The Weight of a Ghost

  In front of me, I once again had the luxurious restaurant—the same one where all this madness had started earlier tonight. Through the windows, I could see the majesty of Tokyo, its bright and joyful lights slowly turning as if just for my own private show. I could practically feel the freedom and safety that existed just a few meters away from here. And yet all of it was far from me, trapped here in this glass cage, cornered with people who wanted me dead by any means necessary.

  In front of me stood another agent dressed in black, his weapon raised toward me without hesitation. To my side, I could see the two remaining terrorists I still hadn’t killed, crouched behind a table, just as shocked by the sudden turn of events as I was.

  He lunged at me without hesitation. Despite having a gun, he wanted it up close and personal—I could feel it in the way he attacked with everything he had. His movement was a blur, so fast my brain barely registered it. But my instincts, sharpened by the chaos I had survived that night, were faster. I threw myself to the side, and his fist only stopped when it collided with the wall, shattering the concrete and bending the metal frame of the elevator door, leaving a twisted crater.

  “Shit!” I said after seeing the damage from the strike, I had barely managed to evade.

  Yuri saw the moment. He gripped his weapon tightly and, together with one of his men hiding behind the bar counter, decided to take their chance. With desperate shouts, they opened fire on the two figures—a blind, frantic barrage that made no distinction between any of us.

  It was a fatal mistake.

  The agent didn’t even flinch. With a fluid motion he raised his free hand, taking all the time in the world to aim with the weapon he held. The men behind the counter weren’t going down easily, so they kept shooting at the agent—only to watch the sparks fly as their bullets bounced off him effortlessly. The executioner simply took his time with complete impunity and fired a single shot. A yellow flash, the burst of muzzle fire… then a red smear became the kitchen wall’s new decoration. That had been a person just a second before; now only two legs remained, no torso connecting them anymore.

  The one still standing, terrified by his partner’s death and his own imminent end, charged one last time with a scream. With no ammunition left, he held his weapon like a bat, swinging in a desperate attempt to tempt fate—one final act of rebellion against the future he already saw coming. He rushed at me with everything he had, but far from being an elegant or calculated attack, it was pure despair. I simply dodged him, kicked his leg to make him stumble, grabbed his head against a table, and kicked his neck with such force that it came apart in a horrid, muffled crack—an utterly merciless death for a terrorist who had come with a mindset of power, convinced the world belonged to him because he had weapons.

  The restaurant fell into a heavy silence, broken only by the whine of wind through the shattered windows and the distant hum of the city and patrol cars. The two terrorists lay on the floor—one dead, one incapacitated. And in the middle of it all, the strange man in black slowly turned toward me, completely ignoring the bodies at his feet.

  He removed his helmet with a soft hiss. Beneath it was a Japanese face—sharp features and eyes burning with a coldness that had nothing to do with the night. He looked at me not just as an enemy, but as a piece of a puzzle that had finally clicked into place in his mind.

  “Elise, at last,” he said, and his voice was softer than he expected, heavy with an ancient bitterness.

  “????”

  “!!!!!”

  “Oh, this is certainly unexpected. I really didn’t imagine something like this could happen.”

  “I can’t believe you managed to survive after what happened last time. I thought you’d be dead under some bridge, hidden in the trash.”

  “It’s good to see you again. I still owe you for stabbing me that day.”

  “I’m not the same as before. I’ve changed.”

  “I’ve prepared myself, I’ve improved. All the sacrifices I’ve made were for this—finally fighting you face-to-face.”

  “Like I should have done from the beginning.”

  "Oh? Well, looks like the kid finally grew some balls."

  But are you really capable of standing by what you’re saying? Or are you still just a child pretending to be an adult?”

  "I've known many kids who never reached eighteen because they tried to play at being dangerous men.

  Usually, they pretend to be drug dealers and end up dead in some shitty gang shootouts.

  "But your team looks like they’ve got money. Are you working for the government now?"

  “I did what had to be done.”

  “To kill a monster, you need the strength of one.”

  “I won’t stop until I’ve avenged Fujikawa’s death.”

  “I’ll be the curse of your existence for the mistake you made at the Ueno Dam!”

  “You were the one who killed her!”

  “You turned her into just another casualty in your shitty mission!”

  “You killed her! And I’m going to make you pay for it!”

  “I’ve waited so long for this moment!”

  “For Fujikawa?”

  "All of this is for her?"

  "What an idiot—I was there trying to save you all."

  "That day I rescued thirty-eight people. I killed more than ten terrorists. One single mistake."

  "Fujikawa ran straight into the line of fire—she stepped right into the crossfire instead of going behind like everyone else who made it out alive."

  "If you came here just to complain about the job I did, well, you could have been the one to save her instead."

