Umji wasn’t sure she was actually ready to shoot anyone, to be honest, inhuman monsters like those fleshy creatures aside. Not that Yuju was an inhuman monster at the time of the shooting but apart from that! 

The hacker still had some misgivings about taking life in general, but when Yuju asked for her to back away from the current fight and follow her directions to reach Sowon, she knew she might have to dirty her hands regardless. In their line of work, mercy was an indulgence they couldn’t afford at times.

“Found you!” Eunha jogged to catch up with the hesitant hacker, placing a hand on the younger’s shoulder in greeting. Umji blinked at Eunha; wouldn’t she be better off supporting SinB against the golem? As if sensing the unspoken question, Eunha shrugged, marching them both towards the indicated location that was pulsing in their vision courtesy of Yuju -- bearing the shaman’s mark had some interesting side effects.

“Yerin and SInB should be enough, and Yuju’s still there, she can back them up if things get dicey,” Eunha explained, looping an arm around Umji’s elbow. 

“You on the other hand probably shouldn’t be trying to rush anywhere on your own.”

“I thought Yerin-unnie would have come along actually,” Umji admitted. Still, it was good to have the fire mage along instead. Yerin made Umji a little nervous at times.

“The way ahead is more or less clear, don’t ask me how Yuju knows but she’s pulling off something pretty big back there.” Eunha wrinkles her nose in an expression of worry. “We gotta pull Sowon out asap and get back to the factory floor.” The fire mage grimaces.

“I hope Sowon is in good enough shape to walk on her own, I don’t think either of us can carry her.”

I can take care of that, but you might need to dragon up for it.

Yuju’s voice echoed in their ears without warning, making the smallest duo of the team jump a little in the empty hallway. Eunha resisted the urge to rub the painted on symbol behind her ear away. 

“A little warning would be nice! Are you eavesdropping on us?”

A dry chuckle. I hear everything now. You should hurry, we can’t waste anymore time.

“Great, the love of my life is haunting me like a ghost.” Eunha snarks out loud, rolling her eyes theatrically. There was an awkward pause, and Umji looked on with some concern.

“Are you sure you’re, you know, okay? With uh, everything.” Umji makes a general sweeping gesture. She hadn’t missed the gooey eyes Yerin and Yuju had been exchanging ever since they had been reunited, and while she was happy for them, it must have been awkward for Eunha, who was also very evidently in love with Yuju. The fire mage shrugs again.

“Can’t turn off the feelings but I refuse to feel bad about it,” she glances up in the air, directing her next words at Yuju clearly. 

“And don’t you dare feel sorry for me, I don’t need your pity.”

An awkward cough from the other side. Yes ma’am.

“Pushover,” Eunha rolls her eyes. The tiny mage strides forward, an impressed Umji in tow. Few people could handle being rejected so well, and even if Eunha was just faking composure it was a very convincing front. Then again, they did have more urgent matters at hand, so perhaps the fire mage was just holding everything together until the current crisis was over.

“We should get burgers after this,” Umji suggests, the only gesture of comfort she could think of offering right now. A small smile tugs at the corner of Eunha’s lips; food always did help.

“Let’s make sure there is an after then.” A pause. “How many burgers?”

“As many as you can eat.” Umji grins.

“And we’ll make Sowon pay for it.”

The pair share a smile, warm and determined. 

They were going to get Sowon back, and neither hell nor high water was going to get in their way.

“Subdue and capture the priority target!” 

The director barks the orders into a complex matrix that served as a command console, eyes fixated on the flickering image projected in the air before his comatose daughter. The view was bobbly thanks to the constant motion as the golem pursued the targets, but it was functional enough.

Control over the golem was indirect at best, this was no video game where they could manually direct its movements. The spoken commands simply gave it priority on executing orders, but the manner in which the golem did them was entirely up to the brain powering it.

Right now, half of that was at least Seo Hee, but the director’s daughter was no mage herself to exert full control over the golem the way a true practitioner could. She was, at best, a passenger trying to reach over to the driver’s seat, with executive command still bound to their remote control matrix.

