Chương 33: S.04 Memory of the Clock 06(06) - Parousia

Scene 17. Inside the wide banquet hall of the Grand Pavilion, a considerable number stood by. They faced the incoming seeds and the ringing bell, yet their gaze stayed quiet and unshaken, eyes closed. Close to a hundred shaman dressed in eastern 무복(Mu-bok_Shamanic Ritual Dress) sat, steady, on a white paper spread over the cold stonework. They were waiting for an order.

Steps walking Everyday traditional shoes—still somewhat unfamiliar—stood in the center of the banquet hall of the Grand Pavilion, lifting both sleeves and unfurling white paper. The screams coming from every direction could well have stirred impatience, yet they only waited for the order to come down. By the guidance that stepping forward too hastily would see the time to come broken and thrown away, they scattered white paper in every direction and simply held, wordless. Scene 18.

With the dazed eyes of countless Inner Guard members who had stood against her, she wordlessly met them. Chae-rim, already bleeding from all over her body, was barely able to hold her breath, as if no strength to rise remained. Before her, Yoo-rim stood. Yoo-rim: I won't kill. So, stop. You too — you're doing this because you can't bring yourself to kill your own men by your own hand, aren't you.

Below Chae-rim's 저고리(Jeogori_Korean Traditional inner jacket), stained with her blood, red drops were falling in bead after bead. Her eyelids, torn, let the flowing blood blind her from opening them properly. Her ragged breath kept blocking Chae-rim's words. Her voice was stopped, but she had to ask. Chae-rim: Why. Sis. you. Yoo-rim: It was a last request. From the Former Strategist. Chae-rim: The one who helped you, was the Dan-jang. Yoo-rim: I know. But The Code had already started breaking from within.

I couldn't follow it any longer. Chae-rim: Nothing has broken. Yoo-rim: For a Key to become our Dan-jang — that itself breaks everything we are. Chae-rim: Because it is the Former The Oldest's will. Because she was certain it would not break us!! Yoo-rim: That is the very thing that broke all of us. Chae-rim: Nothing was broken!! The soft-iron blade curled around Chae-rim's arm flashed.

Yoo-rim deflected Chae-rim's sweeping strike, and with the whip woven in her hand, wrapped Chae-rim's throat, and strung her up onto the watchtower. Throat locked tight, Chae-rim dropped the blade in her hand; her two hands flailed to pull at the whip around her neck. Yoo-rim turned away and, toward the Inner Guard members on the watchtower, their gazes dazed, threw a jerk of the chin. Scene 19. The two unhurried steps had come to face the front door of a derelict apartment sitting on a low floor.

A finely extended hand opened the firmly shut front door. As if it had been waiting, a single gunshot rang out from inside. The finely-turned hand raised Black Water and batted the oncoming round aside. The round was struck down, yet there was no hostility in the motion. To Ju-hyeon and Je-hak—tense, facing them—Jeong-seon passed a composed voice. Jeong-seon: I came at Jo So-hui sis's request. No more gunshots followed. Ju-hyeon stood watching the two as they entered.

Jeong-seon, who had stepped into the living room first, cautiously bent at the waist, and drew another step deeper into the room. Bishop, who had been quietly looking over Ji-young as she lay there, let out a small breath of relief. Bishop: Still, thankfully. Ji-young. Ji-young, unconscious, did not open her eyes even at Bishop's call. Letting out a small sigh, Bishop felt the deepest death of all, and turned back from the living room toward the outside. The step he had taken out came to a halt in the corridor.

I-seon and Yeon-su stood there, pinned by threads of Black Water, set among the corpses. At the far end of the not-so-distant corridor past the corpses, something shrouded in the deepest shade of death stood hidden in the shadow. Soo-jeong's once-wrenched neck sat whole and upright. In her hand she held Min-seok's severed head, Black Water pouring from it without pause. As Black Water kept leaking out, Min-seok's head was also dissolving away. Yet even that much could not bring Soo-jeong's broken neck back.

