Greatest Fragment of Brilliant Light

A sideblog dedicated to Solo Leveling. Also cywscross.

[slvault]

Hello, I'm a fan of your SL fics. I noticed all your works on ao3 got deleted so I wanted to ask if that was on purpose or not. I also wanted to ask where to read your fics if you've posted them elsewhere maybe. My goto ryujixsung Jin woo obsession has been returning you see. Anyways I hope you're doing well

Nothing got deleted, you just have to log in to read them.

[cywscross]

ARISE: a Solo Leveling Zine - Released! on Twitter

“👻ZINE RELEASED👻 After months of hard work by all our contributors, ARISE: A Solo Leveling Zine is proud to announce that the zine is complete! ✨80+ pages ✨15 artists ✨7 writers ✨4 sets of digital merch Check it out now at 👀https://t.co/ijl8ry91PA”

Arise! A free digital zine for Solo Leveling. You can pick one up here!

[slvault]

Your Solo Leveling fic is really great I’ve been rereading and rereading them especially the soulmate one and they’re SO GREAT

Thank you! The soulmate one is a fav, I should keep working on that next chapter.

[slvault]

I adore your everyone remembers AU, thank you so much for sharing it with us! It’s just lovely and I’m screaming at the idea of finally getting to see Jin-woo’s reaction to everyone showing up to help him!

I’m glad you liked it! It’s honestly just so self-indulgent, I have it titled “the time travel simping fic” in my docs XD

[slvault]

Post-Time Travel Recovered Memories AU [Pt.9]

[Last]

"Can we just go?" Thomas asks impatiently, which is already about ten times more patient than he usually has the patience for.

It's five in the afternoon, and they're all loitering on the edges of the district where Sung Jin-Woo is supposed to be staying.

 Well, there's no maybe about it. One look at how thick the shadows are - and at how they seem to ripple like wind across a pond whenever Thomas looks at them from his peripheral - and they have all the evidence they need.

 Still, Thomas isn't quite sure why they're not going in. They've been talking about going in for over five minutes now, but they haven't actually gotten anywhere. Barging into foreign territory might not be the wisest option, but that's still got to be better than just standing around. By the looks of it, Liu is about as fed-up as he feels, if that increasingly homicidal smile is anything to go by, and while it's understandable why Goto doesn't seem to want to be the first one to enter, the Koreans can't quite seem to make up their minds about what they want to do.

 Except Woo Jin-Chul. Guy's fucking weird, pings that way off of all of Thomas' instincts too. A threat, but not a threat, and not in the way Liu Zhigang might feel when he isn't actively being a vindictive bastard. It's more like he physically couldn't be a threat to Thomas even if he wanted to be - and since the guy's an A-rank, that makes sense - but at the same time, there's something about him that makes Thomas sit up and pay attention, a small blinking neon sign politely advising him to mind his manners or some shit because this man could make his life real difficult if he ever feels like it.

 The guy reminds him of Laura, actually, just a bit, but somehow worse. Still, the guy's not annoying so Thomas ultimately doesn't care.

 But yeah, weird, because he's also peering intently into a patch of shadows a few feet away, and then he's crouching down and rapping his knuckles against it like it's a door. Except maybe he's on to something because Thomas doesn't think he's imagining the blue-white gleam of eyes staring back.

 "Excuse me," Woo Jin-Chul says in his native tongue, polite as fuck, and the rest of the Koreans finally shut up. "We'd like to speak to Sung Jin-Woo hunter-nim. If you could tell him we're here, and perhaps give us an indication on how to proceed, we'd very much appreciate it. Thank you."

 Thomas can't carry a conversation in Korean. But he may or may not have started learning after meeting Sung Jin-Woo, not to mention he'd at least picked up a bit of the language after Hwang Dong-Su had joined his guild way back. Mostly swear words, but a handful of more common phrases too. He still can't understand enough to really claim to know the language, but he actually does usually get the general gist of whatever is going on, and what Woo Jin-Chul has just said is no exception.

 That's already better than Liu Zhigang or Goto Ryuji, judging by their disgruntled expressions, which Thomas is pettily smug about.

 Of course, no one misses the way the shadows writhe and surge, and Woo Jin-Chul only has time to straighten to his full height and back up a couple steps before something rises from the black impenetrable depths.

 It's an ant. A winged ant but standing upright like a human, wreathed in shadows and ghost-light, easily as tall as Thomas himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Goto recoil before the man's self-control kicks in and suppresses it. He gets points for standing his ground, even if his face has lost at least two shades of colour.

 It's probably a good thing the other two Japanese S-ranks and Min Byung-Gyu had elected to stay behind.

 Beru, Thomas recalls, one of Sung Jin-Woo's strongest generals. He'd been one of the ones sent to fight the Monarch of the Iron Body with him.

 The ant takes a step towards them, and even Liu Zhigang's hands twitch for a brief second as if wishing for his swords. The Korean S-ranks are all tense, and Goto's jaw is so tight, Thomas wonders if he's in danger of cracking a tooth.

 He supposes he can't blame any of them. He can feel a sense of unease creeping up on himself as well, that natural fight-or-flight instinct rearing its head in the presence of a very lethal predator. If the ant decides to kill everybody here, there's absolutely nothing any of them can do about it.

 And then, "Beru-nim," Woo Jin-Chul greets with a dip of his head and no visible fear whatsoever (what the fuck even is this guy?), drawing the ant's attention to him. "It is good to see you again. Would Sung Jin-Woo hunter-nim be willing to speak with us? Several of us have regained our memories of the previous timeline, and we'd like to help him in whatever way we can with his fight against the Monarchs."

 The ant stares for a long unnerving moment before making a chittering hiss of a sound. Thomas has no idea what it means but at least it doesn't sound threatening.

 "You can ask my lord yourself," The ant rasps, and the temperature suddenly drops about five degrees, with the afternoon daylight no longer half as bright. The ant's gaze moves past their heads. "Here he comes now."

 And as if on cue, a voice from behind them - higher-pitched than Thomas is used to but familiar in both tone and cadence - speaks. "I was wondering what the commotion was about."

 They all whirl around-

 -and there he is, smaller, shorter, fluffier hair and an even slighter build. But his eyes are the same, foxfire-bright and inscrutable as they move from one Hunter to the next, and the weight of the mana radiating from his mere presence feels almost enough to drown them all.

 Sung Jin-Woo, the Greatest Fragment of Brilliant Light, the Shadow Monarch ascendant.

 Thomas has never felt so at home in this life as the mantle of this death god’s power settles over them all once more.

[slvault]

Post-Time Travel Recovered Memories AU [Pt.8]

[Last]

Go Gun-Hee reserves half the floors of one of his hotels to accommodate those who need room and board. They stay there for another five days before Woo Jin-Chul finally comes through.

"Hunter Sung is staying in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Seoul," He announces on a Tuesday morning. Most of the room are clutching coffees like lifelines but Woo Jin-Chul still looks the most manic out of all of them. Zhigang absently wonders if this man ever sleeps. He's certainly never seen it. Woo Jin-Chul is always the last to leave and the first to arrive, and that's just assuming he ever goes home in-between.

 If nothing else, it's dedication worthy of admiration.

 "Well, it used to be a warehouse," Woo Jin-Chul mumbles, flipping through a stack of papers at speeds no human should be able to process. "Then it was remodelled into a café, and then it went out of business, but most of the facilities are still in working order, minus electricity and water. I can't tell if he's there right now - he never walks in or out of that district. I'm assuming he teleports with his shadows. But I've seen his soldiers around - there aren't enough cameras in the area for me to follow them everywhere, and satellite images can only pick up so much, but they’ve set up a pretty obvious perimeter, at a fairly even circumference, and the warehouse is more or less what their patrol routes are centered around, so I'm confident that's his base of operations."

 He looks up, and his gaze is both expectant and bloodshot.

 "Chief Woo," Baek Yoon-Ho says gruffly, kicking out a chair as Min Byung-Gyu helpfully holds out a cup of tea. "Sit down. I’m getting anxiety just looking at you."

 Woo Jin-Chul blinks at him with the dazed air of someone who's looked at nothing but thousands of minutes of footage on multiple computer screens for too many hours to count. The man glances at Go Gun-Hee, whose expression very clearly asks something along the lines of didn't I tell you to go home yesterday and not come back until you’re a functional human being again?

 Woo Jin-Chul blinks again, then finally shuffles over to the free seat, collapses into it, and takes the tea with a mutter of thanks.

 "I guess we have to decide who's going to go talk to him then?" The Korean S-rank Ranger, Lim Tae-Gyu, says from the open screen of the video call set up on a side table. Another is set up for the Tanker Ma Dong-Wook, and a third contains Cha Hae-In, who can't miss anymore school for now so she's sitting at the back of her classroom with earphones in and her laptop screen carefully shielded from her classmates. A fourth has most of the rest of the Draw Sword Guild crowded into it.

 "I'm going," Woo Jin-Chul immediately volunteers in a tone that brooks no arguments, and nobody argues, taking it in stride.

 It's odd, Zhigang thinks, how easily this man fits in with them. Maybe it's because none of them have their mana at the moment, but usually, most S-ranks - Zhigang included - feel a sense of superiority over all the ranks below them. It's not even arrogance, or not just arrogance for some; it's just that the gap between S-ranks and the rest - and even the gap between S-ranks themselves - tend to spark an automatic instinct to dominate in the stronger parties, while the weaker parties are naturally more submissive. The hierarchy at least is always obvious.

 Woo Jin-Chul has the courtesy and etiquette of someone used to catering to more powerful Hunters than himself down to an art - he's never not impeccably polite with all of them - but at the same time, he’s not a pushover, he has no trouble holding the attention of any room he's in when he wants to, and even Thomas Andre and Goto Ryuji don't talk down to him when they converse. It never even looks forced. They naturally treat him like someone who deserves to be taken seriously, and none of them questions his authority in this ragtag little group. Maybe they haven't even noticed it, the way this man can ask them to do things and they do it without question, but to be fair, it took even Zhigang a few days to catch on.

 Woo Jin-Chul's brand of leadership is a subtle thing, quiet but oddly effective. Mana-wise, he would undoubtedly be the weakest person in the room, but people… settle around him anyway, as if the steady calm he wears like a second skin is practically an area of effect in and of itself.

 It's interesting. Zhigang can see why Sung Jin-Woo respects this man.

 "I shall go too," Zhigang announces, smiling a dare at anyone to dispute his right to go.

 Andre grins in a way that looks like a baring of teeth before an attack. "The whole point of me coming here was to see him. I'm going."

 Goto Ryuji stares indifferently at all of them, arms crossed. "My guild members will stay behind, but I'm going as well."

