Villain: Your Heroines Were Delicious

Chapter 108: Chapter 29

Sakai stood in the center of the narrow, forgotten alleyway, his massive frame casting a long shadow against the grime-streaked brick walls.

The air here was stagnant, smelling of rusted iron and stagnant water, a stark contrast to the polished life he led now as one of Seijirou’s elite.

He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, his gaze fixed on a particular patch of cracked concrete that remained etched in his memory.

This wasn’t just a shortcut through the city or anything, it was the site of his absolute rock bottom, the most significant place in his heart.

Years ago, his family had been the definition of unremarkable middle-class stability.

His father had put in grueling hours at a local factory, while his mother managed the household and supplemented their income by frying homemade chips—crispy, salty delights that she packaged and sold to neighbors.

But Sakai had been happy.

He was the “helpful kid” in class, the one who carried teachers’ books and helped classmates with homework. And back then, he believed, with the naive certainty of a child, that the world was a fair place where hard work was rewarded.

But everything shattered when his father decided to dream bigger.

He took out a massive loan to start a food production company, hoping to turn his wife’s recipe into a legitimate brand.

But the “friend” who facilitated the deal was a ghost, vanishing with the entire sum before the first brick of the factory could be laid.

The fallout was instantaneous and brutal.

Debts piled up like a rising tide. His father lost his job, and his mother began cooking around the clock, her hands red and blistered from the heat of the oil.

Sakai didn’t think twice. He dropped out of school, trading his backpack for a heavy crate of chip bags.

He spent his days and nights wandering the rougher districts, hoping the late-night crowd would be hungry enough to ignore the desperate look in his eyes.

And it was on one of those nights that the world showed him its teeth.

A group of thugs had cornered him in this very alley.

They saw his meager earnings, and wanted it for themselves.

Sakai remembered kneeling in the filth, tears streaming down his face as he begged them to leave the earnings.

“Please,” he had choked out, “my family needs this. Please let me go.”

They responded with laughter as they beat him until his ribs whistled with every breath, and then, in a final act of senseless cruelty, they stomped on the unsold bags of chips, grinding his mother’s hard work into the dirt before disappearing with his meager cash.

He had lain there for a long time, staring up at the sliver of night sky visible between the buildings, feeling the crushing weight of his own powerlessness.

The silence was broken by the sound of footsteps and a low, flirtatious chuckle.

Sakai struggled to sit up, his vision blurred by blood, and saw two figures entering the alley.

He recognized them immediately, after all everyone knew Kageyama Seijirou, and the girl the school said he had corrupted, Watanabe Yukina.

At the time, rumors claimed they spent their nights looking for secluded spots to indulge in their “vices,” and it seemed they had chosen this alleyway for exactly that.

“I’m sorry,” Sakai had wheezed, his voice trembling. “I’ll be out of your way soon. I just… I need to clean this up.”

He began frantically trying to salvage the bags that hadn’t been torn open.

Seijirou didn’t mock him, he didn’t even look disgusted by the blood. He simply reached down, picked up a surviving package, and tore it open.

He took a bite, chewed slowly, and then his eyebrows shot up in genuine surprise as he handed the bag to Yukina. “Try this.”

Yukina took a bite, her eyes lighting up instantly. “Whoa, this is actually amazing! Emi would go crazy for these with a cold cola while binge watching anime!”

“Oh?” Seijirou looked at Sakai with a thoughtful look on his face.

He asked where the chips came from, and Sakai remembered explaning that his mother had made them, and he even told how his father’s friend had scammed his father out of money and how they are drowning in debt, and this chips was one of their hope to pay up those debt.

“What a waste,” Seijirou muttered. “Well, whatever. Be happy, as tomorrow, you’ll be in luck.”

Then, with a casual wave of his hand, he told Sakai to “scram” because they had business to attend to.

Sakai fled, confused by the delinquent’s dismissive “you’ll be in luck” comment.

The luck manifested the next morning.

Sakai woke to find his parents in tears—not of grief, but of sheer disbelief.

A woman named Kageyama Hakari had arrived at their cramped apartment, offering an investment deal that didn’t just cover their debts, but funded the very company his father had dreamed of.

When Sakai finally found the courage to ask Hakari why she had chosen them, she simply smiled. “My son said the chips were good. That’s enough of a reason for me.”

That was the day the “helpful kid” died and the “Shield of Seijirou” was born.

Sakai didn’t care about the whispers that he was a sell-out or a thug’s lapdog.

He had seen the darkness of the world, and he knew that Seijirou was the only one who had reached into that darkness to pull him out, even if it was just on a whim.

Now, standing in the same alleyway where he once begged for mercy, Sakai pulled his hand from his pocket.

He held a small, sharp blade, and without hesitation he drew it across his palm, letting the heavy droplets of blood fall onto the exact spot where his mother’s chips had been crushed years ago.

