Chương 123: S.05 Time to Fly 09(02)

Scene 01_07. At the cheap noise drifting faintly in from outside, her drifted-away consciousness came slowly back. The cheap touting that rang in her ears like tinnitus was rather sickening. A throbbing headache surged in hard. It was a swaying headache, bad enough to make her dizzy. Peeling her shut eyes open as if trembling, she steadied her gaze and made to press a hand to her brow. Yeon-jin: I just don't think it's going to work out. At Yeon-jin's curt voice, a deflated smile crossed her.

Yeon-jin had resolved to drop the honorifics now; the formal address falls away. At that bright, clear voice of hers, Hee-jin let only a silent sneer settle in. She'd given up early on the thought of smoothing back her hair to tame the headache. Hee-jin's two wrists were twisted behind her and bound fast with a 금줄(Geumjul_Ritual Taboo Rope to suppress power). Sprawled face-down over the sofa as if she'd collapsed, Hee-jin was in no state to touch her own hair to soothe the ache even if she wanted to.

Gripping a syringe in her hand, Yeon-jin drove it deep into the nape of Hee-jin's neck. After emptying all the drug inside, Yeon-jin seated herself on the sofa across and spoke to Hong-sin, who stood nearby. Yeon-jin: Leave her too long and it'll go wrong. I've already called sis, so the moment I'm done talking, bury her. Before anything goes wrong. Hong-sin: Yes. When Yeon-jin gave Hong-sin a jerk of her chin, Hong-sin headed outside.

To Hee-jin, who'd resigned herself to leaving her blurred sight be, helpless against the headache, Yeon-jin spoke in a voice cold and steeped in scorn. Yeon-jin: I'm doing this because I know what a remarkable person you are. Pity for you, it's a blessing we're not a hospital. So I just gave you more of the drug you took earlier. Even if you undo the Ritual Taboo Rope, you'll have a hard time moving properly. I think I'll stop doing things I'll regret now. Hee-jin: And this isn't something you'll regret?

Yeon-jin: I heard your whole plan. I had a little chat with the thing inside me. Hee-jin: I see. Yeon-jin: Turns out you were right that you saw me as a tool to just pass through. But killing my own blood-sister, the bitch, and handing her over to the Weeping of Immolation — seems even I've got a shred of feeling, calling her kin and all. So I've decided to just get rid of you and stop tangling with your lot for good.

Well, it's a shame about everything I've sunk in so far, but that seems to be the way to keep my neck attached. I wanted to live and hold power — not get it by dropping dead. Hee-jin: Oh, did you now. Seated on the sofa, Yeon-jin bent slightly at the waist and brought her smirking face down over Hee-jin. Staring straight at Hee-jin, who lay collapsed face-down, and smiling as though in threat, Yeon-jin asked demurely: Yeon-jin: If you draw out what's inside me, I'll let you go even now.

On the condition that you never come looking for me. How about it. I held off killing you on purpose and waited for you to wake. Wanted to try one last deal. You sure slept a long while. I nearly died of boredom. So, come on. Yeon-jin seized a fistful of Hee-jin's hair and stared straight into Hee-jin's clouded eyes. Yeon-jin: What's in me — draw it out, right now. I'll make it like it never happened. Hee-jin: Said it wants out, did it? The thing inside you?

Yeon-jin: That's the very condition I'm offering, don't you get it? You order it to. I'm saying this because it seems to listen to you~ Gripping Hee-jin's hair hard, Yeon-jin shook her head this way and that and pressed her. Yeon-jin: Don't you follow me? Is the drug already kicking in? Are you so worked up in heat you can't think straight? Brain not turning? Even as her sight blurred further, Hee-jin didn't drop the smirking smile on her face.

Yeon-jin flung Hee-jin's head down as if tossing it and seated herself back on the sofa. Hee-jin: Now that I think on it, you really do seem remarkable. Yeon-jin: I've always been remarkable. Hee-jin: So, I've changed my mind a little. Hee-jin's tongue began to loosen bit by bit. Even drool was leaking from her mouth. Watching Hee-jin's crumbling state, Yeon-jin twitched the corners of her mouth again and again. Hee-jin: I'll think over what to put inside you, after I kill you.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Yeon-jin nodded, the corners of her mouth still twitching. Hee-jin's contorted gaze, too, brimmed full with scorn. As though there was no need to talk further, Yeon-jin lightly snapped her fingers and called back in Hong-sin, who had gone outside. Yeon-jin: Have the bottom-rung lackeys downstairs bury her. Somewhere even you and I won't know.