 Goto Ryuji. Another interesting one. Not in the same way as Woo Jin-Chul, but Zhigang is looking forward to observing him some more too. From the memories he'd gained, as well as the rumours he'd heard about this Hunter, he would've expected more of an ego and more of a temper, especially with the unrelenting cold contempt from the Koreans' corner. But the most riled up Goto Ryuji's been all week was a simmering moment in the hall when he and Baek Yoon-Ho almost came to blows. Unfortunately, Zhigang hadn’t been close enough to overhear what they were talking about, and Min Byung-Gyu had swooped in the next moment to diffuse the situation. Aside from that, Goto Ryuji’s kept to himself and his guild, contributed where he’s needed, and taken the scorn in stride.

 Well, there’s no hurry. There’ll definitely be more time later to poke at this particular dragon. How fun. And here Zhigang had thought it would be boring without Sung Jin-Woo around.

 “What if he kills you on sight?” Baek Yoon-Ho asks next with a slight curl to his lip that probably would’ve shown fang had he still had his beast transformation.

 Goto Ryuji turns to face him, eyes as cold and empty as a barren tundra. “Then my vice will take over all Draw Sword operations.”

 On either side of him, the Healer scowls, and the Fighter’s shoulders hunch a little, but both of them stay silent. A couple muffled but vaguely outraged voices come from one of the laptops, just as quickly muted. Goto doesn’t even blink. “I’ll take the risk. But thank you for your concern, Mr. Baek.”

 Baek Yoon-Ho snarls, but Min Byung-Gyu knocks their knees together, and Choi Jong-In flicks him a glance too quick for Zhigang to read. The combination seems enough for Baek Yoon-Ho to understand though because he huffs but grudgingly settles back down after that.

 Zhigang moves his gaze away, smiling faintly to himself. Sooner or later, once they're Awakened again, there's probably going to be a fight. He wonders how that'll go. Any way you look at it, Goto Ryuji is stronger than Baek Yoon-Ho, and however contained the former seems these days, there's no way a Hunter like him will suffer a loss on purpose, no matter the reason. But it wouldn't look good either if he ends up beating the latter into the ground.

 Whatever happens though, at least it'll be entertaining.

 The discussion moves past the latest hiccup, and as the Koreans whisper amongst themselves about who will go (they can just all go if they want to? Who's going to stop them?? Zhigang doesn't understand normal S-ranks), he catches Andre's eye from across the room. The man is watching him, and when he sees he has Zhigang's attention, he grins.

 Later, once the meeting is over, and they're sorting out sleep, breakfast, and more work between themselves because they figured going to meet Sung Jin-Woo in the late afternoon would be best (code for: Cha Hae-In - who couldn't speak in class to argue her case but had aggressively set off a string of emojitones until they'd agreed to wait for her - would be out of school by then), Andre sidles over for a word.

 "You're a real piece of work, Liu Zhigang," He murmurs, and the grin is audible in his voice.

 Zhigang doesn't let his serene expression waver as he makes himself a cup of tea. "One must know one's allies well."

 Andre snorts. "Yeah, sure. You might wanna look a little less gleeful when they eventually bite each other's heads off though."

 Zhigang arches an eyebrow. "I'm sure they'll show some moderation."

 Andre barks a derisive laugh that attracts looks from the others in the room. Neither of them pays any mind. "Better moderate yourself then."

 Zhigang finally sets down the mug. The water will take a while longer to boil. He turns to Andre, and it's only a little annoying that he has to look up to meet the other man's eyes. But they've known each other for years - Zhigang's used to Andre towering over everyone. More importantly, "I didn't expect you to care."

 Andre grins like a shark.

 "I don't," He assures, shrugging expansively. "On a regular day, they can tear each other apart and you can goad them on, and I wouldn't give a damn. But internal conflict's not my idea of a good time, and even I can admit we can't afford that shit in our ranks when we're facing off against those Monarch fuckers."

 All the humour drops from his face. "Sung Jin-Woo doesn't need that shit either - messing around is just gonna be another point against us, and I think we can both agree that convincing him to let us join him is already gonna be a hard enough sell as it is. So if you wanna play your little games, at least wait until we're done with the war."

The look in his eyes goes sharp right then, in a way that makes Zhigang’s blood stir and his fingers itch for his blades. The American grins once more, a little cruel and more than a little crazy. "Otherwise, you and I? We're gonna have a problem."

 Zhigang cocks his head. Sometimes, it's easy to forget the fact that this behemoth of a man actually has enough of a brain to be sensible when he wants to be. Not so sensible if he thinks he needs to have this conversation with Zhigang though.

 He thinks about taking offense. He doesn't need to be warned to not do anything to jeopardize their chances of joining the war effort— he's not that childish or that foolish. If anything, it should be the other way around. Who was it again that couldn't rein his own man in and had almost gotten killed at the wrong end of Sung Jin-Woo's ire? Sung Jin-Woo, who was notorious for his utter lack of a temper?

 Still, it seems more effort than it's worth to get angry here. He doesn't like admitting it, but as baseline humans, Andre could do some serious damage to him. Zhigang can always stab him later if the urge arises, once they're both Awakened again.

 The kettle on the counter boils. Zhigang goes back to making tea. "I haven't done anything, have I? It's entertaining enough just watching them. If you want someone playing peacemaker though, I'm afraid you're out of luck here."

 Andre stares at him for a beat longer, and then the high slant of his shoulders drops a bit, just enough to be noticeable, like a beast sitting back on its haunches. He scoffs. "Yeah, no, I'm not doing that either. They can sort themselves out, or get their asses kicked if they get on Jin-Woo's nerves badly enough."

 Zhigang smirks, unbidden. Andre catches it and laughs again, and they're probably both a little too fascinated by the notion of Sung Jin-Woo in a fight to be any kind of healthy, but… well.

 Nothing makes an S-rank Hunter more than that ever-hungry attraction to overwhelming power.

[Next]

[slvault]

Post-Time Travel Recovered Memories AU [Pt.7]

[Last]

Whether by sheer coincidence or some freaky quirk of fate, Thomas Andre, Liu Zhigang, and Goto Ryuji and his plus two all arrive in Seoul at more or less the exact same time. To be fair, only the Japanese Hunters' flight had arrived on time. Liu Zhigang's landed half an hour early, and Thomas Andre took a layover, the second half of which was delayed by almost two hours.

(The world should be very thankful that Thomas Andre has yet to be Awakened because otherwise it might very well have become one airport short today.)

 All five Hunters stumble on each other in front of one of the exits, baggage in tow, and for a long strained minute, they can only stop and stare at each other.

 And then, because Liu Zhigang's reputation had been well and truly earned, the Chinese Hunter smiles and points at Shimizu Akari and says, in slightly accented but carefully enunciated English, "Are you even legal to travel or are you a stowaway? Don't twelve-year-olds still need parental supervision?"

 Shimizu - sporting a cute bob of a haircut, dressed in an outfit patterned lightly with pink flowers, and looking a good four years younger than her current sixteen years of age - gapes, splutters, then flushes red as she draws herself up, as if that might somehow make her taller and more of an adult. It has the opposite effect and just makes her look like a child trying too hard to appear grown up.

 "I'm sixteen, asshole!" Shimizu snaps back in a way she probably wouldn't have done had they all still had their powers.

 Liu Zhigang just smiles wider. "Oh? My mistake. But in my defense, you could definitely fit in the luggage compartment."

 Then, without giving anyone any time to muster up some kind of response, the man sweeps past all of them and out the doors, leaving an outraged Shimizu in his wake.

 Thomas Andre snorts and says nothing, slinging his bag over one broad shoulder as he saunters out after Liu Zhigang without another glance at the Japanese contingent.

 Behind him, Hoshino Minoru pats his fellow Hunter on the head, snatching his hand back just in time to save it from getting broken or possibly ripped off.

 "There, there," He offers blandly. "You've heard the rumours about that guy. Don't take it to heart. He's like that with everyone."

 Shimizu snarls wordlessly at him before storming away, leaving Minoru to sigh and chase after her before she gets run over by the crowd bustling all around them. Ryuji brings up the rear with a resigned air, and as the five of them congregate in the taxi terminal for a ride to Go Industries (each of them in different taxis, thankfully), he looks up from stowing their bags in the trunk in time to catch Liu Zhigang's eye.

 The Chinese Hunter smiles at him, genial on the surface, all teeth and provocation underneath. He doesn't draw it out, sliding into his taxi in the next second, gone in another few.

 Ryuji shuts the trunk, climbs into the passenger seat, glares both bickering idiots in the backseat into sullen silence (sometimes it's like running a goddamn daycare), and gives the driver their destination before finally turning his attention out the window.

 His scowling reflection stares back.

 He knows a threat when he sees one, doesn't need his mana to pick it up, not when Liu Zhigang has all the subtlety of a brick to the face. Ryuji heard the pull another stunt like Jeju Island again and Sung Jin-Woo won't have to lift a finger to deal with you while I'm here just fine. Hell, he'd been given front-row ghost-seats to this man's first meeting with Sung just last night, and he would've had to be blind, deaf, and dumb to miss the respect Liu Zhigang had shown Sung Jin-Woo, with none of the viciousness he'd been famous for when it came to his interactions with people outside of the Tiānshén Guild. Usually, dismissive mockery was the best one could hope for in a conversation with the 7-Star Hunter, acerbic venom at worst if you managed to insult him that badly, and outright violence was never off the table. Even Ryuji - for all his pride - would've shown some caution if he'd ever been approached by that man.

 Sung Jin-Woo though had been spared the entire spectrum. It's a toss-up whether or not he'd realized just how differently Liu Zhigang had treated him compared to literally any other foreign Hunter in the world. But on the other hand, it had admittedly been good judgement. Looking back, ironically enough, Liu Zhigang had probably been just about the only S-rank who'd managed to nail his introduction to Sung Jin-Woo perfectly, treating him as an equal from the very start, with none of Ryuji's pride or Andre's temper or even Korea's own S-rank Hunters' initial doubts and superiority.

 Ryuji scowls harder. He doesn't need to be threatened. Every Hunter capable of standing against the Monarchs is a priceless asset at this point, and cutting down those numbers in any way would be utterly senseless and detrimental to their cause. The Hunter system also doesn't exist anymore - becoming a National Level Hunter is neither possible nor meaningful - but even if it did exist, Ryuji wouldn't do anything. Even he has a bottom line he won't cross, not even for his ambitions, and any deceit at this point towards the man Ryuji is undeniably indebted to would bulldoze right over it. Besides, getting on the wrong side of Sung Jin-Woo is just plain stupid, and while Ryuji had admittedly made some pretty stupid mistakes, he'd like to think dying had successfully taught him a lesson or two.

 The taxi slows and pulls over, right behind two other taxis already parked at the curb. Ryuji thanks the driver in clipped Korean, pays him, and then joins his subordinates as they retrieve their luggage.

 Liu Zhigang and Thomas Andre are already greeting a man standing by the doors of Go Industries. It takes a moment, but Ryuji quickly places him as Go Gun-Hee's right hand and successor. Not an S-rank, last Ryuji checked, so maybe his assumption about who remembers their past lives is off.

