Bound By Fury:The Forced Path

The street filled with the resonance of people, 

Akira halts only a few feet away from the man, who casually leaned against the lamppost.

His fists are rigid at his sides; his nails have entered his palms and drawn forth weak streaks of blood.

"Do you remember me?"

Akira's voice cuts through the silence like a blade.

He looks up from his phone lazily, one eyebrow arched at the boy before him.

Tall, with a ruggedly built physique, that screamed danger.

His indifference was palpable; his smirk mocking.

"Should I?"

He says flatly, his tone without interest.

He flicks his cigarette onto pavement and crushes it underfoot, never breaking eye contact.

But then, his eyes lock onto Akira's-unnatural, glowing orbs of pure white in hue-and the smirk falters his posture stiffens.

"What the hell-"

Akira's fist meets his jaw with a thunderous explosion of raw power before he can finish.

The impact sends him flying backward like a flimsy doll crashing into a parked car with a deafening CRUNCH.

Screams erupt around them as people scramble to flee.

The once-busy street now descends into chaos, but Akira doesn't bat an eye.

His glowing white eyes stay fixed on the man, his breathing ragged, aura flaring wildly.

With a groan, he pulls himself to his feet and surveys the wreckage of the car.

A spit of blood from his split lip dribbles away across his hand.

His eyes narrow down, his face angry and perplexed.

"What the hell's wrong with you, kid?"

He growls.

"You got a death wish or somethin'?"

In but a second, Akira is back in front of him; his movement nothing but a blur.

The man barely has time to lift his arms before Akira's fist pounds into his stomach, hoisting him into the air.

The impact sends him through a store window, the fragments of glass flying like rain.

"Soul Infusion: Active."

In the next instant, his aura erupts into a visible cascade of pure white light, crackling with arcs of lightning that scorch the pavement beneath his feet.

Groaning, the man pushes up from the ground, amidst the remnants of the shattered display window.

His eyes widen in recognition, a voice trembling with disbelief.

"No… it can't be. You're—"

"Today, you die!"

Akira roars, his voice like thunder as he launches himself forward.

The agent barely manages to roll out of the way as Akira's fist slams into the ground, leaving a small crater in the ground where the pavement once was.

Dust and debris blur the air as Akira rises from the chaos, his eyes in an intense glow, locked onto his prey.

"You took everything from me!"

Akira's voice breaks as the rage and hurt cut through.

"My father. my mother. my life!

The agent scrambles to his feet; desperate, where a moment before he was confident.

"Kid, you don't understand—"

"Shut up!"

Akira cuts him off, his aura flaring even brighter.

Lightning coils around his fists, sparking violently. In another movement, faster than the agent can react, his fist connects with the man's face, sending him skidding across the street like a stone skipping over water.

The agent coughs, sending blood spraying off his lips, and tries to rise.

His legs buckle under him, and his eyes scan around frantically for an avenue of escape.

"You don't know what you're messing with, kid!"

He shouts, voice trembling.

"And you don't know what it feels like, having your family torn to shreds!"

Akira growls, his body closing the space between them in an instant. He snatches the man up by the collar and lifts him off the ground with ease.

The man struggles, his hands scratching at Akira's iron hold.

"You'll regret this,"

He gasps out, his voice desperate.

"You don't know who I work for-"

Akira's hand closes tighter, eyes blazing like twin suns.

"Don't care they're next."

Akira lets out a loud roar and hurls the man across the room into the wall, the loud sound of his body slapping against concrete resounding in the area.

The agent sinks to the floor, half-unconscious, his body battered and bruised.

If he wasn't an awakened he would be long dead from the damage he has taken.

Bruised and bleeding, he struggled to his feet, his will flared like some dying ember that would not be snuffed out.

His body shook under Akira's relentless assault, but his hands rose and conjured into being two orbs of fire that hovered ominously in the air.

"Igneso Purify him!"

The spheres of flames lunge forward in blurring arcs of fire and deadly accuracy.

Akira's eyes glow bright as he sidesteps the first ball, flips backward to avoid the second.

But his eyes sharpen when he saw the flames bend in mid-air, like relentless predators homing in on their target.

"Tch persistent,"

Akira mutters, planting his feet on the cracked pavement.

His aura crackles with renewed vigor-the white lightning surrounding him coiling like serpents.

"Fine."

"Let's see what your fire can do against this."

He gives a sharp motion with his hand then.

"White Lightning!

A blinding streak of electricity tears through the air, striking the flaming orbs in a deafening explosion.

The clash sends ripples through the street, and windows shatter in its wake.

Smoke and embers fill the air.

The agent smirks, a flicker of relief crossing his bruised face.

"Got you now, you little—"

Before he can get it out, Akira bursts from the smoke with an unscathed body.

He shoots forward in a burst of motion too fast for human comprehension.

"What?!"

The agent shouts, his eyes wide in incredulous awe.

Akira's leg arcs through the air, heel slamming into the agent's face with bone-shattering force.

The impact sends him flying across the street; his body crashes into a light pole with a really sickening clang.

