"PATHETIC!"
Alex now found himself in a completely dark place—but, strangely, he could clearly see a man in front of him. The man had a body almost identical to his, except it was covered in tattoos, with a strange mask covering part of his face and short pink hair.
"Hey, brat, explain to me how you manage to be this pathetic?"
Confused, Alex stared at the man with extreme bewilderment, his thoughts spiraling again—he even briefly considered that the man in front of him might be his long-lost father.
"Idiot. I'm not your father. I'm you."
???
"What did you say?"
Seeing the confusion on Alex's face, Sukuna spoke as if it were the most obvious thing in existence.
"Yeah, I'm you—before you 'reincarnated,' so to speak. Though honestly, what that old bastard did isn't even reincarnation to begin with."
Hearing that, Alex panicked.
"Does that mean I died!? No—I still had so much to do! What is my mom going to do withou—"
Thwack!
A sharp knock landed on his head.
"Shut up. I can hear you—and your thoughts. It's a mess. If you weren't me, I would've sliced you into pieces already."
Sukuna sat down, his expression turning serious.
"You're not dead yet—but you're going to be. So to save yourself, your soul—which is a complete mess—did something interesting. It awakened fragments of consciousness buried inside you to get you out of a situation like this."
A faint smirk crossed his face.
"And I'm the one who got picked."
Alex grew more confused with every word.
"You don't need to understand. Just come here—I'm going to teach you how to manipulate cursed energy and how to use our innate technique. We don't have much time for questions, so sit down."
The more Sukuna spoke, the more lost Alex felt—but hearing they didn't have much time, he simply sat down in front of him.
"Alright. Now close your eyes and focus on your body. You need to feel how much cursed energy you have. Go deep into your mind and try to find it."
As Sukuna spoke, something shifted.
The darkness around Alex transformed into a vast, blood-red ocean stretching endlessly, filled with colossal, raging tsunamis.
But beyond that crimson sea, in the distance, Alex saw something else—
A strange, completely purple ocean.
Unlike the first, it was perfectly calm and serene, almost as if it barely existed at all.
"Good. I can tell you found it—and it looks like a ridiculous amount. The energy you're dealing with is volatile and extremely aggressive. What you need to do is imagine it moving… shaping itself. That's it. There's a lot more I could teach you, but right now we've got as much time as a candle in a storm."
Alex began to move the chaotic energy. What he thought would be difficult turned out to be the opposite—because the moment he willed it, the energy responded as if it were a fifth limb he had always had, but forgotten.
"And even if this sounds vague, you're the fusion of three of the greatest minds to ever exist. It won't be hard for you—you're basically a walking monstrosity."
The endless darkness began to crack and shatter, the space itself becoming unstable.
"Hey, brat… I don't know if we'll meet again, but… don't live the kind of life I used to."
A brief pause.
"I said I'd live differently."
As Alex controlled his energy, he felt the same sensation from his dream—the energy flowing through his body, moving toward his hand. And just as the dark world around him was about to shatter, he spoke.
"DRAGON SCALES."
Hearing this, Sukuna's eyes widened in shock as his consciousness began to fade back into the void.
"I had to fight alongside Mahoraga to learn that technique… and he understands it instinctively, using it without even realizing."
____________________________
Back to reality.
The man still held the gun to Alex's head, ready to pull the trigger, when he heard—
"DRAGON SCALES."
"What did you say, you filthy mutant? Begging for your life now? Hahaha!"
Everyone began laughing, thinking Alex was pleading.
But one of them noticed something was wrong.
"RECOIL."
The man who started it all—a former soldier—felt it immediately. He had seen people beg for their lives before… but this mutant wasn't afraid.
On the contrary—
His face had no emotion at all.
As the laughter echoed, something inside Alex changed.
Not outwardly—but deep within.
A small part of his brain—something no normal human possessed—activated.
And in an instant, tattoos began to spread across his entire body. Tribal patterns—identical to Sukuna's.
"TWIN FALLING STARS."
"Try to dodge this."
WOSH!
A massive slash tore through the alley.
