Pilot — Graduation Bloodstains
The night smelled like gunpowder and cheap liquor. Fireworks popped above New Metro High, painting the sky red and gold while half the graduates stumbled through the parking lot already drunk, shouting promises they'd never keep.
Kairo Shin stood with his parents at the curb, diploma still in hand. His old man clapped his back hard enough to rattle bones.
"Multiverse Police Academy next. Our boy's gonna be a fuckin' intergalactic cop."
His mom snapped pictures, grinning wide. "Smile, Kairo. You look like a serial killer in every photo."
"Maybe I am," Kairo muttered, deadpan. She laughed, not realizing he wasn't joking.
Music blasted from a car stereo nearby, bass shaking the pavement. A few classmates lit joints, smoke rising in lazy rings while girls in gowns climbed into the backseats of beat-up rides with boys who smelled like gasoline and regret. Typical graduation night.
Kairo wasn't interested in any of it. He wasn't drunk. He wasn't high. He wasn't even happy. He was calm—too calm for eighteen. The kind of calm you only earn after realizing the universe doesn't give a shit about you.
Then the black sedan rolled past.
⸻
The Drive-By
Windows down.
Muzzles out.
Grinning faces inside.
Rat-tat-tat.
The street erupted. Screams tore through the air as fireworks drowned under gunfire.
Kairo's mother dropped first, half her chest blown out. She didn't even have time to scream. His father spun sideways, blood spraying his son's gown.
Kairo turned, eyes wide—then his world cracked apart. Bullets slammed into him, three in the chest, one in the stomach. He fell hard, his head bouncing off the pavement.
Blood gushed across the curb. His diploma fluttered out of his hand, soaked in red.
The last thing he saw was his parents' dead faces beside him.
And then—nothing.
⸻
Death and Infection
Black silence.
Then heat.
The bullets weren't normal. They writhed inside him like parasites, metal shells dissolving into black sludge that crawled through his veins. His corpse jerked, chest splitting open before sealing again with steel-colored tissue.
The infection whispered.
[Assimilation Protocol Engaged.]
[Host: Dead.]
[Reconstruction Activated.]
His eyes snapped open. He gasped, choking, blood turning to molten silver. His veins glowed. His flesh melted then reformed, smooth, perfect, stronger.
[Awakening Complete.]
[Permanent Traits: Unlimited Stamina. Unlimited Agility. Tentacle Symbiosis.]
[Status: Immortal.]
[Level 1.]
Kairo sat up, coughing out black ooze. His classmates screamed and ran. His parents were still corpses at his side.
He didn't cry. Didn't panic. Didn't care.
He stood.
The First Kill
The sedan tried to peel off. Kairo raised his hand.
From his arms, liquid steel burst outward, slithering into the night like snakes. Tentacles. Dozens of them. They cracked the pavement as they whipped forward. One speared through a tire. Another smashed the hood. The car flipped three times, crumpling against a lamppost.
The shooters crawled out, coughing, bleeding, clutching guns.
Kairo walked toward them, face unreadable. His gown dragged in the dirt, soaked in blood.
"Who the fuck are you!?" one thug screamed, firing. Bullets whizzed, but Kairo didn't even flinch. His body twisted, dodging every shot with inhuman grace.
The tentacles lashed forward.
SPLAT! One thug's head popped like an overripe melon. Brains painted the sidewalk.
CRACK! Another's spine shattered as the steel wrapped and snapped him in half.
A third begged, dropping his weapon. "Please—fuck—don't—"
Kairo's voice was calm, flat. "Begging wastes oxygen."
The tentacle punched through his throat, lifting him like a puppet before tossing him into a trash bin.
[Assassinations Confirmed.]
[Level Up: 2.]
[Intelligence Increased.]
Clarity snapped inside his brain like glass shattering. He suddenly understood the gang's hierarchy, their suppliers, their safehouses. His thoughts sharpened, smooth and ruthless.
He looked at the carnage. He felt nothing.
⸻
The Cold Truth
Police sirens wailed in the distance. Students sobbed. Teachers tried to shield corpses with jackets.
Kairo stood in the middle of it, drenched in blood, calm as a monk at prayer. His parents' bodies lay cooling beside him.
He lit a cigarette he'd stolen off one of the shooters, smoke curling from his lips.
"Fuck it," he muttered. "Guess I'm on my own now."
He didn't look back at his parents. They were gone. Dead was dead.
Multiverse Police Headquarters
Days later, Kairo walked into the tower at the center of Nexus City. It rose miles into the air, spires stabbing the clouds, housing the only authority that mattered across infinite galaxies: the Multiverse Police Department.
Aliens slithered across marble floors beside armored cyborgs. Detectives in trench coats sipped black coffee while officers dragged in drug dealers from worlds where heroin was injected with molten crystals. The place stank of authority, corruption, and too much caffeine.
"Kairo Shin. Rookie."
He raised his hand when the commander barked his name. The man was a mountain of cybernetics, half his face replaced with steel. His voice was like gravel being ground in a blender.
"You lost your parents at your graduation and still showed up here the next day?" the commander said, scanning him with glowing eyes.
Kairo blew smoke in his face. "What, you want me to cry about it? They're dead. Shit happens. Next question."
The room went silent. Some officers smirked. Others frowned. The commander just chuckled, dark and deep.
"Good. We don't need heroes. We need bastards who'll get shit done."
⸻
First Mission Briefing
A hologram spun in the center of the room, showing a shattered planet bathed in neon. Streets crawling with gang wars, drugs running thicker than blood.
"World 9-Delta," the commander said. "Cartels pumping out multiverse heroin, gangs blasting civilians for sport, politicians bought and bent over. A slaughterhouse. We're sending in a squad. Rookie Shin, you're with me."
Kairo exhaled a lazy stream of smoke. "Cute. When do we start?"
9-Delta Streets
They dropped into hell.
The city burned red under neon skies. Prostitutes stumbled out of clubs with bloody noses while cartel soldiers hosed civilians with plasma rifles for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Coke dust floated in the air like glitter.
The squad spread out. Officers shouted warnings, fired clean shots, tried to maintain "protocol."
Kairo?
He slipped into an alley, cigarette dangling, hands in his pockets. A dealer with a duffel full of multiverse heroin rounded the corner, wide-eyed.
"Freeze!" the cop behind Kairo yelled.
The dealer reached for his gun.
Kairo's tentacle punched through his stomach, ripping him in half before the cop even blinked. Blood splashed the brick walls.
The cop stared. "What the—did you—"
Kairo lit another cigarette on the fire burning in the corpse's ribcage. "Relax. Just doing my job."
[Assassination Confirmed.]
[Level Up: 3.]
[Intelligence Increased.]
His brain sharpened again. He saw routes, safehouses, leaders. The entire operation mapped itself in his head like a board game he'd already won.
He exhaled smoke and chuckled. "This is gonna be fun."
⸻
The Anti-Hero Path
By night's end, the squad cheered over their victory. Civilians cried, praising the Multiverse Police as saviors.
Kairo stood on a rooftop, watching blood soak the gutters. He didn't cheer. Didn't smile. He just smoked, eyes empty, brain humming with fresh clarity.
"Limitless worlds," he muttered. "Limitless crimes. Limitless kills."
His lips curled into the faintest smirk. "And I get stronger every fucking time."