On hindsight, Sowon realized that it has been too long since she had to sieve for information on the ground on her own. 

Ever since Umji got old enough to trawl for information on the Matrix, the number of times Sowon had to listen for rumours and information at bars and other gathering spots had gone down significantly. And when Yerin had joined the team over a year prior, the smooth-talking assassin had largely taken over that aspect with her web of contacts and informants. 

One rarely thought about how much someone contributed until it was no longer available. Yerin had been useful, one of the reasons why Sowon had recruited her, apart from the strange sense of familiarity she had felt upon meeting Yerin and Yuju. It was odd really, considering how long she had been working on her own until she started picking up the rest of the team. Of course, once her memories had come back, the reason for that had been clear.

She had always known them, memory or no, and have been waiting and searching for them all this time. They should have died together 50 years ago, but the orb had saved her life at the last second, and a part of her had always remembered that. It was carved into her soul, the bond between her and the others, and she would always be able to recognize them, no matter what.

It really did hurt when Yerin chose to leave. Granted, the more cynical side of her never fully trusted the girl, sensing the layers of secrets that were hidden behind her cheerful facade. But a part of her still felt close to the troubled assassin, the same type of attachment she felt for each one of the girls on her team. She had always been willing to give Yerin a chance to assimilate, willing to trust her on some vague instinct that hadn’t made sense until her memories had come back. 

Something had happened to Yerin before the time they met, and it defined her personality and choices made in this lifetime. Sowon had gotten to Umji the earliest, so apart from the illegal experiments the poor girl had been part of early in life, almost too early for the youngest to remember, the hacker had more or less grown up under her watch. SinB and Eunha had each other, and despite their less than stellar teenage years, the two of them turned out fairly alright by the time Sowon brought them into the fold.

Yerin and Yuju had been the last to join, and their pasts were shrouded in mystery by comparison. Sowon knew exactly what happened to the first three she had found, but she knew next to nothing about the two that came later, other than the fact that Yuju was very well versed in her powers for someone who wasn’t affiliated with any organization or coven, and that Yerin was a very experienced shadowrunner. Neither of the pair had been very open about their pasts, but it hadn’t been a problem at the beginning.

It was a problem now, of course. Yerin’s past had caught up with her, as a former agent of Tristar. Sowon had heard rumours before, of course. Had, in fact, been approached by recruiters from the megacorp who wanted her to work for them. She had turned them down at the time, and while they had been disappointed, they hadn’t pushed the issue and left her alone after that. That was almost fifteen years ago, before she had found Umji, and was still just a lone mercenary making her name in the shadows of Incheon. 

Fifteen years ago. All of her current team had been little more than children at the time. Sowon suppressed a smile as she remembered how little SinB had looked when she had first seen her and Eunha from afar, many years ago. She had arrived too late to smuggle the next batch of metahumans away from Ulsan, and little Eunha had lost her mother as a result. Sowon never told them about that incident, that she had been there watching from the shadows when SinB and her parents came to pick up Eunha to raise as one of their own. The spark of recognition had been there at the time, but Sowon had chosen not to act on that feeling back then. It didn’t seem right to intrude on the family they had then, though it did come as a surprise when she ran into the pair again almost a decade later on a different job.

Perhaps it was for the best that she hadn’t picked those two up early, Sowon thought. The was already obvious enough even now, and Sowon wasn’t sure how she would have dealt with raising the reincarnation of her ex maybe girlfriend from childhood. Certainly they would never have ended up the way they were now, for sure. 

Sowon watched SinB chat with the locals with an almost unconscious half smile, before remembering she was supposed to look menacing and adjusting her expression accordingly. Having SinB play good cop to her bad cop was an unusual switch up in roles, but it seemed to work -- SinB had grown up in not so dissimilar surroundings in the South, and was able to communicate better with the local slummers on that understanding. Sowon was just here to make sure the younger girl didn’t get hurt if any tempers flared, since SinB’s shoulder was still nowhere near its best. 