It had been a wound inflicted by 사절(Sa-jeol_Envoy). No matter how much Black Water she held within her, she could not be whole. Facing the death before him, Bishop asked Jeong-seon, who had stepped out behind him. Bishop: And 사절단 (Sa-jeol-dan_The Envoy's Legion). Jeong-seon glanced out past the corridor for a moment. A great many corpses that had been knocked outside were trying to press back in, but under the sweeping knife-work and gunfire of Si-yeon, they crumbled without resistance.

Jeong-seon: She is holding the entrance, yes, but a fair number of the bodies still remain inside this building. Bishop nodded, and bowed deeply toward Soo-jeong, who bore the greatest death among them. Bishop: To what end have The Envoy's Legion come seeking the side of the living. The Weeping of Contrition Soo-jeong carried within her borrowed Soo-jeong's mouth, and spoke low. Soo-jeong (The Weeping of Contrition): Hand over. The Key. Bishop: We follow death. That is the order death has ordained.

Why is it that you, the Envoy's Legion — those who ought to follow the order death has ordained — would undertake such a thing. Soo-jeong (The Weeping of Contrition): Circulation must not be severed. It is the reason for our being. Bishop: A vicious cycle cannot become the axis of order. It is warped and wrong. To uphold the value of one's own existence, and to break the order because of it — that does not. A trace of The Weeping of Contrition lashed outward, sharp, in every direction.

Thin threads of Black Water scattered and drove outward in every direction, unrestrained. Everyone save Bishop was pierced by the threads of Black Water and pinned where they stood. Yet it was not to the point of facing death. They felt only the pain that The Weeping of Contrition delivered. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Soo-jeong (The Weeping of Contrition): Why do you seek to break the circulation that has been linked.

Bishop: Because we mean to keep true order. The living will, without fail, die, and death will, someday, return to life. Neither side, ever, crosses into the other. That alone is the order. That alone is the truth. Bishop slowly straightened the back he had bowed. Bishop: We have, always. Served the Three Shards. And The Envoy's Legion have been but bearers between us and the Three Shards — to that extent, Warped Black Water flowed into Bishop's hand.

At warped Black Water rising up from bare, empty ground, the surroundings darkened and were swallowed. Bishop: Now that all three Shards have come into place, we of The Black Doctrine can have, from this day on, no reason left to follow The Envoy's Legion. Soo-jeong (The Weeping of Contrition): Even if you raise that current before me, you can, by no means, stop me. Bishop: You are mistaken. I am not, Envoy of the Legion, the one who blocks you.

As Bishop tightened his fist, warped Black Water rushed in heavy toward I-seon and Yeon-su, and swept every corpse that had bound the two of them clean outside. In the open space left by the thrust-aside corpses, a single pair of sneakers, splashing lightly over the warped current, came to rest. Following behind came a pair of deep navy Everyday traditional shoes and crimson Battle boots. Everyday traditional shoes bearing a white-plum-blossom pattern and crimson Battle boots followed the sneakers in.

So-hui, gripping the skein of 적사(Jeok-sa_Red Thread), walked the corridor. In So-hui's two hands, a familiar new set of clothes was held. Hee-jin and Gyeong-seo barred the death surging toward So-hui. So-hui faced the entrance, wordless. Hee-jin scattered ink and cut every Black Water thread that had pinned the space like a web, then bent at the waist, offering a proper courtesy to Bishop and the Envoy of The Weeping of Contrition. Hee-jin: I had believed my meaning reached you already, but — was I mistaken.

At Hee-jin's composed voice, Soo-jeong, her two eyes dyed black, answered. Soo-jeong (The Weeping of Contrition): I simply sought to find a way of my own. Hee-jin: Will you withdraw as you are, or will you fail, here, to no purpose. At Hee-jin's audacious voice, The Weeping of Contrition did not return a word. Hee-jin: If you wait, and wait, you would meet an end that is not rushed — that, I conveyed plainly. And yet, Hee-jin raised her head, slow.

Not shrinking even before The Envoy of the Legion, Hee-jin—carrying a thin, metallic laugh—drew herself upright and began to deliver her meaning to Soo-jeong. Hee-jin: That you would come calling like this — that you would be so foolish — I, truly, did not know. A gap did open, yes, but one who is no child — you slipped into that very gap. In the gap that was ordained, only a sealed road has been laid. Scene 20.

