With everyone now on high alert, Sakura assumed Seoyoung would bide her time until her next attack and she was being proven right thus far. There had been no reports for the past three days which gave the group time to prepare and plan their next move. Once they were all recovered from the fight, Eunbi gave them the go ahead to take over the mission while she worked on communicating with all of the other mutants who were outside campus.

“So, you find anything out from Goeun?” Chaewon asks the tech girl. The two were gathered in the war room with the other members of the group Chaewon had called “Le Sserafim” after spending all of yesterday training and working on their chemistry against Yujin and IVE. The two groups agreed that it would be good for both of them to be able to spar and train with each other. Their teamwork wasn’t perfect yet, but it was certainly improved compared to the first time they ran up against Seoyoung.

“Mhm, she gave me enough information to figure out her attack pattern.” Sakura replies thinking back to last night.

Goeun had left campus a few weeks earlier to pursue her personal interests. She ended up joining a band called “Purple Kiss” and was preparing for a gig that night when she decided to take a walk by the park to destress. As she was strolling through the greenery though, she felt someone following her…someone she couldn’t see when she turned around. She’d gotten the notice from Sakura about Seoyoung being on the prowl and decided to activate the distress beacon just in case. A couple minutes of agitated walking later, she was blindsided by an invisible figure.

She managed to get some separation using her sonic screech, but Goeun was already bleeding from the earlier ambush. Seoyoung stalked her down like a hungry lion and pummeled her down. Goeun said that the rogue mutant could’ve ended her life right there, but she instead chose to drag her to the river after noticing the phone that had fallen from her pocket.

“Consider yourself lucky that I’m just using you as bait for now.” Seoyoung had said. Shortly after, the blonde girl absorbed Goeun’s power, causing her to lose consciousness.

“Wait, so you think she wanted to get to you?” Yunjin asks to which Sakura nods.

“Yes, and I have a theory on why. When I hack devices and locks, I don’t actually end up knowing what the passwords and security codes are unless I actively look for them. I don’t usually feel the need to do that because with a simple thought, the machine will move to my will. My guess is that even if Seoyoung stole powers, she didn’t know them well enough to think of looking for my passwords. She just got used to commanding them to open until the powers she absorbed faded away. Now, if she or whoever she’s working for wants to open my laptop again, they need me.”

“Why can’t they just hack into it normally or use a USB?” Kazuha asks which elicits a sly grin from the tech girl.

“I have safety measures installed that cause the laptop to self-destruct if anyone without my fingerprint tries to extract anything.” Sakura says.

“Uh…remind me not to download movies on unnie’s personal devices.” Eunchae quips.

“Yeah, a little overboard, don’t you think, unnie?” Yunjin adds, but the older girl shakes her head.

“My data and personal gadgets are very important. You can never be too prepared…” She begins to say until she realizes it was her overplanning that got them into this mess in the first place. “But…maybe you do have a point.”

“Okay, with all that in mind, what’s the plan to find her? It’s not like Seoyoung will just show up if we ask nicely.” Chaewon says, trying to get them back on track. She realized now as a leader that keeping everyone on the same page was a difficult task. How she managed to keep order with 12 girls was a miracle in itself.

“I have an idea, but it requires a really big camera system.” Sakura replies before going into detail of step 1 of the plan.

~~~~

A few hours later…

“So, let me get this straight. You want to plug in this facial recognition chip into the Seoul camera system in order to find a rogue mutant that you guys lost a year ago?” Officer Hwang asks when Sakura, Chaewon, and Eunchae had shown up at the police station.

“Yeah, I promise I’ll disable it after.” Sakura says, but the middle-aged man clearly didn’t appear to be in a helping mood.

“I know I told Seunggi to tell you girls to just ask if you needed police help, but I meant in terms of giving you case files, not breaching data privacy.” The officer already had to deal with a lot of paperwork for the run-in with Yuri and Yena months ago followed by the corruption cases in Chungnam more recently, so having another possible case on his hands was not exactly in his best interests right now.

“Well, that’s a shame. Now you have a murderous mutant running around that only we can stop.” Chaewon replies.

“Yah, don’t try and guilt trip me young lady. We’ll do our best to help you out through legal means.” And with that, the three were sent out of the man’s office.

“You think he’ll fall for it, unnie?” Eunchae asks.

“Probably not, but we’ll be long gone before he finds out anyway.” Sakura says as the three walk out of the station.

~~~~

Meanwhile, on the other side of the building, Kazuha, Yunjin, and a Chaewon clone were sneaking in. The Japanese girl had taken her wind form and snuck in through a vent to open the back door from the other side, a strategy she’d used many times in her time abroad.