 "Goto-san, Hoshino-san, Shimizu-san, welcome to South Korea," Woo Jin-Chul says in fluent Japanese as Ryuji joins them, Minoru and Shimizu behind him. His words are perfectly neutral, his expression is perfectly innocuous, even his tone of voice is perfectly courteous. But there's ice in his eyes when he looks at Ryuji, unafraid and unyielding, even if not a speck of it shows anywhere else.

 Five seconds with this man and Ryuji can already see why Go Gun-Hee values him.

 "Should we be expecting anyone else on a later flight?" Woo Jin-Chul continues, glancing briefly at the Hunters behind him.

 "No," Ryuji says shortly. "The rest are in Japan on standby."

 He’d brought Shimizu because she’s their only - would-be - Healer, and the Koreans only have one as well. And it was either Minoru or Sugimoto, but Ryuji doesn’t trust the rest of his guild - Awakened or otherwise - not to blow something up without himself or his vice riding herd on them, so Minoru it had to be. A distant cousin and - more importantly - tolerable in long doses, if only due to regular exposure for most of Ryuji’s life. Also he speaks passable Korean, which unfortunately Ryuji never bothered learning beyond a handful of everyday terms and phrases.

 Woo Jin-Chul nods. "Very well." He switches to English so they can all understand. "Then please, follow me. Most of the Korean S-rank Hunters are already here. We are still in the process of looking for Hunter Sung, but I'm sure everyone is eager to meet and figure out where we should go from here."

 "Looking for Sung Jin-Woo?" Andre interjects sharply before anyone else can.

 "He's left his home," Woo Jin-Chul replies blandly. "Three weeks ago. A missing persons report has been filed with the police, but he should still be around. There have been movements in the shadows of Seoul that shouldn't be possible if not for him. I've been keeping track of them, but it will take me a while longer to trace them back to him."

 The elevator ride up is spent in slightly uncomfortable - and slightly cramped - silence as they all digest this new piece of information.

 Well, it isn’t as if Ryuji had expected Sung to be waiting for them. Worst-case scenario though would’ve been if he’d already gone off-planet entirely. At least right now, there’s still a chance of catching up with him.

 It’s all pointless if Sung straight-up refuses though. But everyone else seems tiresomely optimistic so far, including the Koreans already congregated in Go Gun-Hee’s office, so who is he to say anything to ruin the mood?

 Ryuji ignores the glares aimed at him and hustles his two guild members to one side. Likewise, Andre hogs a sofa to himself, and Liu Zhigang tucks himself into a corner, watching the room the way a very large cat might watch its prey.

 It’s a wonder no fights have broken out yet.

 “Until we can contact Hunter Sung,” Go Gun-Hee tells them all once the greetings are out of the way. He speaks in English as well, and it seems like everyone knows the language. “I think our best course of action is to compile the memories we've received to make sure we are all up to date on recent events and what we'll be dealing with when we face the Monarchs. We should also draw up a list of supplies and equipment that a campaign like this will need. And lastly," He surveys them all with a grave expression, lingering on no one in particular. "Provided Hunter Sung agrees, you are still not required to fight in this war just because you remember. In fact, I don't believe it would be a good idea to send every Hunter we have to the frontlines anyway. On the off-chance that the Monarchs win, Earth would be a sitting duck if no one is left to defend it. Better to divide the Hunters we have into a main attack force that would go with Hunter Sung, and a reserve force that would wait here, just in case the worst comes to pass."

 A tense silence follows, broken by a loud scoff from Thomas Andre.

 "It doesn't matter one way or the other to me," The man says bluntly. "I'll be a part of the attack force either way. But I don't know who you think you're kidding - if the Monarchs win, that means all the best fighters will have been killed, and Earth won't stand a chance. It won't matter who stays behind. The best you could do is delay the inevitable."

 Judging by the looks on everyone else's faces, Ryuji isn't the only one who agrees with that assessment.

 "It's not a terrible idea," The fire Mage, Choi Jong-In, cuts in. "A delay is still a delay. Aside from that though, a reserve team stationed here could potentially double as the attack team's support. We don't know how long we'll be fighting. I don't think even Sung Jin-Woo could predict such a thing. But if something could be set up to at least allow a regular flow of supplies to be sent over, we won't have to worry about running out or rationing what we bring. It isn't likely that we'll be able to travel very often between Earth and wherever we'll be fighting, if at all, since constantly sending Hunters back and forth would probably weaken the fabrics of space enough for extradimensional energies to start slipping through again like it did in the previous timeline. But food and clothes and other items from Earth have no mana in them. It probably still wouldn't be wise to send things too often, but if Sung Jin-Woo can help set up a pickup point and a way through, the reserve team here can make sure the deliveries are made on time, even if it's just once every few months. We might even be able to send messages back and forth so long as they're written on paper."

 He stops there, contribution made. Everyone stares at him for a moment, and while he adjusts his glasses and arches eyebrows at them all, he doesn't otherwise react.

 "Mr. Choi makes a good point," Liu Zhigang concedes in mild tones. "At the very least, it is a tentative working plan until Sung Jin-Woo can confirm."

 Nobody else speaks up but a general sense of agreement finally settles over the room.

 "Then," Go Gun-Hee picks up again. "Consider which team you'd prefer to be on, and we can tally up the numbers later. Mr. Goto," Ryuji meets the man's gaze without flinching. Go Gun-Hee looks back, just as neutral as his right hand was. "If you could confer with the rest of your guild on this matter and let us know?"

 Ryuji nods curtly, then glances at Shimizu who is obligingly speed-texting their guild the whole conversation thus far. She gives him a thumbs-up, and he leaves her to it, although he can already guess who might want to stay behind. Kumamoto had always struggled - mentally - when raiding Dungeons above a B-rank. Kei's heightened sense of smell will probably prove to be more of a hindrance to him in the long-term. Shimizu's one of two Healers on their side so there's pros and cons to bringing her along. He'll have to check with a few of the others. He was going to suggest splitting into two teams anyway, even if the point hadn't been brought up. Trauma is never a good thing in life-or-death situations, and Ryuji isn't going to bring along anyone who might freeze or collapse on the battlefield. They'd just end up deadweight.

 "Does anybody else have anything to add for now?" Go Gun-Hee asks, glancing around again.

 Liu Zhigang promptly raises his hand like he's been waiting for a moment to say his piece all along. "Sung Jin-Woo's father, the man the Americans labelled a monster and pinned Christopher Reid's death on-" Andre twitches. Liu breezes on as if the petty jab was at all necessary. "I requested his file after the conference. He was Awakened as an A-rank ten years prior, but the fights he was in after he came back out of that Dungeon indicated that he'd undoubtedly become an S-rank by that point, so he should be qualified to remember too. Why is he not here? Did he not regain his memories?"

 Go Gun-Hee hums and glances at Woo Jin-Chul, who takes a step forward to answer. "I've been keeping an eye on the Sung family. As far as I can tell, he doesn't remember." He pauses before acknowledging, "He could be pretending. I haven't looked too closely. But he hasn't deviated from his normal daily routine, aside from checking with the police for news of his son every couple days. From a distance, he seems to show the same levels of concern as his wife and daughter. Nothing more."

 Liu cocks his head, expression indecipherable, but he nods and doesn't push further.

 "What about Hwang Dong-Su?" Andre asks next, blunt and suddenly wearing an expression as unreadable as his Chinese counterpart's.

 Nobody answers right away, not even Woo Jin-Chul, and most of the Koreans look at him like their estimation of the man's integrity is dropping into the negatives, and it hadn't been that high to begin with.

 Ryuji smothers a smirk. He'd heard of the fuss Korea had put up back when Hwang Dong-Su had abandoned his home country for richer pastures, heard too of the man's nasty personality, with a pride worse than Ryuji's and a temper worse than Andre's. And of course, he'd seen the way Hwang had obsessed over Sung Jin-Woo before finally meeting his end at the latter's hands after abducting and torturing that kid Sung had pretty much considered a younger brother. Even witnessing all that though, Ryuji actually still can't tell if Hwang had truly been upset over his brother's death, or if the man had just never learned how to let go of a grudge, and his bloodlust had taken over all logical sense.

 Either way, it's easy to see how little Hwang Dong-Su's death had meant to his countrymen, how little he'd endeared himself to any of them. For Andre to ask…

 But, Andre just sneers back, meeting each pair of eyes glare for glare, and even as a baseline human, he's big in a way that even Go Gun-Hee can't quite match, so when he leans forward, it feels as much a threat as it does an emphasis of the point he's making. "I already almost died for him once; I won't be doing it again. But if he remembers– Mr. Hwang is like a dog with a bone, without half as much sense. I don't know if his time as Sung Jin-Woo's Shadow soldier will have stuck with him, but if it hasn't, and he remembers, it won't matter that he has no powers. He'll tear this country apart looking for Sung Jin-Woo. And he wouldn't be above using the Sung family to do it."

He shrugs like he doesn't much care, but it's a gesture that's in direct contradiction with how hard his gaze has become. "He'll die for it in the end, if he tries, the moment Sung Jin-Woo finds out. That's inevitable. But nobody can be sure how much damage he might cause before that if no one has eyes on him."

 Several more beats of silence pass like rope stretched taut, but in that time, the slight chill in the air seems to dissipate.

 "We don't know," Woo Jin-Chul finally says. "I can't find him." His expression cools like he considers that a personal failure. "I do know he isn't in the country, or I would have found him. But he - and his brother - are not in Korea at the moment, even though they are registered as citizens."

 Another pause.

 "Well shit," Andre snorts, sprawling back again, all the aggression leaking back out of him. "Best keep an eye on the airports then."

 "I am," Woo Jin-Chul says flatly. "Every single one."

 And Ryuji recalls how he'd already been waiting for them downstairs when they'd arrived, along with the way he'd said "on a later flight" when asking about the rest of Ryuji's guild and not whether they might just be in separate taxis a few blocks behind.

 It's a pity this man Awakened as an A-rank. With a mind like that, and skills outside of just the strength of his mana, he would've made a formidable S-rank.

 "We'll keep an eye out," Go Gun-Hee intervenes calmly. "But for now, let's get to work. There's a lot we have to prepare for."

 Again, there's that bristle-edged hush from the non-Korean half of the room, a lag in response to a sentence that can be construed as a borderline order. Ryuji doesn't know about the others, but it's an annoying itch between his teeth when he has to quell the knee-jerk reflex to immediately refuse. It says a lot about Go Gun-Hee's reputation though, that he's able to keep the peace in a room filled with these particular individuals, and that nobody's even protested the way he's taken charge since they'd convened.

 Ryuji internally shakes off his instinctual irritation and gets to his feet, pacing forward to grab one of the laptops clearly set out for them, with pages of information already noted down. There's a Korean version and an English version. His entire guild has a decent grasp of English but a few of them still stumble over reading it and don't like to when they don't have to, which is most of the time. It's just easier to make a Japanese copy so he won't have to put up with their whining.

 "Minoru, translate," Ryuji instructs. "Shimizu, fill in any holes. Pass it to me when you're done."

