Chapter Text
Black ashes and dark flames.
His eyes trailed from the lingering mess, torn bodies, all the blood and remnants of what were his team members, up to the two stricken faces hovering over him. They survived.
He knew they were saying something, probably scolding him for being reckless. But he couldn’t hear them, couldn’t hear their worried voices, couldn’t tell any longer if they told him to wipe his bloody nose one last time. It was okay, though.
They survived.
A smile twitched at his face. The two hovering looked exasperated at him, and he could just hear their voices in his mind.
“Hey, dumbass, what’s so funny? You think this is funny!? Huh, you punk? Hey, Rok Soo!”
Yeah, it kind of was, and it kind of wasn’t.
The dull thrum of blood in his ears was loud at first, but now it was fading away, just like all the colors in the world were. Everything turned gray and blurry. He could feel himself slipping, almost like falling down a tunnel where the last thing he’d ever see was those two fretful faces. It was cold.
“You two,” he forced out, not knowing if his voice even made a sound. He had to tell them, though. “Live, damn it.”
Yes, live. He didn’t go through this time warping shit and watch them die over and over again for nothing. This time was the last. It had to be.
With that, he let himself go, and everything turned black.
And then he was falling. His broken body hit something from the pressure, but he still couldn’t feel anything or hear a sound other than the stifling silence. Temperature came back first, going sharply from cold to searing hot , and then came the pain.
“ Fuck” came out of his mouth unintentionally, a weak hiss as he curled in on himself. Was everything broken? Holy sh-
He felt like crying and almost missed when sound came back as well. Someone was talking, someone-- yelling? The language wasn’t one he knew. That, or he was so out of it from dying that sounds were just garbled.
Ah, how troublesome . Why is death so noisy? I’m dead, damn it! At least let me rest!
He cracked open his eyes, fully intending on telling whoever was yelling to shut the fuck up, only to be met with colors and oh god it’s bright--
The shapes above him weren’t the same ones he left, the faces that came blearily into some form of half focus unfamiliar. One was distinctly Korean, the other… not. Kim Rok Soo barely registered a shock of blood red hair and the acrid scent of alcohol mixed with fishy, iron-thick blood and ash before everything fuzzed out again. He just closed his eyes and slipped into some form of torpor.
He was dead. Someone else could deal with it.
Cale was not having a good day. (Granted, from the looks of this guy that literally just dropped out of the sky , someone might be having a worse day, but still.) While out drinking, he happened to come across some guy talking about a Certain Village, and he was pretty certain he was about to get attacked or at least beaten up regardless of his rank. Then there’s what sure sounds like thunder, a flash of light, and then there’s another black haired stranger, only this one is…
Well, injured would be putting it lightly.
He would have just gone home at this point, but then the man whose clothes were odd and whose body was painful just to look at from all the blood and wounds cracked open his eyes. And Cale couldn’t do anything but freeze when their eyes met. There was just a sense of wrongness to the situation, like those reddish-brown eyes were far, far too familiar, the weight and exhaustion behind them giving him an odd sense of déjà vu.
He only felt like he could breathe after the man had passed out again.
Cale looked between the injured man and the Angry One. Angry One looked back at him with just as confused, but a much more chaotic look to him than before. At least he wasn’t so rage-filled at the moment, which gave Cale enough time to make an on-the-spot decision.
“...You know what, come with me after all. Bring that one too.”
Now-Not-So-Angry One gave him a mildly disgusted look, but carefully picked up the injured man anyway. Cale couldn’t help but wince at how much blood was left behind, or how Now-Not-So-Angry One’s clothes were quickly becoming soaked. He walked quickly, glancing back every so often to make sure the boy was following all the way to the estate.
The guards were certainly not happy, but Cale waved them off and didn’t care, instead shouting out for someone reliable the moment they got back.
“Ron!” he bellowed.
Ron appeared like a ghost, just materializing out of nowhere like he did. Cale gestured at the total mess behind him with a scowl.
“Get some high grade potions and set up a room for… that. Where’s Hans?”
The ginger appeared shortly after. “I’m here, young ma-”
“Water, bandages, and-” Cale glanced again at the injuries- “-send for a doctor immediately. Make sure to look at the other one’s ankle as well.” He blatantly ignored the startled look Not-Angry-Anymore sent him and started stalking down the hall. “Let father know we have guests. I’m going to bed. Take care of it.”
The headache from Not-Angry-Anymore was bad enough, but he didn’t want to think about the mess from the Other One. He had so many questions, but asking them seemed like it would bring him a lot more trouble than it was worth right now.
He was wrong.
The headache from Maybe-Still-Angry was worse.
“ What are you two doing?” Cale demanded, one hand over his eyes and the other resting on the doorframe. Maybe-Still-Angry and Ron froze in the middle of reaching for each others’ throats, then straightened up and looked away as if nothing had ever happened.
“Nevermind, I don’t care. Did you at least take care of the other one?”
“Of course, young master.” Ron gave him that typical Ron smile and stepped aside, gesturing to the still passed out man on the bed. Cale could barely see him through all the bandages despite the treatment of high grade healing potions.
He nodded and gestured at Maybe-Still-Angry. “You. You had something to tell Father. Ron will take you there.”
Ron and Not-Angry-But-Definitely-A-Headache glared at each other. Whatever. At least they left the room, and Cale got a minute of blessed, sweet silence.
