Back at home, the air was thick.

Do Bong Soon paced the living room in her robe, muttering under her breath.
Do Rae sat on the arm of the couch, arms crossed, eyes narrowed.
Do Rin stood quietly near the door, still processing what she’d read.

“No more deflections,” Rin said finally.
“No more ‘I’ll tell you when you’re older.’ We’re eighteen. We’re in it now.
So start talking.”

Bong Soon stopped pacing.

She turned to face them. Strong. Centered. But tired in a way they hadn’t seen before.

“There’s a reason I kept this quiet.
And it’s not just because I was afraid of you getting hurt.
It’s because I wasn’t sure if… the prophecy was real.”

Rae blinked. “Prophecy? Are you being dramatic or is this an actual magical bloodline thing?”

“Very real,” Bong Soon said. “And very old.”

She pulled out a weathered notebook from a locked drawer beneath the bookshelf.

Inside were pages of handwritten entries, diagrams, and a single line that was circled over and over in red ink:

“When two are born from strength, they will either end the bloodline… or make it unbreakable.”

“It’s not just that you have powers,” Bong Soon explained.
“It’s that you’re the first twins ever born into this legacy. It wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Rin frowned. “So we’re some kind of… genetic glitch?”

“No,” Bong Soon said. “You’re a fork in the road. And everyone out there knows it. The Iron Circle. The labs. Even Mi Na.”

Rae stood up. “Wait, Mi Na is alive?”

Bong Soon hesitated.

Then: “She never died. She disappeared. And she took something with her… something that made the Circle even more dangerous.”

“What did she take?”

Bong Soon looked at Rin.

“A formula. One that could artificially trigger the strength in someone who doesn’t have it by birth.”

Rae’s stomach dropped. “You mean… anyone could be made like us?”

“Not quite,” Bong Soon said. “It’s unstable. Fatal if done wrong. But they’ve been trying.”

Rin stepped forward. “Is that what ‘Project NOVA’ is?”

Bong Soon’s eyes widened. “Where did you hear that?”

“I found it in their system,” Rin said. “They weren’t tracking Rae. They were tracking me.”

Bong Soon sank into the couch.

“Then it’s worse than I thought.”

Flashback — 20 years ago.

Mi Na, brilliant but defiant, had taken the family’s secrets and tried to rewrite them.
She believed strength shouldn’t be inherited — it should be earned.
She created the prototype formula. It worked… once. But the subject didn’t survive.

That failure split her and Bong Soon forever.

But now? Someone had restarted the research.

And they were watching Do Rin.

Not because she was weaker.

But because she was smarter. More controlled. More precise.

The perfect candidate.

“Do you still trust me?” Bong Soon asked her daughters.

Rae looked at Rin. Rin nodded.

“Yeah,” Rae said. “But you’re not calling the shots alone anymore.”

Rin added, “This legacy? It’s ours now.”

Bong Soon smiled — the sad kind.

“Then you better get ready.
Because if the world thinks you're going to save it...
they're going to test how much you're willing to destroy to do it.”