Part 1: Fate
After Haruto told Eiji about his plan, the moment had finally come.
Haruto now had the perfect time to kill Eiji.
Haruto moved his staff, preparing to strike.
And before Haruto could do a move, everything stopped.
Haruto felt a horrifying presence wash over him.
It was the Dark Forest.
It started again, grabbing Haruto and dragging him back into that pitch-black, suffocating woods.
When Haruto first teleported there, a cold realization hit him.
He understood he was going to die, and there was absolutely no way out.
But he still ran through that forest at full speed.
His heart pounded violently against his ribs as he desperately thought only of escaping this nightmare.
But right in front of Haruto, the shadows parted.
A giant wolf appeared, its eyes gleaming with feral malice.
The beast lunged forward and bit Haruto's stomach with a heavy, crushing force.
The impact was devastating; Haruto spun violently on the ground.
He flew through the air and fell hard against a jagged stone wall.
Haruto was vomiting thick, dark blood from his mouth.
His stomach had completely busted open from the force of the bite.
His internal organs were violently exposed to the cold air.
His intestines and his liver were clearly visible through the torn flesh.
They were totally busted, ruptured, and leaking fluids.
Haruto's eyes turned entirely red, filling with ruptured blood vessels.
Haruto saw everything as a terrifying, chaotic blur.
Haruto's head was overcast with an unbearable, suffocating tension.
Then, the giant wolf walked over and casually devoured Haruto's head in one massive crunch.
Haruto died.
Then, he teleported again.
Haruto died multiple times in the Dark Forest.
He got tortured there in ways that defied human comprehension.
He was torn apart and eaten by wild beasts in the most brutal manners possible.
The endless cycle of agony broke something deep inside him.
Haruto could no longer tell the difference between reality and the Dark Forest.
Even when he was back, he could still feel the phantom sensation in real life that his stomach was busted open.
In some deaths, Haruto's body parts got scrambled so harshly, twisted and broken beyond recognition, leaving Haruto to suffer a lot before the end came.
In some deaths, Haruto was left half-cut and half-alive, his upper torso separated from his legs, forced to feel the slow, agonizing stretch of death to suffer much longer.
Haruto, at the absolute end of his psychological and physical limit, fainted at that very place.
Eiji finally came free from his paralysis.
The Paralysing ritual faded, and he stood up to his full height.
Then, he looked down at the collapsed, twitching form of Haruto with burning anger.
The scene shifted to Leo.
Leo was sitting completely alone in the dark corner of a quiet room.
He was staring blankly at the floor, remembering what Haruto had just done to him.
And he drowned in his own thoughts, debating what he should do now.
As the silence wrapped around him, Leo remembered his past.
His backstory began.
When Leo was born on Earth, his life was relatively normal.
He had one elder sister.
And when Leo turned 6 years old, his sister was 16 years old at that time.
Their age gap was exactly 10 years.
Leo's sister was incredibly pretty in her looks.
She also had a very developed, pretty good figure for her young age.
And Leo respected his sister more than anyone else in the world.
And during that time, both of Leo's mother and father were still alive.
But their household was far from perfect.
Leo's father was a little bit of an alcoholic.
He constantly smoked cigarettes and drank heavy alcohol to escape his problems.
Despite the tense environment, Leo was an incredibly energetic kid.
He was pretty mature for his age, understanding things faster than other children.
And he liked animals so much, always showing a soft spot for them.
And yet, he also liked to fight.
He liked challenges; he craved the thrill of testing his limits.
He was so crazy and fearless that he actually fought with 16-year-old boys when he was just a small child.
And because of this, he would often get severely injured, covered in bruises and cuts.
But the pain never stopped him; he just wanted to fight more.
He wanted to fight even stronger people.
He wanted to be like a brave warrior.
The kind of legendary warrior who doesn't fear anyone, but instead, fear itself fears him.
That was exactly the type of person Leo was.
One day, when Leo's father was not at home because he was drinking away at the local bar, everything changed.
It was in the evening.
Leo was outside, fighting with the neighborhood children just for fun.
Suddenly, a strange, menacing group of men appeared there.
"Hey boy, you look pretty strong," the leader of the group said, looking down at Leo.
"Uhh... who are you?" Leo asked, wiping sweat from his forehead.
