At [N O V E L I G H T] the gunshot that made her hair stand on end, Seoryeong bolted outside. Deputy Director Ju Seolheon—just what are you trying to do with my face...? No matter how she thought about it, there was no way it was for anything good.

But the body that had once been hit with paralysis toxin faltered again, and she had no choice but to grab hold of Lee Wooshin. Supported like that, she made it into the hallway—yet the once-bustling archdiocese was as silent as a back alley.

The Blast Corp security guards were nowhere in sight. Burly foreigners and the workers who had been moving between the sanctuary and the work area now lay collapsed, injured, tangled together.

The feeling was really bad. Among them, even the foreign security guard who had handed her a pair of sunglasses lay on the floor with a dagger stuck in his neck.

“This place is really...”

Her stiff steps grew more urgent. Her head was still muddled, but she couldn’t shake the restless need to see Ligai... to see that man one more time.

What the hell did he mean, ‘our daughter’? Never in her life had she heard anyone refer to her as a ‘daughter,’ nor had she ever imagined it. Seoryeong’s brows clenched hard.

Is that why the NIS targeted me? Because I’m the daughter of a terrorist who wrecked the Russian Prime Minister’s family? But what does that have to do with Korea? Without realizing it, her nails dug into Wooshin’s forearm, and he spoke.

“Blast Corp isn’t going to be able to slip past the law. So the moment you confirm the face, we leave, Han Seoryeong. If you so much as hesitate, I’ll throw you over my shoulder.”

“Got it.”

She answered obediently, and in her head she repeated it firmly to herself.

Right. Don’t dawdle. Keep your head straight. Soon you’re going to have to marry this man for the second time. Not someone else—you decided this yourself. Don’t ruin it.

Seoryeong calmly gripped his hand tight. Wooshin’s lips brushed long across the back of her clasped hand before pulling away.

“――”

Then, as she opened the door, an ominous scent hit her nose. An indescribable chill ran down her spine. She broke away from Wooshin and ran. As her staggering body slammed into the heavy door—

Bang—!

The second gunshot froze her in place. It took a few moments before her mind could process what her eyes were seeing.

Ju Seolheon, with a hole in the center of her forehead, was locked in a gaze with her as if tied together by rope. Then Seolheon’s eyes widened—and curved, almost as if smiling. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

It was an expression Seoryeong had never seen before. The dead woman’s eyes, never closing, were nailed into her. Strangely, her heart dropped with a thud.

“What the...—”

Her breath burst out and her shoulders heaved roughly. The sight of someone with her exact face being killed was shocking enough, but the client was dead. Ligai Viktor’s temple had been blown open.

Why... why are those two...

How could a terrorist and the Deputy Director of the NIS be clinging to each other like that? She had imagined Ju Seolheon would use her stolen face for every kind of filthy stunt, but this... Everything had been chaos since she woke from the coffin.

The two of them, their chins locked into each other’s shoulders, slowly tilted toward the floor. Seoryeong resisted the twitch in her ankle and looked to the edge of her vision—at the black priest’s robe.

“Don’t misunderstand.”

Kiya awkwardly tried to hide the gun behind his back.

“Ligai wasn’t my doing.”

When she stayed frozen, he shoved the gun away into his clothes and started walking toward her. Kiya hadn’t changed much from when he was young. A priest’s robe suited him not at all.

She ran her gaze over him differently from before. The boy who used to cry at the drop of a hat, whose hands and feet were small like a girl’s, had grown very tall. As her stare lingered, Kiya suddenly shut his mouth and gave her a strange look.

“Han Seoryeong, get out.”

Pushing her back by the shoulder, Wooshin reached to his belt and pulled out a telescopic baton. He charged at Kiya like a hunter, striking for the head.

Bbak—! The crack resounded loudly, and the two were locked together like magnets. Wooshin hammered blows into his opponent’s chest and ribs, driving him without pause.

Back when they’d been on an op, Kiya had only acted weak, making noise. Now, he moved sharply, savagely. He smashed Wooshin’s jaw in quick succession, loading his gun.