He approached the bed and stood with one hand on his hip, eyeing the lump of bandages and black hair. Definitely-A-Headache and Mummy here had the same hair color, but they couldn’t be any more different. He just wasn’t sure how yet, aside from the features that marked them as not blood related.
“Alright, you,” he said, not expecting an answer. “Who are you?”
Imagine his surprise when the man suddenly jolted like he’d been struck and snapped his eyes open.
Fire and ash.
An unranked monster, stronger than he thought it’d been.
“It’s too hard. Team leader, it’s too hard.”
“I know, but what else can we do?”
How many times did they have this conversation? Each iteration was slightly different than the last. No matter what he did, Choi Jung Soo and Lee Soo Hyuk, along with everyone else, would die. It was just him, waiting for backup. Then the government officials would arrive, he’d tell them the monster’s patterns and weaknesses, and things would swirl like a toilet bowl filled with excrement.
And he’d try again. Again, again, again, cursing god, cursing fate, cursing himself, cursing everything as he tried not to see their faces staring blankly.
“Hey, Rok Soo… I leave it to you.”
“What is it, you punk.”
Their last words echoed time and time again. If not for the inconsistencies he’d almost think he was trapped by [Record]. But his injuries and exhaustion were the one thing that never changed, holding him to reality. His body would only minorly heal between loops. Each time it was worse.
Somewhere after the fifteenth loop he snapped and got reckless. Physical pain was a small price to pay if it could break him out of this hell. Ignoring his broken arm, he stole Jung Soo’s sword and…
Kim Rok Soo woke with a sharp gasp, his palms still tingling from the force of hitting the ground. Everything hurt , but not nearly as much as before. The world settled into focus like he’d just fallen to the bottom of a swimming pool.
A white ceiling. Chandelier. Designs he wasn’t familiar with. And-
Red hair, one of the faces he saw before. Wow. Death was surprisingly fancy.
The young man looked like he’d fallen over backwards in shock. He was sitting on his butt, eyes wide. He recovered quickly, however, and jumped up to his feet. Kim Rok Soo’s eyes widened as the youth slammed his hands down on the side of the bed and glared at him.
“Great, now you can answer. Who the fuck are you?”
Wow. Kim Rok Soo stared at him blankly. What the heck? What language am I hearing first thing in the morning?
The youth seemed to get more irritated by his silence. “Well? Are you not going to answer?”
It wasn’t that he wasn’t going to answer, but- well, he couldn’t seem to. Kim Rok Soo opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a wet cough that wracked all of his injuries. The world swam with pain, and of course he hated every second of it. As he blinked away the tears that threatened to flood his vision he saw the redhead staring at him with wide eyes.
Huh? What? Why does he look like he’s seen a- oh. Kim Rok Soo had coughed up blood on the sheets. Maybe he’s mad I got such expensive fabric dirty?
The youth stormed out of the room, hollering something about potions and alcohol. Definitely angry. However, he stormed back in and practically shoved a bottle in Kim Rok Soo’s mouth and emptied all the liquid contents down his throat.
He almost choked from the suddenness of the action. But after gulping down the strange liquid, the pain lessened and it was easier to breathe. Even if it was poison, he’d take it.
With the bottle removed, he coughed again. It was a healthier, weaker cough and let him catch his breath. Taking a moment to breathe, he saw the hands holding the bottle slightly shaking, knuckles white.
“...ok Soo,” he said. “My… name is… Kim Rok Soo.”
“The hell kind of name is that?” the youth snapped.
Kim Rok Soo could only stare back at him in disbelief. “...My name?”
“Obviously, you just said that.” The young man glared at him, then sighed and put the bottle down. “I am Cale Henituse.”
“...Sure. Nice to meet you.”
Cale raised an eyebrow, and Kim Rok Soo started to get an iffy feeling.
“What, that’s it?”
“...Excuse me?”
“Don’t you know who I am?”
Kim Rok Soo frowned. “Am I supposed to know you?”
Cale almost looked affronted, but his face morphed into something complicated. It looked something between relieved and… bitter? before settling back into a frown. “Nevermind.”
At that moment, the door opened, and a vicious looking old man came in bearing fresh bandages and a teacup, followed by a teenager with black hair and eyes. The teen was pale, and almost immediately ran to the bedside. What the- isn’t he also Korean?
The old man handed the teacup to Cale. “Young master, here is your tea.”
Cale looked at the teacup and was about to make a complaint. However, he looked back at Kim Rok Soo, who was staring at the teen, and just took it with a nod. Cale felt like he shouldn’t say anything for some reason and should only watch. Ron looked at him and the scene with his usual benign smile.
“Young master, it is time to change the guest-nim’s bandages,” Ron said. Kim Rok Soo’s head snapped around to focus on the butler, his eyes trembling slightly.
“I can do it.” The black haired teenager held out his hand.
“It is not proper to have a guest do work. Please let this Ron take care of it.” The butler’s smile felt vicious even if it still looked benign.
Cale sipped his tea.
Kim Rok Soo looked back and forth between the two, then at Cale. Cale smirked back over the rim of the teacup.
“...I didn’t expect death to be so noisy,” Kim Rok Soo muttered.
The room suddenly stilled, silent save for the sound of Cale choking on his tea.