  "Why didn’t you go and rescue your girlfriend?"

  "I’ll tell you why: because you didn’t have the balls to act, to do what needed to be done."

  "When you had the chance to take her hand and go together out of that tunnel, toward safety, you acted like just another sheep—following the herd, never stepping out of your path to look for her."

  "Maybe you didn’t even realize she died until days later, when her funeral took place."

  "Let me tell you something, stupid kid: doing nothing is also a choice—with consequences. You are not innocent."

  "….."

  "And now you come to me crying, projecting onto me the guilt you feel for being the one who failed Fujikawa."

  "Right now you talk all brave."

  "That’s because you finally have the power to back it up."

  "I gained power so I could be the brave one this time—"

  "So I could finally bring justice for your actions."

  "If you need power to be brave, then you’re nothing but a coward and a hypocrite."

  "Being brave means having balls—anyone can act brave in a fight they know they’ll win with ease, with a guaranteed victory."

  "Try having the balls when your death is guaranteed instead—see if you’re capable of acting even when you know for certain that you’ll fail."

  "Being brave is about being consistent with your principles and your actions, staying faithful to them even when it’s easier to abandon them, something you clearly lack."

  Silence took over the room right after. We just stared at each other, both of us fully aware that those words weren’t going to change the other’s stance. It was only a matter of time before we ended up fighting again. We were merely catching our breath before continuing with the inevitable. Meanwhile, the background of the restaurant kept rotating, displaying the best of Tokyo over and over, completely oblivious to our conversation and battle.

  Keisuke didn’t wait for anything else to happen. With a roar made of pure, accumulated rage, he lunged at me. It was no longer the clumsy charge of an enraged man, but the calculated strike of a predator who had studied its prey.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  I dodged his first blow, feeling the sharp wind cut past me as his fist grazed the air. The second strike—a low sweep meant to shatter my knee—forced me to retreat. I couldn’t allow even a single hit that could destroy my body; I would rather give up ground than let him touch me. As soon as the blow passed, it was my turn to counterattack: I twisted my right arm to deflect him and swung my left with all the force I had, aiming to dislocate his elbow and disable him. Instead, a painful shock echoed through my hand—his armor had absorbed the full impact. I watched a pair of mechanical pieces shift as a deadly blade deployed, the same kind that other black-ops agents had used before. I immediately released him and backed away.

  He attacked with pure speed and the brute strength of his transformation. Every time my hits connected, they barely scratched his armor. Every time his fist passed near me, I could see how close the blade came to slicing me apart without any effort.

  His next charge wasn’t aimed at me but at what remained of the bar’s luxurious counter. His fist, loaded with kinetic energy, slammed into the mangled remnants of a stainless-steel blender and the half-destroyed electrical panel behind it. A burst of blue-white sparks exploded like fireworks, followed by a severed live wire snapping loose and writhing like an angry serpent, spitting electricity nonstop.

  I tried to back away, but the leg of a broken table caught my foot. My right arm hooked itself onto the live cable on the floor before I could stop it.

  Electricity surged through my slime arm, the water that made it up becoming a perfect conductor. I felt an uncontrollable vibration—boiling from the inside out, a violent expansion within my body.

  *BAM!*

  It wasn’t the sound of flesh tearing, but the wet, explosive pop of a giant water balloon. My right arm simply… burst. Droplets of water, slime splattered across the room, leaving behind a smoking, throbbing stump on my shoulder. The pain was blinding—an unfamiliar, horrible sensation of massive, violent loss of the water that formed my body.

  The pain was overwhelming, unlike any strike I had ever received. It was an instant amputation. I gasped, staggering back as I stared at the smoking stump where a second earlier my arm had been. I immediately began regenerating it as fast as I could, but I could feel the energy cost draining through my entire body.

  !Water…” Keisuke murmured, and an almost imperceptible smile —filled with sadistic triumph— curved on his lips.

  “Of course. That explains how you survived last time.”

  Without wasting a second, his fingers flew across a wrist device on his arm. A low-frequency hum emanated from his suit, and small arcs of blue electrical discharge began to dance around his knuckles, crackling with malice, sparking with a threatening buzz. His suit wasn’t just absorbing energy; it was channeling it, turning his fists into high-voltage electrified batons.

  “If electricity is your enemy, then let’s use it,” he said, and his next charge was different. He no longer tried to crush me — he wanted to touch me. Every strike, every block, came loaded with that electrical energy. Even a brush of his fists made my slime body convulse violently, thrown into uncontrollable spasms. My body began to fail, to desynchronize. Every contact was torture, a momentary paralysis that opened a new breach in my defense.

  “We’re going to fry you until there’s nothing left,” he said, his voice now an electronic rasp.

