They left the room, looking left and right, uncertain about where to go. Just as they were about to take another step, Hyunjin looked at Heejin when steps came into hearing.

"Goddess, can we breathe for a second?" Hyunjin mumbled, holding her gun raised at the left corridor.

Heejin got in position, holding her blades tightly. Any second now...

Two vampires turned the corner, widening their eyes and raising their arms the second they saw them.

"W-Wait, we're with you!" one of them said.

"How so?" Hyunjin kept the gun pointed at them.

"Jungeun sent us!" the other, much taller than the first one, said. "We're Yeonjun's friends! They told us to come check on you, if you needed help! We want the same as you, we want out from here!"

Hyunjin squinted at them, and lowered her gun. Heejin followed, dropping her blades low.

The taller one took a hand to his chest, approaching them. "I'm Soobin, this is Beomgyu. Are you okay?"

"We're fine, we took down Jinyoung," Hyunjin said. "Where's Jaebum?"

Beomgyu in a breath. "You killed Jinyoung?!"

"Tell us where Jaebum is, man!"

"W-We don't know!" Soobin said. "He's normally in his room or in the training rooms, in the other building."

"Why would he be there now? Would he be afraid of fighting?"

"He's always very strategic, and will only fight if he thinks he's gonna win."

Hyunjin bit her cheek, thinking hard. "They knew we would be coming, so I'm assuming he would think he has everything in control and can win this fight. Wasn't he downstairs in the fight? How's it going, by the way?"

"The surprise attack took a toll on the slayers, I don't think they're doing so great." Beomgyu dropped his head.

"..." Hyunjin clenched her fists.

"Let's go, who knows if he's there now, or if we can find or track him somewhere," Heejin said.

"Lead the way, you two," Hyunjin said.

The two boys nodded and turned, sprinting down the corridor. Hyunjin wished she could be faster, but her side was still hurting, more so now that she was moving. But she didn't show it. She kept going, trying to track Jaebum amidst the chaos of scents reaching her nose again.

Soobin stopped abruptly just before turning for the stairs, making Beomgyu collide against him. Hyunjin halted as well, frowning. "What happened?"

"They followed us!" Soobin whispered-yelled.

Before Hyunjin could ask who, she heard the steps, like a horde of enraged bulls coming towards them. "Oh, for the love of the moon."

"Rats, I'm gonna kill you all, rats!" a voice boomed in the walls.

Hyunjin grunted, clenching her jaw. At that rate, she would never get to Jaebum-

"I'll hold them here," Heejin said, fierce eyes at her.

"What, no, there must be a lot of them!"

Heejin pulled her into a crushing but quick hug. "Trust me. Go after Jaebum, find him, kill him, finish this."

Hyunjin stared into her pink eyes, being the one consumed by Heejin's strength and confidence.

"You two, fight with her," Hyunjin told the vampire boys.

"Yes, ma'am!" Soobin said.

"See you soon." Hyunjin planted a kiss on Heejin's forehead.

She turned and dashed in the opposite direction, still hearing the mumbled 'see you soon' from her. Without a fixed destination yet, Hyunjin ran and crossed the corridors. Turning a corner, a figure stood in the middle of the hallway. Hyunjin halted, blinked, and it disappeared, leaving just a faint trail of his scent.

"What the..." Hyunjin shook her head.

It had been... Jaebum.

She went on ahead, following the faint scent, finally finding another emergency exit. Opening the door, her feet stopped again. The figure was at the bottom of the set of stairs, and as she blinked, it wasn't there anymore. She looked behind her, around her, above her, held on the rails and looked down the ten stories. And nothing.

Was she hallucinating? Was he playing with her mind?

Anger flowed free on her veins as she jumped the set of stairs, down the levels, following the scent as if it could escape her reach any second. Reaching the lowest floor, she barged the door to the outside open, gasping and recoiling as his body was at arm's distance from her. Hyunjin reached forward, but too late. He vanished, again.

"Enough!" Hyunjin's shout scratched .

"Jinyoung said it was so much fun playing with you, I thought I should give it a try," Jaebum's voice echoed everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It sounded so calm, so at ease, it only angered Hyunjin more. "And indeed, it's pretty fun."

Hyunjin looked left and right, tying to figure out where to go.

"Come, let's talk," he said, and now she was sure it came from her left.