Thus far, actual threats had been minimal, and Sowon’s menacing aura appeared to keep any potential s from trying their luck. Not that SinB couldn’t take care of herself, but Sowon wasn’t about to risk it. The ex-soldier was willing to admit to herself that she was possibly being overprotective, but she cared for SinB and already felt guilty enough for allowing her to get hurt at all. She wasn’t sure how to feel about Yerin being the one to inflict that injury, especially with how precisely the rogue had avoided anything potentially fatal with that stab. Having seen Yerin in action before, Sowon agreed with SinB that Yerin didn’t miss in general, unless it was on purpose. 

But what purpose would there be to attack them and then leave with her former employers? That was the one thing Sowon could not understand. She could see how Yerin doted on Yuju even before they officially got together, and none of her actions made sense in this context. Leaving Yuju behind while she went away did not seem like something Yerin would normally do, especially with how vulnerable a state the shaman was in now.

Unless, of course, she had no choice but to do so, in order to protect her girl. Sowon frowned, considering. Umji had fessed up about cracking secured files for Yerin prior to the assassin going rogue, and Sowon had reviewed those in her spare time in between searching for the now missing Yuju. Umji needed more time to triangulate on the physical location of those files before Sowon could retrieve them, and the leader sensed that it could perhaps be a clue to the mystery of Yerin’s past, and perhaps, a chance to understand why Yerin was choosing to do what she did.

The video left behind by Yerin’s old friend had also proven to be a hint for the sort of life Yerin used to lead. They were disposable assets, not unlike how shadowrunners were to the corps in general, but it was clear that Yerin and her friends had been specially raised to perform a specific function for Tristar, and were then discarded when they no longer proved to be useful. It explained a great deal about Yerin’s tight-lippedness about her past, and the sort of skills she possessed. 

Still, it was a mystery why they would be discarded as they were. Sowon had seen Yerin at work, and she was good at what she did. It seemed a waste to abandon useful resources, especially with how profit-oriented the megacorps usually were, and Sowon couldn’t even begin to guess what they were playing at. There was too little information for her to correctly analyze the situation, and she couldn’t help but feel that she was missing key pieces to complete the puzzle. There were too many unknowns involved in this, and the one person who could answer her questions had gone over to the other side.

And right now, they had bigger fish to fry. Yuju had been calm, almost too calm, following Yerin’s departure, though Sowon had observed that the shaman appeared to be more distant than usual. Considering how Yuju had flown off the handle before when she had thought Yerin to be dead, her reaction was suspicious at best. Careful prying from her end had yielded no results, so when Yuju finally exploded that night, Sowon was oddly relieved to get the reaction she had been expecting to happen from the beginning. 

That said, it was not a good sign that the shaman had gone missing like this. Yuju was a ticking time bomb waiting to happen, and while the girl had been on her best behaviour for months, there was no denying that her affinity for blood magic was still a latent threat. Eunha had also come clean about how Yuju appeared to have memory blackouts with no idea what transpired during them, and it worried Sowon greatly. If Yuju was acting out unconsciously, there might already be unknown casualties out there, beyond their notice. And if that were true, Yuju needed to be stopped before she went too far for them to pull her back.

Sowon had set Umji to look for any discernible patterns in the meantime, while she took to the streets with SinB to do what had been Yerin’s job for the past year. There were always rumours that never made it to the wider network, and there was no real substitute for the gossip grapevine. Yerin had been absolutely right on that, though Sowon wondered how much she never shared with the rest of them. The only person Yerin had ever seemed to fully trust was Yuju, and now Yuju was also gone. If Sowon were a more conspiratorial type, she might have suspected the two of them were in on this whole thing together.

“Got what we need, chief. Let’s go.” 

