「 episode 14; arc 0.9b 」 —fragments of cipher//fate— 「 historia ii 」

((12:27am)) edenbutterfly >> umm...hi! can i ask you something?

In the middle of a chilly summer night, a completely awake Hyejoo blinked.

The near silence of her practically pitch black room was disturbed by a chiming sound which quietly rang out from the virtually muted speakers of her computer. The sound was simultaneous with the spawning of a chat window within the overlay of the game she was playing, one she had been spending most of her free time with the past few months.

Hyejoo stared in confusion at the singular source of light in her room. On her screen, another player stood in front of her. Their character was targeting her, idly looking at her. Bearing the name edenbutterfly, it was the same person who had just messaged her. 

((12:28am)) edenbutterfly >> oh, maybe you’re afk...or you just don’t have time to help someone like me aaa i’ll go bother someone else aaaaaa i’m sorry

Hyejoo sighed as she quietly ran a hand through her locks of jet black, her palm ultimately resting on her forehead unobstructed by bangs.

Though the game was an MMORPG, a genre that was touted as a wonderful experience for connecting with like-minded individuals online, the teenage girl had always kept to herself as she preferred to both online and in real life. She never went out of her way to interact with other players, happy to experience the game’s single player content on her own and especially content to completely ignore messages from whatever party members she might be stuck assisting in group-based activities.

Thus, utterly detached from others in every way, Hyejoo was experiencing difficulty trying to muster up any reason she should actually reply.

((12:29am)) edenbutterfly >> wait what we’re the only ones in this zone. there’s no one else to ask for help!! i guess i should teleport to another area??
((12:29am)) edenbutterfly >> actually let’s take a step back and figure out HOW to teleport in the first place! yeah that might help! a lot!!
((12:30am)) edenbutterfly >> ...um. on the off chance you aren’t afk, do you know how to get to the zone menu to fast travel? i promise i’ll leave you alone after this i’m sorryyy

With deadpan eyes, Hyejoo blinked hard at the stranger talking to themselves in her private message window.

Already prepared to depart the area to venture on a quest she had just accepted, Hyejoo was ready to leave the player to their devices with silent well wishes that they would eventually figure things out. Curiosity got the better of her, however, as she made the correlation between their visible lack of worthwhile armor in tandem with their lack of knowing how to do something as basic as teleporting to another zone.

Lazily, Hyejoo closed the opened zone menu on her screen and instead clicked on the other player’s character. Pulling up her information, she was surprised to see that they were still outfitted in gear meant for a level one character despite being level eleven. A running timer on the statistics tab of their character window informed Hyejoo of their total consecutive playtime. 

Three hours.

“Even at three hours of playtime, you should already have higher leveled equipment...if you don’t know how to open the zone menu, do you also not know how to put on new gear?” Hyejoo’s thoughts came alive in a murmur, dumbfounded and unaware of what to make of the discovery. “Did you skip the tutorial or something…?”

For a moment which lasted longer than it felt, Hyejoo considered once again leaving the new player to discover the answers they sought on their own. Much like always, she didn’t particularly feel a pressing need to interact with others. 

Different from the vast majority of the people she had come to know in life through school and other online games, Hyejoo was entirely comfortable with the company of only herself. While some parents saw such a development as a sometimes incorrect sign of anxiety or depression, her mother understood it as her child’s preferences and nothing more, supporting Hyejoo’s solidarity to the fullest throughout her developmental years. 

She wasn’t socially inept by any degree, more than capable of suffering through group projects in her classes and half-heartedly talking to people when absolutely required. If there was a chance to disconnect from the world and be by herself with zero communication, however, Hyejoo seized the opportunity without hesitation every time. 

As a result, authentic friendship was an alien concept to her, one that she didn’t care to experience. Others in her classes made a sport of discreetly chastising her for it—she was the daily recipient of unpleasant glares and mean-spirited gossip. 

Yet, even through the trials and tribulations of peer pressure and the woes of adolescence, Hyejoo endured. 

With her mother’s encouragement and succor, she had accepted that she was different and she knew that there was nothing wrong with it. Hyejoo had her found her happiness as a lone wolf and refused to change herself to match what people thought she should have been.

Thus, it was due to this exact reason that Hyejoo found it baffling that she was still even standing next to the other player at all as they ran circles around her character, jumping randomly and spinning in place at times.

She didn’t need to talk to them. She didn’t even particularly want to talk to them.

But unlike every other instance prior, she couldn’t will herself to simply walk away.

((12:34am)) edenbutterfly >> wait does teleporting cost gold? oh god i hope not i spent everything i had on loot boxes so i could get those cosmetic butterfly wings…and they didn’t even drop...
((12:34am)) edenbutterfly >> if it does...i’d have to walk back!! aaa its so farrrrr. um i guess i could do some quests...if there’s anything even here appropriate for my level??
((12:35am)) edenbutterfly >> aaa hold on! hold on!! why am i still even in this message window!! you’re gonna come back and think i’m dumb for real!! ok!! i’m sorry to have bothered you!!

As she watched the one-sided conversation advance down her screen, Hyejoo could not shake the puzzling feeling that she should respond. Of the hundreds of times she had completely disregarded inquiries and messages in her hundreds of hours in the game, never before had she ever experienced such a feeling. 

The more she tried to reason with herself to simply leave the player behind like all of the rest before them, the more it grew within her—unhappiness. For reasons beyond her understanding, she was becoming unhappy with the idea of not sending this specific player a message back, as if she were destined to do so. 

As if fate were real, and as if it was meant to happen, no matter what.

Hyejoo sighed with another pass of her hand through her hair. She briefly pulled at it with worriment bred from confusion before her fingers returned to the keyboard.

((12:36am)) egoist1311 >> teleporting does cost gold.

Couldn’t hurt to help out someone this new, she thought to herself with an entirely neutral expression, rationalizing her actions under an excuse she could only assume to be true. Just this once.

((12:36am)) egoist1311 >> it’s not much, but it does get more expensive with distance.
((12:36am)) egoist1311 >> if you’re completely broke, i can give you some.
((12:37am)) egoist1311 >> but if you still have a question about the game, i can try to help you.
((12:37am)) edenbutterfly >> ...have you been there this whole time
((12:37am)) egoist1311 >> yeah.
((12:37am)) edenbutterfly >> AAAAAAAAAAAA

To Hyejoo’s own surprise, for the first time in the longest while she could remember, someone other than her mother had just put a smile on Hyejoo’s face. It was so small that one could wonder if it could even really be considered a smile, but it was there all the same.

And as the other player began to type back to her, occasionally stopping to jump in place or run another circle around her, the smile on Hyejoo’s face widened ever so slightly.

「 ➤➤➤ ★ ➤➤➤ 」

The corrupted girl tilted her head at an inhumanly slow speed as she looked to the group. 

Sooyoung’s full attention was set upon the state of the girl’s left eye—downright consumed by a shining flood of lavender darkness. The sight of it made her tense up with deeply seated nervousness, the entirety of her focus engaged in overtly staring at it.

“What the hell?” Jungeun muttered nigh inaudibly. Her eyes welled with utmost incredulity as she got a better look at the girl’s face—the entire left half of it was a malaised shade of gray close to black, her manastream underneath wriggling madly as it came close to the surface of her skin. “How is she still…?”

