#cc;event

“You are a useless card.”

The replica twirls throwing knives as she looks upon him in pity, no ounce of respect found in those beautiful eyes. 

“What does it feel like to be a hero’s dog? How often did you get summoned when all you have to fight with are ribbons and coins? You’re meant for making hair bows and powering carnival games, not fighting like a real card.”

Jeremy's hands inch into his pockets for his usual tricks and gimmicks. They’re harmless until glowing purple from his touch; marbles exploding like firecrackers into the face of his enemies. 

“Do you have the self-respect to fight with anything but toys? Or is that the best you can do? No wonder your first captor kept chopping your arms off. It’s embarrassing that you can’t do any better. Your own captor thought you might as well be a distraction that lives long enough for the real cards to do the work!” 

The Carnival Card’s breath comes in sharp, as though those knives were already digging into his ribs. Even the reflection of sunlight in her silken hair is accurate to how he’s seen her commanding the Lotus...a delicate-looking puppeteer who makes the burliest of men fall to their knees. 

He’s always liked that about her.

Naeun throws her knives without hesitation, but he’s the fool who hesitates. The blades embed themselves in his body and he gnashes his teeth. Why did he stop? Why did he waste time? Shaking hands rip the knives out of his body, but his flesh stitches itself back together in moments.

It’s not even her.  

Maybe even a wax statue can see that the most he can do is throw parties and play games, no better than the children he would whisk into the forest all those years ago. But...the real Naeun talks about his potential and the power that his previous captors failed to see. She is the one who sees him important enough to partake in a revolution.

The knives glow dark purple as they’re charged in his hands, then whiz towards the replica at high speeds. Naeun dodges it, dancing through death like the elegant fairy he always thought her to be. 

He runs up to intertwine their hands and twirls with her. Jeremy sees the reflection of his smile in her bright eyes as they spin in the battlefield. “I’ve always wanted to dance with you,” he says breathlessly. “That other card is always in the way and if we weren’t immortal, I would’ve already killed him.” 

Jeremy feels more knives jabbing into his abdomen as Naeun frees one of her hands, stabbing and stabbing her dance partner until he’s dripping with red. Blood droplets stain the silver necklace around her neck; it sways with their movement. He presses his cheek against the side of her head, where soft hair billows like the clouds in a dream. They spin faster and faster and faster.

He grabs both her hands and leans away, twirling on his heels as she shouts for him to take himself seriously.  “Can’t you fight like a normal card? Can’t you show me some respect?” she screams. "It’s always music and dancing and games and...and behaving like a child! Why does everything have to be a game with you?” 

Suddenly, his fingers latch around the silver necklace still swinging with them. 

It glows purple. 

The twirling was all the energy he needs to -- 

With a slice of flesh, the necklace spins through the replica’s neck. The girl’s head slides off slowly, then falls to a ground soaked in red. It’s hard for him to swallow. It’s hard for him to blink away the tears -- the stupid, human tears that make him weaker than he already is.

“I always win at games,” he whispers. “They suit me like a tiara suits you.” 

It’s not real...

It’s not real...

He finds himself crouching on the ground in disbelief and picking the severed head, his angel’s hair now matted with blood. 

“You still look so pretty,” he says. “Why do you never dance with me in real life? Why do you never play with me? All I want is to celebrate with you.” 

He’s won, but it doesn’t feel like it.

“we would have given you anything, nightshiner,” the robed man says somberly.

he steps down from his podium and slowly makes his way down the altar. her palms push against the decaying wood of the elongated bench, blinking furiously upon realising that she’s woken up in the midst of her own temple. her eyes wander to the broken pillars and burnt walls before the returning her attention to the elder approaching her.

“we loved you,” he says, stopping in front of where she lay, hands clasped behind his back. “we would have stayed if that was your wish—but i suppose you could not have verbalised it to us. yes, perhaps it was through my own fault. my own grievous fault…”

his voice is reduced into mumbling as he continues to walk down the aisle towards the door. sunyoung stands and quickly follows him, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “yet perhaps this was what you intended it to be, nightshiner,” the elder says, smiling bittersweetly. “this is the fate you saw fit for us. and what a cruel one it is! but this is the one you have chosen and i will not question it.”

her stomach churns as she catches sight of the disappearing apricot sky above. the elder carefully kneels down on the cool soil near the edge, overlooking the village below.

