A hand and a muzzle of a rifle preceded a man entering the barn, followed by another, under the cover of darkness. They stepped in stealthily, cautious. The first man did a military signal to his comrade to go left, while he went right, ignoring the blood of the corpses of the hounds, blending with the mud.

Y/N stayed still as a rock, waiting for them to conclude their search. Their movements were clearly of military training, which made her extremely nervous. Although, she doubted that they could ever suspect a sixteen-year-old, still small enough to hide in an empty barrel, pointing her rifle through a hole.

One of them climbed the ladder to the upper floor. He lit his small oil lamp and looked around.

"Colin! They took some guns and rifles, and stuff" Called the man in a loud whisper.

His comrade shushed him, and said barely audibly, "They ain't here."

The girl observed through the hole the other man climbing down the ladder. The night vision goggles permitted her to see clearly through the pitch darkness.

"How'd you know they're not still here?" She heard them chat.

"Must be one of 'em gypsy pricks again."

The other hummed in agreement.

The girl carefully slipped out of the barrel and kneeled on the edge, aiming the rifle at one of them while they made their way out. And just when she started to relax, one of them stopped, nudging his companion and pointing his hand somewhere in front of him.

Her heart kicked her ribcage so strongly that she became dizzy when she heard him saying: "Colin look! Do you see that? There's someone there---!"

Her finger acted before she could process it, pulling the trigger of the rifle, and firing a bullet right through the man's skull. His body fell and pilled up with the war hounds. His comrade immediately jumped out of the barn and threw himself behind the wooden door. Y/N cursed under her breath, tossing the rifle to the ground and drawing one of the revolvers from her belt, being lighter and faster to reload and better for close proximity combat.

The WRA soldier fired a few hits from behind the door. She fell to her stomach and pointed her gun at the oil lamp that had fallen aside from the man's corpse. She shot it, making sure she had the total darkness to her advantage.

For a few seconds, only the rain was audible, for both opponents were waiting for the other to take action. Y/N was more patient however, having her night goggles aiding her, compared to her enemy who was blindly waiting behind the door.

"Come on you bastard," she whispered to herself.

More time passed. Neither made the first move, scared to expose themselves, waste ammo, or worse accidentally hit a landmine. Y/N eventually grew inevitably impatient, she had Taehyung in her mind, as well as herself. She didn't have time to waste any longer.

She looked around and weighed her options. The window! She thought. On the roof, she could have a better visual and a high vantage point. So she climbed the table and opened the roof window. Rain showered down upon her as she emerged on the slippery roof and moved towards the edge, crawling on all fours. At the edge of the tall barn she looked down at the ground, but no one was there, nor can she hear anything. She crawled marginally, her eyes fixed on the ground, fearing that she may lose any type of movement, or worse her balance.

Her concentration was such, that after circling the roof, she failed to notice on time the dark silhouette that was erratically moving towards the roof window. The two figures let out a cry and the man toppled on her and fell. Panic overcame the girl when she realized that it was the WRA soldier that she was looking for.

Before she could reach for her revolver, the man kicked her in the face while laying on the ground. Flashes of white preceded the pain that stung her nose and face. She thought she was going to faint when she instinctively rolled out of the way before he could lunge another kick. But little did she know when half of her body hung from the edge of the roof. With blind faith she hooked her fingers on the first object she could touch. Which was the soldier's slippery boot, and the other on the last step of the ladder that he evidently used to climb on the roof.

The man jerked his leg, which successfully freed him from her grip, making her slip off the roof and hang prehensile from the ladder. The momentum forced her down a few steps and no matter her struggle to firmly grasp the ladder, the water on the metal was like a lubricant.

Before she realized it, she clumsily dropped meters down and splashed flat on her back in a puddle of mud, a gush of air escaping her lungs.

Her heart raced, her head spinning, vision blurred by the pain. She wanted to get up, but her muscles did not respond. The soldier climbed down the ladder and kneeled on top of her, grabbing her by her shirt.

"Now I've got, you little gypsy shite!" He said spitefully, still convinced of his theory that she was a gypsy thief.

He drew his pistol and pointed her to her forehead.

Y/N prepared herself for death when one last attempt to live lit a bulb in her hazy mind. So she did the only thing she could do.

"Hey! Hey, dimwit! You know who I am! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?" she said loudly.

She saw the man's smirk through her cracked night vision goggles.

"I am the emperor's niece! Princess Selenya!" she blurted.

The WRA soldier drew his eyebrows close, his jaw dropped down, and the grip on his pistol loosened. A glimmer of greedy triumph appeared in his widened eyes. What a price had fallen in his hands. He smiled cunningly. And when everything seemed to go his way, he opened his mouth to speak, but instead of words, blood flashed out and sprayed onto Y/N's face.

While distracted by his surprise at this information, she managed to slip a hand into her pocket and draw a knife which she used to stab him in the neck. His hot blood poured out like water from a valve, soaking her clothes. Turning her white shirt red.

The shock of the vile scene served as a wake-up call. She pushed his body off of her and jumped up, turned to the wall, leaned on it with all of her weight, removed her breathing mask, and spewed vomit from the stench of blood that her mind had psychologically transferred into her mouth.

After relieving her system, Y/N stayed still for a moment. Trembling. Unable to move. She coughed and cried, and vomited again. But that did not stop her from walking back to Taehyung, as she had promised.

