"We'll see..." he said quietly, his voice no longer strained.
The red glow beneath the eyepatch intensified, bleeding through the fabric like a warning flare. A faint light kindled in his other eye as well, dim at first…then growing.
"…who's the weakling he didn't want to waste his time on."
The corners of his stitched mouth twitched.
The sutures began to tear one by one.
Blood soaked into the mask, spreading downward in dark and uneven streaks.
Kanasei pushed himself onto one knee. His muscles tightened violently beneath his skin. Veins bulged along his arms and neck. His breathing deepened. Then he rose to his feet.
Grasp watched, unimpressed. He raised an eyebrow.
"And what are you—"
BOOM!
A shockwave detonated from Kanasei's body.
The cabinets rattled. Drawers burst open. Plates shattered against the walls. The air itself seemed to recoil.
Grasp staggered backward, nearly losing his footing as the blast rippled through the kitchen.
Red light flooded the room. It was coming from Kanasei's hands.
A crimson aura wrapped around them, thick and violent, pulsing like a living thing.
Grasp steadied himself, disbelief washing over his face.
"The hell is happening?!"
Kanasei gritted his teeth so hard his jaw trembled.
Pain shot through his fingers. His knuckles began to swell.
Then split.
Skin tore open across the joints of his index, middle, ring, and pinky fingers. Blood spilled freely as bone forced its way outward.
But it wasn't white.
It was red and glowing.
The bones sharpened as they extended. They pushed through torn flesh until they jutted several inches beyond his fists.
Kanasei's hands shook violently.
He didn't scream. He endured it.
The bones lengthened.
Both of them thought it was over. It wasn't.
The tips began to move slowly. Only the sharpened ends.
They slowly angled inward, pivoting with deliberate precision. The thick base of each knuckle stayed spread across his knuckles, but the elongated tips moved toward one another. Closer and closer, until they aligned.
From each fist extended the upper half of a crow's head, crimson and radiant.
The "beak" was formed by the four aligned tips, narrowing into a razor point. The back of his hand remained intact, serving as the base of the skull. The red aura filled in the gaps, shaping the silhouette more clearly as it pulsed.
Energy flickered faintly where an eye would be.
Kanasei flexed his fingers.
The beak flexed with them.
Kanasei's chest rose and fell heavily. He curled his fingers into fists. The crow-beaks aligned forward. Bone blades gleamed red in the kitchen's darkness. He looked at Grasp.
Grasp looked petrified.
Kanasei smirked beneath the blood-soaked mask.
Grasp's jaw trembled.
"Gaaah—!"
The extra arms erupted from his back again.
"…FUCK YOU!!!"
They shot forward.
Kanasei shifted instantly.
Boxing stance.
Crouched. Tight. Balanced. Forward.
A hand lunged from his right—
He dipped under it.
His fist drove upward. The sharpened bone pierced through the wrist.
A wet crack.
The hand dropped, severed cleanly, fingers twitching on the tile. Another came straight ahead. The palm unfurled, stretching wide—
Kanasei stepped in.
Cross.
The beak punched through the center of the palm.
He twisted his shoulder and ripped sideways.
The hand split open.
Blood sprayed across the cabinets.
More came.
Three.
Five.
Ten.
They filled the air like a swarm. Kanasei tore through them.
Punch.
Rip.
Hook.
Sever.
Uppercut.
Left hook.
Jab.
Downslam.
Jab. Cross. Jab.
Bone met flesh. Bone split tendon. Bone punched through cartilage.
The kitchen became a slaughterhouse.
Hands dropped in pieces.
Forearms thudded to the floor.
Blood coated the counters, pooled beneath their feet.
Still, a stray fist clipped his ribs. Another grazed his jaw. A knuckle scraped across his temple.
He didn't slow down. He kept advancing.
"Who..."
He split another wrist in half.
"...IS THE WEAKLING?!"
Grasp's teeth ground audibly.
His eyes were wide now.
"I'll kill you myself!"
The ego broke him.
The extra arms recoiled. Grasp lunged forward, straight at Kanasei who was mid-punch. Right in front of him.
Kanasei didn't step back, he stepped in.
.
.
SQUELCH.
.
.
.
.
Blood dripped. A drop. Then another. Both of them froze.
The red aura hummed faintly.
Kanasei's fist was buried in Grasp's forearm.
He had aimed for the chest.