As the three moved through the building, Chaewon would lead the way using the map Sakura had given them. When they broke into the surveillance room last year, the tech girl noticed a camera system for the whole city at the other side of the room. Since they were there for the station’s cameras at the time though, she ignored them, but made a mental note that they existed for future reference. Today was the day she cashed that random information in. Sneaking through the building itself was actually fairly easy compared to last time because whenever they’d see a guard, Yunjin would cast illusions to send them the opposite way.

Eventually, they managed to reach the control room. Chaewon smirked when she noticed a punch mark left by Nako from their last visit that was still indented into the door. That smile though was wiped away once she opened the door forgetting there were a lot of police inside.

“Oh…hi.” The short-haired girl greets in an embarrassed tone. Yunjin couldn’t create illusions to distract all of them, so Kazuha took the lead.

“Both of you, hold your breath” The Japanese girl says before taking a vial out of her pocket and throwing it on the ground. Once it breaks, white gas leaks out while Kazuha changes to her air form. To Chaewon and Yunjin’s surprise, Kazuha’s form mixes with the white gas and spreads it all throughout the room until all the officers are knocked out and asleep.

“Woah…” Yunjin says, still pinching her nose as Kazuha rematerializes in front of them.

“I can mix with any gas in my vicinity which makes carrying some anesthetic gas around useful.” The Japanese girl says with a laugh.

“Alright then, all we gotta do is plug in this chip, and we’re in.” Chaewon walks over to the nearest computer and does exactly that.

“Ask Kkura-unnie if she has access already.” The short-haired girl says mentally to Chae-one.

“Mhm, she does. Now get out of there.” Chae-two nods to herself and signals Yunjin and Kazuha to make their escape.

“Officer Hwang’s not gonna like this…” Chaewon thinks, but her thoughts are shaken when Sakura speaks up. Normally, it’d take more than a hundred eyes to scan all the cameras at once, but with Sakura, all she needed was a couple seconds before she found a facial match.

“I just got a lock on Seoyoung. She’s in an alleyway by…Management Soop.” The tech girl says.

