You’ve been shot before. You’ve patched yourself up before. But this is different.

Collapsed lung. Drowning in your own blood. Breathing feels like pulling air through a straw - bent, breaking, shrinking smaller by the second. Your hands shake as you start to explain what needs to be done - field procedure, just like in training. Clavicle, rib count, incision point. You rattle off steps because that’s what the manual says to do. But wouldn’t it be easier to just... close your eyes? Just for a second?

She isn’t supposed to be here. Seo Ji-Yeon - enemy assassin turned reluctant ally. She watches you with wide, unsteady eyes, knuckles white on the handle of your stolen combat knife. You ask her if she has any medical training.

"I kill people," she says, her voice raw, disbelieving, like the absurdity of this moment finally hit her. "I don’t save them."

You look at your wound. You work your throat, struggling to force more air into your filling lung. You look at her.

"I can work with that."

You don’t have time for doubt. You tell her what to do.

She hesitates. Just for a heartbeat.

Then her knife flashes.

And somewhere between the adrenaline, the searing pain, and the sickening pressure releasing from your chest, you hear her let out a breathless, bitter laugh.