Morai watched as Ingo and the still unnamed doctor left the room, making way for a face she hadn't seen in a while. Morai had forgotten what Sheridan looked like, as what happened if she didn't see someone or something for more than a couple of days. By now, the detailed faces of her parents had been long forgotten, but she would recognize them if she saw them...probably.
"Hello, Morai," Sheridan said. She was dressed in her usual olive green suit again, but it looked as though it had been altered to fit her now smaller frame. The woman looked as if she had endured an attack from an Ursaring rather than a human.
"Mrs. Sheridan," Morai returned, giving a nod and greeting her with the proper title. Sheridan slowly walked up to her bedside, picking her mask up and regarding it in the dim light.
"It's...terrifying. It matches your personality," she said with a joking smile. Morai looked at her, confused.
"Why are you here?" she asked.
"I came here to apologize," Sheridan responded. Morai shook her head, wondering if she was perhaps stuck in some sort of weird dream.
"Why would you—"
"I told you that you were broken beyond repair, a statement that you have since proven wrong and one that wasn't true in the first place. Everything else I said still stands, but my final claim was untrue."
Morai looked up at Sheridan, eyes narrowed as she saw her scars and the extent of the damage she had taken.
"What? No, say something else! Take some form of retribution!" she said. "What kind of response is that to someone who did what I did to you?"
"If I were to respond to your cruelty with the same in return, I'd have no right to be the leader of those trying to correct it. I would be a hypocrite, one unfit to guide you in a different direction than the one you're going, for I'd be walking down that path with you."
"You remind me of someone I know," Morai said with a sigh. "Too bad she's gone."
"I would've liked to meet her," Sheridan said.
"It was my attack on you that sent her away."
Sheridan furrowed her eyebrows.
"You're talking about your Dream Realm, yes?" she asked.
"Yes. I'm sure it sounds insane to everyone who hears it, but that world is as real as this one."
"You're a bit of an anomaly yourself," Sheridan replied. "The idea of dreams influenced by your psychic power doesn't seem too farfetched. Anyway, we're going out of order here, but I think you should spend some time with Ingo while he's here."
Morai went to protest, but Sheridan held up a finger.
"There are consequences to face for what you've done, and this is one of them. It's not like we can send you to prison. This is supposed to be helpful to you, if only you'd let it be."
Morai leaned back and sighed, seemingly acquiescing to her fate.
"All because of what someone else did in the past," she said. "A dead hero who no one can forget, apparently."
"Precisely," Sheridan said. "You still have the marks of a hero, Morai."
The woman turned around to leave, but before crossing the threshold, she turned back.
"Even if you burn everything you touch, please try to keep what little friendliness you have with Maria from going up in flames. I think you'll come to value it more than you realize now."
"Now you sound like someone else in my dreams," Morai said. Sheridan didn't say anything else as she left. A guard entered and began to loosen the straps around Morai's wrists and ankles, only to put her in handcuffs and tie a blindfold around her head.
"Where am I supposed to be going?" she asked. She hoped that she was about to thrown into a room with anyone at this point. She was so thirsty that she would give her all in any fight if it meant just one drop of what she craved on her dry tongue.
"Doctor's lab," he tersely answered.
He's well-built, but I think I can take him. A swipe of the claws is all it takes to bleed.
Ingo sat ruffling through the pages of the book he had brought with a frown deeper than his usual one. The tale of the scientist whose morbid curiosity got the better of him was written within those pages, the tale of the man whose scientific endeavors had caused him to fall too far into the dark pits of evil, unable to claw his way out and back into the light.
"This is perhaps the most discouraging thing I've read yet," he said. He was sitting on a couch in the doctor's study, a gas lamp sitting on the table next to him. Some parts of the cathedral had remained largely untouched, and this study was one of them.
"It's a fairytale, my good man," the doctor replied with a smile. "A warning, perhaps. Science has advanced quite far since the time that it was written."
"Have you made any breakthroughs when it comes to changing her back?" Ingo asked, talking about Morai.
The doctor considered his next actions for a moment, then went and retrieved a vial of light blue liquid.
"This," he began, "is the start of what could shift her personality back in the other direction. The problem is that I have no one to test it on but her. If I am not correct in my theories and calculations, she will pay the price."
"...What about me?" Ingo asked. The doctor laughed.
"You're the epitome of good, my friend, and your willingness to make such a sacrifice proves it. If we're talking about being unbalanced, why, this would probably kill you!"
Ingo frowned and bowed his head.
"But there's still hope yet," the doctor added. He put the vial away and drew out a syringe, injecting it into his own forearm and drawing blood. Ingo watched him with a puzzled look.
