A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next FIVE chapters are up on my Patreon for early access!

Rumi is spiraling. But surely Celine will be able to handle all of this, she's always rock solid after all!

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He knew. Fuck, he knew.

Rumi is glad to have spent so much time training her self-control, because she's pretty sure that's the only thing keeping her from outwardly unraveling right now. Inwardly? She's not doing so hot.

The demon had looked her right in the eyes and all but told her that the Golden Honmoon wasn't going to set her free. His exact words were that the Golden Honmoon wouldn't do what she hoped it would. It wouldn't erase her patterns. It wouldn't remove her demon half. Or it would… but it would take her with them, maybe.

Now, whether Rumi believed him or not on that front was another question entirely. It could all still just be a trick designed to get them to stop just shy of completing their ultimate goal. But what Rumi was absolutely sure of was the fact that Jinu knew about… her. He knew her patterns, he knew her heritage. He knew she was half demon.

Frankly, she should be panicking harder right about now. But even as she's unraveling inwardly, Rumi finds herself sneaking glances towards the demon that they're escorting back to their tower. Not just because he's unfortunately very hot. But because… because he's warm.

And yes, she knows how that sounds. But it really is the best way to describe it. Ever since he sang those lyrics (and Rumi had definitely noticed that they weren't from any HUNTR/X songs) and showed them the light of his supposed 'soul', Rumi had been feeling this strange sense of… kinship to him. Almost like something was calling out to her from across the physical space she was judiciously keeping between them.

She didn't like it. No… if she was being completely honest, she didn't like that she liked it. Whatever he was doing to her… it had to be some kind of trick. This feeling of 'home', of 'safety' and 'belonging'… it was all a lie. Had to be.

Fortunately, there are no complications on the way back to the tower. Though that in and of itself seems strange to Rumi. After days of testing the bounds of their endurance and stamina, Gwi-Ma just happens to stop ripping holes in the Honmoon the very same night that they go to meet this demon in the park?

If Rumi was feeling generous, she might say that her fuckup the night of the failed live performance for Golden has maybe run its course. Maybe the Honmoon has healed back to its previous strength in the time since thanks to all the love and support from the fans.

But she's not feeling THAT generous. No, something stinks. She's convinced that not everything here is what it seems…

Besides, someone has to keep their damn guard up! Zoey is completely taken with the demon's damn pets and even Mira is starting to be charmed by the bastard. As their leader, Rumi would just have to pick up the slack. She would have to do enough looking out for all of them combined.

… Though she would be lying if she said she wasn't looking forward to getting the demon to Celine and putting command of this whole mess in the veteran hunter's far more capable hands. Rumi was in over her head at this point, what with Zoey and Mira asking questions she'd never thought about before and the demon all but bludgeoning her in the face with the fact that he knows about her patterns. He was keeping her secret for the time being, but he still knew.

Finally, they arrive back at their penthouse, taking the private passage that they always do when patrolling to avoid being caught by cameras or even their own staff. Of course, Rumi's relief at making it home is a little bit diminished by the fact that she allowed herself to be talked into bringing the demon's pets. Not to mention the detour…

Indeed, the first thing that happens as they all step off of the elevator is the bird and tiger appearing out of the ground on the balcony outside… in full view of Celine and Bobby. The latter lets out a shout of fright while the former shouts in anger and immediately tries to draw a weapon from the Honmoon that doesn't materialize.

That's to be expected though. Celine has been… retired for a long time. Her hunter's mantle in particular had passed onto Zoey many years ago now. She's still connected to the Honmoon, able to see and interact with it, but she's not one of the Chosen Three anymore. She's not an official hunter.

"Bobby, get behind me."

That doesn't stop her from taking command of the situation and readying herself to protect the designated civilian in the room with her life though. Rumi opens her mouth to defuse the situation, but before she can Zoey does it for her.

"Wait! It's okay Celine! They're friendly!"

Bounding forward past Celine and Bobby, Zoey all but throws herself back onto the tiger's massive, plush blue body. At the same time, the tiger sits back on his haunches, doing that slow out of sync blink he does. As though his massive fangs and huge clawed paws aren't dangerous weapons or something.

Celine stares incredulously, while Bobby turns to regard all of them.

"Oh! Jinu, you're here! Heh, what happened to not wanting to come to the tower?"

The demon just grins as Celine finally whips around as well. Shaking his head, he shrugs before moving to the nearby kitchen counter in order to set down all the snacks he'd pilfered on their way up to the penthouse. Rumi still couldn't believe she'd let him get away with that as well but all he'd had to do was say some of it was for his damn pets and suddenly he had Zoey on his side!

