pale man named Mr. Tanaka, was hiding behind the counter, trembling so violently that the sound of his teeth chattering was audible.

  “I… I don’t have anything!” Tanaka shouted, shielding his face with his hands.

  “The Iron Dogs already took everything this month!”

  Riku stopped in front of him. The scarlet helmet glowed, and Kael’Zhorun’s distorted voice echoed through the empty lobby.

  “I am not one of them.”

  Riku tossed a bloodstained wad of bills—the money he had taken from the bar and the gang’s headquarters—onto the counter.

  “I want the top floor. The most isolated apartment. Now.”

  Tanaka looked at the money and then at the nightmarish figure before him. Riku’s claws lightly pierced the wooden counter as he waited. Lacking the courage to utter a single word, the tenant picked up a keycard with trembling hands and handed it over, avoiding any eye contact.

  “I-it’s… 402… end of the hallway…” the man stammered.

  Riku took the key and walked toward the broken elevator. He wouldn’t use it. He climbed the stairs instead, each step leaving a scorched mark on the old carpet, while Tanaka collapsed behind the counter, praying that demon would never come back down.

  Upon entering apartment 402, Riku locked the door. The place was small, smelled of dust, and had a window overlooking the fire still consuming the Iron Dogs’ headquarters in the distance.

  “It is over for today, vessel…” Kael’Zhorun’s voice sounded tired, yet satisfied.

  “Your will has been done. Now, allow me to rest in the depths of your blood.”

  Riku closed his eyes and gave the mental command. The armor began to unravel. The black metal plates retracted like scales, dissolving into black smoke that was absorbed by the ring. The red tendrils detached from his skin, slipping back into his pores.

  But as the demonic protection faded, human reality returned with brutal force.

  Riku let out a muffled scream and dropped to his knees on the cold floor. The armor had not healed him; it had merely filled the voids left by violence. The moment the metal vanished, his wounds reopened.

  The deep cut on his brow began to bleed again, clouding his vision. His ribs—broken by Goro’s hammer—cracked painfully with every breath. Worst of all were the internal injuries. Where the armor had “stitched” his nerves together with pure energy, there was now only raw pain.

  He dragged himself to the grimy bathroom, leaving a trail of blood across the floor. In the cracked mirror, he saw what remained of Riku Aoyama: a seventeen-year-old boy, pale, covered in purple bruises and open cuts, looking like a corpse that refused to fall.

  He turned on the faucet, letting the cold water wash away his own blood.

  “You said…” Riku gasped, staring at the ring on his finger, which now looked like nothing more than a piece of old brass,

  “that I would be strong.”

  “And you are,” the demon’s voice echoed, now only a whisper inside his mind.

  “But your body is still made of clay, little human. I am the armor—but the flesh beneath it is your responsibility.”

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  Riku gripped the edges of the sink, shaking with exhaustion and pain. He looked at his own reflection. His eyes still carried a faint trace of that predatory gold.

  He was no longer the boy who was beaten in an alley.

  But the price of no longer being that victim was carrying the open wounds of a war that was only just beginning.

  Riku rose with difficulty, bracing his weight against the peeling bathroom walls. Every movement was a vivid reminder of the beating he had endured. The adrenaline that had once masked the pain beneath the armor’s protection had evaporated, leaving only the constant throbbing of exposed nerves.

  He turned on the shower. The water came out brown for the first few seconds before turning clear—and icy. Riku stepped under the stream without removing the remains of his tattered clothes; the fabric was stuck to his wounds with dried blood, and pulling it off dry would have been like tearing off his own skin.

  As the water ran, the shower floor turned into a crimson whirlpool. The blood of the Iron Dogs, mixed with soot from the fire and his own blood, spiraled down the drain. He let out a low groan when the water struck his broken ribs. Under the cold light of the flickering fluorescent bulb overhead, Riku’s body looked like a map of disasters: dark bruises spread across his abdomen, and the cuts on his arms—once filled by Kael’Zhorun’s energy—were now open, pale gashes.

  “Pain is the reminder that you are still mortal, vessel…” the demon’s voice echoed, weaker now, as if it too were digesting the massacre.

  “Do not grow accustomed to this fragility.”

  “Shut up…” Riku murmured, closing his eyes and letting the water wash away the terror of the night.

  After leaving the shower, shivering with cold and exhaustion, he wrapped himself in a rough towel he found in the cabinet. He stepped up to the sink mirror and opened the small door with its rusted hinges. Luckily, the previous tenant seemed to have been someone just as cautious as he was.

  Inside was a basic first-aid kit: a bottle of cheap antiseptic, a roll of time-yellowed bandages, medical tape, and a few tablets of strong painkillers.

  Riku poured the antiseptic onto a piece of gauze. The liquid burned like fire as it touched the open cuts, sending his muscles into spasms. He clenched his teeth until his jaw popped, refusing to scream. He was the man who had destroyed an entire gang; he would not be defeated by a little alcohol.

