The Black Stage's First Performance

The moment I turned toward the Central Waterway, the Rat Merchant stepped in front of me. Small as he was, his movements were frantic, almost feral in their desperation.

“Copycat. You know exactly where you’re heading, right?”

I didn’t answer right away. The Rat Merchant’s eyes were shaking—not with rage, but with raw fear. He couldn’t understand me. Hell, maybe I didn’t fully understand myself either.

The Rat Merchant was right. I should run. My body was in terrible shape. My shoulder and wrist throbbed with every heartbeat, and the bruise on my neck from Hound’s grip still burned. I had only two bullets left, the sunspot stone case in my backpack could flare up again at any second, and above all there was the wrist monitor.

It was already a dangerous number. One more careless use of Villain Manifestation and it could push past eighty. According to Seon Woo-rak, that was when the precursor signs of a rampage began—mental information backlash, memory confusion, seizures, death, or something even worse. The moment I stopped being me.

Rationally, I should have taken the southern passage. Yet my feet were already carrying me toward the Central Waterway.

“If you slip out south, you’ll live,” the Rat Merchant said in a low voice. “At least you’ll survive tonight. If you go back now, Black Dog, the Association, that rookie hero, the hostages—everything collides in one place. Walking into that mess isn’t an escape. It’s suicide.”

Even as he spoke, he kept glancing behind us. From the North Abandoned Market came the clamor of bounty hunters closing in, while the sounds of battle echoed from the Central Waterway. The Rat Merchant was calculating every noise, weighing each threat. Those were money-blinded fools. Those were Black Dog. Those were heroes. And we were here. In his head, the paths to life and death had already split.

“I sent him,” I said.

The Rat Merchant’s face twisted. “Yoon Taeha?”

“To the Central Waterway.”

“That was to make Black Dog and the Association crash into each other. You said you didn’t know there were civilians!”

“I didn’t.”

“Then it’s not your responsibility.”

The moment those words left his mouth, laughter rang somewhere inside my skull. A fragment of Persona. A smooth, languid voice.

I clenched my fist. My nails pressed into the wounds beneath the bandages. The pain pushed the laughter a little farther away.

“Just because it isn’t my responsibility doesn’t mean I can abandon them.”

The Rat Merchant stared at me, speechless. From behind him, Seon Woo-rak spoke in a quiet, clinical tone.

“You’re deciding the direction of your own power ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠right now.”

I didn’t turn to look at him. “Don’t talk about people like you’re dissecting them.”

“It isn’t dissection. It’s observation. You used a fragment of Persona to set the board a moment ago, and that board drew out an unexpected civilian threat.”

Seon Woo-rak’s voice was calm. That only made it worse.

“If you run now, you move closer to Persona’s methods. If you go back, your survival probability drops sharply. Whichever choice you make, damage remains.”

The Rat Merchant glared at him. “Do you really have to say that right now? If you can hear a man’s mind splitting open, maybe shut up for once.”

“Knowing exactly where it splits lets us minimize future damage.”

“Then worry about the human relationships getting damaged by that tone of yours first.”

Seon Woo-rak didn’t reply. I finally glanced at him.

“Dr. Sun.”

“I’m listening.”

“I’m not asking you to follow me.”

“I had no intention of doing so. I still want to live long enough to finish this experiment.”

The answer came immediately. At least the man was honest—in his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠own horrifying way.

“Take the Rat Merchant and escape through the southern passage. If I don’t come back, sell the sunspot stone data or run with it. Your choice.”

The Rat Merchant shouted at once. “What about my money?!”

“If I die, your money line dies with me.”

“Then why the hell are you walking straight to your death?!”

I didn’t answer. The Rat Merchant ground his teeth, then swallowed a curse.

“You really know how to make a guy’s blood run cold. If you’re going to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠save them, just say you’re going to save them. Why twist your words like you’re trying to keep your own conscience clean?”

“It doesn’t make me feel clean.”

I drew the pistol and checked the magazine. Two rounds. Laughably light.

“I just… feel like I won’t be able to move unless I think of it this way.”

“Think of it what way?”

I stared into the darkness leading to the Central Waterway. Another explosion roared in the distance. Boom! Closer this time. Then a scream. I couldn’t tell whether it belonged to a civilian or a Black Dog thug.

“I’m thinking that Black Dog touched my board,” I said quietly.

The Rat Merchant stared blankly for a second, then let out a dry laugh. “You really have a filthy way with words.”

