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[THE DAY OF HER DEATH]
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The key turned with a tired click. Pisces pushed the door open to his condo, greeted not by silence, but by low, erratic murmur of a television. The blue-grey light of the screen flickered against the walls of the dark living room.
A sigh, heavy with the weight of a long night, escaped from. "G6, you idiot,"he muttered under his breath, not with anger, but with a familiar, almost affectionate exasperation. "Left the TV on again."
He dropped his keys into the bowl by the door with a clatter that was swallowed by the room's gloom. His eyes adjusted, finding her form curled on the couch, a blanket tangled around her legs. The same always. A small, unconscious smile touched his lips. Who would have thought the most lethal person I know could look so… peaceful.
He moved on quiet feet, not wanting to wake the sensitive senses of her. The remote lay on the center table, and he reached for it, his gaze still on her. The flickering light played over her face, smoothing out the usual sharp, cynical edges. She looked younger. Normal.
"You know," he whispered into the silent, electronic-humming air, "you're actually beautiful when you're not threatening to dismember someone." The confession, spoken to her sleeping form, made his own heart give a funny, traitorous skip. He pointed the remote and the TV died, plunging the room into a deep, profound silence.
It was in the silence that the first cold trickle of dread began to seep into his veins.
Something was wrong.
The silence was too absolute. There was no sound of her breathing. Not a soft sigh or shift in her position.
The smile vanished from his face. "G6?" His voice was a little louder now, a question that hung in the dead air.
No response.
His heart, which had just fluttered with a secret affection, now began to hammer against his ribs with a primal, frantic rhythm. He closed the distance between them in two swift strides, his hand reaching out, not to shake her, but to gently brush her arm.
The touch was like ice.
"No." The word was a breath, a denial. He fumbled for her wrist, his fingers pressing desperately against the delicate skin, searching for a rhythm that wasn't there. He tried her neck, his touch firm under her jaw, his own pulse roaring in his ears, deafening him to the absence of hers.
Nothing. There was nothing. Just a cold, terrifying stillness.
"No, no, no, no—" The mantra of denial spilled from his lips as his training, buried under a mountain of panic, clawed its way to the surface. He grabbed the communication earpiece from his coat pocket, his hands shaking so badly he could barely get it in his ear.
"Operator activate! Pisces signing in!" he barked, his voice cracking with a hysterical edge he couldn't control.
"Operator Activated. Pisces signing in confirmed."
He dropped to his knees, hooking his hands under her shoulders and dragging her onto the floor. She was a dead weight. Limp. THe sight of her, so strong and invincible, now so utterly helpless on the cheap laminate, shattered something inside him,
He laced his fingers, placed his palms on her sternum, and began compressions. One, and two, and three…
"Emergency!" he yelled into the comms, the force of his pushes jolting into his own body. "Contact Gemcardia Hospital! Send a medical team to my location now. Now!"
He paused, tilting her head back, pinching her nose, and sealing his mouth over hears to breathe life back into her lungs. Her lips were cold. He gave two rescue breaths, his tears finally breaking free, tracing hot paths down his cold cheeks.
He checked for a pulse again. Still nothing. The void was swallowing him whole.
"Request accepted. Processing. Gemcardia responded. A medical team is en route to your location," the operator's calm, automated voice intoned in his ear, a grotesque parody of normality.
A sob wrenched itself from his chest. He resumed compressions, the rhythmic crack of her ribs under the force a sickening sound he knew was necessary but would haunt him forever.
"Akira," he pleaded, his voice breaking over her real name, a name he never dared use to her face. "Please… Come back to me. Don't you dare do this. Comeback"
Each compression was a deep plea. Each breath was a bargain with any god that might be listening. The world had narrowed to this dark room, the cold body beneath his hands, and the desperate, tear-choked sound of his voice begging the woman he secretly loved not to leave him.
"Stay with me, Akira. Just stay with me. Help is coming."
The sound of the front door splintering open was like a gunshot. Pisces didn't flinch, didn't look up. His entire being was focused on the woman beneath his hands. Heavy, rapid footsteps echoed through the small space.
"In here!" Pisces screamed, his voice raw. "Hurry!"
A team dressed in tactical medical gear burst into the living room, their movements efficient and synchronized. They carried advanced, compact kits that looked more suited for a battlefield triage center than a city hospital.
"What's the status?" the lead medic barked, dropping to his knees opposite Pisces, his hands already pulling out a defibrillator.
"No pulse! No respiration! I found her like this! Body temp is dropping fast!" Pisces rattled off, his professional jargon slicing through his personal terror as he finally stopped compressions to let them work.
