Unless you’re waiting for a lovely retirement notice, any letters issued by the Governing Body rarely contain good news. Your team leader hands you an ivory envelope with a silver seal, upon which an image of two swords clashing is embossed. Whichever secretary had been told to write your name has impeccable handwriting.
Once you decide to open it, a dark grey paper is crisply folded three times. It reads the following:
Greetings, KANG SEULGI.
This is a formal notice that you will be placed into Rotation B, as ordained by the Governing Body. We will be arriving for an impromptu observation to see how you perform when group dynamics are suddenly, inexplicably changed. We are intrigued by the Busan League’s high performance and are considering you for an elite mission. It’s of the highest caliber and will possibly require the assistance of humans and/or cards, which is why it is essential to test your adaptability.
The elite mission your league is being considered for will pay generously, as well as contribute to your ranking when an official inspection is scheduled. In addition to monetary reward, we will allot funds to upgrade your training room equipment at HQ.
Currently, we are also considering the Changsha and Saint Petersburg leagues to be assigned this mission. We can only choose one, so know your competition and be prepared to perform. Be brave. Be bold. Be ready to work as a team.
- The Governing Body
Kana isn’t afraid of the governing body. She’s lived four whole years that they didn’t, so they don’t really know what they’re doing, as far as she’s concerned. (There aren’t any resistance members in the governing body, are there? Would she know if there were?)
When she receives the letter she doesn’t even have to pretend she is. She thanks Seolhyun absently, and breaks the seal with her eyes glazed over. She doesn’t have to worry about putting on an act of being shocked or honored, because everyone knows there’s something different about her ever since her transformation changed. They think she’s just now coping with the reality of her father’s death, so she has an excuse for everything– even how ultimately meaningless she finds this letter in the grand scheme of everything she’s failed to die to.
She scowls at the use of Kang Seulgi written, mildly appalled that such a conglomerate knows her full name and doesn’t address her as Kana, but of course they do. She wonders if Taeyong received one of these letters too, and if he did, if he’ll think it’s a ploy to round up everyone with a sign of rebellion in their blood and send them to their deaths. She wonders if he’d have a point.
When she reads on, she manages to hold back her sardonic chuckle for the benefit of anyone that might be observing her. Is the you mentioned her specifically, or the entire league? Either way, she’s both skeptical and intrigued, as Kana often is. Of course you’re intrigued by our high performance. We basically invented magical heroes. Don’t you know anything?
It’s a challenge she accepts, even though she couldn’t reject it even if she wanted to– even if testing her adaptability is laughable. Adaptability is watching your best friend’s spear go through your other best friend’s heart and persisting in living even after you kill his familiar. Adapting is leading the rebellion he died for even as the apocalypse takes the lives of everyone there is to lead. Adapting is surrendering to the ones who killed him for your own survival.
Game on. I’ll show you adaptability.
Later, she’ll devote her time to researching the Changsha and Saint Petersburg leagues, and she’ll pretend she doesn’t know their future anyway.
{ trigger warning: gore, asphyxiation, mutilation, everything in that zone. ugH }
it’s chilling. the image of her mother in front of her now touches her face, and it feels just like her. “you’ve grown up so well,” the woman says, and when kana next blinks, her father is there, right beside her mother as always.
all kana allows herself is a single calming inhale and exhale. they are dead. this is a reality she is aware of, and doesn’t question. she remembers their death clearly still, only a year and a half in the past now, growing further with each passing day, but that day is ironed behind her eyelids and emblazoned in her blood.
envy in a life like this is dangerous, and selfish, but it has never stopped kana. it’s a feeling she keeps to herself: the fact that she resents never having a last moment with them. (she would’ve killed them herself if it meant she could say goodbye.)
she was never allowed this privilege. she witnessed death, and carried the burden of it without any kind, parting words or monstrous creations. her entire world collapsed around her in a matter of seconds, and she could do nothing. it was a choice someone with no authority in her life made for all of them. (they weren’t even human.)
