12:01 AM – Safehouse Rooftop
The kill-switch activated at midnight.
Hana gasped as the implant beneath her left collarbone burned white-hot, sending jagged electricity spiderwebbing through her veins. She collapsed against the rooftop railing, fingers clawing at her shirt as a series of numbers seared across her vision:
[47:59:59]
[47:59:58]
[47:59:57]
A countdown.
Her death sentence.
Ren was beside her in an instant, his hands surprisingly steady as he tore open her collar. The skin around the implant pulsed an angry red, thin veins of black spreading outward like cracks in glass.
"Neural toxin delivery system," he murmured, fingers tracing the inflamed edges. "Blackwood's signature. Slow-acting but irreversible after forty-eight hours." His gray eyes flicked up to hers. "Unless you complete your mission."
Hana's laugh was more of a snarl. "You're awfully calm for someone I'm supposed to kill."
Ren adjusted his glasses, the moonlight turning the lenses opaque. "I've simulated this scenario seventeen times. In fourteen of them, you pull the trigger."
"And the other three?"
"We change the game."
He pulled out his phone and typed a single command.
Across the city, every Blackwood surveillance feed flickered—then froze on the same image: Ren and Hana locked in a lover's embrace.
8:30 AM – Café Blanc
The café was all soft lighting and delicate china, the kind of place where Tokyo's elite whispered secrets over thousand-yen coffees.
Hana shifted uncomfortably in her dress—a pale blue thing Ren had produced from God-knows-where, with a slit just high enough to conceal the knife strapped to her thigh.
"Stop fidgeting," Ren said, stirring his tea. "We're being watched."
He was right. At least six Blackwood operatives surrounded them, disguised as businessmen and tourists. One even snapped photos with a telephoto lens disguised as a walking cane.
Hana forced herself to relax, reaching across the table to lace her fingers with Ren's. His hand was warm, his grip unexpectedly firm.
"This is sick," she muttered. "They want proof we're lovers so my 'betrayal' hits harder."
Ren's thumb brushed her knuckles—a whisper of contact that sent an entirely different kind of shock through her system. "Then give them a show."
He raised their joined hands to his lips, pressing a kiss to her fingers just as the hidden cameras clicked.
Hana's breath caught.
This wasn't part of the plan.
2:15 PM – Abandoned Theater
Ren moved through the bombed-out ruins of the Showa-era cinema, his phone casting eerie blue light across crumbling velvet seats.
"Blackwood HQ has three vulnerabilities," he said, pulling up schematics. "The east fire escape, the underground parking access, and—"
Hana grabbed his wrist. "Why are you helping me plan your own murder?"
The glow of the screen deepened the hollows of Ren's face, making him look almost ghostly. "Because you won't do it."
"The kill-switch—"
"Is keyed to your biometrics. Your heart rate. Your adrenal response." Ren stepped closer. "They need you emotional when you pull the trigger. Which means..."
Hana's eyes widened. "...if I don't believe it, the toxin won't release."
Ren smiled. It wasn't a nice expression. "So we give them theater. You 'break down' after killing me. They get their tragic martyr. And we get access to the mainframe."
He pressed a hand to the small of her back, guiding her toward the stage—where a life-sized dummy hung from the rafters, dressed in his uniform.
"Lesson one," Ren said, placing a pistol in her palm. "How to fake a headshot."
11:30 PM – Rooftop Safehouse
The countdown burned behind Hana's eyelids:
[36:22:11]
[36:22:10]
Ren sat cross-legged on the concrete, dismantling the pistol they'd use tomorrow. His hands moved with mechanical precision, each motion calculated, flawless.
Hana watched the way the city lights reflected in his glasses—how they turned the gray of his eyes into something almost luminous.
"Why me?" she asked suddenly.
Ren didn't look up. "Why you what?"
"Out of all the agents they could've sent...why assign the one who'd hesitate?"
The last piece of the pistol clicked into place.
"Because hesitation is human," Ren said softly. "And they needed someone human to break me."
He reached out, his fingers brushing the kill-switch beneath her collarbone. The implant pulsed hotter at his touch.
"Tomorrow," he murmured, "we'll give them exactly what they want."
His hand slid up to cup her cheek.
"And then we'll burn it all down."