Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
STRENGTH ✷ act two, chapter five, ━━━━━ the lovers of life and death. PUBLISHED. . . March 15th, 2024 EDITED . . . July 27th, 2025 REPUBLISHED . . . July 28th, 2025
𝕸IKA CHO-HEE WAS GOING TO DIE.
As a child of Hebe, youth and being able to feel free were things that she enjoyed about life, fair skin and lithe movements, going about her days without a care in the world. She wanted to travel to places, meet new people, experience and show the wonders of life to others.
But she couldn't.
When she was fifteen, all of her plans for the future came crumbling down as the signs began to show. It started with little things like coughing fits and sore muscles.
Mika didn't think much of it... until it got worse.
Over the years, the pain increased. Her vision would fade from time to time, and her hands would glow a weird white light as they shook uncontrollably; it felt as if the energy within her was being sucked out by some strange force.
Then, when her mother made an appearance as she was getting ready for a day out to explore New York, having recently just moved from Japan—a day that was supposed to be her having fun, mind you—she was given the news of the curse. The early death she had never wished for. Of course, like always, it was the gods' doing. Her mother's doing.
"I hate you!" Mika screamed, "I hate the gods!"
Thunder rumbled. Hebe told her, "You shouldn't say such things, Mika. It wasn't my fault. Geras was—"
"And you couldn't have done anything?"
"Mika, the Yeong bloodline, you know that—"
"Oh, I hate the gods," Mika scowled, gritting her teeth and wiping her tears furiously, "I hate every single one of you. If Zeus strikes me down now, then I don't fucking care. I'm going to die soon anyways, right?"
"Mika!"
There was screaming—so much screaming—that the only thing she remembered that day were tears and vows to never speak to Hebe ever again... vows to never speak to a single god ever again.
And she had stayed true to her word, for a while.
She'd survive the years being careful, only ever expending her energy on the occasional monster attack. Mika didn't go out as much as she used to, deciding to feel life through the calmness of it. But the pain was still there.
