The choice hung in the air, heavy and suffocating.
Yoo-jin looked down at Isabelle Moon. The untouchable goddess of K-Pop was crumpled on the floor, clutching the hem of his pants like a lifeline. Her SSS-Rank aura, usually a blinding light, was flickering like a dying bulb.
Director Yoon took a step forward. His eyes were pitch black, his pupils dilated. The sound of his soul—that terrible, grinding machine—revved up to a deafening roar in Yoo-jin's mind.
He wasn't looking at a person. He was looking at a meal.
"She came to us," Yoon whispered, his voice trembling with anticipation. "It's fate. She's overflowing. She's in pain. I can help her."
He reached out a hand. The psychic hooks of his 'Muse Drain' lashed out, invisible and hungry, aiming straight for Isabelle's exposed psyche.
If Yoo-jin did nothing, Titan Entertainment would lose its greatest weapon. The Oracle would be drained dry, leaving an empty shell. The war would be over.
It was the pragmatic choice. It was the ruthless choice.
But it wasn't the choice of a protector.
"No," Yoo-jin said.
He didn't just speak. He moved. He stepped directly between the director and the fallen idol, shielding her with his own body.
He closed his eyes and summoned the chaos. He grabbed the roaring white noise of his own SSS-Rank potential and pushed it outward, creating a wall of static.
Boom.
The psychic impact was physical. The air in the studio vibrated.
Yoon's hooks slammed into Yoo-jin's shield. The director recoiled as if he'd touched a live wire, hissing in pain.
"You again!" Yoon snarled, his face twisting into a mask of fury. "Why do you deny me? She is suffering! I can take it away!"
"She is not your cast," Yoo-jin gritted out, his head pounding as if it were being split open by an axe. Blood began to drip from his nose again, faster this time. "And she is not your food."
[Mental Fortitude at 12%. Warning: Neural damage imminent.]
He ignored the warning. He grabbed Isabelle by the arm and hauled her to her feet. She was dead weight, shivering violently.
"Mina!" Yoo-jin shouted without looking back. "Door!"
Mina, who had been watching in paralyzed horror, snapped into action. She threw the studio door open.
"Director," Yoo-jin said, backing away while keeping his shield active. "The session is over. If you touch her, I pull Mina from the project permanently. You'll never hear a single note from her again. Do you understand?"
It was a gamble. He was threatening the vampire with starvation.
Yoon froze. He looked at Mina, then at Isabelle, then at Yoo-jin. The hunger in his eyes warred with his obsession for his film.
The film won.
"Get out," Yoon whispered, turning his back on them. "Get her out of my sight before I change my mind."
Yoo-jin didn't wait. He dragged Isabelle into the hallway, Mina scrambling behind them. They didn't stop until they were in the elevator, the doors sliding shut to seal away the monster.
Only then did Yoo-jin let the shield drop. He slid down the wall of the elevator, gasping for air, wiping the blood from his face with his sleeve.
Isabelle was huddled in the corner, her knees pulled to her chest. She looked at him with wide, terrified eyes.
"You..." she whispered. "You stopped the noise. Just for a second. You stopped it."
"I blocked him," Yoo-jin rasped. "And I blocked you. Are you back with us?"
She blinked, her eyes slowly focusing. The wild madness was receding, replaced by a crushing exhaustion. "The chaos... the random futures... it was you. Wasn't it?"
"It was," Yoo-jin admitted. "I had to blind you. You were going to destroy us."
She let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. "You succeeded. I can't see anything. It's just... grey static. It hurts so much."
The elevator dinged. The lobby was empty.
"Where is your manager?" Yoo-jin asked. "Where is your security?"
"I ran away," Isabelle confessed, her voice hollow. "I felt the hunger. I saw the vision of the studio. I thought... I thought if I confronted the source, I could stop it. I was wrong."
She looked up at him, the pride of the Oracle completely gone. "I have nowhere to go. If I go back to Titan like this... broken... they'll lock me up. They'll force the medication. I'll be a zombie again."
Yoo-jin looked at her. He saw the status screen hovering next to her face.
[Name: Isabelle Moon]
[Status: Mental Fracture (Severe)]
[Current Loyalty: None]
[Hidden Emotion: Desperation for sanctuary.]
He had broken her. And now, he owned the pieces.
"Mina," Yoo-jin said, standing up. "Call the van. We're taking her to the safe house."
The "safe house" was actually an old, unused recording studio in the basement of the Starforce building. It was dusty and soundproofed—perfect for hiding a fugitive pop star.
