Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Zoey, seriously, what’s your deal? You said you were getting up.” Kang Mira says it with the kind of exhausted patience that only exists after repeating the exact same thing every single morning for years.

Tall, intimidatingly pretty, with pink hair currently falling messily over one shoulder after a rushed shower, Mira stands in the doorway of their bedroom holding her own coffee mug in one hand while the other rests against the frame, round golden glasses sitting neatly on her face. She’s already dressed for the day in a sharply tailored black suit, the fitted blazer hanging perfectly over a crisp white dress shirt left slightly undone at the collar beneath a loose black tie. Dark tailored pants hug her long legs, the entire look polished, expensive, and unmistakably agent-like despite the lingering exhaustion still visible in her expression. 

Meanwhile, sprawled dramatically across the bed like she has personally been abandoned by society itself, lies Zoey. 

Who, apparently, has a chronic condition called refusing to wake up before noon whenever she has the chance.

The brunette doesn’t even answer at first. She just pulls the blanket higher over her shoulder like that alone will somehow protect her from responsibilities.

Mira narrows her eyes immediately.

“Oh, so now you’re dead.”

Still no answer, which is honestly impressive considering Zoey usually cannot stay quiet for more than thirty seconds.

The thing is, this entire scene has become painfully normal over the last three years, because, yeah, they are three years together.

And four years since they first met through work.

At first, they were just coworkers constantly thrown into dangerous situations together. Then they became friends. Then came the flirting, which quickly evolved to shameless flirting. Then happened the whole “friends with benefits”, which somehow lasted way longer than it probably should’ve because neither of them wanted to admit feelings first… or mostly because Zoey was convinced Mira would never actually want something serious.

In her defense, Mira genuinely looks like the human embodiment of the term “baddie bitch.” If that expression even exists in an actual dictionary somewhere.

She is confident, sharp-tongued, and gorgeous in a way that makes people, especially Zoey, nervous. Mira simply is the type of woman who walks into a room and somehow automatically owns it.

So when Mira had suddenly asked her out for real back then, Zoey had stared at her for almost a full minute like her brain had completely stopped functioning, and then obviously she accepted because she’s not that insane.

Now they live together in a comfortable apartment in Seoul, split grocery bills, steal each other’s clothes, argue over whose turn it is to wash dishes, and share whatever version of a normal life two people with their jobs can realistically have.

When Mira still gets no response from the lump under the blankets, she lets out a long frustrated sigh before walking toward the bed.

“Unbelievable.”

The mattress dips as she sits beside Zoey’s sleeping form, immediately grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her a little harder this time.

“Your breakfast’s been ready for forever already. Or are you planning on going to work with an empty stomach again?”

That finally gets a reaction.

A long groan escapes from beneath the blanket before Zoey slowly peeks out like some exhausted creature being dragged unwillingly into existence.

“Hm…” she mumbles sleepily. “Today’s our day off. Why would we go to work?”

Without waiting for permission, she shifts closer and immediately drops her head onto Mira’s lap like she belongs there. Which, to be fair, she does, but the tallest can't help but raises an eyebrow at the audacity. And yet, at the exact same time, her fingers automatically slide into Zoey’s messy dark hair, scratching lightly against her scalp in slow affectionate motions. Pure muscle memory at this point.

“You, out of literally everyone, know how things can happen without warning,” Mira says. “If they need us, they need us.”

“Me don’t wanna work,” Zoey complains dramatically, shoving her face even deeper into Mira’s thighs, making her partner snort. 

“Wow. Incredible grammar.”

“I’m too sleepy for grammar.”

“You’re too sleepy for basic human survival.”

“Mhm.”

“And stop acting like you’re dying.”

“I am dying.”

“You slept more than we usually can sleep.”

“Exactly. Not enough.”

Mira rolls her eyes so hard it almost looks painful, but there’s no real irritation behind it anymore. Not when Zoey is clinging to her like an oversized cat refusing to leave a warm spot.

The brunette lets out another soft whine when Mira’s fingers briefly stop moving through her hair.

“Oh my God,” Mira mutters. “You’re spoiled.”

“That sounds like you problem.”

“It became my problem the moment I decided to date you.”

“Best decision of your life though.”

“…Debatable.”

Zoey gasps dramatically without lifting her face from Mira’s lap.

“You wound me.”

“You’ll survive.”

“Me won't.”

Mira can’t help the small smile pulling at the corner of her mouth, because this is stupidly and annoyingly domestic.

The kind of moment neither of them ever imagined having years ago when their relationship mostly consisted of dangerous job, unresolved tension, late-night flirting, and pretending feelings didn’t exist.

Now Mira cooks breakfast while Zoey refuses to get out of bed. Now Zoey steals her hoodies. And now Mira subconsciously reaches for her in the middle of the night whenever she’s not there.

It’s terrifyingly soft sometimes.

And maybe that’s exactly why Mira likes it so much.

Zoey finally decides to tilt her head enough to look up at her girlfriend, sleep-heavy eyes half open and hair completely ruined from rolling around in bed.

“You made pancakes?”

“Yes.”

“With strawberries?”

“…Yes.”

“And coffee?”

Mira stares at her flatly.

“No, Zoey. I made you invisible coffee.”

“That was kinda rude.”

“And yet still nicer than what I wanted to say after trying to wake you up for twenty minutes.”

Zoey just smiles lazily at her. Then, before Mira can react, she wraps both arms around her waist and pulls herself even closer.

“Five more minutes,” she mumbles.

“No.”

“Three.”

“No.”

“One.”

The pink-haired woman sighs, her fingers slowing in Zoey’s hair as something more serious settles into her face.

“For real, Zo,” she says. “Get up already. From the message Celine sent, this actually sounded important.”

The brunette immediately groans like she’s being informed of her own execution.

“Urgh, I fucking hate this job.”

Mira raises an eyebrow instantly.

“Oh, really? Wasn’t it literally yesterday that you said you loved your job?”

“That was because yesterday was payday. Now I gotta wait another two weeks before I say that again.”

That one genuinely gets Mira. A laugh escapes her before she can stop it, shoulders shaking slightly while Zoey continues laying dramatically across her lap. 

“Valid argument. Now… Do you think you could at least put your suit on? Or should I just grab your badge and clip it onto your pajamas?”

Zoey goes quiet for a second.

“…Don’t tempt me. I would love to work in pajamas.”

“What happened to all that love you had for your suits?” 

“I’m tired.”

“I noticed.”

The amused tone immediately makes Zoey finally lift her head enough to glare at her with a deep offended frown.

Mira blinks innocently.

“What?”

The shortest stares at her in complete disbelief for a moment.

“…How do you manage to act like you’re not the reason I’m in this situation?”

Mira points at herself immediately.

“Me?”

“Yes, you,” Zoey says, now sitting up slightly. “You literally and completely fucked me up last night. How exactly did you expect me to wake up functional after that?”

“…Satisfied?”

Zoey finally pushes herself upright completely, hair a complete mess, oversized sleep shirt slipping off one shoulder while she stares at Mira like she’s personally offended by her existence.

“Obviously I was satisfied! That’s not the point. The point is that you destroyed me right after we finished a long shift!”

“It was literally you who asked for it,” Mira replies, already laughing again.

“And? You’re supposed to be the responsible one in this relationship. You were supposed to stop me!”

“Oh, now suddenly I’m responsible?”

“Yes!” She answers and points accusingly at the other.  “You were supposed to look at me and say, ‘Zoey, tomorrow we’ll probably get dragged into another horrible situation because our lives are cursed and apparently we’re not allowed peace. Maybe we should rest instead of practically eating each other alive, but nooo… Of course you won't do it, because you’re weak against temptation.”

Mira, instead of getting offended, actually looks really amused. 

‘’I mean, it's not my fault I’m just a poor mortal who couldn’t resist you already soaking wet when I had barely even touched you.”

The youngest stares at her, then slowly shakes her head in fake disappointment.

“You are nothing but a whore.”

“Says the whore.” 

Zoey doesn’t hesitate to grab the nearest pillow and throw it directly at her girlfriend’s face, making the other let out a loud offended noise.

“Oh, okay. Violence now.”

“Yes. Violence.”

Before Zoey can recover the pillow for another attack, Mira grabs her own and swings back. The impact makes Zoey gasp dramatically.

“Bitch!”