 He sits down and pulls out his own laptop from his bag. He'd already started a list of supplies they're going to need for an extended campaign. Weapons too. Equipment not imbued with magic is naturally weaker, but Ryuji's attack power is also basically halved without a sword. God only knows where he's going to find a blacksmith willing to make actual working blades in this day and age. He'll have to keep track of their budget though. He's fairly well off even at this point in time, and Sugimoto's inheritance practically bankrolled the Draw Sword Guild in their first year, but the amount isn't infinite.

 He can feel eyes on him. He ignores them.

 (Even now, Ryuji is too proud to apologize. Bowing his head and begging for forgiveness is a foreign concept to him, and it feels like he'd have to grind his own bones to dust to accomplish it. It doesn't help that he still doesn't entirely regret it. He regrets the domino effect caused by his decision, regrets the outcome and all that followed, regrets that his guild and his country had indirectly had to pay for his and the Association's greed. If he'd known what would happen beforehand, he would never have gone through with it.

 But the plan itself - to take advantage of the power vacuum that would've been left in the wake of the destruction of Korea's Hunter system - objectively speaking, it was a good plan. It was beneficial, to himself, to his guild, and to Japan, and those had been his top three priorities for going on a decade. If there had been no Ant King and no Sung Jin-Woo, they would've succeeded, he would've had a chance at becoming a National Level Hunter, and his country would've been lifted to new heights of recognition all around the world, with yet another source of income from a hemorrhaging country gutted from the inside-out. Cruel and underhanded, from an ethical and emotional standpoint, but those have never been things Ryuji would remember to take into account. Logically, strategically, he'd weighed the whole matter on a cost-benefit scale, and the projected gains he'd estimated had far outweighed any losses that might be suffered, especially when those losses wouldn't even come from them. And Ryuji can't regret that. He just doesn't feel it, doesn't know how to.

 So he can't apologize, because he's still too proud, but also because what the Koreans probably want him to make amends for is not what Ryuji wants to make amends for, and he doesn't think anything short of genuine remorse could ever force him to bend under his own will. Even then, it would be difficult.

 He can't apologize, but he can work with them, lend them his strength and the strength of his guild, and fight until the monsters die or he dies again.

 And that will have to be enough.)

 Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Liu Zhigang move forward, and Thomas Andre unfolds from the couch. Slowly, the office's occupants busy themselves with their respective tasks, and Ryuji and his subordinates are left to their own devices.

 Ryuji doesn't look up from his work again until Minoru nudges the laptop over to him.

[Next]

[slvault]

Post-Time Travel Recovered Memories AU [Pt.6]

[Last]

Hae-In has never been so grateful for the fact that her father works overseas and her mother is used to her leaving early in the morning for track practice.

Of course, that's not where she goes. Well, she's not sure where she should go - her feet takes her to Sung Jin-Woo's guild building, but that hasn't been built yet so it's just an empty lot, and then she's halfway to his house before it occurs to her just how creepy that is, then she thinks about her own guild's building but that probably hasn't been built either or at least it's some other business in its place, and then she just ends up halfway across the city, lurking across the street from Go Industries without a clue as to whether or not she should call attention to herself at all.

 Someone notices her anyway. She's thirteen years old with no adult supervision, in an area where no kids should be for at least another seven hours - there's no hiding that. But to her relief, it's not just anyone who comes to get her. The front doors of Go Industries slide open, and the familiar - if younger - figure of Woo Jin-Chul beckons her over. She's not used to seeing him out of a suit - he's only in a semi-casual white shirt and trousers - but his expression is the same impassive calm as always, and Hae-In feels the squiggle of anxiety knotted in her chest since she woke up this morning finally unravel as she hurries across the street.

 "Cha hunter-nim," Woo Jin-Chul greets her, and she's never been so happy to hear her usual address. The man doesn't even blink at how short she is now, or at the sweater, jeans, and sneakers she's wearing.

 "Chairman," She replies, only to pause. Is it still Chairman if Go Gun-Hee is alive and obviously remembers everything?

 Woo Jin-Chul smiles slightly. "My old position will suffice. I was happy to relinquish the seat back to Chairman Go." A flicker of amusement enters his expression. "Of course, none of these positions technically exist anymore."

 Hae-In huffs a laugh of her own as she follows him inside. "When did you remember? Just today? You work fast."

 He's already in touch with Go Gun-Hee, and judging by how nobody stops him from taking her through the building even though there's a lot of not-very-discreet confused glances thrown their way, he even has the run of the place already. As expected of Chief Inspector Woo, she supposes. There's a reason a bunch of stories used to go around about how all the major guilds back in the day had verbally and physically thrown down over signing him before Go Gun-Hee had snatched him off the market.

 "A week ago," Woo Jin-Chul informs her as they take a private elevator up. "I spent the time tracking people down, but it seems it was only today that everyone else remembered. The Chairman sent a car to pick me up a few hours ago, and Master Choi, Master Baek, and Hunter Min Byung-Gyu are making their way here as we speak. Master Lim and Master Ma live farther away so they won’t be able to come today, but the Chairman has already contacted them, and they’ve cleared their schedules for the day so that they’ll be available for a conference call once the others arrive.”

 “So it’s only S-rank Hunters,” Hae-In mutters, but that’s not quite right either considering whose company she’s in. “Or also A-ranks?”

 “As far as I can tell,” Woo Jin-Chul says. “It is only S-rank Hunters. I believe I am an exception because Sung Jin-Woo hunter-nim shared memories of the war between the Rulers and the Monarchs with me in our previous timeline, right before that conference he held, so that might have carried over somehow. The Chairman and I aren’t entirely sure why any of us remember at all since I don’t think we were supposed to, but in the greater scheme of things, I don’t think that matters too much.”

 Hae-In nods her agreement. No, what matters is that they do remember, and what they’re going to do from here on out.

 “What about S-rank Hunters from other countries? They can’t all remember, right? Someone probably would’ve leaked something, and I checked social media earlier. Nothing really stood out.”

 The elevator reaches the top floor, and the doors slide open again. Woo Jin-Chul gestures her ahead even as he continues to answer. “No, I don’t think it’s all of them. But I also find it improbable that only Hunters in South Korea remember. Most likely, it is just the S-ranks who came into contact with Sung Jin-Woo hunter-nim in some specific way that have regained their memories.”

 “…Thomas Andre,” Hae-In says, eyes widening, because everyone had heard about the drama there, even if they’d missed the news reports. Only someone as insane as Andre could anger Sung Jin-Woo to the point of landing himself in the hospital, and then turn around and make friends with that same man and succeed. Rumour had even had it that he'd come to South Korea for a social visit with Sung Jin-Woo, and that was why he'd been around - and willing - to hold that Monarch back from slaughtering Seoul long enough for Sung Jin-Woo to arrive.

 "Indeed," Woo Jin-Chul agrees. "If any S-ranks outside of South Korea remember, he would almost certainly be one of them. Liu Zhigang as well, perhaps. They were probably considered the strongest Hunters Earth could offer, and Sung Jin-Woo hunter-nim got along with both of them. If we were somehow handpicked to serve as his allies, then they would be top candidates. And then there is…" He trails off, and his expression goes odd for a moment, in a way Hae-In can't read. It's smoothed away again almost immediately. "Well, only time will tell what the Japanese S-ranks will do, if anything at all."

 And ah, now Hae-In gets it. She's not sure she wants their help either, but at the same time, beggars can't be choosers. Their whole planet is at stake; they need to gather any help they can get, and say what you will about Goto Ryuji and his guild but you can't deny that - once Awakened - they're all strong enough to lend a hand. If they're willing. But Sung Jin-Woo saved their entire country despite what they'd attempted to do to South Korea. Surely even they can't be so shameless as to try and stab them in the back a second time after knowing that. What even would be the point anymore?

 "Here we are," Woo Jin-Chul stops them in front of a set of doors at the end of the hall. There are bodyguards standing in front of them, and she can practically feel their baffled suspicion and disdain, but Woo Jin-Chul steps in front of her without making it look deliberate, and the almost bored but uncompromising stare he pins on them in return makes them twitch and glance away.

 They step aside, and Woo Jin-Chul opens the doors and ushers her inside.

 The man who stands to greet her is a sight for sore eyes. Hae-In had never had much to do with the Chairman, but he'd been capable and powerful, a solid rock at the head of South Korea's Hunter corps, and while Woo Jin-Chul had been a competent leader for the short time he'd been in office, losing Go Gun-Hee had still been a blow.

 "Hunter Cha," Go Gun-Hee smiles, and his face - while still weathered with age - has fewer stress lines and no scars, and there's almost no grey in his hair. "You're the first to arrive aside from Chief Woo here." He motions at the table, laden down with coffee and tea and various pastries, all fresh. "You can help yourself while we wait for the others. And in the meantime, if you're amenable to it, perhaps we can compare notes, so to speak."

 Hae-In spots the open laptops on the nearby desk and the neat lines of black that look vaguely like a timeline. She straightens. "Yes, sir!"

 It seems reasonable to assume that everyone got the same bundle of memories recounting the war of the gods and Sung Jin-Woo's life, and for those who hadn't lived to the end of their previous timeline, they might've even gotten a run-through of what had happened in those following months, but probably not every single detail of it. And it would just be easier for everyone to stay on the same page if they have notes to refer to once they have to start working out a plan of action.

 However, "About Sung Jin-Woo hunter-nim though…" Hae-In brings up, because nobody else has yet. Does he know? Have they contacted him?

 Go Gun-Hee looks equal parts amused and resigned for a moment. Woo Jin-Chul clears his throat. "Officially, Sung Jin-Woo hunter-nim has run away from home as of three weeks ago." Hae-In stares at him. Woo Jin-Chul shrugs back almost fatalistically. "We believe he should still be around somewhere, preparing for the upcoming war, but it's been a difficult task to locate him. I'm working on it."

 A slew of computers in a side office backs up his words, and after a slight bow to both of them, the man retreats with a mug of coffee and a determined stalk to his stride.

 Well, Hae-In supposes if anyone can find a man-turned-boy-hiding-the-fact-that-he-is-actually-an-immortal-shadow-king, it would be the person once in charge of monitoring  and reining in every dangerous individual in the country while keeping an eye on all the ones outside of it.

 -0-

 (An hour later, three more S-ranks pile into the room, and Hae-In isn't sure if the awkward deer-in-the-headlights look on her guild leader's face upon catching sight of his tiny thirteen-year-old vice-guildmaster greeting him with a customary salute is more embarrassing or hilarious. Baek Yoon-Ho of course has no qualms laughing at him.)

[Next]

[slvault]

Post-Time Travel Recovered Memories AU [Pt.5]

[Last]

The first thing Zhigang did after he remembered everything was quit his job with extreme prejudice. It would've been a lot more satisfying to do it to his boss' face, but it was also four in the morning so he made do with a vindictively scathing email instead. Then he packed his bags, booked the first available flight to South Korea, and now here he is, ignoring all calls and emails from his boss as he sits in the airport with a coffee in one hand and waits for the aforementioned flight to be called.

