「 episode 5; arc 3.1 」 —tenebrous awakening//subdued resurgence— 「 hyejoo i 」  

“Ah, there they are. That’s everyone, then.”

Hyejoo closed the door behind her as she entered the room, her other hand intertwined with Chaewon’s in front of her.

She was in a small classroom, one she had recently been spending a lot of time in. With Chaewon leading her, they found two empty desks near the middle of the room. Chaewon waited patiently with a smile on her face as Hyejoo retrieved the chair from the second desk and slid it next to the first.

Smiles were aimed at them from the rest of the classroom’s inhabitants as the two sat down next to one another. Their eyes found their way to Sunmi at the front of the classroom. She was sitting on the edge of a desk in front of a white marker board behind her. She gave the girls in the room a warm smile.

“I hope everyone’s doing well this morning,” Sunmi said kindly as she scanned the room. “It’s been two weeks since we’ve rescued Yeojin and formally inducted her, Yerim, and Hyejoo into LOONA. As you all have been training, they’ve been through their basic studies and have showcased ample levels of proficiency for Neophyte sorceresses. We’re now ready to begin optimal excursions.”

“With that in mind, I’ll be revealing to you the teams of four we’ll be working in,” she explained, getting off the desk and making her way to the board behind her. Rolling up the sleeves of her buttoned up white dress shirt, she grabbed a marker from its bottom ledge and began to write.

Watching intently, Hyejoo could feel every individual beat of her heart trying to break out of her chest as Sunmi wrote across the board.

I need to be with her…

A dark shroud of anxiety enveloped her mind.

I can’t...do this without her...

“Hyejoo.”

A voice rang gently in Hyejoo’s ears—the voice that erased her darkness and restored her peace of mind. Looking next to her, she was met with the relaxing comfort of Chaewon’s smile. “Breathe, Hyejoo. Just breathe. Everything will be alright.”

It vanished.

Every ounce of growing worry and every speck of doubt in her mind...it simply vanished when Chaewon smiled at her like that.

Hyejoo nodded to Chaewon with appreciation far beyond what her small smile conveyed. Her eyes scanned the area with curiosity as Sunmi continued to write the names down one by one. Sooyoung and Hyunjin seemed particularly happy in the corner of the room, Hyunjin seated in Sooyoung’s lap with a smile on her face and her head nuzzled into Sooyoung’s neck.

“Please, please, please, please…!”

A somewhat deep voice sounded itself off in the room. Hyejoo looked over to see a girl with wavy ebony locks chanting pleadingly. The taller blonde whose lap she was seated in had her arms wrapped around the smaller girl’s waist. The blonde girl shook her companion lightly, both of them giggling cutely. Sunmi looked back to them for a moment, pausing with a smile.

“Please, Sunmi! Pretty please!”

“Heejin, you are aware that I’m not making these up on the spot, correct?” she asked the excitable girl. “These formations were finalized a day or two ago.”

“Archmagus Lee wouldn’t do us dirty like that, Heekie,” the blonde girl lovingly embracing Heejin stated, looking at the Archmagus with a challenging grin. “She knows I’ll beat her up!”

“Jinsol, as much as I want to see Sunmi destroy you in a duel, just shut up and let the woman write,” an exasperated Jungeun begged with a roll of her eyes. A round of laughs came from the class as Sunmi turned back to the board with an amused chuckle. As she continued writing, Heejin and Jinsol suddenly shrieked with joy.

“I told you, Heekie! She would never mess with the cutest couple in this building!” Jinsol proclaimed.

“I think I’m gonna puke,” Jungeun teased with a shake of her head. Receiving a light kick in the shin from Jinsol next to her, the gray haired girl kicked back. Heejin giggled as their battle ensued.

When she finished writing the last two names, Hyejoo was met with immeasurable relief. A peaceful expression settled itself onto her face as Chaewon squeezed her hand, looking to her with a smile. “See, Hyejoo? Everything’s alright.”

Hyejoo nodded to her companion with returned emotion.

Thank goodness…

“Here are your teams, then.”

Sunmi stepped away from the board, allowing the sorceresses to take in her neat handwriting in full.

TEAM ONE:
SOOYOUNG [TANK] // HYUNJIN [DPS] // JIWOO [DPS, HEALER] // YEOJIN [HEALER]
「 Ranking: Master // Intermediate // Adept // Neophyte 」
「 Natural Alignments: Ice // Earth // Water // Air 」
「 Weaknesses: Air // Electricity // Air // Ice 」

TEAM TWO:
HEEJIN [TANK] // JINSOL [DPS] // YERIM [DPS] // HASEUL [HEALER]
「 Ranking: Intermediate // Adept // Neophyte // Master 」
「 Natural Alignments: Electricity // Electricity // Fire // Air 」
「 Weaknesses: Earth // Darkness // Earth // Water 」

TEAM THREE:
JUNGEUN [TANK] // KAHEI [DPS] // HYEJOO [DPS] // CHAEWON [HEALER]
「 Ranking: Adept // Master // Neophyte // Intermediate 」
「Natural Alignments: Fire // Earth // Darkness // Light」
「Weaknesses: Light // Fire // Water // Fire」

As everyone absorbed the information, Hyejoo saw a slightly melancholic smile in the corner of her eyes.

It belonged to a girl with bright red hair sitting next to Haseul. Haseul’s hand was on top of her lap, and her own hand was on top of Haseul’s. With heterochromatic eyes of a vivid ocean blue and dark gray, she shared in giving Sunmi an understanding nod with Haseul. She nodded back with her own matching solemnity.

“It was to be expected,” the redheaded girl said with a small sigh, looking to Haseul. “A Neophyte healer can’t possibly carry four lives on her own. My abilities as a hybrid simply make sense being paired with her...”

“It’s alright, Jiwoo,” Haseul comforted her with a smile. “We’ll have days off. We can still spend plenty of time together.”

As the two came closer to one another with Jiwoo resting her head onto Haseul’s shoulder, Hyejoo witnessed Jungeun staring at Jiwoo with almost downcast eyes. In a similar vein, Kahei, seated next to Jungeun, appeared wistful with her glance strangely glued to Jinsol as she held Heejin close to her. Though she hadn’t known them for very long, Hyejoo had never seen neither Jungeun nor Kahei look at anyone in such a manner.

Before she could ponder it any further, Sunmi’s voice summoned everyone’s attention.

“One Neophyte, one Intermediate, one Adept, and one Master.”

She had come back around to the front of the desk, leaning on its edge again. She glanced over the girls as she spoke further.

“That was the basic guideline I set out to meet before anything else. With a team member at every rank, three of you will have someone to compare yourselves to in regards to your next level of advancement. The Master sorceress will then act as your team’s primary cornerstone. For this reason, please consider your Master sorceress as your team leader.”

