#cc:hangedman

[renaxcc]

╗iii: limits and losses╚

tear tracks are caked on yulhee’s cheeks as more and more tears fall, some going as far as the collar of her shirt before they’re stopped. jongin -- no, not the real jongin, a fake jongin, he’s not real -- releases her, and she stumbles forward automatically, before straightening and raising her saber in a shaking hand. she turns her body so that it faces sideways, away from both her brother in front of her and her aunt to her right and jongin to her left, and her head swings back and forth between them, her sword held protectively in front of her chest. 

“come with us, yulhee,” jongin repeats, and yulhee turns her head to him, taking a couple steps back so she can try to keep all three of them in her line of sight. it’s only then that she notices that jongin is in his dark hero outfit, looking exactly like the real jongin, her jongin, right down to the look of concern and caring written into his features.

“come with us,” her brother says, and she spins her head around to look at him, sword raised even though she knows she can’t use it against him. she knows he’s not real, knows it probably won’t hurt her real brother to do it, but she just can’t. 

“come with you where?” she demands as she continues stepping backwards, the scarily realistic replicas stepping forward and closing the distance between the three of them so that with every step, they come closer to being directly in front of yulhee. 

“to a better place,” her aunt responds, that familiar, tender smile gracing her lips. yulhee always wondered how she never got married, as pretty and kind as she is. “where you can be safe and happy with us, forever.”

yulhee lunges forward without warning, but she closes her eyes as she cuts her aunt down. she does it quickly, her body moving before her brain even considers the action. when she opens her eyes, her brother is already kneeling by her aunt’s bloodied body, with an open gash from her throat to her navel, and he looks up at her with tears in his eyes. “why would you do that, noona? why would you kill her? what kind of monster are you?”

yulhee backs up again, once again running right into jongin. she whirls around to face him, her sword pointed at his chest. he raises his spear, and she leaps back as their weapons clash. it takes her only a second to realize that he is stronger, especially when she’s already unstable thanks to the emotions running thickly through her and expressing themselves by falling down her cheeks. 

she tries to think logically, tries to fight without her emotions taking over, tries to find some kind of tactic or strategy that would give her the upper hand, but she can’t. all she can think is that this is her jongin, and she can’t hurt him.

she finally shoves his spear off her saber and takes the opportunity to jump back and create space between them again. however, she’s off-balance and stumbles backwards when she lands. her brother rushes toward her, leaning over and asking if she’s okay, tears on his cheeks. “noona, are you okay? i don’t know why you killed aunt minhee but it’s okay, it’s okay, i forgive you. you don’t have to hurt anyone anymore. please don’t hurt me too, noona,” he begs, sobs punctuating his words as tears run down his cheeks and he throws his arms around yulhee’s neck.

his cries are cut off, however, when yulhee’s sword emerges from his back. “my brother’s stronger than that,” she says harshly, though her own voice trembles slightly. she finally pushes him off of her and withdraws her sword as he falls to the side, but before she can get up there’s another body on top of her, pushing her back into the ground and pinning her arms and legs down easily.

jongin’s face no longer shows the familiar caring expression she’s so used to: now it’s masked in betrayal, confusion, and sadness. “why did you do that, yulhee?” he demands. “we just wanted you to come with us to the other side! we could have all been happy together, but then you killed them! why would you do that? i thought you wanted to protect your brother, not kill him! if you killed him and your aunt, do you want to kill me too? did you ever really care about any of us at all, or have you always been a monster?”

he’s shouting, and yulhee struggles beneath him, but she can’t move -- she may have enhanced strength while she’s transformed, but so does he, and he was physically stronger than her to begin with. “no, you’re not real, none of you are real!” she screams from beneath him, her tears now spilling out of the corners of her eyes and making their way into her hairline and ears. 

