Elektra
The Sages assigned us rooms, though they knew we were all going to be out and about. Leo and Sarah are going to the Minato Mirai in Yokohama; Kya suddenly decided to "spend some time away" at the village closest to the dojo; I'm meeting with the Reaper at the Tokyo Tower.
We got to pick our rooms, but considering all the doors here look the same, they were marked. We all got a colored ribbon pinned to the top of our doorway. Mine was seafoam; Ren's was gold; Kya's was silver; Sarah's was purple; Leo's was brown, which he claimed wasn't "spicy" enough to represent him, so they gave him a white banner to paint his own design – five freaking chili cheese dogs.
Before I knew it, midnight was an hour away. I snatched one of the Dragon medallions and marched down the quartz steps. Just behind me are the other three. Leo and Sarah bubble over with excitement and happiness. If it was possible, I'm sure sparkles would trail in their wake, rainbows would arch over their heads, and a giant heart would frame the two whenever they're together. Typically, I'd group Kya in with them, but she's been on-edge lately; darker, sadder, heavier.
We may just get along, after all.
"So, Elektra, why do you wanna go to Tokyo?" Leo quips, jogging to catch up to me. He's dressed in more modern clothes; straight jeans and a collared shirt. But beneath the shirt, I make out two impressions of straps running up his body.
I swear to God, this kid... I reach out and grab the straps, pulling them back taught and releasing them. The sound of suspender straps against skin is loud and rather pleasing. "Why the hell are you wearing suspenders under your shirt, twiggy?"
Leo cringes and rubs himself where he's most sore. Pouting, he crosses his arms over his skinny chest and grumbles, "It's my comfort item."
And all this time I thought Sarah was his comfort item. Anyways, as much as I'd love to (not) stay and chat, I shrug and turn back around. Soon enough, Kya departs for the old village to our right and the rest of us reach a city. Leo and Sarah hail a cab first, flashing their medallion with eager smiles.
Sticking my hand in the air as another taxi rolls by, I wait for it to pull over. Despite the driver making eye contact with me, the man continues to pull away. Gritting my teeth, I lower my hand and aim my palm at the vehicle, ordering the engine to respond as if the brakes are being applied. I feel as its parts slow down, listening to me rather than the rude man taking the wheel. The horrified face he wears pleases me.
Finally, the car stops and I slide in the passenger seat, flashing my medallion to the rattled man. "Tokyo Tower," I bluntly state, ignoring the flaccid jaw of the driver. Flashing him a glare, I add, "And you better step on it."
Admiring scenery and all the pretty things in the world was never my thing. The blurring lights nearly give me headaches, the masses of people promise difficulty in efficient travel, and the architecture of different cultures was never special to me. In my mind, if there was a place I needed to go, I got there as fast as possible; no detours, no dragging my feet, no lollygagging. They say the journey is as important as the destination, but whoever "they" are needs to open their eyes and get a slap in the face from reality. The world doesn't pause and wait for us to smell the roses when people like Asylum and the Reaper are chasing us halfway across the world; especially not when they've been instructed to kill me on sight.
An hour later, it's 11:50 PM the vehicle has parked in front of the head-craning Tokyo Tower. Without a word to my insolent driver, I exit the cab and survey the area. People give me estranged looks, pointing to my lightning markings and strands of blue hair. Ignoring the looks I've gotten since birth, I scan the immense tower. My eyes are drawn to the very top, where I can barely make out a lone silhouette leaning against a railing. Despite the lack of details I can make out, I'm certain it's the Reaper.
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.
"When you shot me with lightning and I remained unharmed – as bullets and bolts and punches left me untouched, why were you unsurprised? Why did you simply watch me?" There's a quiet moment as I contemplate if this is the real question she wanted to ask. If something so trivial as the lack of shock has followed her through the years. If something so dumb has become a plague. "I am immortal and you looked at me like I was nothing."
I stare at her. I've seen a lot of strange and inexplicable things in my past that are too baffling to explain. But this by far is the craziest. How can someone so powerful and untouchable slowly decay over time because of my face? How can something so stupid as a lackluster expression hurt someone so invincible?
Gritting her teeth, she hisses, "Will you not speak?" Her hands come off from the railing and she clenches them at her sides so hard that her nails draw blood. It's not the dark of night that makes her blood look black – it's her genetics. She bleeds black; the color of the crows that follow death; the color loved ones wear as they surround a coffin. The Reaper's eyes widen and her pupils constrict. "Are you too good to respond to me, too? Is that it?"
Unstable. The Reaper is unstable. She has changed in the past two years I've known her. She has gone crazy. Whether it was an accident from dwelling on that fateful day, or on purpose to give her strength and an extra edge of ruthlessness, I don't know. And not knowing worries me. "I wanted to discuss a possible alliance." I ignore her questions. Something like that is a waste of my breath. "Together, I think we're more than unstoppable. We could take over far more than Japan." I dig my hand into my pocket and finger Ren's medallion. "We could rule the world."
