Chapter 86
Kai shook his head slowly, his blue eyes moving over Elijah's fully healed body with an expression that was somewhere between amazement and exasperation. "You're a freak, you know that?" he said, his voice flat but not unkind.
"Less than a day ago you were lying in that bed with broken ribs and a cracked skull, and now you're walking around like nothing happened. Most people would take weeks to recover from what Jack did to you."
Jack nodded in agreement, his red eyes studying Elijah with open curiosity. "He's right, you know. I've put plenty of fighters in the hospital, and none of them were walking around the same day. What's your secret?"
Elijah pulled out the chair that sat against the wall and settled into it, positioning himself so that he could see both Kai and Jack without having to turn his head. "I could ask you the same thing," he said, looking directly at Jack.
"You're already healed up too. I saw the cuts I gave you, and there's not a mark on you now."
Jack shrugged, a casual gesture that made his broad shoulders rise and fall beneath his dark shirt. "I heal fast. Always have. My breathing technique helps, but honestly I think it's just how I'm built."
He leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out in front of him, the picture of a man who was completely comfortable in his own skin. "Some people are born with better bloodlines, better bodies. I got lucky."
Kai watched the exchange with his arms crossed over his chest, and inwardly he found himself marveling at the absurdity of the situation.
Here were two men who had beaten each other bloody just hours ago, one of them having his ribs cracked and his skull fractured and his body broken in a dozen different places, and now they were sitting in his office comparing notes on how quickly they healed like it was the most normal conversation in the world.
They were both monsters, he realized, the kind of monsters that the world produced when it needed someone to stand at the top and refuse to be moved. And somehow, impossibly, they were both sitting in his office having a civil conversation.
"You held back at the end," Elijah said, his red eyes meeting Jack's without flinching. "You could have finished me, but you pulled your punches."
Jack's expression didn't change, but something in his red eyes softened slightly. "You weren't a threat anymore. There was no point in hurting you more than necessary."
He paused, and when he spoke again his voice was quieter, more serious. "Besides, I wanted to fight you again someday. Can't do that if I kill you."
Elijah nodded slowly, accepting the answer for what it was. "When we both reach Advanced Knight Stage (Peak Level)," he said. "That's when we'll have our rematch. Not before."
"I was hoping you'd say that," Jack replied, and a genuine smile spread across his face that made him look younger than his twenty-one years. "I've been looking for someone who could push me, someone who could make me grow."
The conversation shifted naturally after that, moving from the fight itself to the techniques that had made it possible.
Elijah found himself asking a question that had been on his mind since the first time he had felt Jack's aura pressing against his own in the cage.
"Where did you get your breathing technique?" he asked, keeping his voice casual. "The one that gives you a hundred percent enhancement. I've never felt anything like it."
Jack tilted his head, considering the question for a moment before answering. "It just felt natural," he said finally.
"When I was younger, when I first started training, I tried to breathe the way other people did. But it never felt right, like I was forcing my body to do something it didn't want to do. So I stopped trying to breathe like everyone else and just breathed the way that felt natural to me."
He shrugged again, as if the explanation was simple. "It worked. My enhancement kept climbing, and eventually it reached a hundred percent. I don't know why it works that way for me and not for other people. It just does."
Elijah nodded slowly, and when Jack turned the question back on him, he found himself giving an answer that was surprisingly similar. "Same for me," he said, and it wasn't a lie even though it left out the book and the system and everything else that had happened since that night.
"The way I breathe, the technique I use, it just feels natural. Like my body was always meant to breathe that way and I just had to remember how."
He didn't mention the Eternal Grounded Tree technique, didn't explain that the system had created it specifically for him and bound it to his soul.
But the core of what he said was true, because from the very first moment he had used the technique it had felt like coming home to something he had always known but somehow forgotten.
Kai cleared his throat loudly, cutting through the conversation before it could spiral off into another direction entirely. "As fascinating as this mutual admiration society is," he said, his voice dry,
"I'm going to stop you both right there before you spend the next three hours talking about breathing patterns and fighting styles and whatever else you two have in common." He looked directly at Jack, his blue eyes sharp. "Tell him the reason you're here."
Jack's easy smile faded slightly, replaced by something more serious. He sat up straighter in his chair and met Elijah's red eyes directly, and when he spoke his voice was steady and certain.
"I want to join your gang," Jack said.
