Chapter Sixty-Eight

Tiffany and Yoona were led to the conference room immediately upon their arrival at the Aurales. They were about to start the discussion when Yuri and Sooyoung barged into the room suddenly, using their partner identity as an excuse to join them.

“Sure, grab yourself a seat.” Hyuk-Jun granted their request.

The discussion soon started with everyone’s attention on the two hunters who had mysteriously gone missing for a day.

Yoona stole a quick glance at Tiffany.

The cold hunter was literally in her own world ever since they departed from that Taeyeon’s house. It was as if she had left her soul in the house and what came back was her body only.

Yoona sure didn’t like the thought of that. But nevertheless, she still stood out and clarified the question for the both of them.

“We met the mutants during our patrol and we found out one thing.” Yoona paused for a while and observed the anticipation on her fellow mates’ faces. “Someone is indeed controlling the mutant.”

“Who is it?” Sooyoung asked.

Yoona let out a heavy sigh and shook her head. “I have no idea who that person is. I didn’t manage to see him at all. But I know there is someone out there controlling the mutants because he’s trying to––” Yoona stopped suddenly. She was unsure if she should let the others knew that the controller was trying to take Tiffany’s life.

“Trying to what?” Yuri continued after her nervously. Somewhat she had this feeling that it had got something to do with Tiffany.

Tiffany… Speaking of which, there is something weird about her. She is always the one who does the reports, but why is Yoona doing her job now? And it is very unusual to see her sitting on her seat quietly, staring blankly into the space before her like this. Tiffany may not like to speak, but even if she doesn’t speak during a discussion, she will never zone off like what she is doing now.

Before Yoona was able to come out with a reply, Hyuk-Jun turned to Tiffany and asked, “Tiffany, are you still with us?” Apparently, Yuri wasn’t the only one who noticed the unusualness from Tiffany. Hyuk-Jun had noticed it too since before they even began this discussion.

Tiffany was forced to snap out of her trance upon hearing her own name. She looked up from the table and was surprised to find four pairs of eyes staring at her.

“Yes?”

Frown gathered on Yuri’s forehead almost immediately, “Fany, are you alright?” Tiffany was never the kind of person who zoned off during a discussion.

Correction, she is never that kind of person to begin with!

It was only a simple question, yet to Tiffany, it meant a lot to her. Gritting her teeth, Tiffany clutched her hands into fists unconsciously. “No.” She replied, startling everyone else in the room except Yoona. “I’m sorry Mr. Headmaster. Please excuse me from this discussion.” The cold hunter didn’t wait for Hyuk-Jun’s reply and headed out of the conference room immediately.

“Unnie!” How Yoona wished the discussion was already over. She would have chased after Tiffany if it was appropriate for her to do so.

Tiffany’s sudden departure definitely surprised everyone in the room. Yuri took a while to register what had happened before hurrying out of the room as well.

“Oppa, I’ll check on Fany. You guys can continue the discussion without me!”

*

Tiffany was wandering around the headquarters aimlessly. Many saw her, but none greeted her due to their fears towards her. Naturally, no one noticed the restless look on her face when they passed by her.

Not that Tiffany minded anyway. All she wanted now is to be left alone and do whatever she wants.

She went into the training ground eventually. The place was empty despite it was early afternoon. Most of the hunters were patrolling outside and trainees were instructed to patrol with some of the senior hunters in order to gain some experiences before the mutants strike again.

Tiffany walked straight into the deeper part of the training ground, making her way to the small lake which was somewhere around there.

Stopping in front of the lake, Tiffany dropped to the ground with her head hung low. She pressed the back of her hand against her lips, trying to swallow the sobs she had been suppressing for long back into .

But no matter how hard she tried to stifle those sounds, tears that were forming around her eyes had already betrayed her emotion.

“Tiffany?”

Shutting her eyes tightly, droplets of tears fell into the lake before her uncontrollably, merging themselves with the clear blue water and disappeared from its surface.

“Tiffany, are you okay?”

A palm landed on her shoulder and it forced her to open her eyes. Tiffany looked up to check out the intruder out of reflex. When Wooyoung’s face came into her sight, anger took over the depression in her instantly.

“Wooyoung…”

Her hand reached for the blades which were tied to her thighs.

“You… are crying.” Wooyoung exclaimed. He was so surprised to see the tears on Tiffany’s face that he failed to notice the unusual hatred surfacing in Tiffany’s eyes.

“I’LL KILL YOU!”

Words were forced out of her gritted teeth as Tiffany finally grabbed hold of the hilts of her blades and pulled them out of their respective scabbards swiftly.

