His eyes opened to a red sky. Some time passed since he last was here, but this place would always call him back. Nothing seemed as if it'd ever change. The rules of nature were inexorable to all of its creations.
Taking a look around, he found the mangled and marked bodies: his victims. Their blood flooded the world, caked him in it, and stained him. It helped him float up to the towering stone he never reached. It made stacking the bodies harder though.
The boy shifted himself into the blood and did as he always would.
But this time he was different.
He ran his fingers along the bone jutting from the sides of his head and curling back, ending in tips several inches away from the nape of his neck.
It wasn't what he was expecting but the rest is what he was told by the man he took his name from.
Bending his knees, he exerted them in the water and propelled himself like a rocket on to the overhead stone at last. He laughed and smiled before looking down at those he left behind. They could never trouble him again.
His smile died as realization dawned on him.
Everything he had done before this point was pointless. The stab wounds, the gunshot tearings, the broken bones, and the beatings. Killing, stealing, and hiding. All to no avail.
If he had just waited, everything would've turned out fine.
He felt empty as he was before.
It was all for nothing.
Kojo's brown eyes opened to the sight of his men slumbering.
"…What is this feeling?" He dug his fingers into his palm as he put his other on his chest. "I don't understand." Sticky, sweet blood oozed from his hand. "I…" He grit his teeth and shook.
This was the exact opposite of his feelings until now.
Pulling his fingers out of his hand, he shoved them in his mouth and tore them off. Blood spurt from the stumps before he clamped them shut with his other hand.
It still wasn't enough.
Kojo stood from his chair, leapt over the piles of bodies to the warehouse entrance, lifted up the gate with his good hand, and slipped out into the night. He didn't waste any time wondering what to do with his dismembered digits, crunching them into bloody paste and swallowing.
Pain was a constant, meaningless companion.
He leapt to the warehouse roof with a snarl.
Nothing could drown this out.
Clenching his remaining fist, he looked up to the shining sky and grunted.
Everything was the same, no matter how much he changed.
He took a few deep breaths before sighing the first time in his life. "Is this how you always felt, Dan?" An ironic laugh thumped in his chest as he fell down on his back. "I just did something you'd do whenever we did something you never liked." Kojo reached out with his stumps. "…I'm 'fucking pissed.'" They dropped on to his chest as he grinned. "I'm fucking pissed!"
It really wasn't so bad.
"You'd be happy to see me like this if you were still here… Abuelita too." His eyes stared out at the stars above rather than an alley wall as he was used to. "I want more: power, death, and fear. So 'fucking alive' right now… So different. Things matter; I matter; everything matters now." Kojo frowned. "Never again. I'll never be that fucking piece of shit nobody again!"
A part of him would always remain.
Kojo relaxed with a smile.
The night was beautiful as it always was, but now he could enjoy it.