Chapter 11: An Unhealthy Dose of Reality

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Everything hurt.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

What was that noise?

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Where was she? What happened?

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Right. The fight with Sirius. That's probably why her body hurt so much. Then the assassins. And then...

Zazie.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Annabeth opened her eyes. She was lying on a run-down cot in a dilapidated bedroom that looked like it hadn't been used in at least a year. The walls were bare and worn, tattered curtains were drawn over the one window, and there wasn't any furniture apart from the cot, a table, and a set of chairs, in one of which sat Zazie. She held a gun in her hand, tapping it against the table rhythmically. As Annabeth turned her head to get a better look, she felt a sharp ache along her neck, causing her to grunt in pain.

"Huh? Oh, you're awake," Zazie said, looking over at Annabeth. "You might not wanna move much. I bandaged up what I could, but your body's in pretty bad shape."

"I can tell," Annabeth muttered, groaning as she relaxed back against the cot. It was odd. Zazie was still concerned for her well-being and safety. But... if Annabeth understood things correctly, then she was the one who hired the assassins in the first place. Why? Nothing made sense. "Where are we?"

"In the outskirts of town. I found an abandoned apartment to hole up in for now," Zazie explained. She stopped tapping the gun against the table. "You're probably confused, right? I'm guessing you want some answers. I'd probably want some if I were in your position."

Annabeth nodded.

"Where do you want me to start?" Zazie asked. "You've probably got a lot of questions right now."

"... how long?"

"What do you mean?"

"How long ago did you hire the Black Hand to kill me?" Annabeth asked. "How long have you been lying to me?"

"It was just about before we left Mistral and crossed the ocean. That's when I sent the contract to the Black Hand," Zazie explained, leaning back in her chair. "Though that isn't when I started lying to you. No, that started before then."

Annabeth stayed quiet.

"I told you that I was the bastard daughter of a noble family, right? The Alabasters? I said the Black Hand was after me because I was the only surviving member. Well, there's a little truth there. There was a noble family known as the Alabasters. They did have a bastard daughter. I don't remember her name, though. All I remember was the look on her face before I killed her."

"Then you..."

"I wasn't lying when I said the Black Hand was hired to kill the Alabasters. I was just on the other side of that whole thing," Zazie explained. "That was maybe... three years ago? It felt longer."

"You're an assassin. With the Black Hand."

"Not exactly. I was an assassin with the Black Hand," Zazie said. She sighed for a moment. "You can probably guess that's not the case anymore."

"You killed those other assassins. I can understand that much," Annabeth said. "But what I don't understand is why? Why did you put a contract on me? And when they were about to kill me, why did you protect me and kill them? Please, tell me the truth. All of it."

"All of it, huh? I guess we'll have to go pretty far back for that," Zazie said. She paused, leaning against the table. "I was born into the Black Hand. At least, I think I was. I don't remember any time when I wasn't part of the Black Hand. Well, until I left, obviously."

"Then your real family..."

"Like I said, not nobility. Though my dad was the head of the whole thing. Still is, actually. But he was my dad second, and my teacher first," Zazie explained. "From the beginning, he trained me to be an assassin. He was the best in the Black Hand, and he pushed me to be better than him. Make me his heir, he said. It helped that my Semblance basically made me the perfect killing machine, and he knew it."

"Your Semblance? You said that it made you go berserk when you held a weapon," Annabeth said, remembering her conversation with Zazie back in Wind Path. Her eyes wandered over to the gun Zazie was tapping against the table. "Was that... was that another lie?"

"Not exactly. That was my Semblance at first. If I held a weapon, something inside would take over and cause me to attack everything and everyone around me. I was conscious, but I would lose control over myself," Zazie explained. "It's like... riding in the back of a truck. You're going faster and further than you could ever go by yourself. You can feel the wind against your body and watch as everything rushes by. But you have no control over where the truck is going, or when it'll stop. All you gotta do is hope that it ends up in the place you wanted it to go."

Zazie paused for a stopped tapping her gun against the table.

