Aera's lungs and heart were pumping, the wind screaming in her ears. Oxygen didn't seem to be enough as she sprinted forward, following the hot red flash of lightning Jiah's dress was.

The cold wet mud kissed her face as her feet slipped outwards on the damp leaves. She fell down. Not wasting any time, she stood back up and started running again. Jiah's jeering laughter filled her ears.

"Come on and catch me, stupid little girl!"

Branches constantly attacked Aera, her arms and legs dirty and bruised. Her hair clung to her sweaty forehead. She was vaguely aware of the dull pain in her right arm, but did not decrease her pace. She wheezed as her lungs grasped for air. Like tunnel vision, the only thing she could see in the blackness of the woods was the hem of Jiah's scarlet dress.

"So you'd like to play a game of tag before you meet your death, huh?" Jiah's high-pitched cackle resonated into the woods. "Come on, Aera, is that the best you could do?"

Aera's legs felt numb and unsteady. The oppressive air was suffocating her, preventing her from breathing normally.

"It would give me tremendous pleasure to kill the last remaining member of the Lee family!" Jiah laughed.

Hopelessness gnawed at Aera's insides. She was on the verge of collapsing but was determined to power through it. Terror, despair and anguish wrestled deep within her.

"You aren't a heroine, Aera," Jiah shouted. "You are nothing! Just like your mother, you're completely useless and nothing but a hindrance to others!"

That's not true, Aera thought. I have people... friends who care about me. Friends who love me. I won't let them die for me tonight.

Determined, she continued following Jiah's hysterical laughter throughout the forest. Rounding a corner, she saw that the redhead had come to a halt right next to the highest cliff. A dark foul mist shrouded the area.

"Give it back." Aera grumbled darkly, her clumsy footfalls crunching over the stones further down.

"Give what back?" Jiah gave her an incredulous look, toying with the crystal skull in her hands.

"You know what!" Aera snapped. "It doesn't belong to you! You stole it from me! Give it back!"

"You're not deserving of it."

Red. Everything around Aera turned red as some unknown power emerged from deeply within. It was intense and overwhelming, coursing through her veins like wildfire. Her fingertips were burning, her brain held captive by a dull headache.

A delicate lilac beam of light extended from her hands and gravitated towards the giant oak tree hunched over Jiah's form. The redhead watched with her mouth slack as the lilac light wrapped around the tree's branches. Loud rattling sounds emerged from it, increasing in intensity with each passing moment.

Time seemed to have stopped as Aera observed in that one frozen second how the enormous oak tree swung down very slowly before it fell down with a deafening thud. The rumble continued, strong and incessant as if it was coming from deep below.

Stumbling backwards, Aera almost fell down as she stared down at her hands in shock.

"Damn!" Jiah hollered, one arm gripping on the toppled tree's crust, and climbed on top of it. "Didn't know little kitty could scratch. You feeling better now that you finally unleashed that?" she clicked her tongue.

"Did I do that?" Aera breathed out mostly to herself. For a moment there, it was like Jiah didn't exist.

"Duh!" Jiah stared back at her as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You have telekinetic abilities, you dumbo. Your father used to have them, too."

Dumbfounded, Aera took a deep breath in. Her restless eyes darted around, unable to believe what had just happened. The power that had had been dormant inside of her for so long had finally found its release. It was as if she had been struggling with a puzzle and now all the pieces fit together perfectly. Her Powers had been suppressed for so long, smoldering underneath the thin layer of her blocked emotions.

It all came back to her now, from that time when she had made the massive chandelier fall in the hotel lobby in her blind fury, to the occasion where her uncle's face had materialized in the mirror in her penthouse. Once the vision was gone, the mirror had flown away as if thrown by invisible hands.

In reality, it had been her, it had been all her. Her Powers were derived from her emotions, and her emotions grew very turbulent a lot of times. Her incessant inner conflict had manifested in her fluctuating power control, with the exception of these two occasions when her raging emotions were focused to only one thing: in the case with the chandelier it was rage, and in the one with the mirror her emotions were reduced to fear.