“sunset,” sunyoung says, as if it were a forgotten memory. “i killed you all at sunset.”

“yes, yes you did, nightshiner,” the elder says with a nod, mournful smile still stretched across his withered face. he then bows his head, hands clenched in prayer and began to chant. “ex toto corde paenitet me omnium meorum peccatorum, eaque detestor…”

mouth twisting into a grimace, sunyoung clenches her fists tightly. “why am i being shown this?” she asks, although her words fall onto deaf ears. this is a memory; he is aware of what is to come. “is the objective for me to relive it?”

smoke begins to permeate the air as the horizon consumes the sun. the terrified screams of the villagers below could be heard even from the top of the hill and sunyoung freezes.

“…or am i meant to stop it?”

the sudden pause in the elder’s recitations was enough to affirm her suspicions. although she had partially wished they wouldn’t be true–if she failed, would the memory simply loop? would she be stuck in the noose? she breathes in deep before spinning back around on her heel and running down the dirt path that led down the hill, the inhabitants’ pleads and wails becoming more and more audible with each step she takes.

even before she reaches the hamlet’s entrance, the destruction was already visible. fire danced wildly on the rooftops of the villager’s modest homes, if they had not yet been burned down completely, and there was a haphazard trail of corpses–men, women and children–mangled and eviscerated. waves of nausea rush through her, as if the barbarity she once held so close to her centre has become an abomination. a sin outside herself, a peccancy she did not commit. 

the robust figure that crawls out from between the homes is a familiar excrescence. screeching faces etched into its moonstone skin like imprisoned souls, and the red decadence that painted its multiple rows of sharp teeth. even in the manner in which it moved across the crossroads seemed unnatural, on five legs and a withered sixth limb protruding at an odd angle. almost serving as a signifier of its imperfect nature. 

the humans named it after a goddess, but it was no god.

“i never knew why you did this,” sunyoung says, feeling her confidence and strength rise with the moon. however, she knew far too well that it, too, felt the same amelioration with the night. the creature tilts its head to one side causing her to flinch. it was disturbing to look into its eyes–it was sentient and conflicted. (it would have been far better off to believe that it was a complete monster, and that she was far from it now, but–) 

you do not know? it asks, steadily approaching her. 

“i just said i didn’t,” sunyoung almost hisses, fingertips illuminated by moonlight. beyond the grotesque silhouette, with some relief she can spot small figures escaping into the plains beyond the village. not all of them had perished yet. 

but isn’t it obvious? it stops momentarily in front of a body, utilising a pair of its limbs to lift it to its jaws. sunyoung couldn’t even protest before the beast tore into the dead, breaking the human’s rib bones with a sickening crunch in order to devour their heart. the wet squelch that followed was nearly enough to make sunyoung vomit.

instead, she raises her hand to form an icicle of light shoot up from the ground and lance the creature through the abdomen. rather than a pained shriek however, it only dropped the body, satisfied, and wheezed as though it were laughing. and perhaps it was. 

you do you know, it says, its voice an infuriating amalgam of conceit and derision. you did it after all. we did it. 

it continues to move towards her, allowing the construct to rip through its body in the escape, leaving a trail of black in its wake. the wound only slows the demon down momentarily until it stitches itself up almost completely. scowling, the woman curls her hand into a fist, forming a sphere of light around the white demon–

only to have to be shattered by its own retaliation. 

sunyoung, it muses. you gave yourself a name and you still do not know?

her heart nearly skips a beat as the creature began to crouch. immediately, her hands flew into the air, conjuring a barrier that would only just halt the creature’s charge. grinding her teeth together, sunyoung barely manages to maintain her stance. the ground beneath her bearing the skid marks of the sheer force that pushed her back. she hisses an expletive as the shield began to crack beneath her fingertips. before she’s able to reinforce it, however, the beast shatters it completely seizing its counterpart’s arm in its mouth before she’s capable of moving away.

it clamps down its fangs on her appendage with a sickeningly sadistic grace and sunyoung is incapable of muffling her screams, much to its delight. 

we ate their hearts, it growled, teeth grinding together cruelly around her arm. she does not bother concealing her pained gasps and sobs. you know the reason for this!

