The Falcon Gang (8)
When I pressed the blade to his throat, he let out a pained groan from the Curtana buried in his gut and lifted his head toward me.
The instant his eyes met mine they flew wide, and a hollow laugh spilled from his lips.
"Haha... To think I'd go down to a little kid this young. Even if it was a sneak attack, this is just ridiculous."
"Enough. Where did you get this?"
I pulled the pill from my pocket and held it up for him to see.
Han Jin-o watched me produce it, and his pupils shook violently. He averted his gaze and began working his mouth soundlessly, mumbling.
Like a man caught with something he should never have been found with, he twitched and tried to squirm away—only for the agony of the sword in his belly to stop him cold. He squeezed his eyes shut, then—
"Hehaha! So you figured that out too? No, wait—judging by the way you're asking, you don't actually know what it is, do you?"
He slowly opened his eyes and looked at me with a vile grin.
"Don't change the subject. I don't know the exact details, but I've got a pretty good idea what kind of thing this is. So tell me where you got it!"
"Hoo, listen here, brat. You think I'm gonna tell you that? A guy like me is just a low-level grunt anyway. But hey—if you spare me, I could share a little of what I know."
He licked his lips with his tongue, waiting for my answer.
Cold sweat ran from his forehead down his face from the pain of the sword in his gut; blood seeped where the blade at his throat nicked the flesh—and still his eyes shone with a vital light, full of the will to survive, as if he still believed in something.
"You want to make a deal?"
At my words his twitching lips parted, and he spoke as if that was exactly what he'd been hoping for.
"Now we're talking, huh? Brat, how about you pull this thing out first?"
I gently lowered Durandal from his neck and reached for the hilt of Curtana in his belly—then immediately kicked it deeper in.
"Guh! Kuh... What the... hell...?!"
"Sorry, but I don't make deals with people like you."
With the sword driven deeper he writhed and twitched in agony. I raised Durandal high, ready to bring it down on his neck—
"Charlotte. Isn't that enough?"
Durandal stopped right beside Han Jin-o's throat, and I turned toward the voice.
There stood Hyunseok, looking as if he'd run hard—his bangs flipped up, a few strands escaping his tied hair and clinging to his sweat-damp face.
"What do you mean, enough? This guy doesn't need to stay alive, does he? Right?"
I spoke to him in a low, cold voice.
Hyunseok's two purple-glowing eyes widened as they reflected me. Then, as if he understood my words, they returned to normal—no, they turned sharp and piercing instead. He clenched both fists as if holding back anger, then released the tension and started walking toward me.
"He may have no reason to live, but that doesn't mean you have a reason to kill him either, Charlotte."
"I don't know about that. From where I'm standing, there's plenty of reason. Do you know what I saw when I went to save Ara?"
Hyunseok stopped briefly at my words, then continued approaching.
"I don't, but I can roughly guess. Something like what happened in the shantytown, right?"
"What? Then you basically know everything. So it's fine if I kill him now, right?"
I raised the sword high again to swing it down—only for a grip to seize my wrist. I whipped around.
Hyunseok was looking at me with a serious expression. He was holding my wrist so tightly that his hand trembled, and pain shot through me.
Watching us, Han Jin-o—though his body couldn't move—was crushed by our auras, unable to budge, and began trembling slowly. The wings on his back quivered just like his body, kicking up dust from the ground, and his face gradually drained of color.
"Let go! Even if you're softhearted, you don't have the right to do this!"
"I'll say it again: that doesn't give you the right to kill him either."
I glared sharply at Hyunseok and began speaking in a voice thick with fury.
"In this guy's hideout at Mokdong Station there were rooms full of people locked up, turned into monsters like those earlier ones, or tormented, or tortured until their rotting corpses filled the place—not just one or two rooms! And among them were kids! And you still think this guy should live? He might even be connected to what happened in the shantytown! You saw it too! So why are you doing this?!"
Hyunseok looked at me without much surprise. His expression seemed cold, but the tremor in the hand holding me and the way he bit his lip suggested otherwise.
As I looked at him, I saw my own reflection in his eyes—the face of a girl who looked ready to cry at any moment.
I learned through Yeonseo that Charlotte had arrived while the gang members were transforming into monsters and confronting us.
