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A chained-rose tattoo and a Book
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Akira Gemstone, five years old.
For other children, the park was a cathedral of laughter. A place of swings that touched the sky, of dizzying merry-go-rounds, of scraped knees earned in pursuit of adventure.
For Akira Gemstone, it was a classroom.
She sat rigidly on a bench, her small hands folded in her lap, not a hair out of place. Her father's large, immovable presence beside her was a cage more effective than any bars.
"Look at them, Akira," her father's voice was a low, gravelly hum, devoid of the warmth other fathers had. He didn't point at the playing children; his gaze was enough, a command that forced her eyes to track them. "See how they run. How they dream. How they believe the world is a place for their… ambitions."
Akira watched. She saw a little girl with pigtails shrieking with joy as she was pushed on a swing. She felt nothing but a hollow, confusing ache.
"You are not like them," he stated, a final, cold verdict. "You were not born to dream. You were not born to enjoy. You were born to cleanse."
A tiny furrow appeared on her brow. "Cleanse?"
"This world is rotting, Akira. It is filled with trash that masquerades as people. Criminals. Corruptors. Liars. Their sickness spreads, poisoning the peace of others." He finally looked down at her, his eyes like chips of flint. "Our purpose—your purpose—is to take out the trash. You will carry the burden of their sins so that others," he gestured vaguely at the laughing children, "can live in ignorant peace."
The weight of his words settled on her five-year-old soul, a mantle far too heavy for her small shoulders. She was to be a sinner so others could stay innocent.
"You are like a rose, Akira," he continued, his tone softening into something that was almost, but not quite, tenderness. It was the pride of a craftsman for his finest, sharpest tool. "Beautiful. A perfect distraction. But remember—your beauty is a weapon. And like a rose, you are covered in thorns. Anyone foolish enough to reach for you, to truly touch you, will bleed. You must make sure they bleed to death before they ever realize they've been cut."
The lesson did not end in the park.
It continued in the sterile, soundproofed room beneath their home, where the only toys were dummy guns and blunted knives. It was carved into her with the sting of a practice blade against her ribs for a failed block. It was drilled into her on the firing range, where her small hands learned to steady a weapon too heavy for her, her father's voice a constant, cold correction in her ear.
"Emotion is a flaw. Fix it."
"Compassion is a malfunction. Erase it."
"You are not a child. You are a tool. Act like one."
The hollow ache in her chest never left. It was just slowly, methodically, filled with concrete. Year after year. Lesson after lesson. Until the little girl on the bench was buried so deep, even Akira herself could no longer find her.
Akira "G6" Gemstone, Eighteen years old.
The room smelled of antiseptic and blood. Not the client's. Hers.
The tattoo gun buzzed, a sound as familiar as her own heartbeat. The artist wasn't some counter-culture rebel in a street parlor. He was a man like her father—a retired "cleaner" with steady hands and a sealed mouth. His canvas was the skin of killers.
Akira, now G6—the sixth Reaper of the Gemstone line—didn't flinch as the needle bit into the delicate skin behind her right ear. She had endured far worse.
The design was her own. A single, perfect rose, its petals exquisitely detailed. But it was wrapped tightly, almost desperately, by a chain of black links. And from the chain, sharp, vicious thorns erupted.
Each prick of the needle was a mantra.
Love is subjective. (Prick.)
It is a vulnerability.(Prick.)
Study it. Wield it. Never feel it. (Prick.)
Her father's lessons were being etched into her flesh. The rose was her assigned identity: the beautiful, deadly weapon. The thorns were her promised defense: a warning to keep the world at bay.
But the chain… the chain was the most important part.
It was not a decoration. It was a shackle. A permanent, painful reminder of the truth her father had taught her in that sun-drenched park a lifetime ago.
She was neither a hero nor a villain. She was a necessity. A paradox. A beautiful monster chained to a brutal purpose. Her justice was dark, ruthless, and absolute. It was the only thing she was ever born to know.
The artist wiped away a bead of blood. The tattoo was complete. The Reaper was officially marked.
