"haha." He said.
Si Hon crossed the rooftop through freezing wind and drifting debris until he reached Jisoo's side, the sharpened metal pole still resting against his shoulder. Up close, he could finally see how bad the strain actually was. Her hands were trembling hard now, tiny uncontrolled shakes running through her fingers while thin silver fractures of light flickered around her wrists every few seconds before disappearing again beneath her skin.
Temporal Lock was still holding.
Barely.
The dragon remained trapped inside that awful distorted slowness, its movements dragging through reality like the world itself refused to let it progress normally, but cracks had started appearing around the effect now. Little jerks of sudden motion slipping through. One claw twitching too fast. A wing snapping half a meter downward before slowing again.
Jisoo noticed him immediately.
Si Hon reached out and casually patted her back once.
"So," he said, side eyeing her with the most irritating little smirk possible, "you need help?"
Jisoo looked at him like she was moments away from committing actual murder.
"OF COURSE I NEED HELP, THIS BITCH ಠ益ಠ"
Her voice cracked halfway through because maintaining Temporal Lock on a two bus sized dragon while yelling apparently required more multitasking than the human body was designed for.
Si Hon snorted softly.
Then stepped past her.
Toward the edge of the rooftop.
The wind hit harder there, cold air rushing upward along the side of the building while loose debris scraped and rattled across the cracked concrete around his feet.
Beneath him was a very long drop and an even longer list of reasons why normal people should not voluntarily step closer to it during an active dragon fight.
Si Hon looked down anyway.
The ground sat impossibly far below the school, distant enough that people looked tiny from here, broken sections of pavement scattered around the campus while abandoned cars sat crooked near the gates from the evacuation earlier. Wind rushed upward from the drop carrying smoke, dust, and the sharp metallic smell of damaged concrete.
Then he looked back at the dragon.
At the neck of it.
At Seong balancing near its head using threads anchored into the scales to keep herself from being thrown off every time the creature twitched against Jisoo's hold.
Then Si Hon scoffed quietly to himself.
He turned his head slightly toward Jisoo.
"I'll be the one showing you something cool this time."
And before anyone could process that sentence properly—
He stepped backward off the rooftop.
Jisoo's eyes widened instantly.
"YOU IDIOT—"
Mihu screamed.
Like a real scream. Full panic. Absolute emotional collapse. Somewhere behind the ventilation unit Suha yelled "AHHHHHHHHHH" with the exact same amount of enthusiasm she used for literally everything else, which somehow made it worse.
Han's soul visibly left his body for half a second.
And Si Hon—
Fell.
The world vanished into the wind immediately.
Cold air tore past him hard enough to sting while the rooftop disappeared upward above his head, black storm clouds stretching endlessly overhead as gravity grabbed him properly and dragged him downward through open space.
For one second.
Two.
The building rushed upward around him while windows flashed past in blurred streaks and the dragon's massive shadow shifted overhead like a moving mountain.
Then something inside his head clicked.
(Right.)
Si Hon blinked once mid fall.
(HAHA… I forgot they don't know I can do this.)
The realization arrived embarrassingly late.
Another second passed.
The ground continued rushing toward him while air screamed past his ears loud enough to drown out almost everything else and somewhere far above he could still faintly hear Jisoo yelling insults at him across the rooftop.
He just sigh and—
Si Hon spread his arms slightly as he kept falling through open air, one hand empty while the other still held the sharpened pole angled loosely beside him.
Wind tore violently past his body now, strong enough that his uniform jacket snapped and fluttered against him like it was trying to rip free entirely, but he barely reacted to any of it.
Then—
Something snapped.
Not physically.
Spatially.
The air around him distorted for half a secodn like some invisible lines had suddenly connected across space itself. Tiny fractures of blue white light flickered around his body, appearing and disappearing so fast they barely existed at all.
[MULTI DIRECTIONAL MOVEMENT.]
ZWOOOP.
He disappeared.
Not with an explosion.
Not dramatically.
One moment he was falling toward the ground and the next the space he occupied simply collapsed inward like reality had skipped a frame.
Then he reappeared eight feet above the dragon.
Wind exploded outward from the sudden displacement.
Seong turned immediately at the sound, red hair whipping sideways violently while her eyes widened at the empty air where Si Hon abruptly existed now instead of splattering several stories below….
