For all he knew, she could've been shouting at him with her entire lungs, but it came out as distant and as quiet as it did anyways.

He closed his eyes, letting the tears flow.

And he accepted his fate.

...

Her blood felt like it was curdling and boiling, writhing under her skin agonisingly. It felt like her blood was molten hot iron, and that searing hot metal was being pressed upon her skin.
She felt like she was being burned alive.

Her eyes were bloodshot, and they felt as if they had been dried out completely, that every single blood vessel in her eye had ruptured.
The light that shone into her eyes felt agonising, and her head throbbed excruciatingly.

She brought up her hands to her eyes, shielding them from the light, screaming.

It was a suffering beyond imaginable.
She had died once.

But the spirit had brought her back.

She wanted to die again. To stop it all. To stop the torment she was being put through.
She couldn't hear anything, see anything, nor taste anything other than blood.

Pain and blood.

She wanted to die again.
But she was fighting through it.
For them.

For everyone else.

...

Sunghoon dropped down to the ground, crumpling into Kazuha's arms as she caught him.
She was saying something. Or was she screaming?

Tears fell onto his shirt as he felt Kazuha pull him back, distancing him from Sakura.
He couldn't see her, neither could he even see Kazuha's face, his vision was so obscured.
He tried to breathe, to recover as quick as he could, but it felt almost impossible.

His lungs felt like they had shrunken by a tenfold, and his vision wasn't coming back to him fast enough.

He felt some other hands pulling him back, as some figures stood in front of them, supposedly shielding them from the monster.
Sunghoon could see the silhouettes of their faces staring down at him, turning their heads to each other and talking in concerned, muffled voices.

By now he was only able to make out certain words, but he also struggled to keep awake; a gradual drowsiness slowly crept up on him by the second.

But their hands continued to shake him, trying to keep him from losing consciousness. He too, also fought against it.
He had to stay awake.
He had to.

...

There had never been a moment where she'd ever thought that she'd see such a painful sight.
Sakura was writhing around, letting out a blood curdling scream. She tore at her own face, ears, nose and mouth as if she wanted to rip them from her head.

Behind her scream was such anguish and suffering.
Yunjin felt the sound embed into her mind right then and there.

She moved forwards, holding a hand to her comrade.
"Sakura..."

She needed to help her.
Sakura was dying before her eyes.

"Yunjin, you can't-"
Niki stopped her, pulling her back.

"I need to help her, Niki, let me go!" She shouted, trying to beat his hand away.

Tears flowed down her face, as Sakura's pained screams pounded in her ears.
She wanted to help her.
To stop her pain.

It broke her, to see Sakura like that. She didn't deserve it.
She tried to push Niki away, but he held onto her arm, shaking his head, apologising.
"I'm sorry Yunjin- I'm so sorry-"

She couldn't go. It was certain death.

It pained him, too, to see Sakura like that. He didn't know what was going on.
But he knew one thing.

It wasn't the spirit that was in pain. It was Sakura.
The Sakura he knew.

Sobs escaped from Yunjin's mouth, and she persisted in trying to tug herself away from Niki, a desperate hand outstretched to Sakura.

She needed to-

"What's happening?!?" Came a distressed shout behind them.

Heesung had come up behind them, and was gripping his wounded shoulder with one hand, and his blade in the other. Sunoo was behind him, trying to usher him back, frantically whispering his name, which he ignored.

"Heesung, move back." Sunoo told him.
He subtly looked at Niki right in the eyes, silently signalling that he and Yunjin should do the same.

Heesung shoved Sunoo away, moving beside Niki and Yunjin, an aggravated look on his face.

Niki cowered back slightly, scared, perplexed and shocked.

Heesung looked... determined in a way.
But not a good way.

He had a gleam in his eyes, but yet it seemed to glint evilly, as if foreshadowing malicious intent.
In the heat of everything, somehow that was what unsettled Niki in that moment more than anything.

What was he-

"SAKURA!"
A desperate yell erupted from beside him.
Yunjin suddenly broke free of Niki's grip, tearing herself away from him amidst his split concentration.

"NO! YUNJIN-" Niki screamed.

He reached out for her, but she batted him away, and he stumbled backwards, unable to keep her within reach.
Kazuha shouted out for Yunjin, clambering back up from Sunghoon's side, running for her.
"YUNJIN, NO, YOU CAN'T!"

Heesung cursed under his breath.

Now was the time.
He needed to do it now, or Yunjin would get herself killed.

He gripped his weapon tightly in his hand, and ran up with all his might.
His heart pounded in his ears, and his footsteps reverberated around the room.

The others called out his name, but he chose to block them off. He was completely focused.

He could see it.
It was there. Right there.
Just slightly off to the right.
The killing point.
The heart.

