He was heading for the gang leader, it seems he had had enough and decided to leave.
John pushed forward, weaving through the crossfire of the central stairwell. He cleared the space, snapping a pistol he picked up toward a pair of Viper thugs trying to flank his position, and put them down with two rapid, rhythmic pops.
He began to follow the old man, John watched as the mentor swerved a corner but before he did, the man looked back for a moment. At that moment, his eyes clashed with John hooded figure rushing at him.
John caught the flicker of confusion on his mentor's face, which vanished the instant recognition took hold. His mentor's eyes widened, and he surged forward, rounding the corner with quickness. John knew the jig was up; he was no longer playing a game of shadows. As his mentor's shadow was gone, John flooded his meridians with chi, his body responding with kinetic urgency.
He swerved around the corner, and for a heartbeat, his heightened senses pushed the world into slow motion. He saw it before his conscious mind could even process the threat a small, cylindrical object rolling across the floor toward his feet.
He began to retreat, but he was too late.
The blast didn't detonate with the metallic shrapnel of a grenade, but with a blinding, concussive flash that seared his retinas white. A high-pitched, agonizing whine screamed in his ears, stripping him of his equilibrium. He stumbled, a raw, involuntary cry escaping his throat as the world tilted sideways. Suddenly, a weight slammed into him, knocking him clean off his feet and pinning him to the cold floor.
John could barely focus through the sensory overload, but as his mentor began to rain down a flurry of brutal blows, his training took over. With his vision eclipsed and his ears ringing with static, he reached deep, tapping into his adrenaline manipulation.
He forced himself into the serene state.
His muscles, previously coiled in desperate defense, began to unspool. He deliberately lowered his guard, letting his body go limp even as his mentor's knuckles continued to find their mark. To his mentor, it looked like the inevitable collapse of a someone who had finally reached his limit, a body simply too broken to fight back anymore.
John's guard fell entirely as a brutal hook connected with his chin, snapping his head to the side. As his vision dimmed, he willed his heartbeat to a near-stutter, feigning the sweet release of unconsciousness.
After a few more perfunctory blows to ensure the boy was truly down, the mentor finally stopped. He stood over John, his expression twisted into a mixture of frustration and lingering unease; the boy always possessed an uncanny ability to be exactly where he shouldn't be.
The mentor had no time to ponder it. He grabbed John by the ankles and began to haul him across the floor, intent on dragging him from the battlefield. He had a duty to his employer, and as for the boy, he would hand John over to the League as a passed student.
Or so he thought.
The limp weight in his hands suddenly tensed, a shift of muscle that didn't go unnoticed. The mentor tried to retreat, but he was a fraction of a second too slow. John was already moving, his body coiling like a released spring.
"Found you," John whispered.
The mentor reacted on instinct, swinging his sword in a desperate arc. To John, whose brain was now overclocked with a torrent of chi, the steel blade seemed to crawl through the air like a sluggish serpent. John stepped gracefully to the side, the edge whispering harmlessly past his his nose.
Before the mentor could recover his balance, John's palm shot forward, driving straight for the center of his chest. It was a perfect, devastating one-inch punch. There was a sickening, hollow thud as the man's sternum buckled inward. The sheer kinetic energy tore the mentor from the floor, launching him backward through the air like a discarded ragdoll.
"Dead," John thought, as he began to turn away, his face throbbing with a swollen, angry heat. Then, his instincts still vibrating with chi screamed a warning. He caught a flash of orange light streaking through the broken window, heading straight for him.
"Fuck," John breathed.
The orange streak detonated with the force of a collapsing building. The rocket tore through the room, turning the surrounding space into a whirlwind of shrapnel, concrete, and fire.
John's earlier sprint hadn't just drawn his mentor's attention; it had broadcasted his position to the entire floor. Outside, the SWAT team had converged on the building. Through the glass, they had watched the surreal struggle between the mentor and the boy. They had seen John fall, watched him get dragged, and then witnessed the blur of movement that left the mentor shattered against the wall.
To the tactical team, the "Ghost" had revealed himself. Seeing the mentor neutralized with such impossible speed, they hadn't hesitated. They didn't care about collateral damage; they pulled the trigger.
The blast caught John mid-stride. He was thrown into the debris, his body shattered and buried beneath the ruin of the upper floor. As the dust settled and the fire roared around his broken form, John's vision began to fracture at the edges. He couldn't feel his limbs, only the cold creeping into his lungs.
With the last of his fading consciousness, he reached for the connection he held with his Ajin.
"Finish him," he whispered into the void, his voice a ghost of a command.
Then, the roar of the fire faded into a heavy, suffocating silence as darkness finally welcomed him.
The Viper gang leader had spent the better part of the evening lounging in luxury, dismissing the chaos outside as someone else's problem. But when the SWAT team finally breached the perimeter, his arrogance evaporated. Panic, cold and sharp, pushed him toward the mansion's deepest secret: an reinforced, underground panic room.
He didn't care if the mansion burned to the ground above his head. Once inside that vault, he would be safe, equipped with enough resources to vanish into the city's underbelly until the heat died down. He slammed the heavy steel door shut, locking it from the inside with a sigh of profound relief. He was safe.
Or so he thought.
He was not alone. John's IBM had been tailing him like a shadow, following him into the vault. It had remained invisible, a void in the air, awaiting the final command from its master.
The leader, now calling himself "The Architect," settled into his leather chair, his eyes fixed on the array of monitors displaying the carnage unfolding in his home. He watched the feeds with a detached interest, until a faint, unnatural rustle of wings broke the silence of the bunker.
The Architect froze. His heart hammered against his ribs as he glimpsed a jagged, midnight-black wing at the edge of his periphery. Slowly, dread turning his blood to ice, he pivoted in his seat.
He was greeted by a nightmare given form. Before him stood an Ajin Ghost, a creature of shifting, particle-like darkness with expansive, serrated wings and a face that was nothing more than an abyss of nothingness.
"Wai.."
The Architect's plea died in his throat. The IBM did not hesitate; it raised a weapon, the barrel leveled at his chest. There was no theatrical pause, no gloating. The Ghost simply pulled the trigger, unspooling the entire clip into the man in a rhythmic, merciless stutter of gunfire.
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