"You never told me your name," Morai said. She was still lying blindfolded in a dark hospital room, but if the people around her were to be trusted, that would change today. It had been a day since she had received the news that her terrible nature was here to stay, at least for now, and she was relieved by the fact. Her mysterious visitor had come in once more, resting her arms on the bed rails.

"Maria," the voice said.

The door opened, and by the sound of it, whoever stood in the doorway wasn't happy.

"Anna!" she gasped. "What are you doing here? Don't be so close!"

"I guess they forgot to tell you that I bite, too," Morai said with a chuckle, baring her teeth.

"Morai, it's finally time for you to leave this room. Anna, you should leave too. The fewer people, the better."

"Oh, why, Pollie?" Anna said. "I know not to—"

"Those are the rules, given the recent...incident."

"You really should go," Morai agreed. "With the two of you, I just won't know who to pick off."

"Words like that'll get you another day trapped here just like you are," Pollie said. "And you don't see the guards standing by my side. Get moving, Anna."

Anna sighed and said her goodbye to Morai and left.

"Oh, thank goodness," Morai said. "I was beginning to think I was hallucinating her this entire time."

Footsteps approached and Morai's blindfold was removed again. Pollie the nurse was right. She had two large guards with her, and Morai could see more lining the halls outside.

"This'll be fun," she said.

"Strike two!" Pollie said. "One more threat and you stay."

"Fine, fine," Morai sighed. "I should just be entirely silent, then."

The two guards undid the straps on her wrists and ankles, and Morai stretched the longest she ever had in her life. She stretched and twisted every muscle and joint and let out a giant groan of relief. The prisoner noticed that she still had her long, sharp nails, which was likely because they were nearly impossible to cut.

"These are yours," Pollie said, handing a set of clothes to a guard who then handed it to Morai.

"Oh, don't tell me you all have to see me in my underwear," Morai joked, though she meant what she said.

"You two leave for a moment," Pollie said.

"No. That's way too dangerous," one of the guards argued.

"It may surprise you that I actually want to leave this room," Morai argued. "I wouldn't be so stupid as to try anything now. I think I can control myself long enough to change."

"Fine. We'll be right outside," the other said. They hesitated to leave, but Pollie shooed them out.

"Thank you," Morai said. All of the grueling training she had done had obviously paid off, as her hospital gown slid off to reveal a very athletic body covered in healing cuts and bruises. The prison uniform she had been given was quite above-average, and it seemed to have been made especially for her. It was a high-collared black jumpsuit with an undershirt in her favorite blood red color. There was a big red eye symbol embroidered on the side of her shoulder, and she figured it was more of a warning to everyone around her than a design choice.

Morai was handcuffed in the front and led out of the room. Before she could walk fully out into the hall, one of the guards grabbed the back of her collar and pulled her to him. She went to retaliate but stopped herself when he pulled a gun from his belt.

"Remember that when you try anything, this literally has your name on it," he said. "The building name is engraved on this because it was made just for you."

"Got it," Morai said with a smile. "I'll just shut up, lest I get a third strike...but don't worry. You'll get the chance to use it soon," she whispered.

Once she made it into the halls, Morai was surprised at the strange beauty of the building. It had a dark brick interior, and colored streaks of light shone through stained glass windows.

"It used to be a cathedral, apparently," Pollie said. "It was abandoned and long forgotten. Interpol had to do the best with the time and resources they had, I guess."

"That's ironic," Morai chuckled as they walked down the hallway. "It'll take more than prayer to save this sinner."

The trainer abruptly stopped and faced one of the windows, trying to look out at what lied beyond the walls of her new prison until one of the guards prompted her to keep walking.

They descended some steps into the first floor and stopped at a room that a guard opened with a scan of his eye. Morai politely waved Pollie in first with her handcuffed hands and followed her into the room.

"This is where you'll be sleeping, assuming you don't land yourself back in the hospital wing," Pollie said. The room itself had obviously been decorated with Morai in mind, and it made the trainer wonder why they had put so much obvious care into the quality of her imprisonment.

Are they trying to make me just comfortable enough to stay here for months or years on end so they can do whatever they want with me?