But pik—! A silent shot from somewhere grazed Kiya’s wrist.

Wooshin spotted the hole in the priest’s robe and immediately crushed down on Kiya’s shoulder. He followed with a series of kicks up under the right ribcage, making Kiya cough hard.

Normally, a blow to that exposed area would drop a man into a fetal curl, but Kiya bore the pain with unsettling ease. Wooshin clenched his jaw at the sight.

“You thought you could get caught in the act and walk away clean?”

Pulling out a penknife, Wooshin stabbed into Kiya’s shoulder and twisted his arm.

“Not yet?”

Kiya bared teeth wet with blood in a grin. It looked like he was yawning at Wooshin’s threats, but Seoryeong caught the meaning instantly.

It was: You still haven’t found Kim Hyeon, have you? She hesitated, the gun she’d picked up from Ju Seolheon’s side half-raised toward Kiya.

“I’m not bad. I didn’t do wrong.”

Kiya’s words were squeezed out against the wall.

“I only did what that Deputy Director asked me to.”

“......”

“What’s wrong with keeping a promise? I’m not bad at all.”

Seoryeong looked down at the two bodies sprawled dead on the floor. Her eyes were emotionless, as if looking at strangers, yet she couldn’t tear her gaze away.

A man in a grotesque wreck of a state, and a high-ranking NIS official who had stolen another’s face to embrace a criminal—both were a disgrace to their honor.

And yet, as if possessed, she bent one knee and closed Ju Seolheon’s eyes. At the same time, she tore off the overhead mask roughly. Staring for a moment at the strangely peaceful face beneath, she turned away coldly.

“Instructor, it’s done. Let’s go now.”

She kneaded the stolen facial skin in her hands like dough as she urged him on. The idea of leaving any trace of herself in a scene like this made her uneasy and on edge.

She debated what to do with Ju Seolheon’s gun, then tucked it into her waistband. There was no time to leisurely wipe fingerprints in a situation this urgent.

In that moment, the door burst open and men in black suits flooded in, surrounding the scene.

“――!”

She couldn’t tell who they were with, but when they met her eyes, they began dragging her out without hesitation.

“Are you Han Seoryeong?”

“Let go of me...!”

But their grip on her arms was iron.

“An arrest warrant has been issued for the entire Blast Corp Special Security Team, including CEO Kang Taegon. Violations of the National Security Law, bribery, improper solicitation, violations of international law—the charges number in the dozens. You’ve conducted work benefiting drug dealers, Russia, and other dictatorships, haven’t you?”

“......”

“From this point on, we’ll clean the scene. Don’t let the prosecutors catch you. Get out before the police swarm in. These were the Deputy Director’s last orders.”

She struggled to make sense of what they were saying.

She glanced at Wooshin, but it seemed he was in the same position.

The men tugged at Wooshin in a manner both courteous and not, their lips moving quickly. His expression was stone as he looked back at Ju Seolheon’s body one last time.

Seoryeong was still in a daze, but Wooshin came to first, brows furrowed.

“I get it, so get your fucking hands off.”

He shook off every hand and wrapped an arm protectively around her. She let him lead her out, glancing back as they moved. First at Ligai, then at Ju Seolheon... and then—

A trained group had Kiya pinned to the ground, binding him. Even with one side of his face mashed against the floor, Kiya kept grinning to the end.

It wasn’t the same desperate fight for survival as the old days, but the ease in his demeanor, as if used to it, was suddenly unbearable to watch.

How old are you now, and you’re still getting yourself caught like that. The sight of Kiya with both arms wrenched behind him by agents made her stomach turn.

That was why she pursed her lips and whistled without thinking.

――!

Kiya would recognize her signal without fail. They had used it countless times—when avoiding a bear, when leaping out a window, when catching hands after a turn. He’d know instantly.

Sure enough, his dazed gaze turned toward her. The stiffness around his eyes softened, as if certain he smelled Sonia. A single tear fell—just one drop.

Run. And follow.

Sonia sang.