“You started it!”

The next few seconds immediately dissolve into chaos.

Zoey launches herself across the bed trying to hit Mira again while laughing half awake, and Mira dodges at the very last second, the pillow barely missing her face before colliding with the headboard instead.

“Oh my God, your aim is terrible.”

“Oh, shut up--”

Another swing, and another dodge.

Mira is still laughing as she backs away from the bed, avoiding a second attack before quickly turning toward Zoey’s closet.

“Absolutely not. We are not doing this for the next thirty minutes.”

“Yes, we are.”

“No, we’re not.”

“Yes--”

Mira grabs Zoey’s clean uniform from inside the closet and throws it directly at her face before she can finish. 

The brunette lets out an offended squawk as the clothes land on top of her head.

“There. Get dressed.”

The Korean American woman slowly pulls the uniform off her face while glaring at her.

“You’re evil.”

“And yet you’re still obsessed with me.”

“That’s because I have terrible taste in women.”

“Clearly.”

Zoey sighs heavily like the weight of the universe has fallen onto her shoulders before finally dragging herself toward the edge of the bed.

Every movement is painfully dramatic.

And every movement is also very obviously sore from last night activities, definitely not coming from the job.

Mira notices immediately, and judging by the tiny smug smile threatening to appear on her face, she notices exactly why.

Zoey catches that expression instantly and points at her warningly.

“Don’t.”

Mira bites the inside of her cheek to stop herself from laughing.

“I didn’t even say anything.”

“You were about to.”

“I was thinking respectfully.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Okay, maybe a little disrespectfully.”

Zoey groans loudly while standing up, one hand pressing against her lower back.

“Oh, my. I actually hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“…Unfortunately, no.”

Mira grins, then she walks closer, reaching up to fix the collar of Zoey’s wrinkled sleep shirt a little before speaking softer this time.

“C’mon. Go shower. I’ll reheat breakfast.”

Zoey looks at her for a moment, still sleepy, annoyed and definitely sore, but also very obviously in love with her.

“…Can I at least complain the entire time?”

“I’d be worried if you didn’t.”

“Good.”

And with that, Zoey finally starts dragging herself toward the bathroom like the world’s most exhausted employee being sent unwillingly back into the horrors of capitalism.

“Ah, man, we’re gonna be so late today.” Mira murmurs it dramatically as she leaves the bedroom and heads toward the kitchen, her tone playful despite the fact she’s actually, genuinely concerned about the time, because unlike her partner, she unfortunately possesses something called survival instincts.

And those instincts are currently screaming at her that Celine is absolutely going to murder them if they show up late again after specifically being called in on their day off.

Meanwhile, Zoey does not care even a little.

The brunette has already disappeared into the bathroom, immediately stepping into the shower like she’s entering a life-or-death speedrun challenge.

A second later, the sound of running water fills the apartment, then comes Zoey’s voice yelling from inside the bathroom loud enough for Mira to hear through the walls.

“Showing up late is literally our thing! It’s our dramatic entrance! We build suspense.”

“You build Celine’s blood pressure.”

The youngest ignores that completely. Inside the bathroom, she’s moving around quickly, clearly attempting the fastest shower in human history while simultaneously trying to wake herself up enough to function. Not that it’s helping much.

The steam quickly starts filling the room as she reluctantly begins changing afterward, completely unbothered by the fact Mira can absolutely still see her whenever she walks past the half-open bathroom door.

Which, honestly, stopped mattering years ago. At this point, modesty between them barely exists.

Mira has literally seen this woman half dead after missions, covered in blood, bruises, sweat, tears, and exhaustion. Seeing her naked while she searches angrily for clean socks barely even registers anymore. Still, that doesn’t mean Mira isn’t looking respectfully. Mostly respectfully.

“Someday Celine’s seriously gonna kick our asses for this,” The tallest says at the bathroom door, since she had already reheated everything for her partner. “Especially because she specifically said this was urgent.”

“I doubt it. What would Celine even do without her two favorite employees around?”

Mira snorts immediately.

“Be less stressed, probably.”

“Hey.”

“Oh, don’t act shocked. You know it’s true.”

“No, actually, I think Celine loves us deeply.”

“She threatened to suspend you last month.”

“Im pretty sure she was joking.”

Mira laughs again, leaning better against the bathroom doorframe while watching Zoey walk past her and going to their bedroom, trying to finish getting dressed at lightning speed.

And honestly?

It’s kind of a disaster.

The brunette is hopping on one foot trying to put her pants on properly while simultaneously attempting to button her shirt, still damp from the shower and visibly exhausted.

“You look insane right now,” Mira comments.

“I am insane right now.”

“You buttoned your shirt wrong.”

The brunette freezes, and looks down.

“…Shit.”

The woman with glasses immediately starts laughing harder while Zoey aggressively fixes the buttons with the angriest expression imaginable.

“This is your fault.” The youngest blames.

“How is this my fault?”

“You distracted me.”

“I literally just stood here.”

“Exactly. Distracting.”

Mira hums smugly at that, and then moves to go back to the kitchen, so she could hand Zoey a cup of coffee the second she finally reaches the kitchen.

The brunette immediately grabs it with both hands like someone being rescued from the brink of death.

That’s how Zoey manages to eat in silence. She only speaks again when she’s halfway through, letting out a dramatic sigh before adding:

“I hate being needed.”

And then she finishes the rest of her coffee after taking two absolutely monstrous bites out of the pancakes, with the kind of bites that look physically impossible.

Mira stares at her in genuine horror for about two full seconds as half the pancake practically disappears into the brunette’s mouth in one go. Then her expression slowly relaxes again, because unfortunately, this is normal. It's simply how her girlfriend eats, like someone who’s been stranded in the wilderness for weeks. Which, considering everything they did last night combined with the fact they barely slept afterward… Yeah, Zoey is probably starving.

Still terrifying, though.

“Are you ready?” Mira asks while slipping her shoes on near the door.

“Unfortunately.” The youngest answers at the same time she lets out one of the most dramatic sighs imaginable while standing up from the counter, still chewing lazily. Then, purely out of habit, her hand moves toward the inner pocket of her suit jacket. Once. Twice. Then again, more frantically. Her entire expression changes immediately. “…Fuck. My badge.”

And just like that, she’s gone.

The brunette practically sprints back toward the bedroom so fast Mira barely has time to react.

Now it’s Mira’s turn to sigh.

She shakes her head slowly, somewhere between disappointment and amusement, given the fact that at this point they’re already fucked anyway. Both literally and metaphorically. 

So really, what’s another two minutes gonna change?

Still, the pink-haired woman grabs both the apartment keys and car keys before walking toward the front door, opening it while waiting for her partner to come back.

From inside the apartment, she can already hear drawers opening aggressively.

“Zoey, if you lost your badge again, I swear to--”

“I DIDN’T LOSE IT,” Zoey yells back immediately. A pause. ‘’Probably.”

“Very reassuring.”

The brunette tries to ignore it, but either way, she actually takes longer than expected to find it. 

Maybe because the badge ended up falling under the bed sometime during last night, which… sort of makes sense.

You see, the two of them had gotten home exhausted after their shift yesterday, still wearing their work suits while talking half asleep about random nonsense, then they chose to sit on bed for just a minute, because they were so tired, and laying in something comfy was all they needed. But then, Zoey ended up laying across Mira, and somehow they started kissing. And then more kissing.

And in some way — in a sequence of events the shortest genuinely cannot fully reconstruct — both of them had ended up completely naked tangled together while pieces of their uniforms got thrown violently around the room, something that explains why the badge disappeared.

Thankfully it didn’t slide too far underneath the bed.

“Found you,” Zoey mutters while reaching under the frame.

A second later she pulls it out, dusting it off slightly before standing back up, and before putting it away again, she can’t help looking at it for a moment.

Just for a second.

The badge sits against black leather, the golden emblem catching the sunlight pouring through the bedroom window.

SPECIAL AGENT
Zoey Cho
Federal Bureau of Investigation

It looks exactly how any normal FBI badge should look: Professional and official. Almost ordinary.

Almost.

Because the lower section is what makes everything feel… strange.

The lower section has small red letters beneath the identification, discreet enough that most people wouldn’t notice them right away. 

Demonic Threat Response Division
Level 4 Clearance

Zoey stares at it quietly for a second longer than she means to.