SinB bounced up to Sowon with a gleam in her eye, hands shoved in the pockets of her ragged jeans. Sowon absentmindedly brushed away a messy lock of hair from the younger’s face, tucking the strands behind her ear. It was an unexpectedly tender gesture that made SinB flush slightly, but the gunslinger recovered quickly and hooked an arm around Sowon’s elbow, moving them away from the dive bar she had been mingling around in earlier.

“You were right. People have been going missing for months in the slums,” SinB reported after they were a good distance away, strolling on the streets like an almost normal couple. Sowon was sporting a pair of shades, which concealed her robotic eye and made her less conspicuous by default. SinB looked up to see Sowon’s lips curl into a frown.

“I was hoping to be wrong.”

SinB exhaled slowly, kicking a pebble away. No one kept an official census of the population in the slum areas, which were generally left alone as long as the dwellers there kept their heads down and caused no trouble. Gangs divided territory up amongst them, and served as both protection and a shakedown racket to anyone unfortunate enough to be born and live there. Nevertheless, word got around. Slowly, perhaps, but people tend to notice when their friends and family went missing, even if the local police, which belonged to the megacorps, weren’t informed. Slum dwellers generally didn’t trust the corps, and for good reason. They had their own ways of dealing with problems without resorting to official intervention.

“You really think Yuju is responsible?”

SinB didn’t like how things were adding up. She had been there when Yuju had gone missing the first time, and even though Yuju had come back the next day, it was still a mystery as to what she had been up to while she was gone. While SinB had grudgingly determined that Yuju wasn’t going to hurt them, that didn’t mean the shaman hadn’t hurt anyone else. 

SinB was no saint herself, and if she were to be honest, so long as Yuju inflicted no harm on her and those she cared about, she couldn’t care less if the shaman decided to turn into a serial killer or something. There was a good reason why she and Yerin got along in the first place. Both of them only cared about protecting the people close to them, and it still mystified SinB that Yerin would leave Yuju behind like this. It seemed entirely out of character for the assassin, and it was one of the things that bothered SinB a lot. She had considered Yerin to be a friend, and getting stabbed by a friend hurt.

“I don’t know. But it doesn’t look good.” 

Sowon shook her head with a sigh. Missing might not necessarily mean dead, but it was almost as good as in this case. The fact that this has been going on for months didn’t help either, and Sowon couldn’t help but think that there was no way Yerin had missed this happening in the city. And if Yerin had already known, it was clear that the assassin had kept that information from the rest of them. 

That was not a good sign either. Sowon thought she understood Yerin’s ethics, which seemed to be entirely based around Yuju and nothing else. If Yuju really was out there killing people, Sowon would not doubt for one second that Yerin would clean up for her and hide the evidence. 

“Well, what are we gonna do now?” SinB looked back at Sowon for direction, and the leader massaged her temples wearily.

“Let’s head back first. Maybe Eunha can give us a location to narrow down on. We’ve got to find Yuju as fast as possible.” Before more people die. Before she can’t be stopped.

Before they had no other choice but to put her down. Sowon closed her eyes. That was the absolute last option she wanted to take, but if Yuju was starting to rampage, better they take her down first, before someone else with questionable motives did. Blood mages were fair game everywhere, and not all those who hunted them had the mercy for a quick kill. There were uses for a living specimen, and if Sowon could spare Yuju that fate, she would sooner dirty her own hands than let some bounty hunter take her first.

Let’s just hope we’re not too late.

A wet nose nudging against her neck was the first thing she felt as she broke free of the dark sea of unconsciousness, and Yuju wrinkled her nose as she rolled over, a wet tongue flicking across her chin and up against her earlobe.

Her eyes snapped open, and a spark winked into existence briefly, before flickering out in the next breeze. A soft whine, followed by eager panting in her ear, and Yuju reached up to scritch almost absently at the happy mongrel trying to get her attention as she struggled to figure out where she was.