“I know.”

I meant it. If I told myself I was going to save people, fear gripped me. That wasn’t my role. Copycat Kang Doyun was no hero. The man I had been in my previous life hadn’t been anywhere close to one either. But if I told myself Black Dog had ruined my board, inserted an unexpected variable into the game I had built, dirtied the survival route I had drawn—then I could move.

It might be a cowardly excuse. Still, right now I needed that cowardice.

I ran toward the Central Waterway. The Rat Merchant’s voice chased after me.

“Come back alive! If you don’t, I’ll collect my money from your corpse if I have to!”

Seon Woo-rak’s voice followed as well. “Don’t let the monitor pass eighty! Once it does, the ways to confirm you’re still you will decrease!”

I didn’t answer. The passage was dark and damp. The moss underfoot nearly made me slip several times. My right shoulder felt like it would tear open with every stride, and the swelling in my neck made breathing difficult. But I couldn’t slow down.

The closer I drew to the Central Waterway, the clearer the sounds became. Gunshots. Shouts. The screech of tearing metal. Someone crying. And one clear voice cutting through it all.

“Everyone fall back! I’ll hold them off!”

It was Yoon Taeha. I had never heard his real voice before, yet somehow I recognized it instantly—young, urgent, not yet hardened. Even in its trembling there was a stubborn strength that refused to yield.

I slowed my pace. Charging in blindly would get me killed. I needed to see first.

The Central Waterway was wider than I had expected. It had originally been a large drainage facility beneath the redevelopment zone, but after construction halted, parts of it had become unofficial passages. It was as wide as a small road, with maintenance walkways on both sides. Old lights flickered at intervals along the ceiling, and shallow sewage flowed across the central floor.

I pressed myself against the wall and peered inside. The situation was dire.

Black Dog had ten men. Six official members and four subcontracted bounty hunters. The official members wore black jumpers and openly displayed their black dog tattoos while exchanging radio messages. The subcontractors had a different look in their eyes—greed, fear, and the faint hope that they might be the ones to bag Copycat first. Their weapons were a mismatched mess: daggers, stun batons, small pistols, steel pipes.

There were five hostages. An older man. Two young women. A boy who looked like a middle-schooler. And a man who appeared to be a delivery driver. Their wrists were bound with cable ties, their mouths sealed with tape.

Why were they here? Hostages on purpose? Or people Black Dog had snatched while searching the Rat Merchant’s hiding places? I couldn’t know the exact reason. But I could see they were terrified.

And in front of them stood Yoon Taeha.

His jacket was torn. Blood streaked his forehead. One arm hung useless at his side. The early Yoon Taeha from my memories had been exactly like this—strong will, body that couldn’t keep up. Decent judgment, but lacking experience. Yet he refused to back down.

The sight was frustrating. At the same time, I couldn’t look away.

One of the Black Dog members sneered. “Enough with the hero act. You’re not even an officially dispatched Association member.”

Yoon Taeha clenched his teeth. “Release those people first.”

“How polite. You don’t even want to call them hostages, huh?” The man laughed. “This is insurance. We grabbed them in case that Copycat bastard tried to slip through here.”

I narrowed my eyes. Now I understood. Black Dog had calculated the possibility that I would come this way. They had known the Rat Merchant’s passage connected to the Central Waterway. So they had snatched passing civilians and turned them into shields. To force me to hand over the sunspot stones if I passed through. To buy time if the Association arrived.

It hadn’t been coincidence that civilians were in the place I sent Yoon Taeha. Black Dog had placed them here in advance.

The realization cooled my insides like ice.

The thug kept talking. “But then some rookie hero stumbles in first? Should we call that good luck?”

Yoon Taeha gripped his rebar tighter. “Copycat isn’t here.”

“Not yet, maybe.” The man laughed again. “I hear ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the guy smells softer than expected. He might not be able to ignore something like this.”

I held my breath. Had Hound told them? Or had they guessed from my actions?

The thug grabbed the boy hostage by the hair. The child swallowed a sob. Yoon Taeha’s face hardened.

“Take your hands off the child.”

“Oh, the hero’s angry now.”

“If you let go right now, I’ll at least leave that wrist intact.”

Yoon Taeha took one step forward. At that exact moment, two official members moved simultaneously. One swung a stun baton, the other aimed for his flank. Yoon Taeha blocked the first attack with his rebar.

