The Massacrer's Accomplice
"Nine years from now, you kill Seoul."
A cold blade pressed against my throat. Something hot traced a thin line down my skin — the edge must have nicked me. Baek Sion's eyes followed the blood.
"Lower the blade."
Her voice was quiet. Quiet enough to be dangerous.
The woman behind me neither smiled nor answered. She kept one arm locked around my torso, her gaze flicking between Sion's hands and the front entrance.
Sion's sword was still by the door. Ten paces, give or take. Could she close that distance if she moved now? By my standards, impossible. By Baek Sion's standards, the calculation was different.
"One step and I cut."
The woman behind me issued the warning first. Sion's right foot froze.
"I'll take your wrist before that."
"Without a sword?"
"It'll be enough."
Neither of them looked like they were bluffing. With my throat between them, there was no need to test it.
"Both of you." The blade kept me from moving my jaw much; my voice came out low and flat. "Would you mind taking the knife off my neck first?"
"Answer the question."
"What question?"
"Why did you blockade Seoul?"
I'd never heard anything of the sort.
"I never blockaded anything."
"Not yet, you mean."
That phrasing snagged. It was the same language Baek Sion had used. Not yet.
"Are you talking about 2045?"
The moment the question left my mouth, the pressure in her arm shifted. The blade stayed put, but for the first time I felt her attention turn toward me.
"You hear that from Baek Sion?"
"Baek Sion said her memories go up to 2044."
"2044?"
The woman's voice dropped. Sion's expression hardened as well.
"Who are you?"
"You don't know?"
"I've never seen you before."
A brief silence. Then the woman opened the inside of her coat without releasing the arm around my neck. A black ID badge hung at her chest.
Gate Disaster Agency. Time Anomaly Response Bureau. The name read Cha Yura. The rank designation was obscured by a black band, but a silver line ran along the badge's edge — field command authority.
"Cha Yura."
"Drop the honorific. I don't plan on getting friendly with a person of interest."
"I don't plan on getting friendly with someone holding a knife to my throat, either."
"Same mouth."
"Whose?"
Cha Yura didn't answer. She turned the question on Sion instead.
"Why are you here?"
"I came to protect Seo Doyun."
"From who?"
"From people like you."
The tip of Cha Yura's blade lifted a fraction. Another drop of blood ran down. Sion's fingers twitched.
"Baek Sion, don't move."
"There's a knife against your throat right now."
"I'm aware. It's my throat."
"Then I'll make the call."
"Don't."
The reply didn't come immediately. Sion locked up the way she did when she took my words as orders, then pulled her chin back as if trying to reject the impulse.
"That woman is dangerous."
"I think so too."
"Then—"
"If you fight here, I'm the one who gets hurt first."
Cha Yura snorted under her breath.
"You read a room fast."
"I worked rescue sites for a long time."
"I know."
She knew that too. Even my work history.
"Do you have future memories as well, Cha Yura?"
"You're not in a position to ask questions."
"Then we can keep standing here under a misunderstanding. Baek Sion thinks you came here to assassinate me."
"Is she wrong?"
Cha Yura asked. I didn't answer. On the evidence of the present moment alone, it was hard to argue.
"And how do you see Baek Sion?"
"Bodyguard for a massacrer."
Sion's eyes changed.
"Correct yourself."
"Why? That's exactly what you're doing."
"Seo Doyun saved millions of people."
"You call killing Seoul to save everywhere else a rescue?"
"That never happened."
"Not in your memory, sure."
"That's a lie."
"Or maybe you're the one being lied to."
The air in the shared kitchen went colder still. It wasn't just the night wind through the broken window. Their accounts wouldn't mesh.
Baek Sion remembered me in 2044. Cha Yura knew me in 2045. The same person couldn't die in 2044 and still be alive in 2045 to blockade Seoul. One of them was lying. Or both of them were trusting broken memories. For now, I had no basis to decide which.
"Cha Yura."
"Talk."
"What exactly did the future me do?"
"Locked down all of Seoul." The answer came as if she'd been waiting for it. "Roads, subways, even the temporary gate corridors. Left the people waiting for evacuation orders inside and sealed them in."
"To what end?"
"To save the rest of the peninsula," Sion cut in. "That can't be right."
"Why not?"
"Seo Doyun doesn't abandon people."
"Doesn't abandon people?"
Emotion cracked into Cha Yura's voice for the first time. The arm around my neck tightened.
"How many did the Seo Doyun you knew throw away?"
"Not one."
"Lie."
"It's the truth."
"Then why did he die in your future?"
Sion's mouth closed. Cha Yura didn't miss the silence.
"So he died."
"He sealed the final gate."
"Alone?"
"You don't need to know that."
"Died alone and saved everyone. That the story?" Cha Yura's laugh was short and dry. "Sounds about right. A hero tale you can put on a pedestal."
"Don't insult him."
"I saw it with my own eyes."
The blade eased a fraction off my throat. In its place, Cha Yura's voice came closer.