And when the monsters outside the barrier Yeonseo had created were engulfed in white-tinged crimson flames, it wasn't long before they turned to white ash.
After that, with a boom, Han Jin-o—whom I'd been keeping in check—began to fall, and as Charlotte approached him step by step, goosebumps rose on my skin. The moment I decided I had to stop what she was about to do, my body was already running toward her.
I managed to stop her just before she cut him down, then grabbed her hand and put strength into it to keep her from killing him.
As she said, if that man lived he would probably go on to make countless people cry or hurt them, leaving wounds to spare. I know that.
But when I heard her ask why she shouldn't, memories of the things I'd done in the world before my return came flooding back.
Back then I was drunk on using my power to take down villains who harmed people. At first I only subdued them, but as I grew intoxicated by that power and kept fighting, the villains resisted fiercely—so it escalated to making them bleed or damaging their bodies, and eventually I went right up to the brink of killing them.
Afterward those guys found out my identity as a vigilante, and because of them I lost the parents and little sister who had loved me. From the shock of that, I changed to subduing even the most evil people rather than killing them—and before I knew it I was back on Earth.
So even though I understand why Charlotte is angry now, I wanted to keep her from regretting it like I did. That is why I decided to stop her from killing Han Jin-o.
So that she wouldn't lose someone precious the way I did.
"Charlotte, I know why you're making that face. That's exactly why I can't let you kill him."
With that he released my hand and wrapped both arms around my waist, pulling me into a hug.
"W-wait?! What are you...!?"
"In the world I was in before, I went around catching people corrupted by evil—people called 'villains.' In the life before I was reborn in that world, I was always the one being bullied, so I wanted even more to help people who were being hurt. But gradually I got drunk on my power, my actions grew extreme, and in the end I lost my precious family. After that I decided never to kill even the most evil villains. It was also a promise I made with her, and I didn't want to lose something precious again. So..."
I could tell what he wanted to say. He didn't want me to lose something precious the same way he had.
"I... I get it! I get it, so let go of me now...!"
I pushed his body away and broke free—but because I'd felt the warmth he held for me in his arms, heat rose through my body. Drunk on that heat, I gradually went limp, strength leaving me as I sank to the ground.
"Charlotte?! A-are you okay?!"
When Hyunseok knelt on one knee and looked at me with concern after I suddenly sat down, the face reflected in his eyes was burning red, like a girl lost in something.
"I-I'm fine, so just... just wait a second...!"
I said that, calming my vigorously pounding heart, then spoke to him.
"Hyunseok, I know what you're trying to say. But I'm a Returnee too. I'm different from you, but I lived in another world as well. I just realized it there. If I let evil go free, innocent people always ended up as sacrifices or their test subjects. So... I realized I had to eliminate them right away."
"Charlotte..."
Hyunseok seemed surprised that I was also a Returnee like him, and at the same time as if imagining how I'd lived. He looked at me with worried eyes, gently placed a hand on my head, and began stroking it slowly.
That touch somehow made me feel more and more choked up, and soon a single tear streamed from my eye.
"So that's how it was... Charlotte, you acted that way because you'd been through something like that too. I'm sorry. I didn't know any of that and just forced my own thoughts on you."
"It's not... entirely like that. Hearing your story, I understand why you did it too. So... for now, even if someone's corrupted by evil, I won't kill them right away..."
Hearing my words, Hyunseok stopped stroking and hugged me again.
"Thank you, Charlotte. Truly..."
"Hnn... B-but... this is okay, right?"
"Hm?"
"Half... killing them is... fine, right? I didn't kill him, after all...?"
At that, Hyunseok—who had been hugging me—released his arms and looked at me with a bewildered expression. I avoided his gaze, fidgeting with both hands.
Lying there watching the two of them, Han Jin-o was so dumbfounded he could die.
"What the hell are these damn kids suddenly filming a romance scene for...! Guh...!?"
Suddenly an anvil made of ice dropped from above with a sharp clang! onto his face, and he passed out cold.
"Shh. Quiet. This is an important part for their love."
Yeonseo snapped a Polaroid of the two of them, then, with a happy expression, began thinking about how best to tease Charlotte for fun.