Chie looked around and saw Daisuke and Satoshi.

"What is this place?" she asked.

"It's a dimension in which we communicate," Satoshi explained.

"Dimension?"

Chie realized she was sitting down and stood up.

"If you listen closely, you can hear what they're saying," Daisuke said.

Chie closed her eyes and concentrated. Very faintly, she heard several shouts and the next thing she knew was a sharp, searing pain on her back. The pain was so intense that it made her gasp and the blow nearly knocked her over. Daisuke grabbed her before she toppled over completely.

"Wha-what happened?" Chie asked.

"Someone must've hit you---err, Anas," Daisuke said.

"You know about Anas?" Chie asked with surprise.

"We both know about Anas," Satoshi said.

Chie's eyes shifted from Daisuke to Satoshi and then back to Daisuke.

"Um, how long have you known this?"

"Only a few weeks," Daisuke said.

Chie walked around the bright, kaleidoscope-like space.

"This is so strange," she mumbled. "It's like being inside a mirror."

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, Chie noticed something. It was a large door. It was large and made out of stone. Chiseled into the stone were several words in languages Chie didn't know. Smack in the middle of the stone door was a poem:

Angry emotions

Human weaknesses spill blood

And my heart still breaks

"What is this?" Chie asked, rubbing her fingers across the poem. "How sad. What happened?" She turned to the two boys. "What is this thing? What's beyond it?"

"Don't open it," Satoshi mumbled quietly.

"But why not?" Chie asked.

They didn't answer. Chie frowned.

"I'm going to open it," she said and pushed the door.

"Chie-san, don't!" Daisuke said.

His warning came a little too late. The door swung open. Chie gazed at what she saw with wonder.

At first, all Chie saw was a bunch of images swimming inside the door. She couldn't figure out what the images were. Suddenly, one image stopped and became as clear as day.

"It's . . . Anko-chan," she whispered. "But who are the other people?"

Anas turned to face her. "Kaikatsu!" she exclaimed.

Sana hit Anas in the face and turned to Chie. "It's you! I thought you separated from Anas."

"Ryoyu, close that door immediately!" Satoshi shouted.

A normal person would've closed the door so the bloodthirsty angel wouldn't reach them. But Chie was too stunned to even move. She watched Sana hit Anas again and something in her snapped.

"Stop hurting Anko-chan!" she cried and jumped out of the kaleidoscope-like abyss and into the bright white one. She ran up to Sana and tried to hit her, but Sana knocked her down.

Scowling, Sana said, "I don't have time to argue with you." Several of the golden feathers fell on the ground of the bright space and formed an eight-pointed star. Out of the star rose a mirror in the shape of the star. The mirror dripped with something red. Was it blood?

"It's Ekaterina's Desperare!" Krad exclaimed.

"Don't do it!" Anas shouted.

"Ekaterina's Desperare?" A sudden image of a woman with white hair and silvery gray eyes came to Chie's mind. She blinked and the image disappeared. Seeing only the bizarre mirror, she turned to Anas and asked, "Anko-chan, what is---?"

The mirror cast a red glow on the three children and they vanished.

Ah, Ekaterina's Desperare. It's a really creepy mirror made by a wicked little child. It's meant to torture whoever is sent beyond it with excruciating pain (both mental and physical). And I think Chie's going to suffer more than anyone else (considering the fact that Amonisha-chan will kill me if I hurt Daisuke). And Ekaterina will also appear later on (though I'm not sure if in this fanfic or the next).