The Night Is Long
Tasha spoke first. "There is definitely something suspicious about this. But Na Yeri is not the type of person who would stab a comrade in the back."
"No, how can you make such a firm declaration when you've barely even met her?"
"There is such a thing as intuition. Na Yeri was definitely a comrade I could trust with my back."
"That is extremely unscientific."
"From your perspective, both I and Na Yeri are equally difficult to trust. Is there any reason why I can be trusted but Na Yeri cannot?"
"That's because you, Tasha, actually operated with Ryitser. Working for a combat superhuman unit in any country means you're not a villain."
"How did you know that?"
"I happened to overhear a phone call."
"I see. I was under the impression that there were almost no Russian speakers in Korea..."
The headquarters only learned belatedly that Tasha, who had tossed aside her resignation and left Ryitser, had crossed over to Korea. They had left her with a warning and request that she must never engage in any military-related industry. Seong Jiyeong had happened to overhear that call and deduced Tasha's Ryitser origins from it. That was why she hadn't been overly shocked when she first heard the news that the Black Yaksha was Tasha.
If someone had worked for a government agency, they couldn't be connected to villains. On top of that, she had the weakness of being subject to deportation if her Phantom activities were ever exposed. From Seong Jiyeong's perspective, Tasha was a reasonably trustworthy figure.
Na Yeri, on the other hand, had displayed unexpected skill with no prior basis whatsoever, which made her past suspicious. If Na Yeri turned out to be connected to villains, dragging her in might only create unnecessary trouble.
And most awkward of all, requesting cooperation would require revealing her own identity. Phantom Golden Roll was a person with an active bounty on her head. If Na Yeri decided to report her, the problem would become truly massive.
"Then isn't it already too late? Even I noticed your voice. There is no way Na Yeri would have missed it."
"...You have a point. I forgot about that for a moment. Ha, just what is with this company? Yu Hana is already suspicious for being tied to Janwol, and now Na Yeri turns out to be like this... What exactly is going on?"
Seong Jiyeong flinched at Tasha's pointed observation. If that rabbit helmet from earlier really had been Na Yeri, then she had made a serious mistake. But it felt terribly unfair to her as well. She had turned off her voice modulator to reassure Tasha—who could have imagined that a teammate would be standing right beside her?
Tasha watched the lamenting Seong Jiyeong for a moment, a new curiosity rising within her. The conversation had brought up the other members, and because she held a baseless belief in Na Yeri, the new information actually bothered her.
"By Yu Hana, do you mean the member who always keeps her eyes closed? And what is Janwol?"
"She's not exactly keeping her eyes closed. It's more like her expression... Ha, that doesn't really matter. This explanation might take a while..."
"The night is long. We have plenty of time. It feels like something I ought to know as well."
"Well, all right then."
It began over ten years ago. There was an organization called Red Moon that had seized every prime district in Gangnam. With dozens of combat superhumans and hundreds of regular members when you included the rank-and-file, it was a colossal syndicate. Red Moon had been so powerful that even the security forces hesitated to touch it. The change came when the second-generation master decided to step into the light.
Those who actively supported the move, those who saw no need to change a good thing, and those who remained neutral and simply observed—the organization split into several factions and conflict erupted.
In response, the second master of Red Moon took only those who pledged to follow him and broke the organization apart. Red Moon's assets were astronomical, yet what the master took amounted to less than half. The remaining assets were left behind in the organization for those who stayed.
The faction that wished to remain in the shadows united around their leader, Seo Yu-cheon, and formed a new villain organization. Over the following decade, the villain group that would come to dominate Gangnam—Eclipse—was born.
Up to this point, everything had been clean and straightforward. Each side would simply run their organization according to their own beliefs.
But not long after, the second master of Red Moon, who had stepped into the light, and his wife died in an accident. It was an extremely suspicious incident. The timing made it even more so, as it occurred during the period when the underground Eclipse was pressuring the aboveground Red Moon over the old organization's assets.
After the master's death, there was even an incident in which Eclipse recovered some of the assets that had gone to Red Moon. Naturally, rumors flew. Many involved parties suspected Eclipse, and plenty of people predicted an all-out war between Red Moon and Eclipse. The security forces, of course, were watching both organizations with extreme vigilance.
Contrary to those predictions, however, Red Moon remained silent and ultimately disbanded entirely.
If things had ended there, it would have been nothing more than a footnote. But that was not the end.
It happened ten years after Eclipse's founding—roughly three years ago from the present. The massive organization that ruled Gangnam vanished completely in a single night. From the boss Seo Yu-cheon down to the administrators and even the lowest foot soldiers, every last one disappeared without a trace. Local villains, the police, and the security forces in the area all panicked and launched investigations.
Yet they obtained no information whatsoever. For some reason, all the CCTV footage from that exact day in the Gangnam area had been wiped, every vehicle black box was dead, and there wasn't a single witness who claimed to have seen anything strange. It was truly a case fit to make ghosts weep.
After the case was closed, the only remaining clue was a single painting left behind in the office of the Gangnam AX Building, Eclipse's headquarters.
A beautiful painting showing only a single moon hanging in the dim twilight just before sunrise. No one knew who had drawn it, but the skill was so extraordinary it drew involuntary gasps of admiration.
At some point, people began referring to the mysterious group that had annihilated Eclipse in a single day by comparing them to the painting they had left behind. They called it Janwol—Waning Moon.
