The Boy cursed by fate

Minato burst out into the university parking lot, slowing his pace drastically only when he spotted Aoi and the rest of the students crouching near the university bus...

Thick black smoke was already rising from the university building behind him, and the distant sound of the music could still be heard through the nearby walls.

“Senpai!” one of the crouching students shouted with excitement.

“Mrs. Rin, Minato-senpai is back!”

She turned her head in anticipation and desperation... “Minato—!” she rushed toward him, with her eyes wide open. “Did it work?”

Immediately, he straightened his body posture as he reached them, briefly rolling his shoulders once, deliberately trying to make it seem like he was in pain... He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and glanced at Aoi, hoping she’d notice his shenanigans.

“They took the bait,” he explained, responding to Mrs. Rin’s earlier question.

“Every single one of them.”

Minato continued his attention-seeking gesture, lifting both his hands and swinging them twice, flexing his arms to make the movement look hurtful and strained.

Aoi noticed him and stepped closer, her eyebrows were frowned slightly, and her eyes searched his face for any sign of pain, before reaching out, as if to touch his shoulder, but hesitated. 

“Minato, are you okay? Is something wrong with your shoulder? Are you hurt?”Her voice was still a bit shaky and rough from the excessive crying over the news of Yuto’s alleged death.

He then rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and gestured to his shoulder with the other. “Yeah, a little bit." 

"I fought some zombies on my way to the chemistry lab.” He smiled mischievously, his lips curling sideways as he tried hard to hold back a laugh.

“But it’s nothing serious,” he added to his statement, adjusting his collar and leaning slightly back. “Once we reach the base in central Tokyo, I’ll get it treated.”

But before Aoi could respond, the windows around them exploded, raining down shards of glass, wood, and concrete onto the university parking lot.

Immediately, Mrs. Rin rushed to the bus and opened the doors.

“Everyone on the bus, now!” 

Minato quickly grabbed Aoi by the wrist and gently guided her toward the bus entrance.

And in a matter of seconds, everyone was already inside. Minato deliberately chose a seat at the back next to Aoi, letting Mrs. Rin drive. He leaned back slightly toward her, resting one arm on the seat behind her, in order to prevent anyone from sitting close to her.

Within minutes, they were already out of the university compound. Thanks to the bus’s V6 engine, it moved quickly down the streets of Shibuya and through the windows, Minato, Aoi, and the rest of the students watched the university building burn in the distance, flames, smoke and ash consuming it until it was almost unrecognizable.

Minato then leaned back in his seat, resting one arm over the top of his head; his body language was very calm despite everything that had happened over the course of 24 hours. 

He lightly tapped the fingers of his other hand on the armrest, glancing occasionally at the burning university building and then back at the zombie-filled street ahead of them.

Aoi noticed his relaxed demeanor and the way he enjoyed watching the view of the burning university building, with a small smirk at the corner of his lips, made her pause. And for a split second, she wanted to question him, to dig for the truth behind everything, Yuto death and the fire.

But then she looked out the window, and at the streets they were speeding down, and decided to push her suspicions aside...Slowly, she exhaled twice, her shoulders sinking into the bus's soft seat as she leaned back slightly, letting herself feel a new sense of relief. Their escape had worked—thank god, and at least for now, that was enough.

Meanwhile, inside the university cafeteria, the chaos was far from over, for the boy cursed by fate, Yuto, quickly stood up from the storage unit bloody floor as soon as he noticed that the sounds of the zombies had stopped coming and smoke was seeping in through the tiny gaps of the metal door.
"Hmm?"

He went closer and touched the handle—only for him to stumble backward as he touched it, the metal burned his skin within seconds of contact. Shit. That was when he realized something was happening outside.

Yuto quickly tried to take off his shirt to use as a protective gear from the heat of the metal door, but with the hot air now inside, he realized it wasn’t a good option. Instead, he crawled over to the dead body of Kaito, carefully removed his blood-stained shirt, and wrapped it around his hands.

Then he crawled back to the door and started pushing the fridge he had used as a barricade. After several minutes of effort, he successfully flipped the fridge over and quickly opened the metal door.

Immediately, he was hit by a wave of heat. Smoke and ash filled the whole cafeteria, making it hard for him to see more than a few feet ahead.
Coughing from the smoke, Yuto wrapped his face with Kaito’s blood-stained shirt and started running toward the cafeteria exit’s, the double gray doors. As he ran forward, he noticed the bodies of several zombies burned to ash beneath his feet.

When he reached the double gray doors, it hit him—he had completely forgotten that Minato had locked him and Kaito in from the outside.

Irritated and frustrated, Yuto began kicking the gray doors with his leg. But with each strike, the soles of his shoes started to melt from the heat.

“Mhmmm…!” he shouted through Kaito’s blood-stained shirt wrapped around his mouth, as sweat and smoke entered his eyes.

Yuto staggered backward, taking a step back as he coughed hard, then lunged forward again and slammed his shoulder into the door. The metal chair leg Minato had used to lock it rattled from the outside, but it still didn’t break.
“God… please, fuck… fuck!”

He bit down on his lips as he kicked the door again, much harder this time. But sadly, nothing happened. Slowly, his vision began to fade out from the excessive smoke he had inhaled.