Nonplussed amazement and fearful uncertainty coexisted in perfect balance within Haseul’s mind at the sight of the girl. “To not have succumbed to the corruption like the others...her threshold must be leagues beyond anything we’ve ever seen,” she suggested, mystified through and through.

“The threads of Fate may have laid a course for her that has allowed her to persist beyond that of the others here...though while her threshold may be unimaginable, I fear she may be nearing it all the same,” Jiwoo presumed, her eyes stuck on the branches of the girl’s befouled manastream trying to break through the epidermis of her cheek.

“Chaewon.”

Sooyoung’s voice was sudden, coming into existence the exact instant that the smaller girl took a step forward. Chaewon paused, keeping her attention to the corrupted girl down the road as Sooyoung walked up next to her.

“Not this one,” Sooyoung instructed quietly, her focus still entirely set upon the girl’s consumed eye. The others’ attention was drawn to it as well when Sooyoung highlighted its presence. “Her eye...there’s a chance that she’s Absolute, or something close enough to it. Don't get close.”

“There’s no way of knowing that, Sooyoung!” Haseul immediately protested, taking issue with Sooyoung’s logic. “To assume she’s in a state of Absolution and that we shouldn’t help her because of it...it’s much more probable it’s simply a side effect of the severity of the corruption she’s suffering from! There’s a chance she isn’t even a magus!”

“Because she doesn’t have a weapon out or any mana near her? Neither do we,” Sooyoung said firmly, slaying the flimsy argument. “That eye color isn’t exactly normal for standard corruption, either.”

“It’s entirely much more probable that it was the result of a darkness-aligned fiend specifically being the one to corrupt her!”

“Probability doesn’t matter here.”

Sooyoung’s words smashed through Haseul like a rock through brittle glass, leaving the woman of wind without refutation as she spoke. “It doesn’t matter how unlikely it is. The fact that there’s even the smallest chance that she’s gone Absolute means we can’t risk saving her whatsoever. Not without knowing what her final thought was before the transference of consciousness, and trying to find that out might provoke her.”

“I want to save her. Believe me, I do,” Sooyoung assured the group after a brief pause as she looked back to the corrupted girl. Her focus shifted to Sooyoung, curiously peering at her from afar with her flooded eye. “But this isn’t something we can take lightly. We don’t know what she’s capable of, how she’ll react to an approach or to purification...anything could be a trigger for her to attack us.”

“Sorry, Chaewon, but not this one. Not her,” Sooyoung decreed, her eyes falling slightly. “There’s no one here for us to save. Let’s head back.”

Sooyoung’s injunction stirred in the air for a moment as the group stared down the girl down the street. Her head tilted ever so slightly further as focused onto Chaewon again, the girl of light’s eyes narrowing.

The sight of the corrupted girl had set something off within Chaewon. It was a potent, indomitable  compulsion to act. A driving force within her which prevented her from standing still, try as she might to accept Sooyoung’s ruling. 

For reasons beyond her understanding, she was becoming unhappy with the idea of not making an attempt to save the girl, as if she were destined to do so. 

As if fate were real, and as if it was meant to happen, no matter what.

Thus did she take another step forward.

“Chaewon.”

And thus was she stopped once more, her path forward halted by the flat edge of a frozen greatsword nearly as large as her own body.

With unthinkable speed, Sooyoung had summoned her weapon in her extended hand ahead of Chaewon, keeping her from getting closer. Equipped with grievous concern on her face, she brought her eyes to the Intermediate sorceress as she repeated herself for a third time, her words emphasized and far more serious than before.

“Not this one. Not her.”

“I refuse to do to her what my parents did to me, Sooyoung.”

Sooyoung’s eyes widened alongside the other three sorceresses behind her as the unstoppable girl of light dared to press onward still, her light voice teeming with consummate perseverance as she stepped towards Sooyoung’s blade.

“I refuse to leave her to die alone.”

Unable to react properly in time to Chaewon’s unremitting determination to save a lost soul, the swordswoman could only drop her weapon in a slight panic. She was immensely relieved to see it disintegrate completely before Chaewon made any form of physical contact with it. 

Free to proceed, Chaewon continued down the road. With a slow, steady exhale, her body gradually became enveloped in a soft coat of her beige mana. Sooyoung’s discarded panic swiftly returned in full force, concern for Chaewon’s well being and uncertainty of how the corrupted girl would react to her forward march causing her to shout in anticipation of the worst.

“Chaewon!”

“If we don’t try to save her—if I don’t try to even just talk to her, she’s going to die alone,” Chaewon maintained, her normally quiet voice raising in magnitude as she spoke over her senior. “I need to speak with her...to look her in the eye and acknowledge her presence. That is the very least I can do for her, because she deserves that much, just like anyone else.”

With Chaewon’s proclamation, damaging memories that Jungeun and Jiwoo had long since cast aside were freshly summoned within their minds. With their resurgence, so too did the disrespect they suffered during their darkest hours rise again. 

And with their resurgence, the normally calm waters of Jiwoo’s demeanor had quickly become a raging tsunami.

Ever multiplying worry for the risked longevity of a friend she considered family compelled Sooyoung to step forward after her again. An absolute directive from behind her, however, cut her plans short.

“Do not stop her, Sooyoung. Not yet.”

Stunned, Sooyoung turned halfway and faced the sorceress who brought her to a halt. It was the last person she ever expected to hear raising their tone in any capacity.

Jiwoo was looking at her in a fashion both beseeching and commanding, her odd eye of azure shining brilliantly as she held an outstretched arm. Over her open hand, a semitransparent sphere of crystal cobalt had just finished materializing from her mana. It floated gently just above her palm, water swaying within its insides.

“Not before I obtain insight from the Arcana to better understand what may await her along the threads of Fate.”

「 ⮜⮜⮜ ★ ⮜⮜⮜ 」

((7:41am)) edenbutterfly >> okay this is way more fun now wow!! you were right the level 36 skill makes such a huge difference :o
((7:41am)) egoist1311 >> yeah, it ties the whole kit for that class together, really. just that you have to wait that long to unlock it.
((7:41am)) egoist1311 >> it was literally unplayable for me before then.
((7:41am)) edenbutterfly >> i still can’t imagine you healing at all!! your character looks way too cool to do something like that! the scythe you have matches your armor so well and everything
((7:41am)) egoist1311 >> i mean, i’ll heal if i have to, but playing DPS is way more enjoyable for me.
((7:42am)) edenbutterfly >> well i really like healing now so that works out great :)
((7:42am)) edenbutterfly >> wait
((7:42am)) egoist1311 >> ?
((7:42am)) edenbutterfly >> why is the sun rising.
((7:42am)) egoist1311 >> oh. huh.
((7:42am)) edenbutterfly >> when did it become nearly 8am what the HECK

With a considerable yawn, Hyejoo leaned back in her chair with a relieving stretch. Filtered sunlight was attempting to break into her room from behind her blockade of curtains. She could hear her mother going about their home beyond her door, no doubt making preparations to leave for work.

Free for a spell from her obligation to a required education, the act of staying up well into the morning hours with her games was nothing new for Hyejoo during her summer vacations. What was completely new to her, however, was the fact that she was still interacting with the player that had messaged her without warning seven hours prior.