Sometimes it still feels surreal. Absurd, honestly.

If someone from outside their world looked at this, they’d probably think it was some kind of elaborate movie prop. Not real, or possible, but it is painfully real, because demons really exist.

Soul consumption exists.

The nightmares she’s seen during missions exist.

And somewhere outside this apartment, normal people are currently buying coffee, or going to normal work, or arguing over traffic, completely unaware there are things in this world capable of tearing the soul out of a human body within seconds.

Sometimes Zoey envies them. A lot, actually, because It must be nice living in ignorance, believing the world makes sense. Meanwhile, she spends her life carrying a federal badge connected to a division so secret most government workers don’t even know it exists.

Which means her identity has to stay even more hidden than normal FBI agents. This part annoys her daily, given the reason she would absolutely love walking into certain places dramatically announcing she’s FBI.

Or better yet… a Hunter.

That word feels way more natural anyway, way less stiff and awkward than saying ‘’Hi, I'm a secret agent from an even more secret division called Demonic Threat Response Division.”

The fact is that nobody actually says the full name.

The division unofficially started calling themselves Hunters years ago after some exhausted agent apparently made the joke during a mission, and the name just stuck permanently.

Now literally everyone says Hunters Division instead.

Everyone calls each other Hunters instead of agents.

Oh, well, at least, almost everyone.

There’s only one person who actually insists on saying the full name — Demonic Threat Response Division — every single time she refers to work, and that would be their Section Chief, Kim Celine. Though admittedly, every now and then, usually after sounding visibly exhausted from repeating the entire thing for the tenth time that day, even she allows herself the luxury of shortening it to DTRD.

Though, to be fair, maybe she only does that because she’s literally Zoey’s boss and therefore professionally obligated to sound painfully serious and mildly boring at all times.

Not that Zoey exactly has a lot of material for comparison when it comes to higher-ups.

Even after officially working as an agent since her early twenties, she can still count on one hand the amount of times she’s seen Celine’s superiors face-to-face. And honestly? Every single one of those encounters nearly killed her from boredom, because somehow those people always talked like they were trapped inside a permanent board meeting, and It didn’t even matter if it was during an actual mission.

Like, the city could be one step away from complete supernatural collapse, half a district evacuated, demons chewing through civilians somewhere in the background, and those people would still stand there discussing “containment protocols” and “interdepartmental coordination” in voices so dry that Zoey could physically feel her brain cells shutting down one by one.

Seriously, how the fuck do they do that?

How does someone make demon hunting sound corporate?

At some point during those conversations, her brain always gave up trying to pay attention. Not in a dramatic way, just simply disconnected itself for survival purposes and wandered off toward far more comforting thoughts.

Like turtles.

Not even for any specific reason. Sometimes her mind would just randomly supply information about turtles. Sea turtles, snapping turtles, tiny baby turtles crossing beaches. Once, during a forty-minute briefing, she spent almost the entire time wondering if turtles recognized human faces or if they just looked at everyone with the exact same blank little stare.

Way more interesting than hearing some old director explain operational budget redistribution.

And then there are the Mira thoughts. Those are definitely the more dangerous ones, because they are significantly more distracting, since once her brain remembered her girlfriend exists, it became almost impossible to think about anything else. Which was exactly why halfway through one particularly long debriefing, while some senior officer kept talking in circles about “field response efficiency,” Zoey had ended up completely lost in the deeply important mental observation that Mira’s boobs were ridiculously soft to touch.

The kind of softness that made her want to lay her head there and never participate in another DTRD meeting ever again.

Honestly, if someone had asked her afterward what the briefing had been about, Zoey probably would’ve stared at them for a solid ten seconds before answering something catastrophically incorrect like:

“Budget cuts…? Or demons. Maybe both.”

So, that is why she usually avoids interacting with upper management whenever possible.

Celine is already exhausting enough on her own, but at least Celine occasionally said things that sounded like actual human speech instead of a government document brought to life by dark magic.

“Zoey!” Mira shouts from the front door. “If you’re admiring yourself in the mirror again, I’m leaving without you!”

“I’m coming!” Zoey quickly slides the badge back into its usual inner pocket before practically sprinting out of the bedroom. 

By the time she reaches their entrance, Mira is standing by the door waiting for her, only for Zoey to immediately catch her by the wrist as she rushes past, dragging her along without warning and nearly pulling her completely off balance in the process. Mira has to awkwardly twist herself back toward the apartment at the last second just to slam the door shut and lock it as fast as possible before being forced to hurry after her girlfriend’s ridiculously fast pace down the hallway.

That's how the two of them finally head toward the parking garage together, shoes echoing softly through the hallway.

And as usual, Mira is the one driving, but it's not because Zoey can’t drive. She absolutely can. The problem is that the tallest woman insists that her partner drives like every single road is secretly a high-speed chase sequence from an action movie. Something that has actually happened before, by the way. More than once, to be true, more often than either of them would prefer.

So Mira drives.

Meanwhile Zoey sits in the passenger seat adjusting her tie slightly, her badge still hidden in her suit jacket.

Mira’s identification isn’t visible either, also hidden inside one of her inner pockets, since no actual agent walks around openly displaying their badge unless necessary.

Though honestly, Zoey thinks that’s tragic, considering that she always feels extremely important whenever she flashes her badge around. However, unfortunately their division requires even more all the annoying secret identity bullshit.

Details aside, even with Mira not driving like a complete maniac unlike her girlfriend, the two of them still arrive at work surprisingly fast.

By the time they enter the underground parking structure connected to the Hunters Division headquarters, Zoey is already halfway awake from the combination of caffeine, stress, and the growing suspicion that whatever dragged them out of bed this early was probably something bad, because the very first second they start walking toward the main entrance, they could automatically tell that something was wrong. 

Not “people are stressed” wrong. It feels wrong like… wrong, wrong.

Because, Zoey barely manages to step through the main entrance before someone slams into her shoulder hard enough to nearly throw her straight onto the floor.

“Goddamnit--”

Before she can even recover, another agent rushes past close enough to clip against her arm.

Then another.

And another.

Within less than ten seconds, the shortest almost gets knocked over at least four separate times. Which, okay, technically isn’t that unusual for her specifically, since people accidentally run into Zoey constantly; partially because everyone here walks too fast, and also partially because she herself has the spatial awareness of a confused raccoon sometimes.

The first red flag here is that Mira almost gets knocked over too.

The pink-haired woman carries herself with the terrifying natural authority of someone people subconsciously avoid bumping into. And yet even she gets shoved sideways by a passing agent hurrying through the corridor with a stack of files under one arm and a phone pressed against his ear.

No apology.

Not even a glance backward.

That is already the second red flag. 

Because one of the things the couple genuinely likes most about the DTRD is that despite everything, most Hunters always try to be polite to each other, because everyone understands the kind of hell they all deal with daily. It's like a sort of exhausted mutual respect.

So the fact this happened more than three times in under a minute and nobody even looked guilty enough to apologize says a lot.

The two help each other straighten up before finally managing to move farther inside. And the deeper they go into headquarters, the worse it gets.

Agents are everywhere. Like, actual chaos everywhere.

Some hunters rush through the corridors carrying absurd piles of files and classified folders beneath their arms while speaking rapidly into phones at the same time.

Others already look fully mission-ready despite how early it still is, adjusting holsters, tactical gear, weapons, communication earpieces… all while walking fast enough they barely slow down around corners.

And it’s not just field agents either.

Security personnel are practically sprinting between hallways carrying tablets filled with flashing alerts. IT technicians stand crowded near the monitoring rooms yelling over each other while typing furiously. Analysts gather around clusters of computer screens replaying footage over and over and over again.

And all of this is happening while phones ring nonstop from every direction, someone shouts coordinates from the other side of the operations floor, and another person argues loudly about a system failure near a desk covered in open monitors.

Zoey can’t help the way her attention gets pulled toward the computers, wanting to see what they are looking at, or at least, wanting to catch small glimpses of them visible through the crowds gathered around the monitoring stations. There are way too many technicians crowded around the screens for it to be something normal, which means whatever is happening is either incredibly interesting or deeply concerning. Probably concerning, considering the overall atmosphere swallowing the division right now, but curiosity is still curiosity, and unfortunately she has never been particularly good at ignoring hers.