Clang!

The metallic ring echoed. But he couldn’t dodge the second. A dull thud. Yoon Taeha staggered. He nearly dropped to one knee but gritted his teeth and held on.

I checked the wrist monitor.

I could still enter the fight. But charging straight in meant facing all ten Black Dog members head-on. Two bullets. One folding knife. A broken body. Impossible. I needed to use an ability.

The question was which one.

Cowardly Thief’s Escape Route—I didn’t need an escape path right now.

Swindler’s Joker Card—fake footsteps and shadows alone couldn’t extract five hostages.

Viper’s Fang—it could slow one of them, but not ten.

Smiling Killer’s Red Ribbon—I hadn’t used it yet, and something told me that once I did, there would be no turning back.

Only one option remained.

Persona’s Black Stage.

I needed to understand this ability clearly. Black Stage wasn’t a power that let me control enemies at will. It wasn’t a power that completely rewrote reality. What I held right now was only a fragment. The things I could do were four.

It made a limited area register as a stage. It drew out the fear people already carried. It layered weak illusions. And it slightly distorted their sense of direction.

In other words, it wasn’t an ability that let me win. It was an ability that made the opponent collapse on their own.

For that, fear was necessary. Fortunately, fear flooded this place. The hostages’ terror. Yoon Taeha’s anxiety. The unease hidden behind the subcontractors’ greed. The tension the official members felt every time they thought of Madok and Hound. The entire drainage tunnel was like a pile of wet kindling. All I had to do was light the match.

At that moment, the fragment of Persona laughed softly.

I ground my teeth. “I’ll only use it briefly.”

I drew in a breath. “Persona’s Black Stage.”

The instant the words left my mouth, the lights in the drainage tunnel died.

Crack. Crackle.

The old fluorescent lamps hanging from the ceiling went out one by one. The waterway plunged into darkness.

“Why did the lights go out?!”

“Is this the hero’s doing?!”

“Grab the hostages! Don’t let them escape!”

The Black Dog members shouted reflexively. Yoon Taeha froze as well. But it wasn’t complete darkness. A single light remained in the gloom—above me. Whether it was faint city light leaking through a broken section of ceiling or a reflection from somewhere in the tunnel, I couldn’t tell. But that light fell only on me. Like a spotlight.

I stepped forward from the shadows. Behind my cracked round glasses, my gaze cooled. Wet hair clung to my forehead. My pale face was smeared with blood and filth. My thin, tall frame staggered, yet somehow it refused to fall. Black energy spread around me. Too cold to call an aura, too vivid to call smoke. It looked as if the darkness itself clung to my coat and flowed with me.

The moment one of the Black Dog members saw me, he muttered, “Copycat…?”

There was no certainty in his voice. Good. That was how it should look. Copycat. A low-level villain. A thin man with glasses. A black mask tattoo. But what they saw now was more than that.

The fragment of Persona drew out their fear. In their eyes, I slowly changed. To one member I looked like Madok—the superior who burned failures alive. To another I looked like Hound—the dog that caught a scent and chased its prey to the end. To yet another I looked like an Association suppression squad—white helmets charging with shields.

I hadn’t planted new illusions. I had simply dragged the fear already inside them into the light.

“Don’t move.”

My voice rang through the waterway. It wasn’t loud, yet everyone heard it, as if whispered directly into their ears.

“You are already on the stage.”

One Black Dog member spat a curse. “Cut the bullshit!”

He tried to rush me. At that moment the floor seemed to tilt—at least in his eyes. “Huh?” The sewage at his feet rippled like a black curtain. The wet tiles appeared to sink and shake. He reflexively tried to regain balance. That motion itself became the trap. Slippery moss. Cracked concrete. A body convinced the ground had tilted. The real floor remained level, but his body followed the hallucination.

Bang!

He fell on his own. The stun baton clattered across the floor.

Another member raised his gun. I looked at him. More precisely, at his finger. It was trembling. He had shot people before. But he couldn’t pull the trigger now. Not because hostages stood behind me. A hallucination had just shown him blood on the back of his own hand. An absurd certainty that his hand would explode the moment he fired had lodged itself in his nerves.

I pushed the thought away. Behave like a tool.

I raised my hand. The Black Stage deepened. Shadows bloomed along both walls of the waterway. I couldn’t tell whether they were real or illusory. They writhed as if grasping at the members’ ankles, creating the illusion that the floor grew sticky and stretched every time they took a step.