Headquarters, where white smoke could no longer be raised, was wreathed in dark shadow, and the chill of it drew so close that one could not see a hand's breadth ahead. Holding the front of a 두루마기(Durumagi_Traditional outer coat) closed as she stepped inside, she was not disturbed by anyone on her way. Yu-seok passed by the many who sat, dazed-eyed, as if having given up entirely—consciousness gone—and looked out toward the Grand Pavilion set within Headquarters. White paper fluttered in every direction.

Showing no particular reaction, Yu-seok, at a slow pace, kept moving the step he had set toward the north. Scene 21. Ye-ju swung the blade in her hand. Before the entrance of the Dan-jang's quarters, barred by a Ritual Taboo Rope, red blood poured out of the throat of an Inner Guard member who had stood guarding the entrance. As though having lost her senses, with a bright laugh carried on her face, Ye-ju's madness bore down on the Inner Guard members' will to resist.

Just as she was flinging open the firmly shut gate, her hand was wreathed in Black Sand. Glancing down at her hand for a moment, Ye-ju turned her head back. Ye-ju: What now?! What the hell!! You keep doing this, you SSibal bastard!!! Yu-seok: Where do you think you're trying to go, trash like you. Go back down and clean up the stragglers. Ye-ju: What? At Ye-ju's returning question, Yu-seok wove a dagger from Black Sand and drove it through Ye-ju's eye.

Given up one of her eyes, Ye-ju collapsed screaming to the floor and writhed. Finding Ye-ju's tearing scream a nuisance, Yu-seok unmade the Black Sand he had driven into Ye-ju's eye, and poured Grey Ash, pulled from his cuff, over it as if it were nothing. As the flesh began to knit, a still more hideous pain seemed to come, and Ye-ju gripped her own eye with all her strength, howling like a beast. Yu-seok: You're loud. Piss off. Ye-ju: So you're taking the whole thing for yourself?! I do the work?!

You do the eating!? At Ye-ju's childish howl, Yu-seok drew a scornful laugh deeper across his face, and lowered his body, slow, to sit down. He seized the hair of Ye-ju as she writhed, unable to hold her body together for the pain, and passed her a look that said how utterly worthless she was. Yu-seok: What am I eating? Me? Ye-ju: The Relic!! The Dan-jang's Relic!!! At Ye-ju's shout, Yu-seok doubted his own ears. From where he was supposed to start explaining, to this woman—he could not even measure it.

It was easier to simply give up. Wearing a look of sheer despair, Yu-seok said to Ye-ju in a flat, bored tone. Yu-seok: Forget it. Get up. Get up and fight me. If you win, I'll let you go. If you're scared of that, go back downstairs and do some more hired-lackey errands. Scene 22. Hee-jin judged even the argument unnecessary, cut the talk she had been delivering, and bowed at the waist toward So-hui. In So-hui's hand—holding someone's clothes—there sat a worn, faded, small 복주머니(Bok-jumeoni_Fortune pouch).

So-hui, for a moment, handed the clothes meant for someone over to Gyeong-seo. Gyeong-seo, with precise courtesy, received the new clothes So-hui had passed. Holding the small, worn Fortune pouch, So-hui bowed at the waist toward Hee-jin with care. So-hui: All of this is thanks to the counsel the Strategist wove for me. My path was shorter than this. Hee-jin: There is no need for impatience. You will become more. So-hui: Thank you. Hee-jin: Go. Please, guide the Dan-jang onto her true path now.

This is not for us to do. It is, rightly, what the Guide must do. Just as So-hui moved to step inside, threads of Black Water spread through the whole building like damp mold. Threads woven from Black Water burst outward, hurling sharp death in every direction. Even Si-yeon, guarding the entrance, could not block all of the death that came surging in, and, as if she had slowly allowed their entry, a great many poured up the stairs.

So-hui did not even give Soo-jeong a glance; she moved her step and sent Ji-young inside. Gyeong-seo, who had received the clothes from So-hui, also stepped into the living room. Laying the clothes down with care, she batted aside, one by one, the threads of Black Water surging toward So-hui. Seated beside the lying Ji-young, So-hui took the cold hand of Ji-young, who lay asleep as if unconscious. In So-hui's small hand, a worn Fortune pouch was held.