It was a small yet elegant room with a bathroom attached to it, and it followed Morai's favorite color scheme of dark reds and black. An actual bed sat in the middle, with a chest of drawers and bedside table on either side of it.

"It's also one of the few rooms that has no cameras," the nurse added.

"Oh, really?" Morai said with a smile. "That works out perfectly, then."

"Hey!" someone yelled from the outside, followed by vicious pounding on the door. "Open the door!"

Pollie turned in shock around to see that the guards were outside. Morai smiled even more as she saw the panic set in on her face.

"What...how did you...?" she muttered, backing against the door. Morai followed her, tilting her chin up so that her wide horrified eyes looked into her red ones.

"I guess this is strike three," she whispered. She put her handcuffed arms around the woman and sunk her sharp teeth into her neck, not bothering to hypnotize her. All that could be heard to the people on outside was a blood-curdling scream.

"That idiot broke the scanner!" someone yelled.

"No, wait, he's been hypnotized! Look at 'em!"

"Goddamnit, Morai," a familiar voice cursed. It sounded like Looker.

Once Morai had had enough, she backed away, and Pollie didn't move.

"Are you going to quit now, too?" the prisoner asked. "If not, I can make sure you want to."

The nurse's face was ghost white with terror. She would've fallen over had she not been leaning onto the door. Finally, the door opened, and she was pushed forward onto the floor.

"Pollie!" someone cried.

"Morai!" Looker sharply yelled.

"If you're going to shoot me with one of those anyway, I might as well make it count, right, gentlemen?" she joked, blood dripping down her chin. She picked a fight with the first guard she saw, and she heard the sound of a dart gun being fired before it happened. In a split second she stepped away and raised her hands to catch the dart that had been shot. Everyone went silent as she held it in her hands with a smug mile spread across her face.

"Do you know how long it took to hone my Foresight enough to be able to do that?" she said. "It's too bad I was too distracted to do it when Ingo shot me."

Morai managed to land a couple of more kicks before she was shot again, and this time she let it hit her, partially because she knew the success rate on her first trick was pretty low. As her vision faded out, she saw Looker's solemn and disappointed face looking back at her.

The trainer found herself right back where she had been before, blindfolded and restrained.

"You weren't lying when you said you were going to pick someone off," a voice said.

"Maria," Morai greeted. "Where are your survival instincts? You should be long gone."

"It seems that most of the time I've been here so far you've been in this room. While you're here, there's not much you can do. I'd be careful before they stick you in here and never let you out...or worse."

"One, two, three, four, five, six, and...seven," Layton read while examining papers. His tone had grown increasingly disgusted the higher the count went. "In the twelve days that Morai has been here...she's somehow managed to attack seven nurses. All women."

"I say we quit while we're behind and...you know..." another man said, sliding a finger across his neck. Ingo stepped to him, and they very nearly got into a heated argument.

"Gentleman, please!" Looker called.

"We're still talking about a human here! A human who was a very notable trainer held in high regard by everyone at that," Ingo argued.

"That beast ain't human no more, mate!" the man said, pointing to fresh claw marks on his arm. He spoke with a Wyndon accent.

Looker glanced over to a stoic woman sitting quietly at the end of the table. She had brown skin and black hair that was drawn back into a bun. She wore an olive green suit and was perhaps the best dressed in the room.

"Mrs. Sheridan?" he asked.

"It's true that we've gotten off to quite a rocky start," Mrs. Sheridan said. "But that doesn't mean that there isn't hope for the future. Ingo is right, and he and his brother are only here because Morai had many friends in the past. If the Subway Bosses held her in such high regard, she must've been a very respectable trainer. We need to start by getting her to a place where she can walk into the halls without immediately getting into trouble. Arthur?"

"She's pickin' fights with all my men," Arthur said. The scruffy Galarian man had been appointed the chief officer of the guards, and he settled right into the chaos that Morai and her constant trouble brought. "She's winnin' a lot of 'em, too, and you can't find guys much bigger or stronger than the lot I picked out for the job."

"She is a trained fighter, and she likes to test her skills" Looker added. "But how she's getting people to look her in the eye, I have no idea."

"Alright," Sheridan said. "We'll have to construct a few more rules, it seems."

Morai was finally overpowered by four guards, and she was practically dragged out into the hallway.

