Lance, seated near the window, was painfully reminiscing the horror he felt years ago; the night when he got his head almost beheaded.
--
Surrounded by the lifeless bodies of his men, and himself drenched with blood, he covered and cried shamelessly, begging for his life. With his tendons cut, and his right eye gouged, he crawled backwards on the muddy floor, trying to move away from the 'Man' who was approaching him with a cold glare; especially since his army of hundreds of assassins were slain by him.
"Yohan! Stop it... Please! Spare me... At least for Diana's sake... You know that we are in love, right?"
Wearing a semi-torn, battered black suit, Yohan had absolutely no life in his eyes. All he felt running through his bruised and bleeding body was contempt and anger from betrayal. With an icy stare, he spat the useless blood bleeding from his mouth's insides, out and faced dead straight at Lance, sending shivers down his spine.
"You turned the entire Underworld against the Emperor... and also attempted to kill the princess. And you claim to be in love with her now? Have some shame, Lan..."
Lance's fear reached unknown bounds as he felt Yohan's words carrying no mercy and no self-doubt. He could sniff the dead-set seriousness of Yohan's resolve to kill him.
And for a man who never ever felt fear in his life, Lance felt his bones shuddering from a mere gaze. His internal wolf went MIA and made no noise.
He considered Yohan, his childhood 'punchbag' friend, as nothing but a lowlife born to merely serve him; and now, being at the mercy of his punchbag's hands, felt like the worst nightmare came true for him.
He raised his hands and bowed, stuffing his useless head in the mud. The lightning on the cloud flashed behind Yohan's back, casting his giant shadow on the slain warriors who were laying like a pile of waste in front of him.
Though Yohan absolutely had no reason to let Lance go scot-free, something whispered to his heart, pleading him to reconsider. His eyes twitched, as nameless memories flooded his head, mellowing his rageful, bitter heart. And mumbling to himself, he dropped his Katana, much to Lance's relief and humiliation.
"Live to the fullest, Lance... You may walk away for now," Yohan, with a heavy sigh, turned back and walked away, keeping his head high but also distraught and disgusted with himself. His hands trembled to shake off the stains of the blood and his feet shuddered to cross his dead comrades slain by his own hands.
But behind him, Lance's hands lusted towards the katana lying all alone on the muddy ground burdened with the curses of the dead. He too felt humiliated by his own self, for being alive due to the mercy of the man he considered a pest all along. His twisted mind and his vengeful eye craved to pick up the sword and go after the man who left him in a filthy pool of humiliation.
'How am I going to face my kind? How will they accept me as a king? What am I going to say to them? They Will Laugh At ME! Laugh at my failure! Laugh at my kind for failing against one man...' his horrifying doubts drowned his sanity, but suddenly a new voice arose.
'STOP IT!'
A screeching, grumpy voice screamed from nowhere. Lance searched all around to see who it was, but found no one around; no one was alive.
'YOU CAN'T, MY DEAR BROTHER... YOU CAN'T!' a voice deep in his mind, advised him. Lance slapped himself, to shake off his mind, but the voice only got louder.
'DON'T FIGHT IT... I AM YOU! I AM WHAT YOU NEVER FELT! ACCEPT HIS MERCY YOU KING OF WOLVES... YOU'LL DIE THE MOMENT YOU PICK THE SWORD.' The fear took a whole new personality and whispered to his ears, running its filthy hands all over the shocked Lance; who had no choice other than to live with the newborn 'fear' with his life.
--
"Sir!" the driver helped Lance to snap out of his 'deep' thoughts. He told him that the destination had arrived. Lance nodded and stepped out, entering the entrance of the forty-two-floored skyscraper. He smiled at the receptionists bowing down to him and proceeded to walk into the elevator.
He pressed the button '40' and the elevator door slowly closed which mirrored the spliced personality of Lance as he saw himself on the reflective door of the elevator being split in two - a courageous king of the Wolves, the shameless coward living under the mercy of his enemy.
"You just wait... Yohan. It will be my dagger that will pierce through your skull first!"