"I watched the man you're protecting leave people behind and shut the door."
"You heard the order yourself?"
"I heard it."
"And it was an order Seo Doyun gave personally?"
"I killed him with my own hands. I'm sure."
Sound left the kitchen. Only a shard of glass caught in the broken window frame trembled faintly in the wind.
Sion took one step.
"Stop."
Cha Yura set the blade back against my skin.
"You said you killed Seo Doyun."
"In 2045."
"You?"
"Yes."
"Why."
"I already told you. Because he killed Seoul."
Sion's gaze dropped to Cha Yura's throat — the look of someone measuring a vital point.
"You will not leave this place alive."
"Is that a threat?"
"A notice."
"Baek Sion."
When I called her name, her eyes came back to me.
"Are you planning to kill someone in the present because a future version of me died?"
"Cha Yura murdered the future you."
"That's a different matter from attacking me now."
"It's the same person."
"A moment ago you wouldn't accept that the future me and the present me were different. Now you're refusing to make that distinction only for her?"
Sion shut her mouth.
"Just now you separated the future me from the current me. Are you saying you won't apply the same standard to Cha Yura?"
"That's—"
"Pick one standard and stick to it."
Cha Yura spoke from behind me.
"Still got that habit of managing people with words."
"Is that why the future me died at your hands?"
The answer cut off. This time Cha Yura's silence ran long.
"No."
"Then why did you kill him?"
"Because he asked me to."
Sion's pupils wavered. I didn't grasp it right away either.
"You're saying the future me asked you to kill him?"
"That's as far as I'll go."
"Why?"
"My memories aren't complete."
For the first time, Cha Yura's breathing frayed. The hand holding the knife stayed steady, but the left hand crossed over my chest clenched the coat fabric hard once. The corner of a notebook showed from an inside pocket — an old black cover, dark red stains soaked into the edges.
"Is there a record in that notebook?"
Cha Yura closed her coat at once.
"Don't look."
"If it's evidence, it needs to be checked."
"You check things so you can use them."
"How would I use something I've never even seen?"
"The future you did."
"Back to the future again."
"Does that make the future not real?"
"No." I spoke as slowly as I could. "But putting a knife to my throat for something the present me hasn't done is a different problem."
Cha Yura didn't answer. The blade dropped by the barest fraction. The pressure against my skin eased.
Sion was never going to miss that opening.
The table shoved. Before the barley-tea cup could hit the floor, Sion was already gone from my field of view. Cha Yura shoved me. My back slammed into the table edge. Air locked in my throat.
The cup shattered.
Sion reached the entrance in a single rush and drew her sword. The blade cleared the scabbard and caught the kitchen light in a long flash. Cha Yura dropped low — not the movement of someone holding a hostage. She sidestepped before Sion even finished drawing, as if she already knew four paces ahead.
The cut carved empty air. Cha Yura wasn't there.
To Sion's right — Cha Yura, reverse-gripping the knife, went for the wrist. Sion twisted the hilt and blocked. Metal struck metal and tore through the narrow kitchen.
I grabbed the table to keep from falling. Broken glass. An overturned chair. An open window. The narrow hall running to the entrance. To stop a fight, you don't step between people — you take away the room to move. Right now, even approaching was impossible.
Sion's sword skimmed the tabletop. The contract papers split in half and scattered into the air.
"Those are documents I need tomorrow!"
No one heard me. Cha Yura drove through the scraps of paper. The knife tip went for Sion's side. Sion dropped her sword without looking. Cha Yura aborted the thrust and fell back.
Once. Twice. The exchanges were too fast to track with the eye. But something strange showed through. Cha Yura dodged before Sion moved. Sion adjusted her blade as if she already knew where Cha Yura would go. One of them moved on foreknowledge; the other matched that judgment with pure speed.
At this rate it wouldn't end until one of them made a mistake. And the moment of a mistake was the moment someone died.
"Stop!"
Blades answered instead. Sion raised her sword and cut off Cha Yura's retreat. Cha Yura stepped through rear space she'd never looked at and vaulted the table — then her foot stopped. Half a beat. Her pupils shook.
"What—"
Cha Yura muttered low. Sion's sword drove into that gap. Cha Yura was already dodging. She was. And yet Sion's tip bent to follow the place Cha Yura was going — an attack that had read even the dodge.
Cha Yura twisted and threw the dagger. A trajectory aimed dead at the back of Sion's hand. Both should have connected. Sword and dagger both.
In that instant the inside of the kitchen warped. The distance in front of my eyes seemed to stretch by a handspan, then snapped back.
A hard impact.
Sion's sword drove past Cha Yura and buried itself in the wall. The dagger skimmed Sion's hand and punched into the refrigerator door.
Both of them stopped at once. Sion looked at her own sword stuck in the wall. Cha Yura looked at the dagger lodged in the fridge.
One of them had been watching four seconds ahead. The other was a swordsman who had never missed a cut. And both of them had missed.