The lead medic's eyes, sharp, and assessing, flicked from Pisces's tear-streaked face down to the patient.
And then he froze.
The entire team froze. The air, already thick with panic, now solidified into pure, unadulterated dread.
The lead medic's face, previously a mask of focused urgency, drained of all color. His hands, which had been moving with practiced precision, hovered in mid-air, trembling slightly. "Oh, god," he breathed, the words barely a whisper. "It's the Reaper."
The name hung in the air, a curse and a prayer all at once.
One of the other medics took an involuntary step back, his equipment bag slipping from his shoulder and thudding softly onto the carpet. "It's G6…"
To them, G6 wasn't just an assassin. She was a force of nature. A legend whispered in the darkest corners of their world. She was the one who could walk through a room of armed guards and leave them all sleeping, never knowing she was there. The one whose file was 90% redacted because the things she'd done were beyond clearance levels. Seeing her lifeless on the floor wasn't a medical emergency; it was an impossibility. It was like seeing a hurricane lie down and die.
The lead medic shook himself, the sheer professional terror in his eyes being forced down by a deeper, more ingrained terror of failing her. "Don't just stand there!" he snarled at his team, his voice cracking with a fear they all shared. "Move! Now! If we lose her…"
He didn't finish the sentence. The unspoken words echoed in the room: …none of us will ever sleep again. The people who sent us will make sure of it.
They surged into action, but now their efficiency was laced with a frantic, reverent horror. They worked with the care of someone handling live explosives, their touches gentle yet desperate. Electrode pads were placed on her chest with trembling hands.
"Clear!" the lead medic yelled.
G6's body arched off the ground as the defibrillator jolted her. The sight was violently wrong. The Reaper, impervious and untouchable, subjected to something so mundane, so mortal.
Pisces could only watch, his hands covered in the faint scent of her perfume and the metallic taste of his own tears. He saw the raw fear for her, and the catastrophic consequences of her loss. It was the most terrifying testament to her power he had ever seen.
"We've got a rhythm!" a medic called out, staring at the handheld monitor.
"Pulse is thready, but it's there!" another confirmed.
The lead medic didn't celebrate. His face was grim as they swiftly loaded her onto a gurney. "We're not out of the woods. We need to move. Now." He finally looked at Pisces, his expression a complex mix of pity and urgency. "You're coming with us."
As they rushed the gurney out of the shattered door and into the waiting, unmarked ambulance, Pisces grabbed his coast. His eyes never left her pale, still face.
The strongest person he had ever known was suddenly the most fragile thing in the world. And the world she had kept at bay with her mere existence was about to get very, very dark.
_____
[Gemcardia Hospital]
The sterile, bright light of Gemcardia ICU bay was a brutal contrast to the dim warmth of the condos. Here, there was no hiding. G6, the legendary Reaper, was laid bare on the gurney, pale and terrifyingly still under the clinical glare. The only sounds were the tense, clipped jargon of the medical team and the frantic, irregular whine of the heart monitor.
"Blood work confirms it! Severe respiratory acidosis. Toxicity from a powerful opioid. It suppressed her brain's drive to breathe. Her heart stopped from hypoxia," a nurse announced.
A cold fury mixed with Pisces's despair. The morphine vial from her Milan injury… next to her vitamins. She grabbed the wrong one. She was so distracted… The simplicity of the mistake was what made it so agonizing.
"Pushing naloxone! Max dose! Bag her! Let's go!" commanded by Dr. Vance, the lead medic. He worked with a desperate, fearful energy, forcing oxygen into her lungs with a respirator bag while a nurse pumped the antidote into her IV.
Pisces watched, his heart hammering a frantic counter-rhythm to the slow, mechanical beep of the flattering monitor. Each passing second was a lifetime.
This was it. The unthinkable. The unstoppable force, taken out not by a rival's bullet, but by a tragic, stupid mistake. The Reaper, felled by a moment of fatal confusion.
Minutes stretched. They pushed more naloxone. They cycled through CPR. They used the defibrillator to shock a heart that had no electrical activity of its own to sustain a rhythm.
But the flatline tone never changed. It was a relentless, absolute sound. The sound of nothing.
Dr. Vance's shoulders, once tense with effort, now slumped with a profound and final weight. He held up a hand, a gesture of ultimate defeat. The team slowed, their movements halting. One by one, they stepped back from the table.
The room fell into profound, devastating silence, broken only by that single, relentless, flat tone.
Dr. Vance looked at the clock, then at the still, lifeless form on the gurney. He slowly pulled off his gloves.
