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

In which we answer the question "Okay but wait, how did Celine KNOW Honmoon Weapons would harm Rumi?". This is how. Fair warning, this gets rough.

-x-X-x-

Mi-yeong has been dead for fifteen hours, thirty-three minutes, and forty-one seconds. Forty-two seconds. Forty-three seconds. Forty-four seconds.

Celine stares out at nothing in particular as time continues to stretch forward in direct defiance of what she'd always thought to be a simple truth. Namely that… that life wouldn't be worth living without either part of her soul. Mi-yeong. Jia. Her better selves.

She'd always believed that losing either one of the others would be the death of her. Celine had always accepted that if she wasn't the first to go, she would probably be the second. So then why is she still here? Why is she still breathing?

Mi-yeong is gone and Celine is just sitting there rather than following after her. Why?

… She knows why, of course. The child. Rumi. Mi-yeong had died, not with either of their name's on her lips, but rather her daughter's. She'd spent her final breaths begging Celine to protect and keep her baby safe. To watch over and raise Rumi. To love her as Celine had always loved Mi-yeong. And Celine had agreed. She'd promised.

As long as Mi-yeong's daughter still drew breath, so would Celine. So long as Rumi still needed her, Celine would have to be there for her, to fulfill her promise to Mi-yeong.

… But then again, maybe Rumi didn't need her. Celine had never been good with kids anyways. She'd never been the one that their younger fans gravitated towards. That was always Mi-yeong… and Jia.

Celine would always take a step back when it came to handling the children who liked their music, knowing full well that she would just make a mess of such things. Jia and Mi-yeong knew how to handle them. They knew how to talk to such young, innocent souls.

Perhaps the same could be said to hold true here as well. Jia hadn't been there to make the same promise to Mi-yeong, but she would step up, wouldn't she? She would do a better job of raising and caring for Rumi than Celine ever could.

If anything, Celine leaving it all in Jia's hands would be a better way of keeping her promise to Mi-yeong rather than sticking around to muck things up. She-

The cry of an infant splits the air, sending Celine to her feet with wide eyes, the bottle of soju she'd been nursing this entire time forgotten at her feet. Especially when Jia's voice carries to her ears a moment later.

"Celine!"

Racing down the hall, Celine arrives in mere seconds, her twin swords already manifested from the Honmoon in the event of a demon attack. At first she thinks she's right to, because Jia has her battle-axe manifested as well, held at her side as she stands over Rumi's crib.

Only… there's no demons to be seen. Had Jia already killed them? Her remaining soulmate turns away from Rumi's crib then and meets Celine's eyes with a bright, cheery smile that nevertheless manages to rub her the wrong way in this moment. Celine has always loved Jia's smile. But this time… this time there's something… off about Jia's eyes.

"Celine! Come here, look!"

Confused, Celine hesitantly approaches the crib, swords drooping down to point at the floor as she arrives at Jia's side. She peers down at Mi-yeong's daughter in confusion when Jia gestures to her. As far as Celine can tell, Rumi looks exactly as she has for the past few days since she was born. A small thing, perhaps a little too small, with strands of purple hair atop her head.

Except no. Looking closer, Celine sees that the infant's face is currently scrunched up in pain. As Jia gestures, Celine's eyes finally alight upon exactly what she's pointing at. There, on the back of one of Rumi's tiny hands… a small cut dripping red with blood.

The breath escapes Celine's lungs at lightning speed as she curses and reaches for Rumi. How did she get hurt?! How did this- but Jia stops her, blocking her with a laugh.

"Celine! Stop! You don't have to help it."

What? Celine's confusion only mounts as Jia's unsettling smile grows a fraction of an inch more.

"I suspected as soon as I saw the hair. No such thing as natural purple hair is there? Not among humans, anyways. And after what happened with its father… well, I was right to test my suspicions. Celine… that cut didn't come from anything mundane. It came from the edge of my axe."

Jia flips around her battle-axe, showing it to Celine. There, on one of the sharp tips of the weapon… a droplet of red blood.

"Why… why would you do that?"

It didn't make any sense. Jia was… she had always been the brightest star in their little three-person constellation. Mi-yeong was the one with the biggest heart and kindest soul, but Jia had the brightest smile and the happiest laugh. Except… as she giggles now, it sounds wrong to Celine's ears. Grating. Unnatural. Unhinged.