Aera recollected her uncle's words: "You have to find the weapon in your mind." He had given her the clue, all she had to do was focus and let go of the fear. It wasn't that she couldn't control her supernatural ability, but rather she let her tumultuous emotions control her. Her anxiety, her grief, her despair. The trauma from losing her parents at such a young age. The constant torment and attacks she received from her half-brother. The lack of friends, support and encouragement during her difficult teenage years. The guilt from all the mistakes she had made due to the lack of proper upbringing.

It had affected her in the deepest way possible and a part of her had always known it. The wound got bigger and deeper now that the woman who had broken Aera's family for her own selfish reasons of wanting to be loved by a man who wouldn't return her affections was standing before her, staring at her cunningly.

It infuriated Aera deeply that this sinister woman who had taken everything away from her was still standing tall on the same ground as her, when it was Aera's parents bodies that lay cold and dead in the graveyard. It was maddeningly unfair, setting ablaze a fire deep within Aera, a fire that had been smoldering underneath the surface for too long, festering like a septic wound.

Jiah was basking in Aera's visible confusion and frustration. "I suppose you really are a slow learner. You realized that just now, didn't you? That's why you have no mastery over your abilities. What happened just now was convenience, not mastery. You unwittingly let your frustration pour through you and you channeled it in your Power. Nothing more than a happy coincidence." She smirked.

The thoughts racing through her mind, Aera gasped when a blood-curdling scream penetrated her ears. It was distant, but still loud enough to paralyze her thinking. The battle from across the forest was still going on and she couldn't take another second of knowing that her friends were fighting for their lives.

"Take me." she uttered.

"Huh?" Jiah scowled, still toying with the crystal skull in her hand.

"Take me," Aera stressed. "And let my friends go. They have nothing to do with your vendetta against me. I will voluntarily surrender myself to you if you just put an end to this pointless slaughter taking place on the other side of the forest. I don't want any more bloodshed."

Jiah fell silent for a second, as if she were contemplating Aera's proposition.

"Tell Hyukjae to command his men to stop," Aera went on. "You're the one who put some kind of malicious spell on those men, right? Call it off now and let my friends walk away while they still can."

"And why should I do that?" Jiah questioned.

"Do you really want to start a magic stand-off with a girl who has just discovered how her Powers work?" Aera shot back. "I may not have mastery over them, but me not being able to keep them in check makes them even more unpredictable and thus dangerous. Who knows the magnitude of the power that could erupt through me at any given moment. You don't know it, I don't know it. Why don't we just stop here. I'm sure you don't want your son to end up being hurt over this." She took a step forward.

"What makes you think you can negotiate with me?" Jiah hissed, folding her arms across her chest.

Rooted to her spot, Aera exhaled heavily. She concentrated all of her mind power to one single purpose. Suddenly the ground beneath her feet started shaking, a deep rumble resonating throughout the woods. Little cracks appeared from the ground beneath.

"That was the sound of the thousand-years old oak trees' roots moving underneath us," she grinned. "I just discovered I could manipulate them with my mind. Isn't it fascinating?"

White as chalk, Jiah stepped back. Her fingers clutched into fists, clasping onto the crystal skull. It was then when the realization that she may have underestimated Aera flashed across her face.

As for Aera, she was fully aware it was unlikely she would be that good at using her Powers yet. She thought of it that way – luck was currently on her side. She had no idea how long it would continue, but she would make the most of it – and that was making Jiah feel even in the slightest bit intimidated.

"Little kitten found out she could scratch and now she wants to attack," Jiah gave a sardonic sneer. "But she forgets who she's dealing with. I have magic abilities too, Aera, if you hadn't noticed that until now. Abilities that are far more powerful than yours."

With those words, a ray of flashing red light extended from her fingertips. It snaked its way up in the air, taking various shapes, before whipping straight towards Aera.

Mustering all of the strength she had left inside, Aera directed her attention to the giant rock to her side. It was exhausting, but she managed to use her telekinetic abilities to lift it in the air and pull it towards her form. It stood before her and served as her shield right as Jiah's magic whiplash reached it. It cracked open with a horrid thundering roar that made Aera's blood freeze. This was directed at her.

