Ajin

Rui finds herself having a lucid dream.

She follows a Japanese girl wherever she the girl moves, she can't seem to distance. The girl has a blur facial features with black hair about 15-16 years old living alone. The dream seems to be a "daily life" routine of a normal girl. Except, it wasn't.

All the normal routine was broken when the girl accidentally falls on a steep slope near the river on her way home hitting her head on a big stone on the ground. The girl bleed and the severe pain overwhelms her senses. The degree of bleeding she felt when she tries to touch her head with the hand were scary. When she passed out a black shadow like figure dressed in black bandages with black wings and sharp claws appear in front was the last scene in her memory.

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When the girl woke up, it's already dark and she's still in the same position were she falls. The location down here was a little hard to spot on from the outside causing them to "rescue" the unconscious girl. But soon, the girl finds out that she didn't need rescue at all. Her clothes and hair were still soak in blood but the injury on the her head was nowhere to be found. The girl shivers from the unbelievable situation.

[Ajin]

A creature only known from urban legends. There not much information about the them but they're well known for being immortal. There are several claims about few Ajin getting caught and studied in some laboratory by the government but there's no believable proof for the rumors. Probably because the thought of having immortality is too tempting that such rumors sounds believable.

The girl stands up and tries to go home carefully without anyone noticing. After her return, she didn't seem to feel safe with her environment. She's extremely scared of the possibility that she is not a human but an Ajin.

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As the time passed, the girl started to distance herself away from the crowd. She feels uncomfortable there's someone else near her and she's starting to have a paranoia that everybody will know her secret. It didn't took long before she decided to move into a different city far away from her original place.

The girl discovered that she was able to revive herself a few second after death, any injury will automatically heal during her revival. But for the girl who wanted to die, there's nothing to be happy about it. She was also able to summon the black shadow that she sees before her first death and it was moving under her instructions. She calls him [Kage-chan] and only he was on her side the whole time.

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Rui wakes up in the morning, she felt like her back was soaking in sweat as the clothes sticks in her skin. The last scene in the dream was the figure of the girl with [Kage-chan] behind her, the girl's face that was blur the whole time became clear.

It was the same as hers.

Rui calm herself down as she analyze the contents of the dream. Is it just a dream? or maybe... her past?

She tried summoning the [Kage-chan] from her dreams and a figure starts forming on her bedside. She look at the figure highly similar from [Kage-chan] of her dream. Rui clench her hands and takes a deep breath. She ordered [Kage-chan] to use his claws to puncture her heart.

The blood spread on the bed covers as Rui lay down motionlessly, a few seconds later. She open her eyes and prop herself up.

"Healed. It was true. That was me."

The girl murmurs as she blankly stare at the bed dyed in blood.

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"So... the reason for your social phobia was the inherent fear towards others that you get from your past life?"

"Um."

Rui is sitting next to Mikoto on the sofa of the empty DOLLARS bar. She couldn't calm herself down after all that happened so the tries to "talk" to her avatar about it. Of course, the response that Mikoto will give were also under her control. The difference from simple talking to herself was she's able to see things from Mikoto's perception leading into opinion that differs to herself.

"You don't need to worry about it. This world is full of people with supernatural abilities and even if someone covets you, you're not the weak little girl in the past either."

Rui holds Mikoto's hands tightly as she slowly nods her head. That's right. She's not the little girl afraid to be discovered of her difference in the past, not the little who doesn't have the any ability to defend herself and not the little who is scared to face her fears. Her avatars might be nothing but existence under her control like [Kage-chan], but they are her companions, her family.

From this day, Rui rewrites importance and meaning of the avatars derive from her Ability, putting them in an important place of her heart.

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"Hmm.. as expected. We will continue to do the last "instruction" given to us a few seconds during Rui-chin's death until the next order comes again."

"Yes. And because the time for Ajin to revive is extremely short, almost no noticeable abnormality will be shown."

Decim and Subaru was helping Rui analyze the effect of her "death" towards the avatars. The current Rui wasn't afraid of "dying". She's afraid about how her avatar function during her death. Will they lose conscious? Or become immobile while their heartbeat and other body functions stops? Because death for Rui show dangers for her losing control on the avatars leading to the possibility of the avatars being misunderstood as dead. She didn't hesitate to "experiment" a few times. When Rui losses her consciousness, like from sleep or passing out, she still has the control of the avatars in a shared-conscious way. This means that Rui can fall asleep while avatars continue work, like a multiple network with Rui's brain as the server. The brain continue to function during sleep but death is a different matter. Thankfully, Ajin revives in only a few seconds enough regain control of her avatars.