Act II. Part III.

[Meanwhile]

Ryu fell to the floor after being thrown into one of the window panes and, to his surprise, found himself in the same chapel-like room.

However, this time, there was a difference. One major difference. What seemed to be a trail of thousands of glass shards, seemingly motionless, branched out from the pane he had just passed through, floated in the air.

The woman jumped through the impromptu doorway made by Ryu, swiping away some of the glass in the air. Sending a few of them scattering across the room in slow motion.

"You know I thought you'd be strong, seeing as you're still alive despite being... you know, "fateless", that actually sounds cool, please call yourself fateless now," The woman excitedly spoke to him as if they were old friends while she stood over him.

"I know the others aren't too keen about having your kind around." Just like before, she swapped from hot to cold, her expression changed to a condensing smile as she studied him. "But looking at your past you don't even want to find out what you are." She let out a laugh as she finished, walking up to the pulpit and stepping on Ryu's arm in the process.

"What do you know about me?!" Ryu angrily replied from the floor. "Even though I'm scared, I'm here! To avenge my family's death!" He shouted.

"You see, I do know you. Didn't you just hear me say I looked at your past?" She laughed even harder with her back faced towards him as she continued walking on the narrow red carpet leading to the stage. "I know you're the coward who ran as his family was killed in front of him. Ha!"

"Stop. You'll beg for my mercy the same way they did." He snarled.

"Listen to you, idiot," Said Ar to a Ryu that wasn't even listening. "The room you're in isn't part of reality anymore. The only way you're going to leave is if she lets you out or you make an exit so just—"

Ryu raised his head to see the many glass shards above him that were in the path of a ray of sunlight, giving off an ethereal glow. He raised his right arm and grabbed one that he deemed able to use as a weapon. He gripped the shard hard enough that it sliced his palm. He got up and charged toward her.

"Yeah… that. Fight back enough to stun her, then make a break for one of the windows." Ar finished.

As soon as he caught up with her, he raised the shard and held it like the handle of a knife and drove it downwards onto her shoulder with his eyes closed. He then felt the shard hit something but he wondered why the woman didn't drop.

He slowly opened his eyes and, true to his realization, it did connect but only slightly. He was faced with a sight of the glass shard's tip embedded in the woman's shoulder covered in blood. His blood.The woman held onto his arm in an attempt to stop the shard from going further in over her right shoulder.

"Boy do something!" Ar yelled.

Ryu panicked, trying to think of what to do. He quickly kicked the back of her knee like some sort of payback for earlier, but it was really just a lack of imagination.

The woman slightly went down, creating distance between the shard and her shoulder. She quickly did a 180-degree turn and clapped both Ryu's ears with her wrists. Even if she had a smaller build than him, she was way stronger than him. The ringing in his ears and the shock was proof of that.

A discombobulated Ryu was taken by his left arm and rolled over the woman's back diagonally into one of the wooden benches. His hand letting go of the shard he held. As soon as he landed on it, it seemed to implode. The splinters rose slowly from the bench instead of falling.

The woman grabbed the shard levitating in the air and ran it through his shoulder. Ryu let out another pained filled scream, leaving blood to soak into his originally white shirt.

She promptly raised her hand leaving the shard still embedded, "And that's payback for my shoulder." She said as she panted with a smile on her face. "I mean how could you do that? To a woman no less. She still has an entire life ahead of her, well… about a year but still an entire life..."

Ryu didn't try to make sense of the confusing words the woman was spouting, rather he couldn't. The pain he felt in his shoulder was like no pain he had ever felt. It felt like it had a giant piece of ice inside it. Freezing his skin and bones to an extent where it caused excruciating pain.

As the woman was rambling, he collected himself. He slowly got up and began to run towards one of the window panes to escape… would be the ideal situation but nothing other than pure adrenaline and self-preservation were keeping him awake and standing. Holding his shoulder as he limped to freedom. After finally reaching the window, he rammed his left shoulder into it. But, to his surprise, it didn't break as easily as the one he was thrown through did. Which sent him into more of a panic as he continuously rammed his shoulder against the window and cried out.

