Chapter 33

The impact doesn’t just crack the glass―it explodes.

The sound is deafening, and the window gives out in a violent burst, shards spraying inward like a storm of knives.

Yuki flinches hard, instinctively throwing her arms up over her head as fragments scatter across the floor around her.

Hanekawa recoils a half-step, one arm snapping up to shield his face as the room erupts in chaos. Then, seeing Dori force his way through the broken window, his expression snaps with furious disbelief.

“You idiots! Do something!” he barks at his men, whirling on them. “Stop that lunatic! Take him down! Now!”

The order breaks the spell.

Two of his men move at once, finally snapping into action. One rushes Dori head-on, arms coming up to grab him, while the other swings wide, aiming to flank him the moment he’s engaged.

Dori doesn’t step back.

He steps in.

The first man reaches him―Dori shifts at the last possible instant, and the grip misses clean. In the same motion, Dori brings the helmet up like a weapon and slams it into the man’s face.

The impact is brutal and immediate.

Bone gives under the strike with a sickening crack. The man’s nose collapses inward as blood erupts instantly, spraying across his lips and down his chin.

The second man rushes in right after him, too late to stop himself.

Dori turns on him without hesitation. He catches the man’s forward motion with a hard swing of the helmet, catching him across the side of the head before he can land a hit.

The blow knocks him sideways and sends him crashing into the wall, where he slumps hard, one shoulder sliding down as his legs give out beneath him.

For a split second, Dori is shifting his weight, resetting, and scanning for the next threat.

He doesn’t see it coming.

But from behind, something massive closes in.

The bald man, the biggest one of them, is suddenly there. He’s too close and too fast for someone his size.

An arm locks around Dori’s upper body like a vice, cutting off his movement instantly. Before Dori can fully react, he’s yanked backward off balance, his feet dragging for a fraction of a second before they leave the ground entirely.

Dori reacts violently, thrashing against the hold. He twists, jerks, tries to bring the helmet up, but the angle is all wrong. He can’t hit him with it like this.

Frustration flashes across his features, and he pivots to use his elbows instead. He drives one backward, sharp, aiming for the bald man’s temple.

The hit lands, but the man barely flinches, his grip only tightening slightly. Dori smashes another elbow into the side of his head. Still nothing.

“Get rid of him. I don’t care how,” Hanekawa orders flatly. He straightens his jacket with sharp, irritated motions, and turns away, as if the matter is already resolved.

“Move. Get everyone out of here, before the police arrive.”

For a heartbeat, the room seems to freeze―Hanekawa confident, his men hesitating, thinking the threat is contained.

Then Dori snaps.

His helmet drops to the floor.

He goes completely feral. His elbow starts driving backward with frenzied, nonstop force, each strike lands like a hammer, bone against skull, over and over.

The bald man grunts and stumbles, blood beginning to smear across his temple and cheek, but Dori doesn’t pause.

Faster. Harder.

There’s no rhythm, no spacing, just relentless repetition, like a machine that won’t shut off.

Back. Impact. Back. Impact.

Hanekawa pauses mid-step, and slowly turns his head back.

“..Tsk.”

The bald man staggers a half-step, trying to plant his feet properly, but Dori’s momentum keeps him unstable. Each elbow jerks his head slightly off-line, breaking his balance bit by bit.

“Are you seriously struggling with this?!” Mr. Hanekawa barks, his voice sharp with irritation as he turns fully back toward them. “One guy! ONE!”

But the sentence doesn’t land the way he expects, because the bald man is no longer holding ground at all.

His stance finally gives way under the nonstop barrage. His knees dip first, just slightly, like his body forgets how to stay upright. Then again, deeper this time.

His grip loosens reflexively, fingers failing to maintain pressure as another elbow snaps his head sideways.

There’s a stagger, a drunken sway.

Then collapse.

His arms fall away from Dori entirely as his body folds forward and down, hitting the floor with a heavy, uncontrolled drop. He doesn’t catch himself. Just crumples into the glass and dust, rolling slightly onto his side, breath rough and uneven.

The hold is gone.

Dori is free.

He bends down, fingers tightening around the helmet lying in the broken glass, and lifts it with a slow motion.

For a moment, he just holds it at his side.

Then he starts walking.

