Chapter 56 - Face to Face (1)

He'd promised to tell me the inside stories.

Hadn't we met and parted far too quickly? There was still so much I wanted to hear. The important things, and the unimportant ones too.

I lay prone inside the speeding train for a long time. The wind lashed my body, stinging my skin. Tears dried on my cheeks.

The train raced through the darkness for a long time. I no longer knew where to go. So I only got up when the train came to a jolting halt.

THUD!

A heavy impact reverberated through my body. Gravel and sand pattered down.

All I could see ahead were tracks shrouded in darkness.

Was Jin dead? I staggered to my feet and stared blankly ahead. He'd said they knew each other. Wasn't there a chance they hadn't killed him?

With a hand on my scabbard, I jumped down from the train. I felt solid ground beneath me.

If you'd run away because you hated Yehyeon and the world, why couldn't you have kept running to the very end?

Of course, no answer came. After staring into empty space for a moment, I walked along the darkened tracks.

That ash-gray arm. I searched my memory as I stumbled toward the wall of earth the train had crashed into. Why had Jin's arm turned gray? Strangely, the color wasn't unfamiliar.

I mulled it over for a while, but found no answer. There was no point clinging to questions I couldn't answer. I walked beside the shattered driver's cab and reached out to feel along the wall.

Was there a door here too?

Suppressing the urge to go back to Jin, I felt around. I hadn't seen any platform screen doors on the way here. Going back probably wouldn't offer another route. I kept searching with my hands, feeling my eyes gradually adjust to the darkness.

I had to find a way out. Get outside, ask my seniors for help, and go find Jin Silver, who might still be alive.

If there were even a hole I could squeeze through...

My foot plunged through the ground.

My right foot dropped away beneath me. I instinctively grabbed the ground, my body tilting to one side. Looking down in shock, I saw a tunnel leading underground.

Aha. Underneath this time, not to the side.

He really was a brilliant man. I smiled bitterly, remembering how Jin had instantly sensed the pursuing creature and severed the train.

"Stay alive."

I spoke to someone who couldn't hear me.

"I'll come find you."

I wouldn't give up hope until I saw with my own eyes that he was dead.

I entered the tunnel. It was pitch-black in here too. Once again, I kept my left hand against the wall.

This passage was more grueling than the last. I had to crawl. Whenever I lifted my head, the back of it hit the hard earthen ceiling. I crawled along with my head lowered, waiting for the tunnel to end.

It only ended when the pain in my neck had become unbearable.

There was no welcome artificial light this time. Only blue mushrooms illuminating the tracks. Had Jin planted these too?

Ignoring the pain in my back and neck, I slowly stood up.

DRIP. DRIP.

Water was dripping.

I walked without a destination. Jin wasn't confirmed dead, which made it all the more important to keep my wits about me.

The subway, where even Badgers with over ten years of service dropped dead like flies. Just entering was dangerous enough, and now there were probably people pursuing me too.

What had I done?

Following the blue mushrooms, I sorted through what I'd heard. Jin had said they came to him one day while he was living outside. They'd come and told him to bring me to them.

["Their leader woke up a few months ago..."]

I had opened my eyes here a few months ago too.

Coincidence?

Could a coincidence really line up so neatly?

Who was their leader? I gathered the fragments of the past that had come tumbling out since I'd been banished outside the core.

Their leader. The leader of those who were supposedly my former comrades.

... I couldn't remember.

I tried approaching it differently. Rather than trying to recall my superior, I tried to remember the person I'd turned to for advice when I had a decision to make.

The one I used to ask for advice.

Hair like a curtain.

A flash passed through my mind.

Memories flooded back. He had always looked down on those people. Said they knew nothing, couldn't even guess at what was inevitably coming.

Golden eyes filled with that distinctive confidence. A firm voice. Clean-cut features.

He'd never once looked away from my gaze...

A raw stench.

The nose-stinging reek of protein drew closer. Enormous teeth loomed before my eyes.

They lunged to bite my entire face off.

SHHHK!

I split the gaping mouth precisely down the middle.

Flesh and bone fragments flew. The sword cut through its gullet and drove farther in, ripping lengthwise through its elongated body. Its furious shriek pierced my ears.

SKREEEEE...

I twisted the blade free, and the half-cleaved creature curled up, spilling blood. I stared at the life-form occupying the middle of the tracks. I couldn't count its legs. But it was far too large to be a centipede. Long enough to wrap around a grown man's body three times with length to spare.

Its legs scurried as it coiled itself up. It had a face like a fish's head.

I sighed, sword in hand.

"If you attack me, I'll have no choice but to kill every one of you to get through."

Of course it couldn't understand.

The creature gradually stopped moving as blood gushed from it. Its dozens of long, thin legs fell still, but I didn't move forward.

Instead, I tightened my grip on the sword. I became conscious of the weight of the blood syringe in my right pocket.

"Just let me through."

I bent at the waist and readied myself to swing.

"There are people I need to find."

The sound of legs came in place of an answer.

The moment my sword traced an arc, creatures poured from the ceiling.

* * *

My shoulder hurt.

Thank goodness those centipede things didn't have venomous teeth. Otherwise, I'd have collapsed and died.

At any rate, it was over. I pressed my right arm firmly against my mangled left shoulder. I'd just sheathed my blood-drenched sword.