And it wasn't because Grasp moved to block. But because he was still covering his face with his actual hands, in the same weird V shape.
The bone beak pierced clean through muscle.
Grasp's left hand fell uselessly to his side, fingers spasming.
Blood streamed down Kanasei's knuckles.
Half of Grasp's face was exposed...
Kanasei's eye widened.
Grasp's hands had finally lowered.
And what they revealed was horrific.
Two thick lines of stitches carved across his face diagonally. One from the top left corner of his forehead down to the bottom right of his jaw. Another from the top right down to the bottom left.
An X.
As if someone had tried to sew two different faces together and failed.
But that wasn't all.
A third seam ran vertically down the center of his face. Splitting him.
There was no nose. Just flat, stretched skin stitched tight across bone.
His jaw was crooked. The right side hanging lower than the left, fully asymmetrical.
He had no lips. His teeth and gums were permanently exposed. They were rotten and crooked.
His eyes bulged unnaturally from scarred sockets.
His entire face was a map of failed repair.
Kanasei froze.
For a split second, he didn't see Grasp.
He saw what he might become.
Grasp didn't hesitate.
One arm shot forward.
Kanasei raised his right arm and blocked it—
Impact.
But two more hands lashed in from the left. He couldn't react in time.
One seized his left arm.
Another wrapped around his leg.
They yanked him upward.
Before he could recover, two more hands locked onto him.
One gripped his skull. The other clamped around his torso. All four twisted at once. The world spun.
Then, he was hurled into the wall and kitchen counter.
The impact cracked the concrete. His breath exploded out of him. Blood sprayed from his mouth. But it didn't stop. The four hands began hammering him mid-air. Fists slammed into ribs. Into stomach. Into spine. Over and over rapidly. Like a Gatling gun
Kanasei couldn't guard or counter them.
The hands seized him again. And drove him into the wall. The wall shattered. Concrete burst outward. They dragged him through it—right.
Furniture splintered. Wood exploded.
Then they ripped him back left. Through cabinets. Through drywall. The apartment began to collapse around them.
The ceiling started collapsing. Dust swallowing everything.
Finally, they hurled him down the hallway. He crashed through the debris flying in the air. The apartment collapsed inward around them. Pulverized concrete filled the air.
.
.
.
.
.
No…
…I WON'T DIE LIKE THIS.
.
.
The rubble shifted, then burst outward.
Kanasei emerged from the cloud of debris. Floating above the fractured floor.
Blood streamed from his head. From his mouth and knuckles.
His right arm drew back. The crow-beak bones glowed brighter than ever.
"You don't decide who's weak!"
He vanished forward.
Grasp reacted instantly. Dozens of hands layered in front of him like a living shield.
Kanasei's fist met them, and it didn't slow down.
Flesh burst apart. Hands exploded into fragments. Bone blades tore through wrist after wrist. Blood fanned outward in violent arcs. He punched through every single layer, his momentum unbroken.
Grasp's eyes widened. His jaw hung slack.
Too late.
BAM!!!
Kanasei's fist connected with Grasp's skull.
For half a second...
Nothing.
Then—
It ruptured.
The head detonated outward. Bone shards. Brain matter. Blood coating the ceiling.
The body flipped sideways. It hit the ground, and twitched once, then stilled.
Kanasei didn't stop. His own momentum carried him forward.
He was going to slam head-first into the far wall. He threw his arms up, but they weren't enough.
His bone extensions shattered on impact. They cracked and splintered.
His head struck the concrete.
The world went white. Then dim.
He collapsed onto his stomach.
Vision blurring.
Red fading.
Through dust and ringing ears—
He saw silhouettes gathering at the ruined entrance.
He heard voices.
"What the hell happened here?!"
"It's a slaughterhouse…"
Kanasei's eye flickered once, then everything went black.
— — —
Dust hung thick in the ruined hallway.
Sirens wailed in the distance. Boots stepped over broken concrete.
A beam of white light cut through the debris cloud.
One voice spoke.
"Area secure."
Another:
"Multiple dismembered limbs. One confirmed death."
A pause.
Then—
"…What the hell did this?"
The dust thinned. Revealing Kanasei's unconscious body...and what remained of Grasp.
A different voice, quieter now.
"Call it in."
"This isn't normal."
Black boots stopped in front of Kanasei.
A shadow fell over him.
"…He's still breathing."
...
"Bring him."