“You’re awake.” A voice she didn’t recognize came from her left, and the match she was trying to strike finally took hold, the speaker carefully shielding the tiny flame and coaxing it into the pile of kindling before her. The fire that came was weak and sputtering, but it finally illuminated the area, revealing the person who had come to her aid earlier.

“Hwangie doesn’t usually like strangers, funny how he seems to love you.” 

The stranger commented, tilting her head at the large dog with the ragged ear that was currently rolled onto its back to allow Yuju to give it a belly rub, which she did. Yuju smiled blandly. Dogs always did love her, perhaps sensing the totem she had chosen to follow. 

“Thank you for helping me.” Yuju didn’t recall much of her scuffle with the two vagrants, hell, she had gotten terribly lost after finding herself in the slums somewhere in the middle of the night. She was tired, so terribly tired, and it had been getting cold even with her automatically adjusting her core temperature upwards to compensate. She really should have known better than to overuse her magic again, but freezing seemed like the bigger problem at the time.

Her head was throbbing painfully, and there were wide gaps in her memory again. Her brow furrowed as she tried to recall what had driven her out into the night again, and broken images flashed across her mind, her jaw tightening as she ground her teeth together, eyes squeezed shut.

Yerin was screaming in her head and she had to go, had to reach her, had to help and...can’t can’t can’t can’t we promised she said so she’s crying I’m here I’m here it’s too far I can’t…

She slammed her fist into the ground next to her, suddenly furious. The dog whimpered next to her, rolling back up to cautiously at her elbow, trying to offer what comfort it could. Across from her, the gangly teen watched her cautiously, poking at the fire while adding more fuel to it.

They were in a condemned building, one of many structures on the verge of falling down after being decommissioned years ago. Rezoning plans never happened despite grand promises made by the city council, and squatters took over eventually. It was precarious shelter, but some shelter was still better than none. Most slummers went underground for the duration of winter though, since topside buildings couldn’t hold the heat as well during that season, which was why they had the place to themselves.

“Hey, I know you can heal yourself and all but chill with the self-harm, kay? You cool with rat, by the way?” The young stranger spitted a skinned rat expertly across the makeshift campfire, and Yuju swallowed awkwardly, trying to rein in her emotions. Hwangie the dog laid its head on Yuju’s knee, and the shaman continued it, finding some calm in the action. 

“You know I’m a mage.” Yuju stared at the kid across the fire. There was something oddly familiar about the kid, but the shaman couldn’t quite place her somehow. 

“Name’s Ryujin, and yes I know you’re a mage.” Ryujin paused, studying Yuju with a critical eye. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“Should I?” Yuju frowned, trying to remember. Ryujin turned the cooking rat on the spit, eyes cast low on the embers.

“Did I get the wrong person…” She mumbled half to herself, then shook her head decisively. She had seen how Yuju had taken care of those two scavengers earlier. While it had been bloodless, she had kicked them on her way out earlier to check if they were still alive. They were, but barely. Not for long though, not left out in this weather. Frost had lined their features, and their veins were a vivid tracery on ghost white skin. It matched the conditions of those touched by the Spider, and Ryujin was still quietly impressed that the woman had enough control to not murder her assailants outright despite what they tried to do to her. 

“You’ve seen me before.” Yuju said suddenly, narrowing her eyes at Ryujin. “But I don’t remember you.”

“You wouldn’t. You were kind of busy at the time.” Ryujin met her gaze evenly, a speculative look in her eye. Yuju had dark hair and dark eyes now, a far cry from the blood red hair and glowing tattoos on her skin that night. It made her look disturbingly normal, but Ryujin was well aware that it was just a facade. The same powers lurked beneath, just hidden in daylight.

Yuju locked onto the younger girl’s gaze, slipping unconsciously into astral sight as she dove right in without hesitation. This girl knew something she didn’t, and Yuju had a feeling it was important. It was actually quite rude to read someone without permission, but it was common knowledge to not look a known mage in the eye unless one was asking for a soulgaze. Out of politeness, Yuju didn’t dig too deep, but she was able to glimpse flashes of Ryujin’s surface thoughts. The young slummer didn’t even flinch, and a single image solidified after a moment.