  With slow, trembling movements, he wrapped the bandages around his chest, tightening them to immobilize his broken ribs. Then he tended to the cut on his brow, closing it with small adhesive strips.

  After swallowing two painkillers with tap water, Riku returned to the main room. He sat on the edge of the thin mattress and looked at the ring. His fingers were clean now, but the mark where the metal fused with his flesh was permanent—a dark, deep circular scar.

  He lay down, feeling his body finally relax as the medication began to take effect. The pain did not disappear, but it became a distant haze. He was stable. For the first time in seven years, he was not sleeping in an alley or a tin shack. He had a roof, he had silence, and—most importantly—he had the power to ensure that no one would ever cross his path again.

  “Tomorrow…” he began to say, but stopped. The word tomorrow still left a bitter taste.

  He closed his eyes.

  Physical exhaustion and the effects of the painkillers finally claimed Riku. But in the darkness of sleep, Kael’Zhorun could not reach his mind. Instead of flames and fury, the void was filled with a soft, golden, warm light—like a sun that rarely shone over District 9.

  Riku was ten years old again. He was sitting on the creaking wooden floor of the little house Akari fought so hard to keep. It wasn’t a palace, but it was clean. There were patchwork curtains on the windows, and the scent of coconut soap lingered in the air.

  The sound of a key turning in the lock made young Riku’s heart leap.

  “I’m home, little master!” Akari’s voice rang out, vibrant despite the obvious exhaustion.

  She came in carrying a brown paper bag. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold outside, and she wore a blue scarf tied around her hair to protect it from the factory soot. Akari was more than just a sister; she was the sun, the authority, and the comfort—all in one.

  “Akari!”

  Little Riku ran to hug her.

  She lifted him into the air, laughing, spun him around, and set him back down. Kneeling to his height, she wiped a smudge of dirt from his nose with her thumb.

  “Did you behave? Did you read the books I brought from the secondhand shop?” she asked as she pulled a small treasure from the bag: a bright red apple, flawless and unblemished.

  “I got a bonus for finishing the wiring ahead of schedule. This is for you.”

  “Will you share it with me?” Riku asked, looking up at her face.

  Akari smiled—that smile that made problems seem far away. She sat on the old couch and pulled Riku close. As she sliced the apple with a small kitchen knife, she began talking about the future, as she always did.

  “You know, Riku… today at the factory, I looked at the gears and thought: the world is like a big machine. Sometimes we feel like a tiny screw that no one notices. But without that screw, the whole machine stops.”

  “I don’t want to be a screw, Akari. I want to own the machine so no one makes you work so hard,” the boy said seriously.

  Akari let out a clear, crystalline laugh, resting her head against his.

  “You have a heart that’s far too big for this place, little one. But listen to me: no matter how dark it gets out there, in here it will always be safe. As long as we’re together, the future can’t scare us. Because the future is what we build with clean hands and a warm heart.”

  She began to hum a soft melody, a lullaby their mother used to sing. Riku felt the warmth of her body, the steady sound of her breathing. That afternoon, there was no hunger, no gang debts, no fear of dying. There was only the unconditional love of a sister who became a shield against the cruelty of the world.

  “Akari…” little Riku whispered from her lap.

  “You’ll never leave me, right?”

  “Never, Riku. Even if I’m not here, I’ll be in your ‘tomorrow.’ I promise.”

  Akari hugged him a little tighter, as if trying to seal that promise into his very skin. She pulled back just enough to look into Riku’s eyes, and her expression changed; the sweet smile gave way to protective seriousness—the face of a woman forced to grow up too soon.

  “Riku, listen carefully,” she said, her voice gentle but firm as steel.

  “The world will try to convince you that you are what they say you are. They’ll call you an orphan, a wretch, a nobody. But your soul… that is the one place no one can enter without your permission.”

  She took Riku’s small hand and placed it over his chest, where his heart beat steadily.

  “If one day things become so hard that you can’t see the light, don’t look to the sky. Look in here. Our strength doesn’t come from what we have in our pockets, but from what we refuse to let others take from us. I work ten hours a day in that factory so you can keep your eyes shining. That shine is my payment.”

  She stood and went to a small wooden box hidden behind some old books. From it, she took a short piece of blue satin ribbon—the same shade as the scarf she wore. She tied it around Riku’s wrist with a delicate knot.

  “This is to help you remember. Whenever you look at this color, remember that the sky is vast, and that we’re going to reach it. I don’t mind having calloused hands, Riku. I don’t mind going hungry if you are fed. Because you are my future. If you’re okay, then I’ve won.”

  In that moment, Akari was not just an older sister sharing an apple. She was the architect of Riku’s morality, the guardian of his sanity. She was trying to build a good man in a place that only produced monsters. She kissed his forehead, and the scent of coconut soap seemed to wrap the entire room in an impenetrable barrier.

  “Now eat the rest of the apple. You need to grow strong. Someone has to own that machine, remember?”