COLD OPEN — DARKNESS — A MOTHER'S DELIRIUM
We hear a scraping blade against tile.
We hear panting. Like someone's giving birth.
We hear Kairi whispering:
"She came from me.
She can go back in."
INT. BURNED CATHEDRAL — CONTINUOUS FROM LAST EPISODE
Smoke coils. The hallucinations have faded.
The gas disperses.
But the trauma lingers in the blood pooling on the floor.
Souta stumbles forward, bloodied, dragging one leg. She clutches the real antidote vial but hasn't used it yet.
Kairi steps from the shadows—no longer elegant or composed.
She's barefoot, blood-coated, grinning ear to ear with a wild twitch in her left eye. Her fingers grip a blade made from a broken altar cross, honed down to a glinting crucifix dagger.
She stares at Souta like prey.
"I took your first breath. Now let me give you your last."
SOUTA – PARALYZED IN PLACE
Souta's eyes widen.
She can't move.
Kairi lunges—
—
RYOUMA – STRIKES FROM THE LEFT
Just as Kairi raises the blade to Souta's neck—
CLANG!
A rusted metal rod slams against her dagger arm.
Ryouma—limping, bruised, bleeding—parries the killing stroke.
"You're not her mother anymore," he roars.
"You're just another monster we survived."
Kairi SCREAMS.
Ferally. Primally.
She whirls toward him with the blade—
—
HUÁILÁN STRIKES
Palm open, stance coiled—
CRACK.
She slams her palm straight into Kairi's stomach.
The impact lifts Kairi off her feet—she gasps, choking, blood spraying from her mouth.
Time slows.
Kairi's eyes meet Huáilán's.
HUÁILÁN'S DECLARATION:
"You are not my maker.
You are not my mother.
You are not even a woman anymore.
You are desolation."
"And I'm not yours."
She shoves her backward.
Kairi crashes into the altar.
She gasps for air, curling, bleeding—but smiling.
Kairi begins laughing. High-pitched. Shaking.
"You hit me like she did.
Katarina.
Always hands first. Words second."
She touches her bleeding lips.
"Do you think pain un-births me?"
"I am the first sin.
The serpent.
The mother who doesn't repent."
She rises—broken bones grinding in her back.
Ryouma raises his gun again.
Souta grabs a scalpel from the floor.
Huáilán unsheathes her blade again.
All three encircle Kairi.
But she doesn't run.
She stands, arms spread, smiling like a martyr about to be crucified again.
"Come, children.Let's finish the sermon."
The camera pans down to the blood pooling on the floor, reflecting all four of them.
But in the reflection—
Kairi is no longer a person.
She appears as a warped silhouette, horned, crucified, smiling with a thousand teeth.
And the three of them?
They're reflected as children, facing the devil in their mother's skin.