Chapter Text
Rumi jerked awake.
“Zoey— Mira—”
She reached for them on instinct, searching for the familiar thread of the Honmoon that bound the three of them together. It was something they did without thinking. A quiet reassurance when distance crept in.
She came up empty.
It wasn’t just that she couldn’t feel Zoey or Mira. She couldn’t feel the Honmoon at all.
Her breath stuttered.
She pushed herself upright too fast, the world pitching as pain split through her skull. Her body felt wrong. Every muscle ached as if she had been left to bruise instead of healed in her sleep. The Honmoon always worked while they rested. Always stitched torn skin and bone back together.
It hadn’t this time.
When she looked up, the sky was wrong. The air reeked of ash and ruin. Jagged rock spires cut across the horizon like broken teeth.
Something pulsed at the edge of her vision.
She looked down. The markings along her skin glowed deep magenta. She had never seen them glow before. Her heart began to pound harder.
She looked around at the ash-choked horizon.
Whatever this place was, it wasn’t Seoul.
But where was she?
Her mind scrambled for context, for anything that explained how she had ended up wherever here was. She shut her eyes and forced herself to rewind.
The train.
The breach.
Mira yelling at her.
The last thing she remembered was the sound of metal screaming against rails—
*****
A saingeom flashed through the dark, cleaving cleanly through a demon’s torso. The creature barely had time to scream before it unraveled into smoke, its form tearing apart as if cut from the world itself.
The blade snapped back into Rumi’s grasp as she took point at the front of the formation. Mira and Zoey stood behind her, sneakers braced against the roof of a moving train as it thundered through a tunnel, metal screaming against rails, sparks flying where claws scraped steel.
Mira yelled above the roar of the train, “Seriously, what is your problem?”
“I told you, the song, it’s—”
“I’m not talking about the song. I’m talking about you! Why are you questioning everything we stand for when we’re so close to sealing the Honmoon? What are you not telling us, Rumi?”
“I— I—”
Rumi turned away.
Mira grabbed her shoulder. “What are you hiding from us?”
Rumi felt the walls close in. There was no answer she could give, not without exposing the truth she was still trying to keep buried. The words came out before she could stop them.
“Not everything is about your insecurities, Mira!”
Rumi stiffened, regret hitting instantly.
“Mira, I didn’t mean…”
Zoey froze mid-step.
“Would you two stop fighting each other and look?”
The breach ripped open above like a wound torn too far and too fast. It was larger than anything they had faced before, a jagged gash with demons spilling out in a molten surge.
“If you’re with us, prove it.”
They met each other’s eyes for a heartbeat. Then steel rose, resolve locked into place, and Zoey’s voice burst free as they surged forward, her song slicing through the chaos ahead of them.
♫ It’s a takedown, I’mma take you out.
You’ll break down like, “What?”♫
The wave of demons hit them like a living wall, driving straight through their formation. Zoey staggered sideways, already moving, her arm snapping up as she hurled her shin-kals with precise, practiced accuracy, each blade finding its mark even as the train hurtled forward.
♫ It's a takedown, I'mma take you out,
and it ain't gonna stop! ♫
Rumi was pushed back by the sheer force of it, her sneakers skidding as she fought to hold her ground. Zoey caught a glimpse of her being driven farther and farther away, swallowed inch by inch by heat and shadow. Her outline blurred behind the writhing bodies pouring out of the breach, until she vanished from sight entirely.
“Rumi—”
Zoey’s shout cut off as the crowd of bodies slammed forward again.
Mira’s voice broke through next, rough with effort but unyielding as she forced herself forward, cutting through the ranks, refusing to let the song drop.
♫ Jung-shin-eul-noh-koh
Null-jib-balb-goh!
Kal-eul-seh-gyuh-nuah! ♫
Mira was shoved back a step, barely keeping her footing. Between them, the surge kept coming, faster and harder, forcing space where there had been none.
♫ You’ll be begging and crying
All of you dying, never miss my shot! ♫
Mira swung her gok-do in a wide circle, the blade humming as it cut through demon after demon, each strike erasing them from existence in bursts of smoke and ash.
“Mira, duck!” Zoey yelled, instinct snapping her back into motion.
She sprinted toward Mira, sneakers scraping against the roof as it shuddered beneath the speeding train, and flicked her wrist. Her shin-kals sang through the air, blue arcs flashing once before embedding themselves in the demons closing in behind Mira. The creatures shrieked, dissolving into smoke that burned the air as they vanished.
They regrouped instinctively, backs pressed together, gok-do and shin-kals moving in tight, efficient patterns. Every strike landed. Every breath burned. The noise was overwhelming. Screams, claws scraping stone, the low hum of the breach pulsing beneath.
