Chapter Text
Two silhouettes could barely be made out in the dark, moving swiftly and silently across the low rooftops of people's homes in Seoul. With impressive agility they leapt and twisted in the air, landing gracefully and running again all in a fluid motion. Finally, they jumped down from a building and landed in an alleyway. A sensor light went off, revealing the figures: two young women, one with long, bright pink hair done up in high twin ponytails, and wearing a white oversized blouse and black leggings. The other had short black hair twisted up into two buns on the sides of her head, and was wearing a long-sleeved crop top and a pair of baggy pants, both matching the color of the other’s shirt. They swiped a hand across what seemed like nothing, but as they did faint, shimmering strands revealed themselves, and weapons appeared from those strands. The pink-haired girl pulled out a gok-do, its blade glowing a brilliant white, with hints of bright pink. The black-haired girl summoned six shin-kal, the blades shimmering in the same way.
“Ready, Zoey?” The taller girl asked, smirking.
“I'm always ready, Mira”, Zoey responded to her friend with a grin. Suddenly, a monstrous-looking creature leapt out of the shadows, striking at them. With quick movements they wielded their weapons skillfully, and took down the creature with ease.
“One demon down!” Exclaimed Zoey, with a big smile on her face. The two girls turned, and saw five more demons lurching towards them. Mira held her gok-do up.
“Five more to go. Let's get em’!” she cried, and they launched themselves at the demons. Although outnumbered, it wasn't by much, and the girls were trained well. The demon's movements were clumsy and poorly calculated. It wasn't long before the two girls had cut through the remaining demons… or so they thought. As they celebrated their victory, they didn't notice a demon sneaking up behind them until it was almost too late.
The demon swiped a claw down on them and they turned and jumped away at the last second, eyes growing wide. The demon was massive, and it seemed to be smarter than the other demons the girls had just defeated. It dodged their attacks with little struggle, and got close when striking with its claws. The girls had never seen a demon with this much skill- granted, they only started going on hunts about two weeks ago, but so far they had always been able to find a weak spot somewhere. If this demon had one at all, it wasn't letting either of the two have the chance to find it. It soon cornered them, and its violent slashing towards them didn't give the girls enough of an opening to fight back.
‘Is this the end?’ Mira thought to herself. No. No way. They were chosen to be hunters, the bane of demons and guardians of the Honmoon. How could it all end so soon? Was the Honmoon wrong in choosing them? They hadn't been hunting for too long yet, but the years of training they had gone through prepared them for this. How could they have been so reckless?
“No…” the huntress heard a choked sob next to her. She turned her head and saw tears fill her teammates eyes. Suddenly, it hit her. She was worried about being stripped of her new job as a hunter… yet the younger girl beside her was fearing for her life. She immediately pushed Zoey behind herself. If they were going to die, she'd be damned if she was going to let the younger girl die first. No, she would be first to go.
“Mira, wait! What are you do-!?” The shorter girl started to cry out but stopped when the demon's slashing slowed. Its arms became limp, and it crashed on its knees to the ground. In a puff of angry red smoke, it disappeared- and the Honmoon rippled and sealed.
The two girls looked in shock where the demon had been standing. There, in the midst of it stood a girl, roughly their age. They couldn't see her well, as she stayed out of the light, but they could tell she had a long braid and held a sain-geom that glowed just like their own weapons. The girl turned to them and held the flat of the sword horizontally against the back of her neck, and grinned smugly.
“You'll never beat demons if you keep cowering in fear like that. You're lucky I was here to save your hides,” she told them.
Mira frowned. She already didn't care for the girl's attitude. She was about to say something, but Zoey beat her to the punch.
“Wow, the way you took down that demon was amazing! Who are you?” She asked, her eyes sparkling.
The girl then stepped forward into the light, chuckling at the shorter girl's curiosity of her. Her braid was a soft purple, and she wore jeans and a tan hoodie. Though she had markings of dirt on her face, her features were even and elegant.
“Thanks. I've been fighting demons for a bit now, so I have a pretty good knack for taking them down. Name's Rumi, and I assume… you two are a bit newer to this whole thing?”
Although it wasn't entirely untrue, she really had only been fighting demons for about a month. She left out the part where her skills came more from her training at the gym and learning to be a survivalist.
“I'm Zoey, and-”
“That's none of your business”, Mira growled, cutting off her teammate as she stepped forward. She did not like how this girl kept pointing out their inexperience.
“Hey, easy there tough girl. I'm just saying. Though I will say how you took down those other demons was pretty good… even if they were a bit on the weaker side”, Rumi smirked.
“Alright, that's it. Just who do you think you are anyway? You think you're so good, huh? So you took down a demon- from behind. Anyone can do that if the enemy doesn't know you're coming. If we weren't here you'd probably be shredded to bits by that thing,” said the pink-haired girl, her frustration building up to anger as she took another step toward the braided girl and raised her gok-do in a defensive stance.
“Hmm, yeah, I guess you did make for a good distraction", Rumi replied, putting an emphasis on her last word as she held out her hand and stared at her nails non-chalantly. Before the taller hunter had the chance to say anything, she continued, her face becoming serious as she looked up and made eye contact with the one arguing with her. She brought her sword out in front of her and jabbed it in both of the girl's direction.
“Listen here though. I saved you two. As far as I'm concerned we're on the same side, fighting demons to keep the people safe from them. So I'm not gonna argue with you anymore. All I'm saying is some of these demons fight back and they fight hard. Don't underestimate them.”
Mira was once again about to argue that they knew all that, but the younger girl spoke before she could say anything.
“You're right Rumi. We'll be ready next time, thanks for the advice! Um, out of curiosity, how do you get your weapon? Does yours come from the Honmoon too!?”
“Zoey! You can't just tell random strangers about the Honmoon! That's a hunter's secret! That and people are gonna think you're crazy," Mira whispered aggressively to the girl beside her. The girl most likely already knew about it, what with having her very own weapon that the Honmoon gifted her, but Mira didn't want to even consider the possibility that this annoying, nit-picky, purple-haired weirdo could be their potential third member.
“The Honwho? I'll be honest I don't know what that is, but my weapon comes to me when I run my hand over this weird shimmering surface with strands. It spreads out everywhere, and also seems to keep demons out except for when they break through. I call it the ‘world-shield’. Heh, kind of stupid I know, but what else would it be called? Also, I have to admit it's pretty cool that the two of you have weapons of your own.”
The two hunter's eyes went wide. This girl, who could summon a weapon from the Honmoon and see it and demons, didn't even know what it was!? Who was Rumi exactly?
“That… that ‘world-shield’ as you call it, is the Honmoon. The people that can see it have a duty to fulfill as hunters, to keep all the demons out of this world by driving them back with skilled combat and melodious harmonies.” Zoey told her.
“Hunters? Harmonies? What are you girls on about? That seems a little much for me. The… this “Honmoon” shows me where to find a hole in it, I respond, I see a demon, I kill it. That's all.” As much as all this gibberish about Honmoons and hunters confused her, Rumi did like the name “Honmoon” better than “world-shield”. There was something oddly familiar about it along with everything else they told her, but she convinced herself it was just a strange coincidence.
“Anyways, you girls should go, you need practice. Maybe we'll meet up again one day! Good luck, hopefully you'll be better the next time I see you!”
Mira groaned inwardly. There was the inexperience nit-picking again. She was about to say something but was once again cut off, not by words but by the purple-haired girl taking her leave. She stepped back and disappeared into the dark as an echo of her laugh bounced off the walls of the narrow alleyway until it faded into silence.