~

Taehyung hadn't moved an inch since Y/N left him. He had clenched his jaw so tightly that he swore he could feel the taste of his own blood from the pressure on his gums. The cold had him shaking like a leaf. He had wrapped his arms around his chest, in a futile attempt to keep himself warm. His trapped leg was stiff and sore from the weight.

But none of this could compare with the soul-crushing worry he had for Y/N. He had heard dogs barking and gunshots. He was fighting his own inner battle, trying not to think of the worse. And just when everything went quiet again, he saw a dim yellow light approaching him.

Y/N strolled hurriedly toward him, carrying an oil lamp, and what seemed to be weapons and bags.

Only when he felt a wave of relief did he realize that he was barely breathing by his anxiety for her. But that too was extinguished when his eyes fell on the huge blotch of blood on her shirt, face, and neck.

"Oh, my God...Oh, my God, Y/N! You're bleeding!" His cracked voice cried with panic, unable to hold his tears.

Y/N kneeled near the landmine Taehyung had stepped on and rummaged into her bag of tools.

With a dark expression, she said, "This is not my blood, Tae"

Silence followed her statement and Taehyung gulped roughly.

It took her about an hour to disarm the landmine, after which the boy lifted his leg with a grateful sigh and followed Y/N into one I the abandoned houses she had found. There they found new dry clothes and threw away theirs.

Taehyung went for the fireplace.

"No fire," she said tersely while adjusting her new coat.

The boy stared at her. She was jumpy and restless and hadn't stopped shaking.

"Come here," he called her, but his upset tone did not go unnoticed by Y/N.

"I'm fine," she muttered harshly.

"No, you're not!"

"I said I'm fine!"

The anger and worry he had been keeping in, finally leaked.

"I told you not to go! You never listen to anyone!"

"Oh, spare me the lecture, Taeberious!"

"You could've died!" He raised his voice louder, taking a step forward, "Don't you ever think about the consequences of your actions? What it would do to me if something happened to you?!"

"Oh, please stop pretending that you wouldn't have done the same in my place!" She shouted aggressively, also taking a step forward, "You wanted me to just abandon you and run?! What are you stupid or something?"

In the dark environment of the wooden house, he saw the glint of tears building up in her eyes. And that's when he realized his mistake.

"Can't you just be grateful that we made it out alive! I risked my life for you! But I did it because I lov...."

Her voice was muffled in his chest when Taehyung enfolded her tightly in his arms.

"I know. I'm sorry," he whispered with regret choking him, "I'm so sorry...Thank you."

He kissed her forehead.

They stayed in that house for a few more hours. Y/N told Taehyung all she had witnessed. The war hounds, the armory disguised as an Inventor's barn, and the WRA soldiers watching over the city.

"We have to blow up the barn," she said.

"What? Why?"

"Because this whole city is a trick. They set up a staged state of vacancy so that the Eastern Empire focuses on attacking the city which we previously escaped. This is a central spot for the WRA's restocking and warehouse position. Weapons and ammunition of all kinds. Even food and bandages, I bet," she explained while Taehyung helped to clean the blood off her skin.

"If it's such a crucial location, then why guard it with just a pack of war hounds, landmines, and two soldiers on a night shift?" He asked.

"Think about it for a second. The Easterners rule by air power, so if they see an abandoned city, why go to the trouble to bombard it? They will obviously focus on a guarded post. It's counterintuitive but ingenious. There should be a railway station around the area for sure, which they use for their contraband cargo. I wager a clandestine train* owned by gangs."

(*Clandestine Train = The same train in which Hoseok, Jungkook, and Yoongi boarded in the previous chapters)

"Yeah, I think you're right," said Taehyung.

She lifted her head and looked at him, "We have to blow up the barn, Tae. This way we may stop this useless civil war. Or delay them at least. Make them waste time trying to get their supplies back. Prevent this little feud from spreading. Which could save lives from bullets and the plague."

Taehyung nodded.

They gathered their belongings and headed to the barn, this time on high alert for the landmines. The cold morning was already looming, so they hurried and used the WRA's explosives to rig the entire barn with dynamite. Y/N devised a simple long-range detonator that would permit them to put distance between them and the explosion.

To their fortune, they found the two horses of the WRA guards that Y/N killed, in a stable under the watchtower. They loaded their stuff and mounted the horses, slowly galloping away from the city.

Just about at the right distance, at the steps of the forest, Y/N checked the detonator for a signal. They watched the phantom town from afar, slowly being lit by the rising sun.

"Alright then, this is far enough, I think," said Y/N ready to detonate.

"What a pity. So many family homes will be destroyed. And so many families will return to never find a home again," Taehyung commented woefully.

"I know. If they ever return at all to this nameless, dead city," she added, "So are you ready?"

"Yes"

She hit the button and counted to ten while urging their horses to gallop at full speed.

A huge explosion convulsed earth and sky. The trees bent by the shockwave sawing the air. A mushroom cloud of fire rose high in the dawning sky, brighter than daylight and louder than the cry of doom.

◦◦◦─╌⊰ ⚜ ⊱⧐ ♛ ⧏⊰ ⚜ ⊱╌─◦◦◦

I hope you liked it!

I'm sorry for taking so long to publish, but work has had me busy body and soul.

Thank you so much for reading 💜