♫ I don’t think you’re ready for the takedown! ♫
The voice carried through the chaos, cutting cleanly through the clash of metal and claws. It was distant now, pulled thin by space and movement, but unmistakable.
Mira turned her head toward the sound, straining to place it.
“We need to get to Rumi!” she shouted, forcing the words out through clenched teeth.
“She’s over there,” Zoey said, breath ragged. Her gaze snapped toward the song.
♫ A demon with no feelings don’t deserve to live!
It’s so obvious… ♫
The horde kept coming relentlessly. Mira felt the fire creep into her muscles, the tremor in her arms she could no longer hide. Sweat blurred her vision, but her grip tightened anyway.
♫ I’mma gear up—♫
A massive dokkaebi burst through the ranks, roaring as it swung its club in a brutal arc. The blow connected. Rumi’s saingeom flew spinning into the air, skidding across the roof out of reach. Rumi froze.
“Rumi!” Zoey and Mira cried out together.
They pushed through the horde. Mira raised her gok-do and felt the Honmoon surging through her. She slammed it down. A massive flare tore across the roof of the train. A single, blinding wave swallowed everything in its path, erasing the remaining demons where they stood.
Nothing remained but drifting embers.
For a fraction of a second, the world went silent. Where the roar of battle had been, there was now only the dull, relentless clatter of the train carriages on the tracks.
Mira and Zoey stood there, chests heaving, ears still ringing with ghosts of the fight. They should have felt relief. Instead, it felt as though something inside them had been wrenched away, leaving a hollow ache that spread through their chests as the breach sealed.
Zoey staggered, a sharp gasp tearing out of her as she clutched at her chest, fingers curling into the fabric over her heart as if she could hold herself together by force alone. Mira dropped to one knee beside her, breath hitching, the world narrowing to a sudden, aching emptiness that made her dizzy.
For a heartbeat, neither of them spoke.
Then Mira’s head snapped up.
“Rumi,” she whispered.
Zoey froze. Her eyes widened as the word hit, and she turned sharply toward the place where they had last seen her. The stretch of roof where Rumi had stood was empty.
“The passengers!” she hissed.
They swung into the carriages and found them empty. The only sign that anyone had ever been there was the scatter of belongings left behind, bags slumped on seats and devices abandoned on the floor as the train continued on without them.
“Rumi?” she called, louder now.
No answer.
They split without a word, moving in opposite directions down the length of the train. Zoey checked every carriage, every doorway, every narrow space between seats. Mira vaulted over rows, scanning corners and floors, calling Rumi’s name until it sounded wrong in her mouth.
There was no sign of her.
When the doors slid shut again and the train pulled away, they were left standing there, empty-handed, with the certainty settling in at last.
Rumi was gone.
Both of them fought the urge to panic.
A dry leaf skittered across the platform, pushed along by a passing gust.
The silence stretched.
Zoey pulled out her phone. Her hands were shaking now, enough that she had to steady them before she could unlock the screen. Rumi’s phone tracker was offline. She swallowed and lowered the phone without a word.
Mira’s voice broke the quiet.
“The last thing I did was doubt her,” she said, the words coming out rough. “Why did I ask her to prove herself?”
She swallowed hard.
“What was I thinking? She didn’t deserve any of that,” Mira said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “She’s always been our anchor. That can’t be how it ends.”
She dropped her hand, exhaled once.
“We need to find her,” Mira said. After a brief pause, she added, quieter, “And we need to call her.”
Mira pulled up her phone and hit call. Rumi was the one who usually called her. This time, there was no mistaking that something was wrong.
It rang twice.
“Mira,” Celine said, her voice already alert. “What happened?”
Mira hesitated, the weight of the question pressing down on her chest. “It’s Rumi,” she said finally. “She’s missing. There was a huge breach.”
On the other end, the background noise faded away. Whatever Celine had been doing stopped. Mira could hear her breathing now, each breath steady and controlled, as if she was bracing herself for the bad news to come.
Mira forced herself to keep going before she lost momentum. She told her about the tear ripping open above them, the surge of demons, the flare that wiped them out. By the time she finished, her throat felt raw.
There was a brief pause.
Zoey stepped closer, her voice trembling despite her effort to steady it.
“It’s not just that, seonsaengnim,” she said. “I can’t feel her anymore. It’s like the thread that connects us through the Honmoon is just… gone.”
She swallowed hard. “That doesn’t mean what I think it means,” Zoey added, quieter now. “It doesn’t. Right?”
Celine did not answer right away. When she finally spoke, her tone was calm, but it carried a gravity that made Zoey’s chest tighten.
“Listen to me carefully,” Celine said. “You are both still alive, that’s all that matters. Stay where you are, and do not do anything reckless.”