I've told sis in advance too, so make sure the bottom-rung lackeys are the ones to bury her. So that Guide or whatever the hell she is doesn't catch wind of it. Scene 02. So-hui tossed and turned on the bed with a faintly tense look. Si-yeon, lying beside her on the wide bed, had her eyes open too at So-hui's restlessness and gazed silently at the ceiling. As So-hui passed the deep night draped in dubious worry, Si-yeon, still lying down, spoke to her very softly. Si-yeon: Get some sleep.

It'll be light out before long. So-hui: Sorry. Looks like I'm keeping you up too. Si-yeon: Course I can't sleep if you can't. So if you want me to sleep, you sleep. So-hui: I don't get why I can't see it. I can clearly see as far as that one, but the next stretch is slyly veiled, so I can't make it out. Si-yeon: But you said the main road's the same. So-hui: That's the problem. It means either I somehow sort it out, or someone else does — but I can't see anything yet. Si-yeon: Hmm....

So-hui: The Strategist, through a whisper, projects herself differently to others. To Ji-young sis and the people here at Headquarters she appears in her true form, so we can recognize her — but she moves while hiding it utterly from them. So once she falls into their hands, there's no knowing. To their eyes, the one they see appears as someone other than the Strategist's true self. Si-yeon: Why does she go to such lengths? That sis? So-hui: Because only then do we struggle, and only then will we move forward.

We must not know to be trampled, and we must be trampled to rise. Si-yeon: That's fucking terrifying. So-hui: But in a case like this, it turns to poison instead. We have to find her, one way or another. There's no telling what's been done to her. And she may already be out of the Northwest. So-hui shifted where she lay and looked up at the ceiling. On the ceiling they gazed at, lying side by side, hung only an unlit lamp. The sound of still air filled the space between the two of them. Scene 03_01.

Yeon-jin, with an untroubled look, was leafing through the ledger on her desk. She drew cash from the envelope she'd just been handed, wrote the proper sum into the ledger, then rummaged through the desk drawer and tucked it into the makeshift safe stowed inside. Just as the safe—its sound like a winding spring—closed with a clear chime, the large glass window behind Yeon-jin shattered to pieces with a great crash.

Yeon-jin swiftly grabbed the 죽장검(Juk-jang-geom_Bamboo Cane Sword) at her side and swung it wide behind her, but the Bamboo Cane Sword couldn't carve out its full arc—it struck against a metallic ring close to the clear 요령소리(Yoryeong-sori_The Chime of the Ritual Handbell) and went no further. A black wire coiled around Yeon-jin's Bamboo Cane Sword pierced clean through it and tore the Bamboo Cane Sword from her grip.

The intruding presence snatched the seized Bamboo Cane Sword up by hand, kicked Yeon-jin, and toppled her onto the desk. With Yeon-jin's own seized Bamboo Cane Sword, it ran her shoulder through and pinned her to the desk. The intruding presence delivered a voice lofty and composed, yet chilling. Ji-young: Where is she. The Strategist. Sprawled there, Yeon-jin smirked and sneered.

Yeon-jin: The Oldest, has it been a while — did you come to spread your legs for m — At Yeon-jin's smirking jab, Ji-young twisted the Bamboo Cane Sword she held in her hand. She wrenched it as if tearing Yeon-jin's shoulder blade clean off. Yeon-jin's scream filled the wide office. Ji-young: Speak. Ji-young's voice was not loud. It was overbearing yet composed, eerily still. Ji-young's swaying butterfly ornament dangled from her piled-up hair and fluttered this way and that. Ji-young didn't blink once.

Yeon-jin: If I talk, I live. And if I live, I'm de — Ji-young: Right now, Ji-young's hand moved fiercely, twisting the Bamboo Cane Sword that pinned Yeon-jin's shoulder and the desk together a little more, driving it deeper. Yeon-jin's scream came again. Ji-young: shall I kill you. At Yeon-jin's bursting scream, Hong-sin and Hong-sin's underlings, who'd been outside the door, kicked it open and came in.