Step by step.

Glass crunches under his boots as he moves toward Hanekawa, shoulders rising and falling with each breath. His grip on the helmet is loose but ready, like it could swing at any second, but he doesn’t rush. He doesn’t need to.

“Stop him!” Hanekawa snaps. His head whips toward his men. “Stop him! Now!”

But his men are scattered and groaning, battered and struggling to rise. The chaos has left them useless.

“F*cking useless..” he breathes under his breath, eyes flicking between Dori and the fallen men. Panic starts to creep in at the edges of his control.

“Tsk.. fine.”

His hand moves under his jacket.

“I suppose we’re doing this..”

Metal glints as he pulls out a gun.

But before he can fully raise it, Dori throws the helmet with sudden, brutal force.

The edge connects squarely with Hanekawa’s hand. The gun slips from his grip, clattering across the shattered floor.

Hanekawa freezes for half a second.

Stunned.

And that’s all the time Dori needs.

He steps in immediately, closing the distance in a single motion, and snatches the gun from the ground before Hanekawa can recover.

For a brief moment, neither of them moves.

Hanekawa stares at him―breathing sharp, eyes flicking from Dori’s face to the weapon now in his grip, like his brain is refusing to accept the reversal.

“..You―” he starts.

Dori doesn’t wait.

He raises the gun.

“..Put that down,” Hanekawa says, but it doesn’t carry the same authority anymore. It lands thinner. Forced.

Dori doesn’t answer.

He just takes one slow step forward.

Then another.

Behind him, Yuki is still on the floor. She hasn’t moved much. Just small, shaky adjustments as she tries to push herself further back against the wall, away from the center of the room.

Her heartbeat is loud in her own ears as she watches Dori advance, and her breath catches when the gun shifts slightly in his hand; a small movement, barely anything, but it sends a jolt through her anyway.

He’s not.. actually going to shoot.. right?

The thought doesn’t come fully formed as certainty. It comes as a desperate question her mind throws out, trying to find something stable to hold onto.

Hanekawa’s tone shifts. He raises his hands in surrender.

“Wait. Listen to me,” he says quickly. “This doesn’t need to go any further.”

Dori keeps walking.

Hanekawa exhales through his nose, tense, recalculating in real time. Then he switches tactics completely.

“Name your price,” he says, voice controlled but urgent now. “Money. Whatever you want. I’ll give it to you.”

The distance keeps shrinking.

That’s when one of Hanekawa’s men snaps.

He pushes himself up off the floor with a grunt, shaking off the pain, eyes locked on Dori like he’s found his chance. His hand dips inside his jacket.

Metal flashes.

A knife.

Yuki sees it.

Her breath catches hard.

“Watch out!” she screams, voice cracking as she spots the blade mid-lunge.

A bang echoes through the room.

Yuki flinches violently at the sound, instinctively throwing her hands up over her ears and squeezing her eyes shut as if that alone could shut the moment out.

For a heartbeat, there’s only ringing silence after it.

Then she finally forces her eyes open, slowly, hesitantly..

The man is gone from where he was lunging.

He’s on the floor instead.

Collapsed in front of her feet, knife still loose in his hand, his body completely still.

But it’s his head that makes her freeze.

There’s a dark, spreading pool forming beneath it, seeping quickly into the dust and broken glass, turning everything beneath him wet and black-red. It spreads outward in uneven waves, soaking into the floorboards.

Blood.

Dori stands a short distance away, body turned slightly toward him.

The gun is still in his hand.

Smoke lingers faintly at the muzzle.

Yuki’s breath stutters.

Her brain doesn’t process it at first. It refuses to connect the image with what just happened.

Dori stares at her.

Locked. Unblinking.

Watching her reaction.

The room feels like it collapses inward under that attention alone―everything else reduced to background noise.

Yuki can’t breathe properly. Her body doesn’t move, even though every instinct is screaming at her to.

Then―

another shot.

She flinches violently, eyes squeezing shut as the sound rips through the silence. When she forces them open, she sees the gun aimed at the body on the floor.

Then a third.

A few droplets splash near her, hitting her face and clothes. She trembles. Her wide eyes are fixed on the three holes in the man’s head, small but unmistakable.