In that gap, Yoon Taeha moved. He seized the opening with raw instinct. His rebar slammed into the wrist of the man holding the stun baton.

Clang!

“Argh!”

Yoon Taeha immediately charged toward the hostages. But the member holding the boy raised a knife. “One more step and I’ll slit the kid’s throat first!”

Yoon Taeha stopped. At that instant I lowered my hand. The spotlight shifted onto the thug and the child. The man’s face went white. He believed everyone was watching him. The real waterway was still dark, but in his eyes a vast audience had appeared. Hundreds of eyes. Thousands of eyes. Black Dog. The Association. Dead victims. People he had harmed. All of them looking down at him.

“Wh-what the…”

His hand shook. The knife tip moved a fraction away from the boy’s throat. That was when I moved. Or rather, I made it look like I moved. In reality I had only taken a few steps. But to the members it must have seemed as if I vanished into the darkness and reappeared behind the boy.

I ignored it. If I stopped now the hostages would die. I stood behind the boy.

“Close your eyes.”

The child squeezed his eyes shut immediately. I pushed him behind me. At the same time I reached out and seized the thug’s wrist.

“Now it’s your turn to be visible.”

When he looked at me, the boy vanished from his sight and I appeared in his place as the hostage. The target with the knife at their throat had changed. The actual positions hadn’t shifted. Only his perception, his movements, the timing with which I had pushed the boy, the darkness, the fear, and Yoon Taeha’s motion had overlapped. The result made it look as if the hostage and I had swapped places.

The man screamed. “Aaaagh!”

I twisted his wrist. The knife fell. Yoon Taeha rushed in and caught the boy.

“Run! Toward the light you can see!”

At his shout the hostages began to move. The man who looked like a delivery driver had already nearly freed himself from his cable tie. He freed the young woman beside him, and she in turn pulled another hostage along. I snapped my fingers.

Click.

The sound was small, but on the Black Stage it rang clearly. A black line drew itself across the floor of the waterway—a path visible only to the hostages, a thin trail of light leading to the exit.

“Run along that line.”

The young woman swallowed hard. She saw the line. So did the other hostages. To the Black Dog members, however, it remained invisible. All they saw was darkness.

The hostages moved. One Black Dog member tried to grab them. I turned my gaze toward him. The spotlight illuminated his face.

“Look at your feet.”

He reflexively looked down. There was nothing there. But in his eyes, hands were rising from the floor. The people he had abandoned. The people he had sold. The people he had beaten and threatened. Those hands seized his ankles.

“U-uaaaah!”

He kicked at empty air and fell backward. Yoon Taeha didn’t miss the opening. The rebar slammed into the man’s stomach.

Thud!

The member collapsed. Watching it, my stomach twisted. It was strong. Dangerously strong. Persona’s Black Stage was not an ability that physically overpowered enemies. Yet the Black Dog members inside the waterway were crumbling. They were too busy fighting the fear inside themselves to move properly. All I had done was shine a light on that fear. But the light was so vivid that they collapsed on their own.

I took one more step forward. The spotlight followed me. The members could no longer call me Copycat. One of them spoke in a trembling voice.

“Is that… really Copycat?”

I wanted to know too. Was this truly my power? Or had I simply lent my body to Persona for a moment? The corner of my mouth tried to rise. I clenched my teeth. Don’t smile. You must not smile.

Dangerous. But still not eighty. Just a little longer.

Most of the hostages had reached the exit. Yoon Taeha covered them. Even while keeping me in his sights, he couldn’t deny that my ability was being used to save the hostages. Confusion filled his eyes. Is that a villain? Or…

I avoided his gaze. “Yoon Taeha.”

He stiffened. “Left. That one is moving behind the woman.”

Yoon Taeha spun immediately. The path the Black Stage had shown him. A member was leaping out to seize a hostage. Yoon Taeha swung his rebar.

Clang!

The attack was blocked, but it bought the hostage time to escape.

It was almost over. The older man. The two young women. The delivery driver. The boy. All of them had moved to Yoon Taeha’s side. The Black Dog members were either collapsed on the floor or leaning against the walls, gasping for breath. Some still held guns but couldn’t fire. Some held knives but couldn’t move. The entire waterway seemed to move in time with my breathing.

Black Stage. I finally understood why it was called that. When people’s fear gathered, it became darkness. And when that darkness was made into a stage, no one could easily step out of their assigned role.

