Chapter Text
Everything happened so quickly but Celine recognized three things at the exact same time.
First: Mi-Yeong was dead.
Second: The demon had vanished in a puff of pink smoke.
Third: Hana’s weapon was pointed at Celine.
More specifically at the infant swaddled in Celine’s arms.
Rumi.
Mi-Yeong’s baby was named Rumi. And Mi-Yeong had been so excited to meet her daughter, she’d picked the name the moment she found out she would be having a girl. Celine hadn’t particularly liked the name but now Rumi was the most perfect name in the world, and Rumi was the most perfect baby.
But Hana would not lower her weapon.
“Put it down, Celine.” Hana demanded, tears running down her face but her eyes cold, “We can’t let it live.”
It. It. It.
“Hana, please. She’s just a baby, she can’t hurt anybody. She’s only a baby, please! She’s Mi-Yeong’s daughter!”
The honmoon rippled aggressively, pulsing around where Mi-yeong lay crumpled on the floor. It was almost as if the honmoon was weeping for its lost hunter.
Hana shook her head, stepping closer, dangerously closer. Celine held Rumi closer, instinctively stepping back. The walls felt too close, too sharp, like they were leaning in. She could try to run but Hana was always the fastest of the three of them. She could try to make a break for it, duck under Hana’s raised arms and hope that even if she swung, Hana’s hwando would hit Celine’s back instead of Rumi. They had spared together enough over the past ten years that Celine knew she could take a hit from the sword and not fall.
But even if she got away, where would she go? Anybody Celine knew to go to was somewhere Hana knew too. Could she even go to the compound? Their mentors were there, and if they knew what Rumi was they would want to kill her too.
Celine’s indecision allowed Hana to take another two steps closer without her realizing. Her mind was screaming at her to run, to fight, to do something but all she could do was stand there, shaking her head while tears welled in her eyes.
“We have a duty, Celine. It’s a demon. We kill demons.”
“She isn’t a demon! She just has patterns, that’s all. You can barely even see them, it’s just a mark on her arm. We can just tell people it’s a birthmark, nobody has to know.”
“The only thing that has patterns like that is a demon.” Hana
“Hana, please just look at her. Please, she looks just like any other baby.” Celine moved to brush the blanket back from Rumi’s face and angled her towards Hana. Rumi peacefully slept, unaware of everything that was happening around her.
She looks like Mi-yeong.
“It has purple hair!” Hana shouted, “It has purple hair, and patterns on its arms, and do you remember what the father is?”
Celine hesitated.
“A fucking demon! A demon Celine. I don’t know what’s gotten into you but we have worked too hard for you to throw everything away for a mistake like this.” Hana rolled her shoulders and repositioned her hwando, “I don’t want to hurt you. I really don’t want to hurt you Celine but you’re not thinking straight. We swore to protect the honmoon, to protect the world and all of the people in it from demons who would steal our souls in a heartbeat if we gave them a chance.”
She needed to make them understand. She needed Hana to understand, “I promised her, Hana. I promised Mi-yeong that I would protect her daughter.”
“You made that promise before you knew what she had done! She’s the one who betrayed us. She let one of them manipulate her into thinking they were capable of feeling. That he actually loved her. I knew Mi-yeong was naive and look what it got her! She’s dead, Celine!” Hana sobbed, “But I expected you to know better, to be smarter than this.”
Celine’s heart dropped as she desperately wanted to run and hug Hana, just like she had after their first concert and Hana was so anxious she nearly ran off stage. Or how Mi-yeong would always embrace them after they got hurt on a hunt, no matter how minor the injury really was. Or how Hana would casually wrap her arms around them around the house just because.
It had all seemed so simple back then. But now she was stuck looking back and forth between the friend she had fought and performed alongside for ten years and the baby she had only met a few hours ago. Between Mi-yeong’s daughter and the blade poised to strike, wielded in the hands of the other third of her soul.
“Don’t do anything stupid just because you loved her.”
“You loved her too!” Celine snapped, the sharpness of her voice causing the baby to squirm in her blanket.
“But I wasn’t in love with her. Celine, she never loved you like that. Don’t let your little crush blind you.”
Celine shook her head, “Stop talking. Stop talking right now, you don’t know that.”
“I do know.”
“She loved me and I loved her!”
Hana lowered her hwando and gave Celine a sad look, “She had a strange way of showing it then, didn’t she. All those nights she went out to be with him, and then got herself pregnant with his spawn. If she really loved you, why did she need him?”
“SHUT UP!” Celine screamed
And that was all it took. Rumi who had been so quiet, even from the moment she was born, let out a piercing cry and the honmoon flared red outward from her. Each cry sending out pulse after pulse of magenta in the barrier that protected their world. Just like it did when a demon-
Hana lunged forward, her hwando inches away from Rumi’s chest when Celine’s saingeom clashed against it. She hadn’t even realized she had summoned it, but there it was in her free hand. Her chest heaved as she tried to still her shaking hand. She had never pulled her weapon on either of them beyond training and friendly sparring.
Hana pressed her hwando harder, trying to break through Celine’s parry. Celine resisted, struggling to wield her weapon in her non-dominant arm. The honmoon pulsed with energy as the two hunters grunted and snarled at each other. Hana pushed forward and Celine’s back arched to keep herself upright. Hana had always been faster, stronger, a better fighter but just as Hana’s blade grazed at the skin of Celine’s neck Celine felt something building up within her. The honmoon swirled around her, flaring in a vibrant blue that surged through her from her feet to her fingertips and into her saingeom before erupting in a burst of energy that sent Hana flying back.
Hana managed to land on her two feet but Celine now pointed her saingeom at Hana, keeping her fellow hunter at a distance.
Hana simply stared back at Celine in disbelief before allowing her hwando to dissipate, “That thing is going to destroy the honmoon.”
“No she won’t.”
“For everyone’s sake, I hope you’re right.” Hana shut her eyes but Celine could see the tears streaking down her cheek. She shook her head and turned to start walking.
“Wait, where are you going?”
“Away, Celine.”
Celine’s heart shattered in her chest and she cried out, “Don’t leave! Please don’t leave! We can still fix this, we can, we-”
“I can't stand by and watch you and Mi-yeong’s mistake to destroy everything we swore to protect.”
Celine fell to her knees on the cold tile and sobbed into Rumi’s blanket as Hana walked away without looking back.
She wasn’t sure how long she stayed like that, clutching the baby to her chest as she cried but eventually she dragged herself over to where Mi-yeong laid. Her eyes were still open, the soft brown that she had fallen in love with the very first time they met over a decade ago. She gently slid them closed.
She almost looked like she was sleeping. She looked peaceful.
“I promise, Mi-yeong, I will protect her.”
A small whimper from the blanket in her arms made her glance down and really look at Rumi. Her little nose was scrunched up like a kitten but relaxed as Celine brushed her hand along her purple, downy hair. Rumi blinked awake and for the first time Celine saw her eyes.
Soft brown eyes staring back up at her, identical to the ones that had just closed for the last time.