Of course, in the three years since then Janwol had never made another appearance, so by now it was a name most people had forgotten.
"So something like that really happened. But what does any of it have to do with Yu Hana?"
"The second boss of Red Moon who died in that accident was Yu Hana's father. It means Yu Hana is the rightful heiress of Red Moon. All the people from the disbanded Red Moon are still gathered around her even now."
"Then it is certainly worth suspecting. But didn't you just say that no one knew their identity? With that much, surely someone should have been able to uncover it?"
"That's..."
"That's...?"
"There's nothing. I have my suspicions, but there isn't a single piece of evidence. Besides, the disbanded Red Moon has only engaged in completely legitimate business ever since. They claim it was the dying wish of the previous boss."
"I see... With that much, it wouldn't be easy to suspect them. But why exactly do you suspect Yu Hana?"
"Because I heard the voice of a suspicious person. A voice like that couldn't possibly be common."
Three years ago, on the very night Eclipse vanished overnight, Seong Jiyeong had been handling business in the Gangnam area. That was when she happened to encounter a strange person wrapped up tightly from head to toe. The voice had been so beautiful that she still remembered feeling quite intrigued at the time. It wasn't even midwinter, after all—just early autumn. Walking around that heavily covered up was odd no matter how you looked at it.
And now, three years later. Seong Jiyeong, who had never intended to become an idol, had lived without paying the slightest attention to the other trainees. She hadn't known what kind of voices they sang with. But after joining the debut team and checking the members' singing abilities, she had been shocked. One of the voices sounded familiar.
At first she hadn't thought much of it. She assumed it had simply left an impression because it was such a pretty voice. Yet that subtle unease kept nagging at her mind. Just in case, she looked into Yu Hana separately and discovered that she was the only daughter of Yu Seong-woo, the former representative of Red Moon. Once she learned that, she became certain. The voice she had heard in Gangnam that day belonged to Yu Hana.
On the day Eclipse disappeared, Yu Hana—the daughter of Yu Seong-woo—had just happened to be in Gangnam? Wrapped up so suspiciously that it stood out?
No matter how she thought about it, this could not be a coincidence.
But no matter how hard she dug, no further information surfaced. As she herself had said, Yu Hana had never once committed anything illegal. The same went for the former Red Moon employees who had served under Yu Seong-woo. It was a little strange that they continued to follow his successor Yu Hana even after his death, but since they were all working legitimately, there was no angle to pursue.
"So in the end, Yu Hana has suspicious aspects as well. I see. So that's why. I wondered why you kept picking fights with her for no reason. You were trying to confirm something."
"Picking fights for no reason... You mean the kimchi thing? No, that's..."
"Was it not?"
"...It was. That's exactly what I did. I definitely did that."
"Indeed."
Tasha, who had found Seong Jiyeong's constant bickering over kimchi rather strange, nodded as though one question had finally been resolved. Seong Jiyeong, on the other hand, looked slightly pouty, as if dissatisfied about something. Her lips twitched like she had more to say, but in the end she closed her mouth.
After organizing her thoughts for a moment, Tasha spoke again. "So, if Yu Hana really is a member of Janwol, what exactly do you plan to do about it? I judge that their revenge was quite justified."
"That's true. I don't intend to do anything either. It just feels off."
"How anticlimactic. Actually, more than that, I would like to see that supposedly amazing moon painting. If even the security forces who investigated the scene were impressed, it must have been truly remarkable."
"It was. I'll show you later. I'm sure you'll be impressed too, Tasha."
"...You have it?"
"Yes. It was so cool that I took it with me. After all, even if they took it as evidence, they would only have burned it. They seemed eager to close the investigation as quickly as possible no matter what."
"That's really something."
Upon hearing that Seong Jiyeong had kept the painting, Tasha tilted her head, wondering if this could really be true. But Seong Jiyeong gave her no time to dwell on it and dropped another bomb.
"Actually, it's not just Yu Hana who's strange. Whenever Ji Seoeun comes back to the dorm, she shuts herself in her room, smiles creepily to herself, and makes something weird. I don't know what it is, but it doesn't seem normal."
"Is that so? That is troubling. It makes me doubt whether this group can even function properly."
"Is idol activity important to you as well, Tasha?"
"It is, if it is. As you heard last time, even after retiring, Ryitser is still keeping an eye on me, whether openly or not. Since I came to Korea, they are wary that I might join the Special Task Force."
"That's strange. Of course they would want to prevent their unique training methods and tactics from leaking to other countries. But this seems excessive. Do they usually pay that much attention to retirees?"
"I am an exception. It is because of my background. The people who subtly looked down on me during my service are still doing this to the end. It is astonishing. It makes me wonder if this is the true nature of my motherland."
"Background, huh. What strange people. What does background matter?"
"That is exactly what I am saying. At least in this regard, we can communicate."
To avoid Ryitser's gaze, Tasha needed a plausible occupation. Korean idols were occasionally introduced even in Russia, making it the perfect cover. At first she had only considered modeling, but she could say she had been quite lucky.
The most important thing was, of course, finding her enemy. But establishing a foundation in Korea was also a significant matter.
Yet the more she listened to Seong Jiyeong's explanation, the less ordinary it sounded. She had listened lightly at first, but the story kept growing stranger. It seemed she would need to make a decision.