Chapter 2: Chapter 1: Limits
January 11, 6:15 A.M, Summer.
Namiari Kazuo, an average high school student with black eyes and spiky black hair, was 5'6" tall and weighed around 133 pounds. This normal young man contains a great power residing in his right hand—God Eater—with this power, every supernatural force will be nullified by the "devourer of gods". However, that curse that brings bad luck cannot devour one thing, classes on Saturdays.
As Kazuo closed the door to his house, his classmate and best friend, Ichi Henji greeted him casually as usual.
"Yo, Kazu-chi!"
"Yo! Hm? Harutora's not with you today?"
"Nope. He went to a trip with his family, nya~"
Kazuo's classmate and friend was a very peculiar person by Human standards because he was not exactly what one could call 'human'. Ichi Henji was a zombie, more specifically, a Human-Zombie Hybrid. Henji was some sort of genetic anomaly among his race. By what he had said once, human-zombie hybrids aren't particularly uncommon, but it's extremely rare for one to be born as a 1/2 hybrid. Henji's older sister was a 3/4 human and 1/4 zombie young woman —and very talented—for example.
He was the same age as Kazuo and a little taller than him, standing at 5'7". He wore a brown coat unbuttoned over his white school uniform, his skin was a bit darker than Kazuo's due to the sunbathing he used to do to maintain his olive skin. His short, spiky dyed blonde hair contrasted with his appearance; he wore gold chains around his neck and a piercing in his left ear.
The two friends walked calmly to their school, which was 20 minutes from their residence, which was in the south of the city, in the residential district.
After a bit of walking they entered the commercial area of the city, then stopped at a store and Kazuo bought their lunch for 800 yen each.
"You really like to save money, huh?" Henji bit his Yakisoba bread.
"You know, even though I have some concerns about my future, I still like my job. If I spend everything uncontrollably, I would be lost if I needed to use it for something urgent. Eh, you know, I'm not one brag... but I have about four million yen saved, which I earned with my hard work after 3 years!" Kazuo puffed out his chest, laughing loudly.
"Ehh... Kazu-chi is really prepared, huh? Having said that, lend me 30 thousand to buy some games and manga, nyaha~"
"I'll hit you."
"Kazu-chi is so bad, nya."
They kept walking as they chatted around.
A few meters ahead they saw two acquaintances, Hanejima Shizuo, a tall young man, around 6'0", his blonde hair and dark glasses made him look like a delinquent, even more so than Kazuo and Henji. 1 year older than the two, he was 17, and wore barman clothes that he wore to his job, from Sunday to Sunday.
At his side, a girl of medium build, Hajime Kuroko, an elementary student three years younger than Shizuo, and much smaller than the three, standing at about 4'10.3". Her long wine red hair tied in twintails, and she wore the standard Dengeki Middle's uniform.
Kazuo thought that if Hajime was going to school on Saturday, so his sister would go too, but it wasn't quite that, at the school where Kuroko studied, it was common for students to take 'special classes' to develop their psychic Esper Powers.
In Hajime's case, her Esper Power was teleportation; something involving the third and eleventh dimensions or something like that; involving hundreds of complex calculations in the space of one second.
But for an ordinary high school student like Kazuo, he wouldn't understand a complicated explanation about how an esper's powers work, for him it was simply moving instantly from one point to another. However, the complicated part was also the most important part of the process.
"Ay, Shizu-chan, Ojou. How the bar's doing?" Asked Kazuo.
"Not all that bad, I guess." Kuroko gave him a big smile.
Hanejima spoke up aloofly, though. "Some kids from Aitoku High got mad at her for owning a bar but refusing to serve drinks to them, since they're underage. They started wrecking the bar. She teleported them into a trashcan. And started to rant for 30 minutes about how much the people in this city suck; with customers still on the bar. It was funny."
"Not all that bad, I guess?" Kazuo and Henji replied, and Hajime groaned in annoyance.
