Bandages, firmly swathed from his brows down to the bridge of his nose, cleverly concealed the true position of his gaze.

Wearing an indoor gown barely draped over his shoulders, he tilted his head long to either side and knit his brows. His thick Adam’s apple moved sluggishly, and the jawline with its prominent masseter stood keen and sharp.

Every moment felt unbearably slow. His body had grown larger than before, his hair much longer. With the flesh fallen from his face and the contours more defined, he gave off a heavier, ripened air than in the past.

Seoryeong clamped down on her trembling lips. That white face that had appeared in the dark without a sound—no matter how she looked, it could only be Solzhenitsyn. She could do nothing but stare, eyes filled with disbelief.

“For someone who’s scared of a mere blind man, why did you come here?”

A foreign tongue, different in its use of the muscles, rasped off his teeth and burst out rough.

A blind man’s cane—far too unfamiliar to be his—tipped Seoryeong’s chin up with perfect accuracy. Ugh...! The cold stick pressed her Adam’s apple, and the bandages made his face look as if it had no eyes as it raked her up and down. Her ribs throbbed with the pounding of her heart.

The instant that wandering gaze—always a little off, always circling the air—stopped in one place,

Bang—! A bullet grazed her hair and buried itself in the wall. Veins stood out over the back of the hand gripping the gun.

“......!”

Seoryeong froze rigid, unable even to breathe. The man kneading the back of his neck exhaled a long sigh, as if the whole process bored and annoyed him. Then bang, bang—! Successive shots skimmed the crown of her head.

At last, jarred fully awake, Seoryeong knocked the cane from under her chin and scrambled along the floor. As soon as she slipped out of the blind spot, the infrared sensors began to shriek again. Her mind went blank as paper; tension cinched tight around her throat. Measured, heavy footsteps followed.

Why is this man... in Solzhenitsyn’s house. Why are you... here...? She felt the blood drain from her body into her feet. She couldn’t breathe—she couldn’t stay here another second. Enough, it’s enough—just let me out. Air, I need air...!

Pale as a sheet, Seoryeong turned a corner searching for a door—and a large figure suddenly loomed.

However he’d doubled back, Solzhenitsyn appeared out of nowhere and swung the cane.

“Urk—!”

She grabbed her smashed shoulder and fell, and a kick came straight after. Pinning her shoulder hard so she couldn’t move, the man murmured low,

“Who are you?”

His mouth split in a cool, long grin, and he pressed the tip of his tongue against one cheek. Seoryeong’s pupils trembled helplessly. Her thoughts stalled; her overheated head felt like it had shorted out.

With one foot on her shoulder and the cane tip pressing the center of her forehead, he bent his knees and squatted. The long indoor gown fell and lightly covered some part of her body.

“Affiliation.”

The cane that had been pressing her brow now prodded her Adam’s apple. Gah...! Bile rushed up.

“Speak. Your affiliation.”

His line of sight was minutely misaligned.

Is he... really blind?

Her heart shrank.

How... is this possible...

It felt like sharp nails raking cold across her chest. All the time she’d held herself together—at the sight of him again it collapsed like a sandcastle, meaningless. How hard I fought, not to look back...! Blood vessels burst red in her eyes.

Then, by chance, she caught Kiya beyond the window, standing motionless. With an icy blank face, he stared only at Seoryeong’s cornered expression. Dizziness surged, her breath hitched.

“――!”

You knew. You knew everything....

Her wide eyes throbbed.

Crushing down the urge to explode, Seoryeong slammed the back of her knife onto the top of his foot. She threw off all the strength that bound her and slashed with the dagger.

Feeling the gaze of some judge on her, she poured everything she had ever learned into her strikes, hitting him without hesitation. She swung for his chest, then kicked his rigid abdomen. When his weighty parries and counters shoved her back, her whole body stung and tingled—yet she never gave an inch.

As she dove again for an opening, a large hand hooked her nape like it was catching prey. Heat dropped onto her skin like a burning coal, and she jerked away in a hurry. The hand holding the cane trembled faintly.

“Who taught you to fight?”

Natural Russian flowed from his mouth like his native tongue. Seoryeong felt her tongue glued to the roof of her mouth, unable to move.

Even so, with shaking eyes, she stared doggedly at the man swaddled in bandages. Thankfully, the voice that came out sounded like someone else’s.

“...Я принадлежу к ФСБ.”

Ya prinadlezhú k FSB. I am with the Federal Security Service. She recalled the agency name Kiya had mentioned. Was the pronunciation decent? Since losing her memory, she hadn’t spoken it once; it was bound to be clumsy.