She sprinted, and walking past the tall main building, another one came into view. A smaller one, just on the other side of what looked like it used to be a small park. Her heart hammered her chest as she was so close, she could feel his presence inside the building, like he was waiting for her.

Stepping inside, she stopped. Right before Hyunjin's eyes, Jaebum stood, at the middle of the wide, tall room. She blinked, expecting he would be gone again, but he didn't.

"Hello, Hyunjin," he said, sitting down on a chair, motioning for a chair in front of him. "Please, have a seat."

Hyunjin gritted her teeth and dashed to him. His body suddenly disappeared, and hands rested in her shoulders, his touch so light, but managing to stop her in her place. He smiled at her, and it was just like Jinyoung's - charmingly evil.

"I know how much you want to fight me, and the feeling is mutual. But I want to talk to you first."

"You're crazy." Hyunjin grabbed the collar of his leather jacket, but he didn't even budge, not even when Hyunjin tried with all the strength she could.

"I insist. There's a few things I want to tell and ask you."

He let go of her and turned, going back to sit at his chair. He seemed so calm and collected, when Hyunjin didn't even want to admit to herself how terrified she was. How strong was he, really, when he got to her side in the speed of light, and didn't need a pinch of effort to stop her?

Hyunjin attended to his request and sat down on the chair in front of him, using all her might not to show her trembling hands.

"What do you want?" Hyunjin said, staring back at his unsettling black eyes, exactly like she remembered them to be.

"I remember you," he said.

"Good. I remember you too."

He chuckled. "In all honesty, I never, ever, expected that after so many years, I would be having a conversation like this with you, of all people."

Hyunjin frowned. "What does that mean?"

"I didn't expect you to survive. I remember so well when your parents screamed for your name, telling you to hide-"

In less than a second, Hyunjin had him in her hands again, and this time, she managed to lift him from his chair, her fangs wanting to rip his head out. "If this is what you want to talk about, I advise you to shut the up."

"My apologies, I didn't mean to offend you."

"Just tell me whatever you want to tell me so we can get this done."

"It's about how we came to be. Vampires."

Hyunjin widened her eyes for a second. "What do you know about it?"

"Can you sit down?"

Grunting, Hyunjin let go of him and did as told.

"Hyunjin, you may think I'm the villain, the bad guy, but I'm not. More than you or anyone here, I'm a victim."

Hyunjin snorted. "Oh, please."

"Before you were probably even born, I was just a young adult trying to make a living for myself and my mom, after she divorced my abusive father. Just when we desperately needed money, a bunch of guys that claimed to be doctors found me and invited me to be part of their project. They needed people for a medical trial, a new cure for a disease, and in exchange, they promised good money. Of course I accepted. I didn't care what happened to me, as long as my mom could make a good living."

"Why are you telling me this?" Hyunjin interrupted. "Are you expecting me to feel pity for you?"

His eyebrows twitched. "Let me tell you something. I hate being interrupted. Will you just listen to me?"

"There's a ing battle happening! My friends can be in danger, and you expect me to sit here while I listen to your life story?!"

"You were dead from the second you decided to come after me. I'm honestly giving you some more time to live, and I wouldn't want you to die without knowing about this."

It was the way he always talked so calmly that scared her the most. The way he was so confident that nothing would ever happen to him.

"As I was saying, I accepted the deal, but it was the worst mistake I could have ever made. They locked me and the other poor guys that accepted, kept us like lab rats, and you know what they did to us? They fed us human blood."

Hyunjin gulped, the throbbing in her ears almost blocking whatever he was saying.

"They wanted to find a cure for leukemia!" Jaebum laughed, and Hyunjin could only watch and listen in horror. "And they thought feeding us human blood would, I don't know, produce immunity? Stimulate the blood cells to fight off the cancer? It's hilarious, don't you think?"

She remained silent.

"I have no idea what the hell they put in the blood they fed us, but look what came out of it!" He pointed at himself and at Hyunjin. "Blood- creatures! Vampires!"

"Doctors accidentally created vampires?"

"They were no doctors, they were lunatics! Completely deranged. We killed them all." He shrugged. "We couldn't control ourselves at first. We would attack humans, drain them until they would die, until we found out how to turn others. Just make them drink your vampire blood, and voilá. Oh, it was a feast."

