The first thing his body felt was biting cold. His eyes opened with annoyance, preparing to rain hell over whoever had dared to turn on a damn air conditioner during winter when he noticed the white sheet covering him from head to toe. A thin, white bedsheet like those used in hospitals. Plus, he was naked as a newborn babe.

What the hell?

Voices, maybe of doctors, talked about missing hearts and gashes that appeared to be made by claws.

His confusion grew and he rose to a sitting position over the freezing stainless-steel table, letting the sheet fall to his waist. He pressed his lips into a thin line as a sudden headache pounded his skull like an angry elephant with a grudge against him. The throbbing worsened when the horrified screams started.

Like fueled by the pain, his memories returned with a surprising speed. He had been about to kill Vergil Larsa's second-in-command when the bastard had shot him four times in the head. No wonder the men were screaming and stumbling over their tools, trying to get away from him. He had to look like a freaking zombie from one of those Resident Evil movies.

Too bad the men would never escape to tell the tale. He would have enjoyed watching them being taken to the nearest psychiatric ward.

His feet touched the cold floor, and he lifted his right hand before a root grew from his index finger until it speared the younger doctor to the metallic door. Brain tissue and blood splattered the silvery metal as the remaining human backed away, stumbling with a tool table and falling to the floor.

The guy whimpered and shook his head while muttering under his breath "this can't be happening" over and over again.

Akito's needle-like root retracted into his body before he made his way to the crumpled form of the man, his steps stopping merely two feet away from the human, and crouched before him. The Yakuza's dark eyes fell upon the tag in the doctor's white jacket and his lips curved up in a chilling smile. "I should thank you for not opening me up right away." Akito's eyes looked at his fair skin, which had taken the grayish tone of corpses but showed no signs of his otherworldly gift anymore, and then glanced around him. The sterile room waved back at him, displaying its corpses in various stages of autopsy. "You must have mistaken me for a normal corpse," the Yakuza said, turning his eyes unnaturally black.

The pathologist's green orbs widened as he shook from head to toe, making the Japanese take a hand to his face. As his fingers ran over his cold skin, he found three holes very close to one another in the center of his forehead and one that nearly missed his right eye. The holes were big, jagged, and strangely dry, as he felt no signs of bleeding. But how? He could hear his heart beating inside his ribcage...

The mobster shook his head, brushing aside the inconsistencies of his reanimated body- like not bleeding when his heart still beat or feeling cold when his own body was a block of ice- and turning his attention back to his soon-to-die victim.

"I-it can't b-be-e. H-how are y-you...?"

"Alive?" Akito finished for the terrified doctor. "I wonder that myself. Guess I'm stronger than the rest of my converted minions." His black eyes without irises fell to the pathologist's chest and the sound of the organ that beat wildly inside filled his ears. "But you'll never find out. I need you to help me heal. Or, at least, a part of you."

The man's green eyes grew larger and he begged for his life more than once, but his efforts fell on deaf ears. The Yakuza licked his thin lips and, with a rapid flick of his wrist, opened three gashes in the doctor's throat. Thick, red blood filled the wounds as the long nails tore open the skin and spilled down the pathologist's throat. But not all was allowed to soak the man's t-shirt since the Japanese's mouth quickly covered the gashes as best it could.

Akito drank the scarlet liquid while his victim tried to pronounce his last words. The gurgle that resulted threw so much blood in the mobster's mouth that he had to pull away before he choked.

Tasting metal, the Yakuza looked into lifeless green eyes, elongated his claws until they appeared like knives, and thrust his hand inside the guy's chest. The sternum broke with a dry sound before he reached for his price.

Ripping out hearts and drinking blood wasn't something he enjoyed- it was too gory for his tastes- but it was a necessary evil. The blessing of the archangel helping them couldn't regenerate their bodies on its own, it needed fuel. And since divine blood and flesh weren't available at the moment, he needed the nearest source with a connection to God. Unbelievable as it seemed, humanity shared that connection.

Some blood and two hearts later, his body didn't bore any marks of his encounter with Marcus; but his hands itched to exact his revenge. Sooner or later, he would teach that damn Italian not to mess with the Yakuzas. For only then would he had avenged his brother's death and returned honor to his family.

Suddenly, the silence of the morgue was broken by faint taps in the linoleum floor. He could hear the steps heading toward the morgue, telling him it was time to leave. Sparing no backward glance, Akito teleported out of that freezer already planning another attack.

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A/N: This time I present you the villain of our story. See you in the next update! 😘

Chapter word count: 967
Total word count: 9,427