Flames evaporated. Clasping the sword, Daesung released a battle scream as he tried to push forward. His entire body leapt in my direction with amazing force. If the sword had not bent under my grasp and allowed me to turn around the blond, he could have injured my wings. The only trails they left behind were they ghostly imprints as the wings retracted in my back and joined the mist left behind by the extinguished fire. It had been prepared for more than one day, which was something Sooyoung would never do. She knew the importance of time as spells worked on a clock only its ingredients could slow down. Daesung looked around confused, breathing heavy like a caged animal and snatched the rosary beads from the branches.

With those facts together, it was obvious Daesung acted alone.

He had no idea how to battle a reaper and survive for he had never done it alone. They always had me to deal with those pesky rogues and rebels, which believed in either free-will or a a new world order that they, and only they, were entitled to choose. The latter sickened me as they can only fall in the same circle of power that made me want to break away from Death’s kingdom.

Then again, those were better than the reaper who embraced demons and showed me how terrifying dying can be.

One joke and the cuts given by weaker demons stung my skin. When someone I can clearly see, someone I can clearly feel, puts its hand right through me, it takes a couple of seconds to understand what happened. It takes a while for the human brain to receive the signals transmitted throughout their bodies and then process it in thoughts and senses. Even if I had not seen the hole, it took me almost one minute to acknowledge the heart in the creature’s palm as mine, pumping air instead of blood.  Even then, it is difficult for the human brain to link every signal with a known image, a known sense, a known sweet scent that caressed my entire being and soothed me. It took another minute to acknowledge I laid lifeless, to acknowledge the blue sky flashing white with veils of the past spinning alongside the mellow wind.

I no longer existed. My spirit escaped from its vessel and despite my stubbornness to stay and watch over Yuri and our unborn child, I could no longer perceive my surroundings.

The human Jung Min became an entity, which could not survive in the world In Between or in the Other World.

When I opened my eyes and could breathe again, my lungs weren’t actually working. When light went between my fingers and shaded my face, there was nothing solid there to stop it from flooding my vision… I had no lungs and no fingers. I was nothing.

There was only stored energy taking on my human form, disintegrating it in particles that could survive in the Other World’s toxic atmosphere.

I became something, a novelty for my conscience. I had never been whole, that followed me from day one after my rebirth, yet all of my senses heightened and my judgment could split everything in several pieces before choosing the right one based on every other information I had gathered along the way.

Curling and uncurling my fingers, even the liquid flowing through my veins was nonexistent. There was no blood and nothing else material tying me to the world I left, only illusions upon illusions... carnival tricks.

I died and became something different.

Something that the humans called a reaper. More exactly, a Seeker that hunted other spirits down and put them to rest.

I became something I should have hated, yet glorified it within my new identity.

The only regret I had were my locked memories. There was no key to open them.

That is, until I met Sooyoung, until I met my daughter, and the heart once stolen from my chest returned and beat stronger than I could remember.

It was beating again for her.

I knew there was no heart in my chest or no chest to touch for that matter, yet, it continued to crash violently inside my eardrums with its loud song.

I couldn’t ignore my heart, no matter how hard I tried.

Jung Min the Reaper had done terrible things, so Daesung attacking me with everything he had, desperate to keep me away from Sooyoung, desperate to protect her, was something my heart understood.

However, as a reaper, as one that is without nothing, my mission was more important and it might take Daesung’s life. Jaejoong's whispers muted my heart and crept through my head like a tornado.

I had to get rid of Byung Hee and his team before they could launch a second attack. No Keeper shall remain trapped in the land of the humans.

Two massive black wings spread from behind and wrapped around me in time to dodge all attacks. Some feathers burnt and the wind quickly swept their ashes. The lost feathers grew back, tougher than before, as shades of indigo clouded my eyes.

Jaejoong’s energy mixed with mine to form a deadly cocktail.

“I knew it…” Daesung gasped with the broken sword still in his hold. “You’re one of those freaky reapers!” A few steps backwards, he changed his stance.

Hundreds of similar silhouettes scrolled before me. They settled on one, which then possessed depth and colors. Yuri’s form came in my head as I recognized the pattern.

It was a spell meant to bind me through chains made of earth.

Bolting to the trees’ top, the chains crawled through branches and other foliage after their target. Daesung pointed in my direction with heavy gushes of air escaping his mouth every second. It was a spell too powerful for him. Yuri mastered it after years and years of intense training, what Daesung had not had the privilege to do.

Should I worry? He could end our little conflict with a single blow if he focused enough.

I beg to differ.

He was no match for my new pair of wings. They cut through the chains and destroyed them. Only sand remained once my feet touched the land again. The blond collapsed on his knees, still keen to slow me down.

“You’re not going to listen to me, so this is all I have to say,” still, humans were good at communicating, despite their thick skulls “I’m not going to hurt you, or Sooyoung or anybody. Do not think of me like that.”

“Hah!” he spat some blood and wiped his mouth clean after. With his last strength gathered, he got up and waved the broken sword. “I knew there was something fishy the moment you came unharmed from that snow surprise attack. How the heck could your wing grow back?!”

“I had some help,” lies were no longer useful “which I may not be proud of, but the alternative was much, much worse.”

“I don’t believe you anymore!” Daesung dashed forward. The sword trembled whenever it slashed air. His moves were too sloppy to even scratch me. “I raised you!”

“That was---”

He collapsed on one knee and plunged the sword into the ground.

“I ING RAISED YOU!” his eyes swelled from tears. I had not seen them drop. How could I have ignored that? “I took care of you! I taught you everything I knew back then! I made sure you had everything!”

“YOU KILLED ME!”

Where had that angry voice come from? It could not have been from me, could it?

“What was I supposed to do?!” he punched air and fell helplessly on the dirt. Tears rolled harder as he grazed the earth with his nails. “What am I going to tell Sooyoung?”

The broken sword had found its way in my grasp. Fingers curled around the cold metal. The edge it had could still deliver a final blow to the flesh.

“I had to,” he gazed up with crimson lips. He should have never attempted that spell… or any spell. He hadn’t fully recovered from the Palace battle.

What a silly boy. He had always been like that, headfirst in every situation.

He eyed the sword.

“So you need to kill me too?” I stood silent. “What are you waiting for then?” he grinned “C’mon bird , kill me if that’s what will make us even.”

“You talk too much.”

Pathetic.

…what… how… could I have said that?

My hand froze in midair and I finally made it to let go of the sword.

What's going on with me?

Daesung’s grin faded after he glanced to the sided. He rushed to get up again and warn me.

“JUNG MIN, WATCH OUT!”

Something black hit me. Something black and murky was on top of me. Eyes lacking irises and pupils, cavities filled with darkness stared into my soul’s core as its skin turned light grey and one wide mouth with sharp teeth howled in my face.

Demons.