"Time of death," his voice was hollow, stripped of all its prior urgency, "5:47 a.m"
The words hit Pisces like a physical blow. He staggered back a step, the air punched from his lungs. No. No. This isn't happening. He stared at her face, expecting her to open her eyes and smirk at the elaborate joke. But her expression remained peaceful, empty. The soul that had burned so fiercely behind her eyes was simply… gone.
The lead medic, Dr. Vance looked like he had aged ten years. He took a deep, shuddering breath, steeling himself not for delivering news, but for confirming a catastrophe. He pushed through the double doors into the private waiting area.
And froze.
The small, austere room was not empty. It was packed.
Leaning against the far wall, her arms crossed and her eyes red-rimmed but sharp, was G6's mother—a former operative known only as "Jade." Next to her stood G6's brother, his expression a storm of anger and gut-wrenching grief.
But it was the man in the center who commanded the room.
He was an Old Man, impeccably dressed in a tailored suit, his hands clasped calmly on the head of the cane. He did not fidget. He did not speak. He simply stood, a monument of stillness and absolute authority. This was Mr. Gem. The founder of Gemstones-Arcadia Org. In his prime, known as "G5" and the father of G6.
Every powerful, dangerous person in the room was subtly oriented toward him, waiting.
Vance felt the eyes of the entire organization upon him. He cleared his throat, his voice raspy.
"Mr. Gem," he began, addressing the only person that mattered. "We did everything we could. We pushed enough naloxone to reverse and overdose ten times over. There was no response."
He swallowed, the next words ash in his mouth.
"Time of death was 05:47 a.m. The cause was accidental toxicity. She grabbed the wrong vial, mistook it for vitamins. It was… a tragic mistake."
Mr. Gem absorbed this. His gaze, ancient and knowing, seemed to look right through the doctor. He gave a single, slow, final nod. The case was closed. There would be no investigation. The great and terrible Akira, codename G6, was simply… gone.
Then his eyes shifted past Vance, landing on Pisces, who stood shattered in the doorway, his face a mask of utter loss.
"Pisces," Mr. Gem said, his tone leaving no room for question but now laced with that might, in another man, have been mistaken for pity. "You will handle her effects. Secure what she left. You will write the initial report."
It wasn't an order to mourn. It was an order to clean up the aftermath. To tie up the loose ends of a legend.
With that, Mr. Gem turned and walked away, his retinue of terrifyingly important people parting for him without a word. The crisis was over. The Reaper was gone.
And the intricate, shadowy world of Gemcardia (Gemstone-Arcadia) was now a much darker, and far less certain place.
The silence left my Mr. Gem's exit was heavier than the flatline's drone. It was in this void that the personal tragedy began to unfold.
Jade, G6's mother didn't collapse. She didn't scream. She simply pushed herself off the wall she'd been leaning against. Her movements were economical, precise, the ghost of her own operational training still visible in every motion. She walked toward the window, her back to the room, and stared out at the city beginning to glow with dawn her daughter would never see.
"A wrong vial," she stated, her voice not much more than a whisper, yet cut it through the room. "All those years. All the bullets, knives, the poisons… outsmarted by a glass bottle." she gave a short, sharp shake of head. A sound that was supposed to be a laugh came out as a broken airless thing. "She was always in such a hurry."
Her brother, storm on his face hardening into permafrost, let out a low, bitter breath. He looked at Pisces, his eyes glistening with unshed tears he would never allow to fall. "Of course it was. She never could just… rest. Had to be moving, working, and drinking. Even her relaxation had to be efficient." he slammed his fist softly against his thigh, a contained explosion of grief. "Stupid Akira. So brilliantly stupid."
It was the closest they would ever come to a eulogy. There were no heartfelt reminiscences, no sharing of fond memories. Their grief was an internal, pressurized thing, expressed only in critiques of the method—a language they all understood far better than tears.
Jade finally turned from the window. Her eyes were dry, scanning the room. Looking at nothing and everything, already assessing the strategic vacuum left behind.
"The Sixth Reaper is gone," she said, her voice now devoid of any emotion at all. It was a simple, clinical pronouncement. "The organization's strongest weapon has retired."
With that, she smoothed down her jacket, a final, pointless act of order in the face of chaos, and walked out without another glance. Her brother gave a last, lost look towards the ICU doors, then followed his footsteps echoing his mother's finality.
Pisces was left alone in the silent, sterile room. The machine in the bay beyond had been turned off. The quiet was deafening.
He looked down at his own hands, still faintly smelling of her and his own tears. The truth of Jade's words settled over him, as cold and final as the sheet he knew would now be covering his senior, his friend, the woman he secretly loved.
The Sixth Gem was gone. Not with a bang, but with a tragic, quiet whisper. And the world, though it would never know it, had just become a much less terrifying, and infinitely darker, place.