I lowered my hand. “It’s over.”

At that moment the lights returned.

Crack. Crackle.

The old fluorescent lamps flickered back to life one by one. The waterway returned to reality. The stench of sewage. The smell of blood. The metallic tang. The hostages’ sobs. Yoon Taeha’s ragged breathing. And the warning tone from my wrist monitor.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I swallowed. It had been razor-close. Truly razor-close. My body swayed. The darkness that had looked like a black aura vanished. The spotlight disappeared. All that remained was one gaunt, blood- and filth-stained villain with cracked glasses.

Yoon Taeha looked at me. Our eyes met clearly this time. His gaze was a chaotic mix of fury, confusion, and an incomprehensible wariness.

“What you just did,” he said, breathing hard, “you did save people. But that was…”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. I couldn’t give him a clear answer either.

At that moment a powerful light flooded the entrance of the waterway.

“Hero Association!”

It was a loudspeaker. “Drop your weapons and get down! Move away from the civilians!”

The Association had arrived. Good. The plan had succeeded. Now it was time to withdraw.

I retreated toward the rear passage. The hostages were running toward the Association while the Black Dog members fell into chaos. Some tried to flee, others confronted the Association agents. The Association couldn’t enter recklessly either. Civilians were still inside the waterway, and several Black Dog members refused to drop their weapons. One wrong shot could injure a hostage. That brief hesitation became my escape route.

I adjusted the strap of my backpack. The sunspot stone case was still there. A faint heat could be felt through the shielding cloth. I had used too much tonight. Thief. Swindler. Viper. Persona. The remnants of the villains inside me whispered in different voices. The clearest among them was the smiling mask.

I muttered under my breath, “Shut up.”

Yoon Taeha flinched. He took a step toward me as if to stop me. “Copycat.”

I stepped back. “Take care of the people today.”

“You’re not in normal condition either.”

“If you can see that, then don’t come any closer.”

The moment he tried to say something else, applause rang from the opposite side of the waterway, from the darkness beyond even the Association’s lights.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Slow, deliberate clapping. Strangely clear despite the chaos. My body froze. This applause did not belong to Persona’s memory. It was real. The Black Dog members. Yoon Taeha. The Association agents. Everyone turned their eyes at once.

A man walked out of the darkness. Black long coat. Thick neck. A burn scar cutting across one cheek. Water splashed quietly beneath his feet with every step. Kang Doyun’s memory supplied the name.

Madok. Black Dog’s action leader.

He smiled and said, “I watched well.”

His gaze was fixed precisely on my face. “Since when did our Copycat know how to put on a show like that?”

I felt my fingertips turn cold. Behind Madok, more official Black Dog members appeared. One. Two. Three. And among them, Hound stood with a bandage wrapped around his wrist. His eyes gleamed like a beast’s.

“Told you,” Hound said, baring his teeth in a grin. “I remembered the scent.”

Tension rose on the Association side as well. Yoon Taeha pushed the hostages behind him and raised his rebar again. But at that moment, one last hostage had yet to escape completely. A young woman. The one who had been running toward the exit inside the Black Stage. She had nearly reached the Association.

Yet the instant the Association’s entry lights came on, everyone’s eyes turned toward the brightness. In that brief confusion she hesitated. And Madok did not miss the opening.

He had slipped in along the shadow of the maintenance walkway beside the waterway. The exact moment the Black Stage ended, the fluorescent lights came back on, the instant I stopped at 79% and forcibly severed the fragment of Persona—Madok had already been moving. My blurred mind had simply missed the path.

The woman was now caught in Madok’s grip. He held her by the nape of her neck and laughed.

“Hostage rescue. Hero appearance. Association entry. And even Copycat’s strange little trick on top.”

He slowly raised his hand. Dark red heat rose from his fingertips. A combat-type supernormal ability. Compressed heat. The power that had overwhelmed Yoon Taeha in the early parts of my memories.

Madok spoke quietly. “The stage is fully set.”

My heart sank. The word stage struck my ears with unbearable unpleasantness.

Madok smiled. “Then it’s time for the lead actor to appear.”

The next instant, a red heat ray shot from his fingertips. The target was me. I twisted my body on instinct. But it was too late. I had two bullets left. Black Stage was over. The supernormal reaction rate was at 79%. One more mistake and I would collapse. Yet the heat ray was already right in front of my eyes.