Thug King

"Your inefficiency is disturbing."

The words hung in the air, heavier than the stench of gasoline and sweat. Every fighter on the street—the hardened bikers of the Wolf Pack and the delinquent army of Suzaku—froze mid-swing, their adrenaline-fueled rage doused by the sheer, absolute authority in Kenji's voice.

They stared at him. He stood there, effortlessly holding a grown man a foot off the ground by his throat. The biker's face was turning a deep shade of purple, his struggles growing weaker. Kenji didn't look angry. He looked like a master craftsman disappointed by the shoddy work of his apprentices.

Kaito, the leader of the Wolf Pack, stared in disbelief. The kid had just lifted Big Mike—a man who weighed over 220 pounds—with one hand like he was a bag of groceries. The rumors hadn't done him justice.

Rina Sato felt a familiar shiver of awe. This was it. This was the moment the mask of the quiet student fell away completely, revealing the monster underneath.

Kenji's cold gaze swept over the entire street. "You call this a battle?" he asked, his voice calm but carrying to every corner. "This is a chaotic, undisciplined brawl. You waste energy. You create excessive noise. You risk collateral damage to private property." He gestured with his free hand to a nearby fence that had been dented. "Unacceptable."

He then looked at the biker he was holding. "Example one: Over-commitment." With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the man. Big Mike flew through the air and crashed into two of his fellow bikers, sending all three down in a heap like bowling pins.

Before anyone could react, Kenji moved.

He flowed forward into the thick of the Wolf Pack. He was not a brawler. He was a force of entropy, systematically dismantling the gang's ability to fight.

One biker swung a pipe. Kenji didn't block it. He simply took it. His hand shot out and clamped onto the pipe, his grip absolute. He wrenched it from the man's grasp, then continued the motion, using the pipe to hook the man's leg and pull him off balance. As the man fell, Kenji tapped the end of the pipe against his helmet with just enough force to rattle his brain and knock him unconscious. The entire sequence was one smooth, unbroken motion.

Another biker came at him with a knife, a glint of true killing intent in his eyes.

Kenji's eyes went cold. The air around him seemed to crystallize.

His hand shot out and met the biker's knife-hand. His fingers, moving with preternatural speed, latched onto the man's wrist and thumb. He applied a simple, twisting pressure. It was a basic wrist lock, a kote gaeshi, but applied with his speed and understanding of anatomy, it was devastating.

SNAP. SNAP.

Two sharp, distinct cracks echoed. The wrist and the thumb broke simultaneously. The knife clattered to the pavement. The biker let out a shrill scream of pure agony, falling to his knees, his weapon hand a mangled wreck.

"Example two: Escalation," Kenji stated, his voice flat. "Lethal force invites a crippling response. An inefficient exchange."

He moved on.

He was a ghost. A blur. He wasn't just defeating them; he was teaching a brutal, terrifying lesson. To the students of Suzaku, he was demonstrating a level of martial prowess they couldn't comprehend. To the Kurokami Wolf Pack, he was demonstrating that their real-world brutality was nothing compared to his focused, scientific violence.

He broke a man's ankle with a precise stomp, punishing him for poor footwork.

He dislocated a man's jaw with an open-palm slap for trying to bite.

He disabled an entire motorcycle by kicking the front wheel at a precise angle, bending the axle and rendering it useless.

He moved through the thirty-odd bikers in less than a minute. Each one was taken down with a unique, terrifyingly specific injury. A broken bone, a dislocated joint, a targeted nerve strike that left a limb temporarily paralyzed. No one was dead, but every single one of them was left in a state of writhing, incapacitated agony. He had systematically and surgically removed their ability to ever threaten him or his "nest" again.

The Suzaku students had stopped fighting long ago. They now stood in a stunned, silent cluster, watching the one-man apocalypse. Their own brawl had been a chaotic mess of wild swings and shouting. This was a silent, horrifyingly efficient purge.

Rina Sato watched, her katana held loosely in her hand, her mouth slightly agape. This was different from his fights at school. There, he had held back, using just enough force to win. Here, against a real threat, he was still holding back from killing, but he was not holding back from destroying. He was a different kind of predator outside the confines of the schoolyard jungle.

Finally, only one biker was left standing. Kaito.

The gang leader stood frozen, his steel pipe held in a white-knuckled grip, surrounded by the moaning, broken bodies of his entire pack. He stared at Kenji, who now stood before him, not even breathing hard, his clothes still perfectly neat.

Kaito's arrogance was gone, replaced by a deep, primal terror. This wasn't a high school kid. This was a demon in human skin.

"Y-you... monster..." Kaito stammered, taking a step back.

Kenji took a step forward. He looked at the pipe in Kaito's hand. "Final lesson," he said. "Do not bring a tool to a fight unless you are prepared to have it used against you."

In a flash, Kenji closed the distance. Kaito swung the pipe in a desperate, panicked arc.

Kenji moved his head to the side, the pipe whistling past his ear. His hand shot out and gripped the pipe. He didn't try to wrestle it away. He simply held on, his grip an unbreakable vise.

He let Kaito's own momentum swing them both around. As they spun, Kenji used his other hand to gently tap the back of Kaito's knee, buckling it. With Kaito off balance, Kenji twisted the pipe upwards, using it as a lever against Kaito's own grip, forcing his arms into an unnatural angle and applying agonizing pressure to his shoulders and elbows.

Kaito cried out, forced to his knees by the unbearable joint lock.

Kenji leaned in close, his voice a low, cold whisper in the gang leader's ear.

"This territory is under my protection. Not because I want it, but because your presence is a disruption to my peace. You are inefficient. You are loud. And you are no longer welcome."

He applied a final ounce of pressure. A sickening series of pops echoed from Kaito's shoulders as both were dislocated. Kaito screamed and collapsed, the pipe finally falling from his nerveless fingers.

Kenji stood up, leaving the leader of the Wolf Pack whimpering at his feet.

He turned to face the fifty stunned students from Suzaku and their equally stunned Queen.

"The problem is resolved," he announced. "Please disperse in an orderly fashion. The police will arrive in approximately six minutes, based on the average response time for this level of public disturbance."

He then turned and walked back into his apartment building, leaving a scene of absolute carnage, a gang of terrified high school students, and a shell-shocked rival Queen behind him.

Rina Sato looked at the whimpering, broken remains of the Kurokami Wolf Pack, then at the closed door of Kenji's apartment.

Her plan to be his "sword" and "handle the dirty work" suddenly seemed utterly, laughably redundant. How do you protect a man who is, himself, a walking apocalypse?