"It just means that I have to try and be as close to the answer as possible when I try it," he continued, pouring his collection into a small glass and storing it away in the fridge. "It's not conventional, by any means, but I wasn't hired for being conventional. I still require time to try and perfect it, however, which is why I ask that you keep this between you and I. In the meantime, I'll leave the good old-fashioned persuasion to you."
A knock sounded at the door as the man was tying a bandage around his own arm, and Morai was guided through it. Her blindfold was removed and her hands un-cuffed, a rule that the doctor had in place much to everyone else's dismay.
"Ah, just in time! Hello, Morai" he greeted. The prisoner looked at him with wild eyes, stalking toward him like a Persian. His eyes met hers and her eyes took on the faint glow of red that always signaled danger.
"Wait a moment! I have exactly what you want," he quickly said, taking another small glass from the fridge. He held it out and Morai stopped and stared at it a moment before lunging forward to swipe it out of his hand and drink it. As soon as the red liquid touched her tongue, however, she spit it back out.
"You liar!" she growled, teeth bared and claws flexed. "What is this?"
"I'm sorry for the lie, my friend," he said. "I prepared a mixture of ingredients similar to that of blood in hopes that it would satisfy your cravings. That way, everyone would be happy and no one would be hurt. Now that I see it hasn't worked, I'll fulfill my initial promise."
The man took the first glass and fetched the other one, which Morai could instantly tell was the real thing. Ingo was quick enough to object this time.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" he asked.
"This is currently the best option," the doctor replied. "Otherwise, she'll focus on nothing else."
Morai quickly grabbed the glass from his hand as if it was the last remaining cup of water in a scorching desert. She turned the glass up and got through half of it in her first gulp.
"Please slow down, Morai," the doctor pleaded. "Such an amount would make anyone else sick, and this'll be your only option for the next couple of days. I can only lose so much blood, you know."
Morai stopped a moment, breathing a sigh of relief before furrowing her brows.
"This is yours?" she asked, just coming to notice the bandage around the man's arm.
"You've taken everyone else's by force, so no one wanted to give it up willingly, of course."
Morai turned to look at Ingo, then looked back at the doctor.
"I didn't ask him," the doctor replied, understanding her suggestion. "It would be...in bad taste—excuse the word choice—to drink the blood of someone you've known for years, no?"
Morai shrugged as she pressed the glass to her lips and finished her drink, if you could call it that.
"Years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, it all seems the same to me," she said, tipping her glass up to get the last drop. She raised her glass to the doctor in a show of silent gratitude and glanced over at Ingo, who had a look of disdain on his face.
"So, are you ready to tell me how saintly Morai was in the past?" she said with a red-stained grin on her face. Ingo opened his mouth to reply, but it looked as if he changed his answer before speaking.
"Yes," he simply said, rising from his seat. The way he sighed and stood up conveyed a sort of tiredness. Whether it was from a long commute or seeing his former friend commit one moral atrocity after another, Morai couldn't tell.
Ingo waited at the door, gesturing for Morai to walk through first, but she took a detour before crossing the threshold, walking over to take the doctor's cane.
"I'm not going to use it for violence this time," she said before he could object.
"With your history, I can't trust it!" he called after her as she walked through the door.
Ingo followed behind her before joining her side. The prisoner expected to be stopped by the guards, but no one seemed to mind her free hands and eyes, although a few looked at her new potential weapon with suspicion. She noticed that Ingo had three Pokémon on his belt. One of them, she guessed, was his main partner Chandelure.
"So, where are we going?" she asked.
"I figured that we could simply walk," Ingo replied. "I assumed you were tired of sitting in a dark room all of the time."
Morai nodded in agreement, then asked another question as she began to draw out her mental map of the cathedral prison, something she'd been wanting to do since she arrived.
"Then where does your story begin?" she asked.
"I've told you much of it already, I'm afraid. I thought I'd get to know you like you are now, since you're so different, beginning with why you refer to yourself as a different person when referring to the past."
"It's simple, really," Morai began, noting which stained glass window sat beside which hall entrance. "We are two people that shared a body and name, but a different brain and makeup of the soul. This is made true by the fact that I see her in my dreams. I did not make that sacrifice at the Battle Subway.That Morai did, and that version of Morai was sent off to the Realm of Dreams, leaving me behind. We supposedly share the same soul, but I theorize that she took the good part of my soul with her."
Before Ingo went to object to such an idea, Morai continued, twirling the cane by her side.
