A/N: This chapter was going to be longer, but I added another chapter (for a total of 58) since this took me way longer to write than I anticipated.

It is a little dark and bloody toward the end, just to warn you.

"She could be anywhere here," Shin-joo announced, squinting at the snow-capped mountains above them. "I suggest we spread out. Hyung, pick the direction you want to go in since you know Su Gyeong. Yu Ri and I can try some other places." They'd passed the giant bronze Buddha statue at the park's entrance, crossed the stone bridge, and now stood in front of the Sinheungsa Temple complex. At five hundred years old, the temple was a remnant of Rang's past life, a reminder that things which survive the test of time can be revitalized in unexpected ways.

Rang thought that some surviving remnants, like Su Gyeong, were best left to the destruction of the past. For once, he ignored Shin-joo's annoying habit of calling him 'brother.' All that mattered was finding Ga Eul, making sure she was safe, then killing Su Gyeong with his bare hands.

He could only be thankful there hadn't been a worrying amount of snowfall—the park wasn't closed—and the forest would shield them from much of the biting wind, though it probably wouldn't feel that way to Ga Eul in her delicate human skin. Su Gyeong better not have dragged her up to a mountain peak where she'd freeze to death before they found her.

Rang closed his eyes, shutting out Yu Ri and Shin-joo, the distant chatter of other park visitors, the cawing of crows, even the sound of his own breathing. Ga Eul didn't carry her charm with her anymore, but he hoped he could find her by scent if he searched hard enough. The entire park area covered about one hundred and sixty-four square kilometers; he reached out to each square kilometer with his heightened senses and drew wind from every direction, coaxing her scent toward him. Ga Eul smelled like childhood; she smelled like spring. From her classroom, crayons and paint. From her perfume, jasmine and lavender.

There. Rang caught it. A scent so distinctly Ga Eul he would have recognized it in a blizzard. It wasn't classroom supplies, though. It wasn't her perfume, either, but her skin, sweet and tempting and undeniably exposed to the elements. Something followed it. Blood. She'd been injured.

His eyes shot open. To hell with the charm—he didn't need it.

"I know where she is. Follow me."

"Hello, Su Gyeong." Ga Eul shivered in the freezing air—by now, her toes and fingers were numb—but she didn't dare to pick up her coat. Su Gyeong would stop her, of course, but more than that, she refused to show weakness. She'd broken out of Su Gyeong's trance, and the fox seemed perplexed by that. Murderously so.

Good. Let Su Gyeong think the feeble human had hidden powers. Let her feel ever-so-slightly unnerved. Let her wonder why Rang had picked Ga Eul instead of a fellow fox.

Keeping her voice clear and firm, Ga Eul continued, "Now that we can communicate in a civilized manner, what do you want with me? You've taken great pains to upset Lee Rang. What for?" She suspected she knew the reason—Rang had told Ga Eul about her threat—but she wanted Su Gyeong to voice it. Maybe she could stall whatever the fox had planned for her next.

"You're the one."

"The one what?"

"The one who makes his life worth living."

"Plenty of people do that," Ga Eul countered, though she hesitated to name anyone. His brother, Yu Ri, Soo-oh...

"No, you're different." Su Gyeong gave her an unkind smile. "He would sign away his freedom for you."

Ga Eul frowned, not expecting this answer.

"I'd hardly call marriage a prison."

At that, Su Gyeong's eyes lit up.

"Ah, he hasn't told you."

"Hasn't told me what?" Ga Eul demanded. She shouldn't trust Su Gyeong's words, but she couldn't help her curiosity.

"I've been tracking Rang's brother for a while. To my good fortune, he chose to be human. Makes it easier to disguise myself. Many months ago, Lee Yeon procured a contract from Taluipa, the goddess who runs the Afterlife Immigration Office. Do you know of it?"

"The contract?"

"The office."

"Of course, I do. Lee Yeon used to work there."

"Correct. But here's what's interesting. The contract wasn't for Lee Yeon. It was for Lee Rang. Before Lee Yeon handed it over to his brother, I stole a look at its contents. Reincarnation in exchange for two thousand years of service to Taluipa and her pitiful agenda of hunting down all who oppose her insufferable rules."