It went to prove once again that Jiah was absolutely ruthless. She would stop at nothing to destroy the target of her hatred and Aera knew that now better than anyone. It was not a fair fight. The redhead was an experienced hundred-years old demon fox and Aera had just discovered her Powers.

Something caught her attention at that moment. Jiah was standing right on the edge of the cliff, swaying her hips and grinning gloatingly at the girl. Aera was uncertain whether she'd be able to endure another attack. Lifting that rock had taken the last drop of energy she had left in her body. Her gaze drifted to the crystal skull held in Jiah's hand.

Then, an idea materialized in Aera's mind.

Quickly, she leapt forward. Jiah was much more powerful than her, but right now, she was shaken and caught off guard for many reasons. Aera shoved her with all her might. She landed on top of her and twisted her arms desperately in an attempt to grab the crystal skull.

The struggle sent them both rolling on the ground. Aera heard how Jiah's skull hit one of the sharp stones underneath them. Blindly, her fingers uncurled Jiah's fist and entangled around the small but valuable object. From underneath the mess her hair made on her face, she saw how Jiah's stunned eyes narrowed to thin slits and her mouth contorted in a hideous grimace. She screamed, but Aera's clumsy hands had already released the crystal skull from the redhead's grip. The object rolled to the ground and sunk into the shadows of the thick grass to their side.

Grunting and panting, Jiah managed to overpower Aera. Mostly because that now that the crystal was out of the redhead's reach, Aera unwittingly let her defenses down. Jiah flipped them both over, her sharp nails scratching at Aera's neck. The howl that left her mouth was much more animalistic than human.

Aera's eyelids shut closed. She was tired of fighting and resisting. Everything that had gone down that night had pushed her off her limits. Feebly, she tried to fight Jiah back, but understandably, she was the weaker one. The result of this combat had been decided from the start and she knew it, they both knew it. From the second Aera had started running after Jiah in the woods, somewhere deep inside she knew she was following her there to meet her end.

Aera's eyesight went blurry as her desperate arms flailed for something to clutch onto. Jimin's beautiful face flashed through her mind. She would not greet her horrible fate with her arms spread wide. Maybe it was the adrenaline fueling her, but she managed to push Jiah off of her. Without wasting any time, she shot forward again. Jiah was scrambling on the ground close to the edge of the cliff. Aera focused all of her willpower on the rock beneath the redhead's feet.

And it cracked.

Jiah shrieked, her scarlet eyes enlarged. She toppled backwards as if some invisible hands swatted at her squarely at her chest. Her gloating smile was gone; she roared and in that frozen moment of time, she knew.

For a quarter of a second, Aera had overpowered her.

The cliff crumbled, creating an avalanche of rocks down the pit. It tossed Jiah about, smashing her further down. The rumble continued, the ground shook to its foundations, but it wasn't Aera anymore. It was nature itself, destroying what needed to be destroyed. Doing what needed to be done.

Once the intense roaring of the rocks had calmed down, Aera strained her ears. A still quietness overcame her. Completely drained, she tumbled sideways on the ground. Her consciousness blanketed by a thick darkness, a subtle sense of relief crept up in her chest. She had done it. She had avenged her parents. She had stood her ground. She had stopped the evil threatening to consume her and her loved ones.

She was at peace.

More importantly, she had been brave.

Seconds passed as she lay there, her eyes closed. The screaming from across the forest had stopped. She wondered what Jimin was doing. Was he alright? She wished he could hold her now, like the first time he held her in her bedroom at the evening of her uncle's funeral. He never failed to bring her a sense of love and safety, a sense of home. He was her home.

She inhaled a trembling breath, relishing in air filling her lungs. The pain was gone and she was finally at ease for the first time in her life. Her loved one's face materialized in her mind's eye and she smiled. She did it for him. She did it for all them, the people who loved her. And she loved them.

I love you, Jimin. Wherever I am, you should know that I love you always. Nothing would stand in the way of our love.

Not even death.

***

They found her a couple minutes later. One of her hands was loosely placed above the other, right where the ring from Jimin rested.