The atmosphere in the alleyway began to warp.

The shadows grew longer, more predatory.

The silence became absolute.

“I am Daisuke Sakai,” he roared, his deep voice echoing off the brick walls like a physical blow. “I seek the power to be the wall that never breaks! I offer my strength, my soul, and my very blood to the spirits who value a debt of honor! Answer me!”

The ground beneath his feet began to tremble, and a low, guttural growl vibrated through the air, as if something ancient and massive was waking up beneath the city streets.

*

*

*

Shou stood on the edge of the pedestrian overpass, the cold night wind whipping through his hair and tugging at his jacket.

Below him, the highway was a river of blurred white and red lights, the constant hum of tires on asphalt sounding like the steady breathing of a giant beast.

He stared down at the concrete far below, his fingers gripping the rusted metal railing until his knuckles turned white.

This was the place.

He had spent hours wandering before he ended up here.

At first, he had gone to the middle school track field, the site of his greatest glory and his most bitter defeat.

He had stood on the starting line of the 100-meter dash, expecting to feel a surge of memory or a spark of spiritual resonance.

But there was nothing—only the hollow scent of cut grass and the ghost of a younger, faster version of himself that no longer existed.

It was a place of mourning, but it didn’t hold the weight of his identity.

Next, he had visited the sterile, white hallways of the municipal hospital.

He stood outside Room 402, the place where the doctor had looked at his X-rays with a pitying expression and told him his career was over.

He expected the trauma of that moment to act as his anchor, but the hospital felt too clean, too detached.

It was the place where he was told he was broken, but it wasn’t the place where he had decided to stay broken.

It was only when his legs—the very limbs that had betrayed him—dragged him to this lonely overpass that he felt the heavy, suffocating pressure Retsu had described.

This was where he had stood a year ago, staring at the drop, convinced that a runner who couldn’t run had no reason to breathe.

He had been a second away from climbing over the rail when a cigarette-smoking delinquent had leaned against the pillar nearby and told him that he looked pathetic.

That delinquent was Seijirou.

He hadn’t offered platitudes or “get well” cards, he had offered a world where speed wasn’t measured on a track, but by how fast you could strike before the other guy could blink.

“This is the spot,” Shou whispered, his voice caught in the wind. “The place where I stopped running away from life and started walking toward the devil.”

He didn’t hesitate.

He brought his thumb to his teeth and bit down with a sharp, desperate pressure.

The skin broke, and a thick, dark bead of blood welled up. He watched it fall, a tiny crimson star that plummeted through the air before splashing against the cold concrete of the walkway.

“I am Nakamura Shou!” he shouted into the void, his voice cracking with the sheer force of his conviction. “I am the one who was left behind! I offer my legs, and my dreams! If there is a spirit out there that can make me faster than the wind—answer me!”

The shift was instantaneous and violent.

The sound of the traffic below completely stopped, the city lights flickered once and then drowned in an ocean of oily, black mist that swirled up from the cracks in the pavement.

The temperature plummeted until Shou’s breath came out in ragged, crystalline clouds.

He felt the overpass stretch and warp, becoming an infinite bridge suspended in a starry, shadowed void.

From the swirling mist, countless eyes—yellow, lidless, and predatory—began to open.

They watched him from every angle, vibrating with a hunger that felt like a thousand needles pricking his skin.

Shou didn’t flinch.

He didn’t even step back from the ledge.

He stood in the center, his chest heaving, his injured leg throbbing with a phantom heat.

He knew that to the spirits, he was currently a feast of concentrated self-loathing and potential.

He had to prove he was the hunter, not the prey.

“A runner… who cannot run,” a voice hissed from the shadows, sounding like the rustle of dead leaves on a gravel path. “Why do you seek the wind, little bird? Your wings are clipped. Your bones are dust.”

“I don’t seek the wind like a bird,” Shou spat, his eyes searching the darkness for the source of the voice. “I seek to move like a lightning strike. I want the power to be where my enemies aren’t, and to strike before they even know the air has moved. And if you think I’m broken, then come and try to take what’s left of me!”

The mist began to coalesce in front of him, taking the shape of a man, tall, lean, and exuding with majestic divine power.

The man smirked, “I have acknowledged your convictions, boy. But you must first pass my trials before you even think of borrowing my power.”

The man hopped in place a few times and declared,

“I am speed given flesh. Before me, distance is meaningless. After me, only dust remains.”

“I am strength unchained. Shields break, spears splinter, and courage rots in the chest of those who stand against me.”

“I am the greatest warrior born of this age. Where armies march, I end wars. Where heroes rise, I surpass them.”

“I am Achilles—son of Thetis, Hero of Trojan War, the Invincible Demigod, the terror of Troy!”