"Reincarnation?" Ga Eul spoke the word slowly. "What do you mean? Everyone gets reincarnated, except for the most evil of spirits." Even as Ga Eul said the words, a horrid realization sunk in. Rang was one of the most evil spirits. He'd killed too many people and showed too little remorse.

How had she not thought of it before?

Maybe because, deep down, she couldn't imagine Rang being evil, even though she knew what he'd done. What he still did, sometimes.

With her, he was sweet and kind and patient. Okay, maybe not patient, but less of an asshole than he appeared to be. He had a good heart—she truly believed that—but was he repentant? Aside from the apologies he'd made to her personally, or at her insistence, had he tried to atone for anything?

She couldn't say that he had.

He did good deeds from time to time, but they were things he would benefit from in some way. Or compromises he made to keep the people he wanted in his life happy. She couldn't say he had any more general regard for human life than he'd had when she'd met him.

Which meant if he came after her and Su Gyeong killed him, he'd be lost. Driven to some dark and dismal corner of the underworld to face trials and punishments. Or worse, trapped as a wandering spirit, unable to move on to the afterlife at all. The thought of him in either place, alone, with no one to care for him—she couldn't bear it. Tears spilled down her cheeks. Her knees nearly gave out. Somehow that was the scariest thing she'd heard all day.

She stumbled back, and Su Gyeong followed her, step for step.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry," she sang sweetly. "I'm certain he'll get reincarnated now. Rang went to Taluipa's office this morning, and I can't think of a reason he would go there, if not to sign that contract. That was how I knew you were the one. He cares for you so much he would be a slave to the people who have hunted him for centuries just so he can stay with you in all your lives." Su Gyeong brightened and, with a chilling amount of cheer, announced, "What a shame he'll spend those two thousand years remembering your death. Remembering how he tried to save you and failed."

Ga Eul balked, halting in her tracks. The weight of this revelation, if it were true, dropped like a boulder on her chest. What could she do with it? She wanted to rage at Rang for not telling her about the contract. For enslaving himself to another soul on her behalf when she knew how much he hated taking orders. And no matter how justified they were, she wanted to rage at the afterlife gods for not allowing him to reincarnate in the first place. For not allowing him to continue as her soulmate, for she would have accepted him as anything in his next life as long as he was hers.

But she couldn't shake sense into Rang or spit in Taluipa's eye, so she raged at Su Gyeong for taking her away from him.

"Rang says I can see good in anyone, but that's not true. When I look at you, I can tell. You're a heartless bitch."

Su Gyeong's hand was at Ga Eul's throat before she could blink; the fox gripped her chin so tight, Ga Eul thought her facial bones would crack. The pain made her eyes water. She tried to force the fox's arm away, but it was like pulling on a steel beam.

"We still have several hours to kill before your school day ends. Let's play a game," Su Gyeong hissed, jerking Ga Eul's eyes to her scarred flesh. "You run, and each time I catch you, you get a scar on a different part of your body." With her free hand, Su Gyeong ripped the top of Ga Eul's white blouse open, her claws shearing through Ga Eul's chest.

She cried out in pain: an unhinged moan since she couldn't move her jaw. Blood soaked her blouse. The slices had to be deep, but she couldn't see them to tell how deep. She cried out again, her breaths coming faster and faster as her blood chilled in the cold air, wetly gluing the blouse's fabric to her chest.

Su Gyeong slapped her face away, stinging her cheek with the fury of a thousand needles. Instinctively, Ga Eul cradled her face with her palm but didn't dare take her eyes off the fox.

"Run," Su Gyeong ordered, and she stumbled a few feet, reluctant to show the fox her back.

"Run!" she shrieked, and Ga Eul obeyed, fleeing in the direction she'd been heading before the mist had stopped her. Going as fast as her injured ankle would allow, she plunged down another slope. In her haste, she tripped over her feet and lost a shoe, but she didn't go back for it. Panic made her numb to the pain in her chest and the pine needles pricking her bare foot. Numb to the cold and her own exhaustion. She had to run or die. But if she could keep going long enough, maybe Rang would be there sooner than Su Gyeong thought, though he had no reason to check on her before school let out.

Rang, I really hope you chose today to stalk me. Please stalk me, please! Ga Eul pleaded to the empty forest. Her breaths were coming too fast now. She needed more air, and running felt so useless, but she couldn't stop. She had to get out of there. She had to get out!