And what was surprising was that the past seven hours of nonstop play with them had been her most enjoyable experience not just with this game in particular, but of any game she had ever spent time with. The time flew faster than it ever had before, the company of her new friend turning hours into minutes and minutes into seconds.

As Hyejoo watched her private message window notify her of her companion typing a message, she blinked as she realized it.

Without really meaning to, she had made a friend. 

Or, at the very least, she considered them a friend. She must have. There would have been no other reason to continue messaging and playing with them after she helped them out initially. Though she had to wonder if the feeling was mutual...but before Hyejoo could even question it properly, she was preemptively given an answer.

((7:43am)) edenbutterfly >> i can’t believe i really just spent nearly eight hours straight playing this game aaa what the heck!! i mean it was a ton of fun and i made a new friend now and that’s great but!! eight hours!! without really moving from my seat!!! like at all!!! my hurts!!!! 

As Hyejoo smiled with a giggle that transformed into another yawn halfway, she felt it.

An uncomfortable anxiety was vying for dominion over her headspace, engaged in battle with the felicity that currently ruled over it.

There was no questioning the joyous warmth that Hyejoo felt in knowing that her sudden friendship wasn’t one-sided. Yet, as someone who primarily subsisted on the satisfaction of her own company, inexperience paved the way for fear of the unknown. The only other person she considered a friend was her mother, yet even then they lived quiet lives with not much in the way of interaction aside from dinner and the occasional round of shopping.

So what exactly did friendship truly mean and entail, then?

Hyejoo didn’t need a dictionary to understand the basic concept. An emotional connection fostered through time spent with another individual, enjoying activities together along with one another’s company. But was there more to it? Was she missing something? A key concept that would lead to deeper understanding and that would allow her to actually be a friend? Or was it truly so simple?

A stirring negativity brewed within the pit of her mind as she deliberated the question far more than she should have for far longer than she should have. Hyejoo’s tendency for excessive overthinking had clung to her since her youth, and in that instant it took shape as it always did. 

It drove her anxiety to new heights, erratically clawing at her mind from the inside—the inharmonious duality that came from experiencing a proper bond for the first time. Learning how rich it was to experience a legitimate connection was immensely fulfilling, yet the exact same rapture that came from it was precisely what drove her mad with fear. Restless tension shrouded her mind, worried she would ruin something in some capacity by some means at some point, forfeiting what she had just gained. 

What she now realized she wanted to keep.

At some point during her bout of overstrung distress, Hyejoo had started to dig at the wood of her desk. Catching her own habit, she took a deep breath as she brought her eyes back to the screen. It was only then that she realized what she missed during her panic and how long it actually lasted.

And as she read it line by line, it vanished.

((7:44am)) edenbutterfly >> man was i really level 11 when we started? you helped me gain levels so fast aaa thank you :)
((7:45am)) edenbutterfly >> actually thinking about you helped me with literally everything jeez i would have been so lost without you
((7:47am)) edenbutterfly >> oh but you didn’t level up even once :( well i guess that was sort of to be expected since you’re...uh………...level 104………….but yeah…
((7:49am)) edenbutterfly >> wow thinking about it uh were any of the dungeons we did even worthwhile to you then? did i really just drag you through old boring content for like no reason aaa
((7:51am)) edenbutterfly >> and you actually had to protect me a lot with your defensive skills...i’m trying to be better about not getting hit by attacks and stuff but it’s still a little tricky, so you keep having to run to my side to help me :(
((7:53am)) edenbutterfly >> um, are you still there? your afk symbol hasn’t kicked in yet
((7:56am)) edenbutterfly >> i’m really sorry if i made you waste your night helping me...

Every ounce of growing worry and every speck of doubt in her mind...it vanished.

Hyejoo’s fingers were particularly furious with speed as she went about completely displacing her friend’s worries much like they did her own.

((7:56am)) egoist1311 >> it wasn’t a waste.
((7:56am)) egoist1311 >> i don’t really care that the dungeons we ran weren’t relevant for me at my level.
((7:56am)) egoist1311 >> i had a lot of fun playing with you.
((7:56am)) egoist1311 >> getting to teach someone about a game i’m really into was pretty cool, too.
((7:57am)) egoist1311 >> so don’t worry. i don’t regret any of it.
((7:57am)) edenbutterfly >> aaaaaa thank you!!!!! that means a lot to me i appreciate it!

A full-blown smile was plastered on Hyejoo’s face, wide enough that she felt it end to end.

((7:57am)) edenbutterfly >> oh! i meant to ask earlier, but what’s your name?
((7:57am)) egoist1311 >> it’s hyejoo.
((7:57am)) edenbutterfly >> aaa hyejoo! that’s a pretty name!! i’m chaewon. it’s nice to meet you!!
((7:57am)) egoist1311 >> i think we’re a little late for that.
((7:58am)) egoist1311 >> well, seven hours is more than a little, but yeah. it’s nice to meet you, too.
((7:58am)) edenbutterfly >> better late than never :)
((7:58am)) edenbutterfly >> but speaking of late! the time!! it’s very very late!! or early!!! whatever!!!! so i think i’m gonna go to bed! but...um...
((7:58am)) edenbutterfly >> would you want to play more tomorrow…?

Hyejoo felt an out-of-place emotion run its course through her body. 

It was a feeling normally reserved for whenever she finally got to start a new game she was looking forward to or whenever she got lucky with an especially rare item drop. She had never experienced it due to another person before, adding a new dimension to it that she was only comprehending for the first time.

It was boundless excitement, and the only physical representation of it she could display was the urgency with which she answered Chaewon’s question.

((7:58am)) egoist1311 >> yeah, i’ll be around all day. just send me a message when you get on.
((7:58am)) egoist1311 >> we’ll see how many more levels we can get you.
((7:58am)) egoist1311 >> if you’re still enjoying the game when you reach my level, we can go through the newer story quests and dungeons together.
((7:59am)) edenbutterfly >> yay! that sounds like a lot of fun! ’m looking forward to it!!
((7:59am)) edenbutterfly >> oh, i think that means i should do this :)

Hyejoo’s raised eyebrow was replaced with warmth spreading across her face when she saw the notification appear on the center of her screen.

「 You have one new friend request. 」
「 PLAYER NAME: edenbutterfly 」
「 Accept? 」
「 YES // NO 」

With her cursor hovering over the button labeled “YES,” the last of the fear of uncertainty that previously plagued Hyejoo’s mind was swept away without consequence as she clicked it. 

Hyejoo giggled cutely to herself as Chaewon began to excitedly jump in place with the friend request accepted, her character’s name now colored blue instead of gray.

((8:00am)) edenbutterfly >> ok! that was very fun! now it’s time to sleep so i can wake up at 4pm and have lunch for breakfast! great! cool! i am a responsible person!!
((8:00am)) edenbutterfly >> good night hyejoo!!
((8:00am)) egoist1311 >> sleep well. i’ll talk to you tomorrow.
((8:00am)) edenbutterfly >> promise? :)

Hyejoo’s eyes sharpened slightly.

Unfeigned loyalty emanated from the smile on her face as she made an oath she intended to uphold.

((8:00am)) egoist1311 >> yeah. i promise.