“Sunmi, I’ve got a question.”

Glances were directed towards a brown haired girl with a raised hand and curiosity set into her eyes. Sunmi addressed her with a nod. “Yes, Yeojin?”

“Actually, I guess it’s more of a question for Heejin and Jinsol,” the Neophyte of wind asked with a tilt of her head as she lowered her hand. She looked to the embracing couple across the room. “Do you guys have opposite directional biases?”

“Yep! I’m clockwise and she’s counterclockwise!” Heejin answered with a bright smile.

Yeojin nodded in response as she looked back to Sunmi. “Alright, that explains that. I was just wondering why you’d put two of the same element in the same group, but with opposite directional biases, they cover different secondary elements, so it doesn’t seem like it’d be really detrimental or anything.”

“Not to mention that electricity is a very well-rounded element with the only major caveat being a lack of healing potential,” another voice continued. Eyes settled onto the violet haired Yerim, her bright smile aimed towards Sunmi.

“Their healer is the leader and the highest leveled in the group, too,” Hyejoo found herself speaking up as she thought on it, bringing attention to herself as she looked to Haseul. “Heejin and Jinsol not being able to heal easily isn’t so bad when Haseul is the most experienced healer here..."

“I see the Neophytes truly have been studying hard,” Sunmi surmised with a proud nod. “Yes, though the repeat of elements may not make it seem as such, the second team is as balanced as the others. Haseul’s experience as a Master is indeed nothing to scoff at.”

“I am a little concerned about each team sharing an elemental weak point between two members, but in the long run, it shouldn’t pose that much of an issue,” the Archmagus stated with another brief look to the board. “With groups of four, so long as you stick together, you can cover each other’s backs.”

“We’re heading out then, yeah?”

Sooyoung spoke up from her shared seat with Hyunjin in the corner of the room. She idly twirled locks of Hyunjin’s hair in her fingers as her eye of bright cyan peered at Sunmi with a sort of impatience imbued into it. “Training and book smarts are all well and good, Archmagus Lee, but the Neophytes are probably due for some proper field experience at this point, don’t you think?”

“Worry not, Sooyoung. You’ll be leaving within the hour.”

A smile quickly manifested on Sooyoung’s face. The rest of the room quickly followed, light chatter breaking out as an excited mood draped the room. Sunmi smiled warmly as she spoke again. “It’s comforting to know how eager you’ve all been to resume your work. Rest assured, today’s meeting was for that sole purpose. In an hour, you’ll be convening with your teams in the laboratory. Gateway crystals to corrupted universes have been prepared.”

“Please keep in the mind the process of appropriating alternate realities as well,” the Archmagus informed, quieting the classroom down. “Give your expedition at least half a day if you’re able. If you learn that a search for magi would be futile or if circumstances are helplessly dire, please do not hesitate to return here posthaste. Your safety is of the highest priority.

“That should wrap things up here,” Sunmi announced, standing up off the edge of the desk. She made way for the door, holding it open for the sorceresses. “You can bring along whatever you deem necessary, but I would suggest packing light. Food and water take priority. Please also remember that your phones will be unavailable for use, so stay together as best as you’re able.”

A cacophony of chairs simultaneously scraping against tile made itself audible as the girls rose from their seats. Sunmi’s eyes found four of them as she suddenly spoke up again. “Team three—Jungeun, Kahei, Hyejoo, Chaewon. If you could stay for a moment extra, I need to speak with you in private.”

An odd mood fell about the room as Sunmi made her request. Strides slowed down as gazes settled upon the four in question. Kahei nodded to the rest of her comrades with a smile, silently insisting that they had nothing to worry about.

Hyejoo felt her stomach turn slightly as the room emptied. She was left standing close to Chaewon, their hands still interlocked. Near the center of the room, Kahei stood calmly. Jungeun was at the window, peering out to Mobius on the horizon. As the door closed, Jungeun spoke up before Sunmi could.

“Hold on, Sunmi.”

The woman of fire fell back into silence as she turned around, peering at the door. Walking up to it slowly, she grabbed the handle and pushed it open forwards with light force.

“Ow!”

She had swung the door into the face of a woman too inquisitive for her own good. Jinsol’s face flushed with embarrassment as she backed away towards a smiling Heejin slowly. Sunmi looked to the pair of electric sorceresses with a serious look in her eyes. “If you wouldn’t mind, girls, this is a private matter.”

Nervously, Jinsol nodded, her expression b over with regret as she bowed slightly. Heejin’s expression equally straightened out with haste. “S-sorry, Archmagus Lee...”

“You don’t need to apologize, as it is clear that you’re worried about your allies,” Sunmi replied with an understanding nod as a smile took shape on her face, “but what I need to speak with them about concerns only their team. I assure you that everything is fine.”

“Let’s go, Jindori,” Heejin spoke up sweetly, walking forward and hugging one of Jinsol’s arms tightly. “We have to get ready!”

Jungeun gave Jinsol a smile more genuine than the blonde had expected as she apologized again while being dragged off. “Sorry, Jungeun!”

“She just told you that you didn’t need to apologize!” Jungeun called out down the hall, shaking her head. “Jeez, that girl sometimes…”

Closing the door, Jungeun turned around and walked into the room again. She took a seat at the edge of the closest desk, joining her teammates in giving Sunmi her attention. “What’s going on, Sunmi?”

“There was just a critical piece of information regarding your team that I did not wish to divulge to the entirety of LOONA,” the Archmagus explained. As her eyes settled onto Hyejoo, the others followed. The girl of darkness looked down slightly, her violet odd eye staring at the floor sullenly.

“The information I withheld from the others stems from what I learned when I ran the alignment and affinity test for the Neophytes. Hyejoo’s weak point of water is only one of four,” she revealed to Jungeun and Kahei as she looked back to the board briefly. “Her affinities with air, ice, and light are also at level one. To offset this, her affinity with darkness stands at level sixteen.”

Hyejoo shuddered uncomfortably upon hearing the information again, her mind recalling the sight of the malevolent sphere of shadows that Sunmi had to imprison. Speechless, Jungeun and Kahei looked at her silently as they processed the information.

After a moment, Sunmi continued. “A great deal of caution must be exercised in making sure Hyejoo does not fall victim to attacks against her several weak points. To that end, Jungeun, Kahei...I believe the two of you to be the most capable. You both bear some of the most peerlessly analytical minds in LOONA. Your capability for problem solving and handling troublesome situations will be crucial.”

