Immediately after John's IBM ghost finished its task, a heavy silence fell over the smoldering crater. Buried beneath the twisted metal and pulverized concrete of the explosion, John existed only in fragments. However, his Ajin nature refused to let him fade. From the largest remaining piece of his body, the regeneration process ignited.
A swirling, ethereal black mist surged forth, acting with surgical precision. It discarded the severed, useless remnants of his former self, replacing them with freshly woven tissue and bone. In a matter of seconds, the mist receded, leaving his body reformed and whole once more.
Air rushed into John's lungs with a violent, ragged gasp. As consciousness slammed back into him, so did the crushing weight of the debris. He was pinned, his senses flooded by the smell of cordite and the suffocating pressure of the rubble.
The memory of the rocket flashed in his mind, and he instantly grasped the stakes of his situation. He immediately triggered his adrenal ability. A massive surge of adrenaline flooded his system, granting him explosive, superhuman strength. This was followed closely by a surge of Chi, a second wave of power that unified his body and mind.
With a guttural roar, he heaved. The massive slabs of concrete pressing down on him were tossed aside like scrap wood. John stood up slowly, the dust falling from his shoulders. In the distance, the rhythmic crack of gunfire continued, sparse and fading, but a reminder that the fight wasn't over yet.
Barely a minutes had passed since his death. John's eyes immediately darted to the discarded remnants of his previous body, raw evidence of his Ajin nature. He reached out, intending to gather the pieces and hide them, but froze as his ears caught the rhythmic crunch of approaching footsteps.
"Fuck," John hissed under his breath.
He pivoted, searching the wreckage for his mentor. The man was still there, plastered against the wall where John's final, bone-crushing punch had left him. Even in death, his fingers remained locked in a white-knuckled grip around his sword.
John moved quick. He wrenched the blade from the cold, stiffening fingers. The steel felt balanced and heavy in his hand. With a single, fluid flash of silver, he took his mentor's head. A spray of hot blood painted the ruined wall.
It was a gruesome necessity. This head was the only physical proof that he had completed the mission and now that his mentor could no longer vouch for him, his word alone would mean nothing to the people who sent him.
Clutching the grisly trophy, John bolted toward a nearby window. He didn't hesitate at the height; he threw himself out just as the SWAT team breached the room, their boots crunching over the very rubble he had crawled out of seconds before.
Inside the ruin, the SWAT team froze. The first thing that hit them was the sight of the headless, bleeding corpse slumped against the wall. Then, their flashlights caught something even more jarring, a severed leg and various other body parts scattered across the floor yet there was no other body in sight to account for them.
Meanwhile, on the floor above, John's IBM ghost stood waiting in the shadows. In its clawed hands, it gripped two grenades.
John snatched them from the manifestation, his fingers slick with blood as he pulled the pins. He couldn't risk leaving his own DNA, his very nature as an Ajin out in the open for the government to analyze. He didn't have the luxury of time to collect the pieces, so he chose the only logical alternative, incineration. If he couldn't hide his flesh, he would bury it under so much fresh carnage that his remains would look like just another casualty of the blast.
The SWAT team was still picking through the rubble, searching for the "Ghost" they had been sent to neutralize, when a heavy metallic object sailed through the window. It landed with a dull clack that echoed in the silent room.
Every head turned toward the sound. A split second later, the second grenade followed, skittering across the floor into the center of the squad. Recognition flashed in the lead officer's eyes, a moment of pure, silent terror but before anyone could shout a warning, the room vanished in a roar of white heat and jagged shrapnel.
Clad in tattered, blood-stained rags, John pushed through the dense underbrush toward his hidden moped. He had already scavenged a piece of discarded heavy cloth, wrapping his mentor's severed head into a grim, unrecognizable bundle.
The sky was still dark, leaving him only a few precious hours before the sun exposed him. But before mounting the moped, John paused. He looked at his IBM ghost, which stood tall and silent beside him. In its hand, it gripped a scavenged handgun.
At John's mental command, the ghost leveled the weapon and pulled the trigger.
The bullet hissed through the air, grazing John's shoulder with searing heat. He barked out a sharp hiss of pain, clutching the fresh wound, more shots followed behind. It was a calculated risk, he needed to look like a man who had barely clawed his way out of a war zone, a survivor, not a monster who had regenerated from thin air.
Satisfied with the "authentic" damage, John straddled the moped. He wedged his mentor's head firmly at his feet, ensuring it wouldn't roll, and kicked the engine to life. With a low hum, he began the long trek back toward the city.
Meanwhile, the replaced observer moved through the shadows of the estate's perimeter. He had arrived shortly after John breached the mansion, but the chaotic clash of steel and gunfire had made it impossible to pin down John's exact location. He wasn't a fool, he had no intention of stepping into a kill zone where a stray bullet could end his life. Instead, he had remained at a safe distance, his phone pressed to his ear as he relayed the carnage to the Ninja in real-time.
By the time the Ninja finally arrived to reinforce him, the fire was dying down. The violence had reached its crescendo and snapped shut. All that remained was the grim cleanup, the remaining government SWAT units moving through the smoke, bagging bodies and cataloging the ruins of a battle they still didn't fully understand.
The Ninja stared at the smoldering ruins, a cold knot of panic tightening in his chest. There was nothing left to salvage here, and his own battered physical condition ensured he couldn't interfere even if he wanted to. The Demon Head had given him a singular, clear command: keep eyes on the boy's movements and he had failed utterly.
Casting a final, grim look at the burning mansion, the Ninja turned his gaze back toward the city skyline. He knew how the boy operated, John always moved with a sense of purpose and never overextended his reach. If the job was done, John wouldn't linger around. He would already be retreating to his apartment.
He was right.
John was already deep within the city's labyrinth. He had ditched the moped, moving on foot to better navigate the shadows and avoid the prying eyes of late-night commuters. With his clothes shredded and his hands gripping a heavy, blood-soaked bundle, he was a figure people made sure to avoid.
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