「 ➤➤➤ ★ ➤➤➤ 」

Jiwoo’s request resulted in the manifestation of Sooyoung’s annoyance, subsisting right next to the fear of uncertainty in her mind as she watched Chaewon continue forward still. 

The swordswoman’s eyes returned to Jiwoo, plain disagreement clear on her face. “This isn’t the time for this, Jiwoo. We don’t know what that girl might be capable of. I won’t sit here and risk Chaewon’s life just because the odds are in our favor.”

“Probability doesn’t matter.”

Sooyoung froze up completely as Jiwoo mirrored her own sentiments with an exceedingly solemn look on her face.

“There may be a chance that this course of action results in the loss of life, this much is true,” Jiwoo agreed, “but there may also be a chance that this was meant to be, no matter the outcome. Such will be the focus of this divination.”

“No matter the outcome…? Hold on, you aren’t seriously saying—”

“Three Arcana. One divination. That is all I require.”

For as masterfully versed Sooyoung’s control over ice was, she found her patience placed upon an incredibly thin sheet of it as Jiwoo interrupted her only to completely ignore her question. 

At her waist, Sooyoung’s hand curled into an agitated fist. Her approval came under strict conditions as her vision shifted back to Chaewon. “If that girl moves so much as a single muscle, I’m grabbing Chaewon and we’re getting out of here, no questions asked. No matter what you draw. No matter if it was ‘meant to be.’”

“I understand,” Jiwoo complied. “Then allow me to begin.”

With a silent breath, Jiwoo birthed three thin streams of her mana. 

Her eyes remained entirely on Sooyoung as her blue dust extended towards Chaewon’s aura, slowly mixing with it until the entirety of the streams were aspected with both of their essences. If Chaewon noticed it, she didn’t care to react to it as she silently continued her carefully slow stride through the sea of corpses towards the corrupted girl.

Jiwoo’s eye effulged passionately as the ends of the combined mana closest to her shifted towards her crystal ball. Seeping through the surface of it into the clear liquid within, the fused mana mixed with the water. Gradually, the innards of Jiwoo’s manifestation of prophecies underwent a tranation into the same blend and blue and beige.

Sooyoung was quiet as Jiwoo began a show she had seen countless times in the past two years already, though never before with as much heated conviction as was currently present in her eyes. Haseul and Jungeun watched in earnest as well, Jiwoo’s free hand still tightly latched onto one of Haseul’s.

In quick intervals, the modified water began to ripple as Jiwoo’s odd eye pulsed with light. Three times in matched harmony, a pulse for a ripple and a ripple for a pulse. With each set, the water in the crystal ball receded in equivalent thirds, the separated liquid pressing into the inner surface of its prison away from the small body of water. And with each set, Jiwoo’s eyes grew ever slightly wider.

“To be connected to such a spread of Arcana at this point in time…I see. Ordained by Fate itself, then...”

Jiwoo’s ominous vagueness did not help to ease Sooyoung’s misgivings.

After the third flash of Jiwoo’s aqueous iris, the entirety of the sphere’s fluid was pushing against the inside of its spherical cell. It attempted to break free of its entrapment, and with one final pulse of light from Jiwoo’s odd eye, it accomplished its goal.

Jiwoo’s crystal ball splintered into hundreds of pieces of varying sizes. The water remained whole for only a moment before diverting three separate ways, creating a trio of tall vertically standing rectangles moderate in width. Arranged in a row and shaped like cards, that was precisely what they became as the beige-blue water dissipated back into mixed mana. In that same instant, they immediately coalesced once again, forming blank cards of the same colors. 

All the while, the fragmented shards of the ball redirected themselves behind Jiwoo. They took the vague shape of a humanoid figure, taller than her by a slight margin. Only the limbs were fully complete, its torso vacant with only an outer shell composed of the crystal ball’s much smaller pieces. It stood still, moving only slightly enough that it appeared as if it were breathing.

Her preparations complete, Jiwoo made a bid for Sooyoung’s attention with a grave look in her eyes. As she spoke with heavensent cosmic confidence, Sooyoung was left speechless at the abnormal sight of Jiwoo’s sudden ethereality. 

“While I know not what it will ultimately lead to, I have ascertained one thing for certain,” the prophetess announced. 

“Our friend is about to drastically alter her own future, and thus, by proxy, our futures as well. Yet, no matter what may come from it in the immediate present or in the distant future, we absolutely must not intervene. Chaewon must speak to that girl. It is meant to happen.”

Sooyoung’s speechlessness mutated into exasperation at the suggestion of simply letting someone close to her walk to their potential demise. Veins in her wrist and forearm popped slightly as her fingernails sank into the flesh of her closed palm. “Jiwoo—”

“Allow me to reveal the Arcana that the threads of Fate have connected to Chaewon at this present moment in time,” Jiwoo immediately interrupted Sooyoung once again, unflinchingly headstrong against the older sorceress’ protests. “I will divulge the insight I have gained and you will understand why I am so especially adamant about this divination in particular.”

「 ⮜⮜⮜ ★ ⮜⮜⮜ 」

((1:54pm)) egoist1311 >> did you get the weapon, chaewon?
((1:54pm)) edenbutterfly >> no :( it just won’t drop
((1:54pm)) egoist1311 >> i’ll queue us back in then.
((1:54pm)) edenbutterfly >> nnnno we’ve run it 23 times now! in a row!! without stopping!!! we need to take a break!
((1:55pm)) egoist1311 >> 23 runs is nothing. you’re weak.
((1:55pm)) edenbutterfly >> and you’re mean! hyejoo the meanie!! :( i have to leave in a little bit anyway, because...uh...well i can explain that later!! break time now okay thanks!

The combined light from a trio of computer monitors was aimed straight at Hyejoo’s beaming face.

Seated next to a player she had spent more time with than she could even begin to calculate, the two enjoyed each other’s company in a quiet forest area far away from the presence of others. Hyejoo watched the private message window on the in-game overlay expectantly, genuinely smiling at the visual indicator of her best friend actively sending her a message.

((1:55pm)) edenbutterfly >> hey wait a second...isn’t this…?
((1:55pm)) egoist1311 >> hm?

Hyejoo watched Chaewon run a circle around a specific tree with her character before sprinting back towards Hyejoo’s. She enthusiastically jumped in place for a moment before she started typing again.

((1:56pm)) edenbutterfly >> it is! this is the zone we first met in four years ago!! i hadn’t even realized we ended up wandering in here as we ran around the map while waiting for our queues!!
((1:56pm)) egoist1311 >> you mean it’s already been four years since i saved you from bankruptcy?
((1:57pm)) edenbutterfly >> uh...you’re not...Wrong...but...
((1:57pm)) egoist1311 >> and since i taught you how to play the game because you thought you could get by without the tutorials?
((1:57pm)) edenbutterfly >> ok yes! i was terrible thank you very much for the reminder hyejoo! i get it! 

In the midst of taking a drink, Hyejoo nearly drenched her keyboard in water as she broke into a giggle.

Putting her water bottle down, Hyejoo’s speakers made a noise as another message from Chaewon came through. Reading it gave rise to a mellowness within Hyejoo, as did most of her interactions with the girl.

