Before he stood at Kougaiji’s right hand…
before he became a blade without hesitation…
he was a condemned man kneeling beneath an execution sky.
Accused. Chained. Sentenced.
Jien should have died that day.
Instead, a prince intervened.
In Volume II, the quiet brother who once protected a child becomes something far more dangerous — not through rage, but through choice. Stripped of his name, stripped of his past, he is offered survival at a cost:
Bury who you were.
Become someone else.
Through arrest, sentencing, political tension, and rebirth, this volume traces the transformation of Jien into Dokugakuji — the warrior who stands behind Kougaiji not as a prisoner, but as chosen loyalty.
This is not a story of redemption.
It is a story of identity reshaped.
Of silence hardened into discipline.
Of grief forged into purpose.
Of a man who did not ask to be saved — but chose what to become after.
From execution yard to armored bodyguard, Dokugakuji — The Name He Chose to Wear explores the cost of survival when survival demands you let your former self die.
In the Saiyuki world, loyalty is not given.
It is chosen.
