Scene 1. Tearing the Jaw
The first one moved.
Moved was not the right word. Closer to the air itself ripping open. Three meters of distance vanished inside a single breath. In Lee Kang's vision, the monster's outline stretched, then ballooned instantly. The double jaw split open midair. The inner jaw's teeth surged above Lee Kang's head.
Lee Kang's knees buckled.
Not dodging upward. Down. His waist dropped until it nearly touched the floor, his shoulder tilting until it almost met the ground. The monster's jaw grazed his hair. A few strands tore free. He did not feel it. His body had already burrowed beneath the monster's mass.
His hands came up.
Both at once. Left hand on the lower jaw, right on the upper. The outer jaw of the double set. His fingers seized the monster's hide. Nails dug beneath the skin. Tough. Not human skin. Thick and slick, like boiled leather.
Lee Kang pulled.
Up and down.
The monster's eyes were right in front of his face. Three amber lights flared once, wide. The monster's mouth tried to close. Lee Kang's hands would not allow it. He pried wider. Past the limit the jaw could open. At that limit—
It tore.
Not the jawbone first. The muscles on the outside of the jaw split first. A wet, ripping sound. Fiber bundles snapping one at a time in quick succession. Then came the bone. The jaw joints popped free on both sides simultaneously. Pop. Pop. Inside Lee Kang's grip, the upper jaw went up and the lower jaw went down, separating completely.
Blood erupted.
Not red. Beneath the red, something yellow was mixed in. It sprayed across Lee Kang's face like a fountain. Hot. Hotter than body temperature. Lee Kang's eyelids blinked once on instinct, and when they opened again, his vision was smeared in red and yellow blotches.
The monster did not scream.
Could not. Its jaw had been ripped away. What rose from the stump was a hissing in place of a scream. From the severed jaw, a tongue spilled out and hit the floor. A tongue forked in two, like a snake's.
Lee Kang hauled the monster's torso toward him.
Backward.
Because the second monster was closing on his back.
Lee Kang's vision did not show the second one. But the texture of the air told him. The space behind him was shrinking. The monster's mass was entering that space. Lee Kang spun half a turn, using the first monster's torn body as a shield.
Talons came.
The second monster's right arm punched through the first monster's back. Punched through was the precise term. Four claws pierced the first one's hide from behind and jutted out through the chest side. Right in front of Lee Kang's nose. One hand-span away.
Half of that span caught Lee Kang's left shoulder.
No—not caught. Lee Kang's shoulder flesh snagged on a talon. The coat tore first, then the shirt, then the skin. One claw dug nearly a hand-span into the flesh above Lee Kang's collarbone. Where that claw stopped—
Was the coat's lapel.
The direction of the canteen.
Lee Kang's amber pupils contracted.
In a way they had never contracted before. Narrowing to a pinhole, then snapping wide open again. In that instant, what his body calculated was not pain. It was position. How many centimeters the tip of the claw was from the canteen. Which direction the claw would move next.
Unacceptable.
Lee Kang's left hand released the first monster's body. The jawless corpse collapsed in front of his chest. The freed left hand immediately seized the second monster's arm. The elbow, precisely. His fingers pressed into the concave joint.
He snapped it.
The wrong direction.
The second monster's arm bent at an impossible angle. The elbow inverted. The bone from shoulder to wrist twisted into an S-shape. This time the monster made a sound. A long, low wail. Closer to a machine breaking down than a beast crying out.
The talon pulled free from Lee Kang's shoulder.
Flesh came with it. A hand-span chunk of meat hung from the claw tip as it dragged out. Blood surged from Lee Kang's shoulder. Red blood. Lee Kang's own. Hot. It ran down his back.
Lee Kang did not feel the pain.
Not that he didn't feel it—the pain had relocated. Somewhere in his brain, the circuit that received pain had shut off. Something else had switched on in its place. The circuit of slaughter. Next motion. Next strike. Next vital point.
Lee Kang turned his body.
Shoving the first monster's corpse to the left. Facing the second head-on. The second still had its broken arm attached. The arm hung limp, dragging the floor. But the other arm was alive. The left. That arm's talons rose toward Lee Kang.