"… Don't you see what this means, Celine? The only things our weapons can hurt are demons. If it were a human child, my axe wouldn't be able to cut it. This… this thing isn't Mi-yeong's daughter. It's a demon. And we kill demons."

Celine just stares, still struggling to comprehend what's happening. Jia just smiles, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

"Don't worry. I wouldn't have done anything permanent without you. In fact, I figured I'd leave it for you to take care of. This thing took Mi-yeong from us, after all. From you. I felt like you should be the one to have the honor of avenging her death."

Celine looks down at the infant in the crib and then back up at Jia, horrified.

"You- wha- I… I can't. She's… I made a promise. Jia, she's all we have left of Mi-yeong!"

The smile drops off of Jia's face like a stone. Her eyes narrow into slits.

"It. Not she. And it is a demon spawn, Celine. My weapon confirmed it."

"Demons don't bleed, Jia!"

"Maybe they do when they're this young! My axe wouldn't be able to harm a normal baby!"

That was unfortunately true. Which meant… which meant Rumi had demon blood- no, Celine couldn't let herself think about that. She couldn't let herself even consider what that might mean. She had to focus on what she knew to be true.

"But Rumi was chosen by the Honmoon! Mi-yeong's Mantle passed to her! She's a hunter, just like her mother… just like us!"

Jia scoffs, shaking her head.

"The Honmoon made a mistake. Or maybe the demon tricked it somehow. A demon as a hunter? You know as well as I do that's impossible Celine. And even if it were possible… it can't be allowed to stand. For all we know, this could be a plot by Gwi-Ma to destroy the Honmoon from within!"

Impossible. But Celine hesitates too long and Jia… Jia snarls.

"We have to kill it, Celine! It's the only way to make sure the Mantle passes on again to someone else! Someone worthy! Someone human! And if you won't do it, then I'll do it myself!"

Celine's eyes widen as Jia suddenly lifts her battle-axe over her head, intending to bring it crashing down on the crib and the crying infant inside of it. Without thinking, she moves, crashing into Jia from the side and knocking her away before she can deliver the fatal blow.

"What the fuck, Celine?!"

"Please Jia! Stop and think! Don't do this! Rumi is innocent!"

"That thing is not innocent! It took Mi-yeong from us!"

Jia sounds crazed… no, more than that, she IS crazed. She's always been the berserker of the group when it comes to combat. Her weapon suits her in that way, allowing her to go wild while Mi-yeong supported them with arrows from her bow and Celine handled everything else with her swords.

In close quarters however, the larger weapon that Jia wields is a bit of a detriment. More than that though… Celine has always been the better fighter. Just by a little bit. Just enough to keep Jia away from the crib until eventually the other hunter is no longer trying to go around Celine to kill Rumi anymore… no… now she's trying to go THROUGH Celine.

Only, they can't harm one another with their weapons. Not truly. This is perfectly fine with Celine to be fair. She just needs Jia to calm down and think about this all rationally. It's become clear to her now that the other woman hadn't been doing well. That's Celine's fault. She just needs to-

Jia abruptly drops her weapon back into the threads of the Honmoon and punches Celine right in the face. Eyes widening, Celine stumbles back a few steps, her jaw screaming in pain and a trickle of blood dripping from one of her nostrils.

She doesn't have time to consider the damage though, because Jia immediately tries to make use of the opening to resummon her battle-axe and rush Rumi's crib again, sprinting past Celine in the process. In turn, Celine just barely manages to spin around to hook her swords around Jia's midsection and then plant a foot in the other woman's back so she can toss her backwards over her head.

Jia's feet strike the ceiling and she runs along it in the process, forcing Celine to whip around yet again as her fellow hunter lands on her feet, snarl on her face. Her heart breaks at the sight. She doesn't want to do this. She doesn't want to fight her fellow hunter. But she also can't let Jia kill the last piece of Mi-yeong. She can't let Jia kill a baby.

"Jia… please."

But her broken cry is lost on the other woman at this point. And things only get more and more violent from there, until their weapons are gone once more and they're just hitting each other with their hands and feet, outright brawling across the house.

The Hunter's Mantle that resides within each of them makes them extremely tough as a general rule. Stronger, faster, hardier. They could leap from the top of a multi-story building and survive the landing without issue. They could go toe to toe with everything but the biggest demons and always be physically fine.

