Chapter Text
They have been walking for hours. Karina asked Winter where they are heading, to which Winter replies, “You’ll see.” She hopes that Winter has somehow already figured out how to manage the problem and their destination is the key to all of this.
“Why don’t we just fly? We could reach there quicker.” Karina suggests.
“I can’t. One of my wings is injured.” Winter shakes her head.
“What?! Let me see.”
“No. It’s okay, it-”
“It’s not okay! Why aren’t you healing it? Is it that bad? I can help you.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“It’s wounded by divine punishment.”
Anything done by divinity can’t be reversed or healed by anybody else but the deity. Karina berates herself for leaving Winter all alone that day under the rain. She reaches out and grabs Winter’s arm tightly.
“I know what you want to say. Save it.” Winter stops her before she could get any word out.
“You’re getting cold again.” She slings her arm around the shorter girl's shoulders and pulls her closer to her own body. “I don’t actually feel cold. You don’t have to do this.” Winter insists but she lets Karina do it anyway.
Their moment alone doesn’t last long when they notice that there are people coming towards them in all directions. In a few seconds they close in and both of them are quickly surrounded.
Yizhuo and Void are tied together and are unable to move. They are thrown to the snow right in front of Karina and Winter.
The leader of the crowd moves past them and Karina glares at her when she recognises her.
“Jinsoul…”
“Resistance is futile.” Jinsoul points a wand directly at Karina’s head.
“I don’t intend to resist.” Winter steps in between the both of them.
“Ah, so you’re Winter. The one responsible for all of this.”
Karina steps forward, but is stopped by Winter. It’s unfair how easy it is for Winter to get what she wants with just a shift in her gaze. Karina bites her bottom lip before letting out a huge sigh.
“If you want to stop this catastrophe, then you have to do as I say.”
The mob isn’t willing to adhere. They yell in disagreement and are about to charge towards her when Jinsoul raises her hand. Winter lets out a shaky exhale, her grip on Karina’s cloak tightens.
“Take me to the Cosmos and I will bring all the mess on this planet with me.”
Void is visibly shocked when it hears that. Yizhuo feels it stiffening against her back. “Why? What’s wrong? What’s Cosmos?”
Jinsoul is also surprised upon hearing Winter’s request. She signals the rest to stay put and steps forward on her own with a grin on her face. “You have some nerves thinking about stepping foot into a place like that.” Jinsoul stares dead into Winter’s eyes.
“You know about it?” Winter doesn’t like the sinister look from her.
“Of course. Knowledge is power. Right, Void?” Jinsoul’s eyes follow the cat, who lays helplessly on the ground.
Winter. Why would you want to go there?
“You know how to get there?”
The feline remains silent. It stares at Winter but it still can’t figure out what this woman is thinking. The mental barrier is still up.
“Ah fuck it, this is taking too much time.” Jinsoul curses under her breath.
Winter has let down her guard completely with her back facing the Bonfire demon. She snatches her hood and pulls her backwards, headlocking the smaller woman with her elbow. Karina launches at Jinsoul but she evades quickly and kicks her abdomen with her heel. She falls back and Jinsoul stops her from getting up with a foot on her chest. Yizhuo and Void could only watch from the side.
“Sorry that it has to come down to this. But for what’s worth, I think you’ll make a great ally if we were on the same side.” She snaps her finger and her followers rush towards them to seize Karina.
“Don’t hurt them, please.” Winter pleads. Jinsoul chuckles.
“I’ll think about it.” She turns her head towards Void again. “If you’re not going to take Winter there then I’ll just ask someone else to do it.”
This is preposterous. Not just anybody can stroll into the Cosmos just like that! She’ll-
“Shut up, kitty. I’m sure that if she knows of its existence, she also knows the consequences of going there.” Jinsoul cuts the feline off. Karina heard everything that they said. “What do you mean… consequences? What are the consequences?”
When nobody replies to her, Karina gets more desperate. “Winter. What is this place you want to go to? Tell me, now.” She demands, struggling against the other demons holding her back.
“Why are you not saying anything? Kim Minjeong!”
Jinsoul feels the woman trembling and hears a small cry in pain. The temperature drops again. She looks down and notices a subtle glow behind her silver locks. Winter then mumbles something. Jinsoul shoots her a look before she releases her. “If you try anything funny, I won’t go easy on you.”
Winter nods once and heads towards Karina, who has been constrained by chains and locks infused with binding magic. She stops trying to break apart the metals holding her down and stares back at Winter intently.
“Jimin…” Winter starts, holding back her sobs. She doesn’t dare to look up. But time waits for no one. And the time has come. “I can’t stand watching it consume anyone again. I’m sorry.”
Winter raises her head up slowly. Karina’s whole world shatters.
Bloodshot slitted eyes.
Bloody hell.
You’ll know when it happens. It’s more fun that way, no?
When the fire died down, the devil senses a presence behind him. He closes his eyes and smirks. “You’re awake.”