An eerie silence had settled over the space. Nothing moved here now except me. The walls and tracks were covered in blood and flesh.

Pressing down on my shoulder, I walked slowly along the tracks, where the raw reek of protein hung thick in the air.

Corpses squelched underfoot. The more I thought about it, the more certain I felt there must have been another way to get through this station. Or I should have turned off somewhere before reaching their nest.

Either way, neither option was available anymore.

I'd managed to kill them all, but the price had been steep. Even after injecting myself to replenish my blood, I was dizzy. I frowned, trying to steady my swimming vision.

"Still, I've improved a lot, haven't I?"

I muttered to myself in the dark, though no one was there to listen.

"Maybe I could cut off a piece of my training officer's clothes now."

Maybe I could trade blows with Yehyeon. And if I won, perhaps he'd give me the sword I'd seen in the video.

With no external stimuli, my thoughts drifted back to the past. I dragged my leaden body along, searching my memories. Jin, severing the train. If Jin Silver hadn't sent me away like that, I'd have simply given in to instinct and slumped to the ground.

The sword...

My sword. Forcing myself onward, I reached further back into my memories. The sword I'd used. The sword I must have sparred with against the black-haired man.

Where was it now?

Was it lying broken, buried in the ground? Or was the sword Yehyeon had mine? I wanted to see the sword from the video in person. Even if he wouldn't give it to me, I wanted to see what it looked like.

That man's voice kept circling through my head. The voice I'd remembered while holding the steering wheel.

["Want to spar with swords?"]

Like the good old days?

CLAAANG!

The blade vibrated.

Eyes with black sclera, blazing with hatred. Ash-gray hair drying brittle. Human features.

I pushed back the sharp nails aimed at my throat with my blade. Its movements were superb. No sooner had it appeared in my field of vision than it was right before my eyes.

I swung my sword hard.

WHOOSH!

Rather than being flung away, it staggered back a few steps.

Our eyes met. It had appeared from the faintly lit stretch of track, the direction I'd been heading.

This wasn't the one Jin Silver had held off. Its hair was short.

"Traitor."

That again.

"You."

It closed the distance in an instant.

Its words came haltingly, as though something were bubbling in its throat. But the hatred in its eyes burned bright.

"If you, hadn't, done it."

"I'm really sorry, but I've completely forgotten my past. I know it's frustrating, but could you explain what I did?"

CLANG!

A swipe knocked my sword aside. Its strength was tremendous. Had I not swiftly pulled my arm back from where it had been knocked to the right and blocked its nails, there would have been a hole in my throat.

Its nails clashed against my blade. It shrieked, hideously pressing its nails against the sword.

"You!"

"Yes, me."

"Back then, you!"

Yes, back then.

What about back then?

"If only you hadn't betrayed Kyle back then!"

CLAAANG!

A flash, and we broke apart.

We stepped back and reset our stances. My opponent glared at me, panting. Red veins began to stand out in his eyes. Clutching my sword, I stared blankly at him across the gap.

Eyes that had given up expecting anything.

I remembered.

Not completely, but a scene imprinted deep within me surfaced. A memory now etched so clearly into my mind that I could never forget it. A moment I would remember for the rest of my life, now that it had returned.

Kyle.

Blazing golden eyes. Clenched teeth and swaying hair. And a sword pointed at me.

His comrades stood behind him. They too held their weapons, their feet planted on the spotless white floor, their eyes brimming with anger.

The place was tinged with blue.

I remembered the betrayal in their eyes, the expressions that said they expected nothing more from us, the fighting spirit in their gazes that said they would win, that they would defeat everything, including me, no matter what.

And I remembered the words I'd spoken then, suppressing my anguish.

Like a video with its beginning and end cut off, I couldn't remember the context in which I'd said them.

But I'd pleaded then.

With Kyle and the comrades who followed him.

"... It's not too late."

"You turncoat bastard!"

"If we act now..."

We can still turn back.

CRAAASH!

I flew backward. My opponent's furious blow overpowered me. My airborne body slammed into a square pillar separating the tracks.

THUD.

A heavy impact jolted through me. A gasp escaped me reflexively.

But there was no time to rest. I twisted aside to dodge the attack driving toward me.

BOOM!

"Time out, time out."

BOOOM!

Of course it wouldn't listen.

Then I'd have to beat it down. Steadying my breathing, I rolled frantically along the tracks, tumbling across the ground to evade the incoming attacks.

Then it briefly lost its footing, and I seized the opening, pushing my sword against the ground to spring upright.

CLANG!

I knocked aside the nails plunging down toward me.

A gap opened between us. I took my stance again. Ah, good. Now I could counterattack. This time I had to go in truly prepared to kill it. Anything less, and I'd be the one dying.

I braced both legs against the tracks and gripped my sword in both hands. Then I raised my hands above my shoulder and drew a breath.

The moment my pleas had failed.

The moment they had charged at me. The moment I'd realized there was no turning back. I remembered suppressing my anguish and steeling my resolve. Remembered clenching my teeth and gripping my sword with both hands.

The sword strike I'd unleashed with that hardened resolve.

Cleaving the floor,

Driving back those who were now my enemies.

CRAAAASH!

A chilling sword strike swept across the tracks.