No matter how hard I kept that gaze…
The one I had stolen from the Satsujin Otoko,
Cold. Disdainful. Distant.
But some still mocked.
Snickered. Provoked me.
They had nicknamed me "the homeless guy who's full of himself."
Some even enjoyed challenging me, pushing me, spitting on me.
But deep down, I didn't care.
I expected nothing anymore.
I had reached 70 years old.
And it was the end.
A broken body.
A life eaten away by fatigue, hunger, loneliness.
I was a man the sun had avoided all his life.
A man condemned by the Satsujin Otoko without ever raising a hand.
They had simply... made me a ghost.
I was dying slowly, like an old sack abandoned in a street corner.
Lying on the icy asphalt of an anonymous alley.
Passersby walked around me without a word, without a glance.
And why would they care about a homeless man?
Why would they stop?
They were right, weren't they? I was nobody.
My heart slowed.
My limbs grew numb.
I closed my eyes.
And I felt... the void.
Not pain.
Not peace.
Just… nothing.
I think I was dead.
And yet…
I opened my eyes.
The cold of the alley had vanished.
In its place, a pale, wan, almost surgical light.
White walls. Wires. Glass.
A laboratory.
Not a hospital.
Not a dream.
A laboratory.
I sat up, trembling.
My body...
Still as thin, almost cadaverous, as if it had never known a real meal.
But I was alive.
Something was wrong.
That's when he appeared.
Young. Black hair. Piercing blue eyes.
Still unknown to the world.
Not yet the scientific icon he would become.
It was him: Doctor Grijan.
He saw me, and his eyes widened.
— Incredible... It worked.
Then, in a chilling shiver…
A shadow appeared behind him.
It had neither clear shape nor face.
Just a presence. A voice.
A horrible, cavernous voice, seeming to come from the abyss:
— I modified his state of existence. He no longer lives through his body... but through his mind. That is how he could return...
I understood nothing.
Nothing.
And then, in the blink of an eye, the shadow disappeared.
Only Grijan remained, his tight smile and cold instruments.
He approached gently.
— Hello. You are the subject of an experiment I have been conducting for years. You died five months ago. Your body was... let's say... irrecoverable.
He shrugged.
— But I found you in an old vault, one of those mass graves for the homeless. You were perfect. You are my first success.
He looked at me with curiosity.
— What was your name, before?
I stared at him. My heart raced. My throat was dry.
— Tell me I'm dreaming…
He did not answer.
But his gaze said it all:
No, you are not dreaming.
I was dead.
And here I was...
Resurrected.
I kept touching myself, as if to make sure I was really there, alive. My return to life came with a strange sensation hard to describe. It was like a sharp break in the continuity of my being, followed by a void... then a shiver, a kind of echo in my nerves. It was weird, really. And I didn't even know if I was happy to have been resurrected, not after all life had inflicted on me.
Grijan stared at me, his gaze almost clinical, as if analyzing every fragment of what I had become. He broke the silence, a question hanging in the air:
— Who were you, in your former life? What was your name?
My hands clenched, my fists slowly tightened. Talking about my past... was like flaying myself from the inside. A part of me found it humiliating. Another knew I couldn't run away forever. So I spoke. Flat at first, then more fluid. I told everything, piece by piece, like emptying an overfull bag. Grijan listened, impassive, until I finished my story.
He finally reacted, with a dry, almost mocking tone:
— Well… you really had a pathetic life, my dear Jacob.
I said nothing. I didn't even meet his gaze.
He turned away, and added:
— I stole your body, technically it's illegal that you are here. But honestly, I don't care. I'll take responsibility for the consequences.
I looked at him, intrigued. What did he mean by that?
He continued:
— Jacob, go shave that beard and that mop on your head. I left clothes on a chair next to the shower. You'll see them once you're clean.
I obeyed, without asking questions. There was something about him… I don't know. Maybe it was because I felt empty? Or because he was the only fixed point in this strange new existence? Whatever it was, I obeyed him. Automatically.
But that wasn't the strangest thing.
Under the shower, I looked at my hands. Yes, I had a physical body. But it looked like an empty shell. I felt nothing — no hunger, no thirst, no fatigue. Not even the water on my skin. Unless I wanted to feel it. It was as if my senses were no longer automatic. I had to order them to function. And even then, they only transmitted raw, mechanical sensations, without emotion.