*

By the time Yuri came out from the conference room, Tiffany was already nowhere to be seen. She tried asking the people around, but no one knew where she went exactly. A handful of them who saw Tiffany could only point to the direction where Tiffany had gone to.

And because of that, Yuri took more than thirty minutes before she finally found out Tiffany was actually in the training ground.

“Fany?”

As soon as Yuri stepped into training ground, she started calling for her partner but all she received was the whistle of the wind… and sounds of metals colliding against each other fiercely?

Something is wrong!

Yuri leaped towards the source of the sounds without further hesitation. If she didn’t recognize it wrongly, those sounds came from blades. As far as she could remember, the only people who used blades in Aurales were Tiffany and Wooyoung.

And the both of them hate each other.

As the sounds of colliding blades got louder, Yuri managed to spot two figures, far away from her, fighting against one another. But when she got even closer, she realized Tiffany was the one who was attacking, while Wooyoung was dodging and defending himself from Tiffany’s vicious attack pathetically.

Yuri could tell that Wooyoung didn’t want to hurt Tiffany. Despite having a large wound with blood trickling down his arm, that poor hunter did nothing to counter Tiffany’s attack, except using his blade to block Tiffany’s blades.

“Tiffany!”

Yuri shouted at her partner in panic, hoping to ‘wake’ her up. She had never seen such hatred in her eyes before and not to mention, a berserk her.

Tiffany didn’t hear her. Instead of retreating, her attacks went fiercer instead. It was as if she was determined to take Wooyoung’s life.

“Damn!” Yuri cursed under her breath. She had to stop this before Tiffany injured Wooyoung even further!

Stepping forward, Yuri dashed towards Tiffany and threw herself at her before enveloping the berserk hunter in her embrace. Tiffany was too engrossed with Wooyoung that she failed to notice Yuri’s existence until she felt the latter had tied down her movements.

“LET GO OF ME! I’M GOING TO KILL HIM!”

Yuri circled her arms around Tiffany’s body and grabbed hold of her own wrist, locking Tiffany within her arms. “Tiffany! Calm down!”

“NO!” Tiffany struggled vigorously, trying her best to get out of Yuri’s grip. “I’LL KILL HIM! LET ME KILL HIM!”

Tiffany’s reaction was scaring Yuri. She was almost acting like a maniac who was out of control and needed to be tied up now. Still holding to her partner, Yuri diverted her gaze towards Wooyoung, intending to seek an answer from him. However, that injured hunter was even more clueless than her.

He was merely trying to check out Tiffany when he saw her kneeling in front of the lake in an odd position, but Tiffany flashed her blades at him the moment she saw him. If Wooyoung hadn’t reacted fast enough, he could have lost his live instead of having this large wound on his arm.

“JANG WOOYOUNG! YOU BASTARD!”

Failing to escape from Yuri’s hold, Tiffany decided to use verbal attack against Wooyoung for the mean time.

“SHE WOULDN’T HAVE LEFT ME BECAUSE OF YOU! SHE WOULDN’T HAVE MISUNDERSTOOD ME FOR BETRAYING HER IF YOU HADN’T APPEARED!”

She?

Confused, Yuri mouthed to Wooyoung in silent, “Oppa, what’s going on? What did you do?”

Wooyoung could only shake his head as a reply to Yuri’s question.

He might be annoying to Tiffany at times, but definitely not in the way how Tiffany accused him now.

“IT’S YOU! IT’S ALL BECAUSE OF YOU OR ELSE WE WILL STILL BE TOGETHER!”

“Fany!”

“I WILL KILL YOU! I WILL––” Tiffany stopped struggling out of the sudden and fell onto Yuri. The hunters immediately realized Tiffany had fainted and Yuri quickly scooped up Tiffany in bridal style.

“Oppa…”

She is going to take Tiffany to the infirmary, but it just doesn’t sound right to leave an injured Wooyoung behind.

Wooyoung understood her worries and caught up with her within seconds. “Don’t worry, the wound isn’t going to take my life. I’ll come with you.” Asides from treating his wound, Wooyoung had to find out what was going on with Tiffany as well.

They might seem to be rivals in other people’s eyes, but only the both of them knew, their relationship was closer than friends and Tiffany wouldn’t have wanted to kill him like earlier no matter how annoying he was to her at times.

The hunters rushed to the infirmary hastily after the commotion. They were completely ignorance to the fact that someone else was present at the scene as well.

“I’m sorry Tiffany.”

As soon as the area was cleared of people, a figure appeared out of nowhere, standing in front of the lake, staring at the water with a tinge of regret in her eyes.

“I guess it is wrong of me to release the sealed memories in the Crystal Tear into you.”