Yona felt a crazy falling sensation and then was surrounded by darkness.
She knew she had died.
She had no regrets—only sadness for her friends. She hoped Tammi and the others had received her letters.
She had set things up for a while now, ever since her grandmother had sent her certain items. While sorting through them, she discovered her grandmother's sketch pad. There, her grandmother had drawn Yona's death—the day her birthstone shattered, coinciding with her grandmother's own passing.
Her grandmother hadn't been able to finish the drawing; either she woke up too soon or some heavenly block prevented her from seeing the full outcome. Still, she knew all priests were bound and cursed to die young in their first life.
Yona spent a few hours wandering through the void.
Then she heard someone calling for help—a young girl's voice.
Yona didn't know why, but she followed it.
Ahead, a bright light glimmered. A soul of a young girl, resembling her but a few years younger, sat on her knees, pulled close to her chest, weeping.
"Someone please take me away! They're going to kill me! Take me home already! Wu…" the girl muttered, laughing and crying in the same breath.
Yona stepped closer until she stood in front of her.
The girl's sobs slowed as she noticed bare feet before her. She looked up, slowly wiping tears that still flowed like an overflowing fountain.
"Are you finally here to take me away, angel? I don't think I can hold on much longer. They said an angel would come to collect me after my mission was complete…" She stood, hesitating just a bit too close to Yona.
Grandmother didn't tell me about this! Yona shouted silently in her head.
"Umm… I guess so?" she muttered. Hell if she knew. Would she have spent hours walking in the brisk dark otherwise?
"Yay! Thank you! Thank you!" The girl jumped up and down.
"Hey, if you're happy, why are you still crying?" Yona tilted her head curiously, stepping back slightly.
"Oh, it's a condition—Pseudobulbar Affect. I've had it since a stage accident when I was young."
She offered her hand. "Oh—I'm Huó Yòu'nà. Meaning a lively person of excellent grace."
Yona glanced at it, shrugged, and took it.
"Yona," she introduced herself.
"Good luck—you'll need it," Yona said, though she didn't fully understand the meaning.
Suddenly, the girl's body merged into Yona's. She vanished, and Yona felt the floor drop beneath her.
Bright lights, pain, laughter, and jeering surrounded her.
Yòu'nà's senses flared as pain and confusion tangled in her head. She came to in a narrow alleyway, shadows thick and suffocating.
The sting of a stab wound burned in her abdomen. The back wound still ached. The scent of rain-soaked concrete and smoke filled her nostrils. Blood coated her hands.
Rough hands and sneers closed in. She blinked, sorting through the jumble of memories—some hers, some fragments she didn't recognize.
She was Yona. And she was Huó Yòu'nà.
Her body moved before her mind could catch up.
"Look, the trash is actually alive. Wow," sneered Yuan Yingjie, a spiky-haired thug with lip rings and scars etched across his face. He kicked her side, leaning close. "They say roaches are hard to kill… and they aren't wrong."
Others circled, cracking knuckles and whispering threats.
"Who wants death?!" she muttered under her breath, the voice catching between two identities—Yona's defiance, Huó Yòu'nà's sharp edge.
Her chest rose and fell rapidly. Memories of past fights, past survival instincts, flared. Every priestly instinct, every shard of Yona's soul, hummed beneath her skin.
Pain and confusion collided, but determination sparked beneath it all. She would not let anyone dominate her. Not here. Not now.
She slowly pushed herself upright, eyes darting from one thug to the next. The alleyway seemed smaller, tighter, walls pressing in—but she felt a pulse of energy rising deep within.
Yona—no, Huó Yòu'nà—was alive. And she would make them regret underestimating her.
⸻
It was mid-evening.
Huó Yòu'nà stumbled back against a damp brick wall, neon light from a corner sign bleeding into the alley.
She'd been walking home when the gang closed in. They chased her, cornered her, and shoved her hard into the wall. Now they surrounded her. Her breath came fast. Her head pounded as she tried to sort through the new memories—ones that didn't belong to her… yet somehow did.
"They went to beat her again, thinking she hadn't had enough," Jin Yunru mocked. Normally, she would have played dead until they left. But Yona—being her—wasn't willing to suffer. She had to pay them back tenfold.