All it would take was a stab.
And it would all be over.

Sakura screamed, clutching, ripping, tearing at her face and ears, tears of blood and water flowing from her eyes.
She was completely defenceless and vulnerable.

There was nothing stopping him.

He got to Sakura first, and he reared back his weapon, his eyes focused on nothing but the place of Sakura's heart.

Heesung was going to stab her.
With his blade.

And not a Damascus.

...

Her heart felt like it had stopped.
An immeasurable amount of fear had coursed through her body at that very moment.
The moment she realised.

Heesung was heading straight for Sakura, without a Damascus blade.
He was going to kill the spirit, at the expense of her life.

She couldn't let it happen.
She couldn't let Sakura die.

She wasn't going to.
Sakura was going to live. After going through everything, reaching to such sacrifices that it put her life at risk countless times, Heesung was going to end it all in vain.

It was like her body reacted before her mind did.
A last ditch effort.

Yunjin threw herself at Heesung as he came in for the strike. Her vision went blank white as they collided, and she felt her entire body suddenly jolt back as Heesung and her slammed into each other, propelled completely off course.

She thudded across the ground, rolling limply as the both of came to a halt, sprawled across the floor from each other.
Her heart thudded in her head, and soon a nauseating wave of pain throbbed in its place.

Yunjin weakly brought up a hand to the side of her head, where the pain was worst.
She knew it'd be there.

Blood.
She looked at her hand.
There was blood on it.

She tried her best to look up, squinting through the sickening glow of the lights and the blood that glazed over one of her eyes.

Heesung. Where was Heesung?
Did she stop him?

Then, she saw him. He was there, not far from her, propped up by his arm, looking at her, spitting curses and grasping his already wounded shoulder with his other hand.

But it wasn't there.

His blade.
It wasn't in his hands.

Dread washed over her. Had she been too late?
She tried to get herself back on her feet, but her efforts were slow.

Someone came up to her, and supported her by her shoulders, but held her in place.
"Stay there. Don't get up, Yunjin. You're bleeding." came Sunoo's voice sternly.

She shook her head, persistent to get back up, yet to no avail.
"Sak- Sakura... What about-"

Yunjin broke off.
She had looked up, and saw the sight.

Sakura's shoulder was covered in black blood. In her shoulder, she could see, was a hilt sticking out, the blade lodged deep within.

Sakura had been stabbed.
But not in the heart.

But something chilled her to the bone more than that.
The room was encased in near silence.

It wasn't her ears.
It was really silent.

Sakura wasn't screaming anymore.
She was twitching.

Incomprehensible words and sounds were uttered from her mouth, and her neck clicked violently from side to side.
Sakura and the spirit were fighting to gain control.
There came pockets of cut out screams and growls, and her muscles convulsed uncontrollably. Her hands turned from normal hands to blood red, dark, elongated talons. Her eyes shifted away from a diluted brown-red tint back to its powerful red glow.

She was turning back into a monster.
But she was fighting it.

A shaking hand moved to and fro towards the blade impaled in her shoulder. Her hand trembled and trembled, like two different forces were pushing it in opposite directions.

Her face twisted from being one scrunched up in pain to the other being full of flaming hatred.

The spirit had never expected it.
Sakura was able to fight against it. It was thought to have been impossible.

Surely it wasn't weak.
Perhaps it just wasn't used to Sakura yet. There wasn't a single mortal who was able to stop themselves from getting possessed.

Sakura was no exclusion.
And she surely wasn't going to win against it.

But she was going to fight nonetheless.

With one loud grunt, the spirit yanked Heesung's blade from Sakura's shoulder, spurting black blood upon the floor. Her eyes flashed with pain before they were overcome with hatred.

It wanted to push Sakura's conscious out of the way, but she was holding on.
It was no use.

The spirit needed to deal with Sakura first before the hunters.
It would be easier then. And it would ensure that the hunters would never be able to overpower it.

The monster took a few strides back, glaring around the room.
Soon enough, it thought, it would be formidable enough to kill them all. It just needed to get Sakura out of the way.

It just needed-

The spirit stumbled, letting out a screech.
Sakura fell to the floor, spluttering and coughing up blood.

Red blood.

"No-" she gasped.

Kazuha watched on in horror, and called out to her.
"Sakura, SAKURA!"

It was the first time she was able to speak. It wasn't the spirit.

Sakura struggled up, grasping the wall, nearby furniture, anything to stabilise herself.
It was Sakura.
She was moving.

She could talk.

But she didn't stay. Not even for a moment.
She turned around, and dragged her way to the hatch opening, striking it open.

Sakura turned to them, pushing out one last sentence through a strained voice.
"Don't come for me..."

And she turned away, running off into the night.

...