The demon strangling me was different from those I had seen before. It was fierce, fighting to keep me down and the expression it made reminded me of a deformed reaper with sharp claws dug in my flesh. Its head fell off after Daesung swung his broken sword with a battle cry. He grabbed my hand and gave me a worried look before he pulled me on my feet. Our backs faced each other as Daesung’s hands tightened over the sword’s sheath and mine around the blade.

Even if I had foolishly accepted a boost in power from the oldest reaper among us, I could still not use a reaper’s blade without the risk of immense energy loss. The demon blade whoever had done its trick so far and less than what Seekers had. At the same time, it was difficult to murder other reapers without Jaejoong’s energy. It turned the blade’s surface deathly.

It turned me deathly.

“Demons, demons, are they demons?!” Daesung shouted behind me as he beheaded another grey creature. They picked their heads from and plunged it down their bodies. Soon, it grew back and they became more determined in their murderous attempts. “Hey, you guys, where are you from? Are you from here or from somewhere else?!”

“From here,” they hissed together in a cruel symphony for our ears. Skeletons spurted out of their backs with blood and intestines dangling from their muddy bones. They resembled featherless wings, flapped every time the demons leaped at us. Daesung spread his arms in air and put a glowing red shield around us. He kneeled and let out more screams every time the demons clawed at the shield. Cuts appeared over Daesung’s skin, blood rushing from every wound.

“You’re too weak!” he forced a low chuckle.

“No , stating the obvious now? Okay, it’s my turn,” he winced and clenched his teeth before he spoke with the same weak voice, “You’re a traitor. We trusted you, we relied on you more than we should have…,” he yelled when one demon broke through the shield and left his mark over Daesung’s face before the blond poured more energy into it and patched the hole. “Where the these came from!”

“From me,” I dropped the blade and stared at my fingers “I killed three reapers today… I killed them.”

“JUNG MIN, FOR ’S SAKE, HELP ME OUT!”

Right.

…though I do not know how. Instead, I grabbed Daesung’s head and gave him some of my energy to maintain the shield while I tried to come up with a plan.

Sooyoung was usually the one that had ideas and I made them real.

It’s not that hard, Jung Min, it's not, you’ve done it a thousand times with Sooyoung and just as much with Yuri. Sometimes, Hyun---, I mean, Daesung, was the one with the crazy action-taking methods, yet I had rarely said a thing against them. The moment I decided to do it, I ended up dead, Yuri got possessed, I never knew my daughter until much later and my best friend ended up murdered for nothing after he drunkenly roamed the streets and rambled about what he had done while I should have been the one to take over the blame.

Oh and I somehow got reborn as a creature of Death that hunted ghosts all day long and slashed their asses back to the Other World until Yuri called me from my duty and forced me to take Sooyoung in my care, not before I locked her abilities and made sure they were useless half of the time.

“I’ll fly us out---”

“They’ll attack us the moment I drop the shield and if I don’t take it down, your wings will burn!” Daesung argued in my face as the shield became thinner and smaller around us.

“They won’t,” I assured with my hand dropping from his head to his shoulder “trust me.”

“I don’t,” he frowned, tiny cuts becoming wider with each attack, “I don’t trust you and never will again because this is your ing mess and I’m not going to help you clean it out.”

“Then let me at least explain---”

“THERE’S NO TIME!”

Both of my hands touched the ground. Nature’s heartbeat synchronized with the energy flowing at my fingertips.

“Lower the shield when I tell you to,” the distorted voice surely belonged to a stranger. How could it had come out of my mouth? It sounded insane, the type I’d want to avoid when in crisis.

 “But,” the blond accused that voice of having a certain oddity, which made him think he was no longer talking with his old friend. Another creature took his place, a creature with lavender and burgundy mixed inside his once earth-colored eyes.

“LOWER THE SHIELD!” demons became our shade as they formed a dome made of their decaying corpses, clawing, kicking and biting at the shield. Tiny fluctuations warned to increase power or risk the shield to collapse with the demons on top of us. The blond watched me become a human torch, shining brightly in the darkest night of the century.

He nodded and with a heavy breath, he closed his eyes and fainted. There was no spiritual energy left to aid him with spells. The swarm of demons advanced onward.

They were as stupid as the last ones. Demons should never go into the light, no matter the consequences. The blast destroyed all of them in a matter of seconds and turned the unfortunate witnesses to a crisp. Trees were nothing but collateral victims and I felt pity for them.

I took back the blade and hide it within my clothes.

Yes, I somehow have an affinity with trees and seeing their ashes scattered over Daesung’s relaxed figure made me cringe. The same black substance I had found on Sooyoung back at the Palace formed a dark circle around us. It felt sticky under my touch, only to burn away when I dared inject it with a little of what I had been left of Jaejoong’s energy.

“…Jung Min?”

Why hadn’t I felt her?

Yuri stared wide-eyed from my side before she rushed to Daesung’s side and checked his pulse. A veil let only her glare be seen when she turned her head in my direction, questioning what had truly happened for the blond to fall so easily.

“Demons,” I simply answered her, fragments of her thoughts coming in and out. It was difficult to concentrate.