A crimson blur of a person whisked through the green forest and landed in front of her: Rang, in his red suit, his hair disheveled and his eyes mirroring her panic. He cried out her name and reached for her, but Ga Eul lurched away from him.

Another trick of Su Gyeong's—it had to be. Even if he smelled like pine, that was no test. Everything smelled like pine. They were in a forest!

"Ga Eul, it's me." The Rang-like creature approached, but she backed further away, her harsh breaths building to a fever pitch. She wasn't falling for that again. Su Gyeong wanted to draw her close, make her feel safe, and then sink her claws in. The forest spun around her. She swayed on her feet.

"Get away from me!" she screamed. "And take off his face! Take it off!"

"Ga Eul." Rang's arms went up. His palms opened, facing her. "It's me. I promise it's me. I came to get you. You can go home now." The softness of his voice and the genuine concern in his face almost broke her, but she refused to be tricked. She shook her head.

"No, y-you [gasp] s-stay [gasp] a-away [gasp] from me." Lightheaded, Ga Eul sunk to her knees. She couldn't...breathe. The world was closing in on her. The light shafting through the trees blurred with the birdsong, with the greens and whites and browns of the landscape. Rang's voice was muffled and distant, as though she were underwater and he were speaking from above. Even his figure was indistinct, muddled by the water's movement. The world lurched, a blur of color. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe.

When Ga Eul collapsed, Rang swore he'd never felt his heart break before that moment. All the human pieces of himself shattered and bled, the tender parts he no longer tried to suppress because of her. Her wounds shredded his skin open. Her fear and helplessness crashed into him, a violent swell reminding him of his former powerlessness, but he didn't push them away. Rather, he leaned into them; he let his heart break on her behalf. He wasn't afraid of it, the compassion he felt for his little human. How he loved her so much that her heart and her skin and her bones, as delicate as they were, had become his own. So much that her happiness was his happiness, and her pain was his pain.

She had lost her coat and one of her shoes. The rest of her clothes were a muddy and bloody mess, concealing who-knew-how-many injuries; dead leaves and pine needles littered her hair; and clearly, she was having another panic attack, like the one she'd had when he'd run into her on the dark city streets. At that time, he'd been unprepared for how he felt, seeing her so afraid and vulnerable, but he was used to taking care of her now, and he yearned to wrap himself around every inch of her and never let go. However, he didn't want her to feel trapped, so he crouched on the ground in front of her, leaving an arm's length of space between them.

"Remember this?" Taking her hand, Rang pressed gentle kisses to the scrapes on her palm. "Healing isn't one of my special powers, but if you have a first aid kit, I can bandage these." Tears brimmed in his eyes, threatening to spill over. He would trade any of his powers if he could heal her.

Ga Eul didn't look at him—she stared at the snowy ground, trying to control her breathing—but she didn't pull away. Maybe she no longer perceived him. He kept speaking to her.

"Your pet fox is here." He brought her hand up to his head so she could feel his hair. "See? Your pet fox would never hurt you. I would never hurt you. You don't have to be scared." He raked her hand through his hair, clasping it tightly in his own. "You don't have to be scared," he whispered.

Ga Eul closed her eyes. She gripped and twisted his hair. Little by little, her breathing slowed and deepened. When she looked up again, he was afraid he would see more terror in her eyes, but instead he saw relief. She'd come back to herself. Back to him.

"Rang?" His name was little more than a whisper on her lips, but it brought a smile to his face. She knew it was him.

"I'm here, little human."

"I know." She brought his hand to her face and sunk her cheek into his palm. "Su Gyeong wouldn't comfort me."

Rang chuckled.

"Su Gyeong was always bad at comforting people."

Ga Eul tried to smile, but she winced instead, and Rang gently parted her torn blouse to examine the wound on her chest. Five claw marks tore through the delicate flesh between her collarbone and her breasts. He glanced behind him. Where the hell was Shin-joo?!

As he thought the words, the bastard appeared alongside Yu Ri. Dropping his first aid kit, he planted his hands on his thighs as he caught his breath.

"I don't think...foxes...were meant to move that fast," he gasped.