The two sorceresses nodded slowly as Sunmi looked to Chaewon. “Meanwhile, Chaewon’s prowess as a healer will equally serve as a backbone. She has been astonishingly blessed with a counterclockwise alignment to light. This, in tandem with her studies and training, has bestowed her with a level eight affinity in light and level seven affinities in air and water. What Haseul may have over her in experience, Chaewon makes up for with uncontested healing potential.

“The most pressing matter, however, is the constant upkeep of the link between Chaewon and Hyejoo.”

Hyejoo squeezed Chaewon’s hand as she brought her head up to look at Sunmi. She was peering straight at her, giving her a solemn look of understanding. She turned her gaze to Chaewon. “How has the purification been going, Chaewon?”

“It’s been progressing steadily,” Chaewon announced. Kahei pushed up her glasses as she shared in shifting her eyes towards the blonde haired girl with Jungeun. “There’s still a sizable amount of corruption flowing within Hyejoo’s manastream, but with every day we’re able to spend together, I’ve been able to extract it bit by bit. It might be a few weeks yet, or potentially longer...but full purification can be reached.”

“I’m relieved to hear it,” the Archmagus responded with a smile before looking to the women of fire and earth. “Jungeun, Kahei, this will be the secondary stipulation with your team. Aside from covering Hyejoo’s weak points, she and Chaewon must ideally remain at least somewhat close at all times. Chaewon’s purification of Hyejoo’s manastream depends on it.”

“So that’s how you’ve been handling it, then…”

An audible murmur from Kahei followed Sunmi’s voice. She nodded to herself as she looked to Chaewon. “A gradual drainage of tainted mana through a physical link...when corruption is that severe, that is indeed the safest way to go about it, even if the slowest. I’m assuming that you’ll be tethering to Hyejoo during combat, then? I imagine Hyejoo might have difficulty using her weapon single-handed, not to mention our general formation…”

“Yes, that was my plan,” Chaewon confirmed. “So long as an encounter against fiends doesn’t take too long, we can replace our physical contact with a bridge of my mana. It shouldn’t affect my stamina much, and I won’t fall victim to mana deprivation. As long as the purification doesn’t stop for too long, Hyejoo’s manastream won’t relapse into full corruption.”

“It could end up being a little problematic at times, but we’ll make it work,” Jungeun said with a confident smile as she looked to her teammates. Her eyes found Hyejoo’s and she gave the girl a nod. “If you’re gonna be staying close to her, you’ll sometimes find yourself in a better position to defend her than we can. It’ll be up to you to protect her in those situations...but I can tell you’ve got her back, right?”

“Yes, I do.”

Hyejoo’s response was immediate. Her eyes had quickly shot up to meet Jungeun’s, and without meaning to, she had taken a step forward.. “I made a promise to protect her. I'll see it through and stay by her side no matter what."

“Then I think we’ll manage just fine,” Jungeun responded with confidence. Her eyes met Kahei’s as she smiled with the rest of the group in full. “Besides, even if Chaewon’s preoccupied, you’ve got a level seven affinity in water and air, don’t you, Kahei? We basically have two healers...can’t say I’m too concerned.”

“That’s correct. Everything will be fine, Archmagus Lee,” Kahei assured the older sorcerer. “We won’t let you down.”

“Thank you,” Sunmi replied simply, smiling at the four. “I won’t hold you any longer, then. Please prepare yourselves accordingly.”

Dismissed, the four made way for the door and left Sunmi as she wiped the board of her writing. Chaewon addressed Kahei and Jungeun as Hyejoo closed the door behind them. “We’ll grab our things from Hyejoo’s room. See you in an hour?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Jungeun affirmed.

“I would suggest bringing a change of clothes for Hyejoo,” Kahei mentioned, bringing their glances towards her. “With four weak points, we should be prepared for the possibility for her barrier runes breaking.”

“Yes, I was considering doing so,” Chaewon agreed with a nod. “We’ll arrange an extra pair then. See you then.”

The group departed, leaving in two pairs down different ends of the hall. Hyejoo remained quiet, her hand locked with Chaewon’s as they made their way back to her room.

「 ➤➤➤ ★ ➤➤➤ 」

“Chaewon...can we practice?”

Hyejoo’s small voice addressed her companion as they entered her dorm room. Chaewon turned to face her, realizing that Hyejoo wasn’t right next to her—their conjoined hands were stretched out, creating a lengthy bridge between them. Chaewon fell silent for a moment before nodding slowly.

“That’s a good idea, Hyejoo. It has been a while since we’ve made use of the actual mana tether, hasn’t it?” the girl of light lamented, her eyes falling to their hands. “We’re going to be making much more frequent use of it from now on. Let’s give it a shot, then.”

Silently, Hyejoo nodded. Chaewon led her towards the center of the living room. Hyejoo’s eyes focused on her intertwined hands with Chaewon.

Gradually, Chaewon began to pull away from her. With every inch further their fingers became undone, it clawed its way through Hyejoo’s mind.

Her presence is fading...

Hyejoo’s breathing quickened. Her heartbeat accelerated.

...and with it, your light.

For the first time in nearly two months, she felt it swell inside of her. It raged vehemently.

Your sense of self hangs in the balance.

Further still, Chaewon’s hand continued to depart from hers. Further still, the voice emerged from the deepest reaches of her subconscious. She had almost forgotten what it sounded like.

You know that no harm must come to her. She is the physical manifestation of your will to live.  

Chaewon’s hand broke free of Hyejoo’s grasp. As it did, Hyejoo’s odd eye of dark lavender briefly came to life.

She is lost. You have failed.

The violet iris took over, a sea of purple washing over her pupil and sclera.

You are alone once more.

A series of tremors began to ravage Hyejoo’s head as she gasped lightly.

Without an anchor for your cursed existence, you live without reason.

The pain.

History repeats itself. Such is the cycle your soul is subject to experience.

The pain.

The truth may be difficult to accept...

With Chaewon fully disconnected from her—

...but I am all you will ever have.

—it rushed forward from the darkest depths of her mind in an agonizing wave.

Seek comfort in my embrace, child, or watch your loved ones be flooded by shadow.

Submit to me and your own darkness as you did before.

The darkness within her. The unbridled wrath. All of the screams she had screamed months ago. The demonic looks in their eyes as they threw her in. The tears as she drowned in it. Suffocated in it. The feeling of crossing the border between life and death. The despair of being lost and without purpose afterwards.

Become one with me.

Become Olivia Hye, lest you wish...

“Hyejoo...”

...to drown...all you know...in your own sorrow...

“Hyejoo.”

Resplendent warmth.

Chaewon’s voice came with a simultaneous pulse of light from her body. Hyejoo looked up, collecting her breath as she saw it. The one who saved her before was saving her once again, as she always did.

The girl of light’s body was illuminated with a soft glow. From the center of her chest, a thin stream of beige mana flowed outwards, connecting to Hyejoo. As it did, everything...vanished.