“i don’t!” she manages before taking a deep breath and gathering the lunar energy in her palms once again. “and i no longer care to know!”

the creature wails hoarsely as it feels the light expands within itself, stretching its skin thin. it’ll never stop unless she kills it, until it’s destroyed completely, fucking obliterate it, sunyoung–

human! it screeches and the light begins to tear it apart.

we wanted to become human. 

the fabricated world is enveloped in blinding light, and when she next opens her eyes, she’s met with the ironically comforting sight of checkered floors. she feels nothing more than a threadbare figurine crawling her way out of the black, clutching her mangled arm as if the exposed veins were her marionette strings. 

but it’ll grow back, she thinks (in a voice that isn’t entirely hers anymore). and it’s the truth–by the time she reaches the staircases, the tissues and muscles have already sewn themselves together. only the flesh scantily hidden beneath her fingertips and torn sleeve were left to stitch itself. 

“surprised to see me?” she asks, eyeing her familiar friend wearily as he made his bloody entrance. there’s a rush of relief that overcomes her despite the fact that she was not as doubtful on his survive than he was on her own. his eyes were worn and despairing, not unlike many of those who surrounded her. 

“SUNYOUNG, NO!”

her head slams against the checkered floor with a sharp crack, eliciting a pained yelp through her clenched teeth. she should have known better—she recognised the familiar manner in which the air thinned and how that aberrant magic, twisted and unfurled. twelve, that insipid creature, and he’d trapped them all in his foul little underland.

the sound of her heavy breathing reverberates throughout the darkness as she forces herself up. her hand instinctively travels to the slash now decorating her forehead, wincing as she wipes away the blood that dripped down her brow and to her eyes. it takes only a few moments for the wound to stitch itself together and sunyoung takes another deep breath in an attempt to quell her apprehension.

“what is it that you’re planning, twelve?” she mutters hoarsely, troubled eyes scanning the visible black and white expanse restlessly. g5, from what she could gather. diagonal. bishop. and if there were pawns, surely there would have been players. her fists clench the sleeves of her hoodie tightly. it never bode well to have her fate in another’s hands. especially since there was the chance of them being as bad as jin.

robbed of hyunwoo’s reassuring presence, anxiety crept as the constriction in her chest and a rapidly pounding heart against her ribs. she had her suspicions. to her, son hyunwoo always felt as though he had magic in his bones, and so he did. although his claim to it was less than desirable, she would have taken him over facing whatever fuckery the hanged man would be putting her through. he’d never been kind, never known love, so of course he would, of course he would–

bang!

sunyoung jolts at the dull thumps that resonate within the shadows of the noose. echoing footsteps serving as a scornful promise that she, unfortunately, was not alone. it was impossible to discern the direction from which the footfalls originated no matter how much she strained her ears. the magic in the air grew thick and rancid as the creature’s stomping became louder, closer, completely overwhelming her panicked, erratic breathing.

until suddenly, it stops.

he pushes the thing off of him, but barely. their blades meet again, this time through his own fault, and he swallows the ten other knives that pierce through his chest, twisting, suffering.

there’s a hardness in this ephemeral creature that he missed --

he doesn’t stop. not when he’s pushed his own self -- no, no, this isn’t him -- against another unfortunate stall, and another, and another, until the pain is too much, and he stops and wheezes and pushes himself off the thing and off the ground. 

it follows, as the past tends to do.

“this is inevitable, you see,” it (he) laughs. it even sounds like him, all smug and self-righteous. there is no attack yet, and though jin (not judgement, no, not again, not anymore) “judgement judging itself. how many times did you dream of this happening?”

all jin can do is defend, to block the fiery blade with his own, hot and searing and burning the skin at his neck when the imitation comes too close. he scowls, and yells, and doesn’t push the other one off this time. stay safe, jinri told him, and attacking isn’t --

“i can only get stronger around you -- don’t you know what that means?” 

the blade sears his skin, and finally he pushes himself away, flies further back. 

but running away is why he’s being chased, isn’t it?

the imitation flies towards him with righteous fury ( always righteous, aren’t we? ), and when blades clash in the sky around the familiar he’s supposed to defeat -- if it looks like hellfire and feels like hellfire, then that must be what it is. and he’s pushed back, and more, and even more so, until a kick to his midsection sends him against a wall, and a fist (fuelled with the weight of a sword) is brought at the back of his neck, knocking him towards the street below -- so much so that he sinks through the roof of another stall, and into asphalt -- and the wind is knocked out of his lungs again. so is the blood clot that dribbles down the side of his mouth.