So, it seems like every monitor appears to be showing the same thing: security footage being repeated over and over. Hallways. Elevators. Then some agents walking normally through the building.

At first glance, nothing unusual. Just normal recordings of hunters moving through headquarters, except that some of the footage becomes horribly pixelated whenever those specific agents pass through the frame.

Uh… is the camera bad or something?

However, before the brunette can dwell on it, she notices some monitors nearby flashing rapid error messages too fast to properly read at first, but she manages to read after attempts.

INVALID ENTITY RECOGNITION.

THREAT CLASSIFICATION FAILURE.

Then another message appears briefly before vanishing again.

UNAUTHORIZED--

The screen cuts to static before the rest can load.

“What the fuck is happening here today?” She finally asks the question, and she has an actual desperation underneath the confusion.

“You would know if you had bothered arriving on time.”

The voice comes from directly behind the couple.

Both Zoey and Mira nearly jump out of their souls. They spin around so fast Zoey almost crashes into a nearby desk in the process.

Standing there with her arms crossed is Section Chief Kim Celine herself, and she looks absolutely terrifying in a way that comes from someone who has clearly been awake for too many hours handling a disaster nobody fully understands yet.

Both Mira and Zoey immediately straighten up with the most guilty expressions imaginable, mostly because they got so distracted by the chaos around them that neither noticed their own boss approaching, something that under normal circumstances, never happens. At least to Mira, because the youngest always manages to get distracted.

“H-Hey, Chief!” The shortest blurts out automatically, her tone painfully casual as she adds: “What’s up?!”

Under literally any other circumstance, that tone would probably earn her a lecture, or at minimum one of Celine’s terrifyingly disappointed stares, but at this point the oldest has known agent Cho long enough to understand this is simply how she functions. And, to be fair, right now that’s the least important problem in the building.

“Where exactly have the two of you been?” Celine asks flatly. ‘’I’m aware today was your day off, but we’ve had a Red-Level Containment Breach.”

Zoey’s eyes widen instantly and completely while the color practically drains from her face.

“Wait-- wait, what?”

Even Mira’s expression shifts slightly beside her, because those three words together are horrifying to say out loud.

Red-Level.

Containment Breach.

Nobody ever said those words before. 

Nobody.

“Red-Level?” Zoey repeats. “And containment breach in the same sentence? You’re telling me--”

“That a demon successfully entered headquarters and our protection systems failed to stop it?” Celine cuts her off cleanly. “Yes. That is exactly what I’m telling you. Perhaps now you understand why the two of you should’ve arrived earlier.”

The guilt hits immediately, and it's not because she sounds entirely angry. She sounds disappointed and tired, something that affects the couple way more.

“But how is that even possible?” The youngest keeps talking, because for real, what the fuck? “That doesn’t make sense. The Honmoon should’ve--”

“Prevented entry? Killed it, or at least warned us when the entity was about to entry our division? Yes. It should have.” That answer alone makes silence briefly settle between them despite the chaos surrounding the hallway.

Around them, another cluster of analysts rushes past carrying tablets filled with security footage. One of the nearby monitors glitches violently into static before restoring itself again. Nobody even reacts to it anymore. They’re all too busy.

“Right now,” Their Section Chiefs continues while adjusting a tablet she brought with her beneath her arm, “the technical teams are trying to determine whether the problem is with the surveillance systems, the warding network, or the intruder itself. And while they’re trying to figure that out, the rest of us are trying to gather as much information as possible about this entity.’’ Then, she suddenly turns around while beginning to walk, adding: “Follow me, I have a lot to explain.”

Neither Mira nor Zoey wastes time arguing, they immediately follow after her through the increasingly chaotic hallways.

As they walk, the youngest leans slightly toward her girlfriend and lowers her voice into a whisper:

“Hey, why didn’t you seem more shocked about the whole Red-Level Containment Breach thing?”

Mira blinks once, then looks at her.

“Because that was literally written in the message Celine sent us.”

Zoey stops walking for half a second out of pure outrage.

“You knew?!” she whisper-yells, all while the other keeps walking calmly.

“Yes.”

“And you still woke me up acting all peaceful like we were dealing with regular demon attacks?!”

A nearby Hunter glances at them briefly before continuing past.

Meanwhile Celine keeps walking ahead without even turning around, though judging by the slight movement of her shoulders, she can absolutely hear every word.

“If I had woken you up by immediately saying we had a Red-Level Containment Breach, would you actually have gotten ready any faster?”

The shortest opens her mouth instantly, but then she pauses to think about it.

“…No.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s not the point.”

“It literally is.”

“You manipulated me emotionally.”

“So what? I made you pancakes.”

“…Fair.”

The three of them keep walking through the increasingly chaotic headquarters until they finally reach Celine’s office, which honestly says a lot by itself, given the fact that normally briefings like this happen inside one of the operational rooms downstairs, since they have large spaces filled with screens, analysts, tactical projections and enough computers to make Zoey feel like she accidentally walked into a spaceship.

So, the fact Celine had to bring them here instead? That probably means every operational room in the entire division is currently overwhelmed to hell.

And judging by the noise still echoing faintly even from this floor, that assumption is absolutely correct.

Well, the second they step inside the office, the atmosphere shifts slightly to a quieter and contained one. Maybe because Celine’s office is large but painfully organized in the kind of way only someone deeply addicted to control could maintain.

The second the door closes behind them, Celine walks straight toward her desk without wasting a single movement.

“Okay,” she says suddenly while turning her computer on fully. “This happened approximately two hours ago, which means; you two should have been here at least forty minutes earlier.” The couple almost flinches at how blunt she is, but neither of them dares to cut her off now “But fortunately for both of you…the Demonic Threat Response Division currently requires every available agent it can get, so I’m willing to overlook your lateness for now.”

Zoey and Mira exchange a tense glance immediately, because translated from Celine-language, that basically means: I’m too busy dealing with a disaster to yell at you properly yet, but I will when I have time.

Celine doesn’t acknowledge the silent exchange behind her.

Instead, she folds her arms while several security recordings begin replaying across the screens of her computer. 

“I’ll explain this in the simplest possible way before we get into details: An entity entered headquarters without being detected, and without being stopped by the Honmoon. Then, It infiltrated the Security Operations Center, which means It accessed internal DTRD systems… and it stole classified information involving global Honmoon distribution. After that, the entity proceeded directly toward the Soul Containment Vault. And It stole contained souls being held away from the demon realm. And before either of you ask; No, we still do not know how it crossed the Honmoon barriers. The system simply… allowed it through.”

Zoey doesn’t even know what she’s supposed to say to that, because having all of this dumped in front of her at once feels fundamentally unsettling in a way she can’t properly explain. She thinks that even if the oldest had taken the time to explain everything in a softer way, in the end the feeling would’ve changed much, since the problem isn’t the delivery itself. It’s the fact that this situation exists at all.

Celine watches both of them carefully for a moment, measuring whether they fully understand how serious this is, and judging by Zoey’s expression and at how Mira is not automatically cursing and complaining about what is happening…

Yeah.

They understand now.

Because, to begin with, the Honmoon is probably the piece of technology the Demonic Threat Response Division is most proud of to this day. Anti-demon engineering has evolved massively over the last few years, to the point where they managed to build an entire security system around it.

The Honmoon basically works as a combination of barrier technology, detection system, and neutralization mechanism all at once, but it doesn’t stop there. The technology eventually started being integrated into weapons, containment systems, tactical equipment, and practically every anti-demon infrastructure project developed by the DTRD in recent years.

In other words, a huge part of the advantage humanity currently has against demons exists because of the Honmoon system.

And honestly? Until now, it seemed practically flawless.

Over the years, the DTRD installed Honmoon systems all across Seoul, especially in areas with high demonic activity. However, at this point, versions of the technology have already started spreading worldwide. Some governments use Honmoon systems in containment centers, others in entire cities, airports, military facilities, and even transportation systems.

The reason is simple: the Honmoon works.

Demons can’t cross through areas where Honmoon barrier devices are installed without being repelled, and if they still try to force their way through, the device would kill them. Even before a demon gets close to one of the Honmoon barriers, the system is already capable of detecting demonic energy, tracking abnormal movement patterns, and alerting the DTRD within seconds.

Or at least, that’s what everyone believed until now.