  I couldn’t keep going like this. It was only a matter of time before a direct hit cooked me from the inside or blew another piece of my body apart.

  If water is the problem, then I need to stop being water.

  The transition was not graceful. It never is. I liked being a slime, being made of water, far more than being human — but this wasn’t the time for preferences. I felt my slime body begin to condense, contracting violently. The gelatinous texture hardened; the watery translucence dulled into pale flesh. The bruises and cuts I had accumulated throughout the night appeared instantly on my skin, burning with an intensity I had forgotten. The world became heavier, slower… more fragile.

  Keisuke stopped, watching the transformation with clinical curiosity. “Going back to being human? That’s your big move?”

  I took a deep breath, feeling the sting of having human lungs again.

  “I just need to be less conductive to electricity.”

  “You’ve only traded one weakness for another.”

  “I’ll kill you all the same!”

  He lunged again, but this time things were different. I was slower in my human body, but also solid enough to withstand the attack without losing an entire limb again.

  That’s when I heard them — a mechanical humming approaching from outside the building. Three black drones, each the size of a seagull, positioned themselves outside the shattered windows. Their rotating cameras focused on us, and their weapons spun, aiming directly at me.

  Keisuke smiled, a triumphant and hollow gesture. “Reinforcements, Elise. Game over.”

  I dodged the first shot from the drones, which shattered the marble floor at my feet. The second one grazed my shoulder, and the pain was sharp and precise, a burn of gunpowder and torn flesh. Keisuke advanced, knowing he now had his prey cornered and vulnerable. Victory gleamed in his eyes. He was an idiot playing at being a predator.

  I looked down toward the base of the building. The patrol lights were still there, but now I could see small figures running, scattering toward safety. The hostages. They were being freed.

  Of course, I thought, taking cover behind a pillar just as a drone unleashed a burst of projectiles that tore apart the floor where my feet had been seconds before.

  A government operation with this level of power or secrecy… it could never allow the public to know it existed. The uncomfortable questions. The investigation committees. He had to play by the same rules as spies—just another dog on a leash.

  Keisuke pushed forward, emboldened now with the drones backing him up. “There’s no escape this time!”

  I smiled, a tired but genuine gesture. “You’re a useful idiot, Keisuke. But you still don’t understand how the real world works.”

  My body changed again; once more I felt the beauty of a form made only of water, the soft touch of being a pretty slime again, with my unique hair flowing over my fluid shape.

  I stepped back toward the edge of the floor, to the shattered panoramic window. The night wind whipped through my hair, carrying with it the smell of the city and of freedom.

  “Again with the slime form? You just changed a moment ago; it’s your disadvantage.”

  “…..”

  “Wait…”

  “What are you doing?” he asked, his confidence giving way to confusion.

  “Actually, this is the form I want to be mine.”

  “This is who I really am, after all.”

  “And what am I planning to do?”

  “Simply what your boss doesn’t want,” I answered.

  And I let myself fall backward.

  The wind whistled in my ears as I plunged, a cacophony of city and freedom mixing with the vertigo of ninety empty floors beneath me. I felt my slime body begin to deform under the pressure of the wind and then, at the instant of impact against the cold roof of a delivery van, it wasn’t a solid hit but like a wave crashing against the rocks—a sudden cessation of any human structure I always tried to maintain. There was no pain, only an explosion of sensations: the rough texture of metal, the taste of dust and glass, and the strange awareness that I had scattered in every direction. For a moment, I didn’t exist as a person; I was only water.

  The water began to flow toward a central point, dragging itself along the asphalt and into the cracks, recomposing itself through my will to take on a human, feminine shape again—though inside I was nothing but water, without structure, core, or order, and I loved that. No organs, no muscles to worry about.

  My energy was at its limit; I had just enough to barely maintain a humanoid form by sheer necessity, but every step was a struggle against disintegration and becoming nothing more than a conscious ball of water rolling along the ground. I pulled myself together quickly and ran, blending into the crowd of hostages who were fleeing in terror, screaming and crying. I tossed away my shredded jacket, messed up my hair with my hands, and merged into the tide of people heading toward the police cordon, just another face in the collective fear.

  I saw my escape route the moment Inspector Yamamoto pointed directly at me, signaling a specific direction—the American car waiting for me. Mei Ling had the engine running, ready to get me out before anyone else recognized me.

  Up on the 90th floor, I could imagine Keisuke’s frustration as the drones lost my trail among hundreds of equally terrified people.

  Two hours later, safe at home and surrounded by the girls who mattered in my life, I watched the news on television. Senator Yoshida held a press conference, declaring a “victory against terrorism” while praising the “brave operation that saved all the hostages.”

  But no mention of Keisuke, and no mention of me, as always.