“Minjoo…” And with that, Chaewon runs ahead, the others trying to catch up.

~~~~

About fifteen minutes later, the group arrives at Minjoo’s acting agency. Chaewon had called on the way there and filled her in on Seoyoung’s presence, which prompted the younger girl to use her invisibility to sneak out and leave undetected.

“She’s still sitting there waiting.” Kazuha says, sensing the disruption in the air by the building.

“We need her to be in Yunjin’s line of vision for our plan to work.” Sakura warns, not wanting Kazuha to do anything rash.

“I guess that means I’m up.” Chaewon speaks up, walking right towards Soop’s entrance. Eunchae reaches out to stop her, but Yunjin blocks her.

“We have to trust in Chaewon-unnie because she’s only doing this because she trusts in us to watch her back.”

“Seoyoung’s on the move…” Kazuha says quietly. Yunjin watches the area the Japanese girl was referring to intently. The moment she could lock onto Seoyoung, she could cast an illusion.

“Min! I’m here already.” The short-haired girl says aloud when she gets in front of the building, leaving the guard very much confused.

After a few agonizingly long seconds, Chaewon turns at the sound of a twig snapping under someone’s foot. Seoyoung rematerialized immediately and jumped at the short-haired girl, but in that time, Yunjin activated her ability. Before Seoyoung could sink her metal blade into Chaewon, she disappears from her sight. The building guard sees all of this unfold and runs inside.

“Yah, where’d you go?” The blonde girl asks in a frustrated tone.

“Isn’t it me who you’re looking for?” The voice of Sakura responds. Seoyoung turns and swings in her direction, but comes up with air.

“No, this is an illusion from that witch! You can’t contain me!” Seoyoung closes her eyes, focusing her mind. By the time she opens them again, the illusion is broken, but Eunchae was already in her avatar mode running towards her. Without the time to react, Eunchae manages to slam into the rogue mutant with so much force that she’s sent flying backwards into a brick wall.

“Stand down, Seoyoung!” Chaewon says as she surrounds her with a ring of clones.

“Never! I can’t fail!” She replies angrily, getting back into a fighting stance as if she were a cornered animal.

“Wait, fail who? You have a new boss?” Chaewon’s questions lower her guard just enough for Seoyoung to camouflage again.

“Chaewon-unnie! Look out!” The aforementioned girl had a lapse in focus, not knowing which clone Kazuha was warning until it was too late. Seoyoung plants a hand on Chaewon’s shoulder and absorbs her power. Seeing this, Sakura opens her phone and dials a number while the rogue mutant splits herself into three.

“Chaeyeon, did you find him? We’re going to need the failsafe soon!” The tech girl asks.

“Yes, Yuri told me where he was, and I’m bringing him to your location now. Just hold on, Kkura!” The younger girl replies. Sakura wasn’t much of a fighter, but she had to help her teammates.

“This is going to be different from last time!” Seoyoung screams, referencing how they managed to overwork her the last time she’d absorbed Chaewon’s ability. She made sure to not to over-clone herself this time around. Despite this, it was quickly evident that without any extra powers, she was going to struggle.

“Woah, okay, that’s new.” Eunchae says as she blocks the attack of one of the Seoyoung clones, literally grabbing her metal blade midswing with her hands. She then swings the clone around and throws her straight into a lamppost. Keeping the pressure on, she charges again and hits Seoyoung with a charged punch in the face.

Meanwhile, Kazuha found herself fighting alone against a clone as well. Similar to before, the Japanese girl aerified just before she could be hit by Seoyoung. Without Goeun’s sonic screech this time, Kazuha was fighting with an advantage. She would kick and punch with such precision and speed that the clone couldn’t react in time.

Thus far, Eunchae and Kazuha didn’t seem to have a problem with the clones in a slightly weakened state. The real problem lied with the third clone who was cornering Yunjin and an unconscious Chaewon. The dark-haired girl’s illusions were useless since Seoyoung was expecting it, meaning they were basically defenseless. Yunjin tries to throw a punch, but the clone easily dodges it and lands one of her own.

“Unnie!” Eunchae turns to help, but the Seoyoung she was fighting got back up and blocked her path.

“I’ll make sure I kill you this time.” Seoyoung says to Yunjin who was petrified, remembering the last time she was in this position. Just before she could swing her metal blade though, Sakura runs up to the clone and shoves her out of the way.

“You?” The blonde girl asks incredulously when she sees who dared interfere.

“Yes. Me.” Sakura replies, trying not to look intimidated.

“You’re just a computer geek. You don’t stand a chance.” Seoyoung says before charging at her.

“You’re right, but I can definitely buy time.” The tech girl turns to reveal Chaeyeon speeding right towards Seoyoung and her into a self-made tornado.

“Don’t you dare ever hurt my girlfriend.” Chaeyeon says fiercely to Seoyoung who had collapsed from the dizziness.

“Girls, wrap it up!” She then calls towards Eunchae and Kazuha who were still dominating their matchups.

Eunchae nodded and focused her energy until her avatar had grown from 15 feet to 30. The clone gulps, seeing two fists slam down on her from above like a hammer.

On Kazuha’s end, she sees a dumpster at the end of the alleyway and gets a mischievous grin. The Japanese girl aerified herself once again, mixed herself together with the horrible stench of trash and flew straight towards Seoyoung’s nose. The blonde girl tried her best to hold her breath, but it was to no avail as she slowly succumbed and collapsed from the unbearable smell.

“Too easy.” Eunchae cheers, shrinking back down to her regular size. After Kazuha rematerialized next to them though, the group coughs and laughs at the garbage stench that had clung onto her.

“Ugh, I’m hitting the showers as soon as we get back.” She mumbles before excusing herself to run off and find fresh air to purify her.

Eventually, Chaeyeon manages to round up the Seoyoung clones who were all unconscious. Once they were close enough, the copies dissolved until only the original was left.

“Thanks for the backup, Chaeyeon. I knew I could count on you. Where’s Hyeongjun though?” Sakura asks.

“Right here!” The sound of a young boy’s voice calls from a distance.

“Oh, sorry about that. I felt like you were in danger, so I told Hyeongjun to walk the rest of the way while I joined the fight.” Chaeyeon says with a laugh while scratching the back of her head.

“It was more than just a walk, noona. More like a couple blocks of running.” The curly-haired boy says, out of breath before speaking again. “So, this is Seoyoung?”

“Mhm, we need you to shut her down for a few hours until we can get her back to campus for real this time.” Sakura replies.

“Alright. Tell Yuri-noona that she owes me a favor now.” Hyeongjun says jokingly before putting both hands on Seoyoung’s shoulders and nullifying her powers.

“The duration always depends on how powerful the mutant is, so make sure to get her back as soon as you can.” He then says as Seoyoung begins to stir.

“Ugh…what happened? Wait? Why am I tied up? Yah!” She tries to use her metal blades to cut the rope tying her, but they weren’t activating.

“What did you do to me?” Seoyoung asks, desperately trying to break free.

“Maybe we’ll consider this if you tell us who you’re working for.” Chaewon, who was leaning on Yunijin’s shoulder for support until now, says back.

“I’m dead either way because I failed to capture that walking USB.” She says, throwing an insult to Sakura.

“Well, you’ll be in a lot of pain sooner if you don’t tell us right now.” Chaeyeon threatens, walking right up to Seoyoung’s face.

“Alright, fine, fine. The person I’m working for is-” At that moment, Seoyoung’s eyes roll back into her head and she falls on the ground.

“What…?” Sakura looked around, but couldn’t see what caused it. There weren’t any gunshot wounds on Seoyoung, and Kazuha couldn’t sense any poison either.

“Are you sure you didn’t go overboard, Hyeongjun?” Chaeyeon asks, but the boy vigorously shakes his head.

“My power’s never killed anyone, noona. I promise.”

“Wait, I think she’s waking up again.” Yunjin says as the blonde girl begins to stir again.

“Huh? Where am I?” She asks cluelessly. “Who are you people? Why am I tied up?”

“Oh, don’t play dumb with us, Seoyoung.” Chaewon says, but the blonde girl was clearly in distress.

“Seoyoung? Is that my name? Please let me go. I didn’t do anything!” She pleads. The group begins to look at each other in confusion now.

“I think we have a problem…” Sakura says.

