Nakano Kō has lived through many hardships in his fifteen years of life. Having to grow up in an ambient full of neglect from his parents was due to make him independent and look after himself from the very beginning. In the short time he spent at school, he was told that he would never do great things, he was mocked for being an idiot and scolded for being hot-headed; he also had to endure his classmates' many taunts for being a quirkless freak. He took all the hits and gladly gave them back.
He may have never been the sharpest tool of the shed, but he was not stupid.
Or so he thought, until the day his life ended.
The first time he dies could be considered kind of dumb. Changing the light bulb of the living room shouldn't have gotten out of hand; but since he was short of stature, a minuscule move got him slipping from the stool piled with magazines that helped him reach the ceiling.
Nobody hears his scream of pain when his back cracks; no one hears him cry, desperately calling for someone to help him. His parents are nowhere in sight, and the small apartment complex they live in is unnervingly silent. He dies on the floor, paralyzed for a week, dehydrated.
His heart stops, and he goes down like a candle that ran out of wax.
He never expects to come back.
The noise of cracking wood and the prickling sensation in his back is what he wakes to; after being able to feel his legs, hear his heartbeat, and breathe desperately some air into his lungs; tears come down nonstop.
Never in his life had he felt so hopeless and alone.
Something within his being shatters, and then he sees the world with something akin to new eyes. It took his own life to understand the true meaning of solitude; the hopes he had of his family being together and remembering his existence were ripped and burned like paper. He might have discovered in the most unfortunate way that he wasn't quirkless, but that fact alone could not reverse his sad epiphany and the cold emptiness that now settled into his beating heart.
He leaves his home, taking with him what little he owns in a duffel bag. He ionsnever looks back, and leaves to luck's hands whatever it will become of his life.
The first time he died, he was nine years old. And with a broken heart, shattered dreams and a will of steel, he decides to go against the world, be someone worth remembering and try to do a change for others, and for him.
He never dreamt of being a hero.
He stopped believing in them when nobody came to his aid. Heroes are not real; to Kō, heroes are a lie. What was the purpose of having an amazing quirk—commit to a self-deceiving lie, and then captivate millions for nothing but attention—when you couldn't use it for the greater good? What was more important? Fame, or respect? Being held up on a pedestal for selfish actions, or being looked up as someone you could depend on, who people could trust, hope, and believe?
The people that proclaim themselves heroes to the public, and the world, are nothing but liars, and Kō knows this because he has witnessed many injustices. Heroes flash themselves and let people abide their actions as heroics when in reality, the concept of heroism has been lost and reduced to nothing but reckless actions.
Kō has seen many things in the last two years since he ran away from home.
He's been in the dark alleyways witnessing—and managing to prevent or stop—acts of vandalism, beat downs, muggings, harrasings. He's been able to help people when heroes are not present. Heroes never come to the shadiest and dirty parts of the few cities he's lived in.
He's been in many public attacks and has witnessed a lot of fights in the streets. He has helped pedestrians and onlookers who end up hurt after the fights. He has seen all the damage a single fight causes, and all the people that are left scared, injured, lost and angry. Heroes only take action, and never go back to help with the casualties and the people that have to deal with the collateral damage.
Heroes don't care about the people they swore to protect.
The second time he dies is when he gets in the way of a robber with a gun and a lady with her baby; trying to do a greater good that no hero could have ever cared to do. The fucker dashes when Kō hits the ground; it takes him a minute to black out, and a half one to get back and sprint after him.
When he catches up, he manages to get ahead of him, turn back and clock the idiot square on the face; after the robber hits the ground, Kō grabs the diaper bag and yells to call the nearest police officer's attention.
When the officer comes to cuff the robber, his eyes won't glance anywhere but to Kō's chest. He ignores this and goes back with the lady to give back her bag. The look of utter terror that marrows the woman's face makes Kō's blood run cold.
"Ajin!" she screams.
Her baby starts to cry, and she begins to back away from him.
The steps behind Kō gave him enough time to consider them as a warning, but he isn't fast enough when a shot rings in the alley.
He dies a third time, rewarded for his 'heroic actions' with a shot in the head.
The officer didn't even start to cuff him when he comes back, and he runs.
He notices now, the huge blood stain that paints his chest red, the dark specks that leave his body, and the way he crosses half the city in his frantic dash, looking for safety.
That night he cries his little-scared heart away. The look of fear that the lady graced him with left something unpleasant in his mind; it also sparked curiosity and dread over the word that left her screaming lips when realization clouded into her eyes.
A J I N
「 亜人 」
From prefix [亜] meaning "sub-/demi-" and [人] "human".
