The Rematch
The site of the rematch was the same place they had sparred before.
When they arrived at Namgung Gyeom's quarters, two figures with blazing red hair were already waiting.
"You're late. I thought you'd run off."
Gal Hyeonsang growled the words, but a savage smile was already tugging at his mouth, as if he could barely contain himself.
"I'm overseeing today's match."
Beside him stood his older sister, Gal Soha.
"Sorry for being late, Senior Gal Hyeonsang. And Instructor Gal Soha."
Han Yumae offered a polite bow as she spoke. Gal Soha answered with a gentle smile that said it was fine.
"Hyeonsang got so antsy he came early just to start sooner, so don't worry about it. More importantly… it seems you held another unauthorized spar last time…"
"Gah!"
Gal Soha seized her brother by the skull and ground her knuckles into his head as she went on.
"Whenever this one tries to force a match on you, you're free to refuse. From now on, you spar on. ly. under a supervising instructor's watch."
"…I'm sorry."
"Anyway."
She released him and stepped into the center of the training yard.
"Today's match is Han Yumae versus Gal Hyeonsang, correct? As always, no killing blows, and if you think you're going to lose, just say so. If it looks like either of you can't handle it, I'll step in myself."
"Yes."
"That won't happen, so stay out of it."
"Then both of you, take your places."
At Gal Soha's direction, Gal Hyeonsang and Han Yumae moved to opposite sides of the sparring ground. Namgung Gyeom, who had been watching from a short distance, approached Ye Hajun.
"Your arm is fine, then?"
"They said it's fine. I just keep the bandage on out of habit."
"That's good."
He fell quiet for a moment, then looked toward the two about to fight.
"Has Han Yumae made any progress?"
"Some, at least."
"Is that so? We may be in for something interesting, then."
With that, Namgung Gyeom closed his mouth. Hajun did the same and fixed his attention on the match.
She asked me to watch, so… I should watch carefully. Let's see what she's managed.
Gal Hyeonsang and Han Yumae faced each other and settled into their stances.
"I look forward to our exchange."
"Let's see what you've brought."
After the formal greeting, the spar began.
Just as before, Han Yumae charged first. She swept her sword and scattered pink petals through the air.
"Same as last time! Don't disappoint me!"
Gal Hyeonsang laughed and answered with a spray of fire. The petals withered and vanished in the flames.
A few more exchanges followed—and in that moment, Hajun felt a subtle wrongness.
This is different from last time.
In their previous match, they would have been trading probing blows by now, feeling each other out. This time, Han Yumae was driving him back one-sidedly.
In a way, it was only natural.
Half of the past two weeks. Day after day, for hours at a stretch, she had sparred just to catch Hajun when he unfolded the Monghwa Hwanyeongbo. That was the fruit of all that work.
During those sessions Hajun had slipped every one of her attacks—but that did not mean she had walked away empty-handed. To land a single hit on him, she had refined her sword until it was sharper, cleaner, faster.
What do you need to strike an enemy you cannot touch?
You re-examine every path. The shortest distance. Pure efficiency.
As if to prove the thought, the gallery already had a post up—Anonymous 1, practically giddy.
Like what you're seeing?
Cheonma was right.
For the moment Gal Hyeonsang was on the defensive—but even last time, the raw firepower had been his. So the match would turn on one final moment: whether Han Yumae could deceive him and slip past. That most critical step rested on the week she had spent alone.
Then her movements grew large and flamboyant.
The finishing play.
Watching from the side, Hajun knew it at once—and Gal Hyeonsang seemed just as certain. He set his stance and roared.
Gal Hyeonsang's hair erupted into flame and he rocketed into the air. At the same instant, Han Yumae swung her sword in a wide arc.
Her familiar technique.
Petals stormed through the air as if to fill the entire sky.
It was a form he had seen any number of times—and yet for a moment Hajun's mind went blank.
Beautiful.