Because somehow, that entity managed to enter the DTRD’s main division without triggering anything essential. As if the Honmoon had looked directly at it… and decided it wasn’t a threat. Or maybe the system simply became too confused to understand what exactly that entity was, especially considering nearly every security camera glitched the moment they tried to record it presence.

Maybe that happens because the system is dumb, since isn’t truly conscious. It doesn’t think, or question things. Even so, it’s hard not to find the entire situation ridiculous once you realize an entity was literally causing the whole system to malfunction while walking directly toward the very place that powers the technology itself, and yet the Honmoon did nothing to stop it.

Oh, yes, you read it right. The Soul Containment Vault basically functions as the energy core of the Honmoon systems.

That’s where intercepted souls are stored when a DTRD agent — hunter — prevents a demon from consuming a soul. And sure, that concept probably sounds insane when written like this, but honestly? The existence of demons should sound just as absurd.

See, demons have always existed. The problem is that for a very long time, nobody truly believed they did.

Whenever someone turned up dead without explanation, the most common assumption was always cardiac arrest, multiple organ failure, or whatever other convenient medical excuse people could come up with, but as the number of deaths started increasing, the FBI realized there were patterns far too specific to ignore.

The bodies always showed the same signs.

Extreme weight loss. Completely dried-out skin. Early rigor mortis. And the eyes… the eyes were probably the worst part, because once opened, they were almost entirely white, and all of that happening only a few hours after death.

So, yeah, eventually it became impossible to keep pretending it was just some kind of medical coincidence.

That was how the division now known as the Demonic Threat Response Division was created. Although back then, it still had a much less dramatic name: the Unknown Threat Response Division, because nobody had any idea what was actually causing those deaths.

And that was when the FBI started recruiting not only agents, but also scientists, engineers, doctors, and researchers desperate enough to consider possibilities that would’ve sounded absurd before.

When someone first suggested demonic activity, the idea sounded completely ridiculous, but at the same time, demons had always existed in religious texts and mythology. The Bible itself constantly speaks about infernal entities, possession, and the existence of evil beyond human understanding. Eventually, collective desperation simply became stronger than skepticism.

And it was during those investigations that the first experiments involving derivatives of Lycoris radiata, a striking crimson-red flower with long, spider-like petals, began.

The original goal was simple: prevent demons from stealing human souls.

And considering Lycoris radiata had always been associated in Korean folklore with death, the passage between worlds, spirits, and the underworld… it seemed like an appropriate place to start.

And, yeah, technically, the experiments worked.

Just not in the way they expected.

The first prototypes were actually capable of preventing demons from taking the souls. The problem was that they couldn’t return the soul to the victim either. The process merely interrupted the transfer halfway through, so the victim still died regardless.

The only difference was that now the soul remained trapped inside the small containment capsules used in those early prototypes.

They spent years trying to fix the problem, but the results never changed. And as more incidents continued happening around the world, since back then there weren’t nearly as many Honmoon barrier devices as there are today, more intercepted souls started accumulating inside the division facility.

That was when someone realized something else.

The souls still contained spiritual energy.

And once that energy was combined with Lycoris radiata derivatives, they finally succeeded in creating weapons capable of genuinely harming demons for the first time.

After that, Honmoon development exploded.

As the years passed, the DTRD continued combining intercepted spiritual energy, Lycoris radiata derivatives, and advancing technology to create barriers, detection systems, weaponry, containment methods, and practically every anti-demon infrastructure system that exists today.

Which means the fact that an entity managed to cross the Honmoon without any difficulty whatsoever would already be considered a disaster on its own, but the worst part is that the individual also gained access to classified information containing the locations of nearly every Honmoon system deployed around the world.

“…And you’re sure this… suspect isn’t just some normal human with absurdly good hacking skills?” Zoey asks after finally managing to mentally process at least part of everything Celine just explained. Her tone comes out noticeably hesitant, mostly because this wouldn’t be the first time she would get criticized by her superior for being overly optimistic about a situation that very obviously points toward something far worse. But in her defense, she’s just genuinely trying to understand what actually happened here. “Because I mean… if the Honmoon didn’t react at all and just let whoever this criminal is pass through… doesn’t that imply they’re human?”

For the brunette relief, Celine doesn’t laugh at her suggestion or automatically yells at her for saying something so stupid. If anything, her exhausted expression softens slightly in a way that suggests she asked herself the exact same question earlier.

“That was my first thought too, but it doesn’t explain why the surveillance footage started glitching specifically when only the individual was moving through the building,” Celine explains. “Which strongly suggests the suspect was using glamour to infiltrate our facilities. And honestly… despite the poor quality of the recordings, the footage still confirms that this entity was capable of using abilities other than glamour while inside the division.”

“Other than glamour?” Mira repeats, visibly displeased. “You’re telling me that even with the Honmoon devices installed throughout the building, this thing not only managed to get inside our division, but was also able to use its powers in here?”

“Precisely.”

The pink-haired woman exhales sharply through her nose, clearly unimpressed.

“This story just keeps getting better and better.”

Zoey lets out a quiet sigh somewhere between amusement and sympathy at her girlfriend’s frustration, but their Section Chief doesn’t appear to share the sentiment at all.

“See for yourselves,” Celine says suddenly, turning the computer monitor toward them, then she reaches toward the desk and grabs a small remote control resting beside the keyboard before pressing a button without even looking at it.

The footage instantly begins playing on the monitor.

At first, the recording looks almost normal. Grainy security camera quality, timestamp flickering faintly in the corner, several security agents inside the Security Operations Center talking amongst themselves while monitoring the different surveillance feeds spread across the wall screens.

Then the suspect appears.

Or… part of them does.

Even though the entity is still clearly using the appearance of one of the division’s agents, the footage itself seems incapable of properly processing their body, since it keeps happening the problem of pixels tearing apart around their silhouette; their outline freezes for fractions of seconds before snapping forward again and entire parts of their body flicker with digital static. 

The room visibly reacts to the person entering.

A few of the security agents glance toward the door with immediate confusion, probably because nobody seems to recognize why that specific “agent” would even be there at this hour, but before anyone can properly question it, the suspect simply walks further into the room… and then lowers themselves into one of the camera’s blind spots near the wall.

From the visible angle, it almost looks like they just sat down on the floor and leaned back against the wall for no reason whatsoever.

A couple of the agents actually laugh with the kind of reaction people have when they assume a coworker is either exhausted, or drunk. 

However, the atmosphere changes completely in the next second.

The body in the blind spot seems to suddenly stop moving altogether.

Meanwhile, one of the security agents across the room slowly rises from his chair in such a slow way that the movement immediately feels wrong.

The other agents notice it too. Confused looks spread through the room as the man simply stands there in silence without saying anything, but nobody really gets the chance to question him before he suddenly moves fast and violently precisely.

He attacks the closest agent directly in the throat before striking another at the side of the head hard enough to instantly drop him unconscious. Chaos immediately erupts throughout the Security Operations Center. Chairs scrape violently against the floor. Someone reaches for a weapon. Another tries to grab the possessed agent from behind.

None of It works.

Whatever is controlling him clearly knows how to fight.

The possessed guard moves with terrifying efficiency, avoiding attacks with sharp movements before countering almost instantly. Every strike is deliberate and controlled, targing toward pressure points, joints, throats and temples. 

So, that's how within less than a minute, every security agent in the room is unconscious on the floor.

And then… silence.

The possessed guard simply stands there breathing unevenly for a few seconds before suddenly sitting down at one of the desks. He grabs a pen with oddly stiff movements and hurriedly writes something onto a loose sheet of paper beside a keyboard.

Then his entire body jerks abruptly like something just disconnected from him.

The man immediately looks around in horror, totally confused and disoriented while trembling. Then, his gaze finally lands on his unconscious coworkers scattered around the room… and toward the blind spot near the wall.

Because the original body is moving again.

The figure slowly rises to their feet from the camera’s blind spot.

The previously possessed guard panics almost instantly, grabbing his firearm with visibly shaking hands as the suspect calmly walks toward him, but once again, the footage shows the exact same horrifying thing: the entity knows exactly how to fight.

The confrontation barely lasts seconds.

The suspect disarms him, throws him violently onto the floor, and knocks him unconscious with brutal efficiency before calmly sitting down in the chair beside the desk. The sheet of paper with the rushed handwriting remains at it side, then it begins typing something into the computer.