Lee eyed the monitors anxiously, a frown knitting his forehead. The brain wave activity had stabilized to some degree after injecting the serum earlier, but the patterning on the monitor was making him nervous somehow. He couldn’t quite put a finger on why, but he felt like he was missing something important…

The first person view currently displayed a struggling Yerin being strangled by the golem, and Lee could understand why the director had to repeat the order: the previous authorization to use deadly force was still in effect, and the programming they used wasn’t very exact. 

Their work was absolutely groundbreaking, but the real breakthroughs in neural programming were still mostly being undertaken by their rivals. Every organization had their specialties, but even with all the corporate espionage at their disposal, there were still shortcomings in this area of their research. 

Despite the restrictions though, the golem was performing admirably on the field, and Lee could see that his colleagues were diligently recording the situation and listing the metrics for later evaluation. They had been lacking proper combat data until now, and this current situation had wound up being a blessing in disguise.

Eyes drifting back to the instruments, Lee couldn’t help the crawling discomfort creeping up his spine. Something was off about the data somehow, but he couldn’t quite put a finger on it yet. Where had he seen this pattern before? 

A blast took his attention away from the instruments. Lee flinched, ducking instinctively behind a table to avoid any flying debris -- he was no stranger to unplanned explosions after working for so long in a magical research lab. Even as he scrambled for cover, part of his attention was still drawn back to the observation screen, where the golem’s vision was flickering...

Subdue and capture.

The command flows like sinuous chains over you, locking the impulse to tighten your grip around the oh so fragile neck trapped in your hands. The target is trapped, and prime for incapacitation. You should knock her out, but somehow, you hesitate.

The look in her eyes feels achingly familiar. The matrix that powers you is temporarily paralyzed by the conflicting inputs, warring against the central command. Kill her. Save her. Subdue her.

Thoughts that might have been your own race unbidden through the shell of your soul.

Why do you weep? You’ve stopped crying since years ago. 

Why do I know this?

A vicious impulse sends tendrils of force through stiff fingers, and the target chokes under your grip, the momentary stutter leaving dark bruises on milky white skin. You were always proud of your skin. Our pretty Yennie.

Beautiful, and not mine.

An angrier voice, and the matrices stutter once again, something else flickering behind blank orbs that could once have been called windows to the soul. But if the soul had been wiped away, replaced, rewritten...could it be even called that anymore?

Something moves in the corner of your field of vision. Your automatic defensive protocols kick in, muscle memory that is both yours and not yours driving the arm sweep that sends the other annoying ant back into the wreckage you had knocked it into earlier. 

Priority target…

Still vulnerable within your grip, you feel your target’s pulse erratic in the arteries beneath the pale flesh of her neck. A heartbeat that reminds you a little of your own, steady pulse, regulated by the circuits that drove something more esoteric than mere plasma through your reconstructed veins. It reminds you a little of being alive, once.

I was...someone, once. Not...not like this. I...who am I….

Your movements stutter once more, the programming in your head running into yet another conflict of inputs. Something from deep within claws outwards, and you struggle unseen, though your outer form merely freezes in place, stoically awaiting fresh orders.

Fingers struggle to touch your cold cheeks, a brush of warmth long lost feeding the one struggling to assert control against your programming. The smallest of shudders ripple down your spine, and a flicker of humanity sparks within formerly soulless orbs.

Before you could decide how to move though, a blast of concussive force rips through the area, staggering even your impossibly powerful frame as your grip loosens just enough for your target to gasp a much needed breath. You look up, confused.

The air around you, rich in life giving mana, ripples with an uneasy tension, and a heavy pressure tightens like a glove all around you, freezing you in place. If you had any need to breathe, it would have been difficult to do so. 

The source of your discomfort stands no more than ten meters away from you, radiant with power. Where the flows of magic once ran in neat lines towards the center of the facility, you watch in real time as they shifted, yanked and rerouted to run towards the glowing creature radiating menace as it stalks towards you with an implacable pace.

Second priority target acquired, threat level: extreme.