It was like looking into a twisted mirror of herself. Yuju broke contact first, pushing herself backwards and knocking the contented dog out of her lap by accident. Hwangie whined in confusion, raising puppy dog eyes up at her. But Yuju was still fixated on what she had seen in Ryujin’s mind.

Murder in crimson. That was the first words that came to mind. It was her, yet it was not. Her face, but crawling with living tattoos that writhed with every step. Blood red hair, matching the spattered landscape of broken bodies and tattered intestines. She had looked into the eyes of her twin, and it was flecked with gold in red.

I know you.

I was always here.

You should never have existed.

But I am you.

Yuju heaved, bending over and clutching her head in her hands. It couldn’t be true. It had to be a nightmare. That couldn’t be her. She could never have…

How do you think you got out the first time?

Suddenly, Yuju was twelve again and locked inside a cage. The alarms were blaring, something had gone wrong, everyone had forgotten about her and…

There was a shadow over Mother, it reached in and took everything, life and blood and soul. A crumbling hand, arched in despair. Her own tiny fists, slamming against the mirrored walls. Something cracked, first inside, then all around her, and then the vision splintered into a thousand cuts, slicing deep into everything she thought she was.

“Hey, hey, you okay?” A gentle hand was shaking her by the shoulder, and Yuju looked up with confused, terrified eyes. Ryujin looked concerned, and Hwangie nudged at her with his furry muzzle, equally worried. Yuju was shaking, and she latched onto the younger girl before her with a kind of wild desperation. Ryujin swallowed nervously, trying not to aggravate the clearly unstable mage before her.

“Look, I’m not going to hurt you.” So please don’t eat me. Or worse.

Yuju took a deep, shuddering breath, releasing Ryujin and reaching down to embrace the dog instead. Hwangie her comfortingly on the chin, unafraid. A choked sob escaped the shaman’s lips, and she buried her face into the slightly mangy fur.

Everything she thought was real about herself was breaking down, and she didn’t know what to believe anymore. Her memories were not to be trusted, and she was a danger to everyone around her. I know, I know, I have always known.

There was a monster within her. She had been running all this time, the truth a broken toothed saw boring away at the last of her already precarious sanity. Her hands, her scarred hands, they were both a warning and a reminder. Remember what you’ve done. Who you really are.

She didn’t deserve the trust and companionship of her friends. Everything she touched turned to ash, and she needed to leave before she hurt anyone else. How could I have forgotten?

A warm wet nose nuzzled at her cheek, and Yuju wept, tears soaking the fur of her newfound friend. The simple loyalty of the dog touched her, reminding her of the ones loyal to her, the people she needed to protect. She wanted to run, but how could she, when Yerin still needed her? I might be weak, but I won’t be a coward.

Or are you?

Shut up, you. 

I am you, .

A broken sob, half chuckle and half hysterical, escaped her lips. Next to her, Ryujin shifted nervously, and somehow even remembered to turn the rat again on the spit. Food was still very important, despite the possible threat lurking two feet away from her.

Yuju wiped at her face roughly, forcing the fear down. Her head felt like it was splitting in two, and nothing made sense anymore, but she refused to be cowed. She was in control right now, not the other her, and she wouldn’t give in without a fight.

I’m still here.

Yuju ignored that voice, petting Hwangie on the head as she looked back up at Ryujin, a resolute expression on her face. 

“Tell me everything you know.”

“How soon are we capable of moving to mass production?”

Focused tapping on a screen as detailed charts scrolled on the overhead, displaying arcane stats and various other progress reports pertaining to the subject at hand. On a different wall, a simulation rotated idly, a panorama of the history of the project. Failed lines of research fizzled out as the model evolved through the early stages, detailing the progress over years of work.