A few moments later, they reach into the backpack they brought with them and pull out a small black object. Even through the grainy footage, it’s obvious what it probably is the second they connect it to the machine.

A flash drive.

The entity continues navigating through the system while the corrupted pixels around their body keep flickering unnaturally across the screen.

And that’s when the footage pauses.

Celine lowers the remote slightly in her hand, the frozen image of the distorted suspect still illuminating the monitor in front of them.

“I think you both have your answer now regarding whether this thing is human or not.”

Zoey slowly closes her mouth, only now realizing her jaw had dropped somewhere around the moment the footage reached its climax.

“What the fuck, that was--”

“Possession, yes,” Celine finishes for her with a small shrug, as if the conclusion were painfully obvious.

“But possession requires an absurd amount of energy,” Mira immediately argues, growing more frustrated by the second. “So how the hell did this thing still manage to make it all the way to the Soul Containment Vault after that? Like, does the Honmoon system just not affect this thing at all?”

“We don’t know.”

Mira rolls her eyes so hard it almost looks physically painful.

“Is there anything you people do know, then? Did you at least figure out what was written on that paper?”

Without answering verbally, Celine simply opens one of her desk drawers and pulls out a sheet of paper. The handwriting is rushed, written in uneven block letters clearly scribbled in a hurry. Mira takes it first, scanning the contents once, then twice.

And then her expression changes.

“Wait… this is the security computer access password?”

“Correct.”

For a moment, both Zoey and Mira go completely silent.

“…You’re telling me possession allows access to information the host knows?”

‘’Apparently.’’

That comment seems to make Mira want to laugh more than anything else. She crosses her arms tightly over her chest before dryly commenting,

“Yeah, we definitely know absolutely nothing. We’re all completely fucked.”

Before their superior can respond to that, Zoey quickly jumps in instead, very obviously trying to diffuse the increasingly tense atmosphere inside the room.

“Well, I mean… at least now we know this thing doesn’t have hacking abilities and instead has possession abilities… which is technically worse than it just being really good at hacking, but… yay. We learned something.”

Celine exhales slowly through her nose, the sound landing somewhere between pure exhaustion and complete lack of surprise at the way Agent Cho always reacts whenever situations start becoming too serious for comfort.

“Anyway,” their Section Chief continues, apparently deciding there’s no point criticizing the younger agent when all Zoey is really trying to do is stop everyone in the room from dying of stress, “there’s another very important factor that immediately disproves your ‘human hacker’ theory as well.”

That sentence alone makes Zoey’s stomach tighten again, but the oldest woman doesn't seem to give a damn about it since she grabs the remote control again, changing the footage and then pressing play. 

The footage displayed now shows the entrance corridor leading toward the Soul Containment Vault. Security door reinforced with enough protections to survive military bombardment. No visible movement.

For several seconds, nothing happens. The corridor remains empty, then an apparent security agent walks into frame, the entity already glitching on the footage.

The supposed agent turns their head slightly, discreetly checking both sides of the hallway as if making sure nobody is nearby, and then… they disappear, not running or moving, just disappear. One frame they’re standing there, and in the next second they're gone, only leaving behind only a faint trail of red smoke that slowly dissipates through the corridor.

Silence immediately fills the office.

Heavy silence.

The kind that physically settles into the room, because if all the possession stuff wasn’t bad enough, the red smoke left behind now means something even worse for them. The entity could teleport inside their building.

“…Oh,” Zoey says quietly, since it is the only thing her brain can produce right now.

“And then,” Celine continues with the exact same dangerously controlled calm, “she appears inside the Vault.”

She presses another button on the remote.

The footage changes, now the screen displays the internal cameras of the Soul Containment Vault itself, and there it is; the entity materializes directly in the center of the Vault surrounded by dissipating red smoke, still wearing the face of one of their hunters, and the footage continuing to glitching intermittently.

However, despite all the interference, one thing remains painfully clear: What the entity starts to do, mostly because the Soul Capsules themselves are impossible to miss.

Hundreds of transparent containment capsules line the Vault in organized rows stretching through the enormous chamber, and inside every single one floats a soul. Soft blue light pulses gently from within the capsules, illuminating the dark room with an almost surreal and horrifying beautiful glow, especially when you remember what those lights actually are; human souls. 

The entity walks calmly between the rows, then starts taking them one by one in a careful and methodical way, dropping the capsules inside the backpack brought specifically for this purpose with no hesitation or confusion.

That’s apparently when the Honmoon system finally realizes something is wrong, considering nobody used an access card, entered a password, or provided any kind of biometric authorization to access the vault, and yet the Soul Capsules were somehow being removed despite nobody technically ever entered the room. 

With that being said, the alarms activate immediately afterward.

First inside the Vault itself, then the entire division starts reacting.

Sharp warning sirens explode through the footage while red emergency lights begin flashing violently across the recordings. Security shutters begin activating in sections visible through the background.

Then, security lockdown protocols activate, and containment alerts echo through the speakers nonstop:

‘’WARNING. CONTAINMENT BREACH DETECTED. WARNING. UNAUTHORIZED ENTITY PRESENCE DETECTED.’’

The footage becomes increasingly chaotic, but despite all of it? 

The entity doesn’t react at all. It simply keeps filling the backpack slowly and calmly, like someone casually grocery shopping.

The Korean American woman stares at the footage in disbelief.

‘’You’re kidding.”

Celine denies with her head, pausing the video and commenting:

“She showed absolutely no concern regarding the alarms. She seemed to know exactly how much time she had before our response teams arrived, which means either she already understood our internal response timing, or… simply wasn’t afraid of being intercepted.”

Zoey doesn’t know which possibility is worse.

Mira crosses her arms tightly beside her while continuing to watch the recording.

“You mean It came prepared.’’

 “Yes. The backpack. The teleportation. The route through headquarters. The systems she targeted first. This was planned.”

Zoey keeps staring at the screen, and she absolutely hates the way this individual moved with such confidence into the DTRD headquarters like it already knew nobody there could stop it.

“…What a fucking bitch.” The insult leaves her mouth completely involuntarily while she stares at the footage, but honestly? Maybe everyone in that room probably agrees with her.

She doesn't doubt that her partner is thinking the same thing, since they basically share the same singular dysfunctional brain cell at this point.

Now it's hard to say the same about their boss, because Kim Celine is, unfortunately, an old grumpy woman trapped inside the body of an extremely intimidating Section Chief who despises profanity inside the workplace.

Especially coming from Zoey.

Normally, saying “fucking bitch” in the middle of a classified briefing would immediately earn her one of three things: A lecture, or disappointed stare, or the infamous deeply exhausted “Agent Cho.”

But surprisingly?

This time Celine doesn’t reprimand her at all. If anything, her expression somehow grows even more tired.

“That description still feels too generous for what she did.” she says flatly.

Zoey visibly blinks, genuinely shocked, since hearing Celine indirectly approve an insult feels like witnessing a rare astronomical event.

Mira, meanwhile, barely reacts to the profanity thing at all because her attention immediately catches on something else entirely.

“And why exactly are you so sure it’s a ‘she’?” Mira asks almost immediately, clearly growing tired of hearing their superior repeatedly use that pronoun despite the fact that, so far, they haven’t found a single concrete indication of what gender this thing actually is.

Celine simply responds by pressing play again on the control.

The video restarts from the moment the alarms continue screaming through the speakers, and the entity keeps calmly placing Soul Capsules into the backpack. 

For several long moments, nothing changes. Then eventually the backpack appears to reach its limit.

The individual grabs another Soul Capsule anyway, but soon it stops, holding the object carefully in one hand while staring down at the softly glowing blue soul trapped inside.

And for a second, it seems to just… think.

The body language alone feels weirdly human there, like it's genuinely considering something.

Then apparently it makes a decision, because instead of simply leaving, the entity suddenly seems to drop the glamour, considering that the footage glitches violently. The cameras distort so aggressively for a second that the entire screen almost dissolves into static before stabilizing again, except this time the system finally seems capable of registering the entity slightly more clearly now that the illusion is gone.

And instantly it becomes obvious how Celine knew the entity was female.

Because now there’s very clearly a woman standing in the middle of the Soul Containment Vault.

Or at least… something wearing the shape of one.

