Breaking the White Flower
The blood dripped from my nose in steady drops. I wiped it away with the back of my hand, the crimson stain spreading across my pale skin like a scar. I stared down at it for a moment, then tried to stand without a word.
"Ugh...!"
"Master!!"
But the blow to my head had robbed my legs of strength. They buckled instantly.
The sound of Noa's footsteps rushing toward the man in front of me grew closer. Then came the metallic click of a gun aimed at the back of my head. I thrust my baton hand backward, hooking it around the arm of the pistol-wielding Noa and using her small frame as a pivot to launch myself into the air.
"Ah──"
A tiny groan escaped Noa as she realized something had gone wrong. She tried to shake off the arm wrapped around hers, but it was already too late. I gripped the baton with both hands and twisted the wrist holding the gun.
"Aaaagh!! Ugh...!"
"....!"
The pistol flew from her delicate grip and disappeared into the grass, but Noa decided she couldn't simply drop me. She grabbed my collar and hurled me away.
I curled into a ball to minimize the impact on my back and rolled across the ground. After completing the long recovery roll from being thrown so far by a Saintess's strength, I rose into a ready stance. There stood Noa, now supporting the collapsed Choi Woo-joo, glaring at me.
I'd meant to break her arm, but her instant reaction had foiled me. This was only the second time Noa had been deployed on a mission with me. Since she had little real combat experience, I'd handled nearly all the fighting myself. I'd forgotten that the girl who always provided support from behind was still an agent rigorously trained by the organization. She knew my fighting style well, which made countering me that much easier.
"Noa, I'm giving you the chance to die with honor as a human..."
"I don't need that. Don't even mention that organization's so-called consideration, okay? From what I see, my sister, the people in the organization, and the human I used to be were all obsolete trash. A life of devoting my body, heart, and entire existence to my Master. That's what honor means to me now."
"...You've been completely corrupted. I'm sorry, Noa. This is all my fault."
"No. It's all thanks to you, sister... Because you pushed yourself so hard, I met Master and gained a new life. Thank you so much♡"
Noa smiled with her eyes, the emerald hue that marked her as a Saintess gleaming in them. If I hadn't used the memory-erasure drug on my own initiative, if I had stopped her from trying to cover it up... at the very least, Noa would never have become a Saintess.
".........."
Fighting Noa, who knew my tactics inside and out, was annoying. Not difficult, but if she focused entirely on defense, it would take time to break through. The fastest way to end this battle within two minutes was...
"...Mmph, ugh..."
I looked at the Mask's owner, Choi Woo-joo, hanging limply from Noa's shoulder with his head bowed. Unlike the Saintesses, the Mask's owner had a body identical to a normal human. Targeting him was the answer. The Saintesses who lost their Master would lose control, unable to maintain their transformed bodies, and collapse. Cleanup would be messy, but stalling any longer in a crowded park like this would be even harder to manage. I hadn't wanted to use a gun with so many ears and eyes nearby, but I had no choice.
I reached under my skirt for the pistol in the holster I'd prepared in advance. Since this was a civilian-dense area, I only had one bullet. That single shot would be aimed at Choi Woo-joo.
"...I won't let you!!"
"───"
As expected, Noa charged forward while shielding Choi Woo-joo, knowing exactly what I intended. Instead of drawing the baton hidden at her waist, she thrust it straight at my eyes.
I twisted my gaze slightly left to avoid the baton that had become a massive black spot filling my vision. At the same time, I quickly jabbed my own baton at Noa's throat.
"Kuhk...!"
Her pupils contracted from the heavy pain to a vital point, and her tongue lolled out. But this wasn't enough to incapacitate a Saintess. I reached behind her neck, grabbed it, and drove my knee up into her solar plexus. Noa couldn't even groan under the consecutive strikes to her weak points. As she pitched forward, I slammed my baton into the back of her head as she passed by.
"...Huk..."
Thud── Noa collapsed on the spot, blood coating my baton. She wouldn't die from this, but the damage should keep her from moving for a while.
Still airborne, I reached toward the fallen Noa while glaring at the staggering Choi Woo-joo.
"Noa...!"
"Ugh...!"
The moment my toes touched the ground, I lunged forward, drew the pistol hidden beneath my skirt, and aimed it precisely at Choi Woo-joo's forehead. I placed my finger on the trigger and pulled without hesitation.
Bang──!
"───!!"
Flame erupted from the muzzle. A gunshot that should never have rung out across my father's peaceful hometown split the air. The red bullet flew true and struck Choi Woo-joo square in the forehead. A black hole appeared there, and he toppled backward, falling limply.
My own body, which had been airborne once more, pitched forward and landed on top of his slumped corpse.
"...Huu..."
It was over now. I hadn't done it perfectly, but I'd stopped things before any greater damage could occur. I'm sorry, Father. I'm sorry, Park Jaehyeok. I'm sorry, Noa. And I'm sorry to all the other Saintesses whose souls were stolen by this man.
"...In the next life, may you wash away your sins and live once more. I pray for it."
I pushed myself up from the ground and reached out to close Choi Woo-joo's eyes, which were still open and staring at the sky. As I leaned forward, I felt two strange sensations.
".....?"
The first was a familiar softness against my left hand, which had accidentally pressed against Choi Woo-joo's chest. The definite, if small, volume was a texture that could never come from a man's chest.
The second was the chill that met my right hand as it finally reached Choi Woo-joo's face amid the growing sense of wrongness. Or more precisely, a hardness no human body should possess. It felt like touching cold stone. Even a dead human body should still retain some warmth, yet Choi Woo-joo's face was as icy as a block of ice.
