Ian's every reaction was taken in by Tessa.
"This is fate. You cannot stop it." Tessa's voice sounded like a sentence being passed, stern with the unshakable authority of law itself. Her fingers tapped lightly against the window frame.
Tap. Tap.
Ian's pupils flickered faintly.
"There's always a way." He seemed to calm down all of a sudden, looking straight into Tessa's eyes as she turned toward him. That dizzying depth he felt from her only grew stronger.
"What people call fate is simply an ending that cannot be defeated. Your resistance is merely your prejudice against death." Tessa's tapping finger paused slightly, and an abrupt stillness filled the frozen house.
A rare seriousness appeared on Ian's face. "Maybe death itself isn't frightening. But treating life lightly, doing nothing, and just accepting the death of your family is what's truly frightening."
His answer made Tessa's eyes narrow slightly. The pale woman patted her own chest with one slender hand, a curious smile appearing on her face.
"That really does strike a chord with me."
She winked at Ian, but his expression did not change.
"You didn't say all this to me for no reason." Ian did, in fact, have a bit of proper intelligence. He just did not use it very often in daily life.
The smile on Tessa's face deepened after hearing that.
"Maybe I just want you to learn how to accept reality." Her tone was still gentle, like she was soothing a child worthy of pity.
"Your family is special, so some things are different..." What she said did have a certain logic to it, but Ian did not find it especially convincing.
"Maybe."
Ian only gave a noncommittal answer as he turned to look down the black-and-white hallway. The bedroom doors were all tightly shut.
"But I'm sure you haven't gone to comfort my brothers."
There was clearly something implied in his words.
"And what does that matter?" Tessa tilted her head, her face still smiling. "You're the youngest child. It's only natural that I pay a little more attention to your feelings."
That sounded reasonable too.
"I don't know much about reapers, but as far as I'm concerned, reapers shouldn't have emotions like that. So if you're here chatting with me, there has to be a reason. There has to be a point."
Ian's mind was moving quickly now, gradually sorting through the suspicious parts of all this. Tessa only chuckled and lowered her head to look at the cold street below.
"I'm only passing the time. Living too long is exhausting." The female reaper's voice carried a touch of sighing weariness, along with a faint trace of melancholy.
Ian said nothing.
He only watched her quietly.
His sapphire-blue eyes shone brightly in the colorless world.
A moment later,
"All right, you sly little thing." Tessa's voice broke the silence. She pursed her lips and raised both hands in an exaggerated gesture of surrender.
"I admit it. Compared to your father, I'm actually far more interested in you. Until just now, I hadn't even realized someone as unusual as you existed."
"That's a once-in-an-eternity event in my dull professional life. So I've decided to give you a chance. A chance far more generous than the one our boss would ever offer."
As she said this, Tessa glanced at the back of Ian's hand again. After pausing for a moment, she continued, "I can give you seven days to find out what will kill your father."
Those suddenly colder words made Ian go still for a moment.
"You're going to send me back to the past?"
Ian frowned and lightly touched the back of his own hand with his other hand. From what this female reaper had just said, he had learned something extremely important.
It made his pupils tremble again.
"No, no, no. I'm not fond enough of you to do that." Tessa suddenly laughed. "Your father's death will be postponed, and those seven days will be your father's, and this city's, final chance. Don't expect your father to help you. He doesn't even understand what he's run into."
"Little one, you can only rely on yourself. Let me see whether something miraculous can be born from you." There was a faint, almost imperceptible anticipation in Tessa's voice.
Then, without giving Ian another chance to ask questions, her body suddenly tipped forward, and she fell straight down toward the street below, as though she had melted into the black-and-white night itself.
"This has something to do with Metropolis too? If I find the source of the problem, my old man won't have to die?"
By the time Ian lunged to the window, there was already no sign of her.
Not only had the female reaper Tessa vanished after falling toward the street, but all the countless black-clad figures from before had vanished as well. They had come and gone like shadows, as if they had never existed at all.
"Ian!"
"Ian!!"
"What's wrong with you?"
...
In the middle of his shock and uncertainty,
it suddenly felt like sound and color had been poured back into Ian's world. Everything around him twisted, then blurred together into a muddy haze.
"Hm?"
Ian rubbed his eyes instinctively.
When he opened them again,
he saw Clark with one hand resting on his shoulder while the other waved back and forth in front of his face. His father's face was full of worry.
"Why did you suddenly zone out like that?"
Clark was clearly worried that Ian's condition was getting worse. Even though he already knew certain things about Ian, he still felt that the psychiatrist's diagnosis might not have been wrong.
That had been a nationally famous psychiatrist, one who even helped the police solve cases on a regular basis. That was exactly why he and Lois had ended up getting to know him.
"That woman..." Ian looked behind Clark, then abruptly stopped.
There was nothing there anymore.
He immediately turned toward the window.
The window looked as though it had never even been opened.
"What just happened?"
Ian could not help asking.
Clark frowned and carefully studied his youngest son, his gaze growing even more worried. "I came out of the bathroom and saw you suddenly standing there in a daze, staring blankly."
It was no wonder his father was worried. Ian's behavior was almost perfectly consistent with the textbook symptoms of schizophrenia that Clark had read about through speed-reading.
"So you don't even remember me accusing you of cheating... which means maybe none of that actually happened in reality?"
Ian suddenly felt like he was becoming someone who could no longer tell illusion from truth.
He really could not tell anymore.
He truly could not.
"Dad, did anything strange happen during the day today?"
When he could not tell what was real, Ian decided not to force the issue. What he cared about more was the cause of Superman's death that the female reaper had mentioned.
He had a strong feeling it had something to do with something that happened during the day.
However,
"You know how it is. Just some boring news-gathering. Nothing interesting." Clark pushed up his glasses. He was very obviously not planning to tell the truth.
...
Ian stared at his father for a long time.
"Go to sleep. And as for that robber you ran into, you don't need to worry anymore. I'm going to take this very seriously." Clark did not seem to notice anything strange about Ian's expression.
He patted Ian on the shoulder and gave his promise.
...
Ian had wanted to lay some cards on the table, but the stern warning from the female reaper kept echoing in his head. She had said Ian could only rely on himself, and that had to have meaning.
Was it because if Superman got involved, he would only make things worse?
With that thought lingering in his mind, and his sixth sense active enough to feel almost supernatural, Ian allowed Clark to guide him step by step to the door of his room.
"See you tomorrow, Dad."
Ian spoke softly.
Reflected in his pupils was the sight, outside the window behind Clark, of a woman sitting on the chimney of the opposite house, pressing a finger to her lips in a silencing gesture.
Only Ian could see her.
And yet Clark also paused strangely for a moment, as though he had sensed something.
"See you tomorrow."
Then he smiled and closed Ian's bedroom door for him.
Once he was alone in the hallway, Clark's smile slowly faded, replaced by a thoughtful look of confusion.
"Something happened..."
Superman looked toward the bathroom, then behind himself through the window at the empty night outside, where there was not even a bird in sight.
As his eyes flickered slightly,
he raised the arm hidden beneath his sleeve. The savage wound was still glowing green. But the growing weakness he had felt earlier now seemed to have suddenly stopped, leaving him with a very unusual sense that something had changed.
(End of Chapter)
[Check Out My P@treon For +20 Extra Chapters On All My Fanfics!!][[email protected]/euridome]
[+500 Power Stones = +1 Extra Chapter]
[Thank You For Your Support!]