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Kim Hye-jin has been soloing a lot of dungeons.
It wasn't concerning at first, because it made sense as a way to take power back from the people that tried to kill her, be powerful, and at the same time give every other exhausted esper after the confluence a break.
It's now perhaps starting to get concerning.
Outwardly, though, she... seems fine? Just really work focused. Distant towards everyone, maybe.
"Okay. Then let's get this done before it grabs someone else. Spot me so I don't accidentally destroy the core in my path of destruction?"
SIGH.
"... Fine," says Minseo, who really doesn't like this, but: she's not, actually, the boss of Hye-jin, and she already made her recommendation.
"Begin evacuation of the support crew in case I fuck up my aim," she says, as she then marches off to melt through metal.
She does not, actually, fuck up her aim. She neatly and efficiently (and with great unspoken glee) cuts through every single great big chompy death-trap thing that is in her way, along with the spikes and the buzz saws. The pit of fire is neatly flown over, it not actually being all that threatening to the fire esper.
"And the core's in the middle of the pillar directly in front of you - wait, there's something weird with the -"
A small hole opens up in the floor, right under her right foot, then almost immediately closes.
Oh her foot.
Just as neatly as Hye-jin's earlier surgical precision, it slices it off at the ankle.
The walls of the trap were, of course, sharp.
"I'm, fine," hisses Hye-jin, falling to her knees and biting back her scream. She doesn't pass out from pain only because the lava bath was worse than this, actually. "Give me that - back - "
It is hard to think properly while she's in agony, so instead of something with a bit more finesse, she lights her hands on fire and reaches down to the offending hole to rip it open with her bare hands. Her skin sizzles under the heat, but the metal bends accordingly, and her severed foot is retrieved.
She is not really sure if this is going to work, but she doesn't see why it wouldn't - line severed foot back up with her leg, cauterize the edges so it all stays together - that time she screams, though she turns her comms off before she does it - and then - wiggle her toes to test? Yes? Functional? Awesome.
"- done," she says, clipped and business-like. "Retrieving core now."
Her hands are already a bit shot from the whole 'ripping apart molten metal' thing, so, might as well do it again, right? Right. She stands on wobbly feet, limps forward (carefully avoiding anymore floor based traps), and then promptly rips the pillar open.
She takes a few seconds to let the ambient heat cool a bit, so as not to destroy the core. (That she spends the time panting in pain is irrelevant to her mission.) Then she reaches forward with blistered hands and grabs it.
"Got it. Coming back."
"The fuck did you do to your hands. And you're even walking on -" begins Minseo, who then stops and takes a deep breath. "- just get back, I'll yell at you in the debriefing later. Evacuation of the dungeon's nearly complete."
Hye-jin needs to take a break from doing dungeons. She just got her foot chopped off, and her reaction was to blister her own hands getting it back without assistance, before she cauterized it back on her own leg.
She's walking on it now. It hasn't fully healed yet.
Idk, she hasn't left the dungeon yet. I'm going back in for the final look over, wanted to tell you ASAP.
Gotta go.
Hye-jin is awkwardly standing on the other side, still holding the core.
"Um," she begins.
"Gimme that. Out," snaps Minseo, snatching the core from her without looking. (With her eyes, anyway. She's lost her ordinary vision, and is accordingly cheating with her powers.)
"Yeah, okay," agrees Hye-jin, who slinks through the portal with her injured hands and legs, uh, definitely still not fully healed up yet, looking sheepish.
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