Your skin, long deadened, gooseflesh from the spike in magical activity. Warning bells ring within your head, and something akin to fear whispers into your still human brain.

Your empty eyes meet glowing ones, and bloody shadows writhe around the approaching wraith as it finally speaks.

“Let her go. ”

“Surprise!”

Eunha wasn’t sure how she summoned the joie de vivre to sound so chirpy as she blew up the door leading into the chamber Yuju had sent them to. She had considered stealth for all of two seconds prior to that, before deciding that it was far past the time for guile. 

Besides, what was the point of sending a fire mage to sneak around anyway? When all you have is fire, the point is to actually use it. Hence the explosions.

If Eunha were to be honest, she might have put in a little more energy into blowing up the door than necessary. Sometimes, the best way to take out frustrations was on the enemy. You had to find a valid target after all. Innocent bystanders might get hurt otherwise.

Stepping through the smoking ruins of the door, Eunha dusted her hands off handily, an innocent smile on her face. She wouldn’t have taken such a risk if Yuju hadn’t assured her there weren’t any direct threats in the room. 

As it was, she might have overdone it a little. There were a couple of folks in lab coats absolutely shredded by the exploding shrapnel from her flashy incursion, and the fire mage picked her way delicately past the bleeding bodies to avoid getting more blood on her shoes.

It didn’t take long for her to scan the room for any remaining threats and locate Sowon at the same time. The tough ex-soldier was a little hard to miss, trapped in the center of the chamber behind a glowing field. Melted metal shards from Eunha’s explosive entry lay scattered at the base, and Eunha chuckled nervously. At least she hadn’t hurt Sowon by accident?

“How good of you to join us.”

Unfortunately, it seemed she hadn’t gotten all of them. Eunha scrunched her nose into a frown, scowling at the composed form of the crusty director from the other side of the force field cage holding Sowon. The tiny fire mage cracked her knuckles experimentally, whispers of flame swirling out like baby dragons taking their first puff through her fingers.

Her veins screamed at the abuse she was putting them through, but the heady rush of power as she took hold of the flame within her overruled her better sense. Dragon scales surfaced almost without conscious thought, creeping up her arms and neck, edging to the curves of her face.

Eunha’s blatant display did not go unmissed. The director seemed interested in her transformation, and the fire mage coolly noted the sheer number of talismans the man seemed to have on him. A direct assault would take a while to burn through all that, she assessed. It would be a little inconvenient given the tight schedule Yuju had given her.

Still, it wasn’t like they were going to let her take Sowon away if she just asked nicely.

“I’ll be bringing my friend back, old man.” Stand back or die, was the unspoken threat, but Eunha was above crass insults. 

Her flames would speak for her.

Yuju couldn’t breathe.

clenches with a phantom resonance, an echo of the crushing grip around Yerin’s throat, not so very far away. A black fury buzzes from within, dark claws raking across the hot coals of her carefully corralled emotions, and Yuju seethes.

No one touches her Yerin and gets away with it.

But let’s wind back to a little before this moment, shall we?

The factory was vast. Bigger than a casual sweep of the eye could see, but Yuju rarely relied purely on her physical senses. No, what moved her to a grim silence as they moved through the looming racks of ‘storage cases’ was the number of shades that remained unpurged and trapped in this place. Death was supposed to be the final release, but in this accursed place, not even death was enough to free the wandering spirits that haunted these halls.

The wards that kept the mana in and kept it circulating for processing and extraction were the cause. An essential part of the souls were trapped, and what remained couldn’t find their final rest, and wasn’t even allowed the dignity of being dissipated and dissolved to the winds as a scattered spirit, not with the strong magic holding everything together.

It was just like back at that place. The screaming of the restless dead. Where they were no longer alive, but not dead enough. And she could always, always hear them.

Yerin’s hand on her arm helps. It keeps her grounded. It’s why she hasn’t sent her out yet, even though she really should. 

Every additional second spent in this place was making her sick, and all Yuju wanted was to tear this place down and grind it to dust. 

