Seven Phantom Ghosts: Book 1

Chapter Twelve - The Final Chapter

Tokyo Base of Operations - January 11th - 1456

    Wade stood there in disbelief during the fight between him and Aries. He stood there with shock and disbelief in his face and eyes and he stared at the vital signs of his team and saw that Shadow had a flat-line.

                                               No......Tempe. God Dammit, not another one!

    Aries saw the despair in Reaper's eyes and knew what it meant: He had just lost another one of his members. He sighed and said, "I understand that you want to see if what you see is true, but what's more important: Me or the possibly dead member?" HE quickly evaded Reaper's sword and barely dodged several knives, "What's this? You seem to be moving faster since your friend died." HE grinned and decided he try and use mind games on him to see if anything would happen. Instead of getting the response he wanted, he dodged another knife throw and had no choice but to block an attack from a weapon he had never seen coming from Reaper. While in the weapon lock, he stared at awe at the two scythes that were thirsting for his blood as they began to sing. HE was finally beginning to see Reaper fight seriously.

    Reaper pulled his scythes back and began to spin them casually beside him. His eyes were suddenly lifeless when they were lively just a moment ago. He looked all along the area both of them were in and smirked under his mask and stepped into the shadows, disappearing from Aries' sight.

    Aries was looking around, trying to find out where Reaper was, "Come on, I thought you were playing serious now that your scythes were out wanting to play, but even now, you're a coward who prefers to hide in the shadows." He heard Reaper drop and went to try and evade, but for some reason, he was moving slower than he was a minute ago and got cut by one of the scythes.

    "One...." Spoke Reaper as his voice faded back into the darkness.

    The hell was that? I knew he was coming, so why did I move so slow? Or is it that He's beginning to move faster than me? No, that can't be, there's no way he could have been holding himself back just to get to me like this.

    "Are we beginning to have doubts about this, Aries? Are you beginning to feel fear within your body, slowing down your movements, your reactions....your reality?" Suddenly, Reaper was right on behind Aries and didn't make a sound on his approach this time and scared the shit out of Aries, and when Aries swung he missed, leaving himself wide open for Reaper to actually attack-

    Reaper swings both of his scythes at the same time, but right before he was able to kill Aries, he was blocked by a person cladded in black except their mouth, which only held a fanged smile. Reaper knew who this was and immediately became enraged that this had just happened, "What's the meaning of this Number Zero, or should I call you by your codename, 'Phantom'?"

    Phantom only chuckled and redirected Reaper's scythe and kicked Reaper back and threw down a flashbang and was gone, along with Aries, leaving only a confused and soon to be concerned Reaper.

    Wade pulled off his hood and mask and ran over to Tempe and found her lying on the ground, bleeding from the back of her head. HE quickly went over to her and tried to save her, but when he saw the hole in the back of her head and her lifeless eyes, he knew that he was too late, and he had lost yet another friend, and not just one but now Two Phantom Ghosts have died, and both of them were a part of his team that was never supposed have formed in the beginning. Rage built up inside of him, but something stopped him for some reason, something was calming him from behind, "Speak."

    "I got a surprise for you in the briefing room if you're interested."

    "So, you've decided to speak again, Jason. I'm not going to lie, I forgot what you actually sounded like."

    "Don't get used to it, I'm done talking after this...and Wade, I'm sorry....I don't know how it happened, but I knew she was in trouble....she was in trouble and I even passed her at one point, but I didn't help, I simply went on my way, leaving her to her fate," Jason walked up to Wade and placed a friendly hand on his shoulder, "Come on, there's something you need to see. We can bury Tempe in a minute."

    "You don't understand, Tempe is dead. She is the second member of this team that I lost and it's because of my inexperience as a leader." HE was picked up by the scruff of this jacket and picked up by the frail Jason.

    "What the fuck is wrong with you, man? You are not the same Wade Simmons that I joined with a year ago. You've been acting like this teenager with high levels of angst. Grow the fuck up and suck it the fuck up. I get it, they were like family to you and you not used to losing someone that close to you, ok fine, but blaming yourself for that shit isn't going to help you, and it's just going to make things worse. Think about it, right now, it's just me and you who are left of the team, excluding McCune and French. You're an orphan when you think about it, and there's now nothing holding you back, you can finally be the assassin you used to be, if not better, now that you no longer have those two being able to stop you from doing what you believed to be necessary."

    Wade was silent and his eyes were hidden as his mind processed what Jason had just said. He smacked Jason's hands off of him and he landed on his feet, "What was it that you wanted to show me?"