She looks around Mira and Zoey’s age, maybe a little older, but honestly it’s hard to tell when literally everything about her feels wrong in a way human beings aren’t supposed to.

Long purple hair spills down her back beneath the flashing red emergency lights while dark violet demonic patterns pulse faintly beneath her skin like living ink spreading through her body. Sharp claws are visible now too, making it impossible to mistake her for anything remotely human anymore.

And unfortunately, it also becomes immediately obvious that she possesses the exact same annoying attitude problem that every demon seems genetically committed to having, because that absolute bitch suddenly looks directly into one of the security cameras, then she smiles; smug, and provocative, looking entirely too entertained by this whole situation.

And before anyone inside the office can even process it properly, she casually lifts her free hand and flips the camera off.

Actually flips the fucking camera off.

The silence inside Celine’s office becomes immediate.

“…Did she literally just--” Zoey starts.

“She showed the middle finger to our entire division,” Mira finishes slowly, sounding genuinely offended somehow.

“Inside our own fucking Vault.’’

“While robbing us,” 

“Oh, I hate her.”

“No, because now I agree with you.”

“THANK YOU.”

 Celine remains completely silent while the footage keeps going. 

And as if mocking them one final time, the woman on-screen casually winks toward the camera still showing them the middle finger before red smoke suddenly erupts around her body.

The footage glitches violently again, and then she's gone completely.

Their Section Chief pauses the footage for real now, and for a few seconds she just stares at the frozen frame on-screen with an expression that somehow combines exhaustion, irritation, and the deeply restrained urge to personally strangle someone.

“She was aware of the cameras the entire time,” She says calmly. “She wanted us to see her.”

“Yeah, and she dropped the fucking glamour just to mock us,” Mira comments, sounding like the complete opposite of their Section Chief, considering she’s clearly irritated by the entire situation. Though, to be fair, Mira is irritated most of the time anyway, so maybe that’s not exactly an important detail.

“Yes.” Celine confirms immediately.

“...But why would she do all this?” Zoey asks.

“Because she's a bitch, duh.”

“I know, babe, I already established that earlier,” the shorter woman teases before her expression turns slightly more serious. “But seriously… she didn’t come all the way here just to rub it in our faces that we’re idiots and she’s superior, right…?’’

“Well, I wouldn't be surprised if she did.”

Zoey snorts a little with the comment, but she tries to focus, asking:

‘’So… Do you know where she went after that?”

Celine’s eyes move away from the frozen footage toward her.

“Probably outside the headquarters perimeter. No additional surveillance systems registered the same interference patterns after the moment she teleported out of the Soul Containment Vault.”

“So she just…left?”

“For now, that appears to be the case.”

“Maybe she went back to hell where all demons come from.” Mira suggests impatiently from beside her.

The older woman immediately shakes her head slightly.

“We’re not certain what exactly this entity is yet, Agent Kang.”

“How are we not certain? Because from what I’ve seen so far, she literally has every single characteristic demons are supposed to have.” Mira starts counting on her fingers almost aggressively. ‘’She teleported. She possessed people. She used glamour. She has patterns. She has claws. And that’s only based on what we could actually see through this shitty footage, so unless you’re leaving out some very important information, all of those are literally traits you trained us to identify and kill.”

Celine doesn’t react defensively. Instead she leans lightly against her desk, expression exhausted but composed.

“I’m fully aware of that.’’ 

“Then what the fuck are we still debating here?”

“The fact that no demon should be capable of crossing the Honmoon, since even high-ranking demonic entities should still trigger defensive responses. And even if they attempted forcing entry regardless, the system should’ve neutralized them during the process, but instead…” Celine gestures toward the paused footage on-screen. “…the system allowed her through, which means either she’s something beyond a demon, or she’s had a very long time to study how our Honmoon technology works.’’

Mira lets out a sharp scoff.

“This is bullshit.”

Zoey winces internally. She already recognizes that specific tone in her partner's voice. The ‘’I’m about to argue with authority figures’’ tone.

“What exactly are you trying to say?” The pink-haired woman continues. “That we’re suddenly dealing with vampires? Werewolves? Ghosts? Some other supernatural bullshit nobody bothered telling us about? Oh, please. If there’s secretly another division responsible for that kind of thing, then hand this entire mess over to them, because I sure as fuck didn’t sign up for any of it. I’m just here to deal with demons’’

Celine exhales slowly through her nose in a way that someone takes when actively deciding not to escalate an argument.

“I understand your frustration, but calling her an ‘entity’ does not automatically mean I’m dismissing the possibility that she’s a demon.”

“Then what does it mean?”

“It means,” Celine says carefully, “I’m considering what classification of demon she might be.”

Mira immediately snorts again.

“Well, I’m pretty sure she’s not a water demon.”

Zoey almost laughs despite the situation.

Celine, however, doesn’t react to the provocation at all. She simply shakes her head once.

“No,” she says calmly. “She appears to be a high-ranking demonic entity.”

The younger woman frowns a little.

“Are we talking high-ranking like… Lucifer himself?-- Or herself? Since apparently Lucifer’s a woman now… Like, are you saying we’re dealing with actual biblical apocalypse-level demon royalty right now?”

The Section Chief pinches the bridge of her nose briefly.

“I don’t believe ‘Lucifer’ is technically the correct term here,” she says tiredly. Then after a pause: “…But yes. Potentially something close to that level.”

Zoey stares at her.

“…Cool, Lucifer being a woman is honestly kinda iconic. Girl power!’’

Despite literally everything happening, Mira cannot stop the small smile pulling briefly at the corner of her mouth. This idiot.

Meanwhile Celine looks like she just aged another five years.

“No,” she says immediately. “I already explained that--” Then she stops herself halfway through the sentence, because arguing against Zoey’s ADHD-fueled train of thought is basically a battle no human being has ever truly won, especially Celine. So, she just sighs deeply instead. “Anyway,” she continues while redirecting the conversation through sheer force of will, “I’m not fully convinced by the high-ranking theory either.”

That catches Mira’s attention again immediately.

“Now that's interesting. Why not?”

“Because, as I said before, even high-level demons should still be recognizable to the Honmoon, especially after the Golden Honmoon upgrade. The system was specifically updated for that exact reason. It should not have been possible for this to happen.”

Oh, right. That update.

For a moment, Zoey had completely forgotten about it, especially considering the upgrade happened a few months ago already. And honestly, in her day-to-day life, the update hadn’t really changed much. She still spent most of her time investigating demon-related cases or, more often than not, getting assigned to protect areas that didn’t have many Honmoon devices installed yet.

But she distinctly remembers the other hunters talking about the Golden Honmoon update like it was supposed to be far more than just another software patch. According to them, it was meant to be the biggest evolution the entire anti-demonic network had ever undergone. Stronger barriers. Faster recognition. Enhanced soul-energy synchronization. Basically, a system supposedly capable of detecting and neutralizing demonic signatures far beyond the limitations of previous versions.

Or at least… that was the idea.

Mira answers with the exact thing nobody else in the division currently wants to say out loud:

“Maybe your Golden Honmoon isn’t actually as strong and efficient as you keep pretending it is.”

The room immediately stills.

Zoey’s eyes widen, not because she disagrees, but because Mira said that directly to Celine’s face without even hesitating, and without backing down afterward either.

Everyone inside the DTRD knows how much Celine believes in the Honmoon, and it's not just professionally, but personally, since she spent years helping oversee portions of the integration process. So, the Honmoon system isn’t just infrastructure to her. It’s the thing that allowed humanity to finally stop merely surviving demonic activity and start fighting back.

Which is why hearing someone question it directly should’ve started an argument immediately. 

Instead, Celine just goes quiet for a few seconds and says the most surprisingly thing:

“Maybe.”

The answer comes out quieter than expected, something that honestly unsettles Zoey more than if her boss had immediately argued back, because Kim Celine agreeing that the Golden Honmoon might not be as reliable as everyone believed feels a little like hearing a priest casually admit God might’ve made a mistake.

The older woman goes silent for a moment afterward, visibly organizing her thoughts before continuing:

“And because I considered that possibility,I already initiated several preliminary countermeasures--”

“Ah, yeah, we noticed,” Zoey interrupts immediately out of pure instinct. “The entire division basically looks like a sardine can right now.”

Silence.

