Chapter 565: Behind Stolen Faces

Juna reached the upper landing as the north bell sounded below her, the last strike fading beneath a pressure column full of other people’s faces.

A woman appeared across its nearest curve with her mouth open, the image bending around the bright surface while her real house stood beneath the brace.

The crooked shutter Hajin had seen from below was closing now, its occupant pulling hard against a latch that kept slipping from her fingers.

Above that window, the same fingers reached through an imitation morning toward Juna, their size changing each time the column drew another breath of light.

She stopped with her weight on the forward foot, letting all four Wings open clear of the railing while she followed the glare past the false woman’s shoulder.

’You couldn’t just be ugly by yourself.’

Ferra reached the landing’s lower edge with the fork already raised, keeping her wrapped hand behind the narrow shade she had brought from the ascent.

Hajin remained beneath them at the support, his five Rings visible through the gaps while his right hand kept the upper brace from wandering.

The knot on his wrist had turned toward the column, its little root end pressing into the sleeve where Juna could see him resisting the vibration.

"The face is following me," she said.

"Move left."

Juna shifted along the landing while Ferra kept the fork still, the woman’s image dragging across the light to stay between her and the center.

The tool gave a thin answer as that likeness crossed its line, another deeper note continuing behind the bright outline of the woman’s jaw.

Ferra made a chalk mark on the support beside her, drawing an eye with its pupil pushed away from the direction the face was looking.

"There."

Juna followed the angled pupil toward the fifth eye inside the pressure column, finding it for an instant through the woman’s stretched cheek.

Its lid closed as soon as her attention reached it, the column filling with a child’s face above a second shelter roof.

Her fingers tightened around her weapon without bringing it up, the child’s frightened eyes borrowing a mouth that belonged to someone standing behind the real shutters.

The light had found the place she would hesitate, pushing those stolen expressions farther across the approach while the pressure beneath them kept climbing.

A new sunrise spilled over the roof tiles below, its blue edge running uphill toward the cradle instead of following any sensible morning.

Juna looked beyond the faces at the actual houses, counting the gaps between their roofs and the lower edge of the column’s light.

The people had stayed where the ordinary evacuation workers told them to wait, their shelters now being held up like something she had threatened.

"Juna," Hajin called from the brace.

She turned enough to see his face through the railing, his attention resting on her rather than the frightened likeness hanging above them.

"I see them."

"So do I."

The short answer steadied something beneath her ribs, her next breath coming deeper while Ferra moved the fork closer to the column’s exposed side.

The smith tapped the chalk pupil once with her thumb before pointing beneath the images, where the true light gathered into a narrower line.

"That frequency, keep it here."

Hajin kept his right palm braced against the support while bringing his bandaged left hand to the contact Ferra indicated, the Grasp tightening around that single identified rhythm.

His left forearm shook when it held, the five Rings staying clear above his braced right arm while the light behind the woman’s image stopped drifting toward the shelter roof.

Juna saw the difference at once, the false woman’s jaw stretching farther while its source remained caught behind the position Ferra had marked.

She lowered her body toward the edge of the landing, looking along the return arc she would have to close before any stored cut could answer.

Two maintenance workers were still beneath its far curve, their shoulders moving behind a narrow strip of shade near the outer brace.

"Clear that return."

Ferra shouted the direction down to them, pointing with her free hand while keeping the fork trained on the pulse Hajin was holding.

One worker pulled the other by the coat as they ducked behind the marked support, the last sleeve vanishing before Juna let her Wings take weight.

She saw the empty arc from its beginning to its end, the real roofs lying below and beyond the line she had chosen through the source light.

The fifth eye opened behind another stolen face, its pupil finding her just as she left the landing beneath the column’s first outward surge.

Cold air struck under her chin during the turn, the climb carrying her past an enormous imitation hand that reached toward the place she had occupied.

Juna let it reach, keeping her blade behind the image where the real light had to pass before it could become somebody’s fear.

Her first solar cut settled along that traveled line, its stored heat following the path of her movement without releasing into the roof beneath it.

The column turned its faces after her while she climbed around the far side, a crowd of mouths opening against the curve she was leaving behind.

Their voices reached her as broken sounds through the pressure, the trapped rhythm under Hajin’s hand pulling the images crooked whenever they tried to widen.

She could see his body below through one narrow gap, his shoulder pressed close to the brace while blood rose beneath the edge of his wrist dressing.

The sight made her want the circle finished sooner, her next beat of Wings carrying her through the upper turn without cutting across its open center.

Heat gathered along the route already traveled, each stored stroke waiting while she flew the remaining curve back toward the landing where Ferra’s chalk eye watched.

The false dawn brightened until the roofs vanished beneath it, their stolen surfaces flattening into one great shield above the occupied rooms.

For a moment the real source shone through that shield without a face upon it, the fifth eye exposed between the arriving image and the one being stretched away.

Juna reached the last part of her return with that opening ahead, feeling the full circle pull taut through the route her own body had completed.

’Now.’