Just like before. Just like every single time. It simply vanished. The pain in her heart, the repressed memories in her mind. Her odd eye returned to its natural violet state. She regained her breathing as her own body began to radiate a similar light.

“How do you feel?” Chaewon asked, giving Hyejoo a smile.

“I’m...I’m okay,” Hyejoo confirmed, her breathing becoming steady once more. “How about you…?”

“You don’t need to worry about me,” Chaewon confirmed, her smile widening. “Like I said before, so long as I don’t have to maintain this tether for an extended period of time, I won’t fall ill to any side effects. We can hold hands outside of combat like we always do, okay?”

Hyejoo remained silent as she nodded. She felt her face redden slightly.

Chaewon stared into Hyejoo’s eyes in deep contemplation for a moment, deliberating her following question. After a moment, she spoke up to ask it. “Did you hear her again?”

“Yes…” Hyejoo slowly confirmed after a pause. “I could still hear her...Olivia…”

“I see…there’s still enough corruption present within you for her to take form in your subconscious, then,” Chaewon surmised. “I was hoping I had purified enough by now…”

Chaewon took a step forward. “Okay, Hyejoo. Would you like to—”

“I do want to hold your hand, Chaewon, but let’s stay like this for just a few more minutes,” Hyejoo suddenly asserted, surprising her tethered companion. “Battles against fiends are gonna take us longer than this, right? I want to be prepared. I need to get used to this if I’m going to protect you…”

Slowly, Chaewon nodded and stepped back again. “I understand, Hyejoo. Thank you. Shall we start getting our things together, then?”

The two made their way into Hyejoo’s bedroom, Hyejoo keeping her distance. Unseen to Chaewon ahead of her, Hyejoo’s eyes were entirely focused on the hand she had grown accustomed to holding. While Chaewon’s purification tether was doing more than enough to keep her darkness at bay, Hyejoo was beginning to realize something.

Her previous statement had more truth behind it than she had let on. More than ever before, Hyejoo wanted nothing more than to simply hold Chaewon’s hand.

Beyond the warmth she felt from her whenever their fingers were intertwined, beyond the physical purification allowing Chaewon to rest easy with no extra effort...Hyejoo was coming to understand that she was now wanting to hold Chaewon’s hand...just because.

Above keeping her safe, to be physically connected to the girl who had pulled her out of her darkness was the one thing Hyejoo desired most.

The more she thought about it as they stood near one another in Hyejoo’s closet, finding spare clothes for her...the more beats of her heart she felt herself skip over.

「 ➤➤➤ ★ ➤➤➤ 」

“Why didn’t you guys bring this stuff when you rescued me? You holding out on me?”

“Oh, calm down, kid. That was kind of a rush job…”

Hyejoo heard banter between Yeojin and Sooyoung as she entered the room, hand-in-hand with Chaewon. Behind them, Kahei and Jungeun followed. The other eight sorceresses of LOONA looked to the final team with smiles as they approached the circular formation of computers and hanging screens by the center of the laboratory. Everyone was equipped with a small, lightweight bag of sorts, mostly drawstring backpacks.

At the other end of the lab, Sunmi stood by a researcher in a white coat. She was handed a small box, after which she turned around and approached the twelve girls. They surrounded her front as she opened it for them, revealing six small crystals—three dark gray, and three light gray.

“Here are your gateway crystals,” Sunmi informed them, extending the box forwards slightly. “Leaders, please take a pair each.”

Sooyoung, Haseul, and Kahei reached forward, grabbing one of each. Sunmi closed the box and set it down before looking back to them all. “Your preparations are all complete?”

A round of nods from the girls was met with an equivalent nod from Sunmi. “Very well, then. You may depart. Safe travels, and thank you for your efforts. I’ll see you all soon.”

Sooyoung’s odd eye emitted a soft cyan glow as her icy mana surrounded the three dark gray crystals in each of the leaders’ hands. As it coalesced and covered each one in frost, the three of them simultaneously made fists around them and crushed them. The source mana of their destination universes escaped from their prisons, and in an instant, took the form of door frames.

Coalescing into doors of a matching color, they were blank and without name plates. Hyejoo stared at her team’s door as she squeezed Chaewon’s hand. Chaewon immediately reciprocated.

“Time’s wasting. Let’s get going.”

Sooyoung’s voice broke the beginning of silence before it settled in. Without hesitation, she opened her team’s door, briefly flooding the room with light. Hyunjin entered first, followed by Yeojin. Jiwoo approached it, but not before turning to face someone—Haseul. She gave the sorceress of wind a smile and a nod before stepping through.

Hyejoo noticed Jungeun was turned away, her eyes idly wandering the lab as if she was trying to avoid the sight. Her eyes coming to Kahei next, Hyejoo saw the woman of earth once again fixated on Jinsol.

Before Sooyoung stepped through, her eyes found Yerim and Hyejoo in specific as she spoke up, summoning their attention. “Neophytes. Listen to your leaders, alright? We’re not Masters for nothing. Trust us.”

Without waiting for a response, she stepped through the door and closed it behind her. As it clicked shut, it began to dissipate, fading away into dark gray dust. Haseul approached her door next, opening it for her teammates behind her. As the burst of light from within started to fade, Heejin and Jinsol walked through together with held hands. Yerim followed, briefly stopping to quickly bow towards everyone.

Her team having gone through, Haseul gave the remaining four an encouraging smile. “Do your best.”

Closing the door behind her, the four sorceresses watched it vanish into nothing with Sunmi. Kahei spoke up, looking towards her team with a smile. “Shall we?”

“Let’s bring ‘em home.”

Jungeun’s response came with a smile of confidence as she turned back around. Kahei approached the door, opening it for her allies behind her. A third flash of light broke free from it as Jungeun walked in first, waving towards Sunmi. Chaewon and Hyejoo followed, and Kahei behind them after giving Sunmi a nod.

Sunmi took a deep breath as she watched the final door dematerialize. “May you all come back home safely.”

As she made her way towards the main entrance of the laboratory, a ringing noise began to spill out from the inside of one of her pockets. Pulling out her phone, she answered it with a smile upon seeing the name of the incoming caller.

“Hello, Hyuna. Ah, yes, excuse me. Grandmaster Hyuna. My apologies. Are you en route?”

「 ➤➤➤ ★ ➤➤➤ 」

When the door closed behind them, Hyejoo found herself in complete darkness. Her hold on Chaewon’s hand tightened, and she felt unease and worry disappear from her mind when Chaewon returned the action.

“Everyone alright?” Jungeun asked, her voice coming up from further ahead. She was answered with three voices of confirmation, inciting a hidden nod from her in the darkness. “I’ll get a light going.”