「 Immortality 」
The defining trait of all Ajin is their immortality.
They are unable to die under any circumstances.
Such as being completely crushed, stabbed, shot, drowned, by hemorrhage, or even due to malnutrition.
「 Paralyzing Scream 」
Causes nervous system seizure, can paralyze everyone in their immediate vicinity.
Range length is still unknown.
A quirk with the same effect in a Non-Ajin has yet to be manifested.
HYPOTHESIS: 「Unknown Substance」
It has been theorized (along the years of their old recorded existence) to be the main cause of the Ajin's powers.
Resurrection is said to be attributed by the amount of the hypothesized matter an Ajin possesses; yet, it remains to be proven if an Ajin can run out of this hypothetical substance and actually die without coming back.
An Ajin may not know of their status until they die. It is theorized that once they die, the substance awakens the Ajin's ability to come back to life.
THERE IS NO MORE DATA AVAILABLE ON THE SUBJECT
L H
"DEMI-HUMANS: EVOLUTION'S LOST SUBJECT"
by Mikoshiba Rentarō
[...]
There are no known methods (yet) to discern Ajin from humans, apart from them dying. M.R Gustaff (20XX), has theorized that Ajin probably lack the extra joint in their pinky toe; this would render them as Quirkless in the eyes of our society. Yet, it has been hypothesized that "they possess a unique unknown matter in their body that triggers the mechanism that lets them revive and manages to replace any body tissue or nutrient that the Ajin lost when they died" (K. Okurami, 20XX); traces of this hypothesized substance have yet to be found in any other human with a quirk.
Ajin's existence is said to be present way before Quirk's manifested in the human race. Questionable recorded material before the Quirk Era (as we know it) has been found in different parts of the world. The research stopped once Quirks came to exist and was picked up again when civil war broke in Africa 20 years ago and the first Ajin of our era, the "Soldier of God", was discovered.
Quirks were believed to be the next stage of evolution in the human race; yet, what little we have got on Ajin might refute the statement; for scientists, who study the theories behind Ajin's abilities, believe them to be the forgotten stage of human evolution.
Nakano Kō is eleven years old, in the starts of hitting a grown sput, when he dies his second and third time. It isn't until a week after his heroic deed passes that he decides to go to the library to try to get a meaning behind the word that the lady he saved said with utter horror and fear when he came back to life.
He types Ajin on the web browser; the first things that appear are old videos, shady websites and two educational pages that have a friendly name.
He reads many short definitions and a three-page essay by a Mikoshiba fellow that he barely understands on one of the educational sites.
When he clicks the videos, his breath catches in his throat.
The first one has a really old date, going back to 19XX.
In the recording, a man is hit by a truck, and his body cracks under the vehicle; as screams and noise resound in the background, the man slowly crawls from under the truck and dizzily walks away from the vehicle.
Black specks that look like dancing ashes come out from his skin and reconstruct his flesh. The look on the man's face is one of horror and confusion, and after fifteen seconds of silence, people start to scream again.
"Demon!"
The video ends.
The second one has the title of: "The Soldier of God, first captured Ajin, 20XX".
Kō is transported into a raging battlefield; gunshots and desperate screams paint the scene.
Amongst the roaring embers, a black figure makes its way toward the camera, a man, with a rifle on his hands and a steadiness to his walk.
Someone shoots him multiple times, and he goes down, it takes only a matter of seconds for the black specks to fly from his body and make him stand once more.
"Why won't he die?!" "What kind of quirk is that?"
Near the end of the video, a helicopter hovers over the man, a wall of ice emerges from the ground and multiple gunshots flash from the other side of it. The video ends when Special Forces come down to retreat the body.
The last video is a really suspicious one entitled "Hacked Gov. File: Ajin Experimentation, 20XX".
The date is a recent one, and by the views of it, it has gone viral.
There is no sound. But the image makes Kō's stomach churn; there's a man wrapped in bandages from head to toe with the number 001 written on his forehead; he's tied against a pillar, and his body is spasming as smoke rises from the floor. He dies, and the particles start to emerge very quickly from his body.
Kō gets the glimpse of something starting to materialize from the black specks, the half of a body comes to existence, and then it drops like sand.
The Ajin dies again and the video ends.
He feels his heart pounding against his rib cage as he repeats the part when the black body starts to appear. He checks the comments, and feels baffled when some of them say:
DarkSun332: I don't get it, what am I supposed to be seeing?
KikStrak43: is this a joke?
Nakanase03: is this some kind of prank or something?
lid009: spasming mummy having a blast, wwwwww
They can't see the black thing appearing from thin air, the black dots that come out from the body of the man.
Kō's heart can't seem to calm down.