Lee Kang moved first.
He drove beneath the raised claws. Dropping his weight, twisting his waist. He rammed his shoulder into the monster's solar plexus. The torn left shoulder. With that shoulder. His blood soaked the monster's abdomen. With Lee Kang's own blood.
Both hands caught the backs of the monster's knees.
He pulled. Upward.
The monster's feet left the floor.
The monster's body lifted over Lee Kang's shoulder. Mass exceeding 120 kilos. Bones denser than a human's. Muscle thicker than a human's. That weight supported on one shoulder—the shoulder that had just had its flesh torn away.
And he slammed it down.
Backward.
The second monster's body spun half a turn in the air. From where the ceiling had been—the hole these monsters had dropped through—to where the floor was. The monster's back struck tile. An enormous sound. Tile cracked and the concrete slab cratered.
The monster was still alive.
It thrashed.
Lee Kang climbed on top of it.
Right knee on the monster's chest. Left hand on the monster's throat. Right hand empty. Searching for what to grab. What entered his vision was the monster's head. Among the three amber lights, the one on the forehead flared.
Lee Kang's right hand drove into that forehead eye.
One thumb.
The finger punched through the eyeball and went in. Hit bone behind it. Lee Kang pushed deeper. Two knuckles. Three. The entire base of his thumb buried itself inside the monster's forehead.
The monster's body bucked once, hard, then stopped.
Lee Kang withdrew his finger.
Something yellow and gray-white clung to the fingertip as it came out. Lee Kang's gaze dropped to it once. Then he turned his head.
He needed to find where the third one was.
Scene 2. Rancid Oil
The third was nowhere in sight.
Lee Kang's head swept left and right. The far end of the corridor, inside the flames, behind the collapsed concrete heap. No silhouette anywhere. But the smell remained. In the air. The same kind of yellow stench. Not far.
Something ran from the corner of Lee Kang's mouth.
His tongue swept his lips reflexively. Something wet touched his tongue. It entered his mouth.
Lee Kang's movement stopped.
When he had driven down on the second monster, blood from the first monster's torn throat had sprayed his face again. Some of that blood had clung to the corner of his mouth, and one drop of it had just landed on his tongue.
Taste arrived.
The root of his tongue recognized it first. Iron. Obviously. But beneath the iron, something else lay. Something thick. Something yellow. The same texture as what coursed inside Lee Kang's own body.
Lee Kang's stomach twisted, hard.
On top of the second monster's corpse on the floor, Lee Kang's back arched like a bow. He was on his knees. His jaw wrenched open. Something rose inside his mouth. Blood. The drop he had just swallowed. And more. The clear fluid his salivary glands had poured out, and the yellow bile his stomach had heaved up.
Lee Kang spat on the floor.
What he spat onto the tile was mixed in color. Red and yellow. His own and the monster's. He spat once more. Rinsing his mouth. Forcing out every trace of foreign matter caught between his teeth.
"—"
His lips moved. No words came. Once more.
"Rancid."
A sound like grinding iron. A voice wrung from vocal cords already damaged. Yellow stains glistened at the corners of Lee Kang's mouth. His tongue moved once more. He spat. Something like phlegm dropped onto the tile.
"Oil."
Lee Kang said.
As he spat that single word, his eyes seemed to glance at the inside of his own forearm. A very brief instant. The flash of a vein standing out on the back of his hand. The fact that liquid of the same color was circulating beneath it grazed something in his brain. Grazed and vanished.
The taste lingering beneath his tongue.
Rancid oil. Old chemicals mixed with dead flesh. The things that carried this taste—the things whose veins ran with this taste—lay on the floor. Beneath Lee Kang's feet. What Lee Kang had just torn apart.
Lee Kang's pupils wavered once.
Nausea rose again. This time from the throat, not the stomach. His right hand pressed against the floor. To keep from collapsing onto the second monster's corpse. His left hand—his left hand had risen reflexively to his chest.
Over the coat's inner pocket.
Over the canteen.
A motion confirming the weight beneath his palm. Unconscious. Lee Kang's left hand pressed gently once, then lifted. The canteen was in place. Neither shifted nor leaking. Lee Kang's breathing steadied by one beat.