"Thank you, Briana!" she called, a knee pressing harder into her back as her wrists were cuffed behind her and a blindfold placed over her eyes. She licked the blood dripping down her chin and smiled.

"You guys are fun," she said. "Same time tomorrow?"

"Shut it!" a guard yelled, smacking her upside the head. "You're going to see the boss."

"Oh, Morai, not again," Maria's voice said as she passed the group walking down the hallway. Morai dug her heels into the floor.

"How come you're only around when I can't see you?" she asked.

"Because you're only ever blindfolded," Maria answered.

"Get moving!" a voice from behind Morai commanded, pushing her forward.

From What Morai could hear, they had arrived at their destination. A rather polite knock sounded on the door in front of her, and she heard a voice waving them in.

"The beast's done it again, Sheridan," one of the guards said, grabbing Morai's bloody chin and holding it still.

"I can still bite, you know," Morai said through gritted teeth. "And it sounds like you're dissatisfied with your own job performance. You let it happen, after all."

"Oh yeah? How about I—"

"Gentlemen!..and woman. You four can leave. I'll handle it from here," Sheridan said.

"But, Miss, she's—"

"I'm sufficiently armed," Sheridan answered sternly. "Now go."

Morai heard the men leave and curse as they went.

"I know you're capable of sitting still for at least a few minutes, Morai, so I'd suggest you do so," the woman said. She put a hand on Morai's shoulder and guided her to the seat in front of her desk. Morai could smell her sweet floral perfume.

"I'm only going to share my last name with you, and it's Sheridan. I'm one of the people in charge. Under normal circumstances I'd give you a handshake, but the situation we're in is very far from normal."

"I'd say, Sheridan," Morai said. "You're running out of nurses! I've been waiting on their replacements, but something tells me there aren't any."

Morai heard the woman sigh. "Is there a reason you're only picking nurses as the victims of your attacks?"

"Oh, no ma'am," Morai laughed. "I exact violence equally upon everyone. But the thing is, those fair nurses you hire simply aren't trained to fight, so I pick them to quench my thirst for blood, and the burly guards for my thirst for fighting."

"I see..." Sheridan said. "Well, we need to do something about that. You have a choice, Morai. You will either go back to that hospital room and sit there in the dark until you decide to act differently, or you can choose to act differently now and save yourself the trouble."

"Both of those options are quite terrible," Morai said with a frown.

"I know that your rebellious nature prompts you to choose the former option just to spite me, so let me sweeten the deal. If you agree to the latter option, you'll have the opportunity to spar with whoever wants to. I imagine that plenty of the guards would be eager to have a go at you."

Morai considered Sheridan's offer for a good minute or two. This room was a little warmer than the cold halls of the brick cathedral. She wondered about the figure sitting in front of her and what she looked like, just as she wondered what Maria looked like.

"Fine," she said. "I'll do what you want for a short time."

"I'm glad to hear it," Sheridan said with a flat tone that conveyed otherwise. "If I remove your handcuffs and your blindfold, I can be certain that you won't try anything, then, yes?"

"Well, I wouldn't say certain..."

Morai could feel the handcuffs being taken off of her wrists and the blindfold being untied. Sheridan looked her right in the eye, and Morai's eyes momentarily glowed with red.

"I can't decide whether I like you or not," Morai said. "But I know one way to find out."

She lifted a hand, but Sheridan grabbed her wrist and stared her down.

"Is it really what you want?" she asked calmly. "Sitting in a dark room without the ability to move or see, all for this one momentary pleasure of violence? Because I tell you, you won't get another chance to see the light of the day after this. So, tell me, is it worth it?"

"...No, I guess not," Morai whispered. Sheridan relaxed her grip and Morai stood, for the first time since her arrival, calmly and nonviolently.

"I still can't decide whether I like you or not," Morai said.

"Well, I think you'll have a lot of time to figure it out."

Morai walked willingly back down into her room to sleep. It would be the first time in her entire stay that she slept a whole night in that room, and when she drifted off to sleep, she awoke to find herself in the Realm of Dreams. She walked down the broken path to the center of the garden, which was still stained with red from all of the previous violence it had endured. When Shadow Morai saw her in her prison jumpsuit, she laughed. Morai herself laughed about it too, and they both took each other's actions as an invitation to engage in some friendly sparring.