    Jason smiled, "Follow me, Reaper." He walked to the briefing room, while Wade was walking close behind with his eyes still concealed in shadows while the placed his mask on and retracted his hood to become Reaper, the Real Reaper.

    Reaper showed nothing of his face and when he got to the briefing room and saw Ushino tied up, he showed nothing. With both of his scythes still out, he approached her and held one to her throat, "Who is it that hired your father to attack this facility? We know that his main target was not Alison McGinnis, but in fact it was the 'Phantom Ghosts'."

    Ushino said nothing useful, "What makes you think that I'll tell you anything? Is it because I was the one who killed your brother, or because this time I was the one who killed the woman as well." She realized too late that she wasn't dealing with the usual Reaper when she could only watch as Reaper took one of his scythes and broke her hand by slamming the blunt end onto her hand while it was sprawled on the ground.

   "Answer the question or it'll only get worse for you from now on."

   Still she was being rather stubborn, "You think playing the tough guy will save you and your friends now? All you're doing is making it worse for you in the long run and when my father finds out that I'm still here and that you're harming me, then you'll be sorry."

   "You think I care about your father at this point, Ushino. Now that I know that your father has been doing the bidding of someone else, I know now that he is simply a pawn, and I don't hunt pawns, I hunt the King, now who hired him."

   "You don't scare me, Wade Simmons."

   "Give me a minute and we'll see how much longer you'll last." He handed one of his scythes over to Jason and picked Ushino up and slammed her against the wall behind her, but even when she was right in his face, she still saw nothing of his face, "What have you become for where I can't see your face?"

   "Who I'm supposed to be." He kept slamming her into the wall behind her until they finally broke through the wall and were inside an abandoned room that was used for various reasons, at one point, it was for interrogations and some of the old tools were still there. He threw her into a chair and pinned her there with one of his legs while he reached over and grabbed one of the old and rusted blades and drew it to Ushino's throat, "Who hired you, Ushino?" Even after using her to break through a wall, after losing his sister and now holding a rusty knife to her throat, he was still calm, and his voice was still level.

   Ushino was scared at this point, but she wasn't going to crack under Reaper, not like this, not after all that her and her father was able to accomplish, "Go to Hell." She felt the blade press against her throat, but felt it pull away and she thought that she was able to win this struggle, but then she watched as Reaper spun the knife in his hand, changing his grip and stabbed her directly in the thigh. She went to scream, but the shock of it happening so suddenly stopped her from doing so. She looked down at the knife sticking out of her leg, and when she finally found her voice again, she felt Reaper grab her by the throat and was beginning to squeeze the life out of her.

   "Are you going to answer my questions now, or do you want me to continue playing with your life that's settled in the palm of my hand?" Nothing could still be seen of his face as steam came from his mask as he gave a heavy sigh when Ushino did not answer, "I only curious now on how long your silence will last."

   Jason could only smile as he heard Ushino's screams of agony as she was being tortured by Reaper for the information that he wanted, but now Jason would return to being a Ghost and was no longer speaking, all that talking after so long wore out his voice box, so even if he wanted to say something, at this point, he couldn't. Anxious to hear what Ushino had to say, he pulled up and chair, sat down and waited patiently for what Reaper had to tell him.

   Reaper came out of the room, covered in Ushino's blood after about an hour of torture. He didn't remove his hood, but he removed his mask so he could breathe without inhaling Ushino's blood, "I'll give her credit, she has spunk, more than I gave her credit for." HE got a message from Ghost, "Went back to being silent again, huh?" He opened the message.
You still haven't gotten her to talk?

   Reaper could tell that Ghost was concerned, but mainly pissed when it was done, but Reaper could only smile after reading it, "You seem to have lost faith in me, Ghost. I got what I wanted out of her, I got that out of her thirty minutes ago, I was just having fun with her the rest of the time. Apparently, she was hired by someone that went by the codename of Mythic. Unfortunately, all I got out of her before she finally gave out was only that and that neither she nor Aries ever got to see their employer face-to-face, it was always done by letters and they burnt it afterwards. She also said she knew nothing about 'Phantom' working with them. We need to know....if she's with them or not."

    Ghost nodded in agreement, but sent another message.

    What about your mission to protect Alison McGinnis in order to repay "Entrance" debt?

    "One thing at a time then I guess. I'll keep going to the school to keep Alison alive, however that means I'll be needing you to do recon for me and find out everything we need to know in order to find this Mythic and whether or not we've been betrayed by Phantom or not."

    Ghost again nodded in agreement and they separated until they were to meet again.