G6 met her own gaze in the mirror. Her grey eyes were empty. Calm. The hollow ache from the park was gone, filled with a cold, purpose-driven cement.
She felt nothing. And that was the point.
The chain was there to remind her that she was never meant to feel anything at all.
"G6", twenty-one years old. 2 months before her death
[Cairo, Egypt.]
The desert heat was retreating, leaving behind a cool, dusty evening. The scent of spices, exhaust, and the Nile hung thick in the air.
"Mission complete. Let's get a drink," Pisces said, stretching as they navigated the chaotic, neon-drenched streets. "I need to wash the sand out of my throat."
G6 grunted in agreement, her eyes automatically scanning rooftops and alleys, her body thrumming with the leftover adrenaline of a clean extraction.
It was then that she saw it. Tucked between a noisy fabric shop and a closed-up stall was a doorway, almost invisible. A single, flickering lantern illuminated a sign so faded it was almost illegible: Antiquities & Oddities.
Something about the deep, silent darkness within pulled at her.
"In here," she said, veering off course.
"What? G6, it looks like a tomb in there," Pisces complained, but followed her inside.
The inside was a claustrophobic maze of history and dust. Shelves bowed under the weight of scarab beetles, half-unrolled papyri, and tarnished silver. The air smelled of old paper, cedarwood, and neglect.
G6's fingers trailed over objects without seeing them, pulled by an instinct she couldn't name. Then her hand stopped.
On a lower shelf, tucked away as if hidden, was a book. Its leather binding was cracked and dry, but the title, stamped in flaking gold leaf, was unmistakable:
The Wonder of a Wonderful World.
A snort of derision escaped her. She picked it up, its weight surprising in her hand. She didn't start at the beginning; she was never one for stories. She flipped directly to the end.
Her eyebrows rose. Then, a low, incredulous laugh echoed in the quiet shop.
"Pisces. Listen to this," she said, her voice laced with mocking amusement. "The so-called 'wonderful world' ends with the villainess giving a dramatic speech and jumping off a balcony for some prince named Dio. What kind of pathetic ending is that? It's not even finished. It just… stops."
"Well, you liked that kind of story after all." Pisces responded, "oh look at those, cool." he said then walked towards the different ancient looking jewelries
Shaking her head at the absurd tragedy of it all, she carried the book to the front where an ancient woman sat knitting behind a cluttered counter.
"This one," G6 said, placing it down.
The old woman looked up, her eyes milky with cataracts. She reached for the book, her gnarled fingers brushing the cover. Then she froze. She pulled it closer, squinting, her breath catching in her throat.
"This… this book…" she whispered, her voice like the rustling of dry leaves. "I have not seen this for fifty years."
G6 glanced at the book "It was just on the shelf," she said.
"It was stolen," the woman insisted, her wide eyes fixed on the cover as if seeing a ghost. "The day after it was sold to me, it vanished from this very shop. I thought I had dreamed it."
She looked up at G6, her expression a mixture of awe and fear. "A man sold it to me. He was in his forties, I think. He said it was valuable, that it was… special. I was only sixteen."
Her knobby finger traced the author's name on the spine. "Witherby. He said his name was Witherby. The man who sold it… and the man who wrote it. They are surely dead by now."
She pushed the book back toward G6 as if it had burned her. "It is not stolen. It has returned. It came back for a reason. You should take it. It is yours now."
A strange silence fell over the shop. The air grew heavy, the dust motes seeming to hang still in the lamplight.
G6 looked down at the book. The laughter was gone, replaced by a cold, inexplicable prickle on the back of her neck. The unfinished story of a tragic villainess. A book that vanished and reappeared a lifetime later. A dead author.
It was the most illogical, ridiculous thing she had ever encountered.
"Hey, so what's happening?" Pisces said approaching them.
Without another word, she placed a few bills on the counter, took the book, and walked out into the Cairo night.
She didn't know why she bought it. Perhaps as a trophy to her own superior sense of irony. Perhaps as a reminder of the kind of weakness she was trained to despise.
She never could have known she was not buying a story.
She was buying her own future.