“thank you,” she says, and it is not for her false mother’s compliments. it is thank you for finally allowing me this. it’s nice to see them again without the blood, though it’ll be short-lived. and with her acceptance, something bubbles within the veins of her replica parents’ necks, and as she prepares to attack, droplets of blood appear, and drip onto their clothes. they slowly change from their innocent, familiar appearance to the last image she has of them in her mind, and as they do, the flow of blood grows stronger, and their eyes grow more terrified.
“seulgi, help us,” her mother calls, and she can hear her father crying.
“if you have to leave me, do it, but save your mother.”
(so this is what she would’ve seen if she made it in time to help them that night.)
she shakes her head, and with a snap of her wrist, her whip is around her mother’s neck, and then with focus, she extends it to snake around her father’s as well, tying them together as they slowly choke to death. the sound of it is always terrible, but they’re not her parents; it is any other kill.
(sometimes she wishes she had knives for weapons instead. the barbed wire of her whip digs into their skin, and it tightens and tightens, and they bleed more, and their faces turn purple, and this is how it always is. it suits her, though. death reminds her what she is fighting for, and it is this: the fact that she can hear their whispers of we do not deserve this; we did not deserve this in her mind even after her weapon long punctures their voice boxes. she agrees.)
and when they disappear, it’s like a puzzle piece offset in her finally falls into place. she can breathe a little easier, because now the guilt she has felt since their death falls into place with the atrocity she just committed, and it adds up. no one else took them from her this time.
she reassesses the situation, but not much as changed; if anything, her team members are a little closer, and more panic has spread. everything seems like a blur, and she isn’t sure if it’s the exertion of her energy that does it, or if the familiar has more ways than one of messing with their minds, but she can see now...countless humanoid forms emerging from wax, and cards and magical heroes alike facing them.
is it a test? is this one of the games of the hanged man? if so, she wins...right?
she has to step aside to make way for wax that nearly drips on top of her, and from it emerges...kim jongin.
she sighs.
“there isn’t any incarnation of you that can mind your own business, is there?”
“i was worried about you.”
“please,” she laughs bitterly.
“i promised you i wouldn’t leave you. how could i not find you in a place like thi--”
and she cuts his words off by flicking her whip around his neck too.
“stupidity gets you killed.”
this isn’t the real jongin. (the real jongin is too busy helping people more helpless than she is; this will always be the case.)
she saw him rise from wax, and yet the resemblance is uncanny. she turns away from the sight-- yanks on the end of her whip to tighten its hold around her best friend’s throat, and ignores as he chokes on air that will never reach his lungs. she feigns disinterest-- pretends like the fight is so easy she can kill him blindfolded, but in truth, she is searching.
where is the real kim jongin? it’s then she realizes she has no idea; maybe the creature consumed him already. the battlefield is disorienting, and makes her head swim, but she thinks she catches a glimpse of him in the distance, dangerously close to the familiar, and that is all the confirmation she needs.
she spins on her heel, and knocks the replica kim jongin to the ground, and stands firmly with one foot on his chest and the other on the ground as she tugs. his blood oozes over the sides of the whip, and she tightens it again-- pulls and tightens, and when his head finally snaps off of his neck, and his blood sprays into her face, she doesn’t blink.
(the blood is so real, too. how does the familiar manage to make it out of wax? does it really drip wax, or is it magic incarnate? for her, science and magic are intertwined, and this is something she will intently study when she makes it out of this alive.)
“what the hell was that?” a familiar, yet distant voice asks from beside her. she spins around again, so quickly that it nearly gives her whiplash.
“seulgi, what the fuck? how could you kill him-- after everyone else that died? you kill jongin? why?”
it’s her brother. kang sungmin-- she hasn’t seen him since her parents died. for as much as she knew, he died with them, though she never saw the body. she hasn’t seen him alive either, until now.