((1:58pm)) edenbutterfly >> god you were 16 and i was 18...that feels like it was yesterday!!
((1:58pm)) egoist1311 >> yeah. now we’re old hags.
((1:58pm)) edenbutterfly >> don’t say thattttt :(
((1:58pm)) edenbutterfly >> oh, that reminds me!
((1:58pm)) egoist1311 >> the fact that we’re hags reminds you of something?
((1:58pm)) edenbutterfly >> NO hyejoo! the other thing!! the part where you were 16 and i was 18!!
((1:58pm)) edenbutterfly >> can i ask you something about that time…?
((1:59pm)) egoist1311 >> no.
((1:59pm)) edenbutterfly >> oh okay bye

Hyejoo’s pure laughter reigned free as Chaewon’s character slowly began to walk away from hers, only to immediately run back up to her and gesture angrily at her deadpan sarcasm.

The final words of Chaewon’s proceeding message, however, induced a downward shift in Hyejoo’s expression. 

((2:00pm)) edenbutterfly >> i’ve been curious for a really long time now, hyejoo. on that night we first met...why did you reply to my messages?

Not quite certain how to answer, Hyejoo’s fingers struck her keyboard with a fraction of their usual agility.

((2:00pm)) egoist1311 >> what exactly do you mean?
((2:01pm)) edenbutterfly >> well you still don’t really talk to anyone else right? you hardly respond to anything in guild chat or party chat, and given by how you’ve recently told me that you still feel the most comfortable when you’re alone in real life aside from when i visit you...
((2:02pm)) edenbutterfly >> i guess i’m just. kind of curious as to why you let me specifically into your world, hyejoo. especially with how it all started...i just didn’t expect to get acknowledged by a high level player, especially when i was spamming their messages with dumb newbie questions 

Hyejoo’s eyes repositioned themselves upwards as she read the messages again. And then a third time, and a fourth.

She took a deep breath as she scoured her mind for an answer to Chaewon’s inquiry that she herself was fully satisfied with. When she came up short, she could only answer the girl’s question with a question of her own.

((2:04pm)) egoist1311 >> do you believe in fate?

As Hyejoo began to explain herself as best she could, she occasionally stopped to see if Chaewon had started typing. She didn’t, allowing Hyejoo the stage.

((2:04pm)) egoist1311 >> i think about it every now and again.
((2:04pm)) egoist1311 >> and fate is the only answer that ever seems to explain it.
((2:04pm)) egoist1311 >> as much as i don’t like it as an answer.
((2:04pm)) egoist1311 >> i don’t know that i really believe in the idea of it. but there’s no other way to describe it.
((2:04pm)) egoist1311 >> i was ready to ignore your messages. imagined you’d eventually just figure it out on your own.
((2:05pm)) egoist1311 >> but something was seriously compelling me to message you back.
((2:05pm)) egoist1311 >> the idea of not acknowledging you made me unhappy, to be honest.
((2:05pm)) egoist1311 >> i don’t know why it was you specifically.
((2:05pm)) egoist1311 >> not that i’m complaining.
((2:05pm)) egoist1311 >> i’m happy it was you.
((2:05pm)) egoist1311 >> aside from my mother, you’re the only other person i’ve ever really considered a friend. you’re the only person i care to talk to. the only person i’ve ever wanted to connect with.
((2:05pm)) egoist1311 >> but. i just. i couldn’t tell you why it was you of all people.
((2:05pm)) egoist1311 >> the only answer that makes sense to me is that i was meant to talk to you, because i just don’t know why else i would be so unhappy with the thought of not doing so.
((2:06pm)) egoist1311 >> but i don’t think it’s a good answer. i wish i had an answer that could highlight what you really mean to me. but that’s what it feels like it was.
((2:06pm)) egoist1311 >> like it was meant to be.
((2:06pm)) egoist1311 >> like it was fate.

Hyejoo retracted her fingers from her keyboard slowly. She inhaled deeply through her nose and exhaled slowly through , hoping that she didn’t just offend the person she was closest to in any capacity.

Slumping in her seat slightly, she stared hard at the private message window as she waited for Chaewon’s response. Every passing second without the indication of her typing back was rapidly causing worries in Hyejoo’s head to evolve. The circuits in her mind were beginning to surcharge with unnecessary thoughts, on the brink of overthinking in full.

When she finally was given notice of Chaewon’s upcoming reply, however, they came to a stop as her nerves eased ever so slightly. 

Her nerves eased again, this time by a massive degree, when she received Chaewon’s first message.

((2:07pm)) edenbutterfly >> i don’t think it’s a bad answer at all :)

Hyejoo’s smile gradually returned to her as Chaewon shared her thoughts.

((2:07pm)) edenbutterfly >> you know, this is still the only mmo i play
((2:08pm)) edenbutterfly >> the genre still really isn’t my kind of thing, honestly. even after 4 years on this game i still prefer simpler games with cute characters and stuff on my portable systems way more
((2:09pm)) edenbutterfly >> and that’s what made me so confused when i first saw this game. i was looking for a new game to buy, and i had plenty of choices that better fit my tastes, but then i saw this one and i just...couldn’t imagine not buying it for some reason. there’s no way i would normally drop money on an mmo like this, but on that day specifically, seeing this specific game…
((2:10pm)) edenbutterfly >> i felt the same as you described. for some weird reason, the idea of not buying it and playing it was making me really anxious and maybe even a little depressed, i think. like some part of my subconscious or something just knew that there was something waiting for me in this world that would be worth my time
((2:11pm)) edenbutterfly >> and, i mean...it ended up being right. i found you, and i’m really glad. I couldn’t have imagined i’d meet someone so important to me playing an mmo of all things...but here you are!!
((2:11pm)) edenbutterfly >> so, yeah...maybe it was fate. who knows? whatever it was, i’m just happy i met you. thanks for acknowledging me back then, hyejoo. i hope we can stay friends forever :)

Resplendent warmth.

It surged through Hyejoo in waves, pausing her heart for one moment and her mind for several. With exuberance on levels beyond flowing within her, she replied.

((2:12pm)) egoist1311 >> of course we will.
((2:12pm)) edenbutterfly >> can you promise me?

Hyejoo’s eyes sharpened slightly.

((2:12pm)) edenbutterfly >> that we’ll never grow apart, and that you’ll always protect me just like you always have.
((2:12pm)) edenbutterfly >> promise? :)

Unfeigned loyalty emanated from the smile on her face as she made an oath she intended to uphold.

((2:12pm)) egoist1311 >> i promise.
((2:12pm)) edenbutterfly >> thank you, hyejoo. ♥

The smile that Hyejoo was blessed with in that moment lingered for a collective second before it was cruelly taken away from her.

Trembling in fear, her eyes had gone wide. With shaking hands, she nervously moved her fingers through it. She had hoped she wasn’t seeing things properly, that she was simply mistaken.

But when her fingers displaced the small cloud of dust before her, there was no disputing it.

Untold dread stormed her body and mind in tandem as she stared at the lavender cloud before her. Her vision focused on it, the computer screen ahead becoming blurred and its contents illegible. Though her speakers alerted her of new messages, the hopeless despair that had come to life within her prevented her from hearing it.

