Othello froze, and Mitsume slapped his hand away. He slipped out from under him as Othello crumpled to the floor with a groan. Mitsume launched himself at the door, but it had been locked with some sort of enchantment. Shrugging, he found a chair and proceeded to smash the door down. He leaped over the wreckage and ran down the hallway, his empty left sleeve flapping behind him. It had come unpinned. He dared not look back or stop to re-pin it. He ran on, bypassing several people who grinned at him and jumped out of the way. They were probably excited to see if he could get away, or if not, what Othello would do to him when he caught him. Either way, they refused to intervene.

Now the hallway opened on one side, revealing the bottom floor of the castle. An elaborate iron railing graced the edge of the floor Mitsume was running on. He glanced down, and thought to himself that there must be a way out down there. He reached a grand stair case and stumbled down it. When he reached the bottom floor, he stopped to glance around for an exit. In the same instant that he spotted a door that was cracked open, he felt a whoosh of air behind him and the floor shuddered as something landed with a loud thump. He felt his heart skip a beat. He turned his head a fraction, and saw the blazing eyes piercing into his, one of which had until recently been his, as the figure rose from a crouch.

Othello.

Without further hesitation, he sprinted towards the door. His breath heaved, and he wondered why- he hadn't been running for long, and he doubted that he could have gotten that out of shape in the single week he had been held prisoner in Othello's room. But then, there was the only reason he was a prisoner… the hole through his chest that still hadn't healed.

His wounds were burning now, as he gasped in a lungful of air and slowed just enough to wrench open the door, only to be dazzled and temporarily blinded by… sunlight? He hadn't seen sunlight in a long time… But this was impossible. There couldn't be sunlight in hell.

All the time he was thinking this, he had only slightly slowed his pace. He shook his head briefly at his lack of concentration, and picked up his pace again. He heard a quiet chuckle behind him, and it startled him enough so that he turned his head back to look. He saw Othello nearly directly behind him, and gasped; big mistake. His step faltered, and the next step brought him smashing into, and over, a bench. He floundered awkwardly in the air, struggling to right himself with the use of one arm, before deciding to just curl up to protect his remaining arm and his chest from the impact.

He landed rather heavily and put out a hand to push himself upright. Immediately he felt a pinprick in the heel of his palm. He retracted it instinctively and glanced down at it. A splinter. Oh…

Stop breathing for a moment. Eyes widen. Pulse lurches to rapidity. Remember to draw a breath… and the breathing is racing at the speed of light. All of time is stopped, everywhere but here. What's this?

Mitsume? Hyperventilating?

No, not Mitstume… Surely not Mitsume…

…Shit.

Something akin to a sick parody of a laugh escaped his lips, as he stared down at his hand. One… two… three fingers; well, that depended on whether you counted the thumb as a finger or not… He continued to evaluate what was left of his body.

One arm. One stump hanging off the left shoulder. Two fingers. One thumb. Three lumps across the top of his hand. Two eyes. One empty socket in the middle of his forehead. Damn… he was one fucked up clown.

But at least he wasn't as fucked up an ass-clown as Othello.

Speaking of Othello…

Was that the ass-clown staring at him right now?

What a twisted creep.