"Still alive, you useless little teacher?"
Ajin lifted his head slowly—
like a wounded animal
glancing at the hunters who had returned too late
to claim a kill that no longer belonged to them.
The flames had died.
The smoke had thinned.
But the stench of death lingered over Rogo Pavilion like a suffocating shroud.
At the main gate, three torches flared to life.
Three silhouettes stepped into the courtyard—
walking with the arrogant swagger of men who believed themselves untouchable.
Government trackers.
The "clean-up" squad.
A different team from the one that burned the pavilion.
These were not executioners.
These were scavengers.
"Ugh, gods…"
The first tracker covered his nose.
"Smells like roasted pig. And rotten fish. And… something worse."
The second laughed.
"Quit whining. Our job's simple. Find the corpse of that weakling instructor—Ajin, right? Headmaster Dahana wants confirmation."
The leader nodded, bored.
"Check the bodies. Grab anything valuable. Then we're done here."
They spread out, waving their torches over charred corpses—
the burned remains of adult disciples, blackened walls, collapsed roofs.
Their light eventually drifted toward the lone banyan tree in the center of the courtyard.
Toward a silhouette standing beneath it.
Toward him.
"Oi," one of them muttered.
"That's… someone."
They approached.
The leader lifted his torch higher.
Ajin stood beneath the banyan tree.
He did not raise his head.
He did not take a fighting stance.
He simply stood there, swaying slightly, like a corpse that refused to collapse.
His face was swollen beyond recognition.
One eye completely shut.
Jaw crooked.
Lips cracked and bleeding.
His hands were mangled—fingers purple, knuckles flayed open to raw flesh.
His ankle bent at an angle no human should endure.
A corpse that refused to fall.
A man broken past humanity.
And yet—
He stood.
The leader grinned.
"Well, well. Look at you. You survived? Didn't expect that from a teacher as pathetic as you."
Ajin did not respond.
He simply… looked.
His remaining eye—
blood-shot, feverish, glowing faintly red—
fixed on the intruders with a predator's stillness.
The second tracker spat at the ground.
"You should've just run, worm."
The leader sighed.
"We're wasting time. Kill him. We'll report that he resisted."
The third tracker grinned eagerly.
"My pleasure."
He strode forward, lifted his leg—
And kicked Ajin in the chest.
BUK!
Ajin's head snapped sideways.
He staggered half a step but did not fall.
Blood spilled from his nose, from his lips.
But he remained standing.
The tracker blinked.
"…Hah? The hell…? His face is… hard."
Ajin slowly turned his head back.
His expression did not change.
His breathing did not change.
Only his eye changed—
It sharpened.
The tracker lifted his leg to kick again.
He never got the chance.
Ajin moved.
Fast.
Violent.
Instinctive.
His swollen hand shot up—
and caught the tracker's ankle in mid-air.
"Huh—?"
Ajin tightened his grip.
KRENG!
The sound of bone grinding against bone.
"L-Let go of me!"
But Ajin didn't let go.
Ajin looked directly into the man's eyes—
and twisted.
KRRRREEEEKKK!!!
The tracker's femur snapped.
His knee dislocated.
His foot twisted backward in a grotesque arc.
"AAAAARGHHHHHH!"
The man collapsed, writhing, screaming, clutching the mangled limb.
The other two froze.
"What—WHAT ARE YOU?!"
"Bastard—!"
The third tracker rushed forward with a punch aimed at Ajin's jaw.
Ajin didn't dodge.
He took the blow.
BUK!
His head snapped back—
and snapped forward.
No recoil.
No stagger.
The tracker's eyes widened.
"What… what is your skull MADE OF—?!"
Ajin's reply was a fist.
Straight to the chest.
Not a normal punch.
A punch fueled by a broken spirit
and a newly awakened body.
KRAK—CROTT!!
This time—
it wasn't Ajin's bones breaking.
It was the tracker's ribs.
Four of them.
They caved inward, piercing organs beneath.
The man stared, eyes wide—
mouth opening soundlessly.
Ajin's fist was buried halfway into his chest cavity.
The tracker coughed—
blood spraying across Ajin's face, hot and metallic.
Ajin ripped his hand free.
The man dropped dead instantly.
The leader stumbled back, horrified.
"Y-You—You MONSTER!"
He turned to flee.
Ajin did not let him.
He grabbed a fist-sized stone from the ground.
Then—
limping on a broken leg—
he lunged.
Not with a martial stance.
Not with technique.
With brutality.
He leaped forward—
and smashed his forehead into the back of the fleeing leader's skull.
BRAK!!!
The impact echoed like a snapped branch.
The leader collapsed face-first into the dirt.
Ajin collapsed on top of him.
Silence.
Then—
Ajin screamed.
A raw, guttural roar as he mounted the corpse—
and began punching.
BAM.
BAM.
BAM.
BAM.
BAM.
He hammered the dead man's skull.
Again.
And again.
Until the face caved in.
Until bone gave way.
Until there was no face left—
only blood and pulp.
"DIE!
DIE!
DIE!
DIE ALL OF YOU!"
Each punch was a release.
A crack in the dam.
A scream trapped inside his chest.
He punched until his own knuckles reopened and blood spurted anew.
Until his breath came in shallow, broken gasps.
Finally—
He stopped.
Ajin sat atop the corpse, chest heaving, dripping with blood that was not his own.
His eye—
the only one that still functioned—
glimmered dimly in the torchlight.
He turned his head slowly.
Toward the last surviving tracker.
The man with the twisted leg.
The one who now crawled backward across the floor, dragging himself helplessly.
"No…
No, please…
Please don't kill me—!"
Ajin rose.
Barely.
His legs shook.
His bones creaked.
Blood dripped from every part of him.
But he stood.
And he walked.
One step.
Another.
Closer.
The tracker screamed, tears spilling down his soot-streaked face.
"Please—PLEASE—!"
Ajin crouched over him.
His voice was a rasp.
A burned whisper.
A sound dragged from the bottom of a shattered soul:
"Who…
sent you?"
"I—I don't—"
Ajin pressed his foot—
the broken one—
onto the man's shattered leg.
SPLAT.
"AAAAAAAARGHHHHHH!"
"WHO."
Ajin pressed harder.
"WHO SENT YOU."
The man sobbed violently.
"D—Dahana!
Padepokan Dahana Satria!"
Ajin's eye twitched.
The name stabbed into his mind like a spike.
"They…
They're searching for you!"
Ajin remained silent.
The wind blew softly around them.
A breeze that carried ash, blood, and the whisper of a new monster taking form.
Ajin finally spoke—
a whisper colder than death:
"…good."