~~~~

“Wait, so she was acting completely normal and suddenly forgot who she was?” Eunbi asks as she looks through the glass of the campus’ interrogation room where Seoyoung was handcuffed and still very much confused at the situation.

“I’m afraid so. We looked around the area shortly after, but we couldn’t find anything. It’s as if she just got hit with one of those Neuralyzers from Men in Black.” Sakura replies, not missing how Eunbi didn’t get the movie reference.

“Hmm, I guess for now, we just monitor her, but if she really doesn’t remember anything, it’d feel wrong to detain her.” The leader sighs. “I’ll try to figure things out, Kkura. Just rest up for now. You’ve had a long week.”

Sakura was still very anxious knowing her laptop was still in someone else’s possession, but there was nothing she could do about it for now. Whoever had it would come back for her eventually, so she’d just have to wait in the meantime.

“Alright, unnie. Inform me if anything comes up.” The Japanese girl says before going outside where Chaeyeon had been waiting.

“No leads?” The feather girl asks to which Sakura shakes her head glumly.

“Every time it feels like a problem is solved, another one just seems to pop up.” She says exasperatedly. Chaeyeon notices this and puts an arm around her girlfriend’s shoulder.

“We’ll just have to cross those bridges as they appear. Together.” Chaeyeon replies before changing the subject. “You finally told Chaewon that you’re joining Le Sserafim, right? When’s your first live stream gonna be? I want to be your number one subscriber.”

“It’s called a donor, Chaeyeon.” Sakura lets out a small laugh at the younger girl’s cute attempt to use streaming jargon. “Besides, why would you need to subscribe when you can just see me whenever you want?”

“Yah, this is technically a job, so I want to make sure my girlfriend is making enough money.” Chaeyeon replies with her patented laugh that Sakura adores. There were many problems she and the girls had to go through, and there were many more she was sure she was going to run into in the future. But, for now, she wanted to enjoy this moment with Chaeyeon- the person who meant the most to her in the whole world. Sakura gives her girlfriend a kiss on the cheek before asking,

“So, you wanna get dinner?”

~~~~

“It appears our number one asset has failed.” The voice of a man says.

“Yes, sir. I took care of her though. She won’t be telling them anything.” A woman replies.

“Very well. We will have to look for other alternatives to extract the data then…” The man says as he stares at Sakura’s laptop sitting on a desk across the room.

A/N: Hello and welcome back to the final chapter of "Cat and Mouse"! Really hope y'all enjoyed it because I think this is one I had to think about a lot.

Next up is KangBi, and as you can probably tell, some events of this story will bleed into the next one. Thinking of six different conflicts/villains was kinda hard, and I hope you all think i did a good job thus far HAHA.

thanks again for all the support, likes and comments. The first Project IZ*ONE story actually passed 25k reads on wattpad which im very grateful for. Who would've guessed a random covid-writing project would turn into this?

Anyways, i'll start writing the KangBi story as soon as I can, but just be patient since my work starts to ramp up next week.

I'll see y'all in the next chapter!