"Then, I slowly started figuring out how to control the truck. It took years. My dad worked me to the bone to train me, help me get my Semblance under control. He said it was the perfect Semblance for an assassin. That if I mastered it, I could possibly become better than him. The best assassin the Black Hand had ever seen. And so I trained. Hours, sometimes days at a time. All trying to get it under control," Zazie continued. The tapping resumed. "Eventually, I could tell the truck vaguely what direction to go. Where it should be headed. Who to kill. When to stop, and when to go. I could get off and get on it when I wanted."

"So that's why you can hold your weapon without losing control."

"Exactly. The truck's stopped right now. I still don't drive the truck when it's going, but... it was enough. For my dad, it was enough. He started sending me out on missions when I was... about ten, I think?"

Killing at ten years old. That was young. Too young.

"I was fine, at first. It was simple. Get close to the target, grab my gun, and let my Semblance take care of the rest. Sometimes I had to sneak into some restricted areas or get past guards, but... that was basically it. I just watched from the back of the truck as my body did the dirty work. When I was in that state, I... couldn't really feel anything. Pain, shock, any sort of emotion, it was all muted. Like watching something from the other side of a window. It wasn't really happening to me, and I didn't feel like the one doing it. And so I killed and killed and killed without a problem."

"How many?"

"I don't remember. I stopped counting somewhere in the double digits. Whatever contracts my dad assigned to me, I did them. I killed who he told me to kill. Young, old, rich, poor, I killed them all. That's what I was raised to do, and my Semblance made it so easy. No remorse. No sympathy. No feelings. All I had to do was watch. That's how it was supposed to be, but..."

"What happened?"

"One day. Another assassination mission. Someone hired the Black Hand to kill the Alabasters, a family of nobles. My dad gave me the job, and off I went to their mansion. It was all going so smoothly. I grabbed my gun, took out the guards at the front gate, stormed in, and killed everyone in sight. I eventually found the family in one of the upstairs rooms. Mr. Alabaster, his wife, and half of his private security, holed up in a single room."

"You killed them."

"I did, but it was hard. Despite how strong my Semblance made me, I was horribly outnumbered and outgunned. Despite all that, I watched from the back of the truck as my body killed everyone in that room. Well, almost everyone."

"Almost?"

"Everyone I could see was dead. Mr. Alabaster, his wife, and all his guards. But I had taken a beating, too. Enough to break my Aura. There I was, in the middle of a room filled with corpses, without my Semblance. The truck had broken down, and I was left in control of my body," Zazie explained. "Then, I heard someone whimpering from a nearby closet. I open it up, and there's a little girl looking up at me. She was probably about ten years old."

"Was that... their daughter?"

"Yup. She was terrified. Didn't even try to run. She just looked up at me and..." Zazie paused. Took a deep breath. "I had to kill her as well, but I didn't have any ammo left. So I hit her over the head and dragged her out onto the floor. There was a knife nearby that one of the guards dropped, so I grabbed it and stabbed her. Right in the stomach. Then, she started to struggle. Without my Semblance, I felt everything. The pain as she grabbed and dug her nails into my arms, trying to pull me off. The gasps and shudders that wracked her body every time I stabbed the knife into her chest. The wetness from her blood that stained my hands. It... it made me sick. Sick to my stomach. Even when it was all over, when she stopped moving, I couldn't shake off that sickness. I threw up and lay there in the middle of the room, surrounded by the people I killed."

"Zazie..."

"That was my first kill. My actual first kill. Made with my own two hands, without hiding behind my Semblance. I'd been raised as an assassin to that point, but after that... I couldn't keep going. I knew that even if I hid behind my Semblance again, I'd still remember the feeling I had when I killed that girl. I don't think I'd ever be able to forget it," Zazie said. "I never reported back from that mission. I knew I couldn't continue killing, couldn't continue as an assassin, so... I left the Black Hand. I wanted to get away from it all. To lead a normal life. To try and put all that behind me and forget the Black Hand ever happened."

Annabeth nodded. She remembered how Zazie had broken down at Peakstone, and in Wind Path.

"I did odd jobs to earn money, anything that wouldn't involve me holding a weapon or fighting. Eventually, I landed a job as a Courier. Just a normal girl running around delivering the mail. That was the dream. No weapons here! No killing here! The biggest things I had to worry about were mail deadlines and training to get certified as a full-fledged Courier. Things were good for a while. Until pretty recently, actually."