They walked down a hill.
As they were in, Hajime gasped as she remembered something. "Have you seen the news? Apparently a moon fell here a few days ago. I didn't know that."
"Nyahaha. That's crazy, man." Henji laughed.
Kazuo's shoulders stifled a little. "Yeah... Super crazy, haha. Who could be involved with that? Oh, hey, Shizu-chan. Your phone's ringing."
"Hm?"
Shizuo took his smartphone from his pocket.
"Tsc. The Kurokami is calling me. Bye, guys."
"Bye, bye." The trio waved as Hanejima left.
They crossed an intersection, a moving truck passed soon after.
"Huh?" Hajime raised an eyebrow. "Aren't those gentlemen from Kaiyama High?"
The two boys looked where she pointed at.
They came across 4 young men, just over twenty or thirty meters ahead, sitting on the railing of a candy store called "Konyappi". A little older than them, they were probably third years, and wore the uniform of a school from another city.
"Weird. Who would come here to eat candies?" Kazuo wondered.
The group looked directly at Kazuo and the others, and they walked towards the three.
Henji, who was normally relaxed and agitated, felt uneasy when he noticed who was coming towards them.
Kuroko raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"
Ichi Henji answered, "The tall one... he's my brother: Bakoki." then he started pulling Kazuo and Kuroko by the arm, he wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.
But they were surrounded before they could escape.
"Where do you think you're going, lil' bro?"
Bakoki wore a red collared uniform, his skin was pale, straight brown hair and dead eyes like those of a corpse, they made a strange combination with his clothes, which were very messy, and his blue tie was hanging over the shoulder.
He glanced at the spiky haired boy, who had a straight face as he stared back at Bakoki.
"You...! The kid who helped that fucking thief!"
(Huh...???) Kazuo não pôde evitar de ficar confuso. "Thief? What nonsense are you on abo—ghbvff!!?"
Bakoki had hit Kazuo with a knee in the stomach that made him lose his breath and fall to his knees, clutching his stomach.
"Uurgh...!"
"Namiari-san!" shouted Hajime Kuroko, putting a hand to her mouth, her face filled with shock.
Bakoki's friends grabbed Henji and Kuroko violently, pinning them in place.
With a huge smile of satisfaction on his face, Ichi Bakoki looked down and spoke to Namiari: "You owe me for that day, kid. But don't you worry; now I'm very well prepared. There's no dragon that can save your ass from this..."
He then took an aluminum packaging from the right pocket of his pants, and inside it...
It contained a piece of raw meat, the size of baby's head.
(What the fuck...?) Kazuo looked up, the pain in his stomach lessening.
Hajime Kuroko, and even Bakoki's friends stared at that thing with shock, disgust and horror.
"I-i never knew we'd be doing this kind of shit—!!" One of Bakoki's friends cried out and ran away.
"Wait for me!" Another one went after him, and another.
The last one, slowly backing away, spoke up: "So-sorry, man... I... Uh... Ahhh!!" And he ran away after the others.
Bakoki clicked his tongue. "Yeah, yeah. Run, fucking pussies. I won't need any help."
He brought his hand closer to his mouth...
"Bakoki, no!" Henji shouted as his brother ate the raw piece of meat in about five or six bites, he looked like a hungry animal.
"Okay, time for a beating!" Shouted as he kicked Kazuo in the face, sending him crashing over 10 meters away and collapsing on the railing of the sidewalk.
Kazuo hit his side very hard, and heard a crack coming it.
"Uhhh... Bleergh..." And he vomited his breakfast all over the sidewalk.
"Haha~ now that's more like it." Bakoki hummed, his eyes bloodshot. He no longer looked dead. He was very much alive now.
With relaxed steps and without any rush, he approached the boy lying on the sidewalk railing.
"You... you get away from him!" Kuroko stood between the two, the girl's thin arms opened as if she wanted to ward off the threat or just serve as a shield.
