Smoke drifted between the shattered houses like wounded spirits.
Gunfire crackled in the distance. Stone split. Fire bit through roofs like hungry maws.
The sky churned with storm-wrack, lit by the last flickers of Ren's uncontrolled lightning.
The siblings stood scattered now. Beaten back. Cornered by the inexorable advance of Dominion forces.
And at the center of the street—
the man leading the slaughter finally stepped through the veil of smoke.
Genji.
His boots sank into rain-soft mud, leaving cracks where they touched.
Kigen curled off his shoulders like heat from an iron forge—dense, pressure-heavy, reality-warping.
Every breath he took sounded like the prelude to an execution.
He surveyed the siblings as though they were broken weapons left out in the storm.
"Pathetic," he murmured.
No shout.
No fury.
Just cold disappointment—
the kind a god might have for ants crawling in the wrong direction.
Then Daiki walked forward.
Not charging.
Not roaring.
Just stepping, one foot, then the other, mud splashing around his ankles.
His face was pale with fear he couldn't hide—Daiki was terrible at hiding anything—but his eyes…
His eyes were steady.
"Leave them," Daiki said quietly.
"I'm the one you want."
Genji studied him for a moment.
Then—
"…Interesting."
He slid his sword back into its sheath—
not because Daiki wasn't worth steel.
But because he wasn't worth the effort of drawing it.
The insult stung like a slap.
Daiki cracked his neck once. "Ren's the strongest long-term. Takumi's the smartest. Aya's the meanest. But right now… right now I'm the strongest out of us."
He said it like a confession.
Like a sin he was proud of.
Genji stopped walking.
The street seemed to shrink around them.
"Show me."
Daiki didn't charge.
He launched.
The ground beneath his heel cratered—mud and stone erupting in a shockwave as he propelled himself forward like a fired cannonball. His fist cut through the air with a sound like tearing cloth, aimed straight for Genji's ribs.
A killing blow.
Daiki didn't hold back.
The impact never landed.
Genji tilted his body a single inch.
Daiki's fist slammed into empty air.
The force of his own strike split the ground behind Genji in a jagged fracture spreading meters wide.
Daiki stumbled—
and Genji tapped him in the chest with two fingers.
Just two.
Kigen flooded from the touch, invisible but brutal, and it was like Daiki had been hit with a falling boulder.
He flew back eight meters, crashing through a wooden stall that exploded into splinters.
Daiki coughed, spit blood, wiped his mouth.
Genji's Kigen wasn't strength. Not speed. Not elemental force.
It was pressure.
A pure, crushing, gravitational dominance that bent the world toward him.
Most Kigen users produced an outward effect—fire, wind, perception, psychic bursts.
Genji's didn't burst outward at all.
It collapsed inward, pulling everything toward his center like a spiritual singularity. The closer someone stood to him, the heavier their bones felt, the slower their breath moved, the harder their heart had to fight to keep beating.
Veteran soldiers said fighting him felt like wading through the bottom of a lake.
Captains said it felt like their ribs were being squeezed in an invisible vise.
Daiki felt like he was being held under a mountain.
Genji didn't need to strike hard.
He didn't need to move fast.
He simply walked—and the world bowed, unwilling or not.
And Daiki, stubborn to the death, had charged straight into that crushing field.
"Okay… okay," he wheezed. "That's how it's gonna be."
He pushed himself up again.
Ren shouted to stop.
Daiki didn't hear him.
Or didn't want to.
He charged again.
Faster.
Harder.
Fist-first, shoulder lowered, every muscle coiled like steel wire drawn to its breaking point.
Genji stepped into the attack, palm open.
Their bodies met,
WHAM.
The shockwave blasted rain away from them in a perfect sphere, scattering droplets like glass shards.
Daiki's knees buckled.
Genji's didn't move.
Not an inch.
Daiki roared and threw his other fist,
a hammer blow strong enough to cave in a grown man's chest.
Genji caught it. Effortless.
Then twisted Daiki's wrist until bone cracked—
SNAP.
Daiki screamed, but Genji didn't give him the chance to fall back. He yanked Daiki forward by the broken arm and drove his knee into Daiki's stomach.
The sound that came out of Daiki wasn't human.
He folded over, choking, saliva and blood dripping from his lips.
Genji looked down at him with something like disappointment.
"You're strong," he said.
"Unrefined. But strong."
He released Daiki's arm—
only to plant his heel on Daiki's chest and grind him into the mud.
"You could've become a Captain."
Daiki clawed at Genji's leg, trying to stand.
Couldn't.
Genji pressed harder.
Cracks spiderwebbed beneath Daiki's back as the pressure increased.
"You could've been a monster of your own."
Genji leaned down so Daiki could feel his words.
"But you were born in the wrong family."
Daiki's vision blurred.
The edges darkened.
He felt ribs give under the pressure—one, two, maybe more.
He growled through clenched teeth, forcing a smile even as his breath failed him.
"Fuck… you…"
Genji raised a brow.
Then Daiki moved.
No technique.
No finesse.
Just pure, brute, frantic refusal to die.
He grabbed Genji's ankle with both hands—one broken—and pulled with every ounce of strength left in him.
Genji slid half an inch.
A small thing.
A victory worth nothing.
But Genji actually paused.
He looked down, expression unreadable.
"…Remarkable."
Daiki bared his teeth. "I'm… not done…"
Genji answered by dropping his center of gravity and channeling Kigen.
His aura ignited.
Daiki's body arched off the ground, lifted by raw pressure alone, before being SLAMMED back down with enough force to blast mud into the air.
He stopped moving.
For a moment, no one breathed.
Even the soldiers nearby watched in still, uncomfortable awe.
Genji straightened his coat.
Almost respectfully.
"He has potential," he said simply.
"Or had."
But as he turned away—
Daiki's fingers twitched.
Ren saw it.
Takumi saw it.
All of them saw it.
Daiki dragged in a breath like a drowning man breaking the surface.
"Genji…"
His voice was weak.
Small.
But steady.
Genji looked back over his shoulder.
Daiki fought to rise, one trembling inch at a time.
On broken ribs.
On shaking arms.
On willpower made of iron and fury.
"I'm not…"
He spat blood.
"…done with you."
Genji stared.
Then,
quietly, honestly
he smiled.
"Then I'll kill you last, Daiki Fiend."
The sky rumbled.
Boots approached from the street's edges.
The genocide marched on.
And for some reason , it felt as if something special had formed between colossus and the captain….