“i’m not real? then if i’m not real, you shouldn’t feel this, right?” the fake jongin demands, and with his forearms and elbows still holding yulhee’s arms still, his hands wrap around her throat, squeezing tight. 

yulhee’s air supply is cut off immediately, and she squirms even more, but of course it’s useless. all the sounds she can get out, trying to explain, trying to somehow convince him to let go so she can kill him and get to her team where she’s supposed to be, are nothing more than incoherent hacks and gurgles beneath his strong, suffocating grip. 

his face morphs into pure hatred as he squeezes harder and harder, making yulhee’s vision start to tunnel. “a monster like you deserves to die,” he growls above her, and she manages a whimper as she feels her consciousness slipping away from her. “you have no right to call yourself a hero, so just die, dammit!”

as yulhee’s vision fades to black and her grip finally slackens on her sword, the darkness swallows her, and she thinks she feels jongin evaporate above her as she’s pulled quickly away. she wonders if this is what death is like, and thinks for a brief second that it’s a lot faster than she thought it would be. 

she opens her eyes when the darkness drops her, and she lands on her hands and knees, her sword clattering to the ground next to her as she hacks and coughs, trying to catch her breath through her suddenly opened but significantly bruised and battered airway. and as even more tears spill from her eyes and her heart pumps frantically trying to deal with all the adrenaline and sudden return of oxygen to her system, yulhee knows one thing for sure.

she isn’t dead, but she might soon be, because she’s been sucked into the body of the familiar. 

[renaxcc]

╗ii: hopeless╚

yulhee is soon joined in her attempt to help the children escape by jinri, the vice president of the league of magical girls. the older hero’s presence soothes yulhee slightly, because jinri must be powerful in order to have made it to such a high rank, right? she knows the situation is still dire, and that jinri’s presence alone won’t be nearly enough to overcome it, but it’s comforting all the same.

together, they end up getting a group of six children to relative safety on the high ground, and they instruct all the kids to stick together until they find their parents. yulhee hates leaving them on their own again, but they are at least a little farther away from most of the danger, and yulhee and jinri, with their powers, need to focus on getting more people out or actually doing what they can to fight the familiar. 

before the two of them can get more children, however, yulhee is stopped by the sound of an all-too-familiar female voice. “my little girl, you’ve grown up so well.” yulhee wheels around and recognizes her parents immediately, and all she can do is stare in shock, taking in their faces that she couldn’t always remember the details of. 

the beauty mark on her mother’s cheek. the light freckles that dust her father’s nose. they smile lovingly at her, the same smiles she never thought she’d see again. and while yulhee is stuck in place, staring wide-eyed at what must be a dream or a mirage, her mother walks toward her, reaching out and cupping her face in her hand. the touch makes yulhee jump -- it makes her actually start to believe that this might be real, that they might actually be back for her. 

in the back of her mind, though, she knows it must be a trick. the memory of that fateful day a year and a half ago is playing on a loop in the back of her head, but she’s trying not to pay attention to it, because she wants so badly for this to be real.

“you’re so pretty, yulhee,” her mother is saying, brushing yulhee’s curls away from her face. yulhee’s eyes dart all over her face, committing all her features to memory before switching her eyes to her father when he moves forward to stand at his wife’s side.

{ yulhee and her little brother are pulled out of school. their aunt picks them up and drives them to the hospital, constantly apologizing and trying to explain what happened, but she herself is fighting tears. yulhee feels a horrid sense of dread, and exchanges a worried gaze with her brother. }

“we’re so proud of you, sweetheart,” her father says. “you’ve done so well, my perfect little princess.”

{ the doctors stand in front of the door, looking down at yulhee with pity in their eyes as she sways on the spot trying to wrap her mind around that one short word. dead. next to her, her brother isn’t doing much better, but yulhee can’t pay attention to anything right now. after a few minutes of fighting nearly-overwhelming nausea, she looks up at the doctors, her face pale but determined. “i want to see them.” }

“your outfit is so cute!” her mother exclaims, pulling her hands down the ribbon hanging from yulhee’s neck. “did you design it? i mean, i know it’s magic, but you must have had the idea for what it would look like, didn’t you?”

yulhee can’t respond, her eyes filled with tears as she looks between her parents’ faces. “is something wrong, princess?” her father asks, laying a strong, comforting hand on her shoulder. 

it’s then that yulhee’s tears start to fall, and that she finally speaks, though her words are broken up by quiet sobs. “i-i-i m-missed you so much.” 