The surging death drove in, as if rending the living room, and poured out threads of Black Water without pause. Threads of Black Water that punched through the wall and burst in leveled themselves on So-hui. The tip of a thread of Black Water, closed in to just behind the nape of So-hui's neck, reached to touch her skin. So-hui slid onto Ji-young's limp wrist the black bracelet that had been inside the Fortune pouch. Scene 23.

FLASHBACK Ji-young—who had overwritten a portion of Si-yeon's life and time—lay there wordless, looking at the memo held in her wallet. — Warm it up before you eat. — Who had left this note, she had no way of knowing. She wanted to. She wanted to, yet no one gave her an answer. The reason for their silence, she could not tell. No memory came back. There was only the sense of that unsettled feeling she had carried lately, and the mood that scattered fragments of memory barely managed to link together into dreams.

A deep-run ache of longing and a deep-run ache of regret surged up. Ji-young, who had only just managed to hold back the tears that had been about to fall again, stopped holding them back and let them flow as they were. No memory came back, yet she simply called out. No memory came. There should not have been such a person at all. And yet, the voice calling out to that person—whose memory would not even come—slipped out, against Ji-young's own will, easily, emptily, between those full lips. Ji-young: Mom ….

She had tried hard not to forget. It was a memory she had so much wanted to hold on to. A heaviness surged up, yet the answer was in a place not far off. It was a voice she had always wanted to hear. A voice she had always been walled away from. That voice was, no longer, to be hidden. It began at Ji-young's wrist and was felt in the deepest place in her chest. Yes. Ji-young. Scene 24.

As the thread of Black Water, digging into So-hui's skin, drew a thin bead of red from the nape of her neck, the thread of Black Water split along its own length and, unable to finish driving through So-hui's throat, shattered apart in every direction. Black 현사(Hyeon-sa_Black Wire) scattered in a wild weave across the room. Ji-young, tears of black running down her face, lifted her fallen body, slow, to her feet.

The 전령(Jeon-ryeong_Harbinger) took Ji-young's will along with it and received, wholly, all the grief Ji-young carried. Ji-young unraveled every strand of the Black Wire and was, now, cutting through every thread of Black Water spread out in every direction. The Black Wire—steeped in Ji-young's Black Water—tore every surging thread of Black Water into ribbons. Risen to her feet, Ji-young, tears of black still falling, moved her step, slow.

Into the eyes of The Weeping of Contrition, standing in the narrow corridor of the derelict apartment, the black presence stepping forward came into view. Ji-young's slow step held no keenness to it. She knew what it was for, yet all of it felt vacantly hollow. Even if called out after, the voice was for one who stood where the voice could not reach. A deep and relentless emptiness. Ji-young looked around at everyone watching her, wordless. She closed her eyes gently.

The black tears pooled deep inside her wide eyes rolled down Ji-young's cold cheek. Ji-young gathered a few strands of Black Wire drifting around her as if stroking them with her hand. Passing, in silence, Bishop—who stood watching her step faithfully—Ji-young moved to the center of the narrow corridor, and came to the center of the corridor where The Weeping of Contrition, wearing Soo-jeong, could be seen.

She bowed at the waist, wordless, and—tears of black falling with no wiping—with no expression at all, carrying only the black tears of a grief soaked past all reach, Ji-young faced The Weeping of Contrition, quiet. Ji-young: Turn back. In the eyes that Ji-young had opened, there sat a presence drawn black and a sorrow drawn to pressing weight. Facing Soo-jeong's black eyes, Ji-young conveyed her composed, low voice. Ji-young: If you turn back, today — I shall let you return.

Within Ji-young's composed voice, not a single tremor was to be felt. A composed grievance and a composed pressing weight. And a grief deeper than any she had ever felt. Soo-jeong, drawing black eyes about her, lifted Min-seok's severed head, held like a Ritual Implement. The remaining head caved in, and the Black Water it had held burst out in an instant.