His bandages twitched, as if his brows moved beneath. Lee Wooshin flexed his palm open and closed.

“So where’d you learn your techniques?”

“......”

“One looks like Krav Maga, and one like the U.S. Marine Corps’ MCMAP.”

That white face turned again toward some empty point in space.

“I teach them mixed like that. Very well.”

“......”

“But why is a Russian agent using MCMAP? As far as I know, Russian spetsnaz systems stick to your homegrown Systema. What a cozy little dog dish you’ve got there.”

Biting frustration, she bit her lip.

“And you haven’t been ostracized using that this whole time?”

Prodding her shoulder, flank, and thigh with the cane, he spoke like a tutor.

“Every bastard who’s come here till now used only Systema. I’m asking why you’re using MCMAP.”

His loose, soft punches landed with the dense weight of hammer blows. The way he twisted shoulders and hips to strike the openings—just like the Russian agents she’d watched as a child.

He moved arms and legs at once, throwing punches from varied angles. Seoryeong crossed her forearms to guard, but she couldn’t do a thing to a mere blind man and took the hits. No—he kept touching her.

Not fists, but broad-open palms swept all over her body. Without moving much at all, Lee Wooshin returned her «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» force straight back to her.

She hunched her neck and clutched her stomach, but because it didn’t hurt at all, it stung her pride even worse.

Dodging those long arms that looked like they had no intention of hitting in earnest, she drove her fist at his jaw with everything she had. Thud—!

“......!”

So long as she dodged well, for some reason he didn’t counter, simply offering up his face. His jaw turned too easily; a cold feeling crept over her for no reason.

He rubbed his own jaw, seeming to sink into thought. Even wrapped in bandages, she could feel his eyelids flutter from here. He spoke, suddenly hasty.

“Where are you really from?”

“I am with the Federal Security Service. I learned it in the mainline training...!”

“...Is that so?”

Lee Wooshin crumpled his brows, a pained expression shadowing his face.

“Whoever taught you must have worried about you a lot.”

“......!”

“All your techniques are composed only of movements for a weaker person to use against a stronger one, and especially they lean toward self-defense rather than offense. Every so often there’s even some silat mixed in—”

He spoke as he advanced step by step.

“I’ve never said it, but that’s an Indonesian self-defense art, adapted from watching how a woman fights a tiger. Who was your teacher? Looks like you were pretty favored.”

Her heart lurched. Beyond the eyes, she saw the traces of first aid peeking under his clothes—wrists, ankles, abs, flank, back... Gauze and bandage wrapped thick, and scars she hadn’t seen before lay scattered along the ear line, under the jaw, across the backs of the hands and the wrists. Something inside her burned away. She fixed her eyes hard and glared at him, fierce.

She still couldn’t understand why he would volunteer himself as a gateway like this.

“I don’t know why you’re doing something so pointless.”

“...You’re the first to ask me that to my face.”

Biting and releasing his lower lip, the man suddenly lowered his head.

“Because there’s someone I’ll find no matter what I have to do.”

“......!”

“Whether it’s a man or a woman. Whether Western or Eastern. I don’t know what form they’ll show up in, so I’m checking them one by one like this. Still, there’s one thing that’s certain—”

In an instant, the long cane pressed her neck and slammed her into the wall. His breath, closer now, touched the tip of her nose.

“The body tells the truth.”

The man let out rough breaths, chest heaving, unable to hide the surge of excitement. His clarified face fixed on her, tracing slowly from top to bottom. His high nose brushed Seoryeong’s hair, slid past her pale earlobe, and headed for her chin. At her throat, the carotid throbbed, pounding hard. The brittle quiet made her stomach churn, like it would turn inside out.

“What kind of teacher fails to recognize the pupil he trained.”

His hand clamped her forearm hard, and a groan—ugh...!—escaped her.

“What kind of man in this world—!”

The ragged shout scraped up his throat like sobs. Lee Wooshin slit her clinging operations suit with a knife and felt along her collarbone. His intent was plain—to check the overhead mask.

“—doesn’t recognize his own woman!”

Seeing his nails searching for the edge of a sticker, Seoryeong drove her knee up into the man’s groin.

“Ugh...!”

He clenched his jaw hard—but didn’t retreat.

I have to run. I have to get far away from him. The warning siren already filled her head, screaming.

Seoryeong started to drive her blade into his forearm—then faltered. Damn it...! As the surge of helpless fury twisted her face, a trembling hand cupped her cheek.