((2:13pm)) edenbutterfly >> oh, um, about why i have to log off soon...
((2:13pm)) edenbutterfly >> it’s actually because i bought a train ticket so i could come visit! :)
((2:13pm)) edenbutterfly >> it’s been a little while since we’ve gotten to hang out in real life, and you said you’d be home all weekend, so i kind of bought it on impulse…
((2:13pm)) edenbutterfly >> i’m sorry i didn’t really ask before buying it, but there’s something that i really want to talk to you about, and i think it should really be in person...even if it makes me kind of nervous...

“Hyejoo, lunch is…”

Olivia’s voice entered the room alongside the sound of her bedroom door opening, but just as soon as it started, it stopped.

The one-eyed woman fell silent upon the sight of her petrified daughter calling forth spiritus.

Hyejoo slowly turned her head towards her mother. Bedeviled with terror, the young adult was speechless as they quietly looked at one another. The signs of history on Olivia’s face deepened as she gradually processed the sight, as if the new reality before her had managed to add several years to her already fair age in an instant.

Color and life alike drained from Olivia’s eye. Realizing what she had to do, she pursed her lips as she summoned it. 

The courage she thought she had been so kindly spared from ever having to summon again.

With disquieting tranquility, Olivia silently turned around and vanished from Hyejoo’s sight down the hall. In her downright panic, the newly awakened necromancer leapt out of her chair after her mother, tears already beginning to stream down her face. All the while, her spiritus continued to come into existence, cementing the state of her grave peril even further.

The unnerved dissonance that left her thoughts a fractured disaster stole from Hyejoo two things. The first was the understanding of her mother’s well-meaning intentions in the following moments. The second was an opportunity.

((2:15pm)) edenbutterfly >> oh and i can finally show you the bracelet i bought! it’s got these really pretty butterfly wings on it that look just like the ones you helped me get when i first started playing!! :)
((2:15pm)) edenbutterfly >> WAIT what the heck its already this late!! i need to run to the station before i miss the train!!
((2:15pm)) edenbutterfly >> text me when you see this, okay? my train should be getting there around 5 or so, but if you can’t pick me up i’ll just walk to your place!
((2:15pm)) edenbutterfly >> i’ll see you soon, hyejoo!
((2:15pm)) edenbutterfly >> ♥

The only opportunity she would ever have to say goodbye.

「 ➤➤➤ ★ ➤➤➤ 」

“Strength, the Seventh, drawn upright and aspected in the realm of physical reality.”

Jiwoo’s voice was focused and clear as the blue pigment of the first card began to vanish.

“Chaewon’s undaunted, undying urge to act with unyielding courage at this very moment. Indifferent of the consequences she may suffer, she forces herself to step forward. What runs through her veins is not blood, but stalwart bravery beyond compare.”

With the disappearance of its blue, an image came to life on the card after Jiwoo’s reading came to a close. A hidden, monotone image in beige of a woman with a fearless glint in her eyes was revealed. She stood over a roaring lion, the mighty beast tamed by virtue of her unflinching valor. Text that ran along the bottom was publicized last after the artwork, further confirming the claims Jiwoo made before anything had even showed itself.

「 arcana the seventh ★ strength 」

“Lovers, the Sixth, drawn upright and aspected in the realm of conscious mentality,” Jiwoo continued, once again speaking ahead of her prophecies.

“Her conscious decision to establish a brand new connection. No matter how long the connection may last, no matter how significant or insignificant it may ultimately be, her choice to connect with someone new is ascertained and validated by her beliefs—the belief that she should acknowledge this girl, even if it puts her in danger, because she doesn’t want her to die alone.”

The image of the second card was divulged in full as Jiwoo’s azure tones removed themselves in favor of Chaewon’s fawn ones. Two women were depicted standing side by side in a lush field, fingers intertwined with hearts on their chests pronounced. An angel looked down on them from above with a warm smile, celebrating their bond.

Much like the previous drawing, Jiwoo had correctly prophesied the Arcana she drew and its meaning with a stout pronouncement ahead of time, all while looking Sooyoung straight in the eyes as the swordswoman’s gaze was set upon the card and its text.

 「 arcana the sixth ★ lovers 」

“And the conclusion of the spread which dictates Chaewon’s current placement along the threads of Fate…”

When she brought her eyes back to Jiwoo, Sooyoung felt it. Her eyes did not examine the unveiled image of the final card whatsoever, as she was far too captivated by Jiwoo’s fervent display of the foundation of her beliefs. The core of her faith.

“...the Arcana which binds reality and mentality, connecting them as one…”

It was immeasurably palpable, so provokingly titanic that it could have sundered the very earth they stood upon. 

Sooyoung was without words as she experienced it for the first time—the impossibly faultless indefatigability that she was unaware even slumbered within Jiwoo. It emanated fiercely from her passionate eyes and reverberated from the firm serenity of her composed voice.

“...the Wheel of Fortune, the tenth, drawn upright and aspected in the realm of subconscious spirituality.”

Her ocean paint washed away by waves of beige, the final completed card displayed an image of a large wheel with twelve symbols laid across its edges and center. Intersecting lines ran through it, segmenting it into eight parts. Atop it sat a sword-wielding sphinx, and from the card’s corners, four beings peered down: an angel, an eagle, a lion, and a bull, all adorned with magnificent wings.

“Chaewon is not consciously aware of it yet, but her very existence is,” Jiwoo announced, her voice dripping with conviction. “Every fiber of her subconscious self is privy to the truth at hand, and it is that fact which compels her beyond all reason to acknowledge that girl even despite the dangers.”

Just barely in earshot of the prophet’s asseverations as she neared the corrupted girl, Chaewon’s advance stopped for a sliver of time with Jiwoo’s words.

“Chaewon’s meeting with this girl is a critical turning point in her life. By extension, the girl’s meeting with Chaewon is just as crucial. Their forthcoming interaction is an opportunity that cannot be missed, for it is their only opportunity to form what may become the single most important emotional connection either of them will ever experience in their lives.”

Something akin to an epiphany resonated within Chaewon as she looked onwards towards the corrupted girl. It was as if Jiwoo had just given her the answer to a question she didn’t even know she had been meaning to ask. 

“The unwavering fortitude to step forward even in the face of potentially unknown dangers. The desire to foster a bond that she knows the girl deserves in full. All of it is driven by hidden knowledge that was kept from Chaewon in her subconscious, yet the knowledge drives her all the same. The knowledge that this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance,” Jiwoo said as her fortunetelling reached its culmination, eyes locked onto Sooyoung as ever. 

“This is something that needs to happen, because it can never happen again.”

Sooyoung’s gaze slowly drifted upon the final card’s printed text. Even as it faded away with the others, simultaneous with the dissipation of Jiwoo’s crystal automaton, Sooyoung stared at where it was.

 「 arcana the tenth ★ wheel of fortune 」

“Through this divination, I have discerned what I am sure to be the truth: this precise moment in time has been ordained to happen since the very moment the multiverse was blessed with the presence of these two individuals. It has been ordained by the Arcana—by Fate itself. And for that reason, no matter the outcome, you cannot stop her under any circumstances.

“Regardless of consequences both near and distant, whatever is about to happen was meant to happen,” Jiwoo emphasized. “That being said, I implore you to let Fate take its course, Sooyoung.” 

