When the Bonds of the Past Bind Tight
Hoeyeon had been examining Eunha's clothes when she froze mid-motion.
Something in Gayul's voice told her this was not a question to answer lightly. She looked at her first.
Gayul's eyes were full of sorrow.
"Why do you hesitate?"
Gayul asked — but it was not a question that expected an answer. It was a question turned inward, mocking herself.
"So even this is beyond me, after all."
A kiss.
Gayul closed her eyes again and bowed her head.
"That's not it."
"If that is not it, then what is?"
Still without opening her eyes, Gayul spoke. Her voice was quiet, drained of strength.
"Not here."
"…Then where?"
"Somewhere proper. When neither of us is exhausted, neither of us is hurt, and it isn't something thrown away in desperation."
"Are you saying I am throwing myself away right now?"
"Yeah."
"…"
Gayul was still for a moment, then looked at Hoeyeon.
"Promise me."
"I promise."
"Then I shall trust you."
"Yeah. Thank you."
"However."
"…Yeah?"
Gayul lifted the hand that rested toward Hoeyeon.
"Even here, even if it is throwing myself away… this much, at least, I would ask of you."
Head still bowed, Gayul held her fair, pale hand quietly before Hoeyeon's face.
"…So, then."
"…"
Even in the dim light, Gayul's cheeks and ears were flushed a deep red with shyness.
That flush seemed to pass into Hoeyeon as well. If she tried to speak, the embarrassment would turn to heat and set her own face burning.
So Hoeyeon said nothing. She took Gayul's hand, drew it to her lips, and pressed a kiss to the back of it.
"!!"
Gayul's body shuddered.
The tremor traveled through her hand and into Hoeyeon.
"…"
Still silent, Gayul withdrew her hand and turned toward the wall.
"Gayul?"
Hoeyeon called to her, but Gayul made no reply. Quietly, without a word, she cupped the back of the hand Hoeyeon had kissed with her other hand, holding it gently close.
Her ears, dyed red, looked like flower petals.
So Hoeyeon said nothing more either, and decided to rest her eyes for whatever time remained.
Across the way, Arang — who had spent the whole while glancing over with her head turned — closed her eyes as well, just as the other two had.
To slip out of a bustling city unseen, one had to follow empty paths and vault the walls when the guards were not looking.
But in a pleasure district that stayed bright and loud all night long, there was only one way to get out without being seen.
"We go through the ceiling."
Hoeyeon said.
"A little noise is fine. Nobody in a place this loud is going to care. And with the streets lit up like this, the rooftops will be completely invisible."
She felt no guilt about wrecking the inn's roof. The lodging fee the owner had gouged out of Arang was more than enough to cover the repairs and then some.
"Who knows this city's layout best?"
"That would be this humble one, most like."
"Then Arang takes the lead, Gayul in the middle, and I'll bring up the rear and watch for anyone following."
"Understood."
"Arang, what's the rough route?"
"If one takes the city for a circle — though in truth it is no perfect circle."
Arang drew a ring on the floor.
"We are about here now, and we must go thus and thus. I also deem it best we make for the northern gate."
"Why?"
"To the east, the sun may catch us unawares. The west faces Hwi, so the guard is thick by nature. And the south holds the royal palace."
"Good. On three, I'll break the ceiling. One, two…"
CRASH!!
They burst through the roof, and before long the pleasure district fell away behind them. The three ran a while longer along the rooftops before dropping to the ground one after another, Arang first, and kept running.
What is that?
As she ran through the night streets, Hoeyeon suddenly glanced back. Something felt off.
The next instant, she snatched something out of the air.
Paper?
It was a scrap cut into the shape of a bird. A child's toy? She squeezed, and it crumpled like ordinary paper and fell.
She caught up to Arang and Gayul running ahead — then felt that same wrongness again. This time, another paper scrap like the first was drifting on the wind, just out of reach.
No. It was moving in the same direction they were.
"Gayul. Diagonal, front left."
Gayul lifted her head at Hoeyeon's words and frowned. Then her eyes went wide.
"Hoeyeon — can you strike that down!?"
Gayul's voice was urgent. Hoeyeon leapt and cut with her blade; the paper scrap split in two and fell.
Gayul snatched it from the air and shouted to Arang racing ahead.
"Halt! Our position has been found!"
Arang stopped at once — and immediately after, a great sound like a struck gong rolled through the night.
"Where are they!?"
"That way!"
The sound of many people running at once. Arang lowered her voice and gestured down a side path. But as they followed it, Arang herself was the first to spot another paper scrap trailing them and snatch it up.
The gong-like crash rang out again, and people began pouring toward where the three stood.
"Arang, give that to me!! Hoeyeon — catch me!"