She fell into her body, into the battered and abused piece of her soul that remained. She laughed as tears streamed down her face uncontrollably.
"Oh, the freak is on her psychotic break again with the laughing and crying. See, she's asking for a beating," Jin Yunru sneered.
"See? She likes it. She doesn't feel happy unless we give her a beating. Tsk, such a pretty little fool… maybe we could—" He didn't finish; the others knew what he meant.
Huó Yòu'nà sprang into action. Using the last bit of mana from her priest spirit—weak but sufficient—she healed her stab wounds enough to move. She swept her leg, pushing off the floor, rose to a full stand, and attacked the two closest to her right. She kicked the third coming from her back-left, then went for the ring leader, kneeing him in the face before bolting down the alley.
The first thug lunged, swinging a chain with a jagged hook. Huó Yòu'nà sidestepped, wind grazing her hair, and swept a leg, sending him sprawling.
"Wha—?!" Yuan Yingjie barked.
A second thug charged. She caught his arm mid-swing, twisted, and shoved him into a wall. Pain and adrenaline coursed through her body, her hands tingling with unfamiliar energy—a subtle, potent pulse that felt alive.
"Who… are you?" the thug stammered, bravado cracking.
"Someone you shouldn't have messed with," Huó Yòu'nà replied, eyes narrowing.
The circle tightened. They didn't know her yet. They didn't know the priest's resolve that lingered in her soul, nor Huó Yòu'nà's untamed vigor.
A heavy kick sent her stumbling back. The pain flared—but it didn't stop her. She inhaled sharply, letting both her identities converge.
A brick swung overhead. She twisted, letting it fly past, grabbed the thug's collar, and shoved him into another, creating a chaotic domino effect.
"Stop… stop! She's—" one gasped. Fear broke through their swagger.
Huó Yòu'nà moved like water and steel—swift, flowing, and sharp. Memories she didn't fully own—techniques, instincts—blended seamlessly with her own. Each hit, each dodge, each shove precise, a symphony of survival and fury.
By the time the last thug realized she was a force beyond comprehension, all were backed against the alley walls, panting, bruised, terrified.
Her chest heaved. The world spun—but for the first time since falling through darkness, Yòu'nà felt fully present.
"Next time," she said quietly, voice cutting like ice, "don't underestimate someone with nothing left to lose."
As she turned, the pulse of her dual life resonated. Yona's soul, Huó Yòu'nà's body—they were one. The streets had no idea the storm that had just awakened.
One thug stumbled forward, reaching as if to touch her face.
A twisted, uncontrollable laugh bubbled from her lips, tears streaming freely. Her Pseudobulbar Affect kicked in, mixing joy, pain, and fury into something unrecognizable.
"Oh, the freak's on her psychotic break again," Jin Yunru sneered. "See? She's asking for it."
"Try it," she muttered under her breath, voice sharp and low—a jagged edge to Yona's calmness now fully merged with Huó Yòu'nà's defiance. "And see how fast you regret it."
She was alive. She was angry. And she was just beginning.
Shadows stretched long across the alley in the amber glow of the mid-evening streetlights. The priest-spirit shard within her stirred. Weak, but enough.
A flicker of energy pulsed through her abdomen and shoulder—her wounds slowed, bleeding staunched, enough to move.
The alley fell silent for a heartbeat as Huó Yòu'nà's momentum shifted. She swept two of the closest thugs off their feet, boots striking concrete with a wet smack. The third came from her back-left; she twisted, her boot meeting his chest, sending him skidding into the wall.
Jin Yunru lunged, eyes wide in disbelief. She caught his knee, sending him sprawling backward.
The alley rang with her laugh-cry mixture, a manic sound that unnerved them all.
Huó Yòu'nà didn't pause. She bolted down the alley, long shadows chasing her, leaving them groaning, scrambling, clutching limbs, frozen in stunned fear.
The alley swallowed the sound of shuffling feet as she vanished into the mid-evening gloom, every heartbeat syncing Yona's past life with Huó Yòu'nà's present rage.