Umemiya's fists carved through the darkness, painting the asphalt in streaks of crimson. Each impact—the wet crack of bone, the shriek of shattered glass—was a hymn to the storm inside him. His breath came in ragged snarls, his vision tunneling to the next target, the next body to break. 

This was his language. His sacrament. 

Then— 

Silence. 

His body stilled mid-swing, knuckles dripping. The sudden absence of violence rang louder than the chaos. Around him, figures moaned in the wreckage, but Umemiya only heard the thunder of his own pulse. He turned away, boots crushing gravel as the night air clung to his sweat-soaked skin. 

Alone. 

Always fucking alone. 

The quiet gnawed at him worse than the rage ever had. Memories slithered up from the dark—his mother’s vacant stare, the stench of yet another foster home’s mildew, the way every door had locked behind him. His fingers twitched for another fight, anything to drown out the ghosts. 

Then his feet stopped. 

A porch light. 

Golden and warm, it haloed your doorstep like some kind of sick joke. His hand hovered, trembling—with adrenaline or shame, he couldn’t tell. 

He knocked. 

Once. Soft. 

Pathetic.