Observing that scene, with a cold look and dead words, Bakoki smiled as if mocking the girl's courage. "What, are you his girlfriend? Just move out of the way. I've got unsolved businesses with that hedgehog."
And he continued approaching without caring.
Hajime tensed, closing her eyes. But she could still say, "I... won't let you hurt him..."
"How cute." Bakoki responded without emotion.
Namiari Kazuo slowly forced his injured body away from the steel railing. Putting strength into his legs, he pushed himself upwards.
(Move, Kazuo... This psychopath won't spare Ojou... Come on, stand up, damn it!!)
Henji was shocked and didn't even move. Bakoki in turn completely ignored him.
He pushed Kuroko aside with a simple movement of his arm, and she hit her head on the concrete, losing consciousness.
"I'll kill you!!" Kazuo shouted as he darted towards Bakoki, who watched him with an amused look in his psychotic face.
Before the back of his mind could give him warning flags, a stinging pain settled in as Namiari felt the heavy foot of Bakoki shooting his solar plexus.
"Guheeh...!?"
His first instincts were to clutch his stomach and take a knee, but Kazuo's mind was stronger than that and he staggered forward — as he tried to reach for Bakoki's face with his right fist.
Henji's brother waved and axe-kicked Kazuo on the back, sending him straight down. "Hey kid, how about calling your pet soon?? Of course, I don't mind paying you a beating... but that's already looking pretty pathetic for you, don't you think so?"
"Fuck... you..."
Kazuo was still quite stunned, but he could only tighten his fist and prepare to strike back.
Then Ichi Bakoki had an idea. "Oh, I know~ how about if I kill these two back here? Maybe this will cheer you up a little, how about that?"
"Kh... Motherfucker!"
He glazed at the foe, about 10 meters apart.
The 16-year-old boy pressed his feet firmly on his shoes, he felt the stone-cold pavement through it. His left hand being used as a support to almost half his weight; his legs were tensioned and would move just as he wished them to.
(Go!!)
Kazuo shot like a bullet and in less than 1 second he was already within arm's reach.
Without hesitation, he bumped his forehead against Bakoki's nose, "Gruh–ah!?" who staggered back a few meters.
Almost instantly, another loud sound came. The sound of flesh clashing against flesh, bone against bone.
And then...
"T-agh!!!?"
A sound like *CRACK* was heard.
Kazuo's fist broke upon impact and blood flowed from his knuckles down to the wrist.
Closing his fist already seemed like an impossible task, Kazuo almost vomited from so much pain he felt.
"Oh fuck... you fucking... are you made of cement?!"
"Hn. Did you know, brat? We zombies become stronger by eating human flesh."
Henji couldn't take it and vomited.
Because he knew that his brother was completely different from him; Bakoki had been expelled from the family for breaking the law of never eating human flesh.
For a zombie, the act of eating was practically unnecessary, but animal flesh would make them twice as strong, while human flesh would increase this growth exponentially; up to 20 times.
Even a child would be able to punch a hole in solid concrete with that kind of force.
However, this power comes with a price: they lose self-control, they become addicted.
Hajime Kuroko was completely unconscious there on the floor. Inconveniently as always, there was no one coming to help them — District 7's street were practically empty at this time, and it was unlikely that an ordinary spectator would dare to get involved.
Namiari Kazuo tried even harder and stood up, clenching his right hand, which was still intact. That hand that could nullify any supernatural force...
A mere zombie would be no different.
The spiky-haired boy opened and closed his fist, as if testing the mobility of that special hand.
He clenched his hand into a rock-hard fist and roared like an animal: "Henji's brother! I'm going to devour your fucked up mind!! You're fucked, you piece of shit!!!"
Bakoki closed his eyes, taking a step back before composing himself and chuckling. "Ohh. How scary. You come here and I'll beat you up, brat."
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone