A light goes on and steps become audible. There is nothing but a white room, inhabiting a single flower in the far, far distance. When taking a closer gaze at the walls, a pattern can be seen on the white walls - more flowers that seem to paint a large garden, subtle and at first difficult to comprehend, but the longer you look at it, the more it becomes visible this garden has withered long ago.
Classic, if somewhat disturbing music is hearable. As if a piece of Beethoven or Mozart is played, but it's distorted to the point it sounds like from a nightmare. An interpretation of a calming piece, reduced to a horrible distortion, made up by a broken, sad mind.
A moment later, Ragyo Kiryuin appears in this room, standing three steps behind the flower, looking down on it and the person she watches.
She is watching you.
She is watching me. Mama always watches me.
"The philosophers of this world are conflicted. They always been conflicted. They say humans are animalistic. They say they are wild monsters, drowning in their inclinations - once, a man said to use your mind, to free yourself, to understand the world, to understand humanity as a whole.
But if you ask me, Harime, humanity was never able to truly understand itself." Ragyo claims as she walks to us. Have you ever wondered what a mind looks like, mon cher?
I think minds are strange - mine is still intact and I don't know why. Truth is, I should have been gone. I was, yesterday, at the very least. Cut my head off for the mistress that raised me so greatly. I'd do anything for her. I'd do everything for her. There was no one else but her. I'm not one of those philosophers, that's, to put it simple, pretty boring, and I'm, as you know, a fun type of person.
Though, I should let mama speak. It's not polite to interrupt someone.
"What do you see in this flower?"
...
Do you have an answer, my dear? What do you think, love?
"Beyond it's beauty, all I see is a weak, little stem. A weak spot, waiting to be used. One that can be used to make the world obedient - one that makes humans so obedient. What do you think is this weakness?
It's in every human. Everyone wants to claim this weakness for themselves. A sad rest of what they experienced at the very start of their life, at least in most cases.
Watch." Ragyo says and pulls the flower out of the pot - roots are revealed.
"All these roots that desperately search for a hold, a grip that calls itself "Home". No matter who you are - deep inside you, an anchor is set into the endless ocean, an ocean you drown into, for it is what many people seek as "family" - the feeling of having one.
But, as purifying water may be, family drowns you. Family kills you. I've learned this lesson a long time ago. It's temporary. Unlike the hunger. The hunger always stays. You seek for this blood, and it is good, as blood is infinite, and you prove that.
And yet it's strange how paradox your existence is. There is blood flowing through you - it is produced inside you. It makes you special. It makes you magnificent - perfect in a sense that you do not need to still your hunger.
But that magnificence comes with a price that almost makes me want to take back this perfection.
You have this wish of having a family yourself, don't you? I see it in your pure, blue eyes."
...
"I will cleanse you of this weakness... I love your being, I love everything about you. Day and night I wish I would be like you - I feel joy to know about your existence.
Do not throw this gift away. You look human, you feel human, but you aren't, and there is no reason to be such. You are ultimately clothing. You've always been made to be clothing.
It would anger me if you'd believe different. You wouldn't want to anger me, would you?"
"... no, Lady Ragyo." is what I answer.
My neck is cut.
My head falls from my body, and I watch how all of my cells dissolve. My final cut into a perfect piece of clothing. Yet there is no vessel - I only fall onto the white ground while my brain slowly loses it's ability to work. I cannot speak, all I can do is watch now. Watch how the pure ground is stained with my blood.
"You were my downfall, Harime. It's good we both have vanished. And yet you live somehow. Accept your weak being - you are obsessed with me, and it was good as long as you worked. Strange to see that you've always worked, but when the time came to end it all and make you my perfection, my Shinra Koketsu, you failed.
No one shall mourn for you."
Ragyo dissolves into thousands of life fibers pieces, as if her heart exploded.
But haven't I done everything she wanted? All I wanted her is to love me.
Life is funny, because it's so unfair.
Am I dreaming?
I can't see anything anymore. It's as if I am being devoured by the life fibers.
I'm scared...