"When... when you met me?"

"Not exactly. I did have to use my Semblance back at Peakstone, but... I thought that'd be the end of that. I get a strange but reliable travel companion, and I'd continue doing Courier things like I did before. My dad had other plans, though."

"There was that assassin. The one that came for you in Wind Path, while we were chasing that thief," Annabeth muttered. "Wait, but if the contract was never on your head, then..."

"That wasn't an assassin. Just a messenger, with a word from my dad. For some reason, during all those years I was away, I never heard from him or the Black Hand, not even a call to ask what happened or an order to come back. But now I know why."

"Why?"

"My dad saw my little escapade as a phase. Just my rebellious teenage years. He thought that if he gave it some time, I'd calm down a little and return to being an assassin," Zazie explained. She sighed. "Now that I'm of age, he wants me back in the Black Hand. He's getting old, and he wants me to continue his legacy, to take his place as the heir to the whole thing."

"Then... if that messenger wasn't an assassin, why did you - "

"Kill him?" Zazie asked, finishing Annabeth's question. "Honestly, it was pretty impulsive. I didn't want to go back. Not then. Not now. And not ever. And here's this person telling me that my dad was going to make me go back to my old life. I didn't want to go back to that. Back to killing again and again. I was afraid that the new, normal life I made would die."

"So you killed him."

"I did. That's when you came running to my rescue, to save me from the big bad assassin," Zazie said, chuckling slightly. "That's when an idea came into my head. One that would solve my problems. I made up a story about why the Black Hand was chasing me and you ate it up. Once that happened, all that was left to do was put a contract on your head and head out towards Vacuo."

"I don't get it," Annabeth asked. "What does this all have to do with me?"

"You're the strongest person I know. Strong enough to beat any assassins that come your way. The Black Hand got a contract from an anonymous source asking their elite members to take out a certain knight. A hefty sum, with just two conditions: message a certain scroll number before you start the hit, and call that scroll number so that the client can talk with the target just before they die," Zazie explained. She pulled open her scroll and opened it to a page with Annabeth's face on it. "I even said that it was possible you might've been the one to kill that messenger in Wind Path, to make sure that they'd prioritize the contract."

"I was a trap."

"Yup. I acted like I was the one they were after, then made sure you were alert and ready every time one of them came around. You were so loyal and unquestioning that you never realized the whole thing. Not until your fight with Sirius, I'm guessing. At first, there was the problem of you not killing them; Jessie got away the first time, and I had to take care of Cutter myself."

"You..." Annabeth remembered the explosion that had consumed the smaller boat, when she had chased that assassin away. "You did that?"

"Yup. Just two shots to the gas tank. You did manage to take out the next two after Jessie, though, before you got ganged up on," Zazie said. "I guess the Black Hand considered you a bigger threat than I realized. Sorry about that."

"I still don't get it. Why do you want all these assassins dead?"

"Isn't it obvious? My dad's gonna force me back into the Black Hand. I don't want to go back to the Black Hand. But what if there's no Black Hand to go back to?"

"You... you're doing all this just so you won't have to go back?" Annabeth asked. "All these lies, all this killing, just so - "

"That's right. I'm doing all of this so I can go back to a normal life. The Black Hand, my past, all the people I killed... I want to leave all that behind. I can't do that while the Black Hand still exists," Zazie explained. "So I'm going to destroy the Black Hand. Demolish it from the top down by killing its elite members. And I didn't want to stain my own hands with blood, so I used you to do it. So I could keep my own hands clean, while you were none the wiser. And you were all too willing to go along with the whole thing."

"Zazie..."

"That name again. You've got this idea that I'm this 'Zazie'. This perfect princess of a person who dedicated everything to saving the world. Some selfless paragon, worthy of your complete, unfaltering loyalty," Zazie said, looking away from Annabeth. "Well, I'm not. And every time you talked about her, it made me sick. Not of you, or whoever your princess was... but sick of myself. Of what I was doing. Stringing you along with false hope that you'd get your 'Zazie' back."