In a single instant, every anti-mutant present was cut into dozens of perfect cubes. Just one attack—one clean cut—reduced them all into neatly divided pieces of flesh.
The destruction didn't stop there.
The slash continued forward, slicing through everything in its path—the leader's gun, the metal dumpsters—everything turned into perfect cubes.
The once chaotic alley fell completely silent.
Only the distant sounds of the city remained.
Alex stood there, staring at the pile of flesh and blood he had just created.
For a few brief seconds, he didn't understand.
He simply looked.
And then—
A disturbing thought crossed his mind.
"I wonder what they taste like…"
A moment later, reality hit him.
And the very idea made him sick.
"BLEGH!"
He vomited immediately, everything from his carefully made breakfast spilling onto the ground.
Breathing heavily, he looked down at his wound—
It was healing.
At an unnatural, terrifying speed.
"What the hell…?!"
Panicking, Alex stumbled out of the alley as fast as he could. He pressed his back against a nearby wall, staring at the massacre behind him.
Questions flooded his mind.
Fear grew stronger with each passing second.
"WHAT THE HELL, I KILLED SOMEONE! NOT TO HELP— I KILLED SEVERAL! HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO BECOME A DAMN PROSECUTOR LIKE THIS!?"
Panicking, Alex starts hyperventilating, growing even more disturbed. The strange energy inside him reacts, and the wall he was leaning against begins to be sliced over and over again, scaring him even more.
"WHAT THE HELL?!"
Startled, Alex jumps forward when he realizes the wall behind him is practically collapsing. The moment he pulls his hand away, the cuts stop.
"What the hell is wrong with me?!"
Terrified and not knowing what to do, Alex remembers what his mother always tells him in situations like this.
Inhale... exhale.
He takes a deep breath and slowly calms down. As his breathing steadies, he notices something.
"I don't feel anything..."
They say that when you kill someone, you feel something. But for Alex, it was like breathing—like stepping on an insect. He doesn't feel much about the people he just killed, not even remorse.
But this time, he doesn't feel frustration or worry either.
Instead, he feels that they were just stupid for getting involved.
"It's their fault… right?"
Deciding not to dwell on it, Alex starts walking toward the alley's exit, his expression now slightly more apathetic.
Now realizing he's covered in blood—from head to toe—he figures that walking out like this would only get him chased again. He takes off his shirt, wipes his face with it, then stuffs it into his bag.
"Wait… tattoos?"
Looking more closely at his body, Alex notices several tattoos spreading all over him, even reaching his more… private areas, as well as his arms and legs.
"Damn it! What do I do? How am I supposed to explain this to Mom?!"
He pulls out his phone to check his face and realizes there are tattoos there too—along with blackened nails.
Looking closer, he confirms they aren't painted. They're actually his nails.
"Great. Now, on top of tattoos, I've got emo nails too. Awesome! GOD, PLEASE—WHEN I GET HOME AND SLEEP, LET ALL OF THIS JUST BE A DREAM!"
Speaking with clear sarcasm, Alex prepares to run at full speed so no one mocks him for being shirtless—or mistakes him for some mutant gang member.
WOOSH!
In a single instant, Alex—who was just in an alley—is now face-first into a pole nearly 100 meters (328 ft) away.
With his face pressed against it, he pulls himself back, completely confused about what just happened.
He tries again, this time paying more attention.
And once again—he shoots forward, even faster than a cheetah.
He stops abruptly when he realizes he almost ran over an elderly Chinese woman.
Realizing what just happened, Alex starts laughing quietly like a madman, whispering to himself as he runs back home at full speed.
"Yeah… this has to be a dream. It has to be. Because if it's not… I'm screwed."
A few minutes later, after running at maximum speed for nearly ten straight minutes—outrunning cars without even getting tired—Alex arrives home safely.
"Mom, I'm back!"
Receiving no response, he sighs in relief and heads to take a shower, washing off the blood and bits of flesh stuck in his hair.
Not long after, Alex cleans the house and lies down on a mattress on the floor—since his bed is broken.
Please let all of this just be a weird dream… and tomorrow I go back to normal. No tattoos. No memories of that strange man who looked like me.
