"We need to get the police involved" Cheol Yong slowly explained, not batting an eye as Li Hua inched closer towards him in an attempt to intimidate.

"I agree" Li Hua replied, her head barely moving in a subtle nod, "but only after we have gone through everything."

"Why?" Cheol Yong asked, his composure faltering for a second as honest confusion flashed across his face.

"I don't want them getting anything that could link Dumb and Dumber - and, er, Dumbest - to the Black Ravens" Li Hua snapped, her own composure snapping for a second as her patience became extremely drawn. He was the one to come to her because he, and the entirety of the Seoul Police Force, were incompetent in the face of the Black Ravens, and yet he was constantly questioning her judgement. Li Hua could only take so much of being doubted before she snapped.

"Why?" He repeated, apparently dissatisfied with her answer, as he leaned closer towards her and brought their faces only a few inches apart.

Li Hua sighed and rubbed methodically at her temples, taking a second to compose herself so that she didn't go off on a rampaging tirade. Not only would that not get her point across to Cheol Yong, it would only annoy him. Not that he had any room to be annoyed, considering he was the one fraying her nerves. "Because I said so" she groaned, the patience trickling out of her voice.

"The police already know that they're members" Cheol Yong reasoned, still not understanding the concept of circumstantial evidence. Li Hua would have thought he would know everything there was to know, considering he seemed so interested in this case, but apparently she had been wrong. Unlike herself, who had researched in depth about the actions of these three men, Cheol Yong was rushing headlong into this without thinking, his actions fueled by delusions of grandeur.

Although Li Hua, if she was to be entirely honest, wasn't entirely exempt from her own delusions. She had caught herself daydreaming about presenting Min Ho with the morning paper, the headlines reading that three men had been arrested for trafficking drugs, and then explaining to him how they had betrayed the Black Ravens and how she had assisted in bringing them down. Then maybe Min Ho would let her into the mob, despite Min Ho's word to her father that he wouldn't allow her to join officially.

"More likely I'll get a bullet to the head, though" she thought, scratching irritably at her scalp. Every God had their fatal flaw, and Min Ho was certainly no exception. His tendency to think strictly in black and white, while wonderful for running an illegal mob that had conquered most of Seoul, wasn't that great when it came to the social aspects of life. He wouldn't take into account the why behind her actions, just the what. And, to be frank, she too was betraying the mob by using the cops, rather than the mob, to handle the situation.

"What? It's a good point" Cheol Yong said defensively, misinterpreting Li Hua's irritation. Looking over at him she sighed and brushed off his comment, deciding to just continue with the conversation as though she hadn't divulged in a moment of speculation.

"Circumstantial evidence, Cheol Yong. All they have is hear say and rumors, nothing solid that they can put against the three. If they get the records, though, then it will be easy to link them to the Black Ravens" she explained, taking things slowly as though she were talking to a child. Cheol Yong, annoyed that she was treating him like a child, opened his mouth to contest this but was silenced by a single glance from Li Hua. She wasn't finished talking, and didn't appreciate being interrupted. "I know that you're all gungho about catching them because they are a part of the Black Ravens, but it's not like they won't get arrested if they aren't members. At least, the police can't prove they're members" she finished.

Cheol Yong thought about this for a second, putting forth an honest effort to rearrange his thought process in order to understand her point of view, but Li Hua could tell it was a lost cause even before he opened his mouth to argue. Sighing inwardly, she prepared herself for a long debate on the credibility of circumstantial evidence.

"But I thought you wanted to get them because they betrayed the mob?" he began, heading straight to the point that confused him. A bit surprised, Li Hua silently urged him to explain himself further with a small gesture of her hand. "I mean, isn't that why you decided to join up with me?" he continued, apparently not sure how to ammend his previous question. Sighing, Li Hua stretched out her arms, moving them in a slow circle until they wrapped around her knees, preventing her from falling as she leaned back.

