Well, I'm glad that flashback is over. I had a hard time getting into the whole "One" thing because it seems they threw him into the story with no foreshadowing, like the author ran out of ideas or needed a filler arc.
I also thing it's implausible that we've never heard a single mention of this person before despite all the camp flashbacks we've seen so far.
It makes a little more sense now that this chapter made it clear that One was from before Ijin's time, but still. Anyway, thanks for the chapter and lets hope this arc picks up now that we're back in the present.
Yes. I always thought the series could have ended when they killed Mad Dog. But they extended it nicely and even added more subplots, which felt like it strayed from the basic scope of the series (a young man who was adopted by a group of mercenaries returns to normal life and faces some sons of ****, or rather, corrupt politicians – which is worse than that).
Then he discovers that Ijin had more connections with other mercenary groups, helped a mercenary village, recruited underworld figures, these underworld guys were linked to corrupt officials, the honest policeman tries to investigate and gets beaten up, the underworld guy who "became nicer" gets beaten up too (not without beating up about 100 others...).
Maybe the "One" arc was already part of some initial idea for the series, but it wouldn't have fit at the beginning anyway – because given that he's kind of a "nemesis," One, as he is, will go after Ijin's family (I wouldn't be surprised if the script ends up like that).