“you’re -- ugh -- rude, is what i understand,” he tries to retort, pushing fallen metal and the remains of technology off of his chest so he could stand. a moment’s silence, broken only by his blade being stabbed into the ground, and his armour clinking together as he raises his fists. his counterpart does the same; had he always been this infuriatingly arrogant? “you’re nothing with that sword. you’re w--”

his sentence is (once again) interrupted by a fist to his stomach, and another barely blocked, aimed at the side of his head. the second his defense falters, a metal-covered fist smashes across the side of his face, cracking bone. and another to the other side, and another, sinking into the metal that protects his ribs, making it that much harder to breathe. this isn’t how it’s supposed to --

“i’m weak? is that it?” his past asks, expecting jin to answer, as if he could. 

a foot sends him skidding across the floor, and he’s too busy trying to get the throbbing sound out of his skull to hear the sound of his own blade -- the original, the first -- being taken out of the floor, and much too busy trying to get off of it to react quickly enough to the metal heel that’s pressed in between his wings, forcing him down. 

“i’m you.”

stop

“i’m what you’ve been trying to avoid.” 

that’s not true.

judgement doesn’t give himself the satisfaction of hearing someone scream. not again. instead, he glares, fists clenched and shaking on the ground as the fiery blade ignites once again, and is brought close to the space between his wings and the skin of his back. 

“no,” he chokes out, “stop--!”

“and this --,” 

is that scream coming out of his throat? it can’t be. it must be someone else, horrified by the sight of fire so slowly ( so deliciously ) cutting into feather and muscle and bone. he almost doesn’t hear his past pressing a knee to his back, sinking into the ground, and cutting with the exact precision and speed as he himself intended.

“-- is just a taste of your own medicine.”

it isn’t him, writhing, bucking against the weight, against the blade. he’d said these things before; all of it, down to the last word, to the last laugh, the ringing chuckle underlying the choked screams coming from his own bloody mouth. 

the past had caught up, with all its suffering, but that didn’t mean he would stop trying to get away from it. he will never surrender.

He looked on in silence, not believing his eyes. No matter how much he looked, knowledge of the being in front of him was in the void.

“I... killed you.” His expression cracked, tears welling in his eyes.

He stood motionless, even as she walked towards him, looking as beautiful as the day they met. He subconsciously leaned into her hand when she moved to cup his cheek. She smelled the same, looked at him the same loving way, even when he knew her blood was in his hands.

“I’m sorry...” Knowledge whispered, tears long streaming down his face. “I’m sorry...” He repeated.

It was a time of chaos and darkness, they were on polar opposites. He believed mankind was not ready for all knowledge, she believed that the truth should be set free, and believe in mankind. They disagreed, as much as they loved each other. 

In a moment of defiance, she shared the truth with a civilization. The result was close to a  million lives lost, an event that was the basis of several stories of the doomsday. “Human deserves the truth.” She whispered, having fought against him in defense of the civilization, but ultimately lost.

“Humans are destructive in nature. They are greedy. They have planned to use the knowledge you’ve given to them to conquer the world.” Knowledge explained. “More lives than today would be lost.”

“I disagree.” She replied, challenging him with her gaze. “How can you withhold knowledge from mankind? Are you the only one worthy?”

It was then, he knew. Rather he had always knew, but chose to ignore it. Her nature would compel her, and history would repeat itself. He acted. One for millions, it felt worth it to him then.

His thoughts returned, back to the present, where she was cupping his face. Strong hand held the wrist that was just about to stab a menacing looking black shard into him. 

“I still love you.” He whispered, knowledge of sayoc kali took over and the shard was directed back towards her. He was merciless, the battle within himself taking longer than the said act.

He knelt, his chest hurting, almost as if he was drowning. To repeat the act, even if a part of him told him it is a lie, it felt real in the current moment.

It took him sometime to get to higher ground, looking at many others facing their own weaknesses or demons. There was a numbness within  him.