Jiwoo’s sincere plea came with the recommencement of Chaewon’s forward march. The sight of her unceasing advance gave rise to uncomfortable apprehension in Sooyoung’s mind, and from her apprehension came disbelief.

“Let Fate take its course, now of all times...?” Sooyoung repeated slowly. Her nails digging deeper still into the skin of her palm, the swordswoman’s speechlessness once again came undone. Her awe and wonder towards the prophetess’ captivating display of faith warped into a perturbed irritability which exploded at the insistence that someone they had already saved might yet be lined up for execution by the hands of Fate.

“You were serious, then? You’re asking me to risk Chaewon getting hurt—risk Chaewon’s potential death?!” Sooyoung countered, perfervid dissent clear in the rising volume of her opposition. “How the hell do you expect me to be okay taking the risk of losing someone just because just because some ing cards said it was meant to happen?!”

“Because you were entirely accepting of Fate and the selfsame risk when it lead you to Hyunjin!”

The woman of ice froze over, her eyes going wide as Jiwoo challenged her with an even higher increase in volume.

“Is there not a risk of loss every single time we dare to cross the boundaries of our reality into the multiverse?! Was there no such risk when you rescued my friends and I from the doomed future we were to suffer in our timeline?! Was there no such risk when you decided to foster an emotional connection of profound importance with Hyunjin?! When you fell in love with her, and when she returned your love?! Where was this tenacious resistance against Fate in those instances, Sooyoung?!”

The prophetess was visibly shaking, Sooyoung’s question having broken her composure and setting free an all-consuming whirlpool of wrath that continued still. Jiwoo’s voice uncharacteristically boomed through the streets, bringing noise to a world that had lost it.

“Should we have acted against those events despite their significance simply due to the inherent existence of an ever present risk factor?! Everything is a risk, Sooyoung! Such is the stipulation every sentient being across all of creation is forced to accept with their mere existence! But just because there exists a risk does not mean that which is meant to happen should not happen! Probability doesn’t matter! For everything that could go wrong, just as much could go right!”

In watching a certain emotion indignantly take shape in the form of Jiwoo’s quaking eyes and flared nostrils, Sooyoung’s mouth had fallen slightly agape. 

“I can accept if you cannot place your faith in the Arcana nor the threads of Fate, if they are concepts and ideals that do not agree with you...but I would ask that you show me the respect many did not by having the decency to at least stand firm with consistency in what you choose to believe! Your selective acceptance of Fate only when it agrees with you completely sullies everything I stand for and I will not suffer it!”

Jiwoo’s breathing had gone ragged. 

Her chest rose and fell with noticeable speed as she huffed for air, her eyes unmoving from Sooyoung’s still shocked expression.

The other sorceresses were without words. Down the road, Chaewon had turned halfway, pausing once again as she watched on silently. The corrupted girl peered at Jiwoo in equal quiet, leaving all eyes on the flustered prophetess.

“It...it comes down to acknowledgement, Sooyoung,” Jiwoo clarified, her usual calm returning to her voice in pieces. Her awoken anger remained alive, however, in her narrowed eyes and distinct frown. “You cannot abide by Fate only when it suits you. If you choose to claim faith in it, you must do so wholly in every aspect or not at all...and I trust you would understand why the notion discomposes me so.”

Jungeun crossed her arms as Jiwoo finalized her thoughts with points that hit far too close to home. Glued to the ground, her vermillion odd eye was glossed with sorrow in melancholic reminisce. 

“To have gone our whole lives shunned by a majority of those who looked at us, only acknowledged when my divinations were to their liking...never again will I suffer being used in such a manner, and never would I let someone be deprived of the acknowledgement they deserve. Not when I know full well the value of it after seeking it for so long, and especially not when I am so astoundingly positive that Fate itself has ordained it.”

The emotion showed itself again in Jiwoo’s eyes, and Sooyoung blinked as she realized exactly what it was. 

Despite always understanding why she would harbor something like it, Sooyoung simply never fully connected it to the normally quiet sorceress. And with the years that had passed since the rescue of the prophetess and her friends, Sooyoung had done her the disservice of allowing herself to forget it.

It was only when she saw it in its purest, rawest form did Sooyoung register its relevance to the situation at hand. Only in seeing it then did Sooyoung completely understand her wrongdoings, how she herself had become that which Jiwoo detested most.

It was resentment. 

Bitter resentment. 

Though it seemed entirely unbecoming of the almost regal prophetess so heavily invested in the threads of Fate, it was undoubtedly bitter resentment, and it was justified in every possible sense. Bitter resentment towards her past, towards those who only paid attention to her when it benefited them, towards the notion of denying the gift of the single thing she always wanted most...even if the gift wasn’t meant for her specifically. 

Jiwoo’s eyes trembled without end, visibly fighting to perpetuate her near glare at Sooyoung. It was as if she found it inconceivable to even be looking at her in such a manner in the first place, as if being upset with the woman who helped save her friends from an untimely death was impossible.

But all the same, glare she did at the woman of ice.

“Allow Chaewon do what others refused to do for me. What others refused to do for Jungeun, for Heejin, for Hyunjin. Allow her to unconditionally acknowledge the girl’s existence, because not only does she deserves that much just like anyone else, but because the threads of Fate have brought Chaewon here for that express purpose. She is meant to inaugurate a connection of potentially untold importance, indifferent of what it may lead to.”

The mere thought of denying someone else the acknowledgement she perceived the full value of simply offended her beyond reason.

Sooyoung and Jiwoo’s eyes remained upon one another for a brief yet everlasting moment. Jiwoo’s hues were the only ones that remained steadfast, Sooyoung’s gaze incrementally dropping the more her mind deliberated on her erroneous charge.

Regret flooded Sooyoung without end as full comprehension of her insensitive resistance settled into her mind. Even if her resistance was born out of a good-hearted desire to keep LOONA’s latest sorceress safe—a desire that remained at the forefront of her present mind as she brought her eyes back to her—she understood the offense Jiwoo took with it.

Chaewon’s gaze returned Sooyoung’s. The girl of light nodded to her as she was given noiseless approval in the form of the swordswoman walking off to the side. 

Sooyoung came to a stop next to the remnants of a building now barely inches taller than her, propping up a foot against the broken wall behind her and sliding her hands into her pockets. Her stare upon Chaewon remained even as she turned around and started her advance anew.

Jiwoo’s eyes found Jungeun as she began to walk towards the despondent woman of ice. The sight didn’t deter the prophetess from her current mental state. She unconsciously squeezed her hand, blinking in surprise when she felt Haseul’s fingers still locked with hers.

“Haseul…?”

In her explosive episode, Jiwoo had entirely forgotten that Haseul was right next to her. The Master sorceress never left her side or let go of her, standing in the defense of her loved one. “I’m sorry, dear...I’m not sure I entirely intended to be so loud and rash…”

Haseul smiled at Jiwoo softly with a shake of her head, presenting her a look of understanding. “It’s fine, Jiwoo. You have every right to be upset, and Sooyoung recognizes that now. You can be sure of that.”

“I see,” Jiwoo said, looking back towards Sooyoung. Jungeun had just approached her, the two now speaking out of earshot. Still, Jiwoo’s resolve persisted. “I hope I have made it clear enough that I refuse to bear witness to handpicked belief in Fate. Never again will I endure such disrespect upon my faith, least of all from the very people I now consider my family...”