After the shower, I dressed. Black jeans and a dark hoodie. Then, with Doctor Grijan, we went out. The urban landscape before me seemed straight out of a post-apocalyptic nightmare. The city was in ruins. Everywhere, people were rebuilding, reconstructing the scattered pieces of a broken world.
I understood nothing.
— Uh… Mr. Grijan?
Why was I calling him "Mister"? He seemed barely an adult, much younger than me.
— Yes, Jacob? he answered.
— What happened here? Why is the city being rebuilt?
He scanned the street with his eyes before answering:
— Ah… that. It's because of the war against the Satsujin Otoko. But don't worry… they were defeated.
My eyes widened.
— What?!
The Satsujin Otoko. Those monsters who had ruined my life. Those who had sown terror, destroyed families, shattered entire cities… Defeated?
I struggled to believe it.
— And… how were they defeated? I asked, almost in a whisper.
Grijan shrugged.
— Maybe a stroke of luck. The Tyrant Killer Man, their most feared leader, mysteriously disappeared. The other Killer Men were powerful, yes, but without him… the army eventually regained the upper hand.
I stood frozen. My mind couldn't digest this news. Them, defeated? Really?
With Doctor Grijan, we stopped in front of a dilapidated cybercafé, half gutted by the war's aftermath. He sat at a rusty table, ordered a black coffee without sugar, and began to talk. He told me everything: the war, its origins, its ravages. Three months of uninterrupted chaos. Three months of hell.
And according to the date displayed on the cracked screen of the counter, this war had broken out… only three days after my death.
This detail struck me. Maybe, at the moment I was living my last moments, the Tyrant Killer Man — that shadow looming over my existence — had already disappeared. Was it a coincidence? A cruel irony? Or the first shiver of fate?
I couldn't tell if this news comforted or finished me. I was torn. What I had always wanted, their downfall… had happened without me.
A voice cut my thoughts short.
— Jacob… what a shitty name, said Grijan, calmly sipping his coffee.
I flinched slightly. My gaze landed on him, puzzled. How could he say that, without any restraint?
He continued, his tone as sharp as a scalpel:
— Jacob was the old you. The loser. The one the Satsujin Otoko trampled, humiliated, crushed into the mud. Jacob is a loser.
I stared at him, still disturbed. What was he trying to do? Provoke me? Harden me?
But Grijan smiled. A cold smile, but carrying a strange promise.
— Jacob was just a loser. But the new you... will never be a victim again. The new you is Lazareth. You will work for me, and together, we will hunt down the last Satsujin Otoko still alive. We will exterminate them. All of them. To the last one.
I said nothing. I looked at him, this barely adult kid, with his determined gaze, his sharp ideas, his clinical coldness. He thought big. Way too big for his age. And yet... he commanded respect.
Grijan was not just intelligent. He was formidable.
Maybe that's why I couldn't disobey him. What we don't understand… often ends up dominating us. And I didn't understand him.
He had resurrected me. He spoke of my former life like a rag to be thrown away. He showed neither pity nor kindness. A raw, crude frankness. But behind that mask of arrogance, there was a goal. A fire. An obsession.
And somewhere, that suited me.
I was going to kill Satsujin Otoko. That idea alone was enough to give me a form of oxygen. A second chance.
But as this thought galvanized me, a shiver ran up my spine. The image of the Tyrant Killer Man brutally imposed itself on my mind. His eyes. His gaze. That abyss.
I smiled, without even realizing it. A twisted, bitter smile.
Grijan tilted his head slightly.
— I see you're excited, Lazareth. In that case… let's move on to the next step.
And that's when everything changed.
Grijan began his experiments on me. On… Jacob? No. Jacob was dead. Lazareth was born.
I didn't know how, but he taught me to manipulate mana. To fuse my attacks with shadows.
Yes, I had become a shadow manipulator.
I could shape black blades from the darkness itself. Blades sharp enough to cut steel. I could summon entities born from the hollows of light. Weapons, specters, living fragments of night.
It was incredible. As if I had finally discovered what my body had been waiting to be, all along.
But for Grijan, it was just another experiment. A test. A data point. He took notes in his little notebook, calmly, mechanically, like a scientist in front of a lab rat.
Was it humiliating to become a lab rat? Maybe.
But I didn't care.
I was going to embody their worst nightmare. I was going to become a Tyrant. An executioner. A killing machine for the Satsujin Otoko.
And everyone who stands in Doctor Grijan's way… will fall.