The team ended up by the edge of a long road. It was already nighttime. A quick check on a smartphone indicated that they were in Busan and that it was 2am.

“The last pillar is here.” Jiu reminded them with a low voice. They, especially Yoohyeon, wanted to ask questions but Jiu looked so down that they didn't have the heart to. Not even I-don’t-care-about-feelings Dami.

Bora decided to take charge. “Let’s go into the city for now and book a few rooms to rest. It’s been a long day.” Gahyeon took in her surroundings and teleported their car to the empty street next to them. Jiu lets Bora take the wheel, too tired to do anything. They were all drained from the crazy day.

--

The next morning, Jiu called them to her room. She looked a lot better today but Yoohyeon knew that she cried herself to sleep. Her room was situated right next to the blonde’s and it broke her heart to hear Jiu sobbing. However, Yoohyeon understood that Jiu needed this time alone. And if she was lucky, Jiu would come to her eventually when she was ready.

For now, the younger girl would have to be as attentive as possible. The others sat on the available space while Jiu sat on a single armchair.

“To start off, I’m sorry.” Jiu looked at each of them in the eyes to convey her sincerity. “I was going to tell you all eventually-”

“When it was safe.” Yoohyeon finished, echoing what Jiu told her the other night.

“Yes.” Jiu let out a big sigh. “It isn’t exactly safe but being forced into that situation made me realize that I should start by telling the people I trust about myself. At least before I can even think of telling the whole world.”

“My real ‘identity’ is Kim Minji, the next Ava to the Coven.” Jiu clenched her fists together, suddenly feeling an icy fear take over her body. Bora noticed the action and moved to hold one of her hands. The natural heat from Bora calmed the blonde a little to continue her story.

“Are you guys...are the people of the Coven witches?” It sounded a bit ridiculous when spoken out loud but then again, Gahyeon figured that there were several creatures and humanoids out there, undiscovered.

“We don’t call ourselves witches per say...” Jiu took a shuddering breath to prepare her heart for the next reveal.

“We are necromancers.”

Silence.

Surprisingly, Dami is the one to break the silence. “I figured.” She said.

“W-what? You figured?” Jiu stuttered, trying to figure out why Dami was so unbothered. This is literally her biggest, life changing secret and all Dami can say is ‘I figured’??? At least the others had the decency to express their shock or give her comforting looks.

The detective hummed, “I read several books about the witch hunts from years back. These hunts targeted people with powers that were deemed unholy or close to demonic powers. There was a really obscured record about a group that was hunted and wiped out completely. They were described with dark magic that could raise the dead. It made me think that this was a possibility when I thought about a flower I saw in the Coven. It was a flower that was thought to be extinct.”

Now it was Jiu’s turn to be shocked. Well, Dami was the academy’s pride after all. “So, how does your power work? You’ve been healing people this whole time and I’m pretty sure they weren’t dead yet. The Coven and that woman that you spoke to are also of interest.”

Snapping out of it, Jiu continued. “That woman is the current leader of the Coven...and my mother. The Coven was formed to protect people that had powers similar or exactly like necromancy and we have been able to keep the strand of our powers within the Coven. The fear of being hunted or treated as outsiders caused the Coven to hide away in their own pocket dimension. But I think differently. We should be trying to get people to accept us for who we are.”

Jiu stopped to wet her lips. Her passion for helping her people escape their hermit lifestyle always got her riled up. Hiding away solved nothing. And yes, maybe some people did not want to leave the Coven but surely, there were those who yearned to know more about the outside world. She wanted to give them that choice.

“As for how our powers work...it’ll be faster to just show you.”

Bora was asked to burn a pot of flowers sitting on the coffee table. The redhead was confused but did as she was told anyway. A pile of ash sat inside the pot. Jiu circled the ash with her hands and released her dark magic into them. For the first time in a long time, Jiu allowed her magic to flow properly throughout her body. Her hair and eyes turned a deep purple.

The flowers came back to life before their eyes. When she was finished, her hair returned to being pale blonde but her eyes stayed purple. “This form of necromancy relies on the caster’s ability to remember the organism’s past state.”

Something clicked in Bora’s mind. “Is that why you never went out to the hospitals in the city? Because you’ve never seen all of those people in their past state and therefore, you couldn’t ‘heal’ them?” Bora remembered how Jiu would always take shifts in the academy clinic or hospital but never venture out into the city.

Yoohyeon also thought back to when the city was attacked by demons. At the time, she figured that Jiu was just scared by the situation but the older girl was also probably trying to protect her secret by insisting on healing heroes only. She knew what their ‘past state’ looked like.

“Yes. For the Coven, the past carries a large significance. As long as we know it, we can do many things beyond reviving dead things. We also have excellent magic circuit control that we can use together with our powers. For example, our names are something given at birth or as we call it: the Start. We can use the Start to track down the location of our members every time it is being spoken. That’s why I changed my name. To protect myself from being tracked by the Coven and to protect myself from being hunted. Kim Minji is a known name of the Coven to those who hunt us.”

Siyeon leaned back into her seat, processing the information. Necromancy was an incredibly powerful ability and many would probably kill to have it. Some probably already have. It was a chilling thought. She never knew that her good friend was carrying such a heavy burden on her shoulders and even going as far as completely changing her identity. The saying ‘those who smile the brightest are also the ones hiding something big’ really applied to Jiu. Nonetheless, nothing about her view of the rank 5 healer changed. She was still the kind doctor that patched her up after a rough combat training session.

“You’re still Jiu, regardless of your powers.” Siyeon smiled at her. “Thank you for trusting us enough to tell us.”

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