Gayul spoke in a rush, took the scrap Arang had caught, and cried out —
⟨ Dark Mist ⟩
"Run!"
Hoeyeon lunged and caught Gayul as the strength left her body and she started to fall.
"They cannot track us now!?"
"I am suppressing the detection through this thing. But the government troops may still pursue us by ordinary means!"
"Government troops? There are those among them who can use something like this!?"
"The ones detecting us with this and reporting our position to the troops by sound are almost certainly that Masu pack!"
At Gayul's words, Arang ground her teeth.
"Those curs again! Hoeyeon — I shall raise our pace!"
"Got it!"
By the time they finally cleared the capital walls, all three were spent.
Hoeyeon had had to run with Gayul on her back, and Arang had been forced to cast magic to hide their bodies and silence their footsteps at every turn.
But Gayul was in the worst state of all.
Worn down by one ordeal after another, her magic nearly gone, she was barely holding on to consciousness.
"Hoeyeon. Arang. I am furious."
Even like this, Gayul managed a smile for them. She lifted the paper scrap she still held and said,
"Would you permit me to teach whoever played this little trick on us a painful lesson? In exchange, my magic will be spent, and you two will have to look after me for several days."
Even Hoeyeon, the hardiest of the three, was trembling with a hand on her knee. Arang was face-down on the ground, gasping for breath.
But as if they had been waiting for exactly those words, both Arang and Hoeyeon grinned.
"Heh… This humble one… hates being on the receiving end… more than anything in this world."
"Hit them hard. I'll protect you, Gayul."
At that, Gayul smiled again — a softer smile this time.
"How reassuring. Then I leave myself in your care."
Gayul gathered every last scrap of magic left in her body and whispered,
"Choke on this, you rotten bloodline."
⟨ Fierce Quake Fire-Acid ⟩
Flame caught on the paper scrap in Gayul's hand and began to burn. Slowly. Lazily. And then it vanished from her palm without leaving so much as ash.
Gayul's consciousness cut out there.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!"
A hideous scream tore through the air. The maid who rushed into the room at the sound could only clap a hand over her mouth and freeze.
Fire was eating the flesh of the one she served. Not a clean blaze — a clinging, crawling fire that crept sticky and foul across the skin.
"W-water — water!"
"AAAAAAAAAGH!!!! GRRAAAAH!!!!!!!!!"
By the time the maid moved again, he had managed to put out the fire consuming his own body — but he could not escape burns so horrific that anyone looking would want to cover their eyes.
"Ghh… aaaaagh…!! That brat… how dare he! How dare he……!! To Us…!!!!!!"
He thrashed and clamped a hand hard around his own arm, as if he could press the rising pain back down and keep it from climbing.
Of course it was useless. He bellowed at the maid.
"Don't just stand there like an idiot — bring cold water! Now!"
"Y-yes, Your Majesty!!"
In this age there was no emperor. Hwi, Sang, and Se — who had each taken a third of the realm — styled themselves kings, and shied from anything higher.
An emperor who should not exist in this world groaned in agony and stared at his burned hand.
You linked your magic so clumsily in so many places — of course it was easy to trace back. Wasn't it, Brother?
"Silence! Silence!!!!!!"
A voice rang through his skull. It was a hallucination, and it was also the obsession he had nurtured inside his own mind, mocking him. The two had long since fused into one; they could no longer be told apart.
"You!! How long do you mean to — ghh!!! — how long will you keep humiliating Us!!!!!"
For as long as it takes? For as long as you keep making a spectacle of yourself, Brother.
"How long!!!!!! Will you!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!!!! Gayul!!!!!!!"
In a room choked with countless paper scraps, a man with blue hair and blue eyes screamed.
When a mage spends magic, she must rest. Spend a great deal, and she collapses. Spend it all, and she loses consciousness — and cannot wake again until at least a minimum of magic has returned.
So for a mage to empty her magic entirely meant one of two things: she had resigned herself to death, or someone she trusted absolutely was at her side.
Only those two.
"…Mm."
When Gayul opened her eyes again, the place was peaceful and quiet.
A room filled with clear sunlight.
She was lying on a bed, and someone was asleep leaning against it.
Hoeyeon.
"So you kept watch at my side the whole time."
Gayul sat up, and her hand brushed Hoeyeon's cheek where it rested on the bed.
"Ah! You're awake!"
At a voice she had never heard before, Gayul turned. A young woman stood in the doorway. She looked a little younger than Hoeyeon, with brown hair and brown eyes.
"It seems I am in your debt. My thanks. Might I ask where this is?"
"This is our house! Your other companion is sleeping in the next room!"
The girl smiled brightly.
"Ah, and I'm Yujeong! Hoeyeon-sajeo and I studied under the same master!"