Elijah felt something warm spread through his chest at the words, a feeling that was equal parts surprise and satisfaction.
Having Jack Reyes in the Azura Gang would be a massive boost to their strength, a statement to every other gang in the 9th District that they were not to be trifled with.
But even as the warmth spread through him, a question formed in his mind that he could not ignore.
"I'm happy to have you," Elijah said, and he meant it completely. "But I need to understand why. I've heard about the offers you've received from other gangs, Jack. Gangs that are bigger than mine, more established, with more territory and more resources. The Blackwater Syndicate approached you twice. The Iron Horde in the 8th District wanted you to join their ranks. Even the Ravens in the 7th District made you an offer, and they never recruit from outside their own territory." He leaned forward slightly, his red eyes searching Jack's face. "Why would you choose us over all of them?"
Jack was quiet for a long moment, and when he finally spoke his voice was softer than Elijah had ever heard it. "Because I like you," he said simply.
He met Elijah's eyes again, and there was something in his red gaze that was almost vulnerable. "I'd rather follow you than any of them. Not because your gang is the strongest or the richest or the most powerful, but because I believe in the person you're becoming. I saw it in the cage, and I see it now."
The words settled into Elijah's chest like stones dropping into still water, and for a long moment he found himself questioning everything he thought he knew about himself.
Jack Reyes, the strongest fighter in the lower underground, a man who had never lost a match, wanted to follow him.
Not because of his power or his territory or his resources, but because of who he was.
The same thing Kai had said to him weeks ago, the same thing Henry had said, the same thing Aurora had implied when she agreed to join.
He pushed the thought aside and focused on the present. "Then I accept," Elijah said. "You'll join as one of my Vice Leaders, same as Kai and Henry and Aurora and Tristan and Rena. You'll have a voice in our decisions and a share in our profits."
Jack shook his head immediately, the motion firm and certain. "No," he said. "I don't want to be a Vice Leader."
Elijah's eyebrows rose. "Why not?"
"Because I don't want to do the work of ruling the gang," Jack replied, his voice matter-of-fact. "I've seen what Kai does, what Henry does, what all of them do. The meetings and the planning and the patrols and the endless decisions about money and territory and personnel. That's not who I am. I'm a fighter, Elijah. That's what I'm good at, and that's what I want to do."
Elijah stared at him for a moment, and then he laughed, a genuine sound that filled the small office and made Kai raise an eyebrow in surprise. "You want to join my gang but you don't want any of the responsibility that comes with it," he said, shaking his head. "That's the most honest thing anyone has said."
Jack shrugged, completely unapologetic. "I know what I am and what I'm not. No point in pretending otherwise."
Elijah leaned back in his chair and considered the problem for a moment, turning it over in his mind until a solution began to form. "Then I have a different offer for you," he said finally.
"You'll still hold the rank of Vice Leader, because I need people at that level who I can trust completely and you've earned that trust by being honest with me. But your actual role will be different. I want you to become my personal guard, someone who protects the people I love when I can't be there to do it myself."
He leaned forward again, his red eyes serious. "My mother and my sister are the most important people in my life, Jack. I've built this gang to protect them, to create a world where no one can ever hurt them the way my family was hurt when I was a child. But I can't be with them all the time. I need someone I trust to watch over them when I'm handling gang business, someone strong enough to stop anyone who might try to use them against me."
Jack was quiet for a long moment, his red eyes distant as he considered the offer.
The silence stretched between them, filled only by the distant sounds of the gambling den below and the soft creak of the old building settling around them.
Finally, Jack nodded. "I accept," he said. "I'll protect them with my life, Elijah. No one will touch them while I'm watching."
Elijah felt something release in his chest, a tension he hadn't realized he'd been carrying since the moment he first understood how vulnerable his family was in this world he had chosen to enter.
Jack Reyes, the strongest fighter he had ever faced, would be watching over his mother and sister. It was more than he could have hoped for.
"Then it's settled," Elijah said, extending his hand. "Welcome to the Azura Gang, Vice Leader Jack."
Jack took his hand, his grip firm and warm. "Glad to be here," he said, and his smile was genuine.
Kai watched the exchange with his arms still crossed over his chest, but there was something in his blue eyes that might have been approval. "Now that we've got that sorted out," he said, "we should probably discuss the details."
Elijah nodded and settled back into his chair, and the three of them began to talk about the practical realities of integrating Jack Reyes into the Azura Gang's operations.