Ajin in Dc

John dropped to one knee but he held the arm. Barely.

A second later, he was flung into the stone wall of the ring. Pain roared through John's back. Still he rose. Bleeding from the lip, breathing ragged.

The mentor paused, just for a moment, watching.

"You're starting to hesitate," he said flatly.

John didn't answer.

He circled again, changing tempo. Now he didn't fall fully into any one form. No pure Broken Step. No textbook Dog Fang.

He stitched them half-step to the right, baiting the mentor's low stance, then exploded with a brutal, efficient grapple.

This time, he almost landed a choke.

Almost.

The mentor countered with a palm between John's shoulder blades and used the leverage to flip him mid-air, slamming him flat on his face. John rolled just in time to avoid a heel drop that cratered the stone.

The mentor pressed harder now, punishing combos that defied any predictable flow. Kicks that bent at odd angles. Punches with double-fakes. John's defenses were breaking.

Another elbow cracked into his jaw. His vision fuzzed.

But through the haze, he struck back.

A knee to the mentor's thigh. A headbutt to the chin. A bite of desperation. It didn't turn the tide but it slowed it.

He was growing in real time. They locked in a clinch body to body, breath hot, sweat and blood mixing. John threw a Dog Fang shoulder-lock. The mentor responded with a counter-elbow that dislocated John's grip.

A quick throat chop sent John reeling, but as he fell, he used his broken posture to slam his heel backward right into the mentor's knee.

The man grunted a slip, not an injury.

John tried to follow up, but this time the mentor met his punch mid-air, twisted John's wrist, and drove him into the ground.

John gasped, fingers dug into his throat.

The fight was over.

He could barely breathe. Blood ran from his nose. His limbs twitched.

But he had survived.

And the mentor looming above him gave a slow nod.

"You've learned to think inside pain," he said. "That's the only reason you're still breathing."

He stepped back.

John lay on the cold stone for several seconds before dragging himself upright. His ribs screamed. His fingers wouldn't close right.

For the next six months, there would be no more guidance, no more instruction from his mentor. Instead, the end of each month would bring a life-or-death bout, a stark evaluation of his progress, or lack thereof. The mentor's silent departure left John in a desolate training ground, the chilling pronouncement echoing in his ears "Unsatisfactory performance would lead to death." 

Unlike the routine he'd grown accustomed to, no maid appeared with the soothing green paste to mend his battered body. The excruciating pain from the recent bout was his constant companion, a raw reminder of his vulnerability. He didn't know how long he lay there, the agony a thick fog in his mind, before he managed to push himself to his feet. Every movement sent searing jolts through his muscles, but he stumbled towards his room, his mind reeling.

The journey to his room was a grim procession. He wasn't alone in his suffering. Other trainees, equally or even more broken than he was, limped and crawled through the compound. Some had limbs bent at grotesque angles, others sported bleeding eyes and ears, their faces contorted in agony. The most severely injured received only cursory attention – a quick check-up, perhaps a splint, but no magical green paste, no balm for their pain, no accelerated healing.

That entire week was a torment. The absence of the green paste, once a mundane part of their training regimen, now loomed large. John and the other trainees keenly felt its absence. They understood, with a painful clarity, how vital it had been, not just for recovery, but for their very ability to train and grow. Without it, every injury lingered, every movement was a struggle, and the path to improvement seemed impossibly steep. The mentor's cruel lesson was sinking in: their progress, their very survival, was now entirely their own responsibility, and the cost of failure was absolute.

Before, the trainees could push their bodies to the absolute limit. Scraped flesh and drawn blood were minor inconveniences, easily dismissed because of the miraculous green paste. A few hours after an intense session, they'd be back to normal, ready for more. It was a cycle of relentless training and rapid recovery.

But now, that cycle was broken. A week without the paste, and John and the others were still far from their peak condition. Their injuries lingered, movements were stiff and painful, and the exhaustion was profound. John, found himself questioning the paste's origins. The comic hadn't mentioned it, a surprising omission given its apparent importance. Yet, he wasn't entirely thrown by its existence. The League, after all, possessed the Lazarus Pits, capable of raising the dead. With such an advanced organization, ancient and powerful healing methods like the green paste seemed entirely plausible.

It took another week, a full two weeks of agonizing recovery, before John finally felt well enough to truly move. As he began to go through the motions of his chosen martial art, a subconscious action sparked a revelation. It was then, in the familiar flow of his movements, that he understood why the League had ceased supplying the paste. The reason, he realized, was far more profound than simple deprivation.

The true impact of the green paste, John now realized, went far beyond simple physical healing. He and the other trainees had become dangerously dependent on it. Their brains had subtly adjusted, incorporating the paste's rapid recovery into their fighting instincts. It had become a normal, expected routine, shaping their very approach to combat.

This subconscious reliance had manifested in their fighting styles. They fought with a reckless abandon, disregarding injury because they knew, deep down, the paste would erase the consequences. John, in particular, recalled how he'd been exchanging blows with his mentor, trading damage in a desperate bid to land his own hits. He'd thrown caution to the wind, pushing past the pain, because he subconsciously expected to be treated with the green paste afterward. The internal cost of such exchanges, the lingering agony and extended recovery, simply hadn't factored into his calculations before.

The League's sudden withdrawal of the paste was, therefore, a harsh but crucial lesson. It was an intervention designed to force them to unlearn this detrimental behavior before it became irrevocably ingrained. They needed to understand that injuries had real, lasting consequences and that true mastery wasn't about relying on external cures, but about fighting intelligently, preserving one's body, and adapting to the raw, unforgiving reality of combat without a safety net. The past two weeks of agony had been a brutal, but necessary, re-education.

John's newfound understanding of his ingrained dependency on the green paste was a crucial step, but applying it proved far more challenging. He consciously adjusted his training, striving to fight smarter, to avoid unnecessary injury, and to conserve his energy. Yet, the old habits were deeply entrenched. Time and again, he'd find himself falling back into the same reckless thought patterns, the subconscious expectation of a quick recovery still lingering. Unlearning something so profoundly ingrained was a monumental task, a constant battle against his own conditioned instincts.