“no, that wasn’t him-- what the fuck are you doing here?” and she squints, already suspicious. two challenges are enough, right? she didn’t see where her brother came from to know if he too was born from wax, so it’s possible he became a magical hero too, and became too swept up in the lifestyle to ever come back for his innocent sister. maybe the aura of the convention brought him back.
“i came to fight. i ran away for too long...don’t you think?” and he laughs, but it’s empty-- familiar, because he sounds like her. his gaze hardens then, set on her, and suddenly a menacing sickle on the end of a chain appears in his hands. he swings it in a circle, charging up the attack like a lasso, and she barely has time to leap aside before the attack is hurtling at her. she’s on the ground, and then she must roll aside and leap to her feet to evade another attack from him.
“i can’t allow you to take anyone else from me!” he yells.
“what about me?” she screams back. “i’m the only family you have now!”
whether he actually hesitates or it’s just her imagination, kana doesn’t know, but she uses this time to gain the upper hand. first, she uses her whip to tie around her brother’s weapon, and in his shock, she yanks it out of his hand. she then flings it across the battle field, and sungmin charges after it, but she whips him across the back, over and over until he finally falls to his knees and collapses.
her brother is strong. somehow, this is a reality that makes sense. (but is it a reality? this is the last question she needs answered.)
“i didn’t kill jongin. kim jongin is still alive. in case you haven’t noticed, this familiar we’re fighting? when all of that shit falls from its arms, it summons mirror images of people we’ve loved to try to distract us from what we’re really supposed to be doing, which is fighting it, and surviving. that’s what i killed.”
“then how do i know...you’re the real kana?” he asks, using his dwindling strength to roll over and face her.
“you shouldn’t know that’s my name,” she says, and she laughs, and it’s almost maniacal. it’s then she realizes he looks exactly the same as she remembers him: he’s wearing his favorite t-shirt, and he hasn’t aged a day. suddenly she knows who she’s fighting.
(answer: no one at all. an illusion. a trick.)
“that sounds like...something a clone would say,” sungmin manages, even as she steps on his chest and ties her whip around his neck as well.
“i realized...if you were the real sungmin...i wouldn’t know anything about you. and you wouldn’t know anything about me,” she explains. the world has changed since they last saw each other. “and you look exactly the same. i’m not even the same person i was two years ago.”
the whip tightens around his throat again, like a deadly, toxic plant whose only intention is to kill and grow of its own volition. (and maybe her weapon suits her exactly.)
“you’ve gotten...darker,” sungmin agrees, but she doesn’t know why he keeps talking, and how he looks so peaceful even as blood drips from his neck. maybe they are too alike. would she squirm when faced with death? surely, it is impossible to be any part human and not scream when a hundred tiny knives pierce your neck deeper and deeper.
his blood drips, and some of it lands on her socks, already stained red more than a year ago. she wonders if now, other magical heroes will grow darker too, when confronted with the reality of their lives: with the reality of loss at their own hands.
if that’s the case, and sungmin is one of them now, she doesn’t want him to experience it.
“if you are the real sungmin, i realized...that i want you dead anyway. being alive here...isn’t a gift. it is a burden. all you have if you survive here is the hope of making sure others don’t lose as much as you have. i’m sure you understand. i want you dead.”
and then he is gone, and she breathes deeply, and she still does not know who is dead or alive anymore.
her parents: dead.
kim jinwook: dead.
kang sungmin: unaccounted for.
everyone else: still here, either fighting, or defeated.
she can tell most of her battle is over, because there is not another soul, living or dead, that she truly cares for left to face. and so she takes steps backward, up the steps of the chobotics building. she turns away from the battle, only to increase her speed, and charge up the steps, and pull at the doors, because maybe glass is enough to protect them from the morbid destruction outside, but it’s locked.
