“Seokga, please,” Kisa begs. “You can’t listen to him.”

“You and I are so alike, Seokga,” Mireuk whispers. “Misunderstood at every turn…All you have to do is untie me, son, and we can prove them all wrong.”

“Seokga,” Yeomra warns, voice dark. “Don’t. You know what your penance will be.”

Do you mean to say that a part of you doesn’t still long for his approval? Doesn’t wonder about what would happen if you earned it?

“Listen to me, Seokga,” Mireuk says. “Don’t listen to him. Come here. Unchain me. Do what your brother could never do…Be better than Hwanin could ever be.”

“Seokga,” whispers Kisa, grabbing his hand. “Please…don’t do this. I’m begging you—”

You love fully and completely, only to have it returned in less than half.

“Son…” Mireuk licks his lips weakly. “I love you. It would break my heart…if you wasted my love.”

I love you.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

How long has he waited to hear those words?

Seokga takes a deep breath. And lets go of Kisa’s hand.

He’ll have to let her go eventually anyway.

“SEOKGA!” Yeomra roars, but with a flick of his wrist, Seokga has created an illusion of unbearable pain for the death god. Yeomra falls to his knees as Seokga, chin held high, eyes holding his father’s, ascends the rock on which he lies.

“No!” Kisa cries, scrabbling after him. But Seokga is faster.

The first set of shackles are smooth under his hand. Seokga smiles down at his father as he rips them from the stone, shattering them into nothingness. Mireuk’s grin turns monstrous and wicked as his arms, and then legs, are freed.

The Mad God rises…

…and realizes he cannot.

From where he stands, illusioned invisible at the base of the rock, Seokga waves an indolent hand and dismisses the Seokga that stands above his father. Dismisses the illusion of broken chains, revealing that the skeletal shackles are still firmly in place on his father’s wizened wrists and ankles.

“NO!” roars his father, straining against his bonds. “NO!”

The illusion hiding himself, the true Seokga, from sight is the next to dissipate…followed by the pain grounding Yeomra. In Seokga’s opinion, the bastard deserves it for consistently failing to notice what’s going on in his own godsdamn realm.

“You villains. Always falling for the same tricks,” Seokga says in mock boredom, brushing invisible lint off his sodden pants as he looks meaningfully at Jang, and then at his father. “When will you learn? It’s utterly pathetic. If you’re going to be evil, you might as well be halfway good at it.”