Minjeong feels exhausted, struggling to keep her eyes open. She remembers the cold rain pattering against her skin and an abrupt flash of white light before knocking out.
“Where am I?”
He says nothing as the blue flames die down. He reaches down and catches something trying to escape. The devil turns to face Minjeong, a wide grin spreading across his face.
“Now it’s powerless. Taking the form of this tiny little thing, how cute!” The underworld ruler pokes the small snake’s head, earning a bite in return. He only laughs.
Minjeong isn’t even slightly amused. Initially, she is surprised to come face to face with the devil himself, but her apprehension dwindles seeing such a behaviour coming from him. She rubs the side of her head before she approaches the brutal and vile being, or so they described it in the books.
“Is that… Mamba?” Minjeong squints her eyes at the snake struggling helplessly in the devil’s grasp.
He holds it playfully near Minjeong’s face, which makes the woman step back quickly, her face contorted in disgust.
“Just as I thought, it can’t be eradicated that easily.”
It took a while, but Minjeong put two and two together. Mamba is existing as a separate entity now. What happened to Jimin? Before she can open her mouth, the devil asks half-jokingly, “Do you want to be the sacrificial lamb?” while wiggling the reptile like some kind of flimsy worm.
“Just kidding, Yu Jimin would be furious.”
“Wait, how do you know Jimin? What happened to her?”
“Long story short, I owe her some promises.”
The devil turns around, about to make his dramatic exit but Minjeong tugs on his cape. “What are you going to do with it?” The devil is surprised. Kim Minjeong is more daring than she looks. “It can’t die without a host. If it’s out and about by itself, it’ll come back again. Possibly even more powerful.”
“Then who is going to be its host?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Someone that can overpower and suppress its revitalization for long enough. Or…”
“Or…?”
“... I take a bunch of lab rats and let the snake take over them and I kill them one by one until it finally drops dead.”
“The fuck?! You can’t do that!”
The demon protests firmly. Minjeong doesn’t know why she still cares so much. She’s a demon, she’s no longer the good-for-everything archangel who protects the innocent. But it just doesn’t sit right with her to allow the devil to do whatever he wants, even if it’s for the sake of putting an end to a greater evil.
Without hesitation, her hand reaches out to the devil. “I’ll be its host.” The devil quirks his thick brows and smirks. “Even if it kills you?” He towers over the smaller woman, casting a shadow over her.
“As long as it dies with me, so be it.” Minjeong looks at him with unwavering resolution. It’s almost admirable, if not for one thing that she always seems to so easily forget.
“You’re so selfless, it’s selfish sometimes.” He moves the snake’s head nearer to her outstretched arm. “What would Yu Jimin think? Have you thought about that?”
“What? You’re afraid that she’s going to come for you?” Minjeong snaps.
“Oh, it’s never about me.” The devil lets the snake latch on to the demon. Its teeth sinks deep into the girl’s skin, Her head starts aching and her still heart beats irregularly. The blood is pulsating through her veins with so much pressure she thinks she’s going to explode.
You reek of sanctimoniousness.
She hears the voice of Mamba for the first time.
You give but you never take.
She feels the remaining warmth in her draining out.
Nobody will take from you again if you have nothing left.
Winter sees all the emotions that Karina feels all at once. Confusion, rage, concern. She cups her face carefully and presses their foreheads together. She takes a good look at her, committing the blue eyes and pointy nose and plump lips into memory. This isn’t going to be easy for either of them, but Winter has to do what she must do. Karina wishes that everything is simpler, as simple as holding her hands, as simple as loving her.
“You’ll be free of this hurt soon.” Winter leans in.
The raven grinds her teeth. She turns her head away to avoid the other’s lips.
“You think that I didn’t know what you tried doing when you kissed me?”
Winter’s eyes widen.
“Don’t force me to forget the things that made me, me. And you make out a huge chunk of that.” She sighs heavily, her voice just above a whisper. “Please don’t think about what’s best for me. I decide what’s best for me.”
Winter thought that she was sly enough, but Karina saw right through her.
“You want to go to the place to save this world. Okay. I won’t stop you because I know I can’t. But then please, take me with you.”
Take her with you. Take her with you to a place nobody knows what’s actually like there and hope that the worst doesn’t dawn upon you and her. She won’t be alone if Karina comes. Winter hates being alone. But she can’t be selfish, no? The last time she was selfish, she almost destroyed the order in heaven.
Winter has made up her mind long ago.
“Be happy, Jimin.”
Winter watches Karina fight to remain conscious. It’s not long before she leans forward and falls to the ground fast asleep.
Winter could see Jinsoul’s shadow looming over her.
“Done?”
Winter takes a look at Karina one last time.
“Yeah.”
“Whoever I point at, watch over these three. I will take Winter up to heaven with the rest.”
As they all move around according to the orders, Yizhuo tries to come up with an escape route. She’s too weak to break the chains apart. Said chains also prevent Void from transforming. Karina may be strong enough, but who knows how long it’ll take before she wakes up. The only thing she could do is wriggle her fingers sticking out of the chain.