With a light breath, crimson mana veiled by the cover of darkness took form in front of Jungeun. A moment later, it coalesced into a floating sphere of flame, illuminating the immediate area. It moved with Jungeun as she turned around, looking towards her teammates and surroundings. “Where the hell are we?”

“It appears to be a supply closet of some sort,” Kahei commented, walking over to some brooms and mops hung up on the wall. “Though that does little to answer where we actually are…”

“Only one way to find out, then,” Jungeun declared, turning back around. Her eyes focused on a wooden door at the end of the room. She addressed the group while approaching it. “Stay calm. No clue what we’re walking into.”

Hyejoo remained close to Chaewon next to her as they approached. Kahei followed behind, and with the four assembled, Jungeun opened the door outwards.

Cautiously, the team walked out, finding themselves on the upper levels of a building. Coming up to the rails of the walkways they were stood upon, they peered down and were met with the sight of a grand floor below. Long wooden benches were neatly assembled down each side of the area. Looking up, Hyejoo saw an array of vaulted ceilings above them, decorated with stained glass.

“It’s a church,” she informed the group, bringing them to the same realization as they looked up and saw the artwork themselves.

“It appears to be night outside,” Kahei made note of, the church floor beneath them being illuminated mostly by moonlight through the stained glass. “That may prove disorienting. We’ll have to keep track of time...”

“Can’t say I’ve been dropped off in a church before,” Jungeun remarked, her eyes still scanning the area. “Looks cleared out though. Least we didn’t make a scene coming in. Let’s get down and head outsi—”

An ear-piercing noise of doors being slammed open interrupted Jungeun. It was immediately followed by a woman’s shout.

“Seulgi, in here!”

The sorceresses’ eyes widened as they looked down and witnessed a figure burst into the scene. A woman just short of Kahei’s height had run into the cathedral. With a tight grip on a handaxe in her hand, she was dressed in all black, decorated with a long sleeve dress shirt and dark denim. Her boots screeched to a stop as she turned around.

Proceeding after her was a woman marginally taller, similarly dressed in a matching tee shirt and jeans of ebony. In her right hand, she held a single-edged serrated hunting knife. It was almost long enough to be called a shortsword.

Storming in after them, they came.

“Come on!”

Jungeun’s response to the wave of plastic fiends was immediate. The mannequins rushed in one after the other—at least a dozen in total, they quickly approached the two fleeing girls. Without thought, Jungeun’s halberd quickly materialized in her hand as she dropped her drawstring bag and vaulted over the railing of the walkway. Simultaneously, Kahei’s staff had come into existence a moment prior, and with it, the rumbling of the earth below.

The foundation of the church below began to give way as a series of stone towers rose like stairs near the upper floor walkway, allowing the other three safe passage down. Kahei turned to Chaewon and Hyejoo with a nod as the three of them set their belongings down next to Jungeun’s. “Let’s go.”

The three of them quickly made their way down, jumping from pillar to pillar and reuniting with Jungeun. The two figures in black were slowly approaching the back wall, weapons at the ready as their eyes anxiously jumped between the fiends, the pillars of earth, and the sorceresses assembling in front of them.

“Who are you?!” the woman with the handaxe called out in confusion as she and her companion found four bodies now lined up in front of her.

“We’re here to help,” Kahei said softly, facing the mannequins in front of them. The collected swarm of them had transitioned from focused dashes to watchful surveillance of the new presence in front of them, their bodies twitching and convulsing uncontrollably.

“Joohyun, it’s alright,” the knife-wielding woman said with a slow nod, stepping forward.

“Seulgi, wait!”

Seulgi turned back towards Joohyun, looking at her with mixed eyes of dark brown and a bright gold. Joohyun’s gaze of crimson red and light brown met her back in full. “We can trust them, Joohyun. They’re thaumaturges like us. Hell, for all we know, they might even be better at thaumaturgy than we are!”

Slowly, Joohyun approached with Seulgi. The two stood behind the four sorceresses. Seulgi spoke up with a smile as Jungeun’s eyes scanned the mess of fiends. “We owe you guys one.”

“Don’t thank us yet,” Jungeun dismissed with a light smirk, shaking her head. “These things are still alive and well. Need to take care of that first before you go and say something like that.”

The woman of fire flipped her halberd over, the tip of the spear pointing towards the ground. “Guess I’ve got no choice but to draw them all at once. They don’t look particularly strong, but it might get a little crazy having twelve on me...”

“You guys do that, too? We can split them up, then,” Seulgi spoke, looking towards half of the fiends. “I’ll get the attention of half of them. You get the other half.”

“Oh? I like the sound of this already,” Jungeun said with a smirk towards Seulgi. “Kahei, Chaewon. Two tanks, alright?”

“Understood,” Kahei responded with a nod, her eye alight with life and resonating with the crystal within her staff. “Everyone, be on guard. Chaewon and Hyejoo, please ready yourselves.”

“It’s time, Hyejoo.”

Hyejoo looked to Chaewon next to her. The girl was smiling comfortably as she nodded to her. “Are you ready?”

“I am,” Hyejoo answered without hesitation, looking to her enemies in front of her. “I’ve got your back.”

Their hands fell apart from each other, falling to their sides. Within Hyejoo, it surged once more—

The expiration of light...

—but it was immediately subdued as warmth encompassed Hyejoo’s being. She and Chaewon shared in becoming surrounded by soft light, the tether of mana between them materializing.

With ferocity, Jungeun plunged her spear into the ground below.

It pierced a medium-sized runic circle of fire on its way down, bringing life to a circle of flames that engulfed the six of them. From the area in front of the circle, half a dozen pebble-sized orbs of fire took shape. The spheres were propelled forward, each finding a separate fiend.

As they made contact, they sank into the plastic bodies of the fiends and made a bridge of mana back towards Jungeun. She took deep, measured breaths as they slowly turned towards her, their bodies writhing madly.

Seulgi came up next to Jungeun, smiling playfully as clouds of golden mana spawned in front of her while the circle of fire encasing the group died down. Her odd eye shined as her mana coalesced into six runic circles, crackling with bolts of lightning.

With two deft slashes, she cut all six in half, shooting forth streams of electricity to the remaining fiends. They flew out and enveloped them in coats of lightning, their attention gradually focusing towards Seulgi.

“You been doing this long?” Jungeun inquired towards Seulgi. However, it was Joohyun who answered.

“Long enough,” the shorter woman revealed, feeling the steel of her axe with her free hand. “We really need to get this over with and get back to the others…”

Her tether to Hyejoo fully established, Chaewon took in a steady breath of air as she extended an outstretched hand. In the palm of it, beige-colored dust began to coalesce. After a moment, it spread outwards, materializing into a large tome.