"If the police can connect the three to the Black Ravens then they can offer the three a way out in exchange for information on the mob. The slime balls have already betrayed us once, do you really think they will hesitate to do so again if it will save their own skins?" she questioned, the thought of the three giving information to the cops churning her stomach into an angry ocean. A second thought was creeping up behind it, pertaining to the folder she had prepared to give to Cheol Yong, but she quickly squashed it away.

"I'm giving the cops information" the treacherous thought pointed out, coming back like a cockroach despite her attempts to squelch it out of existence. "Not that I'm doing it to save my own skin. It's the why, not the what, that really matters" she added, justifying her means that would, eventually, come to a positive end. "I'm just doing it to feel like the hero"

"Shut up!" She hissed, frowning deeply as her thoughts came full circle to the feeling she couldn't shrug since the beginning of all this.

"I didn't say anything" Cheol Yong defended, more than a little hurt at her harsh words. Rolling her eyes, Li Hua shifted her position so that she could rest against one of the many metal boxes that rose out of the school's roof. She wasn't entirely sure what it was for, besides making a good back rest, but that really wasn't inconsequential. Right now her brain was just trying to buy time so she could think of a way to play off her unintentioned comment as something of consequence to the current situation.

"Yet" Li Hua determined, more than a little smug at how quickly her brain had pulled out a problem-solver. And in one word, too!

"Yet?" Cheol Yong repeated, not sounding convinced.

"You were about to argue against my reasoning, right?" Li Hua pointed out, her mind picking up speed as she began to get comfortable with taking control of the conversation once more. Apparently being a quick shot with a gun had its merits in the social aspects of life as well.

Nodding, Cheol Yong opened his mouth to state this argument aloud, but Li Hua held up a hand. She had already thought this part out and didn't want to screw it up by being forced to reply to something Cheol Yong said. "I know you don't care about the rest of the Black Ravens, but I do. I don't want to arrest anyone who is innocent, so-"

"Innocent?!" Cheol Yong spluttered, the curve ball being too much for him to handle. "You're an illegal group of thugs who extorts and sells people for their own gain! How are you innocent?!" He demanded, the innocent comment apparently having hit home a lot harder than Li Hua had expected. Naturally he would be upset about her defending a mob, since he was a son of the law, but she hadn't expected him to get so aggresive about it. Actually, she hadn't expected him to get aggressive about anything. She had taken him for a pretty big wimp, but apparently he did have some things going for him.

"Do you mean me specifically, or are you using you to refer to the mob as a whole?" Li Hua asked, not able to resist the urge to get a little jab in on him. Cheol Yong was not pleased, so Li Hua quickly dropped the developing smirk and delved straight back into business. "We're using my definition of innocent for this conversation, okay? You can think whatever you want about us, but from my eyes they are an innocent bunch" Li Hua quickly explained, trying to pacify Cheol Yong and putting a strong accent on the word innocent to show the subjective definition. Even if she was the smarter and more experienced of the two, in her own humble opinion, nature had given him the better end of the deal in brute strength.

If he decided to slug her there wasn't much Li Hua could do.

Cheol Yong seemed to have calmed down some, though. Releasing the tension in his body, he nodded for Li Hua to continue. "I don't want to arrest anyone who hasn't betrayed or otherwise hurt the people I care about, because I care about everyone" she finished, deciding to leave out the long lecture she would have given him about the evil nature of some of the police force. Right now he was feeling very defensive, for whatever reason. Manly PMS, maybe?

"You care about them?" Cheol Yong asked incredulously. "They're criminals!"

"And I am too!" Li Hua snapped, glaring at Cheol Yong as her temper came to the end of its fuse. "You saw me shoot two people, for crying out loud! I am just as bad as them, and you seem to have no problem with me! So why them?! Huh?!" She demanded, rising to her feet and angrily towering over Cheol Yong. She could read him like an open book and knew he wanted to cringe away from her white hot fury, but was managing to just barely stay his ground.

"If you're going to judge people then judge them all the same!" she finished, folding her arms across her chest. If she were a dragon her nostrils would be smoking, but as it was she would have to settle with a fiery glare. Swallowing weakly to moisten his mouth, Cheol Yong nodded and subtly moved a few inches away.