The moment I registered that spine-chilling dissonance, things I hadn't noticed in the heat of battle began to appear one by one. First, although Choi Woo-joo's eyes were completely lifeless, no blood flowed from the hole in his forehead. Then there was his height and musculature, which seemed smaller than when we'd first met, along with the feminine figure hidden beneath the baggy tracksuit. I urgently tore open the top he was wearing, revealing skin too white to belong to a man and──
"...This is..."
A bra. A white undergarment cupping small breasts.
"How... What? This... what the..."
A laugh cut through my confused thoughts, as if intent on scrambling them further. I whipped around.
"Heh, hehehe...! That was excellent... Honestly, I was worried, but you acted so well, Miss Minji."
"...Noa? You..."
I looked down again, following the gaze of Noa, who knelt there stemming the blood from her head while mocking me. The person lying beneath me wasn't Choi Woo-joo.
The man's face began to split open from the gunshot wound at its center. Beyond the crumbling fragments of what had become pure white plaster, a woman's face appeared. A woman staring up at me with hollow eyes.
"....."
A Saintess? No. This woman's soul carried the white of a human── her head was pitch black. Had only part of her soul been taken? How was something like this even possible...
"The Mask's anomalous property..."
A chill ran down my spine as my own voice answered the question I'd asked myself. No, that couldn't be. I'd definitely checked the souls of everyone nearby before entering deep into the park. In this immediate area where the fight had taken place, there had been no one except me, Noa, and the Mask's owner. There hadn't been anything suspicious at all...!
Before I could finish the thought, I closed my eyes and pictured the body sitting in the bathroom. The sense of crisis that I needed to return to my body immediately made me decide to retreat. The body I currently inhabited turned into particles of light and slowly faded away as I returned to my original form.
"...Goodbye, sister...♡"
"...I found him, Woo-joo oppa."
"What? For real?"
"Yes! Hurry and come inside!"
"Uh...? No matter how you look at it, isn't it weird for me to go in there?"
"It's fine! There's no one inside! And I'll keep watch nearby!"
While the disguised Minji and Noa bought time against Isabelle, Yunsol and I began searching every corner of the park. We avoided the center where the fight was happening and circled the outer areas. We'd split up to check the public restrooms—men's and women's—when Yunsol poked just her head out and waved at me. She'd apparently found something.
I hesitated for a moment, checking my surroundings, then quickly slipped into the women's restroom.
"Oppa, it's the first stall."
"...Got it."
Yunsol closed the door, tore a page from a notebook, and wrote in thick pen: Out of Order. Please use the restroom at the back entrance. She stuck the paper on the outside of the bathroom door and locked it again.
I hadn't known Yunsol had a talent for this kind of thing... I scratched the back of my head and pushed aside the broken door of the first stall.
"......"
"Found her."
There she was—a silver-haired woman sitting blankly on the toilet. Honestly, I'd been half skeptical whether such an embarrassing plan would even work, but it had succeeded beyond my wildest expectations.
Tricking Isabelle, a human who was meticulous in everything and nearly perfect, wasn't easy. She possessed combat strength that could handle multiple Saintesses at once, along with a severe case of paranoia that made her test even the safest bridge a thousand times before crossing. Even if you somehow managed to push her over once by luck, she was the kind of woman who could say, "Yes, that was just a decoy," and escape at leisure. The chance to catch someone like that came only once. And it required multiple miracles to align.
First, I'd chosen Minji as my substitute. A human turned into a Dummy Doll by Haemi-noona. Since she wasn't a Saintess, there was no worry of her being detected, and because she was a perfect doll who didn't even disturb the flow of her breathing, she was the only way to evade Isabelle, who could see through lies by detecting fluctuations in the soul. Most of all, the reason Minji was perfect for the role was a skill Haemi-noona had taught her while drunk. The ability to completely reshape her own head and face to mimic someone else's. There was no helping the difference in body type or height, but the fact that she could even copy my voice made her the best choice. Besides, since Isabelle had never seen the shape of my soul before, I was certain she'd be suspicious but still fall for it at least once.
To be honest, I hadn't wanted to send the other Saintesses or Go-eun into such a dangerous battlefield, and she'd been chosen by process of elimination... but she had performed the role far better than I'd expected.
The second key point of the plan was the range of the astral projection. Knowing the weakness that the main body couldn't stray more than 100 meters from the core, I'd deliberately lured Isabelle to this wide park. If she used astral projection in an open area like this, her physical body would be left completely defenseless somewhere in the park. All I had to do was hide in the convenience store near the park and start searching as soon as the fight began.
Of course, if Noa got taken out before I could find Isabelle's real body, or if the decoy was exposed, the plan would fail immediately. It was an insanely risky gamble that might not only fail to avenge Jaehyeok but could even send me to join him.
Honestly, the park's layout was wider and more complicated than I'd thought, and things had nearly gone to shit. But then a miracle happened—I ran into Yunsol, who was on her way home after finishing a university-linked debate in the countryside.
'O-oppa? What are you doing...? Morning jog...?'
'Haa... haa, haa...! Y-Yunsol... haa... help me look for someone... haa...'
I later learned that her studio apartment was nearby, so she'd just happened to be passing by. Thus, the first miracle of Isabelle falling for the decoy, the second miracle of Noa holding out for quite a long time against that monstrous woman, and the third ridiculous miracle of running into Yunsol by pure chance had all aligned to bring me to this moment.
Isabelle, with her beautiful silver hair, sat with a blank face, staring straight ahead. Right in front of her real body.
"...Fucking bitch."
"...Hngh..."
I pulled the mask from my pocket and grabbed a fistful of her hair. As her body trembled, a moan escaped her lips. I slowly pressed the mask onto her face.
Thump─
"............."
Finally, the skin that had been like white jade, the blue eyes that had sparkled like the sea, and the lips that had held a faint cherry hue were all covered by the old wooden mask.