I awaken to a humming sound, lulling and harmonious. At first I think it is my mother, but no, the voice is more familiar, less steeped in nostalgia.
There's a fluttering white curtain — air coming in from an open white windowsill. A blue bird perches on that sill, craning its head to look at me. My head is resting on something soft. Not a pillow…
I try sitting up by a hand gently pushing my head back down, shushing me softly.
"Rest, Raiten, rest." It is Sorina's voice. It is her lap I rest on, her voice that serenades me with a lullaby — the very same lullaby she sang when I wept in her basement. The world is drenched in perfection, in light and blinding whiteness. Even the bed I'm on is white-sheeted — not a wrinkle in sight.
This is just some fantasy.
But, it is undeniably peaceful. I am tired. I want to rest. I want to lay my head down and forget all that I have witnessed, all that I have suffered.
I close my eyes again and curl my body up, letting the muscles relax. For once in my miserable life, the tension seeps out of me. I am snuggling up with the only person I might call a close friend in this entire world; the only person who I would even dare allow to coddle me like this.
"Isn't this nice?" she asks. Her voice is motherly now — no hint of its usual flair or playfulness. "Don't you want to stay like this? With me?"
All sincerity. All emotions laid bare and thin.
That is not like Sorina.
"Who… are you?" I ask, eyes fluttering open.
"Aw, is poor Raiten confused? Does this not suit your needs? Should I be more mean, more flirtatious?"
I crane my head up to look at her face. Her green eyes stare down at me, mouth curled into a cruel smile.
She's dressed in a silky thin white gown, a matrimonial underdress.
Everything about this is wrong.
I try pressing up, but her hand pushes me down more forcefully now. Her smile widens and she leans down, as if about to bite my ear off.
"Or would you prefer something less comfortable? Perhaps something more… visceral," she whispers.
"What do you —" I begin, but then, I blink and my world is different.
Now, I am back on the all too familiar plane of the Thunder Tower, whiteness and peace replaced by jagged rocks and a gray sky.
My knee is atop of a broken Hui, the two of us at the bottom of a crater.
This is after our battle, I realize, looking at my thinner, sicklier body. It feels like an age ago that I was here, but it's only been a matter of weeks. So much has changed.
My spidery hands are twitching, itching to squeeze Hui's neck.
However, that's not me. It's as if the limbs are being compelled by some darker force — some universal pull that begs me to kill her.
Hui coughs beneath me, white hair dirtied by rubble, gray eyes glistening.
Then, she smiles that same, evil smile which Sorina plastered moments before.
"Do it," she says, snatching my wrists. I twist my left one away, but she manages to pull my right to her neck and, like some magnet, it clamps on her jugular and starts squeezing. "It's what you want, isn't it? Kill her Raiten, oh please kill her. She's so desperate. Look at her eyes." The words come softly, from Hui's mouth, but now I am sure it is not Hui that is speaking, nor was it Sorina who was speaking prior.
I yell out and try pulling my right hand back, but it doesn't budge. My left drifts towards her neck now too.
I'm not going to kill her. She doesn't— alright she might deserve it, but — hells damn me, I'm not going to do it.
There are others far more deserving of my wrath.
Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse a glinting metal. So, I wrench my left hand back, reach for the Dragon Blade on the ground near us, and grasp its blue-scaled handle.
With as much willpower as I can muster to fight this invisible force, I raise the sword up, watch Hui's smiling face turn purple as my right hand squeezes further.
Then, I cut the right hand off with one clean swipe.
I stifle my yelling by biting down on the sleeves of my tunic before pulling away from Hui, scooting back up the crater.
I hear her sigh with disappointment before standing up and dusting herself off.
"You're no fun Raiten. Such a simple man. Really, even Kiren was more interesting to toy with than you — actually, no, he was also a bore. At least you gave me a good show of things."
"What," I gasp through the pain "no, who are you?" I know the answer though.
It's obvious.
"Come on Raiten, don't be silly," Hui says, stretching up now, hand reaching to the sky like a cat. She yawns some before snapping her gaze back to me.
And slowly, her features begin to shift.
Her muscled warrior form softens, turning more feminine, her hair grows out longer and changes color from white to bleeding red, she grows taller and thinner. It's all very seamless. Natural, even.
It's her face that draws my attention the most. Her blood-red eyes pierce into me, framed by ghostly beauty and tanned skin. Her clothes change too — a blue undersuit and a shiny chain-linked dress, form fitting. At her side lies that same silver-sheathed blade she wielded in our previous encounter.
She tilts her head at me, smiling.
"My enemies have called me Cradle-thief, The Bloomless One, Ash-Mother, Valley-killer, Mountain-feller, and of course, my personal favorite, 'The Bitch of the West'," she says, giggling at the moniker.
Then, her laughter abruptly ends and she extends forth a white gloved hand: "I prefer the Witch of Plagues of course: but you, my dearest Raiten, can call me Thraevirula."