Slowly exhaling, Li Hua lowered herself back onto the ground as her temper blew out with her pent up air. "Anyway" she muttered, pretending like the past two minutes hadn't occured, "I do care about them. Its why their betrayal hurts me more than you can imagine, and why I have to take care of this myself."

"Ah, yes. More excuses to ennoble your cause" the voice chorteled, sending a spark onto her temper's next fuse. She had barely used up the last one and already she was on track to blow up again. All this stress really couldn't be good for her health, both mental and physical.

Cheol Yong nodded in understanding, but Li Hua just rolled her eyes. There was no way he could understand, since he had apparently never had a loyal friend like she had. Living with the same people for nine years made a bond tighter than blood, and one that was almost imperceptible. Even to those who shared it. After all, if you asked Li Hua on a normal day how she felt about the other members she would be rather indifferent about her feelings, but when her bond with them was threatened she suddenly felt immeasurably closer to them.

Unfortunately, this increase in closeness also made the hole where the three used to be even more perceptible.

"No more self-reflection! Yeesh, I'm sounding emo or something" Li Hua snapped mentally, shaking her head slightly to clear her mind of any lingering weird thoughts. Right now she needed to be focusing on how she planned on taking care of this problem, not debating philosophy with Cheol Yong.

"Where were we, anyway?" Li Hua muttered, forcing her thoughts to turn into tunnel vision in order to focus on a single goal. She couldn't afford to let her mind drift off and give away too much about herself to Cheol Yong. When Cheol Yong didn't respond she looked up and frowned at him, waiting impatiently for a response. The only one she got was a quick shrug of the shoulders, though. Sighing, Li Hua rolled her eyes up towards the heavens, praying to any Gods that might be listening that the actual arrest would go far more smoothly then the planning was.

"Fine, we'll start over" she mumbled, pulling her school bag over to her side. "With no interuptions" she warned Cheol Yong, pulling out the folder she had prepared for this. He nodded, his eyes focusing in on the folder as curiosity took hold of his brain. Sighing, she handed over the clear plastic folder to him and watched as he began scanning through it.

"That's a file of all the information I could get on these three. Look over it so that you know who we're dealing with" Li Hua explained, gesturing loosely to the folder as she snapped her bag closed with the other hand.

"Terrible sense of humor?" Cheol Yong asked, pointing to a section of her notes. "How does how bad his jokes are make any difference?"

"Terrible as in sadistic. He's not above hurting people for the enjoyment of it" Li Hua explained, remembering when she had first met In Ho. It was actually he who taught her the one wrist lock hold she enjoyed employing, although she never used it for entertainment purposes like him. Her wrist hurt just thinking about how hard he had been pressing down, nearly snapping her poor joint in two. Thankfully Sang Hyun had been there and put it to a stop before In Ho could get any more crazy.

Cheol Yong seemed a little perturbed about this revelation into In Ho's personality, but didn't make any further comment and continued to read through the folder. Taking this moment of silence to her advantage, Li Hua continued explaining. "Knowing the enemy is only half the battle, though. you have to be able to use that information to create an effective battle plan. That is in the back, in case you forget."

"You don't have a very high opinion of me, do you?" Cheol Yong chuckled, glancing at the back of the folder.

"You don't even know what circumstantial evidence is" Li Hua pointed out, stating the fact with little concern for Cheol Yong's feelings. He nodded, chagrined, and studied the folder even more intently. "Not that your lack of common sense is important here. You're job is just to hide and tell me if anything weird happens" Li Hua continued, shrugging her shoulders.

"I'll do all the work by going in, getting the books, and then locking the doors behind me so that the three have nowhere to go until the cops, who you will call, show up" she added, explaining the gist of the plan she had come up with. Cheol Yong nodded hesitantly, apparently having something on his mind. "Unless that doesn't work for you?" she slowly urged, trying to get him to explain what was on his mind. It wasn't like she was a mind reader or anything, after all.