White with tanned edges and with a shape of a winged sun embossed onto its cover, the book’s pages flipped wildly as it came to life. Runes on each page were vividly illuminated as her left eye’s iris became washed over with beige.

Next to her, Hyejoo had finished collecting a mass of her violet mana in front of her. It thinned out into a line, and continued downwards from the top of it in a curve. Her odd eye flashed as it coalesced and took form—a scythe with a lavender shaft just taller than her. Its menacing curved blade measured almost three feet in length, colored a shade of purple deeper than her eye.

From the center of its shaft and from its bottom, handles protruded outwards. Hyejoo took hold of her weapon by the grips as it finished constructing itself. Runes came into existence with a violet light along the curvature of the scythe’s blade and down a small section of the rod. She flipped it over, the blade pointing upwards as she readied herself.

Jungeun’s and Seulgi’s bodies briefly emanated a dark gray aura as every fiend in the room straightened itself out. Standing perfectly still, they were now locked onto their targets. The party of dolls took one step forward, and then another, all in a frenetic and disorganized fashion.

Lifting her spear out of the ground, Jungeun kept a watchful eye over the ones coming towards her. “Kahei, handle my group with me. Chaewon, Hyejoo, help Seulgi and Joohyun with theirs.”

Before anyone could respond properly, the beings of false life engaged without warning.

With a dexterous leap towards her right, Seulgi dodged a downwards aerial slam from the first fiend who had leapt at her. Joohyun was revealed behind her after she evaded, breathing out as crimson mana aggregated onto the edges of her axe. Catching fire, she dug the heated steel deep into the shoulder of the mannequin and drove it down across its body, causing it to squirm madly as it fell to its knees.

Before it could stand up fully, the fiend had a spheres of light come to life around its body. Chaewon’s odd eye glowed softly alongside the runes in her tome as shining luminescent beams were expelled out of her orbs. They held the mannequin steady, the light piercing through its body and stunning it.

Hyejoo finished the combo immediately with a quick step towards it. A clean slash downwards with her scythe lined up with Joohyun’s cut cleaved the mannequin’s torso open, revealing its crystal heart. A purple runic circle materialized from violet mana near Hyejoo’s head as she spun her scythe around, the tip of the blade piercing it on its path upwards.

Hyejoo’s eye emitted light as orbs of darkness materialized around the exposed crystal. Thrashing about wildly, she watched as they rippled uncomfortably before forcefully ejecting violet spikes from the insides of their abyss. Impaled from all sides, the crystal shattered into pieces as the mannequin’s body fell apart.

On the other side of the room, Jungeun stood above two already disembodied fiends as four more surrounded her.

Two equipped with sword arms lunged at her with staggered timing, inciting her to step to the left and then to the right. With both of them lined up in front of her, Jungeun reared her body back before shifting her weight forward with considerable force, piercing straight through both of their chests with her spear.

Kicking their motionless bodies off of her weapon, she was met with the sight of a third fiend jumping in from behind its dead comrades. Seeing a cloud of earthen mana forming above her, Jungeun leapt backwards into the air and landed a safe distance away from the craggy spire that Kahei had constructed the cloud into. The pointed end fell to the earth, impaling the fiend through the heart and anchoring its fractured frame to the ground.

“Seulgi, get down!”

A shout from Joohyun urged the electric sorceress to transition from an ongoing sprint towards her next target into a low slide. A perfectly thrown hand axe with crimson mana along its edge swiftly flew through the air above her. With remarkable aim, Joohyun had firmly lodged her weapon into the torso of the fiend.

Reaching the end of her slide’s momentum, Seulgi planted her feet down and followed through with a display of acrobatics as she kicked herself into the air and flipped herself over with a flawless somersault.

Her boots once again lined up with the fiend, she twisted her body as she neared it, digging Joohyun’s axe deeper into its torso with a spinning drill kick. As the doll flew backwards, Joohyun’s vermilion eye gave off an intense light as a terribly loud noise broke the atmosphere.

It was her axe detonating, the mana she had set upon its steel igniting an explosion. The fiend’s body parts scattered about the area as Joohyun’s axe vanished, only to quickly reform itself in her hand a moment later.

From nearby Joohyun, another mannequin broke out in a focused sprint towards Seulgi. She opened to warn her, but found it unnecessary as Hyejoo jumped in front of it and brought her scythe up through the bottom of its chin with heavy force. The girl of darkness clenched her teeth as she ripped its head clean off, eyes burning with determination.

“Chaewon!”

“I’m on it!”

Chaewon quickly approached, coming to a stop behind the staggering mannequin. The tome-wielding girl took a deep breath, a veritable cloud of her beige mana taking shape above the fiend. Coalescing into several small runic circles that began to shift around its body, Chaewon found herself not needing to trigger her own effect.

From behind Hyejoo, Seulgi leapt into the air with a glowing golden eye. Her own circle of runes spawning in the air in front of her, she slashed it several times with her knife, dispersing a chaotic string of electric currents. The bolts flew down, homing in on Chaewon’s symbol-laden circles of light and breaking them for her.

As a result, Chaewon’s effect quickly took place—shining white chains materialized in the air around the fiend, continually constructing themselves as they tightly ensnared it. Fully restricted, it fell to its knees as Hyejoo shifted her body backwards. Seulgi landed cleanly next to Joohyun as Hyejoo sliced through its torso, effortlessly tearing open its body as she cut through both Chaewon’s chains and its shell.

Hyejoo and Chaewon stepped back as they noticed red mana coalescing around the fiend’s now exposed core. Left with no choice but to retreat in opposite directions as a controlled explosion of flames suddenly went off between them, the fiend’s heart was destroyed in a blaze of fury.

Joohyun caught her breath as the light surrounding her crimson eye dimmed.

Seeing the tether between them start to diminish, Chaewon’s eyes filled with worry as she looked up to Hyejoo.

Reclaim your light. You will never be at peace unless she is within arm’s length.

The excruciating gnashing and clawing within Hyejoo’s mind briefly came into existence for a moment, causing her to inhale in sharp pain. It quickly subsided as Chaewon came close to her, turning around and protecting the girl’s front as she recovered. The stream of mana between the two came back to full strength, their bodies glowing slightly.

“I’m sorry, Hyejoo,” Chaewon apologized towards a stumbling Hyejoo. The girl of darkness stood up straight, tightening her grip on her weapon. “That woman, Joohyun...she didn’t even warn us…”

“It’s okay,” Hyejoo assured her companion, her breathing steady once more. “Our positioning was a little off, anyway…”

“!”