"Well, that's a good question. After all, you are gonna become a great fighter in the future," the group said, smiling with hidden motives.
Leo, being so young, doesn't understand anything behind their dark expressions.
"So basically, we are here to find a boxer prodigy," the man explained smoothly.
"Can we talk to your parents?" the group asked.
"Really? Sure, come with me!" Leo said excitedly.
Leo was just a naive kid.
He felt that simple, kind-sounding talks were real and trustworthy.
That's why Leo gladly led them straight to his house, walking side by side with that sinister group.
Leo and the group entered the house.
Inside, Leo's mother and sister were instantly confused and alarmed.
They wondered who these strange, rough-looking men were.
Suddenly, without a single word of warning, one of the group members pulled out a gun.
He aimed and shot directly at Leo's mother's chest.
It hit her dead center.
Bang!
Leo became completely speechless.
He froze in absolute, paralyzing shock as his world shattered in a microsecond.
That cruel person didn't stop shooting.
One.
Two.
Three.
He fired continuously into her fragile body.
Leo's mother desperately wanted to speak, to call out to her children, but one of the hot bullets tore right through her vocal cords.
She died while trying to speak, choking on her own blood in complete, agonizing pain.
Immediately, the group moved like wolves, surrounding Leo's terrified sister.
Leo's sister became utterly afraid, shrinking back as tears streamed down her face.
One of the men reached out and brutally touched her breast.
He squeezed it hard.
Squeeze.
Squeeze.
"Her cup should be an E," that disgusting man said with a foul laugh.
The others joined in, their hands moving over her, starting to touch her in her most private parts.
They started to viciously harass her right there on the floor.
The truth was horrifying: they had come to this house specifically to kidnap Leo's sister for sex-trafficking.
Seeing his sister's brutal harassment, something snapped inside Leo's young mind.
Leo grabbed a sharp kitchen knife.
And he ran at one of the members with pure, unadulterated rage.
And he stabbed him.
He stabbed him multiple times, plunging the blade over and over into the man's flesh ruthlessly.
The other members panicked and tried to stop the frenzied child.
Leo, driven by absolute survival instincts, grabbed one of the fallen member's guns.
And he shot one of the members point-blank.
Leo became completely aggressive, transformed into a wild animal protecting its kin.
He attacked everyone with everything he had in his reach.
And he showed absolutely no mercy, biting, slashing, and screaming.
After an hour had passed, the chaos had settled into an awful silence.
Leo's father finally entered his house, stumbling slightly from the alcohol.
And he became utterly shocked, the sobriety hitting him like a physical blow.
He saw his wife's cold, bloody dead body lying on the floor.
And right next to her, Leo was lying in a pool of his own blood.
Leo's neck was cut—not fully severed, but hacked deeply into the muscle.
Leo was bleeding brutally, gasping for air through a mangled throat.
It looked like someone had intentionally tortured him, leaving him to slowly die while feeling every bit of the awful suffering.
The group had successfully taken Leo's sister out with them, disappearing into the night.
And they had injured Leo heavily, leaving him for dead.
Leo's father frantically called an ambulance with trembling fingers.
The ambulance came, sirens wailing through the neighborhood.
The doctors worked tirelessly and somehow managed to save Leo's life.
But they could not able to save Leo's mother; she was already long gone.
Leo's father became completely heartbroken, his entire existence ruined by grief and guilt.
Leo was left with a severe, deep, long-term trauma that scarred his mind forever.
And Leo, who before had a pretty nice, clear voice, lost it.
After this horrific incident, the damage to his neck turned his voice completely weird and raspy.
Following that night, Leo's father fell deeper into the bottle, always drinking until he was numb.
And he started to blame Leo for everything that had happened.
He blamed him for the mother's death and the sister's kidnapping.
Leo had to sit there and hear it day after day, absorbing the venomous words.
Leo went into a deep, inescapable depression.
Leo began to see terrifying illusions and vivid nightmares whenever he closed his eyes.
Where his dead mother would shout at him in his dreams, weeping and blaming Leo for failing to save her.
He saw endless nightmares of his sister being abused in the sex-trafficking ring, her crying out his name.
He went completely dark inside, his mind a hollow shell.
His father used to treat him like a worthless dog.
He beat Leo heavily, using fists and belts to vent his drunken rage.
Sometimes, Leo bled so much from the beatings that he nearly died right there on the floor.