she shields her eyes, and scans the battlefield in search of any of the team members she saw earlier, and there is wendy and yulhee in the thick of everything, a little bit closer to her. this is enough.
her next priority is an escape route. she’s sure most of the magical heroes in the thick of things won’t leave the humans behind, but someone has to find a way to get everyone out, or no one will get out at all. she makes it her mission. any opening is a fair one to consider, even if it brings them right through danger.
if she stands in front of the chobotics building and faces the familiar as it oozes and destroys, running far enough to both the left and the right will provide an escape. there is no pattern to most of those fleeing the scene, running off in whichever direction they see first with no regard to how they will get away from the streets that are growing more and more flooded with the familiar’s wax. (the booth the familiar appeared closest to is now entirely covered, and the air grows thicker with a smell she can only imagine is burning flesh.)
she doesn’t know if the familiar tracks them by sight or by heat or scent, but she figures the best bet for survival is to split off in as many directions as possible. if everyone in the area leaves in one giant pack, it’ll make the creature’s goal of falling upon them even easier. this simplifies her decision. to the left, there is less ground to cover before they can escape into the rest of the city. (is this really what they want? what if they don’t succeed in cornering the familiar here, and just draw it out to cause more destruction?)
there is more ground to cover if she follows the escape route to the right. this, she suspects, is why those trying to escape that consider their options a little more seem to dart to the left. however, the escape route to the right has more opportunities to get to higher ground. there is a parking garage not too far away that she knows the location of: this is probably their best bet.
now, what’s left to figure out is how to communicate this to her team as fast as possible, and then run, because their time here dwindles as the familiar only fills the street further and further with its chaos. they will drown if they stay here for long.
the first thing you think when a monstrous, soul-sucking creature appears, likely from the depths of hell itself: it all makes sense.
at least this is what kana thinks. her first moments during crisis are spent berating herself for not anticipating the hanged man’s appearance, though she doesn’t know he’s behind this. the realm she’s in still looks like earth, for now, and so she isn’t inside the noose-- is she? but the hanged man, in the end, is behind every magical abomination, and the energy makes every hair on her body stand on end, so there is no other explanation.
or at least this is the explanation she accepts, and there is no time to be proven wrong or right. the creature absorbs everything close to it, and at least they’re quickly made aware of what they’re dealing with. her instinct is to fight (always) but with a few more seconds to regroup, it’s not her priority. her mind flashes back to her meeting with her team preceding the expo, and their agreement to meet in front of the chobotics building if anything came up, so this is where she makes her way towards.
naturally, the grotesque familiar isn’t too far from their meeting spot. kana is the first to arrive, and she gets a front row seat to the ensuing carnage as she waits. she isn’t one to wait in a crisis either, but the scene is overwhelming, and the best course of action isn’t immediately recognizable. does she wait for her team to arrive? (will any of them arrive?) does she get up close and personal with the familiar in hopes of dispatching it with the help of those already fighting?
dark eyes scan the area, whip in hand, ready to attack, and in one moment, she sees everything: wendy, joy and yulhee making their way towards her, and then the terrifying sludge that oozes from the familiar’s arms, and....
her parents.
she closes her eyes for a moment, and grips her whip so tightly that she can feel its thorns digging into calloused fingers. maybe it is an illusion. she ignores it, and keeps her eyes on her teammates instead.
is this it? is this all of them? are the others lost forever? they’re thoughts she shuts down in favor of raising her voice once they’re in earshot.
“daredevil!” she shouts, and for someone typically introverted, she is booming thunder when she needs to be. “get to the meeting spot as soon as you can!” and the more time goes on, the more confused and muddled everything becomes. suddenly the battlefield is dripping in grief. she wants to say take your time, and yet she doesn’t, because time is not something they have.
we need to get to higher ground, she wants to say, but any words she has die in her throat. (they’re all too far apart anyway-- all too preoccupied for now.)
because there is the voice of her mother right beside her: “seulgi, you’ve grown up so much.”