"Hey kid are you okay?" says someone behind him.
He looks back, and the librarian regards him with a worried look, then her eyes narrow a little in suspicion.
"Wait, I've seen you before," she says as her hand rests on her chin, realization sparks on her face and Kō's heart drops, "Your parents are looking for you."
Kō gets out of the library as fast as he can, the woman shouts "Wait!"
He runs as far away as his legs can take him.
Nakano Kō reported missing for two years.
Recent events state he's been found and confirmed as an Ajin.
If spotted or found, please report to number XXX-XX-XX
DESCRIPTION
Hair Color: Auburn
Eye Color: Brown
Height: 156cm (approx.)
Gender: Male
Status: Alive
Age: 11
Species: Ajin
Quirk: Quirkless
Kō is fifteen years old when his life takes an unexpected turn.
It's been six years since he ran away from home and four since the incident that outed him as an Ajin to the police and made him go on the run.
So far, he has succeeded in avoiding being discovered and tried his best to maintain a low profile by not getting involved in any kind of violent encounter; most of the time he fails and lets his impulse win against the best of his judgment (due to the fact that it feels wrong not to help and let other people get hurt).
Every two months he has to cut his hair, he goes to different thrift shops every three to get new clothes he can fit into his still growing body.
He has lived the last four years doing many jobs to get money to spend on food and places where he can stay the night. Otherwise, he eats in soup kitchens and stays at hostels when he doesn't have money. If the job pays well, he sometimes fancies himself with a hearty meal of a cheap restaurant, buys one or two pieces of clothing from a mall, or buys whatever his heart desires in Konbinis and 100 Yen Shops.
In four years, he has lived and moved a total of seven times in different prefectures: Shizuoka, Hyōgo, Kyōto, Ishikawa, Niigata, Gunma, and Saitama.
In those years he dies a total of four times.
The fourth time he died was in a huge fight between a hero and a villain when he was thirteen; the fifth time, he drowns in the beach, and to prevent that from happening again, he takes swimming classes in a public pool.
The sixth time he's fourteen when he goes skating and hits his head hard against the ice. The seventh time he gets hit by a drunk driver.
A month after his fifteen birthday, he stays in Tōkyō for five weeks and then moves to Musutafu after hearing of a moving company that requires some lifting hands, the pay is said to be good.
It's like any other Thursday on a quiet neighborhood when a bomb drops. Kō goes flying with the force of the blast, and when hits his head with a brick wall his vision goes black.
When he stirs awake, dust and dirt float in the air in piles of dense dust. A whole building collapsed a block ahead; everything is dead silent until a small figure rises from the floor, loads of dark specks emerge from the tiny figure.
Kō's heart stops as he looks at the kid walk towards a huge pile of debris.
Never in his life has he seen an amount that big of dark specks, nor has he ever seen another Ajin, until now.
The dense cloud of dark that swarms around the boy suddenly materializes into something big and horrifying as the kid lets out an inhuman high pitched scream.
Kō freezes, his muscles tense and his ears ring loudly. His heart pounds heavily on his chest and he feels as if the world that surrounds him has abruptly stopped in time. It feels like centuries have passed when his body responds to him.
He feels heavy and tired.
His ears tune again, and the first thing that he hears is the little boy crying.
He doesn't think, he lets his body act on its own; in a blink of an eye he's hugging the crying kid and trying his best to calm him down.
"It's okay, it's okay, please don't cry, it's okay," he tries to soothe, but that only causes the kid to release more tears.
Kō's eyes dart forward and land on a crushed corpse between two hunks of rubble, he feels how his heart breaks at the sight of green hair and dripping blood under the crushed body.
That moment doesn't last when he picks up a noise that makes him panic. With one hand he covers his head with the hoodie of his jacket and his eyes move frantically looking everywhere, he tenses when he looks back and spots a man that's looking at them with dead eyes holding a phone in his left hand.
With a dry voice, he says to the kid, "We need to go."
He hears to his right the sound of a cocking gun; he reacts by instinct and shields the boy as someone fires the weapon. He feels something pierce his back and burn the insides of his chest, he succumbs to a temporary darkness.
The moment he wakes, black specks swim across his vision. He grabs the kid and carries him in his two arms; he's not thinking of anything other than run, run, run.
He forgets the reason of why he was there in the first place; he leaves behind the sound of sirens and people shouting after them, he passes a few witnesses with their phones held out, probably recording them; he leaves behind a destroyed block with debris and corpses and a promising job opportunity.
He dies an eighth and ninth time in Musutafu when he's fifteen.
What he gains is a little boy that, from that moment onwards, would change his life.
Forever