No sooner had the words left Shin-joo's lips than a creature launched itself from the tree tops, hurtling toward them at an inhuman speed: Su Gyeong, aimed right for Ga Eul. Rang pitched himself toward her and drove her into a nearby tree. She flung him off and into a larger tree. The bark splintered beneath his back, and he shoved her harder, pushing her deeper into the forest. Back and forth, they flew among the branches, as they had when playing jegichagi long ago. Only this time, instead of a shuttlecock, they tossed each other around like rag dolls, slamming into trunks, into branches, into needles and slush and snow. Finally, one of the trees snapped beneath their collective weight and speed. It fell with a thunderous crack that resounded through the forest like a cannon shot, and they tumbled to the ground, a fair distance from where Rang had left Ga Eul.

He wouldn't let Su Gyeong get any closer to her.

"You showed up sooner than I expected." Su Gyeong brushed herself off as she rose to her feet—a scarred shadow of her former beauty, with sharp bones and sharper edges. "No matter. I've looked forward to this reunion for a long time."

A branch snapped behind Rang, and Su Gyeong glanced in that direction, smirking at what she saw. Rang looked back. It was Yu Ri, approaching his position through the trees.

"Ah. The Russian stray," Su Gyeong noted, then with false sweetness added, "You clean up well. I can barely tell you were raised in a zoo."

At Su Gyeong's words, Yu Ri whipped the hair pins out of her hair, but having seen Ga Eul's condition, Rang wanted to kill Su Gyeong himself.

"Go back to Shin-joo," he ordered. "Help him take care of Ga Eul. I've got this."

"But Mister Lee Rang—"

"Take care of her!" Rang commanded. "Don't worry about me. I'll be back with a corpse." He glared at Su Gyeong.

It wasn't that he couldn't use Yu Ri's help. Unlike Ga Eul, she was a damn good fighter. Like him, life had forced her into it. It wasn't a hobby; it was survival. But this was between him and Su Gyeong.

"Yes, do as he says." Su Gyeong smiled. "I'll be happy to kill you after I've taken care of him."

Yu Ri stepped forward in protest, but Rang jerked his head in a shooing motion.

Go.

Yu Ri's eyes darted between him and Su Gyeong. She frowned. He could tell she didn't like it. His enemies were her enemies, she'd told him once.

"I won't leave," she informed him, backing to the edge of the small clearing they'd tumbled into, "but I won't interfere unless you want me to."

Satisfied, Rang tilted his head in acknowledgement.

"You've gotten quite cocky for a half-breed," Su Gyeong noted, sizing Rang up with her eyes. Her condescending tone, hauntingly familiar, cut into him despite his resolve. Suddenly, he felt nineteen years old—seventeen, fifteen, eleven—as if he'd never left that spot on the forest floor where she'd abandoned him on the verge of death.

But Rang wasn't nineteen anymore, and he no longer lived in Su Gyeong's world. This was Ga Eul's world. Ga Eul, who had a bloodied chest courtesy of Su Gyeong's claws. Ga Eul, who'd been kidnapped and scared out of her wits and forced to live out a scenario from one of his worst nightmares for her. Ga Eul, who'd turned him into the fullest version of himself. The most powerful version, but also the most human version.

Ga Eul, whose emotions could be power instead of weakness. She channeled her emotions in just the right amounts to adapt herself to any situation. Her emotions fueled her, like they fueled him now as he let the pain of almost losing her pour through him and ignite both of his eyes. Suddenly, he knew why he couldn't show Taluipa his powers; he'd still been trying to prove he was something other than himself.

"You're wrong," he answered, with the air of smugness he'd learned from Su Gyeong. The one he'd found suited him even better than it suited her. "I'm cocky because I'm a half-breed." With one shove of his palm, Rang shot a gust of air toward Su Gyeong that knocked her off her feet. He leapt into the air and would have landed on her, but she rolled away quickly and got back up.

In a flash, Rang closed the distance between them and jabbed at Su Gyeong's face. Su Gyeong blocked with her arm. He jabbed again. Another block. He served a roundhouse kick to her face, which Su Gyeong also blocked, then threw a few jabs of her own. To Rang's face, to his gut. He blocked each one with precision, the way she'd taught him back when it was harder for him to anticipate her every movement. Now he was faster than her, in reflex and perception. He saw all of her movements before they happened, and when she next swung at him, Rang caught her arm and kneed her in the stomach. He kicked her in the forehead, knocking her on her back, and the force of it made her body skid through the slush till her head nearly rammed into a tree.