That steadiness did not last.
The air behind him moved.
Scene 3. His Back
The texture of the air shifted, almost imperceptibly.
Lee Kang did not turn. No time to turn. What was not in his field of vision, his brain calculated from smell and vibration alone. Position—upper left behind him. Height—three meters below the ceiling hole, midair. Mass—equal to the first two or slightly heavier. Speed—already falling.
Target—the left side of Lee Kang's chest.
The canteen.
Lee Kang's body reacted.
The way it reacted was wrong. An ordinary beast would not twist to offer its back to avoid a lethal blow. It would shield the front to protect the heart, roll sideways, or retreat. Lee Kang did none of these.
He twisted.
Left shoulder back, right shoulder forward. His back aimed squarely upward. The coat's inner pocket positioned at the farthest possible angle from the third monster's talons.
The talons came down.
Four hooks struck Lee Kang's back. Starting at the left scapula, running diagonally to the right side of his waist. The coat's back panel tore. The shirt tore. The skin beneath tore. Muscle tore. The claws hit bone. The outside of his ribs. The bone deflected the force once, then two ribs cracked.
Lee Kang's body launched upward.
Not from the impact—from Lee Kang's own will. In the instant his back was being torn, he bent his legs and leaped. Not forward. Backward. Into the direction the talons were buried.
The third monster ended up mounted on Lee Kang's back.
Lee Kang spun half a turn in midair.
Back toward the ground. Monster underneath.
The monster's back hit the floor. Lee Kang landed on top of it. Lee Kang's body was skewered on the monster's talons. All four claws still penetrated his back. In that position, he mounted it.
Lee Kang's face hung directly above the monster's.
Three amber lights looked up at him. The double jaw opened, teeth baring. Toward Lee Kang's chin. Upward.
Lee Kang was faster.
Lee Kang's teeth found the monster's throat. The neck was short. The head was practically embedded in the shoulders. But there was a gap. Between the jaw and the collarbone. Where the skin was thin and a thick vessel ran beneath.
Lee Kang's canines sank into that spot.
And tore.
A hand-span of throat entered Lee Kang's mouth. A chunk of muscle. Several strands of vessel. A strip of skin. Tough. Not human flesh. Lee Kang's jaw muscles severed it. The sensation of tough fibers ripping between his teeth.
Blood erupted like a geyser.
Covered Lee Kang's face. Soaked his hair. Red streaked with yellow. What filled his mouth was the same. That taste again.
Rancid oil.
Lee Kang's throat rejected it. He did not swallow. He turned his head sideways and spat what was in his mouth. A lump of flesh and blood hit the tile. Teeth marks were vivid at the corners of his mouth. Blood still flowing from the wound he had just torn continued to soak his jaw.
The monster was not yet dead.
It thrashed. The talons buried in his back tried to pull free. Each pull tore Lee Kang's back wider. A searing heat started at his back and lanced up to his brain. Lee Kang's vision whited out for an instant.
Inside that white flash, Lee Kang checked his own chest.
His left hand came up. Over the coat's inner pocket. The canteen's outline met his palm. Cap still closed. The hard feel of steel. And—Lee Kang's brain translated that sensation differently—beneath the hardness, something moving in steady rhythm.
Breathing.
The canteen was breathing. In time with Lee Kang's heartbeat. Rising and falling. Very quietly.
The corner of Lee Kang's mouth moved.
"...It's okay."
A whisper.
Very low. Very gentle. Four gashes in his back were pumping blood. The corner of his mouth was smeared with the monster's flesh he had just torn away. Half his face was covered in red-yellow blood. And from that mouth came the voice of a mother soothing a newborn.
"Nothing spilled."
Lee Kang said. Toward his own chest. Toward the canteen beneath his palm.
"Not a drop."
Below him, the monster's body twitched once more. Lee Kang raised his right hand over the monster's head. Fingers splayed. Brought it down. With the heel of his palm. Dead center of the monster's forehead. Once. Twice. On the third, the amber light in the forehead went out. On the fourth, the skull caved in. On the fifth, Lee Kang's hand went into the monster's brain.