"You're deranged yourself."

"Am I? You might say so, when my father decided to come back and demand my mom came back to him through... violence. I jumped on him and just like that, dead. I freed my mom of the worst predator in her life. Wouldn't you say that's rather noble?"

"Y-You killed your own father?"

"He was a jerk, pile of !" His voice suddenly became so much louder, his fangs proving how angry he was. "He deserved a much slower death, in fact, but I saved him from that."

Hyunjin fought back the sickness in her stomach.

"Me and my mom ran away from the country right away, and the police never found us. I turned my mom too, and the both of us lead the best life, one we could have never imagined possible while that load of crap held us down. And that was all thanks to our powers, so I suppose in the end, I owe a lot to those lunatics." He smiled to himself, his gaze getting lost in the distance for a second, until he returned his focus to Hyunjin.

"We stole, traveled a lot, fed how much we wanted, and we would never get caught! It was fun." Jaebum nodded, looking up as if recalling the feeling, until the anger came back to his features. "While it lasted. Until a ing slayer decided to kill her!"

Maybe she was seeing things, but she could swear his eyes had become moist.

"We had just come back to Korea. I had no idea such a thing existed, those ing slayers. They got her, took her, killed her. I was completely alone. I never asked to be like this! I never asked to be taken, to suffer in the hands of lunatics, to lose my humanity! And then they had to take away all I had left, the life I had made for myself despite being cursed like this, the only thing I held dear in this twisted world! My mom! Do you think I would stay quiet and do nothing? That's exactly what they deserve! To feel exactly how I felt! But no matter how much I try to quench that thirst, it's never enough. Because nobody will ever feel the way I do. I can't make anyone truly understand me, no matter how much I make them suffer. They will never suffer as much as I did."

"You're wrong," Hyunjin said. "I understand."

It didn't matter how much she hated him, she couldn't help but feel on a deep level that his sadness, his pain, was nothing but genuine.

"Not only you took my family from me, you turned me," Hyunjin continued. "you took away my humanity, when I never asked to be like this. I was left with my brother, and years later, a slayer killed him. I was all alone, just like you. But we're so different because of what each of us chose to make of it."

"Oh, look at you, such a saint."

"I'm not. I killed lots of vampires, for sure innocent ones. But I decided to change and do what was right."

"I am doing what's right! I'm providing safe haven and a family for vampires who just want to survive when slayers hunt us down like animals!"

"You kill people, take away their families! You turn people after you've taken everything away from them just to make them suffer the way you did, manipulate them into joining you, and you somehow think that someday, you'll be satisfied with it? You can surround yourself with as many followers as you want, but I guarantee you're always going to be alone."

Jaebum stood up, throwing his chair so hard it flew all the way to the back of the room and broke into pieces when it hit the wall. Hyunjin got on her feet by instinct, but that was all she could do before he got to her, grabbed her arms and threw her to his side, her body projected like she was a mere pebble. She hit the wall with her whole back, sending another wave of pain so strong she couldn't even yelp.

"As if it wasn't enough, you had to come up to take all that I have now!"

Hyunjin barely had time to try and stand up when he was in front of her again, raising her body by her jacket, their faces a couple inches away, and his black eyes piercing her whole being with rage.

"I thought, for a second, that maybe you understood, but I was wrong. Maybe this girlfriend of yours I heard about will understand, after I killed you and all of her slayer friends. Don't you think it's worth the try? Yes, that's exactly what I'm gonna do."

"Jinyoung said the same. It didn't end up in his favor."

With a loud shout, he threw her across the room again, but this time, Hyunjin traveled a longer distance, and had time to turn in the air. She landed on the opposite wall with both feet, reaching for the knife on her boot, and taking the momentum, she threw herself at him, her body like a rocket through the air. Maybe he didn't anticipate her doing that, so he didn't have time to properly dodge it, but Hyunjin also missed his heart with the knife. Her body collided against his, a loud, painful shriek from him as the knife sunk on his arm. His body served as shield as they hit the wall, breaking through it. The wall collapsed, and with it, part of the ceiling, the building coming apart behind them as they rolled through the ground.

Jaebum took the knife from his arm, but before he could try and use it against her, Hyunjin rolled on her back, kicking him off of her, sending him flying and hitting a large tree. She dashed to get the knife that escaped his hand, but he jumped on her from above, kicking her on the chest, her body projected backwards against the ground.

