Thorne swallowed, the words dying in his throat. The blood drained from his face.
"The Viper gang," John continued, his tone like steel dragged over stone. "She's in their hands. With their leader."
The captain's breath hitched, and for a moment, silence swallowed the car, broken only by the hard thump of his heart against his ribs.
"I came to you," John leaned closer, his breath brushing Thorne's ear, "because I need your help to get to them. I need the police force's information, mapping of their territories, their safe houses, their smuggling routes. Everything you've got on the Vipers."
Thorne's knuckles whitened as his grip tightened on the steering wheel. His throat burned where the blade kissed his skin.
"And," John pressed on, voice lower, "when I move, you clean up after me. Quietly."
He paused, letting the weight of his demand sink in before adding, "This information doesn't leave you. You guard it with your life. Because your station…" A note of disdain curled into his voice. "…has already proven itself distasteful. Too many of your men talk to gangs for crumbs off the table. I won't have them ruin this."
Thorne shut his eyes for a moment, forcing himself to breathe, to steady the adrenaline that John had stirred like a storm in his veins. He nodded slowly, not daring to turn, not daring to say anything more than,
"…Understood."
"Here," John said calmly.
Thorne flinched as he felt the object slip away from his neck. A shadow passed at the edge of his vision, and then a hand appeared in the corner of his eye. He forced himself to look down.
A pen.
His pen.
The same one he had in his pocket, now returned as the instrument of his humiliation. The absurdity of it nearly broke him, but fear rooted deeper than reason. His chest tightened. A pen had held him hostage. A pen had drawn blood from him.
Instinct screamed at him to check the back seat. He whipped his head around, only to be met with nothing but the silent dark. Empty.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. His fingers trembled when he touched his neck, feeling the warm slickness of blood. Real. Undeniable. Every nerve in his body recoiled from the evidence.
For a long moment, Thorne sat frozen behind the wheel. Finally, with a long, shaky exhale, he turned the key and pressed forward. The car rolled into the night, headlights carving a path through the city streets.
High above, on the rooftop of a nearby building, John stood watching. His eyes were devoid of warmth, reflecting only the satisfaction of a small victory. One of his goals had been achieved tonight.
But only one.
The other required patience.
Later, he slipped into a small café, the bell above the door chiming softly. The normalcy of the place clashed with the cold edge of his thoughts. He ordered something without caring what it was and took his seat by the window.
The moment he closed his eyes, the world shifted. His perspective detached, rising upward, higher and higher, until the café became a speck in the city grid. A bird's-eye view unfolded before him.
He had been hesitant to summon it before, his IBM, the shadow that lingered just beyond his soul. But tonight was different. Tonight, he needed it.
John needed answers.
The league had put eyes on him, he was certain of it. The only questions were how many and who. In the days ahead, that knowledge would be vital.
He had just declared war. Not against petty street thugs, but against an established gang, a gang resourceful enough to arm its people with weapons that could level entire blocks. Even for him, walking into their world carried no guarantee of walking out.
He wasn't arrogant. He knew better than to believe he was untouchable.
And yet… he was.
The awakening still felt unreal: Ajin. Death no longer held him the way it did others. He could die and rise again. Wounds could be reset, erased, as if they had never happened. He could walk away whole, pristine, immortal.
But no one could know that. Not the league. Not the gang. Not anyone.
Inevitably, though, the more eyes that followed him, the greater the chance that secret would tear free. That was his true battle, the one that had to be fought before any war with the gang could begin.
And so John turned to his only advantage.
IBM.
Invisible Black Matter.
Most humans couldn't see them at all. To ordinary eyes, they were ghosts slipping through reality unnoticed. But people with heightened senses, instinct sharpened, intuition trained, sometimes felt them. They couldn't see, but they could know. A shiver on the skin. A wrongness in the air. Something in the room that shouldn't be.
And even for those blind to it, there were rules. Exceptions. Flaws in invisibility.
When an Ajin's emotions spiked, rage, fear, ecstasy, the IBM flickered into view, betraying its presence like a shadow under sudden light. And worse, when it prepares to kill, there was no hiding it.
Through the shared vision, John's awareness stretched far above the city. The Invisible IBM glided with it's wings, drifting silently over rooftops and alleys, until movement caught its gaze.
A glint. A scope.
Someone crouched in the shadows, scope trained on the café where John sat only moments ago.
John's lips curved faintly. Found you.
He etched the position into memory, then urged the IBM onward, searching for more. Street to street, rooftop to rooftop, it swept through the night. Nothing. No backup. No relay team. Just one man.
The League had sent only a single watcher. One was enough, in their eyes.
Now came the moment of truth.
The IBM folded its wings and dove, closing the distance between predator and prey. But halfway down, John froze. His heart jolted as light flared in the vision, steel flashing in the dark.
A kunai.
The watcher wasn't just some guy. He was already on his feet, moving with sharp discipline, eyes cutting across the rooftop. His hand hovered near the sword strapped to his back, body tense, every muscle wired for action.
John forced himself to breathe evenly. The man couldn't see the IBM. But he could feel it. That uncanny prickle of danger pressing against the skin, the kind of instinct only seasoned killers obeyed.
The IBM slowed, circling wide, testing the invisible boundaries of perception. Step by step, John measured the distance. Five meters. Ten. Fifteen. Beyond that, the tension seemed to fade.
So that's your limit.
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