Zoey closed her eyes, her breath hitching.
“I’m coming to you,” Celine continued.
*****
Rumi’s hand rose to her chest without thinking, pressing hard against the hollow ache there, as if she could quiet it by force.
It didn’t help. The emptiness remained.
She already knew what she would find, but she reached for her phone anyway. The screen was cracked, the glass spidered from the impact, but it flickered to life in her palm. No signal. She hadn’t been expecting one. The confirmation settled heavily in her chest.
The last thing she remembered was the horde pressing in. The last words tearing from her throat as she sang through the chaos.
♫ A demon with no feelings don’t deserve to live!
It’s so obvious… ♫
The lyrics had landed like an accusation. For a heartbeat, she had hesitated. A flicker of doubt. And in that instant, the club had connected. Her sword had flown from her hand.
Then the flare came. White consumed her sight. And after that, nothing.
♫ You can try, but you can’t hide… ♫
The realization hit all at once. She was in the demon world. Demons didn’t die when their weapons cut through them. They merely got sent back to where they belonged.
Her gaze dropped to the magenta glow pulsing beneath her skin.
Is this where she belonged? If she weren’t half-demon, she wouldn’t be here.
A sharper fear followed.
Zoey. Mira.
She reached outward again, harder this time, as if she could force the Honmoon to answer.
Nothing.
The silence pressed in, vast and unmoving.
“Why are you abandoning me?” she whispered. “I did everything you asked.”
The wind dragged across the stone in a low, hollow sigh as the magenta light pulsed once beneath her skin.
The Honmoon did not answer.
She couldn’t feel them. Which meant they couldn’t feel her either.
“They must think I’m dead,” she murmured. “Why now? When we’re so close to golden?”
The thought hurt more than the ache in her body.
She had been living a lie, keeping part of herself locked away. And she had been so close to telling them the truth. To confessing everything. To standing in front of them without hiding.
Instead, she had vanished.
They would mourn her.
The version of her they thought she was.
The realization hollowed her out.
They never really knew her.
And now they never would.
The wind carried a thin whistle through the stone arches. She shuddered. The sound pulled an old memory loose. Sitting under the dangsan tree in front of her mother’s grave, Celine had sounded so broken as she recounted the day her trio was torn apart. The aftermath of losing Mi-yeong.
“You were all that was left of your mother.” Celine had said quietly, stroking her hair. “She said you had to be protected at all costs. Losing her like that… it broke something in me. Even if you survive it, you are never the same.”
Rumi had not known what to say back then. Now she understood what Celine had meant by something breaking and never fitting the same way again. She had just put Zoey and Mira through that. And made Celine live it twice.
Celine had never let her call her eomma, unwilling to take Mi-yeong’s place. But she had been her mother in every way that mattered. Rumi had always assumed there would be time.
The weight of it hit unevenly, crashing in waves that refused to line up neatly. Guilt bled into fear. Fear blurred into a grief so sharp it stole the air from her lungs. Beneath it all was confusion, the sense that nothing was where it should be, including herself. Her hands curled at her sides, fingers digging into her palms as she struggled to stay grounded in her own body.
She forced herself to breathe, though even that felt uncertain. Had she died in the breach and ended up here because this was where demons returned to when they were vanquished?
Or was she still alive, having crossed into the demon world, left stranded on the wrong side of the Honmoon?
Either way, she needed to find a way back.
But as much as she desperately wanted to claw her way back to the human world, she knew she could not. It would mean tearing open a breach in the Honmoon and putting the world she had sworn to protect at risk. She could not allow that.
She lowered her gaze again.
The markings along her skin pulsed once more, the magenta light brightening, then dimming. A moment passed. Then it happened again. The rhythm was not random. Each pulse tugged at her attention, subtle but persistent, drawing her awareness toward the same stretch of horizon.
Rumi turned slowly, following the pull until she faced it head-on.
Her marks flared again, stronger this time, almost as if they were pointing the way. The thought unsettled her. Was it leading her?
She hesitated, fingers curling against her palms, then exhaled.
No.
She turned deliberately in the opposite direction and took a step.
The light shifted at once, the pulse reversing, running counter to her step like a current pressing her back.
She let out a breath.
“Great. Rumi 2.0,” she muttered. “Combat ready. Now with built-in GPS.”
She stopped. The glow steadied, then tugged again toward the horizon she had rejected.
Staying here would not bring her any closer to understanding how she had ended up in this place, or how to leave it. Whatever awaited her out there was at least something. Hopefully answers.
She turned back toward the pull and took a step. This time the pulse did not resist. It flowed with her stride, steady and unbroken.
The air felt less strained, as if something had settled into place.
She did not look back.