The blade made of blood was still embedded in the wooden floor of the room. A grotesque monument to what had happened in that dark alley.
Akashi approached with hesitant steps, his heart hammering against his ribs. Each inch closer seemed to pull him back into the darkness, to the wet sound of the cuts, to the wide, panicked eyes he couldn't erase from his mind. A bitter, metallic taste rose in his throat. He almost recoiled.
He reached out a trembling hand, not for control, but for an almost morbid need to touch the physical proof of his act. Before his fingers reached the wood, the embedded blood dissolved. Like a sinister red serpent, it slid across the floor and up his hand, wrapping around his fingers.
It didn't feel obedient, it felt... possessive. Claiming its master.
"This... this isn't me..." he whispered, his voice failing. He stared at the liquid that now swirled slowly in his palm, not like smoke, but like a contained predator.
The power was undeniable, pulsing in sync with his fear and his remaining fury. It was his, born from his pain and his near-end. And that realization was as terrifying as the power itself.
The following days were a blur of self-imposed isolation. Akashi locked himself in his room, the curtains drawn against a world that, somehow, continued to spin indifferently. He skipped classes, inventing flimsy excuses that his parents, perhaps sensing the darkness around him, accepted with worried silence. Eye contact was impossible – he feared they would see the monster he felt he had become.
The news still touched on the subject, a passive torture he forced himself to watch. "Three teenagers dead," "brutal violence," "no leads." Each word was a stab. No one mentioned Akashi Renzou. His invisibility, once a source of frustration, was now a terrible and suffocating shield. The world ignored him, but his conscience did not. Fragments of the alley assailed his thoughts – a scream, the impact of a falling body, the red... always the red.
In the bathroom mirror, the ring on his finger seemed to mock him. It pulsed not only with emotion, but with the memory of what happened. Each beat was an echo of the violence. He saw his reflection, pale, with deep dark circles under his eyes, but behind his own eyes, he saw flashes of the aggressors, of his own uncontrolled fury. He looked away, unable to face what he had done, what he had become.
It was on the third day, driven by a mixture of fear and a dark curiosity, that he decided to confront the thing within him.
In the backyard, the gates locked, an old towel blocking any curious gaze, he extended his arm. The hesitation was palpable. Making the cut was no longer a thoughtless act, it was a conscious choice to invoke that which haunted him. He took a deep breath, the image of the frightened faces flashing in his mind. With his fingernail, he made a small cut on his finger. It hurt, but the physical pain was almost a relief compared to the mental torment.
A single drop of blood was enough. The blade formed, rigid and terrifyingly familiar. He held it, the weight in his hand feeling a thousand times heavier than the first time. He felt the solidity, the capacity to injure. He felt the connection, yes, but now it came laden with the weight of the lives he had taken.
He tried to create another shape, perhaps something less lethal, a shield, maybe? But the blood flowed, unstable. His concentration wavered, the image of the alley overlapping his will. A single blade was all he could maintain, a constant reminder of its first and only use so far.
"I can shape... but what do I shape?" he thought, his breathing ragged. The effort left him weak, dizzy, but it was the moral nausea that truly shook him.
Hours passed. He tested thickening the blade, thinning it. He discovered the limit of its reach – if the makeshift weapon moved too far away, it lost its shape, reverting to just blood. The power was tied to him, an invisible and red tether.
It was incredible, in a terrible way. It was raw power born of desperation.
In the late afternoon, Akashi looked at the orange sky, sweat mixed with dirt and dried blood on his hands. His heart beat fast, an internal war drum mixing fear, guilt, and a dangerous spark of... something else. Survival? Power?
"It's not a Quirk," he murmured to the sky. "It's... a bleeding scar."
He went back inside, the weight of the world on his shoulders. He turned on the computer. The U.A. website opened, vibrant with promises of heroism, of justice, of a bright future. Smiling faces, impeccable uniforms. A world so different from the darkness he felt had swallowed his life.
The practical exam was months away.
He squeezed the red ring. The pulsing felt stronger, almost a question. What are you going to do with this?
"They want heroes," Akashi thought, a bitter smile forming on his lips. "They have no idea the monster they might be getting."
The idea of entering U.A. was no longer just about being noticed. It was a desperate gamble. Maybe, just maybe, in that environment of heroic ideals, he could find a way to control not only the blood, but the darkness that came with it. Or maybe he would just bring his darkness there.
"If the world is going to notice me..." he closed his eyes for a moment, the image of the alley vivid before he forced it away. "...then it will be on my terms. Even if those terms were born in hell."
The path would be arduous, stained by the origin of his power. But the alternative, remaining invisible, haunted by what he had done and what he could do, was unthinkable. He would make the world notice him, no matter how uncomfortable that attention might be. For him, and for them.