Celine slowly turns her head toward her, not dramatically or aggressively, but enough to deliver one of those terrifyingly silent irritated stares she specializes in. The kind that somehow says: Agent Cho, if you interrupt me one more time during a global demonic crisis, I will personally launch you through the nearest window.

The brunette visibly swallows.

“…Sorry.”

Her girlfriend briefly looks away because she’s dangerously close to laughing.

Traitor.

“...As I was saying,” Celine continues with painful restraint, “everything I’ve done so far has been focused on preventing this situation from becoming an even larger disaster than it already is. So, all agents whose identities were used by the entity’s glamour have already been placed under temporary interrogation.”

“Interrogation?” Zoey immediately repeats, eyebrow raising, since the word sounds very bad.

“Relax, Agent Cho. Nobody is being accused of treason, but until we determine how this entity successfully copied identities inside the division, and how she knew the exact location of the Security Operations Center and the Soul Containment Vault, since she entered this facility without showing the slightest confusion regarding the layout… which strongly suggests she received information from someone inside the division. I’m not willing to ignore any possibility right now”

That lands heavily, because, yeah, that makes too much sense to argue against. No entity should’ve known the internal structure of headquarters that well, especially restricted sectors.

“Additionally,” she continues, “all personnel present inside headquarters during the breach are currently under review and monitoring as a precaution.”

She presses another button on the remote still resting in her hand. The footage changes again.

Now the main entrance of DTRD headquarters appears on-screen. Dozens of agents moving normally through security checkpoints. Completely ordinary.

“The first glitches began here.” At first, the recording looks completely normal, but after one specific agent walks through the front entrance, subtle distortions begin appearing between the frames.  “So, I already dispatched surveillance teams around the entire external perimeter of our building, like the main entrances, nearby transportation sectors, and potential reappearance points, because considering she entered through the front door like she worked here… I’m honestly not ruling out the possibility of her returning.”

The thought alone already feels uncomfortable enough, but unfortunately, it gets worse as she keeps talking:

“I also sent emergency alerts to every international facility currently utilizing Honmoon technology.” She presses another button on the control, and new maps with small red points appear immediately afterward. “Containment facilities, research centers, urban barrier systems, military sectors and every major infrastructure point relying on Honmoon technology has already been placed under maximum alert.”

Mira slowly crosses her arms tighter.

“So basically the entire world is panicking right now.”

“More or less.” Celine says it far too calmly for someone describing what is essentially the beginning of a possible global demonic security crisis. Honestly, that calmness alone is starting to become concerning. “also ordered partial restrictions placed on the central Honmoon servers until we determine whether she accessed and copied anything beyond the global locations of the Honmoon systems.”

More reports begin filling the screens.

“Engineering teams are reviewing every classification failure inside the system, while analysts are reconstructing her movement path throughout headquarters, and vault researchers already began calculating exactly how many Soul Capsules were stolen.”

Celine pauses briefly afterward.

“Current estimates aren’t catastrophic yet. At least not considering she only stole enough Soul Capsules to fill a single backpack. The real problem, is that this entire operation feels too… controlled. She didn’t behave like someone acting impulsively. Someone with that level of power doesn’t infiltrate the main headquarters of the DTRD, bypass the Honmoon, access classified global infrastructure data, and breach the Soul Containment Vault merely to create a minor inconvenience.”

The room goes quiet again.

She’s right, because the entity could’ve caused significantly more damage if she had wanted to. She could’ve done far more than just possess a single person and use them to attack everyone else inside the Security Operations Center. She could’ve destroyed the entire Honmoon system, or erased critical data, or even released every soul stored when she was inside the Vault. But instead, the woman essentially took only what she came for.

“She could’ve stolen far more Soul Capsules,” Celine says quietly, considering that might be the most disturbing part of this entire situation, since it implies something painfully simple: She probably plans to come back. “We still have thousands of encapsulated souls stored inside the Vault, and I’m not interested in leaving all of them centralized in one location while waiting for her to attempt this again, so I already authorized a carefully selected transportation operation with selected agents, reinforced security details, and multiple false transportation routes.”

Zoey raises an eyebrow.

“You think she’s gonna attack the transports?”

“I think we would be incredibly stupid not to consider that possibility.”

Uh, okay, yeah. Fair enough.

“The Soul Capsules are currently being redistributed across multiple containment facilities rather than remaining centralized inside a single Vault. At minimum, it complicates her situation if her plan involves stealing everything piece by piece.” The Section Chief sighs before continuing: “We still don’t fully understand how the demonic world functions, but one thing has become very obvious. The more souls we successfully intercept… the lower overall demonic activity becomes, which means all of this is connected. We cannot allow her, or any other entity, to obtain additional souls. Neither the encapsulated ones… nor the ones still inside living people.”

The office stays silent for several seconds after that.

Not because anyone has more questions. Honestly, there are too many questions now, too many possibilities, and too many horrifying implications stacked on top of each other.

Somewhere outside the office, distant frantic voices still echo faintly through headquarters, reminding them that the entire division is currently balancing on the edge of collective panic.

Then finally, Celine looks directly at the two of them, and immediately, Zoey feels the exact same instinctive dread she used to feel in school whenever a teacher suddenly looked at her specifically.

“Which brings me to why I specifically called you two here.”

Oh, fucking hell, here we go. 

Beside her, Mira subtly straightens a little too, clearly recognizing the exact same incoming disaster.

“Agent Cho. Agent Kang.” Celine’s voice becomes sharper again. “You two are being assigned directly under the investigation task force handling this entity.”

Zoey immediately makes a small face, the kind people make when they’re trying to smile and complain simultaneously.

“You say that like it’s supposed to sound comforting.” She mumbles, but the older one ignores her completely.

“Your job,” the older woman continues, “is not to engage the entity directly.”

That instantly gets both their attention, because that does not sound like normal DTRD procedure at all. Hunters aren’t told to avoid engaging dangerous demonic entities. They’re trained specifically to neutralize threats aggressively, so the fact Celine is already clarifying that before anything else says a lot.

“Don’t look at me like that. You two seriously think that something strong, or weirder enough to bypass our system can just be approached normally? No, it can't, so that is exactly why I’m saying this now before either of you decides to do something reckless.” Her eyes move briefly toward Zoey during the last part.

Zoey looks offended immediately.

“Wow. Kinda rude to assume I’d do something reckless.”

Both Mira and Celine look at her silently.

The shortest pauses.

“…Mir, you're supposed to be on my side, you know.”

Celine continues before the conversation can derail completely again.

“Your priority is investigation. I want her movements reconstructed. I want to know how she bypassed the Honmoon while remaining alive, and how she continued using her abilities inside this building. I want to know what exactly she is.” Another pause before her voice lowers slightly. “ And most importantly, why did she wait until now to reveal herself if she was apparently always capable of doing all of this? What is she actually planning? I want to know all of it.’’

 Mira slowly raises an eyebrow, saying dryly:

“So basically, you want me, Zoey, and however many other poor agents you gave this assignment to, to play guessing games.”

This time Celine actually gives them a hard look.

An actual Section Chief look that reminds everyone in the room exactly why she’s in charge.

“No,” she says sharply. “I want you two to do your jobs. Whether you like it or not, both of you are investigators. And right now, this division needs investigators more than it needs reckless heroes.” That last part is absolutely directed at Zoey, possibly Mira too, but mostly at the younger one. Then, she gestures firmly toward the door. “So stop standing around in my office wasting more time. You’re already late enough as it is.”

The couple immediately straightens slightly out of instinct, both quickly salute her before turning toward the exit.

The second Mira and Zoey finally step outside the office and the door closes behind them, the shorter woman immediately groans under her breath.

“Ah, man…” She rubs both hands down her face dramatically. “I really should’ve quit this job when I had the chance.”

Mira lets out a quiet breath of laughter beside her while they start walking through the hallway again.

“You say that every month.”

“And every month I continue being right.”

“Yet somehow you still show up.”

“Unfortunately I enjoy having money.”

“That’s usually how employment works.”

Zoey sighs dramatically again.

“This is discrimination against mentally exhausted hot people.”

The pink-haired woman snorts.

“Ok, on this one I kinda agree with you.”

“See? Finally someone understands me.”

“Hm, yeah, but don’t get emotional, smartass. We’re still stuck dealing with this mess until it’s resolved.”

That quickly ruins the youngest mood again.

Because, yeah, they sure as hell are.