Revisit chapter 9, it came to my notice that I skipped posting a chapter.
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But now the clarity of that decision was hazy. Blurred by the fact that he was no longer speculating, he was holding the very life they intended to twist into his leash.
While John stared at the cub, still lost in the churn of his thoughts, his mentor remained alert, eyes narrowed beneath the thin slit of his mask.
A subtle twitch at the corner of his eye, and the man pressed a hidden mic embedded in his collar.
"Subject has shown new development," he whispered.
"We see that," came the curt response — cold and detached. "Further observation is needed. Identify the origin of this emotional fluctuation."
The mentor gave a barely perceptible nod. His gaze never left John, who now stood statue-still, not out of disobedience, but because his mind was somewhere else entirely.
They had been watching him since the moment his feet touched the soil of this island.
They had dug deep into his past — or what little of it there was. Every recruit's background had been picked apart, dissected, and catalogued to figure out how best to mold them. To break them. To make them belong to the League.
Most of the others had something to exploit — families, friends, tragedies. Even the orphans had attachments. The craving to belong, to be seen, to be loved. That eagerness, while useful for control, was marked as a weakness.
John was different.
He had no attachments.
Not because he was empty — but because he had refused to let anyone in from the start. He watched the others cling to each other like children in the dark. He watched them fall into predictable rhythms of dependency. And he stayed alone. Always.
That made him a problem.
A subject with no leverage was a subject out of reach.
And for the League of Shadows, that was unacceptable.
So they gave him a cub.
Something pure. Something vulnerable. Something deliberately designed to poke holes in his wall of indifference.
And from the looks of it — it was working.
The mentor didn't speak again. He simply watched.
Because for the first time since the training began, John wasn't moving. He wasn't responding to commands. He wasn't assessing the perimeter or preparing to strike.
He was simply... feeling. They had been watching John since the moment he set foot on the island. Silent observers behind mirrored glass and hidden cameras. Analyzing. Probing. Waiting for a crack.
And for weeks, nothing.
Every trial they threw at him — hunger, exhaustion, brutal sparring, psychological drills — he endured without question, without hesitation, without a single complaint. He did what was expected of him and nothing more. No fear. No rebellion. No flicker of hesitation. He moved like a machine disguised in human skin.
Until today.
The moment the cub was placed in his arms, something changed.
Something small — a barely perceptible hesitation, a lingering gaze, a shift in posture.
But to the League, those details mattered.
And to them, this was exhilarating.
Inside the control room, murmurs rippled among the high-ranking observers. The boy who had given them nothing was finally feeling something. That made him real. That made him vulnerable.
That made him useful.
Outside, on the cracked stone of the training ground, John's mentor — tall, masked, and cruelly efficient — stared at his motionless pupil. For the past several minutes, John hadn't moved. He stood there, arms slack, eyes pinned to the cub as if frozen in time. The mentor's patience, already thin, wore through.
Without warning, he moved.
Fixed.
Too fast for John to react.
A brutal wind-up, a blur of motion — the mentor's foot connected hard with John's ribs in a sweeping kick that lifted him clean off the ground. The cub tumbled with him in the air. They hit the earth like broken furniture — a dull thud, followed by the scrape of gravel and dirt.
Pain shot through John's side like white lightning. His breath hitched, and for the first time in a long while, he felt something other than calculated awareness. He felt pain, confusion, and — to his own horror — concern.
Because the first thing he did wasn't brace for a second strike or check for openings.
He looked for the cub.
The tiny creature was already at his side, unhurt but clearly rattled, licking his bruised face with soft, warm strokes. The gesture was simple. Innocent. Real.
And John hated how it made him feel.
Before he could fully process it, a shadow loomed over him. Cold eyes locked with his. There was no warmth in the gaze, only the crushing indifference of a system designed to break men into weapons.
"I won't repeat myself again," the mentor said, voice sharp as steel. "Get into stance."
John didn't respond. Not immediately.
His ribs ached. His skin burned. His thoughts were clouded by too much — too many contradictions, too much noise. He felt the cub press against his side, letting out a soft whimper, and something fragile cracked deeper inside him.
He pushed himself up slowly.
Not because of the order but because despite everyth
ing, something inside him didn't want the cub to be hurt again.
He rose with clenched teeth, steadying himself. He set the cub down gently at the edge of the training circle and stepped forward. His limbs screamed. His pride smoldered. But he stood.
And he got into stance.
The mentor said nothing at first, only stared with those unblinking eyes, as if trying to see through John's skin and into the thoughts beneath.
In the control room, the voice of one of the observers crackled through the intercom.
"Subject is responding. Increase psychological pressure. Let's see how deep the bond goes."
Another voice followed lower, colder "Push him harder. Break the emotion open. We want results."
And on the field, the mentor adjusted his stance too, preparing for the next strike.
This was no longer just about physical training, this was an experiment and John for the first time had something to lose.
The days bled into each other brutal, methodical, merciless.
Five month since John gained a mentor.
John woke before dawn, as always. His body already moving before his thoughts could catch up. Each morning began with silent drills—posture, balance, breath—under the watchful eyes of his mentor. Correction came in the form of pain. Praise never came at all.
The cub, now a little larger, with sharper eyes and more muscle beneath its playful frame, followed John everywhere. At first, John ignored it. Then tolerated it. Then begrudgingly adjusted his pace to match its stubby legs.
He never gave it a name. Not aloud. But in his mind, he called it "Dog." Short. Unsentimental. Just enough to distinguish it from the rest of the world.
Month 1: Training started with the Iron Flow Method.
John's mentor didn't let him throw a single punch for the first few weeks. He just breathed over and over until his lungs felt like fire and his spine was set to snap.
Breathe in. Hold. Tension.
Breathe out. Collapse.
Repeat.
Every motion became a war between muscle and gravity. He held positions until his limbs shook and gave out. He vomited twice. Passed out once. His mentor never paused and took the opportunity to strike at him. The cub sat beside him each time he fell, never whining, never moving, just waiting and watching.