He wonders idly if he should've slowed down and considered his… response to all this time travel business more carefully. Well, not the quitting part; he'd wanted to quit for years, possibly since the day he was first hired. He just hadn't been motivated enough to go through with it before. But no amount of money is worth the overtime, the drudgery, and the incompetence he'd had to put up with at the company. And it hadn't even been that much money. Pocket change compared to what he'd made as a Hunter.

 He glances absently down at his hands, wrapped around his drink and soaking up the warmth. He misses the weight of his swords and the surge of his mana, feels almost naked without them, or like he's lost a limb, and all the more so when the last thing he'd been doing in that other future was fighting the onslaught of monsters coming through yet another Gate in the sky, this time nowhere near as empty as the first one. Sung Jin-Woo would've been a major help right then, but unfortunately, he'd been busy dealing with an even more troublesome monster a continent away.

 People had been dying all around him, Hunters and civilians alike. Zhigang had done his best to buy as much time as possible for them to run, but he'd known it was a losing battle even then. He'd hoped that maybe the Gates would all close once Sung Jin-Woo managed to kill the leader, and while the situation still wouldn't be ideal after that, what with so many monsters already ravaging their planet, at least there would be an end to them eventually. So Zhigang had kept it up, kept fighting, kept cutting down everything that wasn't human, because it was what he was good at and what he could do, and he'd waited for Sung Jin-Woo to win because if anybody could pull through, it would be him.

 The next thing he'd been consciously aware of was waking with a splitting headache and dimly connecting his surroundings with the life he'd had before becoming a Hunter. He’d spent the rest of the week slotting two timelines together in his dreams every night before tumbling through a last set of memories that had illustrated both the endless pointless war between the monsters that Sung Jin-Woo had spoken of - two sides with too much power and too much time on their hands, in Zhigang's opinion - and the rise and fall and rise again of the Shadow Monarch, the details of which had finally concluded the most convoluted history lesson he has ever had the pleasure of sleeping through in his entire life. Any of his lives.

 It's been a hell of a week, and Zhigang can fume at the injustice of the Earth getting forcibly embroiled in a war that has nothing to do with them, or he can mourn the lives of his guild members and countrymen because they might not be dead now but they had died, or he can even worry about whether or not Sung Jin-Woo has already left to confront the monsters that have more or less successfully ended humanity eight times.

 But they're all largely unproductive options to pick from at this point, none of it makes a single bit of difference to his current situation, and if Zhigang is honest, all the things he wants to do really just boils down to one specific desire - he really, really wants to stab a Monarch in the face. And in order to achieve that, he needs his mana back, and he needs Sung Jin-Woo to take him with him when he goes to war.

 That's all the reason Zhigang needs to get himself to South Korea. To that end, a fast response is only natural, and anything less is a waste of time. Slow and careful are for those too indecisive to know what they want, and Zhigang has never been that.

 He'll find Sung Jin-Woo one way or the other, even if it means knocking on every door and shadow in South Korea. After all, giving up has never been something he knows how to do either.

 The boarding call for his flight blares overhead. Zhigang rises to his feet.

 Time to go.

 -0-

 "Thomas, where are you?! You should be training right now! The match is tomorrow and you've been off your game all week!"

 "I'm busy, just cancel it."

 "Can- what?! Do you think you own the UFC? We can't just cancel-"

 "Then forfeit it."

 "Thomas! It's the semifinals, stop being crazy-"

 "I really don't give a shit. I'm busy, quit bothering me, goodbye."

 Thomas hangs up, and then he turns his phone off for good measure. God, he forgot how annoying his manager was. He misses Laura already, and he only just remembered her properly an hour ago.

 He glances at his watch, then scrolls through the flight listings again, counting hours in his head as he narrows his choices down to the few that would let him land in Korea tomorrow around noon. Fucking time zones. Fucking lack of a private jet. But there's no point getting there in the middle of the night. Go Gun-Hee's an old man; he probably needs his sleep.

 Of course, Go Gun-Hee wasn't his first choice, but Thomas has already tried Sung Jin-Woo's cell number and gotten a generic voice message in Korean informing him that it wasn't in service for his efforts. Which makes sense - it has been ten years, plus he remembers rather belatedly that Sung Jin-Woo is only… fourteen? Fifteen? At the moment. Some kids that age don't even have phones yet. Thomas didn't.

 So he's had to go for the next best approach and just aim for the Korean Association's Chairman. Thomas definitely doesn't have his cell number, but everybody's heard of Go Industries, and Thomas will dance in front of their security cameras to get himself a meeting if he has to. It doesn’t seem likely for Thomas to be the only one aside from Sung Jin-Woo to remember, so maybe it's all S-ranks, or maybe it's Hunters who've come into contact with Sung Jin-Woo himself. Either way, the old man meets both requirements so he should have regained his memories too. If not… well. Thomas really doesn't want to just go up and knock on Sung Jin-Woo's apartment door. The whole world knew where he lived, but it's just not the done thing to go bother his family, especially if they don't remember. Inadvertently dragging them into all this is a good way to get his ass kicked again, and while that could be exciting in its own way and Thomas certainly wouldn't mind another spar, this kind of invasion of privacy would probably result in the sort of not-fun beatdown that would both lose him Sung Jin-Woo's regard and land him in the hospital for a second time, and he wouldn't even have Healers to save him this go-around. Or the enhancements of an Awakened Hunter to cushion the blows.

 Still, it's a last resort. If every other option hits a dead-end, Thomas will have to at least consider it.

 He leans back, and the chair creaks under his weight as he twists a little to peer down at the floor. He doesn't know if it's just a combination of the lighting and his mind playing tricks on him, but his shadow really does look paler without anything in it.

 He recalls that final battle, the hardest he'd ever fought in his life, half his country on fire all around him, more monsters pouring out of the countless Gates blotting out the skies overhead. He hadn’t understood hell on earth until that moment. Even facing down Kamish had been less terrible. But he'd had Sung Jin-Woo's Summons at his back, pooling in the shadows at his feet and tearing through the enemy's forces right alongside him, and it had been reassuring in a way he hadn't needed but had definitely appreciated. The only thing better would’ve been fighting beside Sung Jin-Woo himself.

 Thomas is a proud man, but not so proud as to be delusional. He's already faced down the Beast Monarch, and he'd known even then that the only reason he hadn't been killed had been down to Sung Jin-Woo's timely arrival. Hell, one of the Monarchs had managed to kill Sung Jin-Woo, and even if it hadn't stuck, it had still given a more than decent idea of the Monarchs' near-incomprehensible strength.

 So Thomas can acknowledge the fact that without the Shadow Summons' aid, he probably would've fallen to the Monarch of the Iron Body. But at the same time, it only cements his resolve now. Defeating the Monarchs isn't impossible, even as a human. He would need help, but he wouldn't be useless in a war of this scale.

 Thomas can work with that. He refuses to stay behind, but he also refuses to be deadweight to Sung Jin-Woo. So long as Sung Jin-Woo can Awaken him again, Thomas will devote everything he has to defending this planet with him.

 This is still his home, his people are still alive, and Sung Jin-Woo is the man who’s given him one more chance to protect both. Thomas can offer him nothing less than his all in return.

 (Later, five hours into a twelve-hour flight, Thomas gets an email from his manager threatening to terminate his contract. He’s petty enough to reply with a simple “Ok” and nothing else, which is probably unbecoming of someone his age but he’s never really cared about that sort of thing anyway. Besides, it’s an easy decision to make, to walk away from a career he hasn’t even looked back on in over a decade.

 Kill the monster armies and save the world first. Then he can start worrying about getting a legal paying job.)

[Next]

[slvault]

Post-Time Travel Recovered Memories AU [Pt.4]

[Last]

The sun is just barely creeping up over the horizon, and there is a half-empty glass of whiskey on the table, one that's already had to be refilled twice. Considering Ryuji can still feel the phantom ache of claws slicing clean through his neck and that split fraction of a second of bone-deep horror as his head was wrenched from his shoulders, he thinks he's perfectly justified in getting a bit drunk.

He's already contacted Minoru and Sugimoto, the only two he'd known before Gates began to appear, and it was… not quite a relief to find out that they remember too, but it had eased some of the agitated tension that had made his hands shake for a good five minutes after he’d woken up.

 It's been a week of restless nightmares and trying to go about his day ignoring both the pain rattling around in his skull and the uneasy sensation of knowing something was wrong. And now he knew, and he'd give just about anything to have his mana and sword back.

 He reaches for the whiskey and slugs back another mouthful before glancing around, not for the first time. He's back in an apartment he hasn't laid eyes on in a good seven years and change. There's a stack of the more urgent paperwork on the counter that he'd taken from the office yesterday, with plans to stay in and work from here if his headache persisted. It doesn't seem nearly as important anymore, considering he'd ultimately declined the promotion to CFO almost a decade ago in favour of creating the Draw Sword Guild.

 He scoffs a laugh, humourless even to his own ears. Almost a decade as an S-rank Hunter, only to fall prey to an ant. How pathetic.

 He looks out the balcony windows, at the sprawling city of Tokyo right outside, office towers and other apartment buildings glinting silver in the morning light. He blinks, and for a moment, all of it is overlaid by the ruins of what had befallen his home country mere weeks after Jeju Island - the sheer devastation that that Dungeon Break had wrought, the annihilation of the rest of Japan's Hunters, and the horrifying number of civilian deaths despite the former's best efforts.

 Never let it be said that Goto Ryuji has a particularly patriotic soul, but this was still his home, and it had been a point of pride that he'd been one of the Hunters - the best in Japan - strong enough to defend it, that his country was one of the safest out there because he and the guild he’d built from the ground up could protect it well enough.

 Can't protect anything when you're dead though, and maybe karma is real after all - if he hadn't gotten too greedy and too ambitious, if he'd just turned down the Association's proposal, or even changed their plans the moment he'd discovered a wild card amongst the Korean Hunters, then maybe…

 Well, nothing to be done about it now of course. No point in what-ifs when everything's been rewritten - those who'd been killed are all alive again, and Japan is still unscathed and thriving - and all of it is possible only because Sung Jin-Woo had ensured it.

 Ryuji polishes off his third glass and contemplates a fourth. Why not. He's always had a high tolerance.

 Sung Jin-Woo. That fucking bastard. Can't even let Ryuji resent him in peace. Never mind that yes, Ryuji had known, from the moment their impromptu spar had ended, that Sung hadn't been looking down on him at all, that between the two of them, Ryuji would've lost had they been allowed to fight even five seconds longer. The outcome had wounded his pride as much as the rush of it had shaken him and thrilled him in equal measure, and when he'd seen that Sung wouldn't be joining the raid on Jeju Island, he can admit now that the bitterness from knowing he'd been outmatched had probably played a bigger part than was wise in his decision to go ahead with the plan anyway and push aside the instinctual nagging doubt in his gut that had already been warning him of how bad an idea it was.