“Oh.. m-my..” she murmurs, her voice barely audible, as the reality of what just happened presses down on her. “D-Dead.. D.. He’s..”

The words don’t finish.

Her breath catches mid-inhale, turning shallow and uneven as her body finally stops obeying her mind. She sways slightly where she sits, frozen in place, then her head dips forward.

Once.

Twice.

And her body goes slack.

She collapses sideways onto the floor, consciousness snapping out of her in a clean, sudden break, leaving her still amid the shattered glass and silence.

Dori watches her for a moment, his face unreadable.

Then he turns away.

Back to Hanekawa.

He reaches into his pocket, and pulls out his phone. Without a word, he unlocks it and steps forward. He turns the screen toward Hanekawa as an explicit video plays.

Hanekawa’s eyes go wide, the color draining from his face as he recognizes his daughter. She’s straddling the school principal as her loud moans fill the room. The camera angle is perfect, capturing every dirty detail.

The phone’s glow illuminates the man’s frozen expression―shock, rage, and something darker swirling in his eyes as his hands ball into fists at his sides.

“Keep the boy alive for three months,” Dori says flatly. “Or I’ll leak this.”

“Bastard..” Hanekawa mutters under his breath, his face twisting in disgust.

Dori lowers the phone and turns away from him as if the conversation is already over. He walks to Yuki and, without hesitation, he bends down, lifts her limp body over his shoulder in one motion before straightening.

He starts walking out.

“Wait.”

Hanekawa’s voice cuts through the room.

Dori doesn’t stop immediately, but he does slow, just slightly.

Behind him, Hanekawa stands still for a second, jaw tight, something shifting behind his eyes. The shock is still there, but it’s being swallowed. Replaced. Compressed into something colder.

“I don’t need the boy anymore. You can have him now,” he says.

A pause.

Then, quieter, almost dismissive:

“..And go ahead. Leak it.”

Dori stops.

Fully this time.

Then he slowly turns around.

He studies Hanekawa’s face carefully, trying to decipher the sudden change in tone. The man who was just moments ago on the verge of breaking now stands there with an eerie calmness.

“Leak it,” Hanekawa repeats. “Post it everywhere. Send it to the school board, to the parents, to every news outlet in the city. Don’t hold back.”

Dori’s eyes narrow slightly, the first hint of something shifting―uncertainty, or maybe recalculation―flickering across his features.

Because that’s not the reaction he expected.

Hanekawa turns, and simply walks past the wreckage of the room, past his injured men, past the broken glass and blood, his steps steady and unhurried like the chaos behind him no longer concerns him at all.

He reaches the doorway, adjusts his jacket and tie once more, then exits.

Just like that.

Leaving Dori standing there, Yuki over his shoulder.

He remains motionless, his gaze fixed on the empty doorway, and slowly, the calculation in his eyes sours into something darker.

Slowly, something curls at the edge of his mouth, and his grip tightens slightly on Yuki.

“Oh, Mei..” he mutters under his breath, almost tenderly. His head tilts slightly. “Your life.. is so over.”

A soft chuckle slips out of him, low and disbelieving, until his mouth twitches again, and the sound deepens.

“Literally,” he adds, and the word breaks loose with a sharp, delighted snort.

He’s laughing, and it keeps growing as his shoulders begin to shake.

“Mei’s gonna die, Yuki―hah―”

The words tumble out between bursts of laughter, fractured and breathless, like he can’t contain it anymore.

“Haha―He’s gonna kill her―”

He unconsciously digs his fingers into her thigh as his head dips forward, shoulders shaking harder. His laughter echoes off the broken walls, fills the ruined room, and drowns out the groans of the injured.

“F*cking sl*t haha―should’ve just studied instead of spreading your legs for that old creep hah―”

The laughter sharpens into a jagged wheeze. His grip tightens even more, fingers bruising the skin before he abruptly recoils, propelled by a sudden, frantic surge of adrenaline.

The first wail of sirens cuts through the wreckage. Blue and red light flickers against the peeling wallpaper, strobing over the groaning bodies on the floor. He doesn’t look back at the mess he made.

With one last breathless laugh, he turns to the broken window. He jumps through the jagged frame and vanishes into the dark just as the police arrive.
  
 
TO BE CONTINUED..