"I don't care about the world," she spits, taking a step towards me. "In my world, I'll have you at your knees, looking terrified before I claw your eyes out. In my world, you won't hinder others with your ostentatious, self-righteous glaze. In my world, you beg me for mercy."
She's long gone by now; too far down the road of vengeance and twisted desire to hear reason. She really does hold her mission as priority. Her mission, not the agency's. The mission to draw tears in my eyes and make me fear her. The Reaper controls death and has always been the source of nightmares amongst children and adults alike. For someone to give her hardly anything other than a cursory glance is devastating to her. Not only has her drive to torture me grown, but her ego has grown with it. In her mind, if she doesn't hold the treacherous attentions of the monsters under our beds, then she doesn't exist at all. The source of her power is death, after all.
"If you wanted someone to beg for their life, you could've arrested one of the stray dogs back in Russia," I tell her, mentally retracting my olive branch. "Considering it meant nothing to me that you were immortal for a minute, the reason for my disinterest is a bit cloudy. However, I imagine I didn't care because when I look at you, I see you for what you really are."
Maniacally, she barks out a bizarre laugh. "You know nothing of me."
"Beneath your layers of being a psychopathically sore loser, you're just a girl; not much older than I am, probably had her heart broken, possibly a disgrace to her family in one way or another. Deep down, you have the same wants and needs as others," I tell her. "To be loved and accepted. To have control of your own life but somehow manage to live carefree."
"Do these standards apply to you as well?" she asks, voice teetering on the edge of either going out of control or caving into the truth.
"Of course," I contemptuously remark. "But some of us know our places in the world and know how to put these frivolous wants aside; how to separate them from impossible fantasy and reality. You, Reaper..." She looks up to me with...what? Hope? Fear? Provocation? "You know nothing of where you belong."
She gasps, shocked that I dared to say such a thing. I'm honestly surprised she's shocked. "And you know where you belong?"
"Of course," I retort. "I belong in hell." I turn on my heels, ready to depart. This turned into a massive waste of time. I could have gotten a nap before Ren's celebration, or plotted the takeover of Japan.
"You can try to act nonchalant, Elektra. But deep down, I feel your inside churning." The strength has returned to her steely voice, making me curious as to what she has to say next. I pause my walk just outside the doors. "You can tell yourself you belong in hell all you want, but deep down, I can feel the devouring hunger in you. You don't know where you belong because you've been an outcast all your life; an unknown in the record books. If you were to die right now, who would know you ever lived? Who would miss you?"
I linger on the tower, pondering over the Reaper's words. My mother and father dropped me off on the doorstep of an orphanage, I killed the man who took me in, my gangs have been murdered, and I've gone all my life without the useless concept of friends. Nobody would remember me, but even if someone was at my side since I could remember, would that be any better? Would I rather remain nonexistent or be known for all that I've done?
I've run away from my orphanage, joined a gun-running gang, killed hundreds of men and women, murdered the closest thing I had to a father figure, was captured and tortured by the Reaper's agency, caged in Asylum, and am hiding in an obscure dojo. What kind of life story is that? Who would be proud to be familiar with me? Who would want to accept someone like that? The only marks I've ever left on the world were power-hungry invasions, bloodthirsty vengeance, and selfish advancements. Perhaps it's better that the world not know of me this way.
Once I establish status in this world – followers, an empire, a growing society – then I will be known by all, and the world will either love me or fear me. I know that if a supernatural freak like me wants to be accepted by people other than the chumps I came here with, I need to make them accept me.
I look back at the Reaper, her cruel smile inspiring a chill down my spine. For her, acceptance translates to fear. For me, acceptance relates to power. I wonder if I'll become as crazy as the Reaper has gone. If my judgement will become so clouded with anxiety and imperfection that I won't be able to step back and look at the big picture.
Finally, I put together an answer for the Reaper. "If I were to die right now, I think it would be okay. But if anybody would miss me..." I snort, seeing her face construe into confusion at my laughter. "If anybody missed me now, then I've been doing something wrong." Friends are weights, to put it lightly. When I'm on top, I don't need those types of ties – only loyal followers.
But even as I tell myself this, I can't help but feel a twinge of misguidance; like I'm lying to myself or trying to fool someone. Disregarding the feelings, I sense something change around me.
The tension in the air shifts from uncertainty to danger, making my hairs stand on end. Turning around, I see the Reaper's milked-coffee skin-tone begin to convert into swirling shadows and ominous shades. She's activating her immortality. As one of her hands reach to her side, I turn my palms to the skies, conjuring storm clouds full of dark rain and inevitable lightning.
"Before you reach for that knife," I warn. "Look up and remember who you're up against. What I can do. You'll be better off on the ground." I smirk. "Under my shoes." Evilly, she scowls, curling her lips downwards. Turning back as her immortality recedes, I wave. "Be seeing you." As I enter the elevator and press the floor button, I sigh. "Sheesh. Such wasted potential."