 It was a first for him, he thinks. When it came to judgement calls, especially ones that affected his work and his guild, he'd always been capable of objectivity, no matter his personal feelings on the matter. But just that once, that one time, confronted with a brat who'd looked at Ryuji's strength and smiled, a newly Reawakened S-rank barely out of diapers who'd moved like a ghost and struck like a storm, and Ryuji had… he'd lost his head. Figuratively first, and then later quite literally. He'd ignored the warning signs and disregarded his instincts, and he'd let his anger and fear and wholly pointless pride rule him instead, and that - more than anything else - chafes.

 He's supposed to be better than that.

 But Ryuji has always been terrible at losing with any sort of grace. It had never been a problem before, if only because he'd rarely ever lost at anything, and never to such an overwhelming degree.

 It had certainly been a problem this time though - too much ambition, too much hubris - and he'd paid the price for it in the end, and not just him either but over half the elite Hunters in his guild as well, which had then left Japan entirely vulnerable to that goddamn S-rank Dungeon Break. Maybe nothing would've changed even with the Draw Sword Guild's full might still in place and an alliance brokered with Korea still intact. But at least then, Korea wouldn't have left them to hang, and Ryuji would've still been there to try.

 He'd gambled, and he'd lost, and in the end, his guild and his country had only been saved from complete and utter destruction because the very man he'd felt offended by had cared enough to help.

 “Hey, Jin-Ho?”

 “Yes, hyung-nim?”

 “Should I go over to Japan for a while?”

 Maybe it was because the foreign memories had automatically translated themselves in his head or maybe the Rulers had tweaked it to be that way, but either way, Ryuji had had no trouble understanding the snatches of conversation he'd been a ghostly witness to over the course of the past night. And there'd been nothing wrong with his eyes, so he'd seen and heard everything - how the first question Sung had asked, straight out of surviving that macabre puppet show of a Double Dungeon before he'd collapsed into a coma for the next three days, had been how Japan had fared against their Dungeon Break; how he'd spent the next few days brooding over the newscasts as if the fate of Japan had been in any way his responsibility whatsoever; and how in the end, almost as if there was never anything else he could've done, Sung had taken it upon himself to haul Japan's ass out of the fire when even the entire rest of the world had given up on them.

 Ryuji wouldn't have. If their positions had been reversed, if South Korea had been the one on the brink of total annihilation and he'd had the power to help them, he wouldn't have done it, especially without any prior negotiations for compensation or reward, and especially if the country in question had literally just tried to decimate their Hunter corps for their own gain. It wasn't his country on the line, wasn't his people in danger, so why should he risk his life for them? It's not even just Ryuji, most people would feel that way - if they didn't, the world wouldn't have turned a blind eye and had their private laughs at Korea's expense back when their first three raids to reclaim Jeju Island had all ended in increasingly devastating failure. No one had offered to help then either. All they'd done was mock Korea's Hunters behind their backs.

 Humanity is at its core a selfish species, and Sung Jin-Woo's brand of logic is not one that Ryuji will ever understand. But maybe that's something to be grateful for, because if Sung was in any way like Ryuji, Japan would've been wiped off the map, Earth would be buried in rubble and corpses, and Ryuji and his guild wouldn't be breathing right now.

 Ryuji doesn't understand it, but he does understand debt. It doesn't matter that all of it might as well have never happened now that time has been turned back; it did happen in a world that Ryuji had been a part of, and so just as real as that life had been, so too is his debt to Sung Jin-Woo. It's irritating - he doesn't like owing anybody - but it's nowhere near as irritating as it might've been once upon a time. He knows what he has to do, so he might as well get to it.

 He finishes his fourth drink, spares himself the indignity of getting completely sloshed, and pulls out his phone again instead. Hopefully, both Minoru and Sugimoto will have finished their respective mental breakdowns by now because they have a lot of work to do. They need to track down the rest of their S-rank guild members, assuming they remember too. They need to tally up whose jobs can be let go and who needs financial assistance should they quit and how soon they can all meet up and where. And then they need to figure out who stays and who goes and book a damn flight to South Korea as soon as possible.

 Ryuji sighs and starts making phone calls.

[Next]

[slvault]

Post-Time Travel Recovered Memories AU [Pt.3]

[Last]

Jin-Chul doesn't need the week. The first night he goes to bed after popping a painkiller for a stubborn headache that won't go away, he dreams of an alternate future that will hopefully never happen again, and he wakes up with all his memories intact, plus a little extra. 

It's still a lot, and he takes the whole of next day assimilating, trying to get used to being twenty-two and back at KNPU again. He never did finish his last semester here before Awakening as a Hunter, and it doesn't look like he's going to finish it this time around either.

 He's torn between tracking down Go Gun-Hee and tracking down Sung Jin-Woo. He doesn't know if the former remembers, and he doesn't know if the latter will appreciate Jin-Chul barging in on his business.

 But… it's not just his business anymore, is it? The Rulers have ensured that much, and yes, Sung Jin-Woo gets the final say, and even if he agrees to Awaken - Reawaken? - Jin-Chul, he'll still only be an A-rank and not of much use on the frontlines. But he thinks he owes it to Sung Jin-Woo to offer what little services he can, and the first step to that is figuring out who else remembers and what Sung Jin-Woo is planning to do.

 He spends the next six hours on his laptop, hacking into different cameras and pinning down his former boss' daily routine. Go Industries is a multinational company but its CEO works at the main branch in Seoul most of the time. Jin-Chul knows what he's looking for so it isn't hard to find Go Gun-Hee, even if he is surrounded by bodyguards. The man goes about his business as usual, and it doesn't seem like he remembers. Jin-Chul isn't sure what to do about that so he switches tracks and taps into the traffic cam across from Sung Jin-Woo's apartment building instead.

 It doesn't consciously occur to him that Sung Jin-Woo would be a teenager again until he spots a little girl no older than seven - should be six at this point, Jin-Chul calculates - return home with her mother. He would be fourteen right now. That… will take some getting used to.

 Jin-Chul never actually sees him though. He sees the mother, the sister, even the father, and it takes him a while to realize how… grave their expressions are. He waits until dinnertime comes and goes and the lights in the apartment switch off for the night, and there is the possibility that Sung Jin-Woo simply never left his apartment today, but Jin-Chul checks his calendar, and yes, it's a school day, so unless he's somehow sick…

 It's nearing midnight when he hacks into the police database and pulls a missing persons case for Sung Jin-Woo, fourteen years old, labelled a runaway as of two weeks ago. Included is a copy of a note apparently left on the Sung family's dining table, telling them he had something to do, assuring them he would return in time, and asking them not to worry.

 Jin-Chul leans back and double-checks his mental timeline. There's nobody in the world who can remember the other future and not remember the date the first Gates appeared - July 15th, approximately two months from now. Without the Rulers' interference, that date will probably pass without the previous life-altering upheaval, but it won't be gone entirely until the Monarchs are no longer a threat. It would buy Earth the illusion of safety for months, maybe even a few years, but if they aren't stopped, then sooner or later, the Monarchs themselves will open Gates for their monsters, for their armies, and humanity will once again be just as woefully defenseless as they were the first seven times Earth had been turned into a battleground for the two higher species without a drop of mana to even put up a fight. They literally won't even know what hit them.

 So did Sung Jin-Woo leave early to confront the Monarchs? Is he already fighting right now? But the Cup of Reincarnation turns back time ten years. By his calculations, Sung Jin-Woo should've returned just a little over three weeks ago. Surely that's not enough time to gather what he needs.

 Then again, he is the Shadow Monarch. Does he need food? He's still alive so he must need some kind of sustenance. And even if he doesn't, clothes and other essentials should probably be something to consider, right? Even godly beings can't go without everything, and as far as Jin-Chul could see, the time travel option had been a last-minute do-or-die decision that he'd insisted the Rulers give to him. It wasn’t as if he would've had any time to make provisions before coming back, he'd literally been on the brink of death at the time, and Sung Jin-Woo has never struck Jin-Chul as someone who didn't at least try to prepare for every eventuality. It doesn't seem like him to go straight from returning to the past to diving headfirst into a war, especially when he has the time to do otherwise.

 So, maybe he's still around. Maybe he'd left this early so he wouldn't have to sneak around his family, but he's still somewhere on Earth… readying himself and his shadow army to wage a one-man war against the forces looking to wipe out all of humanity.

 Jin-Chul heaves a sigh. With that teleportation ability of his, he could be anywhere. But… Jin-Chul won't say he knows Sung Jin-Woo well, but he knows him well enough to be certain of the fact that there's nothing more important to him than his family. If he's still here, he'll be close enough to check up on them, and even if he does that via teleportation, he - or some very abnormal shadow movements - still has to show up every now and then. Jin-Chul just has to keep an eye on… everything.

 How fortunate that that was basically half his job description in his previous future.

 He doesn't have nearly as many resources at his disposal as he'd become accustomed to though, and even the tech isn't as advanced. Go Gun-Hee’s backing would be highly appreciated right about now.

 Jin-Chul gives himself a stern shake and gets back to work. No use whining about what he doesn't have. He'll just have to make do with what he does have, and hopefully that will be enough. Who knows - maybe the Chairman will remember eventually. Maybe other Hunters will too. Jin-Chul just has to watch out for that as well.

 In the meantime, finding Sung Jin-Woo is his top priority. Regaining lost memories doesn't change anything if all they can do in the end is sit on the sidelines and wait to be saved.

 (That was their whole problem in the last go-around, wasn't it? All they could do was hope and pray and leave the burden of saving the world to Sung Jin-Woo, as if it was something owed to them, as if that man hadn't already gone above and beyond time and time again. They'd left it all to him, too weak to do anything themselves, and all the thanks he'd ever gotten for it had been a wasteland of a battlefield bathed in his own blood and a deal negotiated with a bunch of angel-lookalikes that had thought nothing of letting him fight alone all over again to save a world that wouldn't even know to care.

 Jin-Chul doesn't know what he can do, how he can help, how he can make a difference. But at the very least, he has to make sure Sung Jin-Woo knows - anything Jin-Chul can do to alleviate some of that burden, anything at all, he would do it gladly. And this time, he isn't taking no for an answer.)

 (One very caffeinated and mostly sleepless week later, Jin-Chul has tracked down every single once-future S-rank Hunter in South Korea, and Go Gun-Hee finally calls his cell and tells him he'll send a car by to pick him up. They have a lot to discuss.)

[Next]

[slvault]

Post-Time Travel Recovered Memories AU [Pt.2]

[Last]

Jong-In shoves the two idiots back into Yoon-Ho's room before stepping in himself and shutting the door behind him. The walls are thin enough that he can still hear the RA grumbling, even without enhanced hearing.

 It's almost amusing. It's been a long time since a regular human dared to shout at him.

 He ignores the other two and moves over to the window to give them some semblance of privacy. It’s quiet outside, which confirms a few of his hunches. There’s no way everyone remembers, not even every Hunter, or there’d already be an uproar right here on campus, never mind the rest of the world.