"Wasn't given much of a choice. The 'you're coming with us!' was very cutely growled though."

Rumi squawks at the demon, all thought of his supposed snacking leaving her mind in a moment as she rushes to defend herself.

"Cute?! It wasn't CUTE! I was being THREATENING!"

He just smirks back at her.

"Sure. I was extremely intimidated, Ms. Hunter."

Oh Honmoon, now the blasted demon is just humoring her. Rumi wants to curl up and die. Especially because Mira is smirking like she finds the entire exchange far too amusing and Rumi is pretty sure even Zoey is hiding her giggles over in the tiger's blue fur.

"Enough."

But thankfully they have Celine. Celine will figure this out. Celine will know what to do. Celine…

Rumi turns to regard her mentor with a look of relief, more than happy to pass this off to her. Only to then freeze up when she sees the look on Celine's face and immediately recognizes that the older woman has been drinking. Specifically, she's been drinking coffee… and a lot of it.

They'd all noticed the bags under Celine's eyes and the pallor of her skin on their way out of the penthouse earlier. But then, not getting enough sleep was pretty normal for hunters so none of them had said anything. Now… now though, Rumi's eyes dart over to the penthouse kitchen where she sees an empty, used coffee pot sitting on the counter next to the coffeemaker.

Eyes widening, Rumi then looks to Bobby, who just looks back at her and slowly nods. Paling, Rumi mouths 'how much', only to get back 'all of it'.

Oh no.

"You must be Celine then. The last Sunlight Sister. You look like shit."

Oh no.

Rumi squawks while her mentor and adoptive mother stomps across the intervening space and gets right up in the demon's face, studying him like an insect without a hint of fear in her body. Despite the fact that she can't even summon a weapon from the Honmoon, she seems completely unconcerned with the danger.

"Don't pretend like you don't already know of me, demon."

The demon just shrugs.

"Sure, I know of you. But I haven't been up to the human world very much in the past four hundred years. Heard lots of stories about you though. How you held everything together until these three could debut. Frankly, you're to be commended. I'm pretty sure even Gwi-Ma learned to fear you after how many demons you managed to dust solo."

Rumi blinks. Was… was the demon talking Celine up? On the one hand, he was a demon. Obviously it was an attempt at manipulation. On the other hand, Rumi only knew bits and pieces of what Celine had to go through while raising her and seeking out Mira and Zoey. Celine didn't ever talk about it but she'd vanished all the time when Rumi was younger, going who knew where to handle demon incursions… all by herself.

Scoffing, Celine reaches out and pokes the demon in his chest.

"Flattery will get you nowhere with me."

Then, her twitchy eyes dart down to where she's poking, registering the HUNTR/X merch he's wearing and she snarls.

"And take off that shirt! You don't have the right to wear their name!"

"No!"

Rumi blanches as the word rips out of her lips before the demon can do as he's told. Him and Celine both look at her… actually, everyone looks at her. She blushes and fidgets.

"I mean… it… it's fine. We don't really mind. Better than him being shirtless, at least… right?"

That seems to get Celine slowly nodding before she pulls back.

"… Fine. Yes. Back on task."

Oh Honmoon, save her from an overly caffeinated Celine.

"Demon. What are you?"

The demon opens his mouth to speak but before he can…

"Oh! Oh, I know! I can explain this one! I bet you'll even be able to appreciate my references, Celine!"

Zoeey…

But the youngest member of their group is already up off of the giant tiger and hopping across the penthouse to join them again. She smiles brightly as Celine blinks owlishly at her.

"Okay, so first we thought he might be like Blade."

Rumi opens her mouth to shut this down, to tell Zoey that the last thing they need to be doing is confusing Celine with random outdated references from America. Except…

"What, like the movies?"

What.

Rumi turns back to her mentor and stares at her. Out of the corner of her eye, she can tell Mira is doing the exact same thing. Zoey, meanwhile, lights up like a fucking Christmas Tree.

"Yeah! Exactly! You know about Blade? Oh who am I kidding, of course you do!"

Celine hums before slowly nodding.

"Yes. Mi-yeong took us to see the first one together after our first Idol Awards win. We didn't have quite the explosive start that you girls did… it took us two years after our debut to secure our first victory and really start strengthening the Honmoon so she wanted to celebrate in style, or so she said. We ended up seeing all three of those movies as they came out… I preferred the last one the best."

There's a fond smile on Celine's lips as she reminisces and for a moment Rumi yearns to know more. And then Zoey makes a strangled noise in the back of her throat.