"Well, it's a harbor, right?" Cheol Yong began, and already Li Hua could see where this was headed. Rather than cutting him off, though, she nodded her head and urged him to continue. "Couldn't they just use a boat to leave?"

"The only boat that will be there that night is the Black Raven's, and only the Leader has the key for it" Li Hua explained, proud of herself for already having thought of that loophole. She was nearly one hundred percent positive that there would be no way for any of the three to get away from the harbor, especially if she and Cheol Yong stayed behind to make sure they didn't break down the door or anything.

Cheol Yong nodded slowly and handed back the folder, but Li Hua refused to accept it. "You keep it" she explained, pushing herself up onto her feet.

"I could easily give this to the police" he pointed out, proving that he didn't plan on that strategy. If he did then why would he even bring it up? Unless he was testing her, there really was no point to it.

"Go ahead. I removed anything that could be used to link the three to the Black Ravens" Li Hua chuckled, shrugging her shoulders as she swung her bag over her shoulder. Surprised, Cheol Yong flipped open the folder and quickly skimmed through the contents in order to dissprove her theory. She wasn't bluffing though. "Come on, do you really think I'm so stupid as to hand over evidence to the son of the Commissioner General?" Li Hua sighed, heading towards the roof's door.

"When and where do we meet?" Cheol Yong asked as he followed her to the door, nimbly avoiding her question. It was a good plan, since if he answered yes she would rip off his head and if he answered no he would be admitting that she was smarter than him. Not only would that injure his pride, it would prove to both of them that she would do whatever she wanted with no fear of consequences from Cheol Yong.

"This Saturday, midnight, here at the school" Li Hua replied simply as she jerked open the door. The world had been getting colder as the second term of school came into full swing, bringing Fall with it, and making all the ill-maintained doors stick shut. Unfortunately, this was one of those doors. "And try not to dress conspicuously. Dark clothes work best" she added as an afterthought, taking the steps two at a time as she headed back down into the school.

Cheol Yong's response was drowned out by the sudden ringing of the lunch bell, inconveniently placed directly above the inside door to the school. Wincing, Li Hua glared up at the bell as she tried to cover her ears to block out the noise. She had no problem with the sound of a loud firearm, but these bells seemed to hit the perfect pitch just right, making an obnoxious noise that tried to deafen all the students passing by. Like how little kids manage to scream at just the right note to create a piercing, painful sound.

Hurrying to beat the crowd of students returning to their classrooms from lunch, Li Hua left Cheol Yong, and his attempted response, behind without a second thought. Instead, she focused on her first thought, which was how she was going to juggle shopping and bringing down three dangerous criminals all in the same day. Preferably she would just not go shopping with Kyung Mi, but the likelihood of her new found 'friend' giving up on her plans with Li Hua was the same as a meterorite coming through the ceiling and striking Li Hua down.

"Li Hua!"

Sighing, Li Hua glanced up at the ceiling and awaited a meteorite.

"Yue Li Hua!" the voice persisted as its owner, Kyung Mi, caught up to Li Hua. Forcing a smile onto her face, Li Hua nodded in acknowledgement to Kyung Mi. "So are you ready for this weekend?" she asked, grinning at Li Hua eagerly.

"I'm actually going to be pretty busy later that day-"

"But not during the actual time?"

"Well... yes, but-"

"So then it doesn't matter! It's not like we're going to be doing anything that will tire you out!" Kyung Mi interrupted, proving that she was the queen of getting her way. The only flaw in her argument was that it really was both physically and mentally draining to be within a five foot proximity of Kyung Mi, but Li Hua didn't feel like pointing that out in the moment.

Instead, she resigned herself to a mumbled yes and drowning out the rest of Kyung Mi's chatter as they headed towards the classroom.

Chapter 4 Note: This chapter , I know. I've already done it once, though, but because of the attack on the server it all got erased. TT.TT

Plus, the chapter title TT.TT My poor epic story is not quite so epic now that it's on paper (computer screen?)...