We hear a cassette rewind.
A soft, broken version of a Korean nursery rhyme plays. The one Kairi used to hum.
"엄마야 누나야 강변 살자
들에는 반짝이는 금모래빛…"
Mother, sister, let's live by the riverside…
—
INT. BURNED CHURCH — NIGHT BLEEDS INTO DAWN
We open on silence. Smoke drifts across the floor like phantom limbs.
Kairi's body is gone.
She vanished in the night.
Blood still stains the altar, and the walls whisper—a layered sound design of faint sobs, overlapping prayers, and screams pitched just low enough to unnerve.
Souta stands alone.
Except… she's not.
She looks around. No one's there.
But a voice—Kairi's—is whispering:
"They'll never forgive you.
You're the reason she died."
Souta collapses. Trembling.
Her hands are covered in blood that won't wash off.
INT. ABANDONED HOSPITAL – HOURS LATER
Ryouma wakes up handcuffed to a bedframe.
Huáilán is watching him, silently.
She patched his wounds.
But there's something off about her.
Ryouma: "Where is she?"
Huáilán: "The one who ran? Or the one who never left?"
She's speaking in riddles.
Her eyes are glazed.
There's dried blood under her fingernails… but it's not her own.
She hands Ryouma a photo. From Katarina's files.
It's Lantern-3, a child—age 8—chained to a desk, eyes sewn partially shut with black thread.
Next to her?
Kairi.
Smiling.
Like it was a family portrait.
FLASHBACK – HOSPITAL BASEMENT — 1989
A classified Chinese-Korean joint facility. Katarina infiltrated it to rescue Lantern-3.
But she failed.
She left her behind.
And when Lantern-3 tried to escape herself, the person who found her…
Was Kairi.
Huáilán:
"She made me.
Just like she made you two."
Ryouma:
"No. We were her victims."
Huáilán:
"She didn't raise victims. She raised wolves.
Now she's come to collect her cubs."
INT. THE RUINED CATHEDRAL — NIGHT
They all return. Lantern-3. Ryouma. Souta.
They're lured by cassette tapes Kairi left behind—each one playing messages only they would understand.
Ryouma's has Katarina's voice over Kairi's breathing
Souta's plays the sound of her baby cries from a stolen hospital tape
Huáilán's contains her own screams—ones she never remembered making
They enter the church.
Lit by red floodlights.
A massive cross erected on the altar.
And Kairi stands above it.
Alive.
Armed.
Bleeding from fresh, self-inflicted wounds.
She's carved all their names into her own chest.
"You were never meant to be saved," she says, softly.
"You were meant to finish what I started."
She raises a custom pistol.
Three bullets.
One for each of them.
"Only one of you leaves.
The one who still believes in mercy."
She drops the gun on the floor between them.
And disappears into the smoke.
The three begin to hallucinate—or maybe it's real.
Souta sees Katarina's body in the pews, blinking, eyes sewn shut
Ryouma sees Kairi holding his infant self, rocking him while her mouth bleeds spiders
Huáilán sees her younger self strapped to the desk, crying out to no one
They begin turning on each other.
Souta accuses Ryouma of letting Katarina die.
Huáilán accuses Souta of hesitating—of being weak.
Ryouma accuses Huáilán of enjoying the chaos.
The line between truth and mind games evaporates.
THE FINAL CHOICE
They find another tape recorder in a baptismal font.
It plays:
"Only one of you is my child.
The others are fuel."
Suddenly—
Gas releases from the vents.
Neurotoxin.
They have minutes.
Three injectors on a table.
Only one is real. The other two are placebos.
They now face the question:
Do you save yourself?
Do you save someone else?
Or do you all die together?
ENDING SEQUENCE — THE SHOT THAT WILL BREAK EVERYTHING
Souta reaches for the injector.
Huáilán pulls her away.
Ryouma grabs his gun.
All three stand.
Hands shaking.
Breath ragged.
One gun.
One vial.
One escape.
Then—
Kairi's voice returns:
"Choose. Or I'll do it for you."
We hear a single gunshot.
Then a scream.
Then… silence.