I
My name is Tamaki,
I am the assassin,
They say I am the best,
And I have to be.

I prepare to head out,
I grab my sword,
I get my gun,
I put on my suit.

I go over the plan in my head,
Imagining what will happen if I fail,
Know I won’t.

I set out for the dropship,
I wait for the briefing.




II


The briefing is over
I know what to do
I have seen my target
Her name is Sylvia
She has a look in her eyes
The look of a betrayer

As I wait in the dropship
I notice again that no one else is eager
I have always been told something,
That I was the only one with strong emotions
They also told me something else,
That those emotions made me strong

The ship stops
I know the stop is mine
I prepare to get out
The pilot opens the door

The ship is higher up than I expected
I look down from the air
About two thousand feet to ground
I make the jump

III

As I fall
I look for the hidden mark
For which I am to land
I see the mark
I wait
I open my chute

I then turn on the device
So as not to be seen
I watch my hands disappear
Like an invisible flame
Burning my hand off

I get closer
I can see the ground clearly now
I land
I am quick to remove my equipment
And hide them in a semi hollow boulder
And I set out for the target
The one named Sylvia Kurkov


IV

I search through the abandoned city
I sense for life in the buildings
But I find none
When suddenly I hear a noise
I activate my device and move in

But to my dismay all I see is a cat
My beating heart quells
And I search once again
But then I am hit
With a sudden realization

I did not sense life
Inside the building the cat was in
I run back and think
Am i defective?
Do my emotions cloud my powers?
No
It is something else
I make it to the old building


V
I carefully scan the building
I see the cat again
But this time I know,
I know something is wrong

I study the cat
Look at it
And try to feel it
But I can not feel
And yet it is there

And then something occurs to me
I sprint towards the cat and draw my sword
I swing my hand
Such elegance
Such grace
But then a shock goes through me

My blade hit the concrete
But again something was wrong
I look up to see the cat intact
My blade missed the cat
Or my blade,
Went straight through it

VI
I react by swinging my sword up
Towards the cat
But I was right
My blade goes through

I stand up and think
Why is this illusion here?
Are my powers malfunctioning?
Is it my emotions clouding my vision?
No

I start getting angry
At what is happening
But then I hear another noise
A different noise
I look
And I see,
My target,

VII
I pull out my gun
I shoot
But her shield deflects the bullets
And she runs

But I am trained for this
And I know I can run faster
It all feels futile for her to run
But the chase and begun
And I have to stop it

As I run
I get closer
Even as I get closer
I still can’t feel life
And with this in my mind
I decide to find out
Just before I kill her

I am about 40 feet away now
I know I am close enough
I draw my sword again
And with precision
Execute the move

VIII

As the sword flows through air
In almost slow motion
It pierces her leg
Like a pin through cloth

I active a different device
One that is on the sword
Now she can’t pull the sword out
At least
Not without me


I run towards her
And as I run
I remember things
Like my first kill
But before I can reminisce
She gets up


IX

I am startled
But I regain my composure
And run after her

And get close
Close enough to shoot
I go for the other leg
I hit
She goes down this time

I go over to her
And ask her
What she is
And what she wants

Her response is less than adequate
She doesn’t know either
She tells me what happened to her

She told me how she gained powers
Different powers from my own
And how she doesn’t understand them
And above all
How she loses control

I ask what she did
To become such a high priority
And she explains what she has done to get this far

But then she asks me something
Why I am different from the others
I told her what I have been told by them

We talk for longer and I decide something
For the first time
I will lie to them
Tell them their information was inaccurate

But while I was telling her the plan
She seems to be in extreme pain
Her eyes turn bright blue and she rises in the air
Then a bright flash and I black out

X
I wake up
Confused
Frustrated
But not alone

I am in a cave
And the target is helping me
My wounds feel deep
But I can endure

I ask her why,
Why she helped me
And she told me
That it just felt right

I tell her now that I failed
How I will be disposed of
But she had another idea
One of which I was unsure at first
But it was inevitable
That I was,
To join her