Akira felt his blood run steel-cold as he ran. The wind in his ears was loud, but the sounds of his heartbeat were even louder than the wind.
"No..." Akira muttered in almost a praying-like manner as he ran, his clothes rustling in the wind. His eyes turned pure red, glowing a dark colour as his sclera turned black.
His face contorted into a ferocious expression, pure killing intent leaking around him in a red aura. Sudden heat seeped into his back as he suddenly increased his speed by at least twice.
Boom!
The air condensed into a white cloud of vapour as Akira's body suddenly broke through a barrier, crossing hundreds of meters and appearing near his house in seconds.
"No!"
Akira heard the sound of hitting from the house, and his body jumped into the air, skipping the stairs and breaking through the door to his home with a loud crash.
Then, he saw, causing Akira's vision to blank, his eyes locking with his mother's eyes, the light in her pupils fading into nothingness, leaving a corpse that was turning cold, and lifeless eyes.
Meanwhile, the drugged man suddenly coughed, his eyes returning to normal, and his palm landing on his head as he groaned in confusion.
"What the hell?" The man looked down, and upon looking at Chino's dead body, he started shaking in shock and fear, not fear for what he had done, but because he was scared of the consequences.
"N-No! I... I didn't do this!" The man screamed as he backed up, only to freeze as a voice echoed from behind him in an eerie tone. A sudden, crushing pressure appeared, and the man froze, tightening up into a soldier's stance.
"What..."
"WHAT IS THIS!!!"
Swoosh!
Akira surged forward, his fist cooked back and a punch winded up. His punch broke the sound barrier multiple times over, crashing into the back of the man.
Splash!
Instantly, the body of the man turned into a cloud of red mist, bones pulverised into dust, flesh disintegrating from the force, and blood turning into mist floating in the air.
Boom!
The shockwave of the punch rushed forward like a laser, cutting through the roof and tearing everything up into pieces. The walls of the apartment, without the support, fell to the ground with a bang, leaving no cover to the sight of what's happening inside the now wall-less room.
Akira froze in place, his eyes dark, and his back suddenly relaxing. Even then, the face of a demon could be vaguely seen imprinted on the shirt on his back.
His eyes stopped glowing, and Akira took a deep, shaky breath as he moved forward, coming right next to the now cold body of his mother.
His new shoes stepped into the blood, staining the soles with his mother's blood. Akira crouched down, her palm gently touching her face, closing her open eyes with a gentle swipe.
Akira's eyes started to become wet, his lips quivering as he clenched his hands, shaking from the amount of force.
"Why..." Akira muttered with a hic.
"Why couldn't you just stay home, cook meals for me after school, clean the room... Like a normal mother," Akira questioned with anger, the unfairness of life pressing on his shoulders.
"I know we needed the money... But I could've taken care of that. No one would be able to stop me anyway," Akira's lips trembled in self-blame as he spoke. If he were more cruel, more selfish, he could have started stealing money, and his mother would not have died.
It was his fault.
"Even if I didn't show or say anything... I wanted that. I wanted that so badly that it hurt just looking at you," Akira confessed, expecting to hear something, a reply.
But nothing.
As Akira talked, the blood on the ground started turning thinner, as if the soles of his shoes were absorbing every inch of the blood on the ground, seeping into the shoe itself.
Of course, this couldn't escape Akira's supernatural senses. His hair turned sharply, taking in the sight of the blood being absorbed by his shoes, shock and confusion crawling into his face slowly.
"W-What the hell...? Is this the work of the devil himself?" Akira stood up hurriedly, preparing to lift his legs, but he froze in place, feeling a force that made him stick to the ground.
"SHoEs dirTy~,"
"NeEd cLeaNIng!"
A distorted voice echoed in Akira's ears, sending shivers down his spine as he sensed a threat from it, the first time he ever sensed a threat from anything before.
A pair of red wings, made from pure blood, emerged from the sides of the shoes, a sound entering Akira's ears as he looked down. In the blood wings, a slight reflection of Chino, disfigured and pale, could be seen.
If not for his senses, Akira would have missed it.
"Mother?!" Akira's face contorted in anger and shock, more so anger since he thought someone was messing with him by using his mother.
"But I thought you were dead! Your heart stopped... Beating." Akira could not express himself; too many emotions and confusing words in his mind at the same time, overwhelmed his mind.
A few seconds passed, and Akira turned silent as the blood on the ground was finally fully absorbed by the shoes, the wings of blood on the sides of his shoes now deep red, sunk into his shoes, vanishing.
"I... I must be cursed," Akira muttered as she came to a realisation. There was no other way to describe his life; he must be cursed to always suffer in this hell.
"I guess it makes sense, an unwanted being such as myself does not deserve a normal life," Akira muttered with lifeless eyes.
[5 hours later...]
"Poor boy, to have a rogue bomb drop on his home must be an awful feeling..." An officer whispered quietly to his colleague, thinking Akira won't hear him, but he heard him alright.
"Yeah, you telling me?" The other replied with a shake of his head.
"You two, get back to your jobs!" The two officers whispering froze as a higher-up walked past them. They scattered, and the higher up shook his head at their behaviour as he moved to Akira.
"Hey, buddy, how are you holding up?" The higher up asked, only to receive silence. No surprise was in his eyes at the silence, as if he had expected it from Akira.
"You'll be sent to the Orphanage in Tokyo. The orphanage in this town is full, I am sorry," Akira sat on the back of the hospital truck, a blanket around his shoulders, and a cup of warm tea in his hand.
The smoke drifting off the tea fogged up his vision, his silence loud as red and blue lights flashed. The officer speaking to him sighed, pity in his eyes as he looked at Akira.
"Do you want to continue going to school in Tokyo?" The officer asked again, a pen and a notebook in his eyes. At his question, Akira finally moved, looking up.
'She would've wanted me to finish school, unlike her, right?' Akira thought to himself with a slight mocking tone.
"Yes, I want to keep going to school..." Akira replied to the higher up, who smiled slightly as he ticked a box off his notebook.
Meanwhile...
"Such a surprise, to curse your own mother even after death... But most surprising is that it's a special grade..." A woman with a scar on her forehead, Kaori Itadori, muttered to herself wiht a smile, resting her chin in her palm.
"Akira Shokotsu, make sure to bring me many more surprises ~," Kaori muttered as an unhinged grin appeared on her face.
_____________________________________________
Akira had cursed his mother, just as Yuta cursed Rika, but Chino's target was the brand-new shoes that she bought for him.
Leave a Power Stone!