He closes his eyes and drifts off into sleep.
But unfortunately for him, none of this was a dream.
In fact, that small display of power drew the attention of nearly every significant being on Earth.
___________________________
Inside a large, richly decorated mansion in the middle of a forest…
In a room containing a strange helmet-like device, a bald man in a wheelchair calmly scans for mutant powers across the world.
Strange… I've got a bad feeling today.
He decides to ignore it—but suddenly—
A massive wave of completely red energy spreads across the entire world, almost as if embracing it.
The moment it touches him, his body begins to weaken.
In the next instant, he's thrown into a horrific illusion.
He finds himself naked, strapped to a wooden cutting board, completely unable to move.
What the hell is happening—
Above him, an incomprehensible mass of lines stretches infinitely, moving toward him.
Without even thinking, he understands what they are.
Cuts…?
Before he can react—
His body is sliced billions of times, reducing him into a paste of flesh and blood.
"AAAAAH!"
In the next instant, he snaps back to reality.
The machine he was using—the Cerebro—is completely fried, smoking.
His friend Hank urgently removes the helmet from his head.
"CHARLES, ARE YOU OKAY?!"
"H-Hank? W-What… how am I back?"
"What are you talking about? You just passed out while using Cerebro. Then it started showing absurd energy spikes and burned out the circuits."
Confused, Charles takes a moment—until he remembers everything.
"Hank… it's urgent. Call all the X-Men. I have a mission."
"Alright, Charles—but how urgent?"
Charles pauses, remembering one final detail from the illusion—
A manic, malicious laugh… carrying the weight of millions of lives.
"...The entire world might be destroyed if we don't deal with this."
______________________________________
Somewhere in Nepal…
Inside a temple, a middle-aged man in yellow monk robes sits at a tea table, pouring tea for himself and an older-looking woman.
Before he can finish—
A massive surge of energy shakes the entire temple.
They look up—
Dozens—no, thousands—of cuts begin striking the barrier protecting the temple… before suddenly stopping.
The man crushes the teapot in his grip without realizing it.
But the woman calmly lifts her cup before any glass falls into it.
"Ancient One… is this an attack? Should we gather the disciples?"
The woman calmly takes a sip of tea and looks at him.
"Don't worry, Mordo. It's just a child becoming an adult. Nothing more."
She waves her hand dismissively.
"And even if you gathered every disciple available… you would all likely die before managing to defeat him."
___________________
At Avengers Tower
An incessant alarm blares throughout the entire building while a tired-looking man with a goatee frantically manipulates floating screens, his hands moving quickly, though his expression remains serious.
"Sir, we still haven't been able to identify what kind of energy that was, but after a quick analysis, it appears to be extremely volatile and unstable."
The man in the middle of the screens grimaces before replying.
"Tell me something I don't know. It fried more than half of my energy detectors and nearly took down the city's entire power grid—I thought it was just giving it a gentle touch."
As he continues analyzing the energy signatures, he gradually rules out the possibility of another alien attack, leaning more toward some kind of strange phenomenon.
"Sir, I've identified what appears to be the source of the energy. It's located in an alley here in New York, near Brooklyn."
Hearing that, the man's expression hardens with determination. He closes all the holograms and starts walking toward another room.
"J.A.R.V.I.S., prepare the Mark VI for me."
___________________________
Hey guys!
Today I'm planning to release at least one more chapter, but I'm not sure how it's gonna go since I've got to work overtime this weekend—and probably for the rest of my life at this rate. Still, writing helps take away some of the exhaustion, even if just a little.
I just wanted to drop by and say that things are really starting to pick up now. And for those wondering—yes, the protagonist is acting weird on purpose. I mean, come on, he's a 16-year-old kid going through a lot of messed-up stuff, and of course there's always a certain influence from Sukuna involved, if you know what I mean… yeah, that was a joke.
If you enjoyed it, please send power stones and rate my story, I'd really appreciate it! Also, if you have any constructive criticism, I'll always read it—I genuinely enjoy reading comments, I feel like they bring life to my story.
So yeah… good night everyone.