For exactly one second she looked genuinely unable to process what she was seeing.
And Si Hon didn't waste that second.
The sharpened pole came down hard in both hands.
Straight toward the weak point.
The dragon noticed too late.
The jagged black spear punched directly into the back of its neck with a wet metallic crunch that vibrated all the way through Si Hon's arms on impact.
Then deeper.
Then deeper still.
Until the forged tip of the pole hit something underneath the scales that gave way all at once.
The dragon twitched.
A violent full body spasm ripped through the dragon midair hard enough to throw its flight completely off balance. One wing jerked unevenly while the other locked for half a second at the wrong angle, the creature's massive body twisting violently through the sky as a horrible distorted sound forced its way out of its throat somewhere between a roar and something failure. The air around it shuddered from the force alone, black scales grinding against each other while its momentum immediately started collapsing downward.
Then it twitched again.
Once.
Twice.
And suddenly—
Went limp.
Completely.
Like every string holding the creature upright had been cut simultaneously.
Seong lost balance immediately.
"Ah!"
The moment the dragon's body tilted sideways beneath her feet she slipped hard against the scales, threads snapping loose from her hands as gravity shifted violently underneath them.
Si Hon moved instantly.
He caught her by the shoulder first before she could fall entirely, dragging her toward him against the dragon's collapsing neck while the entire world around them began tipping sideways.
Seong grabbed onto him automatically.
Her eyes snapped upward toward his face, completely stunned now.
"W-what was THAT?! Y-you teleported?!" Her voice cracked halfway through another violent shift of the dragon's body. "Wait— it's REAL?! WHAT?! You weren't lying?!"
The dragon tilted harder.
The rooftop disappeared sideways beneath them.
And that was when Si Hon looked… Toward Jisoo.
Still standing near the rooftop feets away from the edge.
Still holding Temporal Lock together through pure spite and deteriorating wrist integrity.
Jisoo met his eyes from across the collapsing distance and weakly waved one trembling hand at him while gesturing aggressively toward her arms like. "HELP??? MY HANDS ARE DYING???"
Then the lock broke completely.
The dragon dropped.
Everything moved.
The rooftop vanished upward. Wind exploded around them. Concrete shattered somewhere behind them while the dragon's enormous body rolled sideways directly into the side of the school building hard enough to make the entire structure groan.
Si Hon reacted on instinct.
One arm wrapped around Seong immediately, pulling her tightly against his chest while his other hand locked around the embedded pole still buried in the dragon's neck.
Then he closed his eyes.
The impact came a second later.
BOOOOOOM.
The dragon crashed through the side of the building in an avalanche of shattered concrete, broken glass, twisted steel, and collapsing sections of rooftop. Entire walls exploded apart around them while debris rained downward through open air.
Seong buried her face against his chest automatically < Si Hon forcefully buried her face against his chest.
The dragon rolled.
Once.
Twice.
Still falling.
Still dragging them with it while the pole remained jammed deep inside its neck like a hooked anchor keeping Si Hon attached through the chaos.
The ground rushed upward.
Fast.
Too fast.
Then suddenly—
***
Grass.
The dragon slammed into the school field with enough force to crater the earth beneath it, dirt and broken chunks of stone exploding outward in every direction while the shockwave rolled across the soaked field hard enough to flatten nearby grass in rippling waves.
Si Hon hit last.
The momentum carried him sideways across the field still clutching Seong against him until they finally skidded to a stop near the far edge of the grass beneath the ruined school building.
Silence followed.
Or at least the closest thing silence could become after something that massive died.
Smoke drifted overhead.
Pieces of debris still fell occasionally from upper floors.
The dark clouds above continued moving slowly across the sky like none of this mattered to them at all. Which of course.
Si Hon lay there on his back breathing hard.
One arm still wrapped around Seong.
The other still loosely holding the pole.
Seong had gone unconscious somewhere during the fall, red hair spilled across his chest while her cheek rested against him from where she'd instinctively curled inward during impact. Her breathing remained steady though. Warm. Alive.
Si Hon stared upward at the sky for a long moment.
Then down at the grass beneath him.
Flattened.
Cool.
Soft enough to not kill him again this time.
A laugh escaped him quietly.
"Haha…" He breathed out slowly. "I love this grass so much."