He dropped to the burning ground, breathing heavily; you could even hear the sound of his lungs and the sizzling of his skin under the heat of the floor.
“God, I don’t want to die like this…”

“I really don’t want to die like this.”

Yuto squeezed his eyes shut, coughing weakly as his lungs struggled to pull in air. His fingers clawed against the hot tile floor, trembling as he tried to push himself back up, but his arms gave out almost immediately. He rolled onto his side, gasping for air, the heat pressing against skin from every direction.

“My back… I can’t breathe…”

His voice came out very weak and barely louder than his own breathing. He tried to move his body, but nothing responded the way he wanted it to.

“I can’t feel my body.”
“Ahhh… Hahahaha.” He momentarily laughed before allowing his unshared tear to fall down his cheeks.

“Wish I could’ve survived long enough to get my revenge on you, Minato Akira.”

Yuto’s fingers twitched against the floor, and in that moment, his whole life’s experiences flashed before his eyes like a thirty-second advertisement video. 
Then everything went completely black. he suddenly saw himself standing in an endless, pitch-red sea of blood... all of his injuries were completely gone...

Then a deep, masculine voice echoed around him.

“Young one… is that what you wish for?” 

Yuto’s eyes looked around, but there was nothing—no land, no mountains, no sun, no horizon—just the endless red sea of blood stretching out in every visible direction.

“I… who are you, and how did I get here?” Yuto stammered twice before swallowing his saliva.

“Am... I, in hell? Are you the devil?”

“Hahaha… no, young one. I am Morphetous, Grand General of the Throne of Sin, fallen angel and living embodiment of Wrath. I have heard your cry and your wish for—”
“Vengeance!” A massive mouth opened up in front of Yuto, stretching out wide in a sinister manner.

"Eh... Fallen... what?" Yuto bit down on his lips, trying to make sense of it all... How had it come to this? Fighting the zombies for survival was one thing. But now… A being that called itself the sin of Wrath, speaking to him... It was more than he could process.

While he was deep in his thoughts, the entity shouted.

“The clock is ticking, boy. I don’t have enough connection with you to preserve your real body from the flames!”

"Flames?"
 Then it all came to him...
“So… I’m not dead,” Yuto says, touching each of his body parts with excitement.
Morphetous sighed in irritation. “Not yet.”

Yuto clenched his fists, looking down at his legs. “Then why does it feel like I am?”

“Because your body is dying as we speak,” Morphetous replied coldly. “Your flesh is still trapped in the fire. Every second you hesitate, it burns further beyond recovery.”

Yuto’s breathing quickened as he shouted. “Then why did you bring me here, if you can not save me?”

Morphetous kept quiet for a while before replying...
“I do not save souls...I bargain for them.”

Yuto looked up at the floating mouth speaking. “A bargain?”

“You offer me residence within your body,” Morphetous continued, speaking with authority. “In return, I grant you survival. Strength. And most importantly… vengeance.”

Yuto swallowed twice. “And if I refuse?”

“Then the flames will finish what they started,” Morphetous answered without hesitation...
Yuto’s hands trembled beside him as he closed his eyes, memories flashing through his mind—pain, betrayal, flames, Kaito's death, Minato’s name burning at the center of it all.

“…If I take this,” Yuto asked slowly, “will I be strong enough to kill him?”

Morphetous replied with a different speech pattern, “You shall wield the power enough to slay and destroy all who stand before you, be they man or monster.”

Yuto spread his arms wide and shouted, “I accept!”

Immediately, the scene around changed back into the cafeteria, and Yuto instantly jumped up from the hot floor, his eyes glowing red as he ran forward and punched the double gray doors... The impact tore through the doors metal and concrete framing, blasting a massive hole into the hallway beyond.

“What the fuck...Ha… ha… It’s real,”
Yuto smiled in excitement... But there was one little problem.

He was still injured, so he slowly stumbled and staggered through the smoky hallway until he reached the classroom where Aoi and Mrs. Rin had been. And to his surprise, it was empty—and was completely engulfed in flames…

That was when it got to him… They had left… but he understood that Minato must have lied to them and made false claims, probably telling them that he was dead.

“Cough… cough…”

Yuto covered his mouth and nose. “Morphetous!” he shouted with a hoarse tone. “I thought you gave me powers! Why am I unable to use it ?”
No answer came...

"Was I hallucinating?" Yuto started questioning his reality... "Is it all my imagination?"

Then he gritted his teeth, turned and began making his way toward the stairs leading to the university rooftop. His steps grew weaker with each climb. Halfway up, his legs gave out completely, and he collapsed onto the stairs.

While panting, he dragged himself forward and crawled the rest of the way up, his palms scraping against the hot concrete. And by the time he reached the rooftop door, his arms were shaking uncontrollably.
With one last stretch, he jumped and grabbed the handle—but it was locked, just like the cafeteria door.

But this time he didn’t know how to summon the power he’d used to smash the cafeteria doors before... So he simply stared at it, breathing heavily, with his chest rising and falling unevenly.

“So… after all that…” he whispered. “And I’m still going to die.”
His eyes slowly began to close from exhaustion.
Then...

The door to the rooftop blasted open...

Yuto momentarily forced his eyes open just enough to see who had opened it.
To his surprise, a beautiful girl with white hair stepped into view, standing over him.

“Who are… yo—”

His voice cut off as his strength finally gave out, and his eyes closed shut completely.