Riku is awakened by the sound of spinning rotors.
A helicopter… in District Nine?
He looks out the window, and a voice from a megaphone booms:
— RIKU AOYAMA! — The amplified voice from an attack helicopter echoed between the buildings. — YOU ARE IN POSSESSION OF RESTRICTED GOVERNMENT PROPERTY. EXIT WITH YOUR HANDS VISIBLE OR LETHAL FORCE WILL BE APPLIED. YOU HAVE SIXTY SECONDS.
Below, the street was blocked by black armored vehicles bearing the emblem of the Infernal Containment Unit. But what caught Riku’s attention wasn’t the vehicles — it was the soldiers disembarking.
They weren’t wearing normal kevlar vests. They wore metallic exoskeletons fused with dark biomass, emitting a sickly green glow. They were Mid-Tier Demons, creatures whose essences had been tamed and turned into mass-produced weapons of war by the government. The armor looked alive, with hydraulic cables that mimicked muscles and visors resembling insect eyes.
— Collared dogs… Kael’Zhorun’s voice growled, filled with deep contempt. — They enslaved my lesser kin to create these abominations.
Riku tightened his grip on the window ledge.
“What do we do, vessel? If we surrender, they’ll cut us open on a surgical table.”
— We are not surrendering, Riku hissed.
He looked toward the door. The hallway was already being breached; he could hear the metallic thud of heavy boots. Apartment 402’s door was blown inward by an explosive charge.
Two Containment Unit soldiers stormed in, pulse rifles aimed and loaded with armor-piercing energy rounds.
— Target located! Activate suppression!
Riku didn’t wait. He let Kael’Zhorun’s armor expand from his ring, but this time the fury was restrained, focused. He needed out — and the only way was through the army surrounding the building.
With an upward claw strike, he split the agent’s pulse rifle in half and hurled him against the opposite wall, denting the government exoskeleton.
The second soldier fired. Energy rounds struck Riku’s shoulder, tearing shards from the demonic plating and burning the flesh beneath. Riku snarled, pain feeding the demon’s hatred. He spun, delivering a side kick that launched the soldier through the hallway window, sending him into a four-story free fall.
— More are coming, Riku! Kael’Zhorun warned.
Emergency lights flashed red down the corridor, revealing heavy silhouettes climbing the fire stairs. At least a full squad was blocking roof access. The main stairs were suicide.
— If I can’t take the stairs… I’ll make my own path, Riku hissed, eyes glowing.
He sprinted down the corridor, ignoring gunfire. Soldiers emerged from side doors, but Riku moved like a cornered beast. He smashed through a drywall partition, surprising two agents preparing an ambush, and took them down with brutal precision.
He reached the building’s center — an elevator shaft long deactivated. He ripped the steel doors open with his bare hands.
— There he is! Shoot to kill!
Lasers and armor-piercing rounds rained toward him. A shot slammed into his ribs — the same injured ones — stealing his breath.
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He jumped into the shaft.
As he fell, he dug his claws into the steel cables and side rails to control speed. Sparks lit the darkness as he descended like a meteor. Soldiers guarded every floor.
— The ground! Brace!
He released at the last second, crashing onto the elevator car roof at ground level, crushing it and punching a hole through the lobby floor.
Riku rose from the wreckage. The reception area was now an improvised command post. Six elite soldiers waited in heavier Mid-Demon armor, armed with electrified lances.
Outside, the helicopter hovered, spotlight locked on the exit.
— Containment formation, now!
They advanced. Riku felt exhaustion creeping in — but Ayane’s words echoed:
“Even the fiercest predator dies of exhaustion if it has nowhere to return.”
He would not return defeated.
Riku roared. A shockwave of red flames exploded outward, shattering every ground-floor window and hurling soldiers into pillars. He burst through the smoke toward the street — where the full army waited.
And then came the Broken.
Former soldiers who had worn Mid-Demon armor too long, their minds corroded. Not men anymore — just drooling, snarling husks.
— Release discard specimens!
Four charged at once. One slammed into him, hydraulic claws digging into his wounded shoulder. Another punched his ribs with the force of an industrial press.
Riku fell to his knees.
— These abominations have no souls! React!
Pain ignited his spirit like gunpowder.
— GET… OFF… ME!
A blast of black-red fire erupted, throwing them back. Riku rose in a murderous trance.
He crushed one’s head in an explosion of smoke and flame. Tore another’s chest open, ripping out its heart. He moved like a scarlet blur of violence.
The street became a battlefield of blood and wreckage.
Then the helicopter opened fire.
Heavy rounds hammered him like steel hammers. Armor shattered. Missiles launched.
Explosions hurled him into a wrecked vehicle.
A lucid soldier rushed him with a spear — his final mistake.
Riku grabbed him by the throat and hurled him like a human projectile into the helicopter’s tail rotor.
Metal shredded flesh. The aircraft spun, lost control, clipped a building, and crashed in a massive fireball that lit District 9.
Riku stood in the inferno’s glow, trembling.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
More were coming.
He staggered into an alley… and collapsed into gentle hands.
Ayane caught him before he hit the ground.
“I saw the helicopter in the sky…” Ayane whispered, slipping his arm over her shoulders to support him. “You’re too stubborn, Riku. I said I’d be here to hear your lament — but I don’t want it to be tonight.”
She carried him through the shadows, moving with unnatural agility for someone bearing the weight of a wounded man. The sirens faded behind them, swallowed by the dense mist Morrvhael summoned to conceal their trail.
Inside the cathedral, Ayane laid Riku across one of the long pews near the altar. As she fetched clean cloths and water, the air in the church shifted.
A red mist began to seep from Riku’s ring.
Kael’Zhorun’s voice echoed — not in Riku’s mind, but through the cathedral itself, vibrating in the ancient stone.
“He is pathetic… isn’t he?” t?” the Demon of Ruin snarled, frustration thick in his voice. “He holds the power of a General, yet falls to cheap copies and human weapons.”
Ayane paused, staring at the red mist. Morrvhael’s faint blue glow flickered in response.
“He’s human, Kael’Zhorun,” she replied, wiping blood from Riku’s face. “Humans break.”
“He breaks because he is weak! Because he still clings to memories of blue ribbons and promises to dead sisters!” the demon roared, making the candle flames tremble. “I cannot manifest my full form if the vessel is a cracked container. He must be forged. He needs teeth that do not tremble.”
For a moment, Kael’Zhorun hesitated — something rare for his arrogant nature.
“You… Bearer of Lament. You possess the discipline he lacks. You know how to dance with your demon without being devoured. I demand that you train him. Teach him to wield hatred like a blade — not like a cry for help. If he does not learn to use his hatred properly, the next enemy will erase us from history.”
Ayane looked down at Riku’s pale, unconscious face. For a second, the weight of the thousands of dead she carried seemed heavier.
“Train him… to become a better monster?” she asked bitterly.
Kael’Zhorun’s voice lowered, less rage — more certainty.
“He is already a monster. But his hatred is uncontrolled. He must learn to use it as a weapon he can wield — not as something irrational.”
Ayane sighed, threading a needle to stitch his deepest wounds.
“Fine, Kael’Zhorun. When he wakes — if he survives this night — I’ll make him more than a survivor. I’ll make him a warrior.”
Her eyes hardened.
“But be warned. My training is not gentle. And I will not hold back.”
Kael’Zhorun laughed — a deep, echoing sound through the cathedral.
“Excellent.”
___Bloopers ___