The pole bends under the force, an agent's limp form crumpling to the ground.

The crowd, having kept a safe distance away, erupts in gasps and screams.

Mothers cover their children's eyes; men and women whisper in terror, the trembling in their voices all too apparent.

Akira strides toward the fallen agent, eyes glowing-cold, unyielding.

"Get up,"

He says in a low, venomous voice.

"Fight me."

"Don't you dare die yet."

"You don't get to escape what you deserve.

The agent grunts, his body trembling as he struggles to move his face a smear of blood and dirt.

"Y-You. You're a monster,"

He wheezes, coughing violently.

Akira's lips curve into an unamusing smile.

"A monster?"

There is a chilling calm in his voice.

He squats down, his hand gripping the agent by the collar, lifting him well off the ground with unnatural ease.

"You made me this way."

Akira hurls him into the pavement with a savage twist, cracking the ground beneath him.

The agent screams, but Akira isn't done.

He reaches in and grasps the man's arm, his grip as unforgiving as a vice.

"First, your arms."

"You don't need those anymore,"

Akira growls with no tinge of pity.

A sickening snap of bone echoes in the air as Akira twists, breaking the agent's arm in one brutal motion.

A scream pierces the night from the agent, chilling all who can hear it.

"Then your legs,"

Akira continues, tone eerily calm, as he stamps down on the agent's knee, shattering it.

The man cries softer now, weakening as pain overtakes him.

The onlookers watch the scene build up, fear rising in their bodies.

Some of them had turned their faces away, disallowing the sight of such a brutal incident. Others whispered prayers, hoping someone-anyone-would stop the boy whose wrath seemed unending.

Some had run away already

But Akira doesn't stop.

He stands over the broken man, his aura intensifying, arcs of lightning around him snapping violently like a storm in its prime.

"You don't deserve a quick death,"

Akira spits, his voice trembling with rage.

"You deserve to feel every ounce of pain you've caused."

"Every scream."

"Every tear."

The agent, barely conscious by then, sputters weakly.

"P-Please. mercy.

Akira's eyes are ablaze as he stares back, unblinking.

"Mercy?"

He repeats, his voice like a whip, cutting.

"Where was your mercy when you destroyed my family?"

"When you tore apart innocent lives?"

The white lightning gathers on his palm, spiraling and crackling, brighter with each passing second.

The street bathes in its heavy light; its sheer intensity makes onlookers shield their eyes.

"White Lightning,"

Energy sweeps forward, as if in a cascade of too many bolts to count, all pummeling the broken body of the agent beneath.

With every strike, true it lands, and the quaking earth shakes around it.

The man's screams are drowned out by the roar of Akira's power; his body disintegrates from the constant battering.

Finally, when the light fades, all that remains is a charred patch of earth devoid of life, with wisps of smoke rising high in the air.

What the boy released within the heart of the city wasn't some sort of violence but an unchained storm-an eternity of massacre-petrified within the minds of everybody who had witnessed it.

Nobody had ever risked such a gruesome show of uncontrollable anger, not here, not on the so-called streets of the Seoul city.

He didn't care.

Nothing mattered in the world around him; nothing-the screams of terror, the gasps of onlookers, the chaos erupting in his wake.

Every step cracked the pavement, every breath shook with pent-up anguish.

Fury had claimed him, guiding his every move as a cruel puppeteer.

This wasn't vengeance neatly carried out, nor with calm calculation.

This was raw, viscous, and relentless.

This was the eruption of a volcano, long dormant, whose immense rage consumed everything in sight.

And he Akira-this boy with eyes aglow white.

Lightning whipped and boomed around him, flashing from the storm within.

His blows weren't mere attacks but statements of hate, each one encapsulating an ache of loss, a furor of betrayal.

The air itself seemed to shrink before him, his form shimmering with the intensity of his power.

To the onlookers, there was no dividing line between wonder and terror.

Through all that, he did not waver.

Not a moment of hesitation, no second-guessing-no flush of regret crossing his face.

His was an expression chipped in stone, hard and unyielding.

This wasn't just a boy losing his temper.

This is a moment he had keep on living for.

His body had become a canvas, depicting the wrath of the man, and Akira painted it in lightening and blood.

Every scream that passed through the lips of this man was drowned by the deafening roars of the thunder.

The people there had never seen anything like this.

Hunters had fought monsters here before; they'd clashed with criminals and beasts alike.

What this boy did now t hough , was a step past those battles-something darker, far more terrifying.

Because he didn't stop.

Not when the man begged.

Not when the bystanders cried for the man's mercy.

Not even when the man's body had turned to ash and the stench of burnt flesh still hung in the air like a grim reminder.

This wasn't justice.

This wasn't balance.

This was to make sure that NIGHTFALL knew what it had created when it took everything from him.

And as Akira stood amidst the smoldering remains of his fury, his eyes dimming but his expression as unshaken as ever, one truth became clear to all who watched:

The boy who had once been human was nowhere to be found.

What stood in his place was something far more dangerous.