{ “listen, little miss,” one of the doctors says -- he’s younger, less stoic than the rest of the men in lab coats standing in front of her. “we talked about it, and we don’t think it’s a good idea for you to see them now. we don’t want what you see to taint your happy memories of them. it’s best if you don’t go in there, okay? trust me.” 

yulhee wants to trust this doctor. he’s nice, he doesn’t talk down to her like the others do -- after all, she’s sixteen, almost an adult, there’s no need to treat her like a child -- and he seems to actually have some respect for her rather than just pity. she wants to trust him, but she has to see her parents. she has to see what happened to them, has to know how they died. so she closes her eyes and looks down, acting for a moment like she’s giving in, and when the doctors have let their guard down, she leaps into action and shoves past them, bursting into the cold room they were guarding. }

her parents hug her, her father’s hand rubbing circles into her back and her mother’s stroking her hair gently. yulhee cries into their chests, allowing herself to give into this dream because she really has missed them. 

her parents whisper comforting words, shushing her and calming her down just like they used to, and yulhee clings to them, crying all the tears she’s kept hidden for the past year and a half. 

{ the bodies are uncovered, and yulhee freezes at the sight of them. they’re mangled, covered in blood, and their forms are practically unrecognizable. yulhee takes a few jerky steps forward, as if her body is fighting what her mind is telling it to do. as she comes closer, she makes out their faces, and she reflexively gags as she sees that her mother’s normally-perfect face is covered in blood from a broken nose and a huge gash on her forehead, and her father’s strong jaw is broken, leaving his familiar gummy smile lopsided and grotesque. their bodies, their strong, safe arms that had always held yulhee through her nightmares, that had always made everything okay, are completely shattered. }

they hold yulhee in their perfectly fine arms now, stroking her hair and whispering comforts into her ear, until her father sends a shock through her body with his words. “but if you missed us so much, princess, why didn’t you ever avenge us?”

{ yulhee throws up right there in the floor, heaving until she has nothing left, and then dry heaving even more as if she could throw up all the blood, tissue, and organs in her body. she feels a hand on her back and looks around, seeing her brother there with his other hand blocking the left side of his face so he can’t see what yulhee just saw out of the corner of his eyes. she takes a second to be proud of him, then to regret running in the room in the first place. }

yulhee lifts her head from where it’s cradled against her mother’s chest to look at her father. “what?”

“why haven’t you avenged us, yulhee?” her father’s grip on her arm is hard now, maybe hard enough to bruise, and that’s when yulhee finally starts to realize something’s wrong. her father would never hurt her. 

{ kneeling on the floor, tremors shaking her body from the shock and reflexive heaving, yulhee’s jaw sets. “i’ll avenge you,” she murmurs to herself, a promise. “i’ll get justice for you. i swear.”

her brother is the only one who hears her, and when he asks what she means, she just shakes her head as he helps her up and the two of them turn their backs on their parents. yulhee looks over her shoulder as they leave, taking in the final crippled forms of their parents. }

“why haven’t you avenged us yet, yulhee?” her mother asks now. “you said you would. it’s been a year and a half and you still haven’t. you still have no idea which card killed us, and you’re no closer to killing it. have you forgotten your promise?”

“no! of course no-ah!” her words are cut off by a yell of surprise as her mother grabs her hair, tugging it roughly so that yulhee’s head is forced back. “mom, dad, no, it’s me,” she whispers, her eyes flicking between her parents as her father draws a knife from a pocket. “dad!” yulhee shrieks, struggling to try to get away without hurting her parents. 

“yulhee!” that’s jongin’s voice. yulhee’s eyes widen, but she can’t turn her head to look for him. “yulhee, they’re not real! they’re not real, they’re just replicas, you have to kill them!” 

yulhee’s eyes close. that makes sense. why would her parents hurt her? they wouldn’t. this can’t be them. that’s what she tells herself over and over as she maneuvers her saber behind her back to her left hand, since her right arm is still held in her “father’s” too-tight grip. she meets her father’s eyes and whispers an “i’m sorry. i love you,” before driving her saber through his chest. 

she pulls it out and takes the chance to wrench her right arm from his now-loosened grip, jumping back when her mother’s grip on her hair loosens as well, in what must be surprise. “yulhee!” her mother snaps, anger written into her expression.