"Please no. Please no. Please no. Please no. Please?" He said as he bawled his eyes out and mucus ran down his mouth.

The woman behind him started to walk towards him slowly and he saw this causing him to speed up. A crack emerged running up to the top of the pain.

Finally.

The glass shattered.

Ryu fell through onto a cold marble floor. He opened his eyes and was met with the same landscape of the room he just left. The benches, the red carpet, the glass window panes, the stage and the pulpit. Everything was the same.

The woman this time came in through the main entrance/exit, where the door was supposed to be. Leaving Ryu on the brink of death by one of the benches.

As the woman walked in, the room seemed to turn upside down, up came down and left turned to right.

"I know that you only tried to save your friends thinking they'll comfort you and say 'Oh no, don't worry it's not your fault Ryu.' Like fellow wounded animals attempting to lick each other's wounds, but surprise surprise, only your family is dead." She said as he walked up to the stage and all the panes in the room turned to a cloud of glass shards that filled the room. The damage from the previous room seemed to have carried over but with a multiplier.

"Stop."

"I know that you only came here to prove a point: that you're not the coward you know you are. I know that you are small and pitiful. You just want to run away and hide, don't you?" She said as she slowly walked up the stage with the sound of the heels of her boots being amplified by the strange silence that filled an upside chapel.

" Even that whole 'avenge my family' nonsense wasn't your idea was it? How much of your plan today was thought up by you?" She continuously picked him apart and all in a disappointed tone drenched in pity.

"I can't even turn around and see what a painful sight you've made somewhere in here," She said as she fluttered her hands. "But let me tell you this. If you want to survive in your current state, which you won't. Question everything that has happened to you, reject all absurdity and only then will you have a chance at living not surviving." She finished as she sat atop the pulpit. "Speaking of, where are you?"

Immediately after she finished, a shadowy silhouette appeared behind her."You're right."

Ryu dragged a glass shard across the woman's neck with his right hand using what little strength he had left. Making it slower and more gruesome. He felt the resistance as he dragged it through her blood vessels, skin, and all kinds of other tissue. However, her blood didn't splatter as dramatically as you would expect. It just slowly floated up until it touched the many glass shards that were also in the air. Giving the room red-coloured rays of sunshine as the rest touched his cold hand, feeling the warmth of the blood slowly disappearing from his skin.

In an instant, the room flipped back and with that change, everything went back to normal. He still felt the pain of the shard being stuck in his arm but there was nothing. He still had blood on his arms as well. He slowly looked down and by his feet was the woman he murdered who was still alive, gasping for air, with what little life she had slowly slipping away. Suddenly, he was brought back to reality with a violent jerk. He couldn't scream, he couldn't look for help, and so he just ran.

[Museum]

Toshiko watched as the last car pulled up to the museum steps. This one was black and bore the royal family Insignia on its hood and he knew that was the King. Lars walked up to the car but didn't open it; he just stood by it. The door suddenly opened, and Lars bowed and began walking into the building leaving the car behind.

With Lars walking into the building, Toshiko left his post, and pushed everyone in his way as he ran downstairs.

"Excuse me." He said as he pushed through groups of people waiting to see the king. He finally reached the ground floor but, before he could reach the entrance, he felt someone tug at his shirt.

It was Ryu. A blood covered Ryu at that, but Toshiko didn't turn to see Ryu's state he was looking around for Lars

"We need to go now," Ryu said in a low tone with dead eyes as if he had seen something horrible.

"No, not yet Lars is coming in." Toshiko quickly responded without turning.

And immediately he said this, an alarm went off, sending everybody into a state of panic. The museum became a seething mass of bodies as everybody rushed towards an exit. Toshiko wore a conflicted expression as he stared at Ryu in all his bloody and exhausted glory. He turned his head towards the main entrance just in time to see Lars disappear into the crowd and the last car outside drove off.

"Damn it all!" Toshiko shouted.

end