The pair’s eyes were summoned to the far end of the cathedral. Near the back wall, a frustrated Jungeun was driving her spear into the hand of one of the mannequins. It had defended itself against a killing blow, all while stabbing its bladed appendage through its comrade’s body.

“The other two are going to attempt to combine as well!” Kahei’s voice came from the walkways above, shouting in the direction of the open front doors of the building. Hyejoo and Chaewon’s eyes quickly shifted towards the entrance near them, witnessing one of the fiends tilting its head towards its ally. “We need to stop it!”

The call to action was met with four bodies bursting forward with speed.

From across the cathedral floor, Seulgi beat the other three to one of the mannequins, crashing into it with a shoulder tackle of utmost velocity. It was launched outside through the open door, leaving its brother to look at Seulgi. However, instead of immediately retaliating towards the electric sorceress, it bent its legs and leapt backwards with might.

Soaring backwards through the air, the mannequin landed safely next to its downed comrade outside. Hyejoo and Chaewon followed Seulgi outdoors, finding themselves on a dirt path in a wide open field. Joohyun followed, and as she came into range, she wildly threw her axe towards the mannequin as it bent down towards its grounded ally.

Joohyun’s heart stopped as she witnessed the fiend perform an obscene maneuver.

In an agile play, it had picked up the body of its stunned comrade and shielded itself with it, both nullifying the blow and revealing the core it was after. As Joohyun’s axe dissipated into mana and rematerialized in her hands, the sound of glass breaking broke out behind them.

“Chaewon, Hyejoo, restrict them!”

A boulder of immense proportions had been launched through the upper windows of the cathedral, tearing apart the front of the roof with it. On top of it, Kahei was steady, her eye of bright mahogany glowing fiercely as a tower of hardened soil rose to her left. Leaping from her heavy projectile to the safety of the tower, she took a breath as a cloud of verdant mana began to form.

In synchronized fashion, mixed mana of violet and beige began to coalesce in spheres around the two fiends. Hyejoo took a step forward and lacerated several runic circles she and Chaewon had summoned, releasing a flurry of dark spikes and chains of light around the dolls. They were immobilized for a moment as they were stabbed through and held down, but it proved to be long enough for Kahei as she released an effect in the form of a relentless storm of winds.

Mighty enough to accelerate the giant rock through the air, the pair of mannequins were crushed without hope of survival as Kahei’s stone shook the earth upon impact. Before the group had any opportunity to rejoice, however, they were met with the sight of Jungeun soaring through the air at a ridiculously high speed.

Forcefully ejected from the inside of the cathedral, the spearwoman nearly found herself careening into Kahei’s boulder until currents of winds from two directions stopped her flight path. Kahei and Chaewon had quickly acted in converting mana in order to help her land safely, Chaewon taking the noticeably bigger breath of recovery afterwards.

Jungeun’s damaged barrier flashed into existence as she recovered, showcasing a mess of cracks coming from the side of her abdomen. Without instruction, Chaewon approached Jungeun with an extended arm. Hyejoo followed at a distance as the girl of light coalesced her mana in the palm of her hand.

A soft ray of light flew out towards Jungeun, resonating with the runes on her long sleeved red sweatshirt. As the fissures in her shield receded, Jungeun’s attacker stepped out of the destroyed church.

“Sorry...I wasn’t ready for that one,” Jungeun regretfully apologized as she stood up straight. In front of the group of six, a sight all too familiar to Kahei stood. A frame of hardened red plastic surged with a perceptible aura of dark gray mana, both of its arms taking the form of double-edged blades.

“It’s alright,” Kahei assured the woman of fire, her eyes focused on the fiend from her towering perch above. “It can be difficult to stop the transformation into the enhanced state. At the very least, we did manage to stop one and we greatly outnumber this single fiend.”

“I’ve never seen a miscreation use this much phantasma before,” Joohyun commented with a scowl, scanning the mana growing around it. “Is this what you meant by them combining?”

Kahei nodded in response to Joohyun and Seulgi’s gazes towards her. “That’s correct. It appears that they can recognize when their chances of victory are dire. You can consider it their trump card of sorts. They bet it all on this enhanced state in which their capabilities increase exponentially.”

Seulgi flipped her hunting knife in her hand. A crackling storm of electricity enveloped her body as she smiled. “Like you said, six to one. Shouldn’t be too bad, right?”

Jungeun smirked as her fully recharged shield quietly faded away. She spun her halberd around repeatedly as flame materialized along its edges. It expanded outwards, covering her in a vermilion vortex. When it fell, her crimson eye was ablaze with renewed vigor.

“Alright, ladies. Let’s get to work.”

Jungeun took point, breaking out into a full speed sprint towards their assailant.

Still drawn to the spearwoman by means of enmity, it returned the action, running even faster than her. As it brought both of its blades down in a cross shape from above, Jungeun reacted with a retreating slash to the right, pushing back the fiend with the axe end of her halberd slightly.

Earthen towers abruptly spawning from the ground below, Kahei quickly crafted her vantage points with a single breath as several clouds of her mana spawned. Leaping over to one, the woman of earth pushed her staff through a large brown runic circle in front of her. With its destruction, the ground behind the fiend shook as a jagged stalagmite shot out from underneath it at an angle.

The fiend’s perception developed enough to avoid the flank attack, it rolled forward and avoided being skewered from behind. Looking up, it witnessed Jungeun leaping up on top of one of Kahei’s towers, and then again as she jumped off of it. Its featureless face followed her, not having had dealt with an aerial assault yet and watching closely.

“One of you, boost me downwards!”

Distracted as it was by its careful tracking of Jungeun, the doll found itself subject to a falling cleave from Seulgi.

She had ran up the stalagmite that Kahei had summoned from the ground behind it, launching herself off of it like a diving board. Chaewon’s eye flashed as jade green mana encompassed Seulgi’s airborne body, manifesting into a torrent of winds that catapulted her downwards.

Joohyun acted as well, taking point on one of Kahei’s towers with a series of jumps. Her axe in hand, she settled her crimson mana onto its edge again. She called out to the electric sorceress as she tossed it towards her. “Seulgi, catch!”

With nimble agility, Seulgi rotated her body in the middle of her descent, grabbing Joohyun’s axe by the handle with ease. In the same movement, she continued spinning, the velocity of her motion and Chaewon’s winds behind her adding a sufficient degree of force to her strike.

The heated axe sunk deep into the side of the fiend’s plastic torso. Rapidly, it started to melt. Flipping her knife in her opposite hand over, Seulgi drove her own blade as deep as she could before she was thrown off.

The side of its body now suffering a massive gash, Hyejoo saw its innards—the web of mana connected to the crystal. The fiend slowly turned towards Seulgi, tilting its head eerily.

“Jungeun, the attack was too strong! You’re losing enmity!”

