Chapter Text
Celine lifts the sword. The one made of starlight and purpose. The one that belongs to Rumi. Now, it trembles in Celine's hands, caught between vengeance and memory. She meets Rumi’s eyes, and for one flickering heartbeat, they aren’t hers.
They’re Keanu’s.
That cursed gold. That haunted light.
She sees Rumi's mother walking away from her. She sees her never coming back. Rumi is all that's left of her, but right now, all Celine can see is Keanu kneeling in front of her, finally, finally, atoning for his sins.
The blade breaks skin--soft, deliberate--right above Rumi’s heart. A drop of blood drips from Rumi's chest, past the blade, down her body, across the patterns that stain her skin. Crimson over constellation. Celine's gaze is drawn up by a soft gasp and she sees Rumi's mother now. Beyond the patterns, beyond the gold of that one eye.
She sees Ryu in the flicker of Rumi’s breath,
In the tremble she tries to hide,
In the girl she raised who once feared the dark
And never imagined she’d become the thing inside it.
Celine leans in--just a breath, just a thought--and the starlight edge finds the bone of Rumi's sternum. It was made for demons, this blade. It does not hesitate.
But she does.
She knows this sword is built for tougher demon armor, that it would take just a flicker more pressure to end this. But her eyes flicker up instead and Celine watches a tear roll down Rumi's cheek. There's so much pain in Rumi's eyes, so much fear, yet she doesn't lean back, doesn't fight, doesn't run. She's ready to die. The girl Celine raised is ready to die by her hand. She can't be a monster then can she? Monsters don't fight themselves, right?
The gold taunts her. Keanu's laugh sounds in her ear. Ryu flashes in her minds eye. Ryu who is gone. Her soul consumed just like the millions of others by these demons. No. She let her care for Ryu blind her, Rumi is nothing but a demon and she'll never be anything more. (Somewhere in the back of her mind she realizes that this anger isn't really hers. That Gwi-Ma is feeding her her worst fears and her worst thoughts)
Celine's arms move almost of their own accord, sending the blade deeper by just a fraction. Now. Now. Now. Kill him her now before he can take anything else. A hiss of pain cuts the silence. Ryu’s voice seems to cry out behind it--
She can't do this.
The blade arcs wide. Instead of plunging through her heart it tears the skin from her sternum down to her ribs. Blood arcs through the air, Rumi screams. The blade cut deep, to the bone, but not under it. Rumi fell forward on her hands now. Breathing heavily, shaking, not understanding. Celine expected her to push up and run, to voice her confusion. But when Rumi doesn't, Celine realizes that Rumi still believes she is still going to kill her, she just thinks Celine wants to make her suffer first.
Agony roots itself in her chest--maternal, monstrous, blinding.
What is she doing?
What has she done? Rumi hates herself, every facet of her being--END HER don't let her take anymore. She took Ryu, she'll take EVERYTHING from you--
"RUMI!"
A voice, a new one, a real one sliced through the air. Celine watched as Rumi's head lifted weakly. Like she couldn't help it. Like that voice was sunlight and salvation. Celine saw Mira and Zoey running up the pathway, their feet kicking up dirt in their frantic haste, their weapons drawn, fear and fury in their eyes. Celine has to do this now. She wont have another chance. She has to kill her now.
She raises the blade again; high, unfaltering, lethal. She stares at the back of Rumi's neck. She is going to end this, he's never going to take anything from her ever again. As the blade is coming down. As the subtle whir of starlight sliced through air, as she could practically feel the end coming. A sharp metallic clang rang in her ears, it rattled through her arm, it forced the blade back and her aim to falter. Then there was another metallic flash, another crack of not quite steel, as Zoey threw another shinkal into Rumi's sword. This one closer to the hilt. Celine just barely kept herself from dropping the blade. She swung again. Faster, desperate, diving towards Rumi's prone form. But Mira's gokdo crashed into the sword. Celine struck back, swinging at Mira to get her to move. To get to Keanu to kill this demon that's taken everything from her. But as Celine swings the sword Mira catches it again, parries it to the side then drives her shoulder into Celine's chest. Celine staggers, barely catching herself. She gets knocked back a few feet.