Ji-young, just like that, flung out her other hand as if shaking it off and burst the eyes of everyone who'd entered with black wire. She didn't even spare them a glance. Not the slightest hesitation. The last thing those who entered saw was only the trace of the black wire Ji-young had cast. Clutching their own eyes, dyed red and seeing nothing, they collapsed where they stood and screamed as wretchedly as Yeon-jin. Ji-young: Speak. Yeon-jin: You can't kill me, but that bitch will.

Ji-young: And why can't I kill you? Yeon-jin: Because you'll make Si-yeon do it. Where Yeon-jin couldn't see, Ji-young pressed her lips together in a bite. Yeon-jin: Didn't you say you wanted Lee Si-yeon to be the one to kill me, to do away with me? So how would someone like you kill me? Even after I jumped her, fucked her, sold her off to the customers and toyed with her, you, in the end, can't do a single thing. Yeon-jin's smirking laugh was sickening. But it was true.

Yeon-jin, who had torn away the whole of Si-yeon's life, was a debt Si-yeon herself had to settle—without fail. Whether that meant forgiveness or vengeance, it was not Ji-young's place to step in. So even the threat to kill was little more than empty words, a hollow prayer. Yet Ji-young did not waver. At least she didn't want to look as if she did. She put force into the hand gripping the Bamboo Cane Sword and lifted the blade a little higher.

A grinding crack from Yeon-jin's shoulder bone carried up through her body. Yeon-jin let out a horrific scream. There was barely any arm left. Ji-young: My little sister will understand me. So — Yeon-jin: I don't know!! You motherless piece of shit!! Ji-young stilled her hand for a moment. She'd meant to raise the Bamboo Cane Sword further and sever Yeon-jin's arm outright, but she held it still, no longer moving.

Yeon-jin: To stay out of the sight of that Guide or whatever the fuck she is that you lot have, I had her buried by some bastard even I don't know. I don't know. Really. If I knew, you'd have gone and saved her already. Without hounding me. But what to do?! With a face contorted in pain, Yeon-jin forced a wide grin and mocked Ji-young. Yeon-jin: I don't!! know either!! How am I supposed to tell you!! Right?! You motherless piece of shit?! Yeon-jin's dog-like flailing rang out clamorously beyond the wide-open door.

Among the people peering in to see what was happening, a familiar, courteous step appeared. The presence that wedged through the gawkers closed the door and bowed deeply. Keeping Yeon-jin pinned to the desk, Ji-young flicked her eyes up to check who'd entered. Yu-seok: The Oldest. Have you kept well, all this time? Even though Yu-seok had come in wearing a courteous smile, for now she kept no guard against him.

Yu-seok carried his shod feet slowly over Hong-sin and Hong-sin's group fallen on the floor and stroked the long hair of Yeon-jin, who lay sprawled on the desk. For this one moment, Yu-seok too made no move against Ji-young. Sensing something off, Yeon-jin looked up at Ji-young in a hurry. Ji-young: It doesn't look like anything more can be drawn out of her, so do as you see fit. Yu-seok: Understood. Leaving the Bamboo Cane Sword embedded, Ji-young lifted her hand from the hilt.

Raising her own body, which she'd mounted onto the desk as if climbing over Yeon-jin, she carefully stepped down to the floor. Stroking Yeon-jin's hair with a tender yet rough hand, Yu-seok asked Ji-young, who was about to head out: Yu-seok: Even if nothing's drawn out, I'll repay what was done to the Strategist. Only then does a dog stay a dog. Ji-young: If you do happen to learn anything, get in touch. I'll go myself. Yu-seok: Understood.

After answering in a flat yet courteous voice, Yu-seok lifted the hand that had been stroking Yeon-jin's cheek. Folding his two hands together, he bowed deeply to Ji-young as she stepped out. Once outside, Ji-young shut the door firmly. Within, only the ragged breaths of Hong-sin and his group and Yeon-jin's fear-laden breathing remained. Over it all settled Yu-seok's flat, composed smile. Yu-seok: You should have known your place. Yu-seok's calm taunt was the last voice Yeon-jin heard.

Yeon-jin's eyes flew wide as if in terror.