“The hell I am!” Jungeun boasted with pride towards Kahei’s concern as she landed on another one of her vantage points. In the moment she landed, Jungeun quickly turned around and launched her spear downwards. It impaled the earth in front of the fiend, and with a bright glow from Jungeun’s odd eye, a tall column of flame took form around it. A blazing whirlwind hid the mannequin from view briefly as it ensnared it.

Seulgi grinned as she slid to a stop from her knockback, throwing Joohyun’s axe back towards her. “Guess we’re not too bad by comparison if we made it look at us instead.”

“Yeah, not bad,” Jungeun complimented them in earnest as she hopped down from Kahei’s tower. “You guys know what you’re doing.”

Hyejoo readied herself as the tornado of fire surrounding the fiend died down. When it vanished, however, only Jungeun’s spear remained. She quickly dematerialized it, feeling it rapidly take shape once again in her grasp.

“Where did it…?”

“From above! Jungeun!”

Chaewon answered Joohyun’s comment with a call to the spearwoman, summoning the eyes of the six sorceresses to the skies above. The fiend had made a monstrous leap high into the air from within the fiery vortex, locked onto Jungeun as it started its descent.

Before anyone could physically respond to the sight, however, it was stalled in mid-air as its body began to cringe and writhe uncontrollably. A series of massive voids had materialized all around it.

The black spheres released immense waves of violet mana as lengthy, thorny spikes shot forth from their insides. Hyejoo was breathing heavily, having had taken in an especially sharp breath with a forced, hastened exhale through her nostrils to enact her effect as soon as possible. She had just cut through a runic circle larger than both her and Chaewonwon combined, the end of her scythe pointing upwards.

Stabbed through and through in her network of shadowy skewers, the fiend was left completely immobilized as Hyejoo’s eye of violet burned with conviction. The girl of darkness seemed to be struggling to maintain her effect. “Someone finish it off!”

Hyejoo’s request was granted in the form of a massive tremor beneath the group.

Kahei’s odd eye and crystal both shined in unison as a series of her runic circles began spawn all over the ground. Jungeun and Seulgi arrived at the same conclusion as they immediately began to sprint around the area, slicing and cleaving Kahei’s circles for her. With each one, an earthen spire similar to her first stalagmite ruptured upwards from below, spiraling up high into the air and piercing the fiend.

With every successive spear of rock driven through its chest and frame, the fiend’s body convulsed more and more, pieces of its plastic slowly breaking and falling to the earth below. A final runic circle of bright mahogany took form above it, to which Chaewon answered the call. Her odd eye gave off a soft beige glow as the pages of her tome began to shuffle, the runes imprinted on them shining brilliantly.

From a cloud of Chaewon’s mana on the floor, a dazzling beam of light shot straight up and became a beacon in the darkness of the night. The area was illuminated to an extreme as the light encompassed the fiend and broke through Kahei’s aerial circle. With the shattering of it, a charcoal colored boulder as obscenely large as the one Kahei broke the building with came into existence.

Unable to move from its prison of shadowy spikes and rocky spears, the fiend found itself crushed to death as Kahei’s titanic stone fell to the earth below.

Sighs of relief quickly came about in response. As Joohyun jumped back down to the ground below with Kahei, she found herself embraced in a running hug from Seulgi. “Great job, Joohyun!”

“Starting to understand just what exactly Sunmi meant by a level sixteen affinity for darkness…”

Hyejoo and Chaewon looked up to see a worried Jungeun approaching them. From nearby, Kahei followed, equally displaying surprised concern in her eyes. Jungeun addressed Hyejoo as her halberd faded into mana. “You alright, Hyejoo? That was...impressive, but definitely beyond the level of a Neophyte…”

“I’m...I’m fine, really,” Hyejoo insisted, clearly not appearing as such when she was the only one still catching her breath. “It’s just...I didn’t want it to get to you…”

“Hyejoo, you need to be cautious in using a surplus of mana for such a grand effect like that,” Kahei warned, her voice coming off as sweet yet stern. “Your unnaturally high affinity for your aligned element may make such feats easily possible, but your body and your manasystem have yet to reach a level where you can induce such effects without potentially serious consequences…”

Before Hyejoo could say anything, she found her hand being embraced by Chaewon’s. Her heart skipped a beat as the girl of light looked towards her, immediately ceasing the mana tether for a return to their preferred physical connection.

“Please be careful, Hyejoo.”

Hyejoo nodded slowly, feeling it click inside of her head at that moment. It wasn’t that she didn’t take stock in Jungeun’s or Kahei’s words. She respected them as her elders and she understood that they knew better than her.

No...it was simply the clear concern present in Chaewon’s eyes that spoke to her on levels beyond anything else. Chaewon squeezed Hyejoo’s hand lightly, not breaking eye contact. They gazed into each other’s eyes for a moment, and Hyejoo could feel the time between seconds pass as she looked to her.

The thought of Chaewon worrying about her...it upset her more than anything else.

“I’m sorry,” Hyejoo apologized sincerely. “I’ll try to control myself…”

“Alright, they’re all gone! Now we owe you one.”

The sorceresses of LOONA all turned to face a smiling Seulgi behind them. Next to her, an appreciative but entirely serious Joohyun nodded. “Thank you. You have our gratitude. Now, Seulgi, we need to go.”

Seulgi crossed her arms in protest as Joohyun walked off. “Really, Joohyun? You’re not even gonna invite them?”

“They have nothing to do with us. Don’t drag them into our problems.”

“What exactly is going on?” Chaewon asked curiously. As Seulgi was about to speak, Joohyun turned around halfway, looking at her comrade.

“Seulgi...please don’t involve them.”

“They could help, though!” Seulgi offered as a counterpoint before looking back to them. “Assuming they want to, anyway. We would owe them again, which is double the debt to repay, but…”

Seulgi fell silent as she looked to Joohyun. Joohyun’s eyes lowered to the ground as Seulgi spoke up again.

“You really think we can rescue Yeri on our own…?”

Silence cascaded upon the field in front of the destroyed church once again. Gazing upon its open doors and it's ruined frame, Hyejoo's mind was flooded with memories she wished she could forget.

It just had to be a church...

After a moment, Jungeun looked towards Kahei. Kahei simply nodded.

“Alright,” Jungeun started, bringing all eyes to her. “Fill us in on the details and maybe we can help each other out.”

“Wait, you need our help?” Seulgi said in surprise.

“With what exactly…?”

Jungeun didn’t answer Joohyun’s question immediately, looking up to the moon above in pondering thought for a moment. With a breath, she lowered her head once more and met Joohyun’s left eye of vermilion with her own matched eye of red flame.

“It’s kind of a long story. Let’s meet up with your friends. We need to talk.”