"You say we're so different and put yourself on a pedestal like you're a saint, when you're just like me, seeking to quench your thirst for revenge," Jaebum said, calmly walking towards her as she stumbled up. "All your life, you lived for this moment! To kill me! You're just like me, admit it!"

"I'm nothing like you." Hyunjin got on her feet, trying not to show in her face how badly hurt she was. "Yes, ever since you killed my family I swore I would kill you in return. But we're nothing alike."

He cracked a maniacal laugh, twirling Hyunjin's knife in his hand. She widened her eyes, her heart racing.

"I kill humans, you kill vampires. We're both murderers. What's the difference, really?" he said, stopping on his tracks.

"I kill those who seek to harm others. You kill to serve yourself."

"Drop the act! Don't pretend like you don't enjoy killing as much as I do. You're hiding behind this moral shield of yours just to lie to yourself and justify how much you love it, but you can't hide from your nature forever!"

He launched at her, knife in hand. Hyunjin reached for her gun and was about to pull the trigger, but had to dodge to her side, just in time to avoid the knife directed at her hand. She raised her gun again, but he was gone. Her breathing picked up as she looked around, gun in hands, finger pressed against the trigger. Leaves rustled behind her, and she turned. Again, at her right, at her left. She tried to make out his figure in the middle of the trees, but he was too fast, almost like he could actually teleport from a point to another. He seemed to be trying to find an opening to strike, just like Jinyoung tried to do.

Wait...

Hyunjin looked up, at the knife coming at her from above. She raised her arms, managing to grab his right wrist, but their bodies tumbled around again. Her back hit the ground one last time with his body pinning her down, the gun jumping away from her hand with the hard impact.

Every inch of her body ached like she didn't remember aching before, but she refused to let go of his wrist. Her willpower and strength was all she could count on now, as he kept on pressing the knife towards her, a mere inch from her chest, both of her arms the only thing protecting her at that moment.

And yet, he smiled triumphally.

"This is the end for you, Hyunjin. The vampire with the moon tattoo."

She didn't know how long she would last. Her jaw clenched, her teeth gritted, her eyebrows knitted together as she pushed further and further away, but her arms couldn't stop shaking, and she felt herself losing some strength, the knife slowly getting closer. And she didn't have anything to fight him back with.

Or did she?

The pocket of her jacket. It was her last chance. But to reach it, she would have to take one arm away from him, and she didn't know if she could keep him up with only one arm. But if she didn't try, she would die anyway.

With a deep inhale, she shouted both in determination and pain as she pushed harder on her left arm to keep the knife away from her, and reaching for her pocket, she took Jinyoung's claws out and sunk them as fast and hard as she could upwards, wherever she could hit him.

His smile faded, and the force holding her down became less and less overpowering. He coughed, his eyes moving down, watching in awe as his clothes turned red.

"You're right, I do enjoy killing sometimes," Hyunjin said, pushing the claws further inside him, the blood gushing out, running down Hyunjin's fingers. "Because by killing you, I know I saved so many others. And that's why we'll never be alike."

Jaebum looked back at her, his force barely enough to hold the knife, and tears shone in the corner of his eyes as his lower lip trembled. "And still... Nobody has ever... Understood."

A tear fell on Hyunjin's cheek before his body started fading away, the knife dropping from his hand, the tip pricking her clothes before falling to the ground.

Hyunjin closed her eyes, her arms dropping to her sides, and the ash remains of his body fell on top of her like a light snow on a winter day. There was a tightness in her heart, like a hand trying to pull it out, the air from her lungs. For a few moments she laid, letting tears run freely from her eyes.

It hurt. Everything hurt.

But it was over.

She opened her eyes, staring up at the night sky. The high foliage from the trees danced quietly to the breeze, and perfectly aligned with them, the moon finally showed herself, greeting Hyunjin with the marvel of her waxing phase. The corner of Hyunjin's lips raised.

"My Goddess," she greeted back. "I did it."

---

A/N: Yes, I wanted y'all to feel even if a tiny bit of empathy for Jaebum. He had it hard

I can't believe this story is coming to an end........ but there's still some things that need and will be taken care of and mentioned next!!! There's a special, emotional scene I LOVE in the next chapter, look forward to it!!! 

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