That sparring got much more heated as time went on, however, and they both grew increasingly vicious, trying to land extremely devastating attacks.

"Morai, please!" Light Morai called. Both of them stopped, unsure of which Morai she was referring to.

"Light Morai," Morai greeted. "How are you doing?"

"Much better now," Light Morai said, "My Mind's Eye is still extremely hazy, and my other powers are barely here, but I am in a better place than I was."

"I'm glad to hear it," Morai answered. "I see the restoration to the garden is moving along...slowly."

"I managed to get her house free of all that encroaching plant life," Shadow Morai explained. "But its stubborn, and that side of the garden doesn't like me."

"She's been working very hard," Light Morai added.

"It's good to see you back here," Shadow Morai said, finally greeting her real world counterpart with words instead of violence. "Nice outfit. I've got another suit if you want it."

"I can hardly tell the two of you apart now," Light Morai joked, though her facial expression subtly changed to an expression of sadness.

"You've been doing wonderful things," Shadow Morai continued. "All of those nurses, eh?"

"I enjoyed every moment," Morai said. "I'll make them all quit, then I'll climb the ladder up to Sheridan."

"Oh, I can't wait for you to sink your claws into her. The blood of your enemies tastes so much sweeter."

As Light Morai sat in the middle this terrible conversation, she seemed to come to a solemn and quiet realization.

I'm never going to get better, am I? This is what Shadow Morai must've felt like. This world is so wildly out of balance that unless Morai shifts her perspective, things will never return to the way they were.

"What about Maria?" she asked. "She was kind."

"A rung on the ladder," Morai said.

"But she's been so kind," her Light counterpart argued. "If you don't want anything to do with your old friends, she could be a new one."

"Morai could never," Shadow Morai cut in with a laugh. "Our nature simply doesn't allow it."

Morai agreed.

"Morai—Shadow Morai, I mean—could I speak to you for a moment?" Light Morai asked.

Shadow Morai shrugged and joined her polar twin as they walked along a path out of the garden's center, leaving Morai to play around on the still broken piano.

"Do you understand the danger of encouraging our sister to constantly indulge in these violent and evil desires?" Light Morai asked. She put her hand on her opposite's shoulder, as her psychic vision was still very hazy.

"No. No, I don't," her counterpart said, helping to guide her along the broken path.

"If she continues down this path, balance will never be restored. I think I have the same feeling you did when her predecessor was here, constantly preparing for a fall you knew was going to happen. Except this time, I have no defense against it besides my own pleading words. It's ultimately up to you two to realize that your violent way of life is not good one hundred percent of the time."

"I don't know what to say, my friend," Shadow Morai answered flatly. "It's my belief that our way of life is best, and it's hard to believe otherwise. You and I are supposed to fight for supremacy over her mind, but if you cannot fight, I will inevitably hold the power and influence over her actions."

"Then you must understand that encouraging this out-of-control behavior will result in everyone's downfall," Light Morai argued.

"Are you saying that because it will truly end us all, or because you don't like that I'm finally the one she favors? You held the reigns for so long, and now that I have them it's a problem?"

"No, Morai, it was a problem back then, too. I just didn't see it, like you don't see it now. She's not going to uphold her deal with Sheridan, and they may very well give up on her," Light Morai pleaded. "Please, Morai."

"She's quite happy now that she's been freed from the chains of duality. Who am I to put them right back on her?" Shadow Morai said.

"Morai, you have to—"

"Enough!" Shadow Morai yelled, baring her teeth. She turned so quickly that her counterpart almost fell to the ground. "I don't have to do anything! We're not going to succumb to the wills of those damn fools! We're going to finish every last one of them off, until no one dares to even say our name!"

Light Morai said nothing for the rest of their walk. When they circled back around to the center of the garden, Morai had woken up and was gone. Shadow Morai angrily went on her way, and Light Morai went to tend to her single living rose. It had been revived from its near-death after her counterparts' fight, but it remained the only living symbol of Light Morai's vitality compared to Shadow Morai's vast garden of black roses.

"We're dying, my friend," she whispered solemnly. "I'm sorry."