In direct contrast to her distress, Charlotte was in its element. Unsurprising, the conditions that had birthed the blood spirit originally were uncannily similar to this place. The souls of the maligned, countless sacrifices. All it took was a key.

Yuju had been that key once upon a time. But she had no interest in spawning a sibling for her bloodthirsty spirit partner this time round. All she could do was try and ignore the weeping wails of the dead, so close under her skin.

I wanna go home...

Mama…

Let me out!

Someone help…

I don’t want to die.

A hundred, thousand voices; broken shards of dying gasps, echoes of voiceless ghosts. Yuju closes her eyes, stopping at a precise spot. This was the place she had to be. A nexus.

And she reaches out now, magical senses expanding infinitely as she taps into the power spot, not unlike a hacker slipping into an unprotected system via an internal node. This place might have been warded against external detection, but she was already inside. The magic touches everywhere the wards reach, and where it touches, Yuju now sees.

If she were any less controlled, she could have lost herself. If she had nothing holding her together, she would as well. But she was not alone.

Yerin is coordinating the rest, sending them out as planned. The assassin does not let go of her arm, and the continued touch is...appreciated. Yerin worries about her, Yuju knows. They are connected now, and though she shields her lover from the worst of the voices, somehow, Yerin knows.

I am with you. Her voice is soothing through their Bond. Yerin’s presence reminds Yuju that this was not the past, where she was young and powerless and vulnerable. Her soul felt adrift, lost in the currents of power, but always, there was that thread leading back to Yerin, keeping her safe. 

Yerin wasn’t just her lover, Yerin was home. And everything that implied.

I will follow you straight into hell. That was Yerin’s unspoken promise, but Yuju could never do that to her. They had a plan, and they were going to make it out. All of them.

That was Yuju’s promise to her. And come hell or high water, she would be damned before she broke it.

Nothing can stop us now. I will see to that.

But even the best laid plans could go awry.

No one touches Yerin and gets away with it.

Her animal self howls at her to move, to take action, to run, rip and tear. It was a very loud voice, but Yuju’s feet remained planted on the ground, within the circle she had drawn herself. Her lips were drawn tightly together, strain evident in every muscle as she fought down her darker impulses. 

She wanted to go, right now, but she was also in the middle of something. She couldn’t move just yet.

Soon, she promises herself. Her entire body was thrumming with power threatening to spill over. She could not afford to lose control, not now. The backlash would tear her apart, and then where would that leave her? No help to anyone at all.

Master, there’s so much…

Charlotte sounded almost giddy in her head, drunk on the overflowing power as the blood spirit feeds in wild abandon. Yuju’s vision blurs, a weird kaleidoscope filter imposing itself as the world turns into a nightmarish inversion of itself all around her.

She was standing on the factory floor still, a piece of her remembers. Pods stacked high with living humans, living batteries for her, all conveniently hooked up via ritual circuits to vent through unthinking slave mages contained at strategic points. All to process the raw mana into something usable. Something that could be stored, bottled, refined and enriched. A human meat grinder, paid for in blood and lives.

The whole concept made her sick, even though her blood spirit was acting like a kid at a candy store. And was it not? This place was a buffet for a starved spirit, long constrained by an ailing master. Yuju had not been able to feed her bonded spirit adequately, not after the broken contract with the imugi. She was... lesser now. Not as powerful as before.

But she was also whole now. She remembers who she is, what she is, and the reason for which she fights. So even though she stands here, in the middle of a nightmare, surrounded by the twisted screams of a thousand broken souls, she does not back down.

The astral plane is a warped caricature of the original physical geometry of the place she stands in. A complicated web of power lines, guided by the arcane circuits grooved in blood, feeding into the hungry mouths that guzzled mana and life into mechanical throats, to be digested and stoppered away like mere merchandise. 

The energies pulse red, overlaid by the hunger of her blood spirit, the greedy little thing siphoning off the ambient energy of the thousands of trapped souls, their lives being bled away to feed corporate greed. A part of Yuju trembles; she hates this, wants to bring it all down, set everyone free…

All the lives she could not save before. She sees echoes of them in the wavering candle flames all around her, each one representing a soul. Row after row of them, trapped in living coffins, alive, for now. Unaware, yes, and being diminished with every moment, but alive.