The petals Han Yumae had bloomed were so vast, so lovely, so extravagant that they stole the eye. What had she done alone for a whole week, to make the technique even more dazzling than before?
The question rose—and then he understood her plan.
That trick she used in front of the medicine shop?
A deception that buried the eyes in spectacle. Hajun's gaze snapped to Gal Hyeonsang—and the boy was already caught. His fire swallowed every last petal and burned them to nothing; in that empty instant, Hajun saw it.
The tiniest slip of Gal Hyeonsang's guard as he became sure of victory.
And Han Yumae did not miss that fraction of a second.
"Huh?"
Through the dying petals she lunged, sword thrusting forward—and the tip stopped dead, precisely at Gal Hyeonsang's throat.
"Hah… hah…"
Breathing hard, Han Yumae asked,
"Do you concede?"
"…Tch. I lost."
At his hollow-sounding reply, she withdrew her blade and clasped her fist in formal salute.
"Thank you for yielding the victory."
She bowed respectfully to Gal Hyeonsang, then turned—and her eyes met Hajun's. She waved, then came trotting over at once.
"How was it?"
"I think I figured out what you spent the last week doing."
"Right?"
Something like acknowledgment from him, and Han Yumae lit up with a bright, happy smile.
During the week they had spent together she had doubted herself without end, and broken down. Whether everything she had built was correct. What, if anything, was wrong. No—she had reached a place where she could not even tell what was wrong, and she had wandered and suffered for it.
But after their conversation she had found her insight, and in the week that remained she had walked back along the path she had come.
Destroy, then stand.
You cannot build unless you first tear down.
In the end she had smashed everything she had piled up, returned to the beginning, and reassembled her martial arts from first principles. And in that returned beginning she had realized why she had ever swung a sword in the first place.
The answer she found was this.
"It's thanks to you. Back then you said I was always sincere, remember?"
"I did."
"So I thought… what if I hid a bigger sincerity behind another sincerity? Something like that. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't manage a real lie."
In the end, Han Yumae had gone looking for an answer that was hers alone.
A doubt she never would have begun without Hajun—and a harvest she never would have reaped without him either.
"Either way, the reason I joined Hwasan was just… because the sword looked the prettiest. I wanted other people to see a sword like that too. So I tried making it even prettier."
"You're right. It was beautiful."
The moment she heard that, something fluttered strangely in her chest. A bashfulness she could not name made her whip her head away and change the subject at once.
"Th-that aside—how was it this time? I really think the week of practice with you helped a lot."
"That showed too. The precision of your forms is clearly way better. You felt it yourself, didn't you?"
"Yeah. Looking back, it was honestly amazing. So this thought just hit me—if it's a rude question, just say so."
"What is it?"
She checked the people around them, then lowered her voice.
"Your master… isn't connected to the Hwasan Sect somehow, is he?"
"Huh?"
"It's just—when I went back over our spars, I could suddenly see all the things I'd been doing wrong… it felt like there was a deep connection."
"Uh… I don't really know."
He said it lightly and turned his head—and the gallery window slid into view.
That includes his master, Cheonma! Get rekt!
Our Hwasan's proud 37th-generation disciple Han Yumae just rekt ALL of them!
Rekt rekt rekt!
Cheonma got nothing to say, right?
Just sitting there seething, right?
If Hwasan had been around, the Demonic Cult would've gotten rekt by Hwasan before it even got founded, right?
Lord Cheonma? Great First Heavenly Demon of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult???
Where'd you go?
Don't tell me you went crying to the Juddak to get me banned like a coward lmaooo
Looking over the state of the gallery, Hajun made a firm decision. No matter what happened—no matter what happened—he would never, ever tell Han Yumae that the distant ancestor she might revere looked like this.
He barely managed to keep his hand from hovering over the ban button.
With the gallery more or less settling down, Hajun walked over to Gal Hyeonsang and said,
"Hey. Spar with me too."
At Hajun's sudden words, the atmosphere in the training yard went still.