“The entire city got possessed in a matter of hours, what in the world is happening?” she turned Daesung over and pressed her hand over his chest. Soon, the soothing warm light she had given countless of times to those worthy of her healing abilities woke the blond up with a fit of coughs.

I had to flee before he’d open his mouth.

“I don’t know, but I’ll find out.” My wings were ready to carry me far away from the Priestess, where she could not harm me in any way.

“Demons,” the blond coughed some more as Yuri helped him get in a sitting position and continued with the healing process “strong kind, they were everywhere,” he glanced at my wings before he covered his mouth and forced one last cough onto his palm “Jung Min saved us.”

“Of course he saved you!” Yuri snapped and slammed the back of Daesung’s head “I told you to wait for me, what was it that you had so urgently take care of?”

The blond smiled sheepishly and patted both of Yuri’s shoulders.

“Well, the anniversary is soon and…”

“What anniversary?”

“Mine and Sooyoung’s, of course~ we are a couple after all!”

She smacked him again and I couldn’t help but let out a chuckle.

“You met in autumn you !”

“Hey, I was a ghost then! And it was around this period, I know it!”

“Guys…” they stopped arguing “I have to go.”

“Alright,” Yuri nodded and forced Daesung up his feet “don’t head to the city, there’s a weird shroud. I suspect demons have a thing or two to do with it.”

“Noted,” we exchanged smiles and careful gazes before I morphed before them in a golden eagle and took flight.

I’m sorry. For everything.

I truly am.

---

“You failed,” Jaejoong crushed the chess piece in his fist. Before I could defend myself, two reapers grabbed me from behind and pushed me on my stomach. Another stomped between the shoulder blades and revealed my wings. He grabbed them both despite their violent movements.

Jaejoong got off his chair. I heard his steps echo until I could practically kiss his boots.

“You don’t understand,” of course, it was useless reasoning with the one that was born out of chaos and thrived only in a similar environment “…there are demons, hundreds of them. They are all coming out of the hideouts and that’s not all!” I spoke as fast as I could because I had to deliver the message before Jaejoong could seal my fate once more. “Since the Other World is closed, all fallen reapers have nowhere to go, they will turn into demons soon if they haven’t already, stronger demons than those that are currently marching the cities.”

“Good,” his mouth thinned to a snake’s smile “things are going as planned.”

“What?”

He motioned the reapers to tie my wings together and get me back on my feet, enough for our faces to be at the same level. Jaejoong cupped my chin and scratched my cheek with his sharp nail.

“I don’t know what Junsu had done, but it seems I cannot play with you like I do with the others.”

“What do you mean things are going as planned?! Those demons will be immortal, even us will have problems against them.”

His nails sunk in my scalp. They burned and made me scream louder than I should have.

“I had tried reconfiguring your pattern multiple times, yet it seems there is a lock in your soul I cannot break.” The burning and my screams continued. “Junsu had mastered the perfect puppet and only used it on you, I wonder why.” His nails sunk deeper and the burning intensified. It spread throughout my body. I could feel my once broken wing being torn off my back like four years ago. “What makes you so special, Jung Min?”

“YOU PROMISED ME,” I couldn’t take it anymore “YOU PROMISED YOU’LL KEEP THEM SAFE IF I JOINED YOU. DEMONS WILL KILL THEM. THEY'LL KILL EVERYBODY.”

He punched me into a wall. The three reapers bowed and exited the room. They left their master with the reaper that dared mouth his worries.

And when my fingers tried to grab my broken wing, it was no longer there.

“And you promised me to bring my son the moment he was born,” Jaejoong stepped closer and closer while I used the wall to get up. I couldn’t fly away with only one wing. The blade he had given me my energy dry. It was the first object I discarded, followed by the chain, which hung loosely from the healthy wing.

“He’s not your son,” he punched me in the chest. He was at my energy like a vampire on blood every time our spirits collided.

“HE IS MY SON,” one kick, another punch, my face hit the wall and then the stone floor. “Let demons wipe out humanity and then we can destroy them.”

I hate the way he laughs.

“You’re a ing idiot,” I had some strength left to curse him, it’s the least I could do to atone for “you were the one that sacrificed the first reapers too, aren’t you? You’re the one that created the demons in the first place.”

“And I should have done so with every single one of them,” he sneered and let a moment of silence pass before I felt my body become feather light and hover in mid-air “Junsu, unfortunately, escaped. Now I need to clean his mess. You know all about that, don’t you Jung Min?” I hovered until I was out of the window and faced the large gap under me. Ah, Jaejoong had really chosen one of the tallest buildings. “I'll find the Dragon and I shall reign forever over the three Worlds.”

I smirked.

“Isn’t it awfully quiet in here?”

I started falling when he lost focus on my body. The last thing I had seen before I hit the sand below was Jaejoong’s magnificent figure in the sky, flying away from the angry priests and priestess I had released prior to our second meeting.

Coward.

I’m too weak to go anywhere. They’d kill me right away too, for they know me as the enemy even if I released them from the cages.

Maybe I should sleep. I hadn’t done so in eons. I don’t know what sleep is anymore.

Yes. Sleep.

“Have you given up already?”