“You won’t have to,” Haseul assured her partner. “Sooyoung won’t be making that mistake again. Though it may not seem like it with how she carries herself sometimes, she’s fully aware that she can make mistakes just like anyone else. The two of you will grow closer from this in the end, I’m sure. Just let her process it.”

Jiwoo nodded slowly, allowing Haseul’s words to remain so that she might absorb them thoroughly. Without response, she joined the woman of wind in looking on towards Chaewon’s attempt to save a soul.

“Been a while since I’ve heard her get that loud. Honestly, kinda forgot she was even capable of it.”

Across the street, a strangely upbeat Jungeun had come to a stop next to Sooyoung. Much to Sooyoung’s perplexion, the spearwoman’s previously morose aura was all but gone.

“What’s up with you?” Sooyoung asked plainly with a cold stare right into Jungeun’s eyes. “I stepped on your toes just as much there. You should be upset, too. I don’t have an excuse...even if it feels like it was last week, it’s been two whole years now since we brought you guys home. I should have known better.”

“Eh, once I realized that you were secretly doing Jiwoo a favor, I wasn’t as bothered,” Jungeun revealed, inciting the hard raise of Sooyoung’s eyebrow. “I think she really needed that, even if she was pretty over the top and maybe a little too dramatic about it...but that's Jiwoo was it."

“Shunned through and through unless they provided the right fortune for the right person and continued to provide them, was it?” Sooyoung asked, summoning memories of her initial expedition into the timeline driven by Fate. “And if you were a magus who wasn’t a prophet or in the service of one, then you didn’t even get that chance…”

“Yeah...we were all basically stepped on our whole life, but it was next level for her,” Jungeun elucidated, her eyes focusing on Jiwoo’s profile. “For of all the prophets I’ve met, none of them ever had a genuine, heart-driven belief in totally abiding by Fate quite like Jiwoo’s. It’s the definition of everything she lives for...which just meant the whole system she was born into back home drove her especially mad once her faith developed.”

Sooyoung pensively watched Jiwoo as Jungeun divulged their history. It wasn’t the first time she had heard it, but careful attention she paid to it all the same, eager to be reminded of what her allies stood for so that she might spare them the disrespect of forgetting again.

“To go from praised and revered as a celestial oracle of the cosmos with one divination to being ridiculed as a lying fraud with the next...it was always a headache,” Jungeun rightfully complained. “Couldn’t exactly manipulate what she drew, either. Even if she knows what cards are coming in a spread, she can’t control or change what they are. Not that she would in the first place, though, since that’d just go against Fate itself.”

Jungeun let loose a tired sigh, bringing her sight back to a quiet Sooyoung who was still locked onto Jiwoo. “For as much as it bothered her, though, she never spoke up against it. Not like that, at least. She was never in a position to, even though she needed to. You gave her the perfect venue to do so, and I can tell she’ll be better off for it now that she’s gotten it all off her chest. It was bottling up for years...it had to go.”

“What’s your take on it, then?”

Jungeun was somewhat taken aback as Sooyoung addressed her presence properly. Their eyes met, and within Sooyoung’s gaze she saw an ongoing desperate search for a definitive answer.

“My take on it?”

“On Fate. You practically grew up with her, didn’t you? So do you believe in it, too?”

“No. Not yet.”

An answer Sooyoung both didn’t expect and couldn’t quite make sense of wracked her brain as Jungeun let it hang in the air for a moment with an introspective pout.

“You’d think I would be, given the circumstances. Born and raised specifically to keep a prophetess safe, serving as her retainer for years as if it were my destiny...but it didn’t feel like it. It never did, and the fact that we’re standing here is proof of it,” Jungeun opened up to an attentive Sooyoung. 

“I’m not her retainer anymore. I don’t wake up every day just to look after her. I’m part of LOONA now, and I’m just doing my part in trying to make sure life as we know it doesn’t completely fade out from every damn plane of existence one day...but even then, I’m not sure I feel it even now.

“All the same, I won’t claim that Fate isn’t real. For all I know, it really might have something in store for all of us, including me...but maybe just not yet,” the woman of fire suggested with a shrug, her smile coming back to her. “If so, then I’ll believe it when I feel it. If not, then I won’t. It’s that simple to me. Don’t feel the need to overthink it.”

“That isn’t the same thing she’s so upset about? Believing in it only when it benefits you?”

“No, it isn’t.”

Despite the weight of her words, Jungeun’s smile didn’t falter as she showcased her honesty to Sooyoung in full. “Even if the moment that feels like my fate catching up to me ends up being something bad, like me having to die to save someone I care about, then I’m going to accept it and believe it all the same. No matter what it ends up being, if it feels right to me, I’ll believe in it.”

“You might be comfortable with your gray hair, Jungeun, but you’re not some grandma on her deathbed. You don’t get to talk as if you’re meant to die.”

Jungeun wore a wistful grin as Sooyoung shook her head, turning her attention back to Chaewon’s advance. “I’m not going to let any of us die. We’re all going to be standing together by the end of this. You’ll be seeing the rest of us join you with that color.”

“God, I hope not. You’d look absolutely terrible in gray.”

“Oh, off.”

Sooyoung’s words came with a sideways smirk and a muted chuckle. Jungeun’s smile widened, cheerful that she was able to lift the woman’s spirits even slightly.

“Thought I had a pretty good grasp on how I felt about the matter, but after all of that...guess I’m in the same boat as you,” Sooyoung announced with a sigh. “Really not crazy about the idea that Fate’s railroaded me onto a path that I’ll be forever stuck on...but if that path is what led me to Hyunjin, then not believing in it feels wrong to me.

“All the same, if that same path were to result in any harm coming to her..., what a god damn mess,” the swordswoman lamented with a pass of her fingers through her hair and an exhausted sigh. “I want to respect Jiwoo and pick a side, to believe in it fully or not. But I don’t fully agree with either one. I don’t know which side to believe in.”

“You’re overthinking things, Sooyoung. You don’t have to know. Not yet.”

Jungeun didn’t offer further words, and Sooyoung didn’t seek them. The statement permeated the space between them, sinking into the swordswoman bit by bit as she looked back to Chaewon. 

Her cautious approach nearing its end, Chaewon had carefully stepped over yet another sprawled out body. It was a girl similar in size and age to her. Much like the rest of the corpses in the expanse of bodies she carefully navigated, her dedicated focus on the corrupted girl ahead prevented her from paying it any mind.

It was a girl with a face eerily similar to her own. Hair eerily similar to her own. A near carbon copy, in fact. And on her wrist, a small bracelet connected by a clasp in the shape of a butterfly.

Now only a few paces away from the corrupted girl, Chaewon came to a stop. With one of her hands atop the other in front of her waist, she stood still as her aura of mana began to increase in density slightly. “Hello.”

“Are you...a threat to my existence...?”

Much like her slow breathing, the girl’s voice was labored as she spoke with clear exhaustion. 

“No,” the girl of light said with a small shake of her head. Despite the bilious manifestations of near-death corruption staring her right in the face, she carried a soft smile from which luminous warmth poured. 

“I’m Chaewon. It’s nice to meet you.”