Lee Kang's left hand never left his chest.
While his right hand crushed the monster's skull, his left remained on the canteen. Not pressing, not tapping. Simply resting. Confirming the canteen's breathing.
"Just a little longer."
Lee Kang's voice was buried between the sounds of battle. But his own ears heard it. In that voice, exhaustion bled through. And tenderness. And an endless, boundless softness.
"Almost over."
Lee Kang whispered. He pulled his right hand from the monster's skull.
Scene 4. Pillar of Fire
Hissss—
A different kind of sound.
Not an explosion, not a monster's cry, not Lee Kang's own breathing. A low, thin sibilance. Lee Kang's ears tracked the direction. The opposite end of the corridor. Beside the young man pinned under concrete. The bag beside him. Inside the half-open bag.
The fuse on the explosives was burning.
An orange dot crawled along a black thread. Fast. One hand-span per second. How much fuse remained—Lee Kang's brain calculated instantly. Three spans. Four at most. Converted to time—three seconds. Five at the outside.
Lee Kang stood.
He dismounted the third monster's corpse. Pulled the talons from his back. The wounds widened as they came free, but it did not matter. Blood poured from his back like a waterfall. Lee Kang's foot kicked off the tile.
He ran.
Toward the opposite end of the corridor. Under the collapsed ceiling's hole. Dodging falling concrete. Through the flames. Left hand still pressed to his chest. Holding the canteen. So it would not jostle while he ran. So it would not rattle.
Three spans became two.
Lee Kang's foot reached the stairway at the corridor's end. The stairs were already half-collapsed. The treads tilted at angles, one wall caved in to reveal the passage to the upper floor. Lee Kang did not take the stairs. He scaled the collapsed wall. By the strength of his fingers alone. One hand. His right. His left still pressed the canteen.
One floor. Two.
Two spans became one.
A ground-floor window appeared. Already shattered. Beyond it, Gyeongseong's night air. Cold. Black. Lee Kang hurled his body toward the window.
One span vanished.
He was airborne.
The instant he cleared the window frame, the world behind him tore apart.
The blast came first. Then the heat. Then the light. The explosion's pressure flung Lee Kang's body higher into the air. His coat flapped. Blood from his torn back scattered into the sky. His hair singed in the fireball.
Lee Kang's body dropped onto the street beyond the alley.
His shoulder hit first. The already-torn left shoulder. There must have been pain. Lee Kang did not feel it. He rolled onto his back. His blood-soaked back scraped across the dirt and stopped.
Lee Kang lay face-down.
Cheek to the ground. Right arm splayed to the side. And his left arm—his left arm was still folded against his chest. His left hand covering the coat's inner pocket.
Behind Lee Kang, a pillar of fire rose.
The entire disguised factory of Unit 731's branch was burning. Secondary explosions detonated in chain across the first blast's debris. The booming did not stop. Gyeongseong's night sky turned red. Sirens began to wail in the distance. The sound of people rushing out carried from the far end of the street.
Lee Kang did not move.
For a moment.
Then he rose, slowly. The motion was slow. His bones did not align. His back was numb. His shoulder hung loose. Still he stood. To a half-kneel. Then to two feet.
Lee Kang's left arm cradled his chest.
His right arm braced the left. Both arms crossed. From outside, no one could tell what he held against his chest. Something small. Something precious. Something that would break. Something that breathed.
Lee Kang's amber pupils faded slowly back to black. Not completely. Inside the black, amber still bled faintly. A beast that had not yet settled.
"...Let's go home."
Lee Kang's lips moved.
Very small. Gyeongseong's night wind carried the voice away.
"Let's go."
Lee Kang did not know whom he was speaking to.
Whether to the steel canteen cradled against his chest. Whether to the yellow liquid inside it. Whether to the lilac fragrance that rose from that liquid. Whether to the someone that fragrance called to mind.
Lee Kang's feet moved.
The burning factory at his back. Into the dark alleys of Gyeongseong. Behind him, drops of blood fell one by one. Those drops drew a red dotted line across the night streets.
Lee Kang's shadow rounded the alley corner.
The canteen held to his chest.