“The conversion efficiency isn’t ideal for mass production at this point, even with an increase in the number of conduits. We’re looking into upping the efficiency rate per unit, but as you may be aware, the success rates for artificial implantation have never been very high.” 

The bespectacled woman in a white lab coat checked her notes on the handheld tablet, shaking her head at the projected numbers. The grey-bearded man to whom she reported continued facing the overhead screen, tapping his fingers idly together as he studied the results.

“If we proceed with the conduit upgrades, what are the projected gains versus the unit loss percentage?”

The scientist ran a quick calculation and winced.

“A basic upgrade would give us a 10 percent efficiency boost per unit, but with a projected 30 percent loss rate on our existing units. If we push for a comprehensive upgrade, we can hit 30, maybe 40 percent increase in efficiency, but the fatalities could go well over 50 percent if we do that.”

A moment of silence as the man ran a thumb over the ring on his finger, weighing his options. 

“Prepare for a comprehensive upgrade for all units, but I want a better loss forecast for the operations.” He paused, turning to face the suddenly pale and sweating scientist.

“Our techniques should have improved in the last decade, or have they not? The loss calculations you have given me are quite unacceptable. Understandable, perhaps, only within the first few years since our initial success.” He snapped his fingers impatiently.

“Have we made so little progress since we lost our Angel? Or have I been feeding fools all this time?” His voice was low, almost menacing, eyes glittering with restrained danger.

“I have waited decades for this project to come to fruition. Do not disappoint me.”

The scientist swallowed nervously, lowering her eyes in submission.

“Yes Director, my team and I will revise the proposal for the planned upgrade and have it ready for you as soon as possible.”

The man turned back to face the outer window overlooking the secret facility they were in, humming with activity both magical and electronic beyond the confines of the conference room. The dim, unearthly glow of lights cast a dark shadow over his bearded face, smooth and unlined despite the weight of years evident in his deep-set eyes. He glowed with an almost unnatural vitality for his age, and radiated unquestioned authority simply by standing there. Here was a man used to power, and everything that came with it.

“You have two weeks. Make full use of it.”

The scientist nodded obediently, backing out of the room once dismissed. The director exhaled slowly, holding up a hand that was the only visible external indicator of his true age, liver-spotted with sagging skin. He was getting old, even with the techniques developed to maintain his vitality and youthful appearance. They were so close to a major breakthrough, though it was a pity they never had a chance to study Subject Zero in person. 

The data they had was outdated, and while it had served as the linchpin of their research, the pertinent details were impossible to study without direct access to the test subject. Their ally guarded his secrets closely, but even with his recalcitrance, their joint efforts had driven the project this far. 

So much progress over the years, from the early failures building up into their current wealth of knowledge regarding the subject matter. Yet there was so much more they did not understand, all those secrets lying just out of reach that could only be unravelled with time. They needed more time, more tests, more lives to pour into the meatgrinder until results appeared. 

It truly was a pity that their Angel was lost to them. An unfortunate accident at the labs, and it had led to them upgrading their containment and safety procedures after the fact. Still a major blow to their progress, however, since no other subjects before and after had been as resilient otherwise. Failure upon failure resulting in the deaths of all other subjects, save for the Angel, who survived every operation and allowed them to learn what worked and what didn’t. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that without their Angel, the current implantation process would never have been invented at all. 

The failure rates were still regrettably high, as humans were unfortunately quite fragile. But the success of the project was paramount, and if they were able to reliably reproduce the processes involved, it would be a major breakthrough for all humanity. 

Magic was a gift, and a fickle one at that. All he sought was the ability to choose, to be able to bestow it upon anyone who wished. It was terribly unfair that so few had the gift, that the rest of them were but mere mundanes scratching for scraps at the door of the gods. Well, mankind had always found their own way. No one else could determine his fate, except for himself.

I will make my own destiny. And neither god nor man will get in my way.