Jin watched the collapsed building rubble rise and fall once, slow, like the creature underneath had taken a single, patient breath before deciding to move again. Dust sifted down from the broken wall with each small motion, settling thick over rubble that hadn't finished cooling.
"That's not right," Joon said, backing a step.
The creature pulled itself free a piece at a time, bark knitting back together along the worst of its wounds, the raw stump where its arm had been already sprouting a thinner, twisted new limb in its place. It wasn't whole. The new arm hung wrong, undersized, veined with cracks that hadn't finished sealing. The wound at its chest stayed open too, weeping steady, refusing to close no matter how much of the rest of it stitched back together.
Damaged. Not defeated. Getting back up anyway.
"It's healing," Echo said. "Not all the way. But healing."
"Great," Joon muttered. "Love that for us."
Behind them, Jin heard footsteps he hadn't asked for.