"Trinity? Blade: Trinity was your favorite? That's… certainly an opinion, Celine. Um… anyways, so my first thought was that maybe Jinu was like Blade. But ya know, instead of a half-vampire who fights vampires, he would be a half-demon who fights demons!"

Celine furrows her brow at the idea before shaking her head.

"Oh. No, half-demons don't work like that."

… What the fuck Celine?! Rumi goes still. The demon also goes still. Luckily for them, Mira, Zoey, and Bobby are all too busy staring at Celine. Mira is the one who says what they're all saying.

"Wait… half-demons are real?"

Yeah, this night was officially a disaster, wasn't it? At least Celine seems to realize what she'd said in her overly caffeinated, sleep deprived state because she suddenly looks a little panicked. Thankfully, she has the good sense NOT to glance at Rumi, though her eyes flicker in that direction in what looks like an aborted move to do so.

"Ah… well…"

Seriously? Rumi is about ready to scream. Celine, you can't just trail off like that! You need to come up with SOMETHING here!

Unfortunately, in the ensuing awkward silence, Mira decides to double down.

"Celine… did you know that some demons were once humans?"

Blinking, her brow furrowing at what must seem like a non-sequitur to her, the veteran hunter slowly nods.

"Of course. Deals are how Gwi-Ma corrupts some souls without having to send the rank and file up to collect them physically. He can make deals, usually of the monkey's paw type, and then suck the souls down to the demon realm once the deal comes due."

Mira has that hungry look on her face that Rumi recognizes as her 'I'm memorizing every word of this shit' look. But then to be fair, Rumi and Zoey are hanging off of Celine's words as well. Because this… this wasn't part of their training. And of course, Mira wasn't willing to let that go.

"And when were you going to tell us that exactly? We haven't trained under you for years now. What, did it just slip your mind or something?"

Again, sleep deprived and hopped up on too much coffee, Celine realizes her mistake too late. Though she does finally straighten up and offer Mira a scowl as she gets herself back under control.

"Do not take that tone with me, Mira. It was not information that you girls needed to do your duty. It wasn't relevant to protecting the Honmoon."

"Not relevant?! How could it not be-!"

"Your training was unconventional! It had to be, I was all that was left! Some things fell to the wayside, and the origins of demons didn't matter because all you had to do was learn to kill them quickly and protect the damn Honmoon!"

Mira grits her teeth, taken aback by Celine's vehemence. But into that ensuing silence… Zoey can't help but speak up.

"What about half-demons though? What are they? How have we never encountered one before? What… what's their deal?"

Celine whips around on the youngest of them, her eyes narrowed as she growls.

"That is not relevant either, Zoey. Stay on task and focus on the mission. The nature of half-demons is unimportant compared to completing the Golden Honmoon and sealing the demon realm away forever!"

Zoey bites her lower lip. Mira scowls angrily. Rumi wonders if she should step in… but if she does, who in the hell does she side with? Celine is right… she has to be right. But Mira and Zoey are…

In the end, it doesn't matter. Rumi doesn't get the chance to choose because instead, the demon chuckles and in doing so draws all of the attention back to him. Celine's in particular.

Smirking as the retired hunter glares at him, the demon raises his hands in faux surrender.

"Oh, don't mind me. Just… enjoying the show."

Celine stiffens up… and then sneers.

"I'm sure you are. Let's see if we can't do something about that."

And then, much to Rumi's utter astonishment, Celine reaches out and… does something to the Honmoon. She manipulates it, as is her right as a veteran hunter… but it's more than Rumi has ever seen Celine do before. She doesn't manifest a weapon or anything, but the Honmoon nevertheless roars out in Rumi's head as it rises up and snaps onto first the demon's limbs and then the rest of his body.

In an instant, he's forced down to his knees, covered from head to toe in the glowing deep blue threads of the Honmoon as it locks him in place. He grunts, gritting his teeth and glaring up at Celine as she smirks down at him smugly.

"Have a care how you speak from now on demon. Because now that you are held within the Honmoon's layers, sending you back to the demon realm from whence you came would be child's play."

Rumi finds herself making eye contact with Mira and Zoey… and she sees the question in their eyes. In the end, all she can do is shake her head in response. No, she didn't know Celine could do that. No, Celine never taught her to do that.

Just… just another thing that their mentor had apparently been keeping them in the dark about. But now wasn't the time to air any more dirty laundry between them and Celine. Not in front of the demon anyways. So Rumi moves over to Mira and Zoey and steps between them, taking their hands in her own and giving them a good, strong squeeze.

It helps, she thinks. Helps to calm them, helps to center them. Most importantly, it helps to keep them quiet… while Celine does whatever she needs to in order to protect the Honmoon.

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A/N: Dun dun DUUUUN!

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