"Before me, she lived with the burden and sorrow of duality, possessing both the potential for good and evil and being torn apart by the possibility that she would fall into the dark chasm of evil. Yet, ultimately, it was her sacrifice—an act of undoubtable good—that caused her to become what she feared most of all: me."
They both walked in silence for what seemed like an eternity to Ingo. Morai didn't seem to notice the passage of time, as it all seemed to fly by her and catch her unaware. By now she had forgotten the mental map she had tried to forge, and she hoped that her memory would be refreshed the next time she needed it.
"That's...not very simple," the Subway Boss finally said.
"If you could see my dreams, you'd understand."
The two trainers walked the halls and talked about simple things, Morai explaining her reasoning behind the small parts of her new personality—at least those that could be explained. She talked of her few interests outside of pure violence and bloodshed, and Ingo could occasionally interject to point out that the other Morai liked those things too. They had decided to walk until they reached the door leading out to the courtyard, Morai assuming that Ingo knew where it was.
"And the person before this previous Morai," he eventually asked. "The trainer who existed before Morai even became Morai, before all of her psychic powers. Where is she?"
"...Gone," Morai simply answered. "I see Past Morai in my dreams, but the person you speak of is nowhere to be found."
They eventually reached the garden door and went outside, opting to take a seat on the bench. They sat in silence for awhile until Morai stopped twirling her stolen cane long enough to ask a question.
"Let's say you were to ask someone—not a friend, but maybe an acquaintance...no, whatever is before an acquaintance—if they'd like to...ahem...sit down for some tea or something. How would you do it?"
Ingo stifled a small smile. He was amused, for one, that his former friend would struggle with such a simple thing when she was beloved by hundreds in the past for her kindness. Second, he felt a bit honored that she had chosen to ask him for advice on a matter that her corrupted mind had clearly forgotten about.
"Well," he started. "You'd simply say 'Would you like to sit down for some tea?'.
"...That's it?" Morai asked.
"That's it," Ingo replied. "Who, may I ask, are you planning to ask to tea?"
"N-No one!" Morai insisted, hey eyes turning as red as her cheeks.
"Why would you ask such a question, then?" the man replied with a small chuckle, adjusting his hat. Morai didn't answer, but instead got up and brushed herself off before taking her cane and walking toward the door leading back into the cathedral. She noticed a bed of flowers to the side and considered them for a moment, then shook her head before walking through.
"Nice talk," she said from the inside. Ingo smiled, still wondering who in the world she was about to ask to tea.
Morai continued down the hall towards her room until she was stopped by a guard.
"Hey, where do you think you're going?" he asked.
"Oh, you're just in time! I need to retrieve something from my room," Morai replied with a smile. The guard, whose name Morai didn't know despite seeing him nearly every day since her arrival, tilted his head, confused by her rather peaceful response.
"Well, you shouldn't be roaming the halls alone, let alone with a weapon," he said. "What happened to...Emmet?"
"Ingo," Morai corrected. "He's in the courtyard."
"Ingo. I can never remember. They look the bloody same," the guard said, unlocking the door to Morai's room via a keycard. The prisoner walked in and grabbed her hat, putting it on and adjusting it in the mirror. As she walked back out she was given a confused look. Morai simply looked at the young man and shrugged as she continued on her way. She noticed that he had accidentally looked her in the eyes, but ultimately decided not to take advantage of it now.
The trainer continued down the hall, guard in tow, until she heard a familiar voice, a voice that happened to be just the one she was looking for.
"Morai!" Maria greeted from down the hall. She was also being accompanied by a guard and when the group met each other halfway, the guard that was with Morai began to leave. Until he began to hear her speak, that is. She gave each of the guards a furtive glance.
"Maria, I think we should continue this conversation alone," she finally said.
"Oh no you don't!" one of the guards replied, finger pointed to her face while not actually looking her in the eye. "Not with your history!"
Morai crossed her arms.
"Haven't I proven that—"
"Proven is a strong word for not making a snack out of someone once out of a hundred times!" the guard interrupted.
"Fine," Morai said with a sigh. She could pick a fight with them both—and perhaps winning it—and end up tied to a bed again, or she could carry out her original plan. Both were equally as grueling in her eyes. Getting to fight before lying in bed in the dark might be better than what she was about to do, in fact. "Could one of you at least grant me some dignity and leave?"
The guards looked at each other with furrowed eyebrows, signaling that neither one of them wanted to leave. They huddled together and whispered amongst themselves while Morai frowned, beginning to regret her decision, and Maria stood with a puzzled expression.