"False hope?" Annabeth asked. "So you mean, Valus..."

"Valus was a lie. Something I made up to give you something to believe in. Something that would let me pull you around and get you to go where I wanted to go. And it worked well enough; you protected me with your life, convinced that you could get back the princess you knew," Zazie said. "It worked a little too well, honestly."

"What do you mean?"

"I thought I was content watching you from the sidelines. You'd take out assassins while being none the wiser, my hands would be clean, and the Black Hand would be crippled. But I saw how hard you were fighting, how willing you were to lay down your life for someone who was using you so selfishly, all because of that image of that princess you had in your head. Seeing you get hurt, seeing you almost die... it made me realize that even though I wasn't fighting, my hands were as dirty as ever. Your blood would be on my hands as much as the blood of those I killed so long ago. All I was doing was using your faith and devotion as a shield to protect myself and my 'normal' life. And now, look at where that's gotten you. I... almost got you killed. All so I wouldn't have to lift a finger against the Black Hand, so that I could protect my normal life."

"I..." Annabeth said as she tried to sit up, only to fall back down and grunt as pain flared up in her chest. "I... can still..."

"No. You're not moving anywhere. You probably can't, anyways," Zazie said, standing up. "Someone as selfless as you shouldn't be used by someone as horrible as me. So, this'll be where we part ways."

"What?" Annabeth asked. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what I said. I... wasn't entirely correct when I said that Valus was a lie. There's no magic or supernatural stuff, but there is one important thing up there in the mountains," Zazie said. "The Black Hand headquarters. My dad is waiting there."

"Then you're..."

"Annabeth, you're a good person. Selfless to a fault. Willing to help others despite how... untrustworthy they are. Ready to die to protect those you care about. Like a shadow cast by your light, you've shown me how dark and twisted I really am. I really thought I could lead a normal life like this, huh? Deceiving you, putting you in danger, using you for my own selfish goals?" Zazie said, chuckling slightly. "Well, I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm not gonna hide behind you again. If I want to take down the Black Hand, I should be doing it with my own two hands."

Zazie turned towards the exit. Started walking.

"Zazie, wait!" Annabeth called, gritting her teeth through the pain as she sat up. "You... you said your father was the best assassin in the Black Hand. If you go face him and so many other assassins, then..."

Why was she trying to stop her? Trying to help her? She had been deceiving Annabeth for so long. Stringing her along with lies. Feeding her false promises. Putting her in danger. And so much more, for her own purposes.

And yet, Annabeth couldn't ignore that look in Zazie's eyes. That look of sadness. Of self-pity. No, further than that. Self-hatred.

"Please don't call me that. I'm not your Zazie, and from what you've told me of her, I... don't deserve her name," Zazie said. She turned, stepping up close to Annabeth. "You don't have to help me anymore. You shouldn't. Go follow your own path. Do something for yourself. You deserve so much more than... well, being with me."

Suddenly, Annabeth felt something sharp jab into her neck. She looked down and saw Zazie pressing a needle-like object against her skin for a moment before removing it. Suddenly, her mind became hazy, as if a fog had settled over it. Her eyelids grew heavy, and she fell back down against the cot.

"It's just a light sedative. You should be awake in a few hours; I'll make sure someone comes and finds you while you're asleep so you can get those wounds looked over properly," Zazie said. Fighting to keep her eyes open, Annabeth watched as Zazie made her way to the exit. "Thanks for everything, Annabeth. Hopefully, you'll find someone better than me."

"Zazie..."

Zazie closed the door behind herself, disappearing from sight. Then, Annabeth blacked out.

A/N: And that's chapter 11! The truth is revealed, and the two girls part ways.

Thanks to an anonymous guest for the review! I actually wasn't aware that people from the era of the Gods canonically don't have Aura or Semblances; I just kinda built my magic system with the assumption that Aura and Semblances were leftovers from said system. Good to know that aligns with canon, if that's true.

Anyways, thank you all for reading up to this point! I've been updating this story quite frequently over the last few weeks, but it might be a bit of time before the next chapter, since I want to take some time to focus on Journeys of a Mercenary. If you've got anything to say, please leave a review, and have a nice day!