Far enough for her to watch Zoey crash to her knees beside Keanu (RUMI). To watch Zoey grab her shoulders with aching care. To see tears stream down her face. To watch Kea(-Rumi?) turn to face Zoey. Her eyes dazed and delirious from the blood loss and shock. She looks like she doesn't believe Zoey is really there. That Zoey really cares. Zoey turns Rumi gently, as if the girl might break further from touch alone. Her hands tremble. Her eyes widen. Her gaze lands on the gushing red blood that's pouring out of Rumi's chest, deep and dark and not stopping. Blood soaks through cloth and skin alike, she can't stop looking at how it blots out the white of her costume, she can't stop looking at it trailing down in sickening waves across her patterned skin. The wound leads from her sternum down to her bottom left rib, crossing the expanse of her chest, gushing, bleeding, seeping. Zoey pulls Rumi close to her chest while muttering, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." over and over like a prayer. Rumi winces as she brushes some hair from Zoey's face, softly, clumsily, her breath stutters.
"--Celine!" Celine's attention snaps back to Mira. Back to the demon hunter in front of her. She realizes Mira must have been calling her name for a while now. She doesn't remember Rumi's sword being knocked from her hand but somehow it's found it's way on the dirt a few feet away. Her gaze flits back to Mira, to the outrage on her face. To the hurt.
"What the fuck were you doing?" Mira demands. Her hands are steady but her voice shakes.
"You were going to kill her?! She's you daughter--"
"She was never my daughter." Celine growls. Her head is still swimming.
"She asked me to do it. She thought she was a threat to the Hunmoon and she was right." Mira flinches like the words actually struck her. They did this. Her and Zoey who love her, they did this, they pushed Rumi here.
"You were going to kill her because of what she might become?"
Celine’s hands shake. Her voice drops. "I should have done it sooner. Maybe even when she was born. I was blinded by my grief, she was a mistake, she's causing the Hunmoon to tear, she's the reason--" But the rest dies in her throat. She brings a trembling hand to her head. This isn't her. This isn't Celine. That mistake is Rumi. That mistake she had sung to sleep and taught to read and she had loved. Not just her mothers memory, but the person she'd become. She almost killed her. It was Gwi-Ma's voice but it was her hands.
"I almost..." Celine looks at her hands like they aren't hers. Like they're tainted. Like Rumi had looked at her own just hours ago when the patterns had spread. Celine staggers back even further. Rumi. She almost took Rumi. Her Rumi. How could she have let herself--how could she have thought-
"You almost did." Mira's voice was jagged glass. Celine wants to say a thousand things, wants to scream that she didn't mean it, that she wouldn't have done it... but she thinks if the others hadn't come.. would she have stopped?
"Did you ever even love her?" Mira asks. "Did you ever even care? I was angry she lied. I was angry because it seemed like she had been playing me this entire time, but then I thought about it, then I realized. She never lied because she didn't trust us. She lied because of you." Mira's jaw is trembling, her eyes are full of unshed tears. Her gokdo is held threateningly in between them still.
"I was protecting her."
"You were afraid of her--"
"Mira."
It wasn't her usual bubbly tone, not the one she keeps for barking orders during fights either, it was quiet, it was cold, it was scared. Mira's head whips around. Rumi's gone limp in Zoey's hold. Her eyes closed, her hand fallen to the ground, and her blood--so much blood pooling around her.
"We have to go." Zoey's voice breaks as she says it, but she still wraps an arm around Rumi's back, the other under her knees and she lifts. Mira offers one last glare at Celine, one of betrayal and hatred, because somewhere along the line Celine convinced Rumi this was her only option. Somewhere along the line Mira and Zoey did too. Mira lets her gokdo dissipate and takes Rumi's arms. They cradle her between them--fragile, broken, bleeding.
As they run, Celine just watches. They carry Rumi to the car. To safety. To somewhere Celine may never be again.