"Whatever's about to go down is going to be good," one of them said, "and I don't want to miss it."
"Yeah, well I don't either!" the other retorted. "Look at this scar. Can you imagine the person who did that doing whatever she's about to do, in her fancy little top hat and cane? It'll be gold!"
"Just settle it with rock paper scissors or something, already!" Morai said impatiently. The two men looked at each other and nodded in agreement. The guard who was originally with Maria won with scissors to the other guard's paper.
"Ha!" he exclaimed, pointing at the other with a dubious grin on his face. "Get lost!"
The losing guard snapped and began to walk away while the other waited expectantly for Morai to spit out whatever embarrassing words she was planning to say. Morai shook her head at him and may or may not have plotted several different ways to wipe the smile off of his face in her head.
It's all to get your counterparts back, she told herself.
She straightened herself up with a slight upward tilt of the head and cleared her throat.
"Ahem," she began. "Maria, if you're so inclined, would you be interested in—wait, no...Would you like to sit down for tea?" she asked, spitting the last words out so quickly that it almost looked like she had tasted something sour. Her cheeks were beginning to turn red and she could feel her heart beating against her ribs.
My entire body is so against this act that's it's protesting for me to stop it here and now, she thought. She had mainly used the doctor's old hat and cane for comedic effect to add an air of nonchalance to her actions, but now she just felt silly.
Maria's own cheeks turned a shade of red and she smiled with eyes that suggested she was surprised at Morai's invitation.
"Oh, of course!" she said. "When and where?"
"I didn't think that far ahead," Morai said, adjusting the brim of her hat and tilting it down slightly.
"How about the garden this evening?" Maria suggested.
"That works," Morai answered. "I have all the time in the world, it seems."
Morai glanced over and saw the guard struggling to contain a smile that nearly reached his eyes.
"Awe!" he exclaimed. "I can't believe it! The beast is actually—"
"See how easy it is to talk when I shove this cane down your throat!" Morai growled.
The guard was too amused to take her threat to heart. Instead, he smiled and put his hands up in a joking manner.
"Yeah, I get it," he said with a smile. "You're still cruel and heartless and bloodthirsty and all that."
"I don't think you're heartless," Maria said. "Everything else is perhaps true, but you've asked me this for a reason. Even if it's for some selfish reason, your intentions are also going to benefit someone other than you."
Morai shook her head.
Please don't begin to think of me that way!
"It's time for me to go, then," she quickly said before rushing off.
"Hey, wait!" the guard laughed as he jogged after her. Maria watched the both of them go and smiled.
The doctor nearly spit out his drink.
"Really?" he asked, coughing and patting his chin. "She asked you to tea?"
"She did!" Maria said with a cheerful expression. "Why tea of all things, I don't know, but it's something."
"Hmm!" the doctor exclaimed. "I would guess that it's because she seems to be clueless when it comes to these things! Tea is fairly simple, but it requires talking, which she isn't very prone to do unless it's prattling on about fighting or why she loves the taste of—oh, never mind."
"Speaking of which, I'm concerned for her sudden change of heart," Ingo added. Maria had headed straight for the doctor's study after her interaction with Morai and the guard couldn't keep his mouth shut. Ingo overheard the news from the nurses and went to go inquire about this rumor.
"It seems good on the surface, of course, but there's no reason for such a change," he continued. "Ms. Maria is perhaps the only young woman that she hasn't laid a hand—or claw—on. I fear that she's luring everyone into a false sense of safety and trust so that she can...well, I'm sure you can guess."
The doctor's face changed into a sort of solemn look.
"Yes, you raise a good point," he said with a sigh. He turned to Maria. "Maria, although there is a possibility that Morai has simply taken a strange liking to you, there is also a very good chance that she is planning her attacks more strategically to guarantee their success. With all due respect, you are a very good target. I've tried to take care of her need for blood, but I don't think she'll be satisfied with that for long. As harrowing as it is, she likes the games and violence involved, and that's something I can't supply—at least by choice. You must be on your guard at all times. We will set things up so that the risk to you is as small as possible."
Maria frowned, clenching handfuls of the fabric of her dress in her fists.
"Even if she was being genuinely kind-hearted for whatever reason," the doctor added, "she's still fighting a desire that has ingrained itself deeply into her psyche. It's almost instinct at this point, and with her claws, teeth, and stature, she seems well-designed to carry it out. I currently have no working theory as to why this is other than the formula. Even still, it seems so strange..."
Maria sighed and hung her head slightly.
"I think I was setting my hopes too high," she said. "But if anyone can show her the value of peace and gentleness, I hope I can."