And… they could tear apart a house while desperately fighting one another. Celine is just glad she's the first to throw Jia through a wall, and that it's the wall opposite of where Rumi's crib is. From there, she's able to get the other woman out of the bedroom and into the living room at least.

Not that things get easier. Jia just fights harder, no matter how much Celine begs her to listen, no matter how much she pleads with her to calm down.

"TRAITOR! You would side with demonspawn over our duty! Gwi-Ma has corrupted you! When did you make a deal with him, huh?! Were you in on it the entire time?!"

Jia is practically frothing at the mouth as she accuses Celine of treachery. Celine wishes she could throw the words right back, but she can't. She knows Jia would never make a deal with Gwi-Ma. She knows the other woman hasn't been corrupted by demons. This is all her. And that makes it so much worse.

The fighting escalates until they're both bleeding from a dozen spite-inflicted wounds. Celine hadn't started out trying to hurt Jia. She just wanted her to stop. But the more they fought, the more it became clear that Jia was never going to stop. Not until she got what she wanted. And Celine… Celine couldn't let that happen.

It feels so sudden when she finds herself abruptly on top of Jia. Her hands are around the other woman's neck, squeezing down hard as Jia claws at her and spits in her face. But Celine doesn't let her go, even as Jia's nails aim for her eyes, trying to scrape them out of her skull. The other hunter never stops fighting. Not even after a normal human would have passed out from lack of oxygen.

In the end… in the end, Celine has no choice. A ragged scream full of emotion and horror rips its way out of her throat… even as the sound of bones snapping and a neck breaking fills the air.

C-CRACK-S-SNAP!

Beneath her, Jia goes limp at long last, the fight leaving her only in death. Her eyes, filled with hate and eternal accusation, stare up at Celine lifelessly.

Pulling her hands away from Jia's neck, staring at them in disbelief as they begin to tremble and shake, Celine's breathing becomes uneven. Until finally, she wails at what she's done. At what she had to do.

She wails and wails, screaming in horror and clawing at her head. Another part of her, another of piece of her soul… dead. This time at her hands. It wasn't a demon who killed Jia. It was her. It was Celine.

In the end, Celine doesn't know how long she kneels there, wailing and sobbing. It's only when another high-pitched voice reaches her ears that she stops. Rumi's cries echo through the destroyed house and Celine goes still as she kneels there next to Jia's corpse.

Then, after a moment, she slowly rises to her feet, exhaustion and pain accompanying her on every step as she drags herself towards the crib.

She made a promise, after all.

-x-X-x-

"Jia… Jia was wrong, Bobby… Rumi is a hunter… she's not a demon, she's a hunter…"

Bobby can only listen on in horror as Celine drunkenly recounts the details of the day she was forced to kill her bandmate. He… he doesn't think Celine is lying. In fact, he doesn't doubt for a moment that Celine is telling the truth. She killed Jia because Jia was going to kill Rumi. Plain and simple.

Except obviously, it wasn't plain and simple for Celine. Fuck, she had just lost Mi-yeong a few days before and then been forced to murder Jia to save Mi-yeong's daughter. From what little Bobby understood of how this hunter shit worked, he's shocked that Celine even managed to stay sane after losing them both in such a manner.

He'd always known the CEO of Sunlight Entertainment to be strong-willed, but this was something else entirely. She'd lived through tragedies that would have broken anyone else half a dozen times over… and she'd kept going.

Not because she hadn't broken… but because even as she shattered into a million pieces, somehow she'd still managed to convince herself she had to keep going. No matter what. For Rumi.

"I fucked up though, Bobby… taught Mira and Zoey the same way we were taught. I thought… I had to. I thought it was… only way to keep 'em safe… s'why… can't tell 'em. They'll try to kill Rumi… j-just like Jia did…"

… Fuck. He's tempted to just rip the bandage off and tell Celine outright that Mira and Zoey know already and aren't going to hurt Rumi. But Bobby is afraid of how Celine might act in her current state. He can't leave her alone either. But this? This is beyond him. He needs… he needs reinforcements.

Carefully, making sure Celine doesn't notice, Bobby pulls his phone out and sends a text one handed. Hopefully Rumi and the girls can get here quickly…

-x-X-x-

A/N: Well that sure was fun! Back to the Tower next time~

I don't know about you guys, but I'm having a blast with these chapters~

Feedback is GREATLY appreciated, every comment helps me shape a story like this one!