Asylum

Wasted Potential

Usually, you have to pay for entrance in the tower, let alone the exclusive upper deck. But as long as you're Ren or you have his token, anything and everything is free. As I ride the elevator up, I stare at the dragon symbol, imagining my own imprint on here instead of his. What would my symbol be? Leo's coined "Zeus," a lightning bolt, my own portrait? The idea alone gives me a surge of drive to be something more than an Asylum stowaway hiding from the bad guys, which only proves that the plan of talking to the Reaper was a good one.

Swiftly and soundlessly, the elevator doors open. The inside of the tower is dark, only barely illuminated by the lights posted outside. The entire level is empty, and I wonder if the Reaper killed everyone here or if she paid them to go away. Either way, this place is desolate, which means killing me wouldn't cause a scene, if that's her plan. Keeping my guard up, I saunter across the floor and through the push doors, where a lone figure turns their head my way.

Her eyes are darker than I remember. Onyx irises fringed by long lashes hanging over dark bags. Her skin, an olive complexion years ago, seems to have lost a bit of its color and taken on an almost-sickly pallor. She's gotten more muscular, too, as if she was so close to failing at one point and wanted to make sure she was strong enough to never fail again. What surprises me out of all of this, however, is the death-grip she houses on the observation railings; a white-knuckled, sweaty-palmed, nail-digging hold. Is she nervous? Excited? Eager to get on with the show?

For a whole minute, we stand in stifling silence, sizing each other up, wondering what the other is thinking. I figure she's seeing what I'm seeing: calculative eyes hazing with caution and indecipherable omens; someone who is far from an acquaintance but even farther away from sane; someone we can almost relate to. Almost.

"Speak, Flash of Death," the Reaper summons, maintaining her gaze but shifting her body towards me. "Why have you brought me here at this hour?"

I doubt the hours hardly matter to her. The lightness of her lids and the dark circles beneath her eyes have told me so. She just wants this conversation to be as normal as possible. Rather than ask, "Why is my supernatural enemy calling me to the Tokyo Tower?" She asks, "Why is my supernatural enemy calling me to the Tokyo Tower at this time?" My, she must feel oh-so-inconvenienced.

"I want to see where your head is at, Reaper," I shallowly explain.

"Attached to the neck between my shoulders," she retorts, voice venomous and sharp, much like her impressionable glower. "What do you want? A fight?"

"That's only good for the short run," I dismiss, waving my hand in the air. "It would feel good in the moment, but I have bigger ideas in mind, and you're in them."

She scoffs. "If I knew you dreamt of me, perhaps I would be talking to you over a romantic dinner, Flash of Death. Stop wasting my time. You know what my mission is: to kill you and put your friends where they belong."

"Kill on sight," I remind her. "So why haven't you done so already, if your mission is priority? You have two eyes, don't you? Are you not seeing me?"

"Before I slaughter you, I've something I want to ask," she requests, finally prying her eyes away from mine. She surveys the city, eyes sliding between the buildings and into alleyways. "Two years ago on a midday in Russia, when we first encountered – "

"Don't explain the day I was hunted by a new murderer," I snap, despising her for resurfacing a memory that changed my life as if I forgot. The audacity. "Ask your question."

Calmly, she looks to me. Her eyes are as readable as bricks, but from previous experience with poker-faced mob bosses, I can see through the hardy exterior, and what I see disturbs me. Unanswered questions swim in her eyes. Questions that have been turned over so many times that they've become nightmarish whispers that fuel the Reaper's rage; like blisters so tortured they turn into multi-layered callouses. If she suspects I hold the answers to these questions, then there's no doubt in my mind that I'm part of the reason the Reaper has so viciously hunted us down.