They set Isabelle up on a couch. Mina brought her water and a blanket, treating the woman who had tried to ruin them with a gentle kindness that made Yoo-jin's chest ache.
"Why are you helping me?" Isabelle asked, watching Mina. "I tried to crush you. I endorsed your rival."
"Because Producer-nim saved you," Mina said simply. "And because you looked lonely."
Isabelle flinched. The truth hit harder than any insult.
Yoo-jin stepped forward. He wasn't there to be kind. He was there to close the deal.
"I didn't save you out of charity," he said, his voice cold. "I saved you because a dead Oracle is useless to me. But a broken one? That has value."
Isabelle looked at him, a flicker of her old sharpness returning. "You want to use me. Just like Titan. Just like my uncle."
"No," Yoo-jin corrected. "Titan wants you to be a GPS for their success. I just want you to stay out of my way. And in exchange, I offer you the one thing you don't have."
"And what is that?"
"Silence," Yoo-jin said. "I can shield you. My 'noise' is the only thing that drowns out your visions without drugs. You stay here. You recover. You give us information on Titan's strategies. And in return, I keep the headaches away."
It was a symbiotic relationship. He provided the static; she provided the intel.
Isabelle stared at him. She looked at the dusty room, at the cheap blanket. It was a prison. But compared to the terrifying glare of her future visions, it looked like paradise.
"Deal," she whispered.
The door to the studio banged open.
Lee Hana stood there. She was breathing hard, her phone in her hand. Yoo-jin had texted her the moment they got in the van.
She stared at the scene. Her hated cousin, the golden child of the Moon family, was wrapped in a cheap blanket, looking like a frightened child.
"Isabelle," Hana said, her voice devoid of emotion.
Isabelle looked up. "Hana."
The air crackled with tension. Years of resentment, of comparison, of family politics filled the small room.
"You look pathetic," Hana said finally.
"I feel pathetic," Isabelle admitted. She pulled the blanket tighter. "You won, Hana. The noise... the chaos... I couldn't see through it. You blinded me."
Hana walked over. She looked down at the cousin who had cast a shadow over her entire life. She raised a hand.
Mina gasped, thinking Hana was going to strike her.
Instead, Hana reached out and brushed a stray hair from Isabelle's forehead. It wasn't a gesture of affection. It was a gesture of pity. And dominance.
"I didn't win because you're weak," Hana said softly. "I won because I have a monster on my side." She glanced at Yoo-jin. "And now, it seems, so do you."
Hana turned to Yoo-jin. "Does Titan know she's missing?"
"Not yet," Yoo-jin said. "But they will soon. We have maybe twelve hours before they start tearing the city apart looking for their golden goose."
"Then we need to use those twelve hours," Hana said, her strategist brain taking over. "Isabelle. What did you see? Before you broke. What did you see about the 'Sol & Luna' project?"
Isabelle closed her eyes. She winced, as if the memory was physically painful.
"I saw success," she whispered. "Massive, terrifying success. But it wasn't just the albums."
She opened her eyes and looked directly at Yoo-jin. Her gaze was unfocused, glassy. The medication was wearing off, and the static was clearing. A fragment of a vision was pushing through.
"I see a stage," she murmured. "A massive stage. The end of the year awards. Sol and Luna are there. But there's a shadow over them."
She grabbed Yoo-jin's hand, her grip like iron.
"I see a man," she said, her voice rising in panic. "Not Director Yoon. Someone else. Someone with a smile that cuts like a knife. He's holding a trophy, but it's dripping with something dark."
"Who is it?" Yoo-jin demanded. "Isabelle, focus. Who is the man?"
"I don't know his name," she gasped, tears streaming down her face. "But I hear the sound. The sound of his soul."
She looked at Yoo-jin with horror.
"It sounds exactly like yours."
Yoo-jin froze. An SSS-Rank producer? A doppleganger? Or something worse?
Before he could ask more, Isabelle's eyes rolled back in her head, and she slumped forward into a dead faint.
The room was silent, save for the hum of the ventilation.
"Sounds like you," Hana repeated, her eyes narrowing at Yoo-jin. "What does that mean, Yoo-jin? What exactly are you?"
Yoo-jin stared at his own hand, the one Isabelle had held. The mystery of his own power, the missing memories, the hospital flash—it was all coming back to haunt him.
"I don't know," he said, the truth terrifying him more than any lie. "But I think we're about to find out."
He looked at his team. A broken prophet, a vengeful queen, a fragile muse. And him, the monster in the middle.
"Lock the door," he ordered. "No one leaves. We're going to war with Titan, and we have the only weapon that matters sleeping on that couch."