 From the foreign memories he’s been given, it seems only Sung Jin-Woo was supposed to remember. But there’s three S-ranks right here in this room who clearly have that alternate timeline in their heads too, so maybe that’s the criteria - S-rank Hunters only.

 But is that confined to just South Korean S-ranks? Or are the likes of Liu Zhigang and Thomas Andre nursing headaches and memories as well, right this very moment? Or maybe it’s not S-ranks at all; maybe it’s Hunters who were relatively closer to Sung Jin-Woo, or those who’d worked closely with him before, or who'd been in direct contact with his mana.

 Jong-In sighs. He’s left his phone in his room, and he doesn't really want to make the trip back right this moment, so he can’t even check the internet. Hopefully it’s just S-ranks, or at least those with a modicum of sense. Posting about Dungeons and monsters online isn’t going to help anything. It would be dismissed as a joke at best and cause a panic at worst.

 It’s a pity Jong-In’s entire guild had consisted of people he’d only met after becoming a Hunter. If he could just check in with even one of them, he’d be able to narrow down the pool some more. He supposes he could just try calling them - some of them kept the same phone numbers - but again, no phone, and Jong-In is… reluctant to let the overgrown cat out of his sight.

 Everything still feels like half a dream, like he could wake up any second now and find himself surrounded by monsters and corpses and hell on earth again.

 He glances over at Yoon-Ho and Min Byung-Gyu. They're still conversing between themselves so Jong-In busies himself with making a mental list of all the things they're going to have to do. First order of business is to find everyone in the know. He should contact Go Gun-Hee - easy enough, considering the man is already a well-known businessman right here in Seoul, and surely he of all people should have regained his memories as well, even if he had died before the end. And if anyone has the means and connections to bring everyone together discreetly, it would be him.

 Next, there's the issue of finding and convincing Sung Jin-Woo, the latter more than the former. Jong-In isn't one hundred percent certain but the other man - basically a god now, and Jong-In can barely wrap his mind around that so he just tries not to think too hard about it - should still be living with his family in the same apartment, and that address had been leaked the moment he'd retested as an S-rank. So finding him won't be difficult. It's the convincing part that will take more work.

 What can they do except ask? Reason with him, perhaps. They're all Hunters - this is their job. It's illogical for Sung Jin-Woo to try and shield them from that. But for someone so antisocial and reserved, prone to keeping everyone at arm's length, Sung Jin-Woo has a shockingly soft heart, or at the very least, he's never shied away from shouldering a threat if it means someone else won't have to. Jong-In doesn't know anyone else - even if they had the power to do so - who would be willing to wage a one-man war against the pseudo-gods of the universe, just to spare the world some pain, and that includes himself. He would be willing to die in defense of his fellow man, but to wage a war he might not win for who knows how long, all on his own, with not a single soul to back him up or offer so much as an encouraging word? No.

 Fighting together though, and doing a job that they'd each signed up for - for the prestige, yes, and the excitement, and definitely the wealth, but also because with power comes responsibility, and Jong-In is sure that most Hunters who'd lasted beyond a few years even after dancing with death one too many times had felt that way to a certain degree. It's not something they can just ignore and push onto someone else. It's like the Jeju Island raid - none of them had truly wanted to go, no matter how much they might've liked a challenge, not to that godforsaken place that had robbed so many lives, and they could've refused. Their reputation would've taken a blow, and South Korea wouldn't have looked very good in the eyes of the world, but they could've said no. Between their home and their lives though, when it had come down to it, of course they'd had to choose their home.

 This is no different, not really. Just on a bigger scale, with a lot more to lose, but that only makes it even more important for them to fight. Jong-In hopes Sung Jin-Woo will be able to understand that. The man may be a god now, but he'll also be up against eight other gods and their respective armies. Jong-In and the other S-ranks may not be able to do much against the Monarchs, but at the very least, they can damn well give the armies a run for their money.

 Provided Sung Jin-Woo agrees to Awaken them, the third issue would of course be… well, their lives, essentially. Jong-In has no idea how long they'll be gone for. As far as he's aware, they'll most likely be fighting in a different dimension of some kind, and they probably won't be able to make any trips back while the war is going on. From the memories, Jong-In got the impression that the fabric of space separating Earth from other realms is rather flimsy. If Sung Jin-Woo leaves a Gate open between the battlefield and their home planet, or even just regularly opens one for them to travel between, it would only get even more unstable. And while the Rulers may have agreed to let Sung Jin-Woo handle everything this go-around, the Monarchs' target has always been Earth. If one of them - or even just a bit of their magic - slips through and starts triggering Gates all over the world, it would completely defeat the entire point of waging a pre-emptive war in the first place.

 So once they leave, they probably can't come back until they win, and it could be… it could be months until that happens. Years. If the rules of entering another dimension are the same as entering a Dungeon, then electronics aren't going to work, which means even occasional phone calls are out of the question. Jong-In and Yoon-Ho and Min Byung-Gyu may just be college students at the moment, and while neither Yoon-Ho nor Jong-In are particularly close with their families, Min Byung-Gyu has a mother who - if Jong-In remembers correctly - still calls him every weekend. They can't all go missing at the same time.

 It's the same problem for any other Hunters who might remember. Doubly so for Cha Hae-In. Good god, his vice-guildmaster is… what, thirteen right now? Even if she's mentally twenty-three, is it ethically acceptable to take her into a war? And even if they don't care about that, what is she supposed to tell her family?

 Jong-In suppresses a sigh. One thing at a time. He should just handle his own business first, which means either dropping out of school or somehow putting his education on hold without getting kicked out. He also has a part-time job at one of the libraries but at least he can quit that easily enough.

 Then there's supplies to be gathered - food, clothes, weapons. At least he's a Mage; he can do without his rings if he has to. He does not envy those who depend on physical weapons. But even if weapons won't be much of an issue for him, there's still the rest to account for. How much money does he have right now anyway? He can't believe he has to worry about whether or not he can afford something. He's been a rich man for half a decade. Now he's pretty sure he barely has enough in his account to afford regular meals for the next month.

 His thought process is rudely interrupted when Yoon-Ho throws a sock at him - a sock, seriously, Jong-In forgot how much of a slob the overgrown cat was back in the day. "Thinking pretty hard there, bastard."

 Jong-In reflexively smiles back with all the winning charm he can muster. "One of us has to."

 He gets a pitiful snarl in return, which just makes him smile more. Yoon-Ho mutters a few choice insults under his breath, but he lets the matter go. "What should we do now then? Do we contact some of the others?" He frowns. "I still remember Lim Tae-Gyu's number so we could try him first."

 Jong-In shakes his head. "Get dressed. We're going to Seoul to see the Chairman."

 Yoon-Ho's eyebrows go up, then his expression clears and he nods. Then he pauses and glances at Min Byung-Gyu. "Byung-Gyu, if you want to stay here, I can keep you updated-"

 Min Byung-Gyu cuts him off with a hard shake of his head even as he hoists himself to his feet. His eyes are still red, his face blotchy, but his gaze is steady in a way that reminds Jong-In of how he'd looked on the chopper ride to Jeju Island for the fourth and last time.

 Jong-In glances away. Yoon-Ho needn't have offered an out. A man like Min Byung-Gyu won't stay behind. Not when people need him. Say what you will about the only pacifist S-rank in the world, but he's never been a coward.

 "I'm coming too," Min Byung-Gyu announces. "I don't remember what classes I'm supposed to attend anyway, and I'm not sitting in my room and twiddling my thumbs all day."

 "Good," Jong-In says briskly, already moving to the door. "Pack everything you don't want to leave behind; we probably won't be coming back here anytime soon. Meet at the campus gates in an hour." He pauses. "…Make sure you bring all your spare change. I don't know how much cab fare will cost."

 Behind him, Yoon-Ho snorts, and Min Byung-Gyu dissolves into slightly hysterical laughter as the more tedious bits of their situation finally registers.

[Next]

[slvault]

Post-Time Travel Recovered Memories AU [Pt.1]

It happens over the course of seven days, in South Korea, in Japan, in China and America, to those deemed strong enough to bear the weight of a once-future-past. It starts with headaches that build with each passing day, nights spent tossing and turning from dreams (and nightmares) that seem too real to pass for figments of imagination and yet aren't clear enough for memories, fuzzed over and half-forgotten by the time they wake up again, day after day, right up until the end when everything - the monsters, the battles, the blood and bodies and too many deaths to count - crystallizes and then shatters in a blaze of noise and colour, all of it crashing back into their heads as reality reasserts itself and they all jolt awake at varying hours of the night, grasping for magic they no longer have, reaching for weapons they no longer carry, with the name of a man-turned-god on their tongues, who'd stood as humanity's last line of defense and fought and fought until he'd fallen too, who'd lain alone and dying on a battlefield run red with his lifeblood and still had the heart to ask for a second chance on their world's behalf.

(It is a gift - a debt owed - granted by the Rulers, driven by lingering guilt for an old dead friend and burgeoning respect for a child so willing to carry the burden of their sins.

 Ashborn struggled, alone and abandoned, for years and years and years, betrayed at every turn. There is nothing they can do about that now, but by their will, Ashborn's successor shall never know that pain.

 No one deserves to stand alone, bleeding for a world oblivious to the sacrifices made for it, and so this they guarantee, as time rewinds once more - a kingdom for Sung Jin-Woo to rule, his loved ones alive again for him to protect, and his choice of kin and clan with the nerve and resolve to help him see the rest of eternity through.)

 -0-

 Yoon-Ho hasn't gone to a single class for the past three days because he could barely crawl out of bed, and he sure as fuck won't be going today either, even though he's woken with a pounding headache for - hopefully - the last time.

 He has all his memories back now. Surely that will grant him some reprieve, regular nightmares notwithstanding.

 It's… fucking surreal. He's twenty years old again and back in college, subsisting off of instant noodles and studying for a degree that he never finished anyway, in that other future. He doesn't even own a suit yet, let alone the closetful of tailored jackets and trousers he'd gotten used to wearing a decade from now.

 Of course the biggest mindfuck is the fact that he's alive and the world is intact and Hunters aren't even a thing yet, because last he checked, half the fucking planet had been on fire, people everywhere had been dying, and Sung Jin-Woo had been duking it out with the head evil asshole leading the global invasion before the broadcast had been cut off and communication lines had gone dead. And then they'd all had bigger problems to deal with when South Korea had gotten their very own Gate opening over the skies of Seoul, along with numerous smaller Gates all around the country. And unlike the first time around, the monsters that had poured out of those had been very much not on their side.

 Yoon-Ho had known then, even as he'd thrown himself into the fray beside the snake bastard, trying to buy as much time as he could for the screaming civilians fleeing the city, that the end of the world had been imminent. Even if Sung Jin-Woo won, too many people had already died. And from what little Yoon-Ho had seen, for the first time, he couldn't be certain whether or not their strongest Hunter would even make it out alive, let alone pull a pyrrhic victory out of his ass.