I could save them. I should save them.

An old, desperate voice wells out from within her, a voice weeping for every life she could not save before. Yuju remembers now, the voices of the dead that haunt her. She carries their memories with her; the only survivor of a hundred, a thousand, more dead than the younger her could count, their broken voices an unending whisper repeating the moments before death. The sobbing, the cries, the cursing and the fear.

She carries them all with her, an undertaker without a coffin. The restless dead unburied, their sacrifices unrecorded, unremembered -- except by her. For she had lived in their stead, and it made her who she was. 

The glowing soul fires all around her, these were human lives. Every individual here was a unique person with lives, hopes and dreams. They were not food, no matter what Charlotte said. Yuju remembers, and affirms this within herself once more.

She does not seek power for power’s sake. She was a shaman, someone who speaks with spirits. She does not take for herself, not without giving back some of herself in return. A mage takes, but a shaman asks.

Thus Yuju steels herself, eyes rolling back in their sockets as she reaches out.

And so she asks.

Help me, so that I may help you.

Humble, a prayer, beseeching.

I cannot save everyone, for I am weak.

The truth in balance, the scales heavy.

But I am here now, and I will not let this injustice pass.

A promise given.

I will set you free.

Blood for blood, life for life.

Yuju speaks, and in this world, this plane, the spirits halt, and they listen.

Time stops in this moment, the world in her hand, her soul in the balance. She waits for judgment, for absolution, for permission. She could have taken everything here by force, Charlotte would have been more than happy to do so. She could have glutted herself on the free energy, ignored the lives she ruins in her wake, and then smash through everything like wet tissue. Nothing could stand in her way then.

But if she were to do that, what difference would that make between her and those who had hurt her? She could not, would not, become her tormentors. She was a victim once. She would not make more victims unless she had no other choice. 

I am not a good person, but I want to be better. I will carry everyone with me to their rest. That their souls may find peace, instead of being torn apart for greed. 

No more suffering, no more pain. The echoes of the tormented, unable to rest, unable to find peace, they grow still at this promise. There would be an end. Not salvation, not really, because Yuju was not a god, but their ordeal would stop for good. The shaman offered no false promises, laying her soul out bare for judgment. Her pain, her experiences, her understanding.

I too have been here. It can stop. I will stop it. 

I will not stop until this ends.

The world trembles, quaking at the depth of her oath. Yuju knows what she has committed to, and does not regret it. She had survived for a reason, and she would use her life to stop the same pain from happening to others. Even if she had to fight alone, she would never give up.

A pained, wracked sob reverberates within her chest, and Yuju chokes, clutching at her chest. She had hooked herself up to the entire arcane network running throughout the facility, and while it gave her an unprecedented view of everything it touched, it was also burning her from inside out. 

But the only thing that could hurt her like this was Yerin, and the shaman cries out in anguish, wanting to reach her struggling lover. She had no time for this, and she so deeply wanted to be selfish, to take and take and take, and then run to the assassin’s side, protecting her from everything that would hurt her.

Down on her knees, Yuju watches as rivulets of blood streaked down her arms, fat red droplets spattering like so many tears around her. The monster she kept chained within her, the one named Vengeance, wanted to be free, and Yuju fought it tooth and nail, knowing that to lose to it was to lose herself entirely.

She knows Yerin would let the world burn before letting anyone or anything touch her, but Yuju doesn’t want to become a monster. She doesn’t want Yerin to love a calamity. She deserved better. Both of them deserved better. 

Her forehead slams against the cold concrete, smashing some sense into herself before the blind rage could take over. Again and again, like a wild beast hurling itself against an invisible cage. Her blood was hot, mingling with tears unbidden, soaking into the unfeeling ground beneath her. Pain was a distant memory, and her soul howled, torn in two.

In the face of her anguish, even the lost souls pause. A bloodied fist clenches on the unforgiving concrete, grim with resolve. A sigh, almost unheard, echoes across the empty space.

And the lights go out.