--
CURRENTLY IN AN UNKNOWN ALLEYWAY
"Achoo! I think someone is cursing me from somewhere," Yohan muttered to himself after sneezing aloud. Sana, clad in a sultry school uniform cosplay, was sulking in anger for unknown reasons. She drew out her dagger hidden under her pink skirt.
She kept her chin down religiously and strolled towards Yohan, who was perplexed and found the entire event random. He could see the girl behaving oddly and kind of unnaturally around Ramika, but her being an assassin? That thought never occurred to him. And it still didn't.
"So... You befriended Diana, because—"
"She is the only one who could bring you to me... She fulfilled her purpose in that way. I was actually searching for you for years... Mister Yohan."
"Can you elaborate on why?"
"Remember the name... Grim-Reaper?" she said after getting awfully close to Yohan, lifting her head up, and displaying her sadistic smile.
*SWOOSH* With no warning, Sana swung her dagger across Yohan's face, who flinched back, stepping his feet back. But a small smirk from Sana warned him of something.
Sana immediately threw her dagger up in the air, and turned her back towards Yohan and kicked right at his chest, catching him off guard. Yohan could feel Sana's strength in the kick and deduced she was not a human.
"A goblin? whoa..." he muttered, pressing his hands against his chest. Sana's eyes looked around for the dagger coming back, and with athletic moves, she danced around and kicked the dagger right towards Yohan's eyes.
But much to Sana's surprise but also living up to her expectations, Yohan caught the dagger with his bare hands. His black glasses shone with the moonlight and Sana chuckled like an evil maniac.
'Is that the same girl?' he thought, looking perplexed with his tilted head.
"So, the sodas are part of your plan? Who sent you?"
"No one... I am a freelancer, Mister Yohan. You see, I joined the underworld with the sole aim of exacting my revenge and I thought it might be harder to track you down and reach your throat..." she paused, chuckling with her mouth covered, before revealing, "You have a lot of enemies down there, Mister Yohan... A lot who are waiting to cut you down and eat you up..."
Yohan calmly observed the vengeance shining on Sana's eyes and wondered why, but her almond-shaped face and her familiar appearance rang some inconvenient bells in his mind.
"Are you...?"
"I already gave you a hint, sir... Do you remember the name... Grim Reaper?"
Yohan's eyes widened, and he exhaled a deep breath, processing the mild shock he felt.
"No way..." he whispered. Flashes of his dead friend flashed in front of him. And the haunting face reflected back to his eyes when he looked at the girl in front of him.
"Ashon Aries, the OG Grim Reaper. Son of a low-level Goblin father and a human mother. Fought his way to the upper echelon of the Underworld... But ended up being killed by a mere human... A human named Yohan. Yohan Karvakarn."
"It was an accident—"
"You Killed My Brother! Killed him and stole his hard-earned title and his hard-earned legacy... You swine!" Sana, with tears, confessed her reason. She reminded herself of the days she spent trying to befriend Ramika and snitching her whereabouts to John Devitto, her mentor.
"Words can't explain the rage I felt that day... The day when I met you. The day—"
"Hold on, hold on... Hold—Will you believe me if I said that your brother's death happened because of self-defence?"
Sana's eyes twitched, and she shook her head slowly, disagreeing. Her eyes screamed a loud 'No' for reasoning. All she wanted was vengeance.
"How about this, then?" Yohan's pitiful, guilt-ridden voice swiftly changed into a more serious one. Sana felt startled but maintained her rage-fueled icy stare.
"Your brother knew very well about what he signed himself up to. And he accepted his death like a professional... And I dealt the blow like a—"
"LIES!" she screamed, shaking her head in denial. "Why the fuck everyone is trying to convince me with the same thing? It is simply illogical!"
Yohan frowned. Sana continued to stare like a hungry beast, while she groaned and growled in denial.
"He cannot be defeated by a mere Human, Yohan... Either you must have stabbed him in the back or you must have poisoned him—"
"If that's what you're confused about... How about you test the theory by yourself?"
"Huh?"
San could feel a mysterious aura draping around Yohan, and his eyes grew colder and colder with every passing second, which, for some reason, felt suffocating for her.
"Come at me with everything you got, little girl... I'll decide whether you're fit for avenging your brother or what...."