Daybreak answered behind the images, the stored solar cuts closing together through the light that had been giving the stolen faces somewhere to stand.

The fifth eye split along its bright pupil as the source broke, the woman’s enormous likeness coming apart into clear strips above her undamaged roof.

A child’s borrowed mouth vanished from the column’s upper curve, leaving a clean piece of sky where that imitation fear had been shouting.

The last images flattened against one another as their source failed, shutter lines sliding through cheeks before the bright surfaces peeled apart above the roofs.

Juna watched a strip of that light curl toward the shelter chimney, its thin edge breaking into sparks before it could touch the soot.

Below it, a washing line sagged between two ordinary windows with three wet shirts still hanging from the cord, their sleeves stirring in the released air.

She had passed that little line during her climb without seeing it, the sight returning now with the rest of the street beneath the collapsing glare.

At four minutes thirty-five seconds, the manufactured sunrise collapsed with a sound like breath dragged through a broken flute, its blue edge retreating off the tiles in one sharp rush.

Real morning showed behind it in a color Juna had almost forgotten, the pale light finding ordinary soot along the shelter chimney beneath her.

The loss of pressure kicked the upper brace sideways, a sharp crack answering from the support where Hajin kept his marked frequency caught.

Ferra bent over the fork as the triangle’s note below them faltered, her free hand pointing the workers toward the brace that had lost its load.

Juna saw Hajin stay where he was while the new gap opened beside his shoulder, his gaze following her descent through the cleared return.

She landed with one knee bending farther than she had intended, the circle’s cost dragging down through her thighs before she found a steady place for both feet.

The last of the stored heat faded along her weapon, leaving cold air against her face and the sharp smell of ozone beneath the ruined column.

Hajin waited until she looked up from her landing before easing the held rhythm out of his hand, his breath leaving in a rough sound through his nose.

"Roofs?"

Juna looked past him to the first real window, finding the woman still holding the shutter with her shoulder while an older child crouched beside her.

"Standing."

The woman’s face turned upward through the narrowing gap, its size ordinary again as she looked from the cleared sky to Juna’s four Wings.

"We know you weren’t aiming at us," she called, her voice shaking hard enough to roughen the words, "you kept our roof."

Juna felt the answer catch beneath her tongue, the memory of that same face stretched across the column making the real woman’s small relief hurt worse.

"Close that shutter before something else gets ideas."

The woman gave a breathless laugh before pulling with both hands, the latch finally catching while the child inside pushed from the lower edge.

Juna watched the wood settle into its frame, letting that stubborn little click do more for her breathing than the ruined false sun overhead.

[ Valid Combat Experience: 6,000,000 ]

[ Juna Wing Progress: 14,720,000 / 37,500,000 ]

[ Wing 5: Not Yet Unlocked ]

Hajin turned the reward panel into the shared view while Juna felt her smile growing, the six-million gain looking brighter than the ruined column beyond it.

[ ashley: fourteen point seven two million, that cut was gorgeous ]

[ rooftopwatch: thirty seven point five for the next one, let her breathe first ]

She kept smiling until her sore thigh reminded her where she was standing, the railing suddenly looking more inviting than the view.

Hajin climbed the last step toward her after the workers secured his support, his empty right hand hovering near her elbow without taking her weight unasked.

She took the offered hand herself, bringing his fingers against her palm while Ferra checked the broken column with a narrowed gaze.

The smith crouched beside her chalk eye, drawing the collapsed source behind a quick outline of the faces while a worker paced the safe reference points below.

Juna followed the worker’s progress around the marked return from where she stood, seeing the completed circle now as a route somebody could walk without borrowed faces chasing them.

Ferra snapped the chalk against the support when its weakened end caught, the small piece falling beside the eye she had drawn under the shade.

Juna bent carefully to pick it up with her free hand, keeping the broken bit between two fingers while Hajin watched her sore knee straighten.

"Keeping evidence?"

"A souvenir."

She slipped the chalk into a small fold of her clothing, its dust whitening the edge while Ferra rose beside the secured approach.

A relay shout came up from the junction below them, the worker’s voice carrying the north heart’s continued movement toward the cradle through the newly cold air.

Juna looked down at the warning before turning back to Hajin, his hand still warm against hers despite the tremor along his wrist.

"Kiss me before it reaches the cradle."

He glanced toward Ferra’s cleared route, finding the smith already watching the workers lock the last loose edge below the landing.

"This route is secure," Ferra said.

Hajin stepped close enough for Juna to meet him without leaning on her sore leg, his kiss brief and warm beneath the ordinary sky she had returned.

She kept his fingers until the moment their mouths parted, the smell of ozone still caught in the breath she took against his cheek.

The next north warning rose from below before she could decide whether to ask for another, its urgency pulling them both toward the descent.

Juna released his hand with a final squeeze, taking the railing while Hajin moved beside her toward the junction where Loccy was still holding the occupied district.

At five minutes fifteen seconds on the same deployment clock, the north bell sounded through a sky that had stopped trying to command the city.