“you’re not my mother,” yulhee says, her voice completely neutral as she tosses her sword back to her dominant right hand. “i should have realized it sooner. both of you were terrible copies.” she swings the sword as she walks forward, re-closing the distance between herself and her mother. “go back where you belong!” her voice raises to a shout as she stabs her fake mother the same way she did her father. the woman’s body leans against yulhee’s for a moment, and yulhee hears her cough over her shoulder, blood probably spewing from her mouth as she does. yulhee steps back, shoving the body back as she withdraws her sword. she hardly spares a glance at the two bodies on the ground as she turns around to find jinri. 

she sees the vice president nearby, in front of two women and a man. before yulhee can say anything, jinri falls to her knees, and is dragged away into the familiar. “no!” yulhee screams, stepping forward to run after her, though her path is stopped by the formation of two more wax figures in front of her. 

she’s crying again as she looks past the wax, watching jinri’s now-distant form get pulled into the familiar. how is she supposed to win her fight, if the vice president of the magical girls -- one of the strongest magical girls in the league -- lost hers?

yulhee’s attention is diverted, however, when the wax figures in front of her finish forming, and she finds herself staring at her aunt and younger brother. “no,” she breathes, shaking her head. “no, no, no, i can’t do this, i can’t kill you,” she whispers frantically, backing up to try to get away from them, but she runs into someone -- something -- else, and she freezes when a pair of all-too-familiar arms wrap around her and a voice speaks near her ear. “come with us, yulhee,” jongin says.

yulhee sobs, unable to even bring herself to fight against the fake jongin’s firm grip around her. she can’t do this.

[renaxcc]

╗i: fight and flight ╚

yulhee’s first thought when the portal opens is i’m glad my brother stayed home. she remembers the conversation clearly, how she told him and her aunt that she was going, how she told them not to meet her there because she’d be going with friends.

in reality, the only reason she was going was because she’d been ordered to, and the reason she told them to stay home was because she was worried, concerned something might happen, that she would have to fight. she didn’t want to have to worry about their safety on top of everything else. 

when the familiar appears, she takes off her ring, throwing it into the air to trigger her transformation. when she opens her eyes and catches her sword, the fact that she can at least defend herself and hopefully help others is the only thing she can draw any sort of comfort from. 

she isn’t far from team daredevil’s meeting point, the one they agreed upon in yesterday’s meeting just in case “everything went to hell.” yulhee doesn’t even need to hesitate to know that this is the definition of things going to hell, so she immediately starts heading in the direction of the front of the chobiotics building, hearing the screams all around her and wanting nothing more than to help but knowing that in order to keep herself alive she has to get to the meeting point, has to regroup with her team and figure out their best course of action. 

however, as she runs she spots people all around her -- regular humans without any powers, even children who are trapped in the midst of everything, crying for their parents who have been swept away by the fleeing crowds. yulhee can see kana now, already on the steps of the building. somehow -- maybe because she can see her mouth moving -- over all the din of the sheer panic the whole area is in, yulhee can just barely hear kana’s voice: “daredevil! get to the meeting spot as soon as you can!” yulhee’s jaw tightens, and she makes a split-second decision to help at least one person get to relative safety before following orders.

she kneels next to the nearest crying child, a girl of about three or four, already picking her up as she speaks to her. “shh, it’s gonna be okay, i’m gonna get you out of here.” as she rushes towards higher ground, dodging fights with what looks like scarily realistic wax figures and other kinds of wax dripping from the familiar that just looks like it’s probably dangerous, she takes the hand of another child, this one too old for her to pick up, so he runs next to her. 

she spots jongin nearby, doing the exact same thing she is, and her chest tightens with an all-too familiar emotion before she gets back to focusing on the task at hand.