Su Gyeong drew the twin daggers at her waist, but before she could get up, Rang stood over her. He shot into her mind like a lightning bolt, and her arms stilled of their own accord. She grunted, the strain to move them evident in her face, but the daggers could only hover above her chest, pointed toward her own neck. Annoyance shifted to panic, panic to rage. She hurled curses at him.

"I want to know what you did to her. I want to see everything."

Su Gyeong's mind reluctantly obliged him, all its windows shattering under his control. Scenes from the past few hours flashed before his eyes, and with each new image of Ga Eul's terror-filled face, Rang shot a new bolt of pain through Su Gyeong's bones. He paralyzed her vocal cords so she couldn't cry out, just as she'd done to Ga Eul.

Her eyes widened in shock, then in horror. For the first time, he saw that she was afraid of him instead of the other way around. Seeing her fear healed something in him; he relished it. Throughout their entire acquaintance, she'd only ever treated him with disdain, but here she was on the ground while he looked down at her. He'd never been able to control the mind of a supernatural being before, but he was quite enjoying it. If only he had tried it sooner—centuries sooner—Ga Eul would never have suffered.

The only other bright spot in the situation was watching his little human outwit Su Gyeong and break free of her trance. A swell of pride burst within him at that. But of course she had. His little human was amazing. She wasn't physically strong like Yu Ri, and she had none of Ji Ah's cunning, but she understood the world of emotion far better than him, and she could see things about people that they didn't want her to see. She'd done it with him, and now she'd done it with Su Gyeong.

"You like playing games with my fiancée's head?" Rang dug the heel of his boot into Su Gyeong's skull, pressing hard enough to cut into her forehead. "I wonder how you'll like playing this game." He gave her the most manic of his smiles, the one Ga Eul loved. The one Su Gyeong had used on all her victims when he'd known her.

He felt all the powers of the elements at his fingertips, but this was too personal an assault to be answered with a lightning strike. He didn't want to break Su Gyeong's skull against a rock with one sickening crack. He wanted her to feel the life ooze out of her, slick and foul. He wanted her to dig her own claws into her guts, wrench her liver out, and stuff it in her mouth.

Rang had always liked it when his victims went away quick, but this, he didn't want to be quick.

Drop the knives. As soon as he issued the order to Su Gyeong's brain, she flung them away. Claws out, Rang commanded, and like marionette limbs, her hands obeyed. Her claws grew out long and sharp, and he drew them ever-so-gently to her scarred face. He let the tips of them rest there, teasingly; then he raked them through the mottled flesh of her cheeks. Su Gyeong gritted her teeth. She didn't make a sound as she clawed her own face apart, as blood dripped down her ears and her neck and dirtied the snow around her head. She struggled to get up, to move even an inch from the chokehold Rang had on her body, but she could only do what he forced her to do. Methodically, he drew her claws across her chest in a mirror image of Ga Eul's chest wound. He slashed them wildly at her legs, leaving marks akin to Ga Eul's briar scratches, only deeper and bloodier.

Su Gyeong trembled, her eyes filling with tears. Pleas for mercy that he wouldn't answer. She slashed her own eye, tore her own arm from its socket, and snapped her own wrist. Then Rang handed her his axe, and she severed her own muscles, starting with her right hamstring. Finally, she tried to cry out. A desperate, wide-eyed gaping of lips, like a fish struggling to breathe out of water. He almost made her gut herself, but he wanted to feel her struggle, so instead, he made her fling away his axe and drop her right arm, the only piece of her body that had much use by the end. Hauling her limp body off the forest floor, he put her in a chokehold. With her gasping in his grasp, he let go of his grip on her mind, and she jerked and clawed at the flesh of his lower arm, but he barely felt it, and it was too late.

Su Gyeong had tried to rip every human instinct out of him, and she'd succeeded on most counts, but it hadn't been enough. Not enough to make him stop loving his brother. Not enough to prevent him from loving Ga Eul. So he killed Su Gyeong, the fox who'd taught him to kill, who'd used the darkest parts of his past and his nature against him. He killed her, not in the way she'd taught him to kill, not with his teeth or his claws or his axe or any particular power. He killed her in the most human way, with only the brute strength of his arm locked around her throat, choking her while she clawed at him with her one intact hand, as weak and as terrified as Ga Eul must have felt when she was suffocating in Su Gyeong's illusory fire. Rang kept choking her...choking her...until he snapped her neck.