The Second Floor Stairwell – The Fifth King's Palace
The sound of bone cracking echoed through the marble hallway sharp, wet, relentless.
Nifumi's laughter rang out like a mad hymn. He held Izuku by the hair, smashing his skull into the floor over and over again tiles shattering, blood splattering in rhythmic arcs.
"You forgot right, Izuku?" Nifumi growled between breaths, a crooked grin stretching across his face. "You really forgot that i was actually the Vice President Of Injin just because i ignored you lot and played around you thought you could beat me?."
Izuku gurgled blood, half-conscious. His voice trembled, "Y–you're insane—"
Nifumi's laugh broke into something feral. "Oh, I passed insane years ago."
The thunder of boots approached a dozen, maybe more. The hallway flooded with armed men, S-rank assassins, all drawing blades and guns, their leader shouting,
"President Nifumi! Let go of our boss, now!"
Nifumi froze for just a heartbeat. Then, in a whisper that chilled the air,
"Your boss?" He dropped Izuku like trash and straightened, rolling his shoulders.
He reached over his back, gripping the hilt of his katana its black scabbard gleaming under the flickering ceiling lights.
Izuku, his face broken and bloodied, screamed, "Run! All of you! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"
But it was already too late.
The lights dimmed. The air grew heavy thick with killing intent.
Nifumi tilted his head, a grin splitting his face.
"Let's paint this fucking hallway red…"
The moment his blade left the sheath, the world blurred.
Gunfire erupted too slow. Bullets sliced through empty air.
And then silence.
A faint whisper followed the wind as the assassins' heads slid clean from their necks, thudding onto the floor one by one.
Nifumi stood in the middle of the carnage, his katana dripping blood.
He exhaled, a twisted satisfaction in his voice as he flicked the blade clean and whispered,
"Shin'en no Odori — Dance of the Abyss."
Blood pooled around his boots.
Izuku scrambled back to his feet, blood streaking his mouth, eyes wild. He stared at Nifumi through a rictus of hatred. "I'll fucking kill you," he spat.
Nifumi cocked his head, amused. "Your eyes are still white," he said softly. "And you're actually fucking challenging me? Cute."
Izuku lunged like a man with nothing left to lose. Steel sang. He met Nifumi's blade with everything he had slashes slammed into cloth and meat, the kind of desperate, ugly fighting men use when honor's long gone. Nifumi didn't even bother to fight properly; he let Izuku land two, three blows, taking shallow cuts across his ribs and shoulder as if sampling a flavor.
The blood on Nifumi's sleeve didn't make him falter. If anything, it widened the grin. "You're nothing without the other two fuckers," he murmured, and stepped back, letting Izuku swing again. When the younger man committed to a furious overhead strike, Nifumi moved like he'd rehearsed the moment a thousand times: the blade slid harmlessly past, his fingers closed on Izuku's throat, and the world narrowed to the pressure at the jugular.
Izuku's eyes bulged, claws scraping for purchase. He tried to drive his heel up, to wrench free, but Nifumi's grip was an iron vise. Nifumi's voice was low, delightedly cold. "You're no fun," he said. "Itsuki my nephew should've handled you. I thought after all these years you'd grow into something worth my time. But look at you. Money, whores, a throne of toys… it made you real soft."
He slammed Izuku into the stairwell wall. Bone rattled. Izuku's teeth clicked; the sound was ugly, small. He gasped and spat blood into his palm.
Nifumi planted the toe of his shoe against Izuku's bloody cheek and leaned in, the grin widening until it looked like a vice. "Fucking pathetic," he spat, the sound a wet slap. "You call yourselves Injin? Open your eyes and see what the real Injin looks like." He drove the sole harder, enough to make Izuku hiss. "You want revenge? You think you can kill Kurogami when you can't even touch me?"
He crouched, close enough that Izuku could taste the smoke on his breath, and whispered poison "I brought Kurogami here tonight." The words landed like a thrown knife. Nifumi straightened and laughed, the sound ugly and small in the stairwell.
Izuku, jaw aching, spat blood and barked back, "Stop your bullshit, you fucking asshole."
"Still got a mouth," Nifumi said, amused. He reached down, gripped Izuku by the ankle as if hauling a sack, and hauled him to his feet. The younger man scrambled, knees buckling, fury burning like acid in his chest.
"Let's go meet my brother, shall we?" Nifumi said, voice smooth as oil. He slung Izuku's limp leg over his shoulder and began climbing, each step a show of contempt as they moved toward the third-floor landing.
The third floor was chaos red lights flashing through the thick smoke, screams mixing with the stench of blood and gunpowder. Itsuki and Ken stood among the wreckage of broken cages, eyes all white glowing, their Shintai fully activated. The slave girls huddled behind them, trembling as the two cut through every bastard that tried to reach them.
Ken's fists cracked bone after bone no hesitation, no mercy. Itsuki moved like a phantom, his blade slicing clean through flesh and metal, his voice low and trembling with fury. "No one touches them."
When the last of the goons hit the ground, Itsuki's chest heaved, black veins crawling up his neck from the activation. He turned to the girls, forced a gentler tone. "Go. Down the hall that room." Ken nodded, ushering them quickly into the reinforced safe room at the end of the corridor.
Then — silence.
The moment they sealed the door, a blur cut through the smoke. A boot. Heavy. Fast.
It smashed straight into Itsuki's face with a crack, sending him flying backward into the wall hard enough to splinter the plaster. Blood streaked down from his nose as he dropped to one knee, dazed.
Ken spun around too late a tall figure stepped out of the smoke, calm, hands in pockets.
"You kids shouldn't have come here," the man said coolly, the metallic glint of throwing knives lined across his chest. "This floor's not for heroes."
Meanwhile, down the other end of the corridor, Hayato moved through the slaughter like death in a tailored suit. Black tie, black gloves, a cigarette burning between his lips his katana already drenched in crimson.
Every swing was clean. Precise. He didn't dodge he walked through gunfire, slicing through bullets and bone, cutting men down faster than they could reload.
The smoke curled around him as he flicked the ash from his cigarette, voice calm amid the carnage.
"National level, huh?"
He stepped over a twitching corpse, sword dragging sparks against the tile.
"Then die like one."