 So it had been the end of the world as they knew it, overrun by monsters with no mercy for even the smallest child, and Yoon-Ho had known it was only a matter of time before he would be killed too. He'd lost track of Jong-In somewhere in there.

 It had been the end of the world.

 Until it hadn't been.

 It wasn't just his own memories that Yoon-Ho had gotten back. That had come first, over the course of the past week, everything slotting into his mind piece by migraine-inducing piece until the whole picture snapped back into focus, his future self settled fully into his past-present body. But after that, mostly last night, he'd received an additional bulk of memories in a way that had felt a bit like watching a movie - the once-existence of the Absolute Being, the eons-long war between the Rulers and the Monarchs in more detail than what Sung Jin-Woo could provide at that conference, the reason Earth had been dragged into it, and the Cup of Reincarnation and the fact that they've apparently gone through this shit eight times already and still had Earth razed to the ground every fucking time.

 And of course, the Shadow Monarch. Ashborn, before he'd chosen to… die. Move on. He'd stayed long enough to ensure the ascendance of his heir, and Yoon-Ho had seen that too in a series of flashes, the Reawakening of Sung Jin-Woo as the mantle passed to him. No wonder the fucker was so fucking strong. He'd basically been a god in the making from the moment he'd left that Double Dungeon.

 A god who could've up and left their sorry asses behind anytime, but had chosen instead to stay and fight and almost fucking die for them. Yoon-Ho had seen the entirety of that last battle, like a ghost in the audience as that Antares bastard had beaten him into the ground over and over again. Sung Jin-Woo had put up a hell of a fight - anyone else would've died long before - but in the end, even he'd been defeated. If those Rulers hadn't shown up all fashionably late, he would've died. As it was, he'd been dying anyway - anyone with eyes could tell that the injuries he'd suffered had been fatal.

 He'd been dying, and then he'd asked, bargained, demanded really, for a second chance, to turn back time, one last time, just so he could go back and kill all the Monarchs by himself before they - and the Rulers - could make Earth their grudge-match's ground zero yet again.

 …Yeah, sounds exactly like the kind of insanity Sung Jin-Woo would go for.

 Yoon-Ho rubs a hand over his face, drinks some more water, wishes vaguely for something a lot stronger. But at least the headache is easing off, and he feels less like he still has half a foot in the past-future. The lack of active mana inside him is still unsettling though. God, he's a normal human again. He's never liked his beast form, but he'd give almost anything to have it back right about now.

 Have it back.

 He sits up abruptly, eyes going wide.

 Wait, he's ten years back in time. That's ten years of bullshit undone.

 Min Byung-Gyu.

 He's up and at the door of his dorm room as fast as his legs can carry him, which compared to the speeds he could reach as an S-rank, isn't very fucking fast, but he'll take it. He throws the door open and literally bowls Choi Jong-In over, because oh right, snake bastard literally lives down the hall from him.

 "Fuck!" Yoon-Ho cusses as they go down in a tangle of limbs, and it's a lot less arousing when there isn't imminent sex involved. "Watch it, bastard!" And then he remembers where he is, or rather when he is, and also what they'd been doing before the time travel. He jerks upright, feeling slow and clumsy as he makes a grab for the other man's shoulders, just to make sure he's real and here and not a corpse. "You're alive!"

 Half-sprawled on the floor beneath him, Choi Jong-In glares back, looking as fed-up and irritated as usual, but his hands are white-knuckled around Yoon-Ho's wrists, and the fact that he’s right outside Yoon-Ho’s room at all speaks volumes.

 "You're alive," Jong-In spits back. He isn't even wearing his glasses, and he looks ridiculous in an oversized sleep shirt and pants and sneakers. "I thought you were done for when those buildings came down on you."

 Yeah, Yoon-Ho had thought so too. It hadn't killed him, but the million or so giant worm monsters he'd been trapped underground with probably would've done him in eventually. Not that he's going to tell the bastard.

 He growls instead, which doesn't sound half as impressive without his tiger side, but he thinks it gets his annoyance across anyway. Jong-In rolls his eyes in response before shoving him off. Asshole.

 They sit there in the hall for a minute, both of them still coming to grips with everything that's happened.

 "We're going to have to find him," Jong-In eventually says. "Before he leaves to fight the Monarchs."

 Yoon-Ho grunts. It isn't disagreement. For all that they don't get along, even he can admit that they've always agreed on the important things. "He should be able to Awaken us, right?"

 Jong-In nods. "Whether he agrees to or not however…"

 Yoon-Ho bristles. "This is our world too, and we're Hunters, power or no. If he has a duty to save humanity, then so do we. He better not fuck off on his own and leave us behind."

 The snake bastard gives him an exasperated look that conveys what do you think we can do to stop him if he refuses perfectly, but tellingly enough, he doesn't argue.

 "Where were you going?" He asks instead. He glances down at himself, wrinkling his nose at his own clothes.

 Yoon-Ho bites back a snicker, and he sobers fast enough when he remembers. "Ah, Byung-Gyu. Since we're a decade in the past-"

 He barely has time to catch the understanding spreading across Jong-In's face before a door downstairs slams open, making both their fingers twitch, trying to draw on mana they can't access. But a moment after that, footsteps thunder up the stairs and then Min Byung-Gyu is there, his shirt on backwards, his hair a mess, feet shoved into a pair of sandals. He staggers onto their landing, panting for breath even as he stares at Yoon-Ho and begins to tear up. "Hyung!”

 Yoon-Ho scrambles to his feet, and then he's almost knocked right back onto his ass again when Byung-Gyu barrels into him, bawling his eyes out because he's always been a crybaby. Of course, that doesn't account for the sting in Yoon-Ho's own eyes, but fuck, Byung-Gyu had been killed and half-eaten and Yoon-Ho had made his peace with it as much as he could, but-

 But now he's alive again, breathing and whole and alive, and Yoon-Ho can spend a lifetime paying Sung Jin-Woo back for this chance and it still won't be enough.

 He sucks in a shuddering breath, hugs Byung-Gyu that much tighter, and doesn't give a flying fuck when their RA - presumably, because Yoon-Ho can't remember a name or face anymore - bursts out and yells at them to keep it down because it's five in the goddamn morning.

 They're a decade in the past, he has his best friend back, and they have another chance to do this right. To him, that's the only thing that matters.

[Next]

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The latest Tweets from ARISE: a Solo Leveling Zine - Apps open 27 Sep! (@SoloLevelZine). An upcoming free, digital zine for the Solo Leveling LN/Manhwa! Mods: @Starrie_Wolf @greymistchild @ng_karma_speaks

ARISE: a Solo Leveling Zine

An unofficial, free, digital zine for the Solo Leveling novel and webcomic.

Run by @starriewolf, @chaosgreymistchild, and @altered-karma.

Schedule:

27 Sep-24 Oct 2021 - Applications: Artists | Writers 27 Oct 2021 - Application Results 31 Oct 2021 - Concept Submission Nov 2021-Feb 2022 - Creations Period 28 Feb 2022 - Final Submission Mar-Apr 2022 - Formatting Apr 2022 - Zine Released

If you’re a Solo Leveling fan and you’re interested in zines, come check this out!

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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

My Solo Leveling Week 2021 fic :elmofire:

Fandom: Solo Leveling

Character/Pairing: Sung Jin-Woo, Goto Ryuji, Draw Sword Guild, Park Kyung-Hye, Go Gun-Hee, Woo Jin-Chul, Sugimoto Reiji, Shimizu Akari, Matsumoto Shigeo, Goto Ryuji/Sung Jin-Woo, Goto Ryuji & Draw Sword Guild, Sung Jin-Woo & Draw Sword Guild

Rating: T

Word Count: Chapter 1 - 29428

Summary: Neither of them has ever needed a soulmate to make their way in the world, but maybe that’s just another reason the universe saw fit to give them each other. (Neither of them has ever needed each other, but necessity is not desire.)

Tags: Soulmates AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Canon Divergence AU, Everybody Lives/Nobody Dies AU, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Flirting, Getting to Know Each Other, Near Death Experiences

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Solo Leveling Week 2021 is here!

August 16th: Day 1 - Loyalty Kink | Possessive

The collection is now open, so go check it out, and you can look forward to more over the course of the rest of the week! To all event contributors, we can’t wait to see the new content for our baby fandom! Remember to tag @sololevelevents on Twitter if you’re posting there, and add your works to the collection on AO3!

Event Post | Twitter | AO3 Collection

Graphic made by @starriewolf!

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Monday, August 16th, 2021 - Sunday, August 22nd, 2021

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Twitter | AO3 Collection

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General Info

What is Solo Leveling Week?

It’s a week-long fanworks event to promote the Solo Leveling fandom. There’s no sign-up, it’s just for fun, and everybody can participate. Completed works and WIPs are both acceptable, and any type of fanwork (fanfic, fanart, gifsets, etc.) is welcome. Works can focus on a character or a ship so you’re free to submit gen or ship-focused content (or both!).

General Rules:

- No harassment of any kind for any reason. You can DM the mods at our SL Events Twitter Blog if you have any questions/complaints/etc.

- Fanworks can be any rating, from kid-friendly to explicit, but we do ask that you tag properly when you post (including ships and other necessary warnings) so people will be able to avoid them if the content is something they’d rather skip over.

- Crossovers are allowed, BUT for Solo Leveling Week, an emphasis on at least one SL character is required. More specifically, please don’t place all the focus on the character(s) of a different fandom, combine them with SL’s magic system or necromancy, and call it a day. This can be considered a type of crossover, but for the purpose of this event, we want to concentrate on SL-centric works only. (ie. A BNHAxSL crossover where Midoriya gets the system to level up, and SL characters are only cameos or straight-up nonexistent would not count for this event. On the other hand, Jin-Woo attending UA and meeting Class 1-A would count.)

- Prompts have been included for SL Week (listed below), but they are only suggestions to help you along if you’re stuck on what to write/draw/etc. Feel free to come with your own ideas and post them on Creator’s Choice day!

- Again, there’s no signups for this event, and you can participate by posting a fanwork for just one day, every day, or whichever days suit you best. There’s no minimum number of fanworks you need to meet, SL Week is purely for SL fans to create new content for fun.

Posting:

- AO3 would be the easiest medium for everyone to share their works, and the link is up above. The collection will open shortly before the Week begins, and everyone with an AO3 account can add their works to it.

- For those of you with Twitter, you can also post there and tag your works with #SLweek2021, and we’ll retweet everything you post.

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Themes

And here are the themes! You can use them for inspiration, or come up with something completely different.

Day 1: Loyalty Kink | Possessive

Day 2: Accidental Relationship | Touch-Starved Character(s) | Eldritch

Day 3: Canon Divergence AU | Bond

Day 4: Time Travel | Dimension Travel | Shadows | Sacrifice

Day 5: Soulmates AU | Memory

Day 6: Time Loop AU | Crown

Day 7: Creator’s Choice

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We look forward to all the new content come August!