"Listen, Bond. No matter what happens to me or your mom, you don't have to become a monster. This world already has plenty of them."
Dad knelt down in front of me, his hands gripping my shoulders firmly but gently, like he was trying to hold my whole future in place.
"I don't want you to seek revenge or anything at all," he said, staring straight into my eyes.
"Don't dirty your hands, Bond."He glanced down, thumb brushing my fingers as if he were memorizing the shape of them.
"I love the purity of these hands."
All of this happened before Silver stormed into our home.
Before the blood.
Before the screaming.
Back then, Dad was trying to reassure me that no matter what happened, I shouldn't become a monster.
But it was too much.
Blood poured from my father's body.
My mother trembled like she had seen the end of the world.
I had seen Silver before—but today was different.
Today, he didn't care about my father at all.
Even though they used to be such good friends.
My father was still standing after taking seven bullets.
His face was so damaged you could barely recognize it.
I could see flesh torn open, bruises swelling over old scars I had never noticed before.
My own legs were shaking so badly I could hear my knees clicking.
At first, I thought he was forcing himself to stand—holding his tears back, pulling his broken body together every second it threatened to collapse.
But when I finally looked into his eyes, I realized something terrifying.
The man standing in front of me was not the weak, kind-looking dad I had known for twelve years.
He wasn't standing because he was strong.
He was standing because he wasn't dead yet.
The men who had come with Silver began whispering to each other, wondering how the hell he wasn't even flinching.
Their hands shook around their guns.
Sweat rolled down their necks.
Even I was shocked.
I didn't know this version of my father existed.
His presence felt like an immovable wall built out of pain and fury.
My mother wasn't looking at him at all.
She was squeezing me so tightly I could barely breathe, like her arms were the last shield the world had left.
I could feel her heartbeat crashing against my back.
She was more afraid for me than for herself.
She was a mother, after all.
I kept wondering—if my father could take seven bullets, why couldn't he defeat them?Why wasn't he moving?Was he scared?Or was something else holding him back?
Before I could find the answer, they fired again.
Eleven more bullets tore through my father's already shattered body.
Each shot punched into him, jerking his frame, chewing through flesh that had already given everything.
I looked at Silver.
His face showed nothing.
No anger.
No satisfaction.
No regret.
Just a blank, dead calm, like my father's suffering was just paperwork.
I looked back at my father.
He was still standing.
And then he spoke—his voice weak, but clear.
He only wanted me to live.My eyes widened. I looked at my mother, still holding me, her eyes squeezed shut, lashes wet.
Something inside me cracked open.
It felt like I had already lost her even though she was right there.
I wrapped my arms around her with all the strength I had, trying to glue us together.
Then a man in a black suit stepped closer, his footsteps slow and heavy.
A gun hung in his hand. His face was just like Silver's—empty.
Emotionless.They were all monsters.
They didn't care about anyone's life.
I looked up at my mother and whispered, "Mom?"She didn't open her eyes.
The man raised the gun to her head and pulled the trigger.
She wasn't like my father.She died.I don't know how I knew it—I just did.
Her body was still warm.
Her hands were still gripping me so tightly my arms hurt.
But her presence… was gone.My voice disappeared.
Something ripped out of my chest and I screamed like hell.
It didn't sound like my own voice anymore.
I looked at my father.
He was still standing—but I knew he was dead too.
Somehow, his body remained upright, as if he were still trying to shield us from a world he could no longer touch.
When the same man who killed my mother pointed the gun at me, I saw my father's leg move, just a little.
His fist clenched.He was still alive.
He was still trying.
But it all ended when Silver shot the man who was aiming at me.
They had to pry my mother's hands off me.
She had held on so tightly it took two grown men to peel her fingers away.
Each finger felt like it was being broken off my skin.
My eyes were drowning in tears. My throat burned.
The room spun.
But I learned something that night.
My father had hidden something from me.He had hidden who he really was.
He had hidden what this world really was.
Their memories stayed.
They didn't.I was just a kid.
I couldn't do anything on my own.
But I decided one thing.
The sole purpose of my life is to kill Silver.
My father told me not to seek revenge.
But he's not here anymore.
And if the same thing had happened to him—He would have done the same.
After some time, we reached his home—Silver's home.