One day, Leo's father was loudly blaming Leo for everything once again, screaming at him until his face was red.
Leo, this time, became so incredibly disturbed by the accumulated trauma that he couldn't take it anymore.
He turned around and left his house, running out into the cold night.
After Leo ran away, his exhausted father slumped down and slept on the kitchen table.
And in his deep, alcohol-induced sleep, his father saw a vision of his dead wife.
"Hey, why do you always blame our child?" Leo's mother said, her spirit standing before him with sad eyes.
"Because of him, you and my daughter got caught! It's his fault!" Leo's father argued, tears welling up in his eyes.
"Don't be stupid," Leo's mother said softly, shaking her head.
"That day, you drank too much. You were not even in the house when we needed you."
"At least Leo tried his absolute best to save us."
"Although he made a mistake by trusting them..."
"But did you forget? He is just a child."
"Children do mistakes."
"It's your fault," Leo's mother said firmly, her voice echoing in his conscience.
Leo's father woke up with a jolt.
He finally understood his horrific mistakes, and he fully realized that he had failed completely as a father.
He realized he shouldn't even be called a father.
He was just too bad of a person.
He started to cry right there at the table.
He cried heavily, his chest heaving as he sobbed loudly into the empty room.
Understanding his mistake for being such a cruel, terrible father broke him down completely.
In his mind, he could still feel the warmth of how Leo's mother had hugged him in the dream, whispering:
"There is still time left. Now, go and become an ideal dad for my son."
"I will... I would, thank you," Leo's father muttered to the empty air, wiping his tears.
Then, Leo's father dashed out into the street, frantically looking for Leo in the dark.
He searched the blocks until he finally saw Leo standing in the middle of a major road.
A car was speeding down the asphalt, its headlights blinding.
Understanding the situation instantly, Leo's father realized that Leo was trying to commit suicide.
Without a second thought, Leo's father jumped into the path of the vehicle.
With a powerful shove, he pushed Leo to the side, throwing him out of harm's way.
But Leo's father got hit heavily by that speeding car.
The impact was deafening as his body was thrown onto the pavement.
Leo scrambled up from the sidewalk and rushed to his father's side.
"Father!"
"Father!" Leo screamed, his raspy voice cracking.
"Why are you bleeding?!"
"No, please don't die!"
"I don't want to lose you now! Please!" Leo cried out, gripping his father's blood-soaked shirt.
Leo's father looked up at his son, coughing up blood, understanding he had very little time left to talk before his life faded.
"Sorry, Leo... I know I failed as a father," he whispered, the tears mixing with the blood on his cheeks.
"And as a person..."
"Please forgive me for everything..." Leo's father said while crying his final tears.
Leo's father died right there on the asphalt during the act of saving his son.
Leo held his father's cold body tight against his chest and cried heavily, his screams echoing into the night.
After that final incident, Leo went into a state of complete, unyielding trauma.
There was absolutely no one left beside him in the world.
He developed a deep, agonizing fear of losing the people close to him.
And one day, unable to bear the isolation, Leo again tried to commit suicide to end it all.
But suddenly, before he could do it, a strange, glowing portal appeared right in front of him.
And Leo got teleported into somewhere else entirely.
When Leo opened his eyes and looked around his new surroundings, he saw that he had teleported into the world of Tenzu.
His backstory ended.
The scene shifted back to Haruto.
Eiji raised his weapon and launched a vicious attack at the unconscious Haruto.
But right before the strike could land, Eiji suddenly got forcefully pushed back by a massive, overwhelming shockwave.
Eiji stumbled, blinking in surprise, and looked up.
Eiji saw a literal beast standing protectively in front of the fallen boy.
It was Leo, his eyes burning with an intense, wild fury, his posture radiating an unbreakable aura.
"I lost many people in my life..." Leo spoke, his broken, weird voice echoing with immense emotional weight.
"For me, my mother died."
"My sister got kidnapped into hell."
"My father sacrificed his own life for mine."
"For what?!" Leo yelled, his chest heaving.
"To save me!"
"I was a loser. A complete, worthless loser."
"I wanted to commit suicide multiple times."
"But I was never able to kill myself."
"If God wants to save me... if I am meant to be alive..."
"Then I will save my friend no matter what the cost!" Leo roared, stepping forward to face the enemy.