The manor was visited by another storm. Helena Adams was born blind, and after a high fever, she forever lost every color beyond light and sound. She received an invitation from the manor's owner, who told her, "Win the game, and you will see again." So, gripping her brown cane, she entered the manor from which no one ever escaped. Facing her was Michiko, the Red Butterfly: the finest dancer in the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter. When she danced in red, she fluttered like a butterfly taking wing, yet under the cold stares of the Miles family, she became a monster with three aspects, shifting between beauty, Hannya, and jealousy. She hated mirrors and the gazes of others, yet in game after game, she alone could not bring herself to hurt the blind woman who "could not see her." The game began, and everyone went to decode the cipher machines. Helena tapped her cane. The Red Butterfly could have struck her down and sent her to a rocket chair, but instead, she merely pretended to teleport to another machine. From pity to devotion, from hunter and survivor to an unspeakable bond, the two sat together atop the high tower in the factory. The Red Butterfly put an arm around Helena and laughed softly. "The moon is beautiful tonight." But the blind woman could not see the moon, and in the end, she would no longer be able to see her, either. When the manor's rules began to turn against this forbidden affection, when the Hannya aspect completely overwhelmed the beautiful one, and when Helena finally followed the sound of her cane in the last game toward the woman in red who had once held her hand, this time the Red Butterfly did not spare her. What spared her was a blade that pierced her heart, and the "I'm sorry" that she could never bring herself to say before she died.
Theme: This is more than a game between survivors and hunters. It is the story of two people robbed of their sight by the world, laying down their lives for each other with the last tenderness they have in a manor locked in eternal night.