I remember the cold tiles, the quiet corridors, the smell of something expensive that didn't belong to people like us.
We argued for a while.
I yelled.
He shut me down completely, not with shouting but with a silence heavier than any bullet.
I don't remember what happened after that. My mind went blank, like someone had switched off all the lights in my head.
Later, he took me to a giant building.
That's where I met Kirk.
The man my father once told me about.Kirk told me everything—down to the smallest details.
He told me my father, Vega, worked under Darima.
A gang.
An organization.
A system.
They call themselves a family.But it didn't feel like one to me.I already had a family.A real one.
Inside the Darima family, there is Darhua—the leader of the entire organization.
Beneath him are four Pillars, each controlling their own teams. My father had been one of those leaders.
Now, a man named Noir has replaced him.Kirk told me something else too.My father was a Tower.
The top ten strongest Pillars in the world are called Towers—and my father was one of them.
One of the ten men the entire underground world feared.Then Kirk told me why Vega had to die.
He broke an ancient rule of the family system.
And rules like that are paid for in blood.I learned that this "family system" didn't belong only to Darima.
In every country, there exists one organization—bigger than the government itself—ruling from the shadows.
Ordinary people don't know about it.Because if they did, the illusion of democracy would collapse.
The streets would burn with protests.
The world would tear itself apart trying to fight something it couldn't even see.
Even Kirk didn't know how this system truly began—how they decided who became a Pillar, who became a Father, or how they chose the people who served under them.
When I asked him how he ended up here, he told me his father also worked under Darima.
After his father died, it became Kirk's duty to serve them.If he refused, his entire family would be killed.
Later, I saw a group of men walking down the aisle of the underground base, boots echoing against steel floors, carrying weapons like they were just tools for a normal day's work.
Leading them was a man with a torn, ripped mouth, metal holding his face together in an ugly grin.
His name was Psycho.I asked Kirk where they were going.
He replied calmly, as if he were talking about a delivery, not a massacre,
"Probably to kill someone."And they did.
The news said around a hundred people were killed inside a supermarket.
That was the moment I realized—This world was nothing like the one I had seen from the surface.
Now.
The present.
Inside the Darima family hideout.
Inside the training ground.
Two men stood facing each other on the mat.
One was unarmed.
The other held a knife.
The one holding the knife was bond.
"You think the kid will be able to kill him?" Doccaro asked, his deep voice rumbling from the viewing platform.
"He's been trained by Kirk," Silver replied, arms crossed.
"And if he doesn't kill—he'll be the one who dies."
Bond's hands trembled as I held the knife.
His palms were slick with sweat, fingers aching from earlier drills.
Bond stared at the other man with deadly focus, his eyes burning with rage and something colder underneath.
Even though he was the one armed, his body was covered in bruises and scratches.
Every breath made his ribs throb.
The unarmed man stood untouched.
Not even a bruise.
Clapping his hands slowly, he smirked."Come at me, boy. Show me what Vega's blood has."
Something snapped.
Bond screamed.
Pure rage shoved him forward as he rushed at him with everything he had left, knife flashing under the harsh training lights.
The man dodged easily.
He caught bond's arm mid-swing and slammed himinto the mat.
Air burst out of his lungs."Still an amateur, I guess," he said, looking down at bond like he was nothing.
A knife flew.
He didn't dodge in time.
Steel scraped his clothes and bit into his leg.
"Ow—hey! That's cheating!" he yelled, stumbling.
Bond didn't stop.he grabbed him, forced him down, pinned his shoulders with every ounce of strength his small frame could muster.
He raised the knife.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Four times he sliced through his throat.The man was already dead.bond kept going.
Again.
And again.
And again.
He tore into his body like something feral, like the part of him his father had begged him never to become.
Blood sprayed his face, his hands, his shirt, warm and sticky and strangely heavy.
Psycho smiled.Silver watched, expressionless.
Doccaro smiled too, teeth flashing.
Noir looked away, eyes unfocused, as if his mind was somewhere far above this underground hell.
Only Kirk was different.
His eyes were filled with shock and disbelief."Oh God," he whispered, voice cracking. "What will I tell Vega…?"
Bond stood up slowly.
Blood covered his face.
His hands.
His clothes. Even his breath felt stained.
He turned and pointed his knife at Silver.
"You're next."