She sighs. She fidgets around to find a more comfortable position when she accidentally leans over to the right too much and almost falls. But she felt something flat and hard inside her pocket.
“Psst, Void.” Yizhuo hisses at the cat behind her.
Void silently communicate with her. After getting the message it swishes its long tail and it manages to sneak into Yizhuo’s cloak pocket and pulls out the piece of metal that she asked for.
Yizhuo shifts her dominant arm from the back to her side. The chain is tight, but not tight enough. With some effort, she manages to move her arm forward enough to see what she’s doing on her phone. She switches the device on, gasping quietly at her battery percentage.
Yizhuo: SOS
Yizhuo: Could you come down and tell the ones watching over us to let us go? Say it’s orders from “Jinsoul”
Yizhuo: [live location on]
Yizhuo: Hurry up!!!!!!!!!
Yizhuo: Also, can holy water wake someone up?
“There is a theory about how the universe is created. Beyond the god or gods that created this galaxy. The Cosmos is said to be a place where the creators of the entirety of the universe reside. A mere Earthling like them has no business meddling there. In fact, no being outside of the Cosmos could comprehend the expanse of it.”
“To get there, one has to travel at a speed a million times faster than the speed of light through a portal that only a divine being could create. There’s no guarantee on whether anyone or anything could get there in one piece without disintegrating at such a high velocity inside the portal. Not even God himself has tried it before. What makes you think that-”
“Can we just cut to the chase already? I know all of these!” Jinsoul stomps her foot impatiently. “Aren’t humans dying from the cold? The longer you drag this on the more souls yall gotta deal with!”
“For someone who wants a place in heaven, you sure aren’t making a good impression.” Winter comments casually.
Jinsoul clears her throat before standing upright again. The prophets continued with their long script, much to Jinsoul’s dismay.
Winter didn’t know she would be listening to the monotonous prophets going on and on about something again. They sure have a lot to say about something that they’re not even sure actually exists.
What if it doesn't actually exist? Then Winter would have to suppress Mamba for “long enough” until it stops revitalising. Could humans even survive that long? And it’s not like there is a wide selection of hosts for it either. Winter would rather die again then let it possess Karina again.
Jimin. Her beloved Jimin.
Thinking about not being able to be by her side again crushes her heart.
Jinsoul shivers a little.
The prophets stopped all of a sudden. The words of their scripts have changed, and they read through the new message.
“The portal is… ready.”
For the first time ever, Winter sees emotion in their expressions.
All five of them run towards her and push her to somewhere else.
“Great. Great! We will await a reply.” Jinsoul cheers with her followers. She turns to Seulgi, who has been watching the whole scene play out, wanting to shake her hand to finally seal the deal that they discussed some time ago.
To Jinsoul’s aghast, she comes face to face with someone unexpected instead.
It would be a lie to say that Winter isn’t even a tiny bit scared of what’s to come. She sees an opening in the distance and swallows the lump that has been building up in her throat.
Winter steps towards the edge of the portal and peeks through it. It’s completely dark. Or maybe it’s dark because It’s completely devoid of anything.
She’s destined for this. It’s time to let go.
Winter is so focused on taking the final step that she doesn’t realise the commotion behind her until she feels something warm pushing her from the back. She falls into the hole.
The portal seals shut.
A smirk plasters across the red winged demon’s face.
Winter falls with whoever entered the portal with her. They are silent at first, but then they start bursting into heaps of giggles.
Could it be-
Slowly, light starts seeping through the endless tunnel they fell into, and instead of skipping a beat, Winter’s heart starts racing.
“Jimin!”
Jimin whose hair is heaving upwards because they’re falling. Jimin who has some dirt on her face because she must have fought her way to get here. Jimin whose warmth always reaches Minjeong.
“Did I scare you?” Karina shouldn’t be smiling at a time like this. But here she is, beaming with a smile and all Winter could do is melt under it. “Admit it. You’re glad I’m here, aren’t you?”
Normally, she would’ve denied it. She would've been angry at how reckless Karina is being. But for some reason, seeing the glee in her lover’s eyes stirred something in her. It was like Karina’s truly happy, something that Winter has always wanted to make her feel.
There isn’t even an ounce of fear present. If there is, then Karina has hid it well. But Winter’s sure that Karina is feeling the purest form of joy.
And then Winter finally understands. Finally understands why Karina is so dead set on being with her till the end of whichever world they are in.
She couldn’t stand heaven for keeping her away from Karina. So why should she repeat that herself?
“Yeah.” She agrees quietly, her tears fogging her vision. Winter finally allows herself to be honest.
“Silly, why are you crying?”
“I’m not. It’s sweat. You’re too warm.”
The light becomes increasingly overbearing as it engulfs them. Winter can no longer see Karina without burning her retinas, but she could still feel her body against hers, and really, that’s all that matters.
“We’ll be warm for a while then.”
(End.)