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All Leeseo saw was her smirk.
Darting past both Leeseo and Liz, the woman whom Leeseo believed to be Yujin—but also not quite—charged into the enemies behind them. The enemies that they almost forgot about.
With a powerful slash, Yujin’s large blade cleaved through their ranks, scathing against their obsidian- and gold-bathed figures. With each powerful thrust, she left no room for error, not stopping until each of their humanoid bodies crumbled into dust and nothingness. With a final deflection, she shielded herself from a concentrated volley of arrows aimed right at her, and used this opportunity to close the distance with the archers chopping their heads clean off.
Without even breaking a sweat, the blue-haired girl casted her sword aside and ran her fingers against her scalp. Back still turned to the duo of Nameless, she chuckled lowly. “Didn’t think there would be more of them out here, but I’m glad that’s taken care of.”
“Now, the two of you: stand down.”
Before her firm words could even send chills down Leeseo’s spine, the girl had already acted.
All Leeseo could see was her smile.
She rushed past between the both of them once more as she headed the way she came—towards the direction of the large building, Leeseo felt her hand on her shoulder. It was gentle. It was brief.
They shared a moment paused in time, when both of their gazes met, and all Leeseo could recognize was the shimmer in Yujin’s eyes as she stared back at her.
However, when the young girl finally recognized what Yujin had done, it was far too late.
Yujin took advantage of Leeseo’s surprise to steal her metal bat from her. The weapon easily slipped through her fingers as she lacked the strength to grip it from the surprise encounter.
Liz, on the other hand, was able to react.
The older of the two leaned forward, spear at the ready, aiming for a strike towards Yujin’s chest. But with a single backhanded thrust, Yujin swatted the same bat Leeseo had possessed against Liz’s spear, slapping it away.
Snapping it in half.
The sound of Liz’s treasured weapon clattering into two against the ground echoed throughout the silence on the bridge.
All Leeseo could do was stare in terror at the broken spear—the spear that Liz had carried since her rebirth. The spear that had symbolized her confusing and heavy past.
“You … broke my spear …”
Yujin simply smirked and thrusted the bat she stole against the steps of the stairs she now stood on. The bat bounced back almost immediately towards Yujin’s waiting fist as she caught it swiftly and with ease.
“And you, dear friend, broke into sacred grounds. So I guess this calls us even, no?”
Leeseo couldn’t see Liz’s face as her hair fell forward around her like a veil. But she knew Liz enough to know that she was anything but calm now despite her unmoving form. Even though her unnie was as shattered as her spear, Yujin’s pretentious tone continued to mock them. “Got to hand it to you both—you know how to battle. Sort of. You handled those three Furiae just fine earlier. Ooh, but if only you didn’t get jumped by the rest of the—.”
Liz struck a blow against the blue-haired girl’s stomach.
Yujin made a sound like she was about to vomit from the impact, but when her face immediately warped into a cocky smirk, Leeseo knew something was wrong. When Liz thought she was in the lead with her out-of-the-blue attack, Yujin kneed her in the gut and sent her reeling onto the floor.
Her dressings began to moisten with the color red.
“UNNIE!”
Yujin was about to strike Leeseo with her own bat too, but when she noticed she was going for the downed girl instead, she took a few steps back and held her weapon at bay.
Leeseo rushed to Liz’s side, lifting her head onto her lap as she knelt on the gravely ground. She cupped at the sweaty girl’s cheeks and tried to calm her down as she was sobbing into Leeseo’s stomach. “U-U-Unnie …? You got hit right i-in the stomach by that … by that …”
As Leeseo soothed the pain from Liz’s abdomen, she lifted her gaze towards the blue-haired girl that caused her unnie this pain and glared intently at her. “You … You …”
What could she even say?
She dawned dual pauldrons—one with golden trims and another with black trims—connected by a thin belt. An ankle-length brown and white trench coat with golden highlights all throughout clung to her body—blindingly bright yellow at its underside. On her limbs were an arm guard on one, and a golden wristguard and brown fingerless glove on the other. Her tattered leather choker coiled around her neck covering a yellow mark in the shape of what looks like a sun, and a large lapis-colored cape on her back ruffled against her dark black pants and jet-black boots.
It didn’t take a Genius Society member to tell Leeseo that this looked nothing like their Yujin from the Astral Express.
This was not An Yujin at all.
Beyond everything else with her appearance, what really stood out to Leeseo was her blue hair. Her Yujin-unnie would never have chosen a color so bright and burning and bold.
What was she to say towards a girl like this? One who was similar to Yujin only in face?
Now that she thought about it, upon taking a closer inspection of the arrogant-looking girl, Leeseo noticed her visage was slightly off—was slightly different. She looked softer around the nose and cheeks. She lacked the faint circles of bags beneath her eyes. Her mouth had a resting smile instead of a visible frown. While she did share some similarities with the Yujin that Leeseo knew, this girl was still markedly different from her.
Could she even say that this was Yujin at all?
As if reading her mind, this blue-haired Yujin took a few steps towards Liz and Leeseo. While Leeseo froze in place, Liz was quick to lean onto her side and pick up a random rock on the ground next to her. Without hesitation, she raised it up above her head, ready to chuck it. “Stand back, you … you …”
Yujin smiled gently and rolled the bat towards Leeseo. Although the young girl didn’t even stop to look to the side for one moment, she let the weapon roll towards her, eyes still fixed on this false Yujin as she spoke. “I mean you both no harm. I just want everyone to be safe. Let’s not say anything or do anything we’re going to regret later on.”
“Regret? You just—you literally kneed me in the chest,” Liz spouted in disbelief, hand over her now drying dressings as she applied a bit of painful yet necessary pressure against it. “Why should we even trust you?”
Liz raised a good point.
It didn’t help that they were two foreigners on this planet just recently marooned from the crash of their vehicles. It didn’t help that they knew nothing about this world, its culture, or its people. It didn’t help that they were just ambushed by the denizens around these parts. But what didn’t help the most with their situation was the fact that someone who looked almost exactly like their trusted companion had both saved and assaulted them out of nowhere.
The blue-haired Yujin placed her hands on her waist and sighed. Leeseo found it surprising with how animated the girl looked. As Yujin crinkled her nose and wagged a finger at the both of them, Leeseo saw how more youthful she had seemed, how more bright-eyed she was, how battle-hungry she appeared earlier, and how cocky yet naive she turned out to be.
“Well, you see, that wasn’t an attack on you. That was just self-defense, you know?” she played it off, chuckling as she glanced down at Liz’s crumpled form against Leeseo’s lap. “That um, red spot—that wasn’t from me was it?”
Liz rolled her eyes as she tried to sit up.
“U-Unnie, you should lay still. We don’t have anymore healing sprays to help with the pain,” Leeseo warned. But her unnie was in no room to negotiate. She forced herself up and lifted her chin against the third girl, interposing herself between Leeseo and this new individual.
“Stay on guard, Leeseo,” she pleaded, leaning towards one side as she stood. “If she tries anything funny, don’t hesitate.”
With a trembling hand, Leeseo reached for her bat and used it to get up. Weapon at the ready and angled sideways from her, she swung it in small circles to unfreeze the fear in her wrist. “O-Ok …”
Yujin backed up. She looked threatened by the sight of the two injured and fearful girls, but she immediately shed this facade with a warm smile. “Relax, I’m not going to do that again. I just had to disarm you to make sure you weren’t a threat to us.”
“To us?”
A high-pitched whistle from Yujin’s lips broke through the tension of their conversation.
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